All alone went she ...

O Mary, go and call the cattle home
and call the cattle home,
Across the sands of Dee...
The western wind was wild and dank with foam,
and all alone went she.

The western tide crept up along the sand
and over and over the sand,
and round and round the sand,
As far as eye could see.
The rolling mist came down and hid the land;
And never home came she.

"Oh ! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair -
A tress of golden hair,
A drowned maiden's hair,
Above the nets at sea?
Was never a salmon yet that shone so fair
Among the stakes on Dee".

They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
The cruel crawling foam,
To her grave beside the sea.
But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home
and call the cattle home across the sands of Dee...

and then , i had to come back....

To avoid those wires, i should have focused it to infinity, but then its all about wires and life , isnt it ? why keep them out of focus...

the water droplet theory ... :D

That only rain droplets are almost spherical and that artificially sprinkling water does not cause that effect and hence one has to wait for the rains for such photographs. That was my brother who took the pic. We both missied to see the droplet at the top, else we would have focused more on it, it would have made a great photo.

and the continuation...

inquisitive we were ( me and my bro) about what the bunch of some 20 30 butterflies were doing at the plant... we both had different opinions, he surmised it would be sh**t, i, said could be eggs :D ... i should have gone home the next weekend to assertain if it indeed was eggs that they were depositing. he he .... our own little animal kingdom at home..

latest addition : June 2011
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_White
species of the butterfly and they were infact eggs.

a few more...

Home

Back after a fresh dose of "home"otherapy ;) I like going home even though it aches when its time to return to the boring office life and disturbs the adjustment i have made with life here alone as one more single IT professional. It makes me yearn for that life full of essence, with ppl caring for you and proud of you, ofcourse, in vain. This certainly does not mean iam complaining about my being single, and definitely not about a missing life partner. It beats me to think that the only solution to this, so some think(like my mom and brother), is marriage! can you have no more of your family, of mom and dad, now?

I still want to be pampered by my mom and fight with my dad and feel iam a kid. Still want to spend lousy weekend afternoons setting the home right, dusting off the old book shelves, rummaging after old memories meanwhile. To run after the insects in the garden pretending as if they still fascinate me the way they did a decade back (may be they still do :) )trying to interest mom and dad into this, to play (yes play!) with myself and involve everyone at home in my merry playing. To expend the senseless time in a rather senseless way, hOme is one place where time does not scare me as often as it does anywhere else. This gets all the more merrier with none of my family members missing and beyond compare when it rains, especailly if its a home like mine surrounded by the dense green brazen moors of the city outskirts.. somehow reminds me of the homesickness JR tolkien had mentioned about the hobbits having it upon leaving their cozy hobbit holes.
Seems like iam still not out of that reverie, and still not struck by the blunt office life yet. Its time to wake up from my dream and work! for money? :O ? :)

Eternal Sunshine Of a Spotless Mind

Ah wretch! believ'd the spouse of God in vain,
Confess'd within the slave of love and man.
Assist me, Heav'n! but whence arose that pray'r?
Sprung it from piety, or from despair?
Ev'n here, where frozen chastity retires,
Love finds an altar for forbidden fires.
I ought to grieve, but cannot what I ought;
I mourn the lover, not lament the fault;
I view my crime, but kindle at the view,
Repent old pleasures, and solicit new;
Now turn'd to Heav'n, I weep my past offence,
Now think of thee, and curse my innocence.
Of all affliction taught a lover yet,
'Tis sure the hardest science to forget!
How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense,
And love th' offender, yet detest th' offence?
How the dear object from the crime remove,
Or how distinguish penitence from love?
Unequal task! a passion to resign,
For hearts so touch'd, so pierc'd, so lost as mine.
Ere such a soul regains its peaceful state,
How often must it love, how often hate!
How often hope, despair, resent, regret,
Conceal, disdain--do all things but forget.
But let Heav'n seize it, all at once 'tis fir'd;
Not touch'd, but rapt; not waken'd, but inspir'd!
Oh come! oh teach me nature to subdue,
Renounce my love, my life, myself--and you.
Fill my fond heart with God alone, for he
Alone can rival, can succeed to thee.

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;

Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
Source: http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1630.html
background:
------------
The poem is an example of a genre represented in Latin by Ovid's Heroides. These heroic epistles are always addressed by a woman to a man who has abandoned her. The situations require an "heroic" treatment because they involved important personages. The heroes represent what one critic has described as "sorrowing or rebellious love." Peter Abailard (1079-1142), at thirty-eight a famous scholar, became at this time the tutor of Eloisa, the eighteen-year-old niece of Fulbert, the canon of Paris. Their passionate secret love resulted in Eloisa's conceiving, whereupon Abelard removed her to Brittany. After refusing to agree to marriage for a long time because it would ruin Abelard's career in the church, Eloisa finally consented and the couple returned to Paris for a secret wedding. But the uncle's anger revived. Abelard took Eloisa to a convent at Argenteuil where she was professed as a novice. Her uncle then paid ruffians to attack Abelard in his lodgings and castrate him. After his various attempts at monastic life, students again gathered about Abelard and built him the halls and church of the Paraclete, sixty miles from Paris. Further persecution by his enemies or fear of them eventually led him to accept the Abbey of St. Gildeas in Brittany. When Eloisa's nuns were expelled from Argenteuil, he offered them the Paraclete and visited them as a spiritual director, until his visits caused scandal. Eloisa began the correspondence after a letter, addressed to an unfortunate friend, describing his adversities as a means of comforting the friend, fell into her hands.

Fracture? ah ! Which hand !? :-)

Some how i always wanted to have my right hand fractured(!!?!!) I even tried imagining the pain to see if i could afford it to have my left hand trained and become ambidextrous. I used to write all the crap unnecesssary biology notes back in the tuitions just for the sake of training my left hand, even to the effect of making it sore with pain over the unusual load (the more it ached, the better it got trained!!! :D ), to stimulate my right brain and become a genious ...or thats what i believed! one example of how credulous kids can get!! and that was not all, it was also that its, "cool to be ambidextrous!"..i guess each one us at one point or another wanted to be cool like that one teacher u had who would flaunt his/her being ambidextrous by writing on the black board with both his hands taking turns. Having had two such teachers, i got a bit too much of this dose and add to that the fact that my dad too is a left hander (to some extent) made me believe i could be one if only i tried/trained :D . And any holidays were the best time, i thought, when i could master this unique skill and surprise my old friends at school or impress new frnds at college (to impress upon them that it was my inborn tallent and not something which i mastered with deliberate effort ;) to show that its not something which anyone could master just like that) .
Thats one of my crazy stuff. Those were days when writing was associated with hands/ fingers. I lost interest in that crazy idea of mine since i started hopping on those keyborad keys wiht all my fingers, equally with both hands, emanating sounds reminiscent of that by-gone factory noise usually associated with "working". Dunno how much i stimulated my both brains with that exercise!!?
Is it the uniqueness that we crave? That "awe" you want to evoke in others!? what drove me to want to be like that? ..
Wait...where is this post heading? Like i know!!! he he he , iam not really right in the head right now :-) ! slept at 4 AM and got up at 8 AM to office, so cant really help if this post sounds desultory! Don't wanna burden my poor sleepy head with this thought hence dissipated it into this post !

Balcony

This is the view from the balcony. It has been almost 2 years now since we had moved into that home. My first home out of college, rather, in my life, oops, does that sound mawkish? Well, there isnt any harm doing so once in a while :D (why are blogs there for? eh?? :D ).

One does miss the place one has lived in, that comfort zone, that nook and corner of the room you lived in, the bed you slept on, the level of lighting in the room at different times of the day/season and especially the one when you like the most. I guess am a tad bit more attached to the place i live in.

It was always like that, when we moved form Hyderabad to Anantapur when i was in 2nd class. That trauma haunted me till my 5th class (I can now get over it a bit more faster though ;)! ) and manifested itself as a sort of trepidation over going to school. Before i could settle down, my parents once again had to change the house to someother in the same city. I still remember, precisely the very next day i had my 'unit tests' that too "first" social unit test and it was sunday (when life looks all the more gloomier compared to saturday or friday evening). The emphasis on the first is because, "first unit test" has something new to it i.e, the new class (6th) along with the first and upon that "social", the most dreaded and an abstract intangible subject with no logic and which only could be memorised( not understood) and has no relevance (at the age) what so ever to me. It could have been shown in a better light had my teacher imbued that interest and had i been exposed to the newspaper to understand its relevance to the comtemporary international political predicaments.

Its the same kind of emotional pang which haunted me all my life which still haunts me now at this moment when i think about everything that was happy or sad about me. Happy because it "was" happy(read no longer), sad because it is sad ( and still is ). It reminds me of the days i dreamt that someday it would not be like this and that someday i will be free and things would be in my control. Boringly so, Life always seems to be in somebody elses' control, either your bosses' or your PG owner's or pathetically still, in your roomate's control when she does not even let you switch off the fan or open the window as you wish and does not even pay you a salary or serve food!!! :D

Leaving that aside, about the pic here, it was taken during one of the lazy weekends with my friends with whome i had shared that dwelling and with whome i had been sharing the last 5.5 years(NITW)by then( i.e, when i left Hyderabad and moved to Bangalore Feb 19th 2007).

1400 ? carelessness ? overconfidence? preoccupation?

Perfect diaster day!How? Reached a wrong airport at the right time. How? no no i aint talking about a city with more than one airports. The airport was my departure port and the "time" was the arrival time at my destination!! How could sucha untenable mistake happen? Still not totally out of the shock, so dont ask me. Its not about the loss but the disappointment at the incapability of doing something so simple right!! Do i have to flounder at everything to get things right the next time? I religiously tried to make this blog not personal and yet i querulously whine about myself, sorry guys.
For the fleeting second when i dig for my cell phone in the purse, doubtful whether i would really find it in there, i regret having ever owned anything. I have a long way to go before i can firmly plant my feet on the terra firma and never slip into the disasterous and unproductive future/past preoccupation! While i say so i still am doing it ! My momentous moods ...emotions ... what am i ? I hate to admit but every part of the title is true !
Point is how do i fend it ?
preoccupation - think less ( write less blogs ? ;) )
carelessness - Things done with half consciousness / half in the moment / half around the moment and nothing in the present!!
Overconfidence - trust not thyself untill cross verified.
ok ,
you will check your identity proof when u carry the ticket.
you will check the time especially for arrival and departure.
Guard the things before you leave them somewhere and remember where you left them.Be in the present.
....
how long will the list go?

My Roses....

yes finally i did get one :D

contd..

hmmm so To Kill a Mocking Bird . Harper Lee. could any one guess that my pencil sketch(the idea was copied though ;) ) was inspired from that novel?

One helluva novel that is..my current running favorite. The story at times does feel slightly didactic, but thats ok.I would say its more of a positive kinda novel when compared to Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things, though the protagonists, kids, compare almost same in terms of age and maturity and the fact that both the stories are set in the same back drop of a prejudiced mindset of the bygone world of 60's. Both the stories have that rustic charm about them which reminds one of their childhood, of being close to the nature, of the home land, of the ppl, of learning and growing.
But the narrative styles of both the authors are so contrasting that you cannot think about both of them together. I like the idea of Roy's narrative, flooded with metaphors which effectively convey the feelings with almost near precision ( coz the feelings are left to the reader to perceive instead of restraining it with a word or two of adjectives) where as Harper Lee's is very succinct, still i would say liberal at large. This reminds me of the intense unwavering stern n rigid narrative style of Ayan Rand in Fountain Head, i mean, she does not leave the reader to his own imagination. i would want to be left free to drift into my own images, unlike the writer imposing his/her images on to me by narrating every aspect of it with every available adjective/feeling out there. Thats talking about the narrative styles as "i" like it. No hard feelings though for the Rand novel/philosophy ;).

I guess i have to like a narrative first to like a story woven with it. he he he.
Same goes with J.D Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, striking narrative style and ofcourse Three men in a boat , one heck of a witty narrative that is.

To the uninitiated, the sketch with the groove in the tree is not the nest of the bird flying !! and more over the flying bird has nothing to do with the story ..just a morbid dipiction of life may be(i can only surmise, bcoz i copied it from the cover page)..and the things in the tree are gifts to the kids , Jeremy and Louise Finch (alias scout) from their beloved/scary 'Boo Radley' :) To know more , read the novel.

My Latest Favorite

Believe me, i did it . I know it isnt presented well blame it on the cam. Will try to get a better pic of this .And more content too. ;)
Well iam puzzled if the real copy of the one i made is much better than the one here ;). Pleople arent believing i did it, by the way, thats one compliment which makes u both, disappointed and happy. ;)

Beauty

My hero nephew Nived(h) ( name copy right protected , for licensing contact me ;) )....i hope my future son too would be this beautiful .. :)

As if the whole world has secretly conspired to steer her life away from her, impetously thrusting her into this asphyxiating joy, a hazy face just finished calling her name out, "Jayanthi!". Yes, She had done it. It felt as if her ears had gone numb with the tumultuous applause audible only to her.

Lymphatic due to age, her grandmother 'bamma', Jayanthi's only kin alive, could only appreciate her success languidly which made Jayanthi extremely irritable. But her joy was so enormous that nothing could bring her elated self perched on the mountain peaks of the likes of Himalayas down to reality.

She swept off into a reluctant slumber thinking incessantly about the forthcoming day and the precarious future ahead of her. Little did she know then about the inimical outside world awaiting to rip her off of her ingenuous and puerile innocense. For now she was happy.

Set adrift from land onto the high seas, the world takes on a different hue. Her new job was a wild open sea to her !

"Things new always bring the hope of something great."

how will her job be? who will she meet there? what will life teach her ?hang on...

media matters

http://www.hindu.com/mag/2007/04/15/stories/2007041500070300.htm

On television you find a bone for the day and chew on it, and since it is a newsy bone, several can chew on it together.

me too ! mai bhi ! My first

Is a story of two twins, of whom one was an epitome of rectitude, while the other was as sordid as anyone can ever be. Though identical, their conspicuous moral proclivities made their facial resemblance ridiculously farcical. The squalid predilection of the murderer twin was so profound in his sanguineous impudence that no trial was required to prove him guilty. Yet..

The only eye witness to the crime was an old octogenarian woman. Unfortunately, her senile faculties failed her to record the murderer's visage which was obfuscated in the faint moon light at that hour of the night and rendered her witness unreliable. The murderer in order to prevaricate the truth used his wife as an alibi. The court vindicating his claims, absolved him of the accusation. The other twin was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment .

Just when all were leaving the court, a bus from the otherside hit the guilty among the twins. As a god imposed justice, he succumbed to the impact of the collision.
Affrighted by this implausible turn of events, the murderer's wife conceded perjury . The twin was acquitted reinforcing the trust in the deific justice impervious to human erring.