Finally… (One more time)

FINALLY… The First¹ has come back to Pensieve 2.0!!!

8 months.. 8 long months… That’s how long it has been since The First made his appearance here. This was not a sudden decision to come back; in actuality, I never intended to abandon my blog. But I had been through a lot lately, and my life seemed to go in a downward spiral. Blogging was possibly on the lowest echelons of my priorities for quite some time. What is the point in letting the world know what disappointments you have, right? Anyway,  I have absolutely no idea how I’ve been able to hang on to my self-worth after all I’ve been through. But I have hung on (with the help of some amazing people who have given me the needed moral support – my uncle and aunt, my parents, my brother, and what would I have done without you, my dear V6?), and I am thankful that I am strong enough. Now that my life (or whatever I think life is) seems to have started falling back into place again, I knew it was time to get that old mojo back!

The works for the comeback started a month back. However, my blog was somehow still a low priority, and I kept procrastinating. Fortunately or unfortunately, the push I needed came over the span of last couple of weeks. I have so much to say, but no one is listening to me. My blog is there exactly for that – to hear my rant any time of the day, any day of the week. It is probably wrong of me to expect that from a real person. Second, I always have needed a person (or an inanimate object which will reach out to more people) to talk my heart out to. Don’t worry, I won’t whine. I will hide my insecurities by being funny. (I go with the people’s opinion that I really am a bit funny)

Perhaps, I won’t see my problems when I am mad as a hatter. I will keep myself dumb, and tell people, “IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK!”.

(On second thought, it does, so please comment!)

So, from now on, I will be searching for that old self who is crazy as hell. Right here! Let me try being a free bird once again. Just for the heck of it.

More fun to come soon… but if ya smelllll… what The First is cookin’!!!!!

1. The First = Me. But you already know that!

I’m 27 year old now (that happened about 2 months back, yeah but the nerves to my hands don’t fire that fast these days), and trying (and succeeding to a degree) to convince my mom I don’t need a marriage yet. Now don’t stare stupidly; the figure is right – 27. And the grass on the other side of the hill is still green. I’m still having fun in life, albeit in parts.

I still look the same, still behave the same. You will not know that I’m 27 if I don’t tell you. Some people have even said, “Yeah right! Who are you trying to fool?”, when I tell them how old I am. Then I’d have to flash my Driver’s License to prove my age. Hey, but at least the waitress at Ruckus bar didn’t say to me “What do you want, Sweetie?” with motherly affection, unlike to some others.

Grad life and Facebook have nearly killed my blog, because I seldom find the words or time to express myself these days. I should devote more time to my blog (Yeah! I know!). It will start in mid-May, when I graduate, because I will have no job other than job hunting after that. But for now, bullet points.

• I still am, among other things, weird, emotional, outspoken and dreamy.
• I still can joke with a straight face, and people will keep wondering whether that was a serious statement or a joke.
• In the last two years, I changed from a well-paid money launderer to a broke grad student with absolutely zero bank balance.
• I started learning the piano with a little bit of help.
• Useless TV shows which I never miss – 24, The Big Bang Theory, House, WWE and Idea Star Singer
• KBCT (Kerala born Confused Tamilian) syndrome will kick in next year if there is an IPL team called Cochin Coconuts. Who will I support then? CSK or CC? Oh… I still don’t like Cricket.. But IPL is different.. I already miss the MRF Blimp.
• Talking about IPL, I got curious about Karbonn Mobile after seeing the utter plug(Utter in NITC lingo=very bad… Of pathetic quality. Short for atrocious) of Karbonn Kamaal Katch. I checked the Store locator, and sure enough, the default location was Kunnamkulam-Kerala.
• For non-mallus, Kunnamkulam is the infamous place where you get low quality duplicates of any brand in the world.. Examples which I have seen include “NESTEL KATKIT” chocolate and “BISMILLARI” bottled water.
• Fun Resolution #1: I will sweep the Bohemian off her feet, come Fall 2010. If nothing else works, I have a few banana skins handy for her to step on and slip, but I.Am.Gonna.Make.Her.Fall.For.Me. (The Bohemian Gimmick is getting a bit trite.. for those who know.. so this is probably the last one.)
• Fun Resolution #2: I am going to start saving money to buy an Audi A8. Then I will hunt Lakshmi down, wherever in the world she is, and show that I now have a car with a V8 engine, much better than a V6 engine. I will even show V8 written in the back of my car, and say “Dandanakka!”
• Fun Resolution #3: I am really gonna walk around Avent Ferry Rd wearing a white blanket over my head at 1am, just to freak people out. But I hope the 911 will ignore calls about sighting of ghosts.

That’s all I can think from the back of my mind right now.. I don’t wanna write anything serious in this post. They are reserved for a string of future ones starting in about a fortnight.

I hope I get my funny charm back by then.

*****Warning – Cliches ahead*****
It seems just like yesterday that I started blogging.

Looking back, I never thought I would write this much. Honestly, I discovered my writing skills only in the year 2000. Not that I have literary skills, but I hope I can make people laugh (or at least raise some eyebrows! Come on people! Give me a sign of life. Don’t desert me on this) through my writing.

I’m feeling really nostalgic about my blog, which is now something really close to my heart. So this post is just about that – nostalgia and retrospection. It will also serve as a compendium of my best posts till now, for those who came in late.

Genesis

I stumbled upon the phenomenon called blogging quite by accident. I created an account in Blogger.com in September 2004, which was my first blog. I believe the first name I gave it was “Deepak’s Pensieve”. The description or “tagline” was a rather lengthy and stupid one which I really don’t remember. All I remember were the last lines which went something like “I’m gonna take you on a rollercoaster”. Yeah right! As if a childish blog which would evoke only one reaction from readers – “Ewww!” – would earn you a free ticket to Six Flags. Likewise, many of my initial posts were borderlining on stupidity, because I honestly had no idea what blogging really was.

I was in training at Infosys, Pune during that time. My friend Harini (We call each other PCP – for “PC Partner”, because we had to share a PC during training.) had a better and more mature blog, and that’s where I learnt what to write in a blog and what not! Anyway, I got an idea, but I didn’t develop that there, because I didn’t have a PC at home, and I didn’t want to spend time blogging when I was at work. So my blog remained dormant till early next year. Well.. Not really, because I used to write something stupid every 2 months or so.

The Rise

My blog really gained momentum when I was on bench for a month after I put down my papers in Infosys in 2005.  I had to come to office, but I really had nothing to do. So I started blogging again. I realised that my writing skills were improving with each post; that was a motivation to go ahead. Somewhere along the line, I changed the name to “The Pensieve”. I also experimented with modifying the looks of my blog a lot, and my experiments later led to a more successful, but really shortlived technical blog called Blogger Hacked.

Once I was back in Bangalore, I bought a computer, so I could blog from the comfort of home, because I still didn’t want to blog from office. It has been a dream run since then. I never could believe that I could write this much. A huge increase in my readership came after I wrote this rather wacky Ghost Story.

As time passed, I thought I needed more control over the look of my blog. The answer for that was WordPress. I had earned enough money through Google Adsense too (from my other blog) So I decided to buy a personal domain, and migrate my blog to WordPress. So Pensieve 2.0 was born. I messed up the supposedly grand opening of my blog on New Year by changing the name and getting confused, but readers stood by the original name “The Pensieve”, so I made it “Pensieve 2.0″. After the initial hiccup, everything went fine. The credit for the tagline goes to KP, who has been my rival in studies and friend in everything else since 1996. Also I deleted some really old posts which are so stupid that I feel like pulling my tongue. Wait a minute! My tongue is already long as it is! I talk too much and I can touch my nose with my tongue. (Gross, you may think, but I bet that not many of you can do that.) So statement taken back; I don’t want to stretch it further by pulling it.

100 and still young

I have mostly stuck to humor and dreaming in my posts, with occassional ramblings of seriousness, but the general verdict has been that I’m not capable of profound thoughts. I have a lot of “lurkers” among my friends – those who haven’t commented even once, because they are intimidated by the literary genius of my posts, but have pleasantly surprised me when they talk about it to me in person. I urge you to comment. It might be a bit overwhelming because it’s me, but don’t worry… I’ll go easy on you. Besides, there’s no fun for me in it without knowing your reactions.

My blogging frequency has decreased a bit, and so has the humor in it, I suspect. That is simply because I barely get time to wander through the dreamlands that create my stories. But I already have a very tight bond with my blog, and I will not let go.

Thank you, my dear readers. You ROCK!!

I will now list some of my post which I think were my best. Please read them if you haven’t.

Fiction

1. Achluophobia – Two stories among a trilogy of Ghost stories. The one which made me a teensy bit famous.
2. Banaras – A story of 4 students and their misadventures. Adapted from real life incidents of my uncle when he was studying in BHU.
3. Executed – The one which I consider my best till date. Satire about the mosquitoes of Cochin.
4. Aldous Who? – A slightly modified version of the story which confirmed that my winning Creative Writing in Debutante 2000 was not a mistake. I won this in some other Culfest, I guess.

Life etc.

1. I live… – I consider this as my first humorous post.
2. The Weirdest Nightmare – This singular dream shattered all my myths about my own weirdness. Can’t put it inside fiction, because I really dreamed even the tiniest detail of what’s written in this.
3. American Goofups and Woes Reloaded – “Wherever you are, I am there”, trouble keeps telling me this.
4. Delusions of Grandeur – Something serious.

Memoirs

1. The best days of my life – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 – A four part series, about my first year in NIT Calicut.
2. Chronicles of two pranksters – My and my brother’s childhood, told from a third person perspective.
3. One evening in Pune – Funny account of first day in Pune with Naru.
4. Risible antics of the First – One thing I’m good at – making fun of myself.

A tag to end it

1. Weird things about weirdness – Random weird facts about me.

I realize that I have been missing my blog by ignoring it these days. I plan to correct myself. I am in the middle of creating a new look for my blog, and hopefully new content too.

I am deeply disappointed with the number of people who voted. I know many of you who read my blog are too lazy to comment. But this was just a matter of 2 clicks.

Anyway, I have to yield to the winning entry and change the name of this blog back to The Pensieve.
Only this time, it will be Pensieve 2.0.

You can expect the change with a changed theme in a week.

I will probably change the theme and the blog will undergo extreme makeover from its current look. I may even change the name. I admit that it was a rather hasty decision to name it, but I now think that it should have been better. The punchline remains, because that’s what I mean to write. But my friend pointed out (and I too felt) that “surreal” was too vague and disinteresting a name.

What do you suggest? Should I retain “The Surreal Me”? Should I revert to “The Pensieve”? Or should I go with another name. I have opened a poll in the left sidebar. Please vote.

So please keep that in mind when you update your blogroll. I would suggest not updating until the poll is closed in 15 days. The older blogspot address will automatically redirect till then.

Thank you for your patience.

I have migrated to a personal domain, and was simply lying that my blog was dead. In some way, that was true also. “The Pensieve” is dead. And “The Surreal Me” has risen from its ashes. At least three people fell for it. Rinchen even went so far as to send me a Facebook message demanding an explanation.
I started the buildup from the comments two posts ago¹. I must apologize to Ajith for having used him as a bait for this. Apparently, an offhand comment will not stop me from writing. (I say “apparently” because I myself am not sure. That conclusion is purely empirical.)

Anyway, I did give some clues:

1. I said I may change my decision next year.
2. I took the Blue Pill. Those who have watched “The Matrix” several times can say that by taking the blue pill, you remain in wonderland.

A few words about the transition. I have redirected my earlier blogspot address to here, so that won’t be a problem for the time being. The links won’t be broken. But I would appreciate if you can update your blogroll with the new address. The URL is http://blog.deepakiyer.com and the Name is The Surreal Me. You don’t have to worry about the feed. I still use the feedburner address for this. But it is better to cross-check. The feed address is http://feeds.feedburner.com/deepakiyer

Once again, thanks for being amazing readers. And please do comment on my future posts.
Finally, thanks to my good friend and classmate since 8th standard, KP, for suggesting the wacky punchline.

1. My new year resolution was to celebrate April Fool Day 4 months earlier

I have become increasing annoyed with this pile of bullshit which I make you read every fortnight. I cannot do it any more. I want this blog extinct, or at least dormant. Henceforth, I am not going to waste my time on this blog. It is a painful farewell to all my readers. Sorry guys! And thanks for being an awesome bunch of readers.

There are many things which prompted me to do this. First of all, I have better things to do now. Secondly, I think my writing quality has been deteriorating of late. Thirdly, I have what I’ll call a writer’s topic block. Whenever I think of writing, I can think of no other topic but some of my old memories or whatever bland things are going on in my life. It has become so monotonous even for me.

Maybe I will regret this and come back some day. But today I am feeling no regret on shelving my blog. What I will really miss will be you readers. But who knows what is in store for us? I may be back a year later for all that matter.

So this is it guys. No turning back from now.
I take the Blue Pill.
So long…Farewell…Auf Wiedersehen…Good Bye

There are too many things pending for me, including some things I promised to some special people. I really need to speed things up.

Meanwhile, I turned 24 on Sunday. Time is running so fast.. Sigh!

U know that I am localized around the things that i’ve been aquainted with, these 3 years…

its yet another LOTR stuff..

Look… i am tryin to prove something ,not to u, not to the world

but to myself….I am proving to myself that i am something

which i am not for the time being….

So this is how i got that name…?

i was thinkin about the web browser for my mini project

then i thought about gollum…a browser in Linux or somewhere then came the idea of multiple pesonality…

Friendzzz say that i behave a little odd and different(tell me whether this word fits to this context) at different situations or places….

There comes SMEAGOL……The stinker (into context)

strrev(“SMEAGOL”); (Means reverse the word)

There you go.

The result is logaems.blogspot.com

I couldnt convince myself to have another name and I WONT..

afterall its the content that matters to me…

You won’t find anything there right now, because he hasn’t posted anything there. But in the future, you will find some stuff. I can bet anything that 90% of his posts will be related to Lord of the Rings, Hitchhiker’s series and Dan Brown. The chap is so crazy about these three.

As for me, I went too deep into the Blogger Hacking area, that I don’t find time to post. I plan to start another blog (purely technical) about customizing Blogger.

So long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye.
Will post later.