Cry Baby

You cried when they took away what you cared for
You cried in your times of disgrace
You cried when you lost it all
You cried while they laughed in your face

There are times when you feel you are alone
That the whole world is against you
These are the times you cry the most
Need someone to speak your heart out to

The world is bad for all it’s got
Your possessions are unrestrained tears and pleas
Brace yourself against them or kill yourself
For the world’s not meant for cry babies

Stop now and forget what you are
Be a fighter and not a crier
Prove your presence to the world
Or plunge and sink in mire

Set yourself on fire
Or plunge and sink in mire
The world’s not yet meant for cry babies
So be anything but a crier

The Cafe`

[ This piece of literature is inspired by one of my earlier works. It is a more vivid description of a scene which happens to be a part of one of the stories I wrote. ]






I was sitting at this cafe
Waiting for my cup alone .
It was raining outside ,
The cold could chill the bone .

And then the glass door creaked
And let in a sight to cherish .
A wet girl shaking with cold :
A stunner without a blemish .

I could've never imagined
God could be so kind .
All the tables had been taken
And there was not one to find.

Then I knew what to expect ,
As she peered into my eyes.
"Do you mind if I sit here ?"
That was when she broke the ice .

I pointed to the vacant chair -
That lay right in front of me .
Her thankful eyes and her smile
Set my harrowing solitude free .

"You are all soaked up" , I said ,
"I'm Glad you came in " .
"Oh Thanks for having me" ,
She wiped the water off her skin .

I passed my handkerchief to her
And she accepted it imperceptibly .
She was not the type with attitude :
She was just my type apparently .

My cup was on the table soon
But my attention was elsewhere .
I woke up and saw her staring at me ,
Pointing to my cup she said, "Its here" .

I asked if she wanted some coffee
"I'm without my purse ", she said.
"Pay for me the next time we're here"
My inhibitions were all shed.

She gave me a shy smile
As I divided the contents .
Her eyes looked into mine
Suggesting "lets be friends" .

We sat there an hour,staring at each other
In the friendly silence .
Some bloke nearby sighed "Weather's fine"
The Rain had stopped in the distance .

I thought it was the end
Of another sweet coincidence .
She and I'd have to part ways
And it made complete sense .

"Lets go", I said walking towards the door
She said, "Can we talk" .
This was not the end I guessed
And accepted "Yeah, we'll take a walk" .

So this was how I first met her :
My very first love ever .
God has his strange ways of
Uniting people forever.

John Doe's got a problem remembering things.

Yes it is true. Our good old, seemingly harmless and the very avuncular John Doe has a problem remembering things. And guess what, JD was the first to discover it too. It started with small issues, as forgetting where he kept his stuff. Then he started to forget things that others told him. And now the conditions deteriorated so much that he has started to forget names of people he once knew. I hope the condition doesn’t worsen lest one day he'll stand in front of the mirror and say, "Nice to meet you". However there is something very peculiar about his condition that is he only forgets things he doesn't care about much. This would have controlled matters to some extent had he been a regular guy. But the fact that there are a lot many things he doesn't care about has worsened his situation even more. I believe he needs professional assistance, but he doesn't agree on consulting a professional.


Once it so happened that he was home alone. And his distant relatives happened to be in town. As a matter of fact they came to visit JD's place. He had once been to their place, but that was half a dozen years ago and he stood like a complete jerk staring at the lady at the door. He was perplexed, trying to remember where he had seen the couple, and in the mystified silence, he sucked big time. It took him a hundred and ten seconds to realise he was supposed to let them in and not block the entrance. He asked them to come inside and kept asking himself who on earth they were. Once they had settled and aunty had finished the customary act of pulling cheeks, he fled from the scene and called mom, his data recovery software. It was a tough time for him to keep them entertained till his saviour mom arrived.
Recently, he received a call from a long separated friend. Since he had not changed his cell phone in years, it had the caller's number, saved by the name of "Task Manager". But the mystery was, who the hell Task manager was. And why such a technical name? However, being an engineering student, JD was good at "Troubleshooting". So he pretended he didn't have the number saved and asked who it was. But like a shrewd Virus, the caller escaped JD's ploy by replying, " Your good old buddy, the Task manager". JD was tempted to ask "Who the f*** are you, fancy name?" but he didn't. Anyways, JD realised his troubleshooting skills were no better than Windows Vista's which always said, "Unable to fix the problem. Contact your Hardware Vendor". JD could not guess who the analogous hardware vendor could be. So he was considering the option of referring to the FAQs instead, but he identified the high risk of embarrassment. So he chose to talk instead, pretending that he knew whom he was talking to. But after a half an hour of seemingly meaningless conversation he was frustrated at his pathetic memory. After killing two days trying to remember, he gave up, wanting to beat himself to death using a baseball bat. Later he even considered the idea of using a Firewall on his cell phone to block incoming calls from people with unrecognized Digital Signatures which could be a threat to his System Security. Nevertheless, he put Task Manager in the list of Quarantined objects.


And very recently JD has been receiving emails from one of his blasts from the pasts (I believe you are keeping up with the current teenage lingo, in case you aren’t, consult the Oxford). But as it is with girls, she insists on his figuring out who she is. I’d like to mention that JD has had a jolly good past and for a guy of his stature it sometimes gets really tough to remember the dramatis personae of every play he reads. The girl says they met on a Friday and that he was wearing a grey chequered shirt and similar stuff. But he doesn’t even remember the shirt, let alone the girl. And he doesn’t wish to guess, for if he guesses wrong, any guy with brain in the right place would know what’d happen.


So he has been asking me what course of action he should follow. I believe he needs to execute Check Disk or even Defragment his hard drive before any Bad Sectors creep in. Before I can convince him to see a professional I’ve asked him to eat sprouted almonds. And he’s jolly well doing that.

Life teaches us to live and we must learn to learn

Hunger bothers me
But I will not complain.
I am but a no one,
And no one listens to me.

My feet ache
Out of walking barefoot
But I must walk
The place doesn’t belong to me.

This place’s not mine
I don’t belong here
I have no place
And I’m not supposed…

Its not that I have nothing
The penury is mine.
My unheeded wounds,
They do remind.

The tears are mine -
My kith and kin.
For they come to me
When I most need them.

The helplessness is mine
And the loneliness.
The world’s just about fine
I’m invisible.

Life teaches us to live
And we must learn to learn.
I’ve no books
But only experiences.

Everyone errs.
People learn from each others mistakes.
I make my own mistakes
And learn from them.

I will perish
And leave no traces behind.
Except an unsung tale
Of failures and an obscure existence.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Let me ask you to solve a simple riddle. What is a nine letter word which stands for something that follows you like a shadow, doesn’t let go of you and you can’t get rid of it easily? NO! It’s not Virginity you polluted minds, what I meant to suggest was AMBIGUITY. See, ambiguity is omnipresent, even in my question. In fact, it is far more potent than you would have ever imagined. TRUST ME! I’m not lying.

Ambiguity refers to the state wherein one thing said can have more than just one possible meaning. And as always, there has to be just one intended meaning. But the fact that there are more than just one possible meanings, the probability of the addressee understanding the address is less than or equal to half, mathematically. In simple terms, there is always more than half the chance that you will be misinterpreted. But chance is chance: it has no bearings upon what actually happens. Probability is a mathematical - or let’s say a hypothetical - concept that fails to predict what’ll happen in the real world, outside the framework of the rules that govern it. And from what I have seen so far, let me assure you that you are bound to be misunderstood more often than not. In other words, to some extent, there is absolute certainty that the blasted words you spit from your goddamned mouth, will always betray you and create an unintended reaction from your over-speculative audience. Don’t mind my blasphemous language for it is just intended to bring in some humour. You simply can’t mean what you say. You always have to mean something else. You got to appear like an asinine jerk.

Ambiguity is an irritating and unnerving companion. It’s a pain in the butt: it won’t let you sit and you’ll have to lie on your stomach. Once it sticks to you, like the deadliest of all viruses, it gets into your system folder and modifies the content of your vital system calls, and you are ruined. Even the most obvious of your statements tend to appear like mischievous puns, intended to disrespect people around you. Nobody takes you seriously, and when someone does, he happens to be the beau of a pretty girl who believes she is your object of desire and the results are very unpleasant: you end up wearing a denture. And you know what, I’m married to the dame called Ambiguity already. She’s my wife. And my life …… is …..

We don’t need to look for Ambiguity with a lamp. It’s everywhere: all around us. It’s in the air in the form of sound waves caused by vibrations of the vocal chords of the species that we know as homo sapiens. When we say “I’m sorry”, we mean “stop nagging”. When we say “nice” we mean “not bad”. When we say to a girl “can we be friends” we mean “will you be my girl friend”. When she says “no” she means “I have a boy friend”. When she says “okay” she means “ I don’t have a boy friend now, so consider yourself a temp. You might not be Mr. Right but you might as well be Mr. Right Now.” When she says “I’ll be glad to” she means “I don’t deserve you but luck’s on my side.” When the speaker says “we’ll die for our rights” he means “you do the dying, I’ll do the reaping.” When I say “we are fooling ourselves” I mean “you are fooling yourself.” So, if there is anything that is like advertisements in the middle of interesting news (I mean unnecessarily too much), it has got to be Ambiguity.

During my courtship with Ambiguity, I had observed that things were going astray. My words perpetually conspired against my intentions. I took care to choose my words, and always said what I meant, but people never seemed to understand. To tell you the truth, I’m not just the one she’s been dating. She’s a polygamous bi***. All of us face problems making others understand what we truly intend. I’ve always said that it is better to find out than assume anything. So at one point of time, just to get rid of any ambiguities I always blurted out unnecessary questions. If someone said she could cook, I’d ask if she meant preparing something fit for human consumption by means of heat. If someone asked me to turn on the light, I asked if I was meant to push the electrical switch. If someone asked me why the chicken had crossed the road, I asked what exactly “chicken” was meant to be. At one point of time I was so much into finding out that I became utterly obsessed with Ambiguity. And then people started avoiding me. I distinctly remember the gal who called me home, saying there was no one home. I went there and indeed there was no one home, not even her.

And then I stopped talking much. I do talk but tend to use the least possible number of words. I guessed the amount of Ambiguity was proportional to the number of words. Lately, I have been using the interrogative “What’s that supposed to mean?” pretty often. It’s my favourite line. And these five (or six) words form the combo that I speak most times every single day. So feel free to take a leaf from my book and ask “What’s that supposed to mean?”

An Interesting Conversation

The protagonist in this composition is our Mr. Not So Perfect, a guy who has a tendency of falling for everything that is female and moves. He claims he's got taste but I'd not testify that for fear of being ostracized. He's waited too long and now he longs for his somebody. He is fed up of waiting for a miracle to happen, so he's on the road, with the hammer of nervous impatience to break the ice of his solitude. He's looking everywhere but nobody looks at him. He means business but he's not the best in the business. He is sick of being a nobody, but above all, he's sad at having a nobody. He's more impatient than ever but is not a patient of love. Fortunately he's found a date but unfortunately she's engaged and still more unfortunately, she's brought her swain and now Mr. Not so Perfect is in pain. What a mess!
He's not known for his patience but the girl's beau happens to work out slightly more than his gym instructor, a fact which his bulging arms bear a testimony to. So our hero slips out with the pretence of using the men's room.
As soon as he finds himself alone, he unlocks his Nokia 1600 keypad lock and dials the last dialled number, which happens to be his roommate’s. Oh I forgot to tell you that our protagonist is a sophomore in a reputed Engineering College. Well, following is the conversation that took place between the nervous wooer and his confidante. I hope you wouldn’t mind one last interruption from me when I add that our hero has a name but I prefer calling him John Doe and his roommate will be called good old Roomy.

Here it goes:

Roomy: What ? Done Already ?
J.D.: Yeah man. I’m done for.
Roomy: Are you kidding. It’s been only three goddamned minutes since you hung up when you saw her entering into the café.
J.D.: She killed the mood. She’s brought her boyfriend. She’s engaged.
Roomy: Blast your red whiskers! Why did she agree on coming in the first place? Had she seen a caring brother in you?
J.D.: Don’t know mate. Girls are so very unpredictable. You can’t say what they mean merely by listening to what they say. Why can’t they be damn straightforward?
Roomy: It’s us guys who expect a lot, sugar. Is this not the same word she used for you in the party?
J.D.: I now guess she wanted some sugar in her coffee that night. But she should’ve clarified when I called her honey.
Roomy: She’d have thought you needed some honey in your shake.
J.D.: Blast your sense of humour! Can’t this talk be more sombre? I need some help.
Roomy: So what can I do for you Sir? Yeah your Pizza will be there in half an hour sir. Would you like extra cheese? Maybe a drink to wash that down sir?
J.D.: Look at me, I’m laughing. Enough of your PJs for the day chum. How do I get out of the café without facing them?
Roomy: Try digging a tunnel right from the toilet to our hostel. Or maybe with that sissy figure of yours you could dive into the commode and swim your way out through the sewage pipes. Or wait right there, I’ll order for you a Spider Man’s Costume to be delivered inside the lavatory of Lover’s Lane Café.
J.D.: No papa, I wanna be the Batman instead. F*** you. Come up with something practical.
Roomy: It’s your run-away-attitude that causes you to be such a loser. Go and join them. Try to act as if everything’s okay.
J.D.: How can I? As if everything’s okay? Well, things were looking pretty okay until that jerk showed up. He’s like a hole in a million dollar, gold brocaded, diamond studded briefs.
Roomy: Yeah he is. But remember, diamond studded briefs are not meant to be worn. They’ll leave scars all over the goddamned place. Diamond is the hardest of all substances and can cut through all other hard things.
J.D.: Cut the crap.
Roomy: Who started it?
J.D.: Okay. Now what. I’m not going back and paying the bill which will include a shot of vodka that would have gone down that sonofabitch’s f***ing throat.
Roomy: Then ask him to order for a beer instead. That way you’ll not have to pay for the vodka.
J.D.: As if that ox will listen to me. He didn’t even nod back when I said Hi.
Roomy: Apparently the ox’s got attitude.
J.D.: Attitude or not, I can’t stand that sonofabitch.
Roomy: Then keep standing in the urinal until he dies of old age.
J.D.: I thought we had already established that this was no time for jokes.
Roomy: Who’s joking now? I’m dead serious, junior.
J.D.: The thing on top of my agenda. What about that?
Roomy: You mean running away from them without them noticing it? Right?
J.D.: Either that or getting rid of the out-of-place bone in the kebab.
Roomy: You need a second opinion dude. I believe you are the bone in the kebab and not him.
J.D.: I’d really appreciate if you let me be a judge of that. It’s my date, my girl, my money and my me. Whose side are you on anyways?
Roomy: Yeah if every goddamn thing’s yours then why is it that you are hiding in the lavatory? The only thing that belongs to you is your shit and that too will cease to be once you use the flush.
J.D.: So what do I do? Walk up to the bar and holler out “Drinks to everyone from my side in the honour of the beautiful couple “
Roomy: Not a bad idea. Could you wait till I come? It has been time since someone paid for my drink.
J.D.: I feel like socking that madcap and you are only helping me decide in the favour of executing my plans.
Roomy: Go ahead. I’d have one private ward reserved for you in the Apollo.
J.D.: Can’t you talk sensibly?
Roomy: Okay. Here’s the plan. No more buffoonery. I’ll speak and you’ll listen.

BEEP BEEP BEEP !!! CALL DISCONNECTED DUE TO INSUFFICIENT BALANCE ! RECHARGE IMMEDIATELY FOR CONTINUANCE OF SERVICES !!

J.D.: Blast your Red Whiskers.

The Analysis of A Statement: Blast Your Red Whiskers

I seldom write about things I don't understand. But when I do, I turn my brain into a bowling alley with pins of sanity falling with every strike of the ball of attempt. And the result of the exercise is a preposterous masterpiece of utter NONSENSE. At times people who try to comprehend such literary crap end up with a sore psyche and suicidal tendencies. Why I involve myself in this life threatening exercise is a tough question. I reckon I consider myself a creative thinker and being some sort of a loner I tend to seek some sort of a companionship with my perceptive abilities which stay with me and are always faithful to me. My mind, being my companion and friend often talks to me. And sometimes, it talks nonsense - like all friends do , in an attempt to stir up humour and put up a show of its unparalleled jocularity. But believe me, I hardly understand its jokes and stuff. And consequently the rest of this document marks my genuine efforts to analyse this statement, " Blast Your Red Whiskers ", which happens to be one such statement which makes me nervous each time I think about what it means.
I heard this statement several times in a hollywood motion picture once, and by the mercilessness of chance I don't have the complacency of remembering its name. The particular actor who was hollering out this particular line did so in times of great personal anguish, in an attempt to imply to his co-characters that they needed to get lost, get out of his sight or go to hell. That was what I guessed he meant, but its hard to be absolutely certain of what someone other than yourself has in mind. So rather than trying to plunge into the deduction and interpretation and rendition of the statement, I'll try to confine myself within the bounds of semantics. In other words, without even bothering myself about WHAT THE HELL THAT JERK MEANT, I'll only try to get an idea of the meanings of the different words used in the sentence.

Being given to dealing with first things first, I'll start with the first word first. Now "blast" here doesn't mean an explosion or a blow. In this context it is used as an interjection, an abrupt emphatic exclamation expressing some emotion. "Blast" here stands for an exclamation of annoyance. As far as my knowledge of the usage of such words is concerned, I believe one could've used the term "damn" or "goddamn" or even "curse" as a safe altenative. So the statement could well be reconstructed as " Goddamn your red whiskers ".
The next two words in the combination are well understood. "Red" as an adjective could also indicate the property of something characterized by violence or bloodshed. However such a usage is ruled out by the presence of the last word in the sentence which happens to be "Whiskers", a noun in the context. Whiskers are the hair growing on the lower part of a man's face - that is the moustache ( and not beard, as most would conclude ). Moustache can definately be coloured red but not be violent or sanguinary. Therefore the "red" in the statement stands for the colour and not for anything else.

So in a layman's terms the statement could be put as " May god curse your Red Moustache ". It makes complete sense from the perspective of a student of semantics, but it hardly makes any from the perspective of a student of metaphysics.
The statement has an asthetic value as well. Each time I read the statement, the phrase "red whiskers" succeeds in creating an impact on the mind's eye whose vigour doesn't seem to lessen. How beautiful and soothing is this picture of Red Whiskers the mind creates. Red Moustache has something manly about it that one often relates with the masculine street hooligans from the West who are found on their Harley Davidsons loitering about with no particular purpose. How the idea of a white or a black or yellow-skinned man having his moustache coloured red fascinates us, no one can fathom, not to leave out the red heads. It has a hint of metrosexuality but that is OK in the modern times.

Although this statement is not so popular in the east as the traditional "f*** off" and "go f*** yourself" are, but I am quite sure it will definately be used a lot more in the times to come and will emerge as the hands down winner because not only is it less offensive but also is a newer concept and more esthetically pleasing to the ears.
So folks! Stop using the prehistoric obnoxious reprimands and start using the user friendly " Blast your Red Whiskers ".

The Unusual Story

Hi,
I am 20. I am married. I have a kid. And I am happy. I work hard. I study. I’m in college. I’m in the second year of my course. Nobody at college knows about my marriage. Only my family, relatives and a few close friends know about it. Strange as it may sound, ‘tis true.
I was 18 when I first met her. It was raining heavily. There was a chill in the air and the clouds were as close to earth as they ever have been. I was sitting at my favourite table (the one that faces the street) in my favourite café. And then I saw her coming towards the café. She was all wet and shivering. As she entered the café , her eyes looked searchingly everywhere for a place to rest. All the tables were taken. However I was alone and there was a chair vacant on my table. She asked if she could sit there. Any guy in my place who had his heart in the right place would have given the same answer to that rhetoric question. I was a generic guy. I was no exception to the standard rules. I was glad to have her company. We exchanged names. We talked a bit. Soon the rain stopped and it was time for us to part. However, god had his plans and she asked if “we could talk”. I said, “come lets take a walk”. That very moment we knew (or atleast I knew), we were made for each other. She promised to meet me there the next day. I went home. It was the happiest day of my life. But good things in life don’t come to you that easy. Through the illness of chance I wasn’t able to make it to the proposed place at the proposed chance. And it costed me dearly. She had probably left (if she had come at all). From then on I went to that café each day, for a week, in the hope that she’d come there. But she didn’t. I reflected sadly that it was the end.

But it wasn’t. A month later I met her at an Inter Institutional function in a college. I told her I had missed her and she told me that she couldn’t stop thinking about me. We found out that we had nothing in common, but nevertheless we kind of liked each other’s company and felt attracted towards one another. The law in Physics, about unlike things (poles or charges ) attracting each other had manifested itself in the biological domain of two specimens of the species called homo sapiens. Exactly seventy two days after our first meeting, we confessed we loved each other and soon this love found ways of expressing itself, like in the case of the birds, the bees and the butterflies. It is only human to err. Carnal sins seldom go unpunished (or unrewarded ). A month later she started having doubts of carrying our child. Girls have their means of knowing what is going on in their bodies. With the aid of a P-Kit we confirmed the doubt. I was deeply distressed but not even for a nanosecond did I feel the urge to leave her alone or ask her to undergo an abortion. We talked and decided that we’d give birth to the kid. We decided to get married. Initially our parents were against the idea and very adamant to have the abortion carried out. But she popped a few pills and it changed the parents’ perspective. Women can be irrational at times but they are the best judge of what’s to be done, for what they do produces quick results. Fortunately, she was entrusted to medical care before any harm could have reached her or the baby. And we were married in a quiet ceremony in the presence of our relatives and a few close friends. It was decided that she could live wherever she wanted. I thought it better that she stayed in her house. Having her in my home would have required a lot of explaining to a lot of people, most of who don’t think good for you. Unfortunately, because of all this I didn’t do well in the competitive exams that year. She however secured a seat in a good college. It was my decision that I let her join college and I dropped to prepare for the exams.

For about ten months I didn’t see her. I wasn’t with her even when she gave birth to our daughter. The kid stayed with my parents. That year I got selected in all the exams I appeared in and she completed her 1st year at college. So she became my senior (we had different fields of study though, not to mention that we were in different colleges). And then my parents and hers started treating us normally. My performance placated them. Time passed and we completed another year at college. We met only briefly the last year in December when our winter holidays clashed. She stays only a few hundred miles away from my college but we don’t have the time to meet. Right now we are focussing on our education and have nothing else in mind. My parents are looking after their grand daughter pretty well.

This year, finally I found time to spend with her. Both of us had long summer vacations. And she came over to stay at my place or rather our place. Neither of our parents had any objection to this. After all we’re married and doing well in college. Now we are both back to our colleges, but we can’t wait to get out of college. The day I graduate and get a job, telling my colleagues about my life and my wife will be the first thing. It’s sad that I have to keep them in the dark, but telling them about it will be another happy moment.

[ Fiction ]

There is Water in the Eyes of Bihar

Bihar was recently hit by a force majeure. For those who haven’t heard the term before, it refers to a natural and unavoidable catastrophe that interrupts the expected course of events, an act of God, a vis major. There was devastation, there was mayhem, dreams were shattered and lives were lost. The agent of the destruction was water, the life sustaining liquid and the universal solvent which caused many humans and their hopes to go into solution. It was a flood. A literal flood. And now, the eyes of those affected respond to the external stimulus.

Bihar has been battling with floods for about a month now. The ‘Sorrow of Bihar’, the river Kosi, which flows into India from Nepal, broke through an embankment changing its path and flowing on a course that it had 100 years ago. This caused the release of a large amount of water into the proximate villages. And because humans are not gifted with gills, this forced two million people to abandon their homes in six districts, where they were unprepared for such a disaster. The people who’ve lost their homes can’t expect to move back for two or three months or even more. Changing the natural course of a river takes time. Doesn’t it?

When the floods hit Bihar, the people swam through the torrents to seek survival, leaving their entire properties behind. Consequentially, hunger has become a tough challenge for the victims. Besides, people have incurred crop losses worth millions which implies that the struggle for food will remain even after flood waters recede. Besides, there has been a heavy loss of lives. According to rediff news, the death toll had reached 76 on the 30th of August. The living conditions of those who survived aren’t good either. They are falling prey to diseases. The possibility of an outbreak of epidemic can’t be ruled out either. Besides thousands of people are missing.

The whole of Bihar is affected by the floods in one way or another. The worst affected districts are Supaul, Saharsa, Madhepura, Purnia, Araria and Katihar. The Government of Bihar has taken and is still taking steps to provide rehabilitation and support to those victimised. Various NGOs are also monitoring the situation closely and are chipping in with significant contributions, but we must realise that it is not easy to recover from a calamity of this magnitude. According to New York Times, it is the worst flood in the area in 50 years. Due to the extent of the devastation, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared the floods as a national calamity. We must understand the gravity of the tragedy.

What is done can’t be undone. Being humans, we can only help those affected recover from the plight. And if all of us stand together and help those affected stand, the effort will be worth being called human. And it is not to be viewed as an obligation but as our responsibility to our fellows. After all, we belong the same species: we all are homo sapiens.

The Psychedelic Song

Getting Random is the key
To writing a song abstruse
I’m falling into the deep
The nations out there call a truce

The time is passing
I see the clock ticking
Is it Halloween today
People are trick or treating

My name’s just a word
With little meaning tomorrow
There are bombs everywhere
Humanity’s engulfed in sorrow

But giving up is not my style
I want my battles fought
The hero is in every one of us
The saviour we always sought

Green blood runs through their veins
Its redness lost in the greed
Is there someone who answers us?
And pays us for our deeds?

The road’s clear now
It’s wet and cold for treading men
I’ll rather take a walk through the woods
And write about it with my pen

Reaching milestones is easy
Erecting them takes courage
Long lost is the path of honour
Evades the endeavours by this age

I sink deeper and deeper
Into the blue and black
Going forever is easy as hell
The toughness is in staying back

My Unreal Condition

When I was four they asked me to find the answers to the questions they had been intrigued by. Small as I was, they were pretty confident that if there was a person on Avary who could do it, it was me. I don't exactly remember how or why I bought what they sold me but I am pretty sure that was not something that I was led into for my own good.. Little did I understand then that I was but playing my part as a pawn in their larger scheme of affairs, that their real motive behind bringing me upfront was of destruction and malice, and of saving themselves from the possible blowback of their vile plot. I complied with their plan, nevertheless, I was not completely oblivious of the fact that I was not one of them and that something didn’t fit somewhere into the picture. Peace of mind is not something elusive to an infant but I was an exception to the rule. I sought peace with the acuity of a starved man seeking a morsel of sustenance. As time flew by, the dark clouds of obscurity started to dissolve and rays of knowledge started permeating my mind making some sense at all. Little by little, the truth manifested itself, like a troubadour singing and before the windows of my senses and I started getting the answers to my own questions. And then one day, I ran into the sightless pauper who acquainted me with what I really was and what had been rendered completely latent to my vision. I didn’t believe his words at once but I couldn’t help believe that I was not what I believed I was. It took me twelve years to know and to believe and to convince myself that I didn’t belong there and there was some place elsewhere that required my presence.

This is a work of fiction. It could well have been the prologue of a novel describing the extents to which a child has to go to, to find out his identity. “Avary” is the name of an imaginary island which forms the backdrop of the protagonist’s story.

Life on paper is easier

This is one of the facts that all of us are pretty much aware of, though no one speaks about it. I guessed it was time someone acknowledged it. All this time we keep reading about doing things, convincing ourselves that if we stick to the proposed algorithm religiously, we’ll achieve the task all by ourselves. Such a myth is never really challenged as long as we don’t get the chance to test the algorithm practically.
Indeed, we rarely get the opportunity to test the taught doctrines “practically”. When we do, we fail and it is then that we realise that something was wrong somewhere. The thing is, we are quite gullible. We easily believe what we are made to believe.
Why is it so? Is it that we were born like this? No. It’s just that we were brought up in a way that causes us to fall flat before the eloquence of those who instruct us. Its nature vs. nurture and nurture wins here, hands down. In an engineer’s terms, our hardware is sound, it is the software installed that is obsolete and bugged.
Humans have a way of choosing the EASY WAY OUT. We believe in theories proposed by others without ever questioning their authenticity because we don’t want to tire our brains by thinking. We don’t like pushing our faculties of imagination. And besides, those who use their imagination find themselves alone, and against a cult of those who take the “easy way out”. And in the altercation between ideas, it is the infant that always perishes, for its adversary has been spreading its roots in the minds of its preys like a parasite for many centuries. In the battle of experience and age, the former always crushes the latter.
I’ll relate a few futile attempts of mine and others to achieve things they said were achievable through adherence to some protocol.

Salt Analysis- Classes XIth and XIIth
All science students who have studied in the mentioned period must be aware of the procedure of identifying the radicals present in a chemical compound. The procedure was a standard one and could be found in all chemistry books. But only 5% of the students could actually achieve the task at hand, though many knew how to proceed. The reason: theoretical knowledge alone was insufficient. There were many practical considerations that had bearing upon the method.

Expansion work in a physical process
Almost all chemistry teachers who prove that expansion work W=PêV start with the definition of work that physics gave us, W= F. S. They say, in the case of gases, it is the Atmospheric pressure that forces the gas to stay confined in a particular volume, and it is this force that is to be overcome which causes pressure P to come into the equation. And they conclude that this formula can even be used to find the work when some solid melts, say ice. I believed that this inference could not be drawn. Solids are not gases. They have a fixed volume. They don’t occupy the entire volume of the container they are in. It is not the force exerted by the external pressure but their intermolecular forces that hold their molecules together. So it is the intermolecular forces that need to be overcome and therefore external pressure must not come into the equation. We need another equation in this case.
I tried explaining this to several teachers but all they said was I was not qualified to question such widely acclaimed statements. And to pass the exams I had to give in.

Deccan Chargers- the best IPL team on paper
Cricket Cognoscenti had claimed that T-20 was a format wherein hitting only mattered. They added it was a batsmen’s game and teams having great hitters who could survive 20 overs would win the tournament hands down. Deccan Chargers, with its batting virtuosos, namely Gilchrist, Gibbs, Afridi and Symonds was hailed as the winner long before the tournament actually started. But we all saw what happened.

There are more examples to share but I am tired of typing. I am virtually writing this on paper and it seems easy. But I swear it is a lot tougher to live your life following the things I say.
I have a last question to ask myself. Do I live my life on paper? And I have an answer. No Sir I don’t. And I have a logical deduction. To live life out there we need to think, and find out rather than assume. FIND OUT, DON’T ASSUME. At least I can say so on paper.

A Short Conversation

“Why do you write when no one reads?”
Annoyed at seeing me involved with my notebook all day long, she asked me.

“Go ahead and read it”, I pushed the notebook towards her.

She was caught off guard. I knew it. “I don’t have the time”, she said hesitatingly.

“Sure, I do have time. So that’s why I write. Don’t force me into a state wherein I don’t have it either.”

“Got it.”
The message had hit home.

Another Conversation

Recently I was travelling from Katni to Allahabad on a train called Kamayani Express. It had left from Katni at 1100 hrs (its scheduled time of departure being an hour ago) and was to reach Allahabad at 1530 hrs. So there was time to be spent in the train. Time! If there’s anything I hate more than anything else, it is delay. Why don’t any of the goddamned events happen when they are supposed to happen? The one hour long solitary wait (on the platform) had really pissed me off and the guy standing next to me had made my condition worse by getting on my nerves with his unhealthy habit of smoking cigarettes one after the other. I guessed it was his last day on this planet and he wanted to finish his packet before dying. I was just about to reduce the delay of his demise from Earth when - thankfully - the blasted train arrived.
I got into the train. I had a berth reserved in the 3 A/C compartment which happened to be an upper berth. The train was coming from Jabalpur and all the lower seats were already occupied by sleeping travellers. Who in the hell sleeps at 11 am?
That was a rhetorical question and besides it was not my concern. They had paid for their berths and had the liberty to use them in whatever manner they considered fit. But I didn’t want to sleep. However, the hibernating corpses on the lower berths spared no other option for me. Nevertheless, I made sure I got place to sit on a vacant side lower berth after chaining my suitcase in an appropriate place. I don’t like carrying food while travelling and so I ordered a vegetarian special lunch pack. I kept myself busy with Irving Wallace’s The Man. In a couple of hours the train reached Satna and the food was served. Around me people were waking up from their state of slumber. The elderly couple that occupied the lower berths in my compartment had also come alive and were sitting, so I moved there and sat next to the uncle. It allowed me to keep an eye on my luggage. As I sat there and ate, auntie got fascinated by the delicacies constituting my lunch. With Shahi Paneer, Mixed Vegetable, Lachha Parantha, Veg Pulao, Curd and a Sweet in my plate I was easily the centre of attraction (though that came at a price: 75 bucks). Soon we started talking. They learnt a little about me and I ,in turn, about them. They were coming from Trichy after having their son Pratyush admitted into NIT Trichy. However they looked quite worried (a common occurrence with Indian parents) for their son’s cell phone was apparently being picked by a girl who didn’t understand Hindi (must’ve been a South Indian) and they were not good in English either. Literally, uncle’s knowledge of English was limited to “I am S.P. Singh”. So they asked me to save their day.
What could I say? Opportunity knocks but once. Dil pe patthar rakh ke (silencing my heart’s voice) I yielded to their request. Apparently the girl was annoyed after having spoken to “I am S.P. Singh” umpteen times. The following is the conversation that transpired between us.

Me: Hello
She: Who’s this?
Me: Hi this is Robin. Could I speak to Pratyush?
She: No. Wrong number.
Me: Don’t hang up.
She: Haven’t I told you so many times already that I don’t know any Pratyush.
Me: Did I call you before?
She: Somebody else called like a twenty times from your number.
Me: Sorry about that. If you help me this’d be my last call.
She: What do you want?
Me: I want you to talk to me.
( A silence of a few seconds )
She: What?
Me: I mean, there’s some confusion. Help me clear it.
She: Okay. I too am fed up of this confusion.
Me: So, 9003xxxxx98. Is this your number?
She: Yes.
Me: Without a doubt?
She: Without a doubt.
Me: Could I know your name.
She: Why?
Me: Fine. So, Miss whatever-your-name-is, apparently this is also the no. of my buddy Pratyush who has just joined NIT Trichy.
She: I’ve already told you this is my number.
Me: Did I deny that? I’ll tell you what, you have no patience. You are merely interested in hanging up. You have no idea how worried Pratyush’s parents are. You are just concerned with your convenience. You seem like someone hostile to the normal standards of social behaviour. Imagine if you don’t get to talk to your parents, how’d you feel? Try to place yourself in the difficult position others are…. in
Go on. Hang up if you wish.
She: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to mistreat you. Actually I’m also a new student at NIT Trichy. The place is new and I’m also missing my parents. Maybe the emotional strain is getting the better of me. That’s why I got annoyed.
Me: Yeah I know. I’ve been through that phase already.
She: Are you a new student too?
Me: No, but I was last year. I am in the second year now.
She: That’s nice. I could use some advice.
(Uncle and Auntie were giving me what-do-you-suppose-you’re-doing glances. Besides uncle’s eyes were also suggesting that his was a prepaid connection.)
Me: Yeah. Could you do me a favour? It is obvious that Pratyush is your batchmate. Look for him and if you find him, kindly ask him to contact his parents.
She: Yeah I’ll be pleased to do it.
Me: Thanks. I’ll hang up now.
She: Bbye.
Me: Bye.

That was it. I told uncle and auntie the extract of our conversation. They thanked me for the help. In my mind, I thanked them too.
An hour later, Pratyush did call his parents. And you know what, his no. was 9003xxxx89. That suggested uncle had interchanged the last two digits. Auntie was annoyed at this error but somebody else wasn’t.

Stop Wasting Petrol !!

Hi folks, though most of my posts have had a hint of intended humour in them, in doing so I don’t intend to disregard some of the serious issues that we should address but we fail to, because of the common myth that they are not our concern.
The other day I happened to be part of a discussion on the so called failure of the Central Government to curb inflation. The problem with most people in India is that they believe - in a Democratic Nation - it is their birthright to criticise the Government without any factual or statistical knowledge. I once read somewhere a statement enunciated by Bal Gangadhar Tilak. It said, “Be true in your facts and be just in your criticism.” And the message struck home the moment I read it. If we abide by this rule of the thumb, a lot of our problems could be understood, if not solved, for understanding the problem is fundamental to its solution. Drifting back to the discussion, a lot of emphasis was reposed on the hike of petroleum products. People were blaming the Government for being incompetent and even claimed that the only solution was a change in the Government. I understood at once that people were choosing the easy way out, choosing to fix the blame rather than fixing the problem, for the simple reason that it required the least effort on their part. Speaking without thinking or foreknowledge is what some people are best at. However I chose to listen rather than speak, for my opinions were different and I wanted to do some research to find out the statistically accurate figures before concluding anything.
I had read in novels long ago that the world was facing a power crisis and the situation was bound to worsen over the years. The conventional resources of energy were waning away and only the nascence of a new source could bring about some respite. But I was not sure of the current state of things. Therefore, I did tad research and did some calculations, which a sixth grader can efficiently perform. I’ll show you the stepwise calculations.
Oil is internationally traded in New York and London and denominated in US Dollars only. Crude oil is distributed in barrels which hold 42 gallons of oil ( when converted into litres comes to about 159 litres per barrel). The petrol content of crude oil is about .48 litres per litre. Excise, taxes and raw material refining also add to the cost of petrol per litre.

Cost of a 159 litre barrel of crude oil (as on 3rd July) : US $145
1 US Dollar = 42.975 Indian Rupees ( as on 11th July )

Cost of a 159 litre barrel of crude oil in Rupees : 145 x 42.975 = Rs. 6231.375
Petrol content of a barrel : 159 x .48 = 76.32 litres

Cost of 1 litre petrol = 6231.375 / 76.32 = Rs. 81.65

Taxes, refining costs and transport etc. amount to about another 10 rupees per litre

Therefore, the effective cost of petrol per litre is about Rs. 92

I hope nobody had any problem understanding my calculation. As it is evident, our country gets petrol at Rs. 92 per litre and we get it at say Rs.54 per litre. Obviously the Government is incurring a huge loss by paying a subsidy of about Rs. 38 per litre. And we blame the Government for not being able to control inflation.
What we do is misuse petrol and put more and more pressure on our Government by increasing the loss incurred by it. We cause our nation to be poor and put the blame on our economic policies.
This is just one chapter of the whole story. This is just about oil. There are various other fronts where we are weakening our nation, with our not-my-business and I-don’t-care attitudes. If we make efforts to understand the root of our problems, we might be able to actually contribute to the solution of them

Hi Folks !Good News for all my college mates at IIIT H. I did some turning of stones on the AIEEE website ( aieee.nic.in ) to find out how our beloved IIIT H was faring this year in the AIEEE Counselling and I am publishing my observations here . In fact, I plunged into their records and collected the data pertinent to the six most prestigious Institutions associated with AIEEE , and on the basis of these observations, you could help me to draw some sort of a conclusion as to where our college stands in the list of the most coveted institutions.

Note 1: On account of my personal opinion and statisical support, I believe the CS and IT departments are the first ones on the choice sheets , and so I have only collected the Opening and Closing Ranks of these two branches and chosen to leave out the rest .

Note 2: Only the Opening and Closing Ranks of the seats offered to the General Category as part of the All India ( AI ) Quota have been considered. This was a necessary protocol because the closing ranks of seats offered through the Home State ( HS ) quota are way low and don't represent the All India Struggle truly and it would have given an undue advantage to the IIITs over the NITs. Now the rules of the game are the same for every college without any wild cards.

The Data Sheet :



Note ( only for IIIT-H students. Others kindly ignore ): For all those who believe that CSD is a pain-in-the-butt , kindly subtract the opening rank of the CSD from the opening rank of the CSE . Now take an equivalent number of pen drives and shove them up your a**e . ( Joking. No offence intended to the CSE geeks. Such stunts are to be performed by trained professionals. Don't try this at home. )

ENGINEERS ARE NOT COOL

Its been a long harboured belief ( though I'd have used the term myth, I realise that the time is simply not ripe for that ) that Engineers ( I'm talking about those who get into the top colleges in the Nation, not just any Random person on earth who has gotten into any Engineering College ) are not fun loving people ( or in other words are nerds). They're viewed by others as a different species altogether. That they've no sense of humour, that they're book-wormish geek-like pain-to-be-with types who seldom have the time to say anything apart from polymorphism and recursion, that they're pre-absorbed in wondering if there was another solution to the Tower Of Hanoi , that they don't love parties in happening places , that they are short of confidence and still send friend requests to girls on Orkut, feigning insouciance, and that they're uncool. For all people who have such RATIONAL beliefs , I'd really appreciate if someone came forward and explained to this humble and ignorant prospective engineer what according to them was the definition of a cool person.

Or let me make a wild guess : a cool person uses - in trend - words like wassup ,yo baby , stylo which elude all attempts at capture by those compiling a dictionary ; messes with the conventional ways of spelling english words by spelling my as ma and life as lyf , physics ( if at all he/she uses the vestigial word ) as fysix ; wears self designed apparel that defies the plain un-materialistic human comfort ; has piercings and tattoos in strange places ; dances in discos thrice a week ; drinks to the tune and smokes to the flow of the surging adrenaline ; misbehaves and calls it attitude ; moves around on modified sports bikes ; does many a thing beyond human understanding . Well my apologies if I missed out something that should've been mentioned as part of the comprehensive definition. And I agree that engineers ( you know whom I'm talking about ) are uncool , for they can hardly meet the QUALIFICATIONS of a cool person , even if they fulfil some parametric requirements like drinking like a pro does ( but I've seen them lose their colour after a single shot though. See, they don't practice enough .) So , on the basis of our definition , we conclude that engineers are UNCOOL . Fair enough. But it still remains a fact that engineers are gifted, specially in the areas of logical deduction and scientific thinking and that they are not afraid to contest any belief if they don't believe in its authenticity. And the world bears a testimony of such people and their attempts to question even the most OBVIOUS statements. Time and again we've seen them rise from anonymity and challenge Gods of the modern times - Newton and Einstein - and then get lost in oblivion. They have their 15 months of fame and then years of degradation, which goes on to prove that even if Engineers are uncool, they are simply not ORTHODOX. And being a prospective Engineer, I am but no exception to the rule . At this point of time, I'll not say that your definition of a cool person is flawed. I'd rather say that different people have different ways of defining words that are branded as being slang and no suitable meanings for which are found in any of the Dictionaries.

Well, Engineers are uncool if you go by the mythological definition. But I am UNORTHODOX and I choose to mould the definition to suit my needs. I believe that being UNORTHODOX is cool. I believe that challenging some law, knowing fully that your opinion will - more or less - be crushed in its infancy is super COOL. Standing up for whatever you believe in , even if no one else does , that is cool. Facing the dire realities of life ( or lyf or whatever ) and choosing to see them rather than shutting the innate perceptive abilities is COOL. Accepting your flaws and not trying to sweep them under the rug of nonchalance, that is cool. Humility is cool. I'm fine with it even if it shows a lack of the conventional attitude. Isn't respecting everyone cool ? Wouldn't it be cool if someone respected you ? I believe that profanity of language in an attempt to appear cool is highly UNCOOL. Richness of language is cool. I happened to be with some CONVENTIONALLY COOL people the other day. I was shocked to see one of them misspell "opportunity" and no one was able to locate the error even after my reprimand. Illiteracy is definately not cool. Literacy is cool. Wearing whatever you are comfortable in , even if it is not in fashion, is cool. I disagree that Engineers lack a sense of humour. Its just that people don't understand their jokes when they say that " the name of the Rock Band Infected Mushrooms is derived from the symptoms of a water borne disease prevalent in the Rain Forests of the equatorial region". Intellectual humour is so Cool.

Engineers are deprived of the "Cool" tag because they are different. Being DIFFERENT is cool.Its true that they've strived hard to make it to a good college, and its also true that it requires some sacrifices and self-restraints on their part but what is not true is that they don't have the necessary ingredient in them that others pursuing law or management or arts or say fashion designing or whatever possesess , that makes them cool. I believe that anyone on Earth can be cool and we ENGINEERS are no MARTIANS.

Hey

Hi,I am Siddhartha Chandra. I come from a place called Allahabad. Right now I am doing my B.Tech. 2nd year in Computer Science from IIIT Hyderabad. I am 20 years old. I am fascinated by the concept of a profession profile . Therefore I aim to be a writer, a singer and a cook. But as a safety net I'd first like to be an engineer and then maybe try for an MS in Finance. Most people are scared at the thought of having a Boss ( a single one ) in Office, but if I succeed in getting to work in all the fields I want simultaneously, I might be gifted with as many as half a dozen different Bosses. Then - in an engineer's language - I'll be doing multi tasking and my Bosses would be doing time - sharing. Enjoy !