The transition occurred here. - Edited.

Note: This post (about an annual writing symposium) is more or less meant for those readers who are or who will be, writers, in some form, at some point of their lives. Sorry, but this doesn't have your weekly quota of drama, comedy and glamor. But more than that, this post is mostly for recording my own views on the events that I recently saw otherwise they will be lost in sands of time.

# A panel discussion that consisted of an Agent, Editor of a state magazine, Editor of a publishing house, a writer/poet started the event. All I had imagined Editors to be was something like 'grumpy old men who butcher your piece with a red pen'. But no, they proved how they too were real book-nerds like the writers in the audience. They took down the myths about the publishing industry one by one.

It wasn't really like that they told something new or some secrets of theirs. I and mostly everyone present in the audience prolly knew all that stuff. But its different, when somebody in that position tells you all that stuff. That's when you really believe it.

# After the panel, at the break, I noticed all those writers that had attended the event. I tried to calculate the mean age of the audience and it was above 35. Yes, thirty-five. And all of them, struggling writers. Still learning, carving, fighting.

I don't know why but I get a lot of motivation when I see these kind of scenarios. Sorry old people but I am 21 right now. Pretty dumb though and that's okay. I don't have much experience at writing nor my writing is as good as theirs is. But then, atleast am on track. I realize, I just need to keep going. Going ahead, like crazy. I wonder if I'll be an old man with a half remembered dream.

# I also got a chance to speak to the agent who was crowded by so many people that I had to squeeze in myself. Everyone was busy making contacts, exchanging cards.

"So d-do you think, my approach towards my writing career, is it okay? Will it help?"
"Yes, yes," she nodded a lot, "It definitely will. I can't emphasize it enough. Good luck!"

We probably talked for about 2 minutes. And I am not phrasing my questions here because they were really silly. But sometimes all you need is reassurance from someone. And if it comes from a big person, it really helps.

# It was amazing to be among all those people that share my dream. And one of the writers in the panel also talked about finding the right gang. The right poetry club in the corner of a smoky bar. I have been looking for those crazy people all my life. I never really found them. I found them in shades sometimes, but they were always too far from me. Or at too high a position.

But it's really hard to be with those crazy people. Crazy people who are really passionate about something. They are not easy to find. Problem with them is that those truly crazy people are not often seeking out other people. They are often lost in their own proness. Its only people like me, the lesser crazy ones, that can neither find similar friends nor succeed in whatever field they are crazy about.

I think I just need to be more crazy. I am growing hair for that though.

# And then there's this friend of mine, who always keep motivating me to change my major and all. She keeps telling me that I am doing all the work an English major would do, so why not just go for it? I say to her, "I don't know. Maybe I don't even need a degree or a transcript, I just need to attend, read and learn."

And then she laughs at me. She just laughed so hard at me, that it actually became embarrassing.

But to stop her from laughing at my life, I did add though, "But yes, one day when I will have some $$ in my bank, I'll join some MFA program perhaps and quit all the science shit."

But no, really, I will quit one day. Like, quiting forever. Quiting all the bullshit and pursuing just my love.

Anyway, I have come to my office now. People are typing research papers all the time here. All that art and beauty has been left behind.

I return to science and sadness.
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Current Book: "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by James Joyce
Current Music: "Qatra Qatra" from Family.

Its makes my roomateses jaws dropses.

So when it comes to cooking (or microwaving for that matter) my basic requirements are that the food should be quick, easy and delicious.

I am not too hot about the nutritional content shit. Although I do try to employ some cheap tricks to get all those goddamn nutritions packed in one tight morsel. In short, I abuse turmeric powder.

Anyway, my cooking strategy involves a net 2 hours of cooking once a week on Sundays which basically prepares forthcoming 14 meals for the next 7 days. Dinner and lunch of every single day. For breakfast, I try to gallop cornflakes and all. Heard they give you some nutritional shit. I don't believe that crap.

I like to munch them though. It's while munching cornflakes that I have got the most brilliant artistic/scientific ideas of my life. I don't know what's in them.

And I know there are people out there who spend about 2 hrs of cooking daily. Goddamn daily. One of them is my mother. The rest of them, well, you can figure it out. I can't afford that. I just can't. I just don't like it.

1 mouth, 2 containers, 4 dishes.

'Cooking food' is like 'washing dishes'. You don't wanna do it. That's all. If, while doing any of these two tasks, you ask yourself, "Why am I doing this? Was I born for this?" I suggest you, my friend, stop doing that, at that very moment. You can spend your life doing better things.

Abuse disposable plastic ware. Screw the environment etc. Have a life.

Anyway, I can keep on giving tips on making your life efficient till the point you quit this silly blog's window and go back to your facebook/youtube, so I'll stop.

Tip: Mix at higher temperature, null out the Enthalpy effect and reduce your Gibb's free energy of mixing so that final mix follows the arrow of time ultimately increasing the total entropy of the system.

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Current Book: "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by James Joyce
Current Music: "Witchcraft" by Pendulum

His vibrating cellphone under the pillow blurred his dreams and woke him into the reality. The scratched screen blinked madly and revealed 3:51 A.M.

It was time.

He rubbed his eyes, exited his comforter with much effort, and placed his feet on the floor below with a quick swinging motion to jolt himself up. The floor felt cold, even through his woolen socks. Grimacing, he threw back a handful of hair that blocked his vision and staggered towards the door.

Outside, the hostel's corridor was desolate with most of the hostelers deep in sleep with their rooms locked and lights off. Some of the rooms were still lit as their doors were lined with yellow light, pushing itself out in the dark night. Newspapers, soda cans swept the corridor that led to the bathroom. He almost made his mind to go back at once and rest a bit more. He finished on phone last night around 2 A:M. He needed more sleep.

But no, he went on. He began with brushing. And brushed twice. It mattered. There was no hot water for him to take a bath in this cold weather. He could try to check the geysers on other floors of the hostel but he was getting late. It was 4:20 A:M and the direct bus to his destination left in a couple of minutes from now. And cold water, was what, he poured on his bare chest.

Carefully checking around four times that he had picked all the packages that he need to carry with him, he bolted his door and nearly ran to the hostel's exit. The guard lay snoring on his seat and took no notice as a shadow passed into the night.

There was no scope for a rickshaw and he had to trot all the way from his hostel to the main gate of his university. To avoid the cold, he had warped his long shawl about his nimble body. The wind flapped and slapped the shawl as he raced against time to make it to the exit. Inside, he wore the only set of clothes he believed to be good.

Presently, the darkness began to lighten up and this made the guards at the main gate witness the innocent face that was shelled in a shawl. They allowed him to exit after eying him hair to toenail. It was too early again to have a rickshaw or auto to reach the bus-stand. Consequently, he ended up half way trotting and half way hitchhiking a ride on a bicycle. The bus started about a minute after he entered it, exhausted. Out of breath and with a face gushed with hot blood, he settled in a corner seat and wrapped his shawl about his head.

Four hours later on reaching his destination city, he found himself texting her, trying to find in what section of the bus-stand she stood waiting. Calls were expensive, his balance never stayed with him too long. But he didn't have to wait for her reply too long. He found her face amidst the milling crowd. An anticipation, an eagerness was painted between her solemn eyes.

He stopped in front of her, stood foolishly there, failing to hide a bunch of red roses behind his back, waiting for her to look back. A moment later, she saw him too and a light spread across her cheeks as her lips began to tremble into a smile. Forgetting everything else about, she came running towards him and collapsed in his arms.

His first Valentine's day, 3 years back, didn't go too bad. Every moment, hug, and kiss is a memory etched in stone, till date.

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Current Book: "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" by James Joyce
Current Music: "Valentine's Day" by Linkin Park 

Artistic picture: One of my most awaited result of a contest came out today and I didn't do too bad. Basically, I sucked though. I was hoping to make to the "honorable mentions" kinda level but my story only reached to the second round. As I said, not too bad but not good either. 


Other than that, I got a couple of rejects sitting in my inbox. I don't care much about them though. They are all too tough to crack. But this one, I thought I could do a little better. (If you're a regular reader you can find my name there, otherwise meh, do I know tell everything now? Guh, Just press Ctrl+f and search for "garg")


Anyway, I enjoyed reading the winning story and clearly saw my writing still needs a lot of work. I am hoping to hear from some more editors and contest people in coming months, let's see how that goes. I just need to keep writing and submitting, that's all. That's what it takes to keep your new year resolutions up. I still haven't got laid though. 

Scientific picture: A subject with Thermodynamics as the prerequisite and another one with Quantum physics as a prerequisite are primarily hurting me. I really never studied those things before, not to mention the fact I never did 11th/12th nor the first year at undergraduate. Gosh, the depth of my condition could only be well understood by my peers who very well know how 'good' I am at science and stuff. Prolly all they would say and remember after years from now is, "That gamer guy? He knows nothing. That sonuva.."

Anyway, so yeah, I'm trying to figure out this Raman spectroscopy on the research part while I steal some time to teach American kids about concrete and stuff. It's pretty busy nowadays.

Overall picture: I stand in the middle of the desert with my right arm hung low with the weight of the double edged Axe. The sun shines like a bastard on my Axe's steel and causes streams of sweat flow down my naked shoulders. Flinching at the piercing rays of light, I look at the horizon. 


I can make out the line of orcs and beasts that are sprinting towards me. Their bloodlust fills the empty land that lies beyond. They are too many. Inside they have the souls of publishers, editors, sinusoidal equations, Raman spectra, Fick's equations and all that I face daily. Outside they are the same. Ugly. Too many to count or see. And here they come. 


I swing, slash, cut and thrust. I loose blood. Blood that splatters upon the desert sand and shines back at that bastard of a sun in the sky. Heads, limbs, pieces of armory piles up on my sides but I continue to swing the Axe. I loose more blood and now my speed has reduced. They are not killing me by wit but by number. They are now almost upon me. 


I am going down. 


But not alone. Not alone. I'll take, you monsters, all of you, as many as possible, with me. 


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Current Book: "Lord of The Flies" by William Golding
Current Music: "Clubbed to Death", The Matrix.

The air was still with anticipation and cold. Desperate voices, restless eyes, aimless hands, uneasy figures called for them in despair. But presently, they did not come.

The long wait finally came to pass and the stage shimmered. For once, it looked as if the light played tricks with us. Us, the worshipers. But no, it was for real. The darkness was now being lifted. The large screen began to split and reveal colors. Somewhere far, a lost sound began to emanate. And with Papercut it began.


Giant manned lights and cameras hung from the dark sky. The black floor vibrated with loose feet of mortals. The stage was engulfed in red fire. And inside that ring of redness, their machines flashed 'Lp' once in a while. Among those machines and the noise, they played. They played. They sang. They danced.

Almost every song a fan could think of. Could ask of. Could ask for. Every number was given. One by one. From each and every album. It was given.

They even plunged down in the crowd after an hour. We, the mortals, went crazy and trampled each other to get a sliver of their skin. I was this, this, this, far away from Chester. Two meters I would say. I couldn't even get near Shinoda. He was unreachable, untouchable.




 And so, that night, in Kansas City, MO, gods had appeared. Somewhere lost in the crowd, a nerd's childhood dream was realized. But so brief and yet eternal was their descent in this mortal world, that their coming was nothing but a fleeting dream.

I still can't believe that I saw them. That I heard them. Live.

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Current Book: "Lord of The Flies" by William Golding
Current Music: "Watercolour" by Pendulum.