IN A DEAD MOTH'S MEMORY



THIS MOTH CAME HOME ONCE. BY THE TIME IT CAME, I GUESS IT ALREADY WAS VERY WOUNDED BECAUSE IT COULDN'T FLY VERY WELL AND MADE A CONVENIENT PHOTOGRAPH...WHICH REMINDS ME..I DIDN'T TAKE THIS PIC. MY BROTHER ARUN DID. I SWITCHED OFF THE LIGHT AND OPENED THE WINDOWS HOPING IT WOULD GO OUT FREE. I THINK IT WASN'T WELL ENOUGH TO GO OUT EVEN IF IT ACTUALLY MANAGED TO SEE AND UNDERSTAND THE PROMISE OF FREE AIR. STAYED THERE ALL NIGHT. BY MORNING I FOUND IT THIS WAY.





I TOOK THE ABOVE PIC. THAT WAS THE WAY I FOUND IT IN THE MORNING AS SOON AS I WOKE UP. RIGHT UNDER THE TUBE LIGHT NEAR MY DRESSING TABLE. I DON'T KNOW WHY I DID IT BUT I STUCK THE DEAD MOTH ON A VASE I MADE... IT HURT MY BROTHER SO..AS SOON AS SHE NOTICED IT, IT MADE MUMMY TOO TAKE A SAD EXPRESSION. I DIDN'T FEEL CRUEL. I THINK IT WAS JUST SOME KIND OF ATTACHMENT THAT MADE ME STICK IT THERE AND THE SAME ATTACHMENT THAT'S MAKING ME POST IT. WHEN I REASON THINGS OUT, A DEAD MOTH IS A DEAD MOTH. NO MORE. BUT OUR MINDS HAVE TRICKY WAYS OF DENYING REASON WHENEVER AND HOWEVER THEY WANT TO. REASON CANNOT HOLD THE SADNESS IN DEATH. AND YEA, IT'S BEEN LONG SINCE I REMOVED IT FROM THE VASE AND THREW IT IN THE DUST-BIN. I SAT BEFORE THE BIN FOR 2 MINUTES JUST LOOKING AT IT AND THEN IT WAS OVER BUT NOT AS COMPLETELY OVER AS I THOUGHT IT WAS.

English exam

( I wrote this as soon as i came home after writing my 2nd year English exam meaning to post it, I didn't but now i am. Better late than never I guess )

ENGLISH EXAM

There were all these poems of Shelley and Keats and Tennyson and short stories of Tagore and Dickens and Spender it was a treat preparing for the exam.

So somehow after a quick last minute prep. i reached the exam hall. Since it was the first exam and all, i went pretty early to the hall. I sat there opened my books, closed them, revised, again opened,again closed, paced this way and that way. Finally i kept my books away, closed my eyes, put my head on the knees, shut my ears and did a breathing routine. Then i brought my head up and suddenly my eyes fell upon this girl (of an average height, conventionally speaking normal looks, long hair with lots of flowers) who kept on looking at the gate as if waiting for someone, just as i saw this, Turutu ruttutu...hero entered...what hero carrying?..her hall-ticket...who hero? ....her husband...newly wed i guess...she..looked looked..he looked looked...slow-motion.. she went went...he came came...not taking eyes off each other... she slow slow fluttered her lashes..he slow slow smiled..she totally leaning on him...he..looking lost lost...eyes dreamy dreamy..screaming love both of them...prelude to a kiss that didn't happen...he suddenly gave her the hall ticket which she took and opened her book and started preparing. It was then that i remembered that i was supposed to be tensely waiting for the exam to start. I once again recollected the names of all the authors and stuff. Received my 'All the best', calls, which I'm pretty senti. senti. about. breathed in and out. Checked the list they were pinning up for my hall number ( It was 3, i like the number 3. so i considered it a good sign, b.t.w. i condemn signs and crap all the time, but when it comes to exams, mmhmm..everything affects me.) and went into the hall. I checked my hall-ticket,sat in the place i was allotted (which b.t.w. is a tiny wooden chair) in a well-lit room and checked my watch( the watch belongs to my grandfather, another sentiment). The exam still had five mins to begin...two feet away from me, there was this guy with sparkling eyes, curly hair, a few pounds over-weight, he looked at me and smiled, being polite i smiled back, he asked me " baa prepare ayyava?" (did you prepare well?) I was like " parledu" ( not bad). He just bluntly asked me " exam lo chupistava?" (will you help me through the exam), i said no, he said selfish, i said thankyou, he said " nenu ee exam lo pass avvadam nee kistam leda?" ayya baboi emanna senti. na. I wasn't responding, so he just continued like...ee exam lo fail aite na life waste avtundi, enduku chupinchavu, nuvvu chala selfish, etc.etc. Because i still wasn't responding, he paused for a moment and used the philosophical and logical side of his mind and told me " knowledge is meant for sharing, enta panchite anta perugutundi" Ay baboi! vadi teliviki tattukoleka li8 teeskunna, intalo exam start ayyindi. Adento na kharma, na qs. paper kasta egiri vadi daggara padindi...nenu teeskune lope he picked it up and wouldn't give me..one-side he pulling pulling, one-side me pulling-pulling fully tensed, what if someone sees and thinks im helping him copy, what if this leads to insufficient time, etc. etc. the guy just won't leave the paper, he was asking me "please, please, idioms okkati cheppava, pls pls" baboi, chivariki elagola teeseskuni, malli atu chudakunda exam raasesanu.Just as i gave aways the paper and was coming out, he started targetting the invigilators now, they were of my age, and he was like. im older than you, you have to listen to elders, tell me this one thing, the exam time was over and he just refused to give the paper, he wasn’t even writing! just resting his elbow on the paper with the pen in his mouth and thinking. Anyway, i wrote well, wrote everything and just came out all jumping and silently screaming " flying colours" cmon yaar, it was english, I’m from cbse, it'll obviously be easy and there was this aunty who was loudly crying crying over the shoulder of another aunty. so loudly, as if the world came to an end, and i, the insensitive moron stood 3 feet away, called everyone and jumped up and down screaming i did my exam well over the phone soo.. loudly, i probably didn’t even need the phone. They stopped for a second and looked at me like i was some assassin fresh from a murder dripping with blood..ok. maybe not that much, but seriously, real bad looks...i shut my mouth and went out, dad came to pick me up, we went home, i was happy, so i bought a chocolate fantasy pastry for bro. and some cutlet ragda for me and went home, started telling my bro. all that i told you in almost the exact some words. Except, they were completely in telugu.

Now, the moral of the day, the point i want to tell you through this ordinary musing is, life's a comedy when the exam goes well, a tragedy if it doesn't.

U.S.S.R books for children


I thought i'd write something different, something other than books...but i can't think of anything else...so here i am, digging books again.

U.S.S.R. or the former United Russia was on friendly terms with India before i was born. My mother told me it helped India a lot financially and etc. etc. I don't know. What I know is that it left in India amazing literature. I don't think any country in the world ever produced such books.
We have small collections of translated short stories for kids at home and they're the best i've read.

I like Enid Blyton and english kids books, but these short stories speak more in a word than a complete english story put together,no offense meant. They helped me imagine. They bring out complex emotions in kids in a simple way that kids understand it and yet adults too enjoy them. They are timeless ageless classics with heavy depths that allow a child to ponder...

Bhayam leni Veetya is the telugu title, I could call it Fearless Vitya. I'll translate a few more in english. They go like..the singing feather, lazybones and the sun, Why did volya cry?, Lotus or a wolf, Forever poplar tree, what is the most beautiful of all ?,Masha's pillow, ...so on and so forth.

Every story, Each and Every story comes with a beautiful illustration in waters or oils. I learnt how to draw imagining i'd draw like that one day. A better mind now tells me, it's not possible.

They were my first books..and now i see them full of ticks in red pen, correction marks, crap designs i drew on them and it hurts. You see, my mother works in a bank and during my kindergarten years and my first and second standard, we had half days off on saturdays, mummy couldn't make it home. So she used to leave a cot (navvaru mancham) , water, lunch and these books. I read them, re-read them, revised them, reviewed them, re-re-re....them for countless times. I grew up alone but i was never alone with these books. The animals in there were my companions, the kids my friends. My mother tried telling me the elephant in a maroon skirt that sat in my bench on school was not real, it just never worked. And it still doesn't. I saw it and i remember it clearer than any student, teacher or a subject. Mora came in the Russian skirt.

A book is magic, if you read it the way i do, you'll never want to come back to reality. And if you ever got books like i have, you'd know how to read like me. For all the Russian authors, i never knew, thankyou. For all the short story writers, children's writer's out there, Thankyou a million.
As a kid i never knew how to express it. But now, i have a blog. And i'd like to say through this one, never stop writing. Go on and on and on.. about animals, plants, children, people, love, yourself, the kites, the ring, bird, porn, poetry, philosophy, economics, something, anything. Just don't stop. It makes more difference than anyone can percieve at the moment. Every word is an idea of a wonderful coincidence called man. It is his mind. His voice. Beautiful.
Bye.

The old man and the sea

[ I'm not writing a book review, you might as well open the Wikipedia and check it out if you're interested. it's an incomparably wonderful book ]

Ernest Hemingway's


The old man and the sea...


I have a wallpaper i downloaded from the internet that says,"you know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel as if you lost a friend".
When i turned the last page i didn't feel like i lost my friend. I felt lost. I wished ,I so wished i was there in that book to appreciate the old man, praise him for the fight. Praise the dead fish for the fight. Praise the little boy for this affection.

As the brave fish edged closer to destruction, it wasn't just the fish anymore, it was a part of the spirit i adored that met with it's fate. But no, i didn't pray for the sharks to go away, i didn't want the fight to end. I wanted him to fight for his fish and he fought more than all quotes on hope ever taught me.

They say there's Christian symbolism in that book. I don't know. I didn't see it. I didn't see anything but what he showed, as in a motion picture and i saw every wave and tide in all their glorious description. And Hemingway described it so well, so very very well, that the actual world and the environment subsided into a dull knowledge at the back of my mind and Hemingway's world turned out into 'the happening world'. When i put it down, believe me. I felt torn. It was like I didn't belong here anymore. Whether as the fisherman or the fish, i didn't want to leave the sea. Blue-green sea, sunrise and sunset, fish, moss, and sky, it was a living entity.

It was love. For all the beauty, the cruelty, the tempers, the depths, the living that live in and the living that live on the sea... And though I know i didn't see it, if someone reminded me of the same thing, I'd break crying anytime. And yes, the book has a sweet ending. But there's nothing sweet in knowing the sea has come to end, tragic or sweet. I cried like hell has frozen over. It broke my heart. Like nothing else. All those personal defeats i cried for seem so small in comparison to this.

A masterpiece. I'd guarantee it. But it's a must that you read it at one go.

Note:I wish i used superlatives freely for what they mean. But sadly, we've been using them for every little thing (a pretty pen or a new dress) that using the same words for something as brilliant would be a shame. I hope you understand the kind of book it is.

CONSISTENCY

The other day my brother was talking to me about being consistent, so i decided i'd start being so. I'll post one post a day for everyday...for let's say, 1 month. It's April 13th ryt, so till may 13th, it will be.

I hope i follow it up.

HER MEMORIES-MY WISHES



My grand-mother started talking to me, yea, she always talks to me about things like food, neatness and so on, but today she told me about herself, her birth, childhood,

about her father, mother, the village, different people there and so on it went on.
Ammamma was born on__/__/____?? i don't know, apparently she deosn't know too. Her parents got married at the age of 10 and 25. yeah, her mum was 10yrs. old

when she was married to him. After a long wait, lots of prayers and pujas, they had a girl child who lived for 5 years and broke their hearts, her parents, her father
especially went deeper into spirituality and muths, mother into religion and prayers. Then they had another child, who lived. At the age of 2months, the parents took the child along, on their travel to Kasi, from Eluru, when she was three months old, they met a sadhu on a boat in Kasi, who took the child, dipped her thrice in water, cleaned her forehead, streched her arms and legs and named her, Kasi Annapurna Devi. The name couldn't have been more apt, because my grandmother never sent away a man hungry maybe completely stuffed and unbearably full but never hungry, she cooks and has been cooking since she was seven. She's Seventy exact now, and she still wakes up earlier than anyone in the house, bathes and cooks, watches the ayurveda programme, notes down every important point he says in clear, legible telugu, with dexterity better than i could ever manage. Now, the bond between ammamma and me is a long and strong thing which is pretty difficult to sum up. But going on with today, her father, whose name, i forgot to ask, and mother whose name i also forgot to ask returned home in three months, i.e. she's five months old. Within a year they went on another yatra, when she almost got lost, but well, they came home once again. She had 4 siblings, all 5 are dual named.

She had to write her 10th exams at a place a little farther from home so she stayed at her aunt's and took the exams. They had Seematummakai trees lined up along their yard. The trees were long and strong and bore plenty of fruits, since it was summer, it was practically weighed down with them, kids and teenages used to pick the using thick long sticks and eat them, by the time her exams were over my grandmother had been able to collect almost a bundle of its seeds. She went home and gave it to her father, who, at the begining of the rainy season that year, called her to the farm, ploughed the land all along the horizon of acres of fields and made her plant the seeds in them, a landless labourer followed her up by covering them. By the end of that summer they grew into strong plants and in a few years, they grew up into trees strong and independent. Ammamma reecollected the joy she had felt as a child while watching them grow and attain life. She says nothing produced naturally is ever a waste, if we are throwing away something, it only means we are incapable of using it not that the thing is incapable of being used. I don't know how far and deep the moral went, but i loved the imagination of ammamma as a child, bending over the borders of green and brown fields planting seeds in the earth, guided by her father.

I wish, i had moments like that, well, dad is there, a loving dad too, but not nature, not fields or trees or sweet smelling breeze. It feels pretty pathetic to know i stay in a blocked apartment in a crowded city where every breath adds just a little more poison to my system. This way, i'll live, i know, and life-expectancy rates of Indian women has increased to 64 years from 61yrs, previously recorded, i know, but its not about survival, it's about life. Life like my grandmother's father or like her likes or atleast like the weeds they removed, where another breath of life doesnt end up costing me two times the measure. Where the sun-rises over horizons instead of buildings, where i can roam over naked earth in naked feet and a singing heart to the rhythm of the wind freely floating by and when having had enough of it, retire home to warmth and windows to gaze out at dark, jet black skies, sprinkled with endless numbers of stars and a thoughtful book and warm bed. Isn't it like, like, life ? I want to live you know, and live to be 116.__ years old, and live, with life as life and not as survival. Strong, long, healthy, and die in a deep sleep, undisturbed.

Hahha. Where was i ?? yes,

Now, my grandmother's father's a real real impressive person. Real Impressive not just as my grandmother's father but also as a responsible, strong and kind human.

Now i bear evidence for every word - responsible, strong and kind. And the evidence might take a long time to present, so ill do that next time and end this here,

incomplete, as usual.

With any hope, i might follow this up.

Yushka.

Reading Blogs

Im new to blogging…and I picked up a real bad time to start it. I have finals in a month and am completely unprepared to face them.

Talking about blogging…I haven’t seen many blogs, but the few I saw were so good they made up for the time I lost in prep.

Now I’m almost afraid of looking at another blog because I want mine to be like theirs..not about how impressive but how warm and simple their blogs were. When I was reading a few of them, it was like, I could see what they saw, feel what they did and in the end, I could only be grateful to them for taking the effort to post such valuable information.

Each blog had a different touch, (because it maybe rude to name and dissect them..i wont post the names of the blogs) there was this blog with ink and pen and watercolour cartoons, i saw how people around the world are pursuing passions. Where I stay, we are so tuned to studying , finding a job and settling in life..that every slight variation looks like an inspiration to pursue something different, something new.

There was also this blog talking about travelling around the world..he says, “never say no”. I couldn’t have agreed more. I wish I can face things like him, unafraid, eager to experience and have a readiness of acceptance of every experience like it was precious. I want to be able to look back, see and accept the cons of life like the piece of a puzzle, each part however different is essential in creating the whole picture. By the time I finished reading his first post..i was already regretting about my little and negligible travel experience. I wish I can pursue ideas with his conviction.

There’s more to his blog…the way he explained things, everything was so detailed and simple.

He seldom used words like awesome, marvelous, fantastic, cool , brilliant, wonderful….which made his blog seem convincing and honest. I’m impressed. But don’t expect that from me. I’ll continue being easily awed.

I saw another blog which was also very simple…it talked about daily routines...with an unaffected air.

There was also this blog where a girl was doing 365 nail designs or painting or whatever they are called, each for each day of the year. What patience. She not only paints…but posts on how she painted, what inspired her to paint that particular design with pictures on the blog. Either she has endless patience, endless time or is endlessly dedicated to nail art. Then suddenly the nails I just keep biting away acquired a new importance.

In the end, I’d like to tell u about my best friend’s blog. To be honest, she was lazier than me…she posted 3 posts in 2 years..but one of the post started somewhere and just got deviated to me..and how valuable friendship is and all and went on that way till the end of the post. I thought it was silly of her to mix-up different emotions and write things that would make her seem like a conventional muddle head. But it made me so happy to be remembered, so cherished to have her and I loved the blog…I don’t know how many times I’ve visited it, I keep going back just once, once again.

And my title known strangers is so because when I read the blogs I was able to frame images of them if not accurate, at least interesting.

And yea...Thank you every blogger not for reading this, but for having a blog I can read.

Thank you again and again till a millionth time for giving me such a dynamic reading experience no book has ever presented.

Ill keep visiting and posting till I grow tired of blogs and eventually, as an additional benefit I might just learn to do that well. Though I couldn’t care less about the quality of my performance or writing..i’m more concerned with being myself and not getting lost in expected standards and expected formats…we face so many of them everyday that the little chance we get to be heard regardless of the impressions we create on others become very important foundations of holding our distinct self…anyway, before I get anymore carried away. Bye.

Fundamental rights

"Is a right something that must be provided for or something that is simply not taken away ?"
-Amartya Sen

The Fundamental Rights are defined as basic human freedoms which every Indian citizen has the right to enjoy for a proper and harmonious development of personality. But are we actually having them or are they just theoretical fundamental rules to prevent further arguments against basic human necessities ? What use are the rights put to without being provided the necessary amenities to utilize them?
1. We have a Right to equality, we all know that. Most of us must've studied in out 5th or 6th grade that all are equal in the eyes of law, is that enough?


MY LOST SISTERS

I took this pledge that states that India is my country, all Indians are my brothers and sisters… 10 months a year for 12 consecutive years of education. I don’t know about brothers but by this time you would’ve understood what I am beginning to say. It’s about the millions of sisters of India and the world that I’ve lost.
Just between 1986 and 2001 because of foetal sex determination done by unethical medical professionals 5 million girls have been eliminated. Sadly enough it’s only increasing day by day. Did the child have a right to live…sure it did. Our constitution guaranteed it. Did it get the right? Do you think it could’ve walked to the court and got it’s right back?
My mum wakes up before sunrise and starts cooking then she finishes the other household chores like dusting the house( thankfully we have a maid to assist her in cleaning the dishes, sweeping and mopping the house, washing clothes which by the way she used to do it herself before i was born) and then she goes to office works the day off comes back and cooks again. How cool!? Aren't the female population of India gifted to have such understanding men who allow the women to attend offices?
I’m bone-tired of feeling sorry for the women suffering from their own ignorance, from domestic violence, dowries, cruel, ungrateful treatment, unaccounted household services and so on and so forth and so much more forth. My deepest condolences to the broken spirits and lost lives. And it’s time we felt angry instead of being sorry, high-time we intervened and took what belongs to us and help others realize their capabilities too.
For all that freedom, pursuit of happiness, liberty and equality we have been given but never provided for, those fundamental rights of Indian constitution that stare at us for help while the social realities rebuke them and all that mind that went into drain while making them because its team mate known as implementation stood as a failure through time…my deepest sigh.

“The one thing that doesnot abide by majority is a person’s conscience” –Atticus Finch.

We mustn’t get too used to ignoring and accepting mistakes thinking we’re not wronged or that we’re wronged just a little… we live in a society that moves in unpredictable circles. Unless we stand up for what we believe in noone else is going to stand up for us.