Guilt

I was asked to feel guilty about falling in love. Guilt, the forbearer of shame, the angel of the evil in men. Guilt, the destroyer of sanity, of love and of all the emotions that we should have tried to inculcate and to breed amongst us.

I hoped from the depth of my heart that I had misunderstood them. It is always difficult to explain the matters of the heart to the people standing with open minds. But when they try to guide you to unlearn the language of love with the pain of guilt, all that comes out is revulsion, for both, the guide and your love. When I stand amidst that hate, which stemmed from love awhile ago, I am the rebellious child of God, I am the lost crusader, I am the first kamikaze, I am the king, of the broken pieces of my heart.

I rip myself apart, put myself on the cross, intersect and interject every memory, every thought, that I've ever had, to search for the reason for my guilt. I swim in the gutters in my heart, I walk through the fires of my vengeance, I fly through the goodness in me, to find where I had failed my love, where had I fallen so low, to be so ruthlessly mean to my love, to kill it with my own hands, to trample it under the giant feet.

I scuttle and I strive for the answers, and I come up with nothing, not a sin, to scar my love, to dampen its spirit or to destroy its morality, and now after the soul searching, I realize that guilt was the test, to gauge the strength of our bonds, to measure the vastness of our sky, and guilt failed, and love came across just as it had gone inside, untouched, unscratched, undeniable.

The Beach - Part 3

I used to always find the beach soothing. I had always felt that it was good for the psyche, it bought peace inside me, it was inspiring, it was liberation from the daily life, it was the best time I used to have. But this time, from the moment I reached there, I felt a void. The feeling was missing. As I sat there sipping beer, it occured to me that probably I hadn't spent too much time thinking about things, life had just been happening to me, and I was just watching it fly past. Maybe that was why the ocean could not do what it intended to, probably there was too much confusion, too much even for the huge ocean to satisfy. The answers weren't quite forthcoming, neither from the ocean nor form me, besides even the beer wasn't good.

I walked back to my bike, charmed and helpless. I had been cheated. And now that I started moving back, I felt an insatiable need for a home. I don't have a home, and I don't quite like going back to the place I am staying in. Two months back, it was this same need that had me looking to buy a new place. Time took it course and it finally occured to me that I wasn't really looking for a structure of bricks, or rooms full of people. It didn't really matter where I stayed. I have spent nights on the road, in my own city, when I didn't feel like going to anybody's place, not Sumit's, not Praveen's, not Ankur's, not anybody's, I just didn't know what I wanted.

Where there is a way in, there is always a way out. I looked at the beach, it looked like a giant screen, with just a few ships, standing still, which were insignificant in the water that surrounded them, but without it they did not have any significance, they were nothing without the sea, without the constant buzzing of the waves, without the clouds in the sky, and the birds above them and the fishes below them. The meaning of thier life was to exist in that place, forever. If I didn't have a home, them everyplace was my home. I had the freedom, the independence to call anything, anyplace, my home. For by definition, home is a place where you feel like home, and I did feel like that right here, and every where along the way, amongst the beautiful mountains, sitting in the rain, next to the river that followed. A warm wave of water hit my feet, and it suddenly came to me, that I had never left home. This is how I was born to be, I wasn't made for the walls or for the miling crowds, I was born to sit in peace, alone.

The Trip to Nowhere - Part 2

Contrary to expectations, I did manage to get up early to get going on my trip. The sun was still hiding behind the mountains, when I gathered my gear and pushed off towards NH-4 which would take me towards Mahabaleshwar. There were no signs of rain, and it seemed like an awesome day to travel.

To reach Mahabaleshwar, I took the Pune-Satara highway, or the NH-4 for short, and kept following it till I got to Surul, where somebody had put up a board for me which said that I needed to take a right to go to Mahabaleshwar. So, I moved inwards, and could see the roads getting smaller, though still in very good shape.



I realized there that making the roads on the Ghats, was also an artform, though not too many people recognize or appreciate it. Throughout my trip, there were hardly any bends where it was difficult to make the turn. In most places, tilting the bike was enough to take you around without crossing your lane, and the fact that the same road was also used as easily by 14 wheelers, was commendable. I wonder if they make 3D models before actually setting foot on the hills to make those roads. They would make good models for a desi version of need for speed.

Within three hours I was standing outside Mapro in Mahabaleshwar. Amongst the fog, and the cold breeze, I had a thick strawberry shake. While strolling and talking to people around I found out that strawberries would be available three months late this year, thanks to the unprecedented amount of rainfall. Right outside Mapro I met a jyotish who spent a quality fifteen minutes with me, delivering a well rehearsed lecture on my future. Though I would keep most it to myself, I came to know that i'm going a have a very good time after March 2006. He also gave me a strange orange coloured stone with a lot of holes in it, which he said would make me a lot luckier, as if I need any more luck. Imagine getting all of this just for a cup of tea. So with good luck and knowing that I was going to have a good future, I started moving towards Poladpur.



The trip to poladpur seemed like travelling in pune. The roads were literally non-existant, and there were just some traces that a road might have existed there in some distant past. After an unevntful fourty kilometres and beautiful landscapes, I reached poladpur, where I hit the NH-17, coming from Mumbai.

Time passed quickly on the highway, except when I stopped to watch the aftermath of the two accidents that had occured last night. Soon I was in Khed, fifty kilometres from Chiplun, talking with a fellow motorist over a cup of tea. He was an experienced driver, with a lot of stories, from his travels. Someday, I wondered I would have some interesting ones of my own too. It was there that I realized that I had lost my headlight on the way, and my bike really needed to be washed. On looking at it, most people assumed I had been travelling from Delhi, as my registration and the state of my bike indicated. I didn't care enough to dispell the wrong notion which they carried, for it wasn't my making in the first place and secondly I would never see them again. After some talking I was told that I could find all the fixes for my bike in Chiplun, so after a quick break, and picking up some advice and a lot of stories, I was on my way again.

Chiplun wasn't half interesting as it's name suggested. Neither did the Yamaha showroom there give me anything that I needed. So I just picked up three spare bulbs to take me home. I wasted close to an hour there, after which I pushed off to the closest beach, before it was time to start on my way back.



The nearest beach was Guhagar beach, another small insignificant part of Maharshtra, another road less travelled, another fifty kilometres, another hour of driving and another hour of watching nature, as it should be seen. On reaching the beach, the first thing that I did was to look for some beer, which has become some sort of a personal ritual for me. First it was in college, when we went to goa, then it was every weekend of that one year in sydney, and now I was here today, looking for some. But unfortunately there was nothing, except a plate of bhel on this god forsaken beach. But some good samaritan told me that it'd be available in Chiplun. So in order to keep up my good mood, I picked up my bike and drove back fifty kilometres, picked up a bottle of Kingfisher and came right back to the beach, and enjoyed my beer and the beach just the way I had imagined last night, and travelled 400 kilometres for today.

Tagged travel, bike, mahabaleshwar, poladpur, khed, chiplun, guhagar, beer

The rest of the photographs can be found at this site

The Warm Up - Part 1

There are so many things that need to be done, and so few that we actually end up doing. I didn't want travelling to be one of the latter, so I decided that before I plan to make any big moves, about covering thousands and thousands of kilometres on my old and tired bike, I needed to test if I was really prepared to go ahead with such an adventure. For things always seem so good in my head, but it can get very demanding to keep up with myself.

I had the Sunday off, so I decided to kick off my biking season by making a small trip to check out our capabilites, our includes, mine and my bike's. I have a two year old RX-135 which has been through some very difficult times, especially during my last year in college. I was also told that it wasnt't the kind of a bike you could take on trips. But well I had no other options, mostly because of the scarcity of time before the weekend.


Thanks to Shilpi, I came to a quick conclusion on where I could take myself, when she told me she was going to Ratnagiri for the weekend. I decided that if she was taking all the trouble of fixing up with people and hiring a cab to go there, it just might be worth checking out. After some planning, I decided to travel from Pune to Mahabaleshwar to Chiplun and back. All in all the map said that I would have covered around 580 kilometres by the end of it all, which seemed enough for a first timer like me. But I had no idea if I was going to be able to keep up with the schedule. Finally I went off to sleep, inspired, and charged, for the next day was going to be a lot different than any of the ones which had followed it.

Tagged travel, ratnagiri

Vacations

So finally after an year and a half, I managed to get leave from office. I now have the power to turn it into four whole weeks of sitting on the couch or four weeks of travelling or even four weeks of preperation for CAT. Each day brings new ideas along with it. Though it is confusing, but in a nice way. There are a whole lot of books I have to read, a whole bunch of movies waiting to be seen.

But I have my mind fixed on doing some travelling. Not the usual flying to delhi and sitting at home or going to goa and getting stoned. This would be about spending some time in the, as the foreigners say, mystical India. There are a lot of places I would like to see, but as time is restricted, and so is the budget, I would limit myself to three.

Getting stoned in Goa is compulsory, so that leaves me with two more places to go to. There are four strong contenders, the first being Rajasthan, the far flung places where all you see is sand. If I goto Rajasthan, it would be somewhere around Jaisalmer. The second option is the backwaters in Kerela. I have never been south, as in below Goa. Though technically I spent the last year in Australia, but that doesn't count. Besides people say it's lovely. The third place on my mind is the jungles in Arunachal. Seductive as it may sound, it would need a lot more preperation than I'm prepared for. The fourth would be Leh, the desert in the Himalayas. Terrific place to spend your holidays in, but you need two weeks to get accustomized to the place, which I can't afford. Finally, there is Lakshwadeep, a beautiful place, but in the middle of nowhere. Better looking and less crowded that Goa probably. But good nonetheless.

I still have three weeks to go, so there's plenty of time, for more preperations and more ideas. So drop some here if you get any.


Tagged vacations, kerela, rajasthan, goa

It Poured Like Never Before

The flood in Mumbai has taken over 800 lives so far. Life has become a struggle for all those who are involved. And the situation does not seem to be imporving. It is at times like these, when facing an enemy who is beyond any control, that we see the resurgance of humanity. The collective effort of people, from all walks of life, to fight on, to help, to stay afloat, to defeat, to prosper. The following is an account, from Amit, one of my friends from college, who was unfortunate enough to be there, about the hardships which people face, and they overcome, which we can only imagine, sitting miles and miles away.

I had heard of natural calamities before, be it earthquake (in Latur, Usmanabad , uttarkashi) ,Tsunami etc and never imagined how it would feel to be in such situations.

It was Tuesday, 26Th July, me with my colleagues were in the office. Morning was normal and we never expected so horrible evening. Around 3.00 P.m we thought of leaving office coz it was raining since morning and there were news of trains not running at some places.

Two of my colleagues Mr. wagh (40 years old male )and Ciana (40 years old female) had already left around 2.00 PM for Kalyan and
Virar respectively. We got the news of trains being held from churchgate to Virar. V (remaining guys) didn't have any other option
but to stay back.Two more staffmembers Swati and Ananad decided to take their chances and left office hoping for the trains to start
soon.

It was around 6.00 PM when Mr. Wagh came back .The condition of Central Line and V.T was pathetic. Around 6.30 i could some how got through my colleague and friend Salim, who was struck at Matunga. He with two other collegues Arjun and Nerulkar was on the roof of Company's sumo.water was above 5 fts and it was pouring heavily. They towed the sumo for two kms after that decided to walk and reach andheri.Cars were floating at that place.Traffic was struck and sky was pouring like never before.Arjun was worried about Swati ( they are getting married next year) . There was huge problem in the mobile network but Some how our office landlines were working. so i was the only link between them.many other peolple had decided to walk.It was really difficult in the 5 fts water level , somehow they were managing by holding each other's hand. Many resisdents of that area came out to help them. But trust me till now I didn't understand the seriousness of the situation.

Expecting the trains to start by night we decided to go to nearby bar and then for a movie making most of the occasion. We were
enjoying as if nothing has happened.

Around 12 midnight i got call from Ciana who was struck at Andheri but some how managed to get shelter at one strangers house. Being the junior most in the office she calls me "baby". We were so helpless to do anything but speak, console and motivating her not to cry and assuring her that the condition would be fine. While coming back from theatre we saw hundreds of guys on the streets walking or sitting along side of footpath just killing time. Many people were still sitting and sleeping in trains waiting them to start. We got something (whatever remaining) to eat in one hotel and finally reached our office. My accounts officer's wife who works in nearby office had joined him in the office. Their 1-year-old son was alone in the house and being taken care by neighbours. Swati and Anand also came back.

We slept in the office,there was no other option!!!! Next morning On 27th July Salim called me and told what he went through and advised
not to leave office. Hey i didn't have anybody at home waiting for me but colleagues had wife, children, parents worried and waiting for them. Accounts officers with his wife and Swati decided to take chances. Also there was news of road traffic cleared upto Bandra. Till Dadar they were in touch but after that we lost their track.

After Lunch we all decided to take chances. We hired three taxis and headed towards bandra. After some time we lost track of each other. Around 5.00PM we three reached Bandra. As trains were running from Bandra to Virar. There were thousands of people of all age groups gathered around bandra, All in hope of trains starting soon . Although trains were running but the frequency was very low @one/hour. Western Highway was jammed so well the S.V road. First we took western Highway route, water was till our knees and some guys (who were returning )told us about the horrible flooded condition ahead. So we decided to take S.V road. There was a huge traffic jam there since yesterday. We were on streets just walking with many others. That was the time when i realized what is to face any natural calamaty and what my friend Salim faced. But It was great to see many people who were on street to help all of us with food, water, tea, traffic Etc.cheers to all those kids and to their parents for being such a great role model for them. I never liked Parle G biscuit but at that point of time this small cute little girl came & offered biscuit " Uncle Biscuit". Normally i hate being called uncle by any kid and instruct them to call bhaiya but at that point of time what could I have said except "God Bless u". I had taken my Lunch but there were many who really needed that biscuit.

I reached andheri around 6.30 P.M . I had never seen so peaceful and calm Andheri infact mumbai till now. Some autowalahs were charging tripple charges at this point of the time and making money.many were ready to pay the money but the number of autorikshaws were very less coz of unavailiability of gas and electricity.

On 28th July I spoke to all of my colleagues. They had reached their homes safetly. One of my friends parents came back after staying two days at their office.

Still Our panvel office is in pathetic condtion. Files and computers are floating in water. Water level is 6 fts above ground level. At
some places in Kalyan there is food supply problem. Some places are still flooded. Trains are running but not 100%ly. Although the
situation is getting better but who knows about the next hour!!!!!!!!!!!

I didn't face even 1% of what others or my friend Salim faced or would have faced if it had rained any longer but realized

How a biscuit could be so important sometime?
How important could it be to get a call from your friends or call our friends?
How important money could be at some point and just a peice of paper at other point?
How could be someone so selfish or selfless sometimes?
How important is to help or being helped by someone ?
How important is to love someone and loved by someone ?

What is to be in a situation (natural calamity) like this and most important how important it is to be a good human being sometime?

regards,
Amit Tiwari

Tagged mumbai, flood, victim

Jurassic Park

I am sitting in the Jurrasic Park.

There is a Dinosaur in front of me, and it is eating away my time, my brains and my reputation. It has taken away everything that was important, leaving me with just memories of my past, and bright promises of the never to come tomorrow.

The problem with dinosaurs is that their size is huge and thier brains are too small to handle themselves. Everyone knows that. Then what am I doing sitting here. The answer to that question lies in the fact that my evil-eyed project manager (yes the same one I always bitch about ) doesn't know about it. Probably he bunked school, when they were teaching about dinosaurs. But the fact is that he doesn't know it. So as the biotechnologist assigned on this project, I am required to come out with some smart fixes in a few weeks to help the dinosaur perform better, which evolution couldn't bring about in the last few centuries.

Since I thought it was insanity, I killed the dinosaur, and went to my manager and told him that the client does not need this animal. What he needs in new DNA, a new animal, preferably a horse or a cheetah. He looked at me like I must be crazy. Then he gave a all knowing smile like the buddha gave when he got enlightened, and then we began another intellectual conversation about the possiblities of tweaking the dinosaurs DNA, so that it becomes 10% smaller in size and it's brain becomes 10% bigger. My part in the conversation was to watch his oratory skills. As my invaluable opinion was flushed down the toilet by the great man in the glass cabin, I have realized that the only way out of this mess, is either to resign or follow the Dilbert principle and stretch this project for so long that he retires and I become the project manager and then scrap the project. Or that I just hold it off for long enough for the client's executive board to make a few disasterous decisions which lead to the eventual bankruptcy of the company and the liquification of the assets. Only time will tell, which of them work out for me. But I am sure one of them will. Long live Blogger.

Tagged office, jurassic, dinosaur

Fastest service : 11 hours to fix problem at blogcafe.com

My aim this time was to try out different services where one could try out a new blog. It's not that I am not happy with Blogger for any reason, but it's just that there are new services coming out all the while, and you never know when anything better comes along.

I decided to start a page with Blogcafe, and came up with this. The best part about Blogcafe was the speed at which thier support responds. I was having some problems and in less than half a day, 11 hours to be precise, my problem was fixed. Besides it is very easy to use. They do not give you the template like blogger to do whatever you want with it, but you can do almost all the things, except without worrying about the html details. Your feed, and trackbacks are automatically setup so you don't have to worry about them. The default for feed is off on Blogger, and you need third party help for trackbacks. In addition there are a lot of other options, still unheard of at blogger.

So if you're looking to start a new page, give it a shot.

Tagged blogcafe, service

Anti-Google Sentiments

Four weeks ago, I decided to start two new blog pages. When I started these, I also added my pages to the major search engines, but as google in the one I always use, I have been waiting for my pages to appear there. And now it seems like forever

The links have been available on yahoo for a long time now, matter of fact if you type the title of this page on Yahoo this page shows up at number two. But I've had no luck with google yet. It can't be accesed even by using the link: syntax.

What I am wondering is that is it normal for google take so much time or it did try to add this blog to it's archives but didn't find it upto the mark. Further it is possible that google does not have enough resources to be able to manage everything that they have been acquiring in the last few years. They have taken over the reins of 64 companies and the search sor more is everlasting. Also they have not been able to or have refused to provide the final versions of any of thier softwares. It's still gmail-beta, groups -beta, ...

All they seem to be doing is stealing Managers from Microsoft in China. And that too seem to be more of a attention-grabbing stunt. I am sure that before they even recruited the executive, they must have known that the problem was bound to occur. But chose to ignore it, probaly just to find out if they had the guts to face microsoft.

Tagged google

Smoke rings - Day 3

Two days. That was it.

I managed to survive the weekend, even the pub. It was the first time that we drank in the non-smokers room. It seemed like a different place altogether. If you take away the smoke from a pub, it takes away the charm as well. I felt like sipping alcohol at the airport. Just that they don't let you drink at the airport, but if they did it would be just like that, with the conditioned air and all.

It was when I realized that the reason why nicotine patches would never be as famous as cigarettes. It is because of the absence of smoke. This is what binds me to the stick.

There are other advantages as well. For example, the freedom to walk out of office whenever you feel like, just to have a smoke. And if you don't know anybody around, just start asking for a lighter and you'll soon find a soulmate. If he has a lighter, there is something common already. If you're new at office, you'd get to meet the smokers first, there is always a special bonding between smokers. People say that it is because they know none of them would live long but I think that's crazy. Some people smoke when they get tensed. I don't know how does smoking help there, but well everybody is entitled to their opinion. I don't think I fit into that category, but I just wanted to express that there is one like that.

I do understand that these advantages disappear into oblivion as soon as somebody mentions lung cancer. But I think that is still a long distance away, atleast ten or twenty light years away. By then I am sure, I would have found a better reason to quit than not wanting to die with lung cancer.

Tagged smoking, quit

Smoke rings - Day 0

This is how I had got my first puff, and after almost 7 years from that day, I have decided to try and see if it has taken over completely or not.

Like all smokers, I have quit a lot of times. I quit so many times, that I eventually quit quitting, because it was just too much. And for the last two years, I haven't even made any sincere efforts to do so. Because there was never a reason good enough, but today I just want to do it.

Now I want to be realistic, and practical. I am not saying that I would quit once and for all. This is just for a week, starting 12am on Saturday the 23the of July and finishing on Friday at 11:59:59 pm on the 29th of July.

This should be a good ordeal. Wish me luck god. Wish me luck.

It is still 5 minutes to 12, I think I should go out and get some fresh air, before the long week.

Tagged smoking, quit

Boys don't cry

There is something wrong with the world today. A lot of tragedies happen everyday, around the world, houses burn down, bombs explode, train collide, cars crash, it's all in the news everyday. People learn to live with it, and when you come out on the streets, you can still find people laughing, working, going about their daily routines. I don't know if these are my unlucky days, or I just opened my eyes, but I have seen four people crying in a week, not in their homes, hidden from the world, but outside, on the streets. It gives me an eerie feeling, make me wonder if it a is
sign for something else.

As I left for office a few days back, I picked up my stuff, and walked up to the railway station as I always do. The train was due in five minutes, so I lit up a cigarette. It was then that I noticed that there was a small kid standing there, looking at his mother, holding her hand, and watching her weep. I could just see tears trickle down her face, just crying quietly, on that bench. Soon the train came, and I left with the crowd, leaving them sitting on the bench.

The next one was yesterday while I was on my way from the station to the office. It is just a five minutes walk, and people are always rushing there, it's just something about the place. As I was walking by a tall building, I noticed a woman standing in a corner, with a cigarette in her hand, and tears flowing out of her eyes. Why I don't know, I didn't care to ask, I just rushed like everybody else to where I had to go.

After an easy morning in the office today, I finally left for lunch. Picked up some Chinese from the food court and started looking for a place to sit down. I found one right in the corner, below the televisions, sat down and started eating. There was a man sitting on the next table, tall white man, holding a cellphone to his ears, whispering into it. Then I heard him say, softly, don't do this to me. It did sound like he was breaking up or something, but he couldn't be crying in a food court. I looked hard, his face was strong, expressionless, though a little sad. I did
n't feel like sitting there anymore, besides there was a lot of work to be done in office, so I quickly finished my lunch, got up from my seat, and I saw the man, keeping down the cellphone, staring at the plate in front of him. And
then there it was, I saw a tear form in the corner of his eye, about to drain, about to fall. Then he noticed me looking at him, he didn't know what I was thinking and I didn't know what he thought, but I did see his brain take over. He just blinked once. And it was was gone, disappearing right before my eyes. I'm still debating if it was a good thing or not. But I am happy that I didn't have to see a man cry.

Tagged crying

emancipation - hour 106

This is it. 106 hours and 145 cigarettes later, I am at the end of it all. I don't intend to do it again, ever again. Though this idea was more stupid than anything that I've ever had before, but since it was an experiment, and we have the results, there has to be conclusion. I think my conclusion is to sleep properly every night, for it is
very important that you do so, If you do decide to do it, after four days, your eyes hurt real bad on just looking at the monitor, you decide to kill your project manager yet again, you think you have four hands, and it's impossible to read what you are typing.

The next thing on the agenda is to quit smoking. Plan to start that from tomorrow morning. Umm.... Next week would be a better idea. Will think about it tomorrow.

Good Night.

Tagged insomnia, experiment

emancipation - hour 92

It's almost time for the sun to come up again. I have never been awake for four consecutive sunrises before. Dad would be proud. Not that it matters now, but it still feels good.
The tele is still on, and some second grade comedy shows have been on all night. Suprisingly, they are still showing advertisements for online dating web sites, for staright as well as not so straight people, at six in the morning. It is simple logic that somebody so desperate as to go looking for a date online, would be desperate enough to get up this early to watch the add as well. In my country, they played some prayers early in the morning, atleast on the Doordarshan, and I always thought it was stupid, because if you wanted to pray you wouldn't be watching the tv., in the first place. Now I realize that whatever they put up at this time would be stupid, because there is nothing that you can show at that time, except the news ofcourse.
I would complete four days in a few hours now, and I can see clearly that thinking about three more days, is nothing but insanity. But how the fuck am I going to get through office today, is our "Question of the dayyyyyy".

Tagged insomnia, experiment

emancipation - hour 82

They are still running re-runs of Murder by numbers on Channel Nine. They've showed it once every two months, ever since I have come here. Though I never see it, but I
will see it the next time they show it. I hope they show me a movie about the Ku-klux clan. Or the genocides from South East Asia or Africa or something interesting. I don't want to listen about the London bombings.in London. I know the terrorists are out to destroy the peaceful civillizations of the world. They say one of the bombers cried on 9/11 when the world trade centres were reduced to rubble. How much can a man change in four years. 73 people died in this mishap and it has been hogging the headlines for the last one week. One american girl disappeared and it's been making headlines too. Poor girl. It's not that I am a heartless bastard, but there is something that I've notived. Every one of the twenty one years I spend in India, I used to hear about so many people dying everyday. It's good to know that all of that has stopped since I have come here. They've been crying for months about that one girl, so many people just die in Kashmir, and nobody hears about it. Why? Ask yourself. Those deaths in India doesn't make headlines anymore. It's just so strange, like I had a hand in all that, like those people were dying because I was still there. I'm glad I saved the lives of so many people, I already feel like a hero, a sleepy hero.

Tagged insomnia, experiment

emancipation - hour 58

I just can't stay in the same room as the bed. My roomie tells me I'm nuts. But has offered to give me company tonight if we drink. It sure is a difficult decision, because if I drink, it's going to really difficult to stay up. But what's the point of a weekend if you don't drink. Besides, it's too boring to stay up all night sitting alone. But I'm hoping, I don't drop off tonight, a lot of effort would get wasted. And I know I'm too lazy to try it out again.

My eyes have started swelling up a bit, though not very visible, but the redness might be. Roomie says that it's very prominent, but I think he's just exaggerating. Nobody would give a damn at the pub anyways. But I look more and more like druggie...

Tagged insomnia, experiment

emancipation - hour 36

It's Friday night. The clock says 10:23 pm. After a little over 36 hours, and 54 cigarettes, I am still trying to get a taste of what insomnia would be like. It's difficult to think of anything to say. I am trying to find out what does a copy of a copy of a copy look like. It's bad right now but I think it could be a lot worse. If this was something more important, than just an experiment, probably I could still be working. I wonder how long is it before someone just drops.

Tagged insomnia, experiment

emancipation - hour 28

Project Managers are worse than professors. Atleast the professors had other students to pick on. This guy has only me. And I am on a non-sleeping marathon, so ofcourse I can't understand anything. Well I'm not even trying, but he did try his best, to explain to me the reason for the slow performance. This is not exactly time when I would like to work though, but it's kinda impossible for me to explain it to him, so I'll just shake my head, as if every word that he said, has been imprinted on my mind forever. He is giving me a strange look, probably he is not so used to seeing me take his suggestions so easily. Good for him, he'd have a nice weekend.
And luckily he didn't screw me with documentation today. That would have broken my determination for sure. This, maybe I can handle.

When the devil came to earth the last time, he handed some test plans here, which he asked his good friend PM, to keep updating regularly. They have a good cheerful, cover, with a charming logo of the company, but everything inside it is unholy crap. I don't even read it, mom told me not to never ever read such bad stuff again, after she had caught the pornos in my school bag.

But now It's time for lunch, so I am rushing to the Food Court. More on the this, later.

Tagged insomnia, experiment

emancipation - hour 19

Life is not always fair, sometimes it's just too much to take. But only sometimes, and I am sure when I look back at this after years and years, I would be laughing, thinking about the sorry state I am in now.

But whatever let's get back to the main issue at hand. It's the nineteenth hour running now. I am wide awake, there are hardly any signs of fatigue or sleep anywhere near me. But the problem time is about to begin. My theory is that if you can survive 6 am to 8 am, you have survived the night out. That is usually the time, when you suddenly feel so sleepy and sluggish. No wonder all schools, colleges, and offices in the world open at exactly this time to make it is a horrible experience for one and for all. Sometimes I think it is a conspiracy against the common man.

Mac would open up in an hour, so would get something to eat if not to sleep. Though I am not very sleepy, but to be true, if there was a bed here....

Tagged insomnia, experiment

emancipation - hour 12

So here I complete half a day. All I am left to do are just 13 more half days like this and I would finally be the man that I always wanted to be. But let's leave that for later.

Life is getting hard here, no, not because of losing sleep, anybody can wake up for 12 hours straight, it is paradoxically a problem, which I had been discussing, that strangely never happened before. Infact, now that it's here, i'm getting so involved that it's taking my mind away from this once-in-a-lifetime mission of mine. But hang on fellas, I am not going to sleep on it, I will just sit like a dumbass in office, throughout the night, just like I do in the day.

Btw, still no sleepy eyes.

Tagged insomnia, experiment

emancipation - hour 1

I have been addicted to sleeping since times immemorial. My personal records have been unbeatable, well almost, if you don't count the people like this guy in my college, who kept sleeping which his bed was burning. Somehow people managed to wake him up, and he put out the fire, and dropped dead in the same bed again. Five minutes later, a lot of people had to wake him again because his bed was still on fire. Ofcourse these are extra-ordinary men, but I still have a good reputation among sleepers. There are a lot of days in the calender which haven't registered with my brain and possibly never will, because I forgot to get up on those occasions. ( No I didn't say get it up ). But that was one year back in college. You didn't get paid to go to college.

But you do get paid to come to office, so now I pride myself in getting up and going to office at ten everyday. A feat I hardly managed in college. But I needed to emancipate myself, for those days and days of sweet sleep, so I have decided to go for seven days without sleep. Yes that's right one whole week.

This is the first hour. It's 10:30 am on July the Fourteenth. And so far I have been taking it well. No droosy, sleepy eyes yet. See I told you I could do it.

Since in the last one year, the classroom has been replaced by the office, so I would be continuing my endeavour right here in office. It all looks fine right now. Will check in later.

Tagged insomnia, experiment

quote from george orwell

"The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, than one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push ascetism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals."

(from 'Reflections on Gandhi', in Shooting an Elephant, 1949)

Tagged orwell, quote

age and learning

I always thought that as you keep growing in age, people lose their ability to adapt to new technological changes. Doctors, who were born and brought up in the pre-computer time, are literally scared of them. Not just that I have seen people getting scared of i-pods or even scientific calculators. It is never a problem for a 10-year old to use it, but try giving something like that to a 50-year old and you'll hit a wall, more of a mental block I would say. People say that you lose the ability to learn as you grow older. What I find amusing is that there are possibly some cluster of cells in the brain which decide your ability to 'learn'. Now it is also possible that on the whole, the cells find it more difficult to store more information, due to the growing age. But since there are a lot of simple things that people learn after their 50's, I think the abitlity of cells to form links with others decreases. In other words, the links which are probably some charged ions, lose the capacity to hold more than a specific amount of charge, so the link would exist, but in a very weaker state, so that when accesed, fall below a threshold where we could say complete linkage.

What sparked off the debate in my head was a colleague of mine. She must be approaching her fifities, managed a lot of projects for us, used to be a programmer a long time back. But today she discovered, that you could add new emoticons to MSN messenger. And kept smiling like a 10-year old girl. People are so full of surprises, it just makes life interesting.
Tagged learning

blogging at yahoo

Yahoo 360 has been launched, and today I got a chance to check it out.
Basically it just provides a very simple page to view, and is very easy to use. But It didn't allow one to modify the template nor provided any built in to choose from. Probably it is still no competition to Google or Blogger if you like, but it is still in the beta version. Except for ease of use, I can't see any reason why people would choose it over blogger. Check it out sometime.

Tagged Yahoo blogging

celebrating single life

According to The Times of India, Kevin Nadal, a 27 years old New Yorker, invited 32 of his close friends yesterday and got married to himself. The point - Celebrating single life. He says that single people are marginalised in our culture. People believe that they don't have the commitment to be in a relationship. Especially in India, you cross 26 or 27, and your parents would start chasing you. I guess the age bracket is even lesser for women. More than that, I guess watching your friends with their partners, is more of an issue with women than guys.
Whatever the case,marrying oneself may definitely solve a number of issues like divorce, pre-wedding jitters, cheating spouses, interfering in-laws, dowry, forgotten birth and wedding anniversaries and such like. Also the world will also be able to get rid of complaining and nagging spouses forever, which can only be a good thing.
Now that gay marriages have become legal in Spain, and probably Canada too, I wonder if marrying yourself you ever be legal. It would bring upon a lot of difficult questions too. What happens if Nadal falls for a girl, then what does he do, divorce himself and get married. If he doesn't divorce himself, then would the second marriage be illegal. Technically if self marriages become legal, then you could marry somebody else, and if when you get a divorce, you wouldn't have to pay her a damn thing.
Coming back to the point, being single is not that bad a thing after all. Five minutes with a married man, and you have enough to think about. But whatever you do, don't get near people who are just about to get married, they move around with strange happy ideas in their heads. On the whole, if you got nobody to go with today, get yourself a drink and raise a toast to single life.

Tagged single

worst analogies written in a high school essay

7) He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

6) The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just
like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

5) Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew
that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried
in the credits as something like "Second Tall Man"

4) Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed
lovers raced across the grassy field toward each
other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland
at 6:36 p.m. travelling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka
at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

3) John and Mary had never met. They were like two
hummingbirds who had also never met.

2) The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the
sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage
during the storm scene in a play.

1) The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red
Crayola crayon.

Tagged humour

blogger images

There seems to be some problem with blogger images today. I can't upload any images today, nor view them.

Looks like they have more pics than they can handle. Since when did google start having problems like this.

Tagged Bitching

have spacesuit, will travel

One more guy makes his way into space. Gregory Olsen, a 60-year old, has signed a deal, which would put him into orbit for a week. I wonder how long would I have to wait before I can make a trip there. This guy is supposedly paying $20m to get there. No wonder he had to wait till he got 60 years old to go. And since I don't plan to wait for that long, I have been looking at other alternatives, specifically more affordable alternatives. Richard Branson, for example, has offered to take me there ( not specifically for me though ) for a mere $200k, starting from 2008.
Now I would like to make the trip before my thirtieth birthday and before I get married and all, so that means I have another seven and a half years to save enough money. Assuming that I can now save 15k a year, and allowing for inflation at approximately 3%, my salary would need to increase by approximately 38% each year. Given my productivity, I doubt that could be a realistic value. So I reckon, I can delay my 30 year plan a bit. If I get the usual 15% raise in salary every year, and I save up all the money I can, I would have enough money in a little less than 16 years. That is to say, it is possible that I might go up in space in the year 2020.
So if you want me to pick up a few pics of your city or something, you can start booking from tomorrow.

Tagged Spacetravel

the press and the CIA

A certain reporter in America, has been jailed for refusing to name the source, who told her that a certain person was a CIA agent. The article from BBC also says that "The disclosure of a CIA agent's name can be a federal offence."
It's nice to see somebody from the press stand up for themselves. It doesn't matter, what the reason is. It just might be that there is no source, so she decided to protect herself, but I would like to believe that there is somebody in the big bad world, reading the news, following the proceedings and thinking to themselves, that I should have never done this.
However they have inspiration now, to make sure that the journalist who is holding on for them, does not get punished unnecessarily. Another journist who also had refused to name the source, now says they are ready to do it after his source told him it was alright to do it.

Tagged News

nitin's theory of evolution

This is what one of my friends has to say on the theory of evolution. Any answers....

"I think it is time we debated upon the theory of evolution. If what we came from is a monkey then how come they have not developed with us.. I mean like you have men on different continents all developing at the same time (africans Caucasians Asians etc)..
My point is that Charles Darwin sab ko maaamu bana gaya.
Theory of Evolution is the most high profile shit anyone can throw at you and you must be really gullible to believe.
I think everything has been just about like this from time immemorial.
Like there were dodos there were Dinosaurs, they perished under different circumstances but there was nothing to do with natural selection.
If you have floods in Gujarat and a 100 people die that is hardly what you would call natural selection."




Tagged Evolution

web fire escape

The next time you are surfing the net, when you are stacked with issues, which have to be solved by tomorrow or else the multi million dollar companies ( read your clients ) would supposedly stop working, while the Account Managers are busy calling you so that you can give your word that all of issues would be complete by tomorrow, but you just want to take it easy. In all this confusions, the evil project manager gets up from his seat and starts moving towards you, while the bitch developer who sits next to you, sees him coming and passes a devilish smile, for you are in all propablity fucked. And then when he comes up oh so close, you realize that you need to get off the page and look busy, fret not. Here is the Web Fire Escape, your passage to safety. Try it out sometime and let me know ( and the people who made it ) about how did you find it.
I haven't tried it out yet, as I think I am unable to de-prioritize such important tasks as watching out for the PM, to a mere machine. But I am open to feedback.

Tagged Links

w.blogger

Testing w.blogger. This is for option number 1

Tagged wblogger

importance of blogger

After my first post yesterday, I realized, why did google move over to buy blogger. I always thought blogging was for the kids, who wanted to put something up on the net, without working too hard, or for the failed politicians, ( that kind of people ), who had some big agenda which they wanted to inform everybody about, the kind of people, who failed to find a good soul, on to whom they could download the fundas of thier life.

But after yesterday's blog, I felt some kind of a relief, after destroying the life of my boss. Even though I doubt that anybody read it, and if somebody did, they had no idea who was talking about whom. It's even possible my boss read it and felt sorry for the guy who wrote it, without realizing it was meant for him. Or maybe some boss somewhere read it screwed up some guy in his team, who he imagined to have written it. My point is that it gives you a relief to let it out of your system. For I need not worry about who reads it, and in addition there is a consolation that I told it to somebody.

And I think maybe those kids who just wanted to put something on the internet do it for the same reason as me, just to get it out. Also the people who I called the failed politicians earlier. There was something they felt strongly about, and with this they can let thousands see the world from thier eyes.

In the end, somehow I felt myself belonging to this huge community of people, all of whom are living a life, in which everything does not go thier way, and there are things that need to come out. For it's not always possible to let someone you know, know about it. It's like doing a monolouge on television. You can't see them there, but you know they are. And they all understand why you expressed, what you expressed, or atleast somebody does.

This is the voice, of ordinary people like you and me, the middle children of history, with no extraordinry place, no extra-ordinary skills, with a mind which wanders off to far off lands, which thinks, and which has hope that someday we would be what we want to be. Someday we would live in the dream world that we knit for ourselves day after day. That is why it is so important.

Tagged blogger

tomorrow

My Project Manager, Mr. Dick Head ( names changed to protect privacy ) would be asked to resign from his position tomorrow, after another disappointing year for the company, the stock holders co-workers, and juniors. Thereafter he would sign the papers, and then beg at each cubicle on his way, for a hundred years of rape, muder and documentation.( He's British, and I like Scotch, hence I found a link with Braveheart ). That afternoon the mortgage on his home will default, and within hours of losing his job, he would lose his house. His wife, ( who is an amazing lady, don't know how she got stuck with him) would divorce him in the evening and get the custody of the children, after his coworkers and colleagues dissect his personality in court. ( not bitching like mean women at lunch ). When it starts getting dark, he would go to the beach to find some solace, but lightning would strike him while masturbating on the beach. Finally at night, he would be caught by gays, who would bisect whatever's left of his balls, for shouting anti-gay slogans at the Mardi Gras. While escaping from them, he would be caught by the cops, for stealing his own car, where he would spend the rest of his day, kneeling, weeping, crying to his holiness ( yours truly ), for emancipation.... I know that can happen, and I will forgive your sins my son, if and only if you promise me, that I am not doing any more fucking documentation for the rest of my fucking life.

Tags : Project-manager Bashing