Worm tales

Why pray do they make these word verification thingies so worm like? It’s bad enough that I have to overcome excruciating levels of shyness, bone deep laziness, maybe-I’ll-do-it-later/never-ness. Is it necessary to have me do the squint/cock head and see/ bend-head and type/repeat jig as well. Ok maybe those things are useful. But why do they have to be squiggly? The blasted letters threaten to fly off the screen like Percy Jackson would say. It’s enough to give me a headache.
And what is worse is sometimes I have to do it twice. See, some time back I just logged on as anonymous and maybe signed the post, which I thought was a clever way of avoiding unnecessary typage. The sibling managed in a few pithy words to dissuade me and dispel illusions of cleverness. So I have now perforce to sign in. Not one to shirk discomfiting tasks for later I go the whole hog and complete the WV thing. Picture my dismay when I am now successfully logged on under my rightful appellation and I am asked to redo the cursed WV. Really it’s enough to turn one off the whole thing.

PS I have been thinking about it. Do you think it is to foil evil plans by cunning spammers with scanners, and such?

Owning a thing

I played a tape today that I have had for seven years and never played once. I’ve come across it several times in my search-for-music missions, appealing its appropriateness, but never satisfying me of its rightness. You see this tape doesn’t actually belong to me. It was my friend’s…. who gave it to me a month before he died. It is strange and a little cold that it was the first thing that occurred to me when they told me he was dead; guilt for not returning his belongings on time. It was a thought that preoccupied the entire dry, dazed day that followed. I contemplated the propriety of returning his tapes to his family. I did not think they would know what to do with them, they had hardly known what to do with him. I also knew that if he had willed it he would have wanted me to have them, but still I would have liked to be sure. Like all things in his life Pappu’s death was strange and dramatic. He was found run down on a railway track. All the usual speculations made the rounds and all the inevitable conclusions were drawn. Someone said he seemed very happy when they met him that morning. I like to believe that was true.

So I was left with those tapes in my shelf, and no tears in my eyes. I was left with a vague cloud of guilt for being an ill-mannered borrower, for wilfully understanding less than I did, and giving less than I could and absolutely no more than I should. I thought I had been wise and kind, his death made me feel rude and miserly.

I was clearing my cupboard today when I played his tape on an exasperated impulse. Mehdi Hassan’s ‘Shahad. The tears did flow now. Less easily than they would for say an episode of Oprah Winfrey, but nevertheless they were there. They felt viscous and heavy and strained out my eyes. To be expected I suppose. They were old tears these… seven years old.

I hope I have let you rest at last, Vikram, by owning what you gave me.

There is a constant flutter in my stomach these days

The butterflies of Manipura are all ablaze

A constant knowing that the wheels are turning

Direction unknown, in anticipation burning

It’s a little foolish all this adrenalin

A heady rush, an urge to begin

But what? I don’t quite know

And if I do, the knowing’s below

How then to talk to an elusive self

Cajole a siren to reveal herself

What do I know that is just hinted to me

Is it my hearts matter or a voyage at sea?

But my enchantress siren is wedded to time

Her loyalties were never, never will be mine

So I wait for her lord to give up the sign

To reveal to me the things in line

Until then I will play with patience

She is a dull child and we’ll stay right within the fence.