How three misplaced screws can screw you up equally well...

One long canvas bag.

Three forgotten screws.

Biting cold.

Saturn.

Murphy's Law.

:|

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.

Yours threadbarely,

me.

:O

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 star parties. 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 actually requires a sackful of sense :D

Hopefully, I'm improving.


P.S.: This almost turns out to be the shortest post in the history of the blog.
(To self:) Be ashamed.

Why do I DON'T?

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.

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 cliche.

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.

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.

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.

The worst has passed, you think?

No.

Contentment in that very state.

A person who says main aisa hi hoon, and not main aisa kyon hoon? (Heartfelt apologies, if anyone actually managed to read to this point. Couldn't bear leaving that line out :D)

A person who thinks I don't, but not Why do I don't?

How long can Short be? Or should it be..vice-versa?

08/10/2008

07.55 am

Place: "River"side, The Boat Club, C.O.E.P

Theme: Pauus (Rain)

Work: Write non-crappy stuff (supposed to be written 2 days ago)

Author: A confused girl with a cartload of submissions

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.

The light shone on in parity,

The drums went on a spree,

The drop atop, 'Where should I drop?

Where would I like to be?'

One trickled in a farmland crack,

Burrowed and hollered through,

Worms, lost seeds, decaying stuff,

No earth to seep into.

One rushed into, the river blue

its icy depths aquiver,

At threshold poised, the air rejoiced,

When life bevied the giver.

One drop, unfortunate, it dropped

on a poor arithmetic journal,

The '8' went '3', the drop broke free,

Messed up a cursed internal.

One landed dang! on top of skin,

It was a little hand,

Bereft, it mused, 'This is my end',

In seconds, I'll bite the sand!

The hurl it knew would come in time

somehow did never come,

What came instead, were fellow drops,

Unknowns and long-lost chums.

They hugged and tugged in wonderment

as the hand cupped 'em together,

And gently laid them on a leaf

Withered to vein and tether.

The vein bloomed to a pulsing lane,

The whites gave way to greens,

Two eyes watched on, the (re)union

Of parched smithereens.

Behold the fall! No time at all!

From pain and dying gory,

Stood life with dancing droplet crowns,

In all its shining glory!

For though it seems (or does not seem)

awful poetry (or prose),

Rain does do magic, spell-binding!

When a bud becomes a rose.

Why do I remember someone saying writing is a work of leisure? :|

Quick Tales - the Results

Here they are!

Congratulations to all the winners! And a good job, organisers.

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).

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

The Scores.

Quick Tales - the ShortList

* tone of surprise, eyebrows raised *

Why! Hello Blog!

* /tone of surprise, eyebrows raised *

That's more than two months out of the offing.

And this is a blog-saving post. :|

Well, the saying goes,

The prospect of unpaid publicity arouses even the laziest.

Or maybe, I coined it right now. Never mind.

One of my major motivations (probably the only one) to take part in QUiCK TALES, a Flash Fiction writing contest jointly organised by Caferati and LiveJournal, 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 :|

Theme: Journal (in any which way that you can interpret it)

Word limit: Not more than 500 words. 

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.

The poll is open only to LJ members, so you need to register on LiveJournal to rate. Sign up over here, it's just a 30 seconds ka jhamela, and you can forget all about the account after you've rated the stories 

Here go mine, to hum and blackcurrant rum (:D)

#683 and #738

Just go and read the stuff!

Feedback would be greatly appreciated. (Mail, blog, or journal :D)

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!

And of course, goes without ado, the rest of the shortlisted stories.

Poll closes in a few weeks!

• Mood: Shock, wearing off 

To know or not to know

He who knows and knows that he knows, is a wise man- seek him.

He who knows and knows not he knows, is asleep- wake him.

He who knows not and knows he knows not, he is a child- teach him.

He who knows not and knows not he knows not- SHUN HIM.

* 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) *

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.

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 :) ]

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.

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.

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.

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.

SHUN YOU.