Hot Potato

2010-04-02T03:13:00.000-07:00

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

2009-12-16T14:22:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-07-23T08:21:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-06-08T11:56:00.001-07:00

I have nothing.

2009-04-20T11:01:00.001-07:00

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

2008-12-16T07:19:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-09-28T12:09:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-09-20T11:08:00.000-07:00

1971, Bill Withers live, with the sweat stinging in his eyes.

Click here to find out what you're experiencing right now.

2008-08-15T22:48:00.000-07:00

As you'd be able to tell, I didn't write this piece. I was cleaning out my desk and found this old tattered piece of notebook paper. It obviously got wet (perhaps in the laundry if not in the rain)
because the ink has spread, giving the words a blue, highlighted effect. The paper is falling apart and it has the look of a coarse fabric. The handwriting is just beautiful, but now thanks to the folds and tears in the paper, it's almost illegible in some places... I hope I get the transcription right. This kind of thing just has to be preserved, so I'm putting it on the most permanent place I can think of..

One Broken Glass
Splinters across the floor
I walk through that
2 come 2 u
Still don't speak
Whas(sic) on my mind
no action shown what I feel
for u
I'm sorry for myself coz I'm
incurable
a person who cannot explain
herself
even if I need you more than
myself
I'm sorry
It maybe cos of the fear of
losing you
That glass is my heart
splinters are my feelings
Slowly i lose all those
who are close to me
but wid time in healing

Words & Worlds apart may find
you missing .

2008-05-22T02:41:00.000-07:00

This was supposed to be a sonnet... turned into something else...

Letters scattered about the floor
Letters I wrote but was too scared to send
Letters that began but dint have an end
I wrote my mind, but there was always something more

Letters I didn't know what I was writing for
Perhaps one could cause my heart to mend
Or an unwritten rule or law to bend
To undo the damage, reset the score

So there'd never have been a reason to write
These letters behind which I hide
Satisfied to release the words, but never truly
To their destination, honestly and forthright
Thus they linger and haunt me from my bedside
Why can't I cease to write (or love) so unduly?

2008-05-22T02:36:00.000-07:00

Ancient Romance

Bound in leather
Indigo traces unveil a tale
On pale yellow, yet perfectly preserved paper
Neatly arranged, her words were
Keys that floated her secrets
From the depths of her past
To gently break to the surface
And quickly fade again

Closely guarding them, she held herself
She was strong, safe and lonely in her fortress
Watching the river rush by
Searching for driftwood answers
That never quite came within reach

2008-05-22T02:32:00.000-07:00

Raison d'être

To look beyond her sophisticated masque
To part the golden strands of sunlight
To bathe in her cerulean pools
To drown in her soul
To live forever
To search beyond the superficial
To see the real reason clear as day
To truly appreciate a majestic creature
To swear to guard it with your love and your life

2008-05-21T17:49:00.001-07:00

Bonsai Boys and Bonsai Girls: Part 2

They're so pretty, walking in a line
Dreaming just what they're told
Humming our ditty, a tune so fine
Filling out nicely in their mold

Trimmed and clipped
and bound to perfection
Turn against us
at the risk of rejection

They will inherit the world
To continue our legacy
Those that rebel
Will be burned for their heresy

They're bonsai boys
and bonsai girls
Good as gold
Precious as pearls

2008-05-21T17:45:00.000-07:00

Bonsai Boys and Bonsai Girls: Part 1

In a dream somewhere, a church bell rings
They had no right to trim an angels' wings

They decide who we can be and who we cant
They have to know the weeds they plant

They misunderstand their responsibility
Separating us from our identity

You can't see it but it's in plain sight
It's another wasted talent, wasted mind
Swept away with the trash into the night
Afraid to loose the chains that bind

Underestimating and undermining
And there is no silver lining

They drag us down, fit us in their boxes
Crippled and deformed till we're just like them

Scared to be alone, We're happy to conform
Comfortable in the shade, breath in the chloroform

They drag us down, fit us in their boxes
Crippled and deformed till we're just like them

2008-05-21T17:42:00.000-07:00

Another song...

Twist the Knife

There's a smile on your face
But there's no hope in your song
You condemned yourself
To where you don't belong

You don't have to do this
Sell yourself just to exist
I'm running out of time
so I'll just give you the gist

It's not a tragedy until it's over
And it aint over till the fat lady sings
So get up on your toes and do a little twirl
Put on a smile and mean it cuz you're a special girl
Don't you ever let them clip your wings

It's time to part ways
See you in another life
This is more than just a phase
But you know I have to twist the knife

There's no reason to be afraid
Remember what your mother said
You've got to keep your chin up
You've got to look ahead

And I want you to promise me
You'll never forget
A single word I've said

2008-05-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

Lyrics for a new as yet unnamed song...

I'm swimming against the tide
Hoping you feel something for me inside
you know it hurts me when you're gone
I'll be waiting when you come back at dawn

You don't have to be that girl
You don't have to be what they want you to be
You're so much better than you think you are
And I know this because...

I believe in you
and I believed in me
and I believed we could have had something better than this oh yeah
I believed in us/how can I accept this now
Everything else is just second best

You're so beautiful
And it hurts cuz its all for him
But when i see you smile
It makes me feel alright
Nothing matters more to me than you

(but you)
Can't do this to me baby
Don't do this to us baby
You know i got what you need
You know how you make me feel
Everything else is just second best

2008-05-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

Open Invitation

How can I respect what I see before me
You find it more comfortable on the floor

Afraid to get up, lest you fall again
You never did know how to pick your men

Crawling around in the scum till you're
Digging and dredging in the pits -- what for?

It's a pathetic sight, and I extend my charity
To fish you out of your misplaced vanity

Turn life's generosity away at your own risk
The descent into pain will be surprisingly brisk

Yet you'll fall slow enough to remember me
On your way down to the asphalt, tenderly

You were meant for better than this, yet you do it so well
They could never pay the price if you knew what you sell

When you're ready to look for a happy ending
Look me up, you have an invitation pending

2008-05-21T17:37:00.000-07:00

Not Them

You may find me to be
a little different from the others
From the sycophants and monsters
Miscellaneous sons of mothers

I'm not your average run of the mill
restaurant owner, or guy at the bar
Borderline psychopath or over the hill
Charming geyser; I'm not what you are

I see beyond the ordinary
Desperate visages, imp and fairy
I reach my hand out to you full stretch
Something so magnificent shouldn't end such a wretch

But you'll always be mine
Because you could never have me too
I gave you what you needed
But not because you wanted me to

We're not the same
But we fit perfectly together
Teasing and tormenting
Almost there but never

In perfect disharmony
In suitable dischord
One thing's for sure
We'll never be bored

Pulling apart
Twisting and turning
Flesh from bone
Freezing and burning

It's a pleasurable torture
Not without meaning
I'd rather die here
Than there, without feeling

2008-05-21T17:35:00.000-07:00

Beautiful

Never was known
Dans tout le monde
an ever-so-strange
dancing blonde

Lighting up the room
So pretty in pink
Lavender perfume
couldnt mask the stink

Drunk with Vanity
Obsessed with insanity
Dreaming of humanity
Kissing her feet

She searched for answers
In the eyes of dancers
and dark necromancers
"Sadness is sweet"

They used her up until she died
Worshipped her through all the times she lied
But to me she was only ever beautiful when she cried

2007-12-14T10:47:00.000-08:00

moreverseperverse

(punintended)

I found these in an old notebook of mine.. something from first year..
We were in a crush, and someone let it out with a hush
one of us was looking a little bit flushed...

This is a true story though you may not buy it
A certain lady let it out quiet
Twas indeed very nauti
To remind us of her potty
The public requests her to adjust her diet

Firing our imaginations... (everybody's poetic instinkts are arounsed)
There's something about being around Priyanka
That makes you want to turn on the pankha
The eldritch stinking
It gets you thinking
And before you know it
You're a poet!

Then she blames Sriram Kannan...
Recent reports from Aromatology
Indicate I might owe an apology
For as it turns out, the stealthy sinner
Had a distinctly vegetarian last-night's-dinner

Tribute to Silent Grace...
Through the fog getting so dense
With all our semi-rhyming comments
Not to mention the flatulence
One one had the sense to remain on the fence
Shublina, knowing it's Women's Day
Kept ot herself what she had to say
(She was going to blame it on SRK
anyway)

2007-09-04T05:22:00.000-07:00

I must apologise to those who read my poetry posted on this blog. I had actually promised more, but never got around to posting any of it, so here goes.

This was written when I was smitten by a certain dusky beauty who never tried too hard to acknowledge my overtures. I think she liked it.

Allow me a stumble..or two or three...
As I attempt this sorry excuse for poetry...

Could a moment thou allot
For this poor soul besot
And charmed by thy beauty
and smarts, sense of duty,
love of music and devotion
to family, grace in motion.

Thou art nearest to perfection
And many must've sought thy affection
But where they have fallen he hopes to succeed
Not merely out of desire but also dire need

For a dry existence, a life without thee
Would be a most terrible
Calamity

Waiting with patience and fervent passion
For the slightest attention thou might ration

To this starving heart, each moment without thee
Is a most distressing
Tragedy.

2007-09-04T03:52:00.000-07:00

Hello again.

The last few posts seem to imply that I only come here to write when I'm feeling down. And I don't think it's very different this time either. It's been the work. The pressure. The impending deadlines. Now I know what Damocles felt like.

There has been a festering inside me these last couple of months, and I realise now I hold a full-fledged hatred for my cell phone, email account, and computers... among other things. The mere mental recall of certain names and faces makes me sick. The way I see their attitudes, accents and typically crass behaviour has changed from slight amusement to slight irritation to difficult tolerance to utter disgust and at times, even pity. Their ridiculous dialects, perverse affected mutations of english, are exaggerated by my sleepy, tired brain. And in my misery, I sneer at their lack of sophistication, their small closed minds, their enlarged egos. And then I look inwards, and I'm heading there myself.

I hate to say it, but I feel like I am somewhere I don't belong. I don't like the thoughts that enter my mind, or the words that leave my mouth. This place has corrupted me. There are saving graces however, and thank the Lord for that. Speaking of the Lord, I'm supposed to be a devout Catholic, and a little retrospection and maybe a bit more introspection reveals a picture of myself I am very uncomfortable with. In the last two months I have been not gone for mass more than twice. I've been pulled out of my home almost every Sabbath.

Saving graces. Well maybe they're more like little shards of hope. Shards still pure and untouched by the vile disease that lives in this place. A girl, misunderstood. A couple of great friends. At home, there's the new puppy, a bundle of innocent mischief who for no apparent reason, loves me like I was the most important thing to him.

My last dog, Kruger, died recently. I grew up with him. Talked to him, listened to him. I taught him and I learned from him. He was a spaniel with more dignity than most of us could ever hold. I could not be there the moment he died; nor the day he was buried. I had work to do. Projects to attend to.

I am dragged back to those people again. The people who don't treat me like I would treat them. By using me they have made me feel useless, and by absorbing me into their circle, alone.

It's quite something when you actually begin to question whether you can ever be friends with certain people. Whether you can ever work in a team with them again. For someone like me, who believes that the heart's capacity is infinite, who believes that one should always subordinate the self to the greater good, this is spiritually disruptive to say the least. I don't think I hate anyone. I don't think I can. And yet, these questions. And thoughts.

Maybe it's the context that can turn a person into a monster. There are so many kinds of good people - delightful, helpful, empathetic, enthusiastic, deep, generous... There probably aren't even enough words in the language to finish the list, though here I must say that intelligence doesn't count in this particular point. And yet, I have seen many instances where the same wonderful people commit the most despicable acts, spew the most malicious venom, or simply fall below your expectations. And all this can be triggered by the slightest change in their environment.

It feels terrible when those whom you bring close to you (or let close to you) disappoint you. But it's not until they really hurt you, inadvertently or not, that you begin to wonder how you got into this situation in the first place.

I am a team player, and I thrive on team spirit. Chemistry. Flexibility. The strong supporting the weak, and receiving it in turn when the new context decides the new weak and the new strong. But I now I doubt this concept exists anywhere anymore. Teams are built by hire and fire. The powerful discard the "useless", and exploiting the able. Not many can be friends for long. But I'll be damned if this turns into an industrial relations essay, so let me stop here.

2007-06-10T03:09:00.000-07:00

ProjectW.org is no more ... The mods seem to have reassembled at WaresWS.com
so I've joined there, hoping it will be a worthy successor.

2007-05-25T00:05:00.001-07:00

"...I used to take all that spare time for granted. Now, finding time for the "ol' guitar" is actually a bit more complicated than you might think. The problem of lack of time at my disposal has been exacerbated after my recent purchase of a (beautiful) Fender Strat. I now have four favourite guitars and it's really hard to give them each the attention they deserve. I can almost hear them crying out to me. Wah Wah.. *sniff* It brings a tear to my eye. "

The above is an excerpt from a rather long facebook post that was getting too long to be referred to as merely "rather long". I didn't have the heart to delete it so I've reopened my blog for the moment. Some credit for this return from the non blogging wilderness may also be given to lazydeeps, who gave me some encouragement the other day.

My sense of humour (or maybe just weirdness) amazes me with it's ability to pop up in the most unexpected, and so often inappropriate places. Here I am writing about how I miss my college and how I took everything for granted when I was there, and all of a sudden I drift into how I hear my guitars crying out to me. I can actually appreciate the wah wah joke because it still feels like it came from somebody else. A little voice in my head. Prompting me with weird words. Werds, if you will.

It's almost as if whenever I want to express myself, a stupid pun pains to implant itself somewhere in the body of my expression. Now if any of you who know me are reading this, you may or may not know what I'm talking about... but even if you do, here's a shocker: I don't even say half of those werds aloud, and don't put even a tenth of it in writing.

Some might feel that's a cardinal sin (stifling creativity like that!!) but then there are those who (affectionately, I hope) tell me that my humour is the absolute pits. It's such a gamble, though ... putting yourself out there. I might do that when I'm at home and in less consequential company, but say there's a girl around whom I'd like to impress. What have I got? Biceps? The Batmobile? Barry White's voice? No. But I do have a weird sense of humour and guitar-playing fingers.

It was this exact combination that led to some pleasurable moments with my last 'girlfriend' -- she thought I had the best hands ever and it was a really sad joke (Kaustubh was kneeling during dumb charades and I said he was trying to be Neil) that first got her attention. It's amazing how something as stupid as that could trigger something as amazing as that which followed.

But then again, the same sense of humour, and maybe the not-quite-so-similar slaphappy abandon caused me to bomb big time a few days ago. I knew it was going to flop when I wrote that post but for some strange reason I didn't care at all that it could possibly completely ruin my rather friendly relationship with a very hot, sophisticated young woman by the name of Kriti Pant. Think Freudian Spoonerism.

Please blame the following recount on the obvious relapse of insouciance.

Her name is Kriti Pant. Very attractive. Very spoken for. A little scary. We barely communicate, but when we do, it's primarily by text messages and wall posts, and mostly in a quaint, affected, sort of English. Don't ask me how that came about. Now I don't know how she managed it, but she wished me for my birthday. I remember this because I couldn't sleep that night, and out of the blue, a most unexpected message arrives:
"Gah! Okay... so I'm a couple of hours late. Nevertheless, belated Happy Birthday! Here's to a good year ahead, and good stuff in general"

It was about 6 hours late, but still, how she knew when it was is beyond me -- We shared no orkut or facebook network at the time. I messaged back, incredulous. How did she know it was my birthday.... and what was she doing up at 6 in the morning? The instant reply:
"Strange creatures live in my head... :) that should answer both questions!"

I next came in contact with her on facebook. Thus began the debacle.

K: "How goes it, Sir?"

M: "It has been a while, hasn't it? Well I'm working in Gurgaon for Imperial Chemical Industries (the Dulux guys) for my summer training. Where are you these days? Done with your exams?"

K: "That I am...done with my exams, done with college, and am now embarking on my ominous sounding 'gap year'. Will you be making fascinating chemical concoctions in Gurgaon ???"

Now she had just changed her status to 'the proud voyeur of two spankin new kittens' (or something to that effect), and I knew she had a cat...

M: "Ah yes, the Gap Year. Went through one of those myself.. spent it catting. You're doing something similar too I see, with the kitten-spawning and all. Please convey my congratulations to Kitty Pant. Also, if you're up for a movie or dinner sometime, maybe I could satisfy your curiosity about imperial chemistry."

...

...

Needless to say, I haven't yet received a reply. I wonder if she'll get in touch with me again.
I wonder why I so publicly asked her out. I guess I was just so bored. Plus, I needed a date. I had been invited to tag along with my boss to Rohit Bal's birthday party. And that's another story altogether. For another day perhaps.

By the way, yes, I may have sprinkled some "bad" grammar here and there, but I don't care. Plus, there's that disclaimer in my first post.

2006-11-30T10:52:00.000-08:00

It's really been a while and there's a lot that's happened since my last post. I'll try to cover the general bits as briefly as possible.

Picking up where I left off, we cleared the first round of screening for GE, but not the penultimate. We did have a few flaws to our approach, especially in that we assumed the potable water project was not going to be a major consideration for GE in the long run, so us not making it to the final presentation for the CEO wasn't more than we could handle.

However, some real ultragarb (ultra garbage) made it to the last six. IIM Bangalore was tedious, and what MDI presented would not have made it to a science fiction fare on grounds on incredibility. MDI pretty much lied their way through their presentations, and the judges apparently missed the glaring errors in their spreadsheet. I mean come on, they expected to sell 15,000 litres of water a day to 170 rural households!! The ridiculosity didn't end there: They decided that 280 sq m would be sufficient surface area for their solar still to generate 15,000 litres a day!! And, their cost estimation came out to be around one tenth of what it should have been. They won second place for pushing this tripe.

So after GE, came the IIFT online events. It was pretty good fun, even though I had to take some quizzes alone. The team Bob reached the finals of the crossword puzzle (top 13 teams out of 185) but our brilliant performance in the final round was foiled by crappy browser-related issues.

So, yeah.. nice extra-currics.. GE.. IIFT.. and all of a sudden, the exams are upon us!! Royally screwed up my mid-terms. Kinda sad, considering my pretty decent performance last term... but I guess I'll have to pull my socks up for the rest of the year.

Post exams, the pressure was off, and we were just getting used to the good life, but now JK Sharma has scheduled our last midterm (which was postponed indefinitely last week) to a definite Tuesday next week. Let's see how that goes.

2006-11-10T12:31:00.000-08:00

i managed to make it in time for breakfast today! two omelettes and buttered toast. throw in some extras (tea & tomatoes) and you get just about the best meal served at the mess. dinner was decent too: chinese chicken and fried rice. maybe the messcom still has hope...

the last week or so has been really busy, primarily due to the GE Day Challenge we decided to undertake. i'm in a team of 6.. enigmatically named "the sixth element".. and we've gone nights without sleep trying to come up with a complete model for potable water solutions in a rural area. our team made a video conferenced presentation detailing our business plan and (rather ingenious) technical solution, and we're among some 30 teams from across indian b-schools and tech-schools shortlisted for next sunday's presentation in delhi. we redid the ppt and sent it to them, so we got a break from work yesterday.

with nothing to do other than attend the two classes, today has been relatively relaxed and maybe even a tad lethargic... i spent at least 3 hours on the guitar today. i practiced brubeck's take five (w/ coltrane), some alice in chains, abbey road and floyd.

i've really been tripping on the beatles' abbey road lately. the progressions are so out of this world, and they have that slightly insane edge that i love to hear in a song. feels like you're hanging with the cool dads of the 70s.

and to think i knew i loved this album when i was just a toddler. i instantly knew what was good for me back then. can't say the same for myself right now. maybe i should just go get myself those dire straits, harry belafonte and reo speedwagon songs that i used to love as a kid.

i don't even know whether i like to work or whether i'd rather be free to do my own thing. i had a horrible thought today. what if i've reached the point where if i don't have work to do, i don't enjoy the day!! work is probably a good thing because it doesn't allow me time to overthink everything and overanalyse myself into one of those downward spirals i so often find myself trapped in.

hmm i think i'm nearing that state right now, so allow me to take the next exit. humour.

the sixth element. that's what we're called. was that just an arbid name? au contraire! our man kohli (who has a few years of advertising experience under his belt) came up with this little gem.

"Hindu mythology gives us the 5 elements: Jal (water), Vayu (wind), Agni (fire), Prithvi (earth), and Dhoop (heat). We are the combination of these 5 elements, the 6th element: Potable Water!"

if you think that was funny, one of our team members thought potable water was water you got in a pot!

next time: a new classic series of jokes

2006-10-30T11:48:00.000-08:00

More stuff from that boring day...

Bored to Stone

I can groan
And I can moan
But I can't help being Bored to Stone

Still, I'm tired of sleeping
Tired of waiting
Through this calm before the storm

But cometh the tempest
I'll be begging its abating
And even more for chloroform

Note: That tempest is on its way...

2006-10-27T12:36:00.001-07:00

I've been so bored today that I've actually written about 2 or 3 poems! Mostly about being bored itself. Being bored to stone, so bored that you conduct stupid experiments like staring into the tubelight until you start seeing things... So here is a poem. By me. Today.

***

Tubelight

I heard a funny thing last night
Concerning a certain overheard tubelight:

If you stare at this tubelight long enough,
They say you will see some amazing stuff.

It's apparently a portal to some etherworld,
Where what's crooked is straight and what's straight is curled.

So lying motionless,
Staring straight through my ceiling,
I began my experiment in ascension...
Numb and emotionless,
Suddenly devoid of all feeling,
I sensed the tug of another dimension...

Quite forgotten was that tube of gas,
Hovering over my body in J37;
As before me appeared a mighty fine lass,
And I wondered, "Is this heaven?".

She was splendid and glorious
In her sheer silk robe,
And as she leant in to whisper
Her lip brushed my earlobe.

Though soft at first,
Her voice was sonorous -
Pleasing like a tinkling bell.
But the volume soon burst
From liberal to generous -
And I awoke to the alarm from hell.

***

Yes. I'm sorry. I had to end it there. It was spinning out of control. The good ol' wake-up-just-in-time-from-wet-dream manoeuvre. It was for your own goood. More poems later. And of course, they will be better than this one... Erm.. They should be, anyway...

2006-10-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

Sitting at home right now... Thinking it's time for a new entry.
Yeah, that's right.. I'm home on a weekday! Whoohoo! Reason: I got placed a couple of days ago. A juicy marketing project awaits me at the end of my first year. Stipend aint bad either. I can finally relax now. Right?

Well, at the moment, I'm taking some stick for this blog from Her Highness, the Empress of Icecream.

Some examples of her kindness:
"dude, were you writing to Sir Thomas Cowley Jr of Someweirdshire at Whateversex, UK?"
"You sound like a character out of one of Shakespeare's lousy plays"

Admittedly, it may behoove me to contemplate contemporarising my syntax...

And then there was more:
"take some inspiration from me"
"byeeeeeeeeeeeee"

Hehe. Girls and their "byeeee.."s. I've always wondered what the extended "ee" means. Or what significance the degree of entension of the "ee" indicates. Can somebody please fill me in?

Between this entry and the last, we finished off our exams (didn't do as well as I would have liked) and had our institute's fest. Totally pigged out on the food. Chicken tikkas were all I ate for those 3 days.

N yeah...
We formed a band, practiced and put on a show in barely 2 days! It would have been great if it wasnt for the sound guy. Totally screwed up our sound! The speakers were terrible and the balance of the 2 guitars was all off. During a particularly bad moment I turned to look at him, wondering how the hell the sound had actually gotten worse, and he wasn't there!! He'd left for coffee!! I felt like beating that sound guy's head into the console. But somehow, we got a good response after the show... which makes it all better. Folks are too nice sometimes :)

Not that this was my primary motivating factor for doing the show, but I thought that I'd get a bit more attention from the girls after this. I know the sound fool ruined it.. but still...
Anyway, I was wrong. Girls don't seem to care at all! I mean, there was the odd "you guys were awesome", but then it kinda ended there. Am I unapproachable or just uninteresting?

It's quite amazing... When I first started the course, it seemed like I was talking to all the hottest girls on campus. Now, they don't even notice me. Barely a "hi". They seem to have moved on to other guys. I really have to sit down one day and analyse what went wrong there.
Of course now that I've gotten placed I don't feel the pinch of being single that bad. It's kinda like the ERG Theory at work here. If I don't get my higher order need fulfilled, a lower order need (like getting placed) can ease the burden in the short run.

Yeah, a girl is a higher order need for me. Actually.. "a girl" wouldn't be as high as "the girl", yknow? But then again, that's probably some way off. Needs time. Especially for confirmation. Everytime I think I'm getting close, something stupid and unexpected comes in the way and ruins it. Wonder how long I have to wait before I get my next break.

2006-09-29T02:05:00.000-07:00

It's been a rough couple of weeks. Academically speaking , mostly...

It's strange.. nothing much went right for me. Normally things are pretty evenly balanced out. If there's something that's ruining my day, pretty soon there's something that comes along and makes it all okay. Actually there was this one moment of utter bliss, but it didn't last. I'll talk about that later on, but overall pretty dismal times for me.

Like a couple of weekends ago... I was home, as usual. I'd had a feeling that we'd have a marketing quiz on Monday so I took my book with me. On Sunday I get to know we have three quizzes on Monday! I had no other books ... So I thought: No point worrying. Let me study for Marketing, since that's all I can do right now. Come Monday. Quiz time. Turns out Marketing is cancelled and we have the other 2 instead. Screwed.

There was lots of stuff like this. The APO left the last 7 quizzes for the 2 days before our exams! And on top of that I had 3 presentations on those dates too! So 7 quizzes and 3 presentations in 2 days. And immediately following that: our first end-term exam.

Basically really hectic. A lot of work. Very little sleep. And through all of this crap, the Indian cricket team had to suffer at the Duckworth Lewis FucCup (a.k.a the DLF Cup). So despite the return of India to live cricket after so damn long, there was eventually little cheer for 'the blue billion'. Hmm... I wonder if Pepsi realises it sounds like something Capt. Haddock would say.

I have hardly been able to make time to play the acoustic guitar in my room. My electric guitar is at home... so far away. I so want my Marshall 30 over here.

And life sucks in general. People call me Mathew!! Why!? My name is not Mathew. I don't look like Mathew. I don't behave like him. I don't get it. People don't make any sense sometimes.

But like I said... There was this one moment of brilliance. It faded away as quickly and as unexpectedly as it came, but it was there. An email. I don't remember the last time I was so floored by a mere piece of writing. I think the reason it affected me so much was because it was actually an acknowledgement that I succeeded (at least in part) in doing what I was trying to do. That I made an impact on somebody. Somebody actually appreciates what I do.
I know, I know.. that's vague... my apologies to anyone reading this who feels left out.

So why did it fade so quickly? Why do I feel like I'm back to square one? Maybe the reason I feel empty when I read it again is that I'm not so sure how this is going to influence the ultimate outcome. I don't know what the future holds, and I don't know what certain people's decisions might be. And right now, it looks like it might be a little gloomy. And that's sad... because this has promise. It doesn't have to turn out gloomy. Why do we fight promise? People, including me, don't make much sense sometimes.

2006-09-12T14:06:00.000-07:00

The last 48 hours have been quite an experience for me.
Finally, something I can write about in those
ridiculously vague forms they make us fill in before
applying for placements!! Seriously, how many of that
stuff do they really read? But back to the experience. Something I'm almost proud of.
The project we submitted this afternoon (approximately 28
hours post the official deadline) was supposed to be done by our group of 10 in 2 months.
This grand 2 month project hit every conceivable obstacle, sending us back to square one so many times that we stopped caring. Before we knew it, the mid-terms were soon well behind us, and one and a half months on we still had nothing. About a week or two ago, I got a call from our group co-ordinator. We had managed a contact in a local chemicals company. I volunteered to join the 2 guys who were going to visit the place to initiate talks with the company. Address in hand, we were all charged up and ready to embark upon the journey that would be our OB project. Alas, after 3 hours of all the walking, autos, buses and jugaads or basattis or whatever you want to call them, we couldn't even find the damn place. Eventually, by some kind of miracle, we stumbled upon it.

You'd never know what it was from the outside. Not a single sign on view. We had been asking around the area for a while before a paanwalla pointed it out to us: The large nameless white building (well, it was probably white at some point anyway). Gigantic rusted boilers were casually lying about its periphery like lazy cows. For a 50 crore turnover company's primary plant this was one unsightly ramshackled joint.

We went in, had a chat with the very co-operative owner: "Dont worry! You give us whatever you want and we'll sign it for you". He was even willing to fill in the employee surveys himself!

Anyway, we got a tour of the plant, courtesy the production manager. I'd never really been in a chemicals plant before and, to use a Sidhuism, was as confused as a child in a topless bar. Walking amongst all those boilers, gauges and centrifuges, I got a idea of what being in the Industrial Zone of the Crystal Maze must have felt like. There was acid dripping all over the
place.

The plant appeared to be odor-coded. We could make out we were in a different area of the plant when the general smell of the air changed. I couldn't identify most of them but I definitely detected an ammonia signature somewhere.

I couldn't even breathe in the dryer room. The floor, the walls, everything in there was covered with this fine white powder. It burns your nasal passages. Somehow the other two guys managed to hang in there for the couple of minutes it took the manager to explain what exactly went on in the Dryer. One of them came out completely nauseous.

The way back was considerably quicker.

The project saw little action the following week. What with all the placements, quizzes, and the various committee work there was no time to devote to the OB project. Just a last week a team of four managed to go across and interview a few employees and conduct a survey that I designed with the help of a book and my friend Neha. By the time the results of the interview were tabulated, put on excel and mailed to me, it was already Sunday morning... Not a happy situation considering that the deadline for submission was 5pm Sunday!!

Now here's where my contribution really kicks in. I'm home for the weekend, as is everybody in our group. I get the data. After about 3 or 4 hours of work I'm able to put it in a presentable format. I've calculated the various indices we had in mind when we designed the questionnaire itself, and then added a few comments. I mail it to the group, hoping that Das, the guy who was responsible for compiling the document and submitting it will finish the job.

When I arrived on campus Monday morning, I receive the news that we're the only group on campus which hasn't submitted its project report. We know our prof PP is gonna kill us for this. So we beg and plead for more time. Actually we did have a few legitimate reasons, so he acquiesced. He gave us 24 hours.

How were we going to do this in 24 hours?
First things first. Neha, Sankalp and I decide to take a trip to Das's room. To see what the problem was. Das had barely started explaining when Neha decided she couldn't take it any more. She proceeded to slam him in such explosive style that she will be known and feared as
Jhansi ki Rani for a while now. Good thing she got it out of her system. Das took his frustration out too. It was quite therapeutic for the group ultimately. We decided that we were going to do this on our own. Just the 4 of us.

Just to give you an idea of how cohesive our group was, here's a funny little incident. Jasmeet and Kohli meet up in the loo. Kohli laments "Arrey yaar, OB mein lag gayi. We haven't even submitted our project!". Jasmeet was so relieved there was another group which hadn't submitted its report. That is, until he found out Kohli was in the same group as he was!!
Our group members don't even know each other!! It obviously wasn't G10 any more. It was more like G4.

So we fixed up a time, duly started an hour late, and by about 3 in the morning, we managed around 30 pages of material. I did the analysis and recommmendations. I missed dinner to work but the guys were kind enough to buy me a juice and a sandwich. The project was completed this morning, and slid under PP's office door just before our eco quiz today. Quite an accomplishment. Got our work done "on time", got to know a couple of very nice people, and actually took some initiative for once!

I don't care how many marks we get on this now. The experience itself was satisfying enough. Finally, something I can put on my CV!
also finally, it's actually ended!! I need to sleep.

Gnight all.
ZZzzz...

2006-09-01T11:39:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a day to fall sick!!
My freshers' party is on full blast outside, and I can't join in. Totally sucks. I've had pretty high fever right through the day - both the morning classes, and then the 3 1/2 hours we were held captive by our placement committee in one of the rooms in the acad block. Well, maybe that's a little harsh on them.
A couple of companies were supposed to arrive here at about 230pm, but they just took their own sweet time. The entire batch had to wait for these guys, first to get here, and then for them to come out with their shortlists for the GDs. I wasn't the only one who had fallen ill. There's a bit of the flu going around campus.
It's amazing how these companies think they can arrive so unprepared and so late without so much as an apology. It creates a pretty poor impression of their recruitment departments. The two that came today arrived on campus first, and only then did they start going through the CVs. What prevented them from going through them back at their office? It's not like we don't have soft copies. HLL was just the opposite - a very professional approach. They released their shortlist well before they came on campus.

Hmm.. the party is going full throttle. The guys must be having fun. I asked Math-U to get me some chicken tikkas... I wonder where he is.

Boring, eh?

Ok then, how about an interesting little story... This was a while back, when there was too much work to blog about it.
I was sitting right here at my computer that day, and since it was sooo hot and humid, I had taken my shirt off. Now our hostel blocks are pretty cool in the sense that there aren't any restrictions on girls in the guys' blcok and vice versa. Quite a change from my graduation at St. Stephen's. There were, in fact, a couple of girls in the room opposite mine, and they happened to be listening to my J-Block counterstrike song. That, by the way, was written by MathU and me in about ten minutes! So when they were leaving, one of them (let's called her re3) stopped by to presumably compliment me on my musical work. I'm sitting there at my desk, half naked... Her precise words: "Hey! Nice things!!"
Needless to say, the guys took the poor thing's trip for the rest of the week.

Ah great!! Karth is here with my chicken tikkas!! Catch you guys some other time.

2006-08-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

sorry for the late entry, guys. the last few days, work has had me snowed under.

now my good friend anandable enquired about the use of the name hot potato.
to tell you the truth, there wasn't much behind this particular name. i thought it sounded like a good band name and decided my next band was going to be named thus. i've actually written a song or two under that particular name, and you'll find them at this location.

it holds some sort of current relevance at the moment as well... girls are dropping me like a hot potato... one day they're talking to me, the next day it's like we never met!

i don't know if i want to get into the 'girls' topic just yet, so let me tell you about some other good stuff instead...
i came across this fantastic page the other day.. download links to loads of music videos! lots of good stuff there, and i finally found a place to use my brilliant bandwidth... i was downloading those videos at absolutely obscene rates!!

another link here. wes borland, former guitarist of limp bizkit, has started his own band where he's not just the guitarist, but also the lead vocalist!! he's doing an unexpectedly good job of it. former a perfect circle drummer josh freese and a guy from NIN have joined him to form black light burns. you have to check out lie. what an amazing song! it's on the site.. available for download. and no, i'm not his PR agent.. but i am a fan.

2006-08-21T07:41:00.000-07:00

hello world

after giving this no thought whatsoever i have decided to start my own blog. readers will be pleased to find a chap who pledges to post the most spontaneous, unedited content he can come up with. i'm an interesting guy, as you'll come to know in the coming days...

for now, just a quick look at what i'm about.
today, like many other days, i'm thinking guitars.
[non-guitarists: don't stop reading yet, you might just learn something ;)]

i have a nice black fender (w/cutaway) in a cozy PROline case sitting next to me in my room. new d'addario strings and all.
yesterday i happened to be in the vicinity of a not-so-local guitar shop, and i decided to stop by to check out the new fender highway one strat. plugged one of those slick beauties into a marshall 30dfx, set a warm overdriven tone, flicked the selector to the bridge pup and coaxed some hendrix out of her. needless to say, she was quite a delight to play. the price was a little out of my range for an impulse buy, but maybe i'll have one of my own one day.

i hope people aren' t too annoyed by the intentional avoidance of upper case letters so far. i can't offer any explanation for that except for my mood. i feel like it.

back to guitars then.

i have a marshall 30dfx of my own back home. i use a tansen th76, which is a copy of a yamaha pacifica (which itself is a strat copy). a very versatile thing, great artificial harmonics, and a lovely, low action.

i also have a blue jackson dinky. it's a dk2S, so that means i have that cool gadget they call a sustainiac. it's quite a lot of fun, especially with the whammy bar, but i'm always scared i'll break a string and then i'll have to replace the whole set. somehow the whole floyd-rose mechanism intimidates me a bit.

a friend recently referred to one of my guitars as the 'love of my life'. i don't know how true that is, especially since i'm experiencing a slump in that particular aspect of my life. yes, the lurve dimension...

*

oh, how unfortunate! it's time for dinner. the mess timings here at my institute are such that latecomers get penalised with bad food and no spoons. thus, it would be prudent for me to stop now.
projects and presentations aplenty await me, but i've rather enjoyed this blog's first post, and i promise to come back to add more soon.