You pick your pen and scratch your chin a bit
these wretched words frankly just would not fit
you're growing gray rhyming cheater and peter
and stuffing them all in an iambic pentameter
Swallowing your pride with every ending 'love'
with a helplessly crushed creativity you rhyme it with 'dove'
but then 'orange' somehow finds its way to the end
and no bloody word would rhyme howsoever language is bend
And by now you realize that the pentameter is lost
in the quest for rhyme, rhythm was the cost
or maybe you are just not enough talented
your pride is bruised and your ego, dented
All you can do now is write loose verse
with shallow meaning and language too terse
on how you suck at what others are so much better
on the restrictiveness of iambic pentameter
On how the literary world is completely unfair
with some hogging more talent than their share
and sad figures like you barely making ends meet
staring sadly, hopelessly at the sparkling clean sheet
Hoping that words would appear by godly intervention
that 'heart' will find a partner without undue tension
and you twitch your brow and scratch you head
think for a bit and go down to bed.
Monday
to split or to NOT split
You know how things go sometimes. We go about our daily lives, waking up early, having our 3 meals a day, pretending that we are making a difference. You know, the usual stuff. But once in a while, when reading a piece of avant-garde literature or while listening to someone particularly blasphemous, we come across a sentence radical enough to-simply-reckon with. Still, being the selfish self-centered specie that we are, we seldom realize that in this politically correct world that flinches everytime an African American is referred to as black, an infinitive was split right under our noses.
A split infinitive is the linguistic equivalent of the Danish cartoons. It doesn't quite generate the same amount of gasps as if you were to publicly dismiss holocaust as a hoax, but it has drawn boundaries in the English speaking world in a way few other constructs have. At this point, those who are not familiar with the concept might be wondering as to what the hell I am blathering about. I will tell you what I am blathering about.
According to Wikipedia, "A split infinitive or cleft infinitive is an English-language grammatical construction in which a word or phrase, usually an adverb or other adverbial, comes between the marker to and the bare infinitive (uninflected) form of a verb.".
In other words, if you have just made out with the wife of an English language purist who has just wandered into the room and happens to be armed with a 7.62 mm AK-47 automatic assault rifle, here is what you should say:
"I am sorry. It was a mistake to kiss her passionately."
rather than:
"I am sorry. It was a mistake to passionately kiss her."
Might just save you.
I must say that I understand the principal objection of the English orthodoxy against such reckless splitting. I understand that a split infinitive lacks the fluidity of Strauss's waltz and it fails to generate the sustained excitement akin to the active exhaust of an automatic turbocharged V-10 but it has the endearment of imperfection. Its like the noise of a high performance motorcycle engine which gasps for breath everytime you shift up. The discontinuity has its own charm.
More than that, there is an urgent need to reassess our position in a world that is placing increasingly tighter restraints on political correctness. I yearn for the days when men were real men, when every "his" stood alone and the feminists had not woken up to the possibility of whiling away some time by protesting that a "his/her" is necessary for female uplifting, when they were still playing Buzkashi in Afghanistan and when infinitives were being split left right and center with gay abandon.
Anyways, I reckon that there is an urgent need to do something about it. I reckon, we form an activist group and we should fight for the rights of the split infinitive. People nowadays seem to be morally fighting for virtually everything under the sun. Under the umbrella organization I am proposing, we can fight for the rights of split infinitives and Lactobacillus bacteria. Yes thats right, I implore you all to not eat curd :).
A split infinitive is the linguistic equivalent of the Danish cartoons. It doesn't quite generate the same amount of gasps as if you were to publicly dismiss holocaust as a hoax, but it has drawn boundaries in the English speaking world in a way few other constructs have. At this point, those who are not familiar with the concept might be wondering as to what the hell I am blathering about. I will tell you what I am blathering about.
According to Wikipedia, "A split infinitive or cleft infinitive is an English-language grammatical construction in which a word or phrase, usually an adverb or other adverbial, comes between the marker to and the bare infinitive (uninflected) form of a verb.".
In other words, if you have just made out with the wife of an English language purist who has just wandered into the room and happens to be armed with a 7.62 mm AK-47 automatic assault rifle, here is what you should say:
"I am sorry. It was a mistake to kiss her passionately."
rather than:
"I am sorry. It was a mistake to passionately kiss her."
Might just save you.
I must say that I understand the principal objection of the English orthodoxy against such reckless splitting. I understand that a split infinitive lacks the fluidity of Strauss's waltz and it fails to generate the sustained excitement akin to the active exhaust of an automatic turbocharged V-10 but it has the endearment of imperfection. Its like the noise of a high performance motorcycle engine which gasps for breath everytime you shift up. The discontinuity has its own charm.
More than that, there is an urgent need to reassess our position in a world that is placing increasingly tighter restraints on political correctness. I yearn for the days when men were real men, when every "his" stood alone and the feminists had not woken up to the possibility of whiling away some time by protesting that a "his/her" is necessary for female uplifting, when they were still playing Buzkashi in Afghanistan and when infinitives were being split left right and center with gay abandon.
Anyways, I reckon that there is an urgent need to do something about it. I reckon, we form an activist group and we should fight for the rights of the split infinitive. People nowadays seem to be morally fighting for virtually everything under the sun. Under the umbrella organization I am proposing, we can fight for the rights of split infinitives and Lactobacillus bacteria. Yes thats right, I implore you all to not eat curd :).
Sunday
Bird
Perched atop the open cage
ruminating over freedom
nostalgic taste of iron below
and a slightly confused gaze.
she eyes the enslaved liberation
and the illusion of independence,
humanity-her every breath
polluted with myriad obligation.
sorrow masked as hope
punctuating the pursuit of happiness
with sorrow in such abundance
how can I ever cope ?
then she flaps her wings and flies
enters the cage and sings:
this hopeless prison is better
in a world where hope is a vice.
ruminating over freedom
nostalgic taste of iron below
and a slightly confused gaze.
she eyes the enslaved liberation
and the illusion of independence,
humanity-her every breath
polluted with myriad obligation.
sorrow masked as hope
punctuating the pursuit of happiness
with sorrow in such abundance
how can I ever cope ?
then she flaps her wings and flies
enters the cage and sings:
this hopeless prison is better
in a world where hope is a vice.
Tuesday
Placid Turbulence
Imagine.
Its a moonless night and you are sitting on the banks of a still lake. Alone. Your feet creating ripples on the surface of the water that dance and shimmer in the dark light of the stars. And your hands clutching the moist grass on the sides. All you can hear is the rustle of the leaves as the trees lining the bank sway ever so slightly. All you can see is their dark silhouettes against a darker background and their slight reflections far into the lake. All you can feel is utter aloofness. You look up to the sky and it dazzles in a brilliant arabesque of divine order. Millions of specks painted on the black backdrop. Each silently twinkling. Each helplessly cognizant of its own loneliness. Their combined luminescence failing to reverberate in your eyes as the dreariness of it all weighs on your eyelids and you are forced to look down at the lake again. And it has a deathly stillness to it. Like a deserted home in a middle of nowhere. Like an anachronistic gramophone that is shocked into muteness. Like the quiet reflection of a boisterous crowd.
The scene should have been beautiful but there is something wrong with it. And I cannot put my finger on the reason. Its like an unfinished painting that has nonetheless been framed in a hurry. The underlying sadness is both exquisite and slightly disconcerting. Its a metaphor for life I suppose. Not quite perfect but strangely beautiful nonetheless. And subdued at the same time. The aforementioned scene invites me. Almost sinfully. And I feel like putting down the baggage for a while and resting. With my head down on my bent knees. With the sensation of passing time reduced to the slight movements of my hair in the breeze. And all the excess energy manifesting itself in small motions of my right feet. Slowly caressing the dead water into unwelcome waves.
Its a moonless night and you are sitting on the banks of a still lake. Alone. Your feet creating ripples on the surface of the water that dance and shimmer in the dark light of the stars. And your hands clutching the moist grass on the sides. All you can hear is the rustle of the leaves as the trees lining the bank sway ever so slightly. All you can see is their dark silhouettes against a darker background and their slight reflections far into the lake. All you can feel is utter aloofness. You look up to the sky and it dazzles in a brilliant arabesque of divine order. Millions of specks painted on the black backdrop. Each silently twinkling. Each helplessly cognizant of its own loneliness. Their combined luminescence failing to reverberate in your eyes as the dreariness of it all weighs on your eyelids and you are forced to look down at the lake again. And it has a deathly stillness to it. Like a deserted home in a middle of nowhere. Like an anachronistic gramophone that is shocked into muteness. Like the quiet reflection of a boisterous crowd.
The scene should have been beautiful but there is something wrong with it. And I cannot put my finger on the reason. Its like an unfinished painting that has nonetheless been framed in a hurry. The underlying sadness is both exquisite and slightly disconcerting. Its a metaphor for life I suppose. Not quite perfect but strangely beautiful nonetheless. And subdued at the same time. The aforementioned scene invites me. Almost sinfully. And I feel like putting down the baggage for a while and resting. With my head down on my bent knees. With the sensation of passing time reduced to the slight movements of my hair in the breeze. And all the excess energy manifesting itself in small motions of my right feet. Slowly caressing the dead water into unwelcome waves.
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About Me
- Ankit
- Like a particularly notorious child's tantrums, a mountaneous river's intemperance, a volcano's reckless carelessness and the dreamy eyes of a caged bird, imagination tries to fly unfettered. Hesitant as she takes those first steps, she sculpts those ambitious yet half baked earthen pots.