And once again I hear your voice close and clear… instantly disrupting the train of thought in my mind, reaching the depths of my heart I was convinced I had locked for good. One glance and I turned away, as if I haven’t noticed you. I can’t lie to myself, I did notice the soothing light-coloured fabric you wore, one that I don’t remember to have seen on you before. I try to cover the breadcrumbs of your fragmented memories inside me in vain, only to discover something new about you in every chance encounter – shards of persistent memories slowly draining me from the inside.

Anger sells. Animals sell.

Start a war to win, not to fight.

Foxes don’t respect the lion. They fear it. They get a piece of meat, they hide and eat it among themselves in the shadows. And the lion doesn’t bother about the foxes. It stays aloof, hunts alone. The lion knows it will always remain a villain in the stories of the weaklings.

No matter how much I try not to miss you, you keep stepping into my loneliness and my sadness. I struggle to sleep trying to submerge your memories like layers of translucent clouds screening the dying crimson sun. All my senses tell me I am long-forgotten, and yet they stay alert for one cue from you… or one sign of your existence from far far away.
Life mostly is about the impossible things or the long-longed pleasant things that never happen. And yet, I find it so hard to come to terms with that. Each time we met, I have glanced now and then on your face as if to engrave it in my memories. It’s insane… I don’t remember your face but I do feel the warmth of your presence once in a while. And it only makes things worse when I am back to reality. I hope by the next time we meet perhaps I would be able to erase you from my mind and not recognise you anymore.

What may seem taboo to you is – I don’t restrict, confine or conceal myself with you. I don’t see the point in trying to shade the truth and it’s important to me that you know that truth. Your company gives me tremendous joy, thinking about you brings me peace, I get restless when you are in a crisis, I meticulously hide it all from everyone else and I long to walk by your side yet again. This is the real me – pure and eternal and unconventional. How you judge it doesn’t change anything.

Genius is the capacity to capitalise on the sacrifices one makes.

In retrospect, now I consider myself a romantic ever-imaginative artist who chose to become a chip-designer for the thrill in it.

A chip is a combination of silicon with embedded logic that works on a series of guided electric pulses running from one point to another within it. It’s rigid, limited and yet time-consuming to design and build… making innovation all the more difficult.

However, the artist in me still imagines in unbounded space and dreams of improvements to the chip (among other things). Often they seem outright ridiculous or over-ambitious. Then I sit down with a pencil and one of my son’s old notebooks and focus to bring order into the chaos – design things no one may have attempted before (in the context of my area of technical expertise).

It’s not about a patent or the money or showing-off my capabilities, it’s about the satisfaction in making something new.

Think of Dali’s surreal paintings and Queen’s flamboyant music. I would exchange my life in return for the capacity to compose one “You Take My Breath Away” or paint one “The Persistence of Memory”. How much satisfaction would those creations have brought to the creators? Would material rewards matter? They just created because they savoured the joy of creation.

And remember Michelangelo striking Moses’ knee with a hammer close to completion and exclaiming “Now, speak!”?

As usual, I will descend steadily in the sad strings of the violin, drink to your dreamy eyes as long as I can resist the oblivion I wish to get lost in. I know you won’t let me into your pain and perhaps I’ve learnt not to care anymore. I can no longer remember the last time you paused to ask how I am doing. Nowadays the indifference is mutual. Not that I’ve lost a flavour of myself… you must have been a dream in my vulnerable solitude. Not that I mourn your absence… I’ve been alone all along.