A-festering-they'll-go

You,
are like a repulsive scab
that I shall tease
and turn over
fiddle with

And know
that in the end
I shall look back
at
ugliness.

Once more, I shall laugh at you.

Fuyu wa chouto
okashi, anata no
hakuchi kara.

Celebration calls for the employment of new languages learned. To write tottering half-haikus, it's upstart nature belying it's truly serious intent to ridicule.

Ningen tamashi
wa hontou ni yaruki
wo naku shi te.

Beauty

In The Lake

In Wad Hamid's Doum Tree

And in the Sunshine Through the Rain.

And breaks the Heart

Like the Blue Bamboo I read while still soaked

Like the tea leaves I brewed so carefully for you.

Mine to help beguile

Mine in helpless hoarding and then ferreting out again

To break my heart again.

I had forgotten how pleasant it is to sit at a desk in an empty library.
I sang while taking a walk today.
The icicles outside my window are melting.
It really is a pretty sight.
I have my window open.
I feel a light heartedness that is unusual in winter.

I have no memory at all - Stendhal.

I came across this completely by chance. It makes mention of a friend with whom correspondence has been scarce for the past four years. We were quizzards - it is a term I seldom hear used outside the Indian quizzing circuit - and first met as fellow illegals in a district quiz. Perhaps I shall devote an entry to the mythical etymology of quizzing and quizzes some day but it is New Year's tomorrow and one finds oneself musing about the past and becoming rather silly about it all. One wishes for an exiled fraternity like the one found in Joseph O'Neill's "Netherland." It is, by the way, one of the finer books of 2008. The Oxford Quizzing Society quizzes provided solace for a year. My only complaint was its complete colonization by the University Challenge. Understandable all the same. Might I also be permitted to show off a little by saying that I was part of the winning team at one of the University quizzes. My contribution to the triumph is, as they say, another story.

"Netherland" inevitably reminds of Ramachandra Guha's "Corner of a Foreign Field" which is a lovely book on the evolution of cricket in India. I have never been fond of cricket; preferring instead the slightly more spirited game of football. One day I too shall contribute to the otiose debate about the superiority of one game over the other. For now allow me to dwell on Guha's book. The narrative of the civilized viciousness of colonial cricketing was so absorbing that I found myself quite moved by the sight of my brother's school mates running around in their cricket whites practising for the Edinburgh Cup so precious to the two competing schools. It is our little town's Ashes. "Corner..." is what a historical account of a sport ought to be. It does no good to the sport when all we have in terms of literature these days is self indulgent autobiographies of players who should really should be reminded of Andres Escobar every one in a while.
I am of course, merely, jesting.

A blog can hardly be expected to carry one's best work so in the spirit of general Christmas conviviality here's a little raillery. My Professor of poetry would ask why, very earnestly in his typed comments on my essays which is precisely why I refuse to explicate any further. Petty subversions, if you must.

Anywhichway let us all laugh at Aiba-kun and be merry on Christmas.





I hope everyone is as happy as Aiba-kun and I. Yes, I am very very happhee.

Halycon Days

Unproductive as this weekend might have been certain re-discoveries have made me very happy. One of them was the wonderful "Malgudi Days" series that I would wait for each week when I was younger. And I found entire episodes on that veritable storehouse of the delights of one's youth; youtube. Here is a favourite and another.