Carnivores

It is an ancient land. Rules are quite simple - The strong wins and the weak dies a.k.a "Survival if the fittest". There is competition among the hungry carnivores. Competition over meager ounces flesh available across the oasis of Kalahari. The land where the sun throws fire over scorched sands while the carnivores make run towards the puny rabbit. The long and tiring run beats drums in the carnivores ears. There are parallel tracks of foot-beats pounding causing the desert to sweat dust in the wake of the running creatures.

The carnivores' eyes are yellow with a fathomless slit of a pupil. A millionth seconds glance shows flashes of anxiety, greed, a life's purpose to run faster even while the blisters break to bleed new drops of blood that quietly dissipate into nothingness drawing nobody's attention. They run with mouth's open and their teeth sharp biting the dusty air.

There are others running around. There is no sense to sight a glance at others, nothing theatrical there, its the most primitive of games in the barren fields. One of the carnivores shall feed on the flesh while others shall watch and gnarl. One shall wear the crown of victory and slumber in satisfaction while others shall wail and curse. So the carnivores run, ready to pounce on the flesh or anything else that may come in their way.

The flight of the carnivores is no merry time for friends or family. Its the time in the wild - the rule of ruthlessness, the kingdom of competition. May friends be, or family, in the run - the transcendence is only to raw primitiveness.

Monday, bloody monday

Colleague: We will solve the problem using Technique 1.
Me: Well, technique 1 is good but it will add a lot of overhead to our system apart from making it tough for the users to use the site. I think Technique 2 would be.....
Colleague: No, no, no, we'll use technique 1. Tu dimaag mat laga.

[A few days later]

Colleague: Im running into problems with technique 1.
Me: I knew this would happen. The reason behind this is blah blah. A solution could be blah blah. But if we use technique 2, we have a ready-made code available for.....
Colleague: No, no, no. Tu samajha nahi. Technique 1 mein user control kaha se aaya?
Me: Im talking about Technique 2 sir. In this we could...
Colleague: Zara samjha kar dada. Yeh dekh, blah blah
Me: Yes sir I completely understand your point. But I think we are overlooking one point here. Please let me explain this completely. I just want you to look at.....
Colleague: No, no, no, no. You don't understand. Hum technique 1 user karenge. Tu jyada dimaag mat laga.

[A few days later]

Colleague: Are yaar system bahut complicated ho raha hain.
Me: [Silence]

[A few days later]

Manager: So how did we decide to solve the problem gentleman?
Colleague: We will use blah blah. We will use technique 2 and blah blah. The user will have to logout and login each time they have to see a new entry but that will make their lives more easy. And blah blah.
Manager: I don't like that idea
Colleague: This is the ONLY way. We can ONLY use Technique 1. There is NO other way.
Manager: But I don't like that idea and neither will the users. Can't we come up with a new idea?
Me: Well, there is another technique we thought of. If we use Technique 2 instead of Technique 1, we can.....
Colleague: No, no, no, no. I will give you a new solution. This will solve all your problem. This is called "Technique 2". This is MY NEW SOLUTION actually. With this blah blah.
Manager: Yea, this is definitely a better idea. Go ahead with this.

[Manager leaves]

Colleague: Tu samjha?? Technique 1 kaam nahin karega. MERA idea hai hum Technique 2 use kare. Isse kaam bhi kam rahega aur users log bhi khush rahenge. Tu samjha ki mein samjhau??
Me:

Schemers

There are two kinds of people: Schemers and fools. Schemers are the ones who think they have brains as big as Queen Latifa's ass and they use it to manipulate others and steal their success.
Schemers are the ones who think they are 'smart-ass' enough to make a profit out of nothing.

They're the ones who think of something, say something else, add a subliminal meaning to whatever they said and conclude a conversation with something completely different. At the end of the day they force happiness upon themselves by replacing the meaning of cunningness with 'being smart', replacing the meaning of cheating with 'talking' and replacing loser with 'over experienced'.

Fools can again be categorized into two: Ones who don't understand schemers, ones who understand them but don't do anything. The latter are the bigger fools.

A nice saturday morning

So I woke up to the morning bliss this morning. I sometimes wonder what's really a 'good morning'. A good morning for me is when I wake up without any hurry to go to the office. I have enough time to relish the dream I was having when I had to wake up to take a leak. Come back from the restroom and go back to bed even when im not feeling very sleepy. But just enjoy how good it feels to have that extra hour of sleep.

This morning I woke up to a dream of Erie. My first home in US. I loved that place. Its just the kind of place I like. Sober, No life, everything moves slow, you need to wait for a while to see a guy walking down the street. That's the kind of place that grows on me. I get all the time I want to reflect on my life. Erie was one of those places where I used to wake up look outside the window at the light flurry of snow, feeling the chill and I actually thought 'this is something i'll miss later on'.

Most of the time in our lives we start missing something that we never knew we were going to miss. But Erie was unlike that. Now this first saturday of December 2009, I had that feeling again. Life's good.

The web and the evil microsoft spider

Microsoft is being such a spoilt sport in getting its products into the market that it really irritates me. Initially I was so excited with silverlight that I thought I should learn it. Once I stepped into the lapping waters of silverlight, I realized how badly you need to depend ONLY on microsoft technologies to take a swim to the deep end. Here's why:

XPath is almost a W3C standard. Its almost necessary for all programs to have an XPath parser. Microsoft can be so uptight in packaging silverlight that they left XPath out and have only provided support for LINQ to XML.

This is almost like Karunadhi insisting on speaking to the Australian players in Tamil. Its quite annoying in my personal opinion. Now im interested in making an XPath library for silverlight.

The best thing to do is float

The place where im workin is probably one of the places which have just fallen out of Atlas Shrugged. The people who work get the boot and the people to talk get promotions. The current situation im in involves 2 developers and 4 managers. 4 managers trynig to eat the cream from the work that we churn out. The managers who don't get any cream are just pissed off with us.

Working in a situation like this involves meing smart more than knowing the job well. In fact the person who does his job is going to get the boot in a flash while the person who struggles to do his job, copies, cheats and finally presents a gift pack of hay gets the accolades.

Its a life of Babylon - a place not for the dreggies. When it gets hard to wade through the weeds of technical misery, its best to just give up and float over the carcass of the minds that have given up and let the rivers of corruption take you and drop you over the angel falls. Stop trying to swim against the current. The best thing to do is float.

The heart of the matter (Don Henley)

Don Henley is one of the lead singers and the drummer of Eagles. This is one of his solo songs. Great song, great lyrics. This is what he said about the song:

"It took 42 years to write and 4 minutes to sing"



Lyrics

I got the call today, I didnt wanna hear
But I knew that it would come
An old, true friend of ours was talkin on the phone
She said youd found someone
And I thought of all the bad luck,
And the struggles we went through
And how I lost me and you lost you
What are these voices outside loves open door
Make us throw off our contentment
And beg for something more?
Im learning to live without you now
But I miss you sometimes
The more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought I knew, Im learning again
Ive been tryin to get down
To the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think its about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you dont love me anymore
These times are so uncertain
Theres a yearning undefined
And people filled with rage
We all need a little tenderness
How can love survive in such a graceless age?
The trust and self-assurance that lead to happiness
Theyre the very things - we kill I guess
Pride and competition
Cannot fill these empty arms
And the work I put between us
You know it doesnt keep me warm
Im learning to live without you now
But I miss you, baby
And the more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought Id figured out
I have to learn again
Ive been trying to get down
To the heart of the matter
But everything changes
And my friends seem to scatter
But I think its about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you dont love me anymore

There are people in your life whove come and gone
They let you down you know they hurt your pride
You better put it all behind you baby; life goes on
You keep carryin that anger; itll eat you up inside, baby
Ive been trying to get down
To the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
And my thought seem to scatter
But I think its about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you dont love me

Ive been tryin to get down
To the heart of the matter
Because the flesh will get weak
And the ashes will scatter
So Im thinkin about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you dont love me

Forgiveness
Forgiveness - baby
Forgiveness
Forgiveness
Forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, you dont love me anymore

Lost

I lost something today. I don't know what it was, but there's something missing.

Its like something has been removed from my daily life. Something gone missing.

Its like one of those times when you've forgotten to take your wallet and you feel you've forgotten something. I know there's something missing, I just don't know what it is.

The Hero

Everybody wants to be a hero. As a kid he tries to put on a towel as a cape and pretend to be superman or run around on the bed calling himself he-man. But soon he will grow beyond that dream.

As adolescence comes he tries to become a hero in real life. Among friends as the guy who peers admire or as the guy all the girls secretly look at. But then he does not really achieve what really makes him feel like a hero.

He grows up and gets a job. He goes to work everyday and one day he hopes to achieve great heights. Be the corporate hero who rose from a smalltime job to a frontpage news. But then again the corporate monster chews on that dream looms larger in the sky while the guy gets sucked into the shadows.

Somewhere along the way he will fall in love. He hopes to give the girl all the love in the world. Give her the best care and hope to see in her eyes the admiration for a hero. But soon he gets married and all he will see is his wife looking at the same old face she's seen over the years. The hero dies and the husband survives.

Few more years down the line, he will have a kid. He's going to tell the kid all the stories that once made him go 'wow'. He'll see that there were a million stories he heard as a kid but only some still linger. He will take care of his kid and he hopes to see in the kids eyes the admiration he once had as a kid. I remember thinking that my father could do anything in this world. But soon his kid will grow up and see the same old nagging father he was.

One day the guy is going to stand in front of a mirror he had seen himself in. He had started combing his hair by himself in front of that mirror. He remembers shaving for the first time in front of that. He remembers looking at those irritating pimples he had. He remembers the first grey hair he had noticed. He stares at the old wrinkled man in the mirror and he finally sees...

The test

[The incidents in this story may not be completely true. Its changed slightly to make the story interesting and open to general public.]

Life is a series of tests. You usually fail most of them. But every now and then you make up your mind and decide to fight against a personal stigma. Whenever you take up a personal path of righteousness, the rest of the world puts you through various tests.

Here's what happens. You want to quit smoking (say). And you make up your mind that you're gonna quit. You stop buying them, you stop going with people who smoke, you avoid walking through smoke and do several other things to avoid the temptation.

Test 1: My friend asks me to smoke and I said "No dude, im tryin to quit". - PASSED

Test 2: My boss says "Come shishir, lets make some coffee". When he says that he means go make some coffee, it better taste good. Get me a cup and wait for me till i get out of the cubicle, and then we'll have a smoke. The good thing is he gives a cigarette every time he wants to drink coffee. So I said "no, im trying to quit". - PASSED

Test 3: Lonely day, ex-girlfriend is putting your brain on the frying pan again. The job market is sprinkling a bit of rock salt, garam masala and lemon pepper on top of it. Im walking by the gas station and I say "no, im not gonna buy it" - PASSED

It had been such a long time since I smoked. I was so happy and pleased with myself. I eventually moved to Boston where I was completely alone and free to do whatever I wanted. I had decided that I would not smoke there. I was on top of things when I was not smoking and not tempted to smoke.

But the sad thing is I got fired from my job at Boston and I had to come back. Sad, lonely and royally fucked, I packed my bags and got on the greyhound bus back to NY. The good thing is I saw this totally hot chick in the greyhound station. 'birdwatching' is an antidepressant (apparently). So I was doing it full-swing. Finally I got on the bus, found my seat and.. 'oh yeah'. that totally hot chick was sitting right beside me. So the bus leaves Boston and I start listening to songs on my Coby MP3 player. I remember, it was 'Hello Goodbye' by the Beatles.



I was listening to that... enjoying the irony. Then I see the hot-chick beside me was sketching a tree in a sketch book. I loved sketching. Half my dreams are in sketches. Kind of like the 'Brothers in arms' video by Dire Straits.



So, impressed by the hot-chick and the sketching, I started speaking to her. And what a journey that was. We talked high and low, tried solving Sudoku (I solved more than her), we shared a huge number of interests. I wanted to continue talking to her because she was such an interesting person to talk to (and totally hot). The bus then stops at this Dominos Pizza and I ask this chick. "Do you wanna get down?". She says "Oh yea, I wanna get down smoke as many cigarettes as I can before the bus starts. Wanna join me?". I was all oh yea... and then I went to the gas station next to dominos, bought a pack of cigarettes and lit one. - FAILED>

Well... im still friends with that hot-chick. Her name is Ioana (pronounced with an "io" as in YO!). But the thing is I failed my test. Actually I wouldn't mind failing the test again in the exact same way... because you need to have your fun time too! I didn't have the strength or the will to say "no thanks". This time it was the Y gene apart from my weak will power that failed me. But still... the point of my story is that you try to do something in life, you keep getting tested. Determination is super important to achieve anything.

Towards adulthood

Managing money is tough!

I've out of job for just 6 months and im neck deep in debts. Its kind of a hard place to be (of course!). I always thought life would be easy if you just try to live it and be happy and not let the corporate life ruin your actual life. People always lose their minds over things like work politics, riding the morning traffic, measuring your monthly expenditures, paying bills, and most of all saving money... all a part of the corporate life.

The way I see things, there are two things to life, the corporate part, and the fun part. You need to get through the corporate part to reach the fun part. People who have fun are the ones who actually commute through the corporate life everyday without complaining about it. Most get so involved in complaining about their commute through corporate lives that they get off the corporate subway trains before the fun station arrives.

As of me, I took my first step in, slipped, fell on my butt and crawled back to being a nobody. Right now im being completely childish by complaining that I didn't slip but someone tripped me. But I know my mistakes. Im ready for round two. Gimme a ticket and I'll ride the cursed corporate subway. Im ready to be an adult. Being an adult is to walk the tough mile to reach your destination, and probably drag a few others who mean something along with you. Because far away is the candle light.

Post breakup bliss

Life is so strangely blissful after a break up. Things are clearer, the mind is lighter, the air smells of change, life starts looking like the long path of dirt amidst lush green grass fields fading far into the horizon. And the best part of all is the few sudden moments of anger, hate, lust and sadness that just oozes out like a volcano.

The volcanic part of the break up is the most enjoyable one. When you have an itch you just scratch it. But this is something you just can't scratch. You need to feel it and let it do what it has to do to you. So far I've been just basking in the lava of my failed relationship. The more I think of it the more I knew things were goin to end. Maybe I thought things might work out, but i always knew... Maybe I was subconsiously fucking around just to see what might happen. We were kind of a perfect couple, but at the same time we were mercury and pluto. She seemed like my 'yin' but I apparently was not her 'yang'. - These are the constant thoughts in my head during one of those volcanic phases.

I also discovered a wonderful song. I'll find the link from YouTube and put it here. Maybe at the end of the post. Im too lazy to switch my hands back to the mouse now. Man im lazy. Anyway... The news is that im enjoying my break up. Its nice to think about thinking about your girlfriend as your 'ex'. Man im relieved of so many responsibilities now. I feel I can do whatever I want in my life again. Its a good feeling.

So, my conclusion... a break up usually sucks. But I've enjoyed looking at the greener side of it. It was a good experience with my ex. (That bitch!)

Anyway... here is the youtube link. Its called "Fuck was I" by Jenny Owen Youngs. This is the 'official' version for grannies and mamas boys I think. They have censored the 'fuck' in the song...



UPDATE: Here's the high quality uncensored audio (Grooveshark rocks by the way

Booze baby!

This is a special blog... a fuckin special blog - You know why, everytime I write something in this blog im in one of those extreme states of mind.

So I finished my masters and just as soon as I was about to enjoy the big set of 'A's i got, yeah - I rocked it I got all 'A's..., the economy got behind me with a long bamboo. So I ran from it and joined a consultancy. I hated this so much... soo very much that I feel like im taking refuge in a fuckin nazi concentration camp. (I just love my metaphors!)

After a few months of playing in the kids ground filled with 'sand retarded', I finally decided to indulge myself in a very personal booze party (getting the idea of this blog being my special blog?). You know BLOB means a binary large object... DB stuff... Im drunk... hou asksu salku, aspoi aoiusd - oiasdlkjsd; soidkj... (get it?)

There were a few thoughts in my min that i want to type away before I lose it...

Fucking indian government has the reservation system which leads to capable people working in call centers while uncapable spastic retards (Swear words I learnt from Rana) get the opportunities. And now that im in the US bloody A, I want to put my situation in a very picturesque way... Its like you run behind a pussy with an erect dick and just as soon as you get within a feet of it you there are other 1000 people running towards it. Just immediately after that a voice from the skies say 'you guys shall not get any pussy' (the voice from the skies has done a course in RE {RE=requirement Engineering, retard}). And then I reached my refuge...

My love life has gone missing somewhere by the way... I just lost it! (Im so frustrated that I laugh at myself)

now that I started thinking of minds and state of mind and philosophy... Lemme get a bit deeper into it....

Every single bastard in this earth is a sadist. They just take sadistic pleasure in feeling sad... That is kind of the unintended theme of my blog... the name is kinda metaphorical which goes with the theme. People just love weaving a cocoon of sadness around them... it makes them feel enclosed... It feels good being constricted in an enclosure (ref, John locke, Claire - Lost). Im one of those extreme types who wants to put my loved ones in my cocoon... My babe didn't like it in there...

Ok... im loosing my high... Im gonna have another shot of that good liquor... I first tasted this in fatty's place... it was awesome...

Funny how things are

You need to be so careful about relations and stuff in life... Especially when you don't know what to do. Its like you're blind folded, standing at the tip of a really really steep cliff and you take the next step hoping that there's a bridge... man that's a thought!

I wonder why I always keep ending up at places like these... As my motto had once been... If you cross its something of an experience, if you fall, its something else of an experience... Leap of faith my ass... Its all just bungee jumps!!!

Someday rope thingee will pull me back up, till then i'll enjoy the mean ride... You hear that O-fortuna? now bend over...

People around me smile - I'll have a hell of a story to tell you!

Another midnight

Walking down the white tiled wall
crackling fire and an empty car
the smoke flows down the chimney holes
fills the field with glowing moss

darkness inside the room
dark clouds behind the moon
starry winds and castles fortified,
and the army walks a tidy line

the blinds are closed but the curtains sway
the cartoon heroes kill another day
and you just might have another sight
watch the flickery fire flies' frizzy flight

Yellow grass green blue and lime
winds making the wind chime chime
english rock and motley folk
melt in the pot of an urban lore

A sore throat, cold wind and a band-aid
cotton light stone hard world of white
nightless days and days of cold dark nights
the clock rings the greek and latin times

Shishir
12:12 AM 12/23/2008