Art and Thought

In the idyllic world of metaphorical escapades and unblemished profundity woven into the fabric of the paper, the brilliance of a "remarkable thought", an "idea", still figures as the sole nourishment to the soul of the reader. A thought that so strongly permeates our deepest, most vividly preserved ideals, like a lightning bolt through a cloud laden sky and poignant it is, for it pokes at the reader's mind and beckons to be received with unabashed delight, tends to achieve its purpose if it were ever meant to serve a purpose. Words flutter meaninglessly then, in and around the spectrum of the thought, embracing it, but the "thought" creates forever the impression that the author wishes to etch into the mind of the unsuspecting reader. 

The more masterfully is the thought disguised by the author in poetic lyricism, the more it is appreciated by the reader, such is the aesthetic sense that we as human beings have come to develop, because, there is then, established, a sense of unavowed intimacy between the author and his reader, and the language transcends the mere disfigurations etched on the paper. The writer on his part, may be concerned whether the poetic lyricism which he lends to his writing, helps in clarifying his statement, or makes it really just impossible to comprehend. But, any allusions to the substance of the thought, as clarification, by say, the crudest way, by giving an example, somehow tends to limit the domains of the consumed reader, and in some sense diffuses the aura of exploring the unknown in the mind of such a reader, which may be disengaging for him. On the other hand, such clarificaitions, serve as much needed respite to the confused reader who prefers to grapple with the mere essentials as he perceives it, and skims over the extras.  

But such is the enigma of secrecy, and convoluted meaning, that the human mind is, I fear, prone to epitomising this essence of artful deceit into a statement of epiphany-like proportions, and the objectivity and wonder or clarity of an original thought is lost to playfulness for art's sake, but only in the mind of the reader. The author, is most unquestionably, always aware of the intentions of his words, unless ofcourse, he is intoxicated into delirium, which ofcourse isn't something unknown to many great writers, but I still question if subconsciously those words that he uses in his works do not mean to him far more than what the reader can ever derive from them. So the thought remains, in all its conformity, an intellectual property of the author who may use this to his advantage and create art wherein meaning lies only in the elegance and the profundity of words, and demands the intellect of the reader to conjure up the meaning, meaning which may lack the author's consent or authority or acknowledgement, by virtue of either the absolute absence of meaning attributed to the art by the author himself or by virtue of the multiplicity of the connotations of the ideas imbued by him into his art. 

Unquestionably, any work of art in itself, invites the reader to breathe into, the imageries and goings-on as described in the work, a certain symbolism and picture, somewhat characteristic to the reader, characteristic to his musical composition in some sense. Hence, the sphere of existence of a work of art, bridges the divide between the minds of the reader and the author and at the same time, colours itself with the many attributes distinct to either worlds. Further, each work of art itself adds as a little musical staff, or a conglomeration of many different notes from many different scales, into the composition of the mind of the reader and the imagery presented in the work of art, arouses certain nostalgic cues and notions in the mind of the reader. This is really why the creation of art provides limitless exciting opportunities for the author to work with.  

However, what does "art" really add to the "thought"? Is "thought" really dependent on "art". To clarify what I am trying to say here, is, does the representation of an idea in terms of words or pictures, does the form of representation, which is "art", add anything qualitatively and maybe quantitatively to the value and knowledge of the "thought", which is the real intent behind the work or a little part of the work. Objectively, it is questionable, whether a thought may convey less "meaning" than what it may achieve in conveying when it is "artfully" presented. There is a certain sanctity about scientific "art", or a scientific thought, in this regard, in that it tends to evade all notions of plausible discrepancy and registers itself, in the mind of the reader, as the absolute Quality of say, the physical reality, that it wishes to capture. 

However, Quality is as artful as any artful thought. Quality, is very different from what is and what is not. The world is. Nothing can change that, no words can describe it better than what it actually really IS. The number of qualifiers we would require to completely describe any single object of this universe would span infiniteness. Just like a Turing machine asked to work on irrational numbers, we merely limit our number of qualifiers to attain a minimum level of acceptable accountability in the absoluteness of the imagerie conveyed by the qualifiers, that works well for all our practical purposes. 

What however, remain, absolutely untarnished by the finite precision of our thoughts, are, purely mathematical constructs, which are then, really just thoughts since they do not describe any real world scenario, and hence, the absoluteness with which purely mathematical ideas can be communicated isn't surprising. (For no two sticks in the real world are ever absolutely equal, like 1=1 is ever so conviniently used in mathematics) (Note: The advocates of Quantum Teleportation would disagree in general while even believeing that consciousness can be equated if we are able to transport each and each every atom and electron of the human body keeping everything exactly the same)). Mathematically fundamental thoughts, then, are the building blocks of all increasingly difficult and more compound thoughts. Thoughts themselves intersperse and intertwine and give us art, when presented with a certain panache and social delicateness that interests the reader and qualifies by the canon as "art".  

But since, we have ascertained, that thoughts themselves are just manifestations of inaccuracies and limitations in describing reality, it is hardly surprising that "art" can pry open the heart of these thoughts and add in them flavours and coloration than transcend the original discreetness or the primitiveness of the basic thought, which is very often closer to the totalitarian decree of a pure mathematical construct. Hence, we can reasonably argue that art operates covertly through the obfuscation and compound presentation of mathematical truths. Such is the nature of reality as well! Art and reality are therefore partners of the same crime, if crime is the right word :D . 

Language ofcourse, is just another form of exposition of art, and therefore, it imbibes all the illusory qualities of art, and with it, the same charm and endless possibilities of excitation on part of both the author and the observer of art. But what persists, amongst all, appreciators of art, and of reality automatically, to different extents and degrees, is the desire to delve into the delusion of another world, an unknown world. This desire, to find comfort and meaning in the unknown, seems to me to be an innate virtue of all human existence and a very fundamental need indeed. Kitsch, as they say, in German, the idealization of reality, and complete denial of anything inferior, is what all are lives base themselves on, and reality only attempts to warp itself into either kitsch or something diametrically opposite kitsch. Art, then, only serves as the pyre to light these tamed curiosities. 

Well, in almost poetic deliberation, we have so far merely managed to convince ourselves of the possibility of adding quality to thought, via succinctness and brevity or, in other cases, the diametrically opposite, profundity and obscurity, in the presentation of thought. We have managed to convince ourselves that thoughts are constructed on basic inaccuracies in expressing reality and hence present room for being exploited into assuming different connotations using a magical play around with the choice of words the author may use. 

However, what I really believe is the author is almost powerless here, and that the quality of a thought perceived by a reader, is what value the reader himself can associate with the thought over and above the basic mathematical construct of the thought, and this association, which is so specific to every reader, can be pried open by the author unintentionally by using imageries and word constructs that arouse completely different feelings in different people, because, all these images, and words are merely staffs in the musical compositions of the lives and minds of the readers, and the very essence of disparateness amongst readers is what makes every thought so very meaningful in different ways to its many observers, not merely on account of the multiplicity in interpretation initially sowed into the thought by the author themselves. 

In the end,  I'll say this that, its the world of both the reader and the author that makes art what it is.

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The Beginning of Something Beautiful

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Time was weeping for me. I felt blissfully calm though, as if floating in space, looking nowhere, seeing nowhere, dreaming nothing. There were people around me, but I could not bring to focus any one of their bodies, or comprehend what they wanted to say, or how they felt and where they touched. But their touch, it felt warm, and a little sweaty, too sweaty, as if they were deluging out of their palms, or maybe it was me. For a moment, I wished they would move away, and let me be. But then, in a moment of clarity, my dreamy existence transformed into transfigured reality. Blood was evacuating my body in a desperate and almost thankless lunge into the world, leaving me behind, dying. And my breathing suddenly became distinctly erratic, and my heart was pounding into my chest, while my lungs seemed to be caving in on themselves, still gasping for every last breath of air they could endear. Noise from all corners met my ears, but the heart thumping in my veins soon drowned every other sound. And then, it suddenly all went quiet again. I must have been sedated. I felt nothing.

But my eyes still gnawed at every little bit of the world that they could. I must be dying. I felt relaxed though, maybe, for once in my life. The power of nothingness seemed overwhelming seductive. I seemed to be spiraling into non-existence and it made sense. A slightly tragic end, for a man like me, one would say though, to die in a motor accident. Rather boring. No melodrama, no surrendered devotion from loved ones, no time really to do things or make a bucket list. Cancer, would have been better. And this was a tragic end for a man who was nice, for I didn't really feel like I deserved to die, no, not so soon, not now atleast. I had loved the only one woman of my life, loved everyone around me, friends, and family. Honest man, honest worker, honest person. Its funny when a doctor is dying. Not really, no, nothing special. I was just being poetic in the last few moments of my life. Maybe the sedatives were working. Damn, I was just electrocuted. Fuck you, you bastards, let me die!

And I felt myself lifting. Damn, again. Once again, I relapsed into consciousness. People grappled with their hair for a moment in utter delight or disbelief it was hard to discern and an almost sadistic urge of letting them down one last time got hold of me. I was trying to die. But, I wondered if it was really in my control. Of course it was! It was my brain, my heart, my life. But their lives were somehow integrated into mine. And my life was integrated into theirs. Like a tumor perhaps, or maybe a fungi on to a lichen, a sort of symbiotic relationship. I felt sad. I didn't wish to die now. I had to live. And while my heart asked for another pounding of high voltage electrification, I felt my brain giving up. Fuzziness predominated. Figures distorted. Thoughts distorted. A diaspora of emotions hit me simultaneously. I died. I lifted. I was very conscious of my death. I saw the people I loved. They were crying, agonizing, mourning, I could still feel their pain. I felt remorseful, and weakened by my own selfishness of wishing to die, and I felt remorseful, for I was still connected to their lives. Maybe I still hadn't died. I lifted further, I was in the air. Vacuum was now engulfing entirety. Every sight and sound was being siphoned out from the pulp of my existence.

The blur of cosmic colors like a constipating television set, a random number generator churning out coloration that made no sense now swarmed my vision. I had vision. It was a new beginning. A new world. Perhaps life, if this was life, would be calm now, like the prophets said while I lumbered through my life on earth. I felt hopeful. Yes, I seemed to be drifting. Unaware, of all bodily existence. My thoughts still wandered and drifted about this maze aimlessly. My vision seemed to have now acclimatized to this new way of life. I saw black. Seemed comforting. Better than a random number generator minimally. And I seemed to be growing again. I felt growth. I felt my body. I could feel numbness, in what surrounded me, but I could feel. Was this rebirth? I let that question pass for the time being.

I was in a room now. My vision had fully restored. This room was like a cave. The walls seemed irregular, porous, and lifeforms seemed to have carved a niche for themselves in the porous lime formation whose porosity seemed to have formed very much like the porosity in cakes I had had in my lifetime on earth. Almost funnily, the room seemed to be shrinking in volume while maintaining a sense of symmetry. Even the gods seemed to love symmetry. But it wasn't really funny anymore. I wished I was shrinking too. I had to, but no physiological or physical response however, seemed willing to ensure my existence. While my body was now concretising into a solid formulation, panic seemed to be engulfing a dawning sense of reality proposed by the walls closing in on me. I then noticed, it was an ellipsoid. The cave was an ellipsoid. An egg? Was this some sort of intermediate process that led to my re-birth? Meaningfulness that transcended my existence on earth, that was universal, an egg symbolizing re-birth? No, the question seemed to answer itself allegorically when the wall underneath started to give way to sharp blades, blades of reality, really sharp blades actually, like that of a chopper. I leaned on the walls of this ellipsoidal cavity I was in, grabbing at them, trying to hurl myself to the highest, safest, vantage point, but I was cycling back to the where I was. And underneath me, spun the blades of reality like portals to another world. I was being tortured.

The blades were now spinning faster than ever. But, I was safe for now. I seemed to have evaded them, evaded them for eternity. I had grabbed hold of something on the wall, and I was hanging in the balance, in a bit of discomfort, but well away from the blades. The walls seemed to have stopped closing in. My mind seemed to settle into a rhythm, and then into a sense of stationariness like that of a triggered waveform. I laughed, albeit sheepishly. A little fear encroached upon my musings time and again. There was alot to think about. I had still not quite obliviated the thoughts of my family. I wondered for a while. There was so much to think about. I felt excited, and I looked down to check once more at how the blades revolved aimlessly, awaiting my return to the fray like hungry beasts salivating at their prey. But when I looked down I was staring into a hole, a large hole, a void, an abyss, so deep that nothingness seemed on the end of it, and the blades started to revolve even faster. I hanged in the balance. The little protuberance that manifested itself on the wall and on which I hung myself now seemed to have taken an avid interest in my condition and seemed to be growing out to make life a bit more comfortable for me, or so it seemed. It grew like a finger aimed straight at my navel or genetalia, I couldn't be sure. But there was no time for speculation. And I wrenched and squirmed into a petrified-hedgehog-like pose to avoid the impending sectomy of whatever body I had grown again. And in exhaustion, I let go of the little protuberance from where I had initially grabbed it, and I and squatted my legs around the little cup-holder that had been formed by the protuberance fingering into the wall once more, right between my legs. And I felt my body spin around by my own inertia around the lower arm of the cup-holder, between my legs, and I hanged once again, but this time, by my legs. And my hair danced out to meet the abyss. And some got chopped like coriander in a electronic grater by the blades of reality while I serendipitously found a moment of calm to admire this Klein bottle of a cave.

Blood was now gushing into my head, and my pulse was throbbing. Was I being born? Was I being exterminated from a mother, my mother, her womb? This puzzle too, seemed to unravel itself rather immediately as if some higher force was being kind by answering all my queries. I saw people. No, not people. Just faces. No, not just faces, faces of people who had died before me in my lifetime. They were laughing at me, mocking me? No, there was a sense of sincerity in their laughter. They were being tortured too. Convulsions were beating through my head like a locust storm searching for cornfields in New Mexico. They were still laughing. I was being tortured. I tried laughing too. I laughed. And I saw the hole closing up again. And the walls started to again close in. The blades started to rise. I felt pain. Pain got redefined. I laughed, and I cried a bit. So did the other folks.

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What can a man stand for?

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Wafts of dreamy, foggy air inundated the room with nostalgic cues to a derelict past and for a while the stillness of the moment seemed everlastingly comforting. An occasional glance at the bottle of wine, encouraged me. The red tranquility that passionately flowed, pursing my mouth, like a lover's devouring kiss, all inked on the paper that I let my pen gently traverse on. Hate I realised, was the perpetual state of my existence. In words not simpler did men often do justice to their cowardice. Men, of stature, these ignoble men, of many words, and profundity unparalleled, with lofty notions of right and wrong, and decisive. Decisiveness, its their decisiveness that I most despise. How foolish can man become. What do these men stand for? What can a man stand for?

I wish sometimes, I had not a mind, and a spirit I would be. I would wander aimlessly, wading through the long grasses in the Savannas or crossing rivers that poured into the Baltic Sea, and playing with the little black and sometimes white pebbles along the way. Then I would wander around robbing men and women of the pleasure of surreptitiously eying strange women and men by appearing before them like an eclipsing mass of nothingness or sit aimlessly in a corner of a street soaking the sun and looking at the old abandoned lump on the pavement and other indigent folk enjoying the sun with the same ardour, and endearing attachment as myself, and... just looking at people. Yes, I love people. I love their faces, their features, the lively suppleness with which they transform into symbols of love, hate, and fear, and calmness. And the puzzles people set out to solve each day, and how they are fooled into believing they have a reason to stand for something, stand for life maybe? And how they would rather put up with this torment for every ten more minutes of life, anything for life, and still keep wanting more of life ?

Nothing. There is nothing worthwhile standing for. There is no love worth endearing to, for not because it all must end in misery, but because its just not worth it. And I hate these men, who are urged to fight for a cause by some little impulsive tumor in their cerebral cortex, for their is no cause worthwhile standing for. Oh, the meaningless of it all! And yet, I despise myself and I truly, fervently, worship these men, and their ignorance. I wish one moment would pass that my mind didn't seek to reason with itself. No, a moment is transitory, and I cannot, cannot control my mind forever. I will shriek at you, for its a change over the monotony that ensues when I just let you be. I would rather just vomit and wrench my entrails till they bleed, than just sit by indolently smoking away this little cigarette into the nothingness where it belongs. No, I am a coward, and I would just smoke myself into nothingness thinking otherwise but not gathering the courage to do anything about it. I will laugh hysterically into the night in the loneliness of the moment that belongs to me alone, and if it is interrupted by the wind or by some unassuming bird, I will laugh a little more at the brittleness of even silence that I thought I could endear.

Out in the streets one day, I will explode into a fit of womanly anguish and simultaneously squirm like a little mouse in fear , sans reason, sans thoughtfulness, almost unexpectedly you would say. I don't want to attract attention! I just want to see the faces. The faces of all the people, some loathing me for taking up this little quadrangle of tarred road or a little space of their lives, that they wish to drive their cars over, only wishing if it were legal, so that they could drive it over me, and some people running off with a motley of supercilious smirks mixed with calculated reservation on their faces. Who knows who is better off at life, but they, these ignorant men and women, would unquestioningly believe that they are the ones unquestioningly happier and saner and richer and at peace. It is mystifying though, how an unexpected response by the universe puts people into such a paroxysm, and a quiet but repressed sense of unbounded satisfaction at the disruption of harmony ensues. But people, illogical, and ignorant as they are, repress desires. I won't, or maybe I will, for I am a coward. Oh, but the pleasure of the moment being one's own!

My room is unkempt, and so is my hair, so is my life. There is a portrait on the wall, and a fireplace where charred remains lie only to confirm their existence with me. And they think I will not lie? Could I be trusted? How unassuming, how naive, and innocently unfortunate, almost pitiable. Can anyone be trusted? The truth is not out there, its hidden and maybe its all meaningless. But this whole world still chooses to set out to live another day, to prove its existence to one another once again, that's all they do, and then get lost in the riffraff of it all and the tide of time, and in the anonymity of all existence. Scum, chemical scum spewed across the heavens. That is all we are. What can we stand for? There is nothing worth standing for, expect, maybe this one moment, and its guilty pleasures, for these pleasures are themselves meaningless.

And the smoke left my mouth in one final leap out to reach the stars and I let my pen slip, like my mind into slumber.
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Futile

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The forests are never unyielding,
light falls, rebuked by their feathers,
and some rays caress gently enough,
to be allowed passage undiminished.

Little green and white buds,
of fresh olive green turn darkened green,
bloom into the sunshine wide eyed,
pressing gently on the rays.

light is a sinful perpetrator ,
it impregnates lifelessness,
with life and, harmlessly it seems,
sobbing in ecstasy, spraying its pollen.

April is the cruelest month,
the fireflies maraud aimlessly,
earnest it seems is their endeavour,
their thoughts are never scuppered.

but time wilts all, age masks ignorance,
the tempest too plays it tide,
in the east where the sun shines,
nakedly flooding the earth with its pride.

The fire then, is burning, of unspoken,
resentment,and pervading solitude,
in the shade of the sun,
the leaves whither away in time.

Wilting in the sunlight,
bathing quietly, in agony they shine,
condemned to shine,
condemned to be desirous to shine.

Thoughtlessness is wished,
weren't only the virtue of the dead,
in yards strolled by wishfully in time,
answering questions unanswered.

Oh, the futility of it all,
as if it wasn't ever so obvious,
reminds of a little game we played,
looking at black stars in the sunlight.

Kartiek Agarwal

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The Keeper of Time

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She is the keeper of time,
yielding to the ignorance of life
she sits up, her eyes lined,
sooty like the ashes,
of withered lives,
or fires burnt by,
masquerading crusaders, or,
apologetic forests,
whose canopies yield,
in the sunlight that floods in,
to survive a generation lost,
lost in time, reviving,
all that cried in its own fire.
and died, and left no trace.

Here, she betrays,
that she is the keeper of time,
in that she quietly shines,
her hair flashing all the while,
with oil from the rosemary,
whose seeds refused but burst,
to aimless desires,
and the smell of lavender,
flooded in prescriptive harmony,
she let down her hair,
and embraced her nails,
shapely and curved, pink with health,
quietly convincing,
of a wonderful day ahead.

Holding the clock, of gold,
encrusted with gems carbuncular red,
round it was, a little roundabout,
clasped in her hands,
the gold chain on which,
the clock, it hung freely,
or so it seems,
for she is the keeper of time,
and time was a manifestation,
that flowed and caressed,
her every curve, embraced,
by the velvety robe,
that straddled the floor,
and little did it hide,
shapely, pedicured nails of the feet.

And from her lips,
she could sing, her saintly hymns,
or so, it seemed to her,
or was it, but I couldn't care,
as much as she could, no, not the least.
For she is the keeper of time,
I am a passer by, uneventful,
with no rhyme, and no desire,
taciturn, timid and numb,
quietly ticking like the clockwork ,
slowing down, when those eyes tickle,
with titillation I perceive,
then hastening in stride, when in her misery,
faster than the clock can tick.
For I am, time and she is the keeper of time.


Kartiek Agarwal

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The Outsider , Albert Camus

Umm, taking a break from writing poetry here. I suppose everything deserves a change. You, whoever you are, and wish to take time to go through this blog, also deserve a change. The communists ignored this desire for difference in people, and thought of creating an equal society, that ofcourse couldn't self sustain. I ofcourse, realise that, that this desires for change exists in you :) . Ofcourse, the norm for presenting humility in writing would I suppose desire a complete skipping of the word "you" and thus expect no reader to be reading this. However, just as all things seem as futile to me as the the things that don't seem to be, I suppose these notions of humility can now be kept aside for now and maybe forever.

Albert Camus, presents what we would call as the complete absurd man in The Outsider, his first novel. Ofcourse, I do not realise the absurdity in his philosophy and hence how it came to be called as absurdism. Seems to me any set of completely rational and non self-contradictory ideas could never be called absurd, and let alone Camus's philosophy of life, which seems quite more potent than that of many others, atleast for the time being.

Monsieur Mersault, is shown as a very stoical man, very indifferent to changes, to relationships, ambitions that other persons perceive to be the norm for success, and rather taciturn and calm, and disinclined to engage in conversations. Seems very much like a man, who tends to live in the present and is disinterested in recounting the past or speculating the future. He is further shown to be honest, ingenuous and well, maybe brutally honest at times. However, what strikes me most, is how such a man can be perceived to be happy. I wonder if this novel even purports the view that the absurdist man is really happy, if ofcourse Monsieur Mersault is the perfect absurd man.

It seems very rational to me to believe that Mersault has an almost innate, and unconscious desire to self-destruct; a willingness to explore the beach, in the face of lurking danger, to help Raymond, who he knows would just about only mean trouble for himself. It seems really absurd, and for once, I am using this word in a more meaningful manner, to think that this man is quit essentially happy. Then again, it makes sense. His sense of exploration, that leads him out of his daily routine, an almost fearlessness in the face of danger, seems to be a result of definitely an indifference to humans relationships, to past and to the future and, possibly resulting in an indifference to life and death. It seems equally valid that such a man be extremely honest. For, an honest opinion is something people do not refrain from giving unless there are prejudiced notions working in the background dictating the response, unless ofcourse they are pathological liars, or enjoy an absurd disorientating convulsion when asked to reproduce a truth of much importance, in either case enough to call them pathological liars in the literal sense of the word.

Another key idea, that can be ruminated on, is the consciousness of Mersault's ego. It seems unimaginable that Mersault's actions do not have any bearing on his consciousness about his presence in the eyes of others. I suppose, to grow up into such a person would require a complete exile from the societal notions, or to be completely impervious to such ideals. However, since such a situation can only be found in a hypothetical environment, it remains that Mersault would have had to completely reject any notions of adhering to societal pressures from the very onset of his sentient life. However, there seems no proof that societal notions are not learnt by a child unconsciously, for then, I child would never learn to potty train, or well, anyway, that is just a rather silly example, but my point is made. So, the only option, is to slowly unlearn these notions when consciousness hits, which probably Mersault has achieved, and which requires a very conscious, concerted effort as it involves disregarding notions gathered almost unconsciously as a child. This hence means, that he cannot be completely be unaware of the effect his almost complete lack of emotion would mean to the people around him. Ofcourse, I haven't thought about it this way - he just may not really give a rat's ass as to what the people around him think of him, and hence doesn't care to follow the norms in a funeral or in the court of law. This would seem to be finally, a stable solution in a rather funky potential well, however this isn't. For, the ego of Mersault is well and truly revealed right at the end of the novel. Celeste becomes the good man suddenly, and others become half the man he is. This is the first time Mersault really judges a person, or persons. And it shows that he is suddenly ONLY JUST realising how people think of him. This however, seems to be an inexplicable inconsistency to me in the whole philosophy of Monsieur Mersault and his behaviour. It would mean, that the perfect absurdist man is hence, a completely whimsical notion.

Ofcourse, its also worth contemplating whether the sudden outburst of Mersault in jail, and his prescribing a complete indifference to all men and women and the whole world, could be a sudden impulsive thought, led to be formed under circumstances of hatred for all those around him. This ofcourse, questions whether the thought itself is well thought over. However, it is questionable whether a thought well thought over is more potent than a thought that is impulsively born, and further from a sudden exposition of one's ego, even if to oneself.

However, lets just consider absurdism on the very level of what it intends to mean. It envisions the man, no God, no truth. It advocates living in the present, and advocates indifference. It "advocates" happiness. Haha. It seems impossible to me, to find happiness being indifferent to people, and, however, deriving happiness in instantaneous pleasures obtained from people by engaging in various social acts, like sex. Well, let it be just sex. I suppose you can't really even get sex being completely indifferent to the woman you propose to get involved with in libidinous pursuits. I ofcourse leave it for my friends to point out that sex, could be, in theory, bought. Arbusrdism seems selfish to me, and practically unrealisable, in fact, just like Camus himself has wonderfully illustrated in The Outsider. Mersault is bound to be misunderstood, and be castigated.

What if, however, everyone was an ideal absurd man or woman ? Well, Conversations would be few. Minimally, yes, I suppose that is to be expected. There would be no "love" , not many relationships. Why I say this is because it seems pretty valid to me to infer that Mersault was almost forced into relationships by the sociable intents of those around him, rather than his pursuit of any relationship. It basically seems to lead to a society lacking in any sense of moral guidelines as well, because an indifference to everything, even life and death, gives one a sudden spontaniety, wings if you may say so, to obeying and acting upon whimsical, momentory, transistory thoughts and ideas and desires. You could say the that the philosophy is hedonistic to some extenet at the microscopic level of the individual and the locality of time, but is characterized more by the attitude of a self-abnegating ascetic on a macroscopic scale of a longer period of time. Can such a society without any ideals survive? No. So, what really is the ideal percentage of population that should turn absurdist to create a harmony between both these sects of the abrudists and those who aren't? :P

Camus relies on man developing love for doing just what he does. "Work is its own reward" , I suppose that is what Camus wishes for existentialists to incorporate in their angst incorporated lives. However, it seems to me, as questionable as the existence of God, whether man really desires to work passionately for any cause. It seems any sense of obligation to a cause evolves from an assimilation of desires and classically conditioning oneself to choose one on the basis of another classically conditioned megastructure of information that resides in the mind. Hence, nobody really knows if there exists a passion men innately, intrinsically possess, other than sex I suppose. Ofcourse, these questions may be irrelevant, and it may be true that some men do find their passion and the cause for their continuing existence in certain "jobs" they do. However, it seems more often that not, these passions, that keep up a man's spirits, allow him to keep living, are born in the form of the people around him. Ofcourse, the very few men who can find this happiness inside them, and their own thoughts, are, well, the truly great men.

Purple Haze

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Eyes, suggestively innocent, yet stunningly wide,
the darkness and depth of another world inside,
Forming and turning, unaware of any peril,
A plethora of emotions unraveling at will.

Let your hair flow, wherever it wishes to go,
Leading me all over the silk route and back,
Imaginations of the wildest strongest sort,
Temptation all too strong for now to evade.

Passionate is your touch, I can imagine,
All through your fingers let your love slip,
Don't hold it too tight, or your bosom may burst,
Let me love every bit of you that you deserve.

Over drinks one too many, I saw you sitting nearby,
sipping quietly, staring at me maybe?
Freudian projection or blissful imagination,
whatever it is that tempts, I want to give in.

And I cannot believe, as you come sit next to me,
and all the emotions of never before,
come unfurling in convulsive stupor,
rattling my senses, shards of words escape.

And you smile, ever so gently as if all is fine,
and you sip your sip and look back at me,
expectantly maybe, and I stammer,
and you chuckle inexplicably and so do I.

And how I sway absorbed,
by every little gesture that your eyes conjure up,
A sea of change lies before me,
and I want to drown myself into the waiting hands you extend.

And the agony now of the every inch afar,
is now piling on the listlessness that pervades,
But the music alas broke the listlessness of the night,
as purple haze drifted inexorably into sight.

Purple haze, like the breastwork that separates,
a plunge into oblivion from the life I live,
like the plunge into your mind but where are you ?
the purple haze is whirlpooling me away from you.

Where are you? I gather myself, to look around,
the bartender knows you not, nor the man who sat alongside,
where are you, my love of the night?
Have you just disappeared into the purple haze that clouds my life?

Are you like every other, or is every other just the same?
Is there no other like some other or was love never mine?
The purple haze that surrounds my life,
maybe its this purple haze that I fear.

Kartiek Agarwal

.

Waves...

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Them waves,
they crash into the shore,
in the sunshine, softly churning,
and gurgling, and quietly whining;
oh, the pleasure untold,
like that in the symphony,
of the leaves, rustling aloof,
in the breezy drizzle,
and the pitter-patter of the rain,
on the mahogany painted roof.
And they crash,
into the shore,
and a million smiles,
break into ubiquitous uproar,
in remembrance of the days,
from my heart.
And they crash,
into the rocky sub-terrain,
that houses weeds and snails,
in sparkling iridescent green.
And then they recede,
like a child,
rebuked by her mother,
and all is quiet, for once it seems,
and the sea shells gleam,
in sunlight masked
by a cloudy sheen,
and reverberate in them the tales,
of lost souls
in existentialist ways.
And there is a loneliness,
creeping into my heart,
as I wish for her to come back.
I wish for her to stay,
this time, I wish to be foolish,
doting at her wonderful ways.
I am sad.
and my life, it seems to pass,
with hurtful impasse;
reflecting in the undulated fashion,
of the pianist's portrayal,
of melancholy and indisposition,
and in her subtle betrayal.
And the waves, at the sea shore,
they crash into the sea,
And your essence, it drives me,
everyday to this bed of sand;
the chance, and the hope to see,
you mimicking, making fun of me,
your love, teasing, grappling, slipping,
maybe even coming back to me,
your wonderful ways,
from the wonderful days of yore
all in the rhythmic ways of these waves,
that I wish,
were to crash into me,
and with a swift blow to the chest,
take my breath away,
like you so often did to me.

Kartiek Agarwal.

Inspiration: I intend this poem to be a tribute to the most enchanting symphonies of Beethoven and Claude Debussy. It's amazing what emotions these symphonies can evoke in you. I started writing this poem listening to alot of Debussy, and I was compelled to write about the beauty of nature, because I inevitably listen to his music mentally picutring picturesque scenes of nature portraying its grace and serenity and all about the little emotions on the faces of little animals. Also, I meant for this poem to be as unstructured as most of Debussy's work, that tend to flirt with notes and timings outside the domains of traditional rhythmic progressions. Somewhere in the middle of the poem, you can see a sudden change in emotion. This is when I started listening to Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata". I don't think I could have written anything else while listening to that symphony, it just begs you to enter its melancholy little world. I think, you may want to listen to the "Moonlight Sonata" while reading this poem.

Ofcourse, this refers to a man searching for his lost soul, his lost friend, his lost lover in the waves.

In This River...

This is inspired by Zakk Wylde's tribute to Dimebag Darrell called "In The River". Nothing as passionate as a great man paying tribute to another great man. Also, it made me realise how much a river is like life itself, and more so, how it is a reflection of all that is happening in the whole universe. R.I.P. Dimebag, and all the people who died trying to save him that unfortunate day.

Can you hear it?
Its crying,
its laughing,
its sneezing,
its coughing,
its whirling,
and warbling,
and chirping,
and gnarling,
its dying,
its living,
its being born,
all the beauty,
that it has,
is holding time,
and every possible moment,
in a single moment
of life.

The Prisoner of Life

I wonder if he is a prisoner of life. He wakes up, with the mosquitoes all chewing him up, and chewing where they have already bit before. Before he knows it, he wanders off to the nearby market where the rediwaala sells his fresh cucumber and kakris all lined up and decorated. Just as the rediwaala looks away, he steals a few of his produce and stuffs them in his mouth, as he runs off to somewhere near. The sight of streetlights means he is nearing home.

He toils for a few paises and a cup of chai a day, sometimes selling balloons and toys, and sometimes wiping off all the window stains of the rich people in their cars. Sometimes he just begs for alms. He sees the day lift its curtains for night light to pour in, with a sweep of cool airy bliss. But sometimes, its just too cold, and so he runs, runs away from the cold, and to warm his body. But then, he runs out of air, and his lungs start to give in. So he settles down on a pavement on the land of mother earth. Sometimes, the police chase him off, but a very lucky few times, they mercifully let him be. As the frost starts to dig his grave, the sun, one lucky winter night, intervenes and acts like the mother who has only eyes for her child. But the sun has eyes for us all.

Mother earth and the fatherly sun are the only of his kin. One day, another fatherly figure in the form of an old man in his dying days wrapped around in a dilapidated, somewhere torn, and throurghly worn-out rug offers him his lifeline of so many years. The shivering lad, denies, in all self-restraint he can conjure up, by all self-respect he can search for somewhere lost. The father, however, loses his restraint, he doesn't survive the night. He remorsefully removes the rug from his naked body. He is thankful, but shivers in self-loathing, and runs away crying. He prays to some God he fears, and he is thankful, for the greatest gift he has ever received, even if remorsefully. But , maybe, he already has the greatest gift of them all. Maybe he has shame, something we never had when we let our country rot to what it is now.

Russia, On Ice

My eyes closed, and I couldn't see so far,
as a fading lamp's blaze burnt out like a dead cigar,
insinuating its presence in dampened sparks of imagination,
leaking through crevices in the door left ajar.

<Party music fading in the background>

And the breath felt very warm, and soft, as they walked
and, I swayed on her shoulder and looked into the night, and talked,
as they bade farewell to the merry chatter in an uneasy calm ,
And the door of the car opened, and jammed shut with a rusty thud,
and I slept, like a child in the backseat of a car snow covered.

<And the poor old Lada choked but finally roared on>

For I was, but a child of 5, in the backseat of my car, wondering,
why the vipers of the my Lada, weren't big like the Volvo's ,
or why an antenna on my car, wasn't there after all,
or why Deepti Mohta was so beautiful, in her princess-like frock
with her one arm wrapped in ceramic, hidden under soft cloth?

<And the poor old Lada chugged and crept on>

And as it turned and glided, on the salted Moscow streets,
And the curfew sirens waled from speakers somewhere afar,
and they were my lullaby and the winter my mother, and I slept.
like a child in the backseat of his car.

<And the sirens kept resounding and lullabying me to sleep>

And the next thing I heard, were voices extremely sharp,
a woman, pleading, almost crying in amidst some commotion,
to a man in finest Russian leather, it was my mother I could see,
and from out the window, I saw a man, and he looked back at me.
"Igor, niet, leave them, leave them, look at the child, how could we ?"

<And it seemed Igor obeyed, for he lowered his Kalash, looked at me once, and left us safe>

Kartiek Agarwal

P.S. true story! :) The above is a nested photo (photo of a photo!), hence the lack of clarity.

Love, Death, Beauty, and Poetry.

My words are all but lies,
released into the bewildering wild,
in opiate nights under
the sun-bathed moon with crimson wine
all that set to conspire,
setting my imagination on fire,
imploring me to oblige,
to ponder and to settle down, to retire.
To retire into the arms
of the chair besides my desk and write.

And I write about love,
and death and all in which I find beauty,
And I make a mockery of it all,
every night when I retire,
all that set to conspire,
setting my imagination on fire,
didn't ever realize my ineptness
to set alight the mind, the pyre,
that is in a way only a true lover
could ever aspire .. to.

And so I set to write nonetheless,
of the tempest, that is her soul,
that blows on the lands of evermore,
burning ever bright
like the christening jewel
of a crown in clear daylight,
But again I realize my ineptness
to set alight the mind, the pyre,
that is in a way only a true lover
could ever aspire .. to.

And so I surmise,
from the evident lack of device,
love, I have never realized.
I have never felt it, I could never write.
But yet again I set my ineptness aside,
and continue to scribble and write,
And I find poetry in the death of a flower,
caught in a tumultuous monsoon shower,
That pleads to the skies, and dies,
amongst remorseful eyes.

Eyes, that were never mine,
and it is beyond evident and I realize,
how fickle and unwise,
my words will seem to those eyes,
that belong to the mother of a lost son,
and an orphan of a lost mother,
a lover, his blessed soul,
that bloomed today with new found love, and further
I realize, these words, never writ better
than those on the lips of a bereaved lover.

Kartiek Agarwal

Random pics from Amrikaa :D

The Visit

He was sat in his bucolic leather-back chair
shrouded by a haze of obliging, benignant air
not by virtue but possibly by the smoke,
that lingered with an aroma of pleasant hope.

As I entered the room, I remember, he shot a quick look,
Sizing me up from head onto the foot,
He couldn't make note of much so he started right away,
A seemingly harmless question, how was your day?

Reasonably well, I recall muttering out loud,
Not very interested in his persistent spout,
And as I continued to recline away to merriment,
It was not before long, the dialog wasn't reminiscent.

I now continued on a path of beleaguered ferns,
trudging along the trail of the redolent soil,
fresh from a showery spell of nature's love,
lit with the sunlight underlining the canopy above.

And I continued onwards, lured by a sense of nostalgia,
By, an inexplicable desire of seeking long lost love,
Until I reached a tree that separated from the rest,
In that it was home to two bluebirds warbling in their nest.

The father then came, a beautiful father he was,
a ring of green around the neck and hood of satin white.
As he continued feeding, his young his prized catch,
they kept chirping and warbling in their colloquial delight.

And the forest , like a utopia of uninterrupted bliss,
Sat back to admire this little relationship blooming amidst.
And then, rather serendipitously my eye wandered to a pond,
murky and shallow, it begged me to respond.

As I leaned over onto my reflection, it leaned back at me,
a gasp escaped my lips unconsoled by the sudden frenzy,
that surrounded me unrelentingly, getting ever frenetic,
It was my face alright, but the eyes were of a heretic.

And the forest was now its primordial self,
under a setting sun, with clouds bulging and giving away at will,
tormenting showers that muted the benevolent trill,
of the bluebirds that flew in search of cover, away from peril.

Throbbing guilt suddenly pounded in my veins,
delirious thoughts scrambled and reveled in my pain,
And I still didn't know why this dream of such promise,
Was now turning into an abject nightmare, an undeniable abyss.

And then, played a requiem that flooded into ubiquity,
And right before I realised, my father's body, I saw paralyzed,
lying in a crystalline coffin with red roses and orchid wines,
Just the way he wished to die, I could never realise, such a heretic was I.

And then, as I began to plead for mercy, begging freedom,
from this ethereal nightmare, this bestial prison,
A sudden impulse of energy ran through my forehead, like a concussion,
and every little nerve rejoiced in almost sudden gratification.

And I found myself now, suddenly very wide awake,
hugging my chair, behaving childishly innate,
Dr. Freud purposefully smiled , and sat me up straight,
"Well, you know my son, it's almost never too late ... ".


Kartiek Agarwal

Wild America!

Well, its been about a month now here in Pennsylvania, about a third of the way through my research internship under Dr. Lakhtakia at Penn State University. We have been trying to observe a [content suppressed for the time being :)]. With the physics part being mostly done, the numerical analysis remains, and this is what is causing a few hiccups here and there. Nonetheless, I had a wonderful day today at work, with my program finally finding some (loads really, its swinging now :) ) solutions to a deviously eluding multivariable complex function. Problem is that this non-explicit function is nowhere analytic, well not even continous or even defined at places. Hence, convergence programs fail most of the times. What I have tried to do though is to fill in these gaps to form atleast piecewise continous parts, helping me to run a Newton Rhapson algorithm in some form. I am also looking at using a zero crossing method that switches between real and imaginary parts till a simultaneous crossing is found. Nevertheless, this blog post is a tribute to the wildlife here in Pennsylvania so we should focus on that now! On my customary evening walks with my uncle here who is also a professor at Penn State University (and its so pleasant, occasionally mild downpour at about 25 degree centigrade) , we found that cute guy above trying to cross the road. For your information, there are 2 fresh water streamlets running on either side of the road!



As I watched it in its struggle to cross the road, a guy whisked past me in his, toyota was it ?,only to stop , wheel back, and park his car at the side, to have a look for himself. What I found more amusing was that, this guy, whose picture you can see above, decided to stand in the middle of the road for the next 15 minutes or so, so as to warn any cars of the threat they could be to the turtle! Realising this was taking just too long, he tried helping the turtle on by trying to poke at it and push it with his foot, but the turtle wagged its mouth at him in a loud hiss of self-defense to warn him off! Finally, the man gathered enough courage to pick the little beast off and drop him at the stream nearby :) . I was, ofcourse, content in watching the action unfold at a safe distance (yeah, you have to be saying, "this guy, scared of a turtle?") , oh and I had to run back to my place and back to the scene of action to get the camera in the meantime. About half a mile, so could have been about 4-5 minutes.

Yeaiii, look at my claws!!!

Well, for some things, you just got to love America. :)

The Painting

The blues, the greys,
the colours all sprayed,
all bitterly fail to convey,
the depth of your eyes.
so suggestively innocent,
yet stunningly wide,
with the darkness and depth,
of another world inside.

Forming, turning,
unaware of any peril,
leaving a plethora of emotions
unraveling at will.
like progenies of
the odd perturbations,
deftest views of
irradiating scintillations

yet stirring up storms
in my observation,
providing the magical bursts of
the few moments worth elation,
set back by
the very realisation
of the infiniteness of your soul
and the humility of my creation.


Kartiek Agarwal

Inspiration - Da Vinci's tireless attempts to paint the perfect flowing river , the heart of the matter of difficulty being the chaos in nature, the intricate balance of imbalance!

Melancholy, My Love

Melancholy, my love,
I write this hesitantly,
love for me doesn't come easy,
truth be told,
people scrutinize my sincerity,
towards you,
and towards my family.

Melancholy, my love,
I swear to bear with you,
and not be swayed,
by passion,
who tries all that is,
but pray, our love for each other,
be passionate as ever.

Melancholy, my love,
your sorrow is now mine,
its all I ever asked,
a love so pure,
the jealous can't realize,
the world would never mind,
the empathy you confide.

Melancholy, my love,
you are the only one ever
to know me as I am,
to know me like no other,
like love had never,
So if you ever leave,
Know I will be melancholy while dying.

Melancholy, my love,
with shining bright tulips,
in their moonlit glory,
I adorn you all above,
let me whisper in your ear so you know,
you're my first and only
confession of true love.


Kartiek Agarwal.

The Thrill Of It All

Criss-crossing streets,
cornering randomly lit joints,
carrying the myriad many,
the pleasure of passing by.

Hugging street lights,
hugging them all,
for many the last hope,
before the wretched darkness falls.

Carpeting with it the lusty sky,
swinging with the loo,
dancing like the pollen
caught waltzing in a Brownian furor.

The rhythm of the breeze,
flowing vehemently ever beyond,
slapping with its gusty composition,
the nocturnal who awaken to dream...

beyond the consciousness
of the tiresome road they follow,
slippering the cobble-stoned path
upto to the end that is the gallows.

Prowling, like hungry beasts,
come the night dwellers knocking,
And the nightmare unravels,
like that seen just the day before.

"Child, lemme see through your eyes,
I hope you want the money,
'cause I got a bad horsie,
And there aint no time enough. "

And another tear contours the blush,
Unspoken resentment bewildered,
and smothered by an inexplicable rush,
nevertheless rejected, if ever expressed.

Everyday sees more of them,
rich, poor, honoured, but all daft and numb,
loathing in egocentric self-apathies,
all out there for a night like no other.

Encumbering on forever,
this voiceless poor prisoner,
incapacitated by the unrelenting molestation,
hatred for men like no other.

And as the night turns purple then brown,
The culprits slyly writhe away,
And like it never happened at all,
its a bustling market, a wonderful day.


Kartiek Agarwal , on child trafficking and prostitution

Blissful Oblivion

Blissful oblivion, surrender me to your illusion,
Let my mind awaken from my prejudiced slumber,
This body, breathing of agonizing inhibition,
Let me be, free for once in your eternal bower.

Ruffle my sails with your winds of purposelessness,
Filling in me, vague and distant memories unheard,
unrelated to what I know or will ever know,
And I will breathe in comfort I have never felt before.

Free from me, this whimsical sense of belonging,
Self-deluding importance to social harmonic being,
Whirlpooling, if needed into the realms of insanity,
to be questioned by none, the saner, of my happiness.

Let this unintuitive, unimaginative world of infiniteness,
as that seen through the eyes of lesser minds,
unrelenting to undermine their presupposed axioms,
present to me the light and glimpses into the
unknown, for there is where my mind resides.

Kartiek Agarwal, on behalf of a delusioned metaphysicist.

Eggplant, Eggs, And Tomatoes :)

Well, this is just a little post, about one of my favorite self-created dishes (one of the few ones that actually work out just fine :D). This one involves a very interesting combination of fried brinjal chips, spicy tomato chutney, and fried egg. You can do away with the egg, and the cheese as well. This picture shows a baked version of the dish. Although I found baking it results in squishify-ing the brinjal, but my mom liked it nonetheless. I think it makes for a very filling breakfast, and I really like it. Bon-a-petite :D

History

Home to violence, back to sadness ,
refraining myself from surrendering,
to the hate seeping through every vein,
the relaxing tune of the chime, let it ring again.

The daily routine, the whipped cream,
souring and tasteless, bitter like pain,
An eerie silence on the table, silence of the lambs,
To be butchered yet again, whipped cream...

Days pass uneventfully, nights are starry,
Dreamy, trippy, sleazy, its ok, I do it now,
Erotic nightmares, shunting the cries, its ok,
I will pull the trigger, I sometimes threaten him , and its ok.

And now I see her, all through my head,
so beautifully lovable, made so pretty, for me,
And love erupts, from where I don't know, it doesn't hurt,
And I am swimming in blissful passion, she's all I need.

And I wake up everyday, like the purposeful man,
To sleep once again, on my bed all warmed,
And days pass faster than ever before,
occasional glimpses into those eyes, those charming sad eyes.

And the cries return, like painful nightmares,
glimpses into the past, scurrying with intensity unknown,
hatred all too familiar, context fuzzy, unclear,
like all that I have come to know, from those eyes I now fear.

Those eyes, that threaten with cold-blooded passion,
all too familiar, that glaring look, the bitterness, the hatred, and the helplessness
and I know what had made him what he was,
and what I was then and what I have become.

And I give him the gun, no other way,
He pulls it back all the way, every millimeter
resounds with the cry of a generation of whip and cry,
the shot released, the bust is burst, the end is near,
Son, I hope this is the end of my worst fear.


Kartiek Agarwal, on female domestic abuse

Sound Forge

Well, its been quite a long long time since I wrote my last post. The last semester was probably one of the most hectic ones I have experienced in college life , although I have only completed 3 semesters here, so it would be more qualifying to say that the last sem was by far the most burdening sem. The TA201 course wasn't less than a nightmare! 2 labs a week doing metal-working, welding, and the occasionally getting hit in the groin with a sledge hammer, can wear down even the most accomplished and battle-hardened warriors. And I am only a science geek! :D Fortunately, the Signals and Systems course and the Data Structures and Algorithms course were a huge relief and provided for my intellectual appetite to some extent.

Now, getting back to the main theme of this post. I was actually inspired by this Rolling Stones magazine article to write this post - http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity/print
But wait! I suggest you to stay here. That link is dangerous. No, ofcourse its not. But possibly because I can lend you some insight from a more mathematical perspective about what we are going to discuss.

Let me start by asking if you have ever wondered about or questioned the quality of the music being produced today. Since, we're all living in a world of mp3s and freely, albeit sometimes illegally distributed audio, most of us don't even recognize today's music to exist in the highly generically modified, monotonous, and well, overly loud state that it actually exists in! And no, I am not quibbering about the quality of musicians today because as long as the homosapiens sprawl in the bowers of this earth, extraordinary musicians will be born time and again , and will exhibit their sheer talent and we will all gather around and be wide eyed and hopeful and dream about wooing chicks with that type of musical talent. No, its actually the sound engineering that is to be blamed.

What is it that I am talking about? Well, its something like this. We all know how we like our music loud. It gives us a more exciting, dynamic experience, and most certainly a more environmental, immersive feeling when we get to hear the slightest of details; when the high pitch squealies of Dimebag hit us at full volume and when the bass pounds on every muscle of our body, yes its an incredible feeling. The music industry seems to have taken an extreme obsession in trying to capitalize on this loudness phenomenon and in my opinion, and many others' , this has led to a forever degrading quality of music.


Yes, Yes, you're to blame as well!

Music is characterized by variations in pitch, rhythm, timbre, and loudness. That's what makes music exciting. Its the dynamic range, the panache, the little fluctuations, the moods that are played around with by changing scales. But as of today, most records that are produced ,compromise on this dynamic range, to make everything seem louder. When you take out this dynamic range, the whole song seems to be running on the same loudness level, which may seem amazing in the first hearing, but tends to get monotonous after subsequent repeats. The chorus, the verses all seem to be at the same volume. If you take out this variation, the emotional punch of even the best climaxes is lost since its all at the same level! Its really funny how people are trying to buy more and more expensive sound systems, covering their room walls with limestone or clay and what not for a better acoustic experience when all they are really gearing up for is listening from loud, depth lacking, and less than deserving stored media.

Its not My Fault !!!

Lets have a little look into what really happens. When recorded sound files are compressed via mp3 compression algorithms which at modest best involve fourier domain filtering of the frequencies of sounds that tend to be least perceivable to human hearing. These frequencies may be the ones that are too high for human perception or too low, or the ones that occupy less energy in the spectrum. This doesnt seem so bad and actually it isnt. After all, its fine enough to remove stuff that we cant hear. Then who IS the culprit? Well, its the record labels whose sound engineers try to "deck up" the music. How do they do that? Well, in order to make everything louder, these people simply amplify the less voluminous sounds and well, since you can only amplify everything to a certain maximum, this tends to decrease the gap between the originally loud and quieter portions since the louder portions are left as they were! That sound bad to you? Yes, it is! Its a complete degradation of sound quality and certainly something that most of us dont enjoy. Some of us, know this, when they feel a conscious urge to skip a song, and some of us who are, well much brighter, actually skip over. :D

You can actually get a little feel of this yourself by trying out the following thing - Just go to your
Windows XP/ Vista volume control device and notch up the wave equalizer. Do this once, and then revert the change and this time notch up the volume. Next, notch up both. The both notched up version is what you get and you can see now easily see that you are being cheated!

Me! Pick Me ! :P

Some artists have realized this degradation of sound in stored media, and have consciously tried to avoid such sound engineering that tends to woo listeners in short term, but most have given in to this so called "loudness war". Here is a youtube video I found that, sums it all up quite well. DO have a look at it!

Well guys, me waiting for your comments!