Of rain and imperfect acoustics

There’s this thing about rains and Dave Matthews Band.

Not that they have written tomes on rains. Or may be when Julia Roberts walks out of the washer as everyone’s dream girl in one of those teen videos, you sure want to follow the water drop down her spine.

Yea, DMB and rains lie in the complementary strands of my DNA may be. So when I was watching DM playing “Stone”, a song that with my limited guitar skills always wanted to play but never get closer to the level of perfection displayed by DM, I was as always swayed.

Getting back to the rains, and the nostalgia associated with it, rains in this part of the world are as rare as bringing Warren Buffet & Che Guevara on the same table with one offering Bush candy and the other Castro. So, it was a major revelation having been exposed to a phenomenon in desert land. The best part is that the rains come with the chill. The chill usually leaves you cold. Now with the rains, that make you nostalgic, the combination is fairly “nostalgicold”.

It’s a lot like memories. And this weighs on me, as heavy as stone and as blue as I go. It’s that time of the year again. Though the shelf life of the event here has been short as can much as it can be, it doesn’t seize to amaze me that the life of memories could be so much longer than you can expect. And currently it’s all scrambled.

I sometimes see a choir, with their brazen faces, singing swansong based on asinine pursuits and canards.

I sometimes hear an aria, from the solo singer above, telling me that the rigmarole isn’t worth it.

It has somehow come down to pens, papers and poison.

Any ways,

Go Obama! And I missed on a bumper sticker. But who cares! The “Brother” still rules!

Con-Slut-Ant!!!!

I am into a profession that a lot of you corporate friggin da-ba-doos may hate. The thespian with a million more melodramatic species from the planet of Ummo have been bitched about in one corporate lifetime or the other.

I tell you what you already know. And guess what, I charge every nasal inch, of the same nose through which you pay. So while I dart around the corridors of my hallowed portals, with that smug smile, I know that every mortal that I have served must have imploded his head with the same question “Why on Jupiter did he let his monetary reserves deflate”.

Yea, I am a consultant. I have no religion. I belong to the union of all those deified aliens who sermonize their heart out and make the corporate wheels rolling. Yeah right!! ;).

So when I landed in West Asia( and not the middle east as the yankees refer to it), I let the wheel rolling of many industries and sectors. And well, it was William Henry “Bill” Gates III who though born 55 years ago (He turns 56 this 28^th October: Happy Birthday Billy! J ), made the world a worse place, especially for tyros, just out of college.

And well, it is not about the skills you have. They jargonize it using those lame HR terms: Hard Skills & Soft Skills.

As a greenhorn into this world, it’s not the hard skills, soft skills; it’s the MICRO-Soft skills you require. And it’s got nothing to do with how oober super micro mini you can get in your attempt at softening you soft skills.

It’s how you deal with those sermons presented in MICRO-Soft copy. And you format them until the sermon and its (non) content plead mercy. And you format them until the genes of Linus Torvalds start untwining and Billy adds another million dollar to his inflated reserves and dethrone Warren Buffet, who is wobbling on the hill top already ;) .

And guess what, all these demi-gods, including me, hate it. It feels like your fucking bones have gone bad and sore. The blood is fucking intoxicated.

But well, I sing along with Paul Evans “ Ha Ha Happy Go Lucky Me”.

So it’s all nice and wonderful as it always has been. And I love my job. Absolutely do. And the people. And the place.So before some of you accuse me of being a part of the jittery crib fest, I am not. We all are, in some ways. But well, we all need to chin up, and worship Paul Evans :P .

Cheers to the last few months and the ones that lie ahead!

Adios

Blue Jays

It's about the jays. The blues and the beautiful blue jays.
The Jays are the Js I know. Joni Mitchell. Joan Baez. Janis Joplin. The female Js trio of the 70s. Haven't I adored each one of them. And its something about the blues and the jays. Not that it's sine waving off the human trail and fad. Neither is it the inkling of human life left in itself. It's something about them. It is probably because of Me and Bobby Scottish Mc Gee. Or the veteran sermon having seen love from both sides. It ain't me babe.
Some years ago,when I realized that the gush of hormones has slowed down in the body, this one song stuck in my playlist. This song has suddenly gotten back into the list again. And yesterday, it was my player that hung up on these last lines, as if it was some cosmos conspiracy to crop the lines out.

Now you're telling me
You're not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You who are so good with words
And at keeping things vague
Because I need some of that vagueness now
It's all come back too clearly
Yes I loved you dearly
And if you're offering me diamonds and rust
I've already paid.

Here is to the three ladies I absolutely love and adore.

Bongindo-Voyage

So it was supposed to cleanse me. Cathartic Trips they call it yea?

It was a trip that began with me walking into a year shorter than a quarter. The abscission from my previous year was something that I didn’t want. Though towards the end, it was bitter and quite acerbic, I still have loved every bit of it. The largess would be an international job and a lady from the darker side.

Though the job remains very international the lady remains on the darker side of the world, irrespective of time zones and distance that don’t quite separate the two. The usual tyranny of the “Pain Clan” post the lost battles of life and love keep haunting the mortals across the “Foe-cean”.

The demotic tendencies, the wannabes achieving the demi-god status, the damsels trying to look for gold on the outset, the zephyr that blows the life out of walking zombies, the institutionalization of no-names, the sleep lost over naming it and walking beyond the lines that make you trip bad and hard. The willingness to lose it in the middle of those dark nights and the futility of it all, between the lines of fear and blame on lonely days. The (un)foreseeable future, the burdens of the past, the wonder of memories. I have always loved Julie Delphy in her magical attempt at saying memories would have been a wonderful thing if you didn’t have to deal with the past.

This abstract part is for A.

Airbourne. Indian Soil. Cognate Couples. Homogeneous Existence. Instant Gratification. Disparate Visuals. Wonder World. Bodies in Wonderland. Spinning the wheedle. Fight for Might. Shards of snippets. Sheikhs of Arabia. CEO from Amritsar. Maggi. China Gate. Castrol. Nirvana. Calvin Klein. Provogue. Indigo Nation. Cool Cabs. Motorola. N 98. Images. Rains. Mumbai. Phonix Mills still rising. Zodiac. Inspirations. Exclusions. Scrubs. Baadi. Dada n Didi. Wiseling wannabes. Bade Miyan. Theobroma. Hazelnut Choclates. Marine Drive. Birthdays and bumps that follow. Bangali. Durga Pujo. Bhog.Payesh. Chatni. Khichudi. Dhonuchi Naach. Notun Jaama Kapod. Dhaaker Awaaj. Maaer Ranna. Hilish Maach. Sourav Ganguly.

Though parts of the above section is only meant for the bong souls, the rest is very much Indian and possibly Chhattisgarhi too( Sable Badhiya ;) )

Though the words above don’t quite sum up my India trip, still captures quite a bit of it. Though I am not looking forward to a trip in the near future, I don’t repent this one either. A trip that taught me a few lessons, the hard way and pushed me out of an existence that could pass easily off as a good excuse for a wreck.

I thank my $irajs©.

Inshallah, I would have another one of these. Till then, Cheers.

:)

Dr. Cox: ...And bam! The shine's off the apple. And that's when you find out that that pretty little girl you married isn't a pretty little girl at all. No, she's a man-eater. And I'm not talking about the "whoa-whoa, here she comes" kind of man-eater. I'm talking about the kind that uses your dignity as a dishtowel to wipe up any shreds of manhood that might be stuck inside the sink. Of course, I may have tormented her from time to time; but, honest to God, that's what I thought marriage was all about. So much so that, by the end of that relationship, I honestly don't know who I hated more -- her or me? I used to sit around and wonder...why our friends weren't trying to destroy each other, like we were. And here, it turns out, the answer's pretty simple: They weren't unhappy. We were.

Under the dog star sail
Over the reefs of moonshine
Under the skies of fall
North, north west, the Stones of Faroe

Under the Arctic fire
Over the seas of silence
Hauling on frozen ropes
For all my days remaining
But would north be true?

All colours bleed to red
Asleep on the ocean's bed
Drifting on empty seas
For all my days remaining

But would north be true?
Why should I?
Why should I cry for you?
Dark angels follow me
Over a godless sea
Mountains of endless falling,
For all my days remaining,

What would be true?

Sometimes I see your face,
The stars seem to lose their place
Why must I think of you?
Why must I?
Why should I?
Why should I cry for you?
Why would you want me to?
And what would it mean to say,
That, "I loved you in my fashion"?

What would be true?
Why should I?
Why should I cry for you?

Courtesy: Sting

Ode to the Flogged Blog

It’s been sometime that my blog has not been fed. It’s complaining. It’s better than being mal fed. The fact is sometimes the blog is better unfed. I must tell you there is a sense of Déjà Vu in things these days. I guess the turmoil in the lives and times of two great men bring in that sense. The fact is, that though this is a familiar territory for some people, it just struck me last night of a similar experience.Yes, taking the relationships and its dynamics away from the mortals, which can become ever so complicated, the relationship with my ex-blog and me also started turning sour at the fag end of the abrupt end it had, which pretty much coincided with the termination of all things human with an I-Banker cum Ma(e)ch Engineer. The relationship was marred by the consistent randomness inside my head. The randomness that found no vent whatsoever. The blog rejected the randomness. Every time a post was forcefully injected into the blog, it fired up. Reacted. Puked. Suffered from severe content-poisoning. Then I thought it had to be taken to a consultant, a general (B)logician. Though I have worshiped the Greek Logicians Euclid, Aristotle, Plato to the most contemporary Bertrand Russell, I failed to get the logic here. Because logicians could be consulted with a mind that accepts logic. The cortex that refutes logic needs to be taken to a Blogician, that’s BEYOND-logician. Sounds like a magician, doesn’t it?I so wish it actually was a magician. Nothing worked. Somehow the blog started showing feminine traits. Had mood swings. The mood swings majorly resulted in the blog being so erratic, that it stopped posting on its own. The battle shifted to my head. The war sounds were heard, felt and internalized at the heart.
There was a huge amount of misunderstanding as well between me and my blog. And the fact that the blog speaks it’s own language to the world, I guess the world conceived me very differently. The world though is pretty much human, in thoughts and in action. It is just one human of the fairer species. So the blog and its mankind connection somehow started to snap. The signs were there. The blog would whisper in my dreams. I am going away from you. I being the random one couldn’t care less.It got worse with time. Came my final years. Mistrust. Lonely Roads. Mean Machines.I had to make the blog burn out than fade away.I don’t like the act of fading away. Though it gives the blog time to cope with the parted ways and a life afresh, it becomes increasingly difficult for the heart. Having internalized the pains of the war, it gives up.Having seen me through many times, god or bad, the blog deserved a proper farewell.But I didn’t give it. Poor thing died a sad death. I repent it though.
I miss my blog. The old glories. The glamor. The shine and sizzle.I hope the same doesn’t happen to you. Though there is a striking similarity between what happened in the early days of 2006, I am fairly confident that there is more effort this time. More pragmatism too. I guess saner individuals as well who can make it work.