A dream

The terror, the sheer and ample terror, of waking from a dream one vaguely recalls meeting during the waking day on a street corner. Such a dream has no ingredient of frightening proportions but its near reality ushers a lacing of fear which others lack in their entirety.And in its recall, I am aware of the starkness of my room standing suspended in the architecture of this world and the world of dreams.This room has housed both my life and the dream I just awoke from. While still quivering from the tell of the dream I am shaken by a thought. My very room, my very life, my dream and my troubled awakening are part of another dream from which someone hasn't woken up. This is not merely the intense fever of awakening or aloneness in the room kept company only by the half-unhinged noise of the window.Its compelling truth adrenalises me into rooted seatedness on my bed. Not a muscle trembles out of turn from the dreamer's dream where I sit. I find no way to convince myself that I am not vassal to the mechanics of dreams and the visceral actions of some sleeping soul.In neither accepting or rejecting it, there is peace and a calm which makes inaction the most righteous action.Sitting on my bed, I don't stop my perspiration for I don't have the script to the other's dream. I stare at the wall in front of me.Even a wall has so much to reveal when approached with such attention albeit a coerced devotion. In slowly learning my wall, I tire.And slowly that wall ripples its way under me, as per the script, and my muscles receive the cues they had feared to take all this while.I swim back into my previously undone sleep with a a fleeting fear of the resumption of that dream. And I hear a yawn or I yawn in the dream.

The Disease of Distrust

To not believe, to distrust, is oppressing for with it I invite villains of my own creation. These very people I, then, include in my world. The weight of it, perhaps, is not for display. But with each chance (and, pray, what is that?) encounter, I abrade myself further under its tell. For in disbelief there is nurtured a relation which is fed by the other's dubious ways, his misdeeds, his lies, his wants & his deprivation. Fed on such a poison, slowly, word by word, act by act, such a relation soon becomes impervious to truth, halting on the venom of the past.And I, honourable I, master of no such misdeed, no mistake clinging to my overcoat, no lies trickling down my chin, I am accomplice.I, to whom you relate, hold on firmly, countering every twist of yours, braiding disbelief into a taut cable. And Fate walks the tightrope.

Undecorated Deeds

Could someone accept my deeds, my watering their wilting plant & merely smile? Not tell the neighbours about it & not buy me flowers? Why must a simple deed have seismic repercussions? Why must it marshal emotions & gratitude of the tangible kinds? Can it not be a sunrise?For simple deeds are indeed sunrises and sunsets, bringing warmth to the onlooker and making you mortally incapable of returning the favour.When I lock your gate behind you or wipe the windshield of a long parked car, receive them as deeds to be done and not coupons to redeem.I have nothing to show you or impress you with. In performing my deeds which you call human or some such grand word of the day, I am myself.My deeds are of the same flowering quality of Spring's buds - they simply blossom, whether a chronicler lurks behind a park bench or not.In performing them, I am not leaving you indebted to me nor do I wish to woo you. My works mark negligible valuation in my scheme of worth.Yet I perform them as the sun rises in spite of charring all the sonnets written to its ochre praise. They are not an end in themselves.

Redundant World

Once the clear possibility and doability of some endeavour is ascertained, then its actual execution is essentially redundant. There appears no rational compulsion to actually perform what one knows one can perform if the thrill is in unraveling the adventure.There is a point when the mind is aware of all the resources required, all the people to be summoned & all throaty incantations memorised. It soon divines the precise order in which all of them should be combined in the broth of time. I aver that, at that point all thrill ends.Like a child cheated by legerdemain dissected, and hence, inclined to scratch out a magic show from his party, we stop dead in our tracks.What can be done is now well understood, its ingredients listed alphabetically with measurements in the metric system. What more is left?Hence, by extrapolation, we realise that all that has come to be has, in spite of possessing a clearly documented method to achieve it.We always knew how to build railroads, but built it anyway. We knew how to assemble the watch, but proceeded to manufacture it anyway.In our knowledge there hasn't been sufficient wetness to grant us salve to calm our passionate nerves and relax our industrious muscles.Since we exhausted all the thrill in learning the what, how, when and what-ifs, there appears very little rational need to have proceeded.Thus, upon maturer reflection, we arrive at a retrospective view of the world assembled without rational compulsion & with no passion left.

A little experiment

I had decided to try out a different version of Project 365 that was doing the rounds. I thought I would write a post on this blog, one for each day of this year, for no reason other than the want to do something seemingly vivacious.

After one month of adhering to it, I realise that while its possibility is not to be doubted, its value raises some questions.

I wish this blog to be where matters are delved into in depth. This calls for more deliberate composition as well as sufficient research and analysis. This places a great demand on time which seems to be more energetic in running away as I grow tired through the day. I am a poor manager of time too, but how vain a want to be able to manage time.

I seem to be more active on Twitter. Perhaps the demand that 140 characters places on me fits the allowance of a day's work. Nevertheless, it is disappointing to fight with fictitious needs of a post-a-day and of satisfying length. The quarrel itself is my creation and whining about it might not hold your attention. Hence, I have decided (and my trunk of decisions spilleth over) to train the longer, more involved works to this attache and shorter quicker works to the Twitter chalice.

So much to tell you

My life's tales and love

I send on a wind to the

Arabian Sea.

The World of Twitter

"Your tweet was over 140 characters. You'll need to be more clever"

While many find fault with Twitter and the culture it has heralded, I, a late entry into the maddening party, find immense brilliance in it. Undoubtedly, you need to sift through it all but it is a labour well worth the time. I was fortunate in having found a few to start with and piggy-backed on their recommendations to pick more. Nevertheless, I decided to cap the people I follow to 20 else it would be unsustainable for me.

But logistics apart, what Twitter offers is something vital for the education of writer (and there will be a more elaborate post regarding that, shortly). What it mandates is the need to be terse and clever. Verbosity is, at times, the reflection of laziness. Grandiloquence brings, often, a delayed sigh which economy might usher in sooner. Though 140 sounds arbitrary it does fit well into a breath, leaving just enough room for delight.

How does that help in the education of a writer, you might ask. Very simply in demanding that he inspissate his lines till the essence and effect are retained. A quote escapes me which was about elegant design and removing parts till you can't remove anymore. I think this is valuable training for a writer. While a writer must know how to festoon words to create a grand celebratory night sky of lights, brevity is a vital skill too. This is so because he might not have the luxury of space, time or, what is becoming rarer, reader's attention. Since literature can't be compromised by these constraints, one must learn the art of punching with an inch's trajectory (Bruce Lee style).

Raised in the words of Saki, Poe and Maupassant effusion was my religion. Along came Nabokov and Shakespeare who had little time for concision or its importance for a writer. They were greats and could be excused. Ms. Woolf ensured we walked long winding corridors of magical words before we paused to catch our breath. How then could I revere the void of words?

I thank my dear one for introducing me to Olivia Dresher (@OliviaDresher). But it was to be several months before I became active on Twitter. Ms. Dresher's list introduced me to more talented writers and thinkers. The unimaginable joy of picking the best from them! Soon I had a good list of poetical, fictional and philosophical tweets to follow. Somehow faced with a twitter client, words pour in ways I never thought possible. When Ms. Dresher said " You always surprise me. " it was an accolade immensely satisfying and unexpected.

Nevertheless, Twitter can get addictive and tempt the writer into short bursts of cleverness. It might soon weaken the muscles which could hold sentences for greater lengths through a dizzying array of emotions. A writer must be both a sprinter and a marathon runner before he forms or meets his style. With that clarity, loads of discipline and an ounce of blessing a writer is definitely on the right path to goodness.

Ms. Dresher also introduced me to Fernando Pessoa who is a genius. He is the true representative of the balance I prescribe above. His fragments in The Book of Disquiet are terse icy splinters which splice open every nerve in your body. They also contain long and melodious sentences which one can waltz with. Study him, my friends and you will have a companion for life.

Some gems I collected from the Twitter-world:

you ask me why / I write / I write because / you don't fit / in this pen - myearthgirl

skinny-dipping in your eyes / I come up dripping / your eyelashes tickling my toes - myearthgirl

Good old memories tease me in a language i no longer understand. - Shakti Shetty

We abbreviate the eternal. - gammaword

Sullen dusk / broods / in darkness. - expatinCAT

hear the music / it stabs your heart / that melody you can't shake / like the face of an old lover / or the one you wish for - rasmithii

What is there to say when no one really wants to know? - OliviaDresher

he threw me into the trunk of his madness & tossed in a couple of words so that i could breathe. - LiliacSin

We can't bear to look at the severe unity. No, we can't bear to look closely. - SalwaHafiz

swallow lies or suffocate on truth - silence_litost

I give my unasked questions to the wind. The wind knows what to do with them. - OliviaDresher

The haunting company of the past, the sobering aloneness of the present. - OliviaDresher

Leave out the beliefs, and that's what's left. - OliviaDresher

Poetry: where words are best friends - OliviaDresher

Not everything is an end or a beginning. Some things just float by. - OliviaDresher

Oh! and just so that you know, no sentence in this post is more than 140 characters long.

The Finest Video I Have Seen In a While

I thank my friend Kartikeya for sharing this with me. This gorgeous video has all the longing and love, the magic and flow that is impossible to create with real people. I especially loved the video at 1:30 where only her hand on his chest is visible. Simply remarkable. Kartik, I owe you an ice-cream! I really wish I could dance thus with someone. Endlessly.

Beautiful Portraits

This site has some amazing portraits (mostly, unsafe for work or to be displayed to your parents, whichever is scarier). I am not sure whether all of them have been shot by the same person but the collections is simply superb. Enjoy the array! Once again, if you are uncomfortable with aesthetic nudity then you should not click on the picture above but simply enjoy this one that I have picked.

What I liked about this pic vis a vis the others was the sheer musculature. As in, look at her shoulder blades symmetrically placed on either side of her austere bun.. The slight line of her spine is barely visible against the black. Her hair shines just enough to create lines and curves of a different kind. And then those thighs, while perhaps not sensuous enough when uncoiled, are splendidly voluptuous when pressed against the calves. The dark outline of this meeting is beautifully curved near the knee and the triangle of the knee itself is simply perfect. A beautiful body. A beautiful picture.

Across Seasons

That leaf which didn't

Fall in Autumn, would it still

Carry Summer's dew?

Seeing without seeing

Q: That which occurs when we are confronted by all sorts of shapes and forms is called ‘perception’. Can we speak of perception taking place when  nothing confronts us?
A: Yes.
Q: When something confronts us, it follows that we perceive it, but how can
there be perception when we are confronted by nothing at all?
A: We are now talking of that perception which is independent of there being an object or not. How can that be? The nature of perception being eternal, we go on perceiving whether objects are present or not." Thereby we come to understand that, whereas objects naturally appear and disappear, the nature of perception does neither of those things; and it is the same with all your other senses.

These are a pair of questions asked in Hui Hai's text called The Zen Teaching of Instantaneous Awakening. The entire text is beautiful in what it presents to the mind and soul.

I was repeatedly called to this paragraph when in my own personal experience I noted something. I was reading a prayer out of printed text. This particular prayer I am familiar with though I don't know it well enough to recite it by heart. Nevertheless, when I recite it my mind wanders all over the world in places I have perhaps never been an never shall be. But my eyes continue to flow over the text and recite them without my having to be conscious of what I am reading. And once I complete the prayer I re-run the entire episode through my mind to realise that I don't recall having read a single word though I did recite it all. To play voyeur to the mind is perhaps my most favourite means of passing time.

So here my eyes see though my mind doesn't seem to see and my tongue recites as if there is a direct connection between eye and tongue. With the mind having seen nothing, it might be inferred that there was nothing to be seen. Nonetheless, the eye did see and the tongue did recite. In other words it was as if nothing confronted me but I still perceived. This is certainly not what Hui Hai is implying but these incidents made me re-think our notion of "mind", "perception", "brain", "sensory organs" etc.

Unchartered

Slippers swapped in the

Dark - Suddenly, my feet have

Forgotten to walk.

Untainted

The full monsoon moon -

How I wish I were like you

Fitting each puddle.

One Liners

I like how boats and shores connect: a bold thrust into the cleaving sands and then all is still.

You can't love me until you love my words.

Silence is only beautiful when all is explained and understood, else it is a deafening roar with possibilities and "maybe"s

Standing on the bridge I wonder whether there are more yesterdays or more tomorrows, so I'd know which way to go.

Stone-skipping questions across the Lake of Life has only shown me how each are lost near the horizon.

Every puddle has your voice screaming - "Come on! Jump in. It will be fun" And I walk away, like you did.

A dog is your best teacher and lover. For everything else there is a book.

Dreams of you under the sun are less warm than dreams of you under the stars.

Kiss me. Now. Stop. Wait. Kiss me again. Stop. Kiss my collar bone. Stop. Let's talk because I don't feel you. I can't hear you. Stop. Stop.

Making love one word at a time

Living Life For History

I am often the best historic character that the avid historian would have liked to pursue. Forever in my every move I leave behind hints to the "Why?" and the "What else?". There is lesser delight in living than in playing to this lean picture of a historian frothing at his mouth with excitement as I make choices and burn bridges. His sheer delight when he finds the crumbs I dropped to lead him to the inner workings of my mind and then lead him on to other alcoves of my psyche is quite a reward found largely missing in a life lived for a single audience. Thus I seduce him with stray excerpts of conversation about the adventure I am about to undertake, or the sin I am about to commit which none shall know and he can pride in being the only one who figured it out after onerous pondering and research. My every moue will have him wait with bated breath wondering on whom will the fires of wrath descend.

This historian feels my pain because he wants to know more. He exults in my victories for he doesn't want the adventure of the scent he is tracking to die down. He assiduously records my every move and my every thought. He gives my life's every single act a voice of a narrator who himself will find a voice a few centuries hence. Such is the voice he lends that if I were witness to my life retold, I would aspire to live like that all over again.

In the Voids

On a long Winter

Night - Between howls of stray dogs.

Poetry of silence.

Slowing Down

O'er the frozen lake
I could rush home or watch the
Fish beneath my feet

Villa Blanche Bistro - Assagao, Goa

Villa Blanche. I thought it was to be pronounced as Villa Blanc till the sweet voice over the phone told me it was Villa Blanche. That is what you get for trying to be French when the only thing closest to being French about your birthplace (Madras) is Pondicherry. Well, zat vaas ye pun.

Villa Blanche is one of the few places in Goa you go to (and hence, the Tamilian name to that place - go-aa?) for a fine experience. Food, per se, is fantastic nearly throughout Goa. You get wonderful food even at shacks and roadside hole-in-the-wall type places. In a completely rundown place where perhaps very few people would come, there was (and still is) a place called Tilve Bhojanalay. You would think that such a place would serve below-average food since the clientele was rare and the locals. Correction, monsieur! That is one helluva place to eat food and, if you are vegetarian, a place where you have no choice but to eat their thali which is good nevertheless. In short, Goa is fantastic for good food.

Back to Villa Blanche (I so wish). This is a quaint blue and white house in Assagao. I could give you the route to this place, but it wouldn't make sense. Call me when you are on the junction from where you can go to Vagator and Anjuna and Assagao. Yes, it is to the north of Panji (or Panaji or Panjim). There when you take a right and go to this place called Tamarind house (or House of Tamarind or something to do with Tamarinds) you need to give me a call. If you don't, then you need to keep going straight and turn left and go to a bunch of rumblers and turn right. Or call Yogini for directions. Yogini is the charming hostess of Villa Blanche who was suspicious of me and my camera. She thought I was a journalist. Her dog, Mufti, thought I was sweet. Sweet journalists don't exist and hence, I am only going to choose "Sweet".

When we reached Villa Blanche, I was delighted to find it nearly match the picture I had in mind. Warm sunlit roads led up to this blue-and-white house. The house opposite it is also nice though (as I recall) it was in red. It wasn't noisy. There were a few bikes parked outside and I heard a tingling laughter come from behind the leafy barricade of the bistro. There is a quality of laughter that not everyone possesses - the ability to infect another with a smile. The mere sound of it, a distant view of it, and the observer helplessly smiles. Not all laughter is of the soul. We walked in, bowing through the arches of wild plants, and landed right in the midst of the cheerful Villa Blanche with Yogini smiling looking pretty in her spaghetti blouse and short skirt. She clearly carried the cheer of the place. She asked us where we were from and when we told her how we had heard about her place she was proudly disappointed to know that people all over India were familiar with her place. She gave me the picture that she would have preferred to be less popular but also acknowledged the renown her place was earning. I had come to taste the creation at this place to figure out whether it was just tall talk or the place really had something to offer. I must say it was well worth all the praise it had received.

I found the place like a hidden oasis. Bright colours without being gaudy marked the place and its decor. The canopy above looked like some torn parachute and made me wonder whether Villa Blanche really fell out of the sky. There were chairs and tables (topped with tastefully done mosaics) and there were also ground level seating options. We picked the latter since the tables were all occupied. I suppose we were the only Indians there (discounting the cooks and helps in the kitchen). Yogini continued to eye me suspiciously as I walked around shooting tables and hanging trinkets.

J was busy arranging cookies into small polythene bags and tieing them cutely with red and green ribbons. She was one of the most lovely-skinned ladies I had met in Goa. The attention she gave to her work impressed me even more and her sweet smile and lovely chin made me sigh. Yes, J was quite a beautiful lady without trying to be so. She was wearing the plainest frock and had tied her hair in a simplest crochet/woven net. She didn't wear any jewelery around her neck and the necessary pen clung to the cloth of her dress. She was from Germany (which perhaps explained her efficiency and accent). She will be J for this post as her name is not announced or associated with Villa Blanche and I don't know whether she would like her name spelled out here.

"Not all cafes and bistros are about the food" which isn't what I am using to say anything about the food at Villa Blanche. If the food is bad no matter what the ambience is, I will never go there again. Hence, I have to tell you that I often go to a place more for the ambience and the warmth than for the food. Hence, you find me describing the place more than the food itself.

Nevertheless, Villa Blanche offers good food but the ambience and the warmth of the place supersedes the quality of food. The food is lovely and fresh. Indians who do not like European, esp. Mediterranean, food should not even consider Villa Blanche (though there was tofu and peanut satay on the menu too). The food is for a mild palette and that is what I loved about the food. The salads were fresh and the feta soft and salty. The dressing was deliciously light though the addition of sprouts seemed like a local adaptation (though I might be wrong there). I am told that the non-veg was good too. My main course was plain rice with fried tofu and peanut satay. Mild and nice though I had cool it down before Mufti darling could bite into them (before his master, Marco, ordered him to go "unter" a table). For dessert I had a cheesecake which was made according to a "grandmother's recipe". It was delicious. My friend simply kept emitting sounds of pleasure with each dish he had.

The crowd that came there was a mix of all sorts though most would be classified as a group to which Yogini belongs - Hippies in Goa. I was introduced to an Italian designer and her friend who looked like a tempered Johnny Depp out of the Pirates of the Caribbean. The people there brought more life to Villa Blanche than any other single element. The decor was great, food was good, location was nice, colours were tasteful but it is the people that made it a place one would like to re-visit and I think that is the magic that Yogini and her partner have managed to create at Villa Blanche.

Contact Details:

Yogini (Mob: +919822155099), Badem Church Road, Assagao.

More pictures here: