adrift

By sin | Published: 05/13/2010

(a brash post, but that’s what blogs are for, right?)

adrift, thats the only way to describe where I am and have been for a while now. can anyone possibly be as directionless as I am? one day its stay in boston, another day travel, yet another go back to india and work for a corporate, another day its start my own thing, another day its don’t effing think, another architecture, another write that story, another dont effing think…sometimes i get the feeling that i was searching for something and i’ve reached midway and can no longer remember what it was

some have opined that there are amongst us those who don’t know what to do with their freedom. some are led and some follow. and some just watch and stay adrift?

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of junkies and weekends

By sin | Published: 05/02/2010

i don’t remember a weekend ever being so big a deal back in college (and when i say college, i almost always mean SPA, where i became an architect; not grad school, TAMU) as it has become now. welcome to the real world, eh? the world where you slog your ass off for 5 days, party like a rockstar for 2, and then repeat. i’d imagine its a dull racket after a while, one that many people aspire to escape from. and add to that a 2/3 week a year vacation, and the big picture is kinda gloomy…or is it?  much as i would like to shift to a 4-hour workweek (Tim Ferris), I don’t see it happening in the near future.


anyway, the silver lining is that while we’re whiling 5 days/week away at work, hopefully the imagination is running wild with sweet thoughts of freedom: realistically, at least making plans for the 2 days away.  which is how one sometimes gets to do things which may not have been done, say if  i was a junkie, lol.

long story short, seen above was the highpoint of the weekend. my second time out kayaking, its an awesome shoulder & arm workout, besides obviously being fun. i would buy a kayak, except that would mean having to buy a car, too…not happening. i’ll stick with my local rent-a-kayak.

in the meantime, my train rides have been filled with the words of mr. dostoyevsky, first impressions: very detail oriented, few people know their friends as well as they get to know his characters…and since its so detail oriented, its slow reading, and regressive.  the title is “the idiot” and i have no idea where i got my hands on the book.

among other news: junkie sighting in boston

no maaan, don’t go by the image titles, you know i’m just playing, i love y’all, 420 rules, peace out, woooot!

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brooklyntheboroughdotcom logo design

By sin | Published: 04/30/2010

I’m not going to rave and rant, or yap, or indulge in banter… this morning i was told about a logo design competition for brooklyntheborough.com, which i immediately passed onto a friend who’s a resident. to cut a long story short, over lunch, i had the urge to give it a shot myself. topo, photostat, topo, photostat, superimpose, topo, photostat, negate image is what followed.  not proud of it, but not all that bad free hand in 40 mins after a lifetime of separation from anything creative…you decide!!

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spoiler alert: a farewell to arms (actually it will just make you want to read till the very end)

By sin | Published: 04/30/2010

a crappy cover, a matter-of-fact style of writing, seemingly repetitive details…throughout the time i was reading this book (which was on my daily commute, which is why it took so long) i kept wondering why people rave and rant so much about it. little did i know.

my previous tryst with mr. hemingway was a self-appropriated copy of “a moveable feast” (courtesies: deepanjali chawla; the state bank of india (don’t ask)) which was an extremely fulfilling reading experience. which is what left me wondering how it could all go so awfully wrong in another book by the same author.

then it hit me like a 16-wheeler and i hadn’t even heard it moving… it all came together so beautifully, and in a flavor exclusively reserved for the  tragic. looking back it all made sense: why the author had indulged in detail and repetition -because these are the tools of familiarity; how he had involved me in the life and happiness of the protagonists; where the familiarity had a depth to it that became my curse in the end – brilliant writing; what the stranger on the train had meant when he said it was the most devastating book he’d ever read, while i looked at him cynically – now i couldn’t agree more; how i’d written a post about how this book was becoming a drag…all the pieces were suddenly drawn together and i could see how perfectly the pieces fit together.

mr. hemingway had the gift of being able to showcase how life can be a walk in the park, the gut to demonstrate how it often comes right back and bites you in the ass when you least expect it, and the gall to leave the reader with nothing. in case you haven’t understood the gist of all this banter….go buy the book, read it and don’t part with it (i almost gave it away on the train when i was halfway through!!)

P.S. if i were ever to be reminded of how I’d compared this book with R.K. Narayan’s Man-eaters of Malgudi, I will (metaphorically, of course) turn a deep shade of scarlet. and then, hopefully, i will see how great it feels to be wrong about some things.

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espionage flick in the making?

By sin | Published: 04/27/2010

mark my words, this is going to be a bollywood flick soon…. though reality is hard to believe, or am i just naive? this middle-aged spinster has been accused of *selling indian secrets to who?  the pakis, no less! and where did she set up shop?… where else, closest to her target audience, of course…the indian high commission in islamabad. a wee lil bit embarrassing for indian authorities? blah.

but come, let us not stray…though this ain’t no bond flick, its made for bollywood… there will be suspense and drama, dark alleys and special effects, animated sounds and long dialogue, song and dance around trees, hell there has to be a romantic angle with the spinster spy in the movie falling in love with some douche who’s perpetually in a nightsuit**(but works for the bad guys)!! though they may have to cast someone slightly more spy—ish and not some aunty who looks like she’s most at home in a sabzi mandi.

and then, of course, there’s the question of the ending…no small challenge for any director…since the movie has to have a happy ending….or, he could chicken out and end on a patriotic note, but who’s going to pay to watch that movie, eh? (oh…me, i’m a patriotic sucker <insert cheesy link>!!)

* i’m so politically correct (and awesome)

** read pathan

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the state of this blog

By sin | Published: 04/25/2010


this is how I would’ve liked my blog to get back up


this is how it actually will be, probably

what’s important is to get the show back on the road!!

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maneater

By sin | Published: 04/25/2010

just finished reading “the man-eater of malgudi” by RK Narayan. while its a pretty simply written book, practically parched of abstract thought, it did manage to stir and hold me to the very end. which cannot be said about too many books of late. (the latest being Hemingway’s “a farewell to arms”, which i still intend to complete, though its become too matter-of-fact and dry toward the end, but that in another post).

while reading, one tends to get involved in the small town interpersonal politics of malgudi, though it seems a little silly to begin with. however, as the author builds on the most common of middle-class Indian’s symapthies and prejudices, one does get more involved in the events, and then the book becomes rather hard to put down. overall, it seems the authors objective was not as much to provoke thought than to mildly entertain while narrating a story garnished with flowery descriptions, small-town humor and a small dose of suspense. all in all, a reasonable lazy sunday read. 

P.S. in my case, having known someone a lot like the man-eater, albeit a slightly milder version, I’m sure I  read substantially more into the humor than author would’ve intended. our man-eater, though, has numerous vices, which, in retrospect, may just be a good thing for his acquaintances.

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