today - writing a day in the diary of life

a page from my diary, dated October 12, 2009 at 07:29pm

today.


such a short word can have so many different connotations. (today i met dee.) such a little word and the experiences, the emotions it generates! (today i went to the book bazaar with her.) the single word that captures everything done or thought of, things or thoughts long forgotten as if they never happened. (today we bought so many books and left so many more behind.) 

perhaps the very purpose of writing a diary is to record these many 'todays' that happen one after the other and suddenly you've a lifetime of them looking back at you, making you wonder where has all the time gone. (today we dared to go upstairs in a shady little restaurant that turned out to be a gloriously kitsch example of the 80s middle-class India.) perhaps the idea of writing a diary is to dare yourself, because at the ends of the day when you'll put pen to paper, you won't like to be reminded of how badly you spent your allotted time. (today we lost dee's wallet due to our foolishness.) it is said that when people are dying, they remember their life in detail, what went wrong, what was right, the agony, the ecstasy, all of it rolls by as in a flashback scene from an old Bollywood movie. (today, we laughed, we shopped, we hoped, we dreamed, we loved, we hated, we smiled, we unsmiled.)


so writing a diary entry at the end of the day, something that starts with the word 'today' is almost like being those dying individuals, reminiscing about their lives, maybe wishing for one more chance and preparing for the long night ahead, because no matter what, tomorrow will be another 'today'. (it was a wonderful day, with almost everything that life could throw at us was accepted and lived through, it was a day worthy to be remembered always.)

i don't think i'll ask for one more chance to relive this day. (may our lives be full of many such 'todays'.)

heaven only kows why we love it so - revised

"We throw our parties; we abandon our families to live alone in Canada; we struggle to write books that do not change the world, despite our gifts and our unstinting efforts, our most extravagant hopes. We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep- it's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out of windows or drown themselves or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us, the vast majority, are slowly devoured by some disease or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more.

Heaven only knows why we love it so."

from the novel, 'The Hours' by Michael Cunningham.

i talked about it here and the movie adaptation, here. do read it if you have time.

yesterday was a holiday and i spent all of it reading, writing and dreaming. after so many months, a day happened when nothing mattered but loads of solitude and the book in my hand. all through the day i did nothing but read, wrote an unfinished piece of prose, one story that is waiting to be formed and one poem that refuses to come to an end; and god i was so contented after all of it, and heaven only knows why i love it so.

bookish

delhi is full of little pavement book shops, where you'll get good books at competitive prices (provided you know how to bargain). this one was clicked in the bungalow road area, at one of our book shopping haunts.

god, i need more lives *corrected*

01. anbraham maslow's 'the farther reaches of human nature'
02. 'remains of the day' by ishiguro
03. a book of essays on male sexuality and its effect on society
04. 'the hours' by michael cunningham
05. 'einstein's dreams' by alan lightman
06. an anthology of (ancient) greek plays
07. a book by marquez whose name i don't seem to remember now
this was wrong, i didn't buy any book by marquez. tried selling her the fact that i did and fought with her :( found out that my memory deceived me big time. the book i bought instead was, quite ironically, the memory keeper's daughter
:)
and my favorite,
08. journals of captain Scott on his last expedition to the antarctica.
*wink* *wink*

all of these for only Rs. 440, that is Rs. 55 per book. can you beat that?

those who live in Delhi would know what i'm boasting about. sunday afternoon found me rambling alone amongst delhi's largest collection of used / second hand books. dressed in a crumpled bermuda, even more crumpled tee and sandals and cap, i must have looked like a geeky backpacker to most of the people when i landed up at the Sunday Book Bazaar in the Daryaganj area of central Delhi. perhaps taking pity on my pestered look (it was unbearably hot) the shopkeepers gave me these fabulous prices, but i'm sure, more seasoned adventurers get better books at better discounts! me and dee have sometimes bought 20 books in around a thousand bucks! no wonder i missed her so much. i say boss, if you happen to be in delhi on a sunday, this place is a must visit.

what i am reading these days - updated
am reading The Fragrance of Guava, Marquez's take on life, books, family, love and everything under the macondo sun and boy, it is such an engrossing read. apart from that, a little sprinkling of sheharyar's poetry and the world's best copywriter's trying to instill some sense into my already-cluttered-with-advertising-mind in the much revered 'the copy book'.
well, left all of these midway and started Arthur C Clarke's trilogy. i know, it's quite late in life! have completed the first, that is 2001: A Space Odyssey. almost half way through the second one, and then there's the third one too. needless to say, even after all these years, the books are unputdownable.

what i plan to read
and believe me, there are literally a thousand must read books, that well, i must read before i die. god, i need a separate life just to read to my fill, then one to write about it all, then one to travel the world and take photographs, and one more to write blog posts about this all.

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