Skip to main content

Humor to pathos – a wink to eternity

British accent sounds horrible – any time of the day or night. But when you’re marauding through sleep cycles and get an earful from the late night telecast of Harry Potter, you know what the websites that advertise knife sets are talking about. Slick, ominous and cold. I don’t care if that is ruined parallelism, the tirade would give me nightmares even if I were dead to the world. It could actually wake me from sweet slumber by the sheer disdain in their prunes-and-prisms mouths strongly enough to write a blog post on it.

Somehow, my sense of language is not what it used to be, at this late hour. Free flowing American expressions cannot be a smokescreen for lopsided grammar, tawdry flow of thought and half-baked enthusiasm to write. There I have to agree that the English have got their language down cold. Remember Nigella Lawson crooning over her cauldrons. Makes me feel life is worth living.

And that way, I’ve made my morass lead my readers to the central thread of my labyrinth – life. Living in alternate reality has its compensations. I can imagine things – sing with joy or drown in the misery of my perceived hopes and pleasures or slights, and go pouting for days on end.

Does it help me? Not for long. What made me feel on top of the world 2 weeks ago, has come back with haunting second-guessing now, and it is not comfortable. I need a constant to last me through my morbidity, something I can always feel good about – something like A R Rahman’s music, perhaps a little more personal and fiduciary.

Clutching at straws now. One after another, each tapers off leaving me in the light of an intermittent spark or with a burnt finger.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tips to hunt for the right job overseas Moving abroad to work is exciting. It is your chance to experience exciting city life in a new country, sample their work culture and social customs, all the while earning money in the local currency. For most immigrants, the exchange rate is a promising one as it offers an economic advantage over the home currency. Travel, cuisine, novelty in every daily activity, and access to a high-quality life – what’s not to like? The path to applying for a job overseas is not a straight one. There are procedures to be followed and precautions to be taken. Here are some sure-fire tips that every applicant has to follow so that he or she can navigate the uncertain terrain of applying for jobs in another country. 1) Be as hands-on as possible: Sure, hire a consultant in your home country or an overseas one. But be in the loop and find out as much as possible about the process to be followed and each step in detail. 2) Start early: Begin early – if poss...

Reaping a rich harvest of rewards from the crop of modern writers - my takeaways from Times LitFest Bangalore 2019

I was at the #TimesLitFestBlr, and my thoughts got thoroughly piqued. It all started with my crashing in Devadutt Pattanaik’s badinage with Shobhaa De. Here was someone who has made mythology and legend come alive for this generation. Kind of on the lines of what C. Rajagopalachari did for my generation, if for no other parallel. I entered into the spirit of things by asking a question of Anand Neelakantan if he ever bothers to be politically correct. And he said no. It’s impossible to be PC. For someone who created a whole fleshed-out story on the mythical character of Tara, the wife of Vali and Sugreeva according to the Ramayana, twisting words around to not really put too fine a point on anything wouldn’t have been too tough. But he chose to give it up and say what he really wanted to. It isn’t surprising that he got young Indians to start reading up on the nitty-gritty of Indian mythology through his forthright narrative style. Despite the sweltering way that Bengaluru gets ...

Reacting to wellness stimulus

Meditating has been a roadblock in my path to well-being. Or at least that’s what I think but I met some useful advice today: meditation is not about keeping the mind from wandering, but letting it finish its wanderings and come back to the present, awareness of the physical state – breath most importantly, so much so, that it burns itself out of aimless buzz, for a time at least. This is why they say meditate for at least 20 minutes, at least once a day. Doing this lets the mind run out of steam for the time as far as distractions are concerned. Once the clump of noisy thoughts is dealt with, what remains is, surprise surprise, a clear mind to deploy at the tasks of the day. And goodness knows we have distractions. These distractions are closely linked to our insecurities. Is it Facebook notifications that I can’t keep from checking out – why am I so concerned with what people might be saying of me? Long term goal: learn to offer a wide berth to others’ opinions of me. Is ...