So I was tagged by CJ. My writer’s block kicked in again and I haven’t been able to write anything even borderline decent in a while. Didn’t wanna let the blog die so figured I’d do the tag. Was saving it up for just such an eventuality.
5 things found in your bag
- MP3 Player
- Spiral bind notebook
- Faber Castell triangular pencil, Non Dust eraser and Parker Rollerball (blue) [Yes, I'm particular about these things]
- Some book – Currently A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man by James Joyce
- A bottle of water
5 favourite things in your room
- Computer! – What would I do without my ancient excuse of a computer?
- Bookshelf and the books inside – I wanted a wooden bookshelf but a metal one’s better than nothing I guess. I wish I had more books to fill it up with.
- My assortment of crude, improvised, mock medieval weaponry - Yeah yeah, laugh all you want.
- Badminton Racquet – Bought it when I was 12, after lots of begging and nagging and unkept promises. I was in love with it for a long while.
- Random clutter – Old newspapers, sawdust, random scraps of paper with doodles on them etc. Come in very handy at times.
5 things you have always wanted to do
- Get published – This is pretty obvious.
- Lead a real cavalry charge – This one is slightly insane and totally implausible. I blame the history obsession and cavalry fetish.
- Meet Bono and Moby [and David Gemmell too but he's dead so... ] – Two of my favourite musicians. And David Gemmell is quite possibly one of my favourite writers, easily the one who inspires me the most.
- Oh and I wanna meet Girish Jadhav – Amateur military historian with a huge collection of weapons. Need I say more?
- Go to Ireland and Turkey – I love Irish music. And the BEER (I haven’t tasted any, I just succumb easily to the hype )! I wanna see Dublin, the city that inspired the likes of Joyce and Wilde. Turkey is a melting pot of civilisations and cultures. Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) is one of the greatest cities of the world. Of course, I want to travel all over the world but these two are at the top of the list.
5 things you are currently into
- Cartography and sub-creation – Drawing maps of alternate worlds and populating them with people and chalking out a history for them. Fun stuff.
- Grateful Dead – In the words of Lenny Kaye “Their music touches on ground that most other groups don’t even know exists.”
- Minimalist fiction – I just like it. The subtleity, the multiple interpretations, the abrupt endings. I like it all.
- Sassanian heavy cavalry – I blame the cavalry fetish again.
- Woodworking – One of my phases. Every once in a while I become obsessed with woodworking and cover my room in sawdust. Right now I’m making a wooden cutlass. I made one earlier but it broke. Not gonna make the same mistake this time.
5 people you want to tag
Ish (If you haven’t done this before)
Vasudha
Amit
Nikita
Nidhi
Currently Listening To: Jeff Beck – Rollin’ And Tumblin’
18 responses so far ↓
Nik // May 23, 2008 at 12:52 pm |
I’ve already commented on all of this before.. :/
Bharat Iyer // May 23, 2008 at 12:58 pm |
Can you say arbit comment?
ish // May 23, 2008 at 1:34 pm |
Aye, I haven’t done it. And I don’t know if I’m going to do it any sooner. I’m so out of inspiration that I can’t even figure out what the 5 favorite things in my room are. How much worse does it get? :/
About your cartography and sub-creation, there used to be this online game where you were made the owner of a country in a continent and then you had to manage it, sign treaties and stuff like that. You’ve might’ve enjoyed it. But obviously, you can’t annex the other countries so might not be all that good for you.
I wouldn’t be that excited about beer as you are. It’s genuinely bitter and I have no clue why people like it.
Perx // May 23, 2008 at 6:01 pm |
Thats the advantage of being a girl, u get a lot of room to carry stuff with u…. we guys have to collect everything in our pockets, which start looking bulky….
Anyway, nice post, and that sub creation part seems really intersting, i bet u will be good at it, cuz u also write novels (as u wanna get published)
Bharat Iyer // May 23, 2008 at 6:26 pm |
Ish: I’m with you on this one dude, took me over a week to do this tag.
Yeah, there are many such games. I’ve played some of them but I get bored of ‘em too easily.
I like bitter yucky stuff, probably will like beer. My favourite beverage right now is double shot espresso which is basically extra-black coffee. :/ Jo bhi ho, try toh karungta hi.
Perx: Err… yeah. I’m a guy.
Bharat is not a girl’s name y’know. 
My pockets are generally always stuffed. 
I’ve gotten into the habit of carrying a knapsack with me whenever I go around, ’ssall. 
Sub-creation is fun.
Requires more than just writing skills though. Actually, you don’t need any writing skills. :/ And just because I want to be published doesn’t mean I write well. 
Perx // May 23, 2008 at 6:31 pm |
Yeah i’m sry, I just noticed the blog address, i figured that this much stuff can only be carried in a woman’s bag…….. how u do that with just 2-3 pockets available to us is still a mystery to me
Bharat Iyer // May 23, 2008 at 7:28 pm |
Lol, np. Pockeys are grossly insufficient yaar. As I said, I carry a knapsack everywhere I go.
Bharat Iyer // May 23, 2008 at 7:29 pm |
*Pockets
ish // May 24, 2008 at 10:36 am |
Yeah, I can totally understand why it took you a week. I gave up at the first question itself. I mean my bag only contains pens and school books. I don’t carry a bag otherwise and school books so totally don’t deserve a post. :/
Double shot expresso coffee, aiight, you’re gonna love Beer. :/
Bharat the ladki. Heh.
Nidhi // May 24, 2008 at 2:20 pm |
o_O oh tag, good…i’m so out of inspiration…i needed this
oh, those apsara non-dust erasers are so good.
we had a metal bookshelf too, it caved in two years later. lol. now we have a proper wooden one.
cavalry charge…lol..*sigh*..dreams..
oh, i wanna meet Eoin Colfer in Ireland and look for leprechauns and pots of gold and all that. not too keen on turkey.
the cartography and sub creation will be pretty useful when you get published, no? and probably publish an encyclopedia on your work.
and omg lol!! that perx comment. lol
Bharat Iyer // May 24, 2008 at 8:22 pm |
Ish: LOL, yeah. Pocket mei kya rakhta hai woh likhde, kuch toh jugaad lagana padega pehle question mein.
Nidhi: Yep, they sure are.
Oh, I hope this one lasts. Bound to rust but hopefully, it’ll take more than 2 years.
I wouldn’t mind meeting Colfer.
Yeah, it will, depending on what I write. Nah, no encyclopaedias. Too commercial. Besides, I won’t plan on writing anything so spread over that it would require one.
Radhika Saxena // May 24, 2008 at 10:11 pm |
god..such randomness! I like the non-dust erasers..Rs. 5 for the big one
i’m a stationary freak,big time!
and wood working is fun..wow you do fun stuff..envy you..
cjwriter // May 25, 2008 at 1:27 am |
Thanks for doing the meme, Bharat. They come in handy for writer’s block, don’t they?
I like what’s in your bag. I’m very particular with my choice of pens as well, so I can sympathize! Love Joyce too – I need to reread Portrait at some stage. I found the bag the hardest part of the meme; some people did their wallets instead but I don’t know if that would be as interesting.
So a cavalry charge? That would be fun. There are a few historical societies that recreate famous battles… not sure if many use horses but some probably do. That might be the closest you’d get to it right now. And meeting Bono would be great! Maybe you could get him to hurry up the new U2 album. Feels like it’s been ages.
Bharat Iyer // May 25, 2008 at 8:38 am |
Radhika: I don’t remember prices. Impressive.
And yes, wood working is lot sof fun. Lol, I hardly get to do all of it satisfactorily. Too many hobbies can be a pain. Besides, they keep distracting me from what I’m supposed to be doing all the time *cough* study *cough*
CJ: My pleasure CJ, they really do come in handy during blocks. That’s why I tend to save them up instead of doing them as soon as I get tagged.
Good, I used to think I’m the only person picky enough to care about the stationery.
I read Dubliners recently and I loved it. Portrait is written weirdly which adds to it’s appeal. I’m taking it slow, tyring to savour it [Read: Im a lazy sod who prefers doing nothing to reading 
].
Recreations are unlikely to use horses, yes. And they can’t quite capture the atmosphere of a real battle, but of course, the odds of coming out of it alive are greater too.
Bono is awesome, tey came close to giving him the Nobel Prize twice. Maybe they should just give it to him now. Yeah, it’s been 4 years! Their manager says the album will be out by October 2008. I was reading articles about the new album last night. I can’t wait. 
Nidhi // May 25, 2008 at 3:58 pm |
oh, ya, you said minimalistic fiction.
Amit // May 26, 2008 at 1:10 pm |
Everyone seems to be having this writer’s block.
Anyways, snap out of it. I am missing your stories. 
I will do the tag soon. I am supposed to do another one too, so probably will do both of them together.
And beer is yucks. I generally drink it to give company to my friends but I always need something chatpata to swallow it.
Even I want to visit Istanbul. Heard that its the most beautiful city in the world.
And what is Minimalist fiction? Please explain.
Bharat Iyer // May 27, 2008 at 3:36 pm |
Nidhi: Yes indeed I did.
Amit: Trying to snap out of it. Not really succeeding but ah well.
No hurry, take it easy.
As I said before, I have a tendency to like bitter, yuck tasting stuff. :/
Yes, it very well could be. I’m more fascinated by it’s history really.
//Literary minimalism is characterized by an economy with words and a focus on surface description. Minimalist authors eschew adverbs and prefer allowing context to dictate meaning. Readers are expected to take an active role in the creation of a story, to “choose sides” based on oblique hints and innuendo, rather than reacting to directions from the author. The characters in minimalist stories and novels tend to be unexceptional; they may be pool supply salespeople or second tier athletic coaches rather than famous detectives or the fabulously wealthy. Generally, the short stories are “slice of life” stories.
Some 1940s-era crime fiction of writers such as James M. Cain and Jim Thompson adopted a stripped-down, matter-of-fact prose style to considerable effect; some classifiy this prose style as minimalism.
Another strand of literary minimalism arose in response to the meta-fiction trend of the 1960s and early 1970s (John Barth, Robert Coover, and William H. Gass). These writers were also spare with prose and kept a psychological distance from their subject matter.
Minimalist authors, or those who are identified with minimalism during certain periods of their writing careers, include the following: Raymond Carver, Chuck Palahniuk, Bret Easton Ellis, Ernest Hemingway, K.J. Stevens, Amy Hempel, Bobbie Ann Mason, Tobias Wolff, Grace Paley, Sandra Cisneros, Mary Robison, Frederick Barthelme, Richard Ford and Alicia Erian.
American poets such as William Carlos Williams, early Ezra Pound, Robert Creeley, Robert Grenier, and Aram Saroyan are sometimes identified with their minimalist style.
The Irish author Samuel Beckett is also known for his minimalist plays and prose.//
Source: Wikipedia
Vasudha // June 29, 2008 at 8:40 pm |
Bharat’s not a girl’s name. What about Bharati Yer? =P
Will finally get down to doing this one. Soon. Very soon. =D