....thoughts penned in deep frustration

My senses heightened,
Body smoothened,
I stand poised and ready;
I feel the crackle of energy;
-Maybe just a bone snapping-
Nothing really matters
But the progress.

Is there progress?
Progressing owards what?
I suddenly can't remember
What it was.
The once enchanting pull,
Now a faint murmur,
Dies in my ears.

Defeated before the battle,
Lost without a cause,
I could die the worst meaningless death,
Or I could crawl out
And live the worst meaningless life.

Nerd's Day Out

“Sir, we have return waves from one of the syncs.” Dr. Knott did not even bother looking up. New recruits were always hyperventilating about small signal disturbances. He was currently very busy mapping the Silicate stalactite element detected 800 metres within the core of Planet Ranger. The new recruit could wait for all he cared. He couldn’t even remember the kid’s name. Brink was not in the least hurt by Dr. Knott’s indifference. In fact, he did not even notice it. The crackle of the return waves was far too thrilling. He tried to tune the Grynkophanks – a device invented about a decade ago to sense extra planetorial life forms. Of course it beeped and twanged all day mostly sensing far off galactic movements and other irrelevant signals. That was precisely why new recruits were dumped in the Grankophanx room – (a) no one else wanted to work there and (b) to train them to channel out external noise and concentrate on the job at hand ( their wives could really testify for the success rate). But these signals seemed to be coming from some whwere within the Milky Way itself. It was a gut feeling. But of course, it was written in stone that a scientist should never rely on gut feelings. Dilemma solved.
So Brink tried to get back to the Silicate stalactite density he was researching on for Dr. Knott. But the humming sound kept growing louder till it attained the quality of a voice but he could not decipher what it was saying. He immediately began punching keys and doing mental arithmetic to figure out the decibel index and location index ratio so as to identify the location. None of the permutations seemed to be working. Since Dr. Knott was so uninterested, he decided that this baby was going to be his. He could smell the Nobel prize already.
*******************

“Archer point reporting,” Begus Grunt snapped. When would the infernal chief deign to respond? The contact could die any moment. Luca Penny, his secretary, smiled invitingly at him. “This is not the time for Godssakes!” He was hysteric now. Her smile remained intact. He could break her goddamn jaw. No one took him seriously. First, they put him in charge of some silly blue-green planet that no one but Mudrock even bothered studying. And now when he had managed to make a break even in the most useless job, it wasn’t even acknowledged. No work ethic left in Planet Crete. What else could be expected if Zipcus was in charge, he thought bitterly.
“Archer Point still exists?” A lazy voice chuckled back. “ Damn you Zipcus,” Begus fumed under his breath. Luca loved to see Zipcus all frustrated. It turned her on. “I have been single handedly manning the woebegone station and watching all these years for some sign of intelligence and finally made contact. Do you want me to break it so you can go back to leisure?” “Sarcasm has always been his forte,” Luca grinned to herself. “ Yes, good idea,” and Zipcus hung up. Begus jaw dropped in disbelief. It was at this point that Luca decided that Zipcus was’nt that hot afterall. “Ok Archer Point. Joke Over. If the contact is still there, you might as well still carry it on. Get your fat ass down here so we can hold an extraordinary meeting and put the issue to vote.” Begus couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Catching sight of Luca, he decided to lose it completely. “ Now you listen to me Zipcus. Call Mudrock and get all the information about earth that will be essential in deciding he threat / friend value ratio.” “ Agreed. (chuckle)” and the line went dead. What else could the bugger do, thought Begus angrily. He did’nt know the first thing about running a planet let alone handle potential threats.
Begus was suddenly distracted by the jangling of bells. Luca jumped to the earth control. “ Boss, the earth dude is making contact too.”
Oops. Time for a quick beaurocracy free decision.
***************************

Brink was ecstatic. One of his many guesses had struck gold. Double edged contact. He was going to converse with an alien. Of course it was Dr. Knott’s fault that he hadn’t taken him seriously.
“Human?” Begus bellowed.
“ Correct.” Nervous but firm.
“ Can you visit? We can exchange data and benefit from each other.” Standard textbook after-contact conversation.
“ Sure. We’ll send an envoy. His name is Brink.” Quick thinking from an ambitious scientist.
“ Pick up radiation will be there in a moment. Get the guy near the signal.”
For the first time, Brink had second thoughts. What if he died in transit, or worse in a new planet without even the assurance of a posthumous Nobel prize? But the time for that was long gone. He felt a thousand invisible rays burn into his cells. He was losing consciousness. He kept trying to figure out what sort of rays would transport him between planets. Consciouness erased.
Brain cells awaken a little. Ah! Purple hall. Long table. Could be earth. But no, I’m in a new planet. A whole sentence! I must be totally intact. The multiplicant of uncertainties is a constant and falls to definable levels only at Big Hollow conditions. Remember basic physics. Beautiful.
“Shut up.” Mudrock screamed.
“ Come now Mudrock, don’t alienate him. He’s an envoy.” Zypcus chimed.
“ Oh yes… diplomatic immunity and all you know,” blubbered Brink.
“Sorry?” Zypcus and Begus chorus.
“ Some legal bullshit. Irrelavant.” Mudrock, the Earth expert dismissed. It was Mudrock’s defining moment. A life’s worth of research would now come to light. He would kick some ass. He had prepared a list of basic questions to begin with based on which they would map the guy’s brain.
He cleared his throat. “ Brink? How many meals do you people have per day?”
Brink was zonked. He had never been speechless in any of his viva exams in college. But meals? When was the last time he had eaten a meal? “ I have nutrition bars you know, to save time.” Mudrock snorted in disgust.
“ Are you married?”
“ I suppose so.”
“What’s your wife’s name?”
Brink thought for three minutes. Begus wanted to slap the guy. Did he think that was important intelligence that could’nt be given away?
“I can’t remember,” Brink stammered.
Mudrock decided to give it another shot. “ What do you enjoy most?”
Bink brightened. “ The principles of secondary transition of crest-trough convolution have by far been the most interesting. The first principle…”
Zypcus banged the hammer on his table. It was what he always did when proceedings in General Body meetings got unmanageable. Now he had a lunatic in his meeting room.
Mudrock sighed. Brain mapping it is then.
***********************************
“Analysis?” Zypcus asked, suddenly alert. He had decided that Earthlings were some sort of lunatic race with no streak of positive in them. according to Zypcus a man who did not appreciate women, and enjoyed work was someone you just could not trust. There, Begus agreed. Luca had been his only salvation during the years of inaction at the solitary earth station. Mudrock walked into the room seething. “What do those humans think? They’ve sent us a goddamn robot. Do they think we’re not even worth a human envoy? We’ll show em’. Declare war or something.”
“ Calm down Mudrock,” Zypcus thundered. “ But the guy looked human to me. I mean no wires, machines. Are they so advanced as to make humanoids?” Begus could not but agree with Zypcus, for once in his life. Mudrock threw his head back and laughed. Nice and loud. Before the other two could order his execution, he restrained himself and whispered calmly, “ Oh not a real robot. Just a human version of one. They call them ‘nerds’. These guys are born human but due to a little gene deformity and behavioural disfigurement, they maldevelop into social losers and functional winners. So they are put into laboratories where they are more than happy to live.”
“ In fact a robot is modeled on a nerd.”
Zypcus and Begus were speechless.
Finally Zypcus collected himself. “ Begus, stay put. Inform us if any non-nerd makes contact.” “ Mudrock, do everything you can to ensure this nerd gene is prevented from ever appearing in Planet Crete.” He looked at Luca who had been sitting silently and taking down minutes. “ Luca, take Bring with you and teach him to remember your name.”

One Afternoon...

Sunshine spills through the window
Retreating with a gentle afterglow
Lightens up my room:
Finds these stray thoughts,
Makes them sparkle;
Threads 'em together,
Makes 'em mingle;

Random moments attain meaning:
The world an imperfect paradise,
We rave and rant and we calm down;
A circus with many a clown,
We see the irony and manage sad smiles.
As our ambitions grow,
We determine to walk extra miles;
Some rare moments that move
We feel the knot in one throat;

So many feelings,
Define the person that we are;
In that one sunlit moment,
I see the person I am.

STARK NAKED

With every word you said
And every lie you untold
The covers lifted, face shifted
I stood there waiting, sifted
Through all the dramatic shit:
Sentiment, emotion, belief, all tumble out...
I stare at you wanting to shout;
I was just a little girl too
We bask, we talk, we sue
Damned lawyers thats what we do.
And then you say this bit, lose the ado
And stand stark naked before me
-Stripped of all pretence, clothing-
Did I say I hate pretence?
Maybe its just a necessary defence.
Ugh- I smell the self loathing
Well up and bolt...
(No time for this shit.)

Its no offence to you,
You tried to be honest.
Just hope you dint see my disgust
Before I realised
That Im just the same beneath,
Clothed in a fragile sheath.

Blighted, smited, spited,
The world so pretty a day ago
Is a ghastly hell hole of creatures
Humans, we call them.
Dark poetry, we call such ranting.
How unfair...
poetry is only as dark as the world it comes from.
Shaded glasses have seated themselves on my nose,
Disgust wells up in me-
Some part of it, is hurt too-
that I will never accept
- Fruit of believing in human nature
: Its 'goodness' so to say.
You know its days like these
That make you see the folly of being happy
And forbids you to ever trust
In the existance of any good.

Sweet Musings of a Cynic

The magic of the Even,
A charming hue of warmth
Neither bright nor dark
The shades danced in and out
A time to charm, a time to feel.

As I make the enchanted journey throuugh the woods,
The path seems to extend
Beyond the Beyond-
Lyrical ballads of whispering avenues
Airily pass me by,
The delectable smells of earth and nature
In me, exhilerate.
All primal instincts sharpend,
I feel the pain and the love,
The passion and beauty of nature,
In its embrace can I lie forever.

I feel the liberation, the joy,
A part of the brilliant Whole.

A twang of smoky air
Teases my nostrils-
Tis the warm cooking fire outside the huts
Not the icy city smoke
That I, modernist in thought, conceeded to before.

The sky darkens,
Birds fly past, harken
The retreating dusk.
A dull light lingers, fades slowly,
Dances back in,
Ends the dilemma.
Another day decided-
Nightfall befalls fledling mankind.

The sweet feelings it evoked,
A bright evenstar witnessed it all,
Twinkles laughingly
At my musings,
Its the cynic's day off.

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
I read the first part to the series recently and found it an extremely entertaining read. The hero is this child genius and a great criminal and he goes after the magical people to get more money. Seems like a very rudimentary verons of rowling's Harry Potter right? But what I really liked about this book is the humour lacing the whole narrative. Stereotypes and witty retorts along with a racy narrative make it worth reading. Most people find fantacy fiction kiddish. But I really think it brings out the inner fantacies of basic human nature. By the way, Samit Basu's 'Simoqin Prohesies' and 'The Manticore's Secret' presents a desi version of the same fantacy fiction genre. Its worth a read if you enjoy this sort of thing.

A Bird Today

The beaten metaphor of a bird
Must I use again, ever so apt.
I feel the flutter; the flush on my face
As the wind embraces, slaps me playfully,
Across the face.
Awakens a thousand lovely feelings-
Good poetry, open doors, coffee mugs
The little details of life
That make you fly a million miles.

I gather my thoughts, sip the coffee,
Roll it up my tongue, taste the beauty
Of being alive to all these mundane things-
A slice of good conversation, pieces of time
Spent together, a peg of delighted laughter-
The sheer hysteria of breathing every moment
Makes me soar like the metaphorical bird.

Afloat on the clouds, high on life,
I wonder if the hackneyed metapher will hold any longer.
It will not as we must but accomodate the more weary
Clishe of change.
But Im content to know
That Im living the bird metaphor
Today.

Update

The Day That Was...TDTW
Never an early riser, waking up late is nothing unusual. Classes being generally boring, not falling asleep is something beyond the banal but I might as well make a mention. i stayed up all day in class today and was attentive for the most part.
Update on reading habits : Swore to myself never to pick up a Barbara cartlant again..total shit.
Movies: Yet to finish The incredibled. However havent given it up as a lost case yet like all the animiation movoes ive tried watching in the past.
Songs: Still reeling under Mr. Enrique Iglesias, is charm and magical voice. Insomniac it is right now.
Weather: Ah yes. it rained again. But unlike yesterday, it spared me the trouble of getting wet. however I had to walk in ankle deep water to have dinner. But i'm not cribbing. The cup of coffee I had after that made up for it all. Coffee in such weather is a blissful experience.
Other aspects: Well yes, this where we digress from the banalities of life. So it is beyond the scope of my present write up.

Journal entry of an avid sports hater

Well sports are a waste of time and an unnecessary burden on the whole community. look at my college for instance. If there's a football match then everyone is expected to go and support their class or they are told that they dont have class spirit and stuff like that. Of course there is respite when it rains and games are called off although Im not particularly fond of the rain either. sports and rain. Which could I hate more? While one gets you all wet and shivering, the other gets you sweaty and tired. And the world is so full of rain and sport lovers.
Frankly speaking, I avoid both rain and sports if I can help it which I most often can. You know, the will of steel logic would probarbly apply here. Anyway the reason I'm writing today is that i made an exception to both these unwritten rules. The reason is not something out of the blue as one would expect. It was a simple conspiracy of circumstances.
After my evening cup of coffee, I was walking back to the library to get some work done and marvelling at the fact that the rare day on which I sit down to work always has to be one with good weather. I was passing by the field and ineveitably saw both teems gearing up to be what was much touted as a power packed game. In fact many of my class mates and seniors were already seated on the steps and discussing who should win and why. This was the final match of the intra collegiate series and I suddenly remembered that our class had reached the finals. 'Hmm...It'll be nice if we win,'I said aloud. My friend who had accompanied me for coffee coaxed me to go watch it. Since she was so insistent and also since my interest was a little kindled i began to waver.
'Maybe I could go watch this match for a change.'
'Ah! I see this is the demise of the great sports hater. Ofcourse not everyone is born with a strong will there days.'
'No of course i have a strong will. Its just that this match might actually be interesting. and who's going to satay till the finish anyway?"
You know how you grapple with yourself many a time when that infamous phantom called fickle mindedness possesses you. It is not very pleasent to say the least.
To cut a long story short, I was sitting on one of the front seats and waiting for the match to begin alongside everyone else like a common sports lover. Well, there are always exceptions, i decided. And then it happened. All of a sudden. Out of the blue. Rain. Mere droplets, though they were, I began to panic. I had two options open before me. Either brave the rain drops and run back to safeto and comfort. Or stay here till the rain stops and be forced to watch the whole game whether i liked it or not. A smart reader will be wondering by now how the game would go on if it was raining. Well, let me tell you Sir, that smart as you may be these are hard core sports lovers we are discussing. they dont let something as silly as rain to deter them. Also, it is here that one has to draw the line between the much nicer game of cricket and football. while in cricket, the gentleman's game, they will abandon matches when it rains or when the light is not good, in football, the ruffian's game, they hardly care for these aspects and the game almost never gets abandoned. I have often surmised that since the whole point of football is beating each other up while incidentally kicking a ball or two, rain and bad light can only be used to perpetuate more violence on the field without a foul being called. So it happened that I was stuck in the present quandary.
The match progressed and each time the crowd cheered, I asked someone around the reason for the burst of shouting and volley of applause. i joined in whenever it was to appreciate my class. I also found one player particularly good. It was amazing. The way he would run after kicking the ball and then reach the other end of the field where the ball had bounce off too almost as soon as the ball did. Another kid even kicked with his head. Ok I was told that was usually done in the game. As the game progressed and both teems had scored two goals each, the cheering and booing got thunderous. I joined in of course. I was as upset as the rest of my class mates when the other class supporters booed us. I was as tensed as everyone as to the outcome of the match. It also perhaps helped that I knew the kids outside of the game and hence found it interesting to watch them play. But I think the whole feeling of being part of the crowd histeria and and being in the midst of that palpable tension and excitement was thrilling. It can turn any one into a sports lover and a sports hater into a 'well its quite nice really' type kid. And also there was the rain I was hiding from. The spectators seats were sheltered from the rain. I'm not saying that i would have left midway if it wasnt raining, or anything but just merely laying bare all the facts as a good writer most necessarily should.
( To be continued...)