Moved

My last notice to evacuate blogspot is due and my conscience has pestered me to finally move on. I am now at http://www.cmi.ac.in/~amitprakash . Please update your feeds/blogrolls accordingly. Hopefully I should be redecorating my new home pretty soon. See you there :)

Ai

Is it bright where you are
Have the people changed
Does it make you happy that you're so strange

And in your darkest hour
Now all secrets fade
And we can watch the world devour in its pain

Excerpts RRI

People like most animals do not like being cornered. If you corner them, they'll get angry. Its a defense mechanism against pain, just like lying is a defense mechanism to avoid pain.

Kid me not

A clever word
A tacit lie
While all this while
I knew it all
And yet I played

In retrospect
I think I know
In happy times
And heated words
It was not me

So you can try
And claw your way
But you are never
One of them
Another playful company

For time is all
That matters most
It heals your heart
And blurs the fun
And forms the mathematical group

Of chapatis and silos

"You're the one who's pampered her too much. Look at her tantrums. What boy would have her like this." Madan listened quietly while Savitri belched her anger out. Perhaps it was her own way to show her affection to the child, for she would never so far as to question her, let alone a slap or two. But every now and then she would be so worried, and then Madan had to face her temper instead.

But Indu hadn't always been the only girl in the family. She had loved her namesake and Bindu had been so jolly. And Madan would proudly call her the favorite daughter. Every week he came back from work, he would get a haandi of rosogullas, from that special store at Munger and Bindu would be the first one to devour till she was full. And Indu would wait patiently till her elder sister was finished. She was far too institutionalized to question such favoritism, not that it bothered her anyways. In a far corner of her mind, she knew that the rosogullas were far too many to get over before she was the next in queue.

But then things took a bad turn. My grandmother had only 3 children survive the 8 she had borne and the high rate of mortality countered the numerous gifts of god. In a village, falling ill is common. Kids pick up a disease, develop immunity and then stay free from it the rest of their lives. And while the civilized man worries too much for hygiene; water from the earth , unprocessed cereal and mother's milk were fortunately enough for the rugged life at the village. Bindu hadn't been so fortunate. And when she took ill all the colors had faded from Madan's face. He had gone from place to place looking for doctors and witches to cure her. He hadn't been to the fields or the office at Munger for weeks now. And Bindu would just lie there in the cot, a former shell of life and giddiness that she had been.

Even now Indu hates to reminisce of those days. And while she would run errands on Savitri's orders and Bindu's whims, she had stayed by her sister massaging her feet and hands. They never knew what had her down and when she lay in the cot lifeless, not much different from a few moments ago, Indu had kept massaging her feet. It was maybe a minute or two later when she shrieked and Savitri had come running to her worst fears.

Madan had remained morbid for weeks to come. Indu had tried to cheer him up so very often. And she had finally succeeded. The crops were good that year and Madan had a promotion to him. But she had ne'er liked the chapatis while Savitri would make an extra lot to keep her plump and healthy. Even Madan wouldn't rescue her from it. He would too have an obese daughter than a sickly and thin child. So Indu would sit with her plate and eat so very slowly, always near the silo. And when her parents weren't looking, she would slide a couple of the thick fat pancakes behind it.

Disclaimer: Web Logging

So I tried google analytics. Its quite awesome considering the detailed information it presents about website hits. And while its awesome to view hits and unique counts and geographical location, there was something amiss. So here I wrote a small php script to log every visitor by his ip address and other relevant data. And while you cant directly add php to blogspot, you can host the php page somewhere else [ for example cmi webserver ] and add an iframe widget redirecting to the php page :)

Now, I am a close knit guy and yes, this blog doesn't get many hits. So I wanted to find out my visitors personally, just so as to reach out to the fanbase and satisfy my own whims :P And all was well till it logs 15-11-08 / 12:52:34 - 122.167.83.46. Now who the hell in Bangalore visits this runt of a webbie >_<. Curiosity killed the cat and hence I am now trying to add a little code to log the username / blogspot / wordpress id of the visitor :P

So I find it only appropriate to warn you that w.r.t. all future visits to this webpage, you forfeit all your rights to browsing privacy.

Cheers :D

Oh Snap!

What makes a picture special
Is however rough the times be
I can always cherish your smile
And it makes me feel all better

What makes a picture special
Is when you are far away
I know that you are waiting for me
And then everywhere feels like home

What makes a picture special
Is when I and you dont get along
I can turn back time and see
That a honest apology wouldn't be so bad

What makes a picture special
Is now when I am rotting
You're still beside me
As you were so long ago

What makes a picture special
Are not the lush green valleys
Or celebrations past
Was not the broken leg
Or the signed cast
Won't be the bittersweet memories
Or friends long gone
But what makes it special
Is you