parotechnics

"Lasch, by contrast, looked at the American and found him peering into a mirror, anxiously rating the figure staring back at him and wondering how to combat the inexplicable emptiness he felt." Not just Americans if you ask me.

The only time I felt no objection to the pornography of repitition that is Indian news TV. It is not possible for me to do any work when NDTV India shows a half hour program on the making of Dil Mein Mere Hai Dard-e-Disco. I don't know if the film will be as good as Main Hoon Na - whether it will be over-referential and overworked in general. I'm rooting for it to work. What I like about this song is that it doesn't just act smart and mock other people's work, in making an ironic comment, it also seriously adds to the popular vocabulary. Oh who am i kidding. I love SRK, his baady, his goofy grin, his knowing eyes, his tongue so firmly in cheek. So does she Dard-e-disco Come on now let's go

I have been trying to write - I have python deadlines which tighten as I struggle. And I am distracted by dragonflies. If you've got a window, look out and do you see how many there are nowadays? I squatted on my window sill for half an hour trying to take a picture but it's a fool's errand.They may look huge but they're fast and feckless and diaphonous after all. I never knew they could fly this high (I live on the 4th flloor and they are flying above the trees. A few days ago it was a profusion of yellow butterflies - didn't know they flew this high either. Distracted myself from work by trying to post about my time in Italy but got further sidetracked and ended up reading this somewhat amusing piece about Anonioni and Bergman in the afterlife. Not that it's all that funny - you may chuckle mildly on occasion, like at "Antonioennui" - but it's actually a more interesting way to read about two filmmakers about whom you may have already read so mu...

I have broadband after 4 months of fighting with MTNL. I am hoping it stays on but well... And with more computer housekeeping happening, also, lovely pictures from when my friend Tara was visiting with her kids and her husband Jambi. I like it that they could come to my house and I'd been to theirs, that feeling of continuity and belonging. I also like how well trained these kids are in the massage department.The high point of the technicque is a little jiggling dance they do when they get to your bottom and believe me they don't even know the heaven this is in places like God's own country. And also how lovely they are. I do miss them.

You end up with a rhapsody in blue (OR floppy disks, remember them??????) And a study in yellow (OR what on earth do you do with all those VHS tapes that doesn't make you feel wasteful, profligate and like the sole destroyer of the environment, generally adding to your bad karma????) In other words you clean,and keep encountering past technological layers of yourself, and you realise, you're getting older and older and older and this world is spinning round way too fast. Also in between meals, cleaning, reading, living, you call MTNL and try to get them to supply your addiction. They torture and withhold. You overuse dialup and run up big bills and resolve to reform. You begin to like your new internet un-addicted life. That nagging pain in your elbow starts to recede. You start thinking you really must go for a walk every day. And then. It comes back. (Capriciously, so you don't get too comfortable, sending your roots just a little bit of rain so you may suffer the summer...

My friends Hansa and Sankalp and I have been trying to go to movies together every once in a while, followed by drink, dinner and dissection. We try to keep it on the Western Express Highway, so perhaps this isn't a seriously serious movie club. But we do all take His Himmness Remix Reshammiya seriously. And looming on our horizon was Aap ka Surrroor - The Real Luv Storry. So the three of us along with our friend Nandini Ramnath, went off with ritualistic fervour to see the film soon as it was released. Now, it's my intention/experimetn that this not be a blog where I comment on literature, cinema etc but stay resolutely mundane so I won't go into the delightful absurdities of the film or the absolute illogic of its narrative twists. No, I won't even talk at length about Hansa and me standing on the steps to watch the opening song (Mohtarma!). Because this is really about my travels. Earlier in July I was in a place called Stuttgart in Germany for a film festival. Part ...

For a month I've been unable to put up any of my quotidian pictures because no internet access and life's difficulties. But there's been travels and pictures galore, slowly being uploaded. Saadia and Swati, who can't be bothered to write to me, will now know my whereabouts (of the last month anyway).