Monday, May 19, 2008

Pienso En Ti

This is a stolen tag. Stole it from Ess. It's extremely unproductive so just tell people it's a game, so as to avoid embarrassing questions. :P But it's fun!
Rules of the tag: Turn on your music player on shuffle mode. Change the song for each new question. Write down the title of the song that appears as the answer for the question, and comment on the appropriateness of the same.
If someone says "Is this okay?" you say...
Oh Timbaland-Timbaland
(yes perhaps I should try this next time)
What would best describe your personality?
Al Malak Al Barea- Amr Diab
(okay, I like the whole Middle Eastern thing..but this is so not my song!!!)
What do you like in a guy?
Bumbr0-Mission: Kashmir
(honey bee, which garden are you from, you?)
How do you feel today?
La Chica De Ayer- Enrique Iglesias
(aww, it's a sweet happy song)
What is your life's purpose?
Gallow's Pole-Robert Plant and Jimmy Page
(errr...I hope not!)
What is your motto?
Khoon Chala- Rang De Basanti
(uh oh)
What do your friends think about you?
Take on me-Aha
(aaahhaaahahahaaa!!!)
What do you think of your parents?
I'm like a bird-Nelly Furtado
(well, they do give me a lot of freedom)
What do you think about very often?
Baida (white)-Faudel
What is 2 + 2?
Pulpesum Poopesum-Pudhupettai
(that's some equation!)
What do you think of your best friend?
Let the rain fall down-Hilary Duff
(erm, no, not really, NOT AT ALL)
What do you think of the person you like?
All I Want is You-U2
(whooaa!! I guess this is always the case for whoever I like or whoever I want to like)
What is your life story?
Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen-Baz Luherman
(yayyy!! This is so true)
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Forca-Nelly Furtado
(it supposedly means 'kick ass' or something..hmm.Niice.)
What do you think when you see the person you like?
Nut Cracker Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
(erm, erm, HAHAHA! I'm yet to find a boy who reminds me of that)
What do your parents think of you?
If I'm in Love-David Jordan
(Definitely not!)
What will you dance to at your wedding?
Menfi-1,2,3 Soleils
(somehow a song talking about Algerians in exile isn't my idea of a wedding song, leave alone one to dance to....)
What will they play at your funeral?
H'asbu-Hum- Rachid Taha
(yeah , a protest rant about oppressors-that's some eye-opening funeral!)
What is your hobby/interest?
Sahra-Cheb Khaled
(okay, it's something about a party atmosphere...so that's fine by me)
What is your biggest secret?
Desert Rose-Sting feat Cheb Mami
("This memory of Eden haunts us all"-mannnnnn what a line, what a line. I melt every time.)
What do you think of your friends?
Everybody-Martin Solveig
("everybody runs, everybody knows, everybody owns a gun, everybody rows.." okayyy then.)
What will you post this as?
Pienso en Ti (I think of you)- Shakira
(Ayo please no..it's so saddd)

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Lemme think

There's thinking. And then there's thinking. And then there's really thinking. And then there's not thinking. And that's when you strike gold.
Trust me. I have observed the creative process (atleast for a writer) and have discovered that it's not so much thinking as waiting for the lightning strike. But it doesn't involve conscious waiting. You have to trick your mind into preparing its landing site and then let it wander around. pretending as if it has everything else to do but wait.
So here's how it goes.
You attempt a sort of reading up or research. You find all that there is to know, or all that you want to know. You do a google search, a wiki search, whatever.
All hyper activity ends here.
Then you get up, feeling busy and as if you've accomplished something. You take a coffee break, you go talk to someone who is in the same boat and if not, distract them into chatter.
You go back to your chair and your computer. You open a blank Word document. You type a word-precisely, slowly, momentously. Maybe a whole sentence. You smile at your accomplishment.
You put your feet up and gaze thoughtfully at your screen. You delete the whole sentence.
You stare at your notebook and hastily turn back the pages (filled with drawings from the Pictionary game last evening). You scribble whatever comes to your head about the topic at hand.
That's when the doodling starts. And it doesn't stop. It is addictive. Triangles, flowers, stars, girls,but mostly abstract designs spill out of the tip of your pen. They meander past the margins of the page, flee the borders and occupy certain stage. Somehow, drawing a triangle-based. upward-bound, chaotic design becomes your purpose of existence for that moment. Then it hits you that it's not. That's when you put down your pen and look guiltily around you. No one saw that. And no one cares. (doodling is a ubiquitous crime) As if to compensate, you scribble two lines of your favourite song diagonally across the top of your page.
This is when you close your notebook with a flourish, you toss it aside and stride out of there. You go play Pictionary (which I've developed an addiction for in the past few days. Not so much for the drawing, but for the guessing.) And then you eat!
Then you come back. sleepy and lethargic. You stare at the screen. You pick up your pen.
And then it happens.
And you can't stop.
And nothing else matters-not the song that you particularly hate playing in the background, not the clamour of numerous voices colliding around you, not the fact that you're thirsty or have to go to the bathroom.
And then it ends.
You smile. The endorphins, the satiation you feel is incomparable.
And then you go play.
Before it all begins again.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Summer Digressions

I'm in an extremely weird frame of mind. This is the first summer which is not stretching beyond me like an unknown abyss-equal parts hope, equally parts resignation to mind-numbing ennui. This summer I pretty much know where I'm gonna be (no, not on holiday-I haven't been out of station in more than 2 years! :( ) I'm going to to be an intern!!!!!!!
It ain't no big deal, I know, I know but it's a big deal for someone who's never been on a regular job with regular timings. It's only three weeks and it's been my dream to work at the place that accepted me. And it involves writing (which is something that I should be and am immensely grateful for) But I'm the kind who gets apprehensive even about getting xeroxes. So...
My mother tells me that she's happy I'm off her back and she won't have to worry about entertaining me which is all very true. But I was just getting settled to a happy routine of popcorn and coffee at odd hours, bousts of dancing jigs, lots of TV and a stack of Truman Capote books. I discovered a dusty hardbound copy of 'Other Voices, Other Rooms' wedged between 'India: A Travel Guide'(which distracted me by reducing me to a spate of whining) and some meditation book. My parents have no clue which one of them brought it (same case with most of the other books accumulated) there.
Well, anyway, I've been hooked. After finishing 'Other Voices, Other Rooms', I got some books from the library. Read 'Summer Crossing'-his first novel which was lost to the world and was published only a couple of years ago. Now reading a short story collection titled 'Music for Chameleons' which I'm more satisfied with than the rest.
Speaking of my intellectually enhancing routine, I have been catching quite a few movies. Saw 'Tashan' (er, did I say intellectually enhancing?) Heyy it wasn't all that bad-was funny in PARTS. The actors were brilliant and the music, like I said, is quite catchy (I hadn't heard 'Dil Dance Maare' when I did the 'Tashan' music review. That's a cute song-even though it's SO bent upon making you laugh and loses its charm because of that-it is cute.) And of course, Kareena looks amaaazzziiing. But honestly, skip the movie. It strives to be outlandish and then once you've got that fact straight, it tries to inject heart into it. Don't even get me started on the aiyyo-invoking action sequences. And of course, my Mum hates it when they glorify killing the good guys . Stay at home and catch reruns of 'Birdcage'. That's the cutest movie I've seen in such a long time. I soooo miss the comedies of the 90s. ('Drowning Mona', 'Throw Momma Off the Train', and those kinds. Of course there was 'There's Something About Mary' and the like. Hmmm.I guess you can't blame this decade for its spoofs and tasteless humour. Each decade had its own. )
Oh yeah, I digressed. Yes, so...I shall try to keep you posted on my attempts at intern-like behaviour. Knowing myself, I shall probably ask too many questions and wear myself out. I hope they let me keep my iPod on at all times. I hope I don't embarrass myself by playing the foot in the mouth game. And if I do, so what? It would probably make a good blog post.