Change of mind !!

Why have i obscured my vision so bleak
Why am i gnawing the husks of time
Why strand the dreams that once had wings
Why stall the hope that once would fly ??


No trouble beckons unless driven by mind
Why lose the sanity of frozen thoughts
Eyelids & lashes that would never droop
Why kill the smile & bear the sties ??


Once deep rooted trunk,now in shallow water'
Is nothing but a useless log
sauntering in the salty,teary water
It would reach nowhere, just lie and rot


And there i dwell on thoughts so heavy
With a flashing reckless smile
My soul would find peace i know
All i need is a change of mind !!

If numbers had langauge

(In this article i have used '$$' to denote my total failure in comprehending parts of conversations.Its not indicative of any slang and pertains to total respect for every language)

In recent times, my career requisites and personal pursuits have taken me to some of the major places in southern part of India( & not south India which sounds as alien as south Korea). My jaunts have seen the privilege of air-hosting to the skank of local buses, from the vantage of resorts to the inhospitality of motels.

However, no matter how rude the locals seemed or how crude the situations have been, i managed to pull out with a smile and that was only because of 1 reason- 'Numbers don't have lannguage' !!

I was dropped at the 'CMBT bus stand in chennai'at the insanely hour of 3.45 in the dark. I could not have asked my friend to come over and receive me at this ungodly hour so i waited for some time. I went for a coffee and asked the irated gentleman "Anna(yep,i picked this on my way) 1 coffee, how much?"

"$$$$$$$$$Rs.10, $$$$$$ Rs.20 $$$$$"

From the size of the cups, i could guess he was reffering to the quantity of coffee and quoting the price. I quickly opted for the large cup. Fortunately, my guess was correct.


Large coffee acquired.

The clock was ticking at its leisurely pace and the sky was turning crimson, when i stepped out to take the most valiant step in any part of India. Hire a conveyance. Swarm of auto-drivers engulfed me in their vain attempt to explain me various schemes or whatever, in highly accented Tamil(i guess). Suddenly, a young chap played the ploy and uttered a few words in hindi "Sir, keeedar ko jaana?" I felt like rewarding this guy,with my wrist-watch.

I jumped on the rear-seat of his tattered auto, which vibrated every part of my body when the engine was revved.


"Ashok-pillar hot chips kitna bhaiyya?"

....but then i realized he played me fool. He knew just those 3 words of hindi, or so he pretended.

He replied: "$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Rs.200 $$??"

After 5 minutes of a verbal duel in tamil(again,i guess) and hindi-english combo, in which only numbers were intelligible to each other,we settled at Rs.170.

Conveyance acquired.






We were at the CMBT bus-stand,trying to locate the pondicherry bus terminal. After my failed attempts to read from the information chart and locate the enquiry booth, i hit upon a group of conductors. They tried to explain me in their native language which ensued as follows " $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ 200c $$$$$$$$$$$ EDA 20P $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$" and a lot of hand-gestures.


200C and EDA 20P was the only filtered input to my ears. A 15-minutes break and then i saw the head of a deplorable state bus,marked as 200C make its much-awaited entry.

"Anna, pondicherry ?" i asked, to which he just nodded his head. Perhaps, sign is the only other language i could use in this part of my country,besides numbers.

After 3-hours of agrestic view, we reached pondicherry.


Travel settled.






"numbers too have a language" remarked my roomie, a day after,when i was describing my experiences. "In spanish they don't say one, two, three...instead they say un, dos, tres " he continued "and every language has its own unicode format of writing numbers, its just that we don't use it so extensively, and thankGod for that."


He nudged the unperturbed truth....

'touche'!!is all i could exclaim

....and yes,"Thank God for that ..." !!

Another brick in the wall !! :D

The alarm dutifully shrieked at 6 in the crack of dawn.I pushed the sheets away reluctantly, and then dwelled in that half-fazed state until the snooze time elapsed and the alarm jolted me back into reality. 


The toothpaste tastes much better at night isn't it ?? In the morning it reminds you of the schedule ahead !!


Starched shirts, pleated trousers,leather belts, matching boots-I take a while to realize, this is my newly shuffled wardrobe.The faded jeans and printed tees are allowed to spring up only on the weekends.
The proximity cards (another hot-bred corporate jargon) hangs around the neck like a noose for the goose. My recently trimmed hair strands all stick to each other daring not to kiss the temple. 
I have become a slave of time again. I follow my watch to catch the erratically scheduled bus,obediently standing in the bus stop with chores of other similiar tech-guys !


....& now here, sitting by the window(which i can't let go)i  realize that school life has come haunting back,after the 4 blissful years of quiescence in college,


..though this time we don't pay fees, we earn salary !


..& you can't ignore the alarm assured that papa is there to drive you to school


...nor rest assured that the uniform is pressed and shoes are polished and tiffin is hot and water-bottle is cold. 


The proximity card(arghh again) reminds me of the school tie i so severely despised. 
The swipe-in reminds me of attendance (and proxy calls).
Recess is just the same,though now after lunch instead of playing basketball we are more interested in smoking dunhill lights. 
..the swipe-out reminds me of the final bell, but now i am not in a hurry to reach home, i don't have  mama waiting with hot 'pooris and paranthas'when i reach home !




Now i know why they say life is an ever-learning process....its because we never graduate out of a school !!

All good things.... have to ....come to an end !!

On our farewell our placement officer said “these 4 years were the best years of your life”! Thanks to the good, old man for his kind platitude but I had the strong desire to question him for the very last time that “Dude, the princi of my higher secondary school said the same and so did my primary section headmaster. Why do you people scare the diver before he leaps?”

The last 2 weeks have been a roller-coaster ride for me. First, the official farewell then the exams and then again the unofficial farewell. Emotions formed a potpourri and by the time we could realize, time had done the trick. With lofty promises of staying in contact and hailing the mobile and social networking we exchanged good-byes. That night we clinked glasses of malt whisky and tried to drift into its blues and then the sudden but obvious question was raised

What did you learn from these 4 years in an engineering college?

Now, trust me , any proud engineer in all his senses would reply a proud- NOTHING to this question. But, I was not in my senses and my haughty mind wandered into the memories of these 4 years to find a reasonably sound answer.

True to its nature, B.tech does not teach you technology. Majority of the population in these institutions realize their dreams and passion, half way into it. But, there are a lot of things that these 4 years teach you. Where else do you think that a guy with 8 hours to spare would be able to keep his cool, wrack his brains and study just the bare minimum to pass and yet score a solid 8 point?

These 4 years we evolved and grew:
from Soft rock to Grunt metal,
from Sidney Sheldon to Jean Sasson,
from Orkut to Facebook,
&
from infatuation to love !

We learnt the terms ‘RECESSION’, ‘MAOIST’ and ‘SENSEX’. We saw the industrialization process of west Bengal smashed to smithereens .We also saw the upsurge of TMC and Mamata di over the long established Left-front and also, India win two world-cups-the T20 and ODI.

These 4 years taught us not to smile but to laugh out loud (LOL)!

Now come, corporate life or any martial challenge, we can handle it because we have practiced enough to ‘LOL’ our problems.

KALIYUG RAMAYANA : The World-cup final !!

I hope that you guys read it before the World-cup final is over.
and please share it if you like it, for INDIAN SUPPORT !

It is the first time that two asian countries will play for the world-cup and as Mahela Jayawardhene( VIBHISHAN) has put it, India is more likely to win the cup.
However the Kaliyug Ramayana has seen a change in SITA,the vivacious,scintillating beauty, the whole world is after - The World Cup ( though not abducted by Sri-Lanka, but c'mon a li'l twist is allowed and anyways they were the runner's up last season). LORD RAMA himself has reincarnated in the form of SACHIN, playing almost for more than the stipulated VANVAS(14 years) and now in pursuit of his better half- The World-Cup.
Supporting him is HANUMAN- Virender Sehwag, who has set the LANKA on fire many a times and as ARJUNA RANATUNGA (Daitya Guru),puts it, he is the most volcanic batsman in India. The rest of the talented team is the VANAR-SENA, with MS DHONI- the skipper captain, as 'SUGRIV' the VANAR RAJA.

When it comes to LANKA, who better than MURULIDHARAN to don the mantle of RAVAN (not coz he looks like a DAITYA :P, but because he is the only one to mess with RAM.) The lankan team has the whole middle order as 'KUMBHAKARAN' sleeping and dormant. However, if woken up, though unlikely, they could be devastating.

All said and done, the captains and other batsmen will do their required jobs, but the match will gyrate around the fact that whether Muruli is hurling top-spins and Doosras(read VISH- BARND) or SACHIN is tossing them with ease(RAM-BARND).

However, being a huge HANUMAN-BHAKT, i believe SEHWAG will play the pivotal role.

LANKA KO PARAST KIYA JAYE !!:)))

ITI

Unconventional Goa !!

There have always been the 3 B's that have been associated with Goa- Beach, Booze and Babes (though not neccessarily in that priority), although an impishly perceivable mind can think of a few more B's. When i say, unconventional Goa, i mean those aspects of this scenic territory that often goes unseen or maybe ignored, but something that makes this place so unique.

I got the oppurtunity of being a part of the big-bash organized by www.freshersworld.com, for their promising campus ambassadors. I was on my way to goa when i met this hermit, who was going to an Ashram in Old Goa. Now this guy was Awesome. His name was 'Baba Bhola' and i think i will need another post dedicated to this 'monk-who-sold-his-ferrari'
Anyways, this 'Baba Bhola' shared with me some wisdom about Goa, and he asked me to reach beyond the convention of this beautiful land.
The following day, we said our share of goodbyes and i had my eyes popped out to look for the unconventions.
The first night we stayed in Old Goa. It was almost dusk by the time we settled in, yet we put on our shorts and set the right foot out. We hailed an auto, oblivious about the plying buses. The auto-rickshaw was a closed,compact wagon with curtains and flowers carefully placed. We asked him to drive us to Panjim market, about 7KM from our present location, according to the hotel map, and the auto-driver demanded a whopping Rs. 120. We tried haggling, but the doors were opened without hesitation. We relented. That was the first of the numerous encounters we had with these omnipresent auto-drivers and by the next day it was clear to us that haggling does not work in Goa, because there is no dearth of willing customers.
However, we were saved by the plying buses between stations. These were small state run buses, with clear mandates for the number of people to be seated and stood, and by Jove, it was followed. However, Goa is low on chauvinism as the boys sit on the ladies seat unabashadely and the ladies in that for senior citizen.The conductor clad in funky clothes and flashy glares, never missed the fare. The buses had a pecularity, the small electric bell, that acted as a communication between the conductor and the driver.

The people of Goa, are multi-lingual.They can speak English, Hindi and local language with quite ease. However, when it comes to writing, the spellings are often erroneous.
Wherever you go, you can listen to peppy, foot-tapping ,melodious songs and towards the evenings you can try your hand at the karaoke or jazz competitions. All it would cost you is a Tuna and bacon, and a bottle of beer.
Speaking of alcohol, which happens to be a convention, i would like to draw your attention towards the local alcohol, which is priced at Rs. 100-400 a bottle, depending on the quality. Its called Fenny and is available in several flavours, my favourite being Olive.However there is another local drink available in the beaches early in the morning called Amaya, that not many people know about. It tastes better than wine and stones more than a bong. Its every alcoholics desire,in Goa.However,its illegal.
Another very unusual thing about this place is the architecture. The houses built around the capital, have such a refined, pre-historic look. Some of  them columbian enough and few deserving the flashes. The palm trees along the borders accentuates the panorama.
The best part of the entire trip was the last day, when i broke out of my group , hired a bike,a rusty old splendour(i had no choice) and rode around the city. Its fun to read directions, get lost ,discover short-cuts and live in the moment. However, before that let me tell you, hiring a bike on a weekend is one hell of a job. You have to be smart enough to strike a deal. Don't try haggling after the rent has been quoted. I took help from a a random localite and struck the deal for Rs. 300 for 16 hours, apart from the security and DL proof.
The people of Goa are the best i have met so far. However, the brokers and middlemen continue to be as reprehensible as anywhere across our country. Perhaps they all share a breed.
From the moment i stepped into Goa, i never saw a cop. However, on that day when i was riding my bike at an unaccountable speed, i was gestured by a white uniformed guy to pull over. I could smell bribery, and was weighing my wallet, when a smiling face greeted me and asked for my DL. I produced it, surprised at the smile, or was it a smirk??
He glanced at it, warned me to drive slowly for my own safety and then moved away. For the first time in my life, i was stopped by a cop and let go without a penny lost. I was all respect for the guy.
Parking is at whim. 'No-parking' signals are just for the pigeons to perch.
I had been to beaches, done all crazy things that you expect a young lad to do in a beach. After 4 days of conventional shit, when i broke free of it and gave a brief stint to my unconventional pursuits, the road from panjim to old Goa attracted me the most.

 The bylanes and boulevards and the ancient architecture located beside the calm and spectacular juar river was a speckle to the nitty-gritties of conventional Goa. I parked my bike beside the Juar dock and strode the 6 KMs up and back, while clicking some adorable pics.Sometimes, you want to savour a moment for lifetime. This was one such moment for me.
That night i was leaving for my hiking across Maharashtra and MP and i thought what better than a chilled glass of Amaya. However, it was dusk and i could not find it. However, i found something else, but its inappropriate to mention it, so i leave it to your wild imaginations !!
Foe more pictures on Unconventional Goa, click on the following link :

Unconvntional Goa !!

Hanging Paragraphs : Worth a Swipe

Hanging Paragraphs : The hundreds of snippets of thoughts that lie buried under heaps,under copies long lost relations with.

I unravel them as i dust-off my old stacks. 

Worth A Swipe

Its not like an arduously blended wine

thats poured in a long stemmed glass

not a freshly baked rasher of bacon

nor a polished brazen,brass.

Words often flow out in a gush of emotions

 & its seldom worth a swipe

Its reduced to just a couple of rhymes, not poetry

when words are picked, but

Thoughts are not ripe !!

SOS in book fair !!

Kolkata recently held its 35^th Annual book fair,better known as ‘Boi Mela’. It was inaugurated on 25^th evening and the next day,26^th Jan –Republic Day-National Holiday, people thronged the stalls and the Milan Mela ground saw almost 2 lakh footfalls.It was crowded like the local sealdah-bound trains on weekday office opening hours. People were brushing across each other more than brushing through the books; some young boys had the time of their life.

Some hundreds of stalls were setup, with almost every publishing house,library,embassy,club setting up one. Security check was brisk and negligent. You might think it must be one helluva job for the security personnel to frisk every individual. I would have agreed, but sample this. The Gates did not have female security so, Lady Bin Laden could have carried a sack full of RDX, gelatin sticks and adequate detonators. But hey, wouldn’t that trigger the metal detector. Oh yes that would, only if it was turned on. Kolkata police has immense trust in its intuitive abilities,like the other security agencies that guard the city malls.

However the situation was not so despicable when I went there the other 3 times. At least they had female security at the gates, so what if most of the time they were gossiping. Their presence was divine.

I have been in love with ‘Boi Mela’since my 1^st year in college and Kolkata. Its crowded, its dusty and its in hollers but the sight of innumerous books marvelously arranged in piles and rows draws your attention. There are hardbound, paperbacks, some plastic bounded too. Some books which are unheard and dug out from past, few new releases, some amorously decorated novels and humming girls around that section, some thin,limp book written by a renowned author and excessively priced. Every stall has a classics section, a bestseller’s collection and one section which only draws intellectually vibrant people, who more or less resemble each other, with thick myopic glasses resting on the brim of their nose and an unnoticed faint smile on their lips.To me those people have attained nirvana. Who else would read a speaking tree?

But there is one section which attracts me the most. The stalls with no names. The stalls, which house those books which cannot be found in the rarest of rare stores. These are books which are written by anonymous writers and bards from the underprivileged villages and small towns. Written in vernaculars and printed on the most inferior quality papers, it sells for Rs.25 to 75 depending on the thickness and not quality of content. These stalls were sandwiched between big publishing houses, and covered with advertisement of Gramin-Udhyogik bank or a so and so NGO.
Girls not more than 16years of age welcome you with a smile that never dies out. The sparse crowd attracted to it hurts me. Perhaps, it is lack of information that stops people from visiting such master-suites of knowledge and literature. Therefore, over the past 3 years I have seen a huge dip in the number of these stalls. From 6 they dropped down to 4 and this year only 1. Upon asking those smiling hosts, about the thinning stalls I got to know that the expense of travelling and publishing these snippets turns out to be more than the profit earned. It’s with the help from an NGO that this stall is still functional. But, there is no assurance for the next year.

I was moved. And there I decided to do the best I can to revive these stores.

But apparently, that was just the feel of the hour. What could I do, but speak and write about these poor intellectuals and their pool of talent. And I am sure it’s not the matter of only Kolkata book –fair. It must be countrywide.

So It is my earnest request to you all, please spread this awareness among people. And its not charity.  No... It is the appreciation of art and literature.

Paradise on Weed !

Statutory Warning :  Smoking weed is injurious to health(or is it??)
 
This post is written with inspirations from the reggae legend 'Bob Marley' songs.
NO WEED INVOLVED.

Tonight if you allow me fair amigos
I will tell you what my life is
Its empty bottles by the pier
and cigarette stubs by the sea
Its the blackest coffee you can have
and a life increasingly sedentary
Random thoughts in a diary
is this paragraph thats meant to be
eventful listing of a blacking out mind
anything but not poetry
Do i write just to ease some pain?
a troubled past?or is my heart slain??
No its not a girl,nor attention greed
Just the effects of filtered weed
Its guilt that gets a man killed 
post intoxication,like thinking in Warfield
Later again I'll talk to you all
about the kisses and hard-knocks of life
as of now let me lay down and roll
some tracks on black death metals toll
Yes thats what i want,but thats not my need
I just wanna leave for paradise,on weed.

Redemption & back on Republic Day

1>    some pandemonium woke me up early in the morning. I was about to plunge inside my thick blanket when a chorus started singing 'Jana Gana Mana'-our National anthem Now, I had 2 choices 1. to ignore it, after all nobody was observing and 2. Stand upright rapt attention in my sparse clothing exposed to the cold air, which ultimately i did.

It reminded me of the good old days, when republic day meant march-past and mass-drills and flag hoisting and sweet distribution, and when 'Republic Day' was not just another holiday.

2>   I went through the newspaper, read the innumerous 'Happy Republic Day' advertisements with the company logos bigger than the national flag. Sheer marketing.

Before folding it up, I went through the movies section.”OK….Alice in wonderland @2100hrs, Trishul @2000 hrs and ..And O MG repeat of Bourne Identity @10.30 hrs, that is just half an hours later. I rushed to do my groceries and return back before the movie starts. After all it's from my favorite trilogy. I managed all well within time and just when I was returning, I heard our security guard tuning his radio to All India Radio, which was airing the republic day parade, Live. 

I ambled, reminiscing the day’s when my family and I used to see the ‘Republic day celebrations’ on DD national, fixated to the minutest exhibition.

And now Bourne Identity has taken priority.Huh!!

3>  No I did not, or rather could not watch the movie. Later in the afternoon, I logged into my networking profile. There were scores of ‘Happy Republic day’ embedded on the common wall, and I could not help but wonder, how many of them actually meant it and how many of them experienced the  patriotic melancholy like myself. Some I personally knew could not distinguish the difference between the national anthem and the national song.

4>   I was on my way to the bus-stand. It was almost evening. I passed by the auto-rickshaw stoppage and was approaching the cycle-rickshaw stand when I noticed something strange. Almost all these vehicles, the LPG guzzling and the manual both, had a small flag hoisted upon its rear view mirror. To my eyes the vehicles seemed to be squeaky clean, maybe for today’s special celebration.

I have noticed this since childhood, the poor working class of India celebrate the national days more zestfully than their blessed country mates, whom the republic nation gives more reasons to do so.

5>  At night my sister surprised me with a phonecall.I told her about my patriotic reawakening, to which she congratulated me, disinterestedly. I asked “so how was your day?” With a sigh of relief she replied “By your newly acquired definition of patriotism, I was a jerk. I was so glad that this time republic day did not clash with a weekend holiday. I needed a break”.

This brought me to another realization, a more pragmatic and rational one. We don’t need a day to show our patriotism. We don't need to watch the celebrations or hoist a flag or sing the anthem on this day. Patriotism can be as small and silly as joining Indian anti-hatred forums on social networking site. When we pray for our country during the short commercial breaks between the overs in a match of cricket featuring India, we exude patriotism. When we take pride in the fact that TATA acquired Corus, we were all proud Indians and we are typically proud Indians when we celebrate the success of a foreign film based on India, the slumdog millionaire.

 I thought I needed a patriotic redemption, but now I think I don't. Patriotism need not be marred with hypocrisy. I think our ministers are doing it with unfailingly for us, and we have enough of them to worry about.

Like.....until forever..

 Like a war with Achilles
i am going to fight,but i know i am lost.
Speaking my mind,glory is no matter
My Fairest lady,thou love is!


Like petals in honeydew and milk
though small ripples disturb your image
 Don't pull me back,please don't
Not now,not ever,not until......forever!


Softly i'll bid goodbye,deftly i'll leave
Not that it would matter to you
but to me it would mean
something i so strongly desired
to be waited for and to be missed
with silent,anxious eyes eager to wait,
until.....forever
and quivering,half-parched,unspoken lips to wait,
until...forever! 

Why is (THE)Barney Stinson....."Awesome" ??

{Freaking Fiction:This post is for the fan-base of 'How I met Your Mother' and especially "Uncle Barney" !!}






(Ted Mosby's Point of view)










I met Barney at a urinal( like man, like place :D)and sometimes i wish to go back in time and flush down our relationship,in the same loo. Yet,after years to come i would realize that ,my supposed wing-man is really a good friend.His inclusion added sparkles to my life and the episodes too.(Imagine a 'How I met Your Mother' without his stupid yet iconic legendary statements )




I wonder why does Barney get all the female atention and fan following, although he is a suit-clad, blonde,pallored,face-twitching snob. Is it due to his weird, whacky, co-context catchphrases or the smoothly moulded yet whipping comments.I guess both.




I think I have given him more reluctant, erratic high-fives than i have wiped my arse, and i have waited for his condescending,legendary, 'LEGEN.....*wait for it*.....DARY' more than i have waited for a piss on a winter morning.






Sometimes, i wonder to get into his shoes and get all the overvalued attention, yet my dignity does not permit me,but the next moment my inner-mind jolts me to think "How many shoes has this guy worn?"..I mean ...FIGURATIVELY. He wins almost anything he wants to right from the scarcely rewarded challenges(Remember the cross-country race and Reality show)to the subdued desires in his sub-conscious mind (like ROBIN...EWW)




And no matter how many tonnes of bull-crap comes out of that blonde head,he covers it up in gaudy language sometimes enameled with assortment of French, Spanish and Chinese language. No wonder, he must be having innumerous blog followers.


I like wearing my informal muftis,but sometimes when i see him clad in those well-tailored Armani suits, toggling the touch phone and playing with his glass of scotch-whisky, even i wanna 'Suit-up'. And had it not been for Marshall's curt criticism("We don't need another Barney"), i would have morphed into another 'Stinson' by now.


So, how does it sound, I Ted Mosby..the cool-headed, star-wars loving,commitment seeking,fabulously statured 'ARCHITECT' wanna suit up to become what ?? ..."A Barney Stinson" ??






"THE Barney Stinson ...you wuss" says who?? who says??


Your sex-starved,diabolical,satanic,Laser-tag-loving,God-Knows-What-Job-He-Does,uncle Barney.