I , Me , Myself

Are all bloggers egotistic as I am ? My average blog will feature around 25 instances of the word "I" . Are we all self-centered morons who never get tired of talking of our stupid little lives ? Is it a parallel from our new way of life, where "I" is the most important , there aint anything remotely close to being more important. We live to satisfy our egos.


We have lost our power of patience ( yes! it is a power. People who go about saying patience is a virtue should know better) . At the faintest effort of a criticism or judgement we get impatient. We take offense. We dont have the time to think about others and even if we do, we dont care.

We live in a tiny world , greatest and largest human constructions are barely visible from the moon. Yet! such creative beings we are. We are such brilliant architects - we build gigantic mountains out of molehills. We indeed live in a small world of large men.

I am the one who matters.....I am the supreme being . My belief is the truth . The greatest problems in this world are the struggles of my ego . And others......bah! what others ? I dont give a damn !

Life in the Square One

Some people resign to their fate with a mention of the Square One. “Back to Square one”. It’s a special place to most people. Everyday, every moment a new lease of life starts there. When I was young, I was taught of a place called ‘Hope’. Nobody’s ever sad at ‘Hope’, but everyone is content and happy. It is a place that holds much promise. When I grew up, I knew what that place is. It is Square One. And it was told it was no place – nobody ever stayed there. It was the departure point for every new journey – journeys into the unknown and unchartered – or known and chartered.

But again, they were wrong. There are people for whom the journey starts and ends at square one. There are people who stay forever at Square One. There isn’t any other world for them. How do I know? For, ladies and gentlemen, I am one among them.

For the longest time, I was aware and perplexed at this paradox. Being born into the family of high achievers didn’t help either. My entire life so far can be easily summed up as a chase after some rather high expectations. But it isn’t my life that is the subject of this prose, so we’ll continue about square one.

Everyday morning, the average square-one dweller, gets up rise and shine; “ Today’s gonna be THE day, I am gonna rock today – there are mountains to move, oceans to cross, but what the heck? I am gonna kick ass anyway “. Ladies and gentlemen, a relapse to “Whatever! Life sucks!” aint an hour away for us. For all the determination, all the planning, all the will power we summon from heaven and hell, the final step is forever a mirage.

A pessimist is a sinner; a square-one dweller is a hopelessly lost soul. May God forgive us!

What is Happy ?

I had a fascination for the word ‘Why’. When I was younger I used to begin a significant part of my conversation with that word. Over the years, I’ve lost the habit of fascination. For any word or anything.

I am incapable of spiritual thought/ mental dissection required to define “Happiness”. When was the last time I was happy? Can I remember that? Allow me a moment, please.

In a sea of sorrow, happy moments are tiny islands far apart. So they should be easy to spot. Then why can’t I remember a moment when I was really happy? There are moments I feign happy. I do it for myself, I do it for my parents, I do it for those I love, I do it for those whom I want to love me, I do it for those I don’t care a damn fuck about! But, God! Why can’t I remember a single moment of real happiness? Is there real happiness at all? Are we all destined to be happy forever for each other’s sake? I’ve read (Yeah! I do read a LOT of nonsensical shit) that life becomes meaningful only when we stop living for ourselves and live it for others. Come on, now. Is there even a semblance of truth in that?

I’ve got to go way back here. When I was so tall….then I was happy! Oh! Cruel , cruel time! Why did you have to move along? Why not let me stay forever a child? My little cocoon that I was happy in. Lost forever!

When Pa used to come home after work and spend the evenings dandling me and letting the little me dance on his knees and Ma would be smiling and preparing me hot milk and chocolate drink. The little me blissfully unaware of the eight preceding hours that Pa was bending his back over routine, boring office work to earn enough for his little bundle of joy . Those were the days….when the greatest discomfort was when my milk was too hot, the greatest perplexity of life was the night sky and the million stars , the greatest surprise in life was what delicacy pa would be buying for me in the evening , greatest fun was the monsoon rain and the paper boats and the splashing , great sadness was when playtime ends and greatest pleasure was when I used to genuinely ask “Why?” .

Since then, time has moved on and life’s been a bitch.

I've been Tagged !

I’ve been tagged by fellow blogger Abhi . And bloggers reply in kind…and without much further ado, here I go.

1.Pick out a scar you have, and explain how you got it:

This scar is in the direct line of sight in front of me as I fumble over my keyboard (No touch typist here :( ). On my left forearm – a patch about the size of a visiting card and looking like charred skin is THE Scar. Quite unassuming as far as personalities of scars go.

I am a scourge of the road. This scar is my reminder of one of my earlier misadventures. A fateful evening; 8.30 p.m I am returning from Nedumangad via Peroorkada. Exact location I don’t remember, but it is nearer to one of the s-curves en route Vattapaara. I was rather proud of my 3-month-old Honda. From my faint recollection (we don’t remember the details of our failures, do we?) I overtook a KSRTC bus at the start of the s-curve at about 60 kmph , went into the lower part of the s-curve without cutting the speed. To negotiate the turn, I slightly tilted the bike and feeling confident because no vehicle came in opposite direction, I still didn’t cut the speed (Silly ASS!). I went on dipping the angle and the bike was at an angle of 60 degrees from the road. Then ……it all happened in about 50 milliseconds. The rear tire unable to take the pressure, gave way. The vehicle swerved badly – I hit the front brakes – the bike stalled and it started skidding along the road. All I remember are the initial thud and the fury of the roaring engine. Then I was getting dragged along the gravel along some 10-15 meters. I was in no position to get up by myself and it was a very dark area (No street lights). A few very kind bystanders / locals helped me up but for some reason I refused to let go of my bike and then they forced me to do so. :) My arm was shaking badly and I knew this was really bad ….I had injured myself. My thought was to get home…somehow!

The KSRTC bus passed me by a few seconds later when the bike and myself had been moved from the middle of the road, with all the passengers looking on at this pandemonium. You will never learn how earnestly I loved God that moment….a difference of a few seconds and Google would have been spared of these many bytes. ;)

There were many comments from onlookers like “ Njyangalkku ith thanne pani – ennum kure ennam ivide veezhum …(This is a major trouble for us – there are daily accidents here) “. One comment stands out in my memory – an elderly man gave this gem – “ Speed theere kurangyu poyi…athaanu veenathu (the speed was too low, that’s why you fell “. Inspite of feeling sure that my arm was in flames I smiled. In about two minutes I was up again, I took my bike, started it (it started in one kick) and started for home. I stopped at the next street light and raised my sleeve or what was left of it…it made me sick. It was swollen; there was no skin and blood dripping down the sleeve and the shirt. Looking back now, I seriously wonder how I drove about 12 kilometers till home with that arm. And that is the story of my scar.

Since then the two of us have done 5000 kilometers together without event, clocked a top speed of 110 kmph and been happily biking ever after.

2.What does your phone look like?

Hmm…interesting question. My current phone is a Nokia 2100 and it looks like something the cat has brought in ….. ( I know its rather unfair of me to tell that of a phone that my served my father well for 3 years….but its God’s fault – giving me a rather nasty aesthetic sense and a MotoRazr v3i which I used for 3 months)

3.What is on the walls of your bedroom?

A calendar, a poster of a very nice painting of child lord Krishna, a mirror, a coat hanger. Hmmm…I guess I’ll never earn my ration rice as an Interior designer :)

4.What is your current desktop picture?

My first system has a blank desktop, no wallpaper (A P-II system tweaked for speed)

My Second system has Harley Davidson Cruiser Wallpaper (Someday I want to buy a cruiser and one of these days I will…)

5. Do you believe in gay marriage?

No, I don’t. Gays are people who think, feel and act differently and they yearn to be free from social hassles. So why force an institution like marriage on them? If gay people want to live together, let them be.

6.What do you want more than anything right now?

Ho….difficult question . I have 7 backpapers (doing Btech Degree major in Electronics). I want to clear all of them and get my bachelor’s degree in first class.

7. What time were you born?

A Friday morning, long long time ago. And as some of my friends mention, God must have winked for a moment. :)

8.Are your parents still together?

Yes. And they are a great inspiration to me – the way they have together tolerated ME for all these years. Incredible!

9.Last person who made you cry?

It was about 1 year ago when I was in Chennai I had seen a really old man (at least 75-80 years) working as a waiter in a restaurant outside my workplace. I sat there sipping my tea and looking at him slowly going along his work. It was a very sad moment. I didn’t cry, but felt like I am empty inside. I never went to that restaurant again. :(

10. What is your favourite perfume / cologne?

All fragrances of Axe. I choose a different one each time I buy . Current choice – Click.

11.What kinds of hair/eye color do you like in the opposite sex?

I like girls with long or slightly curly, black hair (I don’t approve other colours).

I’ve had fascination for people with green-colour-eyes. But there’s something mysterious about those eyes that I am not comfortable with. So I guess I would approve black/ brown eye colour.

12.What are you listening to?

Enya – Braveheart Theme.

13.Do you get scared of the dark?

No. When I was young I used to be scared of being alone. I’ve learnt to appreciate solitude since then.

14.Do you like painkillers?

No. And I don’t like pain as well.

15.Are you too shy to ask someone out?

I am not now. (Perhaps because I don’t have anyone to do that now). I once had, and I was shy. In those circumstances she would have refused anyway. :(

16.If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?

I don’t want anything to eat right now. But I would really appreciate some pure fruit juice now. On afterthought, some tapioca chips wouldn’t be a rather bad idea either.

17.Who was the last person that made you mad?

A classmate of mine. For believing that closing your eyes creates darkness and rather stubbornly insisting that all the rest of us believe the same.

18.Who was the last person who made you smile?

A friend of mine who in her own naïve way got me philosophizing again during conversation.

I tag Akhil Sasidharan , Lekshmi C ,Don and Freebird.