Worrying about arthritis...

I said to Leonard Cohen, "How lonely does it get?"
Leonard Cohen said, "Insufficient data for a meaningful answer, yet."

- Posted on the go.

Location:Half asleep

There ain't no cure for love...

"Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing." It's amusing how Sylvia Plath has been quoted simultaneously by a site called "Dangerous quotes" and another one called "Inspiring quotes". It was the third time in last three days that somebody alluded to the Myth of Sisyphus in a conversation with me today. A pathological awareness of existentialism as a concept is the cure to existentialism. I like the passion that Avital Ronell exudes as she advocates meaninglessness in Astra Taylor's Examined Life. The state of contended acceptance of the certainty and the absurdity of fate is not a joyless compromise. It's been fun for me. Leonard Cohen in his between songs stock quips mentions "I’ve also studied deeply in the philosophies and religions, but cheerfulness kept breaking through…". And meanwhile, like all villains of mythology, I find myself looking forward to the immortality drug.

Drunk on Cohen, again.

I keep telling myself there is a world out there to explore, while i refuse to move on from just one poet. How, I wonder sometimes, is my obsession with the existential despair of Cohen's poetry, the cynical prophecy of Dylan, or even my undying appreciation for the clever romanticism of Ghalib's and Ramesh Parekh's poetry any different from my mother's obsession with the plain sentimental poetry of Befaam (to the point that she used to fancy as a teenager that someday she'll heal Befaam's broken heart with her love). Like I was discussing with Mitesh the other day, we all have our Asharam Bapus. Well, here's a piece from one of mine: Cohen, again.

I am locked in a very expensive suit

old elegant and enduring

Only my hair has been able to get free

but someone has been leaving

their dandruff in it

Now I will tell you

all there is to know about optimism

Each day in hub cap mirror

in soup reflection

in other people's spectacles

I check my hair

for an army of alpinists

for Indian rope trick masters

for tangled aviators

for dove and albatross

for insect suicides

for abominable snowmen

I check my hair

for aerialists of every kind

Dedicated as an automatic elevator

I comb my hair for possibilities

I stick my neck out

I lean illegally from locomotive windows

and only for the barber

do I wear a hat.

An unfinished song.

You had a copy of the book you bought

Was to show the taste you sought

As you queued up next to me on the aisle

Was a long time ago that you thought

I was wise for the lies you wrote

I fell for them, swam into your isle.

Then it takes a while to rationalise

Learn the hands turn anti-clockwise

Seen from the other side of the dial.

So depending on where you stand,

You get clockwork or you get orange

Get tortured by Beethoven, meanwhile.

Here we go once again, play it out

Use up one more benefit of doubt

Declare love from starbirth to supernova

Don’t Freud our childhood, let us out

It’s not the past it’s been about

Wasn’t me who whispered Naro-Kunjrova.

When I say you, I don’t address you alone

We’ve all desired, for which we atone

Didn’t Cohen apologise to Eunice D’Souza?

What’s poetry but perspective, and yet

Can’t really be mature till it rhymes at

A a b b, a b a b, abc and blah-blah-bova.

Cohen, Dylan and the time it takes to write a song...

"He said, 'I like this song you wrote called Hallelujah.' In fact, he started doing it in concert. He said, 'How long did that take you to write?' And I said, 'Oh, the best part of two years.' He said, 'Two years?' Kinda shocked. And then we started talking about a song of his called I And I from Infidels. I said, 'How long did you take to write that.' He said, 'Ohh, 15 minutes.' I almost fell off my chair. Bob just laughed."

"You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah"

"Took an untrodden path once, where the swift don't win the race,
It goes to the worthy, who can divide the word of truth.
Took a stranger to teach me, to look into justice's beautiful face
And to see an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
I and I
In creation where one's nature neither honors nor forgives.
I and I
One says to the other, no man sees my face and lives."