Tomorrow, us, under a bus..

I'm not going to hide what I imagine is too grotesque for the human mind to rationalize without being a first hand eyewitness. As I vividly describe for you the depictions doing their runs through my mind, I'm going to be graphic about it. I need to vent the pain and this is my forum.

A Kinetic, he rides;
The wind engulfs his sides.

Pillion, a friend of his,
This, his last journey is.

In the traffic, he rummages for a crevice,
The need for speed, his ultimate vice.

Bangs into a rick,
The ground, he now can lick.

For he toppled onto earth,
As if, for life, he was in dearth.

Burnt rubber's scent permeates the air,
A deafening roar, like that of a lion, in his lair.

Light, it seems, fades away,
As the tyre makes its way.

Shattering his cranium, he feels no pain,
For what sense can he make, without a brain?

This gruesome tale,
Leaves us all ail.

Tomorrow it could be a bus,
And the victims, us.

---

D: Beeshma passd away
T: What?
D: Yup.
T: You said, "Bheeshma passed away" and then, "Yup".. You okay?
D: He jus got run over by a tempo.
T: What the hell? Dude?
D: Dude i ws wid him...im gona cry
T: What if this is one of those pranks of yours?
D: Thomas shut it.
D: Tom i wudn kid bt dis.
D: He fell unda da tempo afta hitn a ric
T: On a bike?
D: Yup.
T: How were you with him? You were on the same bike?
D: No i was near lcd.
T: And you're so okay with it.. I mean.. You're stable enough to message about it?
D: Dude.. im frikn shakn here.
T: You've told everyone else?
D: Yup..nainita cld

That was an excerpt of the conversation between Deepak and me yesterday afternoon.

Death is such an incidental thing:

• If he had woken up earlier that day, maybe he'd have never met the rickshaw or the tempo.
• If his sister had taken the bike to college, maybe he would've been in the tempo, and not under it.
• If he overcame his laziness and returned upstairs to get his helmet, maybe he'd have lived.
• If he didn't rip to get past that red signal earlier, ...
• If he had decided to take another less congested route, ...
• If he had not taken the trouble to close the gate before leaving, ...

This is one of the main reasons I don't think it's worth living.

After all, that second hand smoke you got exposed to because your hostelmate smoked is going to kill you, innit? Shouldn't the hostel manager be arrested for making him share a room with you? Shouldn't his father be arrested for smoking in front of him and getting him into the vice?

Maybe if you'd woken up late that day and reached school late, the bomb those goddamn terrorists planted in your classroom would've exploded without you.

The pail of milk you could have volunteered to deliver would've made you conscious of the speed you were to ride at and thus avoid the skid that lead you to your eternal rest under the tyre of a double-decker tourist bus.

And I thought good people went far in life. Well, that person whose hostelmate smoked was a valedictorian. He was a good kid. So was the kid who reached school in time. The latecomers didn't die that day, even though they were "bad" kids.

Life, studies and relationships all fade to gray when a friend ceases to sense the light of day.

Bheesh. I'm downloading those South Park episodes you wanted. I'll drop them off tomorrow at your place.

I'll never forget the times you "borrowed" my whitener to vandalize class desks with your creative, satiric lyrics.

Or the discussions we had about internet connections.. and how badly you wanted a faster one.

Or the times I jeered on about Monisha, likening her to another Monisha. You didn't like her being likened to someone else. I'm sorry.

Nor the times in 9th grade, when I sat diagonally and directly behind you while you lightened up the darkest of situations.

May your rest be as peaceful as your death was lurid.

As a tribute, I call upon you all to listen to "Tears in Heaven" by Eric Clapton. It's a wonderful song from the genre of Blues and the lyrics fit the painful context of this post.

---

I'm just back from his funeral. His family's lost its father in a landslide in 2000 and now him in 2007. It's just 2 girls, a mother and a grandmother. It's a three-legged table that has just lost another leg. And a table can't stand without a couple of its legs, can it? Pessimism aside, he's got a very potent pair of sisters and an extremely resilient mom. They don't need our sympathy, just maybe our support.

As a memorial, we're pooling up some cash to buy either the bheeshma.com or bheeshmafutnani.com domain and designing a website that'll include testimonials, photographs and some of his works.

Merry Christmas, y'all!!

It's quarter-past-one in the morning on Christmas Day.. it's chill.. the crackers light up the sky.. the world as a whole celebrates Christmas.

I think Christmas is one of those few festivals that crosses religious, cultural and caste boundaries.. Maybe it's the snowy, cold weather or the atheistic Santa Claus that transcends those boundaries uniting the world into one celebrating unit.

No partying or anything for me.. I'm stuck at home playing Exercise 55 of the Classical Guitarist's Guide and then blogging about it. In another 4 hours, I'll be at church for the early morning service.

I'm in a rather warm mood actually.. wondering how kids in poor or broken families would celebrate Christmas.. that the poor become magically rich and that broken families re-unite.

Are you thinking, "What is this heartless computer geek think he's doing?".. Wonder what's inducing it?

Maybe it's The Fray's music.. maybe it's because I like ideal, perfect situations without misery and sorrow deep down inside me.. even though I might put on an outwardly show of uncaring coldness..

This post should've been about the new Web 2.0 site that I recently found or the new software algorithm book I'm reading.. but it's not. Rather, it's a view deep down into me, a human.. not a computer geek or a pessimist.. but a human.

I've got a few admissions to make too. Firstly, that timetable I made isn't being followed. Secondly, I've spent a bit too much time on learning Ruby and Python, trying to get good at guitaring, chatting and contemplating a relationship when I should have been following that timetable. Thirdly, I know I'm going to mess up what I resolved to do properly.. atleast at this rate of study (0 pages/day).

It's not that any of those activities weren't productive because.. Ruby and Python are languages that I can make useful stuff with.. Good guitaring can calm a person down even in the darkest of situations.. I've learnt, if not helped, during those conversations with my friends.. And contemplating that relationship has made me a more mature person on the whole.

I want this post to be an enlightment for someone like me who's lost his focus and priorities. It's not meant for the already perfect person.

Recommending 'Little House' by The Fray along with all of their other alternative rock songs, I abruptly end this post, a jumble of unrelated thoughts lacking context or flow..

My Yamaha CG-101

I removed my classical Yamaha CG-101 from its case after around 4 years now. It was still in the best of shape with the strings intact and all but totally out of tune. I learnt how to tune the thing and it's in perfect playing condition, now. So, if I turn out to become a lead guitarist instead of a software developer (specifically, kernel architect), attribute it to this day.. ;-).. After all, kernel architects get all the glory among software developers but lead guitarists get glory from software developers and plebeians alike.

Plebeians? I've been reading a bit too much Julius Caesar.. maybe that timetable I set is paying off even before I write my exams.. :-)

That said, I've got another song to recommend.. It's called "Summer Song" and it's a piece of magical guitaring by a magician of a guitarist, himself.. Joe Satriani.. Maybe I can hire him as a mentor.. :-P.. After all, Kirk Hammett (Metallica) and Steve Vai (G3) were among the prodigies he's produced..

"The Prestige"

While studying for Chemistry, a friend (Deepak) IMs me asking me whether I would be free for a movie the next day ('twas the last exam). Having almost never entered a theatre in my life (this was to be my fourth time), this was certainly going to be a new experience for me.

Now don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like what they show at theatres or anything, it's just that I feel guilty when I set aside time for doing something that's not exactly going to be productive i.e. something that's not going to help anybody. Again, it's not that I normally spend 20/7 doing constructive, productive work.. I'm sure I spend atleast 15 hours of my day in addition to the 4 hours of sleep doing nothing constructive.. stuff like playing with my little sister, browsing, chatting, talking on the phone, other kinds of social networking (think: orkut), thinking about stuff that I shouldn't be thinking about, etc.

Anyway, I reached Garuda Mall (yeah, I somehow located, without a map, a place that most of my pals could reach blindfolded) at around 3:10 in the evening. Now, Deepak asked me to be there at 3 but he didn't arrive until around 4. Luckily for me, someone (Siddhant) was actually there on time. We sat on the parapet around the pavement for a quarter of an hour until boredom hit. We then, on Deepak's request, bought 5 tickets (remember the number) for the "5" guys who were also coming along.

We entered the theatre and as usual, I entered last. Now as we entered, the guy at the door who checked our tickets mentioned something about 5 tickets and 6 people. We ignored him. As we got into our seats, the first five guys sat down but the sixth seat (to be mine) was already occupied by someone else who had a ticket with that seat number. I bought another ticket and the guys made a whole row push one seat to the right so that we all (including me) could sit contiguously.

One drama had already just been played out right there in the audience.. but the real one that we all had come to watch was just about to start. It was a movie called "The Prestige".. a good one, too. I'm not going to play a wet blanket and spoil the suspense for you, so if you've reached here, you can safely read on. Although one with a somewhat complex plotline, it included HOT Scarlett Johannson in its cast who certainly melted the harsh, cold atmosphere prevalent throughout.. :-)..

All in all, I had a great time and watched a great movie.. Thanks, guys..
No regrets regarding any loss of productivity since it was productive enough to spark in me the extrovertedness that I'd lacked for the past decade.

Also, while I was writing this, I was listening to 'Layla' by Eric Clapton.. I love the main riff.. Recommended!