Airegin

Airegin.

You think it’s a word. Like airgun or something. Or a sort of gin. Thinking this while listening to the Wes Montgomery song – you guessed it. Google and find out it’s a jazz standard. Huh, shouldn’t have been surprised. But what is the deeper meaning?! We must venture further into the rabbit hole (Aside:  rabbits have something to do with fertility, or eating them anyway – just a tidbit I picked up from Ulysses). 

Okay, so venture deeper into the capricious mirkwoods of Google. And…apparently it’s a jazz standard and nothing but. Not a word. Hokay, then.

By the way, it’s not like I have anything to compare it to, but the Wes Montgomery version is really good. From “The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery / 1960” if anyone’s keeping tabs. Ah, oldfashioned-album-naming, I’ve not really missed thee.

Holy hell, just saw this on Wikipedia – it’s actually Nigeria spelled backwards. Mind not blown, kinda disappointing, 4/10.

So, airegins aside, airguns are apparently banned in India. That is to say, the toy ones with the yellow-ochre bullets. After traipsing over half the country looking for the very thing, a kind shopkeeper in Port Blair informed me that the “Guvmint” has done away with them for the sake of the poor kiddies. Black day, indeed. Black as night, black as day, ladida. Back in my day, kids had the sense to not injure folks (remove the odd eye, etc) with them. And I’m pretty sure they still do, so hm, it’s the good ol’ 20^th century construct of the Guvmint that’s got it going wrong. Hm. Okay, not 20^th century, but primitive as fuck. Jeez, should not digress.

Of course, mentioning this to my anonymous roommate, R.V., who shall remain anonymous, (except for the fact that he has a goddamn mountain named after him!) I gathered that it was standard practice in Ahmedabad for kids to mortally wound each other. The cherub that I was, I only shot at tyres on the highway. Point being, the characteristic lawlessness of Lavale has deep culturally-embedded roots and I’m setting up a special committee to look into the matter. Maybe the Guvmint was onto something after all.

See, RV, this is why we can’t have nice things.

Oh yeah, and the current is out in certain sections of G-Block (The One and Only), Lavale, the wastelands, the universe. Black as night, black as day. And while people are stripped of their reason and I await impending, retributive doom at the end of this darkling misery, my album grows cold, and I raise my hat to thee. Good evening, and till the next time.

A Parabola at the End of Time

Here's a nice lil' ditty I whipped up during today's maths lecture, while the rest of my mind meandered along the boundaries of double integration.

A lone chrysanthemum stood,
In those desolate fields,
Greeted the weary traveler
As though an old friend;
"Hark," quoth he,
or so thought the traveler.
He knew no better,
that blinkered soul,
for he was the Man from the Parabola.

Sunday Afternoon

It was just after lunchtime. I’d been doing a spot of math before this, and didn’t quite intend to tread those murky waters again, quite yet. So I simply plonked down on my bed, lay back and picked up To Kill a Mockingbird. I don’t quite remember why I’d dropped reading it a few years back; it’s really nice. Now that I think about it, I recall starting on it on a Sunday afternoon, not quite unlike this one. But as it was exam time, and recreational activities, of force, had to be limited, the book was left behind and drifted off into the recesses of hazy memory.

Anyway, to return to the present, a sudden gust of wind blasted through the windows. I’m talking about a real gust! The closed shutters were thrown back to the max, the curtains made headway for the sky and streaming streaks of golden light flooded the room. My bed happens to be situated right next to the windows and boy, I tell ya, it’s a sight to behold when it gets like this. A refreshing breeze rushing through your hair and that warm sunlight, made even more beautiful by the netting and curtains getting in its way!

I switched off the tube light. Ugh, that cold, clammy light had no place here. And I lay there for a while, reading the ol’ book, and soaking in that wonderful aura of a sunny afternoon. And I could feel myself getting drowsy. It wasn’t that I was particularly sleepy, just at peace. That’s all it takes apparently.

I tell ya, it’s moments like these – all these Sunday afternoons at SIT – that make the stay here worthwhile. Just a sphere of peace and redemption, blocking out the all the dreariness of this world.

Unbeknownst to my conscious mind, I drifted off into sleep. And when I woke up, the first thing I saw was the sunlight falling on me from the edge of the window. Just from the corner of my eyes at first and then, tracking spots of warmth on my leg, the rest of the sunbeams falling on me. And my golden bedcover too, which results in quite the ethereal look through my misty, sleep-handed eyes. And I couldn’t believe it was almost 6 o’ clock!

I just stood in front of the windows for some time, and then the ones in the corridor too. Marvelling at the view. Then, feeling quite braced, I sat down and did a bunch of Laplace transformations. And trust me when I say that a force which can inspire a chap to transform some Laplaces is a rare force indeed!