Last week I was reminded by a friend that I have cancelled not one but two trips, and consequently, I have paid an inordinate amount of money to a couple of Airlines for being a sitting duck. It has got everything to do with the fact that I just don’t want to get on to a plane. I write this because I guess there is no escaping a flight. One way or another it’s bound to happen. I have been promised a karaoke night by P, and I will use that as incentive when I board my flight.
The online poetry course that I was taking has come to an end. Ten weeks of persisting at something has amounted to me taking myself seriously. I never thought I would make it to the end. I am surprised by how self-motivated I was. I must admit that on some weekends, I lazed around and watched The Bucket List and Little Miss Sunshine instead of the videos from Poetry class. However, I caught up, which is saying something. I’ve said my thanks for the course to the Professor, but not as a Thanksgiving exercise. Come to think of it, this year I did not celebrate Thanksgiving as I usually do. A steely silence echoes in the walls of my heart and it boomerangs me back to my present self. The self that is quite content with how days pass. Oddly enough the self that also knows that a decision needs to be made soon. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I don’t want to get on a plane. I like how my days pass, how I can predict the events that I will have to partake in, what time I will commute, and how deftly I will avoid writing, yet again. Happiness is truly in repetition. And yet, decisions have to be made, change has to come.
I’m reading From the Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple. It’s a book about his travels in the footprints of the Byzantine empire and how Christianity slowly faded away from the Middle East as Islam took over once the Ottoman Turks invaded. While reading I came across this passage that describes the prayer ritual he witnessed in a church.
Incidentally, the Jews pray similarly too. So many things intertwine, and when I said so to my erudite friend who is (almost) a scholar on the Abrahamic religions, he said to me “It is my friend… Just that we are too busy pointing out the differences.” Indeed.
I saw Tamasha inspite of much reluctance. That it wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be helps. It really does. Ranbir Kapoor, I earnestly hoped you would rise to greatness. I just wish your movies were better. You’re like that ace striker who doesn’t win a match coz the rest of the team can’t play. I feel like a disappointed parent, which is quite melodramatic. But honestly, that guy can really, really act. Anyhoo. Of all the lines in the movie, I liked this one by the banjara best, “Tu mujhse poochta hai teri kahani kya hai? Kya hai yaha? Na Heer hai, na Khuda hai. Darta kyun hai?” Of course, I paraphrase. But that hits home. Yaha kaun hai? Na Heer na Khuda. Tu darta kyun hai?
Pretty much sums up the entire human existence.
amarllyis 
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