Life's like time.

25 things about myself. (Sravan tagged me). Do finish it. It's no narcissistic feat.

1. I like traveling, when I feel like it. For most part I grew up in Anaparthi and Visakhapatnam. I spent significant times in Kakinada, Rajahmundry, Chennai, Bangalore, Vijayawada, Nellore, Tirupathi, Hyderabad, and ofcourse Cincinnati.

And I have been to (as far as I remember):

Chicago, Keywest, Miami, Marco Islands, Everglades, Tampa, Smokies, Louisville, New York, New Jersey, Columbus, and

Madurai, Tanjore, Mahabalipuram, Tiruvananthapuram, Kanchipuram, Tiruvannamalai (Arunachalam), Udakamandalam (Ooty), Kodaikanal, Dhanolti, Dehradun, Delhi, Agra, Pondichery, Vaitheeswaran kovil, Mel maruvattur, Kanipakam, Tirupati, Srikalahasti, Tiruttani, Tiruchanur, Singanapur, Bhimeswar, Haridwar, Gangotri, Uttarkasi, Samalkot, Amalapuram, Tuni, Anakapalle, Basara, Ghrishneswar, Badrinath, Srisailam, Bhadrachalam, Maredumilli, Talakona, Horsley hills, Kolhapur, Udupi, Mathura, Shirdi, Agra, Mysore, Ananthapur, Sitampet, Vella, Guntur....that's enough for now.

2. I like reading books because I hate people.

3. Women ought to be on pedestal and Men on their knees before it. That's the natural order.

4. Behind every bastard there is a bitch. (You believed it when someone said that there is a woman behind every successful man)

4. I consume like 4 to 5 bars of Dairy Milk bars per hour, if at all I get interested in preparing for an exam.

5. I have no goals; or career plans or long term objectives. In Descarte's words "I exist, therefore, I am" (Did you believe that?, I didn't)

6. I am a staunch supporter of Carlin's words "Take a fucking chance; What are you going to do? Sit at your home and jerk-off for another 30 years. Take a fucking chance, will you?"

7. I love exercise: physical and mental. I exercise to stay sane in an insanely physical world full of mentally inane.

8. I am currently done with my MS. I want to be a Poet, Writer, write CAT exam, then Civils, then maybe PhD. Anything that keeps me away from settling down.

9. I am possessive, mulish, lazy, and impulsive.

10. I don't have an attitude problem because I am 100% sure everyone else is below me.

11. There are two types of people in this world. The first half feels the other half is wrong, and the second half feels the first half is wrong. Once again, I am sure that both sides are wrong.

12. There is a third type: people who believe in "living their life to the fullest"
I have no idea what they mean and if anyone who is reading this feels that way, please keep away from me.

13. I know the secret to living a happy life. I am not going to tell you.

14. If you think I am trying to act like a smart ass, talk to my ass. I had my head up there anyways, for two years now, I guess.

15. Anyone who thinks humans are better than animals ought to be denied sex.

16. Soul is unique, or so "the elders" say, and how am I supposed to find a soul-mate?

17. Everyone I speak to hate their job. Their lives are boring, they want something more. What frightens me here is the fact of turning into "one of them".

18. Kill yourself! that's the best social service you can do to the world.

19. I committed the 100th sin. The only atonement is to kill myself. I did commit suicide. Didn't Lord Krishna say that the soul is indestructible. Indestructible, indeed, I couldn't help it.

20. There is no present. As Carlin says "The moment you say present, it's already past". I was afraid of the future because I could see it. I care about the past because that's all I have got.

21. What's life?
Schroedinger said that "organisms maintain themselves stationary at a fairly high level of orderliness by continually sucking orderliness from their environment". This leads to a lot of entropy in nature.

22. Life's time. An entity whose origin is unknown. An arrow with a direction; but a direction unknown. A maze of paradoxes defined by another paradox. A concept that ends every moment, but never ends; eternal. It ends with the pass of every second, every minute, every hour.

23. So does a life. It ends within a second. It is there and, a second later, it no longer exists. All the orderliness stored in that life powers up that ticking clock; winds that eternal watch- the arrow of time towards something that is beyond us.

24. I have done 24 units of it. I am 24 and Counting.

25 is coming on 26.

Srikara is soon to be 25. Bigger, longer, and Uncut.


P.S: Whoever feels like it can take a tag.

Ice, Ice, Baby!

I hate visiting doctors, don't you?

I don't mind working with them. As I do in the experiments. In fact, I feel elated when I see patients in a doctor's room. Come on! that's an inherent, involuntary human feeling. A sadistic solace that keeps this human race going, isn't it? Happiness would lose its meaning without sadness around. And human race wouldn't exist without happy people sympathetic to sad, and sad people crying to make happy ones philanthropic. Those melancholic patients being pushed to their limits of patience,waiting in the wonderfully decorated room, oozing an air of cleanliness (to the contrary hospital infections are a field of study in themselves) ; I pity them, and feel happy that it isn't me in their position.

Life in itself is like a drop of water dangling over a leaf petal; a fleeting glimpse at the eternal that ends as abruptly as it begins. People prefer to freeze it into eternity by capturing the moment (like those great pictures of a sparkling water drop about to fall off the leaf, I think I saw it Karthik's album) They miss the basic fact that anything that's frozen is dead. Life flows, so do emotions, and so do people. Sadness is transient; so is happiness. As the time flows,(towards? huh, let's not get into Quantum physics. Time's supposed to have started with the ground zero of Big Bang and is flowing towards....that's QP for you, no answers but always questions. For that matter, so is life, Ain't it?)everyone has their share of troubles and their array of emotions. Every eventuality is encompassed in that little journey of the droplet; from the leaf before the bubble bursts open into the vastness. And this was my turn (To be truthful, I had a multitude of turns. After crying my eyes dry, I chose to leave out everything dreary and ended up with this). Nothing sinister but I found myself waiting in the patient's room.

I still remember the first time(big time) in a hospital. Puny Srikara that wanted to touch the sky! Happy that he did good in the exams, the 3 and a 1/2 feet, some 28kg little rascal, jumped high into the sky, from a mound. Earth wasn't pleased; she wasn't pleased at all that the little rascal pined for nothingness when something solid was beneath. She did what she always does; waited with patience for him to come down. The drop did fall from the leaf, and this one had bones in it. The left ankle learned geometry and formed a right angle. The rascals had to shout for his brother, who with his bigger buddies, lifted the little rascal and deposited him home. Lack of motor transports saw the hysteric boy clinging to his mother reach the hospital in a Rickshaw. The Doctor cast the leg (Ambuja cement, the mahastrong one and Fevicol, the ultimate glue, I think) 2 Months of patient nurturing by a mother as patient as Earth; and he was good to grab grandiose things.

Frail and feckless, after 4 years, he courted Salmonella Typhosa. These bacteria missed their Biology lessons, bad bacteria!. They had no idea what Mutualism means, and decided to test the rascal's resistance. May be he should never have gone to Hyderabad! And week long abdominal pains, mouth infection; (my lips were literally sealed together) so severe that his aunt was scared to death, and an immune system's fight with all guns firing (people could feel the heat around me) entailed. His mother, as always, with help from her sister, nurtured him like she did when he was a fetus. And the little rascal escaped with barely an iota of energy left.

Nothing sinister, yet after some 12 years, he saw himself waiting in the patient's room. Some people never learn, do they? A broken leg beared witness to the perils of grabbing nothingness when something solid is beneath. The little rascal just wouldn't want to learn; the mulish maniac!He tried it again. The dermatologist was perplexed at the late occurrence of the dark dead epithelial cells. Stess? Depression? Infection? Carelessness? The Doctor knew a thing or two about life. So, she gave the medicine and asked me to stop asking question. Everybody seems to know a thing or two about life, they all say the same thing "don't ask questions".

I can't resist.

What kind of medicines are these? And how do women use so many face creams? How in the name of satan do they maintain such smooth skin? Dammit! two creams are testing my patience and making me consider suicide. I have to apply them regularly, morning and evening, after washing my face with lukewarm water, patted dry (shit on a toast! nothing else but patted dry) with a towel. Warm water would burn the skin, cold water would scar it. After applying, I shouldn't be exposed to Sun, or any kind of radiations (and she warned me that MY FRIGGING black skin would get sunburns, and sweet Jesus! I did get one for "mild" exposure), and she saved the best for the last: the creams would leave my skin as dry as a camel's ass in Sahara desert. Itching, burning (without fail, after every game of racquetball, and any exercise), and, again, "mild" discomfort might result.

Not long after, I visited a sports doctor. Jeez! that's a dermatologist, a physician, and a sports doctor in three weeks. At least they taught me something. Be careless about everything, but never about the prescription medicine a doctor gives.
Unless you want to end up with abdominal disturbances, something she described as( of the three two were feverishly hot! An Indian and A Mexican)"mild discomfort". May be in medical school mild means pull-your-hair-and-scream-at-the-top-of-your-voice. Goddammit! I was running around like a disturbed rat in a dark room. She gave me additional pills to reduce the discomfort caused by the first set of pills. Thanks god! I thought this would an infinite loop with me ending up taking the first set of pills to assuage the side-effects caused by last set of pills. All this in addition to making me roam the corridors of the UHC (University Health Center) in shorts, shorter than my underpants. Just imagine a 6 feet tall guy in tight fitting underpants, with shoes and a T-shirt. So GAY! I was so embarrassed that I pretended I was blind, in front of all those silk-skinned, slender waist beauties seated in front of me. (At least, I did justice to the health insurance I paid. And I admire the beautiful women around me even more for all the pains they take to maintain their beautiful and healthy skin) All this, in addition to applying Ice four times a day over the Patellar Tendon (joining Quadriceps and Tibia).

May I could have avoided all this if I maintained a cool head and applied Ice over the tired muscles? After all! this is life. When the life flows, you get into tight situations. Constrictions cause turbulence (Typical Reynold's number >4000). Things get heated up due to turbulence. (Hey, I am a fluid mechanics guy!) All I needed was a cool head and lots of Ice. I had neither.

I hate going to the Doctors! Don't you?

They say third time's the charm. The bubble's still falling. Let's see if the charm holds!

Sonnet

(Well, what the heck! At least, the English is good)

I was my own master until you came by,
left alone; neither vagaries nor viscissitudes of life.
Oh! into the realm of love you let me loose;a driverless sleigh!
vanguard me; mortality marauding with a knife,
enslaved by you; defenseless and deserted; high and dry.
yearning heart, tried and torn apart by strife.
Oh! the mighty mob, don't be one-a causeles cry,
until reason dawns loneliness cries, emotion- rife.

alas! a blind eye towards the times to come,
remember the times, a true self-less selfish stretch,
pointless pride? loyalty tied? let the onus on me.
intolerable; break the silence, utter the threesome,
truth be told ; don't vanish into my almighty's sketch,
artistically put, heed the plea and let me be.

Equilibrium

Ah! the wonderful emotions in me,
If only I could let them be,
morphosed into a wonderful tree,
evergreen and eternal it would be,
nothing would affect it, pain or glee,
for in you, I let my feelings be.

Pain, pain, lots of pain,
blissful and basal- superior and sad-simple and plain
the heart weeps a lot in vain,
the brain's dead under the constant strain,
take me in your arms, and let me drain,
for all my ego, you are the restrain.

Happiness, in its truest form.
sweeps over me, sudden and strong, like a tropical storm,
nothing else holds that wonderful charm,
to kiss you, hug you and hold your arm,
oh god! show me a way to keep my calm,
for it makes me forget what I am, cause for alarm!

Happiness and pain, I don't feel a tad,
I found in you what I really had,
buried deep in me; contraceptively clad,
you stripped it out- I am grateful; glad.
Persons might be gone, alas! woeful-sad,
but the ideas remain-for love, sure is rationally mad.