My Song

If you please, sing my song.

Sing it loud, even wrong.

Make it heard, even Ceylon.

But sing my song, do sing my song.

The Me II

I am potent whiskey

In a plain old jar.

Risk a swig of me

If you're at the bar.

A little hard to swallow,

I might be at start.

But once you've had a taste,

You'll want the scar.

The Me

I won’t change my name,
I won’t change my game.
If I could do it all over again,
It would turn out just the same.
I’d speak the same words,
I’d repeat the mistakes.
I’d even go so far,
To earn the exact blames.
It’s who I am,
And what I was born to be.
Why then must I try,
To be anyone but me?

The Ever Growing Post of Original Quotes.

Hey.

It's been a long time since I blogged anything. So here's me making an effort to blog a little more regularly.

For starters, I'd like to announce that no more quotes will be posted here. Instead, all new quotes and all the old ones will be posted at

http://www.quotesdaddy.com/user/bubbasamuel

Please do visit, if you still like my quotes :P

Ciao.

Cry

I see them stars

Like they was from mars

I see them flaming

Like rage unchanging

I feel the burns

Like hell descending

I feel the unending

Like in the beginning

It’s all so new

This pain is true

There’s no denying

That I love you

You’re devouring me

Like a piranha fleet

And all I feel is need

The need to lay and heed

You inescaple you

You undeniable hue

The coulors of destruction

The inevitable redemption

You cripple me like fire

Unplanned and undesired

But here you are

So near so far

I can’t see your starting point

All I feel is your taunt

Eternal and prevalent

Blazing and forever bent

I know I’ll never make it

My spirit knows you’ll break it

Today tomorrow the day after

There will never be rapture

I know I am dying for you

For you it’s been long due

So take it now and be done

Let us again be one

In death and afterlife

You’re the reason for my strife

I live I die I breathe for you

You’re the only reason I ever knew

To be continued…

I Hate Myself

All my friends think I am a pretend-asshole. I am not…I really am an asshole. I am so glad I have so few friends to worry about. I mean imagine a horde of a million, even a hundred, annihilating me for being an insensitive pretentious bastard (which I happen to be, minus the pretentious part).

First off, I’d like to tell everyone I’ve ever come across in this life, that I am me not by choice but by make. I didn’t choose anything for myself other than the jeans I wear and the faded t-shirts that I sheath my shoulders with. I didn’t choose this life, believe me!

Secondly, I never did go around trying to make friends with anyone. Well, if u liked me and if I could tolerate you, it was fine. But if u didn’t like me and I didn’t care for your company, you should have walked away then and there. It would have been best for both of us. You would have been spared this brutally truthful confession and I would have been spared the embarrassment I’ve had to fake.

Believe me, you are a nice person. Just not for me. Damn! I feel guilty now, which I simply loath. Wait a minute, What am I saying? I feel for you? Yuck! No, I mean I feel sorry for you for knowing me. Yeah, that’s more like it. You poor, imbecile. How hard it must have been, to try and learn to like a recluse creature like me. I feel sorry you put your trust in me.

Thanks to you, I am straying from the point that I was intending to make. A point I would have loved to convey in a line, but had to write so much to get to. Why? Because of you!

Shit! Does that mean I love you? Obviously not. You don’t have the recklessness of an Anz or the authority of a Maa. You definitely lack the defiance of a Sam or the adventurousness of a Koks. How can I love you then? No, I can’t even like you, to be precise.

Ok…so why am I talking to you? A nobody? Hmmm. I guess it’s because there’s no Anz or Maa or Sam or Koks to talk to. Anz, I don’t talk too often to because I don’t want him to know my weaknesses. Maa, she’ll ridicule me to oblivion with a barrage of insults (which by the way are well deserved), Sam, the less said about that situation the better (if ignorance is really bliss), and Koks, how can you expect a happy fairy to even concur that bad things do happen in this world?

Yeah it’s a sad situation. I am talking to myself and pretending that the world is listening to me. Hmmm. Did I say pretend? Yeah, it seems I did. Such a lovely word isn’t it? Pretend. And such a truthful word even. It’s something anyone can do without rehearsal. Once you’ve done it, you’re a master of the art. I know I am.

That brings me back to where I started, I hate myself. Why? Because I survive. How? By pretending. To be happy, to be loved, to be needed, to be indispensible, to be popular, to be fashionable, to be so many other things that I really am not. Why? Because I am pretending to be human. And I am really finding it fruitless and unrewarding.

Tell me how to escape this. I didn’t choose to be here, neither will I ever choose to leave by my doing. So, if I can’t do it myself, and if I can’t live with myself, what do I do?

Unglued

An old poem of mine. thought if I was't writing new stuff, I'd atleast post some of my old scribbles.

Born in one piece
To be shattered amiss
Again and again
The abuse repeats
One single tube
Of icky stuff
Persistence limited
Till the last sticky glob
Endurance unshaken
To last the night
Bed wet again
Eyes red shot throughout
A well trodden path
A last promise still fresh
But again and again
The path seduces
Back on the track
To be trodden upon again
All that knowledge
All that was learnt
Forgotten in a wink
An inviting smile
A familiar discomfort
Building up warmth
A shorter span than before
Back on the street
Dazed at the result
Unwilling to accept
Shattered again
For the nth time
Pieces now so small
It will take time
There’s still some glue left
Though the tube’s growing thin
This time it will hold
No more straying bold
Another pretty face
Another angelic smile
Back in the queue
Waiting familiar fate
Another fling shorter than last
Broken at the end
Even worse than the last
Shattered again now
Broken several times over
Pieces now too small
But managed to gather
Reached for the tube
The one with the glue
Never realized before
But now know it’s true
A limit is inevitable
The end has been reached
No further lay roads
Only barren fields
Took for granted
This heart for too long
Now in shambles
No more glue to fasten

Silly-Con Valley of India

This is Bang bang bang Bangalore?

Due to unforeseen circumstances, I am forced to cancel my confirmed ticket on Brindavan express. So what do I do? Pick an alternative. It’s Thursday afternoon. And it’s the 14th of August. No hopes of a bus or train ticket falling into my lap, so I choose the expensive way out. A flight ticket to Chennai. Expensive, but worth it. All I need to do now is get myself to the airport. Easy. That’s what I think, but that’s when it starts to pour cats and dogs. No, actually it’s pouring elephants and hyenas.

The cab that was due to pick me up at 8.00 pm is far behind schedule. So I take matters into my own hands (or legs to be more appropriate) and brave the rains. It’s taken me a trek of 2.6 kms in a torrent to realize that I’ve made a mistake. This is Bangalore. Rickshaws don’t do your bidding, they do YOU.

Finally by 8.50 pm. I’ve managed to coax a cab to take me to the airport. By now the city is chaotic. The unforgiving rain (thank you god), and the unyielding gutters have decided to sink the city. I am soaked, I stink, and I am just an hour and half away from the flight that will deliver me from this trench.

The cab guy assures me that I will make it. Energized by his enthusiatic mumble, I give in. I stop glancing at my watch, I literally give up praying. I am convinced I will make it. I get there 2 minutes too late. Thanks to a suddenly duty conscious police department that decides to stall my cab for a routine check that costs me 10 minutes. And the drug buster at the check-in entrance who's whacky intrument insists i am carrying coke. After letting him go through all the contents in my bag, he let's me go. I rush to the check-in counter only to be told the flight is already set for take off, so no chance of me getting on. They are courteous enough to offer me a seat in the next flight. I succumb.

Now remember, this is Devanahalli, a place that’s 2 hours away (in decent traffic conditions) from where I stay. I’ve missed my 10.25 pm flight by 2 minutes and the next flight is at 9.50 am. I decide to go home. But wait. I am told I can’t leave the airport unless I fly out (what kind of a rule is that?). I spend the next 13 hours in the airport trying my best not to doze off. The only help I have is coffee. Courtesy Café Coffee Day. Oh! I almost forgot. The rain has laid my cell phone to rest. It got drenched and conked by the time I got into the cab, so by now I have absolutely no means of communication to the outside world. Like everyone else Iam completely dependent on my cell phone. I don't write down numbers anywhere. I don't even have my house number memorised. So what do i do? I manage to find an old gentleman, kind enough to let me insert my sim in his instrument for a few minutes. Thanks to him i retreived my home number from a message sent earlier. Now I can use the phone booths and inform home of the calamity that has struck. I spot 2 red PCO phones. But the trouble is they need to be fed 1 Rupee coins to work. I am shocked, in the age of web 2.0, the International airport has no means of communication other than a coin fed public phone? I mean, come on, who the hell carries 1 Rupee coins anymore? Anyways I try my luck with the Café for coins and thankfully they had a few. A very few mind you because their prices are all multiples of five. Armed with 5 coins, I make my way to the phone and make the call home. I have to rush through the details of my forced change in travel plans because the machine's gobbling a coin every 10 seconds. Well, atleast I am a bit relieved after the call. I settle into a chair and survey my surroundings. My home for the next 13 hours. I can't believe I am waiting 13 hours for a flight that lasts 40 minutes. I silently laugh at the irony of it.

So here I am, trapped in a glass enclosure with Arabs, Americans and I don’t know who else. No food, no entertainment, no escape. I am feeling a bit like Tom Hanks, but no Catherine Zeta Jones around though.

I am not the only one that’s being tortured by an undeniably ill functioning Bangalore city. I speak for all in my shoes. This city has gone to the dogs. What was the need to move the airport so far away from the city? Why do rains always leave the city in havoc? Why aren’t auto rickshaws being regulated by the transport department?

The Ever Growing Post Of My Favorite & Spontaneous Quotes III

Hello folks...here's the third installment of the My Favorite & Spontaneous Quotes. Hope you like it. Cheers.

“A troubled mind has more reasons to think than a gleeful one.” – Bubbasamuel

“Africa was what we inherited from God, America is what we did to it.” – Bubbasamuel

“Remember, the lips that are kissing your ass are hiding teeth behind them.” – Bubbasamuel

“If you thought trying to remember someone was a toughie, give forgetting a shot.” – Bubbasamuel

“If I could, I’d be the first person to put a boot up my own ass. I am so dumb, so juvenile to have pushed away the only person who loved me. And for what? For being sane.” - Bubbasamuel

“Unlike salamanders we can’t grow back what we lose, we just learn to live without it that’s all.” – Bubbasamuel

"Sometimes a crisis situation makes your mind feel like the grey fuzzy no reception display on television." – Bubbasamuel

"You want to put an end to terrorism? Start by shooting down the bastards who burn up buses and break shop windows at the drop of a hat." – Bubbasamuel

“Most of us go on with our dull lives because we're too brave to give up, too chicken to commit suicide and too broke to hire a hit man to do the job for us.” – Bubbasamuel

“Tear my heart out, slow roast me over a fire, pull off my eyebrows strand by strand, push pins though my fingernails….do anything to me, anything but a monday.” - Bubbasamuel

The Ever Growing Post Of My Favorite & Spontaneous Quotes II

Hello... I am Back. And as promised, the post of favourite and spontaneous quotes is growing. Here is the second part. Hope you all like it.

“Happiness is like cotton candy, you always think you’ve a lot of it but it’s gone even before you’ve properly tasted it.” – Bubbasamuel

“People have completely eliminated the heart from the equation of love, now they just love with their minds.” – Bubbasamuel

“According to the old testament, the married man shall live by the rule - YES DEAR, NO DEAR, and according to the new testament, he shall live by the rule - YES DEAR, ABSOLUTELY DEAR.” – Bubbasamuel

“Common sense is for people who lack imagination.” – Bubbasamuel

“Knowing is nothing, showing is everything.” – Bubbasamuel

“Let’s talk about something nice, she said, and I asked, like what? Mint chocolates and pink ponies? Peppermint breath and brownies? Cotton candy and fruit slush? Popsicles and jelly mush?” – Bubbasamuel

“Don’t you love me anymore? Don’t I look beautiful to you anymore? Will you like me just as much if I become fat after marriage? The human mind is so fickle, it needs constant reassurance.” – Bubbasamuel

“If you can’t beat em, buy em out.” – Bubbasamuel

“Madness knows no manners.” – Bubbasamuel

“Every human wishes life was a big circle, childhood to teenage to manhood to old age to childhood again, but unfortunately it’s a straight line with a very definite start and an uncertain end.” - Bubbasamuel

The Ever Growing Post Of My Favorite & Spontaneous Quotes

Hi all...been a damn long time since I posted anything. Been too busy and too uninspired. Actually I am still uninspired but then I thought I have to post something to get the habit started again. So here it is...a post that's going to keep growing...a post of my favorite quotes (obviously mine) and one or two quotes from friends that i simply loved. If you find them interesting, I'd be glad and would even urge you to use them as you please....provided you quote me..i.e., add my name at the end of the quote. And if you find them tasteless and utterly disgusting, you are free to lock me up in a dark secluded dungeon and throw away the keys.

P.S. I must add that these quotes are the spontaneous results from conversations with friends. They may not be appropriate for the moment. But who knows, you might find them appropriate in times to come. Also, you are free to post me quotes of your own with your names, if i find them amusing, i'll add them to this list. Cheers :)

“I struggled all the way to the top using up every ounce of my strength, only to discover I had climbed a shit mound!” - Bubbasamuel

“There is no such thing as defense. There is only counter offense.” - Bubbasamuel

“We all suffer from a painful incurable disease...it's called 'memory'.” - Bubbasamuel"

There's no better reason to be miserable than the reason of love" - Bubbasamuel

"If you say 'shit happens' I am just gonna have to say 'guess you're not toilet trained huh' :)" - Bubbasamuel

"Sing your heart out Lassy...sing to the dark clouds...maybe they will cheer up and let the sun peek through" - Bubbasamuel

"I am bubba san because I differ, if I joined the crowd I'll just be sans bubba" - Bubbasamuel

"If you cant do it with a 'click', it must be one of those things they call impossible to do" - Bubbasamuel

"A single word, typed free of errors and timed right is worth a million emoticons anyday" - Bubbasamuel

"You spend half of your life waiting to feel bored and then the later half waiting to feel busy" - Felicia

“If anyone asks me what I do, I’d say - I police ads for crimes committed by misplaced letters and mis-spelt words, I enforce the law of grammar and see that writers adhere to it, I am a Creative Supervisor” - Bubbasamuel

"There is always a way out for the quick witted" - Bubbasamuel

"Dead men don't count" - Bubbasamuel

What the F**k am I doing in Advertising?

Thinking back now, I am totally stumped as to why I chose advertising. And to top it all up I chose to be a writer. What was it that made me take such a suicidal decision? Why couldn’t I have just taken up engineering and gone on to be a marine engineer like my brother? Why couldn’t I have chosen to become a physiotherapist like my cousin? Why didn’t I just take up a BPO profession and earn a fat pay like my sister? Or I could have even followed in my dad’s footsteps and become a sales person. Of the millions of career options I had, I had to go and pick advertising. Well, guess what…I screwed up. Now there’s no turning back.

There’s at least one minute in every day that I regret having chosen the field I am in now. It’s been almost six long years, of waiting and hoping that things will get better, almost six long rigorous years of stretching my patience to unimaginable limits. But now I feel I am at the edge. I am hanging on by a finger over a bottomless trench. I am in a situation where I can neither pull myself up nor let go and fall.

My problem with advertising is not the pay or the inhuman amount of work. If left to myself I am just fine with it. My problem is with the whole machine-like work culture it’s heading towards. Agencies are no longer places that people covet to be part of. They are no longer places where gods and goddesses create new brands and ideas that change the face of humanity forever. They are just factories churning out precisely detailed pieces of communication that are written, designed and approved by clients. Over the years clients have become the creators and we simply their tools. The Indian advertising industry has reached maturity and is ready to die.

I find it so difficult to write when I am told…”we need a headline of five words and it has to have the words ‘Price’, ‘offer’ and ‘business’.” What am I supposed to do in a situation like this? How can I claim that I am a creative writer when all I do is fill in the blanks? To tell you the truth, I feel absolutely cheated. My dreams have crumbled before my very eyes. Advertising as an industry has failed to provide me the satisfaction I sought. In recent years, we have seen many veterans from various departments of the advertising world, walk out of the industry forever. Why? Their patience ran out, their thirst for good work could never be quenched. They realized that advertising had become an ever obedient slave to its master - the client.

Is there no way we can recreate the charm that advertising used to have years before? Are we spineless yesmen to the client? Are we just people who spare client’s time and money by saving him the effort of learning Photoshop, Coreldraw and Grammar? What does creative really mean in today’s agency? Oh yes, you might question me about the thousands of wonderful work you see in the archives and magazines like that. Well brother, wake up and smell the coffee, have you ever seen any of those actually in the papers or on TV? Other than a few of them, all are scam work. The real work is mundane, boring and most often so powerfully uninspiring that over certain duration of time it could make a creative person lose the ability to think laterally. You get so tuned, you become a one track mind.

This maybe the only reason why employee retention in the advertising industry is either really low or even non-existent. People jump agencies before you can say 3. People jump with hopes of working on better brands, of working with more open minded clients. But this seldom happens. The grass always seems greener on the other side.

What do we do? How do we boost the morale of the creative lot? How do we bring back the glory days when clients knew that agency people know their work? How do we tell the fat man in the MD’s chair to keep his personal fixation on blondes restricted to his bedroom and not let it loose in his company’s corporate communication?

Many in the industry today feel that advertising is a service. That we provide communication services. Pardon me for thinking otherwise, I for one think we are creators, and that we should be treated with the same respect and reverence that used to be given to artists like Michael Angelo, Piccaso and their likes.

Do you think that day will ever come again when we will draw ‘Ahs’ and ‘oohs’ in a crowd, when we mention our profession? Well, till that day arrives, I am still going to be hanging on with my finger over that bottomless trench, because I don’t know what else to do.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions of the author are solely his own and are not meant to intentionally displease or hurt the personal opinions of any person or organisation.

Chirpy God and the Reckless Man

Once upon a time in the heavens above, a new breed of Gods was being created. They were made to be up to speed with the modern world below which they were destined to control. Now as among every mass manufacturing unit, one of the Gods had a slight flaw. She was prettier, chirpier and more emotional than the other models. When the Gods were passed through quality check our chirpy God failed and was like all rejects replaced with a human form and sent to earth.

On earth the God spent her days happily as a human being. Her chirpiness was her charm, it won her many friends. People who moved around with her found her very intelligent, hardworking, dependable and irresistible. The days flew and the God couldn’t have been happier. Until one day fate struck its blow.

A reckless man joined the same organization where our God was working. Over a few months a deep friendship developed between the God and the reckless man. For his part, the man found the God a very good companion. And for her part, she found him a nice human being. She did not realize then that the man was reckless, not to others, but to himself. He never cared for life or death. He drank and smoked and partied at the cost of his health. The God only saw one side of the reckless man and so this other side remained hidden to her.

Many days went by and the two were very happy in each others company. The reckless man developed a special liking for the God and after several unsuccessful attempts he openly declared his feelings to her. The God said she was fond of him but that their pairing could never be. This left the man crestfallen and from then on he tried to keep his feelings buried in a dark recess within himself. But such feelings can seldom be held down. From time to time they surfaced and created many unhappy incidents between the two of them. The God noticed a very great change in the man. She noticed that he grew less cheerful and amusing with each passing day. The God knew the reason for this and she also knew that there was nothing that she could do for him. These were his demons to fight and fight alone he must.

One day the God invited the man to join her and a few of her friends on a journey to a magical land. The man readily agreed. He would have gone anywhere just to be in her company. Throughout the journey the man drank and smoked and contended himself to being in the company of his beloved God. But the God was not happy with his behavior. After the journey was over and when all had returned safe, the God exploded on the reckless man with unadulterated wrath. She neither spoke to him nor smiled at him for a couple of days. This really hurt the reckless man very deeply. He had misbehaved on the journey; he had acted as if he cared about no one but himself. For the first time in his life he realized he was reckless. But alas, it was too late. Things between the God and the reckless man had changed forever. He had wanted her to love him but he ended up winning her hate. There was no way he could turn back time and set things right. He begged, he pleaded and asked for her forgiveness. But what would her forgiveness do? Could it right the wrongs of his behavior? Would it recreate the magic that used to be there in their relationship? He knew nothing would go back to being the same ever again.

The reckless man started changing his ways. He gave up his vices and began living a normal life. Not for the God. No, he knew his changing ways would little impact her after the damage he had done. He changed to prove to himself that he was better off without these vices. And if ever the God was to look again at him with the same affection that she used to, he wanted to be ready to be all that she expected and not the reckless man that she so hates.

When the beast roams free

I hate being mean, but sometimes to protect your own dignity you just gotta be.

The thing that hurts the most at such times is the fact that your meaningless meanness turns out ruder that you expected and totally pulverizes relationships with people you care about the most.

I’ve been super mean these past two days. I’ve hurt a wonderful girl, poured generous amounts of lavacious wrath on my dad and mom, enjoyed the sadistic pleasure of hurting people who care…but hey that’s just me. Oh, and for the record, it’s like a cocaine trip, once the high starts dipping depression sets in. I really don’t wanna ramble any further. I just wanna post an old poem of mine here that, I feel, explains my being to the hilt. By the way it’s a dedication and the person whom it’s dedicated to knows very well it’s for her. Consider it my apology, even though it’s a bad one.

The Beast Within Me

I make you laugh, I make u cry
but that is not all there is to me
I can make you scream
and run for your life
so be careful and while you still can, flee

I am the agony man, the revengeful soul
who knows not what is to love
for love had deserted me
while I still was a child
and from thence hate has been my teach

yes I do laugh and I do cry
but not for reasons you might presume
I laugh at your pain
and cry when you're glad
this is me, what I've been made to be

I am not this way by mine own choice
it's what you've lead me to be
you've given me so much
of what I assume is love
that even a drop less is harsh to me

I don't really want to hurt you
with words or by act
but I am helpless against it you see
for the beast that you fed with tenderness and love
is now fully grown within me

its jealousy exceeds my will and power
so I cant control it, it's free
it takes the steering wheel
when my dial hits green
and drives my being to be mean

please don't read this and pity my state
for that is not what I expect from thee
all I want you to do
is to stay away from me
so I can be sure you're safe when the beast roams free

Afterword: I do not take responsibility for the beast.

You have the right to remain numb

Well its amazing how people around me assume that I have no feelings (all inclusive), no emotions (again all inclusive) and no home at all. I spend most of my time in office because there is something or the other that I have to finish up and I can’t go back home with a peaceful mind if I don’t finish it. I never realized until tonight that this habit of mine has made people think that I am absolutely jobless and that I come to office to while away time and waste theirs at the same time. Ha…ironic isn’t it, as if I get paid for doing my personal work at office. Wow you must have seen what happened tonight. First early in the evening one colleague of mine strikes me fangs, claws and all because I was having the art guy do some work that was assigned to me and told her to come back a little later.

At this point I will have to tell you that this particular work is for a really big client who unfortunately for me, is celebrating its 100th year of existence in the next week. As usual this client has been lethargic and has suddenly woken up from slumber and realizing that the big day is near has drawn its horse whips and flogging us (the agency) to do absurd amounts of work in a short span of time. There are about three of us actively involved in this job; an account director with no juniors sitting at the client’s city, a busy production manager and yours truly, i.e., me, the copywriter. This team of three is all that is doing all the work for this client. No complaints though, we’re managing the show pretty well. But what’s really frustrating is that even though this business is worth a few cool crores of rupees, no one else really seems to bother. They don’t seem to even know that such a client exists in our roster. Well to hell with that, that’s not what’s driving me mad. It’s not the work, the late nights, the petty squabbles over changing the copy according to the whims and fancies of the client or the blissful ignorance of my colleagues that drives me mad it’s the attitude.

Having seen me work relentlessly to gain ground with this client has made people around me think that I am personally profiting from this job or something. Let me tell you I hate working on this account, but its work, and I don’t mind having to do what it takes to get it over with. My colleagues somewhere deep in their minds have watered and raised a feeling that I am working full time and over time on this client because, this particular client is from my hometown. Bah! How childishly ignorant.

Tonight one of my colleagues really got upset that I got a little, just a teeny weeny bit, frustrated when she said she wanted her small job to be done before I carry on with work for this client. She just up and walked away without a decent goodbye. Well, see what I am paid? For being enthused in my work? A lot of flak and no perks. I don’t need the perks and neither do I need the flak. This has really made me think, am I not entitled to a little frustration myself? When all around me I hear whining and grumbling that work is so bad and hectic, don’t I deserve a turn to be frustrated? What am I? A machine in the world’s eye? Do I only have the right to remain numb and nothing else?