Rhapsodic

Disclaimer: This is not a political rant or commentary, despite its appearance.

Americans confuse me. They don't want government healthcare. They claim to be a secular nation, yet are largely insistent upon Christian values in almost every sphere of their dealings. They like to wash their oversized and grease heavy portions down with a diet coke. Many cannot point out major countries on a map/globe, but still insist on "uprooting terrorism" and fighting wars in countries they will probably never understand. They like their gas chugging American cars over Japanese ones. Oh, and they have Oreo cereal. CEREAL. Not cookie, but cereal.

But what I really don't get is this: for most of us, if we got close enough to our (would be) president we'd try and get a picture with him, or tell him we admire him, maybe even swear at him and ask him why he's such a bleedin' heart liberal (if it happens to be something you take offense to). Instead, what do American women do? They grab their potential president elect's a**. Imagine how that goes down in history text books. Can't you see the parallels already?
"Rosa Parks, the mother of Civil Rights for African Americans firmly refused to give up her seat on a bus. Skanky Hoboerson, mother of all trailer trash, refused to let go of the first African American President's firm seat."

Truly life-altering, that.

I’ve started reading Shantaram again. It’s the fourth attempt in the last three years. I quit the last three times because reading it required too much effort for no good reason; it felt like cardio minus the promise of visibly jaw dropping abs.Really, what's the point of exercise if you don't like a bombshell at the end of it? (I'm not even sure if this is simply an analogy anymore...)

I expected a lot more, given the hype surrounding it. I suppose I should’ve looked into its lack of nominations for any significant awards before I listened to the hype. But I still feel cheated because it is just so laborious. And that’s saying something, because I’ve read some pretty hefty books without any trouble at all.
It. The Stand (The uncut edition.) Inheritance of Loss. A Fine Balance. Freedom at Midnight. Bleak House. Atlas Shrugged. The Time Traveler’s Wife. The last four books of the Harry Potter Series (young adult fiction, but it counts.) The Fountainhead. Gone With the Wind. Pillars of the Earth. Hawaii. World Without End. The unabridged translation of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights (two tomes, with dirty bits too! So much better than the sanitized versions we were subjected to as children.) I intend to pick up Shogun, as well, and I doubt I’ll have as much trouble with it.

Shantaram is a couple of hundred pages or so shorter than some of these, but I never got more than half way through. This is so completely unlike me, as I usually push and persevere to the end, no matter how terrible a book is (Case in point: The Da Vinci Code)  With Shantaram, I wait and wait for a coherent plot to materialize, before I give up and opt for something that’s far more enjoyable. It read more like a travelogue, and a rather plodding one, I might add.
I've never really had to struggle to finish a book, so this is a first. I’m going to give it one last shot, and if it doesn’t work I'm just going to wait for the movie. Johnny Depp would make it infinitely less taxing.

Could someone who has read this book please explain its allure?

Awe (n)- \ȯ\ -An overwhelming feeling of wonder or admiration
The feeling you experience while perusing images from Lakme Fashion Week and find that a girl who was in your year in high school is showcasing her designs there. Go Shreya!

First Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Now Patrick Swayze and Mary Travers?

I think I'll go listen to "Puff the Magic Dragon" on repeat.

RIP.

The first poem probably requires a little explanation. It combines poetry with Greek mythology and a really unique style. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this particular Greek myth (and its many variations) I'll narrate Ovid's version, which is my favorite.

Narcissus was a Greek youth of unparalleled beauty. As is often characteristic of pretty boys, he was vain and scornful of those who lavished attention on him. A nymph by the name of Echo fell in love with him, but was sadly rebuffed. She spent the rest of her life pining for him, until nothing remained of her but her voice. Yes, I know that was abominably stupid on her part, but let's overlook that for now.
The god Nemesis heard her prayer, and cursed Narcissus to be impaled by his own form of cruelty. Narcissus came across his own reflection in a forest pool and promptly fell in love with it. (Clearly, the ancient Greeks had some issues, self-love and co-dependence being two depicted in this story alone.)
Anyway, he too, pined for his unattainable love. When he died, his soul was vanquished to the depths of hell and a flower, the narcissus, grew where his body had succumbed.

In the poem, Narcissus and Echo both speak of their respective obsessions.

Shall the water not remember Ember
my hand’s slow gesture, tracing above of
its mirror my half-imaginary airy
portrait? My only belonging longing;
is my beauty, which I take ache
away and then return, as love of
teasing playfully the one being unbeing.
whose gratitude I treasure Is your
moves me. I live apart heart
from myself, yet cannot not
live apart. In the water’s tone, stone?
that brilliant silence, a flower Hour,
whispers my name with such slight light:
moment, it seems filament of air, fare
the world becomes cloudswell. well.
__________


Swedish poet. I can't seem to find many poems of his, and he seems to be amateur. One that would put a lot of modern poets to shame.

Translated by Bill Coyle

When I saw one of those men touch your hair,  
I heard for the first time in many a year
the ancient battle trumpets and I saw
the banners of an army winding off to war
and felt that blind power urging me to knock
him out with one punch, send him tumbling to the floor.
If nobody had held me back, stopped me,  
I would—God help me—have killed him on the spot,
stomped out his blood, and spit in it. I'm sorry,
but you must be aware your winding hair  
is different now, a hornets' nest, a snakes' lair!
Yes, like a ball of snakes in a flower basket, dear.


via The Poetry Foundation
__________



I wrote something like this many years before I read this one. I wonder if my literature professor thought I was plagiarizing. Though I suppose I would've failed the course if she had. Not a happy thought!

Wind and Window Flower
by Robert Frost

Lovers, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.

When the frosty window veil
Was melted down at noon,
And the caged yellow bird
Hung over her in tune,

He marked her though the pane,
He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by
To come again at dark.

He was a winter wind,
Concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
And little of love could know.

But he signed upon the sill,
He gave the sash a shake,
As witness all within
Who lay that night awake.

Perchange he half prevailed
To win her for the flight
From the firelight looking-glass
And warm stove-window light.

But the flower leaned aside
And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
A hundred miles away.
__________


This one's just beautiful.

Cloths of Heaven
by W.B. Yeats

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

__________



Heh. I suspect there are at least a few of us who feel this way about our exes.

You Fit Into Me
by Margaret Atwood

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye


__________




Please note, I neither condone the sentiment below, nor can I identify with it. Really.

On Being A Woman
by Dorothy Parker

Why is it, when I am in Rome,
I'd give an eye to be at home,
But when on native earth I be,
My soul is sick for Italy?

And why with you, my love, my lord,
Am I spectacularly bored,
Yet do you up and leave me- then
I scream to have you back again?

I got back from an Iftar hosted by my Alma Mater and the Kanoo Group a couple of hours ago.

I’ll be quite honest; I’m usually not very fond of events like this. AUS has had a series of Iftars for its alumni, sponsored by giants like Emirates Aluminum, Dana Gas, Al Habthoor Engineering etc. The general consensus amongst the people who go is that the hours are filled with standard corporate speeches interspersed with better than average food. Having been for just one of these Iftars before today, I expected this one to be the same. Instead, we got the reverse. We got Mishal Kanoo and chicken that tasted (and smelt) like it may have been cooked in the fish pan.

Disappointed with the main dishes, I turned my attention to sullenly texting Pravin (who’s galavanting in Goa) and mentally berating Kamran (friend and photographer/archivist at AUS) for sticking dad and me with this particular photography assignment. Yes, I AM an alumna but that wasn’t why I went. Did I fail to mention that? Anyway, I was lingering over tea and dessert (checking my watch all the while) when Mr. Kanoo took the microphone.

Now, the first thing that got my attention was that he doesn't hide behind the lectern. The second was that he didn’t talk down to us in patronizing manner that grown ups sometimes use while talking to idiots young adults. Nor did he read from notes; everything he said was off the top of his head. He was completely at ease with being in the spotlight and it was evident from his almost bouncy body language. It was impossible to ignore his enthusiasm, even if we had wanted to. We stopped eating and sat up straighter to listen. He turned out to be an absolutely engaging, compelling speaker and clearly a well read one. He spent roughly half an hour discussing family businesses starting from the reason they’re created to how they collapse (roughly around the 3rd generation) owing to lack of planning, a disconnect from the originator’s vision, lack of leadership and conflict management, and of course squabbles over inheritance and ownership. (Are you listening, Ambanis?)

Perhaps I should mention that his topic for the evening was one that I have grappled with since… well, the time I realized that many expected me to take over my dad’s studio. Kanoo’s examples were on a completely different scale compared to yours truly, but the tenets remain valid. If a family business is to survive beyond 3 generations, then meritocracy should (no pun intended) rule over nepotism. Not necessarily in terms of ownership, but in terms of management. Think the Bettencourt family.

Which brings me to dad. No, I’m not going to take over his studio. He doesn’t expect it of me either. Artistic talent cannot be manufactured, and he gets that better than anyone I know. When people ask me if I’m going inherit his business, my response usually is, “Sure, if I can somehow inherit a mere quart of his talent along with it.”

I don’t understand why some people, particularly, South Indians cannot understand that. Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur. Yes, it’s sad that when dad retires that’ll be the end of Hemlyn Studio. But it’d break his heart, and mine, to have one of his babies (because the studio is his 28 year old baby) run into the ground by one of his other babies.

via Animals With Light Sabers

And I pity the deliveryman.

via souq.com

... refurbishing old photographs. It's ridiculously addictive. I'm not quite done with this one but I'm putting it up anyway for the old-times value.

Have a looksie, and see if you can recognize the landmark without reading the sign!



EDIT: As b0z0 pointed out, it's the old Sharjah International Airport. Here's a closer look at the sign, although it isn't very clear.

Found via discoballbreaker

There are very few words in the English language that can encompass the entire jumble of things I felt while watching this: the urge to laugh, scream, cover my eyes, gape, obliterate from memory and disseminate amongst EVERYONE I know. Why isn't this a viral video sensation yet? Oh, and I *love* that the lyrics are added as comments for the video. It's extremely helpful.

It's been an uncharacteristically long summer. Our house turned into a roosting point for a myriad of sick birds, all of whom arrived uninvited but were welcomed with food, water and the occasional paparazzi, clicking away.

It started with this guy.








This particular myna was dehydrated and exhausted to the point that he just collapsed in the elevator, leading to our floor. Mum took him in, and we fed and watered him as best as we could. By the next day, he was well enough to fly away so we let him go, but not before the sibling managed to christen him Zanzibub (or Bub, for short.)

1 point Ratnam family, 1 point birdy, 0 points Yama/Hades/Azrael/Osiris.


Then there was this chap, who brought his wife and laid two eggs in a nest they built in our balcony.



We were pretty psyched, and followed the bulbul couple's progress for a few weeks. When the eggs finally hatched we celebrated with much fanfare; namely, by taking a million pictures through the discrete but convenient glass balcony door. Mum, being the superstitious one of the lot, warned us that we shouldn't take too many photographs of newborns.


Naturally, we didn't take her seriously. When it was time for the fledglings to learn to fly, they were shoved out of the nest and onto our balcony floor. One li'l fella fell straight down and flew straight back up about 15 minutes later. The smaller, scrawnier chick lay on the floor for hours, till dad held him in a clean towel and put him back in the nest (I googled to find out what to do.) His parents fed him and we were happy, having added to our list of good deeds. The next day, Stash (variation of Anastasia, which means resurrection) flunked flight school again. My dad picked him up, returned him to the nest, watched as his parents fed him, and we all left for work.
When we returned home we found him on the floor again, courtesy his bird brained parents, half dead from exposure to the bleedin' heat. Mum and dad spent the next 20 minutes trying to nurse him back to health, only to have him succumb in their palm. Yes, we understand evolution and natural selection and all that, but that knowledge didn't make anything easier.

1 point Ratnam family, 2 points birdies, 1 point whatever Gods of Death you can think of.


Next was another myna, this time with a bad leg, that landed right next to my dad's studio. We tried to feed and water it, but it refused to open its beak. The only thing to do was force feed it, which mum was fairly adept at, having had 24 years of experience with me. It lasted all of 5 days before it too, lay gasping on a blanket that we left at the studio. We had the cleaner dispose of its tiny body, along with a garbage bag containing numerous soggy tissues. I have a picture of him too, but it's been hard enough to share the one of the baby bulbul that I knew ended up dead on a furnace hot, tiled floor.

1 point Ratnam family, 2 points birdies, 2 points to the Grim Reaper.


Three days after the myna showed up at the studio, a pigeon with taped wings walked right in too. It's probably because of the air conditioning, but it just calmly traipsed in and bobbed its head at us. It couldn't fly, so we went about the usual rigmarole of feeding/watering and set about trying to untape its wings without damaging its feathers. It took about two days. And as soon as we managed, we left it outside. He walked around, calmly surveying the situation, and seemingly wondering if he should, quite literally, test his wings. I guess having your wings taped up kills your confidence. 20 minutes later, he was in the air and that was the last we saw of him.

2 points Ratnam family, 3 points birdies, 2 points to the Grim Reaper.

And as karma's reward for trying to help all these creatures, I'm sitting and composing an a post that needs me to use every single fiber of my self control to keep from wailing in misery.


-500,000,000,000,000 points Ratnam family, ∞ to the unfairness of life