23:51 IST
Big Dining Hall, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

Lord Krishna was born today. He's the blue dude, shown playing a flute, or chasing girls, or licking white butter off his hand; adorning a peacock feather. So he was born today and to celebrate the auspiciousness of the day the country was given a gazetted holiday (which essentially means official, or government-related. Which is funny because a gazette means a newspaper, so gazetted should mean newspapered?) The market outside my house was choked with people and lights. More noise than usual. Ugh.

I went through a number of 'literary websites' today. 3AM, The NewerYork, Million, Alt Lit...interesting websites discussing forms of writing, types of writing, and containing lots of writing. I likey. Hearting this stuff.

OK this is becoming boring. Think I'll take-off for the night. Goodnighty lil bloggie. You keep me going :)

21:33IST

Room with a table fan, Inderpuri

New Delhi, India Crappy day crappy day. Why do I bother? Puked in the dirty office loo. Too much LIIT last night, plus some crappy wrap. Did not suit the digestive organs. Must not do this again. The puke was quite disgusting, as puke is supposed to be. It was a mildly yellow, almost off-white, the yellowness of grilled paneer perhaps? Might as well be. Had a load of those milk-made cubes.It was mixed with bits of dark-green straw like things. Must be some leaves I ate with the paneer wrap. Crap. There was no wiper or napkin in the loo. And I had puked all over the basin. Some bits could be seen stuck on the mirror above the basin. I held my breath, stuck out my index finger and tried twirling the ugly mess inside the little drain-hole of the basin. Round and round merry-go-round, the finger made tiny circular motions. It was rhythmic. Could hear Jose Gonzalez in my head "How low....are you willing to go....."

Anyhoo came home early and slept and lazed and slept and lazed and felt miserable about life in general. Read up an article talking about an apparently brand new insight into rapes. It said poverty is a cause for rapes. Wasn't sure if I agreed. Will try to understand that in the next few lines: Rape. In my basic understanding, rape is an action word. It can be used either as a verb or a noun. 'She was raped' 'A rape happened'. The word denotes an act. The act of having a sexual intercourse by force, without the permission of one of the members participating in the act. It essentially means - I say no and you still do it. You force your genitals into mine, without my consent. That's wrong. Invading private space without permission is just wrong. Hence rape becomes a crime in the eyes of law. Law of nation. Not law of the universe. The universe doesn't care. It just is. Duh.
Now, news in our claustrophobic country talks a lot about rape. Incidents are reported dime-a-dozen, statistics are drawn, reasons are cited, insight is sought. A lot of ink and type has gone into discussing this carnal act. One question people seem unable to answer - why are rapes so common in India?
Lack of education, poverty, lack of inherent civic sense, no control over instinct - seem to be some reasons given by the thinking lot of the country. I don't know. Let's think. Rape is a sexual act. Penis in vulva. Penis in anus. Genital in genital. A FORCED act. But a sexual act. I say 'but' as if I'm trying to justify it. I hope not! Let's see.
Why do we have sex? We are living, sexual organisms designed to mate to produce more like us. Hence the sex. It is the first step toward procreation. So what's the big deal? Bonobos have sex all the time, all other species do. Why not us. We do. But we do it when we want to. And no one forces us to. So all animals do it because they want to? Isn't this an age thing? When you become of age, reach puberty, your sexual organs mature, you have these hormones that want you to do it more often than normal? That happens with all animals, don't it? So it is a sexual act, driven by hormones - not rational thought. So where is the 'when you want to aspect?' It is driven by instinct. Your instinct and perhaps you are driven by it.
OK, now that we have gained a bit of clarity on the purpose and process of the sexual act, we come to acting the act. An instinctive desire in a 'structure' a 'system', the 'society' aspect of it. Does it require curbing? 
If all men and women, when they reach of 'age' can have sex whenever they want with whoever they want, then? That isn't the case right now, is it? There are restrictions. Proper behaviour. We aren;t bonobos or salmon or fire flies. Coming of age has nothing to do with free-willed instinctive sex.

But we aren't talking about when can we have sex. We are talking about forced sex. Forcing to do it when we don't want to. The two aren't really related, are they? OK here's a reasoning. In my opinion, men because of their testosterone, like to assert a sense of power. It is a hormonal thing. A sexual intercourse, injecting the squiggly-wiggly sperm into a female body is the ultimate assertion of existence. It makes him feel powerful. A hormonal thing. Perhaps THAT is what he is trying to exercise, and perhaps that is what all living species do. An attempt to assert their existence. We know about it because we think. Other species don't.

As far as consent is concerned, on an instinctive level, that is not really a concern for the man. And by the way, I talk about men raping more than women raping (which also exists) simply because men raping is more common. Women also rape, but they might have different motivations - something led by a rationale, not necessarily instinct.
Explaining the act does not make it right. The uneducated, educated, rich and poor males - all feel that they the act is a stamp of their 'manhood'. They aid in pro-creation after all. Women probably don;t feel the same way because they have to carry the burden of the child. They have ONE egg. Men have squillions of sperms. They have a hose pipe that can be injected into any plug and get on with it. It is an urge. Of establishing their existence. Their one-upmanship.
So we probably understand why sex happens, and why rapes happen, and why men do it more than women? Now the next question is, why does it happen so rampantly in India? I'm not sure about the truth in the question. Sure, street-rapes are far more common here than anywhere else in the world - but domestic rapes occur a lot in the countries. The source of this info is two of my friends from different countries. Not entirely reliable, but then. Aaho. This is where education comes into play. Education helps us to think. To reason. It helps us understand our instincts. Why we behave the way we behave. Maybe education would help you understand that a woman is NOT a injectable-machine. That women DO NOT want to have sex with you all the time. That a consent is important. Strangers don't rape strangers, in the lands outside of India. Here, it doesn't matter so much. One attractive thing of beauty and all hell breaks lose. Maybe education, and the strugglesome living have a role to play - strictly for the 'desolate area being raped by strange men'. And maybe an utter, childhood disregard for females is also a reason. So maybe Rahul Bose and Cordelia Jenkins are kind of on the right track. Educate the young clinically and completely. Make them aware of sex and sexuality. Make them aware of the wonders of reason. Ignorance leads to impulsive acts. While I am all up for listening to impulse, when it comes at the cost of someone else, one needs to think. So the urge to indulge in sex is not wrong. If it is with the consent of the other member, it is not wrong. Rape is wrong. Even if a child is brought up in a harsh environment, lives in steepest poverty, he could still reason, respect women couldn't he? If he were told about it perhaps? This was long. Very long. I'm tired now. Sleep. Love. I'm not sure about the truth in the question. Sure, street-rapes are far more common here than anywhere else in the world - but domestic rapes occur a lot in the countries. The source of this info is two of my friends from different countries. Not entirely reliable, but then. Aaho.
This is where education comes into play. Education helps us to think. To reason. It helps us understand our instincts. Why we behave the way we behave. Maybe education would help you understand that a woman is NOT a injectable-machine. That women DO NOT want to have sex with you all the time. That a consent is important. Strangers don't rape strangers, in the lands outside of India. Here, it doesn't matter so much. One attractive thing of beauty and all hell breaks lose. Maybe education, and the strugglesome living have a role to play - strictly for the 'desolate area being raped by strange men'. And maybe an utter, childhood disregard for females is also a reason. So maybe Rahul Bose and Cordelia Jenkins are kind of on the right track. Educate the young clinically and completely. Make them aware of sex and sexuality. Make them aware of the wonders of reason. Ignorance leads to impulsive acts. While I am all up for listening to impulse, when it comes at the cost of someone else, one needs to think.

So the urge to indulge in sex is not wrong. If it is with the consent of the other member, it is not wrong. Rape is wrong. Even if a child is brought up in a harsh environment, lives in steepest poverty, he could still reason, respect women couldn't he? If he were told about it perhaps? This was long. Very long. I'm tired now. Sleep. Love.

25/8/13
00:30IST
Toy Room, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

(This incident happend on Saturday, 25 August 2013. I did not have access to the internet at the time of typing. This was typed on a word document. Posting it now.)
Horrific day spent tweeting away. Handling an account with over 4000 followers is hectic and tedious. Especially when the followers are petty little twonks. So we had some kind of a wanker deal with a massive pizza brand, where  they wanted to run a contest with us asking followers to answer five silly questions about largest things on the planet with the hashtag #SizeMatters. (they are introducing large sized pizzas at no extra cost.wowsers) The contest started. People went crazy tweeting answers. I went a little crazy tweeting questions and random little fillers like ‘way to go!’ ‘five more minutes!’ One question – about most populous city in the world had a debatable answer. I decided to go with Tokyo. Some people said Shanghai. Those that preferred Shanghai were a little too adamant about Shanghai. ‘Wikipedia says its Shanghai! HOW CAN WIKIPEDIA BE WRONG!?’ ‘How can you trust any other source!?’ They threw outdated links at me (my twitter handle) and told me my sources were incorrect. I stuck to what I said, apologized for the confusion and closed the account. I am not in the mood to write this. Shitty write. Goodnight.

00:15IST
Room with the table fan, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

Saw 'Jobs' today. A film based on the life of the late great Steve Jobs. The reason for Apple becoming a fruit with capital A. The film starred Ashton Kutcher as the main protagonist (the word is as old as 1671, from Greek - protos (first) + agoniste (competitor) all here. In dictionary we trust). I haven't yet looked at what the reviews said of the film and I haven't even seen the trailer of the film. I went and saw the film though. My review is based on what I saw.

The film felt slow. If it was a biography of Mr. Jobs, then it felt a bit patchy. As a viewer, I wasn't sure what the director was trying to convey to me. His life unfolded in a linear order - first the hippie and the traveller. That part showed him a reckless lover, a self-absorbed soul, someone with a deep desire to connect with the 'universe', someone who wanted to do something meaningful. He took random classes - calligraphy, computers, philosophy. He went travelling to India (no idea why India of all the places). Then he returns to Silicon Valley after his travels, finds a job and starts working. People don't like him because he is an 'asshole'. Good with work but an asshole. He wants to do something 'insanely cool.' Gets a business idea and a genius friend. Together they toil and create Apple. Then the film goes on to show his growth, his love for his work, his decided stance to stand by only those with a potential to be more productive for the company, his no-sympathy towards his friends. Some Bob Dylan numbers were thrown in, to showcase Jobs' attachment to Dylan. The film had a semi-circular script, I thought. It began with him introducing the iPod and towards the end (when he is going to be made CEO of his own firm) he is shown dumping an old walkman into the bin. I felt that the director really, desperately wanted to convey the spirit of the man behind the cult following of his brand to the audience. But he was also tied up with unfolding the events of his life. He could have focused on one thing, perhaps, and allowed the other to come through on it own. Not knowing a lot about Mr. Jobs' life, I felt that he was a bit of a cunt. His greatness came through only in the form of speeches, and his ability to recognize the right people for the job, and his business head. The APPLE man, the man who loved his product and felt that it was an extension of the individual, it just didn't come through to me.

Oh well. Other than that, slept a lot. Tried writing a piece of fiction. #FAIL. Fuck me. Goodnight.

00:37 IST
Room with the table fan, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

Worked from home! Worked on some crappy articles for a content creation platform. Pays peanuts. Still, some-peanuts better than no-peanuts. Went to the dentist. BFG of a man. He poked at and scaled my teeth with a long, narrow, silver pipe that jetted strange liquid in the mouth. Was 'cleaning' them up - removing the yellow tartar. Another sitting and my teeth would be perfecto. This is becoming shitty. I am sleepy. Sleep I will for now. 

22:35IST
Hall with the table fan, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

The day slipped by in a hazy daze. Or a daisy haze? Or a lazy daze? Or a lazy hazy daze? Omit the 'lazy' bit. A haze. In a daze.

Sitting on my work-desk, with a screen screaming PUBLISH CONTENT NOW! straight at me, my head buzzed like a bumbling bee with questions.

WHY AM I HERE???

Because your parents fucked. (it was also giving answers, apparently. My head is cool like that)

WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE???

Working.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT??

Its also called 'doing something'

YOU DON'T LIKE IT! WHY ARE YOU DOING IT!?

Because it pays my bills.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SHIT??

It gives me money that allows me to live.

WHY THIS SHIT?

Because I don't have any other 'shit'.
DO SOMETHING ELSE! YOU DON'T LIKE THIS! YOU ARE TIRED AND GRUMPY AND ALL-WIRED-UP-ABOUT-EXISTENCE-AND-PURPOSE WITH THIS SHIT! CHANGE YOUR SHIT!

I don't want to come to office.

OK!

Shut up. I'm working.

QUITIT!

Yes. Soon. Fingers crossed.

So that was my day. Other than that, came home early. A traffic-ridden journey home became pleasant because of the beautiful pink sky with massive, cotton--candy, fluffy clouds. Smiled away all the way. Passers-by stared at my face. Must think I'm demented. Oh well. Listened to a lot of Josez Gonzalez. Will buy camcorder soon. Feeling exhausted. Itchy hands. Goodnight.

00:35IST
Big Dining Room, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

Just finished a book. Breathe, a fourth installment of Riders of the Apocalypse series by Jackie Morse Kessler, who, Wikipedia just told me is an American author of fantasy young adult fiction books. This one was an interesting read. Riders of the Apocalypse (again, according to Wikipedia) were the four horsemen - white, red, black and pale riders symbolizing conquest, war, disease and death as per the book of Revelation in the Bible. In this fourth installment, Death becomes suicidal. Death needs to be saved. Because if Death dies, the world ends. Not knowing much about plot construction, I found it to be OK. The book doesn't delve deeply into the characters or their ideas. It worries more about the movement of events. Which is OK, I guess. Oh and balance. The Horsemen are responsible for maintaining a balance on earth. To stem the overflow and replenish the underflow of things - living and non. Loved that bit. Additionally, some lines are worth noting:

You people and your words, he said, rolling his eyes. You invest so much meaning into them. 
Words have meaning, the boy said. That's the entire point of them.

Words mean exactly what the person hearing them wants them to mean. Apocalypse is just a word.
A word that means the end of the world!
It's a word, Xander. It doesn't cause the end of anything, except, perhaps, my patience.
The book delves into loneliness, mostly. Loneliness makes you dream of another reality where you are not so alone, where you have hope of a better tomorrow, so that the present life's harsh reality becomes bearable. Loneliness causes depression. It makes you suicidal. You grow cold and numb and lose hope and the will to live. The book deals with all that. It touches upon the Mobius strip -  its a strip given a half twist and joining the ends together to form a loop. If two ants were to crawl on both sides of the strip, the only point of interaction for them would the the edge, the joining point of the loop (or maybe not even that). Death is considered to be the Mobius Strip. I did not understand why. Nincompoop.

Anyhoo, twas a good read, a good way to spend a holiday. A holy day for Indians apparently, as we were granted official freedom from the British today, 34 years ago. Other than that, I wore a skirt and ate a lot of junk food. Fat Ninja.

22:16IST
Room with the table fan, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

I want to leave my current job. I dislike it. What do I do? That's the story. Let us start from the start.

Once upon a time there was a man, a very rich man. One fine day, he decided to quit his job and go traveling. He traveled the globe for six years. He absorbed all the sights and sounds. And he maintained a record of all that he saw and felt in the form of a written + photography journal. Upon returning, he decided to make this his full-time job - travel writing and photography. Hence was born Kunzum Media Lab, a publishing house that creates content based on travel - little-big-cheesy factoids on travel. Information with a wow factor. Infotainment. It deals with blogging, photography, making videos, publishing books, e-magazines - all based on travel. The content is mostly created by the owner. He has a small team (including me) that edits and curates it. Being rich, he started his own travel cafe - a space for people to relax and read and use the free wifi and devour endless cups of coffee and tea and cookies. At the end of their session, they have the choice to pay-what-they-want in an honesty box by the door, or leave. Sad to notice that most just leave. Still, some generous souls come up everyday and help the cafe maintain its operation costs.

My role here is an administrative one. I'm supposed to keep everyone up-to-date with what is happening in the cafe and at work. Ensure everyone completes their tasks on time. Edit and curate content. Create media lists. Promote the brand and its events and its partners and offers on social media platforms. Organise events. Help the 'creatives' on their shoots. It is a boring, relaxed routine and a dull, pointless job. I don't enjoy it. Hence I want to leave. Good enough for you?

00:29IST
Room with the table fan, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

So I have this Macbook Air, a super light, super smooth 'top' electronic device with a screen and a keyboard sitting on my lap. It's been sitting on my lap for over a month now. For someone who belongs to a generation that worships work by tapping on keys instead of scrawling on sheets, I feel proud of what I own. That's a lie. I don't really own it. I just use it all the time. It belongs to a colleague at work, who gave it to me the minute I asked if he had a spare one. People don't give Apple products like that. It isn't an apple, you know. It's Apple. But the sweet soul gave it, sans charger. So I needed a charger. And I bought one, today. That's the real story, really.

Apple has a cult following. Cult is a small group of ardent fans of a phenomena, brand, band, thing. Hence Apple products tend to be expensive. Cult buys it no matter the price. This one charger I needed for a three-year old Air (love the way we capitalize Air and Apple - making them all haughty and happie) was for INR6000. My meagre income does not allow such fancy expenses. I needed the charger though. Hence I needed an alternative. In comes OLX.com - a website where buyers and sellers of electronic products meet and make merry. Found a number that stated 'used Apple mac charger in good condition for INR1500' I read it thrice - the number of zeroes. (never ceases to amaze me, the way zero can change your life). I still couldn't believe it. I wanted to call that number. It began with an 8. 8 is a gentle-looking digit. The bullshitter in my head coaxed me to punch the number. I called. The ring rang thrice. A man gave a short 'hello' on the other end. A conversation ensued. The important bit was his voice. Gentle, uncertain, pathetic. Trusting. He sounded quite pathetic when he said 'haan, mera Macbook chori ho gaya tha. Charger reh gaya. Ek saal purana hai.' (yes, my Macbook was stolen, and the charger was left behind. It's a year old). He sounded so uncertain when he said 'I live near Badarpur, and I work in Gurgaon. Don't know if I will ever come to Hauz Khas Village (where I work). I liked it. The bullshitter in my head coaxed me to trust it. That's the real story, really.  I asked him if we could meet today. He was uncertain again. 'Kitne baje tak aayengi aap?' 'Metro par miloon?' (What time would you reach? Are you going to meet me at the metro station?) I wanted to pull his cheeks. Voice made him sound like a man with big fluffy cheeks. I left early. En-route Tuglakabad metro station on the very violet line, a little girl with a big tummy was dancing holding the train's pole. Her shimmy moved to the beats of 'Sheila ki Jawani' in my head for some reason. Ugh. After dancing, she looked up at the train station names and spelt out G-o-v-i-n-d-p-u-r-i. Then pronounced the word and did a little dance as she said it. Second child in two days noticed to be dancing to an internal song. Are we all dancing to a tune in our heads? I know I am.

As I reached the station, I got a call from the Voice. He asked me to meet him in a car parked just outside the station. For the first time in the day, I had a minor panic attack. Why is he calling me in his car? Can't he meet me at the metro station? Problem of parking, he stated. My head began to churn - thought after thought. So if he kidnaps me? Must not get inside the car. So if he makes a grab at my wallet? Let it go. If he makes a grab at my laptop (will have to take it out to check if the charger works) Really, let it go. And what if he throws acid on me? Froze. What kind of a sadist would weave such a tale. Shutup. Just don't get inside the car. So I went. A silver Skoda just outside the metro station at 7pm. Reached the car. Tapped on the window. A man - with big fluffy cheeks turned his head toward me and smiled. Rolled down the window. I smiled. A relief. It was the cheeks this time. Got out my laptop. Got it checked. Paid the money. Thanked him. Farewelled him. Happiness. I got a charger for a dirt cheap price!

Not such a wanker of a day after all. Despite the pimping that is my job.

23:08IST
Room with a table fan, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

So I have a job. A place to go to every morning. Offer my services till a certain time. Come back home in the evening. I get money for this job. Money (plural) is a bundle of rectangular paper with a standard design and a stench of skin and sweat. Owning it is partly owning freedom. It buys a lot of things.

The job - I work for a media company that deals with travel related things - it writes about travel, it created videos on travel, it owns a space full of travel books and photographs of the owner's travels. It also organises events to promote travel. Travel, to the owner, and hence the company I work for means - visiting a place and saying WOW and telling the world about it. Information with a WOW factor. Infotainment. Hence I work for a travel infotainment company.

My work is mostly administrative. I co-ordinate shoots. I get hold of contacts details and put them together in a spreadsheet. I post event updates on Facebook and Twitter. I upload videos on YouTube. I check for spelling mistakes. I respond to queries. I make sure everyone gets the message. I sometimes write nice things about shitty places. It's a wank-all job that a-dime-year-old with a decent hold over the user's lingo can do. I feel wasted and tired and upset most of the time. The hour long autorides to-and-from work put me in a trance. I mostly end up looking at the wheels of the vehicles passing by - going round and round and round. Small wheel big wheels fast wheels slow wheels rickety wheels backwards wheels. But all moving wheels. Constantly. Like Time. In continuum. The Cunt. 

22:37 IST
Room with the table fan, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

WANK WANK. Up at 8. WANK WANK. Drowsy and throat-achy. Snoozed for an hour. WANK WANK. Zonked, got up and ready. Rain outside. WANK WANK. Splashed my way through the slush and the smelly, standing water with the sister. Got an auto and went on a long ride to work. WANK WANK. Reached work. Mechanical work. Admininy work. Boring work. Wanker work. WANK WANK. Throat ached some more. Read up a blog post by Anand Gandhi. Not so wank wank that. Was titled 'Is Enlightnenment Googleable?' Key takeaway for me? All artists aspire to create the impact that music creates - one doesn't seek to find meaning in it. One only feels it. Experience sans context. How random and blissful. I don't remember everything I read or watch. I remember things in bits and pieces. And things I do myself stay within me. No wanking there. Back to wanking now. Left work early. Woop woop! Out in the muddy, sludgy, slushy waters we waded through, my sister and I roamed about for two hours in search for an auto. No auto. Metro we took. Travelled back. Now writing this shitty write. Tired. Qwank.

00:21 IST
The Big Dining Room, Inderpuri
New Delhi, India

A month and four days have gone by since I last wrote. Things happened in these 35 days. Not a drop of change in me. Except becoming a big balloon.

Went to office in a sleepy state. Auto rides tend to put me in a trance. And then when the ride ends, the end-of-trance makes me sleepy. I tend to be half-asleep most of the time. I feel lost. I look aged, and lost.

Thoughts. Lots of thoughts. Too many thoughts. Bursting in a nano-second. Age is doing this. Not letting me hold on to anything. They slip away, these ruddy thoughts. Must hold on to them. Meditate. Sleep. Again.

Came back home. Gorged on a lot of food. Played word association with cousin. Most productive work of the day, was that.

Much written, nothing said. Good night.