Random Thoughts

Death, and all his friends

2011-03-10T01:30:00.002+05:30

“Oh shut UP, I’m serious! Goddamnit, could you for once have an objective dialogue on death without thinking I’m suicidal?” High time, he thought to himself. He’d tried the hardest ever to keep his cool.

It was slightly overcast, with faint signs of rain. It was the kind of weather where you didn’t want it to rain, for that would simply end the beauty of expectation. A book of short stories by R.K. Narayan lay on the table, half open.

“I just care about you, Dan. You scare the living crap outta me with these questions of yours, what the hell do you mean ‘right time to die’? Go catch some sleep!”

Dan had had enough of this. He had to go on talking about it. Someone would understand! “I mean come on, think about it. Attempted suicide is a crime. What justification is there to that? Once you’re an adult, why shouldn’t you be given a choice as to when you wish to terminate your life? Isn’t that messed up, on a scarily fundamental level? They talk about choice in everything else, they talk about freedom like you can buy it in dollar stores, and you don’t have the freedom to choose the point where your life ends? How does that make sense in your world?”

“And shouldn’t there be an optimum time to die? All these critical path theories of the world, they should apply to qualitative things too, right? Wasn’t there some lemma saying most things can be quantized?” He felt a lot lighter. The words were flowing now. He could feel the creases in his thought progression easing out. “Think about it this way. If you die a child, it’s still a bad thing. If you stay old for too long, you become a burden. Is there any time you can die without causing too much pain, or for that matter, without triggering a few sighs of relief around you?”

She looked at him her eyes misty with concern. “Look, Daniel. I have a very high regard for your thought process, you know that. Objective thinking is something you’re so adept at you should really read more about it and write about it too. But this is not a very happy road to go on, love. Think of happier things, will you?”

He broke once more. What was this world where a simple discussion couldn’t be had without assuming emotional involvement? He whacked the book off the table in exasperation.

“Daniel, thoughts don’t just come like that. It’s one of the many things you taught me yourself, it’s a process, remember? I know what you’ve read recently and it’s not coming from there – Douglas Adams and Narayan aren’t exactly promoters of a dystopian world.”

“So what you’re basically trying to tell me”, he was fuming now, “is that there cannot be had a discussion on death, or anything for that matter, without having some sort of attachment to it? Without the discussion stemming from personal feelings? Everyone who’s ever thought of death has killed themselves? Do you even hear yourself? What’s the sodding use of educating yourself so much, then?”

“Stop pretending. Honestly. You’re ALL the bloody same. All of you. Don’t care if you want, but don’t give me the goddamn HOPE that you do. I’m okay with living in a place where nobody cares, just don’t give me the delusions!”

She really was confused. Agreed, Daniel was quite the over-thinker, but it usually stuck to that, didn’t it? He was fiercely objective, and it never strayed to his emotions. This anger business wasn’t him, it wasn’t him at all.

“Where is all this coming from Danny? What are we even talking about? What does caring about you have anything to do with this? You really think I’m pretending to care about you? I’m sorry, but I really don’t think you understand me at all. What the fuck should I do to show that I really love you?”

Then it suddenly dawned upon Daniel. The sheer frivolity of having this discussion at all came and whacked him in the face.

“Yes I read too much into stuff I learn about. Yes, I make unnecessary conclusions, what’s your point?”

How on earth could he put that feeling into words? That place where being treasured was a happy feeling, how could he take someone there without them actually feeling it? How could he possibly tell her this, without offending her feelings? How could he tell her that if she did want to truly love him, she should try and understand him, not just tell him how much she loves him. How could he tell her that this objective discussion was so close to his heart, and her not understanding it hurt him more than so many things?

And all of a sudden, it all became clear. The world didn’t want to understand, it just wanted to go with the flow. The world didn’t want to truly love, it just wanted to lie and fool everyone else that it does. It doesn’t matter if you love, it just matters if you show you do. THIS was the flaw; this was the reason why he could never understand the world. The only thing that he knew, at that moment, is that he could never come to peace with others, and more importantly, with himself. This endless cycle would ensure that he could never be loved. He was alone. The only way out was giving up. The only way was helping the world in its cause to destroy him.

“Yeah, you’re right. I really should stop overanalyzing. Why the hell did I start thinking of death anyway! I’m sorry, I won’t talk about this kinda stuff again. Come, let’s go get coffee.”

Rainy Day, Dream Away

2011-02-21T08:47:00.002+05:30

Note: This was written days after the Winter 2009 edition of Waves culminated. This was the festival where my batch was in charge, the festival that was known the most intimately by us. Ironically, life caught on and I never posted it.

The rains pelt on. The blues spread their reign all over. Something that’s been more than half a year in the making just burns itself out in three days. Like one of those quick burning cigarettes my hostel-mates tell me about.

To outsiders, it seemed like a feather in the hat of the art of organization. Yet, I find myself wondering where it all went. Waves is just a blur of damage control and crisis management. Somehow, we rescheduled and negotiated and fought our way through and made it work. And just when our worries seemed behind us, the Gods decided to have one little last laugh, and decided to make it rain. Needless to say, people went to town with jokes about Parikrama and “But it Rained”. When there’s been no sleep and substantial amounts of stress, the best bouts of humour come forth. And what better time for those scenarios than Waves! The best one I heard was an overworked coordinator saying “Parikrama’s so old, they should be called Parikra-grandma”.

In any case, the last thing I want to do is discuss shortcomings here, so I’ll leave it at that. Waves was a grand success overall, and that's all that matters.

I spent quite a while musing about weather changes and whether what we’d learnt of the timing of the arrivals of the “rainy season” and “summer” will probably not be what we teach our kids. Hell, we might not even have the same seasons. Seasons change, they say. Not so funny now is it, you metaphoring elitists.

Nonetheless, in my little world, the rains are always welcome. They slow down your thoughts, they slow down life. Somehow, they give you a license to stand and stare, to step back and look at the big picture. To stand underneath the walkway you take every day and pause to look at the leaves soaking in every bit of the rain. To sit with friends, old and new, and sip that lovely tea that warms you up. To learn to tread carefully, lest you slip in the soggy paths.

Someday, if I write a book, it’ll feature the rain. In all its glory and magnificence, in all its ability to make humans step out of the rat race, temporarily nevertheless, and examine the world for what it is.

Blossoms Blooming

2011-02-09T08:47:00.001+05:30

We’re already a month into the New Year. I read Sugar Magnolia’s bundle-of-sunshine post here, ushering in February with much joy and exuberance and it really did make my day. It’s difficult to see the bright side of things when you’re locked up in an office with practically nobody to talk to and with that messed up work culture your mommy warned you about. The big daddy of a typical core manufacturing firm. Where your card swapping in-out time holds infinitely more importance than the actual work you put in. Where you’re allowed to spend as much time “roaming around on the shopfloor” trying to “learn things”, but when you plug in a pair of earphones to drown out distractions so you can finish your work much faster, oh you are so dead with those looks you’ll get.

Every manufacturing firm has production line down-time, and every single goddamn one of them wants to reduce it. Obviously. And who best to blame for this than the maintenance guys, who’re supposed to wrap up their maintenance duties in infinitesimal amounts of time. The best part is, the boys over at maintenance couldn’t care less. They’ve gotten their minds attuned to the fact that the blokes over at production simply hate their guts and just don’t get it. The end result of this is free-floating hostility all over the place.

With the severe lack of documentation, it’s terribly difficult to actually figure out why this is happening. Enter stage left the intern, who has no regular duty and is meant for bitch-work in general. Give him a pile of 30-odd log books with utterly illegible scribbling of what are allegedly downtime reports, and tell him to sort out the data, channel-wise. Give it a fancy name, and make him document the data in the form of a soft-copy.

What the above rant essentially means is, that I’ve been entering illegible data onto an excel sheet for the last two weeks or so. 8 hours a day. My eyes, neck and other assorted body parts hurt. Which makes it rather difficult for me to see the bright, lustrous, colour-laced season of love that is February.

But what helped, was that post. It hit me in that one split-second, that however relatively dark my world has become, there’s still an insanely beautiful world out there. And the fact that it exists is enough to get me grinning through the day.

Thank you, Sugar Magnolia!

Bookish Knowledge

2011-01-10T00:40:00.001+05:30

Not too long ago, I decided to finally pick up Kafka. After enduring enough jibes and accusations ranging from elitist to you’re-planning-your-own-funeral, I finally finished a couple of novels of his. Needless to say, the latter of the said accusations seemed a much quicker reality in the beginning.

The good part about how I read Kafka was, I ended up reading in spurts. A good number of days went in between me reading every 100 odd pages, which meant enough time to ruminate over what I’d read. What ensued was that every time I was neck deep in reading one of his novels or short stories, I’d realize a new facet of the man’s work, and a new reason to like it. Every few days, I could tell people how much I love Kafka’s stuff for a whole different reason. The only common factor was that I loved Kafka’s stuff.

And finally, I realized that this is how truly good books function. If you look at it from a very macro level, this is how it generally is. Books that have been loved and adored by fans whose number goes into six or seven digits always have the external appearance of being liked only for one particular reason. . But if you think about it even a little bit and consider the enormity of the cross-section of people reading these books, this cannot possibly be true. In reality, though, they appeal to different senses and different areas of the brain of people reading it. The reason why they all seem to be appreciated for only one reason, are critics.

Critics are in no way intellectuals functioning on a higher plane, figuring out the true intention of the author behind writing the book. Hell, only the author can tell you the true intention. The only difference between book critics and us normal people is that they can express their views, which somehow leads us all to believe that they’ve understood the true essence of the book better than the common man. Not only is this very untrue, it also gives a very convenient opinion that people can flock towards and conform to. I do not claim to be an observer in this; I have been guilty many-a-times of being biased in a particular direction towards a book after reading a review. Of course, most publishers love the critics for this for boosts in sales and whatnot, but I digress.

The bottom line is, a book is meant to lend perspective. Irrespective of the genre, it is meant to add some value to who you are. Whatever the hell you do, don’t let anybody tell you what and how much value you want a book to add to your life. Because that is direct reflection of every moment you’ve passed by. I’m sure I’ve been beaten to the punch in this realization by countless people and that it’s common knowledge. But it’s a whole different understanding when it springs out on you and shows you that the culmination of your thought process has been what many before have said. And at the risk of sounding very clichéd and asking for jokes to be made in my general direction, let yourself decide how you want to enrich your life, not someone else!

Mixed Jazz

2010-12-03T01:13:00.001+05:30

Jazz is an absolute thought-swirler. I’d written pick-up agent, but that’s not really it. It just gets your machinery going, gets the cogs moving. The best way to go is to mix your jazz a lot. Too much Coltrane and your head hurts from trying to figure out progressions. Too much Shirley Bassey and you end up being too grinny to get anything good done. And too much Dave Brubeck and you just plainly fall asleep.

Certain revelations just make the whole day worth it.

Graphics

2010-11-17T04:05:00.001+05:30

Call me an amateur engineering student, but I absolutely LOVE graphic designers' work! I've seen a few blogs and portfolios over the last few months and few people come close to the levels of creativity those folk inspire. Everything is just so aesthetically correct, precisely in the space it's supposed to be in and just right.

Maybe it's the fact that engineering's forced me to shove my creativity in a little cupboard under an irrelevant staircase in my head (The fact that there's an upcoming Harry Potter movie is clearly affecting my allusions) but I really believe these guys get to really push the limits of thinking, instead of pushing the limits of sheer brain volume. Let's not even go to those dirty tracks of talking about modifications in engineering curricula, but I'm just saying, it ain't fair.

Damn all of you. And damn you too, Bing. You know precisely why.

PS - I must remember to keep a notebook.

It starts

2010-10-14T01:03:00.002+05:30

Inauguration. They had to play the Love Story/Viva La Vida mashup SOMEWHERE. Just didn't expect it to be at the end of the mime. The effect when those swooning violin notes of Viva la Vida hit, however, was just as expected. The song was made, it seems, for this occasion. When all that Waves was would boil down to this edition.

The world isn't ending anytime soon, no, but the world as I know it, is. It had to be something fitting.

And this was just the icing on the cake. The real deal was the music society guys, with Aseem, Sigtia, Anmol, Chinmay and Navjyot performing a medley to be remembered for years after.

The next few days will be disillusioning, to say the least.

Culmination

2010-10-13T02:48:00.001+05:30

It all began in the first week of college when we just heard of it. It was nothing more than a mere legend, something that'd happened in the past and was far, far away. Then Big Break 2007 happened, and that life-changing video happened. The video that decided what I'd give a major part of my college life to. Slowly things picked up, with the erstwhile Sponz club inductions, getting to know senior folk and finally deciding to take the plunge in the festival. Ever since, everything became too speedy to notice as discrete events. They're all a proverbial blur.

Cut to today. Day Zero of Waves 2010 - Viva La Vida. The culmination of the efforts of students across seven batches, brought to you by people filled upto the ears with enthusiasm.

The more verbose I make this, the less important it will be for me.

Maybe I'll finally be able to feel nostalgic without guilt.

Of bulls

2010-10-03T03:20:00.000+05:30

"Expecting life to treat you well just because you're a good person is like expecting a bull not to charge at you just because you're vegetarian."

-Unknown

Tangled Up In Blue, I owe you one for this.

Inclined to believe

2010-09-17T02:10:00.003+05:30

John Mayer on a rainy midnight with a Journalism exam on the next day with an inkling of a cold and a hope that the inkling stays as what it is now - an inkling.

Someone wise recently said, "When you're unsettled and disturbed, it often takes a sudden burst of chaos to knock you right in place." Wise words indeed. The calm before the storm is overrated, it's the age of the calm after the storm. After the dust settles and all that.

Some moments are so beautifully ordinary in their essence, one must write about them. A chance of diving into the abyss. Being caught by the scruff of your neck and saved by intangible constants of life. Average on the surface, a tad too average on closer scrutiny.

Vague posts that make very less sense to all but yourself. The best part is, that they make a different kind of sense to everyone else. Realizations dawning everywhere, happier world.

Am I living it right?

Why, why Georgia, why?

Stepping Stones

2010-07-18T18:20:00.002+05:30

There was once a young boy, adventurous and steadfast. He had a simplistic life, with ups and downs, albeit more than the average kid of his age, but remarkably average nonetheless.

And suddenly, there was only failure, failure all 'round. Nothing really seemed to work out, nothing fell into place. No endeavour successful, no achievement added to the roster. He couldn't see clearly, it was all haze and confusion.

But he'd heard failures are stepping stones to success. He'd heard it all gets better and at the end of a long and eventful life, it only matters what your journey has been. Life was the exact opposite of a state function, he was told. It all falls into place, it all becomes okay, as long as you've garnered happiness along the way! That was how things work, he'd heard!

Sadly, it wasn't.

The finer things

2010-04-29T19:23:00.003+05:30

(Note: This was written in the library while around a 100 people were studying around me. It's more of a spillage of thoughts, not a carefully crafted article)

I recently happened to read a rather intriguing article in the editorial page of the Economic Times. Does the name Joshua Bell ring a bell? (heh) He's a grammy-winning violinist who once decided to conduct a social experiment on being prodded by a Washington Post columnist. He donned a t-shirt, a baseball cap, a pair of rugged jeans and played his best compositions outside a Washington metro station, as one of those buskers by on the pavement. Out of over a thousand people who passed by, apparently, only seven stopped to listen, and, amazingly, one recognized him. There's stats on how much cash he collected from the people who stopped to listen (apparently the guy who recognized him payed him $20, i don't know how that's a sign of respect and all) but let's not go there.

Of course, the columnist who came up with this idea and later wrote about it got quite a few accolades for it, including the 2008 Pulitzer prize. (Oh, he won another Pulitzer in 2010. For an article on something along the lines parents killing their children by leaving them in cars. Don't ask) The point of this entire charade was to prove that people have "no time to stand and stare". That they pay substantial amounts, $100 for a half-decent seat, to listen to the same guy at his shows, but they really wouldn't stop for him at the metro station.

The idea stands. Strong and steady. We've all got quite a busy schedule. People don't have time today, there is always something or the other on their minds keeping them tensed and taut. What the columnist wanted to convey was that human relations aren't the key anymore, it's all about alienating yourself from human contact, being alone and calling it competition.

But you've gotta admit there's a better way of proving it. This experiment proves nothing except the author's talent of making 45 minutes sound like an epic.

I discussed this issue with a friend over tea. I honestly didn't see the big deal. Agreed, it's a racy life, nobody has the time to appreciate beauty even when it's staring you in the face. And as for recognizing the guy at the metro station - Thin about it, if Ustad Amjad Ali Khan or some other Indian virtuoso were to be standing in a below-average attire at CST station at 10 AM, how many people would recognize him?

What did come out of it, though, was a realization that there's people who're working on it. Working on trying to show the world how out-of-hands the pace of the world in general has gone. I know I'll get questioning looks and advice that it's a dog-eat-dog world, and survival of the fittest and all that, but I still firmly believe that the finer things of life are seldom appreciated.

But what change do I expect? What are these social experiments going to achieve? There is no way the amount of competition, the insanely workaholic habits of people in general are going to change. I guess all that matters is if one realizes what happiness is for oneself.

Whatever be the case, one thing's for sure. Joshua Bell in a metro station is not the way you prove this.

Full Monty

2010-02-21T01:03:00.003+05:30

Giving in to a whim I had, I recently decided to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail again. The last time was more than two years ago, as a fresher in college, kicked about the LAN and what not. You could describe my reaction to the movie as "amused" or even "mostly grinning punctuated by occasional laughter."

This time around, though, such blasphemy I did not commit. At the end of an hour and a half of trying not to fall off the chair, not only did my sides ache, I think there's some permanent damage on the sidelines. No episode of any show, no movie has ever got me in splits such as the Pythons did and it would be the lease I could do to just plainly dedicate a post to those geniuses of humour.

And on the walk back to hostel from the night canteen, I discussed this exact issue with Prashant. Our senses of humour have transformed over the last few years, and HOW! From being almost contrasting, to forming this one fuzzy mesh of jokes and one-liners that are completely predictable and more often than not, funny only to us. The bad part is, I can never get around to writing about this. I've tried to put fingers to keyboard and recreate scenarios, but somehow, never happens.

Yeah, that's about it. I don't think I have a point. Thought in transition. Admittedly, all of the above could've been put much better. That for another day.

Shut the hell up, Johnny. Play some other time.

2010-01-12T02:34:00.006+05:30

There's something overtly satisfying about switching off the music in the room, turning the lights off and listening to the pattering of the rain outside. On days when you've predicted the rain seeing the weather in the morning, the sound of drops falling onto the hostel lawn is one of the best sounds you could hear on days like these! And it's rain with the entire works, lightning, thunder, gale and all.

One of the first thought that strikes me whenever it unexpectedly pours, is that the rains are one of the strongest catalysts to nostalgia and brewing up long-lost memories. Our very own Muggle-world pensieve. (Yes, I make Harry Potter references. Literature elitists, die!)

Somehow, right now I wish I had Bing's knack for writing fantasy literature. It's the ideal thing to write when there's no particular thoughts that you have, and plus there's just so much more potential to write when the weather's so perfect.

And tonight, I absolutely have no sense of anxiety about tomorrow''s early morning tutorial. Like it's all over, like there's no semester with it's inherent impending doom, like I can spend the rest of my time reading and writing and figuring out the intricacies of music in life.

Just one last thing. I guess Sinatra wrote "Singing in the rain" because he had loads of space to dry his clothes.

I'm getting really rusty.

Ode to a Sunny Day

2009-12-28T01:26:00.003+05:30

Warren Mendonsa decides to name his newest album, rather succinctly, The New Album. And without going into a detailed album review, and before the all-encompassing high of the song goes away, let me just say that "Ode to a Sunny Day" is happiness. No deep thoughts behind this one, no thinking about how the song is making me feel the way it is. Just happiness, in its most raw form. Pure exuberance at something this uplifting, something this perfectly woven. Fiery admiration for the guitarist who converted an idea into something this meaningful.

This post arose out of an overflow of unmoderated energy. If I start baptizing every one of these emotions, hundreds will pop up. But I refrain, for I want the musical high to last longer.

No more words. Just hearing. Click here to hear :)

The moment

2009-11-28T07:15:00.001+05:30

One of the most crowning moments in the intricately drawn (drawn as in wire, not a sketch) history of Jethro Tull is, expectedly, in their self-proclaimed epic. Ian Anderson's answer to critics reading too much into their most famous album, "Aqualung" and calling it a concept album. He supposedly got slightly pissed and decided to give them the biggest and the most single-tracked (heh) concept album, Thick as a Brick.

Thick as a brick is approximately forty four minutes long. It segues into so many musical styles and moods, it's hard to believe the song to be even a minute shorter. In fact, fitting so much into hardly a three quarters of an hour is an achievement in itself.

This moment I speak of comes somewhere at 17 minutes, a minute or two after the song's famous intro has reprised. A sudden glimpse of a melancholy theme, a minor scale later, they break into that tune. That moment. The tune which radiates hope, which is the breaking of light from lament, could not have been better. Perfect execution, just the right character, just the right tone. Barrie Barlow is an arrant wizard at the drums, and the moment seems way too wonderful to just be born out of a long song. It deserves a pedestal of its own.

Maybe it is not the technical genius that lends it the beauty. Maybe it's just the hope. Maybe that's what we look for, and maybe that's what lends most things their beauty.

The lady

2009-11-21T06:08:00.000+05:30

He couldn't stop thinking about her.

He was a man of creation. A man who had so many ideas, so many thoughts which he knew would one day revolutionize the way of life. Every moment, he was thinking of how to make things easier and automatically applying his mind. It just came naturally to him. He knew he was a prodigy, but he didn't want the fame. In the moments where he didn't devote his time to his creativity, he often wondered why the rest of the folk didn't see the world the way he did. It was all so beautiful and it seemed everyone blatantly denied it! One thing, he knew for sure - it is the fear of failure that makes people unhappy. This fear manifests itself in quite a few forms, but it is the same fear nonetheless!

After all, being criticized and ostracized was nothing new to him. Every radical idea, he told everyone who would listen, is tossed around and cursed like a murderer left to his fate with an angry mob. And it was not just for his ideas that he was ostracized. In his country, his kind were not treated with kindness. He knew, as he knew many things others didn't, that they would be accepted someday.

As time went by, he because obsessed over his creativity. If he didn't conceptualize something far-reaching for a long time, he would get very restless. His inspiration, uniquely, came from people. He liked walking around the plaza, looking at people and figuring out how their lives could be made better.

It had just been a fleeting moment in one of these walks. He spotted her through the crowd, and actually walked back a few steps - something he never did. She was not your average beauty, but there was this ethereal quality about her. She wasn't your average pretty girl you wanted to get in bed with. You would want to talk to her about life and the universe! A few glances at her and one knew she had it all figured out, like she was almost mocking you!

He asked around in the crowd, as discreetly as he could, about who she was. When he heard the name, he startled in recognition - that last name was impossible to not know! From such a family, how could he not have heard of such a beautiful lady so profound in her thoughts? His mind started going far, far away, trying to comprehend what that look meant. Did she know something the world didn't? That subtle look, that amused glint in her eyes - oh those attentive eyes, how they soaked in every detail of their surroundings!

Leonardo shook his head, and made up his mind to get that mysterious smile out of his head. Whoever had the time to ponder over and paint Lisa Sforza, daughter of the Duke of Milan, when there were machines that flew to be made and holy blood to be protected!

Top songs - 1

2009-11-14T22:41:00.005+05:30

This, hopefully, will build up into another series. Songs currently spinning around my head, refusing to leave, and leaving that permanent mark. Songs whose lyrics keep popping up while I'm sitting at Nescafe, or whose solo I would hum inappropriatly loudly even while in the library, and very subconsciously.

TS, I shall name it. I've got this affection to short-formed-series now.

Anyway, here goes.

Mr. Big - Green Tinted Sixties Mind

No, I didn't make it for the Big concert. I did hear another incredibly talented band, Slain from Bangalore, perform it in college recently. The first time I heard the song was them performing it a year ago, at the BITS rock night. It is still a mystery to me why I hadn't explored Mr. Big till that late. The signature happy-jumpy intro and the perfectly fitting soloing by Gilbert, Eric Martin's intense emotion-filled vocals make this song an instant mood-lifter!

Zero - Christmas in July

Another song which became so much better after hearing it live. Yes, I did witness the God of tone, Warren, at I-Rock, and good GOD did he own the concert! Among all the other names that performed that night, Warren stood out like a saviour of good music. It poured that day like there was no tomorrow, and we still stood in the killing rain and heard every note played by the man! Something about this song that makes it in the switch-off-lights-throw-head-back-and-drown category! One of the best guitar instrumentals I've heard by anyone ever, let alone an Indian artist!

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Rainy Day, Dream Away/Still Raining, Still Dreaming

"Rainy Day, Dream Away

Oh let the sun take a holiday!"

Along with his pioneering guitar sounds, Hendrix has never stopped amazing me with his lyrics. The recent showers in Goa drew me to these two songs. The experience of listening to the songs one after the other, over and over again, while the rain pelted down on my window was one of the most memorable ones I've had! Every time it starts raining after that, I can't stop myself from humming those lines now.

The Allman Brothers Band - Whipping Post

Be it that sexy little melody after "Sometimes I feel..." in the song, or the solo, or the haunting bassline running through the song - this one's one of those everlasting ones. One of those that never get old, or you never get bored of. It's the pinnacle of progressive electric blues, what with the 11/8 verse and the 12/8 chorus! And the crowning moment of this song is that 22-minute live epic in the Filmore East tapes. Everything about those 22 minutes exalts pure Blues power!

Grateful Dead - Box of Rain

I had to really think before I typed out the name of this song, mostly because the entire American Beauty album has been one of my favourites ever since the semester began. But what with the weather being at its most beautiful yet (obviously in the middle of tests, when rather than breathing it into my system, I need to sit in the library studying and watch it through glass windows), I thought Box of Rain would be fitting. Not anywhere else have I seen vocal melodies pulled off so perfectly. The lyrics just seem to flow and in the tandem of seemingly disconnected music from three guitars rises a melody so uplifting, so joyful and so comforting! I don't think there's ever gonna be a time when Box of Rain won't get my mood up!

Writing this was way more fun than I thought it would! Hopefully, many more of these!

Take me to a better place.

2009-10-28T02:14:00.002+05:30

It's messed up how much the lack of sleep can trouble your mind. Everything turns out annoying. The noise, the sheer volume of everything around you, the frivoulty of most things, the constant bickering, the utter indifference of the world. And on expression of the aforementioned, a blame of being elitist, people telling you to get over it and stop blaming others, accusations of hypocrisy and many such things.

I just want to drown into There there and let everything go. It's just not worth it. All the efforts, the constant bearing on the mind, the life of an engineering college, the charges of seeking attention, all such things make it not worth it whatever be the rewards. Is THIS the college life they speak of, or is the matter with me? If I could play the guitar today, I'd be strumming Radiohead tunes all night long. To hell with classes, to hell with assignments. To hell with the people.

Like the do-dah man!

2009-10-22T18:42:00.002+05:30

I've had quite a few things to say since the last time I posted. Loads has happened, and the happiness levels have shot up by miles. The music keeps influencing, and the music keeps toying with my mood.

Grateful Dead were a recent discovery. Having heard of them for years and labeling their music as slightly above average, I recently managed to listen to the recording of a live show. All of a sudden, the respect was out of the roof and I saw why they were revered to the extent they were.

Grateful Dead - Truckin'

Truckin', got my chips cashed in. keep truckin, like the do-dah man
Together, more or less in line, just keep truckin on.

Arrows of neon and flashing marquees out on main street.
Chicago, new york, detroit and its all on the same street.
Your typical city involved in a typical daydream
Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings.

Dallas, got a soft machine; Houston, too close to New Orleans;
New York's got the ways and means; but just wont let you be, oh no.

Most of the cast that you meet on the streets speak of true love,
Most of the time theyre sittin and cryin at home.
One of these days they know they better get goin
Out of the door and down on the streets all alone.

Truckin, like the do-dah man. once told me youve got to play your hand
Sometimes your cards aint worth a dime, if you dont layem down,

Sometimes the lights all shinin on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip its been.

What in the world ever became of sweet jane?
She lost her sparkle, you know she isnt the same
Livin on reds, vitamin c, and cocaine,
All a friend can say is aint it a shame?

Truckin, up to Buffalo. been thinkin, you got to mellow slow
Takes time, you pick a place to go, and just keep truckin' on.

Sittin and starin out of the hotel window.
Got a tip theyre gonna kick the door in again
Id like to get some sleep before I travel,
But if you got a warrant, I guess youre gonna come in.

Busted, down on Bourbon Street, set up, like a bowlin pin.
Knocked down, it gets to wearin thin. they just wont let you be, oh no.

You're sick of hangin around and youd like to travel;
Get tired of travelin and you want to settle down.
I guess they cant revoke your soul for tryin,
Get out of the door and light out and look all around.

Sometimes the lights all shinin on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip its been.

Truckin, Im a goin home. whoa whoa baby, back where I belong,
Back home, sit down and patch my bones, and get back truckin on.
Hey now get back truckin home.

Ambition makes you look pretty ugly

2009-10-01T22:15:00.004+05:30

Ideally, I should blog everyday when I'm at home. What with the obscene amount of free time. In all the mindless banter of a vacation, however, I can barely string two sentences together. What with free broadband (like free speech, not free beer), add mindless surfing to that. What's the remedy? I wish I knew.

To make things so much better, I have no music with me. Barring all the classic music CDs Naren Mama's managed to bring, and a two-disk album of the "Millennium collection". Funny story about that too. I remember being gifted those CDs in 2002 by my uncle from the UK, all kicked that his nephew will now listen to the real music. Needless to say, I didn't touch those CDs, because I found the music too "weird".

Seven years later, I happened to run into those CDs in my room in college. Turns out I love all the songs on those two disks. Apparently, I heard Paranoid Android and Under Pressure and Glory Box back then and didn't like it.

Life's funny that way, isn't it? Stuff they teach you in school seems so relevant today. In school, if you even managed to mention how awesomely fitting something a teacher said was, it meant being instantly ostracized. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm not even saying it shouldn't happen. It's part of growing up, and all that jazz. Just that it seems delightful looking back and figuring this out!

Exodus

2009-09-28T15:14:00.004+05:30

The last semester (or well, what we saw of it before we were unceremoniously thrown out of college) has been rather enlightening. Tonnes of quick trivia about what to and what not to do. Peoples' reactions to stimulus in a non-ideal world. Lessons in paranoia, derogation and hasty judgment.

Anyway a vacation it is, albeit unexpected, and most of it I shall try to make. Like always, 'course.

For non-campus readers, there were a few blokes here and there (47 in five days, actually, so they're all very justified and stuff) who happened to get jaundice, and the authorities lost their conker, and decided it would be a good idea to send everyone home.

I intend to blog more. For sure.

Borsalino

2009-08-24T01:10:00.002+05:30

Everyone who's read Shantaram would probably find this redundant, but the Borsalino is this wide-brimmed hat made from very particular furs. Now this piece of art apparently digs quite the hole in your pocket, and there's bound to be fakes. In comes the Borsalino hat test. You roll the hat up into a tube thingy, and make it pass through a wedding ring (for SOME reason). After emerging from the other side, if the hat is not all crumpled and messed up and preferably not broken, bingo, you've gotten yourself a deal. If there's creases, you'd better run back and look for the genius who made some quick bucks outta you.

Now some people happened to realize that this makes for quite a handy metaphor. So "putting someone through a Borsalino test" has come to mean putting someone through quite a bit of mental (and possibly physical) stress and see whether he/she (for all you sexists, I said he/she, inspite of HATING it) "emerges" from it without a sign of being "crumpled" or affected by the stress. Us engineers would like a stress-deformation metaphor, but that would involve talking about "hardness" of the person, and it's best to leave that realm of unending innuendos aside.

So anyway, back to Shantaram. GDR describes himself been put through a Borsalino test by a recent acquaintance, to put it very bluntly. Why all this? I suddenly noticed the constant Borsalino tests we keep pushing each other through, in places more than you'd notice if you give it a little thought.

Of course, the "emerging without being affected" now covers a much wider purview. It all begins with the initial one - to put in a more vernacular fashion - the first impression. It goes on throughout the period of knowing a person, and extends to every human relationship that exists. Barring a few relationships with a teeny amount of people, everyone Borsalinos everyone else. I wish that'd become a valid verb.

I'm not even going to begin about whether it's necessary. I probably would have if halfway through writing that, I wouldn't have lost track of the patterns of the present thought vortex. Just that, right now, I think everyone would be much happier if these tests were slashed a bit.

And, I haven't begun thinking about this in detail. Thankfully, I'm somehow able to control these erstwhile unmanaged thought trains. I'll hold on to this thought for later.

Most will argue that these are a part of life. I just wish they weren't.

Oh look, ticks!

2009-08-20T03:14:00.003+05:30

Right now, it's just a rant. When I'm thinking a little clearer, I most certainly WILL elaborate, but for now - Politics, is not for me. Not even a little skirmish.

Wherever I may roam

2009-08-18T02:27:00.000+05:30

"Jahaan main jaati hoon wahi chale aate ho

Chori chori mere dil mein samaate ho

Ye toh batao ki tum

Mere kaun ho"

Ever had that feeling when a song reminds you of something else but you have no idea of the specifics? The reminiscence is incredibly strong, fully with goosebumps et al. And things like the sound of rain outside at half past midnight somehow manage to attenuate all of that. The feeling was so strong, the pull was so compelling, I just had to put it down. No amount of thinking is going to get me any closer to knowing what the context is. Maybe it’ll hit me some day when I’m walking about Panjim on a lazy Sunday afternoon, or when I’m riding to the SP college ground early morning for football.

The best part is, it’s a happy feeling. And vague happy feelings out of the proverbial blue are always welcome. Which is probably why I’m not thinking.

Yeah. That’s about it.

State of Mind

2009-08-16T02:51:00.000+05:30

It never ceases to amaze me how a song manages to sound so incredibly apt and beautiful, that you want it to play over and over again like a background track to your life.

Oh incidentally, have I mentioned that I would give ANYTHING to have a background track to my life?

Radiohead - No Surprises

A heart that's full up like a landfill
A job that slowly kills you
Bruises that won't heal

You look so tired and unhappy
Bring down the government
They don't, they don't speak for us
I'll take a quiet life
A handshake of carbon monoxide

No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
Silent, silent

This is my final fit, my final bellyache with

No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises please

Such a pretty house, such a pretty garden.

No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)
No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)
No alarms and no surprises please (let me out of here)

Radiohead

2009-08-12T17:26:00.005+05:30

This is the first post of a series I'd like to call "Thoughts in Transition". Yes, TiT, and yes, I intended it. Thankfully, tit ain't blocked on the campus net, so whoopee! Prior to this, all my posts were ideally well thought-out pieces which I'd edited many times over. This, I realize, doesn't do much good for my precious blog. Ergo.

I think I read an xkcd strip about how some people have four blog posts about being "Sorry for not updating blog". Put things in perspective. I've got quite a few of those too.

Anyway, for those who've not been given a demonstration of it, Radiohead is the new obsession. In the words of Chummi, "makes you floooooat!" True. Special vague mention - the initial acoustic-ish sound on Just sounds ethereal. Like so many other Radiohead moments. It's taken hold of me. I'm abandoning Nescafe to go back to my speakers and Radiohead. Odd.

Nothing too deep or insightful about this one. That's the point of TiT, you just grab the thoughts and let them out!

Er, Baba, if you read this post, try looking over the innuendos.

Late Night Jazz Ballads

2009-06-12T02:46:00.002+05:30

In vaguely browsing through the music I have, I came across a folder in my Jazz collection called "Late Night Jazz Ballads". It was 2:30 AM, and I couldn't see any reason not to play it. Work was a good 6 hours away, and a few soothing progressions couldn't hurt. As I lay propped on my elbow, listening to Jimmy Smith, Dexter Gordon, Ike Quebec and the likes, I had this little memory run-through of all the memorable 2:30 AMs I've had. Owing to my wallpaper being this hard-earned photo of the BITS, Pilani clocktower I'd clicked with the sun setting next to it, the run-through kicked off with memories of Oasis last year. Good times. Expectations shattered. The tones of the tenor sax were more than the perfect catalyst to provoke the memory-walk. I was left wondering why I'd never pulled out this folder before. I imagine all the effort that goes behind a jazz piece. To be technically perfect, to recognize that perfect progression to hit that perfect mood. But I guess in the end, every jazz artist just wants to soothe, just wants to sound good.

As I write this, I realize I don't like getting profound about my music. I would never write a post about any music, overflowing with superlatives, because in my music, the two letter word is the operative (Credit to NT for that very useful phrase). I don't like making an epic out of a piece, I don't like writing about it as if I know every facet of it, because I never will. A true priest will never glamourize God in his writings. A true soccer fan will never write about a particular goal in a rambling fashion. For worship brings with it respect, and when you respect something, you want to attach a humble outlook to it. I might speak more than what is good for my well-being about music, and about particular aspects of it, but when I write it down, I plainly want it to soothe. I just want it to physically light up the senses. I just want it to sound good. Just like a Late Night Jazz Ballad.

One good argument.

2009-05-11T23:28:00.004+05:30

As the darkness engulfed him, yet again, he posed one question to life. He challenged life to present one argument to support whatever he'd done in life was worthwhile. One simple argument, one reasoning with logic. Everything he'd taken up, he'd failed. Daniel had no idea where to look. To the Beatles song playing in his room, or his non-existent imaginary friend. The one happy thought he had for all those days had abandoned him. He gradually let the darkness take him down. He just wish he'd had the gall to climb up to the terrace.

Free Coffee

2009-05-10T01:53:00.002+05:30

As the darkness closed down upon him, the much talked about vivid flashes of memory started making their customary attack. The sunset on the half-made housing society, Brahmani kites riding the thermals and putting up quite a show for anyone who cared enough, the barges making their daily dough, people celebrating yet another goal in their daily futsal routine.

He wanted to end it all, to give up. He could see no reason, no rational thought behind continuing life as he knew it. He burnt quite a few gray cells in trying to figure out where it all went wrong, and then burnt a few more in realizing that nothing of much avail was to happen through that particular process. Sounds of a sisterly concern rang through his mind, but he was positive the world wouldn’t stop turning. He vaguely remembered childhood tales advocating perseverance, and discerned how trivially he’d let them go. Somehow, the distant memory of walking under a flyover, on his way back home, and clenching his fist in determination and vehicles screamed past him played over and over again. He thought of the many who’d take great pleasure at the consequences, those who’d day would be made. The cellphone in his pocket was a dead weight, pulling him further down.

It would be so marvelous letting go. Something new, the change he’d been waiting for. In difficult times too, there is change. And in change, there is a challenge. Completely oblivious to the rat-race in progress, about a hundred meters behind him, Daniel believed it was time to let go. Fate, although, had other plans. For that was when his cellphone buzzed with the delivery of a text message. The one liner caught him by the scruff of his neck, inches away from the abyss and dumped him back onto the cold hard floor of reality.

“Free Coffee?” the message had said.

He felt the warmth seeping in. The overwhelming darkness felt lighter, and the bad taste in his mouth seemed like it would go anytime soon. He saw beauty around him.

He was soon to realize that in times like those, he was a dent in the happy lives of those who are perfect. If underachiever was not that clichéd a word, he would have thought it. Cold as metal, with all the performing capability of a dodo on tranquilizers. A dampener of spirits. But at that moment, he was happy. There were a few things that could act like global anesthesia, even for a few moments. And free coffee was one of them.

Lite

2009-05-05T21:07:00.002+05:30

I'd never thought I'd say this, but it's staggering when you realize the full implication of the phrase "Lite can be taken". Every day, every moment, new facets show themselves, and one simply wonders whether whoever came up with the phrase had any idea how much power that one phrase has.

And the best part is, you need to use it, overuse it and abuse it, only then does the significance hit you. How lite has nothing to do with slacking off, with giving up, with reclining, and how it perfectly describes the state of mind which invariably leads to something good. Never have I been this excited about learning the entailment of whatever the phrase has in hold.

Maybe someday I'd take the efforts to elucidate.

Flip Phone

2009-04-30T00:58:00.002+05:30

I have an insane urge of stepping on something and breaking it. Very specifically, a flip-phone. I'm certainly not doing it to mine, mostly because it belongs to Abha and she'd kill me.

Butt I almost sat on it a while back, and I just wondered about the crack, about the sound it'll pass. And I haven't been able to stop thinking about it ever since. As stupid ass it seems, I just had to post it.

Adieu? Naah, too cliched!

2009-04-24T00:43:00.007+05:30

It's just about 20 days to go, and we're all gonna scurry home to comforts, more baths, washing machines and generally more livable conditions. And I don't claim life won't move on, but there are people on campus who will certainly be missed. This post is dedicated to all those people who've left lasting impressions. To all those final year people who I've grown accustomed to seeing around, and passingly wave to. To all those people who'll definitely prove to be sources of inspiration everywhere.

Rohit DeSa. The commanding presence, the guy who I've looked up to as THE person to be, taking life so awesomely yet excelling in everything he's set his feet in. Never have I seen anyone else who has a solution to everything. Er, except for how-to-get-stuck-tunes-out-of-your-head, of course :P
Pralav Dessai. Just, being Pralav Dessai. There will be only one. The overflowing energy, the overoverflowing energy, the rotten-lovable humour, the cunning looks, never a dull moment! Oh, and the guy who uses my room as an encore room :P.
Gurdeep Singh. Guru. Coke. Nescafe. Bad Doggy :P One chap who's just about always there to engage in extreme vellagiri with, one chap who's gonna ensure you're laughing your butt off at his array of expressions, yet has the most profound ideas and thoughts.
Sohini Manna. Manna manna manna! The incredulous laughter, anecdotes always up her sleeve, so full of life and energy, and just pushing little snippets of senior-advice towards me. (Yes Rao, I do take Manna's advice too :P )
Sharan. Although I've moved away from this guy this semester, we've got the most wonderful memories, with the best music always playing in the background. The calling-up-when-listen-to-awesome-songs-when-in-public-place was a sooper thing to do :D
Many many others too. I haven't spent all that much time with these people, but guys like Gill (Sir Flashalot, the name says it all!), Bapu (The Firang guy, always a riot to have around), Subbu (Nobody will ever take you on in drinking dude, your legend will live on!), KB (Yes, the guy who learnt never to tell Manna anything about his life :P ), Jazzy (The flattener, the legendary statements, just jazzy!), Prakhar (Team Vella, yoyo, notsovellaanymore in IIM :P), Popat (Poops! Fofat! Poaps! Convener saab! Annnd a godlike music taste!) and anyone else I've missed out on.

It's just gonna be different without you guys. Everything will move on. Just, different :)

And, the inevitable cheesy line at the end of all this, you guys have been a big influence, shine on! :)

PS - Third yearites, I'll be seeing you guys around, so I really can't come to terms with the fact that it's your farewell :)

Thought

2009-04-21T01:52:00.002+05:30

It's not even bloody FUNNY how cynical I've become. Not to mention gullible-to-get-carried-away. TRY suggesting a word for that. TRY.

Birthday

2009-04-21T01:25:00.004+05:30

My blog, today, turns two. It's been around through everything major, it's been my canvas for everything nice. The only place I have to show some creativity in an otherwise talentless existence. And the blog has seen me change from what I was in Junior college, to what I am now.

Before I get carried away like once before and pour emotions out on the blog in a stupid manner, I'm just gonna say Happy Birthday! I never thought I'd be the person I am today, two years back, but I knew I'd have the blog! I knew Random Thoughts would stay with me. The same fears that haunted me in the first post haunt me today. Not much has changed on that front. It's a happy day for the blog, but I'm not sure I'd say the same about me!

On a much, much lighter note, I do wish I get to keep the blog forever! Random is now cliche, and criticisms are much in vogue. Someday, I wish to look back at this post and laugh at how stupid I was. But not today. Not today.

As an afterthought, I must mention Bing and Pubby. Through all the times in college, through everything smart and dumb, these two buggers have been constant ports-in-storms and inspiration. There's tonnes of others who've been crazily important parts of my life, but them two deeks have just, well, been there. Non-judgementally, steadily. To another year of corridor-mate-ness!

Bleh

2009-04-16T03:56:00.002+05:30

I cannot, for the life of me, write poetry. Except for the ones I write with Suramya, which REALLY doesn't count. I just read 15-odd blogs in the space of the last hour and a half, and everyone's been shelling out random poetry. I tried to get the deep inner meaning and all that, I really did. No dice. Maybe it's the PoM report.

Bleh. Feeble attempts to blow dust away. Mostly resulting in choking on it. Nothing attempted, nothing gained.

Starry night

2009-04-04T04:05:00.003+05:30

There’s something about heights. It just takes the idea of being on a “higher plane than the rest of the world” to a completely new level! And when she was on her terrace with the diamond-like stars looking at her with that benevolent gaze, there was nowhere else she wished to be. The stars had always been special to her. She was called the lady with eyes as beautiful as stars. That evening on the terrace, she could let her thoughts run completely astray, with nothing to bring them back to life. Her thoughts could reach out to all the infinite spaces she could see above her, her thoughts could fly!

She spanned her vision across the sky and saw every star that twinkled up above. Each one of them had its own staggering beauty. She had never imagined why the sky was so remarkable to her, but it was. The moon stood righteously in its place, ceaselessly moving towards the horizon. The same journey every day, the same purpose forever, that unending strife. She wondered about the journeys of life.

Why was the human race, she mused, so fascinated with the sky? So fascinated with that dark mist studded with gemstones of unspeakable beauty? Why so many before her times had spent their lifetimes looking at the sky, trying to find meaning out of it? Something she’d heard about the human tendency of being inquisitive. Some conversation she’d had in the past. Something about wanting to know more than what we do already, all the time. The thoughts swirled through her head, and the very idea of that fog gave her immense happiness. If this is what being high felt like, then she wanted to look at the sky forever. She saw one of the stars winking down upon her and she looked away, with a slender grin.

Looking into the depths of space, she knew she wasn’t the first one to look into its profundities and be in awe of its beauties. She knew how much it meant to her ancestors. It was those very stars that had not just stood as the immortal markers of direction to the ones lost at sea, but as a sign of hope to many a writer who lost his source of inspiration. She pictured the generations before her staring into that very sky, those very massive bodies giving out that very light, imagining how it all came to be, imagining how much of the universe there is to understand, imagining how much beauty there is in the world.

“There’s just WAY too much beauty to be unhappy!”, she wondered aloud. She realized how the advents in physics had come to change the opinion of the world about the sky. How, for some, the sky was an object of study to implement mathematical equations. For most, the sky was just a hundred and eighty degrees of a blind spot. For few in every generation, however, the sky was obdurate beauty. An ideology which beings of the earth could never reach, but always strived to. She felt the happiness inside her on so many thoughts of beauty revolving around her together.

She wanted the happiness to linger. She wanted to be happy. Forever!

Gem of a song

2009-03-10T01:34:00.002+05:30

I've never really done this here, but this song happens to be one of my favourites. Hearing it live recently made me drown neck-deep into it.

So here's to you, Bobbo!

Old pirates, yes they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hands of the almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom
'Cause they all I ever had

Redemption Songs, Redemption Songs.

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill the book

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom
'Cause they all I ever had

Redemption Songs, Redemption Songs.

25 things

2009-02-26T02:23:00.003+05:30

Arka started the trend(?) of posting the 25-things facebook thingy on the blog, so here goes. Facebook being blocked in hostel, it's a darn good idea. Besides, the now-usual dust on my blog was becoming too thick for it's own good.

Took me quite a while to come up with these.

1> The best roots of thought-processes and ideas come to me while I’m crapping, followed closely by when I’m bathing.

2> There does not pass a single moment when there isn’t some sort of music playing in my head. I cannot, for the life of me turn it off. Not that I want to, I’ve just tried to.

3> I’m obsessed with big machines. I’ve always preferred the mighty motors and the loud hum of the transformers in the electrical lab to the cute chips and suave CROs of the electronics lab.

4> Somehow the obsession of big machines never extends to cars and bikes. I’ve never really known anything and everything there is to know about any car or bike. Honestly, I just think it’s a waste of time knowing stats you really can’t do anything about. The rated value of a DC motor, however, is a different matter!

5> With all the risk of including a very clichéd line here, I’m addicted to caffeine.

6> I will stubbornly continue moving my feet (the kind you do in an exam or supposedly, when you’re nervous) when I’m thinking, in spite of different techniques tried by different people to change that. These range from simple slaps on the thigh to exasperated threats to amputate my limbs :|

7> Oh yes, before that slips out – I adore, respect, revere and unconditionally love the straight-face smiley. It’s the single most used smiley when I’m on any IM service. By FAR. The most used smiley on text messaging too.

8> I’m known to be really, really fast while texting and I like to show that fact off. Although in my private moments, I would agree that using similar models of phones for about four years now and a “10 paise a message” are very much to blame.

9> I’m very phobic to discussions about vague, discreet facts – facts about weapons, planes, animals, cellphone models. Such discussions pertaining to music, however, I completely dig!

10> Ever since I started writing this, I’ve been trying to put it in words, but I cannot possibly stress how dependant I am on music. It’s heroin-addiction-level. It’s there with me every minute, in my mind every passing moment. I’m as much in love with Hindustani Classical Music as with Rock Music or Jazz or anything else. My mood depends on the music, and my music depends on the mood. The obsession deserves a separate post altogether.

11> I love cheese. I love it like a child and I love it like a lover. I love it like any love the world has ever known.

12> I rival a Japanese tourist on a seven wonders trip when it comes to photography. My digicam allures me in a way that very, very few things do. And in most times, it’s not people I click.

13> I’m still superstitious, completely by choice and stupidly so, about stuff I care about. I still skip steps, cross my fingers and wear particular t-shirts to particular exams. Which is why I didn’t put any of the stuff I hold dear on number 13.

14> I fall head-first for women with a sense of humour I like. Nothing matters much after that.

15> A lot of my humour is spontaneous. I can never “tell a joke” when I’m told to do so.

16> I drink tons of water. I’d read someplace about how it makes you live a better life, and it’s become a habit ever since.

17> I love theatre, and acting in general. All kinds, all languages. (a translator would be nice, however) There are quite a few movie character roles I so badly wanna do, and I get into those characters when I’m in my room sometimes.

18> I talk to myself a lot, and I know we all do. So let’s stop associating that with being nuts, shall we? :P

19> I’m a comic-book freak and Batman more than the others. There is nothing more intriguing and cool than the mind of the Batman.

20> Words I use a lot – brilliant, insane, wrong, seriously, kinda, noice, anywho, accha, na, re,

21> Phrases I use a lot (on chat, mostly) – “haan haan”, “cool cool”, “I mean” “no no listen listen listen!”, “btw btw btw”, “dude, no.”, “.. and your point being?”, “so..totally…wrong!”, “oyya!”

22> I love my hostel. With all its quirks and idiosyncrasies. I try very hard not to imagine life once I’m kicked out of here with a degree. And I’m gonna be murdered for this, but I could not possibly have hoped for better corridor-mates than Bing and Pubby!

23> I’m an all-out connoisseur of bad jokes. There’s the good bad joke and then there’s the bad bad joke. The good bad jokes are the ones you really REALLY can’t stand, and the bad bad jokes are, well, not worthy of reaction.

24> I can never write for myself and then put it up on a public forum. Somehow, it just makes me feel like I’ve slipped in the standards I’ve set to my imaginary readers! I’m not sure whether that’s a bad thing entirely.

25> I am by all means more of a lonely person than a people’s person. I can spend insane amounts of time alone, and I enjoy every bit of it. As long as there’s music around!

And I tag everyone who manages to go through the list. I'm hoping this time around, the dust doesn't accumalate to the amount it had.

Tears

2008-11-27T04:16:00.006+05:30

I grieve. I mourn.

Soon, I shall rise back. I will pledge, I will swear by, I will respect, I will revere, I will idolize. I will grow to love more.

But today, I weep.

In a sentimental mood

2008-11-25T16:19:00.002+05:30

Slowly but surely, they wound up the road, dust swirling around the cars. There was a mist of anticipation and nostalgia surrounding the cars. Eyes darted around the green meadows, looking for any sign of their destination.

The clouds had chosen the day to practice formation flying in the sky and the sun was busy cooling off somewhere. The perfect day for a family outing, and four cars they took and pushed out! Driving down the highway on that perfectly lazy day, there was hardly anyone who could resist breaking into song. Away from the hustle-bustle of the Big City for a day, the weather could not have been better!

And now, as they drove down the road that didn’t seem to end, their enthusiasm grew every passing second! The fields around them swayed to the tune of the wind and the beauty of the scene was nothing short of dazzling! The serenity, the repose, the calmness in the air was enough to tranquilize everyone into a peaceful state. This was the life in the Indian village, the life hundreds of millions of Indians lead today. Enough to spark more than a few volts of envy! This, fifty years ago, was life as they knew it for Grandma and her children! Today would be a drive down memory lane for all the members of the family who lived this life, at the very grassroot level of the Indian lifestyle. Eighteen members of the family were out to look for the old house which the older members had once lived in, and the gusto could not have been stronger!

In its days of glory, the house had been a railway station, with Grandpa being station master. The house and the surrounding countryside was life as they knew it! And what a life it was! Waking up to the first ray of sunshine to the sounds of the 6 AM locomotive’s breath. Studying under the banyan trees, playing hop-scotch at the edge of the fields as the cows grazed. Helping their mother out in the daily chores as she sang to them, and later brawling to be the lucky one to sit on her lap while she read out the story for the night! The long-forgotten Indian countryside was rewinding and playing itself in the minds of all the siblings who’d lived there. The adults were surprised at how things had not changed at all! Far away from encroachment, the trees were still there and so were the boundless fields! The birds still chirped the same melodies, the field still whispered the same wisdom. The kids, however, were simply blown away. That a life in the village could be so beautiful and so worth living in, was something they’d never even imagined. The metropolis was the whole and soul of their existence. To think that their parents lived in a place like this, with all its peacefulness, was beyond belief!

And all of a sudden, like a shot from the blue, the house came into plain view. Nobody could have anticipated that what they saw.

The house was entirely unoccupied ever since Grandma and her family had moved out! The place was in ruins, but what beauty those ruins shot out! The house looked like an old wise man, smiling knowingly at those who knew him in his youth! The shine and polish had long gone and exchanged for a look of maturity, of age. The maintenance of the house was poor, but nothing could replace the grandeur, the magnificence!

It was like the memories stored inside the house had flooded out in that one fleeting instant and Grandma couldn’t hold the tears back any longer. Emotions welled inside everyone and Grandma’s children went inside in a reunion with the house they knew so well! Every wall, every staircase, every window, even the little cowshed to the side, worn out with age smiled at the family in unmistakable recognition. Time took them back, and the familiar sound of a train passing by the station was the only one which reverberated in their ears.

As for the kids, they were just thrilled to be in their parents’ house. The older ones who understood memories couldn’t help but smile at how rejoiced their parents were. Some kids had missed more interesting prospects of a Sunday evening to make it to the trip, but the house made everything worth it. This was a Sunday they weren’t likely to forget for a long, long time.

Funny, is it?

2008-11-18T05:35:00.004+05:30

Y'know one of those days, when nature tries to be funny?

The weather at campus today was arguably the best we'd seen since the beginning of sem. The clouds had made the perfect veil to show just the good side of the sun, and the omnipresent sweat was . There was a calmness in the air reminiscent of a summer vacation evening in Pune, with only football, a lime juice and a Pizza dinner to look forward to. The usually lithe breeze was draggier than ever, the dogs were lazier than ever.Your generic always-in-a-hurry chap, late for a lecture and rushing across the B-wing plaza was nowhere to be found. Pubby was humming "People are Strange" while Bing and I nonchalantly sipped our coffee. The Egrets were invading Nescafe, though I doubt that had anything to do with the weather.

It was THE perfect day to actively do nothing. Not laze around mind you, that would be the sunny day where Mister Apollo decides to blow some steam. Those are the brain-on-standby days. This one, it was a day where you'd dynamically look out for the perfect ways to do all the fun things which would fall neatly under "constructive randomness". A day when the library with it's feeble Air-Conditioning did not feel like a haven. The beach clearly would be the ideal backdrop for all of this, but campus wasn't all that bad an option either.

And we spent most part of this day inside a Chemistry lab, measuring the pH of Acetic Acid while adding Sodium Hydroxide to it. Dropwise.

As a perfect end to the pain, a few moments after I rushed out of the lab to soak in what was left of the day, the clouds decide to vanish into oblivion and I'm left stranded in the middle of the Library Lawns, the sun beating down upon me.

Dad

2008-11-13T01:16:00.001+05:30

Campus restrictions, a sucky public transport or whatever else I might choose to blame, I never actually got a chance to explore Goa in the almost-three sems I’ve been here. Even being the haven that it is, the tourist thing just never happened. But then suddenly dad decides to show up, claiming to get bored at home, and fully equipped with plans of a super 3 day vacation. Our idea of a super 3 day vacation – Hire a bike, hit the highway and just travel. No usual Goan shit - going and buying those highly weird flowery Goan shirts, visiting Stereotype Shack on Runofthemill Beach, none of that.

I’ve had my share of quality time with parents, but never has it been SO much fun! Guess it’s the whole distance thing, not being able to hang out with dad as much as I used to back home.

They say Goa’s about the beaches, I say no. Beaches, they’re all the same, you’ve seen one you’ve seem ‘em all! No, I am NOT biased about this! Honestly, there’s just a small many beaches you can visit without getting riled! I mean, WHO goes beach hopping?! For the love of Christ they’re just sand dune thingies, it’s like visiting different parts of the desert! Bah!

Ok maybe I’m a little biased.

So anyway, being the irritable self that I am towards beaches, we decided to explore that part of Goa which doesn’t feature in “Goa for Dummies”. The green Goa, the Goa with its raging forests and the never-ending foliage, the wildlife, the sanctity in the core interiors of Goa, WHY does nobody talk of these things? I mean, foreigners in no clothing is all very fine, but there are things beyond that! Very rarely, but there ARE!

I guess we took the whole journey-and-not-the-destination thing to a whole new level! Although we could feel the effects of the insane biking on our rearsides, it was totally worth it!

Nikita speaks...

2008-06-09T13:33:00.002+05:30

A vision of delight, a memory planted permanently on a mind. A sight to behold, a display of nature’s beauty. Nikita Prakash experienced, quite literally, what it could be to be in paradise. Over the clouds and, quite literally, above the hassles of everyday life. On the 25^th of March ’08, she spoke. And I wrote. I was astonished how she could describe every tiny detail of the great panorama of the beauty she experienced. And so I wrote and I kept writing.

Today, on my blog, Nikita speaks.

Place: Flight SG 257. Delhi to Goa

Time: Just before sunset.

An orange streak in the sky. It looked vaguely like a city. I dunno what the best way of putting it is, but the clouds sure looked like buildings from far away. Almost like the city of the dead. Sounds cheesy, but it quite literally looked like heaven, if it really were above the clouds, like they say. I could see only silhouettes, anyway. Maybe that added to the beauty. The mystery, the imagination that unlocked the world beyond the darkness was what was so fascinating. Veils shrouded the city, and I doubt it could’ve been any more beautiful. The calmness was nothing short of eerie. I wish I could say the clichéd “calm before a storm” thing, but a storm’s not the best thing to expect when you’re in a plane. I just kept looking…

The level of orange kept dipping, insipid to an extent. We were losing altitude fast, and suddenly I found clouds above us too. It was all becoming very creepy. There was a sudden layer where there were no clouds. Clouds above me, clouds below me, but a scary void where I was. At this point the sky decided it was time for a show. Lightening, nothing short of intense orange to my right. Instead of the expected chill down my spine, I was amazed. If this was nature’s idea of a pre-landing performance, it was working. I didn’t know what to think. My mind suddenly flew to Physics class about some plane getting electrocuted, but the people not dying of shock, thanks to Faraday’s shielding theory. A man next to me was ready to argue on my physics doubt. Not exactly the best thing to do, methinks. A lady next to him was visibly terrified. There was a general stunned silence in the plane.

We started receding more. The clouds were actually making the plane bump around. Wasn’t a very happy experience. There was still a continuous tinge of orange behind me, and I could still see random orange patches around me, even though it was so dark. That particular colour was definitely the colour of the day. I got a strange sense of being in a Biblical story. There’s heaven above me, earth beneath me. All those Biblical stories of Apocalypse showed up in moments where they’re best forgotten. The clouds were forming a tunnel, until all I could see was clouds. The kind of feeling you get when a tunnel closes on you? When there’s no light at the end of the tunnel? Well, it was actually a pleasant feeling this one time! Almost gave me a sense of security! The lights inside the plane were off, and we were fully emerged in the cloud. Suddenly, the plane grew all silent. What we all had mistook for lightening a few moments back was actually the flickering of the plane lights. I wasn’t the only one giving a sigh of relief. My feet were cold. It wasn’t just because I was wearing slippers.

Going through the clouds gave me vivid memories of the Konkan railway, with all its tunnels. I remember counting the tunnels with my bro. One memory led to another, and I almost forgot for a while where I was.

The plane was dropping all the time. Suddenly, it grew all dark, and the clouds that were once above me in the form of a city was now a massive water body. Only moments later, there were no more clouds, and behold! There was a real water body right below! I saw what I knew was the sea, but couldn’t really see it. The only reason I knew it was the sea, was the boats. The barges that carried ore to and fro. They were just points of light back then, later to be seen as what they were. It made me wonder how the boatmen managed to tame the rough sea. Reminded me of the Indianapolis Navy accident documentary I’d seen on the discovery channel the previous night. Uncanny how these things happen right at the time when they’re in context. Since then, the sight of the barges in the dormant sea hasn’t failed to creep me out. I’m certainly more scared of a cruise than a flight. I dunno why people are scared of flying, to me it seems like the safest and most obvious way of travelling.

The guy next to me started boasting how he was a frequent flier and how we’ll see the campus right now, and now, and now…and next thing we knew, we’d landed! Somehow we ended up missing the grand view of the campus that we’ve sold to so many sponsors. The plane screeched its usual screech and we were there. On the airport, back to earth and away from what I’d seen! Everything up there seemed like an El Dorado, somewhere there, but hard to believe it was…

Spicejet pilots really haven’t a clue how to land. Every single time a flight lands, the plane takes jerks. Massive ones. You are actually aware of your seatbelt, and the guy doesn’t take enough time to stop. One thing’s for sure, they aren’t the best pilots.

I realized how restless people get in the flight! Phones get switched on jus when the air hostess says- “Apne mobile phone vimaan se utarne se pehle ON na karen”. You can hear excited chics going “Yeah dad, I’ve reached, I’m in GOA!”. Baggage comes down. The warnings are for a reason, aren’t they? Amazing how people don’t care for rules, and amazing how many people have Nokia phones, and amazing how many messages they keep getting all the time!! I just sit still where I am, and wait till everything’s simmered down. I mean, why the rush, why the hurry? Those few minutes aren’t gonna help you much in the rat-race, are they?

We got back, plane landed, and my phone finally got switched ON. Read everyone’s messages. Felt all nice and wanted. :)

Flight...

2008-05-02T01:10:00.000+05:30

Don’t we all simply adore books and songs about flying? Well, I sure do!

The open sky. The sun shining brightly up there like a wise old man watching over you. Tiny houses like the ones we used to play with as kids. A tiny spark of desire of picking one with your hand and placing it in a more aesthetic position, then realizing that it’s perfect the way it is. Thoughts about a perfect world come flooding through. You barricade the thoughts and concentrate at your task at hand. A short loss of focus and you’re gonna go crashing down. The hard rocky land down there doesn’t look all that cute anymore. You see a professional shooting past you occasionally, doing the thing that you’re so afraid of, with such ease and ever-so delicately. Such beauty, such liberty, such freedom, you wonder. But this is no time for contemplation. That has long gone. There are times when actions speak, not just louder than words; they’re quite a din over words. And that time, to borrow a friend’s expression, is now.

The clouds seem to be doing their usual pattern thing, except that from up here, it’s different. The shapes are much more real. You realize why clouds are loved and sung about all that much. Cotton floating around in the air, puffs of pure-white smoke collecting together and playing games with our heads, everything we’ve compared clouds to back on land is a joke now. The clouds are cities, the clouds are mountains, the clouds are all that we’ve ever seen.

The biggest distraction is this tiny thing in your head. It’s this annoying voice which keeps telling you what to do. The most annoying part of it, however, is that all the logic is founded on what the consequences would be. Some people call it a conscience. I’d rather stick with “annoying voice”. More often than not it happens that instincts are your best friend. Go where the roads take you, and you’ll get to the best destination. And once you’re AT the destination, you’ll realize that every road leads to the same place (it’s referred to as Rome by an ancient smarty-pants).

It all boils down to that one moment. The perfect dive, the perfect swooshing movement across the sky and suddenly you’re nothing more than a blur. Bounded by nothing anymore. No moment has been as close to clarity as this one. Unleashed from the shackles of everything that’s kept you on the ground. Flying.

Flying.

One word cannot give more joy!

Random Thoughts - Episode 5

2008-03-31T00:56:00.001+05:30

In response to certain accusations that I've stopped being random, here's to Maddy :D

Random Thoughts - Episode 5

1> Ali Azhar sounds constipated throughout Garaj Baras.

2> I don't feel like throwing polo wrappers into the bin.

3> Notepad++ rule-th! Kudos to ET :D

4> Emergency Lights look cool when they're charging :|

5> It's been a while since I read Shantaram.

6> Why are EGGS used in Rangpanchami? I mean, COULD you think of anything more disgusting?.......... Maybe that's why. :|

7> I hate walking slowly. I simple HATE it. Except if it's on the beach.

8> I recently confused the starting riffs of Alive and Bring it on Home. VERY weird and unexpected!

9> I'm gonna try and mention Shippy on ever Random Thoughts Episode.

10> OMFG, I need to do Shippy's tag. It'll take way too long.

11> I'm sure I'm gonna update my blog before an exam this time, too :)

The Matrix has you, Neo

2008-03-12T20:22:00.000+05:30

A certain someone who's shaped me the way I am once told me that the best lessons in life come when they're least expected. Maybe I'd dismissed that back then as another one of the "The best things in life come free" kind of statement. Today, I very certainly agree. Not often does the philosophy of The Matrix become clear to you at 3 am, whilst returning from the ground floor bathroom after a rare late-night bath.

“Free your mind, Neo”, said Morpheus, famously. Whatever Mr. Director intended to say then, it just means one thing to me right now. Quite literally, free yourself from whatever you’ve been programmed to do. For being programmed is probably the worst state you’re ever in.

Indian ethics. One of the more passionately debated topics of today, with the debates not restricting themselves to be purely verbal. Sex, lust, greed, and all that jazz which being uttered in Indian homes today might lead to controversy. It is these very ethics that caused me to realize what we’ve been taught every time someone tells us to “free our mind”. The night saw me having arguably my best phone conversation. Never before had my thoughts been so clear, so smooth and so easily transferrable into words. The friend and I spoke about things which would not just bond us closer than ever, but would make me come to the realization that more people in the world are programmed than we’d ever imagine.

How would one define “programmed”? A simple example – Making out when one is not “going out” with the girl. Even though the guy has intense emotional and physical attachment to the girl, making out is specially reserved for after they start “going out”. Are a simple question and the affirmative answer the key to establish trust between two individuals? Or is it the constant building up of trust in a slow yet sure way, which makes the two people, eventually, quite unable to live without each other? I mean, this is as preposterous as little kids believing that the exchange in garlands changes everything for the woman, and she ends up having kids. That’s programming for you. Something fixed with such a brilliantly tested algorithm, that it refuses to fail, howmuchever you try finding a loophole in it. Something embedded so deep in a system, that to alter that piece of coding, the whole system needs to be altered.

And crashing down upon me came the realization of how important it is to “free your mind”. To see the truth, to see the world as it is. The Matrix might have shown us the literal version of it, with the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar very literally “pulling a plug” out of Neo’s “programmed” mind, but not too many realize the vast applications of this. I don’t attribute the realization to myself; it is wholly the credit of the friend who got me to this junction. We need to start questioning. We need to start thinking beyond the realms of the physics and the chemistry we’re taught, and start thinking right from our fundamentals. For the programming starts ever since we’re born. Building your fundamentals on your own will never be done, they will be “taught” to you as empirical relations. So many people try to tell us to study and study more, but does anybody bother explaining why when we’re kids? As we grow, the nature of this programming changes. So many people keep trying to drill us with the fact that sex before marriage is a bad, bad thing, but does anybody explain why? How is it that so many people live inside the Matrix, but never figure out they’re there? Brilliant, Morpheus, just plain brilliant!

Does anybody bother explaining whether emotional and physical relationships are best when they’re same, or best when they’re different, or whether their nature depends from person to person? How come we’re never taught in schools and colleges how to handle our emotions, when the teacher-folk very well know we’re gonna encounter it someday? Why are “relationships” randomly given a bad name, without any explanations? Why do mothers, without any justification, tell their daughters never to get too involved with boys, knowing all too well that someday, the daughter’s gonna end up asking questions and most probably be a rebel?

Why are purely physical relationships considered bad, always? I am not questioning the fundamental, just wondering why we aren’t given an explanation as to WHY they’re bad. Maybe learning out of pure experience is the way it’s meant to be. Maybe it’s the journey, not the destination that matters. Maybe it lies in the simple fact, that the best lessons in life come when you’re least expecting them.

Maybe next time when I need an answer, I should just scroll up!

Deep Down Inside...

2008-02-21T23:14:00.001+05:30

Two blogposts in a day? To add to that, on the day before a Chemistry exam of which I know nothing? Some people are gonna be scandalized, others pleasantly surprised. Never mind. I've realized, after long enough, that these things help.

Inspiration of post – Something I said to someone dear. Something I felt she should know. A simple question I put across – Is friendship, being there, giving a shoulder to lean on and all that worth it if it’s gonna lead you to mental stress? Is taking mental stress for a friend, which is gonna lead you to something that’s gonna give you further mental stress, worth it?

How much is human behaviour determined by the desire to be happy? Dwelling deeper into that, to what levels can the desire to happiness be embedded? People go through great extents of pain, trouble and all that jazz just to get to where they want. How do they make the decisions? Where does that weighing occur, whether this much pain is worth the happiness that it’s gonna be traded for? How do we define “worth”? Where does all this subconscious thinking go? I certainly don’t see it anywhere!

A parallel I drew recently – Isn’t all the gameplay of emotions exactly like that one statement that controls the entire universe – “Every body tries to achieve a configuration with lowest energy”. Isn’t it the same with us? We weigh whether the positive vibe of the happiness will eventually overcome the negativity, and make decisions. Marvel, while we may, at the efficiency of this whole process – so efficient, we quite literally never know when it happens! Isn’t happiness some kind of “lowest energy configuration” of the human body? I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve reached here and derailed my train of thought process. Offshoots like “Maybe we should research the chemical intricacies of how and why happiness is the lowest energy configuration, why the hormones act the way they do and all that. Maybe that’ll get me a Nobel” occur way too often.

Speaking of hormones – don’t we underestimate hormones? A discussion with another friend led me to another conclusion. When people expect an ideal world, they probably expect a hormone-free world. Stuff like lust, shallowness is considered as thorns in the sides of a world which is meant to be way different, way more pure. Maybe we SHOULD invent that Time Machine we’ve all been trying to invent, get to Adam and stop him from eating that godforsaken apple (I’m sure there’s a pun in there somewhere) . My opinion – God intended hormones to be there.

In fact, God intended everything to be perfect! Everyone does what they want to – isn’t that the simplest but most brilliant way of running a universe? Of course, the definition of “want” needs to be changed for you to understand what I’m trying to say. To “want”, is to choose a course of action which would determine which future set of choices you’d be provided. From this set, in turn, you’d have to choose, and so on and so forth.

“You can’t always do what you want” – probably the most misguiding statement in history. How about changing it to “You can always do what you want. Remember, however, that everyone else around can, too.”

Right then, back to Chemistry. Something tried, something achieved.

On the eve of a Chemistry exam...

2008-02-21T19:52:00.001+05:30

Yeah, yeah, so I didn't think of a better title, shoot me.

Intriguing thoughts lost amongst the pages of my physics text book. Not a very happy thought, is it? Some would say it is, considering they're the some who do the whole oh-my-God-don't-think-so-much thing on me. But it's the loss of a good Blog post, which matters a lot...

Although what I would vouch for was that it had something to do with the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings. Yesterday's thought process is slowly seeping back in as I write this on the eve of a Chemistry exam as the text book awaits me. I've wondered more than often how to-be engineers keep up with their literary side, especially if it's their more favoured one. A quick browse through all the blogs of campus folk makes me realize that nobody's writing, except for the odd post by Bing. The semester being way more hectic than the previous one doesn't help. I just realised that joblessness was a sine qua non to whatever good writing i came up with. All my reading and writing happened when I had to think of what to do next. Today, I have to push the guilty pangs aside while sitting down to pen my thoughts down. No more mooching around of the mind, no more aimless straying. Dinner is assigned half an hour, a walk with a can't-live-without friend is assigned 45 minutes, that too after extensive persuation.

I miss writing on pen and paper. Universally anachronized as it is, I'd never thought I'd prefer electronic piling of data to good ol' fountain-pens-and-crumbling-paper. I miss the tranquil ambience of Coffee Break where I could sit for hours of unadulterated nothingness. I miss the home-like feel of Fergusson Road where I'd wander alone pretending to the world and eventually myself, that I have a task at hand. Somehow, it's the same feeling you get when you fake a phone-call.

Yet another ambiguous post. Last night was a Lord of the Rings overdrive. Enqueing the whole soundtrack in a Winamp playlist and plugging in earphones and getting lost in the realms of the Third World, as though I belonged there – It’s a different feel altogether. Every note played by Howard Shore and co. was upto the brim with emotion. Every tune, every refrain was there for a reason, I thought. Never before has a soundtrack so beautifully portrayed the feelings of characters, and never before has a fantasy movie made me believe in it to this extent. It's a dream to be in the middle of an large auditorium, eyes closed, and the soundtrack playing all around me. I do think it'll make me go over every incident in my life, for every key played in that epic musical extravaganze stood for something I'd felt. Something beautiful.

I can see my chemistry notebook peeping at me with the 3-D noughts and crosses page conveniently open. Goes to show what I did in class while the prof was trying to drill CFSEs and Strong Fields into my head. Which further goes to show how much more I need to do. Snapping back to reality, let's quickly put this up before the writer's jinx catches up again...

PS - I just realised "Phashinating" is gathering dust. Mr. co-author, take note.

Random Thoughts, Episode 3

2008-02-17T16:49:00.001+05:30

Random Thoughts, Episode 3

1> Bhimsen Joshi sounds better through laptop speakers.

2> Feels really good talking to shippy after a while.

3> Afternoon baths in late February. Sounds like the name of Georgette Heyer's newest book.

4> Rishikesh DOES look like Firenze the centaur. I don't know what's weirder, the fact that Tuffy actually thought about it when I told her, or that she agreed. Kudos to Tuffy, my patient listener of Random Thoughts.

5> Random Thoughts are my favourite posts.

6> Bing's latest post made me think. About couples and spring. About the overratedness of touch, yet the necessity.

7> I want to be able to write like Richard Bach. The feeling's always there in the back of my head.

8> I found my pendrive!

9> Why does the sense of security QUARK left me with seem false?

10> I heard the word meglomaniac on Boston Legal yesterday. Made me feel good about myself.

11> We should allow ourselves some leeway when it comes to pronounciation errors.

12> Random Thought posts are like fillers. Senseless yet essential.

13> HP called his room a brothel. Men cum and go all the time, he said.

14> Speaking about Geography always reminds me of the Ness Wadia road and the cute chic I used to check out all the time.

15> Why do I number my random thoughts? Does that kinda beat the point? Never mind...

Sunday, the J and Friendship

2008-02-02T01:25:00.001+05:30

There's a strange sort of euphoria associated with getting up early in the morning and going to the Jhopdi. For those who're lost, that's a little shack-like place which is your average egg-lover's haven. The only debate about what to order there is between a half fry and an omelette. And a cup of tea being the obvious must. Sometimes two. It must be had in that typical glass made of glass (ahem...) and the glass filled about 3/4th. Sticking to a Delhi-lingo word I've learnt recently - Feel aati hai!

It was Sunday when this particular adventure to the Jhopdi happened. Nothing particular happened there, so stop looking for a build-up. Adventure's just a nice word. Madhura and me were the latest Jhopdi addicts, and Saniya had to have her first time there. So there I was, on a Sunday morning ironically, at the J, with my favourite duo on campus. I had this insane desire of saying "the usual" to the little kid who came up to us to ask what we're gonna gobble down. I fought it off, however, and asked for my omelette. We ate like recent escapees from the Sahara. To put it plain and simple, the J in the morning is pure serene. The campus and the academics and the internet and the weird CS addicts and all that seems oh-so distant. It's definitely the best place for calm and easy-going musing. I could almost feel the vibes of revolutionary ideas of the future springing up in the Jhopdi. Maybe more people would know about it then.

In the middle of recognize-the-song-from-intro on Maddy's cellphone, we were joined by a noisy bunch of annoying thinglets. Not the best thing to say to a group who closely resembles us people when we're at our best. But this was obviously not the time and place for that riffraff. So off we went, and not to be outdone by anything on that beautiful Sunday morning, we headed to Nescafe.

It was one of those late mornings when Nostalgia was the unspoken theme. Some minor comment set off a series of memories from those two ladies at the table with me, who I consider today the epitome of best friends. They're a living example of the fact that all that friends-for-life stuff is not just jazz and cliches. Never before have I seen two people knowing quite literally, everything about each other, from when they took their first steps. Madhura and Saniya that morning, burst open that old argument in my head. About what's the right thing.

Friends, for me, have always been people who can stand up for me. People who I can lean back on, and more importantly, lean back on anytime I want to. And somehow, maybe it's just me, they've never been the same people for too long. Everytime I thought that THIS is the bunch of people I wanna hang out with for a long time, everything would blast. The fear still lives somewhere inside me, even though I've found the best people I've met till date. Madhura and Saniya are idealists. Their friendship what millions crave for, and million others envy. Their friendship is perfect to the extent of unreal. *Crosses fingers lest I jinx it*

Why is it that I lie on the diametrically opposite end of the friends' circle (terrible pun, i know) and yet continue doing the same like I actually know what I'm doing? Maybe hoping for something that perfect is too much, but I feel way far from most others I know.

I sense proximity to self-pity. Must stop :)

And for all the good times to come, *raises a toast* to Madhura and Saniya :D

Random Thoughts Episode 2

2008-02-02T01:20:00.000+05:30

Random Thoughts - Episode 2

1> Writing is an awesome substitute for self-pity

2> It's nice when folk recognize certain words as must-be-written-by-me.

3> Is having no people who you've been with for ages a good thing?

4> Somehow, I can never get over the word "algorithm"

5> Richard Bach loves flying. I have reason to believe he can find a flying metaphor for just about everything.

6> Why do philosophical insights happen only during really interesting and thought-provoking Physics lectures?

7> I just called "derogatory" and "ostensibly" big words. I'm slipping. Some people might tell me I'm maturing.

8> It's been a while since I read a Wodehouse.

9> I think I'll be really happy the day I stop caring about comments on my blog.

Coffee Break, Part 3

2008-01-03T00:21:00.000+05:30

The last day in the big city. Feeling blue, quite seriously. Not really the emotion I expected at this threshold. After days of meeting my folk, being called thin so much that I felt all wizened and emaciated, four days of mood indigo, some feel-good and some feel-hollow rendezvouses with people, and other vague randomness, it's time to get back to where I belong. I'm spending time in the most obvious place I'd think of spending this evening in - Coffee Break.

It's not fun to say goodbye. Not fun at all. A day with a goodbye is not a good day. Never. Turns out I behaved astonishingly maturely towards the goodbye. Surprised myself. Usually, these forced goodbyes make depress me to no ends, but this time around I was up and around straight-on! Had I grown up, or had my innards frozen, I asked myself. Bah, not the time to think.

There's a bunch of people who're evidently from Delhi. The first words uttered by the girl when she entered the shop just gave it away. The accent, the casual attitude, the cautious yet careless stress on certain parts of the sentences, were all signature Delhi. I suddenly missed my CH1 corridor a lot. Especially the northie blokes. All the Delhi things - the classic Hindi, the righteous and playful swearing, the sheer loudness, the in-your-face sexual humour, and in spite of all this, that intense camaraderie and swearing by the people they held close - I miss all those. Never thought I would, considering I'd cursed them all some time or the other, especially exam-times. Today I found myself wanting to go through all that stuff. It's funny how some things silently become an integral part of your life. So silently, you never know they're there till they're not around any more. Funnier still, although they happen all the time, they're make you feel just the same on realisation, every single time. If I'd have to describe the feeling, I'd call it strangely hollow yet complecent.

Neha's borrowed my latest Richard Bach find, so I've switched over to Shantaram. I got the how-long-do-you-take-to-finish-a-damn-book-man from people recently. I just figured I like slow reading. Reading to absorb every detail, every word and every phrase and how beautifully they've been used, each metaphor and most importantly, every ounce of inspiration I can gather from the author. More than saying I've read so many books, I'd really like to say so many books have inspired me.

Getting back to Shantaram - I think I've got the gist of why the book's gained stupendous popularity. I'd wondered a while back, as to why a fugitive's tale would fascinate millions across the globe. When Mum asked me this today, I found myself giving her quite a satisfactory answer - The book's about freedom. And deep inside, skin-deep for some and way deep down for others, everyone desires freedom.

I found myself wondering what real freedom is. Whether it is, as Gregory David Roberts puts it, the power to say "no", or whether it's something else entirely. One thing I have a firm personal foothold on, however, is that real freedom is more difficult to achieve than any of us can perceive. Real freedom is when we are liberated from, quite simply, everything. And the one type that prevents most of us from real freedom, is social restrictions. To consider it blasphemous to alter the rules and regulations set by our own ancestors - humans, to be exact. To be bounded by boundaries created by our own kind, the one that makes mistakes.

And yet something inside me told me social restrictions are essential. To prevent society from going haywire, to prevent utter chaos. Is this another paradigm set in the past which could be shifted from? Or was this the proverbial Catch-22 situation which made real freedom unachievable?

Or was real freedom simply the power to believe? The faith in your own self, the faith in the fact that oneself is free? Do those who claim to be absolutely free, just believe so strongly that there's no questioning the thought? Is it really that simple?

Maybe i need to read the book more. Or maybe I need to give it more thought.

Or better still, maybe I need to stop pointless thoughts.

Having said all that, I feel incredibly imbecile!Oh, for the record, this place is playing Sinatra today. I was pleasantly surprised when I entered to here ol' Frankie's voice. Happy change from the usual hip-hop and dance numbers playing here. Way more blissful to write while listening to Jazz.

Bleh! I wanna continue reading Shantaram. Curiosity about the story combined with a wanting of widening of perspective. I don't wanna say goodbye to Coffee Break. This place has given me loads, even in the little number of times I've been here.

But for now, I'll just do a pirouette, take a bow, and hope to write further parts later.

Starry eyed

2008-01-01T23:48:00.001+05:30

How many times does it happen that you get back to putting finger to keyboard and decide to post your thoughts up, because of a 35mm flick? How many times does a movie touch your heart so warmly that, in the words of Madhura, "It's almost unfair if you don't put something down about it". This one's purely inspired by Aamir Khan's latest masterpiece, Tare Zameen Par.

It's amazing how the man, adhering to the theme as it was, created a piece of art that can inspire the good in a person. It's the simplest of storylines. A dyslexic kid, neglected during his childhood, meets angel-in-human-form teacher, who recognizes his dormant talent and brings out the best in him. TO most, it would sound like the most overdone of Bollywood stories. This is where the execution of the film comes in, and quite literally, takes our breath away. The movie, after a point, is not about dyslexia anymore. It's not about a kid who's rubbished by society. It's not about how parents should raise their children, it's not about how teachers should be. It finally comes down to whether we're willing to build an individual-based society. A society where the development of every member is equally important as the development of the society in general.

I dunno how, but something that Rowling mentioned in Deathly Hallows just popped up. It's actually just a phrase. Geller Grindelwald's motto. "For the Greater Good". For eons together, there have been conflicts on whether the lives and fates of single individuals helps society on it's way, or gets in it's way. It's been one of those unsolved debates that we all talk about. Hundreds of kids with dyslexia are passed off as mentally retarded, when it's quite the other way round - they're way ahead of us where brainpower is concerned. Those hundreds of kids could've lead normal lives, but at what cost? Is it worth it? Will all those kids turn out to be Albert Einsteins and Thomas Edisons? Is it worth the effort and time to identify these children?

I'm not here to feed fire to the old doubts. I'm just intrigued by the subtleness by which the subject has been approached. The very basic fundamental of life. Individualism. Something I consider of utmost importance. For me, individualism is realising the simple fact that society cannot get where it needs to without every single member raising the bar for himself all the time. A dyslexic kid can think way beyond a normal one, but can he put it across to anyone? Can his talents be recognized by the standard techniques of recognition we have set? Where's the loophole here? Can we seal it at all? Does individualism, when contexted to the dyslexic kid, mean taking him a few notches up the rat-race or raising society a few notches up? Then again, what do we have to compare against when we have society?

Where am I headed to? Just this - There is no wrong and right in this. It's about belief. Whether you believe in the fact that every person counts, or you believe that a selected few can take society to it's pinnacle. It's worth the thought.

Blah! Enough of that. For those who haven't seen it - Stellar performances by Darsheel Safary and Aamir Khan. Also the kid who's polio infected.

In the cliched words of them critics - A must watch!

Coffee Break, Part 2

2007-12-21T23:15:00.000+05:30

It's been a fun day. Had a enthralling football session in the morning. Ain't it funny how a football game you win is always enthralling, be you in the big league or be you I-play-football-cuz-everyone-does? Come to think of it, it's the same with any game. Come to think of it, it's the same with everything! Ah, me and my generalizations...

Had a very nice afternoon. Spent most of it reading up about excessively random stuff over the net. Amazing how useful a tool the net is when you REALLY need to unwind. I could write volumes of useless knowledge based on a day of the internet, and trust me you will, it would be REALLY useless. Not many things relieve your stress as much as useless knowledge does! I'm not gonna get into examples, partly because it would just be plain boring. Mostly because I don't have any right now, being in Coffee Break again. Loneliness as usual.

I'm halfway through "The Bridge across Forever". Trademark Richard Bach material. When I say trademark, I mean this - everytime you read the book, there's a different interpretation. There's a different outlook, a different perspective is built. A lot of the intense thinking in Coffee Break I spoke about in Part 1 was inspired by that man. "Illusions" is possibly the one book I'd call my bible today. A must-read, I tell people. Sometimes I wonder whether I should roam about with a "Practice what you Preach" board hanging 10 inches away from my nose.

There's a girl here today who's beautiful. I don't even wanna call her "hot". She's just plain beauty. Caught her eye a couple of times. A general good feeling. They're playing weird crazy frog-ish music. I hear an incredibly fascinating remix of Crazy Frog and We like to Party (better known as the "vengabus song"). Just heard the "I like to move it" mix. Memories of the Madagascar addiction on campus come to me. I suddenly miss the campus a lot. I should start calling this place the memory place instead of the solitude place, shouldn't I?

I really think the stuff and way I write depends quite a bit on my desktop wallpaper. When I write, the notepad window is the only one open,if you don't count the occasional spell-check through the Oxford Dictionary. Am I getting too conscious of my writing these days? I almost wondered aloud. Everything I write is running the gauntlet before it's approved. of course, the gauntlet and the criticized is both me, which makes the whole thing very interesting.....

I met Duks and Varun today. Felt good. Caught up with old times. Swapped weird stories like old times, and Duks came up with the weirdest one. Just like old times! These people are one of the few here I don't find jejune these days. And I try and convince myself I haven't become snooty. Sure.

I've to meet campus folk for dinner in half hour's time. Looking forward to it quite a bit. How long has it been, a week since I left campus? Goodness me have I become impatient or WHAT?

Why the negative words today? What's with all the self-criticism?

I was about to end it here, but the usual whooping feeling is making me go on. I sat looking around for a whole 5 minutes before continuing here. Finished the remains of my once hot Mocha. Read Asimov's short stories for a while. Watched amusedly as a guy tried to impress his girlfriend's friend with his palmistry. watched a man outside desperately trying to sell of his day's stock of lockets and bracelets to collegians hanging out outside Coffee Break. Blankly stared at a No Parking board for almost a minute. Had few more looks at the beautiful girl.

And then I realized I don't have anything to write about! How many times does it happen that we wait for something we want to come our way, and know that it won't? How overrated ARE anticlimaxes?

Very.

Random Thoughts Episode 1

2007-12-19T22:26:00.000+05:30

I hope and pray this to be the beginning of a great great series :D

Will be updated as and when they start spilling outta my brain and start showing themselves around.

Random Thoughts Episode 1

1> Why do Random Thoughts that make considerable amount of sense disappear right before you put them on paper?

2> They say the dreamers are the doers. I somehow think most of the dreamers are only dreamers. "All doers have been dreamers" would be more apt. But then, who cares about the dreamers if they aren't doers?

3> How is it that we idolize so many different people, who are all so remote that you almost end up believing they don't have anything to do with each other? Maybe YOU are the link...

4> Richard Bach is God. Just God. Every line he prints is has all the prudence you'd ever want.

5> This is a pliagarised thought - Any book can be your Messiah's guide to your thoughts. It works. Take any book and open any page, and the answer to your latest query in life will be there.

6> Isn't it hard to write something when you're forced to write it? I find essay writing in exams the hardest thing to do. Never have I been able to write something when someone's told me to. Some people tell others to write. Period. That can't happen. Epitomizing this are people judging writing skills.

7> Why do I think a million times before pilfering even the tiniest of snippets from books I've read?

8> Does the name JD bring with it the general megalomania? I pray to the almighty it doesn't :-|

9> Random Thoughts are fun to pen down, especially when you know nobody's gonna figure your head out.

For the heck of it

2007-12-18T23:59:00.001+05:30

It's been such a mediocre day, I wonder why I'm writing at all. It probably has something to do with the major writer's block I'd had a few months back. Dozens of incomplete posts and another dozen of unposted ones, I finally declared it high time to clear the block. It was quite the advent for me, this realisation. To the people who'd tried to convince me that a writer's block is a myth -

A conversation with Maddy left me wondering whether I should do something for QUARK. Seems like the right thing to do. All that jazz about next year being a tad too late to start and third year being very late was churning through me. I don't know what to write about that. It's just one of those conflicts which don't have anything subjective to say about them - it's binary. Still thinking.

Went to Marz-o-rin today. It'd been a while. Felt good to dig in to those sinful chicken sandwiches. Rode Divya's bike there on the way. Delightful in general :)

That's about all that happened today. Oh, of course, except football in the morning. Felt pain in muscles I'd forgotten existed. It's a brilliant feeling, especially after a long hiatus from the game.

Coffee Break. Part 1

2007-12-17T22:54:00.000+05:30

Pune hasn't been as tenebrous as I thought it'd be. Or maybe I just like to overdo things, and maybe it was never gonna be as boring as I made it out to be. The campus had been so insanely nice to me over the last four months, I'd forgotten I had a life in Pune. I'm typing this in Cafe Coffee Break. Sitting alone, as usual. Been ages since THAT happened. Memories of hours spent here with a PG Wodehouse and Mochaccilo to keep me company flood back. Pre-entrance exam days. What times they used to be. The solitude, the intense thinking about literally nothingness, the awesome coffee this place gives me, the ocassional catching of the eye of a cute girl sitting somewhere around, all of it. Never since I've left for campus have I gotten that kind of solitude. It's people all around the place, people in hostel, people in class, people when I go to Nescafe or Monginis. Maybe that's what making the Pune days not half as bad as I thought they'd be. Lonliness reloaded.

A JEE class reunion happened yesterday. With the people I'd spent the most constructive two years with. Maybe not as academically constructive as past ones. I was quite at a loss of thoughts when our prof called it "a gathering of the future of India". Didn't last too long. First thing I wondered about was the "India" part. I don't wanna enter that cliched area, but the whole brain-drain saga came to me. Then I wondered, almost aloud, about the whole phrase. How many of us would actually make the difference? How many of us would be lost in the sea of dreamers who just wanted to make a difference? How many of us knew how vast that sea actually was and how many of us just thought we knew? How many of us even cared? How many of us were there just for the free food? I casually threw a look around, as if they were hearing me and waiting to answer. A guy next to me was playing Snake on his phone.

The food was good, though.

Had a wonderful meeting with the HCL main guy of the Pune office. It was routine work, but my first stunt at the routine. Amazing how accurately Chief and his cronies had worked out the sponsorshup simulation game. Complete with reactions and expressions and talking styles.

It's barely 7:30 pm. Coffee's really good. It's cold outside. Possibly the first time I've had a hot cuppa here. I can see a couple hitting each other outside. I can't say whether they're being playful or fighting. I wonder why I'm wondering that.

Anywho, I'm off. More from this place later.

Campus Blues

2007-12-16T01:18:00.001+05:30

So I'm back in Pune again. Traveled in a bus full of collegian couples, returning home after a good time in Goa. Goa didn't satisfy them enough though, or I wouldn't have checked my ticket to see whether it said Honeymoon Travels.

It's been an eventful month between Diwali and the end of Compres. Loads has happened.

To start with, an event that made me a part of what is probably the greatest cult following ever. The Led Zepp reunion. The gig that made Prashant and me go insane over the band for a week straight.

Led Zeppelin. The only quartet arguably as famous as that Fab one from Liverpool. The trademark screams. The guitar solos that told the world what a guitar solo is. The insane drumming from a carpenter's son. Music that changed rock forever.

I'd heard about it earlier, for some reason never given the reaction I should have. This time though, it hit. And it hit hard. It was one of those moments of truth when everything points to just one truth. It's one of those moments when nobody says anything, but everybody's thinking it. This was Holy Grail all over again! This was a stone idol coming alive. This was dreams come true, a gig made in heaven. Bonham's son took over his mantle. I hadn't even heard of him till then. Jason Bonham. Described to me as a "befitting tribute to his father", and that is SOMETHING! The rest of the lineup was the same. As original as it could get.

And the concert was described as the greatest gig seen by many. Plant's voice was at it's best, and Page did a 10 minute Dazed and Confused. It was Nostalgia for many, rediscovery for some, and a new beginning for most.

Then there were the godforsaken compres themselves. Bad, bad times. A little less talking, a little less sleeping, and an immense increase in caffeine levels. The less said about that, the better. A good experience nonetheless. I'm ready to see that overrated place they call hell now!

And then there was those two post-compre days spent in campus. Days that exalted our spirits over the sky. It was amazing and almost amusing to see how we got over the disastrous exams so soon. First there was Bogmalo. We added a few Russians to our elongated list of the scandalized. To singing "Touch Me" loudly at a shack where folk come for peace and quiet to talking about the weirdest of things (read: censorship at work). All hit the J for breakfast the next day and ravaged into the food like the famished folk of an African country. A wonderful morning. Brought about the much-needed bonding back.

And then, after all that, we had to say goodbye.

All those cliched Bollywood goodbye scenes have years of friendships, romances and all the blah blah relationships being said goodbye to. Never did i expect to be part of any one of those, and not even in my wildest dreams to be the part of one which involved friends of 4 months, being apart for 20 days. Yes, that is the extent of the bonding that has happened.

Maybe it's the living in the same campus, eating in the same mess and cursing the same mess food, being together at Monginis till 11 pm almost every. Maybe it's the singing of the weird songs together (The title track of Dexter's laboratory being one of the saner ones we've done), maybe it's the insanely long walks had together, along the Children's park and shopping complex. BITS Pilani, Goa Campus has bonded us like those fevistick advertisements that they show.

It's gonna be a long, long stay here.

Vis(ta)-a-vis Windows

2007-11-26T23:29:00.000+05:30

There's a strange sort of euphoria associated with suddenly get access to the web and staying up till post-midnight. After playing a fair bit of catching the cook with the general chaos Microsoft and HP created in their co-ordination, I finally managed to catch Vista by the scruff of the neck.

So here I am. With one of the jazziest but suckiest OS ever seen. It's pretty weird, compulsion is, sometimes. After all the criticism I've heard of the system, it's pretty hard to see the good side. They're trying hard to make me see the cute little gadget bar on the side which is useful as hell. To see the awesome visual effects, the general feel-good factor about the system. All I can see, however, is the terrible speed. The frequent hang-ups, the ubiquitous feeling that Linux users are taunting me. Trust me will you, that it's no fun.

It's crazy the way people curse Vista around here. Mr. Gates is right on top of those hitlists. Almost to the extent of dissembling. For technology retards like me, it's all the same. This feels like going back to basics, but a computer is a goddamn machine. All I care about is whether it allows me to go online and do the fundamentals. But yet I can imagine the plight of the tech-geeks around here. Grumbling, more grumbling. It's weird.

Things gonna change? I think not.

Disillusioned?

2007-09-29T01:19:00.000+05:30

Euphoria, more euphoria and more more euphoria. With all due respects to Palash Sen and Co., I have never seen more euphoria prior to that historic night. The night which would probably be etched in the memories of all who witnessed it. That epic final, that god-sent cricket match, that last catch where millions of Indians broke down in pure joy, and all that jazz. I'd heard about the cricket-craze in India. Thought I'd seen it too.

I'd seen nothing.

BITS, Pilani - Goa Campus auditorium. One of the largest in the country. 2100 people stuffed inside, somewhat resembling feathers stuffed in a pillow. At every little edge India gained over our spitefully treated neighbours, explosions of sound filled the air. 2100 feet kicked up dust when they jumped to their feet at every run made and every Pakistan run prevented. Girls who I'd started to think never performed the physical act of speaking were jumping up and down with craze for the game. For a guy who didn't care two hoots about cricket, the experience was disillusioning. I realised I'm in the wrong country if I don't like cricket in here.

Sitting with a group of people consisting of guys screaming their throats sore and chics blowing kisses at every man in blue on screen didn't help. Neither did the other people who gave me looks like I was a bug when I emerged out of the audi with a perfectly straight face. HOW could i not like cricket? How could I not be filled with an orgasm-challenging intensity of pure ecstacy? Nobody knew, nobody cared. India had won the T20 World Cup.

An eye-opening night. To add to the fun, it rained. Now THAT was when it really began. Nikita and me went racing in the tearing rain, with water cutting through our skins and screams of happiness emulating from us. For her, the happiness was the World Cup. Me, though, I was just happy. I was totally unimpressed by the whole cricket deal, so I couldn't really capture it through that avenue. But the rain pushed my spirits up by MILES! I felt free. Liberated. Caught the vibes from the air.

Maybe it had something to do with Test 1 getting done that same day.
Maybe.

Sticking to the blog-title.

2007-07-17T00:11:00.000+05:30

I just realised I've been to Mumbai and back six times in the last two weeks.
I
've seen the same crappy movie thrice. It's funny how they invariably show garbage-stuff there.

I've lived three days in the VJTI hostels. Studied personalities. Played Chess. Had cold water baths at 6:30 am. Eaten like a starven bull in a mess notorious for it's terrible food. Taken early morning and late evening walks on a deserted ground and visualised soccer maneovers. Spent more time alone than ever.

I know the road to Mumbai now.

Amen.

An hour in the life...

2007-07-10T15:26:00.000+05:30

11.24 am.
VJTI, Matunga
Mumbai.

What does a guy do, with an hour to kill, in Mumbai's top-notch engineering college with prestige and all that jazz? Puts pen to paper and hopes the words flow like traffic on an unjammed expressway.

The letters appear shakily on the crackling brand new notebook. Though a prolonged absence from actual, conventional writing is one of the reasons, the main culprit is the resting of my arm outside a third floor window, with my biscep acting as leverage and forearm dangling outside during a midnight conversation, with the wind trying to act more like a tornado. I'd talked about cleavages and bases, among other things.

I have to wait for a long time more. I see the senior students strutting in the canteen with a sense of possissiveness. I hear the loud discussions on Orkut, i hear the somewhat muffled girl-talks about the return of an ex-flame. A black and white cat smiles at me as it walks by. I smile back incredulously. I think a girl somewhere is trying to catch my eye but that's just my imagination.

I've been running around for almost two hours now. Hostel fees, Bio-datas in the office, a random line which turned out to be one for the railway concession form. I glance outside on the basketball court and feel a dead hope of seeing a known face. I've already stalked the college to that effect once. Puneites don't usually come on this of the country. They don't like the climate.

I glance at my watch. The impatience is starting to seep in. I feel my feet rhythmically under the table. I think of the person who slaps my thigh in irritation when i do that. I miss her.

I see friendships being bred here in the canteen. Some will last.

This ain't gonna end man! Another damn half hour to go! I randomly think of Ninitha and her accusations me stealing her bakarwadis. I realise my writing's beginning to smoothen out.

I consider going for another walk around the campus. Feels good walking through an array of emotions. The college is a minimised version of the great city it is in, I feel. I drop the walk idea. Jus cuz I can. I minor commotion is caused when a guy almost steps on the cat.

I put my pen down and look around helplessly. Time seems to crawl and itch it's way across. I begin to play Tabla on the table. A few heads turn. Only for a moment.

I realise I've been stealing looks at a certain girl between sentences. I take a long look at her and turn away an instant after she looked at me. I can feel her inquisitive eyes on me as I write. I try to straighten my posture.

I begin dreaming about good old times. Times on the tekdi, in the university. I think about whether they're gonna come back, ever. Thoughts turn to the future. I start missing a certain person a lot suddenly.

I slow down, realising I can kill more time and write neater that way. I recall a joke about killing two birds with a stone.

I'm whistling Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line." A guy two tables away hears it and quick turns around in recognition. I go on whistling. I realise how much I adore whistling. I turn to a new vague tune. I think about the new earphones I need to buy for my iPod. I contemplate on whether to go for Philips or Panasonic.

My watch tells me it's 1 minutes to go. It's started raining outside. I think of getting my third cutting chai before i leave. A guy at the next table is narrating a joke. The girls listen intently, the guys seem uninterested. In another corner of the canteen some people start singing. The girl I was looking at goes upto the food counter. I resist the temptation of following her with another chai as an excuse.

I believe it's time I start packing. It's been a fun hour! I put my pen and notebook in my bag, get in my raincoat and head to the auditorium........

TaGgEd?!?! Again?!?!?!

2007-06-28T16:19:00.000+05:30

Whaa?? Jahnavi tagged me? Goodness, I'll be known as the local Dog if I wear so many tags!

Eight Simple facts about me:

1> I take too many things to heart. Unlearning what I know is a difficult process.

2> I detest smokers. I think pouring hot tar down my lungs is a much easier and faster process. Don't worry, it dries later too.

3> The worst emotion I have experienced is the desire to express myself but an inability to do so.

4> Randomness runs in my blood. It's been injected, I think.

5> Being lonely and happy at the same time may seem contradictory. I'm a live exception.

6> Music is a life-support system to me. Take it away from me, watch me writh in pain and die. Do not ask me my favourite band. I think it's the most ambiguous question anyone can ask.

7> I detest shady SMS lingo. It takes not more than 6 seconds (calculated, of course. Nothing I do or say is Random) to type out the whole word.

8> I don't like stereotypes.

There, sister, done!
I tag the Rambler and the Shiny Oddball :P

Adieu?

2007-06-28T16:06:00.000+05:30

Elation? The deep desire to jump with joy and pat the next sad person on his back and say "Cheer up mate, life's amazing"?

Maybe that. Yes. Emotions running through my head when I walked out of the COEP auditorium with a VJTI production engineering seat under my belt. Well, in my file, literally speaking. The distant dream was a rampant reality. I was in a good college, a good branch, and most importantly, living on hostel. Living where superfluous restrictions are non-existent. Where adenalin can run free and control me. Where I don't have "irritating elders" telling me to sleep on time, telling me to change into better clother, telling me to lower down the volume of the speakers.

Oh but wait, I did have to come home after that. I was jumping around the place. Jack (yes, the one in the box) would've been proud. I told almost everyone i knew and cared about, congratulatory calls came, everything happened, and then it was that time when I had to break the news to the most important person - myself. Some call it "sinking in". I call it convincing myself.

This was not what I had expected. I'd expected me to be understanding, all waiting to leave this place, spread my wings and fly away! But what was THAT emotion doing here? A desire to explain, a deep, enchanting feeling of belonging? Of protection? Who would've imagined the self-convincing would've been so hard? Well i won't say hard. It was the kind of feeling you get when someone tells you that a loved one has met with an accident, but he's gonna be allright. Happiness or sadness?

As if on cue, Bittersweet Symphony crooned on. I think my computer has a mind of it's own. I'm gonna miss it, among other things.

Whippee!!!

2007-06-20T08:20:00.000+05:30

I promised the Rambler the other day that I'd blog everyday. Hasn't quite materialised.

Maybe I should stop expecting too much from myself. Maybe I should revise the specification for a "Random Thought" to be a "Blog Post". Maybe there should just be a Bijection between those.

Oh, there's a long way to go for THAT.

Realisation struck me somewhere up the line that my fitness resembles that of a Sloth Bear. I need to get my ass moving. And FAST.

Nothing else comes to me right now. It's 8:30 am, the time when sleep really gets going usually. Imagine if an owl comes up to you in the afternoon and gives you a hi-five. :

Goodnight folks :D

The Night was Black

2007-06-14T02:09:00.000+05:30

The night was black.

The thunder cracked like a whip off a reluctant horse. Seconds earlier, the dim restaurant had been lit up the flash of lightning. And minutes before that, an event had ignited a chain of thoughts in my mind.

Five Point Someone. Mr Bhagat's book was the ignitor. A cousin sitting at the table had said something that raised my thinking above the spinal level for the first time, ever since it had lay dormant there post-exams!

"All IITians or to be IITians hate that book. I wonder why", she said. Doesn't quite have the effect of "Charge for the guns", she said, but yeah, that was what she said. Try as i did, I couldn't conjure words to explain why. This inability didn't hurt me as much as the knowledge that somewhere deep down, I knew the answer.

The minutes rolled by. The food, drink and the dessert got us all purring like content cats. An eventless drive home later, the thoughts returned. What was it that was pinching me? Why did the need to justify myself overcome the desire of curling up in bed after a flawlessly brilliant dinner?

And then flew up another emotion. Maybe it was the food combined with the rain beating on the glass window. Maybe it was Floyd's "High Hopes" running in my ears. But right there, my levels of self-doubt reached the foundation rods. I questioned the basics of all that I had learnt to the extent that would've made punkism proud.

I have always sought one thing in life. My Holy Grail. The Golden Mean. That one position in life when you're in control of everything that u hold dear. Perfect optimisation. Not unlike the null-magnetic-field position of interacting magnetic fields.

A passing thought came to me. Does the golden mean exist? A moment of doubt and pain. The presence of Lucifer.

Two entirely unrelated emotions. Unrelated to my comprehension. Until this moment.

The night was black.

I'm sick of all you hypocrites

2007-05-25T22:45:00.000+05:30

Is the generation gap a myth?

Do we, of our generation, have to do the EXACT same thing as the people two generations above us did when they were our age? Isn't there a factor which makes the next generation have different ideals and different ideas of "fun"?

Isn't there a way we can make ourselves heard at the place we call home? Is there a way my grandmother is gonna understand that I'm not wasted and that I do wanna do something productive in life?

Well, as they say, too many questions spoil the blog (With all respects to the cooks and their broth). No more questions. I'm being slaughtered here. Being set deadlines and curfew that would sound fair only to a 5 year old. All under the name of "discipline". It's not for me to decide what I want to do. "Do something productive", they tell me. "No talking anything private on the phone at nights", they say. Yes, I was having intimate phone sex. HOW did they know?!?!?!?!

Not good times at all. I read in some blog that the author loves her family more now that she's away. I know exactly what she means. I would too. I just want to move out.

Move out where my thought-process isn't shattered to pieces by illogical yellings. Move to where I'd be able to think clearly without people telling me things that don't make sense. Move to where I'd not have to go according to norms that i KNOW are insane, but they're just meant to be followed because they've been followed for eons. To some place where I'd be able to put down in words the things i feel without anyone making me justify myself as to why I need to write. Too many thoughts. Too less typing speed.

I want to move to a place where I can develop myself the way I want to.

I don't know where that came from. But it pretty much sums up all that I'm thinking right now.
Amen.

TaGgeD

2007-05-24T10:00:00.000+05:30

First and formost, do NOT ask me why there are a few capital letters and a few small. Also, do NOT ask me why they're not alternately capital and small. The capital of Pondicherry, Pondicherry, is pretty small.
Amen.

PS - Sorry Rambler, got an irresistable attack of randomness :D

By the (in)sane Rambler. Case sensitive, among other things.

1. Pick out a scar you have, and explain how you got it:
--> A faint one on my left forearm, got cut by a barbed wire while on a reconnaisance mission of a cricket ball. There was Pus! YAY!

.2. What is on the walls in your room?
--> I have no room :)

3. What does your phone look like?
--> Like a phone :
Also, like something that can be dropped from the second floor and still work.

4. What music do you listen to?
--> Everything. From Green Day to Gangubai Hangal. From Black Sabbath to Bhimsen Joshi. From Jethro Tull to Jitendra Abhisheki. From Penn Masala to Pandit Jasraj. From Deep Purple to Dev Anand's film music. Anything that sounds good.

5. What is your current desktop picture?
--> The fab four "crossing the street"

6. What do you want more than anything right now?
--> To travel to Vashi by train :)

7. Do you believe in gay marriage?
--> Yes. No further comments. The Rambler's opinion can be sought on this.

8. What time were you born?
--> 2 something am.

9. Are your parents still together?
--> Yeah

10. What are you listening to?
--> Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge over Troubled Waters

12. The last person to make you cry?
--> Steven Gerrard. Thanks to his abyssmal performance last night.

13. What is your favourite perfume/cologne?
--> Er, i won't answer this (at the risk of revealing i know NOTHING about perfumes/colognes)

14. What kind of hair/eye colour do you like on the opposite sex?
--> Longish hair that falls around the face a bit, lightish eyes, not too light... Oh, and these are the basic specifications. If i start the real details, blogspot will delete me for over-usage.

15. Do you like pain killers?
--> Let's just say ur asking Zidane whether he likes Football. Or Johnny Wilkinson whether he likes Rugby. Or Pandit Bhimsen Joshi whether he likes to sing. Or.... Er, i think u get the point :)

16. Are you too shy to ask someone out?
--> Nope

17. Fave pizza topping?
--> Extra Cheese (TM- Rambler)

18. If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?
--> A certain Soup i once had in "Curry on the Roof", Prabhat Road. I have no clue why i thought of THAT right now.

19. Who was the last person you made mad?
--> Nandita and Prochie yesterday, in Vashi, by going overboard with terrible jokes. Maybe i was over-bored :

20. Is anyone in love with you?
--> I don't think so.

I tag... Jahnavi and Ads. Do me proud :D

An uplifting half hour

2007-05-20T23:14:00.000+05:30

Never before has half an hour exalted me to such levels of musing on the meaning of life.

The city of Mumbai. The city of Dreams. Makarand society, a humble housing society of half a dozen buildings, situated right on the Mahim beach. The edge of the society is at a height from the edge of the sea. 10.30 pm. A few extra, unnecessary bites of Parantha in Only Paranthas, Linking Road, Bandra compelled me for a walk in the society. What better place for a walk than along the edge of the society, with the delightful sea-breeze lifting my spirits! Fate, it seems, had other plans for me.

The instant I stepped into the view of the sea, my first reaction was silence. My jaw had dropped too low for anything audible to be able to physically escape my thorax. The sight I beheld couldn't be real. It just couldn't. Words are too much of a handicap for me to explain, but let's try.

The Mumbai skyline. With all it's lights at night. In all it's glory. The perfect picture. Howard Roark would've been proud of it. Perfect architecture, a few structures of steel rising out of the ground. It was like that particular space in spacetime had been created by the Almighty with the sole purpose of giving refuge to that skyline. A pale yellow, perfectly crescent moon, placed atop the tallest building. Yes, placed. It was impossible for the moon to be there unless it was placed there. Manually, by God. He must have thrown hooks at it and tied it in place. The moon was part of the building. The building was incomplete without the moon. Symbiosis. No mortal could ever achieve such perfection. Not even those who want to reach perfection not for money, but for the sole purpose of lifting themselves above the rest.

I couldn't believe it. This wasn't happening. It happens only in movies or a few books, at the most. Yet, it was right there. It didn't even go after a few pinches i gave myself. It was there allright!

And all of a sudden, God loosened his hooks. The moon began to sink into the building. It sank, till it was no longer visible. Maybe God gifted the moon to the building for being so perfect. For being the only thing that could possibly occupy that space.

Then it was just the buildings. The disappearance of the moon made me recognise human voices. The fishermen folk, on the beach. With all their bedding, for their humble homes a little ahead along the beach didn't have air conditioning. For they trusted on the air conditioning provided by the sea. The sea, that was all they ever knew, that was all they ever trusted. The sea that enabled them to feed their children back home. Some lying down, talking about the wonderful catch of the day. Some enjoying a simple game of Rummy. Some smoking their beedis in silent contemplation. Through that mile-long humanity, i could sense one emotion. Happiness. Contentment. Not even a whiff emerges through offices of the corporates.

We talk about of social divides, don't we? Well, some inside information. It's the sea. The divide we all talk about.

On one side of the sea, fishermen unwinding, wiping honest sweat. On the other, modernisation. Fly-overs, cars, steel towers. Contentment on one side, a hectic life on the other. Beauty sleep after a hard day of work on one side, more work after a day of hard work on the other. In the city, it was hard to recognise which light was the brightest. On the beach, the brightest light came from a beedi and an occasional match.

I was suddenly aware of movement in the sky. A plane was apparently denied permission to Mumbai airport, and it was wiling away it's time making circles around the sky.

Straight ahead, i could see the incomplete Worli-Bandra connecting bridge. A bridge meant to bridge the gap between two areas of the same racket they call "Mumbai". We're bridging the wrong gaps, i said aloud. A stray dog on the beach heard me. It looked up in confusion.

"Main Tanha" by Penn Masala hummed in my ears through Apple headphones. And i was truly alone. Tanha, as they said. The realisation of the great divide had made me feel like the lonliest person on earth.

And it goes on. The Mumbai skyline won't change. The fishermen will still come out of their homes for the cool breeze at nights. The bridge will be made.

What changed, was me. By observing something that has been present for eons. But in a different light.

The city of Mumbai. The city of Dreams. It couldn't be truer. Ten feet away from me, on the beach, the dreams were humble. A mile away, beyond the sea, beyond the curving beach, among the lights, the dreams were sky-high.

Life poses some fairly interesting questions sometimes, doesn't it?

Bleh!

2007-04-24T11:17:00.000+05:30

A loss of words. A complete, inexplicable loss of words. Not the best way to make the first post on your blog, but well.... Compelled by the constraints of wordlessness, I am!

Funny how sometimes when you want all eight cylinders of the mind perfectly lubricated and greased, and working on full horsepower, it fails you. It goddamn fails you like it's the most obvious thing it can do. I can't think of any metaphors, any ironical expression, nothing at all. It's a terrible, terrible feeling.

Now blogs aren't meant for this kind of jazz, and I really can't seem to get myself writing today. Nonetheless, i shall post, for more posts on your blog give you courage. Somehow. Ironically.

And there, i have created the first Irony of my post. Seems Paradoxial, doesn't it?

No, I have NOT been reading Wren and Martin all night.

Prologue

2007-04-21T23:37:00.000+05:30

Heave ho, and here we go!!

After months and years and eons of contemplating on "to write or not to write", I finally decided on the former. Incidentally, this binary contemplation gave me a slight idea on the extent of the dilemma Mr Bard was in once upon a time, but that apart...

First things first. Kudos to Ruta to get me spilling the words out. Relax, let it flow, she said. And let it flow I did, and worked, it did!!

Now the next question is, what the hell should i write about? Miss Ruta left me groping in the dark there, didn't she? Goodness, too many people are telling me to figure out too many things on my own...

Ok now enough randomness for the time-being. I almost started a blog about 6 months ago, but left it halfway. Why? Fear. The fear of failure, and that's the precise thing i need to get over. The last two months have changed me to no ends, and now, fear is on the downhill road into the valley of death. Let's hope i decide to put pen to paper... Er... I mean, put fingers to keyboard more often and randomize myself into the sort of a trance associated with LSD.