Teens to Toons

In the last few months.. I have been on a sort of exploration for new forms of music.. Besides knocking into led zep, I think the most enriching experience has been coming across the album "Quadrophenia" by The Who.. Quadrophenia is one of those self-introspection kind of albums (i guess there are not many of them...). It has made me think a lot. There are days and weeks, when u end up spending most of your time in the office, analysing and writing reams of codes. U get drowned in your work and end up ignoring your own interests. Somehow, you get lost in this queer crowd of things created by you. Then one day, suddenly you wake up and say to yourself, "Man, where was I all these days". It's a situation when the real you and the present you become two different persons. It comes as a shock to you, when you see your life separating from the real you. Dont know how it goes for others, but I had to live this situation.. It was kinda pathetic.. Luckily, thats when...

It actually began, quite reluctantly. Unnecessary as it may seem, life teaches you what you allow it to teach. Even Life cannot teach you what it offers you. One has to let himself dissolve into the experience and let it sink in, and that I might call religion or education. Whatever the other person is willing to accept. Nay. Does it matter? Nay. Life is about teaching oneself. Being a self-thought-taught "person", picking up bits and pieces from various experiences, I tread on a path; I have myself laid out for myself. Never have I asked, in other words, begged for words, from "messiahs". Never did I think myself of having enough virtue, call it patience, to learn from others. So "rich" were my experiences. Things change, dynamically. Responding to an open question, throwing caution to the winds, I immersed myself into a debate, with people who thought, had streamlined their thinking apparatus and abilities. Gradually, they pestered; read "lee...

When the last tree has fallen, When the last drops of water are polluted, When the last bird ceases to sing, Will “they” realize that money cannot be eaten. Reading these somewhat crazy lines, I was joyous, at being finally able to have convinced myself, that this human race has faintest of hopes of living out the new century. I had been troubled for a pretty long time at, what seems to me, a race to extinction. I am an educated, liberal and informed individual. Having been educated at the best of the institutions, I developed a deep admiration for Mother Nature and her so “wily” ways. Listening to my Guru and his talks on “biomimetic” methods, I sensed a deep concern in him. Of late, all he talked of was “Green” Chemistry. I connect to people, people my age and people “not” my age, irrespective of who and what they are, thanks to my rootless upbringing. I used to be appalled at how short sighted “genuinely” gifted men can be. Talks of Dollar salaries, Ivy League scholarsh...

Last weekend, I was thinking about how people tend to post more about negative experiences in their lives than about positive ones. Today is no exception. I feel kind of bad about having such a negative attitude, but writing about things makes me feel better and refreshed too. The first time was after Puchee told me that I have a super ego and that I have an inferiority complex. Personally, I don't think I have a super ego or a complex, but every time I hear him them say that, I feel as if there's something wrong with me; as if a part of me is somehow wrong. Those feelings of not being normal have been accumulating, and today they seem just too much to ignore. I finally asked him why he thought I had a super ego and an inferiority complex. He said that I seem to get really defensive when we talk about people, people we know and discuss them. I t is that I always tend to blast them away and their accomplishments. He was specific to the way I talk about women in general. H...

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars, and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance." The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights like this, I held her in my arms. I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky. She loved me, sometimes I loved her. How could I not have loved her large, still eyes? I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her. To hear the immense night, more immense without her. And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass. What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her. The night is full of stars and she is not with me. That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away. My soul is lost without her. As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her. My heart searches for her and she is not with me....

Which OS are You?

Withered away, the burning heat of the day Evening silently soaked the heat within Wearing the diamonds came the night O’ Soul why are you silent, smile!! Three things have affected me lately. Hope, fear and death. Silently they walked past me in the night and left me awake. Gasping for breath, a parched throat and burning eyes. These days have been gloomy because days are heavy with tension. Work and nothing else. I need to relax and let the natural “me” take over. But it does not happen. Rather I cannot let that happen. Reading a lot these days has been a need. A need because I need to exist in an unreal world where I can be what I want to be. It would be difficult to be that in the real world. I even pretend to dream these days. Pretense has become my entire life. Every moment of my life is “pretending” to be me. I am doing it for the fact that people might not recognize the “real” me if I were to show them who I am. Living a life where everything is drive...

In times of concious desire for pain, a man seeks loneliness. Loneliness when desired by a human, and is self imposed, is solitude. This is probably the time, when one turns to god or to oneself, seeking answers in a process of self discovery. Ultimately, a person wants to know why is he desiring the pain. It is said of man, that he seldoms does anything, not for his own sake. Almost all our actions are based on seeling for results and have a hidden ulterior motive in the times to come. All our efforts are directed in a way to achieve a goal and in a sense, we become puppets to out whims and desires, thus causing ourselves to be motivated, influenced and manipulated for the result we seek. So is it pain, what I seek? Sometimes they say "follow the heart" and sometimes they say "follow the mind". I hardly know what am I following, but the desire in me, rightnow is to feel the nothingness and soak up all the pain, I can inflict upon myself. Nobody can d...

Naah. She ain't dead. Yet. Neither is she close to it.She is hale and hearty and in the bestest of times, as ever any. She is a charming take of beauty, brains and humor. A personality who brought laughters and joy and happiness. A hare in this world of tortoises, who shellshocked them out of their lethargy and made them dance (albeit slowly and left footed). She was something amazing. I promise to tell her tales and exploits to my grandchildren. I promise to remember her wisecracks and wisequacks and smile in my rather stiff lipped manner, leaving people wondering, as to what the reason for my bemusement is. I promise her to get her out of my system, as soon as possible and that is the reason why I scribble on. Ah, another promise, I hope I coul dnot keep. That's me. Fighting myself all the way. when I first met her, or should it be "when we first met". It was a dark, dank thursday afternoon and a timid me, was being interrogated by a belligerent few, snappy like R...

An IQ of 146 and a rating of complex intellectual. Intelligence Interval Cognitive Designation Below 75 Mild to profound learning difficulty 75 - 85 Below average 85 - 114 Average 115 - 124 Above average 125 - 134 Gifted 135 - 144 Highly gifted 145 - 164 Genius 165 - 179 High genius 180 - 200 Extraordinary genius I am somewhere up there... but does it really makes sense. I do not know. I would believe in my abilities and myself, rather than some tests.

I am tired of myself. I am tired of being myself for the past year. I have accepted things that I would never have. So why am I like this. I hate myself for allowing myself to degrade. From the best to "almost nothing". That's me. A year older. Ten kgs heavier. I am too fat and I am too lazy. I am twenty-two and I am tired of myself. So is that me? I will change. I will win. I will give my best and when it's not enough, I will give more. That's me. I will be back.

Nostalgia... It is a disease and today it afflicts me...

I have some serious doubts about “love” and “relationships”. It has been simmering in me, as to what makes people fall in love. As they say, “love is the highest emotion”. But is it? I wondered for a long time, waiting to experience that highest emotion and all I could do was to wander around seeing people fall in love. Every time, I pretended to fall in love, the other person moved away. Was I unlucky or my pretense not good enough? I had lots of questions for myself. I set about solving the riddle. The first question that came up was “why should I fall in love?” Basically it is an instinctive urge for sex which makes the opposites attract and reproduce. Pleasure is another reason. But how does a person decide on whom to love. I guess that is instinctive too. Men usually see the physical aspects and women see the other aspects along with the physical aspects too. I have seen people sacrifice a lot and paying a high price for such an emotion. Is it actually worth it is unknown to ...

Introduction The cryptic crossword is like a normal crossword with a few differences. The first of these is the diagram itself. There are two types of diagrams most commonly used in cryptics. One is very similar to the conventional crossword in that it is a grid with black squares. However, there are a lot fewer words in a cryptic. Why? Because conventional crosswords have to be fully checked i.e. every letter must be used in both an across word and a down word. Roughly half of the letters in each word in a cryptic is an unch. An unch is a letter which appears in only one word whether it is across or down. The other main difference between conventional and cryptic crosswords is the clues. Conventional puzzles have clues which consist only of a definition, although the definitions can be misleading and don't have to come straight from the dictionary. Any clue in a cryptic crossword consists of two parts. The first is a straight definition. The second is some type of wordplay...

Disappointment. The word actually is a joke. Looking at life in the bigger perspective, a person does not matter at all. Crazy, as it may seem, I am pathetically insecure at the thought of passing away unnoticed and unknown. Big words, Big Ideas and Big Attitudes. That I guess sums it up, for me at least. All my life, I have imagined being purposeful and mindful of opportunities to learn. My parents always wanted me to try out new things, and do them on my own. They let me dream. Never did they force their wishes on me, and I kept learning. I learnt a lot. At least that was what I thought. Guess a few pages can sum them up. Most of the stuff I did happened to me. Fine Arts, Quizzing, Sports, Mathematics, Computers, Research, Literature. I did them to the best of my abilities and I guess I did well. So when I did them and did them well, why is it that I am fumbling for the right direction? So where did I go wrong? I guess in two places. Knowledge and Reason. People dislike knowledge and...

Most poor pictures are caused by camera movement. A camera must not be hand held at shutter speeds less than 60. At the least, a tripod must be used. I had been going over the basics, I had learnt over the last decade. I do that whenever I am nervous. I have been doing my stuff instinctively and as of now, I have been pretty successful. But this time had to do my homework, I can’t take chances, you see. Not this time. Most photographers are often fearful of close-up photography. Dewdrops on grass, details of a butterfly wings, vein structure of a leaf, all of close-up photography is concerned with recording details of the subject. It is essentially a balancing act. The subject being too close to photographer, sometimes just overawes him. Every detail, if taken care of, still calls for luck. Other than static subjects, mobile subjects should be confined without hurting or upsetting. The depth is extremely important. Depth!! How do I estimate depth? Depth has indeed been a worrying facto...

A boy on the beach. Shorts-clad. Bare-backed. Lying on the hazel sands. The sun going down… that’s how I want to see myself, want my life. As the term is drawing to its end, forgive me if I am misty eyed. It is always like "first you came, and then you die". I am a nameless spirit, walking the barren lands carrying a load under indifferent skies, my mind a perfect blank, and I am just 21 years old. I am struggling. Loads of burden. Tired. People bump into me, walk a distance, become a part of me and then just go away. Just like that. I am cruel; I am the devil in human form. A "laugher", loudmouthed connoisseur of existential pain. Ever since this lifetime began and as it ends, there has not been much difference between me and a beast. But I hope I am able to change myself in the next life, for the better. I have changed my identity, name, face and clothes in a continuum of experiences, not ever knowing what to feel, what to think. I regard myself through a multitud...

“ What words should convey” A Critique on Writer’s Choice Whenever I have been sentimotional, I always feel a presence. It persists while I become calm; the lips do not speak and yet convey, the closed eyes let me see. I am sure I imagine them or it or whatever. I read passionately, it is an obsession for me. I want to feel the world without making an effort to get up from my armchair. I want to feel the range of emotions, allowed to humans, but I do not want to interact, for I am not willing to hurt myself. I want to feel them impersonally, without letting anyone know, secretly. I wonder if it were possible. I have my favorites. Most people have, but the best part is that these people let themselves be affected by them. I try my hardest to be affected. I love those, who let me dream, who let me be what I want to be, not preaching me neither walking me through. I want to be tickled in the most delightful of ways. Why should I accept anything less? I feel a writer is an a...