last thoughts on a grey day

'The evening trembles and is sad
A shadow runs across the grass
And disappears into the darkening pines.'
---Carol Ann Duffy
(note: didn't like a word, so I took it out).


'But from time's rot
it is toward another time we keep our root
known.'
---Duncan.

'How to live?' This is a question only a dead person asks or-and this may amount to the same thing-a philosopher. One can live by reading books, which is not to live very much, or one can live not reading very much, which is not to live at all. A sentence by Wiggins. By the time you reach mid-stream you've forgotten how things started. Very apt metaphor for middle age, I guess.

"Oh, so that's what it is" she says, chuckling to herself, the years yet to creep up on her. But like Dorian Gray, I bet there's a picture of her somewhere...

Sticking with Carol A. the other day a rather obnoxious person asked me where I was from. I tried the " Er...originally?". Didn't work. Hesitation over origins is a cardinal sin amongst the feudals since pedigree or delusions of it are all that count, all that can count.

What strikes you, on the other hand, is the sheer randomness of it all. The disparities in opportunities, incomes, lifestyles is absurd. The very same chap is on a mission...."I'm going to faack the maulvis, I'm going to faack them, my dear" he says. (Yeah, affected, I know!). He wants me to draw up a list of them and hand them over to him. I wanna say in my jewish accent, "hey, you think I'm Oskar Schindler already?

"They don't know who they're messing with" and so on and so forth. All very amusing. Like the old Lahori I am I try and fire him up a bit, get him foaming at the mouth. "Yeah, A, you have no idea what they've been doing to this place. Only someone with your power can make the difference and save us from them." He seems deeply satisfied with this answer, nods his head in agreement, and then proceeds to dunk his cake into his tea. So much for pedigree!

...