Crumbs from The Cookie Jar

2003-11-04T18:28:00.000-08:00

Bye-bye, Blogger. Hello, Paid-Enterprise.

2003-10-25T14:49:00.000-07:00

Diary:

Possible Phrase-Synonyms for 'Changing Wallets':

Changing Guard ?

2003-10-25T14:32:00.000-07:00

Diary:

Mid Year Review:

Last Deepavali I was in Vancouver. This Deepavali I am not.

Last October I was calmer, older and less forgiving of those who might want to drown their misery in overpriced vodka scramblers. This October, however, finds me more indulgent and less wary of Consequences. But, of course. There are days I am not sure that this is entirely a good thing: this delicate walking of a tightrope between trust and caution, with nothing beneath me to break my eventual fall.

Yet, the mostly effortless joys this year has brought along with it so far, have turned my eyes outward, not inward; made me less selfish with my time, more expansive with my affection. Safety, some solitary voice reminds my ear, is not a good enough substitute for Happiness.

So, sure. I'd agree with you. As of now, I'd say all switches in persona have been free and fair and made under management control.

2003-10-25T13:47:00.000-07:00

Diary:

"..the world is full of fast-talkers all trying hard to push a big lie, and the best you can hope for is not to fall for their pretty, unlikely promises..."

Aquarius, Weekly Forecast in The SK Star Phoenix.

2003-10-23T20:08:00.000-07:00

Journal:

Donne, Premise of 2nd Prebend Sermon delivered @ St. Paul's , early 1600's:

Situations don't change. Predestination ordains that what must happen to you will happen to you regardless of your struggles to break the tide. However what will change, and what can change for the better, if you have religious faith or spiritual discipline, is how you react to it.

Notice strikingly similarities between this and parts of Hindu philosophy. More suprising, considering level of awareness regarding Asian schools of thought at the time. Evidence that moral relativism is trash maybe, and that human beings all over the world have always come to similar conclusions about meaning of life and suffering at end of a long day's lennon?
***
Met Dunbar in hallway today after ages. Still teaching one 100-level class per semester. Still married. Still childless. Still doing PhD. Still poor, and Still no end in sight.

Made me think twice about pursuing higher education as academic.

2003-10-23T19:51:00.000-07:00

Diary:

You poor, foolish little thing:

And when misery marches goosesteps over your soul, how does it feel to remember that you swore you'd never-ever do this to yourself again ?

2003-10-22T17:58:00.000-07:00

Journal:

listening to: White Flag, Dido.

Went over Bessie Head's A Woman Alone in Professor Morell's Commonwealth Literature lecture.

Found could not classify work as African or Feminist, but that Head was spectacularly talented in combining ideas from sources as diverse as Freud and Woolf into one explosive concept. Am immensely struck by how overwhelming Need to Write for an artist can overcome worst of circumstances: Head for example, was born in pre-Mandela S. Africa & struggled with debilitating mental illness, rotten childhood, lifelong poverty, exile etc; yet wrote novels and worked as journalist through it all.

Plus: TOMMORROW!! Celebrity-author-spotting at local library :D

2003-10-21T17:48:00.000-07:00

Journal:

Attended late afternoon seminar by Dr. Anitha Ramanna from the Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research in Bombay about Intellectual Rights and the Indian Farmer. Mostly focused on Bio-piracy and patent right formulas in India; not particularly relevant to Canadian farming? However, v. informative about larger picture even if sketchy on specific details.

Snottynosed law school jerk in front row kept asking stupid questions and made poor woman squirm. Also, made me v.mad.

2003-10-21T13:44:00.000-07:00

Diary:

Worry, as any sensible woman is quick to point out, is about as useful as a bicycle is to a fish faced Irina Dunn. Sometimes, you shouldn't wait to worry and tease things through. You just have to throw out everything you assumed you knew for sure, and rework the fabric of your life.

Batter My Heart, as John Donne says in a Holy Sonnet addressed to his God, so that You can Fashion Me into Something New. Bind me to you with your Grace, so that I can truly be free. Ravish me, Lord, so that I can become Chaste.

But there are other times too. When all you need to do is switch on a lightbulb in some long forgotten holding room inside your head or participate in a conversation that runs between time and space. Change, you might find then, may be far less radical in nature, yet more significant in scope.

That said : What Change is missing from my world? What do I crave? What appears to be painfully far away? What do I have that I am not sure I possess? Why should history worry me? And me, with my never-enough affection and big words, so eager to read the worst of intentions in the best of people.

Funny how they always made it look so easy on television.

2003-10-20T20:32:00.000-07:00

Diary:

My mother told me last night about the son of an acquaintance, who just been admitted to an PhD program in Finance, at Columbia University in NY. After a working holiday at the ICICI Bank in Mumbai, an MBA from IIM and a BTech from IIT.

Hmm.. I mumbled, and swiftly managed to move on to talking about something less intimidating, like the probability of it raining in Vancouver over the weekend. The thing is, till very recently, I had always considered my time on earth to be an infinitely available resource. Or at least that's what it felt like. Clocks ran out on other people, not me.

But now, as fall prepares to turn into winter, and then into spring: all the things I have wanted to do before I turned 30 threaten to remain the foolish dreams one is forced to leave behind along with one's youth. And it almost hurts to take pleasure in the good fortune of another.

I wonder if my painfully overdrawn quarter life crisis is preparing me for life as an underprivileged washout after all. Because, as they never fail to remind me, Envy is apparently directly proportional to age, and inversely so, to one's achievements.

2003-10-16T09:29:00.000-07:00

And among other things:
I am a stepchild my body cannot bring herself to love.

2003-10-15T18:34:00.000-07:00

If I ride big, I ride tall?

Early each morning, the elephant keepers, or mahouts, of the Punnathur Kotta elephant yard in Kerala, southern India, ready their big beasts for the new day. Chains are loosened from the elephants' feet, dust removed from their bodies and one batch will be taken to the great Hindu temple of Guruvayur, just along the road, for ceremonial duties.Among the mahouts caring for these 62 temple elephants, one stands out conspicuously.

Ilja Tromp, aged 25, is from the Netherlands and is one month into a half-year course that is training her in the art of elephant-keeping. She is one of the first women, and certainly the first foreign woman, to do this. Read More?

Note to Self: Why is this suprising? Other than the hippie-does-india routine? Because Guruvayur is one of the few prominent Hindu temples in India that still follows deliriously out of date religion, caste and gender based segregation rules in and around its premises.

2003-10-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

Thanksgiving '03, Saskatchewan :

With gratitude, lord, for the drizzle;
and for family and friends who try to understand.

Weather

In the spaces
where the grass cannot grow
I see you water
the ground

Painting the desert
with your prayer

Inside of me
a storm is cooking --
it knows no shore
or ocean
yet its destination is clear

Call the weatherman
And stay indoors
Tonight it will rain
on your fallow farm.
B.V

2003-10-13T19:52:00.000-07:00

Henry James said of Mary Ann Evans

who wrote among other things, The Mill on The Floss

"She is magnificently ugly--deliciously hideous...in this vast ugliness resides a most powerful beauty which, in a very few minutes steals forth with its charms, so that you end up, as I did, falling in love with her mind."

Really? Is that how one woos a woman's hand?

2003-10-13T19:35:00.000-07:00

On dull hot chocolate-and-warm quilt evenings like these, father Time uncurls his great big fingers to draw lines across our lives. Lines that curl and curve across the fabric of our memories; lines that look like crab-legged photo images that sit with stolid determination in the sand, but eventually turn out to be far more mobile.

I think father does this to remind us of how we can only go so far, and then: No Further. And that his careful hands will eventually limit everything we hold close to our hearts: Grief. Despair. Even, Self Examination.

2003-10-11T22:52:00.000-07:00

Question: Do confessions always leave your soul dry?

Answer: Only if you want them to work.

2003-10-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

Sigh.

Have I told You how Slummin' It is so not-Fun anymore?

2003-10-07T21:55:00.000-07:00

Meet Arnie, the Govern-ator.

To head the fifth largest economy in the world, without a shred of training in economics, politics or public affairs, distasteful allegations of misogynist behaviour, and a trail of loaded political lobby groups.

And of course, this, in a country that claims to light the road to democracy for the rest of the world. Shame, Shame.

2003-10-05T16:16:00.000-07:00

Owww. my body huuuuuuurrrrrrrrts.

Doing Overtime At the Gym, Maybe Not So Good Idea ?

2003-10-04T19:52:00.000-07:00

Apparently, there is a first time for everything. Including being subjected to corny pick up lines by sad, middle aged white men in the express checkout lane of your local supermarket.

2003-10-01T16:02:00.000-07:00

Remote (Mind )Control ?

Please put your completely-unbiased hands together and prepare to welcome the utterly-despicable, unabashedly commercial and absolutely-stupid Merchants of Cool.

2003-10-01T14:29:00.000-07:00

"..now the story's played out like this
Just like a bad paperback novel;
Lets rewrite an ending that fits.."

lyrics from Someday, Nickelback

2003-09-30T19:20:00.000-07:00

listening to: Nila Kaikarathu, Indira

Most days my life, inspite of what I make of it here, is a fairly privileged one. I live in the kind of city that I like best, doing the kind of things I like best. I have a reasonably dry roof over my head, with good plumbing and clean carpets. If I am hungry, it is only because I choose to be so. Ditto, for Poverty.

My parents love me. So does my sister, most of the time. A liberal Anglo Indian education and a remarkably pain-free childhood has left me well-read and articulate. I can be a very entertaining party guest, if you ply me with enough food, wine or good conversation.

So, most days, I figure at least half of the Somalian population and most of the twenty something brown women I know are having a harder time of counting their blessings, than I am.

All I need then, on days like today, is somebody to convince me, that it is not otherwise.

2003-09-30T18:46:00.000-07:00

Must Remember when Things are diving South, that :

One. Tears solve Nothing. And

Two. Tears solve Absolutely Nothing.

2003-09-29T13:58:00.000-07:00

Why Feminism shouldn't be The New F-word:

Spare me fake-feminists., a friend growls.

Another one of my best friends, a brunette Barbie-lookalike working for a large technology corporation, snaps her chewing gum as we flip through an business article about sexual harassment together, oh.I am not a Feminist. Don't you find that like So like Redundant? All this, as politicians, mostly women, publish newspaper interviews, advising the laity to abandon their pepper sprays and start wearing their bras again. The war, they proudly announce, has been won. Has it?

Maybe not, Mah Soul Sistahs.Maybe not.

Meet Venugopal Dhoot, chairman of the 40 billon rupee Videocon corporation, father of Anirudh and Surabhi Dhoot, and corporate India's resident Dickhead. Anirudh plays movie moghul and dream merchant at a business Daddy set up for him. Surabhi, after graduating with honors from a MBA program from the University of Wales, sits at home, ostensibly filing her nails and watching crocuses bloom.

.."Show me one woman who is running a business successfully," Dhoot challenges. Brushing off the names you suggest, "Arre, business karna hai to Rs 1,000 crore ka karo, chhota-mota kya karna hai. Women, can't do that. No woman heads such a big empire. Moreover, our system doesn't allow that." ..

Times of India Interview, September 29, 2003.

***

The Videocon corporate website boasts the greasy PR squib."Today, we are ...trusted by over 50 million people to improve their quality of life."

50 million minus 1.

2003-09-28T13:25:00.000-07:00

On Finding a New Significant Other:

But by then I didn't care that he too had left, said Kamala in one of her poems, because as one grows older one finds that there is always a 'substitute for a substitute.'

2003-09-27T14:26:00.000-07:00

Looking Inward: A Confession in B-major

Pros/Cons

Smart / Thinks Too Hard. Too Much.

Easy Going / Frequently Green.

Funny / Sarcastic.

Ambitious when Passionate / Not Passionate often.

Hardworking / Currently Earns Hourly Wage.

Adaptable / Whiny.

Self Assured/But only Because You can't tell Otherwise

Well Read / Pretentious.

Prefers Personality over Muscle Shirt/ Spiteful Self Image.

Can Love / Can Love too Much.

Stubborn/Really(?)

2003-09-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

My soul feels really.really.really.really. un-washed.

2003-09-25T09:46:00.000-07:00

What is Metaphysical Poetry?

PART A

The word, metaphysical, deals with the relationship between spiritual/ sensual concerns and actual physical matter. Metaphysical poetry, however, is highly intellectulized 17th century verse, and is usually associated with names like John Donne and Andrew Marvell.

Donne, Marvell and their kind rejected the prevailing romantic Petrarchean style of writing and drew on the growing influence of the English Renaissance as well as developments in science & geography to draw extended metaphors between dissimilar situations. Donne's famous comparison of 2 lovers who are about to be separated to the twin ends of a compass that will remain connected no matter how far apart they are drawn is an often quoted example.

"... as stiff twin compasses are two;
Such wilt thou be to me...

Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun."

(A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, 1624)

Though these poets were often criticised by their contemporaries for being too arcane and rigourous, interest in their work peaked in the early 20th century, after essays like T.S Eliot's "The Metaphysical Poets." (1921) and exhaustive research studies of their work were published.

2003-09-24T17:15:00.000-07:00

Don't Play it Again, Sam.

This shabby little story of sour love and immorality has been told and retold so many times before, that the only reason it takes up so much of this wasted space is because it is my own.

The actors may change, and so may their voices; but the bare mechanics of a tale where X exchanges Y who lives far away for Z who lives closer to home remains the same.
***
Sitting at my desk in the school lab, I can see a thick blue fog of dé·jà vu take over the night. And I can feel an old misantropic crone hover lightly over my shoulder, as she cups her hand to whisper lies into my ears.

Lightening, apparently, can strike the credulous more than once.

2003-09-24T16:48:00.000-07:00

listening to Taxi Ride, Tori Amos

There are these two people I know. Not particularly well; but I share with them the closeness that comes from breaking bread at the same table together.

And now that they are reevaluating their future together, it is a shame that all I am thinking of is how I can break out from the rank of Sympathetic Bystander, and hold my own closer to me than ever before.

I am trying to be sensitive. To dredge up feelings of support and commiseration from back when I was younger and kinder, but I can't seem to. Now that I have everything to lose, and nothing left for myself, a strong suspicion of the Other tempers everything I do and see. Distrust filters my world, and I am forced to go through life, always slightly disdainful of unfortunate news, as long as it does not concern me or mine.

Or maybe disdain is not the word I am looking for here.

Maybe what I am really looking for is a word to adequately describe the faint panic that swims beneath the surface of my own semi functional relationship, that reminds me that disaster is always only a heartbeat and 24 hours away.

2003-09-24T10:42:00.000-07:00

And in Waiting for the Phone to Ring:

"...began the tempest to my soul.."

1.4, Clarence, in The Life & Death of King Richard III

2003-09-23T09:46:00.000-07:00

The Instrument

You only need Three fingers to play her right. Two to

hold amber skin taut. And One to tune vestal

notes into pitch

perfect ecst

as

y.

2003-09-22T19:35:00.000-07:00

gaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh..I really really really really don't want to go to the gym today.

But I must. I must.

Sigh.

2003-09-22T19:24:00.000-07:00

Idle Contemplation

I am sitting at the kitchen table watching you
talk. making Breakfast for Two at midnight.

And you don't know this but I do. That there is
a spider crawling across your kitchen floor.
Long legged and splendid, and also
smart because as you move toward me,
she sidesteps disaster
to scuttle into a cupboard nearby.

It occurs to me then

but only casually, and only because
I am tired and restless and in the mood
for this sort of thing,

that you might find my adoration
just as
insignificant.

But not quite so dangerous.

2003-09-22T18:24:00.000-07:00

What would you say :

if I said that guarantees are for washing machines, and cowards who are too foolish to know a good thing when they see one?

2003-09-21T18:11:00.000-07:00

The Brilliant Cowherd:

Part I

..from the centre of the grassland, Arjuna can see for miles.The pennants of his kinsmen streaming in the wind. The tents for the women and the injured set up on a knoll far away. His teacher and his grand uncle on dark steeds, side by side. He can even make out the faces of his wife's relatives. Old friends. And Cousin Duryodhana, as he confers with his war generals.

It is only then that his knees start to buckle. That his body starts to shiver slightly. Not from the cold..

Continue to Part II

...and that then, is the essence of the Gita as I understand it.

For me, its genius doesn't lie in the arguably excellent poetry of the text, or the gory details of an ancient family squabble that had quickly, irrevocably, managed to spiral out of control. Instead, its brilliance comes from the words of a writer, long dead and perhaps even unknown, who manages to cleverly combine various contradictory points of view that has plagued hindus and human beings alike: Of the Ascetic who rejects society and the Householder who clings to it, and the man in the middle who refuses to make up his mind.

**fini**

2003-09-20T15:50:00.000-07:00

Feeling: Impoverished.
(Not) Listening to: good advice, disguised as Jack Johnson.
Reading: A Word Child, Iris Murdoch

Chicago Zen

..watch your step, watch it, I say,
especially at the first high
threshold,

and the sudden low
one near the end
of the flight
of stairs,

and watch
for the last
step that's never there.

A.K Ramanujan, Anglo-Indian Literature's finest dead poet.

2003-09-20T15:05:00.000-07:00

Re: Sibling Missive dated September 20/2003

"Hey Chechi,

How r u? we're all fine here. i need help with my english! the teacher asked me to do a creative writing assignment on time and it can be anything like an essay or poem but it has to be double spaced and 1 page to 2 pages long!!!! and i need it by tuesday!!!!! i hope u get this by saturday. how was ur day? well i will ttyl after i get back from the bbq. bye.

Kichummi "
**
Thank God for Little Sisters and English Teachers and above all else, !!Exclamation !!!!Marks.

2003-09-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

"Imagine being able to run a Google-like search on your life." asks Gord Bell, Engineer for Microsoft's MyLifeBits Project.

Yeah. Imagine. Every Humiliation. Every Disappointment. Every Skinned Knee and Broken Shin Bone and Snivelly Headcold. Preserved for posterity.

*Sheesh*

2003-09-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

The Philosopher Kings are Famous, Rich & Beautiful.

They also don't make music together anymore. which is a pity. Because their albums used to own this !amazing-jazzy-bluesy-grungerock whine that is divine to listen to when you are walking down the street on a summer night (It Hurts to Love You, Hon --> Case in Point.) However Gerald Eaton, the frontman of the group, and one of the big Tamales promoting Furtado, did put out a bunch of songs by himself last year. Highly Recommended No-Buy.

2003-09-19T08:10:00.000-07:00

SShhhhhh. Don't Think.

2003-09-18T19:30:00.000-07:00

The Brilliant Cowherd:- I

References:

R.C Zaehner's Hinduism.

What is the Mahabharata?

Edwin Arnold's The Bhagavad Gita.

For the Beginner: An Illustrated Gita.

Vaishnava Philosophy, as I understand it :

It is truly the worst of seasons. The sun, a blood red orange, hangs low over the eastern horizon. The sky clouded, even at this early hour, with the sweat and fear of Man and Beast, alike. Elephants and horses stamp impatient feet, as musicians on both sides arrange their instruments to articulate the terror of battle.

And a young warrior in heavy, expensive armor watches them all with interest. "Take me further." He tells his friend.The chariot moves to the frontline. The man smiles faintly at his enemies in the distance, with the confidence of one who has always been loved by the Gods."Look at them. Lined up as fowl for slaughter."

"Further, Krishna. Take me further, into the middle of the battlefield."
***
From the centre of the grassland, Arjuna can see for miles.The pennants of his kinsmen streaming in the wind. The tents for the women and the injured set up on a knoll far away. His teacher and his grand uncle on dark steeds, side by side. He can even make out the faces of his wife's relatives. Old friends. And Cousin Duryodhana, as he confers with his war generals.

It is only then that his knees start to buckle. That his body starts to shiver slightly. Not from the cold.

****

2003-09-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

BAH!

One look at him, and you could tell he was one of those late bloomers who had managed to squirrel their way into the highschool football team by sophmore year, in spite of themselves. He wore a ribbon scarf and an artsy brown cord jacket, but you could still tell.

He is the only boy in a class of about 25 Gloria-Steinem sounda-likes, all taking a course about the Female Body in Print, but he is not very smart because at one point he pipes up" Its Penis Envy. She looks like she envies the concept of Manhood in general."

The rest of us sat there, at least the ones who were paying attention to the discussion in class, stunned into silence. Didn't that term die with Freud, a long, long time ago? Along with corsets and crinoline parasols?

"You bet." I wanted to tell him when I could string words and form coherent sentences again" If having a penis means being strong and articulate and confessing to going after what we want, regardless of what or who we have to trample over to get it, you bet, all assertive women have a dick shaped bone in their body.

Its just that, unlike you, that ours happen to be in our heads, stupid."

2003-09-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

This site ( from which the letter below was taken as-is ) is a sign to me, from God, why I should never-ever-never feel bad about how things are going. That but for the prayers of the Faithful, I too could have been a 200 pound American teenager worrying about my fruit basket.

"Dear FutureMe,

Now, that a year past since you wrote this, I wonder if you still remember you ever wrote this. You had a few goal to accoamplish by the end of the year of 2004. You should be getting on your feet and start running the eBay bussines again. Also, you promised yourself that this sophmore year you will get at least a B in each class. Right now its the start of the year, the fifth week actually.

You are not exactly the most popular kid in class. You weight 210 and still did not get a permit. By now, you should be able to drive without a 21yo person beside you. I also hope that by now you finally loosed your virginity.(....)

After school, you sometimes jogg/run but you're in bad shape (I wouldnt say bad, but improvement is needed.) Its also one of your purpose to get in better shape, you know it will make you feel better about yourself. I sure hope that by now your speech is easier to understand and that you're more likeable. Right now, when you look at yourself at the mirror, you see a person and a face you like, but when you see yourself in pictures and cassettes, you dont. Did all that change? Are you a different person now that you used to be? I hope the best for the year of 2005!

Lio

(written Mon Sep 15, 2003, to be delivered Fri Dec 31, 2004) "

2003-09-15T18:14:00.000-07:00

And when it comes to Writing in clear, understandable prose, I find:

Motivation such an aggravation ,
Accusations. Don't know how to take them.
Inspiration's getting hard to fake it.
Concentration's never hard to brake it.
Situation's never what you want it to be.

lyrics from Motivation, Sum 41

2003-09-15T18:02:00.000-07:00

*grrr* :

Being Put on Hold by Inefficient Telephone Company while Customer Service Representative is scrambling to find your record.

*grrrrrrrrowwlll* :

As above, AND having to listen to an hour of Yanni's music.

2003-09-14T17:03:00.000-07:00

For the Moment :

Favourite Thing to Do: Reminisce

Favourite Smell: Burnt Toast.

Favourite Sentiment: ~~Disdain~~ Regret

Favourite Statement of Pleasure: "She, what???!! No Kidding! Were'nt you guys engaged? Oh. Gee, that's a pity, huh? Somehow, I always thought you both deserved each other."

2003-09-13T20:38:00.000-07:00

Pack up the Kids, Honey. We're goin' Home.

2003-09-12T11:50:00.000-07:00

Yann Martel in Saskatoon:

Real Live 2003 Booker Prize winner, now Available as exclusive prairie-flavoured Soundbite. Can be purchased in Bulk, or Retail. 100% Genuine Article!

Call Canadian Council for Arts with regard to pricing details and certificate of authencity.

2003-09-10T12:09:00.000-07:00

- ~-