the overdue song?

I've been thinking,

way too hard,

and i've been a wanderin'

way too far.

Searching the heavens,

for magical words

and a tune to sail my,

ship of thoughts.

I've been cooking now,

this stew of life

And for a while now,

its been piping hot.

and I've been wondering,

If it really is,

So damn hard to,

get this right.

oh wont something just pass me by,

good enough to make my guitar cry,

or wont somebody help me along,

and help me write my overdue song.

I've tried so many,

so many times,

But it always seems to,

evade my mind.

It no good to eat a

half baked cake,

and no good to sing my,

undone song.

But even as i say this,

I start to wonder,

I start re thinking,

over and over.

Have i just proven,

myself wrong?

Have i just written,

my over due song?

oh wont something just pass me by,

good enough to make my guitar cry,

or wont somebody help me along,

and help me write my overdue song.

because.....

probability exam in 2 hours. hope i get my expectations right.....

Raindrops fallin' on my head..

Black clouds rolled in, driven by the chilly mountain breeze. Everything around grew a few shades darker. Like a well rehearsed snippet straight off the stages on Broadway, the trees swayed to the music of nature. Just a moment before, the city stood, stark and noisy, in all its materialistic splendor, only to be washed anew now. Bathed in the dusky evening light, LA transformed. Silence seemed to be the mantra for the moment; but only, for a moment.

Pitter patter, sound of laughter,
The earth soaks in cold water.

Its raining in LA :-)

about me:

mediocrity rules my life.....

Coding woes!

I've been sitting all day long staring at the computer screen. Coding seems to keep me awake better than caffeine. Racking my brains and jabbing at the keyboard, has pretty much been the mantra for more than 12 hours now. I have a feeling I'll be doing this for the rest of the week. For loops and printf's are as much a part of my life now as are cooking and cleaning the house - dont really love it, but dare not hate it. 

I clearly remember Mr. Swamy from school - with his scantily vegetated head, onto which the tubelight descended, ever so flawlessly. "Its all about logic" he used to say, punctuating it with a trademark chuckle of his. Of the little in C++ that he tried teaching us, very little made its way into my head. Not surprisingly, very little of the 100 marks allotted, made its way into my marks card. 

Hmm.. that was a long time ago. I have made my peace with Mr. Swamy, for the things that he failed to teach and for the ones that I failed to underdstand. Somehow in the 7 years between then and now, the hostility towards coding has softened to a great extent. I'll pray that sometime in the future, I will actually enjoy doing this.

But, for now, the saga of the inevitable code continues. Hopefully I'll get the output within the next hour. Its time to face my demons, again - Its time to code, yet again.       

Somewhere, in the Cycle of Life.

If there was a word that would describe my first one and a half months here, it would indeed be - Phew!

Yes, I've been out of breath, and have been giving my brain cells a lot of work lately. The former, I've been through in the last 4 years plenty of times, the latter - well let me just say I'm highly surprised that I still have my gray matter up there, after 4 years of mis/dis - use.

Coming back to my time here in LA, its been a learning experience, in several ways. I realised that I can be responsible, without really having to make a conscious effort. I realised that I can cook, (and people do eat the stuff I cook), without having to pore over webpages for recipes and I realised that I can keep my room clean, without my mom having to tell me everyday! The last one is a revelation of sorts - and I'm sure my mom will have a grin with " unbelievable " written all over it, once she reads this one.

But all this is not even remotely as important as what I'm about to assert now. Here goes - On a bright monday morning, in LA, somewhere within the 150 acres of USC, if u see an Indian strolling around, with a blue bag, and a black T- shirt, with a " this was not my idea of cost cutting " - look on his face, and riding a pink coloured cycle , complete with a basket to adorn its ridiculous existence, and with a sticker reading 'Silver Canyon - Magna" on it, well, please stop by and say Hello, - U're hello would then, unfortunately be directed at ME!

Yes, I OWN a PINK COLOURED CYCLE, which I would'nt even let Varsha buy, Back in Bangalore!! Well, circumstances change, and people have to go with the flow. And on popular demand, I unleash the first and last snap ever to be taken, of my "luxurious agent of displacement" (calling it anything other that that would be injustice, criminal even)! Voila! Feast your eyes....


Alright! If U have got back on your feet after a hearty laugh, I'd like to say this in conclusion - "Desperate times call for desperate measures" and " It takes a man to ride a pink bicycle among the chicks in LA". I rest my case.

PS: If anyone was wondering as to how much it cost me to become the proud owner of this timeless beauty - 10 dbc's/200 lime juices, one full sleep-less night on the streets of USC and the lifelong right to tease abhay with respect to chromatic issues.

So, it Begins.

I jolt awake to the sound of a car - door being closed. Its dark outside. The street light outside the window hurls spears of harsh, orange light at my eyes, as I grope about, for my watch. I switch on the green backlight of the Casio and peer into the dial, which shows 2:47. I realise I havent openend my eyes fully, but that surprisingly, does not keep me from visualising my room clearly; far too clearly for it to be true I feel. Slowly, the image of my cozy room with my guitars, and my dear old desktop and Varsha's bed at the other side, starts fading out of focus. The remnants of the image wash out completely and is replaced by a realization, rather than a vision. A tussle between the sub - conscious and the conscious follows, and it dawns upon me finally.

I'm in Los Angeles. The curtained windows of my room and everything else in it, is a distant dream. I've just jumped the atlantic, in search of knowledge. No.488, 11th cross, 8th main, JP nagar, is 9000 miles away. And I am an MS away from home.

Snapter ONE - Gordon's Summer

"A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words" they say.
Prof P S Satyanarayana, the ex HOD for BMSCE E&C , would beg to differ. During one of his better lectures, he proved using Information Theory, that this saying is by far an understatement. A Picture is worth more than that. And I could'nt agree more.


A friend suggested that, I do something towards ensuring, that the few readers that my blog plays host to, manage to keep awake through the verbosity that frequents this space. And he also told me, that putting up pictures would make things more lively if not guaranteeing me a record readership. So here goes; a humble attempt at decoding a vision, a photograph.

This one is called Gordon's Summer.

And no, i do not mean the inter-galactic super hero "flash gordon" (even though a "flash" would be very much in place, in an article describing a photograph).

Gyan : The name makes an allusion to Gordon Summers, more popularly known as Sting, and even more so as the voice of "Desert Rose". Gordon Summers was also the vocalist for the Pop sensations "The Police" who have come up with hits like "Roxanne" and "Every breath you take".


About the origin and motive of the photo, this was taken during a trek to the peak of Kudremukh. I knew this sight was Camera - material, as soon as i looked at it. It pays to let your eyes wander, when you're on a trek. Azure blue and Golden yellow - two very appealing colours, give this snap an "oil painting - ish" look. Picasso could'nt have done a better job I'm sure.

But the most important thing about this photograph - It was taken on a 33 year old SLR camera; yup "old is gold" holds good this time around(for people who are lazy enough not to click on the link given,an SLR camera is one where u have to actually wind the film, yourself, after each shot, and the one which looks damn cool to carry around slung across the neck, and the one in which u get to fiddle around with the focal length cylinder at the front, while peering into the viewfinder with a contorted face - the more contorted the face is, the better you are at photography). And before I forget - the reason behind the name : Gordon's Summer. Well it simply reminded me of a pretty popular song "Fields of gold" by Sting aka Gordon Summers. So anyone with an IQ better than that of a 5th grader, should have figured out the connection by now.

Coming to the aesthetics of the snap, its a picture, that to me, symbolizes adventure and the feeling of not knowing what one is about to encounter around the next turn. The golden stretch is a small part of a hillock, with a narrow path spiraling round its conical form. But, on keener observation , and adding a tinge of imagination, it appears to me to be a golden path, that stretches on into the blue heavens, converging into a bend and beyond which we cannot see. Very synonymous to life - we tend to think that we're forever moving towards a bright and distant future, even though we have'nt a clue as to what awaits us the very next instant. Philosophical and cliched i know.. but hey, its an honest idea.

HOPE, I hope!!!

Beacons bright, beacons of light,
In tranquil darkness, stand tall,
As the weary wanderer, drifts along
Into a bright circle, a circle of light.

The crimson shade on the wanderer’s face,
Lights up a lamp deep within,
As he sights an old withered man,
With a wrinkled face and disheveled locks.

He stands against the welcome warmth,
As he slowly peers into the wanderers eyes.
An enchanting song, in a foreign tongue
Escapes the old man’s mirthless lips.

“Welcome to the realm of hope my friend
You are not the first one here,
Neither will you be the last one along,
For the world lacks no sorrow unhealed”

“I’m a trader of sorts, a mystery to some,
I wish to sell you a mirage tonight,
A mirage to sail you through this night,
A picture to heal your ailing heart”.

“Come one come all, to the realm of hope,
For its night and the paths are cruel again,
For the devil jeers at men again,
As the weak and hopeless writhe in pain”

“Let me sell you a mirage tonight,
I charge thee no nickel no bloody dime,
Trust is but my fare to thee,
In a world where gold speaks a brazen tongue”

“To all in pain and the suffering lot,
It’s a call to pierce the shrouding dark,
A call to hold on to splintered wood,
And wisps of light, in the ocean of fear”

“I stand to tell you a precious tale,
Of brighter days and light hearts,
And to make it all an act of faith,
I give thee a gift, not a commodity”.

Prisoner to A World of Ambitions

Had turned my mind and heart away,
Pretending to have forgotten,
The rustic paths where the trees sway,
And the painted sights of Eden.

A gust of wind and a dreamy sky,
Bring back the longing for a far off land,
And makes me wonder ever so why,
Should I be victim, at fate’s hand?

Fetters of the future, bind me here,
Holding me prisoner, when I should have been free.
When I should have been far away from here,
‘midst flowing streams and glad company.

Unfair options in an unfair world,
Arrest my steps, north - ward bound
Where the hills are high and the water’s cold
Where nature still sleeps, safe and sound.

Maybe I’ll go another day,
To the land of gods and golden peaks,
Maybe I’ll get past this worldly fray,
To a place where only the wind speaks.

But forever the lonely wanderer in me,
Shall live and live to see the light,
Streaming through a riddled tree,
Or in gleaming waters, swift and bright.

Engineer of Exams

I was at it again. Sitting, waiting; like I had done all through my four years in BMS. Time seemed to have slowed down to an unbearable, inaudible blip on my Casio watch. Muffled sounds and overlapping frames passed by, without making an imprint on my over stuffed memory.

The protocol was standard. A look at the watch, followed by a sideward gaze at no one in particular, and then at the invigilator. The wait to catch a glimpse of the dreaded sheet of paper seemed to stretch well beyond my threshold. My mind was wandering, as usual ; a feature that I had enforced upon myself, for reasons weird enough to bring out strands of incomprehensibility from others (Its no surprise that I will not bother to explain).

This time, the wait, was different though. It had a sense of finality to it. If all went well, this would be the last time that I would go through this ordeal. But the ironic part of the whole setup was the fact that, it was not the wait, but rather the 3 hours that followed the wait, that actually mattered. A very easily justifiable feeling of underprepared-ness, and the high probability of receiving a nuclear bomb for a question paper, superimposed on the highly inviting prospect of getting done with VTU exams for good, promised to make this a day, a very special one.

As forethought, let me give you an insight into the mind of a VTU student, when he/she is face to face with a question paper that does not look very promising. A quick recollection of the Internal marks held in the subject, followed by an accurate estimate of the bare minimum needed to come through, is arrived at. The student then solemnly pledges every grain of sand owned, to every god he/she can think of. No atheists here, we are all very devoted people; In God We Trust. Silent prayers are muttered in ancient languages for not so ancient purposes. Then, a very quick survey of all the classmates' faces is done, to ensure that everyone shares the same plight. The countenances of toppers are conveniently skipped for the better good of the world. One deep breath and the student dives in.

The artificial clangor of an electric bell startled all my senses to awareness, just as the invigilator realized that her moment of glory had arrived. With a determined look on the face and nimble fingers, she set out to hand over one death warrant each, to every ashen faced warrior in the room. What was the probability that I would not be issued one? well.. zilch. And as fate would have it, 30 seconds later, I found myself staring into the RTS question paper, desperately looking for familiar strings of words, that I could make sense out of. And .. yeah… this is just about the right time when the previous paragraph begins making sense. The question paper was deceptively pleasing. I did not have to think much as to what questions I would be attempting; it seemed my repertoire of RTS concepts fell well below the maximum of 5 questions that could have been answered.

It was time to get down to business. The Cello Pin Point in my hand zig zagged at a frenzied pace, at will. The VTU watermark on every sheet of the paper, was jarring. Pages seemed to disappear in a dizzy sway as the recently stocked contents of my brain, poured out unrestrained. Legibility was a concern, and I tried my best to make every letter look the way it was supposed to. In places where I dint know what to write, I repeated a couple of sentences from the earlier portions of the same answer, and prayed for my paper to be corrected by a maniac suffering from short term amnesia. And before I knew it, I had done the best I could and the cello pen came to a halt on page number 28 of the answer booklet.

The answering phase for me lasted only for about 2 hours and 30 minutes, at the end of which, I had succesfully compiled 4 (hopefully ) full answers to 4 (hopelessly) full questions, underlined everything in the paper that was underline - able, stared out of the window 27 times, and assured myself that If I had screwed up, then so will have my friends. Scant consolation, but we are pretty self – satisfied people here in VTU.

Finally, I gave the answer booklet one final glance, handed it over to the invigilator and walked out a free man. My tryst with the dreaded VTU exams was over. Nothing long or short of an achievement. The gusty winds of VTU had passed me by, on the beautiful streets of BMS. I smiled unwittingly, as a thought crossed my mind “ I’ll live to be an engineer after all “.

Am I Human?

I am….

Complicated,
A tangled mess,
A trapped fly,
In the system,
Awaiting an escape,
A bullet stuck in a barrel.
Human .

How I Wish I was….

A simple song,
A placid stream,
An eagle in the wind,
A free thought,
Content to be me,
A cloud in the sky,
Human.

No Idea!!

"Hey Lets form a Mad - Ads team"...
"Ok cool. What should we call ourselves?"
"Woah!! lets first find the people!!"
"Yeah alright... but more importantly, what do we call ourselves???".

Hehehehe...

Seems like it was yesterday that a bunch of first years decided to stay back after class, in CR201.

Excited, confused and clueless, each one of these masterpieces shared a common goal: To form a Mad Ads Team. That was just about where their similarities ended.

A brief description of the people who went on to become NO IDEA… and its (not so) faithful support team.

Madhusudhan - Diplomatic, fat, Comedy was as much in his blood as is wisdom in Suppandi.

Chandrakanth - Goofy smile with an occasional tuft of hair obstructing the view of a perfectly round skull, haha hehe and hoho were a few of the sophisticated sounds that he had managed to utter without fail every 2 and a half seconds or so, all through his life.

Abhay - Bespectaled Martian, sadistic demeanor, salivatic musician, the person who told everyone who cared to listen , that he had spent 5 years of his (un)worthy life in the US. Unconfirmed reports confirmed that his actual place of domicile during those very 5 years was a slum in the fragrant gullies of kalasipalya.

Bharath - Silent, Schizophrenic, soporific, and was forever in the suspicion that everybody around him was involved in a devious conspiracy aimed at:
1)stealing his cello pen or,
2)poisoning his food OR,
3)swindling him of his money OR
4)doing something vague that had (or did not have) the ability to ruin his life in mysterious ways, known only to him.

Chandan - Impassive, self - proclaimed dancer, the only person in the group who actually remembered what he had come to BMS for.

Asif – was as tall as his half baked vocabulary, beer bellied, hated every person he was familiar with, stayed more on orkut than in his room, was in love with at least 5 different girls at any given point of time.

Karthik - Top time pass creature, He would be a strong contender along with madhu for the highly acclaimed and coveted "Trust me! I can Act" Award. Yelli.. yelli.. yelli.... A genius in the highly specialized field of " I can lose all my birthday gifts within a month.. try me".... deep louve for the field displayed by the incredible feat of losing his NUMBER PLATE!!

Aravind – CT.. villager. The “astrologer” who gave free advice to any faculty member in BMS ECE.. A clairvoyant who could predict the future… he could tell the features of a printer by looking at its print out.. known in the group for having made inroads into B section in search of greener pastures...

Manoj – Graceful villager. The punter who later went on to become the “Femme Fatale” of NO IDEA. Is also an active member of the “voice encryption” club founded by Siddappaji!

Harsha – Fat, thought he couldn’t act for nuts - until he saw karthik, strongly believed in the philosophy of inspiration and went about the room shouting “energy .. more energy”, like a mad man.

Hariprasad – inebriated imbecile, well dressed villager. He quits boozing every weekend.

Basavraj – Bullraj, if someone paid him to lie, he’d be a millionaire, forever the punchline man. The wise – ass who cant spot the difference between a constable and a circle inspector!!

After an exhaustive and rigorous selection process that would put all software companies to shame, Bharath, Abhay, Karthik, Chandan, Basavraj, Aravind, Manoj and Harsha were selected to be the fortunate lot who had the inestimable honour of making complete fools of themselves on stage, and the rest made it to the support team, that was entrusted with the highly perilous (not to mention, satisfying)job of trying to laugh at the fools on stage.

Oh!! and special mentions :

Tharle – Calling him Mr.Attendance would be something of an understatement.. blessed are the lecturers who have had the honour of having taught to a class with him in it. a rare occurrence that happens once in a “bluish – greenish – red” moon. Holds the honorary positions of Chief technical consultant and critic for No Idea.

DJ – no. she does not work in a club..Guest appearance in a show that she will regret for the rest of her life.. the EC Chick.

Abeesh – Never turned up for a show… but surprisingly turned up for every treat. Abysmal creature with a funny gait.

PS: madhu , Chandrakant and hariprasad, (very surprisingly) got bored of their assigned duty and eventually defected to form “the exclusive EC farewell” mad – ads team “Be A Mess”.

THE WORLD I SEE

Tidal waves, in a misty haze
Toss me over, turn me down.
Crushing force, through my doors,
Bludgeons me, into the sea.

Day after day, we’re slowly slain,
No way through, its all blue.
No time to waste, confused haste,
Is all we feel, is all we are.

Trampled, distraught, blind and old,
I see the bearded man unfold.
Creeping death , in pursuit,
He still mumbles , bout his suit.

When? I wonder, How? I muse..
Did we falter, did we lose?
Is this the light, Am I still right?
Is the sun out, or is it still night?

An eagle soars, in the skies
Makes me think, and makes me ink..
Why is it, that a world so free,
Is tied up to a burning tree?

Leaving behind, the world of kings,
On errant paths, a vagabond sings..
“What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare”.

I live to see another day,
And that’s as much as I dare may
Coz In this world of steel and stone..
We are all lost… we are all alone.

TheOrY oF reLaTIvITY

This world… yes, this very world we live in, is a bloody oxymoron. Joblessness can sometimes trigger off thoughts that would take philosophers eons to arrive at. And considering the fact that it took me bout half an hour to ponder and gather this gem of a realization, and also considering the fact that I am as much a philosopher as I am thin, my degree of joblessness must be of substantial magnitude.

Before my verbosity drowns the noble intention of this post, let me bring to your attention, that this world qualifies as an oxymoron simply because, every single aspect of this temporal setting of life is “Absolutely Relative”. Nothing.. I repeat… NOTHING is absolute in this world. But we humans are a race, weird enough to contradict this glaring fact. Denial is something that we were born with and will pass on to every single generation that can fit into the slot between now and never.

Just about everything we do or feel at any point of time is relative to something else that somebody else or we ourselves might have felt/done at an earlier stage. I say this because everything is questionable and everything is debatable in my mind. Who defines what’s good? Who defines pain? Why do I have to believe that happiness is what I feel when I am actually smiling? Even something as certain as ‘death’ is relative to all the years before, termed ‘life’. What we call ‘light’, I perceive as the mere absence of ‘darkness’.
One would not exist without the other.

But I, like all others, still continue searching for absolute-ness in an absolutely relative world. Why? Very simple. The moment everyone in the world adopts the philosophy of the previous paragraph, all hell breaks loose. ‘Good’ will be what each one thinks good for him/herself, and so would be every single thing that we thought to be well defined and concrete. Every single word and every single ideal and theory and ethic and feeling becomes questionable. Morals will not exist and neither will order of life. Hell can be called heaven, bad can be called good and demons can be crowned angels. It is the very insanity of the pursuit for absolute-ness that keeps this world safe and sane (as safe and sane as it presently is… this again is relative when compared to a different echelon of thought relating to how sane the world actually is).

I’d like to conclude my claims of relativity by saying that this post in itself is pretty contradictory and embodies the most important feature this world has to offer; that of being a hidden oxymoron, which is actually pretty easy to spot.

CONFUSED

"Confused" is not the word. Something stronger would be required to convey the state of mind I am in. I could always dig up a fancy one from the annals of my half baked vocab, but today i just dont feel like it. Well come to think of it, screw the vocab and screw everything else thats even remotely screwable. I first need to figure out what I need to do. Both short-time and long-time. YES, I am a victim of the "Why am I here?" Syndrome. Not the metaphysical/spiritual one though, more of the professional/practical one. About a couple of months back I was pretty sure of where I would be heading. Not anymore.

Why does everything have to be so damn complicated? All I want to do is be happy. But then there is this stupid society. A breeding place for competition. And NO!, U cant not give a damn. Try ignoring a fly buzzing in front of ur face; U'd know what I'm speaking about. The problem is, U need to BE happy and in the process make other people happy too. U cant just walk away happy leaving a wretched world of melancholy people behind you. I guess Its the doing of a pretty irritating part of the abstract department of the human mind, called Conscience. I might not be making a lot of sense, but this is exactly what I feel just about now. Uncertainty is an offspring of Ignorance. Confusion is a distant cousin. I am not equipped well enough to choose my path and not dumb enough to go where life takes me. I am moderate. In just about everything. Words such as "average", "moderate" I feel were penned down for me. Have never reached the highest high or the lowest low any time of my life. Have always been too damn scared to go all out for one thing; Perhaps thats why I have ended up being a Jack of all trades. Thats not too bad, but it aint great either.

Here is a dialogue from the movie "The good the bad and the ugly", which I found damn interesting and something that i think I would like to model my life upon. Would like to end this post with it : "If you work for a living, then why do you kill yourself working?"

RAINY – DAY BLUES

Pitter patter, sound of laughter,
The earth soaks, in cold water.
Brings to life a hidden frame,
A fond word spoken or a hooting train.

Plummeting down, a falling song,
While helpless trees, swing along.
Walk the road or ride your dreams,
By murky pools or lucid streams.

Oh! Hear the merciful angel sing,
To greet the return of the King.
Back to sate, the ocean and land,
A parched throat or an empty hand.

And as the sun sets beyond the hill,
Is heaven lost or is it raining still?
Pitter patter, sound of laughter,
The earth soaks in cold water.

MEMORIES and MIRAGES

Myriad memories, Mirages of the past,
Here to haunt and here to flaunt.
Once, a cherished instant,
Now, a treasured moment

Fleeting glimpses and panoramic heights,
A few yards more, and a whole new sight.
Eternity seems just a step away,
As the miles disappear in a dizzy sway.

Hope to find what the road ahead hath,
But never to forget the trodden path,
For, if ever there was a place,
Where the sparkling shone,
It is but the road,
That takes me home, Sweet Home.

COUNTER – STRUCK!

Peace prevailed. I used to get my daily share of food and fresh water. Life was more than smooth, what with the daily afternoon naps and interminable hours of doing nothing. An occasional break from sleep was sought whenever the need to do something more constructive/destructive arose. But fate it seems had scripted a life, far more terrible and several folds quicker, for me. Without warning, one beautiful lazy day, like the flooding of an absolutely dry river, cometh the affliction, COUNTER STRIKE, its name.

Cries of “Fire in the Hole”, through the crackle of static, and the incessant staccato of machine guns, amidst the ineffectual calls for help from fellow teammates, barged into my brain… and life. Hours of doing nothing, effectively transfigured into hours of doing something very much equivalent to nothing. Food, academics, music, sleep and bandwidth were sacrificed for a graphic 20 minutes of a vividly embellished, graphical world. The simple joys of life were thrown aside and replaced by a materialistic, yet immaterial feeling of accomplishment, which in coarse language can be aptly termed, “Cheap Thrill”. Quite unbelievably, the simple virtual ness of a highly complex bundle of code, could keep me away from everything and anything for hours together. I was both disgusted and fascinated at the same time. A recently upgraded computer, a final year engineering student, the ability to fight guilt valiantly and a bunch of like-minded friends, made the perfect recipe to cook a worthless broth that smelt strongly of wasted time and procrastination. Eventually, realization dawned, and by the time I had recovered, first internals had passed by, many of my answer scripts promising to be not much longer than the sheets carrying the godforsaken questions.

A Sniper lurks round the corner, as a fearless warrior stands against the fire.
Walking the path of redemption… yours humbly,
The Counter Struck.

PERPETUAL DARKNESS

Darkness deceives, Darkness defines,
For, it is amidst darkness, that the essence of light survives.
So strive on, to capture the eluding horizon,
And welcome the defeats,
As you shall the victories,
With arms wide open……

MALAISE

“Malaise”: a word that truly lives up to its meaning. Words like these make the language a tad more beautiful and make it a lot more easier to relate, to the several complicated states of mind one can find himself/herself (just in case I were to be branded a Male Chauvinist Pig) in. It’s a state of temporal decrepitude of the mind, which is characterized by a lethargic relation between the lightning fast neurotic messages and the rebellious motor system. Every now and then I become an unwilling guest to this despicable stupor. The reasons, several in number, are not subject to exploration in this piece of writing (As a VTU student, I guess Out OF Syllabus, would be more like it). As I struggle to urge every muscle in the body to bridge the gap between the message and the service, I find myself invariably moving towards the Idiot Box of the new Era, the Personal Computer.

Like a well rehearsed snippet from a Shakespearean play, my fingers string together a set of actions on the mouse and the keyboard, that miraculously lead me to one of the more frequently visited folders in my computer. My eyes do a surprisingly quick scan of the LCD screen before coming to rest upon the fairly successful cure to this ailment of the mind, affiliated to the body. A double click and the treatment begins.

The ensemble of signals that course through my auditory passages, triggers off chemical reactions in my nervous system that faithfully relays the message “Comfortably Numb” to my unwitting brain, just as Roger Waters begins to mouth out the words, “Hello, Is There anybody in THERE?”, belonging to one of the most psychedelic compositions of music ever. A sense of detachment dominates as the song moves smoothly from the first stanza to the chorus. Every time I try to make sense out of it, I end up being more confused than ever. The sound of an overdriven guitar pierces the air in between the hypnotizing verses, as Gilmour paints a contradictory picture of an isolated, serene shore with restless, troubled waves receding into the horizon, with effortless ease and thorough expertise. A feeling of equilibrium eases into the mind, towards the final stages of the song. A segment marked by a high-pitched, flanging solo, leads to an overwhelming overture, before the song fades into the steady tick of a seconds needle.

The feeling of malaise melts, the hand matches the mind. Serviced and cured, the patient walks out to face the world again…….

DREAMS and ASPIRATIONS

T’was a typically cold, October evening. The mildly cold breeze made the leaves rustle and a slight drizzle made its presence felt by the sweet scent of the first drops on brown soil. The rapidly darkening clouds overhead suggested a visit of the rain gods onto earth. The tune of the song that we had been practicing over the past few days kept my mind from fretting over the impending onslaught of the second internals that was to start in two weeks’ time. I sat at the famous “katte” in my college sipping hot lemon tea and enjoying the pensive atmosphere. This was one of those exceptional moments of phlegmatic joy that etches itself into ones memory in the form of indelible images that cannot be delineated in words. It was an atmosphere that evoked thoughts and memories spread over the 3 and a half years that I had spent in BMS uptil now, right from my first day in college to our first performance of mad ads on stage. It was a highly contemplative moment of time, that demanded introspection on the part of the individual in question, which was me. It was the perfect time for me to open the flood gates in my mind that brought out gushing volumes of thoughts, most of them centered round the nagging problem that I had refused to give proper thought to, for a long time now. It was a question that would either answer, if I was really the worthless student that I thought I was, or that would tell me that I had done the right thing by partially compromising my studies for an extended involvement in the myriad activities I was part of, in college. Here I was, a student of Electronics and Communication Engineering, with a modest aggregate of 72.41 percent, a mediocre job offer and a file full of certificates that had the words ‘first’, ‘second’, ‘mad-ads’, and ‘dumb charades’ appearing pretty frequently among them. There was nothing remotely technical about any of the knowledge that I possessed at that point of time and a slowly strengthening conviction, that I was going to end up being a pathetic engineer, started creeping into my already tormented mind.

Apart from all this, the most frightening part of it, was the fact that, the saying “hard work pays off” was proven to be correct, time and again by either a Nobel prize winning scientist or by a cricketer who played magnificently for the country. I was outright sure that I had not been working hard enough on my academics, as I should have been all these years, for it to be paying off. At this point of time I had an urging intent to build a time machine, go back 2 and a half years in time, pick up the 4 inch, 3 kg Electronic Circuits text book , and start studying like there was going to be a power cut for the next 5 years to come. But then I thought, “ Hey!!! Wait a minute; I can still do this right? I don’t need a frikkin Time Machine. As the wise-asses of yesteryear have most solemnly said, “it’s never too late to start”. That’s it. I can start right away and be a person that I was not, a moment ago. I can be Columbus, I can be Chengiz Khan, I can be the counter terrorist who splatters blood all over the computer screen with his indomitable Magnum Sniper Rifle, I can scoop the world up and keep it in my cheeks just like Orr did with Crabapples. And then, all of a sudden, as if to remind me of the ironic smile with which nature looks down upon the doomed mortals that we are, another wise-ass whispers something into my ears that amounts to - “Easier said than done”.

As much as I wanted to, I could not deny this. The distance between the cities of hallucination and implementation is not one that can be traversed in an aero plane. You need to walk the road, trudge along, drag your boots, mop your forehead, bake in the sun, drench in the rain, face the wind, melt the snow and…… never lose sight of the ultimate goal.

Hmmmm.…. ME!! Doing all that hard work…. Seems a lil’ far fetched doesn’t it?? But tell you what, I am dead sure and have never been surer about anything else in my life, that, one certain day, I will set out on this journey, and against all odds, and will emerge victorious, shining like the sun, glistening in the rain, flying with the wind, and melting snow all around.