A Birthday to Remember

First up, those of you who did not wish me on purpose or owing to your brain with a 3 second memory span shalt hereby be bombarded with the worst kind of spam until further notice is issued.

Terms and conditions of Zhe Spam Attack

1) You shalt receive 'at least' ten mails each a day.

2) The size of each mail will be inversely proportional to the remaining capacity of your inbox.

3) No one other than the parent spammer will have the authority to "junk them".

4) You shalt not be allowed to forward them to anyone other than the list that shalt be provided to you, and this list would most definitely include the indifferent and forgetful ones!

5) The above mentioned souls shalt address me as Zhe Master until further notice.

6) You shalt not whine or complain.

Conditions for Pardon

1) You shalt send wonderful belated b'day wishes to me, still addressing me as Zhe Master.

2) You shalt be generous and send me at least 3 of the below:

i) CDs
ii) Shoes
iii) Chocolates
iv) Watches-And not the ones with the teeny dials.
v) Fuel my mobile, I use Airtel!
vi) Gift certificates, and no, I don't need free hair transplant from the nearby salon.
vii) Clothes (not high on the list though)
viii) Cash. Money. $$$$. Ka-ching!!!
ix) A laptop.
x) If you're good at taking tests, impersonate Zhe Master for her next test.

3) A signed undertaking stating that you shalt never forget Zhe Master's b'day and will seek her forgiveness for this year's omission for the rest of your life by being
a ) Generous.
b ) Apologetic.
c ) More generous.
d ) All of the above.

4) Zhe Master makes it clear that poetic, artistic or literary and artsy things are not loopholes to reprieve. As sweet as they are, they shalt not be taken into consideration when Zhe Master goes through the Pardon petitions.

5) Anyone spamming Zhe Master shalt be permanently deleted from Zhe Master's circle and shalt live the rest of his/her/its life as an outcast.

Zhe Master shalt wait for two days.

At 0000 hrs on 06-12-2007, Zhe Spam Attack Begins!



pooF.
(I will zhe back!)

Put climate change 'behind' us?!?

As a Math student, I am prone to equating things. They tend to give a sense of symmetry that every Mathematically inclined person yearns for, and apparently symmetry is something almost everyone looks for in the myriad of images the nature presents us. So here I was with the Sunday Express. Yes, I do read the newspaper. *confetti shower* My qualities apart, I reach the "World" section and what do I see? Butt cheeks staring at me. Apparently they are all protesting against climate change. A Greenpeace sponsored initiative which is to tell us that glaciers are melting so we need to start using CFLs instead of bulbs and all that jazz.

Click here to check out the story and the butts.

If this is the a rip-off of the "sex sells" mantra that is ruling the ad-world of today, God save us. And my equality sign passed through the crowd of butt cheeks and into oblivion with the hope that there prevails some better sense beyond that glacier.

pooF.

(Miss)fortune?

My Orkut fortune cookie says

"Today's fortune:
You and your wife will be happy in your life together".

Oh well, I don't swing that way.

pooF.

Thank you Rashmi.

I spoke too soon. Right when I was so happy for one person having moved on after the death of her husband of less than a year, I hear the news of the passing away of one of my hostel mates. She suffered from liver cancer. An only daughter to her parents. I will be lying if I said that I knew her very well and I do not deserve to eulogize her. But it did make me recall a poem by John Donne.

"Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee."

I do not claim to suffer from depression each time a soul finds its way out of the madness that is earth. I am not being cynical for I use madness in the best possible way. This madness has a sense of beautiful chaos. Intertwined with its most apparent secrets you've pieces of the most inexplicable of truths. It overwhelms you and alongside fills you with a sense of belonging like nothing else can. When you look at the bigger picture and know that you're part of a much bigger family, the collective sense of achievement and joy outweighs the losses. But looking at the bigger picture is a tough job, especially when each one of us is programmed to look at self first and foremost. It is next to impossible, if not impossible, for most of us to think beyond a few set boundaries and goals.

Ah! I digress. Recalling the poem made sense for the instant I heard the news, the first thought, after feeling for the loss of her family, was the instances I had spoken to her. She was always very cheerful. It is almost an uncanny coincidence that each person who dies young somehow has the power to grip you with their cheery self and nonchalance.

Maybe her body knew that it'd give up on her soon and somehow shielded her from the chemistry of depressing and worrisome hormones doing the things they do on lesser mortals who have the luxury to whine and cry at the most frivolous of things for a long time to come. Whatever it was, she was very calm and cool about most of the things we students loved to fret about, for instance, the universally dreaded phenomena of exams. Every exam was easy for her. And mind you, she scored well.

These and many more instances flooded my memory. And I wondered whether those few moments with me made any difference to her life, cruelly short though it was. Did it make a difference in my life? I think it did. If I hadn't known her, maybe the sense of loss wouldn't have been so much. And the fact that we exchanged mostly just pleasantries wouldn't diminish it. The length of someone's life maybe predetermined. But one thing that I suppose we all do is take too many things for granted. The few smiles we exchanged taught me the difference each one of those smiles made, for I know that each smile and every word I've seen and heard has made my life better. They have shown me that I am a part of this big family. That I've been accepted. Thank you Rashmi and may your soul rest in peace.

pooF.

Her crisis and my frivolous twists and turns.

I suppose I'm making a habit of starting every post on either an apologetic note or just bringing to whomever's notice that I've been missing for sometime now. As I always say, for the sake of my ego, I truly do believe that there are scores of people who come back and check for my blog updates. And I can explain the lack of comments as well, they're just comment-shy. Now that my ego is in place, let's move on.

I have a blog on netlog as well. Just that I do not update it anymore than I update this one. I cntrl+c, cntrl+v a post from the other blog.

Death Should Be Fair

I get back to Uni on Monday and I come to know that my classmate's husband met with an accident and is no more. May his soul rest in peace.

They wed on the 24th of May last year. It hasn't even been a year and she is now a widow. Such an awful word. More so because the reality of it, esp in our society, will just start unfolding for her.

But I found her to be strong. Maybe she is in shock and it has to sink in. I sincerely hope she gets through it.

It is true that when death pays you a visit, his utter indifference towards life just blows you away. There are questions to which no mortal can provide a decent answer. Questions like,"why just a year with him? What am I supposed to do with all of 'our' dreams? Why should I pray? Why him?"...

Silence somehow manages to answer it all. Time and space will heal it, one might say. But wasn't it the same time and space that led me to this, she could ask.

People would come up to her, say they're sorry..that they wished her story had a happy ending..Maybe that would keep her going for some time..But the sheer magnitude of it all would start showing itself when everyone is gone. When she will be alone in that room and these questions start pouring in again and there are no people to fill the vacuum with their profound silence. That's when she will realise what has really happened. That's when she will know that now her existence is marred by that single word "widow". That anywhere she goes people would hesitate to call her for their baby showers and house warming ceremonies or at least be in the forefront of one. And that is when her confidence fails her and she then 'chooses' to be behind the curtains.

I hope she does not choose to stay behind the curtains. I hope my classmates and I have been able to convince her to come back to Uni and finish her degree. I hope that she will find someone else who would be genuinely happy to have her as his partner. And I wish for her a life with no curtains, a life where there are no adjectives from the past to haunt her.

Good luck my friend.

PS: The title has been stuck in my head for two days now. It popped up when I was going to meet her. But then again, fairness is just a vague term. Who decides what is fair and for whom. Relativity-I hate!

This was on the fifth of April, 2007. I am very happy to say that she has since at least tried to move on. She has now earned herself a Masters Degree in Math, around 2-3 percentage points shy of a distinction. She has got herself a teaching assignment at an Engineering College and more importantly, she has regained her smile.

Talking to her the other day, I realised how there are things that shake the very core of your existence and I haven't gone through one yet. Am I thankful for that? Well, I couldn't say. I know about how these make you strong and such, but right now, I will save my thanks for a later time. For, from what I've heard everyone goes through that at least once and I hope that when that day passes I'll have enough strength left to thank God for getting me through it and showering me with hope for the days to come.

..V :)

pooF.

Reels.

Hola!

I just got my pictures back. Yup. The scenes of my Uni days captured for posterity. I got it developed. Came out pretty alright. I would call myself an amateur still though. I know what you all must be thinking..eww those outdated cameras?? Well I did visit the Heaven of Digital clicks with its magic of deletion and zooming and the tweaking service it provides afterwards. But the visit was a very short one. My brother flew away with it and well, I had to take the elevator down. Anyhow, no regrets though. For I firmly believe that ultimately the poses and the lighting does not really matter; unless, of course, you are trying out for a contract with Sports Illustrated. I've heard people say that they've the reel of memory going for them and they really do not need to keep photographs framed and decorated to remind them of their past. In a way it is true, but then photographs refresh your memory faster than otherwise for as years progress there are loads of things that come your way that finds a place in that teeny weeny head of yours. A gazillion more faces, landscapes, numbers, colours and their shades, sounds, smells, tastes, a variety of emotions that you thought never existed would've been triggered by one event or another. In this mess, pinpointing towards one moment would be hard. Maybe it was insignificant then. But the silliest moments can trace a smile on your face when you're down eons later. For me, those photographs were of friendship and a sense of belonging for I was living my life alone at the Uni for two years. We had developed a bond, one of having shared the same time and space. Having being part of that unique confluence, no one else was there. And the lighting doesn't matter 'cause even the fuzziest of the images are enough to light up my memory. It serves as a gateway to old times, a quick shortcut. And when my memory tries to pull me away from the past in pursuit of a better future, I can definitely turn on to these to refresh it. To remind me of the special people I've met and the good times we shared.

Plus, with this line of argument I am hoping that everyone would fail to notice that I am terribly camera shy and hopelessly un-photogenic.

pooF.

Quote-Unquote.

Eekz. It has been a while aye. All my coal's been getting dumped into another engine, viz, studying. At least I am trying. Hence blogging has been losing steam. Now that I am done with analogies, let's get down to business. ;)

I love the movie "Independence Day". The last part where Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum escape from the mother ship and crash land is a bit exaggerated. But then I am not complaining about those 5 minutes 'cause the rest of the movie was really good! :)

My favourite scene would definitely be the one in which Bill Pullman, as the President of the United States of America, delivers a speech to motivate his people. And heck, he does it well! Makes you wonder when you'd ever come across one like that in real life.

So this time I'm taking an easy way out and just quote it. Hope you enjoy it as much as I've everytime I've heard it.

"Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. "Mankind." That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom... Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: "We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight!" We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!"---courtesy imdb.com

pooF.