Electric Overdose

I was in a dream till now,
And woke up with jolt,
Due to her several thousand volt.
Saw her at the joint,
She took me to the point,
Where I almost,
Died,
Of an electric overdose.

She stared at me,
It was there I swear,
Smile of a lipless robot.
Metallic heart, metallic thought.
And with the passion of a sun-hot furnace
My spirits rose,
Sparked,
Off an electric overdose.

And now she’s gone,
And every moment I stay rooted,
As if I am electrocuted.
I wake up with a jolt,
Due to her several thousand volt.
Tell me have you ever had,
a case this bad,
Of an electric overdose?

–
Halfway through writing this poem, I realized that it describes my encounter with a girl I know. Sometimes subconsciously the thoughts come out as words – pouring in on the canvas due to an electric overdose

A+

I have a friend. He is usually called Sam. A few days ago he buzzed me up and asked for my Blood Group. I immediately knew that Blood was required somewhere. In IIT Kanpur half the mails on All mailing list are about blood required somewhere. It’s hard to believe that we still have blood left after four years at the place. It hasn’t been bad, I just liked the statement as I wrote it (seems like it’s fashionable to be a cynic).

Anyway the point is that for a moment, I hesitated answering. I don’t know why but I just did. And just after that I typed in my blood type (B+). The type required was A+. Donating blood is harmless if needles are sterilized and the amount taken is controlled. But there’s so much stigma attached to it that I hesitated. I found out later that the blood was required for the wife of a person whose help I used seek almost every day during my tenure. She is fine now. I am not. Guilt…is a bad thing. It sticks for a long time.

The unwritten job

Dear Diary,
There are medals for a good CGPA. The President and Director give them away under their name every year. There are no medals for being a good guy. But yet you feel compelled to do the unwritten job. Never assigned to you by the same scribes who decide the gold medalists but realized for reasons that you can not spell out explicitly yourself. It’s not ‘ You won’t.’ It is ‘You can’t.’ And you do them. You fall prey to them every now and then you do them. And you reap the results too. But the world is very objective. A shelf full of trophies is coveted more than a good night’s sleep and being able to see yourself in the mirror. And what’s more, they won’t recognize you for doing the job, for being the good guy, for understanding the duties and carrying them out, sometimes at the expense of the trophies. They won’t remember you. You are not on the ‘list.’ You are not the one whose smug face will appear in the city edition of the national newspaper. You are the one whose face will fade away.

But you do it. Because the medal sells cheap at the five and dime in Kalyanpur. But the other thing can’t be sold. It remains with you, forever. No one can take that away and there’s a reason why they don’t give medals for it. No medal can represent it in its entirety. Only you can. And so you must. You must do the unwritten job. You might fail, be ridiculed or end up a loser. But you must do it because what you CAN do, you MUST!

My apologies to my parents. My apologies to my peers. Never did I see people who loved trophies so much. My apologies to myself, I lost the mirror. My apologies to the world. Fuck you! Fuck you very much!

My tributes to Rippan and the MCB that was published by McGraw Hill. They cared to talk about him: the one who would CRY for those who had stopped crying, thinking that it was of no use.

Onion

He knew that I knew that he didn’t :)

I met Raj because of Saumya. A few days before Saumya left the campus we went on a roller coaster night trip that took us to Dhaba, an obscure tea shop at Rawatpur (A Kanpur suburb) Station serving excellent tea in Laloo’s kulhads and numerous alleys in search of a special Pan shop (which we never found) before we ended up at Ganga Ghat thinking it was Massacre Ghat (which is also a ghat of the Ganges). We returned to campus at around 6 am. Driving full speed on Grand Trunk in the morning has a charm of its own.

Anyway, Saumya left the campus. One day, after a brief Google talk with him, I left for library and on my way I met Raj.

Me: Hi Raj! How are you doing.
Raj: (caught unawares) Uh-oh! I am fine. How are you?
Me: I am fine too. Going to library.
Raj: I am just returning from my lab. So what’s up these days.
Me: Nothing much since Saumya left. In fact I was just chatting with him. So what’s up at your end?
Raj: Same old. So Saumya is fine?
Me: Yeah, he is fine.
Raj: Good, good. So, I will catch up with you later.
Me: Sure. See you around.
Raj: Yeah. Bye
Me: Bye.

He knew that I knew that he didn’t recognize me and didn’t have an inkling of who I was. But he engaged in conversation anyway. It’s funny how such things happen and how accommodating people can be just so that the others are at ease and they themselves are at ease too.

Anyway, this is the 100th post on this blog which derives from several blogs I created and destroyed ever since I began blogging in August 2005. That way, my blogging habit is now three years old. The readership at my blogs has been minimal as almost everything else has been in the past three years. Not that it hasn’t been good. It’s been great but we know the human mind – nothing is enough!

Adios,
Onion

Angels from midnight

Have you lost your sounding board?
The one wall that echoed?
Fighting another lost battle,
Lost in dust yet to settle.

We are here, Him and Son,
Some say emissaries of Satan
Who knows? They might be right.
But for now,
We’re your angels from midnight.

Dark circles round the eyes,
Cold breathe in tired sighs.
You are broken wanna bet?
Smoke from a wet cigarette.

Kurt had his own reason,
This is a different season.
Don’t look for an escapade,
No burn out, do not fade,

Life is not a filter’s game,
Don’t sell it for 74 mm.
We know we’re right,
After all,
We’re the angels from midnight.

Bitchmeter

So Sid and Shef have graduated and they meet after six years at a small reunion meet. Sample conversation:

Shef: So what have you been up to?
Sid: Nothing much. I am a salesman. Fancy becoming one after four years at IIT.
Shef: What do you mean salesman?
Sid: I make and take, bake and sale companies. I am a salesman.
Shef: And how many have you sold salesman?
Sid: Four. I was fired from the fifth one.
Shef: Huh!
Sid: Anyway what have you been doing?
Shef: Oh me! I pursued graduate school. Then came back and joined as faculty here.

Sid: Oh great! See we did tell you that you will do PhD one day. I was wondering how come you look so beautiful. The ‘matki’ syndrome is still around it seems.
Shef: Yeah Yeah whatever!
Sid: So how many people did you fail in your last course?
Shef: Huh! Why would you ask that?
Sid: Just to gauge the bitchiness. Make sure it’s still there.

Tee Hee Hee

Life for hire

Hullo!
Are you broken pieces rife?
Let’s go and get a life,
for you.

Put the pieces all together
And if you can’t gather
all of ‘em,
Don’t worry they’re all the same.
Left overs of a past life,
Last night’s food on fork and knife.

Wash your sins, purge ‘em all
And then make this little call.
’tis false but is still relief,
Welcome to emporium of belief.
We know your heaven’s on fire,
We will get you a life for hire.

Go ahead make your choice
No discounts, fixed price,
You can rent her fresh and cheap.
At the emporium of belief.
Take in person, no wire
Just a life, for hire.

So!
Are you broken pieces rife?