startling banals

28 May 2008

drying rain-washed roads
same everywhere
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24 May 2008

sparrow
so far away
but i hear you
chirp
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23 May 2008

Is there anything
as ghostly or
magical
as moonrise?
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18 May 2008

even on one blade of grass
the cool wind
lives
-Issa, 1814
(translated by David Lanoue)
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09 May 2008




When I die, my body shall be burnt.
but no one is to be present.

Spread the ashes on the earth...
in the middle of a big, big field.

Plant an oak there and write:

I, too, was once a human being.
My name was Sabina Spielrein.
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08 May 2008

Opening of 'Out of Africa'

I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills. The Equator runs across these highlands, a hundred miles to the north, and the farm lay at an altitude of over six thousand feet. In the day-time you felt that you had got high up; near to the sun, but the early mornings and evenings were limpid and restful, and the nights were cold.

The geographical position and the height Of the land combined to create a landscape that had not its like in all the world. There was no fat on it and no luxuriance anywhere; it was Africa distilled up through six thousand feet. like the strong and refined essence of a continent. The colours were dry and burnt. like the colours in pottery. The trees had a light delicate foliage, the structure of which was different from that of the trees in Europe; it did not grow in bows or cupolas, but in horizontal layers, and the formation gave to the tall solitary trees a likeness to the palms, or a heroic and romantic air like full-rigged ships with their sails furled, and to the edge of a wood a strange appearance as if the whole wood were faintly vibrating. Upon the grass of the great plains the crooked bare old thorn trees were scattered, and the grass was spiced like thyme and bog-myrtles; in some places the scent was so strong that it smarted in the nostrils. All the flowers that you found or plains, or upon the creepers and liana in the native forest, were diminutive like flowers of the downs - only just in the beginning of the long rains a number of big, massive heavy-scented lilies sprang out on the plains. The views were immensely wide. Everything that you saw made for greatness and freedom, and unequaled nobility.

The chief feature of the landscape, and of your life in it. was the air. Looking back on a sojourn in the African highlands, you are struck by your feeling of having lived for a time up in the air. The sky was rarely more than pale blue or violet, with a profusion of mighty, weightless, ever-changing clouds towering up and sailing on it, but it has a blue vigour in it, and at a short distance it painted the ranges of hills and the woods a fresh deep blue. In the middle of the day the air was alive over the land, like a flame burning; it scintillated, waved and shone like running water, mirrored and doubled all objects, and created great Fata Morgana. Up in this high air you breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart. In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be.
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silent sparrow
eating bread
in grass
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06 May 2008

All rivers run to the sea;
yet the sea is not full;
unto the place from whence
the rivers come, thither
they return again
-Ecclesiastes
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There is witchcraft on your lips,
an abyss within your gaze
-Karen Blixen
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Love has shook my senses
like wind crashing on mountain oaks
-Sappho
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Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roof planks
of this ruined house
-Izumi Shikibu
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05 May 2008

अगर तुम अपना काम enjoy करते हो तो life happy हो जाएगी
ऐसा काम कहाँ मिलेगा..
वो लोग कितने lucky है न जिनको life का passion मिल गया है
ऐसा कोई permanent passion नही होता है life का
permanent की बात नही.. for example, जो मैं अभी कर रहा हूँ वो मुझे पसंद नही है। i really don't feel any passion for it. i want to find something else so that i am happier. अगर life के centre में जो है वो अपनी मर्जी से चल रहा है तो आजू-बाजू का pain बरदाश कर सकता हूँ। life से satisfaction मांगता है यार
true. but wait! don't do anything crazy.
how will you earn money?
are you sure that 'something else' will make you happy?
i must try at least
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