Make me a Poem

Nightmare illusion, nicotine backlash
Walking on thin ice, bleeding from broken glass

Burning the blue skies, they're turning green to me
Line-breaks and timequakes

I'm an illusion stranger, Haha! I'm a charade
I want you to push me over the brink
Don't want you to guess anymore

You have no idea where I came from
We have no idea where we're going
Lodged in life
Like branches in a river

Flowing downstream, caught in the current
I carry you, you'll carry me
That's how it could be

Don't you know me? Don't you know me by now?

An ode to someone who'll never read it

Dear Atul Mama,

Can't believe you're gone. Really can't. A lot of people miss you, some of them much more than I do. But I can't talk for them,all I know is I miss you a lot.
No I don't believe in afterlife. I don't believe that you're a shining star in the sky and I'll see you again after my death. But if I did,I'd wish for an early death. It's tough being a non-believer,but I don't want to delude myself. Maybe it would've been easier if I had known that the last time I met you was gonna be the last time I'll meet you. Or maybe it would've been even tougher. I don't really care about such choices.
Why did this have to happen? Oh I know the hindu philosophy. Everybody faces the sins of his/her past lives. If only I could bring myself to believe in past lives. You were not a sinner in this life. This shouldn't have happened.I don't know who to curse. Actually I do.

I'm not sorry that I never told you the fact that you were one of the most important influences in my life.That I loved you so much I was almost blind to whatever little shortcomings you had.
It wouldn't have mattered much after you were no more. If anything it could've made your last moments tougher to think you were leaving a void in the life of one more person.

याद के बेनिशान जजीरों से, तेरी आवाज़ आ रही है अभी
शहर की बेचिराग गलियों में ज़िंदगी तुझको ढूँढती है अभी
कुछ तो नाज़ुक मिजाज़ हैं हम भी, और ये चोट भी नयी है अभी

I know it sounds petty, but thanks for introducing me to Ghulam Ali.
I don't pray for you. I don't pray for anything. I just miss you.

Such a depressing post doesn't entirely do justice to the most jovial person I've ever known. Following is one of the least important things I miss about you. Also the most.

हमे हर्ष है कि हमारे मूल्यों में उत्कर्ष है
अब देखिए ना, डाक्टर की नज़र में मरीज़ नही मरीज़ का पर्स है
और मरीज़ की नज़र में डाक्टर नही डाक्टर के बगल में खड़ी खूबसूरत नर्स है

More on the Man upstairs

These are a few of my favourite quotes on God and religion.

Friedrich Nietzsche was probably the most blasphemous person ever. Sample these:
God is a thought which makes crooked all that is straight.

God is dead: but considering the state Man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet, in which his shadow will be shown.

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.

Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?

- All Nietzsche

Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lottery, dating and religion.
- Scott Adams in The Dilbert Principle

If God is so smart, why do we fart?
- Scott Adams in The Religion War

God is a sound people make when they're too tired to think anymore.
- Edward Abbey

I don't believe in God, but if I did, he would be a black, left-handed guitarist
- Matthew in Dreamers

If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever.
- Woody Allen

I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
- Issac Asimov

I have more faith in my plumber than I do in the eternal being. Plumbers do a good job. They keep the shit flowing.
- Charles Bukowski

How much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in his divine system of creation?
- Joseph Heller in Catch 22

I've never understood how God could expect his creatures to pick the one true religion by faith — it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe.
- Jubal Harshaw in Stranger in a Strange Land

It is sometimes hard, in times like these, to understand God's way. Why would he allow nine innocent people to be run down in the prime of their lives by a senior citizen who, perhaps, shouldn't be driving? It is then that we must understand, God's sense of humor is very different from our own. He does not laugh at the simple "man walks into a bar" joke. No, God needs complex irony and subtle farcical twists that seem macabre to you and me. All that we can hope for is that God got his good laugh and a tragedy such as this will never happen again.
- South Park

I think that if there were a God, there would be less evil on this earth. I believe that if evil exists here below, then either it was willed by God or it was beyond His powers to prevent it. Now I cannot bring myself to fear a God who is either spiteful or weak. I defy Him without fear and care not a fig for his thunderbolts.
- Marquis de Sade

Respectable society believed in God in order to avoid having to speak about him.
- Jean-Paul Sartre

If I were granted omnipotence, and millions of years to experiment in, I should not think Man much to boast of as the final result of all my efforts.
- Bertrand Russell

I've been worrying about God a little bit lately. It seems as if he's been lashing out, you know, destroying cities, annihilating places. It seems like he's been in a bad mood. And I think it has to do with the quality of lovers he's been getting. If you look at the people who love God now, you know, if I was God, I'd need to destroy something.
- Salman Rushdie

I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake... Religion is all bunk.
- Thomas Alva Edison

God is a mean kid on an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I'm the ant.
- Bruce Nolan in Bruce Almighty

Even though I've found God, I still love blow jobs, and I still say "fuck".
- Dave Mustaine

I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only His nonexistence could excuse Him.
- Albert Einstein

I looked and looked but I didn't see God
- Yuri Gagarin, after becoming the first person to orbit the earth

I do not think it is necessary to believe that the same God who has given us our senses, reason, and intelligence wished us to abandon their use, giving us by some other means the information that we could gain through them.
- Galileo Galilei

Kill one man and you are a murderer. Kill millions and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone and you are a God.
- Jean Rostand

Religion easily — has the best bullshit story of all time. Think about it. Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible man...living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn't want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.
- George Carlin

God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be tortured for eternity in hell. That, sir, is not free will. It would be akin to a man telling his girlfriend, 'Do what you wish, but if you choose to leave me, I will track you down and blow your brains out.' When a man says this we call him a psychopath and cry out for his imprisonment/execution. When a god says the same, we call him loving and build churches in his honor.
- Computer programmer, Chuck Easttom (William C. Easttom II)

If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished: for they are always praying for evil against one another.
- Epicurus

You don't fuck around with the infinite
- From Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
- Voltaire

I think I'll believe in Gosh instead of God. If you don't believe in Gosh too, you'll be darned to heck.
- Anonymous

Of Suicide:And how Immortal Omniscient Omnipotent Humane Universal Anthropomorphic Beings make me sick

Disclaimer: This is a very long post.

Enthusiastic people are a genuine puzzlement for me. Especially the ones who are all fired up about all things trite and blunderful!

"Oh! It's a great morning, it's going to be a great day!"

Many a cheerful induhviduals have started out their days saying this and most have proceeded to get their asses fucked through the course of the entire day. However, such grave misfortune deters not the cheerfulness of true optimists, and they end their day with this little gem of self-motivation:

"I should still be positive and thank God! Things could have been worse!"

Oh really? Why thats a fucking revealation! Here's another revealation for you:
Things can always be worse!
Just think about the shittiest thing that has ever happened to you, and I can assure you you'll be able to think of something shittier that could have happened!

Here's a possible response to my beautifully articulated argument:
But that's what i'm saying. Since things can always be worse, you should be cheerful and thankful all the time for the fact that they're not!

I have just one thing to say in response to this. Just try imagining for a moment how stupid you look being thankful about all the crap that's happening to you!Oh, a bird shit on my face,thank God elephants don't fly!

The answer, according to me, is not in being paranoid about an uncertain and possibly shitty future, as hardcore pessimists would argue. It's about being aware of the fact that shit can and probably will happen, and passively resigning yourself to it. It's about being adequately mirthful or sullen about the current situation, as the case may be, and not expecting anything from the future.

There is a possible pitfall though, and I know this because it has occurred to me. You may become so passive about what life has to offer that you may actually start looking forward to death, or something equally drastic, just to break the monotony. Having observed the lives of a gazillion people around me, I'm now aware of a certain set of courses that life is bound to take.
The problem is, I'm not motivated one way or the other. I'm not looking forward to anything. Good job, good marriage, good children, death! Bad job, bad marriage, bad children, death! Just fill in a few details and replace good with bad here and there and you can broadly chalk out the stages in the life of most of the people you know. The outcome is always the same,and it's the only certainty. Also, what happens after death is probably the only genuine uncertainty in life. From what I've seen, heard and read, I'm inclined to believe that nothing happens. This life is all there is.

Possible Motivation: There's just one life, you should make the most of it. It's your only opportunity after all!

Brilliant Rebuttal: There's just one life, does it even matter if you make the most of it? Do you think Alexander's victories will matter when the Earth itself has been consumed by the Sun?

Well maybe you will be relieved of all miseries after death, but what about those who love you? How can you make them suffer? Umm...once I'm dead, I don't really need to care for my loved ones, do I?

I'm currently reading The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, and this post if quite obviously an indirect result of the same. The essay starts with an amazing line.

There is but one truly serious philisophical problem , and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest—whether or not individual choice must be safeguarded, whether abortion can be legislated—comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.

The author then proceeds to illustrate the absurdity of life through the example of Sisyphus, a character in Greek mythology who was punished by the Gods to engage in the meaningless task of rolling a boulder up a hill over and over again for eternity. It's a brilliant analogy in the sense that the majority,if not all, of the human race lives equally meaningless lives. However, in the last chapter, Camus abruptly concludes that it is not a meaningless task after all, in fact Sisyphus shouldn't be searching for meaning at all. He should try to find motivation in the task that has been assigned to him, howsoever monotonous it may be. After an exciting start, the end seems rather forced when Camus concludes, Sisyphus is happy! To put it very simply, you're not supposed to be worried about the meaning of your actions, you have to learn to be cheerfully dumb. This singular argument effectively attempts to render most of philosophical thought inappropriate. Or as my nanaji likes to put it, "Philosophy is useless".

Thankfully, I also read another amazing book recently, The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene, an eminent physicist and one of the most prominents string theorists. It justifies the search for meaning in life by making it clear that Physics, and most other significant sciences, have emanated from Philosophy. If we had restricted ourselves to mundane tasks without ever worrying about how the physical world functions and how can we control it, we wouldn't have achieved much as a species. It's a great book, but it still doesn't answer the question. In fact, it renders me all the more skeptical of the fact that anything is worth anything.
Then again, to actually get it over with and end your time in the Sun requires possibly an even greater motivation than to live through it. When you've achieved a state of passivity, when most things don't motivate you, you don't look forward to life any more than you look forward to death, and vice versa.

If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;

- "If" by Rudyard Kipling

But the good thing is, death doesn't scare you anymore. That's probably one of the advantages of being an atheist. Not believing in a supreme-being-who-is-perfectly-conscious-that-he-is-a-supreme-being enables your actions to not be guided by an eternal fear of divine punishment. A lot of people have a lot of opinions about God, but maybe it's just due to my bias that I find the ones denying his existence a lot more logical and convincing than the ones advocating it.

I, for one, believe that God is no different from luck, and as a consequence, I also believe that you can only resign yourself to it and not influence it by praising it. There's no concept of justice in the divine order of rewards and punishment. It's all random. Just as there is good luck and bad luck, there can be good God and bad God. You can't do squat about it. so when you are cursing your luck, you are effectively cursing God. Guess that makes the believers mighty uncomfortable. I'm okay with it though,and I never miss an opportunity to actively curse God whenever something unfavourable happens to me. What may be even more perplexing for believers is that I'm considerably luckier than many of the people I know! Don't attempt to explain it, because there is no explanation. Some things that affect you are beyond your control, and praying doesn't help. There aren't many things I'm sure of, but one thing is for certain: If there is a God, He definitely doesn't understand the concept of justice. Either that or he's just plain malevolent. To quote Jim Carrey's character from Bruce Almighty,

God is a mean kid on an anthill with a magnifying glass.

Let me quote an excerpt from possibly the greatest book ever written, at least according to me. Millions have read the master piece, and they can feel a little smug about it because I'm not going to name it, at the risk of copyright infringement of course.

'I wonder what he did to deserve it', the warrant officer with a malaria and a mosquito bite on his ass lamented after Nurse Cramer had read her thermometer and discovered the soldier in white was dead.

'He went to war', the fighter pilot with the golden moustache surmised

'We all went to war', Dunbar countered

'That's what I mean', the warrant officer with the malaria continued, 'Why him? There just doesn't seem to be any logic to this system of rewards and punishment. Look at what happened to me. if I had gotten syphillis or a dose of clap for my 5 minutes of passion on the beach instead of this damned mosquito bite, I could see justice. But malaria? Malaria?Who can explain malaria as a consequence of fornication?' The warrant officer shook his head in numb astonishment.

'What about me?' Yossarian said, 'I stepped out of my tent in Marrakech one night to get a bar of candy and caught your dose of clap when that Wac I never even saw before kissed me into the bushes. All I really wanted was a bar of candy, but who could turn it down?'

'That sounds like my dose of clap all right', the warrant officer agreed. 'But I've still got somebody else's malaria. Just for once I'd like to see all these things sort of straightened out, with each person getting exactly what he deserves. It might give me some confidence in this universe.'

'I've got somebody else's 3,00,000 dollars', the dashing young fighter captain with the golden moustache admitted. 'I've been goofing off since the day I was born. I cheated my way through prep school and college, and just about all I've been doing ever since is shacking up with pretty girls who think I'd make a good husband. I've got no ambition at all. The only thing I want to do after the war is marry some girl who's got more money with I have and shack up with lots more pretty girls. The 3,00,000 bucks was left to me before I was born by a grandfather who made a fortune selling on an international scale. I know I don't deserve it, but I'll be damned if I give it back. I wonder who it really belongs to.'

'Maybe it belongs to my father', Dunbar conjectured. 'He spent a lifetime at hard work and never could make enough money to even send my sister and me through college. He's dead now, so you might as well keep it.'

'Now, if we can just find out who my malaria belongs to we'd be all set. It's not that I've got anything against malaria. I'd just as soon goldbrick with malaria as with anything else. It's only that I feel an injustice has been committed. Why should I have somebody else's malaria and you have my dose of clap?'

'I've got more than your dose of clap', Yossarian told him. 'I've got to keep flying combat missions because of that dose of yours until they kill me.'

'That makes it even worse. Where's the justice in that?'

'I had a friend named Clevinger two and a half weeks ago who used to see plenty of justice in it.'

'It's the highest kind of justice of all,' Clevinger had gloated, clapping his hands with a merry laugh. 'I can't help thinking of Hippolytus of Euripides, where the early licentiousness of Theseus is probably responsible for the asceticism of the son that helps bring about the tragedy that ruins them all. If nothing else, that episode with the Wac should teach you the evils of sexual immorality.'

'It teaches me the evil of candy.'

In my continuous search for a convincing argument regarding the existence of God, I've read and laughed at the Cosmological, Ontological, Teleological and Moral arguments among others. I recently came across one particularly amusing one. It's called Pascal's Wager. Yup, it is attributed to the same Blaise Pascal whom you may have read about while learning probability theory,or the mechanism of hydraulic presses. It is all the more disappointing coming from a supposed man of reason. Here's how it goes:

If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is....
..."God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all."
Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. "That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much." Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite.

Pascal decided to apply the logic of expected value to his beliefs about God. While the theory makes a lot of sense in probability and game theory, the man got a bit too carried away by it I guess. Many have offered plausible criticisms of the argument, and I especially like the one offered by Richard Dawkins. You can read about it on Wikipedia if you want, but I'm going to offer my own rebuttal here.

At first glance, the argument makes a lot of sense. What can you possibly lose by believing in God? Other than your sanity of course. Anyway, if the stakes are so high, and God truly is such a retarded egomaniac that he'll punish you for eternity if you don't praise him, surely he's also sensitive about what system of belief you follow. I mean if you're not a Christian, and the Christian belief is in fact right, you're screwed just as bad as an atheist. The same goes for all religions.

I believe in a supreme being but I didn't know that Islam was the true path. I'm sorry!

Too bad, motherfucker! You're toast!

It's especially confusing for a Hindu. There are millions of Gods and conflicting sects within Hinduism. What if Shiva punishes the Vaishnavas, or the other way round?

As is clear to me now after reading more about Pascal ol'fellow, he actually wanted to convince non-Christians to convert to Christianity when he came up with this little gem of his.

I guess I just miss my friends.
Alternatively, maybe I just need to get laid.

Life in a instantly-halfcooked-desperately-wannabe-makeshift Metro!

William Shakespeare, the happy and gay English playwright and poet with the stupidest nickname ever (In other words, the dumbass with a retarded sense of humour whose misadventures in writing single-handedly screwed up our English literature courses at one time or the other), once did not say:

Be not afraid of Metros. Some cities are born as Metros, some achieve the status, and some have it thrust upon them.

That's right,he did not say this. I desecrated one of his famous quotes to come up with this.
Anyway, Gurgaon, the city of my current dwelling, falls into the third category. In fact, it fuckin spawned the fuckin category! It used to be a sleepy town in Haryana filled with angry Haryanvis who were pissed off at all the attention they did not manage to get despite being within stone throwing distance of New Delhi(If the stone was thrown by Mahabali, i.e.). Its hip cousins like NOIDA, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and even Meerut used to mock it to death. Which is when one particularly angry resident decided to make a difference! And overnight, Gurgaon boasted of sprawling golf courses, flashy malls, swanky office buildings and nice (I ran out of adjectives) houses!

Well actually, the tranformation was triggered by bigshot corporate houses and filthy rich individuals looking for cheap land near an actual metro, but where is the element of romance in that story?

Anyway, this instant-metro recipe made the humble town a virtual battleground for the real estate wars. The real estate giants grabbed their own portions of the city and went development crazy!
The result: The city boasts of a fuckload of insanely tall apartment buildings despite no apparent shortage of land. The office buildings still make sense. But the cake with the cherry and all other paraphernalia (I've waited so long to use that word), is taken by the 15 fuckin shopping malls, all on the same fuckin road! Last I heard, 15 more are coming up, because malls are the 'coolest' place to 'hang out', aren't they?

All this time the state development authority, with a painfully funny name like HUDA, has been busy not being busy.
The result: The apartments came up first, followed by the offices and malls. And finally they're trying to build roads and provide power and water facilities to people. So the city has all the essential ingredients of a metro now, except for the fact that some of the essential ingredients of a regular city have gone a-missing! The roads that lead to the various hip places in the city are still reminiscent of a typical Haryana village. Power shortage has been marginally overcome by power backup in the apartment buildings, offices and malls, so the government considers its work more or less done.
This leads me to my next point: The city has NO FUCKIN MEANS OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT! You have to walk a couple of kilometres to reach a place where you can hope to get the uniquely Indian ride called a cycle rickshaw, which will take you another couple of kilometres to a place from where you can catch the only intra-city bus or the other uniquely Indian ride called a tempo!
Of course, there are on-call taxi services, which for some mysterious reason are called 'Radio Taxis'. However, the government is contemplating closing them down, because apparently it is slightly useful to the people, and whoever heard of a non-pissed-off Haryanvi?

By an incredible stroke of luck, this leads me to my last point: The people in Gurgaon totally rock! First of all, everybody has a heavy Haryanvi accent. This astute observation of mine may sound redundant to the point of being ridiculously obvious, but just imagine for a moment being surrounded by a bunch of Udham Singhs and you'll know what I mean!
And they're all mighty pissed off! If Maddox ever decides to visit this place, he will be absolutely delighted to see the realest of real men, who are ready to kill you if you accidentally step on their shoelace! With a shitload of vehicles and pathetic roads, there are on an average 1500 incidents of road rage every day, which are a true delight to watch if you're not actually involved. Having lived all my life in a laid back place like UP, where the people have infinitely more reasons to be pissed off but are too lazy to actually do something about it, Gur-fuckin-Gaon is like a breath of fresh air in my life!

As Ronald McDonald (the dumbfuck pederast clown) would not say, I'm hatin' it!

Epilogue: The city does have its share of nightlife, or perhaps more appropriately, 'late evening life'. There's a cafe-cum-pub called Chinese and Thai Cafe that specialises in cheap beer and decent rock music. Very recently (read 'immediately after my Godforsaken self set foot in the city), they decided to ban stag entry in the pub. Think about it, beer and rock music, doesn't this sound like the kind of place where guys would never go in groups but couples would love to hang out? See, it makes sense!

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Cool!

AweFUCKINGsome read if you're half as big a Tarantino fan as I am! While you're at it, here's another surprise for you to check out! It's the entire script of Reservoir Dogs! It's only slightly different from the actual movie, but one of my favorite scenes is missing entirely!

It's during the restaurant scene featuring Holdaway (Randy Brooks) and Freddy Newendyke aka Mr.Orange (Tim Roth). Holdaway asks Freddy about Joe's appearance.

Freddy: You remember The Fantastic Four?

Holdaway: Yea with the invisible bitch and the 'Flame On' shit?

Freddy: The Thing! Motherfucker looks just like The Thing!

There are some other minor mistakes, see if you can spot those. Two cool points for every one that you find! When you earn 10 cool points, shove them up your ass; it feels real good!

Corporate Lessons - Chapter 3: "Your input is very important to us! Koi shak?" "Oh fuck!"

Disclaimer: The title is rather obviously inspired from His Holiness Himesh Reshammiya's chartbusting titty-shakin-ass-kickin track "I love you O Sayonee". Please don't sue me O Lord!

Somebody is spreading rumours about me in the office and I've gotta find out who it is before the company closes down! If your pea-sized excuse for a brain finds it hard to make the connection, let me make it easier for you by explaining the kind of rumours doing the rounds. Apparently I'm being projected as a hard and efficient worker who should be staffed on all important projects! At least this is what a very senior employee said in our first meeting for a very important project.

"I have been told that you guys are the best resources available for this project"

And almost instantaneously, I lost all respect for the project.

As if this wasn't enough, I was staffed along with another new joinee to compile one of the most important reports regarding the project. At least that is what they told us! But I kept noticing signs to the contrary. Most of the reports were to be sent to the country head for QC (That's Quality Check, you uninitiated assholes!)
Ours wasn't one of them.
Heck, nobody even bothered to ask us about the progress till the very last minute!

But of course, every other day we were routinely warned that the work is very important and we simply can't afford to screw it up! Then help us not to, for fuck's sake!

Then, after about a week of scrambling our apparently-very-capable-brains, we were informed in a group meeting that a lot of research has already been performed in the particular sector and all we have to really do is sift through the previous reports and look for the relevant material!

So much for 'best resources available'!

I believe the conversation went something like this during the staffing exercise:

"This is a very important project"

"You couldn't be more right, our asses are in danger!"

"I wouldn't want to put your sweet ass in danger!"

"Aww,come 'ere you..."

(half an hour later)

"Phew, nice fucking eh?"

"I'll say"

"Hey, what about the staffing?"

"Oh we've already done that, I just called this meeting to... y'know"

"Aww, come 'ere you...."

(another half hour later)

"Bascially there's just this one sector where we already have all the material but we just have to repackage it to fool our hapless client into giving us more money."

"Hmm...looks like the kind of work that some new joinees may find interesting."

"Hey that's a great idea! Ooh I love your ideas, come 'ere you..."

"Easy babe, it may be a while before I can get it up again!"

"Oh sorry dahling!"

"Anyway, have you noticed any particularly clueless ones in the recent lot?"

"Yea I think there are many of that kind. Anyone who joins this company is clueless anyway"

"Ok put them on this and don't forget to put undue pressure on their sorry asses by overemphasizing the importance of the project"

"Oh you're so naughty! Come 'ere you...."

"Gawd did you descend from rabbits? Bloody nymph!"

What was I talking about?

Corporate Lessons - Chapter 2: "English, Mothafucka! Do you speak it?"

Act 1

I got the spookiest phone call last night.

*Tring, tring* (actually, it was my cell phone and the ringtone was 'Money' by Pink Floyd, but *tring,tring* is so much more dramatic)

"Yeah?"

"Hi Avichal"

"Laloo?"

"Yea Hi this is Abhishek"

"Kya?? Laloo?"
(Translation: "What?? Laloo?")

"Yea did you talk to Anosh about the mail regarding change in shift timing?"

"Nahi be main 5 minute mein baat karke tujhe batata hun, waise tu bhi mail kar hi dena"
(Translation: "No man I'll talk to him and let you know in 5 minutes, but you send the mail anyway")

"Yea ok let me know"

If you're wondering what is so spooky about the call, I don't blame you. But consider this: I have never, NEVER once in the 4 years that I have known Abhishek aka Laloo, conversed with him in the Queen's language! Do you blame me for being scared out of my wits when Laloo suddenly calls up and unleashes howhaw Oxbridge on me??

Of course, being fellow corporate bitches, both he and I are expected to, and do speak English within our workspace. But still, I never thought he'd do this to me!

So I call back after 5 minutes and decide to lay it on him.

*Tring,tring* (This time it's the actual sound, since I'm making the call)

"Haan Laloo"
(Translation: "Yeah Laloo")

"Yeah Avichal" (He's still doing it!)

"Haan be mail kar dena pakke se, Anosh shayad ghar chala gaya hai"
(Translation: "Yeah dude send the mail for sure, Anosh seems to have left for home")

"Ok"

"Aur saale angrezi mein baat karne se pehle warning de diya karo"
(Translation:"And do warn me before you start talking to me in English asshole")

And I put the phone down immediately, thus conveying my reaction appropriately.

Act 2

Laloo returns from office, and I don't even wait to give him a breather.

"Behen ke laude angrezi mein kahe batiya rahe the phone par?"
(Translation: "Why the fuck were you talking in English over the phone you sister's dick?")

"Abe mera Boss paas mein hi tha, aur usne humko thodi hi der pehle lecture sunaya tha ki office mein Hindi nahi bolni hai kyunki foreign employees ko bura lagta hai"
(Translation: "Dude my Boss was nearby, and he had recently instructed us about not speaking in Hindi as it makes the foreign employees uncomfortable")

"Maa ki chut uski"
(Translation: "Fuck him!")

"Haan saala"
(Translation: "Sure!")

Yea yea I know I'm being unreasonably whiny and hypocritical about the whole thing, considering I'm actually writing this post in English and providing translations for all Hindi sentences. But it's still bewildering when your closest friends - with the possible exception of Mandu who was born out of America's pussy and plans to return there asap, and Dube who is just an incorrigible Delhi dood - talk to you in English. What's next? Mudit? Nishant? Barsaiyan? Dassa?? Tau??????

I'm too scared to write anything else!

Corporate Lessons - Chapter 1: People are sensitive

First things first: People - sexual harassment is NOT a joke!
If you think the above statement is also a joke, I actually love you, but I'm bound by professional ethics to remind you that it is not!
If you're still not serious enough, let Mr. Scott Adams(PBUH) explain it to you himself:
As expected, the start to my professional life has been shaky, to say the least! Every day I learn something about life,the universe and everything that I had unlearned with great effort during the last 4 years of my stay at the greatest place in the whole wide world - IIT Kanpur!

Yup that's right; whoever said that IIT's are institutions of learning was probably a wannabe IITian stuck in some crappy NIT.

Oops! I seem to have already forgotten my first lesson in professional life:People are sensitive!

Of course,this is a horizontal division that runs across the vertical one defined by Scott Adams (PBUH): People are idiots!

Anyway, the bunch of assholes from our dear alma mater learnt this lesson the hard way during one of our orientation sessions in the company. It was the Anti-sexual harassment session(as has been established earlier, sexual harassment is not a joke. Does that make anti-sexual harassment a joke?) and a smart female, who later turned out to be our group manager (God is a funny guy!), was instructing us about what constitutes sexual harassment in a corporate environment. Tariq(whom we had nicknamed tharki owing to his controversial activities over the last couple of days) wanted to clarify if guys could be sexually harassed by other guys. Why he didn't already know this despite being an IITK alumnus is beyond me, but that's beside the point for now.

Now as is our wont, we find anything and everything extremely funny, at times even stuff that may qualify as extremely tragic for sensitive people! We laughed like second-grade students who had just gained carnal knowledge and the female decided to let us know that college is over for good and our kind of behaviour is not acceptable outside the safe haven that our campus is.

Oh well, as they say, all good things are murdered in cold blood by sensitive people!

P.S. For the record, my heartfelt apologies to NITians. You rock dudes!

P.P.S. Off the record, NITians are so lame man!

P.P.P.S. Quite obviously, the record is just another joke to us.

Walk on

leaden eyes, guilty mind
it's okay to stay behind

comfortably numb is fine
no good standing in the line

heaven's good, but hell's okay
and who's bothered anyway?

win or lose, there is no strife
either way, you'll get through life

cos all that you touch
and all that you see
all that you taste
all you feel
all that you love
and all that you hate
all you distrust
all you save
and all that you give
and all that you deal
and all that you buy
beg, borrow or steal
and all you create
and all you destroy
and all that you do
and all that you say
and all that you eat
and everyone you meet
and all that you slight
and everyone you fight
and all that is now
and all that is gone
and all that's to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

A dose of the maestro

Been reading a lot of Ghalib these days. Apart from his genuinely romantic verses, his poetry seems to carry a lot of the rock music attitude. Though not exactly rebellious, and I'll refrain from using the much glorified adjective "pessimistic", but it surely borders on negative determinism, or fatalism if you will.


परतव-ए-खुर से है शबनम को फ़ना की तालीम
मैं भी हूं एक इनायत की नज़र होने तक

( परतव-ए-खुर= Sunlight, शबनम =Dew, फ़ना =Annihilation, तालीम=Knowledge, इनायत=Favour)

Meaning: As a dewdrop knows of its destruction by sunlight, I, too, await somebody's favour towards the same end

Of course, optimists( what is their motivation anyway?) will point out that it is only a pessimist's interpretation of a beautiful description of the parallel between a dewdrop and a human being. Let them.

गम-ए-हस्ती का 'असद' किससेे हो जुज़ मर्ग इलाज
शमा हर रंग जलती है सहर होने तक

(गम-ए-हस्ती= The pain that is life, जुज़= other than, मर्ग= Death, शमा= candlelight/flame, सहर= Morning)

Meaning: What else other than death can be the cure of the disease that is life? A flame burns in all colours till morning just as life shows all colours till death takes over.

No multiple interpretations here. Ghalib was the first rock lyricist ever!

सारे जग में कहीं नही है दूसरा हिन्दुस्तान

Probably the closest description of our beloved countrymen i've ever come across.Kudos to Javed Akhtar for the beautiful yet not overly emotional verse:

हम लोगों को समझ सको तो सम्झो दिलबरजानी
जितना भी तुम सम्झोगे उतनी होगी हैरानी
अपनी छतरी तुमको दे दें कभी जो बरसे पानी
कभी नये पैकेट में बेचें तुमको चीज़ पुरानी
फिर भी दिल है हिन्दुस्तानी
थोडे अनाडी हैं थोडे खिलाडी
रुक रुक के चलती है अपनी गाडी
हमें प्यार चाहिये, और कुछ पैसे भी
हम ऐसे भी हैं, हम हैं वैसे भी
हम लोगों को समझ सको तो सम्झो दिलबरजानी
उलटी सीधी जैसी भी है अपनी यही कहानी
थोडी हममें होशियारी है थोडी है नादानी
थोडी हममें सच्चाई है थोडी बेइमानी
फिर भी दिल है हिन्दुस्तानी
आंखों में कुछ आंसू हैं कुछ सपने हैं
आंसू और सपने दोनो ही अपने हैं
दिल दुखा है लेकिन टूटा तो नही है
उम्मीद का दामन छूटा तो नही है
हम लोगों को समझ सको तो सम्झो दिलबरजानी
थोडी मजबूरी है लेकिन थोडी है मनमानी
थोडी तू-तू मैं-मैं है और थोडी खींचातानी
हममें काफ़ी बातें हैं जो लगती हैं दीवानी
फिर भी दिल है हिन्दुस्तानी

This is part of the newfound patriotism after two months away from homeland. A fullish travel diary type description of the sojourn is imminent, but somebody has got to help me get over my laziness. For those looking to write some devnagri font themsleves, download the software Baraha

What's a train journey to you David - reprise

For those who have read one of my earlier posts,
http://hardtimekillingfloor.blogspot.com/2005/07/whats-train-journey-to-youdavid.html
this one would hardly come as a surprise.The rest,in order to understand my general sentiments about steel monsters on iron tracks,should go through it once.

Anyway,I mentioned in the above post how I inevitably get bored to death even on my usual 3 hour sojourn from Kanpur to Allahabad.Now since the last two times,the course of events has been slightly different. You see, my usual pick for the usual journey happens to be the Rewa Express,which I board at an insanely and ungodly early morning hour.Thats cos it is seldom late and used to run relatively vacant too.That used to part can be blamed for my most recent experiences.
The first time I took this train to go home,I was accompanied by Nishant,Mandu,Barsaiyan,Dube and Shahi.We were going to participate in the MNNIT quiz fest(yea,right!the venue was Allahabad and all of us buggers just wanted to travel on insti expense while availing the additional advantage of home-cooked food).My Dad told me about this train,and we decided to give it a try.None of us cud wake up at 5 am to catch the insti bus which'd take us to the station,so we had to stay up the entire night.Caught the bus,reached the station,bought the tickets,and waited apprehensively on the platform wondering whether the general bogey would have enough space to even dangle precariously by the gate.But surprise,surprise!Firstly the train arrived exactly on time and secondly,would you believe it,the general bogey was absotively-posilutely empty!We simply couldn't believe our luck,especially me!I had discovered the most painless way to reach home,home again!

Few things haven't changed since then.I still board only the Rewa express to go home.I still stay up the entire night in order to catch the morning bus.I still buy the ticket,I'm still aprehensive about the crowd.But one thing has changed for sure.Its no more emptyville in the general bogey.
Hell there isn't even enough space to step inside.
Actually,maybe I should be more systematic about my experience.This is what happens to me after I reach the legendary Kanpur station:
1.Time:around 6 am.I get off the bus and head towards the ticket counter.Its not really crowded.Of course,not really crowded is a relative term.Its not crowded if you compare it to the same place at a later time of the day,but its still enough to make an Aussie,who has not seen so many people in all the cities of his country combined,faint with shock!

2.Also,the last two times I have been carrying a lot of luggage(lesser visits home and more n more clothes n stuff loaded on the way back).So standing in line for the ticket isn't a particularly elevating experience,what with having to check your luggage every 2 seconds and dragging it along with you as you move ahead,slowly but surely,in the line.

3.Time: 6:15 am.So i get the ticket and head for the platform,more often than not,platform no.6.The train is running right time as usual,and that proves to be the only good news all morning.well,almost!you don't call it running late if its just late by a mere 30 minutes,do u?Anyway,th platform isn't too crowded either,and every single time I congratulate myself for making it awake through another nightout and being able to catch the train.But as you'll see,my jubiliation is short-lived.

4.Time: 6:21 am.So I make an effort and lift my heavy luggage one final time to get to the far-end of the platform where the general bogey is supposed to park.Now is the first time I see people mysteriously making an appearance out of nowhere and crowding around the far-end for the same purpose as me.I put my luggage before some snack shop and observe the crowd while carefully contemplating whether its gonna be another of those sessions to get inside the train between sips of tea.Somehow,I'm always able to assure myself that the crowd hasn't yet assumed threatening proportions and it'll not be that bad.I'm not too wrong either,the crowd at this point does not threaten to cramp me for standing space,which is all I ask really.

5.Time: 6:27 am.Now the time for the train to arrive draws closer.Surprisingly,the announcer always omits to announce the time for my train while she happily announces away all early morning to late noon trains!A conspiracy,naaah probbaly not.Anyway,finally when the train is already late by half-an-hour,she finally announces it'll be there in a short while(read 15 minutes).
And all this while,the crowd continues to pour in from all directions and head towards my end forcing me to pick up my luggage one time more than I bargained for,and head still farther.

6.Time: 6:54 am.I finally see the engine moving towards me at a long distance.I tighten my grip on my bag and suitcase,and so does the rest of the junta(I mean on their respective bags and suitcases).When at last the train reaches within boarding distance,I see the true force of the population explosion.I have no frikkin idea where all these people hide before the actual arrival of the train,but they sure take me by surprise every single time.

7.I scramble for space and try my best to push myself inside the general bogey even as perfectly healthy persons stuff the bogey meant for disabled people and the ones actually physically challenged give up on their quest even befor they start.I stop for a moment to think,"Man!how pathetic is that!".And thats my fatal mistake.I lose my chance in a fraction of a second and suddenly the bogey looke like it would burst.but it doesn't.Much like the country to which it belongs,it seems to have an infinite capacity and generosity.I call it quits and head for the sleeper class bogey,ready to pay the T.T.E whatever he demands.

8.Time: 7:01 am.I manage to get inside without much ado.Of course,there is no place to sit here either.The really intelligent people had headed for the sleeper in the first place and had occupied the seats with more confidence than the people who had reserved berths.I am content with the standing space I manage to get near the washbasin.There are a handful of people crowded around the same place.Its not that bad,I think.When the train starts moving,I'll adjust my luggage slightly and sit on my bag or suitcase.Its only a matter of 3 hours,after all.

9.Time: 7:09 am.And then the train does start moving.Its time for the grand finale.Just as mysteriously as the happenings at the platform,from nowhere,a sea of people enters the bogey.Where the fuck were they sitting earlier,I think??Then I realize,oh fuck!they weren't sitting!So now the standing space becomes more cramped than the general bogey(ok thats a slight exaggeration,but the effect is necessary).Phew!I look at my watch.3 hours like this?

10.No wait,there's more.It's morning time,folks!Time for nature's calls and other ablutions.And where am I standing?Oh in the path leading to the toilet obviously.I'll not elaborate any further....

But then,the train strangely enough never gets delayed between Kanpur to Allahabad and invariably makes it in a good half-an-hour less than the scheduled time.

All's well that ends well,that's what they say,don't they?
Well that's exactly why I hate them!

Back to the lab again

For those of you who might be interested,my Floyd blog is on the verge of revival. I haven't prayed in a long time and having watched the documentary Making of Dark side of the Moon only recently,I decided I had ignored the Gods long enough.

Achtung,baby!

CFG - Complete Friggin Genius: Follow-e-Dilbert

CFG - Complete Friggin Genius: Follow-e-Dilbert

This is a fellow clan member.As of now,we're the only two in the clan,but I challenge you to resist instant conversion after reading the above post.

Ode to cliches

People are basically good

Yeah,Right!!

Columbus Columbus vittaachchu leevu

That translates to Columbus,Columbus, it's holiday time!
But you don't need to know that to enjoy the song. They say music has no language,don't they?
Well,guess what, for once they are right,whoever they are,cos they seem to say a lot of horseshit too at times.I hate them!
Anyway, the point is, at times ,you really don't need to understand the lyrics.In fact,if you're listening to Tamil or Telugu songs,it sounds much better if you don't know the language,cos then you don't pay attention to the meaning,which in most cases, is mind-blowing,speaking very very euphemistically.Sample these for instance,from the song Kaadhal Yannai from the Tamil smash hit Anniyan,which I was lucky enough to watch some time back(with subtitles of course.Music is fine,but you do need to understand the dialogues occasionally):

hiroshima neethano nagasakiyum neethano
un meethu thaano en kaadhal bomb oh
harappa vum neethano mohanjadarro neethano
aayvaalan naano arayaa lamo

Roughly translated, this means,
You are Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I'm the love atom bomb.
You are Harappa and Mohenjodaro,I'm your researcher.

Ouch!Yea that's what I said.It sounded so cool in Tamil.The subtitles spoiled the fun,really.
The dance club, IIT Kanpur has made a tradition out of dancing to popular Tamil numbers.This was probably my initiation into south indian movie music.In my first year, our seniors danced to Chandralekha. Great song, and they did a damn good job on the choreography part too. Both the song and the dance were a hit with the local junta.It became something less than a legend in the short and until then unillustrious history of dance club.

The following year we danced to Saregame (the telugu version) from the cult hit Boys(what a gay name!). An even more amazing song.but I don't know what went wrong with the dance.Something did, that's for sure. The practice took the life out of us. For 15 days, we could think of nothing else.Most of us had injured different parts of our bodies in trying out some rad move or the other.I,being the bulkiest and the most unfit,was really at the receiving end.I can't really blame our seniors who choreographed the dance. They didn't want it to be a normal, chalta hai kind of dance. And the truth is,neither did we.We wanted bakchodi. Something that would bring the audience to the edge of their seats. We tried our best,all of us did. And even today, some of our ardent supporters(read the people who had seen us toil with their own eyes) try to convince us that it was extraordinary.But it wasn't.We just had to see the video once to find that out for ourselves. We looked too bloody tired, at least I did. Absolutely no energy,completely betraying the spirit of such an energetic song.

Marchi ve se,thats what we say
Translation: We want to change, thats what we say

Anyway, the experience is vivid enough to be a part of another post.Maybe someday I'll cover it in an entire post,but then again, maybe I'll not.
Coming back to the issue of vernacular music, other songs I've heard are Girlfriend (also from Boys) , Pachchai Nirmae from Alai Payuthey (Saathiya's Tamil original by Mani Ratnam), Endrendrum Punnagai (also from Alai Payuthey, this one was the original version of O humdum suniyo re, a smash hit in its own right) ,Chikubuku Raile( from Gentleman) which introduced Prabhudeva to the world and some other songs from Anniyan. I do enjoy them a lot, which reminds me of Shvet's recent comment on Pink Floyd's stress on lyrics. He remarked that probably Floyd and The Doors were the only rock groups to give so much importance to lyrics.I partly agree with him. He was a bit narrow in his analysis. Groups like Iron Maiden and to some extent, Led Zeppelin were heavily influenced by literature in their lyrical content. While Maiden directly told stories as it is in their songs such as Rime of the ancient Mariner, To tame a land and Seventh son of a seventh son, Led Zep mostly alluded to famous pieces of work indirectly in a couple of songs, most notably Battle of Evermore and Misty mountain hop, which are said to be inspired by J.R.R Tolkien's works. The fact that they used famous literary works as their background made the lyrics very important. But Led Zep did pay attention to lyrics even when they were not literarily inspired. Two of their most beautiful songs, Kashmir and Stairway to heaven are testimony to that fact. While the former is an amazing vivid description of the Sahara desert(yea,yea its got nothing to do with Kashmir.Robert Plant just liked the name), the latter is arguably the most widely interpreted song in rock history. Among other things, the hidden meanings people generally relate with the song are sex,drugs(what about rock'n'roll?) and satanistic influences(they claim that if you play the song backwards,it literally sounds like a prayer to Satan himself). The last allegation was quite common to rock musicians in those days. They were widely considered children of the devil by chrisitian assholes. Meanwhile,Robert Plant has been pleading not guilty ,all these years saying that the song is just a product of his imagination and partly influenced by a book he was reading at that time(Magic Arts in Celtic Britain by Lewis Spence).His claim does hold water too, since the book contains clear references to May Queens, pipers and bustling hedgegrows. Conclusion: for all the hype, the song is just poetic gibberish, meaning absolutely nothing at all.(Its still a great song thoh).Disappointed,eh? So was I.

And then there was Bob Dylan.Not strictly a rock musician, but he had tremendous influence on the genre and in turn was himself influenced by it.But he was essentially a poet.Even today, meaningful lyrics in Rock music are referred to as Dylanesque . Bruce Springsteen, the person who revived the role of lyrics rock with some extremely poetic and thought-provoking stuff, is said to be the modern day Bob Dylan . Some of his songs are musically not so rich,but the lyrics,man! I listened to Streets of Philadelphia at least 50 times at a stretch once,as much for the beautiful melancholy rhythm as for the amazing lyrics. The record still holds. And then Blood Brothers . I became addicted to this one solely because of the lyrics. A sample,

Now the hardness of this world slowly grinds your dreams away
Makin' a fool's joke out of the promises we make
And what once seemed black and white turns to so many shades of gray
We lose ourselves in work to do and bills to pay
And it's a ride, ride, ride, and there ain't much cover
With no one runnin' by your side my blood brother.

Guess what I did after first listening to the song? Sent it to my brother,what else? He loved it too.Who won't,really?

But there is no doubt that most rock groups of the 60's and 70's were just out to have fun and play their kind of music. Rolling Stones made the simplest of songs, both musically and lyrically,but composed the catchiest of tunes. The Beatles could make a song out of anything, a case in point being their song Why don't we do it on the road? from The White album or another more famous one which goes Happiness is a warm gun from the same album.Apparently, John Lennon got the idea for the song's name from an advertisement for guns that he saw in a magazine. It is creative without doubt. But just check out the last few lines,

I need a fix 'cause I'm going down
Down to the bits that I left uptown
I need a fix cause I'm going down
Mother Superior jumped the gun
Mother Superior jumped the gun
Mother Superior jumped the gun
Mother Superior jumped the gun

Happiness is a warm gun
Happiness is a warm gun, momma
When I hold you in my arms
And I feel my finger on your trigger
I know nobody can do me no harm
Because happiness is a warm gun, momma
Happiness is a warm gun
-Yes it is.
Happiness is a warm, yes it is...
Gun!
Well don't ya know that happiness is a warm gun, momma?

Make whatever you want of it,cos that's what Lennon intended I'm sure.Some say it's about cocaine,others point out to the obvious Freudian connection and claim that it's all about sex.Thats what I believe too partly.But only because of the And I feel my finger on your trigger part. The warm gun thing was borrowed from an ad, and Lennon didn't intend to drag Freud into it,I'm sure.
Another Beatles era band,probably not half as popular as them but which is said to have a much greater influence on the Rock'n'Roll movement was The Who. Its chief songwriter, Pete Townshend, was a person with a poetic tinge too, just like Jim Morrison and Roger Waters. One of their biggest hits, Won't get fooled again, is an amazing satire on the futility of revolution as a means to bring about change in the society. It describes a revolution in complete earnest for seven-and-a-half minutes out of eight and then ends with a
Meet the new boss, just like the old boss.
Hehe,clever man!

Bands like AC/DC and Rolling Stones often chos Rock'n'Roll itself as the subject, particularly the former, with songs like It's a long way to the top, Rock'n'Roll ain't noise pollution, even the immensely popular Highway to hell to an extent.As I have pointed out earlier, they were mostly looking to have fun.They did it quite well too. This was partly the message implicit in the music created by the bands of the punk era as well. In fact, Floyd had been at the receiving end of scathing criticism after Wish you were here from bands like The Sex Pistols and The Ramones for becoming too complicated in their song structure and lyrical content,drifting away from the simplicity of early rock'n'roll. Hmm...I don't quite agree with them,but they were probably right in their own way(!) Rockers were rebels,they didn't want to stick to conventions,either musically or lyrically,which is why they insisted on keeping it simple and different.Yea I don't like punk rock either!

And then there was a band coloured Deep Purple. No prizes for guessing. They were quite a mix. No wonder, since their lineup changed every couple of years. But like most Purpleheads(I invented that), I prefer the Mark-II lineup to all others. Ian Paice on drums and percussion, Roger Glover on bass, the legendary Ritchie Blackmore on lead guitar and the hugely underrated Ian Gillan on vocals made a terrific combo. They were an interesting band lyrically. Take their most popular album, Machinehead for example .
Highway star is a song comparing a girl and a car, referrring to both as killing machines . Intriguing? you bet!

Nobody gonna take my car,I'm gonna race it to the ground
Nobody gonna beat my car, it's gonna break the speed of sound,
Ooh its a killing machine,it's got everything,
Like a driving power big fat tyres and everything
I love it and I need it,
I bleed it yeah its a wild hurricane
Alright,hold tight, I'm a highway star

Nobody gonna take my girl, I'm gonna keep her till the end
Nobody gonna have my girl, she stays close on every bend,
Ooh she's a killing machine she's got everything,
Like a moving mouth, body control and everything,
I love her,I need her, I seed her(!)
Yeah she turns me on
Alright,hold tight, I'm a highway star

Interesting? You bet!!
Smoke on the Water from the same album has much more simplistic lyrics,directly describing an accident which the band were eyewitnesses to.During a Frank Zappa concert, some fan fired a flare gun setting the place on fire and Deep Purple watched from their mobile van as there was smoke on the water,fire in the sky, referring to the Lake Geneva nearby.
But one of my favorites from the band's stable is Child in time from the album Deep Purple in Rock . This one was the inspiration for Anu Malik's composition Aisa Zakhm diya hai from the movie Akele hum Akele tum . It is a eight-line song covering more than ten minutes which means the lyrics are not given the highest importance. But they still make a mark. Based on the Vietnam war, which was still fresh on the American psyche at that time(it still is actually), the lyrics go,
Sweet child in time, you'll see the line
The line that's drawn between good and bad,
See the blind man shooting at the world,
Bullets flying, taking toll.
If you've been bad, oh lord I bet you have,
and you've not been hit by flying lead,
You better close your eyes, and bow your head,
and wait for the ricochet.

Clearly, these guys weren't just looking to have fun.

And then, there's Floyd. I feel I can write an entire post about Floyd lyrics alone, but perhaps I'll do that in my Floyd blog
Anyway, so I guess it's a matter of genre and at times of opinion,whether lyrics really are important to the song.Love songs really woudn't go anywhere without mushy lyrics. So the one fact that is established is that you can't ignore them. They are not just a vehicle for music, but can be an equally important part of the song.

Wassisclan?

Just have a look at these ads that appeared in the Times of India, Lucknow edition not so long ago.They would have been funny if they hadn't been so pathetically sad.
Truly, a picture is worth a thousand words.












By the cold and religious we were taken in hand,
Shown how to feel good, and told to feel bad.

- Pink Floyd

Its been some time now since I gave up on religion. I was on the verge on giving up on God too, but then I realized it was only my anger against religion which was behind it. So now I'm an agnostic.
Why?I hear you ask.Well,here I'm elaborating on only one of the reasons and that too for one of the religions.But I firmly believe every religion has enough negative points to thoroughly outweigh anything remotely positive.

Hinduism. More specifically, the caste system. I respect its origins. It started when society was probably divided according to the kind of work people did, which is quite sensible. Though I still don't favour dividing society along any lines whatsoever, but this still made sense. Brahmins were the religious teachers, Vaishyas were the traders, Kshatriyas were the warriors and Shudras were mostly assigned the seemingly menial tasks. It was a hereditary baggage that everyone carried throughout their lives and passed it on in a similar way.

I don't really need to point out what went wrong.The society changed, the system of carrying on the family work changed, but the caste system did not. For all our claims at being a liberal society, the caste system still runs right through the societal fabric. Shudras or as is the language of the times, scheduled castes, are still looked down upon with ridicule, though now the ridicule is mixed with a seething rage due to reserved quotas in education and jobs. In the same way,the scheduled castes still hate the upper castes for all that is wrong with them, even though their own leaders have constantly let them down. Today, Vaishyas may become engineers, Brahmins may become businessmen, Kshatriyas may become doctors, but they can't shake off the false mould in which they are cast. One of the prime reasons for this is politics,or more accurately, politicians.

There are no issues in elections now. You're a hindu,eh? Well,vote for the BJP, what else?the majority community is in danger,only the RSS can protect them. And muslims? Well, well Mulayam Singh is your deifinitive neta. After all, he kept mum even after one of his own ministers literally issued a supari for the head of the Danish cartoonist who drew derogatory images of the prophet, which clearly shows the lengths he's ready to go, or rather the level he is ready to stoop down to, in order to express solidarity with the minority community.
But then again, Mulayam is also the leader of the backwards, just in case they didn't notice. And that doesn't mean that he doesn't care about the upper castes. He's pro-kshatriya,even to the extent of withdrawing all investigations against an alleged murderer. He's pro-brahmin,the proof of which is that he declared Parshuram Jayanti a holiday. I mean this is what brahmins want,don't they?

What the fuck,man! I'm supposed to be a brahmin too. But clearly,I'm not proud of it. I don't mean I'm ashamed of it either. But why the fuck should I even be conscious of it? My family has had nothing to do with panditai for generations. So what makes me a brahmin? But I see proud brahmins, kshatriyas, vaishyas, shudras all around. One particularly funny incident involves a true brahmin batchmate reprimanding me for not being a true brahmin because I don't pay attention to my studies. I know, I know how incredibly hilarious the logic sounds, but try not falling over laughing. I mean, sure, a student is supposed to study well. But I,being a brahmin, should pay extra attention to it. Come to think of it, since brahmin means student anyway, every single student is a brahmin. This is what the caste system was supposed to be. But we've reduced it to marrying a girl/boy of your own caste in order to preserve your caste(whatever the fuck that means) and casting your vote in the favor of the most blatant liar with a criminal record just because he is "one of yours".

It is pathetic. That's an understatement.

Look at the hate we're breeding,
look at the fear we're feeding,
look at the lives we're leading,
the way we've always done before

- Guns N' Roses

Who wants to live forever?

Mama,oooooohh......I don't wanna die,
Sometimes wish I'd never been born at all

Words just keep ringing in my head.It's a great,great song really.But the words assumed a new meaning for me last sem,when the news came.

IIT Kanpur student commits suicide.

It was a junior of mine.I never actually met him.I heard his name only after his death.But then I saw his face in the papers,and I became cold.Of course I knew him.So what if I'd never talked to him.But I'd seen him around plenty of times.He lived in the same hostel as me for an entire fuckin year.
Of course I knew him.

Why did he do it? Nobody will ever know,I suspect.Reportedly,he called his house minutes before he took the drastic step,and didn't really give a hint of the turbulence in his head to anybody.Academics?His CPI was a more than decent 8.Some people say that he mugged all the time and still couldn't get beyond 8.That he was frustrated with getting a 'B' in every damn subject.I want to believe it,but i can't.

What bothers me about it?everythingI guess.I guess everyone is disturbed by a suicide.But I have this rather disturbing thought at times.What if the cause wasn't really as big and he had realized this before he died?

He jumped from the 6th floor to his death.I'm a mild acrophobic.Part of what scares me about heights is the time it takes to reach the ground.I recall jumping from the 3m diving board in a swimming pool and the part I hated most was when I was suspended in air and was conscious enough to realize it.This is what brings me to think;he jumped from the 6th floor.Perhaps he was guided by an extrememly strong impulse,thought that is highly unlikely.But still,I shudder to imagine that he might just have regretted his decision after he had actually jumped.What if that was the case?What if while he was travelling through air,perfectly conscious that those were the last few seconds of his life,he started to think that maybe he shouldn't have done this? That it wasn't so bad after all,whatever it was.Maybe his life was flashing rapidly before his eyes,maybe he had in his mind an image of himself as an infant and his mother holding his hand.Maybe at that very moment,he thought he wanted to see his mother again,and again and again.The brief time in which he hit the ground,then,would have been unbearbly torturous.I keep thinking about it.Just can't get the thought out of my head.

Mama, I'm falling from the sky
mama, did it need to be so high?

When will I ever hit the ground?
now my mind is beginning to wander around...

...my life,I don't want it to flash
before my eyes,I just wanna crash

I don't know what I'm doing,I'm sorry
in death,as in life,I will be a worry

But please please don't cry for me
just look up at the sky for me

I'll not be near,I'll be very far
I don't even know if I'll be a shining star

But I'll see you from the sky
Oh Mama,I don't wanna say godbye

Why did I choose to die
Mama,I'm still falling from the sky...

Hard time killing floor blues

Hard times here and everywhere you go,
time's harder than ever been b'fore,

And the people are driftin', from door to door,
can't find heaven,no matter where they go,

Say you got money,you better be sure,
these hard times will drive you from door to door

Makin' it look easy is tough all the more,
I'm still knockin' on heaven's door

You better take care now, where you go,
you might just end up mopping the floor