Sunday, September 28, 2008

days that come to an end

O leaves on Tuesday. I have little idea of what to do after.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

about trees

following the thread in https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=28397684&postID=5381586477227978588&pli=1

i thought of that too, that if it were being done with the permission of the authorities, you couldn't really do much, could you? but a) you have to let people know what is really happening, and what the rules are. and that rules are being grossly violated. most of us see trees with branches trimmed in so many places that we pass, but we don't know that there is actually part of an organised racket in the city. b) about taking action about it. when the tree outside my flat was being hacked off, i called up a reporter in my office who has been working this field and knows people high-enough in the hierarchy that he could make some calls to people who would ensure that the hacking was stopped. but i found that the guy who'd asked for it to be cut, had approached the local cpm goonda turned political honcho for permission and he's been given it.

the police came and eventually the forest dept officials too. but i recognise that they did it to begin with, because of the reporter's contacts. of course, none of this would have happened if i hadn't pushed both my reporter, and another actually: the guy who covers the area i live in and knew the thanar OC, to help me out. i haven't figured out yet what it will come to if the tree came in way of, say the politician honcho's real estate interests and he had to have the tree removed.

one effective tool that i see is to get it to the media. the media does only as much as it serves its own immediate interests, but this is one kind of story that papers still carry, as opposed to the version of events that people who've visited Singur will tell you.

and meanwhile, i do think we can go far by letting as many people as we can know about it.

and madhura, do you really care if people think you are overreacting? would you not do what you had to do cause people thought you were overreacting, or any other term they had for it?

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Here

I was reading Supriya di's Novel and Modernity blog. It was extremely calming, the seamless flow of words about people in a book. Is it that in today's world, you have to learn to be happy by yourself, and never otherwise, the fragmented nature of modern existence etc..
I am listening to Indian Ocean, stuff that RIM had given me. Feels like I didn't hear before. Although it is more beautiful than not, my ear is aching a little from listening to it as loudly as I am. Yet that's the only way to listen to full-throated song, this one, anyway. I am hoping that sometime not very far into the late eve - early night, I'll tire myself out and feel at peace.

To begin with, may I say that Rock On is a horrible film. People often have reasons for liking a movie that have nothing to do with its merits. The film echoes things I remember, but well, that makes no difference. The story is, may I say, pathetic. Farhan Akhtar can act, and I loved the songs, but is it cause I nurture hidden wishes of being a groupie. Seen in the crowd of apparently ecstatic people in the audience were disenchantedly clapping extras. Heh.

I am so depressed, at the complete lack of flight, nothing, rien: it’s as if the world might not have existed and no difference would have been made either by living or dying. How can another person do so, do this? I could not have existed and the world would have been the same. And my room felt so dirty, unwelcoming for anyone except me, or anyone who would make it his/ her own. Where to from here, where can I escape?

Which fantasy, where inside my head, when all the fantasies have been explored and feel like ashes?? I wish I could take myself away to someplace where I would not have known myself.

In real life, the Adityas who go away as far as they can from what they loved don’t find it again so easily. I wish I could become another me like Aditya.

I feel so completely alone, I wish I could go away, go away.