[A-Z Challenge] X

 

Unknown I am

Sign of danger

I can be; yet I am

Just another letter

Very popular in math

Popular as unknown

Yet I help define

Line, Circles and parabolas

Popularity in math

Made me unpopular

In literature and

In other worlds

I was for the abstruse

Not worthy of the

Simplicity and elegance

of literature;they said

I was confined forever

To the scribblings of scientists

In their little diaries;

How dull are those diaries!

Yet abstractness made me

An exotic

Exoticism came in vogue

And made me famous

Now I sit proudly

Outside those diaries

Generation - X, X-Factor

I am in the popular culture

Yet I am still a humble letter

Those Romans liked to use

In every business transaction

And maybe I wanted just that!

Quirks of Life starting with X is the letter 'X'. Reading on it, I found  it to be very fascinating as it has different origins and has been used differently in many cultures. This is part of April A-Z challenge details of which is present here.

[A-Z Challenge] W for Window!

A memory of a childhood
It is
For you could sit by
And watch the world passing by

An audience you become
For the actors of the street
As you watch the drama
Happening before you

The play begins
With the first ray from sun
The birds taking flight
As the first actors arrive

Actors fill the stage
Playing their part 

Emotions galore- Laughter, cries
And occasional silences

Yet none aware of
Being part of the play
For an unknown face
Beside the window

The actors leave the stage
As the night arrives
Bringing millions of stars
Making the little heart smile

For the sky is adorned
With million little jewels
Giving birth to million dreams
Lulling the tired eyes to sleep

Quirks of Life starting with W is Window Virus which has always kept me fascinated. Sitting by a window with a coffee in hand still is one of my favorite pastimes.  This is part of April A-Z challenge details of which is present here.

 

PS: After the talk that virus gave, the venerable one also decided to  give my body a visit and had been a painful visitor for the past few days. So fell behind in the challenge for the second time.

[A-Z Challenge] \/ for Venerable Virus

Quirks of Life starting with V is Venerable Virus which has existed from the beginning of life and still needle proud humans every now and then. This is part of April A-Z challenge details of which is present here.

 

Pulling it out from the crevices of various living cell, I have managed to get one virus talking for the A-Z challenge and having seen one and  all, it surely is the Venerable Virus!

From the times when a living cell originated in sea, I was there needling the living cell. I have continued the needling across the centuries needling all the organisms across all kingdoms including huge dinosaurs and the current rulers of earth - humans. However, in terms of pure numbers, I rule the world. 

A very simple makeup consisting of DNA/RNA, protein and lipid layer is all that is needed to make me. This makes me highly adaptable to various circumstances that earth can provide. Now this is called elegant design by the Universe/Creator, whichever school of thought you come from. 

Only by changing a small set of combination of DNA/RNA, I can turn into numerous different types ranging from absolutely lethal to harmless ones too. However, whatever the case, it is always a pain for the host.

However, humans being the smartest of species have created a digital version of me. Like me, it is created by few strands of software code that has the ability to reproduce and propagate. But it is a bawdy copy of me. 

The software code is unsustainable and these viruses have very little shelf-life. Humans, however smart they consider themselves to be can never come up with the elegant design that Universe/Creator could conjure up. 

More importantly, there are now species of me that can immediately clean up huge number of human population. Strategies have been devised to counter me. 

But I cannot be killed. How can they kill something which is not alive in the first place?  The only thing that humans can be done is wait for my next juggle of RNA/DNA and voila they will be spending billions to counter me. Ha ha to that!

[A-Z Challenge] U as in Uncontrollable Urge!

Quirks of Life starting with U is Uncontrollable Urge. The urge to do something which we are not supposed to do is always there. Difference is some of us know to control it. Rest of the mortals like self succumb to it. Here is a micro-fiction of 55 words celebrating just that. This is part of April A-Z challenge details of which is present here.

His coach’s instruction rang in his ear.  No shooting. Only pass the ball. But the urge of shooting over goalkeeper's head remained. He had controlled. But then he had the ball. Suddenly, everything blanked out. He saw himself shooting the ball. He was helpless. He looked back for reproach but instead saw a happy coach.

Leaving with my favorite comic character - Calvin

 

[A-Z Challenge] T for Towel

Quirks of Life starting with T is Towel.  This is part of April A-Z challenge details of which is present here.

It was Douglas Adams who identified my true talents and made me famous across the world. 25th of May is also being celebrated as a Towel Day.The immortal words can be found here. So what does an humble towel has that much more celebrated items that man has invented does not have.  Well apart from the obvious and words dedicated by Doug, I do come in picture during many of the marital tiffs. An example is given below:

First Year of Marriage

He has left his wet towel on the bed. Guys will be guys! Everything has to be taught to them. Without me, how can he live? So sweet!

Second Year of Marriage

He forgot his wet towel on bed. He needs to be more serious in marriage and take more responsibility to live a meaningful life.

Third Year of Marriage

This is twice in two months that he has left his wet towel on the bed. We are going to have kids and he is still behaving like one. When will he learn?

Fourth Year of Marriage

There is this baby screaming. I have to do all these chores and above everything else he still has left his wet towel on the bed. He is treating me like a maid.

Fifth Year of Marriage

Four times in last two weeks. Can't you do one little thing right? How many times have I told you not to leave the wet towel on the bed like that? Kids are growing but an old man is turning into a kid.

Sixth Year of Marriage

This is it. You keep on treating me like a maid and I am done with this marriage. I will take my kids and go. Then you will remember not putting the wet towel on the bed.

Seventh Year of Marriage

Wet Towel on the bed and an empty house!

So thats done with the example and now leave you to ponder about my existence!

PS:I wanted to write something absolutely pointless. Not that the other were not pointless  but I wanted to climb the peak of pointlessness! Moreover, I wanted it to be aligned it to the theme - Quirks of Life. Somehow, felt the towel fit the bill perfectly.

[A-Z Challenge] R for Running

Quirks of Life starting with R is Running. Running - one activity that we engage in from the beginning and somehow it stays with us throughout our lives. This is part of April A-Z challenge details of which is present here.

From the time we learn walking, we want to run. We want to reach somewhere faster than our walking legs would want to take us. It may be an allure of a toy, or a sweet or maybe a simple hug from our parents. 

We run for it because we want it more than anything else at that point of time. In school, too the first competition we are put in is where we have to run faster than rest of the kids around us. 

Overtime, this running translates into chasing our dreams. Few of us give up at an early stage. Fewer still keep on running for it hoping for luck. Some of us will be in a perennial stop-start-stop mode. Fewer still will go the distance. Yet some of us who abandoned chasing our dreams are put into another race.

This race designed by society where you are given the responsibility to study, get a job, get married, acquire wealth as much as possible, have kids and tell the kids to do the same thing over again. It is a peculiar race where getting to each milestone means you have to run harder than before. 

There is no stopping in this race. Your friends and families, ask you to go further and further so that you are better your peers and other people. Some of us live out our entire lives in this race without stopping missing out on the smaller intangible pleasures of life. 

Some of us get an epiphany, and we realize this running is not worth and get out of it sooner and start running to chase their dreams. This restart of an abandoned race will be done with more vigor and resolve than before. 

 Maybe we forget to stop in this race. We never stop running until our body gives up. In the movie -  The Pursuit of Happyness, there is a scene when the voice over describes - 

"This part of my life is called running."  May be we forget that running is still only the part of life in that sentence!

PS: The entire idea for the post came from that one line - This part of my life is called running. Somehow that line had stayed with me and it came back when I thought of writing this.

[A-Z Challenge] You are in Queue

 Quirks of Life starting with Q is queue. Somehow we are placed in one of the many queues of the world knowingly or unknowingly. This is part of April A-Z challenge details of which is present here.

We are put in various queues even before we know about it.  The lady at the hospital when we were born would put us in one of her queues based on her priorities. During the kinder-garden days, you are put to queues so that the teachers can manage a group of bawling and screaming kids. 

As you grow up you see your parents being put in various queues and you realize that by staying in queue, you attract order and civility in life unless you are in India. Queues are one of those things in India whose meaning gets so much distorted that only people living in India can understand. 

For centuries, India had followed a caste system. So when the concept of queue was introduced by British, the caste-system manifested into this queue as well. The whole point of staying in queue waiting for your turn was lost.

The main objective became find ways to beat the queue. People use their wealth, connections and sometimes even a small bribe to the peon who is looking after the queue to beat the queue. After all with a population of India, it may cost you a lifetime if you diligently wait for your turn. 

Moreover, even the sperm that reached the egg first would have jumped the queue. So jumping the queue can be blamed on our genes. But then there is a silver lining to this dark cloud as well. 

There is special community in Kerala that follow the queue religiously.These are the regular consumers of alcohol who form a queue in front of a wine shop. This queue is followed religiously as breaking this queue here getting more than a single bone broken.There is also a mark of respect here as people acknowledge that their need is as strong as other person's  and so let us respect this strong need and stay put.

With the advent of technology, system-generated queues came into picture and now there is whole branch of study to optimize the service time and reduce the lengths of the queues. However, even the laptop you are using is putting your requests on a queue from time to time.

The processor happily puts your innumerable requests such as playing a song, browsing a website, opening document into a queue and services at its own convenience. Even the websites that you visit put you in different sets of queues that you can hardly imagine.

So even if you think you are not in queue, the environment around you has been designed in such a way that eventually you are in queue perpetually!