Something I wrote

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/kind-day-mukta-raut?trk=pulse_spock-articles

Don't Breathe - First Impressions

Don't breathe - gripping with an interesting sub-text. A blind soldier defends his property against three thieves by switching off the lights and, in his own way, making the house a space where he can protect himself from intruders. But you feel sorry for the kids who got greedy, committed a theft, and mostly grossly underestimated a man's strength.

So basically, if you are powerful and have boundaries and fight to defend what is yours, you are wrong and must pay. (Reminded me of Animal Farm a little bit.)

Not an easy watch. Definitely don't see it if you want to 'unwind'.

293,292

Little white lilies,
Dark black swans,
In that lake of smuggled poetry.
Somewhere in the forest,
Dreams go unseen,
To shape all things unborn,
Decorated with little white lilies
And dark black swans.

There is no getting away from it...

I think some people are very okay with not having any self-respect. It's not easy having some, of course. And I think with a certain mindset, you can do away with it. You can posture your groveling for attention as closure. You can keep turning up in someone's life every few months or so to expressly tell them how you are 'so' done and all that - only to rinse and repeat. I wonder if such people ever have an inkling of just how pathetic they seem. I am sure they do - all people are smart. But I think, maybe in a world I don't quite understand yet, having dignity is not all that important. You may sense how pathetic you are but you may be okay with that situation because something else is more important. Maybe some sort of attention for some sort of behaviour. I don't know.

A long time ago, I had written about someone who had texted me about 'closure' and things like that. I thought we were done. Apparently not. I got a text again today. And if I know anything about that person, there is some form of pathological resurfacing that will happen again.

I'm not sure why though. I have some guesses. I think when you are very, very selfish, then at some point, that hungry, ghoulish selfishness then turns on you. It will eat you up and then maybe you flail around before you slip through the gullet like a pellet of self-absorption. Then like a recurring bout of nausea, the pellet gets hurled out again. Then it gets consumed again.

Earlier, I had thought that all this was over.

Now I know better.

300, 299, 298, 297, 296, 295, 294: Bought some books

I was at J.M. Road the other day and happened to locate 'Book World'. It's a tiny bookstore in the basement of a shopping plaza. They have loads of books and some good paperbacks for just a couple of hundred bucks. I got a few light reads to stock up on:

1. The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penny
2. The Late Child by Larry McMurtry
3. Jennifer Government by Max Barry
4. The Bronte Project by Jennifer Vandever
5. Four blondes by Candace Bushnell
6. Girl Reading by Katie Ward

301

I am working bloody hard now. It is so exhausting that I can't believe it. I literally can't. It is beyond disbelief. I will be up working on something. Then I have to rewrite an article where I have to seem cheery and bloody chatty!

It is all really overwhelming and then, just like that work begins.

I have not slept in days, gained maybe 100 pounds, and all that.

Just taking very very deep breaths now and taking everything one step at a time.

302: Poem

Sitting on a swing, girl,
Looking up high,
Those are the blue hills, girl,
Nudging past the sky.
Lying past bedtime, girl,
Looking at whizzing cars,
Mapping your own travels, girl,
With your wheelbarrow of stars.

303

Writing on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/technical-writing-4-quick-checklist-before-you-hire-writer-mukta-raut?published=t

309, 308, 307, 306, 305, 304

Sometimes this existence feels like something you won in a custody battle.

It feels like a broken, fraught, tense piece from an emtional war.

312, 311, 310

WROTE A POEM:

One day comes
And one day goes 
Where hours hide 
No one knows 
Sometimes they peek 
From under the bed
Like all else that's ignored
By the waking dead.


FRIENDS CAME OVER FROM MUMBAI:

We shared wine, had mini-cupcakes from a patisserie closeby, orange hibiscus bloomed, skies were bright and blue one day, read a paragraph from Arthur C. Clarke's '2001: Space Odyssey.' Felt very lonely one night and the next morning, felt oddly loved.

FELT AN ANXIETY OVER MY MOTHER:

Cried while folding clothes, wondering how much time I have with her in this lifetime. She is not unwell or anything. But one of my friend's mother recently passed away. Another friends' folks - both of them - are in hospital. Thoughts come.

SAW A MOVIE:

Happy Bhaag Gayi. I really wanted to watch something light, frothy, funny. This movie was a delight.

Listicle

Mukta shared this on LinkedIn. Some of you may find it interesting: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/listicle-5-what-ive-enjoyed-internet-mukta-raut?published=t

313

Today I come to blog for some respite. I want to soothe my nauseous tummy and breathe in deeply and just get a really good night's rest, really. I don't want to revisit the plot I have to change. I just went grocery shopping and am just too exhausted to see how I will drag them to the car that I have parked far from office today.

Mukta is gone now and I am a little upset. Sometimes, I wish she would tell me when and where she leaves off to. I think she's in her small little place in Pune, tending to a withering hibiscus and a thriving pudina plant.

You don't know about me. I don't really want to introduce myself, really. But maybe you will want o know about where I live. It is a beautiful house.

I live inside a coconut.

It's not a very large one. It's fairly regular sized, as coconuts go - the ones that cost sixty rupees in Bombay. Bengalis and Oriyas might buy those coconuts and after drinking the water and scraping the flesh, from the inside, they might use the shell to bake shrimp or prawns. It is really tasty. You marinate the prawns in mustard, baste it in oil and then cover the coconut and pop it in the oven. There are a few more steps which you can look up online.

Anyway, I found an empty coconut shell in the field near Mukta's house and decided to live in it.

There's a sweet little ladder made of wood that is propped on one side. I climb up on that and then open up the lid. I fashioned a clasp of twigs and straw. I then swing in and slowly, very slowly, make my way down the coconut. There are ridges on the side of the coconut and those help. I'm pretty sure I couldn't have managed to get another ladder for the inside.

My coconut home has beautiful interiors. There's a pool of fresh, clear, sweet coconut water and I travel around in it in a canoe. On one wall, I used resin and charcoal to draw two palm trees and a sun shining between them. It is corny but it makes me happy because I feel part of that world. My bed is the best part. It is four-poster bed with nice, green sheets. I put on my aqua shorts and read books. There is no kitchen and there is no loo. For ingestion and excretion I need to head out and I usually do at night when it is very dark and beautiful.

But usually, I am fine. In my engagement with the real world, all this is taken care of.

Some day, I will tell you about why I took over this blog and why Mukta is out. (For the time being, until a certain promise is kept.)

314: When you take the turn to the high road

On really special days, you may get a text. That text may be from a number you don't recognize because you lost the number or you deleted it. The text may be laden with the sender's habitual imperative of having the last word. It may be couched in the correct sounding words and phrases of wanting closure, a smiley that has been interspersed because the person may want to convey a false sense of largesse. You wonder which of the six people you cut ties with has shared that message. You wonder if it may be a good idea to ask them to do the courteous thing of returning your books, movies, and that pink shimmering top - to complete the closure they seem to want so earnestly after so many days or months (depending on who they are.) But largely, you struggle with an instant reflex to say something nasty. To call them out on the obvious fakeness you sense when they are wishing you well while also telling you other things that are not so nice (or true). But you don't. I think you don't do that because sometimes people are hypocritical and fake is because they are so earnest. They are trying hard to do the right thing and come across as a correct person. This paradox, you understand, is part of the human experience.

You delete the message. You keep the phone aside. You go back to creating a piece of work. You collaborate. You talk to other people about big ideas. You also, silently, really hope that whatever open wound the other person was carrying for so long - long after you have forgotten - hopefully that wound got the closure it wanted.

It would be nice to get my books, films, and top back. But hey, you pay a price for unknotting a tough knot. And hopefully, you let it go because you feel this is it. And we are done. For good. For ever.

And that's when you look back to 4 years ago when you know that you would have behaved differently. And you know that, for sure, there has been growth.

That, perhaps, is the biggest prize for taking the high road.

316, 315

The people who help you when you are down and the people who help you when life's turning around for you may not always be the same people. Maybe some people derive their relevance from helping you when you are down and out and it serves them when you are that way.

Get away from them and make new friends. Plenty of fish. Large, big ocean.

(Of course, when you can...forgive.)

320, 319, 318, 317: First Impression: Mohenjo Daro

Really enjoyed Mohenjo Daro. It was nice to see a movie far better than what the trailer conveyed. It is sometimes slow, sure. And sometimes one gets the feeling that Gowarikar's Mohenjo Daro was modeled on Lokhandwala culture...but I still loved it. The depiction that before every version of history or object of art was created, there was the setting up of a market place. Or when gold was counted, no one noticed that it was blocking the view of a setting sun. Or what the trail of indigo signified. Or how every civilization, great or small, gets built by people who fled their homes.

And Hrithik is such a special actor. I wish he'd done Sultan and Rustom and Chak De and Lagaan...any movie that needs a hero with strength and nobility should have him in it. Am quite the fan now...

(Took this from Mukta's facebook post.)

327, 326, 325, 324, 323, 322, 321: Life changes much before the countdown ends

Due to certain circumstances, Mukta will not be writing the blog anymore. I will.

You don't need to know who I am.

As part of the promise I made Mukta, I will continue the countdown.