Portrait

i don’t get what the big fuss is about. before i watched alexander at the majestic cinema about four days ago, i was constantly told by everyone i know who had already watched it that it was horrible. i had read a number of reviews of the film that stated it was bland, and horribly miscast, and that no one should attempt to mke a movie out of an epic without russel crowe. every friend i asked point blank refused to come with me to watch it, claiming they’d already seen it. now my friends and i have a record of having gone to the cinema to see the lord of the rings 6 times. so i suggested they come and watch it with me again. they vehemently refused, saying it was just too awful to sit through all over again.

finally nuksh and i trudged along to watch it, bracing ourselves for a long and bad movie. now i’m no movie critic, so i’m not going to go into a long and detailed analysis of alexander. what shoocked me, though, was that at the end of it, i relaized i had quite liked it. i hadn’t LOVED it, like i loved pulp fiction, or moulin rouge. but i decided that my opinion on alexander remains what it was that day i watched it : it was ok. it wasn’t brilliant. it wasn’t mind blowing, or breath taking, but it most certianly was not as bad as everyone had made it sound.

firstly, everyone said colin farrel was miscast in the role of alexander the great, around whom the film revolves. the movie centralizes around alexander, his life, his loves, and his travels. maybe it could have been made better if the story was not being narrated to the audience, forty years after alexander’s demise. anthony hopkins, is, as usual, graceful on - screen. he’s one who makes his presence felt. i feel that the narration makes the story of our hero more a history lesson than anything else. i might’ve FELT the movie more if it wasn’t played out that way. however, i’d like to say that i quite agreed with whatever made the movie makers cast colin farrel in this role. staying true to this particular film’s interpretation of alexander, colin farrel plays it with a subtle, effeminate, sensitive quality that makes one sympathize with him in times when he is just another scared, worried, confused human, and not the great flawless warrior that most of hirtory makes him out to be.

now i’m also no history expert, but i have a feeling that the huge fuss being made aboout how bad alexander is and why, has a lot in common with the time that there was a huge hoo haa made about the relase of andrew lloyd webber’s jesus christ superstar. everyone had something to say about that right? for once in the entire history of movies and motion pictures, someone dared to interpret the story of the final hours of jesus’ life as something more human than we had ever been taught. they dared to interpret jesus as a man with feelings, scared with the responsibility he had to human kind, nervous, tired, a little uncertain of what he was doing, what he had been doing for the world. they dared to interpret judas as someone different to the heartless, backstabbing villain that he had been interpreted as forever. they made him a tragic hero, he cared for jesus and worried about how it would for them. he worried about what jesus had begun to preach, about how far jesus’ enemies would go to flatten him. they dared to interpret mary magdalene not as a whore, but as a woman fatefully in love with jesus, with devotion to him, someone who was afraid of what she was feeling for this man, a fatal attraction she could do nothing about.

i think the problem people have with alexander is this. all the history freaks are mad that this movie turned alexander into someone OTHER than the notorious, powerful man with no fears, the man who once owned nearly three quarter of the known world. it portrays him as a homosexual, a mama’s boy, a man with little will over his mother’s orders, a confused, power hungry man who exceeded the limits of his fellowmen’s patience. a human, with flaws, and worries, and emotional baggage.

angelina jolie is nothing short of stunning. she gives us a fabulous performance as olympias. the relationship between her and alexander is intimate, yet as he matures, suitably strained.

i see nothing terribly wrong with this film, of course there might’ve been ways it could have been better. it wasn’t perfect. niether was troy.

will this never end? it’s only getting KIND of old and annoying.

the argument on the privatization that started ages ago, continues, steady as ever between indi and morquendi. although sometime ago, there were many other bloggers (including myself) pitching into this rather interesting debate with great enthusiasm, it died out the moment they realized it was not going anywhere, and the only direction it WAS going in could certainly bring nothing but unnecessary malice between otherwise perfectly nice, smart people. the moment they realized it wasn’t going anywhere good, or indeed USEFUL, they decided to DROP IT. however, indi and morq rabildly continue biting each other’s heads off, as you can see here. blinded by their own pompous righteousness, they refuse to give this up. i sided with morq sometime ago, and even now, perhaps i could, was i not irritated by both his and indi’s apparent immaturity. to give you a taste of my views, here’s a comment i left on indi’s blog.

does anyone see NO POINT in this debate, or is just me? for those of you who have been following this debate from its initial stages, you can observe that it has gotten really sidetracked, and has ceased to be a professional informative debate. it has instead turned into one big dirty mud slinging match. really immature, and quite quite POINTLESS.

are you both seriously immature enough to think that you alone know the universal truth? haven’t you heard of something called an opinion? well people are allowed to have them, however different from your’s they may be! nothing is black and white. or right and wrong. or ‘indi’ and ‘morq’. you both obviously with powerful conviction have strong morals and principles that you intend to live by, no matter what. while i admire you for sticking your ground through this, maybe its time to broaden those narrow little things you call your minds to the fact that their might be more to life than YOUR debate, and YOUR perspective, and YOUR version of the truth. give me a break.

hasn’t it been done enough? hasn’t it gone on for long enough? they already know which of us is with which of them, they already know who supports them and who rejects them. niether of them bring in new arguments, new perspectives or are prepared to come to a soloution using compromise, considering both of them create good and interesting arguments at different points in time. realizing the sheer futility in this entire debate, i just cannot picture it becoming or turning into anything other than what it has festered into already : downright annoying.

ever noticed how catty women are? the female species has possession of this most amazing ability, this gift, this albertross. we all have it, this almost scary capacity to be catty. this suspiciously strong tendency to be a complete and utter cat.

for those of you who have no idea as to what in god’s name i’m talking about, here’s a little something for you to go by.

cat·ty1 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kt)

adj. cat·ti·er, cat·ti·est
Subtly cruel or malicious; spiteful: a catty remark.

catti·ly adv.
catti·ness n

catty

adj : marked by or arising from malice; “a catty remark” [syn: bitchy, cattish]

enough definitions already. there you have it. women have this uncanny thing for being catty, for being vicious and insatiable in their lust to humiliate someone, be it male or female. now i’m not saying women and trying to exclude myself, or my friends. oh no. i admit, there’s a little cat in all of us.

the cat within us is waiting to bare her teeth and claws at the most random moments. any blow to one’s ego is just asking to be clawed to death. men fight. women get catty. and as i see it, being catty is a favourable past time. at the risk of sounding like a snob, i must admit the few times i have let the cat in me get the better of my conscience, i’ve quite enjoyed it.

a girl needs some protection. some armour. let’s begin with saying it’s hard being a girl. still, i enjoy it thoroughly, and sometimes the mere fact that you own a particular anatomy works to your advantage. but it’s a tough world out there. Iroms did an interesting post on something relative to what i’m trying to say here. it’s a risk to walk on the road, to go to the beach, to go to a movie, to take a bus. to do anything alone is almost equivalent to asking for trouble. why? because most men (atleast the one’s that get out of the house and tend to be about) are the scum of the universe.

what’s a solitary girl going to do if she gets groped on the bus? if she gets harrassed on a crowded pavement? if she gets felt up at a night club? she’s not going to swing a punch. nah. she’s going to (if she’s smart, and reasonably brave) get catty. this is her defense. she’s not dim enough to try to take on a full grown man (as he is bound to be…most often) in a fist fight. she’s not going to knee him in the you know where, or poke his eye balls out with her pen. she’s going to make one sharp comment that’s going to hit him where it hurts. hard. and that’s that. he’s predictably going to get embarrassed enough to leave her alone and scam.

but it doesn’t take a full blown situation of molestation to fire up the cat inside a woman. oh no. it takes much less. and worse still, she uses it not only on men, but on other women too.

did i fail to mention this is her ALL ROUND, ALL PURPOSE defense? cattiness proves useful in most situations. in any situation where the woman is being insulted, or put down, or simply not hearing what she wants to hear, she WILL get catty. she will pass subtle, below the belt hints. she will bring you down slowly but surely, with class, in style. she savours this moment. its like she takes a sip of this exotic wine and rolls it around her mouth using her tongue before swallowing it, enjoying the burning sensation it causes in her throat.

having been both the giver and receiver (NOT FUN) of considerable amounts of cattiness, i can say its about being subtle, and feminine. she’ll take her time. she’s not going to shout, or yell, or bang her fist on the table and lay down the rules. she’s going to wait till you insert your foot right in your mouth, and get you.
she’ll say something, something so gentle it’ll barely seem like an insult. but the moment you begin to think about it, the truth starts to unravel itself in the depths of your clouded mind. clouded with her irresistable sexiness of course. and it’ll hit your ego like a train going to full speed. you’ll crumble and fall. she’ll love watching this, what her words do to you, how her charms intoxicate you.

a woman can never go wrong with cattiness, because it comes naturally. its not something she practises, or sits around and cooks up. catty moments are fragments of thought, glimmers of an evil seed that lie in wait and pop into her mind when the time comes to save her dignity, her womanly pride. basically, she has nothing to lose. the strangest things will maker her angry, and she doesn’t necessarily spit fire when she’s mad. so don’t look out for smoke coming through her ears. i suggest you try to observe the more distant signs. a devilish glint in her eye, an especially cutting sense of humour, and in my case, maybe a short skirt. yeah. i show my legs when i get catty.

dressing to kill, giving ‘gullers’, raising an eye brow and staring unwaveringly at your victim, pointedly flaunting a hot guy, even being extraordinarily NICE to your victim…these are all the varying signs of cattiness i’ve noticed in different women, including myself. mind you, cattiness takes a certain amount of class and grace. it’s not for women who like screaming and shouting and slapping and hitting and making a big hoo haa about things. it uses a certain flavour of subtlety. one needs to be smooth, confident, suave and witty to pull off being catty without being laughed at.

of course, cattiness comes in varying degrees. some of us are just more catty than the rest of us. but that’s because some of us just have better self control than others. and this is my golden theory. every man’s a pervert, every woman’s a bitch. some just have better control over themselves and their actions than others do. doesnt that make perfect sense?

every woman is blessed, and cursed, with the ability to be catty when the need arises. being a complete bitch however, is an extension of being catty, and requires one to reach a whole new level of mean-ness which one does not actually need to possess while being catty. catty is not on the same wave length as mean. catty is something more fun, and less powerful. its just a way to get the joke that ON you, OFF you. a way to assert yourself and let people who assume you can pushed around know that you can’t be pushed around. mean is a way of hurting people, of intentionally fucking up someone’s day, or indeed, life.

catty is an easy to store, easy to maintain, easy to own, all purpose super effective defense mechanism for every woman.

i’m dedicating this post to this most amazing woman. this is the two of us at green path. go figure out which one is which. i’m just the better looking one.

yesterday was Iroms’s birthday everyone! yes, so those of you who haven’t done the needful, i suggest you hop to it, considering you’re already a day late.

about three days before her birthday, i was talking to D and smriti about what we could get her. D confirmed that her mother had taken her on a huge shopping spree and gotten her pretty much whatever she wanted (why, the spoilt brat!) and between the three of us, we were really stumped for ideas. now a weekend in beruwela popped into MY head. silly little head of mine that head is, pretty stupid because we were all largely broke. we can’t pack her off to beru all by herself right? i mean, we could, but that’s just heartless. and just her was all we had money for. so we racked our heads (and smiriti’s shaved one) and thought we need to surprise her. now surprises are always tricky business. it takes time and planning down to the tiniest detail, remnant of one of those interact projects we die organizing. we didnt have time. two days to be exact. what’s to be done? being smack bang in the middle of a working week, we decided throwing the biggest party of the century would prove to be a little difficult. plan B? buy her a cake. a big, fattening, childish cake. since she had pretty much everything she wanted (except something we cant wrap and present to her…ahem), we decided that we only wanted her to retain a little bit of the kid in her. the one she refuses to let out, yeah that one.

i immediately called up a friend in the cake business. they charge you the earth for doing these beautiful personalized cakes that taste good and look even better. have you noticed the little cakes at ODEL? the sweetarts or whatevers? the beautiful, intricate little things? she makes those. ok, she doesn’t charge the earth, and the cakes are totally worth every cent you pay, or in our case scrape up. (her name is lalanthi, her phone number is…ask me later) we talked a little, and after much manoeuvring smriti got iroms to tell us her favourite cartoon character who turned out to be donkey, from shrek. when i spoke to lalanthi however, it turned out that creating a donkey cake might be difficult since we had to get the picture to her etc all in one and a half days. seeing as lalanthi lives (and works) in kalubowila, and that we all had tight schedules, this probably wasn’t going to happen. recalling that iroms had mentioned tigger from winnie the pooh to be amongst her favourites as well. lalanthi had made a tigger cake before, so we settled for that. we got everyone to commit to come to green path at 2 pm on thursday for the cake cutting, and also to keep zipped about the whole thing.

come thursday. dutifully messaged iroms first thing in the morning, even before getting out of bed, and told her i had choir practise from 9 am to 2 pm. she said she was going to KFC (of all places) to have lunch with her sister, Kush. i told her i’d see her there at 2 for lunch, and then that we’d make a short trip to green path before she headed back to work. so i went to choir, and of course, choir was over at 12 noon. i came to green path, got renu, and went to arpico to purchase helium balloons. standing at the balloon counter was none other than Kush, also about to surprise (and embarrass) iroms at KFC with balloons. after having pressingly told kush to keep her big gap shut when she went to KFC to see iroms, and many ‘now remember, you DID NOT see us’s, she left, and renu and i bought 6 helium balloons of the brightest colours.

next we hopped a trishaw, and made our way to kalubowila. on the way, the red balloon popped, to our dismay, but renu consoled me by saying that she would stand there as she was dressed in red. we picked up the cake and it was perfect. not too big, and the tigger was adorable, and the wording was our very own ‘for the 20th time…happy birthday iroms!’ now bringing the cake all the way from kalubowila to colpetty proved to be the toughest part of the whole ploy, as it had just been iced, and it wasn’t in a box, just on a tray with an oil paper over it. the wind kept pushing the oil paper right down on the cake, and all (or most) of the rosettes on the sides were horribly squashed and deformed by the end of it. i was mortified. renu tried not to panic and said things like ‘i don’t think you want to hear this, but the lettering and tigger’s nose are melting…’ i cried and looked away and asked her never to tell me anything of the sort again. reach colpetty. i drop renu, the semi flopped cake and 5 balloons off at green path, and message iroms telling her choir just got over, and i was on my way to KFC at access towers. i make my way to KFC, promising to message smrit when we were nearing.

at KFC, the girls had made quite a ruckus. they had tied the balloons to iroms’s chair. iroms sat there looking pleased but dazed. after having hugged iroms, i convinced her i didnt want lunch (saving my appetite for the cake, you see) of course this blonde was not in the know. she said ok, and off we went to green path. now i’m frantically messaging smrit every two seconds, and upon not receiving any replies having a few minor heart attacks in the back of the car. we disembark at the green path house, and i take iroms in, talking at the top of my voice, hoping the duds who don’t reply very obviously urgent messages upstairs will now know that iroms is quite literally, in the house. i open the door, and “surprise!” and then we sing happy birthday flat and purposefully out of key. (i mean it’s happy birthday, IS there a key?) i must say the duds did a brilliant job with the arrangements. they tied the balloons along side the cake, and put candles on it and everything. the knife even had a red ribbon, just like when you were 6. (of course the ribbon came from the red balloon that popped in the trishaw, but no one needs to know that) then we took really silly photos, with the cake and the balloons, and acted like the true losers we are.

we were thrilled at the element of real surprise on her face, and how well all our plotting and scheming turned out. we laughed about how many times we had almost blown our cover, and how many times i had very nearly called iroms and asked her if she could come with me to buy the balloons, and about all our stupid antics, my loud talking included. and then we just imagined leaving us to organize a full blown surprise party. right. we’ll suck at it royally.

kos, i hope your birthday was good. i’m just so glad you were born, ** fine years ago. (wont reveal your age now, pretending is always fun isn’t it? ok ok. you’re not THAT old. NOT ) and even more glad that our paths happened to cross. anyway, old as you have become, so old in fact that i had to rethink calling this post ‘the bithrday girl’, you’re still beautiful, and insanely, unhealthily childish. and that’s what i want about you to remain the same. for like, good.

iroms, you gotta love her.

a few nights ago, as i lay in bed, i was overwhelmed by an entire host of powerful feelings. do you ever feel that way? like you’re just feeling too much? like you’re just going to explode? so i’m just lying there, wanting to cry, wanting to laugh, wanting to just run around and around till i’m exhausted…

there were so many familar feelings just kind of whizzing through my system, and me telling myself ‘i’ve been here, done this, felt this all before, so just turn around while you can…’. they were just rising in me, waves and waves of emotion. wrenching my insides, burning my throat. that kind of thing. it was really literally twisting up my insides, my stomach, my heart.

like Iroms says on her blog, some people never learn… i’m sick of not having learnt. i’m sick of not knowing, of not being sure, of wanting so much, of wanting and never getting.

since about april last year, up until very recently, i tortured my self incessently over the boy who simply was not worth half of what i endured. if he’s reading this, i’m glad. he’s shit. he’s a complete shit. i’m not scared to say his name now, i’m not afraid to admit i fell for him, and acted like a snivelling undignified loser when around him. neel, you SUCK. got that? you really suck. but i guess the bigger idiot out of the two was me. so for awhile back there, i sucked more than he did. for awhile back there i compromised a lot of things i shouldn’t have, and settled for being treated a lot less worthy than i really was, and am. he’s the boy i’ll remember as the turning point in my life. after that, i stopped needing a ‘boyfriend’, i realized i was a lot happier being single, atleast for the time being. after that, i stopped believing so much in ‘happily ever after’s, and started believing more in the real thing, that you had to work you’re own ass off to get a good thing to stay the same. after that, i kind of grew up and got a life.

and since then, for over a year now, i’ve managed not to take the whole guy issue too seriously. i’ve been really happy just being single, and goofing off, and crushing and flirting. never spent too much time seriously contemplating any boys, never spent too much time getting over one and moving onto the next…it’s all been easy and breezy. nothing too in-depth. just shallow fun.

and then suddenly, in one moment, you realize it’s all happening again. suddenly, knowing exactly where you’re headed, you find yourself stepping into old familiar shoes.

knowing, knowing the whole time it’s going to be nothing short of horrible, you dive headlong into it. neel made me desperate, and frustrated, and vulnerable. and i’m feeling that way all over again. with every boy who has been important in my life, i’ve always been ‘in control’. of the situation, of my feelings, of our actions. except that once. and now it’s just on rewind and replay. every fibre inside me is just asking me to stop while i’m in shallow water, but something stronger just wants more. craves more. in moments of sanity i tell myself i’m ok, and that i don’t need him, but most of the time, i’m wanting and wanting and wanting.

and that wanting…i may not particularly be wanting him, but i’m wanting something. it’s like i’m waiting for this big bang. this once spectacular event that’s going to occur and sweep me off my feet, and make me content with my life. i’m just waiting for that feeling, that everything is perfect. there’s sometimes this tugging inside, almost like an ache for something MORE.

a long time ago, i remember knowing with utter conviction and beyond a shadow of a doubt that what i had is what i wanted then. i haven’t felt that certainty in a long time. and i miss it.

my mother once told me ‘you will never know if you’re doing the right thing, or making the right choices. you just have to take that risk’. i mean, it’s life. i guess knowing is half the battle. do we ever really know what we want? what we’re doing? probably not. but the thing is, you have to live that way. can’t remember who said this, but i want to quote someone (bless their soul, whoever it was really knew what they were talking about).
“…you’ll always only see as far your headlights let you. but you can make the whole trip that way”.

at the end of the the day, my life is fine. everything isn’t falling apart. it’s just when i stop to think, and allow myself to really feel what i want to, it’s all too much. there are very few REAL issues. half the time, i think we need to convince ourselves that we have issues and problems. if we didn’t, i dare say we’d be bored to tears. and you dont NEED to know much, contrary to popular belief. you dont NEED to know where you’re headed, or how it’s going to be. you only NEED to know the answer to just one question. this is your life, are you who you want to be?

note - my problems aren’t as serious as i have made them sound, nor do they disturb me as much as it may seem. so don’t worry, those of you who might. i’m ai’ght. the words ‘this is your life, are you who you want to be?’ are from the song ‘this is your life’, by switchfoot. its an enlightening song. just beautiful.

how, and more importantly why, are we always judging people?

being judgemental is something we as humans inevitably do. we also successfully hold to pretending that we do not under any circumstances judge people. gasp, what a horrible thing that is, to be judgemental. and as nice as it is to imagine that we do not engage in judging people, let’s face it, we do. and hey, maybe it isn’t such a horrible thing.

judging a book by it’s cover
physical appearances play such a huge role in today’s life. it means so much that you wear the right clothes, that you follow the ‘in’ trend, that you sport the perfect haircut and wear just the right amount of make up. it’s so important to maintain a good figure, a good complexion, healthy skin. there are an innumerable range of products on the market to help you sustain good skin, and fair skin at that. dark? bad. fair? good. they promise you radiant glowing skin, flawless, unblemished. they promise you the perfect boy, no bulges, no extra inches. wax your legs with this, tone your stomach with this, clear up your skin with this. what has our perception of beauty become? sadly, the magazines and the TV commercials leave little room for us to expand our mental horizons and social stereotypes on what beauty is, and even less room for us to feel good about ourselves regardless of whether we have their definition of a good body and good skin or not. if you look anything ‘less’ than the prototype of good looking, then you either go jump in a well, or you routinously undergo systematic torture that apparently shows you promising results. or you can hang around and be scrutinized by those who DO bother to ‘take care’ of themselves.

body language
thankfully, i’ve always been on the slim side. not that i think that to be not thin is to be not pretty or not attractive, but being someone who is considering a career in performing arts and dancing, it IS rather important that i have a light body, and a slim figure. and i’ve truly been blessed. just today a friend asked me how i ‘maintain my figure’. how? I DON’T KNOW! this is the metabolism i was born with. i don’t watch what i eat, i don’t do regular routinized exercise, and i don’t go to the gym, jog, walk or bike every morning. i just be. actually, i eat alot. (those of you who know, know ) i dance about twice a week. and really, that’s it. i love activity, i mean i enjoy walking from destination A to B with a friend, i enjoy biking around galle face, i enjoy my salsa classes, i enjoy partying and dancing till i drop. but i’m not particular about maintaining my figure per se. i just live, and kind of hope that my body doesn’t decide to bloat. and i’m not THIN. no, i know people who are thin. i’m just not fat. i have big hips, making it impossible for me to find the right jeans ever, but i’ve always accepted the fact that i’m not going to ever own the perfect body, and been ok with what i have now. what’s the primal thing in us, that attracts us to fair, and skinny? what makes us use fair and lovely, or what not? why do we have this preconceived notion of what is good looking to be fair, and slim? beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. it’s an OPINION. not a standard.

first impressions
this maybe, as inevitable as it is to many of us, one of the biggest mistakes we make when judging someone : judging them on a first impression. it’s hard to not judge someone when you meet then for the first time, but when it stops being ok is when we refuse to be open to a change of mind or opinion after getting to know them, beyond a first meeting. it’s onlt natural to draw up SOME conclusions when you first meet someone, but is it really fair to go purely by what you think you know about that person, but you really don’t? first impressions are dangerous. good first impressions are even more so. risky to make, and risky to sustain. to me, an ideal first impression would be nothing less than who you really are. why the need to pretend? the need to ‘impress’?

all in all, judgements are human, but their also midly vicious. we judge people every day. on how they look, what they say, what they wear, how they behave, how they eat, WHAT they eat…it’s like you’re this little thing, and all these people are constantly inspecting you under the maginifying glass and then jotting down little notes depending on what they observe. of course, it’s also important to be able to judge a character to a certain degree. it would be insanely scary to not form any opinions on someone AT ALL, but just how far are we willing to believe ourselves when it comes to these judgements we pass?

everyone likes to think they ‘know’ people well, that they ‘read’ personalities well, and that they draw up superbly accurate judgements on people. everyone likes to think ‘hey, i’m good at reading people. trust me on this, so and so is like this and that’. but the fact remains, people aren’t open books. they aren’t there to be judged, or ‘read’. their not as transparent as you might think, or as anything as you might think. all you have to be open to, which i find is something that is near impossible for many people, is the fact that YOU MIGHT BE WRONG.

i’ve been getting judged my whole life. and most of the time, judged wrongly and unfairly. i’m sure this is something many of us have to deal with. it’s nothing tragic, or unusual. it happens to everyone. i know for a fact i myself have been wrong about people on a number of occasions. so whilst it’s hopeless to expect people to be completely unjudgemental, because we’re a naturally judgemental species, it wouldnt be asking for too much if you expect people to be broadminded and compassionate when doing so, would it?

i think it’s all fine to pass judgements. but its just not right to seal them up, to lock it up and throw away the key. human life is a constantly changing thing. nothing about us or our opinions should be set in stone.

having another weird day. feeling horribly depressed, for strange and unfathomable reasons, but feeling immensely satisfied and content at the same time. that’s a damn weird combination of things to be feeling, the tear inducing kind. kind of scary.

but my life is good.

a) im on HOLIDAY!
b) i passed my exams with good results, and im in a year of school that requires LITTLE academic excellence, leaving me time to do everything i missed doing for the most of last year.
c) im having a great deal of fun, even with my studies. YES, you got me right. that’s what i said.
d) i have FABULOUS friends, and every day is good.
e) im taking off to bangalore soon for a vacation with iroms MINUS my mother.
f) basically, my life is on track, and stable.

or so you would think.

but my life sucks.

a) my best friend is leaving the country for good soon, not only that, she’s depressed out of her mind right now. that’s awful. you know what they say. her pain is my pain.
b) i miss tracy to death. and my cousin N.
c) i always feel like i’m not good enough, like i’m not doing enough.
d) ok, iroms is depressed. atleast she knows what wants. i still, successfully, do NOT know what i want.
e) and whenever i do know what i want, those things are beyond attainable.
f) hormones are out of check again. need some relief. or release. or whatever

i’ve always been ok with the things listed above, in the ‘this is why my life sucks’ list. i’ve always been able to deal with the fact that i’m eternally confused, never knowing, never convinced. and it’s always been ok, because at the end of the day, i’ve managed to be happy and whole, with the ‘this is why my life is great’ list. the good stuff has been worth overlooking the bad stuff.

there come these random moments, where this dreadful feeling of sinking starts growing, somewhere in the pit of my stomach. like ‘am i ever going to know? am i ever going to know what i want, properly, ever?’. gasp. what if i’m always confused? what if that’s my fate?

get this. it’s 3 30 am on a sunday morning, and we’re eating really sad, disgusting frozen pizza that has suspicious fish LIKE things on the surface and is hazzardously soggy. see what i mean?

ok ok…so my life doesnt SUCK. but it sometimes gets around to feeling like it does, you know?

i don’t have a lot of things in my life that i want right now. but i’m alive. and sometimes, that’s just enough. it has to be.

ps - i decided to post my first picture. i think its beautiful, and was taken by a dear friend, suda, who is a photographer for LT. hmmm…hope this works.

pps - yey! it worked. so, that’s me in one of my ‘giggly’ moods!

i came across this quotation, if i may call it that at all…and its just one of those things that say something i’ve been wanting to say forever, in perfect articulation.

have we ever looked around us, or even at ourselves and thought ‘what kind of person does it take to change the world?’ or ‘can i change the world?’? i often have. i’ve often wondered what it takes, what you’ve got to give, and who you’ve got to be, to change the world in SOME way, it doesnt matter how.

through the ages, its apparent that besides harbouring many other essential qualities that one must possess, the one thing that has actually set the ‘world changers’ apart from everyone else is their larger-than-life way of being. they were EXTREMISTS in their own way and right. they all pushed, and fought and forged their way through on a difficult road, while being insanely sacrificing, reasonably courageous and always at RISK.

to me, its about being unafraid to be yourself. but its also about being unafraid of being someone that might not fit into stereotypical social norms. its about being so unafraid and unashamed of who you and what you want, that you’re willing to fight against all opposition.

admit it. they were all loons. they were all positively nuts. what more is there to say? people called them crazy and absurd and disillusioned, incapable of being in touch with reality. they were constantly hauled away to mental institutions, people constantly opposed their whacky ideas and impossible to achieve dreams. they were in a league all of their own. which is why many of them died young, or went mad, or committed suicide. they were something beyond our comprehension. they didnt fit here, they belonged in another dimension, maybe another time.

albert einstein, mozart, leonardo da vinci, adolf hitler, virginia woolf, william shakespeare, mahatma gandhi, rosa parks, martin luther king jr…the list goes on. the world saw them as ‘different’ because they WERE. they dared to be different. they dared to be extreme. they dared to go all out, and stop at nothing till they got what they set out go get. they dared to dream.

they willingly broke the boundaries of ‘normal’, caused controversy, turned the world upside down with their thoughts and actions, and ultimately changed the world. they were relentless, incessent, merciless, driven in reaching their goals. they pulled out the stops. they went ALL THE WAY.

regardless of how they changed the world ; for better or worse, the fact remains they DID.

it is because they were crazy. it is because they never gave up. or in.

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?We make tools for these kinds of people. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
–Apple Computer Advertisement

another new year has come by, everyone. what does it have in store for us?

you know what i love about new years? i love the feeling of being refreshed. i love the warmth and the security that comes with ever new year, as it is with every new beginning, the feeling that you still haven’t been brought enitrely down. it’s like you’re getting a second chance, a new page to write on, an empty board to sketch on. it’s like you’re being told ‘ok. just do what you can to try and make it better than last time’.

the traditional rituals are nice and romantic to engage in, even for one who doesn’t fully believe in it’s alleged implications. for me, they operate more as a leveller than as an indicator as to how’s my year is going to turn out. knowing that pretty much everywhere in the same country, almost every family, regardless of usual social boundaries, their doing the same thing at the exact same moment, is strangely fulfilling. the feeling of universality, or atleast sri lankan-ness is calming and stabilizing. it’s humbling.

i like new years because they hold a significant meaning to everyone. it’s a NEW year. like moving to a NEW place, or having a NEW book, it means that there’s something that you’re life has never before ventured into, or tried out, to be tested and in fact, tasted. it means you get a chance to put certain people and incidents in your OLD year, and start anew, with the NEW year. and no one’s going to judge you. your ALLOWED tom forget, to move on.

it took almost an hour for our milk to boil over this morning. while all of us just decided that the milk isn’t going to boil OVER, period, my grandmother seemed distressed. although in their ‘time’ it may have been natural to believe wholely in the symbolism behind these traditions, i however, am forced to believe that your year will MOSTLY turn out the way you make it turn out, and whatever other things that come your way that are out of your control and command, well… it still depends on how you decide to deal with them.

december 2004, sri lanka was hit by a massive tsunami killing thousands, and displacing millions. i bet in april 2004, our pots of milk still boiled auspiciously over the top. so never mind the milk. it’s hard to have a ‘good’ year nowadays anyway, no matter how well your milk decides to boil over the rim of your pot. people will continue to die in iraq, children will continue to starve in ethiopia, they’ll continue to contemplate the development of atomic and nuclear weapons. so, what’s a ‘good’ year?

at the end of the day, the pope is still dead, the holocaust still happened, and prince charles still married camilla parker bowles. don’t wish for a ‘good’ year. wish for the strength to hold on even if you’re faced with a ‘bad’ one.

have a great year, everyone. whatever it is that ‘great’ means for you.

following up an earlier post of mine, regarding the comeback of the backstreet boys, the news is out. it’s confirmed. the guys actually dared to do it. they ARE back. they’ve released a new single. that’s it. it’s done. save yourself while you can.

i heard it yesterday, and it shocked the living daylights out of me. it’s a really lame attempt at rock, and is a pathetic excuse for a song.

the music in itself is actually tolerable, has a edwin mckain - ish feel to it. the kind of alternative rock music that uses an orchestra touch in it as well. the tempo is nice, and it feels like it can be one of those really soppy rock love songs that hit the right spots, in the likes of bon jovi, or as i said, edwin mckain. BUT. its NOT. the lyrics just murder it, only after nick, who still sounds like he’s 12, tortures it. it’s like they took a piece of good music and stomped all over it, dashed it against the wall, walked on it, tore it limb by limb, mutilated it with a chain saw and fed it to the crocodiles.

i’m not leaving any links to any downloading sites, because i’m hoping that no one in their right mind would want to download it. if there is anyone who does want to, i’ll pretend it’s not true and remain in my state of calm denial. ignorance is bliss.

i am, however, putting the lyrics here. their too funny to not share. have a laugh everyone!

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