Sunday, December 30, 2012

eons

I need not kill for you.
You need not love me anymore.
They need not know about it all.
We need not acknowledge each other anymore.
Nothing feeds the seed to need
Unless the need is in the seed
Itself a part of our genetic code.
Which means our love,
Isn't merely a day old.

Friday, December 28, 2012

Paradoxical Me

Paradoxical undressing occurs in 25 to 50 percent of hypothermia sufferers, who are often found partially undressed.

This may be caused by the hypothalamus, the temperature-regulation area of the brain, malfunctioning due to the cold. Hypothermia sufferers also tend to exhibit animal-like responses to cold in seeking small, enclosed spaces, similar to hibernation.

Been there, done that.
Just a month and a half back, that would've been me, at 3220m, at 2AM of a sub-zero night, on India's most famous alpine meadows, all alone (okay, with one other person, equally inebriated and out of senses).

Paradoxial undressing happens when a hypothermic body is about to die, the muscels restricting the flow of blood to the extremities let go, and blood flow returns, giving the feeling of a hot flush, and the person then undresses because they feel hot.

Woo! closest to death I've ever been...

Re: Fwd: no joke

how long before i can do it right
how long that i can get it right
getting getting
fretting fretting
under the crimson sky
oh what a setting

unemployment. doing nothing. of no worth. like i am, presently, is no small deal. im gaining conscience of being economically or socially worth nothing. what im upto, is absolutely nothing, like a void. im losing time, im losing money, im losing societal understanding, im losing workaholic perspective. its like running head first into a wall of all your insecurities. when your cerebellum deduces you are worth nothing, and only losing what you have, it shoots a signal into the nerval sky that sends all muscles jingling and tendons straining like dogs who are in excitement of anticipating their prey. im enjoying this phase. its worth what it is. it is an understanding of oneself. its a spiritual thing, if spirituality is what i can produce. now i know more.

Friday, December 21, 2012

My feet are dancing again. I feel all the younger.
The younger I feel, the younger I become. The younger I become, the more stupid I wanna be. Not the reckless kind of stupid; neither the cello-dropping-inebriated stupid; but the type that does Manali to Leh on a single breath, the type that leaves right now on another adventure.
See you soon, world.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Undeciphered

I realize that I'll be going - away from it all. The human nature, however, will remain undeciphered. The going would only be a physical act - no metaphor. For I won't be going away from anything that I don't already have or that I already don't. I won't be going away from anything I can't win or anything I can lose. I will leave with no language or pick a new one. I will leave with no regrets or pick any new ones.
I will leave in a fog and find myself standing in one, lost, with a white dazzle in front of my eyes, all around me, all inside me.


Delhi Rape FTW


As they say, you can't keep a fish out of the water for too long...
You can't keep brutal rape out of Delhi for too long,
and you can't keep Delhi out of news for too long.
Incredible....err



If the massacre at US schools trigger gun control debate, then will repeated offences against women in India trigger a penis debate? Will semi-automatic erections be banned?

Just this morning, Justice Markandey Katju probably skipped his breakfast to justify his "90% idiot" comment, which he is being threatened to be sued against. Firstly, thanks, the patriotic youth for taking offense against speech; we should all take offense against some speech to declare our complete impotency against greater evil in the actual deeds of malformed social elements. Secondly, Katju should indeed apologise, and correct his wording, from "idiot" to "starved". We're a fractured society, living in starvation of several 'streams of nutrition' (to word it that way) necessary for a healthy organism that a society should be.

Coz they're rapin' everrybody out there!

Monday, December 17, 2012

Watch me


Came across this. Despite that it looks cheesy, I reminded me that I've used that line this year itself.

It was in Spiti, and we'd made it to Chandra Tal on our bikes. There's a barrier 400m from the lake, that prevents entry of any motor vehicles. But the forest officials there bunched our bikes (bicycles) under "motor vehicles", and told us to leave them behind. Petty arguments ensued, and C got into entertaining their feeble brains too much.
"No, no, no vehicle can go beyond this point"
I simply walked into the zone with my bike, with the line - "watch me (do it)".

They fumed, they cribbed, then they gave up. I didn't wait around to see any of that backward nonsense.

Friday, December 07, 2012

IIC eve - don't read

White wine. Yes.
Red wine. Yes.
Gin&Tonic (the girls' drink). Yes. The tonic was a strong negation to the gin, i must say.

Matching gazes with
- Brinda Karat
- Sitaram Yechury
- Arun Jaitley
- the "Haha" guy
- the GoW inspiration

Fish, chicken, and paneer, to indulge in...

Decent end to the heavy day.

Hoodie alert

"Idiots"
Had my own Zimmerman moment of sorts in the form of security guard and desk attendant who wet their pants seeing me in a hoodie. If not for an attempt to delve deeper into my social experiment, I would've just walked beyond the point where I'd already walked beyond them. But I turned around, anyways, pretending to have heard their shouts just then.

One has to be deliberate at mischief to both cause mischief, as well as to study the human psychology. After a long, long break I decided to wear my hoodie today. Winters are a good excuse for looking hip while wearing utility garments - the hoodie serving as a tee, a windsheeter, and a headgear at the same time, eliminating my need to 'gear up' as I went out. As with shorts, same with the hoodie - nobody takes you for a professional, or to frame it in other words "somebody out for generating value". They assume you're out for a picnic of sorts.

This 'picnic' front is greatly envied (and hence frowned-upon) by the blue-collared professional, and suspiciously looked upon by the security guard (who're so used to their kin looking all the same that they assume that professionals ecosystems of all sorts can't function without a dress code). When somebody doesn't fit into their assumptions, the blue-collared professional frowns harder, and the security guard starts making flailing gestures.

That is why professional environments look professional - because they make it difficult for the unprofessional professional to be, uh... professional. That is also why I call these professional environments and personnel 'superficially' professional - because of their reliance on a 'profiling' system; which is just another word for laziness. How else do you think social engineering works? - it's thanks to these retard profiling systems. It is also the reason why geeks hate these so-called professional setups. It is also why I can't function normally, since I'm already deprived of my freedom to cycle to work (yes, another issue, that), wear what I fucken want, and personalize my workspace (think coder caves).

So there I was, turning back to the security attendant who'd shown a great concern to investigate this hoodie hoodlum - ironically armed with a office laptop bag - to get her ass off the chair, and start in my direction. I am polite to those who show any iota of sincerity to their job.

First social tactic - I remove the hoodie to allay her suspicions. Lack of battle scars on my face, no missing earlobes, and a display of well maintained hair, and a groomed face, would make me approachable. It disrupts her belief chain.
"Sir, ID"
"I don't have one. You never ask for it."
"Its a rule."
"You never had this rule before... I just walk in all the time"
"We keep making new rules"
"Oh yeah? 'Making new rules'? Try coming at me with something else"
[I could see that we were going nowhere with this]
Since learning that the smile evolved from "monkeys and apes who often used barely clenched teeth to portray to predators that they were harmless", I regularly use it to the same effect. So, I push my eyeballs out and show teeth. She let me be.
Social hacks FTW.

But this is India, where hoodie isn't popular enough to be a symbol for anything. This is India, where assorted headgear are seen bobbing up and down in all environments. I guess these people rely not on a "looks suspicious" match, but rather on a "not one of us" match - so one who doesn't look like everyone else has gotta be disruptive. Disruptive indeed, today, but only enough to blog about it, and make a tiny dent in the universe.

To reiterate the rule, again:
Into some needless confrontation? - push your eyeballs out and show teeth.

Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Book nerd day

I'll dearly cling to my love of books; cruisin' and readin' as I go around the city, which would eliminate that need to read into the blank stares, to "THINK" about humanity (or why it shouldn't be), and the epitomes of un-health crowding around moi. This was no more evident than today, as I finished Slaughterhouse 5 while making a roundtrip to the fringes of Delhi, to a horrible university called I.P.U. (re)located in barrenness of Dwarka. I focused, firstly, on acquiring a seat, and then entirely into the text. To be proud, I went through a meaty part of it today, to finally end the book halfway into my return journey. The book was amazing. My love for Vonnegut grows with each kicker of a line of his - I could get dehydrated just underlining all those passages and piths in this tiny novel that managed to stimulate some intelligent lobe of the mind.

Books of varied genre make my new sarvashiksha abhiyaan curriculum. Digressing into the subject of my education, I'd like to report that I failed miserably in the Stanford U online courses that I'd subscribed to (one of which, coincidentally sees a deadline today, but I'm least bothered). I also am on the verge of another failure into application process for 2013 studies. So there, my book genres and online "karts" are the ones to recourse to.

In the heat of moment, I placed my order for 3 different books from 3 different online retailers (Indiaplaza, Infibeam, and Flipkart - in that same sequence). With the free shipping each offers, the price point was the sole criteria, and I have to say that there's no single place for the best deals. Look how easy allegiances change - I never thought (since 2008) I'd ever need to look outside Flipkart for books.

Of the three books, one is (of course it hadda be) KV. Bluebeard. KV is what I now call my schooling in postmodernism (and everything wise about the universe).

Curiosity got the better of me, which is why I ordered the second book, Serious Men, by Manu Joseph. I think Aaranyam Kaandam, a Tamil movie I saw last year, would have subliminally influenced me to perceive this book in a positive light. Each year I end up trying one Indian author, and ending up scarred - they write horrible. Let's hope this one will be better.

As for the third book... Would you be surprised if someone loved a book to the extent of ordering it for the fourth time? Well, I did.
After giving away my first copy to a friend who featured in an elaborate dream in the context of the book, the second one to my uncle, and leaving the third copy in a cafe, this fourth one I'm probably gonna foist, firstly, upon my office reception desk, and later perhaps, pass it to the bride/groom at one of the few weddings I'm going to attend this season (just imagine the hilarity in case it ends ruining a honeymoon). I'm not telling you which book it is.

So it goes. Gah, KV has turned me into a cliche man.

Sunday, December 02, 2012

getting a hang of the trekkies

Fought the ganda-wala Dilli ka traffic on my humble bike - weaving in and outta grid of metal boxes of quadruple to centuple the dimensions of the bike, accelerating and braking constantly, switching from the tarmac to the footpaths to the service lanes, jumping traffic signals, keeping the urge to blurt out 'bhenchods' to the ignorant motorists at bay - to catch a presentation at the IHC. That presentation was of a unique nature - a high altitude trek; one that marked a first, of a civilian team making it from the Nelang Valley to the Saraswati Valley through Basisi Col. High altitude, mountaineering expedition, and civilians; this one had a lot for me, and gave me a break from the ongoing Shahi Paneer and Butter Chicken marathon at home (my tummy would also be thankful).

Made it to the Gulmohar Hall, a bit late - lemme put it this way, that when I started climbing the Safdarjung flyover, these guys started climbing from Gangotri; when I was huffing past the decorated facade of the Islamic Cultural Center, these guys were huffing on some moderate slopes towards their Day 3 basecamp; when I made it into the hall, these guys were on Day 3. Quick them, quicker me. The hall was packed. I found the last unoccupied seat, backbencher as always.

Their presentation was in the form of a movie. The movie itself was a scrappy deal - all the while I was thinking of the shortfall in technicalities that could've been overcome. That aside, the presentation as a whole, put the route and the team in good perspective. The Basisi Glacier coming into view was breathtaking, the money shot, I'd say. A Q&A session followed, which seemed a worthy addition to the movie. One exhilarating aspect was how these guys used 'jugaad' of Google Earth for their route planning and map requirements - stitching together screenshots to make larger scale prints, and even capturing their marked route on camera before leaving. A surprising aspect of it was to learn the level of novice involved here, one even I felt I could match (imagine that one in their team was trekking after 8 years). What was sad was to see that their greatest skill in the whole project was gaining permissions from various SDMs and other departments, a lengthy and dirty process of recommendations through long chains of friendship.