my journey

does anyone recognize the title....? well, any scrubs fans out there? its the same name as an episode from scrubs, i dont know which season...

i've been having a strange and interesting time recently..back when i was home, in india, i used to always tell myself that once i came to the US everything would become ok...i would have friends, i could pursue my interests...and so on...well, though not everything has come true like I'd hoped..some of them have become reality...and I am grateful to my gods above..

i've made a group of real good friends here....they are americans, and they accept me for what I am... they made me feel right at home when they called me over for dinner one day, and then surprised me by calling me over for a sleepover the next day..now see, while most of you must be thinkin, so what? whats the big deal? we do sleepovers all the time..

lemme explain..

last time I did a sleepover was when I was in the 7th grade..and that too with one of my closest friends, and we lost contact shortly after that.. i suppose that it was after that point when my aura changed from neutral to dark....i guess I ooze a kinda negativity, many people have described me in that way....truth is, it aint negativity that Im propagating....its cynicism..

i believe that with the way things r right now, there is no other way of looking at the world..

if you look at it in a beautiful, puppy dog tails, sweet, sunshine....kinda way its gonna screw you over, and bad....you're gonna be like "holy crap, what the **** was that?".....

if you look at it in a completely negative frame of mind, then you are not gonna live....in the true sense of the word...u will look at everything in a dark fashion..and treat them accordingly..there is no fulfillment to be found on that path..

however, being a cynic gives you room to treat things in an intermediate sort of way...the result? you dont get ur ass handed to you by life....nor do you go around with "doomsday" written all over your face..

hence im a cynic..

for all of you guys who are looking it up in the dictionary right now, and saying "this dude doesnt know what he talkin bout, that aint what cynic means..."

this is the way i define a cynic...so there..

so after the 7th grade sleepover, its never happened again..

im just thankful to my gods above, that they are watching over me...

sorry bout the dull post..

later

magus.

hey there,

so im far away from home, on my own so to speak....or is it so? since i did not work before joining for the masters course, im bein taken care of by my parents...they r payin for me to stay here and take my courses.. and recently i find that the urge to splurge has been takin over a lil bit, in fact, its been takin over a lot....and i have no idea bout how to deal with it. I have always prided myself on bein able to keep a level head about spendin money and that kind thing, however recently i dont know... 

the worst thing is my conscience...it packs a huge kick in the nuts whenever i spend....and for whatever...just the other day i swore to myself that i would not order pizza....and then in an instant of extreme hunger, a few clicks of the mouse...and bang, a hot pizza on its way over..

did i enjoy eatin it? hell yeah... the aftermath...

my conscience dropped the mental equivalent of an A bomb on me....and so may it be known to one and all, that upon my honor as the son of my parents...i shall not waste their money any further..

on another matter...i have always wanted to play in a band...and i did give it a few tries back home..tried to get some stuff goin, but nothin ever worked out....once i came here, i've been able to observe how hard these bands work to get their stuff out there...and mebbe, jus mebbe, the secret behind it, is the amount of work they put in...

and it doesnt stop at the work...the money they put in, at times even slaving away at menial jobs, hangin on to the flickering hope that there is a better tomorrow out there somewhere...

mebbe, this is what separates the actual bands from the wannabes...

i suppose the question to be asked is, at what point must one stop following a dream?? wouldnt it be brilliant if there was some instruction manual for this..sad part is, there isnt any such reference for us to go to, in case we are in doubt....

so what I do is simple....whenever I pray to my gods...i ask them for the continued health and safety of my family whom i love more than the very air i breathe, forgiveness for my sins, and ask them to please put me on the right path....and then theres a part of my being which puts in another weird request...askin the gods to merge what im doin with what is right....

does that happen? heaven knows....but im askin neway..

theres somethin i know beyond ne doubt though..for what seems like the first time, im happy...not all the time..but in occasional flashes..and it feels like being awakened from a long sleep...

but now i gotta sleep for real, its kinda late...so catcha later..

magus.

the guy with the ipod..

interestin title huh...? well this ones about me....bwa ha ha, actually they all are...coz its all blog so there..!! the guy sitting all alone in the back bench with an ipod on, this is a phrase I use a lot.. and like most neone who knows me would have figured out...its about me...im the guy whos sittin in the back with the pod on..

everytime i looked to the others in the class, there were people who i wanted to interact with... guys i wanted to become friends with....girls i wanted to become friends with...or mebbe even go out with.. actually, definitely go out with... but I just sat there doin nothin...why? I have no clue...

people tell me that I have to break out of my shell or whatever.. but the fact of the matter is, it aint easy....im comfy in my shell..no one threatens me or mocks me inside this place.. however, its only now that Im here...past my college days, that I can feel the pinpricks of regret about the people I didn't get to know..

its not like I did not try anything at all....I did make a few attempts but suffice to say that nothin worked out...and I got disheartened...

Im happy to say that i think im finally making the attempt to make friends...and i think im doin ok with it.. i have managed to acquire four or five friends here in the US which is more than what I could ever have done back home...

thats one thing im glad about..

now lets talk about parties....

people say that goin to parties is a lot of fun..lemme try and analyse that...we are talking about a room full of people who are drunk or well on their way there... and the ones who are not drunk are usually capable of similar heroics without alcohol...in such a scenario..how can anything interestin come out..? I know i know, when people get drunk lotsa interesting things might come out...come on dude....get your mind out of the gutter for a sec..

and then people say that you can meet new people....get to know them....and so on...lets think about what a typical conversation might look like...

"hey there, im bob"

"hey bob, im alex"

"are you a new student?"

"yea, and you?"

"yup".....  

"so, you're in computer science too?"

"yea"

"which courses have you taken?"

" blah blah and blah, and you?"

"oh, i've taken blah, blah and blooh...so we have two common courses.."

"yea...."

"yup...."

"cool huh?"

"yea.....common courses...what are the chances..!!"

"actually if we account for the mutual probability here, lemme see....thats 140 factorial by....UGHH!!"

the UGHH at the end was alex socking bob on the nose...

as bob falls, he calls out the finished calculation with all the force of a curse...it hits alex in the ear...and hes out like a light too...

alternatively...

"hey there, im bob"

"hi, im lisa"

"so.....do you have a boyfriend?"

"yea....i do..." bob notices that lisa looks sad and worried...

"he aint treatin you right is he?"

"what makes you say that?"

"your face looks worried..."

and then lisa tries to speak when bob draws in every inch of courage and speaks..in a tone worthy of an arthurian knight on a quest

"he must be a real piece of crap to make a beautiful girl like you feel bad, why if i could get my hands on him..."

lisa shakes her head dejectedly...

shadow falls over both bob and lisa..

"my dear, your misery has clouded my vision......will you go out with me, i'll make it all better" shoots bob....putting it out there in the open.....hes takin a shot on this one..

"that aint my misery bob"

"oh no? what is it then?" enquires bob, not really interested, hes suddenly noticed that lisa is wearing a tight tee...

"thats my boyfriend's shadow"..

this is what followed.... bob + kung pow = blob... there wasn't much left of the poor critter..

third and final scenario....bob comes in realizes that nothin good is gonna come out of bein at the party...and he pretends to get a call on his cell phone...walks out....goes home...and blogs...

im like bob...not meanin that I get beat up by hittin on someone else's girl...or that I can work out  probability jus like that...i would avoid such a party too....

thas it for now...

later..

magus..

evenins on the pier..

one day, me and my friend vinay were walkin down marine drive in cochin..my hometown.. we were talkin bout this and that, completely random stuff using loud exclamations now and then and extravagant gestures..he was doin these cause thats just the way he talks...i was doin these cause im jus weird like that..we kept on goin and goin, and suddenly on our left side we saw this pier sorta place, the gate was closed, but we squeezed in through gaps..actually vinay used his sonido to get through and i used my shunpo..since he is an espada, and I am a shinigami captain these things are second nature to us..(for those of you who do not get that part...its from the japanese anime Bleach)

once we were inside, first thing i noticed was that the place was clean, it did not smell like someone had taken a gigantic leak there..which basically describes over 50% of cochin...i think it must be somethin about the large amounts of water in the state that causes people to just let loose all over the place..when they say you can see backwaters and lagoons in kerala, they should prolly throw in somethin like "and yonder you can see the paths created by contant streams of water generation from the average malayalee"....newho...so this place was clean...and it was deserted except for this homeless dude who was sleepin close to the waters edge..i joked to vinay "wanna kick him over?" and this line has been repeated every single time we have been there since...now that i come to think of it, someone should prolly check that dude for a pulse..

we sat down near the edge..looking out onto the sea....it was an extremely windy day and i love the wind..we sat there and talked..talked about everything under the sun..and i have never felt more alive than when i was there with him..all through my days I have always felt like Im living the life of someone else, i dont feel like the skin im in is my own...however sitting there with him, talking bout stuff, i could actually breathe... i loved that place.. so from then on we would ask each other "hey wanna hang out at the spot?" and then when this got redundant we coined a name for it "el pierro de muerto" i think that means pier of death in spanish...strange thing to call a pier..especially when to the best of our knowledge no one had kicked it there...well, we were tryna be creative so frikkin sue us... after that i took two of my juniors there..we sat and talked..and once again had a nice time..

this was the one place in the city which i loved more than any other..something about it was removed from the usual definitions of everyday reality...it was almost like we were stepping through an interdimensional doorway to another plane of existence.. where there were no classifications like dork, nerd, jock, wimp....or ne of the other umpteen labels that todays society brands us with...in short, I am of the opinion that the world is plagued..and it is only a matter of time before the earths antibodies kick in and eradicate the source of that plague..namely us...however this place, it seemed to be pure..

i know that you people must think im tlakin an awful lot about nothin more than an ordinary pier..but i guess im aiming more at what the pier represented to me, vinay and my other friends..

the usual pattern of events went thus..

1.we'd get there

2.we'd talk for hours

3. my mom would call, and the conversation would go thus "NIKHIL, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU? GET HOME IMMEDIATELY.." "BUT MOM, IM 21 I CAN STAY OUT AS LONG AS I WANT"

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?"

"I CAN STAY OUT AS LONG AS I WANT"

"YOU FILTHY UNGRATEFUL MATERIALISTIC %$%@#%^&$%^&#$%#$@#$^$*&#$^&..."

"DONT SHOUT"

"WHOS SHOUTING?"

"YOU ARE?"

"WHAT? NOW YOU THINK IM TOO LOUD? YOU THINK YOU CAN LECTURE ME ON LOUDNESS?"

"NO, I JUST SAID EITHER SPEAK LOW OR GIMME SOME MONEY"

"MONEY FOR WHAT?"

"MY EAR DRUM REPLACEMENTS"

"THINK YER FUNNY DONTCHA?"

"NO, BUT I THINK YOU ARE..."

"!#$%#^$&#%^*#$%^@#$^!#$^$%&$^ "

4. I tell vinay i need to get home, he calls me a girls name...and we leave..

5. I wish we didnt have to leave...

heres to el piero de muerto..

magus.

brothers..

there is always this special connection between siblings.. im talkin bout the normal cases here, not the shit like the bollywood crap in which bro tries to kill bro for the family fortune...(hmm, i should keep a closer eye on my bro mebbe,,,)

in my life, my younger bro is more of a best friend sorta person to me than nethin else, we can talk bout close to nethin, and we have a lot of fun discussing anime, music, sitcoms, movies, games and all other kinds of stuff...besides, he really gets my humour style, and laughs at all of my jokes..or at least deigns to smile... our poor mom is left defenceless when we double team on her, its like witty return after witty return...i love the kid to bits...we do fight now and then..but its always temporary..both of us seem to have acquired that trait from my dad, who can never remember what a fight was about ten minutes after it ends..

and then theres this friend of mine from back home whom i consider equivalent to a bro...both of us r so alike that we can in most cases guess what the other is thinkin or gonna say.. initially we were surprised every time this happened but then we were like "oh yea, since its us, no biggie..."

now that im so far away from home, im missin both these bros of mine...

however, my anger retention problem only exists with close relatives and family, when it comes to neone else i can hold a frikkin feud untill the universe itself burns out...and mebbe even after that...i'll be a collection of carbon atoms, and all the atoms will be real pissed at another set of carbon atoms...and thus we will be locked in brownian motion mortal combat for the rest of eternity...scary picture..but im sure that i'd make kick ass atoms...!!

consider this scenario, the apprentice walks into the academy ready to learn from the masters and the other senior students there, he respects one in particular....and tries to cultivate a friendship with him.. how would it be, if this person turned out to be nothing more than a shallow, egoistic, dead pan, dead beat, no good, effed up excuse for a human being....things would become pretty interesting eh? thats exactly what is happenin to me right now, and this apprentice refuses to reel in shock, the force is strong within me, and I shall not be walked over...I am not anyones doormat....except for my parents...no one else has the right to patronize me...i wont take that shit..

i dont know what this guy has up his sleeve? its like we are anathema to each other...im sure, that if we did become friends it would be like a positron goin and tellin an electron "yo, lets hang out" so the electron after takin a lazy puff of its sub sub sub atomic cigarette  says "yea, whatever, cool"....they hang out, combine, explode releasing a burst of energy which eliminates the universe...(matter-anti matter recombination in case anyone is wonderin).. and then mebbe if u concentrate you can hear the whisper of a voice groaning "i knew I shouldnt have eaten that burito, darn you pico taco bell!!"..

long story short, i despise this guy, and if he comes up against me again, i will END him..

weird post huh?

will try for a better one next time..

peace,

magus.

a lil about home..

during the days leadin up to aug 6 (the day on which i left cochin), a lot of people asked me the same question "are you gonna miss this place?".. to all of them i had the confident reply...NO..!! no frikkin way....miss this place with all its mosquitoes, power cuts, traffic jams, and umpteen other problems....yea i would miss it...like someone might miss a headache...which is to say that they wont...and i was so sure i wouldn't,..

so why am I going onto wikipedia...and searching for my hometowns name? searching for the familiar landmarks and temples....looking for pictures...anything...

i dont know....i do miss cochin...i miss it a lot...there are certain things about the place which no other place can replace...Im in Florida now, and the US is amazin...its everythin I'd hoped it would be and more..yet I miss cochin..

and in this hour of uncertainty I cling onto my gods...since it is only them who can grant me some solace...

its ironic aint it? a guy spends 22 years of his life stacking hope upon hope onto this place which he has dreamed of since he was capable of dreamin....he comes over, and he realizes that mebbe there was more to his home than he ever saw...

dont get me wrong, im not sayin that im gonna drop everythin and run back home to mud wrestle...(reference to the swades movie..)...im sayin that there has awakened in my being a new found respect and love for my hometown..cant wait to come back during summer 09..

the world is most definitely goin down a self destructive path...and heaven knows how much longer mankind can go on...things are lookin grim.. however, there is somethin that a lot of people are missin when they look at the world...the earth magic..

if ne one says "Cool..!! Star wars..!! hes gonna talk bout the force" im gonna clobber ye silly..im the only jedi in the room and in this world...Hah!!

neway....when i say earth magic...i mean the magic inherent in all living things...the spirit or the soul..that invisible energy which drives us..

earth magic can be felt by us, but each one of us finds it in different ways...for me, i find it in the sunset...i find it in the wind...i find it in the roar of the ocean as it sweeps in...i find it in the rain..

that subtle presence or awareness which says nothing and never makes any complaint against the rape and pillage mankind does to the earth every instant...this awareness....seems to just watch us...almost as if in sadness...

if it wanted to speak Im sure it would say " I have given you so much, so many chances...if only you would listen to your heart....if only you had listened...."

if only we had listened...

if only..

magus.

crowds...i hate em..

yea, the title pretty much says it all.. i cant stand bein in a crowd, .. if im with 3 or 4 people who i know to a decent level, then im completely in my comfort zone...however put me into the middle of more people than that....whom i know nothin of....suffice to say that I shall not be the life and soul of the party...

when one thinks about it...the concept of fun...it differs from person to person....however, in this world which is getting increasingly collective...people feel the need to conform, in order to make sure that they are not left standin by themselves.. i think its the same concept which applies to parties...its not that a  lot of people like being in the party environment, its just that the alternative scares them a lot...

as for me...ask me what fun is? I love jamming with my band...i love reading manga..and working on my novel...i dig watching sitcoms and romcom flicks...i also enjoy deep meaningful conversations with people...fun is also when I have managed to achieve somethin, and that phone call back home when Im about to tell my family about it...as always, I start off telling my mom that I didn't make it...and she starts to console me ( im sure shes screamin at me inside...  :)   )

and then BANG!! I tell her that I did infact make it....and shes like....whoa..!!

that is fun for me...does that make me any different from the rest of humanity,,? I do not think so...

however every person i talk to tells me that I should be more outgoing, I have always found that word hilarious....asking someone like me to be outgoing is like suggesting to the hydrophobic person "why dont you take a dip?" and when he vehemently shakes his head to indicate refusal....you lift him up and toss him into the pool....

REACH INSIDE YOUR EXCUSE FOR A BRAIN AND FLICK THE LIGHT ON YOU RETARD..!!

just coz you like boozin and gettin wasted...and barfin all over the floor....dont make it the accepted behaviour... effin retards..!!

DEFINE YOUR OWN FUN.....DO NOT GO WITH THE FLOCK...

peace out..

magus.

my favorite desert,,

to all of you out there who figured i screwed up spelling desert....i am talkin about the huge expanse of nothin but sand....and not bout what u gorge down after a meal....

college was a horrid experience for me, there was never anything good about those four years except for the occasional arts fest that came along...when i was instantly elevated from obscurity to near fame as a guitar player...and even those events obeyed the law of gravity...and i aint talkin bout the apple go boink on your head thing...im talkin bout the whatever goes up must come down rule..and trust me, this applies to a lot more than apples or nethin else that could go boink on ur head or ne other part of ur anatomy..

but this post isnt about college...its about the way i survived those four years...every single break that came along, my mom, lil bro and me, we would head over to join my dad in dubai..

this was bliss for me.. escape from the banal existence i'd been condemned to.. goin to dubai was always so much fun, we went mall hopping (thats where, you enter a mall, stand in the center and after makin sure that enough people are watching, you start hopping about like crazy..the other indians there think ur possessed, the arabs think you're complaining about the rent situation, the americans and europeans do not see you since they are on another plane of existence, and the jamaicans move towards you and join in with the hoppin, jamaicans are jus crazy like that)..for those of you who are staring at the screen open mouthed...u bought that?? GET HELP.....NOW....dumasses..!!

me and me bro went to shoot pool which was so much fun..we played air hockey, went out to dinner with the whole family, went on long walks..jus walkin on and on...with no particular purpose..and the one thing about the city which shall always stay with me...

the lights...

the city never becomes dark...there is always an amazing amount of light present within the confines of this concrete colossus.. and the light aint the sort that makes you cringe away since you blew your eyes out...this is the soft kind of light, changing in hue..moving about..something about those lights transcends technology...makes one think about a time, when the entire place was nothin but a sea of sand watched over by the moon..

and dont even get me started on the food..

i love dubai...and always will,and once i finish my masters...im gonna see if i can get a job there...

somethin about that city has got inside of me...and i think it has become home..

so...on that note..i shall end this post..

i know it aint long..but i jus felt that i should say somethin about the place that is closest to my heart...

later guys..

nrv.