My First Poem

One afternoon I was wondering as to how I would clean my dirty bike when suddenly it started to pour. The rain pelted like the proverbial ‘cats and dogs ‘. In fact, it came down so hard that literally the cats and dogs and their relatives ( with due respect to their lineage) had to run for cover. A sudden happiness came over me. At that precise moment, the poet in me woke up after a rather reaaaaly long sleep of 20 years. Nevertheless, to ‘start’ something is more an achievement that to do nothing. Some creatures might think otherwise, but since they are not humans we can give this thought a slip. Anyway as I was saying, I got inspired as any ‘real poet’ would and in one fit of inspiration wrote down a small poem !! but before you go any further-

{Disclaimer}
the masterpiece exhibited here is protected under the Copyright Act. Any copies in the form of mails ,Xerox’s etc. will be punishable under the Inter-Galactic Panel Court Act - " GET SCREWD IF YOU COPY 4089CX(b) ". this work is solely and entirely of the poet’s and of no one else . any resemblance to any other poem in any other form, in any other format , in any other country or for that matter any other part of this universe is merely a coincidence and nothing but coincidence. lastly, read it at your own risk and the poet is in no way responsible for whatever damage this poet may cause to the psychological state of the entity concerned. . .
{End of Disclaimer}

Rain, What a beautiful pain,
thundering among the clouds you come,
blistering through the skies,
and quench the mother Earth of its unending thirst;

Pristine though you are,
you are a rarity in this town,
Rain, What a beautiful pain,
Why don’t you come again…

Wouldn’t you call that ‘piece de resistance’ ! ( At least that is what I think so. I mean traditionally , it so happens that humans do appreciate their own work and I’m no different ). and lastly This poem is dedicated to the ‘god of thunder- Zeus’ and the ‘Dead poet’s society’. . .

P.S - I finally got a hassle free bike wash. I myself couldn’t have done a better job.

Do The Right Thing

There is so much emphasis laid on doing the ' right ' thing that ' wrong ' becomes the ultimate villian in this precipitating world of human duties. Why do we percieve something as only ' right ' or ' wrong' ? Why not something else other than these conspicuously opposite twins? Can this perception be considered as a limitation of the Earthlings?
There is nothing wrong in perceiving everything that is ' wrong ' as ' right ' and everything that is ' wrong ' as ' right '. Why only ' right ' in fact it can be ' left ' , ' up ' , ' down ' ( & whatever else u can think of . . .). We are house trained to think & do everything that is ' right '. It is time we break the shackles & free our mind. This leads us to an area of disussion temporarily named " Dangerous Precedent " ( this is the ' right' name the author could think of . fell free to rename it to suit your tastes and interests ) i.e if we do the ' right ' thing now we might be forced to do the right thing again next time. And on that reasoning nothing should ever be done at all. To be precise : Many things may be done, but nothing must ever be done for the first time.
Scary isn't it? I know , I might be sounding a bit cynical, but then wahtever I'm thinking and writing ' right ' now might also be ' wrong ' ....

"The Height Of a Building"

This is an interesting article i came across some time ago. I thought it worthwhile to publish, since it enlightens us on various mundane ways ' to measure the height of a building ' -

There was a Physics student in the University of Copenhagen. In his degree exam a question was asked "
Describe the height of a skyscraper with a barometer?". One student replied - " tie a long piece of string
to the neck of the barometer , then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground.
The length of the string plus the length of the length of the barometer will equal the height of
the barometer".
This highly original answer didn't strike a chord with the professor and the student
was failed. The student however, appealed on the grounds that the answer was indisputably correct. So
the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case. The arbiter declared that the
answer was indeed correct but it didn't display any knowledge of physics.
To resolve the problem it
was decided that the student was to be given 6 minutes within which he had to give a verbal answer
which showed at least a minimum familiarity with physics. For 5 minutes the student sat in silence,
deep in thought. The arbiter reminded him that the time was running out. The replied by saying that
he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn't make up his mind. On being advised to hurry
up the student replied as follows -

"Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and
measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the building can be worked out by the
formula H = 0.5g * t2. But bad luck on the barometer."

"or if the sun is shining u could measure the height of the barometer, then set it one end and measure
the length of the shadow. Then u measure the lenght of the skyscrapers shadow, and thereafter
it is simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper".

"But if u wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer
and swing it like a pendulum first st ground level and then on the roof. The height is worked out by
the difference in the gravitational restoring force T = 2pi ( sq root (1/g)).

" If u merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, u could measure the air pressure on the roof
of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height
of the building".

" But since we are consistently being exorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific
methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor's door and say to him ' If u
would like a nice new barometer , i will give one to u if u tell me the height of the building".

The student was Niels Bhor , the only Dane to win a Noble for Physics.

Shadowed Days Ahead

I was walking down the street thinking god was in his heaven and all was right with the world, when suddenly something hit me. . .

[ RECAP ]

Some ' Shrimplike ass ' SMS'ed me saying that the semester exams are going to start.

[RECAP ENDS ]

At that moment i could picturize the dickens of an exam laughing at me and wanting to devour my flesh and bones. I mean with each passing day i will be getting close to this satanish ordeal, considering I haven't even a text book so far. With dangerously low attendence percentage, 4th year so far has been just a correspondence course. I fell like a useless burden to the Earth !!
Now my train of thought shifted from the present to the past, thinking what went wrong ( It might have been better if I had done that ; It might have been better had i not done that . . . ). Aah, beat it !! You know what , after all this what i have realised is that of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these - " It might have been . . ."

' Yes Minister, Minister '

' Yes minister' from the diaries of a cabinet minister gave me new revelations into a politician's and civil servants administrative life. The way these ' bloks ' deal with solutions to problems is reallly smooth. Probably as smooth as a Toad's stomach. . .
There was this one case where this civil servant ' Sir Humphrey ' wanted to say to the MP that it's not his job to run the department. Instead he puts it this way -

" Minister, the traditional allocation of executive responsibilities has always been so
determined as to liberate the ministerial incumbent from the administrative minutie
by devolving the managerial functions to those who experience and qualifications
have better formed them for the performance of such humble offices, thereby releasing
their political overlords for the more onerous duties and profound deliberations that
are the inevitable concomitant of their exalted position "

Phew !! Try beating that. I always thought that women had a way to complicate things. Well, I was wrong . . .

Gods : let's play Iliad

I'm done with Iliad 2 weeks ago, but yet to get over the hangover. I mean any sane person would actually find it hard to believe the kind of interest gods show in this war.
One fine day Zeus wakes up with his big and potent family and decides to play the game of ' Iliad '. This sounds as simple as playing the game of ' LIFE ' !! the people back on earth ( both akhains and trojans ) do what not to please the gods. i mean if gods are pleased by the quality and the type of sacrifices one gives then " here me O lord, governor of all movable and immovable, accept my sacrifice to honour you - The best of the lads of the Dept. of CSE , in a small cluttery college called SRM engg. college of the name ' vivek srikumar'. the purest of souls and a virgin too !! accept him & grant my wishes". phew !! That was easy.
i don't mean to derogate Homer in any way. he's done a commendable job inspite of his handicap. Cheers to him !! But if you minus the gods from this voluminous 600 page book, I guess this epic wouldn't have existed considering that the war wouldn't have taken place !! Just an after thought. . .