Dried up.

I wanted to pen down a few lines of verse today since I have been having that urge pent-up within me for a long while now but unfortunately, I couldn't. Words failed me and I'm in misery. Whether I can call it writer's block or something else, I can't answer right now but one thing is sure- my creative juices have all but dried up.

End of Days

Yes. It's here.

The last two years were a blast. No two words about it.

 " This was meant to be posted exactly one year back. Unfortunately, it remained as a draft and I'm posting this again after one year."

Heartbreak Season.

As RF said after yet another heartbreaking loss to Rafa in a Grand Slam Final, I repeat, "God, it's killing me." He cried copious amounts of tears when he said that, but it will never happen to me. I wish it had. It would have been such a relief.

I have an admission to make: I know this is so unlike me and I hate doing this. Neither am I enjoying putting it down here. But, if it so helps, I want to put it down in writing that, currently, I'm an emotional wreck. A total wreck. The past one month (and this period of woes continues) has been one of the most torturous periods of my short life so far. I'm naturally cheerful and full of positive energy. For me to get affected this much doesn't bode well at all for my current state of mind. I'm tightly wound up, unable to show emotion, trying to laugh off my disappointment and failures and trying my hand so desperately at self-deprecating humour in the hope that it would lessen this ever-present feeling of tension and uncertainty gnawing at my innards.

Yes. I'm rather deeply affected and if this is not a period of crisis, then I haven't known any in life till now. I have shut my mind off completely to the outside world. Nobody will ever understand the pain and anguish within me because I prefer to bear it alone. And yes, I will show my smiling face to the world. It feels good to face adversity with a smile, no matter how much you have to suffer inside to bring forth that laborious smile on your lips. I know how hard it is and how much it takes out of oneself to accomplish it.

This is a season of heartbreaks and disappointments. And I, forever the superman according to my proud self, am in a royal mess. I will soldier on.

My Purely Fictional Story!

Post from 2011 :

"Okay. This is it.
My summer internship experiences would Remain just in the mind; those memories are forever. I had briefly narrated The Start in my previous post. Now, I'm posting this after about four months after the whole charade of internship got over. I'm afraid, I won't be able to continue with it as I'm paying a visit to blogosphere again to put down into words a few pressing thoughts which have been , ahem, taking up too much of my free time (which is twenty-four hours) these days.

So, here goes."

My Purely Fictional Story!

It's a complex state of the human mind. It could be you, me or anybody we might know. Persons and names don't matter in this scenario. It's the bond, the relationship and the underlying emotions which cause all the complications.

There used to be a boy-A boy who had stars in his eyes and who still has that boyish streak about him as a not-so-grown-up man of around twenty five years of dreamy existence upon this lonely planet.

This boy was not normal. By not being normal didn't mean he didn't do normal things. Instead, he did the most normal things one could ever do and appeared normal to normal people. Inside, he himself knew the fact that he was a misfit for normal society. He had a wide circle of friends who loved him for his varied character. Some liked him because he made them laugh, some were impressed by his knowledge, some liked him as a person whom they could always count on, some considered him to be their trustworthy aide and secret-keeper and thus, the list of roles that this poor fellow has had to play over his lifetime goes on.

This not-so-normal boy had dreams. He dreamed of making obscene amounts of money and seeing the world for all that it had to offer. But none of his dreams were as strong or intense as the one about finding that ONE person in the world. Yes, this boy was a die-hard romantic who had been fed on a regular dose of Indian movies extolling about the invincibility, purity and all those other-wordly features of true love. He, like many of the romantic heroes of yore who have romanced quite a many damsel on the screen, believed in the longevity of love-at-first-sight.

The boy started searching.

In fact, the search had started long back, from the time of development of his cognitive ability as young human being. He had a brain cell which was perpetually on an HR overdrive, analyzing the situation before hand, calculating the various permutations and combinations that could be derived out of a potential situation at hand and helping in forming a complex solution in his mind. Ah, the mind.

The mind under discussion here is a unique specimen. Part of its uniqueness lies in the fact that it has almost always remained in a state of romantic entanglement, although ephemerally, with fictitious persons. One can only wish if these fictitious persons had manifested in the boy's life. Again, that super-intelligent brain cell of his caused havoc in this romantically-entangled mind leading to negative results for all the prospects that presented before the boy.

Still, the heart marched on....in defiance of that quirky brain cell of his.

Then, it happened. The boy saw the girl. Suddenly, all the characteristic traits of his fictitious love manifested before him, in real life, through her. He admired her from a distance as part of the crowd. His admiration swelled with each passing moment till she disappeared from his view.

The seeds were already sown. Atleast, he had a name to keep in his mind; a face to attach to that imaginary heroine in his mind. He started dreaming with increased enthusiasm. The not-so-normal boy lived in anticipation of his oh-so-very-normal next meeting with his girl.

After about a year, it happened. It turned out to be one of the most beautiful days of his life. They got acquainted with each other and each smile of hers just confirmed the belief in his mind that she was the one for him. The boy was calmly confident that she would have realized by then that she wouldn't find a better guy than him in the entire world.

History will record that as a chance encounter and even though the day ended on a positive note, it was destined to remain a chance encounter with just a fervent hope for repeated occurrences in future. The ever-so-romantic boy believed in the much-despised adage of true love taking its own sweet time amidst all hardships and so, he didn't do anything from his part which could have initiated regular conversation with the girl. May be, he expected the girl to be romantically inclined like him so as to let time take its own course, which in any case, happened whether or not she was of a similar disposition like him.

Time flew again. After another year, weirdly enough, he spotted her at the place of their first meeting, accompanied by her gang of happy friends. He was also in the company of his equally mirthful friends. She was laughing, pure uninhibited laughing like a free spirit, after exchanging a joke with her friends and hadn't seen the boy staring from a distance. The boy doubted whether she would be able to recognize him and decided not to face the ignominy of hearing the condescending words of 'I'm sorry but I can't remember you'. But his friends were adamant and were successful in convincing him to try his luck after he started developing cold feet at a potentially life-changing moment. He summoned all this courage, walked up to her and asked for a word with her.

Everything fell into place- Her gang of giggling friends stepped aside seeing the intent on the boy's face and she was happily taken aback, seeing him after a long time. All inhibitions were put to rest. They chatted for quite a while, in that serene setting, oblivious of the hooting and whistling from his friends behind the trees and the knowing glances and giggles from her friends. Time again proved the villain as she had to leave urgently but this time, he wanted to initiate contact through a modern day invention known as e-mail. The boy carefully noted down her strange-sounding e-mail address in his mind and went back with a permanent smile on his lips.

The boy felt light. Yes, it was the lightness of love- that feeling of floating around in the fresh morning air like a white feather upon a garden in full bloom, emanating the richest of fragrances and glowing in the golden glow of the morning sun. He could feel a bubble inside his chest; a happy bubble infusing every bit of wellness possible in the world to his heart. That night, he had the most amazing dream that he had ever had. He dreamed of holding her hand and walking on a green meadow tipped with morning dew and the cool, still air of morning under a blue, cloudless sky.


"to be continued...."

 Post Date : March 27, 2013 -  1: 55 pm, on an empty stomach
 "....continues..."

With his new acquisition- the fancy but weird-sounding e-mail id, the boy went about his pre-ordained task, armed with the latest of technology at that point of time, in the form of a dial-up internet connection. He laid down all his intent and resolve into a few words in his e-mail which would have put many a business manager to shame for its clarity of message and crispness of thought. He clicked send and waited.

And Wait, he did. He did wait for more than a year. He had grown paranoid in the meanwhile and had tried initiating contact with her through her friend's friend of the umpteenth degree until he found out that the proclaimed maximum of '7 degrees of separation' between one dude smoking weed on the top of Mt. Everest and another one clearing sea weed from the depths of Mariana Trench, is just another scientific hogwash to console these desperate romantic souls who find succour in those innumerable mushy movies of old.

After more than a year of desperation, the thought struck him finally that he might have heard the e-mail id wrongly and may be, he could have been pouring his heart out to some psychotic serial killer in the dangerous suburbs of LA. In any case, the id was fancy and weird enough to have been taken up by any crazy, convoluted soul on this planet. With a new fear in his mind that all his heart-rending communication since THAT day could have gone to a complete stranger or worse still, reached nobody in the cyber world, he gave it one more try. He changed one word in the id and replaced it with a homophone, a digit.

With newly-formed butterflies in his stomach and twinkling stars in his eyes and amidst a shower of white flowers sent from Above by his usual band of well-wisher White Fairies, he clicked 'Send' again. And again and yet again, just in case the dial-up or Yahoo! ditched him. The romantic interlude by the fairies ended and we were back in real world.

Yet another agonizing wait (how many more can any protagonist take?). One fine Friday, he logs into this account and lo, there it is.
On the sad occasion of the 9th death anniversary of his first pet cat and one of his best friends, the reply came floating over thousands of miles in cyberworld and chose to enter his dreary inbox on the anniversary of one of the most tragic days of his un-eventful life till now. Talk about injustice in this world.


"Again, to be continued..."

Summer Internship!

My friend told me that if I start putting down my internship travails into writing, I might be able to give Chetan Bhagat a run for his money !
Let's see if that happens. Another matter altogether - The undeniable fact that I've been incredulously lucky all my life came true when I received a call from the HR generalist in my company one evening. Unnaturally, the sweet voice on the other side of the call was a little perturbed. She told me in a quite apologetic tone that there has been a change of plans and that my project location has been changed. Quite the efficient person that she is, she hadn't communicated the project location in the first place. That'll remain a mystery for now. And the new project location, as she said, is in Trivandrum. Wait, she must be kidding.

I held my breath and pinched myself. Was that really her or was it some hoax call? Nope, it wasn't. I was being posted for my summer internship in Trivandrum. Hallelujah, it's a 2 month-vacation at home. Again, I would be reporting to my mentor in Chennai whom I was asked to meet on April 18th. Chennai wouldn't take long, she assured. She said it would take a day or two. Mistake.

Arrival

Come April 17th, and I landed in Chennai. Hot would be an understatement. It was summer alright, so it would be hot and humid. Accepted.
What is not acceptable is that there's always a permanent heat cloud omnipresent throughtout the city wherever you go. It feels as if you're walking through a heat cloud. There goes my humble attempt at explaining the Chennai summer.

Instead of the promised 1 or 2 days in Chennai, I spent 5 jobless, rotting days in Chennai doing practically nothing. I was staying at my friend's flat and as a classic case of bad timing, he was occupied with tons of work throughout that entire week. It meant he would be leaving in the wee hours of the morning and coming back home close to midnight. That Sunday, out of sheer boredom and heat-induced desperation, I ventured out looking for a bottle of Kingfisher. After two sweaty hours scouring the entire locality in an auto and on foot, I returned with 4 bottles of Black Knight. Beer has never ever tasted like that and never will, as that night will testify. I got the gyaan later from my friend that even a pint of KF is extremely difficult to scour in Chennai.

Day 1-Chennai

It was Monday morning and I was dressed up and all set to join the Regional Office (south) of my company for work. I got to experience first-hand the dacoitry practised by the tribe of Auto-drivers in Chennai. A 10 minute ride to the office set me back by a cool 100 bucks. Little monetary matters like these have never bothered me really. So, here was I, in 7th Avenue of Harrington Road, Chennai,looking for my office. Ah. Where? A couple of litres of sweat later, I located it. The office where I slogged for 8 months in my previous instance of professional life and this one couldn't have been more contrasting. This was a normal, sales office which was actually a big 2-storeyed house converted into an office. I made my grand entry to the office after waiting outside on a creaky cushioned sofa kept on the verandah along with the security guard who thought I was some new non-sense in my official looking avatar with a pair of my 'customized, made-for-summer' shades and a tie.

Atleast, they had AC inside. One guy who introduced himself as HR, broke the fantastic piece of news that my mentor had gone on a pilgrimage to Tirupati and would be back only later in the evening. I merely drifted here and there in the office after that and he later showed me some pity by asking me to go through a booklet which he said would be helpful for new joinees. The next 2 hours were spent turning the pages of that boring book and dozing off intermittently. Enough's enough, I decided, and I went up and told him I would come back tomorrow morning to meet my elusive mentor. I never expected things to be so bad that he would have to take a pilgrimage upon hearing the news that I would be coming to Chennai to meet him. As I was leaving, the HR (Uncle, really) asked me about my graduation details. When I told him that I'm pursuing my degree in MBA, he was pleasantly shocked. And then he asked me if I was doing part-time MBA with Symbiosis Distance Learning or something like that.
Ah, I fled. Internship. Yeah, right.

Day 2-Chennai again!

Fleeced by the auto driver and shorn of any unnecessary contraption like a tie, I arrived at around 10 am the following day. I straightaway went upto the HR uncle to ask if my mentor had turned up only to receive information that he's unsure if the King would turn up that day. A phone call later, I realized that it's highly dangerous for my sanity levels to stay any minute longer there. I was back in the flat by 10 25 am after spending close to 200 bucks for to-n-fro travel. Again, I say, money grows on trees for me!

Day 3-Chennai, unfortunately!

It's a story of "How Deepak Nair bargained with the auto driver, got a good bargain, reached office on time and got to meet the mentor". My mentor looked like some long-lost twin of a certain notorious professor from my college. He had a huge, scary-looking dragon (or some other prehistoric animal) tattoo on his forearm and I could see a generous helping of gold, bracelets, anklets and stuff everywhere. ( No, everywhere doesn't include That 'everywhere' !). The next two hours of my life will tell a story of how I nodded off in agreement to a potential dangerous 2 months in Trivandrum at the end of which all paint dealers and contractors in the 2 districts will be practically up in arms baying for my precious, warm, B-school blood.

Macro Trouble

I had a paper on Macroeconomics today which went so horribly wrong for me that I might get the privilege of giving it a second time in the next semester. I got so bored trying to cram up jargon into my saturated cranium that it shut down completely. Clear of any moronic distractions like studies, I thought of penning down a few lines in respect of my short but fatalistic tryst with studying this monstrosity of a subject. ( As I said before, it was a short thing after all. I quit out of sheer desperation. ) I dedicate the next few lines to Macroeconomics for being the incorrigible thing that you have always been, still are, and will always be to future generations of poor, hapless management students.

Macro Trouble

Inflation is spinning webs in my head,
Of sizes that can put a Black Widow to shame.
Policies and governmental spending seem inconsequential;
How does it matter to souls concerned most about a value,
That all important figure of 0.7,
Which when multiplied by that incredulous number called the Average,
Gives us merry folks Nirvana-
The Nirvana of a C.

Philips must have drawn it,
Seeing some of 'em curves around in his University.
As if that wasn't enough,
Stagflation was invented to confuse young minds even further.
ISLM, or IS and LM, or IS-LM,
They call it by diffent names,
But it's all the same-
A collection of criss-crossing, hastily scribbled lines.
I could've drawn them better,
Using the laws of symmetry and geometry,
Of which I was a champion,
Back in those halcyon schooldays of yore.

A weak cousin of a song.

I like song-writing. I have tried my hand at it and I don't suppose I'd be any good at it in any measure. Exam season is on and this is how I spend time instead of wasting my precious time studying pointless stuff. I wrote a few lines of absolutely trash quality, the kind that comes in Pop. Yeah, I have an excuse now- These lines might just pass as yet another trashy pop song. It doesn't make for good reading but if composed well, it might turn out to be well. Touchwood. So, here goes...

"I'm all over You"

Hey. You. That voice, that tune, those lips.
I can listen forever,
I wanna lose myself and I don't wanna wake up.
Don't wake me baby, don't take me away, my baby
I have fallen for you and I will lie here,
Here in this heaven, watching you,
I'm merry this way but you are ignoring me.
Don't break this heart 'coz this is all yours.
Please stay, stay on a moment more,
Let that moment be a lifetime.

Baby, come, let's sink in this and wake up together.
This is a pleasure and this gets me on high
High in my head,
High all over you.
Girl, I'm all over you. I'm yours forever
And there is no escape for my mind.
You have taken me, babe, in full
And told me that you gotta go.
Don't go babe, 'coz I will follow you.
I'm yours all along.

The Monk and the Cops

Cops can do only so much,

Bribes promise a momentary release,

But the Old Monk marches on,

Providing the best example of customer satisfaction,

To entertainment-deprived impoverished management students.

Chilled, bubbling cola makes an enervating mix,

With that dark elixir of seven years' worth of distilled purity

To provide moments of unbridled joy to the young at heart,

Who can shake a leg to the beats of joy that come with it.

The Face

I look around, in search of that familiar visage,

With its last enduring image firmly imprinted in my consciousness.

The image refuses to fade away and so does my yearning,

To gaze unblinkingly into those intense eyes full of vivacity

Which has unknowingly driven many hearts to the last shreds of desperation,

All for one last time.

My mind races back to those happier times,

Those carefree times when it knew no sorrow

And gloom was something which just couldn't be felt.

I knew nothing apart from togetherness

And it was meant to be forever,

Until the cruel,devious ways of destiny intervened,

Ably assisted by the treacherous warps of time.

I was a lost being,

One among the multitudes who have been happily blessed,

By that holiest and purest of fixations.

There was immense joy in those initial feelings of hurt,

Rejection provided optimism

And it led to euphoria.

It felt like an endless streak of love

And how I hoped it would remain so.

Those were happier times,

Illuminated by the bright lights emanating from that blessed soul,

Coloured by the paint brush of the Artist of my mind

On the wide canvas of my life.

Sweet memories abound,

Of those leisurely walks, hand-in-hand,

Whispering sweet nothings to each other in those beautiful boulevards of life;

Of those dreams that we saw together,

Lying under the shady bowers of a sheltered life.

Those were the best days of my life,

When each day brought with it the purest joys of companionship;

When each passing hour meant another hour well-lived

And each moment created an eternal symphony meant to be savoured for a lifetime-

A lifetime of waking up to that smile which is forever etched in my memory,

And gazing lovingly at that face,

Lost for words even though they are needless in those golden moments of silence.

Today it's no more and my senses have gone numb,

More so by the loss than the lack of it.

There's a melancholic chord in every piece of music I compose,

For I have lost all capacity to love and live.

Each passing moment reminds me of nothing but the loss of happiness

And the object of my dreams;

Pleasant thoughts are but messengers from a painful past that still rankles.

I keep searching in the dark days of the present,

Hoping to find that Face in a future whick is all but grey;

The visage has disappeared in the glorious chapters of a colourful past

And I still make that painful journey through my memories,

To look at that face-

To make it all happen once again in my life.

A season of Literary disasters.

A season of literary disasters comes to a close. As a person who lives and dies by the motto, 'Never say never again!' I live to fight another day.

Literary events are far and few in between this slew of Management fests. During my engineering days, I always looked forward to non-technical fests. Same is the case with my present status a Management student. I (still) look forward to non-management(technical, in this case) fests. Unlike undergrad days, there aren't enough events to satisfy me.

So, after waiting in anticipation all these months, I located two events where I could parade my seemingly dazzling set of literary skills on display :P. And, needless to say, both ended up as disasters after putting in the hard grind to qualify in the final round. What a shame!

Let it be. I can live with it. I am at a stage of life where these things don't rankle me that much. It still rankles, albeit, not in a way that it used to be. Yes, I have matured :); but that doesn't mean I will stop participating in literary fests with undergrads as competition. I don't mind losing to them either.

My most fantastic memories of four years of engineering are from the various successes and failures that came my way in my unending quest for glory at all those intercollegiate cultural festivals. Winning was a good feeling and I wanted to make it a habit although it didn't always transpire like that.

I can still remember those innumerable disastrous quizzes where my team failed to qualify, those masterly performances in quirky events like Dumb Charades and the like, undefeated stretch in What's the Good Word? and appearing in the finals of a Spelling Bee competition for the first and last time in my life and that too on stage.

Coming third in an Antakshari competition which would probably remain my first and last official Antakshari event ever, singing a plethora of songs in my own lyrics on a mike for the first time in my life- That was totally worth the effort. I can also boast about my being a vital cog in our 4-member team which could quite rightly be called the Champion Treasure Hunters of the Trivandrum undergrad scene at that point of time. I still remember vividly those mad, adrenaline-filled moments where we ran, jumped, fought and competed like possessed men to get to the ultimate prize.

We came up with the wackiest and cheesiest of Ad Zaps once where our overtly adult references and double entendres' in our presentation led to much consternation in the saintly among the crowd but had several similar-minded young-at-heart beings in splits ! Another everlasting memory is our performance of a gay skit on stage before an audience of about a thousand college students which was so authentic that there was an attempt to boo us off the stage.

Suddenly, I got a little nostalgic thinking about all those events. In fact, I had just wanted to write a few lines about my recent literary disasters and now this post has turned into an outpouring of all my memories about a few of my 'exploits' as an undergrad. I will leave this at that. Ciao !

60..Diamond jubilee of posts!

I just discovered that this will be my sixtieth post on my blog. Yeah, 60. So long and still happy.

There was a phase-my most productive phase in 2009-'10-when the posts kept on coming and the desire to keep writing was still burning furiously in me.

Not any more.

It still burns, but I've become used to it. I can keep the fire burning for years at a stretch and I'm sure that it will neither die nor can it be doused out by any external interference. Writing is something which I love; it's the most natural thing in the world for me to do yet it becomes the most difficult task to accomplish during some particularly tricky and confused moments. I'm always short of time but I keep fantasizing about the verse/prose that I would be able to pen down in my free time. I create magnificent poetry in my mind when I'm supposed to be doing some other responsible work and when I finally have time to sit down and collect my thoughts, I find myself grievously bereft of ideas. If this is what is called writer's block, I should already be knowing, deep in the recesses of the mind, that I'm in trouble. It hasn't sunk in yet, not the least to that level, and this is what gives me hope. I can still WRITE. And I'm all the more happy because of it.

Time for some self-praise.The-congenial-human always finds a way to the come out of the mess that he finds himself in, almost every single time. Call it luck, timing, sense of occasion, whatever. As long as his story continues successfully, he needn't bother.

And yes, My blog refuses to die. Ciao!


(P.S: Prose works. Verse will follow.)

Reject.

My Team-Bhp membership got expired (or I must've lost the password yet again!). But the fact of the matter is that I tried re-registering and guess what, my registration got rejected. WTF.
I waited 3 days for my registration to get activated and this is what that happened. I, with all of my love for automobiles, have a got a reject. What's the world coming to? It's hurt my ego so much I'm thinking of not registering again in future. It's their loss.

Or wait. I'm registering again. I love automobiles. I love Team-Bhp.
God bless that Neanderthal guy who invented the wheel. You rock.
Ciao.

Test post :-).

Yeah, I haven't lost it yet. I don't have writer's block yet. But then again, since when have I been a writer :D? This post is a test post, since I don't know when I will be able to start posting regularly again. I'm a highly disorganized person and this shows in whatever I set out to do. I don't get inspired easily enough but that's not because I'm very rational or skeptical or anything of that sort; the plain fact is that I still am in the process of finding myself. And this, I believe, is the most difficult job in the world. I'm still a work-in-progress(just couldn't help a smattering of MBA jargon :P). I might not become a finished product in this lifetime itself. Such is the beauty of life.

This post is going off at tangents and this may or may not reflect my thinking process. I'll put it down as more due to being sleepy at a late hour in the night rather than a confused state of mind.I can write shit like this; I can talk absolute balderdash(this is one word I like very much!); I can conjure up inconsequential unthinkable thoughts in my mind at one go; and, I can put it down in writing just like how I'm doing right now.

Again, this was one of my "What-the-hell-was-going-through-my-mind-then?"-kind of posts. I will leave it at this and savour this stupidity for later reading.

WTF! This was a just a test-post. A test to see if something works, that is. And it works.

I'm celebrating my grand entry back to blogging. Three cheers for myself.

No bakwaas.

So here I am, after more than two months of idleness and random wandering. Okay, I know this is not something new in my life. Ugh, oh well. I crashed into a make a post. Or even a mini-post. Talk about getting itchy due to long periods of "un"-literary work.

I turned 23 today according to my star. Yes, the Indian system. The globally accepted birthday is coming soon. Wait and watch :). Peace.

It exists!

It exists. Yippeee. Yes, my blog is pretty much alive and kicking. And I'm also back.
Wow. Seriously Woohoo!
This is my first post of 2010.
This year has been good to me so far. I've lots to tell, lots of new experiences to share but wait a bit. Till then, ciao !

Confused.Addled.Hazed.Flustered.

I'm disgusted with life. No, I'm not sounding suicidal but this is a unique situation. This has been a strange year with even stranger incidents happening commonplace in my life. At the moment, I'm completely clueless. Idleness can lead to all sorts of morbid thoughts and I guess this, coupled with long periods of talking to myself, is creating some really unwarranted situations. Yes, I do talk to myself a lot. I love doing that since there's no better liberating feeling and nobody understands me better than myself. I'm in a complicated mess. I'm using generalized terms because I'm yet to understand what this mess is all about but it's damn complicated for sure.
I want to discover and analyze whatever that is causing this unnatural gloom in my life; but I don't know yet. Neither can I sigh at things that have come to pass nor can I sport crease lines on my forehead and brood over an uncertain future. I have a lot of things going wrong at the moment-a worrisome past, a bland present and an ominous-looking uncertain future. My thoughts are becoming increasingly muddled; I'm getting disconnected from my older,more cheerful self. No, I'm not saying I'm turning into some sorrowful scarecrow but I've changed a lot. I can feel it, I'm no longer the one who takes things for granted.I have seen a lot and I'm still going through a lot of turmoil. Strained complex relationships, confusing responsibilities, memories of a distant past, obscure days of mediocrity, unfulfilled dreams, invisible pressure cooker situations-all of these have taken a toll on me. I'm unable to take control of my own life. My life is a meandering mess of a beaten, polluted river now. It's not even sure if it will ultimately reach the sea or dry out like a desert stream. It's only been months but I feel as if I've aged by a year or two.The all-important 'beat' has gone out of my life and I can't find any real good reason why this has happened.
I thought I could survive this gap-year and become a better, wiser human being. Well, I've survived, but only just. And I'm not doing good.Really. I'm in a troubled state which is difficult to comprehend and a hell lot more complicated than what I had supposed it to be. I feel fettered. I want to break free but I don't see any escape yet and I don't know if an escape is what I want really. I don't know. I'm shrugging my shoulders. I can't talk more. Because I don't what it is. No point there. Don't ask me why 'coz I don't know.I'm totally hazed.
I need peace. This is so suffocating. Sometimes I feel as if I'm sick of all civilization. I like being alone but being alone and talking to oneself for the major part of a year in a state of all-pervasive idleness can lead one to chalk out grotesque fantasies in an almost-addled mind. It has happened to me. I'm not mad yet; no one will ever know when I finally cross over the border but I will be able to comprehend it when it happens and this scares me the most. No, I'm not there yet.

This is a zombie existence. I feel almost 'un'-human.

A dream. An ambition. An aim.

Man is a dreamy being. Supremely intelligent, gifted with the most unique of talents and with a fierce will of his own. Yes, I realize that.

We all have ambitions/dreams/certain aims in life. We set targets for ourselves and try to achieve them with dedicated efforts in some cases or wait for them to slowly unravel while dreaming about the moment it could finally happen. We dream about success and it is the sole reason why we survive the brutalities of this world which is getting harsher by the minute. Everyone of us has a right to dream, each one of us has a necessity to feel the rushes of success and this happens when, finally, our dreams come true.

I have a dream.
To make it big in life. To live a charmed life. To bathe in the luxury of riches. To be one who can call the world, well and truly, one's playground. To have Power. To have Authority.

I want to visit each and every corner of the world. I don't want to work, I want to live each day of my life on an extended holiday till the day comes when I've to bid adieu to this living world. I want to understand life, as it happens, in all parts of the globe. I want to be a globetrotter with an endless passion for idleness and holidaying. All this while I'm infinitely rich, to the point of being filthy.

I want to be famous. To be known as a towering personality, widely respected and without a blemish to speak of. I want to be known for all the good I do and I don't want to end up committing even a single bad action. I want to be the perfect exhibit of a magnanimous, affable, humble, infinitely-good-at-heart human.

I want to achieve everything which I set out to do. I want success in every second of my life. I want the sweet scent of success to be my constant companion wherever I go, helping me through the nauseating bogs and rancid vapours of a scheming life. I want to make money, by the millions. Or even billions. I want to give out blank cheques to charities.

I want to woo the most beautiful/intelligent woman on the planet and I want to make her my woman in the grandest wedding of them all. I say that the most beautiful and the most intelligent woman on earth shall be one and the same only. I want to drive the fastest car in the world, I want to sail on my own yacht. I want to own a luxury cruise liner, all for myself. I want private jets able to take me anywhere in the world whenever I feel like flying.

I want to own a fantastic collection of pets. I want to be able to understand the language of animals. I want to own cattle-ranches, farmhouses, castles, chateaus, palaces, estates and millions of square miles worth of farmland. Yes, I want to be the richest man in the world but I don't want to work a minute for it.

I want to father the most wonderful kids in the world. I want to sip outrageously expensive wine/champagne. To Party the hardest in this world. I want to be known as a superb athlete. To be known as an exceptional singer cum dancer.

I want to show the world that it's not impossible to dream, be loud about it and bask in the glory of success.


Time to get real.
short term one: I aim to become a way better human being than the one I presently am.
medium: I want success. I crave every bit of it.
long term: I want to write a book one day. Yes, I want to be an author. It's a dream. It's an aspiration that I will go to great lengths to realize. It must happen someday in the distant future.

That's all. Ciao.

Another 'New' start. A promise.

I really can't understand what made me so busy over the past two months that I had almost forgotten about the existence of my blog. Yeah, it exists and this will happen never again. As for the busy part, I was busy being lazy. I'm making no bones about it. Again, I say, this won't ever happen. Ever.

A most memorable weekend :)

Yes, the last one was the best I've had in recent times. One trip didn't happen and another one happened,totally out of the blue. It was all planned and set up in a few hours, thanks to the organizers and I got the break I had been yearning for quite sometime.

There were 11 of us,by a quirk of fate or whatever, who had nothing better to do over the weekend and almost wholeheartedly warmed up to the idea of spending some quality time away from home, recreating all those magic moments we had while we were mad school kids high on testosterone. It was a time to rekindle hazy memories, strengthen existing bonds and enliven the general sombre mood of this erstwhile merry crowd of people who've mellowed down so much over the years on account of advancing age, maturity, society and I-don't-know-what. This was one last chance to reclaim our youth. And reclaim, we did. This was one big bash of friendship. It could most probably be the last one together, for some of us atleast, and I'm glad we could make the most of it while it happened.

The 14 seater bus reminded me of another great trip I had, when I was in college, with the closest of my people. We'd female company then and it was desperately missed this time around, albeit in another sort of way.(It's tough to explain and a different matter altogether but it's really bad that I'm not keeping any female company nowadays :( ). The trip was a short one, covering just two places- Wagamon and Alleppey backwaters. It was short and sweet. We started around midnight on Friday. The bus was 'adequately' loaded up for the journey lest we should run out of necessities midway during the trip. The driver was a friendly guy who regularly needed breaks for a smoke, apparently to kill off sleep. We also needed that. And more than that. I vaguely remember seeing the driver doze off during my intermittent bouts of sleep. Later, it was confirmed by many of my fellow travellers that hamara driver had actually slept off during the drive and the vehicle had veered off course on many occasions. Fine, so I wasn't imagining things. Thank God for our dear lives! Wayside perils aside, the misty round hills Wagamon welcomed us with a steady drizzle just before daybreak on Saturday. It was mighty cold. I was left cursing myself for not packing in a jacket. Worse, I had the audacity to wear a nylon Tee in that climate.

We rented a room for two hours.( Yeah, remember the one Shahid & Kareena rented for 2 hours in Jab We Met? The inn was, very aptly,named Hotel Decent :D ) This one was shady but more decent than the one in the movie. Plus, the reasons were glaringly different this time. Some travel-weary souls wanted to freshen up. The breakfast from a nondescript, typical mallu-restaurant nearby was heavenly because of the hunger that had kept growing in our stomachs all along through the night journey. The weather was bitingly cold. The drizzle kept on increasing in strength and the winds were also picking up. Just my kind of climate. Seriously. I fell in love with it even though I could see less of it on account of zero visibility conditions caused by the fog.

Later, we trekked up the famous round, rolling hills of Wagamon. No, trek isn't the right word. Stroll would've been sufficient since the land is only slightly undulating here.The slopes are gentle and light on the knees. Trust me, you won't ever tired. Only the climate can be an impediment. The meadows were lush-green. Picture-perfect! I have never seen greener meadows than the ones here. We literally lost track of time taking crazy pics amongst ourselves on the slopes. Gradually, the fog settled by one side and lo, there was it. It was a sight to behold. I have never seen a more beautiful-looking pool. The setting was serene.Here it was..at the base of two gentle hills, a large body of crystal-clear water in between them. The fog returned and it felt as if we were trapped in the fog, with just the pool and the adjacent vegetation keeping us company. Nobody could resist the temptation of jumping into the pool. Somebody said it looked safe. That was manna. It's safe u'know..there's nothing to worry about if you know swimming or even how to stay afloat. And then, we jumped. We hadn't carried any bags or anything with us. Nothing to change into or nothing to change from. We jumped into the water, totally nude! It's a highly liberating feeling. You feel totally at peace with nature. No worries, no tensions...nature's kids in all sense and meaning. The water was ice-cold. That's almost the rudest shock you can get when you jump nude into a pond however beautiful or serene it may look. Not even spotting a water snake swimming by or a hungry alligator looking ravishingly at you can come close to that feeling !! Nobody lasted really long in that cold...and to our utter horror, the fog surrounding the pond lifted and we could see a road some distance away with some people watching. They must've been shocked out of their senses!

Soon we were marching to the bus for some warmth, dryness and rest. The next destination was the famous Pine-Forest at Wagamon where innumerable movies have been shot. It's famous for 'courting couples and nesting couples', according to a travel website and local folklore. We couldn't find any! The weather must've played spoilsport. Plus the 'couples' who might turn up there during this time of the year and in this kinda climate must surely be on the run from mental asylums. I don't quite like the idea of finding psychopaths in the middle of a big pine forest. We were back in the bus for the next phase of the journey.... the enchanting backwaters of Alleppey were beckoning.

To be continued ( it's too late and I'm sleepy. ) ....

And here's the rest (posted a few weeks later)...

Posted on August 4,'09:

Weren't we supposed to board our house-boat at Kumarakom? That's what we had thought but the agent had this place called Punnamada near Alleppey in mind when the actual booking had taken place. Never mind. Even though the detour took around 1.5 hours, the wonderful steaming lunch on the boat was still waiting for us. The boat was uber-cool. Let's call it the U-boat. It was a marvel. It was so frikkin'ly feature-packed. Paradise on water. The stay would last from that afternoon till the next day morning. From Punnamada lake(which is the starting point of the Nehru Trophy Boat Race held annually) to Kumarakom via Nedumudy where the boat was anchored for the night. The crew consisted of a driver and a cook who were both affable beings.

There's nothing that beats that feeling of royal luxury which you get when the boat's gliding smoothly over the slightly-choppy backwaters. After soaking in the ambience and the atmosphere, we tried playing a game of bluff( a card-game) which seemed to go on till eternity. Imagine, bluff with 11 bluffmasters. It wouldn't have ended that day unless some wise soul had the nerve to throw away all his cards on the table with the others following suit. Thank God, the trip would have been an exercise in boredom had we continued for a few hours more. Dusk. as seen over the water, was majestic. The boat was anchored near the property of its owner. We met the owner of the boat too. What an unassuming man! The driver later told us that the owner had started out as a professional tree-climber; the one who collects coconuts etc. as also tapping toddy from tree-tops. You see, I've tried hard to describe him. He was a very down-to-earth, humble human being. I pinched myself upon seeing him for he didn't definitely look the part of a man who owns a 50lakh+ houseboat. Jeez, that's pricier than a beemer 5series or a merc E!

Soon, darkness prevailed and we, creatures of the night, ventured out. In fact, the dawn of darkness was much awaited. The driver, being a resident of the place (Nedumudy), had promised to take us to the best toddy shop in the region. This one was neither famous among tourists nor was it one among the new generation of flashy toddy shops which cater to a niche' customer base. This was a shop for the workers: where the workers congregated after a hard day's toil to get refreshed, to gulp down a few pints of that wonder juice bought with their hard-earned wages. This was not to be missed. Soon, we were marching in the darkness, to our destination which was a good 20 minutes' walk away from the place where we anchored. Walking in the darkness through narrow pathways amidst the undergrowth, by the side of the lapping waves of the backwaters, can be quite fun as we discovered that night, especially when there are narrow bridges strewn along the way, to help us poor humans cross over the numerous waterways dotting the landscape. These were not bridges in the truest sense of the term, but rather the slim trunks of felled coconut trees. Quite indigenous.

The toddy shop was awesome. They served the most mouth-watering sweet toddy in the region. Plus the food was manna to us hungry souls. 12 tipsy souls ventured out of the place ( us, including the driver! ), heading back towards the boat. It was fun finding our way in the darkness even though there was the inebriated boatman to guide us. The trickiest part was to find and feel our way through the above-mentioned 'bridges'. And, we were back in our abode, all set for the rest of the night that lay ahead. A binge drinking session followed which shall remain 'un-described' here. Hazy memories be damned. More explicit stories are coming up by the minute from all those who were present on that divine occasion. Let it remain so. One of the best in recent times.

The Sunday that followed was uneventful, lazy and wiped out by a bloody hangover.
And thus ended my most memorable weekend in these troubled times.

~snores~

One like no other.

And here I'm !!

June's dusted and done with. It was a mixed bag with the joyous moments outnumbering the not-so-great ones.The shock came from the 'King of Pop'. Michael Jackson is no more. A true blue legend. I never knew I was so great a fan of his until his death.

It's strange. MJ was an enigma to me. I have enjoyed his music, jived to his beats but I haven't given much thought to his life, persona and charmed existence. I never considered myself his fan although my heart skipped a beat or two while listening to 'Beat it'. Yes, it connects big time. Even now, it's blaring out through my PC speakers. With his untimely demise, I'm sure of one thing: that I was His fan all along,I still am and will remain so till the end. We're really blessed to have lived during the time of Michael Jackson. The world will never get to see one like him again. Yes, I feel blessed. He was(is) the greatest entertainer ever

When people talk of Elvis or The Beatles, there's only a level upto which you can connect with them or their music 'coz you haven't exactly lived during their time. I lived during the MJ era and I, most conspicuously, feel a special connect which will hold me enthralled for an eternity.
MJ's official site says "His Music Will Live Forever". Yes, it will. What a man! What a colossus. I care hell about the controversies. We needn't be bothered by them. We should be celebrating the life of an artist whose canvas was the big stage and Boy, did he deliver!

I don't like him any less 'coz he was a suspected pedophile. Was he one? We don't know and probably, we will never know the shady details of his private life. None of the charges levelled against him were proved though. While he lived,he was media's favourite whipping boy and now, when he's no more, the media is all agog with prayers and remembrances.

When I call him a legend, it's not by virtue of his off-the-record activities (whether they be moral or immoral, let reason be damned 'coz I don't care a dime!) but on account of the sheer monstrosity of his very obvious talent which was to entertain like no other. Like only MJ can. Like only MJ knows. When we celebrate the work of an artist, there's no good reason why we should look into their private lives to look for inspiration. Please, let's not play papparazzi atleast this time.

All those scandals, all those strange stories cooked up by rumour mills working overtime, all these have added to the allure of the global phenomenon called MJ. He lived only till 50 but what he's achieved will last for a 50 generations. Take a bow, Michael.
"I just can't stop loving you" - R.I.P



Hmm, I feel sad for MJ. In the midst of all this gloom, something momentous happened. Yes, my man has finally scaled Mt.Sampras. With his Wimby'09 win, Mr. Roger Federer is now officially the greatest grand-slam champion.He's the greatest sportsman that I've ever known.Muaaah!

50.

Wow. My Fiftieth post. I never thought this blog would go far. As is the case with me usually, this would surely have had an early demise. But that wasn't meant to be and so, I vow to myself that I will keep this blog's flag fluttering in cyberspace. More to come in the next post.

It happened to me-1.

Last day, while I was watching yet another nameless, lousy movie on the tube, I felt disgusted. Disgusted with errr..well, I-dunno-wot ! It's a syndrome where you get disgusted with something. But you don't understand what exactly is that 'something' that you're disgusted with. And that disgusts you even more. Now that I've mentioned it, I've become even more disgusted.

As is usual with me, I started thinking about the positive things in my life. For me, positive means funny. I thought about blogging on some remotely funny incidents that've spiced up my short and uneventful life of 22 years till now. So here I go:

Well, I'm quite forgetful. I've forgotten nearly half the good things. Let me make up with the ones randomly springing about in my memory.
( well, reader discretion is advised. Comedy is subjective. You could be left crying or bad-mouthing me after some of them. But who cares? It's MySpace , haha ! )

Okay..here's one. This happened while I was in school (5th or 6th std.) :
One fine day, I called up my friend Varun's number and asked , " Hello, varun undo ?"
This, in mallu, means "Is Varun there?" .But the lady at the other end heard it as "varunundo" which translates to "are u coming?". It was the wrong number; and needless to say, the stranger lady was outraged. Sorry Ma'am. Wherever you are.

That one was feeble.
This is a more recent one. 24th December 2008, to be exact.

I was at Palghat railway station, about to board a train to Trivandrum ( from Chennai). I was on my way from Hyderabad. I had landed at Coimbatore airport, got a lift in a friend's car till Palghat from where I hoped to catch a bus that would get me home by X'mas morning. There was a riot-like situation at the bus stand and I decided to go by train. My friend and I reached the station just on time. He announced that the Tvm-Chennai express was due at 00:45 hours. I took the ticket hurriedly and started waiting at the right platform and in the right direction, that my friend, so thankfully, had pointed out. I hopped onto a very empty-looking general compartment when the train arrived. I was confronted by a gang of armed men. Holy hell, this must be bandits in Palghat. The Hindi-speaking bandits asked me to get out of the coach as it was reserved for militarymen. Military or militia, I wanted to ask. I set foot on the most crowded general compartment I had seen till then.
I could barely manage to sit on top of my heavy bag. I was perched in this precarious position for close to 1 hour when I began noticing Tamil ad hoardings outside. Plus the people in that compartment definitely didn't seem mallu. The train passed a major station, which I guessed to be Trichur judging by the time elapsed, from which a large group of people got in. All were speaking Tamil. Palghat is really having a greater number of people speaking Tamil than I've ever imagined, I thought. A few minutes later, I noticed ad hoardings about shops in Coimbatore, by the well-lit road outside ( Thank god for the lighting).
Hell, this can't be happening to me. Oh My God. Could this really be possible? If it is, then it's the biggest blunder done on X'mas eve by any living person that day. I felt like going weak in my knees for a moment. I felt numb all over.
Reality sank in. I had touched down in Coimbatore a few hours back, went by road to Palghat, caught a train from Palghat only to reach Coimbatore again and with no hopes of reaching Trivandrum by morning. Hell, I was getting closer to Chennai every minute. I needed to act but I could just see wilderness outside. I thought about getting a flight from Chennai, or may be a taxi from whichever place I could get down at the earliest, to rush me down to Trivandrum ( like in the movies :) ). I asked a person who was standing nearby to confirm the great news. He didn't know English, Hindi or Malayalam. This man, looking like a Gounder, was amused. I used all of my Dumb C skills and zero knowledge of Tamil to make him understand my plight. He got the gist and started abusing me verbally for my ignorance. Or so I think. Thankfully a mallu guy was there next to me who assured me that the train would stop at Tirupur railway station around 3 am and that there would be a Kerala-bound train around then. I got down at Tirupur, crossed the bridge and saw a train leaving from the other platform. I took a ticket and started waiting for my saviour train. I had seen it moving away right before my own eyes and still nothing registered in my over-worked brain. I waited, waited and waited....till I found out that it had already left. Wow..what a plight. I inquired about the next train, which was the Kerala Express from New Delhi. The bloody train was a few hours late and ultimately, I could board it at 5:30 in the morning. The general compartment was even more crowded than the previous one's. Till date, this has been the most eventful and horrendous journey of my life.
Hyderabad-Coimbatore-Palghat-(via Coimbatore)-Tirupur-Trivandrum. Phew, it was one hell of a journey. I set foot in 3 states in a matter of few hours. That was Some speed !!

Hmm, that was a long one. It appeared funny,that's why I put it here. I can't type any more.
I will keep updating this post in parts.

A Trip !!

Here I'm ...fighting against the tide..quite literally! Boy, that was tough!

Well, I went to Mankayam again last week :) . It's funny, it was never meant to be, but it still happened. There's something about me and the place. To me it's the most astoundingly spectacular, awesomely wonderful waterfall in the world. That is, I haven't seen all the others.
But then, this is one which I know every nook and cranny of. I know the dangerous parts as well as the safer ones. Waterfalls and pools are risky business. A bit of a strong current, potentially life-sucking pits, slippery rocks..you never know how it can happen.

This place has two or three stages. I would count only two of them; so you get two stages of waterfalls. One is big enough but the pool at the bottom is shallow. Swimming is strictly okay here. The other fall is further up and way bigger than this one. People have died here. Or so I have been made to believe. It's every bit possible. There's a bit of a channel connecting both the falls- an intermediate one cut in the rock face and having a short but powerful fall in between. Enter it and you are gone. It's good only for a photoshoot. The authorities, wherever they are, have done a good job of keeping it off the ordinary traveller by means of rails. Normal souls can rest in peace.

The other fall- I guess it's the one known by the name of Kalakkayam- is the real deal at this place. A fall from a height of 30 metres or so, an outstanding pool of water at the base-pure and unspoiled water- and a relatively safe dive and swim make this one a class apart from other 'dangerous' falls. Haha, this one's no better. I had seen her only during the summer. Last week, I got to see her in full splendour during the monsoons. Majestic. And every bit as dangerous as a snake queen.

The pool, when I had gone there in the past, was relatively shallow. At some places, it was more than 6 feet deep. That was the story a year and a summer back. Now it's all different. It is more than the depth of 2 full grown men or quite near. I didn't want to risk going near the bottom. I care for my safety goddammit!! The current was swift and all the sand at the base of the pool had been washed or eroded away by the swirling waters from high up the hillock. The bed of rock, which was covered by sand when I saw it last time, was devoid of any layer of sand at most places. I got to know of the effects of erosion first-hand, long since I learned about it in my Geography textbook at school !

Last time, I had ventured into the well-like pit at the base of the falls. The force was quite okay then as was the depth. I could slide into the pit from the top of a rock; the rock surface was flat,sloping and slippery. No friction. The feeling of sliding into the pit along with the gush of current was akin to that rush of adrenaline which you get when on a particularly exciting water slide at an amusement park. It was unbridled fun, by the truckloads. The pit was about 10-15 feet deep back then. With the force of the water, one would go deep down and also come up without any particular effort, all in a matter of a few seconds.

Now,I didn't venture that far. The force of the fall was thundering. With the thunderous fall and all the erosion, I shudder to think what could be the depth of that pit or the chances of anyone getting out of that one alive. To think all this lay in front of you, just a few feet away, is mortally scary!!

Hmm.. That's all about it I guess. The trip was good, planned and executed by a few stoned minds on a lazy monsoon afternoon. The tapioca and beef we had for lunch atop the rocks was sumptuous. More so because of the state of hunger that everyone had been in since morning. It was a great experience. There would be no cloudbursts or flash-floods as I had feared. All the strategies that we had discussed if, a flashflood came rolling down, were unutilized thankfully. I have lived to tell the tale. Okay, this is a strange post. I didn't know what exactly I wanted to write in the first place. Strange are the ramblings of a sleep-deprived mind. Yeah, I'm one. It's obviously because I sleep very less.

Fantastic!

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more...
- Lord Byron

This , very eerily, resembles my thoughts. Fantastic piece of verse!

Hyper-Arrogance!

I'm sick of all those"Hi, what are you doing nowadays?" questions.
To all of them, I've just one answer: I'm busy screwing up my life. Why should you bother? Or do you wanna help ? You are Not welcome by any chance, though!

Here, I raise a flying middle finger to my wonderful ex-employer. Here's for all the troublesome times, accusations, negativisms, bad publicity,backstabbing, feedback and those goddamn tidbits of life which made the first instance of my professional career feel like an exercise in futility, a well-rounded misadventure.Here's for all the unpleasant experiences that I've been subjected to.

Here's for all the hype and hoopla about a thing known as Perception. I didn't know that people worked for getting positive perceptions. Surely, something isn't right with this world.
I show my middle finger to Perceptions. And to the people who fret over it: Get a life, you morons.

And to all those thoughts about work and my first job: Fuck you!Get out of my system.You are no longer needed.

_|_ : Take that ,Ex- employer. I hope your 'perception' is right in this case. I'm frustrated to the bone and irritated to the hilt. And yeah, that was a raised middle finger directed at you ( in case your 'perception' about that symbol was something else). Go, get some life and get fucked in some godforsaken place. I don't give a fucking damn anymore.

And, I've been reborn. Ha, what a fucking good life !!

I feel Arrogant !!!

Quickie.

I haven't got much time at hand to make this post.( ah, it doesn't mean that I'm very busy. It's quite the opposite). I need more sleeping hours.

My long-awaited B'lore trip is over. It was good. I'm refreshed. I could've been more refreshed, had it not been for that 'green' Friday. Next time, I will also do Hyd.

So, it's back to good ol' thirondaram. It has started raining here and the climate is just awesome.

Yesterday, I was literally picked up off the road while on the way to my guitar classes and taken to Kovalam. Since I was fully dressed, I resisted the urge to get wet; but suddenly, it started to rain cats n dogs. Now, there was no looking back ( no shorts, no trunks). The water was frikkin' cold and the waves a bit too wild. The coast guards were in a benevolent mood and I had my best experience yet at the best beach in this whole wide world.

Snores.

Perplexed.

I'm quite pissed off. It's been more than 3 months here and things aren't really going the way I've planned them out to be.
As one of my friends pointed out to me one fine day, it seems I'm having a very early mid-life crisis. It indeed is.
It feels idiotic idling at home when all people I know ( well, my peers) are working and quite settled in life. Here I'm, too lazy to even think about another job, hoping to study business management next and simultaneously holidaying at home with quite a divided train of thoughts churning in the back of my mind.
What's happened to me? I don't know. What will happen to me? Again, I don't know. What has happened to me? Yeah, I have been royally screwed.
People tell me I have taken a bold and supposedly courageous decision. Again, I haven't given much thought to it apart from the fact that even the very idea of higher education really is postpone my professional working career indefinitely. No one can really understand what I'm really going through. Nah, even I haven't got a clue- goes out to show How clueless I really am!!

It has been a nicely panned out fall from grace. After barely scraping through my bachelors' , I managed to find myself being employed in two companies ( ah, the one I joined isn't a 'company' for that matter. It calls itself a 'Firm' or 'professional services organization' or anything but a plain old company. I should have joined a 'Company'. Life could have been a whole lot better.)
I made a bad career choice. And now I'm ruing about it a year after that happened.

I'm bored with mediocrity. I'm totally pissed off with the complete lack of sense and direction that my life is synonymous with. People don't give me peace of mind almost all the time; on the very few occasions I'm completely alone and contemplative, I make matters all the more difficult for myself.

I always try to forget the past but I can't merely shrug it off. There have been insults and injuries which take a lifetime to heal.Memories play havoc with the future as well as the present. An overdose of nostalgia can be nauseating. I'm bold enough to admit I'm not well. No, this isn't depression. I'm made of a lot tougher stuff. Still, all isn't well with me.

I keep thinking about a break. But this is the Break. It doesn't feel like one. This isn't what I supposed it would be. The romantic in me yearns for something drastic; like a week or two atop a hill station, totally cut off from all the worries of the world. But then, I would be thinking a lot. A hell lot. Exactly what I wouldn't like to do in the first place.

A job.Work. I have become kinda numb when I hear about these. These words don't exist in my knowledge anymore. I have known lots of people all through my life. In school as well as in college. I have seen many people struggle through their academics while I myself was a hi-flier. I had my own struggles but these were all different. It was just a matter of putting cluttered stuff together. I take the liberty to call myself a hi-flier not 'coz I like boasting but because I've been unbelievably lucky all these years. To an outsider, it might have seemed like a cakewalk but I have had to really grapple with my destiny. I had all the good time in the world and yet I made it good in life. Now, exactly one year after I left college, I feel like a loser. I must be the one crazy guy who screwed up the most out of a whole batch. The one guy who had it all on a platter and who just crashed everything to a hundred pieces. I joined work with a lot of baggage and had to leave with a lot of unwanted baggage. People who had to struggle a lot are now sitting pretty. It's not that I'm being jealous or grumpy. I feel happy for everyone and sorry about myself.

I feel the pain of being unemployed. It's a crime in this society. I have been keeping cool all this while, playing the role of crazy-gone-nuts weirdo with gusto, without a care in the world. When I probe inwards, I feel I missed out somewhere. There's some anomaly somewhere in this crazy system. Some flaw; the flaw of being myself.

Things have to end on a positive note, though. Whenever I feel down and out, I just have to think about what I was doing as a consultant with the 'best place to kickstart your career'. Haha, It has turned out to be a cold start in my case. Trust me, there's no better feeling of relief when I think I'm no longer doing all those crazy stuff. That was something which I absolutely despised and detested.

I have to find a path... I need to start afresh.
And this time around, I won't carry any unnecessary baggage from the past.
Memories be damned.

22

It's taken me soooo long!
April has been busy and I'm still living a charmed, unreal life. It really feels bad that I couldn't make a single post in April. My time management policies have always sucked big time.
It's May now and I turned 22 last Sunday :) .
I feel wiser now for all these years. I'm slowly turning more mature.
And Oh yeah,
Happpeee Birthday to meeee !! ( belated, as always )

Adventure!

I yearn for adventure, I crave for it. In my dreams, I'm the perpetual traveller; hopping from one continent to another in search of lost lands, climbing treacherous cliffs, photographing dangerous beasts at close quarters and later keeping them company, relishing the beauty of hidden waterfalls, fighting the tides of mighty seas in search of the beauty of marine life, so on and so forth.

I dream about a life full of adventure. And also contentment. Now, that's a rare commodity in this ill-strewn world.

On the other hand, I also dream about Peace. I dream about owning a hut by the seaside on some non-descript Pacific island. It should have basic amenities though. The beach should have perfect white sand. The sea shall always be peaceful ( No, no tsunami-like waves!) . The beach would be sun-soaked all year long. My hut shall be the most romantic in the whole wide world with an extremely good-looking, charming and wise housekeeper who , incidentally, happens to be my better half as well. There is an enchanting tropical forest in the heart of the island (It's quite big, of course! ), replete with waterfalls, streams and rivulets that offer astounding scenery. Yeah, there shall also be a variety of animals, all the good-natured ones, residing in the forest. They are my friends. This is my Perfect Island.

Well, it's time to get back to reality. Uhh, but what made me write about all this stuff?
I guess it was the trip to Bonacaud last Friday. Actually, we didn't get to see Bonacaud estate , which, of course, we didn't want to see anyway. It was the charm of waterfalls that drew us here and we left satisfied more than ever. Err, I don't remember the exact name of the waterfalls, but they were stupendous. A one-day trip may not evoke much emotions of adventure in most of us, but it was more than enough for me. I could sense adventure in every breath I took, I could feel adrenaline pumping through my veins. Heck, people might ask what is so adventurous about a 6 km trek , that is, if it can even be called a trek? I wouldn't argue but the circumstances offered quite an adventure. I won't go into the details saying I did this , I did that ,etc . It's something different, I can't quite explain the feeling. But the name's Adventure :).

I had earlier mentioned that circumstances and situations decide the course of adventure. In my last expedition, it was the complete lack of human presence in the jungle apart from us three trekkers who went tripping, plus the feeling of fending for ourselves for quite a few hours in an alien landscape subject to the vagaries of an all-marauding herd of wild elephants that made the adventure for us.

Only two others had taken the trek before us that day. That meant only 5 bloody people in the whole damn jungle. That was indeed great news. The Forest guards were initially reluctant to let us happy city-campers into the jungle and tried to scare us off with stories of wild elephants for whom stomping on a poor, hapless man's body had become the latest fad. Funny indeed. Five minutes after entering the forest, we abandoned the country road and took up the trek along the course of the rivulet. An upstream trek. The rocks were slippery and the water not so deep; it felt fun , though. After sometime , we ran into some local guys sitting by the bank and smoking up. We broke into a chat and they, for good measure, gave us survival tips on how to handle if suddenly, out of the blue, an angry disgusted-with-life pachyderm showed up before us. Smart indeed: If you are on the road, then jump into the river. That didn't scare us visibly but made us think twice about taking the road. We were planning to continue further upstream when they told us the rocks could kill if we weren't careful enough. Point taken, we marched up the banks to the country road. It's not actually a road. Instead, it is some kinda pathway made by clearing up the undergrowth and goes around some hefty rocks.

One thing I learnt from that trip is that elephants are very agile and flexible creatures. Also ones with very bad bathroom habits. Yuck. They littered the whole bloody place with their dung. You could find elephant-dung at the most impossible of places. Seriously, you have got to see it to believe it. Imagine these giants crawling up narrow pathways by the side of steep cliffs just to deposit their truckloads of dung by the wayside. Good heavens. They were everywhere. It scared the daylights out of me, I mean, if dung was ever-present, with fresh as well as old dung, then it meant only one thing. THEY were near. The place we were trekking through was one big shitting place for these big, funny creatures. You could see dung everywhere from the 2-3 feet long pathway between big rocks forming all those steep cliffs to the tiniest of gaps between the trees set in the most difficult of angles for them to reach. Still, they must have managed, right?
One determined bunch of pachyderms, I must say!

We had food and drinks on the river itself. No question of having it outside the safety of the river. Still, there was no sight of the magnificent waterfalls that I had heard so much about. We tried catching some fish, but even the fish seemed to be avoiding us. We were utterly thankful for the avoidance by the elephants but not these pesky, little fish. How very high-handed. Hm, next time, I will take along a packet of Hitachi fish food.

The trek after lunch was one mad dash to find the elusive waterfall. Finally we met the other two people who had taken the trek before us that day. Funny, some photographer-kinda guys. Did they seem inebriated? Damn serious they were.. They told us to be careful about the trek ahead since they had spotted some freak of an elephant. Phew, what news !! We were almost 6-7 kms into the jungle, hadn't spotted any elephant all along and now these guys tell us the real danger lay ahead when we were almost at the end of the trek. They left hurriedly leaving us again at the mercy of the elements of the forest. Since there wasn't any other viable option, we went ahead. And lost our way. Quite royally.We arrived at the wrong place, the wrong waterfall; the real one lay far up ahead. In fact we could see it from a distance, we knew it was there. But there was no way we could reach up there.

Not to be undone, we attempted one crazy trek by the side of the waterfall( the wrong one, as I had mentioned earlier ). It led further to the jungle. It was equitorial forest in full, splendid glory, the kind we see in all those numerous travel shows on the tube. It certainly wasn't that beautiful in real life, though. Harsh is too light a word for this one. Neither is Wild. The fact of the matter is, shortly after attempting this trek, we realised this would get us nowhere and abandoned it. That was a very wise decision. Amen.

As we pondered over the fix that we were in , yours truly chanced upon something that looked like a path that could, hopefully, lead us to the right waterfall. I hit the bull's eye there. It was the road to glory. We reached the destination. The Right waterfall was awesome. The sheer thrill and emotion of getting directly under the waterfall is something that will last you a lifetime. I could also get behind the sheet of water here because of the natural angle at which water gushed down the slope. It was Absolute Bliss. Truly so....

This one isn't that much enjoyable like the waterfall at Kalakkayam but the awesome feeling thet we had after "discovering" this one when all hope was lost at the end of a long, gruelling but exciting trek is hard to put down in a few words. I felt like a true explorer. We felt like we were the most adventurous guys on the planet. We, three city-bred spoilt brats, felt the exact emotion that David Livingstone must have went through when he discovered the Vicoria Falls. ( It is a pathetic comparison but nothing sums it up better than this :) ) And yeah, we didn't actually discover the place. The whole of humanity knows about it. But we Did discover it for ourselves on that fine Friday.

The tiresome journey back to the bikes was less interesting. But the Mystery of the Murderous Elephants of Bonacaud remained. Later , we heard that 3 people had met a rather gruesome end at the hands ( feet) of this gang of killers. These unlucky guys were bathing in the river and had the audacity to pelt stones at some thirsty members of the herd who had come to have a drink.
Well , I don't know what I would have done in such a situation. I have been lucky......

Thoughts...

"My life is my message." - MK Gandhi.

What a statement. And what a man.

I would also like to make a statement like that someday. Well, I can make that even now. Freedom of speech and expression has been lavished on us Indians due to the efforts of this humble man.
But I won't. 'Coz I don't deserve to. Most of us don't deserve to make such statements.

Still, we can make them one day. Success and fame are not requisites for that. Our lives need not be messages that we need to convey to generations of Indians growing up in every nook and corner of the country. It's outright difficult and herculean. Nevertheless, we can ensure our lives don't go to waste; our lives should be inspiring messages to all whom we call family and friends. Families maketh the society, not individuals. If all is well with the family, then society will be fine and ultimately , the nation.


Now, what got me thinking on these lines? I just don't remember !!

Mixed fare..

I have just received my relieving letters. How matter-of- fact and crisp.

They tell the story of my life for the past 8 months. I'm relieved, I should be glad. Hey, but I'm no longer employed. Still, I'm content. I should get over the feeling that I have screwed up my life. 'Coz it's far from the truth. In fact, it really is the opposite. I feel like having reclaimed my life.

I never liked my job. In fact, I absolutely detested it. The person who slogged day in and day out at the office wasn't truly me. I was always trying to come to terms with reality. I tried to adjust with it and I almost succeeded.

I never revolt. My yahoo e-mail id starts with 'firebrand' but I have never been a firebrand. I silently took it all along.

I quit for a variety of reasons. I don't need anyone's sympathy. People keep saying how I have shot myself in the foot. Indeed it may be, but then I haven't exactly put a revolver to my head and blasted my brains out, right? At least, I have my head and it's still held high. And proud.

My job was supposed to be great. One of the best and most respected brands in the world. 'Best place to launch your career' , 'Best company to work for' ...the awards and accolades have always kept rolling in... It's indeed a Dream job. And boy, was I proud? I went with a lot of dreams.

Every company in this whole wide world, no matter how great it may be, will have some inhuman departments doing real shitty and crappy work. Just my good fortune to land up in one. My dream was One big rotten apple. The apple was all golden and glitzy on the outside but the core was rotten and infested with worms of the worst kind. I realized it the first day I set foot upon my office floor.

Ever-enthusiastic and cheerful, I went about my business. The training period was no honeymoon. It gave me the rudest shock about the nature of work that I was supposed to do. I wanted to cry 'Bloody murder'. Honestly, one can't do real crappy work like this and still hype this up like it was the most entertaining and engaging work in the world. It just isn't Fair.

It was a downward spiral from then onwards. It was suffocating and I felt real oppressed. But I knew I had to bear it out, no matter whatever the cost.

My professional life was a stuttering 19th century steam engine. Sometimes it just went about surging ahead albeit for short bursts but for majority of the time, it just huffed and puffed all the way to the station, labouring for breath, amidst all the abuses showered upon it by the insolent commuters and the hard, unfeeling engine drivers. The engine was in mighty need of repairs and a fresh lease of life but no one was prepared to pay heed to its seemingly unfair and absurd demands. Ultimately, It derailed. That's about it. Fair enough.

Looking back, I feel I could have corrected myself. 'Corrected' is not quite the right word; it would be 'Changed'. But I'm of the school of thought that believes that you can't just shake off your attitude like how a snake moults its skin off. Some things are hard to change and you are better served that way.

I have left my workplace with no regrets. Perceptions... they are hard to change. I learned that the hard way. I have made mistakes and I have always taken the blame for them. Certain individuals had issues against me but they were strictly on the professional front. I'm sure everyone will remember me as a kind human who doesn't believe in hurting anyone.

I have been wronged upon; I can elaborate on what went wrong with my first episode of professional life but I don't claim to be totally innocent either. I hold no grudge against anyone.

I'm a firm believer in the inherent goodness of the human heart. I see God manifesting Himself through people. I can never learn the language of hate and enmity.

It feels good that I'm back to what I truly am. The Congenial Human in me marches on .....

Nope. It ain't writer's block.

Writer's block ?

Yup...I have it. If this is what it is, then it's bad. Real Bad. Gaaaaawwd!

Thoughts.

Something's amiss. Things are just motoring along. I hate it when life becomes this monotonous. Well, it isn't that bad. Meanwhile, I'm hoping the guitar thingy just goes on fine and all the planned trips materialize. Life could get sunny once again.

Valentine's.

Yet another Valentine's Day has gone by. Here's wishing everyone out there everlasting love and peace of mind.

And Oh, I am still single. SINGLE!!
I am still single when even the unlikeliest of people whom I know are getting struck by Cupid's arrows. I, with all my tall aspirations and dreams about romantic escapades in exotic locations and wonderfully conceived ideas that could shame Bollywood any day , am still single and showing no signs of falling for anyone yet.
What's wrong with me? In my humble honest opinion about myself, there are few people whom I know who are more romantic and less practical than me. I guess my ideas about romance are above the reach of ordinary mortals. ( Now you know the problem, right?) I should console myself saying something good is in store for me. Ah, but when will it show up? The future is unpredictable and unchartered.

That was some illogical and senseless stuff written by a hopeless romantic who is still searching for his love. I hope it doesn't take a lifetime to happen. Obviously, I can't wait that long.

Meanwhile, the search continues...... and the frustration .....