Every day is a swing between highs and lows, and in the last two months that I've experienced them, they've never been periodic. Setting off the work, the mood depends on the weather: cloudy is good, buoyant, rain is more than welcome, but a clear, blue sky and a blazing fireball in the empyrean is a dampener on my spirits, if not on anyone else's. How will I work if I'm sweating all the time? Hmm.
The traffic in my erstwhile small city has grown to draconean proportions. Some argue that it's a good sign, a sign of the city turning into a metropolis. I don't like it. It not only places more minutes, more hours between work and home, home and work, between the factories and the beach, between the railway stations and the travel-shops, but it turns nice auto-drivers into pissed-off tyrants whom you simply don't want to run into.
It takes nothing to precipitate all this but the clock striking 6. Areas and wards transform from familiar crenelations of microscopic economies, communities of traders, sweatshop toilers, and flower-braiders to hotbeds of rage, of exodus and maddened intra-urban migration... Suddenly, friends want to leave, fathers want to be left alone, mothers want to vent, and sisters want only to know what the hell's going on.
If you're in Chennai and traveling by auto in the evenings, I suggest you carry a book, or a Kindle, or a smartphone with which to kill time. It's a time-warp, absolute and unrelenting chronostasis, with a profanity-drenched metronome ticking away like a time-bomb in the seat in front of yours. Of course, there are also people pushing, people shoving their way through the maze of vehicles. For every mile, I suppose it's 10 points, and for every deceptively shallow pothole surmounted, 50.
In this crazy, demented rush, the only place anyone wants to be is on the other side of the road, the Place Where There Is Space, a vacuum on the far side that sucks the journeymen and journeywomen of Chennai into a few seconds of a non-Chennai space. When I ride in an auto on such days, I just don't mind waiting, for everyone to pass by. I don't want to make enemies of my fellows. At the same time, I never might know them better than their mumbled gratitude when I wave them ahead.
The driver gets pissed off, though. Starts to charge more, calls me "soft", and that I don't have what it takes to live and survive in the city. I tell him I can live and survive in the city alright, it's just the city that's not the city anymore. Sometimes, the driver laughs; most times, it's a frown. In that instant, I'm computed to become an intellectual, and auto-drivers seem to think intellectuals have buttloads of money.
The only thing these days that intellectuals have buttloads of is tolerance.
Tolerance to let the world pass by without doing anything about it, tolerance to letting passersby jeer at you and making you feel guilty, tolerance to the rivers that must flow and the coloumns that must march, tolerance to peers and idols who insist something must be done, tolerance to their mundane introspection and insistence that there's more to doing things than just hoping that that's a purpose in itself.
It's circular logic, unbreakable without a sudden and overwhelming injection of a dose of chaos. When the ants scurry, the mosquitoes take off, and the elephants stampede, all to wade through an influx of uncertainty and incomprehension and unadulterated freedom, real purpose will be forged. When children grow up, they are introduced to this cycle, cajoled into adopting it. Eventually, the children are killed to make way for adults.
With penises and vaginas, the adults must rule this world. But why must they rule? They don't know. Why must they serve? They don't know. Yeah, sitting in an auto moving at 1 mile an hour, these questions weigh you down like lodestones, like anchors tugging at the seafloor, fastening your wayward and seemingly productive mind to an epiphany. You must surely have watched Nolan's Inception: doesn't the paradox of pitch circularity come to mind?
The grass is always greener on the other side, the staircase forever leads to heaven, the triangle is an infinite mobius spiral, each twist a jump into the few-seconds-from-now future. Somewhere, however, there is a rupture. Somewhere inside my city, there is a road at the other end of which there is my city in chronostasis, stuck in a few-hours-from-now past.
Where auto-drivers aren't pissed off because the clock struck 6, where fathers and mothers realize nothing's slowed down but just that their clocks have been on fast-forward of late, where snaking ribbons of smoke don't compete for space but simply let it go, no longer covet it, only join in the collective sorrow of our city's adolescence.
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Saturday, 18 August 2012
Monday, 16 January 2012
A fisher named Freyton
And what do you mean by all your life, I ask. Freyton doesn’t hesitate to answer: “I am 40 years old, and I have been fishing for 40 years.” He is a fisherman from a quaint coastal hamlet called Aalanthalai, and has a private collection of conches that numbers in the hundreds. However, once his livelihood began to shrink after the invasion of trawlers and the pollution of his beloved sea, Freyton hasn’t been able to do anything else but worry. He won’t sell his conches even though he knows they will fetch a fortune. “Some things are more important than money,” he says.
Sunday, 20 November 2011
These days
Such a wonderful time I've been having, doing things I never thought I'd like, doing things I never thought I'd do even, all thanks to D, V, and their peeps. Perhaps the time has come for me to stop figuring out how to build rockets and robots and instead enjoy karaoke and embarrassing-dancing. Everything has a price, but it only makes sense to have happiness cost close to nothing instead of a thousand dollars.
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
The thermodynamics of research
Combing through media reports from the 1980s looking for a mention of Shechtman's discovery of quasi-periodic crystals. NYTimes and Guardian sites from the 1980s won't open quickly enough - fucked up internet connection slows down whenever it rains. And then have to read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Kuhn so I can start writing the proposal for my dissertation.
The start is always the boring part, always has been the boring part for many things in this universe, as if nature has a proclivity to be inconducive toward whatever causes an increase in entropy. Ah, thermodynamics.
The start is always the boring part, always has been the boring part for many things in this universe, as if nature has a proclivity to be inconducive toward whatever causes an increase in entropy. Ah, thermodynamics.
Stocks are running low. Long night ahead.
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
What we do
The point is not to drink
The point is not to totter on the brink
The point is to have a good time
The point is to sing a happy rhyme
You've downed seven pints of whiskey
I can see you getting careless and frisky
But that doesn't make me any sad
Because I enjoyed taking apart the iPad
The point is not to get laid
Lesser is it a matter of getting paid
The point is to have a good time
The point is to sing a happy rhyme
Thanks but I enjoy hangovers much less
Than textbooks on integral calculus
If you say I'm wrong, then screw you
It's just a matter of what we do
The point is not to totter on the brink
The point is to have a good time
The point is to sing a happy rhyme
You've downed seven pints of whiskey
I can see you getting careless and frisky
But that doesn't make me any sad
Because I enjoyed taking apart the iPad
The point is not to get laid
Lesser is it a matter of getting paid
The point is to have a good time
The point is to sing a happy rhyme
Thanks but I enjoy hangovers much less
Than textbooks on integral calculus
If you say I'm wrong, then screw you
It's just a matter of what we do
Monday, 17 October 2011
Propositions
Man is a dreary proposition. He's a lost form searching for function in a world that does not and never will know him. He wanders the streets of cities looking for something or the other but he will never find it—he never has.
On a wet Sunday night, I was driving home after my customary dinner at The Thatched Hut. Stuck in a traffic jam and the rain coming down harder than ever, I had nothing better to do than look out my window at a world that couldn't not be wet on a stormy night. A bus pulled over at its stop and a few people alighted. An old woman firmly gripping a knitting kit, her husband trying to keep up with her while trying to unfurl an umbrella, a prostitute whose make-up was already streaming down her cheeks—she could've been crying, and a middle-aged man carrying a bag of groceries and walking while typing something into his phone.
A bright red light caught my attention; the traffic was clearing and I began to move. Why was the prostitute crying? An affair of love? Interesting as that thought was, I realized it held no potential whatsoever beyond its curious context. Why did the crying prostitute have to be an odd proposition? That she fell in love wasn't so simple anymore—and I strongly suspected those of us who cried "Love is for everyone".
These were the men who were looking for love when it was already everywhere, and that they were looking for it meant they were looking for something specific. The man who'd made her cry could easily have been such a man, hurting from the love of a woman who had bedded other men simply because it was the matter of trades and a hungry stomach. He couldn't stand the severely non-physical love of a woman. It was strange to him, scared him, and he pushed her away.
Would she know love again? I was and am in no position to tell. Why couldn't the old woman care about the rain? I was sure her old husband was still trying to get the lever to unlock so he could open the damned umbrella. I was sure for some reason that he was only trying to look busy; men usually had a penchant for mechanisms capable of confusing most women. The umbrella would've been open much earlier if not for his avoidance of some conversation.
What could've happened? An affair, again? With the prostitute?! Unlikely. There was nothing loveable about him, for one. An inexplicable expenditure? Perhaps. As a man moves on from one era and into another, his first attempt at reorienting his senses is to coax something into obedience—he must possess something tractable. Growing up, it's a bike, a girl, a car, a job, an office, tenure, companionship, recognition, fame, pension, vacation and a death that kills him in his sleep.
The old man must have just found something he liked, something he could grip while his marriage slipped through his fingers. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the umbrella he'd invested in.
That was the lot. I wasn't much better off myself: an out-of-work writer is a nobody. I turned away from the window and just stared at the road the rest of my way home. The rain was whittling down already and the ripples were barely visible outside the umbra of hundreds of headlights.
I recalled then something I did when it rained when I was much younger, perhaps a boy of 20. I used to look at the sky and try to focus on one droplet as it came down, and I used to follow it with a keen gaze all the way to its demise on the road below my balcony. And then, I used to look up again, trying to spot my next target. I can't remember anymore why I enjoyed doing that boring exercise again and again, but I still did try to look up through the windscreen for a raindrop. I couldn't find many, and even when I did, I couldn't track it all the way. It was just the knowledge of tremendous rainclouds above my head and the firm ground on which I drove. Everything in between I took for granted, and that was something I knew I wouldn't like to be told ever.
The road was now empty—not a vehicle in sight. Driving slowly, I turned my eyes to the other side of the road. Outside a butcher's stall, a crowd waited in silence for their portions. On a piece of slate hung from the wall, "Fresh meat" was inscribed in chalk, sheltered from the past downpour by a shallow parapet that leaned over it.
Further ahead, another bus was pulling away from its stop, getting back on the road, and two boys were doggedly chasing it. They had backpacks strapped to their backs—students, getting back from classes, going by the rest of their attire. For a moment, I considered pulling over and offering them a lift, but decided against it when all those rainy nights that I'd spent waiting for the next bus to arrive came to mind. I hadn't enjoyed those nights one bit but they did teach me the value of punctuality... and how nasty colds could get.
I continued driving. A couple was walking on the sidewalk, outside a mall, holding hands while she pulled her scarf tighter around her face. Anonymity was hard to come by in cities such as this: all I had to do was walk up to them and ask for a light, and they'd already have a pretty good impression of me, my habits, my life. It was simple, really. I was and am a man in this city.
On a wet Sunday night, I was driving home after my customary dinner at The Thatched Hut. Stuck in a traffic jam and the rain coming down harder than ever, I had nothing better to do than look out my window at a world that couldn't not be wet on a stormy night. A bus pulled over at its stop and a few people alighted. An old woman firmly gripping a knitting kit, her husband trying to keep up with her while trying to unfurl an umbrella, a prostitute whose make-up was already streaming down her cheeks—she could've been crying, and a middle-aged man carrying a bag of groceries and walking while typing something into his phone.
A bright red light caught my attention; the traffic was clearing and I began to move. Why was the prostitute crying? An affair of love? Interesting as that thought was, I realized it held no potential whatsoever beyond its curious context. Why did the crying prostitute have to be an odd proposition? That she fell in love wasn't so simple anymore—and I strongly suspected those of us who cried "Love is for everyone".
These were the men who were looking for love when it was already everywhere, and that they were looking for it meant they were looking for something specific. The man who'd made her cry could easily have been such a man, hurting from the love of a woman who had bedded other men simply because it was the matter of trades and a hungry stomach. He couldn't stand the severely non-physical love of a woman. It was strange to him, scared him, and he pushed her away.
Would she know love again? I was and am in no position to tell. Why couldn't the old woman care about the rain? I was sure her old husband was still trying to get the lever to unlock so he could open the damned umbrella. I was sure for some reason that he was only trying to look busy; men usually had a penchant for mechanisms capable of confusing most women. The umbrella would've been open much earlier if not for his avoidance of some conversation.
What could've happened? An affair, again? With the prostitute?! Unlikely. There was nothing loveable about him, for one. An inexplicable expenditure? Perhaps. As a man moves on from one era and into another, his first attempt at reorienting his senses is to coax something into obedience—he must possess something tractable. Growing up, it's a bike, a girl, a car, a job, an office, tenure, companionship, recognition, fame, pension, vacation and a death that kills him in his sleep.
The old man must have just found something he liked, something he could grip while his marriage slipped through his fingers. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the umbrella he'd invested in.
That was the lot. I wasn't much better off myself: an out-of-work writer is a nobody. I turned away from the window and just stared at the road the rest of my way home. The rain was whittling down already and the ripples were barely visible outside the umbra of hundreds of headlights.
I recalled then something I did when it rained when I was much younger, perhaps a boy of 20. I used to look at the sky and try to focus on one droplet as it came down, and I used to follow it with a keen gaze all the way to its demise on the road below my balcony. And then, I used to look up again, trying to spot my next target. I can't remember anymore why I enjoyed doing that boring exercise again and again, but I still did try to look up through the windscreen for a raindrop. I couldn't find many, and even when I did, I couldn't track it all the way. It was just the knowledge of tremendous rainclouds above my head and the firm ground on which I drove. Everything in between I took for granted, and that was something I knew I wouldn't like to be told ever.
The road was now empty—not a vehicle in sight. Driving slowly, I turned my eyes to the other side of the road. Outside a butcher's stall, a crowd waited in silence for their portions. On a piece of slate hung from the wall, "Fresh meat" was inscribed in chalk, sheltered from the past downpour by a shallow parapet that leaned over it.
Further ahead, another bus was pulling away from its stop, getting back on the road, and two boys were doggedly chasing it. They had backpacks strapped to their backs—students, getting back from classes, going by the rest of their attire. For a moment, I considered pulling over and offering them a lift, but decided against it when all those rainy nights that I'd spent waiting for the next bus to arrive came to mind. I hadn't enjoyed those nights one bit but they did teach me the value of punctuality... and how nasty colds could get.
I continued driving. A couple was walking on the sidewalk, outside a mall, holding hands while she pulled her scarf tighter around her face. Anonymity was hard to come by in cities such as this: all I had to do was walk up to them and ask for a light, and they'd already have a pretty good impression of me, my habits, my life. It was simple, really. I was and am a man in this city.
Saturday, 3 September 2011
I bought a dictionary.
Yes. For the first time ever, in my world that's filled with internet browsers and widgets and desktop and mobile apps, there is a paperback dictionary: "The Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus." I don't know why I bought it, though. I've always been good with words, whether it was a word I knew and so how to use it, too, or a word I'd never seen used before but could figure its meaning out by analyzing its root(s). On that note, buying a dictionary is almost an attempt to relive my growing years in Chennai and then Tumkur (in Karnataka).
Having never used a paper-bound dictionary in the last decade or so, I'm in no position to say that it wouldn't have been a mechanical process for me - the locating of words and then carefully reading the minute print - but something tells me I'd have seen it as something emotional. There are no specific memories associated with it, as such, and the only dictionary I've ever owned is even now gathering dust in the attic of an aunt's ancestral house. I wouldn't mind if it was lost someday while shifting locations, but I'm sure I'd become furious if one page of it was so much as folded. Now, there's another one. A new sibling of sorts.
I don't know what else to say. It's like that sensation when you thought you saw something out of the corner of your eyes but can't see head-on. It's that name that's at the tip of your tongue but won't come out just when the time's right. It's that feeling you get when you thought you just missed something that could've been important or life-changing in some way. The thing is, I don't know what I've missed. The last time I bought a dictionary, I began the journey to be the man I am today, and I love the man I've become. I know I could be aggrandizing the occasion needlessly, and if you think I am, then let me say this: I bought a dictionary. We'll see.
Having never used a paper-bound dictionary in the last decade or so, I'm in no position to say that it wouldn't have been a mechanical process for me - the locating of words and then carefully reading the minute print - but something tells me I'd have seen it as something emotional. There are no specific memories associated with it, as such, and the only dictionary I've ever owned is even now gathering dust in the attic of an aunt's ancestral house. I wouldn't mind if it was lost someday while shifting locations, but I'm sure I'd become furious if one page of it was so much as folded. Now, there's another one. A new sibling of sorts.
I don't know what else to say. It's like that sensation when you thought you saw something out of the corner of your eyes but can't see head-on. It's that name that's at the tip of your tongue but won't come out just when the time's right. It's that feeling you get when you thought you just missed something that could've been important or life-changing in some way. The thing is, I don't know what I've missed. The last time I bought a dictionary, I began the journey to be the man I am today, and I love the man I've become. I know I could be aggrandizing the occasion needlessly, and if you think I am, then let me say this: I bought a dictionary. We'll see.
I bought a dictionary.
Yes. For the first time ever, in my world that's filled with internet browsers and widgets and desktop and mobile apps, there is a paperback dictionary: "The Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus." I don't know why I bought it, though. I've always been good with words, whether it was a word I knew and so how to use it, too, or a word I'd never seen used before but could figure its meaning out by analyzing its root(s). On that note, buying a dictionary is almost an attempt to relive my growing years in Chennai and then Tumkur (in Karnataka).
Having never used a paper-bound dictionary in the last decade or so, I'm in no position to say that it wouldn't have been a mechanical process for me - the locating of words and then carefully reading the minute print - but something tells me I'd have seen it as something emotional. There are no specific memories associated with it, as such, and the only dictionary I've ever owned is even now gathering dust in the attic of an aunt's ancestral house. I wouldn't mind if it was lost someday while shifting locations, but I'm sure I'd become furious if one page of it was so much as folded. Now, there's another one. A new sibling of sorts.
I don't know what else to say. It's like that sensation when you thought you saw something out of the corner of your eyes but can't see head-on. It's that name that's at the tip of your tongue but won't come out just when the time's right. It's that feeling you get when you thought you just missed something that could've been important or life-changing in some way. The thing is, I don't know what I've missed. The last time I bought a dictionary, I began the journey to be the man I am today, and I love the man I've become. I know I could be aggrandizing the occasion needlessly, and if you think I am, then let me say this: I bought a dictionary. We'll see.
Having never used a paper-bound dictionary in the last decade or so, I'm in no position to say that it wouldn't have been a mechanical process for me - the locating of words and then carefully reading the minute print - but something tells me I'd have seen it as something emotional. There are no specific memories associated with it, as such, and the only dictionary I've ever owned is even now gathering dust in the attic of an aunt's ancestral house. I wouldn't mind if it was lost someday while shifting locations, but I'm sure I'd become furious if one page of it was so much as folded. Now, there's another one. A new sibling of sorts.
I don't know what else to say. It's like that sensation when you thought you saw something out of the corner of your eyes but can't see head-on. It's that name that's at the tip of your tongue but won't come out just when the time's right. It's that feeling you get when you thought you just missed something that could've been important or life-changing in some way. The thing is, I don't know what I've missed. The last time I bought a dictionary, I began the journey to be the man I am today, and I love the man I've become. I know I could be aggrandizing the occasion needlessly, and if you think I am, then let me say this: I bought a dictionary. We'll see.
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
The invisible bridge
In a college of journalism, you'd think the blog posts would have to be better researched, better articulated and better delivered. While the latter two are a matter of personal choice, the first - good research - becomes unnecessary. When I was in an engineering institution for my UG, I blogged so frequently and so much that people began to take notice: I was "the blogger". At that point, the things I wrote about had nothing to do with engineering and it is quite a surprise how there are many engineers who'd have trouble understanding Foucault or Nietzsche or Machiavelli. Consequently, I began to research my posts well, ensuring no wrong information got out - directly or as a matter of interpretation.
Here, at ACJ: one misstep and I'm screwed. Both honest and crazy intellectuals will pounce on the slightest of mispronunciations and attempt to secure an argumentative victory. I don't rant out facts and statistics like I used to not because I've forgotten them but because it seems as though just listening to those around me is going to vindicate half the fee-amount I paid. At first, all the hooked-up contentiousness seemed sensational. Now, it seems abjectly pointless. Even in institutions such as this, apparently, there are some people caught between the states of "good journalist" and "bad journalist". I could be one of them, but I must admit hypocrisy - my friends will observe - has not bothered me. Being against my journalistic cause as it may seem to be, I'd clarify that this is a different kind of hypocrisy. Yes, another kind.
Enough of that BS now. Picking up from where I left off: blogging in an encouraging environment seems to be weaker than blogging in a discouraging environment. From an engineering standpoint, that's only sensible: the work done by a system working between two states that have a significant difference in enthalpies is much higher than the work done by a system working between two states that have a small difference in enthalpies. However, that also entails the input to be greater (because a greater "quantity" of work needs to be done to increase the potential energy of the system to so-so much). Similarly, blogging in a discouraging environment is bound to produce greater results if only I'd persist with it (keeping the time-frame finite, the results are only going to be better than what they were during the period of encouragement - which should do).
I love thinking like how an engineer would about things: systematically, without any fuss whatsoever, always knowing full well that if something's wrong, I'm also going to know if or if not it's going to be in my hands to fix it. If it is, then I will. If it isn't, then I won't. The mathematics at work behind all this structure and formality ensures that if things are right in principle, the rest will fall into place. That's the invisible bridge that spans the distance between cause and effect. Science is the grammar when literature's the right reasons, and if you see the problem - any problem - all you have to understand is that you're looking at many invisible bridges waiting to be stepped on.
Here, at ACJ: one misstep and I'm screwed. Both honest and crazy intellectuals will pounce on the slightest of mispronunciations and attempt to secure an argumentative victory. I don't rant out facts and statistics like I used to not because I've forgotten them but because it seems as though just listening to those around me is going to vindicate half the fee-amount I paid. At first, all the hooked-up contentiousness seemed sensational. Now, it seems abjectly pointless. Even in institutions such as this, apparently, there are some people caught between the states of "good journalist" and "bad journalist". I could be one of them, but I must admit hypocrisy - my friends will observe - has not bothered me. Being against my journalistic cause as it may seem to be, I'd clarify that this is a different kind of hypocrisy. Yes, another kind.
Enough of that BS now. Picking up from where I left off: blogging in an encouraging environment seems to be weaker than blogging in a discouraging environment. From an engineering standpoint, that's only sensible: the work done by a system working between two states that have a significant difference in enthalpies is much higher than the work done by a system working between two states that have a small difference in enthalpies. However, that also entails the input to be greater (because a greater "quantity" of work needs to be done to increase the potential energy of the system to so-so much). Similarly, blogging in a discouraging environment is bound to produce greater results if only I'd persist with it (keeping the time-frame finite, the results are only going to be better than what they were during the period of encouragement - which should do).
I love thinking like how an engineer would about things: systematically, without any fuss whatsoever, always knowing full well that if something's wrong, I'm also going to know if or if not it's going to be in my hands to fix it. If it is, then I will. If it isn't, then I won't. The mathematics at work behind all this structure and formality ensures that if things are right in principle, the rest will fall into place. That's the invisible bridge that spans the distance between cause and effect. Science is the grammar when literature's the right reasons, and if you see the problem - any problem - all you have to understand is that you're looking at many invisible bridges waiting to be stepped on.
The invisible bridge
In a college of journalism, you'd think the blog posts would have to be better researched, better articulated and better delivered. While the latter two are a matter of personal choice, the first - good research - becomes unnecessary. When I was in an engineering institution for my UG, I blogged so frequently and so much that people began to take notice: I was "the blogger". At that point, the things I wrote about had nothing to do with engineering and it is quite a surprise how there are many engineers who'd have trouble understanding Foucault or Nietzsche or Machiavelli. Consequently, I began to research my posts well, ensuring no wrong information got out - directly or as a matter of interpretation.
Here, at ACJ: one misstep and I'm screwed. Both honest and crazy intellectuals will pounce on the slightest of mispronunciations and attempt to secure an argumentative victory. I don't rant out facts and statistics like I used to not because I've forgotten them but because it seems as though just listening to those around me is going to vindicate half the fee-amount I paid. At first, all the hooked-up contentiousness seemed sensational. Now, it seems abjectly pointless. Even in institutions such as this, apparently, there are some people caught between the states of "good journalist" and "bad journalist". I could be one of them, but I must admit hypocrisy - my friends will observe - has not bothered me. Being against my journalistic cause as it may seem to be, I'd clarify that this is a different kind of hypocrisy. Yes, another kind.
Enough of that BS now. Picking up from where I left off: blogging in an encouraging environment seems to be weaker than blogging in a discouraging environment. From an engineering standpoint, that's only sensible: the work done by a system working between two states that have a significant difference in enthalpies is much higher than the work done by a system working between two states that have a small difference in enthalpies. However, that also entails the input to be greater (because a greater "quantity" of work needs to be done to increase the potential energy of the system to so-so much). Similarly, blogging in a discouraging environment is bound to produce greater results if only I'd persist with it (keeping the time-frame finite, the results are only going to be better than what they were during the period of encouragement - which should do).
I love thinking like how an engineer would about things: systematically, without any fuss whatsoever, always knowing full well that if something's wrong, I'm also going to know if or if not it's going to be in my hands to fix it. If it is, then I will. If it isn't, then I won't. The mathematics at work behind all this structure and formality ensures that if things are right in principle, the rest will fall into place. That's the invisible bridge that spans the distance between cause and effect. Science is the grammar when literature's the right reasons, and if you see the problem - any problem - all you have to understand is that you're looking at many invisible bridges waiting to be stepped on.
Here, at ACJ: one misstep and I'm screwed. Both honest and crazy intellectuals will pounce on the slightest of mispronunciations and attempt to secure an argumentative victory. I don't rant out facts and statistics like I used to not because I've forgotten them but because it seems as though just listening to those around me is going to vindicate half the fee-amount I paid. At first, all the hooked-up contentiousness seemed sensational. Now, it seems abjectly pointless. Even in institutions such as this, apparently, there are some people caught between the states of "good journalist" and "bad journalist". I could be one of them, but I must admit hypocrisy - my friends will observe - has not bothered me. Being against my journalistic cause as it may seem to be, I'd clarify that this is a different kind of hypocrisy. Yes, another kind.
Enough of that BS now. Picking up from where I left off: blogging in an encouraging environment seems to be weaker than blogging in a discouraging environment. From an engineering standpoint, that's only sensible: the work done by a system working between two states that have a significant difference in enthalpies is much higher than the work done by a system working between two states that have a small difference in enthalpies. However, that also entails the input to be greater (because a greater "quantity" of work needs to be done to increase the potential energy of the system to so-so much). Similarly, blogging in a discouraging environment is bound to produce greater results if only I'd persist with it (keeping the time-frame finite, the results are only going to be better than what they were during the period of encouragement - which should do).
I love thinking like how an engineer would about things: systematically, without any fuss whatsoever, always knowing full well that if something's wrong, I'm also going to know if or if not it's going to be in my hands to fix it. If it is, then I will. If it isn't, then I won't. The mathematics at work behind all this structure and formality ensures that if things are right in principle, the rest will fall into place. That's the invisible bridge that spans the distance between cause and effect. Science is the grammar when literature's the right reasons, and if you see the problem - any problem - all you have to understand is that you're looking at many invisible bridges waiting to be stepped on.
Sunday, 10 July 2011
I defaulted on my blog pact (with myself), got into a some trouble with a friend, singed a toe severely and pulled a muscle in the pelvic area, but the difference between doing what you have to do and doing what you like to do is the lack of any hesitation to do all of this every evening, wake up exhausted in the morning, and be excited about going to class.
I defaulted on my blog pact (with myself), got into a some trouble with a friend, singed a toe severely and pulled a muscle in the pelvic area, but the difference between doing what you have to do and doing what you like to do is the lack of any hesitation to do all of this every evening, wake up exhausted in the morning, and be excited about going to class.
Sunday, 26 June 2011
Lessons from a plate of spinach
"Here, have this."
"What's it?"
"Spinach and rice."
"I hate the taste of spinach!"
"Do have it! It tastes good!"
"How! How do you know it tastes good?"
"Because it tasted good?"
"Because it tasted good for you!"
"Yeah... so?"
"How do you know it's going to taste good for me?"
"Well..."
"What is this?"
"It's spinach curry."
"You know I hate the taste-"
"Yes, yes! But I've cooked it different this time."
"What's the difference?"
"Now it tastes better!"
"How do you know-"
"Because it tastes for even me!"
"Because the spinach tastes better for you?"
"Yes, it does! Taste it!"
"I didn't like it when it tasted one way. Now, you've made it a better way."
"Yeah?"
"So, I didn't like it when it was just fine. Now you think I'll like it when the spinachness of the dish is enhanced?"
"Well..."
"Here, have this."
"What's this?"
"Spinach."
"Again?"
"Yeah!"
"Why so often?"
"Because I like it."
"Why do you like it?"
"Because it tastes better than most other stuff I eat."
"So you make spinach all the time?"
"Yeah?"
"Because you found out you liked something, you're going to make sure you keep liking it."
"If you have to put it like that..."
"Did you enjoy finding out you liked spinach?"
"Oh, yeah, it was at that dinner-"
"OK, OK, OK. So, you found something you liked, you enjoyed the feeling, and now you're happy to be stuck with that feeling?"
"Well..."
"Here, have this."
"Is it spinach?"
"Nope."
"Oh! How come?"
"I took your advice. Made beans instead."
"Ah! Smart choice. You liking the beans?"
"Not. One. Bit."
"Making a note of it?"
"Oh, yeah!"
"So... no more spinach?"
"Nope."
"Why not?"
"Gotta find out more likes."
"You found one thing you liked and then you dumped it?"
"Well... yeah! I found something. Score! Let's move on. You taught me that!"
"So, you're essentially betraying your association with spinach."
"What?"
"Don't you think you owe it to yourself that you stick to something you know you like rather than go after something you think you'll like?"
"But you said-"
"I know what I said."
"Then why are you doing this?"
"You're the one who likes spinach."
"What's it?"
"Spinach and rice."
"I hate the taste of spinach!"
"Do have it! It tastes good!"
"How! How do you know it tastes good?"
"Because it tasted good?"
"Because it tasted good for you!"
"Yeah... so?"
"How do you know it's going to taste good for me?"
"Well..."
*
"What is this?"
"It's spinach curry."
"You know I hate the taste-"
"Yes, yes! But I've cooked it different this time."
"What's the difference?"
"Now it tastes better!"
"How do you know-"
"Because it tastes for even me!"
"Because the spinach tastes better for you?"
"Yes, it does! Taste it!"
"I didn't like it when it tasted one way. Now, you've made it a better way."
"Yeah?"
"So, I didn't like it when it was just fine. Now you think I'll like it when the spinachness of the dish is enhanced?"
"Well..."
*
"Here, have this."
"What's this?"
"Spinach."
"Again?"
"Yeah!"
"Why so often?"
"Because I like it."
"Why do you like it?"
"Because it tastes better than most other stuff I eat."
"So you make spinach all the time?"
"Yeah?"
"Because you found out you liked something, you're going to make sure you keep liking it."
"If you have to put it like that..."
"Did you enjoy finding out you liked spinach?"
"Oh, yeah, it was at that dinner-"
"OK, OK, OK. So, you found something you liked, you enjoyed the feeling, and now you're happy to be stuck with that feeling?"
"Well..."
*
"Here, have this."
"Is it spinach?"
"Nope."
"Oh! How come?"
"I took your advice. Made beans instead."
"Ah! Smart choice. You liking the beans?"
"Not. One. Bit."
"Making a note of it?"
"Oh, yeah!"
"So... no more spinach?"
"Nope."
"Why not?"
"Gotta find out more likes."
"You found one thing you liked and then you dumped it?"
"Well... yeah! I found something. Score! Let's move on. You taught me that!"
"So, you're essentially betraying your association with spinach."
"What?"
"Don't you think you owe it to yourself that you stick to something you know you like rather than go after something you think you'll like?"
"But you said-"
"I know what I said."
"Then why are you doing this?"
"You're the one who likes spinach."
Lessons from a plate of spinach
"Here, have this."
"What's it?"
"Spinach and rice."
"I hate the taste of spinach!"
"Do have it! It tastes good!"
"How! How do you know it tastes good?"
"Because it tasted good?"
"Because it tasted good for you!"
"Yeah... so?"
"How do you know it's going to taste good for me?"
"Well..."
"What is this?"
"It's spinach curry."
"You know I hate the taste-"
"Yes, yes! But I've cooked it different this time."
"What's the difference?"
"Now it tastes better!"
"How do you know-"
"Because it tastes for even me!"
"Because the spinach tastes better for you?"
"Yes, it does! Taste it!"
"I didn't like it when it tasted one way. Now, you've made it a better way."
"Yeah?"
"So, I didn't like it when it was just fine. Now you think I'll like it when the spinachness of the dish is enhanced?"
"Well..."
"Here, have this."
"What's this?"
"Spinach."
"Again?"
"Yeah!"
"Why so often?"
"Because I like it."
"Why do you like it?"
"Because it tastes better than most other stuff I eat."
"So you make spinach all the time?"
"Yeah?"
"Because you found out you liked something, you're going to make sure you keep liking it."
"If you have to put it like that..."
"Did you enjoy finding out you liked spinach?"
"Oh, yeah, it was at that dinner-"
"OK, OK, OK. So, you found something you liked, you enjoyed the feeling, and now you're happy to be stuck with that feeling?"
"Well..."
"Here, have this."
"Is it spinach?"
"Nope."
"Oh! How come?"
"I took your advice. Made beans instead."
"Ah! Smart choice. You liking the beans?"
"Not. One. Bit."
"Making a note of it?"
"Oh, yeah!"
"So... no more spinach?"
"Nope."
"Why not?"
"Gotta find out more likes."
"You found one thing you liked and then you dumped it?"
"Well... yeah! I found something. Score! Let's move on. You taught me that!"
"So, you're essentially betraying your association with spinach."
"What?"
"Don't you think you owe it to yourself that you stick to something you know you like rather than go after something you think you'll like?"
"But you said-"
"I know what I said."
"Then why are you doing this?"
"You're the one who likes spinach."
"What's it?"
"Spinach and rice."
"I hate the taste of spinach!"
"Do have it! It tastes good!"
"How! How do you know it tastes good?"
"Because it tasted good?"
"Because it tasted good for you!"
"Yeah... so?"
"How do you know it's going to taste good for me?"
"Well..."
*
"What is this?"
"It's spinach curry."
"You know I hate the taste-"
"Yes, yes! But I've cooked it different this time."
"What's the difference?"
"Now it tastes better!"
"How do you know-"
"Because it tastes for even me!"
"Because the spinach tastes better for you?"
"Yes, it does! Taste it!"
"I didn't like it when it tasted one way. Now, you've made it a better way."
"Yeah?"
"So, I didn't like it when it was just fine. Now you think I'll like it when the spinachness of the dish is enhanced?"
"Well..."
*
"Here, have this."
"What's this?"
"Spinach."
"Again?"
"Yeah!"
"Why so often?"
"Because I like it."
"Why do you like it?"
"Because it tastes better than most other stuff I eat."
"So you make spinach all the time?"
"Yeah?"
"Because you found out you liked something, you're going to make sure you keep liking it."
"If you have to put it like that..."
"Did you enjoy finding out you liked spinach?"
"Oh, yeah, it was at that dinner-"
"OK, OK, OK. So, you found something you liked, you enjoyed the feeling, and now you're happy to be stuck with that feeling?"
"Well..."
*
"Here, have this."
"Is it spinach?"
"Nope."
"Oh! How come?"
"I took your advice. Made beans instead."
"Ah! Smart choice. You liking the beans?"
"Not. One. Bit."
"Making a note of it?"
"Oh, yeah!"
"So... no more spinach?"
"Nope."
"Why not?"
"Gotta find out more likes."
"You found one thing you liked and then you dumped it?"
"Well... yeah! I found something. Score! Let's move on. You taught me that!"
"So, you're essentially betraying your association with spinach."
"What?"
"Don't you think you owe it to yourself that you stick to something you know you like rather than go after something you think you'll like?"
"But you said-"
"I know what I said."
"Then why are you doing this?"
"You're the one who likes spinach."
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
The spontaneously combustible love of her children
If you drove down one of the semi-prominent streets in the city's largest shopping area tonight, you'd come across a restaurant of some fame bedecked with vines of wires with red and yellow bulbs glowing on them. Aquaria is its name, but larger than the board that declares that is one that declares "50th Wedding Anniversary!", and yes, with a real and provocatively slanted exclamation mark.
Of course, three hours still remain for the dinner party to commence but the womenfolk are already busy getting the proportions of mascara and ugliness right on their faces. I must be careful, I tell myself, as I wait patiently before everyone has departed to the venue so I can ready myself in peace and silence. With one hand reaching out for coffee and the other fending off a cousin's head curiously close to my laptop to see what's keeping her brother busy, I spend my evening all the while dully astonished by how the plasticity had slipped everyone's mind... or perhaps their determination in keeping it from conquering the festive mood.
A few weeks ago, my mother and my sister returned from somewhere in South America after my father had finally been transferred to a city in India with the company he worked for. Since I was temporarily lodged with my maternal grandparents before I went off to college, they joined us, and suddenly, we were nine people in a 2 BHK: grandpa, grandma, an uncle, an aunt, their two kids, and me and my mum and my sister. Not a day had passed when summer decided to join us as well.
Barely 10 days before the occasion, my grandma received a phone call from one of her cousins, a cousin who'd been thrown a surprise party by her son for her 40th wedding anniversary. As soon as the call ended, there was an awkward silence in the house. Everyone knew paati was a bit of a tempestuous gossip-monger, and as soon as her sour joy would turn into envy, a rant would follow. And it did, and it did. In fact, on second thought, it wasn't a rant as much as it was a lecture on the duties of children towards their gossiping parents, it was a lecture on how siblings existed only so the traditional rat race could be inherited from one generation to another. Thatha (grandpa), a silent man as ever, only grunted. For the much more important occasion of his turning 80, he'd called us fools to try and celebrate anything.
As afternoon turned to evening, and evening turned to night, the presence of paati's voice faded but her eyes seemed to bore into us the expectations that burned in her soul. My uncle did the smarter thing and decided to meet her halfway: he bought dinner instead of having her cook and, as we expected, she wasn't one to be cowed down this time. Grudgingly enough, my mum and my aunt decided to throw a dinner party in her honour and invite her closest relatives, about 20 of them.
Soon, phone numbers were being looked up, the family tree was being drawn up, the menu was being pieced together, and family politics were being called into question. The cousin who'd started it all, of course, was invited first. As commitment to the initiative mounted day after day, so also did the scale and scope of the investiture: everyday paati called up a distant brother or a sister, the list of invitees was modified; everyday paati expressed discontentment with an arrangement, the restaurant was duly notified; everyday paati seemed intriguingly contented, we trod more carefully around the house.
Soon, all that had happened lost every mark of the grudge we bore against the matriarch for "forcing" us to spend Rs. 20,000 on nothings because the tables had turned enough: the guilt, now, was oozing out of our every action and inaction. We were now all condemnable proselytes of a righteous cause, and this was our chance to erase clean the chargesheet.
Behold! The day was come. It rained cats and dogs outside as I readied myself. My diminutive shadow of an uncle - albeit being a celebrated social worker - waited outside on his bike: may be that the rain was expected to cleanse his lack of affection, in paati's eyes he would now be the knight who rode in the rain.
I joined him a few minutes later and by the time we made it to Aquaria, the umbrella hadn't done anything against the wind-blown rain soaking our pricey garbs. More than 50 people had shown up and the street was lined with cars; the police was there, perhaps suspecting the presence of mafioso; the word had spread enough to have relatives call in to congratulate from exotic places like Vijayawada and Bangalore. Finally, the piece de resistance: paati booming on the mike about what such a happy occasion this was, the spontaneous love of her children and grandchildren embracing her like a warm hug after all these wonderful years.
Of course, three hours still remain for the dinner party to commence but the womenfolk are already busy getting the proportions of mascara and ugliness right on their faces. I must be careful, I tell myself, as I wait patiently before everyone has departed to the venue so I can ready myself in peace and silence. With one hand reaching out for coffee and the other fending off a cousin's head curiously close to my laptop to see what's keeping her brother busy, I spend my evening all the while dully astonished by how the plasticity had slipped everyone's mind... or perhaps their determination in keeping it from conquering the festive mood.
A few weeks ago, my mother and my sister returned from somewhere in South America after my father had finally been transferred to a city in India with the company he worked for. Since I was temporarily lodged with my maternal grandparents before I went off to college, they joined us, and suddenly, we were nine people in a 2 BHK: grandpa, grandma, an uncle, an aunt, their two kids, and me and my mum and my sister. Not a day had passed when summer decided to join us as well.
Barely 10 days before the occasion, my grandma received a phone call from one of her cousins, a cousin who'd been thrown a surprise party by her son for her 40th wedding anniversary. As soon as the call ended, there was an awkward silence in the house. Everyone knew paati was a bit of a tempestuous gossip-monger, and as soon as her sour joy would turn into envy, a rant would follow. And it did, and it did. In fact, on second thought, it wasn't a rant as much as it was a lecture on the duties of children towards their gossiping parents, it was a lecture on how siblings existed only so the traditional rat race could be inherited from one generation to another. Thatha (grandpa), a silent man as ever, only grunted. For the much more important occasion of his turning 80, he'd called us fools to try and celebrate anything.
As afternoon turned to evening, and evening turned to night, the presence of paati's voice faded but her eyes seemed to bore into us the expectations that burned in her soul. My uncle did the smarter thing and decided to meet her halfway: he bought dinner instead of having her cook and, as we expected, she wasn't one to be cowed down this time. Grudgingly enough, my mum and my aunt decided to throw a dinner party in her honour and invite her closest relatives, about 20 of them.
Soon, phone numbers were being looked up, the family tree was being drawn up, the menu was being pieced together, and family politics were being called into question. The cousin who'd started it all, of course, was invited first. As commitment to the initiative mounted day after day, so also did the scale and scope of the investiture: everyday paati called up a distant brother or a sister, the list of invitees was modified; everyday paati expressed discontentment with an arrangement, the restaurant was duly notified; everyday paati seemed intriguingly contented, we trod more carefully around the house.
Soon, all that had happened lost every mark of the grudge we bore against the matriarch for "forcing" us to spend Rs. 20,000 on nothings because the tables had turned enough: the guilt, now, was oozing out of our every action and inaction. We were now all condemnable proselytes of a righteous cause, and this was our chance to erase clean the chargesheet.
Behold! The day was come. It rained cats and dogs outside as I readied myself. My diminutive shadow of an uncle - albeit being a celebrated social worker - waited outside on his bike: may be that the rain was expected to cleanse his lack of affection, in paati's eyes he would now be the knight who rode in the rain.
I joined him a few minutes later and by the time we made it to Aquaria, the umbrella hadn't done anything against the wind-blown rain soaking our pricey garbs. More than 50 people had shown up and the street was lined with cars; the police was there, perhaps suspecting the presence of mafioso; the word had spread enough to have relatives call in to congratulate from exotic places like Vijayawada and Bangalore. Finally, the piece de resistance: paati booming on the mike about what such a happy occasion this was, the spontaneous love of her children and grandchildren embracing her like a warm hug after all these wonderful years.
Saturday, 18 June 2011
A story
11.26
Dialing...
"Hello?"
Hey!
"Hey!"
What're you doing?
"I'm outside with-"
Oh, OK! We'll talk later!
"Yeah, sure!"
Bye!
"Bye!"
12.24
Dialing...
"You don't have enough credit-"
12.31
Dialing...
"The person you are calling has not responded. Please try-"
14.10
Picking...
Hello?
"Hey buddy! What's up!"
Hey man... how's it going?
"Awesome! Listen, me and C planning a trek. You wanna come?"
When's it?
"Tonight. We're thinking of catching the 8 o'clock bus and-"
Not tonight, sorry. Have some work.
"Saturday night?"
Dad's coming online, some work to do with the bank, something.
"Oh, OK! Next time then!"
Yeah man, sorry. Call-
"Bye!"
14.33
Dialing...
"The person you are calling has-"
15.04
Signing in...
"L. is online."
Laptop?
L: "Nt yet happened."
Damn. :(
L: "Yeah. I'm fucked."
Sleepover at S.'s place and finish the assignment?
And then tell me about the pillowfight?
L: "Heh. She lives all the way across town!"
Fine. P.?
L: "Uh. No."
K.?
L: "Oh wow."
"Hahhahahahhaha its K.!"
:D
What doing?
L: "Painting."
"Ur sheldon from big bang theory."
I'm Sheldon?!
That guy's stiff, a creature of habit and annoying!
I'm not annoying!
L: "You're stiff. Creature of habit. A know it all. ALL."
Sheldon Cooper is annoying and unforgiving. I am neither!
And he's not interested in sex. He's NOT interested- THAT'S ANTI-ME!
L: "Okay :P"
":P"
"Okay. And that."
The place here's a huge bungalow with no curfew and careless watchman.
L: "Fancy :P"
"Ur outside? Not with family?"
No, any studying requires the hostel experience.
Can't study for nuts from home - even this.
It's going to be crazy!
L: ":)"
"Did you make friends?"
This chick
L: "Really??"
Yeah!
But she's off FB for a while.
L: "Ahaan"
You are no longer signed in to send or receive messages.
15.55
"Hello?"
Sir, I'm calling from the south-
"Yes, sir, we're sorry sir. It's an area-wide cut, sir, there's a fire in the grid."
When will-
"In about 4 hours, sir."
16.16
Opening...
Yes?
"Sir, delivery from Amazon?"
Oh, yes!
"Sign here... and here."
Thanks!
"Thank you, sir!"
18.01
Dialing...
"The person you are-"
19.29
Wireless network... connected.
19.31
Signing in...
"L. is offline"
Hey! You there? Sorry, there was a power cut. I'll catchya soon, have a nice evening!
19.44
Coming.
"Good evening, sir! Delivery from Dumpling Queen!"
Oh yeah, how much is it?
"A round... 60, sir."
Keep the change.
"Thank you, sir! Enjoy your dinner!"
Yeah.
20.34
Dialing...
"Hello?"
Hey!
"Hey!"
What're you doing?
"I'm on my way!"
Oh, when'll you be here?
"In a coupla minutes, max. How's it going there... you OK?"
Yeah... I'm fine. Just missing you.
"I miss you, too."
Couldn't you blow off the late night shift?
"Aww! Look at you!"
I'm serious!
"You know I can't do that! Plus, it's Saturday... you know how busy the streets get!"
Yeah, yeah, OK. Get here faster.
"Yeah, I'm almost there."
OK.
23.15
"It's getting late."
Hmm...
"I'll talk to you tomorrow!"
I hate you.
"Me too! G'night!"
Yeah, whatever.
07.14
Picking...
Hmm... who's this?
"Hey!"
Yeah?
"It's me! You just woke up?!"
Yeah...
"Please tell me you've the script ready!"
Yeah... almost-
"Almost?! What's almost?!"
Gimme an hour.
"Are you sure? Because if you haven't finished it, you should tell me now."
No, no, one hour. You'll have it.
"OK, I trust you. Don't lemme down, man."
Hmm.
07.19
Somewhere in the south of the great City, curled up within layers of poverty, rebellion, filth and convivial skulduggery, in a building dotting the ramshackle landscape of the miserable shores, a young man strode up and down upon an old carpet, one of the few things of value in his otherwise poor excuse of a residence. At this juncture, the reader may not be surprised to discover upon my utterance that he was a writer - he still is - and took away from the denial of luxury the luxury of denial, a self-imposed lesson on the art of inspiration, coveting lovers and dodging them, befriending strangers and salvaging himself from the hubris of his own madness. Right then, as the first droplets of rain struck the glass in the windows, he called a young woman he was attempting now to love, and she spoke: "I'm outside with-" Goodbye, he screamed! Despair! On the philanthropy of despair it seemed he would feed first...
08.03
Picking...
"You done?"
What if I'm not?
"Man! I trusted-"
Relax! I'm done.
"Hmm... what's it called?"
The Art... of Inspiration! You like it?
"I think I do... I do, I do."
Dialing...
"Hello?"
Hey!
"Hey!"
What're you doing?
"I'm outside with-"
Oh, OK! We'll talk later!
"Yeah, sure!"
Bye!
"Bye!"
12.24
Dialing...
"You don't have enough credit-"
12.31
Dialing...
"The person you are calling has not responded. Please try-"
14.10
Picking...
Hello?
"Hey buddy! What's up!"
Hey man... how's it going?
"Awesome! Listen, me and C planning a trek. You wanna come?"
When's it?
"Tonight. We're thinking of catching the 8 o'clock bus and-"
Not tonight, sorry. Have some work.
"Saturday night?"
Dad's coming online, some work to do with the bank, something.
"Oh, OK! Next time then!"
Yeah man, sorry. Call-
"Bye!"
14.33
Dialing...
"The person you are calling has-"
15.04
Signing in...
"L. is online."
Laptop?
L: "Nt yet happened."
Damn. :(
L: "Yeah. I'm fucked."
Sleepover at S.'s place and finish the assignment?
And then tell me about the pillowfight?
L: "Heh. She lives all the way across town!"
Fine. P.?
L: "Uh. No."
K.?
L: "Oh wow."
"Hahhahahahhaha its K.!"
:D
What doing?
L: "Painting."
"Ur sheldon from big bang theory."
I'm Sheldon?!
That guy's stiff, a creature of habit and annoying!
I'm not annoying!
L: "You're stiff. Creature of habit. A know it all. ALL."
Sheldon Cooper is annoying and unforgiving. I am neither!
And he's not interested in sex. He's NOT interested- THAT'S ANTI-ME!
L: "Okay :P"
":P"
"Okay. And that."
The place here's a huge bungalow with no curfew and careless watchman.
L: "Fancy :P"
"Ur outside? Not with family?"
No, any studying requires the hostel experience.
Can't study for nuts from home - even this.
It's going to be crazy!
L: ":)"
"Did you make friends?"
This chick
L: "Really??"
Yeah!
But she's off FB for a while.
L: "Ahaan"
You are no longer signed in to send or receive messages.
15.55
"Hello?"
Sir, I'm calling from the south-
"Yes, sir, we're sorry sir. It's an area-wide cut, sir, there's a fire in the grid."
When will-
"In about 4 hours, sir."
16.16
Opening...
Yes?
"Sir, delivery from Amazon?"
Oh, yes!
"Sign here... and here."
Thanks!
"Thank you, sir!"
18.01
Dialing...
"The person you are-"
19.29
Wireless network... connected.
19.31
Signing in...
"L. is offline"
Hey! You there? Sorry, there was a power cut. I'll catchya soon, have a nice evening!
19.44
Coming.
"Good evening, sir! Delivery from Dumpling Queen!"
Oh yeah, how much is it?
"A round... 60, sir."
Keep the change.
"Thank you, sir! Enjoy your dinner!"
Yeah.
20.34
Dialing...
"Hello?"
Hey!
"Hey!"
What're you doing?
"I'm on my way!"
Oh, when'll you be here?
"In a coupla minutes, max. How's it going there... you OK?"
Yeah... I'm fine. Just missing you.
"I miss you, too."
Couldn't you blow off the late night shift?
"Aww! Look at you!"
I'm serious!
"You know I can't do that! Plus, it's Saturday... you know how busy the streets get!"
Yeah, yeah, OK. Get here faster.
"Yeah, I'm almost there."
OK.
23.15
"It's getting late."
Hmm...
"I'll talk to you tomorrow!"
I hate you.
"Me too! G'night!"
Yeah, whatever.
07.14
Picking...
Hmm... who's this?
"Hey!"
Yeah?
"It's me! You just woke up?!"
Yeah...
"Please tell me you've the script ready!"
Yeah... almost-
"Almost?! What's almost?!"
Gimme an hour.
"Are you sure? Because if you haven't finished it, you should tell me now."
No, no, one hour. You'll have it.
"OK, I trust you. Don't lemme down, man."
Hmm.
07.19
Somewhere in the south of the great City, curled up within layers of poverty, rebellion, filth and convivial skulduggery, in a building dotting the ramshackle landscape of the miserable shores, a young man strode up and down upon an old carpet, one of the few things of value in his otherwise poor excuse of a residence. At this juncture, the reader may not be surprised to discover upon my utterance that he was a writer - he still is - and took away from the denial of luxury the luxury of denial, a self-imposed lesson on the art of inspiration, coveting lovers and dodging them, befriending strangers and salvaging himself from the hubris of his own madness. Right then, as the first droplets of rain struck the glass in the windows, he called a young woman he was attempting now to love, and she spoke: "I'm outside with-" Goodbye, he screamed! Despair! On the philanthropy of despair it seemed he would feed first...
08.03
Picking...
"You done?"
What if I'm not?
"Man! I trusted-"
Relax! I'm done.
"Hmm... what's it called?"
The Art... of Inspiration! You like it?
"I think I do... I do, I do."
Friday, 17 June 2011
BSODYOUFUCKINGPUTA!
Microsoft, Inc., should be shut down simply because they continue to manufacture an operating system that fails for no particular reason right when I'm in the middle of something important. With annual investments as well as turnover in the billions of dollars, why have they not been able to eliminate any possibility of the Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD)?
It doesn't help that MS Office 2007-onward has an auto-save feature: if they have to deploy something like that, they've to do it right. If the mechanism has been included for convenience's sake, then I don't want to be shown multiple copies of the file and asked which one I want to view or delete depending on the timestamp. If it has been included as a compensation against the BSOD, then the auto-save function is valuable only if it automatically saves the once every minute and not once every three minutes. With a typing speed of 75 words per minute, I lose 150 words right there.
If anything, they should just dump the auto-save functionality and focus on making an OS that's as big but not as critically inconsistent! I have always taken the romantic path to computing experience and have consciously rejected the Mac at all points of time for its oversimplification of concepts, but the BSOD is not something I'm willing to tolerate because it has a direct and frustrating impact on my work.
Many people like the OS and some can make do with the absence of a sensible design philosophy, but this algorithmic vortex is bound to lose MS some customers when, as competition builds, all that stands between one OS and the other is the BSO-fucking-D.
It doesn't help that MS Office 2007-onward has an auto-save feature: if they have to deploy something like that, they've to do it right. If the mechanism has been included for convenience's sake, then I don't want to be shown multiple copies of the file and asked which one I want to view or delete depending on the timestamp. If it has been included as a compensation against the BSOD, then the auto-save function is valuable only if it automatically saves the once every minute and not once every three minutes. With a typing speed of 75 words per minute, I lose 150 words right there.
If anything, they should just dump the auto-save functionality and focus on making an OS that's as big but not as critically inconsistent! I have always taken the romantic path to computing experience and have consciously rejected the Mac at all points of time for its oversimplification of concepts, but the BSOD is not something I'm willing to tolerate because it has a direct and frustrating impact on my work.
Many people like the OS and some can make do with the absence of a sensible design philosophy, but this algorithmic vortex is bound to lose MS some customers when, as competition builds, all that stands between one OS and the other is the BSO-fucking-D.
BSODYOUFUCKINGPUTA!
Microsoft, Inc., should be shut down simply because they continue to manufacture an operating system that fails for no particular reason right when I'm in the middle of something important. With annual investments as well as turnover in the billions of dollars, why have they not been able to eliminate any possibility of the Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD)?
It doesn't help that MS Office 2007-onward has an auto-save feature: if they have to deploy something like that, they've to do it right. If the mechanism has been included for convenience's sake, then I don't want to be shown multiple copies of the file and asked which one I want to view or delete depending on the timestamp. If it has been included as a compensation against the BSOD, then the auto-save function is valuable only if it automatically saves the once every minute and not once every three minutes. With a typing speed of 75 words per minute, I lose 150 words right there.
If anything, they should just dump the auto-save functionality and focus on making an OS that's as big but not as critically inconsistent! I have always taken the romantic path to computing experience and have consciously rejected the Mac at all points of time for its oversimplification of concepts, but the BSOD is not something I'm willing to tolerate because it has a direct and frustrating impact on my work.
Many people like the OS and some can make do with the absence of a sensible design philosophy, but this algorithmic vortex is bound to lose MS some customers when, as competition builds, all that stands between one OS and the other is the BSO-fucking-D.
It doesn't help that MS Office 2007-onward has an auto-save feature: if they have to deploy something like that, they've to do it right. If the mechanism has been included for convenience's sake, then I don't want to be shown multiple copies of the file and asked which one I want to view or delete depending on the timestamp. If it has been included as a compensation against the BSOD, then the auto-save function is valuable only if it automatically saves the once every minute and not once every three minutes. With a typing speed of 75 words per minute, I lose 150 words right there.
If anything, they should just dump the auto-save functionality and focus on making an OS that's as big but not as critically inconsistent! I have always taken the romantic path to computing experience and have consciously rejected the Mac at all points of time for its oversimplification of concepts, but the BSOD is not something I'm willing to tolerate because it has a direct and frustrating impact on my work.
Many people like the OS and some can make do with the absence of a sensible design philosophy, but this algorithmic vortex is bound to lose MS some customers when, as competition builds, all that stands between one OS and the other is the BSO-fucking-D.
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
When geeks aspire
On the first day of school,
A geek was born in class;
The kids made fun of him,
Burying a fear inside that math just got harder to pass!
When the words fall down,
His stories are made:
It's a tale with a moral
That'll teach you humility and the will to never fade!
When the slut whispered that
For her homework he'd have her flower,
He did it all knowing anyway
That once the time came he'd have to finish in the shower!
When it's time for DotA-
Get high on frame-rate thrills-
Immortal guts and glory:
It's not over until they're all m-m-m-monster kills !
When the card's on the table
And the bet's are on hold,
He's got no poker face;
Smart kid'll teach you what isn't stupid but bold!
When geeks aspire,
The game doesn't end that way!
It plays itself, on and on,
Until he's got a Wikipedia page on his name some day!
A geek was born in class;
The kids made fun of him,
Burying a fear inside that math just got harder to pass!
When the words fall down,
His stories are made:
It's a tale with a moral
That'll teach you humility and the will to never fade!
When the slut whispered that
For her homework he'd have her flower,
He did it all knowing anyway
That once the time came he'd have to finish in the shower!
When it's time for DotA-
Get high on frame-rate thrills-
Immortal guts and glory:
It's not over until they're all m-m-m-monster kills !
When the card's on the table
And the bet's are on hold,
He's got no poker face;
Smart kid'll teach you what isn't stupid but bold!
When geeks aspire,
The game doesn't end that way!
It plays itself, on and on,
Until he's got a Wikipedia page on his name some day!
Monday, 13 June 2011
When Kap Fynncraft woke up on Tuesday morning.
When Kap Fynncraft woke up on Tuesday morning, neither he nor anyone else knew that it would be different from any of the previous days. He walked to the bathroom, washed his face, brushed his teeth, had a bath, brewed some coffee, toasted some bread, boiled an egg, breakfasted, dressed up and locked the front door behind him. When he reached the last rung of the ladder he had to climb down, he seemed as if he forgot something, and climbed all the way back up. Wedged in the window grill above the first rung was a folded-up white sheet: the newspaper. He stuck it in his mouth and climbed back down. Adjusting his cap, he stood at the bus stop. It was 07.40.
As always, Chip Ramirez stood to his left, and as always, Ark Eiwen stood to Chip's left. They had nothing in particular to speak about, but a decade-old habit of waiting at the bus stop for 10 minutes in each other's presence made the silence anything but discomfiting. At 07.42 precisely, The Man In The Green Helmet would ride by on his scooter. A minute later, The Two Men With Their Briefcases would open the store on the other side of the street. Just as they reordered everything inside the shop and turned the sign to "Open", a red bus could be seen driving up and down the mounding road on the horizon. At 07.50, Kap, Chip and Ark boarded it.
The bus ride to the factory took precisely four minutes everyday because the amount of traffic between 07.50 and 07.54 was the same on any given day. In fact, the amount of traffic at any point of time was the same on any given day. In fact, nothing else about the city had changed in the last 10 years. As he rode the bus to the factory, he also knew nothing would ever change either because the smoke rising from the smelting factory a few miles in the northeast was always of the same hue, density and emotion. Sometimes, he'd look at it and wonder. Sometimes, he wouldn't look any way at all but the paper. Sometimes, he thought what it would be like to jump out of the bus onto the pavement and shatter his head. The telltale jerk brought him out of his reverie on that Tuesday morning, and a minute later, he alighted.
It was winter. The westward wind was strong and cold, unrelenting against his thin woollen shawl. He drew it tighter around himself, although it had never been of any help. But he'd had nothing else to complain about all year, and something like this was all that he had to keep himself from thinking of different ways to kill himself. He signed elaborately in the register, and as always the clerk looked up at him queerly. Before he went to his seat near the drill, he looked at the calendar. It was March 17, 2144. The celebrations were exactly a week away. Exactly 10 years ago, on March 24, 2134, the country officially declared it had nothing significant left to achieve. The standard of living was appreciable, nobody was poor, no wars seemed possible, diplomatic relations presented no challenges, research output had been steadied, diseases had been eradicated, consumption was regulated, the surplus was sold at fixed rates, the weather was shielded against, and state-sponsored festivals provided distraction from the melancholy.
Kap Fynncraft had been a journalist. When The Threshold was breached, he was reporting a story on a woman giving birth to quadruplets at the capital's government hospital. A few days later, he had been promoted to sub-editorship with the newspaper. A week later, there was nothing to go by except a repeated declaration of the government's accomplishments. A month later, the paper had shut down and he was forced to find work in one of the factories. A year later, in 2135, his wife died when she slipped on the ladder outside his door. He had tried to instigate a revolt in the factory: when they asked him what the problem was, he had said something about wages. The next day, he was arrested by the police. A few days later, he was forced to admit there was nothing he could do about it, and when he did admit it, he was released. When he went back to work, he found they'd also increased his wages. When he tried to look intimidating, they reminded him of his wife. "This is for you to spend as you wish, Mr. Fynncraft. We've a feeling you loved your wife very much."
At 16.00, he lined up near Gate 2. The queue for the bus was two labourers long, and he joined it as he always did as the third man. At 16.06, the bus started on its six-minute journey. On that Tuesday, it took more than an hour: just as they passed the Presidential Boulevard, they were stopped behind a few other buses, some cars, many cyclists, and what looked like an upside-down truck, its underside charred and smoking. Kap Fynncraft, somehow, had sunk back into a reverie. He would be home late today, dinner would be late, he'd have to eat as he watched the game tonight. He smiled. Maybe he'd annoy that old woman downstairs by walking around at 22.00. Maybe he'd miss the bus in the morning and hitch a ride. Maybe-
Before he knew it, the bus was on its way again. He could no longer see the plumes of smoke on the southwest, the inky blue of the late-evening sky had swallowed it in its entirety. The streetlamps were lighting themselves one by one, as if they knew Kap Fynncraft was coming, as if they knew he'd want to alight and, somehow, not want to break his head on the pavement on a night that involved a postponed dinner and an angry old woman. A moist film of water had condensed on the windows of the bus, and he waited by the door lest he missed his stop. Under the bright white glare of the streetlights, he could see the patterned tiling on the pavement whip by in the oblong shadow of the vehicle. He knew they were somewhere near his house, he remembered the hexagonal patterns from a terrible day when he had reached the bus stop early one morning and had decided to look down.
Black, white, black, white, black, white, black... the lines between the colours trapped his eyes, and he could feel himself moving through the Universe one coloured tile at a time.
As always, Chip Ramirez stood to his left, and as always, Ark Eiwen stood to Chip's left. They had nothing in particular to speak about, but a decade-old habit of waiting at the bus stop for 10 minutes in each other's presence made the silence anything but discomfiting. At 07.42 precisely, The Man In The Green Helmet would ride by on his scooter. A minute later, The Two Men With Their Briefcases would open the store on the other side of the street. Just as they reordered everything inside the shop and turned the sign to "Open", a red bus could be seen driving up and down the mounding road on the horizon. At 07.50, Kap, Chip and Ark boarded it.
The bus ride to the factory took precisely four minutes everyday because the amount of traffic between 07.50 and 07.54 was the same on any given day. In fact, the amount of traffic at any point of time was the same on any given day. In fact, nothing else about the city had changed in the last 10 years. As he rode the bus to the factory, he also knew nothing would ever change either because the smoke rising from the smelting factory a few miles in the northeast was always of the same hue, density and emotion. Sometimes, he'd look at it and wonder. Sometimes, he wouldn't look any way at all but the paper. Sometimes, he thought what it would be like to jump out of the bus onto the pavement and shatter his head. The telltale jerk brought him out of his reverie on that Tuesday morning, and a minute later, he alighted.
It was winter. The westward wind was strong and cold, unrelenting against his thin woollen shawl. He drew it tighter around himself, although it had never been of any help. But he'd had nothing else to complain about all year, and something like this was all that he had to keep himself from thinking of different ways to kill himself. He signed elaborately in the register, and as always the clerk looked up at him queerly. Before he went to his seat near the drill, he looked at the calendar. It was March 17, 2144. The celebrations were exactly a week away. Exactly 10 years ago, on March 24, 2134, the country officially declared it had nothing significant left to achieve. The standard of living was appreciable, nobody was poor, no wars seemed possible, diplomatic relations presented no challenges, research output had been steadied, diseases had been eradicated, consumption was regulated, the surplus was sold at fixed rates, the weather was shielded against, and state-sponsored festivals provided distraction from the melancholy.
Kap Fynncraft had been a journalist. When The Threshold was breached, he was reporting a story on a woman giving birth to quadruplets at the capital's government hospital. A few days later, he had been promoted to sub-editorship with the newspaper. A week later, there was nothing to go by except a repeated declaration of the government's accomplishments. A month later, the paper had shut down and he was forced to find work in one of the factories. A year later, in 2135, his wife died when she slipped on the ladder outside his door. He had tried to instigate a revolt in the factory: when they asked him what the problem was, he had said something about wages. The next day, he was arrested by the police. A few days later, he was forced to admit there was nothing he could do about it, and when he did admit it, he was released. When he went back to work, he found they'd also increased his wages. When he tried to look intimidating, they reminded him of his wife. "This is for you to spend as you wish, Mr. Fynncraft. We've a feeling you loved your wife very much."
At 16.00, he lined up near Gate 2. The queue for the bus was two labourers long, and he joined it as he always did as the third man. At 16.06, the bus started on its six-minute journey. On that Tuesday, it took more than an hour: just as they passed the Presidential Boulevard, they were stopped behind a few other buses, some cars, many cyclists, and what looked like an upside-down truck, its underside charred and smoking. Kap Fynncraft, somehow, had sunk back into a reverie. He would be home late today, dinner would be late, he'd have to eat as he watched the game tonight. He smiled. Maybe he'd annoy that old woman downstairs by walking around at 22.00. Maybe he'd miss the bus in the morning and hitch a ride. Maybe-
Before he knew it, the bus was on its way again. He could no longer see the plumes of smoke on the southwest, the inky blue of the late-evening sky had swallowed it in its entirety. The streetlamps were lighting themselves one by one, as if they knew Kap Fynncraft was coming, as if they knew he'd want to alight and, somehow, not want to break his head on the pavement on a night that involved a postponed dinner and an angry old woman. A moist film of water had condensed on the windows of the bus, and he waited by the door lest he missed his stop. Under the bright white glare of the streetlights, he could see the patterned tiling on the pavement whip by in the oblong shadow of the vehicle. He knew they were somewhere near his house, he remembered the hexagonal patterns from a terrible day when he had reached the bus stop early one morning and had decided to look down.
Black, white, black, white, black, white, black... the lines between the colours trapped his eyes, and he could feel himself moving through the Universe one coloured tile at a time.
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