The name-less crusaders

Playing hard against the other, desirous of victory,
My brain and my heart once had a long bitter fight,
To kill with veinless nervous guile, and bask in glory
They made me the battlegorund, indifferent to my plight!

Pumping as hard as ever, she scornfully kept going,
While he sparked up every neuron, in his raging fury
Arteries all scared and worried at the heartbeat racing,
Nerves all shaken with the war getting bloody and gory...

The stomach ached, the limbs shivered and the eyes all red,
As the tiff went on affecting others, unfair and unwise,
The duo paid no heed to them, in vain, as they pleaded..
For warriors valiant and wild, show no sign of compromise !

Simmering flames on the sizzling platter of choices,
To live or let live, to win for all or all for one,
Kept them confused equally, but unyielding in the crisis,
And in a strife lost for nobody or no good and won for none!

Now thinking off my brain, now feeling with my heart,
For the years that the scrimmage lasted, I was at unrest,
Reminders of the brace together as a child when we start
To disdain till the end, don't leave me feeling at my best...

Amity descends and graces the flight of doves at the pinnacle...
Of the triumph of their egos, in a war well fought, fought steady,
And their spirits turn to ash and smoke in the mortal debacle,
As they rest in peace, bound by lasting ties of a soul and body!

- Megha

Giving

Read this beautiful piece called "On Giving" from "The Prophet" by Khalil Gibran below - may you be inspired to give freely

Giving

Then said a rich man, "Speak to us of Giving."

And he answered:

You give but little when you give of your possessions.

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?

And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the over-prudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?

And what is fear of need but need itself?

Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?

There are those who give little of the much which they have - and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.

And there are those who have little and give it all.

These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward;

And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.

And there are those give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;

They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.

Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.

It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;

And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving.

And is there aught you would withhold?

All you have shall some day be given;

Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors'.

You often say, 'I would give, but only to the deserving.'

The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.

They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.

Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights is worthy of all else from you.

And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.

And what desert greater shall there be, than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?

And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?

See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.

For in truth it is life that gives unto life - while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.

And you receivers - and you are all receivers - assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.

Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings;

For to be overmindful of your debt is to doubt his generosity who has the free-hearted earth for mother, and God for father.

A Networkologist's Christmas

Itz Chrissttmaasss ! ... so herez one from the GNU project.
http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/networkologist.html

A Networkologist's Christmas (v3.1)
" 'Tis the night before Christmas," , I thought with a frown.
I was stuck at the office.  The network was down.
The  routers were hung in the closet, all crashed.
Their tables had holes in their data, all trashed.
Remote distribution, it seems, just for fun,
had erased DLLs Windows needed to run,
on 84 desktops, way down in accounting.
I sat stunned at my desk, my blood pressure mounting.
When all of a sudden there arose such a clatter,
I saw that a server had something the matter.
There was smoke coming out of the main hard disk drive.
"No problem,"  I thought, "I'm set up with RAID 5.".
But I found out the system I thought was unstoppable
had disk drives that turned out completely unswappable!
"No problem," I thought, "I've tape backup to thank.".
And then I discovered my backups were blank.
The UPS burped, and its lights all went out.
I started to scream!  I started to shout!
But nobody heard as I vented my rage,
my gurus were all on vacation those days,
and nobody's tech support answered the phone.
I was nose deep in trouble, completely alone,
when out at reception, I heard a soft knock.
As the hands just touched midnight on my desktop clock...
"What's your problem?", he asked,
"Never mind, friend, I know.
I checked out your network five hours ago.
I did some proactive analysis, so
I knew that this time bomb was going to blow."
Who was this guy?  Who did he think that he was?
He was dressed in red coveralls, white beard, black gloves.
His eyes had the twinkle of technical genius.
His smile cut down personal distance between us.
He spread out his tools, and went straight to his work.
"Whoever configured this network's a jerk.",
he said with a :-)> as he quickly rebooted,
uploaded some software, and smoothly rerouted
the LAN to a WAN that he quickly supplied
with bandwidth at least 20 gigabits wide
that went via wireless, I think, LEO,
to tech support elves waiting at the North Pole.
"Now bridging, now routing, now Ethernet hubs!",
He chanted as each piece of hardware he rubbed.
"Cheer up, my good friend!
Lose that mindset so tragic!
Technology often looks just like some magic
To people who don't understand what we do.
Now a switch, emulation, now middleware glue!
Look at the protocols, check one or two,
Debug a bit, test a bit, presto!  We're through!"
My data was back!  Every system checked out!
Tears of joy wet my face as I wandered about.
"How can I thank you?  You must be Saint Nick!"
He said, "Really, my friend, it's not such a great trick,
If you don't give up hope, focus on what you're doing,
And read all your issues of NETWORK COMPUTING."
And I heard him exclaim, as his reindeer were coursing,
"Merry Christmas to all!   And consider outsourcing!"
    -by Timothy Haight

ಆ ನೋಟ!

Just saw an exquisite Kathak performance by Nirupama n Rajendra! The song 'MadhurashTakam' written on Krishna goes as - adaram(lips) madhuram, vadanam(face) madhuram, nayanam(eyes)madhuram, akhilam(everything!) madhuram madhuradhipathey(of the lord of sweetness)...('Kr' dhaatu- of the word Krishna itself is attraction after all!)

Hm, I wrote this poetic-bit inspired by the song/dance :-))

ನೀ ಕಣ್ಣರಳಿಸಿ ನನ್ನತ್ತ ನೋಡಿದಾಗ...

ಚಿಟ್ಟೆಯೊಂದು ರೆಕ್ಕೆ ಬಿಚ್ಚಿದಂತಾಯ್ತು
ನನ್ನೆದೆಯಲ್ಲೇನೋ ಚಿತ್ತಾರ ಮೂಡಿಸಿದಂತಾಯ್ತು!

ನೂರು ಹಕ್ಕಿಗಳು ನನ್ನತ್ತ ಸಂಭ್ರಮದಿ ಹಾರಿಬಂದಂತಾಯ್ತು
ಹೊಸ ಸಂದೇಶವೇನೋ ಹೊತ್ತು ತಂದಂತಾಯ್ತು

ಸಾವಿರ ಅಲೆಗಳು ನುಗ್ಗಿ ನನ್ನೆದೆಗೆ ಅಪ್ಪಳಿಸಿದಂತಾಯ್ತು
ನನ್ನೆದೆಯಂಗಳದಲ್ಲೆಲ್ಲಾ ಮಳೆಯಾದಂತಾಯ್ತು!

ಅದೇಕೋ ನಿನ್ನೆದೆಯ ರಾಗಕ್ಕೆ
ನ್ನನ್ನೆದೆಯು ಅನುನಾದ ಹೊರಡಿಸಿದಂತಾಯ್ತು

ಮನದ ತುಮುಲ ಮೊಗದಿ ಮೂಡಿ ಮುಖ ರಂಗೇರಿತು,
ಕಣ್ಣು ನಾಚಿ ನೆಲ ನೋಡಿತು!

The translation (yathaavat ;-)) )-
When you looked at me, it felt like a butterfly(chiTTe) had spread its wings; it felt like someone had scribbled some art (chittara) on my heart; it felt like a hundred birds flew towards me carrying some news for me; it felt like a thousand waves (aley) splashed on my heart and wet my heart!I could see my heart resonating to the beats of your heart, my mind's turmoil showed up on my face, I blushed and my eye could not look up any more and it gazed down!

Bit o' bookish blogging

Thanks to A (my colleague at work) ! This instantly brought a smile to my face :) .. And with his kind permission,... sharing it...


Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.

- Arnold Lobel
This is him...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Lobel

Fireflies - By Tagore

My favourite from Rabindranath Tagore's poems :

FIREFILES -

I touch God in my song
as the hill touches the far-away sea
with its waterfall.

The butterfly counts not months
but moments,
and has time enough.

Let my love, like sunlight,
surround you
and yet give you illumined freedom.

Love remains a secret even when spoken,
for only a lover truly knows
that he is loved.

Emancipation from the bondage of the soil
is no freedom for the tree.

In love I pay my endless debt to thee
for what thou art.

My candle burns at both ends

A friend's favourite

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light!

Edna St. Vincent Millay ("First Fig", A Few Figs From Thistles, 1920)