Funeral

Today was a really odd day. I had to go attend this funeral of a relative. Of course to most of you, such a relation might qualify as distant but to me, not really... To be more specific, it was my Grandmother's Sister's Husband's funeral. What surprised me a lot was my Uncle's behaviour. He was calm and collected, the loss showing behind his cool nature, evident with the wrinkles on his forehead.

Anyways, let me get to the point. My Great-Grandmother was there weeping her heart out. She is one of the noblest women I have ever seen my whole life. She is one of the very few people who have earned my respect... As a human being, as a compassionate soul. Hers has been a tumultous life... She was married at the age of 13, bore my Grandmother at the age of 14 or 15 (yes, 14 or 15). Went on to have 8 more children... 9 in all. Was widowed very very early in life... Took care of her infant sister when she was seriously ill (BTW my great-great-grandmom had 16 kids, 3 sets of twins, of which only 9 survived... And for those of you who don't know what it is to see your Great-Great-Grandmom, ask me.) In fact, when my great-granddad died, my grandmom didn't even know who her dad was. Complex story, but to put it short, my grandmom and the infant traded places.

My great-grandmom, all of 83 years old, has seen much more than that. She has had to watch people younger than her pass away, and I guess it would seem logical for her to weep her heart out cos' today her own daughter's husband passed away. In fact, even one of her own daughters' passed away a couple of years ago. Which parent can watch their prodigy be cremated eh? Tell me. In spite of all this, she is still a very pleasant person to be with. I never seem to have a generation gap with her. Astounding, ain't it? I have my own private space yet I can freely discuss a lot of things with her. Some things hurt a person a lot and the sight of my great grandmom crying was too much. This post, if it would have been penned on paper, would have been a teary mess... Words are hard to come by, to describe a person of her calibre. I am proud to say that some of her genes still reside in me. Amen. ***Arcane sniffs his nose and mutilates a hanky***

Does time change us? You bet! Lotsa people have told me that time changes people, but in the negative sense. They always seem to crib about others and themselves and how growing older seems to take it's toll on life. But there are not many people I know who seem to have taken the effect of time in a positive sense, or speak about it that way, at least...

There are times when I've felt down, like now... But it wasn't always like this. Till around a couple of years back, I was an angry being. My rage was not easily quelled. There are things I've done that I'm ashamed of, but realisation does not change what has happened. I've done crazy things like cutting my forearm using a knife (I think I wrote "Hate Me" if I remember correctly), I've bruised my bones hitting walls and I've broken a 5 foot mirror to tiny shards... The last incident however will always stand a testimony to my uncontrolled rage and my stupidity, and it has left more scars than physical. A pool of blood on the floor, a totally mutilated ring finger from which an inch of finger around the joint had totally gone (there was only bone visible), 7 stitches on my finger joints (4 on ring, 2 on middle, 1 on index), and years later, am I really better off?

You bet. There are things that can leave scars in you that cannot be healed by time. As someone said, regret is the costliest thing in life. I am what I am today - a better human being than then. It's hard to believe there are people who do give a damn about me. I was not used to it and I still not am used to it. There were times I had thought of suicide, and now when I seem to think of it all and remember a voice which said - "Don't do that re, you're mad!" And a voice that said - "What are you going to gain? Think of all the experiences you'll miss." I feel nothing but the deepest gratitude for those 2 girls who have taught me almost everything in life. They gave me a new lease of life, they showed me how to live. As for my stitched up fingers, I still cannot use my right hand properly... So remember that before you smash a mirror to itsy bitsy shreds...

Mad Medicine...

With great power comes great responsibility.
It is my gift, It is my curse.
We are who we choose to be.

There is no girl whom I walk away from, saying these words (he he) but it is true... very true. For every one of us. Not just us human beings, but to all living beings, to all inanimate beings as well. Our sense of responsibility determines the fruit of our actions. Which brings me to the question - Is randomness a result of responsibility? Or vice versa?

I should stop thinking so much. I must be mad. How long, How long must I sing this song?

PS : Thanx Succubus, for snapping me outta my trance and reminding me to post.

Trip to Munnar

Day 1 :

Reached Munnar amidst great expectations. The journey was quite good - the hilly part I mean. Major ghat sections and all. Spent 2 hours in the shower. Went around to see some plantations (Cardamom, Tea, Pepper). You get great exercise walking there, I must say. Dammit, someone gift me a digicam. Or an SLR or a Digital SLR. Anyways Tata owns 85000 Acres of Tea plantations.

The most amazing thing I have ever seen in my entire life is the size of the Elephant droppings. Man... Heeyuge!! Do they know how to crap!!


Day 2 :

Clouds floating in the balcony of the cottage. A-fuckin-mazing!!


Day 3 :

Some more sightseeing.


Day 4 :

Went and saw the Periyar Tiger Reserve. Not even a single tiger visible. BAH!!

2130 Hrs - Amazing fun watching Forty somethings go high and do weird stuff apart from singing, dancing with glasses on their heads and shaking booties. Wishing that my friends were here and we could all have had such fun as well.

2245 Hrs - I miss my friends... I am sitting 5700 feet above sea level enduring a Temperature of 17.5 degrees celsius and sipping on Scotch and having a Davidoff. Last night in Munnar. Fare thee well.

Time Goes By

Backed up 3 months of blogwork and comments. Took me over an hour to do it. But they are, after all my thoughts, my creations, and need to be preserved. In other news I have been playing Solitaire, Minesweeper and Diablo II like crazy - all combined to more than 12 hours a day.

This Homo Sapien Insanensis is displacing his Orally Antipodal Surface to Munnar tomorrow and I haven't packed as of yet and I have to go to college tomorrow... TO BE A SUBJECT FOR A PSYCHOLOGY PRAX... GOD, I HATE IT!! The things I do for friends!!

Here I goooooo.....
Playing Solitare again
There I gooo..
Turn the page...

The dream I never saw
The face I never beheld
Will you come to me
When the Silence screams

The melody I never created
The world I never wanted
Rip yourself with a Scythe
And see yourself in a Mirror

The madness that lives in my Soul
Is an untouched Tome of Time
The madness I fear
The madness I adore

Mindsnare

I was out for a walk, a couple of days back... As I was returning home, I saw this pup, a street dog I guess, which was starved to the bone. When I say 'to the bone' I mean 'to the bone'. Poor thing. I started wondering ki I have it quite comfortable in life. Food, Shelter, Comforts (such as venting out via a blog)... but what does that poor pup have? Zero, Zilch, Nada, Nothing... Given my bad memory, I still remember the scene quite well... The pup was sitting curled up between the roots of a tree, in front of the concrete casing covering the trunk.

When all these things were running through my head, it's eyes met mine, time stood still and it tore me and I bled mentally. The look of sadness and tiredness in it's pearl mica black eyes is hardly a thing that mere words can describe. That picture was worth a Kazillion words. As I stood, staring into it's eyes, in that split second, an inexplicable sadness coursed through me and I felt weak... unable to do anything within my power to help that poor thing. I do not know if it is still alive... I cannot help but regret at the thought that maybe I could have done something for it. Made me remember the mythological story where this dude refuses to go to heaven until he is allowed to take the stray dog, which had been following him, to heaven. Compassion is now officially dead.

And sometimes I am just indifferent to the woes of other living beings including humans. I am just worthless. Our whole human race is a bunch of self-centred parasitic scum.

Mindwarp

What happens when you are stuck in a dream? A dream so real that you cannot distinguish between reality and dreams? Yes, I know, I know - The Matrix.

But then, when you dream a dream that you feel is so very real, and you know that you are in the midst of a dream, and for some strange reason, you just cannot wake up no matter how hard you try. THAT IS SCARY!! Most definitely scary...

I had exactly one such dream yesterday night. There was this guy who was a human sacrifice and I vaguely remember a huge stone temple and a blood red sunset when I hear this piercing scream. The dream ends there and repeats. Now there is this prophet who warns me of the impending doom of this guy. I see a bike nearby (ok it was a blue Yamaha FZ-6 for you detail hogs) and I just inch closer to this dude and I am about to save him... I find myself at the beginning of the dream, I see the prophet again. He warns me again. But he adds a minor detail, minor but a crucial detail. I get close to the guy... The dream starts all over again...

Every time I got close to the altar and was about to save the guy, the dream would start all over again, and the prophet would add one more crucial detail. At one point I realized, there are no time-warps in real life so this had to be a dream and it was now repeating so often that I got used to it... Now I was terribly frightened... I knew I was in a dream yet I could not get out of this dream world... I was lving the same dream over and over again. Now my focus was not to save the guy but to alter my reality and wake up. HOW?? HOW?? HOW??

Well, the cold Bangalore weather made me wake up and I headed straight to the "Temple" to take a leak.