Happy

Valentine's day.
Ummm...Rather belated.

That's OK. That's how FUBAR all this is.

Just hope that you and your love are being loved...

Jo tum ho to, hava mein bhi, mohabbaton ka rang hai...

Happy?

Belated Birthday to you. Wherever and However you are.
Hope you have a good better year ahead.

A Mistake

I think I've made a mistake. It isn't a big one.
It won't hurt anybody, or won't cause anybody grief.

In fact, I can't really tell if it's actually a mistake. In hindsight, this might be an awesome decision.
It's not gonna hurt me much either. No, I can't be entirely certain that there won't be indirect repercussions. But still, it won't affect me directly.

But ; Why does my gut refuse to lie still?
"Did you ever get the feeling that you.........."

Growing up

When I was a kid, things were simpler.

I don't mean to trivialize my childhood. I don't intend to make that statement without weight/thought either.

At this point, good to establish that "kid" range = until I started working.
For others, the "kid" phase might end sooner or later. For me, that's that for a very unique set of reasons.

2nd PUC, Engineering wasn't trivial. Friendship issues and fights weren't an issue to be brushed aside. Stolen cycles were definitely a scare.

But the nature of these issues was simple, one dimensional; a single problem, to be solved with a single set of more or less clear solutions. But then, as is the goddamn rule, I had to grow up.

I often wonder, what it means, this process/act of growing up. There are obvious physiological changes. Yes, check. Then there's the cauliflower. That's a lot more ponderous, yet fascinating, cos they kinda sneak up on you.

Often, one can hear the phrase "maturity", "experience" etc being bandied about in the same context of "grown up" ppl. With age, the way you think about things change..the way you process and react and respond to things change..I don't know why/how this happens..You don't react/lash out at things, your approach has a lot more patience, calmness to it..you anticipate, imagine, assume, calculate and then say/do things..And you've to see, also, that with age, you get time...and with time, there's scope for shit to happen..and when shit happens, you, irrespective of whether you want to, like it, or not, learn. Yes, human beings learn and adapt. So bang! There're some cauliflower patterns changing already..

If you take simple, everyday instances and think about how a much younger you would've acted/reacted to one of those, you'll see a marked difference (probably). Yet, that's just the epithelial. Underneath, there's still hot, young, gushing, rushing, eager, stupid blood. Shows up once in a while. Whether u are 16, 26, 36, 46, 56 or 66, it will rear its head (Note: urge to use cliched 'ugly head' suppressed.) And that's who you are; who you truly are. Naked. Raw. Unprocessed. Pristine.

Sometimes I think I haven't grown up. I think my outermost layer is a stressed out, thinning interface, rather buggy, just holding the fort. Because, at times, there are issues/topics/problems in life to which I have no answer. This amazing process of growing up, which was supposed to change me, give me tools, equip me for life, has failed at some point, somewhere. I can try and think it, reason it, thrash it out like the supposed "adult" I am; or I can keep a pencil, a notebook and try to "work it out";

Murali 0 Life 1.

All in all it will be, just another brick in the.....

A song on my lips, a thought on my mind

So we've all heard of the "Oh when I listen to this song, I'm reminded of this place I was driving through, this person cos I had a crush on him/her and I used to listen to it a lot when I thought about him/her and I went through a lot of tissues back then cos I had to cry a lot and this is so mushy I should be shot or eaten up like that Bournville ad".

Right? No? Hmm. Weird.

Anyway, given the fact that music affects me (like actually affects at a neurotic (neuronic?) level n shit) and certain pieces of music tend to affect me slightly more than the othersulu, I tend to attach a lot of importance to what kinda music I listen to and each of the pieces that I do. However, I'm kinda lazy/scared to go looking out for new music cos I feel I might get let down by searching for crap and also heng hudkbeku anta gottilla..Top of the charts 2011? Best rock music of 2012? Critically acclaimed progressive rock? Best upcoming fusion artists?

Sometimes I tend to get links to bands like Therapeutic Lizards (TM), Megalomaniacal Vulvas, Depressed Voodoo Maidens.

Most of the time. And I'm a picky ass, so I tend to be havings a bad juju in this and slightly disappointed I end up.

So to avoid, I rely on recommendations. I give encourage* to ppl to send me links, give me pointers, recommend stuff that they've liked. And mostly ppl around me have something in common with me wrt musical tastes, so there's a high chance that they'll send across something I like, 1, maybe 2 out of 3 times at least. If not I shoot them in the head like Tommy Lee Jones does in MIB.

Anyway, the main point of this post is that I have a slightly different hash tag when I'm listening to a song. I also remember, almost automatically, who introduced me to a particular song, and give a vote of thanks now n then. It's for songs that have had an impact on me, and the person leaves an imprint; a whiff of a good memory. Of course, some songs also have a nicely painful association which won't be delved into here (for cliche avoidance and aforementioned heartache reasons).

A sample list, and a smidgen of gratitude to the folks who made me n the song one :)

White Room (Cream) - Partha
One More Time (Lynyrd Skynyrd) - Sac
Tangerine (Led Zep) - Pragnya
Clearly Quite Absurd (Deep Purple) - Venky
Fragile (Sting+Stevie) - Sheetal
Long Train Running (Doobie Brothers), Nothing Rhymed (Gilbert Sullivan), Wild World (Cat Stevens),                    Mary had a little lamb(Stevie Ray Vaughan) - Bruce Lee Mani (Amen!)
Free as a Bird - Deepthi
Rocky theme - Madhu

... (three dots means list goes on but right now I've to get to work and can't right anymore OK?)

Hopefully the people reading this will listen to something from the list and link me with it? :)

* : The grammar error in "give encourage" is so funny it's addictive; I've started using it in serious contexts too. 

Short and Sweet 2013

That's a theatre festival. A competition at that too! And I was lucky to be part of this..

No this isn't like a humble sounding cliche that I'm employing here. My honour, the moment of my life, really proud and lucky no no adalla. This colleague of mine was sposd to take part in it along with somebody else, and that person dropped out. So he asked me! Cos I'd taken part in a coupla other plays before that and he liked my sense of humor and timing etc

Alex Broun is the guy who started Short + Sweet in Blr. The concept is of a bunch of plays, each of duration 10 minutes. The audience gets to vote what they thought was the best. There are judges too, and they pick as well. And eventually there's a final. Spread across 2 weekends, the winners from the first weekend and the second weekend battle it out for glory and money! :)

Ah, Personal Satisfaction..Where'd YOU been?? marte hogittu nin bagge..idellaadr madhya, maatinalli kaaNskoLo neenu, ninna nijavada mahatva enu annodu ondu yaksha prashne...na? Gottilla, prati obbrgu ondondu I guess..If you say Personal Satisfaction ranks low then you're judging the other person yeah? It's almost no use to ask somebody else...a short pause later they'll of course say "For the love of theatre" or "The kick of it all" or "Just to put up a good show" etc etc This is the (pro)verbial front for each of their inner ambitions/goals, ene irli adu.

Coming back to Broun. Mayuresh (said colleague) and I put up this play called Sardine. It's about 2 friend sipping beer in a bar, one narrating a weird date that he had (where the girl sang a poem about the dicks of 2 other guys she had dated previously, ON THE DATE) ; the other thinking one of the guys in the poem is his good friend, who's narrating his own bad fate, and in a bid to console his friend, ends up revealing too much info. Hah!

Hah! Bekitta? Ning yavon heLiddu isht complicated play madakke? Jana duddu kottu bartaare..Nagakke, Serious agakke, oLLe acting nodakke, oLLe scripts being enacted well nodakke..yavonig bekolo intha conundrums ella? Yavon vote madtaane/Le ninge eethara ella eneno kathe torsdre? (Excuse me sir, personal satisfaction gu vote gu...) Oho satisfy aitha? Aitha nijvaglu? Makhakke "I didn't get the play" anta andralla, aitha satisfy? Yen neenu "Naanantu nange tochiddu yeno hogi stage mele koothkondu/ninthkondu hartbittu barteenappa, audience hogi negdbidd saili nangenu" anta na, nindu? Oh personal andre person = neenu anta? Hmm sari adantu aithu bidu..hogli onderd second nilsteeni..maja eno bantu..

Enthentha jana sikkdru! Avr nijvaada mukha adena? Avru yavaglu irodu hangena? Athva social pressure inda hinge vikrutha vagi adtara? Vikrutha andre, ugly athva crass alla..Distorted..Avrde ond loka ide..Avrde ondisht padagaLu, topics of discussion, yochso reeti, aado reeti, matado reeti, batte haakoLo reeti ella. Aathara naanalla..illi enaithu andre, keluvru ishta aadru cos they were so different from me..keluvru kashta ansthu cos they were so different from me :)

ninna atyamoolyavaada 6 votegaLannu itkondu (adralli moor maatra ninda?) uppinkaayi haakond tinnhogu!

Self Suicide

There was One.
The One.

Many people saw different faces, in different places, but that was untrue.
Just one, very aware, masquerade.

Not entirely unnecessary or unwarranted. Life throws up different situations, and a human who has tasted salt and spice, will naturally adapt and react and morph.

Sometimes there is awareness of the current state of mind, the show being put on. Sometimes it is spontaneous and subconscious.

Today was different. Today was turmoil, torture.

Highly aware, unable to run, caught in the ring with himself. How could he?!
Why was fate/universe/God/ doing this to him??
If only he could turn back time; He wasn't really to blame; If he's reached THIS level of callousness, it's hopeless; But it was just a one off incident....

A distraction, a smile, a good time, a nice song, an engaging problem, a conversation, a break.

And then back in hell. Back to Parallelogram one.

The voice inside the head grows louder, and dominates, and poisons.

And then there were two.

Of course everybody hears voices in their head, he said to himself. It was normal. Nobody just admits it. That was normal too.

"Really? Good then..."
"You really shouldn't have done that though...that's definitely not NORMAL..."

Yeah yeah sure..I know that already...

"No I mean, look at what you've done! How can you look at yourself in the mirror? How can you live with yourself...."

No wait, it's really not that bad...Actually..I mean...is it?

"Of course it is...there's no going back, no matter what you tell yourself...There's only one solution, only one ending in sight"

Hah! Sure...I'm definitely not ready to be kidded around, right now...

"Look at what you've done!! you can pacify yourself a 100 ways, but the damage's done..I mean, which sane, normal, person does this kind of a thing to another human being??

You're pathetic; You don't deserve a second chance...You should end it right now"

But, hey wait a minute there...

"NO! Do it...Finish yourself..Stop this misery that you call a life..You don't deserve it..STOP!"

I don't want to!! I think..

"STOP! END! NOTHING YOU CAN DO WILL CHANGE ANYTHING; YOUR LIFE DOESN'T MATTER! YOU ONLY CAUSE HARM TO OTHERS! YOU DON'T DESERVE TO LIVE!!

PICK

UP

THAT

GUN!!"

No...........I don't want to....I think I can change....Help!!!



And then there were none.

Picture of you

The brain's a funny little object..Memories, are more often than not, snapshots of the objects/persons/places of which the memories are comprised of..

What's funny about this is, sometimes the brain tends to hang on to older snapshots of people. And we emote based on that. Be it a longing parent, reminiscing about the tot they held in their hand and felt immeasurable joy with, be it a spouse struggling in a dead marriage thinking about the romantic times shared with the other one and being dumbfounded at the separation between them, be it a friend anticipating/expecting things to work a certain way from his "childhood" crony; we all make that mistake once in a while...

Is this deliberate? Is this the brain trying to run away by not "updating" the images to a current, different, worse reality? Sometimes it is...It can get a bit perplexing with somebody totally hating and loving, essentially the same person (naturally, the person in question has changed/evolved, but still the same "meat suit"), but different snapshots of that person, in different points of time..If only you could still see the older version in the current one...

And in some cases, there are no updates available. We've reached EOSL. Hehehe. A nice and apt work term. End of Service Life. No more images to update. No changes available. Work with what you're left with. And this need not only be in the case of death. Total separation could cause this. And then the images started to blur. To corrode. Every recollection, further blurring what's available. Until what's left is a confusing, muddled impression of a hazy instance of a living person who'd once left imprints in your brain.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Vivid

He's walking towards the pantry on the floor below, the usual hasi mazaak happening, and it's quite a cheerful day today, everybody laughing around, being loud...and now he's carrying Sowmya and scaring her saying "I'm gonna drop you now!" ('why the hell am I carrying HER?!') and that's when somebody shouts out from ahead of me, "She's BACK!!"

He looks up, turns around and sees her there. He thinks this is a dream. He can't believe it. He wonders why she's wearing that kind of make up. He wants to believe it. He can't. He checks out her weird sunglasses, resting on top of her head. He tries to say something, but mumbles.

He eventually puts Sowmya down (gently) and says "You're back!!" and gives her a hug ('why the hell is she so disinterested and aloof?') and then she smiles, not uncharacteristically, and says "I'm back" in a rather disinterested and aloof manner...

And then...

They're both walking together, him imploring her to tell her what the hell happened, where the hell Rama is, and what she was doing there!! ('how the hell did I get to Dispensary street?!') She proceeds to tell him  some vague story about how one of Rama's projects required him to be all alone, keep his wife out of his life, and when it came down to choosing between work and wife, he chose to ignore the latter, and how that was the nail in the coffin..He's unable to hide his joy at seeing her, but does offer the customary laments and apologizes for the way things turn out...And he tries to test his luck, and calls for a celebratory lunch, to mark her return! And that's where he rubbed fate the wrong way, for she makes up some reason, some commitment and leaves him hanging :)

Not very later...

He must not be there, must not be seen, she tells him...begs him to leave NOW, quickly, get out of sight...('wasn't it like 2 seconds ago that she left my side, and now she's already with Rama in the car?!')..."I must run", he thinks and is running ('great! just what I needed to complete this macabre scene...Rain!') down the road ('Sheshadripuram?!') and he catches a glimpse, miraculously, of Vishnu's photo on a phone which says "Incoming call Vishnu". 

He's wondering how that got there. He's wondering whose phone is that. He thinks he should pick it up off the dirty, leaf strewn, muddy street and answer it. He's wondering why he isn't doing that. He's also thinking how the hell did he spot it??

And now he's running for he has to avoid them, as she asked him to ('why??') Soaked. To the feet. Camouflage and well done!

And now he's running for he's late for a meeting at the office! ('at 8 pm??') His right calf refuses to move, every step feels like he's sinking deeper in the mire...The pain is unbearable, the helplessness agonizing!

An old man, who's also running, gets hit by a car.

Torture

Maine tumse kuch nahin maanga
Maine tumse kuch nahin maanga

Aaj dedo, Aaj dedo...
Sau baras se jage in nainon ko
Neend ka.. vardaan dedo, dedo

Maine tumse kuch nahin maanga

Gherti khushbuyen, Phir wohi aahate 
Barhan chaunkna, Phir wahi karvate
Wohi baahon ke gheron me bandhna
Wohi nazron ke saaye me tapna

Kab talak dor.. kheenchigi mujh ko
Kab talak dor.. kheenchigi mujh ko
Chod do mera abhimaan dedo, dedo (Probably the best line of the song...)

Maine tumse kuch nahin maanga

 - Indu Jain

From the movie Katha, sung by the great Kishore Kumar and Music by Raj Kamal

Hold on to reth

Reth is a good word. Means sand, of course.

That's what life is, I feel, sometimes. Hopping from one sand dune to another, sitting down, admiring it, playing with it and then trying to hold on to it. Of course, slips right through your hands. And you try harder.

Memories and experiences in your life can be similar. And since you don't have any control at all over that mass of a few kgs, the more you want to hold onto a memory, the worse u retain it. If only you could specify a caching algorithm.

The ability to revisit your own memories would have to be one of the most  awesome advances in science. And I'm not talking about going to a peaceful place and tickling your genitals and finding that inner tranquil spot so that the mind is pure and clear and reminiscing n all that. I'm talking about a full on matinee show, popcorn et al. You're there, but you aren't. You're experiencing all the emotions, except (aha!) they're new to you! Kinda like in a Pensieve actually, beaut concept that. The clincher of course being complete erasure of all the "data" pertaining to your previous experience of this experience, so that you can re"live" it.

Example you say? I'd wanna relive, not frequently, but definitely TRULY relive (for the first time, every time) the recently concluded blissphemy known as Rock in India. Metallica finally got here. Old. Lazy. Slightly out of tune, on very rare occasions. But you know the deal with incredibly talented musicians, they can't get rid of it even if they want to :) So, they came with all their announcements of safety (Delhi fiasco?!) and incredibly mellow approach (no swearing on stage:| ), but all of that was totally eclipsed by the truly awesome music they'd created, a few decades ago. They wanna play still, they love the music they made, it makes them tick, makes them feel alive. You'd have seen it otherwise. And I think maybe, maybe they loved us too, the "feedback" we gave on their internal monitors...

;)

exactly one day after the concert, and I need facebook to remind me the setlist:

Creeping Death, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Fuel, Ride the Lightning, Fade to Black, Cyanide, The Memory Remains, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), Sad But True, All Nightmare Long, One, Master of Puppets, Blackened, Nothing Else Matters, Enter Sandman, Am I Evil?, Battery and Seek & Destroy


And some day I'd definitely like to be back at Palace grounds, with the same bunch of ppl, the same mood, the same maahaul, and relive it. Scream at the top of my lungs. Think about how I felt when I first listend to this song 15 years ago, how my meagre brain had interpreted it in awe and really, just simply enjoyed the curious combination of audio signals, combining to produce vivid sensations.


Yet I can't.


Jim Croce went into mushyness with this song, but he had the general idea nailed down:


If I could save time in a bottle 
The first thing that I'd like to do 
Is to save every day 
Till Eternity passes away 
Just to spend them with you


Well, I'll just have to make the most of what's left alva? Quite a lot will be different this time when you're gone..Because of what you've done, or haven't..And I fear what will happen after. 

Guilt

Such a personal thing. It is amazing how incredibly personal that thing is. You can talk about it, reason with other ppl, get others' sympathy. But eventually it is your own courtroom that has to acquit you. Judge and jury and defense too.

And what about the outside world? Are they ready to see and understand your guilt? Or lack of it? Cos guilt can sometimes also be the result of very specific/personal moral standards/rules. And how do you show that to somebody, or make them see that? Heck, you have trouble getting through a simple feeling sometimes :)

Bottom line : You have to be ok with yourself in the end kano. Everything else is fixeable. Or doesn't matter.

Emutions

"I feel so ostrichized today" thought Remu, to himself. A fine Tuesday morning, no reason to be feeling low today! He'd woken up early, flapped his wings about and had a bright energetic start to the day. Yet while his mater found him grains to swallow, he couldn't help feel the blues. And the pinks. Yoicks!

And then there's the usual drill. Off to the mill. Every morning, same run of the mill thing to be done. Remu had to run to the mill every morning, where he worked.

The run wasn't a short one. Neither was the mill too far away. Just enough time for random, not-so-plebeian thoughts to occupy his poor "lil" mind. Today's main topic of discussion (with the other eminences inside his brain) was that of identity. Who am I, Where do I belong, How should I be...U know, that sorta thing? The usual things to be thought of during a mundane activity, where some out-of-body experience seems to be guiding u, making travel involuntary almost. But on a day when the blue pinks (or the pinky blues or the bluesy pinks) were afflicting him, the traffic on his brain's channel would take a rather sinister twist!

There're the cool Penguins at work, he thought. Some even eat on their own! While it wasn't a big deal for Remu, while he HAD eaten on his own earlier, there was some allure and charm in them. The thoughts, the actions, the choices...While it was clear he was not a penguin (really? :) ) it was also confusingly annoyingly "clear" that he could mingle and maybe masquerade as one!

Then there were the badass Kiwis. Bloody shit, flight went right to their heads. Always showing off with something or the other, Bah!! But it was undeniable that they were flashy! No interactions with them when they were flying, no sir no; just watch the proceedings in silence and absorb it all...At the same time, when they did land to rest their lofty wings, up close, they weren't a pretty sight...the interiors were ugly, ugly sometimes, but mostly fake! Didn't match up, add up with all the jazz and the panache on the outside...

And finally, the brothers in ankles...His own childhood cronies...Time spent proportional with comfort level, this is where he felt he most belonged. He knew how they thought, they knew how he fought and this was the definition and standard of fun in his life..Alas, change is ever constant but. Some emus had gotten into flying and jumping recently! It's not like he hadn't seen this coming, but handling change and thinking about the change are just two different things.

Any change for that matter. In fact he'd started thinking recently, why should offsprings of Emus be an Emu? Or rather, can't the emu mature into an Ostrich (Gawd!) like the Ugly duckling story?

"Hmmm interesting point, said voice no.1 inside his head, but I had the floor if I'm not mistaken? Is this Zero Hour or what huh???"

All birds considered, he still didn't know what he was upto and where he was heading. In fact what the hell is this Life all about? And that's a topic for when I'm getting back home maybe, said Remu, as he ran into the mill, absent-minded, straight into the huge pile of flour.

FLOPPPHHFFHHFFH!!!

Change

"Eshtappa? (How much?)"

"73 aitu saar (It's 73 bucks u oaf)"

.....

"Saar, Change illa saar! (Don't think this needs a translation)"

Bingo!

You've hit the nail on the head, Oh unknown, nameless, faceless, changeless, fictitious hawker!

People all around me and me, are looking for change. A break from the usual, the monotony, the "same old".

Right from what they wear, to what they eat, to what route they take to work, all the way to an "exciting, adventurous weekend getaway!", we're all ardent seekers of the dynamic.

Deep deep down, is it an attempt to make our present routine slightly more desirable? Cos humans are also supposed to be creatures of habit...Those habits, which make so many things second nature to us...When we seek change, are we just really only trying to make whatever we have currently, look 'good' to us again? Cos a momentary change ( a break from work, a new programming language u learnt, a weekend getaway) are exactly what they are : momentary..And lemme stop u right there if u think I'm saying that all changes need to be earth shattering and life altering...I'm probably maybe trying to find a middle ground there ;) something not ephemeral, something more long lasting...I'm trying to question the purpose of this change too...

And then there's also the concept of the comfort zone..if it is really so comfortable, would u still want that change? So that you can miss how comfortable it was, and come back and feel more comforted? And then get bored by that comfort and wish to shake things up a bit? And welcome to the vicious circle.

Surprisingly, I won't veer into the topic of how ppl deal with change that they don't want/seek. Maybe some other night.

No, I'm NOT listening to 'We Never Change' by Coldplay now :)

LAD

The title of this post is inspired by my good friend Kris' latest post, JAD. When I read it, I had no clue why he'd named that post that way. I still don't. Anyways, this post isn't about that.

Yesterday, just for kicks, I took my Android powered phone, made it a portable wi fi hotspot, connected to the wireless network using my iOS powered iPod and browsed randomly. It was quite fast! Phone was less than 3 feet away from iPod.

I must get out more and meet people.

A simple ad-hoc day

Garage Sale, New Onion Masala Dosa @ Madras Cafe, Shortbread + Vanilla Latte @ Peet's, Sunset @ Half Moon Bay, Massive Pizza and Pizzookie @ BJ's = Awesome evening courtesy Phani!

Put this on fb too...But this is more persistent and Pensieve worth so updating it here as well...In a random foreign city, ppl who don't know you really well are there to care for you and make sure you're not alone. That's a very important and key feeling they show. They are there for other Indians and wanna help them out etc...My first time in the US, in Santa Clara...Phani offers to drive me around and show me a good time...And an ad-hoc plan, which was first based on hiking, then turns into a beautiful sunset trip to Half Moon Bay! YP being around didn't hurt either :)

Just brilliant.

Seeing the feeling of community here makes me think about how we Indians, in India, take relationships for granted...A refreshing renewal of faith in camaraderie and bonhomie :)

E-nunciate

When you enunciate, you spit! - Gary Oldman

The reason I've a hyphen in the blog title, is today I wanna talk about virtual speech. In doing so, I'll include all kinds of communication, that you have when the other person ain't in front of you, ain't reading your face. I'll keep it textual, so that's sms, email, IM, facebook, blah bleeh

Hell, this blog counts too I guess! ;)

The main thing I wanna say here is, be really really careful as to what you say. An old friend of mine had once said to me, there's a lot of room for misunderstanding and ambiguity in the forms of communication outlined above, when I asked why I hardly heard from her.

And that point has retrieved itself out of the pensieve and hit me somehow, more effectively, in the recent past. Too many unpleasant and surprising and glaring incidents have left me reformed, a transient change at the least. When you're communicating "in absentia", the more the better...no wait, while that's true most of the time, I can refine and re-define that to 'the clearer the better'. The hardest part is to take yourself out of context and convey the info as you'd like it to be heard, but that's rather difficult.

To be aware that the other person is not inside your head is probably the best you can do :)

Test

So here's a new thing in the "new year"

I have decided to terrorize my gine chune blog readers with audio as well! (Evil loffter.)

Whenever I have a whim/fancy I shall find a karaoke and record my voice (sometimes not even that ah?) and upload it somewhere and link it on my blog. How much more self absorbed can I get? Hahahahaaahaha

And y'all, of course, will've to listen to it. Cos there's an embedded player n all. And its blue. And you just have to. (More evil loffter, which is losing its charm now and starting to sound like santa's laugh).

Starting with, Jeevan se bhari by Kishore Kumar from the movie Safar.

Brickbats in the comments, after you've woken up.

People

People leave indelible marks on me.

With a propensity to focus and eagerly store (and randomly recall) some uniquely (unique to me) weird/insignificant/trivial fact wrt to some person, my brain outdoes itself frequently.

Cos when the people leave (go far away from me/stop interacting with me) they leave their marks behind. On my brain. And the recall is the worst part.

So vivid is the returned mpeg/jpeg from my brain about some incident/remark/mannerism of the absent person, that I'm left reminiscing and am in a reverie for a while, sometimes longing to meet them again.

But the ppl, they go. Should I be content with their memories? At the end of the day, are we all inherently rather alone, inside our minds?

Vacuum

Have you ever been so devoid of emotion, that probably the only thing you could sense in yourself, if you strained yourself, was this surprise about the fact that you were feeling so empty at that moment of time?

And ppl were walking about, around you, like you weren't there..

And at a socially agreed upon, conventionally happy event/gathering

Whats happening to me.....