Skip to main content

Wake up and smell the coffee

L: ... make you feel cool. And hey! I met you... you are not cool.

W: I know. Even when I thought I was, I knew I wasn't.

L: That's because we're uncool. And while women will always be a problem for us, most of the great art in this world is about that very same problem. Good-looking people don't have any spine. Their art never lasts. They get the girls but we're smarter.

W: I can really see that now.

L: Yeah, great art is about conflict and pain and guilt and longing and love disguised as sex, and sex disguised as love...

- Lester Bangs & William Miller in Almost Famous

Yes, we will smirk and dismiss stories & films. But some images, some moments of music, some lines or conversations will reach deep and relentlessly into the dark places and jolt something. If possible, our expressions will remain the same but... watch closely. Eyes will widen for an instant, the bottom lip will be chewed absently and that seating position will no longer be 'that' comfortable. Inevitably, we will search for those in the room that will know exactly what we know in that instant... and Mona Lisa smiles will be exchanged. Because we understand. Because we are helpless.

L: The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool.

Face it... You just smiled.

Song for the moment: All I really want - Alanis Morissette

Comments

Piggy Little said…
:-) you blog rolled me!!! thanks!!! and yea, lovely post. i love the last quote. and the thingy abt some conversations, songs, quotes etc. etc. jolting u!!

it happens to me everyday! and i just SO KNOW the amazin happiness u feel wen u know there is someone u can look at who understands and u can share a smile with them! its the most exhilarating, sharing a subtle, unspoken knowledge!
6 May 2009 at 15:07
girish said…
@ neha - you're welcome. your blog is 'cool' :).

interestingly enough, the shared connection is also sometimes sad because understanding silently is all you are able to do.
6 May 2009 at 19:22
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Night Boat

I usually don't write honest pieces. They're true to facts but I tend to lather my emotions and thoughts with a heavy dose of attempted humour or misdirection. This post deserves some raw emotional honesty, though.

Yesterday, 29th August, a Tuesday (or should I say, another Tuesday) was about me making choices. It was raining quite heavily when I left for office, sheeted down the windows of the train throughout the 1-hour journey to Churchgate and kept going with renewed intensity by the time I made it to the entrance, looking verily like something that had drowned in a gutter and lain there a while before being discovered by a cat and dragged in. I made the choice to go to work as I suspected my boss would be there and not because I wanted to go.

I was right about my boss but that cardiac fizz of being right flattened out rather rapidly once I realised, around 11:30 am, that no one else from my team of 20 had bothered to make a similar effort. And, some of these guys live 5 …
2 comments
Read more

Drink up and be somebody

Dear Reader,

History will boldly testify that your favourite blogger is usually slow on the uptake, a state of affairs that's blooming with each passing year like a reverse-Revital. "Why this self-harshness, G", you may ask? Well...

I've been doing the Bom-Pune-Bom trips for 9 years and it's taken about that long to accept that MSRTC Shivneri, still the best bus service of them all, simply cannot (or, realistically, will not) cope with 3-day weekends. Since my job profile does not allow me to plan my travel in advance on said Fridays, I land up at Dadar, view the queue of potential passengers snaking a long way from the ticket window and mentally prepare to arrive home at the hour of morning reserved for sheepish teenagers and dacoits. The Expressway doesn't help anyone's cause thanks to truck drivers spreading themselves generously across 3 lanes and clogging the Lonavala pass to a point where the traffic jam is about 3 km long. A stretch that would tak…
Post a Comment
Read more

Country Comforts

Part 1

With timing that was far more impeccable than their usual service, the MSRTC went on strike 2 days before Diwali over a pay dispute. I've traveled on their buses for close to 9 years and know full well just how popular they can be just before a major holiday. The chaotic crowd at Dadar is so dense, one would only need to introduce a few Naga sadhus into the mix and hey presto! we've got ourselves a brand new Kumbh Mela. Albeit one where getting out of Bombay ASAP is the only kind of salvation devotees seek. 

News and newspapers being what they are at present, I was unaware of the jolly bus crisis until Wednesday morning when a well-wisher asked how I proposed to go home for the holidays, flourishing the paper in my face with the reluctant panache of a small-town magician. Realising the gravity of the situation, I looked up train schedules and was stunned to find General category seats available on an outstation train departing later that afternoon. As far as I could see, …
Post a Comment
Read more