Happy Vijayadashmi/ Dussehra/ Dasara ....

Let us vow to strive today,
To vanquish the demons
Who, over us may hold sway,
And thus emulate
In our own little way,
Lord Rama, on this auspicious day

The New Ensign..

A stiff breeze from the west

Leaves the ensign in unrest?

It flaps and flutters to a contrarian view...

Is it just freedom painting over tradition anew?

Deja vu

An old piece....

An apprehensive knock
On a friendly door
A contrived smile
Breaks on frigid shore

No sign of that which
Brings us to this fateful day
When old friends must meet
As strangers may

The food
It tastes nostalgically hot
Long since I ate here
Long since we fought

Our words carefully
Uncomfortable references mask.
To prevent the pain
Is an arduous task

And so we hide
Our pain and thought
Cloaking them with
Niceties and nought

And exchange things
That we did
While our lives
From the other were hid

The experienced scars
Caution induce
Lest fresh blood purges
The delicate truce.

I think we must allow
The scars to bleed
Catharsize our souls
Nourish friendship’s seed

Till then silently
We'll bleed in compromise
Scared to expose
What our scars disguise

Mid Life Crisis?

Had this intense sense of despair and a inability to comprehend where I'm headed .... Ended up writing this. Unedited words on a phone keyboard... 

It's Diwali night 

The lights have dimmed 

The din of cracker's has petered away 

The smoke hangs heavy in the air 

And others' tired eyes welcome sleep

Instagrams and smiles and wishes

Linkedin posts and whatsapp messages

Remind me to give my life a thought 

What's all this ... 

Niceties or nought?

In a hurry to get nowhere 

Too caught up in the virtual world 

No time to stop and care 

To teach and spend and learn and laugh

 

And soon the years will all be past 

And the hands and eyes 

That seek help today

Will hopefully pause and look my way 

And while dissatisfaction grows inside

It's time to turn the wheels within

To find the time to challenge oneself 

Be it run, work or play instead

 

Give joy and be there for them 

A patient ear, a helping hand, or just time ...

Diwali Greetings

May the Lamps light up your life
And you,
Of those around you
And in this light
May you find
Joy, Satisfaction and Peace of mind

Happy Diwali!!

Happy Army Day

Somehow these lines by Edward B Hamley keep ringing in my ears today...

A moth-eaten rag on a worm-eaten pole
It does not look likely to stir a man's soul,
'Tis the deeds that were done 'neath the moth-eaten rag,
When the pole was a staff, and the rag was a flag.

Creativity

A formal class on ' Creativity'
Is indicative of our proclivity
To not follow our gut
And stick to the rut;
Only repeating what authors had to say,
When  'novelty' was the demand of the day...

Happy Deepavali

Even the smallest  lamps we light today
Spread light and keep the darkness at bay,
The flickering flames and their feeble light
Have a lesson, should we choose to learn it right.

In our own little ways, we may
Emulate the lamps, drive darkness away
Let us then, this Diwali night,
Light up our lamps, let there be light!

Invictus... revisited

Resaw the movie... and the lines keep going around in my head...

Out of the night that covers me
Dark as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I neither winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Air Power - Lecturing to the Men in Blues

Scepticism hung heavy in the air
When the whites told the blues to dare -
Think what men in air could do
But more so of what they couldn't do!

The points the speaker tried to make
Risked being lost to our own take
Of our important place in the larger scheme
Rather than what we really lacked as a team...

Tis important our limitations to face
Even whilst engaging in a race
For our imperfections are important to
Perfecting better versions of ourselves too...

Mahan vs Corbett

Mahan and a 'decisive battle'
Is it the case of a boiling kettle?
Blowing a lot of hot steam
About something, that to some,

May natural seem!

Of navies and land wars wrote Corbett
Sometimes sneered at Mahan, and yet
Cherry picked his naval wars to get
His students to read 

The 'Green Pamphlet'

That Mahan was inspired by Jomini
Certainly adds to the acrimony
And drives some of us

Out of our wits, to read 

That Corbett also drew  from Clausewitz

To us who have little choice
Since the greats already rolled their dice
Mutely to their ideas 

We must agree, till we can
Contribute with better pedigree!!

Happy Deepavali....

As you light up the lamps today,
We wish you may
In their warm light find
Joy, satisfaction and peace of mind...

Happy diwali to all of you...

Thank you

An uninispired blogger –
Words have eluded me
For many a day
And inspiring thoughts
Refuse to stay

They flash past
With little remorse
And memory fails
When I try it to coerce

These words thus owe
Their frail existence to
Many a word written by
Inspired bloggers like you

Thank you for the words ....

In flight (contd)....

Clouds, roads and myriad greens
A family, career, wants and dreams
A Jigsaw puzzle – In flight!

In flight ....

From nagging bosses and unending work
To fluffy clouds and blue skies
In flight!

---

Pull down the window shade
Shut out the light
'Tis best to catch some sleep
Whilst still
In flight!

Paternal Haiku

Immersed in my world
Travel n work ...
And my unborn one in his

Storms at Sea

Storms at sea are a humbling experience...

Frail lives in a tin can
The might of nature
Barely withstand
And realisation
Dawns on sensitive few
Through the fog of fear
Our insignificance shines through...

Master of Technology

Phew...
So I am done
Jack of all
Master of one?

gcc

Oh I see
its the gcc

It needs one older
Else its a goner

4.1's too new
and 3.4 wont do

32 works like a charm
but where's the rpm? Darn..

So its time FC4 to reload
FC6 wont take the load .....

;-)

Awake alone...

As I watch
Your breath rise and fall

I despair
At the futility, et al

Of trying
Rhyming lines to write

When all I want
Is to sleep, tonight!