Something meaningful to say..

Still working on it, I suppose..

Mending Wall

Came across a reference to the Mending Wall by Robert Frost last night, a poem perhaps most famous for the line that has become an aphorism on international relations — Good fences make good neighbors. Those that quote this line, generally do so assuming that the poet supported this thought. In reality, as the poem shows, he questions it. He asks — Why do they make good neighbors?

Paradoxically, walls create a sense of security, but they exist because of an absence of it.

Yet another pothole..

I am an insult to the fair name of blogging! But hey, at least I am back to write in less than a year, which is more that I can say about the last time..

I woke up this morning and decided to listen to Floyd's Time and couldn't locate it on my machine. Eeks! Some 5 hours of frantic hunting later I came to the sad conclusion that in my recent hard-drive reformatting, I had unknowingly wiped out some music :( . The worst part of it is I don't know what I deleted, so I'll have to keep finding out song by song, and shed tears for them one at a time!

Anyhoo, so I decided to get my act together and clean up and classify all the music that I have in mp3 format. Noble thought eh? I agree. Except I didn't realize I have about 18 gigabytes of music.. *sigh* Needless to say, this is going to be one looooooong project..

The rain continues to pour away to glory.. and its 38 F! BRRRR!

Memories of Macbeth

"life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"

Read this line today in someone's signature file, and it brought back memories of Macbeth from my ICSE/ISCE days..

How uncanny is it, that I came back to post something on my blog, *exactly* one year later? Hmm..

The first official heat wave..

.. of the summer. Yes its here. And its woeful.

Happy 63rd Birthday, Pancham!

Today marks the 63rd birth anniversary of Rahul Dev Burman, one of the most creative and talented music directors of Indian cinema.

The start of meaningful times..

Well i've finished my customary 'hello world' blog entry, so I guess I ought to start saying something meaningful from now onwards.. Its strange how I can blab for hours together otherwise, but when I actually have a chance to say something, I am left wondering what to say. Not good..

Today's day 9 of my viral infection by the way. I went to the doctor, where the nurse cheerfully informed me that there's a lot of people around suffering from viral infections like mine. Tumhaare kaandhe pe til hai!? Mere kaandhe pe bhi hai! Phir to hum bhai-bhai hue! (Translation: You have a mole on your shoulder!? I do too! Then we must be twins!) Like that's going to make it all okay.. Bah!

While on the idea of kaandhe pe til — i've always found it interesting how Gulzar uses the same concept in totally different contexts in his movies/songs. First we have Angoor — one of my favorite Hindi films of all time. Sanjeev Kumar 1 and Sanjeev Kumar 2 meet — and the most famous dialogue from the movie follows —

• SK1: Tumhaara naam Ashok hai?
• SK2: Haan?
• SK1: Mera bhi! Tumhaare kaandhe pe til hai?
• SK2: Nahin?
• SK1: Meri bhi nahin! Phir to hum dono bhai hue!

No matter how many times you watch this movie, you can't help laughing out loud at this moment :)

And then we have Gulzar in the song mera kuchh saaman from Ijaazat. He revisits kaandhe pe til in the lines ek sau solah chaand ki raatein, ek tumhaare kaandhe ka til. A completely different context, and so beautifully and evocatively said! That is Gulzar for you!