Step

At this moment,

Huge traffic across the high bridge ceases to move
Dark clouds stand still over water
A lazy old man sits on a cot in the middle of his vast paddy field
Waitresses in Mexico are busy taking orders
A businessman is waiting to meet his investor at Starbucks
Men are looking for their love in barbershops
Women are searching for theirs in grocery stores
A man in Iraq fires a bullet against a wall
A young lady in Havana is blogging about why Cuba is not all about its Cigar
A cricket team is fast asleep dreaming about victory tomorrow

I am busy enjoying this moment.

Benazir

Bhutto.




A few things are inexplicable. My seemingly high affection for bhutto has no real basis. I don't belong to Pakistan. I have no direct or indirect connection in any way. The attachment is probably because whenever i think of her, i remember her otherwise very powerful dad being hanged to death in public. It always remained a puzzle to me as to how can a powerful prime minister of a country be dealt with such cruelty in public? What kind of barbaric society did he belong to?

Benazir has been publicly warned since many months about possible attacks. Almost everybody who followed Pakistan knew that she was walking through a very risky path. Then, why wasn't anything done to protect her? Isn't it obvious then that the powers are on the side of the assassinators?

I always have been an admirer of people of Pakistan. Against the popular opinion, i actually like the spirit of their cricket team. But, somehow, some irreparable damage has been done now. For once, i lost hope. It might probably be the first of such an instance in my life.

Kewl

What is the difference between a good friend and a best friend?

If you went to prison, a good friend will try his best to get you out.
A best friend will bring you hot samosas, looks at you in the prison and say, "this is fuckin awsome man"!

Pain and Pleasure

What is the most painful thing that can exist?

It is the exhaustive pangs you feel when those you trust don't trust you enough!


What is the most pleasurable thing that can exist?

It is when a strange kid on the street smiles at you whole-heartedly!

This is what i call a good email signature

Good one, Ankit Sharma!

"Ur absence shud b long enough, so dat Sumbody misses U....But it shudn't b so long,
dat Sumebody learns 2 live widout U!

The human heart feels things the eyes cannot see; and knows what the mind cannot
understand....

Always hav a smile on ur face not only coz life is full of reasons to smile but also
coz ur smile itself is a reason for many others to smile.

Keep smiling....! "

Ideas worth spreading

www.ted.com

A wonderful collection of lectures on various interesting themes. A good way to kill time if you have the luxury of it. It probably might be a better way to spend your time than doing whatever you are doing.

Happy Holidays!

Grassroots

Suddenly I open up,
Everything settles down,
This blade of grass I call myself
Roots in the sounds
Honking geese, silence
Ticking clock
Incense smoke
Fading light
Wonderfully full.

I am a blade of grass,
Rooted here tonight
Grounded in these moments
Of wild bird flight.
It's here I claim my origin
And like a blade of grass
I bend and twist and live and die
In all that rushes past
Snow, ice, driving rain
Sun, stars
Pleasure, pain
Darkness, light
And on it goes with all of life.


- Hetty Baiz

Office Office

My job has the following si(g)ns:

Golf practice on the office carpet
Gamble with colleagues
Drink beer with the boss in the conference room
Have push up competitions

Tell me if there can b a better office to go to.

Pink Floyd

There is music and then there is music. The English band definitely has something as basic as numbers to algebra. Philosophy oozes out of every lyric of their songs. The sonic experimentation creates a silkened fabric for the listener to float on.

Big respects.

Kids waitin 4 Santa

Pizzahut on the moon

And a Buddhist temple in down town NY. They both have more similarities than differences. Starving for customers is what they know best.

I did my part. I bought 200$ worth of books on Buddhism. It probably meant a month of revenues for the old lady who runs the shop. Amen!

Bitter Truth

A conversation on a local train in Boston between an Indian and an European -

(The average Indian guy somehow always manages to mention the name of the school he went to)

I: So, i went to this school called IIM-A in india
E: Oh yeah, what for?
I: It is the top MBA institute of India, it is far difficult to get into than harvard or wharton!!
E: Wow, you must be smart!! What does this school have that the top US schools don't?
I: Oh, the admission rate is so much lesser. Wharton admits a lot higher ratio of applicants.
E: So,(ahem), that's your only claim to fame?

I: (Starts thinking)

The discussion soon fizzles away to a less important topic.


(This is one the things i do during my lone travels on the local train here! Try to pretend to read a book with earphones on. But, i always manage to listen to others conversations. Sick, isn't it?)

Grey Shadows

Nine years - One hundred and twelve books

Thousands of hours of toil
Swallowed by the ocean

Winters, summers and then it rains -
All that is clear is the subtle shift

Two broken glasses, twenty five half written poems,
Five lost ones and an empty dairy
A silent guitar

Less than three hundred and twenty dreams
six were not about you

Pictures - a lot of them
No real color. Few are black and white.
Some are faintly grey

I have a letter to post
The post box is invisible

December

The dreaded December is here and with it brought an awful lot of wind chill. The weather is so cold that sometimes it even freezes the thoughts. It also is a source of relief. The only solution to the cold inside is the cold outside.

Co-workers, Orkut and Facebook!

Did you ever feel ridiculous to let your boss or a colleague browse through your friend lists and messages? Well, you have company in Cory Doctorow.

Quoting a slashdot article...

"Cory Doctorow writes about the downside of social networking on the Information Week site, with a focus on Facebook. While he starts with some minor but insightful quibbles, he quickly moves to a critique of the core of social networking: 'Imagine how creepy it would be to wander into a co-worker's cubicle and discover the wall covered with tiny photos of everyone in the office, ranked by 'friend' and 'foe,' with the top eight friends elevated to a small shrine decorated with Post-It roses and hearts.' Do you really want to add your boss and coworkers to your friends list? (And more to the point, do you really have a choice?)"

The article can be found at
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/29/1745240

Noise

The cost of being sensitive to percepts is the uncanny amount of noise the mind and heart has to bear. It often pushes the soul to the point where everything seems to question the very premise of humanity.

On such occasions, i tend to write. (That is for you who quite often ask me to stop write and start life)

Yellow

Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And everything you do,
Yeah, they were all yellow.
I came along,
I wrote a song for you,
And all the things you do,
And it was called yellow.
So then I took my turn,
Oh what a thing to have done,
And it was all yellow.
Your skin
Oh yeah, your skin and bones,
Turn into something beautiful,
You know, you know I love you so,
You know I love you so.
I swam across,
I jumped across for you,
Oh what a thing to do.
Cos you were all yellow,
I drew a line,
I drew a line for you,
Oh what a thing to do,
And it was all yellow.
Your skin,
Oh yeah your skin and bones,
Turn into something beautiful,
And you know for you,
Id bleed myself dry for you,
Id bleed myself dry.
Its true, look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine for,
Look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine.
Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And all the things that you do.

-
Lyrics of the song 'yellow' by Coldplay

Choice

There are only three types of men -
Men who die screaming
Men who die in silence
Men who die with a smile on their face

It is not about the death, it is perhaps always about the life.

Doors and Windows

Instant messenger has brought with it such a vast abundance of public affection. I often get mesmerized at the fact that i have so many friends who love me enough to say hi at the most odd times. May be real world distance doesn't really matter anymore. Or, does it?

Thinking of instant messengers, i had this weird but powerful wish. It was so profound that i had tears in my eyes when i spent too much of time thinking about it!

Imagine a scenario where people from all time eras could talk to each other. What a gigantic thought it is to imagine talking to a dude from yester years called Arjun. He would go, "oh! btw, i killed all my cousins last weekend at a family event". My reply would at best be, "ah! come on man. that's not how u hunt!"

A saturday afternoon chat window would say, "hi der". No, it won't be my friend after his latest breakup. It will be a guy called Ram. A noble soul of his time and a rock star. He would go, "I miss my babe man. She is off in lanka somewhere. You know what? (sends the shy icon) I hired monkeys to search for her!". I would say, "Ohh! dat's so cool!! you should buy a sea-cruiser? They are selling it off 4 cheap man. It's da thanksgiving holiday sale! And you should be careful bro. Jayasurya still bats for lanka!"

Off would I go with Ram to fetch his hot babe. Won't i make far better company than the boring lakshman prasad yadav and vibhushan Singh Gaikwad? God, they surely can play golf! Did i say the scenario has only virtual time travel and not the real one? Ahh, forget it. There are no rules today. Why, you ask? Well, i forgot to swipe on my way into the office and there is now no way to know who broke the coffee machine. That's why. Now, stop asking questions, will ya?

I do need talk to a particular man though. I have a very important question for him. I will be a sad man on my deathbed if i don't get to know the answer. The question is this, "You are a rotten potato" and the man is not inzamamul haq. It's Cartman, off the southpark fame.


So, the moral of the story is this, 'Never read a blog with 'Windows' in the title'

(claps at the back and tears)

I, Me and Myself!

Not really. No.

What are you waiting for?
I said NO.

talaash

Maine dil se kaha, dhoond laana khushi
Nasamajh laya gum, to yeh gum hi sahi

Bechaara kahan jaanta hai
Khalish hai yeh kya khala hai
Shehar bhar ki khushi se
Yeh dard mera bhala hai
Jashna yeh raaz na aaye
Mazaa toh bas gam main aaya hai

Maine dil se kaha, dhoond laana khushi
Nasamajh laya gum, to yeh gum hi sahi

Kabhi hai ishq ka ujaala
Kabhi hai maut ka andhera
Bataao kaun bhes hoga
Main jogi banu ya lutera
Kayi chehre hai is dil ke
Najaane kaunsa mera

Maine dil se kaha dhoond laana khushi
Nasamajh laya gum, to yeh gum hi sahi

Hazaaron aaise phaasle the
Jo Tai karne chale the
raahe magar chal padi thi
Aur peeche hum rah gaye the
kadam Do chaar chal paaye
Kiye phere tere mann ke

Maine dil se kaha, dhoond laana khushi
Nasamajh laya gum, to yeh gum hi sahi

Maine dil se kaha, dhoond laana khushi
Nasamajh laya gum, to yeh gum hi sahi

- Lyrics from a hindi song of the movie 'rog'

World ain't not funny

If ever you get to a point where you begin to think there is not enough humor around and people have become such idiotic dumb nuts - think again!

Dan Lyons, is a forbes editor who writes a blog posing as a fake steve jobs. He does a fine job at it. He even predicted some of steve's product announcements and was ranked on a recent list of "The 50 who matter now".
(Read http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/)

Apparently, he is not a great fan of MBA which makes him my friend. This is what he says of it, "Good god, man. Could there be anything less creative, less imaginative, less valuable than going to business school? Is there any surer way to become an absolute conformist....than to spend two years being coddled and pampered and fed worthless pablum by failed businesspeople"

Well, it did bring out some funny and creative reactions from some poor students of a random business school!

Torn Shoes

Far ahead in Iran
The kid loses the shoes of his sister
Little hands can't buy a big pair
So, ran the tiny legs

Not all races need to be won
For some, third place is the only victory

Smile on the face of a little sister -
is the only glory that exists

Far ahead it might be
It's the closest i have ever been
Put the hearts of all men together
A kid's heart still wins

Of all the art that exists
Majid Majidi has the only truth

all i have is a few arbitrary lines
and a heart full of gratitude

if not for words
where is the reprieve?

Forgetful

I have always been forgetful by nature. I forget to remember the names of so many important people that i cannot recollect how many of them did i really forget. Anyway, i realized today morning while i slipped on the stairs that i do not think in my mother tongue anymore. A little litmus test to understand what language does a man think in is this: Throw him off-balance without his notice, the sudden squeal that comes out is the exact sound of the language he belongs to. Well, my sound was this: "geesh!!"
Of all the things i could have said - i said "geesh". I do not even know if it is a word. Probably, am not thinking in a language anymore. Or more realistically, i do not think anymore! After the powerful early morning occurrence, i decided to think in my natural language - telugu, the whole day. It was a tough exercise, believe me. The couple of client calls definitely didn't help the matter. I was trying to think in telugu - translate it to hindi (which became my second tongue after the long years in bombay)and then articulate it in english. It was a journey on the razor edge and i was playing by the ear. Well, it wasn't a pleasant experience and i cursed myself later for having actually done that. However, it revealed to me that am still capable of thinking in all my basic languages. And am glad at the thought.

For tomorrow - i want to think only in symbols.
Godspeed.

JuxTaposition

Empty spaces and hollow forms
Loud noises of high pitches
Sting through the fabric -
and remain

Flow of river across the patches of land
Connects the tomorrow to yesterday

A tall tree bends to give shade
'Somehow', it says,
'nothing connects to today'!

Tip

If you have a free day
Learn to enjoy movies and food alone

A day will come when you will need the art.

Distant

On the surface
Choice exists in the smooth key pad -
and on-demand
it's a world full of free men like you
who live the will

And if you were the surface
you probably laugh all the time
tell me you don't find it funny
all the thought landscape

Stone to stone you move
go round and square; triangles too?
meet Elizabeth and the time machine
Trying to escape

And not.

In the end,
it's only coke-
and some popcorn

If life were an object,
it surely would be a TV remote
Only, you can't switch it back on

Hang on to the red light.

If ever

If ever the song paints
If ever the haze disappears
If ever the prison wall seems too low
If ever the curve straightens
If ever the brick looks a brick
If ever the doors are closed
If ever the mysticism ends
If ever the smile comes back
If ever the guitar gets tuned
If ever..

Then may the light arise!

Magic

Wave after wave
Far from the shore and deep inside
Sounds of balafon -
And some samba

Legs curled up -
Every atom is dancing
There is a twinkle
Lips move apart

Cool breeze
And a sip of hot coffee
Magic!
What else is?

Release

In the midst of woods -
spiral branches and smell of earth
green on the out and brown inside
the colors fade by the minute

Violet oozes out of the stem
Smoothely kissing the wet cheeks
Trembling hands rush to stop
Wind chill is the new lord

Yellow life crawls up the orange oak
Sticks and stings - the wounds remain

Night blanket wraps around the moon
Take my hug and bring me warmth
Heavy sphere, got any ear?

Sometimes, i wakeup on the tenth floor
Strange that the building has only seven in the morning

Emotion needs to learn algebra
Release is but a solution that never exists

In, from out

"Love kicks the ass of space and time!"

- Hafiz, A Persian poet

Steve, Bill and Icecream

If you were born in the 80s like me, you were probably thrown into this world when it was going through a very important series of events. The cold war ended during this period. There was uprise of urban middle-class in the US and Europe. Middle class young adults fresh out of MBA-schools were getting adequately rich to get pretty cars and prettier women. It was a period when movies and music began to get commercialized into the mainstream as we see it today. It was also a time when Microsoft and Apple started doing things which made them so fantastically successful as they are now. I wouldn't mention Infosys here as much of the value creation due to them only began to happen in the 1990s. The point however is that these are really really powerful events if you come to think of it. A lot of things happened so positively well together that it just pushed the eco-system to a higher layer and order of basic elements.

I feel unlucky because of two things. One, i wasn't born in the west, where the action always seems to be more "now" than in the east. Two, read one again. The eco-system is so much more real in the west as compared to the east and it both inspires and scares me. I am inspired because i get hope that if humans can do it at some space and time, humans elsewhere surely have the potential to do it. I am scared because i feel the eco-system is so terribly damaged that it might take a lot of time and space. One reason it is bound to take a a lot of time is that there is a lot and lot of space to cover. What can speed up the process is something only Mustafa Gaus knows. It is very important to find him.

When i was in school, a friend of mine used to tell me repeatedly about this little nugget of wisdom. He told me about this so many times that i now kind of believe in it. I think that is what it takes to convince someone about something. Just persevere and constantly bombard them with your alternative imagery of space-curve. Sooner or later, they will bend in. It is probably always the latter. Well, the nugget of wisdom was this. If you take away the wealth of all the rich people in the world and redistribute it among everybody in the world equally, the wealth will get back to the same or similar set of people very soon. That is just how the whole thing is programmed! You either have it in you or you don't. There are no two ways about it. Well, wisdom or not, it is surely an interesting way to look at things. For me, it always is a favorite thing to ponder about. If you know the essential DNA of what makes people of different walks of life wealthy and those elements which restrict progress, you can become the most powerful consultant, the world has never known. The key word, however, is "If". Nobody seems to know the answer even though people throw this crap around a few common phrases around doing the right thing, making your passion your job, etc. Well, if my passion should be my job, who will pay me for eating ice cream?


It dawned on me today that am close to hit a quarter century of my lifetime on this planet and am supposed to have a perspective of what life form is all about and where is that am supposed to take mine.

I pondered about it a lot and this is what i have concluded-

Eat a lot of ice cream.


The 1980s are also termed as the period of "greed".
I for some reason, think that greed is probably always good. The collective greed of all humans is probably what makes the seemingly complex human and para-human systems tick and move. Amen.

Agony

http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/oct/24india.htm

The latest report by AT Kearney talks about something as trivial as the fact that sky is blue. Yes, 800 million of Indians live on less than two dollars a day. Less than half the people are connected to the power grid. Note more than 5% are connected to the internet and all that jazz.

But, you know what? India still ranks high on happiness surveys. Surely, money or material wealth is not a source of happiness. They discovered and wrote about this in the vedas and upanishads a zillion years ago. We surely know the true path to happiness in the east.

Or, do we?

How about a village with electricity round the clock and clean water to drink?
How about adequate provision of healthcare in every nook n corner?
How about your distant cousin in the village having the chance to go to a good school?

Will that not bring any happiness?

May be we need to re-write our vedas. And give ourselves a little chance.

Cold

Time is staring at the watch
Laughing crazy like never before
Perhaps, never after

Chillness in the veins
Exhaust from the constant rupture
Numb feet and the gibberish
Ah, familiar

How i wish it was a dream.

A bird whispers silence into my mind
Can you a sing a song too? please

Far away in Mexico, the little girl is smiling
Her grandma wants to use the face book

Pumpkin festival

Confession

- Loius Gluck

To say I'm without fear--
it wouldn't be true.
I'm afraid of sickness, humiliation.
Like anyone I have my dreams.
But I've learned to hide them,
to protect myself
from fulfillment: all happiness
attracts the Fates' anger.
They are sisters, savages--
in the end, they have
no emotion but envy.

Impossible is Nothing

Have you ever taken a course in mass transfer? If not, do not read any further!

For if you have gone through the rituals, you are most likely to remember the book by treybal. If you are the unfortunate Phd kind, you probably still sleep over it.

This is not about the book. This isn't even about me. It is about a man and his deepest fears coming true!

I hated it from the bottom of my heart ever since i first met with the book. Whenever i opened the pages, i felt like i was being tied to a tree and punished with a hunter! The piercing pain and the imaginary smell of the silkened flesh still linger fresh in my memory. The psychometric charts looked like the kitchen of the devil who was cooking my misery. The problems about the distillation plants made me feel sad for the african girls who were being sold in the markets of Ethiopia. I felt a strong cord of distinct similarity. When you are forced to do something you dislike so much and there is no way out, what do you do about it?

Well, not much i guess.

Time moved on. Mass transfer became a thing of history and treybal was a happy man ever after. I actually don't remember an instance where i felt anything remotely bad for him. Even when i was going through the pain, i felt sad for the guy who had actually had to write a book about transfer of mass from a phase to an other. He probably doesn't have to worry about hell as he has lived through it!

A typical hindi movie romance starts with a fight between the boy and the girl and ends up with them falling in love. I never believed in it!


Well, most of the time, beliefs shouldn't change! That leaves for some time when they are allowed to change!

I met with the book again on this weekend. I happened to meet a friend doing his Phd at MIT and he was kind enough to let me into the room where he stores this book and treats it with atmost devotion!

I didn't know what to do for a minute. Here i was, face to face with my devil. My deepest fear. My deadliest nemesis. I slowly but surely moved towards it. I took the book in my hand and began to feel it's texture. In a single momentary flash, the entire history dawned itself before my eyes. I started going through the pages. The very psychometric charts from the past began to look like innocent puppies. It doesn't feel anywhere close to a devil's workshop. I went through the pages which discuss distillation plants. I felt something melt inside me. There were tears in my eyes.

The wonder for me is that i couldn't bring myself to hate the thing i thought was my worst enemy. I felt like i was holding a teddy bear in my hands.

I think this is a lesson for every man who is scared of something. anything. The thing that you are scared of is probably not the reason for your misery. The reason lies inside you. And gladly for me, the reason doesn't exist anymore!

Happy Days!

A few things can touch you.
A few other can move you.

Very rarely, few things do happen which can actually make you cry!

Shekhar Kammula, is a director with a magic wand. Happy Days is a must watch if you want to add quality to a few of your hours on the weekend.

It has everything you want from a movie and may be a lot more. The story is very simple yet immensely powerful that you actually stop treating it as just a movie. It is everybody's story. Anybody who went onto study after highschool, will relate to this movie to the highest degree of congruence. A run-of-the mill story but shot with such elegance and freshness which needs to be seen to realize it.

Acting in the movie is such a natural beauty! There are several independent stories each linked to the other and create great screenplay in the process. The new actors (i have never seen them before) did a great job! The background music tracks are very soothing and impressive.

Freshie ragging, Puppy love, Hot english teacher, deep friendships, gang wars, worries about career goals, struggles to decide whether to stay back in india or move to US, growing up from kids to be men and women.

Add to that, there is also a chapter on graduation towards the end of the movie.

The movie definitely leaves you with a heavy heart and tonnes of nostalgia.

Is it just me or this is real?

When the gates open...

Children walk to the school..
From the safety of mom's warmth.

Workers assemble at the factory..
Prayers never said.

Politicians are driven to their chambers..
Files smile at the luck.

Players enter the camp..
Sweat, Thirst and Desire.

Traders place the bets..
A shirt lost and and a feraari won.

Professor knocks it down.
The colour ain't changing. He laughs..

The old man at the sea..
Waits for his freedom.

A girl smiles and blossoms..
First love.


In a patch of land not very far away.................


A man opens fire.
He isn't one of us.



I wake up...
from a nightmare to an other.

Creed, justice and Marijuana!

I just found out that Marijuana is far better for you health-wise than cigarettes. It's a medical fact!

My question is why is marijuana illegal and cigarettes are legal if this is the case?
A probable answer is that the primary motive of the worldwide law and political systems is not public health and well-being. But, i don't want to be cynical today.

The evening is just too pleasant!

Funny things

Dear Silence,

Trust you are doing great.
It was nice meeting you last week. We hardly talked though. Guess all the noise at the restaurant distracted you? I wanted to tell you how much i loved the way you held the flowers. And when you sipped the wine, it felt like you were weaving symphony. Wish i can meet you again soon. I call often but i don't seem to get through?

Love,
Sound

P.S: You will receive this message late as am sound and not as fast as light!

Reply from Silence:

Dear Sound,

I am silent but you are dumb!
How can i ever meet you?


Reply from Sound:

Dear Silence,

There is no physics in dreams. It's all geography.

God of long things!

Faith does strange things to people. You somehow garner the strength to achieve the otherwise arduous and impossibly cruel tasks. Life starts looking like an easy drive on a half-volley.

I was witness to several acts of faith over the last weekend. A trip to tirupati with family helped in a lot of ways!

Tirupati, the abode of lord venkateshwara, is a place full of wonders. The mind-boggling queues do not worry the devotees at all. Infact, they almost enjoy the long wait! The average wait-time for a chance appointment with the lord is approx 4-5 hours!! This is if you belong to the privileged sorts of queues (the ones with reco letters from prominent politicians, etc.). A poor peasant typically waits for 12-18 hours to get a sneak peek at the lord!!!!!

The 'darshan' is a big tragedy. You are already too tired by the time you reach the crux of the temple and are in no mood to pray. Also, you will be pushed off by fat khakhi-walas/poorly clad pujaris in an instant. A nanosec is all you ever get! And, people typically close their eyes in front of the god. That esentially means that not more than a small portion of the devotees actually have a full glimpse of the lord.

The story isn't limited to the main temple where the real slim lord is located. Around the main temple, lots of smaller ones co-exist. Each one has a story. Interesting ones i should say. I often wondered if several of those temples were just plain jokes by the erstwhile feudal lords. The joke would have been a result of a chance conversation between two weekend friends.

Sometime during 14th century, the conversation between a rich merchant and a not-so-popular king on a dull sunday would have been like below:

Merchant A: "Dude, am gettin bored these days! Not enough golf!! Also, my wife is in the states with her relatives!"
King B: "Ahh, sorry to hear that bro! Am bored too. My wife is back again. Let's build a temple for timepass. We will also earn a lot of mudras through ads!!"
Merchant A: "Kewl idea man!!!"


And so were created dozens, hundreds, thousands and lakhs of temples across villages, towns and cities alike. Back then, the population must have been fairly low and the temples were never really crowded. But, the prosperity of last several centuries (read good rains) resulted in a population explosion leading to crores of devotees on streets. They all have a single-point agenda. Stand in a queue and visit a god! We devotees typically keep a score. It's similar to a fico-score. We call it the darshan-score. The one who drank the maximum 'theertham' (holy water distributed at the temple after darshan) and climbed the highest number of steps is the most reliable devotee. And temples usually issue blessings at lower interest rates (like a bank issues cheap credit for ppl with high fico scores) for devotees with high scores!!

Whatever that means, the fact is that the long queues are constant throughout the day at all kinds and sizes of temples. All that a true devotee has to do is chant "govinda govinda" ! It acts like a crocin pill to the fever caused by all the evils of capitalism, inefficient democracies, inadequate educational institutes, poor form of justice, pathetic infrastructure and gallons of corruption.

God bless.

Itinerary

August 26 9 AM : Arrival in hyderabad
August 31 3 PM: Arrival in Tirupati
September 3 10 AM: Arrival in Delhi
September 3-9: Ladakh
September 10: Arrival in Hyderabad
September 14: Arrival in Mumbai
September 16: Departure to Boston

September 17: Hell breaks loose.

Tryst with destiny

"Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity."

- Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru


Happy independence day!

She lay on the bed...

...wrapped in white, half covered in sheets. Her body was half revealed, and looked like it had been made to be loved by me.

I walked up to her, and turned her around. She looked at me lazily, and I could see myself in her eyes. I had loved her for years now, because everything about her was so unique, precious, and beautiful. She smiled at me, and her milky white skin shone in the morning light. I took her in my arms, caressing her tenderly, and knowing that she was now mine, for now, for ever.

She looked at peace, like the creator had thought out every inch of her design. She welcomed me with open arms, and I lost myself in her warm embrace. I knew I didn't want anything else in the world ever again: no money, no house, no doors, and definitely, no Windows.


My Angel.
My MacBook.


-Anon! :)

Stuff inside a pumpkin and the french revolution

Yes. they are real!
And so is everything else.

Tonight will be my last day at my dearest apartment flat in an innocent corner on the planet, called powai. This small town is special to me for more than a thousand million reasons. I was a toddler when i came here back in 2001. I now am a fully grown adult and many of my impressions and ideas about the universe were given shape here. Thanks to my IIT days, most of them are worth cherishing!

The dearest flatmates, (guys both of them), shashi and the freaking idiot, bapu gave me some wonderful time. It was an honour staying with you guys as i know you both will be amongst the most important people on the planet by the time we reach our 60s.

I will miss the flat, definetly! My bike has been standing in the parking space without a shade for years now! And, god bless, it's still in a working mode! If there is one thing i hate about the whole thing about my flat, it's the landlord. Whenever i see him or hear from him, it dawns upon me that evil is real too and omnipresent. But i still wish that god blesses him with any of his favourite disease.

It's a well know fact that home is where heart is. I testify!

Hack yourself!

You are hacker, ainh? A smart one?

Try these. These are not the traditional computer hacks, dey got more to do with your body!

• Hold your breath longer
• Think while you sleep
• Scratch your leg to make it to the loo!

Read more.....

http://lifehacker.com/software/lifehacker-top-10/top-10-body-hacks-257746.php

you know more?

Scott Adams is not worried about the future!!

Below is an alleged letter from a 10 year old to Scott Adams (of Dilbert's fame) which finally resolved all his worries about future of mankind and the planet!

-----------------------------Start---------------------------------------------------

Dear Mr. Scott Raymond Adams,

I am a 10-year-old boy who is an avid fan of your comic series, Dilbert. I know that it has achieved immense fame by the fact that it is shown in over 1600 newspapers around the world (at least, that was the way it was the last time I checked). I still want to know if the Dogbert's New Ruling Class (DNRC) newsletter is still available for new subscribers. I really wish to subscribe, even though it is only tri- or quad-annually, because it seems like it's better to have a regular update about your works and some random stories about people who send e-mails to you than to have to wait for the next book.

Now that I'm done with a proper introduction, I'll move on to more important matters. I like all of your books, but I'm especially intrigued with your philosophical works, God's Debris and its sequel, The Religion War. I like the way that you can exploit Occam's (I hope I spelled that right) Razor to the extent that it sounds refreshing and new, and yet doesn't seem like you're insane. I know that there's a warning in the introduction/prologue of God's Debris about how the ideas in the book are powerful and are not suitable for people under 14. I think that that is complete mish-mash, because, as you said in Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel, people know what to expect in a book. You (probably) won't get sued or ridiculed because somebody's religious parents found out that their children doubt their beliefs now because of something in a book. Actually, the law protects you from that kind of stuff because of the first amendment, which says that everybody has the right to practice freedom of religion, unless it is designed to hurt others, like a cult. You definitely aren't gathering a cult (are you?) right now, so you're completely free to do whatever you want in a book.

However, and this may sound contradicting to what I said in the last paragraph, the ideas in that book are extremely powerful. I wonder if you could incorporate hypnosis into a book, because it seems like you, a trained hypnotist, did. I was completely and totally transfixed as I read those books. The best part is, your (or rather, the Avatar's) explanation of the universe completely makes sense because we can't judge god! That is the one thing that keeps your idea alive! You simply don't know what god thinks like because he is another being, totally different from human beings.

There is only 1 counter to your idea of the universe, and that is if there is an omnipotent god, he would still need something to create him. In a sense, that other entity is the real god, and the one that we worship is only a subordinate. Then, that entity would need another thing to create it, and so it would span infinitely through lesser and greater. The same thing is true about the shape of the universe. I believe that the universe is finite, because if it was infinite, it would have to travel faster than the speed of light and that would rip a hole in the space-time continuum and so would suck all light outside of the universe at infinite speeds as well, forming a huge counter-vacuum that would make the universe uninhabitable because every shred of matter that formed would be sucked outside the universe through the hole in the space-time continuum and cause the universe to oscillate at, again, infinite speeds between infinity and nothing. I could bore you all day with my talks about the universe and all of that uncertain stuff, and I know that you need the whole day to write back to all to your e-mails and draw your comics.

I am an atheist, but my Grandmother is a Christian and my Grandfather is a Buddhist. That is why I could adapt so easily to the idea that god is really only probability and matter. It makes perfect sense!
I have some last questions for you. I would be extremely pleased if you could answer them for me in the e-mail that you (might!) send back. They are as follows:

• Is it true that you have involuntary muscle spasms in your drawing hand?
• Is it true that you once had speaking problems?
• In Pleasanton, California, is it true that you own a restaurant named Stacey's Café ? If so, please note that I lived there before and so would like directions to the place.
• Do you really believe that affirmations can make you achieve your goals, no matter how impossible they are?

Thank you for your time taken reading this e-mail.

Bobby [name withheld]

P.S. Get Google everything. It's better and more hassle-free. I have the Google Taskbar for my laptop and i can open every single thing that you could imagine from it, including the daily strip for Dilbert.

------------------------------------End------------------------------------------------

ROTFL!!!

Road Trip

Target: Khandala, Lonavla & Pune
Team: Chussi, Parmar, Bagla, Misra and Me!
Day: Sunday

Result: Pune missed!

Pics available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/midnightsaint/

River

Weekend log

(based on true fiction)

Location: Kolad
Time: Timeless
Characters:

Apoorv – The most photographed person of the year!

Amandeep – Arsenal’s no.4

Ankur – smiling Buddha. The smile continues even when he has just lost a cellphone!

Ashwin – the drunkard

Deependra – dancer!

Faraz – The lost brother of Pogu, the deer.

Murtuza – weird

Jimmy – dummy cat

Nagpal – the man who knows everything. But, ofcourse!

Harshvardhan – The foot-bomber

Rebecca – The newsreader

Meenal – Girl with the candy

Sandeep – The kid on the new block!

Shantanu – dumsy boy

Shomik – tiger in the den

Suresh - dreamer

Subrata – the guy who lost everything in the stock market

Prince – the prince

Milind – sensitive girl

Harsh – businezman and a scuba diver from dubai. He has a knee problem.

Dhwani – the princess

Sneha – two tea spoons of sugar

Samir – watchman at a chemical plant who needs to shout just to feel he is alive

Amit – guest appearance

Vinit – guest appearance. Avid reader of books and magazines. Also likes to talk about this habit.

It all started in the beginning!

Around 30 people at my workplace decided to break away from the corporate dirt over the weekend! Well, only about 20 odd people finally made it. Life is tough on rest of them.

Saturday, 21 July, 9 AM, Vikhroli

The official start time! Well, almost everybody was there. Except a few lazy asses like harsh. I had to bribe him just to wake him up and finally reached the start spot at around 11.

We only took a single look at the bus before harsh got a heart attack. I asked the admin desk to book the best possible bus and what I saw in front of me looked like the one used to deport prisoners. Harsh, the billionaire, who never walked barefoot or lived without AC, started crying. He started missing his mom and his favorite bullock cart back at Calcutta.

Saturday, 21 July, 11 AM, Vikhroli

The bus finally started moving. We had all that we needed! A cricket bat, a foot ball, some food, a music deck and lots of enthusiastic young men and women.

Saturday, 21 July, 12 Noon, Vashi

The first stopover. We picked up a few guys and more importantly, some important liquids. The music started getting louder and so was the laughter! The journey had officially begun.

Talking about music, I have a sub-story. The title is “Ashwin- the drunkard”.
Below is the conversation between us a day before.

@ 10 PM

Ashwin: dude, whatsup? I just started drinkin. But wil meet u guys tomorrow morning!

Me: Ok!

@ 12 midnight

Ashwin: dude, am really drunk. There is a lot left! I don’t think I will make it tomorrow morning.

Me: dude, I need you tomorrow morning. Just drink slowly whatever is left. I will wake u up in the morning

Ashwin: Ok!

@ 2 AM

Ashwin: dude, am drunk. In a very bad shape. Am driving to pune with friends

Me: WTF!!! Dude, just go back home.

Ashwin: my friend is crying. I can’t go back. I will start at 4 in the morning and reach u guys.

Me: Ok!

@ 6 AM

Ashwin: dude, my car broke down. Am stuck in lonavla.

Me: Asshole!


Ashwin could never make it and we had to live with whatever music harsh brought along. Imagine listening to “yeh tara who tara” on a hot afternoon in a hotter bus in heavy traffic! We missed ashwin’s ipod very badly.

Saturday, 21 July, 1 PM, Panvel

The traffic got worse. Everybody was sweating pretty badly. Milind started with his theories on how we could have avoided the traffic if we had started early. All I could do was listen and hope!

Traffic soon cleared.
Hope works!!
The bus started moving at its maximum speed which was around 40 kmph. The urban world soon started fading away and rural India started smiling with boundless affection! Freedom. From noise, dirt and mindless motion.

Prince started burning his chimneys. Samir started shouting. Sorry, talking. Shomik was silent except when he had to make some fun of harsh. The group of freshers in the back seats were trying to cool down from their boiling points. Slowly but surely, things were a changing!

Saturday, 21 July, 4 PM, Sai Farm, Kolad

We passed a bird sanctuary at karnal and I felt very bad at not having a chance to get down. We finally reached the resort after an awesome hour of wonderful road trip.

Talking about sai farm, I need to mention a guy called Gaby. He is the farm owner, around 50 years old and a fantastic goan! After I talked to him about lots of things, I realized why people love goa and everything about it. I wonder if there is any better species of people than goans.

Saturday, 21 July, 6 PM, Sai Farm, Kolad

Everybody settled in. It was too late to visit the waterfalls. Guys chose to play cricket instead. It was a lot of fun! Especially the part where people go to fetch the ball for long periods of time.

The light got poorer by the minute and flood lights came out. It started raining.

It was time for football, ofcourse. The real fun didn’t even begun.

People soon got dispersed. Some played cards, some tried hands at darting. Food was being served tirelessly.

Saturday, 21 July, 10 PM, Sai Farm, Kolad

Jimmy drove down with his car along with a fat guy. They call him Ashwin back in the jungle. Imagine a guy, heavily drunk from 2 non-stop days, walking with swagger. He started hurling abuses at everyone and anyone from the moment go. He almost bet Subrata in darting at 10-5 but subbo came back strongly to beat him 20-13!

This small game changed the atmosphere. Laidback audience suddenly got stiff and nobody attempted darting for some time after this hot game!

Sunday, 22 July, 1 AM, Sai Farm, Kolad

Bottles were drawn out. Tables laid out. The resort had an amazing river view gallery which made for a fantastic late night spot. The only problem, if it can be counted, were the small mosquitoes! No, am not talking about nagpals.

Sunday, 22 July, 5 AM, Sai Farm, Kolad

Most of the tired peeps were fast asleep. Me and ashwin decided to discuss stuff about life and beyond. I probably told him a few things which I never even told myself. Pinkfloyd was playing at the back and pretty soon, we stopped talking. Started doing something better, something like sleeping!

Sunday, 22 July, 6 AM

We had to reach the white water river rafting spot at 7, or so we were told! As usual, I got late due to Harsh. The fat ass was complaining all night about lack of AC and fell asleep till very late. We ran a small marathon to reach the bus. Something suddenly hit me. I didn’t know the route to the spot. There was no connectivity and I cudnt call anybody. I asked the driver to keep going until the road splits into two. I was hoping the cell comes alive before that. It almost did. We took a wrong direction and then reverted back to the correct road. It was so much more fun than to have done it the right way!

Sunday, 22 July, 8.30 AM, Kundalika River

We finally start rafting after a series of training instructions. The trainer from north-east had an accent akin to a german. You could hear but you cudn’t understand. Harsh came up with a request for a hindi trainer. There are some moments in life when you feel the deepest of pity for a fellow human being. This was one of those. Now that he didn’t understand any of the instructions, I was sure this was the last time I will suffer him. So, I made my final handshake and took some last snaps.

The instructions looked tricky at the beginning. “Front on right and Back on left” sounded like solving the Schrödinger equation all over again. My team of rafters incuded subbo, prince, milind, ashwin, faraz, muthu and myself, ofcourse! The lead rafters were, ashwin and milind. The key to good rafting is to synchronize and paddle harder in a rapid. A rapid is a sudden flux of water and it will make your raft do strange things. It is a period of uncertainty and you never know how you are going to land back on to the water. It’s also when mishaps can happen, if at all. The key to survival is to paddle faster and harder!

The guide kept on shouting instructions from the back and in the moments of thrill and laughter, they were often missed! It landed us in precarious situations. Ashwin and Milind managed to miss so many of the instructions that after a while, the guide stopped shouting at them!

The hands started tiring. Our team luckily had 7 rafters which meant that only 6 could raft at a time. That gave us room to take some quality rest!

Pretty soon, the rapids fizzled out. The river started looking calmer and smoother. It was time to throw away the paddles and jump into the river. The life jackets meant that anybody could jump. I tried to learn swimming from ashwin but he almost killed me by pushing me down into the water for a very long minute. My desire to learn swimming almost had a death knell. Floating on river water was definitely an awesome experience. It was time for photographs and some quick fun.

We soon reached the shore. We had to lift the raft onto a small hill and walk further upwards to reach our bus. Luck, as it usually happens, turned a blind eye on us! The bus wasn’t there and we soon found out that the driver was sleeping somewhere away unreachable. We fortunately found Amit’s driver nearby, who btw reached the rafting spot separately in his car, early morning on Sunday. According to him, he got very lucky as he got to raft separately with this beautiful bunch of ladies from Gujarat. I hope his wife doesn’t read this post!

We started waiting for the bus. Tired and hungry souls soon started drifting apart. I and Ankur tried walking into a village nearby. We were hoping to get some hot tea and may be a smoke! But, the village ended even before it began. Aman joined us on our way back. While on the way, something hit me. I started wondering about this small kid on the road who had a half smile. I felt a deep pain in my heart when I attempted to imagine how this kid will go about making a life. A few hours later, during the journey back, I realized that perhaps that kid will lead a far peaceful life than mine. I was back to being happy!

The bus soon arrived. We hopped onto it and had a tasty meal on the way back. The legs were tired and so was the mind. Everybody just went back to their rooms and got relaxed.

The river in front of the gallery had a soothing effect! Amit and Vineet joined us after their happy adventure with the band of girls. They soon started drinking some fluids and I chose not to disturb the event.

It was again some time for cricket and food. The hosts, Gaby and his wife, are a wonderful old couple. They were very kind and so thoughtful that i felt a deep connect and was sad when I finally left them.

Sunday, 22 July, 5 PM, Kolad Waterfalls

It was time to leave the resort. The bus was around 2-3 kms away as it couldn’t drive on the very small path to Sai Farm. Gaby carried our luggage and us to the bus. Amit, Vineet and Ashwin left early in the car. Jimmy joined us in his own.

It was time again for some water. This time, the water was vertical. I mean the waterfalls!

They were not huge waterfalls but were big enough to cool your eyes and mind. Shantanu soon found a hidden spot and I joined him to research it further. He taught me a few things about science and award winning photography and I started admiring his presence of mind!

The cameras started rolling and the flashes all around make it look like a movie shoot!

Sunday, 22 July, 7 PM

The light was fading away. It was time to leave Kolad. The bus started its way back and we soon realized the hunger again! Man, we ate so much!!!!

After almost an hour and a half of a small tea& samosa session, we got back onto the ride of maharaja air travel. Rebekah left jimmy’s car and joined us! Some people miss the bumpy ride or jimmy is really an ass.

Sunday, 22 July 11 PM

Bombay arrived. I didn’t know how as I was fast asleep. I could hear people singing and dancing at the back all the way during the journey. But, all I could do was nod in agreement. It was a struggle just to open the eyes!

We reached the very famous and our very own petrol station at gate no.4, godrej. Shomik got down far before this and it sink in to me then that I will miss him and Monday was his last day at office.

People just said bye to each other and started leaving. Memories were heavy and the mood was happy.

Some stories don’t have an ending and I hope to continue this post sometime again in future!

Walk on water

and please don't sleep when you do that!
especially, if you don't know how to swim.
And if you do, make sure it's not a holiday for the rescue team.

enough of instructions.
now, please go jump!

the one who must not be named

lord voldemort is back and so is harry!
Not the dealthy hallows (its scheduled to be released on july 21), this is about the movie, order of the phoenix! the movie does rock and roll and more.

are there any people who don't like harrypotter and the story? well, i do know that the count is greater than zero. and this is for all those who still are not bitten by the bug.

at the end of movie, harry has this to say,
"we do have something that voldemort doesn't. something to fight for!"

For all those who are rock-hearted to not like harry, here is what i have to say, "we atleast have something to wait for!"

It's not about the book

Well, actually, it is.
But it is more about the man who wrote it and also about his bike.

There are two kinds of super humans.
The one kind, the extraordinary, do fantastic deeds.
But, at the bottom of your heart, you get the feeling that you might have done it too given the time and space.
There is the other set of humans usually referred to with words akin to 'genius'.
Lance Armstrong fits into this set.

And, they do write autobiographies to help other mortals realize that greatness can be achieved.
I read the book. 90% of it in the first sitting.

To be Cont....

Board of Secondary education!

Just chill!

PoliTricks

Hey, we gonna get a new president! Wow!! Really?

Indian democracy never really gave any powers to president who is just a brand name for the government rubber stamp. So, what's all this hue and cry about the fresh election?

Some theory states that all the global problems emerge from Italy. I kind of started believing in this. Remember the head butt?

Yeah....see?

Abdul Kalam, the man who uses rockets to travel even to the local bank, is a superhero who deserves an other term. The italians for some reason think its better off to send him back to research, or worse, academia!!

The only impressive fact is that some patil bai will be the first female rubber stamp we ever had! Three Cheers and No Vodka to that.

It's raining!

The rains are back. And so am I!
Those of you who live in a dream called Mumbai, might not prefer the former. I am not sure of the latter.

There is not a real difference to the rains this time. They are as regularly irregular, seriously comic, painfully joyous, a change which is not!

Someone recently commented on my blog that my writings are getting closer by the day! Thanks for pointing that out to me. It's not that i didn't know it was happening. It's just that it felt a lot better when it came from a stranger.

People, i believe write for a myriad of reasons. Some write for themselves. Like Ayn Rand. They don't have a preferred audience. Some write for an audience. Like Salman Rushdie. Craving for attention. I lie somewhere in between. No, not between the authors. But, between the styles.

And, normal people don't write forever. There comes a time when all that you want to say is said. Then comes the golden silence. A pause which speaks more powerfully than the most eloquent speaker. That's when the writer has arrived. Am not even hinting at the prospect that i might have reached there. Well, i haven't even begun.

I do want to write. Each additional moment am spending on this planet convinces me that writing is all that is there to living. Attaining nirvana is not for me. All i want to do is to communicate. Talk, speak, write and listen. That's all i want to do. Get a life, did i hear?

:)

Well, am at the least, trying!

What do you want to be when you grow up?

"Adults are always asking kids what they want to be when they grow up because they are looking for ideas."

-Paula Pondstone

Give me a reason

just another trick in the wall!

:)

If you have friends in columbo, bangkok or khatmandu, please ping me at sureshg3(gmail)!
Please reply back only if you have read this before Friday (25/05)!!

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Technorati Profile

24 hours

What is the most important thing in your life?
What is the next most important thing in your life?
What is the next to next most important thing in your life?
What is the next to next to next most important thing in your life?
What is the next to next to next to next most important thing in your life?




No, Think Again!

I have been thinking about the answers to these questions since last midnight.....Its close to 24 hours now and i don't think i have the answers yet. But, there is no time left now!

I think the most important questions one can ever ask are the questions to oneself. The man inside is definitely much more complex than the man outside. Whoever said life is simple must have had a sponsor who made him do it.

Time runs faster than anything else i know and it's running faster than ever now.

I look back. Fond memories. Fonder memories. Playgrounds. Faces. Smiles. Laughter. It's louder than ever. Lost heavens. It pains me to see the photographs. Was there anything important there? Or should i ask if there was anything less than important there? The man who sold me chai at 4 in the morning was important too. He taught me how to smile when you have to work inspite of feeling damn sleepy!

I look ahead. Colorful. New faces. New Smiles. The laughter is silent (they don't laugh loudly anymore). Ahh. How will the photograhs look like? Will it pain me to see them if i get to see them now? Will it pain u?

The answers, however, elude me. Past and Future don't hold answers to my questions.


I probably should have looked at now? The answers, if any can exist only in the now. Past is a dream. Future is an other dream. Present is when you are living in the dream!


24 hours.
That's all you will ever get.


per day.
:)

On a high!

Life is a complex maze full of surprises, delights, opportunities, failures, heartbreaks, and blah blah blah!

Nah, am not goin to write all that crap. Who cares what it is! We are here just to have fun while it lasts and its not gonna last forever!!

Now, just shut up and dance!

Coffee break in a Tea Company!

The world is full of hypocrisy!
You will find examples of people/processes/institutions who are hypocrite in any sphere of activity in any place in the world at any given point of time.

The question am thinking of at this odd hour in the midnight is "why are people hypocrite?"
What i have come to conclude is that most people live others lives. In the sense, most of one's ideas/impressions/attitudes are stamped on one by obvious forces like schools/parents/friends and disguised sources like media.

Lack of originality should be the root cause of it all. I realize i really admire those people who chose to be original but failed rather than the copy cats who got successful just because they could bullshit their way to the top! So, what drives originality and what stops it? I think, it comes down to what a man is built of. Courage and Wisdom are things which can't be taught and are things one has or doesn't. To be original and creative needs a lot of courage. If you have been trying to be an original, you know failure is always an inch closer than you think! But, when success happens, which does happen, its really worth cherishing.

No wonder men have been called prisoners of their minds!

Ideal Sunday

a dream
7.00 AM hit the gym and workout hard
9.00 AM eat food like a devil
10.00 AM watch da latest flick on lappy
1.00 PM eat da favourite dish in da chic restaurent down da street
3.00 PM hit the bed and sleep like a baby
6.00 PM call the tennis buddy, and play like mad
9.00 PM watch da second latest flick on lappy
11.00 PM meet friends and chat/smoke/eat like hell
2.00 AM read that kewl book
3.00 AM sleep like a baby

a nightmare
9.00 PM and am still in office :(

Broken promises and Far away lands!

I promised myself sometime back that i will never be poetic.
Much of the reason was that poems hurt more than they sooth.


But, i break my promise today. yet again!

.........................

Walking into the meadows
I listened to the grass whispering
Silence.
Nothing to hear but everything to understand.

All the significant details: the crucial meetings,
deadlines to meet, oh please!
Vanished into a far away land
They call it Utopia

This vehicle – my body,
engine and headlights on,
ready and humming.

Flying bird
Stop here and listen to the music
There is nothing ahead!

Yes.

Just another letter in the box!

When i was a kid, like when i was very very kid, like around 5-6 years old, i dreamt of being a postman! It was a feverish dream and i used to get all excited whenever i saw a postman. Some insane logic of my newly built mind told me that since postman got all the important letters, he must be a very influential man. I was also led to believe by my friends back then that the postman's bag typically has lots of chocolates and other similar treasures. I took their word for it and just kept on building on my dream for about a year or so.....





Soon, i began to grow older and wiser or so i believe. The idiot box and other shapes of idiots taught me the real value chain of the workings of the postman (for 5 yr olds who are reading this..........it works like this: letter->postbox->postoffice->headoffice->postoffice->postman. a typical postman is very very poor and doesn't have any hidden choclates in his bag)

For many years later, whenever i felt a little intelligent like when i cracked an exam or something, the dream used to come back to haunt me and i felt this strange guilt for being such a dumb thing.

Average men typically learn from half of their mistakes. Really gifted men learn from only one of them and they never touch the hot stove again! I belong to such a category and so do many people i know.

Years have changed, things have changed, people have changed (nah...only their shapes have changed), and the postman is even poorer now all thanks to the e-mail. But, somethings like nerolac paint and stupidity never change, or so they say. But, I have changed. Being a Postman don't excite me anymore.

The world has changed rapidly owing to all the globalization, aids and other diseases. The idea of postmen has been replaced in my mind by the idea of investment bankers/fundmanagers/entrepreneurs. Friends tell me they have lots of choclates(money) in their bags and i still believe some of them. The idiot box has given way to the idiot web and all kinds of media feeds tell me that these guys are the real rich postmen.

I might still end up chasing the dream. We all end-up chasing dreams. But, you know the result, right? And if you are still a 5 year old, you might have still got a little chance to save your precious little freedom. Switch off that damn TV, tear off the newspapers, ditch that friend who bugs you about all the great things you can buy if you had a little more money. Just go blind to all such nonsense. And may be then, you still have a little chance of being the real rich postman. And that ain't got anything to do with money or chocolates.

Note: I wish there were blogs when i was 5!
Note1: If you want to read further on why smart people do dumb things, read this guy's blog at http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/09/why_smart_peopl.html

Just like that!

This happens with me. Does it with you?

Chaos

Since you are here, do this:

curl up your legs, put more wood into the fire
and just watch.

Fire.

It slowly consumes everything.
Chaotic, but beautiful.

isn't it?

Slip

Huh! I thought i took the path less travelled and now i see everyone here!

Bee box

In this small box, my love,
you'll not find a ring,
but instead, a brave, little bee.
He'll be dead by morn, having given his life
defending his flowers against me.
I felt his sting
while picking the small, purple pansies
growing wild along the roadside,
in hopes of an afternoon bouquet for you.
And I grieved the sting,
more for him than me,
knowing full well the price he paid
for my small pain.
And I allowed him his victory,
leaving his flowers as a memory,
and brought you instead
this brave, little bee,
who proves there is love
even in the smallest
of things.

-- Lowell Parker

A Conundrum called life!

Am just thinking aloud! (A passe corporate phrase)

Is life a puzzle or a mystery?

A puzzle can be solved given that crucial piece of information or the usual missing link. A mystery on the other hand is just what it is! You may have all the information in the world but it's just unsolvable!

Life often throws puzzles and mysteries at its beholder and the usual problem is the inability to judge which one it is!

The extent of chaos one faces everyday usually implies that chance plays a dominant rule in the shaping up of any individual life. Simple decisions sometimes become the toughest and the most mind-boggling.

Alas, one can only live forward and understand it backward!

Or, as someone in Jurassic Park said, "Life just finds its way!"

Travelogue

What did you do for this New Year Eve?

Well, the standard answers from most of the adults will be one of the following:

1. I went to this party at this cool pub (blah, blah)
2. I went to a disco with my gf/bf
3. I just laid back on my bed and watched all the nonsense on TV
4. I am old and am just happy that I am alive
5. Dude, I was working in office and I had a quick deadline
6. I am a grad student and don't have enough money to party hard

A very few lucky souls will have an answer similar to mine.

7. I went trekking, got lost and spent the night in woods amidst
wild animals, dangerous tribals and scary ghosts!


And the story goes as below...

Characters:

Who: Shashi, Bapu, Me(from Mumbai) and Mathe(from Pune)
Where: Bombay-Naneghat and back
When: 31 December-1 January
Why: We forgot to ask this question!










I woke up on 31st December completely unaware of what was in store. I knew that I had this tentative plan of going for a trek somewhere outside Mumbai but I wasn't sure.
But, some divine intervention had me thrown into a jam-packed local train which headed towards Kalyan. The trouble started even before it all began. A friend who was supposed to join us at Kalyan stopped picking up his phone. After hours of wait, he finally contacted us. Apparently, he fell asleep on a bench while waiting for us.

The next scene was in a Maharashtra Govt bus whose driver was just back after a good season at F1 circuit. The ride sometimes also felt like we were in a flight which was just about to take off. By god's grace, we avoided two close accidents and another closer one.

At the end of it, we found some strangers waiting at the bus door and they were all back-packed and ready to trek. We knew we found company and desperately wanted to avoid it. We did the inevitable and got off the bus at a hotel far before the base of the mountain.




5.30 PM


All of us were damn hungry by then and gulped on loads of hot tea and garam pav. I then realized that I forgot to inform my peeps back at home and tell them that they won't be able to reach me on mobile. The signals were dead already. The hotelier told us that there was an STD booth in a near by village and directed us to it. We soon reached the village and pleasantly found that every body was willing to help and direct us to the phone booth. After roaming around for about 20 minutes in the village, we finally found the revered STD booth. And as fate would have it, the phone wasn't functional. An elderly man who stood near by had a great advice to give. He pointed us to a hotel near by (which was the very spot we came from) and told us that mobile catches signal there. So much for a phone call which was never to be made. I finally called a friend in bombay through a local PCO and asked him to inform my peeps in hyderabad. Happy ending? The real troubles didn’t even begun yet.


6. 30 PM





We soon started to walk towards the base of the mountain which looked too hot to resist. It was close to 7 in the evening and the beloved Sun started to fade. (We planned to stay overnight in the mountain cave but never planned to trek through the entire night. As a result, we were soon to go short of lots of things which are a must when you trek in the night). We soon separated into two groups on the walk. I/Shashi were complaining about how slow Bapu/Mathe were while they were too busy discussing the vampire movie that Bapu saw when he was a kid!

We reached the base at around 7.30. Pleasantly, the moonlight was good and the mood was upbeat. We got out our torches, put on the jackets, rearranged the back-packs and
plunged into the dark tunnel towards the mountain.

The initial path was smooth and everybody was full of energy. There were alternate patches of rocky beds and sandy roads which was so akin to life. Someone intelligent amongst us pointed out that not all torches should be burnt lest we should go out of light. Somebody else noted that mobile phone lights will help us in that case. All is well when you are in a well!

We met few villagers on the way and they revealed the golden truth (all that glitters is not gold): "There are arrows everywhere to point you the direction and when you find two divergent paths, be assured that they will meet in the end". After this happened, the trek shaped into a single point mission. Just fetch for the arrows. Shashi, who by this time emerged a natural leader (this was based on his past experience which incidentally was full of failures...did someone say no experience is better than bad experience?) was actively engaging others to look for arrows. Mathe was the most excited of all whenever he found an arrow. It was almost as if he found a treasure. The arrows were plenty to come by and we just kept walking. Johnywalker!

The moonlight was pleasant and so was the company. Light jokes and harder ones made the mood much lighter and it was almost like walking in heaven. We then found a plain which was straight from storybooks and decided to take a break. For a change, nobody was bitching about their jobs and avoided the talk about how life sucks in general. Like all good things, it had to come to an end too!

All the four of us learnt a lot of trigonometry back in school and triangle was one of our favourite shapes. But not today. At a horrible juncture, we found sets of arrows pointing in two different directions. We divided ourselves into groups. Mathe/Bapu stood the ground and Me/Shashi did the dirty work of figuring out the right way. After thirty minutes of roaming around the dirt tracks, we found ourselves back at the original spot.

9 PM



We regrouped at the spot with the bizarre arrows and had a small brainstorming session. It resulted in a dynamic research in both the ways but the results were bleak. And then, Shashi did something quite natural to him. He suggested that we back track the arrows and then may be we will find the spot where we went wrong.

We decided to let the walking do the talking and just traced the path back. Mathe was soon found complaining that we are going too down-hill and may soon reach the base if we don't stop. We realized the mistake and under the able guidance of Mathe, found the way back on to the hill. It was one of the moments of serendipity when luck finds you at the most unpredictable moment. Two of our torches suddenly went blank.
And the other two started showing signs of fatigue. At this great moment of misfortune and indecisiveness, we sat together for dinner and had cakes, pavs and more cakes and pavs. The drinking water as expected was going to finish sooner rather than later.


10 PM

After dinner, Bapu declared that he was too tired to think of further adventure. Everybody agreed that the light wasn’t enough to venture further into the jungle. Fear is the genesis of all misfortune!


We soon found shelter, it was really just a patch of rock with no grass. We were surrounded with dense patches of grass and trees beyond that. We were staring at multi-fold dangers: Reptiles, Animals (including humans) and Ghosts! Well, it’s too easy to claim the absence of ghosts but you should have been there to realize the extreme pressure we were in. Bapu, as he usually does, gave up early and decided that it’s time to take a nap and his claim to fame was that there is no reason to fear.

11.30 PM

The year had only half an hour left in it and we decided to make the most of it. The discussions and deliberations revolved around the performance of the cricket team in South Africa, nuances of planetary motions and the basics of the existence of universe and predictions on its growth strategy. Bapu also expressed his liking towards the kind of work that NGO’s do and how he is disillusioned with the corporate world. The discussions ranged from mild debate to hot dialogue. Suddenly, Mathe erupted from his silence and declared that his company was not giving enough raises and how the problem is the failure to generate revenues. In effect, everything and anything was being discussed.

Cold winds began to take over the pleasant weather and the temperature started dropping steeply. We had a few hours before the moon went down to result in pitch darkness. Nelly Furtado was singing passionately from a mobile phone.


The new year soon arrived. The greetings were limited to mild handshakes and everybody was soon back to the business of keep themselves warm. Mathe brought twelve candles (why twelve mathe?) and soon burnt the first. Shashi warned against warming up the area which might attract reptiles. So intelligent of him!

And very soon after that Shashi stood up and used the torch to check the sorroudings for any slight movement. We were caught in the middle of no where and had no where to go if someone attached. So all sorts of care was called for. Bapu was indifferent to all this and soon started snoring. (He later claimed that he never slept at all and all he did was taken a small nap!).


2 AM

The rock we were sitting on was unbearably cold and I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood up along with Shashi and started looking at the moon which was moving slowly but steadily. Our prediction was that we had an hour or so before the moonlight vanished. We started using the torches alternately. Mathe was part of the unanimous (minus bapu) cry that no one should sleep. He was fast asleep.


3.30 AM

Everybody was almost frozen. I had given up all hope of any more warmth. The candles had given up against the fierce cold winds. I realized how lucky I was that I have a solid roof to sleep under, everyday. The moon was completely set and one couldn’t see an inch ahead of oneself. I just wrapped the blanket around me and decided to close my eyes for the first time in the day.


5 AM

Bapu and Mathe were awake. Shashi almost fell to sleep but soon got back to his consistent position of standing upright. It was almost as if he was defending the native brown Indians against the onslaught of some French army. I was in semi-sleep mode and wasn’t really thinking about the cold and the darkness. It was almost as if my mind was frozen and I was unable to perform any neural processes beyond basic breathing.

Soon, Sun came up from behind the mountain head. It felt almost like we were seeing a dear friend. I never really wanted sun to shine so badly.


6 AM

Me and Mathe decided to discover where we went wrong the other night. Shashi kept on talking about some electric towers he walked by when he last trekked to this spot. We also saw some torchlights along a lane of poles early in the morning.

So, we took the plunge into the rocks and started hiking towards the poles. We had to cross dry waterfalls, millions of broken branches, zillions of hard stones and soon reached a spot which can logically called a point where successful hike to the cave above us can begun. But, reality soon sank into us. We were short of water and our bodies were aching because of the cold wave. Even if we climb onto the path, it might be very difficult for us to gather stamina to come back downhill.


Sadly but surely, we decided to put an end to an upward trek. But, we had to finish what we had started and had to get down the hill. It’s tricky when you climb down. You can move at your own pace when you climb but when gravity takes over when you decide to come down. One of those pranks of our mother planet. I toppled twice, Mathe once and I don’t know about the rest as they were too far ahead.


8 AM

We almost reached the base but not yet. The path, however, was much friendly now. All the pleasures we had dreamt of the earlier day came back to us. Every simple thing like the sweet flower and smooth stream of water looked divine. The dry grass looked absolutely gorgeous. I closed my eyes and drank the moment to its fullest.



9 AM

We were back on to the main road and were ready to walk to the nearest bus stop. But, surprises were not to end so soon. A govt bus came from nowhere and stopped next to us. The F1 driver was back but we were in no mood to enjoy his stints. We soon feel asleep.

1 PM

When I next opened my eyes, I was lying in my apartment! It felt like heaven and I felt like really living after a long time!