The Dance of Death :O

Sorry. That's not quite true. In fact, that's not true at all. It's simply Iron Maiden sneaking through my choice of expression. Anyway, that's besides the point. The point is that I don't actually know how to dance. That, of course, includes all traditional dance forms that you can think of, and in my opinion, also any motion of the body that looks appealing, looks aesthetic.

I've always been told that I have a lot of energy and substantial flexibility, but for some reason that was as much credit I ever got. Being the narcissist that I am (not entirely true, but at least it's fair to say that I don't like to look at any other man, more than I like to look at myself!), I brushed off the rather clipped feedback as simply the inability to appreciate non-conformism.

However, the other day, one of my friends caught me on video at a party while I was "dancing" (quotes are attributed to Nipun Sinha :P). Now I don't seek the spotlight, but if you want to give me attention, I can't disappoint you, can I? I strutted my stuff (I wasn't the only one fooling around, thankfully) for a full two minutes of footage, and went back to DJing feeling like I had made a point. (Ha Ha!)

Two days later, Nipun sent me the video with the comment: "You must watch this. You will love it." The alarm bells always start to ring, no..toll, when he's grinning from ear to ear, and this time his Cheshire Cat smile had expressed itself amply in the form of a bunch of smileys on the Google Talk window. I accepted the file transfer and downloaded the video.

Then I played the thing.

My first reaction was, "Wow, my back moves like a flagellum!". The footwork looked more appropriate for a tennis court than for jiving to Chaiyya Chaiyya. The arms seemed to have minds of their own. And the picture of total randomness was finished by the goofy grin plastered on my face. I had indeed made my point. My M.O. on the dance floor is unique, and it requires a special kind of aesthetic sense to appreciate it. No wonder.

All my critics: I'm with you. You may not appreciate me, but that's no problem. Apparently, I don't have this special aesthetic sense either.

life in...lowercase

too afraid of making a mistake
too tired to make the leap
too weak to take it on the chin
too impervious to let it sink in

too proud to try to bend
too hard to decipher
too deaf to hear the cries
too blind to see how time flies

too alone to reach out
too lost to find the trail
too high to fall and not shatter
too wasted to even matter

too many words to even start to say
too many debts to even start to repay
too many chains to try and break away
too many sins to try and pray

too ashamed to stay
too selfish to simply fade away
too easy to lead astray
too few reasons to last through today

too wrong to be true?
too bad to be you?
too dark a hue?
too much in a single life to rue?

too bad you can't see beyond the smoke
too bad the nightmare came before you awoke
never too late to snap out of it
never too late to tell the crowd of it...
it's my life, and i'm proud of it :)

The Eigenvalues of Life

Lately, I've begun to see Life as an eigenvalue-eigenvector problem. Let's say that your life can be represented as a real-valued square matrix (Why square? Why indeed? The only answer I can provide is that they appear more elegant and more pliable to me. If you have reached a level wherein you can talk about your life as a non-square matrix, do let me know how you got there :) )

So, your life is a square matrix, and it has eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Now it so happens that some matrices have more distinct eigenvalues than others. Looking for a counterpart in life, let's say that it means that the greater the number of eigenvalues, the more diverse your interests in life are. If you have a single eigenvalue with a multiplicity equal to the order of the matrix, then you're too absorbed in just one thing in your life. The progression from these two extremes is continuous, which makes sense to me.

There is also the question of real and imaginary eigenvalues. What do I think of imaginary eigenvalues? I suppose it can mean that you're living in a world that is away from reality, and consequently, to keep yourself in equilibrium, you need your imaginary eigenvalues to occur in conjugate pairs. (Slightly flimsy, this part, I'll concede :) )

From eigenvalues, we come to eigenvectors. If you imagine the matrix of your life to be a rotation matrix (i.e. it acts upon arbitrary vectors, and transforms them to new vectors), then the eigenvectors are the ones that will not rotate at all. Implying, if you like, that they are the constants of your life. The core of your existence. Your comfort zones. Like base camps in expeditions. You may go out to explore the wilderness, but when the Sun goes down, you come back to your safe haven.

Now the eigenvalues and eigenvectors are definitely not unique. For a matrix of n^2 elements, you can get a set of eigenvalues with n elements. So, it suggests that inspite of being very different on the surface, we are actually not that dissimilar after all. And in our associations with people around us, we try to look for the same eigenvalue set, even though it may come from a very startlingly different-looking matrix.

I suppose it's the same thing with relationships. I've often been asked how I've been great friends with people who are so unlike me. The answer is probably similar to the hypothesis I just presented above.

Having said all that, I must pause and point out that inspite of having the same eigenvalues, the eigenvectors of two matrices might not be the same. And really, I think it would be a pity if it would be so. In my mind, every association I have should simultaneously nurture me, and challenge me. Bring me new sights and sounds everyday, and encourage me to expand my horizons. Perfection in people, or in relationships with people, is rather undesirable, because there is nothing to learn, nothing to adapt to. And invariably, the quest for that elusive perfection obscures the joys that being different can bring.

The human life matrix is not like the typical n=3 or n=4 matrices that I've (and most of us have) worked with. It has such an amazingly large number of eigenvalues and eigenvectors that the possibilities in being different are endless, and very exciting.

The only perfection I hope to achieve, and indeed, hope to find in others, is perfection in making the most of our imperfections.

:)

(all factual errors may please be attributed to the defective recall of a hopelessly romantic imagination!)

Crashing Hard, in your Backyard!

(An experiment in a different theme and style, as compared to what I normally prefer)


Taking off, clear skies above
Heading into the setting Sun
Time runs fast enough, but still
No match for a heart on the run

My flight plan is in place
Compass proclaiming me on course
Can't wait to put this baby down
And walk through your doors

But I should've known
Even though I couldn't really
I'm flying right into trouble
And now I can see it clearly

It didn't take a storm
It didn't take turbulence
All it took was a blast of air
Distant voices, cold indifference

You've knocked my engine out
Is this trouble in paradise?
And I reach for my radio
Thumping heart, fear-struck eyes

I call out, "Mayday, Mayday!!"
But there's nobody who hears my call
But, hey...there can't be anybody
Only you knew about it all

Maybe I should turn back...
Or should I keep going on?
Don't think...there isn't any time
I'm already a speck on your horizon

I know you're looking at the sky
With your hands on your lips
Wishing you wouldn't have to see it
It's going to become one of 'em YouTube clips!

Don't tell me to save myself
My engine's out, but my heart's running
And I know exactly where to land
Look out! I'm coming, I'm coming...

An Onion for your thoughts?

Feverishly, she peeled them away
Stripping off one layer
Then another...and yet another...
A curtain of sweat-soaked hair
Two green beads of crazed emotion
Despair writ large everywhere

"Can you tell me why
Parts of your self mutually belie
One second, take me so high
The next, leave me high and dry...

The core that I seek
Is swathed in covers that wreak
Panic, and leave me sapped, weak
The dam has begun to leak..."

Her hoarse laugh broke through
"You have more layers than onions, why...why?
What's there to hide, that keeps you shy??"

The slow swivelling of the head
Taking in the sight of opinions awry

Said he, as if swatting a fly,
"Strange that onions should come up
Maybe I too, can't help but make you cry..."

Run, Allan, run!

But he was watching the ball, frozen in his own trepidation and uncertainty. So was Lance Klusener. But the difference was that he was running hard towards Donald. It almost seemed like the two of them were on different pitches, in different matches. And a generation's brittleness came to the fore in a few moments of farcical misjudgment, leaving those who followed in their footsteps to paper over the cracks, even as they tried to believe there were none at all....

If only Allan had run.

Looking in at me, locked inside myself...hmmm

There have been times when I've wished for things in the manner of a man who knows that he has no say in the granting of his desire, and looks at the fulfillment of that desire as a departure from the odds governing its occurrence. In such a scenario, one feels happy if he gets what he wished for, but not too disappointed if he doesn't.

Then there are occasions when I'm very optimistic about the occurrence of an event, which is just a euphemism for saying that I'm certain that it will happen (I'm rather over-optimistic, I think)

A third situation which arises is when my gut feeling tells me that the probability of what I'm wishing for to happen is on the lower side, yet I yearn for its fulfillment with such an unreasoning desire that it scares me to see the ferocity of my own stubbornness. I find myself willing it to happen with all the might of my mental faculties till it blocks out everything else and releases its hold only when the mind gets drained of its capacity to focus on solely one objective. And all this, when sometimes I'm actually powerless to affect the occurrence of the event.

I wonder if you also get the feeling occasionally, that in spite of the fact that it is your brain, and your wishes, yet you are no more than a bystander in the manipulations of the mind. In any case, I suppose that the realisation that something needs to be fixed, is the first step to fixing it, isn't it? :)

Blogging from the classroom: PHYS 580 reloaded

I wrote the following post while attending the lecture of one of my courses, called Biological Physics, about whose instructor, Dr. Mark Goulian, I had mentioned in an earlier post
---------------------------------------------------
April 10, 2007
Lecture Hall 3C6
David Rittenhouse Laboratories
University of Pennsylvania

1041 hrs: I had come to this lecture today with great hopes of finally doing justice to Dr. Goulian (henceforth, Dr. G) and his inimitable teaching. The semester's drawing to a close. I've already studied in another course what we're doing right now, and to top it all, I have 8 hours of solid sleep behind me! Yay!

But so far, it has been a strangely subdued class. The redhead in the 2nd row with the bobbing ponytail and animated expressions looks somewhat sedated. Her friend, the wooden-faced brunette, who normally keeps her hair flowing over her shoulders, has tied it up in a bun, and the stunning AND brainy (yes, that's right) dark-haired girl in the 1st row is having an off day too. No questions from her up to this point...

1049 hrs: The first question of the day from the last mentioned lady! And that is followed by the first collective guffaw from the students. Dr. G has just proven something that looks as convoluted as my DNA (and yours too...), and smells worse than bad fish. But he defuses the tension by capping the derivation with an irreverent "Who cares??!!". For now, I certainly don't, Dr. G!

Not everything looks weird though. Some things are going as they have always gone. The shock-headed guy sitting in front of me and the ABCD to my right look as routinely doped. The poker-faced fellow who always arrives in class with a biking helmet under his arm was 10 minutes late, as always. Good...I like some semblance of order.

Suddenly, Dr. G has a flash of inspiration and jumps on me," Blah, Blah...It was YOU who said that last week, RIGHT?". I take a second to regain my bearings, and affirm his suspicions. He looks as pleased as punch. Maybe I do ask the weirdest questions. I'm quite sure now that he remembers our discussion about ice creams and pluronics...

1101 hrs: Dr. G asks us a question while I'm scribbling this post, and he asks for a vote. The class is as split as the Lok Sabha, showing that it is a thorny matter indeed. I manage to get the answer right even though I had very little inkling as to what the question was :D

1106 hrs: For those of you, who had likened Dr. G to one of those Blue Men group performers who did the Mirinda commercials a few years ago, you're wrong. This guy beats them hands down. And he gets my thumbs up for doing it while talking about rate constants, rectifiers, binding proteins and beam theory all in a single sentence!!!

1113 hrs: Dr. G is also an accomplished cartoonist, and he uses the chalk and board extensively while teaching. In my opinion, it's a great gift to have when you're teaching something as visually involved as Biological Physics. he's talkign about proteins being pumped into lipid vesicles made from Endoplasmic Reticulum, and the whole class is listening, captivated. It is a wonder how superbly, and intuitively the living world works, apparently spontaneously, yet seamlessly, and Dr. G does a superb job of bringing it to us. And if you consider that this guy started out as a Theoretical Physics person at Harvard, and today he does experiments in Molecular Biology, you should be impressed. Even if you aren't sure if you should, take it from me. This guy is amazing!

1129 hrs: This is interesting, it really is. The engaging thing about discussing models is that they always leave the door open for doubters to ignore the advances in understanding made by the model and concentrate on pointing out the gaps instead. That's not a bad thing in itself, because it's only when we are sceptical, do we try to find better answers. Dr. G is certainly doing his bit, by fielding our inane questions, and treating them seriously too!

1136 hrs: In some ways, it's been a disappointing class because we've laughed hard only twice in just over an hour. Pity. And one of those occasions seemed more like an attempt to get the ball rolling. It didn't succeed. Dr. G isn't brooding or anything, though. Maybe he just had too much (or too little?) breakfast :D

1140 hrs: The windows of 3W6 give a panoramic widescreen view of perhaps one of the most pretty parts of the university, with the Penn Tower, the Franklin Field (our football stadium) and the classical-looking Towne Building all jostling for eyeballs. If I look a little lower, there's a grassy area with a tree (maybe magnolia, I'm not sure) laden with blossoms. There are wooden benches and squirrels, and in the early summer, you would find several people having their lunch there. Next to that area are Penn's tennis courts, where the women's team is practising right now. Enough said. I'm sure you get my drift. ;)

1146 hrs: Dr. G looks at the clock behind my head for the first time today. I must confess: I'm desperately hungry. There's only so much I can do on just a glass of milk. I'm sorry.

1150 hrs: And we're through for the day. I'm off for lunch. But before that, let me put on record that when I've finished the course, I will surely miss Dr. G and PHYS 580!

The Feel of Music

I'm very opinionated and at the same time, very attached to my music. I tend to form correlations of people, times and places with songs very strongly, and even if I try, I am never able to shake off those links. For example, I haven't listened to Linkin Park and most of Enigma and Bryan Adams for about 3 years, and there is no sign that that will change.

On the other hand, there are some songs with which I am able to recall the best times of my life, and the uplifting effect of those songs is simply amazing. However, I've often wondered if it possible for a song to have the same effect on everybody who listens to it. I have a candidate for such a song. You can find it here

It's a song called Appalachian Fall by DJ Sammy, and is completely instrumental. I'll be keeping it uploaded for a few days, before removing it. Do let me know how you liked it, and whether it had the same effect on you as it has had on me, every single time I've heard it.

PHYS 580...beta version

Phys...phys...phis...fiss....tain-tain-fisssss.....

This was supposed to be a post about the most deceptively useless class I've sat through, but now I'm feeling drowsy, and so it'll have to wait. This post, as deceptively useless as its subject, will remind me to come back to the tale I want to tell. In the meantime, let me introduce you to the Professor who takes the class. Absurd guesses regarding his actions (antics?) in class are very welcome!

More later!

Six degrees

On the merry-go-round
Of a tired mind
On a lonely night
Of a long winter

They all come back to you
one by one, like the
dripping of water from
the leaky tap in the kitchen

All the memories that
you wanted to keep
and all those you wished
would just go away and get lost

The carousel spins slowly
slowly, ever so slowly
never letting you miss a thing
so slowly that it would take another life

to go back and see those
three-hundred-and-sixty degrees
of a life that passed by
in little more than a blink of an eye

tell me if it isn't so
oh yes, you can't say no
that some parts of the pie
were sweeter than those nearby

turning round, and round
you found yourself smiling
at the three-hundred-and-fifty-four
degrees, you wanted to see again

but between the lights of
the brightest past
between the stories of victory
of treasures vast

there lie the spaces
of darkness, dissipation
indelible, on the pages
of history, of recollection

can you face them,
your agents of persecution?
can you smother the cries
of the pain of ambition?

between the reality
and dreamed-of perfection
there's always more than just
six degrees of separation...
-------------------------------------
This was an accidentally-conceived alternative spin on the term "six degrees of separation"

Thoughts on the World Cup thus far

It's been nearly 10 days since the Cup began, but I think it was only after watching India lose to Sri Lanka and limp out of the tourney, that I felt compelled, or let's say, moved sufficiently to write something on the goings-on.

To get this out of the way, I'll say that it was a disappointing way to go out for the team, which had shown the ability to live up to promise, playing effective cricket without riding on sensational individual performances. As I watched the dismemberment of the top order, I was sad, even sympathetic, at what was happening. There have been so many occasions in the past, when I have felt anger at Indian losses, but today, the sense of helplessness that pervaded the batting effort could not evoke such strong emotions.

Going into the championship, I felt, for perhaps the first time, among the 3 WC's that I have watched with some kind of intelligent perspective, that the team had a good chance of doing well, and even the thoughts of losses were invariably linked to images of a team fighting hard, and going down to the might of a superior opponent with its pride still intact. I would like to think that I had reasonable and well-founded expectations. It was as true then, as it is now, that we were missing a bowling spearhead, but the line-up had demonstrated its capacity to overcome that disadvantage and still win games.

I had never expected the team to win, but I was looking forward to the Super 8's, when they got themselves into a tangle by coming out under-cooked mentally against Bangladesh. Perhaps I'm too lenient, but the first thought that came into my mind was that they had an off-day, and they would surely bounce back from it. Today, I realized that I was wrong, not because they could not bounce back, but because in a tournament with the format this one has, off-days are blunders, and more likely than not, fatal. I also realized that even though the team did superbly in 2003, I probably gave them less credit than they deserved. That tournament had a more forgiving format, and yet the team won 8 games in a row between defeats to Australia, against quality opposition, and with convincing margins. That side did not have off-days at crucial junctures, even though the lopsided losses to Oz were in the same bracket as the losses in this Cup.

So, were Sri Lanka the better team today? They were, in hindsight. But this game could have been so much more closer had there been calmer and more sensible minds on the field. The dismissals of 4 of the top 6, to me, were similar because they were all results of what I like to call brain fades, blind spots in judgment. The tension and pressure were so palpable that anybody would have called it quits for Indian hopes after 25 overs of their innings.

This will inevitably be clubbed together with the demise of Pakistan to make a very succulently amazing statement, but I make a distinction between the two. The Pakistanis had come into the Cup looking woebegone, and their campaign never even looked as if it had even started running, let alone taken off. But as their loss to Ireland showed, just how far they had slipped was hidden by the fact that the opposition they played before the championship was considered capable of beating them.

However, I think I've said enough, and I'm looking forward to enjoying more marquee match-ups from hereon, especially Oz vs South Africa tomorrow. On a sadder note, the death of Bob Woolmer was a great shock, and now that it has been confirmed that it was not natural (I can hardly bring myself to use the word murder, it upsets me so much), the shock has given way to dismay. There are so many things that come to mind, and I'm sure every person who has some degree of perspective on sport, and even more so, defeat in sport, would feel anguished too. Sambit Bal has written a comprehensive article on the same in Cricinfo, which I would definitely want every cricket fanatic to read and absorb. The deluge of public reaction to the article shows that there are many who share similar views, but a closer look at the feedback shows up some issues with the way we in India perceive the sport and the players.

The most common comments that I've read so far are "the lack of accountabilityof the players to the people" and "players are interested only in making money" and others expressing the same sentiment. Firstly, it's not obvious to the folks making these statements that technically there is no accountability and there can never be any accountability, NOT because there is no such thing, but because the grounds on which such accountability is being demanded are hollow. If the players were being paid by the government, and hence by the taxpayers, then such a sentiment would undoubtedly justified. But it's not so at all. Cricketers earn huge sums of money because the people elevate them to the status of Gods, and allow them to be even considered for such astronomical payments. I am sceptical about their value as brand ambassadors. I am not convinced that their would be a drastic difference in the sales and consumption of various products, and more so, competing product, if the cricketers were removed from the calculations. After all, rival companies are both employing their services, and in popularity stakes, apart from perhaps Tendulkar, all the others nullify each other's effects.

So the gist is, if you're the ones who allow them to earn that kind of money, then you're also the ones who can take it away. After all, cricketers who fade from public memory are consigned to the 'expired' bin very quickly. So what is the point? The point is, sadly, that we are a country of a billion people, and just as there are failures and successes in any society, we have our fair share too (maybe more than our fair share, I'll concede). In such a country, you do not descend into anonymity and neglect, you rise from it. It's a nation of people who were denied opportunities to achieve their goals in life, and on top of that, many of them have seen the unfair side of life at almost every juncture. In many a moment of sheer frustration I have called the Indian people a bunch of losers, who live off the the glory and success of their chosen ones, such as actors and cricketers. With little to look forward to in terms of personal advancement, the average person looks to them to provide his thrills and his ecstasy, and the ugliness of hurt dreams rears its head every time the team does badly. The media adds fuel to the fire, and the result is very, very unpleasant.

Being in the US, I'm thankful that I won't have to see the hate and fault-finding campaigns that are surely ready to come out, all guns firing. I'm so glad to be away from it all, even though there is little else to be glad about.

Blast from the past...literally!

When I was very young, I often had a hard time falling asleep at night, and I used to lie awake long after all the lights in the house had been turned out. All, except one. The coloured low-wattage bulb that seemed to do a better job of casting shadows on the walls and the floor, than to illuminate. In the summer, the sound made by the fan in my room filled the silence of the night, but in winter, there was absolutely nothing to fill the vacuum, save for the occasional barks of the dogs, or the whistle of the night-watchman, or the rumble of trains passing through the small station. Most of the long-distance trains made their stops in Roorkee during the night, and I could tell which train was passing by, if only they had managed to stay on schedule :)

And then there were the sirens of the trains, carrying over miles, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of the wheels on the rails. Sometime there were short bursts, sometimes long and drawn out. Lying there, under the covers on such a winter night, I used to think. Think about many things, talk to myself, let my imagination loose, free to find shapes in the shadows, to make wild conjectures about the odd sound that broke the stillness, hear the low squeak of the mice in the house, and guess where they were hiding, or simply wonder what I would do if one of them decided to climb on top of me!

And in the middle of those chains of thought, of fantasy, the sound of the horn of a train was always exciting, bringing with it visions of places I'd been to, and yet more fantasies about places that lay unexplored by me. It evoked the sense of excitement that a lone explorer in the woods experiences as he hikes up the hill, wondering what the view would be like from the top. I used to imagine myself sitting at the window of such a train, as it went scything through the darkness with the light on its engine. I could feel the wind on my face, as I looked out into the night, seeing practically nothing but assorted shapes of darkness and the odd light in a hut or a dhaaba on the highway running next to the tracks. I dreamed that I was going away to some destination that I had found on the railway time-table. Some place I had never been to, but the kind of place whose name sounded nice when you said it aloud. Some place away from home. Far away. And yet, it wasn't the thrill of reaching that place that used to send a chill down my spine. It was simply the excitement of the traveller, the man on a journey, in which sense, I guess I could say that the journey was a destination in its own right.

As I sit here in my room, next to my open window, I can hear the siren of a train wailing through the night, and it brings back old feelings, thoughts, recollections so vivid and yet sufficiently hazy, that I don't quite know if they're my own memories or just figments of a romantic imagination. But I guess I don't dream of going away from home any more, at least, not all the time. It is but natural, you know, because where I live is just where I am physically, and even home has become a destination now...

Looking at Me

a shape-shifter
a random number
a ticking bomb
deep in slumber

a reflection shrouded in smoke
a doubt at the back of the mind
a nagging memory, like a tape
with no rewind

just a lump of clay
with a backbone
with a few grey cells
maybe best left alone

like the views past curtains in my windows
like colours in black-n-white photos
like the secrets in a magician's shows
like the gold at the feet of the rainbows
like legends, true and imagined
as for reality, well...who knows?

On the road!

I'm an incurable romantic, as far as long road trips are concerned. In particular, I love the feeling that I've left work, home and boredom behind, and I help things along by pretending I'm never going to return to them again :)

There are so many things that change when I'm on the road, or travelling, in general:

1) I have meals at normal hours: At home, there are a thousand distractions, and then there's laziness, and there's sometimes just nothing to eat till Ankur comes home...but, when you're travelling, food rises in the priority list to near the top, because there is nothing to wait for except for the eating joint of my choice, and if it's hot under the Sun, then a brief respite is always welcome.

2) I'm not online: Yes! That is a big deal. I think I shouldn't bother to explain this one!

3) I can hum songs with no fear of being laughed at: This isn't really true, because I'm not afraid of criticism, especially about bedroom and bathroom singing, which makes no sense anyway. However, under the cover of the roar of the engine, I am virtually fearless.

4) I can call people up and tell them what they're missing: Truth be told, a good fraction of the enjoyment of travelling is its capacity to generate anecdotes, often massaged with a more than a pinch of salt. And if you are out to do better things than visit relatives, then you have a greater chance of seeing beautiful places, taking breathtaking photos and eating weird food. Your pals at home, meanwhile, are unanimous in their envy.

5) I get to read maps: I'm a map fanatic. I just love journeying through towns with quotable names; I love drawing up road maps, navigating, looking forward to the changing landscapes, checking the odometer for the miles travelled, and all that kind of (so you think) pointless stuff. No wonder the Casio Pathfinder PAW-12001V is the watch on my wrist :)

6) Some trips turn into battles of attrition: And then it's the survival of the fittest. Mostly, I come out looking better than the rest of my gang. Adverse conditions bring out the masochist in me, and it's very ugly. But, I still don't mind it. Makes for amazing tales to tell!

7) The radio stations: Some of the FM stations are simply fantastic, and normally you get a bunch of them, so if you don't like the music that you're hearing, you simply twist the knob.

I'm sure that isn't all, but I think I've covered most of the important things. Oh wait, did I mention the rather obvious fact that I get to sit in a respectable car?

;)

Untitled

so you thought
that the Freak Kingdom was
not your type of place
and your incompatible normalcy

and then you decided
to give it all up
hit the road that leads out
into the promise of amnesic bliss

ha! you so wanted to see
the looks on their faces
when they found out you had
gone away, with no goodbyes, no tears

you'd wanted to look back over
your shoulder and find them calling
oh yes, you wanted to hear it,
if only to leave them in your wake

how long will it be
i hope, less than the man before you
before you see that there is nothing
to see on the road ahead

the mirage of your freedom
the sirens and their songs
of the fabled escape
of the thirst that can kill, but can never be killed

running away is so damn easy
until it becomes so unbelievably
hard, and the sights you wanted
to see, end up behind your back

you're a runaway
but you're no fugitive
nobody wants to bring you back
nobody cares if you're gone

it was all yours to lose
it was all yours to give up
or to throw away, into the quicksand
of irreversibility, of prodigality

you're no odysseus
listen to that little voice
inside your head, and turn back
if you don't, well, i'm here to count you down

once you turn your back on them
they'll tell themselves that it was good
riddance to rubbish that was once good
can you take that and live with it?

it's going to take all the running
you can do, just to stay where you
are now, and that means either
forgetting what you ever had, and won't ever have

or planting the seeds of your own
Freak Kingdom in the desolation
of the desert sands made by the bones
of those that withered to their demise

but, i'll tell you this
what if you have what it takes to make
an oasis of your dreams
that can pull them from their sad gardens

on the other side of the desert
he who runs away, has but two ways
to end, either to rue, or to rule
remember, shattering hearts make no sound

in the swirling, blinding, deafening
winds, but if the world's too small
for you, then you've to go farther
than the man you followed out here

either they'll pull you back
or you'll reel them in, think about it
and tell me how that sounds to you
running away forever, you've nowhere to run

this is the playground of your visions
dig in the heels, plant that flag
and dare the sun to strike you down
nobody remembers the faceless names in the sand

but if it's all going to end one way or the other,
you'd rather go out in a blaze of glory, flying high, shining bright

a supernova explosion it may be,
but might be a majestic volcanic burst too,
it might be the flight of icarus,
but what if you had wings of fire...?

Hush...I'm dreaming...

I looked out the window
as the world drifted to sleep
in the shadows of the lights
lit to light up the darkness in its dreams

The snowflakes tumbled down
from the heavens, swirling,
breathing silent life onto the streets
putting the covers on the exhausted

I step out my door
and look the cold straight in the eye
The lamps are but fireflies
Beacons they may be, but no fire in them

They choose to chase their visions
in the light of the day
while I roam the paths that lie
deserted, cold, in the interludes between the sun

Don't they know what they're missing?
why do they have to dream
with their eyes shut, and boots off?
is this spectacle waiting for an audience?

I'm doing justice to His creation
in speechless admiration of the pristine
yet moving force of the scenes
He etches tirelessly through the night

But am I?
in the solitude of my ecstacy
have i left some dreams
out here in the cold, to wither?

Do all those who wander
have to get lost?
Do all those who stay on the path
make sacrifices worth their weight in gold?

Oh, to be a daydreamer
Living out the days in my imagination
And waking the nights to find the joys
Of a life they call wasted, with no regrets.

Amen.

Garbled confessions

Overcome with a flood of so many nameless emotions, and inexplicable sensations, with no control over my next thought. Switch on the music, push up the volume to max, and starve the brain of space to think, because thinking won't help. Let it pass...

Rediscovering the joy in the dismay

I just saw Andy Roddick dump Marat Safin out of the Australian Open in the 3rd round in 4 sets, including 2 tie-breakers. The match ran over 3 hours, and the quality of tennis was outstanding from both players. I've always had a soft corner for the temperamental types of players and teams (somebody did some research on this...I'll try and dig up that article in another post), and Marat has been one of my favourites ever since he dismantled Sampras in that amazing US Open final in 2000.

But going into his 28th year now, he's proven himself to be an underachiever of colossal proportions. Even before Federer came around and started winning everything, Safin was playing hide-and-seek with himself and with his fans, squandering his career away, while winning over hearts wherever he went with his supremely uncomplicated and unconquered nature. He turns 27 on January 27, and he will have, to show for nearly a decade of efforts, 15 titles, including 2 Grand Slams, which is both surprising, and not-so-surprising.

Today, he produced some enthralling tennis, but was defeated by a player whose combination of skill and method proved too good for his largely inspired, yet inconsistent, performance. It was the second tennis match that I watched live on TV after arriving in the US (the first being Federer's dismissal of Blake in Shanghai), and the moment of my favourite's loss brought with it feelings very familiar, which had been lost somewhere for the past few months.

Back in college, competing with a pack of guys who were very nearly at the same level as me, victory and defeat were regular ingredients of a memorable period of my life. I've not been a good loser, ever, in the sense that I lacked the desirable calmness and stoicism in the hour of defeat, even though I never retained even a smidgen of ill-will against anybody I lost to, and generally recovered well after a loss. However, the flood of self-reproach and dismay made THAT moment a very hard one to live through.

Since joining grad school, I haven't been involved in any competitive activity outside academics, and those days had receded into the distant past. I've often wondered at the emotional changes I've undergone, some of which I may not even be aware of. An existence devoid of any strong emotions doesn't feel like me at all. And it took Marat's defeat to awaken me to this realization. It feels so good to experience the upwelling of blood in the veins and tears in the eyes.

To rehash a cliche, I feel alive again!

Update to the previous post

The decision has come quickly, and Herschelle Gibbs has paid the price for, what is in my view, indiscretion and simple bad luck: http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/rsavpak/content/current/story/276497.html

I don't mean to justify what he did, and apparently some of the things that he had said were too bad to be even hinted at in print. Saurabh had this to say about my earlier post, wherein I think he has raised the larger issue of the ghost inside the machine, rather than just the accident caused by a combination of circumstances. He says,

"..are the ideas of right and wrong based upon locality and convenience? the remarks - whatever they were - were found to be offensive by the committee. now, to say that "they were not meant for the public, but for the team"... doesn't make then right anymore."

I agree that the fact that Gibbs was caught mouthing whatever he was mouthing indicates something beneath the surface, namely the presence of some deep-rooted contempt and derision for Asian people. What surprises me is that Gibbs should be the one implicated, because he has, for a long time, been an automatic selection in the team along with Makhaya Ntini. Both these players have surpassed expectations in SA colours, while also making the stated agenda of including coloured players an easy one to implement.

Coming back to the point that I was trying to impress earlier, I'm less than enamoured with the idea that Gibbs deserved censure for what his opinions were, rather than that he was caught expressing them. It's not the politically correct thing to say, but I think it is fair to say that most, nay all, of us go through entire lifetimes addled with unreasonable and (at times) unfounded opinions on people and their philosophies. It's just that nobody comes asking us what we think, and most of us would rather keep our mouths shut than go and stick up for our trenchant views against people who differ.

Within the rules of the game, Gibbs got his just desserts, and in the future, I'm sure we won't hear any such chit-chat from him, but hey, he can always find ways to beat the microphone.

Adios!

"What is said on the field should stay on the field."

The First Test between Pakistan and South Africa is being played at Centurion, and I found this article as I was burrowing through Cricinfo for the latest: http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/rsavpak/content/current/story/276456.html

The gist of the article is this:
"...South African officials are investigating an incident during the fourth day of the first Test against Pakistan in which an unnamed South African allegedly made an insulting remark which was heard by television viewers around the world.

"They're like animals," was the comment picked up by a stump microphone which apparently had not been turned off as normally happens soon after a ball has been bowled..."

SA coach Mickey Arthur was understandably displeased about the whole affair, and he clarified that the comment was not made at any Pakistan player, though he stopped short of saying exactly whom one of his players thought were like animals :)

It seems that SA left-armer Paul Harris was abused by some Pakistan supporters while he was fielding at the boundary, and the people in question were ejected from the stadium. While the comment itself leaves much to the imagination, I guess I would not buy the idea so easily that it was an insult aimed at a player. The test has been played in good spirit, and as I write this a somewhat interesting final day remains to be played out. However, several people don't believe so, and Arthur revealed that he had received complaining emails from Pakistan!

The whole incident is, on the surface, thoroughly hilarious, as far as I'm concerned. It is one thing to heap the responsibility of being politically correct, humane and compassionate human beings on prominent sportsmen, given the amount of spotlight they are in, and it is yet another thing to expect them to be gentlemen even on the field, EVEN when they are speaking among themselves!

Let us say that Mr. JH Kallis thinks that XYZ resembles some kind of animal, and he says so to Mr. HH Gibbs, in a perfectly amiable conversation, and they share a snigger at a men's joke. But that becomes a problem for a guy sitting 5,000 miles away, and armed with a deep distrust of the South African psyche with regards to racial issues, he gets incensed and addresses his grievances to the SA coach.

Really, I can't imagine how Arthur would have reacted to the first sight of such a complaint!

There are other things to think about as well. For the sake of raising questions, here I go:

One: Is calling someone an animal serious enough for Match Referees to get involved, as Chris Broad might do?
Two: How useful are the on-field microphones? Are they creating more chaos than the benefits they provide?
Three: Should the live feed be made accessible to television viewers, when there is no monitoring of the same?
Four: Was it right for the SA player in question to call the unruly spectators 'animals'? (assuming they were the ones being referred to)
Five: Are subcontinental viewers more touchy than they should be when it comes to racial issues?
Six: The SA players see as much sledging from the crowd in Australia, as a pig sees mud. Would Aussie supporters have been called 'animals'? (I don't imply that those folks would have been invited for drinks, but would the terms of endearment be any different?)
Seven: Which type of animal, Mr. SA player? Pleaeeeeeeeeeese! I SO want to know how good your zoology is!

:D

Adios!

The Last About Me I'm ever going to write on Orkut :D

Take a picture
Or take two, if you should.
Give me an excuse
To never forget where we stood.

But for all you know
Even though I'll save
What I wanted to remain,
I might also feel
What I ne'er wanted to feel again...

-----------------------------------

Deviance....without defiance.

-----------------------------------

TO ANYBODY....who has played sports or has felt as one in heart and soul with the tennis player who hits that last forehand into the net after a gruelling 5-setter to signal his defeat......the basketballer who goes for that three-pointer with one second remaining on the clock, and misses it......the marathon runner who strains every muscle, every neuron, every bead of sweat on his body on the home stretch, only to see himself overtaken by a fitter or possibly smarter rival........the footballer who finds himself with the ball staving off an attack on his own goal, with his team a goal down and with 10 seconds to play......the fielder who makes an acrobatic pick up and throw, knocks the stumps down, but cannot stop the batsmen from stealing the winning run.

TO EVERY ONE of you out there who knows what it feels like to be beaten , and to hate yourself for it. Not because you didn't give it all you had, but because it was all you had, and no more.

TO ALL THOSE who didn't allow this to break them down, or push them over....you are my heroes.

-----------------------------------

PAINT your favourite smile on your face, clothe yourself in your best suit of irreverence, and be prepared to turn a sneering, insolent face to all that life throws at you. Even if it means telling lies to those who will be the most pained to see you in pain, even if it means forgetting how close you are to being somewhere you don't want to be, even if it means being misunderstood and criticized for trying to shield those you care for from the heat of your own sorrows.

IF THAT is what it takes to keep the world around you moving, then do it. Who knows how many people out there are seeing the world from your broad shoulders?

-----------------------------------

THE BIGGEST challenge in life is to be able to live with who you are, what you have, what you want and whether all these put together make sense or not.

THE NEXT hardest thing to do is to have the courage to ask yourself these questions, and actually try to answer them.

I hope to be able to do both these things by the time I'm through with my life.

-----------------------------------

(copied from my Orkut homepage on Jan. 13, 1954 hrs)

Self-improvement

I've never been a huge fan of the self-help genre of books, primarily due to 2 reasons: one, I am too entrenched in my own set of beliefs to yield to any external pressure, and two, they have this tendency to further their cause by propagating the idea that there is definitely something wrong with you and that the way to change that is ridiculously simple. The catch is that you are probably not smart enough to figure it out by yourself. Hence you need help, you need sugar-coated words of consolation, you need elaborate thought channels wherein you delude yourself with some peculiar thoughts, all in the name of healing and improvement.

As I grow older, and with my relocation to the US, I've become more aware of the weaknesses in people's mental make-up that these works target. As long as you're in a close-knit society of any sort, be it your group of friends in class, your mates in the hostel, or best of all, in a caring, understanding family, you get to observe people at very close quarters, and for considerable lengths of time. You get to appreciate the goodness in them, but more importantly, you regularly come face-to-face with the fact that nobody is even close to perfect.

It seems to alleviate the frustration that builds up inside at your own shortcomings, and you take a more realistic look at yourself. What's more, you don't spend hours mulling over these things and feeling a growing sense of desperation at the state of affairs in your life.

If I were to make a list of the things that I would like to remove from my psychology, then it would undoubtedly make very gloomy reading. And in my case, the step up to the next level of education has been accompanied by more isolation, which is partly due to circumstances, and partly due to the time it takes to adjust oneself to the new circumstances, provided an adjustment is possible, and you want to make it.

In such a scenario, I've fallen into the trap of excessive introspection more than once, and knowing how useless it is, I guess it should be unlikely that I would walk down the same road again. But the point is that, sometimes you are so fed up with trying to work out things by yourself, that you wish there were easy answers. That feeling is impressed further when you look around and see people ostensibly happy, occupied and leading 'normal' lives. And you ask, is there something drastically wrong with me?

Truth is, there probably isn't. You are no more sad, or confused, or weird, or crazy than the next person. But how do you know that with certainty? You don't, because you don't spend enough time in the company of people to be wiser. You end up feeling despondent, and it's something that arises out of almost nothing tangible. It's considerably worse if you have a slightly dim opinion of your abilities and your skills, because low self-esteem makes you feel like you're slowly sinking into anonymity, nothingness. Nobody cares for you, and even if you were to scream out in panic, you wouldn't be heard.

It's here that self-help gurus step in, and give you what seem to be the elixir: personalized solutions to all your issues. Prioritizing the scattered elements which sting like the thorns in a bush. Most of the people I'm in touch with seem to be affected by a pervasive loneliness. People look for support and attention from complete strangers, while traveling in a bus or at some get-together. It might even be possible that they speak to folks they don't know, more than they speak to people they do know. There are scores of general courtesies which the average person observes, such as saying thank you at every possible instance, or wishing each other a good day and many more. But I have no doubt that inspite of these gestures of civility, they can never make one feel at home or wanted in a way that our people in India can.

It is ironic that while you won't have any interaction with a person performing a certain function on a daily basis In India, as compared to that with his counterpart in the US, but still, the forced smiles and machine-like sweet nothings, thrust your own loneliness in your face. I concede that it's not the only factor that makes one feel a certain way, but it is so glaring, that I couldn't help noticing it, like most of the other Indians I've spoken to.

So! Are we all destined to finding all our solutions in the proverbial teacup? The cup with the magic concoction that cures all ills? I would like to think not. I'm still going to heal myself with the magic mixture of a willingness to fight the odds, and plain, simple, effective passage of time.

Adios!