Aberration

Cried and cried, little Dorin for nights.

He found the clown but not the smile!

“Where could she be!” thought Dorin warily,

“Under a book or over the blighted sky.”

Three nights he looked through dying winds.

Then his wily jackal retorts, “She is a gilded liar,

Could she be swimming in the devil’s admire?”

“What will the devil do with the smile” said Dorin,

“He’s got no love, not even a knife!” “A liar she is, thus

I need her so. An illusion this pawn wants and the smile

was its rye all along. So wait a little longer, nothing is

on blaze and desire’s fork is still stirring my ire. ”

Dorin had just realized, what's a clown without a smile!

Such Treachery

So, Ganguly along with some other senior players goes unsold and predictably the net goes buzzing about this “deliberate humiliation” by the Knight Riders’ management. I guess it makes sense. After all he is Kolkata’s “favorite son”. It hardly matters that under his captaincy KK was known more about its controversies than its performance. It hardly matters that he is now a reality show host which I guess is nowhere close to cricket. It hardly matters that he is 38 and has retired from all forms of international cricket for a while now. It hardly matters that he himself doubled his base price which his good friends in Sahara also were not ready to pay for their Pune team. KK has been consistently one of the lowest ranked team in all editions of IPL, but that too hardly matters. Dada should have been there.

I am sure the high standard of his performance a decade ago should have provided him a berth and a skyrocketing salary in the KK team in this IPL too. I mean isn’t he the greatest captain of all time. Actually the govt. should force the KK management, which is a private entity, to fulfill everyone’s whims. Isn’t that’s what the “capitalist class” in such regime supposed to do. After all, isn’t “dadagiri” the catch word here?

Let’s not forget the auction itself which is being telecasted over national television. Such is the audacity of team managements that they actually pay for players who actually perform. I mean, how could they judge a player by their past performance in IPL? What treacherous world we live in! Let’s all call for another strike and scream, “Cholbe na, cholbe na” rallying on the road.

Let this “dada” hangover stay for few more years. The greater priority of moving on and create younger, world class player from the state can wait for now.

Musical Promiscuity

It’s become quite a pattern.. Whenever a source of good music dries up, I start falling into the abyss of listening to the endless chatter of keyboard and mouse clicks around me. Then suddenly, somehow I stumble upon something decent if not amazing. This time its Jango.com’s turn. I was enlightened about it by a very “No Rock Music” person. I reluctantly tried it out and surprisingly, it turned out to be a pretty decent site. Also, it’s still one of the few sites, yet to be blocked to Indian IPs. It’s not really in the same league as Pandora but it will work for the time being. It’s got a pretty decent preset playlist. As soon as I hit on the classic rock channel the speaker stared blaring “Panama” by Van Halen, after that came Doors’ turn and the mood was set. It did get stuck a few times with some sort of error but it wasn't too hard to get around it.

The thing is I need to listen to music all the time. I have been listening to music all the while in school and college, which explains my shoddy grades. But in office, it’s different. It adds a bit of drama to my usual drab job. It envelops one from all the mediocrity being fostered around. Also, it cushions the disgusting yawns of my boss and gives me an alibi to ignore his summons. Oh, I forgot, it also inspires. So, every time I automate a process which helps my client to spare few extra bucks to buy a beer, there is a Dylan or Santana whom I thank.

My own disposition..

After working on the blog for a lot more than a year, it’s hard not to romanticize it as a comrade backing me through existence. Its uncomplaining demeanor while listening to my pseudo idealism is hardly appreciated while I rant out one sad joke after another. When writing out any of my opinion of the world around, it made me realize how little I know about what I write about. It argues with me over my views yet never has a smug smile when it wins. Sometimes it teams up with readers, thrashing out at me for any mistake or lack of standard. In this stage of being stuck in the work place for around twelve hours the blog is the only think keeping me in touch of my creative self and humbly lets me boast about it.

Yet the true example of its individual nature shows up when I stop writing for a while. Upon my return the initial awkwardness is always there. It’s like wondering “Should I ask him about his gal, wasn’t he the one who got dumped last time? Damn!!” There’s the whole process of getting to know it all over again and filling in the lost gaps. It requires spending time talking about the old days and what they were like. There always this irritating nag in the back of the head that’s keeps on saying “Am I saying the right thing?”, “am I confirming to the benchmark?”, “Is this the ‘me’ I want to project to the world?”. But some how it certainly does help in figuring out a new style and fetch better ideas on writing. There is always some new facet that we didn’t even realize existed last time. It always takes a few posts to get back the old flair and get reminded embarrassingly that last time there wasn’t any break up. Turns out his gold fish had died!!

Dorin..

A brooding night,Dorin dreams,
of dying days and worlds unseen
A blue neon flickers as the devil grins,
with cigarettes and banter she flutters her wings.
A lady walks by where a wise man fell,
embracing Dorin with her absinthe's spell.

When the sky turns yellow,
the jester's music goes mellow.
He sings,Life's a juggler's joke
Either you cry or you don't.
But the brute never cries,
so he rises to toast.

As yellow turns brown, sneaks in
the beast who would not frown.
With roses in his eyes
he jumps to kill. Dorin screams.
Sitting on a dark throne
Morpheus gleams.

Cribbers over Career..

Most folks around me (and others also I believe) bleat a lot about how their work is making their life miserable. They just love to create the illusion that it’s their “villainous firm” who’s responsible for the sad work they do. But most of the time they fail to ask a very fundamental question to themselves “Do I have the ability to do a “better” work in a “better place”?”

If your answer for the question is YES then LEAVE!!!! No matter what they say about “how critical a resource you are”, just leave. The corporations are big enough to forget you the minute you leave their gates. They all lie. They don’t really care.

If your answer for the question is NO then its time to realize the fact, “Just because you got a puffed up ego doesn’t mean you deserve something better.” You deserve to be here for your past failures and you will be here unless you do something about it. So stop whining and better use the time to be capable enough to something better that you can also enjoy. I see people realize the hard fact and then work to change it and the satisfaction on their face while leaving for other places is too good.

Trust me!! It’s always better to have the choice of leaving than the realization of the fact that you are doomed to be somewhere you believe you should not belong.

Passion's Fruit..

How passionate are you about the work you do? Ask this question and you might end up getting some extreme answers. Some say, “I just love the challenges and the hurdles I face everyday in my work”. While some lesser fortunate guys would say, “I just switch off my mind when I come to work.”

I went to this local rock concert last Sunday. The bands were mostly local and were being massively criticized for their performance. But what really overwhelmed me was seeing these guys keep on playing their music so single-mindedly. I am sure they had their own doubts on the music they are making. Yet they had the enthusiasm to come on the stage and have a good time. That kind of passion and conviction is something I myself lack in life and obviously crave for.

I must admit the one thing which drew me to places like Barcamp or any local concert is to see these people who are so avidly engrossed in their work of interest. The fact that they are more interested in the process rather than the end results has always amazed me. These people are always enjoying the moment rather than bothering about the future.

It’s funny that while we are wasting our time judging them, these guys got the entire stage for them and are having the most amazing time of their lives.

The Advisory Mishap...

“It’s just not affordable to go by someone’s advice now days”, said a friend few days back.

The guy does have a point. There are some of us around who can’t decide anything on their own and always looking for counselors. But the problem is there are just too many people with too many advices. Whom to follow to and who to disregard has become a chore in itself. What’s more perilous is the fact that people have somehow learnt the art of pretending to be an expert when they actually still are the same old letdowns. A few days back another friend proclaimed himself to be a “genuine” geek. When asked the reason behind his observation he self-assuredly replied, “Because I still read Comics!!!” How can just reading comics make someone a geek I fail to understand? Anyways that’s just a “not damaging” instance of these breed of glory hunters. Then there are some who go around saying “Those who can’t do, teach.” thinking that will get them some credibility. Nice way of glorifying being a jack!@#!!!

Coming back to the point. Staying clear of such people is an important aspect of the eternally confused man’s life. To even hear the ubiquitously wrong advice which, he will definitely follow is a straight road to the gallows. Now what’s worse is the fact that even he wants to learn the art of pretending to be the ever confident man. Here comes the main drawback of being the confused man. When he gets an advice he can do two things. He will reject them to show the world that he’s not gullible. Else he can accept them because, well he always has an unbearable need of the advices. But how does he decide which to take and which to reject.

Does he need to be advised even on that?

Well, Life certainly is full of ugly loop holes.

Judge The Book, Always...

It’s funny that to really know one’s colleagues, the first thing one has to do is take them out of the office. It’s a fact I realized on last Saturday’s team excursion to a resort. Well for all lonely travelers out there, it was a kind of a place you would hate to go without a set of good friends. The food was good though. But more of that later.

Anyways, coming back to the surprises of the day. I could hardly imagine the usual reserved and “always sticking their nose on the monitor” colleagues of mine will turn out to be so brilliant and funny. It was fascinating to see that the usually serious Lead is also a nice actor and director when I saw his performance in Mad-ads or to find that this usual coy girl is also an amazing gracious dancer. Oh! Give them beer and see them dance. These guys could give any professional a run for their money with their ground-breaking moves. All through the day, some turned out to be painters, some guitarists, some mimics, some just absolutely crazy and some unusually nice when a bit tipsy.

It’s weird how easily we create an impression of the people around us. We hardly consider fact that not knowing about their lives doesn’t mean they don’t have any. This is true especially for our seniors who have to be more serious and responsible in the office. After seeing them in a more informal occasion, one does tend to see them with more admiration. It just validates an old saying that we all have different facades in our individuality. They just come out in different situations, never at the same time. To bring out these hidden fronts of someone we just to put these people in the right place, among the right people and maybe give them a bit of the right dose of good beer :P.

When A Day Dreamer Writes...

Staring back with its pale,
white face, the paper mocks
my thoughts to disgrace.
Thoughts, they fade away,
leaving behind an empty room
filled with a dying flames haze.
Feelings of appeasement try
invading my soul. Somewhere it wins,
Somewhere it loses all hope.

But when all lights go dim,
I see a world in no one's sight
pouring tales in my mind
like a old tavern's aging rye.
With a new hope of a
fiery sky, I write for
glory. I write for the
day dreamer's rising cry.