Whispering Wind

This one was written over a period of a few months, on and off. It was finally completed in my head in Pune, while talking to someone.

Whispering Wind, Whispering Wind,
Where have you gone?
You've left me longing here,
For you in these verses of song.

Where do you journey, my lady?
Where does your voyage lead?
I hope you come back soon.
Every night to fate I plead...

On my knees I pray every night,
Ask destiny if it is fair,
That I'm left praying with all my might,
To once more smell you hair.

To wake up and clutch you near,
When my nightmares paint the mind red,
To hear you say, 'It's ok my dear'
'Just hold me and go back to bed'

Voyages often help people find them,
But where does your lone travel lead?
Okay, go, but come back then,
I'll just stay here and bleed.

Whispering wind, Whispering wind,
Please come back to me once more,
We'll just sail our kites and sing,
And it'll all be good like before...

Visit to a Student City

Pune, the city of education. Also the city of military establishments. And more lately, the city of some serious construction. They're building everywhere, like there's no tomorrow. Or rather, like there is a long list of tomorrows, and they sure as hell intend to plan for them.

Not having been to a city undergoing that sort of constructino boom before, I was surprised to find girders and dug up roads everywhere. Adding to the chaos was the fact that no-body appears to follow any traffic rules. Maybe there simply are none.

Also, there were very few people lounging about. Pune is a city on the rise, where children of construction workers make Maggi Noodles on a portable stove, and go shopping for candies. Either the whole country has suddenly prospered, or something is out of the ordinary in Pune.

I wasn't allowed to have Maggi till very late in my school life. It was said to be 'wasteful' and 'bad for the health'. It was touted to be a luxury that only the uncultured enjoyed. Of course, later I learnt this was simply to keep me from asking from it. Didn't work.

So anyway, street-kids are making 2-minute noodles, an auto-ride costs the earth, and vada-pav is available alongside Dosas and tandoori rotis, not to mention chinese. And this is on the streets. Then you have malls that make you think you're in Gurgaon, and nightclubs more boisterous than the pitiable few in Delhi.

All this lends to a wonderful college experience in Pune. The people that I met, were very cultured, and at the same time as being 'hip', extremely polite and courteous. This is the good side of Pune.

The bad side, is that there are very, very, very few public amenities. By this term, I allude to the public restrooms, or rather the lack there-of. Besides this (to me) urgent lacking, there are also few good roads. The ride from the airport (which is quite a way from anywhere near the city) to Aundh make you wish you hadn't washed down that meal on the plane after all. Hanging on to your luggage, and yourself is enough without having time to really look around you the first time.

The next few times, are good enough, as you then have the sense to carry very little personal trappings for your expeditions. Bus rides are an experience I do not recommend in Pune (Speaking from a Delhi & Mumbai perspective).

Besides that, the main thing that kept me anxious was the fact that I was going to Pune for a reason. That was the Group-Process/Personal-Interview/Group-Task session to be held for aspirants of the prestigious management institution of the Symbiosis Institute for Business Management.

Very impressive indeed. But I had no time for such things as views and the impressing facade of VishwaBhawan. I was quite nervous about my first GP/PI/GT for an MBA school. And the anxiety turned out to be well founded. It was there that I realised that there was much to be anxious about. That I really hadn't prepared myself that well.

Although I made no obvious blunders, I did recognize instances where one could have been made through the lack of exhaustive previous preparation. And I thought about that a lot on the flight back. That helped immensely in the next GP/PI/GT round for yet another Insitution of the Symbiosis Family - the SIMS.

But more on that later. I must say a few words about the people that hosted me during my visit to Pune. Very wonderful people, kind, caring and deeply helpful. I didn't interact very much with them on our earlier meetings, but this time I found I could communicate and bond with them much better. I suppose this has more to do with my changing than any other reason.

I made quite a lot of new acquaintances there, and if any of you are reading this (and I do hope you are) HI!!!. In any case, that was more or less my account of the Pune Visit.

Get Rich or die tryin...

Another rap song.

Rap on, rap on, baby put your damn cap on...

Rap don't need no lyrics, just get a good rhyme,
On-stage hysterics, and your record'll do fine.


Go to number one, go there non-stop.
And when it's all done, come back down from the top.
Put on a T-shirt, add some bling-bling
N' groove for all you're worth, do your speacial thing.

Oh, n' don' forget your cap, you can't rap,
Without your cap, no it aint good rap,
N' get a few belly dancers on your lap,
N' go singing about all the crap.

You've seen on out there, out on the street,
Go on about them cops, out on their beat,
An' all 'em homeless people beneath their plastic sheets,
An' all 'em boneless rich people walking by like blind sheep,
An' all 'em gunshots you've heard out in yer ghetto,
An' all 'em mugshots with the cops one of 'em's your photo.

Speak of all the stones you've found covered with blood,
Show 'em all the bones you found down in the mud,
Once you've shown 'em all these things you've shown me,
You'll have a good nice rap song, ma homie.

The Song of Rage

Here is something I wrote last year, in a fit of anger. Anger at many things, all condensed into one fiery ball deep within me, that finally exploded at a single external spark. Thankfully, it didn't explode anywhere else, just inside me...

Here goes:

Oh what a night,
as the storm-cloud swell.
My future as black,
as the bottom of a well.

The one I loved, no longer could be mine.
The same old story, round the wheel of time.
And the ones I loved, I thought would help me through the storm.
Yet sinking in the midnight sea, alone I mourn.

Thinking back to the yesterdays, all the golden years.
Strangely thinking of happiness fills me with tears.
Miserable in my misery, in grief do I rage,
I'll burn every love book, every last page!

I'll kill and slaughter, be the devil incarnate.
I'll have no sons or daughters, I'll strangle my own fate.
I'll hit and roll, eat a witch n' a troll, There'll be darkness all around.
Be off with you gods, I said darkness all around...


...

You'll forsake me? Damn, i'll forsake you!
I'll torture myself with hot coals, do what you can do.

...

I don't give a shit, no not anymore,
Badmouth me, disown me, I'm not like before.
Yes it'll hurt me, bt I want it to hurt more.
Yes it'll burn my heart, so what, happened before.

...

I see lies now are, the way to be happy.
Try n' tell the truth, you'll find it's crappy.
Satan now rules, behold his domain.
And on crosses everywhere, behold cupids slain.

It's a dirty murky bloody world, compassion is dead.
Love lies swooning, bleeding the bed red.
And everytime somewhere, if a little love is born,
Hear the army of trolls, to stomp it out before morn.

And one day the last left angel, comes and says to me.
"Make peace, repent! Or you risk eternity."
"That I have already lost! Is this mockery?
I'll kill you too, leave, let me be!"

Still yet does the angel persist, wise and sage.
And I cannot control myself at this late stage.
She says love needs coming again in this dark age.
I shriek "Love no more!" and kill the angel in my rage...


...


For my sins, I want to burn i hell
And so after the murder, I drown the body in a well.
Oh what a night, as the storm-clouds swell.
And though madness overtakes me, I think perfectly well.

And then I dance around it, naked in the acid rain.
As my burnt skin melts, I revel in the pain.
Everytime it rains, I go and dace again.
Till no more flesh is left, just a few charred bones remain.

A fairytale I live in

In a fairytale, the bad guys fail,
The good guys never give in.
The wicked plot to no avail,
A fairy tale I live in.

The fairy comes and makes it fine,
Life works out every time.
No-one ever misses a line,
A fairytale I live in.

Demons and the Devil, they try,
To make weak souls suffer and cry,
But I look them straight in the eye.
A fairytale I live in.

A solmen vow do I take,
To carry on for honor's sake,
Heaven my loved one's life make,
This fairytale I live in.

The City

The city of Evil,
No good around here.
Get tortured by the Devil,
Always more than you can bear.

The city of darkness,
No roses here grow.
No pity, just indifference,
No hearts here show.

La ville de la mort,
Ou vous avez toujours tort,
De lo mouvant vie,
Une mauvais plaisanterie

The city of sin,
Of fury, hate and pain.
Of the corrosive din,
Of the falling acid rain.

The city of fear,
No purple hearts dare.
Look away, there's crime here,
They'll kill you too if you stare.

The city of fire,
Suffocate you with smoke.
A garrote of piano wire,
Hands clenched will you choke...

Energy Savings Bluster.

Efforts and Examples.

Agreed, the government isn't doing much. But it isn't also doing nothing at all. The present government has promoted use and generation of energy from renewable sources, especially wind-turbines. Look at Tulsi Tanti, one of the richest people in India, who's built his empire entirely on Windmill-generated energy.

Efforts are on. The reason we like to think that efforts like these won't work in India, is because they haven't in the past. And that demoralizes us. We think that if we install solar panels on traffic lights, as have been done on some major intersections in Delhi, they'll eventually fall out of maintenance, and then be neglected. This sort of thinking is because this neglect has happened in the past, and we've seen it.

However, this lack of attention has been primarily due to the prevailing techno-phobia carried over from the previous generation's mindset. Every previous generation, rather. People said color TVs ruined eyes more than BWs. Or that Microwaves cause you to develop cancer later in life.

Even now, we have the ongoing furore in the world over GM-food.

The coming change

But what we ignore, or are rather unaware of, is that the mindset of people is changing. People are now getting more technology-tolerant, as technology pervades every facet of our lives. That is why every other person in India, no matter hi/her station in life has a mobile phone, over the earlier hullaboo about 'waves' causing cancer and tumours.

Now is the time for us to stirke the iron, for it is now hot. Energy-saving measures like promotion of CFLs have to be propagated throughtout the land. This can be done only if the Government ordains that CFLs will be used to light up every single government building in India. It isn't that big a problem, not even the distribution. All that is lacking is the will.

Once CFLs start to become common-place in government offices, they will come into use in people's homes as well.

Doing away with OPEC-reliance

Another measure is promotion of CNG. This can be successfully promulgated only after sufficient infrastructure is put in place. CNG stations need to be as ubiquitous as Petrol Pumps. The reason we are apprehensive about committing to such a venture is that there will be a huge initial investment on the expenditure incurred in installing the stations, building pipelines to transport the LNG, and conversion kit subsidies.

However, if we look at the effects on the long term scenario, savings can be effected by not having to incur expenditure on recurring transportation charges as is currently incurred by transportation of petrol and other petroleum products by trucks and Rail.

There itself is a huge savings chunk. Next, maintenance os the pipeline, though a minor expense incurred regularly, will be much less than expenses incurred on maintenance of the trucks and railway containers that do current transportation of petrol etc.

Other ideas.

This is just one idea. Others include finally utilizing geothermal andsolar energy. We have lots of deserts. Installing solar furnaces to run thermal power stations, installing tens of sq. kms worth of photo-voltaic cells, etc can be immense sources of renewable energy.

Also, distribution of energy can be more efficient than it is today. We lose about half of the energy (electricity) that is produced to transportation loses. This is clubbed together with electricity theft and loss of quality. If we improve upon our infrastructure, that alone can increase our usable energy by atleast 25-30 %. This translates not only into efficient usage of something that is currently being used poorly, but also means that when we increase our energy genration capacity in the future, the positive effects will not be ameliorated by weak distribution networks.


There is immense scope for improvement in our energy sector. Whether or not privatization will help push us along that way is an open question. As far as I am concerned, it will help to some extent, as it has helped in other sectors. However a strong structure of regulations and procedures has to be laid down to ensure that the private sector doesn't stick only to icreasing profits, but helps attain the government's goals also while earning for itself. This co-existence is possible. It is only up to us to take it forward.