Posted by: astrodominie on: January 29, 2010
Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
I’ve been putting off updating my blog for the longest time. I want to move on and talk of different things, but I know I need to say this once and get it out.
Words aren’t enough, and to even try and constrict all that I feel and that I felt into cliches and metaphors doesn’t seem right. Not when you’re trying to explain a life and a person in a sentence, to sum up the entire sense of devastation, loss and horror into about fifty words that are complete inadequate.
Reuben Javvaji died a little more than ten days ago. All that’s left now is a clutter of memories and giggles and grief, emotions that oscillate in great heavy waves.
Reuben, who would call and giggle on the phone and shout at me because I would always complain that he’d only call me when he was trying to track S down. Reuben, with his emo music in his filthy car, who gave me all the Snow Patrol and Lost Prophets and Plain White Ts. His disco-dancer moves and his effortless ability to get people to love him. The only person about whom you couldn’t find a single bad thing to say, even as the rest of us battled bitchiness and issues and all the negativity that people usually have. The random Mahabalipuram trips and the banana boat, and the dozens of cartoon-character photos. How I’d annoy him when he’d call me for cricket scores, giving him my appalling commentary. The way S would always hang up on me because Reuben would be calling him on the other line, and I knew that no matter what S and I had, it would always be Reuben first.
I miss your phone calls and advice, I miss you sending me your CV every other week to be “proofread”, I miss calling you whenever I’d listen to a song that you gave me, I miss the car trips in Chennai and the endless Subway sessions, your hideous Powerpoint presentations that you would be so proud of and which would always top ours, no matter how jazzy we’d try and make them. You would’ve been so proud to have seen the number of people who called and came together for your funeral. People who all probably had issues with each other but it all fades away because they’re coming together for you.
I liked what they said at the service. That it’s not a funeral but a homecoming, that God takes those that he loves best.
This song will always remind me of you.
This is the worst thing I’ve ever written, because I can’t find the words for you. And I’m glad, because then it would be too easy.
I love you, Reuben. I miss you.
Title Source: Boston by Augustana
Posted by: astrodominie on: December 21, 2009
Posted by: astrodominie on: December 10, 2009
And I couldn’t be more addicted to this song if I tried.
Title Source: Bohemian Like You by The Dandy Warhols
Posted by: astrodominie on: December 7, 2009
Sometimes I’m so ridiculously stupid that I get into the most idiotic scenarios and I want to kick myself. But then there’s always the consoling thought that no matter what, there are other people who are equally — if not more so — idiotic. Cheap comfort but it works sometimes.
Title Source: She Hates Me by Puddle of Mudd
Posted by: astrodominie on: November 30, 2009
I don’t know what it is about romantic comedies. I didn’t really like a lot of the ones that most often come to mind when you mention the inevitable chick flicks — Sleepless in Seattle (blah blah blah), Pretty Woman (yes Richard Gere is adorable but supremely annoying), Notting Hill (kill me, Julia Roberts is annoying and blank and Hugh Grant really needs to get a grip and stop shuffling around babbling politely about books), He’s Just Not That Into You (by far one of the worst movies ever made and pretty much summed up that all women are losers) and The Wedding Planner (I’m sorry, Ms Lopez, but you shouldn’t try acting too much). But then there’s stupid movies that stick like How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days (they’re both so cute!) , Love Actually, Never Been Kissed (Michael Vartan was my first love..after Ruper Everett’s Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream), and One Fine Day (Michelle Pfeiffer AND George Clooney) and you get warm, fuzzy and completely, vulnerably smitten.
Who doesn’t want a tempestuous opposites-attract romance with formulaic friends and battles and clashes of ego that lead to one person leaving to catch a plane after the climactic battle that proves to be the last straw, only to be resolved by the other person indulging in a mad chase sequence that ends in a Kelly Clarkson-esque love song?
The cynic in me explains that it’s the media that drills all these ideas into your head, about love at first sight or aggression and hatred that turns into lust and then, in a lightening-bolt flash of clarity, into the shocking realisation that.. could it be.. you’re in love. But then again, it’s all meant to be feel-good anyway. The reality of circumstances that just don’t resolve themselves, families that might just hate each other, and chase sequences that ended in one person actually leaving might make more sense, but it wouldn’t make you as happy or hopeful, I suppose.
Then again, people really aren’t that pretty, George Clooney probably wouldn’t have a kid at the same school as your own, cute little cinematic kids are probably annoying and whiny little brats, there’s isn’t usually a convenient ball to dress up for so as to have someone fall in love with you, the credits won’t roll just when they’re supposed to, and life isn’t that uncomplicated.
Still fun to pretend though. And I’m really not as misanthropic as this makes me sound. Even if I do dislike The Alchemist (why don’t most people?!) and Chicken Soup for the Soul. Oh well.
Title Source: You Were The Last High by The Dandy Warhols
Posted by: astrodominie on: November 21, 2009
Since I’m in a very random mood, this will be yet another of my trademark bullet posts.
I like my life.
Title Source: Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin