Bor(ing)edom(e)

I’m losing my mind. That’s it. It’s horrendously maddening. I’m even fed up of waking up late and pretty much doing nothing. I tried my best to prepare for TOEFL, tried to inspire myself to begin working out some practice papers by dragging myself to a bookstore (yeah, I dragged myself into a bookstore… a first for me because in all normality I would’ve jumped at the chance of going to a bookstore. Apparently I’m no longer normal. Even for my level of normalcy.) and bought myself a few books. But no!! I am not to be swayed!! I relentlessly began the ‘cleaning’ of my shelves. Rearranging my clothes in an orderly fashion, but it stopped. I couldn’t do it. I completed two shelves out of the four in my wardrobe and gave up. I still have to do my bookshelf. That’s three shelves worth of books – one of academics, one of the non-academics (that’s three rows of novels and my shelves are quite accommodating), and one of the files and other important stuff. My mind is so troubled with tedium I can’t bring myself to even open the doors of the cupboard. And it’s getting pissing off!

I started to read Lord of the Rings…again. My annual ritual of reading the trilogy. I managed to finish up to ‘Taming of Smeagol’ yesterday (starting from…well, the prologue last morning). There’s a soporific blanket that comes over me every time I try to involve myself in doing something. And then I find out that there was a high possibility of my visiting my parents this time but I had ruled it out without a second thought and now I regret it. Even the thought of getting my laptop (my aunt’s supposed to order it within a day or two) has me yawning. I tried rejuvenating myself by walking, even ‘treading the mill’ but alas! ‘Tis all in vain!

I finally landed up doing the one thing I’d wanted to do but find myself unable to do. Watch movies. Faithfully, I watched ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and just kind of gaped in horror when Bassanio kissed Antonio right in the first scene!! This is the Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons version I’m talking about. And then the rest of it was fine. The dialogues came back to me (I could actually hear the voice of my teacher in my head, the exact way she used to read out the text to us). Two specifically..

Shylock’s :- “Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”

And Portia’s: – “The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath; it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: ‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes a throned monarch better than his crown, His scepter shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this sceptred sway; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God’s when mercy seasons justice”

I was actually saying all this along with the actors… It felt nice. I’m watching the three LOTR’s slowly, savoring every moment, every scene of the one (well, three) movies that I will never dislike). Gonna watch the three Pirates of the Caribbean also…There are a few others that I did watch, that had me thinking, at the end, “It was worth it.” The Jackal, Citizen Kane, The Departed, The Pianist, The Great Escape (remember watching it as a kid a long time ago and it still doesn’t fail to hold my attention) The Prestige, Frankenstein, Independence Day (another all time favorite), Cast Away, Erin Brockovich, Sleepy Hollow (watched this for Johnny Depp), Philadelphia (again a repition from my ‘favorites’ list) and JFK. Keeping myself as occupied as possible, as you can see, but still it gets boring!!

And then I went and watched this old Tamil movie for lack of anything else to do. But more the lack of the television remote (which my grandma hid under the cushions so that I would not change the channel). And there was this one dialog which got me thinking of how stupid writers could get. “If you love something let it go, if it comes back to you then you’ll know that it was true.” Derision became me. One of the silliest, most irksome lines that could have ever been penned. All in my opinion. It’s pathetic!! This is one line that many people I know say quite a lot. They believe in it. I’m not being a hypocrite or anything, but yes, they are entitled to their opinion and I, to mine. Thus the trashing of the ‘line’. I hate it. It raises eyebrows over a lot of things. I don’t think I’m gonna waste precious words on that. Not worth it. Made me vow never…NEVER to watch any of those romantic movies. Any of them. I hate watching them in the first place but had to tolerate it because my cousin likes to watch those rather than the more sensible ones. Now it’s rather certain I will never watch them. Again!

So you see what boredom has done to me??? Don’t let it get to you either. It’s a horrible place to be!!