हम पंछी उन्मुक्त गगन के....

My fav poem by शिवमंगल सिंह सुमन

हम पंछी उन्मुक्त गगन के
पिंजरबद्ध न गा पाऍंगे
कनक-तीलियों से टकराकर
पुलकित पंख टूट जाऍंगे ।

हम बहता जल पीनेवाले
मर जाऍंगे भूखे-प्यासे
कहीं भली है कटुक निबोरी
कनक-कटोरी की मैदा से ।

स्वर्ण-श्रृंखला के बंधन में
अपनी गति, उड़ान सब भूले
बस सपनों में देख रहे हैं
तरू की फुनगी पर के झूले ।

ऐसे थे अरमान कि उड़ते
नील गगन की सीमा पाने
लाल किरण-सी चोंच खोल
चुगते तारक-अनार के दाने ।

होती सीमाहीन क्षितिज से
इन पंखों की होड़ा-होड़ी
या तो क्षितिज मिलन बन जाता
या तनती सॉंसों की डोरी ।

नीड़ न दो, चाहे टहनी का
आश्रय छिन्न-भिन्न कर डालो
लेकिन पंख दिए हैं तो
आकुल उड़ान में विघ्न न डालो ।

I Forgive

Mercy was the greatest gift,
that the God hath sent beneath.
Of all the pleasures I had,
The dearest was the reason to forgive.
I forgive my loved ones,
Who subjected the love to
The law of diminishing returns.
I forgive my friends,
Who couldn’t be traced,
In my difficult times.
I forgive that girl,
Who just couldn’t be mine.
I forgive my job,
Who paid me enough,
So that I can fly.
I forgive the every single set of time,
That rendered me sleepless nights.
I forgive myself,
For the grudge I bear.
I forgive my heart, I forgive my tear.

Freedom

I m discharged of my duties. I m a free bird now. I m soaring high in the sky. i m diving deep into ocean. i m standing on the summit of highest mountain as I watch the world under me.
I m happy.content.relieved.

The Mocking Bird

keep speaking on
with no concern, no though
its ain't fun,
you mocking bird.

The dark black clouds
keep me entangled
no speech, no cough,
do I worry or shrug off?

The bird mocks again
for its pleasure
and my pain
at once I lose it all
and that’s what it gained

I tried flying too,
but the wind played a tackle
Did I take off? Phew!!
the wings were shackled

since I was young,
I have tasted sorrow
on my tongue
this point blank shot in the brain
doesn’t affect me.

keep speaking on
with no concern for my though
its ain't fun,
you mocking bird.
it doesn’t affect me.

The Plastic Money

(Dedicated to Pay slips)

My needs are plenty,
My desires are vast,
I wonder how long,
My pay will last.

Last month too
They kept in my account,
But I withdrew so fast.
I wonder how long,
my pay will last !!

I wished for a jeans,
I wished for a pint,
bank alert didn’t let me
Sleep all night.

I know when it comes,
It will be swept away,
Rent, movie, beer, credit card.
They will have appetite done
with my own single pay.

Every withdrawal has me duped,
And the cash is hard to find
The machine pukes out of joy,
“Sorry, the last transaction declined”

The Next month too
They keep it in my account,
But I know I will withdraw it so fast.
And I wonder again,
how long my pay will really last!!!

………………………………….....n the saga continues with a futile pledge to save.

Americanized

"Yes we can!", Said Obama.While odd 2 Million people marked their physical presence and another billion streamed it on internet or television to see him having said this.
What the hell? OK, for the matter of creating a history,let us assume that he has in fact created a history by being selected as the first Black President. Its a big news for Americans. But you have to believe the fact that the majority of Indian Television channels focused on his oath and prayers, his distinguished guests, his attire..and blah blah!!! And avoided the Indian news hitting the Headlines that day. It seemed that world had come to stand still along with Washington DC. I even observed my roomie glued to TV, smiling at all the half eaten or twisted English words popped out by the Americans meant to laugh at as if he was loving every bit of it (and as if he knew the friendly banters and slang).I am sure his pretending to love it, was a pathetic attempt to understand the American system of everything while drifting away from the one that he could have really appreciated and understood.
We are Americanized!!! Why do we need to lose out major share of attention to those Americans? Is it just that that we owe them our Export revenues,they are the biggest partners in the Indian IT business or for that matter,we suffer a cold when the Banks in USA sneeze!!! I just don't know the reason of being so fascinated with the idea of Americanization. and Please for God's Sake, don't put this blame on globalization. It sometimes Sucks.

India is Losing Indians, For Sure!!

My Destiny

I met my destiny at a deception,
She pitied me for all just not being so fine.
I told her she wasn't being fair to me,
Then she whispered to me with mourning sigh.

she told, "it's just a matter of time".
and added, with a gesture to flaunt,

"You cant always get what you want".

La belle dame

She stands at the window,
with flawless skin
and a smooth feminine curve.
She leans over the plate,
to show off the elegance,
while the snacks is being served.


The goddess of beauty
The red hot wire,
Her motion of body
seems a silver bullet fired.
The curl on the side locks
draw an entangling attention.
She is The women,
she is The one.


Saucy as she is,
She looked at me once
and turned hostile,
She warms me up,
with one sweet smile.


Her eyes, filled with mystery,
Her eyes, filled with passion,
I wish she once glanced at me,
epitome of beauty, a perfection.


When in the wind I call her name,
Her breath smells of earth,
The naval, a salty silent wave,
Like the breeze, the curly hairdo's worth,
Lips sparkle as melting ice.
The Nightingale quietened
For it heard her speak
with the sugar sweet voice.


My eyes twinkle
when I glance at her,
She steals the show at the space.
I swear this by her Bosom,
that lie eager to surface.

She's a bottle of old red wine.
O' Hark, she could be mine.

Emp_ID # 46267

The pleasant morning doesn’t last long,
with the haste in the chores each day.
He travels countless miles by bus,
to Achieve what others say.

He sips coffee every hour.
and agrees to our opinion.
He has so many dreams in his eyes,
But struggles to realize even one.


He reads news papers, blogs and story
To know what financial crisis says,
The market recession makes him frenzy.
as misery is mounting in every way.

In group he goes to lunch every day,
and shares an sardonic table talk.
Some show overwhelming sarcasm,
Some suffer a shock.

His performance was decent this year,
But He no more gets that fat pay.
Now it’s luck that all matters
by the "End of the Day".
He spends time at desk,
And solves the issues fast,
Still there lingers a thought,
"How long my job will last?"

The bill Soars high,
The EMI needs concern,
His weekends are consumed at work
Or with a peg of liquor
and some fun.

He is just an entity,
Known by his employee number,
As the time passes by,
He grows frailer and dumber.

Was he content? Was he happy?
These questions are absurd.
This is a story of a Techie,
Lost in this beautiful world.

To my Brother

"Let us stop this brother"
They told each other.
Come; join the party by the lagoon,
Allah is teamed up with Ram,
And Gurunanak joins Jesus soon.

They wanted it all over by either bank,
The banks of Indus and Ganges;
It touched the limits of Himalayas
And Suleiman Mountain ranges.

Let us stop this brother
They told each other.

They sent me down to live with you,
And play a healthy game.
This is not the true spirit,
It’s a shame.
Fight for blood, fight for land,
Fight for tears and pain
Is this we are here for?
It’s a shame.

Let us stop this brother
They told each other.

My Allah feels hurt, Ram seems so estranged.
The city is bleeding to death
Is this what you gained?
I know they didn't teach you so,
To harm thy friends and not your foe,
Bury your tools and the knife;
They will love you again, I ‘m sure;

Let us stop this, my brother
They told each other again.

Death of Lehman (1850-2008)

September 15, 2008: They are walking down the sidewalk past police barricades as scores of New Yorkers and tourists’ gawk, some asking, "Which star is coming out?" - Not knowing what's going on. A big cop issues the standard "keep moving" line to those of us who stop to gaze. He tells the crowd, "Go home. There is no one famous coming out. You are looking at a whole bunch of people who just lost their jobs."

Six months earlier and five blocks away, a similar scene played out as Bear Stearns collapsed. But today, it was Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc turn. Failed talks with Bank of America and Barclays resulted in a sudden breakdown of this giant firm. Its shares fell by 94% in a day ($ 3.79 -$ 0.12, 15th September 08) and the company that was worth 46 Billion US$ few months ago had an insignificant worth of 145 Million US$ before it filed chapter 11 of US bankruptcy code for protecting its assets and maximizing its values.


Looking Back

Lehman's history from its Alabama roots to its demise on Wall Street:

1850: Henry, Emanuel and Mayer Lehman, immigrants from Bavaria, founded the firm as a commodities house in Montgomery, Ala.

1984: The saddest thing of all is that decades ago Dick Fuld, now Lehman's CEO, bitterly opposed having the firm do big, aggressive deals with its own capital. But during one of Lehman's recurring crises, Fuld's decision to do the risky things that he opposed in the 1980s hurt Lehman badly. Back then, Fuld's trading faction from the old Lehman Brothers was struggling against the firm's banker faction, led by Steve Schwartzman and Pete Peterson. The bankers wanted the firm to use its capital to do deals. The traders opposed it. The trader-banker war so weakened Lehman that it sold out to American Express (AXP, Fortune 500) in 1984. Fuld, a Lehman lifer, stayed on, while Schwartzman and Peterson went off to found the Blackstone Group (BX) and become billionaires.

1990: Shearson Lehman Hutton revives the Lehman Brothers name

1994: AmEx, giving up its "financial supermarket" strategy, spun off a small, undercapitalized firm called Lehman Brothers, with Fuld as CEO. (That's why, despite what you read, Lehman wasn't a 158-year-old firm; it was a 14-year-old firm with a 158-year-old name). Firm goes public on the NYSE as Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

2003: Lehman acquires Neuberger Berman money-management firm.

2008: Battered by the mortgage-market downturn, Lehman files for bankruptcy-law protection. The sad fate of Lehman Brothers is a cautionary tale of what's gone wrong with Wall Street.
Lehman ended up on the financial scrapheap because it played - and ultimately lost - a dangerous game involving high-stakes bets and huge borrowings. The firm's reported profits grew nicely through last year. But to keep its profits growing, Lehman was taking on more and more risk.Lehman (LEH, Fortune 500) borrowed too much money, put too much of it into deals of dubious quality, and then insisted for months that all was well without reporting quarterly losses even once and conveying it to the stakeholders that the institution was financially stable and it was apparent that all wasn't well. Monday's bankruptcy filing is a sad end for a firm once regarded as prudent and well managed.
Lehman's leverage - borrowings relative to capital - grew and grew, even as other firms were cutting back as the credit crunch worsened. Last October, with the real estate collapse well underway, Lehman (in partnership with the Tishman Speyer real estate firm) had paid a whopping $22.2 billion to do a leveraged buyout of a big apartment developer, Archstone. Losses on the deal began to surface almost immediately.
Lehman looked as if it would be able to survive more or less intact after the Federal Reserve Board (Fed) announced in March that it would make huge loans available to eligible investment banks. Six months ago, when Bear Stearn's faced a similar fate, the Federal Reserve intervened with the Treasury Department's support.
So, the Lehman's collapse was first, triggered by the refusal of other banks to do business with it because of its complex and, at times, opaque ways of trading. Housing loans made by the bank to people with little support made these loans very risky, and when interest rates rose, these borrowers could no more repay Lehman. This led to huge losses, the extent of which is not yet clear. Thus other banks stopped trading with Lehman. This led to it losing almost all business and triggered its fall. Second shock to Lehman was the fact that both Barclays Plc of the United Kingdom and Bank of America Corp pulled out of takeover talks. BofA bought out Merrill Lynch for $50 billion.
The Federal Reserve and Treasury’s Role was the third and the final nail in the coffin. The US government could have helped Lehman, but US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said that it would not use up any more taxpayer dollars to bail out Lehman Brothers as it would lead to investment banks getting away with their gambling ways. Paulson had bailed out Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Bear Stearns, saying that if the government had not done so, the US housing loan market would have collapsed leading to gigantic losses for hundreds of banks all over the globe that have invested in US property. Paulson, however, believes that a brokerage major like Lehman, which does not have a direct connection with ordinary people who have taken on home loans, need not be bailed out as it would not cause any systemic damage to the US economy.
This leads Wall Street to learn a lesson from Lehman: that the Fed and Treasury can no longer control events as they once could.

The Impact on India Inc

Lehman does not have direct large holding in the Indian stock markets. These holdings are estimated at around $200 million, including Participatory Notes. This figure is not enough to cripple the Indian stock markets. But Lehman has exposure to the Indian stock market through special purpose vehicles. This exposure to real estate stocks is said to be of about $1.5 billion, enough to shake up the markets. Some prime development projects funded by the Lehman Brothers were with HDIL, Unitech and DLF Assets. But these companies have started looking for alternative investments.
But for IT, Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy filing may well prove to be the last straw for Indian IT firms, which were expecting the second half of FY09 to be better. As a result of the US financial market crisis, analysts do not expect Indian IT firms to sign any significant contracts in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) space in the months to come. Lehman Brothers, say sources, works with 14 services providers in India - Wipro and TCS being the largest. It also has investments in a few IT firms. It's not clear if these holdings will be liquidated to raise funds. Moreover, the sources add that Lehman Brothers' unit in India has issued termination letters to a majority of its 2,500 employees.

Satanic Rules

The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth
1. Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked.
2. Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them.
3. When in another’s lair, show him respect or else do not go there.
4. If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.
5. Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal.
6. Do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a burden to the other person and he cries out to be relieved.
7. Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained.
8. Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.
9. Do not harm little children.
10. Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or for your food.
11. When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

Persuit of Happiness

its strange that our emotions are largely dependent on others feelings. Its may sound apt and strangely different from the belief that at least our emotion is truely ours. May be, it is true to some extent.But I felt unusually happy and gay throughout the day yesterday whenever the blushing and smiling faces of the people in the movie "Jane tu ya Jaane na" lingered in my conscious mind. Actually, it was not a normal good day for me to find a reason to smile with no reason. It was just the story and its associated fragments of imagination pregnant with love and practical relevance that i could imagine, kept me in merry mood throughout the day today. My mood changed.

There have been so many circumstances that have given me a reason to smile though they hardly relate me to the situation. Movie, cricket/tennis/football matches and several other trifle of things. I have tried to capture few of them that really keep on lingering in the mind every time when i feel like being happy. I am sure this will inflate your heart too like a balloon,about to burst lest you cross the threshold.

* To go for a vacation to some pretty place

* To listen to your favorite song in the radio

* To go to bed and to listen to the drops while it rains outside

* To clear your last exam.And feeling happy after finding a person who has got less marks than you.

* Reaching station late and got to know that train is also late.

* Remembering all those streets and mohallas near your house where you spent all your school days ..!

* To receive a call from someone, you don't see a lot, but you want to.

* To find money in a pant that you haven't used since last year.

* To laugh at yourself looking at mirror, making faces.

* To accidentally hear somebody say something good about you.

* To wake up and realize it is still possible to sleep for a couple of hours.

* To laugh .......laugh........and laugh ...... remembering stupid things done along with stupid friends.

Let us cherish them.

The Nine Satanic Sins

1. Stupidity
2. Pretentiousness
3. Solipsism
4. Self-deceit
5. Herd Conformity
6. Lack of Perspective
7. Forgetfulness of Past Orthodoxies
8. Counterproductive Pride
9. Lack of Aesthetics

Pessimistic Inspirational Wisdom

“But Man, you could give time to me too!”, a feeble voice on mobile fumed me up as often and antagonizing me to give up the penultimate chapter in my decisive project presentation. I suffered a zener breakdown.
The girl was none other than my girl who had kept me spellbound and agonized right from the wee days of my B.Tech. Love; from its very idiosyncratic and alleviating gesture impairs human feeling by forcing it unidirectional. Her playful villainy provoked me against the entangling love.
She was indeed the inspiration who stimulated an experience of failure fury thus helping me rise to eminence as a graduate engineer. She by her recursive emotional torture had detached me from studies. Observing the faux pas; as love is often portrayed; I was intrigued by the second thought besides love, my career. Without something to hate, we lose the very spring of thought and action. I hated her to extent of breakdown. In retaliation, I developed the feeling of love for myself. I gave her up for my family and career. And today I thank God for instilling hatred in me for her. She was indeed the utmost pessimistic inspirational wisdom I had ever attained. And I will be grateful to her for my entire life. Thanks Buddy.

This is just an essay that I had written for a competition.Its just figments of imagination.Believe me.

UnNamed Feeling

Been here before couldn't say i liked it
Do i start writing all this down?
Just let me plug you into my world
Can't you help me be uncrazy?

Name this for me, heat the cold air
Take the chill off of my life
And if i could i'd turn my eyes
To look inside to see what's comin'

It comes alive
And i die a little more

Then the unnamed feeling
Takes me away.

Its pretty difficult to understand the complexities of the human emotions. Though such individualistic thoughts are from the innermost conscience, but I even let the fiend have his own say, though forcefully. The unperturbed silence eventually gets dissolved in the overpowering ghastly shrieks. I am terrified. I feel emotionless, I feel myself transformed into a Zombie.

Two year up

I would like to express my transition from real freedom to assumed freedom. I am here talking about my transition from my college to the booming IT industry. I would like to pour my one year experience of the so called glamorous and fun filled IT industry. We used to wander those spacious heat filled open grounds and dirty class rooms with just 50Rs. in pocket and plan the whole week with that budget. But now we wander along the well cleaned, fully air-conditioned corridors with about five to six credit cards in our pocket planning where to swipe the cards. Credit cards eagerly waiting to eat next month's salary. I can't believe that it was just few year before that the 50Rs. seemed to be lacks now, lacks seems to be nothing. College canteen, Tea shops were the favorite hot spots where we spent hours together, having a hearty chat with our buddies forgetting the whole world. But now Cafe Day, Quickies, Baristas have taken those places. What a coffee cost 2.5Rs last year has now gone up to 50Rs a cup. Those precious days where we used to laugh for nothing, while chatting or while playing or even when you fail in your paper because you have got 30 marks for a empty paper. But now you rarely smile except the smile for the forward you just received or the smile to your PM to impress him. Hate and Ego were the words you haven't heard in those days. You smash or hit your friend for some reason and the next moment you walk along him with hands on his shoulders. But now you doesn't like the guy sitting beside you because he's getting a salary 10k greater that you or he's always being appreciated by your PM. True friends are hard to find here.


You have seen the late nights only on the eve of the exam, where you rely on your friend to wake him/ her at night 1 or 2. And how can we forget those last minute tensions in exam, you remember that only just before entering the exam you find that you have forgotten to revise a important question that your friend suggested that it will surely appear on this exam. You rush back and flip those Xeroxed pages with tension. But today you work at least 2 days a week till 1 or 2 in the night to deliver something to your unknown client who is at US or UK. You are aimlessly typing at the useless word document that your PM asked you to finish with his tailor made smile. Loads of tension with calls from home, with your eye lids eager to kiss each other and you promise them to allow it a little later, cursing Bill Gates for inventing MSWord.


Writing all these to celebrate my second anniversary at this field. It seems I have been in my own desert where I have realized that I am moving from the warmth of the Oasis to chase a mirage. A mirage that promises a lot of thing, but still its just a mirage. When I turn back I can find thousands chasing that mirage with a ID card around their neck. I wish all the best for them.

Atheism

The philosophy of Atheism represents a concept of life without any metaphysical Beyond or Divine Regulator. It is the concept of an actual, real world with its liberating, expanding and beautifying possibilities, as against an unreal world, which, with its spirits, oracles, and mean contentment has kept humanity in helpless degradation.

Truth of Bizarre

Truth of Bizarre

I hate love. So does it. Well, it all begins with the culture that victimizes us. We are so well persuaded by out culture that it gradually looks like our own. It then vehemently makes it way to our veins and arteries and thus we feel the presence of god sitting at the center of out hearts. We thus submit ourselves, or at least a part of it to the almighty god, who is supposedly supreme and the absolute.

To my knowledge, I have never encountered anything even close to absolute. My conscience can never give up to believe that there exits an Absolute. I still believe the Einstein’s theory of relativity and admire it to the fullest. Only the ultimate is real and rest inharmoniously fall pray to Deception that is quite like, my imagination, a bottomless well with a gravitational force equivalent to that of a black hole. It’s as deep, like faith, wide as a pool of mercy and high as hopes.

I am pretty sure that you won’t choose to surrender yourself to the deceptive arena. At this instance, I find myself in a precarious situation where its easier said than done to draw a microscopically visible line between Me, Reality and My own self.

On the contrary, I am so much deluded to believe that there exist other entities apart for me that resemble me. This frightens me. I suddenly become so lonely that all my relations and associations reach to an absolute zero. They don’t exist at all.

The ground reality is that the relations are important if you give them due importance. Metaphorizing it as a mass of silk thread gives the real picture of one that has lost its entity after tying a knot. You may be part of life that in due chores of living will have that forbidden pleasure of combing down through the mass very smoothly. And to much extent, occasionally. This will definitely hold true if you are geared up to deceive yourself.

Our preparation for death starts right from the day we inhale and exhale for the first time. The greed to attain salvation at its earliest makes us hard to believe that we are actually alive. And this compels us to dedicate our life to the process of cleansing out soul through the positive deeds that have been queuing up since last so many years, just to make the neighbors envy and grab the earliest available seat in a low cost airlines that takes us directly to the entrance to the salvation.

These good deeds by and large depend on all those fucked up epics and holy books that are believed to have been composed and written long before we invented printing press, pen or for that matter paper. Even before humans existed on the planet. And to much extent, on your conscience.

Why do you think that I may find it tricky and quite confusing to decide what is good for me and what’s not as an individual. Do we need a benchmark to decide the quality of life that I have kept in?

I ask you that why do you need to monitor the parameters that decide my due chores of life? Believe be man! You are the best in your own perspective. But I give a damn care to it unless it’s somebody like me. For a while let constant be that only change.

Let my life be a repository of hate enveloped by the intricacies of love and affection. You dig it hard, and you are bound to suffer eruption because I do travel, but seldom down the ring of fire. But only when my adrenaline wants me to do so. Let me selfish enough to love my own self and compassionate enough to hate you. This gives a meaning to my life that I really hate love.

I thus dismiss the absolute and will be the absolute.

Kurt Said: " "

A friend is nothing but a known enemy.

I really haven’t had that exciting of a life. There are a lot of things I wish I would have done, instead of just sitting around and complaining about having a boring life. So I pretty much like to make it up. I’d rather tell a story about somebody else.

I’m so happy because today I found my friends - they’re in my head.

If you die you’re completely happy and your soul somewhere lives on. I’m not afraid of dying. Total peace after death, becoming someone else is the best hope I’ve got.

If you ever need anything please don’t hesitate to ask someone else first.

The worst crime is faking it.

We have no right to express an opinion until we know all of the answers. [ So true]

Rather be dead than cool