Mosasaurs in Clark Quay

S was playing at H.B. yesterday. I've heard them only a million times and the acoustics at this place were not so great, so I didn't scruple to slip out and watch the river and the world wend by. It didn't take great feats of imagination to think the river deep, deep, deep! Imagine if it was a cleft between two tectonic plates and the water rushed in. The people would build around it, wouldn't they? They'd build up the sides and bridge over the important roads. But think of the ocean linking through the land. Of course, this couldn't be on an island but that was an easy detail to imagine away. And imagine, if during the end of mesozoic, the marine life survived! Mosasaurs in Clark Quay. In the dark inky water I could imagine a 17 meter Mosasaur accidentally diverted through the rift. I could imagine its dull outline as it rose. I don't know enough of its anatomy to know if we could be eye to eye, but it could roll sideways to assess me and dismiss me as too small for worthy prey (I hope!)

I'm dreaming of a big big Mosasaur...

Tastes like chicken

Dear Bloggy,
I was sitting down to lunch before my computer, surfing a little before getting down to work. God knows why I decided to check out where the 'tastes like chicken' phrase comes from. The articles went on and on about evolutionary theory, chicken meat composition compared to others and weird and 'exotic' meats like rat, musk rat, other mammal meats, weird bird meats and at one point, human (cannibals call humans 'long pork', I refuse to say more).
Now, I'm left with all my lunch and a growing feeling of nausea in the pit of my stomach. Excuse me while I gag.

Sindhis and Phonons

Dearest bloggy,
I had a most unendurable time yesterday. I had promised the beautiful colleague (BC) that I'd go with her to her friend's Sindhi cultural function. Fateful decision!
Everyone was dressed as if they had spent time from 4 onwards to achieve the effect. Poor me, straight from office in my shirt sleeves, trousers and scuffy block heels. I didn't even feel bad, what business have I to prink up. As if I would ever prink up so much for a show. We settled down to wait for the start. Ugh, bloggy. It was a whole bunch of dance numbers, one after another. And only one, out of all the performers we saw that evening, could dance. I had to ask Saranya to fake an asthma attack so I could leave. I could have been straightforward and told them I was getting a little bored and exasperated.

I am such a snob and I can't help feeling that I'd be less bored at a Bengali thing organised on such a scale. What I went to last night was like a university hall production. Amateurish, garish and lacking in talent.

In other news, I've discovered phonons. I don't think, that's my problem. When one learns about the particle/wave duality in school, we're always thinking of light, energy etc etc. I have discovered today that you can extend this to vibration. Indeed many crystals transmit heat through phonons, which are particles, a quantized form of vibration. How thrilling!

Flanders Fields in Full

This is not a new post, just a continuation of the first. But going on with my book, my heart is so full. Lying alone here, late at night, reading about Ypres, it's a lot.

So, in deference to everything I want to say and won't be able to say well, I'll put the poem here.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

—By John McCrae

Edit: My favourite parts are the first few verses. The poem is better without the last verse.

The History of a Correspondence

Three times in one day. I say!
It cant be helped though. The first time, I really had something to say. The second time I felt compelled to post because in hindsight, all my posts were really gloomy whereas I've been quite cheerful on the whole. It was a sampling error I had to try and rectify. This one, is because I forgot to mention athulan's visit here. The best way, and the easiest, is to paste the mails we've sent.

After the visit:

Mail 1:
Hey -

Ok, I will be honest - I was a _little_ bit early for the flight, but
not a lot. They had started boarding just as I walked in, so I was maybe
10 minutes too early.

Anyways, thanks again for the lovely time in Singapore. It was great
seeing you again. We should stay in touch.

take care,

Athulan
ps: the hair does look very nice.

Mail 2:

Ipshita Bhattacharya wrote:
Hi,
I knew you'd mail. I confess to being disappointed that you were not
much earlier for your flight so I could do a 'told you so', but this
email may be the pleasanter to you for it. Yes, I enjoyed meeting up
with you very much. It has been very long. How is home? How are your
parents doing? My hair and I thank you.

Write back with more details of Chennai. I haven't been there for
several years now.

Enjoy the heat..


Ipsh

Mail 3:

Hola -

Madras is sizzling. I feel like a Thanksgiving turkey - in a few days my
innards will be pretty uniformly cooked. Apart from that the city is
quite nice. I like this place a lot (as you know) and am hence biased,
but its turning out to be quite a nicely balanced city. There is plenty
of new-industry fueled development but that (thankfully) has not
completely ruined its otherwise charms. This past December when I was
here the music season was on with as much gusto as ever, and it looks
like its going to be that way with other ye olde things as well. The
roads too seem to be holding up gamely with all the new traffic, and the
city is definitely less congested than B'lore or Bombay.

So that was the short Madras report. On the home front the parents are
doing well. Wedding preparations are on in full swing and there has been
plenty of shopping, planning, and plotting. Very entertaining, I must
say. I have accepted to wear a Kurta for the reception under duress, and
frankly I am not looking forward for it - can't figure out for the life
of me how to sit down wearing one (among other quibbles). Do you scoop
it all up and sit on the trouser seat and look like an idiot, or do you
just plonk down and risk stuff tearing? Anyways as you can see, much to
figure out before the ceremony.

How are things on your end? When do you head to Borneo? And how are the
cab-driving socialist uncles?

Athulan

I went through my inbox and realised I don't have any of my email to/from
him. I must have deleted them during the breakup. I now wish I hadn't. It
might have been fun to read them now. It seems so long ago.

The Repentance of the Gloomy

I'm a silly thing. I tend to dramatise and exaggerate all of my feelings. Just to put things right and into perspective I just want to tell you, dear bloggy, that I had a marvellous time last night. I was in high spirits and decent looks, plus my new blue dress was all I hoped for. I met addy and lots of other people and managed to keep up my end in conversation instead of slinking shyly into a corner as I usually do. Got home at three, pleased and happy.
I 'imbibed' just the right amount. It kept me just cheerful enough and no one was drunk enough to throw a blight over the party. One or two people were just sliiiightly touchy feely, but I just moved away when that happened.
I recall an amusing conversation
R: oh we must see midsummer night's dream
S: Oh but we've seen the movie.

Gah! Shakespeare is wasted on such people.

Flanders Fields

I was just reading a book in which world war one is a backdrop. I think many people forget how horrible WWI was in the memory of WWII. With the book and its events, I had to brush up on my WWI history. All those photos of dead men, their sepia faces staring calmly into mine. And I want to cry. All those dead men.
And right now, Flanders fields is running through my head. It's a poem which does something to me whenever I read it, the background, the depth which its lines evoke.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row.

Dear bloggy. All those dead men. It was so long ago. But all those dead men. I know, I know, they're not the only dead. But this is me now, this is what is in my mind. I could be thinking so many things, only I happen to be thinking of this now.

Photographs are the devil. Look at their faces. They were really alive once and I am really alive now. No one is so different from another. Time is flowing inexorably on, but those photographs have caught a little bit. I love every man in those pictures. I don't know who they are or what they did but they are my guide to the real people in a terrible time.

Chilled

I feel chilled.

Karl Pearson, my hero from university, turns out to have been a proponent of eugenics. It's 5:30 at office, half an hour from quitting time and I am not obsessing about leaving. That's how chilled I am.
Oh, bloggy, I used to be in love with this man. He's the kind of person who was everything. Smart, quick, a father of a discipline. He believed in the equality of men and women long before the real feminist movement and freedom of religious practice. How could he have been a eugenics freak? I am deeply disappointed and dispirited.

It must have given all these eugenics freaks a thrill to think of all the "poor stock" wiped out, while they were safely secure in their superior skins. Gah. I hate it when people say, you can see where they came from, even more because I can see the cold logic of their idea, but it's
a)chilling,
b)scientifically unsound
c)who appointed you as God anyway?

The cold cold evening is wrapping its tendrils around me and my comfy chair is now unnervingly not-at-my-temperature. Karl Pearson, a proponent of eugenics. I'm going to mourn now. Excuse me.

Heartbreak

My very beautiful colleague from work has broken up with her boyfriend with whom she had a very serious relationship. I don't know the details yet, but I know the chaos that is about to ensue. It always does, when a pretty girl is turned loose upon the dating market. And she's not just pretty, she's beautiful. Miracle of miracles that she is extraordinarily nice and kind hearted too.

She's visibly distraught and I am at a loss to know how to handle her. Leave her alone, I guess. My eagerness to be of help makes me make clumsy overtures which make me wince for days. It's part vanity isn't it? That one think one can be of use when one has no part to play in the tragedy happening. She looks really bad. I am glad she has a large support structure to buoy her up. She wont acknowledge it to be of help now, but she will later. Poor sweet thing. How on earth did this happen when things were going so well?

In which Ipshita recounts her useless day

I'm missing my dog today. My dad sent his pic to me. He's sitting in front of a bucket of roses. I miss him, I miss him, I miss him.

It's been a mixed up day. I've done nothing but read the whole day. I've come up with a novel way of finding new material. I go to Project Gutenberg and enter a word in the title search criteria. So far, I've done common title words and a large number of results show up. large, but manageable, so it can be browsed and a suitable book chosen. It works.

Someone came to see my room today. I felt strangely detached. What a vagabond I am by nature. No territorial feelings. Just give me my clothes, my books, my laptop and my handbag. These belongings are mine and the room, just their current address.

I had a barbecue for my zoo buddies yesterday. I think it went off well and it was so hassle free, none of the usual hostly troubles. Clearing up was simple, entertainment was rolled up with the food and since we were all very like minded, there was no dearth of conversation, which is usually the most difficult thing to provide for any party.

Athulan is coming tomorrow. Again, no strong feelings one way or another. (I should apply for citizenship of the Neutral Planet, "Tell my wife, I said hello") Last time I met him, I was anxious to look well. I'm not in particularly good looks at the moment, but it hasn't bothered me. Does it bother me that it doesn't bother me? No, vaguely puzzled, that's all.

I'm bored. I feel a surge of evil, like I want to do something disruptive, or even play a prank. It's all the pent up energy of doing nothing on this lazy Sunday. If only my dog was here. Sigh. I've actually done one semi-evil thing. I white-lied to A & Y. They reacted appropriately. I think I did it out of some basic territorial instinct, a sort of girl "beat you to it". I hope no one reads this. I'm putting it down out of honesty, but I'm also counting on the fact I'm not going to give out this blog URL to anyone.

I originally set this blog up so I could review the books I read. It was supposed to give direction to my fanatic reading habit. I haven't done even one. About time, Ipshita. Tomorrow I shall list the books I read today and go over them briefly.

For shame, all this procrastination. It won't do

Colette and the kiddies section

I was sitting with Colette today in the library. There was no place to sit except the children's reading section. There, in a plastic chair, that might have been moulded from my backside, I sat with The Vagabond. There was a mother sitting at a knobbly table with her daughter, engaging her attention with various characters who, as far as I could tell, were either hot or cold or were in the rain. The kid pointed them all out. Bravo, I say. A conscientious and very blond family sat to my other side. I couldn't distinguish what they were saying. Troops of little kids plodded about underfoot. And I was reading the vagabond, deeply moved by Colette's beautiful (always beautiful) writing. Colette, what is it about her work which makes me joyous and intensely aware of myself? Unabashed, unashamed and honest prose. She really knew how to express a woman's thoughts and feelings.

Anyway, there I sat, lump in my throat as the book came to a conclusion. All my children as soon as they're old enough to want to read her, may.