Guitar Man

he listened to the guitar man and thought he could be one too
he found meaning in his words and dreamed of writing too
sometimes grew inspired and penned down a few
most of it was crap and none of it was new

he tried to sing along and add some music to it
that didn't help much and he ended up feeling like shit
the spark was there but he wished for more fire
searching for that light to get him higher

they said he was a nice guy and that's what he thought too
he believed them but knew not all of it was true
for deep down he felt under-compensated
waiting for something that was much belated

he longed for his friends though he had friends here too
spending long nights trying to make the perfect brew
having until now only watched the hawks that flew
he realized that it was now his turn too

Sleepy Saturday

Ever had one of those days where you sleep right through them? I mean, you've had a long hard week of work. Okay, not that much hard work, but still a long week. The Manic Monday, which you entirely spent going through the clutter of a few hundred mails which had gathered in your mailbox over the weekend. You didn't even read all of them, but cared enough to just mark them as read. The Torrid Tuesday, on which you actually finished up that piece of work you were supposed to do the previous week. And the Wishful Wednesday, which you spent with conceited ideas about the grandness of the work that you're doing and delusions about the meaningful purpose of the sedentary life that you lead. Then the Truthful Thursday, when you actually realized that you're an inconsequential speck in the universe and what you do (or don't do) doesn't mean shit to anyone else. And lastly, the Favoured Friday, when all you had hatching in your mind were plots to leave early from work, so you can go get sloshed in some shady corner of the city. Well, you get the drift...

And now you have Sleepy Saturday ahead of you, with nothing much that you've planned to do. Of course, you had plans of catching that movie and finishing up that book. But then, eventually you do give in. After only twenty minutes into the movie or fifteen pages into the book, dopiness overpowers you. And you let it do so since it's simply so blissful. Slam the laptop screen shut, or fling away the book... Okay, now I don't really do that. I safely keep aside my precious laptop after putting it on hibernation, or carefully place the book on the bedside table after placing the bookmark, and then I get on with it. Switch over to the dark side, if you know what I mean.

Fast forward n hours (who cares how many hours you slept), and you are sitting up in bed, fully energized, raring to go and conquer the world, and that's when you glance at your watch. The entire day has passed and now you have only the whole night ahead of you. And you obviously can't go back to sleep, because...well, now you can't sleep. It's like being left high and dry with a boner and all you can do is take matters into your own hand. That's what you might actually do to while away time once you've woken up like this in the middle of the night. Obviously, you're hungry too, so you cook up a quick omelette to nibble on and brew a cup of tea for yourself. The chai is an absolute must because that's the first thing I want on waking up, irrespective of the iniquitous hour I wake up at.

Then you finally get round to watching that movie you wanted to, go on to watch a couple of tv series episodes too, check your gmail and facebook to find other nocturnal creatures out there, get bored and shut down your laptop. But the night is still young and you're still not sleepy enough to go back to sleep again. Ah, what else is there to be done in the world, you wonder. Might as well try writing something which you're pretty sure will end up as a superfluous rant. And congratulations, you've succeeded at that.

Should probably get on with the book now and wait for Smug Sunday. Oh, it's here already!

सितारों से आगे जहां और भी हैं

मंजिल  मिल  गयी  है  तुम  को, अपनी  मंजिल  की  राह  पे  हम  भी  हैं
मंजिलों  से  आगे  कारवां  और  भी  हैं

की  थी  जो  शुरुआत  तुम  ने, अंजाम  की  तलाश  में  हम  भी  हैं
इस  कहानी  से  आगे  किस्से  और  भी  हैं

थोड़े  तन्हा  तुम  हो, थोड़ी  तन्हाई  के  नशे  में  हम  भी  हैं
तन्हाईओं  से  आगे  मुलाकातें  और  भी  हैं

नींद  ना  आई  तुम  को, जागे  हुए  से  हम  भी  हैं
सपनों  से  आगे  सवेरे  और  भी  हैं

The Joke

Someone tells you a joke. It’s a good one. So you laugh, obviously.  Others have a good laugh too. You laugh because the joke seems funny to you, primarily because you have never heard it before. Till this point, all is well with the human race and its kind. Probably barring a few with loose bowel motions and blocked toilets …

The next day, he tells you a joke again. Your instinctive reaction is to laugh. You haven’t even digested the punch line yet, but the smile is already there on your stupid face. Maybe because your face isn’t the only part of you that’s stupid …

But wait, you’ve heard this one before. His band of castrated followers is already in roaring splits of laughter, congratulating their leader on his impeccable sense of humour, clapping at the very novelty of the idea behind the joke, and wiping away tears wrenched out of their eyes from laughing so hard.

And so it goes … day in and day out. He repeats the same jokes at every opportunity that he gets to open his mouth. The jokes soon become cruel. The neutered men laugh. The women laugh too, obviously. You give in, and laugh along with them. What a way to benumb your brains, and that too without any help from recent movies starring Salman Khan.

And you wonder, maybe this is how he castrated the others who then joined his coterie. By repeating his same stupid jokes to them every day.


With all due respect, your jokes, as Venus Williams once rightly said, “... are like my penis, everybody has heard about it and they laugh uncontrollably. It's not so funny after it's shoved down your throat daily, though.”


Edit: Obviously, Venus Williams didn't actually say that. I was kidding.

Serena did.

भीड़ में अकेला

दिल तो बस धड़कते ही रह गए

भीड़ में बस अकेले ही रह गए

लभ रहे खामोश, नम रही आँखें

और कहनी थी जो बात, वो तो कोई और ही कह गए

तनहाइयों में आपको ढूंडते ही रह गए

सूनी इन गलियों में भटकते ही रह गए

ख़त्म हो गए रास्तें, मंज़िल फिर भी रही दूर

और काटनी थी साथ जो उम्र, उसे अकेले ही सह गए


पीछे जिनको छोड़ आये थे, वो याद बन के रह गए

जो हमारे थे पास, वो बस बात बन के रह गए

तय कर लिया था कितना, और कितनी थी राह बाकी

बस कदमों के निशाँ हम गिनते ही रह गए


लफ्ज़ों के जाल हम बुनते ही रह गए

सुलझने की कोशिश में और उलझते ही रह गए

ऊँचे थे ख्वाब, कम पड़ गए थे हौसले

और पार करना था जो समंदर, उसी में डूब के बह गए


दिल तो बस धड़कते ही रह गए

भीड़ में बस अकेले ही रह गए

webcomics and me

With a lot of free time on my hands, I have been reading a lot of web comics lately. So I thought of doing a quick compilation of my favorites. Now, don't worry.. this isn't going to be a review of each of them. It's up to you to explore them and take your pick depending on your tastes and ahem.. your level of intellect.

xkcd obviously takes the prime spot and it seems sacrilegious to mention it in a list along with other earthly entities. Doing so would be a direct insult to the great man Randall Munroe himself.

Here's a list of the others I've been following:

• Abstruse Goose
• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
• PhD Comics
• Dinosaur Comics
• The Testimonial Comics
• Questionable Content
• BROWN sharpie
• brainstuck
• Indexed
• left-handed toons
• A Geek Story
• Not Funny

Now, coming to the part for which I'm actually writing this post...

There's this one strip from smbc which I particularly liked. It features an artist, a scientist and a mathematician. But hey, why isn't an engineer's perspective there... So, I just added one last panel to the comic to complete the picture.

good shit, right?

Conversation between a Believer and an Atheist

This exchange took place between Human 1 (abbreviated as H1) who is a believer, and Human 2 (abbreviated as.. yes you guessed it right, H2) who is an atheist, on an idle Thursday afternoon in the air-conditioned premises of an undisclosed location.


H1:
Listen to 'Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol'
Nirvana
awesome lyrics

H2:
dude!!! How the fuck are the lyrics awesome?

H1:
Because it doesn't need to make sense
It is just written the way the mind works
the GIT-GWC thing is funky

H2:
First up, it's not even a song. Obviously, he's in a drunk and drugged state. Its just a jam session they are having and he just keeps rambling and ranting on the go. Making up the words and just saying out what comes to mind (although you might say that shows his 'awesome' creativity and poetry that he can make up these impromptu lyrics)

H1:
Yea, agreed, maybe he is drugged, but we don't know for sure. And if you listen to it carefully, it does make sense on the whole. It succeeds in creating an effect without the words actually saying it. And if not his creativity, I admire his guts to actually turn this into an actual song with guys like me liking it.

H2:
Agreed, it makes sense, the same Cobain ideas are repeated here too.
First para: is about injecting drugs (use once, discard syringe, press down the injection).
Then again: no creativity left and his same suicide crap.

But seriously, what guts are you talkin about?! He didn't mean it to be a song... just recorded a jam session. Putting it in an album doesn't mean he's got guts.

Accept it, he was just a useless junkie like every other drugged bum on the streets.

H1:
Its not suicide crap, in this song.. its about just being stupid and vulnerable.. and speaking out what you are thinking without any pretence. I don't see any scope of creativity left to squeeze in when you're not pretending.

And maybe he was a junkie, maybe he was useless, but he had the courage to shout it out in front of everyone.. he wasn't just your regular junkie limited to the confines of his room, trying to fight his fears.. he accepted his fears and faults in front of millions.. that is guts.

H2:
Okay.. I can't help but grin now.. wanted to laugh out loud though
for the first time, LOL makes sense

H1:
That's one way of saying you find the argument futile now

H2:
Yes

H1:
Though I'm not so sure of the reason

H2:
Agreed, he might have had more talent in his foreskin than I have in my entire body. But definitely it was less than the amount so many other singers, guitarists, musicians, songwriters of his time have in theirs. So my only point is that I find him to be an average singer/songwriter/guitarist..

But that's just my view. I accept that you and others might like his music. But I find myself unable to appreciate it.

H1:
I never said he's the most talented, agreed on that. He might just be average. We are all intellectual men here striving to attain greater heights of pseudo-intelligence.. so whatever helps us.. all cool..

H2:
Okay.
Listen to 'Ziggy Stardust'
David Bowie

H1:
Ok

H2:
So we end the chat by rounding up a full circle.
Remember where this started..

H1:
Are the lyrics awesome too?

H2:
I like the music better

imperfect encounter

and I look back on that day, when you first saw me
I think it was who I was with, yes that was the key
and I found it hard, I found it hard to breathe
I think it was the stare, yes that did it for me

and it was a weird night, an unusual place to be
'Love the place', said I, 'Totally', said she
and in that moment, it was all I could see
seemed like a scene, straight out of a movie

and so we sat, drinking my assam tea
you wanted black coffee, but I didn't agree
and we talked, we talked of bird and bee
surely the wrong time to put forth my plea

and I was a fool, in more ways than one
losing what I had, and ending up with none
should have kept shut, but I blocked out the sun
the man who knew too much, but felt like an empty gun

The Start of an Untitled Story

Earphones plugged in, The Sound of Silence playing, and the volume turned down to a level that Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel’s voices were barely a whisper, he was all set. Pulling up the wooden chair, he cleared the desk top of all the usual clutter and set out just a scroll pad, carefully positioning it at the center of the table. This was supposedly the perfect setting to finally sit down and write his story. He picked up a pencil and touched the tip to the top left margin of the sheet in front of him.

It was at this moment that it struck him. Until now, he had always been very vague; so much so that even he had trouble deciphering his own obscure thoughts. And he also knew why. He needed a unifying theme... a motif. And not just for his story. Lucidity was something that had constantly eluded him. It was not that he didn’t have any ideas. But so muddled up they were that giving a pragmatic close to them was inconceivable.  And with every single idea, came its posse of doubts, fear and incertitude; those floating nimbus clouds addling the otherwise clear blue skies of his subconscious.

A torrent of thoughts was flooding the streets of his head. He found himself digressing from the task at hand. Maybe it was the words of the song refraining him from focusing. Perhaps Ludwig van would have been a better pick for this setting. He reached for the pause button on his iPod. The music stopped, but he left the earphones where they were. He liked it that way.

The pencil started shaping letters precariously, giving way to words that he hoped would eventually turn into a story.

Garden State

He never thought that this could ever happen to him. He had thought himself incapable of it. He had always assumed it to be the kind of stuff that one comes across only in fables. Hell, he had even scoffed at the thought of thinking about it.

But deep inside, there was still this little voice, which now he came to realize, seldom lied. The voice which he had always stifled. And he also knew that it would grow loud and strong one day, strong enough to stop him from ignoring it any further.

Now the time had finally arrived. Arriving in a manner which shattered all his notions, notions he had always known to be false. Notions he had willfully allowed to hoard up, never gathering the courage to face up to the truth and free his cluttered mind of them.

He knew reality was cruel. So he chose to escape.

And then it came, shaking him up from slumber, like a blast of ice cold water on a January morning. More cruel than he had thought it to be.


I snap back. Only to realize that I had long overslept. The window is no longer open, the moment is long gone. Evaporated is the half-chance. Things happen when you least expect them to. The real troubles in life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind: the kind that blindsides you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.