Yesterday...

I wrote a song after 6 months. I could tell my baby was happy, seemed like it was playing itself.

I was happy and then I was not.

The cat killed Mr. Beanbag and Mr. left sneaker. Pity mr beanbag, but mr left sneaker's demise means shopping. I hate shopping. I'm usually the pile of bags trailing behind the mother and the sister.

But I like shoes, so maybe I will go. And bags. And second hand books.

I like second hand books because they all have a different musty smell. It gives them a personality.

Suchi was right. The beach was theraputic. But it's so much more.

Sometimes, I shouldn't be allowed to talk to people. It's just a lot of self destruction and them destruction. Most of the time.

No matter how much I try, I can never be a cappuccino person. I will always be the expresso person, who puts too much of sugar for it to be anything else but liquid sugar.

And then it was today. I was happy again.

It comes in waves...

Random life ramblings are my blogright and hence, I shall ramble

...

I am in dire need of a plan.

A plan with which I can hit the dejected me on the head. And also from time to time, throw at my ever so inquisitive old and withering relatives. A goggles wearing, one liners hitting, leather jacket and hat wearing plan. A plan so monumental that it makes all the minute seemingly inconsequential things come together and for friggin once, fit. A plan which in all it's Dalai Lameness, makes sense.

Surprise me Mr. Davis, has surprisingly manage to surprise.

What an absolutely refreshing band that. Their music doesn't sound like the imperfectly orchestrated, edited, reedited, misplaced effects filled music that the world's subjected to these days. It just sounds like the bunch of them came together one wintry evening and started jamming over some beers and pot. It's been six years since their formation and they still don't give a chipmunk's behind about fitting in with the rest of the music community or carving a niche for themselves and all that jazzy bull.

Why isn't Alex Band coming up with something awesome anymore?

I mean, it HAS been a whole gaping YEAR since Alex goodness. That Twilight inspired vampire video has ruined the remaining last vestiges of his career which his ex wife and ex guitarist hadn't managed to rip apart, castrate (read wife), destroy. Anyway, how can he expect us t-shirt ripping, maniacally giggly, stalker fans to still rip t shirts, giggle and stalk if he doesn't hit us with anything new and awesome. Those charity bracelets don't count. If charity made us swoon we'd have pictures of Mother Teresa (may she RIP) in our rooms instead of his bare chested ones. Absolutely inconsiderate, I say.

Such ripping hunks in Grey's Anatomy!

If my parents, during their early years of trying to persuade me into choosing between Doctor and engineer, had introduced me to Grey's Anatomy, it would've been easier for them to get me to become a neurosurgeon or something and I wouldn't have had to refer to spell check while trying to spell Neurosurgeon. But no, they introduced me to gory pictures and unpronounceable words and ended up with a daughter who has no idea what to do with life and such.

If Maneka Gandhi and her animal rights association would visit us, they would probably arrest the cat.

Life was less painful when I was a dog person. And I mean literally less painful. She bites, she scratches, tries to gauge our eyes out. There are scratches in places where there just shouldn't be scratches or ANYTHING else. This new years eve when the world hugged and kissed and what not their near and dear ones, I was out on the streets CHASING the bloody cat, who had decided that 12 am on the New year's eve was an opportune moment to run away. And it so happens that she's named Brandy. So there I was, at midnight, screaming BRANDY and running around in circles. Yes, not very ladylike at all. One of these days...

More to come.

Happy new year peeps :)

Into the moonlight he staggers 

In drunken haze                        

A dagger through his breast

            To her.

                                 

                                                She sits by the window
                                                Dreaming of tomorrow
                                                Happy chandeliers in her ears

                                                         He promised.

Amidst autumn leaves

He kissed her feverishly

Caressing worries away

     Wait for me.           

                                                                                        His hand found hers

                                                                                        In the crowd           

                                                                                        Shy stolen glances     

                                                                                                 Love...                                                                                     

                                             

       Rustle of skirts

       He turned to see her

       pretty hair swinging

           He smiled

                                                                             An enigmatic smile

                                                                             Through searing eyes

                                                                             Passionate soundless music

                                                                                 She blushed...

                   

Hatful of rain

Ok firstly, I'm so psyched about Kartik discovering them that I actually have goosebumps everywhere. There is no other way I can describe how awesome they are. A week ago, he sent me Always the last to know. I heard and liked it and that was it. But today I downloaded the whole Hatful of rain album and I'm so friggin, friggin blown away!. They're a scottish pop rock eighties band, and I'm sure half the teeny boppy population's heard it. But I still want to write about them, because that's how awesome they are...to be re-written about through years.

It's everything you want an album to be, whenever you want it to be. A rainy day album, a love album, a break up album, a nostalgic album, a how you doin' album, and so much more. Every song is not just a song, it's an experience. Currie (lead vocals, bass), with his smooth voice and Iain Harvie (lead guitar), form a brilliant team.

The Hatful of rain starts with 'Cry to be found'. Now when I first heard this one, I didn't particularly like it. But after the third time I heard it, I liked it. It's simple, it's cliched and yet, it works.

The album picks up with the second track,  Roll to me. It's one of my favorites and I'm pretty sure that we've all heard it at some point of our lives. It's a happy dancy song, and such a cheer up-er, even when you're not depressed.

Next is another of my favorites, Kiss this thing goodbye. Now this is apparently a break-up song, but also a funny one. I love the way they've used the instruments in this song. The music is so...scottish and bagpipey. Iain is, as always, quite awesome.

'It seems like weeks since you looked at me baby

without that look of distaste...'

 Driving with the brakes on, a hauntingly beautiful song, strikes a chord. For me it's about how there are somethings you can never move on from. Relationships, incidents, some seemingly offhand remarks, loss. No matter how ok and over it you say you are, you're still driving with the brakes on.

Tell her this is a beautiful, beautiful song. Though I can't make up my mind if it's love song or an apology song. But it's one of the most beautiful songs you will ever hear. It'll touch you right where it's meant to and make you wish all apologies were just as beautiful as this. Also, the lovely acoustic guitar in the background makes it perfect.

The album ends with Don't come home too soon, which was incidently written by Justin Currie as Scotland's World Cup '98 Theme. And a perfect theme it is. It inspires you, in the fear of sounding corny, to chase your dreams and to be yourself. But sometimes, corny, is what you need to be inspired.

So long, go on and do your best,

Let all France have whiskey on it's breath,

The world may not be shaking yet

but you might prove them wrong,

Even long shots make it...

Hatful of rain is not a good album. It's a great album. Go ahead, give it a listen.

Writing on the bench...

You know how you used to doodle stuff on your bench during those soporific lectures, where you would try to stab yourself in the eye with a pen just to make things more interesting?...Yeah, those. The scribbles ranged from the initials of your crush to the lyrics of some random emo song which you thought described your love life the best then. A couple of days back I stumbled upon the bench which I had sat on last year and found my doodles along with hundreds of other people's. There was my name (obviously) amongst a million of others, a line from open your eyes, which somebody had cut and written "jagya rulessss" on (....eeeyeah..), then there was a head, which looked like cross between the hulk and C3PO, but I guess that was the beauty of that head, it's non resemblance to any sort of living being, which gave people the license (creative of course) to label it as whichever professor/ girl/boy/backstreet boy they disliked the most. Then there were those doodles which were a constant fixture at every table, like the summer of 69' lyrics (always, always that one), a lot of ansty f***k yous and f***k off (for no apparent reason), a group of names with 'we rule/ rock' written all around them, a something which at a certain angle looks like a hand giving the finger, the sprinking of 'Zzzzzzzzzs' all over the bench, and names and more names, squeezed in everywhere.

It made me realize those scribbles on the benches are probably the best documentation of our growing up memories. Not the pretty pictures or grainy videos, not the drawing books filled with crayon scribbles, not the dusty Enid Blytons and Nancy Drews lying forgotten among the crisp Asimovs and Sheldons...It's those absent minded doodles...

Of zig zags and spirals,

and little stars and birds.

Of tiny hearts and sad songs,

and disconnected words...

Them hormones...

Cupid’s stuck that pointy thing of his, laced with dollops of love, lust and stupidity, in your rear end, yet again. Hell that’s what you attended college for. You float around like an albatross on a summer cloud, with the name of your current love stuck in your head like the omnipresent winter phlegm. That’s where reason deserts you, while you in turn desert classes.

The corridors swarm with more hopefuls like you, hoping to catch a glance of their prospective love interest. Animal Planet says that most animals groom themselves to stand out when they go mate hunting. Male peacocks ruffle up their pretty plumes; felines lick themselves to swanky shininess. The brightest and the shiniest one gets the prize!.Colleges are no different from any African forests. Females dress themselves in bright yellow and oranges, and splash on dollops of perfume, smelling sickly sweet and flick and swish their newly straightened hair, to catch the correct light, which will dazzle the opposite sex to fatal attraction or blindness, whatever comes first.

Males, the hypothetically superior sex, are not far behind. Oh no. They come with pointy shoes; they come with full wallets, even if it means they have to go without their usual liver massacring dose of cigarettes for a whole month, just so that they can take their lady friends to the places which overcharge for fancy lighting. They come with purpose and overconfidence bordering of irritating cockiness, throwing age old pick up lines like there’s no tomorrow.

All in all, its another a normal day at college, which is nothing less than a battle. The fittest shall survive, while the weak ones are forced to retreat into the confines of the classes.

Two different lives...

                                    

I've always wanted to lead multiple lives, not like Hannah Montana multiple, but something like Bruce Wayne multiple. But then of course, that’s not going to happen soon. However, I realized that I, in a weird way, AM leading two lives. One in Mumbai, with the college, and the people. And the other on the weekends, in Pune, with good food and mum and dad and the old friends. Though it might not be the superhero costume, dismembering bad guys, flying off buildings two lives. But in a way, it’s as...contrasting as that.

Mumbai, with its anticipation of what new crap is going to hit you the next day. Actually looking forward to the same. The taste of sweet success...bitter failure. The anticipation. The wonderment of surviving another day. Having to do your own dishes. Realizing that mum and dad had made cooking look so easy, when it actually is the most difficult thing in the world. Meeting completely different kind of people who have completely different tastes and ways from the kind you're used to. Being friends with them. Playing my baby in the wee hours of the morning, thinking that maybe...just maybe, I'll make it.

It's different in Pune. The tranquility, the serious life discussions with my food obsessed family amongst the clatter of dishes...

"Where are you planning to do your summer internship from?...chicken in dinner?......I hope you're studying enough...needs some more salt no?....which colleges are you applying for?... eat! you've stopped eating after moving out....I hope you're being safe in Mumbai....there was this new recipe on T.V with cashews and..."

The reminiscing of the old days with old friends, about how we never thought that we'd be like the way we turned out, doing things we never thought we will, but somehow knew we would. Planning endless trips which we know that are never going to happen anytime soon. Swapping stories of the most recent guy / girl interest. Eventually ending up at someone's place with a bowl of Maggi and that lovely warm feeling spreading to the tips of your toes, knowing that whatever happens they'll always be there with a shoulder and a steaming cups of tea and Maggi.

"I'm livin' two different lives, dividin' my time..."