Q.

Will time heal the pain or kill the memory? Did the illusion of choice set Sisyphus free? Can you lose your way and find the destination? Or will nuclear war be our salvation?

With love gone will god need Man? Would you have done enough if you do all you can?

If repeated often enough does a miracle stop being one?

Is the journey just beginning, or are we done?

Growing up sucks

Someday, you’ll hear the concern
behind every censure.

Someday, you’ll be kinder to your parents
and feel sorry for others’.

Someday, you’ll find a stranger
in your mirror.

Someday, you’ll miss the comfort of certainty.

Someday, you’ll want real food.

Someday, you’ll be all grown up
and hating it.

No Rhyme, Just Reason

We could have been in love,
introductions got in the way.

We could have smiled,
fear got in the way.

We could have flown,
gravity got in the way.

We could have been beautiful,
appetites got in the way.

We could have made a difference,
a beginning got in the way.

We could have lived the dream,
mornings got in the way.

We could have been famous,
names got in the way.

We could have made it,
colour got in the way.

We could have been at peace,
God got in the way.

We could have created perfection,
but work got in the way.

We could have won,
economics got in the way.

We could have died,
love got in the way.

We could have been friends,
egos got in the way.

We could have been happy ever after,
but life got in the way.

The Last Words

“So, you want audience with the King, huh?”

The fat soldier’s thin friend laughed at his ready wit, relishing the look of acute discomfort on the visitor’s face. It wasn’t often that they got sport like this, trapped as they were behind their desk job. But when it happened, it was good. Only the truly helpless come knocking at these doors and they make soft targets.

Growing truculent, the fat one spat out “We have orders not to let anyone in. Now get out of here before we hand you the same fate as your King!”

The visitor didn’t seem unduly worried by the threat. (He was an old man, the lines on his face making it impossible to judge his true age. Looking at him, one only knew that he’d lived too long for his own liking) He merely reached inside the rags that served as his robe, and pulling out a piece of parchment, placed it on the table in front of the soldiers. Face up, so they could not mistake the seal on it.

One glance was enough. The fat soldier took his feet off the desk, and sat up straight, his face ashen. His thin friend was already escorting the visitor to the cells downstairs. It didn’t even occur to either of them to read the note.

The thin one was back soon enough. First he had a swallow of the glass the fat soldier had filled in his absence. Then both stared at the parchment in silence, as if wishing it away by the combined power of their fear.

“I thought he’d washed his hands off it,” the fat one finally ventured.

“Do you think they’ll release him?”

“If they do, it’ll be our heads. You weren’t there that day. The people will have his blood. Or ours.”

“I heard rumours that many were incited by a few. Do you think…”

“Shh! You think too much for your own good.”

X--------------------------------------X---------------------------------------X

The cell was small, filthy. Rust coloured stains covered the walls – reminders of the trials of others. And also served as warning to the new guests: “Countless men have been broken here, spirits crushed, futures erased. Do not think you’ll be any different. Soon, your pride will be gone, and so will all resistance. All that’ll remain, will be these four walls. And an eternity.”

Huddled in the corner, he seemed to have lived his eternity already. But had he been broken?

The visitor was there as well, the sight almost too much for him to bear. But he too, had a job to do.

He opened his mouth, but the other spoke first:

“It is done.”

Silence, as both men contemplated what was to come next. Hard as the last few days had been, the visitor knew that the worst was far from over. Finally, the visitor spoke:

“Pontius has done what was required of him. Everything is at the ready. But remember, a nation hangs on your final words. We have come this far, do not...I pray... do not fail us at the end.”

“A kingdom, not a nation. The kingdom of God.”

The visitor felt uneasy as he heard these words, escaping like life itself from the still form. A whisper, yet more than a shout. Was he, in his final moments, falling prey to his own myth?

“You know that this miracle cannot come to pass, as others have. It is outside our hands. Your last words must give a reason for this – a reason for the followers to believe. Without that, all this will have been for naught.”

The visitor paused, waiting for a reply – some sign that he understood. None came.

There was nothing more to be said. The visitor had done what he had come for. Now, it was up to God.

X--------------------------------------X--------------------------------------X

The next day, the visitor joined the carnival. There was no other word to describe it. He winced as he saw the enthusiastic crowd milling about, waiting for a man to die. Housework was put aside in favour of endless debate on whether he would beg for mercy in his last moments, or die in the same silence with which he had borne his trial. School was forgotten as the young ones ran alongside their elders, boasting how they would have shown their courage in the same situation.

One good man’s life for a million saved. It seemed a fair enough bargain. And yet, the visitor wasn’t sure anymore.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

It was done. The visitor turned back, away from the crowd waiting for an encore. It was done. The faith would live on. The endless debates, theories & counter-theories about why the promised miracle didn’t happen would see to it. As long as there’s room for doubt, there’s room for faith. And so, a nation would be built from the ashes of another.

But as he walked away, he couldn’t help wondering, ‘and what about the Kingdom?’

An exercise in futility

Life is incredibly frustrating. All the while you sit, and to an extent it allows you some amount of freedom to believe whatever little insanity you call a philosophy, and to use that as a coping mechanism, and then when it really starts to settle in, and you get comfortable, you get hauled out and you have to start all over again, you would think that this is a solid warning to not go i nthe same direction again, but no, the mind is an incredibly fucking stupid organ. It will go the same route, saying "I'll fashion something different this time, albeit with th same tools" , and 2 years later you'll find yourself in the same ditch you had to dig yourself out of some time ago. It's general really. It could be love, relationship, falling for the same psychotic women again and again, it could be a career, not knowing what you want and so condemning yourself to the tedium of basically raping your soul everyday when you get to work and have to deal with people you'd rather see under a tombstone with a cute little epitaph marking their unremarkable lives, and then making that statement, looking at the elitism and arrogance that caused you to say such a 'mean' thing and then realize that that arrogance is contributing more to your isolation from all the things that life on this planet is about.
The more miserable you get, the more you surround yourself with this wall of impenetrability, the more you try to appear composed to people around you so they wont see the cracking foundations within, the more you try to keep up appearances, to hold on to concepts you consider "constructive" while desperately trying to hide the big gaping holes of doubt that come across whenever you or someone else deliberately or innocently questions a core fundamental precept of whatever crap you chose to call a belief.
Life doesn't suck though, it can be nice, but the head won't let you see that, and when you are down, it will kick you in the shins some more so you can crawl a little longer. But eventually you have to crawl out, you either do that by abandoning yourself completely to nihilism, which is really not advisable, because then you have a "nothing can stop me now cos i don't care anymore" attitude, which makes you into a pretentious little bitchy goth, or you can say "we add our own meaning to life" and embark on your own quest to redefine your concepts again and again and again till you either go mad, or weave something so durable that it can withstand anything life throws at you, from random deaths of people you love, to instances that appear out of nowhere and have no tangible lesson to offer. Naturally, this does not happen often, many people who do try have incredibly ridiculous (to me) ideas wihch do not stand up to any form of scrutiny. These people are best left alone. These ar enot the only two methods. I am sure there are more, but unfortunately my moods are being severely limited by my criticism of every observation i make. I am stuck at a stage where I am trying to build something stable. A concept that involves having no concepts of life, which well, is completely self-defeating, and yet i do it, for the few moments I am able to look past that paradigm i am able to experience balance equilibrium, and this fleeting feeling that maybe life is not an ordeal after all, that it can be pleasant, that there are squares of light in the dark. But like all things, this too will pass, and it leaves you again with the uncertainty of doubt, the vulnerable feeling in the morning, the pain on seeing someone you don't wish to speak to anymore, the hundred things that make existence a roller coaster, and they keep washing on over you and spinning you around in an unstoppable vortex of change. I am desperate to get out of it, to be in it, yet be outside it watching myself be in it and not feeling numb, feeling things yet realizing the futility of emoting about something that is entirely out of your hands, yet I realize that that very desperation also keeps me very firmly in it.
Unfortunately, I fail to see the point in many things these days,love perhaps being the only exception, because it has some good benefits as far as mental health is concerned, other emotions,anger,rage,despair, they come, they stay, they go, and i still stay the same. I won't say i don't care..i do care, but there is only so much you can do for yourself and others. The exhaustion that follows the realization of futility is indescribable. I feel it pretty heavily now, so I think I'll spare you the torture of reading more of this tripe, not because I am kind, but because I can't go on without sounding like a complete charlatan.

“I wanted to clear our misunderstanding…”

The pain shot through me like an arrow. An intense, searing arrow straight to my heart. ‘This can’t be right’ I thought, as I turned to face her. That misused, shriveled up mass of hard lead shouldn’t have been able to feel anything. And yet it did.

The initial shock gives way to numbness as further words assail my ears. A twist here, a shove there, a delicate slice elsewhere – the conversation progresses.

Not that I didn’t have my part to play. But the numbness had spread to my mind by then.

“So yea. I just thought you should know how I feel. Goodbye.”

She left, leaving me on my knees, bleeding. From the kitchen knife sunk in my chest.

..................................................................................
I wrote this quite a while back. To those who know what I'm talking about, this has nothing to do with recent events. If anything, I am the one left holding the knife today.

Out here in the living planet

“Out here in the Living Planet we come to grips with life in all its ferocity… we see all the majestic power of God’s creatures… the Living Planet… out here, with me, we will meet life itself in the Living Planet…and…”

I watched, entranced, as the little man shouting these words leapt from continent to continent. Sometimes wading across the cold waters of Siberia. Now slashing his way unconcernedly through the forests of Africa. Now again, somewhere on the plains of India, surrounded by idiot natives gaping at his antics, and the colour of his skin.

And yet, while I watched, something in what he was saying bothered me, like a discordant note being played repeatedly by the idle finger of some musical madman.

A discordant note…what was it?

“Out here in the Living Planet…”

Where was I then? And where he?

As I sat there, watching him cross continents at the whim of an editing machine, I realized that to him, I and all the others who were moments ago getting our daily dose of indifference, and are now being subject to him, are not in the living planet. To him, we’re the ones through the looking glass. As surely as he is the same to us – ethereal, made of light.

But isn’t there more to it? Has he ever been a part of this ‘living planet’ to which I have membership?

Oh sure, he must have been living at some point. When he was struggling to reconcile his parent’s expectations with his dream of being an actor. When he was wandering the long road to success, with obscurity and failure awaiting his every misstep. Sure, he must have known what it is to live once.

Or have I got it all wrong? Is he truly the one living now? Living his dream. Wandering from place to place, with the firm conviction that millions across the world tune into his words and are affected by his view of life in some way, never realizing it to be a figment of the producer’s greed and the statician’s necessity.

But perhaps that is the life. It may not be the ‘real living planet’ but where is that to be found anymore? All of us live our dreams in one shape or another. The chosen few, like him, live a beautiful one. The ordinary, like you perhaps, are trapped in their nightmares.

And then there are the rest, who merely flip channels when the commercial’s done.

"We now return you to our regular programming..."

And then the ink ran dry

On nights like these, I feel equally close to greatness and insanity. On the brink of madness, I fling my arms out, ready to take flight. Or plunge to everyone’s doom. Is this delusion of grandeur? Or the elixir of Supermen? Perhaps it’s whatever I want it to be, and I don’t have a clue.

On the halfway point between insanity and greatness, I pause. The forks clear but my path isn’t. I hear it in every empty laugh sent echoing across the deserted house. I see it in the monsters lurking in the dark corners. I recognize it in the fly I just killed. I drink it out of my fridge everyday.

My pen says “Experience the Power Within” and the ink has run dry. I still continue to write. The patterns on the floor fascinate m…

8 steps to being a better corporate whore

These are some random guidelines i have compiled that might help you be a better employee/manager, and might help you prolong your stay with your company, for upto two weeks at a time.

a) Kiss your director's ass thoroughly, reaching into every cobwebbed nook and cranny, make sure there is no kidney stone left unturned.
b) Never turn down a promotion by saying "i hate the people, i would rather work in my old group because atleast i didn't want to die everytime i opened my eyes in the morning". It will cause people to say untrue things about you..like "he is negative. unnecessarily mean, rude. not a team player" that last sentence is pretty much the nail in the coffin by the way. if you get that not a team player tag around your neck, you may as well go shoot yourself.
c) Never ever ever ever say "dude this code is totally gay man!" to a gay guy who has stopped by to help you with some fuckup. It will make a serious difference in both your day(s).
d) If some senior management guy has no teeth and happens to be gay, do not make statements in public relating the two *seemingly* disjointed facts together. Sorry, i can't be plainer without being disgustingly explicit.
e) If big bitchy senior lady asks you why you have turned down a promotion, focus on the positives, the positives of being in the older group as opposed to the newer group, never ever say, "There wasn't enough work". you won't appear honest. you will simply be looked at with the "too good for himself" lens, which as you know, is notoriously misty, and will get you fired before you can say "hello HR guy. how are you today?"
f) If someone in the toilet did their big job all over the floor instead of in the pot (as people are apt to do when they simply forget the purpose of a toilet, a common enough occurrence in IT companies, owing to people being too full of it), make sure to send a lot of company wide emails lamenting the fact that you've never had to write an email like this in your entire career. If you are a manager, and you want a headcount of all the kiss-asses in your company, simply wait for the Reply-to all mails you get from various employees who say "Well Said!" or "Hear Hear!" and do a brief count, and there you have it.
g) Fire those bastards the coming friday, because they wasted company resources saying well said and hear hear when they could have used the bleach and the mop.
h) The HR manager in every company is usually a sub-human product of his parents' lust, often a symbol of failed family planning programs. Have him do it. This will also give you a chance to glow from within, and feel warm and happy when you picture him muttering to himself.. "chief recruiter..and i am fucking cleaning up shit. This wasn't in my job description you goddamn sons of bitches"

That's about all i can think of. I might add to it from time to time, but don't count on it. I have a job to keep too.

Disjointed

It's like awakening from your dreams. Except things aren't the same as they were when you went to bed. It's like awakening from your dreams, into a different world. It's like awakening for the first time.

This world was built for giants, not squirrels. But life makes squirrels of us all.

So busy gathering twigs to build the shelters for old age, the summer of youth passes away. Unnoticed and unacknowledged. All that I could, or almost could be, lost in the pages of books never written, lost in the verses of songs never sung.How do you stop life, and start living? How do you break the bonds of love, and habit, and custom, and certainty, to become all you were meant to be? To give all you should, and taste all you can?

The lands have been discovered, the stars breached, the elements conquered. Where do I turn to for inspiration? For divine intervention? I wish I was a rock star. I wish I was a highlander. I wish I was the song of the ages, the eye of the prophet. I wish, I wish…

I wish I were alive.

This is no story. Nor yet a piece of poetry. This is a plea for help. This is a dark room, a strange bed. This is a mind struggling against itself. This is not me. This is not you. This is us.

Heroes

Something I wrote recently...still a work in progress, so keep an open mind...

Tonight we're heroes, my friend. We're the reason, the means, and the end - you and I. Tonight, at the bottom of this mountain, we met our destiny. And at the top, we shall make a new one. For each other. And for every man, woman and child that will step up with us. Step up into the new heaven. One made by mortals greater than Gods, built of stone harder than Valhalla, coloured with the blood of innocents.

I see the fear in your eyes. See it, and feel it too. The climb is a difficult one, and the will is weak. The darkness immeasurable. But what are these, to the thing that awaits us at the top? Do not fear the journey my friend, for I have glimpsed the destination. It is a thousand times more vile than this rock, a thousand times darker than this night. Do not fear my friend, for we are doomed.

When death is a certainty, what is fear? Stand up and embrace it, as you would your saviour. For it shall set you free. It shall remove all your bonds, unshackle your very soul. It shall put fire in your veins and lightning in your mind, when the moment of truth comes. At the top is our destiny waiting to be written, and death shall be our bedfellow through eternity.

The climb is a long one, but do not weaken. The enemy is strong, but do not despair. For tonight, we're heroes. Truth will be our shield, and righteousness our lance. The vile shall not touch us, nor the ignominious stop us. Listen to me, for I shall be alongside you as you face the rock. And I shall be alongside you as we force our destiny. And I will give you wings as you go into the battle, and I shall lift you higher when you fall.

Listen to me, my friend, for I shall be you.

Pogramming with your Cube Mates

I know it's been a while, but i've been saving and bottling up all my pissiness, so that my outburst will have finesse, magnitude, and direction.
Right.
So, let's get down to business. Praveen has been a little bitch that hasn't posted since...since a very long time. In that interval, i've even managed to have an operation, spend time in hospital, recover, and shave beards that would make mullahs proud.
I've been 'promoted'...i use quotations because it sucks, and i would rather have my old position back. Back then i was the groundling, the object of scorn and the curled upper lip by many a developer who thought his code was so important that the company would not function without him, in fact, they sure made it seem so..I work in a place where if you manage to do your job, they call your name out at meetings. It's like telling your wife she's not fat. It's something you're supposed to do, you don't get honoured for it. Either it is duly noted and filed away by the wife, or you get yelled at : "What do you mean i am not fat? What made you think that i thought i was fat?" (this often happens if you were idiotic enough to preempt her question)..and it's the same thing about work, atleast, that's how it should be. If you say nothing about it, some head honcho should stick his head out and give you a polite nod as you walk past his glass-walled office while he is burrowed behind his pc surreptitiously looking at porn, and, if you tell your boss very nervously, while standing on one leg.."you know, i did, like, this thing, you know, and it like, brought this company a lot of money, you know", in which case you are sent to your desk with a sharp rap on your knuckles, or if the boss is in a particularly expansive mood, a pen case. So yeah, you get the picture. if you go above and beyond your job, only then should your name be called out..otherwise what happens? Everytime some stupid senior ditz calls out your name and says "Couldn't have done it withoutcha!!!!!! *FLASHY SMILE*"(she will never make a mention of your name because you are not important enough for your name to be remembered. there is very limited brain space. it is used up by acronyms for words and sentences that do not make any sense when strung together, nor have any meaning), people make the mistake of assuming that they are somehow above mediocre, and they start throwing their weight around.
I program in a language that britney spears could pick up within minutes. It is not something to have an ego about, yet as you walk by people's desk, you will find them chewing their lip thoughtfully, and discussing issues about the language that a bored toddler could tell you the answer to. Case in point.
"How would we get the person's name from a database"
"Hmm..that is a good point..good point *long pause*..oh wait! isn't there code that already does that???!?!?! EUREKA. I AM A GOD!"
Horrible, isn't it?
So, you get the picture, a company where the code is easy, and most of the work involves finding already implemented stuff, carefully selecting, clicking "Copy" and then transferring over to the new destination. 5 minutes of tinkering and 4 hours of table tennis later..finished shiny end product that will promptly break because the old code never worked anyway, whereupon the reaction is.."oh well..let the bug fixers handle it. i worked hard on this and busted my balls"..so that was what i was..a bug fixer..i would fix their shit, and it helped me get a good understanding of how the world, and that particularly shitty program, "worked". it was good in a way, it was mostly easy, the guys around me were fun to work with..there was constant laughter and table tennis and endless hours of fun to be had by all...until i got promoted.
Now, i sit in a dreary and dark cube all the way on the other end. My companions are, let's call them hbfb, and peewee. hbfb=heavy-breathing fat bastard. 6 feet tall, 17 feet wide. One word description: Yokozuna. I can't even run him over with my car, because it would total my car, and leave him with barely a scratch, although i've wanted to on many an occassion.
hbfb happens to work in a company, as a side project, and they wanted my help to make a song that their product could use. The negotiations were as follows
1st day
hbfb: Hey i heard your music. I want you to write some songs, and we'll pick. we'll give you cash for it.
me: how about...no? i'd like a cut of the profits
hbfb: I will have to discuss with my compatriots on this issue
me: yeah, whatever. let me know.
2nd Day
hbfb : Hey, i spoke to my colleagues about this joint venture
me: yeah, and?
hbfb: There are two opposing schools of thought on the issue
me: you actually have schools of thought on this shitty issue?
hbfb: uhhm..yes we do.
me: That is the most pathetic thing i have heard in years.
hbfb: You're not the most positive guy here are you?
me: Not unless you mean blood group.
Day 3
hbfb: Apparently, they don't want to pay you
me: so i have to do this for free?
hbfb: yeah
me: it took you 3 days to tell me that?
hbfb: Well there were ongoing discussions
me: wow.gay.

hbfb is the type of individual that will look up something on the internet, some code-related issue, and then talk like he wrote a ground-breaking book on the subject. The talk will be merry-go-roundy, and any piercing questions will be cleverly deflected with "Well *important look* it depends on the context in which you refer to the subject material"
.."with assays and windlasses of bias, by indirections find directions out", only in this case, direction is a blank wall and me desperately looking for ways to end it all.

Onto peewee, peewee is smart, sassy, and kiss-assy. If there is a butt with upper management written on it, peewee's lips will be glued to it faster than hbfb's to his dinner plate. He has a nasal voice, and whenever he talks, plaster falls from the ceiling, and i turn the volume on my mp3 player up to levels that would make deaf adders uneasy.
The only problem i have with peewee, is the fact that he gets by doing no work at all. He comes in at 10:30, or whenever his calendar tells him is an auspicious time to do so, watches rap music videos, and says things like "Yo Wuassap man!" to his bosses (he is not black. he is simply cool and down with it, and we all wish we could be like him). Then when it's 2pm, he disappears, and you can't see him till 10am the next day. He logs 8-9 hours every day.He's quite smart though, so i have to give him that. When i become president, he will be the last against the wall, and there will be a special silver bullet for him.

So, these are my new cube mates. It is tough working..all i hear when i am not listening to music, is his heavy breathing..i feel like my chair is getting pulled closer and closer with every inhalation.
every day is a punishment, well mostly. I take out all the anger on my friend at table tennis.

What is worrisome is the listlessness that working with these two fucktards has spawned. I don't care about work anymore. all i care about is getting my 8 hours, and leaving the place. Which means, that there is trouble brewing on the horizon. If the only guy there who works is only working 8 hours, out of which 5 are spent playing table tennis, then, someone will have to pay dearly. hbfb is in wedded bliss..so he won't be fired..apparently...the best thing about getting married is "dude, she brings me food to my desk.how awesome is that" ..i wasn't sure whether i was supposed to be envious, or nauseated by that remark.

It won't be peewee, because peewee is down with all the head honchos, even if he doesn't do anything..so, guess who will be sent home early some friday because "Statistically it has been demonstrated that office workers are less likely to cause a scene if fired right before the weekend" ??

The Indian "Talent" Show

I went to an "Indian Talent Show" on Saturday night. I felt life had been too easy and I needed to punish myself for being happy. Atleast, that must have been the only rationale that prompted me to go there, and also the vague hope that I might meet some nice Indian students at the university, preferably female, preferably quiet and nice and not overly yappy. We sat down, amidst a throng of babbling Indians. The show started 40 minutes late with a girl with a squeaky pseudo accent telling us in grating syllables that they were sorry they started late. Everyone clapped, whether it was in anticipation or despair, I couldn't tell. My friend who had come with me to see if there were any good looking girls, stirred in his seat uneasily. They handed out cards that had the show's schedule on them. I forgot what they are called, but at any rate, my friend was happy reading the names, according to him they all sounded like they'd be 'hot'. They then proceeded to sing the national anthems of India and the US. I have never seen a song being gang-raped before, but they managed to pull that one off smoothly. There were two groups of oily looking females singing the anthems, and they were both desperately fighting tooth-and-claw for last place. Everyone else had their hands on their crotch as it was too informal an occassion to stand at attention. The Indian anthem didn't sound as bad basically because everyone was singing louder and louder to drown out the squeaky voices of Oily Exhibits A. The american anthem however would have gotten us all deported if any of the sullen americans sitting listlessly in the corner had the energy to walk over to the phone booth and summon the justice department. It was an effort not to laugh out loud, and on many occassions i got glares from the local senior citizens who had surrounded us and were trying to threaten us into behaving like good boys. The show proceeded, true indian style..with item no. 17 on the list being performed first, followed by the introduction, a dance, more dances, and an intermission. The dances started and my friend leaned forward expectantly. "monisha will now perform mehboob mere" ...He uttered a stricken cry of anguish. Monisha was 7 years old, and definitely not his type, and the same followed for most of the other contenders for rock-bottom. There was one number by some actual college females of age, and it was very remiscent of peasant women stomping on great blobs of cowdung to soften it into patties ( a very common thing in rural villages in india). It should have been called "The Death March of Bataan-Anu Malik" but they give it a rather juicy sounding filmy title. There were some American girls seated in front of us. They couldn't take the excitement and had to leave their chairs to go forward and stand and clap. The funny thing was they left their purses there, and would glance back at us suspiciously from time to time to make sure we wouldn't do a quick number and disappear with said purses. "blady thieving indians"
At this point, a colleague from work and his girlfriend, both americans, decided to join us. "Hey Madman, What're you performing?" ...yes..because i'm indian, and this is an indian talent show, I must perform like a wound-up drummer monkey for your enjoyment so you can purse your lips at some weekly Poker meeting with your friends and make statements like "Hmm..You know, Indian culture is quite interesting, there was this one time...". fucking morons. You might think i'm being unnecessarily harsh. I'm not. This guy writes awful code. I have often fantasized about catching him by the tuft of his beard and beating him mercilessly because I've had to debug said code on many occassions.
The show went on, proceeding smoothly from item to item. The only way you'd know if a particular performance was over was by the listless way in which the 'contestants' would tangentially walk off stage, while the music was playing. now bows, nothing. it was like watching a group of mexicans get caught at the border. the same resignation, the same shoulder-shrugging acceptance of a harsh fate.
The DJ, a white guy, normally asleep, would suddenly realize the stage was empty, stop the music, and clap, and the rest of the herd would follow suit half-heartedly. He also decided to rap for us by the way, and that was the best performance of the evening. That should tell you how good it was.
The show sucked, so I thought the dinner intermission would atleast make up for it, but right before dinner they decided to make a few announcements. The audience, their appetite whetted by all this torture was clapping enthusiastically to everything the squeaky female was blabbing out, in the hopes that they'd be loosed on the food quite soon, then came the announcement. Apparently, the university had refused to fund this event(not surprising. If i were in charge of funding, I'd think twice about paying out good money to watch 8 year olds sing yeh tara woh tara with an american accent, rolling the r's), so there wasn't too much food, and what food there was, had to be rationed. There was a stampede when that announcement was finished. It was reminscent of photographs in The Hindu about the plight of Andhra farmers, and food rations. They literally served us half a spoonful of vegetables, two puris, and some rice, and if you asked for more, you'd get a mournful stare from two girls whom they had stationed expressly for that purpose. As a clever tactic to stop second servings, there were no spoons or forks to be found, only knives, so no one would come back for the rice, and the puris were anyways like Indian Railways material so unless you were dying of hunger, you wouldn't go back for that. At this point, i was saved by my work. I got a call from a guy at work saying something had to be uploaded to some servers, and I headed for the exit, and into the cool, comforting night.

The Revolution

“Let’s kill the Queen!”

A spilt his sugar and B nearly bit his leg off. They both looked at C, not trusting their own ears.

“What? You know she’s the cause of it all. Sitting in her cave, growing fat on our hard work. I say we bump her off…”

“Shh! Have you gone mad? How could you even think such a thing!”

“It’ll be easy! Precisely because no one’s thought of such a thing!”

“And for good reason! Do you think you can just waltz up to her and bite her head off?”

“Yes! There are never more than two or three soldiers near her, and they’re just for show. No one expects an attack.”

“But you’re insane! The Queen!”

“Yes, the Queen! She’s the reason we break our backs everyday in those terrible lines, living every moment in fear of those bullies she calls soldiers. And for what? So they can eat and get stronger, to go out and capture more like us. All to feed her highness, who seems to bloat up more while our people die in those bloody lines daily.”

“But it’s our job..”

“Not a job, it’s our caste! Just because we’re born into it. And they don’t help us either – the soldiers could lend a hand to an old one here, or a cripple there, but no! They just curse us and act tough because they go to the battles. Let them try carrying 8 times their own weight through miles of hostile territory to feed a whore who’ll spit at you as soon as say hello.”

“Everything you say is true, but still…to kill the Queen?”

“It’s not impossible. It’d be easier than killing one of those bullies in fact. She’s grown so fat on our sweat and blood that she won’t even be able to defend herself. And the soldiers are too cocky to suspect anything. We just have to remain cool, and not lose our nerve. Our people will be set free by our sacrifice. Here’s the plan…”

----------------------------------------X----------------------------------------

The next day, 3 workers broke the line and rushed up to the Queen. Everyone froze, even the never ending line coming to a halt. And then they stopped. The Queen’s large eyes were on A, B and C. Her hypnotic gaze sapped their will, emptied their minds. Then, with a supreme effort of will, C muttered “Bloody whore” and leapt on to her giant frame, aiming for the softest spot.

And then the world came to an end.

----------------------------------------X----------------------------------------

Jerry, driving home after a hard day’s work in the fields, felt a bump as his truck’s tire went over an anthill. He made a note to check the wheel – it had been feeling a little loose lately.

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

Note: Can't think of appropriate names for A, B & C. Suggestions welcome :)

In Absentia

I've been away 3 days, and what do I find? Madan's laid my dubious past bare to the world, not to mention revealed my secret identity. And there are people with unpronounceable names leaving largely random and irrelevant comments. (Madan, I do not agree about darkenrahlin. Doesn't sound like an ice cream brand. Sounds like a fairy knight. Eating ice cream. And while we're on the subject, wtf is rohtheho? row her where?)

 

::5 minutes later::I've been reading the rest of the posts trying to gather some inspiration to go on, something to write about. Desperation even prompted me to visit rohtheho's blog and darkenrahlin's excuse for one. The results are in and the fat boy's lost. I have nothing. So guess all my impatient fans will just have to wait until I muster up enough energy to write about something.

...
That Man is the product of causes which had no preview of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his opens and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievment must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins--all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy whch rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.
-Bertrand Russell

I don't feel i need to say more. That quote says it all

Happy Birthday you scumbag

Hey praveen,
I tried calling but for some reason your phone is off. I didn't feel like writing to your office address, so thought I'd post here. Hope you had a really nice birthday. I was still thinking about that time back in school when I told everyone that it was your b'day. For all of you that don't know, both me and On_trial were not too popular in school because of the way we'd talk. The teachers regarded me as an errant child who just needed some coaxing to be put on the right path, and Praveen, they really didn't know what to make of. At any rate, the students didn't think that highly of us either, mainly because of how we'd run our mouths... and when I told them all it was his birthday, they gave him 'birthday bumps', which is basically holding a person's arms and legs and swinging him up and down as many times as his age, so after 18 times they just dropped him and he landed in the sand. Then they kicked him, in the ribs, and in the chest, and well i'll say this much in his favour. I've never actually seen anyone 'roll with the punches', but that was what he was doing, it could also have to do with the fact that at that time he was fat, and so any movement highter and thither would look like a blob of jelly sliding/rolling around by transferring mass in various directions, while moaning softly saying "oho oho oho".
It was fun to watch, and everytime March 19th swings by i think of that and giggle to myself.
Anyways, I hope you got a lot of gifts and such. I'd like to remind you that you are one lucky piece of shit to be spending your birthday with a family that's pretty much your 2nd family anyways. You know what i mean. Most of us don't have that luxury, and I won't whine about that, but I do hope that you value that whenever you go on your bitching trips. I'd also like to think that your day didn't go as badly as our birthdays used to turn out back in the day. I just realized I've known you for a little over 7 years. Man, it's been long. Too long, and you are still the same piece of shit you were when you said, "Oh, in Singapore, sex is a community thing is it??"
Anyways, I've run out of things to say, so I'll just say this Tamil movie style : "yengai irundhaalum vazhga"
If you can't figure out what it means, you ought to be ashamed. Your mom would know what it means though, so ask her.

Commuting can be a bitch

I took the train to office today.

Nothing striking in that. I've been doing that for the last one year, since getting to Bombay. It's the only way you can get around in this lousy, overpopulated place. But today was different. I'd decided that today, I would actually get a seat. Instead of playing ''my elbow is more pointy than yours'' games with the common multitude.

I knew this was going to be tough. The only way one can get a seat on these trains during rush 'hour' (7:30 am to 10:30 pm) is to throw caution, and yourself, to the wind. Just jump in the general direction of the train and fling your arms out, hoping to grab hold of something. Preferably hard, like the door frame. Occasionally all you can get is a guy's shirt tail, but that can do at times too. Provided it's of good quality cotton.

Needless to say, the train being a thundering mass of rusty iron rushing towards you, it goes against the grain to throw yourself anywhere near it. But today I was determined.

The crowds helped. Once I got out in front of the platform, the people behind me left me only two choices. I could either let them push me in front of the train, or I could take the majestic leap. So I took the leap.

It was perfect. The train was a blur of sweeping metal, I was a creature of instant reflexes. My hand grabbed the pole that divides the door frame, my feet were on the train before my brain could register the fact, and in a split second, I was in!

Now, I had gotten so far a couple of times before by fluke and the grace of the rowdy masses on the platform. But once in, I was only too likely to 'freeze up', not sure which seat to take. And since the crowds were only behind me by half a second, this could be disastrous. But today, I was as good as Bush. To take a life altering decision was with me, the work of a second. Before you could yell ''weapons of mass distruction'', I had the best window seat in the compartment. And the crowds weren't even in yet!

Of course, it was the ladies compartment.

"Rocket Science", or "I know only one metaphor"

Why is it that people, especially teachers, find this phrase so irresistible? Throughout my college (a colossal waste of time btw) my professors would use this phrase at the slightest instigation.

"You just have to write a 1000 word article on the soap marketing scenario in India. Why do you need a week? It's not rocket science!"

"All you have to do is pay attention during my class, and you will pass the test. It's not rocket science!"

"Don't pick your nose, use a tissue. It's not rocket science!"

Now, I wonder how many of these people ever got past their high school math, much less approach rocket science. How would they know how complicated, or simple, rocket science is? And if it's just a reference to something they think is the toughest thing in the universe to understand, they really should look around. Most of their accents would qualify.

Their logic would top the list.

Peace of Mind: And how to ruin it

I am at the beach. It is a beautiful morning. THe sun is coming up. There are glimmers all over the ocean, which is as placid as a millpond. There are dolphins in the distance, about 4-5 of them, and they're performing interesting maneouvres, either mating or feeding.Neverthless, it was fascinating to watch their bodies gleam in the sunlight and to watch the spouts of steam issue from their blowholes as they frolicked around. The pelicans were gliding along the waves. There is something very elegant about pelicans. I could go as far as to say that they are the only elegant denizens in this blighted marshland otherwise known as florida. Everything was all right with the world, and to amplify my good mood, the beach was deserted. Perfect time to do a little bit of self-hypnosis/meditation to steel myself up to face the idiots at work. But no, trouble looms on the horizon..Since i face the sun, whenever i close my eyes i can feel the light hitting my eyelids and everything is a brilliant red with eyes closed, but this time there was a shadow looming over me, for a while i thought it was a passing cloud and continued my ruminations undisturbed...then that somehow didn't feel right...there were odd sounds..and something licked my face... I turned, and there was a species of mottled old lady standing behind me. I winced and prepared for the worst.... No, she didn't lick me you perverts, it was the bloody dog.
"Are you meditating?" ....well, not anymore woman...
"I just saw you sitting there and felt like I had to talk to you"
I don't know what it is, but there is something about the sight of a person sitting alone and for once, enjoying the fucking solitude that seems to rankle the spirit of every ditzy sociable person within a 50 mile radius and makes them want to go about spewing chaos and irritability into an otherwise peaceful melting pot of emotions.
Then she went on about how she was from new york city, and then people around her had started dying, and about how it really got her thinking about the purpose of life, and about how she wanted answers....good god..
anyways...i kept thinking...'so where lieth the barbed point buried beneath honey'd words?'...and promptly enough it poked through..."then i found christ"
ugh.
At that point, i had to intervene, i had to tell her i was meditating for a reason,something...i hadn't said a word throughout this soliloquoy and unless cut off, she would continue to extend herself and nail her toes to her pedestal. The only thing i managed to bleat out was..."Well i have."....that was enough for her..for the next 20 minutes, she went on about the king james bible, and about how I should read that instead of other bibles, and then she also told me that she doesn't read that bible but instead reads the original hewbrew, whereupon i had to politely interject to find out if she really was a learned lady, in which case she'd have my respect, or just another locust from the Religious Yahoo swarm that's currently ravaging the country. No, she doesn't know hebrew, she uses a lexicon. A pretty nice way to describe a dictionary with frills. How do you appreciate prose if you translate everything to english anyways? I decided not to ask her that as that would only add to the fire...so on and on she went...at one point i had to stifle a giggle, i was thinking of odd things to suddenly yell out loud about...something on the lines of, "The Asiatic Lion was once a majestic species, its range stretching all the way to Rome! It's chief diet consisted of antelope, buffalo, and also the occasional Christian at the local Colosseum."
instead, like the idiot i am, i said.."I know all this. You see, I Don't like religion. I grew up a hindu, in a muslim neighbourhood, and went to a jesuit school where i saw priests doing bad things. I don't like religion" "but religion is a guideline, life is so much better with God"........i love you god, but save me from your followers. It was a long time before i could get rid of her. I totally lost sync with the mood, had to go late for work, and listen to the ceo of my company make it sound like his company was actually a charitable organization that brought happiness to so many people. in short, my day sucked.
Anyways, the point of the whole thing is, if you have peace, and if you are at an easy equilibrium with your surroundings, please, keep it to yourself. There is nothing that betrays insecurity as effortlessly as proselytyzing, besides, people can sympathize more easily with your pain than with your pleasure..and well, use your head..anyone who tells you that they are right and that most of the world is wrong is either fantastically arrogant, in which case they should be trucked off to Auschwitz, or they are hopelessly insecure in which case they have no business feeding you bullshit they wish they bought, and that brings me to the point of religion. I hate it. For all of you in other countries who think somewhat highly of the Indian diaspora in the US, i have some jarring news for you. They are a bunch of putzes. No doubt they are educated, but so is every mugpot who can learn hamlet by heart, miss all the beauty but is perfectly capable of telling you on which page Polonius got poked hiding behind the tapestry, but that's not what bothers me. IT's their religiousness. I should be tolerant you say, but i can't be tolerant of intolerance, and i tend to get very worked up when i go to someone's house for a nice meal of sambar+rice and end up listening to bullshit like "WE MUST STAAP THI MUSLIM APPEAJMENT!! NAUW!!".."we must build tembil in ayodhya"...." all muslims in india are muslims first indians later" ...?!?!?!?! This VHP poster-boy stuff coming from graduates from good colleges who've spent the better half of their lives in good families, you know, middle to upper middle class people, the arterial blood of the country..first of all..everytime you make a statement beginning with all or most but missing a reference to observed population, and not estimated population, it is patently false. to know that all muslims are bad, or most hindus are idolators, you'd have to know all hindus, or all muslims, and out of that you must have done a percentage study to determine the true opinion of every member of your subset and then have these facts on hand to support your argument, and even THEN you could be wrong, because some dick in that subset would have lied. That does sound ridiculous, doesn't it? To me it sounds about as ridiculous as "All muslims hate hindus"

not everyone is like that of course..there's also the daler mehndi crowd and a small section of the population that actually does think straight. you'll know them when you meet them by how refreshed you feel after a 10 min discussion with them...not the daler mehndi types. You'll know those by how refreshed you feel after getting away from their clutches and their "what yaar that bhangra beat is classss yaar..oye soni kudi" words of wisdom.

but anyways, religion has done nothing spectacular for india within the past 50 years...unless you consider Partition movies mesmerizing. We have "rich cultural heritage ok", which is basically our crutch. No power, cultural heritage. Poverty, cultural heritage. It's like a kid who fails in all subjects but does excellently at english grammar(i am using a real example. that kid was me). "You FAILED MATH???AND PHYSICS????" "but mommy..i did so well in Make Sentences!!"... Religious riots, cultural heritage. Our answer to everything, and no doubt it is there. I love it. I love going to temples. I love reading old texts and getting in touch with a forgotten past, it is no doubt very exotic, but when i am woken in the middle of the night by a phone call from my mom asking me to listen to "vishnu sahasrananams because it spreads good vibrations around the house", i tend to go on my God is dead trips....but otherwise culture can be very refreshing, and gives you a good feel for what you are, and what you can or want to be....but at what price? There are more widows than there are buddhas. Is it worth it? Give a human being an idea and he will corrupt it in an instant, and that's what's basically happening. Why does being proud about hindu mean having to hate muslims/christians for so many people? Why this (check previous post) binary logic? Why can't people follow the middle ground...actually, why be proud about anything? why be proud to be hindu? is it a culmination of personal achievement? born 30 seconds later you could be ethiopian, or worse, catholic..

anyways, i came out of that discussion feeling thoroughly disgusted. It's things like that that make me feel disgusted at everything that goes on back home. I love the country so much, and it is really painful to see it get raped by people like this, in the name of religion/caste/creed/. I don't have orgasms if i see saffron but I am a hindu, in terms of my upbringing,the sense of comfort i feel in sitting by myself in ruined temples, praying to gods that i am on more familiar, personal terms with(when i am content or afraid enough to believe in one). i don't feel a need to be proud of it, the same way i don't see a reason to be proud of who i am. We're six billion insignificant little shits swirling around in a universe that doesn't give a damn. It's about time we realized that if we're insignificant, so are things like caste,creed, race. Nobody cares, least of all your God. What's better? Dying and killing for a god, or living without one?
I'm done. I don't feel like I've done complete justice to my feelings, but if i continue i risk being stoned, or worse, sound preachy, which is exactly what i want to avoid.
Moral of the story: If you see a person sitting alone on the beach, or in any place of scenic beauty, and he/she looks happy, leave them alone. That way, they will have one less reason to post stuff that ends up making you wince.