Finally leaving home tomorrow for Gurgaon.... Very scared..... Very unsure of whether its the right thing..... It's damn expensive as well....
Its not how I imagined I would leave.... I am feeling like I dunno, its really weird.... I gotta make the most of it, but I just dont know.... It's just Gurgaon, not London.... But London would have been better isnt it?
Very apprehensive.... Had a talk with Leena whether I am doing the right thing.... She said I was, but why am I feeling this strange yucky feeling.... like I am doing something wrong.... I am not.... Maybe... Maybe I am just being stupid....
I go back to Find the River by REM, one of my favourite songs.... I run into another page which reminds me of something I wrote long back and was probably meant to be found on this day..... long is just a strange word now.... the last 5 months haven't been long, but the things that happened last year seems so distant now.... It's all relative.... This is what I wrote last year:
This just became my favourite REM song!! Its incredible the way it just picks up. And the lyrics are amazing too. Everyone just has to find the river of his life I guess. Thats what this song is about. The flow of one's life can only be decided after you ascertained the right river. Most dont care about finding the river but then you might wash on a shore that you never meant to me.
The one person I would like to inform right now would probably be least interested in knowing all this.... I shared day dreams with her.... Felt really guilty for the last 4 months or so... Didn't have the courage to face myself or her or this blog..... It was all going down the drain.... Maybe 2007 will never be back again.... I guess thats the way a river runs.... its never turns back...
God help me..... pleaseeeeeeee ...... Make this work....
Hey now, little speedyhead,
The read on the speedometer says
You have to go to task in the city
Where people drown and people serve
Don't be shy. Your just deserve
Is only just light years to go
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Dreams Compromised?? Part IV - Pink Floyd Night
Pink Floyd is always best when it is heard in pitch darkness, past midnight, when there is not a soul awake. I had so many of those nights when I would stay awake till 2am, listening to Floyd, chatting, playing computer games. But now with this job and all, I have to sleep at 10.30 max, in order to wake up to go to office next day. I miss those night excursions on the internet, feeling like a explorer on internet explorer, with the world in the screen. I miss trying to convince Avi my standpoint on things, and cursing the world.
While we were coming back from Trivandrum, I remember the second night in that compartment. Since we had only 2 seats, and there were 4 of us, there were two of us squeezed into each compartment. And that night it had rained, and the coach was leaking , and there was water everywhere. I found it difficult to sleep that night, especially with Ashish occupying more than half the space. So at around 1.30 am, I decided to call my sleep quits, and woke up and somehow managed to jump over Ashish to get out, without waking him up. I don't think even if I would have walked over him, he would have woke up.
Opposite our seat was an elderly couple and their grandson - Justin. We had been playing around with the little kid the whole way. They had to get off at Bhopal, at 2.30 am. So I thought I would take over their seat once they left. I went outside the A/C Coach, only to discover to my horror that there were hundreds of small cockroaches outside!! I quickly went inside. I dug out a little bit of space, and pushed Ashish a little inside. With Leena and Monika sleeping on the overhead berth, I had no choice but to sit uncomfortable on half my butt. The train had stopped. The elderly couple were still sleeping.
I pulled out my headphone, and started playing music - Pink Floyd - Shine on you Crazy Diamond. There is something about this song that I just love. And if you have ever heard it past midnight, you would know what I mean. And you don't need to be drunk or high on drugs to feel that magic. By the way, you never need to be drunk or trippy to feel magic. The music started playing, and I was lost in it. The first Eight and Half minutes of the song there are no words. Avi once said that music without words is better than music with words, I totally agree. I didn't have my glasses on, so I was kinda half blind anyway. But from the window I could see a blaze of light passing us. It was probably another train, but it looked somewhat different without the glasses on. At 3.58 in the song, the IInd part of the song starts. Ting Ting Ting Ting. And then it just builds, and then it takes you away.
The elderly uncle had woken up, probably curious as to what I was upto. I pushed the earphones harder into my ear, I didn't wanna be disturbed. He didn't disturb me either. He was probably babbling something to his wife.
Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun
Shine on you crazy diamond
Now there is a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky
Shine on you crazy diamond.......
I pulled out my mobile, I didn't have network. For the next hour or so, I was listening to Pink Floyd. It was awesome. Then I pulled out the earphones truly satisfied. The train was late, Bhopal came at around 4. I helped them out with their luggage, a lot of luggage, and said goodbye to Justin. Then I came inside and went to sleep on their berth. Didn't sleep much after that either, but it was truly a Pink Floyd night. Can't explain it to those who wouldn't understand.....
While we were coming back from Trivandrum, I remember the second night in that compartment. Since we had only 2 seats, and there were 4 of us, there were two of us squeezed into each compartment. And that night it had rained, and the coach was leaking , and there was water everywhere. I found it difficult to sleep that night, especially with Ashish occupying more than half the space. So at around 1.30 am, I decided to call my sleep quits, and woke up and somehow managed to jump over Ashish to get out, without waking him up. I don't think even if I would have walked over him, he would have woke up.
Opposite our seat was an elderly couple and their grandson - Justin. We had been playing around with the little kid the whole way. They had to get off at Bhopal, at 2.30 am. So I thought I would take over their seat once they left. I went outside the A/C Coach, only to discover to my horror that there were hundreds of small cockroaches outside!! I quickly went inside. I dug out a little bit of space, and pushed Ashish a little inside. With Leena and Monika sleeping on the overhead berth, I had no choice but to sit uncomfortable on half my butt. The train had stopped. The elderly couple were still sleeping.
I pulled out my headphone, and started playing music - Pink Floyd - Shine on you Crazy Diamond. There is something about this song that I just love. And if you have ever heard it past midnight, you would know what I mean. And you don't need to be drunk or high on drugs to feel that magic. By the way, you never need to be drunk or trippy to feel magic. The music started playing, and I was lost in it. The first Eight and Half minutes of the song there are no words. Avi once said that music without words is better than music with words, I totally agree. I didn't have my glasses on, so I was kinda half blind anyway. But from the window I could see a blaze of light passing us. It was probably another train, but it looked somewhat different without the glasses on. At 3.58 in the song, the IInd part of the song starts. Ting Ting Ting Ting. And then it just builds, and then it takes you away.
The elderly uncle had woken up, probably curious as to what I was upto. I pushed the earphones harder into my ear, I didn't wanna be disturbed. He didn't disturb me either. He was probably babbling something to his wife.
Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun
Shine on you crazy diamond
Now there is a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky
Shine on you crazy diamond.......
I pulled out my mobile, I didn't have network. For the next hour or so, I was listening to Pink Floyd. It was awesome. Then I pulled out the earphones truly satisfied. The train was late, Bhopal came at around 4. I helped them out with their luggage, a lot of luggage, and said goodbye to Justin. Then I came inside and went to sleep on their berth. Didn't sleep much after that either, but it was truly a Pink Floyd night. Can't explain it to those who wouldn't understand.....
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Dreams Compromised?? - Part III - The Beach
I was staring out of the bus window, during one of those innumerable tiring journeys taking me back to home. All of the sudden I remembered the beach - Kovalam Beach. I had almost forgotten that day. Now that Leena and Ashish were leaving for Lucknow, the day came back to me strongly. It was a wonderful day. There were a lot of firsts that day. I walked on a beach amidst rain and a very strong wind. I climbed on top of the lighthouse, and was very scared to step outside. It was my idea to go up that lighthouse and the other three were quite skeptical about it. Taking even one step towards the lighthouse required a lot of effort, such was the wind. But I convinced them to go there.
And I also did see a lady in a bikini for the first time. Two in fact. Maybe even more, but there are only two I can recall. There was one very pretty firangi couple. First we saw them individually and mentioned how lovely a pair would both of them make together. And it turned out that they were a pair. It was a very beautiful day.
I was frantically messaging Avi from the top of the lighthouse. It was a wonderful sight. She told me to wish for anything and write in the sand and watch the waves wash it away. 'It would definitely come true', she had said. I forget what I wrote now. Then at evening we got in a public bus and went back to the city. I would like to go back to that day someday.
On a side note, writing has become painfully exhaustingly tough for me these days. Even when I do have time, writing is the most difficult thing to do now. It's like I can't look at this blog anymore. It just haunts me, and ridicules me. I can't talk to myself these days, that haunts me too. I wanna look myself in the eye, but I can't do that. I have betrayed myself.
Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me
There lie they, and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree
And I also did see a lady in a bikini for the first time. Two in fact. Maybe even more, but there are only two I can recall. There was one very pretty firangi couple. First we saw them individually and mentioned how lovely a pair would both of them make together. And it turned out that they were a pair. It was a very beautiful day.
I was frantically messaging Avi from the top of the lighthouse. It was a wonderful sight. She told me to wish for anything and write in the sand and watch the waves wash it away. 'It would definitely come true', she had said. I forget what I wrote now. Then at evening we got in a public bus and went back to the city. I would like to go back to that day someday.
On a side note, writing has become painfully exhaustingly tough for me these days. Even when I do have time, writing is the most difficult thing to do now. It's like I can't look at this blog anymore. It just haunts me, and ridicules me. I can't talk to myself these days, that haunts me too. I wanna look myself in the eye, but I can't do that. I have betrayed myself.
Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me
There lie they, and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree
Monday, August 18, 2008
An Inconsequential Story of Eternity
I met eternity just the other day, and he said that it's about time I told his story to everybody. Existence out of time is often claimed as rubbish claims primarily designed to render the human invention of the clock useless. But what if I told you that somewhere in nowhere, existed a place, which actually does not exist at all, and yet spawns through everything that you can possibly imagine, called Eternity, or more popularly named by the inhabitants - The Eternal Garden!
I haven't been there myself, but by a strange coincidence ran into all the rare escapees from the Garden one after the other. And on one fateful night, Eternity itself called upon me and asked me to bring a pizza and a diet coke along, and then we sat down and talked for a considerable amout of something, which should have been ordinarily classified as time. So, this tale is merely based on all that I understood out of all that I was told.
A long time ago, somewhere in the future, an evil emperor ruled the entire galaxy. The Evil Emperor, who when was a small child, was exposed to a series of movies by George Lucas, called as the first part Star Wars Trilogy. The dvd of the trilogy was somehow dropped by an astronaut from Earth while he was cleaning the windows of the International Space Station. And through bizarre luck, the dvd managed to crash completely safely on a comparitively technologically advanced planet. Such a primitive entertainment device existed only in their rarest archives now. The dvd was also placed among those archives, never to be opened, until one very ominous day. The young mischevious son of the Emperor sneaked into the archives, and he found his way to the dvd, as if the evil dvd had called out his name. The young boy sneaked the dvd home, and with the help of some of his geeky friends managed to play out the movie.
At the end of the three movies, the little boy was no longer a little boy. His life had changed forever. He considered the movie to be a omen in disguise, "deus ex machina" he called it. A sign from the Gods, as to what his destiny is to be. Of course he hadn't seen the second part Trilogy, and only fate can tell what would have been had he seen all the 6 movies. The boy decided that the universe must be taken over, and he gathered all the geeky kids on the planet, and started building weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps George Bush ought to have looked there rather than Iraq. Though there is no recorded evidence of the events, but the chain of events that followed were - the boy murdered his own father and became emperor. Then he started with his own solar system, and destroyed all life on all planets including his own planet, so that he shall not encounter any rebel factions from anywhere.
Finally the little boy arrived to destroy the planet Earth as well. Before he destroyed everyone on the planet, he went down to aquire the second part trilogy of the movie. And then he ordered for the weapons to be fired on Earth. And as life on Earth was being destroyed, the Evil Emperor saw the Star Wars Episode IV to VI. When he had seen them, he was extremely depressed. 'Was it to be this way? That good shall always conquer evil?' But by then he had destroyed all life in the galaxy. Then how shall he be conquered over. Filled with remorse and regret, he ordered that their ship be put on self-destruct. And hence, all life in the galaxy supposedly ended.
But in all this chaos and madness, the Emperor forgot to notice a lone astronaut cleaning the windows of the NEW International Space Station. This astronaut happened to be a descendant of the astronaut who had dropped that evil dvd a long time ago. When all the cleaning was done, the young astronaut went inside the space station and tried to contact Mission Control on Earth. But by then everyone was dead. Infact everyone in the galaxy was dead, and he was the last living thing alive in the galaxy. That didn't occur to him yet. God, who was busy playing dice at that time, suddenly noticed that the prayers on his laptop had stop coming in the frenzy rate they used to come. 'Just ONE unread message!! Thats gotta be an anomaly' God thought.
So, really annoyed at all that happened God himself went down to meet the last person in the Galaxy. The conversation went like this :
God : Emmm, Congratulations you won!
Astronaut : Won? Won what? And who are you?
God : Why, I am God!
Astronaut : You're kidding right!
God : No, I am not!!!!
Astronaut : Ok ok! So you're God!! Gawwwd, I get to meet God!
God : Yes well, as I was saying, ahem, Congratulations you WON!
Astronaut : Yes, well what is it that I won?
God : Ummm, this whole Galaxy really, its all yours now. Lots of people have been trying to own it since its inception, and now its yours.
Astronaut : Well..... what am I gonna do with it??
God : Gonna do with it?? Gonna do with it?? Don't you see I am giving you the GALAXY!!
Astronaut : See, I don't want the galaxy, but isn't there something else you could give me?
God : Hmmmmm, well there is this coveted post that I have long handled since the inception of the galaxy, ummmm why don't you have a go at it.
Astronaut : Post?
God : Yes well, you get to be ETERNITY! Sounds exciting right?
Astronaut : I dunno! How much would you pay me? Its gotta be atleast 50% higher than my last pay.
God : Pay you!?! You get to be Eternity. Everything is yours!
Astronaut : Can we talk in concrete terms. Even my last employer said the whole space station is all yours!! And all I was doing was cleaning windows.
And then after a considerable amount of coaxing and convincing, the astronaut finally became Eternity from the inception of whatever. So as a privelege of being Eternity, he got to own this place which was not existent anywhere in the galaxy, but outside time, just like God's own villa.
But Eternity didn't want to have a villa. He had always longed to live a simple life down in the countryside, with trees and flowers and grass. So, he asked the folks who designed the Garden of Eden, to come up with something similar, and they did a fantastic job. A wonderful garden with wonderful trees of all sorts was now in place. But Eternity himself is not allowed to present in a physical state, so the garden was all empty, while Eternity looked upon it. And very soon, he grew tired of this boring garden. So he devised a way to randomly bring stuff to the Eternal Garden - An eternity sphere which would in things with the help of a vortex.
Then eternity asked the giant serpent Ouroboros who was encircling Earth, to act as a Guardian for the garden. Ouroboros agreed readily, after realising that sooner or later Earthlings would turn their direction heavenwards. So Ouroboros arrived as the guardian, but there was a slight problem, as Ouroboros's main interest was to eat up it's own tail. However Ouroboros convinced Eternity that this would in no way hinder his work as the Guardian. And hence started the Eternity Storms, which is also known as an Eternity Recalculation Moment.
The first eternity storm brought in a little dinosaur, a baby T-Rex, and since time does not exist in the Garden, the baby T-Rex remained a baby T-Rex all his life. The mother T-Rex however grew extremely upset at the mysterious disappearance of her son, and she invited all the dinosaurs to discuss the issue of - Whatever happened to baby T-Rex! And while all dinosaurs gathered at the very same plateau, a giant meteor crashed onto the plateau, wiping out the dinosaurs from the planet. Baby T-Rex was however safely away, playing with Ouroboros and eating apples. An apple a day does keep the doctor away.
After that the eternity storms kept bringing in more and more stuff.
I haven't been there myself, but by a strange coincidence ran into all the rare escapees from the Garden one after the other. And on one fateful night, Eternity itself called upon me and asked me to bring a pizza and a diet coke along, and then we sat down and talked for a considerable amout of something, which should have been ordinarily classified as time. So, this tale is merely based on all that I understood out of all that I was told.
A long time ago, somewhere in the future, an evil emperor ruled the entire galaxy. The Evil Emperor, who when was a small child, was exposed to a series of movies by George Lucas, called as the first part Star Wars Trilogy. The dvd of the trilogy was somehow dropped by an astronaut from Earth while he was cleaning the windows of the International Space Station. And through bizarre luck, the dvd managed to crash completely safely on a comparitively technologically advanced planet. Such a primitive entertainment device existed only in their rarest archives now. The dvd was also placed among those archives, never to be opened, until one very ominous day. The young mischevious son of the Emperor sneaked into the archives, and he found his way to the dvd, as if the evil dvd had called out his name. The young boy sneaked the dvd home, and with the help of some of his geeky friends managed to play out the movie.
At the end of the three movies, the little boy was no longer a little boy. His life had changed forever. He considered the movie to be a omen in disguise, "deus ex machina" he called it. A sign from the Gods, as to what his destiny is to be. Of course he hadn't seen the second part Trilogy, and only fate can tell what would have been had he seen all the 6 movies. The boy decided that the universe must be taken over, and he gathered all the geeky kids on the planet, and started building weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps George Bush ought to have looked there rather than Iraq. Though there is no recorded evidence of the events, but the chain of events that followed were - the boy murdered his own father and became emperor. Then he started with his own solar system, and destroyed all life on all planets including his own planet, so that he shall not encounter any rebel factions from anywhere.
Finally the little boy arrived to destroy the planet Earth as well. Before he destroyed everyone on the planet, he went down to aquire the second part trilogy of the movie. And then he ordered for the weapons to be fired on Earth. And as life on Earth was being destroyed, the Evil Emperor saw the Star Wars Episode IV to VI. When he had seen them, he was extremely depressed. 'Was it to be this way? That good shall always conquer evil?' But by then he had destroyed all life in the galaxy. Then how shall he be conquered over. Filled with remorse and regret, he ordered that their ship be put on self-destruct. And hence, all life in the galaxy supposedly ended.
But in all this chaos and madness, the Emperor forgot to notice a lone astronaut cleaning the windows of the NEW International Space Station. This astronaut happened to be a descendant of the astronaut who had dropped that evil dvd a long time ago. When all the cleaning was done, the young astronaut went inside the space station and tried to contact Mission Control on Earth. But by then everyone was dead. Infact everyone in the galaxy was dead, and he was the last living thing alive in the galaxy. That didn't occur to him yet. God, who was busy playing dice at that time, suddenly noticed that the prayers on his laptop had stop coming in the frenzy rate they used to come. 'Just ONE unread message!! Thats gotta be an anomaly' God thought.
So, really annoyed at all that happened God himself went down to meet the last person in the Galaxy. The conversation went like this :
God : Emmm, Congratulations you won!
Astronaut : Won? Won what? And who are you?
God : Why, I am God!
Astronaut : You're kidding right!
God : No, I am not!!!!
Astronaut : Ok ok! So you're God!! Gawwwd, I get to meet God!
God : Yes well, as I was saying, ahem, Congratulations you WON!
Astronaut : Yes, well what is it that I won?
God : Ummm, this whole Galaxy really, its all yours now. Lots of people have been trying to own it since its inception, and now its yours.
Astronaut : Well..... what am I gonna do with it??
God : Gonna do with it?? Gonna do with it?? Don't you see I am giving you the GALAXY!!
Astronaut : See, I don't want the galaxy, but isn't there something else you could give me?
God : Hmmmmm, well there is this coveted post that I have long handled since the inception of the galaxy, ummmm why don't you have a go at it.
Astronaut : Post?
God : Yes well, you get to be ETERNITY! Sounds exciting right?
Astronaut : I dunno! How much would you pay me? Its gotta be atleast 50% higher than my last pay.
God : Pay you!?! You get to be Eternity. Everything is yours!
Astronaut : Can we talk in concrete terms. Even my last employer said the whole space station is all yours!! And all I was doing was cleaning windows.
And then after a considerable amount of coaxing and convincing, the astronaut finally became Eternity from the inception of whatever. So as a privelege of being Eternity, he got to own this place which was not existent anywhere in the galaxy, but outside time, just like God's own villa.
But Eternity didn't want to have a villa. He had always longed to live a simple life down in the countryside, with trees and flowers and grass. So, he asked the folks who designed the Garden of Eden, to come up with something similar, and they did a fantastic job. A wonderful garden with wonderful trees of all sorts was now in place. But Eternity himself is not allowed to present in a physical state, so the garden was all empty, while Eternity looked upon it. And very soon, he grew tired of this boring garden. So he devised a way to randomly bring stuff to the Eternal Garden - An eternity sphere which would in things with the help of a vortex.
Then eternity asked the giant serpent Ouroboros who was encircling Earth, to act as a Guardian for the garden. Ouroboros agreed readily, after realising that sooner or later Earthlings would turn their direction heavenwards. So Ouroboros arrived as the guardian, but there was a slight problem, as Ouroboros's main interest was to eat up it's own tail. However Ouroboros convinced Eternity that this would in no way hinder his work as the Guardian. And hence started the Eternity Storms, which is also known as an Eternity Recalculation Moment.
The first eternity storm brought in a little dinosaur, a baby T-Rex, and since time does not exist in the Garden, the baby T-Rex remained a baby T-Rex all his life. The mother T-Rex however grew extremely upset at the mysterious disappearance of her son, and she invited all the dinosaurs to discuss the issue of - Whatever happened to baby T-Rex! And while all dinosaurs gathered at the very same plateau, a giant meteor crashed onto the plateau, wiping out the dinosaurs from the planet. Baby T-Rex was however safely away, playing with Ouroboros and eating apples. An apple a day does keep the doctor away.
After that the eternity storms kept bringing in more and more stuff.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Dreams Compromised?? - Part II : Finding a voice
So, back here again to write. Writing is a pretty tough thing. Its not like I love to write or anything, but its just something I have to do. And then sometimes it happens that trying to write anything becomes a very painful exercise. And I just want to get it out all at a once, without really caring.
So, back to Trivandrum again. On the second day, we were all asked to come and introduce ourselves in front of everybody, and talk about anything we would like to. I had horrible memories of GMCS classes in April. Then I had decided to become invisible and every time I was forced to speak, it went horribly bad. So, I didn't really think it was going to be any different this time. But there were just 21 people this time, and most of them weren't doing that well either. So, finally Smitha called my name, and I walked up the room. I was held up for a minute cos the guy before me was discussing something with Smitha.
Finally I started, and I what I ended up saying was that - I am pretty nervous to come up here and speak, and I am basically a shy person, and so on. And then I decided to do a brief book review of - A Painted House. A easy way to fill up my time. I did pretty well. But I wasn't able to look into the eyes of the people sitting there.
I think I went up there once more that day, in a group activity. But I had very little dialogue then.
It was after the outbound learning experience that I had become comfortable with all of them. And I didn't mind looking silly in front of any of them. So, the next time I went to speak was the McDonald Murder Mystery play. And I was the narrator for our group, plus I had a small role in the end too. So, I added a little humour in the narration in the start. And I just filled up my part in the end, but I was really uncomfortable standing there and moving around. I was kinda the assistant police guy to Vinit. And my job was to call the suspects into the room and say a few lines.
It was the next time that I spoke, that I did really well. It was our group presentation on comparison on TCS with a competitor. Our group of - Vinit, Arif and Swaroop, chose Accenture as a competitor. Our group went last and I was to start the presentation. So when I came in the front, everyone was talking and no one seemed interested in listening to me. So, I just asked them to settle down and let me start. Then I started joking that - I am sure all of you are pretty bored by now it (it had been more than a hour of presentations by now), and you can go have tea/coffee if you want. Then I started my presentation and I spoke really well. Adding some humour and audience participation in it. It was fun. For the first time I felt like I belonged there and I can handle this. After I finished, our presentation was stopped cos the faculty listening to it, had to go.
I spoke once more in class after that. I was sent by my group to speak about the ATM Brochure we made. And Suja was the faculty listening to it. So, we were suppose to come up with a brochure on the opening of the 100th ATM of our bank. So, the brochure didnt have an address of the location, which I didn't think was necessary. But Suja thought otherwise. So, I came up with a wonderful line - We don't have an address cos when the 100th ATM opens, every ATM becomes the 100th ATM, and hence we don't want everyone to turn up on the new ATM, but to go to their nearest ATM. I spoke pretty well then, and I was enjoying being there too.
On the second last day of our ILP, our whole batch had to give a presentation on TCS financials in an auditorium filled with 3 batches of engineers, along with most of our faculty. I didn't want to participate in it, but Vinit wrote my name anyway. And since no one else from Delhi wanted to do it, I had to represent Delhi. So, what happened was that everyone made their slides, and we merged them all together to make the presentation. There were around 40 slides, and there were going to be 8 speakers. I thought 8 was too many, but then my opinion didn't matter. I just had to speak on my 2 slides and go away. But the biggest drama of our ILP was just about to happen.
So, after an hour of getting a feel of the Audi, the crowd began to settle in. And it was very cold in the Audi, and that made all of us even more nervous. Even Vinit confessed to me that he was nervous. So, Vinayak started the presentation in his usual casual funny manner, followed up by Swaroop. His slides were pretty pathetic and he couldn't put them in the right manner. There was a question from somewhere in the back, and we thought - OK, at least they are interested in this presentation. Next was Radhika, and after that Priya. Now after Priya had said her part, that same person in the back, started asking some questions again. And this time Priya was dumbstruck, she didn't expect questions, and she didn't want to take them either. Seeing her helpless, Vinit stood up and tried to answer it. But he didn't seem satisfied. And Vinit signalled to me, to stand up and stand with my part. So, I stood up and had a look at that guy. Pretty old to be a student here, so I thought maybe he was someone from the corporate office in mumbai.
I started nervously, and fumbled with the words. I went ahead with the controversial statement of TCS reducing salaries in Jan'2008. I had barely finished my first slide, when the guy came up with a question - Is the reason for profitability per employee going down this year, the high number of recruitment made by TCS this year? Was that some kind of trick question, I calmly replied - yes, tats the reason! But clearly he wasn't satisfied and said - I think there are other reasons for it! I said - ok, so you could share them with us. And then the whole verbal barrage between us started. He got me really annoyed but I was polite all the way through. I wanted to move on to the next slide, but he wudnt let me. So, I finally decided to have an audience poll. I asked everyone there if they really knew what rupee depreciation meant! One hand came up on the room out of at least 150 associates. I had made my point and badly pissed him off. In between Nisha, one of the faculty members, intervened to push his point through to me. But I was pretty annoyed by then, and I didn't listen to her. hen he provoked me further and I said the line that stretched it a bit too far - They don't need to be rocket scientist to understand that the denominator (no.of employees) is going up faster than the numerator (net profits) is, and hence the profit per employee is going down. He stood up, and searched for a exit where there wasn't one. Annoyed, embarrassed, he came back and down the stairs and shook his hand violently towards the crowd, disapproving of me and the presentation. He left the room and behind him some of the other faculty left too. I was standing there speechless. A few of the faculty told me to keep going. And somehow I stumbled to finish my part.
I sat down, and asked priya sitting next to me - Was I rude? She said - No, u weren't! Meanwhile drama was happening outside the room. Vinit, was called outside, and vinayak followed him behind. And Nisha, Smitha and Alpha started lashing on him. I didn't know what was happening outside, but I knew this guy was someone important and right now Vinit was being bashed up. Finally we finished our presentation and Smitha came up to us and said - Didn't you know who that was? That was Suresh, the Global Inductions Head!!! He wants to have a word with all of you, so please go back to your room, and he might be a little hard on you, so be ready!
So what was the worse he could do me - Fire me! Yeah sure, like I give a damn! So, he came along with Alpha and Smitha. And started making comments on the presentation and on each speaker. He really disapproved of everything. Finally he came to me, and he said something like - And you, you won't stay around long in TCS with such an attitude. If you did something like this at a client place you would have been fired by now. And wat was it that you were trying to prove with audience poll! Hehehe, I would have laughed on any other day, but dunno why I got really sissy about all of it. And my eyes felt a little wet. So, he left and Smitha wanted Alpha to show us how the real presentation should have been done. I was getting even more sentimental every minute. Finally Smitha called me out, and a really embarrassing thing happened. She said she saw me getting a bit touchy about it all. And she asked me if I wanted to meet up Suresh right now. I told her I would meet him later, and went off to the bathroom. My eyes were bloodshot red!! I washed my face, and came out. Devender, one of the mumbai guys who I had a argument with, while going to Kanyakumari, said - Great Sudeep, if I would have been in your place, I would have done the same, and maybe even worse! Support came from all quarters. Even Suja, one of the faculty, came up in class later, and said that she was glad that I was the one to face him, and I did a very good job in the way I handled him. And it was a great learning experience for me.
I later met Suresh and I apologised for no fault of mine. It was a short apology cos I thought I was rude to him. But more embarrassing was Smitha asking me if I was ok, every time I came across her after that. Really pathetic kiddo. And on the final day, we got feedbacks from Nisha, and he lambasted me again for what I did the previous day. Whatever!
But I really enjoyed it all in the end. And I listened to the audio recording of the whole episode and discovered I wasn't rude at all. So, in the end, I can boast of a really awesome thing that I did. And it rounded up the ILP on a wonderful high, and all of us coming together to face an external enemy!!
So, I did find my voice during ILP! And I will always remember it for that. It was a wonderful experience, and though I woudn't wanna join TCS in hindsight, but the ILP will always remain an unforgettable experience.
So, back to Trivandrum again. On the second day, we were all asked to come and introduce ourselves in front of everybody, and talk about anything we would like to. I had horrible memories of GMCS classes in April. Then I had decided to become invisible and every time I was forced to speak, it went horribly bad. So, I didn't really think it was going to be any different this time. But there were just 21 people this time, and most of them weren't doing that well either. So, finally Smitha called my name, and I walked up the room. I was held up for a minute cos the guy before me was discussing something with Smitha.
Finally I started, and I what I ended up saying was that - I am pretty nervous to come up here and speak, and I am basically a shy person, and so on. And then I decided to do a brief book review of - A Painted House. A easy way to fill up my time. I did pretty well. But I wasn't able to look into the eyes of the people sitting there.
I think I went up there once more that day, in a group activity. But I had very little dialogue then.
It was after the outbound learning experience that I had become comfortable with all of them. And I didn't mind looking silly in front of any of them. So, the next time I went to speak was the McDonald Murder Mystery play. And I was the narrator for our group, plus I had a small role in the end too. So, I added a little humour in the narration in the start. And I just filled up my part in the end, but I was really uncomfortable standing there and moving around. I was kinda the assistant police guy to Vinit. And my job was to call the suspects into the room and say a few lines.
It was the next time that I spoke, that I did really well. It was our group presentation on comparison on TCS with a competitor. Our group of - Vinit, Arif and Swaroop, chose Accenture as a competitor. Our group went last and I was to start the presentation. So when I came in the front, everyone was talking and no one seemed interested in listening to me. So, I just asked them to settle down and let me start. Then I started joking that - I am sure all of you are pretty bored by now it (it had been more than a hour of presentations by now), and you can go have tea/coffee if you want. Then I started my presentation and I spoke really well. Adding some humour and audience participation in it. It was fun. For the first time I felt like I belonged there and I can handle this. After I finished, our presentation was stopped cos the faculty listening to it, had to go.
I spoke once more in class after that. I was sent by my group to speak about the ATM Brochure we made. And Suja was the faculty listening to it. So, we were suppose to come up with a brochure on the opening of the 100th ATM of our bank. So, the brochure didnt have an address of the location, which I didn't think was necessary. But Suja thought otherwise. So, I came up with a wonderful line - We don't have an address cos when the 100th ATM opens, every ATM becomes the 100th ATM, and hence we don't want everyone to turn up on the new ATM, but to go to their nearest ATM. I spoke pretty well then, and I was enjoying being there too.
On the second last day of our ILP, our whole batch had to give a presentation on TCS financials in an auditorium filled with 3 batches of engineers, along with most of our faculty. I didn't want to participate in it, but Vinit wrote my name anyway. And since no one else from Delhi wanted to do it, I had to represent Delhi. So, what happened was that everyone made their slides, and we merged them all together to make the presentation. There were around 40 slides, and there were going to be 8 speakers. I thought 8 was too many, but then my opinion didn't matter. I just had to speak on my 2 slides and go away. But the biggest drama of our ILP was just about to happen.
So, after an hour of getting a feel of the Audi, the crowd began to settle in. And it was very cold in the Audi, and that made all of us even more nervous. Even Vinit confessed to me that he was nervous. So, Vinayak started the presentation in his usual casual funny manner, followed up by Swaroop. His slides were pretty pathetic and he couldn't put them in the right manner. There was a question from somewhere in the back, and we thought - OK, at least they are interested in this presentation. Next was Radhika, and after that Priya. Now after Priya had said her part, that same person in the back, started asking some questions again. And this time Priya was dumbstruck, she didn't expect questions, and she didn't want to take them either. Seeing her helpless, Vinit stood up and tried to answer it. But he didn't seem satisfied. And Vinit signalled to me, to stand up and stand with my part. So, I stood up and had a look at that guy. Pretty old to be a student here, so I thought maybe he was someone from the corporate office in mumbai.
I started nervously, and fumbled with the words. I went ahead with the controversial statement of TCS reducing salaries in Jan'2008. I had barely finished my first slide, when the guy came up with a question - Is the reason for profitability per employee going down this year, the high number of recruitment made by TCS this year? Was that some kind of trick question, I calmly replied - yes, tats the reason! But clearly he wasn't satisfied and said - I think there are other reasons for it! I said - ok, so you could share them with us. And then the whole verbal barrage between us started. He got me really annoyed but I was polite all the way through. I wanted to move on to the next slide, but he wudnt let me. So, I finally decided to have an audience poll. I asked everyone there if they really knew what rupee depreciation meant! One hand came up on the room out of at least 150 associates. I had made my point and badly pissed him off. In between Nisha, one of the faculty members, intervened to push his point through to me. But I was pretty annoyed by then, and I didn't listen to her. hen he provoked me further and I said the line that stretched it a bit too far - They don't need to be rocket scientist to understand that the denominator (no.of employees) is going up faster than the numerator (net profits) is, and hence the profit per employee is going down. He stood up, and searched for a exit where there wasn't one. Annoyed, embarrassed, he came back and down the stairs and shook his hand violently towards the crowd, disapproving of me and the presentation. He left the room and behind him some of the other faculty left too. I was standing there speechless. A few of the faculty told me to keep going. And somehow I stumbled to finish my part.
I sat down, and asked priya sitting next to me - Was I rude? She said - No, u weren't! Meanwhile drama was happening outside the room. Vinit, was called outside, and vinayak followed him behind. And Nisha, Smitha and Alpha started lashing on him. I didn't know what was happening outside, but I knew this guy was someone important and right now Vinit was being bashed up. Finally we finished our presentation and Smitha came up to us and said - Didn't you know who that was? That was Suresh, the Global Inductions Head!!! He wants to have a word with all of you, so please go back to your room, and he might be a little hard on you, so be ready!
So what was the worse he could do me - Fire me! Yeah sure, like I give a damn! So, he came along with Alpha and Smitha. And started making comments on the presentation and on each speaker. He really disapproved of everything. Finally he came to me, and he said something like - And you, you won't stay around long in TCS with such an attitude. If you did something like this at a client place you would have been fired by now. And wat was it that you were trying to prove with audience poll! Hehehe, I would have laughed on any other day, but dunno why I got really sissy about all of it. And my eyes felt a little wet. So, he left and Smitha wanted Alpha to show us how the real presentation should have been done. I was getting even more sentimental every minute. Finally Smitha called me out, and a really embarrassing thing happened. She said she saw me getting a bit touchy about it all. And she asked me if I wanted to meet up Suresh right now. I told her I would meet him later, and went off to the bathroom. My eyes were bloodshot red!! I washed my face, and came out. Devender, one of the mumbai guys who I had a argument with, while going to Kanyakumari, said - Great Sudeep, if I would have been in your place, I would have done the same, and maybe even worse! Support came from all quarters. Even Suja, one of the faculty, came up in class later, and said that she was glad that I was the one to face him, and I did a very good job in the way I handled him. And it was a great learning experience for me.
I later met Suresh and I apologised for no fault of mine. It was a short apology cos I thought I was rude to him. But more embarrassing was Smitha asking me if I was ok, every time I came across her after that. Really pathetic kiddo. And on the final day, we got feedbacks from Nisha, and he lambasted me again for what I did the previous day. Whatever!
But I really enjoyed it all in the end. And I listened to the audio recording of the whole episode and discovered I wasn't rude at all. So, in the end, I can boast of a really awesome thing that I did. And it rounded up the ILP on a wonderful high, and all of us coming together to face an external enemy!!
So, I did find my voice during ILP! And I will always remember it for that. It was a wonderful experience, and though I woudn't wanna join TCS in hindsight, but the ILP will always remain an unforgettable experience.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Dream Compromised?? - Part I
I was reading the alchemist today, nearly 2 years after I had first read it. When I reached the part where the King of Salem is addressing Santiago, it struck me that I had probably missed the real meaning of those words, when I had first read it. It was a wonderful story back then, but now those words seem to trouble me. Hope they will not haunt me in time to come. Did I just believe in the greatest lie in the world that - at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate.
It's been more than a month since I wrote crossroads. Then I was leaving for a journey which I thought would lead me to the unknown. But fate or my decisions, I don't know which, have led me back to my home for now. A lot has happened in this period. There is so much to tell and to write about. I just haven't had the time to sit in front of the computer and write, and even when I have tried, I didn't know where to start. Maybe I should start from the start.
So, on 16th May 2008, I set out for Trivandrum along with the other three people from delhi - Ashish, Leena and Monika. The 3 days in the train kinda passed well, and it was fun. We even made up a hindi movie version of the O'Henry story - The Last Leaf. And me and Ashish almost missed the train twice too. And not to forget that since we only had 3 seats, me and ashish had to squeeze into one at night. But overall it was kinda good. On the morning of the 18th, I also got news from home that my grandfather (my mother's father) had passed away. I decided not to tell anyone, and its sounds weird, but I didnt really feel anything. Maybe I should have felt sad and all, but I just didnt, maybe I am quite a selfish person. Anyway, so we arrived at trivandrum on the 18th, and reached the hotel - Hotel Prasanth. Me and Ashish got the room on 5th floor, while the girls got the room on the 2nd floor. So, by evening all the people for the training had arrived. We first met the first floorers - Arun, Kapil and Viral. And then the guys from our floor, the mumbai guys - Vinit, Vinayak and Mihir. I felt really awkward after exiting from that room. Actually they seemed to fit the image of mumbai guys I had formed, namely - tough, cool and unfriendly people. I was beginning to fear that I had landed at the wrong spot, and I didn't belong there. I even tried sending a SOS to Avi, but her mobile was off. So finally she had changed her number to avoid me, cos I had really creeped her. Well thats what I thought atleast.
We were told the bus would leave for office at 7.30am next morning. Though I woke up at 5am, and outside the window, a neon sign, which I couldn't read without my glasses, was flashing on and off. It kinda reminded me of the "LOVELESS" sign in FF7. Me and ashish thought that everyone wud come down by 8 atleast. So we took our time, and I was watching a very nice movie in the morning - Wide Awake. So at 7.45 we go down, and to our shock, everyone is seated in the bus, waiting for us to come! We got an idea of things to come. There were 21 of us chartered accountants for this training. Most of the people were from mumbai. So, we arrived at a really big and good looking bulding. TCS Technopark! We were led to a classroom of sorts, and then the whole ILP thing started.
In days to come, people of all kinds visited us and bored us with their lectures. There were very cute faces in the faculty as well. And some very nice people too. But most of them were boring. So, if ur gonna ask me what the training was all abt then that would be a really difficult thing to do. And to chronologically set about all the things that happened would be a very tedious things to do. So, maybe I could narrate some of the key flashpoints that happened there in my subsequent posts. And then we would lead to the final question of what the title actually means.
Me is really tired to write. I better sleep.
It's been more than a month since I wrote crossroads. Then I was leaving for a journey which I thought would lead me to the unknown. But fate or my decisions, I don't know which, have led me back to my home for now. A lot has happened in this period. There is so much to tell and to write about. I just haven't had the time to sit in front of the computer and write, and even when I have tried, I didn't know where to start. Maybe I should start from the start.
So, on 16th May 2008, I set out for Trivandrum along with the other three people from delhi - Ashish, Leena and Monika. The 3 days in the train kinda passed well, and it was fun. We even made up a hindi movie version of the O'Henry story - The Last Leaf. And me and Ashish almost missed the train twice too. And not to forget that since we only had 3 seats, me and ashish had to squeeze into one at night. But overall it was kinda good. On the morning of the 18th, I also got news from home that my grandfather (my mother's father) had passed away. I decided not to tell anyone, and its sounds weird, but I didnt really feel anything. Maybe I should have felt sad and all, but I just didnt, maybe I am quite a selfish person. Anyway, so we arrived at trivandrum on the 18th, and reached the hotel - Hotel Prasanth. Me and Ashish got the room on 5th floor, while the girls got the room on the 2nd floor. So, by evening all the people for the training had arrived. We first met the first floorers - Arun, Kapil and Viral. And then the guys from our floor, the mumbai guys - Vinit, Vinayak and Mihir. I felt really awkward after exiting from that room. Actually they seemed to fit the image of mumbai guys I had formed, namely - tough, cool and unfriendly people. I was beginning to fear that I had landed at the wrong spot, and I didn't belong there. I even tried sending a SOS to Avi, but her mobile was off. So finally she had changed her number to avoid me, cos I had really creeped her. Well thats what I thought atleast.
We were told the bus would leave for office at 7.30am next morning. Though I woke up at 5am, and outside the window, a neon sign, which I couldn't read without my glasses, was flashing on and off. It kinda reminded me of the "LOVELESS" sign in FF7. Me and ashish thought that everyone wud come down by 8 atleast. So we took our time, and I was watching a very nice movie in the morning - Wide Awake. So at 7.45 we go down, and to our shock, everyone is seated in the bus, waiting for us to come! We got an idea of things to come. There were 21 of us chartered accountants for this training. Most of the people were from mumbai. So, we arrived at a really big and good looking bulding. TCS Technopark! We were led to a classroom of sorts, and then the whole ILP thing started.
In days to come, people of all kinds visited us and bored us with their lectures. There were very cute faces in the faculty as well. And some very nice people too. But most of them were boring. So, if ur gonna ask me what the training was all abt then that would be a really difficult thing to do. And to chronologically set about all the things that happened would be a very tedious things to do. So, maybe I could narrate some of the key flashpoints that happened there in my subsequent posts. And then we would lead to the final question of what the title actually means.
Me is really tired to write. I better sleep.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Crossroads
I told a friend once that we all have a crossroad moment in our life. Maybe we have more than one, but there is this one really big crossroad that you just can't miss. And you have total control over the steering of the car, when you reach this one. Maybe the earlier ones, someone else was driving the car, and you wanted to turn left or right or straight, and then you blame them for taking the wrong turn. They believed in those turns, and would you want to spend your remaining life trying to reach those lost turns or move forward and find a crossroad that you have control over.
I just think I am about to reach my crossroad. It's very near. I am really scared to be honest. I am really scared of taking decisions. I would kill myself alive, if something went wrong cos of my decision. But this one is all mine. There are two basic paths. One leads me back to where I am, where I have been for the major part of this decade. And another one, leads me into the unknown.
I have just been stuck here for ever it seems. I wanna go off for an adventure, and discover life. I wanna say goodbye's. I wanna be missed. I wanna miss people. I wanna find out what relations mean to me really. I wanna learn to respect people. I wanna learn how to deal with life. I wanna learn a lot of things that I have missed out in life. And that doesnt mean a guitar or a taekwando lessons, those would be unfulfilled dreams. What I really want to learn first is all of those basic things about life that I fail to deal with. I wanna discover who I am, and find out if life works for me too.
If I choose to go into the unknown, I wouldn't have a clue abt anything. I wouldn't have my room to retreat to when I have had a horrible day. I wouldn't have parents to take granted for. I wouldn't have my little lemon tree. I wouldn't have a protective cover over me. I have always been the little kiddo of the family. My mom doesn't believe I can survive on my own. I don't know if I can too either.
But if I never try to find out, then wouldn't it become like one of those guitar or taekwando dreams? I will just rot in one of those sullen dreams. Maybe I will fail, but so what? Atleast I would have tried. Atleast I would have had chased a dream for once, rather than just dreaming it. I wish for simple things to go right, and to achieve simple objectives. Nothing fancy. I need to find my soul, I wanna feel things. I don't really know what I enjoy doing. I am not capable of being in love right now. It's just one life, isnt it. And we make it so complicated with what the world wants out of us. And trying to make ourselves suit the world's need. I haven't asked myself for years now, years I can't remember, what I really wanted. What everyone wants is what I wanted. I want to want something for once. Not just wishing for a wish.
I really want to thank avi, for not giving up on me that week in april, and sorry for being so jealous. It was such an easy thing to give up on me then. I wanna thank you for making 2007 a year I would remember forever. I wanna thank you for helping me clear CA, I know sounds weird, but trust me, I would have gone mad if I didnt have you to talk to. I figured it out that day, it wasn't about losing a friend, it was about losing an ally. An ally, who knows the fears I am dealing with. I guess you had a big influence on me and my life. And now I am preparing to jump off the ledge and find my wings.
So I have packed up all the music that I would require to keep afloat. Goo Goo Dolls it is now. I think this is probably the band after Keane, that I have instantly liked so many songs of. We would need it all to keep in touch with myself. And well lets just how it goes, I hope to bring back many stories. Its an adventure after all. And the only baggage you can bring is all that you can't leave behind........
So, adios, for those rare readers that actually come across here.....
I just think I am about to reach my crossroad. It's very near. I am really scared to be honest. I am really scared of taking decisions. I would kill myself alive, if something went wrong cos of my decision. But this one is all mine. There are two basic paths. One leads me back to where I am, where I have been for the major part of this decade. And another one, leads me into the unknown.
I have just been stuck here for ever it seems. I wanna go off for an adventure, and discover life. I wanna say goodbye's. I wanna be missed. I wanna miss people. I wanna find out what relations mean to me really. I wanna learn to respect people. I wanna learn how to deal with life. I wanna learn a lot of things that I have missed out in life. And that doesnt mean a guitar or a taekwando lessons, those would be unfulfilled dreams. What I really want to learn first is all of those basic things about life that I fail to deal with. I wanna discover who I am, and find out if life works for me too.
If I choose to go into the unknown, I wouldn't have a clue abt anything. I wouldn't have my room to retreat to when I have had a horrible day. I wouldn't have parents to take granted for. I wouldn't have my little lemon tree. I wouldn't have a protective cover over me. I have always been the little kiddo of the family. My mom doesn't believe I can survive on my own. I don't know if I can too either.
But if I never try to find out, then wouldn't it become like one of those guitar or taekwando dreams? I will just rot in one of those sullen dreams. Maybe I will fail, but so what? Atleast I would have tried. Atleast I would have had chased a dream for once, rather than just dreaming it. I wish for simple things to go right, and to achieve simple objectives. Nothing fancy. I need to find my soul, I wanna feel things. I don't really know what I enjoy doing. I am not capable of being in love right now. It's just one life, isnt it. And we make it so complicated with what the world wants out of us. And trying to make ourselves suit the world's need. I haven't asked myself for years now, years I can't remember, what I really wanted. What everyone wants is what I wanted. I want to want something for once. Not just wishing for a wish.
I really want to thank avi, for not giving up on me that week in april, and sorry for being so jealous. It was such an easy thing to give up on me then. I wanna thank you for making 2007 a year I would remember forever. I wanna thank you for helping me clear CA, I know sounds weird, but trust me, I would have gone mad if I didnt have you to talk to. I figured it out that day, it wasn't about losing a friend, it was about losing an ally. An ally, who knows the fears I am dealing with. I guess you had a big influence on me and my life. And now I am preparing to jump off the ledge and find my wings.
So I have packed up all the music that I would require to keep afloat. Goo Goo Dolls it is now. I think this is probably the band after Keane, that I have instantly liked so many songs of. We would need it all to keep in touch with myself. And well lets just how it goes, I hope to bring back many stories. Its an adventure after all. And the only baggage you can bring is all that you can't leave behind........
So, adios, for those rare readers that actually come across here.....
Monday, April 21, 2008
The Traveller Lost - Part IV
Max and Emem followed behind him on the coloured pathway. They were finding it difficult to keep up with Slick, who was glancing back at regular intervals to check on their progress. The pathway seemed to be curved and stretch out to as far as could be seen. Endless, to Max, it seemed to go on till eternity. After all it had been quite a long time walking on this very dull pathway with nothing at all to see. But perhaps they didn't know that eternity is not as long as it is made out to be. It could quite often last for an infinite amount of time, or could just be over in a matter of few seconds, the reasons of which are better known to Time and Eternity. Rumours indicate that they have been having a cold war for quite a while now, and both of them is trying desperately to refute the existence of the other. And it was this minor rivalry that was going to present the travellers with a minor problem.
Slick had sped way ahead of the two, and Max was trying his best to match him for speed.
"Bammmmm!!!!" Suddenly Max walked into an invisible wall of sorts.
Slick quickly turned back. "Ouchhhh," Max was holding his face in pain.
"What the hell did I just hit," Max cried in pain.
Slick rushed back to the spot, and tried to feel the invisible wall. His hand went through the transparent wall, and the wall glowed for a second. A shiver went down his spine.
"OH NO! ETERNITY RECACULATION!" gasped Slick.
"Eternity what???" Max still in pain somehow managed to ask.
"Hurry friends we don't have time, eternity recalculation has just begun. Pup you fill him in with the details later, for now just break on through to the other side."
Max gave Slick a puzzled look.
"Just jump through, and hurry up!"
A storm was brewing out of nowhere at this very moment. Chaotic winds were moving in their direction, and the black serene sky now had shades of grey and turbulence. Max took a few step backs and then jumped through the invisible wall. He was hoping to crash through glass or some sort of substance, but instead he felt like his soul had just been electrocuted, burnt and bludgeoned all the same time. Ofcourse it didn't hurt his body, but it you ever have had the same experience with your soul then you would actually understand better (and I would also suggest you to write back to me about the whole incident).
"That was weird," Max was shivering.
"I know, very weird indeed! Let's go now." Slick said.
Emem was slowly making his way through to them too. He didn't have a soul, so that made it easier. Slick was now pulling Max by the hand and making his way across the stretch quickly. Dark winds were gathering behind them, and forming a huge vortex. It stood right there on top of the their heads it seemed spinning violently and pulling everything towards itself. Max was being dragged ferociously by Slick, and Emem had been left far behind by the two. The pathway was breaking into small chunks , like bricks, orange shiny breaks, which were further crumbling into dust behind them. And the orange dust was merging with the vortex, giving it a dark orange shade, which looked very ominous.
Slick dashed across the pathway which was soon reducing behind them. Emem was nowhere to be seen. Was he pulled away by the violent winds or did he fall into the darkness below? I am afraid I did not see that either. A gaint jump, and Max landed on solid ground.
The winds ceased as mysteriously as they had appeared. Max stood up slowly and looked behind him. He could see nothing but darkness as far as possible, while he himself stood on the edge of a narrow stone ledge, which overlooked this darkness. A ledge that had saved them from being a part of this darkness. Emem was lost in the storm. Max stared into the darkness for quite some time, hoping he would see that little thing.
"He's gone.......," finally Slick broke the silence.
"Where?"
"Dunno! Probably got sucked into the eternal sphere."
"Eternal Sphere??"
"Don't know much, they say eternity storms usually pull things into eternity sphere."
"Doesn't anything ever get out of it?"
"Not that I've ever heard of it!"
Now, this last line of Slick's may not be exactly correct. I once met a little mouse who escaped the eternity sphere and he told me all sorts of fabulous stories about the sphere. Stories of how wonderful the place is, with a garden so beautiful, even more so than eden he claimed. Only that its cluttered with all the stuff that has been pulled in every now and then. And of how a young poet is stuck there, writing poems for eternity, under an apple tree which also has a rubber tyre hanging down one of its branches. The mouse also talked fondly about his poem - Eternity Minus a Day, which goes like this some what :
Eternity Minus a Day,
Is not the same as an eternity
Take away a day
And you're left with a little less
A little less to write
A little less to see
And a little less to bear
Mathematically Etenity Minus a Day
Is the same as an eternity
But ask those who are stuck in an eternity
And they will tell you
that eternity minus a day
is eternally shorter than eternity
Even Ouroboros, who is largely preoccupied with eating up his own tail, seems to be fond of the poet, and wouldn't let him get away. The mouse however managed to escape one day while Ouroboros was distracted by the poet. He never told me the exact way out though.
Slick had sped way ahead of the two, and Max was trying his best to match him for speed.
"Bammmmm!!!!" Suddenly Max walked into an invisible wall of sorts.
Slick quickly turned back. "Ouchhhh," Max was holding his face in pain.
"What the hell did I just hit," Max cried in pain.
Slick rushed back to the spot, and tried to feel the invisible wall. His hand went through the transparent wall, and the wall glowed for a second. A shiver went down his spine.
"OH NO! ETERNITY RECACULATION!" gasped Slick.
"Eternity what???" Max still in pain somehow managed to ask.
"Hurry friends we don't have time, eternity recalculation has just begun. Pup you fill him in with the details later, for now just break on through to the other side."
Max gave Slick a puzzled look.
"Just jump through, and hurry up!"
A storm was brewing out of nowhere at this very moment. Chaotic winds were moving in their direction, and the black serene sky now had shades of grey and turbulence. Max took a few step backs and then jumped through the invisible wall. He was hoping to crash through glass or some sort of substance, but instead he felt like his soul had just been electrocuted, burnt and bludgeoned all the same time. Ofcourse it didn't hurt his body, but it you ever have had the same experience with your soul then you would actually understand better (and I would also suggest you to write back to me about the whole incident).
"That was weird," Max was shivering.
"I know, very weird indeed! Let's go now." Slick said.
Emem was slowly making his way through to them too. He didn't have a soul, so that made it easier. Slick was now pulling Max by the hand and making his way across the stretch quickly. Dark winds were gathering behind them, and forming a huge vortex. It stood right there on top of the their heads it seemed spinning violently and pulling everything towards itself. Max was being dragged ferociously by Slick, and Emem had been left far behind by the two. The pathway was breaking into small chunks , like bricks, orange shiny breaks, which were further crumbling into dust behind them. And the orange dust was merging with the vortex, giving it a dark orange shade, which looked very ominous.
Slick dashed across the pathway which was soon reducing behind them. Emem was nowhere to be seen. Was he pulled away by the violent winds or did he fall into the darkness below? I am afraid I did not see that either. A gaint jump, and Max landed on solid ground.
The winds ceased as mysteriously as they had appeared. Max stood up slowly and looked behind him. He could see nothing but darkness as far as possible, while he himself stood on the edge of a narrow stone ledge, which overlooked this darkness. A ledge that had saved them from being a part of this darkness. Emem was lost in the storm. Max stared into the darkness for quite some time, hoping he would see that little thing.
"He's gone.......," finally Slick broke the silence.
"Where?"
"Dunno! Probably got sucked into the eternal sphere."
"Eternal Sphere??"
"Don't know much, they say eternity storms usually pull things into eternity sphere."
"Doesn't anything ever get out of it?"
"Not that I've ever heard of it!"
Now, this last line of Slick's may not be exactly correct. I once met a little mouse who escaped the eternity sphere and he told me all sorts of fabulous stories about the sphere. Stories of how wonderful the place is, with a garden so beautiful, even more so than eden he claimed. Only that its cluttered with all the stuff that has been pulled in every now and then. And of how a young poet is stuck there, writing poems for eternity, under an apple tree which also has a rubber tyre hanging down one of its branches. The mouse also talked fondly about his poem - Eternity Minus a Day, which goes like this some what :
Eternity Minus a Day,
Is not the same as an eternity
Take away a day
And you're left with a little less
A little less to write
A little less to see
And a little less to bear
Mathematically Etenity Minus a Day
Is the same as an eternity
But ask those who are stuck in an eternity
And they will tell you
that eternity minus a day
is eternally shorter than eternity
Even Ouroboros, who is largely preoccupied with eating up his own tail, seems to be fond of the poet, and wouldn't let him get away. The mouse however managed to escape one day while Ouroboros was distracted by the poet. He never told me the exact way out though.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Photographic Memories
Last night I was going through our old family photos after a long time. It was obvious which photos I liked to go back to most. Not the recent ones. Not the ones in the nineties. But the pictures of the 80's. My father always loved taking photographs, he still has one of those polaroid cameras, and we have pictures of him and our home in the 70's too. They look very weird I must admit, guys then seemed to be all thin lanky with long hippy hair and bellbottomed pants.
Of all the places we ever lived in, I think our stay in Riyadh was the best in terms of overall happiness. Cos in Malaysia he started smoking and thats when everything started going wrong for him. And Qatar was were my life started going awefully bad, and I just decided to become invisible. I don't remember anything about Karachi, cos when they left Karachi I was not even 2. But we have lots of photographs of our stay there, and looking back at them makes me wish I could just go back there.
Thats one of the most favourite picture of my parents. I wasn't even born then. The story goes that my parents had gone to the market for some shopping and when they come back they found Vikki, my brother, sleeping in the window. And my father took out the camera and took his pictures. Vikki was always the brat, breaking stuff, breaking rules, hurting himself, and all kinda experimental stuff.
Thats him and me in Karachi. We even had a tape recording of our voices from there, but we were stupid enough to record something over it.
I was only 4-5 when we went to riyadh and around 8 when we came back. So, I have trouble remembering a lot of things there. But a lot of it as clear as crystal. We lived in a 2 floor building, which had six apartments. Ours was on the ground floor. Next doors was another embassy family, and they had two kids, both of our age, the elder one was Nitin and the younger Nikhil. I didn't get along with Nikhil cos he was quite a brat. While Nitin was much more like me. So when we used to play football outside on the road, I always teamed up with Nitin, and Nikhil with Vikki. In the summer vacations we wud have a unsaid competition of whose TV was louder. And then all four of us would get on the bikes, and gather berries from nearby areas. Once, outside some Sheikh's house, Vikki and Nitin were on top of his car, plucking berries handing them down to me and Nikhil, and suddenly the owner of the car came out, and started screaming. So, I just ran on my cycle home with all the berries. And the three of them came back home half an hour later, and I can't really remember what happened after that, but guess they got mad at me.
Thats outside our house, it was a very big road, with hardly any traffic. And thats me, when my brother was teaching me how to ride a bicycle.
The school was there was good too. My best friend in school was Piyush. His mom was our class teacher. We used to talk a lot and she used to make us sit far away. I tried searching him out on orkut, but there are more than a thousand Piyush Sharma's. And I don't really know where he would have gone in life. He was my first best friend I suppose. There was this water tower in the school and had stairs to go to the top. And it was all open kind of. And since I was really scared of heights, I crawled my way up once, after being taunted by my brother and his friends. And it was so scary and then I crawled my way down!!
Thats piyush and me, and the lower picture is me and my bro trying to dig up some treasure I guess.
People tell me that I was a very chirpy and happy kid back then. I could get along with anybody, and I was always laughing and making others laughing. And that I could make a crying person laugh with the things I said. And now I could make a laughing person cry. "And we wake up in the breakdown Of the things we never thought we could be." I don't really know what happened. Seeing those pictures I can see a very happy kid who thought life was a cake walk and he was destined for greatness.
Oh thats me, doing a Bionic Six!! That was one of my favourite cartoons back then.
There was a time when we were having a party at our home, maybe Vikki's birthday party infact. And that night some of the boys were playing football outside, and suddenly someone screamed and called out. Someone had kicked Vikki's hand instead of the ball and he broke his hand!! So party cancelled right in the middle and he rushed to the hospital. He was always running into troubles it seems. But then he had more courage than I had. Like, when our parents would lock us in the house when they went to the market, and we discovered the spare key, so despite me telling him not to, he went outside and actually ran into our parents!! And like how we had this sticker book to fill up, and the stickers came on the side of a juice tetrapack. And he would make us go into the shop and sneak out with the stickers. He actually got caught doing it too, and I think they shopkeeper called our parents. But it wasn't serious or anything then. But maybe that was the start of all further things that happened in years to come, like when he was caught shoplifting in Malaysia, cos he didn't have money to smoke. I wonder if our lives would have been different if all that hadn't happened, and he had never smoked.
As for me I just look at those pictures and wish I had lived up to the expectations of that little kid. And when I or someone else disappoints him, he just behaves so bad that its hard to understand, and it just gets so messed up.
Tonight,
When sorrow becomes my shadow
And grief makes it hard to swallow
A walk down the line,
Of a life left so far behind
Feels like heavenly dew
--Kasturi Rangan (a fellow blogist)
Of all the places we ever lived in, I think our stay in Riyadh was the best in terms of overall happiness. Cos in Malaysia he started smoking and thats when everything started going wrong for him. And Qatar was were my life started going awefully bad, and I just decided to become invisible. I don't remember anything about Karachi, cos when they left Karachi I was not even 2. But we have lots of photographs of our stay there, and looking back at them makes me wish I could just go back there.
Thats one of the most favourite picture of my parents. I wasn't even born then. The story goes that my parents had gone to the market for some shopping and when they come back they found Vikki, my brother, sleeping in the window. And my father took out the camera and took his pictures. Vikki was always the brat, breaking stuff, breaking rules, hurting himself, and all kinda experimental stuff.
Thats him and me in Karachi. We even had a tape recording of our voices from there, but we were stupid enough to record something over it.
I was only 4-5 when we went to riyadh and around 8 when we came back. So, I have trouble remembering a lot of things there. But a lot of it as clear as crystal. We lived in a 2 floor building, which had six apartments. Ours was on the ground floor. Next doors was another embassy family, and they had two kids, both of our age, the elder one was Nitin and the younger Nikhil. I didn't get along with Nikhil cos he was quite a brat. While Nitin was much more like me. So when we used to play football outside on the road, I always teamed up with Nitin, and Nikhil with Vikki. In the summer vacations we wud have a unsaid competition of whose TV was louder. And then all four of us would get on the bikes, and gather berries from nearby areas. Once, outside some Sheikh's house, Vikki and Nitin were on top of his car, plucking berries handing them down to me and Nikhil, and suddenly the owner of the car came out, and started screaming. So, I just ran on my cycle home with all the berries. And the three of them came back home half an hour later, and I can't really remember what happened after that, but guess they got mad at me.
Thats outside our house, it was a very big road, with hardly any traffic. And thats me, when my brother was teaching me how to ride a bicycle.
The school was there was good too. My best friend in school was Piyush. His mom was our class teacher. We used to talk a lot and she used to make us sit far away. I tried searching him out on orkut, but there are more than a thousand Piyush Sharma's. And I don't really know where he would have gone in life. He was my first best friend I suppose. There was this water tower in the school and had stairs to go to the top. And it was all open kind of. And since I was really scared of heights, I crawled my way up once, after being taunted by my brother and his friends. And it was so scary and then I crawled my way down!!
Thats piyush and me, and the lower picture is me and my bro trying to dig up some treasure I guess.
People tell me that I was a very chirpy and happy kid back then. I could get along with anybody, and I was always laughing and making others laughing. And that I could make a crying person laugh with the things I said. And now I could make a laughing person cry. "And we wake up in the breakdown Of the things we never thought we could be." I don't really know what happened. Seeing those pictures I can see a very happy kid who thought life was a cake walk and he was destined for greatness.
Oh thats me, doing a Bionic Six!! That was one of my favourite cartoons back then.
There was a time when we were having a party at our home, maybe Vikki's birthday party infact. And that night some of the boys were playing football outside, and suddenly someone screamed and called out. Someone had kicked Vikki's hand instead of the ball and he broke his hand!! So party cancelled right in the middle and he rushed to the hospital. He was always running into troubles it seems. But then he had more courage than I had. Like, when our parents would lock us in the house when they went to the market, and we discovered the spare key, so despite me telling him not to, he went outside and actually ran into our parents!! And like how we had this sticker book to fill up, and the stickers came on the side of a juice tetrapack. And he would make us go into the shop and sneak out with the stickers. He actually got caught doing it too, and I think they shopkeeper called our parents. But it wasn't serious or anything then. But maybe that was the start of all further things that happened in years to come, like when he was caught shoplifting in Malaysia, cos he didn't have money to smoke. I wonder if our lives would have been different if all that hadn't happened, and he had never smoked.
As for me I just look at those pictures and wish I had lived up to the expectations of that little kid. And when I or someone else disappoints him, he just behaves so bad that its hard to understand, and it just gets so messed up.
Tonight,
When sorrow becomes my shadow
And grief makes it hard to swallow
A walk down the line,
Of a life left so far behind
Feels like heavenly dew
--Kasturi Rangan (a fellow blogist)
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Little Miss Sunshine
I woke up today on a monday morning, dreading to go to ITO for some work, only to discover that today is a government holiday. So, as I sat down in front of the tv, a movie started - Little Miss Sunshine.
An awesome movie, that just lifted me up a lot. And the ending of the movie is just fantastic. Seeing the whole family forget their differences and fears and shame, and jump onto the stage to stand by the little girl is just amazing. And the little girl's attitude was beyond doubt the highlight of the movie. "You're not a loser so long as you try your best."
The movie made me realise about my self created problems. Our time in this world is ridiculously small. And our interaction with most people is so small that they hardly have time to remember us. So should we choose to be ashamed of who we are in front of them, rather that forget about them and enjoy our life to the fullest. We gotta do what we gotta do. And no one else can do it for us. And by being someone we're not we're not going to help ourselves at the end of the day. By standing by ourselves and more importantly the ones we love, without caring about the world, we can achieve a lot more than the other way round.
A beauty pageant not won is not the end of the life, but suppressing our actions could lead to the end of the world....
What you got they can't steal it
No they can't even feel it
walk on, wlk on....
An awesome movie, that just lifted me up a lot. And the ending of the movie is just fantastic. Seeing the whole family forget their differences and fears and shame, and jump onto the stage to stand by the little girl is just amazing. And the little girl's attitude was beyond doubt the highlight of the movie. "You're not a loser so long as you try your best."
The movie made me realise about my self created problems. Our time in this world is ridiculously small. And our interaction with most people is so small that they hardly have time to remember us. So should we choose to be ashamed of who we are in front of them, rather that forget about them and enjoy our life to the fullest. We gotta do what we gotta do. And no one else can do it for us. And by being someone we're not we're not going to help ourselves at the end of the day. By standing by ourselves and more importantly the ones we love, without caring about the world, we can achieve a lot more than the other way round.
A beauty pageant not won is not the end of the life, but suppressing our actions could lead to the end of the world....
What you got they can't steal it
No they can't even feel it
walk on, wlk on....
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Dusty Remains of a Weblog
For whom, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder, was he writing this diary? For the future, for the unborn.His mind hovered for a moment round the doubtful date on the page, and then fetched up with a bump against the Newspeak word doublethink. For the first time the magnitude of what he had undertaken came home to him. How could you communicate with the future? It was of its nature impossible. Either the future would resemble the present, in which case it would not listen to him: or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless. (From 1984 by George Orwell)
Very recently, when I was googling for the words - I wasn't jumping for me it was a fall, a very very interesting blog came up on the search list. A deserted blog infact. Deserted on 20th july 2006. And the last line of that blog just echoed what this paragraph from 1984 says.
It’s been more than four years now. I see no point in carrying on with online journalling. In time to come, I will perhaps talk about all this on a Sunday afternoon. But the time has come for us to just say goodbye. No more ’see you’s or ‘cheers’ or ‘later’ because there will not be anymore. And perhaps in time to come, you too, dear reader, will realise the futility and vanity of all this.
Goodbye.
Very haunting yet bitterly true words which I am slowly understanding. The whole blog was a very interesting one. And one that seemed very familiar. There is no email or no other link, I would have loved to have talked to the person once. I picked up a very interesting idea from his blog, which I will give him full credit of, once and if ever I finish my story.
I collect my memories like little gems - blues, greens, reds, purples, ambers, and other colours that lay nestled in my mind, and for the most precious ones, in my heart.
The person was an avid U2 fan, and it is a U2 song lyric that brought me to his page. I listened to the song - Walk On, after reading part of the lyrics from his blog, and its a fantastic song too.
But there was so much that felt like deja vu on that blog. His entry on 31st May,2006 read
Down the rabbit hole… how far will I go?
And if I could, I would never come home.
Ipso facto
Using up your oxygen, you know i’m shallow
Calling out for extra help
You’ve got to let me in or let me out
Now that was really odd! Very very odd!
And then 30th May, 2006
Most times, I am overflowing with thoughts, with a large majority of them being very dark and unsuitable for coffee shop conversations. And in those moments, I truly feel like I can’t belong. Like I’m lying on the fringes of society, not wanting to belong, and not being allowed to belong anyway. Perhaps that’s why I find the notion of being in transit, constantly on the move, unsettled, and uprooted rather comforting. Sure I miss the familiar faces, and the same ‘ol same ‘ol things of home, but I just can’t shrug off that feeling of I don’t belong here.
Thats what I feel most of the times. People misunderstand this feeling by thinking that I am trying to run away or not trying to learn how to fly by jumping. But thats not the point, its just like that line again - I wasn't jumping for me it was a fall, a long way down to nothing at all. But we'll keep the discussion to this blog.
There was a lot of soccer blogs too, the person was a bigtime soccer fan. And some family blogs and general travel blogs. The person had probably travelled a lot and it was connected to his work or study maybe.
I find myself sitting awake in front of the computer screen. With the lingering thoughts of a cold night by the river. We don’t talk much these days, me and my antithesis.
And we wake up in the breakdown
Of the things we never thought we could be
Antithesis is the completely opposite part of you. Like Yin and Yang. Sort of like your alter ego. When you shut that other person inside you, I think you achieve a sort of a feeling of No feeling. That antithesis brings in unrest, and when you are finally not talking to him, then maybe you could be thinking more clearly.
There are a few short stories here and there in the blog too. I felt that those were clearly inspired from personal events in life rather than just being fictional.
I am in a state of suspension now. Just so tired of having to think so much, and yet, there is too much to sort out. Like a computer that hasn’t been defragmented for the longest time. I just wished I had a boat to sail out to sea. And never come back
When I am in a bus, I just love staring out of the window and wishing that this bus ride wouldnt ever end and I wouldnt have to get down for a destination, and I could just be seated right there and the bus would keep going and going. I am suspended on a chair right now with my leg on the computer table, and I've been writing for the last 2 hours. I can keep this going all night.
But the question fisherkid and 1984 pose is who am I doing this for? For myself? Yes thats how I started it. And then maybe I lost a purpose of the whole thing. I do have a story to finish, lots of ideas flowing inside my head, and lots of characters, and lots of lines floating. Could I just finish the story before I leave home. Maybe I will eventually find my wings now....
Very recently, when I was googling for the words - I wasn't jumping for me it was a fall, a very very interesting blog came up on the search list. A deserted blog infact. Deserted on 20th july 2006. And the last line of that blog just echoed what this paragraph from 1984 says.
It’s been more than four years now. I see no point in carrying on with online journalling. In time to come, I will perhaps talk about all this on a Sunday afternoon. But the time has come for us to just say goodbye. No more ’see you’s or ‘cheers’ or ‘later’ because there will not be anymore. And perhaps in time to come, you too, dear reader, will realise the futility and vanity of all this.
Goodbye.
Very haunting yet bitterly true words which I am slowly understanding. The whole blog was a very interesting one. And one that seemed very familiar. There is no email or no other link, I would have loved to have talked to the person once. I picked up a very interesting idea from his blog, which I will give him full credit of, once and if ever I finish my story.
I collect my memories like little gems - blues, greens, reds, purples, ambers, and other colours that lay nestled in my mind, and for the most precious ones, in my heart.
The person was an avid U2 fan, and it is a U2 song lyric that brought me to his page. I listened to the song - Walk On, after reading part of the lyrics from his blog, and its a fantastic song too.
But there was so much that felt like deja vu on that blog. His entry on 31st May,2006 read
Down the rabbit hole… how far will I go?
And if I could, I would never come home.
Ipso facto
Using up your oxygen, you know i’m shallow
Calling out for extra help
You’ve got to let me in or let me out
Now that was really odd! Very very odd!
And then 30th May, 2006
Most times, I am overflowing with thoughts, with a large majority of them being very dark and unsuitable for coffee shop conversations. And in those moments, I truly feel like I can’t belong. Like I’m lying on the fringes of society, not wanting to belong, and not being allowed to belong anyway. Perhaps that’s why I find the notion of being in transit, constantly on the move, unsettled, and uprooted rather comforting. Sure I miss the familiar faces, and the same ‘ol same ‘ol things of home, but I just can’t shrug off that feeling of I don’t belong here.
Thats what I feel most of the times. People misunderstand this feeling by thinking that I am trying to run away or not trying to learn how to fly by jumping. But thats not the point, its just like that line again - I wasn't jumping for me it was a fall, a long way down to nothing at all. But we'll keep the discussion to this blog.
There was a lot of soccer blogs too, the person was a bigtime soccer fan. And some family blogs and general travel blogs. The person had probably travelled a lot and it was connected to his work or study maybe.
I find myself sitting awake in front of the computer screen. With the lingering thoughts of a cold night by the river. We don’t talk much these days, me and my antithesis.
And we wake up in the breakdown
Of the things we never thought we could be
Antithesis is the completely opposite part of you. Like Yin and Yang. Sort of like your alter ego. When you shut that other person inside you, I think you achieve a sort of a feeling of No feeling. That antithesis brings in unrest, and when you are finally not talking to him, then maybe you could be thinking more clearly.
There are a few short stories here and there in the blog too. I felt that those were clearly inspired from personal events in life rather than just being fictional.
I am in a state of suspension now. Just so tired of having to think so much, and yet, there is too much to sort out. Like a computer that hasn’t been defragmented for the longest time. I just wished I had a boat to sail out to sea. And never come back
When I am in a bus, I just love staring out of the window and wishing that this bus ride wouldnt ever end and I wouldnt have to get down for a destination, and I could just be seated right there and the bus would keep going and going. I am suspended on a chair right now with my leg on the computer table, and I've been writing for the last 2 hours. I can keep this going all night.
But the question fisherkid and 1984 pose is who am I doing this for? For myself? Yes thats how I started it. And then maybe I lost a purpose of the whole thing. I do have a story to finish, lots of ideas flowing inside my head, and lots of characters, and lots of lines floating. Could I just finish the story before I leave home. Maybe I will eventually find my wings now....
The Traveller Lost - Part III
The hand remained suspended in the air with no takers.
"Err, oh I see," and the shade began transforming into a humanoid figure, all black but with eyes and a mouth and two hands and two legs. "So, lets do it one more time. Hi, I'm Slick," and it extended its hand once more.
Max tentatively moved his hand up to shake hands with the shade. When the hands met he felt like he touched solid frozen ice right from Antarctica, but ofcourse he had no clue what Antarctica was.
"Ouch! That's cold!"
"Sure it is kiddo, that's cos its the right hand. You wanna shake hands with the left hand?"
"No! No no no! Its fine, its perfectly fine."
"And how are you doing little pup," the shade tapped on the top of the head (?) of Emem.
"Excuse me? Pup? My name is Emem," Emem seeked to clarify.
"Yeah yeah, Emem pup. Ok right, we don't have a lot of time, let's get going," the shade grabbed Max's arm and started to pull him forward.
"But where are we going?" Max tried to stop him.
"To get back your memories! What else? Let's go, no time to waste."
"Excuse me, how would you know where the memories are?" Emem called out from behind.
"Ofcourse I do, listen lets start walking and I'll tell ya everything on the way."
"The way to......" Emem questioned once more.
"Pup! You're getting on my nerves. Listen! Max's memories have been taken to the central processing center for disposal."
"Disposal!!!!!!" Max screamed.
"Yeah cos apparently there was no one to claim them, so..."
"And why would you want to help us out?" Emem was eyeing the shade skeptically.
"Oh come on, can't I help a lost person? Does that sound so evil? Ok fine, you can go on your own."
No one said a word. A second passed, two seconds, three seconds passed.
"Ok right! Something of mine was also in this chamber and they took that too, so I have to go there to retrieve it."
"Something yours, but..." Emem started to question once more.
"Listen Pup! I ain't answering any of your question. Since neither of you know the way, just quietly follow me. Ok!"
The shade then drifted out of the chamber through the door. Max looked at Emem.
"What say you?"
"I don't trust him, something is wrong. I must tell you that as a rule, in a memory chamber all the contents belong to you and only you. Then how can something his be here?"
"I dunno! But I say lets just follow him, atleast he will lead me to my memories," Max said and walked out of the door too, and was quickly followed by Emem.
As they stepped out, they discovered that it wasn't the same outside the door as it had been when they entered it. They were standing on an illuminated pathway that seemed to branch into numerous directions. The musty overhead roof had disappeared, and was now filled with darkness all around, clearly distinguishable from the light of the pathway.
"So wisecrack, can you do it on your own now?" Slick had a shot at Emem.
Emem seemed to mumble something incomprehensible, maybe a foul robot words which I am unaware of.
"Ok lets see," Slick took out a map from inside him, and started studying it with great intensity.
"Right it's the 2rd, then the 3rd and then the 5th passage."
"Uhunnn...." Max nodded.
"You follow that Pup, store it up in case you forget," Slick had a rise smile on his face. And Emem was hating every moment of Slick's company.
Slick, who seemed to be hovering just a centimetre above the floor, drifted forward towards the second pathway from the left. As he reached the start of the pathway, it illuminated further and changed its colour to orange. Slick paused and his shoulders and head dropped.
"Feel like dancing under a rainbow,
Feel like singing happy songs,
But my rainbow, no my rainbow,
won't shine for me."
Max and Emem stared at him with utter disbelief. What was this they were witnessing, a shadow was muttering poetry! A site to behold I must say. I thought I saw a tear roll down the cheek too, but I won't vouch for it.
"Oh come on hurry up," Slick suddenly alerted from his emotional state ordered, "Damn! This place always makes me feel sick!" And he hurried along the orange pathway.
"Err, oh I see," and the shade began transforming into a humanoid figure, all black but with eyes and a mouth and two hands and two legs. "So, lets do it one more time. Hi, I'm Slick," and it extended its hand once more.
Max tentatively moved his hand up to shake hands with the shade. When the hands met he felt like he touched solid frozen ice right from Antarctica, but ofcourse he had no clue what Antarctica was.
"Ouch! That's cold!"
"Sure it is kiddo, that's cos its the right hand. You wanna shake hands with the left hand?"
"No! No no no! Its fine, its perfectly fine."
"And how are you doing little pup," the shade tapped on the top of the head (?) of Emem.
"Excuse me? Pup? My name is Emem," Emem seeked to clarify.
"Yeah yeah, Emem pup. Ok right, we don't have a lot of time, let's get going," the shade grabbed Max's arm and started to pull him forward.
"But where are we going?" Max tried to stop him.
"To get back your memories! What else? Let's go, no time to waste."
"Excuse me, how would you know where the memories are?" Emem called out from behind.
"Ofcourse I do, listen lets start walking and I'll tell ya everything on the way."
"The way to......" Emem questioned once more.
"Pup! You're getting on my nerves. Listen! Max's memories have been taken to the central processing center for disposal."
"Disposal!!!!!!" Max screamed.
"Yeah cos apparently there was no one to claim them, so..."
"And why would you want to help us out?" Emem was eyeing the shade skeptically.
"Oh come on, can't I help a lost person? Does that sound so evil? Ok fine, you can go on your own."
No one said a word. A second passed, two seconds, three seconds passed.
"Ok right! Something of mine was also in this chamber and they took that too, so I have to go there to retrieve it."
"Something yours, but..." Emem started to question once more.
"Listen Pup! I ain't answering any of your question. Since neither of you know the way, just quietly follow me. Ok!"
The shade then drifted out of the chamber through the door. Max looked at Emem.
"What say you?"
"I don't trust him, something is wrong. I must tell you that as a rule, in a memory chamber all the contents belong to you and only you. Then how can something his be here?"
"I dunno! But I say lets just follow him, atleast he will lead me to my memories," Max said and walked out of the door too, and was quickly followed by Emem.
As they stepped out, they discovered that it wasn't the same outside the door as it had been when they entered it. They were standing on an illuminated pathway that seemed to branch into numerous directions. The musty overhead roof had disappeared, and was now filled with darkness all around, clearly distinguishable from the light of the pathway.
"So wisecrack, can you do it on your own now?" Slick had a shot at Emem.
Emem seemed to mumble something incomprehensible, maybe a foul robot words which I am unaware of.
"Ok lets see," Slick took out a map from inside him, and started studying it with great intensity.
"Right it's the 2rd, then the 3rd and then the 5th passage."
"Uhunnn...." Max nodded.
"You follow that Pup, store it up in case you forget," Slick had a rise smile on his face. And Emem was hating every moment of Slick's company.
Slick, who seemed to be hovering just a centimetre above the floor, drifted forward towards the second pathway from the left. As he reached the start of the pathway, it illuminated further and changed its colour to orange. Slick paused and his shoulders and head dropped.
"Feel like dancing under a rainbow,
Feel like singing happy songs,
But my rainbow, no my rainbow,
won't shine for me."
Max and Emem stared at him with utter disbelief. What was this they were witnessing, a shadow was muttering poetry! A site to behold I must say. I thought I saw a tear roll down the cheek too, but I won't vouch for it.
"Oh come on hurry up," Slick suddenly alerted from his emotional state ordered, "Damn! This place always makes me feel sick!" And he hurried along the orange pathway.
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
My First Interview
I had never given an interview in my life before. I got my articleship job without an interview because my cousin had done his articleship from that firm too, and he just introduced me to them and they asked me to come from monday.
So, today, well the night was really horrible and I hardly slept. Not cos of the interview but something else. I reached the auditorium where the campus interviews were to take place by 9am, an hour before the interview, but many others came even before me! So just about then an sms came which kinda gave me a lot of mental relief and I cud finally smile there.
So, TCS had shortlisted just 39 candidates, the least by any company there. They held a written test on the 4th where there were around 200 candidates, and they shortlisted only 39. I was the first to reach their interview place. Nobody had come. Not even the TCS people. So I just went to the Indian Oil interview place, my other interview slotted for the day. There the interviews had started but I just wanted to get into TCS more, so I came back downstairs to the TCS room.
As I waited there, other kids came in, and for a change I smilingly talked to most of them. There was this very smily girl that I sort of helped out, I even ran into her later after the interview. I chatted with most of there. There was one girl from my GMCS batch, and there was one guy who was sitting infront of me on the test day. Then the TCS people came after a while, they were 5. After taking some time, around 20 minutes, they split up into two teams of 3 and 2 in the large board room, outside which all of us were waiting. Since me and a girl were closest to the door, they asked us to go in first. She went to the group of 2 men (they looked real mean), and I went to group of 3 with a pretty lady and 2 men.
So, the lady asked me to sit down, while I was already in the process of sitting down. And then she asked me how I was, which I was completely unprepared for. I stuttered and replied I am fine and asked the question back. I can't remember if she replied it. So, technically her first question was - tell me something about yourself? So, I had rehearsed this one, and I started on the same lines, but in the middle she had a confusion with my college period and articleship period clashing so she stopped me right there. I clarified the thing to her that I was on leave for the first two months of my training for my final year exams. Then came lots of questions and I didn't handle them really well. Like
1.Are you comfortable with Accounting Standards? Yes.
Ok, tell me something about AS - 22.
I went - AS-22?!? (In all the AS they had to ask this one (but it was better than asking AS-15 which I had absolutely no clue about)) And then I start stopped to tell a few lines which weren't encouraging.
So, she modified the question to - Ok, what is a deferred tax asset?
Damn! Cruel people! Now not only me, I am sure most kids would be confused between a DT Asset and a DT liability, especially if the last time they saw these words were way back in May 2007. So, I started and she interrupted, and then I started again. Then it finally click inside my head what it was. So, I composed myself and said - Sorry could I start over again. And then I explained it in the right way.
The person on her right was giving me villainous looks. Yes! He was the villain in question. But it was still her questioning.
2.I see from ur CV that you've done a lot of audit work. You haven't done any internal audits? - No.
3.Were you involved alone in the audits?
Yes, Mainly alone. And then she started saying something, but I interrupted anyway to say - But in the last year I had subordinates under me for audit work. And I was sort of a team leader. (What kind of line was that - "sort of"! A bell rang inside me, but luckily it didnt ring inside them :) )
4.So what was the team size? Maximum 3, we had a small staff (completely honest)
5.You've done audits of charitable trusts, so what are the specific provisions in that?
Now this is where I started using the words Actually, really, mainly, all words that I was told to avoid in an interview. So I started with something else and then I jumped in between to anonymous donations and then finished up with a section I wasn't really sure of, and I am sure she wasn't aware of either.
6.Tell us about TDS?
This one I handled really well I think.
Now the left guy who was largely invisible till now jumped in.
7.Are you comfortable with financial management? I could'nt even hear him, so I asked him to repeat, which he did, and I replied yes. So, he asked about derivatives?
Now, this is where that telephonic conversation 2 days back with Taruna was really beneficial. She got into TCS 6 months back and she told me what kind of questions they had asked. And derivatives was one of them. I was ready for it. And I kinda pounced on it - Yeah sure, so derivatives are blah blah blah.
Now, he goes on to ask - what are the types of derivatives? I answer it as options, futures, and I go on to say forwards (not sure).
So, he asks whats the difference between a future and a forward?
Now I knew the answer to that but I forgot a word, which I also happen to be forgetting right now, ummm - "standardised" Yeah! So I was to say - Futures are standardised Forwards. But I lost that word so I repeated that line with all kind of funny synonyms 3 times and still couldnt find the word. So I changed it all together to say something else which was true as well. The guy didnt look convinced but the lady nodded her head to say that would do.
8. Ok now the lady asked me if I had done any specific computer programmes? I said No (I said NO??)
But the guy on the right who was the villain so far, jumped in between as said - you have written in ur CV that you know C & C++. Oh yeah, I know that. So then they asked me lots of computer questions which I did ok with.
But then the villain gave me an opportunity to do something that I am sure got me the job. He bacame the ultimate hero by asking me to write a program in C to add two numbers!!! You kidding me right, thats like a dream come true! Thats as easy as drinking water, no even easier than that. I was like - oh yeah, gimme a paper, sure thing. I quickly scribbled the program, which he took and didnt give an expression. Ofocurse it was right, I could right those if you woke me up at 2am in the night.
9.Then the villain goes on to ask my weakness?
Well I was honest, I said - I can sometimes be impatient with people. (Example - this week). SO, he asked what I was going to do about it? And I had a big smile on my face - I am going to try to be more patient.
10.Then he also asked me about the company? I told them that TCS was the biggest software company in Asia. Then he asked me if I knew what the turnover of TCS is?
I said - I am not sure but I think its $50 billion. He had a hint of a smile - It's only $5 Billion!! Whatever, so what I only added a zero right!
And then he asked if I knew the total number of employees of TCS? Yeah! Wiki to the rescue, 110000+ .
Then he asked if I was ready to go anywhere into India, and I said Yeah I was, except mumbai. And then he tried convincing me for mumbai and I tried explaining why I wont go there. Then I said that if u give me an accomodation there then I wouldnt mind going. He said he can't do that ofcourse.
So, that was the first round of interview and they asked me to go outside. I didnt realise it took almost 25-30 minutes. And all the kids outside jumped on me - what are they asking? what were u writing? are they making us do sums in there? And I patiently replied each one completely honestly truthfully.
Then after 5 minutes, a guy from inside gave me a form to fill up. I had cleared the first round. So, as soon as I gave back the form, they called me in for the second round.
There was a 6th person, a girl, who was doing this round. So, she mainly asked me stuff about my family, and my hobbies, and about the job. And then she asked me if I was open to relocation? I said I am ready to go anywhere except mumbai? Reason being the accomodation. And she said that she wouldn't commit but she would try that I don't get mumbai. And yeah she also asked I question which I was the most satisfied to reply calmly. She asked which college I had gone to? Just a couple of weeks back, I had dogded that question by saying that I never went to college, cos all the other people were from really good colleges. But today I just said it so calmly and I didn't give it a damn. I was really happy at that. So then she gave a paper to sign, that I won't be attending any more interviews. Which I didn't think about and immediately signed. And then she said - Congratulations you are part of TCS now.
She also told me that I would be attending a training programme of 17 days (most likely in Trivandrum) very soon. And other stuff that I didnt really listen to, like the pay package and all.
So, it was pretty good all together. I got a job and I think it wasn't really CA that got me the job, but 'C' rather. But CA got me into that interview room. And I would have to sign a two year service agreement, which the kids outside said I should have protested against. Why? I am not changing jobs for atleast 3-5 years. I am there to stay, so I don't mind. By then they had rejected 5 kids and I didn't see anyone else selected, so I decided to leave for home. On the way out I ran into that smily girl and she was still all smiles. And she still had to give her interview so I wished her luck and said hope to see you in TCS too. And well yeah I left for home.
Oh yeah, that guy from Sagar! He's going to UAE. Cool! He got selected by a company from UAE and they are giving him 11 lakhs. Wow! He's a pretty nice guy to deserve that. He was really nervous about the whole thing too, really glad for him. I would have loved to go to UAE too, but they didn't shortlist me. Anyway, so I am hoping that TCS would send me far away from delhi like Hyderabad or chennai or bangalore or anywhere. Lets see what happens. But whatever I do, I would just stay miles away from Orkut, which causes me nothing but harm all the time. And when I finally get into work which could be by the starting of May, I just hope I would be out of here.
So, today, well the night was really horrible and I hardly slept. Not cos of the interview but something else. I reached the auditorium where the campus interviews were to take place by 9am, an hour before the interview, but many others came even before me! So just about then an sms came which kinda gave me a lot of mental relief and I cud finally smile there.
So, TCS had shortlisted just 39 candidates, the least by any company there. They held a written test on the 4th where there were around 200 candidates, and they shortlisted only 39. I was the first to reach their interview place. Nobody had come. Not even the TCS people. So I just went to the Indian Oil interview place, my other interview slotted for the day. There the interviews had started but I just wanted to get into TCS more, so I came back downstairs to the TCS room.
As I waited there, other kids came in, and for a change I smilingly talked to most of them. There was this very smily girl that I sort of helped out, I even ran into her later after the interview. I chatted with most of there. There was one girl from my GMCS batch, and there was one guy who was sitting infront of me on the test day. Then the TCS people came after a while, they were 5. After taking some time, around 20 minutes, they split up into two teams of 3 and 2 in the large board room, outside which all of us were waiting. Since me and a girl were closest to the door, they asked us to go in first. She went to the group of 2 men (they looked real mean), and I went to group of 3 with a pretty lady and 2 men.
So, the lady asked me to sit down, while I was already in the process of sitting down. And then she asked me how I was, which I was completely unprepared for. I stuttered and replied I am fine and asked the question back. I can't remember if she replied it. So, technically her first question was - tell me something about yourself? So, I had rehearsed this one, and I started on the same lines, but in the middle she had a confusion with my college period and articleship period clashing so she stopped me right there. I clarified the thing to her that I was on leave for the first two months of my training for my final year exams. Then came lots of questions and I didn't handle them really well. Like
1.Are you comfortable with Accounting Standards? Yes.
Ok, tell me something about AS - 22.
I went - AS-22?!? (In all the AS they had to ask this one (but it was better than asking AS-15 which I had absolutely no clue about)) And then I start stopped to tell a few lines which weren't encouraging.
So, she modified the question to - Ok, what is a deferred tax asset?
Damn! Cruel people! Now not only me, I am sure most kids would be confused between a DT Asset and a DT liability, especially if the last time they saw these words were way back in May 2007. So, I started and she interrupted, and then I started again. Then it finally click inside my head what it was. So, I composed myself and said - Sorry could I start over again. And then I explained it in the right way.
The person on her right was giving me villainous looks. Yes! He was the villain in question. But it was still her questioning.
2.I see from ur CV that you've done a lot of audit work. You haven't done any internal audits? - No.
3.Were you involved alone in the audits?
Yes, Mainly alone. And then she started saying something, but I interrupted anyway to say - But in the last year I had subordinates under me for audit work. And I was sort of a team leader. (What kind of line was that - "sort of"! A bell rang inside me, but luckily it didnt ring inside them :) )
4.So what was the team size? Maximum 3, we had a small staff (completely honest)
5.You've done audits of charitable trusts, so what are the specific provisions in that?
Now this is where I started using the words Actually, really, mainly, all words that I was told to avoid in an interview. So I started with something else and then I jumped in between to anonymous donations and then finished up with a section I wasn't really sure of, and I am sure she wasn't aware of either.
6.Tell us about TDS?
This one I handled really well I think.
Now the left guy who was largely invisible till now jumped in.
7.Are you comfortable with financial management? I could'nt even hear him, so I asked him to repeat, which he did, and I replied yes. So, he asked about derivatives?
Now, this is where that telephonic conversation 2 days back with Taruna was really beneficial. She got into TCS 6 months back and she told me what kind of questions they had asked. And derivatives was one of them. I was ready for it. And I kinda pounced on it - Yeah sure, so derivatives are blah blah blah.
Now, he goes on to ask - what are the types of derivatives? I answer it as options, futures, and I go on to say forwards (not sure).
So, he asks whats the difference between a future and a forward?
Now I knew the answer to that but I forgot a word, which I also happen to be forgetting right now, ummm - "standardised" Yeah! So I was to say - Futures are standardised Forwards. But I lost that word so I repeated that line with all kind of funny synonyms 3 times and still couldnt find the word. So I changed it all together to say something else which was true as well. The guy didnt look convinced but the lady nodded her head to say that would do.
8. Ok now the lady asked me if I had done any specific computer programmes? I said No (I said NO??)
But the guy on the right who was the villain so far, jumped in between as said - you have written in ur CV that you know C & C++. Oh yeah, I know that. So then they asked me lots of computer questions which I did ok with.
But then the villain gave me an opportunity to do something that I am sure got me the job. He bacame the ultimate hero by asking me to write a program in C to add two numbers!!! You kidding me right, thats like a dream come true! Thats as easy as drinking water, no even easier than that. I was like - oh yeah, gimme a paper, sure thing. I quickly scribbled the program, which he took and didnt give an expression. Ofocurse it was right, I could right those if you woke me up at 2am in the night.
9.Then the villain goes on to ask my weakness?
Well I was honest, I said - I can sometimes be impatient with people. (Example - this week). SO, he asked what I was going to do about it? And I had a big smile on my face - I am going to try to be more patient.
10.Then he also asked me about the company? I told them that TCS was the biggest software company in Asia. Then he asked me if I knew what the turnover of TCS is?
I said - I am not sure but I think its $50 billion. He had a hint of a smile - It's only $5 Billion!! Whatever, so what I only added a zero right!
And then he asked if I knew the total number of employees of TCS? Yeah! Wiki to the rescue, 110000+ .
Then he asked if I was ready to go anywhere into India, and I said Yeah I was, except mumbai. And then he tried convincing me for mumbai and I tried explaining why I wont go there. Then I said that if u give me an accomodation there then I wouldnt mind going. He said he can't do that ofcourse.
So, that was the first round of interview and they asked me to go outside. I didnt realise it took almost 25-30 minutes. And all the kids outside jumped on me - what are they asking? what were u writing? are they making us do sums in there? And I patiently replied each one completely honestly truthfully.
Then after 5 minutes, a guy from inside gave me a form to fill up. I had cleared the first round. So, as soon as I gave back the form, they called me in for the second round.
There was a 6th person, a girl, who was doing this round. So, she mainly asked me stuff about my family, and my hobbies, and about the job. And then she asked me if I was open to relocation? I said I am ready to go anywhere except mumbai? Reason being the accomodation. And she said that she wouldn't commit but she would try that I don't get mumbai. And yeah she also asked I question which I was the most satisfied to reply calmly. She asked which college I had gone to? Just a couple of weeks back, I had dogded that question by saying that I never went to college, cos all the other people were from really good colleges. But today I just said it so calmly and I didn't give it a damn. I was really happy at that. So then she gave a paper to sign, that I won't be attending any more interviews. Which I didn't think about and immediately signed. And then she said - Congratulations you are part of TCS now.
She also told me that I would be attending a training programme of 17 days (most likely in Trivandrum) very soon. And other stuff that I didnt really listen to, like the pay package and all.
So, it was pretty good all together. I got a job and I think it wasn't really CA that got me the job, but 'C' rather. But CA got me into that interview room. And I would have to sign a two year service agreement, which the kids outside said I should have protested against. Why? I am not changing jobs for atleast 3-5 years. I am there to stay, so I don't mind. By then they had rejected 5 kids and I didn't see anyone else selected, so I decided to leave for home. On the way out I ran into that smily girl and she was still all smiles. And she still had to give her interview so I wished her luck and said hope to see you in TCS too. And well yeah I left for home.
Oh yeah, that guy from Sagar! He's going to UAE. Cool! He got selected by a company from UAE and they are giving him 11 lakhs. Wow! He's a pretty nice guy to deserve that. He was really nervous about the whole thing too, really glad for him. I would have loved to go to UAE too, but they didn't shortlist me. Anyway, so I am hoping that TCS would send me far away from delhi like Hyderabad or chennai or bangalore or anywhere. Lets see what happens. But whatever I do, I would just stay miles away from Orkut, which causes me nothing but harm all the time. And when I finally get into work which could be by the starting of May, I just hope I would be out of here.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
The Traveller Lost - Part II
(refer Part I for the starting)
"Oh oh, that's a big problem," Emem said in deep thought.
"Is it?" Max had no clue as to what a big problem was.
"SECTOR 5!!!!"
"Sector 5????"
"Yes! Sector 5!! That's where we have to go."
"What's Sector 5."
"You seriously don't know what Sector 5 is??"
Max was extremely annoyed at this question. First of all he was here stuck in a world (if you would choose to call it that) that seemed completely alien, and he was in the company of a creature he was sure he hadn't witnessed before, even if his memory came back, and on top of that he was continuously being asked rhetorical questions.
He drew a deep breath and said, "Look can't you just answer my questions."
"That would be appropriate, would'nt it. I'll take note of that."
As animatedly as Max had taken in the breath, he deflated - "Thank youuuuu."
"Oh oh, that's a big problem," Emem said in deep thought.
"Is it?" Max had no clue as to what a big problem was.
"SECTOR 5!!!!"
"Sector 5????"
"Yes! Sector 5!! That's where we have to go."
"What's Sector 5."
"You seriously don't know what Sector 5 is??"
Max was extremely annoyed at this question. First of all he was here stuck in a world (if you would choose to call it that) that seemed completely alien, and he was in the company of a creature he was sure he hadn't witnessed before, even if his memory came back, and on top of that he was continuously being asked rhetorical questions.
He drew a deep breath and said, "Look can't you just answer my questions."
"That would be appropriate, would'nt it. I'll take note of that."
As animatedly as Max had taken in the breath, he deflated - "Thank youuuuu."
"Sector 5 is where the memories are stocked, that's where we should go. We'll just have to report a case of missing memories and everything should be fixed in no time."
"You know, thats the first sensible thing I've heard all mor..... wait..... is it morning or night ....waitt.... what's morning or night like?"
Emem spun his head in a complete 360, twice actually, "You know I'm just a simple music playing machine, but now I wish I had got that degree on human stuff. You want to hear a song on night to get an idea of what's it like?"
Before Max could say yes or no (a no was more likely), a dark haunting music started to play, followed by a deep brooding voice
Take the highway to the end of the night
End of the night, end of the night
Take a journey to the bright midnight
End of the night, end of the night
..........
Gosh! Max was really spooked by the song combined with his eerie surroundings. Pop...Wheels popped out below Emem and it started to move forward along, the only direction possible I suppose. Max quietly followed the tin can. The song kept repeating again and again, and Max had gotten used to the sudden jump in the voice at a particular part of the song, which had at first spooked him.
However, little did these two know that they were being closely watched and followed by another strange wanderer, a shade actually, not of the colour blue, but black rather. But it would be unfair on my part to divulge his intentions at this stage.
So after some time, which wasn't that long at all, maybe around 59 minutes of walking in the only direction possible, sometimes going up, sometimes down, sometimes curving to the left, and sometimes to the right, they arrived at a door. A very ordinary looking worn down wooden door, on the right side of the corridor.
"Don't be surprised at the size of this place. It keeps expanding as new memories come in." Emem informed Max.
"How come I lost my memories?"
"Emmmm! Well that happens sometimes, you feel a little foggy right? They will fix up that fog and you will be out of here in no time. Ok now, turn that knob."
Max nodded, and slowly turned the rusted metal knob. The door opened with a mild creak, and Lo Presto! They stood in a gigantic hall !! Which apparently had no walls. And also happened to be completely empty. A hollow sound of wind was audible, but there was no wind blowing inside. Max looked left, looked right, looked up and then straight at Emem. Emem did exactly the same as well. So now they were staring at each other without a clue as to what had happened.
"Quite a big place," Max said sarcastically.
"I don't understand, this is where the memories are supposed to be. This is an anomaly."
"Anomaly ganomaly, I want my memories right now," Max broke down and thumped into the ground.
Somethings happen in life for a apparent reason. Others happen for no apparent reason. And yet there are some other things that happen which are not even closely related to the farthest cousin of Reason. Those are the things that actually run this galaxy and the universe and all of us. Would that imply fate? Nope, Fate is actually an old man that does have a room in this corridor, and all he does is circulate rumours. This other power is far stronger and it at work even as you are reading this stupid little paragraph.
You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment and now you can't get out of it
Don't say that later will be better now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it
Emem's emergency response to this critical situation was resulting in a song blaring in this huge hall, and the sound was reverberating in the hall, making it more so unbearable.
"STOP ITTTTTT," screamed Max with his hands on his ears.
Silence. Complete silence.
Shhhhhhhh.... a strange sound from nowhere. Shhhhhhhhhh..... some more sound. Max thought he must be imagining sounds now.
More mysterious things in this strange land. Now I am thinking what isnt mysterious in this land? I bet even Max is wondering where this story is leading? Does the writer have any idea how is he going to pull this off. I assure you he doesnt.
Anyway, so Max looked at Emem for the origin of this sound. Emem shrugged his shoulders as to say - 'That wasn't me boss' (oh yes he has tiny little shoulders that can be shrugged).
"Hey you two!!" A voice called out to them from nearly far away.
A figure seperated from the principally invisible wall. A black shade (??)!! Two hands formed out of the shade and seemed to be dusting itself.
"Eh sorry, this white stuff always seems to get stuck to me," said the shade and extended a hand forward.
Before Max could say yes or no (a no was more likely), a dark haunting music started to play, followed by a deep brooding voice
Take the highway to the end of the night
End of the night, end of the night
Take a journey to the bright midnight
End of the night, end of the night
..........
Gosh! Max was really spooked by the song combined with his eerie surroundings. Pop...Wheels popped out below Emem and it started to move forward along, the only direction possible I suppose. Max quietly followed the tin can. The song kept repeating again and again, and Max had gotten used to the sudden jump in the voice at a particular part of the song, which had at first spooked him.
However, little did these two know that they were being closely watched and followed by another strange wanderer, a shade actually, not of the colour blue, but black rather. But it would be unfair on my part to divulge his intentions at this stage.
So after some time, which wasn't that long at all, maybe around 59 minutes of walking in the only direction possible, sometimes going up, sometimes down, sometimes curving to the left, and sometimes to the right, they arrived at a door. A very ordinary looking worn down wooden door, on the right side of the corridor.
"Don't be surprised at the size of this place. It keeps expanding as new memories come in." Emem informed Max.
"How come I lost my memories?"
"Emmmm! Well that happens sometimes, you feel a little foggy right? They will fix up that fog and you will be out of here in no time. Ok now, turn that knob."
Max nodded, and slowly turned the rusted metal knob. The door opened with a mild creak, and Lo Presto! They stood in a gigantic hall !! Which apparently had no walls. And also happened to be completely empty. A hollow sound of wind was audible, but there was no wind blowing inside. Max looked left, looked right, looked up and then straight at Emem. Emem did exactly the same as well. So now they were staring at each other without a clue as to what had happened.
"Quite a big place," Max said sarcastically.
"I don't understand, this is where the memories are supposed to be. This is an anomaly."
"Anomaly ganomaly, I want my memories right now," Max broke down and thumped into the ground.
Somethings happen in life for a apparent reason. Others happen for no apparent reason. And yet there are some other things that happen which are not even closely related to the farthest cousin of Reason. Those are the things that actually run this galaxy and the universe and all of us. Would that imply fate? Nope, Fate is actually an old man that does have a room in this corridor, and all he does is circulate rumours. This other power is far stronger and it at work even as you are reading this stupid little paragraph.
You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment and now you can't get out of it
Don't say that later will be better now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it
Emem's emergency response to this critical situation was resulting in a song blaring in this huge hall, and the sound was reverberating in the hall, making it more so unbearable.
"STOP ITTTTTT," screamed Max with his hands on his ears.
Silence. Complete silence.
Shhhhhhhh.... a strange sound from nowhere. Shhhhhhhhhh..... some more sound. Max thought he must be imagining sounds now.
More mysterious things in this strange land. Now I am thinking what isnt mysterious in this land? I bet even Max is wondering where this story is leading? Does the writer have any idea how is he going to pull this off. I assure you he doesnt.
Anyway, so Max looked at Emem for the origin of this sound. Emem shrugged his shoulders as to say - 'That wasn't me boss' (oh yes he has tiny little shoulders that can be shrugged).
"Hey you two!!" A voice called out to them from nearly far away.
A figure seperated from the principally invisible wall. A black shade (??)!! Two hands formed out of the shade and seemed to be dusting itself.
"Eh sorry, this white stuff always seems to get stuck to me," said the shade and extended a hand forward.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Mad World
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad World
Mad world
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
And I feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad World
Mad World
Enlarging your world
Mad World.
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad World
Mad world
Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
And I feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very
Mad World
Mad World
Enlarging your world
Mad World.
It's a mad mad world. Music comes to haunt me again. I am staring at the screen for no obvious reason. The opening piano is enough to take you away. Maybe its not the best song to hear to, but I still like the lyrics.
The dreams in which I am dying are the best I've ever had. Do you know how it feels like to die in your dreams? It's a feeling of complete helplessness. Quiet tears roll down your cheeks and they are very invisible. You would'nt want them to be visible either. It's so true that when you feel like that - its both funny and sad. I always give out a small laugh at such a time, telling myself - not again kiddo, we've been thru this before. It's sad cos it is. You can see those dreams haunting you over and over again. And no one sees them but you. No one understands why they will always be dreams but you. And then those dreams kill you, stab you, murder every inch of your soul. What do you do then? Turn your anger outwards and murder that person that carries that soul. Make him a complete fool.
And then you get shallower with each murder committed. And you cease to know the person that was once was you. Why is everyone running for something. But maybe this is not at all about others, its about your ownself and your own inability to transform your lucid dreams into something more real. But looking at them now, dreams look good as dreams, trying to grasp them is out of the question. Maybe cos all you will end up holding ur hand is air. It's just one life, and why does it all have to be so funnily complicated. Nothing is going to change and tomorrow will certainly come unless you have had enough of killing yourself each day. And maybe that day you would be somewhere better..........
Friday, March 14, 2008
Book Review : The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
bu Douglas Adams)
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Have you ever had sleepless nights wondering whatever happened to all the ballpoint pens you had bought in the last few years. Well wait no more, cause this book brings you a quaint little theory on the matter. And even if didn't think about that, you ought to now.
This book doesn't need a review from me, but I am going to do it anyhow. It's funny how when you're not looking for something, you actually end up finding it. This is probably the most insanely funny book you would ever come across. And not just stupid humour, wittiest humour at its best. And that's what the book is essentially about. There is a plot, but that is not the main attraction of the story. There are some mind bogglingly lovable characters, some strange yet amazing new FACTS to emerge and of course the occasional hitchhikers guide on the way. In fact if you've ever wondered - why are we born? Why do we die? And why do we spend so much time in between wearing digital watches? then this is the book to read. Of course if you never wonder about anything then you're better off without reading this book, cause it may damage your brain cells.
The plot of the story is fairly simple enough for you to roll all over the ground. But the best thing about this book is the characters and the narration. So, lets take'em all one at a time.
Arthur Dent is the main earthling in question. On a thursday morning, on the third planet from the sun, his house is to be demolished to make way for a bypass. But as fate would have, that same thursday, the third planet from the sun was also to be demolished to make way for a hyperspatial expressway. Arthur turned out to be the only earthling to escape earth, besides Trillian ofcourse, who escaped much before the plot begins. When he finally realised that Earth was gone, he took the loss of his parents and sister nicely, but the loss of Nelson's Column and McDonalds was too much to bear and he passes out. But he's pretty smart for an average earthling.
Ford Prefect is an alien (ofcourse!!), and he is from around Betelguese, and has been stuck on earth for the last 15 years. He is a roving researcher for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which guarantees an impverished hitchhiker to see the marvels of the universe in less than thirty Altairian dollars. Ford doesnt get sarcasm, and he's pretty straight faced. But he is a good hitchhiker and knows the universe well. He is also a semi-cousin of Zaphod Beeblebrox. He tries valiantly to convince a vogon space guard not to throw them off the space ship and even teaches him Beethoven's fifth - da da da dum!!
Zaphod Beeblebrox is the current president of the Imperial Galactic Government, with absolutely no power. He also happens to be an adventurer, ex-hippie, good timer and a lot more. He also happens to have three hands and two heads. Zaphod's got style, and though he does have brains, he uses them rather sparingly. Zaphod steals the newest ship in the universe - the infinity drive powered, the Heart of Gold. And though is unaware of his purpose of stealing the ship at first, he is actually subconciously aware of the whole thing, which is actually not known to him or us. Trillian is often quite annoyed by Zaphod not bothering to think, and wanting someone else to do the job for him.
Trillian or Tricia McMillan, also happens to be from planet Earth. Actually at a flat in Islington, Arthur Dent was trying to get along with her and failing miserably, and Zaphod gate-crashed that same very party, and wooed away Trillian. And the two of them meet again, but in space, and only by a very very miniscule probability, the actual number of which also happened to be the telephone number of that Islington flat. Are our lives governed by telephone numbers or what!! She is fairly intelligent and beautiful, quite unlike Earthlings I suppose.
Ok, whats worse than a clinically, maniacally, irritably depressed and contemptous person? A clinically, maniacally, irritably depressed and contemptous robot. Yes thats Marvin, and a lot more too actually. He is definitely my favourite character of the book. Marvin is introduced into the story, when aboard the Heart of Gold Trillian asks him to bring the two aliens - Ford and Arthur to the bridge, to which the robot replies - I won't enjoy it!! Yes, everyone is quite flustered with him and his sensitivities. But he is quite cute really, and in the end he is the unlikely hero when after explaining his view on the universe, the enemy ship commits suicide!
There are lots of other minor characters in the story like Slartibartfast - the old planet developer who lives on the legendary planet Magrathea. He did design Norway on the original Earth. There is Prostenic Vogon Jeltz, the captain of the Vogon ship that destroy's Earth. He tortures Arthur and Ford with Vogon poetry, which is the third worst in the universe. And Deep Thought, the "second-best" computer who comes up with the answer to life, universe and everything as 42. His suggestion to the answer seekers is to find the right question first. There is Benjy and Franky mouse, two of the mice researchers on Earth, searching for the ultimate question. They escaped Earth along with Trillian and manipulated her to reach Magrathea. But the star minor character has to be Veet Voojagig, the quiet young academically brilliant student at the university of Maximegalon, who one night after drinking Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters with Zaphod becomes obsessed with the problem of what happened to all the ball point pens he had lost in the last few years. To listen to his theory you gotta read the book.
The whole book is filled with memorable lines. Some of the best, I am quoting right here :
"On this particular thursday, something was moving quietly through the ionosphere many miles above the surface of the planet; several somethings in fact, several dozen huge yellow chunky slablike somethings..."
"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way as bricks don't."
"He had found a NutriMatic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite entirely unlike tea."
"Er...., said the guard, er....er.....I dunno. I think I just sort of.... do it really. My aunt said that spaceship guard was a good career for a young Vogon, you know the uniform, the low-slung stun ray, the mindless tedium..."
"Sorry did I say something wrong? said Marvin, dragging himself on regardless. Pardon me for breathing which I never do so I don't know why I bother to say it, oh God, I'm so depressed. Here's another one of those self-satisfied doors. Life! Don't talk to me about life."
So, all in all you gotta read this book. Cause your life would'nt make nonsense without it. I would give it a 4.9 outta 5 anyday. ANd 0.1 docked only cos I wish it was longer than what it was. So, get hitchhiker's and p.s. - don't forget to bring a towel!!
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Have you ever had sleepless nights wondering whatever happened to all the ballpoint pens you had bought in the last few years. Well wait no more, cause this book brings you a quaint little theory on the matter. And even if didn't think about that, you ought to now. This book doesn't need a review from me, but I am going to do it anyhow. It's funny how when you're not looking for something, you actually end up finding it. This is probably the most insanely funny book you would ever come across. And not just stupid humour, wittiest humour at its best. And that's what the book is essentially about. There is a plot, but that is not the main attraction of the story. There are some mind bogglingly lovable characters, some strange yet amazing new FACTS to emerge and of course the occasional hitchhikers guide on the way. In fact if you've ever wondered - why are we born? Why do we die? And why do we spend so much time in between wearing digital watches? then this is the book to read. Of course if you never wonder about anything then you're better off without reading this book, cause it may damage your brain cells.
The plot of the story is fairly simple enough for you to roll all over the ground. But the best thing about this book is the characters and the narration. So, lets take'em all one at a time.
Arthur Dent is the main earthling in question. On a thursday morning, on the third planet from the sun, his house is to be demolished to make way for a bypass. But as fate would have, that same thursday, the third planet from the sun was also to be demolished to make way for a hyperspatial expressway. Arthur turned out to be the only earthling to escape earth, besides Trillian ofcourse, who escaped much before the plot begins. When he finally realised that Earth was gone, he took the loss of his parents and sister nicely, but the loss of Nelson's Column and McDonalds was too much to bear and he passes out. But he's pretty smart for an average earthling.
Ford Prefect is an alien (ofcourse!!), and he is from around Betelguese, and has been stuck on earth for the last 15 years. He is a roving researcher for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which guarantees an impverished hitchhiker to see the marvels of the universe in less than thirty Altairian dollars. Ford doesnt get sarcasm, and he's pretty straight faced. But he is a good hitchhiker and knows the universe well. He is also a semi-cousin of Zaphod Beeblebrox. He tries valiantly to convince a vogon space guard not to throw them off the space ship and even teaches him Beethoven's fifth - da da da dum!!
Zaphod Beeblebrox is the current president of the Imperial Galactic Government, with absolutely no power. He also happens to be an adventurer, ex-hippie, good timer and a lot more. He also happens to have three hands and two heads. Zaphod's got style, and though he does have brains, he uses them rather sparingly. Zaphod steals the newest ship in the universe - the infinity drive powered, the Heart of Gold. And though is unaware of his purpose of stealing the ship at first, he is actually subconciously aware of the whole thing, which is actually not known to him or us. Trillian is often quite annoyed by Zaphod not bothering to think, and wanting someone else to do the job for him.
Trillian or Tricia McMillan, also happens to be from planet Earth. Actually at a flat in Islington, Arthur Dent was trying to get along with her and failing miserably, and Zaphod gate-crashed that same very party, and wooed away Trillian. And the two of them meet again, but in space, and only by a very very miniscule probability, the actual number of which also happened to be the telephone number of that Islington flat. Are our lives governed by telephone numbers or what!! She is fairly intelligent and beautiful, quite unlike Earthlings I suppose.
Ok, whats worse than a clinically, maniacally, irritably depressed and contemptous person? A clinically, maniacally, irritably depressed and contemptous robot. Yes thats Marvin, and a lot more too actually. He is definitely my favourite character of the book. Marvin is introduced into the story, when aboard the Heart of Gold Trillian asks him to bring the two aliens - Ford and Arthur to the bridge, to which the robot replies - I won't enjoy it!! Yes, everyone is quite flustered with him and his sensitivities. But he is quite cute really, and in the end he is the unlikely hero when after explaining his view on the universe, the enemy ship commits suicide!
There are lots of other minor characters in the story like Slartibartfast - the old planet developer who lives on the legendary planet Magrathea. He did design Norway on the original Earth. There is Prostenic Vogon Jeltz, the captain of the Vogon ship that destroy's Earth. He tortures Arthur and Ford with Vogon poetry, which is the third worst in the universe. And Deep Thought, the "second-best" computer who comes up with the answer to life, universe and everything as 42. His suggestion to the answer seekers is to find the right question first. There is Benjy and Franky mouse, two of the mice researchers on Earth, searching for the ultimate question. They escaped Earth along with Trillian and manipulated her to reach Magrathea. But the star minor character has to be Veet Voojagig, the quiet young academically brilliant student at the university of Maximegalon, who one night after drinking Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters with Zaphod becomes obsessed with the problem of what happened to all the ball point pens he had lost in the last few years. To listen to his theory you gotta read the book.
The whole book is filled with memorable lines. Some of the best, I am quoting right here :
"On this particular thursday, something was moving quietly through the ionosphere many miles above the surface of the planet; several somethings in fact, several dozen huge yellow chunky slablike somethings..."
"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way as bricks don't."
"He had found a NutriMatic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite entirely unlike tea."
"Er...., said the guard, er....er.....I dunno. I think I just sort of.... do it really. My aunt said that spaceship guard was a good career for a young Vogon, you know the uniform, the low-slung stun ray, the mindless tedium..."
"Sorry did I say something wrong? said Marvin, dragging himself on regardless. Pardon me for breathing which I never do so I don't know why I bother to say it, oh God, I'm so depressed. Here's another one of those self-satisfied doors. Life! Don't talk to me about life."
So, all in all you gotta read this book. Cause your life would'nt make nonsense without it. I would give it a 4.9 outta 5 anyday. ANd 0.1 docked only cos I wish it was longer than what it was. So, get hitchhiker's and p.s. - don't forget to bring a towel!!
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
The Traveller Lost - Part I
Once upon a time, far far away, in the land of the corridors, a man landed in a corridor without any real purpose. The man could have been a boy too, but he was suppose to be a man, so I call him a man for all purposes. How he landed there, is not really clear at this moment. I am sure, he caused it to happen somehow, though he would certainly deny it.
So he landed in a dark, damp and reeking corridor. I am reliably informed that not all corridors are like this. Most are well lit, and some are even lavishly decorated. But this was his corridor, and a very narrow one at that. He could not see very far into the corridor because of the darkness, but from what he could see, the plaster had come off the wall from places, water was dripping from the roof a few feet ahead of him. All of the sudden, a large spider dropped out of somewhere onto his shoulder, and he gave out a loud shriek and pushed it off his shoulder and leaped a few steps to the right. The spider gave him a good hard look, and then as mysteriously as it had appeared, it vanished into the darkness.
The man still brushing his shoulder and staring at the spot where the spider ought to have been, got up slowly. For our purposes we ought to give this man a name, for that it seems would be quite convenient rather than referring to him as THE MAN. Because quite clearly he is no relative of HE MAN. But naming has often been a concern for one and all and I am no different. Let's name him Max, as in mighty max, the boy with the cap who could open portals to different worlds. For those of you who cannot place Mighty Max correctly in their memory, they can assume the previous line does not exist at all and the man's name has been Max from the second he entered into this corridor.
Ping!
Ping!
Ping!
The sound of water falling was echoing through the corridor. But wait, isn't the sound of water falling more like DRIP. This was more like PING. Max heard it a little longer, and then he could hear some other strange sounds coming along with it too. He had heard these sounds before, maybe in his dreams, maybe somewhere far away. A soft guitar solo was now playing in the background, as Max with his puzzled eyes moved forward in what seemed like a maze to him. The light which was just enough for him to make out the boundaries, seemed to be moving with him. But he wasnt sure what the source of this light was.
Suddenly he could hear the first sounds of drums as well, and then the first submerged voice rolled out :
Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves in labyrinths of coral caves
The echo of a distant tide
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine
A Pink Floyd song!! What in the world was a Pink Floyd song doing in this corridor? And who was playing it? And why was he playing it? All too many questions for one head I am afraid. As max moved ahead, feeling the solid wall, he suddenly noticed a queer box from which this sound seemed to be emanating. A queer plastic box indeed, having a glowing blue globe in its top half and the bottom half with rusted metal grills.
Max knocked on the top of the box and the music stopped. Then he knocked again, and he thought he heard a faint OUCH! Now that would be very odd from where Max came from, and being as curious if not more than a cat, he put his ear on the top of the box. And by putting I dont mean he literally tore off his ear and put it there, ofcourse he moved his whole body to be aligned that way. He gently knocked on the plastic surface again, and this time the feeble ouch was clearly heard.
Was it possible that he just heard an OUCH from a plastic box? He looked around and not knowing what to do further, he dropped on his knees, so that his eyes were level with the glowing blue globe. There was another orb inside the globe which seemed to be revolving in the center. Suddenly it stopped, and contracted to be reduced to half its original size. As he stared into the globe observing the orb, he almost felt that the orb was staring it back.
"That hurts you know,", a voice suddenly peirced the silence of the corridor, and Max nervously crawled back a few paces. However there was something so innocent about the voice that he wasnt scared of its existence. Instead he stared at the box again. What curious land was this, where curiosity seemed to be getting better of him over and over again.
"Oh! I wasnt really supposed to speak," the innocent voice came out again from the box. "They're gonna scrap me this time."
"You can talk!"
"Ofcourse I can! Everyone can! Not really everyone though, but most anyhow. I'm Emem."
"Emem?"
"Yeah, I am Emem, a Music Machine!"
"I dont think I've met a music machine before. Infact I don't remember much at all. This is odd indeed I can feel, but I cannot really gather a reason to conclude why it should be so. What am I? What is this place? Have I always been here?"
The machine had a sense of complete confusion about it, as well as a machine can potray confusion. Maybe if this was a Japanese cartoon, there might have been several exclamation marks over the head of the poor machine. But this isnt a Japanese cartoon, atleast not for now.
"And do I take you by the hand, and lead you through the land..." the machine started playing the music again.
"Stop that! Answer my question."
"I am programmed to play background music. Thats my job, to play music that blends into the background of the situation. As for you questions, I dont know their answers, and even if I did I dont think it would be possible to retrieve them from me."
Max felt it was useless to argue with a machine. He sat down on the ground and put his hands on his head to recollect his memories. How was it possible that he remembered listening to this song somewhere before, but he had no clue as to who he was. And what was this place, and if he had no memory, then why was he convinced that this was not the place for him to be. Surely there was an explanation to it all. He closed his eyes and something flashed inside, like a memory, like a scene. When you blink your eye, its opened before you even knew it. But this was like a blink where everything turned pitch black when your eyelid opened back again. But the question was not this darkness, but rather the light that preceeded the darkness.
But in my humble opinion, perhaps the darkness was spawned all by itself right from the beginning, and there was never any "LIGHT". I mean, who claims to have seen light after all, and those very few who have, might as well claim that they had seen UFO's. But then thats my personal opinion and would lead to the misleading of the story, and this story is Max's story and not mine. So, I should keep my opinions to myself.
"I have just concluded that you must be Max!" The machine's voice suddenly broke Max's chain of thought.
"How have you concluded that?" Max retorted.
"It's a very logical conclusion actually."
"Logical Conclusion!!! What has logic to do with that?"
"Logic has everything to do with everything. Isnt 2+2 = 4, the same way you are Max, and Max is you."
"How can you be so sure that 2+2 is four. They might be 5 or 3 or maybe nothing at all really, for all I know."
"But not here I'm afraid. Thats a different world, here 2+2 are always 4."
This argument was getting sillier by the minute. Someone had to end this. I am glad finally Max decided to take a step back.
"Listen! Whatever you are! Can you show me the way out of here?"
"The way out?"
"Yes! Out!! Some door out of here."
"Hypothetically if a way out of here was to exist here, then surely a way IN would exist too, wouldnt it?? And you're the one who got IN, not me! So surely you would know the way out or the way in for that matter.
"But I dont remember anything before this. You just informed me that I am Max. I can't even remember that."
So he landed in a dark, damp and reeking corridor. I am reliably informed that not all corridors are like this. Most are well lit, and some are even lavishly decorated. But this was his corridor, and a very narrow one at that. He could not see very far into the corridor because of the darkness, but from what he could see, the plaster had come off the wall from places, water was dripping from the roof a few feet ahead of him. All of the sudden, a large spider dropped out of somewhere onto his shoulder, and he gave out a loud shriek and pushed it off his shoulder and leaped a few steps to the right. The spider gave him a good hard look, and then as mysteriously as it had appeared, it vanished into the darkness.
The man still brushing his shoulder and staring at the spot where the spider ought to have been, got up slowly. For our purposes we ought to give this man a name, for that it seems would be quite convenient rather than referring to him as THE MAN. Because quite clearly he is no relative of HE MAN. But naming has often been a concern for one and all and I am no different. Let's name him Max, as in mighty max, the boy with the cap who could open portals to different worlds. For those of you who cannot place Mighty Max correctly in their memory, they can assume the previous line does not exist at all and the man's name has been Max from the second he entered into this corridor.
Ping!
Ping!
Ping!
The sound of water falling was echoing through the corridor. But wait, isn't the sound of water falling more like DRIP. This was more like PING. Max heard it a little longer, and then he could hear some other strange sounds coming along with it too. He had heard these sounds before, maybe in his dreams, maybe somewhere far away. A soft guitar solo was now playing in the background, as Max with his puzzled eyes moved forward in what seemed like a maze to him. The light which was just enough for him to make out the boundaries, seemed to be moving with him. But he wasnt sure what the source of this light was.
Suddenly he could hear the first sounds of drums as well, and then the first submerged voice rolled out :
Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves in labyrinths of coral caves
The echo of a distant tide
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine
A Pink Floyd song!! What in the world was a Pink Floyd song doing in this corridor? And who was playing it? And why was he playing it? All too many questions for one head I am afraid. As max moved ahead, feeling the solid wall, he suddenly noticed a queer box from which this sound seemed to be emanating. A queer plastic box indeed, having a glowing blue globe in its top half and the bottom half with rusted metal grills.
Max knocked on the top of the box and the music stopped. Then he knocked again, and he thought he heard a faint OUCH! Now that would be very odd from where Max came from, and being as curious if not more than a cat, he put his ear on the top of the box. And by putting I dont mean he literally tore off his ear and put it there, ofcourse he moved his whole body to be aligned that way. He gently knocked on the plastic surface again, and this time the feeble ouch was clearly heard.
Was it possible that he just heard an OUCH from a plastic box? He looked around and not knowing what to do further, he dropped on his knees, so that his eyes were level with the glowing blue globe. There was another orb inside the globe which seemed to be revolving in the center. Suddenly it stopped, and contracted to be reduced to half its original size. As he stared into the globe observing the orb, he almost felt that the orb was staring it back.
"That hurts you know,", a voice suddenly peirced the silence of the corridor, and Max nervously crawled back a few paces. However there was something so innocent about the voice that he wasnt scared of its existence. Instead he stared at the box again. What curious land was this, where curiosity seemed to be getting better of him over and over again.
"Oh! I wasnt really supposed to speak," the innocent voice came out again from the box. "They're gonna scrap me this time."
"You can talk!"
"Ofcourse I can! Everyone can! Not really everyone though, but most anyhow. I'm Emem."
"Emem?"
"Yeah, I am Emem, a Music Machine!"
"I dont think I've met a music machine before. Infact I don't remember much at all. This is odd indeed I can feel, but I cannot really gather a reason to conclude why it should be so. What am I? What is this place? Have I always been here?"
The machine had a sense of complete confusion about it, as well as a machine can potray confusion. Maybe if this was a Japanese cartoon, there might have been several exclamation marks over the head of the poor machine. But this isnt a Japanese cartoon, atleast not for now.
"And do I take you by the hand, and lead you through the land..." the machine started playing the music again.
"Stop that! Answer my question."
"I am programmed to play background music. Thats my job, to play music that blends into the background of the situation. As for you questions, I dont know their answers, and even if I did I dont think it would be possible to retrieve them from me."
Max felt it was useless to argue with a machine. He sat down on the ground and put his hands on his head to recollect his memories. How was it possible that he remembered listening to this song somewhere before, but he had no clue as to who he was. And what was this place, and if he had no memory, then why was he convinced that this was not the place for him to be. Surely there was an explanation to it all. He closed his eyes and something flashed inside, like a memory, like a scene. When you blink your eye, its opened before you even knew it. But this was like a blink where everything turned pitch black when your eyelid opened back again. But the question was not this darkness, but rather the light that preceeded the darkness.
But in my humble opinion, perhaps the darkness was spawned all by itself right from the beginning, and there was never any "LIGHT". I mean, who claims to have seen light after all, and those very few who have, might as well claim that they had seen UFO's. But then thats my personal opinion and would lead to the misleading of the story, and this story is Max's story and not mine. So, I should keep my opinions to myself.
"I have just concluded that you must be Max!" The machine's voice suddenly broke Max's chain of thought.
"How have you concluded that?" Max retorted.
"It's a very logical conclusion actually."
"Logical Conclusion!!! What has logic to do with that?"
"Logic has everything to do with everything. Isnt 2+2 = 4, the same way you are Max, and Max is you."
"How can you be so sure that 2+2 is four. They might be 5 or 3 or maybe nothing at all really, for all I know."
"But not here I'm afraid. Thats a different world, here 2+2 are always 4."
This argument was getting sillier by the minute. Someone had to end this. I am glad finally Max decided to take a step back.
"Listen! Whatever you are! Can you show me the way out of here?"
"The way out?"
"Yes! Out!! Some door out of here."
"Hypothetically if a way out of here was to exist here, then surely a way IN would exist too, wouldnt it?? And you're the one who got IN, not me! So surely you would know the way out or the way in for that matter.
"But I dont remember anything before this. You just informed me that I am Max. I can't even remember that."
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Booya!!
I like this word!! Its funny and expecially when the Human Torch says it... Booya!! Ding!! The Turkey is roasted!!
Its been a horrible start to a year, and its gonna get even worse as it goes on. I know, this is gonna be one of the worst years of my life. Anyhow, so I really forgot what I was gonna write about?
Two songs - Losing Your Religion and Square One. Losing your religion is about losing things you believe in while trying to keep up with life and trying to get someone I guess. Oh no I said tooo much!!!! Chasing something always leads to disruption... It doesnt get you that thing, never, ever.
Square One is a song by coldplay. The only other coldplay I like is Trouble. This one has a great feeling to it. He says you're in control, but thats rarely true, we are never in control. Everything has been controlled for us, we are preprogrammed. And to break away from that is impossible. And if you can manage to do it, that wud be great and scream out then Boooooooooooooooyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!
First line of the first page to the end of the last day, its all setup, you were a mere actor in it. Why cudnt I get a easier role to play!! I saw a role I wud have liked the other day, that wud have been easier. They obviously bleeded all my colours into one!!! Gimme back my colours!! And when he says somebody listening to what you say... whose listening to you anyhow!! Somewhere in human history LISTENING became a commercial activity as well. You have to get something outta listening to someone!! You wudnt listen to something where you cant derive anything out of it.
And a third song, I just heard. I dont care about the lyrics of this song, all it goes is like - I wanna be adored - I wanna be adored. I dont need to sell my soul, he's already in me. Thats the eternal fight for you, selling your soul to be adored. What would you rather do? Think I am going crazy................Boooooyaaaaaaaa!! I am crazy!! :) Cut off from human civilization already, if I fail, I would abandon my virtual post as well. Why am I living a virtual life already? I dont know...... time's up....... Booooooyaaaa!!
Its been a horrible start to a year, and its gonna get even worse as it goes on. I know, this is gonna be one of the worst years of my life. Anyhow, so I really forgot what I was gonna write about?
Two songs - Losing Your Religion and Square One. Losing your religion is about losing things you believe in while trying to keep up with life and trying to get someone I guess. Oh no I said tooo much!!!! Chasing something always leads to disruption... It doesnt get you that thing, never, ever.
Square One is a song by coldplay. The only other coldplay I like is Trouble. This one has a great feeling to it. He says you're in control, but thats rarely true, we are never in control. Everything has been controlled for us, we are preprogrammed. And to break away from that is impossible. And if you can manage to do it, that wud be great and scream out then Boooooooooooooooyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!
First line of the first page to the end of the last day, its all setup, you were a mere actor in it. Why cudnt I get a easier role to play!! I saw a role I wud have liked the other day, that wud have been easier. They obviously bleeded all my colours into one!!! Gimme back my colours!! And when he says somebody listening to what you say... whose listening to you anyhow!! Somewhere in human history LISTENING became a commercial activity as well. You have to get something outta listening to someone!! You wudnt listen to something where you cant derive anything out of it.
And a third song, I just heard. I dont care about the lyrics of this song, all it goes is like - I wanna be adored - I wanna be adored. I dont need to sell my soul, he's already in me. Thats the eternal fight for you, selling your soul to be adored. What would you rather do? Think I am going crazy................Boooooyaaaaaaaa!! I am crazy!! :) Cut off from human civilization already, if I fail, I would abandon my virtual post as well. Why am I living a virtual life already? I dont know...... time's up....... Booooooyaaaa!!
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