I'd heard "Lies lies lies" by the Thompson Twins when I was a kid. It was in one of the two cassettes titled "Disco 83" and "Disco Festival 83". The beats were catchy except the queer way in which a girl laughs some where in the beginning of the song, something that my elder sister found hideous, I didn't mind it too much. I can't recall how many times I must have heard this song after I grew up, maybe once or twice on MTV rewind or a similar program on Channel [V] and that too must have been in the early 1990s. So it was definitely a surprise when I found myself sitting down on the internet a few days ago searching of the song on youtube. I didn't remember the name of the group that sang it and found that it was the Thompson Twins. This got me interested in knowing a little more about them. Enter Wikipedia; there were no twins in the Thompson Twins, in fact to my surprise this British group was named after the Thompson and Thompson of Tintin Comics. Wiki listed a number of member of the group but the primary three were Tom Bailey, Alannah Currie, Joe Leeway. The first was the lead singer, a Briton, the second a lady from New Zealand and the third was a guy with an Irish mother and a Nigerian father. The last explained the light-skinned Afro guy in the video. I read that they shot into fame with their two songs "lies, lies, lies". The group's history made for a great read on Wikipedia, especially the way in which Tom and Allanah got to know each other.
This got me curious about their other songs but the very first I heard hence got me seriously hooked to it, I loved it from the first beat. Another catchy techno number albeit a slow one unlike 'Lies, lies lies'
The lyrics are nice as well. Following are the lyrics with the link to the song in the end.
I have a picture,
pinned to my wall.
An image of you and of me and we're laughing and loving it all.
Look at our life now, tattered and torn.
We fuss and we fight and delight in the tears that we cry until dawn
Hold me now, warm my heart
stay with me, let loving start (let loving start)
You say I'm a dreamer, we're two of a kind
Both of us searching for some perfect world we know we'll never find
So perhaps I should leave here, yeah yeah go far away
But you know that theres no where that I'd rather be than with you here today
You ask if I love you, well what can I say?
You know that I do and if this is just one of those games that we play
So I'll sing you a new song, please don't cry anymore
and then I'll ask your forgiveness, though I don't know just what I'm asking it for
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpZ9gEKBoYI
Monday, July 25, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
The shot and the hot
I paused at the beautiful sound of Church choir singing while surfing the TV channels, taking a break from the usual blood and gore of Animal Planet. Funny how the church choir always sound so familiar and ‘similar’ irrespective of the language of the hymns. Then the conductor went into hyper activity but the choir’s voice raised slowly, melody that made the hair on my body stand up. It was beautiful as it was mildly haunting, I wish I could record it and listen to it. While the camera captured the view of the hall from the ceiling, the painted glass windows, the white walls, the high ceiling, the long arched windows lighting up the whole place. It was a soothing sight only if you managed to overlook some of the people in the congregation weeping and turn a blind eye to the title displayed underneath; this was the Reuters relayed “Mass for Sadness and Hope” on the CNN and the BBC 11:00am Oslo time.
The Norwegians insist that this not be referred to as a memorial service but a “mass” as there were people who were still missing at the Utoya island and maybe even alive. A solemn Bishop Kvarme spoke for a while, followed by a speech by a lady, possibly someone at a high position in the church. The twin tragedy of an otherwise peaceful Norway has shocked the world. There was an explosion in government headquarters and then the killings at the Utoya island where a government youth group had gathered. At first one wonders why someone would kill nearly a 100 odd teenagers. The answer is not difficult to understand; ideological differences. The guy was against the multi-culture favourism of the present Norway government. We’re never far away from such right-wing bigots. From what I read of it in the papers, the killer, ___ is a right-wing activist and otherwise seemed like a decent, ‘well-dressed’, ‘well-educated’ person and doesn’t have any history of violence. My faith in the adage “don’t judge a book by its cover” stands reaffirmed and in the same vein, “a man by his clothes or his appearance or his charm” as they said ages ago “appearances are often deceptive”; the mind stands above all.
They say that the macabre he’s responsible for was carried out in cold-blood over a period of an hour and a half. He was dressed as a policeman and called out to the fleeing people to come to him, telling them that he was there to help them. The teenagers, confused in the panic about where the bullets were coming from, rushed to him and he calmly raised his gun and shot them down. He used this strategy again and again. There was nowhere to hide. People who tried escaping by jumping into river to swim away were also shot dead. A few that escaped after they went into hiding narrated how the killer kept roaming around calmly calling out to people who were hiding, confidently and calmly killing those he saw.
What causes people to get so possessed, we know of similar thing that happened in the holocaust in Germany, in form of atrocities on blacks in South Africa (and now on the whites there), in the form of communal violence and acts of terrorism that have and still rock our nation every now and then. We have right-wingers sitting in the parliament, some of them educated from the top universities in the world, where they arm themselves with the guns of wisdom-of-the-world and start their subliminal insinuations of hate in the mind of the common man, gradually making them pawns of their agenda. The ferocity with which the Communal Violence Act is being opposed speaks volumes of our leaders. Having taken lessons from the past, the Act is centered on “punishing officials” who do not carry out their duties of taking measures to protect the innocent amongst the minorities who are targeted in pogroms and to bring unbiased, speedy justice for the victims. No religion whatsoever has promoted the spirit of brotherhood despite false claims from all sides. We all still brew hatred for each other in the name of religion, caste and region in this modern era of a hog-wash that we call “progress”.
Meantime thought it better to switch back to watching the blood and gore of Nat-Geo Wild Channel, which is less grotesque that the filth of man.
By the way, Amy Winehouse died at 27 years of age the day before. This is about the only space I can allocate for her on this post, which is a little more in proportion than what The Tribune allocated for this news in some godforsaken middle page. I liked her and after winning 5 Grammys in one night, everyone always thought she’d go down amongst the legends of music as the decades pass. Sadly, drugs and alcohol got the better of her. No one knows yet how she died, as I type this, her body is probably being cut open and her internal organs, being removed and sampled for the cause of death. We’ll soon know why she died but then again, how does it matter anymore! But right now, the question tickling my mind is this “What the hell do these docs who carry out autopsies think when they see celebrities in all their glory on the screen?”
The Norwegians insist that this not be referred to as a memorial service but a “mass” as there were people who were still missing at the Utoya island and maybe even alive. A solemn Bishop Kvarme spoke for a while, followed by a speech by a lady, possibly someone at a high position in the church. The twin tragedy of an otherwise peaceful Norway has shocked the world. There was an explosion in government headquarters and then the killings at the Utoya island where a government youth group had gathered. At first one wonders why someone would kill nearly a 100 odd teenagers. The answer is not difficult to understand; ideological differences. The guy was against the multi-culture favourism of the present Norway government. We’re never far away from such right-wing bigots. From what I read of it in the papers, the killer, ___ is a right-wing activist and otherwise seemed like a decent, ‘well-dressed’, ‘well-educated’ person and doesn’t have any history of violence. My faith in the adage “don’t judge a book by its cover” stands reaffirmed and in the same vein, “a man by his clothes or his appearance or his charm” as they said ages ago “appearances are often deceptive”; the mind stands above all.
They say that the macabre he’s responsible for was carried out in cold-blood over a period of an hour and a half. He was dressed as a policeman and called out to the fleeing people to come to him, telling them that he was there to help them. The teenagers, confused in the panic about where the bullets were coming from, rushed to him and he calmly raised his gun and shot them down. He used this strategy again and again. There was nowhere to hide. People who tried escaping by jumping into river to swim away were also shot dead. A few that escaped after they went into hiding narrated how the killer kept roaming around calmly calling out to people who were hiding, confidently and calmly killing those he saw.
What causes people to get so possessed, we know of similar thing that happened in the holocaust in Germany, in form of atrocities on blacks in South Africa (and now on the whites there), in the form of communal violence and acts of terrorism that have and still rock our nation every now and then. We have right-wingers sitting in the parliament, some of them educated from the top universities in the world, where they arm themselves with the guns of wisdom-of-the-world and start their subliminal insinuations of hate in the mind of the common man, gradually making them pawns of their agenda. The ferocity with which the Communal Violence Act is being opposed speaks volumes of our leaders. Having taken lessons from the past, the Act is centered on “punishing officials” who do not carry out their duties of taking measures to protect the innocent amongst the minorities who are targeted in pogroms and to bring unbiased, speedy justice for the victims. No religion whatsoever has promoted the spirit of brotherhood despite false claims from all sides. We all still brew hatred for each other in the name of religion, caste and region in this modern era of a hog-wash that we call “progress”.
Meantime thought it better to switch back to watching the blood and gore of Nat-Geo Wild Channel, which is less grotesque that the filth of man.
By the way, Amy Winehouse died at 27 years of age the day before. This is about the only space I can allocate for her on this post, which is a little more in proportion than what The Tribune allocated for this news in some godforsaken middle page. I liked her and after winning 5 Grammys in one night, everyone always thought she’d go down amongst the legends of music as the decades pass. Sadly, drugs and alcohol got the better of her. No one knows yet how she died, as I type this, her body is probably being cut open and her internal organs, being removed and sampled for the cause of death. We’ll soon know why she died but then again, how does it matter anymore! But right now, the question tickling my mind is this “What the hell do these docs who carry out autopsies think when they see celebrities in all their glory on the screen?”
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Friday, July 08, 2011
Rid(dl)er
These streetlights pass over me one by one, the light of one illuminating me for a second before shoving me into the arms of the next one while the darkness caresses me in between. The ride’s a lot like life, darkness with its ecstasies of utopia, followed by the blinding lights of reality. You pass through these intermittent phases as the wheels keep rolling and you look at your watch for the one thing that never stops, even if you do, time. It’s your will to trudge on or swiftly glide, the watch won’t stop or even if it does, you’ll just replace the batteries and twist the arms back to calibrate it with the seconds, minutes, hours or days that passed while it wasn’t ticking but that didn’t cease your locomotion towards the end, the ultimate end, from where everyone wishes to have a new beginning in the form of eternal life or rebirth, hoping they’d get to see some more of what they experience now and the way they experience it now. But now that they have it, they spend it complaining about what they don’t have while they still have the biggest thing they can have, life.
You can always turn and ride back to where you came from, you’ll find that place wasn’t the way you left it, you’ll search for the ones you left behind but you’ll find out that they turned some direction and rode-on their way and while you hang your head for a while, you slowly realize that the clock is still ticking and you need to make your journey, find your reasons and paint your rainbow in the black of the night while there’s still some rubber left on the wheels and roll back on your own road. The wind dries your eyes but the tears bring relief, sometime you take-off the helmet to feel wind on your face, to feel that speed of life but at other times the drag on your chest threatens to squeeze your breath-out so you slow down and gaze at that confounded time-machine that only tell about the present and is mute about the past or future. Then you wonder if that’s what it’s all about. You also wonder what you can do with the contraption on your wrist, maybe you can set goals by it. You never know when it’ll be buried with you, it could be in 30 years, it could be in 30 seconds but you can live by it. So while today you ride on this ground, one day you’ll be six feet under. Who'll remember? maybe it’s about the miles you traverse, the landmarks you cross and most importantly the landmarks that you create.
You can always turn and ride back to where you came from, you’ll find that place wasn’t the way you left it, you’ll search for the ones you left behind but you’ll find out that they turned some direction and rode-on their way and while you hang your head for a while, you slowly realize that the clock is still ticking and you need to make your journey, find your reasons and paint your rainbow in the black of the night while there’s still some rubber left on the wheels and roll back on your own road. The wind dries your eyes but the tears bring relief, sometime you take-off the helmet to feel wind on your face, to feel that speed of life but at other times the drag on your chest threatens to squeeze your breath-out so you slow down and gaze at that confounded time-machine that only tell about the present and is mute about the past or future. Then you wonder if that’s what it’s all about. You also wonder what you can do with the contraption on your wrist, maybe you can set goals by it. You never know when it’ll be buried with you, it could be in 30 years, it could be in 30 seconds but you can live by it. So while today you ride on this ground, one day you’ll be six feet under. Who'll remember? maybe it’s about the miles you traverse, the landmarks you cross and most importantly the landmarks that you create.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Here
I feel like I'll turn & see you sitting behind me but I won't turn coz I know you won't be there. I, so cleary remember watchin you by the candlelight, playing with the flames and then settling down beside it, quietly looking at me and for a change your eyes not probing my face for signs of deception but just looking at me, calmly with a serene confidence, telling me that you trusted me and that you weren't judging me. The flame flickered but your eyes, they were unblinking, you hypnotized me. I could've kept looking into your eyes through the night. I'm glad I got out of the spell and sat beside you. 
Reality takes over as time passes and memories fade. The candle lies yonder but there's no flame. I won't turn around for I know you're not there but then again you needn't be, you're deep inside me somewhere.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
You and I
I feared going to Mcleodganj again lest it brought back memories and broke me down like what happened a couple of times I cross those familiar paths again. I didn't say much because the others were interested in going there and I was familiar with the place and liked it. What I feared was a relapse into the fever of the past. I was apprehensive on the way towards it...and then 'You' happened to me.
I couldn't have asked for anything better, you gently erased all those memories without me ever realizing. I felt all the things I thought I'd never feel again and much more that I'd never felt before. How will I ever thank you for this.
I couldn't have asked for anything better, you gently erased all those memories without me ever realizing. I felt all the things I thought I'd never feel again and much more that I'd never felt before. How will I ever thank you for this.
I hear it, now you hear me.
There are sounds that are totally inaudible. The one above the human audible range is termed the ultrasound. Ultrasound, a technology used in Sonography, a word that literally translates to imaging using sound. It's a safe technique to look into our bodies to detech anomalies and even see a foetus developing in a womb. It's also used to detect the gender of the child. Of course there's good reason for the ban of sonographs in India for detecting foetus gender. We're a nation of brazen, shameless people who consider a female child a burden. That brings us to the social evil of Dowry. Cash and kind paid to the bridegroom by the girl's parents. I've seen an air of pride in the "groom's side" in many a marriage I've attended and therefore ended up feeling so sick I never bothered to know the other details of the things involved in the process. Knowlege-base goes up to close relatives of the groom waiting to see blood on bedsheets the morning after the first night for it signifies that the woman was virgin. Personally, the word sounds derogatory and fit only to be used with olive oil. Such stories of butchery I've heard with my own ears from the people of the families involved in such acts. It numbed me like it did on every occasion that I hear such stuff.
Therefore for many of us Indians, birth of a girl signifies foreseeable trouble. Firstly to control her enough so that she doesn't find out much about her own body only to let her find out everything at the hands of a butcher on the first night. Strangely in our society if a girl and boy are "caught" by the members of our Moral Police in a compromising situation, it's the girls family that faces shame way more than the boy's. On such occasions I've seen that the first thing that parents and relatives start to fret about it "Ab iski shaadi kaise hogi". Secondly it's a lot about dowry in every place in India barring a few places in the East. I've heard people talk about dowry the moment a girl is born, I do not know why they never did away with it all these centuries, maybe because there was always a balance of a girl and a boy in the family so if you were giving to your daughter, you were also receiving from your daughter-in-law. This only underscores the extremes of materialism in our mindset where single everything, be it career or spouse, is chosen according to financial gain at hand, interests, passion and love take a backseat (if present at all or even subliminally and systematically erased by parents, like what happened in my case). Being a girl in our system is tough. Many of the people who opress their daughters and rob them of their freedom can be seen letching at girls, their daughters age or even younger, in public places, a few bastards even indulge in eve-teasing. Old men, middle-aged men, boys, they all do it and they do it with brazen shamelessness for this is a patriarchal society and males mostly do as they please. I've been eye-witness to many such incidences.
So I repeat, being a girl is tough here, you don't have much freedom, you've got amorous eyes gawking at you all the time, you move around in places where men will violate you given the first chance, then you have to steer clear of prying eyes if you happen to be in a relation with a guy, then you're required to marry according to your parent's wishes (which translates to the society's wishes)and bear the burden of the thought that the very people responsible for your birth are now paying through their noses to send you to greedy bastards with whom you'll spend the rest of your life, maybe loving them after accepting it all as societal norm and in turn, gradually turning into one of them.
Sure so people started to find ways of obliterating this burden of having a female child by getting sex-determination done on the foetus and killing it in case it happened to be a girl. There are absolutely no compunctions about this. Apparently they just remove the female foetus and throw it and the reports are grotesqueness and appalling. There are reports of dogs fighting over discarded female foetuses, of them being thrown in bins and drains (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-11-10/lucknow/28243288_1_foetus-hospital-authorities-hospital-administration, http://ibnlive.in.com/news/5th-female-foetus-found-in-udaipur/20653-3.html, http://zeenews.india.com/news/maharashtra/maharashtra-one-more-female-foetus-found_713636.html, http://news.oneindia.in/2011/06/11/female-foetuses-found-maharashtra-beed-sex-ratio-girl-aid0101.html, http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html)
So the government cracked down on sonographs and confiscated them from private clinics to prevent sex determination by the male-crazy Indian families.
But the latest news has truly shocked me out of my wits (http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/article2137959.ece). Now parents are getting sex-change surgeries performed on their daughters and turning them into boys despite knowing the fact that they'll be infertile as men. This has to one of the most heinous crimes ever. The procedure goes on to create a phallus using female genital tissue! What's the craze in this phallus-crazy nation, we literally worship it. Now they're out to wipe the entire womankind. Don't they love their mothers? Don't they have sisters? Don't they have wives...did they ever fall in love? Don't they every think how their lives would be without these women...Possibly not. We're living amongst monsters who can do this to their own children. And these are doctors who took a fuckin hippocratic oath and then shoved it up their asses and shitted it all out the next day. These people should have their medical license stripped and should be jailed for life. I cannot understand a mindset like that, all I know is that I don't wish to share my surroundings and live in the vicinity of people like those....I'm outta here man!
Therefore for many of us Indians, birth of a girl signifies foreseeable trouble. Firstly to control her enough so that she doesn't find out much about her own body only to let her find out everything at the hands of a butcher on the first night. Strangely in our society if a girl and boy are "caught" by the members of our Moral Police in a compromising situation, it's the girls family that faces shame way more than the boy's. On such occasions I've seen that the first thing that parents and relatives start to fret about it "Ab iski shaadi kaise hogi". Secondly it's a lot about dowry in every place in India barring a few places in the East. I've heard people talk about dowry the moment a girl is born, I do not know why they never did away with it all these centuries, maybe because there was always a balance of a girl and a boy in the family so if you were giving to your daughter, you were also receiving from your daughter-in-law. This only underscores the extremes of materialism in our mindset where single everything, be it career or spouse, is chosen according to financial gain at hand, interests, passion and love take a backseat (if present at all or even subliminally and systematically erased by parents, like what happened in my case). Being a girl in our system is tough. Many of the people who opress their daughters and rob them of their freedom can be seen letching at girls, their daughters age or even younger, in public places, a few bastards even indulge in eve-teasing. Old men, middle-aged men, boys, they all do it and they do it with brazen shamelessness for this is a patriarchal society and males mostly do as they please. I've been eye-witness to many such incidences.
So I repeat, being a girl is tough here, you don't have much freedom, you've got amorous eyes gawking at you all the time, you move around in places where men will violate you given the first chance, then you have to steer clear of prying eyes if you happen to be in a relation with a guy, then you're required to marry according to your parent's wishes (which translates to the society's wishes)and bear the burden of the thought that the very people responsible for your birth are now paying through their noses to send you to greedy bastards with whom you'll spend the rest of your life, maybe loving them after accepting it all as societal norm and in turn, gradually turning into one of them.
Sure so people started to find ways of obliterating this burden of having a female child by getting sex-determination done on the foetus and killing it in case it happened to be a girl. There are absolutely no compunctions about this. Apparently they just remove the female foetus and throw it and the reports are grotesqueness and appalling. There are reports of dogs fighting over discarded female foetuses, of them being thrown in bins and drains (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-11-10/lucknow/28243288_1_foetus-hospital-authorities-hospital-administration, http://ibnlive.in.com/news/5th-female-foetus-found-in-udaipur/20653-3.html, http://zeenews.india.com/news/maharashtra/maharashtra-one-more-female-foetus-found_713636.html, http://news.oneindia.in/2011/06/11/female-foetuses-found-maharashtra-beed-sex-ratio-girl-aid0101.html, http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html)
So the government cracked down on sonographs and confiscated them from private clinics to prevent sex determination by the male-crazy Indian families.
But the latest news has truly shocked me out of my wits (http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/article2137959.ece). Now parents are getting sex-change surgeries performed on their daughters and turning them into boys despite knowing the fact that they'll be infertile as men. This has to one of the most heinous crimes ever. The procedure goes on to create a phallus using female genital tissue! What's the craze in this phallus-crazy nation, we literally worship it. Now they're out to wipe the entire womankind. Don't they love their mothers? Don't they have sisters? Don't they have wives...did they ever fall in love? Don't they every think how their lives would be without these women...Possibly not. We're living amongst monsters who can do this to their own children. And these are doctors who took a fuckin hippocratic oath and then shoved it up their asses and shitted it all out the next day. These people should have their medical license stripped and should be jailed for life. I cannot understand a mindset like that, all I know is that I don't wish to share my surroundings and live in the vicinity of people like those....I'm outta here man!
Monday, June 27, 2011
Will-miracle
For us there's no tomorrow, well, is there? Branded renegades, we live by instincts we sure are distinct. We love like there's nothing else to this life, there's other stuff to do as well and we don't shy away from strife. We walk through life, wayfarers, misnamed philanderers. Still learning to live, still relearning everything. Followers of logic, believers of love, we walk with a deep faith in miracles of will.
Rushed
It's a quarter past nine
seems like nothing's mine
mad rush to my workplace
making way through a maze
someday I'll be on time
but I really wonder when
By the time I start work
It's already quarter to ten
I'm tired already it's just eleven
Wishin there was someway
to peep into Heaven
I sigh for a while
cause I've got nothing to say
And so by quarter to twelve
reality calls me back
and hands me the golden rule
If you Love like a madman
you must work like a mule
Cause it's all about balance
Even if there's a raging passion
let me veil it by nonchalance
By one I'm geared up and ready
gotta speed through life
and yet be steady
Two, three, four, five
All pass by in a happy jive
Must work, must plan
must get things done
n' while I'm alive,
Can't lose hope, life is fun
someone somewhere's waiting
torn between the love n' hating
n' we'll flock together
like birds of a feather
Six seven eight nine ten
Waiting for you love
how why when
I can't say but surely
I'll be happy again
seems like nothing's mine
mad rush to my workplace
making way through a maze
someday I'll be on time
but I really wonder when
By the time I start work
It's already quarter to ten
I'm tired already it's just eleven
Wishin there was someway
to peep into Heaven
I sigh for a while
cause I've got nothing to say
And so by quarter to twelve
reality calls me back
and hands me the golden rule
If you Love like a madman
you must work like a mule
Cause it's all about balance
Even if there's a raging passion
let me veil it by nonchalance
By one I'm geared up and ready
gotta speed through life
and yet be steady
Two, three, four, five
All pass by in a happy jive
Must work, must plan
must get things done
n' while I'm alive,
Can't lose hope, life is fun
someone somewhere's waiting
torn between the love n' hating
n' we'll flock together
like birds of a feather
Six seven eight nine ten
Waiting for you love
how why when
I can't say but surely
I'll be happy again
Sunday, June 26, 2011
convenient abbreviations
Guys remember the ol' Orkut days when people used to write testimonials for each other and it was cute till one day I read something that totally baffled me.
One lady unwittingly punched these words on a friend's scrapbook (who also happened to be a girl), "I love your testis" and got me wondering "heck!! she sure looks feminine."
It took a coulpla minutes to realize she was referring to her style of writing testimonials but wtf...one should think twice before forming convenient abbreviations.
One lady unwittingly punched these words on a friend's scrapbook (who also happened to be a girl), "I love your testis" and got me wondering "heck!! she sure looks feminine."
It took a coulpla minutes to realize she was referring to her style of writing testimonials but wtf...one should think twice before forming convenient abbreviations.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
"Id"iocy
Well it's been a long time since I wrote a post. Some say that the urge to write is generally spawned by an event that stands out and stares you in the face. It could even be a mundane thing but if for some reason it suddenly pops up and you observe it with new eyes and say "hey I never thought about this that way", it generally is the trigger for many to write. Pros though should be able to write at any time. I'm neither an amateur nor a pro, and definitely going insane and today as a respite to this feeling, I'm hammering at the keyboard.
It's been a week (or probably much longer) since I've been in the "sick of everything" mood, losing my temper at everything, drinking frequently, putting on fat and living in a sty of a room that I just can't get myself motivated enough to clean. Like my room, my bed-sheet is dirty and almost disintegrating but I'm just looking at it and thinking of it as my own self.
For the past few days I was waking up with weird thoughts in my head; thoughts that I too will die, like my parents will, for that matter like everybody will. Thoughts that were absolutely disorientating me and making me frustrated about the very truth of being born. I have been socializing but inside, I've drawn myself into a cocoon. I do not wish to talk to anyone, I do not wish to explain myself to anyone, I do not wish to
As if things weren't already bad enough, I've been suffering from a bit of a compulsive disorder to search for digicams. It has totally possessed me and tonight, after many, I shall refrain from reading more about the best high-end P&S and entry-level DSLRs. It's manic, it's adversely affecting my work, my sleep, my food, my exercise; all I think about, dream about and want to talk about is DCs. I'd love to fill up paragraphs and paragraphs on the massive buildup of the already existing knowledge for I believe that it'll fuel my passion further, something that I'm already smoldering in. When I'd had enough of reading on websites (and watching on youtube), the comparisons and reviews, today I felt it was time to go to the shops and tally the price difference from what's mentioned on the websites. I resisted, thinking that I was being crazy and totally losing it so I headed instead to the gym where I jogged and exercised for half an hour. When I came out, I started the bike and headed for Sec-22, it was 9:00pm. I break the mania. Before I knew it I found myself standing in front of an almost empty and dark market and just a few shops were open, nearing shut-down. I ran into all of them and inquired about the prices of a few models that I wanted. Now I know that at Rs 24K, I can buy Nikon P7000 but will need to wait for P300 and don’t know if I can afford Canon G12 at 30K and Canon 550D DSLR at 35K, only time will tell; time will tell in the form of money that will come in the form of arrears.
It was mom’s birthday yesterday. We went over to the Rekhis and celebrated it along with Riti’s and Ritika’s b’day that happens to fall on 2nd May as well. Mom for the first time went to visit Amritsar on a two day trip with her colleagues. Dad thinks it’s still not time for both of them to travel and visit all the places they never did. Drunk, I almost shouted at him “If it’s still not time, it never will be.”; I was ill-tempered and cocky as usual. The date will forever be etched in history books for Osama Bin Laden was taken down by the US forces in a covert operation, 50 kms from Pakistan unbeknown (or so they say) to the Pakistani government or it’s forces. My boss, who is usually all praises for America, or at times a loud critic, today was walking around the institute insinuating the minds of lower grade employees and the students that America was bossing the world and what she was doing was terrorism itself. At times I feel he’s not just a harmless gossipmonger but a strategist, an Indian right-wing extremist subtly and intentionally sowing the seeds of hatred in the minds of people around him. Since he’s educated and cannot cut out a non-secular figure in a research institute, he has other ways of carrying out his job. The other day after returning from Bombay he covertly praised the Shiv Sena. He took the cover of Muslim dominated favelas in Bombay hoisting the Pakistani flag. While the act is rightfully condemnable, it doesn’t justify the acts of the SS who’ve done nothing for national integrity themselves, rather in just the opposite, dividing fellow Indians on the basis of religion, and regions and carrying out pogroms. I was too stunned back then to say anything, Today I launched a spontaneous counter attack, not because I have any special love for America which is but a great foreign nation to me but because I wanted to stop him in his track from insinuating our minds with his sleazy brainchild. I quipped that if America’s action are terroristic then even ours were at the time of the freedom struggle. This was a weak point that he quickly nailed by saying that we were doing it to free our own nation from the foreigners. My next point was a headshot and ended the argument. I told him that it’s great for American’s to be born in that country where, when they were attacked, they left no stone unturned to get one person from the whole world and end his existence. It wasn’t like us that we were attacked, managed to capture the terrorist and were feeding him kebabs in jail while he smirked at the cameras and pissed on our faces. Of course I was talking about Ajmal Kasab.
It's been a week (or probably much longer) since I've been in the "sick of everything" mood, losing my temper at everything, drinking frequently, putting on fat and living in a sty of a room that I just can't get myself motivated enough to clean. Like my room, my bed-sheet is dirty and almost disintegrating but I'm just looking at it and thinking of it as my own self.
For the past few days I was waking up with weird thoughts in my head; thoughts that I too will die, like my parents will, for that matter like everybody will. Thoughts that were absolutely disorientating me and making me frustrated about the very truth of being born. I have been socializing but inside, I've drawn myself into a cocoon. I do not wish to talk to anyone, I do not wish to explain myself to anyone, I do not wish to
As if things weren't already bad enough, I've been suffering from a bit of a compulsive disorder to search for digicams. It has totally possessed me and tonight, after many, I shall refrain from reading more about the best high-end P&S and entry-level DSLRs. It's manic, it's adversely affecting my work, my sleep, my food, my exercise; all I think about, dream about and want to talk about is DCs. I'd love to fill up paragraphs and paragraphs on the massive buildup of the already existing knowledge for I believe that it'll fuel my passion further, something that I'm already smoldering in. When I'd had enough of reading on websites (and watching on youtube), the comparisons and reviews, today I felt it was time to go to the shops and tally the price difference from what's mentioned on the websites. I resisted, thinking that I was being crazy and totally losing it so I headed instead to the gym where I jogged and exercised for half an hour. When I came out, I started the bike and headed for Sec-22, it was 9:00pm. I break the mania. Before I knew it I found myself standing in front of an almost empty and dark market and just a few shops were open, nearing shut-down. I ran into all of them and inquired about the prices of a few models that I wanted. Now I know that at Rs 24K, I can buy Nikon P7000 but will need to wait for P300 and don’t know if I can afford Canon G12 at 30K and Canon 550D DSLR at 35K, only time will tell; time will tell in the form of money that will come in the form of arrears.
It was mom’s birthday yesterday. We went over to the Rekhis and celebrated it along with Riti’s and Ritika’s b’day that happens to fall on 2nd May as well. Mom for the first time went to visit Amritsar on a two day trip with her colleagues. Dad thinks it’s still not time for both of them to travel and visit all the places they never did. Drunk, I almost shouted at him “If it’s still not time, it never will be.”; I was ill-tempered and cocky as usual. The date will forever be etched in history books for Osama Bin Laden was taken down by the US forces in a covert operation, 50 kms from Pakistan unbeknown (or so they say) to the Pakistani government or it’s forces. My boss, who is usually all praises for America, or at times a loud critic, today was walking around the institute insinuating the minds of lower grade employees and the students that America was bossing the world and what she was doing was terrorism itself. At times I feel he’s not just a harmless gossipmonger but a strategist, an Indian right-wing extremist subtly and intentionally sowing the seeds of hatred in the minds of people around him. Since he’s educated and cannot cut out a non-secular figure in a research institute, he has other ways of carrying out his job. The other day after returning from Bombay he covertly praised the Shiv Sena. He took the cover of Muslim dominated favelas in Bombay hoisting the Pakistani flag. While the act is rightfully condemnable, it doesn’t justify the acts of the SS who’ve done nothing for national integrity themselves, rather in just the opposite, dividing fellow Indians on the basis of religion, and regions and carrying out pogroms. I was too stunned back then to say anything, Today I launched a spontaneous counter attack, not because I have any special love for America which is but a great foreign nation to me but because I wanted to stop him in his track from insinuating our minds with his sleazy brainchild. I quipped that if America’s action are terroristic then even ours were at the time of the freedom struggle. This was a weak point that he quickly nailed by saying that we were doing it to free our own nation from the foreigners. My next point was a headshot and ended the argument. I told him that it’s great for American’s to be born in that country where, when they were attacked, they left no stone unturned to get one person from the whole world and end his existence. It wasn’t like us that we were attacked, managed to capture the terrorist and were feeding him kebabs in jail while he smirked at the cameras and pissed on our faces. Of course I was talking about Ajmal Kasab.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
bon voyage
My protein prep’s getting screwed for the past more than a week. It did so again today and the frustration was immense. I didn’t feel like doing anything yet pined to do something that would take my mind off the failure and give me a sense of relief that there was more to life that would recharge me to take the bull by the horns the next day. At 8:15pm I wanted to go back home and thought it would be better to go back and tidy up the mess of a room I had created; a constant reminder that something wasn’t right in my life and I had no control. I wake up in a mess and go to bed in a mess just to remind myself constantly that I am not taking charge of my life yet. I know the day I clean up the room is the day I take on the problems at work as well. It’s funny how I’ve gotten into this habit of subliminal reminders about taking control of life. Anyway, just when I was planning to go back home, I thought I’d say hi to Anuj as it’s one of his last days at IMTECH. No sooner had I reached the hostel, I saw Mirage and Balot accompanying Anuj and the rest is history. It was Anuj, Balot, Mirage, Surendra and I, lots of peanuts, some boiled eggs, some other stuff, Kellog’s chocos (I love munching on them) and a bottle of Aniquity. We ended up having one the most fun times ever. It was when I bid goodbye, when the effect of alcohol was dwindled off my nerves when I hugged Anuj goodbye to leave for home that I realized that this was probably the last time in a long time that we’d get to sit over a drink like this. Emotions came over me and suddenly all the times since January 2006 flashed by. We’ve known each other for a while now and all the great times we’ve shared will be one of the finest memories I’ve had with my guy friends. The alcohol concentration in my blood was milder but not finished. As I rode out, I decided I wasn’t gonna wear the helmet and feel the wind on my balding head and on my face throughout the way. It was awesome as I cruised at low speed on the straight roads, only slowing a bit on the roundabouts. There were some stretched where the air was cold, the wind raced into my shirt and enveloped my in cold, chest, back, hands, all. I was thankful when this cold stretch ended and the tepid wind no longer made me feel lonely. The street lights passed over like bright stars. I was riding with just one hand, the other resting on my thigh. The strong wind made my eyes water but it felt nice. I enjoyed the ride that got over pretty quickly. Loved being alone and hated the thought of being attached to another degree after this.
Here I am back in the messy room, my laptop adjusted between the clothes sprayed on the table, telling me that I need to take control; a disconcerting thought that tells me this second just passed me by without me having taken any control of my life in it.
Here I am back in the messy room, my laptop adjusted between the clothes sprayed on the table, telling me that I need to take control; a disconcerting thought that tells me this second just passed me by without me having taken any control of my life in it.
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Nightmare
********************************************
* I watch this moment pass me by *
* I'm lost somewhere, wishing I could fly *
* Living through days that move so fast *
* So fast that nothing they promise *
* ever really lasts *
* I surrender to the ephemerality *
* that first takes me to eternity, *
* But lasts for seconds in reality *
* What’s perpetual, are these *
* inopportune opportunities *
* And these lovers of vanities *
* Planted here by the devil himself *
* Must I stay with these annoyances *
* Mysteriously glued here, I detest *
* the sights, sounds and sensations *
* Hang my head and bear the vexation *
* That’s repulsive but still a temptation *
********************************************
* I watch this moment pass me by *
* I'm lost somewhere, wishing I could fly *
* Living through days that move so fast *
* So fast that nothing they promise *
* ever really lasts *
* I surrender to the ephemerality *
* that first takes me to eternity, *
* But lasts for seconds in reality *
* What’s perpetual, are these *
* inopportune opportunities *
* And these lovers of vanities *
* Planted here by the devil himself *
* Must I stay with these annoyances *
* Mysteriously glued here, I detest *
* the sights, sounds and sensations *
* Hang my head and bear the vexation *
* That’s repulsive but still a temptation *
********************************************
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Rendition
Part of me
I never knew
friends I had
I had but few
A year hence
I have less hair
but life's moving
on top gear
playing life's act
that sounds like fiction
way more than fact
This is My rendition
of this script
of these nondescript
stories from the crypt
Hanged to death n
sliced in the gulliton
Disparged by you
dispised by everyone
I cried nearly drowned
no one tugged at
this outstretched hand
This is my stage
I'm the prodigal son
and yet I am the sage
This is my rendition
of the misadventure
that I did but then didn't
share with anyone
I had love but
i held too tight
what I love
is a shadow
in a dark night
What I aim
is a world away
What I adore is
an ingrate I'd say
I see my reality
finally the way
I wish to
This is my life
my rendition
I'm the hero
I am the audience
to my own rules
I bow in obedience
I never knew
friends I had
I had but few
A year hence
I have less hair
but life's moving
on top gear
playing life's act
that sounds like fiction
way more than fact
This is My rendition
of this script
of these nondescript
stories from the crypt
Hanged to death n
sliced in the gulliton
Disparged by you
dispised by everyone
I cried nearly drowned
no one tugged at
this outstretched hand
This is my stage
I'm the prodigal son
and yet I am the sage
This is my rendition
of the misadventure
that I did but then didn't
share with anyone
I had love but
i held too tight
what I love
is a shadow
in a dark night
What I aim
is a world away
What I adore is
an ingrate I'd say
I see my reality
finally the way
I wish to
This is my life
my rendition
I'm the hero
I am the audience
to my own rules
I bow in obedience
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
unrest inside
tonight
avoid proclivity
tonight
I yearn serenity
Do cease this dirge
what mental scourge
I wish not
to hear any words
A silence, heavenly
neither ticks of clocks
nor barking dogs
keep them all away
Let me hear, what
these beats have to say
avoid proclivity
tonight
I yearn serenity
Do cease this dirge
what mental scourge
I wish not
to hear any words
A silence, heavenly
neither ticks of clocks
nor barking dogs
keep them all away
Let me hear, what
these beats have to say
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Upheaval
I clean your wounds
and my own heal
I empathise
and to my suprise
It's easier to
forgive my foes
to stand up and
stop ranting about
these tales of woes
It frightens no more,
the sight of this
blood n' gore
I'm neither buried
in terror
nor soaring high
For I accept that
one day, I'll die
so will he
the one who can't
express his heart
so will she
the one who woudn't
use her mind
but is still
most kind
she loves me despite
knowing me well
with all the fears
I can't dispell
But as I
tend to your wound
my pain subsides
but why?
unaware of all
from me, that
my own mind hides
the doors open
in my dreams
I see not only
the surreal sights
of soaring along the
lovely meandering streams
I see as well that
I'm stuck in mesh
with claws
tearing at my flesh
and gradually it's
all too real
but when I..
I bandage your wounds
my own heal
I stare into you
And see my heart
It begins to
make sense, part by part
I am the claw, that rips
I am the hand. that whips
I gift wounds to one and all
I feel humbled, I feel small
I cover your wounds
and stroke your hair
I kiss your forehead
and put you to bed
and quietly walk away
relieved of my own pain
these lessons in life
will not go in vain
and my own heal
I empathise
and to my suprise
It's easier to
forgive my foes
to stand up and
stop ranting about
these tales of woes
It frightens no more,
the sight of this
blood n' gore
I'm neither buried
in terror
nor soaring high
For I accept that
one day, I'll die
so will he
the one who can't
express his heart
so will she
the one who woudn't
use her mind
but is still
most kind
she loves me despite
knowing me well
with all the fears
I can't dispell
But as I
tend to your wound
my pain subsides
but why?
unaware of all
from me, that
my own mind hides
the doors open
in my dreams
I see not only
the surreal sights
of soaring along the
lovely meandering streams
I see as well that
I'm stuck in mesh
with claws
tearing at my flesh
and gradually it's
all too real
but when I..
I bandage your wounds
my own heal
I stare into you
And see my heart
It begins to
make sense, part by part
I am the claw, that rips
I am the hand. that whips
I gift wounds to one and all
I feel humbled, I feel small
I cover your wounds
and stroke your hair
I kiss your forehead
and put you to bed
and quietly walk away
relieved of my own pain
these lessons in life
will not go in vain
Sunday, March 20, 2011
guise
Too long to forget
Losing you
Why do I fret
Too stubborn to bend
Too honest to say
you’re just a friend
Too casual
to question why
might shed a tear
When I say goodbye
Too etched to erase
Intertwined in a maze
Blessed to know you
Too well to adore you
I’m you and you’re me
Lost in riddles
Where exactly are we?
I’m your reflection
You’re mine
We ride again
In the dead the of night
With the wind
We put up a brave fight
We race in vain
The truth chasin, yanking
its horse’s reigns
and we run and we split
so that one throat
is spared from being slit
when I look in the mirror
We both meet again
I raise my eyes
I feel overpowered
for I see you clearly
I see a coward
Losing you
Why do I fret
Too stubborn to bend
Too honest to say
you’re just a friend
Too casual
to question why
might shed a tear
When I say goodbye
Too etched to erase
Intertwined in a maze
Blessed to know you
Too well to adore you
I’m you and you’re me
Lost in riddles
Where exactly are we?
I’m your reflection
You’re mine
We ride again
In the dead the of night
With the wind
We put up a brave fight
We race in vain
The truth chasin, yanking
its horse’s reigns
and we run and we split
so that one throat
is spared from being slit
when I look in the mirror
We both meet again
I raise my eyes
I feel overpowered
for I see you clearly
I see a coward
Saturday, March 19, 2011
outstanding
Whoever stored fish
in a can without a lid
n knew not that it'd
never be served a dish
had to be a rich man's kid
Oh the rich man's kid
in a blaring car
downing his pain
in an lavish bar
The pain of having less
Less being relative,
nothing short of a mess
ten pairs of swank shoes
for the eleventh
got nothing to lose
His wallet's a legend
blessed by dad's sweat
that appears on his brows
when he evades tax
or takes some bribe
In his circles
he can take pride
sweat shop cater
to his loud taste
he binges on colours
in a brazen haste
The only thing
he doesn't doubt
He must stand out
walking in the crowd
in a can without a lid
n knew not that it'd
never be served a dish
had to be a rich man's kid
Oh the rich man's kid
in a blaring car
downing his pain
in an lavish bar
The pain of having less
Less being relative,
nothing short of a mess
ten pairs of swank shoes
for the eleventh
got nothing to lose
His wallet's a legend
blessed by dad's sweat
that appears on his brows
when he evades tax
or takes some bribe
In his circles
he can take pride
sweat shop cater
to his loud taste
he binges on colours
in a brazen haste
The only thing
he doesn't doubt
He must stand out
walking in the crowd
Friday, March 18, 2011
unme
You, isn't it you
I'm thinking of now
conscience creeping
into my dream's somehow
Slipping into a crevasse
you caught hold of my hand
Thought it was the end
but I'm alive and
grateful, here I stand
Isn't it you,
who just brushed past
to tell me you were near
when I stood in the fear
that I was alone
you're a stranger than strange
you're almost deranged
but wish to know you more
for I feel for us,
there's something in store
I'm thinking of now
conscience creeping
into my dream's somehow
Slipping into a crevasse
you caught hold of my hand
Thought it was the end
but I'm alive and
grateful, here I stand
Isn't it you,
who just brushed past
to tell me you were near
when I stood in the fear
that I was alone
you're a stranger than strange
you're almost deranged
but wish to know you more
for I feel for us,
there's something in store
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Lovesickoflove
I’m lovesick, I wanna hold you so
I yearn for you, never wanna let go
I’m sick of love, don’t waste my time
So sick of it, won’t spend a dime
Come close, I wanna smell your skin
Too sick of love to call this ‘sin’
I’m tired of love, I don’t wanna fight
Just hold me close even if I ain’t Mr. Right
You are strange, you’re such a witch
Your selfish plans, immune to glitch
You’ll wreck my world, it’s such a trend
You’re beautiful but so are your friends
I’m lovesick when I break my bread
Even more so when I go to bed
I’m so lovesick I pine for a caress
So sick of it, I couldn’t care less
I’m so lovesick, I want you NOW
So sick of it, I know it’d be such a row
So lovesick, for you I’d sing
Too sick of it to explain…
…what you’re missing!
I yearn for you, never wanna let go
I’m sick of love, don’t waste my time
So sick of it, won’t spend a dime
Come close, I wanna smell your skin
Too sick of love to call this ‘sin’
I’m tired of love, I don’t wanna fight
Just hold me close even if I ain’t Mr. Right
You are strange, you’re such a witch
Your selfish plans, immune to glitch
You’ll wreck my world, it’s such a trend
You’re beautiful but so are your friends
I’m lovesick when I break my bread
Even more so when I go to bed
I’m so lovesick I pine for a caress
So sick of it, I couldn’t care less
I’m so lovesick, I want you NOW
So sick of it, I know it’d be such a row
So lovesick, for you I’d sing
Too sick of it to explain…
…what you’re missing!
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Again it's the blues
my world's losin it's hues
It's been days and
I yearn for good news
or even a harbinger
No sweet sensations linger
Just when the mind's blank
and there's nothing to muse
there's nothing, I tell myself
so there's nothing to lose
Walls talk to me
ghosts are my friends
I embrace shadows
I cast myself from within
It's my own face
I gently stroke
between the mirror and I
there's a blinding smoke
I dream of greatness
lying unconscious
In the realms of reality
my hands extended for alms
I'll do big things I do foresee
I'm at peace with my tenacity
strength to strength
I heal and renew
As I turn
the blue to grey
I pick my colours
and paint my way
my world's losin it's hues
It's been days and
I yearn for good news
or even a harbinger
No sweet sensations linger
Just when the mind's blank
and there's nothing to muse
there's nothing, I tell myself
so there's nothing to lose
Walls talk to me
ghosts are my friends
I embrace shadows
I cast myself from within
It's my own face
I gently stroke
between the mirror and I
there's a blinding smoke
I dream of greatness
lying unconscious
In the realms of reality
my hands extended for alms
I'll do big things I do foresee
I'm at peace with my tenacity
strength to strength
I heal and renew
As I turn
the blue to grey
I pick my colours
and paint my way
Friday, March 11, 2011
I was reading something about child-rights and chanced upon an article on the Times of India website. Having finished reading it, I noticed a link to another article titled "5 best positions to get pregnant". Though of no particular interest to me as of now, I still thought I should increase my knowledge.
The article turned out to be quite a farce. It mentioned five "things" as being best to aid conception (pardon me for this but it really was there on the website so here goes):
Missionary
Raised hips
Doggy-style
Side-by-side
Orgasms
Now the first three are man-on-top, the next on the side. Ok! According to my diminutive knowledge on the subject, apart from kinky fetish and kamasutra stuff, the only broad category left is the woman-on-top, which apparently another article by TOI suggests is one of the most successful sexual positions at giving woman an orgasm. So they're contradicting the story as a whole. And last but not least, orgasm. This pretty much suggests that any form of penetration will cause pregnancy.
They also forgot the most important point: Erection. Ah! We Indian men just circumvent all our responsibilities LOL! Articles like these really amuse me. They really don't disburse any real knowledge.
Since TOI seems to be covering sex well, here's a link to another one of their articles on sex
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-09-30/health/28082731_1_orgasm-g-spot-female-sexual-dysfunction
I will refrain from adding my own experiences about the topic but I wonder if it's as bad as they're saying it is. What I can't refrain from is quoting a part of the article, here goes
"Technology can help: Perhaps the most extreme solution for sexual dysfunction among women is the so-called "orgasmatron"-an implant inserted into the spinal cord, which stimulates the user when switched on via a remote control. Despite an initial struggle to find subjects for clinical testing, the device is now in development."
Wow! A remote controlled babe to make out with, what could be more utopic than that. Talk about technology.
Here's more TOI on technology for you:
Female marrow could turn to sperm (eeks! Brothers our balls will be redundant soon)
New reproductive technology could render men redundant (wonderful! not just the balls they mean)
They're talking ways to address pregnancy. Really, tell me, do we need this, there's a kid being born every other second in our country? Why not concentrate more on enjoying the experience. You should be a traveller, an adventurer, enjoy the journey while you reach the destination.
& Have less babies please.
The article turned out to be quite a farce. It mentioned five "things" as being best to aid conception (pardon me for this but it really was there on the website so here goes):
Missionary
Raised hips
Doggy-style
Side-by-side
Orgasms
Now the first three are man-on-top, the next on the side. Ok! According to my diminutive knowledge on the subject, apart from kinky fetish and kamasutra stuff, the only broad category left is the woman-on-top, which apparently another article by TOI suggests is one of the most successful sexual positions at giving woman an orgasm. So they're contradicting the story as a whole. And last but not least, orgasm. This pretty much suggests that any form of penetration will cause pregnancy.
They also forgot the most important point: Erection. Ah! We Indian men just circumvent all our responsibilities LOL! Articles like these really amuse me. They really don't disburse any real knowledge.
Since TOI seems to be covering sex well, here's a link to another one of their articles on sex
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-09-30/health/28082731_1_orgasm-g-spot-female-sexual-dysfunction
I will refrain from adding my own experiences about the topic but I wonder if it's as bad as they're saying it is. What I can't refrain from is quoting a part of the article, here goes
"Technology can help: Perhaps the most extreme solution for sexual dysfunction among women is the so-called "orgasmatron"-an implant inserted into the spinal cord, which stimulates the user when switched on via a remote control. Despite an initial struggle to find subjects for clinical testing, the device is now in development."
Wow! A remote controlled babe to make out with, what could be more utopic than that. Talk about technology.
Here's more TOI on technology for you:
Female marrow could turn to sperm (eeks! Brothers our balls will be redundant soon)
New reproductive technology could render men redundant (wonderful! not just the balls they mean)
They're talking ways to address pregnancy. Really, tell me, do we need this, there's a kid being born every other second in our country? Why not concentrate more on enjoying the experience. You should be a traveller, an adventurer, enjoy the journey while you reach the destination.
& Have less babies please.
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Into the Wild
Christopher Johnson McCandless
Feb 12 1968- Aug 18 1992
I just finished watching the movie Into The Wild. I think I'm becoming more perceptive to movies. It probably has something to do with the fact that I've loved all the movies I've watched recently. Into the Wild was a great movie. I'll probably write my thoughts on it later but the spooky part is that H.D.Thoreau seems to be chasing me. I've been (slowly) reading Walden, then the last movie I watched had Walden in it (The Great Debaters) and today, into the wild also mentioned Walden by Thoreau. I guess I gotta speed up my reading.
Only that I really don't think McCandless and Thoreau were talking about exactly the same thing and McCandless was probably a little delusioned, if I dare say that, Thoreau probably was constantly there somewhere in his head. I'd like to add that though I used the word delusioned, I would love to admit that men like McCandless inspire me and I do, in many ways, relate to his childhood. I've had thoughts like the ones he did. Only that probably as an Indian, my parents had too great a role in shaping my life, though not thoughts, and my life would've never gone the way McCandless' did. Maybe it would have because I started to read Thoreau when I was 22 but my vocab hindered the progress and I gave up reading it; thank god. Besides at that age, silly me was too madly in love with a silly girl. All the stupidity saved me to grow older.
How I wish that McCandless was alive. If he were alive, maybe his story wouldn't appear to be that brilliant but what the heck, even a degree less, it would still be awesome. But I doubt if he would've had the realizations that he did if never went that close to death...before he actually died. Sad as I am right now after watching the movie, I know I can't change the past, I can learn from it though, "Happiness is best when shared"
Hat's off to him and to his amazing sister and to their words that changed the people around them and their story that will continue to affect all that hear it and watch it as a film.
Feb 12 1968- Aug 18 1992
I just finished watching the movie Into The Wild. I think I'm becoming more perceptive to movies. It probably has something to do with the fact that I've loved all the movies I've watched recently. Into the Wild was a great movie. I'll probably write my thoughts on it later but the spooky part is that H.D.Thoreau seems to be chasing me. I've been (slowly) reading Walden, then the last movie I watched had Walden in it (The Great Debaters) and today, into the wild also mentioned Walden by Thoreau. I guess I gotta speed up my reading.
Only that I really don't think McCandless and Thoreau were talking about exactly the same thing and McCandless was probably a little delusioned, if I dare say that, Thoreau probably was constantly there somewhere in his head. I'd like to add that though I used the word delusioned, I would love to admit that men like McCandless inspire me and I do, in many ways, relate to his childhood. I've had thoughts like the ones he did. Only that probably as an Indian, my parents had too great a role in shaping my life, though not thoughts, and my life would've never gone the way McCandless' did. Maybe it would have because I started to read Thoreau when I was 22 but my vocab hindered the progress and I gave up reading it; thank god. Besides at that age, silly me was too madly in love with a silly girl. All the stupidity saved me to grow older.
How I wish that McCandless was alive. If he were alive, maybe his story wouldn't appear to be that brilliant but what the heck, even a degree less, it would still be awesome. But I doubt if he would've had the realizations that he did if never went that close to death...before he actually died. Sad as I am right now after watching the movie, I know I can't change the past, I can learn from it though, "Happiness is best when shared"
Hat's off to him and to his amazing sister and to their words that changed the people around them and their story that will continue to affect all that hear it and watch it as a film.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Right to Disobey
Some things just inspire you and spook you at the same time. It all started with me, a non-reader, watching a program called Great Books on the channel I love, Discovery Channel. The topic of discussion was the book Walden by H.D. Thoreau. The discussion was enchanting and I was captivated by Thoreau’s idea of living all alone next to a pond/lake, in a self-built house and eating self-cultivated food. My tryst with the book ended as soon as it began when I downloaded the e-version of the book and began reading it. Back in 2002, my grossly limited vocabulary impeded the progress of reading that book to an extent that I gave up in frustration after perusing a dozen odd pages but the wish to read the book still lingered in my head. Then last year, when I went to meet my prospective bride in Bangalore, who happened to be a voracious reader, I was shown around the city and soon landed up at one of her favourite haunts, the book store. There, as I walked around hypnotized at the sight of so many books, reading as many title names as I could, I found Walden sitting pretty. Without a second thought, I purchased it, despite the reconciliation with the fact that I would take eons to finish reading it even if I started right away. Methinks that the reading part of my brain is either underdeveloped or skewed.
Anyway it’s been a couple of months since I bought the book and after finishing the other book that I bought along with Walden, The Wind in The Willows, which I totally adore, I picked up Walden. Thoreau’s writing left me awed. I was reading about things that I personally pondered upon so many times since the time I was very young and of course, much more than that. For as much of a thinker I thought I was, Walden made me think even more than I ever thought I could think. I was delighted to find that one of my favorite quotes, “men have become the tools of their tools” is actually an excerpt from Walden. More awed I was when I read the preface that threw light on the fact that the idea of Civil Disobedience was Thoreau’s and that the people who drew inspiration from it were none other than Martin Luther Kings Jr. and our very own Mahatma Gandhi. Here I would like to mention that Walden is a very old book and was written in the 1800s.
Anyway a few hours ago I was scanning through the sea of movies that my buddy Rick had loaded on my computer more than a year ago. I am not one who’s interested in movies and therefore they’ve been just vegetating on my computer. I’ve watched one or two in this span and liked Training Day. A few hours ago, I reckoned that tomorrow being a Sunday, I could take the liberty of watching movie and since I was feeling very lonely and morose anyway, I thought that a movie couldn’t worsen it any more. So I got down to deciding which movie to watch and after much deliberation I clicked on The Great Debaters. It turned out to be an amazing movie, just like Rick had told me. It is a true story from the 1930s in which a group of black students from a non-descript Wiley College went on to win a debate at the Harvard University; a truly captivating and an inspiring story. I’m still reading Walden these days and owing to my poor attention-span with books, am just on the second chapter despite loving what I’m reading. Why I’m mentioning Walden here is because a strange chill ran down my spine by the end of the movie as the last debate is on Civil Disobedience and guess which book these have in their hands in the movie, you’re right, Walden; a great debate, a great movie and truly a great book. It felt nice to know that I’m trying to neuro-wrestle with the pages that have truly inspired and spawned greatness in history. I hope a bit of it rubs off on me as well. I couldn’t help but write about it at this hour, right after the movie concluded.
Anyway it’s been a couple of months since I bought the book and after finishing the other book that I bought along with Walden, The Wind in The Willows, which I totally adore, I picked up Walden. Thoreau’s writing left me awed. I was reading about things that I personally pondered upon so many times since the time I was very young and of course, much more than that. For as much of a thinker I thought I was, Walden made me think even more than I ever thought I could think. I was delighted to find that one of my favorite quotes, “men have become the tools of their tools” is actually an excerpt from Walden. More awed I was when I read the preface that threw light on the fact that the idea of Civil Disobedience was Thoreau’s and that the people who drew inspiration from it were none other than Martin Luther Kings Jr. and our very own Mahatma Gandhi. Here I would like to mention that Walden is a very old book and was written in the 1800s.
Anyway a few hours ago I was scanning through the sea of movies that my buddy Rick had loaded on my computer more than a year ago. I am not one who’s interested in movies and therefore they’ve been just vegetating on my computer. I’ve watched one or two in this span and liked Training Day. A few hours ago, I reckoned that tomorrow being a Sunday, I could take the liberty of watching movie and since I was feeling very lonely and morose anyway, I thought that a movie couldn’t worsen it any more. So I got down to deciding which movie to watch and after much deliberation I clicked on The Great Debaters. It turned out to be an amazing movie, just like Rick had told me. It is a true story from the 1930s in which a group of black students from a non-descript Wiley College went on to win a debate at the Harvard University; a truly captivating and an inspiring story. I’m still reading Walden these days and owing to my poor attention-span with books, am just on the second chapter despite loving what I’m reading. Why I’m mentioning Walden here is because a strange chill ran down my spine by the end of the movie as the last debate is on Civil Disobedience and guess which book these have in their hands in the movie, you’re right, Walden; a great debate, a great movie and truly a great book. It felt nice to know that I’m trying to neuro-wrestle with the pages that have truly inspired and spawned greatness in history. I hope a bit of it rubs off on me as well. I couldn’t help but write about it at this hour, right after the movie concluded.
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Cleaning season
Over a period of the past few weeks, my room has been growing messier. Of course I dislike being in an untidy room but sometimes I just let it be. Then today morning Ramrati, our cleaner-maid, who’s worked at our place for more than a decade, started to complain about how cluttered my room was while she was mopping the floor. She’s in her 50s and I’ve watched her grow old over all this time. What I dislike about her is that at times she talks about unnecessary topics with my mother. My mother gives her tea and food in the morning because she comes to our place very early. This was fairly commonplace activity till the time my dad objected to it, saying that my mother was spoiling her too much.
The problem is that Ramrati and my dad don’t get along at all and strangely, it’s because of her punctuality and in some strange way her love for our family that she still works. My father is not the kindest of and Ramrati is quite good at answering back when treated unfairly. My father and Ramrati have had terrible fights; in a normal scenario the maid would either leave or be fired. Both scenarios have taken place; more than once my dad has told her to hit the road and Ramrati herself has quit three times, the longest for a month but always returned home. My mom sides with her and quite frankly when my father becomes unreasonable, I too have sided with her in the past. Such scenarios have led to a weird tension between my mom, dad and me with my father interpreting it as we both going against him for a lowly housemaid. Not once has he ever acknowledged that he can be outrageously and unacceptably rude. Anyway dad’s not always rude and unreasonable, he a nice guy most of the times.
What I’m trying to say is that I cleaned my room so that Ramrati doesn’t mumble/curse and in the process wake me up early in the morning when she’s cleaning my room. That’s one thing I hate and lose my temper at spontaneously, when I’m woken up from deep slumber by something unpleasant, be it my parents talking too shouting instruction to each other early in the morning or Ramrati incessantly mumbling curses at me. My folks have faced my wrath once due to this habit and I don’t want Ramrati to find out the hard way that I, afterall, carry my dad’s anger genes; oh the big fat male ego!
The problem is that Ramrati and my dad don’t get along at all and strangely, it’s because of her punctuality and in some strange way her love for our family that she still works. My father is not the kindest of and Ramrati is quite good at answering back when treated unfairly. My father and Ramrati have had terrible fights; in a normal scenario the maid would either leave or be fired. Both scenarios have taken place; more than once my dad has told her to hit the road and Ramrati herself has quit three times, the longest for a month but always returned home. My mom sides with her and quite frankly when my father becomes unreasonable, I too have sided with her in the past. Such scenarios have led to a weird tension between my mom, dad and me with my father interpreting it as we both going against him for a lowly housemaid. Not once has he ever acknowledged that he can be outrageously and unacceptably rude. Anyway dad’s not always rude and unreasonable, he a nice guy most of the times.
What I’m trying to say is that I cleaned my room so that Ramrati doesn’t mumble/curse and in the process wake me up early in the morning when she’s cleaning my room. That’s one thing I hate and lose my temper at spontaneously, when I’m woken up from deep slumber by something unpleasant, be it my parents talking too shouting instruction to each other early in the morning or Ramrati incessantly mumbling curses at me. My folks have faced my wrath once due to this habit and I don’t want Ramrati to find out the hard way that I, afterall, carry my dad’s anger genes; oh the big fat male ego!
inferno
Mr. Seth's ground floor apartment was set ablaze by an electrical short circuit exactly a week ago. Our apartment is right above his. They say it was a frightening site as two fire engines and many firemen braved the smoke to put the fire out. The aluminium wires gave way after 20 years of constant usage and the result was frightening. Quite luckily no one was in the room when the TV exploded projecting out shrapnel and setting the wooden closets on fire. I now understand the big deal about fire-proof building material.
"A spark neglected burns a house", it never was so real and literal before. Whenever there has been minor sparking in the meter and/or the electrical points in the house, we've never really appreciated the gravity of the repercussions. A visit by the electrician to tighten loose ends generally solves the irritating hum. I never could imagine that an electrical fire could break out in a matter of seconds and go out of control just as quickly.
In order to not meet with the same fate, today we bought a various sets of copper wires to replace the whole wiring of the house. Havells wires are good and you get a good deal if you buy from the Industrial Area. We could purchased the same material in about 60-70% of the price 6-7 years ago as copper wasn't as exorbitantly priced back then. Sometimes the only cogency is provided by a demonstration of disaster; well we stand convinced.
"A spark neglected burns a house", it never was so real and literal before. Whenever there has been minor sparking in the meter and/or the electrical points in the house, we've never really appreciated the gravity of the repercussions. A visit by the electrician to tighten loose ends generally solves the irritating hum. I never could imagine that an electrical fire could break out in a matter of seconds and go out of control just as quickly.
In order to not meet with the same fate, today we bought a various sets of copper wires to replace the whole wiring of the house. Havells wires are good and you get a good deal if you buy from the Industrial Area. We could purchased the same material in about 60-70% of the price 6-7 years ago as copper wasn't as exorbitantly priced back then. Sometimes the only cogency is provided by a demonstration of disaster; well we stand convinced.
Friday, March 04, 2011
headliners of hardliners
Apart from the disturbing event that occurred in Pakistan, where a Christian leader was shot dead for raising his voice against the Blasphemy Law, another headline caught my attention, in which a lecture at the Northwestern University ended in a graphic manner in which a couple demonstrated the use of a sex toy. About the former all I have to say is that although it is bad to slander about any religion, unless the some practice in it brazenly questions the very essence of humanity, such laws can also be used as weapon to wrongly indict people of other faith. Well what can I say, the victim, a minister of minority community in Pakistan, Shahbaz Bhatti is dead so it doesn't matter anymore. Maybe there'll be more who'll raise their voice and more who'll die. I wouldn't call them martyrs. I wonder if Bhatti has met Jesus already, something he firmly believed he believed he will after dying. If not, what a waste.
Let's talk about the latter, the event faces investigations by the University authorities as they say there have to be guidelines for pedagogy and not everything is demonstrable in public.
In someway it brings memories of the time when one of my close friends Nipun Kalia was to present the subject of his PhD research in front of a Dissertation-Commission at the Punjab University a few years ago. I cannot recall accurately but Nipun was studying some aspect of Catherine Breillat's movies. The big deal about the whole thing was that Breillat's movies were about sexuality and were misinterpreted by a some members of the commission as pornography. In vain Nipun tried to explain to the clamouring members that there indeed was a difference between the two. There were people on his side but there were also many many against him. He stood their being judged as a pervert because he wished to investigate something that was related to sex. Media dogs sniffed the controversy and soon there were articles about the incidence and Nipun was portrayed as a nymphomaniac. Happily married, he's anything but that. Moral fingers poked him from everywhere but that did led him to have a celebrity status within our circles and even more so at his wife's workplace.
I don't know what to say of such a contentious issue at the Northwestern University, I really don't think having a live demo of a sex toy in a university is acceptable but then again that's not what the lecture was about, it was about "Bondage, swinging and other fetishes". Well if they're investigating that at the University, then it's probably no big deal to have a demo of a sex toy. After all it's something that people do engage in and it doesn't hurt or kill anyone and is for pleasure. Anyone that says that he/she doesn't have any interest in pleasure of those kinds would have to be totally asexual and most people aren't like that. The couple that performed were exhibitionists and were more than happy to oblige. This act was performed after the lecture was dismissed and the audience was cautioned a dozen times that what followed would be extremely graphic. For me what stood out was the way in which Channel24 titled their article as opposed to the others. Following are the titles of the articles by different news agencies.
Channel24: Live sex show spices up college class
The BBC: Northwestern University sex toy show 'disturbing'
The Times of India: US university to investigate sex toy demonstration by professor
NEWS24: US university to probe sex toy demo
The New York Times: Extracurricular Sex Toy Lesson Draws Rebuke at Northwestern
Let's talk about the latter, the event faces investigations by the University authorities as they say there have to be guidelines for pedagogy and not everything is demonstrable in public.
In someway it brings memories of the time when one of my close friends Nipun Kalia was to present the subject of his PhD research in front of a Dissertation-Commission at the Punjab University a few years ago. I cannot recall accurately but Nipun was studying some aspect of Catherine Breillat's movies. The big deal about the whole thing was that Breillat's movies were about sexuality and were misinterpreted by a some members of the commission as pornography. In vain Nipun tried to explain to the clamouring members that there indeed was a difference between the two. There were people on his side but there were also many many against him. He stood their being judged as a pervert because he wished to investigate something that was related to sex. Media dogs sniffed the controversy and soon there were articles about the incidence and Nipun was portrayed as a nymphomaniac. Happily married, he's anything but that. Moral fingers poked him from everywhere but that did led him to have a celebrity status within our circles and even more so at his wife's workplace.
I don't know what to say of such a contentious issue at the Northwestern University, I really don't think having a live demo of a sex toy in a university is acceptable but then again that's not what the lecture was about, it was about "Bondage, swinging and other fetishes". Well if they're investigating that at the University, then it's probably no big deal to have a demo of a sex toy. After all it's something that people do engage in and it doesn't hurt or kill anyone and is for pleasure. Anyone that says that he/she doesn't have any interest in pleasure of those kinds would have to be totally asexual and most people aren't like that. The couple that performed were exhibitionists and were more than happy to oblige. This act was performed after the lecture was dismissed and the audience was cautioned a dozen times that what followed would be extremely graphic. For me what stood out was the way in which Channel24 titled their article as opposed to the others. Following are the titles of the articles by different news agencies.
Channel24: Live sex show spices up college class
The BBC: Northwestern University sex toy show 'disturbing'
The Times of India: US university to investigate sex toy demonstration by professor
NEWS24: US university to probe sex toy demo
The New York Times: Extracurricular Sex Toy Lesson Draws Rebuke at Northwestern
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Lost and found
I don’t know why I started punching the keys now. Maybe because it’s been some time since I’ve spent time with this word file (.doc) that I’ve titled Hard-Wired. It has sequels and I have most probably lost HW1, 2 and 3 or maybe they’re there on some CD. I still remember how blogging started for me. I had been writing diaries for a few years then, if my memory serves me well, I started to write on the computer and pass on my articles, anecdotes to friends on email. I am not too sure if this habit prompted Ashish to create a blog for me. I remember it was the year 2006 and I’d gone to meet him at the Bible College in sector 47. He created my account and he was the one who named my blog jesslikethat (an interesting parallel to just-like-that containing my name). I was excited and in Ashish’s words, “You took to blogging like a fish takes to the water.”
Every night I’d sit alone in a dark room and punch in anecdotes or sometime just random thoughts that led me punch keys like a mad man. I remember it turning into an obsession. I couldn’t sleep without writing something or the other. I always had something to write about and here I am now, writing about the days that were. I initially named my blog the Sargasso Sea, owing to the meta-genomics project that I was working on. This project was bolstered in India after an American scientist named Craig Venter exploited the meta-genome of the Sargasso Sea, found novel genes and started his own big venture. We Indians followed the footsteps and explored the whole of India for a metagenomic lead to wealth but after spending crores and crores of rupees, ended up with nothing. Nothing except that being a member of the project, my interested in scientific research was kindled and I went on to pursue PhD (of course not in metagenomics) and other crazy plans that I’ve yet to execute. Anyway I changed the name of my blog to “purgatory” after realizing that I was indeed writing any and everything that crossed my head. I then changed it to something that I was at peace with “the long and short of it” for obvious reasons.
In 2006 my blog, in connivance with cupid, caught someone's attention who I started seeing for a while, during a time when my relation with my then girlfriend had slipped into a coma. The end of 2006 brought one of the greatest mental depressions I’d faced till then. I kept posting on my blog. I deleted many of my initial posts in that depression, an act that I still regret.
2007 was the Launchpad of my career. I don’t remember how much I wrote then. 2008 my PhD started and I don’t think I blogged too much in those days. Life was suddenly full of other things and I no longer had the time to write but I doubt if I ever stopped writing completely. 2009 is the year that I don’t recall much of rather a period I have willingly erased from memory (ah! rather it just faded quickly of late). This also was the time when I started to miss those moments that I spent alone in a dark room, in front of a computer, writing my thoughts.
Strangely though, I wrote articles for an online newspaper and I think I wrote three of the total four in 2009. So in many ways I was undergoing a transformation as I’d started to write about more relevant stuff about the world. 2010 turned out to be the most happening year of my life till date. My breakup, arranged marriage plans, the explosions of confusions in my life and then finally…FREEDOM from everything...and then a chance meet with a stranger that...but then maybe not. My PhD work that doesn't really invite much of my guide's intellectual input barring a few spurts once in a few months (y'know just to keep me busy). Where are we headed, what's the relevance of this work? I dunno and no one's answering anything...workwise, I feel like I'm walking blindfolded and being lead by the blind.
But writing liberates me from so many mental shackles. I can breathe again; I lost a lot but in the end I'm reunited with myself. Again, I don’t know how much I blogged in 2010. Too much happened in these 365 days, most of it too emotional, both in a good way and bad, for me to pen those thoughts exactly but I did keep my blog posted. I must admit that facebook annihilated my blogging to a massive degree. All I know is that writing is important for me and though there may be a hiatus here and there, there will always be comebacks and for now, I hope I’ll start to write the way I used to; possessed and obsessed.
Every night I’d sit alone in a dark room and punch in anecdotes or sometime just random thoughts that led me punch keys like a mad man. I remember it turning into an obsession. I couldn’t sleep without writing something or the other. I always had something to write about and here I am now, writing about the days that were. I initially named my blog the Sargasso Sea, owing to the meta-genomics project that I was working on. This project was bolstered in India after an American scientist named Craig Venter exploited the meta-genome of the Sargasso Sea, found novel genes and started his own big venture. We Indians followed the footsteps and explored the whole of India for a metagenomic lead to wealth but after spending crores and crores of rupees, ended up with nothing. Nothing except that being a member of the project, my interested in scientific research was kindled and I went on to pursue PhD (of course not in metagenomics) and other crazy plans that I’ve yet to execute. Anyway I changed the name of my blog to “purgatory” after realizing that I was indeed writing any and everything that crossed my head. I then changed it to something that I was at peace with “the long and short of it” for obvious reasons.
In 2006 my blog, in connivance with cupid, caught someone's attention who I started seeing for a while, during a time when my relation with my then girlfriend had slipped into a coma. The end of 2006 brought one of the greatest mental depressions I’d faced till then. I kept posting on my blog. I deleted many of my initial posts in that depression, an act that I still regret.
2007 was the Launchpad of my career. I don’t remember how much I wrote then. 2008 my PhD started and I don’t think I blogged too much in those days. Life was suddenly full of other things and I no longer had the time to write but I doubt if I ever stopped writing completely. 2009 is the year that I don’t recall much of rather a period I have willingly erased from memory (ah! rather it just faded quickly of late). This also was the time when I started to miss those moments that I spent alone in a dark room, in front of a computer, writing my thoughts.
Strangely though, I wrote articles for an online newspaper and I think I wrote three of the total four in 2009. So in many ways I was undergoing a transformation as I’d started to write about more relevant stuff about the world. 2010 turned out to be the most happening year of my life till date. My breakup, arranged marriage plans, the explosions of confusions in my life and then finally…FREEDOM from everything...and then a chance meet with a stranger that...but then maybe not. My PhD work that doesn't really invite much of my guide's intellectual input barring a few spurts once in a few months (y'know just to keep me busy). Where are we headed, what's the relevance of this work? I dunno and no one's answering anything...workwise, I feel like I'm walking blindfolded and being lead by the blind.
But writing liberates me from so many mental shackles. I can breathe again; I lost a lot but in the end I'm reunited with myself. Again, I don’t know how much I blogged in 2010. Too much happened in these 365 days, most of it too emotional, both in a good way and bad, for me to pen those thoughts exactly but I did keep my blog posted. I must admit that facebook annihilated my blogging to a massive degree. All I know is that writing is important for me and though there may be a hiatus here and there, there will always be comebacks and for now, I hope I’ll start to write the way I used to; possessed and obsessed.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Let them be the judge
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Man-holds-up-flight-as-pilot-was-a-woman/Article1-666941.aspx
So here we are educating our women, expecting them to be equals but hey wait, are we expecting them to do all the things that we do in addition to the set "social protocol" of taking care of the household? I think the expectation from women has skyrocketed.
For gods sakes, let em choose. Let em choose what they'll wear and eat and how they'll live and last but not least let them be free to decide who they wanna make-out with. It's their body, don't insinuate exaggerated thoughts of piety n purity into their heads as kids. Educate them about repercussions and dangers (for that matter even the boys) but let them bloody explore their own minds and their own bodies.
Who's to say what's best for women. It should be a woman's choice to pick a profession and a partner. Just because a woman is flying a plane doesn't automatically imply she isn't taking care of her household, doesn't even imply that she has one. This passenger was quite a bigot. He couldn't even begin to appreciate what effort one has to put to become a commercial pilot.
So here we are educating our women, expecting them to be equals but hey wait, are we expecting them to do all the things that we do in addition to the set "social protocol" of taking care of the household? I think the expectation from women has skyrocketed.
For gods sakes, let em choose. Let em choose what they'll wear and eat and how they'll live and last but not least let them be free to decide who they wanna make-out with. It's their body, don't insinuate exaggerated thoughts of piety n purity into their heads as kids. Educate them about repercussions and dangers (for that matter even the boys) but let them bloody explore their own minds and their own bodies.
Who's to say what's best for women. It should be a woman's choice to pick a profession and a partner. Just because a woman is flying a plane doesn't automatically imply she isn't taking care of her household, doesn't even imply that she has one. This passenger was quite a bigot. He couldn't even begin to appreciate what effort one has to put to become a commercial pilot.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
The Embrace
I am nobody's
nobody's mine
I know it well
still I pine
capricious affection
misgiving's my rose
n' nothin I offer
to lessen your woes
come near
bury yourself
I'm here
nobody's mine
I know it well
still I pine
capricious affection
misgiving's my rose
n' nothin I offer
to lessen your woes
come near
bury yourself
I'm here
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Anuj's PhD viva tomorrow
Yeah what a title to a post. This will be his last touch with our lab. A classic example of a bad student-guide relation that went sour in the very beginning and could never be disabused. Anuj has completed five and a half years of PhD time. When I joined the lab as a project assistant in Jan 2006, Anuj was in his first year of PhD and a baby faced, happy-go-lucky kind of a person. At that time Boss-D was short tempered and felt that Anuj's behaviour was abberant for a PhD student. True, ours was a high pressure lab and Anuj may have probably done better with a softer guide. Anuj took up smoking and continued till last year when he gave it up for good. He started to drink as well. 2006 and early 2007 was the time when I myself lost control over my drinking habit. Much of this time was shared with Anuj/Sankalp, Rick and Harman separately. Man!! How much was I drinking!
My relation with Anuj has been brotherly and has grown ever closer, especially so after Sanky left for New York and I joined PhD in the same lab that I'd left as a project assistant. I was closer to Sanky and his departure brought me even closer to Anuj. Anyway the vendetta between Anuj and Boss took a whole new turn after the big JBC got published from the lab with Anuj and Arijit as joint first authors. Something went amiss in the Anuj's emotional response to the situation. He suddenly started to feel distanced from the lab owing to his thoughts on the total authorship of the paper. The wrong vibes were sensed by everyone and they started to retaliate in kind. Anuj had grown disgruntled. To me, as an "outsider" within the lab, everybody seemed to be losing it.
Apparently Boss-D didn't write a good recommendation letter for Anuj when some big scientific names in the world showed interest in Anuj's CV, Being an honest person, he's clear and upfront about his opinion and said that he would write his honest opinion in everybody's recommendation. Anuj then left the lab to join as a Level-III PA at another lab within the institute. Since then every time he comes to the lab to meet Boss-D to remind him to send recommendations to the new interests. Tomorrow, is his final PhD seminar. I am no one to judge Anuj or Boss-D, one's my Great friend and the other a Great Guide to me; seriously, I have no issues with Boss-D, in fact, at times, I feel that he's extra nice to me. Anyway, Boss-D has mellowed down to a humongous degree over the past few years.
I've seen Anuj change from a soft chubby carefree guy to a fitness freak, hard-hearted and melancholic man. Still I can never forget the alacrity with which he lent me money and literally forced me to buy a digi-cam, which he himself hunted around for me to buy. He did it because I used to ride to far off places but didn't have a digi-cam to click as many pictures as I could. I really will remember him for his serious protocolish advices on how to patiently deal with my impatient dad and not mess my relation with him. I'll always remember that trip to Haridwar on Jan 15, 2007 when Sanky ditched us both and left with his friend and we both spent an amazing time at the Shanti-kunj Aashram roaming around and exploring the adjoining areas on foot and how we sat to warm our hands near a fire set-up by an old yogi baba. I'll never forget my bike-ride to Rishikesh for river-rafting with him when we also stopped by at my sister's place in Herbertpur. I'll never forget my bike-ride with him and Harman to Thanedar, when we simple had the most amazing time that guys can have together. I'll never forget the way he made fun of me whenever I was in an over-extended mourning period of my break-ups. I'll never forget how he (and Sanky) shaped my attitude towards life in many ways. I'll always accredit him to changing my inherent sordid and morose outlook towards life to a slightly lighter.
Last but not least, I'll never forget the awesome drinking sessions we've had and the time when we consumed bhaang (Cannabis) on Holi (like many others at the institute) and got hysterical. Of course we've had minor issues a few times (though I can't remember which ones exactly).I've known him for a little more than five years now. I remember we both got a little sentimental when I was leaving as a project-assistant and how happy we were when I joined PhD in the same lab after a gap of one year. I still kept in touch with Anuj n Sanky through that gap of one year. I'll never forget Boss-D's warning to me to not reform the gang with Anuj and Sanky when I was about to join PhD :) It's a bit saddening to see stuck in this phase of life but I'm happy that tomorrow he'll get his PhD degree and I hope he's off to a great place to do his Post-Doc. I hope his love for science is rekindled and he does well in life and I hope Boss-D and Anuj reconcile someday. Will always remember you Anuj. God bless you. Good luck for tomorrow. N yeah I will watch a movie with him before he leaves, though I hate watching movies; that's the very reason he wants to take me to one.
My relation with Anuj has been brotherly and has grown ever closer, especially so after Sanky left for New York and I joined PhD in the same lab that I'd left as a project assistant. I was closer to Sanky and his departure brought me even closer to Anuj. Anyway the vendetta between Anuj and Boss took a whole new turn after the big JBC got published from the lab with Anuj and Arijit as joint first authors. Something went amiss in the Anuj's emotional response to the situation. He suddenly started to feel distanced from the lab owing to his thoughts on the total authorship of the paper. The wrong vibes were sensed by everyone and they started to retaliate in kind. Anuj had grown disgruntled. To me, as an "outsider" within the lab, everybody seemed to be losing it.
Apparently Boss-D didn't write a good recommendation letter for Anuj when some big scientific names in the world showed interest in Anuj's CV, Being an honest person, he's clear and upfront about his opinion and said that he would write his honest opinion in everybody's recommendation. Anuj then left the lab to join as a Level-III PA at another lab within the institute. Since then every time he comes to the lab to meet Boss-D to remind him to send recommendations to the new interests. Tomorrow, is his final PhD seminar. I am no one to judge Anuj or Boss-D, one's my Great friend and the other a Great Guide to me; seriously, I have no issues with Boss-D, in fact, at times, I feel that he's extra nice to me. Anyway, Boss-D has mellowed down to a humongous degree over the past few years.
I've seen Anuj change from a soft chubby carefree guy to a fitness freak, hard-hearted and melancholic man. Still I can never forget the alacrity with which he lent me money and literally forced me to buy a digi-cam, which he himself hunted around for me to buy. He did it because I used to ride to far off places but didn't have a digi-cam to click as many pictures as I could. I really will remember him for his serious protocolish advices on how to patiently deal with my impatient dad and not mess my relation with him. I'll always remember that trip to Haridwar on Jan 15, 2007 when Sanky ditched us both and left with his friend and we both spent an amazing time at the Shanti-kunj Aashram roaming around and exploring the adjoining areas on foot and how we sat to warm our hands near a fire set-up by an old yogi baba. I'll never forget my bike-ride to Rishikesh for river-rafting with him when we also stopped by at my sister's place in Herbertpur. I'll never forget my bike-ride with him and Harman to Thanedar, when we simple had the most amazing time that guys can have together. I'll never forget the way he made fun of me whenever I was in an over-extended mourning period of my break-ups. I'll never forget how he (and Sanky) shaped my attitude towards life in many ways. I'll always accredit him to changing my inherent sordid and morose outlook towards life to a slightly lighter.
Last but not least, I'll never forget the awesome drinking sessions we've had and the time when we consumed bhaang (Cannabis) on Holi (like many others at the institute) and got hysterical. Of course we've had minor issues a few times (though I can't remember which ones exactly).I've known him for a little more than five years now. I remember we both got a little sentimental when I was leaving as a project-assistant and how happy we were when I joined PhD in the same lab after a gap of one year. I still kept in touch with Anuj n Sanky through that gap of one year. I'll never forget Boss-D's warning to me to not reform the gang with Anuj and Sanky when I was about to join PhD :) It's a bit saddening to see stuck in this phase of life but I'm happy that tomorrow he'll get his PhD degree and I hope he's off to a great place to do his Post-Doc. I hope his love for science is rekindled and he does well in life and I hope Boss-D and Anuj reconcile someday. Will always remember you Anuj. God bless you. Good luck for tomorrow. N yeah I will watch a movie with him before he leaves, though I hate watching movies; that's the very reason he wants to take me to one.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Veil-untyin (Valentine)
On this Valentine's, I learned that St. Valentine doesn't refer to any one particular saint like I thought. There were a couple of them. Valentine's feast too has been chucked out of Catholocism for good. Well I guess that's reason enough for the rest to pick it up and f* the sh* out of it.
Whoaaa! n just 10 minutes ago I got a call from a friend telling me about one of the most scandalous things ever. Man! First-love chasing her after losin her many years ago.
Anyway, I'm here to talk about how my Valentine's went. IT SUCKED so far as conventions go but it was better than last year. Last year I was brooding over a morbid relation that died a month and a half down the line. This year, there was nothing, there were a couple of possibilities but I thought better to leave them unexplored, the bitterness still lingering. Within the year, I have changed a lot, I'm not so sensitive about relations anymore. I value my freedom, my time, my money and my space way more than I used to. Not that I don't miss the warmth of being with somebody but what the heck, that can be had without strings attached. Strings strangulate.
This Valentine's I woke up late, I brushed my teeth and made it a point to not shave as a mark of my disrespect for the day. I worked hard and till lunch, had quite forgotten that it was Valentine's. At lunch, people at their dressed up red-best reminded me that it was the day when most singles wish to mingle and most couples spend a tormented evening trying to find a decent place to spend a few romantic moments together over dinner or otherwise. The businessmen will, if they can, devote all the 356-366 days in the year to mundane causes that will ultimately fill their pockets and accelerate the society to being that little bit more preposterous, somewhere it is headed already.
In the evening I had an uninteresting telephonic conversation with an otherwise interesting person. I feel a pull and then a push, what the heck! I guess life's about being conscious, conscious of your posture, of the passing minute, of the clutter, of the traffic, of the time to say goodbye. The only time you should let it go is when you sleep. And yet, there are so many things that aren't expressed but still felt and then you sit back and wonder if what you're wondering about is actually so wonderful or just a figment of your imagination. In such a situation, it is best to put your mind unfettered mind to better usage, like He said "let the dead, bury their own dead". Later is was back to square-one, at-the-gate date with Ritbit. That's the time when it was all loaded onto a gun of wit&humour and fires exchanged.
So much for a silly day that's just one of many. I like kisses, not headaches. That was the strange, debaucherous revelation when I saw myself in the mirror, that was my veil-untying on the Valentine's.
Whoaaa! n just 10 minutes ago I got a call from a friend telling me about one of the most scandalous things ever. Man! First-love chasing her after losin her many years ago.
Anyway, I'm here to talk about how my Valentine's went. IT SUCKED so far as conventions go but it was better than last year. Last year I was brooding over a morbid relation that died a month and a half down the line. This year, there was nothing, there were a couple of possibilities but I thought better to leave them unexplored, the bitterness still lingering. Within the year, I have changed a lot, I'm not so sensitive about relations anymore. I value my freedom, my time, my money and my space way more than I used to. Not that I don't miss the warmth of being with somebody but what the heck, that can be had without strings attached. Strings strangulate.
This Valentine's I woke up late, I brushed my teeth and made it a point to not shave as a mark of my disrespect for the day. I worked hard and till lunch, had quite forgotten that it was Valentine's. At lunch, people at their dressed up red-best reminded me that it was the day when most singles wish to mingle and most couples spend a tormented evening trying to find a decent place to spend a few romantic moments together over dinner or otherwise. The businessmen will, if they can, devote all the 356-366 days in the year to mundane causes that will ultimately fill their pockets and accelerate the society to being that little bit more preposterous, somewhere it is headed already.
In the evening I had an uninteresting telephonic conversation with an otherwise interesting person. I feel a pull and then a push, what the heck! I guess life's about being conscious, conscious of your posture, of the passing minute, of the clutter, of the traffic, of the time to say goodbye. The only time you should let it go is when you sleep. And yet, there are so many things that aren't expressed but still felt and then you sit back and wonder if what you're wondering about is actually so wonderful or just a figment of your imagination. In such a situation, it is best to put your mind unfettered mind to better usage, like He said "let the dead, bury their own dead". Later is was back to square-one, at-the-gate date with Ritbit. That's the time when it was all loaded onto a gun of wit&humour and fires exchanged.
So much for a silly day that's just one of many. I like kisses, not headaches. That was the strange, debaucherous revelation when I saw myself in the mirror, that was my veil-untying on the Valentine's.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Ed on honor killings
Read Birinder Pal Singh's (Dean & prof. Dept. Sociology, Pbi Univ. Patiala) article titled "Honour killings: make the state accountable". The writer explains how the meaning of the term honour-killing differ from place to place. In Haryana it is sacrilegious to marry in the same caste in Punjab it's the opposite.
The writer goes on to say that modern education is not all-emancipating or liberating when it comes to issues like honour killings and that the whole concept that it is, is a "recent assumption". The writer goes on to justify his case by quoting the examples of Indians residing in cities like London and Vancouver, exposed to "plurality and multiculturalism" would not be involved in the act. What was new to me was the "common knowledge" that gangs of boys and girls living in these big international metros charge hefty sums of money to divulge the whereabouts of the runaway couples to "'honour retrieving' parents". Apparently the members of these gangs are well connected and needless to say that "winning the confidence of potential victim(s)" is a part of their strategy. On this point I fully agree with the writer, I have been exposed to the minds of the educated people who are/have-been at high positions.
The writer talks about the origin of khaps to the medieval era of regional feudatories when the khaps provided protection to its clan. "Hence it's role was to to ensure the safety of the community from external threats and internal collapse". He says that it's not that honour killings are a recent occurrence but has merely come under the media-light.
The write goes on to unload the blame on the modern day "populist and perverted political culture" failing to maintain law and order and thus resuscitating institutions like the khap. He says it's also the common knowledge that Haryanvi politicians in Haryana demanded Mitsubishi-Monteros just two years after they were given Toyotas and their counterparts in Punjab ask for Toyotas while the schools and hospitals are starving of funds. The writer ends the article saying that the state functionaries have to become modern themselves- a concern for the other- before modernising the society.
My take on this:
I partially agree with the writer in that modern education doesn't seem to break the shackles of bigotry that's apparently infused into our blood and is being brazenly handed down from generation to generation.
I say that it's a vicious cycle. Ever heard of any political leader's offsprings were to carry out the act so sacrilegious to their society. They can't for if they do, their daddies will not win the next election and they won't get to be as profligate with the public money. In saying that I'm saying that we the citizens are fueling this bigotry because this is the bigotry that's so ingrained in our own minds and no education modern or otherwise has been able to remove it. I don't see a cure for it, it's a the emancipated individual that sees the honour killings as culpable, most others say that it's bad with an undertone that says "serves them right". Toyotas, Mitsubishis or any other Japanese brand's presence or absense will fail to free our minds. We want leaders that move in big cars, are brazenly shameless, ruthless and rich for we aspire to be the same.
The writer goes on to say that modern education is not all-emancipating or liberating when it comes to issues like honour killings and that the whole concept that it is, is a "recent assumption". The writer goes on to justify his case by quoting the examples of Indians residing in cities like London and Vancouver, exposed to "plurality and multiculturalism" would not be involved in the act. What was new to me was the "common knowledge" that gangs of boys and girls living in these big international metros charge hefty sums of money to divulge the whereabouts of the runaway couples to "'honour retrieving' parents". Apparently the members of these gangs are well connected and needless to say that "winning the confidence of potential victim(s)" is a part of their strategy. On this point I fully agree with the writer, I have been exposed to the minds of the educated people who are/have-been at high positions.
The writer talks about the origin of khaps to the medieval era of regional feudatories when the khaps provided protection to its clan. "Hence it's role was to to ensure the safety of the community from external threats and internal collapse". He says that it's not that honour killings are a recent occurrence but has merely come under the media-light.
The write goes on to unload the blame on the modern day "populist and perverted political culture" failing to maintain law and order and thus resuscitating institutions like the khap. He says it's also the common knowledge that Haryanvi politicians in Haryana demanded Mitsubishi-Monteros just two years after they were given Toyotas and their counterparts in Punjab ask for Toyotas while the schools and hospitals are starving of funds. The writer ends the article saying that the state functionaries have to become modern themselves- a concern for the other- before modernising the society.
My take on this:
I partially agree with the writer in that modern education doesn't seem to break the shackles of bigotry that's apparently infused into our blood and is being brazenly handed down from generation to generation.
I say that it's a vicious cycle. Ever heard of any political leader's offsprings were to carry out the act so sacrilegious to their society. They can't for if they do, their daddies will not win the next election and they won't get to be as profligate with the public money. In saying that I'm saying that we the citizens are fueling this bigotry because this is the bigotry that's so ingrained in our own minds and no education modern or otherwise has been able to remove it. I don't see a cure for it, it's a the emancipated individual that sees the honour killings as culpable, most others say that it's bad with an undertone that says "serves them right". Toyotas, Mitsubishis or any other Japanese brand's presence or absense will fail to free our minds. We want leaders that move in big cars, are brazenly shameless, ruthless and rich for we aspire to be the same.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Fix it
Today was an interesting day. A series of events ultimately led me to start saving a bit of money every month in the form of a recurring deposit. The events were purely emotional, both positive and intensely negative but this resulted in me saving a small sum of money that I otherwise would never be able to. Today in retrospect, I wonder if I should feel happy or sad because the sad part is that had I been saving since the time I actually started to earn, that is five years ago, it would’ve been pay-back time by now and the elation is the simple thought “better late than never”. Before late last year, I had not a single penny in the form of savings. I led a simple life, no great clothes, no great passion but I managed to drain out my entire stipend being reasonably happy about nothing.
Last year my eyes were opened to the fact that if I wanted to get married right away I was at the mercy of my parents. Not that that my parents are wicked but I felt that it should be the other way round; at least I should be partially independent and not looking towards my family for the entire financial requirement of the occasion. Anyway, the marriage drama didn’t work out for me but what it did for me was to give me a sense of doom that awaited me. Suddenly I saw inflation, suddenly I realized that I wanted to be married in another five odd years if not earlier, suddenly the thought that my parents weren’t gonna be around forever and the fact that they might even need me to support them. Suddenly I felt I might have a kid or two as well in the next decade. Suddenly I wanted to have it all because I suddenly realized that I was so goddam lonely.
Today I went to SBI PGI with Rajni, my lab-mate. It is the bank with which I’ve had an account since the mid-1980s when I first opened my account under my mom’s name with a sum of around two-hundred rupees which I’d collected. Times were different then, I remember two-three bank-employee-uncles would laugh and gladly calculate the sum, in coins, that I’d collected in the piggy-bank. Mom tells me they used to look forward to seeing me and my coins because they were happy to get the coins, the much needed change (chiller!). So today I broke my six-month old recurring-deposit account and added a bit of money to it to start my first fixed-deposit with a paltry sum of money. The FD, despite being small, made me feel ecstatic. I felt like I’d accomplished something great. Why? Because for the past nearly twenty years, I’d grown a habit of wasting money, whatever amount I had. This is my second stint with saving money after the piggy-bank episode nearly twenty-five years ago. Today signified the breaking of the bad habit and the revelation of the importance of financial-planning. It sounds stupid to others but to me it’s a significant leap in my maturity.
“I do not use marijuana”; to someone who’s never been addicted to it, it’s no big deal to say so but to someone who’s managed to get out of the habit despite failing a couple of times, it sure is a big statement. So when I say that I’ve started to save money, it’s a huge statement. I know I’ve started out small but I know I’ll make it grow steadily. It’s not about greed but about planning to avoid financial disasters in the unforeseeable future.
Just a few minutes before I sat down to write this, I found a note written by my ex that she’d slipped inside the wallet she gifted me. It talks about having lotsa money! Lol, sweet as her gesture was, I hope it turns symbolic for things to come. Gotta prepare for my next PhD and I can’t afford to be deprived either. How I wish I hadn’t been so profligate in the past but what the heck, better late than never.
“Semper Sursum”
*
*
Last year my eyes were opened to the fact that if I wanted to get married right away I was at the mercy of my parents. Not that that my parents are wicked but I felt that it should be the other way round; at least I should be partially independent and not looking towards my family for the entire financial requirement of the occasion. Anyway, the marriage drama didn’t work out for me but what it did for me was to give me a sense of doom that awaited me. Suddenly I saw inflation, suddenly I realized that I wanted to be married in another five odd years if not earlier, suddenly the thought that my parents weren’t gonna be around forever and the fact that they might even need me to support them. Suddenly I felt I might have a kid or two as well in the next decade. Suddenly I wanted to have it all because I suddenly realized that I was so goddam lonely.
Today I went to SBI PGI with Rajni, my lab-mate. It is the bank with which I’ve had an account since the mid-1980s when I first opened my account under my mom’s name with a sum of around two-hundred rupees which I’d collected. Times were different then, I remember two-three bank-employee-uncles would laugh and gladly calculate the sum, in coins, that I’d collected in the piggy-bank. Mom tells me they used to look forward to seeing me and my coins because they were happy to get the coins, the much needed change (chiller!). So today I broke my six-month old recurring-deposit account and added a bit of money to it to start my first fixed-deposit with a paltry sum of money. The FD, despite being small, made me feel ecstatic. I felt like I’d accomplished something great. Why? Because for the past nearly twenty years, I’d grown a habit of wasting money, whatever amount I had. This is my second stint with saving money after the piggy-bank episode nearly twenty-five years ago. Today signified the breaking of the bad habit and the revelation of the importance of financial-planning. It sounds stupid to others but to me it’s a significant leap in my maturity.
“I do not use marijuana”; to someone who’s never been addicted to it, it’s no big deal to say so but to someone who’s managed to get out of the habit despite failing a couple of times, it sure is a big statement. So when I say that I’ve started to save money, it’s a huge statement. I know I’ve started out small but I know I’ll make it grow steadily. It’s not about greed but about planning to avoid financial disasters in the unforeseeable future.
Just a few minutes before I sat down to write this, I found a note written by my ex that she’d slipped inside the wallet she gifted me. It talks about having lotsa money! Lol, sweet as her gesture was, I hope it turns symbolic for things to come. Gotta prepare for my next PhD and I can’t afford to be deprived either. How I wish I hadn’t been so profligate in the past but what the heck, better late than never.
“Semper Sursum”
*
*
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Blotcha
There are instances that make me wanna believe in God, not because miracles happen (if they do i.e.) but because some things are so inexplicable. They are so till the time I nail em down and hammer out the reason for the mystery and then I'm back to being an atheist.
So I couldn't get this blot right for almost a year now. I've done western-blots for the protein I work on many a time but that's not a big problem since antibodies have very high affinities for their targets; they recognize diminutive quantity of target that gets blotted. However N-terminal sequencing (NTS) was another story as it required a reasonably high amount of protein to be blotted on to the PVDF membrane. By fluke, I got it done once but that a very high quantity of pure protein and somehow managed to travel from the SDS-PAGE to the PVDF membrane.
Today morning, I gave up. The small quantities of proteolysed fragments just wouldn't blot despite my tenacious effort to do so for the past one month. After much deliberation, decided to look for some other way to get the NTS of the fragments and expressed my frustration to my guide. He suggested I check the literature on an alternative method. As I sat on the computer I thought I'd check out electroblot-troubleshooting. In the sea of results, I found a pdf that I sensed would be of some use and as I was perusing through it, came across a line and read no further. I sprinted across to cast the SDS-PAGE gel and get the transfer buffer ready. It consumed my whole day and I was mostly quiet, working but never doubting for a second that success was just a few hours away.
Six hours down the line, lo and behold, the most beautifully protein-blotted PVDF membrane that our lab has ever produced. It made my guide spring up from his seat. It made one of my labmates visibly upset (not everyone will be happy at your success), and others happy but happy or sad, they all came to me to inquire about the protocol. After having shared my knowledge, I called it a day.
A big hurdle crossed today. Now I'm looking forward to designing mutants and hopefully get one that works wonders and some poor man's life can be saved. Makes me feel so good about working hard on this project.
So I couldn't get this blot right for almost a year now. I've done western-blots for the protein I work on many a time but that's not a big problem since antibodies have very high affinities for their targets; they recognize diminutive quantity of target that gets blotted. However N-terminal sequencing (NTS) was another story as it required a reasonably high amount of protein to be blotted on to the PVDF membrane. By fluke, I got it done once but that a very high quantity of pure protein and somehow managed to travel from the SDS-PAGE to the PVDF membrane.
Today morning, I gave up. The small quantities of proteolysed fragments just wouldn't blot despite my tenacious effort to do so for the past one month. After much deliberation, decided to look for some other way to get the NTS of the fragments and expressed my frustration to my guide. He suggested I check the literature on an alternative method. As I sat on the computer I thought I'd check out electroblot-troubleshooting. In the sea of results, I found a pdf that I sensed would be of some use and as I was perusing through it, came across a line and read no further. I sprinted across to cast the SDS-PAGE gel and get the transfer buffer ready. It consumed my whole day and I was mostly quiet, working but never doubting for a second that success was just a few hours away.
Six hours down the line, lo and behold, the most beautifully protein-blotted PVDF membrane that our lab has ever produced. It made my guide spring up from his seat. It made one of my labmates visibly upset (not everyone will be happy at your success), and others happy but happy or sad, they all came to me to inquire about the protocol. After having shared my knowledge, I called it a day.
A big hurdle crossed today. Now I'm looking forward to designing mutants and hopefully get one that works wonders and some poor man's life can be saved. Makes me feel so good about working hard on this project.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
This is not what it looks like
A packed (unopened) light-lemon colored Millipore syringe-filter that I accidentally brought home in my pocket and casually placed on the dining-table, instantly and almost violently startled my parents who were eating dinner.
"Is something wrong?" I thought.
I looked at the filter again...DAMN!!! THIS IS NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE.....
The stupid thing looks exactly like a condom :|
Funny how I never saw it that way in the lab
"Is something wrong?" I thought.
I looked at the filter again...DAMN!!! THIS IS NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE.....
The stupid thing looks exactly like a condom :|
Funny how I never saw it that way in the lab
A few more
I remembered you till the time I didn't call. (wrote this one before)
I hear all these nice things people say about breakups and I wonder if i was dating a mean alien.
Break-up is so called because you break a bad habit and grow up.
I hear all these nice things people say about breakups and I wonder if i was dating a mean alien.
Break-up is so called because you break a bad habit and grow up.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
The best year
2010 has been a great year for me, I will go on to call it the best year of my life despite it serving me the most horrifically painful moments I've even faced.
It started with a decaying relation with my closest girlfriend ever, we celebrated the New Year party separately.
UMPM-2010, the international conference at IMTECH that I got the opportunity to anchor.
The extreme bliss of being loudly appreciated by the sarod maestro Pt. Biswajit Roychoudhary at the spic-macay function at UMPM-2010
Her parents taking her to Bombay, followed by more putrefaction of our relation.
The most horrible Valentine's -- Dog Show and Salad bar
JeRi rescue
Ekta: Friends after 14 years
Harman's wedding and all the time up to it -- the first big revelation of my life
The Break-up
A week of relief
Months of regret
Bike ride to Thanedar with Harman and Anuj- Surreal. The horror of getting back to reality; very real.
Shehanai vadan
Riti's gift
Bike ride to Rishikesh with Anuj.
Shaadi.com
Trip to Di's
Anita and the effort to get married and shut the doors behind me
First flight
First trip to south
Second manic depression of the year
Possibly one the handful who know what it feels like to make-out in depression.
First interesting chat with a stranger on a plane, Archana D. M.
Relief of getting back home without a putative wife
The relapse
Wedding story: The End
Marriage Phobia: The Beginning
First time experimental characterization of my molecule
First time I started to see what my work has to be and...can be.
Actual value of my single-hood; priceless
Sleaze and Raunch: somethings are meant to be forgotten
Fresher Party: performed the song with Kit, Manav and the kids...HiT!
Reunions: Romit, Karanpal, Navinder
Second trip down South.
My first poster and poster presentation at SBC, IISc Bangalore
The second trip down south and the revelation of my scientific status quo
The poster presentation mistakes I will never commit and lose could-be friends
The huge malls and the first horror house trip
Walks and bus rides: Loved Bangalore.
Loved IISc and all the experiences
First night flight: beautiful city lights and a horrific landing.
Returned maturer (or so I think), returned with plans.
The best time ever in the lab; either the boss or we weren't around for almost the whole of the month.
The final relapse.
The best Birthday celebration ever: celebrated with all my friends and also with my family.
Met a maturer but still very playful Jeri
Drive to Kasauli with Di, Dan and Chiki on Christmas
My ex's wedding
Saw Harley Davidson up close, for the first time.
Surreal through-the-night conversation with a stranger: amazing
A great party: Mr. Jolly and Mr Facebook
Goodbye 2010, thank you for everything.
It started with a decaying relation with my closest girlfriend ever, we celebrated the New Year party separately.
UMPM-2010, the international conference at IMTECH that I got the opportunity to anchor.
The extreme bliss of being loudly appreciated by the sarod maestro Pt. Biswajit Roychoudhary at the spic-macay function at UMPM-2010
Her parents taking her to Bombay, followed by more putrefaction of our relation.
The most horrible Valentine's -- Dog Show and Salad bar
JeRi rescue
Ekta: Friends after 14 years
Harman's wedding and all the time up to it -- the first big revelation of my life
The Break-up
A week of relief
Months of regret
Bike ride to Thanedar with Harman and Anuj- Surreal. The horror of getting back to reality; very real.
Shehanai vadan
Riti's gift
Bike ride to Rishikesh with Anuj.
Shaadi.com
Trip to Di's
Anita and the effort to get married and shut the doors behind me
First flight
First trip to south
Second manic depression of the year
Possibly one the handful who know what it feels like to make-out in depression.
First interesting chat with a stranger on a plane, Archana D. M.
Relief of getting back home without a putative wife
The relapse
Wedding story: The End
Marriage Phobia: The Beginning
First time experimental characterization of my molecule
First time I started to see what my work has to be and...can be.
Actual value of my single-hood; priceless
Sleaze and Raunch: somethings are meant to be forgotten
Fresher Party: performed the song with Kit, Manav and the kids...HiT!
Reunions: Romit, Karanpal, Navinder
Second trip down South.
My first poster and poster presentation at SBC, IISc Bangalore
The second trip down south and the revelation of my scientific status quo
The poster presentation mistakes I will never commit and lose could-be friends
The huge malls and the first horror house trip
Walks and bus rides: Loved Bangalore.
Loved IISc and all the experiences
First night flight: beautiful city lights and a horrific landing.
Returned maturer (or so I think), returned with plans.
The best time ever in the lab; either the boss or we weren't around for almost the whole of the month.
The final relapse.
The best Birthday celebration ever: celebrated with all my friends and also with my family.
Met a maturer but still very playful Jeri
Drive to Kasauli with Di, Dan and Chiki on Christmas
My ex's wedding
Saw Harley Davidson up close, for the first time.
Surreal through-the-night conversation with a stranger: amazing
A great party: Mr. Jolly and Mr Facebook
Goodbye 2010, thank you for everything.
My quotes
An ardent follower of Ashleigh Brilliant's quotes, his style inspired me to pen a quote, the thought of which was soaring in my mind for sometime.
I've forgotten you but I remember us so clearly
I loved you with all my will; I hated you effortlessly.
There's a lotta love out there, the challenge is to obtain it from the right kind of person.
-Jesse S. Samuel
Thank you Ashleigh for the inspiration.
I've forgotten you but I remember us so clearly
I loved you with all my will; I hated you effortlessly.
There's a lotta love out there, the challenge is to obtain it from the right kind of person.
-Jesse S. Samuel
Thank you Ashleigh for the inspiration.
Saturday, January 01, 2011
010111
010111 or MMXL and as you might have guessed it, stands of the 1st of January 2011. As usual time passed me by too quickly for me to do anything about enlisting resolutions (NYR or New Year Resolution) or even cerebrating on what should be top priority in my life. So I woke up very late in the morning with a blank head a residual alcohol in my breath. There was too much to be done in too little time so I just slept some more thinking "hey I have to run anyway, so why not rest a bit more".
Confused people are confusing me about how to deal with them. This is silly, does it not make me one of them now.
I got the bike serviced and reached the lab by 4:00pm, this is the latest that anyone has ever dared to step into the lab with the boss around even if it's a holiday. But in the whole day there was one stretch of time when I a situation hit me. I slipped out of my lab (yeah they hate my guts) to pay the internet bill of which, today was the last day. It was very cold, cloudy, the breeze was strong. Riding a motorcycle in such settings is such a pain but for some crazy reason, also enjoyable, even if in a masochistic sense. On the way back to the lab I slowed the bike while crossing fruit vendors thinking I'd much on some apples, guavas or maybe bananas to satiate myself for I had not eaten since late morning and it was 4:30 in the evening. I couldn't decide and slowly the fruits passed me by and halted the bike next to a soup vendor a few yards away from the former. I ate three eggs and then I had soup. It was pretty cold, the few pedestrians that passed by had half their faces buried in their muffler and jackets. Life appeared to move in slow motion till a fast car shot past. Like I mentioned before, it was bit dark due to the clouds and it made the whole desolate area appear like a painting. Light fog, or even thick one, makes trees appear exceptionally beautiful. I've wondered many a time as to why this is so, probably because it hides out the inner parts, the branches and makes the peripheral part, the outer leaves, stand out and as a result the whole tree appears more like a painted tree than a real tree. Suddenly the stillness was broken by vendors rushing around and my soup vendor seemed to have a panic attack. I realized it was probably the municipality truck on a raid to check the roadside vendors. MC confiscates everything and fine them. My soup vendor requested me to help him move his four wheeled cart. I rushed to my bike to keep the soup bowl aside and helped the guy get his cart off the pavement. Had he attempted to do that alone, he'd break a couple of hundred raw eggs piled up. No sooner was the cart down, he disappeared like so many other vendors that were there. There I was, parked on the side of the road in the bitter cold, sitting on my bike and consuming hot heavenly soup. A few people crossed me giving puzzled looks. After all a guy sitting on a bike on the side of the road, holding a steamy soup bowl, for which there was no origin anywhere close by, must have appeared strange. Ah it's been a cold cold day.
Confused people are confusing me about how to deal with them. This is silly, does it not make me one of them now.
I got the bike serviced and reached the lab by 4:00pm, this is the latest that anyone has ever dared to step into the lab with the boss around even if it's a holiday. But in the whole day there was one stretch of time when I a situation hit me. I slipped out of my lab (yeah they hate my guts) to pay the internet bill of which, today was the last day. It was very cold, cloudy, the breeze was strong. Riding a motorcycle in such settings is such a pain but for some crazy reason, also enjoyable, even if in a masochistic sense. On the way back to the lab I slowed the bike while crossing fruit vendors thinking I'd much on some apples, guavas or maybe bananas to satiate myself for I had not eaten since late morning and it was 4:30 in the evening. I couldn't decide and slowly the fruits passed me by and halted the bike next to a soup vendor a few yards away from the former. I ate three eggs and then I had soup. It was pretty cold, the few pedestrians that passed by had half their faces buried in their muffler and jackets. Life appeared to move in slow motion till a fast car shot past. Like I mentioned before, it was bit dark due to the clouds and it made the whole desolate area appear like a painting. Light fog, or even thick one, makes trees appear exceptionally beautiful. I've wondered many a time as to why this is so, probably because it hides out the inner parts, the branches and makes the peripheral part, the outer leaves, stand out and as a result the whole tree appears more like a painted tree than a real tree. Suddenly the stillness was broken by vendors rushing around and my soup vendor seemed to have a panic attack. I realized it was probably the municipality truck on a raid to check the roadside vendors. MC confiscates everything and fine them. My soup vendor requested me to help him move his four wheeled cart. I rushed to my bike to keep the soup bowl aside and helped the guy get his cart off the pavement. Had he attempted to do that alone, he'd break a couple of hundred raw eggs piled up. No sooner was the cart down, he disappeared like so many other vendors that were there. There I was, parked on the side of the road in the bitter cold, sitting on my bike and consuming hot heavenly soup. A few people crossed me giving puzzled looks. After all a guy sitting on a bike on the side of the road, holding a steamy soup bowl, for which there was no origin anywhere close by, must have appeared strange. Ah it's been a cold cold day.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Jerry Almighty
Jerry my sis’s 10 month old cute cocker spaniel is home these days along with Danny, my sis and their five year old kid, my niece Sarah. He has big hazel eyes, a rotund head and innumerable soft curls on his long ears. Maybe being brought up in an open area in the suburbs of Dehradun has made Jerry hyperactive, maybe it is a “pup thing” but he goes berserk at times running around the whole house skidding and slipping and nipping at things and sprinting anywhere, even into dead ends, at full speed.
The one thing that comes to my mind when I see this old pup is “passion”. He seems to be passionate about everything that he wants to do; at times these are not necessarily things that would earn him the title of a good dog. They wanted a dog as a snake alarm system for Sarah since she plays in the open in a place that is abound with snakes. As luck would have it, Jerry seems to be missing the exact quality that would enable him to do this. The word “caution” does not seem to exist in Jerry’s dictionary. Jerry loves and loves to be loved the family can’t help but give in to his charms, and many a time, his helplessness.
Quite frankly, Jerry would fare better as a mongoose for I know he will behave like one the moment he sees a snake; I pray that snakes keep away from both Jerry and Sarah. I am also quite thankful that Jerry managed not to find the leopard that was on the prowl in the area where my sister lives. In other circumstances he would to invite the pardus to play with him and that would have conferred everlasting peace on the twitchy, restless Jerry. That would have been one messy Tom and Jerry show.
I think Jerry’s claustrophobic in our city because we always leash him before he leaves home and our home is smaller than my sis’s. Walking Jerry is quite an experience. Jerry loves being outside and the moment he is, he transcends into a world of his own. He hardly ever looks up, his nose is constantly on the ground and he follows it like a dust particle in Brownian motion. He yanks and pulls the chain in every direction that his nose forced him to follow. I am surprised at the force with which he pulls me along. He’s a small dog to be generating that intensity of force, like I said, he oozes passion and he follows his nose with the same and when he encounters me trying to stop him, he pulls with every ounce of energy in every muscle of his body. In the beginning I almost fell from the hard yank but slowly understood that this dog doesn’t pull as light as he weighs. He never looks at me, never implores the way he does when he wants to eat, he just pulls as hard as he can, I see he legs neck and back in action trying to break free from the invisible me.
Jerry neither learnt to fear or scare anything. I have heard stories of him scaring big dogs. Witnesses say that the victims are more taken by surprise at Jerry’s haphazard motion than anything else. He seems like some small object that is moving haphazardly and too fast to be clearly visible that they get spooked. Anyway the little zealot’s inquisitiveness once landed his buttocks in the jaws of a bad tempered dog who didn’t give two hoots about the randomness in the universe. My sister turned to be more dangerous of the competition and rescued a confused Jerry from the grip of what would have been a couple of stitches and shots of antibiotics.
Of course Jerry forgets and therefore forgives and I still have to take off with him at the first sight of the ferocious stray dogs in the area before they see Jerry or vice versa. In the former case I doubt I’d be able to outrun the danger and in the latter, the would-be victim is sure to pull me towards the danger in a fury of excitement and inquisitiveness, I therefore am as alert as a dog while walking little Jerry while he’s lost in a wonderland of scents and odours. But I hats off to his ears (or whatever sense) for tonight I saw a dog sprinting towards us from a distance and I am sure Jerry saw nothing with his nose buried in a pile of leaves while I goaded him to run along with me and climb the flight of stairs to my home but no sooner had the mutt crossed under, Jerry sensed the presence of his contemporary and started to whine and pull madly at the chain. He gets too excited on seeing other dogs. Last night I told him to shut up when I got hyper on seeing a big German Shepard cross us and started to pull crazily at the chain to go closer to it. The big dog crossed nonchalantly but then looked at me with a puzzled expression as if trying to say “is this pup for real?”
I see Jerry all excited about life and all inquisitive and eager to explore even while I restrain him with a leash for I know there are places I do not allow him to go for the sake of his safety, I tug at his leash seek cover for him every time I sense danger. All the while Jerry never looks at me! He’s busy doing his thing and I’m non-existent for him. I wonder if I treat god the same way. If one exists that is. Just a silly passing thought on the eve of Christmas. Merry Christmas 2010 every one.
The one thing that comes to my mind when I see this old pup is “passion”. He seems to be passionate about everything that he wants to do; at times these are not necessarily things that would earn him the title of a good dog. They wanted a dog as a snake alarm system for Sarah since she plays in the open in a place that is abound with snakes. As luck would have it, Jerry seems to be missing the exact quality that would enable him to do this. The word “caution” does not seem to exist in Jerry’s dictionary. Jerry loves and loves to be loved the family can’t help but give in to his charms, and many a time, his helplessness.
Quite frankly, Jerry would fare better as a mongoose for I know he will behave like one the moment he sees a snake; I pray that snakes keep away from both Jerry and Sarah. I am also quite thankful that Jerry managed not to find the leopard that was on the prowl in the area where my sister lives. In other circumstances he would to invite the pardus to play with him and that would have conferred everlasting peace on the twitchy, restless Jerry. That would have been one messy Tom and Jerry show.
I think Jerry’s claustrophobic in our city because we always leash him before he leaves home and our home is smaller than my sis’s. Walking Jerry is quite an experience. Jerry loves being outside and the moment he is, he transcends into a world of his own. He hardly ever looks up, his nose is constantly on the ground and he follows it like a dust particle in Brownian motion. He yanks and pulls the chain in every direction that his nose forced him to follow. I am surprised at the force with which he pulls me along. He’s a small dog to be generating that intensity of force, like I said, he oozes passion and he follows his nose with the same and when he encounters me trying to stop him, he pulls with every ounce of energy in every muscle of his body. In the beginning I almost fell from the hard yank but slowly understood that this dog doesn’t pull as light as he weighs. He never looks at me, never implores the way he does when he wants to eat, he just pulls as hard as he can, I see he legs neck and back in action trying to break free from the invisible me.
Jerry neither learnt to fear or scare anything. I have heard stories of him scaring big dogs. Witnesses say that the victims are more taken by surprise at Jerry’s haphazard motion than anything else. He seems like some small object that is moving haphazardly and too fast to be clearly visible that they get spooked. Anyway the little zealot’s inquisitiveness once landed his buttocks in the jaws of a bad tempered dog who didn’t give two hoots about the randomness in the universe. My sister turned to be more dangerous of the competition and rescued a confused Jerry from the grip of what would have been a couple of stitches and shots of antibiotics.
Of course Jerry forgets and therefore forgives and I still have to take off with him at the first sight of the ferocious stray dogs in the area before they see Jerry or vice versa. In the former case I doubt I’d be able to outrun the danger and in the latter, the would-be victim is sure to pull me towards the danger in a fury of excitement and inquisitiveness, I therefore am as alert as a dog while walking little Jerry while he’s lost in a wonderland of scents and odours. But I hats off to his ears (or whatever sense) for tonight I saw a dog sprinting towards us from a distance and I am sure Jerry saw nothing with his nose buried in a pile of leaves while I goaded him to run along with me and climb the flight of stairs to my home but no sooner had the mutt crossed under, Jerry sensed the presence of his contemporary and started to whine and pull madly at the chain. He gets too excited on seeing other dogs. Last night I told him to shut up when I got hyper on seeing a big German Shepard cross us and started to pull crazily at the chain to go closer to it. The big dog crossed nonchalantly but then looked at me with a puzzled expression as if trying to say “is this pup for real?”
I see Jerry all excited about life and all inquisitive and eager to explore even while I restrain him with a leash for I know there are places I do not allow him to go for the sake of his safety, I tug at his leash seek cover for him every time I sense danger. All the while Jerry never looks at me! He’s busy doing his thing and I’m non-existent for him. I wonder if I treat god the same way. If one exists that is. Just a silly passing thought on the eve of Christmas. Merry Christmas 2010 every one.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Proponents
T’was Sanjit’s B’day and I managed to not call him somehow; I suffer acute and fulminant procrastinitis.
Hashmat came over and we left for CCD-35 to meet Ashish and the others of whom we did not know. I went in the car after my bike refused to start which I later found out was because of the weak battery. At CCD, the others were Puja, Ashish’s son (who still doesn’t have a name), Mayuri and Jason.
After a few wise cracks we got to describing how the year had been for each one of us. My words were egotistical, centered on me, myself and I, how I’d hit rock bottom but risen like the Phoenix etc etc. Hashmat’s were poetic and talked about how he didn’t care much about the days gone by and the one to come but about the present moment; he even laced it with Urdu verses and it sounded nice. Puja’s was about becoming a mother and staying awake and how life-changing the whole experience was. Ashish’s was the same (of course not mother but a father) and also about how he switched his job to work for a not-well-known company (Yikes! I was about to use the word “infamous” incorrectly here), Mayuri’s was also about being phoenix but unlike me, she credited it to the power of God and I don’t remember what Jason said. Alexanderson didn’t say much but was busy absorbing the sights and the sounds around him after he woke up.
Another interesting topic that was talked about was how Facebook usage has been followed by a concomitant decrease in blogging activity and I corroborated this by my firsthand experience. This is one of the reasons that I am writing this post, for I do not feel like writing about this or any other experience anymore and it has mostly to do with my using Facebook. I believe that to want to write about something, something should stand out from the norm like a beacon staring at you in the face. That potential energy gets sapped away in trifling short messages to friends and never builds up enough once you feel that you’ve already talked about it. This post, no matter how insignificant or boring, is an attempt to break that habit of not writing. So although I do not really feel like writing right now, I am.
Ashish also informed us about an essay competition, the prize of which is an all-expense-paid literary tour of England. The details are given on the website www.revelationmovement.com. I am excited about it, not that I think that I have a chance but thinking that it would probably help me read a book or two, since I cannot get myself to read any.
An interesting discussion on God ensued and turned intense and though I remember it being great, I don’t remember the details anymore. Probably because it is 1:30am and I am sleepy but I am glad that I wrote.
Hashmat came over and we left for CCD-35 to meet Ashish and the others of whom we did not know. I went in the car after my bike refused to start which I later found out was because of the weak battery. At CCD, the others were Puja, Ashish’s son (who still doesn’t have a name), Mayuri and Jason.
After a few wise cracks we got to describing how the year had been for each one of us. My words were egotistical, centered on me, myself and I, how I’d hit rock bottom but risen like the Phoenix etc etc. Hashmat’s were poetic and talked about how he didn’t care much about the days gone by and the one to come but about the present moment; he even laced it with Urdu verses and it sounded nice. Puja’s was about becoming a mother and staying awake and how life-changing the whole experience was. Ashish’s was the same (of course not mother but a father) and also about how he switched his job to work for a not-well-known company (Yikes! I was about to use the word “infamous” incorrectly here), Mayuri’s was also about being phoenix but unlike me, she credited it to the power of God and I don’t remember what Jason said. Alexanderson didn’t say much but was busy absorbing the sights and the sounds around him after he woke up.
Another interesting topic that was talked about was how Facebook usage has been followed by a concomitant decrease in blogging activity and I corroborated this by my firsthand experience. This is one of the reasons that I am writing this post, for I do not feel like writing about this or any other experience anymore and it has mostly to do with my using Facebook. I believe that to want to write about something, something should stand out from the norm like a beacon staring at you in the face. That potential energy gets sapped away in trifling short messages to friends and never builds up enough once you feel that you’ve already talked about it. This post, no matter how insignificant or boring, is an attempt to break that habit of not writing. So although I do not really feel like writing right now, I am.
Ashish also informed us about an essay competition, the prize of which is an all-expense-paid literary tour of England. The details are given on the website www.revelationmovement.com. I am excited about it, not that I think that I have a chance but thinking that it would probably help me read a book or two, since I cannot get myself to read any.
An interesting discussion on God ensued and turned intense and though I remember it being great, I don’t remember the details anymore. Probably because it is 1:30am and I am sleepy but I am glad that I wrote.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Rid(d)er
Afternoon: I fixed my bike
Evening: I thought I’d fixed my bike
Late evening: I’m in a fix here
I dunno what to make of this; was it divine intervention to make me go back to cycling, was it a wakeup call to stop procrastinating for good, did it serve to humble my loud-mouth, was it something to help me slow down and look at my life for once or was just a great script for comedy. I’d like to believe it was combination of all.
Last evening after almost losing my leg to kick starting a bullet in vain, I took a lift half way to my place and then boarded a rickshaw. Things so happened that I couldn’t manage more than 4 hours of sleep in the night. Today morning I boarded a bus to my workplace carrying my helmet. I had to walk some distance from the stop, accompanied by two people from my institute, one of which unwittingly said some nasty things about someone I care for, of course totally oblivious to the latter till I bombarded him with interrogation regarding the legitimacy of his blab. I manage to embarrass him but not without upsetting myself as well.
In the afternoon, I went to check if my bike would start. With a warm battery in the afternoon sun, it took a few kicks to revive the beast from coma. I heard the dug-dug long enough to smile and forget the morning’s incidence. In the evening, I returned to my dug-dugi and kicked again. Something about the way she wheezes that tells me if she’s gonna start in a while or just slip into coma again. She sure slipped back into coma but not without sending my leg into one as well. I decided I’d drag the fat-ass to the mechanic and did so. I reached there only to find the workshop locked and caught up a few breaths to drag it back to the institute. I realized my mistake, I’d ignored the battery water level way too long and in the cold evening, it couldn't even cough a spark into the spark-plug. I asked one of the guards at the institute for water and he offered warm water in an aluminum kettle. As I poured the life giving water into the battery, the PAPARAZZI arrived. My batchmates,seeing my pour warm water into my bike stopped and cracked wise jokes on me
“OMG! If you’d give such love to a woman, she’d keep you happier than your bike”,
“Wow! This thing runs on water? Warm water?”,
“Click his picture! We gotta upload this on facebook!”
“Evening out with your girlfriend eh!, why don’t you both go to a restaurant…err! Petrol pump!”
Sure they clicked my pictures as if they’d seen Paris Hilton’s underwear…or Paris Hilton without one…and then they disappeared without offering any help.
Outside, seeing my ordeal, the rickshaw walas, warming their hands around a bon-fire, were staring at me like hyena’s eye a dying prey. I walked up to them and asked how much they’d charge to take me to my place and I was quoted a price of 100 bucks (I mean come on, it's not like they had to carry the bike as well, it was just me). I walked back showing them my middle finger but they smiled. Maybe they thought it was some kind of thumbs-up.
I walked up to the hostel to the paparazzi hideout and told them to give me one of their bicycles (yeah I didn’t ask, I told them), they offered one provided I get my pic clicked on the bicycle wearing all my leather biking gear. I obliged and dutifully showed them the middle finger and they smiled too. No sooner had a cycled a few yards, I realized that the cycle was too small for me and its seat was made of some material that can be aptly called softwood.
My knees were just an inch odd away from the handlebar at their closest point and my weight was too much for the tyre pressure. I love cycling on my bicycle but this one was total pain and the cycle rode really heavy. As I made my way through IMTECH, whoever recognized me had a good laugh seeing me perched atop a relatively small bicycle and going zigzag trying to avoid the handle hitting my knees.
I heave-hoed my way through the less crowded roads in the beginning but as I hit the traffic I realized that the threat of being mowed down was very real; most motorists were on cell phone and/or overspeeding and caring two hoots about other “lesser” people. On every bend and corner I pedaled on like a freaked out snail watching cars and truck closing in, trying to wiggle out as fast as I could. I missed my Bullet and then later I started to miss my own bicycle which is a decently nimble machine. I watched Bullets going dug-dug past me and I sighed. I then realized that I was way too slow even for other cyclists but then was reminded of the adage “beggars can’t be choosers”. So I was beggars wasn’t I, I’d almost bully-beg-borrowed this tin-can I was riding.
Then something upset me: smoke, beedi smoke on my face, yuck! As if the vehicular exhaust wasn’t enough to pollute my lungs which were working overtime anyway, I had someone shoving tobacco smoke down my windpipe. I instantly looked at the source. It was rickshaw-wala in front of me and there we both were right under the bright streetlights. As more smoke rose and came to me, I looked at his ruffled white hair from behind; the white smoke and the white hair looked queer enough for me to forget about the filth of it for a while. As I strenuously wiggled to overtake him, I started getting a cleared picture of his face. First the ears, then the profile as I looked at the gaunt, heavily-wrinkled, weatherbeaten face of the old man I was mesmerized the thought of somebody painting a face like that or somebody capturing a picture like the one I was getting to see. As he puffed on his beedi in a style that looked so original it could be used as a video-lesson for actors, it seemed like he didn’t need to look up to the traffic to know where it was coming from or where it was going but he kept going without committing a hair of a mistake. His legs and one hand were on autopilot and his face and other arm were lost in the ecstasy of the beedi smoke. It seemed like to him there was nothing to the world cept his beedi; a strangely awesome sight. Then I thought I’d have missed it completely had I been on my bike.
As I crossed pretty women on the road, I, now perched atop a funny looking “nothing”, realized how impossible it was to get them to catch even glimpse of me; a shiny bike does shimmer me into moments of fleeting attention doesn’t it. And after a few such incidences, I realized how inconsequential that need for attention is.
This could’ve happened only on this bicycle for when I’m on my own, I’m concentrating more on racing with the motorized traffic and winning for a while; I realized that even that was a silly thing to do. I realized that all baabu-cycles riders were old men.
Then I found myself on the road right across my alma-mater. I realized that I crossed it every day but never looked at it. This time I was slow enough to spot my last classroom in the dark, I stared at it for a while and then instantly shifted my sight across to the other side to the two palm trees I loved looking at during a boring class and was overjoyed to spot them as well and in fact they did seem a little bigger than my recollection of them; 14 years is a long time.
By now I had gained some speed and was happily swaying left and right as I pedaled down home. It had been quite a while, or had it? I checked the time, it had been 25 minutes since I left and home was probably another 10 odd minutes away at that speed. Just then something bit me on my knee. Some godforsaken insect had probably made its way up there…Yeeooww! That hurt. I squished whatever it as was from outside between the fold of my jeans.
When home was in sight my cell phone began to vibrate, I took the call, it was from Arijit
“so how does it feel like to cycle up to home?” he barely managing to control his laughter. Apparently some nit-wit had updated Facebook about my condition even before I reached home.
“Awesome” I replied. I really enjoyed the ride.
Evening: I thought I’d fixed my bike
Late evening: I’m in a fix here
I dunno what to make of this; was it divine intervention to make me go back to cycling, was it a wakeup call to stop procrastinating for good, did it serve to humble my loud-mouth, was it something to help me slow down and look at my life for once or was just a great script for comedy. I’d like to believe it was combination of all.
Last evening after almost losing my leg to kick starting a bullet in vain, I took a lift half way to my place and then boarded a rickshaw. Things so happened that I couldn’t manage more than 4 hours of sleep in the night. Today morning I boarded a bus to my workplace carrying my helmet. I had to walk some distance from the stop, accompanied by two people from my institute, one of which unwittingly said some nasty things about someone I care for, of course totally oblivious to the latter till I bombarded him with interrogation regarding the legitimacy of his blab. I manage to embarrass him but not without upsetting myself as well.
In the afternoon, I went to check if my bike would start. With a warm battery in the afternoon sun, it took a few kicks to revive the beast from coma. I heard the dug-dug long enough to smile and forget the morning’s incidence. In the evening, I returned to my dug-dugi and kicked again. Something about the way she wheezes that tells me if she’s gonna start in a while or just slip into coma again. She sure slipped back into coma but not without sending my leg into one as well. I decided I’d drag the fat-ass to the mechanic and did so. I reached there only to find the workshop locked and caught up a few breaths to drag it back to the institute. I realized my mistake, I’d ignored the battery water level way too long and in the cold evening, it couldn't even cough a spark into the spark-plug. I asked one of the guards at the institute for water and he offered warm water in an aluminum kettle. As I poured the life giving water into the battery, the PAPARAZZI arrived. My batchmates,seeing my pour warm water into my bike stopped and cracked wise jokes on me
“OMG! If you’d give such love to a woman, she’d keep you happier than your bike”,
“Wow! This thing runs on water? Warm water?”,
“Click his picture! We gotta upload this on facebook!”
“Evening out with your girlfriend eh!, why don’t you both go to a restaurant…err! Petrol pump!”
Sure they clicked my pictures as if they’d seen Paris Hilton’s underwear…or Paris Hilton without one…and then they disappeared without offering any help.
Outside, seeing my ordeal, the rickshaw walas, warming their hands around a bon-fire, were staring at me like hyena’s eye a dying prey. I walked up to them and asked how much they’d charge to take me to my place and I was quoted a price of 100 bucks (I mean come on, it's not like they had to carry the bike as well, it was just me). I walked back showing them my middle finger but they smiled. Maybe they thought it was some kind of thumbs-up.
I walked up to the hostel to the paparazzi hideout and told them to give me one of their bicycles (yeah I didn’t ask, I told them), they offered one provided I get my pic clicked on the bicycle wearing all my leather biking gear. I obliged and dutifully showed them the middle finger and they smiled too. No sooner had a cycled a few yards, I realized that the cycle was too small for me and its seat was made of some material that can be aptly called softwood.
My knees were just an inch odd away from the handlebar at their closest point and my weight was too much for the tyre pressure. I love cycling on my bicycle but this one was total pain and the cycle rode really heavy. As I made my way through IMTECH, whoever recognized me had a good laugh seeing me perched atop a relatively small bicycle and going zigzag trying to avoid the handle hitting my knees.
I heave-hoed my way through the less crowded roads in the beginning but as I hit the traffic I realized that the threat of being mowed down was very real; most motorists were on cell phone and/or overspeeding and caring two hoots about other “lesser” people. On every bend and corner I pedaled on like a freaked out snail watching cars and truck closing in, trying to wiggle out as fast as I could. I missed my Bullet and then later I started to miss my own bicycle which is a decently nimble machine. I watched Bullets going dug-dug past me and I sighed. I then realized that I was way too slow even for other cyclists but then was reminded of the adage “beggars can’t be choosers”. So I was beggars wasn’t I, I’d almost bully-beg-borrowed this tin-can I was riding.
Then something upset me: smoke, beedi smoke on my face, yuck! As if the vehicular exhaust wasn’t enough to pollute my lungs which were working overtime anyway, I had someone shoving tobacco smoke down my windpipe. I instantly looked at the source. It was rickshaw-wala in front of me and there we both were right under the bright streetlights. As more smoke rose and came to me, I looked at his ruffled white hair from behind; the white smoke and the white hair looked queer enough for me to forget about the filth of it for a while. As I strenuously wiggled to overtake him, I started getting a cleared picture of his face. First the ears, then the profile as I looked at the gaunt, heavily-wrinkled, weatherbeaten face of the old man I was mesmerized the thought of somebody painting a face like that or somebody capturing a picture like the one I was getting to see. As he puffed on his beedi in a style that looked so original it could be used as a video-lesson for actors, it seemed like he didn’t need to look up to the traffic to know where it was coming from or where it was going but he kept going without committing a hair of a mistake. His legs and one hand were on autopilot and his face and other arm were lost in the ecstasy of the beedi smoke. It seemed like to him there was nothing to the world cept his beedi; a strangely awesome sight. Then I thought I’d have missed it completely had I been on my bike.
As I crossed pretty women on the road, I, now perched atop a funny looking “nothing”, realized how impossible it was to get them to catch even glimpse of me; a shiny bike does shimmer me into moments of fleeting attention doesn’t it. And after a few such incidences, I realized how inconsequential that need for attention is.
This could’ve happened only on this bicycle for when I’m on my own, I’m concentrating more on racing with the motorized traffic and winning for a while; I realized that even that was a silly thing to do. I realized that all baabu-cycles riders were old men.
Then I found myself on the road right across my alma-mater. I realized that I crossed it every day but never looked at it. This time I was slow enough to spot my last classroom in the dark, I stared at it for a while and then instantly shifted my sight across to the other side to the two palm trees I loved looking at during a boring class and was overjoyed to spot them as well and in fact they did seem a little bigger than my recollection of them; 14 years is a long time.
By now I had gained some speed and was happily swaying left and right as I pedaled down home. It had been quite a while, or had it? I checked the time, it had been 25 minutes since I left and home was probably another 10 odd minutes away at that speed. Just then something bit me on my knee. Some godforsaken insect had probably made its way up there…Yeeooww! That hurt. I squished whatever it as was from outside between the fold of my jeans.
When home was in sight my cell phone began to vibrate, I took the call, it was from Arijit
“so how does it feel like to cycle up to home?” he barely managing to control his laughter. Apparently some nit-wit had updated Facebook about my condition even before I reached home.
“Awesome” I replied. I really enjoyed the ride.
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