Cursed By Beauty

This is a still from the movie 300.

It is one of the best movies I have ever seen. Bit straightforward action, yet full of mystery. This is a picture of the 'Oracle'. The title of the song that plays in the background during this scene is 'Cursed By Beauty'.

It is an amazing song! The soundtrack on the whole is quite good. Listen to it if you get a chance.

The title of the song 'Cursed By Beauty' comes from the fact that the 'Oracles' were always chosen from the most beautiful girls born to the Spartans. Thus they were cursed by beauty to become Oracles and spend their entire life with the hellish Ephors.

Can beauty be a curse? In India definitely.

Subzero00

I was talking to someone a few days ago about chatting on the net. They happened to mention Internet Relay Chat (IRC). IRC is the grand-daddy of modern-day internet chat systems.

It was the only service accessible from the 'VSNL Non-graphical Student internet account'. Services like Yahoo Messenger and ICQ were only accessible from the 'VSNL Graphical internet accounts' which were quite expensive in those days.

I still remember my first IRC chat. That was my first on-line chat. First time I chatted for about 4-5 hours. It got me hooked! I met many good people there. Out of that long list of people there is only one person that I am still in touch with.

But what I remember most clearly is my first on-line nickname: Subzero00
The double zeros at the end because the nick Subzero was already taken.

I got the nick from the video game: Mortal Kombat (TM) which has a character named Subzero. The speciality of the character was a 'freeze' attack. My friend, who was a Mortal Kombat (TM) fan, was able to complete the game with this character only. Obviously used to be my character of choice when playing the game.

Those IRC days were fun.

There is just one thing I miss from those days. Melissa Smalley living in the state of Georgia, USA. I never actually met her but we did exchange a whole lot of emails and a few letters. She was a very special friend. Hope where-ever she is now, she is happy and content with life.

Chatting / Chat rooms are the way-stations (i.e. - a stopping place on a journey) of the present.
We go and share our thoughts with other people. Make them friends for some time. Then we loose touch. All this happening in the slip-stream of life.

It is most interesting to see where these threads meet and where the separate and where they meet again!

:)

The Newsreader and The Student

There was once a student. Not of a particular subject but let us say of life in general. This being a short story, age and location of characters is of no consequence.

The student liked listening to a newsreader on the radio. Everyday the voice of the newsreader would strike out across time and space and reach the student through the radio. The student in turn would, like one of the 'faithful' always take out time to listen. To make out the subtle nuances in the newsreaders voice. Trying to pick-out signs of emotion, stress, happiness and anger in the carefully controlled tones of the newsreader. The voice streaming through the speaker was all that the student had to discover the person behind it.

They couldn't meet. They wouldn't meet. Or would they? The student did not care. As long as the voice came through every night the student would know that the newsreader was alive and doing well. The student cared for nothing except the well being and the happiness of the person behind the voice. The one voice which called out across the night. Never failing. Always faithful.

One day the student came to know that the radio station the newsreader worked in was closing down due to financial problems. It would cease broadcasting from midnight of the 19th of February said the news.
The voice of the newsreader, pronouncing its own fate, did not betray the slightest hint of emotion to the untrained ear. But the student knew better. The student could feel the pain and the sense of loss right through the words. The tone of fear is quite clear and distinct to the trained ear.

It was a time of mourning for the student. All was lost. Hope was not easy to come by. The future looked bleak and black. Then one day the student realised that the newsreader would definitely get a job in some other radio station. The newsreader would be back! Maybe this time not reading out the news but giving the weather or the round-up of the newspaper headlines or the sports update! Anxiously the student scanned radio channels for few weeks. Often listening to two or three stations at once. Listening for that familiar voice.

But the newsreader's voice did not appear on any of the local radio stations. This broke the student. The student went into a fit of anger. Cursing everything around. Cursing the newsreader for creating the dependency and then taking away the support. Blind rage coloured with frustration surged through the student. It burned through the body and the brain like a fire through dry wood. The student couldn't eat or sleep. Sometimes the student couldn't even breath.

Weeks turned into months and the student regained some sort of peace. The fire of anger had eaten all there was to eat and then died down. Then one day as the student was walking down the street there came a familiar voice. The voice was bit different but the student knew it was the newsreader! It had to be. Wild desperation seized both the mind and the soul of the student as the search for the source of the voice began. The newsreader had to be found!

The student looked around trying to locate the source and realised that the voice was coming from one of the houses along the street. Once that was known the house itself was easy to locate.
The student stood at the door of the house. Now confused what to do! You can't just knock on the door of a strange house and ask who the voice belongs to. Before the student could decide how to proceed the voice stopped. Steps were heard approaching the door and the door flew open in the face of the student surprising both the person opening the door and the person standing outside it.

As the student tried to piece together an explanation for standing outside the door like this, the person who had opened the door, recovered and asked in an even voice: 'Can I help you?'. Everything froze around the student as the newsreader spoke again, this time asking with a faint note of annoyance: 'Can I help you? Are you lost?'

The student could just reply 'You are the newsreader!'. The face of the newsreader clouded over with suspicion and the door started closing. The student cried 'Wait! 8th of July!'. The suspicion on the newsreaders faced changed into confusion and then curiosity. The door stopped closing but did not start opening again.

The student knew, the next words had to be the RIGHT WORDS at the RIGHT TIME. Nothing less would do. 'What happened on the 8th of July last year?'. Now the newsreader's face registered shock. The door started closing again. 'Wait!' cried the student as the door slammed shut. Minutes passed as the shock of the meeting passed through the body of the student. Then the door opened again. This time the newsreader looked a lot more relaxed. The voice spoke once again to the student. It asked: 'Where did you get that date from?'. The student replied with the truth: 'Your voice had a raw edge to it, the only time it had such a painful note in it, in the two years I have been listening to your broadcast'.

'You got that from my voice?' asked the newsreader now intrigued.
'I feel the connection between us, sometimes words are just what we have, one has to make do with them' replied the student, now both calm and excited, the heart hammering away.

'That was the day....' the newsreader began and then stopped. Surprised with the response. Then began again: 'Why am I telling you this!'.

'I prayed to God for your happiness every time I heard the sadness in your voice' said the student in reply. Suddenly the student felt drained. The strain of past few months and of the sudden meeting came crashing down. Facing the newsreader felt like facing the Sun in a desert. Darkness settled around.

As the student's heart froze in its cage, words came out of the half closed mouth: 'Why do you cry?'

The newsreader replied 'Why do you study my pain?'

The student answered 'I never got used to the bland taste of happiness, pain has so many different flavours'

Between the Green and the Grey, Lies a world!

Bristol, July 2007

Am I a Cow?

A few days ago, a friend said to me:

"u have had a very colourful life as far as girls are concerned and u continue to have one"

It got me thinking about the various girls that have come into my life.
The above statement is not quite true. That is what I realised immediately. There have been many girls in my life, that bit is true. But I have enjoyed a close friendship with only a very few of those girls.

I have met all kinds of girls. But every-time I used to get attracted to the 'non-mainstream' kind of girls. The girls who have that 'something special' spark about them. They are the hardest to have a relation with. They are also the ones I get attracted to the quickest.

Then there is this strange thing I have for Libran girls. I get attracted to them but nothing happens (to my utter frustration!). Met a few non-mainstream Libran girls. One kicked my ass, the other plain ignored me, the third remains a big big '?' and the fourth asked my sun-sign and when I told her, she replied 'oh you can't be a piscean, pisceans are like cows'.

Now I am thinking: Am I a cow?

I guess I cannot comment, only the girls who know me can do full justice to that question!

So LADIES... am I a cow? :D

A Question of Fa(i)t(h)e

A Question of FA(i)T(h)E

This post talks about astrology and other methods of predicting the future. These things fascinate me a lot. There is a definite logic behind these methods. The exact science behind them was lost a long time ago. Now there are just books.

The field is divided between those who know and those who pretend. Those who see the future and those who lie. The main problem is not the lack of knowledge. You will find many good books on the technique of your choice (be it astrology, palmistry or any other technique). The problem is what you use it for.

Blind faith in anything can be dangerous. We all know that. Yet we somehow end up trusting these techniques blindly. The simple impossibility of the act (predicting the future!) makes us trust and apply these techniques in a narrow minded way. Then when the predictions fail we feel cheated and betrayed.

The point that we miss so often, stressed just as often by people who really have the skill to peer into the future, is that these techniques are to be used as tools and not crutches. Master them but don't let them master you.

Predictive VS Descriptive

All such techniques have dual applications. They can be used for predictive purposes (my future!) or for descriptive purposes (me, my past and how they connect!).

By descriptive applications I mean using these techniques to understand yourself better. Relate your past experiences with what you are today and how you think. You will find that these techniques do give you new insight into your past and present. Plus the worse thing that can happen is that you will not understand yourself any better. Atleast you won't feel cheated.

The predictive power is much harder to tap accurately, especially when you don't have much free time. If you are really interested in your future, you may want to seek professional advice or take it up as a career!

Whatever happens just remember one thing, always, during your explorations of the Old Arts:

The future is in your hands.

It is crafted by your actions.

Whatever the situation you find yourself in.

Your happiness is in your hands.