punctuation

9.14 pm on a Thursday night.

And the blogging brontosaurus stirs from its slumber and hrrrumph blurrs in my ear.

I sit quietly with my HP mini, drawing comfort from the warmth of the comfortably small keyboard and uncomfortably small screen. Crumbs of biscuits lie scattered around my feet. There's washing to be run. A dinner to be reheated and eaten. Calls to return. Emails to send. Faxes to follow back on. A hot bath. A bed that's calling out to be slept in. A goodnight to be whispered. Things like that.

But I'd rather blog. When the thought hasn't crossed my mind in 6 months. Damn, I must have something to say. I sure hope I find out what.

Things to do

We are a generation obsessed with lists.
A decade and a half ago, we started watching countdown shows. Today, we upload wishlists and download playlists. There's nothing in our lives that can't be listed out. In serial numbers. From 1 to 10.

There are lists of places to see before you die and movies to watch before you die. There's a Hollywood movie starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson that proves you're never too old or too terminally ill to do the (10?) things that you want to, before you kick that big blue bucket.
There are even lists of the hottest lists in the world.

Now, I like lists. But, my lists usually don't go beyond 3 items. And they rarely have permanent occupants. One month it's Falafal and Andy Garcia. The next, it's Guntur idli and Mohanlal. I am fickle and faithless. Listwise. With 'to do' lists, it's another story altogether. Reality check. I can't get much done. I will never sprout seeds in the little pots, I will never drop a coin into my piggy bank and I will never learn to operate an online banking account. But then, as a curiously titled movie that comes out later this year (Dasvidaniya..something) reiterates, there's more to life than the mundane.

So, I'm making a list. It's not titled. It's not complete. It's not for 'before I die' or 'before i'm born again' or 'before i wake up tomorrow'.
It's for me. Period. So, here goes.
1. I want to paint something that noone will believe I painted.
2. I want to own a houseboat.
3. I want to visit the Victoria College Campus, where my parents fell in love.
4. I want to be three inches taller. Permanently.
5. I want to go to Disney Land. Twenty years too late maybe. But still.
6. I want to learn flair bartending.
7. I want to run a cheese boutique, a shop that sells only little black tops, a coffee shop called Fudgeberry and a Breakfast Bar called......well, I don't know yet.
8. I want to...

Ouch...

Ouch is good.

It's a pair of strappy bronze stilletos in a shop window and 142 minutes on the dance floor.

It's the first scratch on your new car. So you don't have to wait anymore.

Ouch is a frank opinion. 'Yes, you are a total idiot. But I love you.'

It's a phonecall. A little late. 'I'm sorry your dog died. Ten years ago.'

Ouch is what's left, when you forgive and forget. And a fist in your eye, if you ever dare forget.

It's meeting a better human being. And keeping a waxing appointment.

And holding a hand. But you don't really know whose.

Ouch is letting someone you love rip your heart out. And returning the favour. And laughing about it for the rest of your life. Together.

Ouch is incomplete repentance. Ouch is photoshopped suffering. The choreography of existence, one semi semi-painful second at a time.

Ouch is a scalding hot bowl of soup. But you can wait for it to cool.

Pink

I want to be the rat
that was late for the race
I want to be the cat
that hates milk
I want to be the soul
that got lost on the way
I want to be the worm
that loved silk
I want to be the rain
that never left a cloud
I want to be the tree
that ran to Spain
I want to be the question
I want to be the doubt
But most of all, I think
I want to Pink.
Just Pink my whole life away.

Questions.

I'm only one month old at Mindset. But there are some questions that popped up in my head even before I turned a week old. Some of them I have answers for. Some of them, I don't. Some of my questions are downright silly. Some of them are dead serious. But above all, there are two questions that never cease to confound me, chill my spine, make my life seem worthless until I am reborn, enlightened or both.

Q. No. 1 Why does Yadamma never give me tea?

Q. No. 2 Why does Bundu suck?

Give a dog a good name

A recent snack food advertisement recently brought to light the disturbing fact that not every dog's name is 'Tommy'.

What? Really? I mean....are you sure?

Who are you kidding? I meet a lot of self respecting dogs everyday. And I must assert that very few, in fact precisely 3.25 % of them are actually called 'Tommy'.

In fact, a more familiar canine epithet is in fact, 'Brutus'. Big snarling Alsations, whimpering little Poms, you name it and its name is probably Brutus. Go a little way off and you'll find barking armies of Caesars, Junos, Rubys and Motis. Moti! Now that's a doggy name straight out of Bollywood. Moti is the superdog. The dog that can drive you with its left paw to the hospital while giving you a back rub with its right. What would a movie climax be without a blood stained Moti barking heroically in the background. In fact, I remember an old hindi movie where a Motidog (it's almost a breed by itself) enters a courtroom, tongue out and panting, to deliver a key piece of sniff worthy evidence.

Anyway, while naming your best friend isn't always as all consuming a task as naming your baby, i'd say give it some thought anyway. There's surely more to your dog's life than being just another 'Tommy'.

Burn...

Anger is a beautiful word. It's an even more profound emotion.
It's an emotion most people cant hide and don't hide. Heck, they highlight it. And in its altruistic expression, much of the world we know is born.

I love to see what anger can do to a person, sometimes for a person. Some men wear their anger like a military haircut. Ruthless, unforgiving but deeply flattering to those with the hairline for it. Some women wear it like an expensive perfume, in potent but miniscule doses that hint at danger without ever suggesting it. Of course, there are those who rant and rave. The breakers of fine bone china and the slammers of doors. But the universe is oblivious to their anger. Then, there are those who will pour their anger into works of art and song and all that la di da. But really, anger deserves more original expression. Vent it not.

The truth is that quality anger is really hard to come by any more. What with political correctness and appropriate public conduct and all that, potential angry men and women are a dying breed. They prefer to hide behind glowering eyes and polite sniffles. Barbed words, frown lines and cold shoulders are commonplace. But give me a really really really angry human being anyday. All the world warms up to a fire. But no one has any use for smoke.