Keep Running

Street signs and warnings, there are none,
But, don't be afraid and keep up the run.
Never think of the road behind, there was never one,
Speed like a bullet, care not about the estranged gun.

Look at the horizon, should your untrained feet hurt,
'Coz into the ground beneath, it's about to convert.
Answer all doubts if need be, with responses curt,
Save your energies instead, to cut through the dirt.

If you are bothered by the pebbles, in your shoes,
Take a break, clear 'em up, and read the little clues.
They just wanted to get heard, and make you choose,
Between running without them, and willing to lose.

Ten Years Hence

One day began, with the same rising sun,
in a distant past, with new chores to run.
It ended with all its laughter, joy and fun,
I thought of what I accomplished, I found none.

Another day dawned, as the stars faded to dust,
I awoke from my dream, to begin a new quest.
But, something was missing, something was lost,
my plans took me nowhere, and it caused all the unrest.

And so one day, while the Sun sneaked into the sky,
I walked up to my dream and rendered a loud cry,
"I have dreamt all my life, but, now I'm gonna try",
and not a day went by hence, that I could call dry.

Its ten years hence, I smile while my eyes turn wet,
No, I did not win all that I fought for or bet.
But, I don't wake up anymore with a worry or a sweat,
Not anymore than when all I did was laze around and fret.

Return Journey

I think of the time that has passed,
since we talked, and acted confused.
Now, too many roadblocks have amassed,
and the road i took while leaving is closed.

And now I'm on a return journey,
on the very same closed road.
Gonna plant an 'I' where there was a 'We',
Gonna let every last memory erode.

I have an undying part of you in me,
i am not denying reality, cant you see.
I am just too tired of killing every memory,
But, I will go on, coz were are now history.

And now I'm on a return journey,
on the very same closed road.
Gonna plant an 'I' where there was a 'We',
Gonna let every last memory erode.

Just Hope

A vibrant lifetime comes to pass,
a great friendship falls to death,
a worthy cause ends in abandon.


A forceful tide falls to gravity,
a helpful signboard goes wasted,
a beautiful dream fails to turn real.


Each passing year helps intensify,
a search for wasted signs and reasons,
a blame, a fear, a game lost and a sigh.


Wasted moments are owed, a true reason,
an aimless present is owed, a direction,
but, a shorter future is owed, just hope.

From Chennai to Carolina (Part 1)

It starts with one thing....

Its been a good 50 days since I have landed here in Durham, NC. My first 50 days, for the good or bad, were entirely dedicated to non-academic endeavors like part-time jobs, learning to sell myself, talking, and gearing up for the reason I am here.

Firstly, took up a part-time job at a team called SWAT (Students with Access to Technology - reaffirmed my belief in the truth that some abbreviations appeal best when left as they were. However weird the name is, we had fun SWATting). A good $9.5 flat was being paid, and it was heaven even just to imagine! Starting from a time when I was scared to death at the spending prospect that lay ahead, while I hovered around Frankfurt airport. Now, let me digress and take you through my trip to this place. I promise to be back with more current stuff.

THE FLASHBACK

The fact that I was leaving India dawned upon pretty pretty late. All through my stay in Chennai, it never hit me. All through my stay at home, it did not hit me either. I had more things on my mind. Knowing my innate ability to screwup things in the last moment, I knew there was something unpleasant in store for me. But, what if I was wrong? What if the thought was just a superstition?What if it was just the cautious paranoid me in me, who was hard at work? Well, let's see what happens.

With a zillion things like immunization requirements, baggage weights, meeting relatives, mailing friends, ensuring possession of all contact addresses, things were far from relaxed at home. Moreover, I did not have the slightest idea of who was going to pick me up at RDU (Raleigh/Durham) airport, and what does it take (financially and otherwise) to travel, all by myself, from the airport to the university. So, enough time was being spent in worrying about those petty details. Life was seeming to get worse, but boy, just hold on, this is nothing.

Once the abovesaid things were beginning to get sorted, it began to dawn upon me that what I was undertaking was indeed a huge step for the family, with due regard to the distance and the financial risks involved. Working for 3 years in a semi-synthetic exile in Chennai, pressure seemed a distant relative - far from familiar, but nonetheless 'cognizant' of. But, time, I always believe, offers you experiences that seem to follow a Gaussian distribution with mean '0' [when the intensity of the experience is plotted against time]. The mean of '0' translates to equal positive and negative experiences. I am sure to draw arguments from the panel of mathematicians on this over-simplified half-baked model. Heck! I am using my literary freedom and not the mathematical one. So, back off and just read on!

A sort of warm pressure built up slowly as I was getting conscious. You can make it out by observing that your response time begins to waver. You would not laugh at some otherwise usual jokes, and for some others, you would over-react. Sort of like a Negative-feedback system used in the automated vertical take-off of an aircraft that causes it to tilt rather funnily. Or something like your first rope-walk or a walk-on-the-wall - you can never have a logical Newtonian reason for falling down. You fall because you are unsure, and would rather fall and be sure of something! Example follows.

My journey to US consisted of several intermediate stop-overs. The first one was in, (where else?) Chennai. The city that I began living in by hating it continuously for years before I fell in love. Sounds like one of those 1970's Bollywood movies, wherein the hero and heroine fall in love after those initial 'badtameez', 'badmaash', 'besharam' episodes. Met my dear Sinners, and my WCB-basement-chai group, and a couple of other friends.

Needless to say, I did cause some synthetic tension in Chennai, when I suddenly realized that the I20 and the passport were nowhere to be seen. We searched the bags for no avail. It could not get any worse. Spent a good one-hour getting worried about it, before actually finding it in one of the secret pouch of a Samsonite bag.

MAVERICK. AIR-BORNE, SUPERSONIC. OVER.

Getting back to the journey This was my first flight journey ever and I was as thrilled as a kid with a puffed-candy in his hand, although minutes ago I emptied a pack of paneer parathas that Dimmi and Abs bought for me. All through the journey, I thoroughly paid attention to evey sound that was generated, trying to visualize the engines, the air speed, the clouds. In retrospection, the journey was sick, although I never felt so back then. Do I have the capacity to get so excited and curious all over again? No way! Its so painful to spend 35 hours on air and land intermittently.

Boarded at Chennai at 1am, after a warm sendoff, only to find more familiar and confused souls inside the airport and the flight. Lufthansa sucks! (and don't know who really rocks in the air, heard the same about AI & BA!). The deceptive, good-looking, caring hostesses served plain crap, which made me feel like asking whether she eats different food on the plane, and if so, I would prefer that. Ofcourse, as you may have guessed, I was nowhere close to such a Q - getting kicked outta into thin (yeah..literally) air wouldn't be too pleasant.

Reached Frankfurt at 7.20am, and was so damn excited about the 6 hours I needed to spend there before boarding the plane to Washington. All I had with me were some Rs. 123, and a Foreign Travel Card. The stuff at the airport was so expensive, that in a socialist country there would be a mandatory "Touch me not" board on every item the shops sold! Hunger was killing me, and I rushed to a coffee shop and asked her if she would accept the little known SBI card. She smiled and said, "But, you'll get change back in Euros". It did not quite appeal to me. Finally, met a nice friend at the airport and spent a good 6 hours talking.

Then came Washington, wherein I faced a heavy accent problem. Ofcourse, it was only a while before things seemed to make sense. However, it was to boring to spend some 7 hours with no one to talk to and not knowing what to do once you reach Durham.

And when I reached Durham, the things I dreaded the most happened. Realizing that you lost your baggage is one of them. Others include you realizing that you were woken up from the middle of a sleep to get the hell out of the plane. Thankfully, a couple of good seniors picked me up at the airport and helped me get it back. With the jetlag, appetite loss, dehydration and confusion in my head, the university began to look like some ghost's paradise. But, I never realized that the days to come would make me feel like I am gonna miss this place later in future.

Upcoming : FCTC part 2. Have a good Day!

The face of a Phase

Corporate world! How I first felt about this jungle!How I constantly dreamt of the glory attached to my contribution in the most critical stage of an ongoing work (Identity crisis?). I imagined all those phrases “Man, I spent 30 hours in the office”, “I cancelled my personal visit due to work”, “I haven’t been having enough sleep/food these days”, that some role models of mine frequently uttered. Absolutely stupid! But, there was something in these stupid remarks that pulled me towards them. They contained some hues of selflessness, and a relentless pursuit of a goal or an ambition. Associating myself with them made me feel like a hero. A sense of micro-martyrdom perhaps! How innocent of me, time would let me know.

Well, as with many visions and dreams, mine was not immune from the various ingredients of work life – A bad boss, a good boss, an understanding peer, a spy peer, achievements, mistakes and so on and so forth. I began reading articles and essays about psychology and psychiatry by Freud and Jung. I made sure that I kept away from misleading ‘self-management books’ of course. Somehow, they never appealed to my ego.
It was quite a long journey. Well if not in the larger sense, it was at least a good start. I have had my own share of joy, when you see your effort directly converting to money. It’s amazing how humans feel secure when they fit in the little burrows that a few historic men create – the grin of being a well assigned labor. At the same time, how important verbal communication is, especially when two humans fight it out in the pursuit of an organization, whose individual mutual loyalties are never free from doubt. Well, that’s where I first felt the corporate world stress. For some strange reason, that stress experience gave me a sense of superiority and courage. Stranger than that is the fact that I am blogging all this crap!

Well, on the personal front, these years have been the best of my life. I don’t think I can get these years ever again in my life. The people that mattered to me in this phase of life, I shall never forget. The things that happened have had their own effect on an annealing personality. Such is, perhaps the effect of flux on one’s memory. In true Electronics engineer terms (yeah, I do qualify for that - I’m the only IITian to have flunked both Electrical Circuits -Part 1 and Part 2, that too in consecutive semesters, under the same prof), the memories have been 'etched', thoughts have been 'fabricated' and integrated on a large scale (yeah….I hear that….VLSI).
Three years - That’s the span of the period I am talking about. Every particle in this universe is bound to obey certain laws of universe which are accepted beyond question. The particle by itself never feels these laws, but it sure does feel the gravity, the force and the power that are believed to be governing its movement. By knowing these forces it cannot turn immune to them. More importantly, perhaps these laws are all wrong. Well, that sums up the flux I am in. I am just another particle in the crossroads, questioning about life, expecting answers, expecting help. But, in the end, I know I just have to move on. And that’s where the beauty of life lies. It has no other precondition except the abundance of an element ranked 8th by an Old Russian in some table.
It is no big deal, if I see this time as a “Phase” of my life. A rich, lathery one at that! After all, for someone who believes that his life should belong to the line that separates continuity from discontinuity, how does a categorization on time domain matter? Its something like music, at the core it is a set of discontinuous steps, but your heart (at least mine does) perceives it as a continuum.

Adolescence – a()musing!

Perhaps, I inherited fear from my grandfather. The fear of not being able to find a way out in case of a discomforting situation. The fear of not being able to make the best of an opportunity. And the first thing that strikes my mind when I think of him is his large aluminium suitcase. It was a treasure chest of every single piece of paper, every bill, every letter, every postal address and every small object that happened to be of some value in some undesirable circumstance. Even the fact that the practical utility of a telephone bill fades away exponentially with time did not undermine his belief in its utility as a life-savior or a disaster avoider. With time, his large suitcase had a family of its own and a couple of small suitcases found their way into his lower cupboard. They contained, what he called, more relevant bits of paper, without which we handicapped while dealing with some situations.

As a child, I was exposed to the logical correctness of the idea of storing such insignificant bits of paper. My beliefs in this habit grew stronger with my father revealing his ‘my first’ series of ‘storable’ objects – an old spoon, his first notebook, his personal diary. Not that these two ideas of storage are anyway related, but they sure show a strong bonding to past, which also leads to the perception of present as a continuum and not as a fresh instance. And my mind got these things etched and it took too many years of my adolescence and adulthood to get rid of this habit of storing irrelevant pieces of information, where the fear of a discomfort and the hope of the utility of these things, walk hand in hand.

I was 10 years old when I was granted a small plastic case upon request (I raised billy hell, when my request was turned down). I began storing bus tickets, train tickets, movie tickets, chocolate wrappers and some freebies. I believe, it was my urge to seem important to myself. An urge to see myself as a peer to the older generations. With time, I started collecting stamps and coins - these were my treasure, my life, my belongings and hence my identity.

Of course, my identity was hard to come by, I felt inferior seeing the infinite mails that my father used to get from various stock exchanges from every major city in India. The idea that someone in some unknown corner of the nation addresses you was a fantasy. I think, that is normal for a school going child whose friends circle is restricted to his neighbors, and who is fascinated by the first glances of the World Atlas and the enormity of the world. I asked my father about how I could get some of those mails addressed to me. He replied with a roar of laughter and so did my mom. Perhaps it was an insignificant question, but I was not answered.

The answer came to me in the form of some newspaper ad wherein one would get games in return for a few wrappers of some chocolate or some noodles brands. Very soon, I found myself collecting wrappers from even the roadside to fulfill my wish of getting a letter addressed to me. And it is beyond words, the joy I felt when I received the first mail from Parry’s. I felt as important as the head of the family. And the fact that my dad did not receive his usual dosage of Dalal street generated mails, only added to the sadistic grin. And from then, life was never the same. There was hardly a week when I would not receive a mail from Maggi or Parry’s. Life was beautiful. Life was full of joy. And needless to say I did not spare the embassies. Every single embassy that provided its contact address in the Manorama yearbook found a letter in its mailbox requesting information about its country and culture. Japan, Nepal, and a few other countries responded well. And yo! I had a fledgling library in my room, a self-made one.

“What it meant to me, would eventually be
a memory of a time, when I tried so hard,
and got so far, In the end it doesnt even matter..."
("In the end", by Linkin Park)

But, in the end, I don’t care if it did not matter. It was a joy that I craved for, it was the metamorphosis from a child to an adolescent and it was beautiful. Yet again, the first thing I did when I landed in Chennai in 2002 was to see the Parry’s office and not IIT Madras.

That’s sums it all up.

The Invader of Thoughts

Moments, they flashed across my eyes,
and crept deeper into every dimension.
Dancing around like foolish fireflies,
they were alibis in the invasion of thoughts.

Stoned by time, my mind had learnt,
surrender was death and retreat, futile.
I stood still, while time marched on, until
future was no more and present was gone.

In the stillness, I met the shapeless man
with eyes that drowned in power and wait.
Little did I doubt, that here is the invader,
the one who conquers to set them free.

Every thought slain, made my mind emptier.
Every year gone, made my heart weaker.
Time and energy reached the ends of their journeys,
All I could do is write ten dozens of words.

Blurred Dreams

Stars fade to unity,
earth begins to burn.
Darkness surrenders to light,
dreams surrender to reality.

Ignorance precipitates from innocence,
obsession defines passion’s limit,
innocence becomes a luxury,
and luxuries embrace transience.

Freefall reaches the end,
eyes shut in fear.
One nightmare leads to another,
draining the will to defend

Heartbeat races to limits,
muscles contract and tighten.
Courage walks in oblivion,
alongside fear and doubt.

Belief in disbeliefs vanishes,
disbelief in beliefs strengthens.
stranger thoughts gain control,
and eyes open to foolishness.

Poison du Octets

A million notes in the air began to fly,
fighting the dusts of silence and time.
Wave after wave of the rhythm annexed,
those aimless thought streams of mine.

Robbed were my pools of conscience,
and flooded instead, by rivers of memories.
With each marching octet, began relating I,
past and present, some truths, some lies.

Interpreting coincidences, half froze my mind,
like an annealing glass, like an adolescent's will.
Transient rhythms buried themselves in time,
as the music ended, and followed them, this poem.

Clouds of Conscience

Contemplated through freedom,
yet born unto rules,
freedom seems curbed.


Will enslaved by reality,
and weathered by conscience.
Freedom of speech and expression -
yet another smooth deception.


Hanging onto clouds of conscience,
with chains rusted by negligence.
Destined to fall, hell below,
yet, a mirage of bliss, underneath.


Choice of knowledge or ignorance,
for the life before death?
Time pulls away from birth,
closer to weakness and death.

Instinct incites desire of bliss,
and he witnesses his will to return die.
With the last but one breath he hoped,
that the last breath was not the next.

It was neither heaven nor hell,
nor knowledge nor ignorance,
just another reality,
on the other side of the line.


He headed back home saying to himself,
Wiser it is, to hang above the known.
Clouds of conscience rolled over him, again,
and this time he smiled. It was bliss.

Reallusion

'Illusion is itself reality', Yeah!
that was what I thought, and,
reality engulfs illusion.
Happy felt I that I knew, Smiled I.

there was, of course, doubt. No clarity was there,
but, I learnt, I laughed, I cried, as
'the years' passed by life, t'seemed.
One million questions asked I, but, was I answered?

........I continue to dream, and,
dream to continue, I.......

Answered I was, but, I asked questions, million one!
T'seemed life bypassed 'the years' as cried I,
laughed I, learnt I, but, there was clarity.
No doubt, of course, was there. I smiled.

Knew I, that I felt happy.
Illusion engulfs reality.
And thought I, what was that?
yeah! reality itself is illusion.

The night well remembered

And the boy woke up from his sleep, only to smell the stench of the reality around him. He hated light, he hated noise. He pressed his closed eyes with his little finger and closed his ears with his index fingers of both hands. He held them as if he decided to hold them that way endlessly, or at least till the hopeful end embraced him that way. Every breath seemed louder and disturbing. His head became heavy and his stomach began to ache and burn. Well, he had not eaten for two days. And it was no waking up from any sweet sleep, for he had not slept for two days.

His eyes burned but refused to get blocked by those heavy deceiving eyelids. His ears did not trust the beastly noise made by the light wind blowing carelessly, and his face surrendered to the intermittent yet endless teasing perpetuated by the merciless flies around, while sitting amidst the engulfing overgrown roots of the banyan tree.

He got scared when he heard voices and had to undergo the torture of opening his eyes to see who owned those voices a few seconds back. There was no human around, to create human voices or noise. There was not a single creature around. Not at least at a time when midnight was a few dozen minutes away, in an area rarely trespassed even during daylight. He wished he had the money to get a comforting companion to his choking throat, even though he felt it would eventually cheat, drown and disappear, only to cause a much needed and awaited rush through the nerves of his body thus soothing them, and making him less aware of those beastly noises trying to kill him.

His engulfing past never allowed any imagination or thought of his future flash through his mind. He lay there on his weak knees and trembling yet stiff toes, and placed his palms under his knees to prevent his knees from touching the dirty ground under. He felt that his knuckles were stronger and probably less significant. He bent down further and almost had his shoulders touching his thighs. His knuckles ached and so did his toes under the unbearable weight of his own body. Every inch of his body seemed heavy and as if to be done away with.

The absence of any thoughts except those that happened in the last few hours while the sun shined bright, the absence of a companion, and simultaneously the fear of not having the luxury to remain alone for long made him sweat and shiver. He let the sweat droplets to eventually roll down by his cheeks and wait till they were heavy enough to depart from his body to reach the uneven roots of the tree under which he lay uncomfortably.

In his mind, the march of time was questionable and so was the concept of a day occurring, without exception, after every night - however cold, however warm. Hours passed by this way. And then, he felt a sudden comfort in his posture, an engulfing sense of being at home, under that abandoned tree. He imagined that he looked up to the sky only to find a dark tree above him, as if guarding him from any predator up there. He imagined that he smiled at such a reassuring thought.

He felt as if he had no arms or legs. He did not feel them. They seemed non-existent and he loved this feeling. His mind was blank, there were no thoughts. It was like a sea that grows calm as one loses sight of the shore and continues to sail bravely. There was a silence which he had never felt before. He did not think of the universe, leave alone thinking of feeling at one with it.

There was no sound pounding his ears, no light breaching his determined eyelids, no emotion trying to weaken his heart which seemed as cold as a stone and yet raced aloud and fast. This is for eternity, he believed. For anything else was unacceptable to him. His began to forget his body's configuration and this created a fear in him. It disturbed the calmness in him. He had no choice but to let this soothing comfort go off, in a hope that it will return to him sooner. He tried moving his fingers and toes, but such a thing did not happen anywhere in reality and were confined to his imagination.

His body refused to move. He had never been so overpowered by inertia. In a fit of cruelty, he took a disturbing deep breathe and killed the silence that engulfed him. He suddenly felt a breeze of fresh air on his face and a rush of ice cold blood into his knuckles as he released them from under his knees. His lower back began aching and it felt as if it was under a weight of a few tonnes. He took his hands and pressed his face with them. He could feel mud and a few broken dead plant stems that were in between his fingers, piercing his cheeks and forehead and eyelids. They caused a pain that was reassuring in nature. He was more conscious about his life and the wellness of his hands and face. He pressed them harder till a few of the dry broken stems pierced through his cheeks, or possibly they pierced the pimples, and his fingers were damp.

Minutes passed by, and then, something happened to him. A euphoric energy began unleashing its grip on him. He felt a kind of re-unity which he could neither explain nor comprehend. He felt awkward. He felt his lips beginning to curve upwards and sideways and felt a heavy rush of emotion from under his lungs. He began smiling. He began thinking. He opened his eyes. He began hearing the buzz produced by the flies hovering around his head and elsewhere. This buzz was silenced by a small wind, as if it was aimed at driving those flies away.

He felt a blade of grass like substance periodically brush the back of his neck. His neck moved forward in reflex. He rejoiced at this reassuring involuntary reaction of his. He began breathing consciously. His mind started thinking.

He began having thoughts and more thoughts. It seems ages since anything had crossed his mind. He thought of what happened during that day. It seemed to bother him lesser. And he thought of his special friend. She did not seem to stay in his thoughts any longer. his thought of his other friends. It was as if his mind was not ready to expend its energy to think of anyone or anything for more than a few deserving seconds.

Why? He could not explain. The smile grew into a mild laughter. After a few seconds, it turned into a roar of laughter, and now he knew that he hated silence. But, he wanted to be engulfed by his own laughter, a reassuring laughter, and nothing else. Nothing else at all........

Whisky Whispers

Moonlight creates a million sparks on the sea,
While the sun warms the earth elsewhere,
They surely must have, or maybe not, I did not care.

Into the darkness I gazed without a pause,
With energy enough to hold a whisky glass.
My body felt numb, my head heavy, and my ears empty.
A light flashed before me, and blind it made me.

A sharp light was it? Or ooh! Was I driving?
Is it daylight? I knew not, but sipped again.
A bright light and a million whispers, I heard them.
I listened to them, and they were, but my own.

Some seemed to warn me, some seemed to call me,
Some seemed to share joy, while others had no reason.
The whisky on my tongue seemed heavy and loud,
While the nerves rushed blood through my forehead.

Questions, they hurled at me, some from past,
Some from present, and some, from lost futures.
My whispers answered theirs, one million of them,
And they retreated, in the cover of silence and daylight.

The sun warms the earth here, and elsewhere
Moonlight creates a million sparks on the sea,
They surely are, they are. They don’t care about me.

This will pass.......

Yes.........it already has

The Vedic Cannabis

He lived in the woods covered with ice,
his throat aching, and his body numb.
His promise was to not perpetuate destruction,
with his power, which posterity swore by.

Lived with him the beautiful old lady,
whose name, every single rock hath etched on.
She swore to be by him, and the power of his,
both numbed by an eternal dose of sweet cannabis.

His name crossed the woods, and yet was confined by the oceans.
His power was confined by cannabis, yetit crossed the minds.
A life sans cannabis is no bliss, 'coz bliss aint a child of ignorance.

Bliss is the mother of all revelations and the all surmounting power,
the power to lose control and yet be unafraid,
the power to forget and still be undaunted,
the power to wake up from the eternal dream.

Searching the dreams...........

The light grows dim, and the air gets cold,
and I begin to dream, searching for something.
I search for direction, and find the signs fading away,
into this oblivion of infinite thoughts and dreams.

My dreams continue to search for the reason,
the very reason for their transcient existence.
Born to be forgotten, and forgotten to be born again,
these selfless dreams never ask for a reason or gain.

My mind runs away from these selfless entities,
I wake up to reality, I wake up to the conscious.
Forgotten are the dreams that engulfed the signs,
my only rays of hope, that would lead me to reality.
And, here I am, as I realize that I have to but dream on.......