A Year in Posts

I have been tagged by Gauri. This tag comes after ages – tags on blogs are very yesterday – no one does that anymore. No one writes as much on their blogs anymore. I know I don’t.

While Gauri’s post asks for post from the month that set a tone; I am choosing to link to the 12 posts – I think that were very close to my heart in some way or the other for that month.

This tag, I must sadly admit, is quite easy to do. I have blogged between 3 – 7 posts every month, this year. I have put the number of posts against the month; describes the sorry state of affairs that my blog was in – all of this year.

January (5): The Prayer of Intention: Fresh from over-exposure at a spiritual retreat, this thought pounded me for a while. My sedimentary-rock-like beliefs were re-examined and reconsidered.

February (3): The Blog is Dead: While I have obviously written little this year, it didn’t seem natural to me. The thought kept nagging – and I ended up writing a lot about the blog itself. Perhaps it was some kind of divine therapy.

March (5): Shine: This post set a hint of a comeback, almost. I can’t say much about the post, except, it was a positive experience for me.

April (4): My Line about Myelin: Another post about blogging – well, not exactly – but about my writing. Inspired by Labi Siffre and Robert Genn, in a single breath…er…post.

May (3): The Warrior’s Dilemma: A personal dilemma. The photo made more sense than the post. Each gave the other some context. I am glad I take weird photos.

June (3): D-Day: About Blogging again – but this time – discovering the value of blogging. And of blogging for a while. Gathering the reminders of my life along the way. Interestingly, this post did not receive any comments. (Which became a theme in the months to follow)

July (7): Remains of the Day: 004: I had started this as a series that I would continue every month. If I had done it, this tag would have been easier. Some eye-opening stuff happened this month.

August (4): The Evening Before Knopfler’s Night: A beautiful post. Not many read it, and those who did, probably didn’t get it. That evening, not many folks came. I had him all to myself.

September (4): No Answers: As if it was possible, I was trying to make sense of a death.

October (7): The Purposive Ethos of an Artist: A well-written post, after a long time. Something not about blogging. I spent too much of time in this period with artists, I think.

November (3): The Birth of the Reader: Barthes-inspired and a personal belief that I have been dragging alone for a very long time. The human interference in art.

December (4): Against Extreme Moderation: I have no idea why this one did not get any response. As the year came to an end, the sense of being lost began to fade.

At the cost of duplicating those that Gauri has already tagged, I tag:

Shankari

Dharmabum

Det-res (Delivered!)

Girish (Delivered!)

AFJ (Delivered!)

Asuph

Let the games begin!

Tag: Five Keywords

Seems I have built a reputation for myself about tags. I am the de-orphaner of tags. And while we are at it, a small disclaimer is due. I don’t quite like the five-things-and-nine-things kind of tags. And while we are at it, there is a reason I like tags and like tagging forward. They make you think – especially the ones that force you to think. The write-about-yourself-kind-of-tags don’t serve a divine purpose; there is not much thought that has to go in there. (I do them all the same, they contribute to the post count — and these tags, I may orphan)

But, yes, I love tags. And this time I got tagged twice. By Gauri and Dharma. And justice, follows:

The tag: What you have to do is simple: Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given : family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like. Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.

On Family.
On Friends
On Myself
On Love
On Anything

Old Tagees:
Amit
Det-Res
Abaniko
New Tagees:
Shuzworld
Teeth that Sparkle

Blog Talk

We all have a language we speak. We all have a language we understand. Blogs speak too. Not just through what you write in them. Through their understanding of the words that we fill them with, they make their own language. And it looks good too!

What does your blog have to say? Find out!

The 7 Tag

Weird Viral tagged me on this one.

Seven weird things about me:

One: I open sandwiches to see what’s inside, even if I know exactly what’s between the slices. If I can’t open them (for whatever reason), I always look between the slices to see what’s inside.

Two: I never plan buying clothes. Most of the stuff I own was once worn by a mannequin or hung out there for all to see.

Three: I can voluntarily twitch one nostril. My nieces (used to) love it, however, I haven’t found any use for this skill (as yet).

Four: I can mirror-write with my right-hand. (is that the same as writing backwards, Shankari?). I haven’t done that in a while and, like the nostril-thing – I don’t know the use for that.

Five: I can’t pull myself away from an Amitabh Bachchan movie. I have known to be delayed on occasions because of that.

Six: I hate (nearly) all fruit. I don’t mind fruit juices and shakes, but I hate raw fruit. Especially the soft, pulpy, mushy fruit.

Seven: I had to rely on her to tell me a few weird things about myself. I don’t know a lot of weird things about myself. Who better to ask than the one that suffers them all!

I sometimes break tag rules, even modify them. For once I am not tagging anyone – because most of the folks I know who might do the tag have already been tagged.

Feel free to pick it up!

Blogging Being

I like to believe in coincidences. That way it is easier to deal with happenstance than dissect and analyse the ‘bigger scheme‘ of things that we aren’t privy to.

A couple of days ago I found great food for thought (as much as I was tempted to say food for blog, I shall let the cliché survive) on Lorelle’s recent Blog Challenge post. Just the thought sounded yummy and I said so. But I had no idea what definition I would give. I had shied away from it some time ago, when I had asked the same question to a few bloggers. Blogging means a whole lot of things to me and at the time I put my comment on her post, all those meanings were happily rioting against the floodgates that barricade my otherwise unruly thoughts.

Coincide the above with: The day after I did AFJ’s tag, I thought I would give the ‘answer‘ to the tag. But no, it wasn’t meant to be. I ended up running from here to nowhere via everywhere including WordPress WordPress Support. (The fine folks I always talk about). The problem was quickly resolved. Now, the response post wasn’t critical. At all. It could have been posted even after this post – it wouldn’t have mattered. But just the thought of not being able to post on my blog…!
Blogging doesn’t define me (and thankfully so; given the fifteen-odd blogs that I presumably “write”, I would be easily diagnosed with multiple-(and somewhat split) personality syndrome). I do, however, define blogging, and yet the definition is elusive. I talk of the kind of definition that we have all grown accustomed to.

x is y with z features.

A few of you who have been long-standing victims of my obsession with words, meanings and contexts will know my dilemma. What meaning do you ascribe to something like blogging? It is always easier, I believe, to derive meaning of multiple contexts, and blogging lends itself just fine to multiple contexts.

Blogging is spaces. It is about the spaces that we inhabit, in the world or the worlds that we create for ourselves. We believe we know our space, we are protective about it, often possessive about it. A blog becomes just that and a bit more. It allows for a meandering exploration along those in-between white spaces in between our worlds; those that we don’t often notice and hardly care for. When we are in the white space, when we see from that vantage, we see a lot of colour. There is a vigorous sense of being alive.

Blogging is fear. It is about two types of fear. One that we are able to overcome, often through anonymous blogging, a way for expressing that the otherwise imposed social rules of engagement do not allow us to. This is not floccinaucinihilipilification. Some of the best bloggers are anonymous and it doesn’t change a thing about the beauty and insight in their writing. At the same time, blogging causes fear. Well, fear is too strong a word, but after a while the material attachment to the post-count, comments, stats and therefore the readers, brings a tense sense of holding on. The blog becomes as human as we are. It has flesh and blood – and it has feelings. The cycle continues.

Blogging is judgement. Of every word that dims a few pixels on your screen. Of every post that was born of a thought that refused to disintegrate and crumble at the feet of your neurons; that insisted on being born. Of every reader who reads your post and says something, or doesn’t. Of the blog round the corner that often times does a tad better than my blog. Of the blog round the corner that often times does a tad worse than my blog. In these hallowed halls, where you become the judge and the accused in half-duplex, all is seen through a discerning eye. All is sliced up and spiced up, and given a permanent place, assigned a value.

Blogging, however, is mostly expression. An otherwise delinquent thought becomes a well-behaved angel and sits smartly in a post. And a million such, together create that wonderful experience that is not the author; the blog is seldom the author – it is the author’s projection of colourful thoughts like a festive London Eye on a moonless night, spinning at its own happy whim and in its own blissful frenzy.

And yet I haven’t done any justice to what blogging means to me. The most important context of it all; the most elusive: a blog’s cajoling nature that urges you to articulate more and articulate better (which has yet to work perfectly for me, what with the high level of abstraction that my discrete words adorn).

Ever had a dream, when you felt that you were in a deep dark abyss, falling and rising at the same time, lit up at both ends? Then you know what I mean.

Nine Lives; One Lies

When AFJ from somewhere south-west of here tagged me, I was pleasantly surprised. No, she didn’t leave a comment telling me that I was tagged (that’s AFJ style); I had to rely on Google Blog Search and the WordPress Incoming Links feature, coupled with my RSS feeds to know that I have been tagged.

Most endearing of it all was the old times’ sake thing that she mentioned at the end of the post. I was, in fact, mentioning woefully to a fellow blogger a few days ago of the people we miss, some of who have quit blogging, some who come back after a very long while. And I agree with AFJ – it was fun then; it still is.

And I love tags. I hardly ever refuse them. Also, I never leave a tag out hanging – I always tag other people. So here goes.

The tag is to say nine things about myself one of which is a lie. Can you spot the one which is not true? (Adding one more rule here, tell us what the lie was, when you next post)

[Begin Tag]

Swimming: I have an uncanny respect for water. My artist friend says that’s probably the reason why I don’t consume it as much. It is the most gentle, yet the fiercest element, of all. So when I started to learn to swim, there was always a certain fear that rained down on me. Yet, with enough coaxing and being mercilessly thrown into the water, amidst tears that ever-so-slightly increased the volume of liquid in the tank, I learnt to swim. Just about. I can just about stay afloat and just about save my life. So if you are planning to be with me near a water body, you’d better know swimming or be ready to explore the waterbed.

Leaving Home: I have never run away from home. Even when my father refused to allow me to become an engine driver, it didn’t cross my mind to run away and start shovelling coal, just so that some kind-spirited engine driver would have pity on me and keep me as an apprentice. No, not even then, when my mother told me that couldn’t marry the girl I loved; if I remembered her name, I would have told you, but twenty-five years is a long time ago.

Dreams: Dreams scare me. And I don’t mean nightmares (in any case – they are dreams too, just scary, that is all). I always wonder what would happen if and when my dreams come true, which of course leads me to day-dream. That’s when they start becoming scary. A dash of reality and practicality sprinkled generously on the dreams, gives me the shivers.

Paragraphs: Paragraphs in books are like vehicles with a mind of their own with a mind of your own. I hardly ever read the words; I see them. I build visuals of what my mind conjures as the words project the image. All this time I continue reading the words in subsequent paragraphs, but I am not reading. I often have to bring myself out of the stupor and read all over again.

Mithun: Mithun Chakraborty is someone I admire. Yes, I see you pointing your finger at me and laughing aloud. As much as many of you are making monkey faces at me, I like Mithun Chakraborty. You have to see him in Hum Paanch and Prem Pratiggya to know why.

Socks: It is always the shoe that we blame when we get corns on our feet. Yet we forget that there is that thin culprit in between the foot and the shoe. The sock hasn’t changed design for a long time. I hate the seam hurting my toes, the big one more so. When I know I won’t have to remove my shoes, I wear socks inside out. My family and friends often make fun of me for that, yet when Sean Connery did the same in Finding Forrester, I experienced a strange victorious calm.

College: Coming to college from school was akin to Babu’s coming out of Nasik Jail (or some jail like that) in Satte pe Satta. It was a breath of fresh air. More fresh, because I ended up living in a hostel; away from the concept of recurrent studying (or at least sitting at the study-table even if you weren’t studying). I grew my hair long, didn’t iron my clothes, wore slippers to college and bunked classes without ever getting my parents summoned by the principal. Definitely better than school. Bliss!

Camera: After having got the Canon EOS 400D, I am not considering buying a new camera. I have three now, four, if you consider the cute 2MP camera on my sexy Samsung P310. I am just thinking the amount of stuff I need to carry when I go out and become click-happy. And then there is always that limit of stuff that you can carry as cabin baggage. Wouldn’t trust the airline companies with your optic equipment in the hold, would you?

Regrets: I do think it would be nice to go back in time and change a few things. As much as it is socio-politically correct to say things like “I love my life the way it is and I wouldn’t want to change a thing” and things like “I have no regrets,” it just seems so convenient and useful. It is even amusing to think – how that one change would affect so many things! At least one thing in my life is definitely worth changing.

[End Tag]

As is my religion, I don’t submit the tag to the empty confines of cyberspace.

Robert needs to update his blog soon. I recently have got to know Andrew, would like to know more. I don’t know if Aurora does tags – only one way to find out. Will Mihir affect his blog genre when he does this tag – it would be fun to see Nine Lines @ a Time. The Dharmabum, I know, takes up tags and does them very well – I’d like to see this one.

And 300, It Is

It’s like a dash – the last reserves of your energy to get there – to the ribbon. The exhilarating feel of the ribbon on the chest – in days to come: the invisible cut of the infra-red beam by the first cell of your body that severs it.

The tea-maker told me a hundred posts ago that I had cheated – and I shall indulge in such cheating once again, this time five more times than the last time. Technically, I have possibly crossed the 300th, because WordPress failed to import a few posts from February 2006. But I am neither complaining nor disclaiming. You could say I am getting better at cheating.

It’s almost a burden – when you are just a few steps away from the milestone. Better get it off you chest.

But I want to rest a while. Do things that are equally as close to heart.

I read a lot about blogging – as a phenomenon, as a tool, arguments for and against it. I talked with a few people about the meaning of it all – and their perceptions. I have questioned myself enough about the purpose – because I am a firm believer in purpose.

And I stumbled on posts like this. I found kindred spirits.

In the recent past, most of my posts have abstracted themselves out of the context in which they were conceived. I have been questioned about that. Even blamed of the potential nonsensical-ness of it all. The comments have been waning. If there is pleasure in incidents and gory details of who said what – then there is always the movie gossip magazine. I once began writing a post which now has twelve words of unfinished text after I read this post that referred to this post. I don’t think I make a difference to the world. This blog is too inconsequential to be able to do that. Most blogs are. What my blog does however, is make a difference to who I am and how I see things. It allows me to express what I think, know from others what they think about what I think. It provides me a way to fine tune my thinking. To recalibrate my notions of things. Its one thing to have a thought – a completely different to be able to express it in the right way.

A small digression here: making a difference is often not a conscious choice. It comes out of a context. Imagine Mahatma Gandhi wasn’t thrown out of a train in South Africa. It’s almost destiny; (as much as I hate to admit it) the trigger is what helps make a difference.

Those rare days, when that one spike in a WordPress blog stat graph nearly touches the sky, and yet is pulled down by the day before and the day after. The one day Gaizabonts was featured on Desipundit. It’s as my artist friend tells me – huge canvases – those are the ones that sell.

The mark of how much your blog is your personal diary vs. an expression for others to see is the number of times that you go to your blog and check the stats and your sitemeter and such. What would we be if we just spoke with ourselves – where and what would be the significance of Web 2.0?

Blogging in isolation of the world to see and respond to is a thought. I wonder then, why such blogs aren’t private. All blogging services offer that. I enjoy the adulation I get out of blogging; I won’t deny it.

30-odd years of life and only 300 thoughts in three years (and a bit) is not a call for celebration, what is, however, is that this is a beginning. 4000, perhaps in the next. Wishful thinker.

I’ll see you after a while. Maybe short, maybe long, but a while it will be.

Cheers!

Page 123, 4, 5,6,7,8, and 9 and then 10

I got this idea from Blanking on Tuesday. Here is a modified version. And hey, we haven’t done tags in a long time anyways. (Mental note, find out the difference between a meme and a tag)

Pick up the book closest to you. (OK, you can cheat, pick up the book closest to you that you like; but that’s about it – no more cheating). Go to page 123. Go to the end of the fourth sentence (not line). Write the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth sentences in your post. Follow it up with ten words or ten sentences about what that sentence means to you – then and there. Spontaneous!

I picked up The Zahir, by Paulo Coelho (after cheating on Eleven Minutes). The fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth sentences on Page 123 were:

If there is joy, then it’s best to accept that too, even though you are afraid it might end one day. Some people can only relate to life through sacrifice and renunciation. Some people can only feel part of humanity when they think they are “happy”. But why all these questions?

‘Because I’m in love and I’m afraid of suffering.’

My ten cents…er…sentences.

While I have appreciated this book a lot, this part, in isolation just seems defeatist to me. The book hasn’t had a ‘life-enhancing impact’ on me and obviously I am not one of those millions, however, I have great respect for the concept behind this story. Somehow or the other, love and suffering are always the conjoined twins. I have always wondered why – and therefore I call the five sentences above defeatist. The third sentence seems to indicate that we have a limited ability to experience happiness even if it is outside of us. I disagree. We always feel the happiness; more often than not, we choose not to experience and enjoy it. We are too caught up in our own beliefs and definitions of happiness – which (again) more often than not, are about how we feel. A gentleman, who couldn’t dance because of physical limitations, once told me that he could enjoy, even when he watched people dance; which I thought then, was too self-patronising. I think I know better now.

###

I can’t think of a tag (meme?) without tagging people (only, I don’t follow-up as much now, so do relax a bit) and therefore here goes[UPDATE: I'll insert links when the tags are completed]:

Aalapana @ Another New Day
Abhijeet @ The Fight Club
Amit @ A Fine Balance
Aquamarine @ The World is your Cave
Bishwanath @ On the Ganga Mail
Cynnocent @ Cynnocence
Educatedunemployed @ Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Explorer @ Naandi
Ganga @ Dextrous Doings
Neo @ My Space
Prashant @ Whisper
Rita @ The City of Joy
Shankari @ I Think Therefore I Am
Sharmishta @ Penniless Thoughts
Sophie @ Courage My Love
Soumyadip @ Cutting the Chai
Tell me no more @ Tell me no more of enchanted days

Lots of stuff for me to read; I can take it blog-easy for a while.

The Year-end OCPD Blog

Take a context and burn it, all that will remain are the ashes of nothingness of meaning.

Shakespeare is as meaningful as the contexts that ‘experts’ tell us. Experts however are a recursive oxymoron because they ‘tell us’ rather than helping us find meaning. There was a mark that Macbeth made when “…he unseam’d him from the nave to the chaps, And fix’d his head upon our battlements”, but then, the discovery of that ‘mark’ would have been better enabled than told. And I wish I was back on stage.

Raag Bhoop (Vilambit, Madhayala, & Drut Teental) is only as useful to drown the staccato dialogue delivery of Jennifer Aniston.

I don’t understand abstract art, he says. But then, what does he understand of the discrete and concrete arts? He can’t make a coherent statement why Peter Paul Rubens captures his imagination. Why The Execution of Jane Gray, brings tears to his eyes. What redeemed the bonded men in Shawshank and set then free for those few moments when Duettino – Sull’aria played?

Play a game with words and you will learn that the rules of the game are written in words. It’s an algorithm built by words. Not numbers that you can deduce.

The nature of words is such that they strike tangents to the circles of thoughts – how some words are banned from entering the circle – how some feelings are prohibited from breaking the circumference of the circle – out to the tangent. The blame game played long and hard – and it continues unabated – with casualties on either side – sometimes the feelings go unexpressed and then some words feel useless without feelings to express.

Take love. Fight. Cry. Plead. Beg. Hope. Wish – for it to happen. In the moment that love reveals itself, you will forget all emotion that you suffered for that one moment of joy.

It takes an enormous amount of belief to get something done. But belief by itself doesn’t turn the mechanics of the gears that makes this world go round. It takes two – one to hold the belief – the other to struggle. Some day, it will be, when the abstract and the discrete will not be able to reside in one place. One will have to find the other. The middle of this year saw an amazing mixture of belief and struggle come through for one of the best moments in life so far.

Mental disorders don’t conform to structures. Why the third one now; “three” is the dominant numerical motif of rhetoric in the English language.

I have been a bit obsessed about my posts and blogs for sometime now – a fair confession in a world where site-meters, as concepts, abound. I have thought about readership and comments and site visits and such. Scalded enough in the cauldron that invites me to salvation yet expecting me to physically jump out of the brew, I have existed on the rim of the burning vessel. The third witch is the most elusive.

It is a time for goodbyes. The New Year milestone has been questioned and cursed enough. But this is as good a milestone as any other. If not now, you would do it on a birthday or perhaps on the death of an entity. Or just some ordinary overcast usual dull day. Or the day of a significant event. Or at 3:30 in the afternoon on a day when an in-your-face stupid truth slaps you hard on your left cheek with a twang of reality that you have always known but never acknowledged. (Thank you Baz Luhrman)

I love milestones. Since I remember, I have cherished them. More often than not, they were the count of how close I was getting to my grandparents’ home. I will never curse a milestone. While some of us may curse the trite New Year as a milestone, I believe in the milestone. As much as we present a fake and a strong argument against the concept of milestones, we need them as markers to take stock of our life. New years, birthdays, calendars, graduations, achievements – minor and otherwise (from institutions and love affairs), all milestones. We need them. But we don’t need to tell anyone that we do.

At this milestone, I will stop. Things apparently aren’t making sense. This one says 0km. I don’t have to go any further on this particular road.

For those of you that believe, I wish you yet another year that brings enough challenges that prods you along, makes life difficult and you better, and makes you do the wonderful things that you have done in life – make life a wonderful place to be.

Cheers!

Letting the Light Through

A few eventful weeks of forced thought, rigorous analysis, viewing my emotions through a kaleidoscope, and just a blink of the eye: it all boils down to one search for a song on a chat – which brings it all out in the open. It triggers a post that I should have written earlier and experiences that I am compelled to share. This chat conversation reminded me of what Richard Bach mentioned in Illusions. You teach best, what you most need to learn.

How fast and easily we travel in life is a factor of the load we carry. How much load we carry is a factor of how much we are willing to let go. But we often don’t let go, we are scared. Is it the actual “letting go” or is it “how we let go”? Won’t I need it for later? Do we silently leave it behind or do we just dump it? I refer back to Fredrick Perls’ Gestalt Therapy Verbatim or it was possibly The Gestalt Approach and Eye Witness to Therapy (I don’t recall and I hate not having my bookshelf with me). Someone I know very well who had read Perls’ books long before I did – had used the phrase ‘make the cut’ in the context of Gestalt. I didn’t realise the significance of the three words long after I had read these and other such book, I wish I could share this feeling today with him. Words are only a guide – the essence of any meaning is in its experience.

Words are also traitors of a kind. They are so ill-equipped to convey what we really mean – and it doesn’t matter if you have excellent wordsmith DNA in your brain. A human face is a slightly evolved vocabulary, mind you just slightly evolved. The face can convey a meaning closer to the real; it is intelligent too; has the ability to twist and add flavour to the meaning. The eyes, they say are the window to the soul – the visual vocabulary. But this language is complicated – as complicated perhaps like learning the Chinese or the Japanese language. Not impossible, but daunting, at least in the beginning.

But words are mere messengers of the meaning. You don’t kill a messenger for bringing you a message that you don’t understand, so you don’t curse words when they don’t exactly mean what is supposed to be. And these messengers always carry a sign with them. A sign we often miss – a sign that has more meaning than words, faces, and eyes together can ever convey. But if we see the sign even once our entire world changes – for the better.

To let go is to lighten your load. Like all airlines advise us to travel light – and it does make perfect sense – so too it makes good sense to travel light on the journey of life. And you leave the load behind for many reasons – but you never leave it behind because you detest it. Any baggage, including anger, fear, love, and frustration helped us in some way to get us where we are. We leave baggage behind because we don’t need it any more.

Crass and inconsiderate as it may sound – this blog is my dumping ground. All my baggage is lying around here. Each thought here was a chemical activity in my head someday. You can see the equations here. You can’t dump just any bag, you may have realised by now. You have to select the one that you don’t need anymore. Therefore each thought here was carefully selected to be left behind. Not to forget, just to leave behind. And therefore, there isn’t a thought on Gaizabonts that is any more favoured than the other. All have helped in some way; in some form.

Even if the words don’t exactly say so.

The Tune Tag

Aalapana tagged me – and I do this tag – because – this is the first time she has ever tagged me. I will remember to forget that she hasn’t done my tag. This one is a difficult tag – the sheer volume to choose from – and the fact that your mood dictates what you would write in this tag makes it difficult. I chose some all time favourites; some are current favourites. Here goes:

Your favourite lyricist and the lyrics you remember the most:

Kaifi Azmi; Kuch dil ne kaha, kuch bhi nahi; Anupama, 1966

Your favourite song on friendship

Ae yaar sun yaari teri mujhe zindagi se bhi pyaari hai; Suhaag, 1979

Best song portraying life’s emotions; about life, full of life

Madhuban khushboo deta hai; Saajan Bina Suhagan, 1978

Which song are you humming today?

Meri jaan, mujhe jaan na kaho; Anubhav 1971

One song which brings tears to your eyes

Karun kyaa aas niraas bhai; KL Saigal, Dushman, 1939

A song which gives you hope, reason to try again and again, a reason to say that life is beautiful

Hari bhari vasundhara be neela neela ye gagan; Boond jo Ban Gaye Moti, 1967

When you want to be with yourself, silent and content but with music, with song would that be?

Kabhi kabhi mere dil me khayal aata hai; Kabhi Kabhi, 1976

If you have to express your love for someone with a song which would that be

Jeevan se bhari teri aankhen, majboor kare jeene ke liye; Safar, 1970

Five songs which you listen to the most

Takey takey, Mangal Pandey, 2005

Ik Onkar, Rang de Basanti, 2005

Koi chupke se aake, Anubhav, 1971

Ab to hai tumse, Abhiman, 1973

Des Mere Des, The Legend of Bhagat Singh, 2002

Now the tag didn’t have a rule to tag-back. But I’d like a few fellow-bloggers to take this tag. Specifically, Jolvin, Appu, Adi, Parul, Arundhati, Bishwanath, and Viral. Either I know that they are into Hindi Film Music, or I’d like to know.

Have fun!

My First Tag of 8

I am relatively impulsive, especially when it comes to gadgets, books and anything new; though I am waiting for that one gadget that does everything and fits in your hand. Now that is the first thing about me. Which curiously and instantly, brings us to the second thing; I am curious about things – I like to know how things work – however – I like to do it in a more tactile manner. I like to open up things (and put them back again with about a success factor of 95%). I don’t like to read about how things work. If you tell me something I don’t know then I am very likely to Google it (Ah! A noun that has indeed become verb in my lifetime) and find out what I don’t know. It probably follows then that the third thing would be that I hardly ever read an instructional manual when I get these things. The manual is useful only for the extra features or shortcuts. I insist on doing the basic setup myself, much to the panic of people around me.

All this gadget study, radiation, and ignoring manuals have a heavy toll on me, so I often head out to the country. I love driving – especially long drives. This, if you haven’t realised is the fourth thing that you wanted to know. I don’t particularly hate city driving – it has its own charm – but driving under a canopy of mango trees in Konkan or past the sentinels of Ashoka trees in the interior is half-an-inch closer to heaven. Which I do believe in, by the way but not in the traditional way; we often get glimpses of heaven right here on earth – I guess we are to busy to notice – because we are writing (or reading) the fifth thing about me (or is it I?). Nah! It should be “me”.

I get worked up by bad grammar from those who are (were) apparent standards and after while (when I am writing the next thing about me) read and review and re-review if I have made any mistakes. I hate making mistakes, but I allow myself to make them as long as I will correct them with equal humility. Seven used to be my lucky number, but then I forgot it somewhere along the way. I do believe in luck – but only that others have it. Funny, that this should be the seventh point.

Lastly, I like tags, but then no one either tags me or the tags are just about getting to know people. I miss interesting, challenging, and fun tags like this one

And, if you haven’t realised, this was Adi’s tag, which I have completed. And a big thank you to you Adi, this just happens to be my first tag here. And I will tag six people (rather than releasing the tag in ether), though, most of the people I wished I could tag, have already done it. But let me try.

Jolvin hasn’t done a tag for some time (I always tag him) and neither has Parul. Het has been quiet for quite some time, and if I am not mistaken, this would be the first time his better half got tagged? I hope that makes Toral blog more often. I’d like Shankari to do it, as well as Sharmishta. Don’t recall them having done a tag ever? (OK, I haven’t been to your archives!)