Why is it easier to wear the mask of a happy go lucky fool?
Because it protects you from the pain of being a sincere idiot
Then what is the pain one still suffers?
The pain of suffocation

Lone reed/wolf/ranger etc etc

The first day of my life alone was not as horrible or as scary as I anticipated it to be. A spacious two bedroom apartment and no one to share it with. In a colony of respectable people and nobody to talk to.
Easy with the sympathy already. It isn’t as bad as I’m making it sound. Living alone has its own perks. Here are a few i discovered.
You can play your favourite music, turn up the volume to full blast or put on your headphone (if u have finiky neighbours) and pretend to be Aerosmith without having to worry about people thinking you’re crazy ..even though that’s probably what you're screaming.
I’m not such a big fan of walking around naked in my living room even though Alanis Morisette recommends it so fervently.
Read a book all day with absolutely no distractions, in whatever position u’re comfortable in, at whatever hour of the day, with whatever title on the cover.
Don’t make your bed for two days and no one will complain. Ok I get disgusted by the third day.
Cook exactly what you want to eat. Eat only if you want to. The fan runs at exactly the speed you like it. No compromising. No sharing. No having to be considerate. No worrying abt looking insensitive.
And finally you can buy a signboard that says “Beware of Dogs” and put it up outside your door
Ah! This is the life.

PS: This article was started on the 15th of July and finished on the 18th at 1:33 AM

And it falleth from heaven

Mumbai rains have a mind like mine – fickle. A fat blob of distilled water, reluctantly falling from the too heavy to float clouds in the heavens up above, comes and hits your head with a soft vengeance, a kind of vengeance that is almost sorrow. The sorrow of being torn apart from your element, pulled away from your paradise. That cloud is where the party is at. All the high flying and happening water droplets meet up here to rock to the thundering musing and electrifying lighting effects. Some water drops in their party high and moment of drunken indiscretion forget when to put that glass of intoxicant down. Next thin’ they know is they are piss-drunk, no longer in control of themselves. No longer aerodynamic a fat blob of water falls unwillingly from the happening heavens up above, forced apart from dear like minded friends, onto your naked skin with a feeling of deep deep regret.

The above article is dated Tuesday, June 27, 2006 7:46:24 PM

This is the most abstract piece of writing i've ever written. It was written in a car in a traffic jam in mumbai. It was ofcourse inspired by the fact that the rains couldnt decide whether to fall or not, therefore making my indecision about opening the umberalla constant. Besides if you really wanna avoid getting wet in Mumbai, get an umbrella that doubles up as a boat. Falling from the sky is a kind of Sazaa-e-Kaalapani, before you know it they've built a civilization of outcasts also known as floods.

Knock yourselves out!

So it was the ultimate congregation of phonies, fresh off some 'premier' B-schools. ‘The Cream of India’ lathargically sitting around the buffet table after really heavy supper chewing the fat. One guy from an 'extra premier B-school' suddenly interrupts and asks, “Do any of you read?”. I was like, ”Duh yeah of course we read. We didn’t get of graduating just like that you know.”, in my head. Another one with a particularly hoarce voice shot off, “yeah I love reading. I’m currently reading the biography of Indira Gandhi”. He to his dismay was unable to recall the name of the book. Damn he started a trend! Everyone started to take turns announcing what they were reading. Was I reading anything then? Damn I was. I’m still going to say I’m not reading anything, I don’t read, I decided. “God of small things”, I blurted when my turn came. Some spine I have. It wasn’t like I was held at gunpoint or anything. “But I don’t really like it”, I muttered to cover up.”I really liked Catch 22 though” falling again in the same damn pit again!
“Oh Catch 22! That’s a really cool book”
“Yeah I thought it was hilarious”
“Oh I’ve always wanted to read it but I was daunted by the size.”
“Yeah it’s a tough read alright. Took me ‘bout six damn months to get done with it”
“but it’s a great book”
“But Catcher in the Rye is really an awesome book. J.D. Salinger is really good.”
Eh! That statement was so off the boat it nearly killed me! What’s the catch? Phony ass bastard!

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

Shooting the bull with some guys from work at tea break:
Him: Hey I’ve finished reading that book you anted. Had finished it long back just forgot to let you know.
Me: Hmm no issues. I’m keeping myself quite busy. had bought some books so read that over the weekend.
Him: What book?
Me: Err..Catcher in the Rye *reluctantly*
Him: *face lights up* that’s a really good book.
Me: I know, I read it.
Him: Have you read Catch 22?
Me: *fell off the chair*

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

Here’s a fresh one:

What’s the opposite of Thank you?
.
.
.
.
.
.
Fuck you

Knock yourselves out !!!

Disclaimer: Still in the Catcher in the Rye sort of mood. Figured I’d use the language used in the book just for the effect. To bring out the irony, you know. Havn’t done a good job of it, in keeping with the style. No offence to anybody or anything like that.

Starry Night

Picture regretfully removed due to technical difficulties.

Above you can see today's Astronomy Picture of the Day (click on the picture for a larger version), showing a nice picture of a night sky. If you go with the mouse over it, it draws for you the corresponding constellations (for that, you have to do it in their website, not here, because I couldn't get the nice effect)! Worth seeing and trying later with the real sky :-) .

Source

For Purnima and Rashi :)

At work after 7:30PM

The air conditioner whirring
Clickety-clicks of tactile feedback keyboard
Maybe a flip of a page or pages somewhere
Jangling of a bunch of keys
Moans of adjustable seats
Ah the chair on wheels rolls
The murmur must be them office trolls.

You let go so easily
was that all it was meant to be?
On a lonely summer's night, miss me
This is my gift to you
A curse for free.

Shattered

I'm the kind who cribs a lot. I'll whine and wail. I've actually had people getting frustrated with me after a ten minute conversation."Stop complaining!", they'd yell. I had promised myself and you that I would not let that trait spill in here. Something has happened today and i want to cry here. Because there is no one i can cry to, more so because i'm not supposed to.

Being Undead

A new life is about to begin
A new morning for blue birds to sing
The orange glow at the horizon makes sweet promises
of clear blue skies, of yellow lillies and purple primroses

But unfinished business in this life
like chaines around my ankles anchors me as i spread my wings to take flight
So my soul wanders like the ghost of me
Let me go, set me free.

This old coil i want to shed
That path no longer i want to tread
I have found the place where i i want to be
Let me go, set me free

Not that this life was bad
Scars are like tattoos, works of art
Let them in silence tell my story
Now let me go, set me free!

Rollercoaster Ride

My lifes been somewhat like a rollercoaster ride for sometime now. Left home on the 19th of May and nothings been the same ever since. I am now an employee of one the the top 5 IT Services companies in India or so they claim. If ever anyone was to study the applicability of the chaos theory for the business world this company would make the perfect casestudy. A very apt joke to relate here. A Russian friend after living in India for about a year confesses to me that she's started to believe in God. On enquiring for the reason for her new found faith she replies, " In russia there are rules, there is a system for eveything and everyone follows it so things work. In india there are no rules, no system yet things work - There must be a God." To quote my mentor here, "The only type of person that can survive here is the kind that can thrive in chaos. To break the rules, you must know the rules and the only rule here is there are no rules. If you're the kind of guy who needs a 5 step startegy on even how to sneeze you're better off at Infy".
Uh man there is so much to talk about but lunch beckons and the stomach growls. will be back
muah

What I hate about blogging! (Part II)

Ok this is what I’d wanted to say the last time I wrote about it but knowing me, I had to go off on a tangent.
Something about the blog world had been pissing me off lately and I couldn’t lay a finger on it. At first I got irritated that a friend brought up something serious I’d written in one of the posts as a joke at a party, I let it pass as her naivety. Then some blogs I visited regularly disappeared. Man, this sooo ticked me off!
I have this new friend who is an aspiring writer. Actually according to me he’s already there. He said to me, “I write. I love to write. I write stories. I don’t blog because I think they’re irresponsible”. It hit me. Yes, that’s exactly it! Blogs are irresponsible.
I blog, which means I write blogs and I read blogs. Lots of people do that. Blogs for very obvious reasons have become a place for some very personal expression. So when you interact with people at that level of intimacy you kind of end up getting attached to them or at least their blogs. Nothing can be more disturbing than clicking on that oh so familiar link one fine day and being rudely told off that the blog cannot be found. Obviously the owner’s deleted it. Obviously they felt no responsibility towards the readers whatsoever. Obviously it is your fault for being there in the first place - nobody invited you.
The blogs most prone to this kind of need for desertion of its audience I have realised are anonymous blogs. Nah, actually that’s a myth. Any blog can disappear any moment, just like that, without any prior notice.
So what is this whole blogging relationship about? There’s no trust factor. No accountability. So this can’t be called a friendship. Maybe there is absolute honesty. Maybe there are true mental connections being forged here. But that’s so ephemeral. What do you do with it? I’d say it’s like pure gold – very desirable but useless.
I’m going to continue blogging, despite this. I haven’t figured out why yet, perhaps that’s the stuff’t of another post. I’m certainly not going to do so under the cloak of anonymity like a coward. I shall bare my soul unabashedly and boldly suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous friendships.

PS: Its not fair that you know where I live, but the only way I can talk to you is by putting up a notice outside my door.

Currently hearing impaired

It was perfect. The sky had started to cloud over. The zephyr was blowing cool flailing the rockers’ curls. The crescent moon had turned a turbid red.It was an omen. The night errupted and the stars burned when the musicians began to work their magic. The guitarist strummed the chords like they were my veins. The drummer had my heart and he decided how it beat. And as the rhythm pulsated through my body, I knew, I was alive.

Four bands – Void, After Death, DemClones and Pin drop Violence played at an engineering college at hyd. I got passes actually I got invited coz my li’l sis’ seeing one of the lead guitarists :D. So here’s a little eyewitness commentary:

First of me:
I wore a stark white formal shirt, to make a statement of course!!! Yes I know you’re supposed to wear black t-shirts with bleeding red print on them but who wants to be part of the crowd! Ok the real deal is I was actually wearing an ultra sexy maroon top that might not have passed the parents censor so the white shirt was for undercover operations only. However, when I got there I felt like too much of an adult and my chaperoning consciousness kinda took over. Yes, so I was wearing the stark white shirt through out the show. Next embarrassing thing – 19 yr old kid asks me if this is my first rock concert. I would’ve mentioned the Bryan Adam’s if I wasn’t absolutely certain of the outcast look I’d receive after that. So just quietly said yes and settled for zero instead of negative points.

Void –
That band that we were particularly interested in...ahem ahem, was awesome. Except that their lead singer had a bit of the case of em’ stage frights. They covered St. Anger by Metallica, Seven Nation Army by White stripes, Rape me by Nirvana and Something by hatebreed. Oh and they also slipped in a composition of their own. Although using the adjective ‘cute’ would be considered opprobrious for this genre of musicians. I think their vocalist did enough damage to the image when he profusely thanked every one for letting them play.
My advice – lose the singer.

After Death –
Hard core death metal – Sepultura, Rammtien the works. Their drummer – Yeah! He was mind blowing!!! Too bad the drums are arranged so you way back into the background that the drummer’s face is obscured. The singer modulated his voice too much to make it sound gruff. He was too skinny to carry it off. Also he kept feeling himself...which actually looked like he wasn’t enjoying doing that and it took a lot of effort to do on stage. There were times when the band just stood there on stage - posing ...I think they were really posing for photographs. I mean seriously posing!
My advice: Drummer you deserve more, get my number :D. Band- get another attitude.

Demclones –
We would’ve mistaken them for biotech students for the double helix in their logo. The more soulful and melodious of the bands started of with a rendition of Limpbizkit’s “I know why you want to hate me” and gradually descended the tempo with U2s Vertigo and coldplay’s yellow, and finally slipped in some of their own soft compositions. This was by far the most appreciated of the bands. The guitarist was phenomenally innovative and deft. I suspect he could even make the guitar enunciate whole English words or even sentences if he wanted to. He had that kind of control over the strings.
Verdict: soulful.

Pin Drop Violence –
Or PDV as they were being referred to fondly, turned up doped to the ‘T’. The guitarist got a little frustrated by the bad feed back system put his guitar down in the middle of the song and just strut off stage. Fame I tell you is a drug that goes straight to the head. Didn’t see them perform, no verdict.

On the whole the flying speakers were out of this world! I got to do a little head banging myself. There were moshpits but I said No thank you. Next time, would actually like to get to a concert with friends instead of my sister, so I don’t feel obligated to behave like a responsible adult!

Traveller Conversations

Old man: Hurry up! Time’s running out, They’re going to destroy everything!
Little Girl: What?!
Serious woman: Yes, this graffiti you see on the wall, that Buddha carved out of the mountain, the Mario world - all of it!
Little girl: But who’s going to destroy it?
Serious woman: People
Little girl: What people?
Serious Woman: Powerful sadistic people.
Little girl: What are they going to do?
Serious Woman: They’re going to paint the graffiti over with grey, dynamite the Buddha and remove the Mario murals.
Little girl: Why would they do that!
Serious Woman: Because they don’t like it, and because they have the power to.
Little girl: Can’t we stop them?
Serious Woman: No
Little girl: Why?
Serious Woman: ‘cause its our fault.
Little girl: Our fault?
Serious Woman: Yes, we gave them the power.
Little girl: Why?
Serious Woman: They fooled us into it.
Little girl: How?
Old man: We weren’t paying attention. We let them.
Little girl: Now what?
Old man: Hurry up and come along there is so much left to see before it’s destroyed too.

All that you can't leave behind

Honey, I’m home! Was the sort of exclamation I should’ve made on my return from Dubai. The reality was quite contrary, from the minute I bought the ticket home till this moment every cell in my body’s been screaming to remain in Dubai. Maybe because I was just not ready to come home yet, maybe because I hadn’t had enough time to let it sink in that I’d be leaving Dubai and God forbid for good. That is probably why I hadn’t bought the ticket until the last day or packed until the last hour. Ironically, no matter how much I cursed it, I want that life back! I want those friends back. I want all of it back!!!
I want to pile into those little toy buses like prison workers while waiting frustrated but patiently for Nair Sahab to take the last swig and dab out his cigarette and start the bus. the long rides between KV and meadows when your only two options were to make mindless conversation with the person sitting next to you or stare aimlessly out of the window while silently bearing that infernal bollywood hit number for the 100th time.
I miss the being in front of the laptop all day constantly connected to everyone else. Where everyone’s just an email away. Where a harmless email forwarded carelessly could start a war and everybody would just jump in for the action whether it concerned them or not. Spend the entire day surfing the web reading random articles.
The people, I miss the most. Long walks around lakes, houses, trees with friends, strangers and peace. The quirky conversations spilling with humour, sprinkled with satire, seasoned with intellect –pseudo or otherwise.
Before I lose my mind over this god please help me find some form of business!

She said, "Make a wish."
I couldn't think of anything.
Then it dawned
I had everything i could wish for

What I hate abt Blogging

Its always at the back of ur mind.
No matter what ur doing - taking the bus home, taking a dump or talking to ur love interest - You’re always wondering whether you can blog about it. You’re constantly measuring its ‘blogability index’(somebody has a trademark on this word). You hack away a 1000 word essay in your head at the speed of light.. Ofcourse, these words come to you at the most opportune times such as the examples mentioned above. There is absolutely no means of recording this lucid flow of thoughts. Five minutes later the bus stops or you pull the lever and your beautiful piece of literature is flushed down the drain.
Finally, one day you find the time and conviction to sit down in front of your computer and write about something and your mind gives you haath (Hyderabadi expression for ditching). It pretends to be the reflection of the maansarovar – clear and serene. Hello, I’m not exactly sitting down to meditate here! Noorie be my name, if it were half as still when I am actually trying to meditate!
[edited]
Then you forcefully wake imagination up from its Kumbhkaran like hibernation, it gets to work bleary-eyed and u end up typing random stuff like this.
[end edited]
Then, imagination comes to the rescue on a dark stead, with a diamond on it forehead, and you end up typing random stuff like this.

Narrative

Contemplation
Desparation
Provocation
Execution
Complication
Compunction
Termination?
Salvation!

My two lips are Sealed

Have you ever been startled by your own voice? I have, lots of times. Infact all the time. I am by nature a very quiet person. Atleast that is how I appear form a distance i.e. to the people who aren’t as close to me. While I’m quiet I have whole conversations in my head, reach logical/illogical conclusions by myself, and crack jokes that crack me up. It’s an entire world happening in my head. On the rare occasion that I do happen to blurt something out the look on my face is identical to that of the people around me, who happened to have heard me; shocked. It takes some time to recover from the shock before I can comprehend the implications of what I’ve said and then device a rescue. Another two words stumble out of my mouth, still incoherent to the world. I resign to my world and everybody else as a lost cause.
It takes a lot out of me to make a verbal oral conversation with people the normal way. I’ve been practicing saying ‘Hi’ to people. Yes, I have to make a conscious effort to say ‘Hi’ to people, I used to smile or nod before i started this excercise.
When you’re this closed to the outside world, people tend to form different notions of you. Some think you’re a snobbish bitch who thinks it’s beneath her to talk to them or you have an ego the size of Atlantis. Some think you’re trying to play mind games with them by just smiling at them. Most often they just assume you are dumb. It’s a tough job to juggle so many images/mis-images at the same time.
It’s a tough life, living quietly. You tend not to have friends or just few friends. It is extremely difficult to express yourself, your feelings, you happiness, your sadness. You find yourself incapable of sharing your emotions, of approaching anybody for help. Then out of shear desperation you turn to the Arts, the alternative form of expression. It is an introvert’s attempt to reach out.

PS: Please don’t approach me personally asking me questions about this blog; I don’t think I’ll be able to answer them.

Simple Things Part 2 - Dirty Vegas

yes i've run a mile in my head
didn't listen to the things that you said
but it's the simple things that make you smile
it's the simple things that make you smile

so what went wrong?
was it me that let you down again?
so what went wrong?
how could I ever lose my best friend?

cause i've climbed these walls to clear my head
thought I was something more but I'm a fool instead
but it's the simple things that make you smile
it's the simple things that make you smile

so what went wrong?
was it me that let you down again?
so what went wrong?
how could I ever lose my best friend?

Fool Again

It starts of with a little hello,
A three-minutes-and-i-gotta-go'
Slowly the conversations grow longer
The bonds we have grow stronger
There are animated discussions and modulation of tone
It'd be so difficult to hang up the phone
Then one day you found somebody
who made you feel all fuddy-duddy
it drained on us from the start
Slowly we grew apart
Now you think of me no more
The past we cannot restore
The friendship we had is lost
You've found love at that cost