No more after this

Finally I am going on my last vacation....my last long stay at home....

Mixed Feelings

After I wrote the post yesterday I watched 3 more episodes of Friends. And then went off to sleep. Luckily the portion wasn't much...being a quick reader I could complete it in the morning & succeed more or less in nailing the paper. Now the emptiness stares me. Like sirens calling out to sailors the goddess of waste beckons me,"Come back o prodigal son...thou have been gone for a long time now...you have worked hard & nows the time to idle away time doing nothing". But theres where my mixed feeling come in. I can't just do nothing. Every time I have to engage my mind with something or the other. Am going home on 1st December. Going there has off late lost some of its charm for me. Don't know why? Maybe theres something of the air of freedom in the hostel. You sleep when you want, you eat when you want, curse when you want. Bath in 5 days, brush in 2. Theres no one to say a word. In some ways its a pretty ideal kind of life. At home some one or the other keeps nagging. Not that I don't deserve it. But still life is to be lived in its own way. The main problem there is I will not be having net connection. Normally I spend 12 hours a day browsing & reading. So life at home feels disconnected sometimes. But still its going to be the last vacation at home. I have my joining in summer. So with a smile on my lips & a frown on my brow I am ready for the next month.

To Read Or Not Read

This time once more i rant about the miserable education system of ours. Thing is for 3 months(in a semester...that is 4 months-2 weeks of exam-2 weeks of study) I don't give a damn about what goes on in the college. Now 3 papers are over. The last one to go is tomorrow. If I know people at all its a normal thing to get all impatient before the last test, lose yourself in glorious daydreams about how great tomorrow will be when there is nothing more to study. Ever since junior school it has a been a thing with me....I celebrate the end of exams a day too soon to the effect that the actual time of celebration passes away in clouds of gloom & remorse...he he. Can't help being who I am??? So the last papers are tomorrow & i spent my evening in the following manner:
i) Watched 2 episodes of friends. I often keep some of the episodes on my PC. Who knows when I will need them? They are real relaxing some times.
ii)My branch is Metallurgical engg. But I thought of helping a friend from Computer science with distributed systems. One of my favorite topics is operating systems.
iii)Then i went to hotel for dinner. Wednesdays meal in the hostel isn't up to human standards.
iv)One my way back I stopped at the saloon for a shaving.
v)Watched 2 more episodes of Friends & now was roaming aimlessly over the internet(its my favorite pastime) when I thought of ending my merry making with a blog about my myopia of the mind.
vi)Hope I will muster the strength to open the xerox notes of my friends & actually read something before dozing off.
I intended this blog to be a diatribe on our vicious syllabus but have drifted away from it & since I feel real happy now I will save the bitching for another day.Goodnight.

Screw Attendance

Yesterday our attendance for the semester was released. I was surprised to see my name on the list & that too in a subject I had thought I had attended the most classes in. Exams begin after 2 days & my whole day got ruined taking care of this new thing. Man its not like I have my courses revised and digested a year before the exam. I start my preparation at last minute & so today happens to be a precious day to lose. After spending a day running around the campus from the academic to administrative sections it so happens that yesterday's news was a fiasco for many. It happens the teacher has misplaced the 2 out of 4 attendance sheets was so the calculation was based on 1/2 of the entries. What a joke??!!
Anyway what puzzles me is....why the f-- is attendance important? Like if a student gets ace grades without attending a single lecture do you praise his intelligence, confidence & independence OR do you condemn him for rejecting what he doesn't need? It is a very silly meaningless system i n fact...I say all students should get together with the common agenda of not attending a single class and bring high grades. Let the profs see how expendable they are...I say screw the attendance & while you are at it screw the profs as well.....:0

Ramblings

A thought.....

Isn't it strange how our expectations from life go on dwindling with the years until a time comes when good is simply the absence of bad…if there is any reading this please tell me if you haven’t felt this void of a goal sometime…..

Today the whole day I spent listening to songs….soft lyrical songs. I started with “poets of the fall”…then “cold play”….now am listening to “Pink Floyd”. First I would tell that the masterpieces I am sure can hold their ground against any modern poetry….they are so hauntingly beautiful…if you haven’t listened to any of them please do….

The song running now(the 4^th consecutive re-run) is “Comfortably Numb”. The guitar background score is excellent but what really touches me are these lines…

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown, the dream is gone
I have become comfortably numb

Somehow I feel ,except for the self-deceiving, feeling-good, optimistic yuppies, all in the journey of life can relate to these lines…..somehow I had thought writing more but am getting overcome a pleasant meditative lethargy….will give in now…….

Beauty and Cynicism

I just read a beautiful blog entry…a poem describing the beauties that lay hidden in the day to day chores that are taken for granted….it made me wish had I such a vision to see them…but then a darker thought overcame. Sometimes I do have such visions… I stare at the trees swaying to the rhythm of wanton winds…I gaze upwards into the stars, trying to find patterns. Speaking of stars what fascinates me most is that when looking at them we are looking at the past, maybe none of them exist…who knows? I love watching toddlers playing joy fully…and THEN…

I begin thinking how this happiness is but a tempting crust to a bitter apple…how the smiles guise the malice…such thoughts come and spoil all the atmosphere…I feel enlightened at such moments thinking how I cant be duped, then I feel miserable on not ever being able to enjoy a moment of joy….

“Where ignorance is bliss,

'Tis folly to be wise”

Flashbacks

Now I am at the door steps of a new chapter of my life---one that waits like a gaping chasm into which all have to inevitably step into. With a job waiting for me to join, now is a good time for some flashbacks.

Let the camera roll over to ’93. A class 3 boy is watching his seniors playing with Bunsen burners with multi-colored flames and sounds coming out…cool…he knows then & there I had to be a chemist. He looks up what chemistry is….finds out a chemist is a person who sales medicines. Nah!! He is going to be a real scientist with access to all chemicals in the world…

Then comes ’97. With General Science divided into physics, chemistry & biology he falls into a dilemma what to choose…he happens to like them all. At the same time he chances upon literature & loves that too…what to do. And then the answer dawns upon him. Its simplicity itself….he will do it all….ALL

He makes a plan of his life…he loves physics & English. OK.” Make an invisibility suit & a time machine and I will surely get the Nobel for physics”, he thinks. Then he plans out how to alter DNA by physio-chemical means and thus get the Nobel for both Chemistry & Medicine. By then he would have studied about 5 or 6 foreign languages and their literature...he would write an epic on “King Arthur & The Knights Of The Round Table”….it has not been attempted before. The Nobel for literature will be his. By all this he would have amassed a fortune and had already reached the pinnacle in most fields…so he would start up a corporation where he would apply his own business methods and yes he would get the Nobel for economics….then an old man at the fag end of a dazzling career he would donate all his wealth to do his share in removing poverty, would set up various institutes for recognizing excellence and would manage the Nobel for Peace for his death……Yeah that would be a life to live for.

A lot of water has flown over under the bridge since then….like mud turning to rock the boyish ambitions full of innocent insolence became drier with the passing years….eroded by the vagaries of the narrow world the…flown hither & thither by capricious desires the pompous boulder finally finds its place ….a speck of sand in the vast desert of humanity…….

Exams

My mid-semesters start from day after tomorrow. Has any bloke ever liked exams? Do not students all over the world rant about the fruitlessness and torture of this wasted endeavor? But I wonder when exactly do these fun loving school boys turn into the grim adults? Why and when do they forget what they had once felt, what they had once dreamt , what they had once loved, what they had once cursed?

What enlightenment do they get, the light of which shuts out the dazzles of childhood? Strange it is.

There I got carried away by "Peter Pan"? I had thought to write about what I feel about exams. My father always said it is equally important to be a good student as well as to be a good examinee. Ha Ha Ha ! I never gave a damn to whats practical and I don't give a damn to it now. Lets leave that to shopkeepers. I am an idealist with a difference. I don't blow up dreams in smoke and moan about how the mundane world will never let me do what I want to do. I know despite what I am advised my convictions will triumph over others experience. I may not win the first battle or the next but I shall win the war.


What a drunken driver I am who has steered off the road twice in 5 minutes. Okay no more diversions. I always have fared badly in exams. Heck!! I have failed a couple of times. But i have never given them a thought as I know they don't prove anything. How does remembering a thing matter when all your life you will have books and references beside you to guide you. What matters is if you have understood it? How this simple thing has been eluding educationists for centuries is beyond my faculties to fathom. Why do we have to remember derivations and definitions?

But I guess all of these rhetorical questions are mere whistles in the dark. They don't matter and they certainly aren't suggesting a better way of doing things. The options that form in the mind are too nebulous and impracticable for the society to be implemented.

PULP FICTION

There are 2 things I would go crazy without---Books & Movies. I will spare the reader of pedantry and skip over extolling the virtues of books. Lets talk about movies. I can do it for hours..in fact I do. Am thinking about writing my opinions on the best movies that i have seen.
Let me start with "Pulp Fiction". I will not go overboard and shout it is the best film ever. But its a work of art(am resisting a big temptation to liberally use the "F" word). After all its Pulp fiction I am talking about.

Whats not great in this movie. The narrative style, the unforgettable characters, the apt scores and the crown---the dialogs. Tarantino is a genius who doesn't allow a cliched syllable in the entire length. We enter the heart and minds of the low hit-men. Its makes an interesting thought that central figures of here are the lowly flies in the movies that the hero disposes of in a blink. There we don't give them a thought but here we realize that despite all the works different people do they all have a heart. Indeed at a deeper level this movie is about real people very real ones...not the difficult to distinguish robo-sapiens of the Matrix .

They make "Hamletic" speeches about what to do and what not to do. They brood on right and wrong. They betray, they obey, they love , they kill. Before stepping into the killers liar Bruce Willis talks about pancakes, Travolta & Thurman do drugs, Jackson swears with his breath but they all seem good people. They do what they do but they are what they are.

Over the past 1 year I must have seen it a dozen times. Each time I learn something.

Jules' fiery dominance, Vince's smoothness, Mia's insolence, Butch's goodness, The wolf's unperturbed "work" and I think even the speech by Wallace on pride will all leave an imprint. My sole cause of sadness after the movie is that I wont be able to use such sparkling lines in my everyday talks.

Darkness

For the past one 3 hours i have been sitting in a dark 8x8 ft room reading an E-book on SQL Server--good one from Wrox. Anyway it just struck me many would be there who would find stepping into such a room unbearably stifling...my parents among them. Both of them have almost a fanatic attachment for bright light and fresh air. I on the other hand feel most at home in complete cool darkness...whether idling away time or studying something. I just typed away 4 lines of gibberish I wrote down for no reason. Anyway i love the dark. I feel stronger, more confident, more focused in complete darkness. I feel like some vicious animal waiting stealthily for his diurnal prey to make a mistake in the unfamiliar darkness. Its in the company of others that I feel most lonely..."they" always have something to talk about...usually that something is something i am not interested in. I enjoy my solitude...its never a complete solitude...its the silence of nature...something that always makes a buzz in your ear until you are "aware" of it. Think about it & slowly the orchestra of bugs, leaves and distant people recede into silence. Ideas good and bad keep popping up like a cork in water, I feel a sort of unison with the larger nature...I discover the rhythm we have long lost in the din and bustle of this sad, bad and mad world

Computers

Let me tell something. I don't know when or what struck a spark in me to pursue computers. Before I joined Engg. people would have laughed on seeing this boor asking the cyber cafe owner to switch on the PC for him(yes! i didn't know where the power button was). But within a space of a year i was the troubleshooter guy in the hostel...the person one would call if he had a crash, virus attack, networking problems anything...sometimes i knew what i was doing..other times it was a calculated bluff..but i did the job all the same. The deeper i dug, the base of this pit kept shifting off farther and farther like some mirage. In that glimmering darkness of the subterranean caves could I see more clearly now how everything was connected. Various disparate disciplines seemed to be the same thing. Even thinking of our day to day life with a technical perspective shows how similar arts, science and all other great things are. Computers are not calculators to ease our lives. They are like an old friend who reminds us of our primitive & simplistic past, helps us understand the chaos of the present and shows us visions of the grand future. Along the lines of its development we can trace our own. Knowing them is to know us.

Back to square ONE

Practically I'm going to start over my blog all over again...a discontinuity of 6 months is not a discontinuity,its death & resurrection..ha ha. I think this is the first time that i have laughed here. Indeed...I must say for a person who bitches so much about how he alone has all the woes in this sorry world there would be many who would say I am a very funny in person...my brand of humor has a certain sardonic cynical touch with a heavy vocabulary....if u want to hear something intelligent come up to me for i am not going down to you...am i conceited?

The Lost Key

When something bad happens to you...when something wrong crosses your mind what do you do? I don't know about you but I keep all those thoughts in a secret hidden chamber whose only key I have in my pocket. Somebody or someone then comes along with whom you may share your key. they ask you for it, you are glad at the oppurtunity to share your solitary burden,you fumble at your pockets.....shrug your sholders and instead of the key gift a empty look......
"Sorry dear the keys are lost"...

The meaning of this rather extended metaphor is that many times we hide so many things from us and others at later we ourselves at afraid to take peep at ourselves lest we find demons inside that dungeon....i feel i'm not being too articulate. what i mean is that only after a few posts I could not bring myself of writing down my thoughts...

Guess a long time of pretense and self deception we become a stranger to ourselves,don't we?

Crap

I dont think theres anything worse than to be dying to express long 
bottled up thoughts and having no one to listen to.reminds me of Alexander Silkirk.Net connection is so slow its impossible to do anything at all.Have some imp. things to do.If possible will definitely write somthing.Have a lot to say.

TABOOS

 It’s very surprising to me that I an introspective and shy person am now so fond of blogging. What exactly do I intend to achieve by this? I don’t know. But I intend to find out. For now I think it can be placed in the sane group as singing in the bathroom. You sing supposing the music (though not always) reaches your ears alone but secretly hope to catch a word of praise from an eavesdropper. Likewise while blogging I can share my innermost secrets and hope that they are read. During writing the last line I was struck by a rather unique aspect of our minds. Sharing a secret with no one and sharing it with everyone has the same meaning to the brain. Nah, I was wrong. Anonymity is the real issue here. But I feel there's something in that line.

Anyway I was going to write about taboos. Recently my sister had been to a debate comp. where the topic was “sex education in schools”. And strangely I, a supposedly ultra-modern person with all the knowledge and maturity I was boasting about, meekly changed to another topic. Why was that? I have been trying to think about the reason for a long time now. What is there in the topic of sex that, despite all education, elders shy away from discussing with the younger? Maybe it has something to do with how one is brought up. I was brought up in quite a conservative family in these regard. But a large appetite for Hollywood movies, English novels, and an early onset on adolescence hastened my acquaintance with sex. Furthermore completing a course of psychology and dreams made me see its effects on our varied day to day actions. Although how crude (forgive the choice of words) and base, sex could get I knew quite late actually. And yet here I am ……..mumbling the word whenever it occurs in a general discussion even though the context may be describing whether the person is a male or a female. I think such prudishness is pretty hopeless. But I can’t do away with it. I have tried many times to raise the topic near my brother and sister (both my juniors) and have failed. Probably as I am thinking the main fear we have to face with this topic is that the little ones have now come of age and that believe me is a terrifying thought for any parent or elder sibling. Once gone we sorely miss our childhood and hope it stays on with the young and we get to exercise the elder’s prerogative for ever. Thus we turn a blind eye to the fact that now they are not so young after all. Strange isn't it? But honestly what ever is the ancient force that’s holding us back should be done away with. Ironically taboos like those related to sex, deviant sexual habits, religion etc are the very topics that should be addressed widely and ones in which teenagers should be made aware of.

Hence I feel sex-education should definitely be introduced into the curriculum. But before that a more important issue has to be dealt with first……..that of teaching the teachers how to tackle this sensitive subject. Believe me many teachers screw up while teaching of a solitary chapter on reproductive system and over react to the expected giggling of students. Telling a class of girls and boys about sex will be a hell of a job for them. And heaven forbid if any of them decide to dictate notes and take class tests. Kids may get furious and decide never to make love in the future!!! What I mean is that introducing youngsters to sex is not enough. The introduction has to be done in a very systematic and matured manner so as to prevent any misconceptions.

I think I have made a pretty clean statement without blushing. Let us hope I have the courage to carry out what I have said. I certainly will give it a try sometime. For now its 5 in the moring and I better go to sleep now.



 

CHANGE

Of all the factors that shape human destiny perhaps the strongest is change. Empires and republics grow and fall because of change. Indeed the whole history of the universe can be summarized in the following words: “it has changed”. Though artificially simplistic it conveys a powerful fact ………nothing is permanent. Everything changes—may be for the better or the worse.

Yet we resist change. We dislike to disrupt of the familiar and fear to embrace the unknown. We like things to remain as they are. But what we don’t realize is that in the process of fighting change we transform into something rigid and rigidity never succeeds. Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you. But changes should not be made to an existing working system on counts of novelty alone. That is where many err. Blindly mimicking something, almost always leads to downfall. Instead of being swept away we should try to make an impartial judgment as to which of the alternatives is the better one. Maybe the one followed for years is followed for a reason. There are many things here which require a more deep analysis. After all if man succeeds in finding this elusive balance between tradition and invention many needless problems can be solved. An open minded dynamic society is perhaps the answer to an everlasting prosperity of the human race. Big words, aren’t they?



 

FRIENDS

I am off to take a late night bath. Have not been able to for the whole day because a friend was there with me since morning. This brings me to the topic for now----“friends”. By now I have made it pretty clear that I don’t like company. I don’t like being made to sit with people and chit chat while there may be a thousand more things I could spend my time on. Is man really a social animal or he is made to be one. I mean how many people get to cherish the purity of solitude early in their life so that they can impartially judge whether it’s better to be alone or to be in a group. After all we are primates and the highest primate next to us the orangutan is a confirmed loner. Friends and gossip are great for relieving your mind. But beyond a certain measure they begin to throttle you. And I feel everyone should be given a chance to spend some time in solitude. I can surely say the time spent that way is my best part of the day. Have to take that bath now. 

MARRIAGE

Today I was having a discussion with my sister whether marriage is a necessary part of life or not. As for me, I intend to spend my life unmarried. It’s true that marriage brings someone into your life---someone you can share your closest secrets with. Someone when with whom you will never feel lonely. Someone to share your feelings of joy and happiness.

But I feel its marriage has its side effects which for certain individuals can far outweigh its benefits. First marriage is an obligation made for life. Recently rising number of divorces might suggest that you can step out these obligations whenever you feel like, but let’s take the thing in its true spirit. I for one am extremely paranoiac about commitments. Maybe because in the past I have made some and have failed to keep it leading to quite bad experiences. I feel only a person living in the present can make a promise for life. I am not one of them.

Secondly marriage is a burden. You may love the person you marry but you have no choice over the child that will follow. What sort of character it will grow into nobody can tell but you have to take the responsibility. Though working partners are the norm of the day the male is still looked upon to take the earning responsibility of the house. Now while all alone I can throw my job if my boss or colleagues piss me off and look for another one. But that I cannot do once in wedlock as “I have a family to look after.”

Thirdly I never want to stop being a child. After all my readings and vast second hand experiences it is my conclusion that the careless gaiety of a child is too precious to be squandered for the glittering “maturity” of a man. Call it the peter pan complex but I love being I 20 year old kid. I believe a matured child is the perfection of the human race. Love and Marriage come along and ruin it all.

The fourth reason is derived from personal experience. My father was and is a voracious reader (though he keeps telling me I am much more). In our house we have around 10000 books all personally bought and collected by him. It’s his habit to note down his name and the date of possession on each copy. What’s interesting is that all those before his marriage are worn down by repeated use. Those after have their pages hardly turned over. I have often seen him pick up a book with great interest and then put it down to attend to some problem of the house. I don’t want the same to happen to me. I feel most of our lifetime is consumed in solving problems whose architects are we ourselves. After marriage one must either give up hope of higher dreams or be contended to live a terrible life in which he neither gets his dreams nor marital happiness. What is such a life good for?

I don’t know. Maybe there is more to marriage than a cynical and bitter person like me could understand. After all as John Nash said,

“I've made the most important discovery of my life. It's only in the mysterious equation of love that any logical reasons can be found.”

May be I am yet to find it. May be I am too strong or too mad to be swayed by my emotions. May be all are not strong enough to live their life themselves and need a companion to relive their burden.
I am and I work alone.

 

DONT KNOW WHERE TO START OR WHAT TO DO

At the very start I need to tell this that if I sound deranged or imbalanced you were not the first one to judge to that. I have been given lots of names by many people. Indeed I know it myself and am proud of it. The kind of life I have led will make men drop dead from sheer mental exhaustion. If I seem awkward at a few times what the heck. I suffer from a hero complex. I believe I have the power in me to set things right. Remember when Uncle Ben parker told Peter Parker "With great power comes great responsibility”, I felt somebody was telling me those things. What exactly is my power????

Well I don’t know if u can call it a super power but I have an amazing power to study and grasp things in a sec that would take normal beings days.I believe I have read more than any of my generation and age and I am not boasting. I am equallywell read in literature, physics, math, history, philosophy, computers, law.......the list goes on.

 

And I don’t know where to start and what to do. Comical,huh? I believe all the knowledge that I have acquired should not waste in vain in some corporate office. But everything in my life seems to go in that direction and I don’t seem to have any control over it. Prospects in the future look so bleak, dull and terrifying. And I feel I have been put in here for a reason more than just to earn a secure and comfort life for me and my family. I feel I have a mission to accomplish. Reader, if u like laughing go right ahead and I shall laugh with you. But I can’t change who I am, can I? For the time being I am utterly confused and have a single motto in life…..”KNOW THYSELF” for that is the only thing worth doing.