The Ant

The ant pauses to watch the view. Breathtaking, it thinks to itself in its tiny mind. So big this world and taken in one view, so beautiful. Grand sweeping masses of rock, falling sheerly into the ground, so far far away.

So many other ants, all making such beautiful patterns in the landscape. The ant looked closely at some of them, they were killing each other. It winced and looked closely at another bunch.

They were all together on one ledge, not moving any higher, telling each other that this is heaven. They were quite happy and content. They looked so beautiful against the landscape in their ledge, weaving patterns that were somehow familiar to see and comprehend.

Other ants, helping each other up, telling each other the summit was not too far, making more patterns.

So many many other patterns, some the ant couldn’t see, some it couldn’t understand. All adding up to one breathtaking landscape. It was worth it, the endless toil, just to be able to see this.

I have come a long way, it thinks to itself, with gratitude. It looks wistfully at the struggling ants at the bottom of it all. I cannot believe that was once me, on the ground, starting the toil. “I wish I could help them”…

“But I can’t, not without falling all the way down again” it shakes its head in resignation. I only have one day to live. It shouts instructions as loudly as it can from where it stands.

Some ants at the bottom listen, and take the well-known paths, and feel the joy and satisfaction of moving ahead. They shout back their thanks.

Some ants take the well known paths, but the path is not right for them, so they fall back quickly to the bottom. They then yell curses at the ant on top for misguiding them.

Some ants ignore it, and make new paths, and feel the joy of discovery.

Some new paths are much faster than the old, but much harder, and many ants fall to the bottom attempting them. But some pioneers jump ahead much faster than all other ants in the regular paths.

Some ants ignore all instructions and take false steps and fall back quickly to the bottom.

The ant leaves them to their struggles, and looks up. There are a billion more ants swarming up. Some single mindedly to reach the summit, if there was one. Others pausing at times, to shout instructions to the climbers below.

The ant looks up at the wall, and listens to all the instructions, especially the faint ones. The fainter it was, meant the higher the climber must have reached, reasoned the ant, in its little mind. Then it decides which path is right…

The power of music

Music, it transcends boundaries, of region and religion, caste and culture. It is a miracle over mindset, spirit over the sanguine.

I don’t need to understand it, to feel it washing inside my heart and mind. With every flow, slowly eroding all the pointless walls I have built within. With every ebb, it takes away a little bit more of my reasoning cautions, making of me, a creature of feeling, not fears

Remembered sounds echo inside my mind, bringing back other days when I listened to them, in other lives. The memories of these lives come alive in my mind, some I don’t even remember living… Maybe, lives of the future, that I am too sane to see in my waking hours…

When I listen to the sounds of generations past, that mirror every emotion I feel, or want, it gives me courage, to think, to feel…I am not alone. There was someone here, who saw this, who felt this, who was also, once, afraid of this. This is a timeless footprint here, for me to understand, and if I can, take forward with me. To hug close, whenever I feel lost, to rage with, to laugh with, to dance with, to fly with…

The sounds of this song - they give me hope of a life beyond these walls,

Of endless possibilities that were and could be
If only I cared to see…
That the world isn’t really about me.
My mind builds pictures - Of soldiers marching through history
To certain doom, brave, bleak,
Knowing, they are never free, never will be
Of troubled youth resisting authority.
Of cries for help, peace, hope
Still echoing pointlessly
Or not, maybe…

I think of the power it takes, the power of mind and spirit and feeling that come together to produce music that will live inside a million minds, shape and mould them for humankind. The power that is rare and that we either know we have, or don’t. The power to change, within and without, that must never be thrown away…The power worth struggling and striving for…

This one's for you, my dear friend
To induce labor in your lazy rear end

Freeeek

Manet - Luncheon in the grass

I roam naked in the streets
I sleep with whoever I please
This here is my body, my mind, mine
Not your toy, your muse, your tease
Don’t touch me till I say – at ease!…

Cover yourself woman!
Shameless heathen bitch
Yet oddly arousing
Without a stitch
I’ll forgive this unholy travesty…
Note! My generosity!
Just…gimme some action

My lip, it curls contempt
O lord and holy master
You pee on the streets
And shroud me in veils
And imagine time will heal??!!

I like my women meek
Don’t you dare best me!
I must thrash, you, you bad bad girl
Pleasure and pain, they’re the same to me

Oh! Joy! Here’s a cattle prod
Lets test out that theory
Shall we?
I’m ready when you’re ready

You sick freeeek!
What else can I expect?
You bare all and roam the streets!
Pain is for you
Pleasure for me
Don’t you see?

Oh I see!! Aren’t I… The Freeeek?
I am not afraid of you or me
I am naked with dignity
I insist on being born free
I rage, not for dominance, just equality!

BLASPHEMY!!

Technorati

Technorati Profile

Phase Shift

Peeps, I am flexing my puny capabilites to a blogging contest on Sulekha.com, so I will be active there for the next few months... Do visit rmadhuri.sulekha.com

Do join too if you wanna...

Dis was fun

Im great...Herez proof :D

http://friends.imagini.net/@1649969-a09b

To Robert Jordan - May your soul rest in peace

Goodbye Mr. Rigney. We never had the good fortune to know you but we will always remember you for your writing. Peace be with you. You were an amazing writer and it is a sad thing that we will never see the end of the Wheel of Time as you saw it. The Red Ajah salute you - you were a man worthy of our respect

Unarmed and Dangerous

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The Luck Pusher

I am playing hookey today, chickening out of a certification I should have given...Its a thrill, rather like bungee jumping, especially after an eight hour high on caffeine, sugar and cheese (The book had only pizza and starbucks examples to demostrate all concepts...whats a pig to DO???)

Right now, my creative energies are on full blast, as generally happens when I have other far more important things to do and am actively dodging them... I was remembering a some quotes I had read a long long time ago in a book called the "Cynics book of quotations"...

Of all unlikely places, I found this book in the Salem Public Library and had fully intended to flick it. The last time it was checked out was 3 years before...And I had no doubt the previous reader was unworthy and so I felt fully justified, even honor bound in making off with it...Unfortunately, my folks found the book in my safe keeping and dragged it back...

I never found the book again... The crimes that are committed in the name of honesty! Well, long story short, I remembered some of the quotations in the book, googled the author, and found some absolute gems :) ...Here's a selection

By Dorothy Parker,

~ If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania.

That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, It was against her better judgment.

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

Women and elephants never forget.

It serves me right for keeping all my eggs in one bastard.

Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.

That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say No in any of them.

I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
After four I'm under my host.

If wild my breast and sore my pride,
I bask in dreams of suicide,
If cool my heart and high my head
I think "How lucky are the dead."
Razors pain you; Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give;
Gas smells awful; You might as well live.

(To an actor who kept talking of his 'schedule' using the British pronunciation) If you don't mind my saying so, I think you're full of skit.

Hopkins : "Don't you think she ought to wear a brassiere in this scene?"

Dorothy : "God. No. You've got to have something in the show that moves."

Ilka Chase : "Not only was Clare (Booth) loyal to her friends she was very kind to her inferiors.

Dorothy : "And where does she find them ?"

Frank Case (Manager of Hotel where she was staying) "Do you have a gentleman in your room?"
Dorothy : "Just a minute. I'll ask him."

You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think

Now I know the things I know,
And I do the things I do;
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you!

Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone

By the time you swear you are his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite and undying
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying

My land is bare of chattering folk;
The clouds are low along the ridges,
And sweet's the air with curly smoke
From all my burning bridges.

When told that a certain woman would not hurt a fly, Dorothy Parker retorted, "Not if it was buttoned up"

Peace

Spirit me away
Away from the war
A little peace is all
All I ask for

Oh by all means destroy!
I ask not that you stop
Nurture hate, annihilate
Hit it, from the top…

Before you go
Just one bitsy thing
Take me away, let me go,
Knock me out the ring

I can’t bear it anymore
The sight and scene, smell and sound
No victory, no defeat, just blood and gore
I present to you, the glory of war

Much history, no doubt, will be made
Sword, by and large, eclipsed by the spade
Before the unfortunate have yet decayed
Truth or dare - games will be played

I’ve been up front, for long enough
Too tired to cry, or cry off
Fought in the front, and had to be tough
Now somebody please, call my bluff…

Take me away, far far away
From the front of pain, before it starts again
Find me a haven, the forgotten place
Help me be the forgotten face

Fear is the key

Every day we wake to fear
Some old, someone dear,
Afraid to live, afraid to lie
Afraid to talk, afraid to die

As we grow, our fears do
We watch and try,
We storm and cry,
We panic without a clue

Fear of the unknown,
Fear of the known
Fear to change
Fear of change
Fear of another
Fear of one
Fear to do
Fear to be
Fear endlessly...

Some try and fight
Might is right
Might be right
It proves a point
It makes another

Some resign and die
Resign and live
Resign from hope
Resign

Some turn to the older
Experience speaks
It shows the way
But what does it say?

Some turn to God
"We provide the faith
You provide for fate"
A path to hope
A way to cope
Any means to exist
Coexist

Some turn to science
We know the why
The how the when
And?

So many monsters
So many new
So here it is
Our reason to live
Fear is the key

The Keeper

There she is, in her altar
Shining and divine, the altar...Not her
You can look at her, walk around her
But don’t touch till I say so, I’m her keeper

She’s a little eroded, a little torn
You see that huge chunk gone there?
That was when I stopped watching
When I thought she was safe

Oh she’s beautiful too,
The angle was wrong,
Go around a bit,
Turn... turn... ah!

Now you see what she must have been like
Many many years ago
When she was whole and filled the altar
A perfect fit like so many others

I watch over her every minute
Around the altar I will march till I drop
My shell will last and last
But she wont hold out that long

What will become of me, this world
If she is gone but the shell remains?
She’s so very little now, this soul of mine
I slack a bit and she’s done for

Why Me?

The tormentors, the tormented, the saviours, the onlooker
And the cycle of life continues
Make me understand
Why the onlooker, why me?

Can apathy be called a driving emotion?
Can a misanthrope have a function in this ugliness?
Birth, education, shelter and energy
And voila, I’m a self sustaining process

About the ozone, I don’t care
The dying the dead the maimed, Make me!
Would it shock you if my biggest complaint
Is neck cramp from turning away so much?

I wont make a difference big or small
I wont scratch your back if my life depends on it
I wear a sign “Danger! Take Detour”
I live up to it.

I realize life is far from fair
But I had imagined it wasn’t stupid
So much precious resource, life and health,
Why on earth me?

Iranian President accused of indecency

Ahmadinejad in midst of a shocking scandal


Words fail me :D

Goals

http://despair.com/

Here's to
     --- Giving the competition the freeway to bang their heads
     --- Championing the underdogs
     --- Fairplay over success - the journey over the destination
     --- Restraining the inner competitive jerk

Not Off My Onion Yet

You Can Be Anything You Want, Says Fictional Character

College Senior Hopes To Turn Love Of Data Entry Into Career

A Million Little Pieces

I was browsing at a book sale, when I saw this book. It looked interesting (I judged it by its cover :D), so I flipped through it

First flip – quote - Belonging is not something I have ever concerned myself with and is not something I give two shits about. I have lived alone. I am about to die alone.

Second flip – quote (roughly summarized, I’m too lazy to type in the whole thing) – An Addict is an Addict. It doesn’t matter who the addict is or what the addiction is. The life of the Addict is always the same. There is no excitement, no glamour, no fun. There is no future and no escape. There is only an obsession.

So I had to buy the book.

I could identify on both counts. I used to give plenty of shits about belonging when I was a kid, but it became too fucking hard that I gave up at some point and never looked back since. And I was a book addict. I would have whored for a book and I was only 13. I needed a daily fix, anything, anything. Dunno how I got out of it...Its hazy in my mind. Can’t say I wanna go there...

I read the book. It was boring, repetitive, disgusting. Funny in parts and touching. It was life and I am not disappointed.. It is apparently a bestseller in the center of a huge controversy about its factual validity...

This is why I am writing this column today. Because I am irritated. Very bare bones, this guy, pulled himself out of drug addiction, and sat down to tell the story any way he could.

What ARE all these people complaining about?? That he made it as entertaining as he could (heaven forbid!), embellished it to make himself look good (horror!) and made a lot of money (Ah! We come to the root of the hatred!!)

I would like to support this guy and say - "GOOD FOR YOU man! Stay clean and enjoy your riches!"... All you teenage numbskulls, read it! If even 10% of it were true, you’re in serious shit so don’t do drugs. Or anything else. Other addictions are less physically draining, but they fuck with your head nevertheless.

The philosophy of this guy matched mine largely, so I guess a lot of my liking for this book had a lot to do with vanity. So I may not be completely unbiased and I wont deny that. But nevertheless it’s a good book, pure and simple

If Dan Brown’s books sold a million copies (Might I take a cheap shot to say he writes the most serious tripe ever?) James Frey deserves to sell 10 times more; his stuff may help somebody.

There are parodies of this book out already - What can I say? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

Something has survived

I have this really umm...charming habit. Whenever I hear a song I like, I put it on endless repeat until im sick of it (which takes about 2 hours) and then I never want to listen to it again...So I got to thinking of the songs that survived...So I have too much free time ...So soo me :)

Fatboy Slim - Right Here Right Now - Never fails to induce a sense of urgency in me

Metallica - The Call of Ktulu - guitar heaven

Enya - Boadicea - The version where she hums... Peace

Queen - Killer Queen - Irony...Never fails to make me smile

Scorpions - When the smoke is going down - Always struck me as a very bare song...Maybe its the voice...

Dirty Vegas - Days Go By - The version with the bass beat... Not to forget the video... Manages a sound that echoes on...

Duran Duran - Ordinary World - A song to cry to

Seal - Kiss from a rose - unusual

Metallica - NEM - song for my first love

Queen - Don't Stop Me Now - :)

Crash Test Dummies - Mmmm mmm - Peace

Rammstein - Eifersucht - anger and rebellion

Enigma - TNT for the brain - urgency and purpose. I find it goes best with Quake :D

Dire Straits - Iron Hand - I still get goosebumps when I listen to this one

Def Leppard - White Lightning - fear

Garbage - Stupid Girl - self-derision

Ol' Paint

The woods are lovely, long and deep, I’d rather stay, than go to sleep (Or sumfin of that kind :) ...This is a picture I am currently planning to paint...

I’ve embarked on a painting frenzy lately. I now own about 18 different brushes (Sizes ranging from highbrow pencil to industrial broom)...All the while, I have this thought going like a broken record in my mind - "A picture is worth a thousand words"...Well mine are still very young...They can say "hi" n "mamma" "dadda" but then they get stumped... Am slowly painting two syllable pictures.

Someday I will paint a "War and Peace"...Hopefully someone will be charitable to mankind and drown me before I’m done....Like Lord Tolstoy should have been...Of course, if I were his generation, I would have spent my life savings to visit him, just once, shake his hand, and say - "What were you THINKING?"

So what I am trying to achieve with toxic colors is "deep"... Some beautiful thought, some fleeting image that will forever change the history of the universe... Unfortunately all my most beautiful thoughts are about food... Can I paint a timeless piece of chocolate and not be thought a pig? That’s an artists eternal dilemma for you... Maybe if I put blood in a corner to represent all human suffering? And some drool on the side, for come on, one has to respect the chocolate...

My output? Well I bought this very artsy looking canvas board and played with my brushes on it, thereby producing something of outstanding ugliness ... I am planning to send it to the Louvre... If only I could see their faces when they opened it...These small joys in life...Another hallmark work of mine would be a half finished black cat that looks like, well, um, a giant black squiggle on a whitish board (I smoothly knocked over my paint water onto that one)

The entire area that I paint in has been cordoned off in yellow...There’s a stuffed toy (I SWEAR it was a gift :) that took a low blow in yellow paint ...My table now has serious self esteem problems (yellow, blue and a virulent green) ...The area smells of napalm...The floors are awash with strange chemicals...Mommy is regretting having me again...All in a days work...

I get ticked off, though, with all these high faultin books teaching painting ..."Visualize the canvas and let the strokes flow with greater depth of heart" ... This invaluable piece of advice came with a book that had a price tag of 2000 rupees... I mean, I tried reaching into the depths of my heart but my tonsils were in the way...

But the good thing is I am finally getting in touch with my feminine side... Painting ugly pictures has a curiously calming effect... I know what you’re thinking (self-portrait!!!)... Well maybe, someday, when I’m feeling extraordinarily lacking in inspiration...

Seriously, painting does have a very soothing effect on the mind...I cannot imagine why (Substance additive in the paint?) ...Maybe creating something of (dubious) beauty, for no other reason than that we can, brings satisfaction??

Training Courses For Men

I got the following forward today
http://www.funtoosh.com?dj.php?details=A11~445
I felt a public retort was in order -

Loyalty – The art of sleeping with one woman at a time

Basic Hygiene – Why Farting will never be an Olympic sport

Advanced Hygiene – How to take a bathe. Step one – Do not be afraid. Go in the vicinity of water

Woman Management – When speaking to the management, you are always wrong. Get used to it.

Household Chores – What are they? Why should you do them? What are the dangers to your health if you don’t?

Flirting – Why Brain Shutdown and Copious Drooling when a pretty woman passes is not flirting

Intelligence – How to exhibit signs of sentient life

Communication Skills I – How silence cannot explain everything or anything

Communication Skills II – How to make eye-contact with women. Amazing facts - Yes, people, eyes of women are actually ABOVE chest level

Communication Skills III – Why whining is not an essential conversational technique

Television – How dung beetles crawling out of a mans body is not science

Television Remotes – They aren’t umbilical cords. Recent studies suggest that they do not need to be severed surgically from the body

Cooking I – The invisible link between keeping a woman and learning to cook

Cooking II – How not to inflict your diet (the word is used loosely here) on others. Always remember, beer is not a major or even minor food group

Space – How to board a rocket ship and blast off so you can get your space

PMS – How to be sensitive to OTHERS’ troubles - Always remember, you may not bleed, but that can be arranged

The Eye of the World

Aes Sedai Ring

A serpent biting its own tail

This is a book by Robert Jordan, who had become a favorite author of mine a few years back...Its a little corny but when I wrote this I was younger and more romantic :D

This is another great read for serious aficionados of The Lord of the Rings. People who were already into LOTR before the movies made it famous might have already read these books.

The Eye of the World is the first of a series of nine books written by Jordan part of a saga called The Wheel of Time. This is the same guy who wrote The Conan Chronicles that were made into the movie Conan, the Barbarian.

It is also a pure fantasy work on the lines of LOTR and there are some basic similarities like the good and evil battle for power over a fictitious earth. And the names, and a few of the major races. For instance the Orcs of LOTR have become the Trollocs of Jordan.

The characters seem to have been drawn from the major western European races like the Britons and the Vikings. There is also a trace of Indian in the Mega-Super-Villan, who is called Shai’tan. Of course, both the Orcs and the Trollocs seem to have had their origin in the Raakshas, but that is debatable, as even the Irish clan have a similar race in their mythology. People who have played games, the likes of the Age of Mythology, or Baldur’s Gate, will readily identify, and identify with these characters.

History aside, this is quite an awesome book, or series of books. After LOTR, I suppose mentioning the amount of research that went into this book will seem pointless, but nevertheless, its amazing how much was done. It is most definitely not the poor country cousin of LOTR, a series spawning on the Ring’s popularity. Jordan has a style entirely of his own, that is in many respects better than Tolkien himself. Again, an opinion, extremely debatable.

The biggest area in which might Jordan score in any contest, is the “human”-ness of all his characters. His characters have every colour of the rainbow, not just black and white. He has captured the strengths and weaknesses of the human race with uncomfortable accuracy and we are swept away, without our knowledge, into a world, where everything seems possible.

Another unique feature of this book is its description of “good” and “evil”. “Evil” is clearly defined, but we are left guessing about what constitutes “Goodness”. Each race thinks of itself as the “Good” race and has some points in its favour and some against. It is left to the user’s imagination as to what to accept and what to refute. The dogmatic natures of half our modern groups are quite subtly depicted.

The imagery is vivid, the descriptions thorough, and the suspense, nail-biting. This series belongs to a treasury collection not a casual read.

The background is the eternal fight between Shai’tan and the good guy, also called the Dragon. The Dragon is tricked into killing his own family and immolates himself when he realizes what he has done swearing eternal vengeance etc. etc. The Dragon keeps being reborn every now and then, and throughout history, there have been many imposter Dragons who claimed they were ‘The One’ (a.k.a Neo) but finally proved false dragons.

In the foreground are three village youths, who were born within weeks of each other who are suddenly and brutally hunted by the Trollocs for no knowledge of their own. These are very ordinary people who don’t exhibit any signs of heroism at all, yet are being ruthlessly hunted to their deaths.

The Shai’tan appears in all their dreams, trying to frighten each of them to betraying themselves as the Dragon, but as they themselves have very little clue, nothing much is achieved. They are all swept away under the protection of a race called the Aes Sedai, which are a very powerful race of women, with an agenda of their own, who will protect them from the Shai’tan, as long as they are of use.

Everyone else hunts them, the Evil, because they represent a threat to them, the so-called Good, because they assume that these are friends of Shai’tan.

In the world of Jordan, fiction and reality merge seamlessly and produce an irresistible combination. This is not a light Sunday reader, but for someone who plumbs the depths when they read, this book will fascinate.

From the guru

Mr. Language Person: Some words of wisdomality

Pax

It has been brought to my notice that the earth is a little tilted off its axis. I think I shall use it tomorrow as my excuse for why the world is out to get me and why I need a nice long rest from work.

Well don’t blame me for sounding a little desperate. I have just got off a client call where 15 voices were all hanging on to one telephone line and not saying anything. I was tempted to whistle “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” in between just to set the mood.

I found that people listening to me not talking is more scary than people listening to me talk. Am I breathing too little? Too hard (perv caller hard)? What if a sudden sneeze shows up? Am I contributing enough (No.) ? Am I contributing too much (As if!!) ? And then MANNA…I have a question to ask! There is a purpose to my whole existence… I ask it… Deathly silence…Did anyone hear? Anyone understand? Was I speaking Swahili, HELLOOO? Then a faint voice in the shadows murmurs something

Is there a ghost in this conf call?? How come there never are?? I would seriously dig a ghost that showed up in a conference and asked the coordinator for a Functional Specifications Document Template. Worse luck, it ain’t no ghost. So what now? Do I follow polite Indian conversational etiquette and go “HAIIIIIINNNN???” or polite English etiquette “WTF??”

The drama unfolds. There is a sudden roar and clatter…. PHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE …. I jump...Somebody forgot the mute button in the middle of his missile launch…But no complaints, I’m saved by the shriek…People have forgotten the Answer-That-Never-Was

Is there anything more exciting than a conference of this type… Try “security audits”… Halloween has nothing to it… There is a breezy gentleman doing an “audit”…Quick… run the batch scripts to rename all the music/movies/etc and put it in the windows system directory… My windows grows by 2GB with every “audit” …

Did I hide everything? Palms are sweating! Ouch, he found the barely appropriate cartoon sitting on my desktop (At least it wasn’t my wallpaper anymore)… You really know its not your day when an auditor is sitting at your desk and an email pops up “Fuck – the most versatile word in the English Language”

To top this off we have a meeting to discuss the 1 hour long silent call. Another half hour of waffling to figure out no one got nothing…Head is starting to pound in earnest.

This is when everyone decides this would be a great time to attend a seminar on appraisals (compulsory)… WAAYYY BELOW THE BELT… People who shouldn’t be let out without nannies asking questions about “fairness of procedure” and “uniformity of pay hikes”. I got fed up…Every one has a breaking point…

I asked “How much will the pay hike be this year?” The presenter was arrested…He began to dodge like a Marine Commando… I tortured him for a few more minutes with direct questions that no corporate body in their right mind would answer… He began to look hunted and finally let us off for lunch. Mission Impossible Done. Ha Ha!

So there I am considering a long hibernation from work…Only way out I see is to fake a pregnancy…Paid leave… Will show up one day with a pillow and waddle around the managers. Peace and quiet.