Blur

Why are the most awaited moments always a blur in memory?

Those kind eyes exuding warmth, with a tired expression from racing past each day to the soft, tingling voice, exactly the way I imagined it to be

Am I seeing more than I remember? Am I remembering more than I see?

Splurge on you crazy woman!

They ought to ban this place called Landmark. Or just shift my office elsewhere. Or maybe I could do with a little bit of self-restraint. But now is not the time to rue. That bit’s done while signing on the merchant’s copy of my bill payment. Landmark’s beautiful. Even if they don’t have any of Vikram Seth’s poem collections [Am I a lil too forgiving today?]. I have my precious copies tucked away.

So why raving about Landmark? They have something called a “Definitive collection” for various artists. And I got myself one of these beauties. Pink Floyd. Aaah!! The best part about this collection is that it is damn cheap. So you get 3 discs…yes…1…2…3 disks in one collection for a price of 600 INR!!! If you do some quick math here, you’ll realize that it comes to 200 Rupees a CD. Now where else will you get a Pink Floyd…no no…any decent English artist CD for 200 bucks?? But that’s not the best part. So there’s a 25% off on this collection, which means I paid 450 bucks for 3 CDs!!! Yay!

*Deep breath*

It’s not any CD collection either. The first 2 discs are from P.U.L.S.E and the third, A momentary lapse of reason. Naturally, the second disk is the whole of The dark side of the moon. I already have close to 3 copies of the album but even then, it’s totally worth it.

Below is the song list.

1. Shine On You Crazy Diamond
2. Astronomy Domine
3. What do you want from me
4. Learning to fly
5. Keep talking
6. Coming back to life
7. Hey you
8. A great day for freedom
9. Sorrow
10. High hopes
11. Another brick in the wall (Part two)

THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

1. Speak To Me
2. Breathe
3. On The Run
4. Time (including Breathe Reprise)
5. The Great Gig In The Sky
6. Money
7. Us And Them
8. Any Colour You Like
9. Brain Damage
10. Eclipse
11. Wish you were here
12. Comfortably numb
13. Run like hell

A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON

1. Signs of Life
2. Learning To Fly
3. The Dogs of War
4. One Slip
5. On The Turning Away
6. Yet Another Movie
7. Round And Round
8. A New Machine Part 1
9. Terminal Frost
10. A New Machine Part 2
11. Sorrow

The only thing I didnt like is the cover: It doesn’t have Roger Waters [because of the whole "Pink Floyd" royalty thing]. It just doesn’t look complete. And anyway, the pics of the other members ain’t too good either—they neither look like they used to do in the days of yore [long before I was born ] nor do they look like they do now. So the pic’s not becoming at all.

I wish it could’ve been something like this:

Next stop: Piper at the gates of dawn.

Okay then folks, time to get back to em, the Floyd.

I‘ll see you on the dark side of the moon!

Skillfully spun a mighty one

More on Greeks, spinning, and how yet another term came about…The fable here is one of the several versions but it’s up here because I like this the best in terms of how it all sums up. And now, since you are on the verge of shaking me and asking me to get on with the darned story, here it is: the fable of Arachne, a late addition to Greek mythology, recorded in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

Arachne, a proud peasant girl, spun and wove wool with such extraordinary brilliance that nymphs traveled far and wide to watch Arachne steep her wool in crimson dyes, take the long threads in her skillful fingers, and weave exquisite tapestries.

One day a wood nymph asked Arachne whether Athena—the goddess of weaving and handicrafts—had bestowed upon her this gift. Arachne scornfully replied that she had learnt the art by herself and then challenged Athena to a contest, the winner of which would be termed as the “Goddess of the loom.”

When word of Arachne’s conceit reached Athena, the goddess was, undoubtedly, furious. She went to see for herself whether this was true in the guise of a haggard old woman and threatened Arachne that she would take back her words and beg for pardon if she feared the scorn of the great goddess of the Olympus. To this, Arachne countered that if the goddess were indeed that great, she wouldn’t hesitate to rise up to the challenge. Hearing these words, Athena revealed her true self. Plunging headlong into doom, Arachne now asked Athena if she was ready for the contest and so it started.

The looms and the deft fingers wove a great many colors: dark purples, pinks, golds, and crimsons. Athena wove a tapestry showing the twelve greatest gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus. But Arachne outdid her by weaving one showing not only the gods and goddesses but also their adventures. She finished the piece with a beautiful border work of flowers and ivy. The river nymphs and wood nymphs stared at Arachne’s tapesty in awe. It was evident that her work was better than Athena’s and even envy, the goddess, who haughtily inspected it pronounced it flawless.

An enraged Athena destroyed Arachne’s tapestry and hit her mercilessly until disgraced and humiliated, Arachne crawled away and tried to hang herself. At last, Athena showed some pity and told Arachne that she may live, but weave only in that (present) state, hung in the air. Saying thus, the vengeful goddess sprinkled hellbane on Arachne, and the girl began to transform: her hair, nose and ears fell off and her head shrank till it was so tiny that she was mostly a giant belly. However, her fingers could still weave, and within minutes, Arachne, the first spider on earth, wove the first magnificent web.

All you guys who have done some level of Zoology in school/college, yes! yes! It is from this Arachne that the class Arachnida (to which spiders, scorpions, etc. belong) derived it’s name! Arachne is also (apparently) a web browser and the name for spiders in many romance languages. But more interesting is this little trivia: Julia carpenter, a.k.a, Spider woman, was originally named Arachne. But the former name stuck. In a story arc of the current Ms. Marvel series, however, she reappears using the codename “Arachne.”

 

The tale of Arachne inspired one of Velázquez‘s most interesting paintings: Las Hilanderas (“The Spinners, or The fable of Arachne”, in the Prado), in which the painter represents the two important moments of the myth. In the front, the contest of Arachne and the goddess (the young and the old weaver) and in the back, the Abduction of Europa—a copy of Titian‘s version (or maybe of Rubens‘ copy of Titian). On the whole, the latter depicts Athena punishing Arachne. It transforms the myth into a reflection about creation and imitation, god and man, master and pupil (and therefore about the nature of art).

Learning for a cause?

My friend, R, introduced me to this site called FreeRice. It’s a very cool concept—you are given a word and asked to click on the word that is synonymous to [or best defines] the word in question. Ahoy! all you people who have appeared for the GRE, GMAT, CAT (which makes up 90% of the people I know), getting a sense of Deja Vu? Damn right. It’s the same story but with a good twist: for every right answer, you donate 10 grams of rice to the United Nations.

*drum roll*

“Nonsense, this is!” exclaimed a colleague who went on to donate 2 kilos of rice with R and me, despite the claim. Well, I checked out the FAQs section and the bit about the sponsors (names appearing at the bottom) donating the money seems pretty convincing. If not, at least your vocab improves! Anything associated with the English language always earns brownie points from me anyway.

So go ahead and donate some rice/improve your vocab (whichever makes you feel good)!

My unintended choice to live a Sunday

Your much awaited Sunday is a day away. You are desperately looking for options to make the best of it by doing something different—enrolling for a day’s course in candle making, a visit to the national park, organize a cleanliness drive for the residential society…anything! Just when you are scouring for every remote possibility that promised just that, an invitation crops up from the most unexpected quarters. My friend, N, was performing at Prithvi Cafe as part of the Yuva Thespo@Prithvi initiative!

I missed the first few songs and made a grand entry during the first break. My mood was somewhat dampened but the bright cheery faces of my ex colleagues and present colleagues, friends of friends, et al. lifted my spirits. Two pics later, my friend strode across to the podium [a makeshift stage] to attend to the unfinished business. Everything was forgotten when the strumming of the guitar began and the voice oozing charm hit our ears (soul??) with a subtle force that left everyone mesmerized.

One look at the song list and it was clear that N aimed to acquaint us with several beautiful but unexplored songs (by rookies/forgotten artists and even established artists) that didn’t quite receive the acclaim they ought to have received when released. [Every rose has its thorns would be one such song because Poison was a heavy-metal band and this was one of their rare mellow songs---unfortunately, it received criticism as opposed to critical acclaim]. Some cliched romantic numbers [as he put it] and a generous dose of Sting were thrown in to keep the junta going. Since I am decidedly partial to Sting, and considering what a fabulous job N does when it comes to Sting numbers, I would say that Message in a bottle, It’s probably me, Fields of gold were all smashing. The point to be noted here is that Message in a bottle can be rather difficult without percussion (although Sting has a version too—MTV unplugged] and the other two were done to perfection. Roxanne receives a special mention because N did his own version with different jazz styles in the rendition. Five stars and a thumbs up for that…woohoo!! Sting apart, among my favourites he belted out that day were Ground beneath her feet, a John Mayer song [I STILL haven't figured out the lyrics and that dork has yet to reply to my mail in which I have asked him just that ], and the song that’s still playing in my head—Unintended. I am at a loss for words when I try to describe the way this song was performed. It was all soul and not even the loud aeroplane take-off could distract the audience. Mesmerizing, spell-binding, dumbfounded—a gamut of emotions aroused by Unintended. Maybe it was the simplicity of the lyrics, the sincerity with which the song was performed, the soulful strings…

This talent stock finally saw some sense last year when he wrote a couple of songs and recorded them while living in a desert land and making money. So we got to hear a couple of these promising songs; you can hear them here [Some people complained that the damn thing doesn't work...just let me know if you are really desperate to hear em ].

The mood and the atmosphere were perfect. The sweltering heat somewhat left people miffed but we constantly played hide-and-seek with the sun by shifting spots regularly. I love Prithvi Cafe, its ambiance. There’s coffee when you need it, good songs in this case, informal wooden, rickety benches where I could sit cross legged [soo comfy] and trees. A lunch at Alfredo’s followed where we toasted to N…

My unintended choice to live this Sunday at Prithvi turned out to be the best break from routine I could’ve asked for.