Sunshowers after the storm!

Hello there Clarity-and-Rationality!

Please don't abandon me again. I have missed you very much. I am sorry I replaced you with something that probably wasn't worth it. You make me see people for what they really are.
Happiness is right around the corner with you around. I absolutely love reunions.

Much love. Forever and Always.
Your biggest admirer,
Me

Ideas worth spreading

Dear TED,

I am so very sorry I ignored you all these days. I had forgotten how much information, food for thought and inspiration you used to offer. Please keep changing my days.

Sincerely,
Me.

P.S: Bedi said "Life is on an incline, you either go up or down" and "When life throws a 100 things at you, 90 of them were made by you, other 10 are out of your control". I think she is very right.

Futurama

12/28/10

Lesson 1:
For most people priority lists are like billboard charts.

If you are a *keeper*, like an MJ number, you can top that list for a longer period of time. What you need to realize is, audience never shows no past allegiance. It doesnt matter if you have been on that list for four long years, you can be knocked off it in a matter of months. Because, that's how fucking life works. That's how it has worked for years now. You do not question how life works, or try to change it, or try a new approach. How crazy are you to try that? So probably poverty and lack of opportunity is something the world should accept. I mean, there is only so much to go around, then there is survival of the fittest, and oh, someone's got to be the palanquin bearer, right?

Lesson 2:
Start assuming everything/everyone you have in life is temporary.

Except for non-living things, of course. Perhaps, even the people who you have to accept, like family. Those you can love unconditionally. There is nothing called 'forever'. That term, like free will, is an illusion man created to allude you into believing life doesn't suck. Nothing is forever, and should never be. Because, that's how fucking life works. Accept it. The control it gives you over your life is just amazing. Imagine to be *in* *control*. Not be at the mercy of someone you trusted. Not be at the mercy of someone's very practical loyalty (yeah, oxymoron of the 21st century). No matter how much you care for someone, you should care for yourself most. You can care for them, and watch them suffer. Because...that's right, you are catching up...it's how fucking life works. People move on all the time. Pain is part of life. You don't avoid it. You feel it and get strongggger! Because what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Because...yes, that. I mean, practices like marriage are merely a means of convenience. You wake up one day and pretty much tell yourself, I am bored of this game now, let's just do what everyone does in life, get married to the one I woke up with today. She is nice (because that is a very laudable genuine quality, very rare to find, especially in a world filled with people like me). Forget emotionally connecting with people, or the value they add to your life. You can always manage that with anyone right, just keep an open mind and put your will to it, and you can believe yourself into anything. But waking up with someone nice, at the right time in life, now that, is true magic. And don't we all know magic rarely happens.

The snow project

I thought it wouldn't snow until after I get back, because all the snow that fell was starting to melt or harden into annoying icy layers on the roads and pavements. As it started snowing heavily in the evening today, it looked gorgeous. I turned off all the lights, rolled up my window blinds, and stared out till it stopped snowing, with Paunchy Man in my lap. There is something about darkness that is comforting at times. In my desperate attempt to capture the moment, this was created. Turns out my camera doesnt have video functionality (how modern).

Schnee from Alak Renu on Vimeo.

There is something beautiful about stitching frames, it has the suspense element of turning the pages of a book, or perhaps the sheer simplicity of a movie flipbook. I always wanted to make one as a kid. I guess this is how it transpired.

Snow is gorgeous when its fresh, when the daintiest of branches is adored with a layer of soft snow. Snow is also gorgeous when the flakes are prominent and have their signature structure.

As much as I am getting used to snow, it reminds me of wolves. Now I totally understand the Germans' fascination with husky-mixed or gigantic dogs. Very Balto :)

Blues

Nothing like dancing and moving to good blues music at a fantastic blues bar in wonderful blues-bar-central Chicago! Kingston Mines will now be religiously visited. It's one of those places that can make you dance without a drink in your system. Crowd is great and varied. Young and old. Crazy and calm. Love the ambiance too. It's one of those places that looks as if a cabin in the woods has been converted to a thriving music joint. Louis Armstrong and Hans Zimmer have always brightened up my mood, and never disappoint; Armstrong despite his voice and Zimmer in spite of the lack of words.

Currently tripping on Ella and Louis numbers.

The story of companionship

You start with sitting on a parapet wall staring at blinking yellow traffic lights and not saying a word for hours, despite the company. You like that you can connect without words. You go from writing diaries for years and suddenly stopping because you have pretty much stopped mulling over all the small qualms you have with people or anything in your life, because you have found this great friend who sat with you for hours not saying a word, silently telling you he will be there, wanting to know everything you think about(or so you thought). He becomes the first person who has ever heard the dreadful three words come out of your mouth. The first. When you thought you were probably not capable of ever saying it or expressing yourself. After all you'd never said it to your mom or dad or the sibling or anyone/anything else. You go from never to borderline chanting. So, slowly the magnanimity of life is ignored. Most everything you think about can be fit into a small box. You have moments when you regret that you let it happen, but you are somehow comforted knowing that it's a phase, and it too shall pass. Because you are happy and content, and you can mull over that for only so long. Because happiness CAN be a routine(as hard as it was to accept). You forget to consider what all that attention is doing to the other person. Then, one day you lose them. You resort to the written word, hope that you don't go back to becoming the person who had difficulty saying things out loud, but then again, you are not sure if you really hope that or not, because you don't know what works. So you live, and try not to think about it. Now you focus on the magnanimity again, and put the pursuit of Happiness to rest. The parapet walls can wait.

On being in Love

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up a whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life. You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' or 'how very perceptive' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love. ~Niel Gaiman

Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. Especially something that makes you feel so good, and so alive.

Humour

One of the most watched videos of 2010 apparently.
Firstly, yummy.
Secondly, so stupid.
Thirdly, its amazing the kind of things that go viral these days. I am not complaining. This video apparently made Isaiah Mustafa (the Yum) so famous that he bagged a 2011 Jen Aniston movie deal!
Not complaining AT ALL. I can definitely take 90 minutes of such gorgeousness and baritone.

and oh, who the hell needs an Ad for Old Spice anyway, Right?

Random thoughts

(because I can. there.)

I was in a Jewel-Osco, the HEB of Chicago apparently (What sort of a name is that anyway, oh how I miss you, Austin). So, I was in a Jewel-Osco, doing my first round of groceries in cold cold Chicago. I caught myself in front of an aisle of Planters roasted nuts. I was eyeing the cashews. Those delicious boxful of salted, roasted cashews. I talked myself out of it after some 5 minutes. Yes, 5 long minutes, and got something that was a mix of a few (roman numeral-ed) cashews bundled into something called a south-beach diet mix. Ew. Over the past 3 weeks I have noticed I carefully picked out all the cashews and devoured them. Now I am left with a box full of roasted almonds and macadamia nuts (which apparently taste good ONLY in a white chocolate chip cookie), not wanting to eat them anymore.

Why again did I talk myself out of a full box of only cashews?

~

The moon looks gorgeous today. Eid-ka-chand gorgeous. I usually listen to NPR/Chicago public radio while driving to/from work, but today I was playing all Hindi songs. That didn't help the mood at all. There was the drop-dead-gorgeous Eid-ka-Chand and mushy Bollywood songs, inspiring me to come up with mildly poetic, mildly(much to my chagrin) Urdu dohey. It kept reminding me of a night that I walked along a beach. I guess it was all the moonlight from the night.

~

I love Coupling (the BBC version). love it. What humour. No one judgmental of the other or touchy of what one says. I need that - not being touchy. I am out of touch with it. I am out of touch with being myself. That should change in 2011!
Anyways, Jane - a character in the show. She is so extremely annoying that she is my favourite! :D