I cut a piece out of me
And set it down by the street
I watch the passers-by

Walking in a daze
There's a gaping hole in me
The city drifts by

Going through the motions
Devoid of all emotion
Too tired to try

I'm in the wastelands
It wears me down
My throat is dry

Only so far I can go
I left my soul behind
I can't remember why

Pick me up
Or leave me be
Just don't sell me a lie

Thoughts and Unsolicited Advice

Handling yourself & handling others around you.. These are just a few thoughts that I wanted to write about & never did. I might be able to develop on these a bit more later.

If you act out of fear, the results are invariably unfavourable.
If you act because you know it's right, the results are invariably favourable.
The same act committed (or avoided) in fear (of the consequences or whatnot) would have generally worse results than if it were committed (or avoided) in the confidence of knowing in your heart of hearts that your action was right.
The mindset affects how you follow through with your decision.

Anything that is based on logic/rationality can be beaten by logic/rationality
A thing founded in irrationality or emotion operates beyond the realms of logic and hence cannot be changed or 'defeated' by logic or rationality. Decisions based on attributes and absolute statements are most vulnerable to cognitive dissonance. Faith cannot be undone by science. Love cannot be undone by bigger boobs or biceps.

We nurture what we love in each other. Spending years of your life with each other causes to grow what was loved in you by each other. When you spend years apart, those parts of you which missed that nurture and care may wither or fade away into a memory. You wont be the same person. There's a danger that perhaps you wont be able to love each other because what you loved has faded away. But you'll always be part of each other, in some way or the other, and maybe even beyond just the memories.

Don't cast moral judgement on others, or worse, yourself. Be true to yourself in your actions, and you will never regret it. Objectively, there isn't a right or wrong. There is what is.
To a person, what's right is what he or she perceives is right. If I think going on a night out and getting sloshed is wrong, and I go out and do it once, it's the wrong thing to do. If I do it because I think it's what I like to do to relax, it's the right thing to do.

Know yourself. It's the most important thing you'll ever learn. Be aware of yourself and how you're changing.
If you don't know what to do, ask: What do I feel I should do?
Find out what you really feel. Deep down inside. Pure emotion, no conscious rational thought.

Totality - Part I

It was Meg, Uncle Kenny, Uncle Romesh and me. We set out on Monday morning, flying out to Bagdogra, with nothing planned except that somewhere in Jalpaiguri, we were going to wake up nice & early on Wednesday morning to catch one of the longest eclipses India has experienced in over a century.

So there we were, with our luggage n all, wondering what the heck we were going to do as the tourism desk told us that the road to Darjeeling had been shut down because of agitations for Gorkhaland, and that there was no guarantee that the one to Gangtok would be open tomorrow for us to get back.

We considered the helicopter service, but at 2000 bucks a head, our street smarts and linear programming solving skills were extraordinarily enhanced. It was decided that a WB registration vehicle would take us up to the SNT station about 30 minutes down the road, and a nice AC cab, equipped with an SK number plate would take us up 6100 ft above sea level to the Sikkim capital. A Sikkim registered taxi was more likely to be granted passage during a bund, and even if we did have problems, well, there was always the helicopter, wasn't there?

So up we went, into the Shivaliks. We were in Gangtok by about 930, and our hotel, which we'd booked at the airport, was waiting for us. It was the off season, and we were probably the only guests there.

The hotel, named Fairview presumably because of all those fluffy clouds you can see from your window obscuring the highest peak undisputedly in India - Kanchenjunga, without which it could easily be called Spectacularview, was about as convoluted and poorly constructed as this sentence! Narrow corridors of opaque orange wall would suddenly open out into strangely placed lobby-like spaces where drunkenly diagonal paths led you into rooms of unequal size and dimensions. We'd eaten veg momos on the way up, at Rangpo, I think, so we weren't very hungry. I took a shower, watched the Tonight Show with Meg.. well, with Conan O'Brien.. and yeah, slept.

I have nothing.

It seems I only write when I'm really down. Anyway, time to share some of the misery with my invisible audience. This one is a little improv... sung to a simple G F C G with a few hammer-ons in the chords for flavour..

It's not the best mood
That you'll ever find me in
I'm not all that pretty
When I'm as stubborn as I'm being

It's another one of those days
And maybe just a little worse
No matter what I knock back
Cant get rid of this thirst

Poured it out on you
You let me fill you to the top
You're giving me everything
And now you're everything I've got

This has been the worst day I've had in a long time.

Went to work early only to find I was the only one there.

Almost everyone was out at the planning meet and I was stuck at office.

I had to have my lunch alone at Subway. Paid 135 bucks. The sandwich sucked.

Did nothing for most of the day, but towards the end all the work started pouring in.

I ended up staying there till 730pm. With barely anyone else left to give me company or moral support.

Asked a couple of friends if they wanted to hang out. No luck.

Decided to install a new antivirus. Bad decision. The laptop I'm typing this post from is severely disabled right now. There's a "system shutdown" countdown window permanently open on the right side of the screen, and that countdown itself has hung.
Half the drivers don't seem to be working.

I decided I was going to get back home and play the guitar for a few hours. There were some nice songs with cool acoustic chords that I wanted to learn.

So I get home and change out of my work clothes. Open the guitar case. It's broken.
The headstock has snapped. I don't know how it happened. Could have been the cleaning woman.. could have been one of the guys.. I don't know why this is all happening today. Yesterday was perfect.

So now I'm here writing this blog. I put out an SOS on my gtalk status and facebook. No responses. No comments. I found Tatiana online. No reply though. J'ai besoin de quelqu'un... but there isn't anyone there today.

It's a shitty day. My guitar is broken and I'm alone.

People have interesting status messages on their Google Talk ids...

'if you don't compose, you decompose'
I like this one.. it's from a fellow musician, though I must add, he's quite a bit more accomplished than I am.

'sleep is/the bleak that/torques/keel me'
From a poet. She explained it: "something about the nature of sleep that makes me revolve around this point of stress
the point where I know I kind of give in"

Now this one, I really like:
'indifference is self preservation'
I barely know the girl, so I didn't ask why she put this up, but this sentiment is so familiar to me.

It reminded me of a stunning woman I know, who by her own admission, constructed her wall of nonchalance to 'preserve my sanity'

My current status message is from a beautiful (yet highly disturbing) movie called Irreversible... 'Le temps detruit tout'
The subtitle went 'Time ruins everything'. (Literally, en anglais, that would be 'Time destroys everything')

I put that up because I'm currently reeling from the sudden realisation that everything has changed... and it happened so quietly that I didn't even realise it...
I'd love to write more about it, but to explain that would require a new post, I think.