Month: May 2004

I rock. It went … very differently from what my nightmares had portrayed.

Fortune favours the brave, and occasionally, the foolhardy. Nothing officially stands in my way now from getting that PhD in Mechanical Engineering and Scientific Computing. (Yes, I like saying it out fully at times like this.)

And I did it my way too, the “wing it and let coolness carry you through” way. People spend months. I spent 2.5 real days.

Did I mention I rock?

Now to catch up on a couple of night’s sleep, and a day’s food. Well, mostly sleep.

Actually, I love you all. I just want to leave before the general narcissism makes you think I’m a bad person.

Will the world love me any less if I screw up tomorrow?

Or on the brink anyhow. This is madness, I just hope I don’t do something weird during the test itself. (Read: Pass out, cry, just fall down and start screaming in pain, get all defensive and start blaming arbitrary things for lack of knowledge, …)

It was so much easier when I was younger. I could be the guy who didn’t know squat, put in the 18 hours of reading, suddenly come out the guy who knew more than most. All that’s gone. I can’t really concentrate for more than a couple of hours (which explains why I am out here typing this), and even that time spent isn’t tremendously productive.

And there used to be this huge support network functioning quietly and efficiently at times like this, primarily my mom. If I looked tired, I needn’t ask for a glass of tea or whatever, it’d just be there. Having to make my own food was never an issue. If I realized the books I had were worthless, I could order someone to buy me better ones. If I was spending 8 hours trying to pass some level in some game on the eve of a test, I would at least be asked if I felt prepared enough to warrant goofing off.

Now, nothing. None of these and other such things exist. It’s only a matter of time before I sink, expecting inherent capabilities and support nets that don’t exist anymore to keep me afloat.

No, I don’t have any delusions of being able to pull these off.

I’ve been afraid and tense. Very. Which in my world seems to be the only time I work so it cannot really be any other way. I hope I don’t pass out during the test itself under the pressure. (Yes, that’s happened too. It’s extremely embarrassing.)

In an attempt to sidetrack my mind a bit, I’ve been reading up on the political fiasco at the homeworld. I am the most apolictical person I know. I just can’t get myself to care about such relatively pointless real life issues. But this recent general elections results back home has gotten me quite worked up. And I don’t see why. Here’s a portion of something I posted in some other forum.

What gives?

Firstly, this is totally independent of me having/not having issues with Congress party’s policies toward the advancement of the country. This is about our inability to find one worthy leader out of a billion or so.

IANAFIRI (I am not a farmer in rural India). Of course I don’t have any real clue how economic policy changes over the past few years affected “the average person in villages”, but I seriously doubt their positions could have gotten any worse. All I saw were my juniors in college finishing up with a lot more options than I had. It seemed to be a very good thing. These options resulted in highly improved purchasing power, and consequently better lifestyles. What seems to be the problem with a middle class that’s moving economically forward? How much can it alienate the poor? I am not an economist either, but don’t earnings growths in some sections trickle down to most other sections of society eventually?

More importantly, how much more could someone from the outside know about the real lives of these people than people from right there. If you felt the current government policies were only helping a few rich people in Bangalore, wouldn’t it be a safer bet to elect someone from around who’s lived your life so will probably work toward your betterment? as opposed to someone from Italy?

No, I was not there to vote myself and consequently have my opinions heard, so I don’t really have any right to complain. But what’s the deal? How important is someone’s name? If I officially called myself Gandhi Gandhi tomorrow will I automatically get to rule all with an iron fist?

Doesn’t this scheme of events bother anyone else?

I don’t feel so good. As in, I don’t really know. I’m pretty sure it’s in my head. My stomach’s all knotted up and I just.. I just wasted all day. I’ve been constantly flip-flopping between cockiness and seemingly justified goofing off, and fear and consequent inability to work. It’s pretty annoying, and very taxing. I just want.. no, I don’t even know what I want. I think.. I want something to be able to comfort me right now. So I can get back to real work and not constantly fight weird demons. I have realized, however, that I can’t ever really be a hermit hermit. Which is some good that’s come out of this. I can’t believe how much I craved some, any form of interaction today.

Unrelated, I bought some more stuff for people. V’s lists apart, I bought a relatively sweet camera and some other electronics goodies for my dad. I’m still quite clueless as to what to get my mom, and I’m too tense right now to make something.. thoughtful. It’s not as much clueless as the need to not make/get something lame and impersonal.

If someone went through this sort of thing few days ago for mother’s day, and came up with something, I’m all ears.

I’ve just spent the past two days with no human contact. And I mean the real deal. No leaving home, no roomies, (obviously) no phone, no email, no im, not even commenting on web logs. The world must have assumed I was studying (or died in my sleep), but I know better. That was broken this morning when the Fedex guy rung my doorbell and had me sign for a decent watch I’d ordered.

Trouble is, it isn’t for me. I still get to use my trusty old one my grandma got me when I aced my tenth boards.

And, not to get overly political or anything, but fuck. I’m from a land with very bright people. I’m so proud right now, I could cry. I guess all that needs to be done now is to change my name to Nehru Gandhi, go home, and rule said bright masses with an iron fist.

I’ve finally been cracked.

Apparently showers are where I get most of my thinking done. I just realized events in the recent (and not so recent) past have finally gotten to me. I no longer see the world through my rose coloured glasses. I no longer believe everything happens for the good. And I definitely don’t see it as a terribly nice place filled with caring folk anymore.

People in general don’t really give a damn about loyalty, honesty, morality (and other such words ending with ‘ty’) and they sure as hell don’t ever really care about you. (Of course, this sort of premise hopefully excludes things like a mother’s feelings toward her child, because otherwise, I am being plain mean right now.) No one’s really going to go too much out of their way to ensure that peace and harmony and so on are ensured. Forget large scale things like that, even to put a smile on someone else.

People do what’s best for themselves, at whatever costs. Sure, that’s why we have laws like “killing other people is wrong” to prevent this from being extrapolated to the extreme, but within these broad limits, people do exactly what’s good for them. Something better comes along, by all means, go ahead and take it. Who cares if you’ve worked at the same company who’ve treated you well for 5 years? You’re getting a better sounding deal somewhere else, just leave. And a few lies here and calculated silences here and there never really hurt anybody right? I used to think criteria involving ethics dictated such decisions, but apparently not. Guess who has more money in the bank? Omarosa or yours truly?

So listen up everyone who believed the world exists to be nice to you and that everything happens for the best. All you have to do is be nice to it in return.

You’ve been lied to. You can be as kind, gentle, caring, generous… as you’d like, just don’t believe in karmic balances. The world will not hesitate to screw you over either way.

Unfortunately for the evil world, it doesn’t realize it doesn’t take too much to push genius to cross that line to evil genius.

Unfortunate indeed.

Damn I hate marathons. No, not the kinds in which people run insane distances just because they can. Well, actually, I’m not particularly fond of those either. I mean these marathons on TV, where they show 192 episodes of the same awesome show back to back realizing there are jokers out there with no self control (*hint hint*) who will sit through the entire thing even when they have far far more important things to do.

When S told me about today’s Simpsons marathon the day before, I was all pfft, I’ve seen them all anyway, I’ll be concentrating on my reading. By which, I obviously meant I’ll be sitting in front of the TV all day without batting an eyelid. What is it with men, the remote and the Simpsons?

Though I’m happy to report that didn’t result in me giving up on my run in one day. In fact, I increased the distance covered by about 50% today. But since parts of my body seem to have enough neurons to make their own decisions, this just means a smaller portion of the actual run involved running. It might not have been the best idea for other reasons as well. I ended up apologizing to this homeless guy for being a non smoker. Good god, after his pestering, I almost wished I smoked. And unrelated, I’ve just been told I’ve got womanly legs. Now I am not entirely sure what that’s supposed to mean, but I’m sure it’s no compliment. Now I can’t even joke about waxing.

First I lost the staple saggy man breast bit (long story), and now this. This has not been a great week for punch lines. God damn it.

Though I don’t usually notice such things, the weather has been extremely weird for the past few days. It’s like 70 degrees in the day, and there are these hail storms with marble sized pellets at night (global warming anyone?). Apparently they dent cars and chip off paint and so on.

I’ve had this on my mind for a while now, but then I hadn’t looked at the specifics too carefully. Today, I’ve started changing that. I’ve been going through different sorts of organizations which exist to help children in need, and I hope to make the right choice sometime soon. For a not-so-large sum every month, I get the glorious feeling of being able to put a smile on a kid’s face. Apparently, you even get to see pictures and write to them. I’m pretty certain I want to do this.

Yes world, you heard right, I am sponsoring a child. Wish me luck.

(Yes, I’m desperately attempting to figure out the deep seated personal gain here too. I will definitely let you know the moment I find it.)

And in a moment of culinary genius, I think I just burnt a bag of microwaveable popcorn. Sheesh. I better go.

I would just like to let the world know I was finally able to force myself to go out and run for forty minutes today. This is huge, because I have finally acknowledged the fact that not everything will necessarily be handed to me, and some things require work. Keeping this up or improving on this is going to be a real challenge, not like doing well on some test. Which is a good thing, since I need something to quell this newly spawning wave of cockiness.

I would by lying if I didn’t clarify that the “run” was more like a fast (by my standards) jog for about ten minutes, a slow (even by my standards) jog for about twelve minutes, a normal walk for about ten minutes, and a literal crawl on all fours for the remaining eight as I struggled to make it back home.

I would be lying if I said my legs don’t feel like jelly and are not killing me now. I would be lying if I said I don’t feel faint and my head’s not throbbing.

I am the most unfit person alive. This will definitely change that.

It’s going to kill me.

Today was, well, quite awesome. The feeling of being abandoned is slowly being morphed to a sort of free. (Imagine the puppet in that wireless laptop ad running around the lawn all unthetered.) I’m not happy happy. I just feel.. free. Not accountable.

I’m slowly regaining control over my own happiness. And I’m a surprisingly happy person. Who’d have known?

At least until next relapse, anywho.

I can safely say this was the best hair day (and if there is something such as a skin day, that too) I’ve ever had, ever. I’ve lost (or misplaced or had stolen or …) three hats over the past few weeks and I’ve been forced to gradually change to a continuous ponytail for about a week now. For the past few days I’ve been tying it rather effortlessly without a mirror. And today it happened, the epitome in quality of (my personal) hair styling.

Again, pretty much by definition. At the rate I’m losing hair, in a little while I won’t even have a hair day. Forget good, great, or best ever.

And I’ve been reconsidering working out. And by working out I mean slow jog or long walk. Because no matter what women tell me about being funny, you don’t see them trampling over Brad Pitt in a stampede to get to Gilbert Gottfried now, do you?

I was up late last night all alone fishing around with colour tables trying to come up with combinations for art someone else’d find cute, hash and rehash humour ideas and fun wordplay that I hoped would make someone else smile, go through this seemingly infinite play list (favouring those I could sing, well) in my head to come up with “an irresistible” subset to precisely articulate all that I needed said to someone else. (By “an irresistible”, I think I was hoping I’d be irresistible after the recipient heard it? I don’t really know.)

And then it happened, I snapped. I stopped seeing the purpose in what I was doing or what I hoped to achieve. I was literally screaming “Good god what am I doing with my life” internally. It think it hit me, hard, that some things aren’t designed to be fixed with effort.

I’ve now indefinitely shelved 3 or 4 attempts at “expression masked with fluff”. And, at the moment, I hope I don’t weaken and ever reopen them again unless I’m very sure it’s going to result in something tangible. Something more than me having to deal with the hurt of attempting to open myself, just to have it seem pale in comparison to other things I cannot always comprehend or match up to. It’s like, when you’re this drug addict (according to what I see and hear from the media anyway), you have to hit this extremely low point before you realize everything’s a horrid mess and needs to be revamped. Not revamped to become glorious. Just to be ok – to be on par with some generic measure of central tendency.

I think I reached that point last night. Not that it was terribly different or depressing or anything like that. It got to be that point by definition. It made me decide to force myself to attempt to make sure every day from that point on is going to be.. more. More fun, meaningful, productive, memorable, … or anything. Just be and mean a little more than what my days are currently amounting to. I’m going to take subtle (and not so subtle) yet concrete steps to turn this around. I’m going to work on me and aspects of my life until I’m out of this rut. I am going to keep telling myself something like this until I really see some progress. As a starter, not like I really used it, I removed the yellow stickey with her number (which for some reason seems like so much more than a bit of paper) from my wallet. See? subtle, yet concrete.

It’s so fishing ironic when you really think about it. When things are just.. there, you fail to comprehend how much they mean to you. You don’t necessarily want them all the time, or spend hours and days thinking about having them. Once they’re gone, you suddenly begin to miss them. Miss them very much. You suddenly realize all this want and need that hadn’t surfaced at a point when it probably would have made a world of difference. Which leads me to wonder, is any of this real? Or is it just the tantrum throwing child in you. You’re just screaming and wailing and trying your best to portray how much the doll or whatever means to you, because you’re quite sure you aren’t getting it. Least you can do is make everyone else around feel a little guilty in denying you.

I think internally I’ve always pitied people wasting their lives over things they can’t have and points they cannot reach. (Not necessarily great things or great points, just ones that will not materialize for them.) At some point I’ve morphed to that person.

Ok, something needs to be done.

I got back my check.

Remember kids, the moral of the story is, no, not to check if you’ve pasted stamps before dropping mail into a mailbox. Now sshhh and listen. The moral of the story is that no good can come out of doing something a week before a deadline. Remember it well.

Unrelated, I was hanging out on this little hill outside my home, and I suddenly hear this person calling out a couple of names. I then realized she was calling out for her dogs that were running toward the brave one, me. One was average sized, but the other was rather large, and could have had its way with me if it wanted. And then it happened, I made a huge breakthrough with respect to my fear of creatures I can’t talk to. I didn’t scream like a 3 year old and run away, I stayed my ground while the things were sniffing me and slobbering over my leg. Sure, I was petrified, and I’m still a little shaky, but she assumed I was a dog person. That’s what counts, doesn’t it?

I don’t know what it is. I suddenly realized I’ll be leaving this home in a few months. I don’t want to. I think I’m scared because I’ve been through quite a few changes and I don’t seem particularly happy as a result. I don’t know.

I was planning to put something else down, but now all of it is a blur in my head. I don’t know what it was, and I don’t care. I’ve got goose bumps all over and all my hairs are standing straight up.

For the first time, I really listened to Urban Hymns. I’ve heard it many times before, but I hadn’t hit me. This is as close to the ultimate music album as it gets. There is an extreme level of emotional intensity that is maintained throughout the album I hadn’t experienced before. I just didn’t see how deep the lyrics went. I didn’t even know I particularly cared about the lyrics of songs.

It’s life, happiness, sadness, space, time,.. and everything else on a CD. I’m indescribably moved, peaceful, euphoric … so much. I am sure you’ll be affected too.. on a higher.. a sort of spiritual level if you actually listen to this album. Good god, I wonder what this means for The Masterplan. And I’m beginning to see the pattern, the songs I find truly glorious have beautiful orchestral backup.

Here’s a quick sampler of the kind of brilliance that is in store.

Happiness,
More or less
It’s just a change in me
Something in my liberty
Oh, my, my!
Happiness,
Coming and going
I watch you look at me
Watch my fever growing
I know, just where I am
But how many corners do I have to turn?
How many times do I have to learn?
All the love I have is in my mind!
Well, I’m a lucky man

Richard Ashcroft is a genius. Sigh (a peacefully happy one). I feel all feline now. Stretching, curling up, softly purring and of course, coughing up hair. Good god, I feel invincible. It’s just music? Maybe to you.

Maybe it’s time to make my ultimate mixed collection. No, not for you, you, you or you.

For me.

Of course, I noted on the Amazon page that people who bought this also bought (What’s the Story) Morning Glory. (Another glorious album by a most awesome band). Anyway, the point being I was furiously reading up on the history between these people. And guess what Noel had to say about “Cast no shadow.”

“Richard wasn’t very happy for a while so l wrote it for him and about three weeks later he quit his band (The Verve). It’s about songwriters in general who are desperately trying to say something. I’d like to be able to write really meaningful lyrics but I always end up talking about drugs or sex. But people like Richard and Paul Weller will look after me. This song is dedicated to the genius of Richard Ashcroft.”

The only time history’s fun is when it involves alt. brit. rock. I am heading off to bask in this glorious feeling. Night.

NP. The Verve – Urban Hymns
Yes, I got all teary on “Lucky Man” too.
And no, I have not been paid by the band to write this for them. Besides, the band doesn’t exist as a band anymore.

No prizes for guessing which little tree was ostracized by all other trees because he found flowers prettier than leaves.

And wasn’t afraid to show it.