It's not only the river that meanders..

It's been quite a while now, that we started walking, why are your feet wet even now?
I knew perhaps you liked the river, but didn't we choose the desert together?.
Perhaps It's unfair to you that I keep checking whether your feet are wet ? but they are wet. Aren't they?
Had you gone to the river again?
I have never seen you going, But I have traced your footsteps many times.They were yours weren't they?
and look! your feet are still wet. Aren't they?
Did the river come to you?
perhaps. But I don't want to ask the river, I can't ask the river. but I wish it stays away, I wish you might stay away. Tell me, were you simply curious?
Alas! there can be bigger tragedies. Much water has flown under the bridge, but your feet are still wet, aren't they?
Let it not drown me. The river will never be far from me as long as it is not far from you.I dread someday, it'll be between us.
We don't need the Wry-ver, but will your feet still be wet?.......  

1 angry man (inspired by 'almost -a-man') cheers on 11 tired men

The last 6 away test matches have been an embarrassment to every Indian watching...
The very venerable Karan Johar provided the perfect muse for me to come up with this parody(if I may call it so)...


For the Uncle Jis... in Sydeny
This one's for you

Abhi bhi hai jawani, zara si hai purani
Hai phir bhi khelna VVS ji
‘bouncer’ bhula ke, haan front foot pe aake
Karo na thoda batting ji

Abhi bas hue tere baal gore-gore
sau -sau runs pehle bhi hai mare-mare
Dekho wicket liye jaa rahe hain
Aadhe umar ke bhi chhore-chhore
Ha baalon ki safedi se pheeka kab hua hai De….fe……nce…..
Uncle ji, Uncle ji, get up and bat (Chorus :2 times in each test match)
Uncle ji, Uncle ji, get up and bat (Chorus :2 times in each test match)

Dil toh chhichhora outside- off flirting kiye jaaye
half volleys pe inside edge marr marr jaaye baby
Kolhi ko bolo tajurbe se khele uncle ji,

Kitna swing pe rona rona rona
Thoda technique phir bhi mangta hona hona hona baby
Aur helicopter ghar pe rakhna uncle ji

Yeh toh bataa hare o re o re
Dressing room jaldi bulaaye tujhe kyun re kyun re

Century banaane mein jo mazaa hai woh
‘inverter’ bechne mein no re no re

O ‘ashwin’’ jo ghumaye toh tikne ka nahin koi chance
Uncle ji, uncle ji, get up and bat(Chorus :2 times in each test match)
Uncle ji, uncle ji, get up and bat(Chorus :2 times in each test match)

Perth mein jaake kuch toh dhole dhole
thoke kyun tumhe badtameez buddhe
Buddhon se run banti nahin
Chhedenge yunhi tujhe varna chhore chhore

Haan baalon ki safedi se pheeka kab hua hai defence
Uncle ji, Uncle ji, get up and bat (Chorus :2 times in each test match)

When the world does not laugh with you.....

I have a pet peeve -People don't really appreciate my sense of humour( which IMHO, is highly evolved).Now that I think of it, I can't think of anything mine that people appreciate, but there's only so much that one can sulk in a post.So, what I mean to say is I don't crack people up with my antics((My grandfather gets very angry when somebody cracks up his antiques)See what I mean!!). Nor do I have a one-liners ready mandating high-fives(Which incidentally is Chetan Bhagat's GPA :p).But I still rate myself very high on the humour quotient.(You must have seen my talent if all those brackets have not confused you.But see, that's the challenge. It must also have crossed your mind that I don't rate myself low in anything.Point taken.But will you kindly read ahead?Thank you!)

 I really think I, at times, crack very intelligent jokes. I am so particular at making it 'intelligent' that the 'joke' part sometimes gets sidelined. Once it so happened that after I recited a joke, a short silence followed  before a gentleman asked me if banana was the answer. I felt peeled and told him that it was not a puzzle. Once banana was out of the picture, a few among the audience told me that they now got the joke.

Anyway, I have given up on a career in stand-up comedy.A few would say I could not have done worse but atleast now, I can sit while I suck So I have decided to regale selected people only.(Most of them are too closely related to stop seeing me, you see).

I also feel that am very good at understanding puns, sarcasms and mockery. Infact I am so good at it, that I can see a pun where there is none.I can go to multiple levels,planes and languages to derive an additional meaning. I have appreciated many a speaker for no fault of his/hers.

I have also been a student of humour in my own way. I have tried to analyse why some jokes are funny and why some are ludicrous. Why some produce a smile and some others a guffaw...(I could go on... I have GRE Verbal ability software literary talent also you see... ). Infact even with our current capabilities, I think it's possible to build algorithms that can make computer systems understand jokes. If they can play jeopardy, they can get my jokes.

I told my friend that I spent 1000 rupees on 2 books that tried to explain why jokes are funny.Yes, he laughed.    

P.S-It is not to insult your intelligence that I have italicized word plays. You can always use it to insult mine.

The 'Pretty' bias

For reasons which are beyond the scope of this blog, yours truly has joined a gym and furthermore has to go there and work out daily. I consider it one of the absurdities of our'evolved' society that you drive 2. 5 kms to that stupid gym and pay them 2.5 k just so that they'll let you walk on that treadmill for 15 min or so.

Anyway, In this gym that i go to, I have a 'trainHer'.  Thar's right. He has so little interest in training 'hims' that I thought it's only fair that I give him an extra 'h' and make his name suit his preferences .He is 6 odd feet tall with all the right bulges and cuts.The first day that I went, he asked me to do pull-ups.In a moment of haste (and in hindsight, a very forgettable one), I asked him how many? He just motioned me to start. All I managed was a pull-up and half-dozen microscopic movements and twitches. So my trainHer patted me on my back with probably the most condescending look I have ever received. He has watched me over these few days and whatever I have done over these few days has only cemented his opinion about me or the lack of it.

So the other day I really felt like telling him, that I am not the scum of the earth after-all and I .. well.. could be good above average in some other field for all he knows. Like I have cleared Vibrations in my first attempt, have heard of Kafka, Achebe  .. and so on...

But I realised I would have to first tell him who isAchebe, why it is good to read him and so on... Infact to explain any so called accomplishment of mine, I would have to give him an elaborate background as to why I think of it as an accomplishment.....Nah...not worth the effort.

So it suddenly struck me that Intelligence( or in my case, the pretense of it) needs to be explained. Beauty, however skin- deep or muscle- tight is self explanatory.

So next time, you have the sorting hat asking you, ... think what you want to shape.

        

The Sun in my________

I have been...how do I put it...amused, by people who come to sun-set points and try to catch the sun in any natural or artificially created hollows of their body.They slouch, crouch, squat and do the awkward likes in full public view just to make sure they make appropriate openings to create an illusion of the sun going into or out of their bodies depending on their inclinations. You know what, I don't think they intend to gulp / hold/ pinch or whatever action they threaten to do with the sun.They know sun is not tasty.don't they?... It'll give them gases at best. The action probably is deeply symbolic.I am sure Freud would have had something insightful to comment on it had he been privileged enough to to see a few samples. May be he would have referred to the fascination of men (and perhaps women) with huge round objects and intense desire to.. well.... do something to it.

We just cannot let them .. i mean it... peacefully pass by. 

'Inspiration is Dead'

Yours truly has finished reading Sophie's world and after 300 odd pages of philosophy( including juvenile humour), meant for 15 year olds, thinks he has understood all there is in philosophy. Sartre's "Man is condemned to be free" suddenly has started revolving in his head too much.The 'Existentialist' has suddenly awakened and demands answers to vague and what many would call non-existent questions.
But something like this happened after I had read a grahically illustrated book on relativity also. I stared at the distant 'horizon' but it was un'eventful' and nothing 'special' turned up. I read a couple more wiki links and found that physics( more so the popular science part of it), I understood, but Maths tangled me up. The only thing I still do is look wistfully at the Physics books displayed in the British library, every time I go there. So I have sufficient reasons to believe that this current infatuation will die down.This brings me to the question- What inspiration is inspiring enough? or whether any inspiration can be inspiring enough?

I wish I could say things like my uncle brought me Meccano and I liked it so much that I decided to become a mechanical engineer. I really wish I could. But truth be told- Beggars cannot be choosers and often become  mechanical engineers.

Perhaps I am inspired by so many things that I can't get inspired by any one thing ....sort of "condemned to be inspired' I guess.....
P.S- Ironically, inspiration-challenged yours truly, had an email id - inspire-world@yahoo.com , before some pervert decided to hack it.  

If....

If you can keep your tail-up when all about you 
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; 
If you can get others to trust your when all men doubt themselves, 
But make allowance out of their doubting too; 
If you can cheat and not be tired by cheating, 
Or, being lied about, or dealing in lies, 
Or, being hated, but don't stop taking dues, 
And  don't spend too much, nor charge too less;
If you can call a spade a spade and
yet get the other fellow to dig his own grave out of it,
If you can boast - and  have others raise a toast  to it, 
If you can think – or even otherwise
 make others think you can do so for them; 
If you can meet with triumph and disaster 
And show those two imposters just the same balance sheet; 
If you can twist the half- truth you've spoken 
and catch them in a cycle of words, a  trap for fools, 
Or watch the things they gave their lives, breaking, 
And stoop and sell them the same thing in a different packing;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 
And lose, and tell the winner you’ll settle it minus taxes in his account, 
And never breath a word about your gain to the government; 
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew 
To serve the different colored heads of the old man,, 
And so hold on when there is nothing in you 
Except the Will which says to them: "two more rupees";
If you can mingle with crowds and keep your margins, 
Or walk with kings - nor lose your volumes; 
If neither foes nor loving friends like you; 
If you count all men  with debts they owe you, but none too much; 
If you can fill the unforgiving minute 
With sixty seconds' worth of  ROI - 
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, 
And - which is more - you'll be a Business -Man my son! 


P.S-Apologies to Mr Rudyard Kipling ,who is turning in his grave.

Relishing the humble pie

I have had a creepy feeling since a long time that life,as mean as ever,listens to my innermost thoughts and decides for some vague reason to show me the middle finger and makes me do the exact things that I feel I detest.I have an ego as elaborate as the Large Hadron Collider and it gets worked up pretty quickly .So I have adopted this strategy wherein I secretly say to myself that I would really hate to work in Google or that I would not like it a bit to win a Nobel prize for proving String theory.(For those of you who want to say it might not be possible to prove strings,well that's precisely my point !) .Though it has not worked till now,I rather give it some time.
Now the other thing that I am doing is telling myself to enjoy whatever previously I had detested.So i listen to all my colleagues now and like my work.The point ultimately is to make life loose interest in what I hate and make it to focus on what I like.

Till then every humble pie that I am made to eat is well... delicious.

P.S - I am indebted to the two gentlemen and the lady who have benevolently put themselves as 'followers' of my blog.But in their own safety and to help them in avoiding any possible public humiliation,I am not going to disclose their identities.Thank you. ;)
.

Cynics of all-weather,sulk together

I have often felt that I sulk too much.My father has told it to me several times,my mother makes it a point to mention it once every fortnight.So,  of late I have really been  trying hard not to you know..... sulk.For about a month or so I felt I was doing reasonably well.I was getting to hear absolute non-sense and yet I kept quiet. Thinking that universe as a whole isn't that bad. I brushed aside the most wily insinuations as unintended innocuous remarks and life was pretty much ok.It was then that I met a colleague who was also giving the GRE.The first thing she said to me was"Isn't GRE absolute rubbish".If only u know how hard it was for me not to ramble on...I just managed a feeble "I don't know".Next she comes up with "Don't they treat us like some laborers at this place?..I mean we are highly qualified".That was it ...a tinge of conceit always makes people look attractive...you know and that's how the girl with the irritatingly, strong mother tongue influence, became my friend and we have happily sulked ever since.In fact i now realize most of my friends are unmistakably bound by this common 'sulking' thread.People with added disdain and sarcasm become friends i admire
I guess that is why friends are there...each individual is unique and hence a friend will give you new perspectives from which you can crib. and it's so much better to do it together...

Snide(r's) List

Warning-This post has no intrinsic value in the true tradition of this blog itself.Self obsessed readers with the rare ability to read about others, stretching the limits of snobbishness might read on.

        For quite a few years now,I have been maintaining a mental list of people who are more intelligent than me.Needless to say given my excessive conceit,I have managed perhaps conveniently, to keep it really small.Of course my sample space is a relatively small set of people with whom i have had substantial interaction with.Currently the number stands at 5.I am willing to concede that there have been atleast 4 more potential entrants whose candidatures were shelved only because of lack of further evidence.The system broadly works like this.A one member jury ( I ) am on the lookout for people who have managed to do better than I or what I would have done.Once on the radar,the person is carefully scrutinized for "Innate Intelligence" which is the single largest important quality being evaluated for.Innate Intelligence is characterized by a uniformly superior perspective the candidate brings upon any and each topic he discusses.Once the Jury has grudgingly accepted that the candidate indeed is innately intelligent,the Jury compares itself with the candidate in every possible nonsensical way to see if he is holistically superior.This procedure can take as long as a year to complete.It is here that regrettably, many deserving people drop-off.The procedure,is absolutely harmless and care is taken that no overt embarrassment is caused to anybody concerned.For the candidate,as has been observed,it can at utmost, lead to obtaining superficial answers to some unsettling questions about the Jury.The fact that inspite of  such idiotic and ludicrous criteria,5 people have been chosen,is a testimony to their abilities.If you are one among the elite,apart from hats,you have the following (given)off to you- You have  undivided attention whenever you speak.You have a backing in your every endeavor as long as it does not indicate a sudden cerebral desolation.You will be spoken of very highly to all who care to listen.You will experience an unheard amount of congeniality and optimism during your interactions.Perhaps most importantly you are free of any insinuations that "others" are usually subjected to.(If you had expected anything better,you should have looked carefully at the test itself ).  

JUST A WAIT

How do you ever know  if you have waited long enough?..especially when it's the kind of waiting that has kept you alive..... 

I have looked away at times only so that I could turn back with greater eagerness.. as if giving myself a chance to be surprised.I have won several times against myself,betting that you won't come today.

I have lost more.

It's not that i have never tried to leave.But whenever i was about to, from somewhere a cursed whisper always came and said "one more minute" and i gave in.At other times when that voice was too tired to protest, and i was about to start,all these people whom I knew apparated before me with that typical smirk painted on their faces that says"I Had told you before".(People  always do this.I guess it is one of those nature's urges that they must cater to.) And I stayed... not because i wanted to prove them wrong,It's just that they are usually wrong about most things...and so  I came up with one more reason to stay .

 I stayed put .Firstly 'coz I wanted to and later for a greater part 'coz i didn't know what else to do.

But you don't have a clue.Do you? .It's not that you had told me that you'll come.It's I who had assumed it as obvious.May be you don't think so.I wish I knew for once.But i guess that's not necessary.All it would have changed are the reasons.  

TRYing ad absurdum

In my childhood,I was often quoted an example of the king  Robert Bruce who was inspired by a spider to wage a war.The story goes that the king was watching a spider,which after six laborious ,failed attempts to swing from one beam to another,finally in a valiant seventh time, managed to hoist itself over.Good for the spider...but was his highness taking the analogy too far in comparing himself with a creature happily engrossed in netting the cave ?.... An undocumented clarification issued by the newly appointed, insect kingdom's lawyer Mr Barry B. Benson(of the Bee Movie fame) and Mr Ram JethMalani, certainly opines so.(you might have heard about Mr Jethmalini .....They say in India,people who commit crime go behind bars.People who commit crime but have money go to Ram JethMalani.) .In an article published in the People and Insects magazine,the duo claim they have discovered an ancient 12th century scroll- nittings by the famous traveller Archano Tsang.The scroll was found buried under the many skeletons in Mr Jethmalani's closet.The discovery has been termed net-breaking by the spider community.The scroll says that the concerned spider(now classified under the kingdom Araneidae) was actually playing a game called silver swing, wherein you try to swing between two structural elements( that are able to resist bending loads), without touching either of them.After six very good swings,the spider committed a foul and lifted himself over in the famed seventh attempt.It was this, that caught the king's eye.Apparently,the spider in question ,was visibly upset.(of course the emotion escaped the notice of the king who had already started beaming by then...)
Mr Barry felt  it was unfortunate that the human race should draw inspiration from an invalid and unintentional "swing" and not the six other well executed ones.Mr Jethmalini, however tried to alleviate the mood of Mr Barry by explaining how indian politicians often swing successfully between two or sometimes even more parties without really setting foot in any of them...Mr Barry was quite intrigued by this and expressed interest in visiting the Lok Sabha.

The pointlessness of this whole Jabberwocky is that ...you should .......Try and Try and Try again,only if you have absolutely nothing else to do.Perhaps,not even then.

Perseverance is highly overrated.It's in fact dangerous.A slight overdose can be extremely suicidal.The worst thing is everybody will praise you for it but you'll soon lose much that's yours, in pursuit of the little that you think should be yours, enduring all possible hardships on the way.

If you are not smiling through the journey,you probably won't, on reaching the end.

So choose quitting for a reason over trying without reason.

Quit,because you're worth it.   

To,The Master, with love.

Everybody salutes the rising sun.But it's not long before they look away and scurry to become the vulgar throng,sinking in their familiar, Sisyphean travails. But sometimes,as though,just to let you use words like,ethereal, regal,effervescent, and many others that leave the otherwise,condemned to oblivion lexicographers,gratified,a phenomenon happens.A phenomenon that rises,twenty years and counting.Rising as if there is no horizon on the other side,Rising, as if age is a myth, that catches up only with mortals.Rising...to discard nature and the possible as an old,glorified, habit.

At the last milestone ever laid,where all others have stopped of concerns for breath and muscle tear,he looks as if he is just warming up.Having already assured at least two statisticians of their livelihood,he nevertheless,gallops on .We trudge far behind him, picking up the pebbles on which he trod,to collect,to help us believe in the far, unfortunate future.

For the effortless ease with he creates records,guards them and then destroys with nonchalance,he for an atheist(or otherwise!) is the closest to The Trinity.Not that such a veneration has not been proffered on him earlier,it just happens that he has held it long enough to make the distinctions between the tenor and the vehicle,in the metaphor,merely academic.When he often places those who watch him on cloud nines and seventh heavens,it'll be impudent on our part to try and gauge the height he is perched upon.The little master may well be the fabled little star that resembles the diamond in the sky.

Requiem for the Dusk

One of the many unfortunate things of growing up is that ,evenings lose their importance.Days seem to move seamlessly into nights nowadays.It's been a long time since I've seen a sunrise.It has been longer since i saw a sunset.Of course we in cities, even if we wanted to, can only see sun, about to set......Most of the times, you are in office,where the only sunset you are allowed to see is the one set as your desktop background.Even if it's a weekend,there are no evenings,there are only nights to hang out and the days to hang-over.

I remember how happy i used to be when swaabhiman on DD used to get over.It was EVENING....It was time to play.I liked summers,for the vacations of course,but also because sun allowed us few more minutes of clear vision.Long before i was taught trigonometry,i knew that the lengths of the shadows of the 3 sticks impersonating as stumps mattered.I always liked to keep a track as the shadows slanted,outgrew the crease then the pitch, till it finally became difficult to distinguish the stumps,leave alone their 2D counterparts on ground.The sun held meaning for us then.

Evenings in fact grew longer for me,before they finally disappeared.After the game,if it was time to rush back when i was 10, it was time for a casual stroll when i was 13 and time for a longer chat sitting on the cycle carriers when i was 16.It was somewhere here..between the cycle and the automobile that i lost the evenings.I guess i outgrew them,just like the slam books,the mysteriously shaped,smooth glossy pebbles, the WWF cards.....

But some wonderful memories will remain with me till the dusk of my life and beyond.

3 Idiots(1 writes;1 reads and the 1 who does niether)

The other day i met my cousin and as usual i decided Bollywood was the safest topic to talk about, because it  generally puts most people at ease in a conversation.He was no exception,in fact he fell right on the central tendency line.After katrina kaif he started about aamir khan..and asked me "Is 3 idiots based a lot on this book people talk about...what is it ...5.something?

i wanted to answer ..then suddenly it struck me .I asked "have you not read five point something?"

He said "No,I am not into books".

(Chorus from the background-"Oh- My- God")

People who put "text books and magazines" under the books heading in orkut also would have read chetan bhagat.But Here was actually somebody who had not read chetan bhagat!!!!.

Add to it, that he lives in bengaluru,and is in last year of his computer science engineering,i had my Ripley-believe-it-or-not moment of 2010.

It also later occured to me how chetan bhagat has become the essential reading of our times.His books are like oliver twist and david copperfierlds of this generation.(do excuse the comparisions.. but  i dont think dickens would mind it too much if  his books were read as much, at all).

50 odd pages into 2 states,i am rather liking it.Especially if you consider that i am simultaneously trying to read albert camus' insightful essays into the associations between the the perception of the absurd and the forsaking of life.

You have to concede,Mr Bhagat chooses his plots and curves carefully and makes sure you have smiled a few times before you put down the book.Which is not that bad ,isn't it?

StatUS Quo

Once there was a boy who after watching 15 park avenue at 2 in the night, seriously thought of running away from home to learn film making.He closed the door behind him and sat on the steps for a long time.....The night was cold.Cold enough..alas... to kill the feeble fire inside.
No body would have stopped him.
No body would have stopped him had he.........

Once there was a boy who after 2 years of wonderful learning, seriously thought of taking physics as a career.He would be stubborn he thought.Physics........Gravity,Relativity,Uncertainity..beckoned...
Nobody could have stopped him.
Nobody could have stopped him,had he........
.
.
.
The boy hasn't died.
He never dies.Nor does his fear.

Frankly my dear, I DO give a damn.

Sometimes you are in so much of haste to treat a wound, that it ends up leaving a stain for a much longer period.You try to hide it first,then soothe and then try to walk brazenly as if you are not hurt a bit.But you keep paying attention.Always.Thus it grows. It appears to wane,to fade.But it grows.So much so, that after a while you  are not sorry that you hurt yourself,but sorry that you haven't forgotten it till now.

Neither forgotten.Nor forgiven.

May be,You don't want to forgive.You don't seek redemption but You'll not forgive.You don't wish him ill...may be because he can cause you no harm,or maybe because you have caused him enough......You don't wish him ill....for he no longer means anything to you.You just are trying to shrug off what he once meant to you. May be you only hurt yourself in the process...I don't know... it lingers,a scar,a blemish, it's alien....it's his....yet now it's yours.

Sometimes It's  not satisfying enough just to ignore somebody,So,you rant on your blog to see if it helps.

P.S-Please **** off somewhere.somewhere without orkut/gmail.. so that i don't have to see your stupid smile  and forwards again and i promise i'll try to forget you.

0.007

2 Bond movies in 2 days has not really helped my megalomania.I am dazed and overwhelmed by 007.You know,I am as such at a very impressionable stage of my career. Having quit the sole job i had been generously offered and as usual having been disillusioned by the lot around me,  Bond..James Bond, seems almost irreristable.I like him....
I have never seem in uniform, never seem him carrying files,for all i know,he does not have to even punch his card.....Of course he doesn't have a cubicle and PC of his own... but what the hell, most of the time i have seen him in presidential suites and swimming pools.[sigh].He gets super cool cars from his boss for all his official work.He travels by air so damn frequently as if they were company cabs .I have never seen him preserve his bills for reimbursement..wow and i have not even started about the gals.He just walks in..and sweeps girls off their feet onto whatever is flat and wide nearby.He, for one, has got license for many things..I wonder what is the qualification required?..Must not be much..they had once hired a milkman.!!!!!

Curse(ry) Rhymes

1.

Chubby cheeks, dimpled chin.
parting lips, teeth shining within.
Curly but few hair, very very fair.
Eyes are blue, spectacles too.
Boss' pet, is that you?
Yes! Yes! Yes!

2.

Twinkle twinkle grizzly bear,

How I wonder so fat you are,
hidden inside the cubicle so low,
Like a manhole cover on the sewage flow.
3.
Baa baa drunkard sheep, have you any work ?
Yes sir, yes sir, three weeks full !!
One for the grizzly bear, one for the chubby cheeks,
And one for the little boy who just left down the lane.


Unclaimer- All resemblances to people either dead,working or alive is purely typographical and unitended.All disputes to be tried under the jurisdiction of Mudhol village panchayath(Bagalkote District).

swalpa OVERflow

Lives indeed resemble rivers.
Many have been displaced and "displeased" because i decided to change course time and again.
I have had to meander because some refused to pave way.
I have merged, branched,no longer resembling what i was, but remaining in a way unchanged.
Lives indeed resemble rivers.
Some exotic ...some- boringly,commonplace.
some comfortably predictable ....some refreshing.
some elusive...some pacified.
some pristine..some turbid.
P.S -.I am no alien to being dam(n)ed either.