Nice day at the Box Office

(Alert! Due to the insane hours in which this post has been written, it might contain many typos, non-sequitors, broken clauses and suchlike. I know this, but have no time or inclination to correct it. Please to excuse.)

Sorry, couldn't resist. ;-)

Anyway, as a dedication to QT, I'll commence this roundup of my day, (a very unusual post by my standards, but banal by blogosphere's) from the very end - and continue a-chronologically. If that is the right word that is.

Anyway, finished the day at 11:30 at ESquare after a wonderful couple something hours of watching "Manorama - 6 Feet Under", all thanks to the tip from this man. Kailash Kher song accompanying the credits was really nice - need to find out more. Still, whatever people do - no one stays for the credits! Not even supposedly trivially inclined quizzing friends. One of the few Miss India contests that I have seen - I remember Gul Panag's most vividly. I was appalled at her lack of sense even then - (remember the inane comment she made at the next Filmfares about how Preity Zinta and she were somehow divinely connected due to the quite prominent dimples?) I'd never thought she'd get somewhere in life. At least not to a place where I'd be seeing her. Anyway, here I am - a person who choosed very carefully what movies he watched in a theatre, and she's played a major roles in two of those. Dor and of course, Manorama. Hmm.. interesting to see how this story ends.

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Had an unusually hurried trip to the British Council Library. Returned all the DVDs, not having seen, the somehow conjunctionally challenged Romeo + Juliet starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Decided not to fill up my quota of 8 items with stupid DVDs, some of which will just contribute to my late-fee list - and picked up just books. Fewer, which I could hope to finish in a month. So here I am sitting with The Rupa Book of Ruskin Bond's Himalayan Tales,(I quite liked his other collection of Nature stories.) Ian McEwan's Saturday (again, was very impressed by Amsterdam, and he's been shortlisted again for the Booker's this year.) Graham Greene's "The Third Man" & "Loser Takes It All" (never read Greene before, shame on me!) and the prized-possession of today's raid "Notes from a Small Island" by Bill Bryson. The story of how I got the last one is quite interesting. I was standing at the counter checking my books out, when I noticed a teenagish girl with a bunch of books. The Bryson of course did not escape the eye, and I promptly and without inhibition (and you'll know how unusual this is for someone like me) asked hee if I could have it, if she's done with it. She did - and here I am, about to commence my third Bryson book, with "The Life and Times of the Thunderbird Kid" promised in the near future. Brilliant!

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Apart from that, I'm about to finish the quizically famous "Murders in the Rue Morgue" . This book of short storied by Poe, (with the rather intriguing cover catch-line "horror now has a name") has left me quite amazed. I've never grappled with a book, as I have done with this one. I must admit, that I haven't experienced real horror via literature, and I don't think Poe is the man to do it. From what friends tell me, this guy is what I need. Still, his writing is archaic, sometimes pompous - almost always incisive and rich. It's very very different - and I feel enriched as a reader, by a book for the first time in many reads.

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Now faithful reader, I must take your leave. For the night is long past it's youth, and the middle-age symptoms are about to hit. Till next time, cheerio!

In the water of the clear fountain ...

In the water of the clear fountain
She was bathing - with nothing on
A gust of wind, rain from the mountain
Showed us all, as she was born.

Damsel in distress, she made a sign,
Asked me to go and seek,
Leaves of rose, tulips divine
Before someone could get a peek.

With a few petals of a little rose,
I covered her up to the cuff
But the beauty was so very small
That a single rose was enough.

With the branches of a little vine
I made her a pretty skirt buff,
But the beauty was so very small
That a single branch was enough.

She clasped me with her arms so tight
Thanking me for the clothes so crude,
I took her with such manly might
That she was soon again in the nude.

The game must've pleased the maker,
Because at that fountain again,
She would have a bath - often
Praying - please let it rain!
Let it rain!

R.I.P

and thank you.

Has anyone noticed this?

We have 3 world cups going on at one time. I guess the biggest of them must be the Rugby World Cup in France, but in India it's the Twenty20 WC(crap!) that's bagging all the headlines - and in China it's the Women's Football World Cup.

Unique, or what?

My Solitude

FLASH : I've gone and done something radical. This song - sung, (by me in whatever voice) is now available on YouTube. I know I'll regret this one day. ;)

After having spent so much time
With my solitude
I know now, that she's mine
Like a lover wooed
She never leaves me alone
Loyal - like a brood.
She's outside and at home.
Like a shadow would.

No, I'm never alone
When I'm with my solitude.

When she sleeps with me at night
She takes up all the space
We spend hours by the light
Staring - face to face
I don't know till when
I'll run, this lonely race
Should I just say amen
Or mend, her wretched ways?

No, I'm never alone
When I'm with my solitude.

Thanks to her, now I know
That tears have been sprayed
When I fight her back somehow,
Never, is she afraid
And if I prefer the love
Of another chambermaid
She'll still be standing above
Standing, my last crusade.

No, I'm never alone
When I'm with my solitude.

(Being a translation(with liberties) of "Ma Solitude" by Georges Moustaki. Note that it is a song to be sung, and not a poem to be recited.)

Being a tribute to George Brassens

I heard him play,
I heard him say -
All those words -
All those chords.
But it's the song he sings that enchants me.

Umbrellas and women, lost in the rain,
Little boats - losing their way
And bigger battles of heartless pain.
And the swinging evening on the quay.

Gorillas that sodomize grown men,
Girls that don't come home
Uncles lost in a lion's den
And a meeting of two children grown.

He's sung it all - written it all
Straining from June to May.
He sleeps quietly with all wherewithal
But he lives, to this jolly day.

He sings - through electronic means
And through little boy-birds.
I sit here enrapt, speechless.
Speaking only through my words.

He enrages, stupifies, offends.
What if he lived! I'd smack his face.
Then kiss him - but alas he mends,
His ways - and vanishes without trace.

Leaving behind that hateful smirk
Like the Cheshire cat - in form.
And of course, those haunting songs
Springing now - from the lips of a new born.