24 Hours in the Life of a "Failed" Academician

He had a sleepless night, squirming on bed.
The Sun was burning bright, as he got up and stared at the sky.
He looked around in disappointment, for the slightest trace of the dark clouds. And stormed inside the house, cursing the rain gods.
He was back again, on the terrace, stunned by the sudden downpour!
The scorching Sun was still there, but the rains had brought a smile on his lips...
And he set out, carrying his credentials on the back pack.

The learned wise men were sitting by the roadside,
the dark umbrellas hiding their faces,
there was the rain and there was the Sun,
Yet they sat there, shouting their slogans.
He slowly moved to be beside them,
and took out the credentials to be burnt to warm their hearts.
But the rain gods intervened to spoil the fun....
and made one see reason and abandon the plan.

The leftist intellectual was shouting through the mike.....
"All those with PhD had paid for their degrees....
we have to cane them, stone them and put them on cross"
The years of toil, the hours of hard work....
...all those sacrifices and the days as a slave....

Finally comes the day of the fast,
led by the men drawing six digit pay cheques.....
don't ask us about the acquired degrees......
but do give us more and more money.....
as prescribed by that "mere statutory" body!

One runs away from the madding crowd....
to be with a student from a distant past...
the scientist and the engineer....
on the eve of his wedding....and he tells his fiancee....

"This is my teacher, my most beloved, my most favorite,
..and my most respected....."!!!!

And the drive back was tough on the narrow road...
...with twist and turns at every mile.....
..the ill lit night......the moist eyes....and the rains
....and of course those unruly windscreen wipers!

Midnight Moments of Magical Realism

I woke up from a week of fever which ran alongside the soccer fever injecting the effect of magical realism on a mind which was slipping between sleep and sense to discover the clash of the Latin giants; Brazil against Chile, Columbia against Uruguay!

Borrowing from perhaps the most voracious reader among soccer stars, who grew up on Chekhov and Dostoevsky, and conceded before a match with Italy, that his team would have been no match for Dante, Petrarch and Leopardi; Columbia will go past Uruguay on the shoulders of the Master of Macondo.

And Brazil would be child's game for Chile, had it been the game of magic with words! Neruda, Donoso, Bolano, Allende and also Miguel Littin, the real life hero of Marquez!

Speaking of stopping spot kicks, running around a stadium he had stunned to silence, taking a leaf out of Colonel Aureliano Buendía, Sergio Goycochea felt like a child, having saved a penalty from Super Mario in his home town, Lima!

Having sent the ball past the keeper for his second goal in the Federation Cup finals, Christiano Junior went on to collide with the goal keeper, staggered away, fell to ground and quietly slipped out of life in a match his team went on to win by two goals to nil!

As she 'closed her eyes' to the incoming corner kick on the 117th minute of the world cup finals, against the physically superior Americans seeking their 3rd World title, Homare Sawa was lifting her game by the notches her male Asian counterparts can not dream of in another "one hundred years of toil"! VIDEO

Inspired by his black commander, as Alcides Ghiggia unleashed a thundering left footer, the Maracanazo, it had "the same dramatic pattern… the same movement… the same precision of an unstoppable trajectory…. and even the same motion for the dust that was stirred up, in the assassination of a President, more than a decade later, on the northern part of Americas!"

Back to that bibliophile wearing soccer boots, the image of the host captain steaming around the stadium shouting "where is the police? where is the bloody police?" even as the crowds fought pitched battles on the stands, and finally finding a police man brutally caning a fallen fan, running up and landing a karate kick, right on the face of the officer and thus officially 'kicking off' the Balkan War, Europe's nastiest since the two world wars. Yes, there he was! prepared to risk his life, his career, and everything that fame could have brought, right in front of the most brutal of the future Balkan warlords!

The General might have nodded in approval from his labyrinth!

And to conclude, in spite of their "literary" inferiority, the Croatians edged out the Italians on field! Hope the Brazilians emulate the feet to overcome the resurgent Chileans in their do or die battle.

Hope remains the last word.....

Demotivation (n.) is feeling downcast and disheartened and hopeless; to reduce somebody's enthusiasm: to make somebody feel less interested in working or studying effectively.

5 minutes to fill the fuel tank? How much is 5 minutes worth in this fast moving world? How much the market will swing in those five minutes? Environmental degradation! Global warming! Who cares? But 3-4 minutes at 70 MPa, the risk of leak, ignition, flames of the invisible gas that may envelop everything in no time, a bomb ticking away on your vehicle, death waiting right at the door step!! A couple of mishaps in the early days, and a technology destined for doom!

Detachment (n.) is a state in which a person overcomes his or her attachment to desire for things, people or concepts of the world and thus attains a heightened perspective.

The park was deserted; it was the season of the yellows. The roses, the reds and the violets did show up at some pockets, yet it was yellows all the way; having spread out vast and wide. The sun had almost touched down at the distant horizon. The mountains had a glow, and appeared to smile enticingly. The climb was easy, under the evening sun. From around 30 feet, the fields were far more beautiful. The clouds were away still but the breeze was colder.

Death (n.) is the permanent termination of the biological functions that define a living organism. It refers to both a particular event and to the condition that result thereby. The true nature of the latter has for millennia been a central concern of the world’s religious traditions and of philosophical enquiry.

If you plan to go down from there, you have to go head first, else there’s every chance for a lifetime in coma. What would be the velocity at impact? Try experimentation or go in for a simulation? There you go….no second thoughts. At half way through, recalled a promise that had to be kept. Someone somewhere would be waiting to hear another story. The iterations were stopped…..initial conditions restored, and the simulation abandoned. Sun had gone down beneath the western horizon. The descent downhill was lighter.

Expectation (n.) is a belief that is centered on the future, may or may not be realistic. A less advantageous result gives rise to the emotion of disappointment. If something happens that is not at all expected it is a surprise. An expectation about the behavior or performance of another person, expressed to that person, may have the nature of a strong request, or an order…….

……or is it pleading, on one’s knees?

36 in either innings is a reasonably good number of overs for one to spend in the middle, on that scale the second innings should commence in a few months time. Peppered with bouncers, beamers and yorkers; coupled with a suspect foot work, it was a mere going through the motions in the first. Stars might change and one may get to play more on the front foot, the second time around; an all-out attacking game, throwing caution to the winds.

Hope (n.) is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one’s life. Hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.

Hold on to the hopes and drag the dreams along,

For if the hopes fade and the dreams desert us;

Life will be nothing but a dreary desert.....

.................................................................................................................................................

And yes; Hope remains the last word in this dictionary......

Why do we need the Superheroes?

They belong to the child's world. To keep it occupied with stunning animations, improbable stunts and out of this world characters. Tricking it into spending endless hours in front of the idiot's box. We, as children didn't have the luxury of all the cartoon channels surfed by today's little ones. We grew up devouring books, instead. I remember taking a passing interest on a TV serial on Superman after Amma's colleague mentioned to her that I had a striking resemblence to the handsome guy who was playing the young Superman :-) Other than that I was never a great fan of the superheroes.

Do they serve any purpose, other than just fooling around, fishing for some invented trouble and fighting the imaginary demons?

Sometimes they do!

I realize that now, after one of them had turned up to rescue an autistically challenged eight year old in Bangkok, who had climbed onto a third floor ledge for fear of attending his first day at school. When the desperate efforts of his teachers and parents to beckon him back to safety were failing, the Spiderman suddenly appeared on the scene and told him:

"Spiderman is here to rescue you, no monsters are going to attack you. Walk slowly towards me as running could be dangerous."

The young one immediately stood up and walked into his superhero's arms!

Now that's one of the best comic strips I had ever read :-)

As Ms. May Parker says in Spider Man II:

"He knows a hero, when he sees one. Too few characters out there, flying around like that, saving old girls like me. And Lord knows, kids like Henry need a hero. Courageous, self-sacrificing people. Setting examples for all of us. Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them, cheer them, scream their names. And years later, they will tell how they stood in the rains for hours just to get a glimpse of the one who taught them how to hold on a second longer. I believe there's a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams"

Everything in this world has some purpose.

Even giving up one's dreams!!

for Now He'll Flutter Free and Far....

Blame him not, any more,
for once he had blown the lid off his frozen fortress.
Pester him no further,
for he's a bitter loser, with a heart on fire.
Do not wait for him,
for he has no more promises to keep.
And follow him not,
for now........
.......he'll flutter free and far......