tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5710175480420742322024-03-06T14:25:32.975+05:30IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHEREWith Courage, and CowardlinessA half lighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302423131068583838noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-10904406472096517312015-02-27T19:45:00.003+05:302015-02-27T19:46:21.241+05:30Walking with you, to the end of this world..<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Walking with you, to the end of this world<br />
When I am with you, happiness is assured,<br />
Love is laughter, love is your thoughts..<br />
So immersed in them, to forget one's whereabouts :)<br />
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From a sea of unknowns, a known face smiles<br />
With whom she can stride, a thousand wide miles<br />
From a spattering of ice, slips a familiar hand<br />
With whom she can bravely, all bad times, stand..<br />
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Excited she speaks, with equal calm he looks on..<br />
As high as she flies, is as grounded as he's born..<br />
A 30 for her 60, a 45 for five nines,<br />
A perfect complement for her perpetual feminine :)<br />
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Yet with all that has passed, has the attraction dwindled?<br />
Will the love, and the magic, forever stay kindled?<br />
Will a few stubborn stands start a never-ending row..<br />
And burn down their castle, into a puddle of snow?</div>
A half lighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302423131068583838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-90182492442395614012012-01-06T11:30:00.000+05:302012-01-06T16:21:50.191+05:30Random Thoughts, Episode 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="text-align: justify;">1> Tom Hanks in the photo in one of my earlier posts regarding </span><a href="http://snookerofamind.blogspot.com/2009/06/world-will-never-be-same-once-youve.html" style="text-align: justify;">Forrest Gump</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> eerily resembles Aamir Khan in Ghajini/Three Idiots (closest I can think of). Also, now that I have photo-shopped these two images together, the one of Gump sitting on the bench somehow reminds me more of the character of </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Bean" style="text-align: justify;">Mr. Bean</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> (whom I religiously hate, even in the cartoon series), though I can't exactly make out why. Weird.</span></div>
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2> The shortest of naps are the ones generating the most interesting of dreams. </div>
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Conclusive Evidence Activity: Read <a href="http://snookerofamind.blogspot.com/2011/12/come-again-or-have-i.html">Come Again.. Or, Have I?</a></div>
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3> For some days now, I have been deliberating on a very interesting theory that there has been a link between the writer's block, well, blocking me and the last two years of my engineering that somehow culminated in me having only two posts each on my blog for the consecutive years 2010 and 2011. Total = 4. Was it because of:</div>
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a) About one-third of my last four semesters being spent in the volleyball court that the Electrical Department was so generous to bestow upon a bunch of sincere engineering brats who would do anything to avoid getting into the Department?</div>
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b) About another one-third being spent in numerous trips to the Cafe House, the FabLab, the stores, the Boat Club, Uttam Copiers, and Rajeev Electronics (with at least 60 minutes of staying time)?</div>
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c) About a last one-third being spent in the B.Tech Lab that was so dear to us Electrical peepul, where the word B.Tech was lavished upon with a meaning that has been fully done justice to by each and every person of the class, if I might proudly say, by boycotting every single thing meant to be done as a Final Year student, and doing exactly the opposite of it?</div>
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<i><u>Note:</u></i> These compulsorily included, every day: photography in weird poses - at a minimum of 3 photoes/student/day, playing Angry Birds (in my case, Titan Quest), scribbling idiotic messages on the chalkboard, burning up a minimum of 12 electronic components (if minor, less costly), and 6 (if major, more costly), Facebooking in the <i>face</i> of the poor professor who was unlucky enough to be present in the lab at that time, playing volleyball inside the lab with the door closed (FYI, glass door with wooden framework that possessed the sound-proofing capacity of a teacup) with a lecture going on in the adjacent classroom, and of course, playing volleyball in the court.</div>
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4> I miss volleyball. :(</div>
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5> However, when I spent one whole day sitting in my prestigious workstation, not doing a single bit of work, but going through a lot of my posts, and a lot of my drafts (which, by the way, are greater in number than my posts), on my Samsung Galaxy SL (of course I had to mention it somewhere! Do you think I would risk leaving out any opportunity to brag :P), I realized that my writing has changed. A lot. Not in essence, but in style. At core, it's still the carefree, wildly enthusiastic and a bit of a stupidly emotional soul writing, but the wrapper has metamorphosed to a more refined kind. If I have to use the word, <i>mature. </i>Also, have let go of the innumerable italics, bolds, underlines, caps, dots, punctuations and colloquial what-nots that I had compelled myself to use in my writings under the guise of assertion, thanks to well-worded advice from a couple of folk. (No, now do not go back to my earlier posts and check out how many exclamation marks my posts include :P) So, the involuntary block was actually a painfully slow makeover, I think.</div>
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6>
A Timeline on everything is not necessary. Sometimes, haphazardness is the key.</div>
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7> Linking Google+, Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and all the other hundred thousand accounts that each retarded entity (including me) on this earth possesses online is as easy as the pain in the ass it causes thereafter. It's just like sticking a poster on your forehead that says - "This is the address of my current residence, these are the exact locations of the money, the jewellery, and the documents of the assets I hold, this is the combination key of my locker that I so intelligently generated, please come and loot me." The only advantage is that, probably the <i>chor </i>will leave behind souvenirs in sympathy.</div>
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8> My office \m/ I won't say anything more, for after all, it is a publicly accessible blog. Maybe, some day in the future, when I am more courageous and less cowardly, you might hear more. (Hint: Watch out, 1.5 years from now.)</div>
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9> Random thoughts are too difficult to collect.</div>
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10> I just found out that me joining Twitter has had a significant effect on the length of my writings. Shorter words, shorter sentences, healthy keyboard. (Note: The word short in this context is inevitably defined as "in comparison to my earlier compositions".) </div>
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Conclusive Evidence Activity: Determine the differences between Random Thoughts, <a href="http://snookerofamind.blogspot.com/2008/03/random-thoughts-episode-1.html">Episode 1</a> and <a href="http://snookerofamind.blogspot.com/2012/01/random-thoughts-episode-2.html">Episode 2</a>.</div>
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Enough for now. But, the fingers will be hungry once again, soon.</div>
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-7004924505173585182011-12-31T13:32:00.000+05:302012-01-05T15:28:10.081+05:30A Mad Tree Party<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="text-align: left;">FYI- My article for the Pune Tree Fest 2012, the original can be found here: <a href="http://punetreewatch.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/my-mad-tree-party/">A Mad Tree Party</a></span></div>
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I haven’t read the newspaper, not in a long time. I haven’t written, not in a long time. But yesterday, when after so many days, I picked up the Times of India lying on my couch, I had no idea why this tree festival article caught my eye, and made me read that page longer than any other, ultimately ending up in this tangled representation of a multitude of experiences. I was actually surprised, I mean, I have never been much of a strong idealist for plant-life, I love greenery and blossoming nature just like the next person, then why the pause?</div>
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And then suddenly, out of nowhere, a small scene flashed out. A little girl, sneaking chili seeds out from the potato sabzi in her lunch, just like every other day, only this time, not throwing them into the bin, but secretly putting them into a small white plastic Shikakai pot hastily filled up with damp mud, in the few minutes that her mother dozed off. Who watered it every day from her water bottle, fearing someone would discover if the water in the jug seemed lesser. Who looked at the tiny pot every day, and prayed that it grew enough chilies so her mother wouldn’t have to buy from the grumpy old vegetable lady. Who was terrified when her parents finally discovered it, fearing the worst, and jumped in ecstatic joy when they allowed her to keep it and gave it a nice, cozy place of its own in the window! Who looked in wonder at her pot after a few weeks, that contained a miraculous transformation from few seedlings to a handsome, swaying chili plant, and decorated it with stickers and glitter and chart paper and wrote in proud letters – My Tree. Who took it to her school and showed it to everyone and celebrated the plant. Who still has the white pot, although the plant, too big to grow in it now, had to be shifted to the park.</div>
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My relationship with plants has just been so natural that I don’t at all remember making a conscious effort to do anything in that regard. For no reason, I just choose them. More moments started flashing out in random order - I remembered caressing the jasmine plant when I plucked a flower, giving a long speech in front of the neem tree that always greeted me every morning when I looked out the window, reading tree chapters in my textbook with extra interest. I remember listening awestruck to stories of my grandfather tending to his neat vegetable garden in our village house backyard, I remember climbing onto the slanted rooftop to wave huge bumble bees off the bean-vines (even though I felt dead scared of them), I remember pleading excitedly to my mother to take me to the huge farm of her aunt where they used to grow everything that could be grown and who didn’t buy a single food item from outside except salt, I remember my great-uncle teaching me the names and the origins of different varieties of spices that he’d planted in his kitchen garden.</div>
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And the most splendid experience of all - spending the last four years of my life in companion with a tree that had become an inseparable part of me – The Banyan Tree of the CoEP campus. It was my spot for contemplation, its thick stem a hiding place for dodging professors who would walk by it to the next lecture classroom, dozing off beneath its cool aura as we waited for the next practical, to go so far as to conduct an entire club meeting underneath the natural canopy it provided! Every day included at least one trip to the tree, even if it had to be the only reason to walk to that side of the campus (well, not so much considering how lethargic I can be, but yeah, lots of trips :P). </div>
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The countless moments spent beneath its benevolent branches, blink smilingly up at me now, as I can’t help thinking, trees are companionship. Trees understand. Trees soothe. But trees also rebel. Because trees, are life. And that is why, trees are memories. :)</div>
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</div>A half lighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12302423131068583838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-3882723170596598802011-12-25T09:56:00.000+05:302012-01-05T18:17:38.284+05:30Come Again.. Or, have I?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I have decided it's high time that I have kept ignoring my inclination towards expressing my completely irrelevant thoughts in the light of less important things (ex: work, office). :D Well, I was just going through the multitude of drafts in my blog that had collected alphabetical dust over the past few years, having never seen the light of the desert that is in the middle of nowhere. I found many that will soon come out, a bit dusted and toned, but there is one that I would like to put up, uncut now.</div>
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<span style="color: red;">14/06/2009</span></div>
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The last week was one of the most bizarre I've encountered, in terms of night-time adventures. One of the rare few string of days during which I've gone to bed extremely early (around 10.30 - 11pm), and dreamt the most inexplicable of dreams. But yesterday night will take the cake, baker and his oven in the <i>Department of the Unexplainable</i>. Let me jot it down before
it trickles away, and I’ll try to interpret it later.</div>
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<i>Scene:</i> My home, the place where I've been staying since 18 years. Now, it's very important to picturise the venue of this incident to take in the fantastically out-of the world nature of this dream. I stay on the 3rd floor of our measly three-storeyed building, and there's a couple more flights of stairs separating us from the terrace. Meaning, from our flat (no. 25), the terrace cannot be viewed directly, but which can be done from no. 28. There is a small square space before every flat, and similarly, before the entrance to the open roof area, enough to put a chair or two.</div>
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<i>Time:</i> Sunset, around 17:45 hours, and my granddad is sitting on an easy chair in the squarish space before flat no. 28, and staring on in front (exactly at what, a person can't see from behind unless they walk up to that level, combined with the fact that the door to the terrace was not exactly open). I, after finishing a yummy snack, came out to wash my
hands (Yes, there was a wash basin outside the house, and yes, my mind has the capability of conjuring up just about anything :|) and saw grandpa sitting
alone, so I just went by to sit with him and spend some time. He told me to take him up the
the last flight of stairs towards the terrace, and when we reached there, he told
me to completely open the half closed door, saying he wanted to show me something. I was on his left side, closer to the door, and when I opened it, what I saw could not be digested with jaw closed. It was one of the most mysterious
sunsets of my life. </div>
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I pushed the door and it slowly twirled on its rusty hinges, to reveal a brightly shining, perfectly
normal, evening sun. Then, just as we were admiring its beauty, in about 5 seconds it turned into a
just-about-to-go-down beautiful, golden orangish hue-giving off, calm, all-pervading, light sun. I looked on, mesmerised. But then, in the next 5 seconds, the colour of it swept off to reveal a shy sky blue
from right to left! Just as my sluggish mind realized it had to register panic, the sun camouflaged itself into the light it
itself gave off to the sky (making it light orange), and dark black spots
started hovering in the sky, in the place where earlier the sun was visible,
making it appear as if there was a black sun in the sky, with huge chunks torn
apart from it, and the other remaining chunks started vibrating violently as if they wanted to be set free from the tortuously restricted circular sunspace. </div>
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The next few seconds were
so shocking that I almost fell over on grandpa’s easy chair; the black spots actually
broke off from the space (as if someone had suddenly jerked off the invisible chains holding them down to the roundish prison) and flew off, leaving behind nothing but the slightly
orangish sky. When they were breaking free, it appeared as if the spots were
great, big black bats that had all but covered the sun, and they were now flying away into the horizon after gobbling it down. </div>
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No sun, for a few minutes, and then
the cycle kept repeating. And when I looked back to see the expression on grandpa's face, he had dozed off.</div>
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I stood there, perplexed. All the contentment that my post-nap snack had filled me with was gone. What does this mean? Did I just see a novel form of
eclipse that has never been witnessed before? Perhaps, <i>Bird Eclipse</i>? :| </div>
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<i>*At this point, I woke up, covered in sweat, as if I had been the one doing all the flying, cursing the pillow for being too hard, at which point, I realized that my pillow had actually been a set of internship assignments. Sigh.*</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-23542101491260866072010-12-15T07:40:00.001+05:302010-12-15T07:40:58.266+05:30My Little HouseO dusty door of maple wood,<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI9tvbHWYiT08Xe6EKZAlXkhwITysypeX3nk6SwjAA9ETx-XYpu866qofXPXDIDxfrjNvyxwUwi3XEl28hLrhK2nlVMjp3nSluB1-PO1ePCxeG0fakM_6769nTDpWrXY8gGdwZFvSavdfH/s1600/house.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI9tvbHWYiT08Xe6EKZAlXkhwITysypeX3nk6SwjAA9ETx-XYpu866qofXPXDIDxfrjNvyxwUwi3XEl28hLrhK2nlVMjp3nSluB1-PO1ePCxeG0fakM_6769nTDpWrXY8gGdwZFvSavdfH/s400/house.png" width="367" /></a></div>How more will you withstand?<br />
Along you swing, your rusty hinge,<br />
With a soft touch of my hand.<br />
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O window, of a set of five<br />
You were target number one,<br />
My catapult was on a roll,<br />
Its aim had just begun.<br />
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O crackedy mirror on the wall,<br />
O synth beside of it,<br />
D'you remember my vanity?<br />
Those hours of musical bliss?<br />
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And what about you, Mr. Nook?<br />
Adorned with cobby webs,<br />
Did you forget, those little tears<br />
In times of loneliness?<br />
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Today I drive a Jag to work,<br />
But when I listen to that song,<br />
I find it's you, my little house,<br />
It's you, where I belong.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-14196933605197384782010-05-04T08:14:00.000+05:302010-10-16T21:15:15.289+05:30<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh10a6WldPP1QZs_f9JVXJCLNVb6k0Z2s4DbUuWakmG4T-ttpbLk9KKsieUgvb68gm89xkBQxLILaFKvd5i7C_S6D1bh1xENix_EvW_6OHLgyP4qI_bE0Riehd1yLJMlFPnOjb0-XjOxpc8/s1600/Smiley+%3DD.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh10a6WldPP1QZs_f9JVXJCLNVb6k0Z2s4DbUuWakmG4T-ttpbLk9KKsieUgvb68gm89xkBQxLILaFKvd5i7C_S6D1bh1xENix_EvW_6OHLgyP4qI_bE0Riehd1yLJMlFPnOjb0-XjOxpc8/s320/Smiley+%3DD.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467416691996992450" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Found quite a nice bit of thought in one of my unopened mails I was skimming through; never thought those endless forwards could be any fun! Here goes,<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style=";font-family:Papyrus;font-size:7px;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:Papyrus;font-size:36pt;" >Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice!</span></span></b><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Too lazy to change even the font size up there :P</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-7040029252124722042009-08-31T08:20:00.000+05:302010-08-06T21:40:16.381+05:30LOST!<div style="text-align: justify;">People, I lost my right to taunt and boo at other people for their absent mindedness (esp. at a certain poor guy who's always the butt of my jokes :P) approximately 20 hours ago :| You can't really do that, not when you've forgotten around half a dozen cards and papers, a driving license, a phone book, and a thousand and a thirty bucks on a park bench...all in a stupid, tiny, insipid..ah, there's the word, wallet. The limit of forgetfulness, don't you think? Yeah, even you go on...<span style="font-style: italic;">par at least poori story toh sun lo</span>, so you can jeer in more detail :P<br /><br />The story starts on a regular dead boring day in class, a torturous test on thermal and fluid engineering (which made me think for the 113th time whether I'm doing electrical engineering or mechanical), a mentally draining lecture on the same, a canceled movie trip (because the above mentioned lecture got extended for completely stupid reasons), vain attempts to convince certain seriously worthy-of-the-mental-hospital faculty members about an even more ridiculous mini-project group formation (the details of which I'd rather not go into), and some bombed technical work, at the end of which I was positively screaming with hunger and want of humanity.<br /><br />Enter- Above-mentioned poor guy. :P I'd forgotten a couple of papers I had to photocopy with him, and I also wanted a brilliant <span style="font-style: italic;">bakra</span> to rave at about the day's disaster! ;) So we decided to meet in the evening (I had to parcel up a <span style="font-style: italic;">Cadb</span> as bribe :|) at this garden place near his home. Half of the evening amiably passed off with me shouting at him because he forgot the papers yet again, him shouting at me because I forgot everything anyways, a blessed call on his phone (during which I polished off most of the cadb, I'd paid for it after all :D), and a perfect relationship that I coined between 'poor guy' and our TFE lecturer that scared off a couple of bats from the nearby trees. (Yes! Aint revenge sweet! :D)<br /><br />The real turning point came when the park started emptying and a couple of those people who're neither here nor there but come asking for money from everywhere (yes yes, you got that right, genius! The word is <span style="font-style: italic;">eunuchs</span> :|) came up asking for, well, money. Well, it so happened that PG (typing out <span style="font-style: italic;">poor guy</span> every time is a pain...) had very recently just given me a substantial amount of money from his pocket and now he sat happily on the bench telling them he was as much in need of money as them! Thankfully, they left us alone without putting us to much trouble, and that was the last time I checked to see if my wallet was still there in my back pocket (I have this very peculiar habit of carrying my money in a guys' wallet, and not in a typical purse like girls do, it's so much more easier to whip it up and pay than all those complicated never-ending buckles and zippers in a purse!); but they heated up our idly hanging conversation so much that we never realized when the place closed down for the day and we got up and were by our bikes saying goodbyes, and I happily went off, thinking of how enjoyable the evening had been. And it was not till I was ringing the doorbell at my house thinking of how hungry I was, that I put my hand in my jeans back pocket, to find...nothing. I instinctively put my hand in the other pocket, and the only thing that came out was my handkerchief. Of course I couldn't lose my wallet, it had to be somewhere, I've just put it somewhere else, I told myself. I calmly checked in my bag- nothing. In my jacket pockets- nothing. Windcheater- a couple of bills, and...nothing. Went down and checked in the inside of my Scooty- nothing. Then came the panic- I didn't have my wallet on me. Why the hell was my wallet not on me?!? And where the hell was it then?? I was up the stairs and bursting into the house in two seconds flat, frantically calling up PG, who answered the call in a sleepy tone. In five minutes, I'd shaken him out of all hint of sleepiness, made him gobble down his usually-slowly and deliciously-savoured food, and begged him to rush back to the place, hoping against hope the parking lot woudntv'e closed down too.<br /><br />Those intermediate twenty-or-so minutes from when he started from his house and reached there and camp-searched were some of the longest minutes of my life. Einstein would've jumped into the Pacific to quote my example for his blessed Theory of Relativity :| I couldn't go myself because my license was in my wallet, and my wallet was..poof! I couldn't sit there twiddling my thumbs because had I twiddled them any more, I would've ended up with broken fingers. I couldn't walk around because I would've definitely kicked and broken something in the house for want of kicking my own stupid self. I couldn't even trace the wallet back in my mind to where I could've lost it because I'd never checked for it after the garden incident... <span style="font-style: italic;">Poor guy</span> wasn't poor guy for me anymore; he was my last ray of hope to somehow miraculously discovering a rich, fat, <span style="font-style: italic;">lost</span> wallet in one of the most crowded places in town. :|<br /><br />I literally pounced on the phone when it beeped again, after what seemed like a lifetime. He hadn't found it in the parking lot. The park had closed down. On an instinct, it struck that it might have just slipped out from my pocket when I had checked for it inside. He suggested checking early next morning. I suggested NOW! But the park had closed down, he insisted. I wanted to say, <span style="font-style: italic;">jump off the garden wall and go, you fool!</span> :| If I could just see that bench once... there was nothing more in the world I wanted to see right then! Luckily, just as he was leaving (and inadvertently relegating me to a sleepless night), someone came over and asked what was going on. Turned out there was a tiny gangway out of the park, apart from the main gate. I was ready to fly to the place! PG went off into the dark (cursing probably). He was giving me live updates on the phone. It was funny and stupid and terrorizing all the time. I couldn't just help dreading the moment when he'd reach the bench and find nothing and my tiny ray of hope would be blown off. I wanted him to reach there and not reach there at the same time! <span style="font-style: italic;">Nothing on the path, he said.</span> My heart twanged like a giant elastic band. <span style="font-style: italic;">I'm near the bench.</span> My heart was in my mouth. Two minutes of silence, and then a reluctant voice, 'I've seen under, over and all around the bench, anu! It's not there! You've lost it I guess...'; and suddenly, my heart was not there at all. There you go, I told myself. Congrats for being the biggest pea brain in town, girl :| My hunger had died. I thanked him for all the trouble and was about to set the phone down when there came a strangled 'Wait!'; couple of quick footsteps later, there was a huge 'Found it! I was checking around the wrong bench! It was beneath the one next to it, the one where we sat on!!' Poor guy seemed like some heavenly angel then! I vowed never to make fun of him again (let's see how many hours my vow holds on :P) Rest ahead is the usual story, 'take care of your belonging's and 'thank you's and light rebukes and a hearty, relieved laugh at the end of it all; and needless to say, I ate and slept very well last night :)<br /><br />All said and done, instincts and prayers and mind-power are some things, man. They might be baseless in science and logic, but maybe that's just because we still haven't been able to discover the trivia behind them. Or maybe, I'm just stupid, and trying to find an excuse for my stupidity ;)<br /><br />'Wall'ing off for now!</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-38629825286949489952009-08-22T03:03:00.000+05:302010-08-06T21:40:51.079+05:30Fue the Flu!<div style="text-align: justify;">Man! Even I want to go and watch Kaminey and then brog (brag on the blog :P) in full <span style="font-style: italic;">kaminey iftyle</span> about its brilliance and the way I got all its twists and turns and the portrayal and go <span style="font-style: italic;">ooh!</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">aah!</span> all over the famed charlie lingo! I've read at least 3 complete reviews on blogworld in the 15 minutes of internet access I've gotten today till now. Everyone around doing that and me stuck at home is so not fair! Grr! Bloody airborne pigs. Made me go around to 3 cinema houses today, only to see them all deserted. Someone just go sue(r) the fwine flu, will you? :(</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-2926206795103606032009-06-26T11:15:00.000+05:302010-08-06T21:42:11.097+05:30TO B.E. OR NOT TO B.E.<div style="text-align: justify;">Question (by a very agitated old man, in a very agitated little tone, to a bunch of friends, yours truly included): What do you intend to be, engineers, or clerks?<br /><br />Answer (by a very amused AB, the most outspoken in the group): We prefer being clerks, Sir, because Indian engineers are nothing but roadside mechanics. [:D]<br /><br />Reference:<span style="font-style: italic;"> "Indian engineers are merely roadside mechanics" -Kiran Karnik, President of NASSCOM</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Feb 15, 2005</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-41999211005633386772009-06-24T01:57:00.000+05:302010-08-06T21:42:53.200+05:30The world will never be the same once you've seen it through the eyes of...<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG_a8FLQh52hJ94F0kXc5AcB44oUUTcWqzyQpXSrXIs6behqoqfSfsNn3qrqR3606JO8gfFyOaPM_qZjYL9I_7vnVXDDxAeetSeUMzRbEOOfX-N-pf79ZrdywHXu9vrNEEm14_MnmRqfNe/s1600-h/forrest-gump.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 419px; height: 314px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG_a8FLQh52hJ94F0kXc5AcB44oUUTcWqzyQpXSrXIs6behqoqfSfsNn3qrqR3606JO8gfFyOaPM_qZjYL9I_7vnVXDDxAeetSeUMzRbEOOfX-N-pf79ZrdywHXu9vrNEEm14_MnmRqfNe/s320/forrest-gump.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350428461369662866" border="0" /></a><br /></div>...Forrest Gump.<br /><br />Watched it a couple of days ago (thanks to an insistent friend). A Tom Hanks-starrer from the middle 90s. At first glance, the 6 Oscars that the movie clinched would seem a wash over. Put in one line, the movie is the most non-happening one you'd have ever caught. It was only while looking up the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War">Vietnam War</a> did I learn that it was one of the stormiest and most meaningful phases in American history. But not for Gump. The filmmaker enthrallingly manipulates historical footage to accidentally present Gump at many significant events of the time, and many because of his own actions. Even though he doesn't realize their significance. He gets to meet the President three times, he's the man who exposes the Watergate scandal, he's at the school doors when Governor George Wallace tries to get some Negroes into a white school, and so on and so forth.<br /><br />The movie is about one simple man's journey through life. Surprised? The people around him dictate his life, but not so. He's stupid, but not so, naive, <span style="font-style: italic;">still,</span> not so. The only times he ever loses control is when he thinks Jenny's being misbehaved with. His ability to run like the wind gets him inducted into the college football team, where he excels; post-college graduation sees him in the army, where he displays unnerving valour, rushing into the for(r)est countless times to rescue his fellow men, he excels again; war-wounded, he unexpectedly has a tryst with ping-pong, follows the first and last line he's ever known about ping-pong 'Never, ever, take your eye off the ball', and excels again. The only things he ever knows about shrimps are the never-ending delicacies that can be prepared from them, from his best friend Bubba in the army, but he becomes shrimp boat captain when his friend dies and, well, excels again.<br /><br />So what's special about Forrest? Regardless of his intelligence, he has learnt to discover simple truth in life, that all the others around him miss. A struggling Lt. Dan stares on helplessly as Forrest, with superhuman strength, tows him away from death. He loses his mind when he sees his legs being amputated and blames Forrest for this miserable fate of his. He feels every one has a destiny, and his was to die a hero, not to lead a crippled dependent life. But years after, when he's Forrest's first mate on his shrimp boat, he realizes (just as we ourselves do) what Forrest taught him. To keep living life, at all costs. Forrest doesn't suffer humiliation, because he doesn't know the meaning of it. He's not afraid of death, so he can snatch himself (and his loved ones) out of it. He listens to others, but chooses his own. What makes it misleading is that most of the times, he doesn't want to have any particular choice of his own.<br />Forrest's specialty lies in his simplicity itself.<br /><br />He lives in a world that derides him as stupid but, as Mrs Gump says, "stupid is as stupid does", and in this movie it's the other characters who seem to engage in acts of relentless and tragic idiocy. All through this Forrest is the constant: intent on doing the right thing. In this movie it's not Forrest that's retarded; it's the rest of the world.<br /><br />The acting is strong, the narrative is compelling enough and its semi-documentary style direction is consistent and provides clarity and pace. The movie leaves one intensely aware that many of our problems are because of our higher intellect, which, ironically, makes us know what we're missing, and in turn, compels us to crave for it. Imagining a world where the best-intentioned half-wit could pop up at opportune moments in history, winning hearts, amassing a fortune, becoming famous, is tempting. Sadly, the world today belongs to those who have screwed over someone else to get there - and that isn't Forrest, he's too nice a guy.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-44562139459126623732009-06-21T10:52:00.000+05:302010-08-06T21:44:44.620+05:30WHY<div style="text-align: justify;">...is it that when you sit down to write random thoughts, you never get a single one, no matter how hard you try to extract them from your snooker of a mind?<br /><br />...does your intellectual rationalization of pain stay only till you are not left alone with yourself?<br /><br />...does power make it feel deliciously content for people possessing it to wield it, just for the sake of wielding it?<br /><br />...does your strongest point let you down in the most unexpected of places, but probably where it's quite verily needed?<br /><br />...can people never live up to what they preach?<br /><br />...do they preach?<br /><br />...does there have to be a substantial difference between public opinion and professional?<br /><br />...do your friends' takes on you matter, over your own? Or, do they?<br /><br />...do you lose all known power of communication when...(Wait! Is that what's happening to me right now?)<br /><br />...does having lunatic thoughts that you know no one could know you're having give you insane pleasure?<br /><br />If you had to choose between Innovation and Joshi Vadewale, what would it be?<br /><br />P.S. The <span style="font-style: italic;">privacy</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">limitedness</span> of the last question are such that its <span style="font-style: italic;">technomics</span> won't make more than a handful of people<span style="font-style: italic;"> start</span>. And even those who did might just give it the<span style="font-style: italic;"> slip</span>.<br />PPS: Those who weren't meant to get the last question can ignore the PS too.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-14196592678517806622009-06-20T02:10:00.000+05:302010-08-06T21:44:22.727+05:30The Mathematician<div style="text-align: justify;">Today, I happened to come across a post about <a href="http://chinmay-datar.blogspot.com/2009/05/jvk.html">JVK</a> ('the legendary pune engineering graphics guy', as the author says :D) as I was blog-hopping, and the only person who came to my mind when I read that last tribute-rendering line 'miss those classes' was another legendary coaching class guy, N.M. Kulkarni.<br />You wouldn't find a cutter Puneite who doesn't know about NM, and you'd rarely find people who haven't attended his classes, most of them would probably tell you with a regretful face how they couldn't be under the wing of the great NM because they stayed in some far flung area and couldn't find means of transport. And you thought you'd never see a day when you'd see students falling over each other to attend classes :|<br /><br />The guy taught Mathematics. 11th and 12th grade. He didn't teach it, he literally etched it onto people's minds. His trademark <span style="font-style: italic;">ishtyle</span> of pronouncing zero as<span style="font-style: italic;"> jheero</span>, his unique quality of seamlessly transforming complex calculus formulae into self-made tunes, the way he banged the front door (if you could call it front, it was more of in the middle of the room :P) on the faces of guys who came running in late, the dreaded pointer that fell like lightning on potent mischief-makers, all the memories mesmerise! All the back-benchers had 2 traditional brand names: 'chaavat', and 'dambrat', the closest word in English would be naughty, I suppose. Which doesn't come anywhere close to conveying the relish with which he used to utter the word, at least 7 times in every batch. I was lucky enough to be in the cream of batches, M*, which I later on realized contained the most scheming of people, it goes according to the ancient law which says, the more intelligent you are, the more the urge to do more cunning mischief :P<br /><br />Probably the only guy on earth whom God grants more than 24 hours in a day. What else would you be inclined to think when you see someone managing six 12th batches and two 11th batches every day (with extra timings for almost every batch on Sundays) round the year, each batch that went on for a minimum of 1.5 hours, apart from online night coaching classes to enthusiastic students across the states? And this was 2 years ago, i don't have any idea to what 2 digit number it must have increased to today! The guy eats, drinks, walks, talks, plays and sleeps maths. Each of his dialogues are straight from Incredibleland; 'chaaaaavat!!', 'Khanvilkar, distance formula sang!', 'ata apan thode sundry sums sodvuya...they're not very difficult, but they're the sums examiners will ask in exam, so we'll call them sundry, kay bolnar apan tyanna? sundry!!' (this was our introduction to sundry sums :P), 'thiiiiiiikay!' (where we all used to yell along with him, the most awesome style of ending a lecture I've ever seen till date), Each batch contained a minimum of 200 people, every one in the class had fixed places, 10 people cramped onto every bench meant for, well, 10 if you sit the way we used to sit, 6 or 7 if you want to sit in a way so that you'd be able to recognize your body organs after 90 minutes. And then when Miss Electricity used to ditch us during the hottest part of the day, Namya defended the situation only the way he could: 'Tumhi ikde shiknyasathi alela ahaat mulanno, ani shikshan he kathin paristhititach hote, mi tumhala ithe mast AC ani basnyasathi sofa lavun devu shakto, pan mag upayog kaay??' The way we used to shout 'Walve, walve!!' (the guy who used to teach physics in the opposite building), and the booing at the feeble attempts of a meagre 50 people trying to shout back 'NM' from there, and then his mock-serious line 'asa nav nahi ghyaycha konacha...tya walvencha ani apala kahi sambandh ahe ka!'; to the occasional straddler, that affectionate 'tula sangu ka tu kasa ahes? goonda pravrutticha..' :P, the twinkle in his eyes after demonstrating how to solve a difficult sum, and then, 'hya sumchya pudhe tick mark karun liha, YENARACH!', 'ha sum khup sopa ahe, pan mi sangto, ha sum tumhi chukavnarach!' (lol), and then, when he's too much in the mood, 'Aaj apla xxx kay chan distoy nahi..', and then looking at some girl in the corner..'kay mhanata yyy..khara aahe ki nahi..' and then the mischievous laughter, and the class goes all oooh and aaah; 'mi roj midnight la yeun problems lihito boardvar', once he comes into the class and says 'I have two pet dogs', and while everyone is staring, he continues 'their names are derivation and integration' (!!), then during Diwali, 'When the world will celebrate the festival of lights, we shall celebrate the festival of I.N.T.E.G.R.A.T.I.O.N', his imaginative punishments, his sudden outbursts of philosophy, the outrageous anger on certain other (but rare) occasions, cracking non-veg jokes without blinking an eye in front of a 200 strong teenager crowd, followed by 'Majhya ani tumchyamadhe shevti farakach kay ahe!' in that laughing tone; the hours of standing beneath the building chitchatting with friends, till a frustrated NM shouts out from atop to vacate immediately; I miss all of it, ALL OF IT.<br /><br />It wasn't just a coaching class, it was a place for refreshment. He could be as strict as a teacher should be, and at the same time could effortlessly extract humour out of any statement. True, he's a bit crazy, but then, all geniuses are :D Nothing deterred him, or his faithful students, neither the incessant complaints from the surrounding <span style="font-style: italic;">societywallahs</span>, nor the threatening looks from his wife when she came to visit during 5 minute breaks between consecutive batches, neither holidays, nor diseases, nothing. He was a man for his students. The huge ever-increasing, never-ending queues for admission under his wing year after year stand testimony. I can go on and on and on forever about this guy (anyone who's been taught by him will!), and he's probably the only reason why I would want to go back to my 12th. Any student who gets into junior college and has Maths as a subject should definitely attend his classes; in fact, volunteer for the subject just so you can attend his classes. He'll breathe Maths into you as effortlessly as, well, breathing. It's something I just can't endeavour to put into words, you have to be there to experience it, it's the stuff of legend, the days that'll make you go 'Gosh!' when you recollect them.<br />Thank you, N.M. Sir.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-48632689852256253142009-06-16T21:07:00.000+05:302010-08-06T21:44:04.192+05:30The Name Game<div style="text-align: justify;">I recently noticed that I automatically associated almost all names of people to a particular nature. Like, Nikita meant plump, Ameya meant full of attitude, Tejas meant fair. I didn't know where this came from, but coming across a girl named Nikita who was waif-thin made me feel surprised for a bit. Now, I realize that these preconceived associations come from long back, from my schooldays. School being the first platform where you start socialising and making friends, staying 12 years with the same people had sort of given their name an identity, rather than the other way round. I was so used to Nikita being fat that even after breaking out of school, the name Nikita always meant plumpness, and anything otherwise initially felt strange, if not outright impossible, just like thinking of a subdued Ameya was like thinking of Sachin Tendulkar without a bat.<br />Fortunately for my current friends, not many have the same names that my school friends had. But those who are unlucky enough, shall continue to be the silent butt of jokes in my mind! :P</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-27083144416099210502009-06-15T22:15:00.000+05:302010-08-06T21:43:42.813+05:30'Phone'menal<div style="text-align: justify;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.digicelsamoa.com/assets/img/WSM/phones/large/nokia-6030.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 168px; height: 278px;" src="http://www.digicelsamoa.com/assets/img/WSM/phones/large/nokia-6030.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>My friends will tell you I keep swinging my mobile phone in my hand almost always unless I'm driving, and more often than not, gravity embellishes its presence as plastic meets mud with a dull thud. But this incident hardly commands any interest in the circle anymore; the only thing that happens further on is, I bend over, pick up the phone, dust it off, and continue the swinging, along with the conversation that I was having with the people around. Apart from these highly frequent ground-cell meetings, my cell phone has once fallen off a moving vehicle (at 40kmph), tumbled down thrice from the tops of <span style="font-style: italic;">tekdis</span>, plonked into muddy water at the panshet dam (unintentional) and soapy water in the shower (intentional), and has had curd and lukewarm coffee spilled over it (which I'd washed off using liberal amounts of water), and yet, it continues to display remarkable perfectness in all of its limited functionalities, except mixing up text message contents into one another, creating funny combinations.<br /><br />Congratulations, Nokia, for bringing out such a destruction-resistant mobile phone, for making me choose it 2 years ago, for making me despise losing things on purpose and for making me not absent-minded and so not losing it not-on-purpose, and for ruining my chances of getting a more envied model for the next 2 years at a minimum.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-90193244381530391902009-06-11T22:23:00.000+05:302009-06-11T19:48:08.591+05:30Quote of the Day"Maths is so strange, yet so logical!"<br />-My 14 year old brother, after a gruelling session of 9th grade maths (during vacation time).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-11752273460356183972009-05-19T14:00:00.000+05:302009-05-20T16:33:22.369+05:30The Dark 'Knights'<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7iotsef_GR7xdaqZZlVjgyDNUg0m4UqVtpGA5aCDxkX8W9d7fWsOxkB3Fz_3rp-J8TFn_frz_EWzS3qhPOR-Al_SJLygEJrHN79EBeVs4DX-OXYdYY2qUcVYiPFlXKxGO5qiYgXk7QDBU/s1600-h/Too+Hot+Too+Cool+MP3+Songs.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 416px; height: 238px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7iotsef_GR7xdaqZZlVjgyDNUg0m4UqVtpGA5aCDxkX8W9d7fWsOxkB3Fz_3rp-J8TFn_frz_EWzS3qhPOR-Al_SJLygEJrHN79EBeVs4DX-OXYdYY2qUcVYiPFlXKxGO5qiYgXk7QDBU/s320/Too+Hot+Too+Cool+MP3+Songs.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337397097335196610" border="0" /></a><br />This is what is called the 'never say die' spirit. Or something like that.<br /><br />KKR v/s CSK at Centurion, 18/05/09<br />It wasn't a match that turned heads. Wasn't one that would make even the tail-lines of the TOI. It's just what you can do even if it doesn't greatly matter whether you do it or not. Yes, even with a lazily-filled stadium booing at you.<br /><br />The Kolkata Knight Riders threw the match into fire and then snatched it out of the lapping flames. They needed just one dark horse, and they got it in the form of Bradley Hodge. I'm not particularly fond of the team (though it's being owned by SRK), but yesterday's match sure made me eat half the cushions in the hall! I just happened to read a match preview two days ago that declared, <span style="font-style: italic;">Is Kolkata lucky enough to win against Chennai?</span> FTI, if KKR could've broken out of their notorious reputation of throwing away comfortably winnable matches in the last over just a bit earlier, they actually would have made the semis. The guys were a lot clumsy (a trait that cost Hussey yesterday), but what made this chase near-perfect was that it wasn't just some madness coming off. McCullum and Hodge selected the bowlers they were going to target, took it easy against Murali, and later found a Saha to prop up the main act.<br /><br />They played a little for their pride, and a bit more for coming back into the next season positively, and although it rarely looked like they played to win, they did that handsomely against the second best team in the running!<br /><br />Cheers, as usual!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-43456002284237618572009-02-08T23:56:00.000+05:302009-02-08T11:25:07.516+05:30To all ye sloths - The queen is hereThey always ask me how do I manage to make through the tiny gangway sandwiched between the park and the society hall with my bike (Scooty Pep+), when better riders refrain from doing so, for fear of ramming into one of the walls.<br /><br />Though attributing it to my miraculous sense of balance would've been more dignified, the actual answer is extremely less so.<br />I just am too lazy to leave hold of the throttle.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-8414318839558050742009-02-01T04:44:00.000+05:302012-01-03T13:50:56.953+05:30MY HANDWRITING ROXXX! :D<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Rocks full on!! Can't expect anything sleeker, sexier and more mature. And if I xerox..err, photocopy it, I would sit drooling over the print till it got dissolved. It's amazing how photocopies make even the most disgusting of handwritings look quite a bit decent. Maybe, it's the ‘printed’ effect. Or maybe, the pre-conceived idea that printed work looks more dignified and professional than handwritten ones. Whatever. I just pray I don't eat up my notebook one day! (On second thoughts, it won't matter much :P)</div>
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As a child, my parents used to sign my calendar or homework (always complete, the author would like to mention that she was a very obedient child, quite unlike her adult version), or write my class teacher a sick note, or a wrong-dabba (meaning anything other than poli bhaji) note, I always used to wonder how they succeeded in conceiving such a carefree, casual, half-the-time-unreadable-to-me-but-miraculously-interpretatory-to-the-teachers (or maybe they just faked it!) handwriting. Now, I know.</div>
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Curiously, my own handwriting used to change every time. Every minute. Every line. At the top of the notebook, it used to be geometrically at the middle of the two lines provided, but touching neither. And there, it used to be cursive. (The author claims that she still has her Geography notebook of grade 6, with neat little notes on Zulu dances and Assamese stilt houses and the snowy Taiga and Tundra regions, as a souvenir to her volatile handwriting.) Then, quarter-way through, I used to get a sudden inspiration to go print (the all separate letters style). The sentences used to stay exactly between the two lines, but the letters could get free and stretch their limbs a bit; the legs of the ‘p’s and ‘q’s lengthened, the ‘g’s and ‘y’s got their curled tails stiff and straightened (how about a dog? :P), the dot of the ‘i’ got hollowed out, the ‘o’ went from clockwise conception to anti-clockwise, and some completely cursive letters like ‘f’ and ‘k’ and ‘r’ got image makeovers.</div>
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But, again, all this held on just for another 7 lines. My pen remained dissatisfied. The last few lines were a mixture of cursive and print. The most user-friendly handwriting till date. Efficient and time-saving. The haven of a lazy person :D Depending upon the word, the ‘s’ would sometimes be print, sometimes cursive, at other times, a cursive version of print. The ‘t’ would sometimes have its cross extended, sometimes it’s a**. And after all of this, ultimately, the next page of my notebook never used to resemble any other page in it! My mum used to say, I’d be caught one day under charges of forgery. My ready retort: I’d show them such mind-boggling on-the-spot samples of multiple handwritings that they’d pull their pen out! (Bad pun, I guess. Err…sorry. Pen. :P)</div>
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But all the same, my writing used to be elaborate and pearly and rotund and neat. Y’know. A different sort of neat. Meaning, it looked manipulated sometimes. Carefully planned out and scrutinized handwriting. Although it was not. And I hated that illusion.</div>
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Then, in an effort to make it seem more natural, there came a stage where I became too lazy to write. The writing became too short and stubby. The necks of long letters became so short that the ‘h’ started resembling ‘n’ and ‘d’ got mistaken for ‘a’. For the first time in history, I lost marks in my English examination for SPELLING MISTAKES!! I was so scandalized, I came home and cried. :|</div>
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I decided, that’s that. Time for some serious business. I needed to shut out all the namby-pamby wishy washy nonsense of neat, clean, scratch-free handwriting (Although the author does not expect anyone who knows her to believe, she wants to make known that she used to religiously tear out pages that contained as much as a single scratch with a slide-rule, and write them all over again. Forget assignments or projects, normal class-work notebooks got that sort of treatment :| ), and be natural. A few cuts won’t take your life. And neither can you afford to write every alphabet so flowery and grandiloquent every time. It would only be so much before it started deteriorating or I lost patience. And it was seriously coming in the way of my speed factor. So, I let it go. Let my inhibitions go. Break free. And I realized something wonderful.</div>
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That when you do something without worry, and unnecessary tension, you probably do it the best way you can do it. My scratches dramatically decreased! To almost one in ten pages! I stopped worrying about completing journal questions and assignment essays in draft form before making them fair. I inked them in directly. And fared out top every where. Around 9th grade, I realized that I wrote more comfortably with a ball-point pen. Fountain pens always left patches of ink round my nails. And my fingers looked permanently painted. And the Headmistress found it the perfect time to reveal (although reluctantly; she believed in water-based liquid ink and only water-based liquid ink) that we were allowed to give our Boards in non water-based liquid ink. So I switched to balls. Eeks, pens, I meant. Erm, never mind. :D</div>
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Professors always swore by my writing. Now, they went berserk! In fact, our Hindi miss, Miss Sonali, even went to the extent of tagging it prernadayak (inspirational). I was embarrassed. [Note: If you’ve actually got through till this point and such level of self-centered naïveté, then the author strongly recommends you to plough on.]</div>
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Experimentations led to the conclusion that black ink suited my writing more. Lent it quality, and a kind of sleekiness. Or maybe it was my mindset and there was nothing of the sort. But I’d learnt not to worry about that, just do what my mind says is right. I never looked back.</div>
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Nowadays, almost all my notes are in black, though I have one blue Parker refill as a keepsake. (more so, for emergency situations like exams!) My writing has a sort of casual messiness to it. Joint somewhere, crooked somewhere, completely random. The way it suits me best. People say, a person’s handwriting reflects his/her personality, among so many other things. People also say my handwriting is lovely. I don’t know what exactly to make of those two statements (since I don’t think I’m that lovely in person), but I feel that, every aspect of a person (may it be as small as his way of tying his shoelaces or as big as giving a presentation) that makes others stop and think (even for a second), is worth nurturing and developing. It might not make an inch worth of difference, but who knows? Maybe, tomorrow, the ill-informed author might just get preferred for a PR post in Siemens (at which point, she rushes forward to assure that she has no personal contacts or relatives or friends or friends' friends or grudges in relation to the said organization), just because the interviewer was a person who believed that handwriting reflects personality and who found her writing lovely. :)</div>
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Knock on wood.</div>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-82693142942647443642009-01-19T15:35:00.000+05:302012-01-03T13:50:22.556+05:30How three misplaced screws can screw you up equally well...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">One long canvas bag.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">Three forgotten screws.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">Biting cold.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">Saturn.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">Murphy's Law.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">:|</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">The insomniac author, for once, has all of the time (because of the insomnia), but no inclination to elaborate. Wildly formulated theories are welcome; persistent grilling is not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">Yours threadbarely,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">me.</span></div>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-66485389061813793392009-01-18T04:55:00.000+05:302012-01-03T20:41:38.417+05:30:O<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">Star parties always hold different meaning (not exactly; I couldn't think of any other flattering introductory line :P), especially when you're gonna be towing your own telescopes! Dunno why the one taking place later this day made me skim back to my last post on </span><a href="http://snookerofamind.blogspot.com/2008/01/party-of-stars-part-2.html" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">star parties</a><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">. And rather unexpectedly, I realized something completely unrelated to stars. That, till very recently, I still wrote mostly for others. But now, I write only for myself. The conventional style's breaking away, the urge to write goody-goody falsely flowery things getting replaced by the satisfaction gained by twisting off-the-rocker things into catching shenanigans. Calibrating nonsense </span><i style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">actually</i><span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"> requires a sackful of sense :D</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">Hopefully, I'm improving.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">P.S.: This almost turns out to be the shortest post in the history of the blog.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">(To self:) Be ashamed.</span><br />
</div>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-82028240514840473602009-01-09T22:52:00.000+05:302012-01-03T13:48:41.605+05:30Why do I DON'T?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><i></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><i>Pre-read note: The over thinking syndrome that the author keeps catching/that keeps catching the author at intervals, followed by frustrated, flimsy reproductions in Microsoft's Office. Don't bother to bear with it.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">It's a question asked out of a pure, overwhelming feeling of unable to perform. A loser feeling. Out of a desperate need to be accepted and acknowledged and admired and taken notice of. Of being 'wanted', if I dare to sound <i>cliche.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">It's a shameless emotion. As if you are allowing yourself to be relegated to just what others think and understand or can think and understand about you. It's utterly shameless, but still everyone gets that, somewhere, sometime. Some, many times, in this world where you try so many times to live only for yourself, by yourself, but don't succeed. Y'know, just like, sort of victimising yourself in your own imagination, and then braving it out to a glorious end.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">A guy who knows equally well as his colleagues, probably even more, but doesn't have the confidence to place it in the open. 'Confidence comes from knowledge', somehow, falls out of place in this case. Language problems. Or intimidating friends. Encouraging group, but crushed, buried deep within self-confidence. Inferiority complexes galore, whatever little he speaks gets stubbed too, in time. Psychological inertia. Keep on moving into the dumps.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">I've always thought that emotions are more potentially lethal weapons than Gold AK 47s, just like the mind is stronger than the physique. If you lose control, the 47s at least leave remnants.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">The worst has passed, you think?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">No.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">Contentment in that very state.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">A person who says <i>main aisa hi hoon</i>, and not<i> main aisa kyon hoon?</i> (Heartfelt apologies, if anyone actually managed to read to this point. Couldn't bear leaving that line out :D)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';">A person who thinks I don't, but not <i>Why do I don't?</i></span></div>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-753054995944075052008-12-03T05:25:00.000+05:302012-01-03T13:45:34.783+05:30How long can Short be? Or should it be..vice-versa?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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08/10/2008</div>
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07.55 am</div>
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Place: "River"side, The Boat Club, C.O.E.P</div>
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Theme: Pauus (Rain)</div>
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Work: Write non-crappy stuff (supposed to be written 2 days ago)</div>
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Author: A confused girl with a cartload of submissions</div>
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The Consequence: Two raggedy pages (with the circuit diagram of a band-reject filter on the back of one of them) in HB pencil, as underneath.</div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">The light shone on in parity,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">The drums went on a spree,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">The drop atop, 'Where should I drop?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">Where would I like to be?'</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">One trickled in a farmland crack,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">Burrowed and hollered through,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">Worms, lost seeds, decaying stuff,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">No earth to seep into.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">One rushed into, the river blue</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">its icy depths aquiver,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">At threshold poised, the air rejoiced,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">When life bevied the giver.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">One drop, unfortunate, it dropped</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">on a poor arithmetic journal,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">The '8' went '3', the drop broke free,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">Messed up a cursed internal.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #009900;">One landed dang! on top of skin,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">It was a little hand,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">Bereft, it mused, 'This is my end',</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">In seconds, I'll bite the sand!</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #009900;">The hurl it knew would come in time</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">somehow did never come,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">What came instead, were fellow drops,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">Unknowns and long-lost chums.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #009900;">They hugged and tugged in wonderment</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">as the hand cupped 'em together,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">And gently laid them on a leaf</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">Withered to vein and tether.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">The vein bloomed to a pulsing lane,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">The whites gave way to greens,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">Two eyes watched on, the (re)union</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">Of parched smithereens.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">Behold the fall! No time at all!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">From pain and dying gory,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">Stood life with dancing droplet crowns,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">In all its shining glory!</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">For though it seems (or does not seem)</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">awful poetry (or prose),</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">Rain does do magic, spell-binding!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #009900;">When a bud becomes a rose.</span></div>
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Why do I remember someone saying writing is a work of leisure? :|</div>
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-40809234200936819352008-12-03T03:52:00.000+05:302012-01-03T13:44:25.559+05:30Quick Tales - the Results<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://community.livejournal.com/india_writing/17183.html">Here they are!</a></div>
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Congratulations to all the winners! And a good job, organisers.</div>
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A cheer for the time taken to comment on almost every story and pointing out where each one worked (or as the case might be, bombed).</div>
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And now that I know I use more type-styling than type (which is a shocking achievement in itself), I'm gonna be the next one vying! :D</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="http://livejournal.caferati.com/contests/scores/?contest=qt">The Scores.</a></div>
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-81144785152442010222008-11-03T01:55:00.000+05:302012-01-03T13:18:13.494+05:30Quick Tales - the ShortList<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>* tone of surprise, eyebrows raised *</i><br />
<div class="lj-currents">
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Why! Hello Blog!</div>
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<i>* /tone of surprise, eyebrows raised *</i></div>
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That's more than two months out of the offing.</div>
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And this is a blog-saving post. :|</div>
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Well, the saying goes,</div>
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<i>The prospect of unpaid publicity arouses even the laziest.</i></div>
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Or maybe, I coined it right now. Never mind.</div>
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One of my major motivations (probably the only one) to take part in <a href="http://livejournal.caferati.com/contests/quick-tales-contest/">QUiCK TALES</a>, a Flash Fiction writing contest jointly organised by <a href="http://www.caferati.com/">Caferati </a>and <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/">LiveJournal</a>, was, the beginning of my engineering mid-semester exams coincided with the fateful last date of the contest; and I just had to do anything, anything other than studies :|</div>
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Theme: Journal (in any which way that you can interpret it)</div>
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Word limit: Not more than 500 words. <img goomoji="360" src="http://mail.google.com/mail/e/360" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.2ex; margin-right: 0.2ex; margin-top: 0pt; vertical-align: middle;" /></div>
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Mine motive was pure time-pass, but I learnt a few days ago, to shock, and speechlessness, that both the entries that I had submitted somehow found their way into the final 100 shortlisted ones! And one of the prizes, The People's Choice Prize depends on junta ka vote; bole toh, you people need to go and read those stories and rate them on a scale of 1 to 10, and they'll calculate an average score on Doomsday.</div>
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The poll is open only to LJ members, so you need to register on LiveJournal to rate. <a href="https://www.livejournal.com/create.bml" target="_blank">Sign up over here</a>, it's just a 30 seconds ka jhamela, and you can forget all about the account after you've rated the stories </div>
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Here go mine, to hum and blackcurrant rum (:D)</div>
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<a href="http://quick-tales.livejournal.com/26995.html" target="_blank">#683</a> and <a href="http://quick-tales.livejournal.com/29179.html" target="_blank">#738</a></div>
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Just go and read the stuff!</div>
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Feedback would be greatly appreciated. (Mail, blog, or journal :D)</div>
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Don't worry! You won't be inflicted with more than 5 minutes of my writing. The word limit left no chance for the scrollbar!</div>
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And of course, goes without ado, the rest of the <a href="http://quick-tales.livejournal.com/" target="_blank">shortlisted stories</a>.</div>
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Poll closes in a few weeks!</div>
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<li>Mood: Shock, wearing off <img goomoji="364" src="http://mail.google.com/mail/e/364" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0.2ex; margin-right: 0.2ex; margin-top: 0pt; vertical-align: middle;" /></li>
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-571017548042074232.post-55326285052646187212008-09-01T19:45:00.000+05:302012-01-03T13:41:28.524+05:30To know or not to know<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>He who knows and knows that he knows, is a wise man- seek him.</i></div>
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<i>He who knows and knows not he knows, is asleep- wake him.</i></div>
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<i>He who knows not and knows he knows not, he is a child- teach him.</i></div>
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<i>He who knows not and knows not he knows not- SHUN HIM.</i></div>
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* no need to explicitly mention that he's a fool [all related expletives], a featherbrained nincompoop [supplementary expletives], and he can commit suicide by belly flopping into the river Mula (or for that matter, any water body; Mula gets special mention because the part of Mula behind our college is just more potent as regards inviting death by multiple causes, like drowning, clawed frog injuries, automatic choking, hyacinth-strangling, etc. in order of increasing probability) *</div>
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Alright. I know I just can't resist putting random crap completely irrelevant to the point of my post. But most of the times, it's because many essentially-related-to-the-post arguments crop up in my mind just when I'm actually writing. And then it feels unfair to be writing without expounding them; it feels incomplete. So I just have to include them, you understand. No wonder I always end up with unimaginably huge posts almost every time. But atleast, not this time. No.</div>
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So, the lines above are part of a Chinese/Arabian proverb. [Multiple sources – multiple answers] Chuck the origin. Just concentrate on line 1. There are times when try as you might, you just don’t find the right words to express yourself, but you are rock-convinced that you’re correct. It feels like the peak of inexpressibility. And then, when you get the words finally, it’s a crash of delight! That was exactly what I experienced when I chanced upon this line. “He who knows and knows that he knows”. Cognizance. Awareness. Of your own capabilities. To be immensely aware of your intelligence. To be knowing that you’re capable of so very much, vis-a-vis the rest of the world around you! It feels wonderful! Heady sometimes. [I know; as I have felt those pleasurable shivers coursing through me so often :) ]</div>
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But, very subtle lines separate being aware, being outspoken, being outspoken at the right times, and being explosive. Modesty is a quality; but be too reticent, and you’ll lose a chance one too many. Be audacious enough to gather a fish-market and pounce upon any and every topic to parade your “awareness”, that’s what is colloquially termed “Attitude”. I’d like to term it, more behaviourally- Pining to be the centre of attention. It’s something on the lines of over-estimating yourself; sort of contradictory ain’t it? You get carried away by your own idea of your abilities (people actually start convincing themselves that things they’re unable to do are not worth doing! :| ) and start thinking you are incomparable. In short, you get a superiority complex. The ploy might hold temporarily, but in the end, you’ll be up for the grabs.</div>
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Being aware, and being coolly confident about it is what it’s all about. "You know that you know" should make you more humble than proud. That's real 'knowing'! Everyone has their limits. [They must. Imagine, you’re the top in everything in the world! Scary! What would you do now for the rest of your life? Sit and eat peanuts? I’d actually consider suicide :| ] And you must be aware of them too; so that you can better yourself. You have to accept and respect better talent when you meet it. Never under-estimate anyone, and never over-estimate yourself. Make sure that you do fly sky-high, but with a fully functional parachute.</div>
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In short (that is, my idea of short :) ), definitely know that you know, but also know what you don’t know; and know precisely how much you know, and let the others know that ‘know’ing in a slightly demure manner. You might be bursting to brag, but that’ll seem more like forcing others to know that you know, which defeats the purpose after all.</div>
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More practically, it might just, just, seem like a variant of case 4, whereby people might just follow the advice the mysterious Chinese/Arabians gave.</div>
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SHUN YOU.</div>
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7