Saturday, March 14, 2009

Pale Hands I loved Beside the Shalimar

What an annoying song, God. What a terribly annoying song. It progresses from a vaguely nice-image-evoking first line to become a cloyingly sentimental travesty of words eleven lines thence. Bah.

It being a particularly inappropriate time to post for several reasons, I, of course, make it a point to do so.

Lindt milk chocolate has a taste like no other brand of milk chocolate, which leads us to wonder if the difference is in the milk, chocolate or the makers. Or whether the milk, chocolate and maker simply share a dynamic that transcends comfort and approaches romance. Whether those cows are born and bred delicately in full view of the Lindt factories as a gentle reminder that their produce is to be used to satiate the evolved palates of nineteen year old asian girls with vivid dreams and limited funds. Amongst others. Of course.

Do they know that they end up as dog food if they're not good enough, those cows?

(What an anticlimax all this will be if it ends up being buffalo milk. But I expect better from the Swiss ;) )

But I digress; the chocolate. It must be the cows. Because Amul milk chocolate is the shittiest milk chocolate I have ever had the misfortune to taste. And I had it for free, so if I am dissing it, it was that. bloody. bad.

Or it could be the Swiss pastures. Are Indian cows pastured? Or are we reluctant connoisseurs left to contemplate the delicate and competing flavours of sundry Indian roads and garbage cans, in our chocolate? Are cows pastured at all, or am I confusing them with sheep? Aren't cows just 'driven'?

I've never seen cows 'pastured' exactly, and I have been to villages, thank you very much. Two, in fact. Cows're just sort of let loose on scraggly grass patches not far from roads. Hardy looking cows.

Maybe I'm having just having a Ruskin Bond hangover. Where all villages are on hills and there's lots of luxuriant green grass and things. So the whole pasture-deal fits in perfectly with those 'bucolic' images on imported cookie tins. Complete with spotted cows spotted in an eye-pleasing symmetry. And arranged in eye-pleasing symmetry. On satisfyingly pointy hills. With snowy caps.

Alternatively, these villages I visited just may not have been particularly 'rural' villages. They could be one of those bastard ones that are spawned awkwardly on halfheartedly used State Highways. Like satellite townships that grew indifferent before they quite reached 'town' status. You know. Or maybe not. Neither do I, incidentally. Hi, are you new here?

'Random' is a much-abused word. It is almost as though people are frightened of titling their facebook photo albums anything in specific, though the running theme of these albums is often specific enough. Tenuous friendships, shiny photos. 'Random'-ness appears to be 'cool', that other much-abused word. I'm sorry to burst your bubble, darlings. It's not called 'cool'. It is called 'lack of imagination'. Or 'lack of vocabulary'. Equally bad, as far as I am concerned.

Freedom is, roughly, choice. Is a choice a choice when making it alters every other variable that you meant to keep constant? Are only equivalent choices choices? What of conditional freedoms?

And what of the law? There is no compulsion to follow the law if there is no fear of consequences. The law does not require us to fear the consequences. We choose to fear the consequences. Does the law then impose upon our freedom at all?

What of these consequences? Prison we construe as a limitation on physical freedom and consequently mental freedom, though far be it from me to make a distinction between 'freedoms'. Therefore we allow to law to limit our freedom in the fear that if we do not allow this limitation on freedom, we shall have our freedom limited in some other manner? What? Clearly we require naked literality to frighten us. The gun is scarier than the gun-laws. Idiots.

Arundhati Roy's face is planed so beautifully. High cheekbones, liquid eyes and that iridescent honey-gold skin that girls with uneven tans and sunburnt noses will always be envious of. And she wrote that one book that I shall never be sure whether I like or not - God of Small Things. For all the knee-jerk cynicism, I'm a sucker for happy endings. GOST has no happy ending.. GOST has no ending that I could make anything of, actually. But she has a beautiful turn of phrase. 'A viable, die-able age', she said. What age isn't?

A viable, die-able age. Singing syllables.

Provogue Jodhpur does not carry skinny jeans in size 28. Asking for said jeans in said size appears to be reason enough to invite exaggerated expressions of disdain and pity in salesman of said store. I prefer to take this as definitive indication from the Universe that, inspite of all the well-meant encouragement of my enthusiastic and pushy friends, I am meant to spend my life in washed-out, one-size-too-large, held-up-by-clunky-belt blue straight jeans. I hear they're called 'Boyfriend jeans' and that Heidi Klum is wearing them these days. Fashion apparently does come full-fucking-circle.

I must stop blogging when I'm ridiculously sleepy. I just must.

Goodnight, me homies.

15 comments:

Punvati said...

Wow.. watta watta odd stream of consciousness.. or almost unconsciousness..

1) Ahem.. college randomness!! Its a good holistic word! Hmph!
2)Amul milk chocolate is a disgrace to the word chocolate
3)Pushy friend eh? Well im proud of the fact that u actually went and asked for them :P

Jil Jil Ramamani said...

What the random?

1. Amul thingy doesnt deserve to be called chocolate. Include Cadbury Bournville to the list too please. Sucks. I spent Rs 75 on it and Im pissed.

2. Cows being bred delicately gave me a vivid image of someone giving a Jersey cow, a bath with chocolate bodywash. Don't ask why.

3. Ruskin Bond and Disney are responsible for all disillusions about villages and love.

4. pushy friends? - Entha insults!

BuntyCobra said...

FUCK!! That was brilliant!
You must ONLY blog when you're ridiculously sleepy.

And now I know not what to comment on.
But why Provogue of all places?
Provogue sucks.Be it Jodhpur,Bombay or Bhubaneshwar.
And why exactly are they called 'Boyfriend Jeans'?

I would have rather felt you round my throat
Crushing out life, than waving me farewell!


Yes,quite annoyingly cloying sentimental.

Too bad,I don't think I've ever had Lindt Milk Chocolate. :-(

And I see I am added to the bloglist.Thank you very much. :D

Spaz Kumari said...

@divi - yesss can you believe i ACTUALLY asked for them?? Yay me :)

@sindhu - AHEM. this is a PG-13 blog. Please to attempt to keep your kinky fantasies off this child (and animal) friendly place.

@curlyconman - ah, you're a fan of ze stream-of-consciousness approach! And please, I like Provogue ok. Only seen the Bbay, B'lore and Chennai stores so far. Jodhpur sucks though, admitted. The jeans are called boyfriend jeans because their general worn-out-ness and shapelessness on women gives the general impression that those women are wearing their boyfriends' jeans.

Annnd re blogroll - yes, now you're eternally indebted to me. *evil laughter*

Narendra shenoy said...

Completely brilliant! Really, really enjoyed that!

BuntyCobra said...

Nay,I read them other I-write-as-it-strikes-me posts.But you beat 'em all with your amazing alliterations and tongue-in cheek lampoons.

Arrey,It's OK if you like it.I just feel it's a fancy overpriced no-value for money brand.But whatever,less options in Jodhpur I suppose. :P

And yes,you made it too. :P
So how about courier me a bar of lindt chocolate for frandly reciprocity?

jhayu said...

How perfect that the first post I ever read on your blog asks me, "Are you new here?"

And ah, a connoisseur of chocolate, I see. I remember demolishing a bar of Lindt that my dad had brought for the entire household. What ensued was not pretty.

And damn, I thought I could rant before I came here. And to quote Arnie, I'll be back.

jhayu said...

Oh, and I agree with curly. You really should blog more when you're 'ridiculously sleepy'.

Spaz Kumari said...

@narendra shenoy - never more honoured than when the famed shenoy sir drops in :)

@curlyconman - you'd have to be the one true love of my life before i'd courier you lindt chocolate ;) ... i never have enough money for it myself. I get it through the standard route - begbegbeg amreeka-uncle and yookay-auntie to bring while coming :D

@jhayu - haha, maybe i was expecting you ;)
wrt rants - i may do nothing else well, but i am proud of my rants. *pride*
also, your father bought ONE bar of lindt for the ENTIRE FAMILY?! clearly he's into violent sports. :)

Anonymous said...

LOL ... liked the way your thoughts went from one to the other!

The New Age Superhero said...

are all divyas as crazy?

hey man.. the only milk chocolates i ever liked were made by amul.. yeah.. incredulous i know.. anyway.. age has made my teeth go weak and sigh.. i won't really discuss depressing matters here

coming back to your post.. assuming i am not even a bit drunk when i say this.. freedom is an illusion.. just like imprisonment.. just like life.. beer anyone?

Spaz Kumari said...

@ghostrider - :)

@another brick in the wall - well, divya and i are... ahem.. romantically involved , so yeah, i'd say we're both equally non-conformist (otherwise known as crazy). :)

The New Age Superhero said...

things you don't want to know about your sister: she is romantically involved with another female.. so i'm praying you didn't want to say "romantically involved with each other"

Mudra said...

A viable, die-able age? :)

Now I wanna read that book.

Spaz Kumari said...

@another brick - i want to say 'romantically involved' all right, are you sure you're okay with hearing it? ;)

@mudra - read read. i recommend. not a very happy book and espouses a more or less stream-of-consciousness approach, but worth one read at the least.