New year Resolution

Gibbs: "By need, do you mean a trifling need? fleeting? As in, say a passing fancy ?"
Captain Jack Sparrow: "No, a resolute and unyielding need".
-- Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest, 2006:

Obviously, new resolutions shouldnt be resolute and unyielding needs like "Never blog anything negative", which has kept me away from this blog for a year!
2008 is definitely, a year of unknown waters, and promises to bring in a tremendous tide of positive and negative thoughts, nevertheless, i've broken the last year's resoultion, and promise to blog as often as possible. Not that the world has missed me too much, but it meant the world to a few close to my heart.

A quick re-cap of 2007, rented a studio flat, all by myself! rented a car for 2 months, bought all the household appliances needed for a small family, and lived a good life for most parts of 2007. Got promoted as "Systems Analyst". Was joyed to discover that I am an expectant papa. Resigned from Job on 25th december 2007.

2008, hopefully, should be a year of .... ahem! i dont know!
Lord willing, I hope to meet my son/daughter in feb. I plan to meet up with friends in chennai and bangalore. By June, I should be ready for the rat race, and get back to a "Just-Over-Broke" (JOB). Thankfully, my family is supportive of my plans to take an extended vacation of a few months :)

Zzats all for now, and Happy New Year!
PS: Phew! Its so tiring to blog!

What dreams may come

I am hours away from ringing out 2007 and ringing in 2008. A retrospective look back at the year past would probably end up defeating the purpose of starting the year new, positively.

A friend of mine once confided that his new year resolution for '07 was that he would not blog anything negative. In consequence, he did not blog anything for the whole year.

Having seen the pitfalls of such a resolution, I refrain from it. Though a humble attempt would be made to keep this corner on the internet updated. With something more than melancholy bile.

To you the readers who stray this way, I say thank you. There is no point in a public outpouring of emotions unless there is indeed a public to view this!

Call it a resolution or a weak attempt or what you will, I intend to post something funny every other odd post (notice how I refuse to be tied down to a fixed number or date or commitment. And this is for a blog post...Lord save me when it comes to bigger decisions!)

Having rambled on while I wait for the bathroom to free up, its now time to get ready for office for the last time this year.

May all of you find what you are looking for this second leap year of the 21st Century.

Peace, Love and Empathy,
Cranial Exodus...

A little ramble

Khalil Gibran says in The Prophet; "The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."

I consider myself to be blessed with a infinite sense of sorrow in that respect. Of late I do not see its purpose though. There is no great tragedy that could have bought this sense of loss and foreboding to me. In essence I am so obsessed with the feeling of complete desolation and pain that I search for a tragedy worthy of my grief.

There are times of the day when I feel particularly sad. Places where I feel sad. People who make me feel sad. But none of it is logically tied in a neat cause and effect bundle that makes sense.

And then there is the painful realization that my brain is losing sensitivity that it once had towards beauty. I watched "The Fountain" for the second time in over a year. It still does not make complete sense to me. But I do realize it is one of the most beautiful films I have seen. The soundtrack is particularly awe inspiring. It seems to be worthy of the sadness I aspire to.

I play the entire OST on loop at night and sleep to it. Sometimes I want to cry because its so great. But then I just laugh at myself for being melodramatic. The sadness in this music is nowhere the equivalent of the sadness that is my life.

So as it stands, I think I am slowly desensitizing and losing my mind at the same time. Pretty soon I will be a vegetable ready to rejoin the simple society.

The Magic and the Tragic

There was a time when I was not alone.
A time not too far away when I was in the company of kindred.
Times that made me forget that all of us are tiny sailboats in the ocean.

Tending to our tiny vessels, we flash signals at each other.
Interpreting some
Misinterpreting most others.

The company of the ones who think like I do for short spells
Made me feel I had finally reached some port of calling.
A port where I could drop anchor and spread roots.

But then either I leave or they do and again adrift in open seas.
Sometimes I signal to the moon at night hoping that it is indeed the satellite
For earthly emotions and sends my thoughts to you.

I am stupid and its true.
I love the same movies you do.
I watch it so that I can feel the same way as you.

Now I switch my television off.
I hate movies. Hate them enough.
Its no longer my escape.

This is just my delirium.
I want to be feverish.
I want to be insensate.

(Subsequent edit: I don't remember typing this at all. I opened blogger and found this draft of something fed by insomnia maybe. Maybe it was unfinished by the version of me who stayed up that night. But let the one who is awake now consider this finished and set it free on an electronic sky. Fly Fly Fly.)

A touch of Insomnia

Third time in 10 days...
I cannot sleep. Basically I dread this because I tend to be woozy at office the next day. Besides that it is all good. I slip and slide away in my head. I look at the same featureless ceiling through the dull illumination of my laptop screen.

Several times I have tried to write something worthwhile. Something that goes with the theme of this very, very negative blogspace that the Three of Us share. I have always shift+deleted all of them. They felt weak. They felt fake.

So perhaps in a light of the changing lives and times of the Kayeos, maybe it is time to stop writing and start reporting.

It has been 21 Months and 5 days since I stepped into this country. I will be just a week short of 2 full years when I step back out again, even if for only a brief while.

How have these near 2 years changed me? I am more moody and broody. That might have more to do with the last month rather than the last 2 years. That is something I don't want to put to paper anywhere either.

I have lost touch with more friends than I have made new friends.

Mentally my mind has diminished in its capabilities with each passing year. More so since I have come here.

I am fatter. That might not have anything to do with this place. I have put on 10 kilos each year of my software career. Presently I figure I am at critical mass. Neither gaining nor losing. Maybe fluctuating a bit. A little winter flab here a litter summer loss there.

My hair is longer. Way longer. Been more than a year since I had a haircut. Doesn't look like much. It has grown thinner. My hairline has receded back a little more. It is now in a ponytail going to office. Left out loose when I am home. I love it when I can headbang to some metal.

Coming to headbanging...my neck is not what it used to be. Gets stiff and painful real quick. Age and disability is fast catching up. My colleague once told me. We are earning more than what our parents did when they retired. Not just the money, but also the work related stress accumulated over decades in a matter of days...I find that argument not without merit.

I have been snubbed in the most painful manner in a matter of the heart. Perhaps the third time in my varied life. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that this is most recent, but this has hurt the most. Still hurts on and off.

Like that Tennis elbow I picked up the day I picked up a tennis racket for the first time. I kept playing through the pain barrier and it became a dull permanent ache. Perhaps there is a lesson that could be applied to life, borrowed from my limited time on the tennis court.

I ramble more often than not. I dabbled in hard liquor for 9 months. Abstained for nearly a full year. Now am contemplating celebrating the anniversary with a bottle of Absolut Citron, all by myself. Perhaps there is some poetic justice to it.

To you, my dear reader, I offer my deepest sympathies in trying to understand the common thread of these derailed trains of thought. There are still a few that I confide in. A few who still come by to this page. Who might read this after months of silence and confirm/deny what they thought I was doing and how I was doing.

So in essence this is just proof for those who seek. And a reminder for me that I exist.

Fear and Loathing in Connecticut

Twenty One and a Half hours and counting to the minute that would mean a Year and Half at Connecticut. So far away.

I have lost the will to fight. I have lost my friends for life.
Lost in the wilderness of my cyberspace.
I wait in search of a friendly face.
Have not missed so many of you for so long.
I am so numb it doesn't feel wrong

Days are spent in fear and loathing
Nerves shrinking, fraying at the edge
Dying heart beating around an icy wedge
With the passing of each day, I move further away
Strange places and stranger friends
Lost in the torment of means and ends

This is me with my mind running free
This is my anger with nothing to be
...



I lost my temper and smashed a racquet into the ground today. Broke the head and threw it away. I have never been this pissed off about being pissed off. Played a shitty game to boot with a spare racquet.

Morning Yearning

Morning Yearning
A finger's touch upon my lips
it's a morning yearning
pull the curtains shut, try to keep it dark
but the sun is burning

the world awakens on the run
and will soon be yearning
with hopes of better days to come
it's a morning yearning

another day, another chance to get it right
must i still be learning
baby crying kept us up all night
with her morning yearning

like a summer rose, i' m a victim of the fall
but i' m soon returning
your love's the warmest place the sun ever shines
my morning yearning

Check Out Ben Harper!!!
This song makes me wish so bad that I had written it!

A Midsummer Nightmare

The title has nothing to do with the post. I just woke up from a dream where this blog had died. Then it felt so real that I had to post.

Haiku for dummies;
in the shade of the
rain tree's breeze

Now it is done in
syllables five and seven;
and then another five

here's the poet
does in three haikus; though it is
not good as yet

Incandescence

Staring at 65 watts of incandescence fixed upon my wall
The sharp light burning upon the inside of my eyeball
Tattooing itself into a black twisted coil
Punching the pain on through the visual foil

I shift my gaze to the cold floor beside me
The tattoo follows the line of sight blindly
I smile inward upon the mild irony
Of the words picked up in contrived harmony

Much like the days of my life, I suppose
Days spent in calm repose
Plotting acts of dazzling brilliance
Idling moments through patented dalliance

Shifting eyes tired, on to a shiny laptop screen
Waiting for a connection through a electric sheen
Counting off electronic sheep that run across Technicolor plains
as I daydream at night, of walking through acid rains

Am I high or is this a new low?
Contemplation of imponderables should go.
No point in trying to temper a crazed mind.
That insists on being the last of its kind.

For years twenty five, and soon twenty six,
I have always been in a quandary, in a fix.
How can I be unique, just like everyone else?
Even if it is for short incandescent spells?

Getting High

Scanning the chatscape
Ears upright listening for a ping
Snuggled in my sleeping bag
Snug as a bug in a rug
I miss you like a drug.

Looking expectantly at my radar
My own private heads up display
Nothing registers...Not a sound
Then the absence hits me like a slug
I now know that I miss you like a drug.

Social networking websites with electronic trails
For new age paper dragons
I mark upon your haunts like a dog
Desperate now, staring by the grave I dug
I feel it for sure that I miss you like a drug.

Within the confines of my limited imagination
I pace and I measure its finite walls
I vacillate...I palpitate
Drinking down panic gulps of water by the jug
Is this withdrawal? Is this because I miss you like a drug?

I don't own you all rights reserved
Though by now on Sanity's edge I somehow self preserve
I twist...I try...I sink...I cry
Then with an unconvincing shrug
I try to delude myself that you are not my drug.

Still I catch myself training upon your satellite
My silver anodized antennae
Rising out reach across the eons
Within my stupid rhyme scheme I am stuck
Defining how you are like a drug

Now I get better...Calmer and sane
within several words evanescent and mundane
I hit the sweet spot...I time
With words like these, I smile, smug
Even as I miss you like a drug.

Burning Old Letters

Some winter night in 2006

Cuddled alone inside a sleeping bag. Laptop balanced precariously on the swell of my tummy...I contemplate the exquisite design of my paunch. Still had not reached the potbelly proportions of cartoons, but still was prominent enough to be a noticeable attribute...Like "You know Bala? The chubby guy?"

Fact of the matter is I am not your quintessential chubby guy. My cheeks are not the kind that go pink when pinched. Nor do they offer much purchase for pinchers, either way...

Maybe people think chubby is politespeak for paunchy or fat...But I digress...Anyway So here I am cold and sleepless. Wondering what went wrong with my life and why. In a scientific exploration mode, I look to the past. I surf through old emails that I have never had the heart to delete.

And I am talking about a mailbox from my pre-gmail pre-multi-GB email accounts. bala420@mailcity.com. So I was picky about what emails I stored. That was right until lycos jumped into the gmail bandwagon and pumped up storage to a Gig...
Since then I have left that mailbox unchecked. Somewhere in my heart I wish for this mailbox to be spammed to its electronic death. But I still remember having moved my precious undeleted emails to a folder where they were away from the spam. Far from the madding crowd so to speak.

I see you there and all your hundred moods. Playful, sad, excited and dejected. Again with no saved emails on my sent folder and never a completely saved email chain, I do not remember or recall if I responded right to you. Was I supportive when you expected me to be? Was I attentive when you needed attention? Did I rejoice in your victories, small and great?

I don't see proof for this but I delude myself into thinking that I did...


Timestamps fly and so do timezones. Your last emails are distant cold and business like. Not that you are using harsh words or being business like. It is just that the spontaneity died, then the number of words and then finally the emails altogether.

And you know what? You are not the only one either. Everyone on my list...it is the absolute grinding down of wheels as everyone is coming to a halt.

So is it a global malady with all of you or that I have degenerated into a hopeless case that no one wants anything to do with me anymore.

And so the years will pass. I might see you again with a memory of what you were and the reality of what you are to reconcile to. Selfishly I hope that we never meet as I can easily delude myself into thinking that everything is okay rather than realize that it isn't.

So I escape...Pour myself another glass of the devil spirit and fall asleep. It is warm and loosens my mind. It wanders. Pink Floyd and Metallica wash over me comfortingly. I slip. I slide. Fade to black and wake with an emotional hangover.


Some night in 2007

Alcohol does nothing for me anymore...I have done stupid things under the influence...confided in utter strangers...A lot of other bull. I tell myself to resolve against alcohol from now on. I stick to it. 672 hours and counting....

loony

Please let me be sad
I cried, with real tears,
But the mind is so heart less

He waved it down, with a single motion
You ain't gonna die today, why cry
Laugh you lonely fellow,
you ain't gonna die today

I took out my case, with all the args and angsts
i spread them out, i reasoned
i pleaded, how do you know, how can you be so cruel
they don't even laugh at me now
they ignore me or call me trivial

Laugh you loony, look at yourself
and laugh your guts out
You ain't gonna die today

I feel a steel flask in the back of my neck
I feel that what fills it is happiness
Its been leaking these days and vacuum is pushing it in
I cant take the pain you asshole, let me be sad
What if it breaks and kills my brain, what about that

I smiled at first, then i laughed
I was roaring in minutes, my body was shivering
I knew i was not gonna die today, why cry