"Only the dead stay 17 forever"

i was given a story to read 'Town of Cats' by one of my favourite writer Haruki Murakami. There is quaint story within Murakami's story with the same title. It is about being perpetually lost while still existing in the real world. Still with me? Good. Most of his works have a strong parallel universe theme.

Artwork accompanying 'Town of cats'

 i had earlier read his 'Kafka by the shore' and absolutely loved it. Not only because he seems to be a 'cat person.' The character of Saeki San inspires me. Many do not realise but many things in life are just so uncomplicated and yet touch so deep that you are changed for life. Its ethereal to imagine that Saeki San's spirit as a young girl is able to exist with Kafka, who i believe is the reincarnate of her dead lover. Though the quaint Mr. Nakata's role in the novel eludes me but i still remember the UFO mishap and it draws me in.

“Of course they wrote to each other every day. ‘It might be good for us to try being apart like this,’ he wrote to her, ‘then we can really tell how much we mean to each other.’ But she didn’t really believe that. She knew their relationship was real enough that they didn’t need to go out of their way to test it. It was a one-in-a-million union, fated to be, something that could never be broken apart. She was absolutely sure of that. But he wasn’t. Or maybe he was, but simply didn’t accept it. So he went ahead and left for Tokyo, thinking that overcoming a few obstacles would strengthen their love for each other. Men are like that sometimes."

Then i read the ebook of Murakami's 'Norwegian Wood' translated by Jay Rubin. And i can easily say this book is my best read in a long time. The last book to move me so deeply was Mahomed Rasul's 'Mountain Pink.' i guess i am one of the very few lucky lucky people who possess 'Mountain Pink' since it is a throwaway from the USSR printed book days roughly around 1985 (i was'nt even born then). Anyway i read 'Norwegian Wood' at a time when i was hearing about people dying just like that and i, myself was toying with the idea. This book deals with death and sex in a very very honest way and the ending makes me go back to Chapter 1 to begin again. i cannot find words to describe it, all i know is i can only feel...and feel deep with every chapter. This is Murakami's best work, i believe.
                                  

                                            

My favourite passages are:

"But she said, "No, that's not it, Reiko. I'm not worried about that at
all. I just don't want anybody going inside me again. I just don't want
to be violated like that again - by anybody'."


"I wrote a huge number of letters that spring: one a week to Naoko, several to Reiko, and several more to Midori. I wrote letters in lecture hall, I wrote letters at my desk at home with sea gull on my lap, I wrote letters at empty tables at home with Seagull on my lap, I wrote letters at empty tables during my breaks at the Italian restaurant. It was as if I were writing letters to hold together pieces of my crumbling life."

"It's because of you when I'm in bed in the morning that I can wind my spring and tell myself I have to live another good day."

You can just pass off Murakami's works as a pile of random, dope induced rubbish but if you just stay a while, re-read and think you will find many similarities with what conformist call realism or just life. Don't some of us meet people with whom we bond on a fraternal level? Just the way Kafka saw Sakura as his sister, which may or may not be true. Don't some of us have such experiences that make us dysfunctional to a level we never want to be 'violated' again like Naoko? Murakami brings me closer to reality than i ever could have been.  

Haruki Murakami

"If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking."




Sayonara.

(NOTE: the images are from Wikimedia commons)

When it comes to love, Mom's the word

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but i think she enjoyed it.

- Mark Twain

*Sigh* i miss my home. And the monsoon season just makes thing gloomier and makes me nostalgic about rains back in the hills. 

Frankly this whole 'shacking on your own' business is very hyped, really. Well...there are some good things like late night parties which stretch on till the wee morning hours and you can fall on your bed reeking of alcohol and cigarettes, the junk food bingeing and the no-holds-barred (and VERY addictive) online shopping sprees. But there are also times when you smoke  endless cigarettes to calm down those nagging menstrual cramps just because you forgot to buy Midol or other painkiller, when you are facing a bitchy colleague, filthy roommate or a heart break and all you need is to bury your head in mom's lap and cry out your heart or times when you REALLY miss the urge to fight with your sibling just to feel normal. 

Adding to that, i seem to have lost and forgotten my tongue, apparently there is no one who speaks Nepali in this side of the globe. So, so far i have been totally exploiting my ambiguous appearance and identity to gain small favours from the local shopkeepers, traffic policemen and other, it is quite funny actually.

Anyway i shall try not to be a whiny woman. 

The best medicine in the world is a mother's kiss.

- Anonymous

So here are a few pictures taken over the week. i found the greatest cook here and his cooking massages my heart, taking away the homesickness. His name is Jose, that is pronounced in a million different ways in our office from Ho-Zay to Jo- Say and others, well...India does always promise diversity. He doesn't seem to mind in the very least and goes around whipping up divine food in Cochin Cafe's (that's his restaurant's name) that massages hearts.

Boiled and fried spicy beef with Indian masala- by Jose 

Boiled spicy potatoes with turmeric- by Jose

And this is me fattening on a regular manna from Cochin Cafe.

Satin Camisole- Vintage
White lace shirt- Thrifted
Starfish rain slippers- Thrifted

An old song that i have been listening to during homesickness spells amidst others, but this one fits the bill for this post.

Sayonara

   

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

If you smile at me, I will understand because that is something everyone, everywhere does in the same language.

- Jefferson Airplanes

A throwback of the youth movement of the 60s, there are still many rolling stones who roll with the flow and take life as it comes. Call it bohemian-chic or just hippie...the 60s are one of my favourite era to be re-born into. 

I believe there were two major points of this movement. One was to create- be it babies or clothes or music or fashion. It is refreshing to see another's art creation and to admire it. Sadly there are very few DIY fashionistas in the bloggersphere, with the majority just retail clones of each other. The second  is isn't it easier to just freely love the person you hate, hold no grudges than to wake up every morning and make vicious schemes to bring them down? It is just this thought that inspires my Bohemia look.
And so powerful was this peaceful, flowing rebellion that its aftershocks can be felt even today. The vagaries of a capitalistic world are tormenting...you just have to run away from the scathing realism sometimes and be one with the environment and find out your true self. 

There was a time when i was tired of my overt rebellion during the teenage years and adopted this grungy, 'Yo Peace' kind of style towards everything. Though those days of not taking baths, tie dye dresses and noisy jangling bracelets are long gone, the hippie inside me stays. There are many sorrowful and pitiable lives out there who are so caught up  in conforming to the world's customs and bringing others down. Ignore them and smile at their small, unimaginative lives, they will never see or do anything new...pity them and carry on.

Maxi Dress- PROMOD
Ruffled Cotton Shrug- Thrifted
Purple Bow Slippers- Thrifted

i do my thing an you do yours. i am not in this world to live up to your expectations and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you and i am i, and if  by chance we find each other...it is beautiful.

- Frederick E Perl  

Sayonara


(Note- The images are sourced from Flickr, Google and other blogs.)

Confused stilyagi goes shopping

Everything I buy is vintage and smells funny. Maybe that's why I don't have a boyfriend.
- Lucy Liu 

Recently I introspected my fashion influences as the inevitable had finally arrived- I had to buy clothes specifically for my office. Adding to that, I work in the graveyard shift, so that indeed was the tricky part. As my mom reasoned that ‘no one will see your clothes anyway.’ But fashion is not for others its for yourself, my style is what makes me happy and peaceful. If I am going to die anyway, I might as well stay true to my fashion style till my last breath!

Anyway, I adore the 40’s where women's fashion was so epic that it has come to haunt us again. Good for vintage lovers like me, read more lace, chiffon and ruffles.

And to top it all, the androgyny in the fashion world now, gives way to so many interesting options. The Zazou pants are being worn again with usually a midriff baring crop-top and the Zazou blazers are teamed with short shorts. I tried that look in my previous post here. 

Anyway, I am ecstatic about the entire high waisted skirt revival and have incorporated it in my regular work wear. It is just so vintage chic, whenever I wear one I slip into a black and white, Virginia Woolfesque era ready to run to my kitchen put on my baking gloves to bake a pie for my revered beloved. Adele Simpson's cinched waisted, flowing dresses and classy hats still make me drool. i am SO born ahead of my time. 

This soft, feminine phase in fashion came after the women wanted a change from the shoulder pad dressed era during the World Wars. Shoulder pads transform any outfit to give it power. It is so fierce. I have a special corner in my heart just for my brass buttoned black military jacket. 

I personally feel powerfully seductive whenever i rock the 40's chic. The mysterious, feminine allure of chiffon is powerful. 

Anyway so armed with my vintage spoils, won after endless sticky rummaging in thrift shops in New Delhi, i have arrived the work place and have already found a tiny thrift shop where i can continue my vintage escapades. 

      White lace ruffle shirt- Thrifted
Black chiffon skirt- Thrifted
           Star printed mary jane- North Star
     Leather satchel- Self designed

Sayonara

(Sources: images are not mine except the last. They are sourced from Flickr, Google and other blogs)

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal

No one ever really dies as long as they took the time to leave us with fond memories.  
~Chris Sorensen


My bestfriend's brother is dead.

He died in a car accident.

He was just 16 years old.

What kills me is that i cannot be with her. She want to soak up the grief and wants no comforting. S has always been the more sensitive and girly out of the two of us. We have known eachother for nine years...
Grief is the strongest emotion, i believe. It can change you forever, a little part inside you dies or is resurrected. But it is forever.

How does one cope up wit a loss that cannot be replaced? When you don't even know the world the person is now in... It is so difficult to let go. But someday, you will wake up and your head won't hurt that bad, the dull ache inside your chest will subside and you will want to smile. i hope this for you S.

No matter where I go
I always feel you so 

A gay glass bubble

I live in a kind of gay bubble. I live in a gay house, I drive a gay car. I eat gay food.
Julian Clary

New place. New job.

Everything comes from nothing. And it is true. And so there will be a new me.

Make more effort on this being a fashion blog and not my personal rants, though i am sure they might just seep in sometimes. It is like having new year resolutions.Anyway the place feels like a home away from home ONLY because of the greenery and the weather sometimes...and i have a photographically inclined roomie so finally i can take part in online competitions! Though it is a different issue that i NEVER win any giveaways. Sometimes i wonder if anybody i know wins them.

So the grass is really different coloured here...like a fluorescent green and so cheerful looking. And the sky is the bluest blue. The place makes me feel warm and gay... remember when you were a kid and gay meant being so happy. Yea i mean just that. It kind of ups my mood even in my most depressive days. It amazes me that the horrid gas tragedy in India had to happen here.  My new house has given me a new disease - OCD. i jus cannot stop cleaning and re-cleaning. But i have few fashion posts coming.

Sayonara

Soledad

cause none of us were angels
and you know I love you 


I experience ego loss today...just by looking my tear stained face, nose running down my face, my hair around my face where i tugged at them screaming. i looked so ugly and if M ever saw me like this, i know he would run away. My ugliness seeps deeper, it is firmly interred in my soul and is sucking life out of me.


Beauty is skin deep but ugly is to the bones.


Sometimes reality seems like a nightmare where i am falling off a cliff...but then i cannot make it go away by pinching myself to senses. I can escape from this self created and nurtured hell, by saying that i am stupid. But then it is difficult for everyone believe that i let all this happen to me. And it has slowly dawned that sometimes walking through life with your eyes closed can make you fall into a pit, darkness where no one will rescue you.


In my heart you were the only
And your memory live on
Why did you leave me
Soledad 


i have a job in the same English newspaper where i had screwed up my placement interview. Don't ask how i feel...i can feel no more  than something bittersweet. My little pleasures in life like wearing what i like and then random photo sessions do not exist anymore. My life is not mine and i have abig doubt if i am who i think i am...
So i have decide that i am going to alienate myself to a point of a glorious death. i have not spoken to anyone and my only human contact are my office colleagues.
Sometimes it is difficult and i feel like crying, but i know this will lead me to astage of a glorious end...magical and angelic.

i am too pure for you or anyone.

Glistening in the cold sweat of guilt
I’ve watched you slowly winding down for years