?

One Evening on a gloomy April Sunday he watched the story of Pixar on Netflix. “Some crazy guys thought about an idea and made it into reality. As the story goes, Pixar made Toy Story in which they put their sweat, sleep and blood. Toy Story became the first real computer animated movie that was a commetcial success. This was the dream of many people working and they slogged and achived that.” He loves this part of the story, hits the space bar to pause and walks to the kitchen to grab a cookie. He is noC. Auguste Dupin, but his grey cells start itching. It had been a while since such BS has happened in his top floor. Hmmm… Shutting that room of thought using the ignorance and social rationality technique he has developed over the past few years gives him some relief from the itch. He gets back to the video again. Mr. jobs comes on and makes a statement:“Pixar was hit by the Second Product Syndrome after the great success of a product. What Next? What did we want to do?”…. Thakkkk
Realizing the walls of that room are going to blow to pieces he hits pause again. Walks out and drinks another glass of water. Sensing that would be last resort he just goes to sleep. His evening passes by, with a glass of wine to numb the senses and some crap raunchy and slapstick comedies to keep the room locked.

Weeks go by without any action and the room is still locked. Then on one mundane Monday, as he sits on his desk looking at the bright computer screen listening to his favourite classical music the room walls start cracking. He is hapless here in the office. He knows his scope of rationality will not be able to handle the room being broken into bits; after all the rationality is socially acquired. Being pragmatic and yielding to the social constraints always seems to work; call it hypocrisy or otherwise. Who would dis-agree, that is the path of least resistance. He thinks wrong tangent… back to the problem at hand.. The walls crack further and his anxiety increases… The creeking sound is mind boggling… Againist all his experience, mustering the courage he has, he breaks open the lock to enable a steady flow… Since the door is open now, the thoughts don’t just bomb out.. they come in as bullets..

a) You wanted to achieve X. Awesome you have done all that now.

b) You wanted to do Y. Great you did that too.

c) What next?

He waits more. Nothing!! He is startled, is this it? All this anxiety for nothing. Just one small question. No more.. then he examines c)… What next? He starts to answer that question and its like a string of lighting bolts hitting him and he goes boink… You have a goal, you are done with that. What Next? That’s a very difficult question. Was that goal so easy to achieve? Did you aim very low? What is the yard stick to measure that? One question opening a plethora of worms… What is the motivation to keep going? Is A right for me? Is B right for me? Then he realizes that his rationality as it is not enough to answer this… This requires a different kind of a reason… Something that would not complicate and narrow down, but simplify and generalize ... hmmmm… Suddenly it hits him… in all the chaos and complexity a simple answer…

Search for “What Next?” is the answer to “What next?”

A simple recursive solution which engulfs and de-mytifies all the chaos around him…

Dead Phantom

Life is a bloody ironic bitch…

Life is a bloody ironic bitch… Just as you think you have got on top of it… It gives you a riddle that screws your confidence, screws your grey cells and what not… The eternal truth of life is death and this is the biggest irony.

One believes in God, thanks him when something good happens and prays when he wants something good. Then just like that one day God listens to all the prayers and gives something that has always seemed like a dream… The person gets so happy…He is on cloud 9… Flying… He is still catching his breath when God says, enough and a thing very precious that he already had is taken away from him… Now what?? How does he get out of that pit… Was he guilty of not appreciating what he had, or did he wish more or was he just being alive…

No idea… I guess life is a step by step process… One Step at a time that’s the only way out of this pit I guess. As one takes these steps, the thoughts that come to his mind test his attitude and character. Ones belief system and all the principles that have shaped him till now are all shaken and stirred too… Practicality says that one must not think about a problem that is not in your control and that every person will have to suffer the share that is destined… So we have to suffer…

But then suffering is a feeling right.. Why not stop feeling? Why not? Then you realize we are alive because we feel. Sometimes words just flow like this, out of feeling I guess…

I am at the brink right now. Brink of becoming a non-believer in the concept of God and still I pray and say “Please God give me strength to fight this”…

As I said, Life is a bloody ironic Bitch….

Dead Phantom

An Evening of a Common Man...

Life of common people follow certain patterns... Mostly everyone falls into that pattern... These are driven by the events around them and the degree of the influence of these events...
Just check out one of these evenings....

Preeti: “This is ridiculous. How can they do this to us? How doesn’t the govt do something about it…”

Ganesh: “This is how it is… What can you and me do?”

Preeti: “Come on!! We vote.. you pay such a huge amount of taxes and don’t you think these guys should do something about it?”

Ganesh: “Ha Ha Ha… Yes I do. But…”

Preeti: “Think about it.. Today its mumbai tomorrow it might be Bangalore.. It might be one of us man… How do you take that…”

Harish from inside the kitchen: “Till that time… Drink Beer and have fun…Fun until Gun!!! Bad bad… ha ha ha”

Ganesh: “ Exactly..”

Preeti: “You guys are impossible.. Kuch bhi… How can you say that!”

Vaman: “This govt is napumsak man…They just cant do anything”

Ganesh unusually angry: “So what do we attack Pakistan.. Come on that’s not the solution.. What do you think the people there who will die actually have anything to do with this.. No right? And will you bloody go and fight there? Easily said than done! War is not always the answer… Guard the borders better.. That’s the solution not destroy Pakistan…”

Harish: “Food in another 15 min”

Ganesh: “The point is we don’t want to get out of our comfort zone… That’s the whole problem… Everyone thinks about himself…”

Harish: “Another glass? See..that is not bad… It is natural instinct…”

Ganesh: “No Enough yaar... I agree..”

Harish: “Come on.. People like us, the tax payers are also required as much as anyone else in the society.. The ones in the ‘comfort zone’!!”

Preeti almost in tears: “Something has to be done.. We have to do something”

Harish: “Abe.. Change the channel man… She us getting psyched up. Abhi ganga jamuna chalu ho jayega…”

Ganesh: “Ha Ha Ha… Abe channel change kar be…”

On some news channel on TV….

“Breaking News.. Three more bombs found….

One reporter…’This is a --- channel exclusive…Lets talk to a person who was holed up in Taj…Aapko kaisa lag raha hai….” Bla blab bla…

Harish: “Assholes… Change it dude”.

On some other channel an Ad is going on

“agar aap election ke din vote nahe kar rahe ho to aap so rahe ho”

Preeti: “We vote and this is what we get.. We have to do something about it..”

Harish walking back to kitchen: “Abe yaar.. Phir se chalu..”

Ganesh: “Thik hai.. we will do something… Why don’t you suggest what can be done…”

Preeti: “Something can be done na? Somebody must start.”

Ganesh: “ok.. Why don’t you take the initiative… Why don’t you do something haan…It is as I said easier said than done…”

Harish: “Food Ready..”

Vaman: “First good thing I have heard today!”

Preeti: “Anna data sukhi bhawa”

Ganesh: “Lets eat!!!”

Well, this is how it happens I guess. The life’s mundane things are much more important than all the chaos until you are caught in that. Can something be really done? I have stopped thinking.. I guess the best thing is do your bit… Vote? Well I am still in 2 minds about that… My little bit would be, whenever I see some slack in security in and around the places that I go, try to raise my voice and hope something is done.

"Hope" that might will keep us alive until we are killed....

This is Calvin Speaking...

“Hi my dear friends, I am finally back…”….
“Shut up… Who asked you to talk now… I have been doing that for almost an year now… let me do it for you again...”

Hi all, this is Calvin speaking… This fellow just put my one liners in front of you till today…Now its time for me to speak…
As you all know, I am the crooked part of his brain, actually his personified sarcasm… We had a great time together in his company something that spelled like SAP… But I must say he always kept me busy… In the years that we stayed in SAP…

“Let me tell this Calvin.. Please…”
“Hey, who’s been doing the talking till now,, Just see your previous blogs…”

Well, he is a very gluey customer mind you.. Anyway he is away reading his previous blogs.. I will be done by then… As I was mentioning before, we spent more than 2+ years in SAP and I had to move 3 white boards… The first one was in a building called RMZ just beside the SAP campus. It was a beautiful white board I must say… it was big and white…Yeah, it is.. Forrest Gump dialogue style… One movie that we watched together and many phrases from that move I did use when I spoke to you… Anyway, the first board was on the 4th Floor where this ass had joined a team full of mainly uncles… Initial days were tough… I was always skeptical to say anything in full blow… You never know the uncles.. Amrut also just managed to go by this team. Then came the cricket match organization. He capitalized and that jump started his social connection spree here… He started becoming pretty popular with his mailing styles and bold communications…
Then he was called to join some other team and we had to shift to 3rd floor… I came to know later that we had shifted to a team which has relatively younger people and thus Amrut had no problems connecting with them…This is the time when he let me completely free… Almost every second day I used to make a speech… Oh, I forgot about the white board.. It was big and white of course, but then it was more visible and some of my best expression were caught on this board… I really missed the board when we had to move to the new building facility that came up… It was very nice, but the white board was small and the walls pink… can you believe it Pink?? I mean who in the gods name would have suggested this color… Even god doesn’t have an idea I guess… Well by this time, our fellow had grown really bold… He had really slogged his ass off and attained a very good position in the team… The consequence, I become more political and more dry sarcastic… You can see the effects in the statements that I have made on the smaller screen… Even though the screen was small, I had my best time here… Here is where I saw Amrut transform into a good team player, a good listener [ Yeah…. I share your views, he never listens to anyone…], a decent politician and bla bla… I saw him lose his cool and regain it back… He learnt the importance of my words and started using them very well for his own good rather than waste it on some unwanted topic… That’s when you see me talk about really important and political stuff… It really helped in shaping his character in Sap and I am proud that I was really influential… He made some very pretty friends too because of me.. hehe.. Un real right… who would think the crooked mind would have so many takers… But friends, truth is stranger than fiction… So we were having a great time together… Suddenly it happened on day that he felt that he has to move on now… I have always failed to understand him, but then who doesn’t need a change. This small white board and the same babes and the comments were getting boring for me too… So finally he resigned… It was a great 2 years for both of us and we learnt a lot from each other… See you can see me a little less sarcastic.. hehehe….Its just my one liners I guess…
Anyway, I then stopped talking for some days. Maybe it was because of the fact his Boss was a little pissed that Amrut had resigned when he had lots of plans for him… So the first thing that he attacked was the fact that, how can Mr. Tadas spread “negativity” with his cartoons now that he has resigned… I was puzzled… He was a smart man… One of the very few people on the floor who could get my sarcasm… Well maybe that must be the reason… hehehe… Anyway… we shifted to another white board before we left.. But this was a very dirty board and Amrut spent almost 8 minutes cleaning it… Finally when it was clean, I didn’t feel like talking at all…

I was done with the SAP white boards now… Change is good as you can see above… Change is always good and lets hope this change also is fruitful….

He is coming back now… I will wrap up… See you again soon when I find a new big shiny white board….

Building in Nonsense

Imagine two people used to speaking in puns and masters of sarcasm trying to get the upper hand on a topic…. Hmmm… What it results is a conversation worth quoting despite being very less useful; just like all the great creations of the cryptic human brain that one may think of.
Well after the build up, now the conversation.

In the rest room:

“ahh… What a piss!! Anything you do with this is pleasure”
“It’s Ironic with a tinge of philosophy”
“Yeah, you are right”
“I mean, finally what is important is that. A glass of water, food, sex..”
“Ya, Basic instinct that’s what it is all about”
“Sheer Animal instinct is the word. That’s what finally keeps us happy….”

As they come out:

“But we end up thinking, creating philosophies after philosophies”
“ha ha ha… Well come to think of it, we have the power to..”
“What power?”
“…understand this, that animal instinct is what is needed and nothing else”
“Come on… The Irony as you mentioned starts with this”
“….”

In the lift:

“I mean, What’s ironic is that we have the power to understand that it’s the basic instinct that is all that is needed for one being and yet if we didn’t have that power to understand then again we would need the same”
“Yeah.. you are right… Just as they put it… Philosopher is the one who knows that it is no good and “hence” preaches it…”
“So long…”
“So long… See you in the new sun tomorrow”
“Yeah new Sun!!!”


<<<<<<>>>>>>

Well ladies and gentlemen, Life is definitely a pun and its up to one’s own will to take the best suited meaning of it….

Dead Phantom

The Beauty, The Beast and The Homo Sapiens

It was a hot morning and cold night on that September day. It had been months now since she had left him. He was totally lost without her. “Left or Right”…. “Take a right”…. The cab driver took the right as instructed. The cab entered the muddy hip-hop road. As they tumbled and toppled along the road, he saw her!!!

He saw her in the embrace of a dark beast which lay under a dingy stair of an old apartment. Suddenly, the scene switched to muddy, greyey color (flashback!!!!) and he could see all the things that had happened between them before she left…

On one Day

“Come on dude… You need to switch off the engine once you come back home man”
“haa… Ya”. “Sure, I am logging in now…Ya, I will close that and send the mail. I know it is very important”…he muttered in the phone as she was trying to kiss his eyes …
“I need to work. It is very critical…”…
“Okay… Call me once you are done”…

On one another day

He was sitting on the sofa on his laptop… She came and sat beside him… He sat there as if she didn’t exist. He absolutely ignored her!!! She felt very bad, but didn’t say anything and just left…

On yet another day

“I don’t think I can take it anymore man”
“What did I do now?”
“You have ignored him too long. I can’t stay with you”
“See… I need to work also na… This is the time of my life when I need to work hard”
“I can’t take the sound of your active grey cells no more. They are constantly making some or the other sound. Something always keeps them active. Either it is your work or the magnetic radiations from your gadgets, or all the chemicals that you consume…I can’t stay here no more man”
“What did you say? I was making the final changes to that code re… sorry. I didn’t hear you.”
“Its okay forget it”

The Fateful Friday

He returned back home that day, really exhausted, fully beaten and battered. He searched for her everywhere. He called her aloud; he drank milk which usually made her come to him. But he had ignored her far too long. He wanted her on that day. He wanted to sleep. She was no where to be seen. He had ignored her, abused her in his quest for glory and power that she had left him completely… He lay on his bed with is eyes wide open hoping that someday she will return. His beloved will return to him someday…


Swoooosh….Back to normal colors

He saw that black beast; the black dog and felt really really jealous. The dog sleeping whereas the supposedly superior species as he considered himself didn’t or couldn't. He was really angry with himself and God for making him one of this self destructing species called Homo sapiens. He had a mobile phone in his hand; one of the best money could buy. This was one of the reasons for his beloved to go. He wondered, is this the cost he has to pay of being a superior species. He didn’t want it no more.
“Take the next Left”
……
“Go straight… This Road end”…
….

“Hey Hi, Ya sure… I am logging in. Ya that will be fixed tonight… No issues…By 8am tomorrow it will be done!!!”

(I Love happy endings and this is my story… So anything that I want to, can happen here!!!)

No, he said to himself. He can’t do this anymore… He took his wallet out and… and..... swallowed that pill that the eccentric doctor had given him…
He started counting
“One”
“Two”
“Three”
“Four”
“Bow…Bow…Arrf…. Grrrr…”….

He was no longer one of them; he was one of the beasts… He found a warm, dingy place. As he lied down, she came… She came and embraced him… Kissing his eyes…Hugging him… his Sleep was finally back with him, his beloved Sleep was back and they Lived Happily Ever After!!!

Please let me blog….

Please….
Please…
Let me blog….

I don’t need no more message logs
I don’t need no more design bogs
I want to blog
Please please let me blog

I care no more for the backlogs
I don’t want no more slog
I want to blog
Please please let me blog

Please
Please…
Let me blog…

I don’t want no mind clog
I am fed up of all dialog
I want to blog
Please please let me blog

No more java, no more prolog
I want to lie like a log
I want to blog
Please please let me blog

Please
Please….
Let me blog…

Please
Please…
Let me blog…

------------- Dead Phantom

The Damn Mask

Truth is stranger than fiction. What a statement! Let me put my interpretation of this same statement.
Fiction is just a shadow of the truth that happens in this world. A shadow which has the same outline and structure, but missing something very vital.
This vital thing is the color. The color in case of fiction is the real emotion, real happiness, real tears and fears.
Life is an Act and we are all actors. Unlike the movie actors who are just shadows of the actual world characters, we are real actors. The ones with the color! Everyday we wake up wearing a mask and perfrom the act we intend to perfectly and neatly without knowing that we are actually hiding under the mask. One might wonder whats under this mask... Well nobody gets to see it neither the person herself or her outer world. When you get bored of one mask you change it with another. We are always acting, pretending to be somebody. We never get to know who we are and suddenly one dies. The mask, the sticky mask persists. You are remembered as a person with certain characteristics based on the mask in which you have been seen. The damn mask never goes away. As Twain puts it "We are just Echoes"... and further he says "We are just compost heap made up of the decayed heredities, moral and physical."
The matrix persists and the pretensions continue... So much so that these become the real things and finally you end up saying "Show must go on....."
P.S.
I dont know why I wrote this and whether it makes any sense. It just a thought that came and I had to jot it down. Maybe in the future I read it again and i feel... What crap was this and manage a good laugh...