Staring at the ceiling

Where next?

2010-01-23T23:17:00.003Z

There has been a lot of debate on the causes on the financial crisis. President Obama's latest policy proposals have put the entire debate into overdrive. The banks that are too big too fail should be cut down and broken up into smaller, less dangerous institutions. Client deposits will no longer be used in speculative investments. There has been plenty of blame handed out, liberally distributed amongst the financial services industry. But, are we missing a trick here?

I am a regular reader, and a somewhat regular contributor to the comment pages of a leading liberal newspaper here in England. The number of vitriolic and downright nasty comments about bankers, and the banking industry are quite mind-boggling. Some people seem to believe that this entire crisis, this issue was all down to a small number of spivs, speculators and greedy (almost Dickensian) characters. Only by tarring, feathering and parading these villains down the high street may we have some sort of resolution to all these problems.

Indeed, President Obama's latest statements are a very overt hat tip to this sort of populist anger. I am no apologist for the actions of the banking community, but no community exists in a vacuum. Its not as if everybody woke up one day to find that their manufacturing industries have been stripped bare and replaced by a disproportionately large financial services industry. These banks became big, and invented all sorts of esoteric debt and investment instruments to service the need for every higher returns from investors, to service the every increasing demand for credit from us, their now extremely indignant customers.

When you look at the amount of money one has to shell out for a flat in London, or even in a decent area in good old Baroda, India; you can't help but be amazed. But still, people agree to taking out massive mortgages to get onto the ladder. We still believe that house prices will go up, the pay checks will keep coming, and that debt is just a way of life. After all, as long as there is money to spend, what is debt but another monthly expenditure, just like the phone bill that comes with shiny new smart phone gadget.

The human instinct is to expand, conquer and accumulate. From clubbing and grilling tasty Neanderthals, to upgrading from a 2 bed starter flat to a semi detached bedsit in the suburbs. An instinct that has served us well for thousands of years. It has brought lots of misery and death, but also almost unbelievable technical, societal achievement. If you think about it, we have become the dominant species on this planet in an relatively short period of time. The dinosaurs were around for three hundred and fifty million years (350,000,000 years). That is a mind-boggling number. What is left is a bunch of bones and thats that. The legacy of the last thousand years of human domination alone going to be around for a very long time, and it won't just be a pile of fossilised bones on a dry river bed.

That rather convoluted analogy brings me (not quite succinctly) to what has been troubling me a little bit the last couple of days. How much is enough, really? Will we end up expanding, ever outwards in search of new colonies, more resources and a more comfortable lifestyle? Will we every get to the point, where all humans, everywhere will decide, that their existing phone is good enough thanks.. that there is no need to use that old credit card one more time? Or is that point nothing but catastrophe and an end to civilisation as we know it?

I think that we are doomed to cycles of booms and busts, of aggressive expansion and tentative, confused contraction. Before we get carried away blaming the bankers, we should reflect just a little on why we always end up in these situations. How do we always end up with a small, clever and influential clique vested with disproportional wealth and power, and with the ability to have a significant impact, one way or the other, on society?

Where there is demand, there will be supply. The concentration of wealth, the creation of exotic financial instruments was a direct result for the ever expanding appetite for risk. Who wants to have a nice boring old savings account yielding 5% per annum when you can invest in an exotic financial product backed by a mind numbing complex financial transaction that nobody seems to understand?

Maybe our politicians and decision makers can be persuaded to not take the populist, reflexive road that comes naturally to them. Maybe we should consider the causes of these crises by looking inward instead of trying to find a convenient scapegoat. If it becomes just a little more difficult for someone to take advantage of the madness of crowds to take control (or make stupendous profit), it would be a result, and a lesson learnt from the last two years of anguish and anger.

Shooting fish in a barrel

2009-03-15T12:05:00.000Z

The video clip was all over the websites I read. On the economics blogs, on the entertainment websites, and even on boing boing. "Watch Jim Cramer get creamed by Jon Stewart" the posts loudly proclaimed. I clicked on the link and I watched the interview. In typical Daily Show fashion, it was funny, timely and great entertainment. Jon Stewarts mining a rich seam of material here; taking on CNBC and its demented financial cheer leader squad. And he's doing good work. Maybe some of his best.

But what is the point? Proving that the financial journalists were wrong? That they are not trustworthy, they are all charlatans and we should not take them seriously? Anybody who can read, watch TV or even pick up the recycled trash every evening on the way back home for work knows that its open season on anybody connected with the financial services industry. Not just the journalists; the CEOs, the traders, the brokers, the bankers, anybody who is involved or related to the industry so far has been tarred and feathered. I wrote some time back about the little awkward situations that come about when I confessed I worked in banking. Now the situation is not awkward, now it is normal.

I am not defending Cramer or CNBC or Goodwin or Madoff. I am not saying that they are not culpable. To quote Jon Stewart, some of the things they did were "disingenuous at best and criminal at worst" (or in Madoff's case, criminal for sure). I cannot match the man's eloquence. My point is that this financial bubble or mania did not magically appear out of thin air. It did not come about on its volition to suddenly swamp us like a "tsunami". It was not something that was unprecedented. Booms and busts have been part of human history since times immemorial. There have been periods of mass jubilance and hysteria that led to the South Sea crises, or the dutch tulip crisis, or the great depression, or for the sub-continentally inclined amongst us, the Harshad Mehta stock scandal in the India in the early nineties.

All of us are to blame to a certain degree. Who didn't want easy credit, or holidays abroad, or a comfortable lifestyle without having to worry too much about where the money was coming from? How many people do you know who bought new build flats in the docklands five years ago and payed over the odds for these concrete soul-less monstrosities towering over a deprived, semi-industrial part of east London. It was these mortgages that were sliced, diced, deep fried, packaged and sent out to hungry investors for mass consumption. Where there is demand, there is supply. We fed this monster, one way or the other, and now it towers over us threatening to consume us all.

It is easy for us to get on the moral high horse now. Very easy. But before we launch next week's witch hunt, or look for the next person to blame for this mess we find in, maybe it is time to assign some of that blame inward.

Generation A

2009-03-05T22:14:00.002Z

I was a teenager when I first heard the term Generation X. It was difficult to understand what the 'MTV Generation' meant when I hadn't even seen MTV. It was something that was printed in the middle pages of the Sunday supplement of the newspaper. The bit where they copied in articles from the Western press. 'Generation X' had a nice ring to it. Self deprecating, sarcastic and unbelievably cool. Atleast to an impressionable teenager reading about a music scene without any context whatsoever.

Us? They call us the Internet generation, or perhaps the facebook generation. Or perhaps we are called Generation Y, or the Millenials or the iGeneration. Nobody is really sure what to call us. This is the stuff of nightmares for statisticians, historians, market researchers and people with a fetish for demographic classification.

If I may, and just to make the lives of these people easier, I would like to suggest a label that could be more appropriate in these times. I bring you -> Generation A!

Why? Well, I am not a literary genius, and English is my second language. I don't do subtle very well; so my reasons are straightforward. A is for..

Ambition:

We are all about ambition. A gap year isn't a year out to have some fun, it was a year to have 'constructive experiences', a time to do something that 'looked good on the CV'. Earning more straight out of University than your father did at forty was merely acceptable. Did it come with international travel? An undergraduate degree was just middling. When was the plan to do the MBA? A drink after work was fine, but Weatherspoons.. seriously? Is this a post ironic thing?

Ambivalence:

If our psyche could be compared to a house or a flat, it would be the nice new built flat with the neutral decor, the walls (with the one wall painted a deep blue or red of course) and the nice looking furniture from Habitat. Doesn't say much, but it looks nice and everything matches. Ambivalence is comfort. Our conversations have that nice latexy powdery feel of new kitchen gloves. They might not fit, but its so easy to put them on. Tell us anything (and they do) and there will be few of us who will challenge something that might not make sense. It is better to try and see somebody else's point of view in polite company you see. After all confrontation is offensive.

Anxiety:

I woke up this morning at 5:58. My heart was pounding and I was sweating. It was a freaking cold morning. I woke up because I dreamt that I was late for work. I woke because I dreamt that I was late for work and I got fired. I got fired and I had no money. I had no money and I got deported and my fiance left me. The sound that I hear the most these days when I am out and about is the nervous laugh. Not too many belly laughs, or excited shrieks, just that hesitant chuckle, eyes averted. Gallows humour perhaps.

When I first moved to London, I was shocked at how quickly people walked. They dashed from place to place with drive, knowing exactly where they were going. Today, we mill about, looking up and down. Gazing with wonder at the FTSE ticker and the relentless stream of depressing headlines that march across the pervasive giant TV screens and that are splashed with abandon in front of the free newspapers.

I spend a significant part of my day looking with a sort of nervous excitement at the bbc news page. There might be a new disaster out there to be discovered, discussed and analysed..

Anger:

Anger is a strange emotion. I don't know many people who have taken to the streets or who are hoarding wine bottles to make molotov cocktails. But you know its there, lurking somewhere not too far underneath the surface.

Will there be a revolution, who knows? On past form, with our generation, its impossible to tell. But you can feel its there. Education was free, and now there is debt.

Everybody talks about global warming, but who will suffer the consequences?

Will we ever be able to afford a house, and even if we did, how much will it be worth five years down the line?

We will work longer, harder and for less pay than our parents.

If the robots come, who will they attack?

How old do you think the guys who attacked the bus in Lahore were? How about the guys planting IEDs in Kabul, or the ones throwing eggs at the Icelandic parliament?

So there it is. Hello fellow Generation A'ers..

Tis the season of Darwin

2009-01-31T12:28:00.001Z

There are a set of people who are heroes. People who are role models in all eternity, posters of whom grace the walls of many an impressionable teenager's bedroom, whose smiling profile winks at you when you hand over legal tender in your bid to keep the economy afloat. Adventurers, revolutionaries, warriors, poets and philanderers. Even in this age of detached cynicism (and private despair), there is always a role model, always a story that sneaks up and makes you, if even for a minute, think about what you should, could and would be doing with your life.

February the 12th marks the bicentennial anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. Here is a man, whose picture you probably won't recognize. A man who has been defined by a group of extraordinary (and revolutionary) insights. Some of which we are still trying to understand. Darwin's treatise on evolution and natural selection was controversial in its time. I can't honestly the word paradigm shift without feeling that I am being attacked by an army of zombie MBAs, but I will, because his ideas did not just shift as much as destroy the prevailing paradigm. It gave us a new way of looking at the world around us. A means of escape from the gilded cage of Genesis. A chance to step out of a human centric vision of our planet, with all its cretin and creature subservient to our need; to a vision where we are part of a long chain that stretches from the primordial soup brewing in the depth of prehistory on a young restless planet to a time where all trace of humanity would be ground to dust. The hegemony of humanity would be nothing but a faint echo in electrons spreading from a rather small rock in a spiral arm of the Milky Way . But Darwin's insight will still be there, still valid, even when the idea of Darwin would be long extinct.

Darwin was not without his detractors. In his time, and even today there are those who call his insight a 'theory'. There is litigation and counter litigation about intelligent design and evolution. There are heated debates with people straddling both sides of the intellectual chasm getting worked up and frothing in rage and fury. I used to be one of those people. Writing long vitriolic posts in internet forums about the silliness of it all, about the blinkered approach of these 'religious zealots'.

Today, it doesn't matter. Not too much. This debate will go on until humanity possesses the means to communicate and to believe. Darwin's idea will rise and fall in favour depending on the prevailing mood. But it will not change much.

People ask me if I believe in God, if I believe in life after death. I don't. But I do have moments of existential angst. Where I wonder if there is a meaning to all this, if I have a special destiny. Its at precisely those moments that I think of Darwin and his ideas. I know I don't have a special destiny, I know I am no child of God. I am here, a link in a chain, or perhaps a web that straddles history, time and space. My absence or presence means little in the grand scheme of things, certainly not on Darwin's scale. And in this thought, I am comfortable, humble and free. Free to live my life the way I see fit, to make my own decisions. To live, and die, and perhaps contribute in some way to a minor strand of this web. And that is enough. For this freedom, and this calm I have to thank a man born two hundred years ago.

Happy Birthday Darwin, and thanks for everything..

Me? I am just a harmless programmer

2008-11-22T20:18:00.003Z

I have been working in the financial services industry for the last four and a half years. Apart from working as an intern in an IT company way back in the prehistory of the dot com boom, the financial services industry is the only industry that I know. It was the only industry that would give me a work permit when I graduated from University. It was the only industry that would pay me enough money to live in London and to have a good time. The monthly paycheck kept me happy. Successfully subverted any plans of going back to academia, maybe becoming a teacher, or an awesome space-opera author.

For four years, when people asked me what I did for a living, I replied, oh I work for an investment bank. Saying that I was a computer programmer, who really had an extremely vague idea of what an investment bank did was conforming to too many cliches. After all, I am an Indian, with an engineering and computer science degree, who wears glasses, is not particularly athletic.. admitting my conformity was difficult. So "I worked in the financial service industry". When people pushed me, I said, "Oh, I work in technology, but I am not really that technical", making dismissive funny hand wavy signs.

In 2004, working in an investment bank was cool. An investment banker made and flaunted his cash, got into the swankiest night clubs, and had tales of apres-ski debauchery. Working in IT wasn't that cool. You couldn't join the chorus of complains come bonus time when there weren't six figures in that piece of paper that your manager handed you. You were supposed to be happy with your lot, with the little something that might go towards paying off some that credit bill that fueled last winter's orgy of conspicuous consumption.

I was just a little bit envious. Just a little. I thought about becomine a trader, forgoing technology completely and become one of the big boys in the room. But the order loving, obsessive compulsive geek inside me, beaten and bullied he might have been, was obstinate. Just give it a couple more years, build your skills portfolio (remember, you come from a family of engineers).

Things started changing last year. As the summer of 2007 ended, the phrase "credit crunch" entered the lexicon of our times. Suddenly I found myself in meetings (or "town halls") with senior management as they made soothing noises about how mistakes were made, but really things aren't all that bad. People, at first, were curious. I was asked about what it all meant, and after lots of time spent on the bloomberg (and wikipedia) website, I could give an explanation that was somewhat coherent.

Hey, I actually knew something about the industry I work in!

At some point this year, curiosity became something a bit less benign. The newspaper headlines became less about what was going wrong, and more about who was responsible. Swarthy, obese caricatures of bankers became the norm in the editorial cartoons in the mainstream newspapers. There were always people who seem to view people working in the financial services industry as the lowest kind of scum. We used laugh, and call them "goddamn Hippies" with our best Eric Cartman impression.

Probably early summer 2008, the tide turned. Admitting that you work in financial services became a little precarious. In the best case scenario, you would be asked just how people not paying their mortgages in North Dakota could have an impact on the economy of Iceland. Give your answer, prepare for some head shaking, and hope they move on. In the worst case, you would need to be prepared for a breathless tirade on greed, and stupidity, and how the bankers were responsible for the wild fires in California and for the death of the polar bears.

These days, the financial services industry is viewed as some sort of toxic cess pit. The number of times I have read 'masters of the Universe', 'bonfire of the vanities', and 'greed is good' in the editorial pages of the newspapers defies belief. You would have thought the writers might have got over cultural references from the 1980s. We have moved swiftly on from curiosity, to criticism to condemnation to schadenfraude and now to ritual humiliation.

Bankers are the villians in the christmas pantomime shows. There is a credit crunch musical in the works (yes there really is). Give hollywood six months, and you will start seeing life affirming movies of reformed ex-investment bankers hitting the screen (or unrepentant investment bankers hitting the street, head first, from a great height, messily).

Now if somebody asks me what I do for a living, I say 'I work in technology'. When pushed for more information, I say, ok I work in a large Japanese commerical bank (emphasis on Japanese), and am nothing more than a glorified computer operator / progammer. I have nothing to do with this credit crunch, and to be honest I just like writing elegant code.

My life in the city (4)

2008-09-15T22:58:00.003+01:00

I spent a good part of the day watching disaster unfold. I couldn't help but click every single little shiny link on my computer to read and digest the flashy little nuggets of information. I felt a twinge of sympathy, a touch of schadenfreude and maybe some indifference. Opened the email client and typed out an email to my buddies pontificating on the financial markets.

Where were we going? What does it all mean? Should we make a musical about it?

My boss and his boss, sitting next to me, spent parts of the morning talking excitedly, pointing at the screen. Muttering, wondering, quite possibly counting their lucky stars, that they still have a job, and haven't gone down with the rest of the pack. To be honest, I was counting my lucky stars too.. just in a murky sky.

I didn't particularly care this morning, and I don't particularly care now. Don't get me wrong, it is fascinating watching the machinery of the financial world grind, and backfire and finally break down spewing noxious smoke. It is an interesting game.. trying to find a correlation between the breaking news on a web page to my internal model of how the world works.

Well, it is a model, its parameters are being tweaked every single day.

What is real though, are the people in this city tonight not sure about what they will be doing tomorrow. I walked passed the Lehman building in canary wharf every day for almost four years. It was a dark gleaming tower, just like the rest of them. Every morning an army of five thousand eager traders, bankers, programmers, operations analysts poured in between 7 and 9 in the morning, and they dripped out between 5 and 9 in the evening. Tomorrow the tube coming into the wharf will be just a little less crowded, and the generic chain bars will be just a little less boisterous. I feel bad for these people, it could just as easily have been me, but its just another day in the city..

My life in the city (3)

2008-07-26T12:24:00.002+01:00

There is that vague feeling of disappointment, every day, as I open the mail box. Twelve hours a day I look expectantly at the little corner of my computer screen that notifies me when somebody drops me a line. I check my phone, all the time, hoping somebody might have written to my 'personal' email address, and it might be something that would be worthy of replying to with a witty remark, or an intelligent discourse showing how just how cultured and worthy I am. I am connected my friends, connected to you via our social networks, via our ironic emails and the cryptic chirpy mobile phone text messages. Yet, every day, without recourse, there is disappointment.

I stumble through the neon lit shopping mall, looking at all the barred, boarded and shut crevices of commerce, wondering who sold what to who and when today. But its quiet, and apart from the usual break dancing crew, spinning away in the corner of the mall, there ain't nothing to see here, and we shuffle on. Slowly, one step, two step, swipe the electronic fob and here we are. Inside, standing on the worn carpet, slight anticipation. I say hello to the concierge, and find out how he is doing. Is his cold better and isn't the weather warm.. And I regret this small bit of polite conversation, because, really.. is this human contact worth it? Is it not biting into my 'me' time? Is it?

I say my good byes for this evening and head into the post room. And here we are, this last vestige of an era slowly fading. I open the steel box with the number of my flat on it, with some anticipation. Maybe somebody wrote to me, maybe I got a love letter, or a delayed birthday card. Maybe I might have a pen pal who would write to me on fragrant paper all about life in distant outer Mongolia. A new recipe for a yak milk protein shake. But you know dear read, there ain't going to be nothing there.

Probably a few anonymous white envelopes with my name typed neatly, visible through the transparent plastic window. Its another bill, a bank statement, a new incredible offer that I just can't refuse, its there, just for me. And I am sad, gather up the little white envelopes and put them in my satchel. I troop up the stairs, walk through the narrow hotel/prison like corridors and put the silver key into the lock. I walk to the 'study' and dump the white envelopes with their other brethren, in the 'definitely will open at the weekend and file' pile. And I forget about them. The disappointment is gone, its over, and its time to watch some TV.

The God of the Geeks

2008-05-26T18:52:00.002+01:00

Vishwakarma is my 'caste deity'. The many headed Indian demi-God that we invoke before community meetings. The divine engineer, the celestial mechanic. The creator of the palaces, chariots and the engines of the Gods. Vishwakarma, the many headed. People joke about his inability to finish projects, and then they laugh at us Luhars and say, 'go figure!' (and its true). I wonder what good old V would make of this work where we live. What would he have enjoyed doing if he had been born towards the end of the 20th century; just as we enter the era of technology (or the very beginning of Kalyug if you are that way inclined).

I reckon he would have the ultimate uber geek. He would start his own cult of open source programmers that go and implement the ideas that flow while he sits on his Aeron chair stroking his magnificent beard. Need a blue-tooth enabled wireless hammer-drill? No problem, make a blog-post and invite enough diggs from fellow wireless DIY enthusiasts for the petition to stand out in his digg.com rss feeds. If he likes your style, it shall be done. Knocks up a quick and dirty prototype with some duct tape, a pair of scissors with the prototype drivers written in perl. Semi-documented and spawned off as a new project in sourceforge to be picked up by his tame army of open source programmers..

Would he be on facebook? Or would that be beneath Him? Would he be an MP3 hoarder or a flac connoisseur?

Would he condone or condemn online dating? It simply is a relevant implementation of a well engineered communication protocol?

Would he be an anal waterfall software development model adherent, or a rabid eXtreme programming evangelist?

Would he think the Singularity is near and fear for his disciples or would he welcome it the party to end all home-coming parties?

Old V, perhaps you and that sly flute weilding, womanising, morally amorphous, eternally adaptable Lord Krishna are the only of the mighty pantheon who would thrive in this world today.. Maybe those ISCON lunatics are on to something here ..

My life in the city (2)

2008-05-17T13:29:00.003+01:00

The clickety clack of the 8.05 defines the beginning of another day. Craning through the crowd on the station, looking at the scheduled / arrived dichotomy, looking for a pattern. But there is none, its just another idle intellectual exercise to avoid reading the recycled crap that I hold in my hands every morning. Closing my eyes for a few seconds, hoping for some rest before I begin my active / sedentary life at my desk. Wondering how best to pretend that I am productive while trying to figure out when to leave without looking like I don't care. Board my multi wheeled steel and electric chariot to come back to the long platform in the grey glare of an early summer evening. Walk back across the concrete parking lot, trooping up the stairs to my modularized living space. Another day gone, another evening contemplating on how best to make use of 'me-time'. Overwhelmed by the opportunities at hand for entertainment, all byself. Going to bed, a thousand things flashing through my information saturated brain without a single coherent thought. Rolling about for a few minutes before sinking into dreamless slumber in anticipation of my beeping alarm in five hours time..

My life in the city (1)

2008-05-17T13:06:00.002+01:00

We skulk about, photo phobic imbeciles. Cowering from the glare of the great outdoors. Swaying slowly to the sonic interpretation of electronic signals coursing through the wired walls. In little inward facing groups commenting, criticizing in our collectives, viewing with suspicion the other skulkers in those other dark corners.

We walk thorough cities lit up by cruising kerb crawlers, to our dark destinations. Acknowledge the dark dressed authority figure before paying up to enter this dark domains. First impression, an empty floor, with little groups on the periphery, talking in hushed tones. Conspicuous consumption the order of the day. Dressed to conform, each individual conforming in his own unique way.

Each a shining pearl, and this place our dark oyster. Bottom feeders. Years go by, but still the same patterns. What do we get out of it? Little yellow credit card receipts and the yin and yang of receding hairlines and expanding waist lines. There is the pressure to have a good time, but we end up reminiscing of the good time we had while we view the surroundings in disdain. In the vague hope that when tomorrow comes, the evening's shenanigans would provide suitable fodder for reminiscing in some other dark noisy corner.

Obligation

2008-04-29T23:40:00.002+01:00

My leg fell asleep, lazy on my knee
I lay back on this black chair
and wondered about my absent hair

There is more to life, its nice. apparently.
For me, its the same,
A little game, mostly a bit lame

I thought, the other day
As I lay, sleepless on Sunday morning
That I could be a bit more charming

Aground (4)

2007-12-29T16:16:00.000Z

We walked through a break in the tree line and into the forest. It was not as dense as I thought it would be. There was an area along the forest floor that looked like a path. So at least we knew that this island was inhabited, or it was at some point. With the sound of the waves pounding the beach slowly fading into the background, I realized just how quiet it was. I would not lie to you, I was getting a little uncomfortable. We had been on the boat all day, the kid, in hindsight looked like he really didn't have a clue about what he was doing. We might be back on Havelock, but equally we might have crashed a headhunter party on this island.

She must have noticed something. I looked at her and said, now what? She shrugged again and suggested that we could walk down the path and see where it lead. It might lead to civilisation. Or we could just wait on the beach for the kid to come back with help. None of those two suggestions appealed to me. Stay exposed on the beach where anybody could spot us (I heard that these tribals were expert canoeists), so we could have been raided in the dark of the night if we stayed out in the open. On the other hand, their jungle skills were probably better than mine, so we could be ambushed and captured if we stayed in the jungle. I wasn't sure what to do. We could build a shelter or climb a tree and hide there. But I had heard of poisonous tree snakes, so that might not be the best idea either.

As I stood there weighing the different alternatives, she got restless. She said, Look lets just walk down this path. This probably is Havelock and its not a big island, we will find something. I didn't respond, so she just turned around and started walking. Now under normal circumstances, I wouldn't tolerate such insolent behaviour, but I was responsible for her well being. I was the man of the relationship after all. So off we went down the path.

The critters of the night had all come out and were starting their evening symphony. It was getting very dark, very quickly. Something scuttered along the path as we were walking, without any torches or any light. I jumped, it could have been a snake. It was just a frog. Even worse, I hated frogs. She just shook her head and we kept walking. I had this eerie feeilng that we were not alone. I mentioned this to her and she said that there must be millions of bugs and critters in the forest, let alone the birds, so I was indeed showing tremendous foresight in assuming that we were being watched. Funny.

I am not sure how long we walked before we first heard the sound. Time in the jungle took on a strange quality. Also my watch was not working. It was a faint rustle coming some way ahead of us. I stopped, my ears tuned by now to the sounds of this lonely jungle. That sound was made surely by something that was bigger than a frog or a forest floor critter. There, it came again, just across from the bend in the path that we could just about make out in the gathering gloom. I asked her to be quiet, as it might be something very unfriendly. She sugggested that I go up to the bend of the road and have a look. It might be the kid with some help. I wasn't happy about that suggestion. But I didn't want to lose face, especially in front of her. So I asked her to wait and be very still and I crept forward making sure I didn't make any noise.

I must have tripped on a root or something. Eitherway, I fell, and shouted out as I landed on my knee. It had always been a bit sensitive, old sports injury you see. So much for the element of surprise. They knew, whoever they were, that we were here. No point in going ahead and finding out now. Surely they will be on their guard with poison tipped arrows and giant man-sized nets. It was too much of a risk, it was time for a tactical withdrawal to safer territory. I went back to her, and she was laughing. Did you have a bad fall commando Luhar? she asked. I shushed her and grabbed her arm and took her back along the track to where we first entered the forest. We hid behind a little sand mound that protruded from the beach and into the forest. She told me we were being stupid. But I could hear the rustling coming closer.

Now it was unmistakeable, something big was coming down the path. I could see something moving in the gloom ahead on the track. I couldn't quite make out what it was, but it looked menacing. We could go back to the beach, but I didn't want to make any noise at all just in case we were detected. These people didn't have deteriorated hearing or a nicotine reduced sense of smell. These were kings of the jungle, they knew what they were doing.

Suddenly it was upon us, this huge dark silhoutte. I hadn't seen anything like that before, it came down the track, a big black light absorbing hulk moving down the forest track. I wanted to run, but I froze, I couldn't do anything. I heard a somebody, something laugh. It was a high keening sound. Unnatural. Oh my word, I was convinced I was going to die, killed by some unhinged zombie tribal astride his hellish mount right here in the middle of nowhere. I heard murmurs, I couldn't quiet understand what they were saying. It sounded terrible, ominous. I grabbed her hand, and said, be ready to run for it.

She had the, are you serious look in her eyes. Did she not see the resolve in me? I would save her dammit! Or myself atleast, if she wanted to stay here and be taken by these people and their terrible beast, thats her prerogative. I will run and swim all the way back to Chennai if I had to. She laughed out loud. Great, I thought, ready to run now. She laughed again. By this time, I had enough. If she wanted to get herself killed, skewered, eaten with her head shrunken in some shaman's hut, it was her choice. I ran down, out from the path and on to the beach. I kept running.

I heard her shout my name. She said something. It sounded familiar. She shouted it again, eggplant? Did she say eggplant? I hadn't got very far, so she shouted louder. Its the elephant! I stopped.

She ran up to me laughing again. Its the same elephant you had taken photos on yesterday. Remember? They said they have a moonlit elephant ride every other day? Its the elephant from the resort. We are on Havelock, and can't be further than a couple of hundred yards from the resort.

Aground (3)

2007-12-29T15:47:00.000Z

I dragged myself ashore. Through the treacherous surfline and onto the beach. There was nobody else in sight. Where was she? Where was the kid? At that particular moment, I didn't really care. I lay down on the sand, squinting against the sun (which was preparing itself for a spectacular departure to my right).

I was alive. Now to find out where I was. I heard her call my name. I stood up, a little unsteady on my feet. Managed, eventually. I stumbled across the sand trying to figure out where she was. She was lying down under a tree just a bit further down the beach. Nice swim? She asked. I said it was great, thanks for staying with me. You swim like you are swimming through molasses she said. What are molasses? Never mind. Freaking Americans.

Wheres the kid? He's gone to get help, she replied. I asked her if she knew if the kid knew where we were. I mean there are a lot of islands in the group. She just shrugged and closed her eyes. I mentioned to her that I remember her telling me something about a detour when I was dozing. She told me that the kid wanted to show her a coastal village on our way back to the resort.

This was when I got a little worried. This part of the world was home to a couple of tribes that were infamous for killing trespassers. And she was just like one of those keen people you know, always wanting to go backpacking, and exploring new areas and stuff like that. Tedious tourists, I mean whats wrong with lying on a nice beach somewhere in Spain, and going out for a few drinks after. Hell, even the beach at the resort was stunning, and they had a bar just a few minutes away. But no, we had to go for the authentic experience. So here we are, in some abandoned, lonely beach, in hostile territory.

I mentioned the tribals to her. And she just laughed at me. She said we were at the most a couple of hours away from the resort, and we had probably beached on Havelock. That was probably where the kid had gone, back to the resort to get a jeep to get us a ride back home. She was making a lot of assumptions. Always looking at the bright side of life. I told her that we must in shelter, you know, just in case. Also the sun was setting and I remembered from the day before that the sandflies were really quite irritating around twilight. She laughed again. Maybe all that sun had made her go delusional. I always told her to apply suncream, and wear a hat, her not having the supremely tropically adapted body that I had. Maybe all that salt water and time in the sun had made her lose her marbles. I mean who wouldn't? It had been a traumatic day.

She kept laughing at me. I considered abandoning her on the beach. Any hostile tribals would probably find her more attractive. For a head hunter, a blonde head has got to be worth a little bit more than your run of the mill, bald subcontinental head. Hmm, but then I thought of the complications with death certificates and potentially awkward questions back home. I asked her again if she wanted to get away from the exposed beach. I guess she must have tired of laughing at me, so she rolled her eyes and away we went into the forest.

I have always grown up in cities, and have always found woods and forested areas quite creepy. I mean theres all these sounds and stuff, and these weird holes in the ground. There could be poisonous snakes, carnivorous monkeys, who knows?

Aground (2)

2007-12-29T15:25:00.000Z

Where am I? The maps that we had looked at when planning this trip came to mind. Indian territory, the islands off the coast of Burma. Tropical paradise. Yeah, I thought, still floating, facing the island, a tropical red plastic covered feast for the sharks that are undoubtedly circling around me. I looked at her and the kid. They were waiting for me to follow them towards the shore. Yeah I thought, you would want that would'nt you. Safety in numbers and all that. But what choice did I have, it was either swim, or be eaten alive by the monsters of the deep or die of dehydration floating in the Bay of Bengal.

You know, I always have had disaster fantasies. You know those fantasies where things are all going wrong, totally wrong, and the worst that you think could happen, has actually happened.. I always thought that I would be calm, methodical, able face the situation, whatever it was. Well, let me tell you dear reader, that is a lie. I felt the urge to take a crap, I thought I would die. I didn't feel like a super hero. Hell, I even thought of letting go of my life jacket and then sinking slowly, giving into my fate. Ashes to ashes, flotsam to flotsam and all that.

She was there, treading water still, now rolling her eyes, saying, come on you fool, lets get to the shore before it gets dark. So reluctantly, and very unsure of how succesful I was going to be in getting to the shore, I started swimming, ok more like paddling towards the green island.

I don't know how long it took me, apparently it was less than an hour, but it felt agonisingly long as we made our way. The kid got fed up and picked up speed. Pretty soon he was just a little dot on my horizon as I paddled on. My shoulders felt like they were on fire, my eyes were hazy, and my stomach felt like it was revolving slowly in my abdominal cavity. She turned around and said, look the water is clear, and you can even see the bottom now. Can we hurry up please? Easy for her to say, she didn't have the weight of the world on her shoulders.. or a nasty nicotine addiction.

She must have given up eventually as I floundered off the beach, she turned one last time and said, see you on the beach and swam off. I knew this was it, I had been abandoned, as an offering to the cruel sea. I couldn't go on any longer. I was exhausted, I had swallowed too much sea water. And I was ready to give in to my fate. The water was choppy. Maybe a storm was on the way. That would be fitting.

Up and down, I bobbed with the swell. My eyes half closed. I gave up, and decided to float, giving into the whims of the ocean current. My legs came down slowly, painfully as I got vertical in the water. Like the landing gear of an ancient airplane. They touched something, something rough. I had heard sharks have rough skin. So thats how it all would end. I bobbed up and down in the waves and my feet touched something again. It was the sea floor. I was in shallow water. Relief washed over me and I felt very proud of my self. I had done it, braved the cruel seas and swam to safety. Abandoned by my woman and my man friday. But never mind, I would be in my element on land.

Aground (1)

2007-12-29T13:23:00.000Z

It had started on another tranquil day. We were picked up from the resort early in the morning. We had the boat, the 'dunghi' all to ourselves. It looked a little flimsy, but the water was still and clear. The kid on the boat couldn't have been more than seventeen years old. We set off, planning to go to Button island, first to snorkell and then to fish. We made sure we had enough supplies to last us through the day. You know the important stuff, beer.. and more beer.
The sun found us an hour out of Havelock puttering away slowly towards Button island. It had been an early start, so she decided to take a nap. Rocking with the motion of our little boat, she looked content and at peace with the world. I was up, scanning the horizon, looking for Dolphins. She used to laugh at me, and my 'weird Dolphin quest'. Easy for her to say, she spent a year on a cruise ship, whale watching. The sea was flat, with the horizontal rays of the rising sun reflected from the surface.

The trip was unventful, calm. We reached Button island around mid-morning. I was still getting used to the snorkelling mask, but I put it on and in we went. It was beautiful. Stunning coral reefs, clouds of multi-coloured fish, some swimming languidly close to the surface, others doing a sort of 'panic polka' down by the coral. We floated in the warm waters for a couple of hours. Got off the boat, and we were starving. Out came the sandwiches, followed by the beer. It was getting hot when we set off again to the next destination. The kid who was our guide assured me he knew of the best place to go fishing in the area.

We got to the fishing spot and spent a couple of hours with the lines in the water, and with no luck whatsoever. But we didn't care. There was plenty to drink and it was beautiful. The heat had caused the islands around us to go all hazy. It almost felt that were alone out there, surrounded by hazy green giants. Coming to the conclusion that the fish weren't biting, and with the sun slowly making its way towards the western horizon, we decided to head back. I was drowsy, and not making much sense. She laughed at me and asked whether I wanted to have a little nap. Splendid idea, I thought and I lay down under the tarpaulin cover of the boat as it puttered its way back south.

I have no idea how long I was sleeping for, couldn't have been much more than an hour. I remember her talking about a detour to look at something or the other. She said we had time and she was excited. I went back to sleep, drowsy with the heat and the motion of the boat. I came awake thinking that I must have been dreaming. I dreamt of being thrown around a room and hearing a great shearing sound. Like the sound you would imagine the sound of an airplane crashing into a giant aluminium can. I woke up and the boat was shuddering. The sun blinded me as it shone horizontally straight into my eyes. My throat was dry, my back ached and I was disoriented. There was water in the boat, pooling around my ankles. There was big crack at the bottom of the boat. Which explained the water. Looking back, it seemed fascinating. In the half asleep world, even a tenous link between appearance and consequence is hard to come by. I sat on the boat looking at the water pooling around my ankles.

I heard her shout my name, and I was shaken. There was an edge to her voice. She shouted again, and I looked around to try and see where she was. She was on the boat, on the edge. Gesturing wildly. What? What is it you want? Jump! She said, get out of the boat, its sinking. The kid was jabbering away as well. Speaking his amorphous Hindi-Bihari mix. Jump he said. Get off the boat.

It was obvious that something had gone wrong here. Very obvious. I looked at my feet, searched for my shoes, and she shouted again. Jump! I did and hit the water. Jumping into the sea reminded me of the first time that I had experienced the deep end of the swimming pool. The momentary sense of panic when you realise that your feet are not going to hit the ground. My legs thrashed as I seeked the bottom. No bottom, just lots of salty water which seemed to exploring my nostrils. Unpleasant, and didn't do much for my perception which was being filtered through panic, bordering on hysteria.

Tread water! I did. Head bobbing up and down as I saw the boat go under. Here we were, in a calm flat sea, what happened? We hit a reef, the kid said. That reef used to be a couple of meters under water. Must have changed after the tsunami hit. Lovely, I thought, the boat was gone and here were three of us swimming in these waters.

Sharks! Jelly fish, my feverish mind worked over time. All those late night specials from discovery channel came back to me. I thrashed a bit more and I looked around. She and the kid looked pretty calm.

Consumed by panic. It was the end, every sea going landlubber's nightmare, and of all the tourists here, it was me who had to live through it (or die through it I suppose). The kid said something, I didn't hear him. She called out asking me translate. The kid said, lets swim to that island, pointing to one of the blurry green giants out in the distance. He must have been kidding I thought, I can barely swim one lap at the swimming pool, I was not about to venture across this vast open ocean, patrolled no doubt by the terrifying monsters of the deep.

I translated, and she looked out over her shoulder to the island, and shrugged. Its not that far, and lets face it theres no other choice. I was there, paddling frantically, trying to keep my nose above the water. Stop thrashing around she said, you've got a life jacket on. Of course, I knew there was something there. But fighting against the water was so natural, that I had to stop myself, and go still, in fear of sinking like a lead brick any time. But the life jacket did its trick and I floated, a big piece of flotsam.

What does it all mean?

2007-08-28T23:45:00.000+01:00

I know it was just another science fiction themed dream. Very original. Alien invasion, the end of the earth, brutal violence, general mental confusion. But, this is different. Instead of evaporating like a shallow lake of high proof vodka on a drunk's kitchen floor, it still sticks around (like a pool of vomit in a drunk's bathroom?).
I am standing on the top of a tall glass and steel homage to modern self contained living. I am standing on the roof trying to get a better view of the phantoms I keep glancing through my window. I was doing nothing that evening. Just sitting facing a wall of glass looking outside and shadows slid by on the distant road. I tried to focus and I could see nothing except swift movement on the horizon. Movement that seemed.. unnatural. So I am standing now on the roof leaning out, eyes glued, determined to work out what exactly is going on.
I see a vehicle travel (not move, not drive, not fly, just travel) on the road. Its moving from right to left. There are shadows appearing and disappearing on the top of the vehicle. I have an uncanny feeling that my presence is felt, noted, analysed and discarded. I see the vehicle slide across smoothly.
There is more movement, starting directly beneath me. Something moving fast, heading towards the road. This is movement, instantly recognised, internal combustion driven movement. In a straight line, a big.. truck. yes, a truck moving fast, intercepting the arc of the mysterious vehicle. The straight lines of the two vehicles intersect. They collide. There is no sound. The truck hits the other.. thing, it hits it hard and both disappear over the horizon. There is no sound, there are no explosions. And I am still standing on the top of the roof.
Fade to black, to light, to warmth, i am back in bed. Curious, not scared, just curious and completely baffled. Why? What?
Slip back into obivion and I am back in the room. There are no features in this room, except the glass wall. And the twilight. its never day, and never night in this room. There is the gun metal sky and the orange horizon. And me sitting, facing that horizon. There are explosions, no spaceships no heroic marines. Just silence and the shadows moving from right to left. I follow them, as the shapes morph. They are still vehicles. All sorts of vehicles. From what could be a train, to a strange tripod (straight out of the war of the worlds). Very quiet, minding their business just moving along. There are grey silhouettes of figures that appear and disapear.
I sit there unable to focus as these dissolve and emerge with the sky. I just sit there. I know I am observed, marked, and dismissed. I just sit there and it all goes away again.
Light, warmth and a blistering hangover await me. What does it all mean?

An academic exercise.

2007-08-14T22:38:00.000+01:00

'It is an academic exercise', they said, ' and you Sir, have a formidable mind.' The aim of the exercise was straight forward. Academic indeed. Take this map, this cartesian representation of this territory. HM's domain. Take the census, a little out of date perhaps.

And draw two lines.

It was simple.

Dust, was what greeted you R, when you first arrived to your destination. A lot of dust. Far removed it was from the green environs of Oxford wasn't it? You arrived in the middle of the sub-continental summer. When the ground was parched, dry, all the water gone. People go mad here. In this heat. Be careful and do not expose yourself to the tyranny of the sun.

Why did they chose you R? Why? Oh it is easy to rationalise now isn't it? So easy. A formidable scholar. A talented barrister. Never been east of Paris. Why, R, you were perfect. The perfect draughtsman. The perfectly sharp knife of a blind butcher, in a hurry.

R walked into the bungalow assigned to him. The books filled with the census data arrived in an rattling car, bumping along, misfiring outside the courtyard. Resplendent in dust. They were kind they were. They gave you your Secretary. Your man Friday. And you stood for days in the cool dark room towards the back of the house. Gazing your famed impartial gaze at the maps. Green for the agricultural zones. Blue were the canals. Gray with vertical projections were the train lines. And the towns, villages, settlements, all mapped out.

'See this canal here. It borders these two villages. Lets have a look at the census details... yes. So and so, the canal continues, yes, right here where the railway track curves around. Yes, there is the question of displacement, but it is unfortunate, unavoidable.'

And so the weeks flew by. Right here in Delhi or out in the cool mountain futher up North.

You were not oblivious. But you were a humble servant of HM. Given a task, stiff upper lip, bloody minded dedication. A true Englishman. You knew that people will be 'displaced', people will be killed, but all that mattered to you was that map and your pencil and that census.

You knew where Lahore would go. You knew where Amritsar would go. But you said nothing. Not a hint even though the rumblings of discontent, the threat of violence must have percolated down to you in some manner. But you were given a job, and a deadline. You met that deadline. You did your job.

Around you India burnt. It burnt R. Lahore exploded in an orgy of destruction. The death trains pulled into Amristsar. Laden with corpses, dripping with blood. You drew the lines that divided a man from his land. You drew the line that led to the bigggest mass migration in history.

You drew the line R, that my great grandfather crossed with his life's savings sewn to an inner pocket of his pyjamas. The line that my great grandmother crossed, and went insane in the process.

But you did your job. You were rewarded for your work. You took that map, and with your dispassionate approach drew two lines. Lines that bissected the catchment area of the great bloody deluge.

You wrote to your stepson after that fateful day. You told him about getting away from the millions of people who had to cross the line. You spoke of the loneliness of your decision. Loneliness R? What did you want, a committee? You are a vessel of their Guilt. You are the carrier of the White Man's burden. A burden that nobody will share. Your name is forever entertwained, through of in the same beat, and spoken in the same breath as 'the unspoken cruelty, needles violence' that blossomed in your wake.

Its funny. You were the last Viscount of this land. They are in such a hurry to forget your honourable deeds that even your title is extinct. Don't worry R. Your legacy is right here sitting on this chair talking to you.

you, I blame you for my social ineptitude

2007-06-24T22:40:00.000+01:00

It was a cathartic conversation. A few months ago, I was in a restaurant having dinner with a friend and an acquaintance. The acqaintance, I knew her from way back. Way back, in the haze of prehistory. She now lives in my lovely little town, works here, and has been her a while. Never really kept in touch. She goes, 'What do you do on your weekends?' I said, 'Not much, you know, go out, read, listen to some music. Don't really have any far out way out exciting cool things that I regularly indulge in.'

'Yeah', she said, 'You do seem to be the kind of person who is quite happy with themselves.'

I thought for a second, didn't really comprehend what she was on about. Asked for an explanation.

'Oh, it was just a comment you know. I meant you seem like you could quite happily entertain yourself, you know... don't really need to have people around all the time.'

'I suppose', I shrugged. Nice way of calling me a loner love. Nice one.

So, today, after much rumination and an afternoon spent watching the rain fall, listening to music, and stroking my weekend stubble adorned chin, I have decided that is time to apportion blame. It is time for some things to be named and shamed. It is them, them I blame for my social ineptitude and general 'loner / eccentric' label.

- The printed word:
Culprit, numero uno. If I was a sensible type, I would have long organised a pogram of devestation of every single book that I owned. I would then have gone on to install a device on my computer that would not allow me to go to any website that offered even the slimmest hope of entertaining me with what was written on the screen. Why stop there, I would ask my bank to stop me from paying for books online. Train an attack dog to sniff out books and attack me if I even dared to walk into the flat with a book, clutched in my sweaty hands, or a book hidden in my man bag. I will no longer stand to be labelled 'the one who reads.' No more, 'My mom was asking about you the other day'. She sad, 'How is that bookworm friend of yours doing?'
Reading is a menace that must be dealt with if I am ever to be successfully integrated back into society.

- Music:
I have spent way too much time over the last couple of years 'enjoying' myself, 'listening' to music. Time which could have been spent being a better, more productive member of society. Who really cares about some obscure band whose main guitar player shares a passion for making music using the sound of Black and Decker electric drills spinning in reverse? I mean, really, who really cares? Who cares about the desert blues from Mali. I mean, these people are not even featured on the radio? Why should I waste my time with this stuff because apart from a small circle of music nerds (who are hard to find in mainstream society because they are probably sitting in darkened rooms listening to the same non-relevant music with a pair of ridiculously expensive headphones on)?
Exactly, no-one. It is time to move on from this unhealthy, so called 'hobby'. Yes, music has its place in the world. People find it quite enjoyable (allegedly, I can't really speak for mainstream society for obvious reasons). But if I am to be successfully integrated back into society, I must pick the right kind of music to listen to. I will be destroying my beloved CD collection and wiping the contents of the 'music' folder of my computer.
I solemnly vow to listen to the top 20 charts every weekend and really commit to memory which bands are getting the most airplay on mtv. The goal of this exercise would be to reach a point where when I finally emerge out of this ridiculous hibernation, I must be listening to the same music that atleast 70% of people in any given social scenario. Yes, that should get rid of the blank looks I get from people when I even mention what I am listening to. Another positive outcome of this exercise would be to rid myself of indulging in tediously enthusiastic conversations about music with other nerds.

- Small talk
I suck at small talk. I really do. I get very bored. Things have really come to a head now. They have. My sucking at small talk has made me avoid social interactions. This cannot go on. I vow from this evening to really swot up on what things people talk about when they make small talk/ engage in social conversation. A brief foray into this minefield of a research territory has come up with a few suitable candidates. I will junk my subscription to the 'New Scientist' (I mean, what was I thinking?). Will get subscriptions to hello and ok magazines so I am upto speed with the latest celebrity gossip. Moreover, I will spend atleast two hours every day watching the latest reality TV programs. My experience (necesarily second hand, you must understand) seems to point that most people find these programs quite fascinating, and it is a rich seam to exploit in my new incarnation as a social type. Should be easy, will avoid the space and nature documentaries and focus in on the live feed from the Big Brother house every time I find myself worshipping the cathode ray tube endowed diety of entertainment. Also, I must be more economical and methodical in the grammar and content of the talk that I indulge in from henceforth. Refer the last two sentences and it will be obvious to you why this is necessary.
Once I master small talk, there will be no need to indulge in antisocial pursuits.

So now, I know the culprits. I know my plan of action. Pray, dear reader, that I succeed in this monumental task ahead of me. Pray, that I once more am embraced by fellow human beings. Who will gaze upon me warmly and take me for one of their own. Bereft of the social stigma that I find upon me today, I shall shine in the adulation as society adopts its reclusive son.

I am nothing but a humble cog in your machine

2007-06-11T23:24:00.000+01:00

Deus Ex Machina. The ghost in the machine. A collective of ghosts. A ghost collective, an amalgamation of ghosts, a spooky confabulation of ambitious hell defying worker bees?

Drone drone drone, every day, every night.

Crackberrilicious.

Sleepwalk. Wake, connected, sleep, wake, drone.

One of many, upward escalator, some quite petty, some not bothered.

Daily conversation, how was the weekend? ctrl_alt_delete, pick up that headset.

Log on, long voice conversations. Status updates, calendar entries, what can I do (don't waste my time).

Stand up, no exercise, tired, sitting on my ass. Walk home, disconnected, anxious. Go to bed, resist, anxious away, will that machine work?

Little by little, merge with that chair. Small talk specialist, non commital verbalist.

I am just a drone, a little cog, big machine, little widget.

Confessions of a nerd

2007-05-30T23:05:00.000+01:00

It was a moment that summed it all up. I was sitting across him in a meeting room. We were having our weekly one-2-one. It was a tough one. There was 'constructive feedback' to be given. I gave it to him. He was crestfallen. Doodling away on his notepad. I reached over and had a look at what he had drawn. I looked up, and before I knew it, I said, 'dude, that looks like the shuttle the away team uses in star trek'. He looked up and smiled. 'You really think so?'. 'Yeah, for sure'. The awkward meeting was rounded off with a discussion on away team politics, and the best way of guessing which character was dispensible in that particular episode. Being a nerd can be quite handy sometimes. (Rushi's log: Don't underestimate the power of nerd empathy).

I was lying down on the sofa, head buried deep within a book. The folks were watching a cheesy late nineties bollywood spy flick. 'Why do you guys watch this trash?'. 'Its like the Indian James Bond!'. 'Well, I prefer reading about my inter-galactic James Bond!'. Resounding silence. They knew a long time back, their son was a nerd.

She told me she spent the day watching the BBC's adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. I told her it was drivel written by a sexually repressed 18th century English woman. After being subjected to what can only be described as a summary verbal execution, I got this: 'Atleast I don't talk about getting the Klingon box set'. Cue indignation, but she knew where it hurt the most.

I was standing in the shower. Watching the glass divider steam up. I was drawing little images in the steam. A little squiggle here. A little squiggle there. I contemplated a very convaluted complicated squiggle. I wondered if the universe could be shaped like that squiggle. I dispensed with the idea because the data on background radiation from the big bang discounted the possibility of an irregular shaped universe. I was so proud of myself.

In the book, they talked about aliens who lived in 'slow time'. They slowed their thinking and metabolism right down so days would pass by in minutes as they contemplated their existence. I wondered at dinner this evening whether they achieved this by slowing down the frequency and pattern with which their brains signalled. I wondered if the insights attained while contemplating in 'slow time' would somehow be more significant because the brain would have more time to process and organise each thought. I discounted the idea because it was contrary to my slow frequency hypothesis. I was disappointed and decided not to experiment with slow time if the opportunity ever came by because it seemed just like getting very stoned. I can do that anyway if I so wish.

When I was a kid, I would borrow my father's shiny digital calculator. I would then proceed to spend hours keying in random numbers to see if I could come up with a brand new axiom on the theory of mathematics. The method really didn't live up to my expectations of making an earth shattering break through in number theory. Though I did have quite a giggle when i keyed in '8008' in the calculator. Aah, those were the days..

I often fantasise about having a google chip implanted in my brain. Being the centre of conversation, a billion pages of witty comebacks right there in the blink of an eye. I would inherit the collective memories, intelligence and junk of the denizens of the information superhighway. But then I worried about how painful upgrades would be..

This year I had an epiphany. I am a nerd. And I am now a happy non-repressed nerd. Welcome to my world!

Hope

2007-03-26T00:11:00.000+01:00

Hope. Hope is cruel. Hope is evil. When you know there is nothing else to do but give up and get on with things, there is hope. Like a stubborn little candle burning, almost down to the wick in the middle of a storm. There is always hope.

But you know what, hope pisses me off. What is the point of hope, when all it does is pile on more agony.

I avoided reading the papers over the weekend. I didn't watch the news, didn't talk to anybody who knew anything about it or would be even vaguely interested about it. I bit my lip, and stayed my eager sms typing finger, and stopped it from sending agonized messages to fellow comrades, to fellow countrymen, agonising, looking for sympathy. I said, its only a game, what is the point? Life goes on.

But there is always hope.

It is late on a Sunday night, and I logged on, workaholic's curse. I switched on this darned machine, focused on the task at hand. Check these two things, write those two emails, make sure things are set for tomorrow.

I couldn't help it. My fingers, as if with little minds of their own, typed those fateful words. Andy my hand, as if my magic, navigated to the page of interest. And thats where the futility of hope hit me. I checked the score, and for a second, my eyes showed me what I wanted to believe.

B**** 96 / 4, B****** 94 / 9.

My heart lept, momentarily. Maybe we did have a chance, maybe the last two days of despair were a sort of toll, a tax on the glories that lay ahead.

I needed to check, just to make sure I hadn't become delusional, a raving psychopath. And of course, the second time, there was no deception. It really was over. Realistically as well was statistically. And that moment of hope was even more painful that grinding my teeth listening to the mighty collapse, like a cardboard shack being runover by a herd of raging elephants on Friday night.

It was worse than listening to suggestions made by people who probably value their life less than their sense of humour when they suggest that possibly the Indian subcontinent should be called the 'Bangla-Lankan subcontinent'

It was worse because that moment carried the slightest hint of salvation, of saving face, of staying the fall of these 'heroes'.

Hope. Hope is cruel. Hope is evil.

Me and Marlowe

2007-01-12T00:51:00.000Z

I sit on the sofa, sipping my beer. Glancing over where the clock should be on that white wall. Watching, listening to Marlowe and he chain smokes, shrugs his shoulders and looks bemused. I look at him, he says, "Its OK with me".

No, I don't know this song (Part 3)

2007-01-02T22:13:00.000Z

Looking back now, the idea of using alcohol as a sort of sensory deprivation device was probably not very clever (or original). The last seven years of living in the UK has lead to the development of a nice thick buffer of scar tissue on my liver which is enough to prevent the absorption of all but the most potent of spirits. But in keeping with tradition, what could I do but try?

I got a nice fifteen minute reprieve. I was left alone, standing in my corner, and slowly getting into the groove of watching people again. But, there is being comfortable and then there is being downright complacent. In my naivete, I was definately bordering on the later.

I was ambushed again, but this time, I stuck to my guns. I could see it coming, 'oh come dance'.

No, nothing doing, I wasn't going nowhere. I turned to her and said, 'Can you keep a secret?'

Hmm, she thought, her eyes widened for a moment, and she had the bearing of a lioness just about to pounce through the long dry grass and dismember the poor little antelope.

'Sure, you can tell me anything'

'To be honest, its a little embarassing..'

'Please, I can keep a secret, I promise!'

'To tell you the truth, the jeans I have on are dreadfully loose, and I fear that if I keep dancing, they will end up around my ankles. I really would not be able to face the embarassment.'

But she was determined that I have a good time. I guess New Yorkers are good hosts eh?

'Don't worry, I will hold your jeans up while we dance.'

My vision was overlaid with flourescent scrolling numbers.

Persistence: 100%
Enthusiasm: 100%
Ability to irritate: .... ...... ..... "£%£$^ .... <SYSTEM MALFUNCTION>

'Can I be honest with you?'

'Of course. I really like honest people.'

'I really don't know this music, and to be honest, I really don't know if I like it.'

Aah, success. She froze, cocked her head as if trying to comprehend the enormity of my confession. An Indian, not into this music, THIS MUSIC??

But order was restored, and she continued her patient vigil.

'Don't worry, I will explain to you the lyrics as the songs are played. You will really like it.'

'Forgive me miss, I think you have misunderstood. I can follow the content of the songs perfectly well. I can follow the beat perfectly well. I just cannot fathom or enjoy the end product that the aural processing system is projecting in my brain.' (I am paraphrasing here in the interests of brevity).

No reaction. She stands there looking at me for a while. And then she stalks off back to the entropy channels.

A burden is lifted off my shoulders. I lean back, pour another three finger shot, and commence with practising my ninja meditation which will, once practised enough, block out any undesirable stimuli. Time slows and the vodka does its lubricating trick.

'Do you know this song?'

Fuck, here we go again.

'Nope, never heard it.'

'Oh, isn't it great! Come dance with me.'

'Sorry, I really ought to finish my drink. I hate it when I finish a drink and there is no ice left to crunch. '

Right on cue, the DJ flips the song, and plays another two minute processed chunk of sacharine bhangra.

'You must know this one!'

'Yeah, I do actually.'

'Oh great, come dance with me.'

'Oh, I heard it about five minutes ago when the DJ played it for the fifth time'.

'You are so funny.'

'No, I am just misunderstood.'

Cue the DJ pressing 'Next' on his CD player.

'Oh, I love this song. Do you know it.'

I have heard it a milion times before. It used to be the shit when we used to have parties when I was twelve years old.

'Nope, no idea.'

'Come dance with me!'

I remember that I have to use the bathrom. Another nose tap, and off I am to
he six foot by four foot cell signifying freedom from the travails of that particular evening.

The pattern above continues for the best part of the next hour. By the end, I am a quivering wreck, drinking, drinking fast. There is only one option left.

I look for the largest, sweatiest, most wobbly guy on the dancefloor. I turn towards her and proclaim:

'You have really fueled my enthusiasm for this music. I think I am finally getting it.'

'Hurray!'

'.. but, I must go and say hello to my friend over there, I didn't recognise him'

I saunter over and take shelter in the giant shadow of my new found friend. He seems to have activiated a sort anti gravity device which keeps me safe as long as I maintain a certain orbit around him.

Finally, a solution. Clumsy, ridiculously and downright uncool. But when a man is under attack, he must improvise!

The final nail in the coffin was when they played that fucking david hasselhoff screwing in the lightbulbs while his car spontaneously transforms into a manic depressive winnabago.

Here is another fly by:

'You must know this song, its by a guy from England'

I lose it, the veneer of calm is gone. I beak out into a cold sweat and say: '

I hate that fucking song. I despise it from the core of my being.'

She is taken aback, but takes it all as one big fuck off joke.. 'You are kidding right, you must know this song!'

No, I don't know this song (Part 2)

2007-01-01T06:09:00.000Z

I remember, standing on the stairs leading to the fabled VIP area, clutching my shiny credit card and knowing that I am about to do something I am going to regret. I pride myself in being a rational person, and tend to disregard things like 'bad vibes' or 'gut feelings', so I went on, upstairs and was escorted promptly to the bar by the ruthlessly efficient bouncer fella. The equally efficient barmaid proceeded to swipe my card on the swipy machine and handed me a bill for an amount that would probably feed a good sized family for a couple of weeks. But hey, we can get all the orange juice, coke and cranberry juice that we could drink with our vodka.

I could deal with that, I grabbed the bottle of vodka, planted it on the table, poured myself a three finger shot to steady my nerves. Down it went, and I proceeded to turn around to survey this fabled realm and to wait for the warm fuzzy feeling of alcohol mingling freely in my blood stream.

To say that I was underwhelmed, would be an understatement, and probably a real disservice to the feeling of crushing disappointment that came over me as my frazzled brain processed the two images coming from my right and left optic nerves. The VIP area, essentially was a smaller, and a little less crowded version of the seventh circle that I had just ascended from. It was really the eight circle, because the dearth of people here meant that there was more room here for people to really go all out, the whole hog, on convulsing, wobbling, falling over to the noxious sonic manure pouring out of the sound system. These entropic areas were punctuated somewhat by small anxious clumps of eighteen year old kids, desperately trying to look cool while hugging their drinks. I probably should learn to manage my expectations a little bit.

No matter, I must be positive, after all I am a pilgrim in an unholy land, I must respect the customs of these strange people. I gathered my thoughts, leaned back against the bar and was admittedly quite amused for a few minutes with the antics of the host and his friends as they waded through the entropy channels trying to conquer the aforementioned islands of little children ("Yo, I am going to go mack on those chicks right there!"). Well, thought the poor little over worked rationalising part of my brain, there are worse ways of spending an evening than a spot of alcohol enhanced people watching.

And then it happened. My night took another turn for the bizarre, and the downright sadistic. I was lost in thought, effectively blocking out the music and engaged in some inane chatter with a group of the 'lost kids'. Suddenly I found myself standing as I was in the corner, leaning against the bar, but with the posterior of a specimen of the opposite sex quite uncomfortably close to my, well anterior I suppose. It was a most galling and unwelcome invasion of my personal space, and alarm bells were screaming, and my soul was running hard towards the escape pod. Unsolicited anterior molestation is not always unwelcome, but lets just say that this lady was not my type.

Drawing on my experiences of watching many, many martial arts films (no i didn't karate chop her, or try the vulcan death grip), I shuffled gingerly on the balls of my feet, and somehow managed to manoeuvre to a position that wasn't such a flagarant violation of my personal space. I faced here (which makes verbal communication a lot easier) and said

'oh, you must excuse me miss, I am not really a very enthusiastic dancer.'

And she goes 'oh, but i love your accent, and i don't care, I think your dancing is adorable, its so cute.'

I wondered briefly on the merits of her judgement, since it was patently impossible given her position to actually really objectively judge the merits of my awkward shuffle to those stuttering beats. It was soon obvious that this was not the time or the place for such frivolous tangential thoughts. Time for evasive manoeuvres.

'I really do object to being called cute, it is something that really suits things like poodles or souvenier teddy bears.'

'You are soo funny.'

'You must excuse me, I need to go use the rest room.' I tapped my nose, hoping that she would think that I am some sort of retrograde coke head and leave me alone. I dunno, seemed like an appropriate thing to do at the time.

I left the VIP area, and realise that I really could not stand being back in the convulsing masses again. I waited for an appropriate interval and made my way back up and furtively rushed to the table where the bottle of vodka waited. That had to be my salvation..

No, I don't know this song (Part 1)

2006-12-31T21:31:00.000Z

I despise night clubs. I really do. I used to think its just a sign of getting old, and getting on with things, you know, appreciating the finer things in life like a quiet pub and a nice pint of beer while discussing the subtleties of the structure of the cosmos. OK, more like getting shit faced on a heck of a lot of beer and hollering at the top of my lungs imploring any passer by to vote democrat in the next elections ("I would mate, but I am Australian, and we are in London!").

Nothing prepared me for this descent into a circle of hell that would make Dante blush. I am in New York (New York!), and last night decided to venture out to sample the night life. Much was said in awed, reverential tones about this particular nightspot we were venturing to. Great, I thought, I can now fraternise with some proper New Yorkers and see what the big deal is all about.

When you walk into a night club, or any night spot, and most of the clientele are of one (arbitrary, oh, lets say Indian) variety, its not a good sign. I have nothing against people of uniform ethnicities congregating together to have a good time, good for them, great! But, after years of corporate diversity training, I am all for a bit of diversity. We walk into the night club and after paying the astronomic cover charge, walk up to the 'club area'.

The place is heaving, I mean seriously heaving with Indian dudes. And I mean dudes, the male to female ratio was as depressing as the male to female ratio in a village in remote Uttar Pradesh with a tradition of female infanticide. Deftly avoiding the sweating hordes, I parked myself in a corner with my visage alternating from the 'don't even fucking talk to me' to 'the what the fuck am i doing here?' variety.

I turned around to the host, and inquired, quite pointedly, exactly what we were achieving by watching two hundred guys convulse to the recycled beats fresh off the mumbai tramp steamer. I have been out clubbing in India, and I swear the music they play there is about as far removed from the junk they were busting out in this particular nightspot. I guess a nostalgic diaspora is quite a forgiving audience, who can conviently overlook the fact that the song currently blasting throug and contributing generally to the ambient sonic pollution had actually been played, oh about, two and a half minutes ago. quite happily, they kept convulsing away on the fucking dance floor. But this was not the end of my musical travails.

My friend says, oh, I know some more people who are in the VIP area, lets go there. VIP area, two words I dread, well it was being better than being drenched by the perspiration of the morbidly obese thing that was wobbling worrying close to me. Fine, lets go to the VIP area. Oh, we have to buy a bottle of alcohol to get in. OK, by this time I have completely given up to the flow of this particular evening, I did some mental arithmetic, and worked out its not going to be too expensive, after all there are enough of us to drinking so its going to be fine.

The bouncer needed a credit card before letting us through to this hollowed VIP area, and all eyes turned expectantly towards me. Oh of course, this is just to get in ok.. no problem..

Just don't mind me, I am by myself

2006-12-04T22:41:00.000Z

One of my biggest indulgences is eating out. There is not doubt about it, pile some food on my plate, get me a nice cold bottle of beer, and you will be witness to a happy man.

I've had great times in restaurants, its just fun to be able to sit down and enjoy food and talk and not have to worry about the pile of dirty dishes that I know is going to be mocking me after the dinner party is over.

"Ooh, bad boy, I am so dirty.. come, come wash me."

I hate dirty dishes.

So all in all, I have a very positive opinion on restaurants. But like all good things, it all seems to be coming to an end. Before I explain this horrifying revelation, perhaps I should give some background to my traumatic experience this evening.

I've had a long day at work. Shits not so much falling from the sky, but raining, hailing, snowing, .. hell, even a passing colleague seems to splash some shit on me. So I worked hard, earnt my keep and was totally in a zombie like state come seven. I felt bad, I felt tired, and I felt worse, because it's still Monday.

Pain I thought, pain will make me feel better (oh yes, I am a masochist). So off I went to the gymn after work, I thought you know, push some weights, burn some of this negative energy off. And all in all it was successful. I emerged in a cocoon of zen like calm. Calm, and hungry.

I really didn't fancy cooking (I haven't for a while) or eating the soup and pita bread that seems to have become my daily diet. I figured, hell, I am supposed to be having the time of life. Might as well live to the MAX, let go of the parachute and all that. I stepped into the local branch of Wagamama for some noodle therapy and some japanese beer. I stood there, at the entrance waiting to be served.

She saw me, looked bemused, and raised a finger. 'One?', she mimed.

I nodded, and gave her a winning smile, raised my finger and said proudly, 'One!'.

She looked around, a little anxious perhaps. Then she looked around some more.

'Half the restaurant is empty', a worried voice in my head said.

She kept looking around, and I could almost sense her brain waves 'ok, single man, where do I sit him, where do I sit him?'

Eventually, she sat me down right next to this couple. The woman looked up from her bowl of ramen, looking slightly confused. Then something clicked, and she gave me a sympathetic smile.

'One!', the voice was getting a little uncomfortable.

Nevermind, somewhere to sit at last. I sat down, knowing exactly what I was going to order. Looked around, all the waiters / waitresses seemed busy. Ok, I thought, pulled out a book and started reading, keeping an eye out for somebody to pass by.

The minutes ticked by, the restaurant was noisy and I was having trouble concentrating on my book.

I looked up again, it had been ten minutes, and I hadn't even been asked if I wanted a drink. And I was thirsty dammit!

Another five minutes passed. 'They have forgotten all about you, nee nee neee naaaah'.

Its always a worrying sign when my internal monologue acquires a slight flavour of self-loathing.

I was becoming desperate. I tried making eye contact with any passing waiter. I swear, this woman (who incidently had seated me), looked in my direction, and looked straight through me.

I panicked, pinched myself, held my hands up in front of me, in front of the light.

Had the laws of physics changed? Had I become invisible? Am I caught in a black hole, can nobody hear me scream?

The woman sitting right across me looked up from slurping her ramen. She was almost done. We made eye contact, the look now had gone from sympathy, to real heart-felt pity.

'Oh', she said, 'Having trouble getting served?'

'No, not really', I said, being all cool, 'it appears that I have forgotten to remove my magic cloak of invisbility'. I smiled, 'be cool', I thought, 'be cool!'

Her smile conveyed even more pity, and the jolly chubby fellow sitting next to me also turned around, and gave me a smiling, sympathetic look.

Where is my shotgun?

Then another waitress turned up, she was serving the main course to people who had turned up five minutes after me. The main fucking course!

I was dying of dehydration, and was in the dire need of the soothing taste of Asahi beer.

As the woman was bending over behind me, my new found friend at the next table winked at me and said 'I know how you can get some attention. Just pinch her behind!'

I wanted to run, I wanted to curl up in a fetal position, and close my ears, and block out this cruel cruel world.

But I saved myself a sexual harassment lawsuit, and refrained from pinching her behind. I just meekly said, 'hi'

'umm, hello?'

No luck, she just ignored my cry for help.

'Cold, heart-less bitch. Doesn't she know a dying man when she hears him choke?', the monologue was getting real nasty now.

A waiter came to give my friendly neighbourhood couple the bill.

'Hi there, could I possibly..'

He just ignored me.

'I must be going mad, this is a bad dream. I am going to wake up any time soon..'

The woman sensed my plight, she told the waiter, 'I think this gentlemen is waiting to be served'

He looked where I was sitting, and then as if by magic, he noticed me. He raised one finger, ONE FUCKING FINGER, and said 'One moment'.

I was ready to leave. I had enough of this humiliation. 'Thats it, the world is against me, and the only rational thing to do is to go home, have my pita bread, soup and humus, and wait for the day to end all days.'

But, at the very last moment, when my patience, my compusure, my very idea of self-being was in tatters, I got served. Some kindly waitress came over and took my order.

The food arrived promptly, but the beer was warm.

'Doesn't matter any more'.

I wolfed down my udon, downed my bottle of beer, left the money on the table, put on my coat, and ran out of that restarant before I disappeared for real. Before my soul got sucked down into some sort of dark void.

From now on, its all about take-aways and deliveries. No more solo missions.

oh the despondency of it all

2006-11-26T20:41:00.000Z

I just started reading a fantastic book called the 'The Last Mughal' by William Darymple. It is about the Indian 'mutiny' of 1857, but focuses mainly on Delhi and the Bahadur Shah Zafar (the "Last Mughal" of the title). The author does a great job in describing not only the life of Zafar's royal court but also the lives of the British soldiers, bureaucrats and politicians who lived in that time.

In mr. Darymple's opinion (ooh, I feel so "proper" tonight), by the mid nineteenth centure, the Victorian British became almost completely alienated from their Indian subjects. They didn't understand them, didn't want to know them, and seemed to have viewed their stay in India as some sort of a penance.

And some of the things that these people did were so fucking far out, that they were just funny. I was reading the book while having lunch / dinner at a cafe out by Euston, and I think I saw the bloke sitting at the next table pretty much jump when I burst out laughing.

The author describes them holding a ball / panto performance sometime in the summer of 1852 to 'raise money for the poor and deprived people of Scotland and the Northern isles'. I mean, shit, I always thought English people could be a little snobbish (especially those ridiculous Victorians), and didn't hold their Scottish kin in particularly high regard.. but arranging a charity ball for the 'poor Scots' while living in the middle of the India, is just completely, just fucking weird.

These people should have just chilled out, drank a cup or two of opium, smoked a hookah, chewed some pan and listened to Ghalib (more on him coming later this week..).

Apparently, the most frequent complaint of young British solidiers in India was that of boredom, and how they just feared that they were slowly losing touch with reality during their tour of duty of India.

That I found almost sweetly ironic.

I had a look at some of the stuff that I have been posting on this particular blog. and to be absolutely honest, I sound like some seriously miserable bloke who hates the world.+

Get this, an Indian bloke living in England, being miserable! Hey, I figure, there is so much stuff about the British experience in India that is full of misery (A passage to India anyone?), I am just doing my historical duty by performing an equitable distribution of misery*.

Moreover, I have been to a few functions here to raise money for the poor people of India. I have a healthy disdain for some of the Natives. Atleast those annoying little tyrants who seem to positively delight in riding up and down copenhagen street on those stupid loud scooters. And the rude boys, the chavs, the alco-pop soaked 'just havin a laugh' crews who stumble around upper street every saturday night.

So there you go, I am not a miserable, moody sod.. No, not really, I ain't nothing but a mere reflection in the mirror of history.

+ I don't hate the world, I just don't see what the big deal about it really is..

* You, yes you, you know who you are, I thought the idea of equitable distribution of misery would particularly appeal to you

Autumn and eveything after

2006-11-19T14:23:00.000Z

Walking along the sidewalk, I see dead and disintegrating leaves mixed up with the carnage from the night before. A 50p can of special brew, lying amidst a clutch blackening leaves. Its been raining, again, and everything is damp. I thought autumn was supposed to be the time of the year of fresh air, crisp mornings and golden leaves.

This autumn is heavy, sort with expectation of the winter to come. Not a last stand of the nature against the vagaries of the winds blowing in from siberia, but a resigned acceptance of another year slowly ending.

I sit, as usual, my fingers performing their merry tango on the keyboard. And through the window, I see the trees, and to their modesty, they hold on. When the leaves are shed, and float down to the sidewalk to join their melting brethren, they are naked, dead, asleep to the world.

With nothing but the vague promise of brighter days, of sunshine and of spring.

I sit, with the bright flourosent tubes bestowing me their harsh light. Day after day, not knowing what is going on outside. Writing my psalms to the lord of commerce. Sometimes doing nothing but staring at the light, a poor substitute for a blue sky.

When I leave, its dark, and clouds are low, forbidding, plodding like sleek middle aged coiffed power dressed women at a charity dinner. No point looking up, so I keep my head down and wonder about the constituents of the rotting mess that I avoid on the sidewalk.

C:>del .

2006-11-17T18:17:00.000Z

Memories, such slipperly, vague, shape shifting things. Always there, somewhere behind my two eyes, sometimes lying dormant like a mouse sleeping through an arctic winter. Sometimes large, noisy, dusty, smelly like a giant swarm of wilderbeest stampeding through the veldt.

I chase them, over and over again, run and just before I grasp them, wanting to hold them in my hands, to inspect, to poke, to cherish, to contemplate, they disappear, they vanish, pfft.. gone. And I am stood there with a tingling, a slight irritation, bemused and not having a clue what I was doing.

And then there are times, when I do my best, my utmost to run. RUN. Hide and never be found, but they are right there, like a pack of cackling rabid hyenas, on my trail. They will, I know without a doubt, corner me and pin my eyes back with their filthy claws and subject me to their gruesome dance. I sit there, praying for salvation and absolution, like a man on death row, attempting to escape the eternal fires of hell as they threaten to engulf his mind.

I don't pray to Jesus, I don't pray to a God. For I have none. The valley of my soul is not fertile enough for the seeds of belief to take root.

And I like it like that.

I pray that another spectre from my cerebral cortex, would appear and overwhelm, eclipse the gruesome dance being played out in front of my eyes.

It works, sometimes, and in a fraction, a heartbeat, a neural impulse, I am tranported away from the dark dark cave and into the wide open sunlight. Lying on the grass, squinting up through the little cracks between my fingers to watch the clouds as they are bourne in the wind across the face of a bright bright tropical sun.

But I know, I know behind this deception, that the hyenas will always be waiting, knowing that their victim is soon to stumble back again to his (or is it their) lair.

Some memories have no associations. They just ARE. Like little snippets from VHS tapes that have been watched so many times, they have a fuzzy familiarity about them. Engrossed in the stream of life, they just pop up, and I walk those sepia tinted paths again.

Exploring dark quiet alleys, colourful noisy bustling roads, that have already been explored. But yet, instead of jumping straight to the destination, I walk each step, stoop to inspect each little crack on the road. I investigate the sigh that the sagging ancient scafolding makes as it bears the weight of a collapsing house.

I know, as the tape whirs slowly in my mind, what happens next, but I still anticipate each recalled moment. And then the vision ends, the tide comes back, and I am carried forward past the moment in the current of time.

I wonder what it would be to be without memories. To just be, to exist, day by day, each moment a forgotten snapshot discarded / shredded as time ebbs and flows. The concept of each moment completely discarded, before it can fraternise with its cousins in front of and behind it, to form the big brawling extended family of saved moments that eventual becomes both the haunted house, and the spectre called memory that roams its corridors. It seems so easy, so comfortable, that I am tempted. Tempted to ask the one favour, that I remember, but remember only the events, but not the context, not how I felt, because that is not remembering, that is memory.

But, like Christ on the devil's mountain, I reject temptation, because once these ghosts that haunt the suburb of my mind are evicted, there would be nothing, absolutely nothing left.

An army of pelicans

2006-11-01T22:54:00.000Z

I have recently discovered my new favourite bird. The mighty pelicans. They are awesome. They eat pigeons. I don't like pigeons. I want a pet pelican. I will call the pelican Fred. Fred will live on the balcony. Fred will eat pigeons. Because I don't like pigeons. Fred will be my true friend. Me and Fred will have great times together. Because Fred eats pigeons, and I don't like pigeons.

A wrong turn on the way to heaven..

2006-10-08T13:35:00.000+01:00

once there was this man from constaninople
he thought, 'man, my words and deeds are noble'

But his life was no fun
So he went and bought a gun

why wait, i got heaven figured
pull this trigger, and i am transfigured

be closer to God, in his immortal Ward
I want to hear your angels sing, thats all me'Lord

So he gave a lot to charity
And left his loved ones a-plenty

he woke up on the appointed day
with a smile, i am ready, come what may!

He watched the sun come up over the city
He said, finally i can cash in on my piety

He closed his eyes, and brought up the gun
retracted his finger, and then it was done

when he woke, it was uncomfortably hot
and his skin, it was all a-rot

he thought, a strange heavenly manifestation
perhaps, its to cleanse me from earthly contamination

It was when he met the first demon
he thought he might have been mistaken

his path to heaven, had taken a wrong turn
he had an eternity to ponder, as he was taken to burn

People watchin

2006-10-01T20:16:00.000+01:00

I stand with my back against the railing
just another friday night
Its seven thirty and I am early
Waiting at the train station
People watching

The two walk past me, not once but twice
Through a volley of stares, they stride
displaying their wares up-front
Ready to hit the town. Two young women
Confident and proud

They are new here, I think
standing right there, in the throughfare
eyes nervously blink, focus on a map
One wanders left, the other to the right
two shiny backpacks, lost to the world

Have I been stood up, thinks the man by the phone
in his smart jeans and brown coat
He looks, pleading at his silver phone
Ten minutes later, looks defeated
Sits on the bench, as if given up hope

Must be an unwritten rule of fashion
that the male must wear black
in their skinny jeans, and their foppish hats
they walk, bedecked, haughty and bare
i wonder if it chafes, i think perhaps

I look at these people
I wonder, I wonder
they walk past me,
and for the entertainment
I think them very much

contemplating armageddon

2006-09-23T19:05:00.000+01:00

see i am convinced that the world is coming to an end. i remember three weeks ago when the emails first began. i thought it was a bit of a joke when they talked about Irwin being stabbed in the heart by a sting ray. i laughed, of course knowing that it was just another part of the goddamn conspiracy to remove every cultural anchor i had left, before they finally got me. they got Hunter S. Thomson, they got Mugambo, they got Irwin, and now Hammond has a near death experience. thats it the world is soon coming to an end. it will cease to exist when nothing that i recognise remains any more. i have no fucking idea whats in the charts, i have no clue what music they are playing in the clubs. they are saying that dolphins are dumb. sting rays are being mutilated. whats next? they are going to kill hasselhoff?

i am convinced that the world is ending. the animals are going to get together and launch a final desperate offensive against man. the bacteria in the soil are going to go on strike. the fields are going to run dry. the plankton is going to stop reproducing. the coalition of assorted reptiles, sharks and other 'deadly creatures' are going to stop showing off for the cameras and start attacking. it already happened to irwin.

the end is nigh. i have been contemplating voting tory. i can't believe how much money governments take away from my monthly pay slip on tax. i pour scorn on the man walking in front of me because he obviously is not adding value to the goddamn economy. i read the economist and feel guilty when i get a call from somebody asking me to donate money for cancer research. take my fucking money, i keep meaning to start donating again, i just didn't get around to it, i am so sorry.. 'no problem sir, no problem, ten pounds a month then?'. take my fucking money we are all going to die anyway.

i am convinced i am going mad. i find myself sitting at my desk, moving my fingers in the air. in perfect typing motions, stridently writing a saga in thin air. something that nobody will read. and then i switch back on and realise that i have nothing to say. its just my fingers moving in front of me. i raise my hands in front of my eyes and look at them real close. there is nothing to see. i stare at screen blinking at me, nice and blank. and i have nothing left to say. i stand up from my chair and pace around the room. i stop and look with keen interest at the walls. there is much to see in the texture of the white paint on those blank walls. i lean close with my eyes level, sideways and marvel at the little valleys and mountains that the bubbles in the paint had made. i look at my watch and look at myself, its late and its time to rest and prepare for armageddon.

Symmetry

2006-09-17T12:39:00.000+01:00

London, glorius London

2006-09-17T12:35:00.000+01:00

An unsympathetic portrayal of the alien

2006-08-20T13:08:00.000+01:00

I am feeling too content and middle class to work up any sarcastic humour or self-righteous indignation to write anything that even gets close to interesting today. I wanted to write about how aliens are always portrayed in an unsympathetic matter in the science fiction (yes I am one of those phases again). From the crazy genocidal maniacs to funny side kick / characters, completely unsympathetic. Ok not always unsympathetic but incredibly shallow. Ok, maybe this is a time for some managing of expectations here. I am delving into adult-juvenile literature territory here, not exactly Tolstoy (or even Jane 'blaaaaaaaaargh' Austen), but come one, even science fiction readers deserver a bit of character development. Seriously, all those pages musing on the development of super weapons and the principles of faster than light travel and mere three paragraphs on the background of one of the main alien characters! I need more, more dirt. How do the aliens reproduce? What kind of soap operas do they watch, do they have alien boy-bands? If science fiction writers are supposed to be these great imaginative types, how come this level of detail never shows up in any of the books I read huh? Pages of human misery (cue -> Solaris) or human endeavor (the rama series) and the alien is usually just left to be the great unknown..
show some imagination goddamn it, that's why I pay so much money to buy the crap that science fiction writers usually churn out. Its ok if you are PK Dick, because lets face it, his brain was too fried to even hold one thought together, so his shallow portrayal of aliens (the few that appear in his books that is) or even the human characters is completely acceptable, but come on, there must be other writers whose brains are not completely fried with amphetamines who could come up with at-least one alien stand up comedian with a fully fledged, 'guess what happens when you put a human and a efflisberger together, ..' routine.

The kingdom of imagination

2006-07-29T11:20:00.000+01:00

Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society » Blog Archive » Urville: The Imaginary City

Why bother living in the real world when you can spend twenty years designing your own metropolis? Gilles has had exactly the right idea. And it appeals to the megalomaniac, control freak, tribal territory gathering self of mine, but while I would aspire to conquer and control, Gilles decided to imagine and build.

Arcades

2006-07-22T16:37:00.000+01:00

Arcades
Originally uploaded by pichenettes.

Ah, the delights of flickr. I love this photo, it reminds of a place that used to be a social hanging out point for a bunch of us teenagers (who would most likely be ASBO fodder here..). Long evenings, nothing to do but to go down and find a small corner overlooking a busy street and just sit. talk, do nothing.

Have you ever danced with the devil by the pale moon light?

2006-07-21T14:12:00.000+01:00

Have you ever dance with the devil by the pale moon light?
Originally uploaded by dalígt.

Lunatic

Bombay and Beirut

2006-07-20T10:49:00.000+01:00

Two weeks of carnage. More death, destruction and wanton violence beamed across the airwaves and into our collective consciousness. It follows a predictable cycle this, bomb goes off in crowded area. The media smells the blood and swoops down. Conveying the right there, in your face, experience of everything and everyone. A couple of days later the human interest stories start coming in. Of the unlikely heroes and the kind hearted samaritans. Then the blame game starts, who did what, who should be condemned, what should be abandoned and what should be intiated. It goes on, and soon enough its all swept under the carpet, forgotten, just another bookmark to be visited sometime in the realm of memory. Until the next event, when the whole gruesome charade starts all over again. I sit here and write a blog, I sit at home and send meditative sms messages to people I hardly ever see, contemplating on the violent nature of man's soul. And then I sit and watch rockets scream across borders to be followed by ever bloodier retribution. What drives a man to take another man's life I ask at lunch? what is the point of war? The professor turns arond and looks at me, and says, 'war is good, war is necessary, war is human'. And as is his habit, he offers a short dialogue that I can only admire for its sheer logical elegance. But which I don't believe in.

And then we move on. Thats what it all comes down to in the end. Rhetorical questions and rhetorical statements. The empty rhetoric of the politicians, the empty rhetoric of the terrorist (freedom fighters / militants / anarchists / maoists / oh take your pick..). Rhetoric to justify the satisfaction of retribution, the justify the seeking of revenge, and to justify the spilling of blood.

We will give you one week, nod nod wink wink, go do your thing. And then the tanks roll in, those tremendously sexy machines of destruction. I see them on the television, and I can't deny that I can't take my eyes off them. I read letters and blogs from Beirut, people who are sitting there, watching their country being blown to smithereents, being shredded, being crippled. And their army has been asked not to respond. Lets not talk about a bull in a china shop, now that could be accidental. This just seems to me like organising a bull fight in the china shop. I can't even summon up the anger any more, it just doesn't make sense to me. Because all I will be doing is contributing more hot air, and more rhetoric.

To Bombay.. and Beirut..

me, really?

2006-06-28T22:59:00.000+01:00

i am feeling self righteously angry today. and its not about politics, or religion, or the environment, or ignorant people, i am genuinely 'feeling' angry today. i have had enough of being told that i am detached, have no emotions (am emotionally crippled apparently). i have been blogged about, been ranted at, and have just shrugged my shoulders. i have told myself, its not worth it, let it go, there is more to life. but today, i just really don't care, i am feeling violently indifferent. to those who blame me for being aloof and not in touch with my feelings, well.. have you ever listened to yourself talk? have you realised how futile and self indulgent it all sounds? screw that, i'd rather talk about something completely 'pointless' and 'random', because its a whole lot more interesting that talking about my own insecurites. tell me i've wasted your time, fine, i might have, but its not just your time we are talking about here. just because i don't feel i need to confide every single little thing, that i don't need to share with you what i go through every singe freaking day, doesn't make me retarded. i am much more comfortable being able to take the middle ground . fuck it, there is nothing in this life that is certain, there is nothing that is black or white, its all just one big huge grey mass.. intricately shaded grey sure, but far far from monochrome. go paint your little white fences, all i am going to do is sit on them. and i ain't no humpty dumpty, i am not going to fall off and shatter into a thousand pieces, i will just move along that damn fence, and keep perching there.

twilight

2006-06-12T23:57:00.000+01:00

sunset

2006-06-12T23:56:00.000+01:00

summer

2006-06-12T23:47:00.000+01:00

resistance is futile

2006-06-11T03:03:00.000+01:00

i live, i walk and i don't sleep.
i eat, i drink but i don't digest.
i think, i observe, but i can't learn.
i lust, i shun and i won't love.
i build, i destroy but i will not beautify.
i contemplate, i concentrate but am unable to assimilate.
i argue, i reason and i don't believe.
i play, i win, but don't know the rules.
i talk, i listen but i don't care.
i share, i give but i am ungrateful
i scream, i rant, but usually i just shrug

Akbar in the age of reason

2006-06-05T19:48:00.000+01:00

'The pursuit of reason and rejection of traditionalism are so brilliantly patent as to be above the need of argument. If traditionalism were proper, the prophets would merely have followed their own elders (and not come up with new messages'

Akbar to Abul Fazl (And to think of it, this man could not even read or write..)

the citizens wander through the promenades of a delusional man's imagination

2006-06-04T13:23:00.000+01:00

the plant sits there on my desk. it sits in its little pot, its green leaves spread out towards the ambient flourescent light provided by the lamp. every now and then, it looks around, with its cool, ironic, non judgemental attitude to its surroundings. sometimes it talks to me, sometimes i talk to it. but usually it just sits there, on my desk, watching my world. sometimes, when things get too much, i can feel it turn around, its leaves facing me. 'the world is a cookie', it says, and sways gently in the air conditioned breeze.

they are terrified of this little super hero and his magnificient steed. dressed in not much, but a loin cloth. thundering down the bridges of the city, to come to the rescue of people in distress. our hero, astride his giant buffalo. lying down, contentendly chewing on a stem of grass. until, under threat, he jumps up, onwards to justice and terror.

i looked at the sign on the building. it says MNG, like mango without the vowels i thought.

she sat across the table in this crowded bar. i was listening intently to a Magnificient Metaphor of Modern Mayhem. We hadn't spoken, beyond the innanities of greeting that evening. not a word. i looked across the table, and saw her eyes. she was looking at me, 'i love our pillow talk' she said.

how does it go again? how does it go? 'I am only nineteen but my mind is old, but when things get for real my warm heart turns cold.' everytime i hear that lyric, i feel it man, i feel it. i nodded, staring at the half empty bottle of beer in my hands. i feel it.

she was standing in the living room. facing the open window where the afternoon sun was making a tentative appearance. her hair was up, and she was standing look at a cd. i was sitting down, on the sofa looking up to her. when the first chords of the song started playing, she turned around towards the speakers and smiled.

they said this building is built for the future. one day it shall rise in its glass and steel magnificience and stride down across the river. it shall turn its back on its makers, and with a giant robot like shrug make its way to the desolation of the desert. there, this building shall sit, with its giant re-inforced concrete legs in the position of the lotus contemplating the structure of the cosmos.

i was standing by the river. waiting, smoking, looking at the little ripples and whirles and eddies and currents in the murky brown water. could you model each of these particles? and if it would, would could you model a spontaneous little bit of flat water in its choppy surrounding. could you model it moving against the current. and would it happen on a sunny evening? i turned around, and they were waiting. we said our goodbyes and i wandering down towards the city.

objectify me, please

2006-05-29T19:51:00.000+01:00

(more from the unashamedly subjective department of art analysis)..

'i can do this', the number of times i heard that particular phrase in the minimalist / object wing of the modern art museum, was (not unexpectedly) a lot! all those paintings of objects, concepts, so abstract that the represent nothing but blobs of paint on a canvas. You would think, doesn't take much skill, anybody can do that, draw a few squares, paint them in, and viola you have bonafide modern art.

but thinking along those lines ignores what i think art is all about. its about perception. different people see things differently. be it a table, a car, a woman or the moon. its only in describing the properties of an object can you find a frame of reference for comparing your experience to mine. i know its a table because it has four legs, it has a surface and it can stand independently. even the definition of these properties is open to perception and interpretation, but since the concept is grounded in reality, its quite easy to find a common template of properties to discuss an object. abstract (modernist / modern art) removes these frames of reference. or it takes common references and applies them to an uncommon situation. it is the joy in looking at those objects on the canvas and trying to identify them as being seperate entities and placing them in context with other objects on the painting and to meas the observer, that makes art fascinating. knowing that the way I am looking at this piece of art could be inherently different to the person standing next to me, yet in both our minds, it does make sense. looking at modern art tells me not so much about what the artist was thinking about, but about my own state of mind, my prejudices, my views, it tells me about the way I look at the world. and it takes a lot of abstraction on the object to get to this plane of thinking. it is easy to look at an impressionist painting, or a painting by da vinci or turner or constable or monet, and know exactly what the artist is trying to tell you. each painting has a very distinct narrative, and a very well defined frame of reference. it is pleasurable to watch, but does not make me think. it tells me a story, complete right there. i follow the story and i understand it, but it is still the story of the artist. but when i stand in front of a kandinsky, i stand in front of a leger, a pollock and at first the senses reject what is in front of me. i cannot recognise the form, the function and the purpose of the painting. but the joy comes in wresting with my perceptions, trying to come up with my own story around this template. trying to see how this painting makes you me, that is where art takes me to a path that is so twisting, so incomplete yet exhilirating. i don't really care if my interpretation of a painting or a sculpture is completely at odds with what the artist is trying to convey. i care about the way that piece of art made me feel and that makes me happy.

(i can't get over it. my head is swimming with colour and kandinsky. i sit here, knowing that i should be doing something else, not sitting here, doing something useful. but today is just one of those days, where i just want to .. write)

everything is something, in context

2006-05-29T17:27:00.000+01:00

I decided to end my cabin fever and get out and about today. The clouds looked friendly enough and so ventured out to possibly one of my favourite places in London. The Tate Modern art museum, on the south bank of the thames. Its nice to get the old thinking gears working again..

cubism
the cubist takes the three dimensional reality of everyday life and conveys it to the two dimensional plane afforded by a canvas. Without attempting to recreate three dimensional spaces on the canvas. It is up to the interpreter to take this abstract representation and translate it to reality, a reality that their sense can perceive successfully. View it either as a representation of form in many angles and many directions.. or a jigsaw laid out ot be reconstructed in the viewers mind..

(Fernand Leger, The City)

on the age of machines..
The fascination of early 20th century artists with technology and industrialisation is quite natural given the rate of change (in front of their eyes, the landscape changing day by day, year by year. being moulded by men, machines and various things in between). They seem to often view machines with a mixture of fright and fascination. They worry that embracing the machine age would somehow make thmeselves less human, losing the essence of humanity.
Is this just not a natural reaction to change? Or does this signify the a fascination with what change is and what change can bring. It is easy to demonise change but harder to acknowledge its (fundamental) impact on society. This seems to be especially true for science and industry, becase the changes they bring are not abstract, they are very real. Very in your face.

From the excerpt on Jacob Epstein's 'Torso in metal on rock drill' : 'Epstein himself remarked that it showed no humanity, only the terrible Frankenstein's monster we have made ourselves into'

(Jacob Epstein - 'Torso in metal on rock drill')

i sense, therefore i am..
We live not in an age of story telling, not in an age of narrative but in an age of sensation. Are we evolving to be pattern recognition machines? Or are/have always been pattern recognition machines and only recently have modelled/moulded our world to better resemble our perception. Many people complain of being overwhelmed by their sense, the proverbial information overload. Do we actively block our senses in a world that seems to offer too much stimulation? Will this result in the blocking of emotional needs and impulses, only to unleash these in a substance enchanced / psychosomatic manner? Or will there be an increase in the use of aids and objects to further enhance the ability to block these sensaions coming from our overstimulated senses?

Doesn't the emergence of collaborative filtering (Digg), tagging (Delicious), music recommendation sites (pandora, last.fm) nothing but a way of a community working together to improve the filtering of the information available to it.

I think we are on a one way street as far as the amount of information available to us goes. It is only going to increase adn increase as more and more people come online and more and more information is available online, or easily shared through the near instantaneous communication networks we exist in (thrive on). The only way to function successfully is to further enhance out instinctive pattern recognition, and to rely on a large (and largely anonymous community) to help add context to information that otherwise might be too much for one person to comprehend. Surely, being able to function productively in an information rich society will not depend on how much information an individual can process, but what information the individual chooses to process.

(** The photos in this post come from the websites of the Unviersity of Manchester (Leger) and the Website of the Tate Modern museum (Epstein) **)

the end of civilisation

2006-05-27T18:45:00.000+01:00

From flickr..
(soil erosion, aerial view from 30000 feet)

singing robots

2006-05-27T17:54:00.000+01:00

i have been reading 'infidels' by andrew wheatcroft over the last couple of weeks. its been a bit of a tough read, simply because i just find myself so angry and frustrated just reading through those pages. it charts the history of the conflict between Islam and Christianity over the past fifteen hundred years. It is littered with graphic descriptions of precisely this conflict. i must have scared a few people on the train (and not just because 'its a brown guy reading a book about Islam'..), but because i found myself muttering 'you fucking imbeciles' every now and then. stories, no.. facts about how families were butchered, villages destroyed, cities razed to the ground, and ignorance.. the ignorance of these people, our ancestors that lead to so much bloody being shed. it makes me angry, because you still see the same attitudes today, it might not be so fervent, but its still as virulent as ever. why do people find it necessary to demonize someone simply because they have a different belief system? why does religion incite so much violence? Why does it so readily become an excuse for conquest, retaliation and social control? reading about islam and christianity is even more painful, because they are such similar systems of belief. (not that i profess to be an expert in theology..).
is there really a need for religion any more? is there really any justification in using so many resources feeding a system (or systems) that are really superflous to actual existence. would the money spent on grand temples, churches and mosques not be better spent on education, fighting diseases, and trying to improve the lot of the people who they are trying to guide to salvation. And what really riles me, is people who use religious differences to justify downright racism. You fucking idiots, if you have a problem with the way someone looks acknowledge that fact to yourself first before going on about purity, and infidels.
I was angry, beyond angry when i visited this huge temple complex in western india run by this sect (which incidently also has temples in London, Australia and the United States). They have singin robots. Singing ROBOTS! Who knows how much money was spent on those abominations, lipsyncing to some ditty whose significance a majority of the people coming to see the spectacle don't even know. And you walk outside the complex and get overrun by kids in rags begging for a couple of rupees. The evangelical asshole who was guiding me through this gaudy ode to spiritualism hurridly shoed away these kids calling them filthy rascals.
Filthy rascals, filthy rascals who would not even be allowed to come and see those singing Robots.

You know what it made me think of..

A few vodkas later..

2006-05-09T23:46:00.000+01:00

just a thought

2006-05-09T23:44:00.000+01:00

"I prefer peace,
Wouldn't have to have one worldy possesion,
But essentially Im an animal,
So just what do I do with all the aggresion?"

Gnarls Barkley / Cee - Lo Green / Dangermouse

the valley in the shadow of life

2006-05-04T23:04:00.000+01:00

i looked up to the sky that was a shade between an indifferent blue and a cruel steel gray. i ran my hand through my hair, clutched the back of my neck and closed my eyes. opened them again, before regretting it as i felt the heat of that afternoon. i couldn't bear it any more, wanted to sit down. but there was nowhere to sit, no shelter anywhere in that concrete jungle, not a soul in sight. just me and my burden, alone, and going nowhere fast. it was hot, and by hot, i don't mean the abstract imagined heat of a summery getaway, but the invasive, inescapable heat of a ruthless tropical sun. i had to keep going, needed to get some water and some shade. i looked around and spotted the tree. it was a shrivelled little neem tree, a lifeless shade of brown green. but it was the only thing around, away from the locked imposing abandoned houses of this settlement. that was to be my goal, that was where i was going, that was the end of my journey. one step, two step, three step, on this parched earth. i heard, no felt, a disturbance. i looked up, through the scratched looking glass, up, down and around in the nothingness that surrounded me. there was movement, up on the tree, on a branch. a large dark bird, a raven, a crow, a death-eater i thought. but the tree was all i had. i stared down at the ground, past my trousers, stained by mud dust and shame, past the tattered shoes, on to the ground. the ground that was soil, rocks and dead grass. dry, mean, and hungry. i left, spun out and above, on a thermal rising up, but only a few meters, to the bird on the tree. out on a branch, dead leaves hanging on, more out of habit than anything else. there was no shade, just a mild contrast from the blinding whiteness of this sepia tinged hell. i saw myself, side ways, standing down in a clearing, a chowk, a courtyard in the middle of the village. alone, with silent houses ignoring my presence. staring down at the ground, and i saw the cracks of the parched earth. they radiated from my feet outwards, and inwards, in all directions, disappearing to the horizon. widening a moment, as if to swallow / welcome me, down to the humid depths of the earth. away from the sun, away from everything, just a warm deep shade of nothingness, a valley, shelter from this unending pursuit. i was the scavenger and i was the carrion. i was the observer, and i was being observed. i looked up to myself out on that tree, and saw myself through my own eyes, alone, wretched and at the epicenter of a disaster that ran its course a long time ago. i ran my hand through my salt sweat caked hair, picked up my sack and made my way down to the tree. i looked down and saw myself lying down in the semi shade of that afternoon. i closed my eyes and lost sight of myself as another crippled moment crept slowly across the haunted courtyward.

the man in the mirror

2006-05-04T22:37:00.000+01:00

i had stumbled through the swinging doors, leaving a half empty glass behind on the counter, to the mens room. i relieved myself and walked up to the basin. swaying, i washed my hands and looked up to the cracked glass that was the mirror. and saw a few dozen reflections of my drunken self staring back at me. in each of the slivers of the mirror, framed by the radial cracks i saw a tiny glimpse of myself looking intently at all of my reflections through that one shattered mirror. it was just one mirror, out of a hundred that i have seen in this city. it was just one mirror, that was shattered to a hundred pieces, cracks radiating out from the centre of somebody's self loathing. nothing more than a reflection of himself. what drives a man, to look up at himself and do nothing, but swing, eyes closed, in cold fury at that reflecting surface of polished silica. smashing, bleeding, to a thousand pieces. swinging back and looking up at the now distorted reflection, that was once a man, and now is nothing. nothing but a hundred smaller pieces, on the wall, stuck to his bloody fist, looking back him, untouched, unmolested and mocking.

The train

2006-04-06T00:30:00.000+01:00

It was close to dusk when the train cleared the final urban sprawl of the new city. The sky was slowly turning a shade that can only be described the bastard offspring of orange and gray. Unloved, unwanted and universally ignored. The compartment was empty and as the train picked up speed, rocking on the ancient tracks, it seemed to get quieter. The silence was amplified by the steady rhythmn of the wheels moving over the steel tracks.

The riotous colour and life of the new city gave way to a barren wasteland. No mans land, caught between two conflicting worlds. No doubt it will be claimed by some ambitious property developer soon he thought as he gazed out to the undulating terrain he was passing through. The new desirable locality, far away from the din of the new city, an 'exclusive' residential complex with 24 hour security.

The day finally gave way to night. The sky was featureless, no clouds, no stars, just an imposing darkness. The lights came on in the compartment, and cast shadows on the moving ground that the train passed through. He looked down at the light staying constant, his dark shadow in the window illuminating the wasteland he was passing through. Every now and then, he saw a light or two in the distance. A glimpse of headlights as somebody braved crossing this no mans land. A shimmer of dark water illuminated for an instant before giving way to darkness again. The train kept moving, elegant, purposeful and completely oblivious to its surroundings.

Its just me, and I am going the wrong way.

The train had stopped at a couple of satellite towns on its way. The platforms crowded with commuters, walking quickly on their way to their flats, their houses and their families. Another days work done. Nobody paid attention to the lone traveller on the train to nowhere.

At some point in the evening, the ticket collecter came by. He saw the ticket, but still asked, where are you going tonight? Its obvious where I am going. But the man was being polite, he supposed. To the end of the line, and then some more he replied. Visiting family? No, just travelling. The collecter wished him a good journey and moved on.

At some point, he dozed off, sitting with his head propped up against the window. Lulled into a restless slumber by the rocking motion of the train.

I am leaving, on an old train
I probably won't be back again..

13. On the ledge

2006-04-03T19:46:00.000+01:00

He crouched. on the ledge, between the cliff and the chasm. The summit was in sight, as he stood up and looked around and behind. He could see the sun shining, through a gap in the clouds, fingers of light, reaching out to the empty valley floor below. He walked around the ledge, tracing the boundaries of his little kingdom. Right here, he thought, I stand, sandwiched between the heavens and the emptiness below.

He kept walking, completed another circuit of the ledge. He wandered into the tent, came back out again. There was always the edge. He sat down, legs hanging. Facing the mountains in front of him and the valley below. He let his eyes settle on the horizon, more clouds, just below the highest peaks. He looked down, through the haze, to the floor of the valley. Brown, with a gray streak for the river. And where the sunlight touched the river, the gray become a shiny, metallic shimmer. Life he thought, the sun brings life, laughing..

The wind picked up. He brought up the hood of the parka he was wearing, but didn't go back to the relative shelter of the ledge. The sun was slowly melting back into the leaden cloud. Exhausted by your cameo appearance he asked?

The shining river was dark and uncommunicative again. Be that way he thought, sulk, suit yourself.

It would get dark soon, and, he thought, I have spent another day here. Suspended, watching the clouds, the mountains and the valleys.

what's the rush anyway?

Dusk came slowly upon the ledge. He knew, behind him, to the east would be the first stars of the night. Tentatively making an appearance, to come look down upon him deep into the night as they completed a circuit of their kingdom.

Tomorrow, he said out loud. Tomorrow, the summit. Tomorrow I shall rise, pack up the tent and my sack, and make my way to the summit. It was only a few hours of easy climbing, tomorrow it would be easy.

And darkness came, slowly, he thought, we are still close to the tropics.

The clouds, they will be staying away tonight, he hoped as he stared at the darkening western horizon. He laughed again, he remembered a painting he had once done. The dark silhouettes of mountains, against a an inky blue night sky. White lights in the sky, and golden lights on the ground. The look of disdain on his art teacher as he tried to explain his painting. Try to understand, he was telling her. Stars in the sky, stars on the ground! She wasn't impressed..

He stood up again, cold. Walked around the ledge again, securing the area, checking the perimeter, laughing at the pointlessness of his exertion, but what else was there to do?

Its going to be a long time before I see another star on the ground, he talked out loud, a loooong time, do you hear me teacher? A very long time..

Quantum goldfish

2006-04-01T01:24:00.000+01:00

through my little goldfishbowl i swim. every thirty seconds, i perceive our little world, my entire empire, as if new. a new experience, i learn to live, learn to form an opinon, but before it can truely matter, the incoming tide of time washes it all away. and i start again, born, a repeating pattern in the tableux of life. it is a painting with a repeating pattern with a slightly different variation. one morning, it all seems futile, walking through the rain, asking is this it. and later, that night, with the music setting off fireworks of exquisite beauty inside my head, the orange after glow under my closed eyes, it certainly matters, matters a lot, and i want every body to feel that it matters. before coming crashing down, gravity, back to the gold fish bowl. waking up, feeling, is it really worth it?

do i ever truely learn from experience? do i really? Somewhere between the sense of deja vu of making the same mistake again, and the intrinsic sense of NEWness of an experience, there is really not much space left for learning, for improvement. like the vague recollection of having swum by a spot in my goldfish bowl, dismissed with the careless flick of a tail, to move in a subtly different direction. but is that change of direction a conscious decision, or just the variation, the instinctive program going a different logical path. is learning, or experience nothing more than walking down this different path, picking a different fork at the cross roads to see what difference it would make. what would happen if you go down the same path again? you couldn't, i couldn't, because that path exists no more, it is gone forever.

what would happen if i truely were a goldfish with no capability of forming and holding an opinion for more than a tiny discrete little slice of time. will i still take the same path, everytime regardless of the outcome, or would i take a different path one day, just out of curiosity, just to see what happens. and would the same things happen if i take the same path every day. if there is even a small chance, that i on average may take a different path every few times, and if the same applies to everybody else that i interact with in my world, surely taking the same path would result in a different outcome. surely, then the maxim that once bitten twice shy does not always hold true. because next time, i might not bump into the snake at all.

the f*cking macarena

2006-03-12T13:19:00.000Z

we were sitting around last night, watching tv, and not watching at the same time. we got to talking about michael jackson as the thriller video played on a music channel as part of michael jackson history season (kill an icon, ressurect him, kill him again?). laughing at the coordinated zombie dance moves. anybody would be freaked out, when confronted by a coordinated zombie dance off, in the middle of the night in a dark alley. we got to talking about improbable things in music videos, ok quite a broad topic this one, but somehow, as if guided by the infatigable hand of the god of small talk, we got to talking about the macarena. maybe it was about coordinated dance moves, but the improbability of two middle aged latin looking blokes surrounded by page3 girls was definately dwelled upon. anyway, i remember a time when they did play this shit in parties. i don't know, maybe ten or more years ago. it got worse as time went on, because it became a sign of ironic post modern humour, or just a sturdy shore to cling to in a drunken state. i remember a party in particular, it was back in the hague. around nine years ago or so i remember. it was a birthday party with late-teeners and free drinks galore. and cheesy music, oh my gosh, cheesy music. but hey, as in most of these parties, people lose their sense of ironic cool after about the fifth drink. like an inevitable bad mannered cousin, the macarena comes on, and there is this core of happy drunk wannabe good time gals, whose goal is to get everybody coordinated in a mass macarena twisting, hand waving orgy. most people are apathetic, smiling worriedly, knowing fully where this is going, because there is only so much influence alcohol can have, but one thing it can do is to act as a conduit for misplaced enthusiasm. the macarena wave, that began in the centre of this tiny bar slowly starts spreading, half herated in some corners, and a full macarena twisting line in others. slowly you get the hand movements semi coordinated of that fateful dance... time slows down, and the macarena, like a garlic breathed family at dinner, is suddenly all around, and all prevalent. and then, as if a sign, that the god of music does have irony, the song changes, mixed at the hands of an unskilled good-times dj. as the macarena, not so much fades, but vanishes in a vague 'hey! macarenaaaa'-esq echo, and the next song starts pulsating, its those couple of seconds in between, half stuck in a coordinated dance twist, that you look around in embarassment, the fucking macarena.

in our world

2006-03-05T12:41:00.000Z

From today's observer: I think that being human is similar to a thin, disintegrating veneer on a deep, dark abyss.

Excerpt from "Indian Cult kills children for goddess"
It's an intolerable life in the remote village of Barha, a squalid collection of mud-bricked farmers' dwellings in the heart of the impoverished province of Khurja, Uttar Pradesh. This corner of rural India is a lawless place of superstitions and deep prejudice. The region, known for its sugarcane, is a tortuous eight-hour drive from Delhi and a lifetime away from the 21st century.
In Bulandshahr, the nearest town of any description, locals whispered darkly of happenings in Barha. Their advice was unanimous: 'Don't go. It is an evil place. The people there are cursed.'
Sumitra Bushan, 43, who lived in Barha for most of her life, certainly thought she was cursed. Her husband had long abandoned her, leaving her with debts and a life of servitude in the sugarcane fields. Her sons, Satbir, 27, and Sanjay, 23, were regarded as layabouts. Life was bad but then the nightmares and terrifying visions of Kali allegedly began, not just for Sumitra but her entire family.
She consulted a tantrik, a travelling 'holy man' who came to the village occasionally, dispensing advice and putrid medicines from the rusty amulets around his neck.
His guidance to Sumitra was to slaughter a chicken at the entrance to her home and offer the blood and remains to the goddess. She did so but the nightmares continued and she began waking up screaming in the heat of the night and returned to the priest. 'For the sake of your family,' he told her, 'you must sacrifice another, a boy from your village.'
Ten days ago Sumitra and her two sons crept to their neighbour's home and abducted three-year-old Aakash Singh as he slept. They dragged him into their home and the eldest son performed a puja ceremony, reciting a mantra and waving incense. Sumitra smeared sandalwood paste and globules of ghee over the terrified child's body. The two men then used a knife to slice off the child's nose, ears and hands before laying him, bleeding, in front of Kali's image.
In the morning Sumitra told villagers she had found Aakash's body outside her house. But they attacked and beat her sons who allegedly confessed. 'I killed the boy so my mother could be safe,' Sanjay screamed. All three are now in prison, having escaped lynch mob justice. The tantrik has yet to be found.

To each, their own

2006-03-01T00:08:00.000Z

We started off in tiny settlements. First as nothing but hunters, dependent on the land for subsistence, for food and for a place to shelter. moving on to tilling the land, in small villages. every man and his bit of the earth, his domain.

through the ages we journeyed, thousands of years passed, still in small groups and in communal villages, arming to the teeth to protect what was ours against those who weren't.

and today, i find myself here, suspended a few meters above much excavated ground to which i have no connection. i live in a city of ten million people, and don't even know what it means to have a place that is my own. and every morning i walk through this city of displaced people. along with others just like me, with no ties to the land they walk on. no place that they call their own, their home, their place.

yet, an instinct that has held for a hundred thousand years still remains. we make our own property, our own rights. those who are fortunate build white picket fences, those who are not build invisible walls.

sitting on the train, their territory demarcated by the book in their hands and the tiny earphones in their ears. content in their own square foot of personal space. and as days go by, and more people are displaced, some out of choice, some out of fate. and even this hallowed personal domain shrinks. shrinks to make place for other lost people.

and when we lose this individuality, when our own personal space.. our beliefs, our own little world is shattered by actions real or perceived we strike out. be it the disdainful look given to the man who just had to squeeze into a crowded train carriage, or a bomb in a back pack of a man who perceived a slight to his personal belief, his view of HIS world.

we who don't have the means to own a bit of property on a once bountiful planet, now have the means to strike out, across vast distances, to hurt people who may have even less.

and when i look up at the sky, standing outside. i don't see the million stars that my forefathers saw on a clear night. i just see containers, filled with more people just like me, on a journey to another city of displaced souls, carrying their own property with them, around them, and in them.

'Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life.'
Joseph Conrad

Munch's Despair

2006-02-27T22:46:00.000Z

Just one of those days.

This that and the other

2006-02-26T22:01:00.000Z

Her words were hypnotic, sitting as she was on the train on the way to the airport. She said she had enough of 'this, that and the other..', in a rhythmn of her own

Donuts, Jay Dee

2006-02-26T13:21:00.000Z

I have a weird musical affliction. I can't for the life of me read music, play music or even tell what notes are playing. But I seem to have the ability to pick up little fragments of music and get them imprinted on my brain, playing over and over again, and at the most random times. Ever woken up to a song playing in your head? I have..

So J Dilla, aka Jay Dee, decided to go ahead and make an album that is precisely a collection of addictive loops and beats. About thirty "songs", all about a minute and a bit long. put together, with not a hint of an mc. using some inspired samples and loops..

and since i got it, i have been walking around, working, humming little bits and pieces of this album. i played it to a couple of friends the other week, and the convesrsation came to a halt as all three of us were concentrating on the music.

make no mistake, this album, with its attention deficit disorder friendly song lengths just wants to be listened. the songs are not mixed in any way, and the transitions are often highlighted with a blaring siren.

there are a couple of songs that do jar a little bit, but all is forgiven when I realised that its going to be a minute and a half or less long, and is going to be followed by a head nodding chin scratching master piece.

Notable tracks: More, Time: the donut of the heart(?), My people, light works

The big ethanol scam

2006-02-26T00:03:00.000Z

I am on away leave this weekend. And back at my usual port of call, I turned on the tv and had a good laugh at some very interesting people on fox news. they were talking about energy security and what to do about it since "so much of our oil is coming from these horrible unfriendly countries") (no, i shit you not, this is international tv!).

anyway, it brought my thoughts back to an article a friend had sent me the other day about how the use of ethanol is one big scam. this article was written by a guy who worked on the clinton administration and is pretty much a direct attack on dubyas policy on subsidising ethanol. but, it doesn't make sense to me.

basically he says ethanol is too expensive to produce and make and that it takes a lot of energy to produce ethanol for too much in return.

people keep comparing the price of any renewable source of energy to oil. but this is a fallacy, when you don't have a choice for a required commodity (say energy to generalise) price does not come into question. and as far as ethanol is concerned, we should look at it as a replacement fuel for internal combustion engines, not as an end-all honeypot for our energy needs. And, the energy needed to generate ethanol can be generated by non fossil fuel means (nuclear, clean-coal, hydropower, hydrothermal..).

it is difficult to have a meaning discussion it seems without the 'with us, or with the enemy' mentality. and the sad thing is that this is shared by every camp, liberal, communist, socialist, democrat, republican, green, conservative.. especially by the greens and the democrats, sometimes credit should be given where it is due.

responsible dreaming

2006-02-25T19:52:00.000Z

'Its all a question of imagination. Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine. Just like Yeats said: In dreams begin responsibility. Turn this on its head and you could say that where there is no power to imagine, no responsibility can arise.'

Oshima, 'Kafka on the shore' (Murakami)

i cannit sleep

2006-02-20T23:08:00.001Z

i can't sleep, thinking of accrington stanley and a stormy crossing of the fabled northwest corridor. i hear the creaking wood, as the pirate comes bursting in my cabin holding a lantern, dripping wet, and bearded. "i cannit sleep capitain", he says, before looking panicky and scampering away in synchrony with a loud bang from above.

i dunno, sometimes i just dunno

the age of myth

2006-02-20T23:08:00.000Z

They call this the blue planet. third in orbit around a middle-aged and mid-sized star. some call it the blue planet, and some call it our changing planet. change, on the scale, of even this small cosmic entity, is yet something that us, its inhabitants can't even begin to fathom. the seasons come with their almighty storms and bone dry draughts and drizzle.. and they go, but to it, even a thousand storms are nothing but a slow, silent whisper, an irrelevant drop in the vastness of this abode.

after a period of almost surreal stillness, which could have been the blink of an eye. the earth moved and changed. it changed and it morphed, quickly, but to this sleeping observer, it was too much..

he woke up with the start, expecting light, but the darkness remained.

he remembered. felt, the dream, now seeping back to the ancestral, genetic memory.

with the uneasy anticipation of an event foretold, but not yet understood, he went about his business.

it was a game, when it came the next night. nothing but a game of these young gods, in their eternal playground.

a game of 'who blinks first'

and he wrote the songs and told the stories, of these gods, and they built great monuments, proclaiming this blind poets dreams. all that remains are his stylised take on some bizarre dreams

in some distant future, might dreams come true? wondered this man, walking along a canal.

i am tiny, i remember thinking. i lay down in the grass that spring morning. looking up to a blue sky, and a pale moon. i remembered when i was so big, looking over the preoccupied ants earlier, crouched like a psychotic God. but i felt insignificant to the moon as he looked down on me. i remember feeling his look, bathed in invisible moonlight on that bright morning. i remember waving..

we were walking along a beach almost fifteen years ago. my first conscious impression of the sea. the tide had gone out a couple of kilometers. the two of us came across a little pool in the rocky swamp the tide left behind. it was filled with tiny starfish, and we, had stumbled across their world. there was nothing outside that little pool, nothing that mattered to them anyway. their world was an expression of and at the mercy of the tides. something, i was informed, but would not be at top of their things to think about..

who will blink first? it had to be..

another nightmare.

and he would be lost, he felt. so would everything that was, is or might have been. it would change when they called time on the game. and the earth would remain no more.

we are insignificant, i thought, looking up, drunk, to a starry sky.

genesis

2006-02-03T20:31:00.000Z

first, there was nothing

then there was energy

one single lone string, in the nothingness before time

it moved, changed, vibrated to its own rhythmn

it become a variety of things, most i can't comprehend, but stayed alone in its nothingness

it vibrated, vibrant, ever changing, through the infinite probabilities as it waited

unaware, until quite by chance, it made its own music

but one day change it did, transcended its loneliness, expanded to create an empty void

it became all the matter, all the energy, all the time and all the emptiness of this universe in a what was a cosmic eye-blink

that one single lonely little string, plucked one day by an improbable chance, expanded outwards, and became me you, and what we are and what we will become

just one lonely little string

the new gods

2006-02-01T22:02:00.000Z

so, research shows that one way of looking at the way we think and make descisions is quite similar to being bayesian probability machines. i.e., we make decisions based on subconscious memories and past experiences. these decisions go on to determine how we are going to behave in the given circumstances.

this is what kicked off a rather scenic stroll through some of my favourite pastures. back to religion, god and the meaning of life and all that.

what is religion? i believe, people who are "religious" may fall back on religious teachings (or dogma) to guide them on navigating through life. or to make decisions where they simply do not have enough information to make choices of their own. moral dilemma and self-doubt can often be paralysing, and religion, to some lucky people offers a way out. it offers solutions, or atleast a path through the treacherous minefield that life can be. at its most condensed (and very unfairly so) form religion essential offers a set of rules that can be applied to day to day life. to help make sense of a whole variety of information and experience that assails a normal person day to day.

in most religions, there is the concept of a benevolent God or a prophet to whom the core beliefs can be ulitmately attributed. God come down to mount Ararat and handed Moses the ten commandments. God in the form of Lord Krishna instructed Arjuna via the Bhagvad Gita, and the Prophet himself spread the world of the Almight Allah. At the end of the day, these instructions or beliefs are suggestions that are applicable to a human realm, and which given enough time, most people would figure out as being the right way forward. What religion does offer is a sort of a "package" of these suggestions, all of which might not be completely relevant for a given situation, but which will be helpful at some point or the other of a man's life.

God, to follow this argument, then becomes the means by which man finds the rules that help make his life better, or more pious or more righteous. God shows man a way, which given enough time, experience and some seriously hard knocks, he would have found ultimately.

The internet now is a huge repository of information, which by its nature is unordered. yes, there are links, but they are necessarily subjective! and do not bestow any sort of order on the underlying information. One of the biggest difficulties faced by early users of the Internet was finding relevant information. Remember gopher?

the internet only became the truely mass information medium that it is now after the development of useable search engines and technologies such as yahoo, and excite and infoseek.

to reiterate, the internet offers an environment that is very information rich but can be overwhelming and quite frankly useless if there are no relevant search tools. Or to put this another way, tools that offer relevant search results given a certain set of criteria. it doesn't take much of a leap to compare this state of the internet to life.

being alive offers a wealth of sensory information, which can be overwhelming without the development (evolution) of relevant filters and interpolation mechanisms. at another level of a abstraction, life offers a set of circumstances, and events, which might or might not be linked, but we need something to make sense of it all. this something can be a set of values, a set of rules to understand our own existence, and in cases where the circumstances are more difficult than what can be explained normally, one may turn to religion.

what i am saying is simple. being alive is quite similar to navigating through a set of unordered, possibly linked and posssibly connected data. religion is like a search engine that in certain circumstances helps navigate this maze.

And God, is the Algorithm, the means by which religion delivers the answers. the better the algorithm, the better the answers to the weary searcher.

maybe not in my life time, but maybe a distant descendent of mine might be a follower of a distant descendent of google.. or maybe, i am just delusional.

a point of view

2006-01-29T00:15:00.000Z

i recoiled in horror, as i sat on the couch. i wanted to curl up and not respond, and i swear i felt my ears almost volunatirly want to give up functioning. as i heard the words, i just found myself trying my darndest not to respond, to let them wash over me like drizzle on a miserable london morning.

i had been visiting relatives, and as i sat in their living room talking to another one of their visitors, i felt myself, uncharacteristically admitting that yes, people are entitled to their point of view, no matter how counter-intuitive it sounds to me..

he had just been to australia, and was talking about a house he had seen out there. the garden pool was adorned with statues of ganesh juxtaposed with that cliched new-age symbol, the laughing buddha. he was saying how even foriegners now believed in the magical powers of hindu religious symbols.

a religious symbol? you are kidding me, i thought! since when did garden gnomes, albeit oriental and exotic garden gnomes become religous symbols? its as religious as a yuppy saying he converted to buddhism because life didn't make any sense to him?

see, i realised for a change, that my views are my own, and everybody, unfortunately, is entitled to their own points of view. even if that means viewing a statue of ganesha in a "firangi's" garden as a sure sign of indian culture heriocally breaching the cold, hard cliffs of western thought..

it may not be a competitionn, but its just a point of view..

the situational beatnik

2006-01-24T22:38:00.000Z

Homer would be proud, I told him as we sat outside letting the afternoon slowly dispel the gloom of a chilly morning. he was a bonafide modern day tragic hero. If only he would take a liking to togas, he would fit right into the wooden horse and relive the eternal optimism of an age gone by.

he smiles, and its the same cheeky look that i remember from what seems like a lifetime away. he has spent the last two hours describing what he has been up to over the five years gone by. I moved from being mildy curious to being slightly bemused to being downright incredulous as i heard stories of dead sheep, orange groves and investment banks.

a proper bollywood story, i told him. and he was what any self-respecting bollywood character aspires to be. comic tragic and hopelessly romantic, all in more or less equal measure.

he told me his story, slowly over a stream of caffiene laced drinks on that slow afternoon. how the country of his birth today serves as some sort of purgatory as he left his adopted home. he studied until he could afford the benefits (?) of higher education no more. he upped sticks and left because his new home had managed to attract ghosts from the past, as he recalls them.

he blazed a trail that few of his countrymen had dared to tread. across the dusty heart of a new country, somewhere away from the ghosts of his past.

he worked on an orange grove, he said. lived in a tent (they call them a swag apparently). as i sat across him, i felt the sting of the thorns on the mutated lime tree they use to bear the oranges. like impossibly naive offspring of bitter parents.

he worked in a slaughterhouse, amidst rivers of blood. asking himself, how much longer can i do this as another dead animal made its way to meet its shrink wrapped maker in that industrialised house of animal redemption.

he was told that his iq was remarkable as he sauntered down the street, becoming a wizard in the church off scientology.

he swore by the testament of truth as he worked his to what he described as true paradise on this miserable planet. he planted herbs and expanded on the benefits of taking each day as it comes (i know man.. i know, i told him). he showed me photos of never ending pristine beaches and deep open blue skies.

'they built a platform ten meters lower so the damn toursits don't see what is happen to the virgin forest around this little secluded tourist trap bit'. when did you become a tree-hugger, i the every cynical, responded, half, but only half, in jest. a true believer is a dangerous person, i laughed, as he waved aside my cynicism. told me how they chopped down trees that were hundreds of years old and processed them into woodchips for ikea clones in japan. reforestation they claimed, RAPE! he shouted and he had photos to prove it.

and, he moved on. as the wind blew him, away from the ghosts of his past. vacillating between reality and the great outdoors. to the glass and steel jungle of the country's financial district, finding innovative ways of identifying defunct companies.

i choked on my overpriced coffee when he told described how he manage to break his hand, when disillusioned with the world of finance (who isn't?) he was about to go live on a cattle ranch for half a year.

constrained by circumstance (for a change.), he fell in love. and when i mean fall, remembering his wild eyes, as he told me his story, i mean tumble, free-fall, head-first, reckless.. given to gravity. the cynic just would not be pushed away, as he told me how he dedicates songs to his girl on the local radio station, but was envious, because that is something that he would never do.

an almost missionary zeal overtook him, as he told me how now that those ghosts have caught up with him, and he waits here in purgatory, how he is going to go back and reclaim his love. i told him, asked him, to stop building castles in the air, but like any self-respecting mythological hero, he ignored me, as he waited for life to take him to his next destination. i couldn't help but wonder if he lived in the wrong country, at the wrong time. i told him, he would have made a great beatnik. he laughed, and he said he already was. a 'situational' beatnik.

a helping hand

2006-01-24T22:11:00.000Z

So they say, that anything that aspires to rise above its mundane existence, needs a helping hand (or two..)

Those old winding streets..

2006-01-24T21:59:00.000Z

Lead me blind, through those streets. A wanderer, I return lost, I feel my way, in this everlasting twilight through memories distant.

alone in the dark

2006-01-16T12:09:00.000Z

we walked through the narrow street, the houses above reaching over our heads in a futile attempt to whisper conspiratorily to their opposite numbers. the street was empty and almost quite. punctuated every few seconds by a burst of sound and of the entire population of the inner city out on their roof tops. the road threaded through what was the heart of this old town a mere fifty years ago. today a shiny new financial services sector drives the commerce of this new city, leaving the old town very much lost in these winding streets.

slowly, avoiding the remains of a hundred shredded kites on the road, we walked past a school that had educated three generations of my family. into a dark tunnel, where a woman with a dazzling smile who sold me some exotic fruit from a time before the concept of time pervades my memories. the tunnel, connected what was the residential quarter to what was the commercial quarter of the old town. they call it desai-sheri, the quarter of the merchants.

From the mysterious twilight of the tunnel, we emerged into total darkness. the reflected glow from the fireworks above showed more winding, indecisive streets and dim shadows, enveloped almost loving by this half darkness. i almost walked into a cow and lost my companions who were an arms reach away. we turned down a narrow alley, the candles flickering in the houses and the tiny shops looking at strangers, reflecting on the history of this little street.

we were looking for a house, a place i had been to before. but the dim evening was not cooperative. i heard a conversation, something about some damage to the local power station by some enthusiastic kite flyer.. apparently nothing new for this time of the year.

i saw a slight white haired figure walk past us. and it triggered a childhood memory. he turned around and stared, almost blind when i called out his name. he guided us past the motorcycles and the inquisitive dogs down his street to the house we were looking for. every step down that alley, it got darker.. it felt like it anyway.

familiar voices, all around us, in an instant. life and its ironies, making it easier in darkness to see smiles than to see even a hint of a tear. surrounded by smiles, i was told stories of death. cancer, deprivation, loss and suffering, as we made our way to the house at the end of the street.

we got there, a few steps later.

she was sitting, just like people do in this part of the world, right at the threshold of her house. not quite inside, not quite outside. with her dark glasses and her arm in a plaster cast, she sat in this murky strobing twilight zone. we were introduced, but i don't think she saw me. we squeezed into the narrow room, and stood surrounding her. we came here to see her because we heard she was unwell we told her.

she spoke of stumbing and falling in the dark, as she sat on her chair, leaning outwards. we couldn't see her, so someone took out a mobile phone and proceded to bathe the tiny room in an eerie green light. suddenly, a frail woman looked at me, with her dark cataract recovery glasses. and i wanted to leave. walk out, walk out away from this half night with its looming secrets and stories of tragedy conveyed with a smile.

in a way, i am glad it was dark. because if there had been light i would have to make eye contact and hide my guilt as they smiled and wished me well as i turned my back and walked out of that narrow street.

smell the money..

2006-01-12T08:47:00.000Z

it was a sunny morning, and after a month of seeing no sunlight, i watched the sunrise over the eastern horizon as the plane circled over an endless green plain on its way to land somewhere just south of the tropic of cancer.

there is a bus waiting on the runway, i step out of air india flight 120, grateful that the sturdy plane managed to hold its integrity with its journey over the middle east and the central asia. (as much as i am a fan of lost, i really did not see that many good looking women board to justify a crash landing in an empty part of the world). the air is warm and dry, and the sky is a deep contented and prosperous blue.

an hour and a half later (which involved helping a myopic old man trying to figure out exactly which suitcase was his..) i walked out and was given a ride south.

the brand new shiny super expressway thing carried me and my battered luggage towards what was home for seventeen years. i am used to being shocked with the sheer mess that my beautiful country seems to exist in, but this time i was shocked at how wide the roads had become and how green this part of the world is compared compared to the concrete nirvana that london is. i rolled down the window as a crazy schumaccher wannabe pulled an impressive one two overtaking manouver over our wheezing little car and the car in front. i closed my eyes and smiled, it was a near death experience.. i knew i was home.

people here are optimists. they smile when you walk into a shop knowing that things are going to get better. everything seems to have a sunny side here. and when i take in a deep breadth, i can smell the goddamn money. and i can feel the optimism. "Rushi-bhai", a wizened looking man tells me, with a knowing twinkle in his eye, "the future of this country is bright!". he smiles, and i am blinded.

it is bright indeed.

even a pessist, would, pessimistically agree..

On the flip side...

Booming nations 'threaten Earth'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4604556.stm

The tunnel

2006-01-07T17:45:00.000Z

Like every day i trudge through a labyrinth below a sprawling megapolis. I know the nodes, but i will never know the city the way i know the tunnels beneath it.

Ficticiously unreal?

2006-01-06T15:42:00.000Z

i woke up, with a start. just like i had done so many years ago. i jumped out of the mattress, still reeling from the night, the sleep vultures spread their wings, and rose above sneering. i was late, i knew it i was late.. i shouldn't have been out last night, why would i never learn? oh well, what was her name aga.. hmm, shit i am late. i was ready, pacing about my room trying to figure out what i needed to do, what kind of an excuse i could make. it was dark. it was dark, where was the soft fuzzy artificialorangeglow that i had associated with the hours of darkness for so many years. there was nothing but a grey light filtering, half heartedly through the window.

and it was quiet, if i was late surely the buses would be going and i would have heard atleast a couple of people shouting in languages that seem so exotic, that i could never figure out if they were proclaiming their everlasting love and companionship to each other of they were threatening to gouge each others eyes out.

aah, the cold cold touch of reality, how i hate you.

after all these years, i suppose i should really come with a disclaimer (remember those?). i suffer from what they call "acute existential denial". goddamn postapocalypticlovebunnies.
fuck them.

anyway, i think they in all their knowledge and "ascendance to the higher realms of human reasoning" have misdiagnosed me. yes, i know, they say their doctors are infallible.. but i just don't believe them, so its really not my problem. see, i am not denying my existence, i am acutely aware of it to be honest and have grudgingly accepted it. its the world that i find myself in right that i have just chosen not to acknowledge.

as far as i am concerned, its the turn of the century, i am young and gainfully employed happily spending my money (to paraphrasing an icon from eons past) on booze and bitches and squandering the rest. i am detachedly aware of whats happening in the world, and i am too self absorbed to care..

but when i say this, see their eyes glazing over and them shaking their heads. doddering old fool they might think and talk in soothing voices as i rail and rant against what they did to my world. but when i decide to pretend to acknowledge their version of reality, i see them go misty eyed with excitement. ranting about jihadis, the new world order and a rosy future for us all. indeed. i really. don't care.

why do they keep coming back to us ashen heaps anyway. why don't they just let us slowly drift away into the gunmetal grey sky of this postapocalyptic future. why do these young oafs come here and try and convince me that my reality is wrong, and start regaling me with stories of what i have done (apparently, apparently...)

connected (in the real world?)

2006-01-02T16:47:00.000Z

so after a hiatus, both mental and physical, i thought now is as good a time as any to return to my musings in cyberspace (does anybody use this term any more, or am i stuck in the mid 90s hype mania?).

its weird, i was thinking about the usual checks that i used to do before leaving my house, flat/ squat over the past year. i remember when it was keys- wallet -> good to go. about six years ago when i got my first cell phone it slowly became phone - keys - wallet -> good to go. about two years ago, this becae phone - keys - wallet - mp3 player -> good to go.

since moving to london this has gone on to include reading material for the inevitable commute to wherever i need to go. quite bizarre really. i wonder what the sequence is going to be say five years from now? maybe there will be no more phone or wallet or mp3 player. it will be all some sort of unified device. maybe i won't need to go anywhere? who knows...

anyway since its the time of the year for predictions, after much thought and deliberations here are my predictions for '06...

1). Its going to be a hot summer, most of which i will spend indoors..
2). I am going to buy even more pointless gadgets and electronics that will fascinate me for a couple of weeks and then will be relegated to rushi's electo house of horrors showpiece.
3). In about mid october i am going to shake my head at how quickly '06 has gone by and remember the mid 90s with the fondness that one remembers imaginary pets from when one was ten.. or maybe its just me..

and thats all i have to say or predict for sure in the next year. otherwise, who the fuck knows what this year is going to bring? Happy new Gregorian calendar denominated new year!

indulgence..

2005-08-29T18:02:00.000+01:00

silence, surrounds me. today, a bright blue sky finds me alone and at peace, my mind wanders across paths, some forgotten and covered with faded memory weeds. some well trodden and familiar, like old magazines on the bookshelf.
memory lane, treacherous place it is i have been told. today it is festooned and litup like a carnival in some distant city.
but strangely, curiously muted. surrounded by silence and alone in a place far away, i walk slowly.
retracing old routes, through the city of my childhood.
the rain falling in straight lines, each bulbous drop embracing terminal velocity before exploding on a well worn road. the puddles, stepped gingerly over trying to get home, knowing fully well that any moment i am going to give up on the pretense of remaining dry and shed my rain jacket. the rain overcoming all the senses, face up waiting for the next drop to fall from the large clouds, drenched yet welcoming the rain.
old construction sites i used to spend hours playing in the huge mountains of sand. climbing, slipping and falling over, feeling like some forgotten hero explorer when i finally scaled the summit of my ever slippery nemesis. i didn't know about sisyphus back then, which is probably a good thing, but camus would approve of my futile ventures..
three rocks on the road, a tattered old ball and i was there, the last wicket in the world cup. all or nothing, feeling the gravel road under my flip flops, charging in, focused and dusty, ready to bowl that final killer spell which would see me hoisted on the shoulders of my cheering country men.
the festivals, and the people. vague recollections of chaotic yet melodic music playing deep deep into the night. the sky an inky blue, still omnipotent over the old city, bathed in light from a thousand gatherings of people celebrating.. and dancing, nine nights, interspersed by narcoleptic, non productive but almostly blissfully tired nine days. waiting for the sun to set and the city to be lit up in its revelry. its all silent now, i can't even remember a single chord from the hypnotic music they played, but i my feet still trace that old rhytmn on this weary floorboard.
early mornings on the terrace, fighting a futile battle against a very insistent tropical sun. going through the daily ritual of building my little carpet tent so i can indulge my laziness as late into the morning before finally giving up and heading downstairs to find another project.
thinking about where i would be in ten years time, little did i know that ten years down this winding path, i am here thinking about me thinking about myself in another future...

Real Life or something very much like it

2005-08-27T11:41:00.000+01:00

The weather has turned, and those all too familiar grey clouds are making their presence felt more and more in my sky. It probably is just a harbinger for things to come as we go into autumn and then the long dark(ish) winter with its contingent of rain, low clouds and minimal sunlight. Since I moved to Europe, I have struggled with this damn weather. So i try and come up with a plan to break on through to the other side without actually getting too psychotic. It usually involves a vacation somewhere far far away and definately within the tropics. But that is looking a little unlikely this year.
So, I have decided that i am going to replace real life this winter with a video game. I mean, going to work is surreal enough as it is, with everybody being in work mode. real people for sure, but stuck to their office personality stereotype. the time i spend at work, I don't really count as real life. Which is a shame, because i am playing out a character for 12 hours a day five days a week. it is a pretty sobering thought that a significant chunk of my life is going to spent doing that, but that is for another post..
so when the incentives (sunlight, warmth, people who actually look like they might have smiled in the last day or so.. ) are just not their for going outside, what is the point? so i have decide to replace what i call real life, which involves socialising, going out and about, and catching up on the news with a video game. why bother with the hassle of dealing with real people when you can, say climb up a huge building and base jump off it without any real harm happening to you? or drive around a big interactive city and act out any sort of destructive/anarchist/megalomaniac tendency you can have whilst sitting on the sofa and sipping a nice warm cup of coffee at the same time. its perfect, who needs real life with its people and issues and bloody cold weather and rain when i can just sit on my ass and live a pretend life which is a lot more entertaining (in short bursts anyway, and i can only take real life in short bursts to be honest before i retreat into my castle and let the crocodiles out in the moat..).
so plan for the winter, wake up, go to work, be productively efficiently occupied, come back and switch characters..
it could be an interesting experiment, but i doubt if it is going to reduce winter induced depressive behaviour. well, it might just make it more entertaining when i do have to step out occaisionally into the real world..

little grains of sand

2005-08-25T17:51:00.000+01:00

i march, in step with you, facing forward if we like it or not. different attitudes, different ways of looking at this path, but both of us travelling at the same velocity. some lucky souls choose to ignore this path, but even in their ignorance they are carried forward, second by second, with a regular grace. it may be possible to live in the past, and to be oblivous to the present but the future, it is inescapable.

i feel powerless to stop the moments going by.

i remember, i used to have this old hourglass that had sand in it. it was timed to thirty seconds, and i spend hours watching thirty seconds in those little grains of sand fall through to the other side. fine grains of sand from some distant shore signifying those moments which have fallen through the little hole and into the void below.

sometimes i wish that those tiny grains would become big boulders that block up that little opening to the void below. and time would stop, this relentless march would cease. i would have the moment, all to myself to wonder and to wander through this static landscape. to grab hold of that moment, knowing that it is not going to slip through my fingers, to make it mine.

sometimes i wish that there would be a storm in that hourglass to blow all time away, end all the anxiety and uncertainity of the future. if time does not exist any more, why worry about the future...

and sometimes i forget all about this ever present and omnipotent hourglass. until all i have left is a rapidly fading memory of a moment that is forever gone. nothing, but one of those fading after images i get when i close my eyes on a bright day.. fading, fading, as i desperately try to decipher what it all meant.

justify your existence

2005-08-09T17:50:00.000+01:00

are all modes of inquiry certainly nothing but a quest to justify our existence in this universe?

I know I exist, atleast I can perceive my existence, i can feel the sun on the back of my neck and i can smell the early evening air. but along with that comes the baggage of being human, of having a history and aspiring to a certain future. wanting to be happy, wanting to be challenged.. wanting to find love and companionship. curiousity, hatred, punitive behaviour. science, philosophy, my moments of navel gazing. sometimes, it all seems so futile.

its like using so much energy and suffering as a result..all to fortify a mere delusion?

why are people so concerned with the existence of God? Why do governments pour millions of dollars into the research of sub atomic particles? why do i write these damn journals?

i don't know.

a lot of people say that this is what makes us human and so very special in our corner of this universe. but, if you consider the universe as a symphony.. undulating aeons, unimaginable violance and incomprehensible beauty, even considering our high flying era a single note is surely delusional. if one were to write a history of even our little planet, this age of progress and scientific inquiry would be a small paragraph (at the most), yet i continue. work silly hours and work myself up our the smallest little things, which.. which really are pointless.

and so does everybody else.

save the world, spread democracy, wage a holy war..

is all this nothing but an attempt to justify our own existence?

the funniest thing about it is that this ability itself has evolved possibly out of chance, out of a random mutation (yes, i am not a creationist.. if you are, you probably shouldn't read my journals, i WILL end up offending you..). so another mobius strip (follow me here..),

our existence lead to the development of the ability to observe and attempt to understand our environment,

leading to an ability to change out environment

leading to even more confusion about our existence

because the environment has changed too fast through our own action for us to be able to truely comprehend our own existence and where we fit in.

so what to do to prevent existential angst? i reckon cryogenic freezing until they figure out how to stop people wasting time on writing silly journals ;)

deeper underground

2005-07-24T17:43:00.000+01:00

How to spot a potential terrorist:

1). A young male in their mid - 20s
2). Carrying a rucksack
3). Sweating profusely and acting nervous

And thats it, you have yourself a terrorist that you are free to shot in the head five times in the name of national security. This country has always been drizzly and miserable, but since when has this becoming a fucking police state? How could the killing of an innocent man be condoned in the name of national security, especially when it turns out he was just under surveillance for living in the same building where one of the "suspects visited". the criteria above were published in not one but three national newspapers that i have got my hands on this weekend. if they were true, i am so screwed on my daily commute. i mean, i fit the profile, and the tube (As readers of my randoms rants might be aware) makes me feel really hot and claustrophobic. so, if you don't hear from me again, fear not.. i will be a matyr for national security.

enforcing such a paranoid state of mind on people is not going to help anything, leave alone bridging culture and race relations. look at why these people made this decision, and try to open your goddamn minds that not everybody thinks the same as some condescending independent reading politically correct liberal pansy.

people frown and moan about the atrocities committed by the israelis in response to suicide bombings, but when we have a chance to not allow this to happen in this country, we do exactly what the israelis did. the cycle of violence is a vicious circle, it is not going to take us anywhere and lead to anything other than more, bloodier violence and more paranoia. nothing else!

i don't have solutions, i know, i just rant. but i am a tax paying citizen and i am entitled to my opinions and i don't like what i am seeing. i am keeping my rubber dinghy and an essential supply of multivitamins ready just in case i have to set sail across the north sea when things go all wrong. until them, i am going to be keeping an eye out for the metropolitan police's special armed squad on my daily commute.

fuck violence.

samurai satellite

2005-07-05T17:42:00.000+01:00

today i am a spent satellite. decaying off my orbit, floating in space, a few lights winking, almost half heartedly.

i have begun the slow descent, from the darkness where i lit the perimeter of my conscience, to the darkness ..period.

i am unable to function, i just want to close my eyes and shut everything down. stop watching, stop transmitting, just stop.

my circuits are fried, and my mission seems almost accomplished.

slowly spiralling, closer and closer to the end of another day

water, water everywhere..

2005-06-19T17:41:00.000+01:00

they say the wars of the future will be faught over water. ironic huh, the blue planet could potentially be destroyed by the stuff that makes it look so blue and pretty in those NASA wall papers.

but water is bizarre stuff. we are surrounded by it, and as i exhale through the sheer physical labour of typing this next entry in my never ending chain of random thoughts, i produce this, our most precious commodity.

i could pretty much cope with high school physics and can function semi-normally in society, but water i cannot fathom. it is colourless, odourless and tasteless, yet it sustains us. It pours down when the grey thunderheads unleash their fury or it dribbles down from disinterested clouds, almost hesitantly. it flows in the rivers that have nourished our civilisation, and it destroyed the earth in noah's flood myth.

that little triangle shaped molecule from my chemistry books. Slowly gaining more energy in the sun, leaping out to begin an ultimately futile journey. evaporate, condense, precipitate, pass through innumerable containers, both alive and dead.. and ultimately start it all over again.

we are surrounded by it, but we make money by putting it into little bottles and selling it on. Another one of life's ironies, we probably waste a lot more, perfectly drinkable water in producing and transporting that little bottle. and then on to the shop to pay a fifth of minimum wage to buy that same bottle.

it is water that connects and kills people near and far. it carried the hardy little ships that crossed the cape of good hope to bring guns, germs and commerce to the eastern world.

it is water that kills millions across the world, typhoid, cholera, dysentry..

a lack of water and we have famine, a glut of water and we have .. famine.

we die of thirst without water to drink, and then we happily piss it out.

we socialise by buying each other drinks, yet there are people who are afraid of water.

righteously irrelevant

2005-05-25T17:40:00.000+01:00

Beyond the daily grime and the tedious commute. Beyond the routine and the nine to seven tedium. Leave the small talk and posturing.
a new day, fresh and ready to walk straight and view the world, not filtered through any misconception and prejudice.
spring clean the soul, and out with the old.
but, who is it that woke up that clear day?
a snake, it sheds its skin, but remains a snake. a human, if he sheds his personality, does he remain the same??
wake up as a stranger to your own soul and be righteous, or embrace the flaws and be human..

my primary school teacher said i always take the easy road. mrs. d, you are oh so right.

not a chippie in sight

2005-05-11T17:38:00.000+01:00

so, what are you up to ? We are thinking of going bowling tonight, wanna tag along?

a lazy weekend day, half spent pondering the shape of the clouds as they scooted lazily across the horizon. i was supposed to be watching tv, catching up on some down time.. the other half spent in the usual domestic tedium, clothes, cleaning, cooking and playing the little domestic serf to my usual stark raving lunatic self obsessed lanlord.. umm, me.

ok, why not..

managed to negotiate public transport, despite the usual weekend lack of coordination. stepped into that brightly lit homage to mass consumption. the obligatory super-low priced supermarket welcomed me with its buy one get one free offers and the prospect of dirt cheap, chemically laced ready prepared meals. ignored it, shrugged and walked on to a humongous parking lot, flags flying.. patriotism for promotion. the local walmart acquisition, the multiplex playing six different flavours of the same film.

ignored it, walked on to the bowling alley, to find it was fully booked offering wholesome family entertainment to young hard working families out to enjoy a saturday night.

i am sorry sir, the next available slot is at 10pm. No problemo precious, lets get some food.

what choices do we have?

aah, the pizza hut.. that shining beacon of wholesome food.. no thanks. TGIFridays, didn't want to get hit by a wayward cocktail glass. Little Joe's all American diner. ok i see a pattern here i thought, i didn't know they employed transatlantic wormholes on the underground..

i had a regular inferno burger with fries (umm, they call they chips here?). i don't know what an inferno tastes like, i know it doesn't sound very pleasant.. and in that respect the burger lived up to its name, i suppose (does what it says on the tin). they even expected a tip, dude.. we are supposed to be a stingy and miserable people.

made our way back to the bowling alley. bowled, became relentless.. stupidly competitive. hummed the gipsy kings version of hotel california as i went for the strike. and struck out.. Metamorphosis, kafka would be oh so proud.

i realised, i needed to get out.. get back on familiar ground before i start looking for a cheer leader and start having a craving for light beer. i walked out of the bowling lane and found the bar. aaah, i was back on familiar territory. behind this shiny family friendly facade, this place still encouraged men of low persuasion to part with their money.. to eventually visit the used beer recycling center marked with the little stick man in the corner.

this was still England, displaced somewhat and maybe a bit confused about its identity (too much reality tv perhaps distorting reality? who knows?). but not a fish and chip shop in sight, probably hiding behind the facade of its bigger bully brother from across the pond..

Dr. Luhar's Guide to the Jungle, Volume 23

2005-05-05T17:37:00.000+01:00

character 3: The three pint small talk hyena

the early warnings are right there. in front of you, usually characterised by an approach vector sixty degrees from your right. You know it, you were the most vulnerable in the group. standing at the edge of the circle, partly involved in the conversation, when you got spotted.

you can spot them by the half drunk glass of an alcoholic beverage and the slightly bemused and happy look on their faces as they stumble/stalk their way across the crowd in the bar to your little corner. You know them well enough that it would be rude to completely ignore their advances and make a very obvious flight to safer havens. Its too late, "Hows it going mate?" heralds the opening salvo.

the three pint hyena is a versatile conversationalist, but what it lacks in depth it tries very hard to make up in shear volume and persistance. any angle of attack will be attempted, from mind numbing rumination about the weather and the probability of hailstorms in argentina (medium to high apparently) to a direct bunkerbuster attack on your personal political beliefs. Again, as they hover in the DMZ at the edge of being acquainted that you cannot ask them to shove it where the sun doesn't shine without appearing horrendously rude.

how do you get rid of the three pint hyena? After much field research I propose the following strategies:

1). Take on the personality of an aubergine. Don't say anything, just look directly at it and nod occasionally. The key is, be non-commital. don't agree or disagree. This is the operation human shield approach, and should only be attempted by those who regard patience as one of their strong points. It will eventually get exhausted and stumble off to consume more alcohol or pursue weaker prey.

2). Blame the bladder. Slightly rude, but very effective. Moan about the effects of consuming beer on the bladder, make your excuses and disapper for a couple of moments. When you return, make sure you are in safe territory.

3). Blabber all the way to Beirut. The guerilla approach, high risk but potentially high return. Argue every point the hyena makes, disagree with everything. Agree with nothing, wave your hands about and make yourself look bigger. If successful, you will fend off attacks by this particular individual atleast for the next three weeks as they retreat to lick their wounds. If unsuccessful, you could find yourself at the unwelcome end of an imparting of physical discomfort.. or even worse having a long drawn out argument about a stunningly boring topic such as the significance of colours in light sabers (yes).

The three pint hyena: often scene in bars, likely to be someone you know, and a solitary hunter. Likes beers, likely to be between 24 to 40 years old and single. Males of the species are most often noticed in their natural habitat, but females are known to exist and can be as deadly.

walking into windows

2005-04-18T16:53:00.000+01:00

one of those days. nothing working. I woke up, knowing that this is not going to be a good day, the back was aching from the unbelievably contorted position i found myself in when my eyes opened to another drizzly day. my thoughts, half trapped in a slowly receding nightmare, half dazed, attempting to contemplate reality, dispersed like a thousand balloons let loose in the middle of a hurricane. scratching my head, trying to figure out how to stop the damn alarm from screeching, proclaiming the beginning of another day. I was awake less than a minute and I was tired and ready for bed again.

I gave up on any pretence of organisation . Things fall part sometimes, and they did. I walked into a glass window, I spilt coke all over my desk, I forgot my cell phone at home. Minor little things, usually dismissed with a shrug. today they multiplied like a parasitic swarm of locusts, took over my day and devoured any sense of calm and order that I had attempted to cultivate.

Pondering the dredges of the day, as it ends.. Its quite bizarre, how I get a bit flustered when things don't go to plan. I flap about like a confused bird attempting to get out of a house through a shut window. But my own existence, my sitting here, contemplating sleep, is a testament to a level of organisation that .. to be honest confounds my own imagination. Every little cell of my body, regulating the little flashes of electricity that are manifesting in this WORD being typed here.. the blood bringing breathing life into these fingers as they complete their much practised manouvers on the keyboard.. everything is organised and precise. What would happen, if not just me, but my whole body had a really bad day. My liver saying, I can't be bothered today and shutting down to get some down time.. my eyes going, too bright.. must shut. That, would be a bad day.. real bad. I never think of the amount of cooperation that must go into the thoughts forming in my brain to these words being bashed out on the screen and reported back to the brain. And, even meeting up with three people sometimes can be a logistical nightmare. My question is, if we are capable at a micro level of such tremendous organisation, why do days like today happen??? How can such organisation breed such chaos (and on a global scale..)

shopping in the supermarket of sin

2005-04-12T17:35:00.000+01:00

I am sick and tired of this guilt that hangs over my shoulders every moment and every little quantum particle in between every movement. Why are we, as a race, arguably the most advanced race on this planet still driven by as basic and as simple an emotion such as guilt? I can't eat a tuna sandwich anymore without visualising the poor little dolphins (yes I know they are actually twisted, sexually deviant mammals.. I have been told) suffocating in the trawlers drag nets. I cannot imagine buying a car without thinking about the trail of environmental degradation the exhaust trails leave behind, and don't even get me started on the oil money holding up totalitarian regimes everywhere.. Or when I walk into work, the feeling of impending doom as i watch the market sway and sizzle and the rich get richer and the poor, well getting fucked as always.

we live on a planet where one of the major religions contends that man was born a sinner. If this is not a justification/big red shining beacon on the collective guilt that we as humans feel, then what the hell is? Who thought up of hell anyway? Now either the guy was feeling tremendously smug about his own existence on our precariously balanced little blue planet or he was on some serious guilt trip too. I am tired of feeling that life is like shopping in a big super market of sin. yeah, we have specials on the fish today. Not only do you get dwindling stocks and a destroyed coastal ecosystem, but you also get a messed up carbon cycle. Brilliant, my favourite deal, buy one get one free! Every day, every moment is like a walk down a bright (and strategically organised to encourage maximal consumption..) aisle down this supermarket of life. You feel like every thing you buy, every decision you make will contribute to the bill when you check out.

No wonder people hate walmart.

A taxonomy of time, three weeks to be precise

2005-03-31T21:33:00.000+01:00

Things I know and am sure of today that I wasn't twenty one days ago:

(31/03) Killer whales could actually comprise a number of different species of animals, because they exist in mutually independent groups which haven't interbred for more than ten thousand years. genetically, they are different animals..
whose only comon characteristics are an ability to look cute and respond to "jump willy jump"

(30/03) There is actually a market for hybrid gas-electric luxury SUVs... Where there is guilt to be massaged, there is a market.
Get off your chelsea tractors you lazy posers!

(27/03) There was no single "book of the dead" for ancient egyptians. Each person important or rich enough to be buried/mummified/entombed had their own personalised and autographed book of the dead.. to guide them across the river to the realm of anubis.
sad, death obsessed freaks.. all the golden masks and pretty pyramids are cool, but seriously money could have been better spent on having fun whilst still alive? I wonder if there were any socialists in the middle kingdom?

(20/03) After much research, in my experience the quality of food in an indian eatery (chosen at random) in london is inversely proportional to the price of the food.

(18/03) We live in the age of Kali, when small minded people will rule the world. Corruption and violence will be rife..

(16/03) Saturn is actually less dense than water..
all i need to do is build one humongous bathtub..

(10/03) Contemplating world domination is a rather pleasurable activity. I have mild megalomaniac tendencies.

pre-traumatic mess disorder

2005-03-08T22:13:00.000Z

in the face of a life that doesn't seem to make sense and seem to lack a solidly defined purpose.. why is it so tempting to mark the passing of time with recounting the scars of the little battles both past, present and in my imagination..

even writing the above line seemed like a damn battle.. i remember the time when i wrote that really, long unwieldly line, shit those were bad times.. its cold now, yeah.. its always cold, i hate this country it can't make its mind up.. i hate THAT country, its too hot.. aargh, saturda no women in the club, and the drinks are extortionate.. and the bouncers are pric.....

so bad that each passing moment becomes a battle, the sofa this creaky little battered p.o.s. laptop.

kicking open doors that i know are like those inspired by the marx brothers and the coyote, with the brick wall behind the door. there is no suspense,

a dark room with a curtain lit by a dim orange bulb in the centre of the otherwise bare stage. cue dramatic music and central character enters stage right... the tension builds

i kick the door and wait for the pain, it comes and it hurts

but it feels good to talk about it as something i survived through afterwards.. remember when i kicked down that door, shit those were bad times.

i feel sometimes like a character in a full blown slapstick comedy that goes on in my head. you know those films in which you know the plot but squel with laughter at every stupid and totally predictable thing that follows,.. but dude, its fucking funny, and no i am not stoned..

what i am curious to know is who is on the other side of the screen and has paid to laugh at my follies?

i am the little imaginary napolean , his empire never was the old continent, he recounts his bravado with is cronies of battles near and in galaxies far far away and sits waiting for and plotting his waterloo.. and his perpetual exile in the desolate corner of his own personalised distant st.helena

leap of faith

2005-02-26T19:28:00.000Z

insomnia, introspection and too much time reading dodgy science fiction, its not a good combination. back to contemplating the meaning of life, the universe and everything (and no, no matter what they say, the answer is not 42!). so fine, rewind the expanding galaxies and un-unleash the dark matter. we get back to our little pin prick point of infinite mass and energy, our little cherry bomb big bang seed of life the universe and my battered laptop. so where did this little ball of destructive creativity came for.. this is where science breaks, down, who knows.. an oscillating universe, an ever present big bang/big crunch cycle.. its all speculation, but where did that come from? its infinite fucking recursion, you don't get anywhere.. thats where people say God comes in, thats where the creator blew a bit of dust (pre matter/non matter dust?) off his palm creating the universe in all its glory and existential angst.. i say, i can't believe that, it is a leap of faith that i am too scared to make, i am uncomfortable with it.. its too much.

the next day, the thoughts of the nights are nothing but confusing remnants of the previous caffeine filled day and another restless night. i stumble out of my bed and into the bathroom, turn on the shower.. trusting the water will be at the right temperature and won't scald me like a still-alive belgian mussel poured into a pot of boiling water waiting to be consumed by a slightly over weight, middle aged belgian guy called clau.. (ok, rushi tangent, stop). anyway, put on the clothes and the layers to combat this fucking sub-arctic weather and press the button to step into a little steel rectangle zooming down the ten floors to the ground.. trusting the lift is designed with enough safety in mind to get me to the ground floor without the cables snapping and me meeting a very quick doom at terminal velocity crushed, peeled off the floor by Dinesh, our concierge. get into the tube, not even thinking of the thames flowing not ten meters above head, and the soil and the building waiting to crush my subterranean aluminium can mode of transport.. every day, every decision, i believe in the capabilities of the very very human creators of a whole bunch of things that i depend on to live. i am happy to make the leap of faith, believing in human creation and engineering though knowing very intimately the fallibilities of these creators...

and i am afraid of making the leap of faith of believing in God, of believing in a creator of this universe of incomprehensible complexity, the depths of which we can't even see in our still prehistoric near blindness.. i am afraid of believing that there might be somebody, something out there who has created this.. knowing that there seems to be no other fucking explanation! if i was not being hypocritical, to justify not believing in God, i would not believe in anything, any creation no trust.. a dystopic vision indeed, so i would be naked sheltering in some remote, inhospitable and unreachable corner of the world... but, though i have my bouts of anti-socialableness.. i don't see that happening.

i guess i am human, my fallibilities are many and hyprocrisy is going to be one of them..

Fear and Loathing (no more)..

2005-02-25T16:27:00.000Z

It would be tempting to write a gonzo style tribute to Hunter S. Thompson. I tried, but it just sounded like shit. What else can i say, he is no more. He leaves behind his tales of drugs, alcohol, carnage and his trademark tangential dose of reality. I read fear and loathing in las vegas about four years ago, and was delighted to find a voice that so eloquently described the feelings of paranoia and the general alienness of this world. re-reading his work, his reckless life and totally subjective opinions was refreshing. far from the politically correct machinations of the media, he presented not some abstract opinion, but reality.. as seen through one of them circus mirrors. I hope wherever he is, he finds a good drink and a good dealer.

Hunter S. Thompson, have a good trip..

connected

2005-02-20T19:25:00.000Z

How many times have you heard the expression "six degrees of seperation"? The idea that you and almost everybody on the planet is connected through on average about six other people. So I could be connected to a Alaskan inuit who spends six months of the year meditating on a lone iceberg somewhere in the arctic through (on average) about six people.. its an interesting thought. It seems our life is all about connectivity. Think of jobs or hell, even people you have dated.. its likely that you never got a job or dated/fancied somebody that you know very well/first hand (immediately), more likely through a friend of a friend or an acquiantance. Ironically, as people moan about society being more and more self centred, the importance of connections between us seems to increase. I cannot imagine old great grandpappy luhar looking forward to an email or a letter from somebody sitting a good few thousand kilometers away and somebody that he never met, or probably never would have met.. I like being connected to a friend who is off finding himself somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Madagascar or Tasmania.. It also puts a more interesting angle on most actions that you do. You probably know the guy who is going to sit on the chewing gum that you left on the university stairs through probably 2 or 3 connections. Even if you think about the future, lets say 2070, two generations from the children of the ninetie's grankids are hitting the quarter life crisis, you will know all of them through on average 8 links, and the state of the world they will find themselves in would have been determined in no small extent by you/me and the guy who serviced your early morning craving for coffee by liverpool street station.. interesting, your suv leaving a trail of environmental destruction behind it as you speed on the a4 towards amsterdam/or n8 towards ahmedabad/or the i15 towards ny for people seperated by 8 links and 65 years down the line? and its not chaos, it is a definite link.. there ain't no butterflys or thunderstorms, just actions and how they could impact people in a very connected world.

btw, I am listening to an album called Connected by Foreign Exchange which pretty much inspired this tangent. interesting group, its an mc from the US who met a dutch producer on msn. they swapped some tunes and made an album without every actually meeting each other, which is very good..

A Mobius Strip

2005-02-15T23:17:00.000Z

So, the lights were off, the buzzing chirping whirring ringing devices had been silenced and i looked forward to a few hours of sleep before rejoining the clone army. you would think, aah, sleep,wonderful fantastic six hours of blissful solitude.. but as insomniacs may attest, its the silence outside that amplifies the endless discussions inside.. take last night, my favourite, the meaning of life, the universe and everything. now apparently, according to latest cutting edge research, the universe is like some sort of funky sphere straight out of the imagination of a dedicated deadhead. you get to the edge, but you keep travelling, not through and out, but along the surface of the damn thing. so if you keep going long enough, you end up at the same place where you tried to exit the damn thing. weird huh? as in you can never really get to the outer surface because there isn't one, this is it.. the boundary, the limit, no exit. now, i am claustrophobic, but it is generally limited to the sub-terranean aluminium tin can that i travel to work in every day, but think about it.. we are trapped in (a massive, huge, humongous) bubble that we can never get out of. scary? come to think of it, all my arguments about life and our purpose on it are similar, you start at a point in the argument, you make some headway.. yeah progress, progress is good right? .. but no, some time later you are back at the same damn questions and the same damn argument.. hello Mobius Strip..