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?"