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.