Monday, September 28, 2009

Testinz brakes mai hartz

So, my employer (for the current timeframe) has mandatory evaluations for all us new folks. Those who don't pass, get another couple of retries, which is generally enough to filter out the worst from the absolutely worst; and then the absolutely worst get thrown out.
Because of a buggy software that evaulates our tests, most of us find ourselves failing. The first time it happened, mass comic hysteria ensued. But the second time around, there was a deep silence. Slowly, things healed, and took the form of a mass agitation. But in that hour of silence, things pulsed in an intangible blob: of emotions and tempers; faces white with horror and tounges ready to tear through anything said lightly, threatening eyes.

But they don't get it, do they? Nobody's at loss here - being in the majority equates to being in power, and able to voice dissent; being in minority means being safe anyways. Moreover, the failure isn't supposed to be taken as a realisation to anything. What's to take from it...nothing. Just leave back blank, or surprised; then go and play Ping Pong or fatten up on [much-needed] sugary foods. Recall all those 'failures are stepping stone to success' quotes again.


This explains a physical detail of those lacking failure-handling-mechanisms, a defect more common to the female species, as has been emperically found.

Some name!

Learnt some history today.
(And snickered like schoolchildren)
this banner somewhere in Bandra W, Mumbai

Scores 0 on the politically-correct scale
(But then you wouldn't laugh at one Mr. Widephallicgirth, would you?)

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

iPod at high altitudes

The iPod Classic specsheet says:
Maximum operating altitude: 10,000 feet (3000 m)

Let me recollect

  • China Peak, Nainital, @2700m

  • Leh, @3500m (remember sitting broke in the compound of our cheap guest house, contemplating arrangement of funds, listening to Keane's "Bedshaped")

  • Chang La, @5300m (on way back from Pangong Tso, with nothing better to do)

  • Ranikhet, @ altitues between 1800-2500m (spot those ipod earbuds there?)

Crabbed out

pincer के दो आगे pincer, pincer के दो पीछे pincer|
आगे pincer, पीछे pincer बोलो कितने pincer?

Had crab for dinner last night! what a monstrous thing to dissect through. I went straight for the pincers. In a land (or a newly moved-into apartment) sans hammers or shell-crackers, I proceeded with wrestling with every joint and ligament, ripping them apart with my bare claws, cracking open the shell with my teeth, sucking in the alien juices, and discovering general anatomy of the crustacean. Large crab, and a proportionally large effort. Karthik and his ma (who'd got the crab for us all the way from Vishakhapatnam) were amused seeing me adapt to it.

Youtube nationals start by teaching you to break open the crust, disposing it away, and savoring the innards. I rather consumed it all - the calcium-y shell in small chips, breaking them off, then grinding them with my semi-healthy teeth; still waiting for my tummy for final report to that.

It is hard to imagine being put in a boiling cauldron, die, coagulate into a lump, then being savoured - that too on a scale of millions each day. Chopping off heads, like we do to hen, is much less cruel - though this cruelty starts on a whole different scale.

Monday, September 21, 2009

That guy who's always looking at pictures of men

"What are you looking at?", asked a girl inquisitively. She had been annoyed/distracted by my engagement with scrolling through pictures of men on the office computer screen - shy, introvert men posing no different than how they would for their matrimony pictures, or on adultfriendfinder. It was a happy moment to see somebody taking an interest in my interests, but an awkward one because her interest was on a thought/assumption plane that could only project me as a deviant. I immediately rubbished her notions by questioning back if she knew any of the faces. She obviously didn't.
There might be either of the two explanations for this:
a. She has a life; I'm in a nutshell world of my own
b. I'm a cool geek who knows his heroes; she has a life

The men in question are the Superman of computer industry - Claude Shannon, Leonard Adleman, Phil Zimmerman...covered in an article on 60yrs of the cryptography. And it's not my fault if all the icons of the computer industry have been men. Ada Lovelace is the only girl I recall, but maybe she's too outdated to even be mentioned anymore.

On hindsight, maybe because there haven't been any sexual competition in the computer industry is why the dorky bunch TURNS OUT TO BE dorky. They can be and act free, on their own will, because they know that the future of their species won't be affected by any observations here (it's like a female harem - where the girls grow vivacious, social, expressive).
Everybody is at equal ease, in a state of Nirvana, only as long as they keep on mashing the keys and thinking in boolean.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Divine Births

There are many Indian women, who, barren from the womb several years into their marriage - even after following the chaste practise of avoiding sexual contact - desire to have a child. They visit these new-age 'doctors' who sit in offices (and also offer you a chair), but their treatments are obviously ineffective (after all, injections don't make a new baby... unless one is being injected parts of a newborn child that will reassmble into a baby inside the womb). So they turn to those whose science has been proven since ages - or India wouldn't have been the most fertile land - the sages. They are better known as Tantriks, because of their affiliation to Lord Shiv, Bob-Marley looks, and a penchant for the the kinda stuff you see on death-porn websites.
These Tantriks are people with record meditation times, resulting in several superpowers and a direct tele-conferencing line to the God. They are the authority on Black Magic, summoning spirits to do things for them. They are also considered dangerous and malevolent, though why an explanation of the same can't find anything beyond their practise of mutilating live hen and puppies is confounding.

Many claim to have been blessed with children after visiting these Tantriks. The skeptics accuse the Tantriks of mind control, seduction, finally leading into the act of undercover procreation. "It's scientifically impossible" is their cry. However, the truth is far from that. The truth is too scientific.

MORE COMING SOON...

Burn My Shadow Away

Only low, strained, congested cries would come from his throat, as he gasped for everything that could help him survive. The flames had consumed him, charring him with every ticking moment, and he was aware of the explosion that would take place at any moment now. In his failing senses, all that he could comprehed were his friends at a distance, running towards him in apprehension. He wished they would rescue him. But at the same time he was also content at the thought of liberation into the unconscious, and of liberation from these flames boring into him from every side - his zest for all life negated in the fraction of a second. The symbols from recent past made him realise that what was happening was for good, for he deserved this...he needed this. He was missing it.

We roll into a few seconds back in time, when he was walking into the kitchen, sullen, with eyes that could break into a stream of tears at any moment. This phenomenon would be interesting, for he was known to be quite gutsy when it came to tough situations and emotional moments.

We roll back another 5 minutes, when he had just woken up into a surreal world, right after a surreal dream. Everything was normal, yet something was amiss. He stared into the large mirror alongside him, as he still lay on the bed. To his confusion, it was his own self staring back at him - but standing erect, returning back a snigger that conveyed both mockery and pity.

And now another couple of minutes back, when he, asleep, found himself living a surreal dream - without realising it then. In that world he was seated on his cot, as he usually would, staring across the marbled floor, as he would usually do, but at a sight that would make him rub his eyes over and over - lush forests of the himalayas and steep valleys. They were summoning him in his vision. This was what he was missing.

I was relieved that I didn't wake up into death. Just those congested cries, and a bemused Rohit staring at me.

Friday, September 04, 2009

Confusion

Cruising in a car, being hit from the right, waking up senseless to a jolt of the train - a jarring romance between the metal. A smorgasbord of imageries leading towards nothing. Confusion.
To think better I'll have to find out the state I'm in, more confusion. Others seem more 'into it' - into the moment - than I am. Either these are hints of a stability, or being careless, or not seeing the true face of things.

Picking up some of the dust from Rabindranath's footsteps, and I'm already in great awe. First was his poem 'Stream of Life', introduced through much of the planet through Matt Harding's video. Continuing on, I now am in the possession of the most gripping of poems I've read, in this short anthology 'Poems from Puravi' lying as a nondescript little booklet next to me. The purity, vividity, and holistic nature of his depictions will linger forever, and then I'll crave to re-read them.
I already do crave. I already am going through the pages again.

City B

Weekend blogger - thats what I never intend to be. But change of events and geographies on my side have pushed me here today, posting something - long, long time after - on this Saturday.

City B slowly unravels, the dynamics are educational and quite redeeming. The social fracas of a different kind, the smiles of a new face, the mud splashes from a new road material, weekenders high on a different street food, rainwater from salty seas nearby; a city of shying sun and dominating clouds.

In the meantime, Velvet Underground's "Perfect Day" (of Trainspotting fame) has become the most endearing song in recent months, and the grinder that 'Mixie Wale Sardarji' at Kingsway Camp fixed for me has become my favorite (and only) kitchen tool, giving me banana shakes day after day.