Anya's Musings

The Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhyss) The Citadel (A.J. Cronin) [with the particular cover given in the inset of this post... I know, I'm strange, what can I do?] The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton) [and not Camus] The Second Sex (Simone de Beauvior) The Motorcycle Diaries (Che Guevara) Yes, so I've named five as I do not want to be too ambitious. No book...

"She is the only dream I had that lived and breathed and did not die in the face of reality." --- Ashley Wilkes (in Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind) This is perhaps the only sentence uttered by Ashley that I like (or are there more?). Its beautiful, poetic, and honest. :) ...

Winter time in New Delhi. And it gets dark by 6 pm. Which is okay by me; I like the dark. Night-time, according to me, is the most beautiful time of the entire day. The lights all go on, darkness settles... you look like whatever, half hidden, half out there. But that's just me. Exams around the corner (let's not go there) &...

So, I found yet another poem (and not even by Robert Browning or Pablo Neruda) that I love. It's nice how many f those I've been bumping into these days. It's about "love", one of the greatest mysteries of today, it's not cheesy, which is among its USP's. It's brilliant. Hope you like & enjoy it as much as I did. THE DEFINITION...

As a girl, the society almost expects me to love shopping. Love? Heck, no! That’s way too mild a term. Thrive on it, live for it, yearn for it…you get the picture. And really, I do see a lot of girls (guys also, yes, but predominantly girls) whose extra-circular activities include shopping. I have friends who can shop, shop, shop and do that...

Another day. Its becoming so mundane, even waiting for the mundane-ness to break. And yet, its not. Another day, and its exactly like the one gone by. I’ll just wait for something to happen. A miracle. A revolution, perhaps? I do not know. But I am beginning to think a revolution would be a good thing. Suddenly all that drama & jazz makes...

Today I saw The Motorcycle Diaries. Yes, today, for the first time ever. I had tried watching it earlier in the past, but somehow couldn’t watching snippets of it, fifteen minutes at max. So today, I (along with my mom), brushed off the dust of the borrowed VCD pack (among other things) and started my piling up list of movies that I had...

Ok I found this poem by John Shaw Neilson.. It's called Love's Coming. One of the best parts is that it describes love as "he" as opposed to the very populalr "she". Here it goes; enjoy! Quietly as rosebudsTalk to thin air,Love came so lightlyI knew not he was there.Quietly as loversCreep at the middle noon,Softly as players trembleIn the tears of a...

Almost 2 months now at the Law school. The initial feeling of despair is fading (thank God!) but it still feels I've left Delhi. My 3 years of English (Hons.) made it all the more difficult for me to adjust so quick (my teacher was talking about a divorce case yesterday where the wife sent the husband's friend something my teacher called "loving...

Trapped. And all there is as an excuse for a connection with the outside world is a glass window. I hate it, I do. I hate every bit of it. But that’s not even the point. The point is that I loved every bit of it. I still do, I still love all this if one looks at the bigger scheme of events....

This year, the monsoon is late. In fact, there is no monsoon at all. Ofcourse, it does 'rain' once in a while but all that happens as an after effect is more humid weather & more sufferings on the part of us mortals. Though it did rain yesterday & that also along with a storm which resulted in pitch darkness at 4:30 pm...

Since I've decided to spend the next three years of my graduated (college) life in studying Law-- a topic that I've always been in love with-- I decided to mingle it with another love of mine: Literature. It feels like a page from Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love sometimes; she following the three Is, and I, following the two Ls. Bad joke &...

Off late, every feeling I have contradicts another. My life, every moment of it is surrounded by contradictions. I am happy and I am sad. But it goes way more than that. Many, at lots of moments are happy-sad. With me, it’s more. I want my life to be fast-forwarded. Sometimes the pace seems irritatingly slow, the wait annoyingly long and everyday just...

A friend in need (epically always) is a stupid person. Okay, yes I know I've altered the popular phrase a bit, but in my defence, its true! Off late, I am keeping extremely annoyed. The entire cosmos suddenly wants me to help them out.... if they are angry, sad, hurt, dumped, bored... The worst part? Not one of those people care a straw...

"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same." -- Cathy (Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte) Now I might be wrong ofcourse, but as far as I see it, ‘love’ is among the most over-rated concepts that exists in our society. Popular culture celebrates romantic love in such a fashion that it convinces us that if we don not find...

I don't know how I managed all that, but I did. In a span of 12 hours, I managed to somehow sprain both my ankles, get a blister on my right foot and bang that foot while walking in the dark the same night. Yes, I am multi-talented, just not quite in the manner I would've preferred. So this is what happened yesterday,...

It's funny how I never did blog about this particular place. This tiny place in Madhya Pradesh is among the most beautiful places in India as far as I know (which reminds me, go to Daman if you can--it's not an island as many people think, it has wonderful beaches & one of the most gorgeous beaches ever). You must have read or...

"I'm tired of everlastingly being unnatural and never doing anything I want to do. I'm tired of acting like I don't eat more than a bird, and walking when I want to run and saying I feel faint after a waltz, when I could dance for two days and never get tired. I'm tired of saying, 'How wonderful you are!' to fool men...

Yes, so I admit that I am one of those people you’d generally label as a coffee addict. The thing is, I need to have coffee (well, let’s say everyday and leave it to you to decide how many times) to well, be me. There are days when I decide that I’ve had just about enough & it’s time I cut down my...

"I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany's." --Holly Golightly (Breakfast at Tiffany's) "...it could go on for ever. Not knowing what's yours until you've thrown it away." --Holly Golightly (Breakfast at Tiffany's) So i finally read Capote's masterpeice. Breakfast at Tiffany's. Now the thing is, Harper Lee is one of my favorite...

"Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood on the bruise. It passes evenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but passes it does. Even for me." -Isabella Swan (from Stephenie Meyer's New Moon) ...

Yes, these days, the vacations, are the time we all wait for for dearly. And now that they are here, I've got nothing to do! Everything, every darn thing, appears mundane...and well, boring. And here it is, I'm 20 & I'm disappointed. No, no, don't worry, the last thing I'm about to do is list my failure stories and belittle myself. I'm not...

My family decided it was time for the much needed vacation. The time was also twenty days before my final examination which determines whether I am to be a graduate or not. So, the holiday, it was decided, had t short and the spot, nearby. I was taken aback when I was told we were going to Chitrakoot. Something about their faces told...

[Poet's note: This poem was composed randomly, while on gtalk. Being a fan of Pablo Neruda's love peoms, I wanted to come up with some of own, having quoted a lot of his poetry! This poem is by no means dedicated to or inspired by anyone I know. I dont know anyone worth all that :). So dont bother me with those questions.]...

The other day, while having a talk about Singapore, I realized, that if Jonathan Swift were alive today, he’d get the shock of his life. All that he predicted way back in 1735 in Gulliver’s Travels has come to be true in our times. The catch is, back in 1735 he was being sarcastic. Very sarcastic. For all those ignorant people who think...

Off late, something’s gone wrong with me. And it does not have anything entirely do with my health either… which reminds me, is my lousy explanation for not blogging most of Feb & March. On an otherwise beautiful and slightly cold February night, I went to an Emergency of an actual hospital. And what I saw most definitely did mot fascinate me. Proper...

There is a pain that takes a lifetime to heal. There is a torture that takes an existence to forget. There is a memory that takes forever to evade. There is a cocoon that one wants to envelope in till that moment comes. Until then, even the wind, the slightest touch, even a soothing touch Feels like a scratch. ...

One of those days when one is philosophical. One of those days when one tries to look beyond, or tries to look beyond, this and that. Here and there. Transcend Time and Space. One contemplates the meaning, the purpose behind a certified education. A piece of paper with a fancy stamp deciding that one is educated. Why must one have a career? To...

Certain books which are produced for mass consumption (you know the type, the ones who do not belong to the canonized cult), it seems to me, have atleast one advantage over the ones belonging to ‘high Literature’. Its very obvious to my eye: books that are products f popular culture often make cheeky comments (and not very subtle ones at that) on the...

There are times when one wants to…simply forget things. Forget, be forgotten & left alone. Or given the things they desire. They just want to go off to the dreamless sleep and never wake up. They want to be happy. They want to be able to wake up in the morning and say “This is life!”. But nothing like that happens. What does...

Now, I love my “little creations” very much. For once, I feel this maternal sort of love (although, I confess, I wouldn’t know what the real maternal feeling is like) for my stories and the characters that fill my life. All through the day, Norelle, Nicole, Malcolm, Sunandita, KD etc stay put in my mind. There are times (especially, at night--or early morning--before...