Nocturnal Programmer

We are all diverged today, like scintillating sunbeams in multifarious directions, still the rising smoke somewhere binds us together.

- Dhiraj Kumar (from SIT Sutta Gang)

Suruma and her ET friend Mili :)

Looks like some kids having onam vacation had similar water plans like us.

This is a boat bridge in Kollam, one of the 14 districts of Kerala. The river is Astamudi. Kerala has 44 rivers, 41 west flowing and 3 east flowing. Its a crazy massive supply of fresh water. Most of these rivers are perennial, fed by the rains. An ideal house boat ride would be to take a trip from kollam to allapuzha which would take around six hours.

Alright, here goes another…

Onam is a state festival of Kerala. Onam is supposed to be the time when king Mahabali comes back to Kerala to visit his people. He was kicked out of Kerala once by the fourth avatar of Vishnu (god of instantiation like wabbit would say)  for being nice.  Its the first instance of suppression by a nazi god against the south indians, the second being rama kicking ravan.

However I hold a point of view that some stories are misinterpreted by people despite the writer making obvious clues for better judgment on the readers part. At any point of time, the story teller has good faith. Its the people who are dumb.

These so called stories are told to explain ancient indian wisdom called the Vedanta in contemporary scenes. The actual prose in esoteric Sanskrit goes like

“Yada yada hi dharmasya glanir bhavati Bharata; Abhyutthanam adharmasya tadatmanam srijamyaham. Paritranaya sadhunam vinasaya cha dushkritam; Dharma-samthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge.”

which literally translates to,

“Whenever the balance of the universe is disturbed by external interference from any of its parts, then I reveal Myself as the Power of eternal balancing. For the protection of those who are in harmony, and the rectification of everything disharmonious, I incarnate Myself at every juncture of time.”

But I like Swami Chinmayananda’s explanation,

“From time to time an ancient philosophy needs an intelligent reinterpretation in the context of the new times; men of wisdom, prophets and seers must guide the common man to effectively apply the ancient laws to his present pattern of life. Whenever such a great Master arrives to re-establish the old truths and teach his generation to efficiently face the present with the values of the old ideals, that great person will be considered by his generation as a God-Man or an Avatar.”

However the Irony is most of the time, every “intelligent interpretation” is miscommunicated by second level teachers for political and religious benefit; a popular one being attributing Vedanta to extremist Hinduism, which in fact is just general wisdom of people of India. I feel that this is exactly what the philosophy means; every misinterpretation is ought to be corrected every time. Someday, we’ll have a super distilled model where theres no loophole like those refined law statements. :P

So in essence, I feel its the story teller or interpreter who is the avatar than the protagonist of the story he writes. I think Wachowski Brothers in that respect is the latest avatar, because they were trying to interpret this very same Vedanta too. But then again, most who’ve seen the movie just think the Matrix is cool, and forget the point. Guess we still need better interpreters :P

Fuck this world anyways, Happy Onam :)

Today is the birthday of this website, its 2 years old :) So I’ve updated its engine and gave it a new look.

This year I’m planning to fill this place up with photographs. I’ve just upgraded my camera to a Nikon D60 and I’m looking forward to specialize in Portrait Photography. However, ever since I got the camera, I havent managed to take a single good picture yet. Hope that gets better with time.

This is the picture of a non-fiction book called Travels. Its an accident; seems like most photographers chance a good picture out of a million taken. :P

There are reservations for people who had circumstantial accidents in their lives which would not have been afflicted from their own mistakes though they tried hard to bring things together. Reservations such as not to contaminate the beautiful life of someone, who never had an accident, by associating into their lives. They can never be understood and accepted by such naivetes whose world is too ideal. But accidents do happen, and people might be inescapably pushed to the realm of the handicaped. Hope is when two such people chance upon one day, and save eachother’s lives…

A photosynth of my landlady Preeti’s Garden. This is on the floor where I stay. I’d recently come across this amazing technology which is ironically from Microsoft. Maybe they just got some kids from Washington state univ a computer or something, but anyway, this is amazing. This synth is composed of 115 pictures, well, I could’ve done with less as karan would say, but I just mixed in all pics of my multiple efforts together and got this to complete a 360. Again, this is simply brilliant :)

2AM Sangumugam Beach, Trivandrum, India

He was too old to cry. Wisdom they say. An attribute of the old. His mind was rather as calm as the sea, yet not without the waves, a turbulence that is constant as long as the sea remain. They say, the sea has the power to wash away all worries of living, just being near it, watching it. Rhythm. Teaching the mind to resonate as you watch it rise and ebb away. Rhythm. Like learning music. Like being trained in the army to march. Like an athlete’s footwork. Done again.. and again… until you look like you were born that way. It is easy for the world to pass it of as a natural talent. Lazy world, what do they know about hard work. About life’s destiny. About dedication to commitment.

It has been 6 long hours since that destined hour since his love of life orbited past his skies again. An orbital path never expected to cross again in his lifetime. Across the same skies he’d look up to pray for peace every night. Damn. Pagan skies. He wondered if early christians were love lost.

She’d been there briefly. Scrolling around the beachside with her new family. A conversation of confessions. About how her girly confidence was long lost and she thrown into the world of womanly uncertainty. Ah.. the days of confidence. He was just one of the flowers the frolicking girl who ran around the fields plucked to beautify her hair. How innocent is growing up, one would write about. But the flower was young, not a drop of honey broken, not a full days sunlight relished.

Was it enough to let her find life her own way. Was it enough to save her when she got lost? He wondered if every person were to learn everything from scratch and repeat history in his own world, how can the world pass of anything as common. Earth turns. Sun rises. Everybody falls in love. Everybody dies. History by design is bound to repeat itself. He wondered if extraordinary was just happenstance or calculable only in fiction.

And then his phone started ringing. Jasmine.

“Hello Jasmine.. Have you landed?”

“Yes, just now. Damned fog, an eight hours delay. Were you sleeping in the car waiting?”

“No I’m at the beach side”

“What are you doing there? Getting drunk seeing crabs hanging out having late night parties in their underground joints?”

“Hmm I wish… I was rather just missing you”

“Yes. Me too. It is very hard to be married and be away like this Vijay. I only wish I could get this course over with fast, so that I can be with you all the time”

“Alright, I’ll come around to pick you while you check out”

“Ok… See you soon David”

“Who is David?”

“Oh sorry Vijay, its this friend of mine whom I met briefly while at the airport waiting. I just accidentally spilled out his name for you.”

“Ha.. Alright. I thought you met him briefly”

“No actually… he came to drop me too to Chennai airport. You know he sort of works with me in the labs sometimes, so we are just friends”

“Yeah ok. Come fast Keerthi, I’m waiting for so long”

“Who is Keerthi?”

“Hah hah.. I was just kidding”

“Bad boy!!! Fine, I’m walking over Kerala now. Come over fast”

“Ok. See you soon…” Click

He was bored. Looked at his watch. 5AM. Day Break. His wondered if loyalty was just a perception. He couldn’t care less. He walked back to his car singing- “Sunrise… sunset… sunrise… sunset… simply flow the days…”