Siddhartha & Madonna & Kangaroo Sperm

I liked Siddartha, not the person, he was a gigantic ass but the book, the way it was written so that incidents spooned after incidents gave it actual meaning rather than just the thoughts of Sidhhartha. There is something in his odyssey that smacks of the clash of modernism at the basic level: it seems less the story of a man setting out to achieve a vision and more of one who has had enough of one way of life and now seeks a change. I thought I was a flitter, yeh to mera bhi baap niklah, the granddaddy of them all. Hesse probably penned the first self-help book. There is all this intensity focused on following the inner voice (and if you don’t have one and if you’re manipulative enough to make your inner voice say what you want?) that seems misplaced and seriously one can easily kill the inner voice through a habit of not listening to it. It’s just that I find the idea of moving to a boat in the river and achieving inner peace and universal wisdom a bit silly. When I’m in own, when I’m trekking or camping even I feel at peace and can judge my behavior as objectively as possible and feel all wisdomous (yes it is a word as of today). That’s in the mountains but back at home, now there’s a challenge. I don’t find it in my heart to airily dismiss monks and wannabe Sidhhartha and such like but while it takes a certain kind of courage to walk away from people you love and a life you are used to on a personal quest, it takes quite another and stronger backbone to achieve that kind of equanimity in the face of everyday life and all that it throws at you. Maybe I’m reeking of South Asian family drills but I couldn’t help but “tsk tsk” at Siddartha leaving his family high and dry and not a word of his well-being to them even once. Lol. At the end of the day it is all about him and no one else because he doesn’t even believe that such wisdom can be taught, hence it is useless to seek teachers. How lovingly post-modern of him. I will stop judging him now. By the way, this blog is making me lose the habit of academic writing. *looks terrified*

Why is that a problem? Mostly because as I can see from S's blog and a couple of other blogs here such as Jam and Half, intellectualizing or linking up personal discontents with grand narratives is sometimes the only way to deal with them. I agree with that. There is no discourse in English that will ever completely catch the emotional spectrum of bloggers, freestyle blogging tends to be extremist, either under expressing or overexpressing so either you sound frigid or in dire need of rehab. Bumble has re-invented herself yet again and I feel the need too around this time of the year to just slack off. That’s one thing I couldn’t get about Siddhartha’s whole line of thought that life is a river “Siddhartha the boy, Siddhartha the mature man and Siddhartha the old man are only separated by shadows, not reality”. There is no division for him in what he was before and what he is now, he’s obviously nothing like Madonna or any other celebrity who need to reinvent either by clutching to their bosom a new spouse, a new religion and at times more bosom. I can’t think the Hesse way. There are so many and vividly clear cut demarcations for me in time, in space. There was a me before 10, me at 12, at 14, at 17, at 19 and then 21 to now is a constant flux. I have not and I refuse to try to ‘find out who you are’. I don’t treat it as unknown, just unknowable. Probably the reverse for people who I am with. The demarcations function as a form of resistance of letting my baggage define me and my reactions to situations. I think though it can potentially be a non-starter. Ahistoricity that is. Look at the nations, which have worked on that premise- blunder pots.

On a digressive note, mama found one my favorite childhood Golden Little Books i.e. “Minnie’s Tea Party Surprise”. It’s a beautiful waffle of a book, it had the recipe of the first cake I ever baked and served as inspiration for the first story I wrote and got published. I love Golden Little Books, I still haunt the children’s section of all book marts because there is something about children’s books I cannot resist.

Inspired by Limey’s Naughty Corner idea, I think there should be a little Mon/Tuesday corner at all workplaces with beds strewn in the middle and a huge plasma screen up on one wall, enclosed by stalls giving away pancakes and all manners of goodies, because if they did then the Mean Girls would not constantly be on gmail, completing mail threads and having the following conversation:

2:45: K: maybe I should do a botox training course and then be filthy rich
M: you should you should say your hairs is so long and thick because they are botoxed
And all the dumb aunties will believe you
3:10 K: hahaha
You are a genius!
Hair botox
I will swear that is what I did
A rare sort of hair botox made from kangaroo sperm, which is orange btw...
M: do kangaroos have orgasms?
3:12 K: only if they haven’t had kangaroo fgm done to them
Male kangaroos castrate female kangaroos
3:13 M: WHAT
3:14 female kangaroos have things to be castrated
K: the outer equipment...
Male kangaroos bite it off before copulation
M: WHAT
3:15
K: that’s why the great kangaroo feminist rebellion of 1969 happened
Man, your animal anthropology is so bad
3:16 M: you suck you know that
K: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
M: if that’s what you said in your Fulbright interview
Shame on you
K: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Oh maaaaannnn
I AM CRACKING UP HERE
M: but is their sperm orange?
K: silent laughter
God knows
3:17 AM WHEN DO YOU THINK I EVER SAW KANGAROO SPERM?!
HAHAHAHAHAHA
M: that’s why I was asking silly

For the record M is not I for once, not is it Minchka for once.