How The [client company name censored] Stole January.

2005 so far and the ICE in Germany have one thing common: the speed at which they went, I hardly got to see the scenery outside!

Oh, the deployment went better than expected frankly; a couple of issues, but we have until Wednesday-ish to figure them out. We also have complete control, for now, over the servers our app runs on, so things can be ironed out before anyone notices. Stuff's looking good!

Frankly, I don't have much to say tonight except that I've had an evening of sighs and phews, that I've finally realised I completely and totally adore Singaporean - Chinese hawker center fare, and that keeping CD's in front-pant pockets is receipe for disaster.

Will be doing a bit of pre-office networking tomorrow; will be interesting how it goes. :-)

And finally: lights, chimera, action!

Whoops.

Problems at work today; I thought I understood the data migration scripts, but clearly, I hadn't. Spent another 12 hours today (900AM to 1030PM, you do the math and keep the errors to yourself) at work trying to fix things up, and will still have to go early tomorrow morning to lay things out cleanly and openly before deployment at 1230PM. Apprehensive? Heck, was *this* close to panicking today. That ain't good at all.

There is this credit-card-sales-executive from Citibank by the name Sharon who has been stalking me for the past three days, and frankly, it's getting annoying by now. She sends me (automated?) sms's at 10:33PM SGT every night, and then follows them up with at least one phone call every afternoon. If anyone of you knows a hitman/woman operating in Singapore and offers cheap rates, let me know; I have all her details with me (her mobile, telephone, office location, fax and even this free water-bottle that she gave me), so it should be fairly easy to score a hit.

Speaking of stalkers: there's another seller-woman that I'd like to get away from one of these days and I have no idea how I could. First, is the tea-and-coffee aunty who sells steamed chicken pau to me every morning; I've written on this earlier, but we have a Pavlov-ian relationship now. She looks at me, takes out a chicken pau, puts it in a big, brown paper cover, and waits for me to give her 90 cents. SHE HAS GOTTEN SO USED TO ME ORDERING CHICKEN PAUS FROM HER THAT SHE DOESNT EVEN ASK ME ANYMORE. I completely dislike this state of affairs, and so far, all attempts at spicing up the situation (by ordering other stuff, like fried bee hoon, or a black pepper chicken pau and so on) have proved naught; she still goes back to her patented pau-hand-trick, and auto-magically produces that brown paper bag EACH TIME she sees me. I think I'll jump into her stall tomorrow, and physically stop her from doing her hand-trick or something.

I've been told today that I'm not only wildly famous, but also that my writings here are widely read, despite Google unceremoniously dropping me off its cache. Or, to put it more plainly, at least one of the alleged toddlers I was mentioning earlier has read that particular post and... well, I would have known what she thinks, except that my project lead came in at the right moment, and I had no option but to minimise all IM windows and hide all evidence of slacking. (Hey, was at my terminal for some 6 hours straight by then; I *needed* some slack). In any case, this leaves us an interesting window of oppurtunity to critically analyse what we've written earlier, and perhaps, comment on it with the advantage of hindsight.

We find the following salient points on analysing that post:-

1. My grammar sucks when I feel sleepy.
2. The post needs some stylistic editting.
3. I'm a megalomaniac mostly out of touch with reality.
4. I try hard to be funny.
5. Ummm, that's it.

Mea culpa on 1 and 2, and frankly, there's not much I can do about it; the only other alternative is to not post for a while (which I've also done, and that wasn't fun either). 3 is possibly true, but hey, this is my blog so I'm allowed to be so. 4 is also true, but that's because you, oh, unseen, unheard, unknown reader, is reading it, and you wouldn't be really interested in the finer detail of my navel-lining's colour, would you? 5, on the other hand, is a contentious issue, and I could be wrong in my judgement, so feel free to correct me on that.

Which is a good point, btw; what's with Hyderabadi women[*] and my blog? They read it and amuse themselves, but they don't bother posting here, even when we try hard. I... hope... someone... is... listening.....

And finally: Borowitz has finally become funny although he's still corny and uninspired. The Onion, on the other hand, is biting, sarcastic, satirical and erudite as usual.

Good night ye all. Wish me luck for tomorrow.

[*] - Not toddlers; we're now upgrading everyone's status to 'women' with immediate effect.

On Why The CPF Board SUX.

Or not: freaking tired after all that data migration I was doing at work for 12 hours to day. I'm also not watching a soulful Thai movie they're showing now on Singaporean television, a certain Monrak Transistor, for the same reason; it's got amazing story-telling, some fantastic acting, and addictive songs, but fatigue wins over pathos and tragedy anytime, sorry.

And oh, I'll be on-location deploying our system on Thursday and Friday. Excited, but apprehensive.

Dog Days At Work, Fame in School and Other Stories.

We first talk tonight about work and how we're saddled with more of it more often.

I, of course, work at a secretive facility management software firm that has office presence in four countries, coding effort in two locations, one coding platform and 2.7341 layers of products. I, of course, am in no mood to spread more corporate propaganda at this of all places, so won't expand on what we mean by "facility management", except to mention that I'm part of the product development team, studiously developing some additional, so far unadvertised, modules to version 4.0 of our flagship product. I prefer to think of my contributions as being delectable, subtle, and yet, profound.

Unfortunately, so does my project lead.

So, in addition to this laying of subtle easter eggs to the system, I've also been fixing bugs in some legacy deployments in Australia, and will be scripting some wild SQL poetry to the db tomorrow. The first shot, so to speak, will be fired this Thursday, when we'll unviel and deploy the module I'm working on to our first bakra-client (bakra == sacrificial goat in Hindi slang), a towering giant in Singapore's crowded civil-engineering skyline. The fun part, of course, is that this would mean that my code is, in essence, running software on both sides of a major throughfare near Orchard Road; my old company, where I did my internship, is just across the road from these guys. The bad part is, I'll probably have to clock in 12 hours for the next two days at the least; there's loads of work left to be done, and at this point, am treading personally unchartered waters. Between you and me, I've already given up on perfection at this point; I just hope the code passes initial screening successfully, we could always solve deeper bugs at leisure. Although, there's this part of me that thinks, in fact, knows, I did some good work on this; it *has* to work at least for the effort, don't you think?

Okay, this officially is becoming spooky now, but I seem to be extremely well-known among juniors, alas frustratingly enough, among junior female students it appears, from my old school in Hyderabad. This has happened often enough to see a clear, propaganda-istic pattern - I suspect a couple of my old teachers have been brainwashing gullible kids for their own ideological purposes - but is, nevertheless, also excruciatingly tantalising for some very obvious reasons: not only do I feel cut-off from my old social network, but also, heck, all these girls who fawn at me are virtually toddlers! None of them, I repeat, NONE of them, are of a date-able age! This, and my clear lack of dating options for the forseeable future, have convinced me that, clearly, THERE IS NO JUSTICE IN THIS WORLD in these matters.

On other news, William Darymple, to whom I said yesterday I wrote a quick congratulatory email, has replied. Nothing of essence in the reply, mind you, just amusing to see that my mail didn't automatically go into the spam folder, and that, now that I've opened a channel of communication, there are a few things I wouldn't mind emailing him about later. Let's see.

I'm also keeping an eye open for shifting industries lately; nothing pucca as yet, but am increasingly concerned that my amazing powers of critical analysis and verbal exposition could, perhaps, be under-utilised in a coding-only job. The carrot at the current company, though, is that we're apparently looking at re-inventing ourselves as less of a software company and more of a software-sales company, but between you and me, I'd like nothing better than a decently paying job which gives free junkets to Europe (and NYC; there are many these days who would take pains to point out NYC's inherently European leaning), an unending supply of iced mocha, and some space to do some "real" thinking that I so cherish. In particular, Barclays Singapore is hiring, and couldn't help wonder if I could send them something, along with this other packet I may or may not be sending to McKinsey. These, of course, are idle sleep-time thoughts and in no way constitute actual intentions or decisions; still love my job, but it's good to keep a feel on the job market as well.

As a parting shot, one of my favourite sites on the Net. Its simplicity still befuddles me.

Dude.

Like, White Mughals could very well be the most important book I've read in a reallly loooooooong time! Spent HOURS today simply sitting at coffee shops at Orchard (yup, it was a Starbucks; I love the mocha and the ambience there, so sue me) There's a LOT of stuff to parse in the short segment that I read, so will post more on this soon.

On a whim, I've also picked up two other books, the original Harry-Potter-ian best-seller, Sophie's World and Love in the Time of Cholera. Both are books that have been on my To Read list for a long time indeed; remember reading about Sophie's World on a lazy afternoon in a Time issue at the old library in school. (Shanks, the Turner Library, not the Primary School one). I remember reading the review and an accompanying article on its popularity; I then noticed the price mentioned, quickly converted it from USD to INR, and came to the conclusion that it was still too expensive for either the Turner Library or us (as in, family) to buy the book. Not that we could even if we wanted to, anyway; socialist India was still cut-off from the international book market, and there was no amazon.com back then anyway.

Life is sweet justice at times; I also noticed a Lego showroom on my way out. Ventured in, but didn't buy any though; Legos, lately, seems more commercialised ("event-driven"?) than it used to be. I mean, what's with those Harry Potter and Star Wars sets anyway?

Love..., otoh, is less of a capitalist vindication, and more of a victory of time over, well, feelings. You see, I did get this book a mere four years back at a second-hand-books sale, but ended up not reading it completely 'coz I found it too depressing to read just after a mega-breakup. Things are much better now; literary merit trumps up any momentary feelings.

I will be picking up Blink! and Mr Know-It-All after I finish reading Umberto Eco's The Name of a Rose and Tipping Point. Yup, been spending heavily on books lately; better on books than on food, I reckoned.

Speaking of spending: I'm still drooling on an XPhoneII and am still waiting for those elusive Chinese New Year deals on mobiles.

[UPDATE]: Googled for William Dalrymple and felt compelled enough to send him an email thanking him for writing White Mughals. Shit, this guy writes some interesting books!

Apropos 'Bombay Dreams'

... the IndusTel submission that is. The unstated bit is that a group of friends and I are now in the midst of writing a movie script for untitled production; stay tuned to this spot for more details as they emerge.

In other news, I have totally and completely FUCKED UP my comp and will, consequently, not be able to work on Mary Sue today as planned. In any case, I'm tired of staring at a comp (and fixing bugs!) for now; been doing that on Friday and for 12 hours on Saturday, so you really can't expect me to do stuff. In any case, planning to take my notebook and trek down to Orchard's library to either buy, or borrow, White Mughals from there.

Chats and such.

Nothing much to report tonight, except that did end up going to the French Meetup Group, and yup, discovered yet another good watering hole next to the Singapore river. It's called Oosters and serves excellent Belgian beer. Didn't quite check alchohol out for paunch reasons, but the ambience and the company more than made up for it.

Haven't uttered this term in two years now, so it was rather amusing to narrate just what a schizotypal personality is.

Kiran and Shanks, compliments on some fairly well-thought out responses, but both you guys are missing two crucial points on which I'll elaborate sometime during the day tomorrow.

Musings tonight.

Dude, I've GOTTA watch this The Practice show more often! Freaking good episode tonight!

On Mary Sue: AMAZING insights today that could very well change the contours of the intended short story. Haven't progressed much in terms of word counts, but that's okay; think we could have something coherent, but more importantly mindnumbingly fascinating, up by the end of the week.

There's a lot of stuff I'm sifting through even as we speak, and yup, that includes the curious occurrences of Gajanani, or the female Ganesha, appearing in Hindu mythos. Come to think of it, Hindu mythistory has had significant sexual ambiguity; both Siva and Vishnu have taken female forms. More on this later.

Will be attending sg's French Meetup group meeting tomorrow, so am not sure if I can work on Mary Sue. Je parle un peu Francais, but have forgotten more than I remember, so these meetings are, believe it or not, excursions in nostalgia. Still, am working at getting something fun up; a friend and I might be performing a French skit during next month's meeting. Details will be posted as soon as they're available. As usual, this would mean more research, and more ideas to mull over, so this is a fair tsunami warning alert.

Book Sightings: White Mughals (will pick this up soon) and Baksheesh and the Brahman.

Movie Sightings: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and Soldier's Girl, a tragic true love story with pressure group implications.

Music: Viswa Vinayaka (CD), the music of the dance extragavanza.

Yes Dirk, I also believe in the fundamental interconnectedness of things.

||Fiction - Curtain Raiser|| Mary Sue And I.

Coming up real soon to a blog near you.

[Update]: Not much progress I'm afraid. Got the characterisations down as also the plot, but the narrative is a bummer. Writer's block all the way :-(.

Statement of the Day.

"Khanh told me so much about you that I thought you guys met [in meatspace]!" - Yudhi-dhar's mom.

:-)

(By way of musing on the sheer schizophrenia that is meeting cyber-friends in meatspace; you know them, but then again, you don't. Therein lies the weird-itude.)

... and suddenly, it all becomes clear!

Dude, I'm in DENIAL.

||Humour|| You know you're in 2005 when...

Got this as a forward from a friend.
--

You know you're living in 2005 when ...

1. You sit in front of the computer all day in office and still come home and do the same!

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 9 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.

6. You go home after a long day at work you still answer the phone in a business manner.

7. You make phone calls from home, you accidentally dial "9" to get an outside line.

8. You've sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different companies.

10. You learn about your redundancy on the 11 o'clock news.

11. Your boss doesn't have the ability to do your job.

12. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home.

13. Every commercial on television has a website at the bottom of the screen.

14. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

15. You get up in the morning and go on-line before getting your coffee.

16. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :)

17. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

18. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.

19. You are too busy to notice there was no # 9 on this list.

20. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.

AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself.

Go on, forward this to your friends ...you know you want to!

||Prose|| More Nostalgia.

(Found this heartfelt piece of text somewhere on my old hard disk, and thought I'd share this one. Clearly, I was meaning to post this on the old faculty's BBS, but ended up not doing so for some obvious reasons. :-D )

--
I just can't take this anymore.

I leave my dorm room at 8:55AM in the morning and roam about this godforsaken shit-spot of a place. 40 kilometres wide. Ha. My SCHOOL was bigger than this university. I leave my dorm room at 8:55AM in the morning and roam about this godforsaken place. Not that I particularly like roaming, but hey that's what they want me to do. Classes. First, they screw up my last sem's grades. Funny, I thought I did Java last sem, not C's. So I decided that the only way I can shut them up is by getting all A's. Piece of cake that. All I need to do is complete all tutorials, make complete notes of all subjects, complete all assignments, attend all lectures, attend AND SUBMIT all labs, and remember to have fun all the while. Piece of cake. All you need is 25 hours in a day. And to top it, they screw up my entire billing sequence, giving ME $1000 in excess. Fine, I should have said, I love extra money. Nopes! There's that thing called conscience, see? Should have immediately bought a new PDA. May be an iPaq or something. Looked real cool in Sim Lim. No, I spend TWO hours tracking red tape and talking to bored receptionists saying it's THEY who paid ME in excess and not me paying them in excess. Two goddamned hours! And then I had to go to collect my earlier temp job salary and still find I'm bankrupt. Like when do I have spare money for a change. Yeah that's right, I have money for change. Exactly $9.89 of them. All in twenty cent coins or less. The laundromat, you see, wont take in any coin other than a 20 cent one. Not that it works even after taking one of course, but still, there's that hope that it might. Just might. Just look at my laundry pile, for god's sake. It's been like that for the last twenty days, increasing in size, strength of smell and quantity. Should have removed it in the first week itself, but who has the time? Not me, no sir, dont even have the time to remove that plastic bag making those irritating noises. Easier to find if it's on the floor, see? Besides, relieves the endemic inhumane conditions of a solitary dorm with constant net. At least there's something else in the room. No seriously, there IS something else in the room. There's another plastic cover right on top, ha, finally found that loaf of bread I bought day before yesterday, oh I bought some Maggi sometime back, finally found my laptop cover, my bag, should have removed the books from that, another plastic cover on that, a piece of paper, oh that fee statement that turned out to be uplifting fiction, a stapler, a cockroach traveling from the stapler to the bread... a WHAT?

Excuse me. *slam*. Killed the cockroach.

So as I was saying, I can't take this any longer. My life, it appears, has taken a life of its own. I, R[surname now obscured for Google reasons] Akshay, #10 in the Indian Council for Secondary Education Certificate Examination 1997 solidly and vilefully claim that I, R[here we go again, sorry] Akshay, undergraduate, School of Computing, The National University of Singapore, am in deep deep shit, with a life totally out of control, and that, I, R[one last time] Akshay, PP# B314159, Indian passport holder, just can't take it any longer. The purpose of this entire discourse is for you people to support my application for refuge in Togoland. So pay up $500 and get yourself a tax-free viewing rebate at the Grand Canyon, courtesy the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board. (TAA DAAAAAH!)

No seriously, you want to hear why it all happened, don't you? Click here to read it all. And click here to not read it all, but generally have fun. AND click HERE to not read, not have fun, but generally muse on life and why you are wasting it.

(Unfortunately, the rest of the text is missing, and I, for one, don't completely recall why I was feeling so frustrated at that point in time. Oh well.)

||Verse|| Badmaashi-ka-Mausam.

[This sad excuse of a verse is at least three years old now, but still feels fresh, now that it's been raining out here, and that I recently re-visited the park in question. :-)

For old time's sake, haven't changed anything at all, not even the spelling mistakes or the formatting; the original version itself was in raw HTML with the font and colours, and these, indeed, play a crucial part in the narrative experience. Do let me know what you guys make of it. - MM]

--
It never rains in Singapore.
It pours.
You run away from the rain.
You hide beneath umbrellas.
You run to stand beneath rain shelters.
You take buses to cover yourself.
You snarl at the taxi drivers who suddenly vanish.
You are angry when cricket matches are abandoned.
All because of the rain, the rain, the rain.
Face it, you are afraid of the rain.

Stop, look up.
Let the rain come
Look around, smell the ground.
And you will hear an ancient voice sound:

The active lake.
The glistening leaves.
The great birds of peace.
The hidden sun.
The white sky.
The white net in the water woven.
The clouds' blossomed
Beware! Beware! It's badmaashi-ka-mausam

The rain, the rain.
It's never your equal
You can't fight it.
The rain is a lady.
It's feminine, it's graceful.
It's a force you respect.
A force you bow down to.
It's an enigma you share.

He told me there was a Kent Ridge Park, which I had to see 'cause he said I would be able to appreciate it as an artist myself

"Okay, meeting's over. Wanna have lunch?"
"No thanks, but I already had"
"You looked dressed up. Where are you going?"
Smile.Inscrutable silence.
For I looked around and smelt the ground,
and I heard an ancient voice sound:
The clouds' have blossomed
Beware! Beware! It's badmaashi-ka-mausam

I met him at about 4 and then we started walking

An island in the South Seas.
A ridge on the island.
A forest on the ridge.
An equitorial forest.
An equitorial forest with pine trees.
An equitorial forest with pine trees with a road curving through it.
Green to your left, green to your right.
Green is the traffic light.
Look down, look back.
This is the places where heads have cracked.
Despite its green, let me share some insight.
Be warned, for it might give you a fright.
This place saw a great fight,
much to the invaders' delight.
Two and twenty thousand khaidi
Led by the heroic Adnan Saidi

It was when he told me that it was a battlefield once upon a time that I realized I was walking right on top of those who dint’ have a ceremony for their cremation.

War wasnt on my mind
Time is short, the experience divine
And here she was, a young lady nice and fine.
Leaving her stress behind
Backs bent to work, lessons to grind?
No more, the rain is on my side.
For I looked around and smelt the ground.
And I heard an ancient voice sound:

The active lake
The glistening leaves
The hidden sun
The white sky
The clouds have blossomed
Beware! Beware! It's badmaashi-ka-mausam

But I could sense the perfect blend of the drizzle and the gentle breeze that nothing could have made me want to think otherwise. It was perfect. The leaves with tiny drops of water on them.. the huge trees.. the distinct yet mild smell of the wet mud.. it just had to be prefect

I looked into her eyes.
How does she feel?
Fear? Contempt? Joy?
Her eyes were expressionless.
Was she coy?
I was spellbound, I wanted to shout
The darkness is rout
But I was in doubt.
How does she feel?
Replied song aged new,
That I had been first able to view
Everything is possible.
Beyond the Invisible.

It was a beautiful road that led to the park. I was impressed by the gentle curves....One minute they were there and the next minute it was just a straight road with green equatorial trees growing high up and made the blue skies look like an endless river.

She stopped complaining about buildings.
She was gasping for breath.
Was she excited?
Was she tired?
Am I going to get fired?
I like the place, I came here many days
Does it have to mean that she should like as well?
I looked at her face
Her hair swaying with grace
I was dazed
Did she like it or not?
Will she like the lake I've brought?
I look at the trees
They're nice.
That's when I smelt the ground
And I heard an ancient voice sound:
The active lake
The clouds have blossomed
Beware! Beware! It's badmaashi-ka-mausam

It seemed like a fairy tale place except for the gray roads. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere I was able to see water and as I got closer I cud visually perceive what had once been a picture that he had painted in my mind. It was a beautiful lake right in front of my eyes and then I realized why he kept describing it to me as a place filled with peace and serenity.

Voila!
There it was
Five and thirty minutes past
We went above a hill and a forest across.
Down yonder in the green hole was cast
Not a pond, or a dump waste
Make haste make haste
The pure air we must taste
The birds' nest
The fish's rest
Deep in the middle of an equitorial forest
Lay the lake to which my thoughts race

And here it is, o young lady nice and fine
Enchanting with a voice divine
My summer resort, my secret spot
I looked around and I smelt the ground
And I hear an ancient voice sound:
The active lake
The glistening leaves
The hidden sun
The white sky
The clouds have blossomed
Beware! Beware! It's badmaashi-ka-mausam

One side of the lake was made to look a little man made ‘cause of the cement flooring and the pots of well trimmed bougainvillea. But the other side was an untouched beauty. The leaves were so close to the lake that they gently kissed the muddy water and the tiny ripples that showed up now and then made it look like the lake was smiling at me. It all looked so calm and nice.

Bright with delight,her eyes lit up.
A bubbly balloon was suddenly flown.
She looked here, she looked there.
She looked everywhere.
Gold Fish! Silver mug!
A Red Fruit! A black bug!
Swimming turtles! Floating fish!
Could the evening ever finish?
It was on a monument ancient,
That was written,
If there be a heaven of bliss
It is this, it is this, it is this.
What was better to watch? A heaven of bliss,
or a girl in complete delight?
It's not a show of might,
I know I'm right
It's best to watch
A girl in complete delight
in a heaven of bliss.
Floating hair, enchanting smell
Did that come from her as well?
Let me not on the source much dwell
It did make my heart swell
To see creatures living well.
Could this continue for time eternal?

Everything was going perfectly that evening.
The walk, the trees, the twining roads,
the lake, the equatorial raspberry.
And then there was a beep from his hand phone

Sic transit gloria mundi
They tell a pope, when he sits on his throne
Amid all the pomp,
the magnificence of worldly splendor,
All can vanish in a flash of thunder
Duty calls, it asks me what am I doing elsewhere
I lie, not wanting to leave here
Oh friends of mine, please bear
About beauty, you dont care
Here is a girl, nice and fine
With a voice divine
I'm in a heaven of bliss
I looked around and smelt the ground
I heard an ancient voice sound:
....
Hey, you lied! I will tell them.
I smile. She was joking.
Who is your committee head?
Yes, she was joking.
Never mind, I will ask around and tell him.
She was joking.
Joke.
I try not to respond any more.
Guilt? Sure
I dont want to joke about this.
I stopped. I remained silent.
Have I triggered you?
She was joking?
Yes she was. I try not to look at her.
No, it's not a trigger, mon amie
I just don't want to joke about this, that's all.
"No, it's not a trigger," I said.
Silently.
I have triggered you!
Haha, I have triggered you!
Was she joking?
No, it's not a trigger.
She didn't understand it.
Nope, it's not a trigger.
It can't be a trigger.
Anyway, I've controlled it, so why worry?
It's not a trigger.
I have triggered you!

I looked down.
I closed my eyes.
The background evaporated.
I see nothing.
I became dizzy.
An ancient curse came to life.

Phase three implies Chaos.
Power of Two.
Ekam Satyam.

Aham agni.

Can I speak your language,
And say I'm sorry?
It was't mean to happen
It was an enchanting afternoon
I forgot where I was.
I was in heaven.
I was on the shores of a lake
Tonight you told me something
That I should have known a long time back
That behind the chat, beneath the wavy hair,
There is something that we all have.
A heart tender
That might be led ascender
Within minutes, nay seconds
You are more human
Than I can ever hope to be.

I wish we could have another time like this
But each time I want to speak to you,
I see your stoic watertight eyes
I hear your beautiful voice
saying,

my fairyland dream was over and I was back in the real world.

--
[PS:- Now that I've re-read it, can't help noticing the obvious tip-of-hat to one of my favourite verses in the English language; as I remember, wrote this in a time when I could recite Kubla Khan from memory.

PPS:- And oh, almost forgot; this poem has a strange historical footnote. At least one girl cried after reading it. We were all kids once; back then, I never did understand why! :-) ]