PLUG IN BABY - remember the band. it might be the only existing yet non-existing band in the history of bands.
the name is shamelessly taken from a Muse song of the same name. so remember the name.
the members comprise of yours truly, c. vankhuma (guitars), brothers amaria (bass) and zopuia (drums). who is the frontman? still not sure. i am primary lyricist cum rhythm guitarist and was supposed to be the vocalist till i realized i could not sing. but who cares? its rock n roll baby! we are in the never-ending process of recording an album which will be the best album in the history of albums by mizos producing albums. guaranteed. even if it never sees the light of day it will still be the best uncompleted album in the history of uncompleted mizo albums.
genre: rock/pop/alternative/whatever. A mix of Muse, U2, Switchfoot, Fall Out Boy, Incubus, Collective Soul, Green Day, Fuel, etc.
Track list includes songs like Animal, Shotgun Lullaby, Make Believe, The B-Side Story, Kamikaze, Run Delilah Run, Half Alive and more.
P.S Writing pop songs is HARD! especially when you want to challenge yourself. the lyrics has to fit the melody, has to sound nice to the ears, has to have appeal without being too cheesy, has to be intellectual without being too obscure. the right mix is what we're aiming to achieve.
WISH US LUCK!
Sunday, June 19, 2011
my cup runneth over
I wish I had a bottle
Right here in my pretty face
To wear the scars
To show from where I came
We don't talk about love
We only wanna get drunk
And we are not allowed to spend
As we are told that this is the end
A design for life
- Manic Street Preachers "A design for life"
Apparently one of the paradoxes in life is that it takes some overwhelming circumstances to shake you out of your apathy and put some sense of perspective. Maybe thats why im posting this after a 10 month(ish) hiatus. So goodbye facebook and hello again blogdom (for now). May we ever have a dysfunctional relationship till I'm terminally unable to stare at a computer screen.
Its kind of sad that things have not been as eventful as i would have hoped this past year. Which makes it more strange the fact that I had an emotional breakdown last night (things like that do not happen to me anymore i thought) for no particular reason, and the precipitating cause was something not entirely minor but about which I would never lose sleep about earlier. I wont get into any details but i guess it was a culmination of many repressed feelings that exploded which I could not control anymore. And what better way than to let your blog bear witness to your ventings? Aaah the bliss of narcissism!
Anyone who thinks that i was born with a silver spoon in my mouth should really think again. My brother coined the term "alanism" some years back and with good reason - im jinxed. No its not some delusional paranoia stemming out of a neurotic but i cannot comprehend any logical answer to this as far as my rational capabilities are concerned. The worst part is that when you believe that bad things always happen to you they do. Reality is often what you make of your consciousness. I have been unfortunate enough to let many undesirable things happening to me these last months but i have always shrugged them aside and try to let nature take its course but somehow i always find myself in the deep end of any situation. Even if i do everything right (by the book, as they say) theres a greater chance that something gets screwed up anyway.
So a quick fact-check is in order, starting with the essentials. I could begin with matters of the heart but nah! Too depressing, plus im not candid enough. Next please! Ok. Finance. Ive been waiting for 16 months to get paid. Wont be surprised if it takes 24 months, or maybe 36. Work? Stuck with little progress. Job? None available. Family? Right now they are pretty pissed with me. Friends? Thats where Im lucky. I guess things could be worse, so i should not complain but heck its my blog.I could get on by without giving much thought to these but its the more trivial things that make it really irritating sometimes. I could go on and on starting from my internet order to my registration to my passport fiasco to my accident last night but I would look more a crybaby than i already am. so i dare not embarrass myself further. Silver linings are harder to see when the mind is already clouded. so please no patronizing. i need a clearer head and more spiritual strength. funny... this design for life.
hoping for brighter days, yet.
Right here in my pretty face
To wear the scars
To show from where I came
We don't talk about love
We only wanna get drunk
And we are not allowed to spend
As we are told that this is the end
A design for life
- Manic Street Preachers "A design for life"
Apparently one of the paradoxes in life is that it takes some overwhelming circumstances to shake you out of your apathy and put some sense of perspective. Maybe thats why im posting this after a 10 month(ish) hiatus. So goodbye facebook and hello again blogdom (for now). May we ever have a dysfunctional relationship till I'm terminally unable to stare at a computer screen.
Its kind of sad that things have not been as eventful as i would have hoped this past year. Which makes it more strange the fact that I had an emotional breakdown last night (things like that do not happen to me anymore i thought) for no particular reason, and the precipitating cause was something not entirely minor but about which I would never lose sleep about earlier. I wont get into any details but i guess it was a culmination of many repressed feelings that exploded which I could not control anymore. And what better way than to let your blog bear witness to your ventings? Aaah the bliss of narcissism!
Anyone who thinks that i was born with a silver spoon in my mouth should really think again. My brother coined the term "alanism" some years back and with good reason - im jinxed. No its not some delusional paranoia stemming out of a neurotic but i cannot comprehend any logical answer to this as far as my rational capabilities are concerned. The worst part is that when you believe that bad things always happen to you they do. Reality is often what you make of your consciousness. I have been unfortunate enough to let many undesirable things happening to me these last months but i have always shrugged them aside and try to let nature take its course but somehow i always find myself in the deep end of any situation. Even if i do everything right (by the book, as they say) theres a greater chance that something gets screwed up anyway.
So a quick fact-check is in order, starting with the essentials. I could begin with matters of the heart but nah! Too depressing, plus im not candid enough. Next please! Ok. Finance. Ive been waiting for 16 months to get paid. Wont be surprised if it takes 24 months, or maybe 36. Work? Stuck with little progress. Job? None available. Family? Right now they are pretty pissed with me. Friends? Thats where Im lucky. I guess things could be worse, so i should not complain but heck its my blog.I could get on by without giving much thought to these but its the more trivial things that make it really irritating sometimes. I could go on and on starting from my internet order to my registration to my passport fiasco to my accident last night but I would look more a crybaby than i already am. so i dare not embarrass myself further. Silver linings are harder to see when the mind is already clouded. so please no patronizing. i need a clearer head and more spiritual strength. funny... this design for life.
hoping for brighter days, yet.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
hey sista, soul sista....
In just a couple of days I have witnessed three of my good friends (who are all incidentally, girls) getting good jobs and I just want to post here how proud I am of them (and to remind them not to forget me when they celebrate. hyuk hyuk)
Firstly, Pauline, poe, holly goodhead, beyatch, my 2nd ho (or whatever niceties i can come up with). Met her through my ex-GF, who is her best friend. The first night we met we were all bunking together on the floor of a small apartment and I, the "mang chhe" one, had pushed and nudged her frail frame all the way off the mattress and under the bed! That made me so embarassed the next day I spent a considerable time avoiding her just to save myself from further discomfort. But we gelled after the years: our mutual interest in literature, bawdy innuendos and jokes, debates and other things made it customary for the rest of the gang to warn us not to indulge in talking about our studies everytime we got together. You didn't have to give us a couple of beers to start off on postcolonial theory, psychoanalysis or anything literary. It just happened spontaneously. After the years we have shared much more than just academic talk. We have become really good friends. We tease and consult each other about our love lives; she still threatens to make pubic a video where i allegedly (and I stress, ALLEGEDLY) strip-teased wearing a thong on a drunken brain-fart moment; I love imitating her hyuk-hyuk laugh and pointing out the bittersweet irony of her pretty face and flat chest (she is gonna kill me if she knew i wrote this. haha) But she is brilliant, and I love her, and I am so proud of her at this moment.
Secondly, Jamie (Code name: J). I had known her only quite recently and that too more due to the fact that our paths have crossed in the academic arena. But from the first moment, one feels completely at ease and comfortable with her. She is warm, friendly, has the sweetest smile which is very therapeutic; and I can always count on her for kuhva. I would embarass her on this blog if i knew a bit more about her but sadly that has to wait. Hehe. But seriously she deserves all the success she's getting and I only hope that she will be kind enough to help me out on my slave work once a while after she leaves me for the glory.
And last but definitely NOT least, Ramdini, Dyne, Sin Woman, Alanis, my soul-mate, BFF etc etc. Words cannot express how proud I am of her, and I do not possess the capacity to describe what type of person she is. I think we are twins separated at birth. In kindergarten, in a fancy dress show, I was Superman, she was Florence Nightingale (truth be told, she should have been BOTH Superman and the Lamp lady). After my 3 year stay in Lunglei, we were reunited again in Mary Mount. The dear nun had us play the hero and heroine in a campy and hilarious puppets-on-a-string version of a play not even remotely resembling "Romeo and Juliet". High school came. We sat near each other in class and talked and talked and talked. We talked about anything and everything. We did the whole "hook-up-with-this-girl-coz-shes-the-one-for-you" and "told-you-so" routine more than a couple of times. Her dad passed away while we were in Class X. I still regret not being able to comfort her and be there for her then but the strength that she showed in overcoming the most tragic of circumstances made me realize how much better a person she was than I could ever be. After High School, we stayed at different places, but we still corresponded via letters (no internet during those times) and we talked about our misery, drawing strength from one another. Sometimes I'd visit her in Calcutta on my way home or back to Delhi. She told me about the men in her life, and I of (or absence of) the girls i have known. I can still vividly recall the time when we were experimenting on some stuff (:D) under a tree near the lake in Jadavpur University, listening on one earphone each to Alanis Morrissette's "Under Rug Swept" album. During this time I was the shy-ish and kinda mysterious guy, she was the bohemian hippie. We just connected in a metaphysical level. Our friendship is the type that defies all logic about boy-girl stereotypes. I have had to face countless questions and doubts about the reason behind the absence of any emotional or physical involvement in such a close association. But it just is, and has always been just that. Do I need to give any "reason"?. She went off to the far east and during this time, correspondence was kept to a minimum, We were living our own lives. But I always knew that no matter how long or far the distance, we were still "us". But the danger with this feeling is that you can take the friendship for granted, which I have been guilty of a number of times. But like any relationship, we have had some periods of strain and disillusionment, of misunderstandings and the like. But she is too loving a person to take issue with my mood-swings, my passive-aggressive and self-destructive tendencies and many faults that she always forgives me and we are at the moment where we have become better persons and our friendship is continuing strongly. She is an amazing writer. Her stuff can make you go wow! think and make you cry. I love it that whenever my male chauvinism and excess testosterone comes to the fore the alanis/fiona apple/maya angelou side of her feminist inclinations irritates her that she chides me but we always end up laughing at ourselves. Conversations with her are always an intellectual high. If I could she would be my first choice as best-man for my wedding, and I would do the same for her even if I was compelled to wear a dress (on second thought.. lemme just think about how horrifying that would be). Well, let this be a kind of homage to my dear friend; I love you dearly and I am super-thrilled at your success. Here's hoping for many more wonderful adventures.
Firstly, Pauline, poe, holly goodhead, beyatch, my 2nd ho (or whatever niceties i can come up with). Met her through my ex-GF, who is her best friend. The first night we met we were all bunking together on the floor of a small apartment and I, the "mang chhe" one, had pushed and nudged her frail frame all the way off the mattress and under the bed! That made me so embarassed the next day I spent a considerable time avoiding her just to save myself from further discomfort. But we gelled after the years: our mutual interest in literature, bawdy innuendos and jokes, debates and other things made it customary for the rest of the gang to warn us not to indulge in talking about our studies everytime we got together. You didn't have to give us a couple of beers to start off on postcolonial theory, psychoanalysis or anything literary. It just happened spontaneously. After the years we have shared much more than just academic talk. We have become really good friends. We tease and consult each other about our love lives; she still threatens to make pubic a video where i allegedly (and I stress, ALLEGEDLY) strip-teased wearing a thong on a drunken brain-fart moment; I love imitating her hyuk-hyuk laugh and pointing out the bittersweet irony of her pretty face and flat chest (she is gonna kill me if she knew i wrote this. haha) But she is brilliant, and I love her, and I am so proud of her at this moment.
Secondly, Jamie (Code name: J). I had known her only quite recently and that too more due to the fact that our paths have crossed in the academic arena. But from the first moment, one feels completely at ease and comfortable with her. She is warm, friendly, has the sweetest smile which is very therapeutic; and I can always count on her for kuhva. I would embarass her on this blog if i knew a bit more about her but sadly that has to wait. Hehe. But seriously she deserves all the success she's getting and I only hope that she will be kind enough to help me out on my slave work once a while after she leaves me for the glory.
And last but definitely NOT least, Ramdini, Dyne, Sin Woman, Alanis, my soul-mate, BFF etc etc. Words cannot express how proud I am of her, and I do not possess the capacity to describe what type of person she is. I think we are twins separated at birth. In kindergarten, in a fancy dress show, I was Superman, she was Florence Nightingale (truth be told, she should have been BOTH Superman and the Lamp lady). After my 3 year stay in Lunglei, we were reunited again in Mary Mount. The dear nun had us play the hero and heroine in a campy and hilarious puppets-on-a-string version of a play not even remotely resembling "Romeo and Juliet". High school came. We sat near each other in class and talked and talked and talked. We talked about anything and everything. We did the whole "hook-up-with-this-girl-coz-shes-the-one-for-you" and "told-you-so" routine more than a couple of times. Her dad passed away while we were in Class X. I still regret not being able to comfort her and be there for her then but the strength that she showed in overcoming the most tragic of circumstances made me realize how much better a person she was than I could ever be. After High School, we stayed at different places, but we still corresponded via letters (no internet during those times) and we talked about our misery, drawing strength from one another. Sometimes I'd visit her in Calcutta on my way home or back to Delhi. She told me about the men in her life, and I of (or absence of) the girls i have known. I can still vividly recall the time when we were experimenting on some stuff (:D) under a tree near the lake in Jadavpur University, listening on one earphone each to Alanis Morrissette's "Under Rug Swept" album. During this time I was the shy-ish and kinda mysterious guy, she was the bohemian hippie. We just connected in a metaphysical level. Our friendship is the type that defies all logic about boy-girl stereotypes. I have had to face countless questions and doubts about the reason behind the absence of any emotional or physical involvement in such a close association. But it just is, and has always been just that. Do I need to give any "reason"?. She went off to the far east and during this time, correspondence was kept to a minimum, We were living our own lives. But I always knew that no matter how long or far the distance, we were still "us". But the danger with this feeling is that you can take the friendship for granted, which I have been guilty of a number of times. But like any relationship, we have had some periods of strain and disillusionment, of misunderstandings and the like. But she is too loving a person to take issue with my mood-swings, my passive-aggressive and self-destructive tendencies and many faults that she always forgives me and we are at the moment where we have become better persons and our friendship is continuing strongly. She is an amazing writer. Her stuff can make you go wow! think and make you cry. I love it that whenever my male chauvinism and excess testosterone comes to the fore the alanis/fiona apple/maya angelou side of her feminist inclinations irritates her that she chides me but we always end up laughing at ourselves. Conversations with her are always an intellectual high. If I could she would be my first choice as best-man for my wedding, and I would do the same for her even if I was compelled to wear a dress (on second thought.. lemme just think about how horrifying that would be). Well, let this be a kind of homage to my dear friend; I love you dearly and I am super-thrilled at your success. Here's hoping for many more wonderful adventures.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
stay tuned for...
My stay in Pune has been quite the experience. Too bad i don't have enough time to blog.. but there are a million things brewing in my mind which I hope will come into being as soon as I get back home.
I have been meaning to write some critical articles/essays. Some tentative topics are: Mizo Christianity and its Subalterns, Native-ness Vs Pop culture, The Present Absence etc etc.
For those of yous who balk at the prospect of me jargoneering (Im looking at you Callliopa) i will also post some lighter stuff.
Till then, stay beautiful
I have been meaning to write some critical articles/essays. Some tentative topics are: Mizo Christianity and its Subalterns, Native-ness Vs Pop culture, The Present Absence etc etc.
For those of yous who balk at the prospect of me jargoneering (Im looking at you Callliopa) i will also post some lighter stuff.
Till then, stay beautiful
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
broken from the lines
that bind the illusory schism,
my stage is laid to tread
the hollow empire unknown
dancing with the flames of the curse,
the inevitable confrontations granting a misstep,
choices are illusions
we did not make the rules;
the game has already begun.
time passes as shades of rapture
darken still the spaces of emptiness,
i am still worthy, unimpaired, still adopted by time
within the deception of the abyss
Hello Eden, I taste the forbidden fruit,
Let it rob me of my senses
Wake me in heavenly Shangri-la
The forbidden, yet I seem to love it so
Unyielding indulgent fool! I am told that I am drowning
Shipwrecked from the ship sailing to utopia
Help, somebody, throw me a line, its freezing!
Oh thank you, I see the shore, the water is getting warmer,
But wait, I'm getting weary, I could rest awhile, or go back.
Some have tread this path; others are waiting.
I have made it my home
This abyss.
that bind the illusory schism,
my stage is laid to tread
the hollow empire unknown
dancing with the flames of the curse,
the inevitable confrontations granting a misstep,
choices are illusions
we did not make the rules;
the game has already begun.
time passes as shades of rapture
darken still the spaces of emptiness,
i am still worthy, unimpaired, still adopted by time
within the deception of the abyss
Hello Eden, I taste the forbidden fruit,
Let it rob me of my senses
Wake me in heavenly Shangri-la
The forbidden, yet I seem to love it so
Unyielding indulgent fool! I am told that I am drowning
Shipwrecked from the ship sailing to utopia
Help, somebody, throw me a line, its freezing!
Oh thank you, I see the shore, the water is getting warmer,
But wait, I'm getting weary, I could rest awhile, or go back.
Some have tread this path; others are waiting.
I have made it my home
This abyss.
Uh oh!
As a newbie blogger, I was messing around with the settings and did somethings which I'm still trying to get my head around. So i might link(?), put your profile here and there and do things without the expressed written consent of the copyright owners. So if anyone feels offended by my lack of blog-o-knowledge I apologize and please instruct me wherever applicable.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
O Kafka My Kafka
O Kafka My Kafka! thy prophecy has been done,
The world has fallen to the dogs, they stole away our sun,
The end is near, the signs i hear, the masses all still sleeping,
While we become the fools in debt, your words are ice, unbending:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the numbness, toil and strife
Where on these pages my Kafka writes
Still killing me to life
This is my homage to the writer. Heavily inspired by (only a few changes to) the poem "O Captain My Captain" by Walt Whitman. See the poem at www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15754
I had only heard of Kafka before we had his novel "The Trial" in our MA course. I did not attend much of the lectures then but I read it and little did I know then how much impact it would have on me. The novel was harrowingly bleak, disturbing at times and very disjointed (he had not finished the novel before he died) and the protagonist, Josef K (now you know the inspiration behind my moniker: the surname K has been used by many other authors as well) resonated with me deeply. Here was a man who led a sheltered bourgeois life before he was arrested one day accused of a crime of which he didn't know he commited. The matter-of-fact narration, the suffocating landscapes and the weirdness of it all left me completely bewildered, but nevertheless divinely purged after I finished it.
Then I read his other stories: "The Metamorphosis" coming first to mind. I will not budge when I say that this is the MOST PERFECT story ever written. There are so many layers, so horrific yet so beautiful. It is one of the few times when I can say that I emerged a different person after reading it. I had moments of epiphany, glorious and yet so brutally true. I can read it again and again, and it will speak to me in ways i will never comprehend before. This is art at its best. There is no moment of stasis: it leaves you in a state of chaotic whirlpool of emotions leaving a catharsis at the end, but always thirsting for more. This is what Franz Kafka does for me. He is THE genius of the 20th Century (many great writers agree with me :D). His alienation, awareness of his mortality, his doubt in his abilities, his impulsion to write without regards for the consequences, his terminally un-Jewish Jewishness: all of it is so real. Yet his life was not a bed of roses: he lived and died hard. Would i have taken a Kafka afterworld if offered to me? My heart says yes, my head says no. Maybe its better to be cocooned in our superficial existence. Or maybe not; I'll never know.
When i joined Mizoram University last year for my M.Phil I looked at the new course syllabus for MA and found that they had offered a course on European writings (Kafka, Camus, Grass et al) as an optional paper for 3rd or 4th Sem students. Like a kid buying a new toy I eagerly asked the head if they were teaching the course (I was willing to sit in every class just for the joy of the experience) but I was disappointed to find out that due to teacher shortage and other reasons, they were only doing Pop Fiction from that paper. I have deep respect for pop culture and I do not mean to degrade the course but given a choice between studying Kafka and Camus or a Mills & Boon novel and Barbara Cartland... (you know where I'm getting at). I find it sad that MA students will not have a choice to opt for the paper even if they want to (whether any of them will want to is another matter) but I sincerely hope that they will put the course up for study sooner rather than later. And when they do, I will be there (provided they allow me to sit) to revisit those very moments of humanity.
The world has fallen to the dogs, they stole away our sun,
The end is near, the signs i hear, the masses all still sleeping,
While we become the fools in debt, your words are ice, unbending:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the numbness, toil and strife
Where on these pages my Kafka writes
Still killing me to life
This is my homage to the writer. Heavily inspired by (only a few changes to) the poem "O Captain My Captain" by Walt Whitman. See the poem at www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15754
I had only heard of Kafka before we had his novel "The Trial" in our MA course. I did not attend much of the lectures then but I read it and little did I know then how much impact it would have on me. The novel was harrowingly bleak, disturbing at times and very disjointed (he had not finished the novel before he died) and the protagonist, Josef K (now you know the inspiration behind my moniker: the surname K has been used by many other authors as well) resonated with me deeply. Here was a man who led a sheltered bourgeois life before he was arrested one day accused of a crime of which he didn't know he commited. The matter-of-fact narration, the suffocating landscapes and the weirdness of it all left me completely bewildered, but nevertheless divinely purged after I finished it.
Then I read his other stories: "The Metamorphosis" coming first to mind. I will not budge when I say that this is the MOST PERFECT story ever written. There are so many layers, so horrific yet so beautiful. It is one of the few times when I can say that I emerged a different person after reading it. I had moments of epiphany, glorious and yet so brutally true. I can read it again and again, and it will speak to me in ways i will never comprehend before. This is art at its best. There is no moment of stasis: it leaves you in a state of chaotic whirlpool of emotions leaving a catharsis at the end, but always thirsting for more. This is what Franz Kafka does for me. He is THE genius of the 20th Century (many great writers agree with me :D). His alienation, awareness of his mortality, his doubt in his abilities, his impulsion to write without regards for the consequences, his terminally un-Jewish Jewishness: all of it is so real. Yet his life was not a bed of roses: he lived and died hard. Would i have taken a Kafka afterworld if offered to me? My heart says yes, my head says no. Maybe its better to be cocooned in our superficial existence. Or maybe not; I'll never know.
When i joined Mizoram University last year for my M.Phil I looked at the new course syllabus for MA and found that they had offered a course on European writings (Kafka, Camus, Grass et al) as an optional paper for 3rd or 4th Sem students. Like a kid buying a new toy I eagerly asked the head if they were teaching the course (I was willing to sit in every class just for the joy of the experience) but I was disappointed to find out that due to teacher shortage and other reasons, they were only doing Pop Fiction from that paper. I have deep respect for pop culture and I do not mean to degrade the course but given a choice between studying Kafka and Camus or a Mills & Boon novel and Barbara Cartland... (you know where I'm getting at). I find it sad that MA students will not have a choice to opt for the paper even if they want to (whether any of them will want to is another matter) but I sincerely hope that they will put the course up for study sooner rather than later. And when they do, I will be there (provided they allow me to sit) to revisit those very moments of humanity.
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