Home of the Pointless

Brilliant Use of Language

2012-01-19T23:50:00.002+05:30

To make brilliant use of language all you need to do is use the right word for the right thought.

There. Now you know.

Metaphor

2011-12-31T20:20:00.002+05:30

A metaphor, by merely existing, can enable thoroughly novel interpretation of reality. Absence of one, on the other hand, shuts us off from ways of thinking that would've been completely obvious were it there.

Consider an archaeologist trying to assign a purpose to a prehistoric trinket. Lacking clear knowledge, he must have his imagination to fill in, but it's only the metaphors available to him that'll define the reach of what he can imagine.

A metaphor is a beautiful thing, just as all things fundamental to the human condition must always be.

2010-05-14T22:18:00.002+05:30

Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile - Hippocrates

In English: Life is short, [the] craft long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult."

2007-12-29T20:48:00.000+05:30

"Kitne Monte Cristo they?"

"Count bhool gaya mai-baap"

In Ohio

2007-07-07T14:47:00.007+05:30

The moon sleeps
In the vast duvet of darkness.
The night holds
No promise of luminosity.

Beside Lake Erie I sit,
Incovenienced by pebbles,
But my brain too drenched
In some opaque sensation to bother.

The water sparkles.
Tiny sounds emerge and enter my ears.
A dull steamer far way ─
Something talks to shadows.

I think of home.
I think of my family.
I think how, why I'm here
So much removed
From all that's precious to me.

The breeze steals into my hair
And I hear the streamer grunt.
The water sparkles even more.
The Erie is indescribably beautiful.

Heed The Call

2007-06-13T15:01:00.000+05:30

You sit alone
Beneath the tree of love

With sonnets by young poets
Alone and hollow.

Death's waters swelling in blue crests
Welcome thy spirit to the sea.

Set sail
On sunset waves. Leave tiny encumbrances here forever.

The wind will take thy hand
And guide you to where you've always wanted to go.

Be wise
And heed the call.

Past

2007-05-02T17:23:00.000+05:30

What’s a bad day
That lasts a decade?
What's happiness
Promised with living
That's a lifetime too late?

Terms would matter
If you only comprehend
Things slipping by memory,
Times and faces,
In a single, wistful blend.

And everything ─
Everything plunging
Into a million miles deep
Clouds of past.

Explanations don’t exist.
Logical cause-and-effect won't fit.
It happened. That's all ─
Get over and live with it.

Live you will,
But sometimes you’ll glance
At the what-could-have-been
And a bygone chance.

And think you didn’t deserve it
Then why were you wronged?
But you'll hear the whisper every time:
Why, to make me strong.

Idle Thoughts

2007-04-04T16:43:00.000+05:30

1) I've discovered that the real self-confidence comes not from knowing that you are right, but from the realisation that while you could be wrong, just as easily everybody else could too. Therefore, strangely, the absence of an infallible yard-stick of truth actually empowers, not take anything away.

2) It's maddening to think that the moment that just passed is never, ever, coming back. It is as if there's a humongous black-hole chasing you all along your journey through life, its mouth wide open, swallowing from the smallest to the largest of things. Who knows, may be your death is merely the triumph of the black-hole when it makes a final run for it and catches up with you: "Gotcha, baby! You ain't going nowhere."

City Of Bridges

2006-10-25T13:40:00.001+05:30

In the city of bridges
Men sit hunched on parapets
And direct sad gazes
At car tail-lights
Streaking red blood wakes.

In the city of bridges
Illumination wafts in lofty air
And beneath, on the bruised tarmac,
Sprawl
Residues of darkness from sunless days.

In the city of bridges
Boxes hurtle
In the grime-laden sky,
Yet no one moves,
Destinations slip forever away,
And beginnings fall over railings and die.

Overheard

2006-09-15T11:54:00.000+05:30

...in what we call an RTV here, a boxy, ramshackle, van like thing:

Driver: Ispeed to sahi pakde hai yeh.

Cleaner: Ajee birake bhi jorawar hain iske. Ek nahi to do nahi to teen nahi to paanch chhai paidil [paddle] mein to ruk hi jave hai.

Driver: Haan, bas ek awaj hi thodi bhari bhari si kare hai, nahi to ghodi hai ghodi.

Howto: Calling DASSL from C++

2006-02-03T17:40:00.003+05:30

I am not going to tell what DASSL is; since you've continued past the semicolon, I'll just assume you already know that. What I am going to tell you here is how you can go about calling DASSL, which is written in FORTRAN, from within a C++ program. If any of this matters to you, you may read on.

I've written this howto out of my own experience. For a simulation application I'm writing, I needed to call DASSL from within Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0; and I didn't know how to do that. I searched for days over the Internet but found only scattered pieces of information that each, taken alone, was of as much use to me as a pair of low-rise jeans is to a dining table. Yet, I continued to experiment and try all sorts of things (some of which can't be mentioned in a polite gathering). Then, after all the efforts, one day, a call to DASSL went through -- just like that. The code ran without a hitch.

So, without any further ado and bad metaphors, here down to business we get:

First, assumptions and other prologue-y things:1) DASSL is written in FORTRAN. I don't know if it's FORTRAN 77, FORTRAN 95 or FORTRAN TWO THOUSAND AND FIFTY FOUR. It makes no difference to what we are trying to achieve here.

2) I work on Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 (MSVC6) on Windows XP. So whatever I say here applies to this platform alone. I'm not sure if this works with GCC and Unix or even the old versions of Windows and MSCV; but I believe whatever I did in my case would not be too different from what you’ll need to do on your platform. So, if you have to, adapt this howto to your needs.

3) My FORTRAN compiler is g95. It’s a free, open-source compiler. FORTRAN compilers vary in how they decorate compiled code and all that. I do not claim knowledge about all those issues. I used g95 and was happy. You will be too; take my word.

4) Three flavours of DASSL are available: DASKR, DASPK and DASSL. In this howto I shall use the name DASSL, irrespective of which of the three you're using. What I say here applies to all of them equally well.

So that’s that. Let’s now get on with how actually to do it.

The steps for making it happen:
1) Download the DASSL source code from here. Choose DASKR, DASPK, or DASSL as per your requirements. The procedure for calling them from MSVC is exactly the same, except, of course, the signature of the function call in each case.

After downloading the zipped file (ddassl.tgz), unzip it. You’ll now have a folder called DASSL with the following files in it: daux.f, ddassl.f, and dlinpk.f.

2) Download g95 from this place. Follow the instructions on the g95 website and install it.

3) Next, you need to compile the DASSL code with g95. Go to the DASSL folder, compile the three files with the following command:

g95 –c daux.f ddassl.f dlinpk

After compilation you’ll find three new, object files in the same folder: daux.o, ddassl.o, and dlinpk.o. The option “-c” ensures that g95 merely compiles the three files and does not attempt to link them together. We’ll be doing the linking job later with MSVC.

4) Create your C++ project in MSVC6. Declare the DASSL call in C++. In my case the declaration looked like this:

extern "C" void ddassl_(
void (*funcptr)(const double& time, const double y[], const double yPrime[], double residue[], int& iRes, const double rPar[], const int iPar[]),
const int& noOfEquations,
const double& currentTime,
const double initialY[],
const double initialYPrime[],
const double& finalTime,
const int info[15],
const double& relativeTolerance,
const double& absoluteTolerance,
int& outputStatusFlag,
const double dWorkArray[],
const int& lengthOfDWork,
const int iWorkArray[],
const int& lengthOfIWork,
const double rParArray[],
const int iParArray[],
void (*jacobian)(const double& time, const double y[], const double yPrime[], double** PD, double& CJ, double rPar[], int iPar[])
);

There are two important aspects of this declaration. First, the declaration is preceded with an extern "C". You need this to avoid name mangling which C++ compilers do. Second, the function name ddassl is suffixed with an underscore. This is important owing to function name issues involved in calling FORTRAN and C++ code from each other. Since I stumbled upon al this by hit and trial, don't expect reasons for this. It works, and that's enough.

The rest of the declaration is nothing remarkable. Read your DASSL documentation to understand it.

5) Next, copy the three object files obtained in step 3 to the folder where your above-mentioned MSVC6 project lies (let's call it the 'project folder'). Also go to the folder where g95 is installed. Once in the g95 folder, follow this path: \lib\gcc-lib\i686-pc-mingw32\4.0.2. In the folder 4.0.2 find two files: libf95.a and libgcc.a. Copy them to the project folder. Now, apart from the C++ files and MSVC files, you have the following files in the project folder: daux.o, ddassl.o, dlinpk.o, libf95.a and libgcc.a. We're going to need these files for linking.

6) Open your C++ prject. Go to Project->Settings->link. Under the field "Object/library modules", enter this: daux.o, ddassl.o, dlinpk.o, libf95.a, libgcc.a. This step adds the requisite libraries and object files the MSVC6 linker is going to need.

7) You're ready to link now. Run the MSVC6 linker. It'll first -- of course -- compile the C++ code and then link it with the above mentioned 5 files.

8) Your work is done. Now call DASSL with apropriate arguments. It should run without problem.

9) Let out a sigh of relief. Go get yourself coffee. Come back. Backslap the dude sitting next to you and ask, "Isn't it a lovely motherfuckin' day, my friend?".

Last words: I did this exactly as I've described. If it doesn't work for you, you can write to me the email address: gurry_uor at yahoo dot co dot uk. I might also in haste have made mistakes above; point them out to me.

Another friendly tip: your simulation is most likely to be a hybrid simulation. What that means is that you have at least one variable which, with time, goes through a variation which is either discontinuous or its first derivative is discontinuous. DASSL, let it be known, cannot reliably integrate past such discontinuities in the zeroth and the first order. So you'll have to stop your integration whenever any discontinuity is encountered, then reset the initial conditions and then restart it. All major simulation software packages do that; you shall have to too. Read this book for more information.

Though I've focussed on DASSL here, you can use the same approach as above to call any FORTRAN function from MSVC6. I'm sure the astute reader -- look how the rascal's smiling -- would have figured that out already.

Allright, I hope this helps. Google spiders will pick this page up the next month and I hope troubled souls with DASSL afflictions like mine shall then come and find solace here.

I'm outta here.

Idle Thoughts

2006-02-03T14:02:00.000+05:30

1) If I were a gigolo, I'd have made sure that I had "SATISFACTION GUARANTEED" tattooed on my lower abdomen before I took any clients.

2) Running the tips of fingers over one's own stubble is the cheapest possible time-warp device available to men.

Women, on the other hand, have childbirth.

3) I chew fast. It makes me feel full of purpose.

4) I wonder how much one's name influences one's personality. I can scarcely imagine how I'd have been had I been named Chaman Lal.

5) Ever had your upper lip throb? It's the queerest sensation.

6) It is strange how you'll never get to have a clear, intimate view of the most organs of your body. In fact, in all probability, you'll die without ever setting eyes on your the great majority of your inner parts that make your life possible. Would it have made me a different person had I been able to look, as if through a glass, upon my own beating heart; and perhaps somehow have a peek at the blood-red, tiny arteries in my cerebral cortex? How about if our skins were of a completely see-through material? Would it have made ouselves more conscious of our existence? Or more beautiful?

7) I think the drive to reproduce is inseparably tied to self-love and the subconscious desire to see ourselves replicated. And, paradoxically, as parents, that's our greatest undoing.

New Year Resolutions

2006-01-17T11:24:00.000+05:30

1) 640×480 pixels

2) 1280×768 pixels

3) And 720 dpi on the printer

That's about it.

Idle Thoughts

2005-11-11T11:01:00.002+05:30

1) Nothing quite symbolizes passivity as well as a vacant chair.

2) A clean toilet is among the most under-appreciated sources of happiness. Breakfast-table conversations would easily revolve around them had it not been for widespread stigma attached with toilets in general.

3) There's definitely some bravado attendant to drinking tea without sugar or milk. I have to admit that every morning I drink a cup just to feel like a man.

4) Fools should not be given computers. They might ask them stupid questions which might eventually, when this artificial intelligence thing comes along, make computers remember it and get really pissed. We'd then have a real man-versus-machine war on our hands just because we let the fools in on computing.

5) Don't waste paper; use both sides. Don't waste a women either.

6) Vivacity is a misplaced ideal. So is bubbliness.

Diwali Vacation

2005-11-07T16:57:00.000+05:30

I was away from computers, the Internet, work and all that for a week. Apart from celebrating Diwali with Mom and Dad, I took some time to visit my Nanke (the Punjabi word for the place to which one's Mom belongs). Since my maternal folks are farmers and live in a village, it was great to slip into a peaceful village life for a change, eat a lot of ghee and butter and catch up with everyone.

On the way back from Nanke, we took a detour to the village where we used to live when I was a child. We used to have a really old home there (ancient is more like it), which is being torn down as I write. I had a sinking feeling looking at it being taken apart brick by brick. Some nooks and corners in that home where I used play or stash my secret treasures had either already vanished or were being taken out of existence right before my eyes. I felt like crying but I knew it will all continue living in my mind. That comforted me and made me wonder about the very idea of existence of things.

Me and my brother went around the streets of the village and soaked ourselves up in terms of our childhood experiences, comparing the present with the past in our minds. Remarkably, everything -- the streets, the houses -- appeared to have grown smaller than how we remember them. It's perhaps because when we last saw it all, we were only small children and our surroundings had registered themselves as distant or imposing. Now that we're bigger our perspectives are entirely changed. It was a puzzling realisation. It also strongly underlined the change that everything has gone through.

Later Dad took us to our agricultural land there. Being a Jatt, one can never be excused for being detached from land and agriculture. In our community it's your land holdings that define your status. You may have just won a Fields Medal for solving the Riemann Hypothesis for all they care. That's how it works around here.

By the late afternoon, we had seen a lot of places and met a whole assortment of people who had now all grown old, each one in his own peculiar way. I had felt so many emotions all at the same time.

In the evening we said our goodbyes and drove back to Bathinda.

The whole trip was a wonderful experience and a good break from the humdrum turning of the corporate mill. Having been to my village, I now feel more conscious of what I am and where I belong, something which I believe had sort of faded out of my mind as a went about getting a western education and imbibing new values. I should thank myself for going.

Here are some photos I took. I can't seem to get CSS to work; hence there are no borders around them:

Cruising on a narrow rural road. These roads criss-cross the whole interior Punjab connecting one village to another. Naturally, most of the traffic is tractors and trolleys.

The rear of a Mahindra International tractor. The green toolbox is actually an army ammunition case which one of my cousins must have swindled out from someone.

Wadde Mamaji (eldest maternal uncle). This one was taken by one of my nephews. Not a bad shot for a 5-year old.

The fodder chopper. The fodder must be cut into small pieces before it can be laid before the farm animals. Every evening the village buzzes with the sound of engines turning machines like this. When I was little they used to work them by hand. Then the diesel engine arrived and changed everything.

Jaws of fodder death. These sprockets are from the above machine. They yank in anything you place on them. Mostly it's fodder. Sometimes it's a human limb.

This is the engine used to run the fodder chopper (Damn, there's gotta be a better name for this thing.)

The output wires coming out from an electric generator. Farmers who can afford it use generators as a fallback in case the power supply fails right in the middle of the harvest season, which is not all that unthinkable here in India.

Another, lonely wire.

The engine that runs the generator. The prominent looking component is the fuel pump. It's supplies diesel to the combustion chambers of the engine. Each of the hoses leading out of it go into a separate cylinder. There are mechanisms like cams in the pump that maintain the proper timing of the supply, thus ensuring the proper firing sequence of the cylinders. It's all like a complex, synchronised stage-event. In short, mechanical engineers rule!

It's the rice harvest season. You wanna use every extra tractor you can get. The folks are preparing to go to work for the day.

Jaskaran, the younger of my two nephews. He'll turn 3 in December. He's remarkably clever. In the picture he's wearing a coca-cola coloured kurta-pajama and that yellow thing is a good-luck charm, what we call a "Taveet" in Punjabi. Almost all kids in villages wear them to ward off evil spirits. If you ask me, the evil spirits must be wearing rabbit bones to keep these kids away from them.

The day's done. And the combine harvester returns. The work will restart tomorrow morning.

The evening in the fields.

My cousin Lakhi fixing blades of the "Cutter". The Cutter is essentially an overgrown lawn-mower that is used to cut down the rice (or wheat) stalks that remain standing after the combine harvester has done its job.

My other nephew Pushpinder. This one is 5 years old. The two kids are crazy about these pups that some stray bitch has delivered in the farm. Someone has built this shelter for them. The kids always make it a point to check on how the puppies are growing.

Jaskaran watching TV oblivious of being photograph. Had he seen the camera, he'd have been after me to give to him so that he can take everybody's pictures.

The farm-hand. He's ingesting his morning supply of tea before he leaves for work. These guys worship tea. They usually can't move a muscle before a litre of it has been poured into their insides. In the background is another of those narrow roads Punjab's littered with.

Jaskaran striking a pose.

In these parts of Punjab, you are a nobody if you don't own a horse or two. This one's a female. She delivers a calf or two (I have no idea about horses' gestation period) every year who fetch good money in the market. What a lovely animal she is.

Indy -- as he's occasionally called -- riding the shoulders of my brother, and being enormously pleased about it.

The Cutter being fixed.

This is our farm. And that's Dad in the background. The brick structure is a shelter for the tubewell motor. Someone has planted a buffalo's skull on it for some reason. Some ritual perhaps. I have no idea. Village folks indulge in all sorts of weird crap.

This is my childhood house being torn down. It was really ancient. They must've quit making bricks like those right around the time the Sepoy Mutiny happened.

Life on Delhi's Roads

2005-10-13T15:15:00.000+05:30

This guy was transporting a sugarcane, which ran the whole length of the car with leaves sticking out from under his hatch. He had a woman in the passenger seat, but it was perhaps too awfully precious to be entrusted to her. So he gallantly drove with one hand the other one clutching the sugarcane. We wanted to take a full shot from the side, but feared that he might somehow whack us in the face with that thing.

Alright, Now Knock It Off God

2005-09-16T12:31:00.002+05:30

It ain't stopping. It ain't going away. And it's getting on my fuckin' nerves!

Three days. It has been pouring, gushing, streaming, tumbling, drizzling, showering, trickling for three days now. Every thing's fuckin' wet. Walls, balconies, steps, gates, roads, cars, bike seats, petrol-pumps, people, people's hair and clothes, everything is covered with them tiny darned drops of water. Everything is shining and pissing me off.

I had to drive in an irritating drizzle this morning. By the time I reached office I was completely wet and shivering. Making the pillion rider hold up an umbrella doesn't work. First thing, he can't quite hold it still. Secondly, he cannot possibly locate it at the sweet spot where it would cover both the driver and himself -- it is too much of in terms of spatial skills. Thirdly, he cannot keep up with the dynamic variation of the angle of attack of the rain in correspondance with the change in the velocity of the bike.

So it was a bloody mess and we looked like idiots hurtling down the road battling with a stupid umbrella. Soon just we folded it and gave ourselves up to the rain, who first howled with pleasure and then doubled its aggression. We had to shut up and keep driving on.

I'm still all soggy as I write this. I wish I could take off my trousers and shirt and sit down in undies in the office, but my past experience suggests I shouldn't. So here I am, sitting all clammy-like and watching rain hold Delhi to ransom.

Sincerely God. It's not funny. Knock it fucking off!

Idle Thoughts

2005-07-18T18:06:00.004+05:30

1) Most haikus are unmitigated bull-shit. Even those who pretend to like them don't understand why the hell they are considered so lofty.

2) However earnestly you agree with what a friend says, you can never perceive the exact feeling he had in his mind before he said what he said. This happens most markedly when both of you are drunk and are discussing past.

3) The smallest of boils inside one of your nostrils can make you look hugely ugly. If you're already ugly, it can make you look grotesque.

4) If you are shabbily dressed yet speak fluently of something vague, people take you to be some sort of a visionary and listen to you. In this enterprise, the shabbiness of your dress is way more important than the wisdom of your discourse.

5) Sometimes you miss being someone else.

6) There's something that operates beyond your conscious will that makes you love -- or hate -- your brothers, sisters and parents. There's something distinctly organic about it all -- like your breath or a painful bleeding gum.

7) Often, when you're alone, you tend to imagine you are possessed.

8) Rotten fruits or vegetables getting wet in the rain can be among the most disgusting sights you've ever seen. Tomatoes, especially, can be sickening.

9) Love is the greatest or the worst thing that can happen to you. Or maybe it is death. Or perhaps they're the same thing.

10) There is no mathematical problem that can't be solved after taking a few swigs out of your water bottle. If you still can't solve it, you didn't take enough.

11) It is easy to find creative inspiration. It is infinitely difficult to sustain it. This is perhaps the most important thing that separates the master from the novice.

12) A game of chess is one of the few things that can make your brain tired in exactly the same way as your calves feel after a game of football.

13) There are times when you think that you just ain't gonna get that thing so thoroughly pine for. Then, in the middle of all the pessimism, you think about the 7 habits of the most effective people and you go, "Hey, I've got 5 of those" and suddenly everything starts to look completely possible.

14) When you start getting old the first signs of aging appear on those folds of skin over your knuckles -- unless you are a street-fighter, in which case they first show up in the number of fights you've lost recently.

15) Even street-fighters, when they get tired in the evenings, go home, sit down and contemplate life.

16) Freedom is such a fuzzy idea that half of the people who think they are free may actually be somebody's slaves for life.

17) I sometimes think that I think too much. Each week, I should perhaps set the Sunday aside for living like a mindless beast.

Babu Rajab Ali's Works

2005-03-23T14:09:00.000+05:30

I just found these two works of true-blue rural Punjabi poetry lying about on the Web. They are written by Babu Rajab Ali, the virtuoso Punjabi poet, who took the commonplace metaphors of life in rural Punjab and wove them into the most strikingly beautiful and disarmingly honest pieces of verse. Since this is real good shit and is exceedingly rare, I shall paste them here to save for the posterity:

ChaaraN De Baint
saayeya saNghni sard jaroor diNde
pippal, nimmh, sareeNh te bohrr chaare

dukh den, na challiye pair naNge
kaNda, kaNch ar theekri rorr chaare

pichhe lagiiyaan laihn bimaariyaan na
daNd, khaNgh, adhraNg te kohrr chaare

vass bhoot sapoot servant chelaa
nahiN karn zabaan se morr chaare

daata, bhaND, ghaNDdh-kaTT, juyaariya vi
dhan din mein den nakhor chaare

jati sakhi avtaar te hore soora
theek rakhde dharam di lorr chaare

dil dudh te kaNch samet pathar
phate judn na pher lagg jorr chaare

sassu, harn, jackaal samet loombarr
kutta dekh ke jaan sir torr chaare

thaanedaar, mutiyaar, chakor, haathi
jadon turnge karn marorr chaare

ikk velna, jok te bhaur makkhi
bhare rasaan nu lain nachorr chaare

duuti, chugal, angrez, badkaar tiwiin
den yaar se yaar vichorr chaare

rajab ali kabbit te baiNt dohra
lawaan chhaNd mukkaNd maiN jorr chaare

------- x -------

Tinna De Baint
ikk tope, pastaul, baNdook teeji
dabbo liblibi karNge phair tinne

haNs, pheel, muklaawe jo naar aayi
maRak naal uthaaNwde pair tinne

agan-boat, te sher, saNsaar teeja
sidhhe jaan dareya choN tair tinne

jhooth bolde, bolde sachch thoda
thekedaar, vakeel te shair tinne

ikk sarp te hore baNdeyaal thuuNhaa
rehn har ghadi gholde zaihr tinne

chhaal maar diwaar ton tapp jaande
naar, chohrTa, lalkari Tair tinne

jooyebaaz te TamTama vauhn waala
ate weswa sharam bagair tinne

naacha, nakliya aur gavaNtri vi
jithe khaRan lagaaNwde laihr tinne

nawaaN aashqi, te gadha, gaah waala
theek bhaalde sikhar dupaihr tinne

shahukaar, hakeem, clerk teeja
vele shaam de karnge sair tinne

uuth, saahn te aur pathaan teeja
diloN nahiN gawaaNwde vair tinne

rajab ali ghulam te jatt, choohra,
rajje nahiN guzaarde khair tinne

Remember the Vogons

2005-03-01T15:12:00.000+05:30

The summer is not yet here; the winter is but all gone. A weather so pleasant, time so lovely, cannot but inspire one to read out aloud once again, like every time before, an excerpt from soul-stirring Vogon poetry. So here goes:

Oh freddled gruntbuggly,

Thy micturations are to me

As plurdled gabbleblotchits

On a lurgid bee.

Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes

And hooptiously drangle me

with crinkly bindlewurdles,

Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon

See if I don't.

If I were a truck driver..

2005-02-12T15:28:00.001+05:30

I would have one of these written behind my truck:

If you honk at us, we'll throw something heavy at you.

Driving naked is transcendental.

My truck is not over-loaded. It's just big-boned.

Braking is over-rated.

Real men don't use dipper at night.

We hate dudes in pants and shirts. We've killed a few, but they seem to never end.

Jalta Akash

2005-02-09T08:11:00.000+05:30

O meethe sapno ki srujak
O prem-madhu ki pushp-kalash,
Madmast bayar ka aanchal odhe,
Badan tera ik khusboo chhode,
Samaksh mere jab aati tum
Hirday mein toofaan laati tum.
Phir honth honth se silte jab
Aatur baahon ka bandhta paash
Do badno se aanch nikalti,
Aur dhoo-dhoo kar jalta akash

Tu chali gayi hai door kahin
Is dil ko yeh manzoor nahi
Yaad teri jab aati
Bas ek qayamat dhaati hai
Pagla sa ho mann phirta hai
Jab virah ka badal ghirta hai
Har baat mein aas milan ki hai
Har saans mein ghulta hai ik kaash
Phir sapno ki chhat ke oopar
Hai dhoo-dhoo kar jalta akaash.

Ab aas ka durg bhi toot gaya
Jo kucch tha peeche chhoot gaya
Apne prem ka swarnim mandir
Jaise koi Ghazni loot gaya
Kucch saans hain jo bas baaki hain
Mushkil se aati-jaati hain,
Ant samay nazdeek hai ab
Bhool ke moh ki maya sab
Sookhi is bagiya mein yeh lash
Bhujhte chakshu se dekh rahi hai
Dhoo-dhoo kar jalta akaash.

The Unfinished Business

2003-11-18T16:54:00.000+05:30

Setting: It is a dimly lit room furnished with just a chair and a divan confined by walls plastered with sloppily framed certificates and and moth-eaten hunting trophies. Psychiatrist Marty is seated in the chair dressed in a doctor's white gown (He's wearing nothing else, but no one knows.) and the divan is occupied by the the midget-like PeterPann who wears something distinctly distasteful. The only sound to be heard other than the conversation between the above two is the swish-swoosh of the office help Suave's mop who's bathed in perspiration from the lack of a fan in the room, which he knows is consistent with the gracefully austere disposition of Dr. Marty. Suave nevertheless looks least displeased about it for he finds ample compensation in the idiotic ramblings of the clients of the doctor like PeterPann. Dr. Marty pauses to scribble something in his spiral-book as he talks with his client.

Dr. Marty: Well let's see. I'll have to get to the root of this problem of yours. You just loosen your belt and lay down on your stomach.

(PeterPann complies. Dr. Marty walks into the adjoining dispensary and returns with an apple and some confetti.)

Dr. Marty: So, now, we shall perform a psychometric test that involves bombarding you with multiple sensory inputs and seeing how your mind reacts to them. I'll rub this confetti on your uncovered behind and distract you with the munching sound of me eating this apple. At the same time I'll be asking you quizzing you with questions from Greek mythology. Let's see how you do.