Locuto Ergo Sum

The Ballad of the Unknown

2011-09-11T17:54:00.001-05:00

a beautiful meadow that once was
lies now barren and hollow
what happened here, oh my
seems there's so much sorrow

never was there purer love
then they fought over trifles
once they spoke without words
now they talked with rifles

when one shot the other
oh! did he gasp in pain
why oh why couldn't he stop
tears falling like rain

another shot was fired
took his own life
life became useless
because of aimless strife

will they find redemption
beyond the shadow of the night
will they be judged fairly
by time in all its right

what can we learn from this
bickering battering fools
in our petty hatred
we drown in bloody pools

maybe we should all think twice
before firing the first shot
remember its the one who left
who suffers most of the lot

if we could only forgive each other
remember were all out of place
we could all try again
make this world a better place

Lemon Sunrise

2011-09-11T17:47:00.001-05:00

didn't drink, didn't party
didn't get down to anything nasty
but your still head hurt, hungover

didn't scream, didn't shout
didn't even go all walkabout
but your feel that your life is over

got tired of making lemonade
wipe that smile off your pretty face
i'm waiting for the lemon sunrise

didn't know life sucked but hey
didn't know it any other way
but your still here anyway

oranges and lemons are stupid poetry
all we want to say is love me love me
and it still good, though a lemon sunrise

Tomorrow

2011-09-11T17:42:00.003-05:00

too many dreams, too many hearts to break
some sleep at night some before daybreak

floating in the clouds or the depths of song
flying blinded by the sun and sirens song

meeting the angels in their candy houses
keeping the fire burning in their hearts

dog eat dog today, howling yelping thunder
tomorrow will be my day i think i wonder

Onward

2011-03-26T00:43:00.002-05:00

You are gone now
And I never really knew
One of the few sparks
Lingers on

A faint impression
A little shared
Whatever might have been
Passes on

Will there be tomorrow
Before its too late
Outrun life itself but it
Catches on

Meaningless in meaning
Feelings but fleeting
Skip a breath but time
Marches on

Cold Escape

2010-11-19T14:44:00.000-05:00

He looked back for the first time since he had run away. Made sure that the airlock behind him was shut, an impenetrable barrier between him and the ship he was now fleeing. He felt surprisingly calm, his heart making the only sound in the cylinder the size of a small closet. His mind was calm now, it had to be, he was going to do something he'd never done before, but it was his only chance.

He checked the small object in his hands, a tiny thing the size of a pocket watch. He had to make sure that the internal cooling mechanism wasn't damaged, so he removed his glove and felt it in his bare hands. Boy! the cold sent a shiver up his spine, but he felt good about it. His thoughts turned to the present as he realized he had 5 maybe 10 minutes before security found him and chased him down. The next step was to wear the spacesuit, there always was a spacesuit in airlocks, regulation R138-5 if he remembered correctly.

Wearing a spacesuit isn't like wearing any other suit, there is only one large thing to get into but 20 little things to adjust and make sure are fitted and working. Unlike evening dresses however the downside is not a fashion faux pas but certain death, he thought about it and smiled, given what he was about to do next, risking death was hardly a worry. He tucked the thing in a pocket in the exoskeleton of the spacesuit and said a small prayer; he didn't pray much, at all really but now was not the time to spite the Gods. He steeled his mind as he wore his helmet and snapped it shut. Whoosh began the sound as he hit the switch to open the airlock doors.

Poem: Sunrise

2010-10-22T01:23:00.000-05:00

The hare left her silent trail
On the grassy bank bare
Hopping across the wind
She floats into the sunset

There will always be a sunset
As I sit watching here
In my hands cold comfort
As I stand rooted in yesterday

And while the sands of tomorrow
Are chiseled rock still
Seeing past the sunset blinds
Binds us to the dark of night

And we fail to see today
The shimmering sunrise

Very Very Special

2010-10-21T11:41:00.000-05:00

The recently concluded test between India and Australia at Mohali was a classic. It had great individual performances, enough drama and all three results were possible until the final day. The final minutes had no less melodrama than a Bollywood movie and like such movies, we got a happy ending.

VVS played yet another special knock which he seems to capable of producing on demand against Australia, but this post is not about that. I would scarcely add anything new to the accolades so richly heaped on him and his innings. I am also not going to talk about how Laxman now averages 50 in the second innings of a test match, or how he averages 51 batting down at 6 in the order, or why he has only converted 16 of his 62 50+ scores into hundreds.

What I am going to talk about is how test cricket remains alive, despite it being "old", falling viewership and despite only 4 countries who really play cricket at test standard (India, Australia, SA and England), 5 if you count SL and NZ at their home grounds respectively, 6 if Pakistan turns up.

T20 showcases skills. Big hitting, clever flicks into vacant areas, scampered runs, lots of slower/faster balls, doosras, carrom balls, electric fielding. It fun while it lasts, however like having too many tequila shots I'm afraid for younger players who will wake up with bad hangovers someday when they realize that never really became great students of the game.

Test cricket can often be boring but often it is not, it is however rather subtle and often not amenable to immediate enjoyment. This is where a shout has to go to all those people (like my dad) who took young and clueless guys like me to games and explained all the intricacies, it is truly a priceless gift.

The fact that it’s more than just the skills, but also the mental aspect makes it truly a "test". Test cricket pushes players and viewers alike to their very limit and then some. The notion of a draw, I think is also very important to the essence of test cricket. Most other games demand that there be a winner, but that's a simplification that life does not afford and therefore neither should test cricket. There is something romantic about a hard fought draw that artificially forced tie-breakers do not have. Bowl outs might be fun to watch, but give me a final over 1 wicket to take situation any day.

C.L.R James once famously asked "What do they know of cricket who only cricket know”. I'm quite sure he was referring to test cricket here.

An ode to Water

2010-10-15T15:07:00.004-05:00

Three tiny atoms dancing
Forever joined at the hip
All dissolving crystal clear
So much of me is you

You are life, you are death
You are both health and wealth
When you rain down, I find
The world washes its pain away

When you are not there
Lost, I see mirages
Shivering in a dark place
You hide, I embrace you

I've taken you for granted
But you're there even when I cry
All I know that if you leave
The world will say goodbye

This was inspired by the blog action day initiative.
Please visit here to learn more.

Poem: Not You

2010-10-08T14:43:00.000-05:00

The sun shines though
The clouds are escaping
You are not here
As I lay thinking

The perfume I smell
Is now wet earth
Damp with morning dew
Everything looks fresh

A faint sound far
A lonely bird chirping
This silence is more than
Talk of matters exciting

Nothing to do today
No one to be but me
Failing to be perfect
For you now I'm free

Poem: I lied

2010-10-03T23:11:00.000-05:00

When I said I'm ok
Its only a little scratch
And the bone was showing
I lied

When I smiled and laughed
At the funny movie
And my life was the joke
I lied

When I let you guys pass
And adopted a courteous stance
Though I was late for class
I lied

When I slogged all night
My pet project and pride
Though I never cared for it
I lied

When I raised another toast
And shouted with rare abandon
But my eyes had run dry
I lied

When I smiled back at you
And spoke of things old and new
But my heart still cries inside
I lied

"Liking" Zuckerberg

2010-10-03T07:40:00.000-05:00

I saw the movie "Social Network" yesterday. The movie is a semi-real/semi-fictional biopic of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and youngest billionaire in the world. The movie held back no punches and showed Mark as this brilliant guy, super programmer who was also fueled by naked ambition and unfettered by any apparent sense of morality.

Unlike some of my friends however, this movie didn't make me "hate" him. Note that this hate is really more of a "dislike" (a feature not on Facebook, at least not yet). I found myself admiring his brilliance, which I guess almost everyone does; found myself respecting his naked ambition, which I guess many of us would do; but quite disturbingly, I found myself almost jealous of this freedom that being amoral gives you.

In the opening scene, (date break up) which in my opinion is the best scene in the movie, his erstwhile girlfriend says to him "Please don't think I'm breaking up with you because you are a nerd, its because you're an a$$hole". My fellow nerds (and geeks) I'd say that there are many good people out there who do not judge us, lets not be d-bags for their sakes.

On similar lines, I wonder if many of us (and nerds especially) feel the reason they haven't made it big like Mark is because they can't be so openly amoral. Maybe amorality is necessary to making it big, one doesn't know, but there are lots of sociopaths out there who are losers even in the economic and power stakes.

In the end its all about being a better you.

Making Friends

2010-09-28T22:48:00.000-05:00

Friends, many or few, short or tall, cool or nerdy, but we all have them. Beyond the nuclear family and the significant other, friends are often the closest people to us today. This dialog from the TV show Spaced puts it aptly: "they say the family of the twenty-first century is made up of friends, not relatives".
However most of us never consciously think about how we go about making friends? how does it happen really.

It is pretty much common knowledge that we make friends with people whom we interact often, meaningfully or with purpose and have common interests and values. But given these preconditions, how does friendship form? Any connection between two people would require the initiation of a connection by one party and its subsequent acceptance by the other.

In romantic relationships the roles of initiator-acceptor have hitherto been socially mandated with the man initiating and the woman accepting. With friendships however, there is no clear norm. Do some people tend to go out and make friends? while others tend to accept the friendship of people who want to be their friend?
What does this mean with respect to their personality?

This author realizes that he might be one of the latter, since he doesn't remember having made friends (barring a few friend requests on facebook) and wonders what it all means.

So you think you're wise

2010-09-27T00:04:00.001-05:00

I've always thought of wisdom as a stage beyond knowledge. Often ignorance and wisdom are confusing, especially to those who are neither.
We often expect wise people to be a certain way, however most people do not have visible halos, long flowing robes, white beards and/or staffs! Therefore the need for a simple guide to distinguish between ignorant/smart/wise in practical everyday situations. Here are a few I could think of:

programmer writes sloppy code (ignorant)
programmer follows design principles (smart) [duh]
programmer is known to not follow (wise) [beware of appraisal time!]

doesn't care what people think (ignorant)
cares what people think (smart) [sad but true]
knows whose opinion to care about (wise) [the list of whose can often be surprising]

not chivalrous (ignorant)
chivalrous (smart) [indeed!]
willing to not be (wise) [guys don't try this at home (or on dates) :P]

totally ignores the speed limit (ignorant)
always within 5 miles of speed limit (smart) [also might help you avoid tickets]
never the fastest car on the road (wise) [cruising!]

blogs about fart jokes (ignorant)
blogs about interesting things (smart)
makes fart jokes interesting (wise) [here's to you Seth MacFarlane]

May this guide be your key to wisdom (or wisdom teeth removal)

sleepless

2010-09-25T21:43:00.000-05:00

never seen the sun shine so
the sky lit up in hospital lights
no place for healing nor fighting
no tears left in my eyes

a middling moon sneaks
the needle feels no pain
as it darkens there is some
faint rumble of rain

drowning in my dreams
I'm afraid to see these
nightmares and cold sweat
I lie awake till dawn

from his bed of dark cloud
the sun gets up hungover
a lone bird chirps in the tree
I get another day to wander

How we write

2010-09-24T14:01:00.001-05:00

When we start to write, we start with an idea, a memory or an observation.

Observation is the first pool, it is what we see at the surface. The minute details, textures, sights and sounds that make our descriptions vivid; the complex plots that keep us guessing, all stem from this pool. Not unlike the sun, this is a source of energy that is both immediate and free. At this point, our work has characters, structure and a plot, it might be easy reading. However fiction is not a travelogue or a documentary, we need more, so we tap our next pool.

Memory is formed from observations from days, months or years past. Not unlike how we get fossil fuels, all we see is transformed into something a little different, a single whole instead of isolated sights or sounds; and like petroleum, it is the most portable and powerful fuel that a writer has to keep her engines running.
A story where the characters are enriched by their memories and the plots go beyond the immediate to form well developed arcs are definitely much richer. We have now reached a good read, but the reader is still outside our work, to draw her in, we need to cast a further spell. And so we tap into our final pool.

Ideas are our deepest pool, from this darkness comes all light. Not unlike the interstellar clouds that give birth to new stars, our imagination produces all kinds of ideas, It can help the reader find out about the world that the characters inhabit, make them feel joy and pain, live the dilemmas, or even when your story is really good, identify with them, become them (if only for a little while). Not every idea is a star, some a just red dwarfs and some go supernova on you. The sincere writer knows that imagination running wild will kill the story, just as too much love will kill you, every time.

Wing

2010-09-24T12:32:00.002-05:00

Its not a broken wing she says
Yet another of those rainy days
The bright lights are shivering
Its not my lips that are quivering

She looks into her ice cream cup
Its cold but may warm her up
The dishes are all dirty and stale
My dinner is hunger and longing

I tell her that its a full moon
But it doesn't cast a shadow
She turns the lights on
And tells me to follow

Poem: She

2010-09-24T09:32:00.001-05:00

She plays with her hair, so many choices
She returns my smile, ignores my glances
Infects me with joy, hope and despair

My life it can never be the same
The walls crash down and
I'm naked in the sun

She yearns for something, someone new
She acts on impulses ,that only she knew
Mirages have never been more real

poem:Halo

2009-08-28T09:40:00.003-05:00

I am free tonight
Crazy by the moonlight
Do you want to come
Come out and play

Shining lights around
Twenty feet off the ground
Do you want to see
And slowly fly away

I don't wanna live here anymore
Don't want nothing to care for

The velvet clouds envelop
New feelings develop
A light shines inside of me
And I see your halo

Simon - Lifehouse

2009-03-31T03:42:00.005-05:00

Heard this song recently. The tune is uncomplicated and sweet melancholy.
The lyrics really floored me though, especially this verse:

Locked inside the only place
Where you feel sheltered,where you feel safe
You lost yourself in your search to find
Something else to hide behind
The fearful always preyed upon your confidence
Did they see the consequence when they pushed you around
The arrogant build kingdoms made of the different ones
Breaking them 'til they've become just another crown

I guess that just what a lot of us go through. We feel safe in what we know, even if we hate it; and hate ourselves for it somehow. We blame the world for being this way, for being mean and cruel, and we are not wrong for the world is indeed like that. However it is our fear that keeps it that way.
One might feel different, seeking to know and not be led, but then we banish faith also. But when we can't hide behind logic anymore, we realize we have lost the light we need to set us free.

35 things about me

2009-03-31T03:21:00.004-05:00

This is for juneflower, http://juneflower.livejournal.com/ who managed to coax me into un-hibernating my blog.

1. Where is your cell phone?
Charging by the bedside

2. Your significant other?
I hope she is out there somewhere. Ya gotta believe!

3. Your hair?
It not bad

4. Your mother?
Is miles away and yet connected.

5. Your father?
Is in my heart

6. Your favorite thing?
My identity.

7. Your dream last night?
I was on a treadmill and there was an add for ben & jerrys on the screen in front of me

8. Your favorite drink?
Jameson

9. Your dream/goal?
To make a difference

10. What room you are in?
Bedroom

11. Your hobby?
Writing bad poerty, talking!

12. Your fear?
Not being able to accomplish (9).

13. Where do you want to be in 6 years?
In a happy place

14. Where were you last night?
Home sweet home.

15. Muffins?
As long as they are not over flavored

16. Wish list item?
Real creative inspiration, something to really fire me up.

17. Where you grew up?
Mumbai/Bahrain

18. Last thing you did?
Filed my taxes

19. What are you wearing?
My super-geek mask

20. Your TV?
None (flatmate has a Sony Bravia)

21. Your pets?
None

22. Friends?
Are the lights on the winding road called life

23. Your life?
Is better than I deserve really.

24. Your mood?
Intense.

25. Missing some one?
Someome who might have been special (ref #2)

26. Car?
Be-car :P

27. Something you’re not wearing?
My pride

28. Favorite store?
Not a big shopper, dunno what to pick

29. Your summer?
Is much awaited.

30. Your favorite color?
Sky blue, cool and free

31. When is the last time you laughed?
Maybe an hour ago

32. Last time you cried?
Boys don't cry! Yesterday, more emotional than crying really

33. Three people who email me?
Can’t pick just three!

34. Three of my favorite foods?
Varan bhaat, Kaju Katris and a Fatburger

35. Three places I would rather be right now?
Home, my fantasies and in my dreams.

blogging regularly

2008-03-05T16:32:00.002-05:00

My friends always ask me why i don't blog; i do, its just that i blog like rain in the Sahara.
Now if your thinking that I am a man of few words, thats not really true. Nursing a cold today and bored watching cloud formations, I just realized the reason for my lack of blogging enthu: no immediate response from the audience (two way communication be damned, im hungry for bouquets or brickbats). Also i try to be funny and well thought out in blog when what i really do best is rant!! There i said it, i think more blogs should embrace the inner slashdotter in all of us.

shadow of the sun

2008-03-05T16:25:00.002-05:00

the title doesn't make much sense, how can a illuminative body cast a shadow?
its just something that occurred to me para sailing 500ft up in the air. Contrary to para gliding, para sailing is safe and strangely helps one get contemplative. i wonder if thats how albatrosses have been known to sleep at the wing!!
anyway, i wonder if there is some very obscure metaphysical meaning in all this. i can sure imagine it as the title of a deep sci-fi novel though :P

pro-life voices in cricket!!!

2007-04-28T19:05:00.000-05:00

the cricketers for life goes to : aleem dar, steve bucknor and anyone else involved.
amazing scenes today at the kensington oval, Barbados. yet another masterful performance by australia ending in a rather silly pantomine at the end. with 3 overs to go, and very bad light, it is offered to the sri lankan players who seem to take it. ponting and his men start celebrating, many of us including the groundstaff and commentators think the game is over, but none of this for the umpires who mandate the show ^H^H^Hgame must go on. so we get 3 more overs in what seems to be night.
good one from mike atherton "looks like they are determined to have things run their natural course" who manages diss the powers that be as the overs ebb away.

keeping it simple

2007-04-26T22:53:00.000-05:00

had a debate in office about multi-threaded vs multi process design. soon morphed into a male/female way of thinking with my mentor arguing that men are like processes, women threads and that with multi-threading being the rage, i should take a hint.
reminds of famous saying:
a man is simple, he wants three things. sometimes he wants a woman, sometimes a sandwhich, somtimes he wants a woman who can make him a sandwhich!!!

dilbert not

2007-04-24T22:31:00.000-05:00

i had my first performance review today, luckily no one noticed that i had a shave today morning.
review wasn't dilbertian but far, neither was it devoid of non-substance.
"1.5 person-hours" well spent i guess

poem: raindrops

2007-04-14T15:14:00.001-05:00

pitter patter go the drops
falling pearls from the sky
the whole world taking a bath
as i wave goodbye

a wonderous journey awaits me
through the field lush azure
the world filled with romance
fills many a heart with desire

song in my heart, song in the bush
world has just taken a different hue
some people warm cosy and dry
I long to see a rainbow

the rain drenches all, you and I
dirties the cloth but clenses the soul
ill come back home someday
and the world will be made for me

the rain looks like tears but is not
the puddle looks like mud but is not
maybe your sad ,but fear not
a rainbow will shine just for you

zoom zoom zoom

2007-04-14T15:08:00.000-05:00

met up with a friend from college and his friends last week. they had got a car and after seeing the sights they got their car from across the husdon and we drove around Manhattan at night, must say 40miles/hours has never felt so fast.(apart from calcutta) had some great shawarmas somewhere on houston street on the east side at 5am ...heavenly.

pet peeves

2007-03-12T22:37:00.000-05:00

Programming for a living means one gets to work with different languages and tools, many of which are frustrating in their own way. Today was one such day, out of sheer ennui i entered X sucks in google (where X is what i really really hate today) and got 572,000 results. Suddenly i felt less lonely - guess the human mind looks for company, even in our hells.
Heres a link http://home.earthlink.net/~mrob/pub/lang_srom.html

sunday lazy sunday

2007-03-11T21:24:00.000-05:00

another lazy sunday. another day when i should have got out and done something.
the pleasures of being a couch potato are too great however; and now you have the internet as well. so you can while away time in a slightly more active way. (clicking and typing is so much more effort than just pressing a few buttons on the remote)
did vacuum the house though.
in other action, placements are on my alma mater. it seems so long ago that i was going through that ringmarole. i just realized how exactly it really was in the end, just like reality tv.

now you see it now you dont

2007-03-05T23:14:00.000-05:00

now everyone knows that new york weather is really fickle. i remember it being a "balmy" 16C(60F for the non metric) on friday aftertoon, to just below 0 today, to some predicted -10s tomorrow and day after. today it decided to snow, thankfully after i had gone for lunch. it was a mini blizzard (as some locals put it), however by 5pm i couldnt see any snow on the road; all of it melted away.
i sometimes wonder if this is all scripted somewhere. god and the truman show both flash to mind, intermittently.

First Post

2007-03-04T20:15:00.000-05:00

First Post. Reloaded.
Blogging again.