A lifelong query

The average man's life consists of :
Twenty years of having his mother ask him where he is going,
Forty years of having his wife ask the same question;
And at the end, the mourners wondering too...

(from an email fwd)

Interesting twist to my blog title !

Trudging on the treadmill

No human behaviour irritates me as much as seeing people jogging on a treadmill in a air-conditioned gym.

Agriculture, cattle-rearing, house-hold errands, probably every other manual work made sure one thing- people get their food, and people burn the calories so obtained by its consumption. Then came the flint, then the wheel, then abacus, then some electricity, then the steam engine, then Integrated chip, followed by the Internet.

All these stepping stones in the history of mankind have made sure that we shall not sweat to get our work done. Much of the hard-work, chores and errands have been reduced to a flick of a switch, turning of a knob or click on an icon - all designed to give man, his wife & kids some well-deserved 'quality time' spent together. And along came the uninvited guests called obesity, hyper-tension and arteriosclerosis.

Now people drive to the gym 2km away, beat the heat by rushing to the airconditioned building, take the lift to the 2nd floor- just to 'sweat it out' on the hi-tech treadmill which can show everything from amount of calories burnt to number of molecules of glucogen which have been converted to sugar and used up in this session. And after such hardwork comes the subtle reward of a hydrating isotonic zero-cal Diet-coke and a quarter-pounder hamburger with extra-mayonaise!

------ The author takes a severely opposing stance on all this hypocrisy, by staying at home relishing some soft cheesecake with blueberry topping, and perpetually planning to 'start' jogging outdoors from next week.

Bangkok's smiling bargains

Have you ever felt that haggling with a road-side vendor could be a pleasurable activity ? Me, never !!

I have constantly avoided shops where there is no fixed price, not because I dont like good deals, but because I suck at bargaining. Even during the rare times when I have managed to stike great deals, the joy is always short-lived - mostly somebody will pop up to say that I have been duped and my best deal was actually double the price he got the same thing for. Ignorance is bliss ,sometimes !

The streets and bylanes of Sukhumvit, Bangkok is where you could possibly find everything from Japanese samurai swords to Thai-silk ties to second-hand(read stolen) mobile phones. Here, bargaining is the only activity that provides such guilt-free pleasure, when compared to the multi-cuisine restaurants providing material for some unfettered
gluttony, or others inviting people to commit the original sin for a price.

I learnt a new language right there, and its not Thai- Calculator language, the entire process of monetary negotiations and business transactions are done between people who dont share a common language- using a simple calculator. The shopkeeper punches his price in the machine, and invites you to key in your best offer, and this process loops till a deal is struck. This also ensures that you dont struggle with your limited Thai vocabulary, and the shopkeeper doesnt murder English by saying "thlii unthleth baaaah" (300 baht) and perplexing you by showing just two fingers in a 'V' symbol !

If anybody witnessed from a distance, me and some shopkeepers bargaining, you could hardly take us to be bargaining to reach a common price. The smiles in the faces, the loving intonations in the voices, and the warm friendly gestures would look more like we are some long
separated cousins meeting after years. And in the end after much talk peppered with liberal smiles and cajoling most shopkeepers would agree to a price thats 30-40 % of their initial quote.

And the best part was, even after haggling for quite a while, you decide against buying
something that does not satisfy you tastes, you will never get a disgruntled look or a angry curse hurled from the shopkeeper. Now, doesnt that sound like a bargain paradise ??

Poetry by email forwards

Rainshine

There is nothing more beautiful than a rainbow,
But it takes both the sun and rain to create one
And for life to be well rounded and colourful,
It takes both joy and some sorrow to live one.

----

Some words

A careless word may kindle strife
A cruel word may wreck a life
A timely word may level stress
A loving word may heal and bless.

---

Soul Searching

This question about existence of a thing called soul has been haunting me. Are the number of souls on earth a constant or are they increasing in number? If rebirth is to be believed then how come the population of humans has been on a rise for a long time now ? And where do the new
souls come from ?

Maybe some insects and reptiles and birds and mammals found spiritual advancement thru good karma(?) and were born as humans. But I had no theory to prove the numbers of other species is decreasing to compensate our rise, till recently.

The explosive growth of humans and all their activities in land-clearing for agriculture, large-scale fishing, CO2 exhaling vehicles and industries and a variety of polluting activities has made sure we kill every other species at an unprecedented rate. The web of life has been
cut , and the rate of extinction of all species other than flourishing homo sapiens has been on a rise. Is it time to worry yet?

But rebirth has probably made sure that the souls of the members of now extinct species are reborn as humans. Proof: I can see some people have just about enough intellectual capability as dodos do (or did). Tyrannosaurus' future generations thrive in the corporate world enjoying
the cut-throat competition. Some men do pranks that would make endangered orangutans blush, and others have the fashion-sense of a red-eyed tree-frog. Many people in country where once bisons thrived and were hunted down, now pile on enough fat to look like them, even making obesity an ailment !
------
For a non-satirist yet nice introduction to effects of human activities leading to environmental problems- check out daversity.com.

Every

Every flower I see
reflects your face
inspiring me to dream
and
Every melody I hear
sounds like your voice
and giving it a theme

Every breath I take
takes in your name
to make me sigh,
and
Every day spent
without you with me
is like living a lie.

Every unspoken word
of my lips want to say
"I love you"
and
Every unheard whisper
in my ears longs to hear
"I love you too "

Spurious Transitions

This is a just an angry outburst at a common practice driven by an almost irrational logic. It has been nagging me for quite a while and I have to put it down somewhere.

emails are everywhere around us. Office work revolves around email and telephone with a lot of information transacted in this form. Official documents, explanatory images, illustrative media, useless forwards, unwanted spam and ofcourse plain text is transmitted and received in huge quantities every second.

But something irks me whenever I see it- a very short text message almost like an sms, no longer than a sentence sent by email, and whats more a inexplicably long 'Disclaimer note' (sometimes 2 paragraphs long) automatically appended by the company's mail server to every outgoing mail.

When I see such a thing my weird mind penetrates the physical layers of networking and stands as a silent observer of the atrocity taking place at a micro level- Every ASCII character is 8 or 16 bytes long and for each character the bits toggle by about half the number of bits. Much of our logic circuitry is CMOS based which means the major consumption is dynamic and occurs where there is toggling of bits. An sample disclaimer(found below) is 432 characters long.

Imagine The Amount Of Switching Taking Place (ITAOSTP) for each email sent by an employee in the mail server.
ITAOSTP when each email passed through a network with its own series of repeaters, routers and switches.
ITAOSTP when the email goes thru external network and the internet, passing thru more cables and repeaters.
ITAOSTP when the email reaches the other end till it reaches the screen of the receiver
ITAOSTP when the email has multiple recipients in various locations.
ITAOSTP when each employee sends tens of mails per day
ITAOSTP when the mails and sent back and forth thru reply-alls and cc-s and bcc-s.
ITAOSTP when all the mails sent by all the employees of an organisation have the same dumb disclaimer note.
ITAOSTP when many big organisations have mail servers adding their own fanciful disclaimer notes.

I cannot imagine the amount of energy wasted this way. I dont even want to imagine about the congestion and time overhead caused by the disclaimers.

All said and written, these responsible thoughts never occur to me whenever I recieve an multiple-MB videoclip as a forward - the content being something like'Planets funniest animals' or 'wacky commercial for cola' . I never understood why !!

-----------------------------------

"Note: If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If
you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message and deleting it from your computer. Thank you. "

என் சுவாசக்காற்றே

கரங்கள் இரண்டில் மென்மையாய் பற்றி
என்னருகே உன்னை அணைத்து இருக்கி
என் சுவாசக்காற்றினை உன்னுள் ஊற்றி
மூங்கில் தோள்களை உடையவள் பெயர் சூட்டி
நித்தமும் உன்னையே முத்தமிட்டு இசைப்பேன்
மூங்கிலால் இறைவனே படைத்தறுளிய - என் குழலே !

Hidden in a haystack

"Selfishness is Immoral"-Swami Vivekananda
-easy to understand, tough to absorb, impossible to follow for most people.

"The world has enough for everyone's need, not everyone's greed"- MK Gandhi

In the recent past, I have interacted with people, who seemed to justify an immoral, illegal act with descriptions like its the truth , its practical, its common-place, its done by everybody and so on.

Are bad acts only restricted to deeds done by a minority, but shunned by the majority ? Can selfishness be made to look like perfectly normal, just because a large majority of people are selfish ? Why does the world have so many religions and prophets and philosophers who seem to understand and propagate great ideals, but are never followed by most people ?

Gasping..

Like the solitary pearl-diver
Seeking the glitter in an oyster,
Has to return from the silent depths
To take his lungful of breath..

I live my lonely life, chase my lively dreams,
Across the muddy paths and icy streams,
But long to return to my turtledove
And claim a heartful of love.

Proverbs and Converbs

Have you ever been irritated by friends or relatives, who always seem to have the perfect proverb or quote for any situation ? If you listen carefully to them, and listen to many of them over time, you will come across one undeniable truth - Every Proverb has a Converb, and every Quote has its Anti-Quote. So you can say something wise for a given situation, and say something witty for exactly the opposite situation too. I was also told about the existence of de-motivational quotes brimming with pragmatism and common-sense as opposed to lofty sounding motivational quotes. So the conclusion is my favourite one- 'every generalisation is false including this one' !

Examples: Quote:Antiquote

Q: Money cant buy happiness
A:Whoever says Money cant buy happiness, doesnt know where to shop.

Q: United we stand, divided we fall
A: Familiarity breeds contempt

Q: Nothing is impossible
A: If you think its impossible, you are probably right.

Q: Success is a habit worth cultivating
A:Failures are stepping stones to success.

Q: If you dont plan for future, you are planning for failure
A: Why dwell in the past or worry about future, while you can still enjoy the present ?

Q: What you can do today dont postpone it till tomorrow
A: What you can do tomorrow dont do it today.

Q: A smile can make short work of any difficulty
A: When a lion is showing its teeth, dont think its smiling.

Q:Speech is silver, silence is golden
A: Where words fail, even silence speaks

Q: Knowledge is power
A: Ignorance is bliss !

A screwed up repair attempt is self-satisfaction

People get satisfaction out of weird things and actions. Sometimes a dismal failure can still lead to a psychological candy.

I had a few horrifying jellyfish-shaped (dust/scratches?) artifacts on the image sensor of my digital camera, which led to ugly shadows in every image shot with it. This meant spending a few moments in Photoshop to correct every image, and was back-breaking work given the number of photos I tend to shoot in any outing. I decided to take charge of cleaning the sensor myself, armed with the self-help knowledge from umpteen websites who readily disclaimed their suggestions to be risky and not recommended by camera manufacturers. Tried out something last weekend, and didnt help much, so decided to give it to Canon service.

The guy had one look at the sensor and asked if I tried anything heroic !! I was informed that the sensor had not only scratches which cannot be removed, but also stains from the methanol used as solvent. A hefty bill was what remained after all the valiant efforts.

But somehow I felt I would have been more disappointed with the high price, if I hadnt tried anything myself. Somehow one doesnt mind paying the price for something he screws up, when compared to something that happens beyond his control. The repair still had to be done anyway, but it just felt better adding a little more damage to it, before bearing the cost.

A longish birthday wish

The buoyant waves of joy
that do not ebb with time

the suddens bursts of laughter
that doesnt dissolve like lime

the bliss of soulful music
ears to which you'd lend

the company of good friends
who dont desert at the end

the gentle love of dear ones
that cannot fade over ages

the blessings of the almighty
that doesnt dilute in stages

Wishing you all these and more
on this beautiful day and forever.

Cardiac Arrest

Blood finds its way
in and out of my heart,
But why can't U
find a way out ??

Blood finds its way
in and out of ur heart,
But why can't I
find a way in ??

Smiles that last for miles

I got a notion of genuineness of a smile while observing the different managers and receptionists in the hotel where I stayed. Somehow we unconsciously find some people in PR jobs to be friendly and warm, while others maybe nice yet cold and business-like. So I evolve the theory-

Measurement of the Persistence of Smile as an Quantitative Indicator of its Genuineness- (yeah its a white-paper!)

When I interact with a person who smiles gloriously when talking to me, and if the smile dies out quickly after the conversation or in the breaks when the person is interrupted for another task I usually feel its fake.
On the other hand if the smile in the face of the person persists for atleast a few seconds after the interaction is over, and diffuses slowly while the person concentrates on his/her next task, I feel much more comfortable with such people.
But on the other end of the scale, if the smile lasts too long, and with the same curvature to be meaningful, it just looks like cosmetic addition to a face- some television ad models or actors in public often fall under this category.

So when you smile at me next time, remember... Im still watching you after you have turned away too.. :)

Three old men and a serving of inspiration

Observing seemingly ordinary people, can be interesting and sometimes even thought-provoking. Over a period of a little over one month in Italy, I saw and reflected on the actions of 3 old men I met in different restaurants, who demonstrated something to me.

-----

One was the sole owner, cook, waiter of a warm and nicely decorated pizzeria, in his late sixties, and walked with a slight limp in one leg. After ordering some pizza in his shop, I was observing his style of work- he was completely enjoying himself- whistling melodiously to the music in his FM radio, sharing a joke or two with his customers and ofcourse cooking and serving the food himself, and cleaning the dishes.

Somehow, he seemed to be a classic example of a follower of karma yoga.

-----

Strangely I always seemed to have great difficulty in opening plastic caps of the water or juice bottles sold. I would forever struggle with my forefinger and thumb clasping the cap, and the other hand gripping the bottle, with the facial expression of a feather-weight wrestler being pinned to the ground by a super-heavyweight- till someone else in my table or a waiter would offer to open it for me.

Im a buffet-type restaurant in Termini station in Rome, an old gentleman came to sit in a table across mine, carrying all his foodstuff in a tray, settling down and starting his meal. He paused in between took his water bottle, placed it on his chair inbetween his thighs where he held
it tight, and opened it quite easily with one hand. He couldnt use the other hand, simply because it wasnt there !

- With the right tools and some smart work, you can even do without a extra helping hand.

---

"Buona sera Signore ! Prego.." welcomes this 60-something waiter with a warm smile in the many evenings I ate at this eateria near my hotel. Knowing my difficulty in understanding Italian, he would offer helpful translations of the menu, the plate-of-the-day etc. And he would also remember my preference for vegetarian dishes from my second visit onwards and help me get what I want.

Moving quickly yet graciously across the spaces, and serving food in a well rehearsed style, he was miles ahead of his much younger colleagues in quality of service. One a day he was working alone, and seemed to be everywhere, I just offered to take my drink and salad from the fridge
myself. He stopped me in my tracks, politely sent me back to my table, and said with a another smile "I will bring it to you. Its my job" - such pride in what he does and mastery of rules of the customer service game.

Raaja Paarvai

I always used to wonder, if the world is so beautiful with just the
narrow spectrum that we can see, How much better it would be for God!

"At frequencies of visible light , many dielectrics become less lossy.
Materials such as glass,water are virtually loss-less w.r.t visible
light and hence transparent. Considering that our eyes are made mostly of water,
we are fortunate that water is not opaque at those frequencies.

A striking fact of nature is that the absorption coefficient of water rises more than 7
decades (factor of 10 million) in magnitude on either side of the visible band.
So it is impossible to create a water-based eye at any other part of the
spectrum.All creatures with vision exploit this narrow region of the spectrum."

- Extract from "Electromagnetics Explained - Handbook for Wireless/RF,
EMC and
high-speed electronics" by Ron Schmitt.

A parting mail to a great friend

to you,

i will miss you for sure, after you leave this place, but i dont regret
it.. u r irreplaceable, and play a unique role in my life,
but unfortunately your heart and soul is not here . i have never had
someone like you before, and dont think i will have
anybody else in future. i dont even know how to describe you, but i know
u r special.

from me

Love-Lost-Live

Unlike a whole lot sentimal crap being sent and received on V day, that we seem to receive almost every year..these ones suddenly impressed me - apparently intended for married folks- but applicable to anybody.

Love is not about "its your fault", but "Im sorry"
Love is not about "Where are you?", but "Im right here for you"
Love is not about "How could you?", but "I understand"
Love is not about "I wish you were..", but "Im thankful you are.."

- simple but elegant !

Another analogy which wafted across my mind - Unsuccessful love stories are a bit like an arrears in semester examination- you may have failed the test, but that does not mean you didnt learn or experience anything during the entire semester.

V for Valentine not Vendetta

Its probably not coincidence that this thing was started on Valentine's Day 2007.
Its just that the words left unsaid were too many to remember, and too meaningful to be forgotten.

Was wondering how many people we actually care for or love and adore in our lives, but to how many people we actually wish or even remember on Valentine's day ? For a world filled with so much hatred, a good cure could be - having a V day every week ! So much love to share, but so few recipients, and even fewer givers.

Why ??

There were just too many interesting things running in my mind to be thought of, but left unexpressed...

The single biggest reason for creating this blog is to capture the daily dose of weird imaginations, specific observations, strange thoughts of this brain that refuses to sleep...

The days of living in fear of forgetting a great thought or idea to the monster called time, just because Im too lazy to jot it down somewhere, have passed by..

Now let my insomniacal neurons speak...

All in a day's work !

The following is a conversation in email between Raj and Arun.
... defines productivity in office !!

SeyyuL : Classical Tamil poetry with rules
Pudhukkavidhai : Contemporary tamil poetry sans rules
Yaappilakkanam: The Bible of Grammar for writing good SeyyuL

-------------------------------
Hey try tumblr.com for ur ittiac
rantings. It's a lot easier for
short posts than blogspot.
Check mine out at my usual name.

--Raj C

-------------------------------

What do u mean easier..?I havent seen it
yet, but what
features attract you to it ?All i do here
is to type an email to
arun81.ittiac@blogger.com, the subject
becomes the blogtitle
and body of the mail becomes the content.
- Arun

-------------------------------

I didn't know that you blogged by mail. Tumblr
is easier in the sense you can
add any short text, pic or a quote and it is
characterised as such. Instead of
creating a new post as in a blog. Tumblr is for
small one-liners and stuff but
not for posts the size of paragraphs. I think I
make sense here. What's a
tumblelog?To make a simple analogy: If blogs are
journals, tumblelogs are
scrapbooks. (From their FAQ) Hope they add
posting by email soon. -- Raj C

-------------------------------

ah ok..i get the idea . online scrapbook for my
inner mind crap :)
i use ittiac for everything from essays to
oneliners.
u already know that i have this huge tendency to
become all verbiose and
wordy..
its only recently that I am pushing hard to keep
down to less than a paragraph,
or just a few lines to express an idea (which
resembles a poem without any metering !!)
i dont have ur id in office..can u
gimme ur tumbler url ?
- Arun

-------------------------------

It doesn't matter if you become verbose or suffer from
logorrhoea. You still can use it. There is a
feature in it to include dialogues you may find useful.
Poetry without meter is like taking a bite of
a laddoo only to find a stone in
it.rexmaximus.tumblr.com I haven't written much there. Just
some collections of quotes.- Raj C

-------------------------------

i like the laddu analogy better than other which dont
involve food items. but wotapens when you
take the laddu with the full knowledge that there will
be a few stones in it, just for the fun of it ?
even if come across a stone u spit it out and enjoy the
rest, as if it were a pomegranate filled with
seeds !

- Arun

-------------------------------

Are you aware of the price to pay for eating a laddu filled
with stones?? Sweets by themselves cause damage to
the teeth, and with stones the damage is immediate. In the
case of poetry that translates to ...? I can't imagine.
The stones were meant to indicate the cringes that occur on
reading some lines disguised as poetry. So unless you
are a masochist or a contestant on Fear Factor I don't think
anyone would be willing to eat the loaded laddu. on
second thoughts even the people on fear factor do it for
money. So one has to be a true masochist to eat the laddu.
Another analogy for this would be the tackling of a road
filled with potholes (if that is possible) in a car with broken
suspension.
And from your reply and what you've written in the blog I
take that you are one of those hopeless romantics. Is it
true?? - Raj C

-------------------------------

If im a hopeless romantic, you are one septic sceptic.. you see
you are not able to imagine the pomegranate analogy
while you still on to ur loaded laddu thingy.. one does not
have to be masochist to enjoy a pomegranate or custard
apple ! When there was archaic but rich seyyuL, there is also
easy and enjoyable pudhukkavidhai- and there are
fans for both. And there are people who stop complaining
about the pothole filled roads, get off the track and ride
mountain bikes in rocky terrain.its not a bad idea to rest
your brain sometimes and just listen to the tune in your
heart. and yes, that proves Im a goddamn romantic !!

- Arun

-------------------------------

I get the pomegranate analogy, but I can't accept it as an analogy.
And regarding the masochism, only a masochist can compare a
pebble laden laddus to the sweet seed-filled pomegranates or custard
apple.Archaic seYYul is sweet. pudhukkavithai is just prose
written in a bad structure. Purists still don't accept puthukkavithai
as kavithai. Just because it uses flowery language does not mean
it can pretend to be a kavithai. Poetry has to have a certain rhythm,
just like music. Yaappilakkanam is not a farce. Prose is just
narration a monotone, dull and boring, and puthukkavithai is prose in
a different form.The fans of puthukkavithai certainly are not
the ones who truly appreciate the beauty of poetry. They are the ones
who instead of doing something about the pot-filled roads try
to avoid it altogether and take a difficult path in a rocky terrain.
The fact that ideas originate in the brain and not in the heart does not

allow my brain any rest. Consequently, listening to the tunes of my
heart (of which I believe there is only one septic tune left), is
ruled out. Thanks for confirming that you are a romantic. That
clarified my doubt. And romantics are bound to do something stupid,
so beware!!!


-------------------------------

1. You cant have pebble inside a laddu, unless its the tirupathi-sized
ones.
2. Archaic seyyul is sweet but sleeps in dusty books in library and
thrives in hated tamil school textbooks.
3. The majority of the population who enjoy life are fortunate enough not
to be purists.
4. "Poetry has to have a certain rhythm, just like music " sounds
melodious but maybe you forgot this -
5. Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its
origin from emotion recollected in tranquility: the emotion is
contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquility gradually
disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was the subject
of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist
in the mind.- WW
6. Yaappilakkanam is not a farce, but is intended only for M.A (Tamil
Literature), and to be left in 'choice' by all other students.
7. The fans of puthukkavithai dont appreciate the beauty of poetry - but
you cannot appreciate poetry or beauty with the brain alone !!
8. In the unknown terrain grows the wild flowers, not in the landscaped
garden on the pothole road.

Forgot to add this - And never underestimate the power of stupid people
!! ;-)

- Arun

-------------------------------

This is interesting...

You cant have pebble inside a laddu, unless its the tirupathi-sized
ones.
>> pebble - poetic license ;-)

Archaic seyyul is sweet but sleeps in dusty books in library and thrives
in hated tamil school textbooks.
>> I pity you for not having a good teacher who would have made you
appreciate the true beauty of seyyul.

The majority of the population who enjoy life are fortunate enough not
to be purists.
>> I think the majority of the population likes its goods clean and new
and shiny, and I believe it does the same for poetry.

"Poetry has to have a certain rhythm, just like music " sounds melodious
but maybe you forgot this -
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its
origin from emotion recollected in tranquility: the emotion is
contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquility gradually
disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was the subject of
contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in
the mind.- WW
>> I think you are missing the point here. The whole idea behind
recollection in tranquility is to put it in a form so that people who
read the
poem can feel the emotion the poet originally felt. To do this, the
emotions have to be written following the rules of grammar and
semantics.

Yaappilakkanam is not a farce, but is intended only for M.A (Tamil
Literature), and to be left in 'choice' by all other students.
>> Again I pity you that you didn't have a good thamizh teacher.
yapplilakkanam : poet :: design rules : IC design engr.

The fans of puthukkavithai dont appreciate the beauty of poetry - but
you cannot appreciate poetry or beauty with the brain alone !!
>> It is the brain that recognizes the characters, understands what they
are and interprets the meaning of the poetry. How come it
cannot appreciate the beauty of it??

In the unknown terrain grows the wild flowers, not in the landscaped
garden on the pothole road.
>> Wild flowers are what inspired the emotions in the poet. He
recollects them in tranquility and presents it as a landscaped garden
for
the others to enjoy. Potholed road is quoted out of context here :-)

>>Forgot to add this - And never underestimate the power of stupid people
!! ;-)

Power should never be given to stupid people!! That is very dangerous.

"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the
Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the
brain, and drinking largely sobers us again."
-- First used by Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744) in An Essay on Criticism,
1709

--Raj C

-------------------------------

I not know any grammar
Id smash it with a hammer
I care not abt iambic meter
Id rather hide in a volcanic crater
But spontaneous outbursts i write
disguised as little poems thats not right ! :)

I did have teachers who helped me appreciate the beauty of seyyul back
in school and still do. but most people didnt, and still dont.but that
form of illiteracy does not prevent them from enjoying pudhukkavidhai.

"To do this, the emotions have to be written following the rules of
grammar and semantics" - have you ever tried writing a poem? I am not
well-versed with the rules of grammar, and not so endowed with flowery
vocabulary agreed,but by the time you try expressing your deeply felt
emotion with richly carved lines, and meter and rhyme and whatnot, I
always tend to lose a lot of steam attached to the emotion, which was
the reason I started writing in the first place - its no more a
spontaneous outburst- it becomes apainstaking manipulation.

Poetry :Art (not related to)IC Design : Science
(relationship quoted out of context)

Brain is the seat of intelligence, and heart is the seat of
emotion/feelings (poetic license) though biologically we know neither is
completely true, because nobody knows EXACTLY whats happenning in our
brains.

And wild flowers in a landscaped garden no more excite the senses as
well as they do in the wild..Seeing the flower on the treks to
Kinabalu, and seeing the orchid in Singapore botanical garden is not the
same.

But you see..even some Stupidity can still be interesting.. ... (as you
have rightly observed below!! ) "This is interesting..."

- Arun

-------------------------------

> I not know any grammar
> Id smash it with a hammer
> I care not abt iambicmeter
> Id rather hide in a volcanic crater
> But spontaneous outbursts i write
> disguised as little poems thats not right ! :)

Poet or not, you'll make a good rap singer. Couldn't help laughing out loud at
this.

>
> but by the time you try expressing your deeply felt
> emotion with richly carved lines, and meter and rhyme and whatnot, I
> always tend to lose a lot of steam attached to the emotion, which was
> the reason I started writing in the first place - its no more a
> spontaneous outburst- it becomes apainstaking manipulation.

That is why WW insisted on tranquility. You have to recall the emotion, try to
relive the event and then try to put it into words, the flow of poetry will
occur naturally. I tried to write something like poetry but ended up like
something which fans will call blasphemy. I have them here.

To play or not to play: that is the question:
Whether 'tis easier in the mind to drive
Straight or to the cover full-lengthed deliveries,
Or to lift arms against the outswinging short ones,
And by leaving free them? To stay: to score;

and the original is

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more;

~ Hamlet (Hamlet)

I tried a translation too...

Our mothers know not each other,
Our fathers related like strangers
How do I even know thee
Yet our hearts have mingled
Like falling rain on a clay field.

of this

(a tamil poem)
yaayum gnayum ...
..sempula peyalneer pol
ondrodondru thaam kalandhanavae."

from kurunthokai.

I have to say that there is not much emotion is either of them.

> Brain is the seat of intelligence, and heart is the seat of
> emotion/feelings (poetic license) though biologically we know neither is
> completely true, because nobody knows EXACTLY whats happenning in our
> brains.

True but the general opinion is that all conscious (even subliminal) decisions
are made in the brain, though in different parts. Only certain reflexes are
handled outside the brain and in the spinal cord. The reason for the heart
being said as the center of emotion could be because of the increased blood
flow caused by the intensity of the emotion (for e.g. that heart pounding on
the sight of a beautiful female)

>
> And wild flowers in a landscaped garden no more excite the senses as
> well as they do in the wild..Seeing the flower on the treks to
> Kinabalu, and seeing the orchid in Singapore botanical garden is not the
> same.

Of course, a caged bird can only sing sad songs (uh oh I think I'm being
influenced by you now. -- Note to self: Must. Not. Change.)

> But you see..even some Stupidity can still be interesting.. ... (as you
> have rightly observed below!! )

Stupidity can be interesting in the sense watching little kids play is
interesting. But when adults do the same it can only lead to pity and anger.

Waiting for more...

Raj C
--------------------------------

I just decided to stop here !!

-Arun