"Unsent Items"

There's a common feature in almost all of our communication devices called "Sent Items". You can see the mails and messages you sent just to reassure yourself (and probably to reassure others as well), or to serve as proof points in the terribly politically charged corporate atmospheres these days, or simply to reminisce over things you said (some which you wanted to, some which you were forced to, and some which you can't believe you said...)


But with all the technological advancements, there is one thing still missing perhaps -- a separate collection of all those unsent items that perhaps comprise an equally large volume of our communication. Every mail that you wrote but then deleted half way, every SMS that was typed with extreme deliberation, and then deleted (perhaps with even greater deliberation), and of course, not to mention the number of times you dialled a number and then abruptly cut it off before the first ring could reach the other side (Remember "...half a page of scribbled lines"?).

Who is noting down all those little pieces of thoughts that keep floating and sinking (and sometimes rising again), bobbing up and down, struggling with other thoughts around it, in the tumultous oceans of our minds? Who will be your scribe, your stenographer, and infact, who will be a patient ear to all those rumblings when you yourself can get lost within those voices?

They will make it one day. Like a vacuum cleaner for those tiny pieces of thoughts scattered along with the dust. Bring them all in at least... all that junk which is perhaps an essential after-effect of that very simple thing we do everyday -- exist...

Wool around Woolmer

"Rest in peace" is so inapplicable to this poor guy... Somebody probably murdered him. Two months back they said he was strangled. Then came the poison story. All the while the ex-coach of Pakistan was turning in his unwanted grave, partly because of the amazing performance by the Pakistani team and partly because they couldn't really figure out as to how he reached his grave...
And now what they are claiming will probably bring him back from the dead to actually tell the story. The latest news is that he died a natural death. In the 18th century, it took an ordinary postmortem not more than 24 hours to ascertain whether a death was unnatural or not. In Jamaica, perhaps medical science is trying to catch up and is already out of breath...

Some of us don't quite get famous while we are alive. For Woolmer, his strange fate has made him larger than life, after his life...

“Greetings” - Version 2.0

Everything these days comes with an upgrade patch. Sometimes you start getting warnings if you don’t. I remember till a few years back a number of congratulatory phone calls (that I would make) would start with.. “Hey….!!! This is so cool..You’re getting married..!!!. Tell me about him/her…How does it feel?” And similar questions to which I expected half-honest answers.
Things have changed now, somewhat. I find that a number of those congratulatory phone calls now start off with..”Hey…!!! This is so cool… You’re a father/mother now…!!! Howz the little one? How does it feel?” And similar questions to which I expect absolutely honest answers.
And when I have put the phone down I do tend to sit back, smile a bit, and think about the person(s) in question. About they being “ready” for this change. And then I realize perhaps none of us is ever ready for these changes. After all, most of us are going through this phase for the first time. Yes, being “world-aware” certainly adds to the ability to handle situations when things get tricky (and you bet they do…), but as I read long back, “experience is a comb that life gives you after you have lost all your hair.”
I guess the fun part is dealing with those bad-hair days without the comb. The inexperience is definitely worth it. So, hang in there… and by the way, congratulations…!

Again...

For some reason, since this morning I find myself hearing refrains of "Dogs" (Floyd) with particular reminiscences of "...who was only a stranger at home...". And that's why I decided to visit this foster home of mine again this afternoon. Yes it's my blog I am talking about. It has started resembling one of those half-constructed, iron-rods protruding one storeyed buildings on a hot June afternoon somewhere in a village in Bihar. Basically, you wouldn't really stop by at such a place for a cool refreshing drink. I know it's been abandoned for a while now.
But things will change. Back to what they were. When somebody would pull over onto the drive-way and actually order a ginger ale at times.

I am using this a convincing ploy. They say what you write, gets etched forever. Somewhere in the digital sandbox perhaps I am drawing something. And hoping it will stay. And surive. And help me survive...

Thoughts of thoughtlessness...

It’s funny when thoughts vanish just as you put the pen to paper. Or, as is more appropriate in these online times, as you put your fingers on the keyboard. It’s like picking up a furiously ringing phone only to hear a bleak dial tone as you make vain attempts to elicit some other response by repeatedly shouting Hello into it (and then looking at the receiver as if a ghost got the better of it).
Or when you switch on the TV to find a blank, blue screen (Although with all the crap that they show, perhaps the b. blue screen has its own use). Remember “Tom… No Answer”? (Brush up on your Mark Twain if you hadn’t done so in a while). That’s what it’s like. Like somebody putting a glass wall just before the waves hit the rocks, leaving them literally high and dry. A gush of feelings, ideas, emotions, like criss-cross shadows struggling to share the spot-light, not knowing that shadows don’t survive spot-lights…

Like a bunch of five year olds learning to play football, the aim being just to hit the ball somehow, the goal would take care of itself. Like me writing all this without any goal in mind. Only the shadows of those kids, like multi-colored laser lights at once blinding you, and leaving you in the dark simultaneously.