Confused reality!

The audacity of flamboyant unreality
The trapped showcase of deceptive creativity
The fake trust or faithlessly unmatched serendipity
Whatever it was that has broken me!
Passed me over the boundaries of sanity
Handcuffed me into the world of Janus' reality
Pantomime of paradoxical authenticity
Stole my world of all its continuity!
Stalled as I am, like stuck in a cast
Confused and dazzled at the world moving fast
Wondering what it is that will make me last
Starting once again, like there was no past!

-Deepti Ramakrishna

I am back!!!

For all those surprised and going “waittt a minuuuteee!! I thought she stopped torturing us with her articles” Moi begs your pardon.

You know how human minds are - ‘absofreakinglutely’ fickle. For all those people going “ lol women and brains” don’t get me, a stubborn, taurean, ‘girls are always right’ believing gal started.

And for those who are interested in knowing what really changed my mind, here you go…

Plagiarism has done to writers what silver fish has done to books since times in memorial. Will that mean we should stop writing and hoard all our thoughts to ourselves? Well, I doubt it. And so do most of the amateur and professional writes, poets and even readers I came across and revere, think.

When I first told my friends (almost sang in agony like a melodramatic ballad) about my decision not to publish articles/poems online, after some freak tried to copy and e-mail my poems without my acknowledgement, they were shocked. Some argued I was being insane about it and others went “When you decided to put your articles on the web, it was a risk you are aware of! Why give up just because of some crazy copy cat’s stupid decision to copy your poem!!!”

Probably they are right. And later on when I thought more about it, I realized, it was just my lazy procrastinating self trying to escape the task of writing, editing and publishing!

Not only am I being robbed of my precious previous works, but also, being stopped from writing new ones.

The LOSS IS MINE. And when this thought struck me like a 50000V lighting bolt, I picked up my pen and paper and decided to trouble you with more articles.

Have your articles/poems/pictures been cited/copied without acknowledgement? Are you too contemplating putting your articles online? DO you have any thoughts how to stop this? Or am I the only whining crybaby who needed to vent out her complaints to the whole world? Don’t you think we should do something about this?

Hold on to that thought while I draft some more articles..

An unfortunate adieu to blogspot!!

A writer treats his work like his children, loves it beyond the words that constitute it and more than anything else, is extra possessive about it. I might not be a big time writer, but I love my scribblings equally possessively. But some people just don’t seem to understand that.
Well today one such very expected and yet alarmingly disheartening incident happened. I logged into my Orkut account and saw 53 unread messages. Scanning through the usual – earn more than 50000 per month, jobs for recent graduates, I invite you to join this community messages; my eyes fell on a message from some XYZ, I don’t even know. And in the body of the message was a poem titled ‘Wake up...’
And as if the little voice in my head was shaken awake, it asked – doesn’t it sound like your poem. And duh!!! It was!!
I wonder if some people have heard of term plagiarism. Forget copying as is, would it harm if you acknowledged the writer for his/her efforts by including the name? I am nobody to talk about morals and ethics, but the least I could do is pull back all my scribblings from this site. Just when I was thinking of posting more articles!!

'Wake up..'

The sun is up,
The stars are gone
The beckoning night
Has given way to dawn.

Come out and
See the shining light
Open the windows..
Welcome the day bright..

Reprocess the halting thoughts
Re-engineer the tangled knots
Dream and think and plan lots
Give today your best shots

Wake up...

--- Deepti Ramakrishna

Moments meant to last...

Sparkling eyes

Glittering smiles

Lost in moments

That once upon a time...

Once upon a time not so long ago when Miss Nostalgia (alias me) lived right across the Hudson and haunted NYC at every possible pretext, also haunting 'The City's' 'the landmark'- Times Square was Lexus group.

It was a perfect example of 'reason meets reasoning'. Our reason for being in the city was to introduce our friend (4th from left) to the charm and lights of the city that never sleeps.

And Lexus true to their " We pursue perfection, so you can pursue living" reasoning were having a fun advertising session. They were randomly asking groups to pose for their personalized advertisement, uploading the photographs alternating between slides of their latest cars. (No wonder these Marketing and Business Gurus are minting green bills).

Well, whatever reasoning their feel good about Lexus strategy was created for, being on the billboard of Times Square, NYC, with few of the best friends I ever had definitely was the perfect Canon moment. A moment meant to last and relive every time i look at this photo :)

Tagged by Priya

It had been quite a while since Priya had tagged me to write some completely weird lines about myself. But as you already know, I call myself an egocentric philantropist. And since when did egocentric people start finding faults/ weirdness about oneself!!

But life is a harsh teacher and mind is a funny student. When life tosses a completely unexpected day at an often startling, funny brain, it definitely goes haywire. And then perfection shunned mind presents its completely weird self.

Like everyday i left for work, a sleepy cheerful me, ready to snap into dreamland as soon as i find a niche in the Bay Area Rapid Transit. But little past 30 minutes, just as BART entered the trans bay tunnel, it came to complete stop. Driver announced that there were problems with the breaks and will have to restart his system, meaning a brief moment of darkness.

The lights went off not for moment but almost a minute and set off the weirdness triggers in my brain. These were the highlights:

1. No telephone networks, how will you call anybody? What if something happens?

2. Trapped in a tunnel, somewhere in the bay, what if the wall breaks and water gushes in? Don't even know swimming!!!!

3. Lights off, how will the train behind us know we are here? Who knows if tracking system is working?!!!

4. Similarly, what if there is a head on collision?

5. What if the driver is a terrorist, has planted a bomb and deserted us?

6. Am i claustrophobic? Should i shout and try run...

And before i could complete my 6Th weird thought, the lights were back and so were my senses. And for the next half an hour, me and my egocentric mind, spent laughing at myself, fixing our stupid selves while waiting for the technician to fix the train.

On the festival of lights

"Diwali is the festival of lights" is unanimously the first line that strikes any 'thinking about Diwali' mind. Be it seven year olds writing their first essays or a Jhumpa Lahiri defined 'American - Indian' describing it to their American friends and colleagues. It is often followed by the description of little candles, lamps or their modern day counterparts - the electric lights, lit around the house with figurative descriptions of throwing darkness out of our lives. Grannies singing tales of epics Ramayana and Mahabharata with stories of Hindu God Rama returning to Ayodhya after 14 years of exile or Krishna's triumph over Narakasura still hum in our heads.

I cannot speak for all Indian's abroad, but this definitely is one of the days I would like to be at home in India with parents, relatives and friends. No matter how many times I might have run into the quieter sanctums of the house to escape the deafening noises of the bursting fireworks; or fought with my brother over his taunting remarks of my cowardly self, there is a charm about this day. coming from a 'non-orthodox but preserve your culture' South Indian family, I miss waking up at 5.30 in the morning, drawing Hibiscus rosa-sinensis next to mother's elaborate, delicate and exceedingly beautiful rangolis; juggling between salt and sugar bottles being the second-in-command chef of the day; sitting through the long hours of prayers; flaunting around the house in the new clothes; complaining about the wind, aligning the candles/lamps in beautiful shapes; lighting the flowerpots( a kind of fireworks) with sparklers.

In spite of all my successful experiments of cooking and haunts to the Mall and friends' places, the day feels incomplete.

Missing folks back home and wishing you all a very happy Diwali(aka Deepawali)!

~Deepti