Thank you, old friend

I've begun to miss my blog with a vengeance, 
as if it were a being in its own right;
and not something i created.

a hundred, a thousand, painstaking hours 
of pouring out words and poring over syntax,

as if it were something under a sheet of bullet proof glass;
meant to be stared at from a distance
and coveted. 

Neurotic love

Those who know me know that i thrive on the written word. Brilliant writing fills me with an ecstasy, which i am yet to discover in any smoked/drunk/imbibed substance.
When i read something that has definitely changed my life monumentally, there is a curiosity to delve deeper into the writer's pschye, to know where it all started, how it came to be,
an arcane urge to know how they loved and lived.
and it is what i do when i finish a book and have decided that the writer belongs to my list of illustrious individuals, only to discover that they are dead
and that they did not live a happy life or die a peaceful death.
It is not a privilege or a special trait or anything 'real cool' at all. It is the greatest tragedy, a loss of the highest order.
There is a large research pool dedicated to the link between key depressive disorders and creativity. It sickens me to realise that they were ailing to cope with the idiosyncrasies of the world they live in, struggling to come to terms with reality, in the most literal of meanings.
And i think, How could they,cope, when that what they forged in their minds was superlative compared to what the collective mind of the 'real world' had to offer.
How could they cope,
especially when they knew what it can be.
when they've glimpsed the world beyond
Its like moving the translucent curtain covering a painting. What you see, the colours richer, the expressions so much more vivid; what you see, without the dull grey film, is such explicit vibrancy.
And then, how do you return, to mediocrity;
and survive it.

reading material for the interested: 
creativity and mood disorders
artistic creativity and bipolar mood disorders

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax-- Of cabbages--and kings-- And why the sea is boiling hot-- And whether pigs have wings."

|    Warning: long read ahead   |

i am very very choosy when it comes to people.

and when it comes to people who write(and who i read) all the more.

So when it was time for one of those reflection-taking stock-introspection deals,

i surprised myself when i thought about how many bloggers i had begun to love in a few months time.

my girls, my dear, crazy, sweet, brilliant, abstract, idiosyncratic girls.

the boys of a hundred stories and a million crazies, rainbow-hued and otherwise

the poets with their words of pure genius,

the story-tellers untangling webs of memories and imagination

and every-day-ers with their simple tales of every-day-wonder-ness

all of you, a part of my world.

and mind you; here's only a few

in the order that is
the standard for things, as such and these

None.

• Zlaek: the nexus between her writing and mine, is beyond uncanny. like a blurred, yet in ways more obvious, reflection of the thoughts in my head. inside of me, there is an intense impulse to stop anymore unworthy minds from reading her, yet at the same time, wishing for the world to know what she is capable of. One day i hope the better of these two will triumph and prove the alternative wrong.
  
  
• Tris: she writes like she lives, boldly with just the right hint of recklessness and emotion. alter-native egos, of same boats and storms. drifting, learning, surviving.
  
  
• Cloudcutter!: all of the words i used above to describe "my girls" applies to her. i love all her names! right from the first, to the last to her pseudonym :) her writing always, always hits the spot. she picks all these sublime little truths and tosses a delicious salad, with dressing and muchies! our random conversations leave warmth in their wake.
  
  
• Spy girl: this girl's thoughts need to be bottled up and sold in exclusive-by-invite-only-parties. Hilarious is incorporated into her blood-stream. her writing is totally snort-worthy and she's the kind of girl who's willing to take my -tequila solves world crisis- style advices. ;)
  
  
• Quicksilver: her words sit primly in their perfect spots, like pieces of some beautiful puzzle, all completed. seamless flow, beautiful imagery, the absurdity factor, her writing has them all, along with that oh-so-alluring factor of craziness ;)

• Unsung: the sweet sweet boi whose life, like mine, is a full fledged drama. he writes about it in minute(albeit anonymous) detail, stays true to the rainbow and wears the drama-queen crown and I write obscure poetry ;) i can always depend on him to give me my 'make me feel better' fix whenever i need it. which btw is not often as one'd imagine.

• Orange: the boy who can think, rainbow thoughts and others.
  
  
• Meandering mind: the one who endeared himself to many, enthralled with his stories and then left without a trace. He took with him all that was and left us no reminder. no souvenir except his words, filled with warmth, sprinkled here and there.
  
  
• Brown Dude: who first played the good-boy role to perfection and then went on to become a celebrity, forgetting his voters/mere mortals fellow bloggers. now he's back he says, let's wait and see ;)
  he writes like i sing. hilarious enough to make anyone laugh their innards out. humour has a whole new avatar, because you see, He can comb his hair both ways. say wow!
  
  
• Kaarta: something that crossed my mind when i read a post of his- "one cannot write out of mere imagination, or experience. only a mind keen enough to perceive and brilliant enough to capture the subtle signs of life can 'write' in the truest of senses. his writing touches that 'most discerning' part of my mind."
  and what's more, he's funny, ridiculously funny when he needs to be. totally ROFL worthy.
  

• Diwakar Sinha:what strikes you at first is the sense of effortlessness in his writing. In his narratives, He constantly challenges accepted gender roles. and the voice of the narrator, neutral, observant, non judging, non preachy, keen.
  Reading him is like slowly sinking into a room full of cotton balls. rich, soft, indulgent.
  
  
• Shamanth: the story teller, with simplicity running in the background, curling the intricacies of the world into tidy little pointers and concise phrases
  you cannot stop
  the sun from setting
  just to admire
  its brilliance, nor admonish
  as it plunges, into seas
  of foolishness. and at
  the end of it all
  you know very well
  that the sun shines
  in another place, away
  from you but; wherever,
  forever it shines.
  
  
• Akshata: she doesnt write much, anymore. she talks a lot, im sure.
  she's depressed and doesnt know it. she's quite brilliant and knows that.
  falls into the 'crazy kids running amok' category. said with lots of affection ofcourse:)
  
  
• Iggy!: the one who wants to do everything under the sun, Today. which is only to be expected 'cause she's a gemini! (yes, i do believe that to be true) She's hilarious, a total laugh riot when she's not nursing a blogger's block or two that is ;) Now that you're back. Stay with us girl!
  
  
• Merin the girl with the name of a african serpant-god-with-four-heads. and her writing is filled with as much incredulity and hilarity as that. again, a gemini, a ferrari-fanatic, and the best of all, some one who is willing to don her previous-life-serpant-god avatar to slay Fuckilton. say wheeee! ;)
  
  
• Mikimbizi: boy O boy is she awesome or what, is what i would want to say. quite simply and plainly. But her writing, is so intricate, layered, multi dimensional. her work is like the collective mess inside a dream-catcher. good, euphoric, dark, esoteric, abstract and breathtaking, all in one take. she contains inside her, the true spirit of the hippie.
  
  
• Audacious hilarious Itisha Peerbhoy whose primary purpose in life is to make people snort into their coffee's ever once in a blue morning.
  
  
• wee Bullshee:  the one who drinks rum out of a beer mug and makes it sound esoteric.
  
  
• manisha a random little girl with her random little thoughts. or so she says. her stories are truly amazing, with a class of their own. emotions behind them always bang-on. and the way she writes them, it's like she doesnt know what being self-conscious is, like she takes on a whole new persona.
  
  
• Slash: the self proclaimed quasi-rocker. funny voice sings to him all day and at the end of it, we get to hear about it.  shrrrred that thing, twang twang twang.
  
  
• Kro bro: who flatters me a lot, stays polite and calls me things like Ms. Naidu, Ms. Subtle signs et cetera, all the while covertly digging his nose. he writes humour like it has to save his life, which according to him might be true, you know, getting a life and the whole process that follows.
  
  
• poe: Crazy lady, stays true to her name, loyal to her game. and still refuses to share the magic-herb with me. *hmph*
  
  
• Mentalie: she covers her fetish for obscenity with some super-neat writing. and when all's said and done about shakila's boob-ets she never fails to make me rofL.
  
  
• Mon monde: whose poems made us fall in love with them. their sheer simplicity paved the way for more to follow, into my life, that it would turn into complications of the largest kind, i didnt know then, but im still glad i read them.
  
  
• Maggie Fitts: i think/feel/experience she's already written about it. Between the two of us, we share a name, a love for sylvia plath, interest for obscure postcards, and an undisturbed silence. her writing is what i'd call dysfunction kitsch. <3 <3 <3 it.
  
  
• City in July THE poetry blog i love. her nonchalant familiarity of words, is almost disconcerting, like you are in the presence of some serious black magic. the title of her latest has haunted my mind ever since i read it. Medusa, Medusa, Medusa
  
  
• Jason evans: in my mind, i call him the crazy-post-man. that's probably because of some obscure childish notion of the postman's bag having all this assorted nice-nice little things inside it. but that's just what i find each time i read him. surprises surprises.
  
  
• Pundit's crisp blurring of imagination into reality, i only started reading him today and im hooked already.
  
  
• the salesman whose writing is straight from his heart and into your checking account. SOLD, each time. and him too, i just started reading.
  
  
• The nomad whose photographs i love.
  
  
• Aparna's Ayushi and her wonderful stories
  
  
• falstaff's whimsical madness 

there it is, the entire deal.

and to the ones that have been driving me crazy 

and keeping me sane.

my <3
PS: leave a <3 if you dont have much else to say, to show you've all been here.