The KaartArchives

1

2010-04-04T10:10:00.001+05:30

Vocabulary

2009-11-17T14:18:00.004+05:30

He speaks silence,
His life spoken through another's words.

Not a poem

2009-05-31T23:09:00.002+05:30

On his throne of white marble,

the thinking man,

ponders much,

and leaves yesterday behind.

A moment for you

2009-05-30T10:22:00.003+05:30

Cycle down a deserted dark road with the wind blowing through your hair.
Forget about the helmet.

Let your mind replay every single word of The Argument Sketch.
Laugh until your eyes water.

Remember times of madness, of raucous laughter, of friends, of photographs.
Things always look better in retrospect, don't they?

Shout out the lines to every ridiculous Hindi song stuck in your head.
"Suraksha, Suraksha, teri karenge saaton janam!"

Talk to yourself all you want. Entirely in cliches. In Klingon. Backwards.
No one's listening in.

Search for answers to your questions.
Now's a good time to start.

Cry for lost opportunities. Cry for the things that did not go as you wished they would.
You're the only one who really cares.

Scream for the times you screwed up. Scream for a better you.
Pedal ahead.

Dream of belonging, warmth and company.
They're all yours.

Live.
For you.

Lilian

2009-02-17T09:13:00.002+05:30

He looked out of the window as a stream of water droplets sped downwards outside the cold glass pane. This was going to be one long plane journey. He never liked to travel alone - there were no interesting people on flights anymore, just fat middle-aged women whining about the cramped seating and bald guys in suits reading a fat bunch of papers.

Just when he was about to put on his earphones to drown out the numbing silence, he noticed a pair of sparkling eyes looking at him from between the seats in front of him. When he looked at them, they disappeared. A minute later, they reappeared, this time from above the seat. The eyes had the familiar shyness, and yet a mischievous tinge. This time he looked out of the window like he couldn't see them peering down at him, and then suddenly stared back. The eyes slid out of sight. This game of hide-and-seek continued for a while.

The face to which those eyes belonged was now smiling down at him over the edge of the seat. As he smiled back, he looked deep into those eyes. In that most innocent of moments, he had found a happiness he always searched for. A true love, untainted. Words were unnecessary. A mutual understanding. There were no agendas, no perspectives, no opinions. A jump back to a time in life where things were simple and straightforward.

Before their game of who-blinks-first could end, a rather grumpy mother called out, "Lily, get back in your seat and put on your seatbelt, we're about to land!"

Lilian had given him so much.

Of Identity

2008-11-04T13:41:00.001+05:30

Is he my skin?
Is he my eyes?
My several faces,
or my sole disguise?

Is he my anger?
Is he my pity?
Is he unique,
a single entity?

Is he my mirth?
Is he my fall?
From the outside,
Is he my wall?

Is he a loner?
Is he my friends?
Is he my ambitions?
My means, my ends?

Is he my beginning?
Is he my fate?
A randomly chosen
personality trait?

Of people I meet,
Is he a blend?
And when I'm gone,
is he my end?

And every morning,
I stare at the mirror.
Is he really me?
Am I truly him?

Los Angeles Metro

2008-07-10T03:54:00.004+05:30

Aging Chinese woman, pink shirt, fading jeans, tattered shoes, trolley, huge black plastic bags, unruly kid.

Young black girl, red and white scarf around neck, green t-shirt, jeans, white shoes.

Middle-aged Hispanic man, dirty white vest, brown shorts, large sunglasses, gold necklace.

Hot Chinese girl, yellow glares, white t-shirt, tight jeans, I-Pod Touch.

Hispanic father, son hugging leg.

Two young American girls, mosquito glares, Hollywood dreams?

Large Hispanic family, chatting loudly, half a dozen kids running around.

Raucous laughter at possible Spanish joke.

Doors open.

Next stop, Universal City Station.

All for bigger pencils

2007-12-09T21:17:00.000+05:30

It was a fine Sunday morning. He woke up late and opened the windows. A bright and sunny day lay ahead. The new e-mail alert from Yahoo messenger sounded. He'd forgotten to switch off the computer at night, and it had switched off the monitor to save power. He pressed a key and the box whirred back to life. A flickery screen showed him that the new mail in his inbox had been sent by a Eugenia Jimenez. He clicked on the link and Yahoo mail opened up. He browsed to his inbox, and found the mail. It had a weird subject line, and he could not figure out why a strange unknown lady would send him an email.

He opened the email, but it just contained a link to some website where you could buy things online, and more words that seemed to make no sense. Intrigued by this unexpected turn of events, he called up his friend and invited him over to check out this email that he'd recieved. This guy had been using the internet for more than two years now, he'd know for sure what the email meant. Mom and dad couldn't know of this, they would surely email the nice Mexican lady and tell her not to email their son. His friend came over, and he showed him the email.

The friend pondered over the email and delivered his conclusion. "Who wouldn't want a bigger pencil?", he said, "This thing sounds really interesting. From what the email says, its some kind of natural cream made from herbs that increases the size of your pencil. Makes sense, na? Pencils are made from trees, and a cream made from herbs helps it to grow. Think of all the money we would save if we made all our pencils larger. We wouldn't have to buy pencils for weeks and years. Our classmates would marvel at the size of our pencils and we'd be the most popular guys in class. 10$ for all this. It will be worth it. I'll even split the cost with you, and we can share it. I have my dad's credit card number, he won't mind me using it, and you can pay me in cash."

It sounded good. Those long pencils were available in stores too, but his mom would never let him buy them, she said they were useless for writing purposes. Now he could make his own, as many of them as he wanted. The cash could come from the money he'd been saving up for a new bicycle. 5$ wouldn't take too long to accumulate. "I agree", he said to his friend, "Let's do it!"

The friend clicked on the reply button.

Hello Miss Jimenez,

I and my friend am tired of having short pencils and would like to make them bigger so we can impress our friends. The price of 10$ is acceptable to us, please let us know how we can pay for it.

They waited for a reply from Miss Jimenez until evening, when it finally arrived. All it had was a link to a Paypal account where they could simply put in the credit card details and be done with the payment. The friend pulled out a piece of paper from his wallet with his dad's credit card details written on it. A couple of minutes later, the payment was done, and all they had to do was wait for the cream to arrive.

It was a long week. He checked their mailbox everytime he saw the postman, lest his parents find out about their secret plan. But sure enough, there was a small box in their mailbox the next Sunday addressed to him. He made sure no one was watching, snuck it out of the mailbox, shoved it into his pocket and ran up to his room . He ran up to his room, and called up the friend. He ran over in minutes, excitement in his eyes. The box lay unopened on the table. Strangely, the "Pencil enhancement solution" sticker on the front was misspelled.

Co-incidentally, the friend's father happend to recieve his credit card statement in the mail that morning. A strange entry marked for 10$ caught the his attention. The name of the merchant sounded very suspicious, and he definitely hadn't made any such purchases recently. The father looked around for his son, but his wife told him that he'd gone over to his classmate's house. He placed a call to the parents and told him that he and his wife were coming over, explained the situation to him and then rushed over to their place. The parents were waiting at the door with a look of anxiety. The four of them rushed upstairs to the boy's room and opened the door.

They would never forget the day they caught their thirteen-year old sons frantically rubbing cream meant for "male enhancement", onto their entire set of pencils.

Another

2007-07-28T09:47:00.000+05:30

The lights came on. They didn't serve any purpose for him other than to give a vague sense of light from under the eyelids.

Life, he thought. What a letdown it had been. The past day came rushing back.

He'd been trying to complete another assignment the previous night, and to catch up on some project work, trying to figure out how to bring it all together, all that he had been working on for the past few weeks. He'd dozed off on his keyboard midway, letting loose a stream of characters on the screen. The mail alert on his computer had woken him up soon after, and he'd managed to complete just enough of the assignments to get him through the day.

The clock blinked 7:00 and beeped. He hit the snooze button and struggled to catch up on some sleep. The beam of sunlight that crept from behind the curtains didn't help matters. He yawned and finally let go of his blanket. His eyes hurt and he had a nice throbbing headache that would probably stay with him for the rest of the day. The past few days had been a blur, for many reasons. Fuck, its that guy's lecture at 9:30 today. He'd missed a lot of his lectures already, in part due to some work he was doing for his old school, but mostly because somehow he didn't care anymore.

Man, he'd been such a bright student back then. A brilliant record since school, but a few marks lost in the HSC exams had landed him here. He'd been a good student through the early semesters, listening with interest to his professors, taking it all in, looking with amazement at how a few equations and some abstract mathematical concepts changed the way he looked at the world. The subjects had seemed really invigorating, a breath of fresh air from the dreadfully boring HSC. This happiness had reflected in his marks, and all was well, for a while. But as the semesters wore on, the sheen had worn off, few professors seemed to be truly interested in what they taught, and he had somehow lost interest in them too. The subjects in themselves were still good, but the drive for learning them in their true spirit seemed to have disappeared from him.

He took a bath, put on some random clothes from the cupboard and left for college. He'd reached just in time before the professor arrived in class, and the class stared up at him when he entered. He'd been such a good guy. People looked up to him for help, and never hesitated to help him out when needed. Of late, that had disappeared too. It was like he'd retracted into a cold shell, that never let anyone else inside. He replied to everyone in a curt and cold tone, and an expressionless face. The teachers could feel it too, where had he gone wrong? What happened to the guy who did all his assignments himself, knew the answers to all the questions? The professor entered sharp at 9:30. The subject being taught had been one of his favorites, but it seemed to take on a dull tone during the professor's lecture. He barely looked up at the professor, and went on scribbling away in his notebook.

And then there was her. The image of her, seemingly left untouched by this horrible grey world that seemed to envelop him, had kept him going. A tinge of colour in the essentially grey, so stunningly beautiful, he thought. But then, the image had begun to fade away now, in a flood of tears he hadn't cried. I've never looked at you that way. Not that he hadn't expected it, but that never served to dull the blow. What would someone as lovely and bright as her, look for in an average engineer anyway? His scribbling took on a furious pace, and he ended up tearing the page out. The professor looked at him under his glasses.

His friend sat beside him through the lectures. What the fuck is wrong with you, man? You look a little dazed. Chutiyagiri mat kar, attend at least his lectures. He can screw up your term work and mess up your vivas you know? What is up with you nowadays? Even she was asking me why you didn't attend college for the last few days. How's your project going? Chal kutte, canteen chalte hain, its the break, you know.

He didn't reply. Food seemed to be the last of his priorities. He'd grown thinner in the past year, and had dark circles under his eyes from working on the computer for long hours. The day dragged on. Professors entered and left, but he never made eye contact with any of them, even the ones who'd known him since the first day of college.

The future, he thought. What did it hold for him? He could take up one of those coding jobs at the dozens of IT companies that frequented his college. But that was not what he wanted to be, even if it meant financial independence and a disposable salary. Higher education seemed like a distant dream. His parents had wanted him to go for a Masters degree, but that meant additional exams, and currently, he was too overwhelmed with the regular college work to study. What a letdown he must have been for them. His brother had gone on to do his Masters and was currently doing a fully funded PhD at a great university. His brother would regularly write emails to him, advising him on what to do in order to get into a good university. Earlier, he read with wonder about the amazing facilities and courses, but recently he'd taken to deleting the emails without reading them. Mom and Dad, he was sure they were worried and to some extent, disappointed at how he'd turned out. There he was, another average engineer among the hordes.

Chal be, lectures khatam. His friend was talking to him again. He'd let them down. Each and every one of them. Poora class nikal gaya hai be, we're going by train today. Coming? He shook his head, muttered a vague no, and walked out of the class.

The bus stand. He'd spent a whole lot of time here, waiting for the buses to arrive, hoping he'd get a seat. Buses came and went, but none seemed to have his destination written on them. People boarded and left, and after some time he felt like he was the only one who was left at the bus stop. He put on his earplugs and turned on his MP3 player. The song playing was High Hopes by Floyd. How appropriate. He loved to listen to music. Metallica, Floyd, the masters. They could speak to him as he wanted it, clear and true. The music served to wash away his thoughts. A kitten brushed past his leg and purred. He lifted it up onto his lap. Lucky chap, he smiled. The kitten would never be as miserable as he was.

Suddenly he gasped, and opened his eyes. His eyesight was a blur. He couldn't make out any faces, but they all seemed to be dressed entirely in green. One of them spoke to him. He's awake, finally. Do you remember who you are, kid? He shook his head and tried to bring his hands up to clear out his eyes, but couldn't move them at all. Might be temporary retrograde amnesia, Doctor. Do you remember anything about what happend? The bus that hit you, do you remember?

Gasp. Every inch of him pained like never before. He closed his eyes again. The bus. Had he really walked out onto the street right in front of it? Had it been an accident? Suddenly, he felt better about everything. He could turn it all around. He could prove it to them. He could work hard again. He could make his parents happy. He could do a Masters degree and land a good job. He could make it all work. Somewhere in his head, Coming Back To Life by Floyd played itself out in full surround. He just needed another shot at it, another chance, he really could.

Gasp. His eyes opened again as a stinging pain ripped through his chest. A series of fast beeps came from the machine beside him. He's fibrillating, doctor! Administer 25 c.c. of Epinephrin, stat! Ready the defibrillation kit, nurse! There was a final long unending beep. He's flatlining! Code red!

Another average engineer. Not anymore, he wasn't. The grey world spun around him and faded to black.

The Things I Do - Part 1 - Cassette Pyramid

2007-07-06T11:35:00.000+05:30

Long time since the last post. Huge set of developments since then, but you don't give a rats ass about them, so I won't elaborate.

Anyway, here's the thing, what do you do when you have no material in your head to write about? (Make that no decent material to write about). You do reruns.

Here's what I did, one fine morning, on the 30th of April, 2003.

You look at your large shelf of cassettes. What do you see? Bryan Adams? Jagjit Singh? Linkin Park? I see a cassette pyramid.

It was another of those spur-of-the-moment ideas that come to me ever so often, that make no sense whatsoever, but I'll be damned if I stop working on them.

I enlisted the help of Mr. Parth Phalke, one of my regular crazy idea members, and he came over with some cassettes of his own. We arranged them neatly on the floor, for no clear reason.

We had a total of 245 cassettes.

Considering we were fresh out of 10th Standard, you have to appreciate our mathematical efforts which I had chronicled as follows:

We used a very simple design: one brick left, one brick right, one brick top. No oblique bricks like in card pyramids, because it would be stupid to balance cassettes that way. Hence, the first block on any floor would require 3 bricks and adjacent ones would require 2 bricks, because of 1 common side brick. So, for a floor having 'n' blocks, we would require (2n+1) bricks. 3 bricks for the top floor (n=1), 5 for the second from top floor (n=2), and so on. Thus, n gives us the number of blocks on each floor as well as the number of floors. What we need to find is the highest possible value of 'n', given that the number of bricks available is 245. We calculate the same as follows, using the method of summation:

After some self-satisfied smiles for having actually applied math somewhere (however useless the endeavour may be), we set to work on the pyramid.

We started off building the bottom 3 floors at a go, then changed the "strategy", building outward, thereby maintaining bragging rights in case we didn't manage to keep the 14 floor behemoth standing.

After around 3 hours of nerve-wracking work, we finally got to the 14th floor.

And ... there you are. Its done!

And after that ofcourse, the photo-shoot. We had to make it look high enough for everyone else to see, and make it obvious.

Here's a shot of it from ground level. Very tall, no? I wish prospective employers would accept my building this structure as work-experience.

And there's a shot where we measured the thing. 6 feet 3 inches, higher than us, and that's high enough.

Um, and thats it. We're done here.

Two years later, we tried to build another, taller pyramid, but it crashed while building it.

If someone manages to break the 14 floor mark, do send me a comment here and link to the pics.

A Klabutong Cartoon

2006-12-19T10:37:00.000+05:30

Keeping with the Christmas spirit that will keep all universities across the US closed from 23rd December upto New Year's Eve, and thereby delay my application results by more than a month, here's a comic strip that I conjured up, using the game Klabutong for the characters and background. It is available for free download here.

There you go. Moderately funny.

A statistical analysis of iPod earphones

2006-10-28T07:41:00.000+05:30

I recently got an iPod Nano (4 GB) on my birthday. 2 months ago. Like most other owners of iPods, I am in absolute awe of its perfect sound reproduction capabilities and the sheer size of it. Its like a monster truck fitted into a HotWheels model. Or a Donald Neamen fitted into a Katre (Mumbai University engineers would understand). Or like a 2.5 litre bottle of Pepsi squeezed into a 500 ml bottle. Not that I like Pepsi particularly, but it somewhat fits my analogy.

But then, there is the tiny quirk that you feel Apple would have taken care of. The earphones.

I'm not complaining about the sound quality, the colour, the ruggedness or the fact that they aren't easily replaceable.

I'm here to complain that every time I pick up my earphones (to put them into my ears), I always seem to get the Left (L) earphone in my right hand, and vice versa. This amounts to a lot of further physical work in interchanging the earphones from one hand to the other, then putting them in the ears. Ofcourse, I could cross my hands and put them in that way, but if you'd bother to try it out, it is a very uncomfortable thing to be doing in public, especially with my level of clumsiness.

Is this just my imagination or a fact? Like most of my insane conjectures, the only way to solve this question was through prolonged testing over a period of time, in different situations. Stastistics would provide me the answer to this question.

N -> Earphones in the wrong hands (as in my own hands, but the left-right thing is messed up)
Y -> Earphones in the right hands (as in my own hands, but the left earphone is in my left hand and so on)

From the data,

Probability of getting the right earplugs= 0.45.

You can see the extremely disturbing nature of these findings. It means that 55 out of every 100 times I use my iPod, I will have to do the earplug shuffle. I would have been satisfied with a 0.5 or greater probability, but 0.45 is just not good enough.

Another observation is that groups of 3 consecutive N's occurred 16 times, compared to only 8 times in case of Y's. Horrible news for frequent earplug removers.

I encourage fellow iPodders to confirm my findings with similar experiments.

Encounters of the pigeon kind..

2006-05-30T14:20:00.000+05:30

Here I am taking a nice afternoon shower, when I spot a pigeon sitting just outside the window. The following is a transcript of our "conversation" :

Me : Hey piggy piggy piggy .. ( Prounounciation : pee-jee)
Pigeon : (Silent, stares at me with one eye)
Me : Heyyy piggy piggy piggy .. (louder)
Pigeon : * What the f*$% is this idiot doing ? *
Me : (waving) Hey piggy piggy piggy ...
Pigeon : * I better leave. No wait, I'm bored. I'd rather watch this. *
Me : You want a piece of THIS ? (wave the bar of soap at it)
Pigeon : * Dumbass. *
Me : Get away from me, you perv !
Pigeon : (making pigeony noises) * I better call my friends *
Me : (with wild gestures) Go away ! Shoo !! Hurrrrr !!
Pigeon : (not moving a single feather) * I bet this guy will write a stupid blog entry on this. *

And here I am.

I bet its still there.

Pigeons are idiots.

How to hit your head on the refrigerator

2006-05-28T15:53:00.000+05:30

Sunday May 21, 2006

The trick is to do it un-deliberately. The problem with deliberately hitting your head on the refrigerator is that you generally hesitate at the moment before you actually hit it, and the blow isn't quite worth being called a 'hit'. Plus, it can make you look stupid in front of your parents and/or your friends who shouldn't be in your kitchen watching you hit your door on your refrigerator in the first place. No, the way to do it is to fool your brain into thinking that the entire thing is accidental. That in itself is quite ironic - you have to be more intelligent than yourself to pull this off, which is quite impossible. But it works nevertheless.

So, here's how you do it.

Walk into the kitchen very casually. Whistle a very casual tune, if necessary.
Keep thinking thoughts of getting something from the refrigerator.
Get a glass of water from the tap and... drink it..
Walk up to the refrigerator with a expression that says "I need to get something from the refrigerator". Do, not however specify what exactly you need to get.
Open the top door. Skim around the items a bit, like you are searching for something in there. Rearrange some items at random, inconspicuously.
Now open the bottom door. Look around the place with great interest. There are bound to be some items that you'd like to put into your mouth. Contemplate it, but don't act on it.
Now let your eyes drift to the compartment where the cold, refreshing bottled water is kept.
Picture giant waterfalls, outputting millions of litres of untainted, freezing water every second and you standing under it. Owing to the glass of water you had before, and the mental imagery, you will most likely want to take a leak at this moment. In case you don't, keep thinking about the waterfall till you do.
At this very moment, tell yourself that you have the irrepressible urge to have a drink from the bottle with the cool, refreshing water.
The brain enters a blinding dilemma - One part of it is pro-leak, while the other is pro-drink. Your body now oscillates between both the things which you obviously can't do simultaneously, and eventually end up hitting your head on the refrigerator by accident. By accident, dammit.

You may question the purpose of going through with this entire affair. I do, too.

I didn't do it.

My Two Cents : Classical music v/s Rock Music

2006-05-28T15:50:00.001+05:30

Monday March 27, 2006

This is an article I wrote some days after attending the Sawaai Gandharva classical concert at Pune back in 2004.

I believe that classical and rock music perfectly reflect two parallel trains of thought that ride in every human's mind.

Classical music says Live within the System. Try to find happiness within yourself.
It says, have Faith. Entrust yourself to the System. The world is not something that happend overnight. It is continuously changing itself to accomodate you.
It says, Do not worry. Your actions are never inconsequential, they will never be. The world sees you, acknowledges you.
It says, Listen to what they have to speak. You will benefit from their experience.
It says, Don't act in such a way as to incite people. It will do the world no good. Doing the job you have been assigned will do more good than you think it does.
In classical music, the words are not very important, sometimes even aren't necessary at all. Classical music conveys the continuous harmony of a System that adjusts itself to changing circumstances. A System that will exist no matter how hard anything tries to shut it off, eventually making it a part of itself.

Rock music says, Fuck the Establishment. Do not accept authority for the sake of following tradition.
It says, I have seen your so-called ethics and values crumble and fade in the blink of an eye. They are just walls for you to hide behind.
It says, I won't submit to the ideas you feed me continuously. I will not fall into a pattern. I will not do something you tell me to, just because its being done for so long.
It says, Feed me logic. Give me a purpose, I shall follow you.
It says, I don't care for your rules. Your rules have brought the world to what it is now. From here on, this is what I think. I don't care if I don't follow centuries of tradition. I won't force you to follow them. These are my rules, my logic. I don't give a damn about what you think about them, I don't care.
It says, This is who I am. Accept me for who I am, not who I can become.
It says, I am not protesting just to gather a crowd. It is because this is what I think about these things. I don't mind if no one else joins me. I'll protest alone.
In rock music, the words are as important as the music. The words convey power. Not power to me, but power to the masses. They say, the world is not as pretty as they want you to think. Go on and change the fundamentals, shake the roots. I won't promise you a world that gives you as much comfort as the one you live in, but I can promise you that you will be the one that will start a revolution, making a world that encompasses the ideals you so strongly believe in.

These two trains run amok in our heads each and every day. The frequency of these trains is, what I believe, decides every aspect of our personalities.

>> Scam monkey, rock music critic and terrible singer.

How to poke yourself in the eye

2006-05-28T15:42:00.000+05:30

Sunday January 15, 2006

Have you ever poked yourself in the eye ? I have.

And I don't mean the careful calculated jab you can make, I mean a full-blown careless stab that juts right in there and threatens to bring your eyeball out along with the finger.

There was something poking my eye from the inside, which by the way I'm not sure how got inside in the first place. So Mr. Brain instructs Left Index Finger to clear out the invading particle. Left Index Finger rises quickly towards Left Eye. At the same time, Mr. Oh-so-brilliant Brain tells head to move closer to Left Index Finger to get the job done faster . What Mr. Brain doesn't realise is that, once Left Index Finger is close to Left Eye, it is difficult to see how near it is. Right Eye gets into the action and tries to take a look at Left Index Finger but all it sees is a blur approaching Left Eye very fast. Mr. BusyBrain apparently is too lazy to react ( not so when playing video games ). Left Eye and Left Index Finger move closer to each other and ... STAB !

I felt mind-numbingly dumb at the moment, for which I will place the blame completely on my lazy brain. Left Eye still hurts a bit after two hours and is planning to sue Mr. Brain, else go on a strike.

Till then, I'm sure I can manage with my Right Eye. Just need to be careful to look around while I walk *CRASH*

Thanks a lot Mr. Brain. That one's for you, you lousy ... *CRASH*