My shooting range

Late Monday night - office blues

2006-11-20T12:03:00.000-08:00

It's 1:25 AM, or 1:25 in the night. It's Monday. I am in the office. Maybe for another hour, till the exchange closes. I have open positions, but there isn't much that I can do. The liquidity is the same as that of coal tar after a few hours under the sun. Doesn't smell much either. Not much to be done. But then, there is hope - a feeling that a rally would occur and I would get rid of this load.

I never thought that my most recurrent endeavor and pursuit on my first job would be the oft recurring question, "How not to get fired?".

Heavy eyelids. I, desire to sleep off and wake up late and then head for a hunt in the wild with a bow and arrow and to bathe in a waterfall and to cavort with maidens in forbidden pastures.
Dreams have do unbecome themselves in some style :).

--
Red

Delusional Enlightenment, Part 2 of 0

2006-11-14T09:24:00.000-08:00

Warning : This might fuck with your mind for quite some time to come! Read at your own risk.

Note : You might want to read Part 1 of 0, for an enhanced (or lessened) sense of continuity and comprehension.

Fluttering eyelashes, dilating pupils, profuse sweating, shivering of limbs, streaks of light
blazing all around, hues of red and white, dotted with smithereens of blue and scarlet. Blood
flowing through the veins, felt in the brain, bone melting and collapsing into ether which
people say doesn't exist. A feeling of raw power, raw energy and brains go on a vacation.
Temples throb. Weird sounds in my ear. Nose drops to the floor and smells the carpet, which
in turn tells a rather unasked for, uncalled for tale in its spirit of servitude and grattitude.
Ear on the carpet, hears my heart beat, blush, bludger and babble. Veins look dotted with sounds.
Doesn't make sense to you, does it? Made perfect sense to me back then and even now. From where I
stand, looks like you're the one on the trip. Makes me sound like an all knowing, all seeing tree
of fucken wisdom, dont it? This is what the ride does to you. It doesn't exhume the real you from
beneath all the onion peels of education, status, intellectuality and other crap that cover it.
It brings out the you that never was. Thats why it's different each time. Thats why, poor ol'
Jorgensen smiles as he can feel things slipping into the mist and disappearing away. All walls
and boundaries gone, everything changing into everything else. Elana sees reasons go away. Eyes
shut, she savours the feeling. Rest, at last. Freedom from having to conform to do things in a
pre determined fashion, freedom from having to make sure that every thing stands the test of
rationality. Freedom. She realises that it is freedom that she seeks, through the bondage of reason.
But when you are on the ride, the shackles are removed and the craving stops when the experience hits
you like a jack hammer. You are shattered. Then your brains are no more.
Poor Sheiffer, he sees his innocence being murdered and replaced by another one, only to be
murdered in the next trip. Senstitivity, par excellence. He should have been born during renaissance
and trained as an artist. Would have led the same life of oblivion in relative terms, but would atleast
have been recognized while he rotted, all dressed in finery, but alas in a coffin. For all his
capabilities, he lacks ambition. Courage too. Make that confidence three. But none of it matters
when you are there. All gone. All done for. Sing a requiem no more. There wont be anyone to hear it.
He is what neither he, nor anyone else can ever be.

Jorgensen is a mad eel. Squirming and writhing on the floor, his frame bending, twisting, eyes red.
Plays on his air saxophone. Pretty damn good when feeling low. Though he has just started playing, his music speaks of
an emptiness. Hunger for filling a ceratin void in his heart. It exposes the part of him that almost everyone but
Elana missed totally.

His music makes me feel hungry too. Makes me want to roast him, spice and eat him. Come to think of it, I
feel hungry. SO hungry that I Want to eat a horse. Will have to wait till Jorgensen is high no more.

As for me, I get lost. On purpose when it comes to this. Lost. Comfortably lost. Forgotten by those I
forgot. Feel like I have dissolved away. Feel, I am part of the slush that crap becomes when it is crap
no more.

Is it worth the pain? Let me ask you, is pain the right cost? All our lives, we wondered what was wrong
with us. All our lives, we asked "who am I?". Now, the ride removes "The Who" and "The I". What simply
remains is "am". This is when the primordial high dawns. The joy of being. The joy of being alive. The
joy which depends on nothing else. Since you don't trip like this, you look for it elsewhere.
Hankering for this is what makes you stand in queues. Makes us flaunt
our credit cards. Makes you go to places like The Savoy. Makes you fly business class, want illicit
sex, want infidelity and redemption wrought with anger, want to discipline your own
children so that they don't become like you. But they inherit your lust for this joy. They want it too.
And so they go on conning themselves, choosing different things as a release, different avenues for
conning themselves. And then you find fault with them for choosing avenues other than what you chose.
Like your parents found fault with you. The same fucken story continues. The same song is sung again,
in a different tune.

If only, your father tripped. And your mother did too. You probably won't be born. And if you were, then
you'd be too soft in the head to care. If you weren't, then you'd be a worshipper of sublime truths too.
The same as me. You would find solace to the angst and not give a fuck about anything else, let alone
anyone else.

We are relics of immense beauty in a world that has gone bohemian. If we survive, soon we shall be in an asylum,
which will have us as prime exhibits for the shrinks to be and as prize catches for those who shall move on
ahead, stepping on our shoulders. But that won't stop any of us from it. We will still be "on the road".
We smile in the embrace of the iron maiden and spit on the face of the statue of liberty. Sooner or later,
you will understand what I mean when I say that. Surely, riding a bay is like surfing in your dreams.

Delusional Enlightenment, Part 1 of 0

2006-11-14T08:58:00.001-08:00

Warning: This might fuck with your mind for quite some time! Read at your own risk.


Riding a bay was never this easy. But yes, you had to think it through.
Sort of like floating on a wave that you saw in your dreams. Sheiffer
Frown always disagreed with this. He felt it a trifle unbecoming of
him and his stature to allow his intellect to be seduced by the charm
of imagination. His twin Elana, felt otherwise. And they quarreled to
no end, neither allowing the other a foothold, much to the humor of
Jorgensen, who did enjoy trifling matters a little more than the
average nihilist. They never went anywhere. Just met in places,
obscured by crowds, not for the want of oblivion though. They did
breathe their last in oblivion. That, you and I, would have to agree
to, in order to be able to self righteously proclaim our sanity or
whatever shreds of it that we can forage in times such as these.

The trouble was never the fact that I, Albrecht Furtinson, had
more Temapazine than I could handle. The trouble was when
there wasn't enough of it. Fate does play cruel tricks on us.
It does toy with us. It makes us question and then it makes us
question our own questions. This happens till our curiosity
bites us in the ass. And then we've had enough and can't face
our reality, and so there comes a substitute. Temapazine.
They tell me this is not what its supposed to do. My ass.
It does this and a lot more when you spike it with a "little
something".

It all started with the quest for the "little something", one rainy
evening. Sheiffer was standing in the hallway with a dirty
left shoe hanging from his mouth, fidgeting with his hands in
the other for cash. Too excited to notice, the dangling shoe, let
alone prying eyes like mine. Elana, circumspect and skeptic as
always, Jorgensen, smiling like a horse and a silly one at that,
looking around for some grass. They looked pretty. With their,
etiquette, their love for art, with their elan or the pretense of it,
they looked like angels out of rehab. It always made me want to
kick them in their teeth. But you can't hurt something pretty. It's
strikeningly similiar to being a peadophile. I might be a lot of
things, but I wont be that. Some evil has to be left for other's as
their rightful share in the grand inheritance that the persent times
are. After all we are the devil's own children.

Jorgensen kept smiling like he was just discharged from death
row. Elana returned to her reading. Sheiffer found a 100 strong
wad. "This should help us brave the weekend".

It did help the weekend brave us.



His Insanity, The Duke, would be appalled on seeing us.  "Again?",
he would snort. And then he would snort a line.  "Again?", we
would snort. Derisive laughter would fill the dark room and when
His Insanity would deem fit, we would partake of the "manna". Of
course, money changed hands much before we reached the room.
Duke thought it sacrilegious to mix money and forays into the unknown
such as these.

He was a veteran. Gone soft in the head, and always had a hard on
for custom. If you don't have much to live by, I guess you have a thing
or two for rituals, ways and means. Guess when you see the end
near, you realise that the means are more important.

A room that looks more like a safe from the inside. One bath tub. A
pint of gin. One bottle of opiate smuggled from the district sanitorium.
4 baskets of bread. A saline drip or four in this case. One kaledioscope
to con yourself that you are high on life. Four needles - "no sharing, or
my Royal Insanity, The Duke, would be displeased". A bottle of
amphetamine, one bottle of vicks, permanent marker, betel nuts and
about a bottle of  whiskey and you are just about to begin.

Plug the bath tub and pour the saline, the whiskey, the permanent
marker and the pint of gin. Then add the pills and the opiate. Mix well.
Mix very well. Smile. Offer a prayer for the dead brain cells and for
those about fizzle out of existence. Praise His Royal Insanity.

Place a betel nut below your tongue. Fill the drip satchels. Affix the
needles properly. "Plug and Play".

Louie Armstrong's voice in the back ground. Jorgensen's lack of faith
in even nihilism, forcing him to believe that seizing the day is the
summum bonnum. His Royal Insanity's eternal battle against the
forces of the human scientific temper, waged under the sigil of his
stupidity. Sheiffer Frown popping up and down, thinking of the devil
knows what. And Elana. Life plagues me even more and rends my very
being everytime I think of her.

Another Day, another story

2006-11-09T08:31:00.000-08:00

This has been a day of surprises galore. First, i find out that a friend of mine got placed in A.T. Kerney. Then, I find out that a senior of mine from IITK (also our hall president in the year 2001-02), is getting married in a month or so (or maybe within a week; can't seem to place whether it was November or December). Then I find out that a wingie of mine is switching jobs from CEB to American Express.

On the trading floor, there have been screw ups and surprises galore. Fuck ups and un-fuck-ups too, all adding to the spice in life. The feeling of impending doom, the feeling of falling from a cliff, into the canyon and all. But then, well, I still feel alive.

Not much progress on any front. I find myself complaining again about the lack of time in a day. Wish, there were 300 hours in a day. Rather, being the self proclaimed smart ass that I am, I would want my perception of time to be tweaked. Something like bullet time in Max Payne.

Lined up for the weekend is this bachelor party that the trading floor is supposed to give to one of our buddies in here. Keep wondering about it. Somehow, since the breaking of the world (:D),
I have been not too keen about affairs like this. I feel the lack of enthusiasm for most things said and done, for most things under the sun (aila poem :D).

And so thats that. I wonder where all those people are, who were a part of my life once. I wonder as to why we ever met, if we had to part abruptly like this when my time to forage for myself came. Maybe I should unleash my barrage of questions on the world and use this super human thirst for answers (which in turn lead to questions) for crime fighting (:D).

Adios.

--
Red

Monday

2006-11-06T09:48:00.000-08:00

Number of guitar scales learned : 0
Number of people I wanted to beat to pulp : quite a few
Profits made on the market: negligible
Acts of stupidity which differentiated me from the rest of humanity as a separate species in myself: 4(maybe more)
Number of hours spent half asleep due to a lack of nicotine: 8 hours and counting now
Feeling that the sky is going to fall on my head: Imminent

So that almost sums up the day. Of course, it doesn't talk about the existential angst and the other mental septic tanks which I frequent, less often than earlier if I might say so. Another 3 hours till EurEx closes. I however, leave in a few minutes. Some people at the work place claim that trading is about luck, more than anything. I don't know what to say now. I have mixed opinions about my luck, mostly varying to abysmally poor to horribly ball crunching.

Feel diffident again. Maybe due to serious lack of adrenaline or something else. Is it food? Is it love? Is it the virginity that refuses to get lost? Is it the uncoolness inherent in a person who is not from Hawaii or SaoPaulo?

I guess it's due to lack of suitable perception of the world around me. This is a call for altered perception, wherein the residual self image meets with a non dope induced reality.

Yanyway, I need to sleep now.

Updates

2006-11-03T08:36:00.000-08:00

Well, what do you expect? It's the same old me and the same old you and the same old "authority" that is dishing out scoops of ice cream, dotted with blobs of dung from the heavens.

Yanyway, my job has changed a bit.

I have begun trading on EurEx and am now dealing with German 5, 10 and 15 year treasury bonds. Its been three days to be precise. I wonder if what I have seen so far is to be the snapshot for the time ahead, the days and the seemingly long nights to come.

There definitely is a great element of discipline in trading. Both mental and physical. Add to it the fact that you have to sit on a chair for around 10 to 12 hours (well, you can go to the loo and to the pantry for food/coffee as and when the need arises). But more than anything, its the need for controlling yourself and your emotions that sets most of us here ticking.

The realisation that its more about mental strength than about analytical skills or pure luck is dawning. I wonder how many would agree with this thesis. But seriously, its more about having confidence in yourself, when the numbers start to go against you. Whether that confidence is based on your analysis or on pure gut feeling or on a totem, is an altogether different story.

Analysis is only so good. Theres an apt analogy to this. The light at the end of the tunnel might as well be a speeding freight train. So you would do well to get the hell out of there. :)
People who trade sure know how to dish out uncalled for attitude every now and then. Be it their lingo or be it the money they make or the fact that the money they lose is more than most people's life time savings. They sure know how to assert their superiority. The most ironic prat is that they also groom you to be like them. Makes you wonder what you would be like a few years into the business. Come to think of it, a rouge outlaw in a western - something like the Butch Cassidy in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is what comes to mind. Quick on the trigger (mouse button in my case) and quicker still on the mouth. So that's about it I guess.

Have an open position. Need to double up according to the rules of the game. Need to close it so that I can sleep without any regrets in the weekend. Lest see how it turns out.

--
Red

A heroe's woes

2006-08-23T04:38:00.000-07:00

A bale of hay in a rustic sight,
turned to grey in a craven night.
It told the tale of a shining beacon
and it's death by the edge of it's own reason.
The lofty ones looked down and frowned,
'twas funny and tiny, below on the ground.

Why the pretense of warmth and love,
when fires raged hearts below and minds above?
Why warrant the heartbreak of a mere child
to make him open his arms wide and his mind?
Once stung and stunned, will he not lose faith?
Once strung by thumbs, wont he embrace a wraith?

"Alas", the elite frowned and gave benign smiles,
"'Tis, his own doing, only his folly which riles,
rends his heart and poisons his mind,
corrupts his smile and despite vision, he's blind".

"But how?", I wonder, "can they understand?"
"for my feet are on the ground and theirs, don't scale land".

And, I wake up

2006-08-21T05:10:00.000-07:00

Before you start showering curses galore on me, please bear in mind that I have joined my job and have begun working (Not that I am a part of a work force that battles alien squids to save the world, and parties with ladies clad in skimpy nothings) and hence, I did need some time to get my act (rather, ass) together.

I am in Mumbai, the oft quoted "sapno ki nagari". Everytime I happen to be in the streets, I wonder where exactly those dreams are. Life seems to be funny here. The maharashtrian ladies, in their modest green sari, red blouse, big bindi, 2 to 4 skinny kids attire, along with an occasional girl in a short skirt which seems to be flying upwards all the time but doesnt quite take off (which makes me hypothesise that there are weights in the bottom frill of the skirt to anchor it), with a few pan chewing people, auto walas from everywhere, some foreigners, some eunuchs, maharashtrian gentlemen, saradrjis and the usual college going tapori crowd and the non college going one as well. As you might have guessed, I have been trying to notice the city. I fear, this is why, I am suddenly asking myself, "now what?".

That life is like this grand scheduled colloseum for KLPD, has just dawaned on me. It leaves a revealing taste in the mouth, more akin to pig fart than to Heidi Klum's lips.

City of dreams, My ass!

I shall return tomorrow. Keep watching this space.

Now ain't the world a little too big?

2006-06-15T04:39:00.000-07:00

I have a friend called Siddhartha Chaudhuri (I hope I got the spelling right. In case I didn't, fuck him, and fuck those who gave him such a stupid name). He shall now be referred to as "Sid", which is what most people in this godforsaken place used to call him. Sid to say the least is a phallus worshipper. And a sick one at that. He likes Indian classical music or atleast acts like that and jerks off to Freddy Mercury's voice.

Sid has a blog. He is pretty regular at it. He writes stuff about some Tutunkhamen's temple's vestal virgin's voice or about how some tennage mutant ninja turtle climbed a glass wall in like a nano second.

You might check the link out. It might inspire you to take your life to greater heights and then maybe even the subsequent demise. Also, in case you are a total asswipe like Sid definitely is, I would urge you to try this at home or any suitable nearby location so that the world is a better place to be in.

Ok, got to go...got me mates waiting for me for an evening grub...alas, it ain't tea with Victoria :(
Jeers,

Red

The Mystic Machine

2006-04-03T11:11:00.000-07:00

Looking at yesterday, waiting for the hours to tick away,
I lie on all my lies, in self loathing and pity they're allies.

Passed out, gazing on reality, intuiting without alacrity,
Asking myself who's wrong? or did I steal my own song?

I see horizons and beyond, of the lack of walls, I grow fond.
Alas, I can't see all these bars, unless I try to reach the stars.

Sometimes greenery fades, n' am surrounded by bars n' spades
n' kin in pirate masks, my blood drippin from their fangs n' casks.

Then my spirit boils, arouses strength in me from mystic toils
an' then I clench 'n 'bout to lash, but find the masks gone 'ere a flash.

All thats left is the green, the sky's bloody blue, my blood's sky-serene.
I wonder why n' wherefore the scene, if even evil is so upright n' pristine?

I marvel at the mystic machine.

--
Look in to my eyes, step in to my realm.
Signing off today, for now.

Red

Turn! Turn! Turn!

2006-03-20T14:09:00.000-08:00

The Byrds, sang this song at one point of time. It served as an ad jingle for quite a while and then became immortalised when a painter made love to a prostitute and played it post coitus and gave hope to a lot of people. I seem to have this want to believe in this, and in the goodness that exists in the viscititudes of life and how the calm leaf that flows with the stream, will one day meet the sea than get caught on a rock somewhere.

And so it happens, another one bites the dust, an opportunity laid to waste, another lifetime of small events come to nothing and the boy stands with a puzzled expression. Sometimes in self mockery, sometimes in self pity. A pity that nothing seems to change, neither within, nor without.

Anyway, the better things first. Vijay got an offer for phd from Ohio State University. Well, this sort of leaves me as the lone wolf. And as they say in the north, in the fabled The Song of Ice and Fire, "winter is coming". And once again, I hope to be the direwolf, howling on nights where the wind bites icy chill in to the bones and blood freezes, reaching the heart which stops beating. But then a direwolf, or better still, Vorg, as I sometimes fancy myself, knows how to brave it, how to push through the bizzard, how to come through another winter.

It's ironic that what gives me hope this winter is the fact that there will be other winters. It is not the prospect of a summer that awaits or a glorious evening on the seashore or the dawn beside a brook that gives me strength. It is the knowledge that there will be another winter, which will bite further in to me, that tells me that soon, the ice around me will thaw. Maybe there will be a joyous spring, with the onset of red blooms and hues of yellow, green and lilac around me. Maybe I will lose track of my memories and of the ghastly visions of damned worlds that I beheld. Maybe, I will wander as I have been doing so far. Maybe, I will go over to the grasslands and search for the shore or the mountain that I have been sighting in some distant dreams. Maybe my search will never end.

Ironic that waiting and bearing the pain of the wait rubs art or fanciful thinking in to your blood.

Stranger still, that I wish that the winter ends. You ask why. So do I. There is no one else who is born in to the heart of winter. There is no one else, who can live through it. After all, a wolf or Vorg as the Russians seem to call it, is the only creature that braves it. Maybe, my consort was all along by my side. It just took me this long to come to terms with her. It took me this long to reaise that her beauty lay in the consistency of her frigidity. Her lovliness lay in her touch which would tingle me more than I could ever bear and would petrify me. She never fails. It is I who is guilty of trying to run away, trying to betray. This debauchery has to end. I need to be reborn as what I was born as.

Don't try to understand me. Just take care that you aren't hunting me when winter comes, for when I bare my fangs, I will bask in the warmth of love, while you will breathe your last awaiting the thaw that will never set it.

Red

New Muse (aila poem :D)

2006-03-20T02:23:00.000-08:00

Whiskey with Soda is among God's gifts to mankind. The other gifts include, the grand piano, Gary Jules' voice, and the sad twilight tears which someone shed penning down the following lines. I dont have anything to say about them. Just listen to this song called Mad world by him.

The emptiness, the bass in the background and the arpegio on the piano (or so I suspect) make the perfect setting. After a long hiatus, the "loss of words syndrome" hits me.

After a long time, there is a song which takes you to the peak of a mountain and makes you look at the ants that your brethren appear to be....all, working for the winter that they want to avoid, with only a few pausing to wonder if there ever will be a spring.

The lines might not be impressive in themself, but the song has hit almost everyone in here here who has heard it, as of today.

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, Worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, Going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, No expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrows
No tomorrow, No tomorrow

And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
These dreams in which i'm dying, Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles its a very very
Mad World, Mad World

Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
And they feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, Sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, No one knew me
Hello teacher tell me whats my lesson
Look right through me, Look right through me

And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which i'm dying, Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very very
Mad World, Mad World

Enlargen your world

Mad World

--
Look into my eyes and step into my realm.
Signing off today, for now.

Red

Childhood - guess it never gets over #3

2006-02-14T04:19:00.000-08:00

Woke up today, just after dreaming. The kind of a dream which points you in a direction and makes you realise something about what is and never should have been and also, in the same token, what is not and should so dearly have been. Dreamt again, fondly of a place where I knew the innocence of my age, and the feeling of coming to youth, riddled with pangs of a spring long gone and fleeting and evanescent. It's one of those moments where you want to catch some petals in your palm and grab them and close your eyes and lose yourself but alas, curse the winds of time that all that remains is the faint, distant essence of the feeling, which after eluding you, haunts you. And so you wake up, from a dream which makes your reality seem a nightmare, full to the brim and ever dripping with the throes of what could have been but isn't, driving home the point that what you have, you can't get rid of...and what you can't stop wanting, you can't have.

Fateful that the dream comes the morning of 14th of February. A bright morning, bereft of winter, full of a soothsayer's promises of a brilliant time ahead. The bite of cold is absent, the rays of the sun, make their way into my room like a the eyes of a maiden gifted with the rare clarity of thought, would. Alas, I would grow to detest it with the realization that the cause is lost. A beautiful beginning and a bad after taste. What a day!

The dream took me to St. Lawrence High School, Aurangabad, where I spent the happiest days of my life. Happy, for I was in love with a girl who sang like an angel but had supposedly made a clandestine pact with another guy that she would give herself over to him once they made it into college. For, I was in love with myself as I was on top of my own Everest, scoring 100 on 100 in Math, learning Judo and being the monitor of my class. For, the girl that I loved two years prior to this, was no longer pretty and in a different school and looked weird. Well, the individual flavours don't quite look attractive, but like all recepies, the whole is greater than the parts.

So there I was. In my class. Giving some board exam....guess it was that of standard ten. I was supposed to answer a question pertaining to the effect that the band Junoon had on the social and economic conditions in the Indian subcontinent. I was happy looking at the question as I was sure that I was up to it. And then I began writing, hypnotised with the beauty of my hand writing, looking elegant, refined, written with a fountain pen which would put Mont Blanc to shame. And then there is this commotion. Something is wrong. Two boys are caught cheating. What's more is that they have a book in hand. Turns out, the book is actually a 10,000 page comic with amazingly erotic illustrations, highly detailed needless to say, with sarcasm, grose, perverted takes on the state of affairs, all built in. And then I look into it and I want to read it. But then a pair of breasts, soft like petals of a rose come into picture. And then I wonder what is it that is going on? And the class teacher catches me, looking at a girl's breasts and I get chastised for having no focus. But then in this day and age, how is it possible for anyone to have that clarity? Theres so much to distract you, so much to throw you off balance, so much of petty garbage lying around that can in just a modicum make you feel temporarily satiated that you lose track of everything.

And then I wonder, what is it that I have lost? Did I lose growing up with my friends? Did I lose playing the part of the maverick for once and for all? Or did I lose the face that I never got to see, the eyes that never peirced my heart as I was too busy admiring the breasts and visualising them?

As always, I had nothing but air in my reach. No answers yet again. And so, the day began. What happened in the day, is not worth recounting. Let alone faces, no eyes, no breasts even in it. And so the 23rd Valentine's day ended thus.

The fondest dream #1

2006-01-21T07:21:00.000-08:00

Am listening to Clair de Lune by a guy called Debussy. Funny name, I concur with you. There is something about the grand piano. Its like alcohol. Doesn't strike you till it strikes you on some odd night. The bass note, strewn almost all over the place. With these other notes which seem to want to say something. Midway, mid sentence rather, there's another bass note. And then it turns into something else. The feeling changes and the voice also changes. Makes you wonder where is this going? Is it your fault that you got it wrong? Is it making any sense at all? Do you need to get high to understand it?

If there is a song that I want to listen to while jumping off a cliff, then its Canon in D major. Its builds images of a fairy who comes and holds your hands and dances with you while from above the sky, velvet white drapes hang down and rose petals rain with a smell of lavender in the air and the wind blows carrying the sweet smell of a nearby stream and the sounds of birds singing and your feet move on the dew and you smile, eye in eye, feeling secure in the embrace of a fragile, surreal love. Her golden locks caress your face while you go round and round and the touch of her hand caresses your heart. As you hold her hand, you feel rocks cutting through your palm and you wonder, you cry. Blood flows out of the eyes, like the chirp of the bird - not a single beat is missed. Your fair face now boasts of a rivulet of the richest color. Richer than gold, more beautiful than diamonds adorning the tiara that the Father wears sitting on his golden throne in heaven. Its the image of the greatest beauty, coming out of the greatest pain, for a child's dream has been broken. And he weeps, innocence makes him sit on the grass which reminds him of the promise and hurts him like a bed of thorns and the tears flow silently. Maybe the Father rejoices in the contrast that presents itself. A fair face and a red stream which flows and the child still smiles, showing his bleeding palms to the sky, hoping that the Father sitting on the throne is content.

In one smooth stroke of a sword the head is severed. A head which stood on shoulders now slumping. Which dreamt of brooks and shade of trees and a breeze which brought a whiff of gramyre in its wake. And as he stood with open arms to embrace it, to lose himself in that one moment, a blade was thrust and instead of a kiss, he tasted his blood and found it bitter and laughed not at the irony as there was none that he could fathom, just at the state of being. Being in a dream, dreamt by a most cruel Cupid who sounded the chord that made him yearn for years and long with the labour of his tears and blood for one sensation. Alas, he realised that 'tis not meant to be. Ironic, he knew it all along.

Curse the Cupid? Nay. Why curse dreams if they seem not meant to be? Jump off the mountain and hum Canon in your mind. Leap with the wind blowing on your face as the crescendo of notes hits you and let your life flash in front of your eyes. Let it begin again. The beginning will remind you of your childhood, where dreams lay like fresh dew on a garden with bright red flowers and where you danced to rain for it was the only music that you could feel, both on your skin and in your heart. Let the rest of it come with vigour and the strength of youth and give the illusion of strength for diffidence is all that you have known, all through life. And close your eyes and your sensation to everything. Embrace your grave, and there wont be a you anymore. Just the Cupid - maybe its his turn to shed tears.

Childhood - guess it never gets over #2

2006-01-10T01:45:00.000-08:00

My earliest memories seem to be all fuzzed up. I cant place the before's and after's at all. They range from getting bit by a scorpion to getting free rides on a vehicle called "spark" to going to the school, only to stuff my hand in my mouth so that I puke my breakfast out and then get sent home :).

I am one of those people who have been to more schools than desirable. At one point of time, I though that shifting places at the end of each financial year was my dad's occupation. It was good - we got to travel, to meet new people, to go over the drill of getting into a school once again, with all the interviews and tests and ofcourse we got to wear new uniforms every year!

The first day at school was just a step below my birthday. It was wonderful having all eyes on you - being the centre of attention, with a new uniform and shiny shoes. There was just too much newness in everything - I guess back then, I felt what a goldfish feels every fifteen seconds. Imagine, you are a goldfish in a bowl of your own and once every fifteen seconds, you forget everything that you knew, that you stood for, that you fought for, cried for, bled for, etc, etc. So after a 15 second hiatus, there you are, rediscovering yourself, your life and your world. And the best part of being a goldfish is that you get to feel that again and again and again and midway, start feeling that thing again. Whoa! With this much joy in life, I guess I might just die of cardiac arrest! Speaking of which, I remember that there was this friend of mine, who had some weird fish in his aquarium, which was acting funny - so they took it to the fish doctor who told the family that the poor thing had suffered a heart attack! Might not have believed in them back then but sure does seem plausible now.

Come to think of it, the dialogue from Bladerunner, seems to make a lot of sense - all those moments have been lost in time like drops in rain.
So much for days gone, the kid still seems to be there - sort of like the opposite of the "little Barney" in Ted's head. Or maybe its a bear cub that I always was or a panda as a buddy of mine proclaimed the other night. It's not a surprise - most grown ups I know of, have the maturity of a baby. Life is a lot peaceful if I imagine all of them roaming around in diapers - all of them - the professor who stuck a spanner in the works of my life, the teachers at my school, the people I hang out with, the seniors I got into fights with - the poeple who come here to recruit us - the ones writing books speaking of how all men are equal and even the ones who believe that some are more equal than others and the list goes on and on.

Maybe, someone noticed this an age ago and said in the same context - "it takes one to know one".

Childhood - guess it never gets over! # 1

2006-01-04T02:05:00.000-08:00

So there I was. The first child in a long time on my mothers side of the family. On fathers side, well, I was just about another kid, albeit the youngest. My days of fame and glory lasted about a year and half when a cousin was born and then he was the new kid on the block. My earliest memories are a collage of varied components. They range from jubiliant as I was convinved that I was the greatest, to shameful as I realized that I am the grand panjandrum, if ever there was one, to those of silent introspection on the fragilities of life and the fact that we look up to grown ups only because they are taller than us. Thus, the deconstruction began, one after the other, all pictures of the cherished dreams, the rosy sketches filled with laughter and sunshine - all peeled off, like bits stolen from a painting by onlookers who thought the parts were better than the whole.

It seems that I was very talkative as a child. Mother was about 21 years old when I was born. She seems to recollect the fact with a tinge of pain in her voice. She was young, very young. Well, me being 23 now does kick in a realization of sorts - cant imagine myself having a toddler around, let alone a baby. So there she was, with no idea on how to bring up this round, fat and hairless mass who seemed cute but all hell broke loose when he started crying. By the by, it seems that hell broke loose multiple times every hour. I sometimes wonder whether father had anything to do with bringing me up. All recollections at this point seem to point to him as a useless fellow. Well, I do appreciate that he was a guy and being a guy I can understand why someone would drink whiskey to kill time as a bachelor, but then it beats me as to why I was left to mother and her supervision alone. Its not like father was a superhero or better still, an evil scientist! I guess it turned out pretty well. I have always been a mama's boy. Even when father passed away, I was not affected much by it. Its like there is this stranger who comes home every evening with smelly shoes and all and orders you around and audits your academic status and punishes you if you have some little things wrong here and there (something that I seem to have had a talent for) and then one fine day, you find out that he's dead. But then mother - the one who brought me up - who would dress me up for school in a tidy uniform and polish my shoes and cook the best food for me and...well the list is endless...its a pain that a part of the mother I loved died with the father I had (in name and in blood but not in heart).
Maybe this is why the Blues, sometimes strike a chord with me. It starts off well but then there are these notes thrown here and there which dont seem right and start to give you a funny taste - something that you werent looking for, but then it all seems to gel together well and then you wonder if its just an exercise in making you feel so and then you marvel at the devil who wrote that piece of music. Guess, its just the blues that I lost my mother too, at the pyre of my father. I feel no pain, feel no pity...am just concious of those odd notes on the guitar and the sound of the harmonica for which I feel that mankind is yet to invent a suitable adjective. It makes me think that my life could have been like Pachebel's (or Pachelbel's) Canon in D major, with every moment of it appearing as the shimmering moon reflected on a river. Its a bit discordant now, so much so that at times I think that this is convincing and conclusive proof that there is a God and He is the greatest Blues musician ever. Its He who plays all the music that I am facing right now and its He, the master, who will make it all gel together, fit together and make sense to me and maybe after all these kicks that I seem to be getting the end of, I will get my kick!

What's in a name?

2005-12-28T06:52:00.000-08:00

September 15th, 1982. Wednesday. 11:17 AM
Venue - Sector 9 Hopsital, Bhilai (dont ask me for more specifics like ward number etc)

So thats about it. I am born. They tell me it was a ceasareon (pardon the spelling if need be). Sometimes this makes me wonder that a ceasareon might be how the son of Ceasar would be designated. Earlier I used to think that maybe they call it this as the docs might use scissors to cut thru' the to-be-mom's hide. But then I never got to become a gynaecologist so here it is - 'bout 23 years and I still dont know why a ceasareon is called a ceasareon!

It seems that at that point in history, there was some apprehension that a peice of equipment called "Skylab" would fall on to the earth from somewhere outerspace. This was conveyed to my maternal grandmother (who will henceforth be referred to by the variable name 'dida') by some Sardarji. For years to come dida would joke to me saying that the Sardarji named his son Skylab Singh!

Anyway, so there I was - plump and hairless, crying myself blue. Mom would tell me that I was a premature baby (7.5 months I recall being told) and hence was in some ICU or whatever the baby equivalent of it was for 27 days. They decided to call me by different names. I suspect this has all to do with the fact that India is a democracy. See, you can pull of any nonsense you want to and people will have to accept it and move on. This is again reflected in the story of how I got my formal name. Thanks to my dad's Hitlerish initiatives, I didnt get named Ashwatthama and got named Avinash instead.

See, there was this dumbass in the family who came across a nursing home in Chennai, bearing the name Ashwatthama. In a moment of inspiration, it seems it struck the jackass that I could be named same. Anyway, what happened next was that my dad decided to name me Avinash and told everyone in the extended family that it was her idea. Mom wanted to name me Mrityunjay or Mrinmay or some such name. As for me, I wanted to name myself Amoghavarsha, after a Rashtrakuta King of the same name. Sometimes, I would toy with the idea of naming myself Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen as I thought that the last name was very royale. Of late, I think that a noir name would be more suitable. Something like Siegfried would definitely be nice, but then nothing beats Red. Curt, precise, almost divine, the colour of blood - would be a pleasure to be called that!

But then life has these funny things intertwined into it. You dont get to choose a name for yourself, you dont get to choose siblings - not even the number, let alone the other specifics. You dont get to choose which school you go to and then it comes down to your profession, which again is not your call. Then it moves on to who you are seeing and who you want to take as a spouse. You dont get to have your say in it as well. Then we come to when and how many kids you want to have - no chance of having your way in it. In fact, the next thing would be that I would be told what my kid's name would be. And maybe then I would come up with some guerilla tactics and name the kid what I always wanted my name to be. Hard as it is to admit, one must still face the fact(s) - like father, like son.

An MIT hack :)

2005-12-27T01:47:00.000-08:00

http://laura.mitblogs.com/archives/2005/12/yay_a_hack.html

Just scroll down and you might like the sound of it.

--
me

The story so far - Table of contents

2005-12-17T14:09:00.000-08:00

Chapter 1 - [processing data]
Capters Two till the end - [unlike the Jedi, we Sith Lords dont plan]

The story so far - Prologue

2005-12-17T13:57:00.000-08:00

Chapter 1 of the running gag that my life is will soon be posted.

As I am too lazy to write in a diary, I think that a blog would be better.

In case you have no idea about what on earth is going on, it perhaps indicates my success.

"May the whores be with you" - Obi Wang

Too young to be sane, too old to be inane

2005-10-25T21:09:00.000-07:00

My name is not Atlas, though I have a world on my shoulders.
Like to call my self Red, worry its my blood that smoulders

Enchanted is my heart for it falls apart and is back whole,
deviant is my soul, regaining that which tides of fate stole.

I hear these chords, struck on harps made in a world beyond,
thay fill my mind with promises and with miracles again I bond.

I walk on the rope and cross a strait while the wind roars,
only to falter midway, seeing the brawl on the rocky shores.

The smells are all different now, I see a fire around me,
eyes burn in that color, of insanity speaks the gramyree.

I hang midway, lost enchanted with the premise of the demise
of doom withheld, heretofore of jade and shade I surmise.

Last on the walk, I come across remananents of my own hex,
frightening, inspiring, astonishing, intensifying my vex.

I wonder, if its a blessing or in disguise a wretched bane?
Why am I too young to be sane, too old to be inane?

Where are you?

2005-10-05T08:45:00.000-07:00

And I did sing, yet again
you felt the song, as i felt my shiver
i wait for you to ease the pain
but this summer day, i tremble and quiver

did you send me a mother
to teach me to smile in pain and pray?
or did you send the cynical friend
who told me, that Neitzche is what remains today?

did i choose to be born
as someo girl's kid on some chosen day?
did i choose to be flogged,
by the wise, which wisdom led astray?

did i ask you to break my bones
with, word and stones and the acid of love?
did i tell you to remind me its my fault
that it rained somewhere and someone lost a glove?

did i choose to be answered thus,
if ever were i to ask you some time?
that i am my own undoing though not my climb
and i mixed rhyme and hemlock to drink with thyme

did i violate some sacred tree
or maybe your child or some leaf in Spain?
did i always break your dreams,
if not then how did i give you pain?

did i believe in you in vain,
or do i just need to pass some test?
do i wait till eternity to prove,
i can bear to wait, in pain unlike the rest

and so i write, yet another rhyme,
amuse my self, that how i can or cannot see?
theres something amiss within and without,
something the blind me will just have to let be

Song of the eyes

2005-10-01T13:28:00.000-07:00

Yet again, why do I cry? Why dont I lie
to myself and me, and the detestable I?

I look around, see eyes sparkling with joy,
smile back, hollow within, deceive, thats my ploy

I wish for things, but they are naught ordained,
my soul, my heart, my love are all strained,

It pains me to think, that I havent smiled once
pains an orphan to realise he's an orphaned dunce

How long will the sun at dawn drop away
and I try to calm a storm holding it at bay?

If it be pain for once, then let it be for all,
why deceive me, and smirk as I wince whilst I fall?

Where have I gone wrong, if I just wanted to smile?
Why are my spirits being slowly ground by love's file?

Foes bereft of woes as friends plan the byre,
I sit on my coffin, but theres no fire for the pyre.

Whilst alive, I die and wish for death, ah the irony,
will this lead me to an all embracing misogyny?

The musing continues

2005-09-03T17:29:00.000-07:00

I talk with friends who are callow, who know only of words that are hollow.
The truth that I swallow, in pain I perceive my pristine depths as shallow.

Gone is the rosy feel of beauty, replaced by a sense of murky duty.
That which shimmered then is now sooty, heart's jewels a mad man's booty.

Now lies in broken shards the dream, and I compose my own requiem.
Laughing at the irony as it might seem, its blood as tears that I deem.

I have to clean my wounds in your shade, wait for all the horrors to fade.
I wont sell my soul in any trade, will stay true to the promise I made.

Give me the heart of the iron clad, eyes that will bore through good and bad.
Through the eudaemonic and the sad, through eternal wisdom and whimsical fad.

Let me bury the dagger in my heart, fit the square wheel on to the cart,
carry my demons right from the start, so that life is again synonymous as art.

Wait at the mountain

2005-06-18T03:28:00.000-07:00

She looked at the scene, erstwhile unseen
flowers shone from the green with their own loving sheen.

Reminding her of him and how he in his whim,
embraced her in dim and smiled though he was grim.

"Love rots in this fray, lets not meet here from today,
let rain wash it away, at the mouth of the stream of fey"

He sealed the deal with a kiss both real and surreal,
his hands on her waist, moved away with his haste.

They both shed tears for a night away from one so dear
both sobbed in the night, replicas, unto first light.

She bathed, she wore flowers, she wore bangles of starlight showers
She wore scent so he would find her, and with his touch bind her.

She told lies to her folks, tried to smile at their jokes,
on how she toiled from her birth, but she was too stressed for mirth

She walked up the hill, wanting to be stalked by drill
she reached the top all alone, his presence to her unknown.

In dismay she asked why, does he have to be colored like the sky?
The tree the folwer adrons, struck in her eyes like thorns.

Further she saw the stream, which he told her of in her dream.
She saw him with tears in his eyes, he said "My heart is in a vice".

"Betray you, I never will; love you more, more than your fill,
I cant give you diamonds in swarms, though I'll always hold you in my arms"

She shed innumerable tears, they kissed till they lost count of years,
though the world moved from bad to worse, they went deeper in love's course.

If you walk up there, and your heart is fully bare,
you will find them there, fondling one other with care.

Their love has built a stair, to their abode from the worldly lair
and when you shed that tear for love, you will find them waiting there.

Drops of rain

2005-05-31T00:51:00.000-07:00

Recovered from the mist that clouded my eyes
and burnt the blanket which shrouded my lies.

The embers of yesterday, neither sting nor burn
the rain on my open palms whispers, "it's your turn".

The falcon's call from its abode in the skies,
gives me the gift of patience as I toss the dice.

The embers of yesterday, neither sting nor burn,
the rain on my open palms whispers, "its your turn".

A storm brews far ahead, asking me to bend and bow,
I say, "great Oaks may fall, but rushes still grow".

The embers of yesterday, neither sting nor burn,
the rain on my open palms whispers, "its your turn".

The sky clears, storm disappears, tomorrow comes today
I'm still standing, strong heart, temples a touch of gray.

The embers of yesterday, neither sting nor burn,
the rain on my open palms whispers, "its your turn".

A story to tell

2005-05-30T12:29:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I wrote a story and didnt tear it apart. The influences are pretty evident.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three trips to the toilet, so many packs of cigarettes that I lost count, a hefty tip to the waitress and so much alcohol in me that medics might mistake it for blood. He's there, I watch him and he knows I'm watching. He wants to call his pals, but the last time I checked, there are no phones in hell. He picks out a cigarette from his pocket and fumbles for the lighter. I toss a match into his vodka. He lunges back and fumbles for his gun and I smash my bottle on his head.

The bouncers come. One has a steel rod. The other is so wide that he fills my view. They look at me like I am an insect they are about to crush. They dont know what trouble the insect is capable of. They watch me pick the glass and spill some fire on my sleeve. They watch the rest of it coming on them. Thats the last thing they will ever see.

I drag him to the alley. A cat brings her kitten to the nearby trashcan. The moon shines over a cloud, the rain stops. Kitty looks at me. I pull out his last cigarette light it with the last shreds of my burning coat and tear it apart.

The cat looks on. Two eyes, glowing in the dark. He's crying, begging for mercy. Do his cries remind him of the kids he shredded? He whimpers and then fires his last round. I take it in my stomach. I still have 20 minutes till it puts me on the flight to hell. Thats a long time.

He crawls backwards. I offer him the smoke. He reaches out one hand for it. His one eye, fervent, tearful, tired from shuttling between the cigarette and the barrel of my gun.

I shove it into his eye. I smell it burn, the cat will have some food to share with the kitten. He screams, I ram my boot into his face. The cat shouldnt be scared. His head hits the wall, blood on the street. He's out cold. I take the rod and smash it across his temple. The eye pops out. I kick it to the cat. Half cooked, she will like it.

The dogs will finish the some of him. The snow, will bury the rest. I toss a coin. Heads I go to the doc. Tails I wait for the devil. Wonder why I cant see anything?

Days in the cupid's embrace

2005-05-23T21:14:00.000-07:00

I wandered along aimlessly. My eyes were pools of anger. Not the burning rivers but cold reserves of resentment. There I was, with manic urge to empty the barrel and to inhale the smoke and laugh at the bleeding carcass of someone I had known, someone I had gifted petals of rose dipped in the scent of warmth, someone who had thrown burning thorns in to my eyes, someone who had slayed the lover within and left me stranded with nothing. Then it was that I found a sword to love, and its thirst to feed, with my blood or theirs.

There I stood, watching the horizon for silhouettes of those in whose blood, I would bathe myself. I learnt to shoot, and to kill with my gaze. Often, the murders that I would commit with just a stare would pinch me far more than the ones with the edge of my blade.
I clothed myself in black, gauntlets on either hand, mail on my chest. Often I asked myself, why the armory? Why the weapons? Why the gauntlets? What do I cherish within that I would choose life over death? What do I live for? And there I would stand, looking at those dead remains, searching for an answer, ever out of sight, ever eluding. There I stood, with a cowl on my head, there I stood, with the desert wind on my face, there I stood with grains of sand in my lungs, totally oblivious of the sweet flowers and the scents that were once there. There I stood, myself thirstier than the evil blade I wielded and so I stood, with embers as eyes burning more than the sun, blinded in bloodlust, there I stood...

And there she happened to chance by, taking my hand, to an oasis, bathing me in her love, hugging me, beckoning me to smiles. My armory was gone, my gauntlets vanished and there I was, under the shade of a tree, by the brook, playing with her hair, jumping into the pools of her eyes, touching her, saying nothing but knowing everything that she felt, everything that I felt.

And then, before our fates could be sealed, she left, on her path, leaving a trail of flowers behind. I followed it to her abode, to let her know that for me, she was worth living for, worth killing for, worth dying for.

The sun rose, and I saw for the first time in many years, that it was full of warmth and smiles, beckoning myself and every being to the one place that we longed for. And so I walked, armored, gauntleted hands, wielding the sword, but stronger within. My heart, an ocean of calm, no longer the firestorm of earlier days, I marched forth, not with the sense of having nothing to lose but with hope for her embrace. As the days pass, I march on, closer to her, following the trail of flowers, the scent of her warmth, with the thirst of a lover, I prepare to partake of the almighty's blessing to a wounded heart.

Bleeding within

2005-05-20T21:56:00.000-07:00

Decay is what is happens every day, every moment. The only thing that is consistent while we live is hte fact that we die. With every breath, the decay goes ahead. The child grows, and when he is at the proverbial top, the downhill process begins, cascading, winding, denuding him, pushing him into a cavern and he doesnt realise except when he grazes past rocks which tear his hide and make gashes which run so deep that he doesnt know whether to be overwhelmed by the action of pain or by the existance of pain. Thus begins a realization of ones own time ticking away, slowly and surely, like the venom from snakebite running in someone's veins while he runs away, far from the desert and the mirage.

I often wonder, how can we refer to our lives as living while all that is happening is that we are dying? The irony is when we celebrate another years ending, another years wasting away, another year of efforts gone in vain, trying to build a future which for all we know does not exist. For once, carpe deim appears to practical and a lot less romantic.

Its funny, given that even our fingerprints dont match, we all have the will to live and to be happy. Maybe theres a pattern afterall underlying the assymetry of our lives.

Guts?

2005-05-11T09:02:00.000-07:00

Been called a wuss again by my pals. Mind you, these are people that I have lived with for the past 4 years and they have seen me over the aforesaid period, metamorphose from the boy that I was to the man that I claim to be now. I cant help wondering whats worse?
a) the fact that I knew that I was a wuss [OR] b) the fact that it was shoved up my face.

Anyway, like all conversations, this one too akin to driftwood, went from bank to bank, meandering irrelevance to the topic and so on, so forth. It then went back to the original context which was, who is the "ballsiest" (pray excuse us if this goes against your preconceived notions of the living language English). So there we were, 3 people on the sidewalk dotted with hexagonal tiles which made a pattern, reading into what we saw other people as when we watched them. I wondered, yet again, finding myself yet again wanting in this respect, trying to bridge the gap between what is and what I want the "is" to be. It struck me that maybe I worship Wolverine as he is all that I am not. My sense of self worth blinked out of existance and there I was guaging myself yet again, wondering if I am useful in however minuscule manner to my own cause. Where do I draw the line between what holds value in the larger picture and what doesnt? It appears that there is no way that one can please everyone. So, theres no point in taking a stand for someone else as there will always be that other someone whose tandards are too high for one to scale. So what comes out is that I man my fort and fight my battle the way I deem fit, which happens to be what I have been doing all along. Isn't this gutsy?
I might not say rude things to others all the times I get bugged, but thats because I dont want them to feel bad. But ofcourse, they cant fathom this. Its natural aint it, when a mother can't fathom her own son's ruminations, then how can someone else do the same? Well, heart rending as it is for me, I can never say like my idol Wolverine, "I go where I want to go, I do what I want to do", but atleast burying a stake in the heart everytime, someone mistakes the right thing for weakness, says something about the I within. Whatever happened to giving people credit for what they are in the big picture of things? Guess, swimming against the flow in the shower of brickbats and tomatoes is what life is all about.
I might not be like Logan, but I guess I'm atleast a tidied version of Hank McKoy minus the scientific aptitude and the simian attributes.

Silence

2005-05-10T14:29:00.000-07:00

The sun goes up and the sun goes down,
I let myself into the town,
all I wanna do, I do with you.....

The cells I am at the moment, will soon die,
but I will be here, oh, I'll still be here

Though more than half of the nerds in the world would beg to differ, I solemnly proclaim that its all about optimism. I read an article on optimism by an absolute dumbass who made it look like a sport for retards. I feel that even in the ultra hard boiled world, optimism survives and this claim finds fulfilment in Hartigan's last words, "The old man dies, the babe lives, its a fair trade" (In case you dont know what I'm talking about, go take a peek at Sin City, or read the comics).

I believe that optimism is not giving up, not backing out, not folding over or bucking under. Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gangee (read or watch The Lord of the rings to get some gyaan) optimism personified. All the other rantings and tirades on optimism by people strike me as frivolous and as lacking depth. It's not till you meet death face to face and spit it in the eye that you can call yourself brave. Lets take it a step further, it's not till you lose everything that you've got and then lose even that which you don't have but treasure in the heart of your heart, and you still keep that little flame burning within you, not because it gives you warmth, but because in the larger picture of things, it's the right thing to do, rahter the thing to do. Then and only then would you be an optimist. A soldier fighting a losing battle is an optimist. A soldier with no rounds left, shards of bayonett in his limbs and faltering vision, who still goes on is the optimist that I seek to be, not the pseudo philosophical, ultra shallow, mega superficial person who in the shelter of his abode, conjectures about the life and the times of the homeless. People live in the world of their dreams. They are awake but they seldom step out of the bubble. They revel in their lack of understanding and in their immense ignorance, they come out with pronounciations which make other people's lives full of misery. Its both a fortune and a bane, that one cant shut one's ear off at will, one cant shut one's eyes. A fortune as one can see others err and not err henceforth.

In the real world, a half empty glass or hall full glass doesnt make much of a difference. Thats a red herring for making sure the superficial dont start philosophising. The way to see it is that theres some water in the glass.

While, self proclaimed optimists might dance around in glee, pessimists conjecture based on whats happening. A sane mind questions and is silent, looks and is silent. Its not deafening, rather sweet, inviting, shining and needless to say, enlightening.

Six String Stigma

2005-04-30T16:15:00.000-07:00

Just when I thought that I could be like some John Mclaughlin, I came face to face with the utter rubbish that I play. The hard in hard work gets shoved onto my face more often than not. Maybe all the highs and lows in the whole gamut of things are so much a part of it that they just wont leave my trail. Why is the question and I have no answer but something that sounds too ZEN to believe. Sometimes I wonder if purchasing a good guitar might do the trick but money is seldom found as a part of foliage. In any event I seem to have zeroed in on a good steel string accoustic. The problem with guitars is that like humans they also have a personality. The people who manufacture them seldom realise it unless they are in constant interaction with them and making the instruments talk, try to understand them the way you try understand fellow humans and so on and so forth. Come to think of it, the lines "while my guitar gently weeps", seem to come out in the light in an entirely new perspective. I guess, like cellular phones and clothes and hairstyle, even a guitar that one plays or chooses to sport says a lot about one. More so, the music one plays also speaks volumes about one's understanding about not music alone but even life. The six string weeps, it laughs, it scorns but perhaps most importantly, it reaches out. Where words fail, the timbre reaches out. Wait for my double platinum debut to find out :).

Fahrenheit 9/11

2005-04-26T20:13:00.000-07:00

I wrote this essay as my final submission as a part of the course ENG 440, Literary Genres (alternatively, Detecting Detective fiction: In search of a generic definition). The film falls under the category "Detective Non-fiction" (the topic of the trial for the same course mentioned in an earlier blog)

What strikes me after watching the film is the inherent bias. It comes too strongly anti-Bush for my taste. A documentary film is supposed to present the facts as they have been recorded or documented and not give its opinion on things. The opinion is to be formed by the viewers and isn’t to be tainted by the film makers opinion.
The picture presented by the clues/facts isn’t complete in itself and Moore takes full liberty of coloring the other parts which as a detective he should not be doing. What is presented is true but not the complete truth.
There are many frames which show Bush saying/doing things with Moore’s commentary in the background providing them with a meaning, pushing the viewer to believe Bush to be incompetent which definitely might not be the case if the plain facts were presented. The documentary thus comes across to me as throwing a barrage of accusations without any significant case. Apart from the presentation, the order of the scenes interspersed with commentary by Moore, adds to the distortion. A documentary with a bias does not do justice to itself as it no longer gives a picture of things the way they occurred.
The facts are still there but it’s up to the viewer to manually filter the facts from the opinion either while watching it or in retrospect (retrospect in my case). This also implies inherently the nature of the medium, i.e. a documentary gives the viewer food for thought so that he can form his opinions. In this regard, Fahrenheit 9/11 fails as the unwary end up taking Moore’s view while the resistant viewers end up more or less giving Bush the benefit of doubt.

There are a few other issues that in my opinion need to be considered. For instance, in this case, again like in Bowling for Columbine, there is no crime but when we move from the view of an individual to that involving different communities and countries something seems wrong. Among the issues raised, a significant question to be considered is whether making wrong decisions at a level when development, foreign policies, trade opportunities and needless to say lives are at stake is a crime? For Moore, Bush is definitely at fault and is responsible for the deaths of Americans, Iraqis and Afghans alike. I however can’t stop thinking as to whether Moore is justified in taking his stand as I feel that he lacks perspective for the same. Moore is definitely not in the business of running a country and so he knows nothing of the issues involved. In other words, the issue that he is tackling is way beyond his scope as in investigator and maybe even a wannabe detective. This also implies that detectives have a scope which limits them and the veracity of their findings and conclusions.
In his “investigation” of the “crime”, he comes across facts and bases his opinions on his perspective. What is interesting is to note that in this case, the facts unearthed don’t serve as clues but as symbols, which is pretty natural keeping in mind that here the things under consideration are at a level of different societies, having a history and a lot of interests coming into contact with one another. Thus Moore looks at the symbols and comes out with a verdict. It is further interesting to note how the same set of facts (symbols) could be interpreted in diametrically opposite manners. The probing could have been more neutral had Moore taken given the accused parties a chance to clarify their stance but this never happens and in fact goes to show how the unclean slate is affecting the investigation. When one is investigating a normal case, one could start with a clean slate but at the level of a society, when a matter is being probed, it might be impossible to remain unbiased as the very motivation for investigation is the disorder that is propagated in the society and its effect on the individual. So what would an arm chair detective do in the given situation? After all isn’t he entitled to an opinion? One could draw upon this and go further to say that the background of a detective does matter.
I feel that a lawyer would have served as a better detective as despite his bias, he would have given the other party a chance to speak thereby giving those witnessing the trial a better shot at unearthing a “fuller” version of the truth.
I can’t help wondering whether or not there is a case to be investigated. Does searching for the whys and the wherefores of events make up a case for a detective? Not to mention, the fact that things remain the same even though the facts are out. It’s safe to assume that the aim of the film was to generate awareness among people about an alternate possibility, rather than implicate someone, which as is obvious is way beyond Moore’s scope. So, even here like in Bowling for Columbine, there isn’t a case, just biased ramblings and musings about an event which shook a society and shook the world by both its form and the aftermath. No case implies no investigation. Moore could thus be viewed as a social investigator, a social scientist rather than a detective as he has all the characteristics of the former, (viz. belonging to one of the relevant communities under focus, an eye for social dynamics). However this doesn’t qualify him to pass judgments as he has no idea whatsoever about the “relationships” that countries have with one another and the stakes involved.
Thus, though Moore has brought to light many facts that don’t stop giving people a shock and make them question the maturity of the establishment; it in my eyes comes down somewhat akin to accusations with biases but no basis, something which no detective would do. Moore is no detective and the film, though evoking a strong emotional response fails when it comes to delineating the reasons for the deaths that took place and are taking place, rather ends up accusing with considerable success a man who is the obvious scapegoat (something that both the armchair detective and the detective of the hard boiled realm would detest and refrain from).

Looking through smoke

2005-04-25T13:51:00.000-07:00

Always wondered what cigarettes were about. I remember being a total dumbass as a kid, breaking dad's cigarettes, pulling them out of his mouth etc etc and telling myself that it was for a noble cause. Guess college makes you a punk unless you are flexible enough to gel into the system and get the better of it rather than the other way around.
Anyway, the smoke, the haze is in front of me and I look ahead and see it stretching out, on and on. Looking behind, I find the same. All my reflections on what came to pass seemed to be clouded by it. Cant get the rights and lefts in place. "Head full of chow mein", here I come again.

"To kill the kitty or not?" used to be a question worth giving thought to. However, once I set out on the hunt, the poor kitty no more seemed meek no more but a predator in its own right. I guess I now know how an 8 year old Lion trainer feels amidst panthers and the like. Will I kill the cat or will it get the better of me? Will I slip further within and ponder on it and bury the stake so deep in my heart that it hurts forever? Knowing myself, as not being kraven in anyway, I guess this will be one encounter till the last bullet and whats worse, the last breath. Who will stand taller? Why am I doing this? Am I, in the words of Leon Uris in Redemption going to "spend the second half of my life overcoming the first half"? I guess, this journey to my own Alexandria is all about catharsis.

Is there some peice of the cake that has my name written on it? If only, the smoke cleared up so that I could see the candle, blow it and wish myself happy birthday.

A course in literature

2005-04-18T01:20:00.000-07:00

When I thought of applying for ENG 440 Literary Genres , I thought that it would be a course with discussions about detectives (the genre of literature being discussed being that of detective fiction) and a lot of infromation (useless for the uninitiated but essential for the nerd) and trivia would be unearthed etc etc and on the whole it would be an exhilarating experience. When it came to the actual experience, it turned out to be somewhat akin to the proverbial omnipresent shit hitting the omniscient fan. After almost being done with the course today, with our trial coming out and being lauded for the clarity and the maturity with which issues were dealt with (thanks majorly to Moitra and Bulla, and in part to Aman for sticking the spanner into the works earlier yesterday) I am in a mood to sit back and thikn about it, reflect on it and look into how I screwed up yet again for what is like the 100,000th time in this short life. I guess I totally missed the point of it. Logically its a course in literary analysis, something that is as alien to me as was salt analysis a few years ago (and still is, though in a somewhat limited sense). It took a couple of PDC's (pre discussion chits) (couple meaning about 10 weeks into the course, in a semester spanning 16 weeks) to get a hang of what might be accepted as relevant information and what might come under the perview of useless info. I got grades like C-, and C+ majorly and I guess there was one day when I got a B- for the PDC.
Wonder if this has anything to do with my aspirations to write beautiful poems and stories some day. Come to think of it, being able to take a mahcine apart and expose all its innards doesnt mean that you can put one together and be good at it. Well, there is still some hope for the inhumanly grose and profoundly retarded writer and the sensitive poet within.
Another thing that I realise is that I have read almost nothing at all. People around me generally think that I am one of those, "read this and that and that too" types. I would tell myself that n the cosmic picture, I am but smaller than an amoeba and hence I have read far less. But this course has shoved into my face, the humbling truth that there are a gazillion writers out there who have created over the years works of genius and I, shut in my own coccoon have no idea about it. Had it not been for this course, I would never have known that Edgar Allan Poe wrote detective stuff and that a certain Hammet even existed.
Anway, so much in retrospect, guess tis time I did my assignment due sometime soon. Which just reminds me that I have no clue whatsoever as to what I will be doing.

Review of the Movie "That thing you do"

2005-04-17T03:47:00.000-07:00

I guess this falls well in line with my other fixations like Superhero stories, fantasy fiction, comic books, video games, guns, cakes, chocolates and guitars. The time frame of the sixties, and the innocence that I see into it is another addendum. The movie is very cute. Well, I would go so far as to say that its cuter than Liv Tyler who plays "Faye" (the whole being greater than the parts). What I like most about the movie is the feel good undercurrent through every scene of it. Another thing in it is the gyaan about Jazz by some African American legendary innovators who can be found in "The Blue Spot". This might, for some folks interested in music, change the tone of the movie enitrely with the line "Bands come and go, you play with someone today and someone else tomorrow. What matters is that you keep playing" providing the twist. Somewhat resembling a giveaway of some sort.

The guy who plays Guy Patterson does a fantastic job. Or maybe its the geius of the director as there are sublte hints of the growing chemistry b/w him and Faye in the movie. The scene with them coming out of a live show and Guy "rescuing" Faye is again somewhat symbloic.

Maybe I am getting too much into semiotics or whatever its called but then cant help thinking in retrospect and lauding the creative genius.

Another thing thats quite a reflection of the amount of thought put into the movie is a dialogue wherein the owner of Playtone Records says "The Wonders are the hottest thing on the circuit since the death of JFK". I wonder how big is the hype of an upcoming band with a snappy number that it reminds some people of JFK being shot the previous year (if I'm not mistaken the movie is based in 1964).

Jimmy and Lenny have their parts to play. The latter does an impressive job making a fool of himself while the former leaves a bad taste in the mouth, both fulfilling the needs of the role.

Tom Hanks is good but could definitely have had a better role. Guess the same goes for Charlize Theron. For one, she could definitely have sported a better look. Theres something about her that a friend of me and I concur upon; in some of her movies, she is so stunningly beautiful while in some others she is mug faced.

On the mucial front, you definitely get to listen to the song "That thing you do" a couple of times but then it the whole of it only once, which is quite a good thing as it comes again and again (but thankfully not the whole of it). You also get to listen to a bit of some other good songs by the band and then by some other people. Ofcourse theres also a bit of Jazz and a miniscule jam too to add to the icing.

A bit on the side lines but definitely a thought that has bubbled from the bottom of my mind is that "shades are in". Might buy myself some shades. Wonder how they would give me another dimension. Guess noone would be able to read my eyes and hence be able to read me like the proverbial open book. Just occurred to me last night that if eyey could be read then why not the ears? Maybe someday there will be this band called The Blunders which will do a song about how a girls ears tell someone that she loves them. Anyway, I guess "That thing you do" makes for a good watching.

doing a hamlet

2005-01-07T05:39:00.000-08:00

hamlet sounds like omelette (or whatever the spelling is)...but it differs from the latter in many ways.....for one, an egg is always sure.....theres no way that it can stay upright...it just has to topple over and stay one particular way rather than doodle-diddle or wobble....
on the other hand, a hamlet is more like the dictionary definition of indecisiveness....the trouble with being so is that...even if you are sure of whats going on and whats not, you cant do anything as you have no idea what it is that you want...moreover its not about all options being very amazingly fortunate.....as always, with a certain murphy's grace, these options are very bad and very very bad....some might argue that the choice is easy....take the one which seems less bad.....but i ask what difference does it make as your ass gets busted either way...do this or do that you are done for....it doesnt matter that you lost a few centimeters of hide or a few inches....the point is you lost and its beyond repair.....
nevertheless i am of the opinion that one should take the one which has more gratification in it's name tag....

sometimes i wonder if i will be able to generate better thoughts by adding some vodka to my diet
thereby giving another definition to food for thought......but then should i do so??? there i go again....hamlet sounds like omelette (or whatever the spelling is)...but it differs from the latter in many ways.....for one, an egg is always sure.....theres no way that it can stay upright...it just has to topple over and stay one particular way rather than doodle-diddle or wobble....
on the other hand, a hamlet is more like the dictionary definition of indecisiveness....the trouble with being so is that...even if you are sure of whats going on and whats not, you cant do anything as you have no idea what it is that you want...moreover its not about all options being very amazingly fortunate.....as always, with a certain murphy's grace, these options are very bad and very very bad....some might argue that the choice is easy....take the one which seems less bad.....but i ask what difference does it make as your ass gets busted either way...do this or do that you are done for....it doesnt matter that you lost a few centimeters of hide or a few inches....the point is you lost and its beyond repair.....
nevertheless i am of the opinion that one should take the one which has more gratification in it's name tag....

sometimes i wonder if i will be able to generate better thoughts by adding some vodka to my diet
thereby giving another definition to food for thought......but then should i do so??? there i go again....hamlet sounds like omelette (or whatever the spelling is)...but it differs from the latter in many ways.....for one, an egg is always sure.....theres no way that it can stay upright...it just has to topple over and stay one particular way rather than doodle-diddle or wobble....
on the other hand, a hamlet is more like the dictionary definition of indecisiveness....the trouble with being so is that...even if you are sure of whats going on and whats not, you cant do anything as you have no idea what it is that you want...moreover its not about all options being very amazingly fortunate.....as always, with a certain murphy's grace, these options are very bad and very very bad....some might argue that the choice is easy....take the one which seems less bad.....but i ask what difference does it make as your ass gets busted either way...do this or do that you are done for....it doesnt matter that you lost a few centimeters of hide or a few inches....the point is you lost and its beyond repair.....
nevertheless i am of the opinion that one should take the one which has more gratification in it's name tag....

sometimes i wonder if i will be able to generate better thoughts by adding some vodka to my diet
thereby giving another definition to food for thought......but then should i do so??? there i go again....

flying off in a tangent

2004-12-30T01:47:00.000-08:00

i wonder what kind of a retard thought of this idea...but then blogging does seem to be great.....kinda cool to express yourself....you say something and then maybe others will read what you got to say...those people behind terminals somewhere in the middle of nowhere, going out of their way, their time and bandwidth (or whatever) to read what someone else has to say......the good part is that there are no prejudices, no assumptions, no presumptions, nothing at all........

all that happens in the world is someone asking someone else to shut up and listen......well even if people started listening, would it change things??? we for one would always be sceptical about someone else's take on anything.....i know i would be......wouldnt give them a chance.......maybe its because i just dont bloody want to.....i wonder when was the last time i was sure about anything at all.....like when i was a kid maybe..
its like my head has some bakers dough in it and the cells are defunct or something......they just dont seem to bloody work at all.........most when i think that i need them to work....its like a cure except that i dont have any clue as to who pronounced it and what good has it done to that person since then...

if i am the only one who is having these issues then it seems likely that i am the retard here.....as mom always told me there was something wrong with me.........but then i dont want to give up like that....guess i should no lose hope........but am afraid that there aint no hope.......

my head is full of chow mein...........need to get rid of it now.....
maybe when the chow mein is not there, i would make more sense................