Things Creative Souls do apart from writing

   I have been on a blog-reading and tweeting spree lately. Of course, I should have been writing this blog(of late, this has been a neglected space), and exercising my creative juices.

    Point is, I have been doing the otherwise. And here I am, back to 'Ad new post.' So I decided to share this graphic, regarding the things that actually distract the Creative souls from doing their work.

   

Mr.Humble

    I'm sure you too accept your own labels, keeping in mind certain self-accepted notions. Some might by imposed by others too. People's ideas as to who we are. And while some of these imposed-ideas could be permissible, some are flat-out.

   I ask all this because I contemplate on this daily. Some people refer to me as 'Giver of Sarcasm.' Not that I reject it, but I honestly don't prefer embracing mockery. Yes, it might be of my most obvious(say, 95%) traits, but at other times, I want to be kind too.

   The reason I started these thoughts into my mind is that I've stepped into another role; a new label.  Blogger-and writer. For one, I truly admire words.

    There is something distinctively magical I find in all words. The way they evoke emotions, thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions. At least, the only such other thing in life is music. At least to me.

    Words. Are. Powerful. And putting them down isn't a job to be taken lightly either.  In most cases, I mean.
   
    And yes, even as I let my keyboard loose while putting down these thoughts, I'm marveling at the significance of words. 

Addicting

    I love fiction. I love stories. In fact, I get a buzz from it. Reading it, watching it, and thinking about it. All this came can come even from a 30 second advertisement.  I mean, I feel in a foggy state whenever I finish a great movie or a book. And after one book or movie, I just want MORE.
 
   So, as mechanical and silly as it seems, I try to pace myself.  I reward myself with bits of fiction for doing the things I know I should be doing.  Twenty minutes of getting ready for the day followed by one song.  Ten minutes of work before I check my blog stats.   When I do this, I am actually happier because I’m getting the real work done and I can enjoy the fun without guilt.
   
   

Aakash (Okay, Ublislate 7)- miracle or bitter?

   I know I've watched the video of Kapil Sibal gleefully raising his hand to unveil the Aakash, or Ubislate 7, the world's cheapest tablet and computing device.

   But after the watching the video every time, it was not difficult to as one question: who gave the HRD this brilliant idea as to name a tablet computer on a high profile surface-to-air missile which cost the government tens of thousands of crores? That apart, Aakash(yeah, I'd prefer to call it that way), raises quite a lot of questions.


  When Kapil Sibal distributed 1.750 tablets to hundreds of schools, he made a huge promise: to put India's digital natives; he put us on the information superhighway.

   If one closely watches and follows the tech world, it is easy to understand that the introduction of cheaper tablets, gadgets and gizmos always becomes the talk of the day. And Aakash is no different.

   It's a promising device- a resistive touchscreen, an SD card slot fitted with a 2GB card and supporting up to 32GB capacities, two USB ports, Wi-Fi, video conferencing, 3-hour battery life, 600MHz processor, 256MB RAM and Android 2.2 - are enough to dazzle the India on the wrong side of the digital divide.

   "This is for all of you who are dis empowered. This is for all of you who have no access. This is for all those who are marginalized," Sibal said at the launch as eager applause followed. "Our goal was to break the price barrier for computing and internet access," he said. "The Aakash is proudly made in India, and is destined to revolutionize computing and internet access for the world."

   No doubt, India has beaten the world in creating the world's cheapest tablet. No doubt, Aakash has the potential of being a game-changer as it can empower India's poor - just the way the PC did in the 1980s in the West.

   WE have also, often seen the demise of cheap laptops and tablets. Okay, let s not go into bitter nostalgia. But the potential of a gadget must not be confused with performance. The government has thrown open a lot of claims, and in this case, let's call it, possibilities to this Tech world, but that's not the end of it.

  With just a three hour battery life, recharging would become the order of the day; it would practically mean plugging the device into the charger all day. With just 1 GB of memory, most of the content would have to be cloud-based, and this would again add to the burden of Wi-fi costs. No thought has been given to this issue. Among the emerging economies, India has the worst per capita power consumption. There are thousands of schools without electricity. How will the students recharge their tablets," says an official in the ministry of science and technology. You just can't dump technology on rural communities and hope it will work.

  There has been a lot of hype around the launch of Aakash, leading to a lot of questions left out unanswered. In 2002, The government had the laughable "Sakshat" pendrives. There was another failed project called the 'Simputer.' My only hope is that Aakash doesn't land up in that Hall. With a little more thought to it, Aakash has a long way to go. For that, the government has to make it more than a deadly missile.

REVERIE.

   When the skies prepared for the showers, my mind was filled with memories of my childhood, penetrating so deep that, the scents of those dragged me into a state of reminiscence.

   Then I realised how beautiful these scents were; the scents that brood in me with obligations, which even shape my life. The smells which tend to bloom into a philosophical poem, influencing my thoughts. Smells of love, passion, agony, mischief, disaster, warmth, care, etc., which sometimes intoxicate me or sometimes make  me to gloom and solitude. They sometimes cover my ego with their selfless wings or sometimes abandon me at once.

   Back in the days…

   I remember how beautiful the rains were in my childhood. When the first showers of monsoon intruded into the earth, disturbing the stagnant smells, which at once jumped up majestically everywhere, I ran out in rain, closed my eyes and inhaled. It gave me a state of exhilarant, and suddenly I felt nothing, but only the rain and the joy delivering me from all thoughts, worries, parting me from the other part of the world. These smells were my constant companions, with whom I mused, I played, I dreamed and I lived. 

    Thankfully, there are still traces of these scents. OK, back to Nostalgia.

That Character

    I’ve been reading a lot of mystery fiction lately: Eoin Colfer, , etc.

    Aside from the fact that they’re all about mysteries and  to detect aforementioned mysteries, they’re also some of the  more depressing books I’ve read. These writers have crafted worlds populated with brainless thugs,subtle plots and smart detectives.

There is horror here, and it ain't too cheerful too, but it gives me lots of ideas, ideas for writing, ideas for stories and beyond.

  Could this be me as a prelude?

Fair *warning*- Words Ahead

     There are so many nearly-born blog posts floating around in my head. None of them worth their pixels to anyone but me. As they lie there in increasingly dark and dusty corners, the spiders of oblivion making them cobwebby and obscure, they decay. Bits of them break off and grow legs and begin to scuttle around, making scratching noises and muttering resentfully. Frankly, the racket is starting to get on my nerves.

    And so. Therefore. Prepare yourself, dear reader, for a barrage of (or, at least, several) meaningless posts aimed at little more than reducing the noise in my head. It’s all just words, really, but it’s the words that I love, after all. But I do love giving surprises. So there could be nothing too.

   Well. It is the last day of September and I am a brooding a bit for that. I love September. It’s my favorite month and it’s almost over. A whole year of waiting for it again . . . it feels kind of like finishing a favorite book. Satisfying, except you’re not ready to be done with it yet. (This is of course referring back to the days when I read books.)
 
  

Writing again

    I find that I am able to write again. Not saying what I’ve been writing is good. Just that I have not written my next writing project (a fantasy novel) in many months, and now it's back. What a pleasant surprise.

    Thankful to the project I started a year ago. Voila.

EXAMINATION BLUES

   

   The sun weighs down upon my soul.

   It's a few hundred degrees as soon it's safe to call it a morning. I would've said it felt cold and dark because that's what it's like on the inside, but this holy Sun of ours has left me with no choice.

   It had been many days and I couldn't write right. there was this lack of concentration feeling again. I was bottling up my thoughts, waiting for them leak or erupt out anytime. The brutal school life had been taking its toll- as if taking time to catch up there wasn't enough, there were these cumbersome unusually useless files, lost pens and emotional overloads. 

  Of course, I need to stop talking crazy, but hey, issues come strangle me by the neck. With ink-spotted shirts and parched throats, I make my way towards the semester examination hall. Not to forget the fire-eyed invigilators, waiting for someone to peek around. And of course, the silence of a friend in the examination hall, which sometimes brings tears.

   All factors of examination blues, in my case.

 

  

A title of titles, like, to end them.

    Writing entries is by and large a breeze for me. The words tend to flow readily, as if they’ve been scrabbling at the gate that is my fingertips and waiting to be set free.
 
    Clicking “Publish” is another matter. By contrast to the writing, that seemingly small step can take me days to complete.

      Somewhere between these two tasks on the effort-required spectrum is titling my posts. It wasn’t always something I thought about. At the beginning, oh so many months ago*, I’d slap on the first accurate title that sprang to mind. Happily, these mostly didn’t result in titles like “Today is Thursday” or “Rocks are Pretty.”

     There have occasional lame titles, but nothing too bad to rant about here.

      And yes, i must add that this post had been sitting in the draft folder for six weeks! Like Monday's email cleanup, i had let go of this one.

      And yes, recently I have been active on Twitter, and mastered the ability to condense thoughts into 140 characters. And hence, the title.

Power sentence for every year of my life

  A Crazy blog title, I know! But it would inspiring to look back at those long 13 years.
  
 Arrived at the world, with a twin brother. Life must have been a bit easier in the second year. Began trusting parents in the few later years..
     Nomad life began..School and home shifted.
     The fifth year saw me joining up for Nursery or pre-primary or whatever. I remember it used to be much of a mess when I joined the Kindergarten grade in the seventh year. Shifted again and found myself landed up in Chennai. Ninth sentence: the ninth year, I took up sports for bodily exercises, and, which I find very much of a good decision. Tenth year i started writing my novel, and studies began pacing up.
      In the eleventh year of my life I changed my school again and rediscovered joy for life. Twelfth year life became real good, I was getting a bit more successful and life more purposeful, my first novel came out. Thirteenth year, here I am.....waiting for the fourteenth year.........

Lessons from a Boring Day

  It was yet another leisure time of mine in which I was getting bored. I decided to switch on the Television(something which i hardly do, and thus, did that on the boring day) to while away time.
    Little did I know that the Idiot Box would, much to my own amusement, many things I'd never know if not fir it.
    Every hour spent watching TV puts a toddler seven words behind TV-free babies, researchers say. But still, I must admit children who watch TV are, to some extent, way smarter. Perhaps TV does educate you.
      For example you learn a medical fact: A person who has been shot b a bullet always speaks a partial sentence before he dies. 'The killer was..he was..' (dies). You also get useful information like all architectural buildings have air vents big enough to crawl through and investigate.
     The most important learning being "Life Skills." Bad things happen under special circumstances such as dark and stormy nights. Once a person is emotionally broken, it causes him/her to wander out alone in the stormy night without umbrellas. And contrary to this scientists say the crack of lightning and flash happen simultaneously, wherever you are.
  Police officers can also learn from TV. Whenever your boss says 'You cannot work on this case,' that's when you solve the case.
    Hmm, The page is finished. Let's get outta here!