Safety Valve: Gassing Away

a moment of perfect clarity

2011-10-12T00:05:00.000-07:00

I was driving - struggling - with the return traffic, an infinite vista of reddened brakelights stretching away on the highway, some RJ yammering away about potholes on the radio...
it faded.
I was... still there, in the car, but inside my head, looking out through my eyes... something apart, disengaged from the warm body actually at the wheel. I was looking around at the experiences stacked up around me, the shelves full of memories, and they all looked the same.
Standardized.
Day after day of the beach run, the mindless comedies, the commute and the work
Week after week of the movies, the malls, the grocery shopping
Month after month of the salary, the EMIs, credit card bills
Year after year of birthdays, appraisals

It's all the same. Nothing is changing anymore. All the files are the same size, sorted, categorized, tagged and labelled. Sometimes there are DVD folders with a neat index pasted to the spine.
As I walk down the passage, into the dimness and the dust, this changes. Now they're random, different colors, different sizes, stained, worn, crammed into piles.
And they're all stuffed to bursting. They're filled with photos, tickets, leaves, pebbles and sand, bottlecaps, napkins, handwritten notes, locks of hair, maps, lists, manuals... between the files there are books, comics, scratched CDs, ancient floppies, pizza boxes and balled-up t-shirts, wires trail between them and there are boxes filled with random, rusting junk. There are trophies, too; not the plaques and the framed certificates, but the scabs and the scars, bands and letters.

I turn around, and the road is exactly as I left it.
The newer shelves are silent, brightly lit and clean. The older ones crackle and buzz, drip and creak.

I want to stay here, but I can't see the road from here.
I can see my hands on the wheel. They're driving.
I pick up one, turn it to me. Fingers flex.

There is a decision hiding around the corner of reality, and the corner is close. I can hear it breathing.

Too Late

2011-09-12T10:15:00.000-07:00

i see it through your eyes tonight
and i understand the pain
why you said what you did that night
and why it all fell apart when
you did what you said you'll do

tonight, alone
i feel what you felt that day
i see what you saw
i understand now, and you're not here

and it's too late, too late for you, too late for me
too late for the us that never were
and never will be

and all i have is a bitter goodbye
whispered in the dark
tonight, when it's too late

A Convenient Kill

2011-05-04T00:33:00.000-07:00

Since there's a snowstorm of debate, questions and conspiracy theories circulating already, let me add my 2 bits.

Disclaimer - This is not fact, but a pure thought exercise - a what-if scenario, so don't take it any other way.

2 days ago, The biggest news in the War On Terror since Sep 11 exploded across the world - Osama's death. After a decade-long manhunt, the Prince of Terror was reportedly found and killed, ending a chapter in world history started back in the seventies.

But let's step a minute and look at this objectively.

Fact: Osama was responsible for engineering the September 11 attack.

Fact: He was also the most visible and famous face of fundamentalist terrorism globally.

Fact: After 9/11, the US effectively invaded first Iraq and then Afghanistan, removing the existing regimes and instituting a Pax Americana that, for better or worse, establishes US control in the two countries.

Fact: Osama was Saudi Arabian, had roots in Saudi and received most of his funding from there.

Fact: Saudi Arabia is a critical player in the Middle East and OPEC.

Fact: Saudi Arabia also holds tremendous economic and political lobbying power in the US.

Fact: Communism, the last 'great evil' for the west, effectively ended a decade before 9/11 with the fall of the Soviet Union.

Fact: Saddam Hussein was militarily one of the most powerful entities in the Middle East.

Fact: Pakistan is a nuclear power, with weapons-grade resources, technology, and delivery mechanisms.

Fact: The Al-Quaeda, the Taliban, multiple fundamentalist terror organizations, and Pakistan's ISI and military share a close relationship, including training, support and financing.

Now, let's step a little further back, and see how these facts relate.

During the Cold War, the American military machine had a carte blanche for resources, development, and power. During this period, American influence spread worldwide, with interests - either controlling or influencing, or at least monitoring - if practically every country. This allowed the US to access markets globally, turning it into an economic superpower for decades.

That ended with glasnost, perestroika and the fall of the USSR. Communism and communist influence collapsed worldwide, opening up even more markets and territories for economic expansion. Unfortunately, it also meant a fall in world paranoia and threat levels... and in relative military freedom.

At the same time, the OPEC gained influence and power directly proportional to the US's dependency on oil to power their civilization. A new target was needed...

...and sure enough, one came along. Coincidentally enough, a force originally created and empowered by the US itself - the Afghan mujahideen, once a weapon against the Soviets. Unexpectedly, and almost randomly, war was declared.

But not on the immediate target. Obviously, Saudi Arabia was too entrenched politically and economically in the US State machinery. And Saudi faced a very visible threat from a loose cannon who had the capability of becoming an increasingly dangerous influence on the oil supply - Iraq, with it's massive military-industrial complex.

The solution's obvious - remove the threat. Iraq was invaded, Saddam removed, a controlled government instituted.

The other weapon - the fundamentalist groups - were now becoming extremely dangerous. Pakistan, with Chinese-supplied tech and materials, had become a nuclear state, and one that was perilously close with the Afghan terrorists.

Afghanistan needed to be controlled. The War on Terror moved eastwards, bombing Afghanistan into oblivion and taking over.

Consider this - Osama was an old man, who had already achieved the pinnacle of his career on that morning when the twin towers went down. He'd made history, changed the world. The only thing he could do to top it would have been nuclear terror - which didn't happen over the next decade. His appearances dwindled, messages faded, and he vanished. Chances are, somewhere in Tora Bora, he died in a cave, in hiding, either from illness, age, the satisfaction of a job well done, or ironically, accidental bombing.

But, there was no proof. The War couldn't be called off. The US was increasingly convinced that he was gone - but without that one concrete proof, they couldn't stop, nor continue investing men and money in an increasingly unpopular war. They needed a PR coup, a justification of expenses, a reason to continue, and a critical need to prevent the scattered terror groups from getting their hands on the nuclear weaponry loosely guarded in an increasingly unstable Pakistan.

Enter a top-secret, superfast mission where Osama is found, killed, and disposed of within the space of a few hours. Euphoria erupts at home, and all sins are forgiven.

Note, the War on Terror isn't won yet. the enemy is still out there, headless, faceless, hiding in the shadows. The fact that 'Osama' was found and killed in Pakistan, the home of potential nuclear terror, is particularly telling. Who wants to bet that over the next few years, increasing proof of connections to terrorism, camps, sponsors are going to be identified there... leading to a gradual takeover, just for safety's sake, to prevent the nuclear machinery from being misused.

By the way, just to get off-topic for a minute, who are the other powerful military states that also happen to be totalitarian, and uncontrolled? Libya and Egypt. Heard of them in the news recently?

China's simply too big, too militarily and economically powerful to take on - now. India's also big, but already culturally pro-US, democratic, liberal, and not an immediate threat - and too large a market to lose by alienating. So is Japan, the other economic contender, whose economy just got washed back by ten years. Africa and North Asia are useful dumping grounds for obsolete technology, until they reach a point where they can be useful markets. Australia and Europe's already a close ally. And I don't know enough about South American politics to comment.

It's interesting to see how history unfolds, if you take the long view.

blocked

2011-03-24T02:32:00.000-07:00

some things can't translate into words. I've been trying for the last hour, three drafts written and deleted.
doesn't feel right.
later.

Truth... is a rock.

2011-02-10T06:54:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, I get the feeling that I'm very close to understanding something. Something all around us, everywhere, yet maddeningly out of sight, out of reach. Every time I reach out, I can feel it there, yet there's so many things that come in the way, stop me.

Truth is... not pretty. It's not smooth, polished, sharp, it's not a made thing. It just is. It's old, shattered, rough-edged. Hold it too tight, it hurts you, makes your hands bleed. Throw it out at someone, it knocks them senseless, kills them. Embrace it too hard, and share the same fate.

Truth can't be held too long if you're not strong enough; it's heavy. Your hands will start shaking, and you will start dropping everything else just to hold on. You'll sweat, tremble. One by one, all the other things in your life - all the dross, the unnecessary things, the extras, will fall away. Still you hold on, and more precious things will fall, too. Friends.Family. Beliefs. Soon the Truth will be all you have left, and now you're tired, and yet still, you hold on. It will kill you. Slowly. Painfully.

Lies... are not like this. They're smooth, polished, beautifully engineered artifices. They can slide gently, imperceptibly into the narrowest crack, are light as air, look good on you and are easy to carry. They're soft and comforting. They grow, too. Slowly, gently, imperceptibly, they spread out in all directions, gently intermingling with one another until it's impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. They cover everything, saturate everything, except the rock of Truth.

Lies are soft and fragile. You can easily cut through them, with hardly any effort; keep cutting, cutting, slashing away, until they lie in tatters, yet there are more, all around, seeping back. You can slash through a soft, enveloping jungle with a sword, keep at it, until you fall in exhaustion and the roots and vines gently grow back over your corpse until it's as if you never existed.

Shape a truth, and it stays forever. Shatter one, and it never heals.

You can cut through Lies, but only go around Truth. It can't be obliterated, just hidden, enveloped in a soft, swaddling cocoon of Lies. And there it remains, until the time comes for it to emerge again.

That's why the Truth makes us all so uncomfortable. Humanity is not flawed; we're artifices ourselves, soft flesh and liquid blood, thoughts and feelings, wetware, vaporware. We can't handle something so rigid, so rough, so alien. It hurts us. We seek refuge in the Lie, because it's like us, soft, understanding, comforting, fragile, impermanent. Truth lies all around us, but we ignore it, shield our dazzled eyes from it's brilliance, slip on our Raybans and our chamois-skin gloves, cap the sharp points with rubber pellets and rough surfaces with Teflon, raise it up upon a pedestal and out of the way so we can get on with our lives. Yet pedestals crumble, and there it comes down, shattering it's encumbrances, smashing back into our world and shocking us into a stone's silence. Then our chatter begins again, slowly, hushed, tentatively, gathering courage, until we can hide it away again.

That is what it is, and this is what we are. We cannot be Truth, even our ancient calcified bones crumble to powder. All we can do is look upon it, try to understand it, what it is, what it says.

Even a small shard of Truth is a potent weapon, a powerful instrument. It can change your life. Greater truths require greater men to wield them; lesser ones stumble under the weight, flail about blindly, smashing all around them, laying waste the land in their struggle for control until they fall - either crushed beneath their ambition or stumbling up shamefacedly beside, quickly walking away, covering their tracks.

Look at the world around you, and you will know this is true. This is reality, this is fact. You will know this briefly, not now, not when you read this, but once in your lifetime. Once in your lifetime you will experience that moment of clarity, of blinding light that sweeps away everything else, shows all for what it is, has been and will be.

The only question that remains unanswered then is - what will you do, reader, when you experience that? Will you walk away filled with that light, that clarity of thought and purpose, your life become that immovable, unbreakable rock, at the cost of all the softness, the style, the artificiality, the Lies? Or will you forget, wake up the next morning with a hangover and a vague, faint sense of loss, vanishing in the first coffee, the first phone call, the first step into the world outside, yet never completely gone, emerging as a bittersweet, nostalgic discomfort on the lonely dawns the rest of your life?

Nobody can say. Not me, not them, not you.

We'll just have to wait and see.

Or remember.

Slipping

2010-11-21T22:36:00.000-08:00

Too many unfinished things piling up... don't have the energy to deal with them. On the other side, small inessentials come one after another, a line of little boxcars in a goods train trundling across the level crossing of life, holding up everything.

I'm looking for a trigger. A signal. Some kind of on-off switch that can get the flow going again. An event. A milestone. Marker. Something.

Or I'm just lazy as fuck and I'm imagining things.

Felt like this on the blog when I stranded my traveller self in Rohtang.

Writer's Block of Life.

Harnessing ESP

2010-11-21T20:47:00.000-08:00

This Saturday was a little lesson in recognizing and activating my extrasensory perception abilities.

You know deja vu? that feeling of familiarity when something happens? That's a case of post-event recognition, where the recognition was subconscious and your mind recognized it when it happened.

A more advanced form is that feeling - unease, or expectation, that something's going to happen. You know it when it does, but you knew something was going to happen anyway. Like reaching for the phone before it rings.

The signals are there. If you can recognize them, you can precognize events.

A friend of my sisters, spotted randomly in a mall, walking past. A phone call out of the from a guy last met at my sister's party. I was expecting a message from her from that point onwards - and sure enough, by the time I reached home, there it was.

The universe is interconnected. Coincidences aren't chance. Nothing is chance.

Dead Set, Reality Shows, and what they tell us about ourselves

2010-10-27T23:06:00.000-07:00

If you appreciate zombie horror, hate reality shows (most of all Big Boss/Brother) and haven't seen Dead Set yet, please do asap. It's the TV equivalent of that scene from Office Space when the Three take their evil, uncooperative fax machine into a field and smash seven kinds of hell out of it with baseball bats. For all those times when you watched BB and prayed to god that he smite them with thunderbolts, plagues of boils, or just have the living dead tear them into pieces and eat them alive, you just got your wish.

Dead Set delivers, and delivers how - but it's about more than just a highly graphic gorefest. (Seriously, don't watch it before or during meals.) It opens up a fascinating thought into what defines us as human.

(Warning: Spoilers ahead)

There's always going to be that one stupid, greedy, cowardly, self-serving person in every situation who's going to get you all killed. You know who it is. You even have an idea of how he's going to do it. The question is - if the only realistic way to stop him is to kill him, would you do it?

Altruism, the social glue that makes civilization possible, that makes us look out for one another and help one another including the weaker ones, would tell us no. Even if we knew we were wrong, we'd give them the benefit of doubt, keep giving them more and more rope... until they hung themselves and the rest of us with it.

There's also that one crazy, ruthless, smart guy, who can save some - maybe most of you. At first glance, it's hard to tell the stupid and the smart apart, especially in a high-stress situation. Remember, he is as likely to get some of you killed. But the rest can survive.

If you stay put and maintain status quo, in the long run, you will eventually run out of water, or food, or sanity.

The question is - when all of civilization is gone, does it make sense to hang on to civility - or is that the only thing that prevents a total collapse, removes the last difference between you and the undead?

If you've read The Walking Dead, The Mayor chose the latter. And he was successful, more or less, except for some bad luck. Was he human, though?

Think about it.

my neurons are losing insulation

2010-10-13T02:40:00.000-07:00

two trains of thought collided one day
i stood in the desert, in a dusty wind
sword in my hand, but i can't raise it
the logo hasn't been uploaded on it

wait, what?

A quiet moment in traffic

2010-09-08T04:24:00.000-07:00

crawling shadows in the sodium
rain patters on the windshield
world smears into abstractions
swirling glowing chaos
traffic, streetlights, billboards
coalesce into psychedelia
engine off, lights out
waiting for the signal
my world is suddenly small
dim and quiet
a few feet across
bounded by metal and glass
all the universe
nothing beyond
sound of my breathing
water falling softly
dark
crawling shadows in the sodium
crawling across the dashboard
crawling across my hands
my face
i am in the machine
i am the machine
i am not me
i am another

the pattern changes
red to green
snarling to life
light radio wipers
world explodes into reality
moves on
shadows vanish
going home

another universe left behind
quiet and dark
crawling shadows in the sodium
beautiful

What if... they're all true?

2010-09-04T23:30:00.000-07:00

Train of thought. The Great Flood. It's a myth in every civilization. I've found 267 independent stories from cultures across the world. Obviously it can't be true, because how would you do it, practically? Make a boat that big? Only yourself? In such little time? And would two of everything be able to repopulate a species without genetics handing out a massive ass-kicking to everyone a few generations with the recessive genes stick?

Maybe the problem isn't that we're taking it literally.

Maybe the problem is that we're not taking it literally enough.

267 written records found, from 267 cultures. How many more didn't have those records, or lost them over the couple of thousands of years?

How many Arks in every civilization, with the myths running together over time to make a single super-myth?

What if there really was a Great Flood, and every farm and homestead that could, loaded up all family and livestock, waited it out, and got on with life as usual when the waters went down - maybe several from each village? Genetic diversity maintained, Actual mechanics of the process looking a lot more likely. What if each 'Ark' was just the local high ground, to which every species eventually flocked, driven by the rising waters? Humans would get there first, as the natural predators on top of the food chain. They'd bring domesticated animals and pets. Parasites and vermin would follow, and then wildlife and it's natural predators.

It's not that the myth are wrong. I think they just need looking at keeping their age in mind. This didn't happen last century, it happened couple of millenia ago.It makes a difference.

Of meter jams and other suchlike stuff

2010-08-11T14:58:00.000-07:00

It's going to be interesting to see how Meter Jam plays out tomorrow and beyond. It's definitely an interesting social experiment - but I want to step back from it a little, look at the larger perspective.

The passengers: After years of frustration at being refused fares, the entire movement is a emotional outburst that's been building up for a while. When you're struggling to reach somewhere, and the auto refuses your fare, it does feel like a slap in the face. I think this is the real reason, more than just inconvenience - it's the insult, the feeling of having to beg for service and being turned away.

The autowallas: On the other hand, sometimes they do have their reasons. They're not necessarily valid, logical ones, but more around an instinctive reaction - short-distance fares will give more pain in terms of traffic negotiation, finding a return fare, etc. And if you have a rigged meter, you do make more profit on a longer distance.

Unfortunately, it's short-sighted. By progressively riling up and angering customers, the autowallas have painted themselves into a corner from where it's going to be a tough task to get out - a situation where they've demonized themselves. Yes, I do agree it won't affect business - yet. For every 50,000 people who refuse to use an auto on one day, another 250,000 people will use one. That's just plain economics, demand and supply. But those 250,000 won't necessarily like it, either. They're swallowing their pride and shelling out their money. The feeling will remain, rankle.

And in the long term, they'll think of other solutions.

Carpooling is not an answer. We've all tried it and we know the painful logistics it involves, especially when travelling under deadlines.

Lifts is not the answer. All it takes is one rape or molestation to end the concept, and you and I both know there's people out there for whom this is a heaven-sent opportunity; just stick a poster on the car and roam around, searching for prey.

Posters is not the answer. A few cars smashed by union thugs, and the posters will vanish overnight.

So what is the answer?

It's beyond the obvious ones above. It's better finance schemes for buying motorbikes and cars. It's having a gym with a shower in the office so you can walk or cycle to work. It's gigantic parking becoming mandatory in malls and offices. It's the Sea Link. It's the Tata Nano. It's the realization that sometimes, whatever money you make is not worth the effort you put in and the sacrifices you have to make to get it - sacrifices of family, of leisure, of peace of mind. It's the reducing attractiveness of an office in the heart of the city where residential rent is unaffordable - so you choose the next best job offer, closer to home. It's decentralization, easing traffic pressure. It's decentralization beyond the city, reducing migrants.

It's about... balance. The city was successful, so it attracted a population. That population is making the city unsuccessful. When the city fails, the population will depart. It's not pleasant, but it's life.

That's why Meter Jam by itself won't work, even if it is ten times it's current size and lasts for a month at a stretch. It's unsustainable. It's fighting a system bigger than autowallas, bigger than unions, bigger than politics. It's fighting a natural outcome of a city's life-cycle. Everything you do - every solution - will only treat the symptoms, not cure the disease. The disease gets cured in a longer timeframe than most of our lives. So it doesn't make sense for us. So we treat the symptoms, with initiatives stretched out over years, while the disease cures itself over decades and centuries.

But it is definitely a important event - it's the blinking red light on the health chart of the patient Mumbai. It may not do much, but it's telling us very, very clearly that things are wrong. Now we need to figure out how to fix them.

mortality

2010-07-27T07:27:00.000-07:00

I saw it out of the corner of my eye, as he stepped into my blind spot from wherever he'd been.

Just for an instant, the dark, cowled shape paused. A bony digit extended, pointed... no.

Paused, returned.

not now, I heard.

not yet.

And then he was gone, back into that space just behind me where I can't see him.

It happened in a split-second.

Then the normal reaction flowed out in a rush of incredulity, in a laugh born of equal parts the passage of fear, and relief.

I could have died. And I live.

Until next time.

It's a very trivial thing. I'm already forgetting it. But I remember that one split-second.

getting there...

2010-06-17T22:12:00.000-07:00

Deep breath.

It's working out. It's been hell month, with a few Big Things (moving, a wedding, RP's job closure, major financial jugglery, gathering possessions from across 4 locations across India) and lots of the Small Things that the Big Things involve - furniture, movers, packing, unpacking, setting up, gas, cable, net, maid, curtains, electricals, the inevitable falling sick, repairs, concalls, cleaning, cook, et al) but it's finally coming together.

The Universe threw all it had at me and I ground it down. I outlasted it.

There's still plenty left and plenty to come, and there's going to be a few more greys in the already much-expanded 'distinguished' patch on the left side of my head, but there's a change in the air. The sense of a corner having been turned, the peak crested.

New beginnings. It's been a difficult birth but it's done. The mother and the baby are both fine. Now we see what we can make out of it.

spring cleaning - the other side

2010-06-03T13:23:00.000-07:00

On the first day, he said, "Let there be AC, and yea, chilling winds." And it was.

On the second day, he said, "Let there be a fridge, that my beer stays cold and my meat fresh," and it was so.

On the third day, he said, "Let there be Television, so I am entertained", and it was, and verily, it showed unto him The Wrath Of Khan.

On the fourth day, he said, "Let there be gas, and a stove, that I may enjoy a morning coffee," and by midnight, it was just so.

On the fifth day, he said, Let there be furniture, that I may sleep like a civilized being above the ground," and it was thusly ordered.

On the sixth day, he said, "Let there be a computer, that I may work from home if need be," and there was, not one, but two, formatted and delivering unto him 1.5 mbps at night.

On th seventh day... we shall find out.

Spring Cleaning - it never ends

2010-05-25T02:22:00.000-07:00

The advantage of cleaning via moving is the chance to realize what you value. Apparently, I value junk.

Last night was the emptying-out-my-PC-stuff night. Not the PC itself, of course - that'll be the last to be packed, supplying the soundtrack to the shifting... just the associated junk that accumulates around it.

I'm blown away. A veritable forest of cables - A/V, extensions, USB cords, converters, patch cords, phone jacks. Headphones of every shape and size. Not one, not two, but five MP3 players with in various stages of breakdown. Gamepads, one PS2 with a USB adapter, the other wireless bluetooth. A wifi dongle. A bluetooth dongle. Card reader. Joystick. Wireless adapters. Webcam. Three ancient cellphones. A USB cable intended for something truly monstrous, by the shape of it's other end - and I have no idea what it is. Those tine, tiny master/slave connector thingies. A burnt-out motherboard in Iron Man colors. TV tuner. A box of PC screws. A pair of wireless headphones, the radio versions. USB fan, from that time when the PC room fan broke down and repairing it was too much of a pain. External hard disk adapter/case. Plugpoint adapters.

I packed it all. Hey, most of it still works in some form... it's like a giant, unwieldy, electronic jigsaw. One day it will all be assembled into something awesome.

Which will then probably gain sentience and tear me from limb to limb, according to Shelley's Law.

How could they leave without telling us??

2010-05-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

a little trip down memory lane, tonight. some beer, a lot of remembrance.
it's been eight years, and it's unfair.
we always had boundaries. a clear dividing line. a phase of life ends, another begins, and there's no confusion. an exam, a holiday, a trip, and a complete change in the way life was. it was a clear, simple time.
it all ended in 2002.
the last eight years have been... mushed. slowly, imperceptibly, things changed, people changed, circumstances changed.
people who swore never to be slaves to the cell now own one.
people who were always supposed to be jungli became civilized.
people who were always supposed to smoke, quit.
people who were, were icons, dammit, gained weight, shaved, cut their hair, settled down.
groups fragmented, faded away.
all the things we swore we'd do, became less and less important.
bikes have been sold, or abandoned. cars have been bought. credit cards. emi's.
places that were packed until they threw us out are empty at midnight.
weekends are slept away, the high point being a movie.
slowly, insidiously, time steals it all.
it wasn't supposed to be like this. When something died, we knew it, and we knew what we were getting in return. Every sacrifice came with a reward.
I feel betrayed by time today. it came, and it stole almost a decade of my life and gave nothing back except memories. the good times we had, slipped away in silence, and they never even stopped to say goodbye. tonight, it's just you and me, and a long, long shadow that stretches away behind us, the dark stake that's pinned us to the ground.
I feel... lost, sometimes. where did everyone go?
is this what it's supposed to be like? wandering about blindly in a darkening room, while everything you love vanishes into the dusk? as dreams die?
I do not begrudge the passage of time. It's natural, inevitable. What I hate, and what I feel shocked, angered, saddened by, is the way it just left without a party, without a whimper, just faded away. I feel emptied out, emptied with the knowledge that something I thought I had all along wasn't there at all for a long time. That I was dancing on a dream, one that softly evaporated in the morning, leaving just a confused sense of happiness and regret.

Where d'ye think you're going? get your ass back in here! leave if you must, but do me the courtesy of acknowledging the time we had, tell me that it had been good.
Let me see what happens next. I'm tired of flailing about in the dark.

Spring Cleaning: (Paradigm) Shifting

2010-05-10T23:19:00.000-07:00

The Universe is with you, in the way that the guy who pushes you into the deep end of the pool is more or less moving in the same direction and is (almost) by your side.

I took the first step in initiating Phase 1 of The Ultimate Cleanup Operation - of moving house - by arranging for an alternate and telling my landlord I will be vacating in 2 months. Promptly, and out of the blue, the plan got shot to hell by a phone call from HR - the company's allotted me a flat. Chances are, I need to prepone the move now - subject to approval by higher (Mrs.) authorities, of course.

But it's still good. People push you into the pool so you get refreshed, woken up, cleaned, and generally snapped out of whatever rut you were in. I'm seeing a pattern, a plan here. A phase of life is ending and on it's last legs - time to move on.

online identities

2010-05-06T23:36:00.000-07:00

A lot of pre-modern cultures shared a belief that photographs can steal your soul - trapping something as essential and personal as your face in a magic box and spiriting it away. So would mirrors... during funerals, mirrors would be covered.

You could consider it a ridiculous belief, but belief it is - the subject matter doesn't matter, what matters is your faith, your psychic investment in that abstract. Caught by a sudden, unexpected flash, Tribesman X worries about his soul, Brand Manager Y worries about revenue loss due to IPR abuse and trademark violation, Celeb Z sees a loss of image and star value... we all worry. We worry about some intangible, indefinable thing being taken away from us... yet we put it right back out there every chance we get, in other media.

How much of ourselves doesn't even belong to us anymore? Our lives, images, plans, feelings, hopes, dreams, triumphs and disasters... all out there, all for the world to see. To respond to. To discuss among themselves about.

When you ride a tiger, you can't get off. We aren't riding a tiger. We're riding a kraken, an island on the back of a whale, blissfully unaware of where it's taking us...

One can say that a digital profile is as much a part of the personal self as any insubstantial notion of the mind, psyche, soul... whether it resides in the brain, the heart, the liver... or a server farm in Norway. But I believe there's a fundamental difference. A policy change in Palo Alto should not reduce my sense of self-worth. Nor should a random comment, like (or lack of them), etc. Yet - they do. We post. They respond. We re-respond.

But more than that... why do we place so much into this? Time that will never come back. Thought. Emotion. For what? If we enjoy sermonizing from our soapboxes, we should do it knowing why we're there.

Let's not become carried away in collective groupthink.

Start asking Why. Start understanding what you get... and what you lose... and if it's worth it in the end.

metaphors

2010-05-05T21:01:00.000-07:00

the sun is climbing slowly towards the zenith. the day is getting hotter, and even the breeze is gone. sweat streams off me, and the weight of the bag is getting heavier - which is weird, considering I've been eating and drinking out of it for a while now.

it was dark when i woke up, and i'm thinking back of those few hours - packing, timepassing, making the calls and making plans. it's always a tough call, that one, when you pack - should you be prepared for everything, at the cost of a bag that weighs 19 tons and screws you throughout the whole trip? Or blithely pack bare essentials, and god help you if anything goes wrong? i generally tend towards the former. and it's telling, now. sure, it feels good to see the smiles on the faces of the people who ran out of water long back and who you helped from your supplies - but smiles don't make chafed shoulders easier to bear.

trying to peer ahead, up, look for some shade - how much more do we need to climb? the sun is blinding. hard to see, now. everything was so clear at dawn - a world exploding with possibilities, and me fresh as a daisy and raring to go. there's a patch of trees ahead - i think i'll stop for a bit, take the bag off. catch my breath.

some views have been spectacular, though. worth the trip. i should've brought a better camera.

and people wander off all over the place. half the time somebody's gone off on a trip of their own, getting lost, calling to show something... exploring slows the group, but makes for a better memory.

wish it would rain a bit. or at least some clouds.

damn, i need to lose weight. all the samosas in the morning are making themselves felt.

not leading the group anymore - somewhere around the middle-end, i guess. doesn't matter. as long as i don't lose the way - i know where we're all going. some might just get there first... and do what? take a nap? i'd prefer to see more of the trek... after all, getting there is half the fun.

unless you're stumbling along in the dark, scared, lost and alone. that's not much fun if you can't handle it.

and the afternoon is going to be even hotter, if we don't find a shadier path. need to remember that. take it slow, but not too slow.

oh, well - take that as it comes. concentrate on that shady bit ahead. it's coming up soon.

wsfgythyd

2010-05-03T21:55:00.000-07:00

in one hand, i hold a fresh-from-machine espresso in a paper cup. the other, a plastic bottle i just filled from the watercooler. condensation forms and fades in the dehumidified, conditioned air. conflicting signals, burn and freeze. imagined thermoelectric drift. i feel awake.

strange dreams. a party, a relocation, old places, new faces... ever thought about how two familiar aspects of life can become bizarre if brought together?

caffeine buzz.

sometimes, the bkc stretch can almost compensate for the juhu bridge. but nothing can make the andheri bit of the w.e.h. anything other than the drive up to the gates of of the city of dis.

i like early mornings. the time doesn't matter, it just has to be before it gets used by other people. before sunup, before rush hour, before office timings, before the movie start. on that side of reality opposite the langoliers, existence gets you high. little things. smells. highlights off chrome. sunshine.

Spring Cleaning: Revolutions

2010-04-23T01:44:00.000-07:00

Looks like the cleanup is going to happen the way it's always been happening while I was growing up - by taking each and every single individual item in the house, one by one, wiping it down, and popping it into a box. What's left over at the end of it all is dust, dirt, stains, junk, trash, and memories.

Then all the boxes are picked up, moved a short distance, and as if by magic, a new life begins. One where all surfaces are clean, walls are painted, all your stuff consists only of working, neatly labelled items, and the air is full of pregnant possibility. There are no rules that say, 'put this here', 'this goes there', or 'this is out of place'. Everything is out of place, which is the best place to be in.

The machine's been overhauled, lightly sprayed with oil, polished, put back together and is raring to go.

Now I just need the boxes.

Are non-vegetarians evil?

2010-03-29T23:06:00.000-07:00

Had an interesting debate few days ago while tearing a chicken patty to shreds with my evil pointy teeth. A staunch vegetarian stared at me for a few minutes, a look of disgusted horror on his face, and asked me if I knew how chickens were ill-treated before being killed - their feet being burned off because of being confined among their own guano, etc. I told him that's why I didn't eat the feet, and he got up and left the table... but it got me thinking.

Consider the chicken. It's the most populous bird on planet Earth. It has no talons, can't fly, is fat, slow, stupid. It doesn't breed fast, and isn't particularly poisonous or even particularly bad-tasting. By all logic, if left to itself, it would have gone the way of the dodo. Yet, among birds, it's a spectacular success - because it linked it's evolutionary success with humans.

As a species, did it make the right decision - guaranteeing it's success as a whole, while sacrificing the lives of the individuals? For as long as humans eat chicken, and are sitting on top of the food chain, chickens will not be extinct. Nor will any other domesticated animal. Nor will the scavengers, the vermin. In fact, they will evolve along multiple lines, filling several ecological niches created by Man.

So the question is - by guaranteeing it's success, by ensuring it's immortality as long as the (non-vegetarian) human race exists - are us meat-eaters evil?

Spring Cleaning: Part 2

2010-03-17T02:27:00.000-07:00

The Cupboard

Threw out a whole bunch of clothes - stuff I don't like, doesn't fit, is worn out, and even some stuff that's been lying there for a while... hey, if I haven't worn it for a year, I doubt if I'm going to be wearing it tomorrow. Ethnic formals wrapped in bags and shoved into deep storage. Ditto, sheets and blankets. Socks sorted by color into large ziplocs. Belts, handkerchiefs, and watches in their own individual plastic trays.

The Den

Do I use even one of these 2 beds cluttering up the place? No? Then why not use one as storage space for the bike? Transfer mattress, dump all of R's gym stuff on the window-set and bike goes up on the box... immediate space. Need to dump some of that gym stuff, hasn't been used at all...

But... it's feeling like a losing battle. No matter how much I try, the essential mess - the clutter still comes through. All the lofts and deep storage is stuffed to bursting, cupboards full, shelves full... and there's still, so many things everywhere... crowding me, disrupting... have to move on. Have to find a better way to deal with this.

Spring Cleaning: Part 1

2010-02-24T01:56:00.000-08:00

The Blog Sidebar

Gone. The malfunctioning blogroll, the useless subscribe options, the ads, the logos, all the cool cute stuff. I don't miss it. I barely remember what was there or why I even had it... mostly useless. Some experiments, now dead and done. Mostly, extremely cringeworthy.

Haloscan

What started this? I think it was - Haloscan. After two or three years of ignoring buggy code, I finally got down to it and wiped it. Lost some comments, but who cares.

I felt light. I felt... freed.

Torrents and Games

I left the PC off last night. Ferelden can take care of itself for a while. No torrents either. I've barely started seeing the stuff I've downloaded. What's still coming in, can wait a little longer. In fact... maybe I should just leave it off.

Went for a walk instead. Listened to music. I like this feeling.

Life is too complicated, too messy. The circumstances will color perception. The junk outside will infect my mind. Has infected my mind.

It's time... to exorcise.

Spring Cleaning

2010-02-24T01:48:00.000-08:00

I, am in, a spring-cleaning mood.

I usually let it finds its outlet in

Cleaning up my room
Getting the bike serviced
Formatting my hard disk
Updating my CV
Changing flats
Going on a holiday

But this time... I want to do more than just that. I want to do all of the above. And more.

Dangerous times.

Feel... heavy. Weighed down. Too many things. Too much to worry about.

Ballast.

The trick to never have any regrets is to never look back. If I take an axe to the ropes now... I will need to remember this.

If, of course, it comes to the axe. I need to backup first.

What the hell - it's good Feng Shui anyway.

Watch this space.

Some more lucid-dreaming experiments

2010-01-28T22:15:00.000-08:00

An interesting discovery - While I know that falling asleep in partial light triggers longer, more vivid and better-structured dreams (with correspondingly far high chances of taking control), it appears that the light needs to be present only at the point of falling asleep; yesterday's experience couldn't have been longer than half an hour, yet the memory lasted far longer.

Which raises an interesting point - after the REM phase, what is the mind doing? Building dreams triggered off in the light-triggered REM? For the entire night? Or is the REM phase the start and finish of the dream, with the mind switched off for the rest of the time? That won't explain the intermeshing of the real world into dreams - like alarms, people shaking you awake, other noises that awaken you, or even the screaming nightmares at 3 AM (long after REM is done)... or are these cases of an REM phase restarting, or persisting?

Needs more research.

An interesting aside - videogames (or any kind of games) are naturally predisposed to be dream-matter because the subconscious recognizes the rules it plays by - and superimposes those rules, controls, and imagery (skins, if you will) in a manner that I guess is very similar to what the games themselves use - databases, scripts, CSS and skins.

Last night, for instance - was a dream about what combination of tactics in my Dragon Age characters would work best in various combat situations. The healer at a distance, pumping up the fighters; the tank to distract unwelcome attention from the healer; the mage to target and incapacitate the bosses temporarily while the weaker enemies are disposed of, etc. And since a videogame is essentially an artificial-reality construct, it was a dream about a dream.

And the game in question is about a main character who's been trapped in a lucid nightmare herself; so it's a dream of a dream of a dream. LOL.

funny no more?

2009-12-21T21:46:00.000-08:00

I was reading some of my earlier blog posts.

I was funnier then.

The Fermi Paradox: Peeing in the gene pool!

2009-12-04T00:52:00.000-08:00

Did I just answer the Fermi Paradox?

To summarize - the Drake Equation is a calculation of the likelihood of existence of intelligent, non-human life in the universe. A lot of assumptions, a lot of guesswork, but considering that our galaxy alone has over a hundred billion stars, very, very likely.

The question therefore was - if they're out there, why haven't we met them yet?

The Fermi Paradox is the addition of one more factor to the calculation - an unknown quantity as of right now - which prevents the existence of intelligent life.

And I think I just got what it is. It's evolution.

Or rather, de-volution.

Think about it. Right up till the Industrial Revolution, people would die of stupidity. The environment was hostile, and resources were limited. If you couldn't take care of yourself, and weren't an asset to the community, you would die and nobody would be able to - or want to - save you. Your stupid genes would leave the gene pool. Humanity would get a little bit smarter, evolve some more.

This made us all so smart over time, we became the the masters of the planet. The process took three billion years, but here we are.

And since we're the masters, we control everything. We can kill lions, great white sharks, rhinos, elephants, blue whales. We even kill them by accident, without meaning to and often without even noticing. In hundreds and thousands. It's genocide, an extermination all the more criminal in it's being accidental. If an animal competes with us for a resource, god help it. It's already extinct.

And with all the resources we now have, what do we do?

We create ideals.

Ideals of altruism. Of helping those less fortunate. Of charity. Social security.

All this makes people who were otherwise scheduled to be chucked out of the gene pool, are now allowed to hang around and contaminate it.

Think about it. How can you ever deny someone the right to breed, no matter what circumstances they are in? It goes against every ideal of liberty, equality, fraternity, democracy, enlightenment, emancipation, and personal freedom. It creates stupid children of stupid parents who are allowed to survive and breed. It creates a world where higher levels of intelligence marks you as different, strange.

Outcast.

Intelligence = success? In some ways. Short-term ways. Success in your own lifetime, maybe guaranteeing your children's. But long-term success? Like preserving ecological diversity, not poisoning the oceans and filling the atmosphere with carcinogens?

Nope.

It's just not good business sense.

So we continue to get dumber and dumber. Intelligent content dies, starved of audience and thus, money. Content gets dumber, making people dumber, and it's a vicious cycle that ends with an idiocracy.

And that's the missing link, the answer to the Fermi paradox. Any civilization which is smart enough to be the masterclass on it's planet creates in the process a situation which leads inevitably to it's own stagnation and destruction.

A few generations down, someone will hit a nuclear button and some of them will still fly. Not enough to kill all life 22 times over. Maybe just once.

And sometime, somewhere, yet another someone else will look up at the silent, starry sky and wonder why they're alone in the universe...

2009-12-01T21:04:00.000-08:00

almost 4 months.

nothing to say? not really.

too busy to say it? kind of.

bored of blogger? maybe.

maybe I owe an update. 2009 - a look back - coming in 29 days.

Meditative Motorcycling

2009-08-03T22:22:00.000-07:00

Biking is an experience deeply similar to meditation.

Think about it.
When you meditate, the most critical thing - the essence, really - is to empty out your mind completely, let go all the thoughts buzzing around in circles over and over again as if on rails, and give those tracks a chance to relax from the load, rejuvenate, free-associate again. I developed a technique - as every thought appears, I would just imagine it whooshing away into the background behind me, leaving my head clear again. Once you've treated it that way, it's easy to take everything as it comes, and literally leave it behind you. After a while, nothing new comes, and there's just the sound of your breathing and a warm, deep-brown empty room.
When you're on a bike, it's like that. Everything comes at you from the vanishing point, roars past in the reflected echo of your own engine, and disappears forever. Nothing is permanent except the road, the hum of the engine, wind and sunshine. Riding is automatic; you don't need to see. Everything happens by touch and physical memory of control positions and sequences. And it's ingrained, not needing thought. Reflex. It's like breathing, like heartbeat.
The road is Life. Events come and go, but you steer around the blocks and bad spots, slowing down and speeding up, looking for that break in traffic, those smooth stretches. Friends keep pace with you on their own bikes, sometimes coming near, sometimes far away, on the same road and the same journey but entities by themselves. If someone crashes and burns, he's left behind very, very fast, the pain forgotten in surprisingly short time. If someone skids and falls, he loses a little time, but catches up again soon. Sometimes, if necessary, you interrupt your own journey, stop and help... but in the end, we all move on.
The past is visible, but it takes an effort - of thought, of that impulse to look down at the rear-view mirrors. Mostly it's automatic, just to judge things coming from behind... but sometimes you want to look back. Don't look back too long, though, or something coming up ahead will smash you into pulp, unaware.
At it's core, it's being completely free. Your body, your machine, is doing what it's supposed to do. Your higher mind is at liberty to think, to dream, to go down whatever mental lanes it wants, explore uninterrupted trains of thought. To enjoy the pleasure of pure, uninterrupted thought, and no-thought, just sensation. Disturbing elements literally get whipped away in the slipstream.

A car, now... a car is different. All along, you're aware of the metal shell around you, the controls in front of you, in your field of vision. Wind is cut off, sounds muted, sun dimmed by the windows, smells lost in the air-conditioning. You're always careful, avoiding scratches, bumps, and dents. It's too overt a reminder of your own body, your mortality, your place in life. Traffic is a limiting factor, not a minor obstacle easily bypassed. The rat race, with all the other strugglers around you, physically limits your journey. Sure, you can carry a larger load - luggage, co-passengers, music, all the other paraphernalia of life - but there is a price you pay. The soul will always be aware of the body it inhabits and the pathways it must travel.
It can't ever fly, free in the sun, alone and one with the world around.

Time Travel. It's possible.

2009-07-22T06:16:00.000-07:00

But the traffic is always one-way.

In.com introduced a feature that they're downplaying - maybe unintentionally - as a simple boss-impresser and never-forget-a-date-again feature only - the delayed send feature on their email. But Futuremail had it right the first time - it's possible to send a message across time.
Unfortunately, everyone wants to talk to the past. They remember all the wrong choices, bad decisions, all those times when, if only they knew then what they know now... but think about it. Would you want a stranger telling you how to live your life, all the time? Not just any stranger, but a patently loser-type stranger, stuck in a life he hates? Telling you to take choices for reasons you don't believe in, or - and be honest - have already decided about, one way or another, and resent having these decisions questioned?
Manu drew an interesting analogy with life as a tree - read it here.

On the other hand, it is possible for you to talk to your future self. Every mutual fund you buy, you're effectively gifting some cash to your future (lock-in period plus) self. And every credit card swipe is cash borrowed from that future self, with questionable returns. No wonder most of us want to rethink decisions. Every photo album, diary, forgotten trunk in the attic, is a message.

Why not use this? Let's talk to our future selves. The people that matter. There are things we want to tell them. Remind them about what we want them to achieve. Remind them of the time when they were young, and had dreams. Let them realize those dreams are achievable.
Send a mail to yourself for your next birthday. Say what you want to do. See how it feels.

So long, and thanks for the all the memories

2009-06-26T01:30:00.000-07:00

"The evil that men do lives on after them; the good is oft interred with their bones."
Not always. Sometimes, the good is stronger.
The flesh is weak. It falters, makes mistakes, falls short of living up to the immortal perfection of the soul.
The flesh dies.
The soul lives on.
The soul is what gave us the music. Gave us the memories. Gave the background score to some of the best times of our lives. The music is something that will always be with us, will always be remembered.

The music will always live on.

Rest in peace.

still down with the sickness

2009-05-18T21:10:00.000-07:00

the body works in mysterious ways, it's adjustments to perform.
will someone please tell me what does a healthier lifestyle have to do with an excruciatingly painful blocked ear? New cilia growing in the esophagus decide that the best way to celebrate their existence is to forcibly shove all possible phlegm from sinuses into the nearest Eustachain tube? Is this some kind of internal Pink Chaddi campaign?
This happens every time I try to go healthy; catastrophic breakdown. It's like how BC's body reacts to holidays and half-days, or even leaving from office early. I don't get the message.
I need some Blood Music noocytes. Existing systems for internal performance management and KRAs have gone for a toss.
Or maybe I have them already. I wish they'd get a move on, then. This intermediary crap is buggy.

The weekend's score -
C: C-
W: D
F: C+

motivator...

2009-05-11T21:48:00.000-07:00

be careful what you ask for.
you just might get it.

yesterday's score:
C: C+
W: B+
F: B-

if you don't succeed the first time...

2009-05-10T22:50:00.000-07:00

try, try, try, try, try, try, try, try...
Again.
I'm trying to kick it again. And this time it's not a phase-out; let's try going hardcore. Complete cold turkey. And a generic health / food / workout program as well. Crank it up. Go quantum.

Now I just need to find a motivator...

yesterday's score -
C: F
W: D
F: C-

thinking it through...

2009-04-23T02:37:00.000-07:00

Watched a very interesting movie yesterday - The 11th Hour. watch it whenever you get the chance. Informative, eye-opening - and very, very scary.

It got me thinking - let's look at the future, logically.
The Earth's ecosystems are collapsing under the pressure of human civilization. We use too many resources, generate too much waste. We do this because our culture has a built-in greed; a desire to have more things. We don't treat clean air, genetic health, fresh water, and a future as things. So, we have our cars, houses, entertainment, possessions, and desires that come at their expense. It doesn't affect us - yet.

Take this to it's logical conclusion.
The first world -
Will we, as individuals, choose a slower, less versatile, and more expensive car because it's electric? Eat premium, organic foods? Probably. Will large corporations do the same?
The developing nations -
No. They aspire to the first world. Making all the same mistakes, but at a scale several hundred times greater because of the populations.

The Earth will continue to warm. Ice caps will melt, forests will vanish, weather systems will collapse.
Flooding. Famines. Natural disasters. Plagues.
Huge losses of life.
Desertification.
Markets for the first world literally die, or slide into such a wretched condition they are no longer viable. Companies collapse.
Food supplies - and natural resource supplies - dry up.
Economic systems collapse in the first world.
As resources get more scarce, large scale wars will erupt over those few remaining resources. The first world will inevitably win, because they have greater technology. The third world will continue to subsist in unwanted areas until they die.
But the Earth doesn't differentiate on economic parameters. Living conditions will worsen equally everywhere. Developed countries may use tech to stave off the worst of it for a while - but that's expensive. Resources will continue to shrink to the point that wars will come to the developed countries. And plagues. And failing health - sterility. Drastic population decline. Coupled with a collapse in Law & Order. Anarchy.

Regression to self-sustaining systems. When large-scale systems fail, in an anarchic system, it's very difficult to rebuild them. But self-sustaining systems - unless seeded and very, very well-prepared - don't really use very high-end tech, or don't need it. A large global one must be technologically developed. A self-contained community need not be.

But even after a complete collapse of large scale systems, the Earth won't heal so fast. A couple of centuries, possibly millenia. Will unused tech be remembered until then?

This is, of course, assuming that life-sustaining conditions can survive. If the average temperature rises to over 250 degrees C, there's not much tech can do, in a failed economic system.

Space habitats? Unlikely. On Earth? Maybe. Sealed communities. Generation ships in the desert. Working on history's second terraforming project, trying to undo the inadvertent first.

And yes - 90% of all existing life on Earth will die. I really don't see any way that can be averted.

The Drake Equation states - mathematically - that intelligent life will arise, again and again, in the universe. Observed evidence shows there isn't. So there's some factor missing - either intelligent life doesn't arise so easily, or dies very easily. And I guess we can see why.

And as they said - this is our finest hour. We know we can beat this, solve the ecological crisis, develop spacefaring ability, and go out there. And find thousands of dead or barbaric civilizations, who couldn't do what we did.
It can be our destiny to be Gods. And if we succeed - but that's another story.

Read this. It's awesome.
Rare Earth Hypothesis
The Drake Equation
The Fermi Paradox

listlessness

2009-04-13T03:28:00.000-07:00

'what's up,' they ask

somebody was biking through snow and hail
somebody was taking pictures
somebody was upgrading
writing
playing
traveling
chains and hooks, and a huge rusty weight on the other end
pinned like a butterfly on the board
dust settling, slowly, gently, and always
sick
tired
exhausted
i miss the crystal air
wings wheeling across a blazing, cool sky
stars come out

heaviness constant
dead zone
stagnant silence

'chal raha hai,' i tell them

Vote for the Vogons

2009-04-10T07:23:00.000-07:00

Adsense used to come up with howlers pretty easily, since the only real reason to display an ad was whether someone's talking about the subject, rather than listening to what they're saying.
With SEM, the bar has just jumped a notch higher.

So as of today, the top 3 contenders for your vote (in the digital space) stand before you arrayed thus -

Am I the only one who is actually reassured?

Playing God

2009-04-06T01:15:00.000-07:00

This was a completely random post, inspired by a friend's status update.

Why did God place the Tree of Knowledge in such an easily accessible place? Why does He make it so easy for humanity to face temptation? Why does He, to put it bluntly, screw around with our heads with the whole issue of 'Does God Exist?'
The whole concept of Faith - believing in something greater than ourselves, moral codes, denying our natural instincts - raises some pretty deep questions. Foremost among which is that if He really existed, wouldn't it have been all too easy for him to completely and unequivocally answer all these issues once and for all? Why does He screw around with our heads?

I think there are 2 answers.

The sociological answer: God does not exist. We created an anthromorphic personification of the needs of society, some rules to make sure society can survive, with guilt and fear as the stick and life beyond death and paradise as the carrot.
The gaming answer: God does exist. He created the universe as a gaming map, laws of nature as game rules, and intelligence as a collective AI. He then created scenarios that unfold according to those rules, just to see what happens.
Think about it. Ever played Red Alert? Or any RTS war game? Scenarios, rules, behaviors, certain responses to certain stimuli. Get too close to an enemy soldier, and he will shoot at you. Built-in speeds and firepower. Objectives and goals. But the fun comes from the randomness created when large numbers of these rules interact with each other. When you do a tank rush, are you really controlling each unit? No. You've just unleashed them. You can send a spy into an enemy base, but even though you have the power to make him invulnerable, and the enemy deaf, blind, dumb, and weak as kittens, would you do it? It takes all the fun out of the game.
When a game protagonist plays with cheatcodes, he knows that God exists. God is stopping the bullets, letting him fly, achieving superhuman feats, untouched by fire, falls, teeth and claws. But is the gamer having fun? No. Fun comes with the unexpected. With setbacks. With risk. When you have something to lose, you feel that you have everything to gain. Winning is a rush. When nothing can kill you, you're just a rat wandering through an empty maze.

Maybe there were super-civilizations, masters of the Earth and all creation, intelligent, aware, kind, caring, responsible, in harmony with nature and with each other. Enlightened, perfect, and utterly, butterly boring. What more is left to achieve? A perfect civilization will never go beyond it's city, it's kingdom, it's planet at the most. Even planet is unlikely; they will be smart enough to control birthrate, eradicate threats, handle all contingencies. A civilization under constant threat of destruction fights, struggles, spreads, creates backup plans, fallbacks, contingency bases. DNA spreads. Launches generation starships, sets up lunar bases and buried bunkers with hibernating colonists. Reaches for the stars because the planet is on the edge, reaches across galaxies in the face of all-destroying interstellar war, slips into parallel dimensions when the fabric of this reality is likely to be torn.
Perfection is stable. Imperfection, combined with intelligence, explodes like a bomb across creation.
Sweden, with social security, order, sufficiency, and all amenities and comforts has a negative birthrate, because people have all they need. India, with it's near-billion starving and barely able to feed itself, has a population explosion.
A perfect, harmonious civilization, at it's pinnacle with no possibility of a fall, looks like a giant bulls-eye from space, with cosmic arrows all around pointing to it marked Asteroid Strike Here.
Innate imperfection. A flawed human being is unhappy, greedy, fearful... and drives ambition. Knows that life is unstable. Knows he is surrounded by other flawed creatures, by frightening randomness and intransigence. Knows he must amass resources far greater than his immediate need to prepare for this randomness. Establish his escape routes.

And for a gaming God, this is entertainment. Not perfection. Not stability. With an entire universe to explore, why would he tolerate a game protagonist who does not go beyond his own self? Wouldn't it be so much more fun to watch how the randomness manifests in extraordinary leaps of intellect, art, beauty, strength, achievement, skill, discovery... beyond even what He may have originally conceived?
When we do leave the planet, we will meet Others. They will be like us. They will be flawed. Galaxies will sparkle with a million wars, extinctions and escapes, dominions and insurrections, and everything else that is this infinitely varied, kaleidoscopic, random, churning, intoxication explosion called Life.

After all, anything else is so boring, isn't it?

chaddi-buddies

2009-02-11T23:27:00.000-08:00

And while we're on the subject of morals, values, freedom of speech, bully boys and monkey men -
The media talks about what's in the news and advertises what's currently hot.
inadvertently creating - dare I say it? - chaddi-buddies of the two most unlikely partners.

Pramod Mutalik shares screenspace with his greatest enemy, and it's not design or conspiracy; just hot news and ad sales, coming together in beautiful harmony...

First, an unintentional endorsement from cupid...

then begins the search for the life partner...

then the inscription of the initials...

and finally, the happy ending.

Don't it jus' wanna make you cwyyyy??

No screenshots were harmed in the making of this blogpost; what you see is what I got. Photoshop not involved. :)

And now I sign off with another hilarious take...

Discovering Anarchy

2009-02-04T01:38:00.000-08:00

Until a few days ago, I was like any one of you. I existed in a cocoon of placid self-belief and faith in my world. I had dreams and hopes, some expectations in life. I had plans.

Increasingly, it's becoming obvious that what I think doesn't matter, doesn't even exist.
All of us are living in a state of collective self-hypnosis. We have convinced ourselves that we have rights, freedoms, privileges. We have the right to dream and the freedom to pursue that dream, and now, in the last decade, we have the resources.
Here's some of the basic myths we all live under. Tell me you disagree.

1. The government will take care of me if I pay my taxes, vote responsibly and follow my duties as a citizen. They will maintain and develop infrastructure, healthcare, education, law & order, national security.

2. As an Indian citizen, I can live anywhere in India without prejudice or discrimination if I do not deliberately offend my neighbors.

3. My children will be safe in school, in a park, at malls and multiplexes, in public transport.

4. If someone hurts me illegally, or cheats me, or robs me, the police and the courts will give me
justice and punish the wrongdoer.

5. My vote counts and my taxes are used properly.

Do you really believe that? Really?
It's all a delusion. I'm beginning to understand now. We live in a concealed anarchy, a state where a semblance of order is carefully laid on top of chaos, and served up to us in media, in opinions, in implicit and explicit education, in socialization.
There are no guarantees in life, and we all know that all of the above may or may not apply to us at random.
Someone with power and connections can do exactly what he wants and get away with it. Whether it is evading crores of taxes or casually raping, killing and throwing away the body of a child on the road.
I can die anytime - by terrorist hand, by drunk driving, knifed by the addict on the footpath, of dengue or malaria, in a collapsing building built with substandard material, in an armed robbery, of fake medicines in a hospital, anything.
I can just as easily die in a genuine road accident, have a heart attack, be struck by lightning, slip and fall downstairs.
And I'm using death as an example - but it applies equally to success and failure at work, in studies, in business, at relationships.
Chaos is everywhere, around every corner. All we do in life is try to limit that chaos, by creating rules and order. By creating certain support for life. That's why we believe in dial-100, in ambulances, the operation theater, in anything.

But the truth is - what we thought was order, structure, rules, isn't really there. We just thought it was. What is there is anarchy, chaos, lawlessness, where the strongest person always wins, and the weaker one is eaten up or dies.
I can choose to be weak - or be strong. Choose which way I want to live. I know what I deserve out of life; I know I can make that happen.
But in understanding that, I'm also acknowledging the death of a dream. It could have been better, it could have been wonderful.
It's still going to be good, but just for a few of us.
And all the rest are going to hell.

A Moving Story - moved, shaken and stirred. And setup.

2009-01-05T01:08:00.000-08:00

It's over. I Am ensconced in new flat snugly, and wandering around, uttering child-like cries of wonder at every new discovery.

Strange, disturbingly vivid, cartoons in rubber all over the walls.
More glass and china than produced by entire generations of the Ming dynasty. Considering that there will be a Taurean living here shortly - and 2009 is the year of the Ox - this is not a good idea.
A stack of tiles and a twenty-kilo rock in the window seat.
Small, six-inch high cane chairs in the loft.
A giant roll (six feet across and god knows how long) of bubblewrap.
Crystal decanters.
A sewing machine treadle.
A genuine VCR. Remember, the ones that used to play those rolls of magnetic tape... before mp4, before xvid, before blu-ray, even before dvd and vcd...
A giant furry tiger-print blanket.
Giant plastic sheeting, lovingly colonized by pigeons.
Something that I still can't figure out, but it looks like the pelt of a capybara, or a four-foot orange rat. Shedded so much hair and dust I sneezed for an hour.
Stone vases and extraordinarily realistic plastic plants - two of us watered them for a week before realizing something's off.
Mysteriously sealed cupboards
Commemorative mugs of the Royal Wedding.
3 small ivory balls
25 combs of varying fineness, a hair dye brush, and a pack of morning-after pills. How such small things tell the story of an entire life...
A pack of cigarette filters
Thirty feet of coaxial cable
Wind chimes
Forty feet of guano-encrusted network cable
3-disc CD player with speakers
An address book populated with Macs, restaurants, and beauty parlours
A complete bar kit - corkscrew, opener, tongs, etc - made by Sanyo (??)
A set of six full-length thick curtains that don't fit any window or door in the house
And finally - The Last Supper, made of plaster, embedded in one wall.

And, as you would no doubt have realized, on top of all this I shall be adding my unique sense of taste and decoration to an already unique foundation. This should be fun.

A Moving Story, neverending...

2008-12-14T22:17:00.000-08:00

My arms ache. Individually moving a quarter of a ton of clothes, books, DVD's, electronics, and assorted household goods has left it's mark - but has fortunately not fucked my spine like last time.
And I have a partially functional new apartment. No cable, but 650 movies; no internet but 250 GB of pics, videos, comics, and games.
And finally, at long last, parking.
I have spent the last 2 days packing, moving, shopping, moving the shopping, unpacking, rearranging, and screaming like an enraged orangutan at the shocking lack of storage space. Not that the new flat lacks it; there are cupboards, shelves, minibars, lofts, cabinets, and box beds galore. Unfortunately, they all appear to be used. I have never seen a larger collection of glass and china in one place together. It's crammed. Plates, cups, saucers, humorous coffee mugs, mementoes, beer glasses, steins, creamers, bowls, wine glasses, shot glasses, chalices, dishes, mugs, lids, baking thingies you make veg au gratin in, platters... I am exhausted. I need to banish all these somewhere and I have no clue.
Photos coming soon.

A Moving Story, Reloaded

2008-12-09T23:37:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year again, the annual event that happens every 11 months.
There's a nip in the air, the birds are chirping, the cellphones are ringing, and as my lease expires, I am out again, back on the Hunt For House.

An elusive beast, it hides in the concrete jungle, brilliantly camouflaged in dug-up roads, malfunctioning lights, absent owners and unavailable keys, ensuring you don't get to lay your eyes upon it.

But if you're patient, persistent, and have a healthy dose of sheer bloody-mindedness, you can penetrate this first layer of defense and see the house.
That's when the second line of defense gets activated - leaking roofs, the worst possible neighbour to have (i.e. the owner), termite-ridden beds, a dead rat in the kitchen (I swear there was one, and it had been eaten by other rats. I know what a patch of coarse black fur, bones and a stain means), A fairly deaf sadhu baba in a short-short kurta and nothing else answering the door, a continuous low growl coming from under the sofa with a harmonic that says 'I've nearly chewed through the leash, just take 2 minutes and check the loos again please', pigeons (!!!), dust allergies born of some spore imported from a pharaoh's tomb, violent red walls and silver furniture... the list goes on and on, often too painful to talk about.

But finally, you will find the perfect place. Like a presidential plane knowing there's missile launched at it's tail, a last-ditch countermeasure is deployed - financial chaff. Deposits, rent, brokerage, registration fees, parking permissions. Owners are ok, but the brokers are all-out to increase the rent so they benefit. Thank God I have access to one of the few good guys.

But as of last week, it's all behind me - agreement, registration, biodata, police verification, thumbprints and passport photos, society letter, reposession letter, Form 20-A and Form 29, witness signatures, receipts, et al... and I am the proud possessor of a heavy pair of of keys (and appropriately enough, on a golden keychain) which shall lead me into my perfect apartment.

Now comes the shifting... but that's another story.

The Indian Politician

2008-12-03T01:38:00.000-08:00

Let's take a deep breath for a moment, and hard as it is, think dispassionately.
We - the Indian People - are in deep shit. The machinery and infrastructure that is supposed to care for us is, at best, ineffective. There's a lot of anger, frustration, and disgust in us - and most of all, everyone is asking - what can we do?

I am trying to create an answer.
It may not be the right one. A lot of you may disagree with some of what you will read. And I admit I'm not either qualified or in any way, or have any special access or information, that entitles me to do this, save for one reason - I'm just one more person on the street, one more passenger in the train, one more tourist in Kashmir, one more traveller in an airport... and every time something like this happens, the first thing that comes to my mind is - it could be me. It could be someone I know.
I've been lucky so far - but you and I both know that if things continue, it's just a matter of time.

The reason why these things keep happening - in my opinion - is because the infrastructure isn't sufficiently equipped to deal with management of porous borders, a billion plus population, understaffed, underpaid, under-trained and underequipped police, and specialist agencies too caught up in political games to be allowed to function effectively.
But that's not really the reason.
The political class - our so-called 'masters' and trust me, even saying that word brings the bile to my throat - is not doing it's job.
A politician enters the system with a clear objective. Power.
Power equals money, status, assets, previliges.
But NOT duty, responsibility, accountability.

So the real question we need to think about is, how do we force our MLAs, MPs, and Ministers to start doing the job they are supposed to, instead of creating private empires and fortunes and hijacking the state machinery - that we pay for, by the way - for their own perks.
The next time you're stopped to let a 20-car convoy with the flashing red lights pass, remember your salary is 33% less because of that petrol. Because they're on their way to some international event with family and press and shopping, sorry, 'expenses'. Because they need to stock up and furnish that 3000-square foot house in that 2-acre plot for which, unsurprisingly, the paperwork is proving... elusive.

Yet, we are a democracy. We voted. We put these ______'s where they are.
We thought, choosing the lesser of two evils will make it a little less unbearable. But it won't, because it's not the people, but the system that's ineffective. Apart from the fact that the power without responsibility it offers acts as a magnet for every criminal, low-life, unqualified, and plain wrong person for the job... in the ensuing dirty fight the good people get sidelined.
If you want to win, you have to play the game, and playing the game makes us all the same.

So - and this is where the ideas begin - can we do something to make the filtration better? Make sure the right people reach the right positions?

1. Make a mandatory requirement for standing for elections - a blood relative in the armed forces. On active duty. The minute he gets a desk job, or retires, you're out.
What will this achieve? A little more responsibility towards those people and that institution that keeps the country safe. A budget cut that cancels snow boots for the Siachen troops will be more debatable when it's your son's toes that are amputated because of frostbite.

2. Minimal security. Let the ministers and functionaries be moved to quarters attached to the offices and government centers. Let them even bring their families. But Keep it basic, minimal, and only what's necessary. It's the center and the position that is to be protected, not the man occupying it. If he has to leave the proemises, privately, give him a two-man civilian security detail.
What will this achieve? Fewer unpopular decisions. Ignore an illegal slum for years, and someone will throw rotten eggs at you. Renege on your promises, and the man in the street will walk up to you and spit in your face.
What's that? Criminal elements have it so much easier to kill you now? Well, you should have thought of that when you were drawing up the police training and equipping bill, shouldn't you?

Let 'Serving the Public Trust' actually have some 'serving' in it. And for someone looking to make a fast buck - shouldn't you be thinking of something safer?

3. Link their salaries to the sensex.
What will this achieve? If the country does well, you make money. If the economy falters, so does your own direct take-home.

4. Delink the police from political control. Make them independent. Increase their salaries to the point you're comfortable that they won't take a bribe from Dawood to kill you. Increase their training and equipment to the point that they can protect you if someone decides to pick up an AK56. Let the military handle recruiting and training - but they have got to be a separate, independent entity.

5. Get back the RTI, but in a much more effective way. The Right To Information Act currently allows anyone to request information from the government. But how many know what to ask for, and if they do get it, what it means? Set up a specialist media team that reads, interprets and reports on existing policies and policies under debate. Let them talk about it in a language that the average man-on-the-street can understand. Set up centers that can liase between the government and the citizen to give what information is needed.

6. e-nable EVERYTHING. Every bill, petition, paper, file, request, order, document has to be online, and not just as a scan; the world's largest democratic machinery will need the mother of all SAP systems. But every single document must be traceable, at any time, by any person.

That's it for now. I do not know HOW this can be done. The people in power right now are the ones who have everything to lose if they change the status quo; we can't expect any help from them.

This is a call to anyone reading this - if you have ideas, suggestions, advice, or even if you just agree - think about it. Think of what we can do. Some of us will know, will figure out how to make it happen.
A candlelight vigil, a facebook page, an email forward, a petition, a satyagraha, a peace march - these are good things. These are necessary things. But don't let them remain just that.
Think.
Think of how we can make these ideas work.

And many of you will have brilliant, revolutionary, and most of all, workable ideas. Make them public. Make them known. If you know what should be done, someone else can tell you how. Just make sure they know.

Update 03/12/08: Facebook group is up.

The Spirit of Mumbai

2008-11-28T00:26:00.000-08:00

...is a sham.
There is no such thing.
When a Mumbai-ite gets back onto a local train the day after a bombing, gets back on the road after a flood, and resumes life in general - stop saluting 'the spirit of mumbai' that refuses to be cowed.
What option did he ever have, anyway?
The cost of living is astronomical. You live from month to month, hand to mouth. An unpaid week is a disaster, a month without a job, the end. Can you afford to lose even a few day's wages?
All the offices are in one place, and residential areas - at minimum - several kilometers away. And just 2-3 roads and a train line that connect the two. If you want to live near your workplace, you can afford it pretty much only if you own the workplace. The lower down the hierarchy you are, the further away you stay.

So how do you work? You commute. An hour, two, three, and on bad days, four or five hours of each day go in just getting from home to work and back. Usually via multiple methods - buses, trains, bikes, cabs, walking...

This is the spirit of mumbai. A complete lack of any alternatives. When the average man on the street can choose to continue life as usual - or kill his dreams and leave - or starve.
Some choice, huh?

Do I want to get back on the train, back on the road, back at work? No. I don't. But can I choose to stay at home? Can I choose to travel by any alternative means, take a different road, avoid the train stations, the crowds that are an automatic target? Yeah, right.
I can't not work. I can't not travel. I can't even not take the same route through the same places!
Life is so fast, and so compressed... it streamlines. People that can fit in with this, who can streamline themselves, stay - they who can't, leave. But the pace keeps increasing, and increasing, and increasing...
...and you all know what happens when something at high speed twitches.

The whole machinery is racing along a catastrophe curve, a hundred miles an hour. We've been lucky so far - but we're living on borrowed time. What happened so far is nothing compared to what's coming, and coming it is.
Make no mistakes. It's just a matter of time now.

shaping dreams

2008-10-23T00:49:00.000-07:00

not being figurative here.
had a nightmare last night that was actually disturbing enough to wake me up, and sit for a while with the light on. I could still feel it's aftereffects - the shadows, the dry whisper in my ear, that sense of gut-freezing terror...
Then I thought, if I find this so scary, I can use this.
So I wrote on it. Turned it into a fairly complete ghost story, with a central character, setting, mood, reasoning, logic.
And as I did it, I felt the terror melt away. Turn into a research project. I felt my mind catch hold of the darkness, twist it into a shape of my own choosing. Make it mine.
This was fun. Can't wait for the next one.
And yes... write a good final version. Soon.

Attack of the Pigeons - Biological War!

2008-10-16T00:17:00.000-07:00

The office is now being tortured by what is practically a biblical plague - swarms of tiny flying insects, apparently hatching out from either dirt trapped in keyboards or from dustbins / under carpets. Initially everyone thought it was an optical illusion, just tiny black dots on the monitor screens.

Then, like a witch rumor in Salem, or a Bill Clinton sexual harassment accusation, all it took was for one person to speak out and the cacophony of voices agreeing and supporting was deafening.

Calling Pest Control - a venture confounded by the fact that till date, nobody except this team has been able to see the flying freaks.

I suggested dousing the whole area in Baygon.

And if that doesn't work, there's an opening for an imposing old man with a large white beard, robe, and staff. Similarity in looks to Charlton Heston will be a bonus.

Biological Warfare!

The source of the insects has been identified - it's the latest weapon in the ancient war between humans and pigeons.

Evil Pigeon Mastermind

The pigeons had colonized our AC ducts, and we would hear them scuttling around - but we never imagined that this is what they were up to. All the while we ignored them and turned a deaf ear to their scratchings, they were breeding mites and showering them down upon our unsuspecting heads.

Never mind Charlton Heston. We now need a crack team of the known experts in duct-crawling search-and-destroy missions. Bruce Willis and Sigourney Weaver - vacancies are now open! Bring your own weaponry of choice, or fill in a Capex form and submit to Priscilla on the 5th floor.

the wind on my face blows through my mind as well, like a hurricane

2008-10-12T22:57:00.000-07:00

Feel... cleared.
Every day is the first day of the rest of my life.
Every day could be the last day of the rest of my life.
Thought that these would conflict, but they don't. Surprisingly.

There's always going to be things to do, and always things you wish you had done, and always things not done because other things were being done - but it doesn't matter, really.
That's the secret. The number of things that really matter, is very, very low. It's easy to do them. They don't have deadlines and expiry dates, they don't need preparation, they don't need investment.

Once you think this - once you believe this, deep down, it makes all the rest easy. You don't worry anymore. You don't run after illusionary mirages. Things always seem to work out, because you never compromised on what was important to begin with - unimportant stuff becomes irrelevant all by itself, and you can just spring-clean it. Important stuff gets done, and adds to your life.

Do what you really want. Know what you really want. Translate it into what you do. And...

No worries, mate.

pink haze

2008-10-07T00:06:00.000-07:00

Background to the story –

Website is changed to bright, shocking, eye-watering, soul-searing, mind-numbing PINK.

My status message becomes: pielphobic.

"pielphobia" , which means a fear of pink elephants. And let us assume that pink elephants do exists, are little and absolutely harmless.

And it is immediately understood.

Oxy: ponk elephant pink elephant pink elephant

Oxy Mitra is offline.

Myco: you are brilliant!!!

Oxy: no. google is my phrand

Myco: i know

but what is ponk elephant?

Oxy: one that narrowly missed being pink

Myco: ah

you have created a new word today

and it shall be duly added to my lexicon

Oxy: thank you thank you

Myco: ponk (p-aw-n-k) : something that is close to, but not exactly, pink; something that narrowly avoids being pink; nicole ritchie

Oxy: lolllllll

alt. oriya cool, equivalent of punk in common usage

Myco: loll

lolll

lolllllllllllllllllllllll

Oxy: all thanks to the person who said " baithe baithe edition ko phok kar diya tumne"

Myco: ahhh - the offspring of a fuck and a poke and a phoonk

Oxy: but i like ponk

Myco: me too

Oxy: when you're almost recovered from an illness, you say i'm in the ponk of health

in a ponk haze

spoof film, ponk panther

Myco: ponk slip

Oxy: the possibilities are immense

Myco: can we get some kind of a cash award for this?

enriching the english language?

Oxy: we should

ponk politics

sound so cool

Myco: ponko commie

Oxy: the ponk brigade

Myco: ponk gin

Oxy: yesssss

and then of course there will be wannabe rockstar ponks

you are such a ponk

Myco:

Ponk it´s my new obsession
Ponk it´s not even a question
Ponk on the lips of your lover, ´cause
Ponk is the love you discover
Ponk as the bing on your cherry
Ponk ´cause you are so very
Ponk it´s the color of passion
`Cause today it just goes with the fashion
Ponk it was love at first sight, yea
Ponk when I turn out the light, and
Ponk gets me high as a kite
And I think everything is going to be all right
No matter what we do tonight
You could be my flamingo
´Coz ponk is the new kinda lingo
Ponk like a deco umbrella
It´s kink - but you don´t ever tell her
Ponk it was love at first sight
Ponk when I turn out the light
Ponk gets me high as a kite
And I think everything is going to be all right
No matter what we do tonight
I want to be your lover
I wanna wrap you in rubber
As ponk as the sheets that we lay on
Ponk is my favorite crayon, yeah
Ponk it was love at first sight
Ponk when I turn out the light
Ponk it´s like pink but not quite
And I think everything is going to be all right
No matter what we do tonight

google is my phrand too

Oxy: ohhhhhhhh

this is the best

:) :)

Myco: :D

Oxy: this should go online

Myco: it shall

down the funnel

2008-09-30T21:25:00.001-07:00

Is there any indicator that tells you when it's time to stop sticking to your principles, because they're wrong?

There've been times when I had been severely tempted - it's all too easy, and the kind of economy we have exploding around makes it not only easy to do, but also motivates - and your friends, your peers, people that you look up to, people you can't stand, and people that occupy zero mindspace - all create a set of conscious and subconscious standards. That's the motivator - that's what you try to live up to, because if you can't do even that, what use is all this anyway? And it is possible to do that, without compromising on what you believe in.
But recently, it's been getting harder and harder. The collateral damage is increasing, and I'm risking more than I want to lose in this. Maybe it is time to rethink the way I've looked at life - and let's face it, it's old-fashioned. Nobody does that kind of shit anymore. Maybe I'm obsolete. Maybe I'm doing the smart thing.

But one thing is true, though - options and decisions will come a lot easier once your back's to the wall.

Heppy burd day.

2008-09-26T04:03:00.000-07:00

It's interesting to see how the number of non-human wishers has been steadily mounting over the years, and how they keep getting increasingly bizarre.

A brightly lit morning, as you nurse your hangover and wish you were dead, a perky young thing runs past in shorts and sweatband and chirps at you -
Spark people - "Don't count your years. Make your years count."

A group photo, sepia-toned, speaks out from the wall -
Batchmates.com - "We wish you a life time of success in finding great friends, peace, happiness & prosperity."

Vijay Mallaya, on the Indian Empress, in a tux flanked by assorted PYTs, raises his glass to me as champagne corks pop and streamers flutter -
King Club - "May you enjoy the good times not only today, but through all your days ahead."

Juhi Chawla, surrounded by backup dancers dressed as village belles, cops, animals, dakus, waitresses, and the mandatory line of firang tourists in shorts and bemused-but-vastly-amused expressions -
Seventymm - "Baar baar din ye aaye, tum jiyo hazaron saal, yeh humai hai arzoo. Happy birthday to you!"

Dark, quiet room, with a single table lamp shining on a empty tabletop in which a pair of scarred, heavy hands are visible.
Airtel. "The family wishes you a very happy birthday. We hope the year ahead is wonderful for you."
The next message said my payment was overdue.
What's next - a horse's head in my bed?

Tent with a crystal ball and a deranged, overexcited gypsy.
Bethea from tarot.com - "Birthdays should be a time of blossoming and it looks as if you have a wonderful year ahead."
She also warned me if I don't act now by buying her $18.95 detailed advice, I could miss this golden opportunity and forever ruin my life.

Open the door of my apartment, late at night after a bad day, and full family leaps out in matrimonial regalia accompanied by daughter and garland.
Shaadi.com simply yells - "Surprise!"

It keeps getting better. 11 months and my profile hasn't activated is the background to the image of the Cryptkeeper cackling with glee in a dark firelit, cobwebby cellar -
Times - "May your journey with us only grow longer, ahahahahahahaaaaa!!"

And as Oxy says - I'm just waiting for the next mail -
"I'm just an automated spammer program from Norway but I wish you had a bigger dick..."

Remember Yesterday

2008-09-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

We've had our share of hard times, but that's the price we paid
And through it all, we kept the promise that we made

Through the sleepless nights, through every endless day
I'd wanna hear you say, I remember you.

A moment. Purple twilit sky, heavy with the promise of rain. Wind sweeping through the streets, the smell of sea. A single palm tree, lit orange in the sodiums, waving wildly. Free.
Traffic didn't matter anymore. The worries, the troubles - everything that had been preying on my mind like a dead weight - melted away, like it had never existed. I was as free as that tree in the twilight, leaves in the wind.
And I saw what I was becoming. How I was so caught up in every day that I'd forgotten to see the end of the road, where I was going with this. So lost in the trees, I couldn't see the forest.

I remember you. I remember how you used to be, how you used to think. How you used to feel. To live. Somewhere down this long road, I'd forgotten.

But I remember you now.

There are times when we need to step back. Regain perspective. See where we are, where we're going. Remember the people we used to be, the people we wanted to be.

And I'll remember you.

And I'll be you.

And I am you.

back on track

2008-09-02T00:06:00.000-07:00

Things are looking up.

Thought I'd gotten badly jacked last month - our God Of All Things, the Almighty Finance, had miscalculated my taxes - giving me five months of grossly inflated salary and no questions asked; all very well and good, and deeply if silently appreciated, until it's July and time to file your IT returns and hey, you know what? you're screwed, buddy, you're dead meat, roadkill on the gravy train. (trackkill?)

But ok, still on track. A diet of chana for the next 6 months and I'll be fine. Good, too in a way; all the crazy eating out will get controlled.

Surprising how, at the time when you most need to save, you have the max unexpected expenses? It's like the universe knows that this is the only time you can afford this jhatka.

used to think it would be so easy

2008-08-19T21:15:00.000-07:00

Windin' your way down on Baker Street
Light in your head and dead on your feet
Well another crazy day
You'll drink the night away
And forget about everything
This city desert makes you feel so cold.
It's got so many people but it's got no soul
And it's taking you so long
To find out you were wrong
When you thought it had everything

You used to think that it was so easy
You used to say that it was so easy
But you're tryin'
You're tryin' now
Another year and then you'll be happy
Just one more year and then you'll be happy
But you're cryin'
You're cryin' now

Way down the street there's a lad in his place
He opens the door he's got that look on his face
And he asks you where you've been
You tell him who you've seen
And you talk about anything

He's got this dream about buyin' some land
He's gonna give up the booze and the one night stands
And then he'll settle down there's a quiet little town
And forget about everything

But you know he'll always keep movin'
You know he's never gonna stop movin
Cus he's rollin'
He's the rollin' stone

And when you wake up it's a new mornin'
The sun is shinin' it's a new morning
You're goin'
You're goin' home.

Wish I could. There is no home, now - no place where I can get away from this - have to deal with it here.
Why'd it have to be such an issue, man... the whole world and it's great-uncle has their opinion.
Attrition
feeling myself getting ground down
little bit at a time
outside in and inside out

2008-08-03T23:10:00.000-07:00

I've got off the 6:30 slow to Andheri, and I'm walking down the platform towards the exit. An old man is walking towards me, slowly shuffling. He has a bandage around his head, from which a clear, transparent tube emerges. It loops over his head and ends in a square of sticking plaster embedded on the side of his nose, leading back into his head. He seems to be directly inhaling his own cranial fluid.
I watch him shuffle past and get lost in the crowd. He doesn't look around, just keeps going, staring down at the ground.

memories

2008-07-12T01:07:00.000-07:00

I have two phones - one that I use, and the older one that lies collecting dust except when used in emergencies.
Took it out today for the trip - don't want to risk damaging a slider - and was scrolling through the old SMS's.

You can't experience this if you delete all of them - but old SMS's are like photographs, like an old note passed to you in college now found buried deep inside some junk during a spring cleaning... years later, that one short message can evoke so many memories, faces, experiences. Emotions.
It's... bittersweet. Pain, hope, agony and ecstasy, anger, love, encouragement, frustration... each message is a bud, unopened, of a completely different life path that never blossomed. An experiential seed.

And I read them, and I remember the faces, the words, what I had dreamed of, what I had feared... and what still makes me cringe today... and what makes me proud.

It's a unique, fleeting, medium, transient as the proverbial snowflake in hell. What is the lifespan of an SMS? Days, at most. Finding these... a sudden rush of nostalgia.
You can't save them, or wait for them, or expect them. They were never planned.
They just happen.
Remember how transient life itself is. The most secure investment may disappear... and the most random, unexpected castoff can survive.
And bring a much larger benefit.

climatic catastrophe

2008-06-17T00:41:00.000-07:00

Me:

there are cold cold breezes

my spine, it simply freezes

the chill, it just not eases

while this daikin zephyr teases
the ac does what it pleases
my fingertips wrinkle into creases

my each and every breath seizes

with coughs, and colds, and wheezes

Praddy:

and i am sitting in absolute humid climate

no power in office
I need excuses to not cut you in to pieces and feed you to the fishes

New Office - First Impressions

2008-06-03T03:49:00.000-07:00

In a word - Russlandfeldzug!

The Eastern Front, 1941-1945. German invasion of Russia.

Hitler's invasion of Russia had many similarities. There are sub-zero temperatures, and the TIL army is wrapping up in furs, big furry hats and greatcoats, shivering and turning blue in the chill mist that hangs in the air from the overenthusiastic air-conditioning.

Because there's no canteen, and it's just too blisteringly hot outside, food is at a perennial shortage. Famine stalks the cubicles. Biscuits, choc bars and other snacks are fought over viciously.

In between the fights for food, the army huddles around cigarettes; the nearest cig shop is outside the compound, a nice long walk away. Cigs are also running short and have become a precious commodity.

Communications are faltering and intermittent; the 1 Gbps connections struggle against a firewall that must have been the Berlin Wall in a past life.

Sporadic fusillades of ringtones echo deafeningly around the office like artillery, as the intercom system is configured while the phones are stuck on maximum ringtone volume.

More reports shall be forthcoming, if I am to survive this terrible June winter...

alt+ctrl+del

2008-05-31T06:50:00.000-07:00

My friend, the computer.

They're as much a part of my life as anything else. I interact with them, work with them, play with them, put up with their megrims and vapors, their tantrums and brilliance.

Which makes me think - what have they taught me?

There is no problem that cannot be resolved with a simple shut down and restart. Take a breather. Look at what's important. Clear out the unnecessary clutter hogging your head. Make a fresh start. You might lose some work, but nothing that can't be redone.
You cannot multitask to infinity. If there's some stuff that can be done, do it. Too much will slow you down, grind you to a halt.
Save frequently. Anything can happen anytime, power can go out of your life, anything can happen. Take precautions.
Backup and Protect. The world is full of malicious people creating malicious ways to hurt you just for their own fame or money. The more you explore the world, the more you expose yourself to it's dangers; keep a good shield. Don't lose what you value. Burn DVDs regularly.
Equip yourself. There are things that you need to have to experience the best of what life has to offer, in safety. You need an AGP card, a DVD burner, HDD space, RAM, speakers. Spend some money. It's worth it.
Explore. What you started with is fine, but to really realize your potential, go out there, see, experiment.
Everything costs money, more than you thought. But there are shortcuts, hacks, ways of working around it.
There will always be less time than you think. Don't lose sleep doing inane timepass.
Organize. All the information in the world is useless unless you know where to get it. If your stuff is in a mess, it's worse than useless. It's negative, draining time and energy and mental peace without any results.
Once in a while, disaster will strike. Something so bad, terrible, unexpected that you were completely unready, and your life's work will be wiped out. But you don't give up at that. You sit down, take a deep breath, and type a simple little command.

Format C:
Warning! This will wipe out ALL information on your disk drive! Proceed? Y / N
Y

And sit back calmly, light a cig, and flush away everything - everything that was diseased, corrupted, dangerous, malicious. If you've been careful, the really important things - your music, movies, books, pictures, writings, and job - are safe, burned on a DVD somewhere. Your friends, their conversations, ids, everything is still out there. This is just a breathing space, a time to recoup, reorganize, and recover before you explode back out in the world.
Watch the counter reach 100%. Label your drive. Look at the dark screen, and think of the time, long ago, when in the darkness, there was a Word. One Word, said in the right directory, from where everything began.

And that Word was...

setup

time flies when you're having fun

2008-05-27T00:47:00.000-07:00

what happened to the last six years?
getting old. when i was 18 i had all the time in the world to do everything... now running out of it to do stuff i had right up there at the top of the priority list.
i guess that's the biggest difference between a beginning and a middle, between 6 pm and midnite when you pull an all-nighter.
knowing the score is never a pleasant experience
someday i guess i'll thank me for what i'm doing today. but still - it may the right thing to have done, but is that the right thing to do? right now?
a future for a present. can i lose both?
a present. the future will follow?
attach too much importance to things. don't attach any.
right things. wrong things.
neither. both. any.

every minute gone won't ever come back
going now
so much i wanted to do - where did the time go?

game on!

2008-05-19T00:59:00.000-07:00

My TV table has started resembling my PC room - enough cabling to build a fully functional elephant hammock, and LEDs that, if not the bridge of the Enterprise-D, are at least good enough for the Reliant.
Borrowed a PS2 and picked up a second joystick, discovered a new (good) games supplier, and I'm all set for the summer vacations, had I had any. Man I miss summer vacations. Nothing I want more than, not much, just a few weeks of AC, PC, PS2, and gametime.
Do I buy a PS3? or an Xbox? Am beginning to see the benefits of a dedicated gamesystem - consoles let you switch onto a game instantly. No bootups, no switching off inessential apps, no messenger windows popping up, and no Blue Screen Of Death. On the other hand... I do need to buy an engagement ring.
Decisions, decisions...

Roommate has acquired a 3-DVD set of Mr Bean, and we have just the single TV.

I'm also converting every plugpoint into a lethal firetrap, begging for a short. Pray with me, as I appease Raiden.

anachorismization

2008-05-17T01:54:00.000-07:00

2001: A Space Odyssey.

It's fascinating to see old movies made about the future. This was done in the (fifties? sixties?) and while being completely groundbreaking in the central premise, nontheless looks incredibly outdated when you read between the lines. When you look at all the cultural assumptions built in.

2001 is already almost a decade past. We don't have Jupiter missions, or passenger shuttles, or Clavius base. But we do have human-machine interfaces that are generations ahead. Everything is... so much smaller. Buttons. Computers. Cameras. Food trays. Furniture. Everything.

At the time it was made, the movie looked very futuristic because the cultural bias was invisible - like looking at crystal in water. Cultural bias, when seen in the culture it belongs to, is impossible to see. Half a century later, the crystal's changed color, and sticks out like a sore thumb.

Text is HUGE. Displays, labels, buttons... diagrams are 2-color. Every screen is a 14-inch, and large displays are a matrix of multiple screens. With gaps in between to prevent gaussian blur :)

It got me thinking - there always will be some rules that can hold true for all sci-fi for a long time, given where we are now.

1. No artificial gravity. The benefits far outweigh the cost. apart from the resources wasted in terms of energy, look at the wasted space! Walls, ceiling and floor should be interchangeable. Footfall had that right, at least.

2. No large empty spaces. Not even cargo holds. At the max, maybe a net system outside where the cargo containers can be moored; that much empty space is just a waste of air, light, heat. No big roomy corridors, just crawlspaces and passages. No rooms, just bunks.

3. Minimal manned EVA. Everything to be remote-controlled, waldos and VR.

4. VR, VR, and VR. When you're in space, you are the ship. You need to move around inside and outside the ship as little as possible; ideally, the entire journey should happen with you plugged into the ship systems, floating in a life-support tube.

5. No High-speed maneuvers and stunts, at least in the immediate timeline; wastes far too much fuel.
6. Aliens will not be hominid, and most probably not even bipedal. Probably not organic either.

7. Space war will last days at the very most, and will result in complete annihilation or unconditional surrender, just because each side will have weapon technology so different from the other that any faceoff will be a race to find that one tech that the other can't counter. So 'war' will not be soldiers, fighters and lasers; it'll be espionage, crackers, viruses, and decryption tech.
8. Further down the timeline, there will be only supercomputers talking to each other.
9. Time travel will be possible, but each instant it's done, the time-traveller will be in a different universe. So you can't change your past, just someone else's.
10. Everything will be cordless, wireless, and batteries will never run out.

Unlike my laptop who's dying even as we speak. Ciao.

the bears ARE real

2008-05-03T01:56:00.000-07:00

you know how it goes, right? step on a crack in the sidewalk, and invisible bears that wait around the corner for you to do just that will appear and eat you up?

I don't believe it for sidewalks; but the bathroom is a different story.

There ARE bears hiding between the cracks. They DO eat the people that aren't careful about where they put their feet.

look at that. you can see the man being eaten. he's got a reeally scrawny neck, and the lower half of his jaw is visible; you can even see a few of his teeth, beneath the blood grimed around his mouth. he either bit his lips clean though, or they got chewed off; his ear's missing as well; a lot of blood caked on the side of his face.
as for the rest... well, it's just bear. can you see the top of the bear's head? he seems to be frowning in concentration, engrossed on apparently tearing the guy's nose off, or maybe just cracking the skull his mouth.

why can I see this, now, after six months of living in this house? maybe my left brain - right brain connections are opening up. creativity translating into cognition and articulation.

or maybe, the bears are coming to life. maybe there were there all along.

people that are about to die can see Death, the skeleton with the scythe, the girl with the ankh. does this mean I'm going to be eaten up, real soon?

Auto strike. Ahahaha.

2008-04-21T22:10:00.000-07:00

Andheri Station at 8:30 a.m., peak rush hour.

Believe it or not.

An auto rickshaw strike today in Mumbai and Life Is Beautiful. The streets are empty, traffic jams are a thing of the distant past like a bad dream, it takes a grand total of seven minutes to reach the station... Why can't life be usually like this? When I return to home tonight I have every expectation that the streets will be equally clear.

Hopefully, this should make people realize they don't really need so many autos. And the suburbs will be as pleasant as Town, henceforth and forever... I wish.

men are dogs

2008-04-10T06:57:00.000-07:00

and now Sandoz has unequivocally endorsed that sentiment. Check out the packaging for the men's and women's calcium tablet jars -

What can I say but Woof! Woof!

product life cycle like never before

2008-04-07T03:26:00.000-07:00

Today, dear pagecount contributor, let me tell you about my washing machine.

My washing machine suffers from habitual and copious incontinence.

My washing machine groans like a ghoul at odd intervals.

My washing machine cannot take water on it's own, and needs to be put on a separate hose like an IV drip for every wash.

Because of this, it needs constant watching and supervision to make sure the pipe doesn't fall out and sprays water all over my comp. My washing machine, perversely, will start it's wash cycle exactly when I step out of the room in nicotine-starved frustration, with a flatulent rumble followed by a merry splish-splash, causing me to twitch violently at a crucial juncture while leaning sideways over the gas (since the matches are soaked) and singeing my eyebrows.

My washing machine needs a special support stand in order to be moved around, to be able to reach the bathroom drain.

My washing machine displays all the vibrancy of an epileptic seizure in the spin cycle. A vibrancy that knocks it off its castors and upon my unsuspecting feet, whilst partly-spin-dried clothing flies about in wild abandon.

My washing machine is an old, old man, on it's deathbed.

Had it owned large property, or even a hall-kitchen south of Boriviali, I would have been standing over it with will and pen and large, comforting smile.

"If you hate your washing machine so much," asked HR, who was just recently introduced to the joys of new-ownerhood of a brand-new IFB, "why don't you just buy a new one?"

A new machine, it is true, would be young, vibrant, and eager to please with a hint of smug superiority, like an MBA with 1 year's work ex. It will, like Sharman Joshi in Metro, take away all my troubles and resolve them. It may not get me laid as well in the bargain, but with the kind of tech Siemens is putting in it's machines these days, you never know.

But the truth is - I like this one. It's more paisa-vasool entertainment than a Mithun-da film festival. Washing day is lookied forward to with dread, trepidation, and a fluttering int he stomach weeks in advance. Jeans are re-re-re-used until they're insufferably obscenely filthy, and therefore last decades. Office shirts are guarded like Kohinoor diamonds to avoid the slightest speck of dirt. Underclothing contributes to many new species for alien scientists to discover and theorize about the evolution and origin thereof, billions of years from now, by creating independent, individual biospheres. Curtains become bulletproof with mold, mildew and dust, and that too at no extra cost. Enough electricity is saved to power rural Maharashtra for at least a week, which is why I was able to watch DishTV at the end of the Lohagadh trek while savoring a nice hot chai and ciggie out of the pouring rain.

So, such is my life and that of my washing machine.

Even talking about it makes me feel clean.

Is it not the most amazing machine you've seen?

It's lean, mean, and even ecologically green.

Other machines, they look obscene,

When compared. Wah. What a scene!

looking back

2008-04-01T02:00:00.001-07:00

If another myself could meet me today, he would be fairly sandbagged as well.

Life has been... interesting. Most of all, in the way things have changed. I used to think, sometimes, a while back, what I would be growing into, what I would become.

The truth, as they say, is usually stranger than fiction. The 18-yr-old Ashish had some ideas about what he was going to grow up into... and not a few dark suspicions. On the whole, I think it's the suspicions that have been vindicated. But in a good way. I've pretty much gone ahead and done everything I wanted to, and got everything I'd hoped for. Then.

In the long look back - it's been almost frighteningly good. Even the bad bits have the golden glow of nostalgia around them now. Wonder if it's a case of selective perception, or actually paying attention to the stuff that mattered that's pulled it off, putting me in a life that, to say the least, rocks.

I am the...

2008-03-12T01:07:00.000-07:00

You are The Devil

Materiality. Material Force. Material temptation; sometimes obsession

The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.

Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

discovering archetypes

2008-03-11T09:33:00.000-07:00

Everything... begins.
This... began over an inconsideration. On a shared 30-Kbps wireless line, bandwidth is precious; and as with any limited resource, there need to be rules to manage them, to prevent the whole system from collapsing. And when the rules are broken, there are... reactions. Solutions.
.

Gaiman was unknown to me except as a co-author, the other half of a superlative fantasy-spinner. From that one book followed another, and another... and the whole exploration may have ended there, but for... a few images. Images that prompted me to risk one, just one more experiment.

It gave me a name.

And one night, when the rulebreaker was away, a parallel method was found. An alternative. A chastisement.

A revenge.

The name was, then, inconsequential. It just floated along, and was pinned to the board as an as-good-as-any candidate.

The torrent completed its download.

And on a quiet tuesday evening, I discovered The Sandman.

.
I'm only 3 stories down, and already I can feel myself being drawn into that universe. Pictures move, faint sounds, scents. Depth.

Time.

Impact.
And most of all, it's so familiar. Like a racial memory, an archetype.

The Matrix. Morpheus. Neo. The black. Everything you see is a dream, and The One is the awakener.

Stephen King's Randall Flagg. The world that had moved on. The Tower. Alternate realities.

MIB. There are hidden truths, hidden stories all around you. Nothing is what it seems to be.

Illuminati.

The Man.

John Constantine.

The face in the crowd, for just a second, that looks right at you. Eyes meet. The shock, the subconscious recognition. Then it's gone, and no matter how hard you search, you can never find it again.
Walking through them all, is the same image.
.

The Endless.

The Man In Black.

How to build a Generation Starship

2008-03-06T02:30:00.000-08:00

Just read Mayflower II recently. it's probably been the best ever description of how a generation starship would actually work in practice, just like the Odyssey series were the best ever in the hibernation-tech travel. And if you think about it, it does make sense - unless you have a habitat the size of a continent, civilization will stagnate, degrade. You can't think in terms of weeks, months, years, even decades; can we plan centuries?

In that small a space, you have to think of not technical, not psychological, not even social issues. You have to think in civilizations. I see a whole new brand of ship's doctor coming up.

Hm - I guess I'm also beginning to see the reason for the holodeck and Deanna Troi, beyond the obvious eyecandy.

Conversely, if we have continent-sized habitats capable of interstellar travel, it makes the point kinda moot. Where do you go, when all you want is already here? Nobody would ever leave; any planet would always come a poor second to the ship itself. You could have roaming generation ships that travel to seed, and move on. Factoring in wear-and-tear issue resolution, of course. Or you could have seeders whose only purpose is to reach the next destination only to rebuild their ship, leave behind descendants, and move on.

Niven's Ringworld is a generation starship taken to the other extreme - a habitat that outclasses any source or destination at an exponential level.

Which brings us back to the Civilization Planner. We would either need supremely long-lived human beings, or Pak. Or we would need automated systems and frozen chromosomes, and independent failsafes of frozen repairmen when things went wrong.

That's possible. Shit, that's possible. We can start reaching the stars the day we have a reliable freezing tech.

Here's another alternate. One mother system that runs the ship. Multiple gene banks. Multiple equipment garages. And multiple independent modules whose only function would be to synthesize and grow trained repair personnel from the gene banks purely when the rest of the systems collapsed so catastrophically that they went out of the parameters of the autosystems. Sure, it'll take years to get the workers - but that's nothing in a journey span of millenia.

Interesting to think of what they would do afterwards, though.

Hmmm...

Gaming - the next level

2008-03-04T01:44:00.000-08:00

Most probably a hoax, but lookit the completely awesome concept. Reality Gaming.

Game puts player into trance, then evil mastermind game coordinator puts player into game. A zombie FPS is replicated in real life in a warehouse, and knocked-out players are put in. Watch them wake up, the completely disbelieving 'this-is-not-happening' look slide into near-madness when the zombies start making their appearance.

Also says a lot of how people react. It took him just a few seconds to start shooting at the people. I can't even say he's adapting to the situation because he's not taking the classic approach to zombies as popularized in hundreds of movies - i.e., zombies can be disposed of by removing the head or destroying the brain - but not a single headshot do we see. He's just opening full-on fire at anyone and everyone. Including the game coordinator, despite his obviously non-zombie look.

Maybe there is some truth in the studies that correlate violent behaviour to games; sadly, one more thing that come through all to clearly is how educational content - removing the head or destroying the brain - tends to be completely discarded in stressful situations.

gamers: catchin 'em young!

2008-03-03T03:35:00.001-08:00

The kid on the left must be, what, three? Four, max? His head is at the same level as his controller... and he still drives better than me, with a twenty-five year head start.

The boy has a future, mmm?

Not to miss the sibling rivalry at play; the elder one on the right hogs the Xbox, while the younger is fobbed off with a PS2.

Going Postal 2.0

2008-02-26T00:45:00.001-08:00

Can't remember the last game that made me fall off my chair laughing, ROTFL. After the failure of Quake Wars, Carmagaeddon, and Manhattan Project, I was fairly skeptical of even getting this to work... hah! Worked first time, as a pleasant surprise. No codes to hunt, cracks to download.
[Current score: Colaba Pavement 3, uTorrent 2.]
The graphics are a bit old; I remember playing the original 2D Postal back in '95, so this can't have been too far ahead, though the responsiveness of the Unreal engine is awesome. But it's a laugh riot because of the twisted, fast, and completely bonkers sense of humour that it overflows with.
'Save a Tree, Burn a Book.'
'Did you place an offering in the Donation Box? Then you are Forgiven.'
The ability to stick your shotgun up a cat's bum to use as a makeshift silencer.
The only, and repeat, ONLY, game in history I have played where I can pee on people.
The Church or Our Lady of Infinite Avarice, disgorging boomstick-toting priests to take on Osama clones.
Me getting captured by hillibillies and waking up... in the Gimp's leather suit, in his trunk.

The physics engine isn't up to HL2 standards, sadly; if you kick a corpse, there's a good chance it'll stick halfway in a wall, straight-edged and angular, until kicked again, and the 'rag-doll' effects are bit too ragdoll. Bloodsmears too smeary. Textures crude.

But is still so totally awesomely rocks. When will they build the next version with the HL2 engine?! :)

Though on a serious note, it kind of gets you thinking. This game is violent, disgusting, bloody, and disrespectful. And it's precisely for those reasons that it'll be loved by it's target audience. Even the protestors, most of the time, object on the basis of an idea, or a principle. A stereotype. Games are bad, they make you mad.

Does the human psyche actively seek out violence? Since the Deterrence principle effectively stopped war for the First-world nations, and now all nuclear nations, crime rates have been rising. I don't know if it's been directly since then, but it's close enough. Is crime - and all other forms of both real and virtual violence - a direct expression of the need to fight, and frustration at not being able to?

In primitive cultures, kids start fighting by fifteen. In more advanced societies, it's later, but the promise - and conditioning - begins from much earlier. It's only now, in the developed countries, that kids grow up knowing that, in a legitimate, socially acceptable way, fighting - violence - is not permitted, and never will be. Does that block off some outlet, some safety valve?

Notice how the US homicides graph spikes with the end of the last major war the US was involved in? I guess we'll know for sure when VR tech advances to the point that virtual violence is indistinguishable from the real. If actual crime rates drop - I'm vindicated.

In the meantime, I continue to go on a murderous citizen-hunting spree... and it's only Wednesday.

Roses are red, but V-Day is blue.

2008-02-21T22:55:00.000-08:00

Please excuse general ranting post. But that's what I'm blogging for anyway, so if you don't like, take hike.

Feb 3rd: Order placed at Rediff.com. Delivery to be done on 14th.
Feb 14th:Not delivered.
Feb 18th:
From:Ashish Tewari
Date: Monday, February 18, 2008 03:26 PM
To: customersupport@rediff.co.in
Subject: Complaint: Order No: 4384440
Hi, I wanted to bring to your attention the following order, which was placed on Date:2008-02-07 for delivery on Valentine's Day. As of today (18th), it is still showing as pending. Should I have specified that I meant Valentine's Day 2008 and not 2009?
Order No: 4384440 Order Status :Approved
What's the next step from here? Has the cost been charged to me?
Feb 19th:
From: Support
To: Ashish Tewari Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2008 9:42 PM
Subject: [Possible SPAM] RE:'Rediff=008-094-395' Complaint: Order No: 4384440
Dear Ashish,
Greetings from Rediff.com With reference to your mail, we would like to inform you that the item ordered against the Order No : 4384440 , has been delivered to the delivery address.
Assure you of prompt and courteous response on all your visits to Rediff.com
Warm Regards,
PG
Customer Service
Rediff. Com
P.S: Please do not change the subject line for future correspondence .

Dear ABVP / Shiv Sainiks / Miscellaneous Lumpen Elements: Please update your calendars. Valentine's Day will henceforth be celebrated on the 19th of February, courtesy Rediff.com.

From: Ashish Tewari
Date: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 11:37 AM
To: Support (customersupport@rediff.co.in)
Subject: Re: [Possible SPAM] RE: Complaint: Order No: 4384440
Delivery on the 19th for a festival on the 14th, even after the order has been booked 10 days in advance of the festival, is not counted as fulfilling customer satisfaction. You need to add a disclaimer that 'Product may be delivered up to 5 days after scheduled date' to avoid false representation and consumer court issues. I am very, very disappointed with the quality of Rediff's service. The recipient needs to receive this ON the day it is supposed to be delivered. What's the point of delivering it 5 days late? Are you suggesting that I need to celebrate Valentine's day, or a birthday, or any other occasion on the day they happen, or as per Rediff's convenience? I'm interested in hearing what is even the remotest justification you have for delivery of a Valentine's Day gift on the 19th. I may as well not have placed the order with Rediff. I have to put up with the consequences of not gifting on the 14th, then seeing my money go down the drain, and then be told that the delivery has been done late, without any apology or reason. Why should I gift flowers on the 19th of February? I already look bad for not giving on the 14th. Now an incompetent vendor screws it up even more by then doing a delivery a week later!

In fact, let me correct my above point. I am not interested in finding out why Rediff chooses to celebrate Valentine's Day on the 19th. As far as I am concerned, the order of a Valentine's Day Flowers was not executed. I did not order 'Flowers to be delivered on the 19th of February for no reason'. I am therefore assuming that my order placed has not been executed, and I want my order cancelled and my money back.

Grrrr.

From: Support
To: Ashish Tewari
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 10:12 PM
Subject: [Possible SPAM] RE:'Rediff=008-094-395' Complaint: Order No: 4384440
Dear Ashish,
Greetings from Rediff.com
We have received your mail and understand every reason for you being upset. We have made every attempts to deliver products on the intended date, however the same must have happened due to oversight by our enabling partners at the time of delivery.
They have attempted, but enabling partner screwed up. Interesting. Take the credit but pass the buck, in the same sentence!
We would not be able to meet the sentiment that you had intended to send along with a timely gift.
(at least, until we finish work on the rediff iTimeMachine 1.0 beta, I assume)
We truly understand the sentiments involved in your gifting. We request you to kindly bear with us this time, we are taking adequate measure to prevent any recurrence.
(by ensuring you don't have recurring customers?)
We once again sincerely regret the delay and inconvenience caused to you. We assure you courteous, prompt service on all your visits to www.rediff.com.
Warm Regards,
PG
Customer Service
Rediff. Com

And how was your V-day?

just when you thought it couldn't get any better....

2008-02-18T02:53:00.000-08:00

Guess who turns out to be in the wrecking business!
What's next? The Delilah franchise of hair salons?
I spoke to soon. They already are.
http://www.delilah-salon.com/

Now your chaetophobia can trigger your trichotillomania. Enjoy.

Back to the womb

2008-02-15T03:30:00.001-08:00

fuzzy

sleep-deprived lethargy

late nights

cacophonous mornings passing in a semi-dozing drift

office ac off

warm

moist air

like being back in the womb

would be if I were a set up quintuplets

with in-vitrio ipods

Mumbai for Maharashtrians?

2008-02-05T02:24:00.000-08:00

Jokes apart - I'm a northie who landed up in Bombay with 5k and nothing else, not so long ago. I got a job and a pg. That grew into a career, a flat, and a relationship. My bosses, co-workers, and friends have been non-Maharashtrians and Maharashtrians alike.

I've never had reason to complain, I haven't been discriminated against, and frankly, I've had an awesome time here. But... this city is drowning in people. Local populace from the hinterland and beyond, it's bursting at the seams with too many dreams, and not enough place for them all.

I'm an immigrant.

But I WILL oppose immigration when I hang out of trains. Pay exorbiant rents. Stand in serpentine queues. Sit in traffic jams. It doesn't matter who comes here. It matters a lot that he comes at all.

Sooner or later, it's all going to come down to economical natural selection. New companies will find it too expensive to set up shop in the city, so they'll come near it - near enough to use the workforce, but far enough to be affordable. The city will grow. And grow. And grow. Already it makes a lot of sense to change your residence according to where you work. Tomorrow, companies will factor in easily-commutable residential slots as part of the package for employees. And facilities and amenities. And the city will be a collection of _____ (insert company name here)-Nagars. Campuses, in the truest sense of the word.

We can't fight it. We can just try and make it easier, without the pressure cooker situations.

boo hoo

2008-02-05T00:53:00.000-08:00

Quake Wars won't run 'coz my AGP is underpowered. I can't upgrade my AGP card because my motherboard isn't compatible. I can't change my motherboard 'coz I then need to change my processor as well. I can't buy a 22-inch flatscreen monitor and a 7.1 GigaWorks system 'coz I don't have any games that'll justify it, and I can't buy those games 'coz my AGP won't run them.

For want of a kingdom, the nail was lost.

...and Bioshock refuses to install without an internet connection. For some reason, Tata Indicom broadband doesn't fall into Bioshock's definition of 'internet'.

can I bang my forehead on my pitiful 15-inch CRT now?

A moving story... moved!

2008-02-05T00:14:00.001-08:00

For all my loyal fans and faithful supporters who have been avidly following my trials and tribulations at the hands of the financial capital's treatment of it's denizens vis-a-vis translocation of residences, let me serve up to you, gently warmed, a multi-course repast of the aftermath of the move - where we are now.

Starters:

The PC Room

One room has been converted into a combination of gaming centre, server room, laundromat and travel office.

A cupboard threatens to explode from the accumalated pressure of souvenirs, trekking equipment, and half a dozen knapsacks and sleeping bags so tightly rolled up they threaten to achieve critical mass. Especially R's alpine sleeping bag, the best way to picture which is to imagine a regular Kurl-on mattress somehow squeezed into a gas cylinder. I can hear it groaning and vibrating under stress, sometimes.

The rest of the cupboard looks like Lamington road, where my entire paraphenelia of electronic spares and discards, now completely indistinguishable from each other, languish in wait of the Great TurboListing Day, when they shall go up for auction on ebay.

Next to which is a desk which is not actually alive, though you may be fooled by the way it hums, moves, chuckles and chirrups to itself, is warm to the the touch and exhales gustily on your knees when you sit down; that's what comes of having a CPU, two heatsinks, and a subwoofer in one confined space. There's a small hole in the desk which the original owner had intended for a genteel 2-3 cables for monitor, speakers, etc. It looks like a Lovecraftian revenant now, with over 20 cables of assorted thicknesses, colors and tensions coiling out of it. 2 monitor, 3 ext. HDD, 1 USB hub, 1 joystick, 6 speaker, 1 mouse, 1 gamepad receptor, 1 webcam, 2 router, 1 cam cable, 1 cardreader coming out; 1 network and 1 power going in; and don't even think of the interior, where there's also 2 extension boards. It gives local network engineers heart attacks. I counted yesterday - 17 LEDs operate at any point of time. It's a bloody spaceshuttle flight deck.

And while you sit down, behind you the washing machine, if on, provides a pleasant growling, thumping, drumming background score, with the occasional merry splish-splash of overflow when the pipe falls off or the exhaust hose leaks.

At nights, it's like being in a high-tech womb.

aimlessness...

2008-02-03T22:52:00.000-08:00

miss trekking. used to give me such a calm, fresh new perspective... too many things happening now, too much to do

Runaway 2

2008-02-01T01:42:00.000-08:00

Basically a glorified puzzle-solving game where you need to discover the sequence of using items found, talking to people, and picking up on past clues. What I really liked about this was the intensely rich, immersive experience - from music, to background sound, to conversations, accents, situations, and the extremely... fantasy-type feel. A sense of somewhere, somehow, this can happen, and a sense of being part of a bygone age and place that was fun, adventurous, and relaxed. In fact, everything that a Catalina stands for. Every time that flying boat has entered my life, these are the feelings it brings - from Duck Tales, to Commando comics, to Indiana Jones, to Tales of the Gold Monkey. Wonder if there's a message in the pattern?
At a stage right now where the story's becoming... interesting. I've outsmarted a drunk monkey, a dyslexic marine, befriended a nymphomaniacal waitress, impersonated a top secret government official, brought a cockatoo back from the dead, desecrated a witch doctor's grave, stolen a toy from a child, helped a Hawaiian kahuna rediscover his roots, taught an australian surfer to surf without waves, taught a genius idiot-savant to speak again and learn dentistry, unlocked an alien portal, and am currently avoiding a psychotic killer and a megalomaniacal renegade colonel.
The characters are awesome. Kordsmeier has references to god knows how many megalomaniacal colonels from Hollywood lore. Platoon's Sgt. Elias Grodin, Forrest Gump's Lt. Dan, Apocalypse Now's Col. Kurtz and Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore. A dead Indiana Jones makes an appearance, as does an aged Baloo in a human avatar. Ehrich von Daniken is profoundly present, and a tropical Area 51. This is where it scores over Myst - Myst was too abstract, too alien, too unfamiliar. Here, you can use what you know from modern-day legends. It's an awesomely entertaining experience, and you do need to use your brains.
Let's see what happens next...

the future is now

2008-01-24T21:43:00.000-08:00

This. Is. So Cool!

Microtechnologies as come up with an anti-theft system that talks to your mobile. That means anywhere you are, you know what's happening to your car, where it is (they have a web-interface tracker), two-way voice, GPRS and SMS-based tracking, remote arm / disarm, lockdown, and shutdown features.

So the next time someone steals your car, you can lock him in and shut down the whole works, then go over to where he is, and call the cops. And tell him what a naughty boy he's been while he waits for the cops.

Waiting for the next-gen version, which will have internal / external cam, remote control, and a large boxing glove on a spring.

gaming

2008-01-24T00:39:00.000-08:00

Why do I game?

It eats away time, money, sleep, healthy eating, good posture, fills the head with nightmares and daydreams, opens your computer to infection risks, overwhelms my HD, and blows my bank balance in associated costs - AGPs, peripherals, networking...

yet I game. Compulsively, obsessively, incessantly. And I enjoy it. I love it. I live it.

I guess one bit of it is... escapism. The same reason you read, or listen to music, or watch movies... or plays, or art... there is a story in here, and it's long, complex, rich, and often fascinating. It's not just shoot-and-watch-the-gore-spatter; the background stories can be expansive and imaginative as any SF. When you read, you don't just look at the words; after a point, there's a direct flow of thought from your imagination to your conscious mind, with the words on the page just the occasional trigger. This can be as immersive.

Entertainment. Adrenaline. Reflexes. Will you rather play cricket on the road, on rock-hard tarmac? You also play with traffic. Or travel for an hour each way to get to the ground, after having booked it in advance, of course? Sad fact of life, but real-world play in an urban environment is becoming more and more inaccessible. And in a city, finding a safe nice place to play in is way easier than finding a nice, safe person(s) to play with.

On the other hand, you can curl up on a bean bag in an AC room, and immerse yourself for a couple of hours.

Ever done puzzles? I'm not talking about the crap that passes itself off as 'puzzle games'. Even stuff like Tomb Raider, like a lot of movies and books, require significant suspension of disbelief on the part of the audience. Stand back and look, and you know that Ms Croft can get past the cunning trap in one way and only one way, and that one way has been conceived and created by Eidos Interactive long long before you came on the scene. You're being forced to walk down a corridor, wearing a chicken suit, with a pause every five seconds to sing the chorus lines from Eminem's Stan. If you don't do any of this, you die.

On the other hand, look at cheatcodes, easter eggs, and cracking. You're getting inside. Edit the default values in the config files, and suddenly all your tanks mooove like rocketbikes and fire unlimited nukes, our soldiers wear tank armour, and your buildings are invulnerable, and you yourself can fly, walk through walls, never run out of ammo, and use level 9 weaponry on level 1 minions, the poor creatures. The getting in, figuring it out, trying a hypothesis, seeing it work, applying it for a better experience - dopamine overproduction! It's a high of just using your head to make something happen!

More than that, sometime around 2 AM, when suddenly, everything clicks, and you're past the block, in the zone, on fire... it's a quasi-religious experience. Superego and id in perfect harmony for once, in perfect coordination, needing each other, working together. Higher brain functions shut down, worries evaporate, stress vanishes. It's just you and the game, in a world where none of the constraints apply. And it's amazing what a relaxing feeling it can be for the soul when all your troubles get boiled down to 2 simple counters - your health level and your ammunition level - and your hindbrain, too, believes that with all it has.

Stopping play is like... waking up, or falling asleep, depends on how you see it; between

Do you really want to quit? Y / N

and shutting down, getting up, water, roll into bed, drifting off... is a dreamlike, fugue state anyway. As soon as I slide into unconsciousness, REM kicks in almost instantly, picking up where the other side of that Y/N left off. Talk about an immersive experience - like most immersive experiences, this one sticks to you after you've climbed out. The next waking in the morning is even more disjointed.

It's an experience that extends way back in it's foreplay before the actual gameplay. The entire wandering through Fort, leafing through the pavement titles, one eye open for cops, making the selection, the bargaining, the wrapping up of the purchase in the inevitable black plastic bag, quick turn-down of the offer for porn ("saab english / hindi / double / triple / latest") and walk home; and the entire installation adventure, decoding the crack instructions written by a technically gifted but linguistically retarded cracker, and that rush when the game executes perfectly for the first time... this is entertainment that you work for, that you take risks for. Is that why it's that much more enjoyable?

That's it for now - I stocked up on Gears of War, Q4, Bioshock, and Max Payne 2 and HL2:Ep1 is still left with a little to go... have a good Winter-een-mas!

Play. Evolve.

Images thanks to Ctrl-Alt-Del and Explosm.net

A moving story - the end

2007-12-23T11:06:00.000-08:00

What a day.

I mean, seriously.

Phase 2 - the heavy, bulky furniture - successfully moved, and unpacked. The rubbish sold off. The post-move check for all the stuff left behind, done. Identified. Packed. Moved.

PC set up.

Kitchen functional.

Fridge working, even some food stocked.

Cupboards filled up.

And now - finally - I can sleep.

So tired. So completely bone-tired. But we did it. The most intense shifting experience till date, over and done with.

My roomie's room, after packing. I don't see much difference.

My room - a last look. Strange sense of - a kind of loss. We've moved on, but the room is still there - so much happened here, the last two years. Life changed so much. Everything changed... and every night, this was the room I returned to to rest.

Goodbye, A-7.

Yeah, yeah, movin story, thats right

2007-12-22T13:36:00.000-08:00

The Island of Dr. Moreau

aka

Packing the kitchen

I remember the last time I was packing the kitchen - found a full-grown rat, complete with nest. This time around, that particular pleasant little surprise wasn't around, but it was pretty interesting even then. There's an ecosystem in the sink, and the rubbish heap moves by itself at times.

It's also fascinating what a collection of food one builds up. This is a realization that hits really hard when you realize that the fridge now needs to be emptied. In a day.

I can now either stuff myself with rotis like rock, fossilized pizza, and something red and greasy that I can't even identify anymore in a plastic jar.

Another round of luggage has been shifted; there's now a deep, stretchy ache in my forearms and shoulders, and thanks to a minor bike mishap, in one leg as well... but it's 3:30 AM, I've been sleeping four hours in the last 48, and I'm absolutely, brilliantly, completely wide awake, excited, nontired, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, the works. It's fun. I should throw out rubbish more often; it's better than amphetamines.

A Moving Story continues...

2007-12-22T00:35:00.000-08:00

Laws of Packing

Everything is covered with dust. Thick, grimy, cobwebby, full-body dust. The Dara Singh of Dust. Dust that's been working out and wont give up easily without a solid fight.
When a bag is closed, an item is immediately found that needs to be put in the said bag. The probability of this happening increases in direct proportion to -

The bag being locked
The key being misplaced

Corollary - the more essential the item, the higher the probability of the key being lost. In case of self-closing locks, the key has a 98% chance of being inside the bag.

Rubbish is infinite.
Number of available bags will always be less than amount of available stuff.

This will happen regardless of the number of bags. A Duckback warehouse will be insufficient.

The duster, when required, will always be at a distance of minimum 75% on the other side of the room.

Corollary - The distance increaes in direct proportion to volume of rubbish obstructing your path to it.
There are 3 exceptions to the Duster Distance Theorem.

The duster is under you, if you are sitting down.
The duster is underneath the large, heavy bag you just packed.
The duster is not in the room at all, but has been slyly 'borrowed' when you weren't looking by co-packers.

images

2007-12-21T00:19:00.000-08:00

... had his eyes closed. Cliff thought he could see a very, very faint glow surrounding him, like a thin mist. There were tiny points of light in it.

He was still standing with his eyes shut, as if he was asleep on his feet.

'Yes,' said Cliff, 'we'll get on out there, will we? Er. Buddy?'

Buddy's eyes snapped open suddenly.

'Let's rock,' he whispered.

Soul Music

Terry Pratchett

A Moving Story, Part VI

2007-12-20T23:01:00.001-08:00

Phase 1, round 1... done.
Minor luggage successfully shifted, ECG and blood test done, Aquaguard cleaned, cleaner identified and arranged, security guards pal'ed up, and I still made it to my office on time! And I didn't even sleep in the train!
Next - more smaller luggage shifts, and arranging for movers.

A Moving Story, Part V

2007-12-20T09:32:00.000-08:00

Packing, round 1.
15 items.
2 rucksacks.
3 cartons.
1 large duffel bag.
4 medium carry bags.
1 small knapsack.
1 small sling bag.

What any average Great Indian Train-Travelling Auntie would normally carry.

I think it's in control. Most of it can come in a cab. I will have to entice roommate with beer to accompany me and help out with the carrying stuff up. If we can this over to the new place in the wee hours of tomorrow morning, I can dump it, freshen up, get my blood test (the insurance guy had to pick this day of all days, man) done and head to office. Do the review meeting, then back and unpack there all evening, go home, and pack the big stuff. And call a large-size tempo.

The Junking Process has unearthed 15 expired credit / debit cards, a glass model of the Burj-ul-Arab, and 3 mismatched foam earphone covers, pristine new.

And I'm tired but feelin' go-o-o-d.

A Moving Story, Part Fuckit

2007-12-19T10:50:00.000-08:00

Where the fuck did I get so much STUFF from???!

More stationery than a kirana store, more electronics than GN United Computers and Spares across the street, and that's without even packing my comp and speakers. I mean, the photos alone have occupied an entire airline carry-on strolley-sized bag!
And my superboss is in town... which means reach office by 9:30, so no morning shifts. And coming back is as late as always. And my damn blood test had to happen on friday... which of course, being an optional holiday, has been promptly commandeered into a working day. Aaugh!
and don't even get me started on the books and DVDs. Just about half of them have filled up another 3 rucksacks. Big ones. I'm fast running out of place to put them, and the idea of actually moving them is...

You know what the trouble with being a superefficient packer is? It also makes a superefficient stocker. I've managed to pack so much stuff into such a small place, through genius-level application of inventory and space management, that taking it all out is like watching the Sorcerer's Apprentice' brooms go wild. Expect a wardrobe-related accident any day now, when I get deluged in the bursting dam of pent-up possessions.

Time for emergency measures. Starting tomorrow, every stitch of clothing goes into the washing machine. Let the dhobi can transport them on the weekend.
No more sentimentalism. It doesn't matter if X was a much-cherished gift from some long-ago girlfriend, if it doesn't work and is falling apart, out it goes.
Promise to self - once I move, I'm going on a donation spree. Books, movies, clothes - give, give, give. After flogging off as many as I can, naturally.
Stop. Storing. Boxes! Please! Billions of camera, phone, shoe, and miscellaneous other containers are emerging like ants before the monsoon. Stop being a packrat! Some cardboard cartons - which are normally subjected to such abuse they never last beyond a single shift - have GIM address labels on them. I've nursed them through 6 moves, over eight years!

On the good side, I've found stuff - mysterious foreign coins. My PAN card. My electric drill chuck, would you believe it? An Alfred E. Neuman poster. Neuromancer, that I was convinced was borrowed and never returned (and won't be lent out again, never fear, and don't even try). A pack of Malaysian cigars. Fifteen different adaptors, and not one, but two cordless headphones, complete with their own transmitters. 2 windcheaters.
And somehow, my external HDD has suddenly started working perfectly. I don't think it's related, but still a good thing.

I need a drink.

A Moving Story, Part III

2007-12-18T23:04:00.000-08:00

Last time we moved, we ended up having 43 individual pieces of baggage (including a bucket full of brooms and mops). It's too much to manage. This time round, I think it'll make more sense to do couple of quick trips to the new place and start dumping bags - and emptying them and bringing it back as well.

Advantage -

It'll do away with the need for superpacking where every available cubic centimeter is utilized, which results in superdense cartons where you have no clue exactly what has been packed where.
It'll allow re-usage of available bags
It'll let us set up the new place in phases, so the exhausted period post-move isn't occupied by an even more exhausting re-setup; last time, we were so pooped that stuff stayed packed in cartons for months at a time. In fact, some cartons are going today as is from the last shift.

Disadvantage -

Multiple trips, so I need to be able to leave early enough to pack, and reach late enough (from and to office) to do a baggage dump in the morning and an unpacking exercise in the evening.
Finding cabs willling to go short distance, with a luggage rack.
Anyone in the Andheri West area willing to help and with a big car, and lots of free time?

A Moving Story, part II

2007-12-18T11:10:00.000-08:00

yep, that's my room.

cartons, bags, dust, electricals, Jon Bon Jovi, and the bright clean table in the middle is where a chicken patiala rested not very long ago. It's an explosion in a psychotic warehouse, and I'm lovin' it.

All the interesting stuff i never knew I had has started turning up... and will be going on eBay soon. Advance booking open for cordless headphones and an ancient Yashica.

Another fun bit of this phase is imagining where some of all this stuff - so useless so far - will go in the new place. This tiny bulb on a bedswitch? Can it be used to make an illuminated drinks cabinet? Or how about this...2.0 speaker set? Can I wire up the entire house so I get my music in every room? I already have the 5.1 set, the old 2.1 set... and an amplifier... and lookit this, thirty feet of shielded cable... heheh.

in the watches of these dark nights...

2007-12-18T10:59:00.000-08:00

...the most innocuous takes on... overtones.

like the laundry. close to twenty shirts hanging in the dark corridor. like a battalion of emaciated, headless corpses.

gently swaying in the wind, like they're giving a chance to let those at the back peer forward.

twitching. crowding around the door.

if I go to the loo, brushing past them all, what will I find outside waiting for me when I come back?

dead quiet... but moving. coordinated, twitchy, random movement. like a silent mob.

it's creepin me out...

moving... again

2007-12-16T11:18:00.000-08:00

After 2 years at Veera Desai, it's time to go. I like moving. It's cathartic. A chance to leave behind all your mistakes, your messes, and start over, now that you've learned from the past. A sloughing-off of the dead skin, the ultimate housecleaning.
And while brokers, societies, landlords, and other such blots generally conspire to make it horrendous, this time around, the entire process of closure took less than a day, thanks to Harish.
And now we're the proud owners of... well, just a single key right now, but the next 6 days are going to be action-packed. Packing, unpacking, repacking, scotch tape, cartons, dust allergies, finding things you thought had been forever lost, arranging, buying stuff that had been waiting for a better setting... it's an awesomely fun experience.
Signed off with the landlord, an elderly lady who for some reason has assumed that my roommate is so junior he could be my son; a fringe benefit of the beard, I guess. Roommate naturally is frothing at the mouth.
And the celebration parties never stop.
As I look around at the awesome wasteland of debris that my room is, I can't help wondering how the fuck is it all going to be shifted.

dichotomies

2007-12-14T04:31:00.000-08:00

you can be a boring guy
with boring friends
and a boring life

you can be a rockstar
with rockstar friends
and a rockstar life

you can be both
with no friends
and no life

from the outside.

zoning in

2007-12-14T04:15:00.000-08:00

only way to describe it is, it's like runner high.

remember feeling this way... more than a decade ago, in my XII boards. and Macleodganj.

a moment of perfection, when everything works. not hungry, not thirsty, not tired, not sleepy. your head, your whole body, trembling with an energy so frighteningly abundant you can feel it barely contained.

everything coming together, at the right time, the right place. synapses, situations, reflexes, thought, hands, the world around you, in a perfect ballet where you can't go wrong. in some extraordinary way, you have reached a level where you can actually make the world behave the way you want it to - or where it doesn't matter how it behaves, you can handle it. easily.

like a dragonfly climbing out of the husk of the nymph it used to be, and spreading it's wings for the first time in it's like in the sun. the world just changed forever, and it's a wonderful, exciting place to be in. where there are endless possibilities, everything is - not easy, but fun. you look back at what you were, and you marvel that you could have felt like that, lived like that, once...

it's also lonely. when you try to describe it, you come across as - you can't come across. it's such an intensely personal experience, it can't be communicated. the other won't understand. at best, you can be boring.

it's an interesting thing... this is probably what someone on serious amphetamines, or in a high-altitude climb, feels like. but from outside...

work

2007-12-14T01:26:00.001-08:00

piles of work.

piles is a good description.

work that looms

tottering in treacerous, terrible, terrifying, tall towers, trembling with tons of terrific trouble trapped tightly, tormented and travailed, waiting for the toil of the time-lagged tasks to transition from then to tomorrow.

emitting the ghastly pong of putrefied deadlines

surrounded by buzzing clouds of outlook reminders

while the boss sniffs around, wagging tail and drooling, searching for rats

and colleagues caw and peck, and fly off with a little bit now and then to squabble over while the pile teeters and wobbles...

and the outsourced independent parties scurry around within, living their own lives, blissfully unaware of the world outside

and distractions sprout in pale clumps in the shady parts, giving you dreams, nightmares, and hallucinations if you pick and eat them. Some can even kill you.

Such is my work. And now I shall return to it.

Smoking your way to good health

2007-12-05T21:32:00.001-08:00

Did you know that smoking, apart from being injurious tohealth, can also be used as an effective tool towards a better, fitter life? Here's how - with Dr. T's Ten Tips for Smoking Your Way To A Healthier, Fitter, Slimmer You.

1. If you have a sedentary job, look at the first advice any fitness authority gives - Keep Moving. Walk around. Sit, stand, stretch. And while doing this for no reason can get you classified as a freak, look at the same activities with a cig - you're a hard worker, stressed but in control, dynamic, driven. Wonders for your image.

2. Frequent legitimate breaks. If you're in a non-smoking office; so much the better; every break means at least ten minutes of getting up, walking around, standing, moving... count the calories.

3. Walking. You can't smoke in public transportation, so don't take it. Just walk instead. Billions and gazillions of health benefits from a ten-minute brisk walk every day.

4. Buying. Never buy a full pack, you'll lose the entire health benefit of getting up, walking downstairs, across the road to the corner shop, back, skipping briskly through traffic, smoke, then back up the stairs.

5. Reminder value. Once you're smoking, all those activities you thought you could take for granted will suddenly become effective reminders for you to get into shape - huffing on the stairs, seeing black spots in front of your eyes on steep climbs, altitude sickness on holidays, the works.

6. Food control - feeling the urge to snack? Smoke instead. Not only do you save the calories of the pakora you would have otherwise consumed, but the nicotine will be an effective appetite-killer, so you don't pig out on regular meals either.

7. Binge-ender; Smoking kills off taste and smell buds, so food is less tasty and alluring. The sight of that Lebanese chicken grilling in it's brightly-lit glass counter will, in time, no longer sending you into paroxysms of a feeding frenzy.

8. Shorter meals - A cig tastes the best after meals, so when you're considering tat second helping... think of the smoke instead.

9. Social benefits - Social people are happy people, and happy people are healthy people. The entire smoking subculture will give you undiluted support; borrowing, sharing, cadging, asking for lights, inviting fellow smokers (many of whom will be attractive young women) acts as an instant ice-breaker, as well as a great conversational support. Don't know what to say? Just nod and take a drag.

10. Cleanliness. Very quickly, your house will start filling up with packets, matchskicks, butts, and that all-pervasive grey ash. It'll drive you to insanity with it's sheer untidiness, not to mention asthma, sneezing fits (also assisted by the reduced-efficiency lungs you now have, another benefit) so you will be forced to keep constantly cleaning up. Massive calorie burn, as well as impressive to girlfriend / landlord / wife.

And finally, tip zero - when certain aspiring authors, after having convinced you to smoke, ask for a cigarette, don't deny them. It's healthy, trust me, in strange and indefinable ways.