Malvika’s Ramblings

Like I was landing somewhere but I am still in the air. I have been told I have my feet on the ground but I don’t feel like I do.

It suxx. I want to get out of this. I so want to be real. So want things to matter. I so want to feel like impact of things, to be affected, to react.

You have given me many phone numbers. Apparently, I cannot make international calls directly from home. I will figure out what is to be done to call u up. Meanwhile, if its possible and not too expensive, call me up at 91 172 4******.

91 is india code

172 is chandigarh code

4****** is home phone number.

It is cold in India. If I see a shadow moving from the ceiling to the floor, from the corner of my eye, it feels like reality falling - a chunk of it dropping, unable to be held up by the power of pure illusion. Such rubbish, such silly thoughts. Phew..

I am meeting people and trying to walk in crowded areas to get back into reality; But I don’t feel it if my shoulders rub with other people’s. I don’t know what background noise of waiter-customer relationships, driver-pedestrian relationships is going on. People stare so much. I look back since I have forgotten what I generally did and what was the expected thing to do - avert gaze? look suitably irritated? react with feminine submission? draw lines? ask him what’s the problem? look back with both of us peeping into each other through the eyes? But I don’t even want to see other people. I don’t want them to stare at me. If they do.. so.. Let me leave it here. My head is getting messed up. I cant even connect to the starer as his thoughts do not match mine at alllllll…intelligence doesn’t match, secret social objectives do not match, definitions do not match, we are not coming from the same place or going to the same place and when our paths intersect I, at least, do not know what to make of it. He doesn’t know I am so far out in my head. He thinks I know his code and will think and react similarly. But I don’t even know what this is. I am just trying to keep to the left of the road. Renzooooooooooo.. I am sure I will be fine soon. Returning to India is a culture shock. lol. And as I say this, I can hear the reaction I would elicit - ‘So you have become all Canadian and shit, huh? Forgotten your country?’ In Canada I went around with the feeling that I don’t even have to belong as I have a country back home, the strange customs and mindset of which I fit in. Now I am so individual and so single. And I am splitting. My mind and body are not all that together since you made the body such an extra. Tallness, shortness, fatness, stockiness, boniness - all became just descriptive words of a state. In my prolonged reverie, I lost sense of good and bad and just saw stuff in its essence. Phew…. waiting to snap out of this. Waiting. Waiting. Its not bad but..its not very real. And real is ok.. less noisy.

A little time in Toronto and I forgot everything, all social training, all perspectives, everything and i am left with just me who likes to cycle and curl up in warm spots.

Time difference -

1:30 AM Saturday in Toronto (early morning hours) is 12 noon on Saturday in India

I hope you are having a good time with your family, with Macarenita

te queiro

besos

.

Back to India.

Everyone stares.

I can feel all the stares from the corner of my eye. Not all are looks of lechers. Some are just mute blank stares. They seem to be supported by no thought. Why do they stare at me?
Because I am tall?
Because I didnt care to brush my hair?
Because I walk with no shield, no insecurity?
Because I walk with my chin up?

I had learnt, like very Indian girl, to completely ignore the fact that I have lateral vision. But I wasn’t trained well enough at all. A stint in Canada, a brief one, and back in India, I can notice the irregularities. Its transparent. And unusual.
Anyway, the fact that you referred to Nietzsche made me pick up a book of his - Beyond Good and Evil, from the book case. (more…)

Something I read once and wrote down somewhere. I just came across it unknowingly.

‘I am in a chaos of principles - groping in the dark, acting by instinct and not after example. Eight or nine years ago when I came here first, I had a neat stock of fixed opinions, but they dropped away one by one; and the further I get the less sure I am. I doubt if I have anything more for my present rule of life than following inclinations which do me and nobody else any harm, and actually give pleasure to those I love best.’

- Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy

New friend - Renzo

When he told me the name, I asked him ” Rento”?
I was all for respecting the name, respecting another culture and etymology; although it did sound like Italian Rent.

But no, the name was RenZo.
He is a Canadian, originally from Peru. Spending time with him means watching fantastic movies, which one may never get hold of otherwise. Through sheer ingenuity he has created a surround sound space, the difference of which can be felt immediately.

He explains his culture, the influences etc..using a large world map and Peru tv from the internet. He explains sea-surfing by standing on his snowboard and manipulating it.

His place has these things lying around which are pure marvellouciousness; like a big upturned boat in the snowy garden and a foosball table behind his two well -used cycles.

And then he says to me -
Sorry for ths place, its small and messed up.

And i am like..DUHHHHHHH
I dont like assuring people, saying `No no no! Your place is fine`.
So, I dont respond
but I feel the duh.

And then I make tea which is dark and bitter and i am really surprised that he likes it, and suspicious that he is just drinking it out of politeness

We sit and watch a bone-chilling movie
My feet are up front, one over the other.
We both are lookin at the screen
and he says “Hey, you hav beautiful feet!“
And i am like..
err..okkk
umm..thx.

His English is not the best. He wants to say that among women, I am tall and he says to me `You are too tall to be a woman.“ Great.

I explain the joke in the sentence to him but we are caught between a subtle joke and Renzo on the brink of apology, and him not getting the joke, and me just trying to shift the whole thing to `Don’t you see how funny it is in concept’ till we wisely change the topic. One of my dislikes, and I categorically say so, is explaining jokes to a person who is familiar with another language. It happened once earlier, with Cedric, a Frenchman.

The world had been put together in a hurry. Curtains and circuits. Planks and pipes. Disorganised and functional. A Mega-event was coming up and I was one of the main organisers. Everything was a mess. Posters had to painted and put up and Jenny and Malu were not being much of a help. They were just giggling around. Finally I tore up the To-Do list and gave up on that bit of the job and went off to the next area where I drew the curtain and turned a knob to turn on the shower and take a bath. Sanghamitra Bannerji, a fellow student at school who I have never given a thought to since, was also there under another shower.

In another part of the dream, Ruchira and I were supposed to perform a dance in front of a large audience. It was the event that we had been preparing for. She and I were in costume-like pink Apsara dresses with golden borders and lots of stiff pleats. I was with my SGPGI friends, far at the back in the audience, when I had to run onstage and start performing. With miserable co-ordination and the typical Bollywood dance steps, we were somehow getting through the performance; suddenly there was a commotion in the audience. Soon it was a riot scene and we ran backstage, backstage being a few wooden planks put together to build a shack.

In the next scene in my dream, it was morning after the night of the dance and the riot. I awoke, stumbled over something and walked to a chink in the wall. I looked outside and it was all deserted and desolate. Dead bodies lay around, smoke arose from quietening fires. I went to the door to step outside. Two people with rifles approached the door from the other side and I dropped immediately, pretending that I was dead. When they were gone, I stepped outside.

On stepping outside I found it a cold morning. There was a large lake. The sky and the lake were blue and grey. Many boats with colourful flowers in them went by with boatmen wearing caps, pepper-coloured beards, kind and light eyes, lined faces and huge phirans/kaftans. I was in a grey sweater with a red collar (Yes, I remember!) and had black hair with big curls. My arms were crossed to keep me from feeling cold. I went on a little further and asked one of the boatmen if I could take a ride.

I sat on the nose of the boat and felt the wind, peace and serenity blow across my face and over the flowers in the boat behind me. It was still early morning and I was in Kashmir.

1 more oldie article

It has sunk in and now I am ok with being old, aged 22. That youngster phase is well behind me now. Not a rebel or shocker now. In profiles I dont describe myself as a mad person or a weird person. I dont go typically off-tangent and say, ‘Oh there are so many of me, which one shall I tell you about.”

Its ok to not be listening to music.

I have stopped taking pictures of myself in front of the bathroom mirror, holding the digicam at arm’s length.

My Mom and I are on the same thought plane, and more importantly it seems ok to admit that! I value clean beds and laundry service and cooked meals more than freedom and acknowledgement of my individuality.

If I started a business venture right now I wouldnt be surprising people as a young enterpreneur, which also means I better start something!

There must really be some passion in those 30 year old rock-band members who live in their Mom’s houses, living the lives of teenage band boys. Its tough NOT to acknowledge the passage of time.

But things are getting different. Times and associated activities are shifting. Most videogamers are not kids. They are 25 to 30 year old guys with goaties. Lover hunting goes on till one is an octagenarian. Botox paralyses time and faces. Well, thrills and youth have their own fun, but something is to be said for a stable comfy grown-up life.

Geez, I still have to get my first job! I better get my portfolio ready and play my young-and-fresh-college-grad card!