Friday, November 26, 2004

Another Proxy

Work piled all the way up to the stratosphere. Here's another transcription pretending to be a post. From years ago.



I came to your city
And you met me at that ungodly hour,
Wide-eyed and unsleepy.

You gave me your cactus to hold
Soft solky bristles small green in brown earth
Translucent blue pot
While you drove across town to give it to someone.
You took me home to your little room in a corner tucked away
Under roof, windows open on green and sunlight
Reminds me of home
And shared with me your city, your people, your smile.

And if only for half a day
I want to thank you for your cactus
Your little room
Your sudden smile.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Journey: 25th September, '99

This is something I wrote several years ago. On a train, travelling 3-tier sleeper to Bangalore, in search for a job and a life. Snowed in by work, so I figure this'll do for a while.

Here I am, stuck in this hell-train
Speeding towards my search for a new life.
And here are three cranky children in the same compartment as I,
Dropping coconut water on my clothes
And
Wiping their snot on Railways property.

I seek refuge in an upper bearth
Away
From their reach, but
Not their clamour.

Doze the hot afternoon away.

And now, as I peer down and out of someone's window, I cannot make out
whether
the coolness
on the platform we have stopped at is the shadow
Of rain-laden certainty of things to come

Or just any casual evening.

Friday, November 05, 2004

What Lies Waiting in Dank, Dark Corners...

Remember my earlier post about the wonders of cleaning?

Well, while cleaning out office space today, in order to move upstairs, I've stumbled upon this hoard of music that I never even knew I had. I mean, I know I had some music downloaded over long hours at the computer centre on campus, and ripped off other campus servers, but not this much. A couple of good CDs seems to have generated 5 more - all of them with great rock!

Nothing accompanies cleaning better than some Springsteen (Dancing in the Dark), Beatles (Strawberry Fields, for crying out loud) and Dylan (Everybody Must Get Stoned - a sentiment I heartily agree with!).

There's a learning to this. Henceforth, all my CDs will be stored in dark drawers and corners of cupboards. I'll never have to buy music again. Hurrah!

More later, from an altogether nicer office with natural light and a view of the sea - and great music!


PS: Coming up: Savage Garden, Cat Stevens, Dire Straits, Edie Brickell. Life couldn't get much better. Despite the blocked and runny nose. Smile. It's a glorious day!

Thursday, November 04, 2004

Running Nose Blues

Never suffered from dust allergy before. But I blame dust for the all-pervading feeling of being unwell creeping through my bones today.

Here's how: I'm moving up the corporate ladder. Rather, staircase. Literally. Moving office 4 floors up, and as a result, have to go through and throw out much of the junk I've accumulated here over the past year and a half. Most of my colleagues shifted yesterday, and I thought perhaps I should make a move on the cleaning too... so started opening old storage spaces that haven't seen daylight in quite a while. To discover rich piles of junk. And rich piles of dust that jumped at the opportunity to swirl around and enter my nasal cavities.

5 hours of that, combined with the sudden burst of rain to which I was treated yesterday (all unawares and un-umbrella'ed), and (cheer-leader style) WHAT DO YOU GET? Phlegm. SAY IT AGAIN. PHLEGM. LOUDER. PHLEGM... And so on...

Speaking of school cheer leading, an old school chant comes to mind:
"I don't know but it's been said
All the others have heads of lead."

Well, sure as hell feels like I have a head of lead today. In fact, feels as though a heavy ball of lead just dropped into my skull from somewhere, and then some helpful person filled the remaining space in my cranial cavity with cement - which has, since, been pouring copiously out of my nose. Forcing me to complete my travails around office accompanied by a large and obtrusive roll of tissue paper.

Which completely justifies 3 things.
1. Copious quantities of steaming, hot coffee consumed throughout the day.
2. Loud music at work
3. And no intelligent posts for a while.

And before I leave, here's the question for the day. Ever heard the term, "Feed a cold, but starve a fever"? Well, what if one has both? What if I get fever tonight? Should I starve or feast?

And just in case you write in saying I should starve, I'm leaving early, to medicate myself with hot food at home.