"smashana vairagyam"

this is deep thought. its also rubbish and fragmented. its been written over atleast 2 months of one sentence a week, so if it makes little or no sense, it is most likely that you are not losing your mind... but then again... may be you are....

recently, i saw death. fairly up-close. not in the kinds that motorcyclists describe as the last few seconds before their heads get smashed in the pavement. but like the kinds where an aged relative who was slowly fading just ceased to exist. the post departure motions and the talks that ensue always makes one wonder what would people talk about when i am gone.

my mother taught us a phrase very early on. "smashana vairagyam" which badly/loosely translated means the divine selflessness attained at the cremation grounds. its the end result of the introspection that happens once you see the futility of living in the eyes of a dead close relative. you feel that all they did, is summarized, as good by the close ones. mundane by the ones that aren't so close, and as stern silence by the ones who watch cynically. you suddenly start looking at life from an obituary perspective. what would people say after i died. how would dad react, or mom feel or my aunt who never liked me talk of when she's consoled. what would my cousins who now look at me as an anomaly say. what anecdotes would be brought up? would it be the ones where i rebelled. or the ones where i obeyed. the ones where i was idiotic or the ones where i was brave? and after all these questions it suddenly starts to dawn... you need to live better. you need to do more for people. you need to be a better son, brother, friend, support to those so related. your desire to hoard money suddenly becomes a thing of great guilt and you wish you had done more for society in general.

the thing with SV is that it only lasts as long as the fires burn. the minute you are back home, the minute you interface reality, you start to slide back into your ways, you worry about the insufficiency of funds provided at work. the futility of asking for a raise, the promotion politics. the new car, the unpaid credit card bill that you got your tv with. all come back as if they never left, and all that is left of that moment of absolute renouncement is a shred of determination that you will one day rise above it all. i would like my V to last longer than that. i would like it to translate into everything i do. i wish to live life with complete abandon of someone connected with things but only to experience them. i wish to be rid of all things lineage driven. my investments will be in people and the things they do, not tangible assets that will give me dividends and returns when i turn 70... i want me experientially abused today... i dont want to wait until i am old and over ripe to experience life... i want to travel, move, be uncomfortable and learning everyday. i dont want tomorrow to be like today and like yesterday... a brand new tomorrow in all sense of the word. coming back to my obituary, i want it to simply read... karthik natarajan lived. fully. and i dont want people to remember me for the things i did, i want them to remember me for the fun we had together. at my funeral i want everyone all drunk and disorderly and mildly riotous. i want it attended in clothing of your determination, and i want it celebrated with the gladness of having being transferred to an exotic location for work.


funeral day playlist:
(guns and roses) november rain
(iron maiden) number of the beast
(metallica) turn the page
(pink floyd) the entire discography
(doors) ghost song
(doors) truckers song
(U2) even better than the real thing
(U2) even better than the real thing
(coheed and cambria) welcome home
(nadaka) pick any and other songs that will be determined over the course of the remainder of my life.

resolution over.

i quit!

i think i did it for quiet a while. 2 months almost. the new years resolution of writing 2 posts a week has been quiet a formidable task, and sadly must come to an end. not because i dont have things to say, and not because i have suddenly started having better things to do, just because the task keeps getting more and more difficult by the week, and i see myself as more of a micro-blogger than a macro one. i am good with the one liners. less is more is more of my way. the things i have to say can be said in 140 characters of less. i dont need to ramble on for more than than generally. and even in those 140 char, i can more often than not not make any sense. so keeping all that in mind, and the fact that my scruples, and conscience, allow for me to quit an endeavor guiltlessly, i have now decided to stop blogging twice a week and shall blog as and when i see fit. after all it is my rule to break the rules i make. and i shall abide by it for as long as it is convenient.

BAZINGA!!!

this is todays post. i dont plan on quitting yet. may be next week. for this week i got my 2 posts. both written on a sunday. both written from the phone. and both amazingly meaningless and dry. as much as the universe is crying for me to stop, i shall go on. i shall be seen week after week for as long as i can, rambling, crying, bickering and ranting about mundane things that i do, and the oddities that i have. so until next week, which is already here, adios amigo(a)s! we shall meet again.
(evil laughter fades into black with end credits.)

death of a drive.

today i lost something.

something valued. something irreplaceable. it was my years of hard work, collecting, saving, swapping, and creating little bits and pieces to put it all together there. it was my hard drive. 320 gigs of portable entertainment. all gone in one single drop of my bag. one careless/carefree gesture and all is gone.

to the untrained eye, it is like a watch being broken, or a favorite tshirt with moth holes in it, but to me, and i am sure to a lot of others to whom half the fun is in the amount of space it occupied. but to me, is the 1900s equivalent of having a big fire in your workplace. or a california wild fire of the 2000s, or losing your own hut in the haiti earthquake. no matter what you get after this.. your life can never go back to being the same. you may rebuild your fortunes, you may work hard enough to make all of this seem like a bad dream, but that day you change. you become someone you were not before and someone you will be for the rest of your life.

the hard disk was fairly new and it isnt that i lost the drive or that i lost money today that i am sad, its a lot more. it is that today i am reminded of my helplessness against all things that i thought i was using for convenience. i cant go without my phone, my ipod, my laptop, the hard drives i own, none of that. its almost as if i am slave to it. and thus the unbearable loss.

almost reminds me of the matrix reloaded dialogue between the council man and neo about dependencies. and he ends with... 'are we truly free?'

and so shall i.


(alright may be just a little foot note.

i know i know. i am a day late. but in my defence, i was a day early last time so there that and thats that! plus i am a grieving man this week. i am allowed a day off aren't i? i mean 320 gigs of movies, music, may be a few bits of work too all gone. never to be gotten again. i am allowed a day off!


i also have to do this..

happy birthday sister.

she thought this would make up for a good excuse for a post. may be she was right, this does seem more intelligent and mature than crying over a dead drive. but then... i dont want to seem what i am not. )

resolution day!

happy new year everyone.

i know i am late. i know it was 2 weeks and more ago. but i just woke up. from work. not a holiday, nor a drinking binge. anyways, the point is that its new years, and i got a good feeling about this year. i am doing seemingly well, making apparent intelligent moves, while showing hints of settling down in a job for longer than 30 days. the point is, i like this year. i think it is going to bring a lot of new things.
so when i saw a lot of designers come and write about their new years resolution of doing 365 pieces of personal art, i thought i should do something like that! now the catch was, i cant think of 5 different things to draw, wait... i cant think OR draw!365 of those would give me a stroke! i needed a more doable goal. 365 blog posts a year. again, stroke worthy. i can barely think of one tweet a day, plus a facebook status message added to that.. the pressure of being visible, is too much. not that i mind it, its a mental exercise and i love the challenge of coming up with these, plus its fun. so now back to the challenge of doing something that will need constant thinking throughout the year. 52 blog posts a year. (for 52 weeks, of the year.. if you didnt know that... i think u should quit reading here). that means a couple of 100 words a week. too doable. its not so much of a challenge, when u have to get up one morning say, good morning people in text/type, rant about the things that happen to you once a week and then go back to bed. i mean once a week is for starters. not re-starters. us second time text offenders need stricter punishment. so here goes. 2 posts a week for the first 3 months. then move up to 4 and so on. the final climax would be 2 posts a day, for the last one week of the year. so those watching, (i know i got 2 official followers (thank you both!)and hopefully a larger number of people who would read it once and then would sanitize their computers, delete their logs, format their OS's and never acknowledge that they visited my blog. i know, its insulting to read this crap right? anyways...) brace yourselves, include me and my resolution to write more often in your nightly prayers and your daily desires or at least lie thru your teeth and say 'good job karthik keep it up!' cos i am NOT a self mover. i am a self starter but i am also a self - lose-interest-er.

so here goes nothing. absolutely nothing.

see you in 3 days with more nothing.