Saying a lot, saying a little… who cares?
Archive for April, 2009
shera-wat the f*ck
Apr 28th
Posted by SEV in staying.aside
Coming on the heels of Dr. Shilpa Shetty , we now have this.
Like why?
Now not only does my current objective have no meaning, but the place I live in has the absolute lack of sense to honour Ms. Sherawat.
p.s. I like my wordplay in the title. A lot. Go figure.
p.p.s. Yes, I only put the picture there coz her dress starts at her navel. Go Figure.
is blogging once a week really blogging?
Apr 21st
Posted by SEV in staying.general
Or should I resort to twittering? Given that I update my Facebook status once a day (as a rule of thumb), it seems I could tie it all up pretty neatly. Status update – twitter – blog post. But then you would be treated to such gems as ‘Satish is researching how to research’. Seriously. Didn’t seem to work out for Uber-T when he tried it either. Besides, Twitter seems to go against the philosophy of my wanting to keep abreast with writing. I’m not really “writing” too much here either, but at least paying to have this site alive forces to me add something to it at least once a week. Though for some time to come, I doubt I will be able to post much more frequently. Or much longer posts. Come to think of it, I used to be able to set aside time to post everyday… a long time ago. Posting more frequently might mean this space gets a plethora of updates like ‘Today I went to the loo in college. It stinks.’ or ‘I had choley for lunch today. Joy.’ Do I really want to degenerate to that? I’ve already degenerated significantly from the original tone of “thoughtful randomness” that characterized most of 2004 and 2005. Somehow more esoteric thoughts seem to occupy the forefront of my mind now. Such as what to have for lunch tomorrow. I’m guessing it has something to do with research occupying a majority of my waking life, but maybe I should push myself a little more. But then that’s what I always say. Pushing myself seems to imply limitations that I have to supersede somehow. Which is not easy. And that’s a tangent I’m forcing myself to develop right now. I was hoping to start talking about one thing, move to another, then another and somehow bring myself back to the start. Like Pulp Fiction. Which reminds me that ‘Inglourious Basterds’ releases this summer. This summer is disappointing movie-wise. Just ‘Basterds’, ‘Wolverine’ and ‘Bruno’. Compared to last years plethora of BIG summer movies, this seems tame. Maybe ‘Transformers 2′ as well. A fanboy’s delight. Big huge robots. And Megan Fox. Yes! My movie list, as I have mentioned a billion trillion times, is growing at an exponential rate. And shows no signs of being whittled down. I wonder if I will ever watch even half the movies on the list. Or for that matter, even half the movies I’ve collected. Given the way I collect books which I eventually, eventually, finish…I’m confident there will come a time when I finish things up. Like my Reader. Which has been sitting pretty at 2000+ unread items and counting for the last year or so. Whew. I read tech-news weeks out of date and find it amazing… only to find how out-of-date I am. Damn. This post reminds me a lot of Riri’s “brain dumping” as she put it. Which is sadly offline now – she has moved to using FB notes. Which I do too – indirectly. But somehow that does not appeal to me as much as this page. I’ve suddenly realized that I have come back to FB/Twitter vs staying.cool. Which was the point of this post anyway. Which is why the blogging continues.
And somehow related to this is the fact that Kate Winslet chose the naked scenes route to winning the Oscar. Most of her movies in 2006-2008 have all had them. Which means there is something to that theory. Which reminds me of my theory that only “good” adaptations of source material can ever do well. Such as LOTR vs. Spidey 3. I know that this means I’m comparing an epic to a comic. But still… this was the subject of a morning debate that lasted a good 30 minutes. And then I complain to the would-be that I don’t come to lab on time. And that was a reference to the missus so that she doesn’t take offense to the fact that I don’t refer to her as much as she would like me to. Now everyone’s happy. And so the blogging definitely continues.
vishu kani
Apr 14th
Posted by SEV in staying.in.my.head
Getting up at 4 am, bleary-eyed and barely awake, I would half-stumble, half be dragged to the swami corner. Multiple applications of water to the eyes would ensue as my parents attempted to make me notice every single tiny detail of the vishu kani. Eventually, about 10 minutes later, my brain would actually comprehend what it was being made to see. I have the most memories of celebrating vishu at home when Thatha was around – he would be sitting there watching me take it all in. In the end there would be a single question as to whether I noticed the finishing touches such as the gold, and the multiple currencies. By this time, Warsha would be taking an active interest in the world around her, even if both our eyes drooped ever so occasionally. Then would come a small prayer, and we would reverentially touch swami padam before we reached what we termed as the best part – vishu kaineetam. Each of us would get it in turn from Thatha, oldest to youngest.. and the tally of how much we “earned” would begin. I remember a time when it was a competition between all us cousins – any and all sources of vishu kaineetam were valid and would be used. Bonus would be when one of the other Thathas dropped by for a visit – it meant significant augmentation to our hoard.
There are a few things that have dropped by the way over the last 5 years. I could earlier figure out vishu based on the preparations the previous night – Appa and Amma would start post-dinner to arrange the many items that had been accumulated over the past week. Different parts would be brought in from their cubby-holes as the decoration progressed. It would be done pretty quickly, but too long for me and Warsha – it was something that we constantly ran away from doing. Contrastingly, my UK vishus were marked by remembering to see God early in the morning, rather than email. This year I managed the closest I could get to something “normal”: managing to see rice, dal, god, and gold at a decently early hour. There is much more I could have done, what I find strange is that I innately want to ensure I hold on to doing them. I am barely religious, and rituals are not high on the priority list – but these small things seem to be the anchors to a better time, a simpler time.. when vishu truly marked the beginning of a new year.
Happy Vishu.
quick ‘un
Apr 6th
Posted by SEV in staying.aside
Apparently Google/Feedburner screwed up in some porting over of feeds. Tis possible that you readers see funky things happening. I believe I’ve followed what they’ve asked to me to do pretty closely – in case you guys see issues, gimme a holla’.
story me ree
Apr 5th
Posted by SEV in staying.fiction
I’m wayyy too bored to do the 25 things meme that afflicts all F acebookers at some point. Probably because I have done only about 2 trillion of them in the past… but we’ll put it down to me just being that considerate of all your feelings. Or something to that effect.
Rather, I’m dusting off what stories I have finished way way in the past – and putting them up here. Since Alice seems to think that such stories should have easily accessible comments, I’ve enabled that as well. Please, take some time out of all the other pointless you do while reading this blog and tell me what you think. Meanwhile I can go ahead and actually try to finish some of the remaining stories in my trove.
Unveiling: Infelicity
This is somewhat spruced up now, though I do demonstrate a tendency to be glib when I don’t need to. Its an old habit.. something I realized while writing ‘That First Look’. I love making tongue-in-cheek comments. Why do you think I attempted ‘Life Sucks’? (Which could have probably been a lot funnier) But then lectures can be a tough place to write. Which brings me to the point that this too was written during engineering and was one of the longer efforts I made. Usually my attempts have be restricted to the 40 mins (or something like that) that my lectures were. Could have been an hour too. I don’t remember sitting for too long. More to the point, this was written over many many lectures.. weeks in the making. I believe the fact that I wasn’t sitting for as many lectures could have something to do with the ‘weeks’ part of it. Nothing to do with the amount of thought that went into it. Trust me. Most of it was impulsive, letting the pen run as it pleased.
Should try that again sometime. I also tend to talk in short sentences which lack nouns and so on. This is probably something I need to work on too.
Anyway. enjoy. Seriously. I really like the feeling of satisfaction this story gives me somehow (post writing, not post reading). Not too many stories do that. Oh, and it may be long too. Just letting you guys know.
blocked
Apr 2nd
Posted by SEV in staying.aside
I am suffering from a major case of writer’s block. In more ways than one.
Just letting y’all know.
Maybe I’ll just continue uploading stories that I gave up on a long long time ago.
