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la vida loca

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“Que mira, bobo?” (“What are you looking at, idiot?”) – Messi’s angry retort to a dutch player during the post match interview after 2022 world cup semi final. It was Messi’s “roudra” avatar in that match. I had been spending a few minutes with Duolingo, trying to learn Spanish. I have seen the memes of Duolingo Spanish, but then for me keeping this streak is helping to building some familiarity with the language. Enough to now etch phrases like above to memory. It is now third European language attempt for me. First was a brief encounter with German, during school. We were living in a house which was at the bottom of a hill, on the other side of which lived a recluse commonly known as “sayippu”. I believe he was a Malayali, vaguely remember someone saying he was with the army, may have been deployed in Germany, but then it could have been memory playing games. But somehow he knew German and somehow my father enrolled me in a summer class on German there. It was just three of us – a br...
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late night cab rides

Late night cab rides through unfamiliar cities. I guess easy to say for a guy. But still. Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai. Families at juice places with small kids. A couple sitting on a roadside bench, catching up about the day. A girl boss learning on the bike and a guy with his elbow on her shoulder. People rushing home, bags on their back. Waiters with red ties in a bakery, even at this time. Time for the trucks and the roadside eateries. FM radio in the cab playing old songs. Life is just going full on busy in some parts of the world, people still trying to make ends meet.
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song queue

My spotify usage must have spiked in last few weeks. One reason is this – a few accounts who post covers of old forgotten songs got into my Instagram algorithm and I keep adding them into spotify queue for later listen and some of them have been looping ever since. Readers of this blog (if there are), might know that for me lyrics is a big part (not so fortunate to just listen to the music irrespective of the lyrics). I was thinking today how blessed it is to be from the south of India – to equally enjoy Yesudas, Chitra, Ilayaraja, S Janaki, SPB, Sid Sriram in Malayalam and Tamil along with Lata, Kishore Kumar, Mohammed Rafi, Shreya Ghosal (she bridged all the language gaps btw) and Arijit Singh. We have been given enough to last a lifetime. Poove ponpoove – Yesudas, Ilayaraja nizhal pola naanum nadai poda neeyum thodarginra sondham nedungaala bandham (You walk, I am your shadow A relationship starts, till end of life.) naan seydha paavam ennodu pogum nee vaazhndhu nandhaan paarththaa...
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pure souls

This past week, I happened to meet a few people who I could describe only as “pure souls”.  Brilliant in what they do, child like, no worries about how they look or talk, mostly in their own world, but warm when they include you in their world. Not “normal” – since most of us adults are conditioned to navigate this world with masks and not having masks feels like not normal, but then what is really the definition of normal and who defines it. First of them was someone I was looking forward to meet. He used to call me for silliest of reasons like can he try something which he found interesting, why wouldn’t that be possible etc. He didn’t seem to understand some things which I wouldn’t have to explain to others. There was a crowd, someone said there is him, he comes over and first thing I notice is his socked feet, no shoes. I wanted to ask what happened to the shoes but luckily didn’t. He is like a gentle giant, with large frame, long hair, long thick unruly whiskers. He introduces...
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loops

It was a strange morning. I didn't sleep well, was in some strange loop of a dream, stayed in the place between waking and sleep. I checked time at about 3 am, went back to the fitful sleep, decided to get up again around 5 am. Did wordle puzzle (a new word for me), cleaned up day's calendar. Went out for Yoga (following the rule - the day when you don't feel like it is the day to go for sure).   It had rained overnight. Yellow leaves plastered on rainy streets. But pleasant light, like after the storm had passed.  Two lines were playing in a never ending loop in my head.  aur is dil mein kya rakha hai tera hi dard chupa rakha hai  (what else should be in my heart than your sorrows kept hidden) It was only me and the teacher today. All his students converted to online. New normal post covid. He has 4 devices for different purposes and a basic studio like setup.  Caged lovebirds were making a ruckus at that time in the morning. A bit later it would be the ki...
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feeling alive

It has been almost a year and half of ignoring the blog. It has been a period of a turbulence at work and life, a period of big changes. It disrupted all the rhythms and habits, left me just riding the change. Now just about trying to put things back together once again. This may not be the best of the topics to restart a blog, a bit dark maybe. It is not intentional, but something curious that I picked up over last few days and was mulling over. I am now sort of looking for movies or shows that are not sad, no propaganda, not period pieces with their version of history. This process of elimination eventually leads me to murder mysteries or crime thrillers. I read somewhere that we watch such to relieve tension somehow, in some twisted way. Now, two such that I watched, which are not related in any way, but had a similar theme – that we sometimes put ourselves in harm’s way, not to die, but to feel alive. That self-destruction is coded into us at the cell level and this instinct makes ...
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aspen, blinding light

I took a day off today, just to avoid leaves expiring by month end. It was a relaxing day and had two instances of curious connections. I did the New York Times Mini Crossword in the morning. There was a clue “Tree with white bark” and the other letters started to form a word, but I doubted whether it was actually a tree. I knew of “Aspen, Colorado” as a city in the US, but it is just the familiarity of having read or heard about it. Like a friend said one time that their young daughter was familiar with US city names by having read about them in the books. Soft power of the US that kids, even in small towns in Kerala, know their cities even though they never saw it. I looked up Aspen, to see some images of this tree.  Later in the morning, I caught up with the “Poem of the day” feed. It had 28 unread poems. I came across this poem, “I sit by the window”, by Joseph Brodsky and these lines I sit by the window. Outside, an aspen. When I loved, I loved deeply. It wasn’t often.  T...
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