Mango Showers

In India, they have terribly hot summers in most places, but these are interrupted by rain. Of course, we also know that summer is mango season. In southern India, sometimes these rains are so harsh, that it rains mangoes. They call these “Mango Showers.”

I’d never eaten a mango till I got here.

Well, I’d eaten Mango flavoured things, like ice-cream and cheesecake and other things, but I’d never really eaten the fruit.

And I realised that the best mangoes weren’t the ones that were sweet all over and specially picked and cut up into dainty little cubes.

No, the best fruit was when you didn’t know if the mango was sweet all over, and it tasted better when it had a little bit of that lip curling sourness in it.

It was nicer when there was a mess all over the front of your shirt, and juice dribbling off of your chin.

And it was especially nicer, to have someone’s laughing face close by, stained and messy in much the same fashion, making your own lips curl into a smile.

And that was how I came to love mangoes.

Windward

How would you be, my dear,
Were you human as you are the wind?
Would you be as wild and untamed?
Would we shiver in your displeasure,
And tremble in the chill of your contempt?
Would we thirst in the heat of your fervent passion
And bask in the afterglow of sweet content?
Would we welcome you in nights of restless abandon,
And desperate hope that you'd stay near?
Tell me, How would you feel,
Were you not whispering by my ear?

-Sreedevi

Ask and you shall be questioned.

It occurred to me that perhaps one of the bigger causes for problems of the human race is that we expect everyone to tell us things.

Why is that?

We’re told why we should choose one shampoo over the other, one toothpaste over the other, why one store is superior to the other, even why one programming language is supposedly better than the others.

And what do we do?

We hmm and haw, get ourselves more confused by the minute, and eventually make a choice that we doubt for a long while after – till we embrace the choice because we made it and it would be too humiliating to admit that we were wrong the first time round or we give up on it, admit we were wrong and proceed to repeat the cycle.

Why is it so difficult?

In the world of INTJ, we have a statement “I’ve made up my mind; don’t confuse me with the details.” I didn’t quite understand it then, but then the appearance of a praying mantis outside my door gave me pause. If I believed in such things as omens – good or bad – I would think that it was a sign to contemplate my surroundings, clear my mind and think about the choices I’m making.

Odd co-incidence, that.

The mind’s a funny thing, really. It finds all the hidden meanings, all the junk that goes on in between lines; whether that’s a good thing, one can’t say, but if you’re thinking it, then you can’t blame anyone but yourself. That is the truth.

The good thing about the mind is that it won’t tell you a thing. It’ll only just sit back, cross its arms and ask you questions that most of the time you cannot answer. It’ll smirk at you when you parrot out what you’ve been told all this time and ask you, “Really?”

You’ll really want to smash that smugness right out of your skull, but you can’t do it apart from the obvious reason why. It’s when you decide that the heart is a stupid muscle that can’t do a single thing that is voluntary. Hell, it can’t even beat without that miserable git that is your brain.

It’s fairly stupid to follow the sayings of a muscle that’s pretty much ordered around by something else, innit?

The truth lies in that complex grid of neurons that not even the most intelligent people on the planet have thus far been able to understand fully. We should be turning to minds, I suppose, not Gods when confronted with troubles.

That’s what the mantis at my doorstep meant.

So the mind says, “You needed an external factor that is sketchy at best, to tell you what you should have been listening to internally, all this while? And you call yourselves the most intelligent species?”

We’re learning; we’ll get there. That’s why we are the most intelligent species – for the most part – because some of us will learn.

The details are less confusing now; worst case scenario, the cycle will start again till I get it right, or die trying.

Remember, remember.

Looking back on the years that have passed,

There are several memories scattered;

Some of euphoria, and some quite sour,

Yet all of them equally mattered,

In making the trip through the varied land;

At time lush green and teeming with life,

And later regions of barrenness like a desert

Representing all our successes and strife.

A mixed feeling engulfs when we think of the time,

We will separate to follow stars of our own;

Excitement in facing an unknown world ahead

And fear of leaving a comfortably numb zone.

But most of all to find that the days may be empty,

Of filled to the brim with things to do;

Either way there may no longer be company,

That will comfort and help you pull through.

The joy that we shared, the laughs that we had,

And the outrageous stories that raged;

Of people and events; some so unbelievable,

That it’s possible they were all staged.

Gossip and tips and all the knick-knacks,

On things that mattered, or didn’t;

Bring wide smiles, and probably sly grins,

For things we did, but quite shouldn’t.

Moments of truth, perhaps quite unpleasant,

That brought us to tears or frustration;

Yet we trudged on, like soldiers in fog,

Towards a road, either to success or perdition.

Times like these may never return,

Bottled and stored, fresh long after the present;

It seems like yesterday, we arrived at these gates,

Many years it has been, so short: as a moment.

Sreedevi

Stephen Fry 'twinterview'

Here's a transcript (of sorts) of the "twinterview" [interview via twitter] conducted by Johann Hari (johannhari101) with Mr. Stephen Fry (stephenfry), for the benefit of anyone who missed it.

As always, Mr. Fry, it has been a pleasure.

Please find the .pdf file here.

Let me know if anyone has any problems with it.

Regards,
Sreedevi.

Wanderers by moon

Darkness falls and shrouds our world,

And long slumbering beasts awaken;

With raised heads, and claws uncurled,

They wait with infinite patience,

For the moment they can, readily escape,

From shadows where light be forbidden;

And sniff the air for unconscious prey,

Within reach, unfortunate and unbidden.

Long they have hungered, and hoped in vain,

Till night o’er them hath befallen;

And with moon and stars, they rise again,

The beasts to beauty, wretched and forgotten.

By howl of wind and wolf alike,

Prepared to hunt, unencumbered;

For rules by day, are hidden and ground

Into stardust, till dawn be remembered.

Nothing remains, not bone nor decay

For nothing is left, worthy of remains;

Nothing is heard, or pretended be heard,

Screams of terror, lost forever in pain.

A hat, a coat, a scarf, that once belonged

Thievery struck, a beggar in want

No sign of a struggle, no need for a lie

For those who are lost, never survive.

Sreedevi Jagannath.

Dreams in the summer sky.

Its one thing that I wake in the morning to see that it’s a rainy day.

It’s entirely another to wake up most mornings and simply feel that way.

Most mornings I just wake up, admiring the way the light plays with the sky blue of my walls, blurring the edges of the walls into a generous summer sky, irrespective of the weather outside. I further the feeling by drawing curtains, the colour of a stormy sky; where the clouds are thickening, but not thick as to sport the grey uniforms of somber soldiers.

It lends a pattern to the summer sky around me, patches of golden interspersing the faultless expanse. In the quiet gloom of the morning hours, it gives my dream addled brain a little longer to hold on to the fantastical images that lend extraordinary depth to pre-dawn dreams.

And then the waking dream has to end, as all dreams must.

It is not the end I fear, but the dream itself. For if there is no dream then there will be nothing to end.