Monday, February 21, 2005
NOTES F A O-2
To round off on the all-too-short Bangalore, a word on the recalcitrant straining of a faceless people seeking to find a stable identity( Neigh neigh !).
All the hoardings, shop awnings, bus shelter signages, storefronts and letterings on every conceivable curvature were inexplicably only in Kannada. Pardon my ignorance, perhaps, but I was given to understand that the other Southern states were far more unyielding in their resolve to banish Hindi, reclaim their lingua franca and impute an unheld fidelity to their kinsmen. Apparently now, we are like this wonly .
Came back to have a colleague regale me with tales of the Coorg region, and have me covet what could have been ! Those scenic locales, those windswept vales, those verdant boughs.
Sigh !
Caught up with one of my closest friends over dinner, now ( needlessly ) working with a software major. It is a veritable wonder how some things stand unrelenting and resolute with time, like people.
To round off on the all-too-short Bangalore, a word on the recalcitrant straining of a faceless people seeking to find a stable identity( Neigh neigh !).
All the hoardings, shop awnings, bus shelter signages, storefronts and letterings on every conceivable curvature were inexplicably only in Kannada. Pardon my ignorance, perhaps, but I was given to understand that the other Southern states were far more unyielding in their resolve to banish Hindi, reclaim their lingua franca and impute an unheld fidelity to their kinsmen. Apparently now, we are like this wonly .
Came back to have a colleague regale me with tales of the Coorg region, and have me covet what could have been ! Those scenic locales, those windswept vales, those verdant boughs.
Sigh !
Caught up with one of my closest friends over dinner, now ( needlessly ) working with a software major. It is a veritable wonder how some things stand unrelenting and resolute with time, like people.
I’ve known him since the first day of college and I am astounded as to how little he has changed since then. We are both essentially peace-loving, docile, amicable people (Ed—This is a departure from the Truth as we know it !) but blessed with a tremendous ability to ignore reason, logic or persuasion when we feel like it. (Ed—Yeah, that’s true !) That is the only similarity I see .
His love for Indian polity is unspeakably repugnant to me, my sports frenzy is an anathema to him. My appalling lack of knowledge about Syrian military machinations is matched only by his aversion to my music.
Needless to say, we have hardly spoken of any of these things and again, I am amazed as to what we actually speak about, and have spoken about for so long.
Yes, I have never lost a Crossword Competition with him ( his mulish refusal to step outside college had been a dampener)
Feel blessed to have been his friend after all these years…
Read a book of Marquez—Collections of his Short Stories—on the long way home. Macabre to begin with, thawed thereafter and the last few were delightful.
His love for Indian polity is unspeakably repugnant to me, my sports frenzy is an anathema to him. My appalling lack of knowledge about Syrian military machinations is matched only by his aversion to my music.
Needless to say, we have hardly spoken of any of these things and again, I am amazed as to what we actually speak about, and have spoken about for so long.
Yes, I have never lost a Crossword Competition with him ( his mulish refusal to step outside college had been a dampener)
Feel blessed to have been his friend after all these years…
Read a book of Marquez—Collections of his Short Stories—on the long way home. Macabre to begin with, thawed thereafter and the last few were delightful.
He tried a stunt that was so very effortless that I failed to pick it up on the first read—an entire story of about six pages without a full stop.
“ Innocent Erendira and her Heartless Grandmother” was poignant, moving and typical of the great man—reminded me just a little bit of Llosa’s “ Feast of the Goat”—without explanation.
No other comments, just as silence can be the only tribute to Beethoven, only wordlessness can extol Marquez.
Blessed again !
Blessed again !
