The Immigrant Song

I left my home to pay the way for others of my clan,

And now I’m stuck in distant shores, away from my own land

Here I have neither kith nor kin, my many sores to heal

All I have is sorrow and pain and it makes a lowly meal.

Bite the bullet, swallow the bile, and take it like a man

For all the sorrows you give out, comes back into your hand.

So I will walk this path alone, and never will I turn

To see the chasm I have crossed, and watch the bridges burn.

Here comes the Son!

Another night another fight
Another child is torn
Another pillow hugged tight
Waiting for the morn

Another night another fight
Another child takes a vow
To set right all the wrong
And make his father bow

Another night another fight
Another fist in the fray
Another boy wheeled into a van
As the sun declares the day

Another night another fight
Another man is born
This time the boy no more could wait
Until his dad was done

Another night another fight
Another child is torn
The boy has become his Dad
Another monster born

Puzzled!

If you dabble In jigsaw puzzles, like I do, you'll realize that there's a method to the madness. There's a logical way in which illogical pieces come together to form the larger picture.

The reason I mention it is because I realized midway between one that this logic applied to life itself. It seems to me that all of us are pieces of a colossal puzzle waiting to come together. Or maybe there are multiple puzzles and finding one's own puzzle adds to the, challenge.

This would explain why some people find their groove before most. Let me explain.

The easiest pieces to discern in a puzzle are the corners. Once you find these, it's just a matter of finding out which end fits where. Top left, top right, bottom left and bottom right. These pieces are plain on two axis, like the people they represent who are mostly plain or 'sorted' on two plains. Their variable lies on only two sides. These are the guys you went to college with who pretty much knew where they were headed. It was just a matter of time before they found themselves.

Then come the sides. Once again these are easy to find. They happen to be sorted completely on one plain and variable in three. Still, they are easy to put together. It takes these sorts a little time to find their place in the larger scheme, but it happens with a minimum of experimentation.

Then come the tougher ones, the ones in the middle. These are the slightly more complicated ones. You can find their places with reference to the ones on the sides, but they are tougher to put together. They struggle through life for a while before they eventually find their place.

Among these too you can find different sorts.

The ones with protrusions on all four sides. These are the type 'A' personalities. They don't make allowances for anyone and want others to accommodate them. They seem easier to put together and you reach out for them in the box, because they scream for attention due to their dominant shape.

Next are the ones with protrusions on three sides and a void in one. They are sure about what they want, but often need the dominant side of one to complete them and make them whole.

The two-protrusion ones are often the more balanced of the lot. They give as much as they get. Filling others, while also taking an equal portion of another. These are the couples you see who in life seem to be poles apart, but somehow seem to get along perfectly.

The one-protrusion ones are the more complex ones. The ones with a mad streak, often brought about by the voids in them. Their insecurity drives them to be wild on one side of their personality. These are the women who want their navel pierced in their 30s or guys who buy a motorcycle in middle-age.

And then come the all-voids. These are the ones who have no dominant sides and can be led, mostly by more dominant parts. You'll often find them clinging to the handles of four different parts of other people's personalty. They are the ones who no-one has anything bad to say about. The people's person.

And then come the stragglers. These could be any of the five sorts mentioned before, but even so, make no sense till the puzzle is almost done.

My problem is that my part in this puzzle, is a puzzle to me.

Better man!

A friend and I were watching 'Lord of War'. I told her to watch the title sequence for I think it's one of the best ever. She saw the whole thing and said it was 'nice'. 'Nice'? Why was it just 'nice'. Why wasn't it 'awesome'. Or 'out-of-this-world'. I thought it was fucking fantastic. I wonder.

You see this friend isn't from my background. She doesn't work in advertising. She is a doctor and spent her life reading doctory things, and doing doctory stuff. While I come from advertising and do advertising things- which effectively means drinking all night, reading stuff you won't wipe your arse with, fucking around all day and being mean and horrid to people who don't belong in advertising. I'm full of myself, and liquor all the time. While she drips with the milk of human kindness.

The reason I think I liked the title sequence is sort of complex. Allow me to explain. First of all, the camera angles. Film opens on Nicholas Cage's head. Actually the back of his head, and continues with a first person view of the life of a bullet being manufactured and its journey across the world, to Africa. Now I know my friend is not schooled in the business of film shoots and doesn't know much of camera angles, and how hard it would have been to shoot it thus. So I concede the point.

The next shot sees the bullet loaded into a crate and shut, only to open and show a Russian officer inspecting the cargo. This I am sure, barely registers as a blip in my friends's radar. As its some news she read in passing. Like "The east block funds terror in Africa" or some such headline.

While I have read of it before my time, but with much enthusiasm, (I was 13 when the Berlin wall went down) I've followed ever step of the communist era, complete with Soviet vetted Russian Folk tales in every Russian book fair in India. And of 'Afghanistan' and of the 'Red Army Faction' in Germany and 'Ilich Ramírez Sánchez' and the 'Baader-Meinhoff' group, and how the CIA and Interpol stopped it. I'm not a Communist by any stretch of the imagination. I merely find the era fascinating. Where would Fredric Forsythe and Robert Ludlum be without them. In the gutters, I imagine.

The next shot arrives in an African state, for the person, once more prising the lid off is a black man. (I'm brown, so I'm allowed to say black. (You whites can wait till you qualify.) She also looks at with no response. Since it's again been a headline on a newspaper, years back. For me, I followed the african conflict and still do. I read about Che' in the Congo, the massacre at Rhwanda, the problem in Uganda and everything. I have read, watched and heard every news from these lands and feel the pain.

The third sequence is of someone who picks up the round and fills it into a magazine. And since I've been a state level shooter, I know how good the camera angle is. This we can leave out of discussion, since not many among you are sportsmen of this kind.

The final shot had the round chambered in the barrel and the barrel pointed to many people before firing the bullet from the chamber, that speeds towards an innocent civilian.

This is where it all breaks down. For when the shot hit the man between his eyes, I didn't. But she did.

And so my friends, the judgement is yours to make. Though I am not religious, merely spiritual, as most people who know me knows.

I shall leave you with something from the bible.

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love,
I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing."

She had love on her side. While I had knowledge. Who's the better for it.

Directionless!

A compass needle one fine day
Decided he did not like the Northern Side
And so he swung the other way
And the man in disgust threw it aside

The Flight

The old coop was flown
The Rooster still paced the ground
Though he searched high and low
Not a trace of the hen could be found

3 years could wipe out every trace
yet every sight was in his seeing
What was the point of revisiting the geography
When every second of their history lived in his being

The Rooster crowed his last call
In the place where he had taken his first breath
As a man, and though it befitting
That the very ground that gave him life
Should witness his death

The Spell Checker

Found this poem on the net. Loved it. Putting it up here for everyone to enjoy.

'Spell Checker Blues'

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rarely ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect in it's weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

Anon

Leonard Cohen - A Thousand kisses deep

Thanks to a bundle of joy and energy called Vani, I discovered this song. Consider this my little tribute to you.