So long friends.....

Well Well, the last post.

Somehow farewells always make me emotional. But, this one's giving me a kind of joy. That's the irony of it. I want to cry, but I have nothing left to cry for.

I admit I could have wrapped up my MS in one and a half year. Two years is an awfully long time for the kind of degree I will be honored with. But, the time was worth wasting, I had some invaluable lessons in life.

If you examine the education we get in classrooms, they teach only what millions of evolution hasn't built up in our brain. They never teach us how to walk or how to talk. They only teach us how to communicate. Current educational structure is downright vocational. Nothing you can't learn with a few days of concentration, given that you can hold on to that for the sake of the subject, discounting the benefits you reap. If only I could unlock what the nature has given me, the classroom would be redundant.

I never knew how difficult and painful it is to be natural.

Money, Marriage and Responsibilities, is that all to my life? ...... I planned a bigger post and longer discussion, but what's the point?

"exhaustive discussions exhaust the reader"

It's better to get it over with.

Where do you want me to start?
The Campus Recreation Center, where I spent more time than at my house?
My lab, which was my foster-home,
or The United Daily Farmers, a place I would never forgert,
A testimony to my late-night reflections and those gorgeous Banana-splits
with a company worthy of my mother...

Taco-bell, rings a bell- Burrito, quesadilla and Taco supreme...
Chipotle, that mexicam grill
Krishna, Bombay-Oven and Apna-India,
Stadium-view cafe,
PapaJohn, Adriatico and Pomodori's
Bishop, Jefferson and Ludlow-too many sweet memories to forget...

Rohan, Srinivas and Deepak, the unmentioned and unspoken friends...
The punchline"lalitya", aeropostale"ananthan",
Srikanth ,Bharati, Sushma and Anoosha
'Rumandic"ramki, "Innocent"sreenidhi,

Fast bowler with a temper to match it- Yash and sweet little Anu,
The best batsman I have seen -Harsha,
"hardworking" Naresh, AID"ravi" , balaji
arpan, ankur and abhishek.

Then there is this "marathon man" Mahesh, Subhasish,
and my second advisor- Koustubh..
Ah! the "killer" Commandur
and
the weekly terror Dr.Banerjee (my advisor). He gave me hell, but taught me to be professional.
My racquetball gurus, Meghamsh and Murali.

This list sure is exhaustive...

Sharky Shreya, KK, "Radio" Rishab, Aniket and Sagilji....

My roomies Kiran and Pritesh.

Then again, here is the core:
Arpita, Balakumar Swaminathan,Balaji the Batman, Nikhil, Pavan, Soumya and Sridevi.

They taught me more than I could learn in the classrooms. They played a part in my story. They sure influenced the course of my life; by giving me advice I never really followed(sorry for that, I am an asshole).

There were laughs, and there were tears. That's exactly what makes it worthwhile. Laughs will always be forgotten, but tears- NEVER.

To not to regret not having said anything, I did miss you all- some the most.

I wish I could explain the bee in my bonnet to everyone mentioned above, I tried with some, but never succeeded. I even alienated some.

I have read many stories about Ironies of life.....
But in C'nnati, I lived one....

You can never have enough words to say Good-bye, yet
Enough is enough.
This is the end of my story. One person ended it, single-handedly.

Paradoxically,
Did I say my story is the truth,
that is has no ending?
Yeah.

Life is not the invincibility at 23.
It is not the regret at 40.
Nor is it the ossified apathy(indifference to put it simply) at 60.

I have no way of proving my point. But, the question is do I have to?

Everyone has a small voice(self) that keeps asking the same question..what have I done with myself? Have I done what I could have? Have I made the most of it?...It's to that voice you have to prove the point.

The journey to satisfy myself, to prove that I have nothing to prove to the population, has just begun.

It is not the esoteric accounts you recount to your friends.
Nor is it the garnished garble furnished to impress strangers.

My story has an elegance, it has an arrogance and it is majestic.

My story is me. and it has just begun.

So long friends......

A Sonnet

Petrarchian sonnet, generally, is a 14 line love poem. It has two 4 and 4 line stanzas(octet) rhyming like this: a-b-a-b a-b-a-b

And two 3 line stanzas, rhyming like c-d-e, c-d-e

the first eight line defines a problem, and the last six lines suggest a solution(don't go too hard on this one).
Enjoy mine....

I was my own master until you came by,
left alone; neither vagaries nor viscissitudes of life.
oh! into the realm of love you let me loose; a driverless sleigh!
vanguard me; mortality marauding with a knife,
enslaved by you; defenseless and deserted; high and dry.
yearning heart, tried and torn apart by strife.
Oh! the mighty mob, don't be one-a causeles cry,
until reason dawns loneliness cries, emotion- rife.

alas! a blind eye towards the times to come,
remember the times, a true self-less selfish stretch,
pointless pride? loyalty tied? let the onus on me.
intolerable; break the silence, utter the threesome,
truth be told ; don't vanish into my almighty's sketch,
artistically put, heed the plea and let me be.

Mind you...

Some said I cried,
some thought I died.

A commoner's charade,
A king's parade,
part of a trade,
a trick I made.

Heaven and hell,
oh lord! a mighty yell,
in tears, did I dwell?
cynics foretell.

down on fours,
mighty lores,
sealed doors,
emotional pours.

Some thought I cried,
some doubted I died,

A calculated tack,
dawn and dusk,
choose your track,
A mighty crack,
tumbling stack ,
fear of lack,
but don't look back,
Lo and behold,
THE KING IS BACK.....

Time-out

http://akidandaking.blogspot.com/2008/02/time-out.html.....

My story has no lies; for it's not exactly my story, though I am the lead. It's the story of a country, a woman and another.

I was afraid of an ending; don't we all know that endings don't happen? We happen. I was afraid my story will have a bad ending. Balls of it! who am I to give an ending? A mere mannequin; And as it happened, afterall, but for a bleak bout, the story started again.

That's the problem with stories, my stories. They start when I think they ended. And they are eternal; as eternal as the ephemeral mortality in me. Eternal is as good as the object it signifies, isn't it? They have no ending try as I might to give them one. Realization, on rationalization, reminded me- I don't let them end.

My story has no lies. Or should I say , my story is the truth? "No lies" doesn't imply "the truth", but specifically put, my story is the truth.

I don't let my stories end; they are the truth; and I might not be infallible, but truth is. And the truth is, true stories, despite the obvious lies and apparent falsity, don't end.

My Love

Warning:
This post is extremely emotional, person-specific and prized(for me).Also, this is just the tip of an iceberg with lot of posts linked to it. For all who want to read through, I can promise you nothing. You can do without reading this. This has no practical value for anyone except me.
(I know people will read through anyway, just don't bother me with any questions)

The ultimate weapon...Room 101, from the novel 1984, against all dissidents. It is just a concept by George Orwell in his famous book, but don't we all have a room in us; where we hide from the worst fears we are afraid of confronting?
Room 101, as explained in the novel, is the place where a person is taken when he doesn't surrender to any torture. It is in this room that he is brought face to face with the thing he fears the most. In the novel, Winston smith is attacked by rats. And he, who has been through 3rd degree torture, gives in. The mere thought of it is ludicrous. But, that's the power of fear.

However tough a man is, he has one room 10, ridiculous and irrational it might be, that festers deep inside, lurking beneath the bold mask worn for the sake of society.

I have one too. It's not exactly a phobia but a belief that extended as a "personality phenotype", if you get what I mean.

My room 101 is the "fear of loss"

At the age of 10 I went to a hostel. I still remember those childhood days. I used to cry for hours together to exhaustion. My warden used to put me to sleep for the lack of better option. In the playground, bathroom, studyhour huh! Well, well....

At that age, unknowingly, I shaped up my future.

The fear of losing my mother, despite the fact that they kept calling me every other day and wrote to me everyday, increased in me. Every other week, they would come, The moment I waited for a fortnight would vanish in a moment, and that blinding pain would engulf me for a few days and I kept losing my mother over and over again. There was never a permanent solution.

Instead of getting ossified to the fact, I made a solid resolution to find a way out.

I started fearing loneliness. A single minute alone used to push me over the edge into the chasm of loss, and I fought it victoriously by getting addicted to books. (Years and years of book reading has given a disease of thinking 5ways)

Adolescence.
Room 101 again shaped up my present convictions. I was already thinking of a permanent solution at the age of 18. But, traditions and loyalty kept me at bay. That fear of loss has made me firm in marrying a woman who would never leave me , not even for a minute, so that I will never face my room 101 again.

Then came "Sincinnati".

Life has a way of defeating your purpose.

This time everyone deserted me....