Showing posts with label prose. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prose. Show all posts

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Pithy prose


I am never too enthused about grammar. There are those who ponder for hours thinking if a participle must be gerunded or if the adjective clause satisfies causal requirements for it to be one. I am not one of those. In fact grammar can go take a hike as far as I am concerned. This is not to say that I sentences constructs this like, but that as long as I can get my information across I am good.

Clauses and the like only serve to confuse the already bewildered writer, who has reached this state of bewilderment because of the many eccentricities that bedevil this English language. Anyone can attest to the fact that English is a minefield of traps of various forms, and the unwary are often causalities in its complex constructs.

Although in hindsight, professing to write without heed to grammar is like attempting to sing without following a raga, ie. Simply noise. A friend of mine, a grammar nazi, spends all his free time hacking away my beautiful prose with the axe of grammar and punctuation. I call my prose beautiful only because after all the grammar bashing I was left drained and my self confidence languished below a heap of incorrectly used adverbs.

Spellings are another grey area, or is it a gray area? I know not, but my friend the spell check that Microsoft so kindly provides wildly gesticulates with red undulating waves and lets me know of lexical malapropisms among other things. It also fancies itself by neatly underlining all of my prose with green waves. Apparently this signals bad bad grammar. Wren and Martin (who are to English Grammar what Rakhi Sawant is to the Indian Media) would frown with extreme displeasure.

Perhaps I must take to writing in French, although I am entirely unsure how the French would react to moi butchering through their pretty cedillas and cute accents. Also if memory serves right French objects carry genders, rather all objects when referred to in French, must be addressed respectfully by a gender, failure of complying to which leads to a report of sexual abuse and a stint in the prison linguistique in Montreal.

Which is when I realize the versatility, beauty and brilliance of ‘it’. It effectively desexualizes any lingering masculinity or femininity in objects and clears our obfuscation in addressing things. It also lets you insult subtly a male or female by referring to them as such thereby effectively rendering genderless (Although some species of homo sapiens may be too dense to get the intricacies of this, in order to insult them, just slap them. Once should do the trick).

Rambling along and ranting about positives and negatives has made me weary and wise

Off I go with the rest of my damaged poise

All of this dear reader isn’t just noise

I shall post regularly or may the Gods smite my voice.

PS: Apologies for the absence, and failure to reply to previous posts.

Regular programming hopefully resumes.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Of Music, Food and LOve

Scene 1: Independence Cafe, Hill Road, Bandra


A flyer...
HOPE 08 is a programme to promote love, peace harmony, forgiveness amongst all walks of society and to encourage people in distress going through various negative situations and emotions in life which could lead them to take drastic steps like suicide , nervous breakdowns, etc.We invite citizens from all walks of life for the HOPE 08 to come , participate, relax and unwind through the music of the famous Indian Jazz Fussion Band- CONVERSATION., which is a 8 piece Band with instruments like the Violin, Tabla, Drums, Keyboards, Bass Guitar, Mirdumgam, Saxophone and the Sitar.
When : Saturday 1st November 2008

Time : 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm

Where : Carter road Promenade

"Guys you want to check this out! We're not doing anything else yet anyway...AND its free!"

"Hey guys..Conversations is soooo great..The I've herad the drummer Vinayak and their vilonist jam! I'm so definitely going. Anyone interested??"

Scene 2: Carter Road Promenade, Bandra (west), Mumbai
The salty sea breeze carried the taste of anticipation through the crowd. A diverse pack of mottled rockers, high class socialites letting their hair down and the random people who had accidentally strayed into the awaiting mass thronged amongst the few who actually knew why they were there.
HE was lost absolutely new grounds for him...What Jazz?? Who Conversations?? He was just there to check out the chicks...with his buddies of course!!
"Ooooo...Hot one at 10 o clock..seems all trippy about the music though..Hmmm!"

This was her thing the entrancing trippy music, the serenity of a sitar combining with a six piece drum set!! She was loving the beauty of it all.. the evening...the music..She was lost in a world all her own!
"Buttt...A guy different from the ones you usually meet at these things...Hmmm...Hot in a geeky kinda way! Cute!"

Scene 3: Brownie Cottage, Off Carter Road, Bandra

"Can I have the Snicker Brownie Please!?!"
"Can I have the Snicker Brownie Please!?!"

"Sorry.. thats the last one I've got!"

They exchange glances and he gathers the guts to ask..."How would you like to split it??"
She gives him a lopsided girn. He hasn't seen anything as beautiful in the whole wide world.
After a cataclysimic pause, she said, "Okay, but only if you share a Guliyaan with me after this one!"

Damn!! He HATED Guliyaan!!
"Nah..I'm running late..Boss..Madam ke liye ek Snickers!! Bye! Enjoy your brownie!"

"What did I do NOW!! Well awesome evening! I got a date with Vinayak to top it all!!" ;)
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If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O! it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour.
(Twelfth Night, 1.1.1-7)

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Rhyme and Reason

I have never been able to write poetry. Unlike most of my friends who can wax eloquent, complete with rhyming words and all, I cannot for the life of me rhyme. Maybe it is because I have a predilection to use big words. Maybe it is because when I was little, I thought every line in a poem must rhyme. By the time I learnt of non rhyming poems, my mind had already been restricted.

The joys of haiku.

Never will I sample.

Pedestrian prose I write alas.

Coming from a family of poetry lovers didn’t help either. Dinner started with Thiruvalluvar and Kamban and dessert was served with a good portion of Khayyam. All I did was eat at that time. Sure, I do appreciate the occasional poetry, it moves me sometimes. What I cannot do is ooh and aah at implied metaphorical marvels that I cannot get. Nor does it irritate me to see people get Goosebumps at the mention of a particularly meaningful line.

Prose is capable of stirring emotions and encouraging thought. Prose is abstract and grounded. Beautiful, earthly, and solid. Poetry shifts meanings, allying itself to one of the many moods of the fickle mind. Vande Mataram makes me all quiet and contemplative. Jana Gana Mana commands respect. An occasional Gulzar or Vairamuthu will stir me. Random lyricists will have me in splits. But somehow I feel the pull of prose. Poetry is like the hot girlfriend. Prose is a comforting mother’s arms. The effect Tolkien has with his words, or the way Archer moves crisply, the way technical manuals go on for pages, without actually saying anything, crappy page 3 news full of rubbish with words littering the glitterati. Words by Bachi Kakaria and Bill Bryson will have you laughing, Lahiri makes you see futility and Tolstoy reduces to a teary rubble.

I try and try

But cannot rhyme

The output of my efforts, wry

Not worth a dime