Power cut

It had been a busy day at the office. It was almost 11:30 at night when my taxi drove into my neighborhood. And immediately I realised, there was a powercut. The whole neighborhood was dark...the roads were empty. I left the taxi on the main road and started walking. I was finding it quite difficult to see where I was going, but the human body is a fantastic machine, soon I was able to see things. There was a half moon in the sky, getting covered from time to time by sparse clouds.

I reached the lake and turned left. As I walked past the lamp post with the notice "Do not dump garbage here" (which was too dark to read now) I realized how quiet the place is. There were no birds, no loud television, no car horn, not even the cry of a stray dog. And the so well known neighborhood of mine suddenly felt strange and alien. I've never seen the place like this. It was like I was in some strange and unknown country...all by myself.

I felt strange feelings rise inside me, too strange and unknown to be put into words. It was as if I was not myself any more. I was not walking on my way to home. I was suddenly Shankar, walking down the Kalahari, the numbing coldness of night dessert around me. Moonlight lighting my path. Long distance away, on the horizon I see mount Kilimanjaro. Somewhere behind me I've left the diamond cave and my friend Diego Alvarez, lying down finally, below the great Baobab, where the wind and the jungle will keep watch. Search for glory, search for fortune...at death they end.

Or maybe I was Aragorn, son of Arathorn.....Riding upon the open field of Pelennor. Anduril, the flame of the west, on my waist. The white city of Minas Tirith lies behind me. My road leads to Barad dur, passed Osgiliath and the black gate and the plain of Gorgoroth, where the great eye of Sauron never sleeps. Many a friend lies behind, many enemies. Destiny calls me forward.....yet return I shall, Arwen awaits me.
"From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king."

Or perhaps I was Ronald Deschain....the last Gunslinger of the world. The two revolvers with heavy ivory handles rest peacefully in my belt. Waiting to get unleashed, waiting to kill. The dark tower of my dreams, the very core of existence of the worlds, lies somewhere across the vast land of the decaying midworld. My path leads me there forever. Alone I travel. At the dark tower, the nexus of the universe, shall I find my salvation, the answer to every question. The whole world in a single rose.

My reverie broke as I came to my home. At the same moment, the power came back, flooding the world with light and the strange world vanished. Lost but not gone. It'll stay hidden under the cover of light. And every once in a while, when I least expect it, it'll come out and surround me. It'll take me out of this world of materials and misery and bring me once again to the jungles of Africa, to the forests of Lothlorien, to the rosefield under the dark tower. Once again I'll drop the pen and pick up the sword. The known world would vanish and will be replaced by the magical world of imagination.

A day in the life of a software Engineer

8:00 am - Alarm goes off....shut down alarm and go back to sleep.

8:23 am - Wake up suddenly, the snooze timer of the internal alarm just went off. Also because the dog has been licking the hand.

8:24 am - Curse silently ("s*it, its morning already").

8:30 am - Check mail...just spam...damn!

9:00 am - After a brief shower, have a brief breakfast.

9:05 am - Go out...what a beautiful day! And you get to spend it fully looking at a monitor.

9:10 am - Wait for auto.

9:15 am - Wait for auto..all full.

9:20 am - Wait for auto. Curse.

9:25 am - Wrestle a sit in the auto from a elderly person ("When will the young generation learn to respect elders!?")

9:30 am - Bus stand....long queue....oh joy!

9:45 am - Lucky break! Got a sit...though its on the right side of the bus, where the sun shines throughout the journey. But still...will get to sleep.

10:21 am - Get down from bus. Office beckons.

10:24 am - Sign in.

10:30 am - Coffee break.

10:40 am - Boot up computer. Check mail. All spam....crap!

10:45 am - First compilation error of the day ("Undefined symbol")....going to be a long day.

11:00 am - Code runs successfully....Yay! Whoohooo....oh! Wait. Whats this? "Segmentation fault"?! Aaarrrgh!

11:45 am - Machine hangs! Swear. Writing device drivers are a pain in the a**.

11:46 am - Machine booting up....coffee break.

12:10 am - Put 'printk's all over the code. Need to debug.

12:30 pm - Found bug (structure pointer pointing to NULL).

1:01 pm - Where did this 'Authentication request' packet come from? Why the hell is it encrypted? This shouldn't happen....check packet dump.

1:23 pm - Can't figure out. Check mail. 3 forwarded mails....yes!! (Santa-banta jokes, Help the blood cancer patient, Ice festival pics).

1:35 pm - Enough work. Gift self lunch break.

1:40 pm - Canteen full....wait...sigh.

1:53 pm - Lunch at last. Coffee & cold sandwitch (cheese, no chicken allowed)....what fun!

2:15 pm - Back to desk. Look again at packet dump.

2:45 pm - Wake up suddenly! Sh*t! Hope no one noticed.

2:53 pm - Wake up again....damn! Go out to walk for a while.

3:00 pm - Walk around and look at girls at road.

3:10 pm - Refreshed! Look again at packet dump.....ah! Shouldn't be setting this bit to 1. Rectify.

3:16 pm - Damn! Damn! Still getting encrypted packets. Damn!

3:24 pm - Read the IEEE standard again....what's going wrong?

4:00 pm - Head spinning. So many clauses and subclauses...no useful information at all. Coffee break.

4:05 pm - Go see what the friends are doing. One reviewing design doc ("Why is this Arial narrow and not Times new roman?"), one coding ("How do you get the IP Address out of a mixed string?"), one is playing Sudoku (Smart guy!), one on phone (fishfishfishfish), one looking at router scripts (noshutdown!). Gossip for some time.

4:16 pm - PM coming...back to seat.

4:27 pm - What's wrong? What's wrong? Why encrypted? God! Give me a break!

5:30 pm - Search net for solution.....

5:47 pm - Not a single useful link. These open source stuff are really messy. No documentation.

6:03 pm - Feeling tired. Want to go home.

6:15 pm - Look blankly at code. Not even trying to understand.

6:30 pm - Coffee break.

6:48 pm - Try random things....start packet capturing....stop packet capturing.....restart machine....walk around looking busy.....check mail (nothing).... go see what the others doing (gone home mostly)...... curse.

7:15 pm - Enough! A man can only do so much and no more. Shut down machine.

7:18 pm - Slip out of office trying to be unnoticed.

7:21 pm - Auto line....looooong line.....

7:32 pm - Just 2 more autos! Come on God...give me this much at least...come on!

7:35 pm - Come on man! Just one more! Why are you putting me through this? God! You're one saddistic SOB.

7:36 pm - Auto! Sorry God about that...I take it back.

7:43 pm - Busstop looking like bookfair...so many people.

7:50 pm - Another C-16? Come on! This is absurd! Where's all the S9s?

8:05 pm - S9!! Jump in! Jump in!

8:06 pm - Can't believe couldn't get on that! Swear.

8:10 pm - Another S9!!! What a miracle! Get in!

8:23 pm - Hey! That girl looks cute! I hope I get to sit beside her.

8:24 pm - Oops! The boy next to her is her boyfriend. Looks like a baboon.

8:33 pm - Stop pushing man! Want me to go out of the window?

8:40 pm - Cute girl gone. Baboon man gone with her. This world is so unfair.

8:47 pm - Home stoppage. At last!

8:53 pm - Home...cold water...sofa....fan....dog....maa.

9:10 pm - Shower....cold.

9:30 pm - Read newspaper.

10:01 pm - SMS friend ("Hows life?").

10:02 pm - Get reply ("Crap.").

10:23 pm - Dinner.

10:51 pm - Login to internet. Fun begins....at last.

12:33 am - Fun ends.

12:37 am - Time to go to sleep, got office tomorrow. Set alarm clock for 8:00 am.

12:40 am - Turn off light. What a day! God! Give me strength to go through this again tomorrow. Can't wait to retire.

12:46 am - Goto sleep....dreaming of the cute girl.

Future

Can future be predicted? Some will say yes, some will say no...some will say "Who gives a s**t?". I don't know the correct answer. What I'll try to do here is list some events which I think will come to pass ... say ...in 20 years from this day. So, this is how I think the world I know today will be 20 years down the line. If this post survives all those years, maybe we'll get a chance to see how much I got right!

1. India will win the Cricket world cup, at least once!
2. Genetics will be advanced enough so that we can modify ourselves the way we want. As a result a new regulatory body will be formed to monitor and control. However, as every rule has a loophole, there'll be illegal ways to get genetic modifications.
3. Technology will be evolved enough to have us use holographic projections of us instead of phones. We'll be able to visit and see people and places right from our living room.
4. Television will become 3D. We'll be able to experience virtual reality to its fullest extent.
5. Digital effects will make the directors create their own actors and actresses, without any noticeable difference from the human actors/actresses. This will also result in digital copies of famous actors/actresses, perhaps even the ones who are dead! And ofcourse, this will lead to illegal copies of famous actors/actresses, which everyone can just download from the net and use (not always with good intention).
6. Mental illness will increase. There'll be more mental patients than physically ill.
7. Nanotechnology will enable us to perform miraculous tasks, from deep space exploration to curing deadly diseases.
8. Mars will be conquered.
9. Indian economy will surpass US.
10. Cancer and AIDS will be curable. However, as always, there'll be new uncurable, deadlier diseases.
11. Drinking water crisis will emerge all the the world.
12. My friends will be married and settled all over the country and the world.
13. Me? Well....I've been always told that I've a short lifeline.

Rules of life

Disclaimer : These are the few of the rules I myself try to follow. I learned them from experiences, readings, and people. They may be right, may be wrong. They may be right for one person, but wrong for another. Life is not simple enough to be bound by rules. And hence, the most important and 0-th rule is "There are no fixed rules".

1. There are 3 types of lies- white, grey and black. White lies are not harmful. In fact, they are sometimes good. Black lies are harmful and malacious. Grey lies are something in between, not spoken with bad intent, but goes wrong somewhere and ends up hurting someone. White lies are the most favourable ones, if you must lie. But before you decide to use a white lie, stop and think for a second....can this become a grey one someway? Stay away from black ones, they always...always comes back at you.
2. Don't hurt people. Neither physically, nor mentally (mental scars are sometimes more deadly than physical ones). Hurting seldom works.
3. Do not expect people to treat you any differently than the way you treat them. What you give is what you get. So, if you badmouth someone behind his/her back, it's highly possible that he/she does the same about you.
4. Two rules will get you far in your job - 1. Make your boss's life easier. 2. Make sure you're visible to your Boss's Boss. (thanks to my brother for this tip)
5. Whenever you meet someone, try to give them something....try to make sure they need something from you (a book, a favour, anything). They'll remember you. (thanks to my brother again)
6. "Prepare for the worst, hope for the best".
7. Don't lose your cool, stay calm. Obvious solutions are missed when one is agitated.
8. Don't let others decide your life. Its your life, learn to control it and take decisions yourself. Even if they don't work out...at least it'll not be because of someone else.
9. Don't get yourself down too much if you encounter failure. Failure is part of life. You failed...so what? Everyone does. Get over it.
10. Listen to your parents. They're right most of the times (but rule 8 overrides this rule in case of contradictions). Even if you feel they are not right....take some time out and think it over, make sure you're sure they're wrong.
11. Friends are treasures of life. Don't lose one. Keep in touch even if you're busy.
12. Learn to say 'thank you'. There are countless of things in life to be thankful for, and countless of things to be dissatisfied with. Since you never shy away from voicing your dissatisfactions, its only fair that you sometimes also appreciate the goods.
13. I doesn't matter whether you believe in God or not, do not ever hurt others religious belief. If you have the right to believe/disbelieve God, the others has an equal right to disbelieve/believe God. Theres no proof supporting either.
14. When times are tough and things seem to be getting nowhere...just hang on. Every night ends.
15. One learns from books, from school. But one learns most by looking back at his own life. Take some time off every day/week from your schedule, when you just sit back and look back.

Some lyrics that stayed with me...

Into the west - Soundtrack from Lord of the Rings : Return of the King
==================================================

Lay down
your sweet and weary head
Night is falling,
you have come to journey's end.
Sleep now,
and dream of the ones who came before.
They are calling
from across the distant shore.

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
all of your fears will pass away,
safe in my arms
you're only sleeping.

What can you see
on the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea
a pale moon rises --
The ships have come to carry you home.

Dawn will turn
to silver glass
A light on the water
All souls pass.

Hope fades
into the world of night
through shadows falling
out of memory and time.
Don't say,
"We have come now to the end."
White shores are calling
you and I will meet again.

And you'll be here in my arms
Just sleeping.

What can can you see
on the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea
a pale moon rises --
The ships have come to carry you home.

And all will turn
to silver glass
A light on the water
Grey ships pass
Into the west.

Words and music by Fran Walsh, Howard Shore and Annie Lennox.
Performed by Annie Lennox.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

In the arms of an Angel - Soundtrack from City of angels
========================================================

Spend all your time waiting for that second chance
For the break that will make it ok
There's always some reason to feel not good enough
And it's hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction oh beautiful release
Memories seep from my veins
They may be empty and weightless and maybe
I'll find some peace tonight

In the arms of an Angel fly away from here
From this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie
You're in the arms of an Angel; may you find some comfort here

So tired of the straight line, and everywhere you turn
There's vultures and thieves at your back
The storm keeps on twisting, you keep on building the lies
That you make up for all that you lack
It don't make no difference, escaping one last time
It's easier to believe
In this sweet madness, oh this glorious sadness
That brings me to my knees

In the arms of an Angel far away from here
From this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie
In the arms of an Angel; may you find some comfort here

You're in the arms of an Angel; may you find some comfort here

Performed by Sarah McLachlan
---------------------------------------------------------------------

This war is over - Soundtrack from Devil's Own
==============================================

Take off my shield
Carry my sword
I won't need it anymore
Find me a sky
Give me my wings
Frozen and broken but free

Tell them I'm all right
I'm coming home
Tell them I'm all right
I am alone
This war is over
I'm coming home

Take off my shame
Bury it low
I won't need it anymore
Find me the sun
Give me it whole
Melt all the chains in my soul

Tell them I'm all right
I'm coming home
Tell them I'm all right
I am alone
This war is over
I'm coming home

Take off my pain
Carry me slow
I won't fight here anymore
Tell them I'm all right
I'm coming home
Tell them I'm all right
I am alone
This war is over
I'm coming home

Performed by Melissa Etheridge
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Goppo - Bengali

I was looking through some old files in my machine and I came upon this story. I forgot all about it. It was written on an office day, while I was just not feeling like working....I wrote the story after a wonderful person I knew died. This story was dedicated to her.

The story is in Bengali. So if you don't understand Bengali....tough luck! I'll translate the story someday if I have time.

Arb Goppo
=========
Ek chhilo meye. Naam tar mone kori...nuh, naam jene dorkar nei . Chhottobela theke se chhilo shokoler adorer meye. Jamon tar mishti shobhab, tamon-i takey mishti dekhte. Tar hashi hashi mukh dekhle din bhalo katbei. Shokole takey khub-i bhalobashe. Baba-ma-para-protibeshi shokoler sneho-jotne se boro hoye uthte laglo. Erokom kore se school periye gelo...college-e bhorti holo. Tar darun buddhi chhilo, somosto pora se khub taratari shesh kore felto ebong baki somoy college-er baki somosto bondhu-bandhob-der pora toiri korte shahajyo korto. Ei kore se somosto college-er shokoler bondhu hoye uthechilo. Keu kono shomoshyaye porlei tar kachhe jaye ("Akbar-er ma-er naam ki re?" "mukhpora honuman-er scientific naam ki?" "Petkharaper kono oshudh janish?" ityadi). Se aapran cheshta kore shokolke shahajyo korte. Ei bhabe ekdin college-o shesh hoye gelo. Shesh din-e somosto professor-kormochari-chhatro-table-chair shobai chokher jol-e takey biday janalo. Seo shokolke chhere jabar jonyo khub-i dukkho peyechhilo, kintu gopone chokher jol muchhe hasi mukhe biday nilo. Jabar somoy kandte nei.

Barir lokjon eibar tar bibaher ayojon shuru korlo. Onek khoj-khobor kore obosheshe ek patro paoa gelo...computer-er business, Tollygunge-e bari, tader duto bari porei! Pothe er aagey onekbar tader dekha hoyechhilo, dujoner-i dujonke pochhondo chhilo, tai ei shombondhe keu kono apotti korlo na. Ek shubhologne tader bibaho hoye galo. Onek lok eshechhilo, almost somosto Kolkatai eshechilo. bondhu- bandhob- para- protibeshi- table-chair, shob miliye se ek darun bapar. Upohar-e upohar-e tinte ghor bhore gelo, kolapatar bonya boye gelo, matir bhar pore pore pahar hoye gelo. Shokoler hashi-aanonde shohor bhore uthlo. Shokole duihaat tule aashirbar kore galo (duitir beshi haat karur chhilo na).

Din katte laaglo. Chheleta o meyeta mile tader shukhi shongshar prochur jotne aar bhalobashaye gore tullo. Erokom kore 4 bochhor kete galo. Meyetir boyosh tokhon 25.

Onnanno diner motoi shabhbik ekti din. Rojkar motoi shokale shujji uthechhe. Tar por oboshyo kora megh korechhe. Jore brishti aschhe bojha jachche. Meyeti shokale bajar korte beriyechilo. Chheleta babshar kaaje shokal belai beriye gachhe, dupure khete phirbe, tai se thik korechhe tar priyo ranna korbe. Barite aar keu nei, tai se nijei giyechhilo bajar korte. Bajar kore auto kore se eshe thamlo Ranikuthi-te. Bhara mitiye rastaye neme se takalo aakasher dike....jhor aasche.

Tarpor ki holo tar aar mone nei...shudhu ekta jor awaj.

Aashepasher lokjon dekhlo, ekta minibus, prochondo jore brake koshlo...kintu totokhone ja hoar hoye gache. Chardik theke lokjon chhute elo. Meyeti pore chhilo ektu dure....

Bipod-e porle aajo shahajyokarir obhab hoyna aamder ei Kolkataye. Koyek minute-er modhyei jute gelo akdol lok, jogar holo taxi....nursing home. Taxi-te chokh khullo meyeta, fish fish kore ekta cellphone number bollo.... tarpor aabar chokh bondho korlo, mukhe samanyo hashi... jabar somoy kandte nei.

Er porer bar jokhon se chokh khullo, tokhon samne dekhlo ek aschorjo drishyo. Shompurno shada ekta hall-e se dariye royechhe, samne ekta tool, tate boshe aache ekta buro lok, tar gaye shada alkhalla, shada chul o dari praye pa porjonto lomba. Meyeti obak hoye tar dike takalo. Buro ektu hashlo, kichhu bollo na.

Meyeti jigesh korlo "E ki shorgo? Aapni ki bhogoban?"

Buro aabar ektu hashlo, tarpor bollo "Nah! E shorgo noy, norok-o noy. Oshob kichhu nai. Somostoi manusher mongora kolpona. Eta kebol tomar next level-e othar aage ekta chhotto landing. Ektola theke dotola othar shirir majhe jamon thake. Aar aami? Aamake bhogoban-o bolte paro, shoytan-o bolte paro, aabar na-o paro. Shob-i kolpona. Aami kebolmatro manushke ek level theke porer level-e uthte shahajyo kori."

Meyeti kichhukkhon kono kotha bollo na, tarpor bollo "Kintu aami to aaste chaini, aami aagei bhalo chhilam, ke aanlo aamake?"

Buro bollo "jani khuki tumi bhalo chile, kintu kichhu korar nai. Tomar prithibir account furiye gachhe, logout na kore upaye chhilo na."

"Renew kora jaye na?"

"Nischoi jaye, kintu aager account aar phire pabe na, shompurno notun account khulte hobe...aabar prothom theke shob shuru korte hobe. Tumi ki tai chao, naki porer level-e khelte chao?"

"Porer level?"

"Manush hishebe khela shesh, ebar tar oporer level-e ichche korle khelte paro."

"Oporer level-e ki aache?"

"Se to bolte parina bachha, ek ek joner kachhe ek ek rokom dekha daye. Manush level-eo to tai, shob manush ki aar ekirokom bhabe khele?"

Meyeti kichhukkhon bhablo, tarpor aaste aaste bollo "Khoma korben dadu, porer level-e ki aache aami jani na, kintu manush level aamar boroi pochhondo, aami promotion chaina, aamake doya kore notun account-i deben. Kintu purono account-e je aamar onek priyo lokjon aache, tader ki hobe? Tader ki aami bhule jabo?"

Buro smito heshe bollo "Tomake to aabar notun kore shuru korte hobe khuki, aager account-er shonge kono jog thakbe na, tobe jibon kondike jaye bola jaye na, aabar notun priyojon tumi khuje pabe, dukkho koro na. Purono-der shongeo hoyto ba dekha hobe konodin, onno kono bhabe. Ei niyom khuki, niyom bhangbo kikore? Chakri chole jabe to! Mone rekho khuki, tumi tader bhule geleo tara tomake bhulbe na."

Meyeti kichhukkhon chup kore matha nichu kore boshe roilo, tarpor chokh muchhe bollo "Tobe tai hok, tader dekha aar jodi nao pai konodin, tader bhalo rekho."

Buro bollo "Tobe tai hok"....


Chhelta boshe chilo mathaye haat diye nursing home-e. Ektu aage meyetar body niye gachhe post mortem korte. Accident victim, post mortem na korle upay nei. Sara jogot chheletar kachhe shunyo. Jano bhir nursing home-e se boshe nei, boshe aache kono mather modhye, botgachher tolaye. Kanna-kati korchhe na, kothao bolchhe na, shudhu chup kore boshe aache....ki bhabchhe ke jane?

Chheletar thik duto floor opor-e, Operation Theatre-e, thik sei muhurtei ekta baccha kede uthlo. Se shodyo aagoto prithibite. Doctor-er haat-e shuye tar shonge prithibir prothom porichoy ghotchhe.

Doctor pasher nurse-er dike takiye bollo "Healthy baby, meye."



The End....?

To you, Shoma didi.

Senseless blabbering

Not a worry in the world. Complete freedom from material thoughts and responsibilities. No one to care for, no one to satisfy. No expectations, no heartbreaks, no complications, no unfulfilled dreams, no dreams. Never have to do something if not feel like it.

Why can't life be like that? Life was once a straight line.....when the hell did it become such a complicated mess of curves? Contradicting and criss-crossing each other.

How many days has it been since I've slept peacefully? How many days will I have to go on still? I'm 26 and I'm already tired. I want a bed under a starry sky and I want to sleep....sleep without worry. No care...no fear...no alarm clock....

Sometimes I lay awake on my bed at night, looking at the dark ceiling and try to remember the highlights of my life. And after a while, it suddenly hits me....I have NO highlights! Covered more than 1/3rd of an average persons life, and yet to do anything worth remembering! I'm doing something terrible wrong with my life....now what was it I was put on the Earth to do?

I remember I promised myself I'd become a globetrotter when I grow up. I'd travel all around the world, hitchhiking....walking....working my way through. And look what I"ve become! How ironical can it be that a boy who once wanted to travel the world now sits in an air tight glass building from morning to night! I would laugh if it was not so sick!

The dark has its music

This piece of writing is not mine. I found it a long time ago in a website. I found the writing very haunting. Thats why I'm posting this here for you to enjoy. Kudos to the writer.

The dark has its music
Sayantan Dasgupta

The dark has wings.

The dark has its music.

The dark has its pain.

The dark has its own bright, flickering smells, its own phantom whims.

Its own haunting echoes, its own tortured, deep-sea sighs.

The dark has its own ghosts which haunt it from dusk to dawn and back to dusk again.

So I was told by an old man long ago.

That man has since been swallowed up by the dark. But I still remember the night he told me that if one really tried, one could actually hear the sound of the earth go round and round on its axis. It was difficult, but not impossible. It was easier during his times, he said, for there was less noise. But, if I listened, really really listened late on silent nights, I would be able to hear the sound, too. It would begin as the slightest hint of a muffled ghrrrrrr-ghrrr, and as you concentrated and shut out the rest of the world -- the faint strains of the All India Radio goodnight anthem from some distant shack, the happy cicadas, even the sound of your own breathing -- it would gradually build up to a crescendo until you would be scared that you might be thrown off the earth, it was moving so violently.

"It’s just like the sound of a gorur gaari. But you’re a city boy; you wouldn’t know what that sound is like", he said with a short laugh.

That summer holiday, I did discover what that sound was like. As I lay on the bench in the garden and looked up at the onyx sky, the dark came and held my hand; it became my friend. And I heard the earth moving on its rusty wheels....

It’s been a long time since then, and I have stopped listening for that sound. But there are other songs, other smells and other secrets the dark whispers to me today.

When there’s a power cut in your neighbourhood next time, don’t grumble. Don’t even fumble about for the candles. Wander on to the tiny verandah of your first floor flat. Peer into the dark. The festive song of the jheejhi will be punctuated by an occasional flutter somewhere in the kadam tree as Mama Crow tries to convince Baby Crow that the gooey monsters were just part of its nightmare.

There’ll be a flicker somewhere ahead of you; it’ll vanish before you can recognise it. It’ll slip away like memories of a long-lost love. You’ll only feel the warmth of a glowing cigarette stub as it swings and sways its way into oblivion. And then, even that will disappear, leaving a widowed, bald darkness.

You’ll think you hear the creak of a bedspring somewhere above you, and you’ll hear something landing with a soft thud into the unkempt bushes below you. And you’ll swear you hear a creaky groan as the whitewashed walls ooze fatigue and the tired building settles ever so slightly deeper into the sheltering earth.

The cool breeze will bring with it snatches of a few whispered words of love -- disjointed, disembodied like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Perhaps they were urgent words of love uttered on a ramshackle bench in some dark corner of the park, perhaps they were lazy, caressing words of love, savouring a moment of togetherness that would not last, trying to make sure the moment would not be forgotten when the day dawned. Perhaps they were well-rehearsed words of love, uttered once more into the trusting dark. Or, perhaps, they weren’t words of love at all -- perhaps it was just the day’s last tramcar trundling by on its aluminium tracks somewhere in the distance. You can’t be sure -- there are some secrets the dark won’t want to share with you...

A rude, loud voice will break into your reverie, showering abuse on a name too slurred to be identified. The acrid smell of betrayal will hang heavy in the air. The wounded, shredded dark, split wide open, will cry for justice. The sobs will die down only when the frogs comfort the dark with their unstinting, ancient lullaby.

Just about now, you may hear a sweet voice half-way through "Ogo dukhojaganiya ... tomay gaan shonabo...tai to aamay jagiye rakho..." She’ll fumble over a word here, drift out of tune there, but she’ll go ahead, singing just for the pleasure of singing to the dark, crooning for the pleasure of serenading the dark, without worrying about who’s listening and what mistakes she’s making.

There are more secrets the dark has to share with you. More than you can imagine. Many more than I can tell you about. Go ahead and give it a listen. You won’t regret it!

Just another day...

I woke up today and the first news I heard was that one of my cousin's wife died yesterday in a road accident. Not a very good way to start the day. I was not very close to her, but she was a very nice person. There are so many evil people around us, then why does the shit happens to the nice people?

God indeed works in myterious ways. I think God should maintain a rating system. When he has to take a life he'll just consult the table "Hmmmm....this guy X got 8.7 out of 10 in the nice factor, while this person Y has only 1.23, so lets bring in Y, fax his CV to devil, he'll do the rest". Anyway, I guess what is supposed to happen, will happen. Nothing can be done about it. This day will end just like any other day, and a new one will come tommorow.

I hope tommorrow will be better.