Lost

Lost in the space engulfing me,
In the mild narrows shadowing sea,
Drifting paths lead to thee,
On the journey to the lost key.

Scattered thoughts in the emptied mind,
Wandering in them like a child,
Gaping wounds ease deeper pains,
Scars they leave like charred stains.

Unknown and uncertain is this phase,
Caught in tangling grip of the ways,
Storming inside are many of me,
Lost in the chaos is the true being.

The sights scare the very core,
Depths of emotion have now worn.
Held down by the gravity around,
Is there a way to break this bound?

Unbound

Flies roll and paths fly,
living life on a new high!
Winters blood and the heart's cold,
life takes an incomplete sigh

Depths write and fingers pause,
chaotic mind finds no sweet spot,
Blood flows and rivers run dry,
words stop at when the feelings rot.

Sights reach horizons and laughter halts,
a deeper thought injects the stance,
Fights with the soul and hugs to death,
leave the faith at a dangling dance.

Swallowing darkness and grains cease,
satisfying feeling come with the last,
Breaths lose beats and beats knock th sky,
its like a movie running super fast.

Faith faints and belief sets absence,
that sharp shard surfaces the presence,
Growth limps and cages walk,
its runs the cycle, weaving a web of nothingness.

Bounded in the Nothingness

Happy in-Dependence Day!

The Illusion.

How many years have passed since we got a signed draft copy assuring that the subcontinent of India was granted freedom, currently home to 3 different countries? 65 as I count it. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and if I am able to count the state of Kashmir partly occupied by Pakistan makes it three + a partly owned state. It disappoints me by the state we are in even after being in the 6^th decade past the ‘gifted’ independence. We tend to curse the English on this ‘auspicious’ and ‘celebrated’ day for every ‘Indian’. (Tip: Take every word in quotes sarcastically.)

Today, I wish to praise the English for ruling us. For if you think, you will agree that they are the ones who helped us learn the basics of administration of the entire country as a whole. If not for them, we would have been existed today as 28 countries and not states. We communicate in English, get education in a highly advanced manner with obsolete technology thanks to the recent non up gradation of the curriculum. If you know that Indian Railways is the world’s largest employer, it is the British that ran the first railway in India. Mission Hospitals, again initiated by the Brits, got proper medical care in India and making the Indian nurses and doctors highly valuable for their skill in the First world. The highly disorganized, highly illiterate, divided by caste (still is but a little less) ancient India was given a way to the modern world we live in today was given by the British. So, at this moment, thank them!

Coming back to the present, I am tired by watching the video of Jawaharlal Nehru giving a speech at Delhi with the words, ‘When the world sleeps, India shall away to freedom (?)’ Good one there Mr. Nehru. I wish to see news of progress. I am saddened by the state we are heading to. The ever rising prices, a highly failing government with the last ‘leader’ being a Lady President, who made it in the news for hijacking army property and a Prime Minister who had made his mark in the humor shows, than in development is the kind of Nation we live in. I see a man taking a stand against the political system and then entering it. The very same people agitating against riots in one part of the country then fall to violence creating chaos and destruction with adding a communal tag bringing back the hatred that has crept in the hearts of the countrymen thanks to a few terrorists brought up in the neighboring country.

The recent news has been highlighting the ‘majorly worshipped entity called, the Woman’ being molested and raped in several parts of the country. In a country with 63% population following the Hindu religion with a stunning 2 crore gods and goddesses, in which the major national festivals are celebrated for the goddesses, have women raped and molested on a regular basis. ‘Kudos’ people! I hope you can don’t the same things with your daughters and sisters. We have shows airing on the silver screen promoting the nation to voice against female feticide, my question stands, “For this??”

We are done ‘celebrating’ the success of the players who excelled at the Olympics and we are so ‘satisfied’ with the Bronze medals. But we trash our cricket team if they land in the second place. We call processions with a city wins the IPL but the Asian Cup winners of the ‘national sport’ of India, Hockey have to spend time outside the airport calling for a taxi. For the record, Michel Phelps, the renowned swimmer has bagged more Gold medals in a single Olympic than the country has won till date. Shame? Not yet. We organize the Commonwealth Games only to welcome the guests with leaking ceilings and later find out the entire web was worn around a huge financial scam. Now, shame.

I am so not able to comment more as my heart truly aches. I am an engineer and hope to promote to the development of this country through the educational system. For if knowledge is power, education is what we need at its optimum level. I can write, I can make people think by my thoughts, and if I am successful, change their mindset. We need revolutionaries like Mahatma Phule, Savitri Bai, who brought education for the masses. Dr. Ambedkar who possessed such a vast knowledge that he was able to draft the Constitution we follow today, single handedly in a prison cell. A President like Dr. Kalam who is highly educated is what we want. A system which needs educated minds to administrate and not the ones who can make their name in comedy shows.

We are singing ‘Saare Jahaan Se Accha’ but I don’t agree. I am not proud to be an Indian, but I want to be in the near future.  To my fellow Indians, Happy in-Dependence Day!

In my opinion, Freedom is:
To be able to walk without fear.
To roam around without being molested.
To befriend without being raped.
To be able to voice without going to prison.
To not practice corruption.
To be treated as a human and not as a follower of a specific religion.
To share food with a beggar and not treated as 'unclean'.
To be trusted and trust a stranger.
a long list continues,
In my opinion, India isn't free yet.

In the above article, I exercised my Right to Speech/Expression of Thought.

The Truth

The Great Indian Power Failure

While the Power System Operation Corporation Ltd (POSOCO) scratches its head about the power grid trip in the north India affecting millions of people, and most of the brains working otherwise, there is a little fact we all have ignored. I found the Zee News India take on the matter to be most informative. The fact that most of us ignore is the power source for the entire Solar System, the Sun. If the yellow star has power to provide energy to the entire system, it does have power to affect planets in a harmful way too!  Some facts and figures from NOAA, NASA, and other sources.

The Sun follows a regular 11 (±1) year cycle from a minimum to maximum state of changing magnetic field marked by change in the number of sunspots. The Sun performs a cycle from a minimum to maximum solar activity which is observed using the basic and simplest parameter, the number of sunspots visible. During the maxima of this cycle, a high solar activity is observed. High radiation storms from the Sun consisting of super charged protons and other sub atomic particles occur in the space. Ground currents induced during geomagnetic storms can actually melt the copper windings of transformers at the heart of many power distribution systems. Sprawling power lines act like antennas, picking up the currents and spreading the problem over a wide area. The most famous geomagnetic power outage happened during a space storm in March 1989 when six million people in Quebec lost power for 9 hours:

http://science.nasa.gov/media/medialibrary/2009/01/21/21jan_severespaceweather_resources/quebec.jpg

There's a surprising conclusion of a NASA -funded study by the National Academy of Sciences entitled Severe Space Weather Events—Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts. In the 132-page report, experts detailed what might happen to our modern, high-tech society in the event of a "super solar flare" followed by an extreme geomagnetic storm. According to the report, power grids may be more vulnerable than ever. The problem is interconnectedness. In recent years, utilities have joined grids together to allow long-distance transmission of low-cost power to areas of sudden demand. On a hot summer day in California, for instance, people in Los Angeles might be running their air conditioners on power routed from Oregon. It makes economic sense—but not necessarily geomagnetic sense. Interconnectedness makes the system susceptible to wide-ranging "cascade failures." 

To estimate the scale of such a failure, report co-author John Kappenmann of the Metatech Corporation looked at the great geomagnetic storm of May 1921, which produced ground currents as much as ten times stronger than the 1989 Quebec storm, and modeled its effect on the modern power grid. He found more than 350 transformers at risk of permanent damage and 130 million people without power. The loss of electricity would ripple across the social infrastructure with "water distribution affected within several hours; perishable foods and medications lost in 12-24 hours; loss of heating/air conditioning, sewage disposal, phone service, fuel re-supply and so on."

"The concept of interdependency," the report notes, "is evident in the unavailability of water due to long-term outage of electric power--and the inability to restart an electric generator without water on site." India has five electricity grids -- Northern, Eastern, North Eastern, Southern and Western. All of them are inter-connected, except the Southern grid. All the grids are being run by the state-owned Power Grid Corporation, which operates more than 95,000 circuit km of transmission lines. NTPC's six plants -- Singrauli (2,000 MW), Rihand (2,500 MW), Dadri (1,820 MW), Auriya (652 MW), Anta (413 MW) and Badarpur (705 MW) -- stopped generating following the failure. 

A coronal mass ejection (CME) produced by Saturday's (28^th July) M6-class flare head toward Earth. According to analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the cloud delivered a glancing blow to our planet's magnetic field on July 31st around 1930 UT or 0100 IST. The northern transmission grid collapsed at 2.35 AM, plunging Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chandigarh into darkness. 

<-- The Sun captured during that time.

Doesn’t the time overlap? Aren’t the facts pointing towards a much bigger hurdle than we are concluding? If you read the entire thing again and maybe it shall strike you. Some of us are focusing on these effects which most of us are ignoring. Kevin runs a website SolarHam.net which is the best source for solar data on the internet. The Sun is being monitored by 24 satellites, SOHO, ACE, GOES being the major ones. The data from these is available to the public and Kevin does a huge job of bringing all the data in one place. While on other end, Pamela Stiegman from Tonawanda, NY is collecting data about the transformer failures around the world, we are trying to relate these events with the solar events happening on a regular basis. I have a published research paper, titled Communication Blackout: Causes and Effects in IJAEST last year which focuses the effects of Solar Flares on the telecommunication system. An extension of the same research has been selected at ESTEL Conference, Italy due presentation this October. This article aims to educate the general public about the possible effects and to be ready for more such events in the coming days. August 2012 marks the start of the solar maximum for the 24^th cycle; a request to the scientific community to kindly look into the grave matter. 

 

 
contact me at: abhijeetkhan@gmail.com

My Grave

Yet another path found,
between life and death,
tread these paths with a lamp,
and a song in my head.

A few unknowns reached,
a few knowns visited,
overwhelms me this road ahead,
turns and burns, they remain.

Tools are ready for work,
they begin to clear the land,
a spot quite fertile to grow,
some greenery and colours around.

For people who might visit,
may leave with some glare,
for these may provide them peace,
who pass by me and offer a word.

I shall look to that place upon,
and a fathom under it keep eyes,
sweat and blood flow and eyes tear,
ye, I have dug my grave.

Cemetery View. Self Captured.

Not Me

Each morning I rise up,
open the doorway to self,
curse a hundred things,
this is so not me.

Begin writing about pain,
hardly feeling an emotion now,
chasing the lost self, running,
is this me?

Criss-cross paths swindle dreams,
a sojourn to darkness and back,
finding peace among the pothor,
who is he?

Treading, hitting back and forth,
living to be someone here,
nights have forgotten rest,
who is he?

Gulping the sorrows within,
some numen around searching,
to prorogue the pain that lives,
is this me?

Failing and not rising,
becoming a self that's false,
sitting idle to let it pass,
this is so not me!

Rapunzel!

One fine day and one right moment,

That some point when all this is written,

a rhyme of few words, a small sneak,

The tale of a girl, called Rapunzel!

Its hard to tell what she is,

She’s a closed flower,

A burning rage of an artist,

A little girl trapped in this world.

She’ll steal your eye, that corner look,

As she walks in her own might.

Never will she drop you with the least,

Of her attention, always ahead, that lioness.

Being one of the crowds has never,

ever been her way, yet she does,

Long to have been belonged.

But hyenas, a lioness won’t stand with you!

She can smack truth on your face,

And with a gentle smile, lovely,

She can hurt your core, truly deep.

You’ll love the way she does it!

But what she hides within will rarely,

you discover; that core, hardly understand.

She’s an inspiration, if you can look deep,

Those eyes, they haunt you in sleep!

Close yet very far, you live from everyone,

that little devil is called an angel by some!

A proud daddy’s girl and a sister’s gem,

I’m blessed to have you as my friend!

For words shall never be able to express,

Completely the emotion, they sometimes hurt,

The silence that goes between those breaths,

The world around it constrains.

My 55 words!

Below are my entries for 55 Words Story . Initiated by @vivekisms

1. Words

Words carry a power. To death, and to life. They create boundaries of race and religion. Blessed are those who are speechless. For they are universally tied. The words the heart speaks, through the eyes, is what eternally lives.


2. Blood

A sight stuck the eye; screeching, my tires halt. Deblurred I see, a bloodstream flowing through his head trickles down the asphalt.

I see inhuman faces sticking their eyes, constrained arms. Couraged, I held the young by his smashed head.

That picture haunts, that blood, (doesn't leave my palms).

3. Boredom

7th Jan 10. The day after the competition, all worn down and lazy.

Laying on the couch, with the lost thoughts, with the world's time. A random thought ran across, of how to pass next 6 months.

The boredom on that couch, and those few haywire thoughts lead me to form this Albedo Informatics.

Silent Volumes

A Special Dedication

Lost in the ripples of the wind,
i see that face close and shining,
into the depths you show up a stare,
spell binding and so calming deepness.

Having a sigh i write these words,
for those stars,
a fire rising,
a shout crying,
a night engulfing,
with those rivers flowing,
a vacuum pulling.

Eyes that play strings of the heart,
tiny lines they hold them in,
a pain screeching,
and joy overflowing,

A sight i wouldn't want to lose,
read a little more of those silent volumes.

How silent they may be,
through them I'll always see,
a heart glowing, like a shining star,
from that cage remove another bar.

A smile and a tear left behind,
a face covering the heart kind,
a word could not define,
when the silent volumes shine.

Driving thru the darkness i see a flicker small,
lost in the thick nights lies a baby doll.
Laughing all the way in this crazy world,
but when in her dreams she looks like a curl!

Those volumes might have watered,
and the paths shattered.
The words might go to very few,
I got a true blessing called YOU.

Mesmerized by the sights these volumes,
they have caputred in the depths,
the straight paths they sometimes offer,
have on a new high flown me up.

Pulled more into the singularity,
and entagling words to a poem,
a joy that they offer in the closeness;
a halo lits up those volumes, places a kiss!

A world resides in those volumes,
not just a planet or a star,
life with the grandness of a galaxy,
sated not i am, by what it shows..

Lost in the darkness of the shadows,
cleaned up the rest, closed the glare,
carrying the waters in those shallow cups,
rising to give a blinding stare,
diving in to rescue the words lost.

A gaze i always cherish,
the freshness of the view relish,
the sweeter glow fails to cover,
the beams of the depth you lower.

Never goes a day by without,
the silent volumes thought,
a dizzy image then pops,
a sight, that seems now lost.

Covered with a veil,
one's heart they can seal,
filled with an unknown charm,
they clear the mind's swarm.

As they glide down,
the grass goes brown,
with that gentle smile,
that curve, it stops the heart for a while.

The Stage called Life!

One great English sage named Shakespeare once hath quoted in his play, As You Like It through the character Jaques:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

Life is always filled with people. People you love, you hate, you like, you avoid, but one common feature they all have is, they enter and they exit! This one thing is what you cannot change in life. You can never hold back anyone forever, though they say love is forever, but life isn’t! People are meant to leave you, but to leave you with something! In this journey called life, we travelers find fellow mates who have to get down at some stop on the way.

This stage, this play, each one has their own special character written down for them; they play their parts in the specified time on the stage and get behind the wings when done. If each character would be present on the stage all the time, wouldn’t the stage be cluttered? Such is the flow of life! Each one has a role, an entry time, and an exit time! They show up when the need pops up, when a character is failing, the other chips in to set the play in order. When the play gets a little lousy, the comedian comes up. So does happen in our lives!

When we are drowning, someone is introduced to us or somebody pushes up from the general crowd of people in life and lifts us up. When the part is done, they drift away, lost in the ocean of anonymity. Well, it does not just happen with you, you also were someone special for somebody, and you too drifted away. Expecting somebody to stay all the way is hope, staying with someone all the way is love, but living this truth that they might leave some fine day is called life.

We all have definitions of life. I define my life as something that’s meant for all. I love to love people, care and even hurt them, but never forget them. In this ever paced life structure that we live, it is almost impossible to keep in touch with all those people in one’s life. But being true to myself, I miss those people who made even a slight change in my life and may God bless them in abundance.

For who I am, is a fraction of each person that I have met.

All these people make the person who I’m. This stage called life, Meine Walt, and those who live in it are the ones who have blessed me to grow to the person I’m. We all are parts of those who make an impact on us. They inspire us, break us, make us and leave us! The time each one stays in the limelight is the time they need to affect us in becoming what we are meant to be. The smiles, the tears and the times of companionship all boil down to one small effect: Us.

The bond that the fellow actors create with us remains forever within us; some remain strong over the winds of time, while some wither away in the sun of life. The sad part is when those we made close to us, in no time fall even below the slab of fair-weather friends. The heart becomes so hard, that those who once tingled the flesh with just a view now fail to touch the heart with the sweetest of words. Life is pretty amazing, and scary.

The bonds that are made never vanish, they simply become weak. The thread remains, but the essence is gone. A few special appearances bring in the impact factor in our lives. Roles change, costumes change, dialogues change, but the connection with the people of the play never does. The intensity varies, the feeling never changes.

We live, we perform at different venues, different acts as different characters from time to time, thus we call it as, a Stage of life! Sometimes we play grand sometimes low. We just voice over, or become the protagonists. Just like a play is never the same all over, so isn’t life. The highs and lows, the light and the darkness, it brings charm to it. But it is upto us how grand we play! Do we wish to set a benchmark or just flow with what goes on?

In this turmoil of the stage play, we bump up with an artist, who slowly turns out to be the non-exiting part of the play. This artist is called your soul mate. I never really got the last part of the quote, but one thing that I believe is, we puppets shall never be dropped down by the Master Puppeteer. For the best is what we receive. 

Off with the ink, and exiting with my words. Sayonara!!