One hundred years ...

Wednesday, October 25, 2006



She realized that Colonel Aureliano Buendia had not lost his love for the family because he had been hardened by the war, as she had thought before, but that he had never loved anyone, not even his wife Remedios or the countless one-night women who had passed through his life, and much less his sons. She sensed that he had fought so many wars not out of idealism as everyone had thought, nor had he renounced a certain victory because of fatigue, as everyone had thought, but that he had won and lost for the same reason, pure and sinful pride. She reached the conclusion that the son for whom she would have given her life was simply a man incapable of love. One night when she was carrying him in her belly she heard him weeping. It was such a definite lament that Jose Arcadio Buendia woke up beside her and was happy with the idea that his son is going to be a ventriloquist. Other people predicted that he would be a prophet. She, on the other hand, shuddered from the certainty that the deep moan was a first indication of the fearful pig tail and she begged God to let the child die in her womb. But the lucidity of her old age allowed her to see, and she said so many times, that the cries of children in their mother's wombs are not announcements of ventriloquism or a faculty for prophecy but an unmistakable sign of an incapacity of love. The lowering of the image of her son brought out in her all at once all of the compassion that she owed him. Amaranta, however, whose hardness of heart frightened her, whose concentrated bitterness made her bitter, suddenly became clear to her in the final analysis as the most tender woman who had ever existed, and she understood with pitying clarity that the unjust tortures to which she had submitted Pietro Crespi had not been dictated by a desire for vengeance, as everyone had thought, nor had the slow martyrdom with which she had frustrated the life of Colonel Gerinaldo Marquez been determined by the gall of her bitterness, as everyone had thought, but that both actions had been a mortal struggle between a measureless love and an invincible cowardice, and that the irrational fear that Amaranta had always had of her own tormented heart had triumphed in the end. It was during that time that Ursula began to speak Rebecca's name, bringing back the memory of her with an old love that was exalted by tardy repentance and a sudden admiration, coming to understand that only she, Rebecca, the one who had never fed of her milk but only of the earth of the land and the whiteness of the walls, the one who did not carry the blood of her veins in hers but the unknown blood of the strangers whose bones were still clocing in their grave, Rebecca, the one with an impatient heart, the one with a fierce womb, was the only one who had the unbridled courage that Ursula had wanted for her line.

--One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Ministry of Blues ...

Sunday, October 15, 2006



Ministry Of Blues at the Unwind Center ...

The guy on the lead guitar was simply awesome.

Sometimes if I close my eyes, its like driving a spaceship into and through a swirling galaxy. Streaks of light flashing past on either sides. Immersed in the high pitched electric squeal it sways violently, at times switching the burners to overdrive. Turning right, turning left, and right, and left again, on through a barrage of weird massive shapes. An occasional space rock from nowhere springs up from the distance at light speed. Just when I think its gonna take me down with it, it hits the peripheral annihilating field and explodes. A riot of brilliant colors dazzle by. And when I open my eyes, its just that guy, that guy whose bent back with closed eyes and is searching for his breath on all the six strings.

And sometimes when its slow, its like I am in the deep ocean. All around me is deep dark and blue. I am in the shape of a prehistoric monster, with a long neck, small head, huge side flaps and a long swaying tail. I am swimming around, very slowly, in the cold blue. I close my flaps and take a short dip down with my head stretched forward, gliding effortlessly. Then I stop, float with swaying flaps and turning my long neck around search for a speckle of light. I swim around searching for it, thick dark water forcing me to ballet dancer motion sequences. But the only light, is what comes from above, from above the ocean surface, far far away.

Island of Serenity ...

Monday, October 02, 2006



Why is man in constant quest of inputs, stimuli, new experiences, more data to process ?

When most of them know that the most blissful and serene they can be is when they are left to themselves, when life is slow, when there are less things to process.

I think, the best state a human being can aspire to be is when you are able to feel serene and blissful, when a faint smile creeps into your lips unconsciously and stays, and when the very smile can be felt in all parts of your mind that you can see.

But it might be, its not the aim that is important, but the journey itself. The machine might rust if not given enough tasks to do, more so like with Marvin - the paranoid android - with a brain as big as the galaxy and so less information to process.

Still maybe you can keep an island of serenity in your heart, amidst the sea of things to process, where you can be shipwrecked at times, calmed by towering waves and left to counting days instead of hours, when the sun sets and rises.