Man Down! Man Down!

Old Monk Meme

2012-02-10T00:44:00.000-08:00

fledgling portfolio goes green

2012-01-10T03:45:00.001-08:00

the hard reality show

2012-01-03T03:32:00.000-08:00

the wise one

2011-12-30T03:59:00.000-08:00

two passions

2011-12-22T06:45:00.000-08:00

p.s. and the third one is walking the path to wisdom..!

random musings from the past

2011-12-14T23:17:00.000-08:00

blog draft posts clean up. some deleted. some here.

11/7/11

Falling through a dozen floors
Thinking of a far away thing
Blowing through a thousand thoughts
Feeling like a fleeting singe
Looking around here and there
Hiding what i seek, distracted i stare

11/3/11

the late night peace
the music on low
sounds from the neighbours flow
but thoughts don't cease

its past one and time to sleep
tomorrow will beckon
so i reckon
locked safely in my keep

the mind wanders
to things that should be
to things that can be
as life meanders

will i do the things i want
play the great game
and win some fame
or should i think i can't

9/6/10

the wind said to the moth
the fire is bright
but go not near
its not light mere
it'll grab you tight
burn you to crisp it doth

3/6/10

the room's empty
and so is the pouch
the more you have
the more you crave
you look under the couch
clicking your mouth
the drawer's reversed
glory be to the salvaged
is this an endless loop
or is the decay too deep
shall i put it out?
will i be a burnout?

12/3/10

the music drowns out
the things uncomfortable
things to be delayed
things to be forgotten

Influencing Public Opinion

2011-12-13T13:34:00.000-08:00

In search of a Muse

2011-12-01T02:57:00.001-08:00

I gaze across the morning sky;
Where is the hope,
That should have been flooding me,
Pushing to seek something new?

I know that the whole day
I'll go through the motions
Like a zombie with a full stomach;
Wondering maybe tomorrow
Will be a different day
Where I run lustily
Towards my dreams and ideals,
Mirages though they maybe;
Ahh! but that's like betting on the derby,
All your money on a random underdog!

What I lack is not the skill
But a muse to call my own;
Someone so crystal clear
That my personal fogs disappear;
For whom I do all the great things I seek
At the price of a single smile,
After a day of labour gone either way
A countenance that motivates me on;
I know I ask for much
But shout for help is all a drowning man can do..

Hello Kitty pickup line

2011-11-16T04:34:00.001-08:00

nerd gets lucky

2011-09-23T00:43:00.001-07:00

safe mode time travel

2011-09-19T23:41:00.000-07:00

The thin line between happy and sad

2011-09-16T00:09:00.000-07:00

a midsummer nightmare

2011-06-22T20:49:00.000-07:00

my mind is like the great bowl above
clouds of despair come and go
the sun of hope is too distant
redemption is hard and far
i'm sailing in the doldrums of here
and stuck in the moorings of today

lands of possibility grey the horizon
icebergs of doubt block the way
the fire of desire is but a spark
gales of trouble may fan it, but
i'm sailing in the doldrums of here
and stuck in the moorings of today

raw courage for an hour is easy
but courage for a life is hard
the ignorant are blissfully happy
those with knowledge will know, that
i'm sailing in the doldrums of here
and stuck in the moorings of today

maybe i should use my oars lustily
for all directions seem the same
insignificant is the reach of our arms
temporary is our existence, yet
i'm sailing in the doldrums of here
and stuck in the moorings of today

do i look away from things too far
follow the ripples of those before
taking joy in simple things around
condemning my dreams to hell, as
i'm sailing in the doldrums of here
and stuck in the moorings of today

frail is our body, fickle is our mind
those around can make us or break us
i stand in an armada of vessels similar
we roar a laughter of defiance, even as
we are sailing in the doldrums of here
and stuck in the moorings of today

An internet joke

2011-03-27T15:18:00.000-07:00

Stuck in the doldrums of acute & severe boredom and having consumed several thousand internet jokes over the decade, here is my 2 cent in the form of an internet-wait-for-it-joke...

8% GDP growth
**************************************************
Bill Clinton died and passed on into the afterlife. He realised that in the afterlife there was no heaven or hell but a massive masnsion with 20 floors and 3 basement levels with St. Peter as the janitor cum bouncer.

"Been expecting you. As the latest American President to die, you shall serve as the Lord of this mansion. Remember that this place reflects the situation in the living world. So, the Indians, the Chinese and the rest of poor chaps have a basement level each while the Japs have a floor, the Koreans half a floor and NATO has remaining 18 floors" said St. Peter.

"What about the remaining half a floor?"

"It had the Arabs, but we are just pushing them to the basement and have awarded it to the Chinese in view of their growing power. Rule your souls wisely. Step into the door on my left to start your duties."

Bill Clinton stepped through the door to find a delegation of Indian souls waiting.

"We are here on behalf of all Indian souls asking you to grant us half a floor like the Chinese."

"And why would i do that?"

"Because we too have been growing our economy at over 8 per cent every year."

"Haha! Thats the way it might have worked under Reagan, old man but come back to me if and when, over 8 per cent of your men get laid on a given day"
**************************************************

Assange Assange Go Away, Little Obama Wants To Play

2010-12-07T22:29:00.000-08:00

Julian Assange is the front runner to win the TIME Person of the Year. He also maybe killed in an "accident", assassinated by a crazy fool or just drop off the face of the earth. But he is a trend setter. Any extrapolation to the near future and a dip into science fiction would make it obvious that hackers are going to be the most dangerous and endangered lot in the upcoming world.

Assange wants to share information with the world. In economics, the biggest hindrance to free market system or many such systems being efficient and effective is the lack of information sharing across the stake holders and it is in the interest of certain stake holders to suppress information in order to corner a bigger share at the cost of others. This economic concept applies to politics as well. Governments such as the US govt will want to suppress the information while the sharing of such information will the benefit humanity.

The Interpol red corner notice is the most hilarious/tragic thing ever. Issuing the equivalent of an international arrest warrant for some flimsily set up "sex crimes" in one of the few havens (Sweden) that Assange had when embroiled in a worldwide controversy is like the simplest demo tutorial in the spy handbook. When such things can happen to you, you got to be on the look out. To all the journos who called him paranoid, well you are either retarded or licking some shadow's boot.

The western governments have become masters in using the world media as their concubine while trying to achieve political or economic objectives. PR campaigns are run with pin point effectiveness to fool those who cannot read between the lines. In a world where most governments claim free speech and democracy but throw them away like used condoms, i hope Assange is not let down by his last two options, Iceland and Switzerland.

Assange has revealed a lot in quantity, but the way the mighty are scurrying shows that he has lot more in store especially quality wise which they want hidden. He has been arrested but Assange is a smart man who has done what he believes in for a long time now and survived it. I hope he sticks to his integrity and has a magic rope out of this conundrum to continue his work. Well, if not...

444 words

2010-10-14T03:04:00.000-07:00

I stood on the beach, barefoot in the sand six inches away from the reach of the most ambitious wave yet. The sight of something stretching into the horizon with macroscopic calm peppered with chaos that had patterns was one of the places where I could stop thinking or come close to it. I am neither enamoured of the sea nor a regular visitor though I have stayed four years a stone’s throw from it. But I must admit that being face to face with the sea is rapture. As I stand the usual topic in my head is the universe around me, whose size I have read about and whose minor magnitudes that I can directly sense strike me spectacular. It opens a world, nay an universe of opportunities that await me and us, mankind. It invites you to be ambitious and fortune seems the truth to be sought. But another thought which swirls with this one like a double helix is simply the insignificance of everything and purposelessness of everything on a stage so grand. Having no fixed purpose to your life would mean that you can do what you want to do. This pops up the question what would I want to do? Good work, they say finding the right question is half the battle won but we all know half counts for nothing. I had put off deciding on what I wanted to be ever since I was kid probably hoping for nirvana to shine a torch on me in the then distant future. Maybe nirvana is only a few light years away and the beam is on its way or nirvana is that there is no nirvana. Meanwhile life is in the fast lane and you need to decide where to take the turn before you are headed to the outskirts. Maybe the outskirts will keep you happier but you’ll want to check out the city before the bars close and you can head out. Do what makes you happy, is often doled out as free advice. While I have my occasional brooding moods, I usually am happy with almost no correlation to what is happening to me or around me. So what do I do if I already am happy and have realised it is your state of mind. So that makes it do what you want with no constraint whatsoever. Well constraints can be introduced with relationships, of any sort, but if you are the aloof kind of guy I am, well they aren’t much hindrance. I know all these profound thoughts will seem silly a couple of years down the line, at least I hope so.

who got us our freedom? - my comment on a random post

2010-09-02T03:40:00.000-07:00

it wasn't a movie that needs to have one hero

while gandhi, nehru and the lot were politicians who sat in the governments, made representations, etc and launched some big but not effective campaigns.. they had significant civilian and intelligentsia support, news coverage..

bose who inspite of majority support in the congress had earlier been driven out of the congress by the gandhi faction set about using the turmoil in the world to india's advantage.. though he came close, he could not seize a significant part of india to declare legitimacy and liberate/inspire the rest..

the british having been battered in all ways by germany and japan knew they had not the resources nor the will to fight even a moderate uprising in india.. also the pro-colonial churchill govt was replaced by the opposition govt which had different political leanings and was looking to damage control and exit with dignity and some benefits if possible.. the british establishment obvi preferred the "gentlemen" who said please to the person with comparatively extreme view who had raised arms against the empire and the "gentlemen" found this agreeable too..

also the sheer number of controversial and shadowy things done by the allies at the end of ww2 do cast doubts on the air crash story but that is an unanswered question.. also the congress did not feel particularly patriotic when it came to help the british sniff out extremist indians as several were communist,etc.. everybody was jockeying for power in the great game..

p.s. also referring to "barbarism" by the axis powers, it needs to be remembered that in war usually the more barbaric nation wins and the winners write history

Deep Fail

2010-08-23T13:14:00.000-07:00

The local ninja aka avatar the last airbender threw a dart with his shuriken skills, here is one outstanding attempt that was honoured with an inscription..

If you were wondering, Bull's Eye = 50 & Super Bull's Eye = 100.

Is it time for the uncapitalisation of "God"?

2010-08-20T03:08:00.000-07:00

As i was reading http://coolmaterial.com/roundup/if-historical-events-had-facebook-statuses/ and having a good laugh, i scrolled down to the comments to find "This was funny until you got to the God part. Totally not funny anymore. Make fun of things that people don’t worship. you ought to be ashamed of yourselves."

Well, that got me thinking if group X claims Y to be god and some one draws a cartoon of Y, parodies Y, etc, it is supposed to be politically incorrect as it is hurting religious sentiment of the people. Well what about all the billboards, ads, speeches, tv shows, etc that claim Y is god that are hurting the irreligious sentiment of the people. Don't talk funny you may say but its true. If it itches someone's balls when Y is made fun of, it itches someone else's balls when the glories are heaped on Y. Nah, i'm not talking about other groups that substitute Z, Q, W, E, R, D, A or G for Y but the group that believes all these variables are equal to zero.

Forget any religion, non-religious/atheist/agnostic people perhaps have been the most persecuted "religious" minority throughout history up to this very day. But with more stable conditions and the power of the state and religion separating in most places, a new era in which this body of thought gains prominence is possible. The greatest contributor to the recognition and spread of the irreligious view was communism, one of the few reasons to respect it in my opinion.

Wikipedia gives an estimate of 15% of the world identifying themselves as non-religious/atheist. The link is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism . This statistic combined with the fact that people usually tend to tick their religion of birth irrespective of their religious beliefs to keep matters simple paves for a hope that we may become a majority irreligious species some day.

With B.C. & A.D. being replaced by B.C.E & C.E. (Before Common Era & Common Era)when referring to historical dates, may be it is time to replace another archaic practice of capitalization of the word god being the correct form of grammar?

P.S. I know even I is capitalized as a pronoun and another hundred technical issues exist with what i have written, this is an article to provoke thought, not start a religious war over grammar.

P.P.S. If serious and interested, checkout http://atheism.about.com/od/doesgodexist/a/capitalization.htm for an article about the capitalisation of the word god.

Why shouldn't a MP be given a good salary?

2010-08-17T13:02:00.000-07:00

The proposed hike in MP salary's has raised a ruckus in certain quarters. Supposed objections include, why give more to the corrupt b***ards, look at the common man suffering in these inflation times, etc. Putting aside the penny wise pound foolish mentality, if you theoretically assume that there exists a clean MP, should he be paid a measly salary on the basis of some misguided notions?

People want their sons to go to the best colleges and get placed with a 10 lakh annual salary, but do not want to pay the decision makers of our 1 billion plus country a decent salary. Shouldn't the 500 odd people who decide the fate of the country deserve a sumptuous salary that any decently qualified person hopes for in the private sector?

Those who say politics is for those want to serve the society selflessly and with no reward or incentive live in an utopian gandhian world way out of sync with the reality you and me face. If one thing history and economics have thought us is that things work out well only if they make economic sense. If one gets at most 30k a month, how is he expected to not only feed his family, extend himself for his constituency, live a life of dignity befitting a leader and have enough money to spend on the next election without stretching his other hand under the table?

Members of Parliament should not be given a decent but an extravagant salary on the lines of how a private sector executive is paid. The few crores spent on their salary is not the vortex of doom which is strangulating our country but their actions when in power. Pay more and demand more is how it should work. Else why will the smart, educated and honest youth of our country even choose to serve the country when any simple job can make their life a far more comfortable and less troubling endeavour. At least pay enough to ensure a clean candidate can spend the "maximum" 25 lakhs to get re-elected the next time around.

birds and other flying things

2010-08-12T20:06:00.000-07:00

these pics have been uploaded to bring a measure of hope to those who wish to point and click at nice things but are too lazy to get off their butts and go find those nice things. the following pics have been shot from my tiny 5x3 balcony, thanks to messed up sleep cycles and shortage of intoxicants. chief contributors of such good fortune without any effort on my part can be attributed to the rich diversity of birds the malabar coast offers and the nice little hillock called iimk.

p.s. if anyone knows what these little beasties are called, do comment and let me know. though i am guessing most of you haven't allocated their primary interests in fine tuning the ability to spot and identify little beasties. how ever feel free to share your ignorance.

the arch-hero

2010-08-05T01:48:00.000-07:00

the hero sat under the arch
hair last washed in march
staring into the road beyond
losing its way in the grasses blond

"is he watching some play
he sits there all day
he doesn't even sigh
an ancient statue nigh"

his long blade was rusty
the purple robes musty
he had won them their strife
with no fear for his life

"why don't you plant some seed
or put together papyrus and reed
what is it that you sought
for a grand tale you fought"

empty was his tumbler
but he was no rambler
"i wished the tyranny cease
so i may do as i please"

what thinks the man on the street

2010-08-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

wood inch and a half thick
held by a 9 mm stick
is the shield impregnable
thinks the man on the street?

4 raw eggs every morning
wild honey every noon
is the potion immortal
thinks the man on the street?

a hockey stick on
a revolver in
is the might invincible
thinks the man on the street?

writings in a book
words by a brook
is the truth absolute
thinks the man on the street?

the calm in the air
the night through fare
is the peace eternal
thinks the man on the street?

the world around
the time abound
is the reality infinite
thinks the man on the street?

haha cricfail

2010-07-23T14:03:00.000-07:00

right next to the legends of cricket! haha, a sign of the times.

crossroads

2010-06-19T14:04:00.000-07:00

the known universe shrinks around you
trying to look beyond is perplexing
flowing with the stream is shallow
the deep drafts are safer in the dark
looking at the horizon far
standing still on the shore
will neither get you a stamp or a coin

to be what you want is heresy
to do what they want is hypocrisy
while plans are grandiose
and the actions are mute
god save the atheist
and may peace be with you