Dihydrogen Monoxide Poisoning

Another day of meaninglessness. Headbanging and dope till late last night. Lots and lots of homemade crap food which never feels stomach filling as by the time the stash is burned down all the internal organs which signal the brain, "STOP!!! That’s enough", have dozed off.

What’s on today’s agenda? Bunk classes…Visit girl friend… Score…

So the usual suspects gather at the usual place and amidst the usual certainty of indecision time management takes a toss waiting for an agreement to be reached. Such are the vicissitudes of self-proclaimed libertarian set of minds. Push, kick, turn, balance and off. The machines start making their way through the dust clad roads. Slowly moving from known paths trudged on a million times onto virgin ground where the appeal of seeing something for the first time keeps regurgitating again and again.

The road leading to point B wanes through a very small village with some single floored houses dotted here and there. The odd tea shop in the corner and locals glancing at the mini procession of motor cycles. People squatted and smoking tobacco in its rawest form with little reaction to the whirlpools of dust engulfing them like a spell freshly cast.  The six degrees of separation carry the baton and the human chain navigation system, indigenous to places before the time of GPS; keep turning the wheels in the intended direction. Not to forget the numerous puffs during the ride and the superb ‘Make a joint on a speeding bike’ antics.

The ride ends here…

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=20.325553,85.693016&spn=0.04475,0.090895&t=h&z=14

The vista is quite spectacular. A dam hosting a serene body of water surrounded by lush green forests which apparently shelter herds of elephants.

So, where to perch for the day? Too many options and too many heads cook up a wonderful broth which leads to everyone stationing bang on the other side of the dam. Road to ground zero emanates some rudimentary riding skills as there is no defined path. Dribbling a few trees, manoeuvring around the divvied shrubs and conquering a few small boulders is all it takes to get there. And the effort is well worth it.

Just in front of the where the pistons have been stopped from moving any longer is the shore. It’s a sandy area with grass scattered inconsistently. The water is calm and circumferentially picket fenced by an ambrosial lining of vegetation.  On the opposite shore is a fairly sized dam with all the water gates tightly shut surrounded on either side by huge boulders which look like consciously placed because the landscape designer wanted to have them that way.

Straight into the cool water goes everyone under a mild Indian afternoon sun. Some decide to swim to the middle and float around and sometimes dive deep to feel the weight of the water before emerging again, others who have high confidence on their lack of swimming skills decide to stick around places where the level of water is not a threat while a few decide to help the latter ones learn how to swim. Not a care in the world. Blue skies above, sound of ripples hitting the floating bodies and marijuana doing a passionate dance in the mind to that music. It inspires comparisons with the seclusion of Krikkit*, a planet which had a completely black sky due to a dust cloud (which was composed chiefly of the disintegrated remains of the enormous spaceborne computer Hactar which was originally created by the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax to design the Ultimate Weapon producing a very, very small bomb that, when activated, would connect every star to every other star, cause them to all go supernova simultaneously and, thus, destroy the universe. The bomb proved dysfunctional because Hactar had designed it with a tiny flaw, reasoning that no consequence could be worse than that of setting the bomb off. The Silastic Armorfiends disagreed and destroyed Hactar) and thus the people of Krikkit led insular lives and never realised the existence of the Universe. Thank you again Douglas Adams.

Where the hell is all that noise coming from? Answer : A bunch of nincompoops having their own way of alcoholic fun on the other shore, just by the dam. Dude, anything dry is much better. Alcohol brings out a fully different side of things which was in no way conducive to the atmosphere. The result, banter between the two herds, People seeking silence vs. people breaking it and total annihilation of the utopia. The ensuing exchange was anything but convivial and did not last long but a constant disturbance was created which polluted most of the senses. All of a sudden the racket experienced a spike in volume. Anybody could not care less of what was going on. Environmentalists had a good case of making arrests due to sound pollution. Then again the tone was a bit queer now. Or was it ? Certainly yes. Something was not right. Indeed.

One of them was gone.

The fight-or-flight response, also known as the acute stress response, refers to a psychological reaction that occurs in the presence of something that is terrifying, either mentally or physically. This is when the sympathetic nervous system kicks in and a number of things begin to occur: your heart and breathing rates increase, digestion slows or stops, the pupils dilate and you begin to sweat. That’s what each and everyone felt after fathoming what had actually happened and imagining the number of fathoms underwater the missing man might be. Two splashes and two minds which selected the fight response dive in and start swimming.

A train of thoughts hoot through their minds, “Have to save him”, “Will save him”, “Keep swimming”, “The water is getting really heavy”, “How will I pull him out”, “Still can’t see any signs of life”, “Where is he ?”. The hurried strokes, the questions echoing in the head, the reverberating cries of desperation instantly transform the surroundings. They keep swimming towards the assumed point of disaster never losing hope, never thinking about letting go. But the stretch is too long and water gets heavier and heavier and starts pulling them down with its liquid vines. A quick stop for some breath and off again. But still nothing. They hope to get some signal from a living organism trying to fight the liquid of life for life itself. Nothing. The muscles start aching; the lungs start revolting, thoughts start slipping and the water smirks and pulls down the two bodies even harder. It’s not possible to go on anymore, they stop. With them ends all chances of not turning the place into a watery grave as all the other spectators could manage to do is just defend their title.

As this whole episode was unfolding some of the others guys rode off on their bikes to get help and help came but after the final bell had tolled. The two man rescue party, which had failed, swam back and watched a search party form. They sat still. They waited and waited and waited. The hand crafted rocky shore was filled with on lookers, while some villagers with bamboo sticks kept poking the water like they were searching for a lost treasure. The nonchalance etched on their faces looked very uncanny to both of them. But they kept silent and waited. Eventually the body was retrieved.

I stood up and walked down to check for any signs of life which I had tried to save. I had never attested death before.

It was cold. We left and never went back there.

I believe in Gods. They are avid gamers.

The perfect software. The most lifelike game ever built or is it ? No you cannot buy it or play it or download it. Coz you are in it. I call it HOAX.

What we see around is just that. And you me all of us are just characters in it. Justification of humans being puppets with strings all over again but in a whole new way. So my character profile reads like Level:28, Health:70%(maybe a bit more), Career:Desk jobber. In order to understand it a bit better just imagine if a character that you have built in any MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) is writing this article or reading it. You are
what I am calling god in that frame of reference.

The allocation works like in any MMORPG, every human belongs to a guild or clan, which in our case it is predominantly the country of birth with religion being the secondary slice and numerous others follow. Every human looks like what his or her god selected during feature choice and the age algorithm taking into contention what has been happening around keeps updating the features. Evolution (or thats what we call it) is one of the major algorithms in action. And whenever someone discovers any of these algorithms which we term as laws becomes a famous character. Like the gods who had created Darwin, Mother Teresa, James Hetfield have huge gamer scores.

Now there are gamers who prefer to maintain an evil profile like when the karma in fallout changes goes up and down and changes vault 101 to an evil marauder. They are the ones who cause all the suffering in HOAX. Some God must played around with the Obama – Osama naming. Whoever it was, RESPECT!!! But I wonder how Feynman's involvement in the Manhattan project reflected in his god's gamerscore or karma status? The judgement and points allocation in HOAX due to good and evil deeds could be just the opposite to the way we perceive it. 1 point for each mg of green house gas you produce and you lose points if you donate an organ. Tony Hayward gets the best profile score for 2010.

I have heard many people say that everything works the way the person sitting in the sky wants it to. And HOAX supports it big time. Its all in their hands. Now a conflict I have is whether there can be any consciousness in the characters of HOAX which will not be detectable by god or attributed by the gods? The whole concept of artificial intelligence played back in a way where
our own reality loses a level of abstraction and is not the prime anymore? What if the gods are thinking that they are putting too much intelligence in HOAX which will enable us to advance
and take the dimension leap? I don't know but would surely like to keep thinking if someone is willing to fund my thoughts? God, are you reading this ?

Well one thing should be noted is that all the terms I have used best explains the function in HOAX, it might be represented by totally different words or for that matter indicated by a concept unfathomable by us. So I don't know what it is coz I am not a god or more precisely I don't play HOAX.

From Flying Kites to Multiplayer Gaming

Afternoons after school and the rush was always in anticipation of the open skies. The prayers used to go out to the weather gods for absence of cumulus clouds, clear views and yes most importantly light wind. Ticking the checklist of "back from school" activities the proverbial teleportation concept landed me on my roof. The fun began. The kite was chosen, the strings were tied and on with the takeoff ritual. 5-4-3-2-1 and we’re off. Swooping to the left, turning to the right, the somersaults and what not, all with a few pulls on the strings and by it letting go. It was amazing.

Little did I know all the theories of physics which were being abused with every movement. I loved it. Then came the dog fights. I could see my enemies preparing their war machines and slowing moving closer for the challenge. Which strategy should I choose ? There were many. Different soldiers had different ways of fighting the war. Some relied on the aggressive pull from below tactic while others let the strings cross each other and sharpness of the pieces of glass on the strings do the trick. You had to choose and pick after spotting the person you are crossing swords with or from which military base it has taken off.

The best part was the cry of victory. It was handed from generation to generation. I got it from my dad and the guy on the other roof might have got it from his. It was unique and distinct. I could make out who has won just by hearing the piercing shrieks.

Men took pride in their weapons. It was the string you were using and of course the kite itself. The balance of the kite and how easy it was to maneuver, while the sharpness of the string gave you more power. We used to make our own strings sometimes which made the victory more personal.

There were two outcomes like in every battle. The dominance of space where you kept on defeating others like having a kill streak or the retreat where a defeated warrior starts rolling up his string with head bowed down. It was magic.

As it might be already obvious to some, things were very different back then. Now it is about aiming your cross hair and shooting down an unaware bloke logged in from god knows where and sitting by a wall by blasting his head using a sniper rifle. Boom !!! Yup he’s dead and the shriek is a message that pops up on the screen saying ‘Up Yours you dead rat’. Time for some guerrilla warfare so I choose a shotgun. Bang Bang nope its me this time. Hours pass by, more experience points get added, new weapons are unlocked, I keep responding to the call of duty.

Fights lost, battles won… The outcome is the same, the medium is different. But if you ask me I’ll always choose the string against an MK4.

Just one of the many ways I have judged change…. 

Treasure Island

The curse of childhood prerogatives

There are events and triggers which give shape to ideals in your life. Not the 'SAVE THE WORLD' types but the smaller and more important ones I guess. As I grew younger I watched I understood and I remembered. What ? How circumstantial responses work and how consistency of your reaction defines you. 

Forks on the way provided variety and the more I saw the greater was my scope. I was comfortable with my judgements and construction of my behaviourial flowchart.Blips where consistent on the ECG machine. Assasination of Rajiv Gandhi, Gulf War, Kargil, India losing to Pakistan again at Sharjah, floods in Kolkata, Bombay riots, Windows 3.1 etc etc 

'But hey, whats the huge one ?', 'O! thats just the nuclear fission reaction in my family.' It needed to happen but what it forced was a major re-structuring of my flowchart and I was confused. The only support I had from within myself then was neutrality. 

Neutrality to judge my bias of human decency.

The packed up boxes which I had kept preserved as priceless belongings revealed themselves as mutated victims of the fallout.The propensity which I had developed was unfailingly attacked by the mutants and still does. So now I think were they infected or this is their original form and I was blind to the indigenous skin. The wavelength of the colours in the pretty picture which my early years had painted became as random as particles in Brownian Motion.

'Welcome to the dark side'.

The metamorphosis was inexplicable to me, might be a pretty normal phenomenon everywhere. But I did not want it to happen and regretted witnessing it as a third party coz my circumstances protected me. I guess this variation of my so called flowchart could have come in a different, hopefully in a more comme il faut, way.

The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope

There are strange ways in which technology helps you out. For a while I have been looking at the Akira series of manga in Amazon. The movie was amazing and it has earned its space on my bedroom wall. Now, while contemplating about the purchase a wonderful suggestion was thrown out by the Amazon sales algorithm.

Emmanuel Guibert.

The first thing I do whenever a new name pops up is rely on Google which inevitably points to Wikipedia. But to my surprise there was no article there. That’s strange I thought but could manage to find some information and decided to put up an article myself in future.

Well, the first book (graphic novel) by Emmanuel which I read was Alan’s War. It’s awesome. The storyline ain’t mind crushingly spectacular but it deserves credit for being honest (sort of WYSIWYG) and simple and wonderfully represented by the author. Kudos have to be given to both the source and the creator.

Its about the life of a G.I and how he handles the war and its effects on him and so on. The interesting part is that he does not wear full metal jackets or save privates named ryan and stuff, in fact the only cut or bruise he sustained was by falling from a farmhouse loft. But the beauty is in the way he sees and remembers the forks in his journey.

The journey which is wondefully put on paper using a very riveting method. Check out the clip below to get an idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIMdBK8yr_g

Every box in every page is very quaint. I guess it appeals to me coz I like this style of graphic but it sure is amazing.

I won't divulge more on it just to avoid a spoiler alert sort of tagging of this article, so check it out yourselves.

The New & Clear Age

President Merkin Muffley: Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room. 


One fresh mushroom comin up !

   NPT Nuclear Weapon States (China, France, Russia, UK, US)

   Non-NPT Nuclear Weapon States (India, North Korea, Pakistan)

   Undeclared Nuclear Weapon States (Israel)

   States suspected of having nuclear weapon programs (Iran, Syria)

   NATO weapons sharing weapons recipients

   States formerly possessing nuclear weapons

Oppenheimer would never have coloured the world map this way. He in fact said "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one." and "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."


Its like looking at our own body and finding bruises and infections. There's a blister called Little Boy. Ouch I am not feeling well due to 1054 reactions in the area called US. Generally when stuff like this happen to us we go to the doc and get it cured. You'll never keep on living with germs causing problems for your body, you'll get rid of them. You'll apply latest antiseptics like the Tsunami lotion, 'it really works and hits the antibodies hard'. Makes them think about the future at least for a while.


The sad predicament for me is that majority of us would never want to colour code earth like this but still its done. The good within man lacked the power of establishing itself when it mattered. It kept on fighting and still continues but these events are instances of when Mankind United conceded the penalty kick for a foul which never was...