Cell from hell

The music fires on all cylinders, shrill metallic and craving instant attention.
I let it hurt my eardrums and then I steel my resolve to turn it up a little more.
Now it has begun to really hurt. I like this. Am I a masochist? Am I empty?

Maybe yes. Maybe yes. A little louder please.

YES. now I have reached the point where I cannot hear myself speak anymore.
Ha! so this is what it is like to be like you...
No wonder you like it so much.

Now let us try closing the eyes. Sensual overload. the one single sense stimulated to

exhaustion has borrowed the other unused 4 sensory amplifiers. Is there something left in

Winamp's tank to test this barrage of parallel amplifiers? Apparently yes.

Now I can hear the scratches of fingers on fretboards of distant guitars. The screech of

mikes hissed upon at close range.

And then silence. Changeover. The next track is anti-climactic in its mellow lilt. I don't

like it.

Hit J and jump to the next track. A gradually escalating song which had once been my 48

hour loop track. As it escalates, I brace for the assault. Now the volume is at the max. My

neighbour looks at me stunned at the fact that my headphones are interrupting her

conversation on the phone. At the periphery of my vision I see her mouthing the word

P-S-Y-C-H-O to her unseen friend on the other end of an Airtel connection.

Like I care.

Darkness in Dubai

Nair and his gang of 40 plus are discussing religion and boozing, whilst i am typing my first blog after 2 months. A lot of things have changed. Phase 3 of life has already begun. Under the watchful eyes of my relatives, i am beginning to relive life, as i used to .. 10 years back, in the bliss of ignorance. Nair is a very interesting nasty character. He is a manager in the sea foods division of some company called Akira. He has his family in Mumbai. A true vagabond, he visits all night clubs and says "they forced me !!". No matter how much he boozes, he makes it a point to wake up at 5.30 and play "kausalya supraba...." he then dozes off and wont let me reduce the volume.

After 4 rounds, they have now started eating . Nair and his friends are very particular about food. "We should never have food from hotels! god knows how old the oil is!!". Nair smokes a pack of cigarrete between 6.45 am and 7.45 am. I am not sure, how many he smokes during the day. All the CD's he own are devotional ones. His wake up drink is one glass of tea and one glass of liquor.
Thanks to Strings and their songs, ... I can drown myself in the magical world of music.

The boat driver is sweating like hell. The everyday boat-ride back home is a soothing one. People dont talk that much on the boat. Everyone seems to be enjoying the waves, or rather trying to forget everything for 15 minutes , before they get into the thick of the things, be it be the room with 14 people, or the office where you are looked down upon. If someone bathes 5 times a day, he should be really clean.

Work is exciting. One fine morning after my first production patch went live, i was summoned to the main branch. Customer A wants to open a current account, the branch user, an arab lady clicks on the first few screens and `DiSHum!` HTTP 500 Error. The system analyst watched the scene with horror, the customer blinked, and the branch user screams .. 'wallahi @#% 4$@ $#!'. I went near him and whispered "Bring down the system immediately, downtime 30 minutes'. He repeated it and soon, 23 branches were down for 30 minutes.

The water in the tub was really warm. I lay there for about an hour. felt really good. The sweltering heat of 50 degree celsius had knocked me out. Residence Deira, by Le Meridien. My home for 20 nights. Renjith and Prabhu (at the reception) were my only friends during the time. 63000 rupees... bloody hell! The bank has a policy of showing off... to let the world know where a new employee gets to stay, though temporarily.

'Finding Neverland' was the last movie I saw, about a month back. Abode : Qatar Airways. Kate looked beautiful. Johny Depp was amazing.
The drunkards (3 nos) are still discussing some crap "Money will come and go, relationships are important".

Dubai : the land of extremes. It has changes so much. On one side, i can find people who are better than angels, and on the other, there are russian whores knocking on your doors at just 6.30 pm!

Optra is doing a smooth 120 km/hr.. and i feel it like the 40 km/hr back in india. The tea cup doesnot shake. My uncle is finding it hard to keep it under 130.. the max speed limit on the Dubai-Abudhabi highway. Maybe because the road is too wide .. I cant sense the speed. Pull down the window... and the desert wind gushes . .yup.. really we are not static! Cost of petrol : 8 rupees per litre.

14 people in a room! double decker beds. A small paper sticked on the kitchen door "donot enter.. between 10 pm and 6 am. we are sleeping here, and are tired from work". Room rents increase by 100% or more every year!

Uppma... aah! the good old breakfast from hostel, chennai , bangalore and now in dubai. Lunch : Chicken sandwich + flavoured milk. Evening : snacks. Dinner : kerala poratta (not paratha or parantha) and veg curry.

Zeus, You might find some lousy spelling mistakes, which might irritate you. Sorry man, I cant spell ...

From the past by bala - 1

WHEN I HAVE FEARS THAT I CEASE TO BE...

when i have fears that i cease to be..
i look for help,i look to the sky and sea.
cornerstones questioned and icons destroyed
i stand numb with fear unalloyed.
i don't fear death, sickness or physical pain
nor thunderclaps puntuating the driving rain
no fear in my heart for bird or beast,
which may strike, but with reason at least.
neither do i fear the single man,
who fights & throws at me all he can.
i am not afraid of mistakes, for from them i learn.
nor fazed am i by just punishments, i earn.

but when groups of narrow men come my way,
preach brotherhood and make me pay
for the fact that i don't conform.
to their mediocrity and their norm.
when i am asked to sacrifice my all
for the common good, to be another brick in the wall.
a wall to stall the tides of genius.
a wall to defend the will of ignoramus.
this is done with refreshing ease.
as the drugged masses hold their peace.
all men are equal, they proclaim,
but talents differ, and we are not the same.

yet they ask a share of the sweat of my brow,
for men who don't even know,
what it takes to work with two hands
and leave blood and tears on time's sands.
brushing aside my claims to my right,
painting their faces of woe and plight,
mouthing,'blessed are the meek...'
while of hypocrisy their breath reeks.
all of this i will fight
even if darkness claims the last light.

i will wake each morning in constant fear
of someone who will push, someone dear.
someone who in the name of love,
will deal the final blow from above.
in my darkest hour, if i gave away my key,
its then, that i fear i may cease to be.

the brothel with a wooden balcony

Men were sitting with their legs stretched on the wooden balcony, and a woman was entertaining them with her talk. We were all waiting for our chance to cuddle with the woman, and cuddle means cuddle. I was sitting on the side railings, with my legs stretched, and comfortable with the whole situation. Beside me sat two little girls, daughters of the our host. I tried to talk with one of the girls, but she was not interested. She ran away. I thought of the whole cuddling thing, the soft white bed on the floor, all fluffy, and the fluffy woman. I felt a little naked in my shorts and the short dress that i wore over it. The wind was getting a little chilly. But my mind was calm. I dont know whether i got my chance or i just got what i wanted , but i started to leave. I walked down the nicely crafted, wooden stair case and entered the corridor which leads outside. While i was walking along the corridor, i got a glipse of whats going in the next house connected to the same corridor. A woman was teaching another woman the right demeanor for her honeymoon time. She was acting shy, and she was dressed nicely in a white dress , and was practising different expressions. I walked on silently.

An old one

Buried in the sands of time I strain to hear the voice within the noise.

Worried and infected by the touch of crime, I fear I have no choice.

Head full of heavy metal and searching for peace.

Dreaming of blue skies and sleeping under the trees.

The shadows deepen and summer sings.

Melting the joy and other such things.

Hoping that each new step is not another mistake.

Praying that destiny is mine to make.

Watching but not seeing, running but not fleeing.

In circles I go, painful it is I know.

Friends watch and so do foes.

I can’t see the enemy within me.

Should I buy a gun and blow my brains out?

That is a question still resting in the shadow of a doubt.

Friendless and endless, I rest in unease.

Paradise promised panacea prescribed.

Desolation destroyed desperation described.

The solutions dissolve,

The corroded remains of the iron resolve.

Thoughts in chaos, brain cells in quantum disarray.

Fragments of me watch the whole in dismay.

Mathematics violated, the summation of the parts results not in the whole.

Theophysics ridiculed, I indulge in the fragmentation of the soul.

The atom of creative thought consistently broken.

Kilotons of epic yield pass by unspoken.

Words that could change the cosmos,

Evade the membrane that captures it, almost.

Endless summers raining on my mental forge and anvil,

Reduce the crude ore of thought to nothing, null, void and nil.

Within the calm vortex of my storm, I mock my peace.

Something that i wrote so long ago that I have forgotten its context...Some of it still is good, though it is mostly sick rhymes thats all...

reborn

This has a dejavu feel for me. After weeks and months of boring life, suddenly you are dropped into a nice world for a limited amount of time. And then you see a lot of nice thing, nice unknown people, nice unseen places, and then you are taken to a calm cozy place to sleep and a moment to think whats happening. And you feel, that you were born today morning, though you feel like having the wisdom of atleast a 10 year old, and you remember that you have family and friends whom you care about. But there are just no memories before the start of this adventure. You try to retain the dementia and savour it as long as possible. And to your surprise it lingers.

A Botched suicide

You are very depressed. You are suicidally depressed. You have a gun. But you do not quite have the courage to point the gun at yourself and kill yourself in this way. If only someone else would kill you, that would be a good thing. But you can't really ask someone to kill you. That wouldn't be fair. You decide that if you remain this depressed and you find a time machine, you will travel back in time to just about now, and kill your earlier self. That would be good. In that way you even would get rid of the depressing time you will spend between now and when you would get into that time machine. You start to muse about the coherence of this idea, when something amazing happens. Out of nowhere you suddenly see someone coming towards you with a gun pointed at you. In fact he looks very much like you, except that he is bleeding badly from his left eye, and can barely stand up straight. You are at peace. You look straight at him, calmly. He shoots. You feel a searing pain in your left eye. Your mind is in chaos, you stagger around and accidentally enter a strange looking cubicle. You drift off into unconsciousness. After a while, you can not tell how long, you drift back into consciousness and stagger out of the cubicle. You see someone in the distance looking at you calmly and fixedly. You realize that it is your younger self. He looks straight at you. You are in terrible pain. You have to end this, you have to kill him, really kill him once and for all. You shoot him, but your eyesight is so bad that your aim is off. You do not kill him, you merely damage his left eye. He staggers off. You fall to the ground in agony, and decide to study the paradoxes of time travel more seriously.


Wish this was an original work...
Blatant copy paste!
What a pathetic waste!
But interesting read...

For the Thief

Thank you for leaving the desk and the chair,
the books, snapshots and piano.
I've heard of moving van robberies—
coming home from work to percussion
of empty rooms. Thank you for
leaving the trapped air
that softens the blunt edge of my day.
What's mine - the hum of identity—
still surrounds me,
though the electronics
are gone and the jewelry
that was too precious to wear.
Thank you for not spraying
the walls with coke or with piss.
Thank you being a professional,
tidy and quick, entering with a clean
silent cut, not wasting your time
or mine with vandalism or assault.
When my mother was robbed
the closets and drawers were dumped
on the floor. All that was stolen were
towels that had hung in her bathroom.
Her neighbors, the police said, had
lost their cookware. Better our houses
become someone's mall than shooting range.
With my cousins, one in New York took
a knife-blade against her throat.
Another in Madrid was dragged
three blocks by her hair. Thank you
for knowing what you were here for,
for tending to your business without rage.

If you love it too, buy Alison Hawthorne Deming's book, Genius Loci

Saw it on a blog, thought zeus would sing along. Or atleast write his own ode to the thief.

its raining again

I have to feel it when i read a blog since the tough glasses are seperating me from the rain and since my bedside window no longer open to the sky. Yesterday it was some photos on a womans blog, while today its a painful memory on another womans blog. Some are telling me the forgotten ways of enjoying the rain. I have my ways too:). But its been just two or three rains. I am going to get out and get drenched soon. Wont have any company for that though.

FISH | Yet another crossroad

Remember Gandhiji's Talisman ? that used to appear on the inside of Text book covers ....
I never understood what it meant, and still dont fully.

Baz luhrman said that, the most interesting people he had met , never knew what to do with their lives.

For sometime, i have been wanting to work on a Web Application, which would be accessed by lot of people .. from all over the world, for information exchange. Examples, Mouthshut.com, irctc...Ultimately it has to be accessed by the mass and not the business executives who use it to make business decisions. The purpose should be faster access to valuable information. I think working a site like irctc would give an additional kick when i am back home .. 'yeah! How many people must have used my site to book a ticket ?', apart from the obvious technological challenges.

I just had a telefonic interview . Man, i cant talk! 'jab ba bab a' .. 'blu blu .. Ba ba ba ', 'aaaa' , 'mmmmm'. Shit !!! I always had a problem with talking to strangers. For eg. When you are travelling in a cab, especially with a lady, if you keep mum, the situation becomes increasingly hostile. I know that. There is an imaginary ice-wall building up, which would be set on fire very soon.

And so what happened is that i made it thru, i mean the fone call. And so I am on yet another cross road. Damn! I am so bad at making decisions .. And even 'badder' at sticking to those which i made.

So the cross road is something like this.
A great company with average work. Great potential to grow up the ladder, both technically (though not the technology of my choice), up the corporate ladder, as well as a gentleman. I am learning to say 'hi' to strangers in the elevator , and not wondering how the elevator works. I believe i have a great oppurtunity of grooming myself, if i stick to this place.
Ok, so next up is the dubai thing, a job thru a consultant , where everyday would be almost predictable, and developers with 6 years experience sit and code. Apart from the hazard that i would dive deeper into my cozy den of being a lone developer ( because i would be working in a terribly small team), there are also other dangers like the company imposing a 'ban' on me , if i quit, blah blah blah. Politics would be at its highest level, but eventually , my bank balance would be good (not excellent) and *everyone would be happy.

I did try to imagine myself, 1 year.. 1 and a half year .. 2 year later. Terribly small vision, but even that was a stress! It all got so complicated, and i decided to write it down or even prepare a FISH bone diagram. Oops! Didnt work out.

And today, my good friend who referred me to the overseas oppurtunity came up to me and said "would you stay back if you were offered some work on SAP ?". Maybe i take everything seriously, or maybe i dont have the capacity of deciding whats serious enough. Now, work on the SAP intiative, would really be cool , the training itself is worth atleast a lakh rupees, and a year later , if i am good enough, i could be really valuable consultant. I could even find some time to film 'Night' , my two year dream project.

The last couple of months have been like , breaking out of a cocoon , and boy , i forgot to read the 'how to fly' manual. Aargh! Bad example .. Trying to be funny heh ? .

Balz is working like a dog. Yeah, i used to do that during december 2003 to february 2004. Then again in November 2005. Man , that was the toughest. My team lead went onsite and voila! I had to take care of the app (2 months development) going live ! . The pressure almost crumbled me .. One day before the release we started testing .. 2 days of testing for 2 months development ! Ofcourse , things crashed and i and ramnath had to scroll thru the entire code in the wee hours of morning. At 4 am , i just blacked out. At 9 am , when my pm visited office, he saw me with watery eyes, came to me and asked "is everything alright?". "Perfect", i said. Luckily, the project went live (and the bugs were not discovered until one month). Yeah, it was pressure and stress, but in the end, thats the best project on my resume, 'cause i knew it inside out.

Ok, i have said enuf for one blog! Rest of the crap in the next one !