Tag: #everyday jottings
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Illusion of choice
In this old Bollywood song, the hero is torn between two women, two worlds, two philosophies: the good hearted, simple, and sweet Nargis – and the charming, manipulative, and seductive Nadia. The hero only thinks he has a choice. Any choice he makes will lead him to the same woman. I am both Nargis and…
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D.K. Bose, D.K. Bose, D.K. Bose
It’s one of my favourite Hindi songs with strange lyrics and almost surrealist imagery. The additional fun comes from the name used in the song, D. K. Bose. By repeating it constantly, as they do, it starts to sound like a Hindi expletive somewhat comparable to the English ‘motherfucker’. Certainly, it was done to avoid…
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I am always late / Muneer Niazi
I am always late with everything In saying something important, In keeping a promise In calling her, In asking her to return I am always late In helping or in consoling a friend In meeting someone on old, ancient roads I am always late In being in love during changing seasons In remembering Or in…
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The portrait of a young woman as a witch
While walking back home from the university one day, a small stretch of road was particularly empty and there was no one else except a couple just a little further down. I must have glanced at them for a couple of seconds before moving my gaze away but just as I walked past them, the…
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On why men are boring
The sad truth is that men are boring. Well, most men are boring. Either they’re degenerate misogynist criminals, or the obviously good, the obviously-selfless*, the obviously-everything-your-mother-said-should-exist-in-a-good-husband.** Well, not my mother. But someone’s mother. Both these so-called binary opposites are, in fact, one. In essence, in quality. They’re always the same. They do not change. In…
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Bollywood Films for Dummies
Do you look at an image or a painting and say: but I don’t get it. This is not how it actually works … the skull can’t actually dance, I have never seen clocks melt, and, my friend, tell me if you have ever met a man with the face of an apple? Well, then…
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Lights out!
Back in college, we thought we were the coolest, because, of course, we were. We read the coolest books, wore the coolest clothes, had the coolest political views, we did not believe in gender, we bunked classes, we went to bars and lied about our ages, talked openly about sex, etc, etc. In the hostel,…
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The Hippocratic Oath : what I managed to hear in a crowded room
I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:… [I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.] I will apply [, for the benefit of the sick,] all measures…
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The law of retirement
Who is this girl? I am not sure but I think she’s one of my grandmother’s sisters, married at the age of 14 to a rich zamindar, owner of mango and banana plantations, and several houses in British Calcutta, annual host of an obligatory kangali bhojan (“the feast for the poor”) – fast forward a…
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A bar in Helsinki
Who wants to be a fucking writer? Who fucking wants to write? This typing of a sentence is killing me, I hate myself for typing this, I hate myself for wanting to type anything on anything. Why is this blank Word document not a dingy bar in Helsinki where I can sing those old gypsy…
Beyond Six Rivers 