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
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
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?
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?
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
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....
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....
Friday, January 05, 2007
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
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
Monday, November 06, 2006
Curse of the Black Pearl
The pearl lay await in the oyster's belly,
never wishing to be found by a man,
one pirate braved the depths of the oceans,
and coerced the pearl out of the cocoon,
alas the pirate, murdered the oyster,
blood danced around him in the dark depths,
the pearl turned into black, with an eye,
and cursed him an eternal life of the dead!
never wishing to be found by a man,
one pirate braved the depths of the oceans,
and coerced the pearl out of the cocoon,
alas the pirate, murdered the oyster,
blood danced around him in the dark depths,
the pearl turned into black, with an eye,
and cursed him an eternal life of the dead!
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Pandaaram a.k.a Damn!
Pandaaram (Malayalam) is a genuinely funny curse word. It is supposed to be least inflicting to the listeners, even though it provides an apt venting mechanism for fury, frustration and anger in the form of a word.
Pandaaram in its simplest, or standalone format has the same usage as singular utterances of f* or shit or damn.
When combined with other stupid words , like for example , "Pandaaram adangan!" is like "Damn it!"
Like i said before, since Pandaaram is the stepping stone of cursing, chances are that it would not be very popular among friend circles or higher business circles. Rather, pandaaram is more or less confined to households, relatives, kith and kin. There, Pandaaram is both light, meaning not much harm, as well as saying "I am dead serious about this!".
The usage of a curse word is directly proportional to the tolerance and the "badness" factors of the receptors. For e.g, without umpteen utterances of "F" you probably cannot "curse" with a gangster, a rap singer, or a city teenager. This might not be the case with friends or family. Multi-linguals like you are me are blessed with a plethora of curse words or varying degrees or relief and infliction. For e.g, I have a choice of english, hindi, tamil and malayalam. However certain languages are not really apt for cursing, because the language by itself has a singing effect, is very polished or sounds delicate. Blunt and brute languages (I dare not quote any examples) should be perfect for cursing. Which brings forward the question of if you were to design a language, how would you structure the curse words ? (Enya has already made a new language called Loxian, for her new album Amarantine, Check out the lyrics for 'Less than a Pearl'). She found none of todays languages befitting to write the song
What made me write about Pandaaram is a movie called "The Squid and the Whale". In it, a 10 year old, does all kind of swearing and cursing. Ofcourse it gets a little panicky. He is justified by the emotional distress of his parents separating. The movie is an auto-biography of the director, presented in a very realistic way.
One another Universally important thing, is that 9 out of 10 previous blogs in Cranial Exodus are mine!!! Which makes me ponder, whether my blogger-brothers cant overcome the feeling of "aargh! should i blog this?" , or whether they are plain bored, or more horrifyingly, they have found the real life outside and decided not to waste time blogging!
Pandaaram in its simplest, or standalone format has the same usage as singular utterances of f* or shit or damn.
When combined with other stupid words , like for example , "Pandaaram adangan!" is like "Damn it!"
Like i said before, since Pandaaram is the stepping stone of cursing, chances are that it would not be very popular among friend circles or higher business circles. Rather, pandaaram is more or less confined to households, relatives, kith and kin. There, Pandaaram is both light, meaning not much harm, as well as saying "I am dead serious about this!".
The usage of a curse word is directly proportional to the tolerance and the "badness" factors of the receptors. For e.g, without umpteen utterances of "F" you probably cannot "curse" with a gangster, a rap singer, or a city teenager. This might not be the case with friends or family. Multi-linguals like you are me are blessed with a plethora of curse words or varying degrees or relief and infliction. For e.g, I have a choice of english, hindi, tamil and malayalam. However certain languages are not really apt for cursing, because the language by itself has a singing effect, is very polished or sounds delicate. Blunt and brute languages (I dare not quote any examples) should be perfect for cursing. Which brings forward the question of if you were to design a language, how would you structure the curse words ? (Enya has already made a new language called Loxian, for her new album Amarantine, Check out the lyrics for 'Less than a Pearl'). She found none of todays languages befitting to write the song
What made me write about Pandaaram is a movie called "The Squid and the Whale". In it, a 10 year old, does all kind of swearing and cursing. Ofcourse it gets a little panicky. He is justified by the emotional distress of his parents separating. The movie is an auto-biography of the director, presented in a very realistic way.
One another Universally important thing, is that 9 out of 10 previous blogs in Cranial Exodus are mine!!! Which makes me ponder, whether my blogger-brothers cant overcome the feeling of "aargh! should i blog this?" , or whether they are plain bored, or more horrifyingly, they have found the real life outside and decided not to waste time blogging!
Sunday, October 29, 2006
trying to paint...
bogged down by the fragility of life,
the many abstractions that have become routine,
paint a smile over every doubt and disbelief,
the bliss of careful ignorance,
deafness and blindness, appear when wanted for,
when a difficult question troubles,
dart ahead to the next ritual activity of life,
call up a friend, go shopping, browse or read,
do whatever and get rid of the trouble,
multiplex the brain to many parallel deeds,
when too many thoughts forge, a reasonably sharp arrow,
that might wake you up, from the unreal activity chain,
look upon the downtrodden, the desolate and the poor,
wonder what would you do, subject to all the horror,
praise the lord , and lend a helping hand,
congratulate yourself, and find harmony and rhythm,
above all, keep yourself busy,
keep your pet projects in the pipeline,
not because an empty mind is a devil's workshop,
but because, hell if it exists, is right within!
Many thanks to kesu for the one-liner...
"Madness?! This is ... Varkala!!!!!"
Laughed after a long time...
the many abstractions that have become routine,
paint a smile over every doubt and disbelief,
the bliss of careful ignorance,
deafness and blindness, appear when wanted for,
when a difficult question troubles,
dart ahead to the next ritual activity of life,
call up a friend, go shopping, browse or read,
do whatever and get rid of the trouble,
multiplex the brain to many parallel deeds,
when too many thoughts forge, a reasonably sharp arrow,
that might wake you up, from the unreal activity chain,
look upon the downtrodden, the desolate and the poor,
wonder what would you do, subject to all the horror,
praise the lord , and lend a helping hand,
congratulate yourself, and find harmony and rhythm,
above all, keep yourself busy,
keep your pet projects in the pipeline,
not because an empty mind is a devil's workshop,
but because, hell if it exists, is right within!
Many thanks to kesu for the one-liner...
"Madness?! This is ... Varkala!!!!!"
Laughed after a long time...
Friday, October 20, 2006
The Myth | The Sword | The re-born General | The immortal princess | The anti-gravity meteorite
Its 2.56 AM, Been quite some time since I stayed up this late :-) No particular reason today. Jackie Chan is singing the theme song of "The Myth".. I have no clue what he and the girl is singing in chineese, nevertheless, the title "Endless Love" and the melody are catchy and sweet. Though the special effects, the history and action are all goofy, i like the idea of a princess who awaited immortally in an anti-gravity cave for the return of her lover , the General. Reminds me of a Hindi film i watched some 14 years ago..'Suryavanshi' where Salman Khan is the General who takes the re-birth to meet Amrita Singh, the immortal princess. Sweet. I loved the sword salman used in the film, it looked very special. For a few weeks after watching the film, my brother and I had sword fights... Ah, painstakingly made out of wood.. Swords always are elite weapons, above spears, bows or whatever. Anxiously awaiting the release of '300' to see some real good sword fight.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Salute Microsoft!
I bought a core 2 duo PC with a Gigabyte Motherboard. Microsoft Windows XP installed like a breeze. Life is cool.
When i tried to install Linux (Ubuntu/Debian), i got wierd errors like "cd-rom" not detected or a simple blank screen.
Google search returned results like, there is a bug in the Linux kernel , which causes difficulties in detecting the 965 chipset , pata driver, jmicron, blah blah blah..
The point is ... Does windows have all the drivers ?
How is it that a 3 year old windows XP installs with no problems on my latest harware, while the linux kernel fix for this issue wont be out till december ?
Salute you Microsoft , you are truly .. one click and install!
Alternatively, there's an interesting article, why Linux is not meant to be "one click and install".. Why Desktop linux wont take off, and why you dont want it to :-)
When i tried to install Linux (Ubuntu/Debian), i got wierd errors like "cd-rom" not detected or a simple blank screen.
Google search returned results like, there is a bug in the Linux kernel , which causes difficulties in detecting the 965 chipset , pata driver, jmicron, blah blah blah..
The point is ... Does windows have all the drivers ?
How is it that a 3 year old windows XP installs with no problems on my latest harware, while the linux kernel fix for this issue wont be out till december ?
Salute you Microsoft , you are truly .. one click and install!
Alternatively, there's an interesting article, why Linux is not meant to be "one click and install".. Why Desktop linux wont take off, and why you dont want it to :-)
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