Its been time since I’ve written my last post. And each time when I try to think and care about that gap…many things flood down this rather small cerebellum. To be true to all of you…esp. those who have taken pains to take my blog count to 130 (and esp esp to those 6 musketeers ..the followers), the time is not good at all. Its been moving with that speed that even ‘lightening bolt’ may feel shy to achieve, and I as a trainee for a long boring marathon, is perplexed by that. That unfathomable* Manusmriti challenge is over , but the new ones are more senile, more variegated *. so why not explore them and let me put them for you in a “what I love” tabular way.
CHALLENGE 1…. Indian Philosophy………………the oldest of ‘em all ,the grandest of ‘em all. This massive storehouse of knowledge has been a point of chaos for my grey matter. Its all a great theory, where logic is undermined as hell , though this undermining is great news for chaps like me who have hated maths .thus logic, but still 4 years of ‘as I call it’ crameneering as made my brain understand some ACKs and NACKs (courtesy..tanenbaum and NETTECH) such, that the ‘Radhakrishnan’s dualism, his distinction of self and not self, seems a bit , you know…unnetworked(courtesy.. ditto). Its been the second week of my issuing of our second president’s epic..but still, the caricatures of Atman and Brahman haunt me.
CHALLENGE 2… Recession………..aah….this is a veteran challenge, and we are still playing it down. This great word made its debut when our sky blue placement cell was all hustled and bustled with a BPO coming in and slammed us after 3 months when the ,all the more blue cell was all barren, all silent as if Obama’s Guantanamo replacement was this bluish arcade. It was a mourning that started with “TCS not coming” news around the campus, continued and watched Jackson’s death, submitted our training reports like a massive meal’s starter (didn’t even burp after that),and is now having some dezzerts with some more call centres and words like “TCS still not coming”
CHALLENGE 3… C#.....this is the latest challenge..a new one ..a teenager but c’mon Sachin was also a teenager to start with. Though it’s a new challenge, but its revelation was quite an expected one as, for at the end of 4 years when you still think twice before compiling a C program, when words like TCP/IP seems like some skyscraper in downtown New York, when you can’t , after 25 days of mugging concepts grow cold in explaining… “what is a server”…and then at the end of it all..log in happily and play those quizzes in Facebook, then such sharp revelations are understood. So in final year, as this mega project seems to be a mine of 250 marks..and I ,still confused with ins and outs of Visual Studios ..,my relation with c#,till now seems to be paradoxical.
CHALLENGE 4… WRITE GENERAL..so finally my blog, one of the homes that I made last year where I can make love with my thoughts (and that too without a condom!!!!) is now falling over me. “write general”..”write easy” phrases have been tossing over this poor soul, just to come down and split my blogging brain to two. And that’s a challenge I have been working upon, trying to work it out, sport out with some AS YOU LIKE IT..’general words ’.
There are more of them , infinite in no. but then its like an onion, peel out those layers from me, and I’ll be gone( that’s one thing I learned from Indian Philosophy). So well, my next quest , ummm…lets convert that marathon into Asafa Powell (c’mon..he’s just second to BOLT.
CHALLENGE 5 ….No onions in dinner tonight..now that’s not fare.
*-sorry if they are not general,part of “learn at least 2 eng words aday,you sucker” program. Had to add
PS- Vimarsh Kar , I will keep up my promise in the next post.
PPS - SAMAJ KALYAN GROUP, I take a vow , something great will be written on you.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
1 BOOK..7 DAYS
Ashes has at last been won, Ponting at last (with a sigh) is down in the dumps. So a victory much needed at last arrived at the shores of Thames. Again a sigh……too many though ,but this month has been a month of sighs. Sighs of many types, like the one that came in the hope of having an internet connection in our room, that which came when all the grievances of the project were satisfied, or that golden one which came when I answered nine back to back word meanings asked by a batchmate (who like others made 2 mistakes- considering me Norman Lewis of English and asking from Norman Lewis’ Word power made easy). But amongst all these sighs the one that was penchant, ticklish, exorbitant, exuberant and having all such multisyllabic emotions of the same kind, was when I returned that book in the library, that book, that ‘great’ book, which made me the ‘Mahatma’ for seven days of its issue.
Barely a month have passed when I have started discovering Bareilly city as one of my hide outs, as I have left the hostel. Still that hostel building calls me, to relive all those magic moments of the past three years, for one more year, one last year…and I bewildered and amused, take refuge in that grand citadel of ours , the library. That building dipped in limestone has always been the same , like an introvert ‘n’ obscure father, who has been there to listen to the wishes of his son, in the same manner, both the times, when he was a hosteller and now ,as a day-scholar. ‘ In that heaven of my college’ I found a book.
Great people, even not so great ones have talked about intuitions, about premonitions, where in before doing a thing you are able to perceive with a crustal clear vision the consequences of that deed(generally grave), but still you commit it. That book looked at me..err.. it winked at me, there was something unusual in our meeting, I could calculate the ‘raised eyebrows’, ‘wide opened mouths’ that I had to face through this book, but still I was induced to it. I looked here and there, opened some pages, shuffled it with my hands , knew something wrong was happening but my relation with that book was turning to an enigmatic love affair. At last I decided , I issued it, I made it my guest , my mate, my partner for the next 7 days. The book was “MANUSMRITI”, , it was in “HINDI”,was an ancient indian “SHASTRA” and I HAD ISSUED IT.
AT THE ISSUE COUNTER : That robotic librarian,stopped like an old hanged XP machine, saw my reg. no. and branch twice, assured that I was a B. Tech. student , and murmuring a few words, gave it to me.
DAY 2: I carried that book with me to the lab, all the compilations and interpretations of an old C program of crypto were being done, suddenly a girl saw that book in my hand , all the compilations stopped, programs stopped giving results, lab was, as if , in a complete chaos , what happened? She had seen that book in my hands.
DAY 3 : Till now I had understood all my premonitions of the library, I was reading the book, and more than that I was reading people who were reading me at that time. So I took a day off and started analyzing that book, had study session
DAY 4: My roomies saw it. That’s what happened , nothing, they watched me, I peeped more into the book, they tried to savor me with their touch, I tried to find the meaning of its Sanskrit shloka. One of then , I saw it, didn’t blink for about a minute, and then suddenly burst into a laughter that made his eyes watery for at least an hour, nowhere to go I slept and that laughter continued.
DAY 5,6 : I locked myself,didn’t do anything , just tried to find the answers, of that non stop laughter of last day, that unrun program, of last to last and that librarian’s weird looks. Now I was just looking at that book, I was not giving attention to the book, but , I was asking that book. And that book, it seemed, on hearing my question was jumping with laughter, those hindi words , that pure Sanskrit script, danced before me, and told me the reason for that librarians’ weird looks. That classic title, MANUSMRITI , came forward, hugged me and whisphered to me all the logics of that hallucinated lab. And at last the title , the honour of being a dharmashastra, came forward and uttered the answer for that laughter night. Later I knew the concept of those premonitions, those premonitions were the visual definition of a modern youth where a young gut esp. an engineer was not supposed to read hindi, let alone shastra. We were in an age where we were moving towards tomorrow and as if paying homage to the roots of our yesterday was not in vogue. That book, by winking and laughing was telling that falsified reality.
DAY 7 : I read the last part of it, enjoyed it, went to the counter to return it,to my surprise the new librarian didn’t show any emotions. And now came out with Khushwant Singh’s “In the company of women”……next day I gained some respect, perhaps that of an engineer, thus having the greatest sigh of relief.
Barely a month have passed when I have started discovering Bareilly city as one of my hide outs, as I have left the hostel. Still that hostel building calls me, to relive all those magic moments of the past three years, for one more year, one last year…and I bewildered and amused, take refuge in that grand citadel of ours , the library. That building dipped in limestone has always been the same , like an introvert ‘n’ obscure father, who has been there to listen to the wishes of his son, in the same manner, both the times, when he was a hosteller and now ,as a day-scholar. ‘ In that heaven of my college’ I found a book.
Great people, even not so great ones have talked about intuitions, about premonitions, where in before doing a thing you are able to perceive with a crustal clear vision the consequences of that deed(generally grave), but still you commit it. That book looked at me..err.. it winked at me, there was something unusual in our meeting, I could calculate the ‘raised eyebrows’, ‘wide opened mouths’ that I had to face through this book, but still I was induced to it. I looked here and there, opened some pages, shuffled it with my hands , knew something wrong was happening but my relation with that book was turning to an enigmatic love affair. At last I decided , I issued it, I made it my guest , my mate, my partner for the next 7 days. The book was “MANUSMRITI”, , it was in “HINDI”,was an ancient indian “SHASTRA” and I HAD ISSUED IT.
AT THE ISSUE COUNTER : That robotic librarian,stopped like an old hanged XP machine, saw my reg. no. and branch twice, assured that I was a B. Tech. student , and murmuring a few words, gave it to me.
DAY 2: I carried that book with me to the lab, all the compilations and interpretations of an old C program of crypto were being done, suddenly a girl saw that book in my hand , all the compilations stopped, programs stopped giving results, lab was, as if , in a complete chaos , what happened? She had seen that book in my hands.
DAY 3 : Till now I had understood all my premonitions of the library, I was reading the book, and more than that I was reading people who were reading me at that time. So I took a day off and started analyzing that book, had study session
DAY 4: My roomies saw it. That’s what happened , nothing, they watched me, I peeped more into the book, they tried to savor me with their touch, I tried to find the meaning of its Sanskrit shloka. One of then , I saw it, didn’t blink for about a minute, and then suddenly burst into a laughter that made his eyes watery for at least an hour, nowhere to go I slept and that laughter continued.
DAY 5,6 : I locked myself,didn’t do anything , just tried to find the answers, of that non stop laughter of last day, that unrun program, of last to last and that librarian’s weird looks. Now I was just looking at that book, I was not giving attention to the book, but , I was asking that book. And that book, it seemed, on hearing my question was jumping with laughter, those hindi words , that pure Sanskrit script, danced before me, and told me the reason for that librarians’ weird looks. That classic title, MANUSMRITI , came forward, hugged me and whisphered to me all the logics of that hallucinated lab. And at last the title , the honour of being a dharmashastra, came forward and uttered the answer for that laughter night. Later I knew the concept of those premonitions, those premonitions were the visual definition of a modern youth where a young gut esp. an engineer was not supposed to read hindi, let alone shastra. We were in an age where we were moving towards tomorrow and as if paying homage to the roots of our yesterday was not in vogue. That book, by winking and laughing was telling that falsified reality.
DAY 7 : I read the last part of it, enjoyed it, went to the counter to return it,to my surprise the new librarian didn’t show any emotions. And now came out with Khushwant Singh’s “In the company of women”……next day I gained some respect, perhaps that of an engineer, thus having the greatest sigh of relief.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
63rd......
So Nescafe is still like that tomb which despite all its affluence and glamour, still signifies hopelessness. But here it is again, as I call it, as Shakespeare might have called it, the ‘ides of aug.’ the day when we came to know the meaning of that Spiderman dialogue “with responsibility comes power”, the day when Raisina Hills, seemed to be ours, the day when Mall Road seemed more Indian, the day , frankly speaking , when we got independent.
It’s a different kind of festival, celebrated more by law, than by heart. That’s why , we the descendents of Aryans like to treat it as holiday, nothing else. A holiday which is more or less cloudy, a holiday when the most powerful man (the P.M.) comes at the most powerful looking place (the Red Fort) to utter the most powerful words of his life with perhaps the weakest will, the weakest intention. If that is the irony, or pure logic(of power politics) I cannot say, for me its been a tradition, repeated 40th time when I was born, and this time ....62nd time, when I am, perhaps at the most crucial point of my life.
Traditions , yes , they are something good old mathematicians, called axioms, great rulers called rules and the flamboyant bureaucrats call them sections, points, “which come under IPC so and so”. So we have been following traditions,right. Traditions of hoisting flag at sharp 8, tradition of watching an odd movie as a matinee show, and then sleep/make love according to ones requirements for a brighter tomorrow.
Everything above is logical , it happens, it does execute on that rainy August 15 , we wake up, we hoist the flag we watch movie, sleep ,make love, except for that last few words, ‘brighter tomorrow’. Now that is a bit miraculous, a bit illogical, as those mystics might have said, beyond language, beyond words.
Because , for all the other things the mission was one the target was one, me, I, our ego. Simple logic. For that last thing we have to be a bit altruistic, a bit generous, we have to be miraculous. Miracles, as the great Yogis say, let yourself become infinite, let yourself feel that ever so constant light, that ever so constant divinity, and materialize or dematerialize, a child’s play.
But are we, in that situation, or lets put it like this, what if we are in that situation. When we are able to be above all ego, when we are weightless ,when we are able to feel what Kashmir feels when each hour its childen are attacked ruthlessly, what those martyrs feel when they see that those who planned an attack at our parliament are still roaming around freely, when we are able to see the thousands of swords that have risen in revenge against “god knows what” in the North East. Then we will be able see that solution that way, of breaking the rules, cracking the tradition, modernizing the orient, making a way for the 200+ year old IPC to go to the gallows so that peace may be born the next day.
Then it will all become mathematics, having , in Tagore’s words a clear stream of reason, reason for everything, a secure Mumbai, a beautiful Kashmir, and a prosperous North East.
It’s a different kind of festival, celebrated more by law, than by heart. That’s why , we the descendents of Aryans like to treat it as holiday, nothing else. A holiday which is more or less cloudy, a holiday when the most powerful man (the P.M.) comes at the most powerful looking place (the Red Fort) to utter the most powerful words of his life with perhaps the weakest will, the weakest intention. If that is the irony, or pure logic(of power politics) I cannot say, for me its been a tradition, repeated 40th time when I was born, and this time ....62nd time, when I am, perhaps at the most crucial point of my life.
Traditions , yes , they are something good old mathematicians, called axioms, great rulers called rules and the flamboyant bureaucrats call them sections, points, “which come under IPC so and so”. So we have been following traditions,right. Traditions of hoisting flag at sharp 8, tradition of watching an odd movie as a matinee show, and then sleep/make love according to ones requirements for a brighter tomorrow.
Everything above is logical , it happens, it does execute on that rainy August 15 , we wake up, we hoist the flag we watch movie, sleep ,make love, except for that last few words, ‘brighter tomorrow’. Now that is a bit miraculous, a bit illogical, as those mystics might have said, beyond language, beyond words.
Because , for all the other things the mission was one the target was one, me, I, our ego. Simple logic. For that last thing we have to be a bit altruistic, a bit generous, we have to be miraculous. Miracles, as the great Yogis say, let yourself become infinite, let yourself feel that ever so constant light, that ever so constant divinity, and materialize or dematerialize, a child’s play.
But are we, in that situation, or lets put it like this, what if we are in that situation. When we are able to be above all ego, when we are weightless ,when we are able to feel what Kashmir feels when each hour its childen are attacked ruthlessly, what those martyrs feel when they see that those who planned an attack at our parliament are still roaming around freely, when we are able to see the thousands of swords that have risen in revenge against “god knows what” in the North East. Then we will be able see that solution that way, of breaking the rules, cracking the tradition, modernizing the orient, making a way for the 200+ year old IPC to go to the gallows so that peace may be born the next day.
Then it will all become mathematics, having , in Tagore’s words a clear stream of reason, reason for everything, a secure Mumbai, a beautiful Kashmir, and a prosperous North East.
LIFE AFTER DEATH
DAY 1 : There was a big lock outside. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, a total , abysmal atmosphere. I was missing her throughout the 2 months. No doubt I was disappointed, but waited for another , brighter tomorrow.
DAY 2 : Again a lock, now everything, in and out was becoming jittery. Omens were being produced and reproduced before me. Something unusual was to happen, I knew that.
DAY 3: Nothing was normal around that place. Everything , it seemed ,as if, was implying to a mis-hap. That place where I used to find her, was not normal. Some guys stormed in, something stormed out. I tried to drift my attention away,only to find it pinpointed there . My thoughts conjured up this time, something unusual was happening.
DAY 4: It finally happened, the doom’s day finally came , and judgment ,at last arrived, all the penultimate restlessness resulted in an ultimate assault. It was gone, that reddish grace was no more , that bombastic atmosphere was killed by some abstruse enemy of mine. My love, my Nescafe , finally was gone ,don’t know why, don’t know where, but……gone.
They say, I don’t know why, “TIME HEALS IT ALL”. Does it? Or time itself is like that old grandpa whose camaraderie with tensions, socio-political wounds, is an obscure yet profound truth. Or even it is not a truth globally, for me, it has been locally, a mantra. If I recall the 3 years of my college , right from those ragging season, to this year of penance at Shastri Nagar, I have been drowned in tension. Tension, sometimes, it seemed act as a soother for me.
It was all a matter of questions, arising baselessly in me, until I found a tacit answer. ADDA LAAL BAADSHAAHON KAA”. A place, where I tended to forget all the syntax and semantics of life. That cup of coffee, bina pani , was as pure as those last wine drops of Jesus. That red bricked border of hers, where I tested many dreams, most of them finally rested in peace. Those sips, which used to take us to soaring heights of magnanimity, just to relinquish, for a split second those awful tensions.
DAY 5: That white blank space is still visible to me. That coffee is doing a razzmatazz in my mind as I, newly formed day scholar, is having a bout with my tiffin. And at last as I gulp down my last bite, I see a structure being carried in front of me, to the other side of the canteen. That bright red Nescafe was being shifted to the other side. “In a better style”, somebody said,”in a better way”.
A sudden feeling arose, what type of, I can’t tell, old days were laid to death last day, only to be buried today, so as to give birth to a small set of memories. There was a ticklish, feeling, a perfect combo of excitement, nervousness, pain, and joy. Perhaps now, I was understanding my inner turbulence after becoming a Day Scholar. My love , the Classic Coffee of the Nescafe, had , by taking a reincarnation, taught me the ethics of time. Time , I understood,was healing in form of wounds. It was giving answers, in form of more complex questions.
DAY 6: The new Nescafe is being constructed, and I as a Day Scholar am eating my Tiffin ,calmly.
DAY 2 : Again a lock, now everything, in and out was becoming jittery. Omens were being produced and reproduced before me. Something unusual was to happen, I knew that.
DAY 3: Nothing was normal around that place. Everything , it seemed ,as if, was implying to a mis-hap. That place where I used to find her, was not normal. Some guys stormed in, something stormed out. I tried to drift my attention away,only to find it pinpointed there . My thoughts conjured up this time, something unusual was happening.
DAY 4: It finally happened, the doom’s day finally came , and judgment ,at last arrived, all the penultimate restlessness resulted in an ultimate assault. It was gone, that reddish grace was no more , that bombastic atmosphere was killed by some abstruse enemy of mine. My love, my Nescafe , finally was gone ,don’t know why, don’t know where, but……gone.
They say, I don’t know why, “TIME HEALS IT ALL”. Does it? Or time itself is like that old grandpa whose camaraderie with tensions, socio-political wounds, is an obscure yet profound truth. Or even it is not a truth globally, for me, it has been locally, a mantra. If I recall the 3 years of my college , right from those ragging season, to this year of penance at Shastri Nagar, I have been drowned in tension. Tension, sometimes, it seemed act as a soother for me.
It was all a matter of questions, arising baselessly in me, until I found a tacit answer. ADDA LAAL BAADSHAAHON KAA”. A place, where I tended to forget all the syntax and semantics of life. That cup of coffee, bina pani , was as pure as those last wine drops of Jesus. That red bricked border of hers, where I tested many dreams, most of them finally rested in peace. Those sips, which used to take us to soaring heights of magnanimity, just to relinquish, for a split second those awful tensions.
DAY 5: That white blank space is still visible to me. That coffee is doing a razzmatazz in my mind as I, newly formed day scholar, is having a bout with my tiffin. And at last as I gulp down my last bite, I see a structure being carried in front of me, to the other side of the canteen. That bright red Nescafe was being shifted to the other side. “In a better style”, somebody said,”in a better way”.
A sudden feeling arose, what type of, I can’t tell, old days were laid to death last day, only to be buried today, so as to give birth to a small set of memories. There was a ticklish, feeling, a perfect combo of excitement, nervousness, pain, and joy. Perhaps now, I was understanding my inner turbulence after becoming a Day Scholar. My love , the Classic Coffee of the Nescafe, had , by taking a reincarnation, taught me the ethics of time. Time , I understood,was healing in form of wounds. It was giving answers, in form of more complex questions.
DAY 6: The new Nescafe is being constructed, and I as a Day Scholar am eating my Tiffin ,calmly.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
TIMES OF TRAINING 'n' ASHES......QUITE STRAIGHT THOUGH
These vacations were real hectic, after a “one on one” heavyweight bout with the deadliest of all papers, with a hope of apocalyptic results, I was all set to be drowned in a sea of training, where some more Loch Ness were ready to gulp me down. But as the archaic saying goes ‘Time and tide waits for none’, so happened in my case. It all went, bringing with it, MJ’s death, the master, with whose ‘Dangerous’ I inaugurated my course of English music, the typhoon of dance, the Aristotle of songs, the connoisseur of style went away, in ,perhaps, the most stylized way.
The last eight days of the vacations, or probably the only days of my vacations, were spent watching that recurring “My daddy strongest” act of Jackson’s daughter. That crying phenomenon served as a fulsome week’s package for our agencies.
The politically more important salami that made a handsome sandwich for the news guys was ‘article 377’. Gays are now in vogue, lesbians are rollicking hard, heydays for straights. Long gone are those days when guys like Turing committed suicide and gave way for trademark of companies like Apple*. The most HOMOgenous of all decision resulting in the STRAIGHTest of all debates.
“Pappu pass ho gaya “ was the champ in one-liners until “Article 377 pass ho gayaa…. “ went way ahead of the former. As my chronic struggle for getting in the general compartment of the train continued this time, I still managed to get inside swimming through massive pool of enormous bodies,and as I peeped out to get some Oxygen ( with its faintest hope), I got ready for facing the “ now a clichéd “ grin and listened that “ now an over clichéd” …”article 377……”. I realized that my back was in close contact with a man’s trouser and so temporarily, yet affirmatively , I was declared a gay.
One more great news of the term, esp. for me as I have a soft corner for England , was the Ashes, and a convincing , determined win at Lord’s. Its not that I hate Australia, as I have rolled over the googlies of Shane Warne big time. But c’mon man, now everybody wants a change, and who does not enjoy, Freddie Flintoff savaging the middle stump and KP hovering for a towering six. Though we never saw that six, but still I enjoyed that ‘voodoo’ of Lord’s (as one commentator had put it that way).
And as time again has started jogging down the track, lets hope for a safe haven for MJ’S soul, great life of all the homos and c’mon England “ whip’em hard”.
*Alan Turing was the revolutionary Computer Machinist who is undoubtedly the father of modern computing. Fate proved him to be a straight. And as he was a code breaker with England in World War days ,it was not considered apt to give him independence, so he was given Solitary Confinement”, and within an year he subjugated and killed himself by mixing poison with apple. The time when his body was recovered , a half eaten apple was there, and to commemorate the great scholar Apple kept their symbol that way
The last eight days of the vacations, or probably the only days of my vacations, were spent watching that recurring “My daddy strongest” act of Jackson’s daughter. That crying phenomenon served as a fulsome week’s package for our agencies.
The politically more important salami that made a handsome sandwich for the news guys was ‘article 377’. Gays are now in vogue, lesbians are rollicking hard, heydays for straights. Long gone are those days when guys like Turing committed suicide and gave way for trademark of companies like Apple*. The most HOMOgenous of all decision resulting in the STRAIGHTest of all debates.
“Pappu pass ho gaya “ was the champ in one-liners until “Article 377 pass ho gayaa…. “ went way ahead of the former. As my chronic struggle for getting in the general compartment of the train continued this time, I still managed to get inside swimming through massive pool of enormous bodies,and as I peeped out to get some Oxygen ( with its faintest hope), I got ready for facing the “ now a clichéd “ grin and listened that “ now an over clichéd” …”article 377……”. I realized that my back was in close contact with a man’s trouser and so temporarily, yet affirmatively , I was declared a gay.
One more great news of the term, esp. for me as I have a soft corner for England , was the Ashes, and a convincing , determined win at Lord’s. Its not that I hate Australia, as I have rolled over the googlies of Shane Warne big time. But c’mon man, now everybody wants a change, and who does not enjoy, Freddie Flintoff savaging the middle stump and KP hovering for a towering six. Though we never saw that six, but still I enjoyed that ‘voodoo’ of Lord’s (as one commentator had put it that way).
And as time again has started jogging down the track, lets hope for a safe haven for MJ’S soul, great life of all the homos and c’mon England “ whip’em hard”.
*Alan Turing was the revolutionary Computer Machinist who is undoubtedly the father of modern computing. Fate proved him to be a straight. And as he was a code breaker with England in World War days ,it was not considered apt to give him independence, so he was given Solitary Confinement”, and within an year he subjugated and killed himself by mixing poison with apple. The time when his body was recovered , a half eaten apple was there, and to commemorate the great scholar Apple kept their symbol that way
Monday, July 27, 2009
TO ALL THOSE WHO ASKED , “WHY LEAVING THE HOSTEL?”…A TRUE ANSWER
“YEH RAATEIN NAYI PURAANI….AATE…..AATE JAATE…..
LIKHATI HAIN….KOI KAHAANI…….”
Nights for me are something sort of an oasis when I am a thirsty one all alone in a lonely desert. Where I quench my thirst, I fulfill my heart. Nights are like a fresh morn where it all seems to be new, like a laborious noon, where a kind of ‘wanabee’ spirit rolls down my mind, alas, like that gorgeous twilight where after all the trials and tasks done , heart lives up and says ,…..”C’MON LET’S PARTY’
This time alone in my room, and incidentally in a dark night, my mind lingers on to those days which perhaps, made me start discovering the life that I was made to live beforehand. Those days of hostels , of those rooms, of those lobbies, and of course that awful mess-food, those days that perhaps will never come again as I have dropped them in the aisles of history (reasons I’ll tell later.)
If I roll back myself and start recounting those days, the moment that tops the list contains a letter of a mother and I ,a freshly ragged son of her reading it, a point where he understood what that home he left behind was for him, what that letter and those feeling inscribed in the blue ink were. I was wearing a filthy uniform , but that was the last day (or moment) that I was pure, and knew what relations actually meant.
Friends ,or rather partners, no, shall I say mates…..or I don’t know ,perhaps beyond language, they were guys, who acted as parents, as girlfriends, as something unimaginable. They are still there….yes….they are…its just that ‘I’M NOT’. Still remember those sleepless lobbies, where the night crawlers (all of us), used to crawl away days, nights, weeks, away from all the hindrances, all the struggles, all the realities..perhaps.
Hostel for me was like a school, a school where I learnt what life was, what I was, what the near ones whom I had left far behind were, what home cooked food was …….. It was fun; it was all like a riddle whose answers I knew beforehand until….
Until I realized, that this was the fun I was not supposed to have, this was the riddle I was not supposed to solve. I was somewhere in a huge, long mango orchard and I well knew that perhaps, that it was the arid Sahara that I belonged to, or rather I deserved. I wanted to prove something, I wanted to prove that I can convert my Sahara into a fruit orchard, wanted to prove, that I can take a decision, struggle with it, but stick to it, hate it again, but ultimately gulp it down so that the reality can be digested. This was all I wanted to prove to myself.
So I took it, and am out of the hostel, of that PMC, of those night strolls, of many things. Electricity is not there this time in my rented room,, everything out and out dark, sweat flowing like a distant Campty, but somewhere inside, a faint lamp , of introspection, is burning, burning low , burning slow, but burning deep, burning steady. And somewhere along that low battery radio, in some distant channel a song is being played………
“YEH HAUNSLA KAISE JHUKE…..YEH AARZOO….KAISE RUKE……”
LIKHATI HAIN….KOI KAHAANI…….”
Nights for me are something sort of an oasis when I am a thirsty one all alone in a lonely desert. Where I quench my thirst, I fulfill my heart. Nights are like a fresh morn where it all seems to be new, like a laborious noon, where a kind of ‘wanabee’ spirit rolls down my mind, alas, like that gorgeous twilight where after all the trials and tasks done , heart lives up and says ,…..”C’MON LET’S PARTY’
This time alone in my room, and incidentally in a dark night, my mind lingers on to those days which perhaps, made me start discovering the life that I was made to live beforehand. Those days of hostels , of those rooms, of those lobbies, and of course that awful mess-food, those days that perhaps will never come again as I have dropped them in the aisles of history (reasons I’ll tell later.)
If I roll back myself and start recounting those days, the moment that tops the list contains a letter of a mother and I ,a freshly ragged son of her reading it, a point where he understood what that home he left behind was for him, what that letter and those feeling inscribed in the blue ink were. I was wearing a filthy uniform , but that was the last day (or moment) that I was pure, and knew what relations actually meant.
Friends ,or rather partners, no, shall I say mates…..or I don’t know ,perhaps beyond language, they were guys, who acted as parents, as girlfriends, as something unimaginable. They are still there….yes….they are…its just that ‘I’M NOT’. Still remember those sleepless lobbies, where the night crawlers (all of us), used to crawl away days, nights, weeks, away from all the hindrances, all the struggles, all the realities..perhaps.
Hostel for me was like a school, a school where I learnt what life was, what I was, what the near ones whom I had left far behind were, what home cooked food was …….. It was fun; it was all like a riddle whose answers I knew beforehand until….
Until I realized, that this was the fun I was not supposed to have, this was the riddle I was not supposed to solve. I was somewhere in a huge, long mango orchard and I well knew that perhaps, that it was the arid Sahara that I belonged to, or rather I deserved. I wanted to prove something, I wanted to prove that I can convert my Sahara into a fruit orchard, wanted to prove, that I can take a decision, struggle with it, but stick to it, hate it again, but ultimately gulp it down so that the reality can be digested. This was all I wanted to prove to myself.
So I took it, and am out of the hostel, of that PMC, of those night strolls, of many things. Electricity is not there this time in my rented room,, everything out and out dark, sweat flowing like a distant Campty, but somewhere inside, a faint lamp , of introspection, is burning, burning low , burning slow, but burning deep, burning steady. And somewhere along that low battery radio, in some distant channel a song is being played………
“YEH HAUNSLA KAISE JHUKE…..YEH AARZOO….KAISE RUKE……”
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
WHEN A MANGO TURNED PRO....
SUMMER OF ’09 … warm and sweaty…. Summers always have been the same story ,of heavy electricity loads, pepsi, those funky chocobars and “not so” funky Dermicools. One thing you can’t forget if you hail from this heveanly part of the state of U.P. are those mangoes….those glib.,Yellow,smooth, acts of ecstacy. Mangoes , to me, have been , like a savior, like a friend,like a wife. Now like a savior, because mango only came for my rescue when I was mercilessly raped by these tropical villains. Friends , as I had spent those countless summer afternoons with this yellow cutie and believe those noons were as pleasant as that night of first love. And of course as a wife because it gave me everything…..pain (when not there), pleasure (when there ), support (against that sun when it was inches away from my mouth).
But come this summer and I was devoid all the three. I became alone, lost a friend and consequently became a widower. Why….well…”AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT, WHEN INDIA SWEATED, ME (WITH 2 MORE) WERE SET TO PERSPIRE IN JAIPUR. We were there for a networking course. That meant something , in fact many things, like downloading , uploading ,webhosting, but where was my fruit, my love , my life, my mango. It was not there, all downloading seemed empty, uploading seemed fake. All the virtual world of web was turning unreal for me. Until…… love finally spoke, it finally excecuted and gave me the reward. Next day, in the lab , with all the state of the art facilities , I got a username “M A N G O” Now …I don’t have words to describe it, 600 kms from my home , 600 kms from those dussehries , I got my love, though as a username but I got it. I was now all set , to climb up the virtual world….how wrong I was ..in fact how unknown I was …..
They say that this whole holy world is just a mere probability of interconnections, some times its there , sometimes it is not. For me this web world of internet was something identical.
So now I ,as a mango for the next 25 days, started gearing up , lets say for the inevitable. The next day, now it might be a cliché but I have to say that the sun rose for me, and me only ,the rays of the sun , pinching me , forcing me towards ruthless labour. That smooth sunshine inspiring me towards professionalism. Yes that’s the word, “being PRO”. The course, in a certain sense was null and void, ‘coz all I got in those tests were null and void, i.e. zero. 10 zeroes in a row. Physically I was exhausted, that sprawling Jaipur campus no longer enchanted me. Mentally , I was down in the dumps but from one anonymous part , I was all spiriited up, and that too unanimously.
For me those zeroes and those failiures were not emptiness , but a ‘suchness’ one cannot describe. Yes,I was unknown before as that virtual world was a real professional world we were climbing to. I guess this generation z (or z++) is quite crazy about professionalism , but perhaps while approaching that , we tend to loose it…..loose it all. There is a thin line between professionalism and practicality. We , quite often tend to forget that. Being practical , is more or less like being ‘I’, like being a mango, which is eaten by that mango itself, there are no ways, there are no possibilities, everything is for a specific reason, for that ‘I’. While being ‘pro’ was being true. True to the profession , true to the world , to the almighty. Those, are the professionals who behave like an ‘I’, serve the ‘you’ and targets the ‘us’. Those 10 zeroes and loads of internet told me all that as with each of them I was getting up close with my goal but not emotional towards it. I was getting truthful for it, not selfish.
These 2 things , Internet and the mango , told me a lot of things. There is hardly a day I pass without tackling my fingers over the address box, internet’s like a friend . like a mate sometimes, but for the net I am nothing more than a login id ,a code. Why? because its true , its pro it seves ‘you’ and targets ‘us’. Similarly the mango, my love whom I adore. But for it, I am just one of them , whom it has to serve, from season to season, orchard to orchard.
So now, back home , with dusseharies , bustling around me, I was in them, eating enchanting , caressing them all this time , a bit professionally.
But come this summer and I was devoid all the three. I became alone, lost a friend and consequently became a widower. Why….well…”AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT, WHEN INDIA SWEATED, ME (WITH 2 MORE) WERE SET TO PERSPIRE IN JAIPUR. We were there for a networking course. That meant something , in fact many things, like downloading , uploading ,webhosting, but where was my fruit, my love , my life, my mango. It was not there, all downloading seemed empty, uploading seemed fake. All the virtual world of web was turning unreal for me. Until…… love finally spoke, it finally excecuted and gave me the reward. Next day, in the lab , with all the state of the art facilities , I got a username “M A N G O” Now …I don’t have words to describe it, 600 kms from my home , 600 kms from those dussehries , I got my love, though as a username but I got it. I was now all set , to climb up the virtual world….how wrong I was ..in fact how unknown I was …..
They say that this whole holy world is just a mere probability of interconnections, some times its there , sometimes it is not. For me this web world of internet was something identical.
So now I ,as a mango for the next 25 days, started gearing up , lets say for the inevitable. The next day, now it might be a cliché but I have to say that the sun rose for me, and me only ,the rays of the sun , pinching me , forcing me towards ruthless labour. That smooth sunshine inspiring me towards professionalism. Yes that’s the word, “being PRO”. The course, in a certain sense was null and void, ‘coz all I got in those tests were null and void, i.e. zero. 10 zeroes in a row. Physically I was exhausted, that sprawling Jaipur campus no longer enchanted me. Mentally , I was down in the dumps but from one anonymous part , I was all spiriited up, and that too unanimously.
For me those zeroes and those failiures were not emptiness , but a ‘suchness’ one cannot describe. Yes,I was unknown before as that virtual world was a real professional world we were climbing to. I guess this generation z (or z++) is quite crazy about professionalism , but perhaps while approaching that , we tend to loose it…..loose it all. There is a thin line between professionalism and practicality. We , quite often tend to forget that. Being practical , is more or less like being ‘I’, like being a mango, which is eaten by that mango itself, there are no ways, there are no possibilities, everything is for a specific reason, for that ‘I’. While being ‘pro’ was being true. True to the profession , true to the world , to the almighty. Those, are the professionals who behave like an ‘I’, serve the ‘you’ and targets the ‘us’. Those 10 zeroes and loads of internet told me all that as with each of them I was getting up close with my goal but not emotional towards it. I was getting truthful for it, not selfish.
These 2 things , Internet and the mango , told me a lot of things. There is hardly a day I pass without tackling my fingers over the address box, internet’s like a friend . like a mate sometimes, but for the net I am nothing more than a login id ,a code. Why? because its true , its pro it seves ‘you’ and targets ‘us’. Similarly the mango, my love whom I adore. But for it, I am just one of them , whom it has to serve, from season to season, orchard to orchard.
So now, back home , with dusseharies , bustling around me, I was in them, eating enchanting , caressing them all this time , a bit professionally.
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