Deciphering the gay mind

the international conference just got over yesterday. it left me with a richer experience and lovely images. one such image is the image of an impressive individual - long white hair tied neatly into a pony and flowing white beard equally white like the hair in the head (reader, i must confess that people who choose not to dye their original white, evoke my admiration. well, that is a personal fetish. you can forget that part!). the man in question - hoshang merchant! impressive, cerebral, charming and above all a poet and a theoretician. well, i must admit i could not take my eyes off him! the audacity with which he refers to himself as a gay poet is something i encountered for the first time. after conversing with him and basking in his company albeit for a few minutes, i cannot stop to think if there is something like a gay mind. i am definitely alluding to a certain dichotomy here. i am trying to unconsciously create a self and the other. i know that i cannot avoid this. i tried my best to fathom certain aspects while talking to him and i find nothing like that. can i therefore conclude that there is nothing like the 'gay mind.' my mind refuses to take 'no' as an answer. maybe i am thinking so much because this is the first time i am talking to a cerebral gay and therefore the questions choose to arise even without me coercing them too hard. that they are no different from heterosexuals is a known axiom but still deciphering the gay mind for me seems legitimate enough. probably the situation is exaggerated by me. i am tempted to say to myself, 'a gay is a gay. period.'

how does the gay mind perceive a woman, how does the gay mind perceive lesbians, do the gays stand up for matriarchy than patriarchy, why do gays associate themselves with women more than they associate with men (does it operate the same way as a heterosexual), is it only the sexual preference that makes them adopt a different normalcy. . . these and more are some of the aspects that kept churning and turning my thoughts. well, hoshang! are you listening? answer me . . .

Some wise/nice sayings

these are some sayings I shamelessly cut, copied and pasted from the Big B's blog. Sayings like this are universal and so I thought its no plagiarisation or infringement of copyright. The entry was on September 30, 2008 - 1:23 pm.

“A tree is known by its fruit, a man by his deeds”
“Two thoughts that decide your attitude in life - one, what you think of yourself when you do not have everything and two, what you think of others when you have everything”
“There are two ways to attain the number one position - one, do it more than anyone else and two, do it first and before anyone else does it.”
“It is hard to wait for something you know might never happen - but, its even harder to give it up when you know its that very thing you wanted”
“To ask for respect is like begging for it ! Instead if you keep giving respect to everyone, they will automatically give respect to you”
“Love yourself. Flirt with your understanding. Romance with dreams. Get engaged with simplicity. Marry genuineness. Divorce the ego. That is a good life !”
“Words are under your control until you speak them; but you come under their control once you have spoken them.”
“The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigator.”
“The road to fulfillment is never a straight line; learn to navigate the twists and turns and you will find something of value in every result.”
“Achievers never expose themselves. But their achievements expose them.”
“When God drops needles and pins along your path in life, do not avoid them. Collect them. They were designed to teach you to be stronger.”
“If you find the whole world against you and you are alone, what will you do ? Just turn around and you will become a leader of the whole world.”
“Never design your character like a garden where any one can walk. Design it like the sky where everyone aspires to reach. Aim high. Reach high.”
“You give little when you give of your possessions. You truly give when you give of yourself.”
“Never criticize in anger but criticize constructively.”
Hope you enjoyed the reflection and mulling it provided as much as I did!

'Waiting for something nice to happen'

writing after a brief gap of sorts make me wonder if i actually did write all my posts? that's a very moony notion of the whole act of writing. the title for this post is inspired by an older post that incidentally belongs to me and brought to my notice by a kind person, ND. at that point of writing my entry, i was waiting for something nice to happen. you must be wondering (as a reflex action) 'did the nice thing happen?' well, i realise that nice things don't happen. we should make it happen by our thoughts, our words and our deeds. the given order is given consciously as first the thought occurs, which translates as words from our mouth and finally manifests as deeds. well, so when we hold the key to what we think and what we say, we can make nice things happen to us. reader, be informed that this is not an original thought but this is something which many philosophers, scriptures and wise men say. don't you agree? well, i guess you should! when we have our thoughts in control (i think 'control' is too forceful a word but still i use it for any other word would dimnish the effect) we make things happen to us. if it is so easy, then why do we always wait for something nice to happen? (as i did previously) probably we sit there doing nothing and allowing the mind to force its thoughts of helplessness, negativity and nothingness to influence us. when the same mind which can force all the negative aspects can influence us, why not try and tune the mind to a tune of positive well being and thus in the process make nice things our way of life.

A trip, a phonecall, Jenu Kuruba and a lovely experience

last week from the 14th to the 16th of january, i visted the jenu kuruba settlement in mysore, karnataka. the trip was special in many ways - it was my first visit to a tribal settlement, the train journey into the wee hours of the night was lovely and a phone call while the train just touched the mysore platform was something that made the trip an experience to cherish. the train journey was interesting in the sense we had to get a midnight train from bangalore to mysore but the s1 coach that had to accommodate us was late and had to be attached to the engine. it was the first time that i saw a coach being attached to the engine. the phone call: i had not heard from the person since a long time and the person decided to call me at 4 in the morning and hearing the voice, a thousand bubbles burst one after the other making the journey hmmm! so lovely and invigorating. the journey to the settlements gave one ample time to take in the myriad colours of the landscape and meander one's thoughts into distant realms. the jenu kurba are the honey gatherers (jenu translated as thenu meaning honey in tamil). their way of life, their dance, their familiarity with the forest, the trees, the birds and everything around them prompted one to rethink about one's systems, way of life, et al. why does the tribal people's life always bring wonder to a city dweller like me. is it because i am far removed from a value system that is close adhering to nature. is it a different world view that forces one to reflect and contemplate. displaced from their original home - the forest, the community is still haunted by the memories of a once glorious living and dwelling inside the forest at a time when food and life was quite simple and easy. their philosophy of life is just as easy as the flowing kabini (a river that separates the kerala and karnataka state) who just makes her way in a dignified manner. i know that i can never be a tribal. i was once a tribal but my ancestors chose to 'modernise' themselves. the thought that recurs in me is that 'which tribe i would have belonged to?'

Into December . . .

well well well. its almost eleven days into december and few days for a brand new year to start. a beginning of new things, one assumes and ardently hopes. hope is a good thing. it keeps one alive with expectancy, it creates a pregnant desire for change and above all believes in the power of things that 'might' come. even yours truly is a victim of hope. there are many four letter words that come to my mind but hope always stands out. maybe the situation forces one to have nothing else but hope. it is good to hope and be hoping: note the semantic difference. one is a noun and the other is a verb, i presume! i never liked grammar. the poem, 'a grammarian's funeral' by robert browing, lighted my senses as the title brought a hope of death: death of grammar. funny, yes but sure. well, meanderings and ramblings have a pattern - they don't follow the norm, they follow the stream of consciousness. the term brings virginia woolf to one's mind.

the rambling goes on and so does hope and ofcourse december and another year of ramblings!

the railway gate operator

another random conversation. this time the person was the one who operates the railway gate in the meenambakkam gate. often one sees them and pass by with a smile or a nod but never really talk to them. their personality is so subsumed by the railway lines and the gate that they ofter seem part of the railway landscape. last night while waiting for the railway gate to open, i struck a very casual conversation with the gate operator. he along with another man were doing the night shift which starts by 9 at night and ends by 7 in the morning. he tells me that he has been doing this for the past 25 years. in the given day and time when one shifts jobs as a matter of routine and satisfaction quotient, this man seemed happy and content doing the same job for 25 years!! (reminds me of a song which also has the number 25. for 25 years living next door to alice) well, he seemed proud of the job he was doing. he patiently explained as to how there were two levers and both have to be used simultaneously otherwise it will lead to a confusion of signals and the trains cannot move. it almost seemed that he and his colleague were the reason for the trains to move, stop and proceed without any hassle. the man (i am very apologetic here as i did not ask his name but then his identification lay more with the trains, the railway gates than his name). he told me that he will be retiring next year and that he has only six more months to go. i innocently asked him, 'what will you do after that,' for which he replied, 'i have done enough, what more will i do?' i felt rather sheepish asking that question to him. the small room that is provided for the two people is quite anything but a room and there is a mosquito coil emanating fumes through and through choking one's breath. i asked the man whether they knew all about the trains and their timings to which pat came the reply, 'no' as the trains can be delayed or cancelled so one cannot say the exact time (i would have used this opportunity to proudly exhibit my total knowledge about all the trains passing but he chose not to - a lesson learnt).

well, that was one memorable tete a tete with a person of the railway landscape. connecting with him that night made me humbler in many ways. contentment, joy and a very no nonsense attitude is something quite hard to find these days where 'my space,' 'my individuality' rules the order of the day.