Lives On Trains - 2

She sat there, quiet. She noticed the regular stranger take a seat opposite. And the few quick glances darted her way.

The stranger considered the moisture leaking from titian eyes in a puffy face. and wondered where her laughter-sharing friend was. or whether she had had a fight at home before leaving. or if she had been taunted because of the country she came from (or rather, didn't). or if it was one of those professional problems. And chose to give it a minute more, before deciding whether it would be a disaster to lean over and ask if she was ok.

She felt another yawn come on, and afterwards, wiped away the water that squeezed out when her eyes were scrunched up. She wished she hadn't slept so late.

when words devour
each other,
and thoughts stumble and merge.
when worlds collide
and dreams explode.
when we are not we anymore,
and these words are somebody else's.

Think.
Thunk.
Clunk.
Clank.
Flank.
Flunk.
Bunk.
Bank.
Crank.
Crack.
Crackle.
Cackle.
Tackle.
Tickle.
Fickle.
Pickle.
.......

Think.
Thank.
Spank.
Tank.
Tang.
Bang.
Bung.
Rung.
Ring.
Bling.
Bing.
Bong.
Dong.
Dung.
Dunce.
Once.
Wince.
Quince.
.....

Think.
Wink.
Blink.
Stink.
Stick.
Wick.
Wok.
Rock.
Spock.
Dock.
Deck.
Neck.
Speck.
Trek.
Track.
Truck.
Truckle.
Knuckle.
Buckle.
Belt.
Welt.
Melt.
Malt.


hmm...one was mentally doing this, and one had got from Think to Klutz...but one's fingers seem to have life of their own. And one keeps ending with food.

"In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness that starts to set in about 2:55, when you know you've taken all the baths that you can usefully take that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul."
- Douglas Adams (Life, the Universe, and Everything)


.....except that one would push it ahead by a couple of hours, because after all, one can nap on Sundays after a lovely lunch...

but there's something about 6pm on Sundays, when everything seems so quiet, and everyone is at home recouping from the weekend and realising they have another week to look forward to, to curse at.

When you look out of the window and see nary a person around. And even the blare of the TV that you switch on to make friends with, fails to intrude on the growing silence in your mind. And the lassitude that fills you grows into a deepening stillness, like the deep dankness of a boarded up well.

and one can feel quite, quite...

Since one has been asked for recipes

Ze summer-wine-drink.

by proportion...
Medium-dry red, 1 glass.
Fine sugar, 1 tbsp.
Juice of ze lemon, 1 tbsp.
Mint leaves, in abundance.
Ice cubes, several.

Dissolve sugar in lemon juice. Chuck ice-cubes in ze blender, spin for 5 seconds so as to roughly crush. Add the wine, sugared juice, half the leaves, and blend again - but do not let the ice go too fine.

Remove, pour, garnish with fresh mint. Drink, and chill.

One could also freeze, and serve as a sorbet. Remove the mint before freezing though...eating leaves is no fun.

3 bananas, medium-firm.
Cinnamon, little.
Rum, 4 tbsp.
Brandy, equal measure.
Orange juice, glassful.

Bananas are sliced up-to-down, then midway, giving.....yes, you're right, clap clap....four pieces! Place in tray, sprinkling the cinnamon, pour booze, booze, and juice. Coat properly, but do keep banana unmashed. Bake, 190 degrees, 15 minutes.

Surprisingly delightful.

The case for a smaller India?

This may elicit strong emotions.
(or, given one's few commenters....not)

Reading about the various flare-ups across the country, and considering with despair (as always) the morass of lunacy that is Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, one cannot help but compare it to the situation in Europe.

Thanks partly to the break-up of the Soviet Union, the last decade-and-a-half has seen the emergence of hordes of small countries - Macedonia, Liechtenstein, Moldova - and there's the ever-growing possibility of further fragmentation - Catalunya, Scotland. Most of these are reversals to ancient boundaries formed by groupings of race, community, language, and sometimes, geography. In a sense, they are also break-aways from artificial and forced groupings from the countries/kingdoms/republics into which they were amalgamated at some point over the centuries.

(The parallel here with business is interesting - mergers and acquisitions till the monster becomes too big to be any good, followed by divestments and spin-offs, resulting in smaller, more competitive entities)

Which brings us back to India.

The region has always been one of disparate entities - small kingdoms, large empires, the classic North-South divide thanks to the Vindhyas, the vague boundaries of Hindustan stretching at one time till Iran and Cambodia. It never was a country till the British came along. And they, followed by the Iron Man, did incredibly well to coalesce all these little and large fiefdoms into one structure. 'India' was supposed to be the ideal of how different cultures, religions, and languages can all survive and inter-mingle.

And while that may be true to some extent, it's not really been that great an experiment. Regions are still quite fiercely local in outlook and behaviour, intra-country practices are quite cumbersome to implement, and national policy is more or less a joke. And while there is an inherent charm about travelling through the country, and experiencing such a gamut of ideas, tastes, and colours - it doesn't really fit the concept of a country per se.

A country usually has one common denominator, be it geography, race, or language. Yes, they do have smaller communities within, which differ from the majority, but the common factor binding the majority is nearly identical across that country. This applies to any country that one can think of, off the top of one's head - Italy, Botswana, Vietnam, Greenland. Even the US and UK, quite possibly the most 'international' of all countries, have English as the common thread (even if it is in different accents). You cannot not know English to have any hope of merging into the mainstream - and one is not entertaining side-arguments about deliberately ignoring ghettos and illegal immigrants.

But India is so different. In essence, it is a region, not a country.

Take the North-East. Perennially disregarded by the rest of the country, only tolerated because they grow lots of tea and have mines, and only bothered about when India plays cricket in Guwahati. The percentage of people in Western, Southern, and Northern India who would be able to immediately visually identify a person as coming from the North-east region (let alone the actual state), and not from China or Nepal? Very, very, very small....almost neglible.

Take Bengal. Has more in common with Bangladesh than the rest of the country.
Take HP and J&K. More Afghanistan than India.
Take the South. So clearly not concerned about anything above the 16 degree latitude line.

Is it any wonder that, as of this moment, there are so many terrorist/freedom-fighter groups demanding further break-ups of the states that they have been assigned to?

So one wonders - where does this go in ten years? Further fragmentation of current states, or a gradual devolution of power to regions? Turning back to Europe, could it be possible that a more successful system for India would be one similar to that of the EU, with separate regions allowed to create their own laws and systems, with common business laws uniting them.

Because, let's face it, a nationwide system isn't working. You cannot simply general policies simply because the country is so varied. And so many of the ideas meant to unify the country, or prepare a standard base across all states (the ICSE/CBSE board system, for example) have not really worked to the extent they were created for.

And that would also help preserve ethnic identities and customs, and allow those who know them to really implement them. And to those who say this is just a throwback to ghetto-isation, and will result in closed communites, I say look to the EU. Clearer laws are causing freer movement and resulting in migrations not just from the East to the West, but in reverse too.

...........
One suspect there is a good paper in this.

"Be still, sad heart, and cease repining,
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall;
Some days must be dark and dreary."

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (The Rainy Day)

.............
Way too often do we mock the simple in favour of the contrived, the exotic, the manipulative. But way too often do I turn to the simplicity of these words, ignore any accusations of their being trite, and accept the simple logic and wisdom in them. One of my few mottos.

Exploration into bizarre yet frequent occurences

I am going to borrow a little of Flaff's philosophy - there's too much personal stuff going round, to add my blogbits to it. Besides, personal details do not quite fit with the whole no-name blogging thing. So, these shall be kept few and far between. Does not mean one shall not write about serious stuff - one does not compete with the Flaffmeister.

So, to today's topic -

Hypnic jerks.

Which, for the unitiated into the jargon of medical mafia, is that point of time when you're just falling asleep, or are asleep, and are dreaming that you're about to fall into a giant pot of honeyed jello after being thrown off the back of a giant flying spider from 6,000 miles in the air - and then wake up with a gasp, shout, sudden random jerking of limbs.

You don't dream that? How odd.

Now, interesting theories abound.

Some suggest that when it happens just while you're falling to sleep through exhaustion, it's because the brain interprets the sudden relaxing of muscles as an indicator that you are actually falling, and so 'jerks' you awake.

Some suggest that when it happens while you're in mid-sleep, then it's usually because you went to sleep stressed, or don't sleep well. And the brain (poor, confused thing) can't figure out whether to relax muscles, or to be wound up. And so decides to give you a good prod, and asks you to please make up your mind, because some of us like clarity of purpose ok? Sheeeeesh!

And some suggest it's caused by the return of the soul into the body, from its peregrinations into the astral plane. The whole "I am now free of my mortal flesh, and will be one with the Aatman, and roam the universe, and ......naaaaaaaaaaaahin, don't take me back, nonononononono....jerk!" experience.

I think I'm going to go with being a regular transcendentalist. It's by far the coolest explanation. (I do wish the damn things would stop though. The last one made my pulse run up to 130)

It's all about trying to be unique, isn't it? All of us with our little niches, our little peculiarities, eccentricities, peccadilloes, fetishes, phobias, nuances, schools-of-thought.

All trying to be different.
Individual.

Trying hard to convince ourselves that our life, our existence matters. That things will be different if we go on struggling, and fighting, and surviving. The brave underdog, the lone fighter, to the last-man-standing. Don't give up, fight, scrape....survive, survive, survive!

Shite.

Nothing matters. Everything that can be, has been, and even if something hasn't, it won't affect a damn thing in the wider world. There are no new emotions, no new events, no new thoughts.

Including these words.

*****************************
So you go two ways -
give up on the world, ambition, dreams, obligations. Decide it's pointless going through a treadmill that's been worn out over millions of years. And probably, end your life.

Or, learn not to care anymore. Not on a conscious, front-of-brain way, but in a deeper, underlying background. It doesn't matter - so why care? Sickness, poverty, death, broken friendships, betrayed love - it doesn't matter. It's all going to end one day, either with your death, or with the end of the world, or the collapse of the Universe.

Oh you still drool over a lovely dessert, or frown at litterbugs, or yell when your team wins. But there's a part of you that stands quietly against the doorframe, with the faintest twitch of a tolerant smile, knowing you're just hiding from the truth. You see the world through two eyes, and think two thoughts. Always.

You stop searching for 'higher goals', and 'ultimate purposes', and the 'why'. And just....exist.

*****************************

Trying to make sense of life is pointless. It's not some manufactured creation, which should be expected to follow rules. People are stupid because they are. Horrible things happen because they do. There's no sense, no underlying meaning to it all - everything just... is. And we just are.

And oddly enough, that makes it easier to live life.

Reversible soup

Spinach (fresh preferably).
Peas.
Spring Onions.
Potato.
Garlic, cloves 2, chopped.
Cayenne pepper, coriander powder, mint, basil, salt, pepper.

Garlic fried until golden. Cumin seeds added. Wait for sputter, add potatoes, spring onions. Stir for 3 minutes, with cayenne pepper and coriander powder. Add spinach, peas, mint, basil, salt, pepper, 1/2 litre water. Boil, then simmer for 5 minutes. Remove, puree into broth, add cream (as much as you love), simmer for 3 minutes.

Serve hot in winter, with garlic bread.
Serve chilled in summer, with salad.

Lives On Trains - 1

A dreamy grey day, dawning on pre-tired people.

And a loud peal of unabashed laughter burst forth, and kept on flowing. Interspersed with staccato lines, and funny noises.

As two friends, so-not-from-this-country, went off to their duties with a cheerfulness alien to the rest of the travellers. Who frowned with disdainful condescension at this unwarranted irritation while they grumpily prepared to stump through the day.

And he caught himself starting to get irked, starting to wonder why they could not understand that others might be sleepy or tired, starting to decide whether to tell them that not everyone likes noise in the morning and could they please hush...
when he listened to the laughter.

And feeling joy for the fact that someone was happy, settled back with a smile of his own. And could not understand why everybody else had little frowns, and puckered lips, and sullen eyes.