Crawling in the dark

While I can run, I'll run
While I can walk, I'll walk
When I can only crawl, I'll crawl
But by the grace of God I'll always be moving forward

says a computer printout that mysteriously appeared in my room yesterday. People I think are trying to tell me something. Life does seem to have stagnated in most areas. If you look closely, you might even get to see the faint green moss that has grown over it. The only crawling i do, i do when i write.

But today, even that didn't seem enough. Today, I hit rock bottom. Today, I picked up Corman. Getting rid of my ignorance/dislike/fear of Data Structures has been on my "things i must do before i am 20" and "things i must do before i am 30" list and is currently in the lead for the "things i must do before i am 40" list. And ordinarily, this doesn't trouble me. I've accepted it as one of the minor irritants of life that one must learn to live with, much like raincoats. But on days like today, when i feel like a big gesture, I pick up Corman. Someday I hope to get what he and his friends want to say. I'm sure it is something beautiful. I can see it sometimes, when someone gives me a problem to solve. And the solution. Or when i get to see the difference between n and n^2 in real life. But mostly, it all appears as just a lot of maths, getting rid of a fear of which is also list material.

So I read Corman. Because 2 pages of that means I'm no longer crawling. And because someday I have to stop being such a kid and start taking interviews. Whichever way i look at it, growing up is not fun.

TV through the ages

From the days when we ran over to the neighbours to watch news coverage on Indira Gandhi's assassination

To the days when we drove over to ex-tenants to watch Ramayana because the light had literally gone out of our lives

To the lusting over the weekend movie shown on DD but being kicked out to play

To the days when we picked up a whole language just by watching serials made in it

To the invasion of cable TV and English movies and sitcoms

To the days when aimless channel surfing became an acknowledged hobby

To the days when life became too full of cares to stand and stare

To the days when the TV was in a room far far away and the competitors for the remote were no longer family

To the enlightenment that the PC was as good if not better

To now, when TV has been reduced to the thing I proudly say I haven't touched in 4 years

While I sometimes realize with a guilt that is more wished for than real, how hopelessly outdated that makes me on current affairs, the only thing I really miss are the ads. I hear they make them good there days.

FAQ

Fact
Did you know (why do all facts begin this way? No that was not what the did you know was for) that convenience was actually a philosophy of life? To put it more formally,

Thou shalt follow the path of maximum convenience.
(go to great lengths to do so, if needed)

No right and wrong, no opinion, no judgment, no ego. Just convenience. It is an art, seen to be believed.


Advice
Use with caution the power to tell people what they want to hear. You just might be setting free someone who by all accounts should be rotting in jail for the rest of her life.


Question
Can a chick ever get back into the egg? Having broken out of its safety, having experienced the joys of running barefoot in the grass, having discovered wings and flight, having found chick-buddies to share the world with, having learnt to hold its own against them, can a chick ever get back into the egg?

It aint over until its over

If you ask a man who is

- about to be hanged
- has the noose around his neck
- has the black cloth over his face

whether he would want to watch a movie by making two holes in his back cloth before the trapdoor is opened, recent experience shows that he will say yes.

Applies to women too.

Happy Convorsary!

The past. Sometimes you life now is so different from your life then that it all seems to have happened to someone else. As the memories flash by, you can look upon them as dispassionately as if you were watching a movie. Been watching one such movie all day today.

It a big day in the heroine's life. No, more like a ceremonious day. The day the last two years of her life become official. More than anything, she is excited by the black gown and the hat. A lot of formality and a lot of silence later, she has her degree in hand! Like in the movies, she throws her degree up when its all over, only to get her first and only dressing down by a professor for disrespectful behaviour! Smiles, photographs, late lunch at a dosa place called for some mysterious reason Ambi Baba (another first and only). Aimless roaming. Bullying. More roaming.

Seems like one of those art movies, doesn't it, where they show a fly doing pretty much nothing for a really long time? (No, i don't claim to be writing an art movie script, if they have such a thing.) As bland and faraway as it all seems, there are some moments in there that can never be contained in my past.

Added: Professor for disrespectful behaviour. Hehe!