Land of the living dead

I drag my life today just like any other day,
emptiness numbing my soul while feelings drift away
trying my best to express but words defeat me,
sentences fail to agree and thoughts evade me
shallow souls disgust me and make me want to scream,
wake up, wake up you morons from your dirty selfish dream
You can't see me suffering, you can't hear me wail,
you can't feel my pain, in your pursuit to prevail
Are you even aware that you are the living dead,
digging graves for others, in your greed to stay ahead
conscience buried deep under your bones and turgid skins,
you have committed much more than the seven deadly sins
filling air with bitter stench and land with rotting filth,
dumping toxic waste in water and no trace of guilt
now my anger seeks vengeance and rages storms of fire,
will scorch you all to ashes and it will then retire

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I had to vent it out. At times one feels like damning the humankind to hell and give the rest of the world a chance to survive. No i am not depressed

Then

I wake up
I exist
I sleep
then I repeat

I fight
I win
I survive
then I retreat

I erupt
I complain
I shout
then I contemplate

I love
I nourish
I cherish
then I exterminate

I differ
I hate
I destroy
then I recreate


***************************************

Just some random ramblings

I am

I am a saint, I am the sinner
I am a cynic, I am the lover
I am your smile on all the happy days
I am that scorn on your angry face
I am the tear in your eye
I am that jerk who made you cry
I am the joke that made you laugh
I am the sword that split you in half
I am the hope that made you fly
I am the despair that left you to die
I am the angel watching over you
I am that demon raging inside you
I am your sorrow, I am your glory
I am the hero of your untold story
I am the shoulder in your adversity
I am your friend for eternity

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Inspired by a fellow blogger

Customer Care Victim

There is this place, customer care
go ahead, call them, if you dare
time,money and patience if you can spare
their AVR is worse than your worst nightmare
myriad of menus you will be through
then you hear "you are in queue"
let me tell you the best thing to do
stop paying your bills when they are due
that will shake them from their throne
lowering their shields, they will pick up the phone
you get ready to have some fun
now kick their butt, while your job is done

Midlife Musings

Muse 1.
My friend once said that 40s is when you are officially Middle aged. That's all good for him, but do you know the saying its all in your head. If that is true then i am already old.

Muse 2.
I think i am suffering from some sort of selective Alzheimer's . I had to Google for some time to recollect the word Alzheimer's.

Muse 3.
I don't buy any stuff that is poorly advertised. Remember when you are buying something you are not only paying for the product but, all the costs involved till it reaches you including advertisement and it better be good if i am going to pay for it.

Muse 4.
Recently i installed a tracker and realized that, not many people visit my blog. I know those who read it regularly and are kind enough not to leave any comments. No i am not against it, as i read lots of other blogs but seldom leave a comment. Again i am not writing this stuff for somebody to read and comment, I write this stuff because, i can write this stuff. Even though there are only a few, i would like to say "Thank You".

Muse 5.
Ten posts in less than a month, wow that is like my all time record. Either i have nothing else to do or creative juices are oozing out of my brain like lava spitting out from an active volcano. Bad analogy, i know.

Muse 6.
Did you realize that your urge to go to the bathroom increases progressively as the distance between you and the bathroom decreases. Try it out.

Muse 7.
Drinking coffee when your stomach is upset is like pouring petrol on already burning fire. On a random note i heard someone say "I don't drink coffee, i am a te(a)totaler ".

Muse 8.
Is it going to be a boy or a girl?

Muse 9.
If you are complaining about the traffic while driving, maybe you shouldn't have left home. If you are complaining about traffic while at home, why are you bothered? you are not on the road.

Muse 10.
I muse a lot, now go amuse yourselves....

and Ye Shall Receive

This is not about "Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:"

This is about me and the lightning bolts i keep receiving from my father in heavens. No not my biological father, i am talking about the "HOLY FATHER" that created the heaven, the earth, the skies and the seas.

People reading my posts know that i bought a SUV and was overly attached with it. Reason being it is my first car and and it is the car i have been wanting to buy for a couple of years. This attachment with my car went up to the point where my wife said she thinks i care more for the car than her. Well she might have been right there but being the smart ass that i have always been, i told her that the car is not capable of taking care of itself, whereas she is perfectly capable.

Then it happened like this that my brother visited us and he does not know how to drive but wanted to use the car and hence asked me to appoint a temporary driver. My answer would have been an immediate no, but then i thought i shouldn't be such a self-centered prick and that resulted in me appointing a driver. I was so overly attached that i used to check the car for scratches every day after the driver returned the key.

That was when...
Enough is enough, God must have thought,
a nice lesson, this guy must be taught,
One fine evening, i got a call from my brother,
message was the driver, crashed my car into another.

I went to the spot fearing the worst, and the state of my car shattered me. I could not sleep that night. I was asking myself, why? why? why?
That was when i realized it was he who decided to let me own a car and that is the reason i could even afford to buy one. He wanted me to remember that everything that i think is mine is really given by him and he can take everything back unless i prove myself to be worthy of it and this is not the first time.

It is an untold, unwritten, understanding between me and my God that whenever i get intoxicated by over enthusiasm or over attachment or over confidence and other vices, he will remind me with subtle and gentle signs in the beginning and if i still did not wake up from my slumber, he will not hesitate to send a lightning bolt my way.

Hmm that is some pretty good soul searching.....
Hey look look i did not use the title in my post

On the move

All of a sudden it occurred to me that i had a passion for photography So, equipped with a mobile phone camera i started flashing it all over Hyderabad. Here are couple of shots captured while driving my car...

Sleepy Morning

Bright Night

Beautiful Sunset

Meals On Wheels

Passing The Airport

Approaching The Airport

Objects in the Rear-View Mirror 1

Objects in the Rear-View Mirror 2

Objects in the Rear-View Mirror 3

Its All Good Then

Today morning,I received a call,
would have been interesting, if it was a girl,
To my disappointment, it was our director,
and spoke in a voice, that raised my fear factor.

I know the attempt was no good,
but just wanted to see if i could.
i will end it with that i promise,
no longer you will have to go through this,
Oh My God!!! Somebody stop me
before i turn poetry into blasphemy.

That was fun, well, it was, for me....
The bottom line is that i got a call on a Saturday morning from the company director, saying that there have been some recent developments and he would like to schedule a meeting immediately. Given that the whole world is reaping the results of recession, that call raised more than one eye brow... it raised both my eyebrows

That meeting could mean

we may lose projects,
we may lose clients,
we might take a pay cut,
we might even get shut.
( Sorry, I could not help it ;) )

so with all these thoughts running across the mind we attended the meeting. It was presided over by the president, who began to talk about the times "we" are in and the sacrifices "we" have to make. Of course when he said "we" he meant "employees". Then i thought "maybe a pay cut".

Then he talked about how the client our division was involved with, is putting some projects on hold, i thought "shit its not the pay that is going to be cut". He read out the name of the project that is put on hold and another one that might be on hold. I am leading the project that might be on hold. Luckily for me, i am also leading another project that is client's priority. So i thought, " i am saved".
I can't even start to tell how disgusted i was with my momentary selfishness , i was happy that i was saved but, what about others. That is when our president talked about how we have succeeded in getting a new client and how another client we have started working with has raised a request for more resources.
So, everybody in our division will have their jobs after all and enough work to pull us through this recession. That is when i thought "Its All Good Then"!!
I was tempted to rhyme the last couple of sentences,
thank your lucky stars, my thoughts did not reach a consensus!!
Gotchaaaaa

Miracle

A wise scientist once quoted "There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle"

I chose the latter one. For me anything that does not happen naturally is a miracle, maybe that is the reason why i never get bored.

I will have to write why I even started writing about it. Last weekend i took my wife for an ultra sound scan, by the way did i mention that i am going to be a father soon, i guess not. So we went to the hospital and they took her into the scanning room and after getting her ready for the scan the radiologist called me inside and the procedure started.

Initially the screen looked like a white and black shades moving hazily, and the radiologist was like, look at the baby's face it completely formed, look, look the baby is putting her(I don't know the gender but i would prefer a "her") tongue out (giggles...) , isn't that a beautiful sight.. i was like where? what? when? how?....

I always had starting trouble with everything i did. So i decided to play along till i could start identifying and to my relief the next part she showed was the longest and more discrete from others and i got my point of reference. Nooooo, its not that.. it is the spine.

From that point onwards all that i have seen is nothing less than witnessing a Miracle. Little eyes blinking, tiny hands and legs waving and kicking. I know! it is natural and has happened millions and millions of times and that is how even i started. I am not talking about that, i am talking about how i am able to see what is happening inside the womb and that, to me, is a Miracle. Now don't even start giving me scientific explanations about how ultrasound works and makes it easy for u to see and that it has been done millions of times... baaaah, No. I know how it works, but i am able to see something that i can't see with my naked eye and even though there are scientific answers it is no less than a miracle to me and that fascinates me.

Flying in an aeroplane, it is a miracle....and no matter how many times i fly, i never get bored of it. Even the simplest things in life don't fail to fascinate me, like Mirrors, especially the rear view mirrors fitted to a vehicle, i enjoy looking at those mirrors while driving.

Some of you might be like... What a loser!! hmmm whatever.. i don't care...

A miracle essentially means extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and at some point or other, everything that is ordinary now was nothing less than a miracle. People have just accepted them as ordinary and they get on with their lives as if nothing is unusual, those things don't amaze them like they used to.

Maybe that is the reason why people are so bored out there
they see miracles every day, and act as if they don't care.

Remembering Smile

Last Friday night,
alone in my car on an empty highway,
listening to "Dekhi Zamane ki yaari, bichhade sabhi baari baari ", immortalized by Kaifi Azmi, S.D. Burman, Md. Rafi and Guru Dutt in "Kaagaz Ke Phool".
Although the song has a different context, the words "bichhade sabhi baari baari" kept on lingering in my head and tear drop rolled down, acknowledging the sadness filled in my heart.
I was on my way to pay respects to my dad's very close friend, who expired that evening.
It has been three years since dad expired and just a couple of month's ago uncle was mentioning how badly he misses my dad when he is in Hyderabad.
Filled with these thoughts, and the line lingering in my head, i couldn't agree more on how everyone who have been there when we were growing up are leaving us one by one.

When i was a kid, one summer afternoon, me and my brother were woken up from sleep and were asked to freshen up as Uncle has come to take some photographs. Mom got us ready, he took some snaps of both of us and mom, spent some with us and left. At that time i didn't even know who he was and that is the first memory i have of him.

After some years, when i was old enough, i was going through my childhood photographs and noticed that every photo had five letters printed on the bottom right corner, "S-m-i-l-e". When i asked dad about it, he mentioned that it is the pen name of his friend who took those photographs. i didn't even know what a pen name was, my dad explained that he is a poet and writer and uses that name. That was the first time i came to know about him.

Dad's friends circle always had writers, poets and they used to talk for hours together when they met and those conversations fascinated me. Those associations and dad's rare collection of books inspired me. I am not a writer or a poet but i took an interest in reading books. Amongst those is the book titled "Empty Bottles"(title translated into English), which is a collection of Uncle's poems and stories. That is how i met the poet in him.

I started this blog four years back with what i thought was a poem and today i dedicate it in the memory of Uncle.

An era of poetry has come to an end
leaving an aura of passion behind
the emptiness that is left
feels almost impossible to forget
i realize as the sun sets into a stream
today is melting into yesterday's dream
now as i stand in the night so lonely and dark
i could hear the song of a distant lark
promising a new tomorrow, shining and bright
so i move on with a spark of hope in sight
that even though death did us part
you are alive.. in the memories of my heart


Uncle your "Smile" will never fade away from my heart and that is how you will always be remembered.

We Are Here

Well... We are here...
Four years... 48 posts...
Looks like i did not have much to blog or was it that i was too lazy to blog....
The frequency with which other bloggers publish their posts amazes me.
How do they get these ideas?
Even i get ideas but, to add vocabulary to those ideas, i could not master that art
I don't consider myself much of a writer because, I am always limited by my vocabulary and lack of creativity.
There have been times, i would just sit and wonder how to put my thoughts into words....
However inspired by the various blogs i have started reading i promised myself that i am going to increase the frequency...
Lets see how it goes...

While we are being Sarcastic

Did you notice how i try to bring the title of almost all of my posts in the content. I just noticed it, its like those films where the title is repeated by one of the characters and we know that the movie is over. I am sooo filmy....
Anyway, While we are being Sarcastic (I know!!), let me paste an email I have received from our Director.

Dear Colleagues,

System Administration activities will be undertaken by V till a new Systems Administrator is on the Job.The new administrator is expected to be on the Job by this month end. Till that time V will take care of your needs.Please plan in advance your needs and do not expect miracles and faster turn around’s from him.Send all your requests and V will attend them on priority basis.

We regret for the inconvenience.

Thanks & Regards

MM
Director

Well three things worthy of mentioning, not mentioning the poorly framed sentences

1. Plan in advance on what we will be needing from a system administrator, Really!!!, because i am not sure when my machine or software or network will crash.

2. Expect Miracles!!! now you must be joking... can he do that, i mean perform miracles, like walking on water, splitting the water in the ocean etc etc.

3. "Faster turn around's" does that make any sense, is "around's" even a valid word... oh well he is the Director, what is use of being in such a position if he can't even bend some "rule's"

That was fun, but it was short-lived when it occurred to me that i can lose my job if he finds out about this blog.

What were they thinking!!

Well i was going to write a post against the Mumbai terror attacks, but refrained from doing so as i have read several blogs and they have already covered almost everything i had to say. However i have some snippets which no matter how you put it, are..... Stupid.

1. News channels calling the attack as "War on Mumbai"..... Maybe the intellectuals there should look up in the dictionary for the definition of War.

2. Calling Taj Hotel an icon of India, its like calling Shilpa Shetty or Mallika Sherawat or Rakhi Sawant icons of India. I don't have anything against any of them (especially Rakhi Sawant) and while feeling bad that Taj was attacked and many people were killed, would like to state that according to my opinion, none of these are icons of India, they are few of the millions of pieces that combine to form India.

3. Some people getting frustrated that the news channels who have called it "War on Mumbai", have called Taj, an icon of India. They write essays with pent up frustration about how Taj is not the Icon but the Chathrapathi Sivaji Terminus is the icon and the "Aam Admi (Common Man)" who travel through the terminus are icons of India. While i don't agree that Taj is an icon of India, I am not frustrated about it. Everybody has a right of opinion and if someone thinks Rakhi Sawant is an icon of India i don't have any objections except that i will be laughing my butt off.

4. The same news channel voicing out "Few people have held Mumbai for ransom, and there is nothing anybody could do about it". First they did not hold anybody for ransom, second i didn't know if Mumbai was such a small place, it just has Taj, Oberoi and Nariman House. If that is not the case does entire Mumbai live in these three buildings? While they exaggerated the statement they even took enough care to add a hint of stupidity to that statement.

5. Calling the attack as India's 9/11. How is this similar to what happened in USA? Why is this even being compared with what happened in USA? While both are terrorist attacks i don't see any similarity. Lots of places in the world have been hit by terrorist attacks, why are we not associating with them. Why do we have to associate and identify everything with USA? They didn't stop there, they even called Taj..... "Ground Zero". Well they said "India's Ground Zero". Maybe they should make an attempt to know what the term Ground Zero means. Here is the definition

"The term Ground Zero may be used to describe the point on the earth's surface where an explosion occurs. In the case of an explosion above the ground, Ground Zero refers to the point on the ground directly below an explosion. The term has often been associated with nuclear explosions and other large bombs, but is also used in relation to earthquakes, epidemics and other disasters to mark the point of the most severe damage or destruction"


6.This gets first place in the stupidity contest. Exactly a week after the attacks, The Counter Intelligence Division of police in Hyderabad have received a tip off that a terrorist leader is seen in Santosh Nagar area. Now how do the police display their "intelligence", by sending three unarmed constables without any back up. It doesn't surprise me that the terrorists shot them and easily fled away. While a bit worried about the seriousness with which police has acted up, their moronic stupidity doesn't fail to amuse me. Seriously , What were they thinking!!!

Rocky is Back

Finally after a wait of 45 days, Rocky is back from the accident care, Hoooray!!. For those of you wondering who Rocky is, it is my SUV. Although it has got a new face lift and looks much cooler, it doesn't feel the same, i know it will never be the same. I was stupid enough to give my car to a driver who took it and crashed it.
There are couple of minor issues i have observed on my drive back home but i will wait for a week before taking it back to rectify them to see if anything else comes up. I named my Scorpio RockyII earlier, I think i will call this one RockyIII. Just wanted to bookmark this day in my blog