Not Mylapore, please!!

Are you sweating profusely inspite of a cold wave? Is there a traffic jam on the footpath? Does the smell around you make you badly want to bury your face in a railway toilet? Welcome to T.Nagar - the busiest shopping area in our galaxy.

Shopping in T.Nagar is not an easy task. It requires a lot of patience and a great amount of stupidity to choose it as the venue. If you were to visit all the shops in the area, you'll actually not come out before 2020 A.D. So, here's a little FAQ that would help you guys to go around the place and be prepared for the worst.

Where is this T.Nagar?
Nobody knows accurately. It is just this lovely place in Chennai, which if you decide to visit for the second time, you get a free seasonal pass for a window-side bed in Kilpauk hospital.

Sounds like a holiday package..what if I manage a third visit?
You get one year free admission at Yervadi, next to Sethu Vikram. Cost of chain included in the package.

Oh! You said it's a lovely place. Do people go there for sight-seeing?
Kinda yeah, it is Chennai's own version of "Suicide Point"

Can we shop there?
There are just two things you can do at T.Nagar. One,shop and two,die. The former is optional though.

My wife wants some good silk sarees. Where do I take her?
Push her into Pothys and run. This is your best chance to live with some self respect in future.

What if I stay?
You automatically qualify for Bihar elections.

What if I go in too?
If you are Gopi, you'll come out as Gopi 65.

I heard gold is pretty cheap at some place there?
Very cheap yeah, not just the rate. I guess you are talking about Ranganathan Street, Annachi shop.

Ya ya. How do I go there?
You just need to stand at the start of that street. Close your eyes. Open your eyes. You are inside Annachi shop, courtesy : fellow shoppers.

Can I take my vehicle?
Shut up! Even Laloo wouldn't do that!

Oh is it very crowded?
Yeah, by the time you count the number of people around you, they can telecast Junoon twice.

Junoon?? What's that?
Kadavule! Paathathu illiya Junoon neenga? Periya athu megaserial. Pesuvaanga maathi maathi thamizh athula.

Oh! By the way, do men shop in T.Nagar?
Wise men stay away. Married men do shop.

I heard there are lots of platform shops?
There is no platform. Only shops.

Whatever, how good are they?
Very good infact. You get all sortsa brands including Nykee, Ribok and Adeedas. At cheap rates that too!

Hey isn't that phony? The spellings are all messed up!!
Naah. They have been changed according to numerology, that's all.

Fine. Is there any good restaurant there?
Ya, Saravana Bhavan.

Wow! What would I get there for, say 50 rupees?
Quite a lot. Half a dosa, 5 ml Sambhar and some pebbles.

Pebbles? Why??
Huh, you are dumber than a crow! To raise the level of sambhar ofcourse.

No chutney is it?
They have it in a big vessel near the entrance. You are allowed to take a peek.

That's bad. But I heard there's a hot chips too?
You'll be a hot chip yourself once you step into Ranganathan Street.

How is the air pollution level in T.Nagar?
One deep breath and you'll die on the spot, money back guarantee.

So many issues, eh? Finally, what's the best thing about T.Nagar?
Variety. So many shops, so many dresses and so many accessories. Even if you escape death by other means, you'll be confused to death!
***
I sincerely hope this FAQ doesn't become applicable to Mylapore in the near future. I've been here for more than twenty years and can't bear to see Mylapore become as chaotic as T.Nagar! I have no clue why the Govt. gives permission to build multi-storeyed buildings in the crowded Mada streets - Saravana Bhavan, Kumaran Silks, SM Silks and Sukra Jewellers all have shops in the area now. Pothys and Nathella are planning to open big showrooms too, I heard. Boo hoo! Get away, we don't need you!! :-(

That penalty sucks

Francesco Totti sucks his thumb after the controversial penalty that sunk the Socceroos. It's over. Australia bowed out of the World Cup on Monday after an injury-time penalty by Francesco Totti left the Socceroos beaten by the weight of history as much as anything else. Italy, who have won the World Cup three times, have marched into the last eight at the Socceroos' expense.

At the Fritz-Walter Stadion in Kaiserslautern - scene of the epic win over Japan - Australia couldn't quite re-invent history, again. The mood was there, inside the stadium, and outside, where the streets and squares thronged with green-and-gold anticipation. But the moment wasn't. Not quite.

But Australia were far from disgraced. The Socceroos leave the world stage having won an army of new admirers and with their reputations enhanced.

The Socceroos are out because of a woeful refereeing decision, but they are not the only team to claim that. Spanish official Victor Carrasco, the same man who adjudicated the play-off against Uruguay in Sydney, was sucked in by a piece of amateur theatrics from Italian fullback Fabio Grosso in the 93rd minute.

Lucas Neill, again one of Australia's best, got in a tangle at the byline, but there was only minimal contact. Carrasco saw what no one else did, and pointed to the spot. Substitute Totti took the burden, and delivered the penalty to decide the match. There wasn't even time for a kick-off.

Cruel, tough, unjust. Maybe.

Blogs killed the personal website concept!

I don't know if I should say the concept of the personal website died, or simply fell into a perverse form of self-loathing and mutilation, but whatever the cause, the weblog is the result. Do you remember what a personal website used to be? Well before Blogger, MT, WordPress, bBlog, and other personal CMS programs shoved the journal format down your throat? Generally, it was an index page listing what you wanted to share and then various other real, honest-to-goodness hand-crafted pages below that about various topics. Some were essays, some were links to pictures or pages of pictures, sometimes something like a weblog but markedly different ("Updated on Wed: Yes, we can do this now!" then later "Updated on Fri: Oh, well, except for ___"). It was a site and it had pages and those pages were distinct, separate, and unchanging. Some had a webpage while others had a whole website (back when the difference was that a site was more than one page, not a domain name versus your ISP's /~name/ hosting plan).

Now we have websites, via the old definition, that are nothing more than a large array of pages of rants and raves and quizzes and "OMG! U R KIdding!!!!!!" and polls and ... and ... crap and it's covered all over in Amazon links in the hope of some random reader buying something, completely ignoring that that person got there via a Google query consisting of some band's name and one of nude, naked, or erotic. The average weblog is a disaster of bad English, bad design, bad taste, and bad software.

In other words, a weblog is the answer to a question no one asked.h2. What Was the Question, Again?

The question in question is that of: how can I make this easier to create and update? The answer that came down was to use a CMS. This is generally a great idea, but the first CMS for the personal website was for a journal-format site. Now, journal-format sites are great for real journals or news or community sites like Slashdot, Kuro5hin, or even larger sites like CNN or Yahoo! News, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with them. The problem in this case is that journal-format sites are designed to hold a very large amount of information; there's a main page with recent entries and then some form of interface to huge archives behind that. For sites with large amounts of content, that's a great solution. The problem is that individuals do not normally have large amounts of content. Sure, some have journals with a hundred or even a thousand entries per year, but very few people actually approach those sizes, much less the size needed to obscure that data in the fashion that news reports are. Entries on weblogs are hidden behind date archives, category archives, archives of popular entries, etc. and the reason for that is sad: the most popular methods of creating a personal site are centered around a journal format and not a website format. They're designed around entries and not pages. You wrote something called title on the date and said it's of the type category and then the software files it away and wraps up. You're done. Intuitive? Absolutely. Well-designed and organized page? Absolutely not.

The journal format solved the problem of updates being little bold tags at the bottom of a page, but at the expense of it feeling like a "real" personal website. Now, it's not like it killed it directly; there's nothing about Blogger that said "this is your only site!" and prevented it from being used as a journal section of a standard site. Even today, with that tool and others, this is possible and some people have done it and made "old fashioned" websites with weblog-centric CMS packages. The problem lies in that if one has a tool for a task, one will prefer the tool to anything that requires manual labor. Now that someone can update a site with a web script, why make other pages manually? "Just put them in an entry and link to it. It's just easier that way," becomes the prevailing attitude. Since the software that can do this requires you to actually read the manual to know how to make it "fake" a website, very few people do it.

It was understandable, of course, but now we have the crux of the problem: where was the GUI for the rest of the website? On the desktop machine, of course. Microsoft FrontPage, Claris HomePage, GoLive CyberStudio (before Adobe) and others allowed people various ways of generating site content on their computer and pushing it out. None had journal modes, so when the journal format came on people used something like Blogger to update the journal and the home software for the other pages. That worked fine when you were at home, but what about when you were at a friend's house, or at work? This was about 1998 and while there was no wireless access, people were starting to see connections at work and at others' homes and the lack of a web-based tool was limiting the format. Then the tools took over. Now that there was the flexibility of editing the journal content anywhere the static pages and such became less and less important. Now, they're the special case, if that.

Is that good or bad? If you want a journal, good. You have the tools to make it. If you want a personal CMS for a website, bad. Your solutions consist of altering a journal-based CMS to do what it was not exactly designed to do or writing them up manually. I, personally, have tried both and hate them both. Now that I have tools, why edit files manually? Yet, if I use a tool for this purpose, I cannot determine a file structure beyond the extraordinarily simple. I can create a site with the format /category/title.html and have some control, but that's only one level. If I want it to go deeper I have to control that with another weblog and another hack.

THE STORY OF BRANDING

THESTORY OF BRANDING

Ihave three rocks at home. If you were to inspect them I'm sure, likeeveryone else, you'd conclude they're almost identical; same size,weight and color, and therefore worth much the same as each other.But that conclusion would be drawn before I'd told you their stories.

At10:30 p.m. on November 9, 1989, following lifting travel restrictionsfor East Germans, the Berlin Wall, which had divided East and WestBerlin since 1961, was opened at the Bornholmer Strasse bordercrossing. In the ensuing hours and days, other border crossing pointswere opened and the Berlin Wall was dismantled peacefully over theweekend of the 11th and 12th of November. At that historic juncture,one of my friends who was on the spot amongst the internationalcrowd, managed to get hold of a piece of the wall, one of the veryfirst pieces to be dislodged from the structure. So what do you thinkof that piece of rock's value now? Would you pay a bit more for itthan you might have thought at first glance?

ButI told you there are three rocks, so the story doesn't stop here. Thesecond was supposedly discovered in July 1969, by a man named Neil.Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon. He was in aunique position to gather a couple of rocks as a neat souvenir formankind. Apparently, one of my three rocks is one of those collectedby Commander Armstrong. What would you be prepared to pay for this,were it for sale?

Thethird rock is from my backyard (a lovely backyard by the way). But nomatter how good a salesman I amy be, I'm sure I couldn't persuade youto purchase this specimen. It's simply too ordinary. Yet it looksalmost identical to the two other stones which have such colorfulprovenances.

Whichof my three rocks would you choose if you could? I'd be willing tobet the lunar stone would be your first choice, not because it's morebeautiful (it's not), or because of any precious minerals it contains(it doesn't), but simply because of its history. The story investssignificance in the rock that might persuade you to part with severalthousand dollars for it.

Andthere you have the secret of branding. The rocks' stories made adifference to your perception of these otherwise parochial objects.Their histories create an emotional bond between you and the product.No fancy logo needed, no top-dollar graphics. A simple story is allit takes to inflate the value desirability of the objects.

That'sexactly what you should have in mind when you build brands. Yes, thegraphics are important. So are other factors such as distribution,product design and, of course, quality of the product. But don'tforget the little story that can infuse your product with charismaand bond customers with the product emotionally and intellectually.

Openyour mind to your brand's stories, don't discard them. Reveal them,strengthen them, and allow them to define your brand's identity.Share the stories on your Web site and encourage your customers toshare their stories about your product. Dig deeper, do some research,and uncover the special heritage of your brand or your category ofbusiness.

Brandingis all about creating an emotional grid around the product. The moresophisticated the grid of values, the more compatibly they match thecore values of your brand, the better your brand is armed againstcompetitors.

Justthink about those rocks. Reveal your brand's stories and see if theyrepresent the hidden point of difference for your brand.

The google triumph

Like they say,I guess somethings just happen, sometimes the harder we try to make things happen it just doesnt. Out of sheer boredom this morning,i googled my name and Lo Behold! my blog was up there listed first. I am also listed for a few other keywords.A good start to the morning you would think,but NAH todays been as shitty as the last 2 weeks. I did submit my blog to google when it first went up , but havent made any concisous effort to SEO it. Content sure is king , like most other blogs mine does have a fair bit of content and is updated fairly regularly so i guess that explains my success. For all those interested my website will be up in a few days so watch out for that.

Boobs or Math

Sakunthala Devi was on Vijay TV's 'Kelvigal Aayiram' (Feb 22nd) on a clever PR effort, dressed like an Interview. In the discussion with Rohini she informed us of her humble beginnings and her passions in life. Starting with her life as a 3 year old genius born to parents performing with a travelling cirucs to her globe-trotting ways. While she wasn't selling her upcoming workshops in Madras, she threw a few interesting facts about her life.

First, I was totally surprised that she could speak proper Tamil; then watching her amazing skill at calculating horrendously complex Mathematical questions, I understood why she's being hailed as the Human computer. Then she dropped a stunner. A study on her by a Berkeley professor is supposed to have contributed in part to the characterization of the Dustin Hoffman character in 'Rainman'. She did clarify that unlike the character, she wasn't autistic. The actual anecdote that she used was pretty amusing. She being a fan of Dosai, like most Indians, had to rely on Pancakes (and maple Syrup), while she was in the US and that formed the basis of Hoffman downing too many Pancakes. Other inspirations included her addiction to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

On to the title of the post itself; In the middle of a compliment for Rohini about her being a Genius, she proclaimed that she knew a Genius herself and it was Kamal Haasan (for his acting skills, off course). Towards the end of the Interview she explained that she had written a Movie script (Neha) and was on a mission to sell her story in Madras. Kodambakkam being the kind of market it is, had supposedly demanded that she double the age of her 9 year old Heroine. She wouldn't divulge the name of the producer who proposed the idea, but revealed that she asked him to "get lost". Apparently Kamal has promised to look into the script and Sakunthala Devi thinks her script finally has a chance. The smart producer knows that "Boobs sell and not Math" Guess that explains why we have the same trite shit movie scripts all the time

Have to know the story line? It's "about a young girl who is weak in maths finally discovering the magic of numbers". We await Mr Hassan's response.

Courtesy - teakada

Your next vacation

Have you ever wondered where you should go on your next vacation?

I was on the plane back from Singapore,and was thinking of a BBC documentary called "50 places you should visit before you die." The list was compiled, at least in part, by running a poll of BBC viewers, and the order of the places was determined by the audience.

As I watched the show, I wrote down all the places that were mentioned.One way to look at this list is, "your vacation plans for the next 50 years."

Here are all the places in reverse order -- the place ranked "best place in the world to visit" is at the bottom of the list:

* Bora Bora (South pacific)
* Bali (Indonesia) (The show mentioned recent terrorist attacks and warned that now might not be the best time to go)
* Abu Simbel (Egypt)
* Angel Falls (Venezuela)
* Matterhorn (Switzerland)
* Terracotta Army (Xian, China)
* Iceland
* Barbados
* Bangkok (Thailand)
* Sri Lanka
* La Digue (Sechelles Archipelago in the Indian Ocean)
* Singapore
* Dubai (Middle East)
* Barcelona (Spain)
* San Francisco
* Rome (Italy)
* Luxor (Egypt)
* Galapagos islands
* Masai Mara (Kenya)
* Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
* Mt. Everest (Nepal) (They advocated not climbing the peak, but hiking in far enough to see the mountain. They also mentioned that Nepal charges a $16,000 fee for the privilege)
* Angkor Watt
* Alaska
* Paris (esp. in the spring)
* Iguassu Falls (Argentina)
* North Island (New Zealand)
* Hawaii
* Yosemite
* Hong Kong
* Victoria Falls (Zambia)
* Great Wall of China
* Maldives (Indian ocean)
* Venice
* The Great Pyramid (Egypt)
* Petra
* Niagra Falls
* Manchu Picchu (Peru)
* Chichen Itza (Mexico)
* Uluru (Astralia)
* Lake Louise (Rocky Mountains)
* Taj Mahal
* New York City
* Sydney (Australia)
* Las Vegas
* Golden Temple (India)
* Table Mountain and Cape Town (South Africa)
* South Island (New Zealand)
* Disney World
* Great Barrier Reef (Australia)
* Grand Canyon

Some personal spots that were not on the list that I want to visit:

* The lava floes in Hawaii
* Pompeii
* The Yorkshire Dales (I'm a big fan of James Herriott)
* The big crater that you see in all the movies (Why? I have no idea)

Over the years I've been to a few of these places!!Have you been to any of these places on the list, or are there places not on the list that you think people should visit?

A tryst with sin

"For many are the pleasant forms which exist in numerous sins, and incontinencies, and disgraceful passions and fleeting pleasures, which we embrace until they become sober and go up to their resting place". - Anon

A letter from Mike and Chris

A copy of the letter Mike and Chris the editors of 2do wrote to me.

Hi Vikram,

Thanks so much for your email - it was a great note and a real pleasure to
receive. We appreciate you taking the time to write to us with your
reaction to the book, and are both excited that it has inspired you to
pursue your passion for cricket.

It's great to hear from a reader in India too. The country has a special
significance for me as I got engaged there 3 years ago -- in the back of a rickshaw speeding to our hotel in beautiful Mysore. We even bought the gemstone for the ring in Chennai on our way home!

We would love to post your reaction to the book ona 'reader reviews'
page we're about to add to the site. We think a lot of people would
get a kick out of hearing where a moment of chance, an act of
spontaneity and a passion for sport has led you.

If you have a photo of yourself training the children at your old school
we'd love to see it - maybe we could put it up there alongside your story...

Otherwise, we'll keep you up to date with what's going on with the book.
We should be posting some new stories to the site soon -- we're still catching
up with emails and work at the moment after getting back from our trip to
the US (sorry it's taken a few days to reply) but we look forward to getting
back in touch. Hopefully we'll hear from you very soon with another
adventure checked off your 2DO List...

Meanwhile, if you're playing again this weekend then we hope it goes well
and give our best to all your budding Tendulkars!

Cheers,
Chris (and Mike)

P.s. Over here in London we're preparing for the Ashes series against the
Australians - should be good...

So much for being a super power

A couple of days ago, I was outside the Besant Nagar subway and I saw this small three-year old,shabbily dressed boy clinging on to a foreigner. Obviously, he was a beggar asking for money but that gentleman probably in his mid-40's rebuked that little Indian. All attempts of that boy to pursuade him came to nothing.After sometime he quit and walked away.

I was awash with a sense of regret and shame.I was disgusted, not with the foreigner but with the so called decision makers in our country "The powers that be" and about our claim of being an upcoming and global super power,a force to reckon with. All our famed politicos traverse the world beating their chests about being a nuclear power and an emerging economy but ground reality remains that our future still has to beg in streets for a day's meal. In a Country like ours where poverty still engulfs surroundings and the prime concern is survival, can't we have better aspirations? We need better infrastructure and governance in our Country. We need a strong base before raising the bar.

Our prime concern has to be Line Of Poverty (LOP) instead of the Line of Control (LOC) and every Indian has to play pivotal role in this endevor. There are many severe pitfalls and roadblocks which we have to overcome in the near future, before we can become significant players in the international economic scene on a sustained basis.Can we all make an effort to try and make a difference?

Apotheosis

Too often in this life I yearn for the moment when I shed this coil and free myself from the trappings of our "real world." I hunger for the separation, to spin off amongst the stars and soar through the substance of heaven. My body is my own, my flesh, my blood, but on days like today it feels like a thick, ugly skin, a shell, like I'm wearing several extra layers of clothes. A big bag of flesh that is stuck to my wayward spirit, clinging to it for life yet dragging it down to terrestrial prisons. Is it wrong for me to disassociate with my flesh? What other sense experience do I know? But if I know nothing else, how can my body feel cumbersome and heavy, weighty and anchoring, entrapping. How can I yearn for a lifting, a floating of the mind a drifting upward that I've never experienced? I close my eyes and the desire takes, I can see it I can feel it, my every sense pulling me up and out, all that is me going out and away and up, ever up. I tingle through the atmosphere, feeling the bubble of molecules on skin that isn't there. The rush and the cold bite at my eyes, but there is no cheek to stream down and my tears fall to the waiting earth. I blaze through the empty spaces of our universe, I huddle close to the stars for warmth, I touch eternity with bodiless fingers. Sense and time are gone. I am gone. I breathe in infinity, and it warms me like a fire as I burn from the inside out. I fuse feeling with thought, desire with effort, pain with love all atoms bouncing in my brain now fused. They burn within me, so I burn without. Brighter than the light of creation the light reaches out like the hands of my father to guide and comfort, to warm and pray. I take the universe in my heart, and I bathe it in the glow, the warmth of my being, the gentle light of my desire for peace.

Then I open my eyes, and it's still just a computer screen. The stars are hidden from me. The vastness of the universe laughs at my fragility. The echoes of eternity pass through my ears, but I cannot hear, or touch, or taste. They are beyond me. It is all beyond me. I am still here.

Still here.

Am i Uncivilized

So, I haven' t been getting a lot of sleep lately. A few things and truckloads of work have been eating away at my brain and it's been keeping me up nights. I'm starting to think I'm a closet insomniac. Your thoughts turn a distinct shade of ugly when you haven't had natural sleep, sleep that isn't alcohol-induced, in several days. I'm starting to rebound a little though, as I fell asleep for two whole minutes at work last night. !@#$

Now, I was on break, so we're talking about a maximum duration of fifteen minutes. At the time, I didn't care, it felt fantastic to just fall asleep.One of my rascal co-workers, however, was intent on spoiling my moment of peace. He saw me, reclined and at peace, and decided it would be fun to throw some water at me. Welcome to the world of wet wake up calls. I was not amused.

That being the first sleep I'd had in awhile, I was torn from dreamland with all the subtlety of a charging rhinoceros. My experiences upon waking were rather frightening, I must say. It was like viewing the world without the lens of civilization and socialization society imbues us with. And it was damn ugly.

Normally I try to view people as generally decent. People do dumb things all the time, sure, but they're trying to do alright, and Lord knows I'm just like them. But that night, having been so rudely awakened and so low on rest, I viewed the world with the eyes of a madman for the space of twenty minutes.

People would come up to me and engage in the usual banter you'd imagine individuals to resort to when striking up conversations with a librarian. All I heard was laziness, crudity, shallow, simple-minded selfishness. A father coddling his child with tons of DVD's, a bitchy back biting colleague, a woman complaining about loud talkers while her sons screams open-mouthed behind her...it disgusted me, almost to the point of nausea. In that instant, I could've burned the world down just for the solitude in knowing that the human race had ended.

I'm grateful that the mood ended rather quickly, and I returned to some semblance of sanity. Any more time in that state and I probably would've done something hideous and drastic. But it just goes to show how fragile things can be, how close to the edge of madness we all are.

Or at least I am... - Vikram 2002

A peek behind the Doors

Ray Manzarek still laughs about it now, remembering the painfully prophetic phone call from former Doors bandmate Robby Krieger after the guitarist read Manzarek's 1998 autobiography, Light My Fire.

"John's going to be mad," Manzarek recalled Krieger saying, anticipating drummer John Densmore wouldn't appreciate hearing that lead singer Jim Morrison wanted to kick Densmore out of the band long before they hit the big time.

Five years later, Densmore filed a lawsuit against Manzarek and Krieger, alleging their new band, the Doors of the 21st Century, was deceptive to fans and undermined business agreements made by the company that controls the original Doors name. A California judge has set a June 16 hearing and could deliver a ruling soon.

Now, nearly four decades after the Doors first hit it big, the surviving members are still fighting over the band's legacy, even as Manzarek, who plays keyboards, and Krieger kick off the new leg of a classic rock cavalcade called the Strange Days Tour, coming to Tampa on Wednesday.

And though the tour's name references the Doors' psychedelia-drenched 1967 sophomore album, it could just as well describe what has happened to the band since Morrison's death in 1971.

"(Densmore) sent a copy of my book to me burnt up," said Manzarek, who wrote that Morrison wanted to eject the drummer because he "couldn't stand him as a human being," even as the group was building a reputation in Los Angeles.

"(Densmore) used to go out and do a one man show . . . where he mocked Jim Morrison as a manic depressive," Manzarek said. "The audience laughed at Jim in a mean, vindictive and spiteful way. My retaliation was to say what Jim had to say about John. John's retaliation was to sue me."

Densmore's wife, actor-filmmaker Leslie Neale, said the drummer was traveling and could not be reached. His attorney, Jerome Mandel, said the lawsuit isn't about the demise of an old partnership, but safeguarding the legacy of the Doors' name.

The suit seeks to bar Manzarek and Krieger from using "The Doors" in any band name and asks that all profits from the Doors of the 21st Century be turned over to Densmore and the company that controls the original Doors name. That entity is owned by the surviving band members and the parents of Morrison and his partner, Pamela Courson.

To gauge the money at issue, court papers note that Manzarek and Krieger earned $5,000 to $10,000 per show performing as solo acts but had offers of $150,000 and $200,000 for the new band.

Morrison's and Courson's parents joined Densmore in the lawsuit, which the drummer has said was inspired by the new band's decision to bring on former Cult front man Ian Astbury as singer, along with advertising and merchandising that evokes the original group's logos and name.

"The Doors' name is not only an important legacy, it's a valuable commodity," said Mandel. "It's a matter of principle that was intensely litigated."

Manzarek is convinced that Morrison and Courson, now deceased, would never have supported the lawsuit.

"I saw (Morrison's father) for the first time in court," said the keyboardist, noting that the singer - a Melbourne native who briefly attended St. Petersburg Junior College and Florida State University before heading to California - had long been estranged from his parents. "The people who Jim had completely cut out of his life have sided with the drummer who Jim wanted to fire. It's a Florida soap opera."

Manzarek and I met in 1996, just after he released a two-disc audio CD telling stories about his history with Morrison and the Doors. I was the St. Petersburg Times' music critic then and suggested Manzarek might consider writing a book. Later, I helped him develop an outline, and he thanked me with a dedication in Light My Fire.

Given the success of Doors-related merchandise - including more than 50-million records sold, Danny Sugerman's bestselling 1980 book, No One Here Gets Out Alive, and Oliver Stone's 1991 biopic, The Doors - it's no wonder the band seems more popular now than in its heyday.

Disbanded in 1973 after efforts to replace Morrison failed (court papers said the surviving trio asked Joe Cocker and Paul McCartney to take the gig after their own efforts to share lead vocals failed), the surviving Doors reunited for an episode of VH1's Storytellers series in 2000 with a rotation of singers, including Astbury.

When talk turned to a more permanent reunion, Manzarek said Densmore held out, citing the effects of the hearing disorder tinnitus. Densmore's lawsuit said the new band originally hired ex-Police member Stewart Copeland as a fill-in drummer for two concerts, then announced that the group would become a regularly touring act, essentially firing him.

(Copeland would later file his own lawsuit against the new band when it replaced him; that action has been settled.)

Does it surprise Manzarek that the Doors remain embroiled in conflict?

"Yes, it does," he said. " "Grow up' is all I can say. Can we put our teenage high school grudges behind us? My God, we're all in our 60s now."

But by many accounts, the Doors of the 21st Century is a trip back in time, featuring Manzarek, Krieger, drummer Ty Dennis and bassist Angelo Barbera. With Astbury providing an eerily Morrisonesque vibe, the new band has traveled the world as Manzarek and Krieger discover what it means to be touring rockers who also qualify for senior citizen discounts.

"You have be in good shape . . . and you have to still have the desire to play the music," said Manzarek, 66. "If you like the music you've made, you'll always want to go out and play it."

Inevitably, talk turns to Morrison's death, attributed to respiratory failure and heart attack, yet shrouded in conspiracy theories because there was no autopsy or public viewing.

In the past, Manzarek blamed Morrison's decline on his turn from marijuana and hallucinogenics to liquor. Now he states the case differently.

"It was success," he said. "He was the same age (27) as Jimi Hendrix, the same age as Janis Joplin and the same age as Kurt Cobain. They couldn't make it past that hurdle into adulthood. The people worship you . . . you become godlike. And they just couldn't carry that weight without intoxication."

And to those who say the new Doors is just flogging the spirit of a long-gone group, Manzarek offers hearty laughter. He's enjoying the latest act of a band many thought had played its last note more than 30 years ago.

"Jim Morrison was . . . a great young American poet working in the genre of rock 'n' roll," Manzarek said. "And what does a poet want more than anything? For his words to be read . . . for his words to live in live performance. He would probably say, "Let them know my words, rather than my antics.'

The Travails of Single South Indian men of conservative upbringing

This article was found on a Bschool student board....

Yet another action packed weekend in Mumbai, full of fun, frolic and
introspection.I have learnt many things. For example having money when none of your friends have any is as good as not having any. And after
spending much time in movie theatres, cafes and restaurants I have
gathered many insights into the endless monotony that is the love life
of south Indian men.

What I have unearthed is most disheartening.Disheartening because comprehension of these truths will not change our status anytime soon.However there is also cause for joy. We never stood a chance anyway. What loads the dice against virile, gallant, well educated, good looking, sincere mallus and tams? (Kadus were once among
us, but Bangalore has changed all that.)

Our futures are shot to hell as soon as our parents bestow upon us names that are anything but alluring. I cannot imagine a more foolproof way of making sure the child remains single till classified advertisements or that maternal uncle in San Francisco thinks otherwise. Name him "Parthasarathy Venkatachalapthy" and his inherent capability to combat celibacy is obliterated before he could even talk. He will grow to be known as Partha. Before he knows, his smart,seductively named northy classmates start calling him Paratha. No woman in their right minds will go anyway near poor Parthasarathy.

His investment banking job doesn't help either.His employer loves him though.He has no personal life you see.By this time the Sanjay Singhs and Bobby Khans from his class have small businesses of their own and spend 60% of their lives in discos n
pubs.The remaining 40% is spent coochicooing with leather and denim clad muses in their penthouse flats on Nepean Sea Road. Business is safely in the hands of the Mallu manager.After all with a name like Blossom Babykutty he cant use his 30000 salary anywhere.Blossom gave up on society when in school they automatically enrolled him for Cookery Classes.

Along with all the girls.Yes my dear reader, nomenclature is the first nail in a coffin of neglect and hormonal pandemonium. In a kinder world they would just name the poor southern male child and throw him off the balcony."Yes appa we have named him Goundamani..." THUD.

Life would have been less kinder to him anyway.If all the women the Upadhyays, Kumars, Pintos and, god forbid,the Sens and Roys in the world have met were distributed amongst the Arunkumars,Vadukuts and Chandramogans we would all be merry casanovas with 3 to 4 pretty things at each arm.But alas it is not to be. Ofcourse the south Indian women have no such issues.They have names which are like sweet poetry to the ravenous northie hormone tanks.

Picture this: "Welcome,and this is my family. This is my daughter Poorni (what a sweet name!!)and my son Ponnalagusamy (er.. hello..).." Cyanide would not be fast
enough for poor Samy. Nothing Samy does will help him. He can pump iron,drive fast cars and wear snazzy clothes, but against a braindead dude called Arjun Singhania he has as much chance of getting any as a Benedictine Monk in a Saharan Seminary.

Couple this with the other failures that have plagued our existence. Any
attempt at spiking hair with gel fails miserably. In an hour I have a crown of greasy, smelly fibrous mush. My night ends there. However the northy just has to scream "Wakaw!!!" and you have to peel the women off him to let him breathe. In a disco while we can manage the medium hip shake with neck curls, once the Bhangra starts pumping we are as fluid as cement and gravel in a mixer. Karan Kapoor or Jatin Thapar in the low cut jeans with chaddi strap showing and see through shirt throws his elbows perfectly, the cynosure of all attention.

The women love a man who digs pasta and fondue.But why do they not see the simple pleasures of curd rice and coconut chutney? When poor Senthilnathan opens his tiffin box in the office lunch room his female coworkers just dissappear when they see the
tamarind rice and poppadums. The have all rematerialised around Bobby Singh who has ordered in Pizza and Garlic bread. (And they have the gall to talk of foreign origin.)

How can a man like me brought up in roomy lungis and oversized polyester shirts ever walk the walk in painted on jeans (that makes a big impression) and neon yellow rib hugging t shirts? All I can do is don my worn "comfort fit" jeans and floral shirt. Which is pretty low on the "Look at me lady" scale, just above fig leaf skirt and feather headgear a la caveman, and a mite below Khakhi Shirt over a red tee shirt and baggy khakhi pants and white trainers a la Rajni in "Badsha".

Sociologically too the tam or mallu man is severely sidelined. An average tam stud stays in a house with, on average, three grandparents,three sets of uncles and aunts, and over 10 children. Not the ideal atmosphere for some intimacy and some full throated "WHOSE YOUR DADDY!!!" at the 3 in the morning. The mallu guy of course is almost always in the gulf working alone on some onshore oil rig in the desert.
Rheumatic elbows me thinks.

Alas dear friends we are not just meant to set the nights on fire. We are just not built to be "The Ladies Man". The black man has hip hop,the white man has rock, the southie guy only has idlis and tomato rasam or an NRI account in South Indian Bank Ernakulam Branch. Alas as our destiny was determined in one fell swoop by our nomenclature, so will our future be. A nice arranged little love story.

But the agony of course does not end there. On the first night, as the stud sits on his bed finally within touching distance and whispers his sweet desires into her delectable ear, she blushes, turns around and whispers back
"But amma has said only on second saturdays!"

Food for thought..fodder for timepass

Got this in a fwded email.Found it interesting..Don't know how far it is true.

TRADITIONAL ECONOMICS
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies and the economy grows.
You retire on the income.

WIPRO ECONOMICS
You have 2 cows.
Feed them as long as they milk.
For less milking cow feed less.
Throw the non milking cow away.

INFOSYS ECONOMICS
You have 2 cows
You put both of them on the bench
And hire another to do the job.

TCS ECONOMICS
You have 2 cows
You tell them that only one will go to onsite.
You ask both of them to fight for the only H1B Visa.
Both of them die after fighting.

HCL ECONOMICS
You have 2 cows
You milk them only for 24 hours on just 7 days a week.
They run away.

CTS Economics
You have 2 cows
You train them for two months on how to milk themselves.
Then u ask them to pull bullock carts.

SATYAM ECONOMICS
You have 2 cows.
One is intelligent one is dumb.
you send the dumb cow onsite
making the intelligent cow frustated.
Intelligent cow resigns out of frustration
and dumb cow is laid off by the client."

2 do before i die

I bought a book a few weeks ago "2 do before I die"..a cute little book that essentially strives to point to people what they ought to know themselves...things you wanna do before you die.

The way it works is simple, just put down a list of stuff you wanna do before you die! However trivial or impossible it may be . Just write it down. A lot of the things we wanna do don’t seem all that impossible once we write it down and confront it.

Read between the lines of the various stories people have written you’ll find what comes through in each and every one of those stories is that it just doesn't pay to be stressed out and in conflict all the time. The book which is chock full of stories and lists implores us all to work together to bring out the best in us and others...

In short, what I call...a celebration of life.

Life is a sweet thing.. you can do fun little things and you can do fun big things...you can screw up a 1lac PC (aw crap you say? well its still a device and can be repaired. so if you screwed it up, so what? just be careful the next time around) or you can repair a cheap roller-ball computer mouse. you can eyeball a supermodel or you can go and marry the homely girl-next door type..you can treat the entire apartment block to your best dessert...or you can make your friend treat you to the best Movenpick icecream there is.

It is about appreciating the beauty in the dew drop on the leaf of a plant in your front yard. It is in taking a hike up the mountain trail to view the glorious sunset that graces the eastern skies. Holding hands walking by the beach!

Life comes at you with dazzling variety of things to do and see and appreciate and learn from. That usually does not include the amusement parks or cinema halls but it sure can include that drive down the ECR to see nature at its very best.

Life is for all of us to share and enjoy...it is in having a few friends over for a drink, dinner and talk..it is in having the same group of friends go over to a restaurant and become the boisterous center of racket (and by extension center of attention as well :) )

There is more to life than carrying along petty differences and egos. It is not worth your while or my while for us to hold grudges against each other. More importantly it is always worth your while to smile, pass a compliment or just say something nice and make someone's day.

Let us make this world an easier place to be in...one person at a time.

Chandramonkey

For a Rajinikanth fan, there is just one scene in the movie that is worth watching - the one where he makes a grand entrance. He kicks a man so hard that he (the kicked man, not Rajinikanth) goes flying, crashes into the windscreen of a parked Qualis, and crashes out the rear windshield. This is the only high point of the movie. From here on, it is all downhill.

The first impression we(The wife and I) had of the movie was that it was loud. Way too loud. Maybe this is how loud all Tamil movies are played - we really wouldn’t know. Our last movie outing was to see Mumbai Xpress - and that, though it had a lot of explosions and noise, was nowhere near Chandramonkey in its loudness.

Though I am quite a fan of Rajinikanth,the superstar as he's often referred to.
This one of the few of his movies that I have watched in a theatre.

There is a scene, somewhere towards the end of the movie, where Prabhu cries out aloud, “Why this torture?” This aptly reflected the sentiments of the audience at this point. This emotional outburst provoked sharp laughter from most of the audience, and that sums up the Chandramukhi experience.

The character played by Rajinikanth, Saravanan, is about as crass and boorish as it can get. There is an entirely avoidable so-called comical sub-plot involving Saravanan, comedian Vadivel and his wife. It is tiresome and insulting to watch. This, combined with the none-too-impressive portrayal of a stern and authoritarian woman played by Sheela and her mute (really!) and muscular assistant, and the attendant sub-plotting, drags the movie on and on to the point where everyone is just whiling away to time waiting for the “impressive last half-hour peformance by Jothika” of which we have read so much in various media.

When it comes, the “performance” is comic and powerless. In spite of a truly desperate attempt by Jothika, the direction is so lacklustre and confused that it falls flat. Yes, Jothika’s performance is good. Admitted. But, it is like Rahul Dravid scoring thirty six runs in the last over, when what is required is three hundred and sixty. It is much too little, much too late. And it is somewhat diluted by the almost comical make-up which is more of a stage-style mad-woman, rather than that of a dishevelled dancer.

In all, Chandramukhi was a monumental waste of time, even to a Rajini fan like me. It makes one of the strongest possible cases in favour of pirated VCDs.

Twits and more

Sun TV, the channel that holds much of Tamil Nadu captive in the evenings with melodramatic soaps starring fat former movie actresses celebrated its thirteenth birthday this month. Most of the programming is hideously bad - the closest analogy I can think of is Craig Kilborn reruns all day for a whole week. The lack of talent is pervasive throughout the organization, and compiling a list of the worst anchors is exceedingly difficult:

Sureshkumar, the snooty looking dude who anchors a program called Top Ten movies, wearing costumes in colors that are best left to Hawaiian shirts. He rates movies every week along with a what he thinks is a snappy comment. Suresh cares not for spoilers, and nonchalantly gives out endings and important twists with nary a blink of the eye. “The movie has a great climax, when you come to know that Susheela is the killer, you are surprised!”.

Gowri , the girl that interviews people in the mornings. She has a prepared list of questions with her, and will go through her list no matter what the answers are.

“Are you married?”

“No”

“Where did you meet your wife”

“I am not married”

“Interesting. How many kids do you have?”

You get the picture. And she mangles her consonants so much that her Tamil pronunciation is clearly the worst of all Sun TV anchors. Believe me, that is a difficult honor to get. KaLLoori and KaLLvi.

Fatima Honedew: Utter a word. Proffer toothy smile. Move upper body and head vigorously from left to right. Another word. Right to left movement. Another word, Up and Down. Yet another word, diagonal shakes. Poor Tamil diction, more smiles. Always stress the wrong syllable. Makes you yearn for Gowri.

Yet, we pay Dishnetwork actual money every month and religiously subject ourselves to torture for at least a few minutes a day. Because, for good or for bad, it reminds us of home. Of evenings spent on easy chairs, drinking coffee and watching movies.

Captain Planet - The new Vijaykanth starrer

Indian movies will always be an eye opener. Here is a story of "The captain" Vijaykanth’s next movie. Its called ’’Captain Planet’’
(WOW !!! where do they get these names??)

Vijaykant is a scientist in NASA.......( yes folks.u read that right.NASA...the American space lab- A very big set designed for this by Kalaipuli S.Dhaanu). When our hero was busy launching a satellite to Pluto,his wife Simran is about to deliver a baby and wants to meet him. But the launch process badly needs a person like our hero,and there is you see no other option.Senior scientist Radha asks him to stay back till the launch. Our well commited hero successfully launches the satellite, and comes back home on a horse (where have all the planes gone.??....:)Unfly the wife and child are poisoned by Terrorists who pose as nurses.Our hero is shattered,
He cries out loud"Innime naan yane vazahanum" (Why should i live anymore)Saunters down to the local arrack shop,binge drinks and then sings a song and swears revenge on those who killed his young(pronounced yeng)
family.

Bound by duty and pestered by Radha's phone calls from NASA he heads back.(This time by plane)The horse is too depressed to trot back.Back at NASA hero finds out that the other scientists claim that they were responsible for the launch discrediting our superhero. He resigns from there and comes back to India(by plane again) and is leading a peaceful life.... days go by till......

Oneday, the scientists, to their surprise find out that the SUN is hurtling toward EARTH and sooner than later it may BURN the earth to ashes.. All the scientists are worried bout how to save the EARTH.. They soon realize that only ’’THE HERO’’ (Vijaykanth) can do it... They visit India,telling him the facts, and Vijaykant heads back there to complete the save EARTH mission ...After a huge amount of research, Vijaykant decides to invent an instrument.

The instrument will deflect the SUN from its path to EARTH.. America is thrilled to bits with Vijaykanth’s invention. Good ole George even invites him to the White house for a meal.(Plz add a song sequence with Laura Bush).So finally Vijaykant is all set to go into SPACE and save the earth. He and another person (Chandrasekhar,Who BTW is a prisoner in Vellore coz he killed a man who made fun of his sister), Has been choosen by our hero. Now the 2 of them are travelling in a spacecraft towards the SUN.

They move out of earth (Not before vijaykanth sings a song bout his motherland)and in space Vijaykant comes out of the spacecraft and stands on the wings. He takes out the instrument and points it at the SUN.Oh!!! The instrument is not working... The terrorists deactivated it (Where did they come from??) Go figure!!!!!(ha ha ha .....u got to be kiddin me) All the scientists are worried at the earth station.....tension mounts up..........The SUN is reaching the EARTH slowly.............

Climax - While the SUN floats towards the EARTH, VIJAYKANTH puts one leg on earth, turns around, and kicks the SUN with ultimate force.. and jumps back into the spacecraft.... the SUN gets deflected away from EARTH!!!!!!!!!!! EARTH SAVED... He waves the Indian flag from out the craft which starts in journey back to earth!

The End (This is the edited version)

To imagine what a full fledged tamil flick is like plz add the following
1. Semi naked busty South indian women dancing around our hero in outer space (It's allright if there are no trees)
2. Fight sequences when appropriate sisters and wives are teased/molested/raped/killed
3. In part 2 of the film he kills the terrorists who deactivated his Instrument! I will save that for later.

Free Bird

Id like it to be a completely bloody surprise. On the day I turn 40 Id like to show up at work early, send bulk mail with something as cool as Chatwin’s “Off to Patagonia” or maybe, something nastier made to order for my boss and some of my colleagues who steal my ideas and hog all the credit, stop at the city’s only lame excuse for a park ,kick of my shoes let the grass underneath tickle the soles of my feet,Return home and wait for the significant other. I will..believe you me do absolutely nothing with my time other than read, write,play my beloved ole’ guitar and indulge myself in as much sport as I can. (If all this isn’t to much work in itself) drink in moderation, exercise again in moderation and practice vegetating…You see I plan to retire at 40.

I think I can do it coz time is on my side. I am you see all of 30. I do not have any debts against my name any outstanding bills to be paid or parents who need to be supported. I am in the process of working it all out in my head the amount of money I would need to maintain my altered lifestyle......to be continued

The Face of Jim Morrison

The Face of Jim Morrison:

The halls are crowded,filled with the sharpness of rumor. Stained glass, beautifully glowing with the great world of lies. It is all of the things that babies don't know. Perfectly cut glass, distorting what lies on the other side. The glass begins to shake. Christ is bleeding on the ground. Each of his faultering steps leads him farther astray. The glass shakes harder and harder, until finally it shatters and the glass falls, in millions of pieces, crashing to the hall floor. Each piece that lands ingnites an incondesant spark. Watching them crash... Watching them... Crash. Little bits of brown and pink, black and blue. They exploit sound as they land; creating a great thunderous crash which shakes placid dreams, and carries throughout time. The pieces settle in an almost surrealistic pattern. People gather around and stare blankly down. Staring, unmoving,at the face of Jim Morrison.

A song for the old man

This is the song I'm gonna play on the eve of my 35th birthday. Which BTW is thankfully a few years away.

He turned thirty-five last Sunday
In his hair he found some gray
But he still ain't changed his lifestyle
He likes it better the old way
So he grows a little garden in the back yard by the fence
He's consuming what he's growing nowadays in self defense
He get's out there in the twilight zone
Sometimes when it just don't make no sense

He gets off on country music
Cause disco left him cold
He's got young friends into new wave
But he's just too friggin' old
And he dreams at night of Woodstock and the day John Lennon died
How the music made him happy and the silence made him cry
Yeah he thinks of John sometimes
And he has to wonder why

He's an old hippie and he don't know what to do
Should he hang on to the old
Should he grab on to the new
He's an old hippie...his new life is just a bust
He ain't trying to change nobody
He's just trying real hard to adjust

He was sure back in the sixties that everyone was hip
Then they sent him off to Vietnam on his senior trip
And they forced him to become a man while he was still a boy
And in each wave of tragedy he waited for the joy
Now this world may change around him
But he just can't change no more

Well, he stays away a lot now from the parties and the clubs
And he's thinking while he's joggin' 'round
Sure is glad he quit the hard drugs
Cause him and his kind get more endangered everyday
And pretty soon the species will just up and fade away
Like the smoke from that torpedo...just up and fade away

The Brand Called "YOU."

With a new year fast approaching, many of us reevalute our lives and jobs and make resolutions to change. So I thought it might be helpful to think about how you can best improve and build your own brand for 2005. The brand called "YOU" is the most important project you will ever work on.

First of all. What is a brand? A brand is a name that stands for something in the mind of the customer. Volvo stands for “safety”. BMW stands for “driving”. Red Bull stands for “energy.” FedEx stands for “overnight.” You’re a brand. But what do you stand for? Not an easy question for most people to answer.

It’s important to note that just because a name is well-known, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a powerful brand. What’s a Chevrolet? A Chevrolet is a large/small, cheap/expensive car. Consequently, Chevrolet is a weak brand. It’s no surprise that Chevrolet has lost its brand leadership to Ford.

The most successful business people consider themselves a brand and market themselves according. And like product brands, it’s not enough to just be well-known. You also have to stand for something in the minds of other people. John Kerry was well-known but he never made his brand stand for anything. He was the alternative to Bush, but that isn’t enough to win an election. Kerry needed to define his brand in a focused, positive way. George Bush defined himself as a compassionate conservative in 2000. In 2004, his brand message was focused on protecting America.

Other interesting brands are Hollywood stars. The best film brands are stars that stand for something in the mind of the movie-going public.

· Julia Roberts = Pretty woman

· Bruce Willis = Wise guy

· John Wayne = Man’s man

· Arnold Schwarzenegger = Tough guy (A brand image that also worked well for his gubernatorial campaign.)

· Adam Sandler = Immature goofball

When a Hollywood star steps out of character, the results can be disastrous. For example, what was Arnold thinking when he made a movie with Danny DeVito called Junior in which Arnold gets pregnant? And when Adam Sandler has tried to be serious it hasn’t played well either. Just look at this weekend's ticket sales from Spanglish.

So, how do you turn yourself from an ordinary person into a powerful brand? Here are some basic branding principles to consider:

1. Do you have the right brand name?

Remember your parents gave you a name, but it doesn’t mean they were expert marketers. So if you don’t have a good brand name, change it. When Ralph Lifshitz wanted to become a famous designer, he didn’t start by working 24 hours a day designing clothes. The first thing he did was to change his name to Ralph Lauren.

2. Narrow the focus, don’t try to be great at everything.

When you ask most people what they are good at, they generally say that they are good with people, good with planning, good with strategic thinking. In other words, they are good at everything! Traditional brands know that when they narrow their focus they are able to get into the minds of their customers and prospects. Being a specialist and narrowing your focus allows you to get into the minds of your manager, headhunter, boss, colleague, spouse, et. al. If you try to stand for everything, you will stand for nothing.

3. Use PR to build your brand.

The best and most credible way to establish a brand is with PR. You cannot go around boasting about yourself and your brand. You need other people to do it for you. PR is a third-party endorsement of your brand, someone else saying how terrific you are. So look for ways to be mentioned in newsletters, websites, and the local media touting your success. Make speeches about your “narrow focus” and try to get publicity in trade papers and other outlets. Then reproduce that material and start a file of our accomplishments. It takes one brick at a time to build the brand called you.

A fathers death

He died that day. Something died within me . A part of me I've never been able to regain. A void,an emptiness in my heart. I felt an emptiness in my eyes a distant expression in my face.Someone i cared for and loved died that day.Drab clothed people faceless people huddled in a corner with a look of shock and pain.I floated around in a light headed daze wiping away beads of sweat from my forehead. Wondering if he would live his life differently if he had the opportunity to.What would he change...Maybe the way he treated the three of us. The angry disillusioned man who was my father now lay on the floor strangers crowded around him with boquets.I felt trapped, i wanted to scream but walked away. I'm better of dead i thought. I still see his face sometimes drained of life and pale from a lack of blood still I think of him wondering, if he's up there cursing us as he always swore he would.Invisible,he is only seen to my eyes.
I wonder still.....

As i know it

I don't believe any person is all good or all bad. The best of the saints, the worst of the serial killers. We all have both in us. One doesn't exist without the other.

Why do so many people cover their eyes and pretend not to see the emotional violence? Nothing bad ever happens, they say. I say we don't have to focus on it, but how can we make it better if we don't acknowledge it?

I give a nod to its words on paper, then I put it away until it screams for attention again.

Reflections

The whole world puzzles me! Why are people so contradictory? At various times and by various people I have been referred to as "Philosopher","Clever","Dumb","Rebellious" and Mystical amongst others.I have been told that I'm dangerous,canniving and sometimes revolutionary in my thoughts.

How is it possible to have so many contradicting characteristics in "One lone man"?
What am i in reality?Who am i? and where do i go?

A slice of life

I stood in the rain today and listened to the thunder echo around me and fade into the sound of the passing cars. The water dripping down my head and into my eyes makes me feel alive.

A glimpse at the past-My Life as a teenager

I get up with a hangover-as i usually do only to be confused by the lingering presence of my dreams.The light edging around the sides of my curtains,is dim pouring from a sky as grey as lead.

Shades of grey 2

The juggernaut rolls on. I'm sure about what they feel for each other, strangely enough they will not admit it.I wonder sometimes if it's ever crossed their minds that they might never feel this way about someone else ever again.But sadly when realization dawns "the bird might have flown the coop". I was speaking to her a few days ago and she gave them a chance that was about the size of my brain! "miniscule".

Where will it end?

I Feel Like Screaming

In the heat of the streets of the city
A young boy hides the pain
And he walks so tall, trying to hang on
But he knows he’s going down again
I know he’s going down...

Darkness fades he’s the prince of his city
In a place where they all know your name
You can see in their eyes life so paralyzed.
You're just a pawn in a losin’ game
You lose at life, it ain’t no game

Risks

This poem was found in the car of  Duraid Isa Mohammed a slain CNN employee.Duraid died early this year in January in Baghdad when the car he was travelling in came under fire from Iraqi insurgents.

 

Duraid was 27 years old, and is survived by his wife and 2 beautiful young sons.

 

 

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out for another is risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas, your dreams, before a crowd Is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying. To hope is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is To risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing dies nothing, Has nothing and is nothing.
They say they avoid suffering and sorrow, But they cannot learn, Feel, change, grow, love, feel.
Chained by their attitudes, they are slaves.
They have forfeited their freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.

Pleasure and sorrow

I walked a mile with pleasure

She chatted all the way

But left me none the wiser

For all she had to say

 

I walked a mile with sorrow

And not a word said she

But Oh! the things i learned from her

When sorrow walked with me.

 

- Anon