this ode is one from my earlier collections. I wrote this one when I was 16.


To the girl who lived at 356, Park Street.
(...when she left her home, and my life, forever)

You left, and left my heart bereft,
I'll never know what's in your heart.
Does anyone know how it feels to hold you?
Does anyone know the secret of your mind?

Today walking down the street I realize,
I'll never come to share your world.
Does anyone know how it feels to live with you?
Does anyone know the secret of your life?

You're the beauty in my world,
You'll never know what I felt for you.
Sometimes it feels like a million chances
are slipping away disappearing in the air.

But here again, I walk down the street,
Wondering how my life would have been,
Had I told you that I loved you.
And hoping beyond all hopes,
That I'll be able to ...some day.

--Harsh

Well, it has come to my notice that some people have started sharing this little corner of my life. So, lets today do some sort of retrospection and look into the instances where I have tried to escape from the monotony of my existence as Harsh and the result have been sometimes in form of the aploplectic firenze, or the amicable bhogle, or as I am today, the maven Headcrab.

Why I am Firenze?
From the time I remember, my friends used to call me by the nick of "horse", first because of the rhyme the word has with my name, and secondly, because of my height which seperated me in a group. I used to get annoyed with me repeatedly being called a "horse".
But my love with the Greek Mythology came to my rescue. I said, ok I am a horse, but I am a human horse, a Centaur, the legendary creature with torso of a man and hind of a horse. I am a sagittarian so it was my sunsign also. I chose the name of firenze, he was the leader of the centaurian army under Zeus and a character in the Potterian lore.
With this name I started playing online games and rest is history. Today firenze has a legend of its own on GameZone with a position amongst top notch amateurs of Gaming World.

Why I am bhogle?
A nick I really like. It was given to me by Bala Sir in IITK seeing my "commentary style" and similar name with Harsha Bhogle while he was my tutor in MATTI course.

Why I am Headcrab?
Just fun intended this time, no serious introspection. I took a character from my favorite Computer Game, Half-Life when I had to use an attractive nick for my CS team. This one I really like.

Let me share the most creative oppertunity I ever had. I do not intend to say that my life before was devoid of these "Writer" outings, but that never ever before in my life I felt all of my senses devout in writing as much I did here.
Cutting down the jargon, let me tell the event. The venue was the unannounced quiz of our departmental course. And by the matter of the fact, I am not too good in this course. And to add to it, hence I thought I could afford missing the lecture on which that quiz was based.
Well, the quiz started, and I started looking for a chance to peep into my neighbour's notebook. But all the trains were running for New York that day. Incidentally, I was sitting in the first row of the class and our Instructor was standing right in front of me pretty interested in what I was writing(as I gathered by looking around, I was the only one who hadn't started even looking into the quiz sheet!).
So now, I thought I would better try to answer that question. It was about designing some weird amplifier(about which, obviously, I had no clue) with God knows what specifications. So, I decided to give my creative abilities a full flow. I thought of something which I had learnt in the last course, linked it with my pretty obvious "intution", and was able to finally write something.
well, if now you suppose by some sheer stroke of luck I got that question right or something like that, then let me clarify- atleast in this blog I don't write stories(Nor do I, leaving some exceptions, write them in my Quiz sheets). I got a big round zero. But I was happy! I had no idea what I had wriiten. But the my solution amazed me like nothing before. It was most beautiful thing I had ever written. It was my masterpiece in my own special secret way; for no one but me has capacity to understand what it was all about!!!

"...but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst...and then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain. And I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life..."

Once in a while, you come across a metaphor which is so beautifully woven that it conveys far more than the sum of words; it creates its own magical effect. I call it magic because words as such are simple, indistinguishable entities but a master of words with his pen infuses life in them making them able to hurt us, mock us, or better able to laugh.
Recently I came across one such metaphor in an article by Jug Suraiya. It was about pathetic conditions of rentable flats in Delhi. He described a "Good Flat" in these words:
" They are like ghosts; many people believe in their existence, but no one seems to have seen one when asked."

Have you ever walked through woods during sunset? It is really a novel experience. To hear all the noises that can be made in world by the chirping birds, wild animals and yet feel the majestic silence; the silence of your soul which is free form all the tensions of the day for this moment. It becomes one of those few moments when the barriers which divide you form your real self fall down and you realize who you are and what you want?