Tuesday, October 16, 2012

À Dieu, My Friend

A few years ago, I found a friend in a chat-room online. 

We became friends out of what would come across as coincidence. But it was not merely that. That I was (and am) gay and that he is, was no coincidence. 'Dad, I am homosex' was the line which he'd used to begin the conversation. Or so I had thought. And apparently, it was a code-word among a group of Queer people online. It was a time I was still deep inside the closet, and that I did have someone to whom to speak with no inhibitions was my matter of solace. Then, he simply vanished. And the only thing about the friendship I had was a voice clipping he'd sent me when I'd asked to listen to a Norwegian speak in English (yes, this was a few years ago; no, the clipping was not in English). Then, like an idiot, I lost the clipping recently (probably while ridding my laptop of space-eating crap).

Now, I have not much tangible stuff to remember him by, but by this post, his name and his now-nonexistent email ID.

In Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys describes the Creole way of bidding one farewell. She says they wish the person(s) 'à dieu'    quite unlike the English corruption 'adieu'    or 'in the hands of god'. 

Ceteris paribus, à dieu, my friend. 

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Les Results

     It was 11:56 a.m. on a dense, stuffy June morning. Four minutes to go, before I'd be free from a lot of things.
     Curiosity of about three months, for one. It was the day of my standard ten results.

     And again, I am in a similar position. Tomorrow, at about 1 p.m., we will be notified about our standard twelfth results, online. A part of me wants to stay awake till it's up online. Another wants to wake up just in time to find the results on my screen (O, hi, results! Been in the dark long, have you? Very well then, suit yourself, I'll be back to worry about you soon), and jump back into the comforting (?) darkness of my quilt.

     There will be a lot of hustle and bustle tomorrow. A lot of aims achieved. A lot of curiosity satiated. Some goals left not attained. Some may want to get photocopies of their answer-sheets; some may (finally!) go on a well-deserved vacations to Djibouti (yes, randomness).

     I guess I am allowed to ramble a little today? Well, what do I liken the day of results to? It's like a threshold. It's neither indoors, nor outdoors. It's neither here, nor there. It's like Nearly-Headless Nick and all other ghosts. It's a day that's there. It just exists as a means of transit between the past, of which one has had sufficient, and the future, which holds things unforeseeable. It's just like any other day, just important-ised.

     That's it.

     Let the cat be brought out of its bag! 

Friday, May 11, 2012

A Fortnight Into Adulthood

     I've now been an adult for 15 days. Perfect. But life doesn't seem much different from how it did when I was, so to say, a minor. A few friends gave me an amazing birthday treasure-hunt surprise and I had the best birthday I have ever had. I have had quite a reputation of squarely ruining my birthdays or having others do the honours on my behalf. B)
     So, this birthday was a break from the otherwise predictable groove of routine occurrences. When I had my grade 12 'Board' exams going on, and when I found time enough to write but not to blog, I made a list of things I could definitely do and definitely couldn't, once I would be 18.
     Here's the list. Discretion advised. Could-be-age-inappropriate stuff ahead. *Makes it sound dramatic*






What I cannot do:
1) Contest for 'Chhote Ustaad'. (It's a 'reality' singing competition for which I tried out only once and found it a sham. And I am definitely not rationalising -__-)
2) Get hitched. :P Yes, yes. I am just desperately waiting to turn 21! (the legal marriageable age for men is 21 and that for women is 18. I am of the opinion that it should have no considerations on the basis of sex, which it sadly does)
3) Become a juvenile delinquent and be sent to a remand home.*
4) Drink legally (yet). (The legal drinking age in India is touted to be 25. All I know is that it's not 18. O__o)


What I can do:
1) Ride a motorcycle/scooter/car once I get trained and apply for a licence.
2) Have sex.
3) Vote.
4) *Become a criminal (and be sentenced to life-imprisonment or death). B0
5) Move out (and sit in the VT subway, possibly begging).
6) Apply to hostels for adults.
7) Watch  a) 'Adults only' movies
                b) 'U/A' movies
      [And I most surely haven't watched Shaitan or Black Swan with my parent(s). :P]
8) Attend GayBombay meets/events LEGALLY. B)
9) Start a political party (?)
10) Be asked to start working for monies. :O
11) File Public Interest Litigation (PILs) and court complaints independently.
12) Skip the 'keep away from reach of children' instruction on the boxes of pills we all carelessly pop. Alternatively, I could look for children around and bug them about being children. Sadist, I. :P
13) Be called 'uncle' -__- (most children call relatively older-looking men(/boys?) 'uncle'. I once read this custom could be traced back to when the British were in India; parents of friends were then called 'uncle's and 'auntie's. We Indians generalise everything. Uncles and aunties, too. :P
14) Be called a paedophile if I happen to be interested in a 16-year old.
(He says he's post-pubescent, so no   I don't really mind the tag as long as I don't have the police hounding me :P)
15) Nerdy stuff - get my thymus gland tested and ensure that it has, in fact, not been functioning at all for about half a decade now. My parents wouldn't want that kind of an extravagance. I don't mind it. :P Did someone say nouveau-riche?
16) Give 'kids' long lectures on 'how to behave'. Aah, the joy of it.
17) Get rid of most Navneet and Sundaram books, digests and whatnot from my life for good.
18) Donate blood.
19) As somebody says, wonder how 'the moment has passed', 'the moment' being the period of peaking of IQ. IQ peaks at 17 and you (and I) get dumber and dumber. Not vegetable-dumb. Just dumb-dumb.
20) Retire to an armchair and announce to everybody around, 'Damn, I'm growing old.'



Now, I'm just going to physically do point no. 20. :P

Sunday, January 29, 2012

I'm Happy, I'm Gay; That's Okay, That's Okay!

     "Happy Pride," somebody said to me handing me over a gay nightclub invite/(card?), as I was walking along Lamington Road with a legion of about five hundred people. That is useless to me (I am not 18 yet, so, like, nightclubs aren't my place to be    and as if I were jumping at the occasion of visiting one).


For variety is the spice of life--
I shall bear all its colours.
      This was my first Pride March, and I did not know that you wished each other Happy Pride. Amazing. I mean, the March was amazing; Harish Iyer was in his regular energetic form; Lakshmi Tripathi in hers. It was a bunch, quite a huge bunch of gays, lesbians, transgenders, bisexuals, and straight people (and other sexual minorities    there could have been asexuals in the crowd (and I consider myself to be more of a homoromantic than a homosexual, but never mind the details)). And we were all celebrating being us. We were all asking for a more tolerant, a more accepting attitude. We deserve it, and we ask for it.
     Perhaps the truest words in the time around when the rally took place would be Harish Iyer's    we were rejoicing, surely we were; but what was not to be forgotten was that the fight wasn't done and over. Homophobia wasn't lost to time and effort. It would take a lot of struggle, and we must all strive for that goal in mind.
That's the one thing I truly know about Harry Potter. :D
     I recognised some people I saw in my compartment in the train I took to Dadar (I did not know any of them personally) as transgenders. I was filled with a sense of united effort, of the fact that I wasn't alone. One of them was applying make-up to her face. And some people were staring    I don't know if to call it right or wrong, but they were staring, yes. And almost as if I had seen it coming, a guy kept throwing a disgusted look at the transgender folks. I found it insulting. I did not speak up, since there had been no exchange of words. When I asked the transgenders if they were heading to the venue I was going to, they replied in the affirmative, and asked if I'd like to go with them, but I told them I was waiting for my friends who had got into the Second-Class compartment (this was the First-Class compartment)    which was true. I saw them at the March too, but I don't think they recognised me.
Need I say more? I wanna... :D
     The March, as I said already, was amazing. A cute guy (and I mean it :)) somehow seemed to capture my attention (he didn't have to try hard, even ;)). Getting a butterfly tattoo on my hand (to quote Aditya, 'the screwed-up butterfly :P), a photo session (with my cell-phone, then Amey's camera, and then Aditya's friend's camera) after that, at Girgaon Chowpatty, and then a nice long journey back home with Pranav Joshi (my friend and soul-sister's   Sharvari's   brother) made my day. :)

     What is the word that brings power to all?What becomes the harbinger of courage to stand up to the world and dare to be what you want to be? Sure, Pride may have its pitfalls, but Pride takes you there. 

It's Equal, It's Equal Not

     Geeky stuff.

Integrate the following function with respect to x.

((sec^2)x).tanx dx

           You can now substitute (secx) as t and (secx.tanx dx) as dt, bringing it to the form 

∫ t dt = (1/2)(t^2) + c = ((sec^2)x)/2 + c                                                              ...(1)

           Or, alternatively, you could substitute (tanx) as t and ((sec^2)x dx) as dt, thus bringing it to the form

∫ t dt = (1/2)(t^2) + c = ((tan^2)x)/2 + c                                                                ...(2)


            My question is precisely this:

Does that mean (1) and (2) represent the same function? My knowledge and a little research tell me that they don't. But then, if integration is supposed to be representative of the area bound by the function and the X-axis, should it not be ONE single function (never mind that some functions can be expressed in more than one form involving the same variable    and that does NOT make them different functions at all)?

     And that's all, folks. The comments section is open to geek-giri.

Monday, January 23, 2012

There's Light...And It's Clean Too!

     Today, I got down at Dombivli station from a really crowded Ambernath train (to those who care to understand) and crossed the foot-over-bridge and headed home. As soon as I reached platform no.1, I realised that what I thought were banners, were in fact banners.
     It took me not by surprise, but just by mere curiosity. And I headed towards the table they had set before the banner, and I soon realised that it was a cleanliness-awareness drive organised by a certain 'Inner Wheel Club of Dombivli West', and that they were urging common people at the station not to spit and not to litter, and how people on their part can prevent diseases from spreading by following some simple rules as those. To me, it seemed pretty trickling-down, surprisingly    as in, I hadn't really seen an awareness campaign speaking to the common masses; it was usually college-educated students (who were indifferent) or schoolkids' parents (who thought they knew just a little more than the 'preachers')    these people spoke to anybody, just anybody who came around. The women told me that I mustn't litter or spit, and that I must try to tell others not to, as well. I, in turn told them that I already did so. They smiled at me, understandingly. 
     I took a pen they offered, and signed on the pledge-chart. I was, after all, happy to see change, some change, that had come up in my rather mundane world.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Easter-ed Eggs

     I have just decided to let two eggs hatch.
     We have a lot of pigeons in our town, so there are a lot of pigeons courting and a lot of pigeon-poop, and the cycle, as a result, remains endless. I found two pigeon-eggs in a flowerpot that had nothing growing in it, and so I thought, why not let them just grow. And after about twenty days, I saw two chicks. Ugly to look at, breathing hard, and covered in a yellow, hair-like layer (of skin?). Between then and five days from then, I touched one of the two chicks once. I could feel its pulse on its back. It didn't cock, it didn't try to peck me. It probably thought I was its mamma.
     And then, around after five days from then, after I had shooed the mamma-pigeon away, I tried putting my hand down near the chicks. The chicks had opened their eyes by then, and one of the two (which seemed to be the healthier chick) tried to peck me. I heard its beak go *tut*. Then, the next day, I found two eggs in another pot that we'd left dry.
     Today, I thought I will not have two more pigeons being born in my house. And I shooed the mamma away, and instead of throwing away the eggs, placed them elsewhere, just anticipating a change of minds. And I kept standing there, and waiting to look at how the mamma-pigeon would react. During the day, what's inside the room isn't visible from the outside. And the pigeon returned, only to scratch and scratch pointlessly at the earth. 
     I shooed it away again, and re-placed the eggs where they belonged.
     I never got to choose where, when and how I was born, and I certainly don't get to choose if others are born or not.