Poems by a fan of Neruda and Mithunda-I

When creativity dries up , recycle.So ,from now onwards , everytime I have nothing to say , I would copy paste poems i have written in the past and hopefully pick up a few " waah waah"s ( only bouquets are welcome , no brickbats).Some Chinese philosopher said " let thy speech be better than silence , else remain silent".But since I am not Chinese I won't follow that advice and would continue with my self promotion.
P.S - " Confucious spoke too much " -recent Chinese proverb.




Darkness

Pour me your darkness
Dense, deep and pure.

Let it seep through my skin,
Dissolve my bones
And devour my flesh
Till I return to nothingness.

Lead me to the dark,
Where the seeds sprouts
And the foetus sleeps,
Inside his mothers womb
And in that darkness,
Where all things begin,
Be my saviour from the gaudy light.

The brighter side of HR

It often causes me deep anguish to see how the HR department is always the butt of jokes for all IT professionals , how everyone likes to have a go at these poor souls who were responsible for hiring them at the first place.Although an engineer on bench might spend the entire day in the cafeteria , a HR guy ( HR is a very gender sensitive term ) doing the same will be called a parasite eating away into the company's resources. No drinking session between a group of IT professionals would be complete with everyone launching a diatribe against the HR department , with the most acerbic comments reserved for the most handsome HR guy.Infact I remember a comment made once by a friend " I am often confused which HR I hate most" ( the other HR being Himmesh Reshamiya) As I consider it my duty to support the underdog , I would like to highlight few of the rare talents that only the HR department can boast of.Although they are specific to my company, I am sure they are universal in nature :
1. You can blame the HR for lot of things , but you can never blame them of lacking ingenuity. The spirit of innovation runs in their blood. Once every year , all project managers in my organization gets an excel sheet with the names of all employees in the rows and their respective skills along the columns .The PMs , the team leaders and the entire clan called management spends precious hours rating all the employees in scales of 1 to 5.Once finished it is sent back to the HR department.Now if you think this is a trivial activity , you know nothing about HR practices.This yearly ritual is known as filling up the "Competency matrix"..who else but the HR department can come up with such a name for a humble excel sheet? Although most employees are currently clueless about the practicality of this elaborate ritual , speculation is rife that the values from all the competency matrices are combined and plotted in a graph to form the " competency parabola" ( the HR is extremely gifted in mathematics too).The area under the parabola is calculated using a secret formula taught in B-schools.The end result which is known as " competency surface area" is than compared and "benchmarked" against similiar figures from other organizations.After months of assiduous research , the HR department would come to the conclusion that we need to increase our " competency surface area " before we can even think of a pay hike.So here we arrive at the obvious truth , but with the HR department's effort this bitter pill is now sugarcoated with so much statistics that you very happily swallow it.

2.The other quality that makes the HR department so special is their literary prowess.Packed with a hectic schedule , they may not have the time to write novels ( or blogs as I do) , but their amazing knack of playing with words and coining new terms can often be observed in their daily communication. The way the HR officials can state the obvious in a roundabout fashion makes me feel that all HR officials are little Shiv Kheras and Robin Sharmas in the making who just need the right break to become bestselling authors.Add to that the older generation of HR officials also have a philosophical streak in them and hence can be future Paulo Coelhos.Imagine this situation: You want to go to the smoking zone to have a fag .After that you plan to spend some time loitering in the campus garden hoping to catch a glimpse of the new HR lady who has joined your company.So a member of the engineering species ( that horrible neanderthal tribe who embodies literary philistinism) would say something like this to his colleague " Kya re ... itna kaam karke kyun company ka culture kharab kar rahe ho..chal sutta marke aate hain". Loud , brash and uncouth.Same scenario imagine our young dashing HR manager..he would give a quick glance to his watch and tell his colleague in a serious professional tone "O.K I think we should now break for a NBS (nicotinatted brainstorming session) ..after that we shall meet in the garden for a OBS (outdoor bonding session)".It might sound like an exaggeration but trust me you will get to hear such lingo very soon in the corporate world.
3. Most importantly , those who are ambitious and want to climb up the corporate ladder ( ah! that terrible cliche) must follow the old maxim " Speak like the HR manager and thou shall rise".There is a very old saying in my mothertongue Assamese " kothat kota jai , kothat bota pai" which roughly translates to " words can get you beheaded , words can bring you laurels".So , speak as your HR manager does and very soon you will get only laurels and the heads of all your rivals will decorate your path to success ( my love for gore surfaces every now and then...more sensitive readers please ignore ).Here are a few examples of some killer words and expressions that will pave the way for success in the corporate world ( I bet Shiv Khera did'nt tell you this):
a) Always repeat words with same meaning to stress.It helps to show your sincerity.Eg -"We will most definetely look into the matter "
b) Always use sentences that leaves the listener confused and happy at the same time.Eg:" We are trying our best to streamline the process".
c) Use words that helps to momentarily boost the ego of your team members.Eg:" You are not just an employee , you are an asset to the company" ( however be careful while using the word asset with your female colleagues).
d) Most importantly , when you face a conflict situation that is beyond your ability to solve say " I am very sorry but these matters are decided at a higher level"
Remember these mantras and success will kiss your feet ( a translation of " kamyaabi aapki kadam chumegi")
So , to conclude , my dear friends , stop whining and learn to see the brighter side of everything .Remember what Paulo Coelho has said " In this infinite universe there are stars and there are black holes , but black holes are born by absorbing light.So get inside a black hole and you might find the soul of the universe" ( actually he has'nt written those lines till now but
I am sure he will write it very soon).

What's in a name?

Variety is the spice of life and no one knows it better than people in Meghalaya.While parents in rest of India might spend years doing arduous research on names for christening their new-borns , people in Meghalaya seems to throw all conventions to the winds and christen their offsprings with anything that catches their fancy.This gives me just one more reason to love this beautiful state with its perenial wet clouds hanging over its rich pine forests and hills. The rest of the country might raise their collective eyebrows in disbelief when I say I had collegemates and acquaitances with names like Charity , Patience, Goodmorning and Morningstar.So for their benefit I would copy paste this election report from the Sentinel , a daily newspaper published form Guwahati:
Staff Correspondent
SHILLONG, March 6: In the wait for the Meghalaya Assembly election results tomorrow, Friday Lyngdoh (Congress) will definitely hope to see that the day (Friday) goes along with his name, Adolf Lu Hitler Marak (NCP) will be wishing to get back his lost domain — Rangsangkhona constituency, his son Preaching Shylla’s (independent) will have a bit of anxiety to see the Nongkrem electorate living by his sermons, while Frankenstein W Momin (Congress) wishing that the horror of the last election defeat does not surface this time.
Hopingstone Marsharing (LJP) and Hopingstone Lyngdoh (HSPDP) are not against hope in their quest for a seat in the 60-member Meghalaya Assembly whereas Darling Wavel Lamare (HSPDP) definitely desires to be the darling of the Nongbah-Wahejer electorate tomorrow. Oral Syngkli (BJP) will favour that his speeches turn into votes from Jirang constituency, an Assembly segment where former Chief Minister J Dringwell Rymbai (UDP) aspires to gulp the maximum number of votes for the fourth time. Laborious Manik Syiem’s (NCP) painstaking campaign is also expected not to be in vain.
Bison Paslein (KHNAM), a candidate locking horns with two other candidates, is expected to give a tough fight to the Congress and UDP nominees from Sutnga Shanpung constituency, while Comingone Ymbon (INC) prepares himself to come out successfully all alone after the election results.
CPI candidate Fasterwell Marbaninag has tough contenders from Nongspung but he prefers to be fast enough to edge out his rivals in the electoral race to be decided today. So is Forward Lyngdoh Mawlong (NCP) from Sohiong who is having a formidable political foe in Rain Augstine Lyngdoh (UDP) who expects that luck will shower on him.
Zenith Sangma (INC) aims to touch another political peak from Rangsangkhona, while Admiral Sangma of the NCP (not a member of the Armed Forces) hopes to command the maximum votes that has already been sealed in the EVMS.
Romeo Phira Ranee (HSPDP) will definitely want the voters’ love turned into concrete votes by tomorrow, even as Moses Ch Marak (UDP) awaits the results of his efforts to clear the road from the rough political seas. Arjun Kumar Hajong (Independent) hopes that his aims does not land on the wrong target, while Hilarious T Lyngdoh (LJP) from Laitumkharah and Hilarious Pohchen (NCP) from Nongkrem will hope that the outcome will not be comical after months of hard work in the political field.
Founder Strong Cajee (INC) from Mawlai found new strength to give him a chance to be a winner, but Process T Sawkmie (UDP) has been using the right procedures in the last ten years to ensure that no one takes away the Mawlai seat from him.
Budshell Marabniang (HSPDP) knows his strength, but Boldness L Nongum (INC) hopes that luck will not shy away from him in his courage to clamour for a second term from Mairang. Trying to live by his name, Dr Adviser Pariong (HSPDP) is eager to know the public mandate from Pariong to enable him to give his piece of thoughts in the Assembly.
Billy Kid Sangma (Independent) had fired all guns during his election campaign in his attempt to get another chance as a legislator from Tura, but Clever N Marak’s (Independent) wisdom to rope the electorates will only be known by tomorrow.

Do I need to say anything more?

Orkut and the Digital Ageing Syndrome

Its been 2 years and I am still stuck to the same social networking site.Call it being digitally challenged or whatever I am still hooked on to Orkut and no other site including Facebook seems to catch my fancy in the same way as Orkut does.The pleasures of Orkut are not just discovering your kindergarten crush ( still as cute as ever but happily married) or some long -lost cousin whom you never knew existed . Orkut scores over others because it provides one of the greatest pleasures known to man..the joy of voyeurism.Its the only place where you can follow the entire evolution of a romance from the tender " can I make friendship with you" to the ripened " he is my bestest friend" phase.It is also the place where you unearth gems like " If you wanna know me check my testis" or " I think your English is very week".It also makes you realise that 98.7% of women in this country are " cool, fun-loving and loves music".Now just at this moment when you start believing Orkut is all pleasure and no pain , think again. The forces of yin and yang must balance itself in this unreal world.The happy family in a Jitendra movie must have an evil daughter-in-law mixing poison in the milk at some point of time.The Indian team needing 30 runs to win of 60 balls must make the game trully worth the money for the audience and must lose 3 wickets in the span of one over.In other words every good thing must have its pitfalls and Orkut is no exception.So when Orkut decides to inflict pain , it does so in the form a syndrome which I have christened as the " Digital ageing syndrome".Its a mental disorder which makes you realise that your existence is a total anachronism to the present day world and that you are a pre-historic cave dweller born before the onset of the last Ice-age who for some mercy of nature have managed to see the digital age. I shall now elaborate on the symptoms of this disease with the following two examples:

1. You clearly remember this baby in your neighbourhood.She was plump and cute.On some ocassions you used to even take her in your lap.As`she grew up you remember once buying her a lollipop.But time passes and like most things , you slowly forget about her existence.Then one fine day you recieve a friendship request on Orkut.The baby in your neighbourhood has grown up to a nubile and almost desirable young lady ( now please don't frame a quiz question like " connect the writer of this blog with Michael Jackson ").She is already 16 and by current standards its a very orkuttable age.She already desribes her relationship status as committed though she recieves countless " can we make friendship" request.You hang your head in shame .You realise few years down the line you would be standing on a long queue for buying admission forms for liitle one who would by that time be old enough to join school.Your mind recoils in shock and horror and you logout form orkut or you may permanently delete your account.

2.Its a lazy winter evening and you as usual decide to take a lazy stroll along the bluish orkuttian landscape , smelling roses here and there in general appreciating the great beauty of humankind.So suddenly you come across this slightly familiar rose and you get a feeling of deja-vu..... " where have I seen her before".Your mind swiftly goes back to your high-school when she was your classmate.For a while you are transported to the misty memories of your early teens when this girl used to be a crush, though you didnt publicize it enough for somebody to scribble "X+Y" on the blackboard ( the alphabets have been chosen deliberately to prevent sowing of seeds into the fertile imagination of some of my readers).Slowly fragments of your memory join together to form the outline of her face , the length of her skirt and several other details.Almost delirous with joy you click at her profile and without a second thought visit her album.You see her first picture and there is no doubt its the same girl..she has obviously grown up and put on some weight , but the twinkle in her eye and the roundness of her face is still very much intact.With excitement mounting every passing second , you enter the album.In the very next photo you see her dangling from the arms of a robust young man, with the backdrop of a beach..you quickly scroll down to read the caption and it reads "Me with hubby Nilesh in Goa..is'nt he cute?".Then you mutter to yourself.." yes he is cute..cho cho cute that I feel like !#@$#@!$@##%." In one single stroke of fate you realise the fleeting nature of time and how youth with all its colours are slowly fading away.In a few years time you too would be part of a similiar photograph with your overweight wife trying to dangle from your not so robust arms and you would suffer in silence not having the heart to tell her that your back aches ( you may say I am being too negative but I consider it my talent to spread gloom and darkness)

This brings us to the conclusion that as you go older your choice for social networking sites must also change.Its time for me now to understand the intricacies of Facebook and prevent myself from future shocks.

The Quarter-life crisis

Since childhood I have been a 'man' who has an explanation for almost everything he does.However it does not imply that I have not done anything impulsive or that I am always level headed.Its just that I am good at presenting my case. During my high school days I had the habit of constantly punching at the walls of our house with my fist.The purpose offcourse was to harden my knuckles , but i dont recollect whether it was an inspiration from Van Damme or I really had a tiff with the classroom bully.So when my mom , evidently worried about my health as well as the health of our dilapidated government quarter , asked for an explanation to this strange behaviour I was ready with it.I showed her articles on adolescent behaviour , culled from various sources ( sadly no internet at that time) and gave her a lengthy discourse on how such rebellious behaviour is commonplace among teenagers around the world and punching at the walls is an universal phenomenom arising out of our teenage existential angst. I doubt if she bought my theory , but it did manage to calm down the situation to a great extent.
However in recent times , having gone gone through frequent bouts of depression , i just could not find any neat and intellectual-sounding scientific or pop-psychology term which could explain
my behaviour. Whenever I am confronted with such question as " You have a secure job , you are young ( at times you have a girlfriend too) whatelse do you want , huh? look at the number of unemployed people around you and count your blessings" , I desperately feel the need to say " I am unhappy because i have so and so syndrome".How I wish I could say something like " I have midlife crisis" or " I have pre-menstrual stress", but since I could say neither I have to take resort to a lengthy monologue on how much I hated my job , the food at the office canteen and so on.So at times like i fall back to the only place which can explain everything - 'Wikipedia'.After some searching , i finally discovered the perfect term that could describe my situation. Its called the " Quarter-life crisis".I guess the term had existed since ages but somehow I have not stumbled across it..Wiki says that " Quarter-life crisis " can have any of the following characteristics:

1.Feeling "not good enough" because one can't find a job that is at one's academic/intellectual level
2.Frustration with relationships, the working world, and finding a suitable job or career
confusion of identity
3.Insecurity regarding the near future
4.Insecurity regarding present accomplishments
5.Re-evaluation of close interpersonal relationships
6.Disappointment with one's job
7.Nostalgia for university, college, high school or elementary school life
8.Tendency to hold stronger opinions
9.Boredom with social interactions
10.Financially-rooted stress
11.Loneliness
12.Desire to have children
13.A sense that everyone is, somehow, doing better than you

Thanks to the psychologists , I can claim to be a victim of a trully global phenemenom , something I believve is more dangerous than global warming.Except the desire to have children , I have traces of all the other symptoms in varying degrees.Now how to overcome it? So far I have just one solution to " Quarter-life crisis" - get a quarter of red rum , it will do the trick.
P.S - " Why do you drink so much , huh?? Do you ever think of people back home??"
Ans : " I have quarter-life crisis"

The magician from Tokyo

Japan is one country which has captured my imagination since I was a child.I guess it started after watching the series "Oshin" on Doordarshan.That was a time when Ekta Kapoor was yet to unleash her Saans-Bahu never-ending sagas on the Indian households and people still believed that entertainment should also provide some food for thought.My japanese fixation grew with time , especially after watching Kurosawa and reading Kazuo Ishiguro and Haruki Murakami.
I have just started on my 3rd Haruki Murakami novel and its called " The wind up bird chronicle".Now ,I have this peculiar habit-if I like a book I become an unpaid publicity agent for that writer.I would not only recommend it to everyone but harrass the person non-stop till he reaches the last page.So now I would proceed to do the same.
For those not familiar with Mr.Murakami's works , I have decided to put together a definiton like those high and mighty literary critics do.It goes like this " Mr. Murakami's work can be defined as bizarre characters meeting other equally bizarre characters under extraordinarily bizarre circumstances".The one I am reading right now revolves around a man in search of his cat which is very dear to his wife.In the course of his seach and a span of just 40 pages he has already met a woman looking for telephone sex , a bored teenage girl who lives alone and watches cats in her neighbourhood and a lady who believes in controlling the elements.As this happens to be my 3rd Murakami novel after " Norwegian woods " and " Hard-boiled wonderland and end of the universe" I am finding myself in a slightly familar terrain.For beginners I must warn that this man can take your mind out , put it a mixer-grinder and churn the contents of your head till you feel that you have lost you mind forever.The problem I had at first with this Japanese gentleman was that for some reasons I was searching for reason in his plots and characters.On deeper introspection I know the problem is that I have grown up on a staple diet of Hindi movies.So the idea of loose ends in a story and unexplained characters is totally alien to me.In a hindi movie if the hero has a sister you can rest assured she would be raped by the villain in due course of time, else the hero won't have a sister.So with that frame of mind I started reading my first Murakami novel , only to realise that very soon that I am missing out on a joyride.Murakami takes you on a roller coaster ride , where characters would come and dissapear for no reason , where your protagonist will sleep with women you never expected to , where people for no reaon will start talking of Beatles and Bob Dylan , where cats will start talking and somehow even in this wild circus you will find a cleverly woven plot unfolding before your eyes in a manner that is both weird and entertaining at the same time.
Rich in symbolism and metaphors ,Murakami is among the writers whose books are to be chewed slowly rather than devoured as a whole.If you read one sentence too quickly , you might miss a piece of dark humour or an unusual oxymoron or just a bizarre similie that very few writers could even dream of.The second most important thing to remember is that don't expext anything and don't ask why.Go with the flow of his narrative.Strange things will happen to the characters.Moreover you will feel at times the narrator is a junkie who had an overdose of cocaine.For example , Murakami might devote 3 paragraphs for the colour of a particular character's lipstick or nail-polish.Dont expect it be of som great significance to the plot.He just mentioned it because he felt like it.

I have spend sometime wondering where Muarakami's appeal lie.I believe his cult status has something more to it than its bizarre plots and his high " coolness qoutient" for referring to rockstars and hollywood movies in every 3rd page.Its essentially lies in his abilty to split open and dissect the working of the urban mind , it's innate sense of alienation and its deepest fears and insecurities.His characters are universal , they might well belong to Mumbai instead of Tokyo. His appeal , I believe , lies in his knack of touching the mind of the reader at a very subliminal level .I remember one of his characters , who said she was a fan of Bob Dylan because its reminds her of a child gazing out of his window when its raining outside.Rain ,child and Bob Dylan..where is the connection? Apparently there is no connection, but if I ever have to think of Bob Dylan's music as an image nothing fits better than the one mentioned above.There exactly lies Murakami's genius ,his constantly ability to go hammer and tongs at your head and make you wonder " Oh fuck! that's so true but I never thought of it this way!".
Murakami himself has said that his work is taken more seriously than he would like them to do.Like Pink Floyd's songs, critics would endlessly dissect his work for hidden symbolisms.Such people are bound to be dissapointed.The way to read Murakami is simple.Just enjoy the ride, cause he will take you to places where you have never gone before.
Bon voyage!

Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai

A few weeks back,I read an article in TOI about China being a "soft" superpower capturing not just our markets with cheap electronic goods but also dictating how we think.. from Mumbai wanting to be the next Shanghai to martial arts movies , a number of examples were cited.Looking back , the writer missed the obvious ..the ubiquitous Chinese food centre.I returned a few hours back from my neighbourhood mobile restaurant..a little cart with a cook and a cooking gas somehow inserted into it with a big sign outside carrying the words" Vaibhav Chinese centre". I am sure after Panditji talked of Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai nobody took Indo-China brotherhood so seriously as the cook at this restaurant.With a name like " Vaibhav Chinese centre" the cook and staff at this mobile eating joint has left no stone unturned to ensure the customers that they trully believe in globalisation.Just an hour back I had a plate of Singapore triple-fried rice..now its a dish nobody in Singapore or whole of South-east Asia may have ever heard of..but here in India people will swear by it.From "Hong-Kong hakka noodles" to "Shaghai veg fried rice" they have ensured that all regions to the east of the country are well represented.Fried deep in oil with cheap sauces added on top , these dishes are bound to make a Chinese forget his Mandarin, but for the Indian palate they are just about perfect.My only worry is that they will soon run out of names of places to coin their new inventions of this Indo-Chinese fusion cuisine.Maybe " Bangkok noodle" and "Kualalampur egg rice" are next in the line.
My only request to the these Chinese food centres- Now that you have no dearth of afficanados for your hotch-potch cuisine , please return back to your roots and call the "Schezwan fried rice " as "Kolhapuri fried rice",else you are insulting two great civilizations at the same time.