wtf

is going on ????

a hurried wandering

numbered not timed

siddharth

you ? when did this happen ... remind me ?
allo?????
bolo bolo
you've got amnesia. remember me?
who is this amnesia ?
anamika's sister

wot ? wot does that mean ?
i'm the one to ask you. what's that mean? :((
shoo, stop crying
cant help
look !! a cow !!! 3:-o

-x-x-

And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be

breathe, pink floyd, dark side of the moon

bleary

It's unbelievably bleary today.The day's
all grey and gloomy.
so gloomy. The kind of day you'd want to spend
at the office.

it is said

C39HrP24DhTt

nosy

the moments are longer
the thoughts lie cold and heavy
like the ice frozen over
from last night's flurry

panic attack

empty house

it's the end of the game
and the cards come face up
it's obvious what should've been done
but it's too late now, 'coz the game's over, the chips are gone
and there's no sound except, the chuckling of the winner
and the quiet scrape of card on card
as the lady shuffles to deal the next round
and there's not a fortune-teller in sight

ever thus

the couch powerful

sleepy-eyed day

I have a couch that was handed down to me by a
colleague leaving the country. It's turned out
to be a powerful one, that couch. Well worth the
strain of pulling it up a flight of stairs.
And that's not too unusual a word for a couch
either - powerful.
I can, at the end of a busy day, sit on it, sink
in and nod off before you can say 'I`ll be there
for you'. On a quiet morning, I can sleep for half
an hour from 9.00 am to 9.10 am. And go off
a-visiting to the weirdest places at all sorts of
times. I think there's no fun in going off to the
world's hotspots,tourist spots, where you
just walk around like a baby with wide eyes, looking
at this and that and thinking 'wow!!' . Of course,
it's a 'wow', coz you don't have it at home. You come
back with memories of the the odds-&-ends-and-bits-of
-colored-glass-sorts. You can get the same from watching
T.V, or reading books.
Now, dreams and day-dreams, that's a different cup of tea
altogether.To go some place and leave your body behind,
inert, relaxed and immobilized.
To see and hear things that your sight and hearing and mind
would have never agreed upon, well, now that is interesting.
Like plugging into a program in the Matrix movie, the couch
plugs me into alternate realities. My alternate realities.
They are fragile like figures scratched in the beach sand,
and no less fun.

It's snowing outside. White fluffy flakes are slowly
but surely taking over the patio, swirling in around
and about the smokers' feet. Icy wind ruffles their
hair and plays the cigarette smoke away. The coffee pot
sighs on its warmers, but the caffeine is ineffective
against the cold, as seen in the creaking joints, aching
heads and frozen ear lobes.

I had a dream in which I was back in the Mumbai office,
only it looked more like a classroom, and we were going
to take a class in history. Of course, this sounded absolutely
normal to me then. The last thing I remember thinking, in
the back of my mind of course, when the teacher walked in,
was that my whole America trip must’ve been a dream I had the
previous night. I also vaguely remember wondering why we were
having history classes in the office. I rummage in my bag for
my books. Then, the alarm went off.

4 pm is the first ending of my day. The day ends struggling
against the post-lunch slump. And wakes up again at after 4.
Early evening and night are the early parts of a different day.
Crunching feet on the ice and leaves on the way to and from
the bus stop marks the axes around which the separate days hinge.

There was a second dream, in which a morose looking guy was
playing a guitar in what was the music room. Playing it well,
I might add. It didn't look like the music room I knew, but my
mind tells me that it couldn’t have been otherwise. When the
guy does finish playing the piece, I go to talk to him, but he
is talking to someone else, giving directions to what I assume
must've been the new location of the music room. I try to find
out the same, for I want to get to the music room and hear the
troupe practising , but he says something about there being slots
available and that I should definitely come take a look. And then
he was gone, elaving me wondering about the new location of the
music room

Back home, in reality, Bill was raving about kringles right
about after lunch. Isn't it wonderful that a small storefront
does so much better business across the whole north-east coz
of the internet ? I'm going to buy myself some dill pickles.
Which is a slightly crunchy version of cucumber steeped in
brine/vinegar solutions. I'm drooling already.

I got my last haircut from a chap called Vito, down at the
Farmer's Market. He's a slightly old Italian dude, very dignified,
rather friendly. He did a neat job, not forgetting to trim the
foliage between my eyebrows. I'm touched. No one has done that
before. I can't, since then, look into the mirror without feeling
quietly proud of the way I look. They don’t sell pigs at the
Farmer’s market here. Not the live ones, atleast.

Talk to you later baby

silver stark

attack of the extra-bio-luminescent-killer-bees

odds and ends

warm blue skies, sunny day
sun-browned green brush
brown streaks on my collar
atleast back home, the icy wind makes
your eyes water

I ran to the fair grounds
but the place was empty, the tents gone
only the colored poster remained to tell
of the promise of the next one

speakers call to the impatient
airplanes like big birds wait
the payphone banks are deserted
the emptiness beyond the glass walls
is like a dew drop threatening to
explode

the giant metal birds wait patiently,
for, after the treading the infinite blue
the fretful humans are but crying babes

the familiar streets start rolling past my window,
I am rested, but wistul, like on waking from a dream
and a irritated too

waiting for twilight

melancholy : a distant memory of home

the firewalker

see what I mean ?

second snow

It's been a while. It's snowing again. For me, it is still novel.
A second childhood of sorts. I doubt if I can communicate what I
feel about the snow, I'm not sure of it myself. The snowfall's a
relatively familiar stranger.
Flurries which melt on the ground and leave a covering of water
on everything. Traffic runs faster, as if trying to outrun the
snow. Cars whiz by, and the bus drivers maneuver aggresively with
a new-found skill.
People are quieter, withdrawn into themselves, staring silently outside
the windows. When they talk, it has a forced politeness, an intensity
which wasn't there before.
The signal changes, and I jog across the street. The store's emptying,
people are leaving, coming out the door wide eyed. They know they should
be complaining about the snow, but the cynicism hasn't caught up yet,
for the moment, they are happy at nature's caress, ignoring how cold
it is. The girls at the cafe counter are happily chitchatting in the
absence of people to be polite to. I want to hang around just to watch
them chirp away, but have no excuse, so make off with my order. My mind
can't seem to settle into anything particular, so I head out home.

Daily routines run their course and leave me gratefully into a precious
solitude. The backyard is covered, carpeted in white. Seems so very serene.
I want the serenity to open up and swallow me up. Or failing that, rise up
and seep into me. Like it does to the gaunt leafless trees, fingers reaching
toward the sky. I'm grateful and restless at the same time, like a kid who's
given a new toy and then put to bed. People stop by and leave. Electronic
fingers that stroke and pinch and wave goodbye. Time to retire.
Got schemes to hatch. Plans to make. The changing edge of season is not
to be wasted.

standing tall

 
 
 
 
 
 
 


in the cherished sunlight
cryptic breezes warn
of thieving autumn's
approach

it's friday evening

I stay longer at my desk coz
I'm afraid to go home

queen and drones

and protocol droids
There are no kings

how on earth

do you survive a Borg ? can someone tell me ?

once

you put your photo on the web, it's not yours anymore.
Don't complain if it turns up ... wherever

a toaster

which lets you control the color of the toast.
crisp, papery toast dabbed with thick honey.
is my cup of tea

it was a day like any other

The email slipped into his mailbox silently. His eyes, however,
caught the shuffling on the toolbar indicating a refresh.
He opened the attachment.

The green riverside. Silence in the air. Youth. Fifteen faces.
Some smiling, some defiant, some amused.

A tear crept to the corner of his eye, his upper lip
trembled .Threatened to give.

scadams in one page

neat

quot.e

The lyfe so short, the craft so long to lerne,
Th’ assay so hard, so sharpe the conquering.
The Assembly of Fowles. Line 1.
Chaucer

I know !! what a bother. It's such a pain.
Why can't things be easy, I say

my generation

wherever I seem to go, the 'm' word causes angst, depression, panic ....

the word 'arranged' has been promoted to Evil status

some things ..

like these ...

mirrors

You take the population of vehicles in the field (A) and
multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B), multiply the
result by the average cost of an out-of-court settlement (C).
A times B times C equals X.
If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.


page 30, Fight Club, Chuck Pahlanuik, fiction

-X- -X- -X-

500 fatalities X $200,000/fatalities
---------------------------------------- = $2.40/automobiles
41,000,000 automobiles

The cost to General Motors of ensuring that fuel tanks did
not explode in crashes, estimated by the company to be $8.59
per automobile, meant the company could save $6.19($8.59 minus
$2.40) per automobile if it allowed people to die in fuel-fed
fires than alter the design of vehicles to avoid such fires


Page 63, The Corporation, Joel Bakan, non-fiction

-X- -X- -X-

I didn't say it would be easy, Neo

a skyful of gold

photo by the pink-polka-dottie

solitary

photo by pink-polka-dottie

earplugs

no no, mindplugs

"No! No different. Only different in your mind. You must unlearn
what you have learned."
- fictional little green guy with big ears and funny english

"Awareness is about unlearning"
- fictional ancient guy in red plaid blanket

"There is no spoon"
- fictional weird little kid with shaven head

empty

fallacy

from the fallacy files

"He who knows only his own side of the case,
knows little of that. His reasons may be good,
and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons
on the opposite side; if he does not so much as
know what they are, he has no ground for preferring
either opinion."

Source: John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

awesome

This beats the socks off any other stuff I've seen

lone gnome
amidst lands of snow
disappearing strands of gold


watch the video here


again, you'd need a fast net connection and Windows to watch

street, nashville

If you stand on tiptoe, you can see the line of people trying to
get some pancakes. Fido is on the right. Pangea on the left.
I think.

autumn in nashville

photo by the pink-polka-dottie

visiting the una

the una lives in guitar land.

the airport's like a big sea of colored blinking lights.
the plane's engines kinda cut out after the initial thrust-y
run which launches you into the air. you get the distinct impressions
that some fool has turned off the engines and that the plane is going
to fall.so many drinks with ice.
chicago from above. i love chicago. it is the heart of this part of the country.
most of my flights passed thru it.there are some of my people in it.
and it looks like something out of this world at night. from the sky.
lines of gold and blinking yellow.a grid. my heart overflows with joy at
the beauty of it.the napkins that southwest provides with its iced drinks show
a map of america. chicago is a small dot on it. it doesn't look like that at all
from the plane window.
woodlands,fido,chilis,padthai.
armored dwarves,elves and goblins with padded weapons.
i miss the una.

voices

As a general rule, the most successful man is one who has the best information.

Benjamin Disraeli, statesman

I believe in my own divinity - and yours

Elbert Hubbard, Author

"If you really want to enslave people,
tell them that you're going to give them total
freedom."
-- L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology

cool

me likey

Have you talked to your astrologer lately ?

the big birds

umm, you'll need a fast net connection for a dekko

tough

tough luck. It's not easy being Cinderella at the stroke

of twelve.

the past

lurks around the corner

waiting to follow

as night follows day

to defend, it would

help if you know

what you are defending

disturbing

1. This guy predicts an earthquake will hit kerala by the end of this year.

2. I.T trade unions. I wish one could just say no.

another turban guy

His name is Ram Singh

trust

is a narcotic. Indispensable in little doses, produces hallucinations in
large doses

the skies

are waiting

in the fort of

veerapandi, many interesting things happen when lightning
strikes. Come down someday and I'll tell you.

no prizes for guessing which movie ost I'm listening to.

echoes

"Villainy wears many masks, none of which so dangerous as virtue..."
Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow

a bus trip

downtown and back. Train station, transit cards, cup of coffee.

polished wood, waiting spaces

express bus back. driving into the sunset. the evening sun shines
right into the driver's face.

greenery passing by

lunch

was the incident of the frozen eggs thawed out in a tub of
warm water. Wouldn't recommend you try it on someone
you like.

bought freakonomics. spilt coffee on it.

found out what 'patra' is. yummy.

communication breakdown by led zepp. is always a pain.

master wok sends his regards as well as two items with rice
or lo-mien and choice of soda for 4.95

friend recommends 'Crash'. and 'Memento'. and a couple of topics
for open-ended discussions we both know we may never have.
no bulky reasons. just the simple ones from physics. time, space.

funny. the well was always dry when you were thirsty. and
now it's full. and the water is sweeter. and you're not thirsty
anymore.

re-discovered my fling with R.E.Ms "UP" when I saw it in one
of the stores . Been a while, but I used to play it again and again
when in hostel and let my mind run around in a stupor.

was very windy outside. but sunny. took a walk.

there goes the cooker's second whistle. do you know they're talking
about building an elevator into space. no more spaceships. you
take the lift. and press the button for a five-digit floor.

...

"Well yes, what did you think this
was all about?  Fun and games? "

Julianne Moore as Maude Lebowski  in 'The Big Lebowski'

echoes

And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also
into you.

-Frederick Nietzsche

...

cold as a stone
gaunt branches against the evening sky
some leaves don't fall

time of the day

Have you seen an evening in twilight ? it's like walking around
in a sepia-toned photograph. Surreal. It's easy to believe that
there are spirits at play during twilight. You don't get to see it
in a city. No really. You need trees and stones and grass for a
good one. And far out empty spaces.

- x -- x -- x -

The art of puddle-splashing
nothing to it, really
just put your foot down

day after day

looking

for a Reset button ...
Escape should also do ...

mike

wottamess / clouds

whaa / dandelion catching sunlight against blue sky

hear hear

The typical office worker is interrupted every three minutes by a phone
call, e-mail, instant message or other distraction. The problem is that it
takes about eight uninterrupted minutes for our brains to get into a really
creative state
more, gleefully

keep moving

".. it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."
The Red Queen, Through the looking-glass

no, really

autumn

can't get enough of this

This is an awesome musical animation. Long download , mpeg file
Remember to turn up the sound.
ps : I hear this has been doing the rounds since long ago and
did not have the ATI-Radeon stamp till recently. Fyi.

black

I want to crawl into a hole and drag it in behind me

sunday

morning blues. An addict is one who can mould a reason
out of nothing at all. Just the blues for me, thank you.

It's a gloomy morning. Actually, it's one in the afternoon .
That's part of the recipe too. It all fits right in. Yesterday morning
at this time was busy, but I don't remember where the day went. I
have the CD of Railroad Tycoon out , but never got down to playing it,
letters not posted, dishes still in the sink, laundry still thoughtfully
arranged all over the room ..

I think of my cousin's family out there in Chicago. Family, with one
and half junior members, ensures that there's never a dull moment.
A day wouldn't ever be wasted. Seized, always. Or like Calvin says,
"... seized and throttled"

Ah, the internet, the stupid internet. I remember now. A marathon
surfing session. God knows what I was looking for, but I sure know that
I didn't find it. But I did find a satellite shot of my house and adjacent
mall.

Waking up at noon on a holiday is depressing at best. The rest of
the day runs surreal. The mind digs into its database and pulls up
bluesy-feelings experienced on previous miserable mornings and
plays them back for you. So thoughtful, I say.

The rest of the day runs sloooow, then suddenly, it's gone. That's the
problem with lazy weekends, you've no idea where they went.

One long trudge to the mall and back. And this post was left in limbo
ever since.

Ever get that feeling, like when you're following the wrong trail, and
after a while the scenery starts to get unfamiliar, the crickets in the
thickets start to sound different ...

scraps

On the dusty paths of the distant stars
Our footprints will remain...
- razn

cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war
-The Bard

Try to stay away from zero sum games.

Interesting times we are in. But will history repeat ? Will the
Second Age of Magic happen ?

droll

On the forum discussing Arthur C Clarke's vision
of the future, there still _ARE_ people whining
about what gasoline will cost in 2040.

clash

if you wish for peace, prepare for war

survivors

a long time back ( it seemed like yesterday !! )the future was
rather clouded.

Guilt and near-panic were my constant companions.

I was waiting for the dream to end and the nighmare to begin.
What shape it would take I didn't know.

Then I got a mail from a friend. He talked about survivors. And
strength. And the times we'd pulled through.

I don't think I've thanked him enough

people

The cubicle lies unattended to. Waiting. Like a supine dog staring vacantly at passers-by,
awaiting the return of its master.

Some of the cartoons & funny/clever pictures have been removed. In their place sits a framed water-color of a boy looking out from what appears to be a cabin window, a bagel in one hand. An innocently expectant expression on his face.

In the co-ordinator's cabin nearby, a leftover stack of invitations of green paper lie on the table
by the window. They have the Desiderata on the inside left, a picture on the front and inside ...

About a year ago, two men step out for a smoke on the snow covered
balcony.
Everybody thought smokers were crazy anyway. To step out in this
weather , you had to put on a jacket, gloves, cap ..
"Call a conference !! Call a conference !!" one of them mumbles ..

-x- -x- -x-

I was fresh-off-the-boat. Big country, strange people, strange
landscapes. I was still in awe of the clean wide roads with all those
wow! automobiles quietly whizzing by, but had gotten used to
black coffee already. I learnt that most people were polite. If
they had a minute, they had jokes to crack, things to tell - cribs,
fundas ... , like for example

"Who drinks coffee except for the caffeine anyway" ? - a swift thrust,
taking away decaf's right to exist

On the relief effort for the tsunami -
"We like to think we're better at helping out, rather than ..."
thinks for a minute here,
"blowing up stuff !! .. hehehe", laughs at his own phrase .

On daylight savings time-
I don't put my clock back in summer. So when people go,
"Why is your clock ahead one hour ?"
I say, "It's not one hour ahead, it's six months slow !!!"
Guffaw.

And the priceless -
"Happy Tuesday to you !! ", to a bewildered colleague.

That was Tom. He's gone now. I still can't believe it.

nothing

much going on.
Or rather, things
are chuggin along
just fine.

Chap at work
told me that russian
and sanskrit share quite
a few words. He's razn,
so this is Interesting. very.

At the cafeteria -
one woman to another at the
checkout counter, seeing that she
had grabbed _quite_ a few of
them plastic forks ...

"Wow !! You _certainly_ have
quite a lot of mouths to feed !! "

I didn't get it then, but now, one day later, when I tried visuallising it,I fell over laughing. Maybe you will too.

Power hungry. My camera. It's charging charging charging for quite a while.

And now, off I go. Got to take a bus ride.

keep moving

and you'll end up lost

singularity

Science fiction isn't
The Singularity is near

get a life

I thought I had a life
Now I'm back to watching T.V
Gotta get my hands on the Ocean's Eleven soundtrack

the catcher

I'm standing on the over-bridge watching the traffic below.
It's 8 pm, and dark. I'm checking out my new camera. Taking
a couple of snaps of the traffic below. I turn to go back, and
start walking and see a car slow down in the dark section
of the road in front of me . Blinking lights go on on it's roof .
It's a cop , and he's stopping for me.

My first thought is that I'm carrying no id.

The cop gets out of the car, closes the door and walks around
to the front.
One part of my mind picks up on the fact that he took time
to close the car door, and easily too . Not like he's in a hurry.
Or tensed . Definitely not itching to draw. I semi-relax and walk
towards the front of the car.

If I'd my lines rehearsed, it'd be "Officer ? something wrong ? "
As it is, I wear a foolish grin.

















Dark shirt, crew cut. Blue -red lights from his car play on his face.

"You okay ?" , he asks
"Yes !!", I say
"What're you doing here ?"
"Taking snaps"
"Of what ? "
"Of the traffic"
He almost smiles. Looks around. and says
"Well, I thought you were jumping"

That floors me. I affect surprise. I'm tickled pink at the idea.

"Not me !!" I say, grinning
He looks around to the cars waiting behind his parked car.
"Well, get moving" he says, and walks back to his car.

Maybe he was driving by on one of his patrols. Maybe someone
called on their cell-phone and he came by to check.

It felt good.

The system had spoken. And it said that maybe I'm worth something.
That I belong.

late, as usual

Now ..

'.. it passes on and I begin to lose it,'
 he said presently.  'O Mole! the beauty
of it!  The merry bubble and joy, the
thin, clear, happy call of the distant
piping!  Such music I never dreamed of,
and the call in it is stronger even than
the music is sweet!  Row on, Mole, row! 
For the music and the call must be for us.'

The Mole, greatly wondering, obeyed.  'I
hear nothing myself,' he said, 'but the wind
playing in the reeds and rushes and osiers.'



Kenneth Grahame,  The Wind in the Willows

think again !!

evening

rain drenches me
the tears of a thousand
gods a-crying

peek

have they gone ? can I come out now ?

weekendend

the weekend runs out so fast
but monday has a charm of its own
for it's the darling
of random rants

ginger-ale,non-alcoholic, with a sprinking of pepper

The Smiths - Heaven know's I'm miserable now

watching and re-watching 'The Big Lebowski'

life is what happens when you're planning for life, they
say.

nobody has all the answers. so they say.

beware of going too far, or you might end up where
you started

it's difficult when you know there're others watching

as a kid, I had a book which had two stories. The second was
'The Magic Carpet' by Vladislav Krapivin.
It is the story of kids who find a magic carpet and have loads
of pure fun and then grow up out of it all. The carpet stops flying.
Until another kid discovers it. Heartbreak wrapped in a gentle
silk.

The first story was called 'The Pilot for Special Missions' -
( thanks to google. I'd almost forgotten all about the it )

I have the book at home. But it doesn't have the magic when I
read it now.

But.

Vetrogorsk, here I come.
well, not right now, though.

a fine comedy
this grey of uncertainty
but with hope
also a tapestry

wordsnatch

The trouble is, getting into "the zone" is not easy. When you try to
measure it, it looks like it takes an average of 15 minutes to start
working at maximum productivity. Sometimes, if you're tired or
have already done a lot of creative work that day, you just can't
get into the zone and you spend the rest of your work day fiddling
around, reading the web, playing Tetris

full article here

now that is music to my ears. eyes. whatever.

echoes

defense begins with philosphy

dere peeps

more apologies.

On a different note, mebbe I should call myself 'The Apologist' and
probably write a hit single by the same name which will top the pop
charts on U.K Billboard , unless someone's already done so, in which
case, of course, I will release a 'cover' of the number a year later,
sufficiently 'cover'-ing by changing the electric piano into an accoustic
one and getting a female vocalist to sing the originally male lead .

And oh, my group will be called Pepper Creek or CyberThud or
Laser Umbrella

A wiser man than myself once said, "Man is born free, but
everywhere , he is among monkeys".

But I digress.

one more experiment, aimed at all those wonderful other peeps with
their absolutely wonderful sites.

Like the other wise man said ( people tell me he's more of a wise
guy ) , "On the other hand, we have other fingers"

you'll need a password before you can comment.
of course, I'll let you know what yer password is when you comment.

but you can comment incognito. like if you want to say stuff like
"dude !! you're the dude !!" and were too shy to do so, well
you can go ahead now

( though I can't figure out why one earth anyone'd ...,
but well , you can )

wal then, my dere peeps
Thank you !! & Come again !!

apologies

to all those people with those wonderful sites
for me.

You will now need to be a registered user to comment.

Free speech is an ideal. Registration is free too.

ha ! I amaze myself

silent

shimmering rage, cold blue lines of sorrow
irony dark grey
in the evening light

wow

http://unix.dfn.org/WhyAmericansAreLucky.shtml

grafiti

a J. Krishnamurti joke -

You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?" "He picked up a piece of Truth," said the devil. "That is a very bad business for you, then," said his friend. "Oh, not at all," the devil replied, "I am going to let him organize it."

the dude abides

yeah, he does

Shoot the suits

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/19/technology/techinvestor/lamonica/

isn't this what let Google walk all over Yahoo ?

I think the one thing keeping google what it is is that it's not run by suits.
v.v for Yahoo

Beware of suits !!

question

And what is good, Phædrus,
And what is not good...
do we know what these are anymore ?

Jai Hind !!

a read

ZDNet's apology to Google for using google to pull data on Eric Shmidt


doesn't blogger.com fall within the google umbrella ?

they say

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
- Philip K Dick

My cold too, it won't go away
I'll be back when it does

wha...

why is the eternal divine
the hungry child waiting to be fed
the mother of knowledge

what,where,how is the trivia
which time almost always proves otherwise
the sisters of knowledge

when is a spine of history
the story past, and to be

how ? don't ask me, I don't really know ...

oddly

trap it in a word
and watch it lose its meaning
slowly

or

leave it alone
and watch it dance away

or

forget about it
and know it come and sit on your shoulder

On a different note :

"plans that often come to naught
or half a page of scribbled lines "

- Pink Floyd in The Dark Side ofthe Moon

shining

" the thweet light of enlightenment shineth brightetht on a Friday evening before thunthet.
but beware: it shineth not permanently "

Thus says the Book of Odds and Ends (or BOE ath it ith fondly known)

can't

seem to think of anything to say. Seem to have run out of .... wait, was it words ? nope
the speaking apparatus works excellently - it must be the other one - the one that supplies
the words that's not working. btw
'The meaning of liff' is a dictionary by Douglas Adams and can be found online. It consists of words that you always wanted and never had.
The 'Congo' book is a whole lot better than the movie.
William Gibson introduced the word 'cyberspace' and wrote his first few tales of hackers and cyber-punks on a typewriter - he hadn't, in all probability, seen
a computer at that time.
Ta then, off to search for a missing part

stale

a copy of a copy of a copy
an image of an image of an image
a link to a link to a link

farther and farther without distance

"Curiouser and curiouser "
- Alice in Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

tired

wanna go home

floodwaters

Mumbai's got it now.
Daily routines are being put on hold.
A lot of people are lucky.

Hang in there , Mumbai !!!

time

passes and some things are gone forever.
Like Selvam's Sura-omelette .

Sigh !!

people ought to get get together. that way,
someone will remember to tell you the story
you loved and forgot.

umm

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

from "If" by Rudyard Kipling

O.k, fine. I kinda get this. But what about Joy and Sorrow ?
are they imposters too ?
sisters maybe ?

purple/orange

The lunatic is on the grass
The lunatic is on the grass
remembering games and daisy chains and laughs
got to keep the loonies on the path

Brain Damage, The Dark Side of the moon, Pink Floyd


We've drunk the Soma, we've become the Gods

R.V 8 : 48 ( attributed to / paraphrased )


The past seems so good in retrospect, interesting even

booksh

I bought

- Congo by Michael Crichton
- Pattern Recognition by William Gibson

for one buck each. That's right, ladies and germs,
one prancing, antler-shaking ,umm,
buckskin-jacketed buck each and I
wanted to tell someone.

I try on my roomie first.But by the time I get
past the part where I explain that Jurassic
Park is not just a movie but also a book, and that
its author, a rather splendid chap called Michael Crichton
had written other books, one of them being this one
called Congo ..

What ? Gongo ? what is that

I give up. I'd rather teach origami to my pet bamboo.

On a different note, my yahoo radio is playing
Dire Straits - Six blade knife
Waves of cold-warm/blue-green nostalgia break
on me and transport back to a small green room back
in college where the 'The DUHs' ( as our music troupe
named themselves ) used to practise.

evolution

is not for real. If you disagree, come
down here, I'll show you a friend of mine ...

pay attention

The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can't do

Johnny Depp as
Jack Sparrow in
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

trudging

across the expanse took more than a week.
Moving by night and sleeping by day, on
and on until the faint sounds of the river
reached his ears. But he knew the water
would be slightly salty ...

crowds

the less the people around , the more alone one is
the more the people around, the more lonely you are ?

ultima ratio regum

The Last Argument of Kings.

Louis XIV had it stamped onto the barrels of
all cannons forged during his reign


Trust in God, but keep your gunpowder dry (paraphrased)
attributed to Oliver Cromwell

blast

I crawl like a viper
through these suburban streets

Deacon Blues, Steely Dan

Hang in there, London !!

pic

Tsunami girl

Update : Jul 9 :I am told ( see comment, thanks Albert!)
that this girl has been re-united with her family.
So please do nothing until further updates


I got an e-mail forward which said that
this girl turned up in a hospital in
Phuket after the tsunamis. She does not
remember her name or her parents' details.

The e-mail was looking for someone to
identify her, or pass on the word.

I don't know who to contact in case
someone does come forward with the
info.

Please pass this on , if you will,

thank you

ants

we are all ants !!

playing tag

been tagged again.

the movie thing first

1. Ghost in the Shell, Hostage, The Young Master ( a wonderful
Jackie Chan flick ), Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Mafia
(this is actually a game, but is as good as a movie, try it!!)
2. Last movie I bought : Monty Python ...
3. My Five : Mortal Kombat ,Vanishing Point, Last Action Hero,
Airheads,The Wind in the Willows (DD -a Sunday evening narration,
not a movie,strictly speaking )
4. I won't propogate a chain, this thread stops with me


onto the book thing then

1. books I bought : Soul of a new machine, The Hardy Boys, umm,
err, Tower Mystery ?, A collection of Asimov short stories,
Liar's Poker, Snow Crash ( didn't buy this one actually )
2. gifted ? A Clockwork Orange
3. books I read : 3 men in a boat, the dogs of war, Noble House,
His Last Bow (Holmes ), Liar's Poker
4. books that mean something to me
Wind in the Willows : my childhood pal
Louder and Funnier : a token definitive wodehouse, imho
The Sign of Four : a token definitive Holmes, imho
3 men in a boat : made me laugh at a time in life when I
was dangerously bored
Cryptomomicon/Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman ... ( can't decide
b/w the two )

and I forgot to add this ..
Adventures on Captain's Island, Adventures of Dennis, The Magic Carpet ...

*Can you fit the universe in a matchbox ? i doubt it... so
many books, so many authors, like friends scattered over an
infinite landscape of time, how many will I list here ? there's
not enough space in this margin anyway ...*

5. books I plan to read soon : Baba : Autography of a Blue-Eyed
Yogi ,or maybe Collapse/Guns,Germs,Steel or maybe Fight Club

6. like I said,I don't want to propogate a chain, so this thread
stops with me

That's all folks !!

saw this on t.v

"Shark attack is a case of mistaken identity "

I thought sharks didn't take things personally.

This shark bit a guy's leg to ribbons. The doctor chopped it off.
The beaches have been re-opened now, but locals report that the
doctor was still spotted lurking ...

Recipe - Onion Bask

Cut an onion into two ( err... ) halves .
place one half face down in a cup/katori which has
water lining its bottom and place in fridge.
overnight.
next day, take pan/kadai, heat till red hot.
splash the water in cup/katori on pan/kadai.
bask in the wonderful aroma.

Suggested uses :

- appetiser. seriously.
- use as substitute for daily practical joke - do an onion bask before toasting bread. serve bread with jam. answer queries with - what onions ?? you are dreaming things ..., are you sure you're ok ? what did you have yesterday ? etc etc

Disclaimer :
If you are a housewife/restaurant cook/gen. person using this technique for ages,
my humble apologies, I'm new to the kitchen.

I saw today

red alarms and white alarms, screeching and squawking, white eyes blinking

boats on the roads, geese, grass, sunlight glinting off the pond

sunny outside, but it's cool here inside
and quiet too

as a child

I used to haunt our public library for this book, and
made sure I got my hands on it every summer holiday .
Oddly enough, the chapter I like best in the book I did
not even read, probably, the first five summers I got
the book. I only got down to it when I had polished off
all other chapters and made them lose their novelty.
And yes, I did get to it before I'd heard about Pink
Floyd.

without

stillness, I am lost

my attempts

at making a chappathi produced a large biscuit . It wasn't even round.

Mister Angelo ?

yes ... ?

Mr. Salieri sends his regards ...

Morpheus

I see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, that's not far from the truth. Do you believe in fate, Neo ?

tag

If you've been tagged, you answer the three questions like below and tag five others ...
If you're looking for missiles/guns to thulp people, Kraz has some he's not using ...

1. Movies I own ?

Snatch
Lock, Stock and two smoking barrels

2. Last film I bought ? Lock, stock and ...

3. My Five ?

- Fight Club
- The Matrix
- Amelie
- Pirates of the Caribbean: The curse of the Black Pearl
- Snatch

( these would be the colorful ones, of course, there're so many others .... 5 is too less )

4. Five 'it's ( and I'm playing it safe )

Sankar
Hima
Enjay
Sujith
Karfa


"You'll have to forgive me now!!"

He started it ...

looks like

Tolkien borrowed...

...

If there is someone like me
in the world, and I'm at one
end of the spectrum...
Couldn't there be someone
the opposite of me, at the
other end?

A person who can't be hurt
like the rest of us. A kind
of person they were talking
about in those stories.

Elijah, in Unbreakable



Only those who have worn the crown of
suffering can look upon that wondrous
light; and they, when they return, may
not speak of it, or tell the mystery
they know.


Jerome K Jerome, in Three men in a boat

a long way

you've come a long way now. don't you want to go home ?
do you know where home is ? or do you ?

hence

the phrase , "greedy as a pig". Be wary of any man who has his own pig farm.

gurgle gurgle snort snort

nice

*chomp chomp*

sticky bun ???? who on earth would want a sticky bun ...
and *suspiciously* why is it sticky in the first place ?

...

We must cultivate our garden

- Voltaire

Leisure is the mother of Philosophy

- Thomas Hobbes

coming home

is when you start to find yourself.

when you abolutely find yourself, everything else melts away ...
and then comes back again to its earlier position, but
superficially.


you're home now.

Don't wait. start now.

and remember, to come home, you need to be out of home

It's called a changeover

The movie goes on and nobody in the audience has any idea

It's only after you've lost everything, that you're free to do anything

An entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables: slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing car and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy sh!# we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man--no purpose or place. We have no great war. No great depression. Our great war's a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars . . . but we won't. We're slowly learning that fact and we're very, very pissed off.

Tyler's words coming out of my mouth. And, I used to be such a nice guy.

Where is my mind .... ?

the problem with

the camel is that once you give him a bit of the tent,
he tends to think of the whole tent as his own.

This world is a disease. Solitude helps, when taken with green grass.
Sleep too.

Seen somewhere else -
"To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion".
neat, eh ?

another one -
Those who live by the sword, get shot by those who don't.

Robert Ludlum

passed away in March 2001.
Looking at the website, I think I'll miss him more than I thought I would.

...

- x - x - x-

hide in the shadows
and await defeat
or live by the sword
and choose to be free

from ...

The Disintegrators, Megadeth, Cryptic Writings

- x - x - x-

Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!

- Yeats, on his tombstone


- x - x - x-

to summon a djinn

you first need to know its name ...

and he slumbered on

not knowing that Spring was
tickling the winter'd grass
nudging awake the trees and
the Sky had started wearing
her best blue ...

silent cold windy night

on my balcony miles away from home,
Kishore-da,O-Saathi-Re brings me back
in a jiffy
We used to call this selection of
songs 'dard-unlimited', works best
when mixed with alcohol ( or,
maybe not, as I just
realized )
raath hai khwab ki
the nights of wonder
Thank God for them

aside

"He who runs away, lives to fight another day "

- 36th of the ancient chinese strategies

"He who runs away, lives to run away another day"

- Jar Jar Binks, The Phantom Menace

the beginning of winter

first there's "can't-wait-for-it-to-happen"
then comes "it's-happening-but-it's-gonna-end-someday-sob-sniff"
then comes "am-not-getting-into-it-it-never-lasts"

then comes the winter.

The best laid plans o' mice and men gang aft agley. I think I'll go back to watching T.V.

neat stuff

for classical music enthusiasts here

hmm

"Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt ?" — Last words of Socrates
this guy was smart, but don't try that with your credit card debt.

10 Feb 2004

cried the other night,
I can't even say why
- Daysleeper , UP, R.E.M

I never thought I'd see the little monkey again.

On the shore of a blue sea sits a little town. It is untouched by the haste that seems to be the modern world's most popular invention, coconut trees and tile-roof houses adorn its face.
In one such house lives a little boy. The fiery fingers of the sun stroke the land but grimy aged tiles protect the boy playing in the hall beneath. In a shelf by the wall, large dusty bound volumes slumber undisturbed. The boy's father nurses a hope that one day the boy will read them all and discover them for the friends just as he did long ago, but for now, the boy is busy with his toy cars.
Outside, the streets are deceptively quiet . The coconut trees and other tall trees whose names I do not know nod importantly to each other, murmuring quietly in reply to the nudging breeze . Come evenings, kids come out of their homes, play their games and then swiftly disappear. Cable t.v is still a myth and evening play is still The Most Important Thing to Do.
In the morning, Mother, who is In-Charge-of-Goodies and Food , is busy in the kitchen so that Dad-who-knows-everything-and-also-happens-be-the-Strongest can go off to a far-off place for Work, in a Bus.And the little boy walks down to his school and the day gets underway, like the many others.
The shiny green leaves of the million new sprouts sing defiantlythe song of life, for it is Spring, and its hum is almost perceptible. Come sunset the blue sea sends breezes to cool off the people. The little boy sits in the verandah narrating his Oh-So-Important doings at school .
Then one day, the postman's visit portends a Relative's visit. The boy rushes home from school one day to find the Relative has arrived. With a Toy for him. Suddenly, the house glows with excitement as the little boy,enthused turns into a lttle monkeyand grow a tail. He then jumps all around the place driving the parents nuts, and becomes a little bundle of energy the mother despairs to control. The Relative is promptly given an old Gun and made to play Bad guy.
Mother and Father would haul the relative off to see The Beach, which was the town's only place-worth-seeing, apart from a Temple, which is a Must-Go the little monkey can't figure out why. Then one weekend, the family would troop off to the station and the the Relative would get into a train. And the little monkey would in vain try to keep the lump in his throat from reaching his eyes as the train pulls away.The father would hoist the little monkey onto his shoulders so that he could see the Relative wave until the train goes out of sight. They would then come back to an empty and silent house to begin another stretch of the mundane, and the tail would droop steadily and fall off and the little boy would be back again. And Time would roll on.

I now live in a big city away from home, working. People have come and gone, and all my friends are in places other than here doing their stuf while I do mine. Mother and Father are no more invincible beings of light and love. They're frail , afraid of old age, weak,lonely. Phones and the internet help, but there is always a gap left after each call. One gets used to the pushing-shoving face of life, becomes used to loneliness, even in a big city teeming with millions.One learns to ignore stuff for other stuff, and to call it focus. Learns to hunger for money.and fame.Things. And steadily forget the painfully happy memories of childhood.

But things do brighten up when a friend comes a-visiting, like one did this weekend. Then one also learns that making ginger-tea for just oneself is not so interesting as it is when one has cherished company. We talked late into the night. we discussed life and work and money and gyan and girls, and other pet things like kishore-da's music and millionaire-by-thirty schemes. We discussed old times and old people and the gags we'd pulled on them . And when we parted company and I waved goodbye and let myself back into my empty rented flat, for a moment I thought I could see that tail, see it droop ....

it's twelve again

bright lights , grey roads, silent cars, chilly wind, white snow, blue skies ...
warm thoughts, dreams in gold, cold rooms
empty halls, bustling cubicles, ticking clocks, black coffee, junk food ...
quiet lakes, sqawking geese
half-full days, half-empty parking lots, grey concrete, black tar, a lonely bridge, lonely trees ,
a solitary lamp-post and its pool of light ...
tired thoughts jaded hearts fresh eyes

midnight again Cinders, time to go

the universe abounds in beautiful things

laid to waste by those who are supposed to be the guardians...

"Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part."

- Morgan Freeman as 'William Somerset' in "Seven"


( the film's closing line,actually )

A few good things

about this Age ...

• wikipedia
• project gutenberg
• sacred-texts internet archive

a copy of a copy of a copy

is still relevant today.

"The condition of man is already close to satiety and arrogance, and there is danger of destruction of everything in existence."- a Brahmin to Onesicritus, 327 BC, reported in Strabo's Geography

The time is ripe for the birth of a "Second Foundation" ...

the Tao that can be spoken of ....

is not the true Tao :
but it certainly does get spoken about a lot, doesn't it ... ?
mysterious are its ways ....

alice .....

wandering up and down, and trying turn afterturn, but always coming back to the house, do what she would

fade

... as a weakness steals over the land, taking in its fold the gold of the setting sun and turning it liquid, rendering invisible all but the dark of the trees and hills and dulling the sparkle of the water taking the wrinkles out of it, as the silence rings its bells and the leaves murmur and nod off, and the wind rustles as it exits the scene, twilight rears its head, serene and void, and promises to end all that her sister, the dawn, has wrought.and one leaf stirs, and tries to fight the sleep, for how long it knows not,but stay awake it must, for it wants to catch a dream in play ...