Some days...
Neurotron | 19 November 2004, 4:57pm
Some days everything just seems to fall into place. Looks like all your plans are going to pan out...and everything's gonna be just fine.
Now, all ya gotta do is sit back, relax, and wait for it all to get buggered.
Like the wise man said, in times such as these, you would do well to remember the first law of constipation:
"Good shit comes to those who wait."
Current Mood: Bored
Current Music: Eireann - Afro Celt Sound System (the Kambakhth Ishq original - for all those losers who thought it was wonderful and original)
Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)
Whykings
Neurotron | 16 November 2004, 11:33am
Pioneers are essentially ‘Why-kings’ – those who constantly ask ‘why?’ or ‘why not?’
Just like the Vikings. In many ways, the Vikings were pioneers, in terms of exploration of the lands around them, for instance. In those times, that was arguably the best or only way human knowledge was considered expandable. Leaving aside the argument of their reasons for exploration or invasion, their very endeavour reveals an underlying human trait – the quest for understanding what lies beyond.
And yet, we do not, by and large, encourage questions from those who ask the most fundamental ones – children. It is said that Einstein was able to achieve what he did because he asked the simplest questions, as a child might. What if a person traveled as fast as the light from the headlight of this train? I believe his ideas on relativity stemmed from a clock he saw on a station platform, as he was traveling home from work. And the very basic questions he asked himself about the relative passage of time for someone on the platform and someone traveling at the speed of light were what gave rise to one of the most celebrated scientific theories in human history.
When I was young, I remember most of my questions to my father, about anything, were almost invariably answered by something which amounted to “why do you need to know?” Thankfully, my mother encouraged my questioning mind and helped me learn how to find answers to them. I remember, at around the age of 9 or so, I used to ask a fair number of questions about how much things cost. A chocolate, a soft drink, the servants’ salary, a car. It probably stemmed from a desire to understand the relative value of things. Which becomes increasingly important as a child grows up. I was almost never told what anything cost. This just might explain why I am hopeless at bargaining.
Few things are as irritating as people who question just for the heck of it, or to appear smart. But every time we shush a curious child without at least trying to explain the world to them, we just might be repressing genius. There is a fine line between raising a genuinely inquisitive child to think constructively and creating a painfully supercilious know-it-all. Every parent can only hope their kids turn out alright. If I have a child, I can only hope I will find the fortitude and patience to answer all his questions, and the courage to admit I don’t know the answers to everything.
Let us nurture our Whykings. Let us temper their curiosity and not dismiss their innocent queries as ridiculous. Let us help them on their journey of discovery of this thing we call life. They may teach us something yet – about what we think are our limitations and how we can surpass them.
Everybody can be a teacher, everybody a student.
Current Mood: Thoughtful
Current Music: The Spirit Carries On - Dream Theater
Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (8) | Trackbacks (0)
Wind on Skin
Neurotron | 5 November 2004, 12:47pm
A wealth of memories, frittered
carelessly, prodigal child
Fingers burnt by touching your skin
I watch them turn to ash
and scatter in the nonchalant wind.
She cares not for my pain
though healed in parts, scabby
She picks at it, intermittently
and I indulge her,
How foolish, you say
Maybe.
Blow hot, tormentor, blow
over the raw skin, but let it be slow
so I can feel the peeling
Blow cold, nurturer, blow
over trapped time, so I can know
when began the healing.
Current Mood: Cold
Current Music: Set the controls for the heart of the Sun - Pink Floyd
Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (7) | Trackbacks (0)
False
Neurotron | 1 November 2004, 4:17pm
Here, take these words of yours.
No, no, with the right.
Grip them, with all your might
Now, plunge them deep into my flesh.
But wait! Let me turn around first.
I’d like you to feel right at home.
Here, let’s have a look at those shifty eyes.
Mirror you for what you are
Sly, furtive, wannabe, pseudo rock star
Then, hit me across my face with your falseness
But wait! Let me turn around first.
I’d like you to feel right at home.
How is it you can wait
years, with those seedlings of hate
now sprouting blooms of black
waiting to sting, blood taste
as soon as I turn my back...
Current Mood: Irreverent
Current Music: Breathing Light - Nitin Sawhney
Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (10) | Trackbacks (0)
Morning after.
Neurotron | 28 October 2004, 10:42am
The fragrance of the night past still lingers on
the struggling silences bursting at the seams,
talking to lazy sunbeams
jealous of the painful beauty and my complete lack of attention
Ethereal wraith, you rise and my spirits follow
even before my first wave of emotion has been ridden
to the hilt, faced the bullets, senses forbidden
pleasures lying there, spent shells, though not forever hollow.
Memories, filtered and crystallized
reluctant drops of mercury register the latent heat
as my mind walks forgotten chemical streets
you return with fiery spheres of ice
Quench.
Current Mood: Thoughtful
Current Music: Lady - Colonial Cousins (more the video, actually)
Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (8) | Trackbacks (0)
Laugh...
Neurotron | 18 October 2004, 2:55pm
...but try to stop before you become incontinent.
After ages, my office firewalling system didn’t block imdb.com. Man, that site is addictive! If you’re a movie/tv buff, that is THE place. It’s like Neurotron in friggin' Wonderland when I go there... I’m just sorta wandering thru the pages, clicking on random links (bless my office for 100 Mbps net)…I LOVE that site.
Search for Saturday Night Live and you get links. Then, on the left, you get ‘memorable quotes’. I spent about 25 minutes looking at Chris Rock’s shows. My stummick started hurting with laughter after about 10. Then I made the ill-advised (but immensely enjoyable and totally not-regretted) trip over to Ali G. If you haven’t heard of him, or have never watched him in action, or don’t understand the Brit sense of humour and subcultures, you may not find it all that funny. But I had to keep stuffing my fist into my mouth to stop laughing out loud. People staring, me not caring – it was all good.
As it is, I’m a misfit here. I keep to my corner, look at strange sites...no, not those sites! (Those are all blocked, the damn things...) But sites with lot of ‘English’, and dark gothic sites, and sites of ‘English Rock Bands’, and ‘Blogs’... nobody has a friggin clue here, except one or two. Man, one day I will do a post on ‘My colleagues and other animals’. I have half of it done already.
But laughing is good. Very.
Current Mood: Cheerful
Current Music: Californication - RHCP
Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (11) | Trackbacks (0)
Bike for sale
Neurotron | 14 October 2004, 1:39pm
I guess this is as good a forum as any.
I would like to sell my bike. The details are as follows.
Hero Honda Splendor, Black, 99 September model. 34000 km done. It is in excellent driving condition. All original parts, very regularly serviced. New battery, clutch plates and rear wheel tube. With accessories - saree guard and tail light guard. Believe me, these accessories are a must. I've seen people refuse to buy a tail light guard because it doesn't look 'cool' or something, but I think it makes the bike look coolER. And I've seen brand new bikes get tail lights broken because some moron behind in traffic didn't brake in time. I believe some of the newer bikes don't even have this facility - the guy in the Honda showroom (for the Unicorn) didn't even KNOW what a tail light guard was.
These two accessories alone cost more than 500 bucks now.
It's been single user throughout. It's difficult to know the value of that fact, but people who know how careful a rider I am will vouch for it. Even after 5 years, the bike gives a mileage of 60, at least, in city driving conditions and 70 on highways. The pickup is not too bad, and does really well with a single rider. Of course, the pickup drops with pillion, but hey, it's a 100 cc 4-stroke bike - it has its limitations!
Lastly, I believe the number means a lot to some people, so I'll put that here too. I'm told it's a 'fancy number' - AP10 M 7008.
The asking price is Rs 25,000 and I've reached this figure after checking out quite a few other Splendors on the second hand market. I honestly believe my bike is worth it.
If anyone is interested, they are most welcome to contact me and check out the bike. Please leave your phone number and/or email id in the comments section, or mail me at theprocrastinator@rediffmail.com
I am looking to sell within the next week or two - I will be putting an ad in the papers as well. So if you're interested, let me know asap!
Current Mood: Bye!
Current Music: Bye bye love...*sniff*
Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (31) | Trackbacks (0)
Disjointed.
Neurotron | 13 October 2004, 12:19pm
...and then, there's 'Maakafite', or it may be 'Maakafight', or even 'Maakafyte' (nobody has clearly defined it, hence the spelling is open to interpretation and phonetics)
Wha...??
In Hyderabad, even 'Maaki kirkiri' makes sense. Go figure.
Apparently, my office comp needs a 3D accelerator graphics card. It couldn't handle the brutality of the 70 consecutive games of 3D Pool I played yesterday, added to the 50 of the day before. So the screen was inverted when I turned on the comp this morning. Even the IT helpdesk guys had never seen anything like it. So let me get this straight - it's worth giving me a brand new comp worth some 60K, with a 100 Mbps net connection, but NOT worth giving me a graphics card? How am I ever going to completely experience the wonder that is Quake 3 or even NFS whichever version?? C'mon people! Let's get some perspective here!
My job rocks.
It's time to say goodbye to Monique. It's been 5 lovely years, with some really, really lovely memories. I was her first, she was mine. Fidelity, stamina, patience...she had it all. My friends had a saying about us, which they would tell newbies - 'you can ask him for his wife and you may get her, but don't ask for Monique' (translated from the original Telugu). But the time has come for a change. I believe I gave her a fair run, and I can only hope the next guy will treat her as well as I have.
I think I need a more powerful bike now.
Pulsar was the first idea. Now I've been asked to consider Honda's new Unicorn. I would do it too, because I think I can probably trust a Honda engine anywhere. Gotta do it soon though...I only have a year left (hopefully).
But, problem.
After checking out the bikes, I see there's not much to choose between them, really. Except the Unicorn is gonna take 85 FRIGGIN DAYS for delivery! And I can get the Pulsar in 3 hours. Oh...my...God...what a tough decision.
Pffft..yeah, right.
Thank you for flying Disjointed Airways. Your captain was The Neurotron, who is about to lose it very soon. Wanna stick around? We is gonna keep flaaayin maan...where be dat spliff?
Current Mood: Bored
Current Music: Money - Pink Floyd
Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (17) | Trackbacks (0)
Ride
Neurotron | 7 October 2004, 10:37am
There was something about the way she gently placed her hand on his shoulder. It said something about trust, about affection. They hardly spoke as he drove, it didn’t matter where anymore. It was almost like every cell on his back felt her fingertips. Waited, breathlessly, for the tentative brush. He yearned for the touch to be more forceful, to indicate a quiet confidence. Bur he knew that would somehow detract from the feeling, which was now more than just a physical presence of her hand on his shirt.
He wanted so much to tell her how much he enjoyed this. How he hadn’t felt this way in years. How a quiet shudder surges through his bones when she puts her arms around his waist and puts her head on his shoulders. But he also wanted all of these to come of her own volition – not as a conscious effort because he told her.
But then, he’d never known how to tell her...
Current Mood: Thoughtful
Current Music: You - Radiohead
Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)
Yours.
Neurotron | 24 September 2004, 11:43am
Sheets of blank paper.
Write. Write me a story. Write me a poem. Write our story. Our story inverse, in verse. Write till the words become an extension of your body. Write till each letter feels like a piece of your heart. Write like the poet you are. Write me a play which lasts a lifetime. Write till you feel giddy with excitement. Write our names a million times in invisible ink, so you can write over and over like on a sandy beach. Then write them once with indelible ink, like the picture in your mind of the most beautiful thing you ever saw.
Sheets of empty canvas.
Paint. Paint your love. Paint till the colours ebb and flow, like emotional tidal waves that wash over you and me. That leave me, drained, on the shores, where I can follow your footsteps in the sand to a home in the woods. Paint the tears that run down, like raindrops on windowpanes, like happiness into your soul. Paint me the future. Paint me a fairytale. Fill in the gaping holes in my body with the warm hues of the look in your eyes. Paint me pretty pictures of us in the sun, in the rain, in the cold, in the ocean, through the storm, in starry nights, in wide open fields, trapped in a thought, flying through hidden caves, drowning in words, drowning in silences; so I can hang them on the walls of our little world.
Sheets of unfilled tablature lines.
Sing. Compose the tune my heart sings at the sight of you. Sing like nobody but I can hear you. Sing till your throat burns like my skin at your touch. Sing till you can see us dancing, tiptoeing around the notes. Sing till the dawn finds us wrapped in technicolor dreams and drenched in wine. Sing till we get thrown out of the opera for being unruly. Sing till the melody runs right through you and makes you shiver in summer, like you sometimes do. Sing me a wave of joy so high it crashes like a clap of thunder and leaves us breathless and laughing like mad children. Sing me a song more beautiful than yesterday and call it tomorrow.
These sheets are yours. Fill them, for they are me.
Current Mood: Mooney
Current Music: The one you and I make together...the beautiful kind.
Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)
Stop...clicking...dammit!!!
Neurotron | 22 September 2004, 10:42am
What’s with computer repair technicians and their incessant mouse-clicking?
This guy came home to look at the comp yesterday. And during the course of the repair, I noticed he just could NOT stop clicking. Click, click, click….clickclickclickclickclick! It was driving me nuts! I mean, are you doing that just to show me what a friggin' genius you are and that computers are just too slow for you? Why click-and-drag to highlight words you are reading on an 'instructions' page?? Must you look at the ‘Properties’ of EVERYTHING???
He started some application, and even while it was starting up, he just HAD to click! All over the desktop. Why, moron, WHY??? And don’t even get me started on refreshing. It was as if he thought if he doesn’t refresh the desktop, which has not been changed at ALL mind you, every 3.25 seconds, he would become incontinent or the computer would castrate him or something. If he doesn’t click a gazillion times, in quick succession, right NOW, he will have bad luck for the next seven years and never find true love, or catch some genital-specific, extremely morbid but non-fatal disease. In fact, I was half hoping something like that would happen. It was all I could do to stop myself from actually running to the kitchen, bringing out the hatchet we use on irritating guests, and making this guy a leftie for life.
It was like that scene in ‘True Lies’, where Arnie is driving in a car with the guy who’s hitting on his wife, and he imagines punching him and killing him. I was almost smiling at the picture of the now non-clicking guy (because he didn’t have a hand anymore), when I hear ‘Loose connection, saar.’ Whatever, man. Just fix it and get the hell out. He fixed the problem...but kept sitting there...and...aaarrRRRRGGHHH!!!!
In case you are wondering, he still has both hands. At least, for the moment.
If ever you are working on a comp, and I’m around, I’m sure you now know what NOT to do.
Current Mood: Angry
Current Music: chop chop hack chop.
Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)
Huh?
Neurotron | 21 September 2004, 2:17pm
Saale!! Hum tumhari maa behen ek kar denge!!
Huh?
I mean, what IS that? It doesn't even make sense, leave alone being insulting. I've heard my friends, more often than not from the northern parts of the country, scream this at the guys we were warning or fighting with. And I always wondered, just because you said maa AND behen in the same sentence, it becomes an insult? How can you make someone's mother and sister 'one'? I used to have to stop myself from laughing whenever I heard this.
Any northies reading this - care to explain?
Current Mood: Confused
Current Music: Black - Pearl Jam
Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)
At last.
Neurotron | 20 September 2004, 4:45pm
There is something so amazingly liberating about taking the plunge.
Into waters you've been in before. Waters usually cold, almost always murky when you're in deep, and with monsters you've faced and lost to before. But to plunge headfirst inspite of the knowledge - extremely foolhardy, extremely liberating. But, then, it's not love if you don't feel like a fool every so often.
There is something so amazingly liberating about burning stuff. My current favorite: old bridges.
Some bridges are worth renovating. Today, I burn my Millennium Bridge. A structurally defective piece, built largely on hope and faith, and an investment of millions in emotional currency. But a ferry service will still run across the river, for now. If there is sufficient cause, maybe the bridge will be rebuilt. If there is even less cause, maybe the ferry will be made an annual event. It may not stop entirely because we are still, after all, neighbours from just across the river. And there is history.
There is something so amazingly liberating about saying it out loud.
I should know - I did it yesterday.
Current Mood: Happy
Current Music: Alive - Pearl Jam
Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)
Office-tential angst
Neurotron | 17 September 2004, 3:39pm
What do you do when the person you are most disappointed with is yourself?
And what is it whith people and accepting responsibility? Why shy away from it? If you have done something wrong or not as desired, and you know it or have been made to realise it, where's the shame in saying " Yes, I see how I could have done better. It won't happen again."?
Office politics is such a bitch. Shows the true nature and character of people. I find it very difficult to associate myself with people who lack integrity and/or moral courage. Over the past year, I have been listening to various people at different levels in the hierarchy talk about others. Ok, so some grumbles are justified. No problems with that. But why would you go back and kiss the ass of the same person you just put down? How can you smile and share pleasantries and gossip about OTHER people, like you have nothing against this person, and you loooove him / her? It's disgusting.
I can maintain a working professional relationship with people. I find that after hearing stuff about some people, mostly justified, I lose a little respect for them. Let's you and I keep our interaction at a professional level, have a few lighter moments now and then. But don't expect me to grin at you like a moron or kiss up to you. Stop wondering why I don't do that stuff with you anymore - my self-respect is more important to me than your ego.
What's with kissing up to bosses? I just don't get it. Fine, keep them happy, do your job well and stop being in their faces all the time. THAT'S how they will respect you and want you to work for them. Not if you keep going to them all the fucking time for every small thing; or if you keep blaming others for work not done just because you want to maintain a clean sheet. I'd much rather have a sheet with a few inconsistencies here and there and be responsible about it. At least that way, I can face them next time with dignity.
I am disappointed with myself because I didn't meet a deadline. The job had two parts, mine being slightly larger. Ok, so the person doing the other half didn't finish on time either, and the job cannot be submitted without both parts. But that's no excuse for not finishing my part on time. When I realised she wasn't going to finish in time either, I slowed down a bit and took time to go over the stuff again and check if I'd made any mistakes. In between, she sneaked in her half-baked job just so it would look like she finished before I did. What a shame. I just grinned and thought - you are not worth my disgust. You can't even take pride in knowing that though late, you at the very least turned in a good job. Sadly, the fact that will be counted in the final analysis is whether it was in time or not - not quality. So I guess I lose. But that's ok - I don't mind so much.
Some days you lose, other you lose badly. What counts is whether YOU think you won or lost. And make no mistake - winning IS everything.
Current Mood: Angry
Current Music: One man army - Prodigy [thats what I am here. Fuck you snivelling weasels]
Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)
......
Neurotron | 15 September 2004, 10:02am
Over the rhythmic rattle of the train, he heard her quietly say 'Yes.' And they laughed, and trespasses were forgotten like blades of grass along the tracks. Time was strawberry jam on toast, and space, warm butter.
Current Mood: Thoughtful
Current Music: Breathe - Telepopmuzik
Posted in General | Permalink | Comments (7) | Trackbacks (0)