RazorBlade Dreams

Dawn Of A New Day

2008-12-27T21:20:00.001+05:30

Another year wanes to the blitzkrieg of a realization that one-thirds of my life has passed by, with few things worth remembering and nothing significant accomplished for the third year in a row. The year has not been unique, or even kind to me. I have pondered and mulled over this many a time, over an assortment of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages in the company of ‘fine selected tobaccos’.

There is this pattern to everyday living, whose essence is the list of things one would want to do. Things, one needs to do in order to get a wee bit closer to our short-term and long-term goals. Things, one must do in order to succeed in life as defined by the not-so-set parameters of our so-called society. One continually analyzes these things, assesses limitations in achieving goals and revises the ‘list of things’ or overcomes limitations.

This pattern, to me, has become constant, annoying. Like the background hum of a computer that one doesn’t usually notice unless explicitly spoken or thought about. I would go so far as to say that one’s life is measured by how well one executes this pattern caring two hoots for all else. Somewhere down the line, stark realities such as poverty in the eyes of a handicapped child forced to beg among layers and piles of human sputum and garbage-laced roads, and homeless people sharing space with homeless dogs have become secondary. Yes, they have become secondary.

Over the years, I’ve had this nagging feeling that I’m not doing enough to change things I feel strongly about, things that are secondary to our society and leadership. And when I did try, I was taught lessons on the importance of the self, the ‘I’. This conditioning has... tainted me, summing my life to negative.

In the face of it all, I wouldn't think twice to spend fifteen thousand rupees to liquid-cool my processor and lower its temperature by fifteen degrees.
In fact, in the face of it, I wouldn't twice that this money could be used to fund a couple of orphans for a year through an organization such as C.R.Y.
(I would pick the liquid-cooling system any day.)

As societies tend to haute-couture highs, economies to capitalist clans (Infinite profits/growth with the earth's limited resources? Another post, maybe.) and Machiavellian-leader-run governments to megalomanic machinations, we are left with a stark reality—the fragments of Equality that once were, is now dead. The ‘I’ matters more than the collective ‘We’.

This time, I want to make a difference.
This time around, all I want, is to effect change.

I hope for a better year to come. And if somebody out there is reading this, I hope the same for you.

2008-11-30T21:14:00.001+05:30

Definitely not the kind of Birthday Blast I had in mind.
I can only pray for the ones who have been forced to suffer loss, and hope for a better tomorrow for them.

For The Fallen

2008-10-23T22:12:00.000+05:30

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

-> "For The Fallen" (1914), by Robert Laurence Binyon

2008-09-22T23:57:00.000+05:30

A red rose in bloom,
Severed, swept, by winds that lie-
All beauty must die.

55

2008-09-08T01:10:00.001+05:30

Everyone I have come to know and love is transitioning, to new loves and new lives. I am the fool relentlessly moving on with my own life, clinging to fragile expectations of constancy in bonds that thin a little more with each passing day.

Everything fades, and everything dies.
Not so soon, hopes this fool.

Periphery Of Perception

2008-09-06T01:03:00.001+05:30

One day I'll be in a state of inertia, oscillating unconsciously between thought and void with digital audio output at the periphery of sensory perception and Winamp in shuffle mode with its playlist containing every digital piece of music I possess. And that’s when a song from the past, a relic, will be sure to play and cocoon me in raw re-interpretation. For, the words, these words, will lacerate meaning, bleeding themselves dry to transcend the mind to new planes of appreciation.

That's when it'll move me after eons of not having done so , make me rethink who I am... adding itself to the previous rethinks, manifesting as a summation that redefines me. Not for the first time, and definitely not the last.

---

PS, to Manu:
When it is said “Let there be love”, the elevator doors shalt open. Heh.

Déjà Vu

2008-09-03T08:09:00.001+05:30

There were mountains.
Tall mountains that looked menacingly black from miles away, on a long straight road that winds at its foothills. These mountains had a life of their own, a separate consciousness that somehow makes one feel that they’re living on a much lower plane of thought. They ceaselessly whispered to him in the night, egging him on, reaching the furthest corners of his mind with a smile so boundlessly evil and a hand so subtly outstretched, hypnotizing him, calling... calling him home.

He resisted, day in and day out, till one day his will broke and he reached out and accepted the hand of support that pulled him to his doom. Three motorcycles, engines screaming, did journey to their doom.

To this day, he does not remember the events that transpired or how the mountains murdered his friends. But remembered knowing he had to escape. And he did.

Spirits chased him, in the guise of humans carrying weapons. They surrounded every route of escape with military precision, focusing intense flashlights on their prey and howling like a pack of wolves so near their food. He was running, on foot, gasping, bleeding, and pulling thorns out of his bloody soles, covering imprinted stains of blood with loose sand from a bag. Bloodstains were a giveaway, he could be followed easily. His heart thumping, adrenaline fuelling his very existence he crawled into a narrow crevice where he hoped he would not be found.

The sound of spirits in the guise of men-with-weapons was drawing near. And the evil voice, oh so strong it was, fluidly shifting suddenly and constantly between demented cackles and screams, orders to return to captivity... and doom. At that point he thought, if he ever escaped the clutches of this damned place, he would christen the tallest peak of his nightmares, Mount Doom. He vaguely remembered a mountain with the same name in an epic novel, from which was fashioned a ring of power. He gazed at his palm, overjoyed that he had no ring until his reverie was shattered by voices circling in.

And the last thing he remembered was a blinding white light through the opening of the crevice, illuminating his face to an ethereal voice that commanded - “Kill him.”--some would say it was the white light at the end of the tunnel, symbolic of consciousness after death--before he woke up in a hospital bed surrounded by his two friends who insisted that they had rescued him after he crashed, and that the people with guns were a hoax, a delirium, an illusion that his mind did create.

---

Today, I dreamt of the same spot where I was so brutally hunted in my dream of over two years ago.
I told myself, rather, thought to myself or whatever mode one uses to communicate to ones’ own flow of thoughts in dream state - “I have been here before, in my dreams, perhaps an eternity or dream-lives ago.”

---

I was surrounded by loved ones when wheels revved past the spot that I sheltered in over two years ago, and a whizzing sense of dark familiarity crept in. Today, there were clusters of eerie broken houses in which were glimpsed people, huddled in terror on a bright sunny day-- victims of tyranny of the mountain, I later found, as the dream rendered itself unto a mosaic of sheer terror.

I vividly remember some parts of the dream. There were friends old and new, a sense of contentment and happiness flowing golden, so surreal yet so tangible that you could almost touch it. We were young, happy-go-lucky, we had aspirations and oh yes, we had dreams. Yet, there seemed to be no observable effect of any evil surrounding us. Days passed by with images mirroring lyrical words of “High Hopes” by Pink Floyd.

An eternity may have passed in familiarizing myself to these new moments when the mountains so dormant woke up, seething at the presence of someone familiar, someone from the past, someone who... got away. A haze of memories and loads of fear later, I was drowning, right near the crevice at the foothills of the black mountains I once sheltered in. Floods, torrential rains, a black night, fright, and wishing for this to end, to soak in sunlight. Doom drew itself near, and as I felt my life slowly escaping clutches of my fragile mortality, I let go of the cold hands of my two friends who saved me in my previous dream.

And just before eternal darkness set in, I could've sworn I heard a feeble echo of the familiar cackle of Mount Doom. And I knew then, I had witnessed the death of my dreams.

Rain Event

2008-08-15T02:14:00.002+05:30

It was 6 PM.
And the end of a nicotine session with the Wabbster. After a particularly traumatizing day's work of aligning laser beams, there's not much one can ask of the day. So... birds were chirping, young couples with overflowing pockets in some corner of the city would have been getting cozy (and old couples too, I really have nothing against them), and leaves and flowers were oscillating into each other with such speed and stamina as to make Michael Phelps hang his head in shame--when suddenly out of nowhere, a monstrously huge drop of liquid ooze slams the Crapper's head with brute force and beats the living shit out of him.

And how it Rained.
Now, Bangalore has been prey to heavy rains for a while, and the posters of Lady Luck in all her resplendent glory that had so far adorned the walls of the Crapper's life and shielded him from the furious onslaught of the chaotic monsoons were blown away and ripped to shreds by a friggin tornado. Ergo, I found myself stuck in a 'Rain Event' (quoting Air Marshal Carlin.)

Half-an-hour's wait did little to ease streams of water that had somehow percolated through my waterproof jacket into places where the sun don't normally shine. On discovering the fact that my innermost layers of clothing had been compromised, I branded the activity of high tea on the low and sundry footpaths of Rajajinagar a futile exercise, and decided that it was time to move.

The last time I found myself trapped in a similar predicament was during a bike trip to Hyderabad in May, and in the perspective of that day, today was naught but child’s play. But that is the stuff of legend, and deserves a blog-post in itself.

Little did the Crapper know that the adventure had only just begun. An utterly defeated jacket containing a Nokia 1112, a Creative Zen Stone, 4GB of wet Data on a USB drive, and soaked books among other things--Buses and call-centre cabs rampaging every nook and corner of the road--autorickshaws, the self proclaimed Templar Knights of Bengaluru city, waging a crusade against other genres of vehicles--overly enthusiastic scooterettes surveying the topography of potholes by displacing their fluid contents on beings of the road, living and non-living. One and half hours to cover 12 KMs. One gets the general idea.

At this point, all one would wish for is to watch steam radiate from one’s body and sink deeper down into that warm sensation that only a hot bath can offer. Water, heated to the right temperature, to wash away life’s dull aches and pains, and all of the acid rain. But noooo, not me. I wanted to be a jackass. I wanted to recreate some magic. I wanted to face the elements--the howling winds, needle-like raindrops on my face, and challenging terrain. I wanted to feel alive.
And I did.

So, if you were out on the roads and you saw this biker, enthusiastic, drenched to the core, cutting foot-high swamps with a zest that would disgrace most 4x4's, humming songs of Black Label Society, Manowar or Fear Factory-- then know that it was me.
I felt like a child.
And I felt free.

2008-08-10T13:09:00.000+05:30

Tip: Never mix whisky with weed.

Oh, the shame...

2008-07-31T13:06:00.002+05:30

A reminder--from me, to me.

"Post."

Metropolis

2008-06-27T02:15:00.003+05:30

On a newly-constructed pavement you passed
With a smile that, beyond the street-end, didn't last
You are the shaman, and I am the skeleton undead
Raised from your many adventures in bed.

Soaked by sights of your seductive glance,
How many more did take the chance?
Monuments to love, your kisses so deep,
Poisoned by venom, oh, the price's so steep.

This is our new superset, of moral value.
Suicide is on display, every afternoon.

This Metropolis has such lovely tales
Of human emotions sealed in coffins, properly nailed.
Disposable incomes and disposable friends,
Corporate communication, mixing dangerous blends.

30% off on Lingerie, the "implants" of Showciety,
And conflicting thoughts of consumerist piety,
Imprison once-free minds in urban structures--of Architects, these concrete scriptures--
Archiving their aspirations, lives and billions of sentences
On clusters of Terabyte-Servers storing Google's indexes.

This is our new superset, of moral bloom.
Fratricide is on display, every afternoon.

From their chairs in Ivory Towers of might and light,
And all that is supposed to be right,
Hissing Prodigals of Serpents bleed dry our lives
Crusading against gods they denounced as a lie.

Sometimes, one wishes for more
Sometimes, one wants to go... home.
But blinding lights have numbed the pain,
Souls have stopped crying in vain.
Love and hate have been found again,
In TV channels and spaces between static grain.

This is our new superset, of moral doom.
Deicide is on display, every afternoon.

Caught between the Devil and the deep sea, It’s true,
For the dead, I ain’t singing any prayer or two.
In this city of lights orange and fluorescent blue,
Superman saves souls no more than few.

55 Words Of Reality

2008-05-15T02:35:00.001+05:30

He believed in the concept of a soulmate, and so did She.

They were just perfect for each other, living part-identical-part-different lives, completing each other in the right proportions--the balance that makes love so beautifully poignant, forging perfection within boundaries of reality.

One day, they passed each other on a street, and never met.

Child In Time

2008-04-04T22:15:00.001+05:30

Consecrate
An eternal
Hate,
Liberate
A truth
Decayed.
Running wild
In time,
A child
Smiled,
Cried,
From humanity
Shied.
Pregnant,
With meaning
A forlorn life,
Pining,
For insight
Beyond divine.

Stars
Of a Heaven
So bright
Mocked
The little child's
Plight.
Hurt, its
Soul burnt.
To ashes,
It returned.
Bring it
To life,
Teach it
The lie,
And to Reason,
Defy.

Funeral Blues

2008-03-20T00:00:00.000+05:30

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

-- W.H. Auden

The Clock

2008-02-22T17:12:00.005+05:30

The gold rimmed square clock--hanging on the pale blue wall, a few feet away from his cubicle--stared right into his two blue eyes. He found comfort in pretending that the monitor was staring at him, and not the clock. He gazed at the second hand of the clock, which produced a very perceptible, almost meaningful tick every time it shifted itself by six degrees and moved itself to the next marking etched. The second hand coincided with the minute hand, on the minute, every minute.

He’d been observing that for the past 22 minutes. And in roughly a minute, the spinning, eternally circling hands of the clock would all overlap each other. Within the vision bounded by those thousand and odd ticks, he realized that 22 minutes were just… gone. He smiled. It would be noon, soon.

He stood up, looked around his cubicle and relaxedly slithered back into his plush, padded chair amidst a euphoric rush of slackness. It seemed safe to loosen his tie. His tie, the ostentatious piece of clothing that tied him down to rules, regulations and belligerent bullshit. Everyone seemed to be busy. Busy, with this so-called pretentious word. Work. A society-invented obnoxious excuse designed to obliterate all knowledge and feeling, and fill that void with an insipid romance novel having platitudes on every page.

And as he thought these thoughts, he found himself tiptoeing to the wall, stealthily sliding the clock off its anchor and bringing it back, soundlessly, to his own cubicle. However, when he looked around, he found it odd that no one had heard a thing. Or even looked his way.

Upon examining the clock and having prised its face plate open--his proud face exhibiting a self-satisfied snort of derision--he said to himself - “Thank you Mr. Clock. It’s so easy to mess with time, and escape scot-free.” The second hand was just three ticks away from being overlapped by the other two hands. The moment they overlapped, he trapped all three hands between the thumb and the index fingers of his own.

And time slowed down till it settled into a standstill. People around him no longer moved. The silence was abnormal, albeit very gratifying. Mouths wide open in the midst of guffaws--the topmost button unhooking itself off its groove, of a white shirt a size too small for that well endowed corporate bosom--a drop of glistening black coffee originating from a mug pressed across a clumsy mouth, defying gravity, suspended in mid-air.

“Perfect Circles!”
With those words he pushed the hands of the clock, all together, with his index finger, in a delicate clockwise motion. It had to be clockwise. The very thought of anticlockwise motion was to him an anathema, an unjustified fear. A stomach clenching jerk, set in motion the mechanical whirring of all the gears, sprockets and other fine circular components that flung time into action.

And like video that’d commenced playing, he saw electrons spinning around nuclei, atoms and molecules spinning around to form living cells, himself circling the block for a morning walk, the earth spinning around the sun, the sun spinning around the supermassive black hole at the centre of the milky way, the milky way spinning around the centre of the galactic cluster, clusters of galaxies spinning around the centre of superclusters, and superclusters spinning around the center of the universe. And the universe, crunching itself into obliteration and reverting back to that single omega point from whence all life was born. And as he felt himself being sucked into the video, into the whirling inferno--flesh, bones and his very existence fragmenting--the sound of a sharp rap on a wooden surface caught his attention.

He spotted young, strong knuckles on his desk. The whirring of the fans in his computer, the electronic hum of copying machines, and the collective noise of the people around percolated into his senses. Perplexed, he turned to look at the face that belonged to the knuckles.

An exhausted sigh met his eye.

“It’s noon. Smoke?”
“Ah, one of the supposed “breaks” from the mundane.”
“What?”
He shook his head, and said - “Coming. Give me a mo’.”

The clock still hung on the wall. The guffaws had subsided. The drop of black coffee had been absorbed by the red-hued carpet that protected the floor from their merciless soles.

Half-hidden in the grasp of young, strong knuckles was a silver lighter with a mellow blaze. As he graciously accepted the gift of flame, and took a deep drag inside, he observed the topmost button of her shirt.

He said to himself – “Well, well. The shirt is a size small for that corporate bosom.”
“Loser.” She said, catching his eye and grinning.
He smiled back at her.

So you see, no matter what one does and where one goes, it looks like there really is no escape from the mundane and the boring.
So far, the constructs of society are winning.

Abstraction

2008-02-04T21:14:00.001+05:30

Half-dreams and Deja-vu's,
Overlapped forgotten memories
And progressive views,
And birthed visions skewed,
Trances out of the blue,
Maybe even epiphanies few.

Translations of non-linear perception
Transformed subliminal imagery to Art in Motion
Obliterating stasis,
Causing paradigm shift from thought to action,
And metamorphosis from specific to abstraction.

Mind and Soul
Between planes, transcending
Between moments, convalescing
Between lives, oscillating
Between hopes. Clinging.

Half-Dreams and Deja-vu's,
Overlapped forgotten memories
And progressive views,
And birthed trajectories new,
Chaos out of the blue,
Maybe even redemptions new.

Mind and Soul,
Seeking purpose so frail,
In alternate realities that trail,
Of lives nothing but drifters' tales.
For the blind, this ain't no braille...

Obscured by opacity, Thoughts without tenacity,
Examining the deeds and the lies that breached
A salvation beyond dreamless sleep,
Floating further away and out of reach.
In Opiates for the Masses, solace we seek.

Half-Dreams and Deja-vu's,
Overlapped forgotten memories
And progressive views.
Emotions were few.
And there was nothing new.
There was nothing new.
There was never anything new...

Crap, again.

2008-01-28T04:40:00.000+05:30

The morning filters orange? I'd say red.
Does colour really matter to us, the dead?
Promises, prophecies, and hidden visions
Have left their bitter incisions.

The black of my hollowed eyes have lost their sheen,
And this morning's lament bleeds me deep.
The soul has been emptied and uncleaned
And this morning has witnessed the death of my dreams.

Old Crap.

2008-01-25T23:29:00.000+05:30

Weigh words in gold
And meaning in diamonds,
Life exists on paper,
Legal, A4 and Bond.

---

Winter freezes me over
One last time,
For the rains bring forth
Whispers of destiny...
But spring brings forth a vivid beauty,
A beauty of age and mature love...
Love for the alma mater.

---

And this dance, done right
Takes away my rage, my light...
Swaying in the pale moonlight
This happy tale I write...

Scorpion?

2007-12-01T12:50:00.000+05:30

There was a man who saw a scorpion floundering around in the water. He decided to save it by stretching out his finger, but the scorpion stung him. The man still tried to get the scorpion out of the water, but the scorpion stung him again. Another man nearby told him to stop saving the scorpion that kept stinging him.

But the man said: "It is the nature of the scorpion to sting. It is my nature to love. Why should I give up my nature to love just because it is the nature of the scorpion to sting?"

Don't give up loving people... Don't give up being good... Even if the people around you hurt and sting, love them.

-> Source Unknown.

Confession 22

2007-11-30T02:42:00.000+05:30

It's been six years since I first saw you.

I remembered you today. In fact, I remember you every once in a while. You're the ghost... haunting me, making me restless, sometimes even long. You meant [maybe still do mean] a lot to me and you would so unwittingly swirl around in my dreams, enchaining this captive with your hypnotizing words. The captive that I was, the captive I longed to be. Back then, we were young. Yet, you stopped me from killing myself. My zest and my wonder for life is something that I've learnt from you.
You've taught me much.

My heart would skip beats every time we spoke, and irrationality would creep in, and so would possessiveness. Your seductive smile--the smile I loved so much--would always invite me to dive into your eyes and see oceans of something I could never comprehend. Maybe it was wisdom in there--connected to your experiences of life, and to the deepest throes of your mind. Sipping on the perfect coffee your mom always made for us, I enjoyed our endless conversations on chaos, politics, music and life. Ah, and there was always my frowning upon your incessant nibbling of the gold chain that hung around your slender, seemingly-fragile neck.

But now, you've disappeared into obscurity. And if I look up to the star-studded sky and ask why, I will not get any answer. I think things like "Maybe it wasn't meant to be" or "I wasn't good enough"... They're just shields behind which I can hide and run away from it all. Maybe I did wrong you in a way that I shouldn't have. But there have been too many maybe's in this story. And now, it's too late for forgiveness or reconciliation.

"When you lie down on the ground and look at the stars, don't you feel you're falling into the infinity of it all?"
Oh, what I would give to hear those words again, only I know.
And why you aren't with me now, only you know.
Sometimes, I miss having you around. Badly.
And every time I look into the night, and gaze at constellations of small specks of light, I remember you.

It's been six years. It's time I finally moved on.
No. Not just yet.

Life, Art and Everything In Between.

2007-11-22T03:04:00.000+05:30

There were three keys,
One was Life,
One was Art,
And One was Everything In Between.

I took the First key, and filled my world with colour.
Fixed it in frames, and encapsulated its splendour.
It then became the lie, so beautiful, so free,
And I blamed the many needs, the needs I couldn’t see.
So I buried the key that was Art, so deep within my heart
To forever remain unseen, in the heart, the heart that now beats.

There were three keys,
One was Life,
One was Art,
And One was Everything In Between.

I took the Second key, reforged it with perversion, perception,
Transition, juxtaposition, ramification, justification,
And... human affection.
Amidst all the dogmatic strife and self-war stricken strides
I showed it civilizations, and tides of beautiful minds
Till one day it became everything, everything between art and life.

There were three keys,
One was Life,
One was Art,
And One was Everything In Between.

I took the Third key--the secret of life, death and wisdom infinite--
Far across the seven mountains, and across the seven seas,
I locked my soul,
And threw the key into the murky depths of oceans of time.

Then I fled into the cold night illuminated silver by moonlight bright.
For a hundred thousand years, feelings and thoughts fought a terrible fight.
The day I died, I shed my pride.
And my unlocked soul... reunited with the Key of Life.

There were three keys.
One, was Life.
One, was Art.
And One, was Everything. Everything In Between...

The Dipping Column of Mercury.

2007-11-16T22:41:00.000+05:30

I’ve always wanted to write about this city.
I’ve always wanted to write about this city with as much fascination and awe, as people who write about Bombay or sometimes even Delhi.
And today, I’m doing exactly this.

The concept of normal is often underrated.

It’s the everyday that sometimes matters more than the occasional now-and-then. I’ve spent a good ten years of my life (piecewise discontinuous) in this city, growing up to its mannerisms and attitudes--savouring the warmth that people once showered, and shrugging off the distance that somehow seeped in over the years. Some blame the changing attitudes of the city on the Techies who, with their humongous salaries and decadent lifestyles, have left the common Bangalorean behind.

This, is not a rosy picture. In fact, it’s not even one picture. It is a multitude of snapshots--perceptions, cultures, emotions and varying degrees of warmth--frozen in time, that links one then-boy and the now-older-but-somewhat-wiser almost-a-man to various people.

People here relate to songs more than they relate to other people (this might be the scene everywhere, but that’s not the point), what with our watering holes offering every genre of music and every type of drink for the guzzler to drown himself/herself in. We like our definition of a cosmopolitan culture that spans Headbanger’s Balls’, Alternative, Hip-Hop-and-House, Grooving around, Oxygen bars, Fast food, 5-minute Smoke breaks, Conversations over beer (or conceptions over liquor), Rave parties, Sinful Promiscuities and Sunday brunch.

The average Bangalorean is in the process of perfecting the art of substituting these newly-adopted cultures with happiness, and devouring this happiness like wolves feasting on a multiple-course fine cuisine dinner. And we don’t want anyone to question it, because we’re quite comfortable living out our illusions.

I’m one of the many examples of people who have become an anathema, an antithesis to their own ideologies--the kind of people who look in the mirror and do not recognize the person staring back at them. All we are and all we have become are distant sometimes forgotten memories of goodness, blurs of perception phasing out too quickly, and a purple haze of evenings and nights gone awry… and we just don’t know why.

Every time I look into the eyes of a person passing by, there’s just iciness--icicles of coldness freezing my heart, making me as distant, unsympathetic and as frozen as them--and it blasts out of fur coats and façades. Where’s all the warmth gone?

It’s beyond me to discuss why we are this way, or how did we become this way.
I, am a Bangalorean.
I don’t know. But I pretend to.
I don’t care. And I don’t bother to pretend to.

Life on the highway has exposed me to different cultures--some still intact and untouched by cosmopolitan wants and selfish ideologies; sometimes where it’s seeping in and people refuse to let it take over; and some where its influence is felt to some degree.

When I’m riding for hours at a stretch watching latitudes and the longitudes literally whizz by, and I stop for a tea on the highway, I’m overjoyed to receive a rustic but extremely heartening warmth only people of the first and second types of culture that I have described can provide. And that’s possible only out of the city. Nowadays, I’m happy to sacrifice that warmth for a 150 KM ride to get my coffee at a particular Coffee Day on the B’lore-Mysore highway.

I must admit that I’m not bothered about how long it will be before Bangalore becomes another Bombay or Delhi.
This, is not the story of a small town.
This, is the story of a city in metamorphosis that’s losing its warmth, and fast.

But tonight, it’s not the cold wave of people that bothers me. It’s the weather.
There’s an unnatural chill in the air tonight.

Cloisterophobia

2007-11-14T20:14:00.000+05:30

You wake up and refuse to see
Your mind, trapped in everything.
Trapped in, cloisters
Of the illusion so fragile.
Bolstering, the ego of the
Soul turning ugly, wearing thin...

The mists of, your blurred sounds
Have enslaved, this freedom, once unbound.
Talking the talk so loud
And walking the walk so proud,
You did unhinge, words profound.

I won't hear you talk this way...

You go to sleep and refuse to see
Your mind, trapped in shallow things.
Trapped in, claustrophobia
Of the space, that you think is small.
Fostering, insecurity of the
Soul turning ugly, wearing thin...

Scaling mountains to never see the summit
Forgiving me for the sins I never did commit

The tides of, your fears unfound
Have constricted, this mind, once profound
Talking the talk so loud
And walking the walk so proud,
Your blames did unhinge, thoughts unbound.

I won't let you walk away...

Confession 19

2007-11-05T05:48:00.000+05:30

And as the familiar click of a certain Play button filled my world with music, it was sucked like a vortex from Somebody's soul because a dear one's life was cruelly snuffed to silence and faded to black. Somebody's sister, Somebody's friend, somebody's lover. The same face but different connections. Destiny being the only plausible logical explanation to death. And faith, not necessarily in God, the only logical solace.

As hurt and pain envelopes pallid hearts like a black plague, it's not my apathy that gets me...
It's my unfeeling coldness.

Urban Edge

2007-10-17T23:06:00.000+05:30

Undone metaphors of debaucherous rhyme
Haute-Couture moralities and titillating times
Of Blood-red loves dying in wordless mime
Burning silent, Staining deep...

Enveloped by electronic emotion
Tissue, thought and sensations
Our infallible Metropolitan machination
Cutting silent, Running deep...

Lies of secular salvation
Lives of spectacular starvation
Stripped to skin in our television sleep
Staining silent, Burning deep...

Urban hope bursting at its seams
Bright blue laser beams and sexual screams
A frantic solution to our Cosmopolitan dreams
Running silent, Cutting way too deep.

2007-09-02T15:33:00.000+05:30

"With the All-Spark gone, we cannot return life to our planet. And fate has yielded its reward, a new world to call... Home. We live among its people now, hiding in plain sight, but watching over them in secret. Waiting... Protecting... I have witnessed their capacity for courage, and though we are worlds apart, like us, there is more to them than meets the eye.

I, am Optimus Prime... and I send this message to any surviving Autobots taking refuge among the stars: We are here. We, are waiting..."

-> Optimus Prime.

2007-08-25T15:31:00.000+05:30

From nothingness these words
So tasteless, So impure...
Spewing forth from Gutturals demure.

Whispering madness
Holding keys, to visions in the head
That Resurrect the Scions of the Dead.

Polarizing
Poisoning
Percieving...

Separating self from soul,
And Emotion once Bound
In matter, chain and tatter.

Unnamed feelings of life in the beyond.
Rapacious, this soulless carcass of yours...

The Arcane Sanctuary

2007-08-18T03:05:00.000+05:30

Beyond the supernovae I have glanced
To the cold that mirrored in rhyme.
And oh, On these burning stars,
With the dead I have danced...

Crucibles of time and trust and hope,
Marbled, in hellfire and stone,
Did create this sanctuary unknown,
Cislunar, burning scarlet and gold...

Far beyond the lies, of eyes that loquace the lust for life
Far beyond the expanse, of the void so wild,
Far beyond the the reaches, of the burning suns,
Forever denuded by the demons of creation,
Are sanctuarine ghosts of a crimson devastation...

Ghosts, of darkness that fast unfolds,
And ghosts, of peaceful moments untold.
For life, she bequeathed once more,
This stillness of silence 'pon my wretched soul...

2007-07-27T22:01:00.000+05:30

Hopefully, at the end of two years it's gonna be - Jack of all trades, Master of Science.

2007-07-18T02:04:00.000+05:30

Dream on, little one...
And I shall too...
For the sandman, he calls
And the madman, he falls
Into chasms so deep
Of dreamless eternal sleep...

Confession 16

2007-06-12T03:04:00.000+05:30

Some memories linger on, most often intruding than adding to a sense of nostalgia or delight, while others almost imperceptibly flicker by giving one the impression of a candleflame in a mellow breeze. And of course, there are those that can't be explained.

I looked into his eyes with a grin on my face, maybe even with a twinge of scorn lacing the corner of my mouth, and said -- "Have I ever told you that your eyes are the colour of sewage water running in the big drain in my area...?"

"Yeah?!? Thanks man! Have I ever told you that your eyes are the colour of the hair under my armpits?"

I honestly didn't know that that would be one of the last times I ever saw those green eyes.

RIP.

And the memory flickered by...

CARGO CULT SCIENCE

2007-05-30T14:40:00.000+05:30

During the Middle Ages there were all kinds of crazy ideas, such as that a piece of rhinoceros horn would increase potency. Then a method was discovered for separating the ideas--which was to try one to see if it worked, and if it didn't work, to eliminate it. This method became organized, of course, into science. And it developed very well, so that we are now in the scientific age. It is such a scientific age, in fact that we have difficulty in understanding how witch doctors could ever have existed, when nothing that they proposed ever really worked--or very little of it did.

But even today I meet lots of people who sooner or later get me into a conversation about UFOS, or astrology, or some form of mysticism, expanded consciousness, new types of awareness, ESP, and so forth. And I've concluded that it's not a scientific world.

Most people believe so many wonderful things that I decided to investigate why they did. And what has been referred to as my curiosity for investigation has landed me in a difficulty where I found so much junk that I'm overwhelmed. First I started out by investigating various ideas of mysticism, and mystic experiences. I went into isolation tanks and got many hours of hallucinations, so I know something about that. Then I went to Esalen, which is a hotbed of this kind of thought (it's a wonderful place; you should go visit there). Then I became overwhelmed. I didn't realize how much there was.

At Esalen there are some large baths fed by hot springs situated on a ledge about thirty feet above the ocean. One of my most pleasurable experiences has been to sit in one of those baths and watch the waves crashing onto the rocky shore below, to gaze into the clear blue sky above, and to study a beautiful nude as she quietly appears and settles into the bath with me. One time I sat down in a bath where there was a beautiful girl sitting with a guy who didn't seem to know her. Right away I began thinking, "Gee! How am I gonna get started talking to this beautiful nude babe?"

I'm trying to figure out what to say, when the guy says to her, I'm, uh, studying massage. Could I practice on you?" "Sure," she says. They get out of the bath and she lies down on a massage table nearby. I think to myself, "What a nifty line! I can never think of anything like that!" He starts to rub her big toe. "I think I feel it, "he says. "I feel a kind of dent--is that the pituitary?" I blurt out, "You're a helluva long way from the pituitary, man!" They looked at me, horrified--I had blown my cover--and said, "It's reflexology!" I quickly closed my eyes and appeared to be meditating.

That's just an example of the kind of things that overwhelm me. I also looked into extrasensory perception and PSI phenomena, and the latest craze there was Uri Geller, a man who is supposed to be able to bend keys by rubbing them with his finger. So I went to his hotel room, on his invitation, to see a demonstration of both mindreading and bending keys. He didn't do any mindreading that succeeded; nobody can read my mind, I guess. And my boy held a key and Geller rubbed it, and nothing happened. Then he told us it works better under water, and so you can picture all of us standing in the bathroom with the water turned on and the key under it, and him rubbing the key with his finger. Nothing happened. So I was unable to investigate that phenomenon.

But then I began to think, what else is there that we believe? (And I thought then about the witch doctors, and how easy it would have been to cheek on them by noticing that nothing really worked.) So I found things that even more people believe, such as that we have some knowledge of how to educate. There are big schools of reading methods and mathematics methods, and so forth, but if you notice, you'll see the reading scores keep going down--or hardly going up in spite of the fact that we continually use these same people to improve the methods. There's a witch doctor remedy that doesn't work. It ought to be looked into; how do they know that their method should work? Another example is how to treat criminals. We obviously have made no progress--lots of theory, but no progress--in decreasing the amount of crime by the method that we use to handle criminals.

Yet these things are said to be scientific. We study them. And I think ordinary people with commonsense ideas are intimidated by this pseudoscience. A teacher who has some good idea of how to teach her children to read is forced by the school system to do it some other way--or is even fooled by the school system into thinking that her method is not necessarily a good one. Or a parent of bad boys, after disciplining them in one way or another, feels guilty for the rest of her life because she didn't do "the right thing," according to the experts.

So we really ought to look into theories that don't work, and science that isn't science.

I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are examples of what I would like to call cargo cult science. In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to imitate things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas--he's the controller--and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.

Now it behooves me, of course, to tell you what they're missing. But it would be just about as difficult to explain to the South Sea Islanders how they have to arrange things so that they get some wealth in their system. It is not something simple like telling them how to improve the shapes of the earphones. But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school--we never explicitly say what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty--a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid--not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked--to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can--if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong--to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.

In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.

The easiest way to explain this idea is to contrast it, for example, with advertising. Last night I heard that Wesson oil doesn't soak through food. Well, that's true. It's not dishonest; but the thing I'm talking about is not just a matter of not being dishonest, it's a matter of scientific integrity, which is another level. The fact that should be added to that advertising statement is that no oils soak through food, if operated at a certain temperature. If operated at another temperature, they all will--including Wesson oil. So it's the implication which has been conveyed, not the fact, which is true, and the difference is what we have to deal with.

We've learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were wrong or right. Nature's phenomena will agree or they'll disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven't tried to be very careful in this kind of work. And it's this type of integrity, this kind of care not to fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the research in cargo cult science.

A great deal of their difficulty is, of course, the difficulty of the subject and the inapplicability of the scientific method to the subject. Nevertheless it should be remarked that this is not the only difficulty. That's why the planes didn't land--but they don't land.

We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a little bit off, because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of the electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher.

Why didn't they discover that the new number was higher right away? It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of--this history--because it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something must be wrong--and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number closer to Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that. We've learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don't have that kind of a disease.

But this long history of learning how not to fool ourselves--of having utter scientific integrity--is, I'm sorry to say, something that we haven't specifically included in any particular course that I know of. We just hope you've caught on by osmosis.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.

I would like to add something that's not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you're talking as a scientist. I am not trying to tell you what to do about cheating on your wife, or fooling your girlfriend, or something like that, when you're not trying to be a scientist, but just trying to be an ordinary human being. We'll leave those problems up to you and your rabbi. I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you are maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.

For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of this work were. "Well," I said, "there aren't any." He said, "Yes, but then we won't get support for more research of this kind." I think that's kind of dishonest. If you're representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what you're doing--and if they don't want to support you under those circumstances, then that's their decision.

One example of the principle is this: If you've made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look good. We must publish both kinds of results.

I say that's also important in giving certain types of government advice. Supposing a senator asked you for advice about whether drilling a hole should be done in his state; and you decide it would be better in some other state. If you don't publish such a result, it seems to me you're not giving scientific advice. You're being used. If your answer happens to come out in the direction the government or the politicians like, they can use it as an argument in their favor; if it comes out the other way, they don't publish it at all. That's not giving scientific advice.

Other kinds of errors are more characteristic of poor science. When I was at Cornell, I often talked to the people in the psychology department. One of the students told me she wanted to do an experiment that went something like this--it had been found by others that under certain circumstances, X, rats did something, A. She was curious as to whether, if she changed the circumstances to Y, they would still do A. So her proposal was to do the experiment under circumstances Y and see if they still did A.

I explained to her that it was necessary first to repeat in her laboratory the experiment of the other person--to do it under condition X to see if she could also get result A, and then change to Y and see if A changed. Then she would know that the real difference was the thing she thought she had under control.

She was very delighted with this new idea, and went to her professor. And his reply was, no, you cannot do that, because the experiment has already been done and you would be wasting time. This was in about 1947 or so, and it seems to have been the general policy then to not try to repeat psychological experiments, but only to change the conditions and see what happens.

Nowadays there's a certain danger of the same thing happening, even in the famous (?) field of physics. I was shocked to hear of an experiment done at the big accelerator at the National Accelerator Laboratory, where a person used deuterium. In order to compare his heavy hydrogen results to what might happen with light hydrogen" he had to use data from someone else's experiment on light hydrogen, which was done on different apparatus. When asked why, he said it was because he couldn't get time on the program (because there's so little time and it's such expensive apparatus) to do the experiment with light hydrogen on this apparatus because there wouldn't be any new result. And so the men in charge of programs at NAL are so anxious for new results, in order to get more money to keep the thing going for public relations purposes, they are destroying--possibly--the value of the experiments themselves, which is the whole purpose of the thing. It is often hard for the experimenters there to complete their work as their scientific integrity demands.

All experiments in psychology are not of this type, however. For example, there have been many experiments running rats through all kinds of mazes, and so on--with little clear result. But in 1937 a man named Young did a very interesting one. He had a long corridor with doors all along one side where the rats came in, and doors along the other side where the food was. He wanted to see if he could train the rats to go in at the third door down from wherever he started them off. No. The rats went immediately to the door where the food had been the time before.

The question was, how did the rats know, because the corridor was so beautifully built and so uniform, that this was the same door as before? Obviously there was something about the door that was different from the other doors. So he painted the doors very carefully, arranging the textures on the faces of the doors exactly the same. Still the rats could tell. Then he thought maybe the rats were smelling the food, so he used chemicals to change the smell after each run. Still the rats could tell. Then he realized the rats might be able to tell by seeing the lights and the arrangement in the laboratory like any commonsense person. So he covered the corridor, and still the rats could tell. He finally found that they could tell by the way the floor sounded when they ran over it. And he could only fix that by putting his corridor in sand. So he covered one after another of all possible clues and finally was able to fool the rats so that they had to learn to go in the third door. If he relaxed any of his conditions, the rats could tell.

Now, from a scientific standpoint, that is an A-number-one experiment. That is the experiment that makes rat-running experiments sensible, because it uncovers the clues that the rat is really using--not what you think it's using. And that is the experiment that tells exactly what conditions you have to use in order to be careful and control everything in an experiment with rat-running.

I looked into the subsequent history of this research. The next experiment, and the one after that, never referred to Mr. Young. They never used any of his criteria of putting the corridor on sand, or being very careful. They just went right on running rats in the same old way, and paid no attention to the great discoveries of Mr. Young, and his papers are not referred to, because he didn't discover anything about the rats. In fact, he discovered all the things you have to do to discover something about rats. But not paying attention to experiments like that is a characteristic of cargo cult science.

Another example is the ESP experiments of Mr. Rhine, and other people. As various people have made criticisms--and they themselves have made criticisms of their own experiments--they improve the techniques so that the effects are smaller, and smaller, and smaller until they gradually disappear. All the parapsychologists are looking for some experiment that can be repeated--that you can do again and get the same effect--statistically, even. They run a million rats no, it's people this time they do a lot of things and get a certain statistical effect. Next time they try it they don't get it any more. And now you find a man saying that it is anirrelevant demand to expect a repeatable experiment. This is science?

This man also speaks about a new institution, in a talk in which he was resigning as Director of the Institute of Parapsychology. And, in telling people what to do next, he says that one of the things they have to do is be sure they only train students who have shown their ability to get PSI results to an acceptable extent--not to waste their time on those ambitious and interested students who get only chance results. It is very dangerous to have such a policy in teaching--to teach students only how to get certain results, rather than how to do an experiment with scientific integrity.

So I have just one wish for you--the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom.

-> Richard Feynman (1974)

Saturday Night Breezer

2007-05-18T23:39:00.000+05:30

I quite look forward to my saturday nights. For the last few years I have, without any definite purpose, cultivated this habit of chilling out with a beer, some chicken biryani and a movie. An excellent way of spending some time alone in the comfort of my room thinking thoughts that need ne'er be thought, of being someone I often am not, and of living.

Such moments are almost always surreptitiously seductive, like a temptress of tenebrous tenets. Great empires have been built and destroyed by clandestine seductions. Seductions of power, of thought, of vice. Oh, and of women. (And me? I'm just obsessed with biryani.) Always well-planned, well-executed... Not this time.

Today, I got this daft idea to switch beer for a breezer. So it was written, so it was done. As it so turned out, Breezer was a good choice, being the once-in-a-while type thing and all. Does not have the fattening effect of beer, but also doesn't have the smoothness, mellowness or fine taste that is associated with whisky.

Of all the movies, it had to be True Lies. And as Jamie Lee Curtis's breasts were bouncing all over my screen did I realize that today is a friday, and not a saturday.

Was I pissed, even if it was for a moment. Strangely happy and ethereal too... Sometimes, the stark nakedness of it all stares down with such terrible beauty. I have gotten used to the beauty of these seductions, to the extent of being dependent. I don't really mind...

Because, even if it's the ephemeral touch of a pseudo-saturday-night-breezer, I still love these seductions.

Velvet Love

2007-05-15T03:01:00.000+05:30

We all live lives within lives. Lives that wither away when the mask wears off, when the facade runs thin. This is a sanctuary that protects just one of them. An alter-ego to all those wasted years.

And all that is left is velvet love for a broken soul.

I Disappear

2007-04-27T23:19:00.000+05:30

Ocean pulls me close
And whispers in my ear
The destiny I've chose
All becoming clear

The currents have their say
The time is drawing near
Washes me away
Makes me disappear

And I descend from grace
In arms of undertow
I will take my place
In the great below

-> Trent Reznor

I feel the need to disappear.
Till the time my life turns out for the better...
This is the end, my beautiful friend.

Peace.

2007-04-27T11:05:00.000+05:30

666 MB of free disk space on K drive.

Partition of the beast?

Of bust ops...

2007-04-17T01:53:00.000+05:30

A coupla days ago, I, royally seated on my two wheeled noble steed (Maya, for those of you who have seen/known her), was exploring the mysterious areas in-and-around Hosur Road.

Bus Stop 1 proudly says: Lakkasandra

5 kms ahead, another bus stop captures my interest. The bus stops in between are of no consequence and can be safely ignored.

Bus Stop 2 proudly says: Jakkasandra

Now, we have 'akkasandra' in common, prefixed by an L and a J in that order. "Something is amiss." thought the well tuned research oriented scientific mind of the Doctor of Philosophy in Scatology, on his way back from the perilous journey.

Ergo, I postulate that there exists a certain area Kakkasandra.

And to prove me right, there was Forum mall on my right hand side. Yes, the loos in forum are amply used by various people heading to take a dump. Age, race, gender no bar. Just take a dump baar baar. Truly, Kakkasandra.

Of course, one might argue that the result arises from a very flawed application of Mathematical Induction and contorted logic theory.

Then again, they don't call me the Arcane Crapper for nothing.

2007-04-08T02:25:00.001+05:30

I have stopped growing
and I have stopped thinking
I must be dead
and this must be hell.
As the answer endeth, a question spawned thee to life.

BHAAALLLLS!

2007-04-07T22:54:00.000+05:30

Chunnu: Macha, what's the agenda for tomo...

AC, Harsha: BHAAALLLLS!

Chunnu: Wha...

AC, Harsha: BHAAALLLLS!

Chunnu: What the fuck is wrong with you gu...

AC, Harsha: BHAAALLLLS!

Chunnu: Assho...

AC, Harsha: BHAAALLLLS!

Chunnu: You guys have gone mad or wha...

AC, Harsha: BHAAALLLLS!

Chunnu: Fuck you man! I'm going ho...

AC, Harsha: BHAAALLLLS!

Chunnu: (Thoroughly irritated) Ok, BHAAAAA...

AC, Harsha: BHAAALLLLS!

Gone are the days when I could gang up and verbally ambush friends.

Bravity

2007-04-06T12:07:00.000+05:30

Bravity - A mysterious and fundamental force of nature wherein physical consciousness is attracted to what lies beneath a bra. Attractive force under normal conditions... Repulsion is exhibited in the case of those monstrous nigga mamas. Effects can be predicted by analyzing the curvature of spacetime around the source in what is now called the general theory of strip-it-ivity...

Note to myself: DO NOT put up dumb pj's on the blog.

2007-03-22T20:30:00.001+05:30

It's funny how my writings resurface long after I've written them. This one was written on 14.02.2005. And I didn't even know this one existed till the person it was with showed it to me.

Maiden Live!!!

2007-03-18T12:00:00.000+05:30

While you enjoyed your goody goody saturday evening, I saw Maiden perform live.

More comes up later.

2007-03-08T18:38:00.000+05:30

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Interesting stuff. Not really, but still.

Confession 14

2007-03-02T23:08:00.000+05:30

For the very first time, I feel I am wrong. About life and everything concievable.

Heading nowhere, wandering aimlessly.

Knowing what I want from life is not enough, it's knowing how to do it that makes all the difference. Lacking the means to go about getting what I wanted was never a serious handicap. Until now, that is.

Is it my fault?
Maybe.

I was told to dream big. I was promised happiness if I did this and this and that and that. I pulled strings, pushed people around, twisted contexts, made my way around, begun the climb to the top. What more could I do? Skulls and possibly lives crushed 'neath my feet. I admit, I made my mistakes. But I learnt my lessons too.

As the saying goes, the higher you are, the harder you fall.

Forgive me father, for I have sinned.

Till today evening, I never knew I could feel this lonely. It's an interesting feeling though. Maybe the mist had to cover all 'round. It's never unbearable. But it wasn't unexpected either.

There was no reassuring hand back then. Now, it's different. All that was between the two time-periods were fragile words. Words of influence that contort the mind. You never know when these words will shatter a life into sharp shards, like a thousand fragments of glass.

"The good that men do is oft interred with their bones, but the evil that men do lives on."
How true. Where has the warrior gone? Has he made way for the moral-less assassin who butchers innocence?

I love experimenting with all sorts of things. Today, it was ice-cream. And when I did speak out to place my order (Rum and Raisin, with orange sauce), the guy at the counter actually fell down laughing. A part of me would've initiated verbal warfare. But it's good that I didn't.

I'd hurt myself enough. I was in no mood to hurt anyone else today.

As I smoked my last installment for the day and sipped my half-tea, I saw a group of 6 deaf-and-dumb college students. They were sipping tea, smoking and wearing college-bags and living life as normally as they possibly could.

Handicaps can be overcome.

Yet I feel my identity fast dissolving, like Rum and Raisin ice-cream in orange sauce.

I will all my bitterness away.

Tonight

2007-02-27T05:13:00.000+05:30

I have seen a dream.
And every moment
away from the dream
is a lifetime spent
crossing
desolate oceans of suffering

where I leave the city lights
And kiss the bloody nights.
Tonight,
these saddest lines I write.

I have spent many lifetimes
And will spend many more.
I yearn for the distant shore,
But I'm afraid no more.

I fervently hope for hope
Cos' tonight it hurts the most.

The TDP

2007-02-19T05:26:00.001+05:30

Now, if you're a person who has studied in a college where Malayalis comprise of upto 85% of the student population and 99.9999% of the faculty (the remaining 0.0001% can be traced 4 generations back to the Malayali men who married from outside 'the state'. Remember that Kannadiga, Andhrite or perhaps Punjabi velliammachi who, for their children and grandchildren, altered their rassam, naatkoli or lassi/paneer butter masala recipes respectively to reflect the Malabari taste?), and War movies highly inspire you; then read on, my friend.

-Review by Razorblade Dreams

The TDP (The Ten Day Plan)

- A short story by Arcane Crapper.

Prologue: Not to be confused with the Telugu-Desam Party of Andhra Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh politics is neither relevant nor does it influence the story in any way.

Day 1 - Because of unemployment problems, ten Malayalis-from-Kerala (For obvious reasons, it will not be possible to henceforth refer to them as MfKer's) are forced to go to different parts of Pakistan, each possessing ten rupees in his pocket.

Day 2 - With lightning speed, efficiency and the highly ingenious Malayali business buddhi, tea shops are setup with highly limited resources (ten rupees!) multiplied into a considerable sum on Day 1 using sundry means; effectively shaming Hitler's blitzkrieg attacks and giving Harvard MBA's a run for their money.

Tea shops attract heavy crowds. Demand for cigarettes and tea far greater than supply.

Day 3 - Phone calls are exchanged between Malayalis in Pakistan, the Gulf and Kerala to address the demand-supply issue.

Day 4 - Malayalis from Kerala pour in and setup tea estates using raw material sourced from Munnar to maintain consistency in the end-product (Tea).

Marlboro, seeing opportunity and sensing huge financial gains, seeks entry into Pakistan's tobacco market. Large investments are made. Land is acquired, farms are setup. The finest quality Tobacco plants are sourced from various parts of the world (from Malayalis, of course) and transplanted on a massive scale to the farms in Pakistan.

The Malayali GM invites old booze-buddies in the Gulf to come down to Pakistan, help him manage Marlboro's financial interests and set up an investment portfolio for adequate asset management. Each of the Booze-buddies, in turn, gets each of his eight brothers-in-law' to Pakistan to help manage the 'company'.

Day 5 - Union of Malayali Tea Stall Owners (UMTSO) is formed. Malayali GM leaks sensitive information to UMTSO. UMTSO, with the help of a generous bribe in favour of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, use 'borrowed' military forces to take over the tobacco industry in a bloodless coup d'etat effectively usurping Marlboro's investments and kicking it out of Pakistan.

Day 6 - Union of Malayali Tea Stall Owners (UMTSO) is officially recognised as a Political union. Visa-less entry of Malayalis into Pakistan is approved.

Day 7 - Heavy business all over Pakistan continues on Day 7. Malayali tea-stall owners rake in tremendous amounts of money. Even more Malayalis from Kerala enter Pakistan to form a support system for the 'fledgling' Tea Stall industry. Duty-free Mundu import begins. (For the uninitiated, Mundu is the piece of clothing similar to a lungi, but white or off-white in colour. The part of the Mundu covering the left leg is usually held in the left hand so that a hairy left leg is revealed while the hairy right leg is off bounds and hence covered. Asymmetry in nature, perhaps?)

Union of Malayali Tea Stall Owners (UMTSO) formalizes and incepts the Organized Tea Stall Industry (OTSI), a corporation where each Tea-Stall owner is a shareholder. An IPO is launched.

Day 8 - Stock exchanges in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore see heavy buying because of OTSI's IPO. Ketan Parekh, specially flown in by R&AW to capitalize on the situation, engineers a stock-market scam causing heavy losses to all Pakistani corporations. OTSI now controls 98% of Pakistan's trade.

Day 9 - Union of Malayali Tea Stall Owners (UMTSO) becomes Central Malayali Workers Support Union CPI(M) - CMWSU CPI(M). Gen. Pervez Musharraf is deposed in another bloodless coup d'etat by CMWSU CPI(M) (which won over the militia with Twelve-Year FREE-Chai-Sutta incentives). A puppet government is installed.

Day 10 - CMWSU CPI(M) government cuts funding to terrorist organizations in entirety and offers Twelve-Year FREE-Chai-Sutta relief packages to surrendering terrorists. Terrorists, now deprived of money, 'see the truth'. Terror mechanism is completely dismantled, thus ending 18 years of insurgency. Pakistan officially becomes the 29th state of the Indian Union.

Epilogue: Kashmir valley has demilitarised and the conflict has finally ended. Hindus and Muslims no longer fight for territory. Thanks to the enterprising Malayali, Peace reigns, occasionally interrupted by lots of stamped-upon-cigarette-packs-or-cigarette-butts lying on the road and tea-glasses flying pell-mell during times of internal power struggles of the CMWSU CPI(M).

Economic warfare rocks.
JaiHind!

Of A Man

2007-02-12T04:50:00.000+05:30

I am a blogger. I read blogs, analyze content, stimulate my senses and put thoughts to words. Now here I was, ready to wind up my affairs for the day when I happened to chance across the word 'atmospherics' on Nandan's blog. A desire for further information led to clicking of hyperlinks that would unknowingly transport me across oceans of time and cyberspace in the hope of presenting a neutral picture of things that were. But what followed was a 7-hour epic journey tilting the scales of my mind towards pride, and prejudice.

War of 1947
War of 1965
War of 1971
Kargil (1999)

Siachen Conflict (1)
Siachen Conflict (2)

(I was reminded of Lata Mangeshkar's tribute to our heroes - Aye Mere Watan Ke Logon. These links are the untold tales of courage and heroism, of the lives that have been sacrificed to keep you and I - the ordinary citizen, safe.)

Siachen, a tactical nightmare, is the world's highest battleground. And Siachen and surrounding areas are exactly where the largest troop mobilizations since World War II have taken place; during the Indo-Pak Wars, of course.

Pakistan occupies two-fifths of Kashmir, a territory that was long acceded to India. I do not live in Kashmir, and I am very much ignorant of complex issues that exist there. But even a person whose IQ test returns negative scores can voice out a protest asking Pakistan to get the hell out of Kashmir simply because we have the balls to believe in secular ideology. And they don't. I shall now refrain from writing more about Pakistan's claim on Kashmir because my views are already biased, and quite possibly, distorted.

I shall now digress a bit.

Wikipedia took me places. And I spent a good amount of time reading about the CIA, KGB, MI6, Mossad and of course, our very own R&AW. (R&AW enjoys an undisclosed budget and is an organization free from political interference.) And as I read I vaguely traced the evolution of these, if you wish to call them that, agencies. I wonder if at some point of time, R&AW would evolve into an Indianized version of the CIA or KGB. Some say it is preferable that R&AW remain as unheard-of as possible because anonymity is an edge a secret service agency definitely needs.

It's funny how we acknowledge and glorify people who mostly do not deserve it. Shilpa Shetty won Big Brother? I don't give a fuck. Sanjay Dutt is fighting in court? I don't give a fuck either. Shilpa Shetty is hot and I love Munnabhai and Gandhigiri and all, but I still don't give a fuck.

Doubt might be percolating and you now might ask, whose picture is that? And how is it related to what he's rambling on about?

The gentleman in the picture, my friend, is Rameshwar Nath Kao.

He is the man responsible for setting up R&AW, and also the Intelligence 'System' of Ghana. A few days back I read an article by Shashi Tharoor where he recollected the honour of having spoken in honour of R.N. Kao at R&AW HQ. (The operatives prefer to call it R&AW as opposed to RAW.) He lamented that not many people knew who R.N. Kao was, or his contribution to India's development. It was then that I decided that one of these days, I would post something about him.

This is my tribute to this unsung hero, whose noble nature and determined efforts were responsible for kick-starting India's Intel. It is because of him that I can, without worrying about a bullet through my skull or a bomb on my roof, leisurely type this post sipping my supposedly organic tea.

Black

2007-02-09T23:54:00.001+05:30

Dreamed a dream
Not in White and Black.
Ain't technicolour either,
'Twas a Black within Black

A New Meridian in Create,
Subterranean, Visionless,
A mind of Black,
The Light of Day did Rape.

My corroded heart did sing
Them Black Sonnets
And my Soul become half-part
Of those Tenebrous Tenets

Black, is the color of nothing
Black, is the colour of everything
Black, is what the universe is
Black, is what pure is
Black, is her who blazed life in a void so sour
Black, is her who shimmered away into colour.

Courage

2007-02-08T23:36:00.001+05:30

I’d like to think everything is fine. But it’s not.
I don’t know what went wrong.
I really don’t.

Another crash. Fuck. And it’s not even 4 hours since I got my bike from the service centre. Thankfully, no damage to the bike except a broken rearview mirror.

Just when things were looking bright.

It’s as if fate's just stabbed you, and you know that fate will stab you many more times till you die of multiple stab wounds. And time is watching you, laughing as you slowly bleed to death and your soul is slipping beyond reality, into darkness. And there's that familiar hollow feel within.

Maybe experience distorts the concept of strength. Have I even lost the strength to tell fate – "Fuck you!", and move on refusing to give in? Once the process of giving in starts, it never stops.

I want to fight this battle, and resist giving in. But I’m lost, without a sense of direction. The blindness that seeps in is probably the deepest black. As days pass, this blackness shades deeper.

Statistically speaking, humans shouldn't exist. They're an anomaly. But we're here, and that's what matters.

It's that small sliver of chance I'm looking for.
And I live on in this twilight zone, searching for hope.

Maybe it’s my karma catching up to me.

Rocky Balboa [Movie Review 02]

2007-02-07T01:27:00.000+05:30

No intros needed as to what this movie's about. There's a feel to Rocky Balboa that today's movies normally lack. The storyline is simple - underdog fights the odds, the iron will wins. No complex gadgets, spies, sex, time-warps, asteroids or such. Rocky Balboa is the sixth and probably final part of the 'Rocky' series and continues on the storyline of Rocky 1-5.

Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done. Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that!

Go watch!

Parzania [Movie Review 01]

2007-02-07T00:57:00.000+05:30

Ever wondered what it's like to lose a loved one in the midst of riots? Not know whether they're alive or dead?

Parzania, the tale of a Parsi family trapped in the midst of the riots in Gujarat, is a must-watch. The gore and raw violence are intensely real and shakes the viewer thoroughly. However, the performance of the actors is not up to the mark; especially Naseeruddin Shah, who was a tad bit disappointing. But Parzania hits the heart, and hits hard imparting a very genuine 'feel' to the burning hatred. Half the theatre shedding tears was well justified. Although some facts appear biased, even distorted, the message delivered is crisp - NO to riots.

A Beautiful Day

2007-01-18T11:23:00.000+05:30

It turned out to be one of those very mornings.

You wake up on the right side of the bed, there's warm sunshine everywhere. Oh the joy of it all. You have a few tasks to do, and upon completion, immense satisfaction will be derived. Important tasks at that too...

And everything goes haywire.
Starting with the fact that you are late.
No smoke to start the day with. (I postulate that it could be the lack of a smoke which twists the fabric of space and time in a manner so as to cause the universe conspire against you and cause grevious hurt. It will be found 50 years down that Arcane Crapper was indeed right when he postulated thus, and unknowingly gave rise to Cigarettostatics.)
And traffic jams. Let me not even get started on that.

If you're familiar with the traffic jams in Bangalore, you will probably have realized (and it's surprising how most people have not) that you spend a considerable amount of time each day at traffic signals.

On an average, 2 minutes at each major junction and 5 minutes in the case of a traffic jam - assuming a daily travel estimate of 30 kms. Multiply by at least 25 junctions per day, of which 10 junctions are experiencing a jam during peak hour. Add it up, and you waste 80 minutes per day. A very reasonable average. Totals to 29200 minutes or roughly 20 days per year. So the next time you want an excuse, use this. Of course, it must be understood that I cannot even start discussing the tortures of all those poor IT professionals who spend hours on the road, simply because I am not one.

So there's this guy on a bike who I guess figured out how much of his life he wasted at traffic signals and broke a red only to have the Arcane Crapper crash into him.

Newton would have been proud. His laws, and the principle of conservation of momentum were so beautifully exemplified. I mean, come on, in this Einstein-crazed world, who even remembers Newton? Yes, I did him proud. In scientific language, it's called 'Collision of two POINT particles'.

A nice bike skid on a busy traffic intersection,
an indifferent cop who just wanted the affected parties to 'clear the area',
and the surprise of actually realizing that I knew the guy who I collided with,
a twisted handlebar,
a semi-broken footrest and
some yelling from dad (who coincidentally grounded the bike and in the process, the Arcane Crapper also. He will now be highly encouraged to explore alternative forms of transport such as the BMTC bus service which many people say, has highly improved.)

I guess this is life's way of keeping things in check. A little disaster here and there. Makes life complete. Fulfilling, almost. Some might even say - "Builds character." Yes, definitely one of those mornings where enlightenment flows free and unconstrained. Realizations follow.

I still cannot forget the sick thud that went through my ears when I fell. I shudder to think what would have happened had the helmet not been there.

Some stinging dettol and avoiding my grandmother later, here I am, in front of the screen staring at the beautiful (yeah right!) screen, listening to Children of Bodom riffing out Warheart, while fingers press the right keys to convey to my fellow human beings an important message.

Life is calling. Where are you?
:)

Buddhism and Science

2007-01-13T12:12:00.000+05:30

Awakening the Buddha in us: Buddhism and Science - Ajahn Brahmavamso

One of the most inspiring articles I've read in a long long time. A little more insight, and I just might find my true calling.

I

2007-01-13T02:04:00.000+05:30

I'm the havoc of the war, upon us you wreak
I'm the blood you forever spill on the streets
I'm the tears of the children you force to weep
And the foul smell of your carcass in defeat

I'm the evil shadow that sleeps
I'm the misdeed's fruit you reap
I'm the blasphemous omen you seek
And the wound you cut so deep

I'm the sin that slowly seeps
I'm the golden-hued whisky you drank neat
I'm your future so bleak
And your pathetic soul so weak

I'm the wolf, not the innocent lamb that bleats
I'm the timeless entity you refuse to greet
Open your eyes, I lie within.
It's time you and I, face-to-face we meet.

2007-01-12T00:01:00.000+05:30

2 years of Razorblade Dreams.

Happy Birthday. :)

Confession 13

2007-01-10T01:29:00.001+05:30

Had you stayed,
Would you have
Made me happy
As I was, once before?

Life was simple back then
Unlike the words you said.
Along with conversations
The dreams too, are dead.

Into the unknown,
Now that you've gone
Are you happy
As you were, once before?

A debt and a life
For me you left,
Along with realizations,
Induced
By bitter vodka of truth and time
And of memories kept.

Were you truly happy?
I guess not...
Deluded as I was,
Once before.

Motorcycle Diaries 4: Madurai.

2007-01-04T01:29:00.001+05:30

Lies. All lies. And so it started.

Signature whisky.

3 hours of knockout sleep. 20 missed calls. A hurried plock of a hurried departure.

A certain person in Madurai needed to be made happy.
200 kms solo. Non-stop. Ghat sections. 4 lane highway. Salem.
STD calls.
Fuming friend.
250 kms more, to Madurai.
Battery dead. (I found out a coupla hours back that it was caused by some leaked up acid which burnt the electrical contacts.)

Friend's hostel room.
His and his roomie's undies and Excalibur shirts - Foot mats.
Roomie got belted by me. Literally. (I think the bruises on his body from my leather belt still haven't disappeared.)
Dry ice burns.
TASMAC with the hostel gang. (TASMAC - Govt. approved drinking place. Cheap and shady.)

Signature whisky.

Midnight celebrations. Friend's birthday. New year celebrations in hostel.

Friend 'birthday bummed' by 50 guys.
Mixture of leftover fruit salad and crushed banana poured on him.
Friend drunk. Smears banana goo on everyone including me.
Gets kicked by me. (For those of you who have SEEN my shoes and the size, you might be able to estimate the pain caused.)
Riot and wild dancing by the hostelites.

Firecrackers in the ten foot bonfire. (Firecrackers - the ones that light up HUGE portions of the sky.)

Fire extinguisher!

Was forced to dance.
Hose pipe.
Water shot at everyone.
Specs falls and breaks. Bleh.
Retire to room.
Take out spare set of specs.
No sleep.
Friend comes much later.
Blood clots and marks (big ones) where I kicked him. (Had called him. Apparently, his bum and thighs are sore even now.)
Dropped plans of biking to Kanyakumari and decided to head back to B'lore to make another person happy.
The others rent a Scorpio, decide to head to a water park in Coimbatore.
Friends get worried about me deciding to night ride for 2.15 hours from 0400 to 0615. Decide to give me company till Dindigul. (70 kms from Madurai)

Tea stop before starting.
Scorpio up front. Me behind.
Blazing headlights of inconsiderate truckers.
Potholes I couldn't see.
One hour. 65 kms. Fastest yet for a night-ride.
Maya overtakes Scorpio while it's overtaking a truck. Left indicator.
Screech to halt. Friends extremely worried.

I raise my index and middle finger, place 'em in front of my mouth and wave it forward and backward.
Smoke.
3 awake. 4 asleep.
Friends full of awe.
Driver amazed with me.

Bharat Petroleum pump. Needed air. Saw a loo, with Hamam soap. Chucked the air and headed to plock.
BP guy gets all pissed and exclaims - 30 mins (In Tamil.)
I replied - Sorry. Urgent!
Saw some amazing sights on my way back.
Fell asleep while riding.
For a few seconds I guess. Otherwise I woulda been dead.
Weird thoughts in my head.
Voices yelling random things in my head. In Tamil. (The Tamil Nadu influence, I guess.)
Slept in a highway hotel for 30 mins.

Lunch at Krishnagiri - Khuska, Gravy, 2 Half-boiled. Very intelligent girl at the cash counter. Handling cash with such efficiency. My god. Would have been no more than 8 years old.
Last leg of the ride.
Krishnagiri-Hosur-Bangalore.

Krishnagiri to Hosur is a rider's dream. Winding high-speed curves, awesome road, breathtaking scenery - mountains, fields, grass, slopes. Go there. You'll know what I'm talking about. Remember. Krishnagiri-Hosur, not the other way.
54 kms in half an hour. 120-125 kmph for the full half an hour. Steep downward road, almost touched 130.
Got back.
Made another person happy.

Signature whisky.
(No drunken driving either folks.)
No sleep.
1000 kms.
800 kms solo.
36 hours.
Again, one hell of a time.

Motorcycle Diaries 3: Hampi

2006-12-27T00:06:00.000+05:30

Tangled's post.
Wabby's post.

John Travolta in Hampi - Exclusive Photograph! Don't Miss!!

---

Wabb: Should I get the shaving kit? I have spare disposable razors.
Crap: Naaaah. More luggage space. I'm too lazy to pack it anyways. And I'm figuring that there must be a barber in Hospet.
Wabb: (Stops dead in his tracks) All right.

---

Four adventurous brats set out for the highway at 0545 hours on a chilly saturday morning. Conversations of a previous night, no sleep, Wabby-made coffee mugful, and a quick Navy Cut started this road trip. Tangled ought to have had a broken nose for reasons best left unsaid, but much to my chagrin, she didn't.

Wabb: "I hate milk powder."
Crap: "Why?"
Wabb: "Cos' it's surrogate milk. Fucking milk powder. Don't even know where it comes from. All you know is it's white!"

Oooh yeh, the highweh!

(And the road becomes my bride)
...And the road becomes my bride
I have stripped of all but pride
So in her I do confide
And she keeps me satisfied
Gives me all I need

...And with dust in throat I crave
Only knowledge will I save
To the game you stay a slave
Rover, wanderer
Nomad, vagabond
Call me what you will

But I'll take my time anywhere
Free to speak my mind anywhere
And I'll redefine anywhere
Anywhere I may roam
Where I lay my head is home

"Fair is foul and foul is fair,
Hover through the fog and filth air."

Shakespeare mama didn't know I'd be ripping his lines but the fog was amazingly... um... foggy and dense. Had to stop every 2 or 3 minutes to wipe the condensed water from my glasses. The balls were frozen. Oh yes they were. They had to be thawed out; pit-stop, with the help of tea and Navy Cut.

40 kms in 3 hours. Terrible time. But the lost souls found salvation in a coffee day where three of the four journey(wo)men laid their troubled and perhaps overfilled bowels to rest. Coffee, breakfast of chocolate doughnut and some-veg-roll-type-thing, and one small incident with the water-spray-gun-in-the-loo later, off they went. Photos were snapped. Cigarettes were smoked. Naariyal paanis were had. Horn was blown in morse code. After much ado, the adventurers shifted from a 6 lane national highway to a 2 lane state highway (with a few potholes, that caused much hurt to the region surrounding the orally antipodal orifices of the 4 crusaders) and headed straight for Hospet.

Tungabhadra!

Hospet greeted us with no accomodation. But Tangled, the enterprising one , rose to the occasion and got us accomodation to rest our butts in. Tired. Weary. Proceeded for dinner. Masala papad would become the staple diet of the Wabb and the Crap.

---

Crap: When do you open?
Enthusiastic Barber: Seven. But I'll come at six-thirty if you want. When can I expect you?
Crap: (Looks at Wabb) I know! I know! Don't say it!!!
Wabb: We should have got the shaving kit.

---

Orion after dinner. Tangled and Crap in total awe of the crystal clear night sky. Discussion followed.

Tangled was supposed to wake all of us up at 0430 so that the group could watch the sun rise over the ruins of Hampi. Excuses and failed plans later, We left at around 1000 hrs instead of 0600. Mohammedan tomb en route.

---

Crap: (Looks at Wabb) I know! I know! Don't say it!!!
Wabb: Y'know, we could've gone to the barber's shop.

---

A few excellent pics of ruins, a somewhat-total waste of a government approved guide, a little dabbling in history, coconut water. And oh yes, smokes.

Crap: Y'know, every time I take a step, I am walking on lands where so many battles have taken place and gallons of blood have been spilled.(Points to a stone slab on the ground, walks and stands on that very spot.) For all you know, the slab of stone I'm standing on might have been graced by the feet of, say, Krishna Deva Raya or probably even Tenali Raman at some point of time. I'm literally walking over a thousand-and-odd years of history.
Tangled: Never thought of it that way. OHMYGOD!!!
Crap: Strangely, I don't seem to be fascinated by it. (Shrugs shoulders and continues walking.)

Tungabhadra.

A 100 kilometre ride round the Tungabhadra after a gratifying lunch (there's a reason Masala Papad was the staple diet.) Mountains, landscapes and photos. Wabby's first night-highway-ride and my second.

A Thunderbird on low beam, a Pulsar on high beam. Side by side. High visibility. Stars above. Fell into the infinity of the night sky. Orion, again.

(And the earth becomes my throne)
...And the earth becomes my throne
I adapt to the unknown
Under wandering stars I've grown
By myself but not alone
I ask no one

...And my ties are severed clean
The less I have the more I gain
Off the beaten path I reign
Rover wanderer
Nomad vagabond
Call me what you will

But I'll take my time anywhere
I'm free to speak my mind anywhere
And I'll never mind anywhere
Anywhere I may roam
Where I lay my head is home

Tired, weary, Hospet again. Dinner (Yes, Masala Papad again. This time, with whisky!) Whisky seemed to ease the throbbing headaches of the Wabb and Crap to a mellow steady headache. Sleep.

Wake up. Check-out. Highway at 0500 hrs. Night-ride. Weave in and out of lines of trucks.

Tungabhadra.

But I'll take my time anywhere
I'm free to speak my mind
And I'll take my find anywhere
Anywhere I may roam
Where I lay my head is home

But I'll take my time anywhere
Free to speak my mind anywhere
And I'll redefine anywhere
Anywhere I may roam
Where I lay my head is home

Ride ride ride. Screech to halt at a dhaba on the highway. Breakfast - 4 coffees. 3 plates of Egg rice, 2 double-omelettes, 1 half-boiled. Cigarettes. Fields facing us. Mountains yonder. And a peeping sun rising from in between the faraway mountains amidst hues of burning hell and blue seawater.
Some moments are just priceless, timeless.

---

Crap: (Looks at Wabb) I know! I know! Don't say it!!!
Wabb: Shave?

---

More stops. More tea. Maybe coffee too. More kilometres under the belt. One more stop on the highway, at a coffee day.

Carved upon my stone
My body lies, but still I roam

Wherever I may roam [x4]
Wherever I may wander, wander, wander
Wherever I may roam [x4]

Mission accomplished.
Rode our way through history.
Created history. (Fossilized piss, remember?)
900 kms of sheer freedom.
Four people.
Three bloggers.
Two bikes.
One hell of a time.

PS: Egg rice for breakfast at a remote dhaba 320 kms away, anyone?

Conversations with the Josh Machine

2006-12-14T02:54:00.000+05:30

AC: ***farts***
Nikhil: Boy! you sure have a lot of gas stuffed in your intestines.. :P
AC: And you have too little. that's why the exchange is taking place. :))
Nikhil: Hehe.
Nikhil: Exchange? There was no exchange there. It was mere transfer. :))
AC: I fart. Gas gets diffused. Apply inverse square law. And so much amount enters your respiratory system.
Nikhil: Thru the internet. Online diffusion. Nice concept. But I'll let it pass. :D
AC: Who's talking online diffusion? I'm talking 'bout distance from here to your place. Thus you have accurate numbers.
Nikhil: Won't work.
AC: Why not?
Nikhil: It's just a probability of those molecules entering my system. It won't really travel till here, not until a looong time later.
AC: Prove it. Chances are you can't prove it. ;)
Nikhil: The odds are that it will enter my system only when I get there. But then, it still is a far possibility. And by that time, it won't be smelly anyway. :)
AC: Chances are that the farts I have farted for the past 5-6 years would have ALREADY entered your system. =))
Nikhil: Yes. chances. Everything is only chance. :D
AC: Probability is very high.
Nikhil: Absolutely wrong. Because the molecules don't travel laterally towards my location, there is a high probability of people around you having inhaled those things.
AC: What if that's only partly true? What if they travel through higher dimensions? Then they can reach you in a fraction of a second. Heh!
Nikhil: Yes...that's only "WHAT IF".
AC: Maybe it's already happening.
Nikhil: Maybe, what if, etc - English language equivalent for mathematical term. Probability. :D
AC: Agreed.
Nikhil: You have no other choice. :)
AC: The crux of the matter is, no matter what, the probability is NEVER zero.
Nikhil: Yep. That's also agreed. And I will spare you from saying it - "I have no other choice."
AC: Result: My fart exists in your body, no matter what the concentration, no matter how minuscule a quantity.
AC: Thus proved. :))
Nikhil: Still not proved. Just probabalized.
AC: Proved. Because the probability will never be zero, just infinitesimally small.
AC: Ever heard of Poincaré cycles?
Nikhil: Nope. Enlighten me.
AC: A Poincaré cycle is basically a probability cycle, and it says that the probability of an event happening is never zero. It's just infinitesimally small. If you wait long enough, probability of an event happening becomes one and thus the desired event occurs.
Nikhil: well, so when you are talking about molecules and and stuff, what happens if the probability is so small that it constitutes something less that one molecule?
AC: Your question is incorrect. For one molecule, it is infinitesimally small.
Nikhil: Ok.
AC: But dude we are talking about 10^24 molecules. So probability increases dramatically.
Nikhil: But then, we also have to account for distance - 9000 miles (x 1.6 KM) and then for the movement of molecules.
AC: Exactly my point. Inverse square law. Diffusion and all accounted for.
AC: Hyok, we ARE jobless.
Nikhil: No. It is a mark of genius to eke out a brainy convo out of a seemingly mindless subject about farts.
AC: We are geniuses then. Just that the world doesn't recognize us.
Nikhil: B-)
Nikhil: So congratulations. Both of us are genii.
AC: I wonder if i can actually publish a paper on this.
Nikhil: Dude! That'd be super!! It will be a fucking rage.
AC: This OUGHT to go up on your blog. I was thinking in terms of my blog but since you're having writer's block... :-)
Nikhil: My blog. Hmm yeah. But too long a convo. Let me edit some stuff out and try.

---

But I ended up posting this. Peace be with all you confused souls.

Kingdom Of Heaven

2006-12-09T11:58:00.000+05:30

With a held breath,
I entered
The promised land
Of dreams and relief

And there
Did achieve salvation,
Bliss untold,
Of a dream long gone.
Plop plop was the sound.
Some might say
Worse than system of a down

Mankind knoweth not
The pleasures
Of transcendence
For it is there
That ideas are born
Thoughts are grown
Moulded into reality known

Fear not, my friend
For your time shall come
That be the heavenly kingdom
The kingdom of kakka come.

In memory of Tangled who killed herself as soon as the last line was composed on GoogleTalk.
R.I.P.

Twilight Zone

2006-12-08T13:42:00.000+05:30

"Twilight. I have always loved twilight."
"Me too." she said.
"There's something magical about twilight."
"I know. I've felt that way a little too often." she said, as she ran her finger around his earlobe. Much to her satisfaction, he winced, and she wore a smug look of satisfaction, almost delight, on her face.

As the setting sun shone golden-orange on the bed of salt-water, he looked deep into those blue eyes, eyes that could almost resemble a dragon's in fierceness.

She guessed his thoughts correctly, and told him - "And your eyes are intense. Bottomless. No beginning or end. Like that of a vacuous abyss."

"Vacuous abyss?!? Sounds gothic."
"So are you, my love." said she, bemused.
"What's so gothic about me?"
"Imagery, my love."

He smiled, but said nothing though he felt he ought to have. She crossed her palms with sand, and blew the sand away; "Mi amour..." she whispered to the winds.

"Make my night." he whispered in her ear as she blushed a shade of crimson.

They say that the human mind has a very strong sense of smell. It is connected to intuition. Almost, perhaps. Bah, I digress. Some sights and smells are enough to drive a man crazy. Water on naked skin. Or as a song goes, "Black lace on sweat". A woman's love is one of those very things.

---

I woke with a start, gasping for breath, watching hues of hell hem down to harmony. Recurring dreams. Or visions of truth? Heh. I glanced around to check if she'd been woken up. To my relief, she was still sleeping so peacefully. Childlike, almost.

I lifted the white linen off, tucked her properly and walked round the room a couple of times. On opening the doors of that particular balcony, was something I loved much, because of the effect it had on a person standing there. It would always seem that the person was balancing himself on the very top of a tall cathedral spire, crouching with the ease of a skilled Ninja warrior: facing the elements, stalking his prey in perfect silence and waiting to jump off into the sky.

The wind on my body and a fine spray of the facing sea on my eyes. And the night sky.

Billions of hot balls of gas burning billions of miles away.

I can ride any road, go anywhere; but no highway can take me down the inner catacombs of my mind. While I did that- you, my love, were sleeping.

I looked back at her, smiled a smile within, pulled a cigarette out of the pack, ran my thumb down the rotary wheel that lights the flame of a lighter, and lit my stick of enlightenment. A deep drag and an exhalation followed.

This smoke, this sensuous night, this love, how much of it is real? Instruments of the universe to condition our minds to be blind to the real. Deception. Maya, as the ancients would say.

Brahman.
Or reality.
One of the many words to describe the cosmic truth.

Who are you, my love? Rather, what are you? What am I? A few molecules bunched up to form a shape. With a bit of consciousness, perhaps.

I want to look through the eyes of the cosmos.
I want to be the universe.

A heart stirred, and so did the body connected to the heart. She was waking up, confused in her sleep, as to why the comforting hand was not beside her.

She'll wake up soon.

I stared into the sky, saw the constellations fade away into light as the sun rose and I flicked the butt away, filling me with a warmth I've come to know and love.

There's something magical about twilight.
Twilight. I have always loved twilight.

2006-12-05T20:37:00.000+05:30

16th - 17th - 18th

Road trip to Hampi.

One Royal Enfield. Two bloggers. Three days.

Anyone interested?

Addendum : Bike Trip To Coorg a.k.a Kodagu Valley

2006-12-02T01:56:00.000+05:30

"As I ride through the valley of the beans of coffee, I fear no tea, for you are with me, the cigarette and the lighter, they comfort me..."

Sharon

2006-11-30T21:07:00.000+05:30

At some point of time in my meaningless life I hope to accomplish the financially challenging task of purchasing, and then reading this book. Though the reviews say it doesn't have inside information, I'd still give it a try. Cos' this book describes a political icon of current times who has managed to capture my admiration.

2006-11-27T20:50:00.002+05:30

As sucky as the first 14 hours of yesterday were,
the remaining 10 quite made up for it.

The Balance.
Adequate.

Sweet chariot. Black forest. Surprise birthday cake.

The Best.
Aphrodisiac.

Airport road. Chicken. Hyderabadi.

The Biryani.
Angelic.

Coffee day, 90 kms away from home. Mandya.
Cafe frappe. Thick.

The Blend.
Amorous.

First ever solo night-ride.
Biking through Bangalore-Mysore highway.
115 kmph. Speed.

The Burst.
Adrenaline.

A lot of happiness, from and to the two who made my day.

Lacrimal?

2006-11-27T20:14:00.000+05:30

Finch sms'd...

Tiny droplet
taut
with surface tension.
Shapely,
by the
grace of grief
joy
meaning
or some such vague
human
sensibility.

Simply,
Pointless lacrimal exercise.

Yours truly, replied...

A little drip of emotion
A little blip in slow motion
Moving,
Accelerating under
Gravity.
Of perhaps a calamity?
Or of joy or meaning.
Surface tension, broke
When teardrop, little plip it bore...

That time,
Equity, bright it shone...
Beauty ungrown
Of thoughts unknown.
Under my eyes,
Lachrymal fluid flowed.

Truly, Pointless
This verbal exercise.

Things

2006-11-27T20:13:00.001+05:30

Pieces of writing that were posted as comments.

---

Blacken your senses
Shun these tenses
Faded memories
Blind to thee.
Perhaps in glee
You chose not to see
Yet you asked,
To be... or not to be?

Posted as a comment on Methi's blog.

---

A time
Many places
Vision saw
The meaning
That dances.

Flick-Shimmer-Burn-Switch-Extinguish.

A lovely poem,
it's grandeur known.
Sapiens follow alone
To graveyards unknown
Perhaps, of smokes bygone?
All dust, no bone.

Posted as a comment on Moonstruck's blog.

2006-11-26T11:54:00.000+05:30

Hey...oooh...
Sheets of empty canvas, untouched sheets of clay
Were laid spread out before me as her body once did
All five horizons revolved around her soul
As the earth to the sun
Now the air I tasted and breathed has taken a turn

Ooh, and all I taught her was everything
Ooh, I know she gave me all that she wore

And now my bitter hands chafe beneath the clouds
Of what was everything?
Oh, the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything...

I take a walk outside
I'm surrounded by some kids at play
I can feel their laughter, so why do I sear
Oh, and twisted thoughts that spin round my head

I'm spinning, oh, I'm spinning
How quick the sun can, drop away

And now my bitter hands cradle broken glass
Of what was everything?
All the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything...

All the love gone bad turned my world to black
Tattooed all I see, all that I am, all I'll ever be...yeah...

Uh huh...uh huh...ooh...
I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a star
In somebody else's sky, but why
Why, why can't it be, why can't it be mine?

-> Pearl Jam - Black

---

Morbid. Depressed. Fucked up.
Not the way I wanted my life to turn out.
And 21 years of life on Earth is too long.
I don't want to live anymore.

Happy(?) Birthday to me.

Complex

2006-11-19T13:59:00.000+05:30

Homo Sapiens Sapiens abbr. Humanity likes keeping things simple. Can't handle complexities, these primeval apes. Bum scratching monkeys, who can hardly differentiate Madonna from Nuclear Fusion, now desire to differentiate the 'Real World' from the 'Imaginary World'. (Morpheus mama would've been prouuud. Extremely!)

Real World Imaginary World, what's the fucking difference, one might ask.

Well waddaya know, there's none.

(The Wachowski Brothers, for god knows what reason, didn't seem to share my views and as a consequence gave the world 'The Matrix Trilogy' which amongst others did wonders at the box office. Guess you can indeed mint money by disagreeing with me. Now there's a revelation!)

On a more serious note, mankind has fallen prey to a reductionist approach to life wherein objects, concepts and even philosophies themselves are understood by breaking them down into constituent parts. The drawback is that one cannot understand, or for that matter even see the way these constituent units interact with each other to make the whole (of the universe or world or whatever) that we exist in.

Similarly, the concept of differentiating the real world from the imaginary world is an exercise to understand two aspects of human existence without considering them as a tightly integrated unit. The real world and the imaginary world are the two constituents of a better world, a more meaningful existence. Two sides of the same coin... One can believe it possible to view everything as something maybe not that simple, but as something seamlessly integrated. A greater concept.

Just the way two numbers - one real, one imaginary, make a complex number.

2006-11-16T14:32:00.000+05:30

caged.
like a tiger
in a zoo.
waiting
impatiently.
waiting
to escape.

wisdom
of the ancestors
lost.
buried
'neath the dust.

tiger.
pride
infected.
courage
decapacitated.
spirit
killed.

a longing.
a home forgotten.
wisdom of
ancestors
in their riddle.

"How would you capture a wild animal without killing it's spirit?"
"By being the Earth."

I'm coming.
I'm coming
home.

2006-11-16T13:28:00.000+05:30

Benz.
Hate in your eyes.
The indifference.
Friend - an old man.
I remember.
He sells.

Twas' a cloudy evening. The same, the same, very different, far too different. A drop no bigger than an ant fell, from the heavens, almost gracefully into a puddle nearby shooting out tiny droplets as crystal white merged into brown. Gloom was in the air. A street dog two lanes away howled.

Storm?
Hope. Believe. Relieve.
Smile.
Stretch.
Reach out.
Too late.
You're gone.
So are we.
Too late.
Too late.

2006-11-14T23:46:00.000+05:30

A blow to your ego is a blowjob to mine.

Sigh... Joblessness

2006-11-11T11:46:00.000+05:30

Jai Crapper Baba: yaaaawn
Jai Crapper Baba: bloggers are dead
Muleshwari Devi: ess maga?
Jai Crapper Baba: blog meets are history
Jai Crapper Baba: and i died today
Muleshwari Devi: ess maga.
Jai Crapper Baba: my spirit is chatting with you
Jai Crapper Baba: in case you didn't know, spirits can hack into yahoo and use messenger
Muleshwari Devi: yayy =D
Jai Crapper Baba: and spirits will have the audacity to ask you if you're still alive
Muleshwari Devi: im not friend
Jai Crapper Baba: really?
Jai Crapper Baba: i did a spirit search in the realm of spirits
Jai Crapper Baba: and it turned up with no results
Jai Crapper Baba: i guess it's the fault of this goddamn windows search application
Jai Crapper Baba: never gives results when needed
Muleshwari Devi: =P
Jai Crapper Baba: sigh
Jai Crapper Baba: i'm going to put this up on my blog
Jai Crapper Baba: nothing else to post

2006-11-08T01:42:00.000+05:30

The pleasures are all mine.

If Yeats Was Drunk

2006-11-08T01:08:00.000+05:30

He'd have written -

"I being poor have only my beers
And I have spread my beers under your feet
Tread softly
Because you tread on my beers..."

PS : Pronounce beers as "Bee-rs" and not as the regular "Bee-yers"

2006-10-29T20:33:00.000+05:30

One fine winter solstice, he met his bittersweet end.

Motorcycle Diaries 2: Coorg

2006-10-19T15:18:00.000+05:30

Wake alone in the hills
With the wind in your face
It feels good to be proud
And be free and be a race

That is part of a clan
And to live on highlands
And the air that you breathe
So pure and so clean

Six years ago, two carbon-based human life-forms stumbled across an album by a not-so-obscure British rock band. The album, widely believed to be quite mediocre, held a special place in the hearts and the minds of these then high-school kids. There was something about the song. Something that one could not explain. Something. Something special. But how would they know that what they felt was in fact longing? Too young, too immature, too easily influenced. Time stands testimony. Come 2001, Rio de Janeiro would rock to the tune of this song and 250,000 bodies would sway. That's a different story altogether. But these words are a tale of Medieval Scotland.

When alone on the hills
With the wind in your hair
With a longing to feel
Just to be free

Not alone with a dream
Just a want to be free
With a need to belong
I am a clansman...

Soon, the words were forgotten. The Shadows cast their veil and hid these dreams of belonging, of highlands under cobwebs of time. But little do the shadows know that, at times, they can be denied purpose. All it takes is a vacuum cleaner, sometimes even a broom in the loving hands of a housekeeper will suffice.

Freedom... [x4]

As the lead singer said - "This song is about freedom. It should be something familiar to you all, but which sometimes is not."

The sheer genius of this epoch-making statement just inundates the mind when least expected. The time was ripe, like a mango waiting to be plucked from a tree which had all to offer and wanted nothing in return. Then, exactly one week back, fate played a strange game.

And I know what I want
When the timing is right
And I'll take what is mine
I am the clansman

The words and the dream sprung alive!

Freedom... [x4]

Wonder and mountain air are synonymous. Very. Our protagonists, the two carbon-based human life-forms set out on a lone bike on even lonelier roads. Tea at 0530 hours coupled, inexorably, with a king between the index and the middle.

2006-09-27T02:27:00.000+05:30

There are those who live.
There are those who love.
And there are also those who drive stakes through their own hearts, not knowing what else to do.

And The Hand That Rocked The Cradle...

2006-08-30T01:10:00.000+05:30

And the hand that rocked the cradle
Stood no more in earthshaking faith
Uplifted were not, us downtrodden ones
Without love, we died
Long before we ever reached the cradle.

Lost in the grave of a new world
One of war, and disorder
Twisted were the words of faith
And those lies that they engraved in we.

Surreptitiously blasphemed my existence
And brought nought but my impending demise
Way before my once innocent face
Peeped out of the cradle.

I spewed a few words, and so did you
Where've we gone? Where's everyone lost?
Dilemma in meaning, that little baby never found
And died. Died long fuckin' before it could ever
Reach the cradle of chaos and emotion.

Chaos is meaningful, Yes...
Probably that's why,
While you rot in your macabre world
I'll peacefully exist on the other side.

Trial Room

2006-08-26T02:07:00.000+05:30

Have you ever stood between two facing mirrors in a trial room? It's an infinite series of images. So is thought. The trick to escape the neverending loop is to walk out of the trial room.

PS : I've just discovered that Chuth is Anagram of Hutch.

Metaphor

2006-08-17T23:47:00.000+05:30

One day her heart will
Melt by the side of a fire.
They told her so,
But believed she never
Cos' that day, she'll wake up
To the love of three words
And a soul in metaphor.

From within and without
Transformed
Cold, dead eyes
Long gone...
A new life begotten
From a horrid moan
Two eyes, so blue and
So new, yet so old...

Many years on
She went by the side
Of a human to break out
I wonder why she
Never before did emote
Cos' that day her
Melted heart, up it woke
To the love of three words
And a metaphored soul.

2006-08-07T23:35:00.000+05:30

42
The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

666
The Question to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Thorn Within

2006-08-05T01:19:00.000+05:30

There a beast lurketh
Beneath your conscious

With a longing I was born
And you, I shall scorn

There a feast awaiteth
Within your subconscious

And I shalt drive deeper
The pain into your being
As you have unto mine.

Don't Tread On Me

2006-07-31T00:51:00.000+05:30

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

- W.B. Yeats (1865–1939)
"He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven"
from the Collected Works of W.B. Yeats

Maya II

2006-06-14T15:03:00.000+05:30

This post is long long overdue. It's titled Maya II... for a reason. In a way, there is no connection to my previous post 'Maya', nevertheless is intimately connected. God bless them little intimate dualities.

Some memories are vivid, rich in detail. Not blurry. And some memories are blurry. Hazy, fading... Like the colour on a t-shirt which turns a shade lighter, progressing into white with every wash undergone in the ruthless hands of the autocratic maid who refuses to treat t-shirts with care. But now, maids are a different issue altogether.

15th of August, 2003. India's 56th Independence Day. My first. Bro-in-law pushes off to the US leaving you in my care. I couldn't ride you, let alone any bike, for nuts. But that was back then. So many firsts... The first thrill of an acceleration, the first crash (and the accompanying transcendental experience, the first 'getting-caught-without-driving-license-cos-you're-below-eighteen' and 'getting-let-off-by-lady-inspector-who-thought-i-was-on-a-date-cos-a-girl-was-sitting-behind', the first escape, the first broken red signal, the first crush, the first relationship (Hon, with you of course), the first relationship with a girl, endless trips, endless excesses of the engine, the first wheelie (with Succubus), the first awkward wheelie with possibilities of huge damage (with thedevilskid). Those days...

You would stand covered in rainwater, mud and slime while resting on that sidestand to give a distinct impression of an all-weather-enduring-entity as I looked towards you from a window of a nearby building to see flashes of white reflect off the black paint and the glittering chrome.

I'd turn my back and remember my breath and your exhaust, the cold forcing both into traces of white fog. Those moments, those moments... A rueful smile would always escape my lips.

Now you're telling me you're not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You were so good with words
And at keeping things vague

'Cause I need some of that vagueness now
It's all come back too clearly, yes, I love you dearly
And if you're offering me diamonds and rust, I've already paid

But we both know what memories can bring
They bring Diamonds and Rust
Yes we both know what memories can bring
They bring Diamonds and Rust

-> Judas Priest - Diamonds And Rust

Darling, I've had some of the best times of my life with you. I'm sorry for all the times I've excessed you. You roared, you purred. You were docile, you were arrogant, you were almost anything a man could ever ask for. A boy, whom you turned into a man. I'll always remember you for the happiness you've given me during those times when even those closest to my heart were never there to support me. But in the end, I had to let go, cos' you were never mine. You weren't mine, baby. We've honeymooned for 20000 kms over two and a half years. We've spent our time. And our parting was inevitable. It hurt me. You meant more to me than any living being.

To a man, an intimate relationship of machine, meat and flesh will always mean more, in certain ways, than a relationship of bone and flesh. I can't thank you enough. It's with a heavy heart that I had to move on. Some part of you still lives on in me. And you can never deny that. You can never deny that honey...

I don't believe that anybody feels
The way I do about you now

And all the roads we have to walk are winding
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding
There are many things that I would
Like to say to you
But I don't know how

-> Oasis - Wonderwall

The coldness of the steel and a parting in the misty morning silence.
And now, you're but a shadow of yourself. Of us.

I called you 'Maya' for this very reason. So magical, so real, yet so illusory. So deceptive, so illustrative, yet... so beautiful. A name that always meant a lot to me...

We Hindus believe that once a person dies, the soul ascends to higher planes, where it becomes one with the eternal consciousness, and that very soul, though sometimes enriched with wisdom, returns back to earth to fulfill a purpose. You lost your soul, became soulless, when we parted. A month later you emerged, as one with a stronger heart... a 180 cc mill with 16 and half horses. And it's your soul that has now entered the new one. I will call her Maya, again, in your memory, and because you now are the soul of the new Maya. Resurrected. To be united with me. Again, and again, and again, and to forever be mine.

The Flu's Gone.

2006-06-14T15:01:00.000+05:30

Funny.

I seem to be back in action already despite the thousands of not-so-well-wishes courtesy Blur and Sita and others...

A good doc, some bleh medicines, soup and sleep forces the flu
to bid adieu.

Oh well... Back to the grind.

Juggernaut

2006-05-27T23:58:00.000+05:30

There is a child
There is the child
Pale skin and mellow words
Cold eyes, sometimes mild.

Dreams of a child
Dreams buried
Deep in a mine
No longer a damn
About the past
Or the hourglass.
You know why?

Cos' that child
Suffers an existence, of
Too many thin lines
To many parallels.

'Cos that child
He never cries
He never smiles...
The juggernaut in him,
Long ago, died.

Speed 97

2006-05-23T21:13:00.001+05:30

Speed-97 is what makes the engine smooth, even at 100 KMPH. Felt extremely nice buttt... no other difference at all. No point in filling it. Absolutely none. I could've bought one extra litre of unleaded in lieu of 5 litres of 97-octane. So much for my experiments. Bigger hydrocarbons kathe. What a semi-piss-off!

No need for sympathy, it's only for the weak
On bleeding knees I accept my fate...

A little anger, a little hurt and a bike along Bangalore-Mysore Highway is a very interesting combination. Especially when the clean shaved rider had eleven rupees and fifty paise in his wallet, 5 litres of speed-97 in the fuel tank and 3 litres in reserve, AND a Need For Speed. Thirty kilometres on the highway, a coffee and a cigarette, and a return trip in the rain. A feeling, indescribable and immeasurable. Ultra awesome. And far-off words echoing in your head - "So... Do you think you can tell blue skies from pain, Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?"

Am I forced to have any regret?
I've become the lie, beautiful and free...

A drift through scenes of yellow fields of crops, clear blue skies in metamorphosis, smoothly into a blue sky with white clouds and then to a sky with black clouds. Pleasant warm wind, and on the way back, cool wind and raindrops on my unhelmeted face. Rain. After a smoke. Extremely smooth and quick 100 KMPH accelerations. Toying with, harassing and then overtaking pissed off lorry drivers.

Shake the silence and hear what it says
The tranquil pride that become the lie...

I would want to live that way forever. But I can't. Cos' I need the ordinary, the mundane and boring, and the anger, the betrayal, the hurt to enjoy my deepest comforts. It's nice to live out your own version of your most cherished songs in reality.

At least once in a while. :)

Reserved

2006-05-22T21:26:00.000+05:30

Well...
So...
50(possibly more)% seats for SC/ST and OBC guys.
And we are expected not to go abroad. Brain drain kathe. Yeah right...
So this is what the land of opportunities has become.
Fuckin' communalism and sectarian, caste based politics.
Arjun Singh and the Govt. can KISS MY ARSE.
Saale jhaat ke pakode...

Confession 8

2006-05-18T21:49:00.000+05:30

One fine morning, you'll wake up on the right side of the bed and you'll ask me why I killed two innocent little children?

The little smiling girl holding a bouquet of red roses, whose smile melted even the coldest of hearts. And that little chubby boy with a zeal that who could move, and bring to life even the coldest of stars.

I would say, I never killed them. Those two children are just lost in time.

I'd watch you lean on my shoulder with a sad smile, the way you always ought to, and I would caress your hair, the way I always had to.

Time would freeze, I'd stop in my tracks and I would wonder - Whatever happened to the two little children in us?

That's one reason why I do not like to go back in time. I need to make confessions. Lots of them. And I hate confessing.

Actually, I did kill them.

Rainmaker

2006-05-13T02:25:00.000+05:30

High above on a bright blue sky, them Eagles did soar,
Watching us mortals wander for grace.
High above on a dark black sky, the thunder clouds did roar,
Watching us mortals, this semi-divine, frail human race.

Dancing consciousness, a Higher Power's mirth
Thine Images and Words, Divine Giver-and-Taker, My Maker
A preciousness, cleansing God's Green Earth
'twas a gift from you, a gift from the Rainmaker.

He stood beneath, looked up, danced with joy.
The rain, she played with him; was demure, sometimes coy.
Hands raised to the sky, said he - "Take away my pain..."
While Man-made objects stood by, impermeable to rain...

The others they stood, sheltered from reality,
So near yet so far away; In their minds, rain was a far cry.
Caught in Matters of Importance, illusory perceptivity,
So far away, yet so near; False notions, faces wry.

Dancing consciousness, a Higher Power's mirth
Thine Images and Words, Divine Giver-and-Taker, My Maker
A preciousness, cleansing God's Green Earth
'twas a gift from you, a gift from the Rainmaker.

The rain, she twirled his affections 'round her little finger,
Of the rain, he seemed, nay, was indeed a harbinger.
His vision, a horizon of water dispersed orange-red on a canvas of gold
His emotions she laid on a bed with hers, orange-red in a heart of gold.

Note : 1st pic taken by me. That's why it's not that good. Second pic, not taken by me. I repeat, not taken by me. Please do not credit me for that wonderful pic which I shamelessly ripped off the net.

2006-05-13T00:54:00.000+05:30

Scene One : Hosur Road, 2.08 PM

I'm passing by college, riding my bike at 30 KMPH, that too in 5th gear. Cos' I'm lazy. Yes, my bike can go 30 KMPH in 5th gear just a little above idling speed. Enter new character. Kannadiga Mawali type "Asshole", henceforth referred to as just "Asshole", rips on his HH Splendour and overtakes me. Almost collides during the process.

(NOTE : Words in quotes like "Asshole" must be read in Dr. Evil style... For eg. The "Laaayser". Got it?)

Me being the cocky guy that I am, decide that this guy's not gonna escape me. Downshift 3 gears, shift posterior a couple of inches behind, lock knees on the fuel tank, incline my back from straight backed to a 45 degree thing and throttle away. (Abe, I positively hate it when smart-asses in underpowered bicycle-equivalents try to show me off.) I'm still in 2nd gear, closing in on "asshole". Speed : 40 KMPH. Upshift to 3rd gear. "Asshole" gets frantic, starts throttling all the way down. Diary circle flyover starts. Your hero "Arcane Crapper" is very much in 3rd gear and effortlessly reaches 60 KMPH and is now side-by-side with "Asshole". "Asshole" gets extremely frantic.

"Asshole" can't do a thing. He accepts defeat as he sees "Arcane Crapper" shift into 4th and then 5th and reach a speed of 90 KMPH. "Arcane Crapper" faded away into the concrete horizon.

End of 'Fairy Bike Tale'. Why 'Fairy Bike Tale', you may ask. That's cos my bike has a fairing. That's why.

End of Scene One. 2.09 PM.

---

Scene 2 : The Spoof. Remembrance of 10.05.2006.

Me (10.05.2006 2:47:35 Am) : When IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII was a child, I had a beaverrrr,
Sita (10.05.2006 2:47:43 Am) : oh
Me (10.05.2006 2:47:44 Am) : I turned to look but it was gone
Sita (10.05.2006 2:47:49 Am) : and u didnt feed it?
Sita (10.05.2006 2:48:06 Am) : and why are u listening to floyd at three in the morning
Me (10.05.2006 2:48:06 Am) : It will not bite my finger aany-more
Sita (10.05.2006 2:48:21 Am) : and making fun of it also
Me (10.05.2006 2:48:26 Am) : I.... have become... comfortably dumb
Me (10.05.2006 2:48:33 Am) : ROTFL
Sita (10.05.2006 2:49:08 Am) : and, your honour, he rests his case.

---

Scene 3 : Bedroom. 9.15 PM

There's something strangely romantic, and a sense of belonging that a person feels when he sits in his bedroom. There's something magical about the walls (maybe walls can hear things). There's a sense of comfort knowing that you're alone and yet... never alone. Supernatural stuff? Nope. The Internet. And the books, oh yes. Amazing things. Just looking at a pile of books stacked, arranged or strewn all over. Just looking. Is enough. To make a person beam with pride.

There's something soothing, almost heavenly, as I look at my fingers moving across the keyboard, at times slow, sometimes fast and parallely listen to my subwoofer thumping out beats of Priest's 'A Touch Of Evil'... 101 posts on my blog including this and I can only look back at the person I was 100 posts back. And a very unreal smile bursts open. I would not even be writing about retrospective thoughts if I had something better to ruminate upon. If I could see the moon out of my window, it'd just complete something almost perfect. But the clouds... Woe.

100th Post. But What The Fuck...

2006-05-04T12:10:00.000+05:30

I stared blankly into the screen, and watched BitTorrent's progress bar notch up 0.1% by 0.1%. I've put up a movie for download. So much downloaded, yet so little. Winamp blares music into my ears, as it always does.

Engine's not tuned well,
One mess after another,
Taste of Biryani Lost,
Perfection destroyed,
Tranquillity evaporated.
Buried the hatchet.
Buried, cos' of the hatchet.
Pulverized by a trebuchet.
This poetry is fuckall
Oh, how it appalls...
And all I can say,
Is Balls.

The addiction is the first and last wall of defense.
Insanity and words come some-fuckin-where in between.
This fortified wall of defense is now one really thin line. Hair breadth probably.
I wanna close my eyes to this inferno, one without visible flames, yet burn the same.
This time, no words in between. Fuck it all.
Chaos.

I knew.
I've lost.
I knew. Definitely.
It's such a shame.
I've lost.
As I always had to.

Chocolate And Fire

2006-04-19T00:07:00.000+05:30

Blurry visions of butterflies and rainbows, smoothly morphing into visions of violence. Violence and Fire. Violence in Fire. A distant acrid smell of tyres burning, too?

An 8 year old child, cute, innocent, clever, bright blue eyes, buries a bar of chocolate in the ground. Pats the mound of mud once she's done "hiding" her chocolate. She smiles a happy contented smile. Just the way an 8 year old can. Her white frock jingles hidden tunes, dances with glee and exudes an innocence. Just the way an 8 year old's frock can. She turns around, screams. Screams a terrible scream. Just the way an 8 year old can.

Her white frock catches fire. She writhes in agony. Agony that is capable of washing away innocence, happiness, the characteristic "8 year old's" smile and memories of buried chocolate. All gone. In a flash. In a possible eternity.

The 'morrow cometh, and the fires have subsided. There is a body which once held life, once had bright blue eyes, once clothed by a white frock, now covered in 3rd degree fire burns, now lifeless. No smile, possibly a frown. Charred remains, lying on top of some buried chocolate. Sadly, just the way an 8 year old can...

---

A curse on those senseless ones. Ones who burn mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and innocent little children in the name of Religion, Death of an idol, and to subvert others for their own perverted pleasures. In memory of all those who had to give up their futures and their lives. Maybe these harbingers of doom should see the world for how delightfully happy it is. Just the way an 8 year old can...

Kingdom

2006-04-18T22:42:00.000+05:30

His body ached with the scars of the bloody battle. But in the end, it was he had won after all. The skies poured a cleansing rain. Extinguished the fires. Washed away the evils inflicted by the scourge.

He saw the smiles and the pride on the faces of his friends, his elders and his lover. And he climbed onto that majestic rock. That rock, standing upon the the end-point of which, everything he could see till the horizon was his Kingdom. A Kingdom, rightfully his, now reclaimed from a tyrant.

His every step reeked with a majestic nature as his body inched forward to the very end of this monumental rock. And he roared. He roared a roar that instilled happiness and pride in recognizing their true King. A King who remembered who he was. His Father's Son and the One True King. King Simba on Pride Rock, destined to continue the Circle of Life.

---

I positively LOVE the ending of LION KING. One helluva movie!!!

Strange Brew 2

2006-04-11T13:27:00.000+05:30

Finch wrote :

Strange Brew

The Crapper commented :

Strange Brew 2

Tightly sealed
vintage

Fermenting
Brewing

Raw barley
Single Malt

Memories of two kids
playing Hopscotch.
A whiff...
of butterscotch

Quoth a distant scorn
- "Bottle not"?
A delicate balance
Ingredients well mixed.

Seal the bottle.
Hold the wine.
Sand becomes pearl
Pearl becomes thine.

A divine whiff
Solitude of a Kiss
Wet, bittersweet
Moments in clarity

Older, the better.
Insolation
Through delicate a fetter.

Tightly sealed
Truly, this vintage...

One-Liners

2006-04-11T13:17:00.000+05:30

True love is like a pillow you can hug when you're in trouble, you can cry on when you're in pain and you can embrace when you're happy. So when you need true love, spend Rs.50/- and Buy a Pillow.

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

If it were truly the thought that counted, more women would be pregnant.

If they don't have Chocolate in Heaven, I ain't going.

God made Grass, Man made Booze. Whom do you trust?

Home is where the Television is.

God is Real, unless declared Integer.

Two wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make a left.

Alcohol and Calculus don't mix. Never Drink and Derive.

I don't have a License to Kill. I have a Learner's Permit.

No trees were killed in the creation of this blog post. However, many electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

Maya

2006-03-25T14:24:00.000+05:30

An endeavour at soul-searching led me to these excerpts from the ubiquitous entity we call the Internet...

---

In Devi Bhagwata Purana, it is mentioned that once Narada asked Vishnu about the secret nature of Maya (Illusion).

“What is Maya?” asked Narada.

“The world is my Maya. He who accepts this, realizes me,” said Vishnu.

“Before I explain, will you fetch me some water?” requested the Lord pointing to a river.

Narada did as he was told. But on his way back, he saw a beautiful woman. Smitten by her beauty, he begged the woman to marry him. She agreed.

Narada built a house for his wife on the banks of the river. She bore him many children. Loved by his wife, adored by his sons and daughters, Narada forgot all about his mission to fetch water for Vishnu.

In time, Narada’s children had children of their own. Surrounded by his grandchildren, Narada felt happy and secure. Nothing could go wrong.

Suddenly, dark clouds enveloped the sky. There was thunder, lightning, and rain. The river overflowed, broke its banks and washed away Narada’s house, drowning everyone he loved, everything he possessed. Narada himself was swept away by the river.

“Help, help. Somebody please help me,” he cried. Vishnu immediately stretched out his hand and pulled Narada out of the water.

Back in Vaikuntha, Vishnu asked, “Where is my water?”

“How can you be so remorseless? How can you ask me for water when I have lost my entire family?”

Vishnu smiled. “Calm down, Narada. Tell me, where did your family come from? From Me. I am the only reality, the only entity in the cosmos that is eternal and unchanging. Everything else is an illusion – a mirage, constantly slipping out of one’s grasp.”

“You, my greatest devotee, knew that. Yet, enchanted by the pleasures of worldly life, you forgot all about me. You deluded yourself into believing that your world and your life were all that mattered and nothing else was of any consequence. As per your perspective, the material world was infallible, invulnerable, perfect. That is Maya.”

---

The Supreme Self (or Ultimate Reality) who is Pure Consciousness perceived Himself by Selfhood (i.e. Existence with "I"-Conciousness). He became endowed with the name "I". From that arose the basis of difference.

Bhagavad Gita, Ch.13, verse 26: "Wherever a being is born, whether unmoving or moving, know thou Arjuna, that it is from the union between the field and the knower of the field".

(Purusha or Shiva or Spirit is the knower of the field, Prakriti or Shakti (Maya) or Matter is the field)

---

Fuck. I guess this is this what I am. An Illusion arising from a fluctuation in the unison of a field and it's knower.
Notwithstanding the above, I still hate illusions.

2006-03-23T00:31:00.000+05:30

Years pass by
Years passed by.
Ego, verge of breaking
Monotony upsurging
Chimneys and Oil
Chimneys and Oil
Laughter - frail. Nay, fragile. Very...

A crack in the carpenter's skill
A pack of wolves in the kill
The grapes were just too sour
For us foxes to make them ours
Broken home, Broken hearts
Now no more cream tarts
But bread crumbs drowned in muddy paths

Moon, once my shield
Now mocking creation's seeds...
Webbed thoughts
And fragile minds.
Sometimes Smothering.
Sometimes Asphyxiating.

Who was he to choose
Terms of a raw deal he
Was supposed to anyway lose?
Chimneys and Oil
Chimneys and Oil
Forsooth, that's him...
Just a thin line, in a face of black soot.

Fifty Eight Hundred

2006-03-19T13:22:00.000+05:30

A furtive thought
steals a glance
smiles, entices with the eyes
smiles again...
Laughs like a babbling brook.
stream of consciousness
continuous, like a newly born river
unbroken, forceful
Never wandering, unmeandering.
A cry for freedom was answered
Eight legs and many pairs of eyes
Found peace.
At 5800 feet.