soundtrack of life

from:http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wX2pyKDAkV4/Rq3T7cyTyGI/AAAAAAAAAK8/zlx2Gwn2DjM/s1600-h/very_long_engagement_xl_04.jpg

take your time. this CD is nothing to rush through. It is neither rock nor dance nor reggae music. actually it isnt a part of pop culture at all, but a music soundtrack of the old sort.

The orchestra soares through melodies of longing. joy, throughtfullness and a melancholy that makes the movie it was taken from special: a very long engagement directed by jean-pierre jeunet. it is the perfect soundtrack for simply lying around, enjoying the creeps the music give you: a tingling down the spine, that almost automatically shuts your eyes and makes you think of people you adore, but that are far away. parts where the beginning bulging of a tear or two stings your eye and then the main melody which forces you to smile and forget the hectic of the moment.

the hovering balance between deep bass and light soprano creates a lugubrious atmosphere which only a full orchestra could create. it forces you to think and reflect but also to enjoy the moment: good company, a peck of peace, the changing landscape outside the car window.
It is not the best composition of all times, no, simply the fact that its movie music makes it seem a tad repeditive and lacking a main (active) part, but thats ok, because at the moment, the main part is what you do and think about.

A grand soundtrack for an even grander movie which will accompany me through many a melancholy and non melancholy moment.

Some experience huh...

It hits hard, deep inside. The shock, the fear and the tears – all in a second. You only know the feeling when you hear it – bomb blast. The pale faces, the trembling hands and more that anything FEAR stabs your heart when you hear that 9 bomb blasts have occurred, in your city in the places that you often visit.

We were in the middle of English class, listening to the soft voice of our English teacher in the background while all of us had our own conversations, when another English teacher ABN comes into the class without her usual ado and announces, “Everybody should go home. Something has happened in the city.” Well, as much as we like school, an early dismissal is always welcome and we packed our bags and raced out of class. But curiosity pricked our hearts, so we tried asking the teachers about the ‘something’ that had happened. But with ashen faces, the teachers hastened our descend to the ground floor. As we walked past the Chemistry lab, I saw the lab attendant holding a mobile and telling a group of 2nd years that there were bomb-blasts. When I told my classmates walking in front of, they laughed. 200 metres ahead a very scared parent told us that there have been 8 blasts in the city near Forum, off Richmond Road etc.etc. Forum is the most popular shopping mall in the city and it hit us hard. My friend literally turned white when she remembered that our friends were supposed to go to Forum.

Without thinking, I picked my cell, dialled home and asked my Granny where Mom was. I heaved a sigh of relief when she said that my mother had gone to pick up my sister from school. The relief was so great that, as much as I don’t feel like admitting, I burst into tears. As students staggered out of the college, each one thought, why Bangalore?

Even though only 2 people have died and few have sustained injuries and the police call it low-intensity blasts, the fear has ripped the hearts of a few Bangaloreans. I can’t imagine how anxious my Dad must have been when he called us from Jaipur on hearing about the blast. Telephone lines got jammed as everyone on the streets flipped their mobile phones to call their near and dear one to inform them that they were still in one piece. (That was some very bad humour there) Around every corner you hear the word ‘blast’. Life seems dreadful when you count up the number of ways you can end it, but I guess we are all here to only see the bright side of it. With a happy note, I end this post:

♫ Raindrops are fallin’ on my head
But that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turnin’ red
Cryin’s not for me
‘Cause I ‘m never gonna stop the rain by complaining ♪♪…

pop quiz

notice any difference?

Tit-bits

College Curios No.1

As much as the college authorities try hard to restrict the brining of mobile phones to school, they seem not to succeed. The students are always one step ahead. Some really have to bring it to school, like me for instance – my mother will get a heart attack if I don’t call her up after reaching college. Julia, you know the entire history and mystery about this. Some bring it to show off the latest brand of mobile while others bring it to impress people of the opposite sex (however thick the idea seems to be). Others are phone addicts who cannot pass even one Lunch break without the use of their precious communication device. Whatever, is the reason, there seem to be plenty of mobiles floating around the college campus invisible to the prying eyes of the demonic teachers. Anyway, getting back to yesterday’s incident, there were rumours that our bags will be checked for any unwanted things that were there. So a student collected all the cell phones and kept it in his vehicle for safeguarding. Much to our disappointment, there was no inspection, but it tested the limits of our intelligence!

College Curios No. 2

The two most feared and probably hated teachers in the college are PNK and Major. DMR. The former is an English teacher whose very predictable dialogue goes like – “Is this you bloody grandfather’s property? You think you can do what you like …” followed by whatever sin you have committed. His presence in itself commands respect and fear and makes chattering girls and boys walk silently in a line until out of his sight. Recently, a friend of mine ended up being the guinea pig for his rage. He screamed at her for nothing else other than the horrendous crime of raising the decibel level in the over atmosphere by about 10 db, by slapping her flip-flops on the concrete steps. As we slinked away out of sight to save our skins, we could hear her sobs in the distance. Such is the tragedy of PNK. DMR enters with a very familiar line – “I’ll make your liver shiver.” Major. DMR does end up doing that to you. Thankfully, for me, he takes Bio. which I have not chosen. He picks random people from the class and takes down their names and says something like – Submit your NCC forms (National Cadet Corps) form or elss……… Surely DMR and PNK must be some distant cousins (they even look similar you know, with the beer paunch…)

macedonia again, with pictures

shovelling.... again


roma shanty in a part of skopje




me and phillippa in some restaurant

is it fair?

on saturday when we went to skopje, me and phillippa met a girl that spoke almost perfect german. a rarity here, so we used the situation to have a chat about lifer here, how come she spoke german etc.

it turned out that she lived in germany for 9 years, through most of her schooling, in a little cvillage near frankfurt. it was clear she had loved germany, and had basically seen it as her own country. "i was german, i was only albanian on the paper and that was the problem".

when in 2004 the bundeskabinett issued a new rule concerning auslaender her whole life rotated 360 degrees before she knew what was going on. suddenlly one day the poliece was there, suddelnly she was at teh airport, adn then gone for good, into a new country she didnt identify with, new customs, rather new language and definately a different lifestyle. she said all her friends were there. she didnt know where to say goodbye first.

the girl, around 18 years old, now just gotten out of school and on a summer job, porbably to finance uni (germanistic studies) is rather tall, has a fashionable haircut,, bangs handing almost into her eyes, and an incredible makeup. enoufgh to be interresting, but enough to be decent. she tries to do her own thing here, but gleichberechtigung? no way she said. aparently there are parts of europe where women dont have the same chanxces are glareda at and goddiped about if they do her own thing by neighbours, people at school and even random people.

in german, the thing that happended to her is called "abschiebung", when the country decides they wont host you anymore if you are a minority form a different country. but if your family has fully adaped, has friends, secure jobs, language etc. i font it rather cruel to rip them out of their life and inot a "lesser" one, at least one with lesser opportunities.

then again the arguments from the state, you cannot have too many of a minority here, this is not a charity land.... which i can fully sympathise with too. even i sometimes get annoyed with "the turks", which have become a stereotype of cussing unadapting and violent people with their own language (a mix of everything) and a weird taste for hair and clothing, something like the modern good for nothing.

but here is an example of a girl that seems completely normal. the law already had upset me when it came out, and i was aware of what it must mean to some people, that are only looking for a better life, but meeting somebody, that was ripped out of everything that was normal into a country without h&m (almost unthinkable for the average teenager) at my age, that puts me into a dilemma of whom to agree with. statistics or my heart?

macedonian pets

once upon a time there was a little cockroach. he was black and about an inch long, and very proud of his length, as he was bigger than most cokroaches , even though he was not yet fully grown. he lived in the bathroom of the only hotel in twon. quite cozily between the broken tiles of the bathtub and the floor. here he had the perfect spot. the rubbish bin where all the nice food was presented to him like on a silver platter, was not far off, there was sufficient water to clean his shine exoskeleton and once in a while he would get a visit from the noce lady cockroahc from room 26, next door.

one of these days he became unlucky. again he found himself in one of those famous situations where you are simply at the wrong spot at the wrong time. he had just come from his evening walk to the bottom of the sink, perhaps to get a bite of food from the trash, when it happened. he had heard all the horror stories from his mum, but how horror stories have ti, he never believed any of them. the shadow had come. the shrieky shrill sounding shadow.

he tried to run, to hide, the toilet? the trash? anyplace just cover would do. but he wasnt fast enough. suddenly the shadow came closer. a gust of wind, a horrific pain.

the shoe had stomped him. my shoe had stomped him. i lifted my leg and realised that the white poulp smeared on the ground must be the intestines that had gushed out with the crunching noise of breaking bodyarmour. the feelers still were moing as i had to use the batheroom some 10 minutes later.

in the mornings it was gone. mrs jb went for ants, which is better than some larger animal.

at least we dont have large pets anymore (I hope)

top 7 perils i have faced in macedonia

7. seeing the poor living conditions people live in. as good as every house needs renovation. but hey thats what im here for!!
6. the food. too much. way too much (but still good)
5. the traffic. ever heard of a zebra crossing?
4. the climate (oh god) 40 degrees celcius in the shade. you basically get out of the icy shower and feel sweaty before all the water has dried.
3. the nightlife of the frogs. which never will shut up!!! (im very tempted to steal some forbidden DDT and dump it in the ajacent river)
2. the roads that make even the watertightest stomach feel like puking.
1. the diahorrea that is hitting the team one by one. everzday there is a new victim. whens my turn??
greeting from the whole team (charlotte and phillippa who is next to me)

Top 7 Bangalore perils that I have faced:

1. The inhalation of hot and humid air that have challenged my temperature sensors.
2. The condensation of water vapour because the body is cooler than the surrounding air.
3. Frequent sudden tropical-like downpour in the evening that floods the roads and makes the drains overflow.
4. The lack of order on the roads leading to subdivisions a through c
a)The application of brakes every 10 seconds.
b)The perpetual boredom of moving at 3 centimetres per second.
c)The constant fear of being run over by larger vehicles, which happens more often than one would like.
5. The sardine-like packed public buses.
6. Wading through the flowing people-traffic on the footpaths (if there is one) or on the roads, which is the cleaner and safer place to walk. (To expand on this, there seems to be an untold policy in Bangalore that is not hard to notice – the pedestrians have taken to the roads, while two-wheelers and bicycles feel comfortable driving on the footpaths)
7.The sweet sound of honking by the magnanimous drivers that deserves to be ignored after a while.

Pragathi

the first episode is written

the first part of the travel is taken. the first part of many. i got my report card today. and yet again it is pretty much the same as pragathis (oh wonder). grade ten is over, and to be honest i am very happy. the schoolyear was difficult in some aspects and made me grow in others.

why am i stuck at this rotten school??? why wasnt accepted to a UWC??? the year taught me to predict that things never work out the way you want them to, adn stubborn me doesnt like accepting that. i cannot see the implications, the positives and negatives at the moment, but not going to a UWC really eats at me, especially a i alsways seem to bump into people related to it.

whatever. 8 weeks of freedom. funny that. last year i didnt feel like summer hols at all, adn this year i just coundnt wait to get out of school.