Journey to the ocean

 Tranquillized by solitude

nerves breathing but not feeling

Clarity in the soul

slowly moving through the noise

Undulation of the vision

execution left for another day

Indolent is the mind

action is unnatural

Lethargy of another beginning

promises of great rewards

I am moving like a fish

along the lines of a stream

The stream joins the ocean

And I feel the burden of freedom

Mother

Your hugs and kisses tether me to goodness

Your anger and scolding makes me better

How lonely a journey you have travelled

Without losing hope and never giving up

You throw your emotions aplenty

But without them, how lost we all would be

Because it is the strength in your heart

And the love in your veins

That gives out such energy

It's the only thing that can jolt us out of ennui

The only thing that can prevent us from wrongdoing

The only thing that can blunt our stubbornness

The only thing that can make us feel 

That there is light at the end of the tunnel

No matter how lost we have become

There is a force that is ever waiting at home.

Metamorphosis

(This is a fictional short-story)

When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.

  - opening lines of Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

He thought he was an artistic kind, seeing beauty and deciphering complexity in everyday events. Until one day, he could not and could not the day after and in short, every day since then. Unfortunately, the seriousness of the situation did not bother him so much as he had, as just described, lost that kind of ability. He looked into the mirror, mirroring what he had seen many times in serious TV shows and character movies, and asked the question: Who are you?

Physically speaking, he felt little detached from his neck. Like the nerve connections took a U-turn before entering the skull. This of course was corroborated with some recent behavioural changes. He did not feel like eating when his stomach was gurgling, only when he was annoyed or talking for long. You see, the stomach signals which were still emitting were not really registering in the brain. The command structure of his actions were now, quite literally, top-down. Any kind of uprising from the lower levels were quickly thwarted. Another physical effect was this sensation of foggy eye-sight. But the fog must have developed so slowly, that he couldn't, not surprisingly, see it happen.

Things went on as usual though which hinted at the fact that his previous artistic experience was probably just noise or at the least, not very useful. Earlier, when he would get up in the morning and step outside for some fresh air, he might look at the sun and say, so how was your last night or you are up early. He would chuckle at the self-perceived absurdist humour and motivated by this, start poking into the businesses of other inanimate objects. But since his metamorphosis, he stepped out for some fresh air and came back inside quickly because he no longer felt any freshness.

After that, he would have his breakfast and read the news. He would generally take a contrarian position to every single item, if the President said A, he would say, yeah right he actually means B. If someone had died, he would surmise murder. And if someone was murdered, he would guess the killer. Thoroughly convinced that now he knew what was happening in the world, he would continue the next phase of the day. But since that "special" day, he lost all interest in news and ate his breakfast quickly.

Work life hadn't been much affected. In fact, he was more productive since now he didn't spend any time secretly observing some co-worker and predicting their little moves. He would also not read into the many interpretations of an email and just jump straight into answers or ask for clarifications. But overall, it was the same. There was and still is, no place for art at the workplace.

The worst effects were seen at night. Previously, he would sit down with a glass of whiskey and ponder over how his own life was unfurling. He would analyse the events of the day and the consequences thereof. He would absorb the sounds of the night and vicariously partake in the night life. He would look at the lights and observe patterns. He might even look up and talk softly into the sky. He was a believer in the spiritual. Forwarding past to recent history, he would drink as much as he could so that he could sleep without knowing.

Metamorphosis was an idea that connected deeply with him, although he had never read Kafka's famous book. The idea that a person could change into a thing or a thing could become another thing or a person could become another person overnight. Interestingly, he never thought about a thing becoming a person. Anyway, it was clear that he had become a new person. Metamorphosis was not an abstract idea for late night philosophy but his own reality. He looked at the mirror and felt annoyed at this unknown person staring back at him. He felt that a crucial component of life had not woken up from one night, lost in an unrememberable dream and hence forever lost unless, in the almost impossible chance event, he had the same dream. But he no longer dreamt. He used to be an artist, now he was nothing.

Why do philosophers fight? And other human things.

Philosophers have a hard time because their nemeses are living in their minds. Like parasites. But why are intellectual fights so common? By the very definition, isn't an intellectual fight an anti-thesis to the very concept of intelligence. If you ask a child, they would be perplexed to find that two intelligent people can fight gratuitously over an issue. And if you ask them to solve this perplexment, they will probably say one of them is not intelligent. The simplest answer, of course. In this short essay, I will try to give my answer to "why do philosophers fight"?

Two rights make a wrong

A question that often comes to my mind is what if one event has two causal explanations. What does it say about a) the explanations and b) the event itself. I will base my ideas on the research of Daniel Kahnemann (and many others) who says that there are fields which are not sufficiently regular for one to develop reliable "expertise" in. For example, if the economy is going down, the political left has one answer and the political right has another. Who is actually right? Nobody knows, both may be wrong and both may be right (in parts). That is the very limitation of an irregular field. Finding the truth is near impossible or may not even exist (there need not be a manifest truth) but what is easier? Defending your thesis. Allow me to condense this into a pithy phrase: two rights, (usually) make a wrong.

Fighting over an issue in an irregular domain is easily the most common phenomena: politics, economics, culture, artistic expression, etc. It is also the domain with most number of "incompetent" people participating, because all one needs is a thesis close to one's feelings. But this doesn't explain the fight that happens between learned philosophers in "regular" domains like science.

Scientists are animals too

Science has had its share of childish feuds which probably have set progress back by hundreds of years. From arguing why earth cannot be round to how evolution by natural selection is absurd, every new scientific theory goes through its share of hand-wavery and sometimes, ridicule. Who are the people fighting? The most learned and logical men living in that generation. And why do they?

If we use the argument in the previous section, then it doesn't really work. After all, science is the very definition of a regular field. But here is the catch. The scientific people are fighting on the boundary of what is known and what is unknown. Science is practically undiscovered for most parts and to make a discovery is nothing short of making a wild suggestion. Wild suggestions will be viewed suspiciously and all efforts will be taken to prove that it is "wild". This is the problem with anything new, it doesn't fit nicely with known thought. Lots of convincing is required to push an idea forward towards legitimacy. Almost all attacks have to be defended against and not just that, other competing ideas have to be shown to be inadequate. This is a lot of additional work and very easy to make a person annoyed and aggressive. Allow me to condense this into a pithy phrase: scientists believe that a needle cannot be found in a haystack, but they try.

50 shades of logic

The final discussion will be in the area of decision making. The decision itself might be in a regular or an irregular field but it's different from the previous reasons for argument. The argument here is not about what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false, but it is about the most optimal discourse given we do not fully understand a situation.

Here, the biggest reason for fighting happens because of different starting assumptions, different final objectives and different ways of execution. In any given argument between two decision-makers, it is often very hard to spot that they actually differ fundamentally in any of the aforementioned three aspects. But it is also the most tractable situation, because enumerating these assumptions and objectives is not very complicated. But it has a lot of communication effort: requires detailed elucidation from one direction and patient listening from the other. Any gaps in either direction, and the logical discourse can easily turn into an illogical fight because of misunderstanding. Illogical fights, by very definition, can only lead to frustration and exhaustion. Allow me to condense this into a pithy phrase: there are 50 shades of logic.

In parting: philosophy is a wonderful activity but just like any difficult field, it takes time and practise to do it right.

On joys and pleasures

I think it is important to distinguish between two things: joys and pleasures. In this short essay, I will attempt to unravel these oft-conflated phenomena.

Pleasures are universal things that every human is capable of experiencing. It is not hard to enumerate them, e.g. good food, good sleep and good sex. In fact, I do not think there are any more than the aforementioned three. Encoded in our biology, these pleasures are fundamental pursuits of man and hence our first tryst with the notion of happiness gets anchored to the feelings of pleasure. No pleasures, no happiness. As one grows and finds that acquisition of pleasures no longer suffices to maintain happiness, one begins to explore the meaning of happiness itself. It becomes vaguely certain that it is not feeling pleasures. This is usually the onset of the quarter-life crisis, a tough period without doubt.

In the "it ain't pleasures" period that inevitably dawns on any individual with a deep mind, lots of confusion ensues. Bad decisions are taken and unhealthy choices are made because one doesn't know what gives one perennial happiness. An extreme but common example of unhealthy choice is the use of pleasure giving drugs. But these drugs are fundamentally nothing but an enhancement of the original pleasures and it is not surprising that they do not satisfactorily get us out of this phase. Yet, they might seem like the only solution with a tangible effect in that moment. It is hard to see the opportunity cost that is lost when one only chases a higher effect of a known pleasure. How do we not fall in this pitfall and correct the course of our lives? I think culture (or religion) keeps one tethered to certain lifestyle. These rules, even if unanalysed, buy us the commodity that is necessary to make any progress: time.

As time progresses and not much has been gained (and nothing has been vitally harmed), new "things" seem to emerge. You may stumble into a book that increases your curiosity and makes you wonder about things, you may become good at your job and "feel productive" i.e. you can see that you created something of value to the world, you might discover some other interest (common or obscure) that you increasingly devote time to or you may just find spending time with certain people as lot of fun. These "things" we can call as joys. The fundamental difference from pleasures is that it is unique to each individual. The era of "it ain't pleasures" begins to end as man discovers his fundamental joys and ends when he has solidified his joys and made it part of his daily lifestyle.

Finishing thoughts. It may be gradual or it may be abrupt but as time passes, life re-anchors the meaning of happiness for every person. A life anchored in the pursuit of joys is a very rich life as joys can be many (recall that there are only 3 pleasures). You discover them, you create them and it is in your control. When feeling unhappy, look up your catalog of joys and pick one. If none works, then maybe it's time for rediscovery. Or just a good night's sleep.

On solitude

Long time since I wrote anything. The last post was almost 6 years back. Time flies. But the words remain. Reminding yourself what you were. Maybe that's why I write. To capture time in pages.

Here is a poem I wrote today:

Solitude:

A disease which should not be caught too young

Like a drape of boredom, around your being was slung

I do not know how it came about this way

Not sure if to embrace it or runaway

Poets speak of its glory

People advice to quell it or bury

I am not sure of my disposition

A man of logic or a man of emotion

All I know, one thing is clear

My solitude, I no longer fear

Conversation with Chand

On my return journey from Coimbatore, boredom hit me with full force. So I picked up my phone and started messaging my friend, Shailend Chand(Moon) who also has a wonderful blog running here: http://shailend-tabernacle.blogspot.in/ . The conversation that ensued left me engaged for quite some time and I decided to immortalize it on the labyrinths of the wide web once I reached hostel. Here it is:

Me: ...then anything interesting?
Him: Savour the night sky. Esp the crescent moon.

Me: Ah the crescent moon, such seductive beauty. Possessing her beholders with a bond ineffable by the mightiest of human hearts. Even such its darker side casts upon us every month. But the servility of man to beauty is clearly reflected as we fall mesmerized under her false whiteness in this neverending cycle of celestial magnanimity.
Him: Holy shit! Let me get a dictionary first..

Me: There are more to words than its meaning my friend. When the connection between words and human mind is made the ideas which flow don't need language to be understood.
Him: Still, man. cannot afford to sacrifice precision upon the altar of emotion.

Me: You see the notion of idea should not be obfuscated with more worldly things like emotion. Salvation lies inside ideas and you may have to sacrifice the tangible to truly embrace it.
Him: Ideas are worldly entities, as tangible as the reality they inhabit. Salvation lies beyond, in their absence.

Me: What its the beyond if not the idea of man to escape the truth. The curse of one's being lifted in the beyond is a supercilious idea put into man's head since the time Eve took the unholy bite. When there was nothing the idea of being was what succeeded.
Him:Existence is forced upon man. Truth cannot deliver him from this. Only the abyss can. Over and out.

Love in the Time of Apocalypse

This is one piece that I wrote for my hostel Creative Writing entry. But the lit sec and his brainless minions found it uninterpretable. I am satisfied that my writing far surpasses the intellect of such chuts. :P 

He stared into her transfixed eyes. Besides the infinite reflections of himself he also saw infinitely more intrusive eyes, dark and empty eyes. He was morbidly surprised that such a sight could still arouse him because through her he was seeing a much filtered version of reality. He suppressed such thoughts and tried to be spontaneous. He fired a shot. 

There was a small effortless cry. She turned and saw that the shot had hit a medium sized rat straight between the eyes. She sensed her tongue pressing the roof of her suddenly wet mouth and swallowed. She was impressed. She picked up the rat and pulled out a black shiny bag with a big green dot in the center. The stuff you eat had to be protected by radiation. She started walking towards the boy. "That was a lucky shot" , said the girl. "Its either lucky or it's the pressure warp dynamics of this MZ32." "Where'd you get it?" "A dying vet Ortho gave it to me few months back when we were fighting some respawns in West Dunlop district." "That's an interesting story. Would you mind telling me about it over supper?" "If you don't mind walking a mile from here around a mini white hole" "That's a toughie. But I think I can take it" 

Spontaneity had worked. He was satisfied he could tell her something interesting. His mind wandered to what he will say about the West Dunlop respawn attack. He hadn't sleep for the next several weeks , not that he could. The Orthos had noticed remittant radiation from a cleaned area and they suspected the worst.It was his first field duty. All he had were two GZ11 pistols with 16 rounds each. And one MZ8 with one round of clips. The team leader, a vet, had smiled at him smugly and thrown the MZ32 at him. An hour later the vet was in his arms and died in a few minutes of rapid radiation induced gangrene infection. He had taken his ammo before leaving him. 

They reached the white hole. It was 100m wide and 40m deep, hence mini. Five meters down the hole the evening sun was getting reflected. It was as if the ten thousand hollow sockets were exuding the light. This was just the kind of romantic setting he had wanted. "Reminds me of the sunsets by the lake in Dunlop" said he. "It's nice you still remember" They walked shoulder by shoulder across the hole talking how the skulls would have looked if they had faces on them. She laughed. And he imagined that the skulls were laughing too. They reached a fully closed building, the only one like that in visible range. It had a bar code like symbol painted on it. A sign of human habitat. They walked down the stairs near the entrance and reached a thick gate of solid metal. They entered the small basement. It smelled of blood and iodine. He started the generator and heated the microwave. She took out the rat and started skinning it. He picked up a skull from under his bed and placed it in the center of the room. Then he took out a wax tablet from his backpack and placed it on top of the skull. "Haha. You have a sick sense of humor", she said. "He never minds a candle light dinner." "So tell me about Dunlop".  "I was 16 when it happened....." 

They stayed awake the whole night talking.

Hush little baby (drug version)

Hush, little baby, don't say a word, Papa's gonna buy you a cannabis roll.

And if that roll don't give you a trip, Papa's gonna mix some hash in it.

And if that joint turns smoky before the hit, Papa's gonna buy you some crystal meth.

And if that glass gets broke before the time is up, Papa's gonna buy you some LSD.

And if that acid doesn't make your world go blue,Papa's gonna buy you a syringe and some black tar .

And if that tar won't blow your mind, Papa's gonna mix everything that was ever made.

And if the cocktail is yet not the bomb, Papa's gonna shoot you twice in the gut (if you are still alive).

The voice.

Your heart beat goes up and you don't understand why? It drives you crazy and your heart beat goes up further. WTF! Human mind gets really psyched up if it doesn't understand whats happening to the body it's responsible for controlling. Lose control. You try to recollect what happened. It was just a voice, directed at you. For a short duration thankfully as you couldn't have held on any longer. But there wasn't anything special to the voice nor the message it conveyed; it was very normal. But then it strikes you after hours of struggle to get back to reality: the normality was what rushed the blood into your head; your mind unconsciously hoping to turn the normalcy to something special. Something more than normal; extraordinary if you will, magical if you may.

For once you try to be honest about it to yourself: you were waiting for that moment. Planning for hours on how to face those few seconds. How to face that voice. You had a good plan but alas it didn't go well. Because you forgot, and you learnt it the hard way, that that voice blows your mind away. You are so spellbound that your mind now tries to breakaway. You lose concentration, purpose and reason. Your plan is failing miserably and then you commit a stupid mistake. You try to stick to the plan. The plan, my dear readers, is a trick your mind plays on you to convince you that you are in control. Lost control.

You are someone who learns from mistakes. You don't blame your surroundings on your failure, you blame yourself. You rectify. And my dear readers , this is what I learnt: The plan is to lose. Lose yourself in that voice which you so much adored for no reason. Don't find a purpose;there isn't one. Losing is gaining control.

30 day song challenge ?

WTF is the fuss with this thing anyway? And why_TF is it a "challenge" ? Do we get a prize for this? Whats the prize? Can I exchange it for something I like, if I dont like the aforementioned prize? Free Farmville points? Yipeee!!

Anyway, since most of the categories in 30 types are really random and overlapping, and since I am a big fan of only METAL and PROGRESSIVE ROCK ( none of which makes me feel guilty or makes me wanna dance to), I will post some songs without any tags here:

PS: Before you close this page expecting some howlish shouting collision of distortion, let me tell you this: distortion is not metal, the tune is.Personally I dont like too much distorted guitars. Many metal songs are bad but the ones that are good will surely blow your mind away with their awesome energy and epic-ness.

Opeth - Black Rose Immortal; 20 minutes of pure epicness especially the second half. And if you just want a glimpse of what metal is : listen from 12:00 to 15:00.



Agalloch - Limbs; the vocals are just glorious. this song gets me energized every time I hear it.



Pink Floyd - High Hipes; a song so beautiful, it brings tears to my eyes.



Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath; really this song makes me forget all the superficiality of the world and makes me reach inside to what I really am :p



Porcupine Tree - Arriving Somewhere But Not Here; Defines progressive awesomeoness. Listen from 5:00. Period.

Where art thou, good friend?

Damn I don't have good friends. The people I like living with - the "cool", carefree and fun loving people but who are NOT unreliable, irresponsible and idiots- are the rarest species on the face of the Universe. By experience, I can say in fair confidence that there are 4 dimensions to a person's personality: one is the ultra vague "cool"ness, the second is , another loose term here, "muggu"ness, the third is responsibility and the final is "arbit"ness, which means showing out of the ordinary kind of behaviour from the usual. The first two are obviously independent complete spaces, the third is an unprecisely defined space but shown to resemble a non-invariant linear combination of first two and the final is some arbit transformation of the first three spaces.

Enough technical jargon and definitions let's get on to the first line of this post. Well, in my life here in IIT I have lived with lots of different people. All my friends. But here is what I go through typically with different classes of people:

CLASS A or alpha or peace putters - They are the most sought out class. But to be actually here you need to leap a really arbit curve from the second and third dimension so its really painful,morally, to come to this dimension. You can't just come here for some arbitrary period of time and leave. You must carry a certain threshold measure to be actually here.More of this class can only be explained using quantum computation so I will not go into that.

CLASS B or beta or muggus or tam brahms(:p) - They derive most of their attributes from gamma class, and hence have a (hidden) muggu nature where they want to put 10 pointers in every course of every department because learning, as they are told, is their job.

CLASS C or gamma or wannabe cores - These are the responsible people who take pain and sweat to get things done. They are generally liked since they care for social welfare and other such garbage but also hoped to loosen up a little bit. This is the simplest dimension to get in and get out(ask saarang coords) but to stay in takes courage and determination.

Class D or delta or arbit - This is the class jfka7k kj984 . Studies trying to explain such behaviour have kjdf989 343d%^% because the people FASD6767&^&^. The true meaning of life is supposed to be scattered in pieces all over this dimension but requires all the pieces and then a 1024bit cracker to decipher it. Actually this is because djfakljdf989$%$ which is why ff gfg6767676234223456780 948.


So you are pissed at me because I gave you another round of heavy technical education. I am sorry but here we are finally. I have been totally pissed because my close friends are never a healthy mix of all these 4 classes. They are either heavily of A: which ends up me getting infinitely pained , or B: which makes me bored to death. Well I didnt expect to write this much( actually I was not gonna write the first 2 paras and only write this para but I guess I am in 4th dimension now) so I am not gonna explain any situations that might have motivated this blog post but I am sure feeling relieved now.

Gen Thoughts of 4th semester

I wake up remembering what it was. Ever experienced the trance state where you are sure you are awake but you have no control over your thoughts.The thoughts which only get aggrevated more as you try to stop them from flooding your mind system. These things , insanely random, but always containing characters and places that you know. The characters that are oblivious to their own self and are controlled, so subtly, only by your mind. Doing things without objection, without a bit of reluctance, without a doubt, even if its beyond the periphery of their own physical or even mental territory but not of yours. This ephemeral state which seems to flow for hours usually happens on a saturday morning after a long night before.

Enough pondering. Now taking idea from another blog I am gonna write whatever stuff comes into my head for the next 5 minutes or so.
BEGIN.

Girls. I live in an institute where talking about girls is like talking about drugs or even taking them. I am almost crossing over the teens and its only obvious that the curiosity of being in love has become really really high.Hence I try really hard. I am not ashamed to say this but I claim that there is atleast one girl in your every class that you are attracted to. Who you would want to talk with more. If you get the chance or had the guts for. But being one of the few forward thinkers in this traditional place I am not really assured or even given a good estimate of what the feedback will be like. And hence its safe to assume that the feedback will be O(smile). HUH? Thats big Oh notation. I think that the simple human emotion of gently smiling while talking to new people itself is like a crime here. If you smile , you become "despo". Oh yeah, well what are you? A fking hypocrite.

Okay I am bored. Lets talk about my day. Full of shit. Classes aint worth dime. Okay I am not the brightest of students but atleast I understand things when they are conveyed clearly , intuitively and most importantly in a friendly interactive way. The professor's might be stud n all but clearly there are only few who work for the overall development of the student. The one's who catch proxy and lament at sleeping students etc just dont get it that a classroom is for someone who wants to learn. And it isnt necessary to learn everything in life. Especially academically. Unless your whole life aim is to excel academically. Working hard is important but so is putting peace and making close friends which you wont be able to do once you have got a job or something. This para is so not for freshies aiming for BC. So lets move on.

How (What) you doing? (Joey style) This summer? Me? I tried for two summer schools - IMSc and IISc and I think I am rejected in first and still waiting for result in the second. I want to study something deeply and surely dont want to do some gen intern where my legs will be on the table and my mind somewhere way outside the room. Being a dual degree helped.

Okay, the mood for writing has depleted. And I am loggin off. This idea of writing whatever comes to my mind is pretty neat and I think I will be writing more posts based on this "pretty" soon.

Narcissism

The legend of Narcissus.

Soothsayers prophesied : Narcissus shall live to a ripe old age if he didn't come to know himself.

But the universe, always on the verge of increasing the entropy of itself, couldn't bear this notion, this permanency of thought of some old hags efficient at reading the language of the stars, or so they claim and we believe(d), perhaps.

Son of a goddess, the beauty of this young boy was unfathomable.Of which he didn't know. Which was good. Because the unfathomable cannot be fathomed. Atleast physically.

The work of the Destiny-writer or some random collisions of some infinite molecules led this boy to a pond. And again, through the same process, led this boy to peek into the still water. And what he saw changed his world.

The most beautiful person he had ever seen or imagined to see. And again the universe playing its own peevy games, it was love at first sight. For days the boy stared at his reflection. The reflection provided him everything food, water, and the most important of all, love. Again permanency. Again universe. Again randomness.

And in his love, he fell and drowned into the pond. Unfathomably. In a few days, the water of the pond metamorphosed into salty tears.

Why? The gods asked it.

The lake: I weep for Narcissus.

God: Ah yes. He was a beautiful boy.

The lake: I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected.

"What a lovely story", said the Alchemist and the Tab.

----

What do you infer, my readers, from the above composition? Do you find the writing style unique? Is it funny? Or is Narcissus stupid?

Well but what did Narcissus do? He realized himself. What is wrong with knowing about yourself? Isn't it the meaning of life? But doesn't it spoil the fun for the ubiquitous space called the Universe.

Think, my readers. Is it really necessary to ponder over things that you have got from yourself. Things that belong to you through an eternal bond. Things that are sufficient to define a world, self-sufficient in itself, obviously. For I, I have stopped defining my world. Because over the past few months, I have realized that being contained in your own world is what makes you blind. And fall. But having a world that encompasses the universe is what makes even the universe fall beneath your feet.

Excerpt from The Alchemist

/* Just for the sake of keeping this blog updated I am posting an excerpt from this great book called The Alchemist by Paul Coelho */

"Why do we have to listen to our hearts?" the boy asked, when they had made camp that day.

"Because wherever your heart is, that is where you'll find your treasure."

"But my heart is agitated," the boy said. "It has its dreams, it gets emotional, and it's become passionate over a woman of the desert.It asks things of me, and it keeps me from sleeping many nights, when I'm thinking about her."

"Well, that's good. Your heart is alive. Keep listening to what it has to say."

During the next three days, the two travelers passed by a number of armed tribesmen, and saw others on the horizon. The boy's heart began to speak of fear. It told him stories it had heard from the Soul of the World, stories of men who sought to find their treasure and never succeeded. Sometimes it frightened the boy with the idea that he might not find his treasure, or that he might die there in the desert. At other times, it told the boy that it was satisfied: it had found love and riches.

"My heart is a traitor," the boy said to the alchemist, when they paused to rest the horses. "It doesnt want me to go on."

"That makes sense," the alchemist answered. "Naturally it's afraid that, in pursuing your dream, you might lose everything you've won."

"Well, then, why should I listen to my heart?"

"Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. Even if you pretend not to have heard what it tells you, it will always be there inside you, repeating to you what you're thinking about life and about the world."

"You mean I should listen, even if it's treasonous?"

"Treason is a blow that comes unexpectedly. If you know heart well, it will never be able to that to you. Because you'll know it dreams and wishes, and will know how to deal with them.

You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it's better to listen to what it has to say. That way, you'll never have to fear an unanticipated blow."

The boy continued to listen to his heart as they crossed the desert. He came to understand its dodges and tricks, and to accept it as it was. He lost his fear, and forgot about his need to go back to the oasis, because, one afternoon, his heart told him that it was happy. Even though I complain sometimes," it said, " it's because I'm the heart of a person, and people's hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been found but weren't, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly."

"My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."

"Every second of the search is an encounter with God," the boy told his heart. "When I have been truly searching for my treasure, every day has been luminous, because I've known that every hour was a part of the dream taht I would find it. When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I've discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve."

So his heart was quiet for an entire afternoon. That night, the boy slept deeply, .....................................

/* For those who haven't read this book already: Don't read it if you are seeking literary pleasure but if you want to look back at life and understand the avoidable mistakes that you might have committed or the mistakes that are on its way to being committed. */

PS: I got a drum set in my house now BWAHAHAHAHA. \m/.

I proclaim war on the Sun.

Its almost been a month into the sweltering,sweating, slumbering, slacking,sulking, sluggish climate that we more affectionately call summer. And the true it has been. While I sit in my air conditioned room and ponder what to do with time as the same goes by at its normal pace, impervious to any of the aforementioned traits of the present, I am nothing but restrained to leave my position of current comfort and continue my stillness as dusk comes by and brings with it nothing new or appreciative except the ubiquitous shade protecting us from the malevolent ball of fire from which we have no escape.But alas its nothing but temporary as it spreads its wings of heat at lightspeed, fresh every morning, upon us mere mortals and drains away the energy, the beauty and the vibrant as it remains statuesque, narcissistic, unperturbed. And I wonder can that be the source of the bombastic thing that we call dark energy. What an irony of terms when we conceive that its cause is nothing but the brightest thing tangible to human eyes.

My dear readers-god(ironically one of who is also the antagonist in the present scenario) forbid- who are experiencing the same situation as mine I solemnly plea to you that come, let us unite and prove worth that man is better than any other animaloid form.And let us not forget that the animal we are dealing with may have infinitely long reaches and around the same number of limbs but it still lacks what makes us superior.

And for the rest, I will like to say that I am not jealous at all though as atrocious as it may sound. I am having a good introverted time too which includes reading this amazing book called Dune and coding in SPOJ.

22/03

Arrgh! Havent had a good laugh in so many days.Probably it really is Quiz week and not some figment of my self-injurious imagination as it always seems to be.Well anyway, lets begin.

Workshop; As usual as usual[:)] I havent even taken my job(workpiece) 40 minutes into the class whereas all my group mates have meticulously and belligerently chosen the job to which they belonged fulfilling the hitherto unfulfilled prophecy of the iron era. PS: I was 20 minutes late to class and wasted 15 minutes extra in talking to the workshop in-charge.

Me(face glowing red by the exuberant heat produced by the turning of the shovel held by the great Devesh): Dude , you must be the one who invented the fire.

Me(to the great Vamshi recognizing his great skills in using the tongs): Dude, you must be the one who invented the hands.

Me(to the great Shankar staring in awe as he hammered all our jobs to near perfection) : Dude, I think you have taken the HammerFall concert a bit too seriously. Pun intended.

Me(to Vaibhav who is busy finding his job in the fire and already witness to the aforementioned dialogues): Now, what are you good at?

Vaibhav: I am a fucking mediocre.


MA1020; we all are filling our free elective forms for next semester maths course.

Barath(freaking his ass off on what course to choose even after making a scene for 20 mins, which includes asking the prof twice and almost everyone in the class): Macha, I can never make decisions da.
Me(nonchalantly): Oh yeah lets see, will you become gay if the situation arises?
Barath(after 10 full seconds): No.
Me: Then you can make decisions.
Barath: Macha, if its something like will you save your life from getting killed...
Me: Being gay wont kill you.
Barath: Ya it will.
Srivatsan: Then its an ill informed decision.

12/03

Check this out:



Physics Lab, 9-12; as usual I have no enthu to even mark a point on the graph and hence I resort to singing.

WARNING: The following will not be least bit funny if you dont appreciate plain vanilla slapstick dumb perverted comedy.I do. For those who didnt laugh at Jon Lajoie's songs (Show Me Your Genitals, in this case), you can safely block me from all online connections you may have with me because the following may hurt really bad.

Me(to Santosh): Show me your GENITALIA...O sorry, I meant readings.
Me(to Nihit) : Show me your GENITALIA...O sorry, I meant pencil.
Me(to Shailend):Show me your GENITALIA...O sorry, I meant scale.
Me(to ...): Show.............
..
.

And so it went for atleast 2 hours. Irritating Shailend so much he abused me. Yeah, he abused me. Why make a big deal out of it? Well this is what he said- Wonode sunni in pig's chut. That sentence used 4 odd languages. Can you translate the words?

10/03

CRC201, MA1020; sitting in the last bench is Srivatsan, and Me and Barath in front of him.

/*Everyone bored out of their mind except Barath (who is busy converting something to something polar) */
Srivatsan (to Barath): Macha, if you do this problem I will win 200k..no, sorry ,2k. I will give you 20% da.
Barath ( to everyone in the immediate surrounding) : Wtf put 50%. That is the C2D rule.
Srivatsan : What? I have already solved some 10 problems. Okay, no, 5 problems. This is the 6th and last problem.
Barath : Okay, then 1/6th
Me(who everyone thought was actually paying attention): Dude 20% was a better deal.
Barath (almost peeing in his pants)(to Srivatsan): Dude I will go with the old 20% deal.
Barath(intended to me but heard by everyone in intermediate surrounding): That is why I need a math advisor like you in such situations. In fact, why dont you solve the problem.I will give you the 2% that you just saved me.


Tapti, around 9; ice cream night in progress.


/* Hogging hazaar ice cream */
Guda: Macha I am sure this(ice cream brick) costs more than that da.
Sreshan (to Guda): Macha you are saying as if you own Amul da.
Me (to Guda): Macha you are saying as if you milked their cows da.
Sreshan ( to Guda): Macha you are saying as if you were the cow da.
Guda ( to me): Macha you fucked the cow da.
Me ( to everyone) : All your children will be studs da.


INTRO:

Hello world.This is Me.I will publish everything I think is worth publishing from my experiences of each day. Mostly it will be some situational comedy put by Me, my painful friends or the complete opposite by my prof. I will try to reproduce these instances as accurately as possible, which includes actual scene setting, tone of conversation, language, words, tangible expressions et cetera. Feel free to comment because there is a delete button for that too.