A Return to Poetry

I stood by the road
And watched them rush by me
As day turned to night, dusk to dawn
The most intriguing, ceaseless art you'll see

She brought me out of my trance
Quizzical look, hand on my shoulder
O Traveller, wither your destination?
You feel not the rain, nor the wind ever colder

Said I to her, you people move so fast...
Tracing curves in space and time with alacrity
Yet, in my world, I'm convinced you don't get as far as I do
For I subscribe to the principle of relative velocity.

Wiredness=weirdness?

Today, I read an article in the NYT by Mark Bittman chronicling his attempts to break away from the so-called electronic addiction that afflicts a huge percentage of the population in this country, and in many other societies around the world. He describes the process as one that required a lot of effort, but one that eventually deserved the hard work because it restored some perspective on how important being connected actually is. I quote him:

"I would no more make a new-agey call to find inner peace than I would encourage a return to the mimeograph. But I do believe that there has to be a way to regularly impose some thoughtfulness, or at least calm, into modern life — or at least my version. Once I moved beyond the fear of being unavailable and what it might cost me, I experienced what, if I wasn’t such a skeptic, I would call a lightness of being. I felt connected to myself rather than my computer. I had time to think, and distance from normal demands. I got to stop."

I've had my own discussions with friends, mostly other graduate students, who have admitted that they sometimes feel rather uncomfortable with their (growing?) dependence on the internet as a means of spending time. We've all agreed that if only we could spend less time online, we could explore other options. Some of us would like to re-establish some good habits that we had in the past, such as reading books, or going biking, or simply trying a little harder to explore the social side of graduate school (it does exist!). Others would like to pick up a new hobby, start a gym regimen or simply spend more time studying.

I've done more than my share of experimenting with different degrees of detachment from the internet at various points of time, and it's a trivial conclusion that the problems arise only when one has extra time at hand, or should we say, unallocated time. Back in the times when I didn't have any regular internet access (nor any need for it), time had to be accounted for. And that needed planning, and reaching out to other people to see if there was anybody else who was struggling to keep the clock ticking at a comfortable pace. It didn't seem to be that big a deal at that time, but the fact that I'm bothering to note that should indicate how far the boat has gone down the river.

The beauty in that system was the vulnerability and need of the agents in it. I was dependent upon entities not under my control to fulfill my needs. On the surface, the internet did away with most of that deficiency by giving me all the information, all the music, all the video and all the tools I would probably need to stay in touch with friends. However, it created the possibility of being left high and dry when the bubble finally burst.

In that light, Bittman's conclusions are almost obvious and his delight and satisfaction quite palpable. However, I don't think that the same inferences are applicable for people like me, in situations like mine. At the outset, I'd say that I agree with him when he says that being cut off allowed him to think and feel one with himself again. If I have a computer screen staring me in the face for most of my waking hours, I can hardly avoid being drawn to it, even if it is on the most acceptable of bases. If I'm thinking about something, and I realise I have a need for some information or some reference at that point to help me proceed with my thinking, I'm going to try and find it on the net immediately. And unless I'm really, really short of time, what with the marvellous cross-linking on Wikipedia, one click will lead to another, and time will be history very soon!

That having been said, I differ with Mark Bittman because I feel it's really counter-productive for me to try and avoid the internet or other forms of connectivity. At this stage of my life and my career, I think that the internet can only help me if I use it with a measure of wariness (I was going to use 'self-control', but that sound like, and is, preaching) with regards to what the benefit versus cost is at a certain point on the usage curve. It's not very different from the concept of marginal profit; after a while, it ceases to be a good idea.

In addition, it's easier to avoid the internet on a weekday, especially with the kind of schedule I have, because no matter how much work I do, I always have more to consider. But that turns the tables on me, because if I want to grab a 15 minute break by taking a walk outside the lab, it's never going to be 15 minutes. And that's both the good thing and the not-so-good thing about real people: You can't always get what you want from them on your terms. It's definitely a gameplan that's too iffy for my liking. So, I conclude that I should have the internet ready when in such a situation, so that I can (hopefully, and note that this now depends to a much greater extent only on me) switch off and switch on as per my requirement.

What about the weekend? Well, on the weekend, the theme is mostly sleeping. And while awake, it's very, very tough to stay away because if I'm at home, then I'm probably in a fairly crabby mood anyway because none of my plans took off the right way (or remained grounded in a worst case), and in that situation I don't want to make my temper worse by trying hard to make something work for me when it's already looking bleak. So, what better way to feel better than to vent my spleen on someone who happens to be online at that time. It's a very effective stress release mechanism (for want of better options, I'll admit), and it works much better on people at a distance than on those in the next room.

So, I think I'll stick with the net for now, try and make the most of it while I can, and then maybe one day, when I really have interesting things to do all the time, I can come back and moralise on the ills of internet addiction :)

The Best Last Lines of Any Book I've Ever Read

"I have at least one old man's ill: I suffer from insomnia. Late at night I lie in my bed, listening to the dank and hopeless sound of infirm men and women coughing their courses deeper into old age. Sometimes I hear a call-bell, or the squeak of a shoe in the corridor, or Mrs. Javits's little TV tuned to the late news. I lie here, and if the moon is in my window, I watch it.

I lie here and think about Brutal, and Dean, and sometimes William Wharton saying, That's right, nigger, bad as you'd want. I think of Delacroix saying, Watch this Boss Edgecombe, I teach Mr. Jingles a new trick. I think of Elaine, standing in the door of the sunroom and telling Brad Dolan to leave me alone. Sometimes I doze and see that underpass in the rain, with John Coffey standing beneath it in the shadows. It's never just a trick of the eye, in these little dreams; it's always him for sure, my big boy, just standing there and watching. I he here and wait. I think about Janice, how I lost her, how she ran away red through my fingers in the rain,
and I wait.

We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long."

The Storyteller - part 1

He was definitely one of those people whom you had to try to meet, if you wanted to meet them. He was the type of person I always seem to pick out in any group. You know, the guys who stand in a corner and blend into the surroundings, who have nothing to offer for mass consumption save for the occasional twinkle of the eye and loads of silence. Even if you were to put them in the spotlight, they would somehow manage to make themselves transparent to it. Masters of camouflage, you might call them. And true to my track record, I found him.

The interesting thing about silence is that it is open to so many interpretations. As I love to keep reminding people, nothing makes people as uneasy as a silent entity, and he seemed to fit the idea right down to the T. I sought out his company often, mostly to try and get him to speak on some topic or the other. It proved to be alternately easy and difficult. I would speak for five minutes non-stop, trying to explain myself, for he was always particular about matters of detail. Sometimes, infuriatingly so. And then, like a burst of machine-gun fire, he would put forth his response, occasionally with a very well-disguised look of boredom that proclaimed, "You know it, but I didn't say it!".

However, with time, I got better at my job, and he probably relaxed the rules of probation that he had laid down for me. As with any other person, he had buttons that needed to be punched for the music to emerge. One of our most fun pastimes was plotting mischief, and I rue my lack of foresight, in not having chronicled our plans of wreaking chaos upon our immediate universe and beyond. His penchant to dream up ways of mischief was matched only by his sheer inertia to move his body from one point to another, and so, most plans remained sadly unfulfilled.

(contd.)

Where No One Knows Me

I'm not going to screw this song up by adding my commentary. All I'll say is that I love it :)

Got my suitcase
Got my dog
I'm packing up my life so far

Got my pictures
Got some cash
I'm getting out of here at last

Got my hands on the wheel, got my foot on the pedal
Gonna drive til I drop, til the tires turn to metal
Gonna sleep when I'm dead, gonna laugh like the devil
Gonna find some place where no one knows me

Gonna stop when the last drop of gas turns to vapor
Gonna ride til I can't even seem to remember
Who I was when I left and it don't even matter
Gonna find some place where no one knows me

Feel the sunburn on my skin
I feel the wind whip through my grin

Took the rear-view mirror down
I wrapped it in my wedding gown

Got my hands on the wheel, got my foot on the pedal
Gonna drive til I drop, til the tires turn to metal
Gonna sleep when I'm dead, gonna laugh like the devil
Gonna find some place where no one knows me

Gonna stop when the last drop of gas turns to vapor
Gonna ride til I can't even seem to remember
Who I was when I left and it don't even matter
Gonna find some place where no one knows me.

More Trivia...The Binary Scorecard ;)

I realise that this doesn't hold much importance, but good for a few laughs nonetheless. This is the first half of the scorecard of the ICC Women's WC qualifiers game between Bermuda and South Africa:
(pay attention to the scores of the batsmen (batswomen? batsperson???!!) and the extras :D)

Bermuda Women innings (50 overs maximum)			R	M	B	4s	6s	SR
		L Mienzer	c Minnie b Loubser	1	60	48	0	0	2.08
		W Woodley	c Chetty b Smith	0	19	14	0	0	0.00
		S Albouy	lbw b Smith	0	17	16	0	0	0.00
		M Jackson	lbw b Benade	1	11	7	0	0	14.28
		TL Paynter	lbw b Loubser	0	3	8	0	0	0.00
		R Richardson	st Chetty b Loubser	0	6	1	0	0	0.00
		R Smith	c Letsoalo b Loubser	1	14	5	0	0	20.00
		N Jones	b Loubser	0	2	1	0	0	0.00
		A Smith	b Benade	0	4	2	0	0	0.00
		C Furbert	not out	0	7	4	0	0	0.00
		S Todd	b Loubser	0	3	3	0	0	0.00
		Extras	(b 2, w 7, nb 1)	10
		Total	(all out; 18 overs; 77 mins)	13	(0.72 runs per over)

As for the result, South Africa duly won the game by 10 wickets...in 4 balls. This is how that went:

	South Africa Women innings (target: 14 runs from 50 overs)			R	M	B	4s	6s	SR
		OV Anderson	not out	4	4	4	1	0	100.00
		CS Terblanche	not out	1	4	1	0	0	100.00
		Extras	(w 9, nb 1)	10
		Total	(0 wickets; 0.4 overs; 4 mins)	15	(22.50 runs per over)

Cricinfo.com had this to say about the game:

"The statistics of the match are mindboggling. Eight Bermudans failed to get off the mark, and the three that did only managed a single each. Ten of the runs that helped make up their meagre score were extras - 71%. South Africa's score of 15 for 0 was also made up of ten extras - nine wides and a no-ball. Anderson scored 50% of the runs scored off the bat in the match, and 80% of her side's runs.

Unfortunately for South Africa, but mercifully for the record-books, Bermuda's debacle does not count towards the official statistics because they are ranked outside the world's top ten countries. "I am disappointed that today's stats don't count for nothing," said Loubser (the SA captain), "but I would say it was a team effort to win the opening match of the tournament." "

Hehe....

Follow-up to last post

I think I got why I muddled the picture up with Zimbabwe. Less than a month before the England v NZ tie, India and Zim played out another one in Paarl (famously ending with one ball remaining because the last Indian batsman got run out on a wide ball while needing 2 to win; they got one for the wide) on Jan 27, 1997. That game was tied at 236 apiece, while the one the following month ended at 237. Maybe the closeness of the two scores tricked my poor memory :(

Faulty Memory -> Spot-on Foreshadowing

Caught the second innings of today's one-dayer between New Zealand and England at Napier, with the Black Caps needing 341 to win. As far as I can remember, I've had a sharp memory for inconsequential trivia, and I normally don't mess up a recollection. As I was watching the game, I seemed to recall that Napier had hosted 2 tied games in the past (For those who know what happened in today's game: at this point NZ were 230-odd for 2 and cruising), NZ tying with England and Zimbabwe. Out of curiosity, I dug up the list of tied games on Cricinfo , and found that there had been 22 tied games in history, but only one in Napier (26 Feb 97). Admittedly, I was not too happy about that, but hell, it's not the first thing I've forgotten or remembered wrong anyway :P

As it turned out, Napier DID become only the second venue to appear twice on that list tonight, nearly 11 years to the day after the same two teams had tied! Today's game was also the highest scoring tie in history, and to convey an idea of how rare it is, only 23 out of 2682 one-dayers played have ended with scores level; that is 1 in every 117 games. And even though what I remembered was wrong, it didn't take too long for that to be set right :D

Great game, BTW, and do catch the highlights if you get a chance. Super bowling at the death by Sidebottom, Anderson and Wright negated the amazing innings of How, who made a dominating 139 off 116 balls.

Happy Valentine's Day.....NOT!!

Just dropped in to warn all you guys out there of a potential situation. Read on:

A very shy guy goes into a pub on Valentine's Day night and sees a beautiful woman at the bar. After a long struggle with his shyness, he finally managed to walk over to her and asked her politely, "Um, would you mind if I give you company?" She made a furious face and yelled at the top of her lungs, "How dare you asked me to sleep with you tonight?" Everyone in the pub started staring at the man who was completely embarrassed. After a few minutes, woman walked over to him and apologized - "You see I am a student of psychology and studying how people respond to embarrassing situations. I am sorry but I was just doing my experiment!" The young man suddenly gave a loud yell, "What do you mean $200?"

Have fun!

PS: Maybe $100 would have insulted the female a lot more ;)
Thanks to Chawla for the joke!

Psssst...what's your password?

Have to confess on this, people: I'm addicted to long passwords. Most people I know take a lot of pains to put in a tedious, totally unguessable combination of letters and numbers (and special characters too, if they're especially paranoid), and it's really weird when somebody like that has to give you their password (in an emergency, poor things...) on the phone. It goes something like this:

XYZ: Hey, I need a really, really urgent favour.
Me: Sure.

XYZ: I'm
(a) stuck in a traffic jam
(b) without my web-enabled cell phone
(c) my web-enabled cell phone's battery is out
(d) my IPHONE's battery is out (gotta give those rich people their own category ;) )
(e) at home (!!!!, you might say....but this used to happen a lot back in India, and it still does. When someone goes home, they are incommunicado. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right...)

So, can you please login to my email and tell me if ABC has replied or not.
Me: Yeah, sure. What's the ID and the p-word?

XYZ: The login is xyz_awesome_dude@yahoo (ouch, ouch, OUCH!) and the p-word is...
Me: Wait a sec, man...that ID is just terrific. Has anybody told you that before? (snigger)

XYZ: (playing cool) Chalta hai yaar...Let me give you the password now. It's knph3101$1m.
Me: Huh??

XYZ: Aaaargh...I'll repeat...k-n-p-h, as in Kaho Na Pyaar Hai, 3-1-0-1 , that is the date 31st January, followed by the dollar sign, then the numeral 1 and the letter m, as in mummy.
Me: Hmmmmmmmmmm...!!!

(I fill in the fields with exaggerated care, trying to fathom what in the name of the holy Rajnikanth this password means...)

Me: (giving up on the above mentioned exercise) Yeah...it's opening, give it a second. By the way, what does this p-word mean?
XYZ: Well, don't bother about it. I know it's weird, but....

Me: (Butting in) No, no, no! I think it's an awesome password. I can never make up something like that. Tell me the thought process, coz you're going to change it anyway.
XYZ: Uhmm...well, it refers to my first date with my 1st ex-girlfriend, while we were still in school. We went to watch that movie in the old rickety theatre, you remember that, right? Yeah, so it was 31st Jan, and I had told her of my dreams to become a millionaire that day, and she was really impressed...you know how money-minded she was yaar...so anyway, that sort of stuck...

Me: ...and manifested itself here. That's quite a chain of thought. Incredible. By the way, what happened to that girl?
XYZ: (Desperate effort to change the topic) Hey, what about that email?

Me: Huh? Oh, yes. No, you haven't got any email. Hard luck.
XYZ: (I can sense him eyeing an easy escape) Alright. Sorry for the trouble, man. Thanks a million!

Me: Not so fast! What about the girl....you still in touch?
XYZ: Well, yes and no...I mean I scrap her once in a while.

Me: Hmmm. And what's she up to? She have another boyfriend? (Oh I love driving the nails in...)
XYZ: I think so...last I heard, she was seeing that guy in our class who used to drive his Dad's Merc around town.

Me: Oh! That's interesting...but don't feel too bad about it, I guess she just couldn't wait long enough for the million to materialise...hehe
XYZ: Uh...yeah...hehe (laughs limply). OK, then I'll catch you later. Bye!

Anyway, my most preferred tactic is to plonk in entire sentences in place of passwords rather than think too much. Oh, and my last password (since changed) was laalchadimaidankhadi.

Please refrain from being judgmental.
Thanks ;)

Finding Fischer

It was turning out to be a really bad night when I woke up at 3 am after an hour of fitful, restless sleep. My head was throbbing with a pain that seemed to be getting worse, no matter what I did. Out of irritation and desperation, I finally took a pain-killer and waited for it to take effect. But infuriatingly, it wasn't working fast enough. So, I opened the computer and tried a combination of Pink Floyd and the New York Times to distract my attention from the pain.

I like the NYT for it's refined approach to news, as compared to CNN.com (I don't even know why I still visit that website, but I still do...) and sure enough, something on the top of the homepage caught my eye. It was an article by Dick Cavett (I don't know who he is, but at least I know now that he used to be a prominent TV personality) about his experiences with former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer on his show. It was an engaging personal account of how comfortable Fischer had been on his appearances on Cavett's show. I had some recollection of reading about Fischer's eccentricity and his descent (I hate to be judgmental here, but I'm not getting the word I want) into anti-semitism and his fugitive status in the eyes of his native USA. After reading the article, I was captivated by the references to the champion's amazing genius and his status as an American Hero at his peak, something that is impossible to believe for a chess player.

I dug up another article by Garry Kasparov, the Russian champion for 2 decades till his retirement in 2005, in which he had spoken in glowing terms of Fischer's achievements and his legacy. It also happened to be an obituary for Fischer, who died last month in his adopted home, Iceland. That spurred me on to Google videos, where I found a documentary chronicling the life of the once-in-a-generation genius. I'm not sure I have the will to go on and talk about how I felt after reading and watching what is known about him, for he was a recluse for the better part of his life, and what he has said and done (or done and said, in that order in his life) polarises people irrevocably.

But I think it's a story which, though not unique, is still quite interesting in the amount of time it's protagonist is under intense scrutiny and in the volume of speculation and mystique that surrounds his persona. You can find the documentary here. The advertisements that are splattered over it are a nuisance, and the best way to deal with them is to fast-forward through them; don't wait for them to go away quickly, because they don't :)

2D Life: Really Clueless Cartoons

I drew a few cartoons last night, and to appear very flippant about my lack of drawing skills, labelled them as 2D Life. I know this might appear to make no sense at all, but if I had to apologise for something, it would be the sick shade of green :P

Now will never be again

It's been a day of very striking contrasts in world sport, as I see it. On one hand, I saw Adam Gilchrist play what will most likely be his final test innings. On the other, we had a Grand Slam champion not named Federer or Nadal for the first time in three years. Gilchrist has been one of my must watch cricketers for many years now. Ever since I've had some intelligent outlook on the game, I've marvelled at the way he played his cricket: full of enthusiasm, energy, and a never-say-die spirit. I've been held speechless by the number of highlight reels he has generated over the years, and most of all, he embodied everything that was great, and could possibly be great about a sport and the men who play it.

His clean hitting (sample this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPOOhFmUprA), his athletic catching (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3st72UDKIk) and his down-to-earth personality made him a stand-out cricketer in the era of increased policing of the game, brought about by many ugly incidents which will probably be talked about in the decades to come. It's true that in the heat of the moment, people have always, and will always, do things that are over the top. But in the last few years, with the explosion of live telecasts and sites like youtube, the amount of public reaction and expert analysis has gone through the roof. A player like Gilchrist has, though, invariably made the news for all the right reasons.

His style of play was such that I never associated him with his age. He played very unlike any other 36-year old sportsman I've ever seen, and that only made the news even harder to digest. I watched him play his last innings today, and as he departed after making a quickfire 14 off 18, it suddenly struck me that these moments will only come faster as days pass. I don't know about you, but for me, the end of the career of one of my boyhood heroes punctuated the inevitability of the passing of time. Feeling a certain age is not just about how old I am, the feeling of age is in fact the sensation of living in a certain period of time, with the same rules, the same pastimes, the same dreams and the same priorities. When I will look back at this time in my life, I was always going to bed at 4 am, Federer was always weaving his magic on the court, we were always talking about how drunk we were last night, every second guy was falling for some girl and in the same way, Gilly was always murdering bowling attacks around the world.

This feeling has been around for a few months now, with many of my friends graduating from grad school, a few people getting married and engaged, some people into their second jobs, some others on the way to owning big companies and one really talented, determined fellow is even about to release his first music album! Me and my friends laugh and crib about how such people have destabilised our notions of youth and the irresponsible, impulsive selves that we've chosen to identify ourselves for a long, long time.

Strangely, even as Djokovic won the Aus Open tonight, there was no real thrill at seeing him do it. I still feel much more moist-eyed when one of the old-timers does something really good. I still remember how I was in seventh heaven when Goran Ivanisevic finally won Wimbledon in 2001. That's nearly the only time I've been moved to tears while watching a match, and I don't think there's another man who deserved those tears any more than he did. That was the accomplishment of a titan of my generation, a man whom I idolised while growing up, a man for whose success I actually prayed. The flip side is, of course, that if you've supported Ivanisevic for a decade, like I did, it's very hard to get put off even when the guy you are rooting for loses :)


Take a good look around you folks, and even if you think that it isn't a whole heap of fun right now, it's the only time you'll be living through these moments. I'll never be 23 years, 5 months and 26 days old again, and I'm glad I get the chance to experience instants like these, even though the emotions don't last forever!

I'm normal => I'm made of plastic. Yeah, I know.

I can't count the number of times I've been gripped by an idea or a feeling (or maybe sensation is a better word, it hardly gets enough time to develop into a feeling, i.e. I can't put a label to it) that I felt I should put down somewhere, that I should document. You know, just like that Facebook application that allows you to say 'Ritwik is feeling _________' (by the way, I'm feeling like I have irrevocably tangled innards right now....I'm having to type so many of these words again, and again, ouch). So anyway, I can't classify that sensation. The nearest I can come to talking about it is by simply saying what thoughts are running through my head. Just the other day, I had one of these moments of clarity when I said to a friend that I'm so sick of pacing the house and reading terrible (turrrrible, turrrible...as Charles Barkley would have said) and pessimistic news items on CNN.com, that I could do with some company. The only catch was that I would've bitten the head off of anybody who approached me at that point of time because I was in such a foul mood.

The logical and expedient answer to that rant was a very measured "Uh, I think you should just go to bed." And I know that it almost always works. It took me a while to find that out, but I can't put myself to sleep simply by shutting off my brain and letting it float away, far from the shores of madness nation. And, I'm remarkably drug-free (maybe too much for my own good) so sleeping aids aren't my prescription. I just let myself get so tired that I can't lift an eyelid (or hit a key, whichever happens later..hehe) and then I'm good to go.

There used to be a time, and a place, and a bunch of people that I knew, who didn't think that being weird was much of a disadvantage, socially. Perceptions of the world, each crazier than the other, were tossed around like joints in a dope club. We all relished to some extent, the variety of viewpoints and had some sort of pride in how tangential our views were, and yet how much sense they made.

But coming out of that cocoon was in almost all ways, a very bruising experience because in the normal scheme of things, I ended up dealing with a disproportionately large number of people who hadn't a clue that such errant minds existed in such self-congratulatory harmony with each other. In this new world, weirdness or simply, being different was not looked at very kindly. Call it fear of the unknown or call it insularity, there was something that drove people nuts when they saw somebody behave differently from their own rules of normal behaviour.

Or let's call them the advertised rules of normal behaviour. I haven't seen anybody, that I know well enough, to be anywhere close to what they consider normal. And really, the only people I think are normal are probably the ones I don't know well enough. So these people are no more deviants than I am, which is fine with me (I'm called a crank collector by some folks, but that's for another post), but what amuses me most is that they are quite desperate to conceal their quirkiness even when the person in front of them is a guy like me (who once never hid his weirdness, but I've mellowed...or become more manipulative, whatever you want to call it). I mean, how weird can people be? If you ask me, I'll always say, not weird enough. But, what I see is something of a denial in action, and the amount of high ground claimed over these issues is nothing but the world's largest garbage pile with stink included.

It's not unusual to find people being driven into a corner (that's another one of my weaknesses, sorry) and then breaking down for that instant and letting me peek into the little crack on the surface of their polished surfaces at the ghosts in the machine. It's like watching one of those videos in which dogs sneeze, because it comes out all of a sudden and it's very funny. However, the flip side to the entertainment is that (and that's why I don't try this with many people any more) they'll get all worked about it and go on the defensive. See if you can spot the phrase "That's just the way I am" floating around in one of these psychological moments (I still remember Poirot very fondly...sigh).

Personally, I've always enjoyed observing people, what they say, what they do, how they react to situations and especially, how they change under pressure of emotional stress or intense scrutiny. I'll admit that I'm not good at all at predicting outcomes in situations I'm personally involved with, but I've seen a lot of different emotions from people that I'd have never guessed existed inside them. I've come to enjoy the quirks of people and I absolutely despise the vain attempts at projection of normalcy. To some extent, you may fault me for being a rabble-rouser and a trouble-seeker, but I'm always thrilled by the prospects of making new discoveries about folks in such a scenario.

I grew up with the deeply impressed notion that being different is not only the key to your identity, but also inevitable. I know it's equally true that some quirks are not for public consumption, and are better kept locked up, to be enjoyed sparingly. Still truer is the advice that many people have given me: it is sometimes a disadvantage to be too open, especially if you're very trusting and take the plunge first. That move doesn't work with everyone, and it leaves you vulnerable to manipulation. But I suppose that's a choice that each of us makes. I'm not alone in the way I think, and I get along very well with people who share my respect for the infinite possibilities of discovery in human nature, however, in a finite life, like a game of poker, one must learn to make the most of even a bad hand :D

Wanted

Settling scores...
Mending fences...
Building bridges...
Forgetting history

Spending all your money on fines and beer...
Peering out of a dirty window to find the moon...
Having nightmares about the door with the missing hinge...
Pretending all questions have answers

Ending each sentence with...
Wishing on fallen stars and hollow icons...
Climbing higher, and higher, and higher...
Only to fall deeper, longer, harder

Fishing for maps, ignoring the GPS...
Staring at the Sun, scouring the shadows...
Standing in line to lose your identity...
Shivering to death while you're at it

Mercury falling
Cold sunshine
Winds that blow you away
As the world passes you by

Writing songs with no music
Reading dead people's diaries
Talking to the ghosts of friends
Getting cheap thrills while the sand runs out

Wanted, a recipe for immortality
Wanted, a love which doesn't fade
Wanted, failure without a price
Wanted, success with no expiry date.....

Wanted, five minutes of your life back
Wanted, a kick on the backside
Wanted, better things to do
Wanted, a ban on bad poetry on the internet

Amen.

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..."