It isn't today that tortures me but the absence of yesterday
And the only souvenir it left me
Intrigued? ..... Listen

Tangled in the myriad tapestries of gold and velvet
And yet all his eyes saw was but an endless sea of black
And all his skin felt was the touch of cold ice
Screaming into his mind with utter disdain the obvious
I am numb
But what else would darkness have me do
And what would the cold chill further prove
For what is gold without the ray of light
To bestow humbly upon its head its crown
And without the touch of a delicate hand
Would not eyes on velvet frown?
Those were my walls
For a few hours when the sun fell gaily upon my skin
For a few hours when I saw, smelled, tasted, felt
For a few hours when I lived.... and I was happy
Those were my walls
My day
And no one could take it away from me.
Or so I thought...
For as night announced itself with a grandoise and flair
That would make daddy Death proud
I was left standing... ignorant
And as lust overcame the bounds of my space
In the darkness, outside of prying eyes
I was still standing... ignorant
Then the air played cupid and poured its heat
Into the passion of the walls
And the union was complete
And I in the midst
Collateral damage
Was left
Tangled in the myriad tapestries of velvet and gold.

(cont. from prev post)
But at least Microsoft had some sort of physics... some rigid objects while some could be knocked over... some mass on the cars at turns that reqd good usage of the brakes and allowed you to slide on gravel turns that made it realll fun (until an opponent car comes blasting through and you start cursing again.) Cuz then there came this ... this .... well ... sorry thing to be called a game called the Sega Rally. It was supposedly an arcade game... then an Xbox 360 game and now a PC game too.
I don't know who did the crossing over to the game, man.. cause the version I have isn't completely done. Why, you ask? Well.. firstly when I go to configure the controls (which sadly one can do only before actually going into the game) I see an Xbox 360 controller showing me all the controls that I can use to ..... THAT'S RIGHT... I CAN'T CONFIGURE THE CONTROLS BECAUSE IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE CONTROLLED BY A KEYBOARD(???!!!!!). So anyway, having resigned myself to my fate I go on into the game anyway. I start a race and it's all well and good so far. Then the race begins... but my car is still there. I know I've pressed a button .. the universal racing default key for acceleration... the up arrow key but my car's still there.
Now I'm completely befuddled. So then I go onto the keyboard and start pressing keys at random. Suddenly my car jumps to life and then again slows down. Then I also catch sight of a sudden flailing of the car tyres like it's been given a shock. This exercise has now me scratching my head. Progress. Then finally after a full five minutes I realize what the controls are. It's A and Z for accelerating and decelerating and then the punchline ... the side keys?? The > bracket key and < bracket key. Well.. aren't the Sega people clever. What a joke has been played on me. I'm laughing hilariously at this utterly hilarious modification that has been hilariously thrust on me. Sighhh
Then I restart the race. It begins and as soon as my car starts it also starts flailing about helplessly bouncing off the sides of the road like a ping-pong ball. Now I'm intrigued, since having played my share of racing games I'm more or less acquainted with how cars deal in games but this wasn't something I expected: possibly the most sensitive turning device ever. Let's put this into a little bit of perspective... I could perform a 180 degree hairpin turn while going at a 100 mph while holding the side control down for all of two seconds. That's right... without pressing the decelerator. !!! . I grappled with the controls for the next three races only to find some semblance of a redeeming quality in its control... but I came out of that exercise an utter dunder-headed failure.
It was after my failed attempts that I noticed something else. All through my hopeless driving, the car had managed to fascinatingly stay on track and further not overturn even once. I never faced the wrong direction either. How was this possible?? The answer was simple. The boundary was set up so that it was completely rigid. It didn't matter if it was a simple wooden fence or rocks or a mountain slope... it was like you had two brick walls on either side... so all that would really happen is that you would lose a bit of speed. OOoooo.
The thing that actually angered me the most was that graphics were actually good, the cars looked good, they used the actual car models used in the WRC which would lead me to believe that they had some sort of permission from these car companies (or not.. who knows) and that the tracks were amazingly interesting. Rather than become a racing classic.. this game chooses to let the user grapple endlessly with the control while his car bounds of the brick wall boundaries on either side and then manages to make it past the finish line without as much as a scratch on it. I don't know if I have some whacked out version of the game but I would like to believe I would... if only to keep in my mind the fact that SEGA is not completely s*it.
Meanwhile however, I am on the lookout for the mother of all rally games... the Colin McRae Rally .. something that will run on my PC. Here's keeping my finger's crossed :D

A familiar sight: the white dominated screen of the new post tab of blogger. It's been some time since I've posted in the blog ... or for that matter commit any sort of ink (electronic or otherwise) to any sort of writing surface. The reason was simple: exhaustion..... for want of a better word. I had renounced all form of effort required for doing anything I deemed of importance ever since the summer holidays came to the most boring end: a normal one. Even now... it is only by sheer force and will that my fingers crawl across the keyboard painfully stroking down keys one by one. I started blogging more or less as a catharsis for all that was pent up in my life. Well ... now ... I'm emotionally spent. All that remains is pure nothingness.... pure vacuum; empty.
So how does one deal with this after the same spot was once a dangerous roller coaster ride? Well.. by distraction; not thinking about the fact that there is nothing there. And how does one distract oneself from this without working?? Well, there are people all around the world working on things that can help you do this. This enterprise is in a peak of sorts and has been responsible for many millionaires in the past decade or so. And the geek mind has taken to these products more readily than to something obvious like say... real life. That's right ladies and gents... video games.
And that's right I'm into gaming. Not in a big "I want to be the guy who can frag someone using a rail gun in mid air" kinda way (Quake reference here, although I'm not really interested in the game). In fact, my interest lies only in racing games and so I went after the NFS series. The most obvious choices was the underground series because unlike a lot of people I find cops on my tail trying to run me of the road in mostly fatal ways while I'm trying to race completely badass tracks and negotiating completely badass turns a little painful somewhere. But once they were done I was tired with the urban landscape. I wanted something different ... and so I looked for the games at the other end of the spectrum -- off road races... and in particular ... rally races of which I found three. Let's just quickly see what they were:

1> Colin McRae DiRt
2> Microsoft Rallisport Challenge
3> Sega Rally

The first in this list was an 8gb iso + 12 gb on hard disk whopper -- not something my 1gb RAM and 256MB graphics card was ready to handle and the game ended up playing coughing up frames like an old man with lung cancer. Don't get me wrong though... whatever little I did see of the game was awesome.... with a brilliant menu system that has you salivating at it for a few minutes before you feel like going in for a race. And the menu helps... taking you through several options that end up actually taking a few mins to get to your first race. But enough about this... onto less magnificent things
And so came Microsoft's offering that truly was less magnificent. The game wasn't all that bad and the tracks were actually well thought out and challenging. What did however start jarring later was the back view of some cars while you were racing with a third person view which were severe enough to have been fashioned out of rectangles alone. The sad thing is these masterpieces of cubism are actually third level unlocks which ends up being.... well ... anticlimactic. The real sad thing about the game, though, is the physics which ends up annoying the s*it out of you (as proof is the fact that this game has qualified as the most sworn-at-by-me game I've every played... and that's including the 2D Prince of Persia games... 1 & 2). Cars totaling over as if they had no mass.... rival cars banging at you like they had infinite mass letting you spin out of control while they zoomed on ahead without any effect on their paths whatsoever. And then there was the absence of the reset button which basically made sure that every time you actually did end up facing the wrong way.. even though it wasn't your fault... you would lose at least 5 secs on your opponents.
(cont...)

In the dusk of May, before the dusk of day, as the afternoon sun beats down upon the earth like vengeance and as hot humid winds feel like warm, viscous liquid currents upon one's skin, there is only one sight for sore eyes: the light dims, and winds intensify as black forms stretched above crawl noiselessly across the smooth sky on invisible legs and one sees it. On a bicycle, on a road, the eyes lose focus, for just a second to be able to see a drop of something fall from out of the sky and the body exhales as one a gigantic sigh of relief -- a summer rain. There are few things more virtuous found on earth than falling water on a summer day.

The drops now get more frequent. Spots form on the thighs of trousers while legs trudge away mustering all their strength to accelerate. There is a sudden burst of life on the streets. Everyone wants the rain. No one wants to get wet. Legs swish away, handlebars are rotated further back... the one word to describe the whole canvas of life -- acceleration... and struggle; struggle against nature itself, to achieve a sense of victory over its minions at work. Some nearby where they need to be, some just started out; distances of all sizes are to be covered. Those nearby thank their stars, those not think such things always happen to them and continue their journey feeling sorry for themselves, sometimes guiltily. Thousands of thoughts suddenly change speed and direction -- acceleration.

Defiance, however, is something best exploited in the heat of the moment. Sooner or later rationale catches up and realizes that it's time to find shelter and as human and machine huddle anywhere there is shelter; trees, building foyers, shops, eyes again look to the streets and find cars still swishing past, sometimes a little water thrown off the roads at the huddles, and again self pity rears its head, this time however, conscience not making as much of an attempt to stop it. It is obvious therefore that being in the midst of these huddles is not the best place to be at such a time.

I have often wondered and asked, what is the best place to be stuck in a rain. Many tend to say, home; so that they can snuggle into their blankets with L Subramaniam, Jagjit Singh, Alanis Morissette or even Tchaikovsky floating through their ears. Maybe. But not for me. I found that place. A tea stall. Not a big one mind you, one of those small places completely open on one side, corrugated tin or asbetos roof, maybe even with a couple of holes and rust, wooden benches and tables and a typical chaiwaala glass possibly with a special double chai and a radio concealed somewhere, old from wear and use, playing a slightly distorted old hindi film tune. Life doesn't
get more relaxed; beyond the daily pressures of standing up to society's scrutiny of being a well mannered, well spoken, decent human being, confirmed by an expletive every now then flying through the air, sometimes even from a group of well dressed respectable looking people. The only constraint on humans here is their own conscience... and seeing a place like this function re-affirms one's faith in humankind; that there is some virtue that can be salvaged from what seems to be a fast degenrating world, that people like the ones who sit before me now exist, and that moments like these exist when the petty troubles of daily life are put on hold to enjoy a cup of tea and smile a little. From acceleration ... to revisiting a dying faith in humanity. All during a summer rain....

A tribute to a Mr. Bob Seger, who managed to take the garbled confused words I was stuttering and stammering to say, taking it apart and then putting it all back together; a song that now comfortably resides in my brain and a song that I listen to give me solace... knowing that by singing this, I have said what I wanted to say.
For hearts we long for that cross oceans.... just to be far away:

I know its late, I know you're weary
I know your plans dont include me
Still here we are, both of us lonely
Longing for shelter from all that we see
Why should we worry, no one will care girl
Look at the stars so far away
We've got tonight, who needs tomorrow?
We've got tonight babe
Why don t we stay?

Deep in my soul, I've been so lonely
All of my hopes, fading away
I've longed for love, like everyone else does
I know Ill keep searching, after today
So there it is girl, I've got it all now
And here we are babe, what do you say?
We've got tonight, who needs tomorrow?
We've got tonight babe
Why dont we stay?

I know its late, I know youre weary
I know your plans dont include me
Still here we are, both of us lonely
Both of us lonely
We've got tonight, who needs tomorrow?
Lets make it last, lets find a way
Turn off the light, come take my hand now
Weve got tonight babe
Why dont we stay?
Weve got tonight babe
Why dont we stay?

A song I wrote for all my friends passing out this year... and specifically for my wingmates. If you find the lyrics a little too cheesy... I couldn't help it ... not when I got that sento. :D . For all you guys

T'was the dead of night
Tired souls huddled over each other
As sleep wove its magic blanket
And the tarmac raced on below.
We were driving back to our present
Leaving the past behind
City lights in the background
Glowing bright, fading sloww...
Ly.
And as I try to walk down
Nostalgia Rd., Dream Street
Hope Avenue, all at once
Stardust falling into my eyes
The monotony of black
Singing me a sweet lullabye
And I realize

It's the end of the road, for many of us
We knew this day must come.
But we denied, that there would be a time
When our hands held together would come undone.

And as the last few days here
Draw to a neverending close
When each moment that we spend
Is the last of its kind.
A small tear everytime we remember
Days that we never cared for
Wishing we had known then
The way we feel now.

'Cause it's the end of the road, for many of us
We knew this day must come.
But we denied, that there would be a time
When our hands held together would come undone.

Two months to the day
When an open door invites me in
An empty room stares me in the face
(It was better when it was dirty)
And as reality
Fades into a hazy memory
I am reminded that the imagination
Can only do so much
And that you're no longer here.....

It's the end of the road, for many of us
We knew this day must come.
But we denied, that there would be a time
When our hands held together would come undone.

:)

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The scene began in the back alley of a diner. It was nighttime but you couldn’t really tell except by looking at the sky; the alley seemed to be well lit. Right in front of me, two people were in the midst of a heated argument. One of them, a rugged, full bearded, disheveled looking Sly Stallone and the other seemed to be the owner of the diner. After a brief period of defending himself from the constant verbal attacks of the owner implicating him of being a has-been boxer, Stallone starts to walk off.

The next second I’m walking down the same path he was feeling the same anger in my heart that he probably did when a guy comes out of nowhere and tells me that my wife is in the hospital in a coma and that the child birth has suffered complications. At that moment I’m confused. My mind is trying to remember – am I still with her or have we broken up? Do I go visit her in the hospital? Does she want me to visit her? Battling these questions in my mind, I walk on and before long end up on the front steps of a derelict apartment block. The street seems to be completely dark save for the solitary bare bulb hanging above the steps streaming a small circle of light, almost like a spotlight on the floor.

I then hear footsteps from up the small flight of stairs and a man emerges into the light. He’s wearing a shabby overcoat and a cloth cap on his head. The shadow of his hat obscures his face, making it in no way discernable. He looks at me kneeling behind a car parked on the street beyond the curb, just out of reach of the light and calls out to me.

“Hey! What’re you doin’ there?”

I look towards him, a dense cocktail of fear and excitement building up inside me, like I was anticipating something big that was supposed to happen and had no idea what it would be.

“It’s the night of the revolution!” I hiss in return. My heart begins to pound louder with the growing silence enveloping the air all around, but my heart is silent. I can feel my chest thump, but without any sound, almost as if scared into silence.

“Then how come it’s so silent?” The voice slices through the silence almost making me jump. It’s the man in the overcoat. He’s still standing there possibly wondering what I’m actually doing.

A slow smile spreads through my face, some kind of energy building up inside of me, the kind of energy that comes from not only suddenly finding your purpose but also being presented with the opportunity to fulfill it.

“Because it’s a silent revolution”, I hiss back again and in an instant I leap up, lunge at the man and in one gruesome move twist his head a full 180 degrees. Before he falls to the ground, like a deranged madman, with a sick smile on his face, I begin running up the flight of stairs. I hear a soft thump behind me somewhere in the back and start laughing. Silently. Like I am suddenly part of a mime. I might as well have been; everything around me is shades of black, white and yellow.

I run up several flights without stopping once, that grin plastered on my face, only stopping once I reach the top floor where I find myself in a corridor, a really long one, opening out into the nothingness outside on one side and bound by a wall housing a long row of doors on the other. One of the doors is open and it’s dark inside. A figure walks out of the open door, a human figure. The grin from my face disappears. My eyes were accustomed to seeing in the dark by then but I cannot see this person. All I see is a black form. At once it seems natural and yet unnatural.

“What’s going on?” he asks. His voice is so serene, so mellifluous, so calming that I try to imitate this peace in mine. “It’s a silent revolution!” I whisper out and immediately look out toward the open barren sky and start slowly singing “Silent night… Holy night…” and while I do not know the words of the actual song, I sing a verse relevant to the coming of the revolution. The melody I sing is haunting; it is the only sound in the atmosphere. The air is still, no leaves rustle, no soul stirs. It sounds like …..

Then a voice again begins “Silent night…. Holy night…”. It is the man behind me and how beautifully he sings it! How rich is his voice! Yet he sings it meekly, the song is supposed to be haunting in its melody, asserting an uncertainty through minimalism of sound; it was the anthem of the revolution. Oh joy! I have found my kin! I have found my family! Someone I can trust, love…. And then realization hits me.

I turn around and I know I must embrace this man and so in one grand gesture I hold out my arms and start toward him. He too raises his arm and in less than a second, he’s clasped me in his arms, tighter…. Tighter!…… TIGHTER!! His claws dig into my back when I realize, this is Satan, the devil, this is the father of the revolution and I know about it! I must pay with my life!! His grip suffocates me while his claws dig further into my flesh…. I feel my blood flowing down my back in multiple streams and slowly, I feel myself losing consciousness!... slowly I feel myself slipping away further… and further! … and further!!.... without any control!… without any power to change it! … slipping away!… AND SUDDENLY… I’m back in the real world!… on my bed! … I’m awake but slowly losing consciousness!… again slipping away!! … into sleep or death I cannot tell!… And in one final gesture I muster all my might!… I MUST WAKE UP!!

I sit up at once on my bed, my feet numb, my fingers numb, both from the cold, yet a bead of sweat makes its way slowly down the side of my face. It was just a nightmare…