nice film. but definitely not worth the hundred rupees i had to fish out at the multiplex.
would have been great had i got the dvd (moserbear, cost 34/-) and watched it at home.
but tis ok, though one wonders what happened to all the beautiful oh so beautiful people that used to flock film screens? the princess was decidedly non princessy.

japanese weekend

this is what medusa has been up to this weekend, having forgotten status as a full time ph d student, has been indulging in a little bit of cultural exploration of the Japanese.
and the result: AWESOME.
"bubble fiction: boom or bust" has the most handsome hero ever, hiroshi obe, i bow to thee.
"always- sunset on 3rd street" is as if lifted from the comic books it is based on, frame by frame.
and murakami, medusa wonders why didn't she discover him earlier. his books are not just delightful, they are also filled with the characters medusa admires the most, precise, efficient, clean people, who have an interestingly bizarre life nevertheless.
therefore, these four are, must reads and must watchs.

I was tagged by UG

3 things you should know about the no. 3
I hate the number three, because it somehow in my memory is associated with cunning and malice.
I was taught to not give 3 of anything to anyone, because that makes people enemies.
I have never bought anything in sets of 3, apart from undies.


3 things that scare me:
loneliness
being unwanted in a group of people
being proved dumb.


3 people who make me laugh:
Calvin
Fred
George

3 things I love:
chick lit
Monsoon
track pants


3 things I hate:
being hungry
the smell of a freshly mowed lawn
indifference


3 things I don't understand:
why it always costs more when the auto moves at a slow pace
how my laptop always accumulates dust when no one else's does
how no matter how much i starve myself, i am always broke.

3 things on my desk:
books
pens
laptop

3 things I'm doing right now:
blogging
chumming
feeling hungry

3 things I want to do before I die:
write and publish a best selling chick lit
lose weight
know when to say no

3 things I can do
bitch
talk
eat

3 things you should never listen to:
death metal with a hangover
me when i am upset
me when i am lying



3 things I'd like to learn:
cooking
being dainty
being hip


3 fav. foods:
chicken tandoori
french fries
mashed potatoes with lots and lots of butter

3 beverages I drink regularly:
fizzy drinks
soda with lemon and salt
water

3 Books I read as a kid:
Dui Yaarer Joto kando
mandrake and phantom in indrajal comics
shibram rachanaboli

three people i tag
dave
serendip
jerry

medusa has quit smoking. five weeks down, sixth to go.

crack his problem

yeah, right, as if we have nothing better to do than sit around on our respective beds and try and find solutions to some self important prick's problem.
but since we seem to be destined to do so, lets just do.

its the curse

medusa used to think to call menstruation the "curse" is a derogatory patriarchal coinage. she still think so, but she also thinks that the truth value of that coinage is too potent to be ignored. why else will someone be subjected to a week's angst because it is late, and live in perpetual horror of the bad things that might be happening inside her.
and then when the blessed (surely you mean cursed?) moment comes, it brings with it headaches and back aches, stomach aches that do not go away with pain killers, acute depression (wait a min, chums are supposed to cure you of your pre menstrual stress, so what depresseion now?), nausea and what not. reducing a perfectly functioning human being to a mess (literally and figuratively...eeeew, dont be gross) the curse stays on for a week, and goes away only when you are bordering on anaemia.
if you still want to know the reason behind this post dear reader, take another guess.

third eye blind: god of wine

Every thought that I repent
Theres another chip you havent spent
And youre cashing them all in
Where do we begin to get clean again
Can we get clean again
I walk home alone with you
And the mood youre born into
Sometimes you let me in
And I take it on the chin
I cant get clean again
I want to know can we get clean again
The God of wine comes crashing through
The head lights of a car that took you farther
Than you thought youd ever want to go
We cant get back again
We cant get back again
She takes a drink and then she waits
The alcohol it permeates
And soon the cells give way, and cancels out the day
I cant keep it all together
I know I know I know... I cant keep it all together
And the sirens song that is your madness
Holds a truth I cant erase
All alone on your face
Every glamorous sunrise
Throws the planets out of line
A star sign out of whack, a fraudulent zodiac
And the God of wine is crouched down in my room
You let me down, I said it, now Im going down
And youre not even around
And I said no no no...
I cant keep it all together
I know I know I know...
I cant keep it all together
And theres a memory of a window
Looking through I see you
Searching for something I could never give you
And theres someone who understands
You more than I do
A sadness I cant erase
All alone on your face

sini ne sini ne

what would it be like to be an ice queen? not caring and showing it? not having to pretend that one cares, and therefore not having to carry out the the added responsibilites that come with pretending to care.
sigh, that is perhaps the least of medusa's worries. her problem is caring too much, and then showing it, and then letting go of all semblances of sanity when the objects of her affection stop caring.
so, maybe the new new year's resolution will be caring less. but is that what medusa truly wants? or should she just learn to say "amor fati" and not feel bad abt her fate?

hiding my face in shame!!!!

this is really embarrassing, but as medusa wanted to post her new year's resolutions , she suddenly thought of going through last year's. and wonder of all wonders, they have not changed!!! nothing that was to be achieved has been achieved, only new things have been added on.
sigh, a double sigh.

so all medusa effectively had to do, however, was copy paste last year's, and add a few more.

here goes:

1.Lose weight. (Something i have always resolved to do as long as i have known what is it like to be able to resolve something, so in this case we are not taking this resolution very seriously.)
2. Make one pack of (10) cigarettes last for two days.
3. To not spend more than 500/- a week.
4. To study for two hours everyday. (Well, its a beginning). modified form in 20007: finish the thesis!!!!!!
5. To crack the NET in 2006.
6. Make concrete plans for Ph. D.
6A. Therefore write the GRE.
6. b. so get the passport done.
7. Stop taking money from home or H. i.e. earn money

without you, i'm nothing


what rot!!!!!!

this post is about what Medusa is (not attributing some incorruptible core to Medusa or anything, but the way she generally behaves and etc) and what Medusa is perceived to be (once again, not assuming the author has a monopoly on representing public opinion on Medusa, but can hopefully claim to give a reasonably unbiased report). so in the public imagination, Medusa is this mature, independent, headstrong (are mature and headstrong antithetical? but never mind!) opinionated, quite sure of herself and full of herself too, person. even though the list of articles have a negative ring to them, in most of the public imagination, it is not necessarily so.
and what is the real Medusa? a doormat!!!!!!! (how anticlimactic, the readers exclaim!!!!) but it is true dear reader, not that truth in itself carries some great virtue, or there is something called a "truth in itself", but nevertheless, the mighty superhero is a doormat. and she likes to believe this doormat status is concealed under layers of huffing and puffing in self importance, but the fact remains (why so many stresses on facts and truths in this post?) everyone who has spent half and hour or more with Medusa, and has asked her for something or the other, knows of her inability to say no. therefore Medusa is regularly asked to travel to far away places to do some work for someone else, or to accompany someone to the diagnostic centre for some stupid test, which Medusa did get done by herself when she had to do, or go with someone for a film when she would much rather be sitting down and reading Benjamin.
and this inability to politely refuse something that will cause Medusa a lot of emotional and physical discomfort, leads Medusa to more discomfort, this time of the spiritual kind, in which her attempts at introspection always ends in self loathing.
but before this gets to that point, Medusa shall stop.

(dear reader, this post is clearly a call for you to write sweet comments and make Medusa feel better, so indulge her)

fucking copulating insects

is the meaning of fucking the same as copulating?
or does it depend on the tone in which the title of this post needs to be read? the first word, that is , fucking in this case, is a swear word, which is used to describe the fucked up ness, or in bridget jones terms, the "fuckwittage" of the rest of the phrase, i.e. "copulating insects". that explanation over, this post is about the black insects that lie sit on the wall under the tubelight outside medusa's door, and the ones that enter her room in the dead of the night and scare the shit out of her.
after something like two and a half Weeks, medusa realized that both the insects are one and the same, and then for another half week she had to wonder why the inside insects are double the size of the outside ones. the answer, when arrived at, proved to be simple. the inside insects are actually two of the outside ones, joined together at the place where their asses should be, and flying away to glory, possibly copulating.
but the question the remains unanswered, why do they have to fuck inside medusa's room when they can do it outside as well?

five things about medusa

no one, and medusa means absolutely no one has ever tagged medusa for anything, and so it must be obvious to even the casual observer that she is at her wits' ends, not that it is too difficult a situation to achieve, now that medusa has PMS and terrible bodyache and is feverish and is madly depressed.
but that said and done, since dave has been the most regular reader that medusa has ever had,, how can she not do what he wants her to?
one however has to careful, otherwise five things about medusa might become a chronicle of her various ailments.
first, the thing  that has to be compulsorily posted:


PLEASE LEAVE THE FOLLOWING IN ALL POSTS
'Remember that it isn't always the sensational stuff that writers are looking for, it can just as easily be something that you take for granted like having raised twins or knowing how to grow beetroot. Mind you, if you know how to fly a helicopter or have worked as a film extra, do feel free to let the rest of us know about it.'

1. medusa measures time by the gap between two cigs, two mints, two trips to the loo, two sms and two gulps of water. by carefully spacing them out, she can spend fifteen minutes successfully without getting bored but not doing anything.

2. medusa has been in love with the same man for three and a little bit more than half years now, having fallen in and out of love with seven other people in the meantime. boy friend wants to get married someday, medusa however cringes at the thought. the cringing might not solely be the result of reading on family and its oppressiveness for the purpose of getting a thesis out of it. medusa just cant think of the time when this forever long distance relationship will actually take place in the same city, and the thwo of them will find time and place to be together.

3. medusa does not know how to cook. neither do her father, mother or sister (the four who constitute a modern day nuclear family). so without the presence of their housekeeper, who has been there for the last thirty years, medusa and her family would have gone hungry.

4. in class four, medusa started reading a book called "dui yaar er joto kando", a bengali translation of a russian novel whose english version would be something like "the adventures of two friends". the book was borrowed from a classmate, and she dint allow medusa to read beyond the fourth chapter. for two years after that, medusa searched for that book in all kinds of places. and finally found it at the end of Std. V. so as the two friends graduated from the 5th to the 6th Std, medusa did as well, and it has been her favourite book ever since.

5.medusa's orkut fortune of the day was: You will be advanced socially, without any special effort.


cant think of anyone to tag, simply because medusa no longer knows who all read this blog regularly anymore.

let me not think of today untill tomorrow

Medusa used to think she has a disposition irreconcilable to unhappiness, she used to believe she is ontologically happy. and if everything else fails, retail therapy will always work.
but then, this naive superhero had not foreseen a day when there will not be any money to spend and PMS will raise its monstrous head, and despite her feminist objections against the discursive formation known as PMS, she will have nowhere to go.
this evening, therefore, Medusa sat down and rethought her ontological dispensation amid some free flowing tears. she was so depressed about being depressed, about nothing in her life, and in the lives of those around and connected to her, being right, or even left, that she just could not stop crying. and she hated herself for being depressed, for giving in to PMS.
bu then, something happened. there was new friend, with all the affection of the world who held medusa while she sobbed, and got her out of the gloom.
how anticlimactic no?
and in consequnce medusa hated herself even more for having to resort to outside help to sort out her messy head. adn a result, it is still messy.

we got this afternoon/ you got this groovy tune

as usual, dont knwo why medusa decided to name the post the way she did.
it has been a fucked up week. (kindly to be excusing medusa's language, she seems to be still under the fucking influence of "the departed")
one friend passed away, another was hospitalised. one's grandmum died, while medusa's is about to.
perfect time to end this post.

commitment

medusa needs to sort out her commitment issues. not just random commitments to people or to causes, since people have always told her that her level commitment to anything that has to do with other people is unusually and unhealthily high,but she seems to have a problem whenever she needs to commit to something that has to do with herself.

for example, her health, and her career and her studies. since at the end of the day the only person remarkably affected by these things is herself, she assumes that she can take it easy and not care enough.

take the case of something like this blog. this belongs to medusa right.....and she seemed to care about it enough to write about stuff that matter and dont matter to her. but of late, it has been noticed that medusa turns to her blog only when she is unwell, or upset.

but that is not fair to the blog, is it........

homeward bound

i am

matilda

as usual, the heading has nothing to do with the post to come, just that medusa has been listening to belafonte for the past hour and a half.
and shahzad roy, and pussycat dolls and robbie williams.
this post, instead could have been about medusa's friend hero, whose status message on gmail chat is "i hate this world". now hero is not hero because he is heroic, or vain or magananimous or any such thing, maybe he is just a bit tragic, but that does not make him the hero that he is. he is the hero and a hero just because (could have written 'why becuase', the favourite pharse of some asshole or another who have been frequenting the campus) he is nice. and so nice. and he is lonely. but the funny part of this all is that it is his loneliness that makes him do things when they promise some kind of companionship in return, and even when the promises of companionship are retracted and nullified, he continues to function along the same mode.
sigh.
or maybe, he is not like this anymore. after all medusa hasn't spoken to him for a year or so atleast.
but isnt loneliness an incurable disease?

getting a hold on life

right.
Medusa does not think a blog is necessarily a public journal of your daily life, and therefore may or may not require anonymity, but what she does think however is this: every once in a while a space that is devoted to Medusa's ramblings can take the shape of her journal, in which she may. at times write down stuff that she has been doing or intends to do.
enough of a long sentence now.
so, let us have updates first?
Medusa has some kind of hormonal imbalance, high on testosterone, and since she has botched up her medications, she was quite unwell for the last couple of days.
but again, there had been a lot of tension in the campus, and Medusa seems to be unable to find any way out of it.
thankfully the tension seems to have dissipated somewhat, and Medusa has no excuse not to go back to her daily mundane life, or maybe establish a daily mundane life in which she will get some work done.
having said this, Medusa goes back to try and clean up the room and the cupboard, after which she will make a daily routine  and force herself to stick by it.

by the way, there was a snake in Medusa's room last week, a two feet long brown snake sitting behind the laptop, by the time Medusa found the snake catcher, it had however disappeared. for those who dare to ask, why could not, MEDUSA CATCH THE SNAKE HERSELF, Medusa has reasons to not reveal her identity to every random snake that gets inside her room without prior notice.

goldfish

medusa is a  goldfish.
not just because she is fat and round, but because her attention span spans avout three seconds.
not very promising eh?
except when she is reading chick litt that, her concentration knows no bounds.
as a result of a freak boox exhibition and some unexpected money, the books that medusa has been reading for the last week or so are as follows....
the nanny diaries
the sisterhood of the travelling pants
coffe and kung fu
asking for trouble
baggage
the earth, my butt and other big round things.

needless to say, medusa has not gotten any work done for weeks now.
hmm, mabe the next post will be slightly more hopeful.
which reminds medusa, she is trying out email posting,let her see whether that works.