Doris Lessing Says So

Quote from an article in The Hindu (12/10/07) titled ‘The Saga of the argumentative Briton’

[Doris Lessing] argued that it had come to a point where the “most stupid, ill-educated and nasty woman can rubbish the nicest, kindest and most intelligent man and no-one protests.”

I saw Jaimy and Rakhi playing on the swing in front of college mid-day today and this popped up in my mind. I like this quote! Simply because of who’s saying it!

Click the image to view the whole article. It’s a pretty good read, so go ahead and do that.

Direct URL to the image

dream :: Pandemonium

This is is mega-odd. Brace yourself.

I’m chatting with Petti and Sreekanth in front of Spencer’s. I have no idea about what but that’s inconsequential because we’re leaving our different ways. I’m seem to be planning to ride a Yezdi, for some reason and that’s exactly what I get on to. I ride off, noticing that changing gears seem to make no difference to the bike, as it potters along at a constant speed no matter what I do.

And now, things get MEGA-crazy.

I’m riding along a street I can’t recognize, yet I’m perfectly sure where I’m going. I stop by the road side for something, and notice that I’m stuck to the bike. I pull myself off the bike with great difficulty, and notice that where there once used to be a bike, now there’s just the frame, represented by a big rod… and the rest of the bike has become attached to my pants!

What the?

I remember thinking of a perfectly valid reason for something like that would happen but, of course, I can’t remember it anymore.

Anyway, since I have to get off the bike, I take off my pants right there, in public, and proceed to extract the rest of the bike from my pants. Nobody seems to notice, however, and once I’m done I put my pants back on and drop the rest of the bike on the floor. For some reason, the big rod is now inside an auto, which has to be moved because its blocking the road, and I do so by driving it further down the road. But once I safely park it, I realize that I’d left the second piece of the bike lying on the roadside, and panicking, run towards it, only to notice two people (one is Sanjo!) running off with it (whatever it is). I give chase, but can’t keep up and follow them into some theme-park like place where there are long queues everywhere and I see Anuraj standing in one of the lines.

And I wake up. Presumably from the shock of the total idiocy of the situation I was imagining.

Cutting Nails – II – Dreaming

Read me first:

Cutting Nails – I

***

I’ve finally cut my nails. Yay!

I sound nuts, yes (among other things).

There is no clear point to what I just said. It isn’t another one of my logical conclusions, because I’ve had more than enough time to note that logic, clearly, doesn’t apply to what’s going on here. The first argument simply ended up producing answers which begged the questions that begat them in the first place. What I’m about to say might sound absolutely senseless to a lot of you, but believe me when I say that it isn’t entirely senseless.

I was able to cut my nails because I didn’t really think about what I was doing. It wasn’t planned. I just sat down on the bed, picked up the nail cutter and started cutting my nails.

I’ve always (for as long as I can remember, and that isn’t too long) had this idea that anything that I fantasize or dream about will turn out not happening… which isn’t all that surprising, or unexpected, since I don’t exercise any control over my dreaming and most are far-fetched enough to be completely ridiculous.

I expect almost everyone does the same… about controlling their dreams, I mean.

But I wonder, sometimes, whether I’ve taken that… expectation… of whatever I imagine not happening, to the point where I expect even the most mundane of my dreams, say – of cutting nails – to not happen. I wonder, whether, somewhere along the way, I forgot how to just make decisions and then, follow them, then and there. It’s all about dreaming – planning, if you must. And then not doing since, after all, it’s just a dream.

Spontaneity!

Finally. I spent a whole minute racking my head for that word.

That reminds me of something the little woman told me the other day. She said she liked talking to people like Sabir because they respond immediately to whatever you say. Spontaneous, in other words. Quick thinking, sharpness, whatever. There are a bunch of words for that, every one of which share at least one common property – that I lack it… or have so little of it, that it hardly matters.

Cutting Nails – I

Equals… say, becoming the topper in some class test.

See, I’m being modest.

I remember a conversation that I had with kitty…

long ago, we don’t talk anymore… sigh.

…which somehow wound its way over to discussing somebody’s intelligence. She was kind enough to mention that I was one of the most brilliant people she knew (or something like that ^_^). She went on to ask me why I was the way I was. I appreciate how lightly she put it and I felt all warm and fuzzy inside, knowing that she could. I gave her the only answer I could – that I didn’t know and if I had known she wouldn’t have had to ask me that question. I’m assuming that she too understood the obviousness of that answer (once I’d told her)… but I don’t think she understood just how depressing it was.

As incisive as that question is, the lack of a clear answer renders it, if not meaningless, pointless at the very least. Of what worth is a question without an answer?

That sounds awfully philosophical, doesn’t it? It is? Ah.

But it is incisive and that is where its worth lies. It shows (in that horribly depressing manner) what exactly is the end result of being who I am.

And what is the end result?

A really cute girl effectively ends up telling me: “Man, you are one fucked up dude.”

dream :: F.E.A.R.

F.E.A.R. is a Horror / Shooter game for those who haven’t heard of it. And if you haven’t, you’re woefully ignorant about the world of gaming. But I’m not here to talk about the game. I dreamed today morning.

I was being tormented by a girl. A scary girl, mind you. For some reason, she was afraid of me too and it seemed to me that she wanted to keep me from getting someplace. I was walking along a corridor, towards that unknown thing which I had to do when this girl, this half rotten (remember The Ring) dark and downright freakishly scary little girl popped out of nowhere. I remember averting my eyes in complete horror, but the interesting thing is that I didn’t wake up. It sort of seemed to me that it was all a game, a computer game and it was like my point of view suddenly got compressed into this monitor and I felt okay again. When I resumed my journey through the corridors, I didn’t feel afraid… well, not that afraid anyway.

I don’t remember any more.