Thursday, April 26, 2007

10pm - News. The kid that fell into a borewell two days ago is dead. They finally got to him.
11.45pm - Calvin draws his death ray blaster on an approaching Zorg.

Both of the above belong to the same reality. If only I can convince myself of it.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

A score and six years

"How does it feel to be twenty six?", asked a friend. "No different", I said. Though I suppose it finally is sinking in, the age that is. Aging has never concerned me before, but the other day when a much older (read thirties) colleague remarked that going past thirty meant having one foot in the grave, it gave me pause. Yet another thing to crowd an already crowded mind. Life it seems, never gets any simpler. One stays afloat and sane, or one just sinks. Gibbering like a mad monkey. Do mad monkeys gibber ? I haven't a clue, but this is rhetoric. I love rhetoric.

Anyway, I realize that my worries are trivial and inane compared to the regular killings that happen on a daily basis in Iraq, or the current situation in Darfur, or the little girl I saw at the signal stop. She moved from vehicle to vehicle convincing people to buy some flowers. She had a badly done bandage on one side of her face, coming down over her right ear. You knew it was badly done because when she turned the right side of her face towards you, you saw that the bandage barely covered the red mess of a hole that was there in place of her ear. I do not ask for perspective to be slammed into me, not that perspective ever listens. The gibbering monkey threatened to grow louder that day, but we managed to keep him afloat.

A score and six years. It is to be seen how many more.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Sit

Sit, drink your coffee here; your work can wait awhile.
You're twenty-six, and still have some of life ahead.
No need for wit; just talk vacuities, and I'll
Reciprocate in kind, or laugh at you instead.

The world is too opaque, distressing and profound.
This twenty minutes' rendezvous will make my day:
To sit here in the sun, with grackles all around,
Staring with beady eyes, and you two feet away.

-- Vikram Seth