a rolling stone feels no mass

I forgot to post my cursory post here that I am going home to Hyderabad. Okay okay, I know I keep doing too often to even mention it in the blog anymore. Still, here it is: I am at home now and will be in this 'state' for the next 3 weeks! Today also marks the day I first went to UK .. so completed 4 years now! A bit of an irony that I am in India while announcing this :P.

Oh and by the way, don't appear friendly and knowledgeable on flights and airports .. otherwise, you will be besieged and not allowed to use the free wifi in peace! Now that this is done .. what else do I write about? How about that post I thought I could try?

\begin{abstract}
How long was I staring at it? And how did I manage to hold my gaze and that posture, without any support, for so long? Or was it long? After all, normally it doesn't take more than a minute to figure out a bus route from a clearly delineated map even in a strange city. Perhaps the person sitting nearby and giving us that look of disdain would know how long it's been. Obviously, I can't ask. So I try to sit down without making my state too apparent. But how will I know?
....

Wait, wasn't I just involved in an lucid discourse about what's wrong with .... uh oh .. what was the topic of the discussion? And what was my take on it? He doesn't seem to have been talking at all. So who was I discussing with? The only thing I can think of now is to conduct the 'time-test' again. I ask him what he thinks the time now might be. The last time we checked it was 1am. "2am? 2:30 perhaps?" he guesses. I check and it is 1:05am. He is as nonplussed as I am. I should conduct this test again after say, 10 mins or maybe an hour. If I can tell which is which.
....

I can see them. I can feel them. They can feel them too. But they can't feel them and hence, so can't I. Too many pronouns in there? The hands, they are clearly holding onto the legs. I can see that. And the hands, they can feel the legs. So that's what they are doing- holding onto my legs. And my legs, they are nicely bent at the knees, around the bench. The feet are pleasantly planted on the ground and I can feel that. But the legs, they are oblivious to the hands that are visibly and tangibly on them. So where is the disconnect? Is this the 'out of body' experience people keep expounding about? If so, it's nothing fancy really, just kind of lame :P.
\end{abstract}

at the front of my mind...

£ Celtic radio in the background ... why? no idea .. I was browsing through the options and this caught my fancy ... sounds very pleasant too!

£ Spent the whole day today feeling lost. Attempted to do many tasks. Mainly because I was in the office during the 'regular hours' and several different long pending works pleading for attention. But I couldn't stick to any of them. Tried to start each of them and failed at each of them. So left them all for another day ... a better day.

£ Thought I will watch a movie in the evening, perhaps 'Atonement', perhaps 'There will be blood' (those are two of the movies on my pc yet to be watched, waiting patiently for more than a year now). In the end, didn't watch either of those.

£ Will I be able to complete this post before the laptop runs out of juice? Just a few minutes left. Yes, the power cord is a bit far away from the sofa and am too lazy to get up now.

£ Just realised that I should savour tomorrow as it will be the last weekend I will be spending at home in Southampton for a while. The next such Saturday will mostly be the last one in September.

£ No more thoughts left. At least no more that could be extracted, dusted off and polished to coherence.

Letters struggle in places,
Words grudgingly together
Forming, deforming phrases
But meaning? Whither? Wither.

Strange Acquaintances!

People generally complain about their inability to remember names or being unable to associate names to known faces. I think I suffer from the reverse. Names are not a problem but I don’t seem to remember faces! Or the other explanation can be that people find my face very memorable ;) while I dont find their’s so :P. Often it happens, that I am walking (mostly around the university), not really lost in my musings, and I find someone coming towards me and staring at me. Just as our eyes meet, the person lets out a “hi” or simply that ‘smile of recognition’. And no, I am not confusing it with that ‘smile of courtesy’ that strangers may occasionally deign to bestow upon each other. Anyone slightly familiar with the British politeness can easily tell them apart :P. Anyway, even if I am caught unawares, I tend to instinctively respond with the ‘hi’ or smile respectively. And we cross each other and continue on our paths.

Having assured them falsely that I do reciprocate their recognition, my mind immediately embarks upon the challenging journey into the recess of its memory to uncover the facts. Did I actually meet this person before? If I did, when? where? Who is this person? And so on. More often than not, after the tough mental expedition, I manage to remember the details.

Like that one occasion when I realised that the girl who smiled and hi’ed as she walked past had met me only once before, that too almost a year ago! Or that other guy, who I come across often, waving, hello’ing or just smiling, to which I respond of course. Evidently, we knew each other. But I couldn’t remember how. After 4-5 such incidents, in which I also acted as if I was in a hurry lest he attempted to make conversation too (oh the horror! :P), I realised that I had indeed met him a couple of times, 3 years ago in my first few months at Southampton, during induction sessions etc. But not always do I manage to recollect. There was this other girl a few weeks ago, whose face first registered recognition, then transformed into a smile. Just before we crossed each other, she even let out a “hey”. I was very certain I didn’t see her before. I actually contemplated turning around and enquiring how she knew me, even at the risk of appearing rude. However, my bus arrived and I chose the conservative option and got in instead. Despite racking my brains over and over, I haven’t been able to place her. But then, her’s wasn’t an easily forgettable face either-- lip piercings are not that common still. Or maybe, the piercing was a new addition, thus making recognition tougher ... who knows! :)