I'm shutting this blog. It is bygone, cold, dead, deceased, departed, done for, exanimate, expired, gone,inoperative, invalid, kaput, late, lifeless, lost, nonexistent, obsolete, out of commission, vanished. No, i'm not especially verbose at 3.00 in the morning. A wonderful invention called Google exists.
For those of you who actually follow me, please take the time to visit the new blog:
http://planckconstant.blogspot.in/
The only difference between the two is that, I've put up only my very few favourite posts from this blog on that one. And I've sincerely promised myself that I'm not going to whine anymore. I don't deserve it. So the new blog will have new stuff. Starting tomorrow. And regularly (well as regularly as law school curriculum and my creative genius allows it.)
Also, if any of you get the double pun, I'll be very pleased.
Here is wishing all Paper Boats a very happy journey on the River Styx. Goodbye for now.
12 February 2012
10 January 2012
All My Futures
I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do.
It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story. Let me tell you a tale of destiny and chance.
There was once a star in a galaxy so far away. And on that star lived a single being. A woman so beautiful, so ethereally lovely, that the star, her mother, named her Destiny. For, she could change the destiny of the universe. The stars had deemed it so.
Meanwhile, there where wars raging between galaxies. Stars were dying. The universe was slowly losing its light.
And still Destiny waited for her time. She was but a lone being of a lone race in the whole cosmos. And then she met another like her. In the vast entirety of the universe, there was but one other who looked at her and understood the depth of her isolation. She was called Chance. And even in their similarity they were so very different from each other. They were like opposite poles of a magnet, forever attracted yet never akin.
Chance was against everything Destiny had been brought into the world for. She was but a bastard child, a trick of luck. Destiny undermined the very foundations of Chance’s beliefs. For what was spontaneous in the world, what was free-will, if there was always a Destiny for you?
It is but obvious that these two were from different factions of the warring world.
Listen up - there's no war that will end all wars. And love is the largest war of them all.
For whether it was destiny or chance, these two lonely beings, torn asunder by circumstances and by their innate natures, found in each other sisters. Friends. Soulmates.
And the universe reared upon them with its entire wrath and banished them from each other. For in the politics of the cosmos, enemies could never become friends.
And so our friends decided that to save themselves and to save the universe, they would work great magic. Magic which would allow them to shape the future according to each choice made.
Yet magic as we know rips apart the soul. And so Destiny and Chance vanished forever. Or did they?
Sometimes destiny is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You have to leave it to chance to survive. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones.
PS- You were a tomorrow who became my yesterday. And today, I realise that on distant planets people wish on us, for we are but stars to them.
I have made choices in my life; some of them have led me to where I am now. But even so, every now and then I feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drink, the very air I breathe, feels like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I can hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world is hushed at four o'clock in the morning. Don't you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don't know a soul?
That's how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that's stolen from us--that's snatched right out of our hands--even if we are left completely changed, with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives in silence. We draw ever nearer to the end of our allotted span of time, bidding it farewell as it trails off behind. Leaving behind a feeling of immeasurable emptiness.
The train of memory starts to move forward. Slowly at first, but gathering speed. The landscape drifts by like the last wisps of a dream. In the early morning hours the train begins to move into the opposite of memory. Into a future time when someone will look back at us now, wondering what our days were like and why we did the things we did. Or why we did not act, as the case might equally be. Someone will be unable to make our lives make sense. The train has no answers, only forward momentum. We open our eyes. It is moving very quickly now. Moving always ahead. It never arrives.
Goodbye.
It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story. Let me tell you a tale of destiny and chance.
There was once a star in a galaxy so far away. And on that star lived a single being. A woman so beautiful, so ethereally lovely, that the star, her mother, named her Destiny. For, she could change the destiny of the universe. The stars had deemed it so.
Meanwhile, there where wars raging between galaxies. Stars were dying. The universe was slowly losing its light.
And still Destiny waited for her time. She was but a lone being of a lone race in the whole cosmos. And then she met another like her. In the vast entirety of the universe, there was but one other who looked at her and understood the depth of her isolation. She was called Chance. And even in their similarity they were so very different from each other. They were like opposite poles of a magnet, forever attracted yet never akin.
Chance was against everything Destiny had been brought into the world for. She was but a bastard child, a trick of luck. Destiny undermined the very foundations of Chance’s beliefs. For what was spontaneous in the world, what was free-will, if there was always a Destiny for you?
It is but obvious that these two were from different factions of the warring world.
Listen up - there's no war that will end all wars. And love is the largest war of them all.
For whether it was destiny or chance, these two lonely beings, torn asunder by circumstances and by their innate natures, found in each other sisters. Friends. Soulmates.
And the universe reared upon them with its entire wrath and banished them from each other. For in the politics of the cosmos, enemies could never become friends.
And so our friends decided that to save themselves and to save the universe, they would work great magic. Magic which would allow them to shape the future according to each choice made.
Yet magic as we know rips apart the soul. And so Destiny and Chance vanished forever. Or did they?
Sometimes destiny is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You have to leave it to chance to survive. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones.
PS- You were a tomorrow who became my yesterday. And today, I realise that on distant planets people wish on us, for we are but stars to them.
I have made choices in my life; some of them have led me to where I am now. But even so, every now and then I feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drink, the very air I breathe, feels like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I can hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world is hushed at four o'clock in the morning. Don't you think it would be wonderful to get rid of everything and everybody and just go some place where you don't know a soul?
That's how we live our lives. No matter how deep and fatal the loss, no matter how important the thing that's stolen from us--that's snatched right out of our hands--even if we are left completely changed, with only the outer layer of skin from before, we continue to play out our lives in silence. We draw ever nearer to the end of our allotted span of time, bidding it farewell as it trails off behind. Leaving behind a feeling of immeasurable emptiness.
The train of memory starts to move forward. Slowly at first, but gathering speed. The landscape drifts by like the last wisps of a dream. In the early morning hours the train begins to move into the opposite of memory. Into a future time when someone will look back at us now, wondering what our days were like and why we did the things we did. Or why we did not act, as the case might equally be. Someone will be unable to make our lives make sense. The train has no answers, only forward momentum. We open our eyes. It is moving very quickly now. Moving always ahead. It never arrives.
Goodbye.
30 November 2011
Black-Holes and Musings
The gun shot a hole through the night.
The stars cried at the waste and the violence of it all.
Didn’t you know?
The world is full of hate.
There isn't any reason for it.
It happens all over again.
See the kites fly on a white background.
The planet is divided.
A world lost somewhere in time.
See the rainclouds gather in close.
Faces, images, names, memories all blur.
Three years have passed since my universe bled.
There's words and names I can only say in my head.
It happens to be Mark Twain’s birthday. Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today. Happy Birthday to you.
PS- Yes, I still whine- a LOT. And okay, a funny post the next time.
The stars cried at the waste and the violence of it all.
Didn’t you know?
The world is full of hate.
There isn't any reason for it.
It happens all over again.
See the kites fly on a white background.
The planet is divided.
A world lost somewhere in time.
See the rainclouds gather in close.
Faces, images, names, memories all blur.
Three years have passed since my universe bled.
There's words and names I can only say in my head.
It happens to be Mark Twain’s birthday. Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today. Happy Birthday to you.
PS- Yes, I still whine- a LOT. And okay, a funny post the next time.
16 March 2011
Sickle Moon
Witches, trolls, goblins and faeries danced in ritualistic movement around a fire as dragons looked on. The flames were outlined against the starry night sky and wisps of smoke escaped into the air. As fleet- footed elves hurried into the clearing, the bugle blast of Dawn could be heard on the horizon. Summer had begun.
Persephone would soon come back to middle- earth. Demeter was beside herself with joy. Flowers were blooming. Birds were chirping. All the other things normally associated with a much awaited happy ending were afoot. Messengers had been sent to all the kingdoms. There was to be a ball. Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rapunzel and every other princess of yore, now all matronly queens in their own right smiled.
Yet, deep down in the very pits of Tartarus, Hades was fuming. First, he was banished from the Olympus all because he had tried to (very cleverly he might add- if only that big oaf Ares hadn’t opened his mouth) steal centaur technology. How was he supposed to know that the damn geniuses would build an encryption that even THEY couldn’t break? Weren’t all maniac hackers/ programmers supposed to leave at least one back door open for a re-entry?
Anyway to punish him for his (“so-called”) transgressions, the Council had first chained him to the rocks to be picked apart by vultures-that was back when he was in his titan avatar, Prometheus. When that wasn’t enough, they had banished him from upper and middle earth altogether to guard over the souls of the damned! He gave a hollow laugh.
The last few millenniums had seen increase in the hostilities. When he had captured the girl, (my- what a new-fangled name she had!) direct negations had been opened with headquarters up above. Lineage and family was all in its place, but honestly all these joint family and weird relations who kept popping up on his screen just gave him a headache.
Of course, the wrath of his bigger and betters (ha-ha) in Olympus was not contained that easily. Poseidon had let loose his fury in a spectacular display of nature that had all but wiped out a nation of the middle-earth. How fragile these humans were! Running about trying to explain everything through their “gawd-help-us-it’s-the-end-of-the-world” theories. Nostradamus had been the worst among them.
Anyway, the girl had escaped. She had guts; he had to give her that. Of course, he had sent Cerberus after her, but how many roads can a three-headed dog take, especially when the middle head is whiny and mean?
On middle earth, a kid collapsed as Hades moodily snuffed out his soul. The MMORPG that he was wired in to, suddenly went haywire, giving rise to more fatalistic theories.
The coin flipped. The butterfly flapped its wings. The proponents of the chaos theory watched astounded (well they were dead technically, but still, ghosts you know) as with a single dice roll the Gods changed the path of history. For they were playing for high odds. And they were not averse to cheating. The only question was, who would win?
PS: This is how I perceive and make sense of the world around me. If you read between the lines, look a little deeply, you will find that a little of what happening around the globe (especially in my country) is reflected in the story. Call it an allegory if you will.
PPS: I hasten to add I am an atheist, yet mythology in every form (especially Greek) has always fascinated me.
Persephone would soon come back to middle- earth. Demeter was beside herself with joy. Flowers were blooming. Birds were chirping. All the other things normally associated with a much awaited happy ending were afoot. Messengers had been sent to all the kingdoms. There was to be a ball. Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Rapunzel and every other princess of yore, now all matronly queens in their own right smiled.
Yet, deep down in the very pits of Tartarus, Hades was fuming. First, he was banished from the Olympus all because he had tried to (very cleverly he might add- if only that big oaf Ares hadn’t opened his mouth) steal centaur technology. How was he supposed to know that the damn geniuses would build an encryption that even THEY couldn’t break? Weren’t all maniac hackers/ programmers supposed to leave at least one back door open for a re-entry?
Anyway to punish him for his (“so-called”) transgressions, the Council had first chained him to the rocks to be picked apart by vultures-that was back when he was in his titan avatar, Prometheus. When that wasn’t enough, they had banished him from upper and middle earth altogether to guard over the souls of the damned! He gave a hollow laugh.
The last few millenniums had seen increase in the hostilities. When he had captured the girl, (my- what a new-fangled name she had!) direct negations had been opened with headquarters up above. Lineage and family was all in its place, but honestly all these joint family and weird relations who kept popping up on his screen just gave him a headache.
Of course, the wrath of his bigger and betters (ha-ha) in Olympus was not contained that easily. Poseidon had let loose his fury in a spectacular display of nature that had all but wiped out a nation of the middle-earth. How fragile these humans were! Running about trying to explain everything through their “gawd-help-us-it’s-the-end-of-the-world” theories. Nostradamus had been the worst among them.
Anyway, the girl had escaped. She had guts; he had to give her that. Of course, he had sent Cerberus after her, but how many roads can a three-headed dog take, especially when the middle head is whiny and mean?
On middle earth, a kid collapsed as Hades moodily snuffed out his soul. The MMORPG that he was wired in to, suddenly went haywire, giving rise to more fatalistic theories.
The coin flipped. The butterfly flapped its wings. The proponents of the chaos theory watched astounded (well they were dead technically, but still, ghosts you know) as with a single dice roll the Gods changed the path of history. For they were playing for high odds. And they were not averse to cheating. The only question was, who would win?
PS: This is how I perceive and make sense of the world around me. If you read between the lines, look a little deeply, you will find that a little of what happening around the globe (especially in my country) is reflected in the story. Call it an allegory if you will.
PPS: I hasten to add I am an atheist, yet mythology in every form (especially Greek) has always fascinated me.
14 March 2011
Of Storms And Summer
Time is running out.
I don’t want to be little again. But at the same time I do. I want to be me like I was then, and me as I am now, and me like I’ll be in the future. I want to be crazy as the moon, wild as the wind and still as the earth. I want to be every single thing it’s possible to be. I’m living but I haven’t started living yet. Sometimes I simply disappear from myself. Sometimes it’s like I’m not here in the world at all and I simply don’t exist. Sometimes I can hardly think. My head just drifts and the visions that come seem so vivid.
Yesterday I sat back and observed and reflected and then plummeted. In the end I ran away. I plugged in headphones and let go.
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. What will I do when the ghosts come back to haunt me?
Life is pretty hectic here at the moment. Project submission dates draw increasingly nearer. CLAT beckons invitingly (or not- it is a bit difficult to decide objectively at the moment).
I miss my Kate Thompson books. In fact I miss my books, period. Does everyone go through this period of uncertainty in their lives? Sometimes we think we should be able to know everything. But we can't. We have to allow ourselves to see what there is to see, and we have to imagine.
My imagination is what got me into this mess in the first place though.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."-[The Great Gatsby]
Sleep weighs down heavily on my eyelids.
I don’t want to be little again. But at the same time I do. I want to be me like I was then, and me as I am now, and me like I’ll be in the future. I want to be crazy as the moon, wild as the wind and still as the earth. I want to be every single thing it’s possible to be. I’m living but I haven’t started living yet. Sometimes I simply disappear from myself. Sometimes it’s like I’m not here in the world at all and I simply don’t exist. Sometimes I can hardly think. My head just drifts and the visions that come seem so vivid.
Yesterday I sat back and observed and reflected and then plummeted. In the end I ran away. I plugged in headphones and let go.
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. What will I do when the ghosts come back to haunt me?
Life is pretty hectic here at the moment. Project submission dates draw increasingly nearer. CLAT beckons invitingly (or not- it is a bit difficult to decide objectively at the moment).
I miss my Kate Thompson books. In fact I miss my books, period. Does everyone go through this period of uncertainty in their lives? Sometimes we think we should be able to know everything. But we can't. We have to allow ourselves to see what there is to see, and we have to imagine.
My imagination is what got me into this mess in the first place though.
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."-[The Great Gatsby]
Sleep weighs down heavily on my eyelids.
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