The Haunted Tram

By Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

Ghosts of The Towers, The Grange, The Court,
Ghosts of the Castle Keep.
Ghosts of the finicking,"high-life" sort
Are growing a trifle cheap.

But here is a spook of another stamp,
No thin, theatrical sham,
But a spectre who fears not dirt nor damp:
He rides on a London tram.

By the curious glance of a mortal eye
He is not seen. He's heard.
His steps go a-creeping, creeping by,
He speaks but a single word.

You may hear his feet:you may hear them plain,
For--it's odd in a ghost--they crunch.
You may hear the whirr of his rattling chain,
And the ting of his ringing punch.

The gathering shadows of night fall fast;
The lamps in the street are lit;
To the roof have the eerie footsteps passed,
Where the outside passengers sit.

To the passenger's side has the spectre paced;
For a moment he halts, they say,
Then a ring from the punch at the unseen waist,
And the footsteps pass away.

That is the tale of the haunted car;
And if on that car you ride
You won't, believe me, have journeyed far
Ere the spectre seeks your side.

Ay, all unseen by your seat he'll stand,
And (unless it's a wig) your hair
Will rise at the touch of his icy hand,
And the sound of his whispered "Fare!"

At the end of the trip, when you're getting down
(And you'll probably simply fly!)
Just give the conductor half-a-crown,
Ask who is the ghost and why.

And the man will explain with bated breath
(And point you a moral) thus:
"'E's a pore young bloke wot wos crushed to death
By people as fought
As they didn't ought
For seats on a crowded bus."

Verse Libre is the devil..

To write in verse,
you know it,
it often takes much time.
Its the curse
of every poet
to find a word that rhymes.

With 'moon' and 'June'
exhausted
and 'wine' paired up with 'sign'.
his ambition soon
is thwarted
to add another line

A desperate man
he'll try to
rhyme 'know' with 'how'.
His most ardent fan
would cry too,
"Alas, a dirty trick, I trow."

A poets bane
however,
is easy to divine
Its when he's vain,
not clever
and ends the last but one line,
With 'purple'..

Insomnia

I dreamed of you last night
of the resolves that seem futile
and the mirrors that just dont lie
of castles that came crumbling down
and balloons popped unceremoniously in my face

I dreamed of you last night
your words cutting into me,
like the shards I've known before.
It was different this time.
I did not bow down.
The weight was lifted.
The penance served.
of all sad words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are these,
'It might have been'
But you were too blind to see
This time, my love,
you did not hold on.
This time around,
it wasn't me.

You know you're right..

I will never bother you
I will never promise to
I will never follow you
I will never bother you

Never say a word again
I will crawl away for good

I will move away from here
You wont be afraid of fear
No thought was put in to this
I always knew it would come to this

Things have never been so swell
I have never felt so well

You Know You're Right

I'm so warm and calm inside
I no longer have to hide
Let's talk about someone else
Steaming soup begins to melt
Nothing really bothers her
She just wants to love herself

I will move away from here
You wont be afraid of fear
No thought was put into this
I always knew it would come to this

Things have never been so swell
I have never felt this well

You know You're Right

Soap Opera Baby..

A certain friend and I were recently discussing several vastly popular hindi soaps (atleast she said they were several.. they all look the same to me..) and we were rather stumped as to how it is that the women in those soaps are almost perpetually pregnant, since every bedroom scene shows them asleep 6 feet away from their husbands in heavy Kanjivaram sarees with enough jewellery on to put Bappida to shame..
And have none of these people ever heard of contraceptives? or the morning after pill (since most of these things seem to happen unexpectedly on rainy nights while taking shelter in barns)?
I'm stumped.. somebody enlighten me please..

Need I say more?

What ho!

Anybody who's had the misfortune of being cornered by me when im rambling on the subject will unquestionably know that im more than a little obsessed with the writings of a certain Sir Pelham Grenville.. Or to you lesser mortals, P.G. Wodehouse.. Following are snippets which may constitue my 'favorite bits'.. the list is by no means exhaustive..

He had the look of a frustrated tiger whose personal physician had recommended a strict vegetarian diet....

If he had a mind, there was something on it.

His whole attitude recalled irresistibly to the mind that of some assiduous hound who will persist in laying a dead rat on the drawing-room carpet, though repeatedly apprised by word and gesture that the market for same is sluggish or even non-existent.

I suppose I'm one of those fellows my father always warned me against.

He looked like a dictator on the point of starting a purge.

"And deer?''
"Several deer.''
"I love deer.''
"Me, too. I've met some very decent deer.''

It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.

He's as jealous as billy-ho. Smear a bit of burnt cork on him, and he could step right on to any stage and play Othello without rehearsal.

"I am rejoiced that my poor effort should have elicited so striking an encomium.''
"Wot say?''
"He says he's glad you liked it.''

He was white and shaken, like a dry martini.

It was a confusion of ideas between him and one of the lions he was hunting in Kenya that had caused A. B. Spottsworth to make the obituary column. He thought the lion was dead, and the lion thought it wasn't.

And it goes on...

The Othello Rap..

I have now been a part of two productions of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)". For anybody who's not seen or read the play, you guys are reaaaally missing out on something.. Originally written and performed by The Reduced Shakespeare Company, the play is side splittingly funny.. for more check out the link http://www.reducedshakespeare.com/shakespeare.php
Here's one of my favorite bits from the play... The othello rap..

Here's the story of a brother
by the name of Othello.
He liked white women
and he liked green Jell-O.
And a punk named Iago
who made himself a menace
Because he didn't like Othello,
the Moor of Venice.
Now Othello got married to Desdemona.
But he went off to the wars and he left her alona.
It was a mona--A groana--He left her alona.
He didn't write a letter and didn't telefona.
Desdemona she was faithful, she was chastity-tight.
She was the daughter of the Duke. Yeah, she was totally white.
Now Othello loved Desi like Adonis loved Venus.
And Desi loved Othello --'Cuz he had a big.... ummm.... sword.
Iago said, I'm gonna shaft the Moor.
How're you gonna do it? Tell us.
Well, I know his tragic flaw:
He's too damn jealous.
I need a dupe, I need a dope, I need a kind of a schmo.
So he found himself a chump sucker by the name of Cassio.
So he plants on him Desdemona's handkerchiefs.
So Othello starts wondering just maybe if
while he's been out fighting,
Commanding an army.
were Desi and Cass playing hide the salami?
Salami, salami, s-s-salami.
So he comes back home and stuck a pillow on her face.
Kills her and soliloquizes 'bout his disgrace.
But there's Amelia at the door
who we met in Act IV.
Who says, "You big dummy. She weren't no ho."
She was pure, clean, virginal too.
So why'd you have to go and make her face turn blue?
It's true.
It's you.
Now what you gonna do?
And Othello says, Damn, this is getting pretty scary.
So he pulled out a blade and committed hara-kiri.
Do that funky Moor thing, white boy.
Iago got caught but he probably copped a plea.
Loaded up his bags
And moved to Beverly.
Hills, that is.

Physics Lab 101- Part II

Sigh.. breadboards and capacitors and microprocessors.. Oh my!

Out of the Darkness and into the light.. or the other way round.. Mr. Prothit Sen

Lovely picture aint it.. bet you cant guess how this one was taken..

Neon Laser exposure.. Thought it'll make a cool picture.. sadly it also fried my picture circuits..

This is one of my favorites.. its a image of a hand held lamp, projected via a lens, onto a white wall..

Physics Lab 101..

Back In college I was rarely without my camera.. and the duller moments of the lab class (dude.. it was 3 hours long) were spent in taking random pictures.. Some of them came out really well..
I Spy With My Big Eye.. Dear ol' sid..

Dispertion pattern (prism.. i think..)

The Terminator.. aka Jethin B. Raj..

Walk into the great white light...

Anybody ever played Mortal Kombat? this sooo looks like Goro to me.. (sorry Miss Joseph)