The Age We Live In

If human kind across centuries was to meet and introduce the ages we lived in, what would we have to say about ours?

The age of unbound progress and technology, the age where your voice, thoughts and work can reach across the world in a matter of few seconds? When man first starting exploring outerspace and imprinting its footsteps on the Moon? When living was at its most comfortable and we had things at our disposal, we really didnt need?

Or the age in which we harnessed technology to further erode our happiness? Of an economy running on foundations so weak, that it could all fall down and shatter any time? When we are bothered about who twitted about what and who liked your status? And we don't know if the person in the house next door is alive or dead? When we have deadlines to meet and green paper to make, in the hope that it would bring us happiness? When people who cared about you and brought you up, were relegated to a corner of your mind or even a corner of the home?


The age where we lost all sense of reason and became extremely shortsighted?
The age when the inertia was so high, that every single being born in it, got sucked into the chaos?
The age when humanity convinced itself that there is no other way to live but to run after the concept known as money? The age when we had no time at all for doing anything we liked?
A race devoted to wiping itself and the planet out?


A whole planet of intelligent life gone wrong? Yes. Thats the age where I come from.

Oh, and what would the people from the next age have to say? Probably the age where humans transported themselves from one spot to another by mere technology, so much so that evolution took away their legs and feet and left them with just a single finger on each hand to push all them buttons they wanted to!

A detached existence

Some blog posts aren't meant to make much sense. This is one such.

Detached, aloof, wandering, watching the world from dizzy heights above.

A bird's eye. A desire to fly. To lose all cares and soar high.

Transported to a different reality. A different life.

Not making sense of the world around.

Much ado to know myself,

and yet remain,

unknown.

Music!

I hardly know enough to write on the subject. Our introductions to each other were late, apart from the nursery rhyme cassettes in school. Filmi love shove music was never appreciated at home. Neither was music of the blaring variety and I once got a reprimand for singing a certain Karishma Kapoor song during a family Antakshari :D

An attempt was made to learn a few ragas at school...and then came the Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls and all the other zillion boy and girl bands. How I listened to BSB more and became an ardent fan because I thought Nick Carter was cute than for their music! ;) and my fandom was limited to the peppy pop songs sung by groups of 5 guys or 5 girls wearing outlandish clothes or standing a la MIB. I even thought the Titanic OST was highly overrated.

Enter college and the horizon expanded to music I never knew before. The Kishore Kumar songs and NFAK, the Old Hindi Melodies to the King of Rock n Roll and then on to Rock and Classical Indian Fusion...and its been a pure blast. There's so much undiscovered melody, and like a friend said, I have just begun to explore!

Music to lift your soul. Music to keep it light.
Music to bring it down and Music to set it right.
Music to drown yourself in and Music to keep it bright.
Music when you are down and out and Music when you can't sleep at night.

Ok, so you think you can spell?

.....That don't impress me much!


Ah so what is this post about?

A spell checker? Those wiggly red lines on a Microsoft document? (and my dislike for American English) , The teacher who used to mark spelling mistakes with red ink? -- Nope.

The further away we are moving from being consciously aware of our spellings as we type out more than we write? -- Partly. Didn't realise this until I began mis-spelling words and using a right click to correct them , rather than bother to re read and correct!

And contrary to the title lines of this post, mostly on how I base my judgement of people on whether they can spell or not. Of being put off by bad spelling and more so by bad grammar.

Some say that its the beauty of the English language that it is so fluid, others seem bent to give the language a runny nose!

Of late have noticed people writing their names online in all small letters. Instant put off. Some would argue its convenience. But its your name! You just don't do that to it! Ah and if someone says 'He don't' instead of 'he doesn't' then I would have instantly written him off! Okay. well not that drastic. But the good books are closed :P

Language is by no means a measure of the nature of a person. You might have a heart of gold or be a genius and still be horrible at spellings.

But language sure is the world's window to a person, one which allows us to take a peek in and form an impression. It is his presentation to the world and then some more. I daresay even a measure of how sophisticated and cultured a person is. Definitely more than the clothes he wears or the brand of his footwear - The very shallow hallmarks of judgement these days.

Had read somewhere that bad spelling is worse than body odour. Here is me vehemently nodding my head in agreement!

The wonder years

Reclaimed an old email account and an associated blog of 6 years back today. My! what kids we were and what we are now.The password I had used at that time itself was hilarious. Memories.

and the old emails. Of people I am hardly in touch with now. Just a new year wish and maybe a birthday wish. The years between us. Of how we thought the friendships would remain the same and the plans to always always stay in touch.

Of the twists and turns life has taken, for some for the better, for others for the worst.
Of the novel a friend had started on our lives. Still unfinished.
Of pacts... some silly and some still kept until date.
Of friends still cherished and as close and others lost forever.
Of pure innocence and joy.

The wonder of the bygone years and the uncertainty of the years to come. Makes for a heady cocktail on a quiet day off.

Skeletons in the Closet

The house creaked on its very foundations. Almost having come to a life of its own; it appeared to him that dark blood was now throbbing through the veins of the house. He could hear the house resound with the thump of an old and ravaged heart still pumping it on and on, with a renewed vengeance. The play of shadows, of darkness and of sudden light made the crimson marks on the walls look like wounds on the very being of the house. Still bleeding.

The wooden boards underneath his feet creaked and gave away. There was urgency in the air, something told him to leave. To run. To not look back again.

The house had given him shelter for the last thousand years of his being. From the night he had come running in from the forest, wounded and still human. It had appeared as suddenly in front of him, as it demanded to be left alone today. He had found solace in the room with the ornate golden mirror, the one on the closet door. The figure that stared back at him from the mirror was him in his glory days and not the faint shadow he had become now. It always smiled back at him. This room was his haven. There was an unspoken understanding.

The person in the mirror always stayed the same. The meaning of time was lost on him over his transition to the suspended state of existence he was now in for so many centuries. Now it was back. Now he had to hurry. To gather whatever little belonged to him over the years and to find another safe haven for the night.

He dare not go out into the night. The night was inhospitable to creatures like him. The forest would engulf him in a split second. The others were eaten up centuries ago; he had never found any trace of them despite having looked far and wide. He had survived in this house for until many centuries later. Today it had turned on him.

Mingled with his smell of fear, he could almost smell the presence of the others. Like they were back from the beyond, helping the only one of their kind left, in his frantic struggle for survival.

He ran. The creaking took a vicious note. He ran through the rooms. The house swayed and groaned. The bleeding from the walls was not a mirage anymore. There was blood trickling on the floor. A blood pool formed around his feet. He rushed outside. The well that had been dry for the last thousand years was filled with menacing dark waters, He ran. He saw islands in between those waters. Supposing he hopped on to those? He had to survive. And then crazily, his mind refused the idea. He kept running. The garden merged with the forest. The old banyan tree at the boundary swayed wildly in the wind. He ran.

Twigs snapped in the distance, something snapped inside of him.

He continued running. Only now he was running back to the house. It was almost suicidal; He had an irrepressible urge to go back. To question the insanity that had let him stay, those innumerable years ago. That had treated him as a fortune’s child. He frantically wanted to find the heart of the house and come face to face with the evil that seemed to grip it. He didn't want to let go. He was to die in the house. With it. He had made up his mind.

The mirror. He had to get back to the mirror.

The shadows played again. With him this time. The house melted away. There were no hallways left, the giant paintings of lost glory dripped to the ground. His eye caught a painting of the mirror with the closet door slightly ajar. He hadn’t seen it before. Maybe he overlooked it. Maybe he was imagining it.

The staircase that led to his room was covered with thicket. It looked like it was a part of the forest now. The throbbing sound of the ageing heart no longer came from a distance. It enveloped him, a deafening hum in his ears. A subconscious realization filled him. He was no longer searching for the heart. He was inside it. The house was the heart of the forest. The one that had devoured the others and left no trace. No remembrance for him to mourn them with.

The smell of the others became stronger and nauseated him as he went up the crumbling staircase in a daze, clutching at the foliage and the roots which now replaced the steps and made his way up.

The room was still there, the walls a dark crimson, the throbbing veins clearly visible, originating from where the mirrored closet was, feeding the forest with darkness.

The mirror had cracked. The figure from within smiled at him differently this time. He reached out to open the closet door. He now saw from where the blood came that fed the forest. He now saw what his fate was to be.

The smell of the others filled the room. The skeletons tumbled out.

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~Kiran, 25th January 2009