That new routine I talked so big about in my last post? yep, that didn't happen.
What happened was an epic fail to the point that I am now only reaching office at about 12.30 to 12 40 pm. You read that correctly.

But I need to step back. My sister visited this weekend and it was really exhausting. Especially emotionally. And I'm so wrung out. I love her, obviously. And I am ecstatic that she visited. But then the result of that is that I'm now facing uncomfortable facts about things which I have been willingly blind about.

Certain things I have just been allowing to happen, even though I feel horrendous about it, but I make no changes to anything. The main one being very codependent upon P and basically letting her life and her shit dictating my own life and feelings.

Intellectually I know that I do enable her. And allow her to dictate what I should and shouldn't be doing. I recongnise that she is a little too needy. I always did. But I refuse to do anything about it that was positive for me. This weekend I talked to my sister, after dinner on sunday, when P acted like an attention seeking drama queen that she is and proceeded to ruffle M and S's feathers to the point where M tells me that I need to stop being protective of P's behavior. And when I told my sister about it, she also told me in not so many words what is true and logical. My sister has a great knack for this.

Its not my fault that my situation in life financially is different and definitely not my responsibility to prop up someone else. I need to be a little selfish. And combinded with what M said, it also smacks with whatever I have been realizing for over the 10 months I have lived in this house.

P is not perfect. She can be caring and nice to me, and she truely and genuinely loves me. But she also is act drama queen and not the most mature and logical person on the planet. Also her wants and needs cannot dictate who I am. No matter how much I try, I cannot be whoever she wants me to be. And I don't even want to. So I should not feel guilty for it. Its not my responsibility to stick her broken pieces together. And its definitely not my responsibility to financially keep on supporting her. She needs to pull her weight. She cannot be perenially codependent on me. I know her patterns. She truely is a person who needs to be constantly codependent to the point of suffocation of the other person in order to functions successfully with other people of the world. Be it a friend or a boyfriend. I do not need to be the host/friend. I will not be able to survive that way.

And since M told me about how P needs to grow up, suddenly something has been ripped away from my eyes, which i was previously physically keeping in place. I am apparantly more grown up that she will ever be. And its not something that is pleasant to realize. And once it has happened, I cannot not see it . And all her foibles are being reinforeced the more time I am spending with her.
And this puts me in quite a existential quandry. I hate that M has pointed this out to me. I resent it. I resent her. For being so judgemental, and then also being so right. I cannot let go of this resentment. And its poisoning me unnaturally. And I am equally resentful of P for constantly taking advantage of me. Consistantly for the last 10 months and even more. And never realizing that she isn't as wonderful as she seems. Actually it is my fault. I know that no human is perfect, but this level of delusion on my part is extremely scary for me. Because I had no objectivity. Now all I notice is her neediness and fake nice behavior. Its not fake because she means it, but because she is at it 24/7. And her constant craving of approval. I think a little consultation about opinions makes a friend feels wanted. But constant seeking of the "yes" makes it annoying. And high handed attitudes of telling me what to do and not to do. I allowed such a lot of that. to the point of stupidity. Because she doesn't allow half as much as I allow. And her inability to listen or understand a logical arguement. gets very tiring.

I need to to shut some of me out of this equation or I wont survive. I need to reinstate some boundaries. Other wise, the little things that remain in my life will be gone. As it is I feel like I have not been living my life but P and R's life for the last 10 months. And I really hope this realization sticks.

Grainy pictures

Why is life in 2015 a increasingly a series of low resolution, half blurry, nonsensical instagram photos which are stuck on the phone and on the cloud? Essentially you can't even print it out and touch it! The details are lost, upon enlargement. Like fading memories, there is an impression in your mind but immediately lost in a blur of pixels the moment you try to examine it closely.
I just find it extremely disturbing. 

Its time to admit that I come here when I'm angry.

I do.

Right now I have this slow acting anger inside me, which is a lot like saying that I have slow acting poison racing through my blood stream. The effects are the same.

I kicked/forced one of my housemates out of the house on the behest of the other one. Without actually witnessing the altercation between them, and only on the sayso of violence from the other. But since the sayso was that of a girl and the person accused was a guy, it was pretty much a blind decision. But I did hear the protests of it being an equal opportunity violent session from both sides, but I chose to still make the decision. I chose to ignore the logic and niggling doubts that told me that what he was saying is probably true.

Its so fucked up. I feel extremely unhappy and confused. And angry. I'm so fucking irritated. They have been at this for months. Years. And I'm angry at her for putting me through this. For making me take her decisions and making my position untennable. For getting me to destroy a really old friendship. Two, if i'm being honest with myself.

Somewhere, that ugly truthful part of my brain has started ranting at me that she is toxic. And this happened once before and I ended somthing with someone who did love me unconditionally in spite of all her faults. It became permissible to give up the most precious thing in the world: unconditional love. And this is happening again. There is this ugly part of my brain saying horrible things about her that is also making another part of my brain cringe in shame and horror.

The anger is starting to leak. I don't know how long I can keep it in check. I really don't want to take responsibility for someone elses problems. And I'd do it willingly if I wasn't being forced into it. Now I just want people to fuck off.

I am feeling guilty for being angry and hurt, where I have every reason to be. And this is also her special talent.

Fuck my life.

Among the things that I have to do is the task to cut up curtain materials and then go to sleep. But in the reverse order. But my enthusiasm to write something every day has me tapping away at this key board. I know this will peter out tomorrow. Day after, latest.
This keyboard used to feel strange and suddenly now it feels less so. Its the new computer, you see. I think I'm a cheap date. Give me a laptop with the scroll function working and I will conveniently forget that I didn't like this one at first.
There is a definite cold war brewing in this house. One of my roommates is definitely treating me horribly. I still cannot make up my mind if I should take it or just cut off all contact completely. We used to be friends for over 9 years now.

There was an intellectual discussion in an email chain over an angry article about the mediocrity of the middle class Indian and how R.K. Laxman's common man had fed it into a big fat immovable cow. And you can see in Google's beautifully tabulated email format, my friends' personalities and their basic ideologies and intelligence.The evidence presented itself to me in a such a clear graph that I was quite taken by surprise.

Morning,Computer.

Slowly but surely this has become a part of my daily reading:

http://morning.computer/

I like that there is a famous writer who cannot but help write stuff. All the time. And he has a morning musing page which he just updates for himself.

This makes me want to do things everytime I read it. I could update a blog every day. Draw something. Or write something. But no.

I live in a house where three people exist, where only two at a time talk to each other and the other one is shut in the room. We live like refugees. And the token effort made to remedy the refugee-like situation on my part is buy a book shelf and take a week to assemble it and finally put it up, unloading two cartons of books.

Its wobbly and wonky and I have a deeply unsettling sensation that it might come toppling down in the middle of the night.

There are so many things to care about on this planet. I sometimes feel that my head will burst for trying to remember to care about things. Its like I've got a Damocles sword hanging over my head at all times: If you don't care about the children in Africa, you are not human and your human license will be revoked; If you don't care about the disappearing dolphins, your human license will be revoked and you will be the worst excuse for a human that can be; If you can't remember that farmers are dying right at this moment/the Narmada is drying up and villagers are being displaced all the time, you are not a caring and well rounded individual.
The thing is that I'd like to think that I'm a caring and human as anyone can be. But I don't think its humanly possible to be agitated and thinking about things to agitate about all the time. Its just not humanly possible. The brain does not work that way for most people. How is it possible to be so empathetic to things that you are not actually experiencing that you can howl in agony as if its happening to you? You just don't have the requisite life experiences to relate to, most of the time! At least most of us don't. You can be shocked. You can intellectually disgusted and even scared about whats being written about, in case it happens to you, but crying like its your leg's being cut off? I'm sorry I find that hard to believe.
So when I read all my social media feeds, I feel like the right scum for just being bored by everyone agitating all the time. I feel no normal sympathy for the things being agitated about even if I would have cared about it in normal circumstances. It just feels so useless. Its not even logical to rant about important things in social media which does nothing, and affects nothing.
If you wanted to do something worthwhile then do it at the playing field on which the problem is currently happening. Not on the bloody internet. Especially when the people you are agitating about definitely does not have access to the education or the technology you are using to see whats being said.

Something which I thought of today, but the thought has been surfacing and drowning in my head for quite some time:

I am that girl, that friend, the colleague, who is good for some amusement, some revelry, some shock at vulgar behavior, some laughs, maybe some witty comments. Or, I'm the friend you cultivate because you think I am broken and helpless and need to be kept together and taken care of, a burden that is friendship. Some times used because I can never say no.
But when you need someone to hang out with, or tell your innermost thoughts to, or consider a romance with, someone you want to exclusively be with, its always the other girl. There is the prettier one, the one who giggles, the one who is more lady-like, more normal, less thinking, willing to talk about completely inconsequential things, who is put together, doesn't have issues, who doesn't look like a monster. The one who depends on you to do things for them, ask you questions to make you feel important, does not have an ego that makes her feel guilty when you do something inconsequential for her because she knows she can do it herself, and dammit she should.

Don't get me wrong. Its not a pain or a heartache anymore, this realization. I'm almost thirty. I realize this is what its always going to be like. Its been accepted in the head. So what it becomes difficult to see into the future knowing this is how it's always going to be. So what then it becomes difficult to create, or imagine, and dream. So what.

I think I come here to moan a little, cry a little and then go back and forget this a little.
Maybe its the steroids that I have been taking since april that's the problem. They are supposed to make you depressed. P asked me if I was sad, when I she called me. I just garbled something at her.
I have been garbling a lot lately at people. I've lost the skill for articulate speech. I think I need this time that the brain takes to transfer thought to speech and then the written word to be properly understood.
All these inspirational things that people who are famous on youtube tell me about just taking the risk and just start being famous for something you did, by just doing it. They absorb me when they are talking but soon I have to come back to my one room, and the deep feeling that I can't breathe properly, and I don't have a table to draw on, and I SHOULD move, and the  thought of moving into a new place fills me with a deep sense of foreboding. But I should. I should buy a new computer but that cannot happen because I need to move, and I keep putting it off.

Shocks that I got today

Most recent: Just discovered that Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer are in an open marriage. I don't know if I am freaked out about this or happy (considering my, er, less than congenial feelings about their marriage). I also discovered recently that I would find her, Amanda Palmer, quite a kickass personality if not for my predispositions. Nothing doing there, I guess, since I only came to know who she was because he married her. I have known him longer. sigh. (Only in my head, people, only in my head! I swear, these days everything I say, feels like needs a disclaimer.)

More recent: There has come that horrible moment when you discover a fatal character defect in your partner/spouse and you cannot un-see it and you know that the world will never be the same again. I just put all the pieces of the puzzle together in my head. They were there lurking around at the back of my subconscious all this time and it just took one tv interview for all of it to click into place.

Shahrukh khan could possibly be a sociopath.

I love him. Don't get me wrong. The relationship exists. But something is broken. I came back from work and turned on the TV to find a rerun of Koffee with Karan playing, featuring Gauri Khan and Suzzanne Roshan. As the spoke about their respective courtships, Gauri tells of how she broke of their long relationship for a bit and almost didn't get married, and how she ran away to Bombay to get some space because SRK was getting too intense and possessive and she couldn't take it anymore and how he followed her to Bombay and hunted her down and then would pretty much stalk her wherever she went until she relented. Or something to that effect. Now this is not a new story. We've all heard this from the man's mouth and it probably sounded romantic. But coming from the mouth of a woman and her now matter of fact jokingly narration of the incident gave me little chills. Lets face it ladies, we have all been in that situation at certain point of our lives. A little too intense and stalky a boyfriend who really needed a restraining order which the country's penal system doesn't have.  Also in the light of the very real danger to women and the current state of the country and its men, its a more sobering story. And she has been living with him for over 25 years!

That was the missing piece which clicked everything into place. If you watch the older interviews of SRK ( pre Dilwale) you will find an arrogant, rude and uber intelligent young man who doesn't suffer idiocy too well. Now watch any of his recent interviews. Its not the same person. The man is now a picture of humility who loves and loves and only loves. He has admitted to the fact that he used to be the typical delhi guy who could turn violent at the flip of a coin and some part of that still lives on.

My thing is people don't change that drastically. So what we see now must be the mother of all social engineering and acting. Again, this is not new. What is new is I just realized how brilliant and calculated it all is, so insidious that none of us noticed it. And how difficult it is to imagine the SRK of today as the same pre dilwale egoistic, slightly obsessive guy. That is why I find it slightly scary and sociopathic, that a man can be so cold and calculated and shrewed and can do a whole mass charming of fans so silently and insidiously that no one would notice.

What are the general signs of a sociopath? They are highly intelligent, and utterly selfcentered, yet completely capable of charming anyone if they find it necessary. Does that sound like someone we know?

QED

( I still love him tho. Something about the crazies that brings out the hots in me more. Talk about a deeply dysfunctional relationship)

Recent: I have been watching these Jay Z interviews and the rap meets performance arts videos and finding the man intelligent in a very rough and uneducated way and some of his raps very disturbingly captivating.

My youtube watch history is pretty frightening right now. sigh.

Compelling Music

Today, I find myself enjoying music much more than I did in sometime. I don't ignore or dislike music at other times, but I find myself sometimes less enthused by it. Maybe its got something to do with the fact that there are expectations attached to the act of listening to music. There is always a judgement made about the type of music one listens to and tagging involved. I sometimes find myself doing it, until I remember some of the things I find myself enjoying at the oddest moments....
Anyway, there are people who turn up their noses at what is deemed popular music, and I agree with them in most cases, until I hate myself for humming Justin Beiber. Because I'm not supposed to like him. He's a whiny kid and his music is factory generated and empty. Nothing, wholesome and cottage industry like about it.
So, I stick with my most common defense. I love music. Of all sorts. Except for the ones which I don't.  But things I don't like tend to run to particular songs, not genres. And isn't there some sort of war going on about cutting edge  and the deconstruction of the definition of cutting edge meaning it has no definite genres?
So, in the recent acquisition of the iPod number 'n', I have been selecting music of suited to my present mood and feelings and listening to it for hours on end. This a fairly normal thing to do for everyone else. But I am a relative novice to it, since I had never mastered the habit of having headphones in my ears at all times. I'd rather have my eyes squinting into a book. I equate both these acts of habit in the same category. Anyway, when I was selecting the music that would go into the damned Pod, I came across Portishead in my collection. The entire discography. I seemed to remember that I had downloaded it on a whim, when I had just heard one song (predictably "glorybox"). I hadn't tried to suss out if I'd like their other songs or not, before acquiring everything they did. So, I did what I do when it comes to books I think I should read because I aught to know them, as opposed to being genuinely interested. I put the damn thing into the iPod, and let it surprise me on shuffle.
The thing is I tried. I really tried. And I completely abhor most of it. It is so jarring and not-music-like and i'm  afraid to use this word, "experimental", that I cannot find any common thing in it to make it embed itself in my mind. I made myself sit through about five of them, and tried very hard to stop myself from changing tracks as fast as my fingers could. But I really don't understand the music. Its too jarring, and non-musical. Somewhere in my head I have this notion that music should be melodic and well, musical. I can appreciate concept. In fact I think I have an unhealthy fascination for Concept. This is probably what leads me into listing things that I should listen to, even if I have no idea if they fit into my visceral idea of what music should be.
Still, I do listen to things that feels good to my ears. Hence I am not afraid of bopping my head to somethings which would be classified by the upturned-noses as deep and critically pink pop. I enjoy it. It makes me work. If its got a good bassline trip going, I'm there. I don't need it to be Victor Wooten. I'm satisfied with James Blunt- "1973".
Its like catholic guilt, this need to appear knowledgeable and different from the rest of the populace by what in our own heads must be this deep conviction in our exceptionally pure and perfect taste in music. Its just our need to have a place where we stand out in shining celebrity when lacking in anything resembling good looks or pompom cheering capacities ( yes I hated myself the moment I said that, so don't say anything). Hence the war of wants and needs continues. I want to bop my head. But I need to know if what I want is intellectually high end or not. Dammit. Anyway, I'm beyond caring.
I like this song:

I've always loved her a little, P!nk. Because she's pop. But bad ass. And did a fucking awesomely badass version of Bohemian Rhapsody. And can sing. And basically has a sense of humor. Add Nate Ruess into the equation. His voice has captured my current intellectual imagination. From the time I heard Fun's "Carry On". Its classic. Has a bit of Freddy Mercury's range and feel. But entirely unique me thinks. So both my wants and needs have been fulfilled. And the live version is powerful as well:

And to appease my visual side and my stalky side: a video reccomended by Craig Ferguson-

I love the story in the video. Its so stupidly funny and sweet. And the songs cool too.
So thats, my first ever music post. :|

Being an Adult

At the ripe age of twenty six, I have finally set foot unto adulthood. I have finished education (unofficially, of course) and now earn my own keep. It is very surreal. There was a point, only some months ago, when I thought this would never happen. But ab mere paas  gaari nahi hai, flat hai, aur chakri hai, though I am sorely missing my mother, though that situation is not going to be rectified anytime in the foreseeable future.

 Things have happened very fast. On the day that I finished the last hurdle into my diploma, I had mentally prepared myself for a long and arduous wait until someone hired me, very convinced that my luck with my diploma (or the lack of) would most certainly run into my attempts to become financially independent. But then I discovered what I now believe is the secret to most things in life (at least with me). If you are struggling with something, you will struggle with it for a LONG time, to the point of feeling that its never going to end, but when good things happen, they happen out of the blue and in a hurry. It’s still a little unbelievable for me, this having a job, and it’s a pretty decently paying first job too, with really flexible work environment, and the people seem nice. I don’t know how I lucked out here. Some might say that its karma. But you know what happens when one is forced to keep swallowing shit. You become convinced that you are a genuine cent percent shit eater. And no amount of good things happening to you can convince you otherwise. You keep on imaging the shit-throwing bogie man around the corner. It’s become a way of life. It’s basically Hinduism. I won’t even go into the finer implications of that one. It’s become who you are. Confidence and mental peace is a thing of the past. You are just sapped of any positive and optimistic energy.

 But am I happy with where I am now? I don’t really know, truth be told. The knocks never really stopped coming, you see. I got the job, and that was fine. I uprooted myself back to Bangalore as soon as money would allow it. And I had a temporary refuge with a friend, who has been the most generous with me through out my three years here. I mean ‘above and beyond’ levels. I thought I could take my time to fix things up for myself. But shit happened, and I woke up one morning to find myself not knowing where I was going to sleep the next night. Well, I made it through that phase, and I am grateful for all the help that I got.  Now I live in what can be called “the digha hotel”, with I, myself and some other chick who lives in my head.

 Its been a month and a half since I started work, and basically had my life halfway in a non tremulous position. And since the head space is calm, I’ve been rediscovering my old friend from No. 76, SFS Colony, loneliness. And all the beautiful side effects that come with it. It doesn’t feel odd at all. I am savoring the isolation with a side of self pity. You know you are truly jacked when you start enjoying your own self pity trips. There is also a certain amount of madness involved with living with yourself, and only having yourself for intense company ninety percent of the time. It starts showing from week two. You talk to yourself. Aloud. Swear at things, and talk to them, and be really surprised to hear yourself talk, or just be surprised to hear yourself say stuff your brains probably thinking but—shit--- You never hear yourself think, generally, do you? It’s bizarre. It feels like someone else is talking through a voice which can only be your own through a very obvious process of elimination.

Then, you start having feeling excited about men you just met because, damn, you haven’t had any form of human interaction with anyone but two people for months or weeks. It’s scary, because it seems real. But again, you’re jacked if you start enjoying the excitement, while knowing all the time that you’re just doing this because you are bored and it’s probably not real. That depressing thought is the side of self pity of which I spoke of before. This is the self pity which tells you that this is the real life, and it’s not going to change so basically any human interaction will follow the current trend of superficiality and will probably not last, and more importantly, is not real.

 But I am learning something new. I am learning to be by myself and to enjoy my own company. And doing this while not living in my own head. I am re learning to wander around places in the city with no agenda, just because I want to and doing what the hell I want. Walking by myself around Brigade and MG Road while looking at how beautiful the evening sky is and how amazing the city looks, is a treat which is hard to discover if you are constantly with people. You can’t just stop and look. Or sit on a bench or a low wall and stare at the sky, just because you can and you want to and there is no reason not to.  I went and watched a movie by myself the other day. It felt strange to pass by a theatre and just popping in on a whim and buying a ticket to whatever was showing then, after office. My head said that it was pathetic to be going to a theatre alone. But it wasn’t an unpleasant experience. Just a little sad. But I have professed to how much I am liking my current side dish of self pity.

I don’t know why is it that I am conditioned to want to not be alone. Most of us are that way I know. But I find it strange that because of this conditioning, I cannot enjoy it as much as I should. It’s like being Catholic. It’s like I’m not allowed to enjoy being by myself without feeling lonely and wishing there was someone there with me. And I know myself enough to understand that I don’t truly want anyone there, because I’ve become a person who is uncomfortable with people and being social. I don’t want to make the effort. I don’t feel like it. Ideally, I wouldn’t mind being with someone whom I don’t have to talk to, but just be. I don’t really want the mental pressure to talk and entertain  another person to make that person’s effort worthwhile. So this feeling that I wish I had some company when there is no reason for me to want this is very inconvenient.

But it is what it is. And I guess this is what ‘adulthood’ is all about.

Phairy

Haven't posted anything in a long time. And since it doesn't look like I will be posting anything whiny today either I thought a doodle would assuage the guilt a little and brighten up the blog a bit. Its been too much of a text blog until now, and thats not how I'd imagine this to be.

Work That Comes From The Heart

I have this friend, who is a very nice girl. She is talented, she is fun, and she has it sparkling out of her eyes to such a degree that it practically leaks out of her eyes like tears, but only fun. I met her and lived with her only once, about a year ago, and only for a few days, a few weeks. But I learnt that she is working with crafts and she is working in Jaipur.
A couple of days back, I notice that she has been putting up stuff online of what she has been working on at the present, and I don't know if it is for her graduation or not, but it looks like its going to be BIG. Its called Banaras- The city of stories, and its BEAUTIFUL. Or so it seems from the little glimpses she has let the general public like me see. It involves video, photography, illustration and anything they can think of to tell a story.
But what is it about it that has induced me to write this? It is the HONESTY of what they are doing. Because the honesty is something which hits you the moment you look at the work being done.
 It practically slapped me in the face, I don't mind telling you. And I relished the sting of it. Because it made me realize what it is like to do something you want to do, and not having to whore yourself to do it. Because until a couple of weeks ago I was in the same position. I was in that position for the last six to eight months of my life. And I was nothing more than a prostitute to the powers that be. The work that I came out with is less than my work and more of something I'd rather not think about anymore. It left me with no sense of identity whatsoever. I hope them powers that be are happy to suck the soul out of students day in and day out in the name of education, ripening them, stewing them in their own misery, and spitting them out once the juicy parts are scoured clean.
 Because Benaras- The city of stories looks like it has an individual voice. Its like a strong nostalgic flavor peppering every image, every video, every illustration. And its wonderful. This is not the work of a couple overtly gentrified and uber sophisticated design school graduates who have been fed on lies that certain things that have been shown to them entitles them to walk out with the unshakable belief that everything else around them is less that inferior to them as the dust under their feet. There is no pretension. What there is, is a very transparent sense of understanding, and an honest attempt at understanding the subject that they have chosen to work with. The openness is apparent and is one of the most beguiling things which draws you in even if you are just watching teasers of the actual project. These girls have gone out, speaking a language which might not be sophisticated to some that I know, lived with their subjects, interacted with them on the same level and then built a narrative which speaks a unique language of its own. How can you not be taken in by something like this? How can you not call it beautiful creativity? It might be unpolished and rough around the edges, but the content shines through like silver vessel under a pool of grimy water. And lets not kid ourselves, Content is King, Queen and the entire damn Kingdom.
 This brings me to question, why is our own innate creativity not enough to be appreciated with out the proverbial "But..." tagging along after every honest creative output we produce? Whats with the hypocrisy? The powers that be shout out from the rooftops that the design institution is a place where creativity is prized like the virgin in a medieval romance, that encouragement of groundbreaking and alternative thought is the byword to live by, thought which loafs around all over the place while leaving the box to stagnate in a dusty corner is how one thrives and lives there. Such utter bollocks. Underneath this surface propaganda is a pure hankering after a piece of market, a market which already exists. This market is a place which has been established over fifty years ago for a certain number of things, and the only thing that gives one the edge is doing something which appears to be breaking ground in ways which appear to be different, yet still in the market, only crafted to look like something which has never been done before. The product generated isn't catering to a different clientele, it is just handing the consumer something which does the same thing as another product existing before, only the product now is completely incomprehensible, because it is dressed up in words which are frankly so spaced out that I don't think the designers themselves know what they mean. Its just design vocabulary  version of corporate jargon. I wonder where is the new thought?  If I think about this in a logical fashion, I come to the conclusion that a new thought requires a new market. A new market which is specific to what is on offer. A new market cannot be generated like a conjurers trick. It is amorphous and it forms by it self. Interest is generated. One cannot force interest. Its like lycra, you either have it or you don't. And interest is what is the catalysis of a market. And to be clear I am talking about design and art here, so when I say market, I mean it in an illustrative fashion, not in a financial/economic strain, tho that does factor in at different levels obviously.
 I believe that each one of us toiling away in art and design bring with us our own brand of creativity. This is very obvious, of course, since the design school purportedly encourages this innate and individual creativity. And what we produce from this, the content, has  to generate interest somewhere. Its an action-reaction thing. The numbers might vary, but I refuse to think that innate raw creative output has no takers. There always will be, even though the numbers might read a solitary one. And that is worth it. That is worth doing the work one wants to do, and believes in. Assuming an audience is unintelligent is insanity. And a general intelligent audience will always find work which has content shining through the rough exterior of interest. And at the end of the day that's what all of us hope for isn't it? The generation of interest? Because most of us spend our lives on the eternal crusade of things of interest, because we are human beings and hence we think, in whatever capacity we can.
 I finished my project, which was a webcomic, with no desire or interest in anything. I felt empty. I felt like I was going mad. And I had followed to the letter, everything I was asked to do. If you look at the final work, you will find that it has no part of me, or worse yet, most undesirable parts of me. Parts I shudder to own up to. You will not see my voice in it. You wont find me wanting to say something. You will see that I was attempting to say something and it was unceremoniously buried under a dung heap of what is the current practice of sound design. To make it something else, now that I have the opportunity, is something which makes me shudder to the bone. I don't have the energy for it. My throat is sore and it needs solid recuperation in order to infuse my voice in it again. What is hateful about the entire experience is that none of it was appreciated.
 I was always fighting an uphill war against standards which are not my own, by someone else's, and whose standard, in turn, was derived from things which were not true to them, yet they did not see. Keeping standards is important, very much so. But everything unique should have its own standards, no? What are we measuring it against? Is it even possible to compare? Is it not a logical fallacy to compare two unique things? I always thought that the word 'unique' broached no points of comparison. The only standard which something which is one of a kind is required to live up to is itself.
 I wanted to tell a story. And I told it. I put thought behind it, I spent time on in indiscriminately, tortured over decisions that needed to be taken, painfully, and finally made a narrative. Only to be told what was unsatisfactory about it was everything. Why? Because my style wasn't meeting the standards, the technology wasn't meeting the standards, in summation, I wasn't meeting the standards, in context rendering my effort and artistic effort null and void. And this was something I was working on for myself. It wasn't a project for a client, but a brief of my own creation, as asked for, and a project of my own. What changed was everything.
 I can categorically state that, to this day, the story has never been read. It is buried under a shit dump of  working design. with no prospect for the silver in it to shine through the grimy water. There is no prospect for anybody to say, sure its rough around the edges and its unpolished,  but I love it! And I am left with a wasted eight months, with a severe case of lost identity and looking forward to immediately jumping into any work that comes my way which will put money in the bank.
 I am a wonderful creation of the design school, I must tell you. My blood is equal parts plasma, frustration, bitterness, deep envy and a depth less level of cowardice and unwillingness to take chances. A fantastic creation of conditioning I am.
 I look at a project like Banaras, and I think how absolutely delightful it seems, and more than that, how interesting and joyful it must be to be working on such a thing, and envious of having that opportunity to not be worried about their creativity being set to standards, and just working for the joy of doing something which generates interest in oneself and also generates interest from the work itself. It is priceless, and it is absolutely delightful. And I hope with all my heart that it turns out to be everything the creators wanted it to be.
     

I've been meaning to work on this illustration but I  just dont seem to be able to gather sufficient energy to do  it. I have only manage to grasp five minutes a day to do it, and only when I know I have to leave immediately to go somewhere. I have managed to finish with the damn project and have cleared the jury, but I don't have the necessary enthusiasm to shout about it.  It just doesnt seem to matter.  And the disinterest that I feel about it is translating into my complete forgetfulness about going to college  to collect my certificate or to talk to them about it. Do. Not. Have. The. Energy. And so  this cycle goes on. I feel physically unwell.
 All I can think about is that I want to go home. Calcutta. Not that  I am confident that I'll be happy  there. But still. I want to be there right now. I  want to have no thoughts at  all.

I close my eyes,
and dream.
Of being in a romance,
where there is no
fear of a prince
sweeping me off my
feet, mistaking me for
a princess.

Yet, I dream,
of faraway things,
which disappear in a
wisp of smoke
the moment I open
my eyes.

"You are stupid." you may say,
"That is what dreaming is like."

And I know, dreams are
hardly meant to be remembered.

Some snatches might
remain, when you open
your eyes, but they
grow more distant , as
the sunlight and reality
seep back once again
into your brain.

The immediacy of it
is lost.
The reality of dreams,
are altered.

To capture such dreams,
you need to invent such a machine,
that captures altered dreams.

Until then,
I will satisfy myself
with wishes of
love, that demands nothing.
And excitement which
comes from the extra
skip in the beat of
my heart,
when I delude myself
that I like someone.

And call that want
and delusion,
My dream instead.

Hit By Melancholia

This happens to be a very common occurrence. And something which always begs publication into the various social networking sites to gain whatever little legitimacy that it feels entitled to.
It can be set off by anything. A beautiful summer evening in Bangalore ( and the coming of twilight in Bangalore is truly a beautiful thing). Bangalore has beautiful skies. Expansive, and you wouldn't believe the colours if you saw it. The high rise buildings are so far and in between that it never interrupts the sky. When you look into the skies of Calcutta, you don't really look into it. You are interrupted by the trees and  the street lights and the buildings, though they are not really tall, these buildings, but still, the skies of Bangalore seem to dominate. The highway from the city to the airport, where I have been living for the past three years, make the most use of the sky. When you pass the air force base on  an airport Volvo, you are elevated enough to see the parked choppers on the base, beside the hangers, as if neatly laid out for a photo op for an ad. And I would buy everything the ad would want to sell, because the sky makes the scene truly incredible.
 But its the feeling that comes along with it that is making me write this. I am usually alone when I am in the frame of mind to appreciate the skies of Bangalore. And more often than not, I am also in transit. A bus ride from where I lay my head to rest to where I go to drink my guts out is also the narrow gap in time where what I have lost, unnameable and indefinite, and my yearnings, even more unnameable and indistinct, hit me the hardest. And the Bangalore skies play an enormous role in that.
 I look at the sky, and feel the evening, absorb the breeze and the weather, which is Bangalore's biggest blessing, and it reminds me of freedom.
 Freedom that I have, yet which I forget to appreciate. I could be sitting somewhere at eleven thirty at night and drinking and have no one to answer to, but myself. I could be standing and waiting for a bus home at Mekhri Circle at 11.30 pm, and again, I would have no worries of someone waiting for me at home, worried sick. I do not complain about people worrying about me. I appreciate it, and I love them in return for loving me so  much. But I am talking about the feeling I get when I see  no buses other than gigantic Volvo buses leave for destinations such as Hyderabad, Chennai and Mysore. These buses, predictably enough, define infinite possibilities for me then. They are my versions of sailing ships in the night. They have no barriers, and the world is open and limitless to them. I get a feeling that jumping onto one of those buses would bring me as close to being truly unfettered as possible.
 And the night. The night always feel truly timeless in my head. A day is short and the sun runs on a schedule. But the darkness of the night you cannot track across the sky. It remains constant from the time it falls across the sky to the time it has to lift itself to make way for the sun again. Its the seeming endlessness of it is whats so wonderful about it. And there is nothing more beautiful as the night in a city. You can own whole cities then. They are yours to walk, and peruse, and revel in. Time stops then, and the city is suspended along with it. You can pick up bits and pieces and examine them, wonder at it, and then put it back. Nights are really when the city you live in is truly yours.
 Combine all this together, and its a potent mix. But it still lacks the finishing touch: Age.
I was going to the city yesterday, not for any specific purpose, but just because. And the weather heralded spring and possibly summer, not unbearably, but just enough to bring on this kind of melancholia. And I thought of other years that have passed before and the other seasons such as this, and Age made me think of the idiot that I was then. Because I had thought that there was something better waiting for me away from the tea shops, and field we all used to while away our lives then thinking that life hadn't started yet. Then I moved away, came to the city of endless skies, and moved into a different routine of sorts, tasted what could be Life. But I was still reticent to label it as such, because there was still the faint whiff of disappointment that would attach itself to my time here, and i didn't want Life to be anything other than sweet smelling. As I sat on the roof of my PG house and drank with whole new set of friends, feeling the set downs that this new life had wacked my ass with, I still refused to believe that I was living. Then suddenly, three years had passed, and I had lost almost a year in a black hole, from which I have emerged with barely any memory of a sense of self, and I still stubbornly want to hold on to the belief that Life, as I want it, hasn't started yet. But its a losing battle.
 This is it, a nagging suspicion whispers. These endless skies, and the bus journeys, and the knowledge of the friends whom you have nothing to say to, and the changing aspects of life which will never be the same again.  It will just go on and on, while people keep falling off the sides, and no rope will hold them back. The melancholia now isn't really about what I have lost anymore. The melancholy I am now left with is actually about how I have been reduced to not thinking at all, and just mindlessly going from one point of definite joy to other, with having nothing much to say to anyone anymore.

Discovering Inspiration

Sometimes I think that I spend 99 per cent of my life feeling disillusioned or just questioning my true interest in art. This is more like an over all whining which grinds on at the back of my mind behind the heavy curtains of conscious thought.

But there are moments like these, too:

 http://english.bouletcorp.com/2011/03/18/subway/

Go through legions of these, and a stage by stage process takes place. First, I am awed. The sheer awesome power of art, especially something done by hand, knocks the breath out of me. That is the true miracle. Just the joy at looking at lines, and colour, and brush/pencil strokes, and finishes, well, it cannot be described. The genius of it is only to be felt. I admit that I don't find the renaissance stuff as awe inspiring nowadays as illustration done today, possibly because hand done illustration is once again such an oddity, and such a rare thing. 

The second thing that happens, is that I want to do something as cool. write /draw things. Be active. Be creative. I think, "I can do that!" but then, I realize I don't have the originality. Whatever I do, will be aping what I just looked at and loved. And that again knocks the wind out of me once again, but for an entirely different reason.

The third and last stage that follows is that I want to kill myself. For not possessing the genius of the brush strokes, or story telling, or just plain ideas! If I am, at this point, in Bangalore, I send whatever I am looking at to my partner in suicidal tendencies, S. Then we moan. About our uselessness. Our need to be Awesome. And our complete and utter failure at it. And how we just don't have IDEAS. And then get into worse conversation about how we can acquire style, but the genius of having an idea is the main thing, which cannot be. 

And then the circle is completed, and restarted.

The Comic Is Done

At least what seems to be the starting of a story. It was so painful. The writing, and the drawing. I just gave it a days gap (in that I read Patrick Rothfuss's majorly hailed first of a trilogy, The Name of The Wind. More on this later) and when I read it on the site a an hour ago, I cringe. Its incoherent. to say the least. I wouldn't be surprised to find that its been dismissed as rubbish. The art too is nothing to call home about. And the thing is (twenty-twenty hindsight working here) editing would do make it so much better. The dialogues are huge. The language terrible. Its obvious I was trying too hard.  So much was riding on me. Actually still is. But I submitted yesterday and so I feel I've closed that chapter of the project. But something I just read told me that any art that you make, will never be perfect, and Zadie Smith said, I'm paraphrasing here, that if you are an artist or a creator of any sort, be prepared for the misery of constant dissatisfaction. And its true.
Coming off this project, I have been left with a couple of very deep feelings. First, I am relieved. I am relieved to be off someone else's timeline and deadline for a project which had supposedly entirely been my own in theory. The cost of being on someone else's time has been heavy. And the work has suffered. Too much stress. Too much panic. Too much pressure to perform. To be brilliant. From what I could manage to decipher from the horrendous writing in the story, I think some of it subconsciously came out in it through opinions of the protagonist. But its to incomprehensible in its language to be understood.
Second, I need the time and the lack of pressure to go back into a project like this, some space away from the project, in order to see its fault and make it perfect. This seems like a no brainer but a diploma project will only give you maybe an hour away from it. Not an entire day. And even if you do take a day, you are still completely inhabiting the head space you had left. There is no severance in the connection to the work. Hence no perspective. And really, thinking that "Now, I will write." doesn't really produce fantastic things. And that's what happened to me this time. I had always considered my self to be a tolerable writer. But this bullshit that i have produced is possibly the worst I have ever written. Its trite, contrite and I hate it. As of now. Which brings me to my third realization.
 You cannot use the design principle to produce art. Or to write. In the last few years in Srishti, I have been conditioned to the factory mode of production. Supposedly for the greater good, and the need to constantly meet the deadlines I will face if(when?) I go into the professional arena. But it cannot be applied to when you have to write. Or draw for that matter. Yes deadlines are important. But not to the extent that you are settling for bullshit in the place of ideas. You can plan everything as much as you want. Plan an outline. Plan a character. Plan every fucking thing, if it takes your fancy, but none of it will be any good if there is not spark of genuine inspiration behind it. And inspiration acquisition takes time. It needs to be a delicate balance of planning/deadline setting and inspiration. And I did not have the time here.
At the moment, I realize that my head is completely empty. All the plans I had made have slipped by the wayside. All the things I had planned to do once I had this project out of the way, seem to fail to come to mind. All I have done is develop a crack like addiction to books. I think the analogy is appropriate because books and crack are both expensive like hell and basically does the same thing. I think I have bought three books in the last month itself, and I have devoured them in an insane space of time. How much? I finished the first two books that I had ordered off flipkart (I am a flipkart virgin no longer) in a a matter of six or eight hours to the minute I bought them. A total of about four hundred pages. And today I finished Patrick Rothfuss, whose Name of the Wind, is a whopping eight hundred pages long. And I have been reading it since yesterday. I seem to be going through books in a insane rate, and cant stop feeling the urge to keep of buying books. Because I honestly can't read ebooks on the computer comfortably. My eyes hurt. The only failure in reading has been the two books I picked from the garbage- the second book of the millenium trilogy and a book by Malcolm Caldwell. Somehow that I just couldn't read.
 But. Reading the Name of the Wind has been a comfort. Not because of the quality of writing. I honestly havent judged what I am feeling about the book. But I felt happy and comfortable in sitting with a book obsessively knowing that I had absolutely nothing else that needed my attention, or the fact that I was shirking no duty. That freedom was delicious. And I reveled in every little bit of it.
It's a comfort to me that I have some time now. Some time to just be without work. At least formal work. I can make things that I want to, without having to be judged, if I want to. I like the personal-ness I think this time offers me. I can do things which don't have to stand up to any one else's standards but my own. And do it on my own sweet time. Who knows? Maybe its worth doing. Maybe the efforts might be more satisfactory than that of what I produced for the school.
 Anyway. I have gotten into making lists, during the project. And the white walls in my room are dotted with neon colored post its of to-do lists. I think its working for me. So might as well make a list for things I want to do for my leisure as well. I think I just will.
 Also, my fears have been unfounded. People have been calling me from all over to tell me that they have received the mails that I sent them, with the super honest letters and cards. And most seemed to be super overwhelmed. The one person whose reaction I was fearing the most was very positive. So I went and posted another card to B. I hadn't before because the ass had not sent his address on time. But anyway, I feel like quite a pro with the post office now. I can take on the bloody world, as they say.
 On the other hand, I am also feeling the need to have money of my own. I hate having to ask my father for money. And spending his. I want my money, which is my own, to guiltlessly buy books, and do things and not having to shudder at thinking of having to ask for more money to pay rent, while hating wanting to buy another book, because that would also involve asking for more money, because rent would have cleared the house out.  That being said, I cannot really take time to relax too much because earning money requires getting a job. And that means getting back to work, and sprucing up the portfolio and all that running around and another round of stress. I have some serious thinking to do.
 And maybe I could squeeze in a bit of relaxation also.

Predictable Results

Things have happened since I last wrote. Predictable things. I had written that it felt like the days of the final examination before the jury, and it turned out to be exactly that, with results almost identical. I failed. At least in my eyes. I was told, as they were failing me, that getting an extension was not  a failure, but its all rubbish in the end.

At the end of the day, one knows intellectually that success is not having your picture in a book, or your work displayed at a graduation show, or even collecting a certificate. But feelings don't follow these dictates. Feelings will heartily herald your misery when you see people who you were learning with, with some success and some failure and plenty of angst, pass you by, and plan for life ahead, when you are stuck in a purgatory from which your departure seems more unsure than ever. But the pricks say, alright, we fucked your case- now you have precisely one day to lick your wound, and then that's it. You can't moan. You can't grieve for the useless effort you put in, can't complain, can't be anything but cheerful. Just smile and help people on their way, because being miserable and letting everyone know about it is a crime. To besmirch another's trip is a fault which is greater than that of one being obliviously happy and gloating in the face of another's misfortune.

 And so I have lived through this hell, and still living in it, and keeping the proverbial stiff upper lip, and welcoming all the success of others to surround me in all my masochistic glory, deeply burying my complete loneliness and alienation that I feel for the entire human race at this point. I cannot even identify with others who share my current fate. Obviously their plight is less immediate than my own.

 Maybe it is because my definition of an extension defers so vastly from the others. I have always judged the others who have ever received an extension as lesser in some ways. Their work didn't cut up to the mark. And now I am in a position to say that maybe mine didn't either. Yet the effort. The effort that has been put into it and the simple ignorance of the work involved is something i cannot seem to wrap my head around. 

 I need some clarity. Some time away. And I will not have that. My entire life's structure has suddenly changed drastically and I don't have time to ponder that or plan my way through it. I'm just rushing through it like a horse with blinkers on yet who has only managed to chip off half of it so only tantalizing glimpses of the outside is flashing through my optic nerves, yet having no time to comprehend.

 Well I am still inspired, but not with things that I was doing. With something else. I am attempting to write another story, a child's tale. And I hope to make an illustration project of it. But inspiration only comes in short inconsistent bursts and it refuses to stay, or rekindle upon revisiting. But I will keep on going. Because being involved with something other than me or other people will get me through this.

Purge post

Hello,
 This is supposed to be a purge post. Because I can't seem to work. Its horrible. because working at least makes me stop thinking of me. Which is what I don't want to do. I just want to react to things as they come. Maybe it will come as a surprise, but what the hell.
 I need to do something about this self hate thing. Its actually driving me mad. Along with a host of other things.
The Dip is not helping me. I don't have an obsessive distraction. And I need that. I need something which will be so obsess my mind that it will not notice things that freak me out. Like when I am working these days I keep regular hours sometimes, and hence I'm really really clear headed, and I notice things I say and I do. Which is freaky to me. Because it feels unreal, as in I can't believe I am a person. and I am saying these things. I can't believe words are coming out of my mind. I am analyzing everything in my head and my mouth, and basically questioning my existence as a biographical organism. A blank mind, with no addiction or occupation is a horrible thing. A really really terrible thing. Its just making me think that I need to be drunk or doped or just brain fuzzed with less or more than sufficient amount of sleep so that I dont notice extra shit. Yet when I am in the worst cycles of sleep deprivation and bad habits, I think that I really need to get my life back together. But when my mind is finally at its clearest I dont like it at all. I hate it. If this will not drive someone mental I dont know what will.
 And thats not the end of the self hate. I hate how I have handled certain things. I hate that I am that person who has been knowingly callous to this other person and that person is suffering for it, for the only crime of having deep affection and more for me. But I couldn't not do it. Because I hate the person I have seen myself becoming when I am with someone. And its not pretty. It just adds to my self hate. Because I feel like I'm not being myself, whatever that is. The conundrum is that I want to have what other people have. I dont want to feel alone. I dont want to feel like there is no hope for me, that I will never be a person who can feel something so strong for a person that its natural to do things which make me feel sick now. This is a purge post, so I know i am only making sense in my head and to no one else. Its these illusions of things I should want and I should have that has been ingrained into me that makes me so miserable. And its funny because thats the thing the leading philosophies in the world like buddhism teach- that unhappiness comes from wanting something which is not real, at least which is not real and true to the self- I think I'm mangling most of it but still- I guess I wouldn't be this mess if I was a person who never thought that much, who was so immersed in the mundane that they don't know anything else and don't want to either. My greatest want is to be someone else who is normal and mundane with mundane intelligence and mundane everything. And if someone was to tell me that what I am really is mundane and there are millions of others who are the same then I would take it as the greatest of compliments.
 I guess what I keep working towards now is the relative calm in my head. The calm that doesn't talk. The calm that seeps things in. I dont do it now- but I just remember a time I would sit outdoors and look at things around me and just let the outside and the world outside my body and my mind be greater and bigger than anything inside. And I wouldn't think. It wouldn't be about me. I want that calm. I want to consistently be that person who notices things and wonders at things outside, who can be witty with one liners and who didn't introspect about ones own self. This used to generate the most creativity out of me, and I miss that. I could write then. I had opinions and things I wanted to do and did them. It took me out of my self. Now I just feel an inkling of that when I am immersed in a tv show or a movie. Or a book. Nothing too heavy. Photographs and videos of travel zone me in there, to the longing to be somewhere else, living a different life, but not exactly the me I am but someone I could be. Its always the temptation of being something else other than what I am that draws me. I still dream of travelling out of the country, and thats mostly because in my naivette I believe that moving somewhere else, completely different I will be able to be someone else. Intellectually I do know that I can't not be me. But these fantasies keep me going, and its where I am and whats surrounding me, and reinforcing what and who I am is whats slowly making me completely mental.

I hope I can work tomorrow,
bye