Setec Astronomy

Been dying to post on a range of arbit topics since 4 days. Haven't found the patience or the time to do so...also wasn't allowed to use my PC by bro n sistah....:|

Lots of posts in my head right now, lots of posts on paper, lots of posts hidden in txt files....but wait, this is not about all that. Not at all, this is about happiness, this is about relief, this is about saying "weeehooooo!", no make that SHOUTING "WEEHOO!!" from the rooftops.

This is all about the past 36 hours. No wait, this is about the last 3 months...or is it about the last 3 years??! I wish I knew. This is about re-affirmation of belief, of trust in myself, telling meself "Affirmative Captain Kirk...there IS intelligence out there in me skull"...not that, but it sounds vaguely humorous doesn't it now? :D

What is this? This is about my own lil roller-coaster ride all through the last month.  THIS IS ABOUT MY CAT RESULTS!!!! :D :D

4:00PM, 21st November 2004. Realised I'd "cracked" CAT but wasn't ready to believe it...said that I'd done exceptionally well in Data Interpretation..somewhere along the month, decided to chuck "believing it" and to start being happy again. :D realised what a great  year it had been...:)

The month that followed. -> Sat 24/7 on pagalguy.com/cat and threw about predictions, made major analysis, gave hope, told ppl to keep the faith...had tons of fun. :D Told myself that come what may, I oughta be happy for my performance during those 2 hours. Told myself that it was only my complete peace during the exam which MIGHT get me a few calls from those seemingly "revered" IIMs. Told God that I'd done me little bit towards getting there, that it was now upto Him to act out his will. :D

10:00PM, 20th December 2004. Results time. 99.55%ile overall. :D  99.62%ile in Data Interpretation....:D

8:20AM, 21st December 2004. Woke up, noticed missed calls at all odd times of the night from me bud at IIMCal...had no doubt about what it was. logged onto www.iimc.ac.in ....IIM Calcutta had shortlisted me!!  www.iimb.ac.in homepage was loading in d other window...jumped over there to see meself shortlisted for IIM Bangalore too! :D

9:40AM. Bud from IIMCal calls up n tells me to hop over to d iima site. Dug out the URL from pagalguy.com/cat... http://202.41.76.206/catf35022k4.php it was...shortlisted for IIM Ahmedabad!!! This here was it...awesomeness personified...:D Daymm!!

1:00PM, Now. IIM Kozhikode has decided to take me in too and IIM Lucknow has told me to go suck an egg..daym...:D B,A,C,K calls so far...L tho gayi...:? 

Conclusion? I'm deliriously happy. But more than that, I'm relieved. Not because of the major crap session in the loo in d morning...:p but because of a lot of other factors...:p But I'm also lookin forward to start all d prepping for the interviews...:D

Thank y'all at fullhyd for all d wishes, 41 comments is huge! :D Thank you pagalguy.com for all the madness, for all the hope, for givin me place to shout out...:D Thank God...:D Thank you Fat Freddie's Cat and your assorted cousins for all the fun...:D >:D<   

Onto the interviews and the group discussions now...wish me luck again folks!!

Payne

PS : still waitin for the IIM Indore result....

PPS : all d happiness is leading to steady deterioration in the quality of my yahoo status msgs... currently ==>" o m g ....d Kode has been cracked... Bang!! Ahmed bhai has been shot dead!! Calculated cold-blooded annihilation....tough Luck... :D :D :p "  :p

PPPS : yes nabbz...it is I...stingrae..:p

EDIT : IIM Indore shortlist in the bag too. :) yahoo status msg --> "back to the BACIKs..." :p

Overcome by a feeling of awe and ecstacy all at the same time. I know most of you will be like "wtf!!!", but yeah this is me. The Lion King has just wrapped up on showtime on drp's PC and my god! This is what movies are all about, correction : This is what Disney movies are all about. "Remember Simba...Remember who you are...be true to yourself...learn to ogle at the hot chics without being obvious" i mean...WOW!!!(one of those is fake...find it)  Cried 3 whole times during the movie...ofcourse WHY i'm watchin a movie 10hrs before my JMET is another thing altogether! But c'moooon this is LION KING we're talking about! and when its a downloaded version, even better!!!  So there, Simba was born, simba played around with nala, sang a song, simba was a bad boy, scar sings, simba was set up by scar, mufasa died, simba was dumb n left priderock, met up with pumba n timon(wassa!!), sang more songs, nala returns(for a lioness thats one hot chic), simba is faced with a conflict in his inner self - confusion as to what he truly is(so much like me :-" ), simba keeps runnin away from the truth, rafiki knocks sense into his mind, SIMBA RETURNS!!, BIG FIGHT!!!, scar is eaten by the hyenas(wassa!!), SIMBA RULES PRIDEROCK!!, simba n nala do it(in the uncut NG version), new baby lion cub born, circle of life plays again, drp is awed. There you go, a contemporary classic in a nutshell, my style. :D  Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome movie. and that too all of 83 minutes - including the songs!!! How much better can it get! :D

Now off to sleep and onto JMET for 2mro morning!!

Peace,

Payne

PS : wtf = what the fuck. NG = National Geographic. drp = d_royal_pain. dipshit = you for even reading this.

PPS : Quote for the night - Don't believe what people say, geese fly south for the hot mexican chicks! hahahahhahhaha!!!

PPPS : i missed impulsive posts like this one...:p

alright, the previous post was a lesson. a lesson in plagiarism, a lesson in stupidity, a lesson in boredom. n also a desperate attempt to keep this space alive. now i'm back to me blog. no reason to post, nothin much to say, a neat vacuum resoundin in my cranium right now. feels great, feels all light n woozy... ... "vacuum" reminds me of how my ACS lecturer spelt it - vacume...over n over again. busturd. spelling reminds me of this guy in 10th standard who spelt Geneva as Janiwa, very creative dude that guy. wonder if he's bloggin too now. now that would be one gross blog. gross, nice word. somebody around here told me that "gross" is spelt grouse, now that is gross. mispelling gross, gross mispelling i say.

back to gross, i do a lotta gross stuff. some really gross stuff. i'm kinda like Calvin, u know, with the whole mucus flinging bit n all. n now this blog shall be my log for all such nefarious activities. speakin of Calvin, d only resemblance is d grossosity(?), i do not hav an imaginary friend nor am i that intellectually blessed. nor am i 6 yrs old, not physically atleast. so all i am is an immature, crude dude. crude dude, should keep that in mind. enough of d digressing, i do have a point here. the point being the gross stuff i do and all the pointy things.

so d other day, dis dude came online...i told 'im i was poking me butt. now he had a problem wit dat. dunno why. i mean its perfectly naturally to poke ur ass n find ur way around, especially when done the right way. the right way would entail a lot of things though and there's no set "right way" for everyone. you simply have to find something which agrees with ur posterior end and you. for further assistance, please leave a comment. a free online coaching manual and bundled software shall be sent to u. multimedia n all dat. trust me. when we talk abt poking, it gets me to digging...so onto diggin noses now. this is not something i think i'm too specialised in but i do do a pretty decent job at it (rotfl! i jus said "do do"!!). this one is also very easy, no special skills required. just stick ur finger in there and go for it. its great when u hit the really big chunks, feels like you've hit paydirt! with emphasis on dirt... :p the tough part lies in getting rid of the damn booger...it jus sticks to your finger, NOT willing to let go..bluddy tough it is...the only way is to either rub ur finger against a surface, preferably hidden. or you could simply shake ur finger, this has its inherent problems...there have been incidents reported where the booger has landed onto innocent bystanders, unbeknownest to them that is. so please to note, follow the first way.

lastly, to wrap up this neat blog on my fav gross bodily actions, lemme talk about peeling skin. this, by far, is the best. simply because of the pain involved and also the clinical precision with which i get to neatly rearrange the contours on me fingers. the skin i'm talkin bout here is the skin around me nails. the longest peel i've pulled off is around 1.2" (i ate it before i could measure it). and obviously in addition to all the obvious  pleasures to be obtained from this method, there is also the bonus of eating up the skin peeled off. amazing reward it is for the hard work put in to extract the skin. i do this quite a lot.

2:30AM now. as u can see i'm bored. i'm also confused. wonderin if i bit much more than i could dig into....:-| had too many things lined up for this week, none of which i've done justice to. sad this is. i need to be more responsible and stricter on my time-management. [-x @ me. bad job.

Payne

I've ostracised junta who've copy-pasted stuff, but when something so deserving comes up, I have to show it to the world outside. :D So this post here is completely about stuff I dug up in this last few days.... :D

_________________________________________________________

This comes to you straight from pagalguy.com/cat. Been hauntin dat place for d past week...  http://www.pagalguy.com/cat/viewtopic.php?p=108957

Insurance Report

Possibly the funniest story in a long while,this is a bricklayer's accident report, which was printed in the newsletter of the American Insurance Journal. This is a true story. Had this guy died,he'd have received a Darwin Award** for sure.

Dear Sir:

"I am writing in response to your request for additional information in Block 3 of the accident report form.I put "poor planning" as the cause of my accident.You asked for a fuller explanation and I trust the following details will be sufficient.

I was alone on the roof of a new six-story building. When I completed my work,I found that I had some bricks left over which,when weighed later,were found to be slightly more than 500 lbs.Rather than carry the bricks down by hand, I decided to lower them in a barrel by using a pulley,which was attached to the side of the building on the sixth floor. Securing the rope at ground level,I went up to the roof,swung the barrel out and loaded the bricks into it.Then I went down and untied the rope,holding it tightly to ensure a slow descent of the bricks.

You will note in Block 11 of the accident report form, that I weigh 135 lbs.

Due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly,I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope.Needless to say,I proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the building.

In the vicinity of the third floor,I met the barrel, which was now proceeding downward at an equally impressive speed.This explains the fractured skull, minor abrasions and the broken collarbone, as listed in section 3 of the accident report form.

Slowing down slightly,I continued my rapid ascent,not stopping until the fingers on my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulley.Fortunately by this time I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold tightly to the rope, in spite of beginning to experience a great deal of pain.

At approximately the same time,however,the barrel of bricks hit the ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel. Now devoid of the weight of the bricks,that barrel weighed approximately 50lbs. I refer you again to my weight.

As you can imagine,I began a rapid descent,down the side of the building.In the vicinity of the third floor,I met the barrel coming up.This accounts for the two fractured ankles,broken tooth and several
lacerations of my legs and lower body. Here my luck began to change slightly.The encounter with the barrel seemed to slow me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell into the pile of bricks and fortunately,only three vertebrae were cracked.

I am sorry to report,however,as I lay there on the pile of bricks,in pain, unable to move, I again lost my composure and presence of mind and let go of the rope and I lay there watching the empty barrel beginning its journey back down onto me. This explains the two broken legs.

I hope this answers your questions.

___________________________________________________________

The * u see above is for the Darwin Awards. The info abt d Darwin Awards can be found here >>> http://www.drkendavis.com/darwin . Outta d nominees there, i realllllllllly loved these.... WARNING : MORBID HUMOR TO FOLLOW!!

  ***The Darwin Awards go to***

-->1994's winner was the fellow who was killed by a Coke machine which toppled on top of him as he was attempting to tip a free soda out of it.

-->NOMINEE #7 [Bloomburg News Service, 25 March]
A terrible diet and room with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by his own gas. There was no mark on his body but autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple of other things). It was just the right combination of foods. It appears that the man died in his sleep from breathing the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he been outside or had his windows been opened, it wouldn't have been fatal. But the man was shut up in his near airtight bedroom. He was ". . . a big man with a huge capacity for creating [this deadly gas]." Three of the rescuers got sick and one was hospitalized.

-->NOMINEE 13 [Unknown]
To poacher Marino Malerba, who shot a stag standing above him on an overhanging rock -- and was killed instantly when it fell on him.

-->John Pernicky and friend Sal Hawkins, of the great state of Washington, decided to attend a local Metallica concert at the Amphitheater at Georgia, Washington. Having no tickets, but 18 beers among them they sat in the parking lot and after finishing the beer, decided that it would be easy enough to hop over the nine foot high fence and sneak into the show. The two friends pulled their pickup truck over to the fence and the plan was for John, 100 pounds heavier than Sal, to hop over, and then assist his friend over the fence. Unfortunately for John, the Fence was a 30 foot drop on the other side. Having heaved himself over he found himself crashing through a tree, falling to the ground. His fall was abruptly stopped by a large branch which had been snagged by his shorts. Dangling from the tree, with one arm broken, John looked down and saw a group of bushes below him. Figuring the bushes would break his fall, John removed his pocket knife and proceed to cut away his shorts to free himself from the tree. When finally free, John crashed below into holly bushes, The sharp leaves scratched his whole body, and now being without his shorts he was the unwilling victim of a holly branch penetrating his rectal cavity. To make matters worse, his pocket knife proceeded to fall with him and landed three inches into his left thigh. Seeing his friend in considerable pain and agony, Sal decided to throw him a rope and pull him to safety. However, weighing about 100 pounds less, he decided the best course of action would be to tie the rope to the pickup truck.

This is when things went really bad.

Sal in his drunken state, put the truck into the wrong gear, and proceeded to press on the gas and crash through the fence, landing on and killing his friend. Sal was thrown from the truck, suffered massive internal injuries and died at the scene. Police arrived to find a pickup truck with its driver thrown 100 feet from the vehicle and, upon moving the truck, a half naked man with numerous scratches, a holly stick up his butt, a knife in his thigh and a pair of shorts dangling from the trees 25 feet in the air.

-->NOMINEE #6 [AP, Cairo, Egypt, 31 Aug 1995 CAIRO, Egypt (AP)]
Six people drowned Monday while trying to rescue a chicken that had fallen into a well in southern Egypt. An 18-year-old farmer was the first to descend into the 60-foot well. He drowned, apparently after an undercurrent in the water pulled him down, police said. His sister and two brothers, none of whom could swim well, went in one by one to help him, but also drowned. Two elderly farmers then came to help, but they apparently were pulled by the same undercurrent. The bodies of the six were later pulled out of the well in the village of Nazlat Imara, 240 miles south of Cairo. The chicken was also pulled out. It survived.

-->Los Angeles, CA. Ani Saduki, 33, and his brother decided to remove a bee's nest from a shed on their property with the aid of a "pineapple." A pineapple is an illegal firecracker which is the explosive equivalent of one-half stick of dynamite. They ignited the fuse and retreated to watch from inside their home, behind a window some 10 feet away from the hive/shed. The concussion of the explosion shattered the window inwards, seriously lacerating Ani. Deciding Mr. Saduki needed stitches, the brothers headed out to go to a nearby hospital. While walking towards their car, Ian was stung three times by the surviving bees. Unbeknownst to either brother, Ani was allergic to bee venom, and died of suffocation en route to the hospital.

and the grand finale : -->Jacques LeFevrier left nothing to chance when he decided to commit suicide. He stood at the top of a tall cliff and tied a noose around his neck. He tied the other end of the rope to a large rock. He drank some poison and set fire to his clothes. He even tried to shoot himself at the last moment. He jumped and fired the pistol. The bullet missed him completely and cut through the rope above him. Free of the threat of hanging, he plunged into the sea. The sudden dunking extinguished the flames and made him vomit the poison. He was dragged out of the water by a kind fisherman and was taken to the hospital, where he died of hypothermia.

__________________________________________________________

:D :D :D   i found 'em rip-roarin funny....but if u dint, and if u're one of those sensitive "normal" types...then hmmm... :p

this is one realllly bored post... :D

Payne

PS : keep wishin me luck for CAT...:p

Greetings folks of fh.com.

The last time I asked you to wish me luck, I got jacked. But I've never learned from my mistakes, thus here goes>>>>> WISH ME LUCKKK!!!!!

2mro, Nov.21st 2004 is CAT - Common Aptitude Test.... n here I be, loungin on a creaky chair wearing my torn shorts....better do somethin useful now...CHECK LIST FOR TOMMOROW!! oh YEAH!! :|

HB Pencils - check. 2 sharpened, 2 brand new, 2 blunt. Shall pick only 3 of those....geez!!
A pen - check. Montex Megatop, Cello gripper and a green thingy in front of me...tough choice...:-l
Presence of grey matter in d cranium - *check*
Best undies - check ... the white ones with the holes n all...-comfort this is thy meaning.
Jeans - check ... deep blue, no holes.
T-shirt - check ... white, black or yellow? hmmm..
Eraser and Sharpener - check ... though i might buy a new one....jus for the whole "exam" feeling..
Inspirational Music - check ... Boys - Secret of Success :D
Watches - check ... 1 Digital thingy with no strap and 1 RED Analog FOSSIL
Deo - check.
Chappals - check ... muh trusty homypeds...comfy as ever...stinkin as ever.

Anythin else?! dont think so for now...:D

now gimme those WISHES ppls!....GIMME THOSE WISHES I SAY!

Somewhere between worried, expectant and high.
Thy Lord and Master Payne.

7:00PM. Nov. 12th. Payne's World

__________________________________________________________

what if god was one of us...

what if all of your wishes came true...

what if that cuckoo coo-ing outside was transmittin earth-shatterin data to its mothership...

what if cuckoos took over the world?

what if there are are no coincidences?

what if d aliens ended up makin crop-circles on my head?....would i finally hav a hairstyle then?

what if i had d balls to tell her...

what if i'd told her too? :p

what if i became a vegetarian...

what if i could break away...what if i could stop tryin to be...n simply be.

what if i'd done the right thing everytime in my life so far...what if there was no right thing to do?

what if life was simply a series of lessons...

what if there is an after-life...a life after death...

what if someone up above is laughin at me right now?

what if you were bein judged every single moment of your life...

what if i stopped wonderin....what if i could simply believe...

what if i could live with every breath...what if i could focus.

what if this was reality...me sittin in me shorts...typin out inane crap for years on end...what if time was frozen like this...

what if i was on a beach on d bahamas...would i want time to freeze then?...y d fukk would i want time to freeze at all?!

what if i was a celebrity...

what if i stopped dreamin...

what if one of the bombs being blasted outside was actually a C4 explosive?

what if terrosists decided to make Gudimalkapur their example of unbridled terror?

what if aliens landed anywhere other THAN the US of A?

what if life had danger music...     *that wud be cool*

what if i had the power to freeze time...like that guy in the Twilight Zone?

what if this was the Twilight Zone...n i'd totally missed d intro?!

what if whg could spell right....(that would be the Twilight Zone!)

what if i could ONLY get rid of that goddam dent in my hair right now...:-L

what if i was hugh hefner...wtf! wat good is it bein a withered ole dude?! oh...the girls...ah..ok! :p

what if death was a person...n i'd said "f_kk u" in their face?

what if i could simply love...and not think...n not judge...n not build theories...

what if fallen angel got back to these blogs...

what if the truth is out there...there bein here...what if this is the truth...wat i'm starin at...wat i'm doin right now...that this is it....this is as good as it gets...*thats scary*.

what if i cud simply talk to her right now....

what if this is the future...

what if it snows in hyderabad...right now...i want to see snow. i want to hold it in me hands...dam.

what if i was studyin right now?

what if U stopped reading?

what if i could write poetry...like Anil, SM n co.

what if i could comprehend half of wat all d above ppls write...

what if i wasn't so dumb....:p

what if i was here for a "purpose"....as morpheus says...:-S

what if i could only stop thinkin of more "what-ifs" to follow...

what if i clicked that submit button right now...

______________________________________________________        
         

12:21AM. Oct.30th, 2004. A very awed world in Payne's mind.

Just done watchin Tere Naam. I've seen tragic movies before, I've felt sadness before but 'tis been a while since that. Green Mile and Sommersby are the only two I can recollect which had me utterly close to tears but this is the first hindi movie in a loooong time. The last one was Anand. Ok, before I go digressing onto all the movies I've seen or go categorising cinema as such, I just want to get some weight of me shoulders - Tere Naam.

Brutally tragic is what the movie is. Brutal for the ruthless way in which the story keeps taking that guy's life again and again, tragic 'coz well, its sad dammit. I'm almost certain that if I see the movie again, I'll laugh at it or do some sorta apeshit, but for now, I'm awed at the whole thing. Friggin hell, I actually cupped me hands to me mouth when Salman Khan falls off the parapet onto the metal junk *ouch* and the following scene where she comes to see him and doesn't turn around after leavin him there. C'mon! What type of a girl leaves sweets et al and doesn't turn around?! Especially when he's the "love of her life"...i was WILLING her to turn around. But no she don't, and she leave Radhe screaming n hollerin for her...n me all :( . Get this, the remote control fell outta muh hands at the last scene. There she is, all dead. He slumps down n cries and then smiles a smile of utter resignation. Ok, so it was expected, so I saw it coming, but to actually watch the scene, to grasp the truth that the poor bald, mangled, wretch of a man had run through a whole forest/lake/what-not in one night to reach Delhi on foot while bound by chains - arms, legs and all! It hurt. Big time. n then Radhe walks back onto the street, hugs his bro and climbs into the van to return to "Sriperdhum Ashram(or wtever)", Aslam hollering in the backdrop. He came back from the dead for her, she died for him. He was ready to live again for her, she couldn't live without him. Dipshits, I tell you, total dipshits. :|

Does love like that exist? The friggin movie nearly convinced me, but dam - does it?? Love so strong, love so timeless, love so binding - in death or in life. Love to last a whole lifetime. Is that love at all? What type of a person do you need to be to fall so utterly in love? To so completely drown in the same love which would cloud your eyes and make the rest of your life seem insignificant. Which would make you board the van back to the same place from where you'd just escaped - to a place you'd entered as a vegetable but escaped with a burning passion in your soul, alive again. Alive to live life for all its worth. Alive to live again with(or for?) people who loved him. Would you kill urself again?  What were you doing there in the first place?! Do goons like that end up getting the girl? How much of Salman's hair - in the first half - was real? Can I grow the mop on my head into somethin akin? How gay would I look then? Should I kidnap chics to get their attention now?

I'm done.

Payne.

PS : Was gonna post about a whole lotta different things. Goddam movie f_kked up me mind. Right it did. :|

"Write. Write me a story. Write me a poem. Write our story. "- Neurotron

How real am I?

I've just Alt-Tab'ed my way into this textbox here from a Yahoo messenger window. Am staring at blank space ready to be filled with my thoughts, with my words, with my prose, with me. I quoted those lines from Neuro because they were the first words which sprung up in my mind when the person in that Yahoo window said something about me being a "writer". I remember laughing the first time she said that, I remember asking her how important were words in one's life, questioning if the ability to twist reality and to output it in beautiful words was enough to get someone to like you, wondering if there would ever be a way to draw the line between the dramatic me and the real me.

I still don't even come close to the point of considering myself a "writer", but that aside, I'm right now plagued with doubts. Though I am in an intoxicatingly mirth-filled mood right now, I do not want to let this moment go by before I see why I am this way. Sure, a lot of things have happened in the past hour to bring me here, but I'm anyway mostly this ways(slightly neurotically gleeful I mean). But significantly, its been that conversation in that Yahoo window. I admitted to the fact that my thoughts seem to be stuck in my head, that before they reach my lips to be heard by the outside world there's a huge jam. I also admitted that these same thoughts flow much more coherently to my fingertips, that is, when I write/type. This brings me to that question right there at the top. How real am I?

Why is it that I'm always ten steps ahead while typing than when I'm talking? Is this online self - Payne - an outlet to be the better me? Is there any such thing as the "better" me? TP said we live in our lives in the past, if thats the case there's no better way to realise it than here, here when I wonder if the milliseconds more of time I have to respond online changes the way that people perceive me. I wish I knew why I am this ways. I can't help but seriously interrogate myself and come up with the other question - Are these words here  "me"? And scarier - Can I actually enact out other facets to myself? Can I be false to the point of being cruelly real? Do these questions have any semblance of truth in them? Why do I even doubt myself? Why do I even do this?

Coming to the beginning of this - that window. Looking back, I'd like to think that that conversation was just about perfect and that if you are reading this, you'd never doubt me. Never. I dont even know if this post is about proving a point or about putting out the questions that continue to plague me. I guess its neither - these are just my thoughts, just my meandering musings, just my words. Just me.

Payne

10:54PM, Oct. 21st 2004. Payne's world.

The wheels are turning again. My blog is back. The HUGE post you see below is purely the result of a rambling mind. It is a perfect example of the hogwash that Payne can dish out. Read it at your own peril.

11:48PM, Sept. 17th 2004. Payne's mind.

Life. So easily understood, so easily complicated, so easily learnt, so easily lost, so easily lived...

Honestly, right here right now. It all seems so simple. The whole "it" of it looks soo good. :D 'Tis nice to be in this place. A place where I have NO idea what I am doing, no idea what I'm gonna be doing and sure as hell not thinkin about whats done. Some say its a shitty place to be in, that one has to know one's path or heck atleast one's position in life. But here I am, 11:50PM Sept.17th 2004, feeling totally high only 'coz I've cleared my mind of all things. Not that there was much to clear, but whatever vestiges of sense were lying in there I got rid o'em. I'm in this place not so frequently but I am every once in a while. These are the times, when I feel that writing is not a big deal, when creativity seems like a whole dosh of crap, when my skull feels lighter than usual...and boy, it feels like there's a draught of air in there right now...:-S weeeehoooooooo!! Ramblings of a maniacal schizophrenic is what these characters typed in notepad are. Utter dosh. Total crap. and so much fun. :p

Fine, the above shit was typed out just to get me flowing. Just to get myself thinking again. Just to fill up that empty space in there. To get my feet outta the wet cement over on the writer's block. Not a nice place to be I tell you. The wet cement's composed of all the energy-sucking thingies ever. It gets to you, it makes you stay in there, it makes you believe that life is good when lived by reading alone, it hurts. :| Yeah balls! ANYways.

Herd mentality. Two words I used to scoff at, two words I loathed, two words oft-repeated by one of my friends around this place. Well, time for a reality check. What have I exactly done in these past three years on campus? What have I done differently(if) in any way? What have I done? The answers are seemingly easy, just like so many things in life. I've had fun, loads of it. In more ways than one, the campus has been my life. By campus I mean the people and not the trees, benches, buffaloes and other such scenic beauties. Next answer, when it comes to life, probably some things done differently, but this is not about life - is it? This is about that elusive point of herd mentality I'm trying hard to grasp. Lastly, what I did do is follow the invisible pied piper. Ah, here it is. The point is I, even after learning once, am ready to hop along that trodden path. The path trodden by a million and then some. I shall put this explicitly in the next few lines and shall refrain from black-n-white generalisations.

Its been three years in this college, I stand at the crossroads of careerpaths as such, the clock's happily ticking away - the fingers pointing to the hour of decisions. Final year, like so many other students, I've made up my mind(mostly) about what to do. Here's the interesting bit, that decision about what to "do" is completely shrouded by the bigger question "what to learn?". CAT, GRE, Ph.Ds, GATE or jumping headlong into a job? Before delving into the details, its prudent that I say that this article talks about the majority of the people, not the rare few who know exactly what they're going to be five years from now. For most, the paths are clear, the decisions are definitely not, the motives even more unjustified.

Three years back, when I attended counselling, it was all so clear, so lucid. To be an engineer, to contribute in my own way in changing the face of some small technology somewhere. I place the blame squarely on myself for the fact that I have not done any such thing nor am I in anyway "an engineer". But along came the placements, first company and I'm placed. 4 companies along and 250 of us placed. Woohoo? Don't think so, time for some serious re-thinking. Look at the job-profiles, look at the kind of work. I'm not exactly lambasting the whole software industry here, but let me simply take stock of the situation here. Different cases - the student who's worked his behind off to get 91.6% in his electronics/mechanical/civil subjects, the student for whom software is a passion - in whose blood the lines of the coding matrix flow - and lastly, guys like me. First case, this is a person who may have got that exceptional %age by completely understanding the concepts of his subjects, by inculcating the fundas of the discipline into himself or by simply following the exam papers and grinding the heck out of the textbooks. Eitherways, the effort comes to a nil. None of that knowledge is viable now. Last case next, guys who've just about managed a 70%+ in the acads by playing ball under the floodlights of a reading lamp till the wee hours of the morning before the exam(one-day batting - so to say), guys who may or may not know the concepts, guys who may be slightly or not at all proficient in coding n such. The middle ground. Good speaking skills, good enough to shoot baloney at the companies coming down as to how "the acads are not important" and you're through. Then the software gurus, this is the sad bit, most of the MNCs coming down have downright menial work laid out for the freshies at their offices. Do you really see the coding god with knowledge in 18 languages making history at TCS? I don't. Lets now look at the other options, CAT and a Masters Degree.

CAT, how many of us are into it for the lure of the lucre? For the glamour of being branded a "future CEO"? For being the "head honcho" of an M-N-C? I shan't lie and say that I'm aiming for CAT for other reasons, but how many of us are really giving CAT for the right reasons? I don't even want to know. How many of them would be really capable managers? Sadly, all of them. 'Coz thats what the IIMs are there for I guess. How many of them really enjoy what they're doing? I don't know. Maybe you would. How many of us are doing what we're doing because thats we want to do? Sigh.

Is this what you bargained for? Is this what we want? Do we have a choice? Last question easiest answered, no. We may not have a choice, we may not even care to see above the madding crowd and look for that choice. We may not care to look inside ourselves and ask ourselves what we really want from life. Whistling Syko in his blog put it so well and so succintly, its passion that drives the world, its passion that gives life, its passion that creates, that invents, that innovates, that lives. More important than that, its the beauty of knowing YOUR passion. All the above paras mostly refer to people who instead of knowing what they want from life, continue to do things because they're clear about what they don't want from their lives.

Blame me for seeing the worst case scenario, blame for having a possibly caustic outlook on the future. But heck, these thoughts have been in my head for a looong while now and if it seems like I'm typing out mostly disconnected thoughts - it is that way wonly. Thoughts that have been killing me. My only hope when I started this BIG post was to in some way put my thoughts concisely and forcefully. As always I've flopped miserably. All I hope is that, from this point onwards atleast in life, most of us do what we are meant to be - not set out to achieve what is a de facto standard set by others. Its sad that we live in a country whose "individuals" are proud to constitute >60% of the workforces in leading industries worldwide but in reality are reduced to nothing but the masses. That quality education that is cooked up here in so many corners is seemingly wasted. I wish I knew what I had a problem with exactlly - I don't though. I wish that everyone would be an individual. I wish all of us would live to live. I wish I knew how to live.

(EDIT : The following text is typed on 21st Oct!)

Point is, here I am doing the same thing I did 4 years back. Aiming for a course I know jack-shit of. But dammit, do I want it or what! I may want it for all the wrong reasons, but I do want it. I want it for reasons beyond the course itself, I'm here for the competition, I'm here for the test rather than the course. Whatever it is, I'm here. 30 days to go to get there. Wish me luck.

If you've read till this point, you're awesome. *bows down*

Payne

October 2nd, 1:21 AM. Captain's Log.

Just watched Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. Bloody awesome it is. Grinned for the most part, watched in awe at the utter overaction towards the end, laughed at the background score doing the typppical danger routine and shed two whole tears at the end. Two whole tears, yes. I do not cry too much at the movies, no wait, I do not cry at the movies, no wait, I do not go to "the movies"....no wait, I do not cry. Yes. Anyway, the last movie I actually came close to shedding one whole tear was Remember The Titans, and the one before that was Sommersby. The former is an out-n-out american football movie, the latter...well the latter is kinda mushy-wushy. I like sports movies...I really do. Watch RTT and watch Varsity Blues while you're at it...heck even, Any Given Sunday... Geez! Anyways, DDLJ, awesome movie it is. Why? Cuz its the frigging epitome of indian cinema...the mother of all bollywood flicks if I may dare say. Its got every frigging element that makes the counters tick and yet it never fails to impress moi. You know why? (obviously U don't...this is ME we're talkin bout..geez!) Cuz it ain't got annny irritatin, irksome, fucked-up PESTS screwing with the flow of the movie. Or so I think, coz I watched only the last 1:15Hrs and I have no clue what happened prior to that...my long term memory is pretty short, you see. In that 1:15Hrs, DDLJ made me believe in the power of hindi cinema again, it made me think "ytf don't I watch more of this?!"....well maybe I should. Especially now, now when indian cinema is breaking new frontiers. Or tearing through new frontiers should I say...or ripping apart the curtains to broader horizons....Yes, the movie in question here is "Shaque", with Ms. Janki Shah showing us all a bit of what Indian cinema has been missing all these years. Lets not go over the top here now shall we? :-D This could just be an indicator of things to come...that is, if the censor-board doesn't nip this in the bud now...

O.k. Enough of the double entendres already. I've had it with my share of puns for the night. The whole sidetracking of the issue towards Shaque has neatly cleansed my brain of all remnants of the magical experience of DDLJ. Damn, its easy to be distracted nowadays with the power of the internet I tell you. Tauba Tauba also seems to setting new standards in sleaze...noicce. Back to DDLJ, watch it again...and again ppls, its a course in "How to make cinema work. In spite of ALL the songs and all the hamming and all the dipshits." Long title I know, but I'm never known to be concise anyways.

This is me. Out for now.

Payne.

PS : Do NOT watch Sweet November. You'll only end up dead. Thats good, 'cuz if you survive the movie, there's an outside chance you might end up seeing Mujhse Dosti Karoge, which will lead to your brain slowly, ever so slowly, oozing out of that hole in the back of your neck. Ouch. Male tears. Ouch.! *gross*

- Fevikwik is a not a subsititute for welding

- Driving at 2AM on a totally lonely stretch of highway is something I oughta do more often

- The best moments in life are best enjoyed in retrospect...shit...ain't that true! or atleast for me it is....hmmm...i see a long arsed sentence comin up, so ditch this for now..

- I cannot be "Concise"...ever. I really like to prolong a discussion...no matter if I do or do not have a point...do I ever? I cannot be "Focussed" either...

- I love to talk.

- Better than alll the talking, all the conversations, all the wise-cracks...is the sheer warmth of a comfortable silence....damn, its not often that I would say that.

- I wanna be a rockstar....not a rock-punk-ass-dude...a friggin rockSTAR! emode says I'm one....I dunno why the rest of the world doesn't see the rockstar in me...hmmmph

- I tend to get completely stuck on one song at a time....dammit

- User_kishore has more than his share of max_connections, AND there is an error on line 63...also on line 31, 23, 80 and 69...oh yeah 69 too...:|

- I ain't ever "falling in love" as such...well, not again...:p 

- I like to write stories about death...infact, I think I can ONLY write stories about death....sorrow is an easy emotion to depict...joy/happiness is a very difficult emotion to express...

- placing your glasses under your pillow is a bad idea..."bad idea" pronounced Arnold style....(how the fuck do you spell Schwarznegger?!)

- I miss the blogs...I miss the writing...I miss this part of me...

- I have to study...a shitload...study a shitload

- I don't like numbering my lists...never did...sets me free by not putting a count on the things I could type...or the things I couldn't type...

- I don't like numbering.

- I have free sms...I used to use it...I now hav a broken phone with a great potential for sms'in...which I ain't utilising...I love free sms..

- I now have a broken phone

- I want someone to sms....someone with free sms... :D

- I'll remember these past 2 weeks for a while to come...memories to cherish for a lifetime n then some...

- TP's post on how we all live life in the past...is sooo friggin true...awesome post.

- maybe, just maybe....maybe I, finally, couldn't give a rats' ass about hit-counts anymore...:)

- I love english...the language as such.

- This is starting to border on spam....

That thingy called conscience is acting up again...shall go study and do other such things....missed this space...missed this space like crazy...I shall get back...:D

This is a very boring/bored post indeed....:p

Bored me.

Payne

2AM, September 4th 2004. Dungeon of pain

Its 2AM, my eyes are starting to register the first hints of a sleep debt, a humongous sleep debt. Its 2AM, September 4th, 2004. Its 2 hours into the day of my college life. Or is it?

This has been one nerve-wrackingly tense night. For the past 12 hours, there's been nothing but planning, planning and planning. Trying to come up with contingency plans,...etc... At 10PM it hit us, or atleast it hit me. All the enthu associated with organising the event simply overshadowed all the fears which SHOULD have crept up.

Its 2:15AM, now, those fears are still fresh. Driving home on a completely lonely highway at this time is one heckuva bloody experience. Wow. Those fears have brought out about infinite questions starting with "What if....".

Its 2:23AM now, when I'm worried I tend to check the time a lot. Heck, I even count the seconds. Thats just me. Its been a while since I've blogged. But tonight, sitting in the campus which I'd practically lived in for the past 3 years, sitting there at 1AM,  alone, looking around at all the juniors...Man, still can't believe it. This is happening. This is it. These are words which most of you won't associate with, but this is just a worried me typing out what my mind is trying to comprehend.

Its 2:25AM now, the sleep debt reckons. Its time for payback. 3 hours atleast.

7hrs to go...

Payne

This be the poster :D :D

MORE free publicity!! :p

'Tis been a while ain't it? Well, when you're a ghost driving down hell's highways thats what happens. You tend to get involved in the drive, in dying in the moment, again and again, reliving or redying those few moments again and again. You just love to see those images over n over, its like having your own lil DVD of your life, an interesting collection of images which obviously meant the most to you in that life. Actually, its a bit boring on this side, it maybe surreal as hell, but it is boring. To login into your virtual laptop everyday and just comment and nothing else, try to keep up that facade of coolness, all the while pining to post again. I had an immense urge to come outta my hiatus and post on death again, but that wud be a bit repetitive wouldn't it? And for all those visitors to this site who diligently keep me firmly entrenched in this fifth spot down here, I, as a ghost, feel that I should atleast make grand comebacks once in a while.

Tonight has been another one of those introspective nights, jus like all those nights by myself when I was alive. I spoke to people who questioned my very existence, by "existence" I mean, my mental side. Not mental mental, just that psychotic side of me. Not psychotic dammit, ah yes, the thinking side of me. 'twas the usual "am I who I portray myself to be" conversations, not just with one person but TWO. We dead dudes I tell you, we have too much time.

Ok, enough with the crap already. I didn't post cuz Payne here has been muchos muchos busy. Between hurrying from one conference hall to the other, dishing out "sponsor proposals" for one company or the other, chalking out POAs for THE day, making ideas, creating events, writing bombastic crap and designing. Ah, designing. Where would I be without my good ole pirated copy of Adobe Photoshop? Somewhere else, but heck its nice to ask arbit questions like that once in a while. But there's a limit to my "creative side" (my ass!..hahaha..that pun has so many levels!). So, here I am, all groggy eyed and typing when I oughta be hitting keyboard shortcuts and painting history in the making. Dammit.

Here's some publicity for drp==>> The next time you stop at the traffic lights at punjagutta circle, look up to your right (if you're coming from Somajiguda that is), right up there would be a 40ft by 20ft HOARDING done by D_r_P! :D Couldn't help it! Had to mention that! :D

Oh yeah. September 4th, CBIT. Be there. Live the moment (as such). Get your bums over here, we ARE in a shortage of bums.

To reiterate in redundancy, September 4th. Venue : CBIT, where the sun never sets. (adhe ento..)

Payne

11:38PM, August 13th 2004. Payne's world.

____________________________________________________________

It was a beautiful afternoon. The sky was a majestic shade of auburn. The sun wasn't completely out of hiding just as yet. One of those type of days when you really feel like clicking down the windows(powered) and enjoying the breeze against your face. No real point in turning on the a/c and shutting myself up in this heartless metal box. I say "breeze" only because I was cruising. It was, after all, a beautiful setting and I had every reason to live the moment for all it was worth. You know what they say, right? "Live everyday as if its your last, because one of these days it will be." Well, if all went to plan, this would be my last, so I guess I was justified for living the moment.

That morning, I had no idea life would take me down this very stretch of road, right after a week(of course I didn't, I wasn't some goddamn Nostradamus). Ah yes, the week. Now that I'm telling you -the world- , this, I may as well give an insight or atleast a glimpse into the events which've brought me spiralling down here. This road, another car(smaller), she'd always preferred the small cars. Always referred to the big SUVs as testostorene-oozing trucks, never really understood that, 'coz my mom drove a Chevy. Well, my mom,she's weird that way. Oh shit, I didn't mention who the "she" in the above sentence is. Does it matter? Yes. This is my fucking story and I wanna remember her one last time. Fair, yes that she was,not pale-fair like Suzanne Khan, no ,she was just about right. She had a long-face with ironically, a very small mouth. Ironic, only 'coz she liked to eat a lot but the size of her mouth betrayed her. Sure, she ate a lot, but she was one of those lucky people who never gained weight(Jughead types). People said she was awkwardly tall, to me she was divinely built. Just right, I would say...and then, those eyes. The eyes which had me lost in them, the eyes which helped me find myself again, the eyes which echoed her inner light..tch, I'm drifting here.

The cops had said she was drunk, "inebriated state" so to say. Maybe it was the night before, the argument in which so little had been said to each other, but so much assumed. Maybe it was all those nights leading upto that night. Maybe it was the fact that she didn't know I had taken the evening off to cook up dinner(atleast I tried to cook sometimes), candle-lit and all. It was supposed to be a surprise. Surprise? Sure as hell was. The cops said she must have died in the impact itself, said she wouldn't have felt the pain, it was a matter of moments, so they said. Dingy little car never did have any airbags, not that it'd have saved her. Hope is a cruel thing. The windows were pulled down, just like her. She never liked the a/c, always said it'd isolate her from the world outside....

It was beginning to get hot now. The clouds had given way and the sun was starting to make its presence felt. I still refrained from turning on the a/c. Living the moment I was. Plus, I was nearing the bend anyway... They said I was a good writer, but on this road to perdition I had no idea why I was so tongue-tied, why my thoughts were so incoherent, why I was so short of words in my own mind. At least, I knew why I was doing this, or did I? I knew I wanted to feel what she'd felt in that moment. To see what those breath-taking eyes had seen. No, that was not it. Morbid curiosity, perhaps? Bullshit. I could not live without her, I did not care what those eyes had seen, all I wanted was to look into them once more and have them look back at me. One more time. The bend approached, I was doing more speed than I should have been, but heck, when you are in an accident thats what you do. The break in the fence drew closer by the second. By the time I'd gone past it, I was living more "in the moment" then I'd ever been. A strange sense of weightlessness hit me as all the four wheels left the ground. Within nanoseconds, the car was plummeting down with all the grace of a guided missile. The rocky shale below seemed like it was rushing headlong towards me.

They say that your whole life passes by you in that last moment. Well it did, just like in that movie. My first conscious look at dad, my first day boarding the school bus waving at my mom through tearful eyes, my first crush, the trees on both sides on the way to college, the fight with the school bully, the finals of the state-playoffs, those nights spent dreaming of being a superhero, fleeting glimpses of faces throughtout my life -smiling,angry,crying,peaceful-, walking into college, seeing those eyes for the first time, that kiss behind our block, the sheer thrill of being on the road, graduation day, being on bended knee -with my heart drumming away- waiting for those words, "i do", our song, that wretched mangled piece of metal, those eyes with no life in them. A life which had given me reason to live, a life worth dying for? I blinked, one bead of sweat fell from my eyelid. Before it landed, gravity wrapped up the job. Darkness. The movie in my head had been abruptly halted. Eternal silence.

Me, myself and the road.

We are together all the while now, forever now. That sense of weightlessness courses through my veins. Apparently, killing yourself doesn't get you to the same place as dying accidentally. Those eyes continue to haunt me.

__________________________________________________________

Payne