Tea - a short essay

Who had ever thought that Tea would be a meet in the pantry and the Coffee/Tea machine would do the job, at the press of a button? I had, seriously, never even had slightest of idea of a life – that makes you dead before you die.

Tea was a concept – wherein we would stand in front of the fire, and let ‘the sugar and tea and milk and water’ boil for minutes. And there was a time, when cups were a sign of social well being. (Remember, La Opala!). So the families (the middle class, in this context) would buy the best cups what they could, as per their gross salary structure. And occasionally, the neighboring ‘aunties ‘would take times out of their lives to talk about the newly purchased cups.  “Mrs. Dubey, achcha cup hai”. So actually it mattered. My family never had so much money that we would buy the best of the porcelain cups available in the market. But we somehow, had enough to present our social ‘status’ (now replaced by ‘facebook’ statuses) in an ‘okay’ cup.

I remember how my mother and my sister would decide, discussing those trivial details – colors, phool and patti, about the dead cups which is so important in India’s context. Tea wakes us up, tea drives us, and tea is what we serve to guests:  to friends as well as foes. Tea is a synonym for United States of India. I generally used to have 3 teas in a day. I have never been able to decide on the taste, till date. Is it all that good? Does it actually keep you awake? I was never bothered. I still am not bothered.

What I knew was – my mother is about to serve love to me. And that we would all – my family – sit together, for at least 30 minutes and that very idea delighted me to the core. In the journey of life, I lost my father, some ten years back. What I still remember is his words, that he would share with me – in those Tea sessions – just him and me alone. I give credit to him, for the goodness I have. Remember your parents never teach you anything bad, ever!

My father, I loved him so much, perhaps!

How quickly time changed – I would say, it was a nuclear explosion and the word is a ‘flash’. I am a professional now. I work with a multinational firm. I have tea more than thrice for sure, everyday!  It’s not the taste, but the moments, I still enjoy. It gives me an opportunity to go out, into an open world, which is great. The cups are not porcelain anymore; they are made of paper, generally.  It is easy to dispose them. So are the people around, the professionals. We do not have any strings attached. Pantry is static – people they come and go. People are machines now.

Coming to my family – we are three people now at three different places. We still have tea, but not together. This is the life, I created for myself. I am not sure about your story. The paths that we have taken are so irreversible.

I feel like crying. The only missing element in my cup of tea is ‘Love’ ( that humans deserved more than anything).

PS: Let’s meet for a cup of tea.

Everything looks bright and beautiful after the rain: The Hen

There is a heaven down south - It is called Kovalam, the beach!

One of the Infinity - from the lost series

My Friend,
as we walk,
together,
forever,
i shall cherish
every bit
of you..
until i go
effete.
i shall love you..
pure,calm,placid
at times..
restless,desperate
and unspoken sometimes..
but..nevertheless
feelings shall
never die..

i give up..
i hold you no more..
but still i hold
you in my mind.
and that my heart
shall always find..
a corner for you..

Black at times,
white at times,
soaked at times..
liberated at times..
constricted sometimes..


i do my part..
i seek no response..
i seek nothing..
no more..
but still i love..
Worst has failed..
light,truth has failed..
but i continue..
My journey..
i see no left..
i see no right..
only the axis..
that leads me..
to you..
and that i reverie..
one day..
i find you all
aligned..
to me.

Once upon a time..

Hope

I go the distance,
I just go the distance
to just find myself a few words
to describe how I felt
When I met you last.

I travel the slow time
I travel with all the pain
The time flows at its own pace
and not mine -
just to see you again.

I count the stars
I count them all
Just to make myself believe
I will find you beside me
once and for all.

What are you thinking Mr. Surfer, Google knows it all!!

It’s been a lot of struggle in this muggy weather to calm myself and write anything that might interest you.I am an internet guy, unlike my roommate who is a TV guy, and of late I made a few interesting observations while I was surfing my favorite sites – Google, Facebook. Now I have been thinking to represent all the facts, mind you - facts, but have been failing so far, miserably.

It was just 8 a.m. when I actually woke up, thinking that it's already 10. Such harsh is the combination of brightly lit mighty sun and the salty sea. It took me some time, to gather myself and get up. Now precisely I could have stayed in the bed or since, already awake, I could have gone to brush my teeth. I chose against such boring ideas and hopped on to my computer table.

Social networking - the art of modern networking, is more about knowing people over facebook, Orkut, twitter, Linkedin, Google Buzz etc. Yes. That's how it is. Even though you meet them at your workplace or sometimes even at home, like your roommate. You understand their moods through their status messages and smileys that follow them.

I typed the url - www.facebook.com and logged in to see what's up with my friends. There was nothing much to see. No major updates. Over bored, I just happened to look at the right corner (that’s facebook's area of dollars/revenue) - Ads, both texts based and pictorial. I love reading ads of any kind. I was stuck by this ad: "The Kama rub”:She's hot. She's sassy. She needs some help with the foam. Grab the sponge, give her a rub down. Hey, and make sure not to miss a spot.

There were two more ads. All these ads suggested that Indian girls are commodities and they you can buy them if you are willing to. It was just too early to make any conclusions. I refreshed the page and there you go - I had another set of ads, very similar in nature.

So why do we have such ads, in a country where we consider cows as holy (and not holy cow) and we pray goddesses? Do they just put it like that and believe that the element of sleaze or sexuality would pull in people to these sites. Answer is not so simple. Let's try to explore.

Next, I turned to Google - the noun that changed to verb. Google is God, some people quote. The estimated market value of Google is 200 billion dollars. It's acquiring new companies every day. It's offering free emails, free docs, free maps, free social networking, free browsers, and free internet.

Google also launched their own phone - Nexus One apart from the OS Android that it developed for mobile devices. The next plan of Google is to use Android on TV sets and integrate web and television. Why does Google want to do so many things when it just started as a search engine? Let's explore further!

The free services that Google offers come at a price. The critics call it a privacy breach. They claim that Google reads our mails to generate context based ads. Say your mail talks about marriage - the right hand side of the browser will have ads from shaadi.com or any other matrimonial site. Google is doing a business. They are running thousands of servers through the revenues that these ads generate. And still they make a tremendous amount of profit. Google became so mighty that it scared many other competitors and this eventually led to an all out war. Yahoo is already struggling but it's still holding on. Microsoft wants to end the domination of Google. But the major competitor of Google, when it comes to ad revenues is the newer social networking sites - facebook, twitter, MySpace, etc. And to counter them, Google came up with products like Buzz, Wave and the ageing Orkut in a new flavor.

So the ads that we saw earn money for facebook. But, why such contents and pictures? Let's walk further ahead.

The worldwide web (www) was a black and white photograph until newer web programming and scripting languages made web application look like a desktop one.The web is faster than ever before. Thanks to technologies like AJAX and JavaScript libraries like JQuery. Google, as has always been, was really quick to ponder and do some experiment here. The first major change that came to the Google homepage was called Google Suggest. Type in a few words at the Google search textbox and it fetch you 10 possible phrases that you might be interested in searching. Amazing and godly, it really feels that Google can read our mind.

So the other day I wanted to search the song - 'How deep is your love?' by Bee Gees. When I typed "How", the first suggestion Google gave me was - ' How to get pregnant?’!! It was funny and it made me laugh. So I did a few random experiments. Katrina yielded - ' Katrina Kaif Blue films' and the name Riya fetched - ' riya sen mms, riya sen blue film’. Also I observed that only by typing "How" - Google also suggested that I may be looking for phrases like “How to hack orkut account" or "how to hack Gmail password". At the very same time, my friend who lives in the US was online. I asked him to type the same thing - "How" and let me know the result. The result was - “How to tie a tie". So I just changed my extension to see what Google predicts for UK. The Google UK threw "Howdens" as the first result. The results were not absolutely clean for them either. It had the phrase "How to get pregnant”, but pretty much down the order! Then I fiddled with the name "Katrina" and the US and UK results were pretty clean and people do not want to see her blue film over there. All the results are below:

Google India - "How"

Google India - "Riy"

Google India - "Kat"

Google US - "How"

Google UK - "How"

Google US - "Katrina"

Google UK - "Katrina"

So why is ‘Google God’ and facebook (the two major web giants) trying to prove that Indians think filthy? Are we all perverts? Why Google suggested different results for different country?

Google does read the data from the usage pattern of users for coming up with such results. Google throws the most searched term first and it's country specific. When we use maps, Google reads our location to give local results relevant to where you are! So we give the information to Google which it eventually throws back at us.

So definitely, more people want to see Katrina and Riya Sen completely undressed here. I guess Indians are more curious than anybody else out there. This may be attributed to the fact that we come from the land of Kamasutra. Does that entitle Babas to run brothels and Law enforcers to molest minors? Google just reads us (breach of privacy, but God sees everything). Google runs its shop through the ads that it creates reading these patterns. But it shamelessly represents the reflections of our mind – through suggest.

What facebook represented in their pictorial ads was what Google suggested (which was eventually what we suggested to Google)! Facebook has definitely a similar mechanism to read us. That’s why they are at war. It’s all about money, honey! Google in their ads represent similar things that sell. Google just reflects what we think, what we do, what we write, where we go – as we eventually land on its network every day (for mails, maps, blogging, searching, buzzing, etc).

Banning Fashion TV or censoring films won’t help. Google, the God,suggests otherwise.What is rooted inside us cannot be withered by scratching the surface. Let's just take a deep dive and resurface. That's how UK and the US evolved. We are developing and experimenting. Someday, we will see different ads in a newer India.

PS: This post is not intended to hurt any sentiments. It’s purely how I feel and there are no figures to support what I wrote.

Activity: Try typing 'Why' in Google.co.in and also compare the results with the US.

An evening exploration at Kovalam

Last three days of my life, were full of life - Friday, Saturday and the Sunday. I have set a framework in my mind. And the results were as per the rules directed by this framework. Joys were threaded into - lounges, movies, beaches, eateries, camera and music. There is no dearth of such things - provided you are ready to explore. It does drive me. I feel happy about them. I have always wanted to LIVE.
When you wander about places, you see newer things. You have newer experiences. You grow rich – in experiences, understanding, thought process, etc.

Now, a little story that happened this Sunday, I want to share with you all. At 4 in the noon, my friend called me up and asked me if I was ready to hit the Kovalam beach. That made me excited as I wanted to use my newly purchased Camera Lens. In a flash, my answer was ‘yes’. In fact, it was more than yes.
There was not much of a waiting at the bus stop. Perhaps, we were lucky. My roommate was with me. We reached much earlier than my friend who actually planned the trip. The usual slope to the heavenly beach called Kovalam led us to a bright Blue-Orange world. It looked cleaner, brighter, and more beautiful than ever before. It had an air of enthusiasm about it. People love salt water so much. Couples love them more, indeed.

People dressed in all colors, some known and mostly unknown, had their coordinates set. Why do we love nature so much? Boy-Girl pairs took strolls, old people gazed the sun, a few of them just lost themselves into the seas of literature and mostly all – just dived into the not so pristine water of Kovalam.
I took out my camera and clicked a few pictures. But I wanted to rest myself somewhere – a spot that would freeze the time better than the place I stood. And one such place is the rocky corner between the Hawah and the Lighthouse beach. It was windy. We were about half an hour away from the desired sunset, the sun taking a dip down into the water. It does that, everyday. But when you are at a beach, it is special. It is cherished!

I am a restless person – True! And sometimes, I am sensitive, too! I seated myself on of the topmost rocks. There was just the sea between me and the glorious sun. The wind was gusty and it had a lot of moisture in it. But it was heavenly. Meanwhile, the rest of the folks joined us. The atmosphere became chirpy – with laughter and jokes all around. With the descent of the sun, and lights dimming out – I wanted to see whatever was possible. And there was this man. A lean and thin, dark complexioned man with 3 children. His attire was convincing enough to project his economic might – which was no might. He appeared a little better than absolute poor. His children were dressed great from their reference point, though. No one would make a mistake concluding that he was a father – a responsible and worthy father – who took his children for a promised beach outing. All their actions had a zest about them. It was pure pleasure watching a bunch of soulfully happy lot. They had a Chinese mobile and everyone took everyone’s photo, turn by turn. The father felt happy and proud. Occasionally, he would also indulge is the photo clicking activity. The satisfaction and peace beamed from his contented face. And at a point of time, we had an eye contact. It was a moment of conflict. I was holding a camera – which was 20 times costly when compared to his Chinese phone mobile’s camera. He looked at it. I became uneasy. Why are we different? Why my camera is not his? I was numb and blank. Then I looked towards the beach. It had countless people. Many had better Cameras than mine. Why their Camera is not mine? I asked myself.
I came to the conclusion – it is not about cameras or the objects of desire. It’s about understanding simpler things in life. While I was happy clicking photos using my camera, he was happy using his. The important word is “happy”. How is my happiness different from his? Is it that any ‘Ambani’ or ‘Tata’ becomes happier buying an air conditioner than a poor man buying his first fan? Do we have machines to calculate happiness, joy, love, pain, pleasure or any other abstract emotions? Answer is NO.

As long as we confine ourselves into our own cublicles, we tend to remain joyous and pleased. The problem starts when we start looking at other people's territory.What differentiates us apparently is a sleazy, filthy, monster, man made concept called money. It just overtook us. It just killed the humans in us. I am not a preacher or a teacher. But I want to promote living and harmony amongst us – the humans. That man unknowingly made me conceive so many things. Now, I want you to find the man – who compels you in more than one way to think – and bring about a change. Let’s be human once again.

PS: It’s my thought. It’s not aimed at teaching anything.

Now, Today and ..

Life that I loved
And love that I lived for
Exist no more.
And now -
It's just about the time -
passing days and changing lights -
bright and dark
A few gray hairs
sunken dreams
and lost me.

Good God made them all..

I was good.
I was so good.
I was God.
And one day, I am bad.
I am so bad.

Now he is good.
And I am bad.

But she remains good.
Eternally.
She is good.
She is god.

Undone

Superficial smiles. And a repulsion within..
Something chronic. Sometimes sinful..
The corridor of love or the shores of reality?
Where..where do you want to go?

Away due to idle, or idle due to away
Oh, was that the tinge of black you hated,
or you totally loved burgundy? -
The yield is the same.

Your life without me or my life without you?
How..how does it matter?
Should I laugh at my impulsive dreams,
or Honor your real dictates?
Where..where do you want me to go?

With wooden hearts,
and cemented feelings?
Robotic emotions and lunatic actions
Houses of Iron, and roads of ember-
How..How do we love?

So we move...a little futher.

A Chat.

i feel so much touched..
by the keyboard,
and the music it creates
and the way the bits and bytes
reach you
defeating this world,
I get so overwhelmed
when you type me back
and the wait.. in between
it feels the world is lost..
But I am happy
I dont need it anymore
I have you
with your keyboard.

Dreams and Nightmares

Rainbow of beautiful colors
Rains and sweet little joy -
of droplets,
through the leaves of her youth
Beautiful dreams
sitting at the boundary of
her black beautiful eyes -
(Willing to jump into this real world of disasters).
Her soft naive voice
and infinitely brimming girlhood.
All is lost.

All lost. She is now elusive -
to herself and this world.
She has been hammered to pregnancy.
Sweet little Nancy and her Fanny -
Holds an uncanny story -
different from her dreams.

Life moved on..

All the wise men and women
Sympathized with her,
Consoled her,
Suggested her - to be strong -
And to move on
Leaving all that was bad -
behind,
Far behind.
Now she was strong enough
to let go the things
that once bound her to suffocation
and breathlessness - him!


Life moved on..
She did not even bother
to see his rotten body
that remained hanging for days.

Life moved on...

DEAD-LOCK

Of late, very often,
Yesterday too -
She told me -
I am mad.
And she cannot live with me.
Not anymore.
Not with me - mad.

I feel -
I told her -
I cannot live without you.
Never.
Not without you.
I am really mad.

Now and Then.

Go to a grade 1 primary school student and ask – how much is two times two? The answer is thoughtless and instantaneous - Four. Similarly I often question myself these days – what is fuck times fuck?
The answer is again thoughtless, immediate and eternal – my own life.
Nostalgia – you named your blog. What is that it has in it? It smells of piss. Now that she pisses in an assholes shit pot. She is really fucked up- literally. What about me? I am coming to that.

You stand on the seventh floor of your office, looking at the beautiful, picturesque Kerala – the sea bordering at one side and the mountain covering the other. It does not enchant you, not anymore. Only one thought reverberates – you are a prisoner with no release date. You are trapped. You have no escape from this heaven. You cannot go back to the hell – where normal and mean people live.

Nostalgia – a great life, young naïve dreams, success, joy - then.

Now – suffocation, hollowness, skipped lunches – dinners, lonely, nowhere, mechanical, computerized, drunk, pissed, shaken, dreamless, aimless, shapeless, non- existent, undefined, trivial – so called Software Engineer – damn you! Fuck you!

Beautiful moments can neither be recreated nor relived. No matter how hard you try. But still -Will ever now and then interchange?

Rushes.

tere vaade par jiye ham to ye jaan jhuuTh jaanaa 

ke Khushii se mar na jaate agar aitabaar hotaa

kahuuN kis se main ke kyaa hai shabeGam burii balaa hai 

mujhe kyaa buraa thaa maranaa agar ek baar hotaa 

                                                                     - Ghalib

Trivial Things - A diary entry

Part 1.
It's a saturday. I am alone. I just came out of the bathroom (morning ablutions) and the bucket inside, is dark blue in color.

The tap is silver in color.There are three brands of shampoo - Ayur, Clinic All Clear (for men),Clinic plus.I am okay with any of these.

My room is dirty.So is the entire house.Things once kept inside never moves from it's place.

The pepsi - coke cans, bottles are lying still - forever - wherever it was kept, once.There is a lot of polyethylene bags - with food rotting inside - ever since it was dumped inside ( with the intention that it will be put to trash can located outside the premise). I am supposed to pay my credit card bill, but I don't feel like going outside.I had slept 5 a.m in the morning and woke up at 9.12 a.m (in the morning, because of a trivial phone call). My life is mechanical. So is yours (even if you deny).Even fucking is a very mechanical job. I am not enjoying my work.I am expecting in drastic change in my life.I am hopeful and optimistic.Otherwise, I am pessimistic.

The bedsheet is green in color.I have bought Maggi( Masala) for my lunch.I ate my breakfast - idlis - at Ananthapuri Veg. There is a TV in the hall, but no cable connection. There is a fridge - no food inside.Neither any drink. There was a fully automatic washing machine.It's a rainy day in Trivandrum. Most of the days - it rains. Place is just too green and awesome. Still it haunts me - now.Generally I write and then I rewrite. But today I am just writing.

I am midway through a movie - Atonement. The two movies I saw were German. Both WW2 movies - Gloomy Sunday , Das Boot - with English subtitles. Google launched a new browser - Chrome. I am using that.

Part 2.

Its 4.30 pm now.Eventually I paid my credit card bill. Maggi was my lunch - with a little cheese and butter. I have finished watching the movie (Atonement) -it was a great love story ( back drop was WW2 again!). Now there are two things in my mind - a movie( in theatre) and another one that I want to enqueue on my download list.

It's 10.40 pm. I have watched another movie - A wednesday! Another movie is is enqueued - Betty Blue -a french film.Vodka - cheap vodka - is finally doing the trick. Goodnight!!

The trivial things in life - a trivial life.

Bitch: Dogs will be Dogs

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Once I had seen a bitch,
When I was a little boy,
I had seen her grow,
And today when I am old,
I see bitches – infinite,
very similar to ‘Monika’ - the bitch.
A bunch of dogs would follow her,
woo her and I could see the sense of victory,
in the shine of her eyes.
And hunger in the belly of lusty dogs!
A lucky dog would probably mate her, this season
And the rest will still be following,
for a chance in the next mating season.
Dogs - they too are bastards
If at all ‘Monika’ is a whore!
Monika - the stray bitch -
Now she has faded. I don't remember her.

Bitches - again, now and today -
All breeds, hybrids.
Sophisticated, arrogant, confident,
Cell –phoned, perfumed and proud -
They still know that dogs would follow
And that they, they still are bastards.
One bitch and a bunch of dogs,
wagging their tails behind her.
The code is in their genes now.

Coffee Day - A lot can happen over coffee.

Sunday - You are unusually lonely. Also you realize that you are too alone. Somewhere in the back of your mind, lines by Gulzar (in Marasim) are seeping through.

Ek purana mausam lauta, yaad bhari purvayee bhi!
Aisa to kam hi hota hai, woh bhi ho tanhayee bhi!!

Saturday night you tried sleeping but till Sunday morning you could not. Finally when you wake up in the Noon, you find your head too heavy and yourself too cynic. You don’t like a thing about this world. You hate everything, everyone.

Now you try a couple of phone calls to find a way to escape this morose and grim picture that is evidently bothering you. Nothing helps really - his voice, her voice. Things are boring. Things are too fucked up. The world is fuckin’ mad. You really don’t know what to do. Disprin might help but you decide against it. Long back and then quite often someone tells you that you are addicted to it. So you won't dissolve that pill into you again.

It’s seven in the evening. It’s dark now. You have not switched any light as you don’t want to see anything bright today. But you need to make a move. You very well know that these days you are not having your dinner properly. You then gather all your energy and think of a place which can bring you to peace. You don't know what lies ahead. You don’t know your destination, His conspiracy and your fate. Somewhere you are missing something – may be her, now that she is an integral part of your life.

Coffee Day – A lot can happen over coffee. You just land there for a hunt – to please yourself with your favorite beverage, its smell and the ambience of the place. You don’t know even before you have stepped in – your heart is pounding so hard. Why? You really don't know.

As and when you enter, you see this lovely lassie, absolute beauty - pretty much known to you. Dressed in a casual jeans and T-shirt, she looks awesome. You have seen her often and just before coming to this place - deep down inside you - you probably believed that you would see her. Yes!!! The universe was conspiring. Then and there - there is a sudden mood swing.

Yaad nahin kya kya dekha tha, saare manjar bhool gaye!
Uski galiyon se jab laute, apna bhi ghar bhool gaye!! - Saher (Nazeer)

You find a place for yourself – comfortable couch. You order a hot Mocha for yourself. She on the other hand is holding a cold variant – Frappe, I believe.

You sip through your drink and would occasionally steal a glimpse of her. And occasionally the eyes would meet. There is not much of a resistance as is evident from her expressive, dark eyes. You don't want to miss a thing. But, you are done - your coffee mug is empty. So are you. You order another coffee – black coffee aka Caffeine kick. The next moment you are drunk.

You sense the kicks. The goblet of her eyes won’t let you move. You are stuck and you are still. In ten minutes time she stood up and moved towards you. “Hi! Do you live near by? “, She questioned. “Not really. But I love coffee. I love watching people around sometimes”, you answer. A formal conversation of a minute follows and then she fades away into the darkness – leaving behind her aroma. You are nailed. You are crucified. A discrete moment of eternal joy is what you have to cherish about the next day and everyday from then on.

PS: She was not alone.