Soft Smiles

Warm golden sunlight,
Strong brewed malt
Sound of silence
And soft smiles

Mild summer breeze
Salty air through hair
Sea engulfing sun
And soft smiles

An arm around her
Her head on his shoulder
She leans in closer,
And soft smiles

Perfect conversations
In wordless silence
In slowing time
And soft smiles

Pangs

And the pictures lifeless,

The smile distant

The frozen moment lost

All in the bygone past

Still, the feelings strong,

Where I belong

Beckons with a pang

As my heart dolefully sang

The Journey

As I walk this path alone,
Feel very weary and worn,
I look ahead, I look behind
And wonder where you I would find
I walk on yet, all alone
And signs from you, find yet none!
Everyday I cry a little
And day by day, we die a little!

Illusions

Beckoned me with it's beauty
Beauty all promising, seemed everlasting
It's scent too, all pervading
The rose seemed a gift from heaven

Too good to be true, it seemed faultless,
Blinded was I to even see the thorn
Seemed so blurred then, now so vivid
Seemed so harmless, now so hurting

Reached out to it in all earnest
Numbness all gone right after the prick
Stunned and hurt, so unexpected
From a beauty so pure.

Trust lost I cling on to faith
Yearn I to feel the rose again
For it is but my gift, my beauty
And it beckons still...

It's beauty worth more than the hurt
It's very presence, so comforting..
But once bitten and twice shy,
To reach out again, I can only try!

The Phoenix

When twilight turns to night,
Pitch darkness all around in sight.
When the darkness fills the home,
the mind and also the soul
When the soul begins to weep
And knows not what to seek
When melancholy is more than a mere mood
Feelings ablaze, those really crude
and when this fire begins to burn,
encompassing mind, body and soul - in turn
and when the soul sheds its final tear
Then the ashes rid it of its every fear, because
When you see the remains of ash
A speck of flame steadily begins to lash
A flame that brings dawn to the vicinity
Yes, the very same of rebirth and purity!

B&W

There is something very comforting about the music from the black and white era. It is 1 AM and I feel less tormented than I have been in the last few nights, I seem to have found my antidote for today! I marvel the lyrics that are so meaningful are not just written to rhyme. I applaud the musicians for these evergreen tunes. I respect the singers, who sang seamlessly in continuous recording sessions, with no modern technological aids. I am writing particularly about Kannada music, because that I what I am listening to right now, but this would extend to any other language as well, I am sure.

As I write this, and listen to these songs, I also wonder how many Kannadigas of my age group themselves have heard lest enjoy these songs. I am no expert, I do not know the movie names or further details about many of the songs. But, I have grown up listening to them and certainly love and appreciate them. It is like most of the people I know who have grown up listening to old Hindi songs, except it was Kannada in my case. It would be nice to see comments on this post if you are a Kannadiga and you grew up listening to these songs as well :)

Think before you Link

Information spreads like wildfire. Irrespective of whether it is right or wrong or verified or not, people just post, email, text anything they read. This actually goes a long way back. When in India too, I would invariably receive 1 text at least everyday asking to contact some number if our blood group was so&so type and also more importantly to forward the message to help save a poor life. I do not even know if anyone, even ones who probably belonged to the required blood group, tried calling those numbers. I tried calling those numbers every time, just to check the authenticity and not a single time did the number turn out to be valid. INVALID every SINGLE time!!!

What really cracked me up was this:

“This October has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays all in one month. It happens only once in 823 years.”

That October, scores of people on my Facebook shared this status message, and not once without even thinking about i for a minute. Instead of getting to the nitty-gritty details, I would say read this blog ashe has already expressed it amazingly well:

http://unitedcats.wordpress.com/2010/10/04/this-october-has-5-fridays-5-saturdays-and-5-sundays-all-in-one-month-it-happens-only-once-in-823-years/

These are instances that we just pass on because we think it is interesting and cool and like in the SMS case, we care about someone else and although these bits of information are wrong, they do not particularly harm anyone.

But last night, I saw quite a few status messages about a BBC NEWSFLASH, saying this:

BBC FLASHNEWS: Japan government confirms radiation leak at Fukushima nuclear plants. Asia countries should take necessary precautions. If rain comes, remain indoors first 24hrs. Close doors & windows. Swab neclskin with betadine where thyroid area is, radiation hits thyroid first. Take extra precautions. Radiation may hit Phil at starting 4pm today. Pls send to your loved ones.

Well now, this is serious. This is scary. The world, especially Japan is already in a state of Panic. And people tend to believe it. People tend to pass this information on. But what they forget to do is think about what they are reading, analyse it, check its authenticity. This hoax message passing around I am sure caused a lot of unwarranted panic amongst a lot of people. Firstly, it is very irresponsible of people adding to the existing panic by generating such false news. And secondly, it is again irresponsible to share it and spread the Panic. The Government of Phillipines had to release an official notice to calm the people. This is a whole lot of unnecessary business that happened and just got me ranting off and leaving with a hopeful note that people will verify facts before passing them on in the future.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12745128