Change.
Little by little, I bring myself to look at the mirror. See the man there without averting my eyes. Yes, not a boy anymore, but a man, at least physically. The stubble that the razor has a hard time removing is testimony to that.
I wash my face with cold water and think of the days gone by. For the umpteenth time perhaps, but it's different now. See, the future has caught up with the past. The circle is complete. It's time for change.
I get dressed, think absentmindedly of whether I should put a jacket on. I walk out of the door, find a cold but pleasant wind shake me out of my sleep. Pull me out of my dreams. Things have changed, no, go back, rewrite. I have changed. I hold the steering of my life. There is no denying that I always did.
Yes, I hurt you, you there, if you're reading this. I said I loved you and I hurt you. I have done that so many times now it doesn't even make sense to apologise any more. The only person I should apologise to is probably myself. Yes, dude, you're not a saint. You have a little bit of the devil in you, just like everybody else.
Yes, I lied. I lied so many times and when I said I will say the truth, I lied. I lied to myself and to everyone else who mattered. I am not the great guy you imagined me to be. Look at me, I stand naked in front of you, in flesh and blood, mortal and far from invincible. I hold no power other than the power I hold over myself. There are no great deeds I boast of, no overwhelming goodness inside of me, no superhuman ability in need of respect. Just me, with all the pimples on my face and my nails dirty and my clothes in need of washing.
And yes, I hold the baton for change. I hold the key to my own future, the same as everybody else. The tiny key made of gold that will unlock the pandora's box of possibilities, only I need to have the strength to face them. I stand at the helm of my own ship, the captain of my own soul and that thought is as terrifying as it is liberating. I can make anything I want to. I can create the world I want to live in, and I have done this all this while, without knowing it. I m holding my pen writing my own destiny and I've just realised the fact, I've just realised that I'm the only person turning the inexorable wheels of my fate. Not the system, not God, not you, just me.
I'm not perfect, I'm not ideal, I'm not perfect. I'm just here. At the forefront of my destiny.
And I'm here, holding the flag for change.
Showing posts with label introspection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label introspection. Show all posts
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
4
Author's note: I found this post buried amongst several drafts that I had left untouched, deteriorating in the drawers of my blog. It's more of a diary entry of the 4 years of life in IIT looked at in retrospect, but it's...slightly weirdly written.
Four years. Full circle.
Starting with studying following a long bout of even more studying and preparedness for God knows what. Before a blink and before your mouth can whisper the words "Physics" swept into the general mayhem of Computer Science oh my God Computer Science the El Nino of this day and age. Then induction and recursion and the world becoming clear to you no wait its gone again because here come AVL trees and that weird rotation and poof you're gone. Then back again through algorithms and languages and numerical computing and image processing till I close my ears and say no no no more trying to make the little numbers move faster and yet do that same thing looking at a computer screen full of numbers to make them behave they should behave. While I wait for the rest of my life to take off and let go.
Words on a black board, words on a white board. Words on a white board in Bangalore, sitting in Microsoft feeling all free and unreal and finding "Computationalism" a word that means nothing and yet so much because it is at the end of four years of that very word gnawing at your mind. And then a blur and a whiteboard again and matrices and classmates and photographs and thoughts amiss and heartbeats racing. Then back again through time and those thoughts you must not speak now because what's buried is buried but it wasn't at that time because everyone knew it except me and because it was me they were talking about behind closed doors into innocent ears. Then race ahead because memories have a habit of erasing everything just when you want those memories back because if memories weren't erased we would all be Turing machines with infinite tapes, not feeling anything because it hurts too much to feel. And memories that want to erase those parts too, the good ones that you want to hold on to because obviously good things can't survive without the bad. Errors go and so do mistakes, we converge to a solution we don't even care about because what we found has been erased. Little waves with soft white hands.
And down and down and further down where those hidden demons of guilt and self pity coil into each other like mating snakes. And the mistakes you did and the words you said because they were not spoken but typed and I couldn't look into your eyes when I said them and you were so far away you wouldn't have heard if I had shouted. So like words on a computer screen, commands that have no meaning but will go drive the little read write heads that will erase everything. rm -rf *. And then you can go on and put new stuff in there while I am left grapling with a connection gone bad which funnily is how everything else around is, the numbers dont add up, I'm not converging to a solution and the errors are not going down fast enough and what the heck am I doing the right thing?
Right thing, right thing, right thing, right thing and suddenly who are you kidding you've been a criminal all along. Tick tick tick tick then oh my god you've been Cross all your life.
Then four years later you realise we are all wrong, and the only task now to be done is to learn to forgive yourself.
Four years. Full circle.
Starting with studying following a long bout of even more studying and preparedness for God knows what. Before a blink and before your mouth can whisper the words "Physics" swept into the general mayhem of Computer Science oh my God Computer Science the El Nino of this day and age. Then induction and recursion and the world becoming clear to you no wait its gone again because here come AVL trees and that weird rotation and poof you're gone. Then back again through algorithms and languages and numerical computing and image processing till I close my ears and say no no no more trying to make the little numbers move faster and yet do that same thing looking at a computer screen full of numbers to make them behave they should behave. While I wait for the rest of my life to take off and let go.
Words on a black board, words on a white board. Words on a white board in Bangalore, sitting in Microsoft feeling all free and unreal and finding "Computationalism" a word that means nothing and yet so much because it is at the end of four years of that very word gnawing at your mind. And then a blur and a whiteboard again and matrices and classmates and photographs and thoughts amiss and heartbeats racing. Then back again through time and those thoughts you must not speak now because what's buried is buried but it wasn't at that time because everyone knew it except me and because it was me they were talking about behind closed doors into innocent ears. Then race ahead because memories have a habit of erasing everything just when you want those memories back because if memories weren't erased we would all be Turing machines with infinite tapes, not feeling anything because it hurts too much to feel. And memories that want to erase those parts too, the good ones that you want to hold on to because obviously good things can't survive without the bad. Errors go and so do mistakes, we converge to a solution we don't even care about because what we found has been erased. Little waves with soft white hands.
And down and down and further down where those hidden demons of guilt and self pity coil into each other like mating snakes. And the mistakes you did and the words you said because they were not spoken but typed and I couldn't look into your eyes when I said them and you were so far away you wouldn't have heard if I had shouted. So like words on a computer screen, commands that have no meaning but will go drive the little read write heads that will erase everything. rm -rf *. And then you can go on and put new stuff in there while I am left grapling with a connection gone bad which funnily is how everything else around is, the numbers dont add up, I'm not converging to a solution and the errors are not going down fast enough and what the heck am I doing the right thing?
Right thing, right thing, right thing, right thing and suddenly who are you kidding you've been a criminal all along. Tick tick tick tick then oh my god you've been Cross all your life.
Then four years later you realise we are all wrong, and the only task now to be done is to learn to forgive yourself.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Bangalore
Bangalore again.
Bangalore, colloquially known as the AC city. The city of a perennial cool breeze, cloudy skies and a very fine weather. The city where you will never complain that its sweaty, or wet, or freezing. The city where everyday the weather is delightful. The city where every day is like the next. Invariably.
Bangalore, the software hub of the country. The city of an Indianized version of an American dream. The city packed cinema halls and IT professionals with serious money to burn. And auto-rickshaw-wallahs and shopkeepers with an eye for that money.
Bangalore, the city of traffic jams. The city where the long transit hours have meant a family life torn out of context, or an office life forced into absurd timescales. The city that has learnt to live with one-way roads that curve like snakes, and yet bear such clinical names as “18th cross”.
And yet, Bangalore, the city of change.
I am here in Bangalore again, the city that was the beginning and the end of so many changes. I look outside from behind glass walls at the Gulmohur, and notice that it doesn’t have any more flowers. I look around me and notice that there are no longer many friends around me. The table I sat at in the summers, surrounded by so many people a colleague, also a Professor, called it a fish market, is now empty. Terribly so, in fact. Isolated, host to a blank computer screen already in disuse, it stands like a ghost, reminding me of what was, and what isn’t any more.
What was, and what isn’t any more, and what could have been but wasn’t. Wild swamps of buried memories suddenly come to life in this eternally unchanging city, and yet the city that played host to a revolution in my life. A relationship that sprang up way too quickly, and still refuses to die. A sequence of friendships that were never quite there, and that showed up cracks in my life and heart. An attempt to be something I can probably never be. A blossoming of hopes followed by a poignant autumn, a relentless winter and a cautious spring. An eternity of life lived between the summer at Bangalore and the winter at Bangalore, and yet the city is still the same. It’s almost as if the blizzards of change have ravaged my heart and soul, and yet have left the city around me mockingly untouched. The city looks back at me through these same glass walls, through this gulmohur and these clouds, and sniggers ruthlessly. Oh it’s you again, it says, and laughs, as I close my eyes and let the flood of a million memories drown me in their wake.
Bangalore, the AC city, India’s silicon valley, darling of the capitalists and software industries. Bangalore, the city that is too much with my memory, that I want to stay away .
Bangalore, colloquially known as the AC city. The city of a perennial cool breeze, cloudy skies and a very fine weather. The city where you will never complain that its sweaty, or wet, or freezing. The city where everyday the weather is delightful. The city where every day is like the next. Invariably.
Bangalore, the software hub of the country. The city of an Indianized version of an American dream. The city packed cinema halls and IT professionals with serious money to burn. And auto-rickshaw-wallahs and shopkeepers with an eye for that money.
Bangalore, the city of traffic jams. The city where the long transit hours have meant a family life torn out of context, or an office life forced into absurd timescales. The city that has learnt to live with one-way roads that curve like snakes, and yet bear such clinical names as “18th cross”.
And yet, Bangalore, the city of change.
I am here in Bangalore again, the city that was the beginning and the end of so many changes. I look outside from behind glass walls at the Gulmohur, and notice that it doesn’t have any more flowers. I look around me and notice that there are no longer many friends around me. The table I sat at in the summers, surrounded by so many people a colleague, also a Professor, called it a fish market, is now empty. Terribly so, in fact. Isolated, host to a blank computer screen already in disuse, it stands like a ghost, reminding me of what was, and what isn’t any more.
What was, and what isn’t any more, and what could have been but wasn’t. Wild swamps of buried memories suddenly come to life in this eternally unchanging city, and yet the city that played host to a revolution in my life. A relationship that sprang up way too quickly, and still refuses to die. A sequence of friendships that were never quite there, and that showed up cracks in my life and heart. An attempt to be something I can probably never be. A blossoming of hopes followed by a poignant autumn, a relentless winter and a cautious spring. An eternity of life lived between the summer at Bangalore and the winter at Bangalore, and yet the city is still the same. It’s almost as if the blizzards of change have ravaged my heart and soul, and yet have left the city around me mockingly untouched. The city looks back at me through these same glass walls, through this gulmohur and these clouds, and sniggers ruthlessly. Oh it’s you again, it says, and laughs, as I close my eyes and let the flood of a million memories drown me in their wake.
Bangalore, the AC city, India’s silicon valley, darling of the capitalists and software industries. Bangalore, the city that is too much with my memory, that I want to stay away .
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Random ramble
Walking shouting running screaming
Talking whispering laughing dreaming
Jumping sleeping smiling crying
Loving, hating; living, dying
Each day the better, each day the worse
Each hope a memory, each memory a hope
Each thought a million emotions in my mind
Each light so powerful it can strike you blind
Each road a circle, each end a road
Each freedom a noose, each noose a rope
To the rope I hang for the breath that ain't mine
To the hope I hang for the dream I can't find
Each moment an hour, each hour gone by
Each minute a painful reminder of life
Each smile a fear of the tears to come
Of what I am, and what I have become
This way is that, and that way, this
Hell is a tear on the cheeks of bliss
And joy must come with a thousand warning signs
But sorrow can sneak in, whenever, into my mind
Endnote: Just a random ramble...
Talking whispering laughing dreaming
Jumping sleeping smiling crying
Loving, hating; living, dying
Each day the better, each day the worse
Each hope a memory, each memory a hope
Each thought a million emotions in my mind
Each light so powerful it can strike you blind
Each road a circle, each end a road
Each freedom a noose, each noose a rope
To the rope I hang for the breath that ain't mine
To the hope I hang for the dream I can't find
Each moment an hour, each hour gone by
Each minute a painful reminder of life
Each smile a fear of the tears to come
Of what I am, and what I have become
This way is that, and that way, this
Hell is a tear on the cheeks of bliss
And joy must come with a thousand warning signs
But sorrow can sneak in, whenever, into my mind
Endnote: Just a random ramble...
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