Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da...

Shifted!

2009-06-06T15:36:00.000-07:00

Hi!
I've moved this blog to:
presentinabsentia.blogspot.com
do read and comment!

Lullaby

2008-09-28T03:17:00.000-07:00

An induction motor
Turning in my head,
Perfectly in phase
With what was being said
By a dreary monotone.
Sandman descended
To switch off supply
To the flux in my head.

Beat(l)ification!

2008-07-13T06:44:00.000-07:00

I just got too bored of boring old '...and life goes on', so here's the brand new name. First thing that popped up in my head. Whaddaya think?

From Enochlophobia to Freedom!

2008-07-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

I am not a very sociable person. Apart from a great reluctance to be the first one to strike up the conversation, I also think I suffer from, to say the least, a mild case of Enochlophobia. Google it if you don't know what it means. So it is clearly established that I am, under no circumstances, a party animal.

But fate plays it's funny games, and I had to attend, of all the parties that could've brightened up Delhi's nightlife, a wedding. And not just any wedding, a Punjabi wedding. I had very cleverly avoided so far all the social obligations I had as an army brat, but none of the excuses in my list, which now had become considerably exhaustive, could nudge me out of this tight spot.

Thus at nine in the evening, when I should've been sprawled on my bed listening to music and playing football manager, I was smiling rather uneasily at people I neither knew or cared to know. I somehow survived the initial pleasantries, and set off on a reconnaissance of the vast lawn where the part was being organised. I located the food stalls, the bar (which served only Coca Cola) and the gazebo under which a band was playing the latest Hindi hits.

And then I saw it. The perfect vantage point. As if illuminated by a heavenly spotlight, it was waiting for me. I walked towards it almost instinctively. The spot was close enough to the food stalls for me get refills without having to march cross country, and far enough for me to eat in silence and anonymity. It was a stone's throw from the bar, so I could have as much Coke as I wanted. Most importantly, it was at the perfect distance and angle from the speakers, which made even a most ordinary rendition of 'Om shanti om' seem almost mellow.

There I stood, drinking my coke and eating the free food, listening to the latest bollywood chartbusters, and all this far from the madding punjabi wedding crowd. Every now and then I would get a refill of the chaat they were serving- I liked the fruit chaat the best. And I lost count of the number of glasses of coke I consumed. The rest of the party was like a colourful blur, what with the Aunties separated from fresh air by three layers of greasy makeup, one layer of glitter, and heavy, bright, shiny, lacy outfits, the uncles all suited and booted, kids zooming around, and 'cool' teenage boys and girls cheering the 'band' on, and requesting encores of songs of the class of 'Om shanti om', 'Dus Bahane' and some some stuff I couldn't recognise.

Much like Sauron's, my eyes saw everything. Aunties discreetly helping themselves to cartloads of Golguppas, ice cream dripping onto the little boys' best pair of shorts, and dejected uncles settling for coke, visibly disappointed, the band moaning on all the while. And then dinner was served. It was rather lacklustre, to say the least. I ate only half of what I had very greedily heaped onto my plate, but my appetite was pretty much satisfied by all that chaat. A few more glasses of coke, and I was done.

I wasn't disappointed by the mediocre food, or the groaning band, or the smell of myriads of cheap colognes permeating the atmosphere, for that night, I had come as close as I had ever come to getting rid of my enochlophobia. The trick was, simply, to look at the crowd objectively, treating it as a single entity. And then you see how the whole thing unfolds before you, like I said earlier, in a blur of colours. Maybe it was the beauty of my spot, or maybe it was all in my head. I'll find out at the next party.

Ironically, I didn't set my all seeing eyes even once on the bride and the groom, not that I knew them anyway.

The Fall of Old Delhi!

2008-07-01T09:58:00.000-07:00

The other day we decided to visit the much talked of 'Paraanthe Waali Galli' in Chandni Chowk, Dad, Mum, brother and I. I loved a good parrantha any day, but the journey promised to be tiresome. It was impossible to drive up because of the distance and the traffic, so we had to drive up to the nearest metro station and take the metro.
The metro was crowded as usual, but I didn't mind the journey, hardly ten minutes. We disembarked at Chawri Bazaar, the station before Chandni Chowk, Mum had some shopping to do. The market was a fair distance from the station, so we had to take a rikshaw. At this point, I suggested that we take two rikshaws, but the rikshaw-wallah said with pompous reassurance, "Ho jaayega bhai, do aage, do peeche." The 'peeche' was a nothing more than a plank with a rusty iron rod running accross it about chest high, not unlike an amusement park ride, and naturally, my brother and I were dismissed to it.
So we set off, four people, overweight to say the least, being towed through an ocean of activity by a set of skin and bones in comparison. But the man was an expert- he meandered cleverly between pedestrians, motorcycles, bullock carts, hand carts and horses, and we progressed at a very lively pace considering the situation. He took us through numerous shortcuts- paths just wide enough to accomodate a rikshaw and, say, two pedestrians. Lined along every path were innumerable shops that claimed to sell everuthing to microwave ovens to cheap kites. And the kites were so abundant they might have outnumbered the people. It seemed to be the season for kite flying, as every shop stocked them. They came in all shapes, sizes, colours, materials and prices.
The air was saturated with the smell of fried, oily food from homes and restaurants, mixed with the odour of sweat from labourers who engaged themselves in a plethora of activities, from pulling huge handcarts to carrying people around in rickshaws to sweeping the streets to making paraanthas in roadside restaurants. And the sounds- the sounds were loud and ceaseless- people calling out loud greetings to each other as they passed, the rickshaw-wallahs shouting 'Raasta!' at the top of their voices to clear the way ahead of bodies, motorcyclers hurling profanities at the rickshaw-wallahs and the handcart-wallahs, who in their turn flung them them back even louder, shopkeepers advertising their wares, hawkers attracting customers for goods ranging from jalebis to digital watches.
The sights, sounds and smells of Old Delhi were beggining to sink into me. And sitting uncomfortably on the back of a rickshaw, holding on for dear life, I felt a little bit like Shantaram on his first tour of Bombay. But reality struck hard moments later. There was a big bump on the road ahead. The equilibrium of the vehicle, precariously tipped towards the back already, gave way when the rickshaw attemted to negotiate the bump. There was a moment when I thought I was floating in mid-air, and a split-second later, the rickshaw went down on its backside, much like a tipsy elephant. And as I mentioned, my brother and I were perched on this backside, so the weight of the rickshaw, with mum and dad and the rickshaw wallah still on it fell flat onto our (my brother's and mine) stomachs, which, thankfully, acted rather like shock absorbers. I hit my shoulder on a rock and bruised the back of my thigh. I didn't really see what happened above, but Dad told me later that Mum and he jumped out, and Mum ran towards us screaming 'Mere bacche! Mere bacche!' The poor rickshaw-wallah was a good six feet above the ground pressing down on the pedals trying to level the vehicle. It was quite a spectacle. Bystanders came to help us, suppressing their laughs, commenting on our indecision of opting to travel four in a rickshaw. We thanked them and told them we were okay, paid off the rickshaw-wallah and now with the wisdom of hindsight, decided to walk the rest of the way, as the market was not very far.
After and hour of uneventful shopping, we set off to find Paraanthe waali galli. Basing our route on directins given by shopkeepers en route, each of whom insisted 'bas aage hi hai, do minute," we plodded on for about half an hour and finally, four shaken, famished people reached a veritable oasis in the sweltering desert that Chandni Chowk was. There were several paraantha joints in the galli, but one of them came with strong reccomendations, and luckily as we entered, four people were just leaving. We sat down to our collective relief, and had a long draught of water each and slowly glanced toward the menu.
It was a huge of assortment of paraanthas made out of anything you can imagine- from kela to karela. We ordered the Mewa, Kaju, Paneer, Rabri, Khurchan, Paapad and Matar paraanthas and a lassi each to go with them. They took some time to bring our food, and I got time to look around. It was a very small place, seated about thirty cramped people. The witers jostled their way through the diners to serve paraanthas that were made outside the place in tens and hundreds. A certificate hanging on the wall indicated that the little establishment was over a hundred years old. A few photographs of the owner of the place with various dignitaries like a few MPs and MLAs were hung in places, although I suspect that the one with the Prime Minister is fake.
Anyhow, lunch was served in ten minutes and we fell upon it and ate it in earnest, and very few words were exchanged. It was totally worth the money, which wasn't much by any standards. We finished it off in ten minutes, paid the bill and walked to the Chandni Chowk metro station, which wasn't far away (we got off at Chawri bazaar earlier, which is the stop before Chandni Chowk). The metro ride to the car and the drive home were refreshingly uneventful, and the long sleep afterward felt extremely well deserved.
I woke up a few hours later with a sore shoulder and a bruised thigh. I had visited 'asli' Delhi and lived to tell the tale.

Help! Again

2008-06-28T11:27:00.000-07:00

I ask for you help. Again.
You may have checked out the song sample I composed and uploaded earlier this month. Well that one's almost done. A few final finishing touches and it'll be a free mp3 download:D.
But in the meantime, I was also working on another song. It was originially meant to be a grand ballad, for a fallen hero or something, but now I don't really know. I just can't get the lyrics to gel properly with the music. So I've uploaded just the instrumental, karaoke, if you may. It'll give you a general idea of the rhythm of the song, so that you can help me with the lyrics. Complete lyrics, incomplete lyrics, ideas, praise, criticism, advice, everything is very welcome. Click on the link below:

newsong2full.wav

Here's your chance to get your name up as a lyricist if I ever become a major star :D...

Some Seinfeld?

2008-06-27T05:47:00.000-07:00

Cutting straight to the chase, I watched Seasons 1 to 7 of Seinfeld in the past week, apart from all the Euro matches. I'm rooting for Spain because Fernando Torres plays for Spain. I like Torres because he plays for Liverpool. I like Liverpool because Manchester Untited hates Liverpool. And I hate Manchester United because, well, I don't really know. I faintly recollect that years ago, my brother and I would play FIFA 98 multiplayer, and I'd choose Man U, and lose most of the time. Then I started playing with Liverpool, and what do you know? One win after another.
And I love Seinfeld. I don't love Jerry Seinfeld, like I don't love any other men, I just love the show. That's why I watched seven seasons in seven days. And that's with a day of rest in between. I watched two seasons yesterday. And like you might have guessed, I have them all on DVD, well all save one or two episodes, which I have already watched on Star World. How I came into ownership of such a veritable treasure is a long story. One of my friends, who lives in IIT Kharagpur, incidentally, brought what he claimed to be all of Seinfeld, in high quality video back to college after the second semester break. Unfortunately, the idiot didn't know how to use DC++ and seasons 1,5,7,8,9 were .dctmp files, partially downloaded, that is. So that left me with seasons 2 to 4, thankfully in high quality video.
Now I was desperate for high quality video, that is 170 odd mb to an episode, as almost everyone already had the low qualtity 30 mb episodes, in which Kramer and Seinfeld look the same, and George is distinguishable because of the baldness. So I searched for high quality videos for a full semester, in vain. I came home dejected, and what do you know, an old friend of mine had them all, well except the final season. I could download it, but I already exceeded my download limit here and torrents are banned in college. And I'm sick of using limewire to download episodes one by one. And I'm sick of sitting in the library all day.
So this is an appeal. If anyone has, or knows someone who has season 9 of Seinfeld in high qualtity, please burn it on a couple of DVDs and send it to me. If you live in Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Chennai, Trichy or Trivandrum, burn the DVDs and stay where you are, I'll come and get it.
Please!

An Excerpt from Hardy Potter's diaries

2008-06-19T03:45:00.000-07:00

(Hardy's adventures so far- episode 1, episode 2, episode 3)

So here we are, Trichy, India. I had a rough time in the bus to NIT, and somehow, I feel that it's going to get more hostile. Nancy is drpping with sweat, and that's washed away all her makeup. She looks like Emma Watson now, yeuch.

Anyhu, we entered the gates together, only to be stopped by a strange khakhi clad man with a huge potbelly and a bigger moustache. He looks at us and asks, "Thambi, which year? Which state? Which hostel?"

I looked at Nancy, alarmed. She nodded assuredly at me and started speaking, "Sir, the year is 2008, we're from California, and we don't live here. We just came to investigate the possible extinction of humankind." She gave him one of her 'thankyou' smiles.

The man did not understand a word. He just stood there and looked at us. More at Nancy than me. I was considering punching the guy in the face and running, when someone behind me spoke.

"Is there a problem?"

It was a tall guy sporting a t-shirt that had weird figures on it and a caption which said "Something, somewhere went terribly wrong". He seemed to be our age.

"Yeah! This guy won't let us in. He doesn't understand what we're saying," I said.

"I'll speak to him," he replied, and turning to the weird man, he said something in the same loud, nasal dialect that we had heard so much ever since we reached here.

"He says ok. Let's go."

"Thanks!" said Nancy.

"You're welcome!" he said, blushing slightly. What is it with Indian men and blond chicks?

"Let's catch an ice cream while we talk, shall we?" he suggested.

"Sure," I said.

So he led us about a kilometre into the wasteland, where a group of shabby shops had sprung up, not unlike an oasis. There was an ice cream place there, and I was amazed at how they got a huge bull to guard it. But then I remembered, hey, these buggers worship them. Probably returning the favour. We walked in and sat down.

"You guys didn't introduce yourselves, I'm Siddharth Mahesh, but my friends call me Mapute, or just Mapu."

We mumbled introductions, but I was curious about his nickname, and I asked him.

"Oh! It's a long story. But it has a nice tribal zing to it, doesn't it? Anyway, let's order."

We walked up to the counter and saw the menu. Very imaginative spelling. They somehow seemed to convey that they were special, not like any other ordinary ice cream place.

So we had our ice creams, and Mapute paid for us, despite my protests.

"Hey," he said, "I'm an NRI! Let me do my job!"

I didn't know if that was National Resources Institute or Negative Refractive Index, but neither seemed to make sense. I didn't enquire.

...to be continued.

Potter and Carpenter, and the Mystery of Mysteries-Episode 3

2008-06-15T20:11:00.000-07:00

Click for episode 1, episode 2.

Our teen super sleuths now landed in the strange faraway land of Trichy in their two seater supersonic jet. Potter opened the door, and the two spoke simultaneously,

"What heat, we'll get fried!"

"What stench, we'll probably die!"

And so started their sojourn in Trichy.

Now they had picked a random spot to land their aircraft, which turned out to be near the central bus stand at Trichy. They got out of the plane, an noticed a huge congregation of people of all shapes, sizes, colours and ages staring at them and speaking with each other in a loud voice in what seemed to be an almost completely nasal dialect. Bewildered, they walked towards the first person they saw, a short, stout man clad in an bright orange shirt and a very long waistcloth with a flowery pattern printed on it.

"How can we get to NIT, Trichy?", asked Carpenter.

The man looked at her, with a dumbfounded expression, screamed out "Enna, enna ithu? Paithyam, paithyam!" and ran away.

Two more people they talked to reacted in a similar fashion, so they gave it up. But as luck would have it, they spotted a bus with NIT written on it, numbered 128.

"Hey!", said Potter, "Let's get on than one!"

"Ooh! What an awesome sixth sense you have!"

"Awww, it was nothing!"

Everyone in the bus stand had to close their eyes for a while- two buses collided with each other and two hundred people were badly injured. The government was blamed, and a movie star, affectionately called 'chinna thala(small head)' by the people rose to power.

"Let's get going then,"said Potter.

There wasn't place to sit, even to place their feet properly, and they struggled for half an hour. Finally, a woman did get down, and Potter jumped and grabbed the seat. His muscles were only relaxing when he saw everyone in the bus staring at him suspiciously. The conversation of two men standing nearby, translated to English, is as follows:

"The nerve of that guy, sitting next to a woman in public transport."

"Yeah man. Who does that? Don't they know that only married couples are allowed to sit next to each other?"

"Of course! That's how we have kids right?"

"Of course man! Who'll pay for the Doctor now? And of course he'll have to marry her."

"Of course, that's the decent thing."

Now, the conductor was yelling "REC, REC, NIT!!"

"I think we get off here," said Carpenter.

"Oh! Ok then." Potter smiled and nodded to the woman next to him. She looked at him, terrified. Bewildered, Potter got out of the bus with Carpenter.

The two men who were conversing earlier broke into an angry dialogue:

"Man, we have to report him to the police!"

"Right! The guy took advantage of an innocent woman and abandoned her!"

The bus sped off, and Potter and Carpenter were stood before the gates of NIT, Trichy, unsure of what dangers would come their way inside.

Will the heroes find Lord Nag inside? Or will this journey be nothing more than a wild goose chase? Find out on the next episode of Potter and Carpenter, and the Mystery of Mysteries!

Eyes wide open

2008-06-14T08:43:00.000-07:00

Today has opened my eyes to many things.

It's extremely hot at one in the afternoon in Delhi.
A Maruti Zen is an extremely stubborn car.
It is very difficult to push a stubborn car almost two kilometres in aforementioned heat.
There are nice people left in the world.

As you might've guessed, our Zen broke down about two kilometres from home at one in the afternoon. If a Delhiite's reading, it broke down near the embassy of Qatar and we live in SP Marg (near the Taj Palace, incidentally). Since it was too close to home to abandon it there and too far away from a garage to call for help, in a moment of madness, we decided to push it as far as we could.

So began the first effort. We went probably 700 metres, looking into each passing automobile with pleading eyes, but to no avail. The next stretch was a climb up and we were bracing ourselves for a heculean effort when my eyes were opened.

A man in a scooter appeared out of nowhere and offered to help us. So there it was, my dad steering the car, the guy in the scooter riding behind us with a foot pushing the car forward and me trying to keep up with them on foot. I gave up the chase after a while, opting to walk home, rather than amusing passers by with my catching up act.

So I had to cover about a kilometre and a half on foot, in the sweltering heat. I consoled myself- hey it's better than pushing a car the same distance. Still, it was demanding work, and in seconds I was dripping with sweat. And then my eyes were reopened.

Out of nowhere came two men with plastic tumblers and buckets of cool sherbet. They walked straight towards me. One handed me a tumbler and the other poured sherbet into it.

My initial impulse was to tell them that I had no money (it was all in the car). But as though they understood my expression, one of them said.

"Pi lijiye bhaiya, garmi mein aa rahe ho."(Drink up, brother, you've been walking in the heat.)

"Thankyou ji," I said and gratefully drank up what was offered.

"Thoda aur piyenge aap?"(Will you drink some more?)

"Nahi Bhaiya, Thank you."

And I walked away, homewards, with my eyes opened twice by complete strangers, who, on first sight, we would have dismissed as inconsequential, even petty. I know I would've, and I've been proved wrong.

Thank God for the good people left on earth. But for them, I might've been too weak to type.

Ironically, I don't even know their names.

Rating please!

2008-06-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

Hello good people! I recorded a song of sorts- at least a sample. Please have a quick listen and rate it! Click the link below. Let me know if I can improve it. The audio quality's a little bad, recorded using my comp's internal mic. You may have to turn up the volume a bit. (For those who want to know, I used audacity and the recording is in 5 channels).

newsong.wav

Potter and Carpenter, and the Mystery of Mysteries- Episode Two

2008-06-12T09:49:00.000-07:00

If you missed episode 1, click here.

"So, what do we do now?", asked Potter.

"It's time to open the box", was Carpenter's reply.

"No! Not the box!"

"Yes! He would've saved it for such a calamity."

Now, as we saw in the last episode, their mentor, Dr. Bumblewindow had died. He had left them a strongbox, which said, as usual, "Do not open!"

"If you say so. Don't say I didn't warn you."

Cautiously, they approached the box. It was a large wooden crate with no latch, secured by rope tied around it.

"Well go ahead, open it, what are you waiting for?", asked Potter.

"Duh! I'm a lady. You open it!"

"Duh! You're my sidekick and you do what you're told, now open it."

"I help his solve mysteries and this is what I get. I'll start my own agency after this."

"Bullcrap. You can't live without me."

Crackle.... Reception lost for a while

"Ok. where were we? Ah, yes the box. Open it."

Carpenter undid the knot and opened the box. They found nothing but a single envelope inside.

"That's strange. Such a big box for just an envelope?", asked a puzzled Carpenter.

"Where are your sleuthing brains? The larger the box, the tougher it is to steal. So whatever's inside must be really valuable."

"You're so clever!"

Crackle... crackle...

"All righty then. Oops, almost forgot about the envelope. Wonder what's inside..."

"I'll take out my trusty letter open from my trusty kitbag."

"And kids," said Potter, staring at the camera, "that's why you should have a super hot sidekick with a trusty kitbag!"

Carpenter tore open the envelope and exracted a single A4 sized paper out of it. She read it once, and then, bewildered, passed it to Potter.

Potter stared at the paper with furrowed eyebrows. "What could this possibly mean?".

It was Carpenter's turn to explain a few things now. "I draw the following conclusions from this:

It is clearly originally from a computer lab, where people where asked to keep quiet.
The appaling grammar and the use of the rupee currency clearly proves that the author is from India, and most probably from the state of Tamil Nadu.
And of course it is in a college, which can be inferred from the statement "trouble maker account will be disabled and fine Rs.500".
Now, there are only two colleges in Tamil Nadu where the notices are printed in english, or at least they call it that.
We can safely rule out the first one as there are only geeks and freaks there. So that narrows it down to one college in Tamil Nadu, India- NIT, Trichy.
So we have to head to NIT, Trichy to locate Lord Nag."

"You never fail to amaze me!", said Potter.

Crackle... crackle...

So what do our super sleuths find lurking in the wasteland of Trichy? Will they find Lord Nag or is this all a big joke? Find out on the next episode of Potter and Carpenter, and the Mystery of Mysteries!

????????????

2008-06-11T11:07:00.000-07:00

The lines you see below are the lyrics to Porcupine Tree's song called 'Nine Cats' from the album 'Insignificance'. Prizes for paraphrases. And ooh, a bonus video at the end.

The butterfly sailed on the breeze,
Past a field of barbed wire trees,
Where golden dragons chased around,
Pampered poppies on the ground.
Two silver trout sat way on high,
And watched a royal samurai,
Plant two black orchids in a box ,
And strap it to a laughing fox.
A minstrel bought a crooked spoon
He gave it to a blue baboon,
Who filled it full of virgin snow
And watched it in the afterglow.
Fat toad stood in his ballet shoes,
Teaching sixteen kangaroos,
How to skip across a lake.
They found it hard to stay awake.
A pharaoh played a merry tune
And watched nine cats dance on the moon.
I didn't know what all this meant,
I didn't know why I'd been sent.
I threw 5 clocks down on my bed,
The chimes danced out on golden threads
And turned to footprints on my wall
Sequined tears began to fall.

Caught on tape...

2008-06-10T08:09:00.000-07:00

The first videos I made with my new guitar. Not very good, but not very bad either. I'll be posting more soon, so watch out!

Arbit

2008-06-09T11:04:00.000-07:00

Little Kenny thinks a penny
Is too steep for these lines.
I tell him sonny, don't be funny,
Or I'll stop being nice.
"You're really bad, I'll tell my dad!",
The imp, he says to me.
"Run home and tell, I'll show him hell!",
I yell defiantly.
So the yellow laddie gets his daddy
To throw a punch or two.
But the stupid git just couldn't hit,
He didn't have a clue.
One punch I threw, it went straight through,
And hit his solar plexus.
He fell to the ground, victory I'd found.
Then I went home in the next bus.

P.S. And hey, check out the cool Simpsonmaker widget right at the bottom of the page, and also the wordfinder widget. Nice huh?

I, Ibanez!

2008-06-07T11:28:00.000-07:00

Whoa!

I can hardly say anything else. I now own an Ibanez V72E acoustic guitar. You'll probably see it splashed all over my orkut account, and I've even made it my gtalk custom message, but the fact remains that I now own an Ibanez, which is light years above the Givson 150 that I used to play on. It cost me INR 8650 for the guitar plus the works- gigbag, capo, strap and an extra set of authentic D'Addario bronze strings. A fortune, I agree. But I'm not complaining.

About this particular guitar, it has a spruce top, mahogany back, sides and neck, and a rosewood fretboard. It comes with a handy on board tuner.

And I've found out that a list of famous Ibanez users include:

Michael Einziger of Incubus
Gareth Davies of Funeral for a Friend
Brad Walst and Barry Stock of Three Days Grace
Terry Balsamo of Evanescence
Chris Broderick of Megadeath
Brad Delson and Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park
Mike Deowolf and Steve Richards of Taproot
Ed Faris of Adema
Tom Fischer of Celtic Frost
Martin Hagstrom of Meshuggah
Dexter Holland, Greg K and Noodles of The Offspring
Steve Holt and Mike Whitney of 36 Crazyfists
Sean Kipe of Course of Nature
Munky and Fieldy of Korn
Mike Mushok of Staind
Josh Rand and Corey Taylor of Stonesour
Matt Roberts of Three Doors Down
Mike Thomson and Paul Gray of Slipknot
Dave Weiner, and Steve Vai himself!
David Williams, with Michael Jackson
and a lot more.

Here's hoping that some day, someone buys an ibanez and makes a list like this and it has my name on it, cheerio!

Potter and Carpenter, and the Mystery of mysteries!- Episode 1

2008-06-06T11:56:00.000-07:00

"Guitar string.... number 5.... Karuna Musicians... world... end... die... aaaaargh...." were Dr. Bumblewindow's final words.

Teen super sleuth Hardy Potter and his faithful sidekick Nancy Carpenter stood by him and watched him die. It was a painful moment for both of them. Dr. Bumblewindow was like a father to them. Like all other fictitious teen heroes, Potter and Carpenter were orphaned at the age of two, when their parents were dismembered and disemboweled right before their eyes by the evil villain Lord Nag. Bumblewindow took under his wing and nursed them. He watched them grow from toddlers to brave, adventurous teenage sex symbols, with considerable pride.

But now, our teen heroes did not have time to mourn their saviour's passing. They had to save the world from Lord Nag's evil scheme. And Bumblewindow's cryptic clues didn't make sense either, until Nancy suggested, "Hey Hardy, I have Karuna Guitar String Number five in my trusty kitbag!"

"Excellent!", replies Potter, and adds, staring into the camera, "And kids, that's why you need a super hot sidekick with a trusty kitbag."

Carpenter turns pink and gives Potter a loving punch. (The rest of this scene is cut out in theatres, for the general public, but can be caught on youtube, at least till before they remove it, or on rapidshare.)

Our exhausted young detectives now try to fathom the Doctor's clue. "Hmm... I wonder... aaah!", says Potter.

"Are you onto something?", enquires Carpenter.

"Not yet, but maybe looking up 'immitation' in Sleuthing For Dummies may help."

"Good idea. You're so clever!" (try Youtube or Rapidshare again.)

The next morning, Potter is at the breakfast table with his newspaper and his cereal, and Carpenter makes her entry.

"I just borrowed Sleuthing for Dummies from Holmes and Watson next door", she said.

"Such a cute couple they make, don't they?"

"Yeah. And they're strangely indifferent towards Brokeback Mountain."

"I know. Watson says it doesn't have enough... umm... passion. He pored through Youtube for weeks, and then through innumerable blogs searching for rapidshare links, but couldn't find one, you see, for the missing links."

"Oh... I see. But hey, look up that word now."

"Oh yes, the word... hmmm, aaah! Here it is."

Immitation- from "imminent" and "castration", meaning imminent castration. Will lead to the destruction of male population, ergo eventual extinction of humankind.

"Oh no!", cried Potter. "We're done for this time. Nag will destroy us!"

Carpenter, however, had a determined expression on her face. "Not yet, Hardy. Not while we're there to ruin his plans of world conquest."

Will Lord Nag succeed in immitating the world? Or will our superheroes be able to, once again, foil his evil scheme? Find out on the next episode of "Potter and Carpenter, and the Mystery of mysteries!"

Help!

2008-05-30T23:11:00.000-07:00

Please, please, someone give me an internet connection!
My long hiatus should not be mistaken for laziness. In fact, I churned up enough material in my head to fill pages, but alas, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited has reduced the creativity in the universe, and doesn't even bother to make an excuse.
My family shifted to a new bigger home (incidentally, next to the taj palace hotel). Everything's fine- bigger rooms, cooler, and of course, ipl keeps me occupied, as does the heap of dvds that i burnt back at college. But my life, and everyone else's, is incomplete without a net connection.
So we wrote to MTNL to shift the line to our new address. They called up one fine morning and told us that it's up and running. All happy and smiling, I switched on the comp, waited for the green light to blink and then stabilise, but nothing- no green light. Switch off-switch on... nothing.
So I registered a complaint at their automated complaint centre. A guy came, switched on the comp, refreshed the desktop a few times, deleted all the temp files and said that the problem's in the phone line.
So I registered another complaint-this time about the phone line. Another guy came the next day, dialled a few numbers on the phone and told me he'll be right back. I never saw him again.
I registered another complaint two days later- amazingly the whole process was repeated.
How in the name of hell does MTNL have customers?
We are switching to airtel. They have a nice little Rs 599 scheme- unlimited download, and although the max speed's only 256 kbps, that's still a lot of downloads.
My suggestion, request rather, to anyone who still has an MTNL connection is- please, don't let this happen to you!
My next post will be from an airtel connection. I hope they pay me something for all this publicity!

Kodaikanal: A Photographic Expedition!

2008-04-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

We started out on one hot sweaty evening, with high hopes of rest and relaxation at beautiful Kodaikanal. And what you see on your left was our means of transportation. I have heard of Air Buses and stuff, but this definitely was a first.

The journey was bumpy. The bus was small and cramped, it just about held 47 of us. But the ride wasn't as bumpy as my friend's nose to your right.

We were all very tired and some of us were not used to the altitude. Like my friend here.
We finally reached Kodaikanal at about seven in the morning. We stayed at "RJasmine Gust House". Surprisingly, it wasn't really windy!

We rested a while and got ready to see the sights, and as the Kodai tourism people put it, the "Seeneries". Come to think of it, it was my second time in kodai, and i had already "seen" most of the stuff there...

And we went to the following places, among others:
1. Pillar (or is it "Piller") Rock.
2. Suicide Point: Here, we were requested to "Put the waistes in the dustpin" and avoid smoking to "save the forest fire"!

The other places we visited were not as eventful so we returned to the gust house. We played rummy and bluff until after midnight and went to sleep. The next day we boated and then returned to college in our spare bus. I could not find any more images to reminisce the trip with, but it was one awesome experience. And the rest of us couldn't agree more...

Leave it all Behind

2008-04-21T08:31:00.000-07:00

I am asleep today,
But dawn is on its way.
Peace, I hope to find,
And leave it all behind.

The Sun burns my swollen eyes.
My tired mind he spies.
He sees nought but reposing calm
Curled up in puerile charm.

The Wind stirs my burning skin
To kill the trance that I am in.
But I keep my eyes shut tight,
And leave it all behind.

I leave it all behind.
Peace, I hope to find.
She sings me a dirge tonight.
I leave it all behind.

Phanerothyme

2008-04-20T10:35:00.000-07:00

I dreamed last night that the world was lost,
Fires burning, and me and Faust
Left this earth to find a land
As pure and fresh as Gaea's hand.

We learned to fly and flew up high,
Out of the reach of beholding eyes.
We flew faster than any spaceship sailed,
Yet slower than a crawling snail.

We journeyed on across the expanse,
And before our eyes the stars would dance.
We stopped for a while and I glanced down.
I saw a crazy diamond shining on.

Its light was too bright for my mortal vision,
So Faust sailed without me into the horizon.
My wings, like Icarus, were brittle, were weak,
And I fell into depths that none dare to seek.

And in the darkness I lay like a ghost,
Craving and pining for what I desired the most.
To make this trivial world sublime,
Just half a gram of Phanerothyme.

(This is dedicated to all my high-getting friends. I hope my description was not too naive. And FYI the las two lines are Aldous Huxley's.)

Well here we are...

2008-01-28T09:46:00.000-08:00

Where am I? What is this place? Why are all these people here? How do they live their entire lives in this God-forsaken hellhole? Are they superhuman? The next step in human evolution? Or are their olfactory nerves severed when they are born? How else can they bear the unbearable Trichy odour? And how do they live right in the center of the same mind-numbing stench? So many questions, so little answers...
These and other thoughts ran through my mind as I sat on a bus to Chatram bus stand. I was going to buy textbooks. A harmless expedition. I tried to guess where we were by the stench outside. Thiruverumbur has sort of the smell of a thousand people who have never seen a deo in their lives, a very strong BO. As you go further, the stench changes to resemble a hundred year old compost pit in a state of pure putrefaction, highly toxic, hell, captain planet would've given up. And when this stench ends, you know you've reached the bus stand. And oh, yes, the bus stand. You would think that people forgot to build toilets in their houses- nature calls all of them to the bus stand, and they leave their offerings to mother earth in a puddle that could've made Noah anxious.
Oh, and where were we? Yes, I'm on the bus, when a couple of women board carrying four huge bags filled with vegetables and the like. They walk straight at me and hand me one bag and say something in rapid tamil. I nodded and smiled and held on to the bag. A few moments later:

Woman 1: "mani enna thambi?"(what's the time, little brother?)
me: "Six Forty Five."
Woman one: "enna six fofofof vaaa? enna thambi? ha ha haaa..."
Woman 2: "ha ha ha...."
Man in the seat behind me: "ha ha ha..."
Man in the seat in front of me: "ha ha ha..."
Conductor: "ha ha ha..."

In short, practically the whole bus went mad with laughter when I told the woman the time.
Well, I am not trying, now, to give an explanation for this, this phenomenon. I just thought it would be good that all of you know now that when asked the time on a bus in Trichy, just smile and nod. And if you have an explanation, email it to me at kc.hcyke@gmail.com.
Hell, where am I?

Ooh la la la la ley oh!

2008-01-06T21:11:00.000-08:00

Ah... those legs!
Spick and span red uniforms that end six inches above the knees, a fake smile that stretches from ear to ear, an even faker accent, coloured hair, weird hairdos, an overdose of mascara and so on and so on... but what catches the eye are the long, bare, real life advertisement for hair removers. Man... those legs!
Yes, I confess. I was ecstatic when I knew I was flying Kingfisher. But it was really refreshing to see that the feeling was reciprocated. "Good morning sir, thank you for flying Kingfisher!." I didn't reply. How could the legs talk?
Yes, I confess. I swelled up with schoolboy pride, almost blushed, when another pair of legs asked me, "Will it be fresh lime or orange for you, sir?." I don't remember what I drank, but I remember those strawberry legs...
Yes, I confess. I waited intently for the for the legs to wave their hands around to show me how to save myself if I was drowning. But the bloody killjoys showed it on the little tv screen in front of each seat. There of course, the focus was elsewhere, so I had to strain my neck to look a live pair serving juice to someone.
Yes, I confess. I asked for extra coffee to see them again. Then I asked for extra mint. Then I asked for tissues. Then I ran out of things to ask for, so I just smiled. I think they turned a little red for me...
And then, it was time to bid farewell. "Thank you sir, and wish you a pleasant stay in Chennai!." I was too depressed to reply. I was leaving them. The piece-de-resistance of Kingfisher Airlines, lost to me forever... for this sem, at least.
Yes, I confess. I will save money this sem for a reunion. My dearest pairs of Beauty herself, I hark to thy bidding. We will meet again...

Disillusioned resolution...

2008-01-01T05:11:00.000-08:00

It's 2008 finally. I had been given a clear heads up about the coming ocassion by the constant chiming of my cellphone, about a dozen e-cards, a couple of refreshing, actually personal, e-mails, and of course a scrap from each orkut contact which said "click to send scrap to entire friends list" in big, bold letters and "wish you a happy and prosperous new year" in tiny, undecipherable hieroglyphics.
I spent a major amount of the festive week from christmas to new year under two, sometimes three blankets as Delhi temperature hit the lowest recorded in the last six years. I would get up once in three or four hours to eat and charge my laptop before I would curl up again. So, all in all, the whole week was was pretty uneventful. I passed my time playing NBAlive, listening to music and watching tv.
And thank god for good tv. Typically, I would wake up at 7:30 am (pretty early, huh?) and switch on the tv. My day would start with 'Rodney' and 'Hope and Faith' on Star world. Though these can never hope to achieve the success of Seinfeld or Friends, they're pretty good to just pass time. Later, I'd watch EPL highlights on ESPN, followed by certain other stuff, followed by certain other stuff...
About six or seven hours of tv, and I'm worn out. I switch on the computer and browse through arbit stuff. Listen to the radio, watch some videos, and so on and so on.
But the highlight of the whole week was the 31st of December. I went to watch 'Taare Zameen Par" with my family. Though the journey was chilling, the theatre was warm and the movie was excellent. A thorough recommendation. We had a new year's eve feast of shawarma, chicken legs, chilly paneer and lots of chocolate ice cream. I skipped the booze:P
And because of the totally shitty stuf they were showing on tv on new year's eve, I slept off at the stroke of midnight.
So ended 2007.
I sign off now, hoping that 2008 would be a renaissance for all the lackadaisical, shabby, overweight(only slightly:D) people like me, so that we wake up into a year of determination, spirtit and constant hard work.
Hah! January fool!!!

Hey... who's this?

2007-12-23T05:04:00.000-08:00

The guy who is playing the guitar so wonderfully in the video above, who is he? Is he Michael Scofield, a bald Liam Gallagher, perhap's a musical Ronaldo? Guess again folks. Yours truly can also play, as you might have inferred from the videos in the sidebar (although that's only fooling around). And yours truly has also shaved his head.
Well, I think I'll post more videos of me playing the guitar. It may seem a touch Narcissistic, but, hey, I'm allowed that much of vanity.
Feel free to request any song you like. Maybe this blog can become a jukebox of sorts:-)(if i can't play the song, I'll post a video from YouTube in consolation;D).

Another Postcard

2007-12-23T02:32:00.000-08:00

Well, talk about awesome, hilarious songs. I was listening to LastFM, don't remember the station, but suddenly, this song is played. Some lyrics, man! And with complicated strumming, the song becomes a masterpiece. Barenaked Ladies are, like the name suggests, awesome. Watch on....

The tape's not so red any more...

2007-12-15T07:09:00.000-08:00

Well, we all blame the tight red tape wound around any government office, but I had it untied at some places to get my learners’ license made today.
The guy I know, or rather my mum does, came beaming towards me as soon as I got to the place. He took care of all the discrepancies in my application form, and gave me a few dry runs at the ‘test’ you have to take to get the license. After doing it about three times, the questions started repeating themselves; in seven tries I told him that I was ready for the real thing.
Two minutes and a whopping Rs410 later, I had my license. But 400 bucks is a lot. Inflation, they say these days. What the hell are the economists and politicians and stuff doing? We engineers are doing our jobs pretty well. At least, I am. Or at least I think I am after starting that project. Hell I feel proud of myself. I found a path. It is, I admit, long and winding, but a road is a road.
This has never happened to me before. I mean I never wrote arbit stuff like this. Maybe I’m catching the blogging fever. Or whatever the hell they call it. It’s sort of addictive. But hey, I can brag about being an addict now and make that an excuse to stay shabby. ‘Cos baby, shabby is the way to be… uh huh…

When in train do as train-people do...

2007-12-14T19:51:00.000-08:00

Let’s get the facts right, here. I’m sitting in a train bound to Trivandrum. I boarded at Trichy. Seat number 4 in compartment B1. I get into the train. Reach my seat. And a minute later a lady arrives with two kids. They have a huge, huge suitcase. They smile at me, a very sly smile. Very funny creatures, human beings. A smile can mean so many things. I can think of a few right now:
The Genuinely amused smile.
The Sympathising-at-a-weak-joke smile.
The wicked smile.
The Understanding-nod-of-the-head smile.
The Pleased-to-meet-you-not-really-smile.
The hi-I-could-use-some-help-here-smile.
The I-don’t-understand-but-can’t-look stupid-smile.
The… well that’s all I can think of right now.
Where was I? Yes, the lady gave me a sly smile. It was category 6. Glorious Indian tradition left me duty bound to help those who seek my help. And good natured at heart, I naturally oblige. Unfortunately the suitcase wouldn’t fit under the seat, and it had to stand where in natural conditions someone would place their legs. And ironically, that someone turned out to be me. So it was settled. I would have to have a suitcase testing me for knee jerk reflex each time the train jolted. At least they’d get off at Madurai, a three hour journey.
So I resigned myself to ‘The Godfather’.
Amerigo Bonasera’s daughter was beaten to pulp when,

Lady: “Thambi, per enna?” (What’s your name?)
Me: “er… Krishna, but sorry, tamil theriyadu” (er… Krishna, but sorry, I don’t speak
Tamil)
Lady: “oh… ok.”

It’s Connie Corleone’s wedding, and her brother Sonny is checking out the bridesmaid, and suddenly,

Lady: “where… studying?”
Me: “REC, Trichy.”
Lady: “And where going?”
Me: “Trivandrum.”
Lady: “ok,ok…”

Luca Brasi is giving the Godfather his gift,

Lady: “we live in Singapore.”
Me: “oh, you came here for a holiday?”
Lady: “No, no. kids are having vacations, so we come.”
Me: (smile 4) “ok…”

So, many pages of brilliant description, powerful character sketches, intricate plot, inquisitive queries and monosyllabic replies later, Madurai arrived. Oh yes, and so did the smile 6 that I anticipated. I half pushed and half fell over the suitcase and got it to the door. They got off.

Lady: “Thank you so much.”
Me: “oh, you’re welcome, no problem.”
Lady: (to kids) “say thank you to anna.”
Kids: “Thank you anna.” (anna means elder brother).
Me: “You’re welcome.”

At last the train leaves. And I resign myself to my book again. It’s funny, though, that now they’ve left, I slowly lose interest in the book (no offence, Mr Puzo, you’re one heck of a man). I mean it’s no longer a challenge. The plot is progressing very smoothly, no breaks, no interruptions (by the way, the people who took their places were gems. Just gave me a smile 5 and kept to themselves), so strangely I lost the will to read. I gave up the fight after 220 pages and took out my laptop.

I observed that now the number of people staring at me increased by a factor of ten. Annas selling coffee paused to have a peek. Kids travelled from places as far as seat 59 to look at the modern wonder. Passers by stopped to look. Some even smiled. The guy in the bunk above is, as I type, sticking his head out and oscillating his frame of vision between the laptop and my guitar.

I’m feeling very insecure now, with all this staring.
Have-to-stop-turn off-laptop…

But first, think about this. If I were in some place other than Tamil Nadu or other rural regions of our beautiful country, I would still be typing away at leisure. Why is this?

Well, as someone very correctly put it, “We are like this only…”

An early sunrise, and one big download later...

2007-12-11T17:12:00.000-08:00

Time: 6:30 am.
Location: I-lab.

Feeling terribly bored. Waiting for a download to finish. Surprisingly, it's my first non-non-educational download, and I have to wake up at this unearthly hour for it. It is the latest edition of altera's nios II prcessor development tool. But, chuck, what do you know?

And as I sit alone here in the peace, solitude and stuffiness, I think about a lot of things.

Like finally going home today. Yup. That's right. twenty two friggin days I spent here, in this hole of a place, killing time watching friends and movies( some info withheld here, hey! It's my private life), writing abstract poetry (The extravagant adventures of a hopeless middle aged romantic- three episodes, Check out the previous posts), taking stupid tests(the previous post), and lying in bed and planning the future(not April first yet, but thought I'd try!).
And now I'm going home. Home to Delhi. Home to non-insect-infested food. Home to a soft mattress and fluffy pillows. Home to... well, all the good things in life.
But as I plan out the next twenty odd days- dividing my time equally between KFC, Dominoes and McDonalds, and, yes, my favourite kebab and tandoori place, Al-qusar or something it's called- I am overcome by a very strange feeling. In case you were wondering how the Oracle felt when Smith poked two fingers into her arm(and arm does not, I repeat does not mean anything else in Trichy slang) call me now. I feel very infinitesimally sorry to leave this place. There, I said it. Yes, yes, I know. Call me a wuss or something. I don't care. I'll miss here, so what?
I'll miss the stench in my room, the meticulously created mess on my table. I'll miss sitting up through the night playing WoW( after they banned the I-lab after hours, I activated GPRS...Hah), downloading shit at the I-lab for free, after the long wait for the rapidshare link to get activated, making fun of matkas, eating at bamboos and azeez every night, watching scores of movies just for the sake of it, getting fried in the tronics lab, hey, I take that back. I'll miss having a maa from the bru at two in the morning and waking up at two in the afternoon.
But most of all, I'll miss my friends. Yup. Go on. I am a wuss. But the fact is, I'll miss being with all these people, their Chandler-inspired punchlines, their equally stinky and messy rooms, their company in CS and WoW and their idiosyncrasies that make them who they are.

Well, i've told you all about my thoughts and feelings, and now my download is done. Hey thanks for keeping me company at this ungodly hour. Claim your reward on 6th January at 12:30 am, I'll be at Bru.

And fyi, I wasn't bluffing about the educational nature of this download, after all, okcupid says I'm a nerd...

Hello...Hello.. Testing please...Check...Check...

2007-12-11T03:40:00.001-08:00

I've been feeling quite depressed lately. And very agitated. I get provoked at the most trivial things.

I was browsing around aimlessly, when I found the link to a test on www.okcupid.com.

It's called the 'How you would commit murder test'.

I took it.

Turns out, you guys should stay away from me....

Here's the result:

You are a victim to your animal instincts. When you get angry, you lose control. If you were to murder someone, it would probably be after a heated confrontation. You'd get so furious that your only aim would be to cause the other person pain. And how would you do that? You'd reach out your arms and strangle them to death. Slow, painful and ugly.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 24% on Composure
You scored higher than 19% on Style
You scored higher than 10% on Intelligence

So, whaddaya say? Friends for life??:-p

And while I was at the testing thing.... I took one more....

The 'Who you would be in 1400' test...

Surprisingly... I'm the Cardinal... Result:

The Who Would You Be in 1400 AD Test

Your Score: The Cardinal

You scored 71% Cardinal, 30% Monk, 20% Lady, and 32% Knight!

You are the real power behind the throne. No one dares dispute or refuse you. Which is good because that's how you get things done. You are also, however, completely corrupt and highly immoral. This doesn't bother you in the least as you lounge around your rich comfortable surroundings, reveling in wealth and authority.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on Cardinal
You scored higher than 99% on Monk
You scored higher than 99% on Lady
You scored higher than 99% on Knight

You know you've been Trichy-fied when...

2007-12-11T02:42:00.000-08:00

1. You give a flower sporting, saree-clad specimen another look.

2. You concentrate hard on the conversation two fat guys in lungis are having in the seat behind you.

3. Your eyes search for a sambar-rasam-sadam combination on any menu card.

4. You experience the urge to communicate in a strange new language.(Research has shown that this is a unique combination of Tamil, English, Hindi, Malayalam and also Japanese. Research has also shown that NITT grads have inadvertently mastered the language).

5. You think 'da' means 'full-stop' daaa

6.You eat a 'pizza' at icy.

7. You listen to 'Nethu Rathiri' blaring out of 'Bose' Speakers in the local bus. And enjoy.

8. You travel to chennai more often than you take a bath.

9. Body parts other than your mouth and your eyes start watering after a sumtuous pongal-vada breakfast.

10.Your resume reads bovinology as an area of special interest.

11. you can name 25 types of chutneys. And tell with proper reasons which tastes best with dosas.

12. You think that the world is divided into 'annas' and 'akkas' with the ocassional 'thambi' in between.

13.You pulverize anyone who refers to 'ettukal poochi manidhan as spiderman.

14 All your friends are called GMC, BBC, VH1, VH2, DVD and WTC.

15. You think that Baskin Robbins is a living person.

-Perv and Ulti Khopdi.

The Extravagant Adventures of a Hopeless Middle Aged Romantic, The Finale:

2007-12-11T02:35:00.000-08:00

He came back down to earth, at last,

To get a little rest.

A long siesta, undisturbed,

For he'd lost all that zest.

He reposed like that for many an hour,

Neither good dream, nor bad.

In his mind life had lost all its meaning.

His needles were all that he had.

Syringes and needles and bottles and packets

Of stuff that dreams were made of.

Everyday injected right into his soul,

Sorrow and pain it would ward off.

All his adventures were dreams and fancies,

Each one a narcotic trick;

And that brings to an end the poignant tale of

The hopeless, middle aged romantic.

The Extravagant Adventures of a Hopeless Middle Aged Romantic, Episode 3:

2007-12-10T21:34:00.000-08:00

But as he walked away it seemed

The light was coming nearer.

Beads of sweat ran down his face,

The night was getting clearer.

Soon the fire touched his skin,

He waited for the pain.

But all he felt was a little pin-prick;

And then pleasure insane.

He was soaring in the starry sky,

Far, far away from earth.

He felt like he was one with heaven,

A new beginning, rebirth.

For hours and hours he flew like he had

Never known sorrow.

The end, dear friend, it has to wait

Until it is tomorrow.

The Extravagant Adventures of a Hopeless Middle aged Romantic, Episode 2:

2007-12-08T19:55:00.000-08:00

(Try reading between the lines, understand the symbolism.)

He walked and walked until he saw

A bright and shining light,

That lightened up the darkened path,

And painted up the night.

Then he saw a little bird perched

Upon a tall oak tree.

She sang a melancholy dirge,

And was sad as sad could be.

"Why do you weep, O little bird?",

He asked in sympathy.

"My son, he died, burned in the fire,

All alone he left me."

He walked away from the murderous light,

Afraid that he might die.

"What happens next", you ask of me,

"Patience, my friend!", say I.

The Extravagant Adventures of a hopeless middle aged romantic, Episode 1.

2007-12-01T05:30:00.000-08:00

"Ah! Sunrise, beatiful dawn!",
Said he as he awoke.
He brushed and bathed and broke his fast,
And then he solemnly spoke-

"Today is such a wonderful Day,
let me live life again,
Bask in the warmth of the morning sun,
Get drenched in the heavenly rain."

So dressed up in his holiday suit,
And sporting his holiday smile,
"My holiday boots are waiting",said he,
"And I'll walk many-a-mile!"

He walked on and on in light and dark,
Not stopping in his way.
The story hence, my dear friends,
I save for another day.

The Myth of the Elements.

2007-11-27T01:55:00.000-08:00

(The script for our department's prize winning show, 'Elements', at an inter department cultural fest in our college. Excuse us if some lines remind you of Galadriel.)

Prelude

The world has changed, I feel it in the water,I feel it in the earth, I smell it in the air.

Much that once was is lost for few live now who remember it. But the myth has lived through the ages, the myth of the elements.

God created the 4 elements-fire, water, wind, earth, and bestowed upon them the power to control the world, but only if they worked together, in harmony. Even man, with all his technological advancements, depends on the elements for his sustenance. For God knew, the creature man would try with his insatiable thirst, and talent for technology to take over these elements.

Everything God created, yin/yang, black/white, life/death, all were meant to have perfect crystal symmetry, perfect balance, sweet harmony.

That was the way it was, with the elements...

_________________

Harmony

Water

Man has, and always will, revere the purity and sanctity of sacred water, that has ebbed and flown along with civilization, forever keeping man afloat.

Wind

Fickle wind, now sweet and mellow, then gusty and powerful, and back again, but forever will remain a symbol of strength and power.

Earth

The circle of life of man begins from and ends with mother earth. We are born from it, and we shall die into it. Mother earth, ever a symbol of support and sustenance, caters to the needs of humankind.

Fire

Dancing flames, ever a symbol of warmth and protection, yet hiding unspeakable power, was, still is, and would be worshipped for generations.

_________________

Anomaly

It is but a dream that this harmony would exist forever. But as fate would have it, an anomaly presents itself to disturb this magical symmetry, in the form of a steadfast, but stubbornly misdirected soul. He takes it upon himself to bring the 4 elements under his control. He knew, it at all there was a way, the only way to do that was through vigorous penance.

_________________

Thou shalt bow to me

Slowly but surely, fire and water surrendered their powers to his irresistible will, for such was the power of his penance.

He was powerful by now, with the elements fire and water by his side.

But he was still thirsty, and it was a only a matter of time before earth and wind succumbed.

_________________

Ode to Destruction

Volcano

Blazing fire, igniting the skies,
The dormant beast awakened,
Burning, uprooting, leaving all,
In a wreath of fire emblazoned.

Earthquake

The earth beneath cleaved in half,
A wave of fear, a tremor,
Destruction, despair, no soul is spared,
From the wrath of this seismic terror.

Tsunami

From the depths of Poseidon's watery stronghold,
A spear of death was hurled,
Hissing, spitting, tidal fangs,
Sorrow on millions unfurled.

Tornado

Murderous monster, spitefully swirling,
A whirlwind of venomous vice,
Gripping, twisting, turning at will,
No stopping this devilish device.

Walk to their death?

Realizing their helplessness, the elements desperately try one by one to win back their lost freedom. But even the powerful elements had to bow down to his superior will. Try as they might the elements could do nothing to penetrate his black aura.

Fire..

Water..

Wind..

Earth.. they all fall..

The revolution (final fight)

And then there was a light in the sky, a sign from the heavens for the elements to unite and bring down the tyrant in one final fight for their forsaken freedoms.

The sound of a thunderbolt reverberated through the universe, the flash of lightning blinded all, and it was done. The mighty tormentor had fallen, drained of all his powers, he lay on the ground, from ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

A Few Figments of an Idle Mind with Communist Tendencies

2007-11-27T01:43:00.000-08:00

(What my friend and I cooked up for a creative writing contest at college... Believe it or not, we won!)

Scene: Medium sized padded cell with a television in the southwest corner, an aquarium in the northeast corner and a moving strait-jacket dead center.

Narrator: In this fickle, materialistic world plagued by unyielding capitalism rearing its unclipped talons on the helpless masses, who are disillusioned by plastic promises of freedom, truth, peace, perhaps love, held like a caged bird in a vice-like grip, there is a room.

Inside this room, is our protagonist whose emotions have bound him to the confines of his cellulose prison, and there is also a television.

Our hero (who we'll refer to henceforth as the Voice (Victim Of Intense Capitalistic Erosion)) has just arisen from sweet sub-conscious ignorance, to a whirlwind of cryptic emotions, trips and falls on the remote control and the television blares into life.

The Voice- What are these emotions I feel? From where doth these feelings spring?

Television- Thine emotions are thine own. Thou art only now realising them. Thou art nought more than a baby, filled with a plethora of emotions thou canst feel but not comprehend.

The Voice- Hark! I change the channel.

Channel -Tele switches to a scene when the voice is but an adolescent.

Scene: The voice, and his better half, seen facing the crimson sunset, the autumn leaves gently caressing the landscape, an air of serenity wrapping itself around the 2 souls, uniting them.

Narrator- The world that the voice finds himself today, wasn’t always so. There was a time when the birds would sing in the sky, and night sky would sparkle with the light of a million hopes, dreams. There was a time when the ‘voice’ was still heard.

Our hero remembers that he wasn’t always deprived of love, the strait jacket just made him forget.

Narrator: The Voice appears awoken from his pensive demeanor, with an air of self realization.

The voice: All this while the unending channel of emotions running through my mind doth deceive me, hast imprisoned me to my own prison. Now I realize I have imposed this strait jacket of sorrows, on my own consciousness . My freedom doth lie in my realization of this truth.

Narrator: At this moment, the stars shed new light on the Voice, removing the shackles that bound him to the skeletons in his cupboard. The strait jacket falls to the ground, and the Voice that once echoed through the valleys, rang in the hills again.

Another little something...

2007-09-24T04:22:00.000-07:00

Insomniac.

Heavy eyes, drooping shoulders, shabbily clad, I pass the morning hours like a ghost. Counting each hour as it passes by, I wait impatiently for the night, every minute hoping that tonight would be ‘the’ night that I finally realise that wondrous moment when I finally fall into the blissful state of complete relaxation and ignorance, of heavenly joy, of sleep.

I am an insomniac. Every night for as many as I can remember, I have been teetering on the edge of euphoric semi-consciousness only to be prematurely awakened from the dream by a cold sweat. Every night I squirm around in my bed trying to shake off the skeletons in my head, disturbing my peace. But before all this, this evil kaleidoscope of misery, there was a time, like the little ray of hope in Pandora’s Box, when I could rest, sleep when I was tired, and wake up when I was refreshed. Those days are long gone, but the light in them percolates through the dark cobwebs of my consciousness, showering a little joy and hope into an otherwise futile existence.

We all take sleep for granted. The clichéd “nights before the exams”, the inevitable nights wasted away trying to copy down the multitudes of pages of an assignment that helps “develop interest” in the subject, have all made humungous contributions towards making me and a lot of other people living dead that we are now. And the future does not hold a lot of promise for our lot.

There is absolutely no escaping it. Let’s face it, assignments have to be submitted, tests have to be written. We cannot revolt against the system, which many believe to be very sound. All we can do is wait for the messiah to come and sing an irresistible lullaby to us and put us to a long awaited and extremely well deserved repose.

Till then I remain a figment of Enrique Iglesias’s imagination. I remain an insomniac.

Losing my Festiginity

2007-09-24T04:19:00.000-07:00

(The cumulative effort of the lowly second years of Writers' Circle of NIT, Trichy. This may have been our big break!)

I wake up. I brush. I eat. I sleep. Then i go home during Festember. I was just some arbit frustoo who went to Bamboos once a month and had five square parathas and a PBM. But everything changed this time. The darn train reservation wasn't confirment and i was stuck here, just me and the other frustoos without rail reservations. Ofcourse, we found a better way to describe our position. We thought we're really smarter ones since staying here was rebelling against the fickle minded flock that flew north every winter, autmn rather. So we called ourselves the pirates. We went to Chatram to get eye patches but they'd run out of them, so we grew our hair long enough to cover our eyes. We rented an air conditioned old vessel where we took an oath of secrecy through the ip messenger and called ourselves the Writers Circle/ Media Team. And so I lost my Festiginity.

So here it was, Festember '07. Now you'd imagine what mood has been associated with that statement. Do i sound excited? Or nonchalant? Well i haven't the faintest idea, partly because i read last year's newsletter brought out by the WC. That's what this society (read: evil brotherhood) does to you, it takes all the fun out of life. Reading artciles like wake me after Festember ends' don't exactly gear you up for the Fest you're supposed to remember. Frankly speaking, this Festember wasn't very different from the image portrayed by those who had the courage to brave it to the last time around. Definitely, a few events like Power Cut and ChoreoNite were worth watching, but a large portion of the crowd was rather interested in the food stalls. So was I. When i was not devouring the pizzas, i was locked up in Cad lad preparing reports and articles for pirate radio.

I gained a lot, mind you. Three days of fun, frolic, festivity and Iced Eskimos. And it was fulfilling. Am i getting obsessed with the F? But in its varied meanings and diverse views, the F met the K, not one mind you, but two. And that really enthralled the enraptured audience. Yup, the memories of Festember will remain ingrained in my mind forever, or atleast as long as the flavors of the Triple Bar Sundae and the Cool Blue of CCD do. As i look back down the road of drifting memories, conflicting emotions and suppressed nausea, the vivid images of my screaming, red and grey coloured hair, my white painted face, the voices of the radio- jockey- from -Bangaluru- who- assures- that- radio- is no- match- for- TV (which ofcourse is no match to print), the magic of the creative fire lit by the arts exhibition, the lits events which got our rusting grey cells working, our never- quenching thirst for more and more of DT numbers, stays on. Phew! And thus i move on experiencing over and over again the epitome of joy, entwined in a swirl of creativity... and waiting for the next fest to arrive...

By- The Triumphant Perv with an Ulti Khopdi who has a Beautiful Mind that spurts Lava.

Now Walk the Walk…

2007-09-17T04:06:00.001-07:00

(A little something I wrote for the college magazine.)

“Dude, this sem I’m going to study regularly and become a nine pointer”, proclaims our hero, all of a sudden, on a warm night, up on the hostel roof. “What’s up with you, man? You aren’t even high! All of a sudden, this?” Our hero has a little smile on his lips and an enlightened illumination in his eyes. “No dude, I’m serious. I’m perfectly capable of getting even a ten if I study hard enough. Speaking of which, I’ve got to go and study for next week’s cycle tests now. Catch up later.”
Ten minutes later, the friend finds our hero in his room, all lights out except for a table lamp, Floyd playing out loud, asleep peacefully, dribbling all over his textbook. This classic ambience inspires the friend, and he suddenly walks out of the room as if struck by lightning, with a brilliant idea in his foggy, alcohol soaked brain.

Now the friend, our new hero, can strum a few chords on his guitar. So he goes to his room, grabs his guitar and sets off to find another of his friends who has a beautiful singing voice (self proclaimed, of course). He finds him lying face down on the floor of his room, which was reeking of cigarette smoke and cheap vodka. He wakes him up. “Dude, dude, get up. There’s something I have to tell you.”
“Wha..”
“I can play six Floyd songs, a Metallica solo, and two Green Day songs. That’s nine songs. You can sing along. We can start a two man band; make videos, even concerts on the roof…”
The high friend, wide awake by now, laps it all up.
“Great idea dude, we can post the videos on YouTube… dude, we’ll become famous.”
“I’ll make all the arrangements and we’ll meet up tomorrow to practice. Later.”

Our high friend wakes up the next morning with a hangover and a very empty stomach. He finds his way to the mess, only to find that it had run out of food. He grabs a cup of tea and finds an empty seat next to a guy whom he vaguely recognised from somewhere.
“Hi”, says the vaguely familiar guy.
“Hey…”
“So, don’t see you in class too often.”
“Yeah.”
“You know you’re low on attendance, right?”
“Yeah.”
They go on like this through till his cup of tea runs dry, with our alcoholic friend replying in monosyllables. Then just before they part ways, the vaguely familiar guy says, “Hey, you heard about the totally cool techfest that’s happening next month? I’m planning to make a robot for it. It’s tough, but I’ll manage it. See you later.”
As soon as our man hears ‘Robot’, his brain does a backflip. If that nerd guy could make a robot so could he. It’d be really awesome, him and his robot, winning, and more importantly, becoming famous.
So he picks up his pen drive, goes to the internet lab and downloads a dozen e-books on making robots. He’s about to leave when someone suggests a few quick rounds of counter-strike.
Twelve hours later, its terrorists-541, counter-terrorists-540, with enough intensity in the game to last for twelve more. So much for the robot…

This cycle, of planning great things and achieving close to nothing, repeats itself. It has been clichéd that nothing turns out the way it was planned. Whatever groundbreaking feats we dream of realising, we remain nothing more than fickle minded college students, acting on pure instinct. If things don’t work out, always remember Pink Floyd-
“The grass was greener,
The light was brighter…”

Episode 2

2007-07-03T18:09:00.000-07:00

Well, moving on with the story- after a year in Hyderabad, we moved to the hill station Ooty. I remember a lot of relatives coming to visit, riding ponies, boating in the lake, learning to tie my shoelaces and playing some weird game which involved rolling down a small hillside.

We came back to Trivandrum when I was six and stayed on for a year, when I tried my hand at a lot of stuff- singing, break-dance, painting ,etcetera, etcetera. All in all it was a pretty uneventful year, the only lasting mark left was a scar on my knee from a nasty fall, which I don't remember that well.

After Trivandrum came Delhi, where I spent three very eventful years of my life. But that in itself is a different story.

I blame the broadband rates in India for my very short posts. Next time I'll type them offline. My attention span has nothing to do with this.

And the laptop I wrote about yesterday- I got it. Dumped all my music into it, and navigated around it for about three hours before I finally got a hang of Vista. It's pretty, but I'm used to XP. Maybe I'll type the next 'long' post in my new laptop...

Food for thought?

2007-07-02T21:30:00.000-07:00

I'll break my biography with little snippets like this from time to time. This is an attempt at thought provoking poetry for the monthly magazine we bring out at our college.

REQUIEM

Life's light's a flickering candle,
Burning off and on.
Now it shines with all it's strength,
Now it's dead and gone.
Onward it shines through ups and downs,
This flickering ray still glows,
Traipsing through troubles, piercing darkness,
Serenity it silently shows.
Through long years this light persists,
This candle in the rain.
Riding roughshod over hill and valley,
Enduring all the pain,
'Til the hour of death and darkness,
When the light no longer glows,
The soul transcends to heaven and the body lies
In rest, requiem, repose.

The Beginnings

2007-07-02T18:35:00.000-07:00

Woke up today morning thinking about what to put in from my yesterdays, and finally decided to begin from the beginning. I was born on 26th September 1989 at Trivandrum, then travelled to Leh, Ladhak when i was about a year and a half old. I have very faint memories of a donkey outside my house and scrambled eggs! We returned to trivandrum when I was about three, and I went to nursery school there. I remember getting nervous and throwing up during my first stage performance.

My brother Anish was born when I was three. He was the cutest.

I was four when we moved to Hyderabad(if you've been wondering about all the movement, dad's in the army). I remember a cake resembling shere khan of 'The Jungle book' on my fourth birthday.

I'll save the rest of the stories for later episodes. And as for today, I'm in tight anticipation. My new laptop's due to be delivered today- a Dell Latitude D630 with An Intel Cor2Duo processor, 1 GB of ram and 80 GBs of Hard drive space.

And I'm listening to the Goo Goo Dolls, trying to find a way to get a song to play in the background of this blog. Well, let's see how far I succeed.

And I'm feeling sleepy. You always sleep a lot when you're home. Making up for the sleep lost at the college over CS and AOE. The bed beckons now... I go.

Random thoughts

2007-07-02T08:52:00.000-07:00

Well… life does go on, and pretty fast too, for all that matters.
Right now, I’m sitting at home, in New Delhi, typing away aimlessly into the idiot box in front of me. I had always envisioned a blog to be a channel for my thoughts, but as I try channeling them they elude me one by one. Either I have too many thoughts or too few, but the point is, I can’t think of any now. I’m not trying to be funny or anything, but I want my first post to be whole truth.

I had planned, initially; to make this blog an autobiography of sorts. But I don’t know how far back my memories run, and for how long my patience withstands. So ultimately, this going to be a medley of my yester-years, the present age, and my plans for the future.

To cut a long story short this blog will be a very random collage of the relatively colourful experiences of my life.