Her 10 minute treat

She felt the coldness on her palm. Water vapour cooling off on the sides of the glass cup felt good on her dry hands. She looked at the scoops in her cup, decorated with exotic nuts and berries. The very sight was inviting. The cup of icecream was begging to be eaten. Strangely, something that looked so delicious had so feeble a smell. This was made up for by the richness that the first spoon of it gave as it dissolved in her mouth, the cold sweetness slowly spreading out onto her palate. The occasional crunch of a nut and the combined taste of chocolate with the nut made it heavenly.
The whole world stopped. The blazing sun was just wiped away, the honking vehicles were muted and the million trivial troubles that we put ourselves into were merely a speck in some distant universe. With every spoon she scooped out, it all disappeared. And with every spoon disappearing, they were all getting ready to make a come back.
All good things come to an end, and the short-lived joy was as fast melting as the choco-nut sundae.

Plea for ideas

I am currently battling a big, huge, large block that is threatening to kill this blog. I have discarded at least 8 drafts and am sure I will discard more. Whatever I write seems like the worst kind of rubbish and bores me to death. To force myself out of this I have decided to write about anything that you ask me to write about. Give me a topic/ ask me a question/point me to something that interests you/all of the above. Anything is welcome!! Just leave me a comment. Mail me or call me. Thanks!

Meaningless

I have been trying so hard for the past few days to convey something to you. It is something that sits in my mind and reminds me of it ever so often. It is something that comes up from the back of my head during every conversation, every new thought, every repeated thought as well.

While it is easy for me to think of it and know that it is true, it is hard as hell for me to tell. Because the thing that I want to communicate is about this means of communication itself. As inefficient as it can get, I know it, think it, feel it, but man made words are so inefficient that I cannot communicate their inefficiency to you.

I bet you did not get this. Cause I told you, words are TRULY meaningless. I know you will not agree.

The Treat

The end of each day
Brought new hope
The end of each hour
Brought more waiting
The end of each moment
Brought more impatience



Impatience, waiting, hope
For what the next day would bring
For the excitement
For the discoveries to be made
For the joy of something new
For the contentment



It was a great treat
It was a world where
She could enter for a few minutes
And feel the tension
Like being on a rollercoaster
No. Even better.



Every morning brought a new one
Something she rose early to wait for
Every morning in the fog
The delivery boy brought a newspaper
To her doorstep
And she could do her favourite ..
Sudoku!

People? Pigeons?

How lonely you can be in a crowd
When they are pushing, jostling, shoving, yelling, cursing
When they are everywhere
Trying to go somewhere, ending up nowhere
Like a pigeon - fluttering its wings, not knowing where to go

How alive can you feel
When they leave traces of their existence everywhere
Just traces of existence
Nothing more than that
Like a pigeon - "trapped" in a room though its doors are open

The poor chap made into my workplace today and could not find his way out, in spite of our efforts to shoo him out through our various windows and large door.
"He", if He really is there, has a twisted, convoluted sense of humour. Nevertheless I had a laugh, thanks.

Beautiful Mathematics

I met a person recently who told me that he was doing a PhD in Mathematics. I always have had awe for people who are researching in Math or Physics. Having read stories of physicists and mathematicians who were glorified by war efforts to build "The bomb" and all the frenetic activity that went with it, I always have wondered if the people of the present generation have much to offer that will take the whole world by storm like Einstein and others did in their time. Does anyone today, have the opportunity to capture the imagination of the entire world, with theories that would destroy the theories that we have held to be true for a few hundred years?
What does this Math PhD guy do really? I regretted asking the question after I saw how uncomfortable it made him. He mumbled a few words about how "research in Mathematics is never really with an application in mind. You know, you have some math... and... you work around with it you know... and see what you get from it.." he trails off. I am still listening expectantly. "You know, you can work with it for years and never really get anywhere..". Then he goes on, "You know, math is full of axioms, so we never can say if we are getting anywhere by accepting them". His voice trails off again. Then I got his point. He thought I was too stupid to get it in technical terms.
"So it is more like free thinking? You turn axioms out of your mind and try looking at things differently?", I asked. At my mention of 'free thinking' he jumped. He excitedly says that is so and that it was free thinking without being bothered about applications. "More like art for art's sake?" Yes he says, beautiful Mathematics. They have trouble getting funds for their work. No one can explain why beautiful Mathematics is important. That is if you can explain to someone (especially people who are in charge of supplying funds) how math can be beautiful in the first place.
Then again, isn't Mathematics our feeble attempt to understand a universe that has so many mysteries? We take pleasure in knowing that there are some numbers that seem to resonate with the universe and occur everywhere - like pi. There are others that we will never understand, never feel and never be able to imagine like infinity. Yet Mathematics is our only tool aiding us in hope of understanding the universe - a means to find order in chaos, an attempt to structure and organize life. Almost like religion that is based on strong beliefs, passed down from generation to generation, and little else.

Incoherence

Headphones throb, head sings.
Speech blurs, sight slurs.
False dreams feed real fires
False fires burn true drives
Gossip marathon is won again
One marathon is a lot of gossip
Too many characters to the drama
Too many dramas to the character
Science is the only refuge of the dreamer
The dreamer is the only hope of science
People sense and make no blabber
Sleep dangerous is extremely deprivation

Go get more sleep

This blog

Today I gave a fresh look at my prized blog. I wondered why I had started writing in the first place. I re-read many posts trying to find a thread, trying to find what the blog can be classified as. I have kept out personal details of any kind here. Unless you know me personally, you wouldn't even know my name from the kind of anonymity I keep up. I have not named my occupation. I have left an inkling of what I have been educated to be. So the blog leaves out these important details that have to be filled in every form and letter - considered to be most essential to your identity. Yet, the blog is filled with an essence of who I am, even if it does not convey every aspect of who I am. At the end of this session, I am appalled at the amount of information I give away to a reader who would care enough to read into every word that I have said here. I have taken pains to keep out my identity on the net and yet I have ended up telling you so many many things. It tells me so many things about myself, about my evolution as an individual. But all this is only because I think I know myself. I wonder what it tells somebody else.

Tempest

It rose and it fell with the fury of hell
It roared and it thrashed. It soared and it crashed
The force that drove it - seemingly infinite

It hissed and spat. Then it rolled out flat
It sat so quiet, the end of its riot.
The force that had driven it - was it spent?

Force of such kind, akin to that of your mind
When it gains the right bent, can never be spent
There it does roll -limitless

Flying high

He felt so proud
Soaring above everyone else
He looked back down at me
He felt safe up there

I fed some more cord
He soared a bit more
He went with the wind
With the wind he swayed

The colours adorning him loud
So he could be seen far and wide
He strayed as far away
As the cord in my hand allowed

I watched amazed
At the heights that he can soar to
At how he swam the skies
How with the wind he played

I was standing aground
He looked so high
That was when I saw a sight
That woke me up today

While the kite in my hand
Soared imagined heights
A bird passed it by
Dressed in soft, pastel shades

I dropped my precious cord
I did learn something new
Why when you can flap your wings
Why tie yourself with cords

Spread them out and fly away. That is what real flight is.

How to make the world a better place?

Just introduce to every human, ultimate joy, by showing him the results of his productivity. Not grades. Not monetary benefits. But actual results. Show him the houses where the tiles polished by the machine he built are laid, show him the people who enjoy the food that he helped grow and produce. And that, my good people, will make every man better, happier and healthier.

What's with your language

Vowels go into the dustbin. Spellings get kicked out the back door
You play with the capslock button like you did with the neighbour's door bell
The question mark gets your concern. You don't want it to be lonely
So you put a dozen of them together.
To make it more jolly add a couple of exclamations. Weave a string or a garland with them
Invent abbreviations as you go. Or maybe create expansions for meaningless strings of consonants.
Originality? Or a mask to cover the lack of it.
Laziness? Then why write at all!

Language was invented to communicate, not to flabbergast people and leave them frustrated enough to write out rants like these.

Which is the greater crime?

Knowing that you know and can do but still not doing a thing?

or

Not knowing that you can't and still being sure of yourself.

I see both kind of people around me. Getting irked.

The full cycle

Snake-like, the cycle wheel goes while crushing leaves on the tarred road and leaves you wondering what is more wonderful - foliage that is just sprouting this spring or the memories of the last year that are strewn on pathways. You look up and the future calls with translucent green - fragile and yet sturdy and strong enough to last the summer and the winter after. You look down and you see orange, brown and red of last year's follies and foibles, fun and frolic - the past. Your cycle wheel crushes every crumpled reminder that goes "scrunch" on the road and that scrunch travels right up to your head through the rubber and metal. Then another attack of wind, forces down more leaves that shower down on you, covering you with orange, brown and red again. You try to weave past every one that threatens to attach itself to you, but they still do. The images of them falling down straight in individual spirals in a slow-motion-shot force your lips to turn up and acknowledge the sight. The permanence of this process of change that makes the whole earth be born again, taking you with it, taking something away and giving you something in return, keeps you in awe of perfection embedded in that which can never be perfect, permanence that is so ephemeral, meaning etched into meaninglessness and past replayed and recorded in that which is yet to come. The full cycle.

They wont see

The world is not your friend, child
It is you who are.
Don't look for them to see, child
They're off too far.
Don't wait to be in the ring, child
It will leave a scar.
Build your castle hidden, child
Build it wide and large
Include in it the world, child
but don't leave the door ajar
Miles from now you will be, child
Just wish upon that star

WYTIWYG

There are several layers to anything that is deep and meaningful. Anything with true depth is not lying there with everything that is there to it, available for vandals to rip through and see the bales flying in the wind. That which has great depth seems to be nothing, puts on no pretense, is ordinary to the senses of the world. It is to the thinking mind that it reveals itself in its true colours and attraction. It is to the thought process that it appeals. Like every other wonder of the world, it gives a choice. You either see it as it is or you see it as it appears to be. But what you see does not define it. What you see defines you.
"Its complexity is directly proportional to the time that you put into understanding it" and that makes it all the more beautiful.
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

25+56+79

Do you ever add more than 2 numbers at a time? I think that however fast you may add many numbers together, finally if you sequence your operations you may see that you ended up doing an addition of only 2 numbers at a time. Can our brain only handle so much at an instant,( how ever fleeting it may be)?

Pearl of wisdom #192

"If you don't know where you're going any road will take you there"

But if you do know where you are going...

... any road will still take you there.

Keep at it.

Tolerance dash

The problem with most of us is that we cannot accept anyone who is different from us. Leave alone accepting - we cannot tolerate differences. We claim to be individuals and think uniquely and hold ourselves supreme and beyond question. But no other man deserves to have that. No other person can bring forth his individuality and his personality, cause it disturbs us? cause we feel threatened?

The problem's solution is in the problem. If you are fragile enough to be disturbed, fragile enough to be threatened, then honestly you are nothing extraordinary. You do not deserve to feel that supremacy that you do. You cannot distinguish yourself from that which disturbs you.

People are different. By nature, by birth, by circumstance or by choice. If you are entirely what you are by choice and by nothing else then you may pass judgements as you do. But you are not. No one is. Full stop. So just quit it and go back to your work.

Some more

I come down to this page and set my hands to the board knowing that what will flow will go nowhere - it will travel up and travel down.
It is that which pervades all space.
It is that which engulfs everything in it.
It is that which will not die.
It is that which has not a purpose and not a reason.
(It is the only thing that does not, you would say. Or scoff.)
True nonsense never has any intentions, beginnings, ends.

People say the dumbest things

A poem is not a place for an idea? What a dumb thing to say. What is wrong with writing an idea in a poem? Are you telling me that a poem has to have no ideas but should just be a collection of sweet sounding words that you put a tune to? Silly.
That does not make any sense at all. When people start finding ways of communicating in something other than words all these displays of stupidity could stop.

post mortem report

He had tried all he could. But anywhere he had dug, all he could find was earth. The treasure that had been promised to him, the treasure that had tantalized him and that had taunted him was no where to be found. Some people know when to give up but not him. He had continued to believe that he could find that treasure. He had found something sometimes that shone bright from a distance. But a closer glance had shattered his hopes again. Alas! what a fool he had been. He had gone right back to dig and dirty himself with the earth that flew around at contact with his worn out spade.

What could the problem have been? His spade could have been worn out. It could be that he was too trusting. He could have been looking in the wrong places. He could have been looking for it for the wrong reasons. He might not have trusted his abilities. He might not have had a direction and order to his digging.

But then the most important question is - had there been some basis to his idea that treasure can be got only by digging?

That's enough of nonsense I guess.

Power(puff) girl

I once blabbed in a packed class that I see myself holding a position of great power and control in my life in future. I was scoffed at and the instructor gave a very sarcasm laden comment about it that I forget now (very conveniently). This was around 3 years ago. I wonder now, what it is about power that people are crazy about. Power over other human beings? Power over nature? Power over destiny and future? Power to make, break and demolish? Or simply power over myself and what happens to me. Why should anyone go after the power to influence or control other people and their happiness?
I believe the power to choose what happens to me is much more important than the power to "control" the people of the world or any other power for that matter.

Mirage

I searched for the blue sky. It takes me in every time I see it because of the way it spreads out and over and around. It sees no beginning and no end like every piece of truth that exists in this world and yet there is no bigger illusion than this image that we call the sky. That day, it had spread in every direction that I turned till the land devoured it. It was telling me that there was something that I did not know but could feel - there was something that I could believe in without seeing. It seemed as though it ended where it touched the land, but I could feel that it did not.
Today I searched for the sky. I searched for that huge play on my eyes that had me enamoured and in awe and that had held my imagination for years. I looked for it in the distance as my cramped bus moved among dusty buildings. I searched for it like a parched traveler in a desert looks for an oasis. Like a parched traveler I trudged on - up and down sand dunes and looked to see a spot of that which holds life and body together.
Then like a parched traveler I looked out the window and found something that spread out and over and around. It took me in its grip and made me believe that it was a vast expanse and a huge something that was larger than me and my world. Like a parched traveler feeling the misery of having seen a mirage that created false hopes in his mind - when the smoke cleared I saw there was no sky - only more skyscrapers that shielded the blue from my eyes.
Later, I wondered. When the blue clears will I be as disappointed?

Patterns

One essential thing to learning and discovering things for yourself, without the aid of information from work others have done before you, is to look for patterns. A pattern in the kind of feedback you get from the system will let you categorize what you see. Finding these patterns is essential to understanding the system.
This is precisely the reason why people judge others. But if you try judging others from the patterns that other people have already spotted before you , it is meaningless and not justified. You see it is only fair if you are finding patterns where you know of none. That is why people are so against judging others.
Incidentally, people who claim they do not judge are the ones who cannot stop doing that.

Don't you know?

Mundane and boring verse
That makes sense to none
except the one
who wrote it?
Trivial and trite words
that reveal nothing
to anyone?
Then for what
did she write all that trash
Or for whom did she
pour out her soul
in words here?

Star Struck

Stars are millions of miles away
There are millions of them
"I am just a speck here" they say
"So I don't matter much"

But those million stars can't see me
It is my eye that holds them
I decide whether to let them be
Or blink my eyes and be done with

So am I still just a speck here?

Are these questions?

What do you admire someone for. For what they have achieved? For what labels people have thrust upon them? For who they are? Or do you just admire them for what they are?

What do you believe in God for. Do you want to feel safe to think that some one else is there to watch over you? Do you want some one else whom you can praise for your achievements? Are you afraid of the power of your happiness? You want it to be in the safe hands of someone else?

What am I asking these questions for? Do I want to know their answers? Do I want you to think of the answers? Do I want you to share them with me? Do I want to tell you what's on my mind?

Art, Science and Einstein

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science." - Albert Einstein

This man always amazes me. I wonder how-the-hell he knew everything he did. I will keep admiration aside for now. What I have to say is neither about him and not exactly about what he means in this sentence of his.
This quote of his struck me enough to make me write it down because of one reason - the two things he mentions - true art and true science. I am just wondering aloud to all of you, correct me if I am wrong - is it not these very two things that is a common bind to all intellectuals? (I wont go into a definition of this category. I used the word not to categorize but to ensure that my readers do not start thinking of people who do not have anything to do with art and science) Isn't that all that really? Art and science - two manifestations of the mysterious. Two things that have always swayed humankind. Two things that are so different yet never against each other. In art you find deep science and in science you find magnificent art. One appeals to intelligence, the other to emotion. Both stimulate you, enthrall you, captivate you and keep you locked.
Now back to Einstein. How-the-hell did the man know all that he did. Where did he get all that.

The Sky. Again.

What colour would you give the sky
If you could change it today
I would like to give it a lovely shade
That even in flowers is rare
I would start painting right away
choosing between brushes and spray
While at it, might paint the whole town too!

The image of the new sky is in my eye
Is that a sapphire in the pouring rain?
Is that a chemical on a petridish?
What glorious colour is this that spreads
What colour is this? Has it no name?
What colour is it that my brushes gave
Wait! This colour is... again... just blue!!

Loud mouth!

She stands tall and high
She yells and screams
All around her have no choice
But to rush in before she cries

Loud shriek - ear pierce
She yells and screams
All around have no choice
But to work cupping their ears

She has fixed times - everyday
She yells and screams
All around her have no choice
But to do as she says

But in the evening when she calls
She yells and screams
All around her rejoice
It is the finally the day's fall
It is time to go home!

Mixed pictures

The cold wind sang in my ears
The sun shone bright and warm
Shade after shade of green rushed past me
Washed me with an urgent sense of calm
A storm brewed in my head
The whole world held its breath
Answer after question raged inside me
Like life defeating certain death

Creative low

She writes away
Just a play
of words
Nothing to convey
Only to give way
to collected steam
At the end of the day