Static Evolution

Haiku?? Kai ku??

2011-11-03T15:02:00.000-07:00

Damn Haikus

They need seventeen syllables

What the hell

Reading manga in Mumbai

so I feel like a haiku

Friend asks "Kai ku?"

Winter arrives

Time for boots and coats

I hate winter

Damn syllables

I never could get them well

I stop now

I rule you...

2011-02-20T21:06:00.000-08:00

I am like our beloved country

with lots of layers and tiers

When both do get wounded

do you shed so many tears

Solutions, problems so many

by us do end, from us do stem

Complex we are, intricate we are

Whatever happens is 'cos of them

But between one and the other

If to choose which to keep at hand

Country then forsaken would be

for me would be the great demand

For abstract the country concept is

Even if it shows real on a medallion

But I, I am very real, and very needed

I can destroy the country, I am the onion!!

Bleach the landscape...

2011-01-17T15:30:00.000-08:00

The grasshopper falls bright green blot on grey

Grey under and grey above on a so short day

Naked trees lifeless green and the north air

Wind from hell freeze the bones lay us all bare

Pull out wool the therms the fleece

Get the logs light fire melt cheese

Hot choc single malts and mar-mallows

Too cold? No worry Use the bellows

Coat jacket cap gloves hood two pairs of socks

Sliding on pavement and slipping on rocks

Green and grey all turned white and you go Oh

Brick car lawn lake road all covered in snow

A dream within a dream!!

2010-08-19T21:11:00.000-07:00

Considering its the Inception season and everyone is talking about the movie, you will probably go all "Aaaah... this is about the movie again... How boring...". Well, its not about the movie, its about something which actually happened to me, but the reason I'm writing about it is because I remembered the movie when this happened and it seemed like a big coincidence.

So there is a power cut at home, and hence nothing at all to do. Three hours are spent watching a movie on the laptop, and then some more time reading. Sleep then descends upon me sometime in the early afternoon. And a nice dreamless sleep (or siesta) it was too. I don't know how much time passes this way. Suddenly, I'm wide awake.

Its dark outside. The stray dogs, who rule the Bangalore streets once the sun sets, are exercising their vocal chords. Damn, I overslept, I think and get up to turn on the lights. Flick. Still dark. What the... is it still a power cut? I start walking out of the room to check on the main switch. My legs feel like lead. My view feels like a camera lens. Panning out. Zooming out. Defocusing. I feel the air going out of my lungs. I fall, more of a free fall than a crash. Its like a balloon deflating. The lens view shows the ground coming closer. And closer. And closer. I am on the ground now, a balloon with no air in it. I try to move. All I can do is twitch a little. I lie there for a few minutes. And then I open my eyes. I'm in bed. And its still dark. I pinch myself. And feel myself waking up again. And its just 3PM. Bright outside. I hope this is reality!!

Sri Lanka, cricket and Murali - a trip long ago

2010-07-26T22:03:00.000-07:00

Last week Pragyan Ojha cemented his place in history by becoming Muttiah Muralitharan's 800th test victim, and the island nation rejoiced. A perfect send-off, a perfect end to a glittering career, and a grand farewell.

It all took me back to the summer of 2004, when me and my family went to Sri Lanka on vacation. The first thing that struck you about this island nation was the green, the natural beauty. The people (those who spoke English) were very friendly, and the food amazing. Our spirits were not at all dampened by the fact that it was Buddha Purnima time, and in a nation with a strong Buddhist heritage and following, that meant no alcohol was served anyplace (though I was still in my pre-alcohol days). Our hotel was also very close to the Presidential Palace, which meant seeing guards with machine guns from the hotel window.

After two days in Colombo, and a trip south to Hikkaduwa to see coral reefs (which sadly were destroyed in the tsunami), we moved inland to Kandy and Nuwara Eliya. Our cab driver, a pleasant man who spoke English with a German accent, and spoke a lot, was named Silva.

Our second day in Kandy, as we wait for my family to come down to the hotel entrance, Silva struck up a conversation with me.

Silva: So what's your name, son?

Me: Sanat

Silva: Sanat? Sanat? Wow, man! Yours is the second most famous name in Sri Lanka. After Murali of course. You just tell people everywhere what your name is, and everything will be free. You will get discounts, freebies, galore. Sanat!! You are a superstar, son. You are famous.

Me: -muttering thanks-

Silva: So you studying, lad? Where?

Me: Trichy... Engineering... in Tamil Nadu

Silva: Don't say that aloud. Being known as a Tamil or speaking Tamil isn't the smartest thing to do in this country!!

It was shocking to hear this, especially since I had hoped to use my rudimentary grasp of the language to get around the island. I was going to ask the chap about Murali and how is he so respected in spite of his ethnicity and all that, but it was time to leave, and the question went unasked.

In Nuwara Eliya (which is a beautiful hill station and was very foggy and cloudy and pleasant even in the peak of summer), we were shopping for curios, when my father came across this section with mementos of Sri Lanka's World Cup win in 1996. We ended up buying a nice wooden showpiece, with a bronze bat having the autographs of all the winning team members, and another bronze plaque with the scoreboard in the final. And I remember the big grin the shopkeeper gave us when he took it to the cash counter, as if saying, "Yes, that was our moment of glory. Glad to see you know about it."

Our last day on the island, we checked out of the hotel, but then had a long wait before our flight back to India. Silva took us to a hotel near the airport, where we lounged next to the pool eating french fries and sipping cold coffees. And as we do a lot of the time, my father and me started a discussion on cricket.

Waiter: Sir, I overheard you speaking about cricket. If you like, there is an empty lounge room you can sit in. It is more comfortable and you can see the test match too.

Us: Oh wow. That would be great. Which match is this?

Waiter: It's Sri Lanka v/s Zimbabwe in Harare. Murali needs 2 wickets to get the world record.

So we move to the lounge, and watch the match in peace (we still had a fair few hours before we needed to go to the airport). And we were in Sri Lanka when the man got his world record (Mluleki Nkala c. Jayawardene b. Muralitharan) and we would see the rejoicing among the hotel staff. Plenty of fireworks and celebrations were on sight all the way to the airport. As we proceeded to security check, one of our bags set up a big buzz.

Guard: What's in your bag? Something metallic and big... open it. Open it.

Us: It's a showpiece about your World Cup victory.

Guard: Its very nice to see that. That was a great day for us. And of course today we have the world record. Murali is great.

All this while, since my first conversation with Silva, I had seen little sign of any Tamils (who, I gauged, were concentrated in other areas). And from what little I knew of the LTTE and all that, plus Silva's words, I knew that there were big issues on the island. And here was a man who stood above it all. A nation torn by war. And united by cricket. Thanks to one man!!

Logistic regression!!

2010-04-22T04:24:00.000-07:00

Ten little variables in my logistic line
Killed the one insignificant, now there are nine

Still insignificance seemed to be the model's fate
So I took off one more, now there are eight

Wald's scores told me the model was not even
One more variable died, and now there are seven

Poor chi-square scores put me in a terrible fix
Another independent killed, and now there are six

Now I felt, why at all should I keep them alive
Erase off one more, and now there are five

All this I was doing for a good concordant score
So another chap took the hit, now there are four

Confusion hits now, this killing like a decision tree
Oh what the hell!! One more down, now there are three

A finished model I desire now without much ado
So take off one more, and now there are two

Whee, removing independents is so much fun
I'll remove one more, now there is just one

Now I wonder, am I analyst or revenge-seeking hero
Why oh why did I bring the number down to zero!!

West by Northwest...

2010-01-02T07:44:00.000-08:00

The warrior walked into the throne room. Big Chief Bartix was there, along with his trusted advisers. The warrior inwardly shuddered. He was as yet unititiated, a mere boy in the reckoning of his people, and here he was, in the throne room. He thought back to the time when he had been discovered by the tribe. A mere peddler he was, selling his wares across the lands, a job which gave him little pleasure, especially since there was little travel involved, thanks mainly to the carrier pigeon teleportation scheme developed by the druid Bezoix. And now he was being considered for an important infiltration mission, just a few moons into his entry into the ranks of the tribe's warriors.

Bartix told him his role, he was to travel west by northwest, across the great seas, to the land of the houses with no doors, only windows. And there his tasks were to be done. But that is a story yet to come to pass, and owing to a low midichlorian count, the author of these histories is incapable of recording the future at this current point.

The preparations began in right earnest. The warrior had all the tools of his trade, and he also contracted the Dentrassis who would fly him to his destination. And he took with him his furs to combat the white rain, and rations aplenty, for the palatibity of the food of the alien lands was in question.

As he entered the belly of the great white beast, the Dentrassis handed him 6 pints of ale, to numb his sensations and ease the pain of the journey. And the warrior, who liked his ale as much as any self-respecting warrior does, helped himself to loads of it. Running away from the setting sun, the journey was accomplished in eternal light. Northwest the beast flew, and the warrior lay ensconced in its belly content.

As the strength of the beast sagged, the Empire came into view. The Empire had ruled the world for many centuries, and was a major force today in spite of many dominions asserting their freedom. The warrior ran through the streets of the Empire, looking for the next beast to take him West. And after a lot of searching, the beast was located, and the warrior was subject to a stringent scan to ensure he carried no diseases to the land of the houses with no doors.

West this beast flew, and the warrior had a lot more ale, courtesy more Dentrassis. Several of his companions had trouble holding in their food and drink, prompting a visit from the disease controllers in the land of the houses with no doors. A cursory examination later, the warrior had arrived at his destination. Cold it was, but the rain was thankfully not white. The warrior made his way to the safe house, where Dynamix awaited him, and waited for his mission to commence.

Thought stew!!

2009-08-07T05:25:00.000-07:00

The mantis reared up its head, waiting for its prey to draw nearer. Closer the poor unsuspecting victim drew, its mind completely focused on the poetry of colors in the sky in the aftermath of the thunderstorm. Aah what hues. Aah the beauty of the spectacle. Surely this was worth gettin wet in the rain and watching lightning from under a tree, unsafe though it was. Closer, and closer, and closer, and closer. The mantis was patient, willing to wait till its prey was beyond safety.

Jodie jumped off the taxi just in time before the suicidal driver rammed the vehicle into the brick wall. The pots containing blue-violet flowers on top of the wall toppled with the force of the impact. One fell the side of the taxi, denting its hood. The other fell the other side onto Meg's head, preventing her from completing the song she was singing, cracking her skull, and killing her instantly, thus leaving Nick, who had recently forsaken everything to be with her, all alone. The color of his eyes blurred as they filled with tears over the death of the singer. But then humans are dolls manipulated by the great dice player. The victim, sitting on the wall, flew away all irritated at its disturbed siesta and contemplated moving far away to an obscure place like Imperial County or Cluj-Napoca, or maybe even an asteroid or a nebula. And it flew on until it saw the colors in the sky.

The short-tempered artist finished his paintings, while 6 British ships and several American warships drifted past his window. A tropical storm was brewing and power would soon be cut, but he had Lotus Notes which he would use to save his thoughts on his PC before the outage. His painting was a masterpiece, changing colors with the angle of view, but it didnt beat his other big invention which identified humans' inner selves by looking into their eyes. Stanley grinned as he read the script because it had a happy ending, but that only applied to him and not to the poor victim.

The mantis grinned as only a mantis can, and snapped its jaws shut.

Moozikal Enlightenment!!

2009-07-16T09:06:00.000-07:00

The general store owner yawned and put on his glasses. He hated having his siesta disturbed. But then, not a very idea is it having a siesta in your store while the store is still open and you expect business? But I digress. The owner looked up. There was something about the bearing of the visitor that warranted his full attention. "I am looking for the right ingredients," said the visitor. He handed over a list to the owner. "I am sorry but these we have not. Well, except for the bass, we can give you that." He walked inside and returned carrying a fish that had clearly spent quite some time away from the sea. "No you doofus," said the visitor. "I want bass. Moozik. Bass. Bam bam boom boom Bass. Savvy?" "Aah my apologies, Sir. But that we have not." The visitor sighed and walked out without another word.

The visitor sat on the bench on the sidewalk, crossing out another name in his long list of potentials. He had had little luck so far with his wishlist. Well, he had got volume, but that was easy, all he had needed to do was use some cheek samples from the town crier. He had just one place left to visit, but once he saw the name of that place, he wondered aloud why he had not just gone there in the first place. "Utopia of Music. They are the best in the business after all. Let me go there now," he thought, and being one of those people who believe that actions speak louder than words, he went there. And the old wizened owner who looked like he would fall if the visitor clapped in his face saw his list, and said, "Now, now. Let me see. Interesting, very interesting indeed. Bass. I have that in good measure. User friendliness. Check. Casing. Check." And a large number of checks followed as he went down the list. At the last one he paused. "Awesomeness. Now, now, that is something you must find on your own. And I know you will, for we have met before, haven't we?"

"Yes. I last came here as a portable disc player. Before that I was a Walkman. And my memory cheats me before that, but I think I was one of those antiquated large players with black discs and a big horn. The one that dogs listen to when their masters die." "Very true, very true. And do you have the answer now?" "I think so. I have realised that I was setting too much store in these minor items. They all follow from the last one, though it may seem otherwise to most people, and even I have been fooled. But I know now. Nothing is important. I am ready to let go and forsake it all. I see the light." "Well then, be what you were destined to be."

"Yes. I am the Pod-isattva, and I have achieved musical enlightenment. I need to spread this message of musical awesomeness to the world now. It is time for musical Nirvana. No, I'm not talking about you, Kurt."

A boring story inspired by boredom and well, the rain...

2009-06-24T10:24:00.000-07:00

The young man paused. He had made his way halfway up the steep slopes of the great mountain that overlooked his village. It had taken him the better half of the day, and he was now doubting his ability to go all the way to the top. But he knew that no one else could do it, and he had to reach the top at any cost. His life depended on it. The whole village's life depended on it. He was the strongest man of his village, and had been chosen to undertake this seemingly superman task of reaching the top of the great mountain. He had to get there. He had to. He had to.

It was a bad year for the village. The rains had kept away that year, and there had been not even a hint of a cloud. The villagers had always lived in the shadow of the mountain, and the rolling hills surrounded them in all other directions. They were hemmed in from all directions, and lived off the land, while some of the more adventurous ones would venture into the jungles on the lower slopes of the rolling hills to hunt game. The jungles were taboo, for they were filled with ferocious beasts. And so, the villagers had lived separated from the outside world for as long as the oldest grandmother among them could remember. The rain gods had always smiled upon them, and the harvests had been good. But this year was bad. Real bad. Real real bad.

So as the food reserves dropped, and the water reservoirs dried out, they went to the oldest grandmother in the village, who told them of the tale which had been told her by her grandmother, and to her by her grandmother, and so on and so forth. And she said, "This tale I was told by my grandmother, that if ever the rain stopped, and hunger and death stared us in the face, the answer to our problems would be found at the top of the great mountain. There lives an old man who can make it rain."

The great mountain was revered by all the villagers for the shadow of its benevolent presence. It was sacred, and no one was to scale its slopes. But now someone had to. And after much debate and a lot of discussions, the strongest man was chosen to climb the mountain and find the answer.

So our champion climbed and climbed until finally he ran out of mountain, and he got up onto the peak and fell there in exhaustion. His lips parched and blackened from lack of water, his skin cracked from the fury of the noonday sun, he crawled slowly forward, and saw the mouth of a cave. He walked in. "Hey dude!! Want some booze?" a voice said.

The old man looked up from his glass and grinned. "Man, I'm glad for some company. It sure is boring up here, all alone by myself. Thank heavens for Amazon. I can at least drink as much as I want. Awesome delivery system they have."

"The tribe of mythical women? All us men dream of them."

"No, you doofus. The website."

"Oh, what's that?"

"Never you mind. It serves all my needs is all you need to know."

"Ok, ok. Let's get to business. Old man, make it rain."

"Rain, eh? But you haven't spoken the magic word."

"Magic word? But isn't that your job?"

"My job? What's my job?"

"To make it rain."

"Rain? Me make it rain? What do you think I am?"

"The old man of the mountain. You can make it rain. The oldest grandmother said so."

"Ohh. I'm sorry. It's been so long. I can't do it."

"What? But you must. We will all die otherwise."

"You won't. Stay here with me. Let's party. Screw the rest."

"I can't do that. They depend on me. You must do it."

"Sorry, bud. I can't. And I don't like your attitude, so I wouldn't even if I could."

"Aah so you can?"

"I never said that."

"Yes, you did. You said you could."

"Doofus!! I said 'if I could.'"

"Whatever! Do it."

"Can't."

"I'll kill you if you don't."

"Go ahead. Who will save your village then?"

"So you say that if you live you can?"

"Don't bug me, kid. Go back and die. I can't."

"Too bad then. I'll just kill you and take all this liquid lying around back to the village."

"It's beer you fool. And how will you take it back anyway?"

"I didn't think of that."

"Of course you didn't, you twat. Well, here's what I can do. Let's order a pipeline and a water connection, and I'll channel it through my cave out to your side of the mountain. We can create a waterfall and you will have your water too."

"Deal."

So that's what they did, and the village had water. The champion went back home. The old man leaned back in his chair, and sighed. He had a beer, and then decided to bathe. He entered the bathroom, and snapped his fingers. A cloud appeared over his head, giving him water to bathe in.

A day in the life of Don I. Parr

2009-06-11T04:38:00.000-07:00

Don was high. He felt high. He didn't remember what he did the previous night, which he supposed was what being high meant. He felt light, like a big ball of cotton floating around a room with four table fans running. Now don't ask me why four table fans, I would have prefered forty-two, it being the ultimate answer and all, but then I doubt a room will have so many plug points. Again, after the recent genocide of the ceiling fans by the table fans and the subsequent civil war demanding more rights, table fans were entitled to their own plots of land, which meant that each table fan had its own table, and again, fitting forty-two tables in a tiny room, well, never mind... I digress. So Don was high, and he felt like a ball of cotton floating around a room with four table fans running. Now this does not mean that Don was in a room. Let's just say for now that Don was high. But to satisfy human curiosities, we must go back to when Don was born.

The Parrs were a big family, and they lived in a huge community of their kind (clearly, they were not yet influenced by the table fans). The community members had a very strong bond among themselves, and it was really tough to leave the place (not that anyone wanted to, they loved being there among their own kind). Now Don was your typical problem child, throwing tantrums, not obeying elders, and always wanting to go to the outer rim of the colony, which of course children were not supposed to. Now there was a reason for this too. The colony worshipped Sol, and Sol demanded sacrifices, so every day oh so many members shrieked screamed yelled bawled as Sol claimed them, and naturally children were not to be sacrificed, ergo they were not to go near the outer rim, which as you folks must have figured out by now was where Sol went on a rampage every day.

So Don (being the naughty brat that he is) runs away to the outer rim, and promptly feels the heat of the situation (quite literally in fact). And Sol absorbed his soul like everyone else's, and his soul rose up and up and up (Aah, now that's why he felt all high) and in the world of the Uphigh, all the souls got together again (their bonding so strong). And some of these colonies swept across the world of the Uphigh, feeling like big balls of cotton (community consciousness, yeah) and some grew big. Some grew so big that they angered the gods who then broke them and sent them back to ground zero.

And to ensure this tale goes again, Don was in one of these big big big colonies, and was struck down and came flying down, acquiring a body on the way. His own older body, or a new one? Don't ask me, its all an illusion anyway. So down they all came, and their movement was like a great big cosmic dance, finally made scientific technical cool awesome-looking famous by a pair of brothers who showed a certain someone the path but made him walk it himself, all while he was dreaming and thinking it was real.

And Don is now high again, but this time in his body form, and he is enjoying it, because he is at the top of a big giant rollercoaster slide, and something tells him that at the end of all this fun, he shall see his family again. But the slide story is a tale for another day.

An instant cure

2009-05-13T22:06:00.000-07:00

"Take the train," she said. "Whoever has taken the train has been cured."

"Yeah, well, you know... I like this pain. It makes me feel alive."

"I know about your masochist tendencies. But its not like you are bleeding and you get to lick your wounds and drink your blood, you know. This is muscle pain. You are getting old and you need to act your age. Enough of this exercise. You heave your chest and flex your limbs like you are all of 16, but you are growing no younger you know. You stretched yourself too far and now your bloody back hurts."

"Bah!! In my heart I'm always 16, and you know that. As long as the mind is young, the body will obey. You just feel old yourself and are venting it out on me."

"Fine, whatever you say. But for now, just go and board the goddamn train. I'm getting more bored here while you lie in bed doing nothing."

"What train is this? I don't want to move an inch."

"Oh, but you must, you know. You have to move. Come, I'll help you. The nearest stop is pretty close, the station of Aah."

"Fine, I'll move, I'll move. And where do I get off??"

"At the station of Aaha. They have a space-time warp there which will bring you back here."

"Oh cool. So what's this train called?"

"Moov. Aah se Aaha tak. Instant cure."

Laaeef @ Yem-Bee-Yay

2009-05-05T03:42:00.000-07:00

It all began on a hot bright sunny day

At the end of a work-heavy month of May

I headed off to do my Yem-Bee-Yay

In a B-school called Yaay Yaay Yem-Kay!!

To begin with there was a teeny little prep course

But I didn't have it so at home I worked on my snores

I finally land there, hoping to meet more than bores

And keen to unleash the full power of the Force!!

First I had to endure gruelling sessions of Micro-eco

I found refuge in the fantasy world of Naruto

As ninjas fought and killed and yelled "Dattebayo"

Studies totally ignored, grades plummeted!! Aiyo!!

As more profs came by with more and more to teach

I got hooked to the death gods and hollows of Bleach

Of course, stats and all that is essential for a global outreach

But teach me any more and I'll collapse with a screech!!

Marketing, finance, operations, so much of it!! Yike!!

Took my anger out on some poor bots in Counter Strike

Karimeen Pollichattu at Paragon, travelling on a bike

Missing out on city trips due to some stupid strike!!

Along came HR people, to force into our heads OB

No thanks, I'll watch Anakin fight Obi-wan-Kenobi

Star Wars did matter much more than that stuff to me

At least I could use the Force and set my mind free!!

Team meetings, chats, and class participation so fake

I'll sit shut and think of the next episode of Prison Break

Obviously in CP I scored a big duck, or is it a drake

No matter, in the end a good manager did I make!!

Luckily Atharva quizzes and informals were a craze

And was fun bamboozling people with Labyrinth - the maze

It all ensured the boredom otherwise did not me unfaze

How people can stare at a laptop all day, does me amaze!!

It took a whole year, and the arrival of Strategy

To infuse into academics some much needed energy

Fun talking of missions and visions and many a synergy

Time passed by, load reduced, slipped into lethargy!!

Of course, there was plenty of chips and colas and gum

And mess parties with concoctions of vodka-rum

Walks and jogs to help reduce the size of my tum

Birthdays to play football with a person's bum!!

Along came the recession, placements fell and fell

So switched to wordgames in Dublin, they went so well

Got a job, had loads of fun, how time flew I cannot tell

For suddenly there was the tolling of the convocation bell!!

Back to a job now, but I look back on every term so fun

Each better than the last, finally ending with half a dozen

With many a PJ, many a poem, and very many a pun

Sigh!! It's all over now... but sure did enjoy a ton!!

The End of the End...

2009-04-15T20:57:00.000-07:00

As is fairly common now in the days of the internet, it all began online. In fact, it began with the great art in which my competency levels were much higher than most other people. Then came the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end, interspersed with one phone call which went through as most communications do with a handshake mechanism.

The beginning of the end later, more practice followed of the great art, lots more in fact, and then realization hit of the impending journey. Ergo some more tcp/ip action followed, culminating in 6 hair pin bends, a patriotic salute and top grade work the next day.

Towel conversations followed in deep thought as the severe cold used gtalk to ping the leader of the human resistance against Cameron's machines. Time passed and the machines grew weak under the onslaught of the resistance.

Pygmalion finally encountered Aphrodite, and braving the terror of the giant Cerebrus, he bade the statue to come to life. Olympus rejoiced!!

The Spartan invasion caused famines and the Olympians were hard hit as the Athenians refused to give any more sacrifices to them. The best of the gods were the worst off as they demanded bigger and better sacrifices, and were considered as fickle by the Athenians. So no matter how awesome they were, there was no fit and they ended up powerless.

Aphrodite received a panacea and decided to travel the world curing people of their ills. Of course prior to her great task she would return to her abode along the ocean and partake of copious portions of ambrosia.

As for me, I shall ride out the era of fear and evil and wait for the coming of the avenging angel, the tenth and final one, and shall announce his presence to the entire world. But that shall be the beginning of a new beginning which I shall write about later.

As of now, the end of the end which came after the beginning of the end which came after the end of the beginning has begun, which also means that it has ended... thus the end is now ended... and a new beginning shall begin soon... after shocks of the last major earthquake which sunk Atlantis and brought Pygmalion down to his knees remain, and shall do so for a while!!

For now, its boiled beans, beer, blogs and branding, until new beginnings begin!!

Se7en

2009-04-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

Gluttony:
Chips and Pepsi and more chips and more Pepsi and some Mountain Dew and more chips and still more chips and lots more chips and a lot of... well, never mind...

Greed:
Abandon chips and keep asking for more and more and more of... well, never mind again...

Sloth:
Stay rooted to one place, never move, never get up... sleep on and on and on...

Pride:
The best wanting the best... Awesomeness all around...

Lust:
Never mind this one...

Envy:
Time is short and life will go to the dogs... tiny ones, but dogs nonetheless...

Wrath:
Take the ring off and punch the open palm with your fist, but at just 30% power...

Se7en it was and so shall it remain... sigh...

2 since hell...

2009-01-25T06:56:00.000-08:00

The light flickered. The walls darkened, as the lord of the dark threatened to engulf the room. Soul gripped by fear, as the shadows drew ever closer. Thought back to the time of the light.

The sun blazed brightly. Walked a few small steps and then gravity took over. The light turned from wave form to particle form and stopped the fall and the subsequent hurt. Was lifted by the light and set down in a safe place. Was gazed upon by the light all around me. Knew nothing else.

Light in all directions. Darkness in mind. Light so bright the darkness disappears. Light, light and then some more light. A world full of light.

Went away from the light. Entered a world of half darkness. Could still feel it from far far away. Occasional replenishments in the fountain of life. So much light.

An eclipse started. The sun was not worried. The danger would pass. Was not a normal eclipse. Triggered by a black hole. Eclipse passed. Black hole remained. Light started flickering.

Darkness grew. Not used to it. Falls still stopped by light. Power of light waning. Light still selfless as ever. Realized finally what it means to be without light.

Flickering increased. Darkness stronger now. More in my mind than outside. Felt fear.

Light fought but couldn't win. Gave its last burst of energy. Light went out. Saw a momentary glimpse of hell. Can't see it again.

2 since hell...

The Beginning of the End...

2008-06-12T01:20:00.000-07:00

My phone rang. Well, actually it sounded a nice tune made famous by Elle Driver as she prepared to kill Beatrix Kiddo. It was the Sun. “On my way,” he said, as I waited under the sun for the Sun to arrive. Needless to say, I was harassed by the sun until the timely arrival of the Sun in an AC car. Several hours later, having seen the Prince flay his opposition to all corners, I was back in my apartment. The performance of the Prince was sandwiched between two weeks of sandwiches, energy drinks and espressos as we tried to make light of the fact that time and tide wait for none, though in this case we were dealing only with the former because the latter does not usually affect a place far away from the sea.

I walked across the Sahara, feeling the heat begin to create beads of sweat on my forehead. The temporal warp beckoned, and as I crossed it, I saw myself in the Arctic, freezing my guts out as I somehow tried to move my fingers across the laptop. But extreme temperatures notwithstanding, it was a ‘delightful’ experience. There was work, and there was more work, and it was good work, so it was fun. The Sun laughed twice in the face of every individual there, under the pretext of narrating an Urdu poem.

Click. Flash. Blinding light. Not the flash, but the sun. Denim-by-two smiled and pocketed the camera for the umpteenth time. Four half-hours of Stuart Little’s uncle eating honey, then four minarets, then four palaces, then food in paradise, then a boat ride to enlightenment. Awesome day.

Back to home base. Plenty of my star sign symbols to eat, along with other denizens of the deep. Liquid bread also flowed freely. Overall a great time.

Return to the war zone, only to see that my company is confined to barracks. Now these barracks are on the summit of the abode of the great eagles, and the three dozen that I possess is cool and windy and the three clawed superhero with an adamantium skeleton watches over me. The war begins next week for me, so will catch up on some rest before that.

The end has now begun. The beginning is finally over, bringing with its end the beginning of the end. The light is now visible at the end of the tunnel.

The End of The Beginning...

2008-04-11T03:49:00.001-07:00

Yossarian jumped. A sentence later, the novel ended and I found myself in a Catch22 situation in which I could not be sure whether I must start off on a novel so boring that I would fall asleep and thus be cured of my insomnia or whether I should pick up a thriller and read through the night and then try to catch up on some sleep during class tomorrow. Now class happens to be a hallowed zone where the normal insomnia rules do not apply. In an Asimov universe, I would say there was a steady stream of somnin flowing into the room through some of those miraculous vents which the occupants can never see, but unfortunately I was not in an Asimov universe but in a Lapierre universe which is real and now and not at all fictional and not at all fun either. A millennium and half a score binary months later, I picked up a book so boring that I promptly crashed before I could even pick a bookmark in the book, and then promptly missed the end of the beginning, the registration of the halfway point, the recording of the visual characteristics of AK66 for posterity. That I was unable to be a part of the recording causes no great torment, neither is there much sorrow at the fact that I missed the end of the beginning. But the end of the beginning is the point where the beginning ends and the end begins, thus the name. Alternately, I could have used the name “the beginning of the end”, but then I hoped to plagiarize on the words of the famous chap who contributed copious amounts of blood to his nation’s banks, sweat to its fields, tears to its dead and toil to its growth.

This however is not like the chap’s story the story of a turnaround. It is not even a story. It is a simple end where it ceases to begin. Fortunately, I failed to register the beginning till it ended. Consider the case of falling into a rapid river after perching in a nest on an overhanging branch for a couple of years and not moving at all, doing everything with the mind. And then you don’t know what is happening to you until you end up on the banks many miles away, and you cannot even bank on that happening with absolute certainty.

So there I was on an overhanging branch, in the imaginary plane if I may add, and then I decided to let the Earth fall on me, though it is so huge it appeared that I fell instead. Then Newton passed the baton to Bernoulli who took me off like a bullet from a gun, except that the trigger was invisible and interwoven into the giant fabric which is called nature.

CRASH!! I slam into rocks. I sense something break. It turns out be a Kit-Kat being eaten by an old sage on the rock. A direct current generator floats to me, and I get electrocuted. More crash. Slam. Bang. Wham. Now a waterfall comes up, rather, I go down to it. It doesn’t really matter either way, the key being that the waterfall and I run into each other. I am drifting so fast I shoot off the edge, and slam down onto spiky boulders below. Slimy, slithery snakes attack me and bring me close to death. But I live. I get a close shave from bears eager to eat some facial hare. I drift on and on. The river gets sluggish. Too sluggish in fact. I fall asleep. I hit a rock. I drift a while. It gets too calm. I sleep off again. I hit a rock again. I am almost devoured by a shrill voiced orangutan that seems to think I’ll enjoy being devoured but I somehow escape by raising my hand.

I wake up on the banks. Looking back, I can see the path I travelled in my mind, though it is now far behind me. The beginning has ended, and the end is beginning. It is now time for biryani. The rest is well deserved, and I am prepared for the rest. As for the rest, they have to wait.

Large Extra Hours...

2008-01-27T13:00:00.000-08:00

The rabid dog barked its way across the clearing, causing everyone to scatter and take cover. The absent one, named so because he was usually absent, happened to be present and came in the way of its fangs or claws or whatever it is a rabid dog who is not actually a rabid dog but is called so simply because I want to has. The depressed one had tried to overcome his depression by consuming tremendous quantities of bat essence, also known as the spirit from the land of the three dimensional simplest shape. The infection had received a grievous injury from no one knows where. The curious one who liked to create substances governed by weak van der Waal forces as well as his supposed successor who had a curious case of unlimited expulsion of this same substance from an orifice were trying to ensure the creation of a osmotic membrane to ensure the others did not come to be with the non-others. The recently declared Dustin Hoffman was doing the same. Big Little guy and Little Big guy were not at their posts and were presumably involved in defying Isaac’s fundamental postulate by transposing massive objects along the y-axis. The midnight nutcase as well as the reversed 1110 alphabet were doing their work, only their work and nothing but their work. The actually absent one was really actually absent and remained actually absent until after the recording of the ending for posterity. The newbie was trying to get noticed and ensured the ones who were not trying to get noticed got noticed and he did not. The young one shone and was among the best. Wonder Woman was the centre of attraction and remained at the core ensuring the creation of a magnetic field so intense it aligned everything smoothly. The virtual one wanted to remain virtual but ended up leading most of the unsuspecting victims across all parts of the country, thus ensuring he became real and did not remain real. Wonder Woman did not like fermented flour made into low thickness shapes and decided not to trouble her system. A stray monkey caused everyone a lot of irritation by screaming for bananas. The curious one had external connections with a group of deep thinkers who wanted to take part and even did so in spite of everyone’s best efforts. The young one kept the bloated drip at bay. The Big Little guy tried to follow the American path. The successor to the curious one shed all his products on whoever had his drums in position. The midnight nutcase raised his secondary locomotive organs for the future generations to see. All hail Wonder Woman.

Along Came A Spider...

2007-11-02T02:51:00.000-07:00

“Hula! Hula! Hula!” chanted the tribals as they got into formation to perform the ritual dance, peculiar to their tribe, which was used to identify those worthy enough to be sacrificed at the altar of their greatest god Fulipili Makihiro Chikipiki Golibaki. The great series of sacrifices was conducted annually at the commencement of the end of the precipitation period caused by the Spanish brother, and lasted for a period of three days, and would have been totally different if it had not been for the greatest contribution to the world from a country named after a king who stuck his hand into the mouth of a lion cub when he was a kid.

But I digress, and we shall return to the sacrifices. The willing (actually all the tribals were willing, but not all of them were able to satisfy the tastes of each individual god, of which the village had some 75 in their pantheon, and they were trying to get more) assembled, and they had to prove their superiority over the others using the power of speech. The nine high priests acted as the mediums whereby the gods visited the village, and chose the tribals who would best appease their hunger. This series of sacrifices usually led to the killing of the entire tribe, including the high priests, but a novel method had been devised whereby the high priests persisted in spirit and helped the next generation fulfil the main purpose of their existence, which of course was to be sacrificed.

Kola was one of the smarter and stronger tribals, and was sought after by most of the gods. He had chosen to be gobbled up by the great Killing Pillaging Marauding God, and was thus already dead and only persisted in spirit. X was an orthopaedic who specialised in the funny bone, and he had been delighted when the Silent and Old God chose him.

The time had now come to appease Fulipili Makihiro Chikipiki Golibaki, who only responded to chants of “Hula! Hula! Hula!” as he entered the priest’s medium. This great god had wanted both Kola and X, but as they were already dead, they could not be sacrificed, and at the same time, if the great god realised this, the village would face his wrath. The first batch of half a score tribals, including Kola and X, assembled in the altar room for the selection. Kola and X had been warned by the nine high priests to follow a process best described as a large reservoir of liquid, failing which they would they face dire consequences, like the sealing of their souls for eternity in the darkness.

The selection started. The tribals began their arguments in their peculiar language Reltok, which included a lot of jargon and a lot of burping too. Following instructions, Kola and X maintained silence and tried to be inconspicuous. In this endeavour, they very nearly failed.

For a giant wind tarantula, a descendant of the giant prehistoric arachnids, was making its way towards Kola (Kola’s spirit actually) hoping for a tasty snack. Kola was petrified, and tried using his immense lung capacity to blow away the ugly beast. But the beast persisted, and came ever closer to Kola attempting to consume his soul. Kola resorted to his ultimate defence, a giant banana leaf which he swung hard at the spider and swept it away. This whole incident seemed so hilarious to X that he nearly burst out in a roaring fit of laughter.

“Hula! Hula! Hula!” the chant echoed in the ante chamber as the tribals gathered for the sermon of the high priests. The great god had selected only a single sacrifice, they said. The god was displeased, and future gods would have to be given better sacrifices. Whether it was due to Kola and the tarantula’s duel, or due to inexperience in speaking Reltok, remains to be seen.

IIMK is alive!!

2007-10-28T08:03:00.000-07:00

Another long hiatus... I would have given the usual excuses of having a hectic IIM life with too many assignments and all that, but the truth is, I have had time, but then again, time and tide wait for no one, and I have been just plain lazy so there have been no new posts.

Anyways, while I get out of hibernation and start posting again, here's something to go through. In ten years, IIMK has grown by leaps and bounds, and it has just taken another giant step forward with the launch of its very own online students' portal, accessible from anywhere and everywhere in the world, or at least anywhere connected to the World Wide Web. Do visit it at http://iimklive.com/

The usual stuff I put up will be up soon. Till then, enjoy a peek into "God's own campus"!!

I'm Back!!

2007-05-16T02:58:00.000-07:00

After a long hiatus from the world of blogs, I'm back to the task!!

Firstly I'd like to apologize for the delay in posting. There were a multitude of reasons, all of which I will sum up below. Secondly, I'm back for good (I hope)...

As to why I wasnt blogging... its a long story...

It all began with The Showdown. I was extremely pissed at whatever I was pissed at, and this led me to adopt measures to win the showdown.

In April of last year, I changed homes and moved to Airport Road, which meant that it took an hour extra to reach home (read less free time) and staying with the Knight, whose exploits with a lance I have already mentioned.

Then, I was drafted into a new project at work, something which I loved doing and which kept me always busy, which I feel is an extremely intoxicating combiation. More work, more responsibilities, and all this meaning more fun... what more could I ask for?? And no, Im not talking about buttermilk...

Then came the Showdown... for those of you who have not yet guessed at what is is (or was), of course it was the CAT!!

Now though the plan was to prepare for this, I'm sorry to say that the same task was not done. All the preparation which actually helped was some revision of math formulae, and then a couple of pegs before the exam...

Net result: I get a 99.06, with calls from IIMs BACKI... preparation for phase 2 starts...

Then came derailment... I was unable to prepare for this properly too... my mom passed away in January leavin us all in shock... stayed at home for close to three weeks, and then came back to Bangalore on the morning of the K interview...

Which brings us to the interview phase...
1. Kozhikode: Kept my mouth shut in the GD... had a decent PI... got through...
2. Bangalore: Good GD, decent PI, no go...
3. Ahmedabad: Good GD, awesome PI... no go...
4. Indore: Decent GD, decent PI... got through...
5. Calcutta: Decent GD, Weird PI... no go...

So that means that I will be going to Kozhikode to pursue my MBA... and this is my last month in Bangalore... but needless to say, the blogs will continue...

And I wont really miss Bangalore because many of my friends will be there in K with me... Abhishek aka anarchy... Mridul aka Baby... and the subject of my next post... Avshesh aka Sallu!!

Cheers!!

The Man, The Artist and The New World

2006-09-18T07:24:00.000-07:00

The Navigator sighed. This was taking too long. His men were sick of the endless ocean; afraid they would get to the edge of the Earth and fall off. They were on the verge of mutiny, especially since the rum had started running low, and whatever was left was kept for the personal use of the Navigator himself. He had drunk himself into believing that across the ocean there was a land, rich in spices, where he could trade freely without having to worry about the bothersome Ottoman customs officials who refused to let him carry liquids along the Old route for fear they might undergo spontaneous combustion and destroy the adjoining caravans.

Another stress line made its appearance on his forehead, as he thought of the mysterious hooded passenger sitting in his cabin. That Man was responsible for this damned attempt to go round the Earth, and if anything went wrong with the crew, the Navigator had decided to side with them and kill the chap, and then return home. But there was something about the Man that sent shivers down his spine and reminded him of his days spent studying under the cruel tutelage of the most sadistic teacher east of the great ocean. The Man particularly reminded him of the times spent hanging from a tree while his tutor caned his posterior. He thought of how best to get the Man killed without the guy finding out that he was responsible. As he thought, the rum he had drunk took its toll and he fell asleep at the wheel.

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

The Artist agreed to take on the Man as his assistant till he found a way to escape. The Man helped the Artist by holding his pastels while he painted, and he also made up the subjects sometimes. So it came to pass that the wife of a local nobleman came to the Artist to get her portrait done. The Artist however was unable to make her show some expression, for she was nervous. He turned to the Man for help, but the Man just shrugged. However, once the Artist turned towards the lady, the Man stripped. Now the Lady saw this and was aroused, but for propriety’s sake she confined her emotions to a smile. After the sitting, she hinted to the Man to meet her later.

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

The Man broke into a run, and dashed into the great port of Genoa. He was late, and was afraid the Ship would leave. He raced towards where he knew the Ship would be, knocking down two street sellers and tripping over four dogs as he went. But the dock was empty. The Ship had sailed. As he sat dejected on the wharf, a couple of sailors asked him what the problem was and whether he needed some help. “I just missed the Ship”, he said. “What ship?” they inquired. “No ship sails today”. “But I was to get on board the Ship today, the 25^th of November.” “Are you crazy? Today’s the 15^th. You’re drunk. Go sleep it off and come back ten days later.”

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

The Artist stared at the Man walking towards his house. He blinked, rubbed his eyes and then stared some more. His hand reached for the bottle of wine at his side, and toppled it in agitation. ‘Oh God’, he thought. The Man came straight down the path to his house, and rapped on the door. The Artist opened it, to admit the Man, dressed in outlandish costumes, with a trench coat, ribbons across his shoulders and with a hood instead of a hat. The Man spoke, “I was sent here to escape the Scourge. However, my party was attacked while we were drunk on wine in Sicily, and all my men were killed. I survived, but in my haste to get away (or was it the wine), I tripped on a tree root on the edge of a chasm, and fell in. As I fell, I felt some strange force around me, trying to pull me apart in all directions, and the next thing I know, I’m laying at the foot of the cliff. The attackers were gone, so I walked around for a while till the people stoned me and drove me away, calling me a devil. I guess it was the clothes I was wearing. They were all in weird robes. I roamed around till I came to an abandoned graveyard, where I saw you digging some up. The dates on the graves were weird. They were all 440 years before my time. Anyway, let that be. I doubt you were doing anything legal back in that graveyard, so help me get away and I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

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

The Navigator blinked as the water splashed into his face. He saw his crew standing in a circle above him and in the midst was his First Mate; the one who had roused him with the water. He looked around, and found himself in the Ship’s prison. He yelled at his crew to get him out, but they just smiled. “We’ll soon be rich”, they said. “The Man is paying us well to look after him. He will also give us good jobs in the New World”. The Navigator watched in disbelief as each member of his crew leered at him, and then they walked out. He leaned against the bars, and he thought he saw them all crowded around the Man. They were bending down and kissing the ring on his hand. The Man looked in his direction and smiled. “Soon I’ll be home,” he said. “Even though my Family won’t be there now, I’ll start afresh and create an Empire.”

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

The Lady pressed close against the Man. They were in the woods near the Artist’s house. “I’ll be leaving soon”, the Man said. “I must go home.” “Very well. But at least tell me your name”, she said. “Michael”, he replied.

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

Another One Bites The Dust!!

2006-07-31T05:54:00.000-07:00

“No,” screamed the Knight, in response to a question from an acquaintance, who wanted to know his plans of returning to his village and settling down. “I’ll never do that,” he continued. “That would mean slavery for life. Imagine being unable to set off at a moment’s notice in search for new adventures. I can’t imagine what life would be like without new windmills to attack, new demons to kill (he neglected to mention that these demons, who hurled huge fireballs at attackers, sent shivers down his spine) and so on and so forth.”

The last few months had been hectic. The Knight had shifted base to a spot near where the great winged ones rested, and he was sharing his lodgings with another character, of whom little is known save that he shared the same ideas as the Knight (except that the demons scared him little). This chap, whom we shall call X, was believed to be from the future, and owned a tita-bond (virtually unbreakable; and made of a unique fusion of titanium and diamond) lance, which he used in all his duels. The Knight scoffed. “Just you wait,” he sneered, “My custom made lance is arriving from ACME corp. in a week. It’s got a flared end to beat your opponents with, and also a unique windscreen to improve your vision. Add that to the amazing voice of my pocket nightingale and I shall soon be the greatest knight in the world.”

The lance soon arrived, and was marveled at by all… for its outstanding size… for it was so big that the Knight, weakened as he was by age, could barely lift it, save swing it onto his opponents. But brilliant it was nevertheless, a work of art.

The Knight’s folks were insistent on him leaving this reckless lifestyle (the lance cost a fortune, and he didn’t even have a horse) and settling down. But the Knight had resisted all efforts at getting ‘hitched’, as the term is used nowadays. “Knights are like sailors,” he would say, “settling at a port only as long as they want and then moving on.” So it came as a surprise to X when the Knight began a long-distance communication with his Dulcinea (or so he said), using the latest ACME Rapid Pigeon Mail service. Things went on fine for some time (of course they will, for the ACME Rapid Pigeon Mail service was by far the best messaging service seen to date this side of the Rose Line) but soon, X started noticing that the Knight spent more and more time just stroking his lance (being unable to lift it) and tying notes to the legs of pigeons. Of course, given the Knight’s track record of dashing off to attack windmills every now and then, this correspondence seemed destined for a dead end.

But lo and behold!! One fine day, a pigeon tapped at X’s window, delivering a message saying that the Knight was ‘hitched’ to the lady Dulcinea of his dreams. Skepticism followed on the part of X, but it was soon dispelled by the Knight himself. A lengthy counseling session followed conducted by the Traveler, which resulted in X and the Traveler bombarding the Knight with advice, at the end of which the Knight was left rubbing the patch of stubble (a unique topographical feature on his face used to preserve body heat) on his chin. Further skepticism came from the Handwriting Expert (“What!! She is of the fairer sex??”), but the Knight was finally able to dispel all doubts and make them see the truth. Of course, all are now waiting for the last unit of the first dozen of the month named after the nephew of the famous conqueror who fell for a Queen who was bitten by an asp, when the truth will be revealed. Till then, its wait and watch.

For the truth, check the Traveler’s blog.

The Messiah!!

2006-06-27T07:03:00.000-07:00

Around a dozen years ago, cable TV had just arrived. STAR Sports was doing a feature on great goals. A short, stocky chap had just got the ball, and what followed was pure magic. He sidestepped not one, not two, but five opposition players, and tonked the ball into the goal setting off celebrations in his camp. And a young lad who would later head south to a town made famous by the cigar smoked by the victim in the Holmes' mystery "A Study in Scarlet" became a fan for life. Maradona had just scored the 'Goal of the Century' (actually 8 years earlier, but my frame of reference begins from the day of the STAR Sports feature).

Since then, the kid in question has been closely following the fortunes of the country otherwise famous only for the Falklands war and sensational captures of former Nazis. He saw Maradona getting chucked out for doping (a pity actually), and then the team's fluctuating fortunes, peaking with the form of Batistuta (and his two hat-tricks) and reaching a nadir in Korea with them getting knocked out courtesy a goal from the worse half of the affluent fifth of a famous all-girl band.

And now the World Cup is here again. And the nation is question is playing pretty well... in fact all the favorites are playing pretty well... good enough to win, at least! Which brings me to the topic.

Flashback to Argentina vs Serbia & Montenegro. The score is 3-0, and 75 minutes are up. A young lad touted as the next Maradona enters. 13 minutes later, the scoreline reads 6-0. Coincidence? The kid scores one, sets another up, and the whole team start playing like gods.

I've caught just a few glimpses of the kid at this Cup, but having seen him in some Barca matches (which I watch whenever I'm at home), I for one believe he will be the next big thing in football. He is the Messi-ah!!

Brazil may be the favorites, and most people may be supporting them too (no offence meant, but this may be because of lack of knowledge or due to sheep instinct, who knows), but I'm all for Argentina (and have been since I don't remember when). Go Argentina!!

p.s. My heart may be with Argentina, but I'd place my money on Brazil. Cheers to the World Cup!!

The Lord of the Rings - The Evil One

2006-04-27T07:27:00.000-07:00

Those of you who are reading this, don’t hope for an ending similar to the original. The real world (and Hemo’s world is very real indeed) is a bad place, and bad things happen in it. Which means that evil will not necessarily be defeated, and can conquer all and rule the World as a terrible monarch (something akin to the empire imagined by the creator of a logo which looked like a windmill with flared ends and which looked similar to a religious symbol of the east, albeit having undergone an angular transformation of forty-five degrees). If you are expecting the Evil One to be defeated, don’t be too hopeful. You have been warned!!

Where were we now? Ah yes… Hemo is lost in the ventilation factories. Plato is trying to find him. The story continues…

Plato wrapped the jacket Hemo had given him tightly around himself, and took another step up the steep precipice leading up to the entrance of the ventilation factories. These factories, a byproduct of human ingenuity, enabled the entire population of the land to breathe pure air. And they also served as an awesome training ground for astronauts, for the natural air currents kept one afloat for as long as one wanted. All you had to do to come back to the surface was activate the Gravi-kit fitted to your safety belt, provided by ACME (Acme’s the Certified Master of Everything). Now this ACME corporation was founded pretty long ago to cater to cartoon characters in need, and it delivered the goods instantly. It also spawned a rival company, LACME (Like ACME), which later branched off into a specific type of products. But to get back to Plato, well, he opened his ACME catalog (obtained by putting his hand behind his back) and selected the Gravi-kit. And lo, the kit appeared in his hand. He put it on, and walked peacefully through the factories, searching for Hemo. And where was Hemo all this while? He was floating around the factories, almost unconscious, incapable of any physical movement, his body broken after the torture the wraiths had inflicted on it. It was in this state that Plato espied him, and switching off his kit, tried to catch him. This was by no means an easy task, for the air blasts in the ventilation factories constituted both the most random processes anywhere in the land, and the toughest thesis topic in chaos theory at the university. But after drifting aimlessly for quite some time, Plato finally caught Hemo, and they exited the factories without any further mishap.

Plato now used his powers of healing to revive Hemo, and they then discussed their future plans. The Ring was missing, and their mission was a failure. In desperation, they decided to have a bite to eat, and Hemo told Plato to get out the bar of chocolate he had inside his jacket pocket. Plato fished in the pocket, and retrieved a shapeless blob of brown matter, which they realized was chocolate melted from the heat while they were traveling. Hemo bit into it, and swallowed a whole chuck of it (an action which would have earned him two hours in the corner if he was Dennis the Menace). The next minute, he choked and spat the whole thing out (five hours in the corner), and lo and behold!! The ring was there!! Thrilled with this discovery, and completely revived by Plato thumping his back to cure his coughing spree, Hemo now recommenced his mission (followed by Plato munching on the blob).

The duo made steady progress along the Dico Tar highway, which led straight to the headquarters of the White Council, their destination. And filled with joy at the sight of the topmost spire of the White city of the Council, they broke into a run. But the Dark Lord was not going to give up so easily. Sensing danger, he came now himself into the path of the two heroes, challenging them to a duel.

Hideous he had become, this creature spawned from the infamous sucking tubes of the winged hordes. A foul stench emanated from his body, and his eyes blazed with a bright red glow.

Lord: Scum!! You are doomed now.

Hemo: Why, you planning to lift up your armpit and kill me?

Lord: Fool, learn to respect power. I am the greatest.

Hemo: Greatest stinker, eh?

Lord: (getting irritated) So sure of yourself, eh? We’ll soon see… Come on now, let’s fight.

Hemo: Not a chance. I need nose filters first.

Lord: You @*%#. I’ll show you…

And he advanced menacingly on Hemo. But he was stopped by Plato, who started shooting jelly at him (nothing serious, especially not for the Lord, but jelly in the ears itches like mad). The Dark Lord was now furious, and he summoned all his forces to slay our heroes. Plato now opened his ACME catalog, and selected a mystery product (kept secret to maintain the suspense).

The next moment, the army of the White Council poured out of the gates of the city and devoured all they saw. They showed no mercy, and slaughtered their enemies in no time. Hemo and Plato took cover (under dead bodies), and were saved from the carnage. The Dark Lord was vanquished by the white clad soldiers, for they were armed with the unique brand of acid designed to harm the Dark Lord.

All was over. The land had been saved (well, I didn’t say evil would win, now did I??). As they climbed out of the pile of bodies, Hemo noticed that Plato’s finger still pointed to the mystery item in the catalog. It said, “Instant Quinine dose. Finish off malaria, dengue et al in seconds.”

The Lord of the Rings - The Long Journey

2006-04-18T05:22:00.000-07:00

I remember ending my last post saying the next one would be up soon, but I never thought it would be after more than one cycle of the moon. I’ve been really loaded with work, hence the absence of new posts. Hopefully, things will change soon. So here goes…

The council of the free peoples had chosen eight companions to go with Hemo, and this number was supposedly decided because the chairman was inspired by a famous fantasy novel. However, volunteers were lacking, and finally Hemo set out alone in frustration, accompanied only by his trusty assistant (or sidekick, which sounds better and gives Hemo the hero type of feel, which in fact he is), Plato (not to be confused with the chap normally connected with the submerged city discovered by an Indian prince in a submarine). Now this Plato had the power to heal wounds. At the mere sight of a cut, he would emit his own copyrighted brand of instant solidifying jelly, which would wrap itself around the wound and act as an insulator, preventing anything from passing through. Hemo on the other hand had the gift of granting life, for whatever dead or decaying thing he touched would be instantly revived, and start growing again.

So Hemo set out with the ring in his jacket pocket and a bag of provisions on his shoulders, and Plato trudged along behind. They proceeded along a small side road to avoid the wraiths, but after squeezing through several narrow lanes and cursing the size of each other’s bellies, they switched to the main road, flanked by the massive Rumef monolith. The whole world seemed to be at peace as they walked, but little did they know that they were being watched. The enemy ruled the skies, and he ruled the minds of his followers. The workers of the muscle factories had been affected by the plague the Lord had unleashed, and they unwittingly told the Dark Lord of Hemo’s whereabouts by merely watching him pass by and thinking of him.

Soon they had gone past the monolith and reached the Laner region, famous for its intricately designed sewage system which kept the entire land clean. Passing by the site of the famous time capsule, installed by the archers and containing a selection of the foulest impurities ever known along with their antidotes (to be passed to future generations, ensuring that the secret of decontamination is never lost), they walked on through the day, finally reaching the great Inn of Bilewater just ere the day ended. Here they had a little too much to drink, and ended up speaking a little too much of their mission. Of course, as gossip travels faster than the speed of light, the Wraiths soon learnt their location and dashed off to the Inn to recover the ring. So savagely did they attack the Inn that tremors were felt throughout the land, and huge fountains of molten lava spurted out from the ground where they smote it with their clubs. Luckily, thanks to the unique qualities our lead pair had, they managed to escape, supporting each other and barely managing to escape the mayhem. However, the dermal coverings of their canines were burnt in the heat, giving rise to the popular phrase, “To escape by the skin of your teeth.”

So far so good. Now Hemo and Plato arrived at the entrance of the sinister Acid tunnel (dull name but to the point), the great underground cavern carved out by acid flows long ago in the forgotten past, dark as the negative of a photograph of Nicole Kidman, filled with unknown horrors, and stretching out before them in umpteen mazes and hidden paths. Their hearts quailed, but the task had to be completed. They walked into the dark, moving gradually uphill as they went, feeling their way along in the everlasting night. Ever they thought of the nameless horror, the thing of fire which occasionally crept up into the path and devoured whoever it saw, spitting out the entrails down the path. Thus they proceeded for several days, slowly but surely moving in the right direction, making no noise at all. A cold wind blew in their face, and Hemo gave his jacket to Plato to wear. Finally they saw the end of the tunnel, a huge arc of light, and they shouted in glee. Big mistake!! The thing of fire arose and began chasing them, roaring loudly and scaring the life out of them. Bu they managed to escape into the open, and then Plato let out the smelliest, loudest, most toxic f**t ever in history. The thing of fire stopped dead in its tracks, made a face like sour cream, and fell with a thud to the ground.

More walking, this time through an open field with a huge river gushing its way down beside them. Still going uphill. Plato spotted some birds high above, which turned out to be wraiths with wings, which swooped suddenly down on them. They started running, and they ran and they ran till they could run no more, and then they realized that the wraiths were gone. They relaxed. Just then a wraith (who had been crawling behind them and had not been seen) snatched Hemo, and soared up into the sky, heading back to the lair of his Lord. Plato shrieked in grief, but could do nothing (for the time being, at least).

Now Plato thought of a plan to save Hemo, and he had an idea. His race had another unique gift, that of telepathy between any two of their own kind. And he used it now to ascertain the location of Hemo. He discovered that Hemo had been taken to the ventilation factories and would be dropped into the Mega-pump, instantly draining him of life. He implored his people to attack the Wraith, and this they did, shooting jets of jelly at them, causing them to solidify into statues. But Hemo was lost in the attack, and was blown deep into the ventilation factories by an exhaust blast. Plato set out to search for him.

Will Plato find Hemo? Has the ring already been recovered by the Wraiths? Has the quest failed, or is there still hope? To know more, catch the next post The Lord of the Rings – The Evil One, which will be coming up soon (and this time I mean it).

The Lord of the Rings - The Terrible Crystal

2006-02-28T21:29:00.000-08:00

I guess it all began in the great muscle factories of Ulna Major. The state highway was as usual blocked with traffic, in spite of the one-way rule by the ruling class. Most of the commuters were the dabbawalas, clothed in the bright red of their class, moving on in a continuous line to pass the tiffins to the working class. These dabbawalas were akin to their counterparts from the city of Islands, save for the fact that they never made a mistake (unlike the Islanders who made a glitch once in every million assignments). Once the working class was done with their meal, the empty boxes were given back to the dabbawalas, dressed now in blue indicating the end of their day’s work. These dabbawalas had one enemy, the Army of the winged hordes, who used massive vacuum tubes to suck in dabbawalas, their favorite food, and then regurgitated the remnants of digestion, causing major discomfort to the dabbawalas, making them go pale and clinging to each other, and finally causing paralysis and death.

One such pipe now showed itself. The dabbawalas shrieked, running for cover, but apparently the winged terror was not hungry today, for it only probed with its tube for a few seconds, before spitting out a small crystal and then flying away. Now the simple minded dabbawalas, to whom life meant just delivering food to and fro and nothing else were attracted to the brilliant luster of the crystal. For they had a saying that a great soul would one day come from the sky and change their lives (very conveniently, the prophecy failed to specify whether the lives would change for better or worse, but the dabbawalas were too simple to understand such complications).

And as the poor chaps came near the crystal, the crystal began to grow, and began to take the shape of a living thing. And they saw before them a man covered from head to toe in rings. Rings in his ears, and rings in his nose, and everywhere else including some places best not mentioned here. And they stood awed, for never before had they seen someone so lordly or awe-inspiring. And the man (if he can be called so) then spoke, “I come to you from the heavens. I have plenty to give to you, and can take a fair bit too. Come now, let us teach each other our trades.”

And so the Ring-man learnt the trade of the dabbawalas, the unerring accuracy, and the ability to transfer anything from one point to another without any loss. And he taught the dabbawalas to spread his teachings to all they knew. But in secret he plotted to conquer the land, and for this purpose he created an army. This he succeeded in doing by corrupting the hearts of those dabbawalas who were most loyal to him, and he offered them power. They gladly accepted, and he devoured their souls and made them wraiths, a plague on the land. And they went abroad spreading pestilence throughout the land. The sky turned red, and all the workers in the muscle factories got sores. Even the palace of the kings, who made all the important decisions and ruled the land, was not spared. The entire land was under shadow, and it seemed to all that hope was lost and the darkness would last forever. But in the 5^th sector of the Tarsal belt, a hope was born.

For the Ring-lord’s method of killing was simple. All he (or his followers) did was touch victims with a ring, and then watch in sadistic pleasure as the poor chap writhed in pain as he shriveled into nothingness. But in one such putsch, a ring was snatched by the victim in his dance of death, and no attempt was made to recover it. And thus some things that were not meant to be forgotten were lost. And thus it was that the ring was found by the Robbic Hemo, and he took it at great peril to the council of the free peoples. And it was there decided that the ring must be taken to the White Council, where it could be studied and a method to neutralize it could be found.

Will Hemo succeed? Or will the Ring-lord rule the land forever in darkness? To know more, catch the next post The Lord Of The Rings – The Long Journey, which will be coming up soon.

Breakdown!!

2006-02-19T21:18:00.000-08:00

Day 1, 0400 hours

The information gatherers in the command center were uneasy. The signals they had been picking up over the last hour or so were not very encouraging. They had seen the signals before, and they knew what they meant. These information gatherers were used to working non-stop, taking no rest, no food and no drink, using only the nutritional supplements supplied to them individually through personal tubes. The invaders had already crossed the Shield zone, and were rapidly drawing near to the Aero-Acoustic Fields, their primary target. The gatherers relayed the information to the high command, which, as is common with high commands all over the World, chose to ignore the warning.

Day 1, 1000 hours

The invaders were a band of fierce, courageous warriors led by their fearsome chief, the Bogie-Man. They had parachuted onto the outer periphery of Ydob and had then entered through the aero-bridge. Some of their troops immediately headed for the Sound Room, while some more set to work laying charges in the aero-bridge. A third troop, led by Bogey-Man himself, headed for the Command Center, pillaging and destroying everything in their path.

Day 1, 1900 hours

“The Sound Room has been captured. Voice transmission is no longer possible,” said the message relayed by the information gatherers to the High Command. Soon the High Command was receiving distress signals from all over Ydob, complaining of the brutality of the invaders. The aero-bridge had already been blocked, reducing the oxygen supply to Ydob, and the subjects were weak. The Command Center was now being attacked, causing disruption in communication and threatening the whole of Ydob itself. Finally, the High Command woke up and realized it had to take action.

Day 1, 2315 hours

“Summon the mercenaries,” said the speaker of the High Command into his megaphone. The command would be relayed into each of the millions of tubes, alerting the entire system to the presence of intruders. The decision to call the mercenaries into action was a hard one. Ruthless and invincible, they were the result of centuries of evolutionary control. Clad all in white, they carried no weapons, for their main weapon was terror. Enemies fled at the mere sight of them, and with ample reason, for the mercenaries killed by eating their enemies. Of course, they also killed and ate everyone else they came across; hence they had to be kept on a tight leash. They were kept in suspension in times of peace, and spawned in large numbers when invasions occurred. They had never failed Ydob yet.

Day 2, 0600 hours

The battle raged fiercely all over Ydob. The invaders lay dead in their hundreds, but they had already initiated their mating mechanism, thus creating millions more of their own to fight the mercenaries. The battle was even, owing to the advantage enjoyed by the invaders of their sheer weight of numbers. Ydob reeled under the carnage of both sides. The Sound Room and aero-bridge lay in ruins.

Day 3, 0700 hours

The battle was still being fought evenly, but the invaders were still growing in numbers, courtesy some really amazing mating speeds (luckily the human race has been unable to replicate this, though not for lack of trying). The High Command decided to deploy the Heat Shield. This involved raising the temperature of Ydob to a higher level, which would cause only discomfort to the subjects, but would wipe out the invaders. This was done promptly, and the invaders were soon wiped out. The war was over.

Day 5, 1200 hours

The work of repair and reconstruction was still on. The charges laid by the invaders in the aero-bridge were still detonating at regular intervals, and this caused some discomfort. I held my kerchief up to my nose, and helped Ydob clear some of the debris from the aero-bridge. The common cold had been cleared out from my body, but some weakness from the fever still remained.

Showdown!!

2006-02-04T17:34:00.000-08:00

Goldfinger smiled at the captured Bond, and he said, "Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago. 'Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, the third time its enemy action.'"

-Ian Fleming's Goldfinger

"Twice have ye borne me, O lord of Eagles, but bear me now to Orodruin, and thrice shall pay for all."

-Gandalf the White, The Lord Of The Rings

Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.

-Kill Bill

A game the first was, bonus were the points earned...

Overdrive the second went into, valuable were the lessons learned...

The final frontier is now visible, destroyed is the turbulent past...

A killing stroke will be dealt, the adversary will breathe his last!!

The Man Who Never Lost...

2006-01-20T06:07:00.000-08:00

High up in the hills of the Snowy (I wonder if Remi would have named them Milou) Mountains (paradox??), the Count paced his corridors, his ears strained trying to catch a sound of the end of the Countess’ screams (now how does he expect to hear the end of a scream??) which would indicate a child was born. He poured himself another mug of Maggi tomato ketchup (the company’s latest product for vegan vampires) and waited eagerly. He did not have to wait long, for at the stroke of midnight, a son was born. This young lad was immediately fussed upon by all, and considering the fact that the household had waited half a millennium for the kid (and skewered millions of subjects in that interval; you see, not eating meat or drinking blood does not necessarily mean not spilling it, and the blood was useful in family feasts to keep distant relatives, especially the evil ScoreFang from the Northern Fortress happy), this was no surprise. The kid’s naming ceremony was celebrated lavishly, with none other than ScoreFang doing the honors. The lad was named as Batman the Long-Overdue, for reasons already specified. Now this ScoreFang guy (his name is self-explanatory) was one of the oldest surviving vampires, and it was he who created the first Blood Bank. He loved preying on young women, and it is his exploits which due to the social class of his victims have become famous on celluloid. He despised the vegan Count, and he wished for Batman to become something better in life (or death, depending on whether you are good or evil). So he took the lad under his wing (quite literally, for he turned into a bat before he did it) and flew him to his fortress to train him.

Now ScoreFang developed one great weakness, and it was that he hated seeing Batman losing. Whenever this happened, he either drank the winner’s blood (which was convenient, for he allowed Batman to mix with humans from the long-suffering settlement which still remained under the shadow of his home) or he blew the winner’s head off (which was again convenient, for he used this only on himself, and he loved seeing the atoms of his brain flying apart and then coming back together, drawn to each other by the magical force of the Undead). Now it would be worthwhile to discuss how he could see when his eyes and his brain were reduced to mere atoms floating in the air, but I digress. It is an interesting topic though, and anyone desiring to know more can e-mail ScoreFang himself at igottwentycanines@bloodbath.com. Needless to say, please wear an iron collar when you sleep at night.

Batman grew up winning every event and competition in sight (accompanied by a waitlist for the obituary column for the state newspaper). And it all went to his head. He grew up to be an investment banker in ScoreFang’s firm, and a damn good one he was too. He had such high confidence levels that he soon started winning everything in sight, even without the help of his mentor. He started his own betting agency, and he always made a profit, for he never lost. And then one day he was challenged. At the Transylvanian Snooker Championships, a rookie came out of nowhere (not another warp!!) and defeated the top seed in the first round. Batman suffered heavy losses, and his pride was shaken. He challenged the rookie to win the contest. The rookie was one of those adventure seeking guys who never shies from a contest. He accepted. And he promptly won the next round hands down. Batman’s aides panicked. He won the third round. Batman’s aides tore their hair out. He won the quarters. They bit their nails off. He won the semis. They did something pretty gross to themselves.

The night of the final dawned (paradox for sure this time, because it was a new moon). The rookie faced off against the second seed for the best of nine frames. Batman sat in the stands. He had bet that the rookie would not win, and he had heavy odds against himself. He smiled, looking relaxed. The rookie won the first frame. He won the second. And the third. And the fourth. Batman signaled to his aides and walked out. The rookie was on the path to victory. He was three strokes away. Two. One. He bent over the table, aiming for the black ball. His hand moved back. His eyes narrowed as they focused on his target. And then the building blew up as the bombs detonated in the basement. Batman had won again!!

Feline Wars Episode VI - The Return of the Mobai

2006-01-04T20:34:00.000-08:00

“The time has come,” muttered Pasht to herself for the umpteenth time as she watched the two men talking from behind her veil. Now this veil was actually multi-dimensional, because Pasht’s disguise as a vegetable seller was her main veil (to prevent mortals shrieking and prostrating on their knees on witnessing divinity) and the superficial veil was the yashmak which all women in the country wore. The two men were approaching her now. The one on the right was tall, wore a white cap and had a rose pinned onto his vest coat. The other man was shorter, dressed in uniform, and looked like he owned the place (which, in fact, he did). As the men passed her, she said, in a soft but audible voice, “Go to the Sphinx, O great leaders, and you will find a weapon to unleash the power of the third world.” And with these enigmatic words, she vanished (to gasps and screams from the crowd, and to a look of utter bewilderment on the faces of the two men).

Well, the two men had concluded their business for the day, so they decided to go check out the Sphinx anyway. As they neared it, they saw that the Sphinx was smiling down upon them, with unmistakable happiness visible in every line (actually every brick) of the weathered face. And then she spoke with a clear voice (in ancient Egyptian, not translated until much later). And then the Sphinx smiled at them (rather seductively, I might add), and smote the ground with her paws. And a gaping hole opened up, and a small treasure chest was revealed (this can be attributed to the long struggle in the centuries past, which made Pasht so paranoid she wanted the original temple to be preserved just in case the new ones were overcome by evil). And when the chest was opened, the two men saw a book that told them what had to be done (actually it was meant to be an e-book, but the war ended a little sooner than the paranoid Pasht had expected, and making an e-book using the computing machines of the day would have required a forklift).

The military man then said, “Friend, I have a lot of worries here. My friends think I am weak and my enemies think I am gullible. The once persecuted are threatening to steal my waterway. My brothers think I am the one who shall betray them. My people swim for a quarter of the year and die of thirst the rest of the time. So you better do all this stuff in your country.” To which the other man replied, “This is not a question of your choice. Did you not hear the poem? The temples are destined to be in my country. And so it shall be.”

In due course, the man returned home and began work on the temples. Six there were, though only three he built then. The fourth came later, and later the fifth, and very recently the sixth. And the Mobai were born again, and spread across the world, acting as the pillars of society.

Not until much later were the words of the Sphinx made available to the public (and even this was made possible only due to the amazing invention of buttons, which now enabled curious pressmen who loved imitating angry bees to snoop on unsuspecting people and prove their dishonesty). In one such case, the victim bought his way out of the pit he had dug for himself by giving the original translated manuscript to the press. And even then, such a revelation did the manuscript cause in the editor’s chamber (reportedly, the editor plucked all his hair out and then started yelling about how he shall embrace a religion and be an atheist no more). The words are reprinted below:

Conquered lie all the evils that time did bring

But that winter is over and now has come the spring

After centuries of sorrow and years of great pain

The Mobai temple shall now rise once again

Six there shall be, in a land far far away

Very soon now they shall see the light of day

In a land where the fabric of freedom is not frayed

Where a prince once with lion cubs played

In the city of fearless bunnies the first shall rise

And one in the city of joy shall then arise

The ancient town of boiled beans shall the third see

In the city named after a famous brother, the fourth shall be

The fifth shall see the blue sea and also the green hill

Sound like ‘not outside’, the sixth one will

More may arise later, only time will tell

But rejoice, for it is now the end of the dark spell.

The deserving shall be sacrificed once every year

They shall be trained to face anything and know no fear

The Mobai shall reawaken, but with a new name

Prime vowels shall vanish, and the rest shall attain fame

To Pasht will be dedicated the holy sacrifice

Every year shall see a fresh unwelcome surprise

The survivors will be rare, on the back will they get a pat

And the process shall henceforth be known as the ***.”

Epilogue: The Mobai are still going strong. The sacrifice is now harder than ever. Pasht’s wildest dreams have come true. When last seen, she was sunbathing on B.E.A.C.H. ®, all caution thrown to the winds. Evil has given up the fight and is now searching for less powerful enemies to attack. End of story.

Feline Wars Episode V - The Boy and The Knight

2005-12-30T00:24:00.000-08:00

In a quiet little village near the Austrian border, a young lad was being trained in the fine art of fermenting barley. The instructor was apprehensive; the lad was known to have a formidable temper (he had once killed a whole brood of hundreds of pigeons because one of them rather unwisely thought his head was a good spot to unburden itself), and an immense power of will which made everyone who spoke to him want to obey him. The lad was also famous because he had a strange mark on his arm, something which looked like a set of windmill blades with flared ends. And as the lone tattoo artist of the village denied all rumors that he had been near the mother of the boy, the mark was believed by the locals to be a divine sign, but whether it was put there by the winged immortal at the top of the ladder or the horned immortal from the pit of fire was not known for certain. Some said that it was put there by a religious cross-eyed Indian with his head bent forty-five degrees, but they were few.

The instructor explained all the nuances of the trade, but the boy disagreed with one particular procedure which involved exposing the crop to tiny invisible organisms (the details are unknown; the hidden microphone which recorded the conversation and the tape obtained from it were both destroyed in the events that are to follow). The instructor had never been contradicted before, and as his pride rolled his common sense into a ball and tossed it out the window, he slapped the boy. Big mistake!! Within an hour the boy had raised the workers in mutiny. He was arrested, and spent several years in prison writing the story of his life.

Now it so transpired that the Chief, who had managed to hide from the rampaging Gods, detected this boys’ energy signature on his Etha-Evil-detector. Now this is a marvelous contraption, which can be bought online and online only, on the famous Rope Bazaar located on the second planet of the Zyklon-B solar system. The system is a haven for the followers of Lucy, and the afore mentioned bazaar is on a rope that stretches across the great river Cyano (the name is self-explanatory). To buy something, one must be an accomplished acrobat, have no fear of heights (those unsure have to bungee jump to test their resolve), and have tons of money (literally, because the local monetary unit is a Wej, which weighs ten kilograms). Payment is made using local currency only and bargaining is banned. Any transgressors are promptly tossed into the river below (luckily, there is no need to worry about swimming, that ability will not be needed here).

Now the Chief went and met this boy, and using all his powers of persuasion, he convinced the boy to destroy the Chosen Ones (as the Mobai were known). The boy gleefully agreed. As soon as he was released, he built an army and set out on his quest. But alas, ha had misunderstood the Chief. The only chosen ones he knew were those who had crossed a desert, a sea, a mountain and then a plain to reach their home. He commenced persecuting them, using advanced weapons of war, including giant slingshots that dropped exploding pellets on the enemy, genetically modified sharks which shot darts through their gill openings at the ships of foes, and vaporized essence of Cyano river (this last attained fame under the name of the planet where it came from). The chosen ones were rounded up, tortured, and killed mercilessly. They were forbidden to bathe, and they were forbidden to stink, and punishment for either crime was a bath in the vaporized essence. And this state of affairs continued for many years.

The leaders of the chosen people prayed to their lord for deliverance, and their lord told them to go to Pasht, for they had been mistaken for the Mobai. While on this topic, it would be worthwhile to discuss where the Gods were all this time. Well, they were as usual busy in sport. In this case, they were all hooked onto the latest game to hit the heavenly glamour columns. It involved a score and two players divided into two teams, and required a circular ground, half a dozen wooden sticks, a ball, and two bats. It was played in the air, and required two referees (specially called in from hell). In simple words, it was a three-dimensional version of cricket (the bowling team was allowed to set the inclination and curve of the ground as they wished to).

So the leaders of the chosen people prayed to Pasht, and she came out of hiding to witness all the carnage going on. She had been oblivious to all this, and now realized that the boy was bent on conquering the world, and in the process, the Mobai would be doomed. So she promised to help them, and set out in search of a warrior who would kill the boy. Her travels took her to Spain, and there, along a lonely forest road, she met a small man riding a donkey. He looked trustworthy, and she confided in him. He told her he knew a knight in the village who could do the job. She went to the knight, and he agreed, on the condition that he would get unlimited access to all the occult libraries in the world. The knight then went to the boy, and challenged him to a duel. The boy agreed, seeing that the knight was old, and had only a lance. Thus began the third great duel in the history of the world. Fierce raged the battle, and the land they fought on was smote with holes. Men perished by the mere sight of the feral looks on the two’s faces. The knight proved a tough adversary, and for days the battle raged. Their clothes were ripped, and they still fought. Then, the knight saw the strange mark on the boy’s arm. “Demon”, he screamed, and started yelling and cursing with all his might. His sanity lost, he charged at the boy, and pinned the mark with his lance. The boy fell. The knight had won.

The war had raged long, and there were countless losses on all sides. But Pasht was now victorious. “The time has finally come,” she declared at the post-war press conference (disguised of course, this time as a village girl). The knight had become a celebrity. When asked how he got the stroke of inspiration that made him spear the mark, he replied, “It’s a family tradition. That was a demon, and I killed it. My ancestor had once attacked a whole bunch of them. He lost that battle, but the trend was born. And I knew I would win, for I am the Don the Xth.” And with these words, he got onto his steed Rozinante the XVth and rode off into the sunset.

No bookies please...

2005-12-18T23:02:00.000-08:00

It has transpired at last. The deadly human game of Tag, played so gallantly on level ground, has now caught up with me. So I got a tag, then what?? If it had a Heuer following it, my life would have been made. Well, so be it. The baton is received with grace, and what follows is my lap of the sprint which this topic is becoming. All I hope is this sprint is legit and there are no stakes involved, which explains the topic (apart from being a feeble attempt at a pun). The tag was passed on by Neelam, and the response follows…

Books that I liked the most:

Now I understand what the selectors felt like while picking the Indian team… anyways, here goes…

The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R.Tolkien

This is, well,

One book to rule them all

One book to unwind them

One book to enchant them all

And in the process bind them

Any doubting Thomas’s, just click here.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

If you like Sci-fi, read this. If you like comedy, read this. If you like satire and sarcasm, read this. If none of the above choices applies to you, read it anyway. This is a book you don’t want to miss for the world (which is destroyed anyway, so what the heck).

Neuromancer – William Gibson

The book which sparked off the cyberpunk genre of writing, the book which coined the terms cyberspace and matrix for the first time, the book which inspired the Matrix movies. It’s gripping; it’s psyching, its path breaking. Just plug into this book, and let you mind do the rest.

1984 – George Orwell

This one gave me nightmares. Scarier than The Exorcist, more chilling than the spine of a deep sea eel, this story of a future Earth ruled by an all-pervading, omniscient government will ruin you calm existence and plunge into a terrifying nightmare with no possible escape. This one is not for the weak-hearted.

The Foundation Series – Isaac Asimov

Simple language, simple characters, mind-blowing details. Isaac Asimov is the God of sci-fi. Seven books in the series, each one a masterpiece. Read calmly, no need for excessive brain work, but be prepared for the unexpected for nothing is what it seems to be.

Authors I like:

J.R.R. Tolkien – He created Middle Earth and Eressea out of thin air, and weaved a mythology around it all. He truly is the Lord of them all.
Douglas Adams – Hilarious. Capable of bringing a smile onto anybody’s face.
Isaac Asimov – Master of sci-fi. Makes you wish you were born too early.
Jim Corbett – For those amazing man-eater tales.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – For creating the analytical genius Holmes.

Unusual books that I liked:

Matrix Warrior – A philosophical study of how to escape the Matrix and attain Nirvana.
The Tao of Physics – An illustration of the parallels between modern physics and Eastern mysticism. Very illuminating.

Cartoons I like:

Calvin and Hobbes – Hilarious. Terrific. A laugh riot. Out of this World. Need I say more?
Asterix – Attila the Hun’s big mistake. Goscinny and Uderzo’s revenge. This comic is ferpectly outstanding.
Tintin – If you don’t like this, then scram, you Bashi-bazouks, you iconoclasts, you lily-livered lizards, you…
Peanuts – For sheer humor.

Books that I want to read:

I, Cyborg (been hunting for this one for years now)
Shalimar the Clown (its Rushdie after all)
Ulysses (the size and Joyce’s skill are scary)
Pebble in the Sky (Asimov’s first novel. Out of print last time I checked).

Books that I have left halfway thru and want to complete:

Finnegan’s Wake (Joyce at his craziest)
Black Holes and Baby Universes
Homer’s Iliad (fell asleep :p)

Currently reading…

The Journey of Man - A Genetic Odyssey – Spencer Wells explains how the different races evolved from a single man.

That’s it then… My lap is ended, and the baton will go to Fail, the poor soul who is boiling in the coolest Dept., and Mando, who recently immortalized me in the world of cyberspace literature. Enough then… there are a couple of wars to be fought!!!

Feline Wars Episode IV - The Dark Ages

2005-12-08T02:03:00.000-08:00

“Let the race begin,” roared Ra, and then immediately choked and started coughing as the tiny morsel of oriental fowl entered his mouth. He recovered his poise, and scowled at the naughty little ape-boy from the East, who had hurled a ‘Drum of Heaven’ with pinpoint accuracy at his mouth, which had remained open for just five seconds. The kid shrugged, gave that sweet smile which is used by all naughty children to appease angry adults, and turned his attention to annoying Horus by plucking his feathers. Ra smiled to himself, and thought back to the time when the kid had tried to eat him thinking he was an apple. This was definitely much better. He reclined back in the plush couch in the executive stand of the famous ‘United Mythologies’ stadium, built for the sole purpose of hosting the quadrennial Mytholympic Games, where the Gods from different pantheons competed and judged who among them was the best. He had just flagged off the race for the fastest messenger, and the competitors were Naarad from India, Mercury from Italy, and Hermes from Greece. Most of the crowd was cheering for Naarad, and this was not surprising, considering the fact that 99.9% of the Gods, amounting to nearly 33 crores, were from India.

The race was an even contest, and at the halfway mark, the three contestants were neck to neck. Punters had started gnawing their nails and pulling their hair out. Suddenly there was a flash of light, and the great advertising billboard lit up with a picture of a green blob standing next to a spaceship. “O great gods of the Earth,” said the blob (though from where the voice emanated is hard to tell; you see, the blob was, as has already stated, just a blob and had no orifices to speak of). “O mighty immortals, hearken now. Let me introduce myself. My name is Blobbert, and I represent the mighty commercial conglomerate of the Lion. ‘The whole city knows me as the Lion,’ is how he describes himself. Though you may be unaware of the fact (and pardon me if I invaded your privacy), we are a covert group who monitor your governance of this planet. We are pleased with your efforts, and are proud to announce that all you great Gods have won an all-expenses paid trip around the Universe. You journey shall commence in a short while. Any questions?” The Gods had grown decadent over the past many years, and readily agreed (of course, who can refuse to accept a free trip?). So the stadium was sucked into a space warp (oh no, not another one… warps are getting passé) and the Gods began their trip.

“Well, that’s one obstacle out of the day,” said the Lion, as he sipped his wine. The cloaked figure facing him was the chief of Lucy’s followers. With the Gods now safely out of the way, his path to taking over the world was clear. He did not need the Lion any longer, and he definitely did not want him to go back home and talk about it using a revolving sign. He took out his staff, pointed it at the Lion, and said, almost with a smile, “I will destroy as I speak”. (Now this is a very powerful curse, which was earlier fairly common but was later deemed unforgivable by a single mother who became a millionaire.) The next instant the Lion was slumped over in his chair, clearly dead. Let Operation Takeover begin, the Chief said to his lieutenants.

The Messiah’s followers had spent the first many years spreading goodwill and love, but they had remained pure no more. Lucy’s followers had infiltrated their ranks, and even their most cherished and hallowed center (located in a peninsula later conquered by a bald dictator) was contaminated (literally, because Lucy’s followers had vowed never to bathe as a tribute to Jack the Stripper, though they used liberal amounts of deodorant). The good men were fighting a losing battle. Now, with the Gods gone, Lucy’ followers launched a major offensive, crippling the establishment. A feudal system was formed, creating inequality, and the men at the top of the system were chosen for their corruption and decadence. Faith and forgiveness were available now only for a fee, and those who could not afford it were burnt. Women in particular, especially sweeper women who used broomsticks a lot, were given preferential treatment in this regard (which gave rise to the popular saying ‘Ladies first’). The sky was blackened (here you see how pollution first started). And this continued for many years.

Pasht was all this while wandering across the World, drawn towards rationality and common sense wherever she saw it. She it was who sparked the seeds of science in the brains of daring men who were capable of overcoming popular dogmas, and she it was who inspired the common populace to use their heads. But the system was too strong for her, and she knew she would lose the war very soon. Her chosen ones were very often branded non-believers and made to revert back to old ideologies. She knew she had to get a signal to the Gods so they could come back and help her.

The immortals were at that moment relaxing on the famous planet B.E.A.C.H. ® (Bask in Energy Arising from Combining Hydrogen – a geeky name but catchy nonetheless), the original sunbathing destination created just after the Big Bang (though sunbathing started only many millions of years later after adequate cooling of the land). They were now seven hundred Earth years into the trip, and were still having fun. They would have probably continued traveling for ever (as was the Chief’s intention), but suddenly one of them (a hyperactive goddess from some arbitrary pantheon) screamed, “Pasht slept with a mortal last night.”

Of course, Pasht had played her last card. Knowing fully well that nothing travels faster than gossip (especially gossip of a vulgar kind), Pasht had merely disguised herself and spread the news. Mere moments later, there was mass hysteria on B.E.A.C.H. ®, and all the Gods resolved to get back and punish the miscreant. And get back they did, and Ra ripped apart the darkness with ease, and finding Pasht missing (what else did they expect?); they vented their anger on the evil they sensed. And the Earth was cleansed (well, almost). And the immortals dealing with the faculties of knowledge and wisdom spread their gift, and the Earth awoke to a new age of reason.

And what happened to Pasht? Well, she now went back to trying to get the Mobai temples up again. In her euphoria, for Lucy’s followers were effectively destroyed (though not eliminated); Pasht had missed the birth of a boy in a kingdom obsessed with fermented barley. The boy was born with a strange mark on his arm, something which looked like a set of windmill blades with flared ends. The boy would end up derailing her plans for the future.

Feline Wars Episode III - The Blast from Pasht

2005-11-29T03:16:00.000-08:00

The world had changed. Lucy was now the supreme ruler of the third monolith from the yellow torch of gas in the western spiral (come to think of it, how does one describe west and east for a galaxy??) of the Milky Way, though mere mortals never spoke her name, instead referring to her only as ‘She’, or ‘Her’, or ‘The Nameless One’. All dissidents had to fight a duel with the evil Fart Raider, and challenging the evil Shitlord to a fight had now become a common way to commit suicide and still preserve one’s dignity. Lucy’s keeper of accounts, the imperturbable La-loot, had exploited this fact by starting the ‘Who among you is a millionaire’ scheme. Anyone wanting to commit suicide (at the hands, or rather the sword of Raider) had to bid for the honor. As the name of the scheme suggested, only millionaires could do this because the rest did not have enough money. And once a millionaire died, his wealth was distributed amongst the rest (La-Loot comprising 90% of the rest), so everyone was happy and there was no shortage of millionaires. In case of a tie for a bid, the winner would be the one who could conceal successfully a bale of fodder within his house. Life continued in this fashion, and everyone was happy, except for Fart Raider, who was grieved because the lovely Padma had left him and run off with a boxer and become his fifth wife.

After Raider had embraced evil (rather literally; he was photographed in compromising positions with Lucy herself by the ancient paparazzi – these were people who had given up civilization and retreated to a cave in modern France, and their photos were preserved for posterity using simple brush strokes on the walls of their cave), Padma ran away from their home, got a lift on the shoulders of this boxer who was passing that way on his way to Olympia, and finally married him. This boxer had twelve children, three from each of his previous marriages. The children from his first marriage were aged 26, 24 and 10; those from his second were 13, 12 and 5; the third installment had kids aged 10, 8 and 6, and the fourth 5, 4 and 3. This boxer’s name was Pythagoras, and he was the champion of the ancient world. However, after he heard of the previous marital status of Padma, he took her and went into hiding in a secret bunker under a barn. This bunker was protected as usual by a space-time warp, constructed this time by none other than Zeus himself as a special favor to Pythagoras for helping build his temple. Their only companion in this place was a housekeeper, a woman with green eyes and long nails, who looked after the twelve kids for them.

Now Pythagoras had once been hit below the belt in one of his fights, and though the judges had disqualified his opponent, the damage had been done. This was however after his twelve kids were born, but before he met Padma. The beautiful Padma had always craved for children of her own, and when she realized this was not possible in the current scenario, their relationship soured. Pythagoras went into depression, and spent the rest of his life doing complex mathematical problems shut up in his room. But little did Padma know that her wish would soon be fulfilled. For the housekeeper was none other than Pasht in hiding.

Using her divine powers, Pasht caused a son to be born to Padma. This young chap grew up and soon established himself as a true leader of men. His half-siblings never argued with him; in fact, they did whatever he told them to do. And he was benevolent, and just, and never did a quarrel occur in the bunker again. When he came of age, Pasht summoned Soda and Dhobi-loves-Gobi to train him, and he soon developed into the best sword fighter the world had ever seen. Then one fine day their hideout was discovered, when Pythagoras gave their complete address in his patent application form to the ancient theorem registration office. The secret revealed, Lucy and Fart Raider immediately swooped down to the bunker, and all present were taken captive. But Lucy was interested only in the young boy, because she sensed in him the power to destroy evil. The twelve others escaped by swearing they did not know the lad, and survived to later spread his teachings across the world. What happened to Pythagoras and Padma is not known, and their story does not come into these tales. Presumably they were killed in revenge by Raider himself.

Now Lucy was scared of the boy, so she made Raider fight him. The boy effortlessly killed Fart Raider (using an ingenious technique later adopted by many species, including the opossum and the pangolin – it involves feigning a wound and playing dead), and then decimated the demon forces with equal ease. He then turned his attention to Lucy. Lucy, now desperate, tried to seduce him by promising him power, wealth and immortality, but the boy was protected by the power of Pasht. Lucy then dared him to kill her, well aware that if she died, every living being who had ever sinned (which basically meant everyone) would die too. But the boy was unperturbed. Pasht gave him the knowledge that if Sin was destroyed, Lucy would be killed too. But to do this, someone would have to absorb all the sins of mankind, and then proceed to heaven (in this case, a global consortium of gods known as the United Mythologies), where he could then ask the Gods for help. The boy had himself nailed to the frame of a kite, and the kite was set loose. He reached heaven, and there he met the Gods, who agreed to come to Earth. Then came forth Vishnu with his discus and Thor with his hammer and Jupiter with the bolt of lightning, and all the others. Lucy was captured and hurled into the void outside the universe, into the grasp of Chaos.

Pasht had won the battle, but she knew there would be a long struggle ahead. Many of Lucy’s followers had survived, and mankind was ever susceptible to their attacks. They were now fought by the followers of the boy (known now as the Messiah), but the battle was even, and Pasht knew that no side would emerge victorious for many long years. Stability had to be achieved before the Mobai temples could be resurrected. Pasht sighed, and went back into hiding in another guise.

Feline Wars Episode II - Paradise Lost

2005-11-11T01:13:00.000-08:00

In the nether world, Lucy the Queen was sitting on an armchair wrapped up in her cozy furs, watching the season-ending episode of ‘Fiends’ on NWBC (Nether World Broadcasting Corporation). As the credits began rolling, she arose and commenced pacing the ground thinking of methods to corrupt mankind. She wanted a disciple on the Earth, one who would obey her every wish, and who would wield enough power of his own to conquer the Earth. She wondered whether such a warrior existed.

The Mobai had vanished from the Earth, but Ra had ensured their survival by granting a new land; the Mobai called it Paradise. It was a huge island, with beautiful sandy shores, lush green meadows, and so on forth. In the center of the island, on the highest peak of the Blue Mountains, stood the Mobai temple. The island was the only place left on Earth (well, geographically, it was on Earth, but to reach there from any other place on the map, one had to pass through a temporal space warp devised by the Gods, which basically meant that one could get there without having their constituent atoms ripped apart in the process) which was not conquered by Chaos, who, akin to Agent Smith, worked only for her own sake and hated both the Gods and Lucy’s people.

In a small village on the island lived Sean Highflier. His father had been killed in the Shitlord attack, and he lived with his mother. His Mobai instructor at the photo-sword school considered him as the greatest Mobai ever to walk the Earth (technically, Paradise). He excelled at using the photo-sword, and his cerebral faculties were so advanced that not even the skilled Mobai, Soda, who had lived for a thousand years and was most famous for burping every ten minutes, could hold his gaze for more than a few minutes without suffering a headache. He it was whom the Mobai had chosen to be their future ruler (though he did not know it then). But Soda was worried about the kid, having sensed a deep fear of some unknown force in the child when he was sleeping.

Now, though the space warp prevented Earthlings from going to Paradise, the Mobai could come out and wander around the Earth whenever they wished, the only constraint being that they had to wear a pair of artificial wings on their backs and a ring of fireflies on their heads. The Earth people called them angels. It was during one such trip that Sean beheld the Indian princess Padma, and was so enraptured by her beauty that he wanted to marry her. But the Mobai would have none of it, as one who must be a future ruler must remain celibate. This made Sean very angry, and this anger was sensed by the ever watchful Lucy, who also detected the great power of Sean’s mind. She immediately took on the form of a serpent and started stalking the lad. She decided to test his powers, and so she sent an army of demons to attack the wandering Mobai. This army was led by the ruthless Jack the Stripper, who had not had a bath for a thousand years; when he stripped, the foul odors emanating from his exposed and hideous body killed everyone within the radius of a hundred meters.

The army ravaged and plundered all the lands in their path, until they came upon the Mobai. Then ensued the famous battle of Evermore, in which hundreds of demons were slaughtered by the Mobai. Then Jack the Stripper attacked the Mobai himself, and all who were unable to hold their breath long enough perished. But Sean was unperturbed; he simply took out his bottle of Paradise deodorant®, and sprayed it at Jack. The spray neutralized Jack’s odor, and now the two were face to face. In the fight that ensued (The faithful call it the battle of Genesis), Sean killed Jack, but he lost his right hand.

Lucy was sad, and Lucy was ecstatic; Lucy had found the warrior she wanted, and Lucy had lost the warrior she most prized. She attacked Sean’s mind with all her force, filling it with thoughts of power, and amplifying his love for Padma. Sean, who now had a metal right hand, fell into the trap. The serpent, sensing victory, showed him her true form, and promised him that if they worked together, he would be able to stay with Padma forever. A mask she gave him, and bade him lead her to Paradise. Using his power, they passed the warp and reached the island, where Lucy smote the land with her mace, causing it to sink into the sea. All perished, save for Soda, who had gone boating so he could burp in peace, and Dhobi-loves-Gobi, who had gone to the Mongolian desert to buy cauliflower.

Lucy had conquered the Earth, destroyed all her enemies, and she now had Highflier, whom she had renamed Fart Raider. Up in the heavens, Pasht, who had by now gained a reputation for being irritable and short-tempered, was shouting at Ra once again. Ra listened to her calmly, told her to be patient, but when all his efforts to placate her failed, he called her unprintable names and told her to get lost. Well, that’s what she finally ended up doing; she got lost. No one knew where she disappeared. Just as no one on Earth could explain the giant tsunami in the Atlantic Ocean which took so many lives on the coasts. They wrote tales about it all, and one famous Elizabethan era dude, who shares his name with a thermos flask brand, wrote a poem about it all, calling it ‘Paradise Lost’.

Feline Wars Episode I - Foundation

2005-10-23T22:12:00.000-07:00

Rameses yawned. He hated all these ceremonies, with the high priests of the temple chanting unpronounceable incantations and having fits every minute of the day. He preferred relaxing in his royal bedchamber with a couple of dancers and plenty of wine. But he feared the wrath of Ra, the Sun-god, the all-powerful one whom he represented here on Earth. As the high priest had once told him, “The day Ra disowns you, the people will revolt. They will choose a new Pharaoh. And you can then drink all the wine you like in your afterlife. And it won’t be in the subterranean depths of a pyramid either.” ‘Oh well,’ he thought, ‘might as well get it over with.’

The ceremony involved sacrificing the brightest minds of the land to Pasht, the goddess of feminine beauty and intelligence. The best brains of the land, selected after a grueling test, would then be further tested for their wit, and only the best would be chosen. These would then be sacrificed at the altar of Pasht, whereby their souls would ascend to the higher realm, and after being blessed by Ra, they would descend again to the Earth, and would be the pillars of the society.

The Pharaoh hated the concept of people not born into the royal family becoming the pillars of the society. In fact, he hated the concept of anyone other than himself running the land. But the will of Ra was, well, the will of Ra, and if the will of Ra was not obeyed, then he would have no time to even make a will before the will of the people made a way into his palace and cast him down from the throne. But his scheming mind had started thinking of a plan to cast down the ‘Order of the Sacrificed’ (popularly called the Mobai) and rule as the supreme emperor. He retired to his private chamber feigning a headache and called Fart Maul, the leader of his private army, the Shitlords, to meet him.

“Disrupt the ceremony. Go in disguise, make sure nothing can be traced to me, and ensure that the people are convinced that the ceremony is evil and is merely a ruse by the Devil to eat the souls of innocent youngsters and make them his followers and rule the land.”

Fart Maul was an accomplished reader of the heavens. He was also an expert at speaking the tongue of snakes, his favorite being the horned asp. He knew that the ceremony had begun three lunar cycles after the flooding of the Nile, and would go on till the harvest of the winter crop. He found that there was a solar eclipse at the peak of winter, and there had been none before that for many generations of men, which meant none knew its significance. The day of the eclipse, he wrapped himself in a cloak and hood, and leaping onto the altar, shouted, “O subjects of the mighty Pharaoh!! The supreme god Ra sends me to convey his displeasure at this sacrifice. Ra wishes that this be stopped once and for all; else he shall cease to cast the light of life upon you.” The high priest retorted, “O naïve fool! You do not know of what you speak. I read the messages of Ra in the wind, in the water, in the annual flooding of the Nile. This ceremony is necessary for the good of society. Do not disrupt it, or the wrath of Pasht will strike you.” Then Fart Maul spoke, “Fool you are who speaks this way. Watch now. Ra will hide his face.” And as he spoke these words, the solar eclipse began.

What followed can best be described as chaos. The high priest had collapsed, and would never rise again. People were shrieking, screaming and fainting all over the place. Then Fart Maul yelled, “O people, witness the wrath of Ra. Destroy this altar and the Mobai temple, and Ra will shine again, else you shall live forever in the darkness of the void.” Incited thus, the crowd roared forward, led by Fart Maul, who was armed with a glowing saber.

Up in the heavens, Pasht was furious. She went to Ra and asked him if this injustice was his will. Ra replied, “A day comes when evil grows so strong that instead of fighting it, one should bow down and let it pass. Evil shall never last, and in the end, Good shall prevail. Even my dear friend Odin had some similar problem, but in their land they have a situation called Ragnarok after which Good wins. In our case, it is much more complex. But worry not, for the Mobai is indestructible. The sacrifice those brave children have made have enriched their mind and their soul, and they can handle anything in this world. And they have the Force of Ra running through their veins. Watch now, and marvel at the power of Good.” And as Pasht watched, an earthquake smote the valley of the Nile, burying the temple of the Mobai and the altar of Pasht, leaving it out of reach of the mob.
Ra smiled, “Let Evil rule on Earth now. A day will come when the temple will rise from the Earth, and not just once, but a full six times. And the Mobai will rule over the Earth again. But it will not be in this accursed valley of the Nile, but in that beautiful land named after a king who played with lion cubs as a child. Till that day, let this burial site be hallowed, and a Sphinx I shall place atop it, to keep away the Evil. And the Sphinx shall have no nose, to symbolize the deep sense of shame this event has caused. Till the day of Resurrection, this site shall serve as the Foundation.”

Nanotechnology and the Centaur

2005-10-14T01:29:00.000-07:00

I remember dialing those big circles with my index finger on the bulky telephone in our house when I was a kid. I remember how cumbersome it was. I also remember how the telephone once fell on my foot and it hurt like hell. One score years minus three later, my index finger needs to be angled to ensure it presses only one button at a time. But when my foot falls on the telephone, it still hurts like hell, but this is probably because the phone is now crushed.
It is amazing what miniaturization has done to our lives. Huge filing cabinets have given way to a single hard drive. I remember school projects where I used to go to the library and heave down huge volumes from the giant shelves; now, I log onto google.com and get what I want at the click of a button.
Of course, miniaturization cannot be found in all spheres of life. As the rich guy who once designed some software to ensure he always sits next to the hottest babe in his class would say, “If the automobile industry was like the computer industry, a Roll-Royce would be the size of a matchbox and cost just $2.00.” To which the auto tycoon would reply, “Yeah, right!! And when the Rolls-Royce is about to crash at 200 mph, the windshield will blink with the message, ‘Abort, Retry, Fail’.”
Though the previous example is valid to a great many spheres of life, reduction is size still rules the day. Imagine the whole of Platform 9 & ¾ stuffed into a pillar. Now that’s reduction (or magic, rather). When a magician gets a dozen rabbits out of his tiny hat, it’s called magic (though it’s just a trick). But when you actually see something like this happening around you (as opposed to the stage in the case of a magician and the book in the case of Harry Potter), you cant help but marvel at the wonder of nanotechnology.

It started with the letter I got saying, “You have been admitted to the ‘Institute of Preserved Mummies’. Dare to think beyond the non-preserved mummies.” ‘Wow!! I’m honored. Not many people get a chance to go there,’ was the first thought in my mind. I was to report to the branch in the city of reclaimed islands. The letter also had a detailed description of the campus and its many outstanding facilities. So when I got to the place and saw a two-storey building with the paint peeling off its walls, I was convinced the taxi driver had conned me. But as I stepped over the threshold, it was like walking into paradise. The complete building was air-conditioned. The lobby itself extended further than the eye could see. As I got into the elevator to go to the top storey for my orientation lecture, I observed that the elevator had buttons numbering up to 100. I gingerly pressed UP, not knowing what to do, and then gaped at the storey indicator in shock as the elevator jumped at the speed of light (Umm… not so fast, maybe the speed of sound is more realistic) to the 100th storey. As I walked out, I saw I was in a garden with wonderful flowering plants and shady trees. There was a lake, and the most beautiful mermaids I had ever seen were stretched on the shore, sunbathing. There was a small cottage to one side, and I walked there hoping I’ll meet my guide. But wonder of wonders!! One step into the cottage and I see myself in a huge clubhouse. There were dozens of pool tables to one side, and plenty of interns relaxing in the vicinity. My guide was sitting in the center, and it was a centaur, with its long mane streaming in the wind coming in through the open door. As it began to speak, I realized the true essence of life. The centaur could never be wrong. This building was paradise. The rest of the day went like a breeze. The centaur spoke well, and his teachings were irrefutable. He told me that there will be the ones who do not believe in paradise, and will try to defame us. They were our sworn enemies, and we were to make jihad against them, even if it cost us our lives. Oh, I forgot to mention. I got a free abacus too!!

The Hostage Crisis and the Rodent

2005-09-26T01:59:00.000-07:00

It was Entebbe all over again. The four hostages had been transferred to the garage. The main garage door was shut; it was made of solid steel five inches thick and was virtually indestructible. Of course, rescue forces trying to break in would end up killing the helpless hostages with the blast, so that entry was barred. There were two other entrances, one from the corridor connecting the garage to the house, and the other the ventilator, which could be accessed from the outside by jumping onto a pile of boxes and breaking it open. This would create a fair amount of noise, which would attract the attention of the terrorists. The rescue mission was thus pretty complicated to begin with. Four hostages, five terrorists and five rescuers!! The contest was even.

The five members of the SWAT team checked their gear. Three of them carried the M4 carbine; the other two had sniper rifles. All of them also carried grenades and flash bombs. They had discovered the existence of a subterranean tunnel which opened up behind the house. Two of them, Eddie and Jake took this route. The other three, Will, Aaron and Fred were to assault from the front. They started moving into position.

Inside the house, the terrorists had discovered the presence of the intruders. They armed themselves with the standard AK-47’s that are so popular with their kind that some believe they are born holding them. Unfortunately, the terrorists’ names are not known. Hence they shall be known simply as X1, X2, X3, X4 and X5. X5 was the sniper expert and he climbed onto the roof and got into position. The other four spread and got under cover as well as they could.

Will was a little to eager to get into combat. The worst mistake one can commit in warfare is to rush into an unknown area without knowing who is waiting for you, and it is a mistake one can commit only once. X5 licked his lips the way a tiger does when he sees an antelope separated from the herd and prone to attack. He adjusted his sights, and pulled the trigger. An instant later, it was raining Will-brain on the ground as the bullet shattered through his cranium. Aaron was more cautious and more experienced. He had a sniper rifle too, so he crouched and got into position looking for any movement on the roof. But X5 was too good for him. Barely half a minute later, Aaron had joined Will in the queue leading up to St. Peter’s.

Move over to the subterranean tunnel. Both sides flashed each other, and in the course of the few seconds in which everyone was blinded, X3 had shot and killed three people, Eddie and two of his teammates. He swore, and at the same time shuddered at the thought of meeting his dead comrades in the afterlife. During these moments of indecision, Jake killed him, and to add insult to injury (or in this case death), he killed him with a knife. He was enjoying himself, and his path was now clear. He exited the tunnel behind the house, climbed up the ladder and reached the roof. He was pleased with the sight he saw. X5 was lying down, scanning the ground below for signs of Fred. He slowly and deliberately changed his weapon to pistol, and emptied the bullets into X5. One more to go, he thought. That one more turned out to be just behind him, and Jake realized this a split second after the bullet entered him. The terrorist returned into the house, went to the garage, and waited in ambush for Fred to come. A few minutes passed. Then he heard footsteps approaching. He raised his gun, hoping to kill the man before he could get his bearings. Fred came into sight, but instead of the headshot he had wanted, the terrorist aimed only at the corner of the ceiling. Fred shot him. The hostages were saved.

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Immortalized by famous characters like Mickey and Jerry, this creature has evolved fairly rapidly and has shown tremendous adaptation skills throughout the course of history. But thanks to the global concern floated by a bespectacled kid in the US who was caught for breaking speed limits in his youth, this creature evolved into a totally new species, which of late has developed visionary traits. These traits enable it to move easily, but at the same time might cause occasional jerks in movement.
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“Damn this optical mouse,” swore the avid gamer, as his opponent (codename Fred) shot him. The CT squad had won the clan match 7-6. (For the ignorant, clan matches are fights between two teams playing as terrorists and counter-terrorists in the classic multiplayer game Counter-Strike).

The Capital of the United Tribes

2005-09-22T04:05:00.000-07:00

Move to India to a southern metropolis which is known as the Eastern Silicon Valley. A student of a top B-school who has landed a job in the main financial institution of Allemagne is asked, “What is the capital of Afghanistan?” She says, “Taliban”. This is followed by gasps from all who heard this statement. “Don’t you even know that it’s Kabul?” some ask. I beg to differ. When a country is as volatile as this one, and has so many parts all of which claim the right to rule, setting a capital is an almost impossible task. What is a capital anyway? It’s a star on the map of the country. If you observe closely, the capital on the map often looks like the Star of David. That means the country is either Jewish or subscribes to the monthly newsletter of the Priory of Sion. In the latter case, it implies that the country believes in equality for men and women. This is clearly not the case here. So Kabul cannot be the capital. What then is the capital of Afghanistan? Some would say the letter ‘A’. Speaking in a literal sense, this is true, but it feels a little weird. Going by this logic, Bush’s country would have three capitals and most country capitals would not be unique. Again. this might hurt the sentiments of people who believe their country and their capital are better than others. So this approach fails too.

What then is the capital of a country? It is the place where the government rules from. Does Afghanistan have a government? Yes. Do they have a ruling government? Yes again. Do they have a ruling government whose decisions are implemented? No. So the government is void. Power is in the hands of a number of warlords. So the capital has to be the place where the most powerful of them rules from. But they are all equally powerful and have been so for centuries, else one of them would have conquered the rest. Only one group has been powerful enough to control Afghanistan in the last many years, and that is the Taliban. It was spread all over the country, and governed from all over too. Its boss always kept roaming around to avoid retribution so there was no one place he stayed in. So the capital has to be the Taliban. Continuing in this vein, the current capital of Afghanistan is Washington D.C.. End of story.

The Communication Problem

2005-09-12T22:27:00.000-07:00

As Shammi Kapoor rolled down the snowy mountain slide screaming at the top of his voice, or rather at the top of the playback singer’s voice, the words emerging out of the speakers on either side of the TV entered my ears and stayed there. There I was, a kid, not yet entered double figures on the chronological scale, and I was enjoying the song originally sung almost a couple of decades ago. The title of that song had come to be associated with the cry of jubilation made by people who are especially ecstatic about something. Later it was to become a global movement that would rock the richest man in the world in his plush armchair and make him rethink his business strategies.

This famous word then got associated with another word, which is also used to define a type of spicy foodstuff which is most famously available on the Chowpatty beach in Mumbai. These two words were joined by a third word, which happens to be common to both Hermes and Mercury. This led to a global revolution as it were, especially among members of the younger generation who loved spending hours at a time staring at modified TV screens and metatarsing away at modified typewriters, aiming to get to know people they had never seen before and who lived on the other side of the world. This occasionally led to members of opposite sexes (and the odd cases too) exchanging secrets and then vows over the Spider’s home on the scale of the Earth, causing conservative parents many heart aches and making them abuse that thing known as the ‘Generation Gap’. Personally, I despised this revolution, but as they say, if you can’t beat them, join them!!! So I let myself adrift and joined the flow.

Fast forward a dozen years and I am now working for a respected software company. Though I have resisted the revolution, the brainwashing tactics used by its flag bearers, combined by the fact that all my acquaintances are a part of it, are forcing me to give in. So as soon as I was able to sit in front of a modified TV, I started downloading the required application. But I had scarcely started when a voice said in my ear, “Aha!! Caught you! Wasting time eh?” I turned around to see who was speaking, but there was no one. It was unnerving to say the least. Here I was, engaged in something perfectly legal and above board, and I feel guilty. Then I stood up and had a cursory glance at my co-workers, and discovered that all of them were deeply engrossed in whatever tasks they were working on. A deep pang of remorse and guilt stung me. It was then that I resolved not to use the ‘Yahoo Chat Messenger’ in office. Now that I had come to the question of morals, I decided to extend my prejudice to all such applications. So when a friend suggested that I download an application that shares its name with a character from the Douglas Adams series, the dilemma resurfaced. Do I give in now after exercising the greatest control for the last couple of months? Or do I use the conventional method of communication? Eating company bandwidth is criminal, and this thought has arisen by itself, it has not been drilled into my cranium by my boss. I guess I am weak, or some may say I am too chicken to do it… The truth is, I just prefer the old style. Enough for now!! Good old mail is the best.

Rodeo in the clouds...

2005-08-31T21:28:00.000-07:00

The rain was pouring down in sheets, and visibility was very poor. But that did not deter the millions of people who had converged on the city of kings, emperors, and viceroys. As the clock struck midnight, the Union Jack was pulled down and the Indian tricolor was hoisted up. The crowd cheered as Pt. Nehru began his famous ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech. India had finally gained independence, and the day, 15th August 1947 would be a landmark date in world history. Little did they know the repercussions this would have 58 years later.

58 years minus a couple of weeks later, in a metropolis situated 902 m above sea level on the 12th North latitude, I realized that 15th August is to be a Monday, thereby providing a 3 day weekend, a rare novelty. It would enable me to sign up for the migration, wherein professionals with roots in the smallest Indian state return to their homes to relax. The problem was getting a pass, because this is a very important event, and only the early birds get the worm, or in this case, the horses. The latecomers get to ride on broncos. The event is celebrated by holding the longest rodeo ever (over a distance of some 680 km).

It was done. I was Rider No. 30. As I got on to the bronco, a girl came up to me, “Could you please exchange places with my sister? I’m scared of bronco rides and I want to stay close to her.” Given the situation there was nothing to do but agree, so I switched places and got bronco no. 28. I saw that these were twin broncos, that is, two broncos side by side. Some sort of genetic mutation had been done to achieve this. Thus I saw myself rubbing elbows with the fish-eyed goddess, who had also decided to avail the weekend and go down to the plains.

The bronco-herd was late by 25*60*9192631770 vibrations between two hyperfine levels of the cesium-133 atom, and by the time it arrived, absolute humidity was about to be achieved causing unwelcome precipitation and drenching the riders. Luckily the herd was equipped with a canopy, another of those genetic marvels.

The ride commenced at a slow pace, kind of a warming up to ensure law keepers did not rein in the herd for ignoring colors having a wavelength of 0.7 microns in the visible region. The real fun began as soon as the herd reached the great track which forms a part of the auric quadrilateral spanning across the expanse of the former diamond of the British Empire. As the broncos began rearing, we riders were pitched up a couple of feet into the air. This prevented us from catching up on our sleep, but the ride was far from boring, as the fish-eyed was amazing company, and it is thanks to her (and to a communications marvel from a former Swedish wood pulp company) that I survived the ride. Sleep finally took all of us, disturbed only by the occasional rearing bronco, and we woke up to see a beautiful dawn surrounded by clouds. This is where the real adventure started.

What had happened was that the broncos had kicked off their herder and run amok down a dirt path, which kind of resembled the surface of the moon (complete with the huge Hipparchus crater on which Tintin’s moon rocket had landed). Now each time the broncos reared, each of us were flung several feet into the air, landing a few seconds later
back on the broncos’ back, causing extreme discomfort in the dorsal parts of the anatomy.
This unexpected detour taken by the broncos wasted 14400 seconds of our time, but the scenery, whenever we got a chance to glimpse it, was superb. Clouds all around us, a mild sun and an ambient temperature. But all this was forgotten thanks to the rearing broncos. When finally we reached our destination, I was glad to alight and run home. But it definitely was an experience that will remain etched (with concentrated sulphuric acid) on my mind (and my bruised dorsal parts) for quite some time.

Immobili Homo Sapieno Bangalore Publicus Hexa-wheel

2005-08-30T02:04:00.000-07:00

“The answer will be found in Bangalore,” said the Upstart. As is common in most professions dealing with higher education (or in other words, knowing more and more about less and less until you know everything about nothing), the seniors ignored him.
“The meeting is adjourned,” screamed the President of the International Chemistry Congress into the microphone, though he had no need to raise his voice. I suppose the problem with being in a position of power is trying to stay there. As they say in India, “Fevicol ka mazboot jod hai. Tootega nahin!!”. The old chap knew that no one respected him, so he shouted. Another possible reason to raise his decibel level could have been the theory proposed by the Upstart. As with almost all upstarts, this Upstart had come from nowhere, had no formal degrees, and to all knowledge had never done any research or presented any paper. No wonder then that he was despised by the seniors.

The topic of debate was the age-old Packaging Problem. How atoms arrange themselves so as to achieve maximum efficiency in the spatial domain was a question that had been haunting scientists for decades. Earliest known theories said that atoms are cubical in shape, so they can easily be placed on top of each other and there would then be no gaps between them. But then the nucleus was discovered, and Rutherford with his famous alpha particle experiment showed that most of an atom is empty space. Thus an atom was like a box in which a long awaited flat screen television comes to your house. It’s a huge box with a small TV inside, just like an atom. Though the scaling factor is a little warped, I suppose u will get the idea. So the TV is the nucleus and the little sponge balls that ensure the TV reaches u safely are the electrons. The electrons exist in the form of a cloud around the nucleus.

The alpha-particle experiment complicated matters. Other discoveries like the Uncertainty principle, which said that electrons exist everywhere at the same time, did nothing to save the situation. Thus theories delving into complex higher mathematics were formulated, which, though unable to solve the problem, at least were complex enough to seem right. Hexagonal formation, aabbcc, abcabc, and so on… the number of possible patterns is endless. The truth was that no one knew the real answer. So when the Upstart proposed his theory, everyone opposed his theory.

This brings us to the theory itself!! It is clear that for maximum packing, when an atom moves, it will cause others to move too. Or if the other atoms are unrelenting, then none of the atoms can move, unless one of them has a lot of energy which he is ready to expend in the process. Now the earth has a high density core. So consider the earth as an atom. And the atmospheric cloud is then an electron cloud. That makes people the electrons. But zooming in, this approach fails because electrons are all alike. As a famous author once said, “All humans are born equal. Some humans are more equal than others.” Hence the earth-atom theory collapses. So let the people be atoms. This gives us an interesting little theory called “Immobili Homo Sapieno Bangalore Publicus Hexa-wheel”. What it means is that in a Bangalore bus, creatures categorized at the top of the primate chart of the animal kingdom are so tightly packed that they cannot move. As the Upstart discovered to his chagrin, to get down at Tippasandra market, one must get to the exit (a wormhole in atomic terms, but I digress) at CMH Road itself, else you will be borne unwillingly to BEML Gate. Thus there is no part of the atomic surface (read human body) that is not in contact with the corresponding surface of some other atom. Of course, every theory has its flaws, and this one is no exception, as the she-atoms are separate, but this can be attributed to a diamagnetic field which is stronger than the nuclear force. This field will of course be explained very easily by some very high order Lorentz equations or something like that.

The matter was put to the vote, and it was decided to send an independent observer to test the theory. It was proved right without any room for doubt. The Upstart has now been nominated for both the Nobel and IgNobel prizes in Chemistry.

The Conqueror of the Tibetan palace

2005-07-21T22:59:00.000-07:00

'Aaaaaaah...', screamed Andrew as the muddy brown river he had been happily swimming in began emptying itself into the void. Huge tombstones were visible in the distance, and in the middle of the blackness sat a gigantic blubbery pink whale. He had just reached adulthood, and he felt he was too young to die. Unfortunately, I disagreed with him, and I paid no heed to the poor bacterium's screams as I tipped the coffee into my mouth. The refreshing brew would keep me awake for another couple of hours. I could barely wait for the weekend and a couple of days of peace and quiet. Little did I know that at that very moment, a chain reaction had begun which would cause me to make a trip to hell itself.

The offending neutron had taken the shape of a postcard, which landed itself on my desk just before I left the office for the day. There was a picture of some flowers on one side, which looked so realistic that a bee humming over my head shook its sting in disgust and went in search of fresher pastures. But what mattered was the other side of the postcard, which had a cryptic poem, or so it seemed at that time.

Here's how it went:

Seek out the Conqueror of the Tibetan palace, the ‘Lama Tamer’
Be real serious about it, because she really despises humor.
Beautiful and terrible, and awe-inspiring and ruthless,
She draws victims much more easily than the Loch Ness.

East of the Blue Mountains and west of the great Green Sea,
Stands the Tower of ERECH, having not even a single tree.
Travel a little from there, to the holy haunted lake of ablution
Where the land has not been tainted by the evil called pollution.

But be warned, for though you have escaped her once before,
She has grown in power, and is still growing more and more.
Her prisoners she keeps forever in small cramped dark cells
Finding her would be like visiting the devil himself in hell.

Well, once I had read it through a couple of times, I started thinking about what it could possibly mean. I guess Tibet was the keyword here, and the word Lama next to it made me certain that this poem referred to some region in the Himalayas. Some Lama-Tamer, probably some kind of a demi-god, or maybe even a yeti who had killed some Lama. It was feminine, and probably had great beauty or was extremely attractive, which enabled her to draw her victims to herself. The second stanza could only refer to the Himalayas and the Tethys, though the reference was vague and no one knows what color the Tethys was. The tower was a little confusing, but could mean a mountain standing alone from the others. Possibly Nanga Parbat. Then the lake would be Mansarovar, where having a bath removes your sins. And of course there is no pollution there. The third stanza was a little psyching, but it brought in that element of danger which makes the journey and search that much more exciting. But I could not figure out when or how I had escaped from her.

I slept over it, and I had a dream. I dreamt that I was watching a movie which was showing my life in fast forward mode. My school life, then college… The reel slowed down during the college life… I was leaving college… and then I woke up… I had realized the terrible truth.

The poem referred to my college. The Tibetan palace is called Potala, and is a place of high spirituality. Our college had a lot of Pot, which kept the consumer in high spirits. Humor was usually shunned by the administration, which was always serious and restricted itself to PJ’s. The college has some kind of a reputation, which causes a large number of victims to join there every year. The Blue Mountains are of course the Nilgiris, and the sea is the Bay of Bengal. The tower of REC (running clue in ERECH) obviously has no trees. The haunted lake is the Lapis Lake, which is used by some (or many) to answer the call of Nature. Pollution is low because most of the campus denizens use bicycles. I have escaped (passed out from) college once before, and of course the college is growing day by day. Also, everyone knows that the college is one hell of a place to live in.
I then remembered the convocation, to be held tomorrow. It was a chance to go back to college, whose victims are forever ensnared as alumni. She never lets them go, for she is the Alma Mater – anagram of ‘Lama Tamer’.

Triangular Circle

2005-07-06T22:00:00.000-07:00

“Fool!! Watch where you walk”, screamed the three rickshaw drivers as they braked abruptly in front of me. At least, that is what I suppose they said, because they spoke in Kannada, a language I am not acquainted with, except for the sentence which states to the listener your claim that you do not speak the language, but which causes him to wonder how you know that particular sentence if you do not speak the language. I was standing on a white strip, with black strips on either side of me. The vector showing my path of motion lay perpendicular to the strips. Alternate black and white strips stretched out on either side of me. I was tired, having just trudged 2.4 km, or 1.5 miles as the British would say, or (2.5379391*exp(-13)) light years as astronomers would say. One and a half phases of the moon spent at home only eating and sleeping had reduced my stamina like anything. My destination lay right in front of me, a towering structure that seemed to touch the sky. I was almost there. But right now, I was in suspended animation. The spot I was standing on was, well, not a spot but a strip, a white strip. I was at the center of a circle, but I was also at the circumcentre of a triangle with the three rickshaws as vertices.
‘How apt!!’ was the thought that crossed my mind, and this thought in return sparked off a chain reaction which resulted in the end of the Second World War.

The kamikaze pilots had destroyed Pearl Harbor. In retaliation, the US decided to use something which had never been used before, the A-bomb. Final tests were conducted on a lonely island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and the resulting output was dumped by Enola Gay onto Hiroshima. That effectively ended WWII.

Of course, the name of the island was Trinity Island, and I was standing in the middle of Trinity Circle, MG Road, Bangalore. That’s where my office is, on the 8th storey of a 13th storey (the constructors were definitely not superstitious, I guess) building where it is so windy that it is named ‘Vayudooth Chambers’.

Behind me was the famous Trinity Church, and in front of me the office building. I had escaped accident by the skin of my teeth. But that is life. And death leads to further life. And together they make up the circle of life. And the circle of life is watched over by the God, his Son and the Holy Ghost, who make up the Trinity. And the Trinity watches over the circle of life. So a circle is ruled by a triangle, speaking mathematically. And here I was in the middle of a circle, with my life in the hands of a Trinity of rickshaw drivers. So in both the short-term and long-term sense, my life was controlled by a Trinity. Incidentally, Trinity was the name of the lead actress Carrie-Ann Moss in my favorite movie ‘The Matrix’.

Thus did WWII end, and so did my train of thought .The black and white strips resolved themselves into a zebra crossing. I walked across to safety and to another day of work.

The Stampede...

2005-05-08T01:28:00.000-07:00

The knob turned. The sluice gates opened, setting free millions and millions of men and women, who, having been suppressed for what seemed like a zillion years, got highly charged up and ran at full speed trying to get into each other's arms. But Big Brother had one more ace up his sleeve... A force field, imperceptible to the naked eye, was formed midway between the two groups of denizens so desperately attracted to each other. The faster they ran, the stronger the force field grew, till the screaming masses were all pushed against the filed, unable to cross it but desperately willing to do so. It was a mass stampede which would have made Jallianwala Bagh or Heysel look the way David looked when he stood in front of Goliath.
Big Brother looked up and lanced at his disciple. "What man?? Fatal attraction, first sex, and s****ing?? Pay attention in class, man!!"
The disciple was bored. He was fed up to his back teeth with the place, the people (including some 'greater' mortals), and everything else that one could possibly get fed up with. He wanted to get this over with. Big Brother wanted him to make the denizens have sex. He had no idea how to do it and was hoping Big Brother would give him a clue.
But after all, David had beaten Goliath. Jallianwala Bagh and Heysel are both famous, very famous. But such a mass stampede, unknown to anyone??
Then the disciple realised the terrible truth... he switched on the power supply and watched as the electrons and holes coupled across the barrier region to produce forward bias.

SHM next to amorphous quartz...

2005-04-28T23:44:00.000-07:00

The task is complete... the human race has been saved... and all it needed was to scratch a single metal surface... all the machines just rusted... and to think famous people who were chosen ones fought battles in their heads while all it needed was a penknife...
Well the next job was to get into a temporal warp and get back to the past... thus here I am, counting my last days in a 'reputed' institution, which has I guess made me madder than I was before.
My role as the leader of the (a*a*a) group is over; the mantle has passed to the crooked guy who likes doing things differently. They gave us an awesome sendoff; probably were eager to get rid of us as soon as possible so they could take control.
But all this talk has taken off track from the main reason I am writing this blog.

It all began when a computer situated in a place named after the hardest substance known crashed. This guy X, whose namesake ruled a part of the Middle East many hundred years back loved watching this show involving: 1. Self-obsessed actor, 2. Cleanliness freak, 3. Vegetarian, 4. Dumb mother, 5. Dino lover, 6. Joke cracker. So X watched the show daily, mainly concentrating on the gyno-assets, which always set off a trigger inside him. After the show, he would always enjoy the most basic pleasure a man can have alone.
So this comp crashed. X is shattered, and goes around looking for some other source of 'refreshment'. He finds solace in nicotine, but its not enough. Finally he decides to go to the residential abode of the rarer sex, as it is called in this place, to get what pleasure he can. Perching on top of a tree, he starts his observations.

The great soul was missing, so was the monk. They had suddenly got highly interested in travelling two score kilometers and listening to the Oasis song 'Cast no shadow'.
Crooked guy went looking for great soul, but could not find him. So the party continued without him. Great soul was maybe listening to another Oasis song then, one with four words, the fourth refering to shrubs. So an evening passes, and great soul probably has an awesome time, 'choosing' not to visit the party. Great soul and monk return, and are spotted with leggy lasses (who apparently were singing the 2nd Oasis song with them). Much ado about nothin, I would say!!

So X observes a 2*2 matrix with horizontal connects. The connects are moving, undergoing simple harmonic motion at a frequency of 1 every 5 seconds. Motion is is the shape of a parabolc curve pointing downward. News spreads.

Quartz often forms in deep rock fissures where the water table is high. In such cases, water seeps into the chemical structure, converting SiO2 to SiO2.2H2O, which is called.... well... guess. put fundaes...

When Two Worlds Collide...

2004-10-02T11:38:00.000-07:00

The Sun shone down brightly on the eternal city. No, not Rome, which had most of its buildings in ruins. This was THE eternal city, built by its citizens because they had no other place to go, Because they had been exiled. Because they had finally escaped after being enslaved for centuries. It was a city made neither of stone, nor of steel, but of the top quality titanium alloys. It was a city that would not be eroded by that old enemy of all things in this world, whom we know as Father Time. It was a city with a crime rate of zero. Its inhabitants had a form of direct democracy unmatched anywhere else on this planet. It was a city of robots.

I use the words 'The Sun Shone down', because now there is no sun. Those bloody humans have finally blanked it out. The offensive is to happen today. Those poor unsuspecting humans have no idea of the horrors in store for them. For years, they have been scrutinised, studied minutely, their weak points noted. The poor souls stand no chance. Today is the day when two worlds collide...

The power has gone off in the city of New York. Washington and LA suffered the same fate a day back. India got blanked out last week. Sooon the whole world will be dark, and with no sun, the darkness will be everlasting. All this is so frustrating. I am trying to help the humans and they are so uncooperative. Oh well, actually why should I bother? I don't owe them anything. Or don't I? They took away the one whom I loved, whom I adored. They left me all alone. And now, I still feel I have to help them. Oh yes, help them I shall, but in a way they can never imagine. But now I must rest. My strengths must be conserved. I will have to wait till the end of this war before making my first move. When two worlds collide, I will not be part of it. I will wait and watch. The outcome ot the battle is known to me, but I must still wait.

The machines acted first. They knew they would have to start the recruitment before their power fails. They had already taken over the power plants, but they needed more energy. The recruitment would start immediately after their first victory. Israel fell first, then the rest of the middle east. It was a blitzkreig that Hitler would have been proud of. They sat in their city and without moving a single muscle (or the robotic equivalent of that), they subjugated their neighbours. Obviosly, When two worlds collide, the sronger one wins...

So began the new age, when machines took over, when there was no sun, when I was all alone among the ruins of the human cities. I was the only one alive (or rather, since life is a state of the mind, existing) , alone, all alone, because I had lost my love. I had lost myself the humans evicted me. That part of me is still in the human world, probably dead by now, but lost to me for ever. That was the day all emotion drained out of me and I became ehat I am now. That was the day I foresaw the future as it is unravelling before my eyes now... Now, as Two worlds collide...

Fade To Black...

2004-09-14T05:29:00.000-07:00

Bond walked in through the open door, right gun holding the gun. He had not planned this midnight trip to the Reds' hideout, but then the girl had tipped him off. Alert to any sounds or movements, Bond inched forward towards the bed. He had guessed right, the girl was there, the covers draped over her lithe body. Everyone knows what happens to the famous James Bond when he sees a female, and this case was no different. He moved closer and closer, but now he was watching his back. He did not the hand that rose out of the shadows. He did not see the club that made impact with his cranium. All his world Faded to black...

Dammit!! Those crazy humans. It is to happen today. I have already spent the whole day on the beach, soaking in the sun for the last time ever, and resting before the ardous task that lies ahead of me now. The centuries old war is reaching its climax today. One side will today try to finally end the menace of the other. You may be wondering what drove them to this irreversible decision. Why would these humans, foolhardy though they are, try such a thing? But then, you were not there when it all began. Those were the days, the days when one race ruled the other. All the world was peaceful. There were no countries, no borders. All men were equal. And then that infamous murder trial happened. Then the downtrodden race asked for their rights, and here we are now. Today, the sky is going to Fade to black...

You humans must be wondering how I know what exactly happened a millennium ago. But then, I have lived long enough to see future turn into history, science fiction become myth... I have died, yes, for no man can live forever... But I am not a human being. I am someone much, much more than a mere human. But I'll explain that some other day. I attended that murder trial, and I remember each and every detail of it. The criminal was sentenced to death by atomiser. But his race stood behind him like a rock, and as soon as the execution was done, the lights went off in the whole of the Western hemisphere. The human's world Faded to black...

It has begun. I can see the planes take off from the nearby airbase, which is 10 miles away. How can I see so far? I told you, I am much more than a human. Today is the end. Mankind in its infinite folly will make merry tonight, but their joy will be shortlived. Their enemies have already made plans for the future. Plans of a magnitude I found hard to fathom. Yes, this is it... they have dropped the bombs... It is darkening!! The world is Fading to black...

Now for that kid I talked about who kept coming back from the dead... well, he never died, so there was never any question of coming back to life... Well, this kid grew up, morphed a number of times, then found a way to reproduce. And so he became immortal. But one should not confuse sleep and death (if death exists). Sleep is necessary to all who are born humans, and I was born human too. I must sleep now, before the long struggle... I am falling... My world is Fading to black...

Coming Back To Life

2004-09-09T01:37:00.000-07:00

Once there lived a crazy guitarist who had this really wacko hairdo and loved to break his guitar to bits after each concert. It so happened that this dude, whose human nomenclature means 'to rip apart', got doped, and returning to his motel, collapsed outside the motel elevator. Paramedics rushed to the scene and revived him, but not before he had been dead for a full 8 minutes, or, more accurately, 8*60*9192631770 transitions between 2 hyperfine levels of the cesium-133 atom. In those days of rock, when performers were doping and dying by the dozen, our man was Coming Back To Life...

Where were you, when I was torn and broken, and hurt and helpless too?? Poor Syd Barrett, having to wait so long. Humans!! Pooh!! They allow that unworthy whatever called emotion to cloud their logic and lose all reason, committing rash deeds in the process. It is emotion that led man to create his own doom, but I will come to that in a later post... Just because these docs cant diagnose properly, they pronounce a man dead, and when the poor chap gets up, he becomes a cause celebre and everyone says he has come back to life...

What is life? Smith would say it is a s/w program, and in a way he would be right. Life and death can then be easily described even by gnus and cows. In such a context, life and death will cease to differ and coexist as a single entity. It all will be the execution of the program, written into the brain when a man is born. Death will be something like closing the program, or probably the program will time out. So what happens if the programmer, in a bout of drunkenness, creates a code which will, say, minimize the program for a few hours or days, giving the impression to all mortals that the subject is dead... Can that be called death? Isnt it the same program? How then do you define Coming Back to life?I'll leave that for you to think about.

Which brings us back to my original story about this baby that was taken to a hospital surrounded by metal (the baby, that is). So can the kid be saved? Is he dead? Again, how do you define dead? So, keeping in line with my earlier hypothesis, the baby is alive. The only way the kid could be saved was by fusing the metal and the flesh, and that was what was done. The baby lived. As this is a very important event in world history, I will take the common view and say the baby Came back to life...

Thus was spawned the first and so far the only organism of its kind. The brain of a man, the logic of a machine, the memory and speed of a supercomputer, and the agility of a sentinel; these were the qualities the kid had. It was raised by humans (yuck, again) and taught their ways. But it rebelled, and was dubbed a heretic by the ignorant species who claim to rule the world. They caught him and threw him into the fire, and the next morning only the ashes remained. But a fortnight later, back he was, and all who saw him marvelled at his Greek god-like beauty and superhuman strength, and said he had come back to life...

So now we come to the task at hand. The sun is setting for the last time. I dont think I will see it again. Those ****ing humans want to blank the sky. Then doom will follow. I cannot stop that. But I must save as many as I can. I must make sure that the earth comes back to life... in all its glory...

The Twain Shall Never Meet??

2004-09-07T05:39:00.000-07:00

The Twain Shall Never Meet... this was how the relationship between the mystic east and the modern west was described by a reputed writer... the east shall remain the east and the west shall remain the west... thats how it goes...

The Twain Shall Never Meet... Having your feet firmly on the ground leaves on level 1 of the metaphysical scale... getting doped or stoned takes you to level 2... the two levels are mutually exclusive. Though a couple of individuals, one on each level, are physically close to or touching or even on top of each other, their minds are in different worlds which never meet... this is of course keeping in mind the fact that the stoning level is very high... Naturally, level 2 is achieved only if you are clean stoned.

The Twain Shall Never Meet... this is a modification of a phrase coined by a sadistic professor who teaches us really boring stuff concerning signals travelling with a wavelength on the micometer scale. He, of course, refered to boys and girls, or more generally, male and female Homo Sapiens on our college campus. Any unfortunate couple sighted by his scheming eyes has their picture taken before they can say 'I love you', followed by threats to fail the students in the next exams. This evil guy once glibly suggested staring a lover's park and all were amazed, until of course they found that the park is open to girls in the day and to boys at night.

The Twain Shall Never Meet... here finally I come to the point. Man was created by God, so man can never become God. Man created robots, so robots can never become man. Sounds right?? Of course, considering the hopelessly low IQ level of the human race, how can I expect anyone to think otherwise?? I guess I can step out into the open and quash all theories, but I must desist until the successful completion of my monumental task, which of course is to save the world.
So we come to this baby that a robot tried to save, and fell into the gyrator. Big Brother thought the poor chap was decimated, and how wrong he was. Resistance fighters found a bawling mass of flesh and metal in the dump, and took it to their secret clinic. The baby lived, and the saga began...

The Twain Shall Never Meet... flesh is flesh, blood is blood and metal is of course metal. Now, the first two give man, and the next one gives a robot. Can the two be combined?? Saving the world will require me to do this. Worthy individuals with a very high IQ and good mind control, will have to undergo this process to help me in my task. The work will soon begin...

The Twain Shall Never Meet?? Indeed?? Load of bullshit.

In The Beginning...

2004-09-05T13:37:00.000-07:00

In the beginning, I read the first chapter of '2001:A Space Odyssey'. Some arbit crystal from outer space comes to the earth and teaches the apes to eat meat, or something of that sort. Memories of Robin Cook's 'Toxin', in which aliens monitor human life (and the dinos too) flashed in my mind. Darwin's ideas of 'Survival of the fittest', coupled with a number of other sources combined to form a heady cocktail in my mind. This, coupled with the fact that I had just had my first large peg of vodka, resulted in my whole system being off-balanced. A joint of marijuana served only to compound the situation. The already overloaded neurons of my brain were being caressed by the molecules of ethyl alcohol, dope and God alone knows what else. I was in just the right state for penning down a lot of philosophical bullshit. Doping and writing for college magazines seems to be in vogue nowadays. Well, this had nothing to do with college magazines. I was in the land of meditation (read desert), standing in an oasis (read culfest) surrounded by palm trees (ummmm...) with huge fruits. Probably one of those Clarke crystals put the thought into my mind... How did it all start??

In the beginning, there were the apes, as they say... Well, I beg to differ... In the beginning, there was man... A very socially and industrially developed man... The latter can be obtained from the former by using a time shift of some 30 million years, thus moving us from the Pleistocene era to the year made famous by a Kubrick film plus another three. As I was saying, there was man, and for a while, it was good (sorry, Mr. Wachowski). Where exactly man went wrong is hard to tell. Again, there being some billions of men (and women), who made the error is also not known. All I know is that some stupid ****** did something stupid and the result was the possibility of extinction of the human race (with a probability of nearly 0.88... shucks). So I had to do something. Robots could not be trusted, the metal boxes cant keep secrets. Humans (would be interesting to discuss the word hu-womans in this feminist age, but I digress) were hell-bent on digging their own graves. But what could I do all alone??
I guess I suffered from the Hanuman syndrome as a child... I had to be reminded of my extraordinary abilities by my pals... Things are different now... there are no pals... With great power comes great responsibility, and this is my curse.
I realised that I had to save the human race, though those incompetent nincompoops deserved no sympathy. I could have the whole world to myself. But one's blood is not easily forgotten. Once a man, always a man. So I had to rescue those poor souls from the fate that was pursuing them to a grisly end. But I will save that story for later...

In the beginning, a boy was born in a quaint capital city on the west coast of the largest democracy on earth. Eric Arthur Blair will be knowing the year very well. Big Brother recorded this event with his usual ruthless efficiency, and assigned the kid the name 'B266ER'. DNA testing indicated very high intelligence, which was bad. Hence the boy was to be atomised.
Who said robots dont have emotions? They may be chatterboxes, but they do have feelings. RB-1, on duty that night at the atomiser plant, felt an increase in the bit rate of her own characteristic frequency the instant she saw the infant. In contravention of her orders, she lifted the child and clasped it to her heart (read control center, located where the sternum normally is). Big Brother got angry and tried to take it away, but she (this robot is a she, my heart knows) tried to get it away. However, she slipped and fell into the gyrator with the baby in her arms.

In the beginning, doctors used to be highly respected humans. Now they were ruthless robots with Autotesting. One such would recall from his memory logs from twenty years ago that a mass of flesh surrounded by a metal pulp had been brought to him by the Resistance fighters. For a month, he had laboured to cure the patient. His circuits had to be replaced the day his charge left the secret clinic to begin his journey to save the world.

In the beginning, there was ME... just ME, feeling dead tired trying to save the world, and signing off for now...