Fanboy-ism and getting F’d in the A.

Define Fanboy. Here you go. 

I have spent quite some time trying to figure out why on earth do I exhibit selective fanboy behavior. Simply put, there are things, people who I admire and/or love with the ferocity of a LoTR fan who surgically gets his ears lengthened. The question in my mind was: WHY? I have always attributed fanboyism to the inability to deal with life by oneself. The way to deal with situations in life is quite simple: Where you have experience, use it. Where you don’t; be as honest, clear and rational as possible. Wonder how often I have actually followed this.

The point is, if there is one, that I am a fan of a few things. They include:

• Radiohead: An alternative-experimental-electronic-lush-soft-hard-medium rare- jazz-classical-(…)-band from Oxforshire, UK.
• Douglas Noel Adams: Born in Cambridge, UK in 1952; he was an author, radio show producer, orator, spokesperson for Apple, wildlife enthusiast, Pink Floyd fan etc etc. Wrote things like ‘The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy’, ‘Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency’ and ‘Last Chance To See’.
• JRR Tolkein: Author of the Middle Earth series of fantasy novels such as ‘The Lord of The Rings’ trilogy, ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Silmarillion’.
• Monty Python’s Flying Circus: A sketch-based absurdist comedy show that aired in the early 1970s. Known for pushing the boundaries of what was then regarded as acceptable and sketches where the comedy lay in the sheer randomness of what was happening.

So… WHY dost thou admir’st these men so much, Harish?

Because Radiohead have songs where the music resonates with the sounds buzzing through my brain. I can actually discern the meaning behind every note of every instrument in almost every song and they all resonate in my mind. The lyrics seem as if Thom Yorke has been following me around and somehow listening to my thoughts. Some are quite straightforward:

Limb by limb and tooth by tooth
Tearing up inside of me
Every day every hour
I wish that I was bullet proof

Whereas others are more subtle and actually resemble the chaotic yet tranquil bullshit ringing through my ears:

There are two colours in my head
There are two colours in my head
What, what is that you try to say?
What, what was that you tried to say?
Tried to say.. tried to say..
Tried to say.. tried to say.. tried to say…

Everything, everything, everything..
Everything in its right place

It’s not irony. It’s much, much deeper.

Douglas Adams has been criticized as someone who writes one-liners and then fillers in between to make a book. Whatever the truth behind that, he has come up with lines which, when I read them, I feel as if an invisible hand has reached into my skull and pulled this thought and left it on the page of the book I’m reading.

• “My capacity for happiness,” he added, “you could fit into a matchbox without taking out the matches first.”
• The regular early morning yell of horror was the sound of Arthur Dent waking up and suddenly remembering where he was.
• “If I ever meet myself,” said Zaphod, “I’ll hit myself so hard I won’t know what’s hit me.”
• “Life,” said Marvin dolefully, “loathe it or ignore it, you can’t like it.”

As for Tolkein, the Pythons and other people I’m a fan of… sometime later. I’m not in the mood.

Life, it seems, is getting fucked over. I haven’t experienced even the slightest tinge of happiness for more than two weeks.

Is it worth it? I mean, honestly? When absolutely nothing goes your way and everything and everyone decides to kick you square in the nuts? This is when people usually turn to something (religion, alcohol, drugs) or someone (friends, family etc). Me? I turn around. Hence the title. I guess I shouldn’t expect to find someone or something to comfort me in times of seething pain, hatred, disappointment and doubt.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, but it affected me in a very layered manner. ‘Twas merely the act of opening Pandora’s Box. I seem to be shrouded in a haze of confusion, disappointment and frustration and as a consequence, I can’t see very clearly.

There always comes a time when one must choose between contemplation and action. This is called becoming a man.  ~ Albert Camus

 

 

Forever for her is over for me

I had to come over. I’m sorry, but you know it has to be done in person. That’s the only certain way to finish it off once and for all. Closure, I think it’s called. I know I loved you once, and to be honest, I still do. But… it’s just not possible anymore. Because you’re no longer the one I loved. You’ve changed. I didn’t want you to stagnate or anything… but not all change is good. I mean… you’ve been taken for a ride. You’ve turning into everything I despise and before the transformation becomes complete, I want to call it off.

I’m sorry Bangalore, I find no home in your arms any longer.

Though I must say, the climate hasn’t changed much and the new airport is awesome.

The Decline And Fall…

Then again… it’s not about the hits, right?

People don’t read bad writing. Or REALLY good writing. Guess which category I fall under?

Forward bloc

I can’t write. I can’t think. I can’t read. I can’t sleep. I can’t wake up.

My life is over. I’m finished. There is nothing to do. And yet, I’m busy. HOW THE FUCK CAN SOMEONE BE BUSY DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING?

My performance at the Quiz and Debate at Jamia was disappointing, to say the least. Actually, it was fucking atrocious! The debate was won solely by Decay, who is ironically decaying (a broken ankle last I heard). I was out-quizzed (My blog ought to say: Here Be Neologisms) by MV Namesake and Guhahaha (… n).

My writing has been carp crap and I have lost the ability to be witty or funny or profound. I am even unable to come up with a neat little analogy or simile or metaphor to describe what I sound like, in person or through the medium or words! GOD! FUCKING! DAMN! IT!

In any case, here’s the latest from the series of disastrous ventures and mindless escapades that is my existence on this here piece of mass orbiting a giant fusion reactor:

• Have almost given up hope on the GRE. Recent developments have led me to believe it’s a lost cause. Reader! Just give my blog a look and ask yourself this: Do I look like someone who can actually carve a career out for himself as a PhD in Theoretical Physics? Would you, if you were the admissions officer at any university, admit me and be willing to offer me a scholarship or teaching assistantship or the like?
• Am in Bangalore right now. Came here for my sister’s convocation. She’s working with a company endorsed by Tiger Woods, who put her through this college to get an MBA in Human Capital Management. Dad was there too. He has to learn something: Vodka and Sprite is not my preferred drink!
• Am typing this on this guy’s laptop, at his flat. The scary bit is… this is MY neighborhood. I can see my bedroom window from his bedroom window. Yet, things have changed. It’s an epidemic of over-commercialization. There were never so many people near the 100ft road gate, neither were there so many cars all over the place. And there are approximately eleven times as many high-class restaurants in a 5-km radius as they were when I left.

There’s more to say. But I can’t. Not eloquently, at least. And I have always believed that anything that cannot be written down well is not worth writing, which is why I have a mere 2 drafts. This hasn’t been fun. It pains me to think about the amount of time that has elapsed between my last good piece of writing and this.

Please… Mind… I know you’re there… Start working again!

Lee Ricks

Lee Ricks isn’t exactly a very good author, or poet, or philosopher or even spiritual guru. In fact, most of Mr. Rick’s works tend to be utter and complete trash. They appear to be a meaningless collection of pop-culture slogans thrown intermittently between verses of how love is beautiful or terrible, depending on his mood, his personal experiences, the personal experiences of others or accepted, but unverified, fact. If Mr. Ricks isn’t going on about how good/bad/ugly a thing love is, he keeps going on about how great HE is, as a person. Sometimes Mr. Ricks doesn’t even make sense. Yet, he is famous. Very famous. But why?

Because Mr. Ricks bibliography is vast. There are certain Lee Ricks we like and some we don’t. And it is because Mr. Ricks possesses such wide range that we are able to pick and choose amongst his works for lines and passages that inspire us, depress us or we believe are just our thoughts expressed in a manner we cannot. It is strange, though, how Lee Ricks can say in a couple of lines, that which we struggle to express in pages and pages of mindless garbage which has been read over 21,000 times. Yet, he does it and we should be thankful.

People tend to ask, “So, what are your favorite [works of] Lee Ricks?”. Mine change, ranging from:

This one, here.

To this one, here.

To this one, nyah.

Many more of his works exist that can be classified as my favorites as he continues his vendetta to inspire, motivate, depress, annoy, entertain and irritate us and it never fails to surprise me how the abscure gentlemen named Lee Ricks manages to capture the innermost thoughts of humanity in a subtle and intelligent manner whilst simultaneously coming up with meaningless trash.

Ladies and Gentlemen… If you thought my last post was bad… just you wait! Hahahahahahahaha!

Why I shouldn’t have a camera phone

A horse stranded on the DND. Cars, bikes and buses rushed past it at speeds of a 100kmph, and this thing just ambled along at it’s own pace.

Oh Computer, My Computer! At first I thought my Windows Xp CD is fucked, but I tried running Ubuntu and that didn’t work either. Then I realized, to my utmost consternation, that my CPU is damp from the humidity. Wunderful, ja?

Dark clouds on the horizon near the sector-44 campus of my “university”. Taken as I made my way to college to begin a new semester. Thanks for the warning.

Moods: My Man

To people who aren’t from this Athe-forsaken land full of elephants, snakes, snake-charmers, call centers and cheap bombs; or people who’re just too prudish to watch certain ads on TV… the title is a reference to this.

The actual post has nothing to do with sex, safe sex, contraceptives and the usage of contraceptives while having sex. Nope. It’s just that I’m feeling unusual.

Life isn’t supposed to resemble humanity’s views on the cosmos. But mine does.

In ancient times, I believed I was the center of the universe. My life was centered on ME and everything else revolved around it. I wasn’t exactly your manipulative, self-centered and obsessed ”BUT WHAT ABOUT ME?” male version of the bitches from VH1’s ‘My Super Sweet Sixteen’. I was more of the apathetic, self-centered and obsessed ”You do what you want and leave me alone” proto-Goth kid. And I believed that my personality had edges. Go too far and I’ll fall into an infinite void of… something. I never knew what. I still don’t know what.

Now, however, I’ve realized that though I’m finite as a person (DAMN!), I have no boundaries. Which is cool. But… I’ve also moved from the center of the universe. A new occupant has arrived there and I’m merely revolving around the new object at the center. And this… I do not like.

It looks like the last week or so was more of a binary star scenario. Maybe. Maybe not.

And that leads me to Alan Guth’s Inflationary Model of the Universe. Perhaps all of our lives work in that way. A Big Bang, a period of large-scale inflation which results in the formation of a more or less static looking universe. You only realize that the universe is expanding from careful observation and the only consequence of this expansion is that things that were close to each other within the universe early on move farther and farther away and the farther they are, the faster the move away.

I would fit Stephen Hawking’s No Boundary Proposal into this collection of meaningless rambling trash, but I don’t want to scare my loyal readership with the prospect of imaginary time is what is, in actuality, real and what we call real time is a figment of our collective subconscious imagination and a life whose only boundary condition is that it has no boundary. Instead…

When John Archibald Wheeler (who was, apart from one of the best physicists of the 20th century, also RPF’s doctoral thesis adviser) named stars which have collapsed such that not even electromagnetic radiation can escape their gravitational pull as “Black Holes” (another suggested name was “Dark Stars”), the French were repulsed as they believed this title held quite a few sexual connotations. When he further showed how all solutions of the Einstein-Maxwell Equations of General Relativity that result in a black hole are completely characterized by three parameters: mass, electric charge and angular momentum and described this theorem as “Black Holes Have No Hair”… them Frenchies were vindicated. Like anyone else gave a fuck.

Hmmm… I guess I’ll just do an MBA.