It's not the first time. A conservative married woman groans about a back ache. and thinks nothing of saying out loud to me, 'i dont know why. i never had any back problem before marraige. only after marriage it started'. O-ho. I'm thinking - 'Don't tell me you didnt figure out it's the sex.' And no doubt he's putting all his weight on you and asking you to arch your back and shift a bit. And maybe he even does her the favour of slumping at the end of it.

days of performance contemp dance return - starting mayday; notices when we are through - after approx halfayear of megadeth training. but how much more toned can a person get. it isnt fair - but the wings are worth all the sweat.

View from Evening Auto

inside another, old lady budged needlessly but primly in painted toenails below pink sari. the temple of her toes she had made them. deities by basic attention.

A Timeline of Timelines

Don't know how other ppl manage with circles but my lot's to move on whenever I figure there's nothing more to learn from a situation. You reach an age and stage when you'd be foolish to still want to fit in in a context some imaginative circles keep repeating. Private rooms, lounges - if you surveyed, you could count who's trying to prove nothing. Cliches start with the visual. Just be around the people you're comfortable with and don't try and help people fit in - they know how to take care of themselves. Be yourself.
Shine.

Cummera Cummera, burning fright

The culture of being among people, kills individualism. Soon, you talk like the physical people you spend your spare time talking with. (Ofcourse, if you have no worthwhile opinions, it doesnt matter what u do). You don't have a choice most of the time; you have company foisted on you. But even when it is a choice, private people relent too often. It's important to stick to your guns and your personal deadlines and block regular days for self-time. I envy Diogenes.

There's a new open book at your elbows - assuming there no outstanding feature on one page - which page do you look at first? The one on the left or right? I'm verso, subverso! We also thought Archilocus was chilling - I wonder what the contents of his killer crit-writ were. I also think Diogenes' comebacks were onthespot. Comebacks like that arent easy. The timing, relevance and ease of cracker comebacks are something divine.

Pardon the idyllic unethical pre-raph image insertion. Another post on the problem I have with the pre-raphs. But this painting shows Diogenes in the barrell he took to living in. More than that, I think you should read about him. Do you have reputation for being largely contrary and difficult? Diogenes was better.
*Btw - don't miss the Reeth Lectures - Today at 9GMT.

The namesake's no shakes

If it's a sign of things to come, the first model rollout from BMW's Chennai plant, proves the whole project is one big mistake. Unweildy, uninspired, lookwise the 320i is a mirror of the mitsu lancer - who are they kidding? When some companies in their current avatars are on their way down, they tend to demonstrate a remarkable flair for sinking money in misguided projects. The only thing I saw standing out were the run-flat tyres. These tyres have a stiffer sidewall - which allows a fully laden car to be pushed at up to 8okph for 50km even after losing air, 'a boon for lady drivers'. Is that some USP or what? Inspite of it, I saw one of these uninspired machines on the road yesterday. The buyer must be a type.
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Saw The Namesake - but seriously, whats all the noise about? Resoundingly cliched - ofcourse nair would be cramped by the book. But honestly - I've heard and read this kind of thing before. What's with the priveleged immigrant pangs theme anyway? With this theme, its too damn easy to play up the paying up audience. And ofcourse theyre the only ones that matter. please.
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Then there's a very important question: When someones writing for the whole world, what language does he write in? Ans: He is limited by his own knowledge of languages, and will communicate in the language he knows best. He is limited by limits of his knowledge. But he is not limited by what he knows. This gets me to the point I want to make. It's not really language that's the issue, because he would only ever want to write the same thing once; so even if he knew all the world's languages he would have to write in only one because he will write that story only once and most likely that's what he meant. What I want to get at is the use of culture-specific stock words/phrases. Why should I be expected to know what a 'macaca moment' is? What's with all the yiddish a reader's expected to know in the middle of a great article. Shvitizing? Shmuck? What? I'm saying a writer should put limits to their flair for the increasingly fashionable, culturally-loaded stock if they really care about about their farflung fans. There's this article by John Mullen that takes this debate way ahead - inspecting the famed style of the precious Economist and the intentions.

I'm not kidding. In the middle of a bad head state in my morning auto ride, I saw a 'Feel my love' sticker in another auto. Nothing surprising about that I know. What I wondered about was where the driver had the sticker stuck. You know the lever to the left of the autodriver's seat? The one that they yank to start up the engine. There. The 'feel my love' sticker was nicely pasted along the length of it. No mistaking where he thought that sticker was since its creation meant to be stuck. What do you think was his frame-by-frame thought journey from the time he saw the sticker hanging about in the stationry shop, to the time he decided it was meant for the length of his engine's crank? ANyway the effect on me was to stick my head out of my auto to be absolutely sure of the copy and also to make sure when the light went green, he yanked it roughly the same way all other autodrivers do. Well ye so I was confirmed in both things afterwards. My only problem is, the location of the sticker means, most of the time, the autodriver is going to be the only one to feel his own love. in one single yank that too.

Laurie Baker passes away

In the last archi camp I was priveleged to be a part of, Laurie Baker was spoken of in reverence. None of the greenhorned or ossified architects ever succeeded in getting a minute with him. Everyone mentioned COSTFORD (an affordable housing initiative) and stuff. But I was only really convinced of his influence on the odd last visit to Kerala when an otherwise uninspired uncle showed us his new house. All CSEB and the definite imprimatur of COSTFORD (he said as much), exposed brick. Thats when I knew Baker had really done something: made something of a rage of what could be considered ugly anti-style to the regular unimaginative Keralite.


...
"The Man of Tao...Harms no other being/By his actions...He goes his way without relying on others/And does not pride himself on walking alone/ While he does not follow the crowd/He won't complain of those who do..."

I know, I know - after the Walk alone post, I should be the last person to quote this quote. But I'm on a journey and my opinions evolving by the moment. I never forgot the lecture on mob spirit in school. It would be a running experience. So it was pretty this little saying by Chuang Tzu. And here are some more:

No drives, no compulsions, no needs, no attractions: Then your affairs are under control. You are a free man. (19:12, pp. 166-167)

The man of Tao remains unknown. Perfect virtue produces nothing. "No-Self" is "True-Self". And the greatest man is Nobody. (17:3, pp. 137-138)