Hackers

Apathy is reaching previously unheard of heights in my existence. Indifference coupled with half drugged semi-consciousness can make things feel different. I am at the southern tip of Kerala. I see green trees and blue skies. The sun blazes beautifully in the sky laced with gossamer clouds. Yet, it hardly feels different from any other place that I have been to. The underlying pattern appears to be basically the same. Sometimes, it feels as if I am in a giant 360 degrees vision movie theatre, where the scenery keeps changing, in the big bulbous screen. This is depressing. How long can you watch a movie? Twenty-two years seem to be pretty long by my standards. I wonder what’s happening outside the theatre. Four days ago, I met a pastor of the Pentecostal church. He was telling about experiences with the spirit world. The world is becoming a play ground for satanic forces nowadays according to him. The city where I live has degraded a lot. The ‘things’ that make up a town are there. The distressing fact is that people are degenerating with the times. We are moving into a barbaric future. Civilization is a word that is soon destined to be extinct. Everyday the newspapers carry a lot of news about local ‘incidents’. There are a lot of hackers in this place. These hackers are far different from the pirates of the Silicon Valley. Headlines for these articles typically yell – ‘Man hacked to death’. The sad fact is that these incidents occur over trivialities. People I know are afraid to argue with anyone, in fear of matters getting escalated to dangerous levels. The police appear to be marionettes, dancing to the whims of the political honchos, who back the ‘hackers’ for their own unholy ends. It’s a sad, bad sight. Again I wonder if these things are really happening, or are merely propaganda on a grand scale. Al Qaeda would probably refuse to set up base here, out of terror for their little terrorist lives, lest they be ‘hacked’, in good ol’ Trivandrum. Life is cheap. Life is good. Life is bad. Satan?

" Slow Times? "

"When I set foot into this town 5 days ago, there was a sense of doom about me. A sense of slowness was pretty much in the air.

Everything seemed very slow. The people, the vehicles - everything was in slow motion. I blinked my eyes, and suddenly, it was Friday. I didn't realize a whole week getting whisked away in the blink of an eye.

Nothing is happening according to plan. Coming to think of it, there was no plan at all in the first place. One more week left in this place.

Some of my old friends will be landing in town tomorrow. I have to meet up with them, and let the plans unfold. The unwritten plans,ie.

Bring it on. Hoping to be a Nietzche-isque super man from now on. I hope there wont be too much to overcome. God help.."

I reached Trivandrum 2 days ago. It was a Sunday. I had left this place on the 15th of July 2006. The town was reliably staid.

Everything is moving slow. I have nothing to do. I am going crazy without having anything concrete and interesting to do. Yesterday I was returning back home at 9 pm in the night and the streets were so empty that that it was scary!

Nobody is around. I am doing crazy stuff. Got a bike from a friend and clocked around 70 km in a day. Just riding aimlessly. I wonder what my friend thought about this.

Today I didn’t have a ride and walked a lot, going nowhere. I don’t know…

One miserable Saturday night

There was a sense of finality in the air. The trains were buzzing past like centipedes on some holy mission. Some passing travel bug bit me then.

Five minutes later I was on board one of these huge centipedes bound for the southern tip of Mumbai’s central railway line. It was 8pm in the night, and it was a Saturday. The crowd, however was as reliable as ever. Being alone in the crowd is a peculiar feeling. One can both love it and hate it, for obvious reasons.

The human machine is a collection of odd bits. Here I was, going somewhere for no reason, amidst a surge of humanity which seemed to have a solid purpose. At least, it seemed to have a purpose. The train was a slow train which was moving fast.

A slow train is one which stops at all the stations. It was fast because it accelerated with a vengeance between stops. People kept rushing in and out of the doors into the packed train cars. I managed to prop myself near one of the entry points, and as a reward, was crushed every time the train stopped at any station.

There is a metal notice plate riveted on the wall near the doors saying. ‘Do not lean out of the running emu’. This sounded like an ancient Chinese proverb. Very cryptic. Maybe emus used to roam around the city of Mumbai, once upon a time.

The stations went whizzing past. As usual the crowd thinned out a bit at Dadar. The train clawed on towards its destination. There are a lot of low cost apartments on either side of the rail tracks. Each one was lit up. I saw little people in their windows, doing people stuff. Somehow, it felt amusing.

The sense of finality was draped over everything. I could feel in my gut that this was going to be my final journey. I wanted to get out of the train, but I didn’t. Just to see if my gut feeling was worth anything.

The behemoth finally reached CST some 40 minutes after I had boarded the train. It felt good. I called up Stryker to tell him about the weird sojourn. I wandered around the place for some time and boarded the same train back ‘home.’

The view from a train is an everchanging one. The buildings and tunnels come and go. They keep changing, as long as the train is moving. The only thing which kept pace with the vista from the window of the train, was the lonely crescent in the sky. It seemed to be following the train, not willing to let it go. It seemed to shine even more brightly after brief disappearances in dark tunnels.

By the way, an EMU is an Electric Multiple Unit. Just found it out. At least, the metal plate is making sense!

Blaze of Glory

I dont know where Im going

Only God knows where I've been

I'm a devil on the run

A six gun lover

A candle in the wind

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

When you're brought into this world

They say youre born in sin

Well at least they gave me something

I didn't have to steal or have to win

Take me now but know the truth

I'm going down in a blaze of glory

Lord I never drew first

But I drew first blood

I'm no ones son

Call me young gun

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

You ask about my consience

And I offer you my soul

You ask if Ill grow to be a wise man

Well I ask if Ill grow old

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

bon jovi

The pain has become a throbbing sensation. I am not sure why I am subjecting myself to this mental torture. The trigger for all this had been pulled a long time ago. It almost feels like a different era now.

Back then, I had created a lot of problems and blew old events out of proportion. Almost blew myself up in the process, leaving behind a trail of hurt. I thought that I had emerged from this strife as a different man. I believed that the past
would not affect me so, in the future. As always, my assumptions have been proven wrong. Here I am, in a dark little room, raking up skeletons from the dusty corners of memory. How alive the skeletons appear to be..They are as fresh as ever.

I am my tormentor.

More Ramblings

There is a song that they play during Christian weddings in Hollywood movies. Peyy Peyy pe pe.. Peyy Peyy pe pe .. That's the same tune that I hear when the car which is parked downstairs moves in reverse.

Firecrackers mar the airs. The festival of lights Diwali has become a cracker fest over here. I've become so accustomed to hearing them over the past few days that I hardly give a second look when something goes boom. At this rate, I probably wouldn't recognize a bomb blast from a cracker blast. Ah..who cares.I am too apathetic anyway. Let them burn their boom crackers. To each his own.

Questions and crises are abound. I ought to be overwhelmed by them. Strangely, I feel insulated. I've my share of problems. Life was good for the past month. Was living it up like anything. Now troubles are aplenty. From almost every possible front. Yin Yang I guess. Maybe I am too shocked that I am in denial. I still act somewhat rationally, anyhow.

Purpose drives a man onward. I found my little goals and worked for them. Some for the heck of it, some with a strategy of sorts in mind. The funny thing is I don't know what the final purpose would be. The purpose of creating purposes. What would that be..

I am not a materialist in the complete sense. I sometimes tell my friends that I would rather live in some isolated Buddhist monastery, happily embracing their beliefs superficially at least. So that, I could be free from everything. My thoughts and beliefs may be at lockhorns with their's. But still that's a nice thought. Too large a dose of Discovery channel documentaries, I guess.

A gypsy is rooted to no place. He keeps moving. Maybe he is fleeing. Maybe he just wants to leave everything behind. Or for greener pastures. If he is looking for greener pastures, he would never settle down anywhere. No matter where he is, he would feel the urge to find something greener.

Is that ambition? Or is it just a self defined purpose, possibly fuelled by some unknown inborn nature. I read somewhere that there are two things that keep a man from progress - Fear and Laziness. Can someone be too lazy to be afraid? Does that make him a reverse moving cog in a forward moving human machine?

I am scribbling down this on a notepad. No idea why. For posterity's sake?! This notepad would probably not survive. I have more faith in the blogger servers.Why am I publishing this on a public site? Show off? Apathetic? A fool? Crazy, maybe. Maybe I am trying to reach out, just for communication's sake. Communication is a wonderful thing. Where would we be sans communication.

Anyway, this will form the starting point of the rest of my limited life. This post might cause a Butterfly effect on it. Self defeating or self fulfilling prophecies, maybe. Although I don't remember prophesying anything. I don't know if I am acting out a drama. Everything seems in place, in sync and pre-planned. Why?

Freaky Friday

rockus: bought two books with first salary
poison: which ones man?
rockus: yeah
rockus: this(the zahir) and alchemist
poison: :)
poison: somebody gave me the ebooks of these
poison: i am also splurging on books
rockus: alchemist mainly for a friend
rockus: another friend jumped of with her book
rockus: ok
poison: okie*
rockus: ok
poison: i got one called 'fear and loathing in las vegas'
poison: destroyed my life almost
poison: :D
rockus: hehe
rockus: whats it about?
poison: have u seen the movie with the same name?
poison: ok
poison: its mostly abt the 60-70s drug culture in the us
rockus: no
poison: 1 sec
rockus: oho sounds interesting :D
rockus: ok
poison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_loathing_in_las_vegas
poison: do check it out some time
poison: :)
rockus: ok
poison: ne ways one fine friday i finished the book
poison: and went to a friends place in goregaon
poison: had a bottle of bacardi white rum with me.
rockus: ohk
rockus: :d
poison: suddenly i wanted to check out if i cud get some nice highs like the guys in the
novel do
poison: had some 3 or 4 swigs
rockus: oho
poison: the rest of the guys all went to sleep for one reason or another
poison: but not i
poison: since i was captain jack sparrow
rockus: :))
poison: master of the pirated side of the ocean
poison: :D
poison: so..
rockus: hehe
poison: from an eye witness account i drank the shyte like mineral water
poison: bloody hell
poison: ho ho ho and a bottle of rum
poison: there were no ho's though
rockus: and
rockus: =))
poison: just me and the bottle of crystal clear white rum!
poison: :D
rockus: hehe
poison: turned on sachin's pc and put on loud music
poison: heavy metal stuff
poison: the rum actually made the thing sound so gargantuan
poison: reverberating inside my head
poison: :D
poison: felt so damn good man
poison: i felt inside the song
rockus: oho
rockus: hav to try that:d
poison: saw a lot of things which i hardly remember
poison: :D
poison: ah...
poison: by then it was 2 am in the morning
rockus: hehe
poison: since i was drunk i wanted someone to know about my being drunk!
poison: so i call up poor old chetta
poison: u know chetta aravind right?
poison: :D
rockus: our aravind?
poison: yea!
poison: sct wala..kaithamukk aravind
poison: foxinte dosth
rockus: yeah
poison: with him i remember having a philosophical discussion abt amartya sens -
argumentative indian and other things..of all the things in the world
poison: poor guy
rockus: and what happnd
poison: ne ways at the end of the convo...
rockus: :))
poison: vaal aayi crash aayi
poison: :D
poison: slept like driftwood for 10 hours
poison: woke up at 12 noon
poison: i felt in control
rockus: yeah i imagined that:P
poison: hehe
poison: like the world was beneath my torn sandals
rockus: hehe
rockus: hehe
poison: so i get up and go to a near by restaurant
poison: and order an onion oothappam
poison: voila the waiter..the harbinger..brings me the dish
poison: and a spoon
poison: and a fork.
rockus: hehe
poison: i take the spoon..and dropped it on the floor
poison: horror of horrors..mind was clear
poison: body was fit!
poison: bloody bloody white rum
poison: its poison man!!!!~~~!!!!
rockus: oh yeah
poison: :D
poison: desperado
rockus: poison for poison:P
poison: right! :P
rockus: i had a similar thing last year
rockus: culprit
rockus: bacardi whit rum:d
poison: dude!
poison: tht thing is something!
poison: :D
rockus: yeah:d
poison: i was walking like a zombie through busy mumbai streets with my guiding roomie
rockus: we bought 15 bottles for tour
rockus: one by one each of us fell
poison: :))
poison: nice nice nice
poison: :D
poison: hehehe
rockus: finally we gave away bottles as free :D
rockus: hehe
rockus: actually i wud have been dead
rockus: if not for my roomies then
poison: hahahaha
poison: :D
poison: thank god for roomies
poison: hey have u seen the movie fight club?
rockus: i was very smug after drinking
rockus: no shaking nothing
rockus: yeah
rockus: going to see
poison: whoa tank ye are?
rockus: got it in my system today:D
rockus: i thoght so
rockus: it was manali
rockus: very cold
rockus: so it went like water
poison: whoa
poison: super!
poison: :D
rockus: 7-8 dont remember
rockus: went vaal while i was asleep:d
poison: when its cold its sweet poison
poison: :))
rockus: so remembrance at all of what happnd
poison: hahhaa
poison: hey macha
poison: have u seen fight club?
rockus: woke up
rockus: ok
rockus: nope
poison: okie
rockus: got it today
poison: ne ways in the movie ed norton is told by a therapist that he should go inside the
cave of his mind
poison: the safe place
rockus: ohk
poison: where he would find his power animal
rockus: oho
poison: which is usually a penguin or the lady from the planet of the apes..helena bonham
carter
poison: i saw parts of the movie in the morning
poison: sat morning
rockus: ok
poison: so here i am...sitting inside the BEST bus
poison: the last seat
poison: at its middle
poison: i saw the corridor of the bus
poison: it was kinda stil pulsating
poison: at the end was the conductor
rockus: oho
poison: he was making clicking sounds
poison: he was my power animal!
rockus: :))
poison: hehehehehe
poison: man...that was one totally screwed up day
poison: when i went to buy soap near the house
poison: the shopkeeper was unusually vocal
poison: and very happy to talk to me
rockus: oho
poison: every hawker was particularly articulate towards me
rockus: hmm...
poison: probably due to the desperate hollow happy go lucky look pasted in my eyes
poison: after that i quit white rum!
rockus: heeh

Vicissitudes

One month has passed since I landed in Mumbai. The vicissitudes of life were overwhelming me initially. Now I am, more or less, at terms with it. I am accepting the fact that change is essential. Change is the only thing that remains the same.

Once upon a time there was me. I looked down upon drunkards and smokers. I was seated on a pedestal which had a look of haughty innocence in the company of inebriated compadres.

Now I am a big time drunkard. Started smokes as well. And quit smokes. Man, that was fast. The motto here seems to be – work hard, play hard and party harder. Nice approach towards life, I would say.

I never liked Linkin Park too much. But I don’t know why I am getting drawn to these lines of their’s –

One thing / I don’t know whyIt doesn’t even matter how hard you tryKeep that in mind /
………………………………………………………………………………………………
I kept everything inside and even though I tried /
it all fell apart / What it meant to me /
will eventually / be a memory /
of a time when I tried so hardAnd got so farBut in the endIt doesn't even matterI had to fall
To lose it all / But in the endIt doesn't even matter.

Funny, ain’t it? I still edge on though it’s all probably a futile exercise. I wonder what drives me on.

I studied in a college whose motto was – “Karma Jyayo Hy Akarmanah”, meaning, "Action is better than inaction."(PS: I found that out after I passed out of the place!)

Yet, there are times when inaction would be better than action. Which leads us to the same old question of how is something better than another thing. Ah., like Aravind says,
“Live On :D. Nothing else to do around here right!”

Right-O boss!

Zoo Life

Weird..On the way back 'home', we came across a leaping frog, a fat pig, a dog which was harrassing the pig and a rat which was crossing the road.

Bom Baia- The Good Bay

Mumbai is very different from Chennai. The first thing that strikes any guy's mind would be

the haute couture ladies who are abundant in Mumbai. In that aspect, Mumbai is waay better

than Chennai!

When it comes to roads, Chennai is a class apart. Chennai roads are world class. The traffic

is also well managed. Not so with amchi Mumbai. I have a feeling that at least a couple of

elephants have been trapped in those gargantuan potholes, which make you think twice about

the word "pothole".

And the traffic...Oh man, the traffic. The traffic is beautiful. I get into the company bus at 1830 and try to sleep during the rollercoaster ride homewards. We are airborne half the time, thanks to the wonderful roads! Air turbulence is nothing compared to Mumbai road turbulence.

And yeah, thanks to the wonderful(I know I am overusing the word!) traffic, we reach the hotel some 2.5 hours after boarding the rollercoaster.

The Mumbai suburban rail system is the city's lifeline. Its the only thing that can get a person from poiint A to point B in time. It is, however, very crowded. You just stand near the door and the crowd will carry you with it. Its a nice experience. Long live the suburban railway!

The autorickshaw drivers in Mumbai are angels compared to the Chennai rick-devils. They are very honest and charge by the meter. By the way, the fare meter is calibrated against time, not the distance, taking into account the traffic jams, which are quite common.

Me and my friend, have managed to find a small flat, near the office. Hopefully we will be moving in there, sometime this week. The rents are also so steep in this city. People say that Mumbai has something to offer for people of all budgets. Well, so it does!

Mumbai seems to be a rocking place. Some of my college mates are here, and am hoping to have a fundoo time ahead. Home is, however, a distant sight. It would be very difficult for me to go home, as Trivandrum is too too far away now.

When people heard that the two of us where going to Mumbai, the usual response was like - Uh oh..the poor chaps!(When us Mallus think of Mumbai, the main visuals that pop up are Floods and Bombs) Thankfully, neither has affected us so far. Hoping that it will stay that way!

Bye bye dear Chennai...

Chennai is a great city. Been here for just 2 months and already I love it. We had managed to get a nice apartment in the middle of city. Life was good. I was getting rooted to Chennai.

I started reading 'Future Shock' by Alwin Toffler some days ago. Its about how the pace of today's life is faster compared to olden times. I read about how a person gets rooted to somewhere, happy in its coccooned atmosphere. But today's world is apparently always on the move. People get shifted all over the world for various reasons, both professional and personal. I was having a ball reading about how the common man resists change when it stares at him in his face. We resist change inherently, he argued.

Two days after I started 'Future Shock', I got a shock; and it was about my future! I have to go to Mumbai this Saturday for my first assignment. I will probably be stationed at Mumbai for many months. Ah...Alwin Toeffler. I was half mad and half amused at his writings. Dammit...this was happening to me!!! LOL!

I was dazed at first, having to leave behind Chennai so fast. I had started to learn Tamil and had gotten used to the climate and the customs here. Now I have to start afresh...I am still resisting change.

Mumbai is apparently one of the best cities in India. I am looking forward to this( 'cos I have no option...boo hoo) ;-)

Adios dear Chennai...

Chronicles

I had moved to Chennai on the 16th of July 2006, as my new job demanded my presence there. Man, I miss Kerala. The weather in Trivandrum is heaven compared to the Chennai steampot.

The first thing that we noticed about Chennai was its heat. I think I had mentioned in the earlier post that Chennai has three climates - Hot, hotter and hottest. I think we are in the Hot mode now, since the weather is pretty agreeable now. It had rained here yesterday. I am usually an anti rain person, but yesterday, the rains made everyone a bit happy, even though it was for a short spell.

Our apartment is located in a pretty affluent area of town. This means that we have to walk quite a bit away from our pad to get anything that's affordable. None of us know whether we are going to be staying at this city for a long time, since thats the way things are here. Effects of competition and globalisation, I guess. Keeps one pretty much on the edge. Talking about our apartment, there's a small story behind our being in this particular place.

We are total newbies to Chennai. In our gang of four, only one person can speak and understand the Tamil language. He is our default HR person, since the rest of us are useless when it comes to communication in Tamil. Coming back to the story, we were holed up in a hotel for two weeks, after we arrived in Chennai. Our schedules were usually fulled to the brim during weekdays and we were truly free only during the weekends.

We had to secure a place to stay after leaving the hotel on the 30th of July. The normal route would be to get hold of the Classifieds and scout around the city. Chennai is a pretty big place to tackle without a vehicle of your own. And during the daytime its so hot that you get tired just by travelling the metro buses. It might be that we are not accustomed to the weather here. Anyways, we tried scouting for a house and we faced the typical responses - only vegetarians, or no bachelors. Man, its hard for men here. There are so many working women's hostels around. For bachelors its a tad harder to get a rented house, from what I think. Lodges are an alternative, which we didn't consider(we should have considered moving into some lodge). So we decided to invoke the B word.

Brokers are doing big business here I believe. The first one we met told us that he had a very nice house available..with TV, sofas, the works. It also had a very low advance amount. We fell in love with this house that this guy was painting in our imagination. So, with high hopes we went to the place and saw that he hadn't lied a bit. It was all true, except for one fact..One guy was already staying at that place and all these stuff belonged to him. :-D

This broker didn't have any other suitable houses for us bachelors. Another houseowner slammed his door at our faces shrieking, "No bachelors!"

One of our friends knew the number of a Malayali real estate broker(MREB). We rang up the dude and he was very happy to help us out. He had a house which was ready to be rented out. We went to the place with him and saw that the place was ok, though a bit far from the office. The advance too was a bit high. Still we liked the place. The broker took us away from the landlord and asked us to give him six thousand rupees for giving a five thousand rupees advance to the landlord. We gave our MREB the cash and went away. The next day we couldn't contact him. He didn't have a mobile and his wife told us that he hadn't turned up at his house. We were getting slightly concerned over the issue.

Two days later, our MREB turned up at the hotel we were staying at. He was drunk. Our drunk MREB was pretty loud in the lobby. Lots of eyebrows were getting raised. He said that he wanted the rest of his brokerage right then since he had some pressing needs that day... We adopted a stern stance and sent the guy packing. It was pathetic to see a man reduced to zilch via the booze route. Our apartment plans were also in jeopardy now.

Two of my friends went to the apartment and found out the contact address and number of the house owner. The address that the broker had given us was a wrong one. We got in touch with the landlord and got to know that he had received just two thousand rupees so far, from the six thousand that we had given the broker. He asked whether we wanted the house.

One more day passed and we met the house owner and the sober MREB, who had tried to cheat us. The deal was fixed and we have been installed in a nice apartment in a nice location. The only downside is that it is unfurnished..no chairs, no cots, no tables, no TV, no PC, nothing much at all. But at least we have a place to stay. Everyday as I walk through the streets I see a lot of destitute people sleeping on the sidewalk.

From what I have seen so far, I think I like Chennai inspite of its nuances... :-)

I had shifted to a new city last week. The language is proving to be a barrier of sorts. We are holed up in a hotel currently, and are looking for permanant accomodation. The search is on, and so far we havent struck it lucky. This is a city where opulence and extreme poverty coexists. The weather is too hot. The air conditioning that we enjoy is a previlege, I ought to say. Soon we will be moving out of the hotel, and into the oven outside. They say there are three seasons here - Hot, hotter and hottest!
Ciao...

Shifting base

I am shifting to another city... Might be a while before I return to blogs.

Take Care everyone!

Sayonara :)

Handling terror

This is about the Mumbai train blasts which took place on the 11th of July. Travel Tales from India prompted this response about the heinous act, and the media responded to it.

The terrorists struck Mumbai with a vengeance. Many lives were taken, and many more are left completetely shattered. Don't the terrorists realize that they are actually digging their own grave with this? What do these bastards gain from destroying the lives of innocents?

The media coverage of the terrorist attack and its aftermath was crass, to say the least. I had watched the news channels for a long time, getting number, seeing the same gruesome images being aired over and over again. The media has lost its control, and its humanity.

They are simply cashing in on the tragedy. They have scant respect for the victims, the dead, and the bereaved. I concede that they seem to be doing a fine job in airing messages for locating missing persons. Other than that, the media seems to have lost insight, and sensitivity. I strongly feel that they should have covered the incident differently.

One channel's correspondent was lulling over mundane aspects of the event so casually that its parent channel(which was airing feed from the Indian network), suddenly cut short the telecast and moved on to discussion about the blasts, rather than having people over the globe watch gore being deified, over and over again.

Terrorists have gained little from this brutal assault on the people. This attack has made them lose their last strands of credibility, if any. Their real aim could be to provoke communal riots. They haven't succeeded this time. I hope that they won't be able to instigate riots which will break the spirit of secularism.

Philips 105S

The monitor is soo beautiful. It shows me what the computer

wants me to see. Poor old me, incapable of understanding binary

thoughts fast enough. That monitor is an accomplice for

everything. Been staring at me for some six years now. I used

to bang it against the wall when it skewed my view, and when it

made my life blue. Everything had a blue tinge. Finally the

darn thing conked and I had to take it to the necromancers at

the Phlips service centre. The dudes took the poor baby in and

after careful examination of her intricate interiors, came back

and told me "The soldering is all torn off. No idea how that

could happen. :-/ ." It took all my skills to keep a straight

face :| lol! Finally the phoenix rose from the ashes after

resoldering and was back in action. Gota bid adieu to this

darling monitor soon... Had scribbled some graffiti all over

the PC some days ago, since I had nothing else to do. I had

scribbled a beautiful question mark on top of the screen

during the exams(to remind me what I was doing and what I was

supposed to be doing! lol) Now it resembles life itself :D

The ship reached the destination. The next port of call was still undecided. The sea was deceptively calm. It suddenly lashed out and broke the anchor away. The ship floated away to the whims of the waves and the mystic currents. Hardly knowing what lies ahead.

The finale

“This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again

Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...stranger's hand
In a...desperate land”

(from The End by The Doors)

Francis Ford Coppola’s magnum opus begins with these tranquil lines playing in the background as a strip of jungle gets lit with fresh napalm. I am yanking these lines out their intended context and am pasting them here. My college days are drawing to an end. The finale will be the very last lab exams of the course.

There’s still one more theory paper and a course viva, to be faced before the grand finale enters the picture. I don’t know what I will be up to once this four year long dream ends. I just hope that the dream doesn’t get extended into a nightmare.

My vision has become hazy especially when I try spying the future. Predicting the future is like sailing in uncharted territory. You can chart out a course in the ocean of life and try to stick to it, hoping that the rest of the variables in this complex equation turn out to be your allies.

I am not desperately in need of a change. I have become used to this groove. This college has witnessed der untergang and the revival of my little life. I have become resilient. I ought to be thankful, I guess, to this unfeeling cluster of concrete structures and the students who define the college’s character.

In a few weeks, most of the students of my batch will be viewing College of Engineering, Trivandrum, no longer as their own. Will be witnessing it morph into yet another alma mater. People are going to be scattered around the country, like a seedpod exploding to disperse its children.

Thanks to the service industry which has absorbed most of the 2006 batch, the transition into the next change wouldn’t be too hard for the majority, as there will be lots of old faces to stand by them while the future weaves its new patterns in their lives. Many others are going to continue the pursuit of further education.

After we (provisionally) step out of this place, a new consignment of raw materials is going to enter the production line. Fresh faces might bring about a change of character to the college. Our life at CET was tumultuous. It was one great roller coaster ride. I think I am overdoing the use of the word “roller coaster” in everything that I write.

The future is uncertain. But there’s one philosophy that most CET-ians might adher to, no matter what comes in their path. Geo had written about it once. The keyword is -

Mair-Uth-Anne…

[In rough terms, its contextual meaning is that “it doesn’t matter”]

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna

Born June 14, 1928
Rosario, Argentina

Practicalities

Carpe Diem...
Is it practical? Is it practised?

Carpe Diem

"Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary"

- John Keating (played by Robin Williams)
[From the movie - Dead Poet's Society(1989)]

Ryan's opinion

When you are loved, you want to be hated.
And,
When people start hating you, you want to be loved.

Weird Things Tag

Got tagged by Arti and Illusion.
:)

Tag Rules:

-You must post a blog with six weird facts or habits about yourself.
- At the bottom name the six people you will tag next.
- Leave them a comment to let them know they've been tagged and to read your blog

SIX WEIRD FACTS about me:

1. I am absent minded. Usually I don’t even remember what’s the date or what day of the week it is.

2. When I am desperate, I ride quite recklessly on any motorbike that I can get my hands on.

3. Its very hard for me to say a definitive ‘no’, especially to anyone whom I know.

4. If I pass by a mirror and there are no strangers around, I might backtrack and flex my arms. Sshh.

5. I was once a student of kung fu, and I am in love with that art.

6. I can watch the same movie over and over again, on repeat, if it’s a good movie.

Anyone who likes this tag may take it up and do it… :)

Some movies that I recently watched

Monty Python and the Holy Grail...
One of the greatest comedy flicks ever. If you havent watched this, please somehow watch it! Its that damn good.

V for vendetta...
Went for this one right after a demoralising exam. Worth a one-time watch. U have to savour the dialogues and the ideas that it conveys to enjoy it. The theatre unfortunately had a messed up sound system.

after that we were ripping a couple of honda motorcycles. suicide biking. a ride to end all rides...it didnt end.

Apocalypse Now Redux...
Lost count of the number of time I am watching this movie. I hate it now, though I really do like it.

American Beauty...
Its one lovely movie. Beautiful.

Deuce Bigalow European Gigolo...
Was more or less predictable.

The Matador...
Its one awesome flick. Fun to watch. An unlikely plot with Pierce Brosnan as a burnt out hitman.

Note : This post has been posted cos I have absolutely nothing else to do. rather nothing that i remotely feel like doing.

I lack sense. Sense, in the general sense. Add to that a rotten sense of humour and voila, we have a recipe for disaster. Lost in my world, where time, place and occasion have little impact, I was waddling around doing nothing, when a good friend sent me an sms about something which seemingly had gone wrong. Without the least bit of thought I replied in a tit for tat fashion. I still didn't realize the gravity of things. I usually project myself as a sadistic joker. That sounds corny. But that's how things usually are. This time around, the occasion was different, and I failed to realize that. I understand how much of a jerk I really am. I am sorry for the hurt that I have caused.

Man vs Vegetables

A vegetable existence. What's wrong about it?

I get to live life in fairly simple terms. The only sustained activity which can be percieved is the act of taking breaths. Each day is a clone of the day before it. Wake up. Waste time. Sleep. Wake up. Waste time. Sleep...

If we didn't have a long term memory, life would have been so refreshing under these circumstances. But somehow, our minds want to feel that they are doing something useful, something productive. But the bottomline is that we are deceiving ourselves. If we look long and hard at anything that we plan to do to make ourself useful, it suddenly turns out to be a pointless excercise after all.

Heh! For conventional running of the engine of life, we need to deceive ourselves all the time. Which means ... I don't know. Lol!

But what was I trying to express here. Ah, yes. About a veggie existence. Owing to the presence of our long term memories we usually find it hard to be in such a state. We feel dissatisfied and we set goals or at least veer off from the circle of simple life, which is the hallmark of a veggie existence. And end up deceiving ourselves. Getting rid of the long term memory regions from our brains would make us a lot less dissatisfied and a bit more happier, probably.

Predestination paradox

Robert A. Heinlein's short story "—All You Zombies—" tells of a young man who is taken back in time and tricked into impregnating his younger, female self (before he underwent a sex change), and who turns out to be the offspring of that very union, with the paradoxical result that he is both his own mother and father. In fact, as it turns out, all the major characters in the story are the same person, at different stages of her/his life. This also creates an ontological paradox.

In Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man, time traveller Karl Glogauer travels back to 28 AD in search of Jesus. The Jesus he finds is a mentally retarded hunchback, but Glogauer himself becomes known by that name, attracts a mass following, and is captured and crucified.


find more on predestination paradox here..

hmm

sometimes all i want is to get a jackhammer automatic and mow down everyone in sight with it

Exams..

I have my semester exams from the 15th...

No idea about what I have to study!

Will come back after the exams..

Sayonara!

Siesta

The heat was building up. The midday sun was slowly moving towards the west. The big speakers in my room were blaring out random music from a long playlist. My veins were throbbing to its tunes, as I lay on the hard bed, looking at the ceiling. There was just the music and the heat. The ceiling fan whirred on, pumping the hot air down on me.

It had been a hectic morning, and I was tired. I closed my eyes to try and sneak a siesta in. The tunes were slowly morphing into something different. These aural waves began creating associated images in my mind. Each song evoked different memories in my mind, mostly shadows from the past. Some happy, some sad. Mostly sad. Sad that the past is beyond my reach now. Whatever that I did now, would be etched in history forever. Probably. Who knows, maybe some time traveler from the future will erase my existence from the past.

Some long forgotten moments popped up in the mind’s screen as the playlist progressed through its shuffled up route. Some images had lost their edges. They were blurry. The colours merged into each other as I tried to concentrate on them. It was as if they wanted to tease me, with what they held in their content. The noises were also blurring. They danced around me in their weird concentric envelopes. Each one was mocking the one within. The vibrations made my horizon a filmy haze.

Five hours later, the heavy beat of an old Michael Jackson song thawed my hibernation. The familiar whir of the ceiling fan was strangely reassuring. The budgerigars next door were in the middle of their evening chat session. I heard children screaming in glee. Probably over some kind of game that they play. Or maybe one of them had got a present, or something else had happened. I looked at the rotating fan above my head, and I blinked my eyes in quick succession. Owing to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, I could make out the three leaves of the fan, suspended in motion. It reminded me of a radioactivity warning sign.

Untitled

What exactly are “sanity” and “insanity” ?

Wiki says –

Sanity considered as a legal term denotes that an individual is of sound mind and therefore can bear legal responsibility for his or her actions. It is generally defined in terms of the absence of insanity. It is not a medical term, although the opinions of medical experts are often important in making a legal decision as to whether someone is sane or insane. It is also not the same concept as mental illness. One can be acting under profound mental illness and yet be sane, and one can also be ruled insane without an underlying mental illness.

Sanity outside of legal definitions has been little explored by science and medicine, as the concentration has been on illness. Dr. P.S. Graven suggested the term "un-sane" to describe a condition that is not exactly insane, but not quite sane either

I thought I was becoming sane. But now, its all really vague since no one really knows what exactly the word sane means. There are no clear cut definitions anywhere. An absence of insanity, they say, is sanity. So what is insanity. I think that is something that has also been subjected to much research by persons vastly more able than I currently am.

What I had considered to be sane was to have ‘normal’ trains of thought. Go utterly with the flow, ie. I even studied for exams, something that which I never do for internal evaluation exams. Lol! Anyway, the bottomline is that I don’t think I like that kind of ‘sanity’. I am more comfortable acting out the role of the pseudo thinker. Coming to think of it, these pseudo thoughts are something that I crave for now. I appear to have lost that questioning mindset that I used to have, in the past few months.

So this is an exercise which may be entirely futile! Still I guess I can write any amount of utter bull shit in my blog. *angelic*

Destiny is a thing which always arouses my curiosity. Are things pre destined?

A group of people think that everything is ‘written’ or has been pre destined. Another set believes that nothing beats free will and free will is the alfa and omega of everything. A lot of others, frankly don’t give a shit about the concepts at all. Just live. Why grow confused over questions whose answers we might never happen to find out. Heh! I guess its fun just to keep pondering. Who knows, maybe someone will find out the secret to everything one day.

There are a lot of astrologers, seers and people with crystal balls and tarot cards, around the globe. There have also been prophets. Some point out that that the Bible is a huge prophecy, most of whose predictions have occurred correctly. And then there are the Indian astrologers who write the Jaathakam or future of little children based on their times of birth. Most of these concepts are dismissed as quacks and coincidences by logical minds.

But the fact is that there are a lot of predictions which do come true. The people who made those prophecies must have some kind of future sensing powers, at the moment of writing the prophecies, at least. They can also be treated this way – that they are just general projections of the future and would probably occur. It’s a game of poker then. And the accurate prophecy is an intelligent bluff. There is also the approach, where once a person has been shown his/her Jaathakam, he/she might actually try to act out the drama subconsciously, tending to adhere to the predictions. Oh well..Anything can happen.

Coming back to the point, what strikes me is that if some people have been able to predict the future accurately, there lies a possibility of all things being written. We don’t have a say in our lives then. What we consider to be our free choices were actually decided in advance by some intricate system. Everything suddenly becomes a huge system which has specific responses to definite excitations. Nothing’s unpredictable with the system. Free will becomes an illusion then.

I got this point of view from watching the movie ‘Waking Life’. A professor tells the protagonist that –

It starts to look like all our decisions are really just a charade.

Think about how it happens. There's some electrical activity in your brain. Your neurons fire. They send a signal down into your nervous system. It passes along down into your muscle fibers. They twitch. You might, say, reach out your arm. It looks like it's a free action on your part, but every one of those – every part of that process is actually governed by physical law, chemical laws, electrical laws, and so on.

So now it just looks like the big bang set up the initial conditions, and the whole rest of human history, and even before, is really just the playing out of subatomic particles according to these basic fundamental physical laws. We think we're special. We think we have some kind of special dignity, but that now comes under threat. I mean, that's really challenged by this picture.

So you might be saying, “Well, wait a minute. What about quantum mechanics? I know enough contemporary physical theory to know it's not really like that. It's really a probabilistic theory. There's room. It's loose. It's not deterministic.” And that's going to enable us to understand free will. But if you look at the details, it's not really going to help because what happens is you have some very small quantum particles, and their behavior is apparently a bit random. They swerve. Their behavior is absurd in the sense that its unpredictable and we can't understand it based on anything that came before. It just does something out of the blue, according to a probabilistic framework. But is that going to help with freedom? I mean, should our freedom be just a matter of probabilities, just some random swerving in a chaotic system? That starts to seem like it's worse. I'd rather be a gear in a big deterministic physical machine than just some random swerving.

(This might be copyrighted stuff…I got this from a screenplay of the movie ‘Waking Life’.. acknowledgements to whomsoever concerned)

Yea yea..whatever!

Back to Normal

I think I am becoming sane these days.. :)

Wana be a HitMan?

A manual for an assassin can be found here!

Tag~~~Tag~~~Tag

I have decided to honour Niki Chan's tag!
Here goes..

1.Grab the book nearest to you, turn on page 18 and find line 4.

“The resulting decimal numbers are added together to..”

2.Stretch your left arm out as far as you can.
I touch a window grill.

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?

The news in NDTV!

4.Without looking, guess what time it is?
5.00pm?

5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?
4:29pm. Time’s not as fast as I am!

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
My neighbour’s budgerigars making their usual ruckus. ~x(

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
Yesterday evening. Was out to ride the bike.

8. Before you started this survey, what did you look at?
Niki Bakshi’s blog!

9. What are you wearing?
Bermudas.

10. Did you dream last night?
A lot..I don’t remember anything though..

11. When did you last laugh?
Some hours ago, when kickassso showed me the different interpretations of the word ‘chetta’!

12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
A dead clock, a calendar, an angle baton with a CFL, A switchboard, A fan regulator, A power socket, PVC conduits, A tube light, a photo of my grandparents whom I never knew, then there’s the paint on the walls! I think that’s it!

13 Seen anything weird lately?
Yesterday night as I was riding home, I saw this boozed guy on a bicycle standing still for some seconds and then falling down.

14. What do you think of this quiz?
Its pretty funny alright!

15. What is the last film you saw?
Det Sjunde Inseglet (The Seventh Seal)

16. If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy?
A lot of plane tickets!

17. Tell me something about you that I dunno.
I change my views on religion very very frequently.

18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
I would prefer peace..(sounds kinda corny)

19. Do you like to dance?
Nope!

20. George Bush.
I used to hate him, then I sympathized with him. Now I pity him!

21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
Z(Zee)

22. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
Z(Zed)

23. Would you ever consider living abroad?
Yup..Doesn’t look like that will happen anytime soon!

24.What do you want GOD to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
”Surprise!”

25. 4 people who must also do this meme in their journal.
Aravind, Anand, Divya, Geo

An interesting point of view

In the movie 'Le Mari de la Coiffeuse' , the protagonist Antoine says(in a voice over) that
-
My father said that, life is simple.
That if you wanted something hard enough, you would get it.
Failure was proof that the desire wasn't strong enough.
(Translated from French..What would i do without subtitles!)

Cinema

I am a film buff. I have lost count of the movies that I’ve watched over the years. I wasn’t much of a movie freak till I had reached high school. I used to watch Hindi, Malayalam and English movies sporadically till then. The proportion was also roughly equally distributed. Then cable TV entered my life and I was glued to the idiot box watching Star Movies, HBO, ZeeMGM(now Zee Studio), Hallmark and TNT. I watched a lot of Hollywood movies and frankly, I fell in love with them. These were the originals, which were being so crassly remade in vernaculars. They had a certain finesse, which was sadly lacking in most Bollywood and Malayalam movies.

In the year 2000, a personal computer entered my life, and I had never foreseen that it would become so much a part of my life, as it has become now. It had a 50x compact disc drive and I got myself the membership of some four or five video rental shops. I and my friend made their business lively by regularly picking up obscure titles and watching them. Hollywood isn’t all good, all the time. There is a lot of shit that Hollywood turns out every year. Yet I was hooked to them. Also there were a lot of European films that came on cable TV, which I really adored. Their level of artistry and sensitivity left quite an impression on my mind.

These days, I have graduated from the business of renting movies to watch them. Nowadays, I procure movies which are with my friends. I got the chance to Apocalypse Now Redux in this manner. Its one of my favorites now. It was Coppola at his best. The movies I get to watch are mostly pirated/downloaded. But for an addict like me, it is manna. A recent trend that I have observed in me is that, I have started to fall in love with the cinema of the Orient – Korean, Chinese and Japanese films. Park Chan Wook’s Vengeance trilogy is uparalleled. So is Hero, a Jet Li movie, which I cherish for its being sheer art, in motion. Its acknowledged that Kurosawa movies are classics.

Ingmar Bergman and Bertolucci seem to have invaded my time these days. A frantic friend of mine had got a goldmine from his cousin. The goldmine was a 200GB collection of classic movies, music and comics. Ah! It seems like I have my schedules made up for me.

How many movies did I watch today? I am a bit fuzzy in the head. I have to check to find it out. It seems that I saw Ladri di biciclette(The Bicycle Thief), Le Mari De La Coiffeuse(The Hairdresser’s Husband) and Infernal Affairs(Chinese) today. Three beautiful films. The Bicycle Thief saw me yelling out to the protagonist who seemed to be destined to doom. Infernal Affairs keeps its audience glued to the monitor. Le Mari De La Coiffeuse was a movie which was poignantly sad. In it, the beauty of woman is perfectly captured. An excellent movie it was.

I think that if I die and go to heaven, it would be a storehouse of movies, of all sorts, and genres. If its hell, the monitor might be broken or something of that sort. But then..what do I know, I am just an ignoramus.

Holidays loom ahead. Lots to do. Nothings being done.

Abundance of time is a sweet illusion.

I am basking in this warm illision whiile it lasts.

But..its damn hard to be idle.

Something or the other always forces me out of my cocoon.

I just want to laze around doing absolutely nothing..

Yet remain a spectator of everything...

The Wanderer Tags!

The Wanderer has made me the victim of this brutal tag....

5 people who top your sh1t list..... and why:

a) Karunakaran… ‘Cos he is leading his flock to lala land.

b) Adolf Hitler… ‘Cos he was you know what.

c) Osama bin Laden… For doing what he does.

d) Tony Blair… ‘Cos he’s a puppy.

e) All forms of extremists.


Close brushes with death/danger:

a) In 3^rd standard, when I veered my bicycle in the path of a KSTRC bus. Screeching tires and smoking rubber. I escaped.

b) In the 2^nd year of my grad, I was en route to a university lab exam when this old lady jumps in front of me and then backtracked, right into me. I skidded away, managing to spare her, and narrowly missed a rock which was lying too close to comfort to the place where my head was(Wasn’t wearing a helmet). Got a lot of patchwork.

c) In the 4th year of my grad, a lady decided to take a U turn just when I had reached near her. Screeccch…The rear wheel hit a pool of slush and here I was looking at the world spinning around me. My head(sans helmet) narrowly missed the divider and I skidded away to the side of the road. Again, some patchwork.

5 Preferable modes of suicide, in descending order:

a) Potassium Cyanide, and other potent poisons.

b) Guillotine, with self activation facility.

c) Shotgun to the head.

d) Systematic and quick electrocution.(I am an electrical grad student)

e) Ride with my eyes closed and hope for a quick death.

5 Guilty pleasures:

I don’t feel much guilt about anything that I do these days.

5 things you never want to forget:

This is going to sound corny, but here goes. I don’t really want to hold on to any particular memory forever.

But I would like to remember all the people whom I’ve met over the years, since it would be really an insult to them when suddenly I don’t appear to remember them.

5 things you wish to forget:

a) The past

b) What’s left when the past is gone.

Call me an escapist…

5 really exotic dishes you have tried:

This quiz is probably my undoing. I am not a foodie. People often ask me if I am a newbie in the food department.

a) Paav Bhaji (exotic to me!)

b) Clams

c) Chicken Shawai(if that is exotic)

d) Squid fry

e) Roast boar

5 crushes/loves in your life... in chronological order (even initials or nicknames wud do. Oh, no ID attempts or requests pleez):

a) Shobhana Chandrakumar

b) Cindy Crawford

c) Brooke Shields

d) Aishwarya Rai

e) Shania Twain

5 won’t cover ‘em all!

Strangest dream you ever had:

An eye which kept staring at me from the bottom frame of a door.

It never flinched no matter what I did to it.

Strangest, because I had that dream first when I was in primary school, and it was telecast again some days ago. Funny thing is I remembered that dream. I scarcely remember any dream during my waking life.

5 most valued personal possessions:

a) The contacts lists in my computer and my phone.

b) Motorcycle

c) Mobile phone

d) Hard disk

e) All these are mere chattels, except item #a. A fifth one, I cannot think of.

5 favorite superheroes..... and why:

a) Conan the Barbarian – The comic strips rock.

b) The Phantom – Childhood awe.

c) Tarzan - Ditto

d) Spawn – I love the concept.

e) Monkey – from Dexter’s lab.

Rain Ride

One of my friends Putt had a bike accident yesterday. He and his room-mate Moda, were coming towards the college when a KSRTC bus clashed with their Bullet. The bus conductor was of the opinion that the bike was overtaking an auto rickshaw and the bus had somehow swerved to avoid a rock or a gutter…

Putt was messed up pretty bad. He needed two operations yesterday. He had to be shifted to a super specialty hospital for the second one. I believe that the best treatment possible was provided to the duo. He has to be ok in some time, once the bones heal. Moda had a fractured thigh bone. He too is ok now.

Putt is a careful rider. He doesn’t take any chances on the road, from what I’ve seen of his riding. Given the chances that I take everyday, it is statistically predictable that I too might meet with a similar shunt one day. I was riding really slowly and careful all day today. To tell the truth, I was scared.

The weather here in Trivandrum is really hot nowadays. The summer is yet to peak and the mercury keeps on rising everyday. There was a summer shower today, as I was leaving college today. I got totally drenched.

My glasses were all steamy and wet, and could hardly see what was in front of me. Still I went on at a slow pace. I looked like a Neanderthal then, I suppose. I had a grimace on my face and my eyes were almost closed – a compromise between shutting out the stinging bullets of water and maintaining necessary vision.

I don’t usually fancy rains. Maybe it is that, I’ve had too many bad experiences to relate with rains. People usually like rains. Sometimes, just to look at the heavens opening their lachrymal glands, and wonder at this world that we live in. My grimace was increasing at a steady pace as the odometer counted on. My mind was also in a tunnel vision. It had the stinging rain and the traffic to cope with. All I saw was the yellow rear end of the lorry which was chugging in front of me. I was trailing it, trying to avoid direct blast of rain.

Here I was, wet to the core, rain stinging my skin, and very irritated. Suddenly, a scene from The Zahir rose up in my mind. A scene where the author undergoes a ritual initiation act; one in which he has to shed off his clothes and brave the cold wind of the Steppes. The author shivers, as the cold wind lashes his bare skin. Mikhail, his companion tells him to stop resisting the cold. Accept it. Stop fighting it…Suddenly the cold lost its overpowering sway, says the author. I decided to try that.

I accepted the bite of the rain drops. The world in front of me changed to a beautiful place. It was almost a continued sequence of moments of clarity as I kept riding in the rain. I had started enjoying it. There was a wide grin pasted on my face as it got whipped by the rain drops coming at different angles as I followed the wet road and its twists and turns. The wind was like a symphony conductor, guiding the rain drops’ trajectories to perfection, or imperfection. Nothing’s perfect they say. But, sometimes we feel that nothing’s imperfect. Crafted to perfection, even though it might appear as not. That ride was something to remember, even though I still don’t like rains.

American History X

Excerpt from the movie American History X.


Danny Vinyard -
My conclusion is, hate is baggage.
Life's too short to be pissed off all the time.
Its just not worth it.

Definition

FANATIC :

One who redoubles his energy when he has forgotten his aim.

~ Santayana

Visions

The eye never disappears. It is always there. In its socket, right at the bottom of the door. The decaying wood forms a reluctant home to this emotionless monster. Its white is crisscrossed with throbbing rivulets of purple. That gives it a sinister look, I suppose. But if one looks into the eye, it is devoid of anything other than an insatiable curiosity. Its gaze follows me as I move around. I don’t like this feeling.

One night has passed. The eye is still at its job. Its eyelids untiring. I just noticed that its eyelids lacked lashes. I thought it to be peculiar. Why does it have any eyelids at all? It never blinks. I still didn’t give a damn. It continued its curious perch in the bottom frame of the door.

I can’t take it any more. I am going to kill the eye. I abused it verbally; it stared at me unflinching. I threw sand at it; it still mocked me. I thrust a rusty knife into it; the jelly oozed out of the wound, but it was mocking me still. Quite an iron will, it has.

Why the hell is the world going dark? Why are the lights flickering? Is it the dawn of the apocalypse? Probably not. I must be imagining things. Nothing is real, I say to myself quite often. Everything is a figment of my imagination. The eye refuses to vanish even though I command it. Hmm. I guess I am powerless over my imagination. It seems to have a will of its own.

Sadness is an animal emotion. It is sprinkled all over my dreams. I wake up feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. But why? Why should I feel responsible for anything. I can’t even be responsible for myself, technically. Because of reductionism. The chat bot tells me that “Reductionism is the philosophy that all psychology reduces to biology, all biology to chemistry, chemistry to physics, and finally physics to mathematical logic. Therefore, according to reductionism, I can understand you by means of logic alone without having a human brain.”

Everything I do is because of the activities of the small particles that comprise me. They work according to a set of laws, most of which are still unknown to us. I don’t have free will. I can’t stop the eye from its unrelenting gaze. It refuses to dislodge from its nook, come hell or high water.

I wished that a tsunami would come and wipe out the door and the eye. It came and it went. But the door stood straight mocking at me, and the eye kept staring at me.

Incognito has posted something which I found quite witty and interesting. It can be found here!

ENTP - "Inventor". Enthusiastic interest in everything and always sensitive to possibilities. Non-conformist and innovative. 3.2% of the total population.

Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs/MBTI)

Free-Wheeling Inventor

This is my result.

I am back for a pitstop....ciao !

Request for Leave

From,

-poison-,
Humble Blogger,
Blogosphere.

To,

You !!,
Blogosphere.

Sub - Request for a break from blogging.

Dear Sir/Ma'am,

I have some urgent business to be taken care of, viz. the final year project and related stuff, which lead to the creation of radically new and efficient methods to waste one's time. I need a break! I hope you'll grant me this one wish. It is for the greater good of mankind.. ;),

Thanking You.............
Yours poisonously.....

-poison-

Blogland, 1/3/6

Negotiate If You Can

Some millenia ago, if I wanted something from you I would have taken my club and bashed your head in, and try to take that thing which I needed. But you wouldn't allow me such a clean getaway. You would try to bash my brains in. That used to be precursor of negotiation, I believe.
Nowadays, since we have all become so civilized, we try to talk over things, and arrive at a win win situation, and get along with life. Then again, we all know that you can't win them all. Life seems to be smooth for a good negotiator. Negotiation ought to become a religion or a branch of science, or simply art. Its a wonder it isn't a major religion now. Negotiations cater us in the walks of life. Negotiation should be taught as a part of life sciences at primary education levels. Its a beautiful art. One can study it all life, yet one can never truly master it. Because there might always be a better negotiator somewhere.

All the World's a Stage..

This is a sonnet by Bill Shakespeare -

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

This Shakespeare was good! He had some of my ideas !!! ;)

The Boredom Strikes Back

We reached Bangalore at about 9 am. The train was laaate. We found a lodge to stay, and thats where we have been holed up. Well, cos of the lack of resources(financial and linguistic) we are sticking to a spartan life style. Heh! Even the internet cafe from where I am typing this is quite spartan. The computers dont seem to have instant messengers installed. The interview and stuff are scheduled for tomorrow. I hope I wont faint from boredom! ;)

Fickle's the word

If somehow, I could list the objectives that I had set for myself till now, in the various stages of life, it would be solid proof of how fickle a person I am. I won't go back to the dark ages. But I will backtrack to about a year back. Somehow I was under the staunch belief that I wanted to pursue a management course immediately after getting my B.Tech. Heh! I remember brainwashing quite a lot of people into following the same route. Anyway, somewhere around the middle of this saga to the MBA entrance exams, I had some hairy situations in my life, which I handled quite badly and well, I crashed and I burnt. And of course, I bounced.

The end result was that I had grown up in the course of a month. My whole outlook had changed. It was a different me, or a different world. Never figured out which. I became more easy going and was in a state of pure existence, without giving a damn about anything. That state slowly evolved back to a new and improved version of myself in some more months' time. That me hated B.Tech. He wanted to do something different. Anything other than studying. But here I am. I have to go to Bengaluru tomorrow for attending a GD/PI session for Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies. Well, I am going there for the heck of it, and to visit an old friend there. And drop by the interview centre along the way.

Adios for now..

Blogthings

I was checking out Niki Chan's blog when I saw this Blogthings Quiz called Who's your daddy. Browsing and Quizhopping I finally ended up at this one.Don't sue me, sue blogthings!

Your Porn Star Name Is...

Andy Asstronut

What's Your Porn Star Name?

Things I Hate

I was tagged by Alexis Leon ...He has warned the 'tagged', to take up the tag at their own risk. Heh! I am going to try to be brave and do this Hate tag. Its going to be pretty hard because I am an extremely tolerant and complacent person who doesn't really hate many things. Make this a dislike list, rather. :)

1
I dislike people who think that death isn't applicable to them.

2
I dislike people who utterly refuse to think out of their groove.

3
I dislike martinets.

4
I dislike fanaticism.

5
I dislike blind beliefs.

6
I dislike malfunctioning bureaucracy.

7
I dislike pollution.

8
I dislike the refusal to learn from mistakes.

9
I don't like it when people lose sight of the bigger picture, and fight over petty details.

10
I hate natural disasters.

11
I hate terrorism.

12
I dislike hooligans.

13
I dislike slow net connections.

14
I dislike corruption.

15
I dislike people who are cruel to animals, without cause.

16
I dislike mercenary life.

17
I dislike manipulation.

18
I dislike hot temper.

19
I dislike mega serials.

20
I dislike narrow minded censorship.

21
I dislike the phone-in shows on television.

22
I dislike illiteracy.

23
I dislike cheats.

24
I dislike backstabbers.

25
I dislike making mountains out of molehills.

26
I dislike wastage of resources.

27
I dislike treats.

28
I dislike unsafe drivers, so long as they are on the road.

29
I dislike supremacists.

30
I dislike intolerance.

I am running out of things to hate. I guess this is it, then....!

I pass on the tag to these unlucky people -
Auster
Chips
Duttan
Aravind
Divs
Rockus

Wheels and Squeals

Note : This is going to be a chronicle of sorts about my relationship with vehicles. It’s long and boring.

My first love was my old Fiat 1100, a 1966 model. It had been with my family for a long time, and was still very much alive when I came to life. It was a bloody Italian red when it was rolled out from the factory. It got changed to a mellow two tone black and cream combo sometime later. That was its attire when I laid my eyes on it. My mother was the one who was doing most of the driving. She is a very cautious driver. She has a quality in driving which is lacked by many people who drive these days. She handled the vehicle quite smoothly. The car was treated with supreme respect and its little problems were rectified at the first appearance of their symptoms. It was due to her that the 1100 had survived strongly. I had my first taste of driving in my eighth standard. It wasn’t much. I could drive the thing in straight lines; I knew the shifts, but my hands weren’t made to hold a steering it seemed. I would zigzag in desolate roads.

I had quite a lot of tuitions from my eleventh standard. The tuitions were quite useless when I look back at them now. But, they presented me with the chance of driving the car. Some of these drives were quite long and the morning roads were desolate enough for my mother’s mental comfort. Soon I was good enough to drive in traffic, and I could manage the car well, even though I didn’t have a license to drive. Had to be 18 years old to get an Indian Union Driving License. A friend of mine refers to this license as the License to Kill, since that was what it was! You had the legal right to run over people under the pretext of accidents.

Some people say that video games corrupt the children’s minds. I have been playing games like Need for Speed since I got my first computer, in eleventh standard. It’s a speed freak’s wet dream, with all the super cars at your fingertips. Roads for which you will kill/die for. There was also the infamous Carmageddon, where one could maul fellow road users(on wheels or legs) and get points and prizes for the same!!! >:)

The point wanted to tell was that I don’t go crazy on the road(normally, at least). The video games on the other hand, gives me a chance to do all the things that I wouldn’t do in real roads. 8->

When I had joined CET, I was a bus commuter. It wasn’t flexible at all. I had to move at someone else’s mercy, timing and pace. And I got my driving license in that year, as I had turned 18 years of age. I took my old 1100 to college on special days, like strike days. Strike days are days when its sure that one of the political parties would call a strike at college. These are dime a dozen in CET. In fact, I am here writing this because my college has been suspended indefinitely(ie. until further notice), because of some internal conflicts which had reached ominous levels. Driving the car to the college was really expensive. It was a gas guzzler, and wasn’t much reliable(c’mon its damn near 40 years old). I had some nasty ‘mechanical’ experiences as well. But I loved that car. Its exhaust note was something straight out of a lion’s den. Not like the pussy cat cars they roll out these days. I liked the feel of the car. I was infatuated with the gear shift lever which was mounted on the steering column(people are making paddle shift cars these days, emulating my dear 1100!!! ;-)) I remember skidding the car around Ulloor Junction one rainy day, Colin McRae style. Adrenaline was pumping hard at such times.

By the time I was in the fourth semester, I was getting really tired of the college buses. So I got a motor bike. My needs were simple. A decent bike which will take me to college without me having to spend a lot on it. That January, I got a TVS Victor. It’s a nice bike. It has grown on me ever since. It’s a nice little beast to cut the demonic traffic in my city. Almost nothing can stop this dear little black bike. Its mileage was also astounding to say the least. The maximum mileage that I have eked out of it, is around 115km/litre. It was when I was riding at low rpm’s allowing for the engine to run in. Its two years old now. It mileage has dropped to the 60-80 range, depending on my riding style and the fuel that I put in it.

Around the time that I had bought the bike, my mother had a small accident and fractured her elbow. Because of that the car was lying idle in its lair. I didn’t have time to look after the 1100. It died. Three months later, when I checked out the car, its tyres had all given out, and a lot of other things had also failed. A decision was made to sell it. It was almost junk now. I sold it to a scrap iron dealer. I wonder if cars have a soul. It must be yelling bloody hell at me.

My bike has seen quite a lot of action now. Its traveled about 18000 km with me at its helm, in the course of two years. I have had the chance to ride quite a number of bikes, but I like my bike the best. I guess that is a natural enough feeling. I was riding Duttan’s Karizma a short while ago. But I still like my Victor. I have had my share of accidents as well. All of them were due to people whose algorithms were faulty when it came to road behaviour. I still remember my first fall.

I was on my way to my fourth semester university lab exam. An old lady was crossing the road in front of me. I had slowed down and allowed her to cross. I was moving on forward after that when this woman decides to run back, for no reason apparently. I locked my brakes and skidded away to the kerb. I entered that lab with torn jeans and plastered hands. One of the bitchiest days in my life. Then came the second fall, the third, the fourth and the fifth. Probably more to come.

My friend Shyam had a small accident today. He had stopped his bike in front of a stop signal. A KSRTC bus rammed him from behind. The dude got airborne for sometime. Thankfully, nothing happened to him. The bike had sustained some damage though. I was with Shyam at the Traffic Police Station, for obtaining a statement for claiming insurance. The policemen had explained to Shyam that it was pointless to complain against the KSRTC, since it would end up as a mega serial, with no ending in sight. So, what we finally got was a paper from the police detailing the accident and the damages, for insurance purposes only. Shyam said that pressure was on from his family that he should get rid of the bike. I wonder, what’s going to happen in the end.

When I came back home and was having my dinner, another funny thing happened. One of my seniors and mentors at CET, Arun V(aka AV) had come to inform my mother that I was too rash on the road!!! It was funny. I was defending my case, saying that I never went beyond my limits, and that the bike was under control, most of the time. He had warned me about speeding once. After that my speeds hardly touched 60kmph. Today AV had seen me take a sharp turn at 40kmph, and he thought that I was too rash. Well, I am rash, I guess. I am not scared of death. In fact, I like the concept of death awaiting me. Its inevitable. We are after all, mere mortals. We are cheating death every second, or rather trying to.

I could die if I walk on the road(get hit by a tipper lorry!! Or something else) or simply stand somewhere(get struck by Lightning!!). What change is it going to make if I die on a bike or inside a safe house. I simply love vehicles. Nothing’s going to change that…

A cute little puppy has taken refuge in my house. I saw a very similar pup run over by some vehicle on my way home. It was moving its scrawny legs in the air, bleeding to death. I think it has died by now. Poor dog. I wonder how long will the pup in my house survive. Probably, longer than I would!!! ;-)