Come, Have a Drink

As he walks, Mostly Barefoot, on a sidewalk on the digital highway (UPDATE: Unfortunately, this blog has been deleted), he stops for a while and scatters a few gems where he stands. (Reminds me of The Shawshank Redemption, a la Andy Dufresne, walking in the afternoon sun, scattering the collection of the night)

Usually a beer drinker, the first time I tried a cocktail was because someone whose opinion I respected insisted on it. So I tried it, but really, found nothing to change my loyalties alcohol-wise.

My blogging experience is unfolding a bit like that long ago drink. A few sips into it, there is some kind of new activity at taste bud level but nothing at conversion level yet.

So I came here looking for the recipe, to learn more about the stuff in my glass. Guess I’ll look around some more. [Mostly Barefoot on Blogging Being]

As much as he insists on the analogy above, I think blogging is an acquired taste for him. He does bring about an important point though, and while the recent ‘theme’ seems to be about blogging and such, I thought I’d let go of my footwear and have drink too, barefoot.

Frankly, I like the analogy up there. The blogosphere becomes one wonderful bar, types of drink are the bloggers and each drink a post. Like him, I mostly drink beer, but have a white wine, once in a while.

The comments, oh the comments are the wonderful conversations at that table in the corner over there. You see them folks? That guy with the ale, and the one beside him with the bitter. See her? With the glass of a white wine and of course that guy over there with a Bloody Mary. They usually have the same drink – but their conversations vary — and though their drinks differ, they have something to talk about — something all of them can relate to. Once in a while he has white wine and she has a Bloody Mary, but mostly they stick to what they drink.

They talk of the friend who used to have rum and coke, he doesn’t come to the bar anymore. And of course the one who would have nothing but red wine, she sits at the bar, doesn’t come at their usual table these days.

A couple of drinks later, they look at their table, there are a few empty seats. They look at each other and slight curve of nostalgia lines their smiles.

The bar door opens and they all see him entering. Seems like a guy who will be comfortable at this table and have a conversation.

Seems like a lager-kind of a guy.

Tags: drink, bar, wine, ale, bitter

The Heart of a Conversation

You have perhaps noticed the recent template back-forthing at Gaizabonts. And if you are reading the blog at the site, then you have perhaps noticed that it has reverted to its original. Well, the second original. Or something like it.

In the times of reading blogs off RSS readers, how does it matter – the skin and the template? Unless you choose to comment, you hardly ever visit a blog. (Unless you use RSSBandit, which allows you to even comment from your reader!) Only a half-feed forces you to go to the blog, if at all, to read the other half.

How does appearance matter then? You are on the chat, you are on a blog, on Facebook, or Twittering away or using some such Web 2.0 contraption. No one sees the appearance. The presentation layer is missing. Is that (also) the reason most Web 2.0 sites are bereft of visual design elements?

I don’t visit many blogs at their blog address – this has been the pattern for sometime. However, I read more blogs now, than I did before. Only since I have moved to the Mac, I have started visiting blogs, if I have to comment, i.e. (RSS Bandit folks, you listening? We need a Mac version!)

It is almost easy to believe that people don’t read your blog anymore. Almost easy to believe that your readership index is lesser than before.

I doubt, if that’s the case.

The comments, you say, the comments must be indicators of readership. Yes, to an extent. But most of the times there isn’t much to be said. After a while, you get used to a person’s writing (or get bored with the sameness and such). Either way, there isn’t enough motivation to comment, especially if you know that a comment like, “wow, wonderfully written!” won’t be quite appreciated. Obviously, I am not talking of topical blogs where every other person wants to be heard and has a right to express with gay abandon.

Recently, Amit confessed that his Fine Imbalance needed a balancing act, he called it “TLC for the blog”. Then there is the dilemma that most bloggers go through which was well captured by EU, when delirium struck! The last three comments on the post by Abaniko, Jolvin and The Phish are very interesting in this context. Phish suggests a theory that boredom is the one that breaks the backbone of the better bloggers. In a way, lower readership and lesser comments are a good sign for a better blogger – they are perhaps tidings of the good times that once were?

Elsewhere, motivated by the thoughts of some bright folks, I went down the route of extending the thought of enabling conversations, through technology. Wishful-technology-thinking, you might call it. While the technology itself may be made available to ensure tracking conversations, human will is at the centre of it all. How often you visit a blog, how well you read a post and therefore how well you respond is key.

Most of us think we don’t know how and what to respond – a factor of how well we read and relate to what we read. If we know the blogger well, we might take comprehension for granted – that we understand what the blogger is saying. Like EU says:

I like people visiting my blog. Making blog friends is killing the interaction on my blog. I don’t like that.

Attention spans are shrinking, and though it shouldn’t be the case, our ability to ponder over a thought and respond well, is diminishing even further.

Here’s to better conversations, whether in a coffee shop or a cyber cafe!

Allow the Light

Sometimes, we have to allow a small place – for the light to pass through. Every wall needs a window. A conduit to the rest of the world.

Another Song about the Moon.

Why did he write it – at all? It is a happy song and painful at the same time.

I met yet another friend, tonight, after about six years, seven perhaps. To begin with, the Belgian beer became a reason – after a while it became an excuse. This song about the moon was a reason, perhaps an excuse.

The last time I wrote about this song, it was really that – a June Moon. It was about finding friends.

Oh, one for the Trappist monks, one for the caramel, after a while we didn’t care.

You see, even after a six years, it takes six minutes to catch up on the six lost years. We are now back to what the present and the future holds for us.

If you want to write a song about the moon
Walk along the craters of the afternoon
When the shadows are deep
And the light is alien
And gravity leaps like a knife off the pavement
And you want to write a song about the moon
You want to write a spiritual tune

The last time I wrote about this song, I actually saw the moon on a June night

Because the heart will howl
Like a dog in the moonlight
And the heart can explode
Like a pistol on a June night
So if you want to write a song about the heart
And its ever-longing for a counterpart
Write a song about the moon

What is it about this song that is about friends meeting after years together? Taking a few minutes to capture the years lost in time and becoming one, as if no time or geography set them apart?

I met my friend, over a few Belgian beers. As if nothing changed, even if our lives since we last me have been ripped apart towards the limits that we haven’t experienced.

I am blessed.

I have people in my life who will allow me to be who I am, be a child and adult at the same time when I talk of songs, poetry, opera and philosophy. Then, there are some who insist on my adulthood. I forgive them. I am blessed, for I have people who will come in my life at the right time to encourage me to do thing that I love the most, yet that I dread. They push me. They allow me to be.

Hey songwriter
If you want to write a song about
A face
Think about a photograph
That you really can’t remember

Faces, I remember. After all, they (the faces) and their voices are the ones who shaped me. Oh, I don’t forget faces, if they talk to me. It’s almost like a recurring alarm that rings to wake me up with harsh tunes from time to time.

Just.

I oftentimes wonder why I bind my life with those that don’t choose to share the beauty that I see. I wish that they would “see”, but, then again, I wish that I am not constrained by the limitation of their vision.

I have a life. A beautiful one at that. I need to open my eyes, more than I need to open theirs.

Lost in Translation

A few years ago, I attended a Pujo, which was being organised by a friend. He is a quintessential Bong, with one exception, which is perhaps his defining character — he doesn’t eat fish. In fact he quite hates seafood and I don’t believe it has anything to do with the delicacy of his constitution.

Her idol was in it’s grand splendour and I was spellbound by the vision of the Devi. By itself, such imagery can easily evoke strong feelings of contemplation. I had a chance to get closer to the idol, my friend being the organiser and all, and he introduced me to his uncle. An old person, with a twinkle in his eye. More friends joined in, in an attempt to get closer to God. I stood away, the spell of the vision and the environment, lurking heavy on my head. My organiser-friend walked up to me and asked me what the matter was. I said I didn’t know, just that I seemed to be overwhelmed. It was, perhaps, I said that this is the first time I ever attended a ‘true’ Pujo. I also mentioned, in a muttering manner, that I was overwhelmed. He smiled, he has this uncanny way of smiling, a unique one when he thinks he knows what you are thinking about, which he usually does. It isn’t rocket science, but I have seen him smiling proudly in such instances. He pointed to his twinkly-eyed uncle, and said:

“I was speaking with him a while ago, before all of you came. I think I know why you are overwhelmed.”

“Why?”

“There is an amazing metaphor in what you see, you are experiencing that, yet the ability to decipher it, is what overwhelms you.”

“Ah.”

“You see the demon being slain at the feet of the Goddess? That’s our ego. When we pray to the Goddess, in effect we praying to her to help us slay our demons – one of them just happens to be our ego.”

“So all the imagery here is a metaphor? Of sorts?”

“Possibly.”

I smiled back at him. He did the same. He seemed to be glad that I approved. The rest of the friends came to wish him and our conversation never went any further.

Unfortunately.

Since that day, I have yet to attend a Pujo. No reason.

A couple of months ago, I happened to see India’s latest entry for the Academy Awards. Eklavya. A large section of the film hinges on a dilemma in interpretation of the philosophical premise taken from the Mahabharat, which is Bhishma‘s, about the interpretation of something as complex as Dharm. Basically, Bhishma says that Dharm is that which appeals and feels right to the mind (the intellect or the conscious mind). (Read this article by A. V. Srinivasan, [apologies; broken link, will update when I find the source] especially the fifth and sixth paragraph). For those of you who have studied Vedic Philosophy more than I have (or know Sanskrit more than I do), you know that I am over-simplifying it. I know I am. There is a much larger context to the dialogue, which I am not presenting.

Hopefully it won’t dilute the thought I am wrestling with.

Making meaning is difficult — a common meaning, especially. A standard meaning that most of us can take as a premise and argue about. What, for example, did the bleeding demon under the feet of the Goddess really represent? Was it ego? Was it weakness? Was it fear? Was it a single representation of all that I wish to conquer? Was Ramayan a story of morality or obedience? Or, deep down, was it a love story? A tragic one at that. In your mind, who would you qualify the real villain of the story? Was it Ravan, who caused such distress and war or was it that dhobi (laundry-man) who made a arbitrary statement about the character of Ram and Sita. In pop-culture, you notice many references to Ravan; hardly any references to the moral laundry-man.

The words I have heard all my life about the interpretation and meaning of Godliness whiz past me like sub-atomic particles in the quest of anti-matter. The question, however, isn’t about God.

All stories have been relegated to just that — stories. The premise, the dilemma, the philosophy, the context, the essence – the meaning of stories has been pushed hard, back into deeper recesses where we may not touch them, where we may never experience them.

But, we should.

Tagged: The Writer Meme

It’s a calming view.

The mountains and the faraway sea are deeply in love, quietly courting each other. The late afternoon sun gleams wide over the sea, spreading its warmth all over. The valley is a shade card of all the green and hay that you will ever see in your life. Little sparkling silver streams line the ridges of the mountains, playful and eager to trek downhill. The leaves on the tall trees that line the mountain walls are a lush green, fresh, wet from a recent rain. You are driving through the road, angle-sliced on the mountain’s slope, in your car, cruising at a comfortable uniform speed along the locus, lost in happy peaceful thoughts, one with yourself and with the world that allows you to be such. One hand on the steering wheel, the other resting on the window, elbow sneaking out just that little bit, feeling the moist misty breeze. You almost don’t need to pay attention to the many curves, the slight turn on the steering comes to you naturally.

That, is the experience that a good writer allows his readers.

Amit, in spite of being stood up up the last time, has tagged me on this Writer’s Meme. As some of you are aware, I never refuse tags, yet that one instance that I did, haunts me like the stigma that a criminal – willing to reform – carries. Society, will never allow me to integrate and be one with society. One slip-up, just one slip-up. Nope, not ducking this one. Like Amit, I followed the link back in blog-time to understand the nature of tag, which, I must admit has become slightly open to interpretation regarding the presentation. I’ll just write about writing, perhaps I am looking to get there, perhaps I have admired a few writers’ styles, perhaps I write like that.

It’s almost obvious, but structure and grammar are important. There are many arguments going in favour of the SMS language, for example, and I don’t quite disagree with it, yet there has to be a common minimum ground when communicating. There is a difference between writing to someone telling them that you will meet them somewhere and expressing a thought. If you are in the IT industry, you will remember the analogy they used to help us understand TCP/IP. My car comes to a screeching halt when I have to take a detour into the mind of a writer and wonder what was really intended. Then I have to make an assumption. Somewhere along the reading, I have to correct or reset those assumptions. That makes for bad reading (and therefore, bad writing). Till, A Bridge Across Forever, Richard Bach’s writing was the smoothest I ever experienced.

Conviction in one’s words is a good quality to have when writing something. Be it an office email or objectivist-philosophy. Tentativeness in a writer doesn’t make for good reading. What I call ‘padding’ is a big turn off and is the same as driving on a pot-holed road on a rainy night with squeaky wipers. Unnecessary words and contexts used to fill-in matter. I see that a lot in everyday writing. For that reason perhaps, I have started appreciating some of the writing skills of a few of the British columnists. Writing with conviction is very different from “writing to convince”, mind you. It is often easier to disagree with a writer who writes with conviction, because the clarity shines through. Ayn Rand is one writer who wrote with such conviction and clarity. No wonder there is a very small number of people, if at all, who sit on the fence about her ‘way of thinking’.

Amit has already a post up about Brown Writing, which is not about the writing skills of the British Prime Minister. Colonialism in language, you see, will take a while to be eradicated – till the kids who learn non-colonial English start teaching in schools, and till these kids start writing. I am somehow reminded of English, August by Upamanyu Chatterjee. However, I think it is wrong to ask Indians to write in a region-neutral/culture-neutral way. The essence of your writing is your ability to express your observation in your context. I believe that writer is the richest in her writing when there isn’t a conflict with readership demographics (the ‘will they relate’ dilemma). Sacred Games, by Vikram Chandra is one book that I have admired for that reason (there is of course a whole lot more to admire in that book). He refuses to provide a glossary of Mumbai-isms; refuses to even italicise them where they appear. So you perhaps have a lot of non-Indian readers searching for Mumbai profanity on Wikipedia. Take any -ism and that is what makes the writer, the writer she is. Take the -ism out and you have an unimaginative translator.

A picture is worth a thousand words. If those thousand words are well chosen and well crafted, give me the words – anytime. As a visual person, I have great regard and respect for writers who are masters of imagery. Who are able to build the image with words, rather than colours. As a writer you don’t have to detail out the colour of the couch or the texture of the upholstery. Yet, some writers make visual magic with less than thousand words. Shakespeare is the one magician who rules this show. Sometimes, he uses less than a hundred words, to tell, not of a picture, but of a thousand pictures. That is also one of the reasons, I always prefer to read a book first, if there is a movie based on it. It’s easier that way. All through The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri, I had my own personal DVD being authored in my head. Even after having seen the movie, I am glad, my movie is still doing well at the box-office.

Some writing, however, is sheer pleasure that is beyond explanation and analysis. Perhaps a combination of all the above and the various things that bloggers before me have mentioned, when they took this meme. Humour has a large role to play in such writing. Most of all, however, it has to be human.

This is such a wonderful tag to do. So much better than the 10-things-about-you kind! Thank you, Amit, and I do hope you will be more generous when you tag me next time! I hope I have done justice.

Every tag deserves TLC (Tender Loving Care), and I know a few who will do just that:(in alphabetical order):

Bum Bum Bhole

Mostly Barefoot | Delivered

Murighonto | Delivered

Muse Cruise

South of the Border, West of the Sun

Silence Speaks Volumes

It is far away. Even though I sense it close, it is miles away from where I am.

And the event is one that hasn’t ever been experienced before or at least it has been so long ago that it is beyond recall. It is a unique and daunting experience at the same time. A belligerent volcano that is eager to exhibit its sole purpose in time. Each eye will see it with a different perspective — of dread, amazement, wonder and angst. What perspective will be, what the mind’s eye will see, will depend on the context that the eyes have been smeared with — for years in existence.

No metallic-orange stream is in control and the molten mass of minerals flow like thoughts that don’t feel the need to abide by the mind’s direction. Some flow relentless as if with a deliberate purpose, speedily snaking their way down the slope — like tourists in a new town with one day left to walk a hundred streets. The delinquent ones create a fountain of fury, spitting randomly, compass-less, without care. Through the crater, the juveniles burst out with glee; a large drop here and a small drop there become one with a purposeful stream here or a truant stream there.

Some slow down to death on their way, doused by the cold un-welcoming earth on which they meander. They simmer and fizzle in their tracks and become a cold black hardened memory of an adventure that could have been. A thought evaporating into nothingness, before it was expressed.

The source itself continues to vomit further fury. More streams follow, some of them angrier than those before — seemingly more determined and reinforcing the weaker dying ones. Unorganised and orphaned from meaning. They gallop over the dead streams made cold and black.

Some balancing act eventually takes place, the core cools down, even for a while and shuts the volcano’s mouth.

“Shut, for now, we have balanced; meaning can now be found amongst the corpses of the thoughts and the rivulets sprinkled with ash.”

One Line; One Thought

The last time I posted a one line post (which of course is now the sole domain of the one-liner), it generated some significant discussion. The previous post wasn’t meant to be a one-liner. It was free-ware misbehaving. There was some significant context to the post — related to travel — that invoked this mashed-up feeling of dread and hope. But it was, perhaps, not meant to be. When the editor crashed and had eaten up all that I had written, the only thought that remained in my head finally became the post that you see below.

It didn’t get the amount of consideration that I thought it would, like my earlier post did. I have this thing about dwindling attention spans that we have — in all that we do. Call it a theory almost.

We have more than tripled the life that we want to live — yet our life span remains the same — that of a single life time. So all is crunched. Mashed. Squashed. Compressed. Like instant coffee and instant gratification, even thoughts and their presentation needs to be instant. Who has the time? Long travel experiences, don’t quite catch the fancy of people like us. give us the facts, we cry out: co-ordinates, places to see, how to get there, hotel information – and hey – can it be done in half a weekend?

I want to post a post on my blog. I don’t have the right tools — only because I have forgotten that once upon a time I blogged without any tools. I have found myself unable to write. Yet another block, long due, I guess.

I recently thought that nearly everything was bloggable — in the mind it is, in reality — it isn’t.

Hope, on its Head

Dread, perhaps, is hope, standing on its head.

A Beautiful Year

This day, last year I moved home. I said, “All Done.”

What a fantastic one year it has been! I was sold out on WordPress then, and I am still madly in love today.

Thank you, WordPress, you guys rock!