Challa is a punjabi folk song that's been around forever, obviously. Since Indian music is dominated by Bollywood now, the folk songs that you hear now are ones that have survived the test of time. They strike a chord whether you heard them from your parents while you worked in the fields as a kid way back when or if you were sniffing around on youtube and clicked something that seemed vaguely familiar. The latter would be me, in case you didn't get that. So, several days ago I rediscover this song and find this lovely version of it sung by one of those rare present day sufis, Rabbi Shergill. I've been completely hooked to it, and for the first few days it made me really sad. It's so heart wrenching, it remind me of a part of myself that's always stuffed away somewhere and brought out to try on every now and then and then put away again. Like an old dress that you got from your Mom that you wore so fondly before but looks sorta silly on you now and doesn't go with any of your shoes. The song is lovely to me in its abstractness and its willingness in being interpreted any way you like. The word "Challa" literally means "Ring", the kind you wear, which is made quiet obvious in the Dali-esque video. I don't know much Punjabi, I took the liberty of translating it and putting it in my own words. I'm not really competing from accuracy here and have just put down my interpretation, with some help from other blogs and discussion boards. Don't read it if you consider yourself an independent thinker. Before I spoil all the fun, heres the video...
Before this day goes totally and utterly downhill, I want to at least shout out, while my last remnants of sanity dwindle.
My life has been taken over by numbers, symbols and loops of stubborn logic. I count my words when I speak, or write. I force my feet to take bigger steps and just get there already. I shove food down my throat and guzzle coffee for sustenance.
I'm on the negative gradient of my function right now and it keeps getting higher in magnitude. For instance, factor in the girls upstairs who decide to have a tete-a-tete at 1 am, but unwittingly share their boisterous enthusiasm with their pretty sleepy and very gruff neighbor downstairs. Add in lack of sunshine, two powerpoint presentations, a not-quite-right research project bordering on a thesis deadline topped with a nitpicking pessimistic attitude like yours truly and your really on a roll.
It's therefore time to open up my parachute, slow my descent, take a nap.
It's another overcast albeit lovely Saturday afternoon, and all's well in my Universe. At least according to my observation model. The last time I checked my universe was completely observable for everything that did want to keep track of, which isn't much. So if I left a sock in a dryer somewhere sometime, I don't know and don't care and all's well.
As for inputs, food, sleep and physical and mental exercise have been wired in. Since the system is operating on a Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday schedule, the latter two are negligible and may be ignored. States reaching the limits of the operation envelope were damped by home cooked chicken. Disturbance rejection is functioning as designed and pulses of blue spectrum emotions were rejected by a nap and a chocolate brownie.
All states in the universe are stable and running. The system will now switch to the next task.
I've been gone forever from this blog which I created so lovingly and full of promise, to channel my thoughts, to keep everyone posted without whining on a one on one basis, and possibly to live vicariously by. And it wasn't suddenly finding focus, contentment or fulfillment that kept me away. Nor was it lack of time. I don't know why I stopped writing and I'm sure if you're reading you couldn't be less interested in finding out. But since this is my blog I hope that you can at least permit me to say I've missed it, and you, and now I'm back and that's all thank you.
I am bored out of my wits today. And I have very few options while I wait to catch a movie, thank goodness for movies, which are, reading papers about robots on my computer which is what I did for the better part of the day, and playing scrabble which I did for the worse. My printer wont work and I simply cant read stuff off the screen, I keep losing the scroll when I press the arrow key on the keyboard and I end up reading the same page over and over and every time I read it I think of how familiar it sounds and that maybe I've read this paper before. My mental faculties are a bit cloudy and muggy today just like the weather. I was fine this morning and geared to work. I did a little reading tried to print things but no such luck. Anyhow, I wanted to have stuff to talk about at my bi-weekly meeting with my advisor but he was almost three hours late and pretending to be at my scholarly reading, as it should be without chatting or facebooking or scouring amazon, for that long is rather tedious. Finally after the meeting I was two hours past lunch and very very hungry but the only lunch buddies who hadn't eaten already wanted to go to Taco Bell and I kicked up a very flimsy lil fuss and ended up eating there. As usual I ordered twice and left with a half full half hungry guilty glutton feeling. And I tried to drown it with chewing gum and water but now I'm plain sick. And I'm quite sure I'll end up drinking coffee and it wont help.
I think I should quit whining but I really really have nothing better to do. I haven't blogged for a while and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna forget how to spell if I dont write something other than code soon. I still want to be capable of forming coherent sentences.
while(completely_jobless) {
write_pointless_blogs ();
if(place_to_crash)
break; }
I'm gonna keep writing coz place_to_crash=0 since I moved out of my apartment on Monday. I'm not out on the streets or anything but I have a few clothes and things at a friends place, and I'm staying with another couple of friends who are real sweethearts and have made me feel very much at home. But I'm sure they aren't vegging out at home so I'm better off vegging out on campus. I did catch a nap at the library though and I think if I hadn't, this blog would have been even more annoyingly wishy washy than it is right now.
To put an end to this misery, I move into my new apartment tomorrow, I am thoroughly worn out of moving out of my old one and I'm gonna be pretty busy moving into the new one and I'm really psyched about it and I cant wait and I dont think I'm gonna be this compelled to blog for a while so till I have nothing better to do...watch this space :P
