Thursday, April 28, 2005

worse verse?

it's always the same story..

For days and days there's been no update
But that's just coz nothing's been happening of late.
Save for visits to the police station
A trial of patience towards verification
Of the fact that it is here that i reside
Am a legitimate citizen, and by law abide.
Trips to the varsity, forms to fill,
But thats all ok, i have time to kill.
Have just finished 'The Golden Gate'
A novel, in verse, by Vikram Seth.
(An explanation that i believe should
Suffice to explain my poetic mood)

(hows that for a start!! :o)

Saturday, April 23, 2005

shaken and stirred

you go about life happily, feeling relatively secure. and then something happens that shakes you. it may be a small thing, maybe even insignificant to many others, but it affects you strongly and things are not the same anymore.
something of that sort happened to me yesterday. and ive spent a lot of time today thinking more about it.
wont keep the suspense.. a tiny letter to the editor in TOI said something about the alleged murder of pope john paul 1 and how in 25 yrs no one has investigated it officially. it was the first time i heard such an allegation. in fact i remember thinking why so little is said of john paul 1. i went online and looked it up. the more i read the more i was appalled. (ref: http://www.prose-n-poetry.com/display_work/10583/ )
how could a religious body indulge in such crimes? in whose name are they doing it? do they even believe in God? its as sad as the entire kanchi sankaracharya scandal.
now im not stupid (surprise!) but for some reason ive always held religious leaders in high esteem (leaders of most religions, not all. some of these new age things are just too creepy to consider respecting... im sorry to say so but im only being honest) anyway, i have always been naive enough to think of these people as special and really good human beings. especially those in the catholic church (given my background) so if they said something, especially with respect to religion etc. i would accept it. atleast most of it. slowly i was being brainwashed into focussing more on ritual and tradition than being a good person. (thankfully i came across tony d'mello's books which kept me in check) you can now imagine the shock i got when yesterday i heard of these scandals. my mum keeps saying 'dont worry so much it happened a long time ago'. but the fact is that it happened. and so it can happen again. and i cannot bear the thought of subscribing to such hypocricy, even unknowingly, and that too in the name of God. (i dont know how many would understand what im trying to say or how significant this whole incident has been. ive expressed myself really badly).
therefore, ive made a decision (something that a person with a standard quantity of brains would have figured out and done ages ago) im not going to rely on someone elses' ideas of morality. i think making your own decisions is difficult coz then the consequences are your responsibility. but on the other hand why must i ever do something unless im convinced in truth that it isn't wrong. and such conviction comes only when the belief is your own and not borrowed.
satyameva jayate!!!

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

back

back to stable steady ground, working telephones (without having to think 'roaming'), computers, internet, clean bathrooms, my own room, TV, books, newspapers in english, mosquito-less-ness.......
ahhhhhh....... theres no place in the world like home!!!!
but the trip was nevertheless great. felt like shahrukh khan in swades ;o) (though unfortunately i didnt have a trailer home to take along!)
the road trip by itself was gorgeous. roads (surprisingly beautiful roads that too; smooth, clear, well marked, scenic... almost too good to be true!.... of course they didnt last all the way) that just went on and on, you could see the road ahead for miles; fields on either side (even learnt to identify a few crops), a huge forest (drove through it for about 2 hrs... awesome), a brief period along the sea coast (need i say more), villages, small towns, little cities, big cities, backwaters, lakes, rivers (though some of these were in a sad state as they were running dry - in fact in what was clearly a river bed, a bridge that once went across the river now stands stupidly- starting nowhere, going nowhere); and as we got closer to kerala - plantations. rubber, coconut, banana, betelnut (looks like ive become a tree expert!). also men in lungis on motorcycles, bullock carts on the highway and oh get this, just today i saw a cattle market! what looked like thousands of heads of cattle and ten times as many buyers and sellers! weird to think of cattle markets today. definitely logical and obvious but still, theyre the stuff story books and old movies are made of. (boy buys bull from girls dad (at the cattle market)-bull dies (on the way back from the cattle market) -boy sues girls dad- then sees girl (who hadn't come to the cattle market)- falls in love- they sing a few songs (around the cattle market) - father sore with boy for insult- refuses to let his daughter marry him- few corny actors show up to fill time (discussing the next cattle market) - boy saves remaining cattle from mysterious fire (at the next cattle market) (turns out the fire was planned by the corny actors) - all happy- lovers marry (at the cattle market if you please) - the end ---- you may have already figured that this was an original story. you may also have figured out as to why i am not a scriptwriter today...) but you get my point, dont you? actually i think i lost it myself. but i dont have the time to edit it so let it stay (actually i think its a gem of a storyline... could take me places this one. golden jubilee perhaps.... platinum even! ;o)

the rocking feeling has stopped (after 5 days stright on the road).

my room is beginning to look less heavenly, the comp is beginning to feel slow, i just noticed all the dirty laundry, cant call anyone up at this time of the night (morning), the newspapers are describing in detail the forgettable final indo-pak ODI, almost every news channel is talking about the new pope benedict xvi (my opinion - its a good thing for the church to have a conservative head, but so conservative....??)

country roads.... take me home...............................

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

happie hippie (chippi! ;o)

didn't make it to iim i (atlaeast as of now...)
so looks like im going to bhubaneshwar
i just realised for all the complaining i do about being so bored, my days are heavily packed. atleast the past week or so. but im not complaining, this is much better than moping around the house about having nothing to do.
and i may be going to kerala this weekend. just for 2 days or so (and driving down that too.. all the way from mumbai!) but still sounds like fun. feel like one of those adventurous people in movies, going cross country by road.... eww.... just remembered crossroads - that terrible britney spears movie .....ewwwwwww......... there goes my enthusiasm :o(
soon there may be another trip to goa!! (woo hoo!!) in fact with 2 months of lazzzeeeeeeeeee vacations ahead of me, i could even be a full fledged hippie!! (haha !!)

Saturday, April 09, 2005

have been busy
doing nothing at all
week after week it surprises me how one can manage to consistently, continuously do nothing at all
i amaze myself
not that there isn't anything to be done
but here i am... blissfully aware (or rather aware yet blissful) of urgent matters lying pending

need to make use of that drivers licence
need to relearn HOW to make use of that drivers licence
half a dozen pairs of jeans to be altered (weight loss doesn't come cheap)
a month old demand draft needs to be cancelled
the month old demand draft first needs to be hunted out of the mess that adorns my room
need to clean out my room
need to see the dentist. my teeth seem to enjoy being drilled, prodded, denerved (eeeeee), cemented, capped.... there can be no other reason for their regularly acting up.

all ive been doing.... all day long, all week long, all vacation long..... playing minesweeper
though my timings still suck

oh and the xim admission offer letter came in today. yay!

Sunday, April 03, 2005

made it

feeling good... made it thru xim bhubaneshwar!!
strange that the few calls i did get, are converting in reverse order of preference.... but hey! im not complaining... so long as they all convert!!

Saturday, April 02, 2005

mmmm....

its been really long since I posted.. but I have a very good excuse that being the absolute lack of anything of interest happening in my life. all ive been doing is meeting up with friends.. some new, some old…but most as bekaar as I am..
talking of friends, its really strange to be meeting them after so long. I mean, these are people I was with practically 24 hrs of the day… ok 16 hrs of the day, and we knew just about everything about each others life… and less than one yr down the line… everything seems so different. it feels weird to meet your best friend from college and realize you don’t know what to say (of course you do know what to do.. which is kick yourself hard for being so bad at keeping in touch). but the great thing is that it takes only about 5 minutes to catch up coz all you’re missing is a few technical details. everything else you somehow just know. back in college, 3 yrs of being together had almost got to us. the same people, the same stupid pjs… and today, the same things bring such comfort. lying down, eating pakodas, and talking about things of zero significance (or even extreme importance)…. it feels so.... ummmm..... good!!