With coffee and chocolate biscuits

To the Moon Maiden

2011-12-15T14:43:00.001+05:30

O calm and serene
Brighten up my night
Up in the sky out of reach

Still a Yes

2011-07-18T10:01:00.001+05:30

Even if I had known what I know today
I still would have sat on those steps of stone
I still would have watched as the sun shone
And danced over the hills in the distance
Three years ago I still would have said "Yes"

So it is

2011-06-04T12:47:00.004+05:30

And so I am
Back to gray
Are you as red
As you were
Red before?

Two years

2011-02-20T01:39:00.006+05:30

Two years

Changed for an ever

This night

Another I've never

Of pointy-haired bosses

2010-12-26T23:55:00.003+05:30

HR(Human Resources) demanded the Xion document by 17th December. My reply clearly stated that the Ancient Brotherhood would not be issuing the Xion document until the Ceremony of Xion in May and that the Ninja document should suffice till then. So, HR, in all its logic and reasoning prowess, extended the deadline for submitting the Xion document to 7th January. Must control... fist... of death...

Yes, I'm a huge fan of Dilbert

My pie of uncomfortable

2010-12-18T00:17:00.003+05:30

I've accepted myself as an introvert. I am no longer ashamed to be the guy who doesn't talk so much. I can sit awkwardly alone at gatherings and be totally fine with it. But here's the problem: most people aren't comfortable with me being comfortably uncomfortable in social situations. They try to make me feel better. What they don't realize is that in their attempts to reach in and smother my core of uncomfortable, they peel away the outer crust of comfortable (which smells like freshly baked bread) and announce the ugly insides for everyone else to see and judge.

Now I seem totally ungrateful. So I'll say I don't despise these acts of magnanimity; I've done the same things myself. The thing is if someone is awkward and um... inthlahrung, you should just let him or her be comfortably awkward and most importantly, never ever EVER direct everyone's attention to said awkwardness.

Growing old or growing up?

2010-12-07T03:09:00.004+05:30

This was supposed to be a comment on someone else's blog, on a post about about getting older. But it's one of those things that I'd probably want to read again in a few years. And I kind of like it when no one seems to read my posts anymore; I can write like no one's reading. It's a little against my principle of not redacting anything I've posted but that's a topic for another post. Anyway here it goes:

It's after-churchsies in a new city. I thought I was still young enough to hang with the college kids with the crazy hairdos. I wasn't. Then I assumed I belonged to the working professionals group with the tucked-in shirts. I didn't. I went home alone realizing I was growing older but not growing up as fast. (This reminds me of a joke about how growing old is mandatory but growing up is optional)

It's all about the money...

2010-12-06T23:27:00.004+05:30

I've come to realize how influenced I have become by money, or material possession. I think I've had this realization before but it must not have been a big enough a realization to actually be a part of my disillusionment, or maybe my disillusionment phase was too immature then.

It was about four months ago that I got my first salary. It's a decent sum - enough to spend on food, rent, transportation and the occasional expensive weekend and still have half of it left to put into savings. Then on one particular payday, I found that almost a third of my pay went to taxes because I had not provided my PAN number. I felt a sense of loss that I had never felt before. Never before as in this-kind-of-feeling-wise and not as-deep-as-this-wise. The next month, I half expected the same cut in pay (being the moron that I am, I still hadn't acquired a PAN card.) I opened my pay slip. I was getting my full salary! And a few days later, my application for travel reimbursement got approved and I was getting paid around half my salary extra! I felt the same thing I felt a month ago but on the opposite polarity. I was in a constant good mood and I was brimming with confidence.

It seemed silly that these emotions were brought on and altered by the amount of money I was receiving, but that was the fact. Then I remembered the first time I got my salary. I had attained a whole new perspective on how I spent my money. I was counting every rupee I spent, I avoided unnecessary expenses and I even made an excel sheet to document my spending, complete with average and total daily expenditure columns. Now I can start to understand a lot of things like why someone would bargain even for a minuscule amount, or why someone would never miss a horrible meal at the mess he paid for. I understood the tendency to save but it was only recently that I felt it myself (at a strong enough degree.)

The biggest point of this post, is how we are all so affected by the monetary value of things, like how my salary got me high and low, or how expensive things make us happy. I guess it has something to do with our egos. I'm not saying I wasn't happy as a child when I got a supercool winged ninja-like robot that transformed into three dino-bots, but that was a different kind of happy. This is a different kind of happy. I don't trust myself with it.

About time...

2010-11-24T15:55:00.003+05:30

When I heard about Ronald Mallett and his time-travel quest, the one thing that intrigued me most was the possibilty of sending information back into time. Once it becomes possible to send even the tiniest speck of recordable particle or wave back into the past, time would come to a standstill at that very moment and at that very point in space. Laying down standards for communication, results of years of research could be sent back, effectively completing the research within zero or even negative units of time. Hence, at the very instance it becomes possible to receive information from the future, we would instantly have the technology to build infinitely better "time machines" as the exponential growth of our knowledge becomes a permanent vertical slope on the time scale, reaching upto infinity. There would no longer be any time barrier between any two points in time from that moment on, thereby effectively putting time to a standstill.

Today I thought about how we already have thousands of years' worth of knowledge available to us. It then occurred to me that we already have working time machines, only not as apocalyptic as Ronald Mallet's. Instead of an infinite amount of knowledge from the future, we have relatively limited and sometimes distorted information from the past. Thus, you are Pythagoras in ancient Greece with a time machine that sometimes corrupts its data and works only upto the present time. You are al-Shahrastani in medieval Persia with the same partially functional time machine. You are anyone anywhere in the past with this same time machine. Put it to good use.

Think moments

2010-11-23T02:36:00.005+05:30

Some things have always intrigued me. They catch me unaware and lead me into think moments - while walking down a street, while waiting for the bus, riding in a bus, during an information theory lecture, in the middle of a book or a movie or anything at all - the tired science versus religion thing; then on a higher level, consciousness; and then ultimately, existence itself.

Let's start with consciousness. I've always believed in evolution (I also believe in God. How I manage this will be covered in another section.) I believe there is no exact instance at which "life" started. I believe life evolved as interactions between various particles started increasing in complexity, finally forming entities that acted as living objects (to cut things short.) Evolution teaches that these objects evolved to become what we are today. The question is, when did we start being conscious? Have the aforementioned interactions become so complex that a living object now possesses an idea of being. When I think of myself as an individual, I find it hard to see how my thoughts, my motives and will, my very act of being conscious and thinking of myself as an individual with unique thoughts and motives and will are all end results of neurons and enzymes. I can accept this is evolution when I see people interacting with each other. But when I myself am here to have these thoughts, it is difficult to accept that my own consciousness is just a bunch of biology. (That was lousy communication; I didn't even convince myself when I re-read it.)

Moving on to existence, sometimes I think about how if everything that exists never existed at all. Not just our planet or our galaxy, but everything - the universe, parallel or multiple universes, matter, energy, time, space, the other six dimensions, any other dimension or anything else suggested in any attempt to explain existence. Not even an entity to bring all these into being. If you believe in the Big Bang, think of how if it had never happened and how if time never existed to come to a point where it happened. If the thought doesn't do something to you, you're probably not visualizing it right. "Wouldn't that be wonderful?" is what I would think if I felt suicidal.

It's late. Time to sleep.

A promise

2009-11-16T03:36:00.002+05:30

How could you be so resolute in something so crucial? And you say you don't even know why. And I know how your faith in the uncertainty of what is to come holds back your promises, yet here you are with a promise.

Fear is good

2009-08-20T20:58:00.003+05:30

Fear is good. It keeps pushing you upwards and generally keeps you alive. But if you let it control you and you don't have someone to help you through, it will kill you. Yes, kill, literally.

Later is bad. Umkay...

2009-05-15T05:03:00.002+05:30

And I put off and I put off and I put off for later. When I was five and I could start reading I read something my late grandfather put up on the wall. It read "Never do tomorrow what you can do today." I remember being quite perplexed with the doing things tomorrow part. Mom explained it to me but I was still confused, what with not having any idea of deadlines and stuff like that. Today I put off studying for exams or doing assignments up till the last few hours. I have even stayed awake the whole night putting off packing. Now that's bad.

Spiders are bad. Umkay...

2009-05-15T02:53:00.002+05:30

I just found out I'm afraid of big spiders - the big ones with the long legs. The small ones are cool. Sure I found a spider with a body two thirds the size of my fist in my bathroom last year (I used the bathroom on the other side of my hostel for a week after that) but you're supposed to be afraid of any insect or arachnid that big, right? Anyway this spider I saw had long extra thick legs and my skin crawled as I saw it scurrying out underneath the door. I took the most toxic thing I could find in my room - my deo spray - and sprayed all four sides of the door. That's probably bad for my health but it was worth it. Anyway I'm going home tomorrow for a two month summer break - yesss!! And little cat kittens are cute. But cats are mostly stupid. Dogs are smart though.

Stuff

2009-04-18T23:26:00.002+05:30

Today I realized how attached I've become to my PC. My PC broke down last night and blatantly refused to start up again. I came back from the lab today all in-the-mood-to-lay-back-like and suddenly I found I had nothing to do. I couldn't watch Scrubs, I couldn't read a Conan issue, I couldn't find my laidbackness. Then I went downstairs and found people to talk to, and it was counfusingly surprising. Socially incapable animals like myself were never meant to have so much help being unsociable *sigh*

Anyway I can't wait for 6.60 Damn you IceFrog you sincere fool. And I can't wait for D3 Damn you Blizzard you arrogant genius.

A daydream

2009-01-21T23:40:00.002+05:30

I'm a fool, and I'm drowning. Mountaintops and the bluest of blues. I can't sleep. I wish I was a song. Tomorrow is a dreadful place, it brings change. I see green everywhere. I look forward and all I see is a blur, I couldn't care less. A new place to escape to, and not just another place to escape to. Who knew words could be so magical, and never enough. An emerald in my hands.

Let it slide

2008-11-23T23:02:00.002+05:30

Nobody is perfect. Like most ultra-cliched phrases its true. Anyway, I used to be something of a perfectionist. I like to think I've gotten over it. But then there isn't a really defined line between being a perfectionist and not being one.

I used to seek perfection in the games I played on my pc. I would reload until i got everything right. Then I found I had much more fun just letting things slide and accepting imperfections for what they are, not only while shooting aliens in the head, but in life in general.

Being a perfectionist or a control freak (one and the same don't you think?) has a lot to do with being lonely on the inside (and also on not finding satisfaction in your everyday life, but that's a totally different subject.) So when you find someone doing something some other way than you would like it done, let it slide and find someone to chat up :)

Its awn!!

2008-10-31T02:53:00.003+05:30

Guitar drifting is beautiful. Andy McKee makes magical music with it. I first saw it on "August Rush" where the little guy starts playing without any prior guitar know-how (because you can't learn music from books, its out there - the Wizard says so)

This time I have definitely bitten off more than I can chew

Blah

2008-10-13T03:31:00.001+05:30

Water water everywhere
But not a drop to drink

Famous lines by a person whose name was a memory so brief I don't think it even qualifies as a memory. I could have easily googled it out but I choose not to. If you ask me there's too much information out there. I remember when information was precious. There used to be a certain snobbish satisfaction to knowing something the next guy doesn't. Now he just googles it out and pop goes your snob bubble. I guess being able to filter all that info and put it to good use would be the next edge. Thats evolution to you

Now about those lines, there are so many times they have changed to something else in my head, like 'People people everywhere - But not a single person to talk to.' ... or something else. I can't remember anything else they changed to right now. Typical. Oh well a post is a post

Don't look down

2008-10-10T22:40:00.002+05:30

I'm scared of heights. I'm terrified of heights. If you are even slightly responsible for me being less than five feet away from the edge of a roof, I will launch a personal vendetta against you and pursue it with feverish fervor. Well maybe not but you get the idea :) Its what my nightmares are made of. Even as I'm writing this i can conjure up images of me being stuck atop buildings of structurally impossible heights, and me having to traverse super-thin ledges and the likes. I've been having these nightmares for so long I'm finding it difficult distinguishing them from real life memories. Last summer I discovered that I inherited this particular phobia from my mother's side of the family. Some might suggest therapy but me, I think it keeps me safe from all those ledges and edges so I think I'll keep it thank you.

Exams again!!

2007-11-24T02:16:00.000+05:30

Exams again. Same old one semester in one night shit. My GTalk status message reads "Why?" I've pinpointed the problem in my life. And like a good human being I put the blame on others. Maybe its because i don't have that initiative crap to solve it. Or maybe I'm just writing shit cos I'd do anything but study right now.

This christmas I want a whole box of 'sleep pills' (not sleeping pills) with different dosages - preferably 3 hours and 7 hours.
Two thirds of the box for 3 hours and the rest for seven hours.

Um...

2007-10-02T03:13:00.000+05:30

The things you can't stand in others are the things you hate most about yourself. Me I find it difficult to change some things about myself unless I find it manifested in someone else. And when you finally find that you're no longer worked up by that particularly annoying habit of your colleague or your neighbour or whoever, its time to paardei!! cos you are now a better human being (where have I heard that before?) ^^

Back with a theory

2007-09-17T21:31:00.000+05:30

My theory of contentment that is.
Contetntment, happiness, bliss is relative - its not absolute. An individual's contentment with his/her life depends on what he/she has experienced so far, and not on some other person's view or opinion of his/her place in life.

For example, Paris Hilton (why did i pick her? dammit!!) is not happier than you just because she lives in luxury and has a gazillion bucks - no, she has a higher threshold of happy. She would never be content with the life that someone like me would realistically consider a good life. I would say your happy count depends more on the level at which your primal needs are satisfied.

So there you have it.

Three month break

2007-05-07T05:40:00.000+05:30

Well, i'm going home. Three whole months of aizawl summer. Sweet!!
To me, slow net access equals no net access. So my blog will remain pretty much the same for the next three months. Solly ^^
I'd better pack up my pc now. I don't want to miss my flight.

Ugh #2

2007-05-01T04:46:00.000+05:30

I'm totally screwed for tomorrow's exam - today's rather - its dawn already - damn!!
I have now elapsed into that phase where, after trying to squeeze in a semester's worth of knowledge into my head in one night, i no longer care about my grades - i just wanna make it through to the next sem. I'd better catch some Zs now...

"Pull down thy vanity"

2007-04-27T01:09:00.000+05:30

Its neither the fame nor the success that changes a person. Its the desire to flaunt it that makes the person a jerk, an asshole, a stuck-up. But seeing this in others can actually bring the guy back down to earth.
So keep your eyes peeled for those you can learn from ;)
And beware - even a little bit of fame/success can fuck you up bad. Look at Osama >:)

Gray

2007-04-20T02:18:00.000+05:30

I got out of bed and turned on my pc to write this.

As long as i can remember, i have been fighting my introvertedness, my social incapability, my inability to articulate my thoughts into spoken words. There was no question of choice for me, i did not have any option other than to fight. Sometimes i don't even realize it but my struggle has manifested itself in many forms. I do things that are in direct opposition to what my reclusive self preaches (and are most of the times dead boring to me.) I try not to miss any chance to show up the introvert in me, to prove him wrong, to humiliate him.

I believe that if i keep fighting (or fight long enough or hard enough) i will gradually (or eventually) become this person that i love to be - this person who is not uncomfortable at your presence, or does not look at gatherings with apprehension, or does not shy away from (even slightly) "remarkable" people. Words come naturally to this person - and sometimes these words are even funny.

Lately, however, i have come to realize that i can be comfortable just being myself. I have found that i am not disgusted at myself for being the introvert that i really am. Society recognizes people like me and has a place for people like me. In other words, people just understand that i don't talk so much and that i'm not really interested in many of the things they are about. Now i see that the people who seemed rather distant and not really part of "the group" were just comfortable being themselves in their own ways.

But i want to be that other person - he has so much fun. I have come such a long way just to give in to myself now. I'm thoroughly confused now. I tread the gray path so to say. I guess i'll just have to stop thinking about all this and just let things go their own way.

I hate myself for writing and posting this. The struggle continues

Wow!! #2

2007-04-15T22:34:00.000+05:30

Q : When does a gig attain the status of being totally mind-blowingly armageddonic?

A : When the vocalist starts running around among the wild and fired up headbangin' crowd spittin' out his rhymes occasionally screaming the lyrics in unison with someone who wants a piece of the mic!!

The second gig in three days and it don't stop
I was feeling a little weak but it don't quit
^_^

Wow!!

2007-04-14T00:42:00.000+05:30

Man that was awesome!! Nothing beats screaming out "All hell can't stop us now!!" at the top of your voice, and then to come out of your state of trance to find a crowd all fired up with their "fists in the air." Well the crowd was a bit small but they had the enthu of a crowd ten times larger. Guys thank you for the support and to the other guys - thank you for the music ^^ (if any of you ever read this)

Ugh

2007-04-11T03:30:00.000+05:30

I am so deprived of sleep right now. My productivity over the last 48 hours is so low the local electronics shop wouldn't hire me. I have two exams tomorrow for which i thought i would prepare by missing today's classes. Instead i watched seven episodes of Will & Grace. Damn my life is out of control. At least i still update my blog. I'm going to sleep now hoping everything works out tomorrow

Where i come from

2007-04-11T00:16:00.000+05:30

Exceprts from my post in a thread about racism:

"We have such a tightly woven society of our own most of us find it difficult to allow any changes to it, which is exactly why we cluster toghether in groups anywhere we go, trying to create a mini version of this society. Then from the safety of these societies, we lash out hate and prejudice at people who don't think the way we do."

We're playin' bas... ket... ball...

2007-04-09T03:09:00.000+05:30

A gruelling game with intense lay-ups and fierce rebounds after months without any sort of physical exercise. Now it hurts when i walk and when i turn my head and when i make any arching movement. But i'm loving it!! I feel so alive!!

A little philosophy

2007-04-04T09:05:00.000+05:30

Ever wished you could relive your life so you wouldn't make the mistakes that you made?
Well you can't!!
And even if you could relive your life you wouldn't have the wisdom not to make those mistakes because its the experience from those mistakes that makes you want to relive your life so as not to make the mistakes you made (this is getting confusing)

So stop pitying yourself and cover your sorrows in chocolates ^^
note : i never wished i could relive my life. I only saw some people who did

Um...

2007-03-31T21:39:00.000+05:30

I seem to generate contempt (directed at me) wherever i go. I don't know if its what i do or what i say or rather what i don't do or say. Or maybe its just me feeling responsible for any cause of anger or "unpleasantness" like i always do. And if its not, i wish someone would tell me what it is that makes me the asshole that i think i am. I guess everyone's just too distant to care or just too polite.
Then again, maybe its me not being able to cope with the cold cold world.
I guess i'm alone too much. I know i'm alone too much.

Laments of the outcast

2007-03-20T22:39:00.000+05:30

People live life with so much ease. Everyone seems to belong to this world. They are exactly where they are supposed to be. They know exactly what to do at the right place and at the right time. And they are able to identify and decode the encrypted unspoken messages sent through some social gestures or whatever. But not me.
Me? I'm the odd one out - the extra - i am where i am because whoever put people in their places knew this place is as good as any for me. I'd be awkward anywhere. Maybe not in the south pole alone but he/she has a heart too. I am like the ugly gift you got from someone and you had to display it somewhere, anywhere.

Can you get high on music?

2007-03-20T01:01:00.000+05:30

The ultimate escape is that moment in the song when you and the people around you with their instruments become one with the song. The euphoria that courses through during these few seconds is so intense you forget everything else. Nothing else matters. You lose all inhibitions. You don't give a fuck how moronic you look with that grimace in your face - no you just wanna burn everything up with your music.

That's my ultimate escape. I like to call it a natural high ^^
Cos its like getting high on ur own music.
I don't know about the guys but at least that's the way i feel.

First post

2007-03-19T14:53:00.000+05:30

I'll probably be posting all my posts while dunking chocolate biscuits in coffee. Hence the title. Anyway i really don't write much, and i read very little. Fictional novels were a getaway from my course books in school. Sitcoms and computer games have replaced them now.

I guess all that made me the escapist that i am. I love being an escapist. I love the world i escape to. Its addictive. Its the reason i've been awake for the last thirty hours or so.
But its got to stop sometime - you can't live on fantasies. I've got some five hours before the real life phase begins again and i'd better spend those hours on sleep.

Look at all the "I"s in this post. I've (there it is again) got to do something about this.