Chennai Day Special - Total Rant: Tree killers!

What is the ugliest, most obscene sight I have seen in recent times? You perverts out there may put away your mental images. I just meant the sight of beautiful, strong trees in their prime having their roots exposed to the sun.

This is in protest of the government-sanctioned tree killings that have been going on recently on G N Chetty Road. This used to be a beautiful tree-lined avenue and just entering it on a hot day, you could feel the temperatures drop at least a degree.  But recently in the name of PROGRESS (don't make me laugh!) at least 10 trees have been slashed down. For what? To build a frickin' FLYOVER. What it all boils down to is this:

The bloody traffic police don't care about controlling traffic, making sure rules are followed. Oh but wait, they do! But only when their finances are low and they need so ready cash. Then they'll stop people for all reasons, take their money and send them on their way. If you're wondering where this is leading, let me attempt an explanation. So, basically, these idiots can't maintain discipline and so traffic jams up like crazy. And what do they do? No, they don't make sure people don't do idiotic things like jumping signals, respectiong "stop" lines. No, they decide to build a flyover which will only encourage more rule breaking and traffic and create horrible bottlenecks and snares in traffic (Gemini flyover being a prime example). Oh, but that's ok... All that's going to be wasted is the tax money of fool citizens who cough up. And oh, as a sidenote, a bunch of green-and-brown props on the side of the road. Trees.

Murder. That's what this is. Am I being melodramatic? Good! I don't give a damn. People just need to get melodramatic about things like this. Forget the fact that these trees, tall, lush and majestic have taken DECADES to grow (eyewitness accounts, thanks to my family that's lived in T Nagar since forever), fighting against impossible Chennai summers, putting up with graffiti and disfigurement, etc. Forget the fact that trees actually have life and as much rights to live as a human beings. Forget the fact that trees are fricking scarce in chennai! Let's forget all that and be the usual materialistic, self-centred human beings and come down to practicalities. These trees give SHADE. Now that's essential in blisterin' ole Chennai. And hello?! Are we forgetting things like oxygen cycles, ecology and global warming? What happened to all the environmental awareness? This is EXACTLY why the human race is doomed and is also sending the rest of the planet to its doom.

In college, the dear central government has added to our already heavy workload with a core paper called Environmental Studies. As I said before, don't make me laugh. Cos I might just get hysterical (as if i'm not now!). Talk about irony!

Smug.

Studying literature is brilliant. As I keep saying, I am so glad I didn't decide to study something like engineering or medicine or history or even psychology. I'm not saying this out of some sort of reverse snobbery (well... maybe a little), but out of sheer genuine gladness. I doubt anything could be so immensely satisfying as reading a Shakespearean play or a beautiful poem, dissecting it, examining the pieces and then putting it all back together and discovering with awe and wonder that it is even more beautiful than before.

Take modern poetry for example. When I stepped into the first year class, I had some quite decided opinions on it, based on some poems of Nizim Ezekiel (who I still detest, by the way) that we were prescribed in school. This can't be poetry, I'd decided. Where are the beautiful rhyme schemes, the rhythms, the structure that pleases the eye? But somewhere between Arnold's Dover beach and Eliot's patient etherised upon a table... somewhere in Hughes' amazingly clear imagery and through the quiet beauty of Harjo's poetry, I fell in love and have not gone back. Now I find myself drawn like never before to the poetry section of Landmark.

I still don't know why the building I live in is built in a certain way. I have not the foggiest clue about calculus and what little trig I crammed is long forgotten. I have embarassingly little knowledge about many important things in life. But I doubt any other discipline would have helped me discover the wonders of Kant, the obscurity of Hegel... How every opressor must one day be opressed, what goes around comes around... How Jung is perhaps unfairly overshadowed by Freud and how Indian writing in English is not as boring and depressing as I thought it was... How there are more greys than either black or white in this world... How humans are humans whether they lived in Ancient Rome or present-day India... How everything in the world is a great, huge, amazing, dizzying circle. So all I have to say is...

Studying literature is brilliant.

Parody #4: Under Ambattur Skies

Well here it is... the first edition of the Terrible Ambattur Parodies. These were created via that most mystic medium: back-and-forth-smsing between me and my fellow stalwart Ames
You have been warned.Enjoy! :D

Under Ambattur Skies
(Sung to the tune of Behind Blue Eyes)

No one knows what it's like
To be the dusty girls
To be the dirty girls
Under ambattur skies

And no one knows what it's like
To be itchy
To be scratchy
Under ambattur skies

But my bus is not as empty
As my copy seems to be
I have hours before I get home
My bus is grimey and never free

Honestly!

How important is honesty, really?

I don't mean the not-lying-to-your-friends type of honesty. It's not even really a moral question. I mean honesty to yourself. I've always thought it was essential. But lying to yourself is such a comfort. Sometimes you need to have certain illusions about certain people and situations in order to be happy. You might know it deep inside that what you think--either negative or positive--is not really true. But we bury this knowledge sometimes in order to love or hate a person in peace. So if the thought slides to the surface, is it ok to push it away? Is it ok to lie to yourself?

Or am I gonna wake up one day and realise that a whole set of my beliefs are--or maybe even I am--actually no more substantial than a breeze?

Yelagiri

Here are some pics I took on a recent weekend trip to Yelagiri. The place is damn beautiful. Not (yet) a hot vacation getaway so it's quite fresh.

Will shut up now and let the photos do the talking

Tête à Tête...

Looming Skies...

The Path...

(Pic by Vaish ^)

The Half-hidden Gate...

Duckies!

(Pic by Vaish ^)

View from Heaven...

Morning Smiles...

Dawn

Checking out the view...

(Pic by Priti ^)

Can't have too many sunrises!

Reflections...

Waking up to this view

That's some caffeine addiction!

Highway overload!

Speeding home...

The sun sets...

Well, here it is!

... My penny's... er, paisa's... worth. Since my fellow interns (try all three words) have all spoken about this rather grim(ey) month (grim for me at least ;) [nah, not really]), I guess this is my cue!

Hm so well I really won't go into details. Trust me, they're really boring (even to me!) especially cos it was (gasp!) an educational experience. As a result of this, I have:

...become more confident about bus travel

...seen more of the city than I ever thought i would

...realised what exactly dust, heat, unfamiliar company (til they became familiar, that is!) and an untterly amazingly charmless part of the city can do to your morale! (hey, did i say city? wow, so ambattur is actually PART of the city. Hehe. please ignore the cattiness!)

...started to acknowledge the number pad on the right corner of the keyboard does, in fact, exist! (long story cut short: a weird MS-DOS-based word processor, unlearning all Word techniques and several VERY frustrating hours of actually getting work done!)

...learned that hunger can actually make all swill taste like amritam

...realised that friends of the same wavelength (aka Ames, Bentley and Pyne) are absolute TREASURES!

...Discovered that journalism, thank you very much, is definitely off the "Maybe This Can Be A Viable Career Option When I'm Desperate For Money and Independence" list. (Becoming a world-famous writer, robbing a bank and kidnapping bill gates for a large ransom are still on, you'll be pleased to know)

...learned all about the properties, whims, extremely cooling nature of SWEAT and how it's really not God's premature revenge on an agnostic.

...shed some kilos (sob!)

...learned that there is a light side to everything... especially dust, which is so light that a tiny little baby breeze can make it rise and settle... on people!

... discovered my skills at creating truly terrible ambattur parody songs (will spring those on the unwary later... *evil look*)

...felt relieved that my social skills are still just hovering at the zero level.

...realized WATER EEEES GOOOOOOOOOOOD!

More later then...

How romantic! :P

Which Major Romantic Poet Would You Be (if You Were a Major Romantic Poet)?

You are Samuel Taylor Coleridge! The infamous "archangel a little damaged!" You took drugs and talked for hours, it's true, but you also made a conscious choice to cultivate the image of the deranged poet in a frenzy of genius. You claimed you wrote "Kubla Khan" in an afternoon after a laudanum, when you pretty manifestly did no such thing. You and your flashing eyes and floating hair. And your brilliant scholarship and obvious genius.
Take this quiz!








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And so

Life moves on strangely. One year ago, you're sitting in the same place, doing the same things. Endless, meaningless activities. "Hi", "Goodbye", "Awesome", "I love you", "Dammit". Meaningless phrases that you use a million times.

Yet you're so different inside now. You aren't and can never be that person who sat there and said and did the same things as you do and say now. Every minute, this complex, confusing and evolving entity that is YOU keeps changing.

You look for stability. That's very important. As is being constant. And dependable. You try to keep your morals, your opinions, your life, on one track. What a ridiculous notion. Yesterday you thought that metal wasn't music, just noise. Yet today, you tap your foot to the rhythm, the music that your ears suddenly discover. Yesterday, the opposite sex was something mysterious and vaguely disgusting. Today, the opposite sex remains mysterious but disgusting? No.

Stability? Don't make me laugh.

No matter who you are inside: a liar, a philosopher, a woman, a leaf, a musician, a thief, a poet... No matter who you are, be faithful to those notions of dependability. Be constant. Make yourself what you were yesterday. And so, fool yourself. That's all right. As long as you don't change.

Lying to the only person you have always been with from birth is all right. Go ahead.

R.I.P.

It just struck me that it's been more than a year since I started blogging. This led me to wonder if I've wasted a lot of web space and my time on this blog. What have I gained?

When I started, there were very few people I knew who blogged and the comments were few. But I kept blogging simply for the enjoyment if it and also because it was good practice for writing. Sure, I got a comment now and then and definitely got some irritating spam. But later, I roped a couple of my friends into blogging and somehow just found other Indian bloggers... and there were many more comments. So much so, I once had more than 30 comments for a two-line entry!

Blogging then began to seem to have a real community for itself, one with it's own rules and etiquette: comment regularly, not just when you have a new entry up and so want to attract notice; be appreciative and put negative criticism nicely so as to not hurt fragile egos; if not, have the courage to say what you want without going anonymous--most bloggers detest anons!; or just don't comment at all!; and, above all, to remember that what goes around, comes around, especially in such a small community.

But somehow, after a year of spacefillers, thoughts, jokes, comments and template changing, I got bored with blogging and eventually stopped. I've made some friends through blogging so I guess that's one good thing. I don't really care if my words are going to be immortalised by this blog or something equally dramatic. The blog has served it's purpose.

And now I guess it has died a natural death at the ripe old age of one. I might revisit with a couple of "ghost" entries, but I pronounce this blog officially dead. The pawprints are left behind in the sands of time :)

Before I sign off, I'd like to say, thanks for reading, commenting, all the support and enthusiasm.

From comp crashes to crashes. Bytes to bytes.

Rest In Peace.

Star Gazing

There’s something indescribably wonderful about a clear night. Like tonight. There’s no moon and since it’s 12.30 in the night, all the intrusive, jarring shop lights are, bless the stars (excuse the pun!), switched off for the night. With only insubstantial, light, fluffy clouds scuttling across the sky, the sky is so open and the stars are bright.

It’s only too easy to let the imagination run wild and think of our ancient forefathers looking up at nearly the very same sky and, inspired by it, writing their mythology based on the wonders they saw there. The fancy almost instantaneously creates a picture of the dying Keats looking up at the sky, yearning with all his heart to be an immortal, steadfast star and penning with the blood of his soul, his last sonnet. The very sight of a dark, endless sky conjures pictures of philosophers, saints and heroes staring upwards into the vast unknown, yearning for home, knowlege, divinity, inspiration! Although I know that more than the iron bars of the window–and centuries of civilization that gave birth to the buildings around me–separate me from those ancient men and women, it only takes a little bit of imagination and a glance at the beautiful night sky to take me far into other realms.

The little pin points of the stars shine like diamonds and only deepen the mystery of it all. Science fights for its say: Yes, in these ‘enlightened’ times, we do know that stars are actually brilliant balls of gaseous substance burning an unaccountable number of light years away. The mind registers as the eye sees the stars that the light from the star is so ancient that one of those stars is probably long dead, yet the light shines on. (The mind begins to hum stuff like, Shine on you crazy diamond!) But science can never really take away the mystery, the romance of ‘the starlit dome’. In fact, sometimes it deepens it.

I never come away from a star gazing session without feeling deeply humbled. Is there any greater proof of the insignificance of man than the knowledge of how huge Space is and the sight of the night sky? A star twinkles suddenly, very fiercely, and all I can think is, imagine how bright, how huge, how mindbogglingly hot it must be for its light to reach across the long stretch of dark space to this little blue-green planet, and these even tinier, feeble human eyes!

Only a step away from these thoughts are the thoughts of… other eyes. Other kinds of senses than are known to man, registering the very same phenomena from other planets. Across the unbelievable “out there” that we call space, surely there must be other life forms–or something beyond human definitions of life forms. Surely they must be looking up at the sky too, perhaps close enough to register the sun’s light. Would they feel the same wonder, the same sense of smallness? Would they want to discover all the secrets of the universe? And would they, as I do, step back from a window to say, let the universe keep its secrets?

Sure knowledge would take away too much of the uncertainties that open up the skies, not only physically but also in my mind!