POETRY --- by Pablo Neruda

And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating planations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesmal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke free on the open sky.

Its a MAD MAD world

Don Martin, MAD's maddest cartoonist passed away some 4 years back.And frankly speaking , ever since he left the magazine for its rival Cracked, MAD has lost its most crucial flavour for me.

Martin's signature was wild-haired characters, and grotesque action puntuated with with wacky words like SPLOP! and POIT!!!

for those uninitiated to his wild world,check this, this and this

What Color is Your Brain?

Took the test that vivek publicised on his page and the results are :

(click on the pic to take the quiz)

and the standard psycho-babble:

At work or in school: I need to be "hands on": I like to play games, to compete, and to perform. I enjoy flexibility, changes of pace, and variety. I have difficulty with routine and structure. My favorite subjects are music, art, theatre, and crafts. I often excel in sports. I like solving problems in active ways and negotiating for what I want. I can be direct and like immediate results.
With friends: Planning ahead bores me because I never know what I want to do until the moment arrives. I like to excite my friends with new and different things, places to go, and romantic moments.
With family: I need a lot of space and freedom. I want everyone to have fun. It is hard for me to follow rules, and I feel we should all just enjoy one another.


Just two days left before i push off for my treat, to bombay.Meeting loads of friends and almost 4 days packed with mishciefs and fun.
yeayyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

Pacman

Mr.Ghost fwded a flash version of pacman a few days back.Normally im not a gamey person, but got hooked on after trying it out once.Score shot upto 5585 in the second game.But given that im not an avid gamer I can imagine the disgusting levels most gaming freaks would have achieved till date.If any of them chance to read this post, do drop in the numbers.
And for those who haven’t tried it out yet, you cant get it from here.

The first Worl Champion Billy Mitchell, scored a perfect score of 3,333,360 .He had to eat every ghost and every fruit, and never lost a single life.And this took him almost 20 years to perfect. After declaring : "I understand the behavior of the ghosts and am able to manipulate the ghosts into any corner of the board I choose." , he spat "I never have to play that darn game again".

It turns out the ghost's movements are completely deterministic (there is no randomness in the AI). Because of this people have discovered patterns that will enable you to finish the game every time. There are actually just 3 patterns you need to get to level 17 every time.

Some Packy-Trivia

• The name of the game derives from the Japanese onomatopoeic word paku, which is the sound of opening and closing one's mouth. The name was romanized as Puck-Man in Japan, but the spelling was changed to Pac-Man for the U.S. market by Midway for fear that the machines would be vandalized by people marking part off the 'P' to an 'F' .
• The four monsters in the game are Shadow (Blinky), Speedy (Pinky), Bashful (Inky), and Pokey (Clyde).
• In December 1982, an eight-year-old boy named Jeffrey R. Yee received a letter from U.S. President Ronald Reagan, congratulating him on a worldwide record of 6,131,940 points, a score only possible if the player passed through the Split-Screen Level. Whether or not this event happened as described has remained in heated debate amongst video game circles since its occurrence. Billy Mitchell offered $100,000 to anyone who could provably pass through the Split-Screen Level before January 1, 2000; no one could.
• The secret level of the third episode of Wolfenstein 3D is fashioned after one of the original Pac-Man levels.

Foodie snap of the day.

pet puja

roadside chinese



bhelpuri and chaat



Salmon Unleashed

j-173

rabba rabba mee barsa

Raindrops are falling on my head
and just like the guy who's feet are too big for his bed,
nothing seems to fit
those,
raindrops are falling on my head,they keep falling

so I just did me some talking to the sun,
and I said I didn't like the way he got things done,
sleeping on the job
those,
raindrops are falling on my head they keep falling

But there's one thing, I know
the blues they sent to meet me won't defeat me.
It won't be long 'till happiness steps up to greet me

Raindrops keep falling on my head
but that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turning red.
Crying's not for me, cause
I'm never gonna stop the rain by complaining
because I'm free
nothing's worrying me

It won't be long till happiness steps up to greet me

Raindrops keep falling on my head
but that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turning red
crying 's not for me
Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complaining
because I'm free
Nothing's worrying me

heavy rains in delhi!!!

how does a layman define heavy rains??
more than 15 min or more than 1 hour?
strong enough to reduce visibility bt 1 feet or strong enough to wet every pebble on the road??

Having grown up in bombay, monsoons have been an intergral part of my life.Come monsoons and a whole new lifestyle begins.Adrak chai with pakoras, lazing in bed with books and a light quilt,clouds which break the monotony of otherwise regular blue sky...
then water clogged roads,muddy feet,crowded AND wet local trains, yummy smell of raosting bhuttas and yucky sight of them rotting on the roadside....

Last year was my first monsoon in delhi.Everyone had warned that it was not exactly a season here, more of a bookmark as the city weather changes from summer to winter.I was probably too busy getting used to an absolutely new life to notice the differences.I did miss the torrential mumbai rains however.
And this weekend something happened that got me thinking.
I was shopping at CP when it started drizzling.Not exactly drizzling, it was more like the tap coughing out a few spurts of water to announce that its 9am and paani aa gaya hai.And a few shoppers around me actually stopped and started clapping.The rains have really been very late this year.
And later when I went out for a movie with a few friends and it actually started drizzling, a few concerned mums around me said "its raining heavily in delhi ".

Poor delhi-ites!!