how long can you remain idle?

flashback or as the mallu movie goes.. rewind.. drastic rewind..

Three weeks ago we were working on something without a body, without a mind, trying to make the future. Our minds and body were bent on making it work. The robots were made. The battle half won. Who cares about the rest half. Anyway that is past and back to future. I keep haing an obsession of jumping from past to future when the thing that matters most is the present. But present is just a moment while the past and future are immeasurable.

So back to past or the recent past to be exact. What's keeping me busy these days? Nothing. So what's the problem? nothing. No i din't mean there's no problem. Nothing is the problem. You laugh at it, you sleep over it, you wake up and look around at and still don't see. You realize that the nothingness or the lack of anything is nothing if you consider the something days in the past when you had everthing and wanted to have nothing. Those something days.. when you always had something or someone in mind, when pen was mightier than 12 hours of sleep, 8 hours of looking blankly at the computer screen and 4 hours of trying to count the hours in a day.

Since when have you been a workaholic? You'd pride yourself in being the lazy kid. But even while being lazy you'd always tried to keep the brain moving. If it doesn't move, you feel congested, feels like..dead. So wake up buddy. Wake up and see the world.

Who am I talking to?
ah.. Hi John, what's been keeping you busy these days?

Confession 2 (Page 1)

Disclaimer: The following is a work of fiction and any resemblance to characters and incidents in real life are purely coincidental.

When was the last time I saw her? Time flies by in life. But there are moments in life you never forget. They are so clear in your mind..as fresh a memory as it happened just moments ago. It was the batch farewell party and I couldn't take my eyes off her, I never could. It had been like that for 4 years.. the best of my life.

When was the first time I saw her?
"Hey you! come here" I turned my head around, being careful to keep looking down and not look in the eyes of my caller.
I slowly walked up to him.
"What's your name?", he asked.
"John"
"Don't you have a father?" he inquired with a mocking laugh
"John F Xavier" I replied.
"Describe her"
I turned to look at the person standing next to me. She was about my shoulder high. I started to open my mouth when she lifted up her face to look at me. The only thing I saw was the untold helplessness in her deep blue eyes. They were beautiful.

I walked to my class wishing her to be in it. She wasn't there. Destiny's playing dice with me as usual. I exhausted all the contacts I could gather in the college. By the end of first day, I found out which branch she was in and more importantly, her name. That evening, I went to the canteen with my friends. After the snack, we waited for our transportation in the bus bay. Then I saw her again. She was more beautiful than in the morning. I became a regular in the bus bay from then on.

It was just the beginning. I watched her for four years. Every time she walked through the corridor. The times when she laughed aloud or cried silently. Her first love - the hot senior. Their break-up. The guy who consoled her and became her second boyfriend. Her love for chocolates and ice-cream. The tragic death of her father. I knew everything about her but didn't know her. She never talked to me, ever.

Thinking back, she was pretty close to her boyfriend by the time we passed out of college. They must've got married. I never inquired about her to anyone afterwards. It was time to move on.

I've been on the same job for the past 10 years. Boring is the least you can say about it. It goes on and on until yesterday I got a postcard. "Meet me at 10, Desert Mist" Even after 10 years, I could instantly recognise the handwriting. I couldn't sleep the night and after 24 long hours now I am waiting for her. I'd always waited for her..

Here she comes. I can recognise her gait from a distance. She walks into the ice-cream parlour and finds me sitting beside the corner table. I can't take my eyes of her. The feeling's same as the first time I saw her. My heart warms as her beautiful lips part to utter the words-"Stop blogging, I've lots to talk."

Quik-e-bot

nobody actually wrote about our rendezvous with the robotic world.
here's something i quickly wrote (as a reply to query in loyola grp) hoping someone else would do a complete writeup..:

well our team comprised of 6 boys in my class..
we'd to make a manually controlled robot that could travel on rails, 25 cm apart, 75 cm high above ground and 2m long..
It had to pick up blocks (12cmx10cmx8cm) kept piled on ground and drop at another place..
seemed simple at first sight (was one reason to take up that problem)
but along the way we found out the scale on which we had to work was much larger than expected
the robot had a restriction that it's maximum size should be 35x35x35..
that mean it had to have something like retractable arm
the clamping mechanism also had to be stable enough to pick up 300gm (wt of each block)
so we went about solving the problems working through the nights those days (studying for exams seemed much easier).
My main job was preparing the required circuitry, the joystick etc.
the guys doing the physical work had a really hard time with hand drill (electric drill shut down on 2nd day).
the basic material we used was aluminium which was joined using screws..

after finishing 80 % of the work, we set off to iitm..
the competition took place the day next to the one we arrived on..
i was the one who controlled the bot..
it successfully picked up the block and placed it on the place where it was supposed to keep..
but then two things happened..
our clamp didn't unclamp properly and the foam tape we used on the clamping surface got stuck on to the block.
sadly the judges didn't award us a successful stack..so we'd to return back empty-handed..
we had a great time in iit campus and around chennai the next few days..
tht's all..

@half senses

Insomnia is a damned thing... you cant have enough sleep to keep your senses awake. Slowly your senses dull to the extent that you can’t even tell whether you are awake or in a dream. Hallucinations become a part of daily life. You live a sort of half life. Never fully asleep, never fully awake. It has been stated scientifically that a human mind requires a bare minimum amount of sleep to keep it sane… yet so many people including big stars in the film industry suffer from insomnia and yet lead a satisfactorily normal life. So does it indicate that for different people the bare minimum sleep required is different? Then let us consider the possibility of a person suffering from the reverse of insomnia… he sleeps say 6 to 7 hours everyday and yet that is below his required minimum amount of sleep. Continuing along the same line of thought, he will also suffer from the same effects as an insomniac but in my opinion his condition is actually even worse because he gets even lesser “awake time” than the insomniac and yet suffers as he does.

The reason why I have gone into this topic is because I feel as if I am suffering from such a condition. Yes I do get at least 6 hours of sleep everyday yet never feel fully awake. The alarm goes off at 7 in the morning… brushing, ironing and bathing are done as smoothly and mechanically as a well oiled machine would have done it. Right after the bath there is a bit of uptime but on the walk to the bus stop mind slips back into the dull mode. In the bus as a preparation for the dreadful hours in class mind becomes duller still. In class it is comfortably in sleep mode. Not a word is heard , even when something is heard it makes no sense…

On return to home it is straight to the computer to switch it on and let utorrent resume its downloading. Then a bit of browsing mainly revolving around movies and of late around books as well. Read a book, watch a movie or fool around to waste time till bedtime. Then realizes rough record needs writing and goes round to get it done. Finally off to sleep… (with the Sony walkman humming me some favorite song as lullaby until I am at the doorstep of sweet slumber wherein I relieve the walkman of its duty and drift away into that magical world where sweet dreams are abound. Some of them so well scripted and so good I have been accused of staging my dreams… some of them so frightening you sleep fitfully.

Finally I would like to note down the few occasions when I feel truly awake… First and foremost when I am in the company of friends and having a blast of a time, irrespective of the place and situation. May it be in panchaarakkaadu, or in the backbenches of the class, or in the canteen or restaurant, or in a hotel room lying awake in the middle of the night exchanging our views on the most trivial and sometimes the most important things, never giving a care for anything in the world… all these scenarios always include a dash of spiciness to it which adds to the flavor. Second: when I am watching a good movie which has managed to capture my imagination and attention and when I am on the search for good movies. Third: listening to good songs which appeal to me at that particular moment. Four: reading fascinating books. Five: when trying to work out some puzzle which has a teasing nature to it ie seems rather simple but the solution is always just beyond your grasp unless you really put some effort into it. Six: appreciation of beauty. All things of beauty demand our attention. Usually only half awake on these occasions unless of course a true work of art is spotted. These few moments at full senses are the only time I feel the true throb of life in me.That about sums it up… This has managed to keep me awake for around half an hour but now that the initial exhilaration has completely worn off I am feeling sleepy again. Time to resort to the frantic pace of a do or die Twenty20 to keep myself awake. Adios amigos… Have a good night’s sleep…