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”.