Drops from Solaris

Northern Skies

2010-10-16T09:34:00.000-07:00

He sits here every day. Everyday he comes here and sits. Among the many different ways in which you can change the syntax of this sentence, the semantics, unfortunately, always remains the same. Oh yes! This is not a complaint, one can be certain that he has lost the art of making a complaint, but, sometimes facts do sound like complains. When Newton discovered the laws of gravity, he also implicitly complained against the fact that humans can’t fly. This stupid planet keeps pulling you down to the ground and so, we created Superman, an alien who could fly and yes, save the world in the process.

He sits here every day with a sandwich looking at people walking on the streets of this strange, alien city where everyone has things to do and people to talk to. He has somehow managed to pick out loneliness in the myriad of options that he had when he entered this new city and chosen to sit with it and a sandwich waiting for the lunch break to get over. In fact, you could call him a stalker, just that he doesn’t stalk one person, he stalks people. He watches them everyday walking on the street and follows them till they disappear into the oblivion.

Sometimes you do end up finding strangeness in the everyday encounters with this bench. Just the other day he saw this couple, tall husband – short wife, a little strangely matched to be honest (though he couldn’t really be sure if they were married!) and the wife was carrying an umbrella trying to cover the head of her husband as it drizzled down from the clouds. Common sense would probably suggest that it would have been a lot easier for the husband to carry the umbrella, but the man was not bothered. He smoked his cigarette as his partner tried to prevent the inevitable drenching that was becoming a definite possibility. He wondered if that woman would have preferred sitting here in all the glory of loneliness than being with this man. After a moment, he realized she wouldn’t. No one wants to sit alone and have lunch all by themselves. People like talking about the trivialities that make them social. They would probably hang on to that umbrella just to be accepted.

But, today seemed to be different, one can’t be exactly certain why but some freak in office decided to get interested in Norse mythology and was sending out emails talking about the origin of Earth. “There was once no heaven above nor earth beneath, but only a bottomless deep, and a world of mist in which flowed a fountain. Twelve rivers issued from this fountain, and when they had flowed far from their source, they froze into ice, and one layer accumulating over another, the great deep was filled up.

Southward from the world of mist was the world of light. From this flowed a warm wind upon the ice and melted it. The vapours rose in the air and formed clouds, from which sprang Ymir, the Frost giant and his progeny, and the cow Audhumbla, whose milk afforded nourishment and food to the giant. The cow got nourishment by licking the hoar frost and salt from the ice. While she was one day licking the salt stones there appeared at first the hair of a man, on the second day the whole head, and on the third the entire form endowed with beauty, agility, and power. This new being was a god, from whom and his wife, a daughter of the giant race, sprang the three brothers Odin, Vili, and Ve. They slew the giant Ymir, and out of his body formed the earth, of his blood the seas, of his bones the mountains, of his hair the trees, of his skull the heavens, and of his brain clouds, charged with hail and snow. Of Ymir’s eyebrows the gods formed Midgard (mid earth), destined to become the abode of man.

Odin then regulated the periods of day and night and the seasons by placing in the heavens the sun and moon, and appointing to them their respective courses. As soon as the sun began to shed its rays upon the earth, it caused the vegetable world to bud and sprout. Shortly after the gods had created the world they walked by the side of the sea, pleased with their new work, but found that it was still incomplete, for it was without human beings. They therefore took an ash tree and made a man out of it, and they made a woman out of an alder, and called the man Aske and the woman Embla. Odin then gave them life and soul, Vili reason and motion, and Ve bestowed upon them the senses, expressive features, and speech. Midgard was then given them as their residence, and they became the progenitors of the human race.”

As he went about his day trying to read up more on Odin wondering how strange imagination could possibly be. He came to know about his messaging system, which involved warlike virgins, mounted upon horses and armed with helmets and spears called Valkyrior. When they ride forth on their errands, their armour sheds a strange flickering light, which flashes up over the northern skies, making what men call the “Aurora Borealis,” or “Northern Lights.”

Today, he sat on that bench wondering what it would be like to see the sky lighting up with a constellation of colours of every hue. Stalking people seemed irrelevant for the first time. For a second, the bench seemed to move in time and space as he felt the road in front of him change into a sheet of ice. The sun disappeared and a clear sky with stars twinkling appeared out of nowhere. He stood up and felt a sudden chill in the air as he realized that he was all alone surrounding by nothing except the great whiteness of snow in all directions. The bench was still there probably waiting to take him back.

And then it happened. Slowly a very blurry picture of magnificent colors became clearer. It reminded him of the days when he used to watch the sky every night with his telescope. Every night he had to re-adjust the lens to see that clear picture of the sky again. Only this time it seemed as if the sky was adjusting itself for a spectacular display of colors. In that one moment as he looked at those colors, he knew that life was more than subsistence. It was about living and seeing what the world had to offer. Not just the people and how somebody could just come in and change your life. But, the amazing thing that is this planet.

“Hey Amir, Compass is waiting for you in his cabin. You better hurry up!”

The ground was concrete again, the bench was still placed facing the street and people were still walking past it oblivious to their stalker. Suddenly he felt as if he had woken up from a long strange dream with the hand of a colleague on his shoulder.

“Oh! Thanks.”

He stood up and rushed to his Boss’s cabin and knocked. He had no idea why people called him Compass but he did always talk about directions to move forward.

“Amir, well it’s time for the annual review of your performance and I have to tell you that it is very positive but there are a few directions that we need to explore…”

“I quit!”

“What!?”

As he got out of that cabin and started to walk out, his Boss opened his cabin and said, “Amir! Wait. Where are you going?”

He turned and looked at his Boss and for the first time in ages, he smiled.

“To the Northern Skies.”

Fort Da!

2010-04-22T05:02:00.000-07:00

He was just sitting there… doing absolutely nothing. It’s kinda strange if you ask me. But, then for a psychology student, all kinds of behavior seem strange. It comes with education, I tell you. One day you are sitting by the side of your old man assuming that he just doesn’t like meeting people and the next day you get to know that he has social anxiety disorder. Why aren’t things simpler I wonder? Some people just don’t like people. Period! Just like the age old aphorism, “I love humanity; it is the people that I can’t stand.” There is nothing scientific about it… it’s just a state of being. Oh! Yes, the classic quandary faced by all psychology students, psychology and psychoanalysis are NOT science. They are just some pretentious scientific mumbo-jumbo used to explain the human condition.

I guess if you had said that to me while I was trying to work my ass off trying to pass those god forsaken exams, I swear to God, I would have killed you. It sure did seem like science. It was tough, unintelligible at times and more often than not, simply generalizable. Isn’t all of that pure characteristics of science? But then, we can go on trying to fight this over and yes, you might have an upper hand but, that does not undermine my respect for what I will be doing in the near future, if I do graduate. As usual, as it happens with most psychoanalysis session, we digressed from the original point. He was sitting there… doing absolutely nothing.

It was a hot summer evening and the summer break had just begun. This time our break did seem to have an additional touch of anxiety over the ongoing Kargil War. When you are young and mostly stupid, politics doesn’t seem to be your cup of tea, unless you’re a student leader. But, then Kargil had certainly become the talk of the country. But, why would we care? Anyway, so as I was saying, Railway station is an interesting site for observation. You always find quirky characters to talk about. If you do have a bunch of psychology kids around, who are waiting for a train which is delayed by 5 hours and the book stall has extremely expensive Sydney Sheldon books, then you are in for some cryptic over the top psycho-babble. Well it is quite a standard protocol with my set of friends here! I don’t know what happens with other psychology students. After an hour, films become obsolete and gossip over women seems mundane and then starts the treasure hunt for the most quirky character on the Railway Station.

There are lots of specimen… you can probably tell a lot about people by the things that they wear and the way they part their hair. Well in fact I was recently introduced to the idea of trustworthiness of beards. (http://i.imgur.com/PHmF5.jpg). Whether it’s just for fun or there is something deeper to it, might probably be a question that could be answered only if you actually end up meeting that person and interacting with them. In that sense, I agree with Freud. Every patient is unique. You cannot generalize the human mind, the tool-kit might be the same… the methods, the techniques… but the answers are always contextual.

This old man, seemed to be in his eighties or probably the expression on his face made him look older, was genuinely silent before he took out what looked like a photograph. He looked at it for while and then, kept the photograph back in his bag. Strangely enough, after a certain point of time, he had a worried look on his face and he started to frantically look for something in his bag. He searched and searched, emptied out most of the contents of his bag and then, he looked some more. After a whole lot of looking around, he lifted what seemed to be a photograph. His face was radiant with the joy of a discovery. He looked at the photograph intently for some time. Then, he started packing up his stuff again into the bag. After repacking his bag, he went silent, unmoving for 15 minutes, after which, he started emptying out his bag again looking for something till he found another photograph. Or was it the same, I am not sure. I am not a spy; I am just a psychology student.

Now, that’s a little freaky. Oh yes, it is politically incorrect for me to say such things but, to be honest, my personal reaction to it was, “Cool!”

“Hey guys! I think we have a winner. That old man, just look at him for 15 minutes and you will know why.”
The old man seemed to repeat the ritual with precise timing. He didn’t seem like there was something wrong with him. He wasn’t the roadside nut-jobs that you see around at Railway Stations looking for food. He was well-dressed, average middle-class person waiting for the train. Just like us. But, there was something surreal about him. He was absolutely normal apart from the constant ritual that he performed. There was a certain rhythm to it. Something unbelievably out of place and yet, it seemed to be perfectly normal, routine activity.
“What is he doing?” asked one of my friends.
“I have no idea.” The response as I said it seemed to raise more questions than answers.
“Is it the same photograph that he hides and then… finds…?”
“I don’t know.” As the risk of sounding stupid, let me just say that I am being honest here.
“That’s sure as hell a crazy way of killing time. But, wouldn’t he know where he hid the photograph before he starts finding it and defeat the whole purpose of the treasure hunt… wouldn’t it?”
“Treasure hunt… It’s a game.” Sometimes I do admire the trivial connections that I make.
“Duh! Here we thought he was an alien trying to locate his signal transmitter.”

“Fort Da!” This time… it’s a real connection. Probably not that trivial, if I can prove it.
“What!? How? Why?”
“Alright. In Freudian terms, Fort Da is the child’s invention of symbolism: the use of one object to represent another, absent object.”
“A little background information would be really helpful, Sir.” First year students are always a pain in the ass because they usual end up being the idiots who don’t know anything.
“Ok! In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud tells the story of a game his grandson invented at the age of one and a half, before he could speak many words. He used to throw small objects away from him, then say ‘oooh!’ with pleasure. He also took a wooden reel attached to a piece of string, and threw it over the edge of his cot, so that it disappeared. After saying ‘oooh!’ he would pull it back to himself and say, ‘da.’ He repeated this game over and over. Freud understood him to be saying ‘Fort’ and ‘Da’ which is German for ‘gone’ and ‘there’. He thought that this game of disappearance and return allowed the boy to manage his anxiety about the absences of his mother. Hence, the invention of symbolism… Now, do you get it?” Sometimes, I can be a real smug, you know.
“So the old man is playing the game because he is anxious about his mom. I am quite sure she might be dead, by now. Freud and his complexes… always amaze me.”

Despite the fact, that my friend was being stupid… he had a point. He was an old man displaying a child’s level of cognition. The game didn’t make sense and it couldn’t possibly have any relation to his mother. Or did it? Sometimes curiosity does take the better of you. I was interested in the ritual; it seemed like an interesting case study. Something worth talking about to my Professors if I could get a little more details. But, alas! His train arrived.

The old man started to pick up the things that he had taken out and put them back, he then started walking towards the train with the photograph in his hand. I ran towards the train. A perfect cover, if I were actually a spy. “I was just trying to catch the train” would be the cover story. I ran towards the old man trying to get close enough to have a look at the photograph. The old man had reached the door of the compartment by that time. As he moved tried to get inside, he turned the photograph while trying to get a better grip on the handrail. Before a brief moment of time, I could see the face on the photograph. It was a photograph of a young man, early twenties, dressed in an army uniform. On second thoughts, he looked like a younger version of the old man, in many ways.

I came back. There was nothing more to know or to see.
“So what did you see, James Bond?”
“Nothing! Couldn’t see the photograph. I guess he was just a crazy old man.” On second thoughts, I don’t really know why I lied.

The old man became a distant faded memory in about five minutes. A friend picked up the newspaper from the nearby bookstall and started reading it out loud.

“Fresh reports from Dras confirm that 5 were killed and 50 injured in the on-going battle to reclaim the Indian territory…”

Water

2010-04-02T07:36:00.000-07:00

It doesn’t rain here anymore. It hasn’t rained in the past 50 years. Being a 70 year old man living in this mess of a slum for most of my life, I can say it with quite certainty that I might be the oldest among the people who inhabit this Underworld. Not a very imaginative name I must say, but then most real things have unimaginative names anyway. We certainly wouldn’t call it Death Star or Zombie-land. How do I know these two names? Slums don’t usually have people who know about Star Wars and Resident Evil. The answer to this one is quite simple. Exiles usually end up in the Underworld. The Flying Cities don’t have place for people like me. The Underworld is also the new prison. It’s quite different from four walls and a set of bars. You’re free to go wherever you like except up in the sky.

Well this must definitely be confusing for you. A touch of history might clear things up. The world as we know it came to be, because one fine day, a genius (his name is irrelevant and he is dead… appropriately assassinated, I think) came up with a way of defy gravity. He made a house, a fully functional housing facility based on a typical suburban architecture that could float in the sky. Not very high though, just enough to symbolize the distance between people who could afford it and people who couldn’t. It’s strange how semiotics can be such a powerful weapon. If you could build a house, then you could build a mansion, you could build a multiplex, roads, a complete lifestyle to create the Air Elite. It was just a matter of time when technology caught up again to change the world one more time. It definitely saved humanity from Global Warming. This time, in a way that was strangely surreal.

Air space! You must have heard of the idea that when you’re buying an apartment on the 20th floor of a building, all you own is the air in your apartment. The ground certainly isn’t yours. You own it with hundred other people who live in that building. Having a piece of land, in that sense, was important. It gave a sense of true ownership. Ironically, air which was so cheap for entire generations of humans from the Caveman up to Einstein became the most expensive commodity of this world. Yes, you would wonder about the technology and how was it possible and how do you create power for such things and how do these buildings stay afloat, but, I am sorry; my answer to all of these questions would be that I don’t know. I am not an engineer, I don’t have an IQ of 180, and I don’t even want to know how it all came to be. I just know that we got screwed over by Science in a very literal way.

Man has always been social. Whether on ground or up in the sky. Individual floaters started connecting with each other. As the number of Air Elite increased, a whole new concept of Flying Cities came up. It was a booming market for infrastructure companies. With a whole new world of opportunities, the capitalist economy created the novel idea of Flying Nations. Create a set of Flying Cities, join them together with Flying Roads and call the conglomeration a bloody country named after the firm that built the whole thing. It was a fucking genius idea. People who could afford it, bought citizenship of these Nations and started living there. Work permits, Residence permits, everything could be bought, if you had enough money. The rest of the people, people who run the daily lives of these rich bastards were immigrants. No rights, only an opportunity to experience Life above Earth.

I was one of these rich bastards. I made a butt load of money by making a Facebook application that used Jung-Myers-Briggs typology for personality testing to find you a matching date. Yes, the same stuff that is used for career advice. Simple idea, if you think about it. If you can decide what kind of job you would be good at, why can’t you statistically decide who would be a good match for you, if you have a big enough data set of people who have already taken the test. Anyway, I bought my way in and then, I was thrown out. Why you ask? The reason begins with what happens if you live up there rather than living down here.

You get shelter, but you need the other two very important things for survival: food and water. Food became a no-issue once they brought the best top soil to create Flying fields. Why did we need Flying fields? Why wasn’t earthly food good enough? The reason is basic economics. If you depend on people down on earth for basic needs of survival, you have demand and they have the supply, which will eventually screw you over. You need to create your own fields, so that you don’t have to depend on them. Hence, the creation of flying fields was thought of as the only viable solution. Also, pests seem to be less of a problem considering you need earth to support most of them. Yes, a lot of science and terra-forming at an aerial level is involved here. I must apologize; I can only give you the basics.

The only thing left was water. And now, we can start all over again. It doesn’t rain in the Underworld, because clouds are the primary source of water for the Flying cities. When it rains, it rains on the Flying cities; the Underworld gets rain on the outskirts. Imagine a world on top of you that cuts off the simple pleasures of sunshine and rain. Something that you wouldn’t miss for a day or two, probably even months, but, years of no rain and sunshine, has its own set of implications. Osteomalacia and Rickets were encountered at an epidemic level. People were in pain, extreme “musculoskeletal pain” as the doctors called it. There was no land in the Underworld that wasn’t covered by something flying above your head. Not that there was much of it left after the full impact of Global Warming was realized.

Millions of people died and all that the Air Elite did was to let them. Survival of the fittest literally became survival of the wealthiest, and I decided to do something about it. Classic case of a stupid guerrilla rebellion… we tried to smuggle people up, decided to fight the system. The trouble with guerrilla warfare is that it works only if you are fighting on your own turf. We didn’t have a turf. We were all up there in a place custom designed by people we were fighting against. Now that I look at it, it does feel like something only idiots like me could have managed that. William Blake once said, “A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.” I believe that sometimes the fool is right and that’s all the history that there is for me to tell you.

All in all, I have managed to survive everything that this Underworld has managed to throw at me. We share a permanent exploited state with the permanent exploiter state of the Flying World. They say that all forms of exploitation are possible for a time only because the exploited need the exploiters, that is to say, there is a real basis for love. I guess living down here depending for literally everything on the Flying World that exists above us, we do need them. We need them for water and for food, but, it’s not love that makes this relationship work. It is mutual hatred. They need us for cleaning their cities, waiting at their tables, cleaning out their garbage. We need them because we have nowhere else to go.

Life isn’t fair. It never was. But, I think the one thing that I have to say at the end of it all, living in the real manifestation of Dante’s Inferno is that I miss the rain. I miss the drops of water flowing down my cheeks to meet their purpose of merging into earth. I really do.

[Inspiration | a TED Talk | Shekhar Kapur: We are the stories we tell ourselves

URL: http://www.ted.com/talks/shekhar_kapur_we_are_the_stories_we_tell_ourselves.html]

Strange Encounters with the Romeo Kinds

2010-03-10T09:19:00.000-08:00

The day began like any other day. That’s such a useless beginning. What does it really tell you? Absolutely nothing and then to continue to point out that it is telling you nothing is more pointless (for the lack of a better word). But, yes, the day did begin like it always does. A little late for work, she wondered when she would find an alarm clock that actually works. Its strange how you always find something out there to blame for all of your troubles. Nothing is ever wrong with you.

So, let’s make it short and simple, she got ready and was out of her room within the next 30 minutes. Her personal best; for the record! Strangely enough, that actually left her with some time, before she had to take the train. What do you usually do to kill time? If you ask a smoker, they will tell you to stand by the side of the road and smoke your life away. It doubly kills time! If you ask her, she would probably just end up in a restaurant-café with freshly made coffee and a “Mean Bagel with Cream Cheese”! The restaurant definitely had a strange combination of things going on being a little Punjabi run Indian and Jewish snack place. There is limited clarity on the Jewish angle to this restaurant but, she will probably figure it out someday.

So she is sitting there, still trying to wake up, when a young man comes, walking by her side and sits on a table right next to her. The guy seemed ‘cute’ enough to deserve a glance and as she tries to sneak a peek like a Russian spy, she realizes that the guy is point blank staring at her. Suddenly, the cuteness disappears and the creepiness takes over. Staring is not allowed in our culture anymore. You can’t look at a thing/person of beauty and call it joy forever. That would be inappropriate and yes, people do stare at things, probably even like staring at things. Also, people that are being stared at, more often than not, enjoy being the center of attention (except if you are a celebrity, then it is just a cliché)… but, it’s still inappropriate. It is a mad world that we live in.

Anyway, the creepiness takes over, but she decides to hold it together. The guy is just staring that’s not a big deal unless he actually tries to do something. Probably he will stalk me and follow me back to my room and make a whole scene there. Mrs. Robinson won’t be too happy about that. Or probably he will make a scene here. This could possibly get so out of control and utterly embarrassing. She wondered why she always manages to attract wierdos and good-for-nothing assholes her way. Why can’t she ever find a decent guy? God has stopped manufacturing them these days. The last time, she went out on a date……

“Do you speak French?” Her thought process was suddenly brought to an abrupt end by this young, previously ‘cute’ creepy guy.
“What?”
“Do you speak French?”
“A little bit, I can manage.”
“Tu es la plus belle femme que j’ai vi dans ma vie.”

She had never heard those words before in French. Or quite certainly, her language classes never taught flirting in French as a part of the course module. She could pick up on a few words but the sentence made no sense whatsoever.
A blank expression on her face seemed to say it all. Using Cricketing terms, the cute creepy guy was almost taken on his backfoot and was about to take his bails off himself, when he recovered.

“So, a little bit is not much… is it?”
“I guess not,” she said. “Do you need something?”
“Oh! No. Not at all. I was just trying to say that you’re the most beautiful woman that I have seen in my life. I might even have mixed it up in that sentence. It’s good that you don’t speak the language.”
“Why in French?”
“Because French is supposed to be romantic or something. I don’t know. I am making a complete fool out of myself here. Ain’t I?”
“A little bit.” She said, smiling to herself. The outward appearance was still so serious that it would have thrown any guy off his game. If you want to call this a game, that is.
“I don’t understand, you didn’t ask me to go away. You just asked why in French? Did it work?”
“What do you mean by ‘Did it work’?”
“Ah! There should be a law against putting your foot in to your mouth. Probably, then I would know better.”
“If you are done, I think I need to leave.”
“Would you like to get together sometime? Grab a lunch or dinner or watch a movie or something.”
“The answer to that would be NO.”
“Hmm… I had kinda guessed that one coming my way. But, seriously you’re pretty! What are you doing this evening?”
“Does that ever work?”
“The French thing… no! Definitely no. But, what are you doing this evening? Yes, usually people do tell me what they are up to that evening when I ask them.” He chuckled… This might have been the smartest thing that he had said in that brief encounter.
“Well, it doesn’t when it comes to me and especially, when the question begins with ‘seriously you’re pretty’”
“Okay! Have a good day.”

He left her table, went back to his table and predictably, continued staring at her. She picked up the bill, paid for her coffee and the bagel. Went outside and started walking towards the station with an eye on her back trying to see if this guy was following her.

Good-natured as some Romeos are. He wasn’t and that would probably be the end of it.

As she sat in the train wondering about this guy, she realized how strange the encounter was. Probably the nicest sleaze ever! She couldn’t stop smiling for sometime at the thought of it, but it might be just that the guy was practicing on her. If she could fall for it, then probably the actual ‘most beautiful girl in the world’ might also fall for it. Suddenly she felt ugly, which honestly, is strange in its own way. Am I not good enough to be the most beautiful woman in the world? I might have just pushed away the one guy who actually said it. There was a strange sense of honesty there. He must know that it just doesn’t work that way if you simply tell a girl. There was something uniquely impulsive to it and despite the fact she knew that it would be insane to follow up on such things… it ultimately made her feel special. Probably even made her day.

“So the French thing doesn’t work… does it?”

“See, ‘Do you know French?’ is a perfect conversation starter. The trick is to say something in French that is not entirely grammatically correct. You have three outs here…

One, the girl knows French and if she tells you the right way of saying it, then you are so totally in. All that you have to do is to say that you are not very good at French and take it from there in English.

Two, the girl doesn’t know French and you take on the conversation from there in English and you sound cool because you know French. Here there might be three possibilities. One, she gives you the stone face and you quickly acknowledge that even you don’t know French that well. Then you both might have a common ground. You both don’t know French. You could possibly try to use that. Two, she smiles and you have already established that you know French which is cool and you take it from there. Three, she slaps you after you translate it in English. In this case, you should probably get the hell out of there.

Three, the girl knows French and she slaps you. That’s the quickest Game Over.

I guess, sometimes you do end up making a fool out of yourself anyway. It is always a risk if you put yourself out there. But, it’s better than not knowing, isn’t it?”

Ice-breaking is a science. Number-game with probability trees. Some people don’t need it and the rest, will probably spend the rest of their lives trying to figure it out. But, more often than not, generally, a ‘Hello’ does seem to work. Doesn’t it?

Once

2010-02-16T09:12:00.000-08:00

“You see you're just like everyone
When you share your falls
All you want to do is run away
And hide all by yourself
When there's fall, there's fall
There's nothing else!” (Once, 2006)

He had seen that film, he remembered the song. It’s strange how a few things stick with you. Out of the hundred things that you encounter in a day, sometimes the most insignificant, grabs your attention. It’s an amazing sense of discovery, I guess. To hold onto something so trivial, as if it meant the world. To see something that nobody else can see, to revel in that discovery as if you have reached the heights of achievement.

Now these lyrics are not all that brilliant, a hundred singers must have sung them in their own ways. It’s a universal truth that keeps reappearing because it seems to be a fact of life. Then, why this film? Why this song? I guess it might have something to do with the context; he was in the space where he could appreciate the meaning of these words. They meant something to him. He could listen to what they were trying to say.

He had heard this expression from most of the people around him. “Amir, why don’t you ever listen?” Till that point in time, in the 25 years of his life, he always wondered what it meant. He seemed to not be deaf; he could hear just fine. In fact, he did hear what most of the people tried to tell him all the time. Advice because that’s usually free unless you are hiring a consultant, predictable conversations with his sister, girlfriend and a myriad of his friends, the quaint serenity of his mother’s voice and the depth in his father’s voice. But, the problem was that most of the times, he already knew what they were going to say to him.

Predictability is a ubiquitous skill. Everybody has it. There are just a few who don’t. Well, if you do manage to ask him, I guess he would rather say that he doesn’t really know if these people who are unpredictable actually do manage to change the world. But, he knew that there are just a very few handful of them. For the rest, he supposed that he doesn’t really need to listen. He could predict what was coming his way when most of the people opened their mouths.

He would be a terrible ethnographer, I tell you. The unfortunate part of having the skill to notice predictability is that life exists in broad strokes. Everybody is predictable, but everybody has nuances. If you really want to know somebody, sometimes you need to go beyond the predictable. He was too lazy to ever engage in that quest.

The result is something predictable. Superficiality! If you don’t listen, there is no meaning. Because meaning comes from listening, not just to people, it is embedded in your very own lifeworld. Everything speaks, places, things, shoe boxes, notes, scribbles, books, ashtray… if you are listening close enough, everything has a story to tell. Some of these stories are again predictable, while the few that aren’t, make memories.

So, what’s his story? Pretty darn simple in broad strokes, I guess. A 25 year old in quarter-life crisis who believes that rock n’ roll will change the world, has a good ‘functional’ family that loves him but doesn’t quite get to the end of understanding him, has friends who sometimes initiate the randomness of adventures which seem meaningless after they are accomplished, a girlfriend who expects more out of him and yes, the most important, no sense of the future. He loved predictability, but hated it when it was about his future.

What attracted him about the film was not the film itself… It was the title of one of the songs in the soundtrack: When Your Mind’s Made Up. Of course, the lines that begin this narrative are borrowed from it. He scribbled them down on a post-it and made the first ever post-it note to himself. Then, he remembered the time when his dad actually bought that post-it pad for him.

“Sometimes you just need a few things to remember,” he said.

He didn’t quite listen to him, then. “Well, I have a big enough head to remember things,” he thought to himself. Since then, the post-it pad was lost in the randomness of his room. So, now when he picked it out and made his first note and looked at it every single day, because it was the only one there up on his wall! He realized that he would have forgotten the film and the song in a few days after he had experienced it, if the note hadn’t been there.

Why he wrote this specific note, you ask. Well the answer is quite simple. He realized that he would make a future for himself when his mind’s made up. Till then, he seemed to be floating in the abyss of unpredictability and he somehow seemed to enjoy it. He wasn’t hiding anymore and that seemed to lighten him up. The problem with writing down such a meaningful first note (meaningful to him at least!) is that it had become increasingly hard for him to find anything that tops it.

As time passed by, the way it usually does, he realized that everything that he knows about everything around him, is just not fit to be on his post-it notes. He had to look for more. He had to go deeper. His wall had one post-it note and if he really wanted to fill it, he had to find meaning in other encounters, with friends, with family, with objects, with the sheer randomness of everyday life.

“There has to be a mathematical explanation for how bad that tie is.” (A Beautiful Mind, 2001)
“She always stirs her coffee for about 5 minutes after putting in two cubes of sugar before having it. She says that it makes the coffee sweeter.” (Probably a note on his girlfriend Samara, I am not sure)
“Dad likes the idea of a gramophone, but he would probably never get it because he thinks that the world belongs to iPod now.” (This is definitely about his dad)
“The problem with rock and roll is that the generation that created it is now the establishment. Rock pretends it's still rebellious with its video posturing, but who believes it? The stars are all either 45-year-old zillionaires or they endorse soft drinks! The 'revolution' is a capitalist industry! Give me a break! Fortunately, I've found some protest music for today's youth. This stuff really offends Mom and Dad!” (Calvin and Hobbes)
“She loves looking at family albums. Every few days, for about half an hour, she opens one of the collections and takes out all the photographs and rearranges them. Her face lights up when she does that. I have never seen her happier than in that half an hour.” (Mostly likely this one is about his mother)

His room became increasingly private. Nobody was allowed to enter it. As he started making notes on his sister’s secret obsession with Batman, the random quirks of his friends and experiences of everydayness, he realized that the wall was more about his life and the people that he is connected to than anything else that he had ever indulged in. People were less predictable now, they were special. Experiences had lost their everydayness; they were sometimes worth a post-it. He smiled more often, he lived a little more.

And suddenly, he realized that people around had stopped telling him that he doesn’t listen anymore. I guess because he did start listening. His mind was made up. He knew that the future would always be unpredictable, but the present was just as unpredictable as the future. The past had left its impressions on his wall.

And then, he invited everybody to his room, to share his wall. The entire thing was filled up with post-its except the center. There was place for one more. As everybody read through the post-its, Samara asked him about the centerpiece. As he tried to explain that he hadn’t found the centerpiece as yet, she asked him for a post-it. She scribbled something on it and said that this might be appropriate.

He looked at it and smiled. He knew this was it! He took it and placed in the centre of a huge concoction of personal words. He turned around and everybody laughed. As everybody started leaving his room to go downstairs, he was alone in his room. He looked at his wall, smiled and then turned around to leave the room. As he was just about to turn off the lights, he read the centerpiece once again.

“On really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion.” (Waking Life, 2001)

The Bee Hive!

2010-02-01T01:52:00.000-08:00

(Image Courtesy: http://rubiestone.deviantart.com/art/hive-59898663)

I read this somewhere. It’s not that inspiring a line to begin this note with, but I guess I don’t have anything else. Language can be really constraining, if you can’t pick the words. So yes, the line is… “Imagination is fed by language, watered by history, nourished by art, and liberated by social thought.”

Why this line you ask? Well because life is just simply the sum total of all that you can imagine.

---

Some really important person once thought and put down two interesting ideas into something called religion.

God made humans in his own image.
God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh.

I guess if I am to believe that to be true, I would also agree with all those people who complain that he/she should not have rested on the seventh day. World would have been a much better place if he/she had stopped being lazy and put in a little more effort. I live in this world, constantly enthralled with its chaos that I add to, hoping for order! Hoping for stability, a notion of life with perpetual happiness and satisfaction… And it never happens.

I am surprised, I crib, I cry, hoping for some answers. And then, I start setting up routines, I create my own order, coffee in the morning, meeting the same old gang of friends every single time after class, making dinner at nine. And every once in a while, I start seeing the monotony of this routine and I wonder why do I need it? Life should be chaotic. I should try to go up on an escalator that’s going down sometime. I should try to sketch and paint sometime. I should open the windows of my room when it’s raining sometime. Just for the heck of it!

In between the clash of order and chaos, I see that I have successfully spent 25 years of my life accomplishing nothing. I don’t like my routines and I don’t like being away from them. It’s a kind of ambivalence that ‘My Dinner with Andre’ leads you into. A state of suspension… A middle ground… Where every single trophy that you have won, every single moment of sheer happiness that you have experienced, every single moment of utter pain that you have been through… seem distant. As if they were moments from somebody else’s life, being run in front of your eyes like a motion picture.

Yes, I do have a complaint against God’s procrastination. If he/she did make us in his/her own image, I guess he/she should have spent the seventh day teaching us his/her language. Life would have been so much easier if we could just imagine it. Imagination is fed by language, if I don’t know the language in which the world was created, how can I ever imagine what’s my purpose in it?

---

But then, I should let God be. I like being an atheist. The world was created by the sheer chance of things working out for our mother planet. There was life and we evolved from a single cell organism. That’s our history. Nothing very fancy to it… Just took a few billion years and here I am watching, ‘My Dinner with Andre.’ The world, that I belong to, has an amazing history. It has some beautiful, eternal stories that nobody would ever forget; stories of courage, love, hate, tragedy, comedy, drama, melodrama, pain, suffering… The world is fascinating in broad strokes.

And I am a part of it. But, then people say that the beauty is in details. While the world might seem fascinating in an encyclopedia, the real world is all about details. Small little details… here and there! Everywhere! Look at how a white sugar cube changes to brown when you make an end of it touch your coffee and you will get a glimpse of what color really is. Look at the wrinkles on the faces of an old couple sitting on a bench and you would realize what being together really means. Read a really bad book end-to-end and you would realize what patience is. Sometimes, we just remember a good coffee, an old couple and a bad book; we just don’t remember the details.

What can I learn here? Should I focus on the broad strokes, should I go for the details? What should I be really doing? I guess there is something to both of them. Like a friend told me, “Run behind one for a while… and when you get bored… run behind the other!” Life seems like a long, meandering, chase scene from 'Ronin'. The good part is that it’s exciting this way; the sad part is that it’s very tiring. It goes against the very idea of stability that everyone seems to want.

My being will always be watered by my past, by our history. In that sense, I don’t have a restart button. It’s a very convenient idea, I tell you! But, it’s a myth. Hence, imagination of my being is probably the additions that I can make to my past, being in the present, hoping for a better future. The future in that sense embeds itself in the imagination of the past. And the present is just a pendulum between what happened and what can be done about it?

---

I wake up every day to see the sun shining down my window. It’s a painter’s delight. Seeing the blue of the sky, merge with the endless yellow of the sun. It’s a combination with infinite possibilities. The sky can possibly surprise me every single day with odd white combinations of clouds, with the moon showing itself beside the sun, with the orange that fills up sky on a sunset. But, I rarely look up into the sky. I keep walking, head down, straight on red strap of a black road. And all that I remember is that I need to reach somewhere and sometime in the future, I will reach there.

Let’s use a cliché. Life is a journey. I keep reaching destinations. While reaching those destinations that eventually become milestones, I set up routines to get me there. But, somehow when I talk to old friends, I can’t possibly imagine telling them about these milestones, without mentioning the insignificant stories that I experienced while I reached there. The milestones are a one-minute conversation. The stories fill-up hours.

All the laughter, all the sorrow, all the excitement, all the fear… everything seems to be in the story. The times when I was awake all night long just to meet a deadline, the times when I made an egg explode in a microwave, the times when rode a bike on a mountain road in pitch darkness without headlights. These stories are so much bigger than the milestone of graduating, learning how to cook and a trip to Leh.

As I watch ‘My Dinner with Andre,’ I understand what being nourished by art means. Art is the singular, most powerful form of expression. If I can’t express my life, if I can’t express my dreams, hopes, aspirations… then I have no sense of the past and the future. And my present would be an utterly confused state of being… looking for words, images, sketches, scribbles… anything to fill up the empty spaces.

---

I remember sitting on a porch in the only small little enclosure that seemed to be dry as it rained all around, wondering if I could ever enjoy a rainfall. If I could just let go of the idea that I always have to be in dry clothes and just enjoy being in the rain. Like a child running madly in his backyard enjoying the pelting drops of water on his face. If I would ever open up my arms and let the wind take me away into its world of freedom for just a brief moment of time. As I kept sitting there wondering, it suddenly struck me that I could do it right then.

There is nothing extra-ordinary about this experience, nothing that changed my world… my being. But, it was one of the most serene moments of my life. A thought converted into action in a brief span of seconds. Harmless as it might be, it is liberating. Imagine a world where there would be no darkness, imagine a world where there is no waste, imagine a world where one does not have to pretend and behave in a socially acceptable norm. As I see this world with bulbs and electricity, with windmills and recycling plants, with underground movements and human rights, I realize that we create our own problems and then we endlessly try to solve them.

When I see a streetlight, I sometimes wonder if I could for once turn it off and just see if the moon is enough. When I look at our science which says that a perpetual motion machine is impossible, I wonder if I could just live in a forest for a bit and just see how it manages to sustain the intricate balance of life so effortlessly. When I see that I have a right to life, I wonder if I also have a right to a way of life. In that sense, as I look into wildlife, I realize that every other species does not necessarily need a right to life, but they always have the right to a way of life. And that is what makes the food chain work.

Imagination is liberated by social thought. As I sit down here at the end of, ‘My Dinner with Andre’… as one of the only two characters in the film looks outside the window of his cab, searching for memories in every street of the city that he has lived in all his life… I wonder how constraining it is to just embed myself within the collection of people around me called society. But, I can’t just live alone! So the only point of liberation that I find is that people around me who feel the same way. At least some of them do. I am looking for my own way of life within millions of people trying to explore their ways of life. And someday I will get there.

---

This is the bee hive that we live in. Where everybody has their own language, where everybody has a past, a present and a future, where everybody tries to express themselves every single day, where everybody should have a right to a way of life. A set of interconnected cells where a change in one cell influences all the cells connected to it. A story of a never-ending chain reaction… The world is brimming with energy and I am glad that I am a part of it. That I can imagine, I can create, I can destroy… and probably I can just be.

(Tribute to 'My Dinner with Andre', The Couch in my Maastricht Room, 31st January, 2010)

Voices from Chernobyl

2009-11-02T11:57:00.000-08:00

This is not original. I guess, something so real cannot be created within imagination. But, I must confess that reading Voices from Chernobyl: : The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster changes you. In its own small little way, it makes you aware of the fact that misery has many forms and it has its own life. And sometimes, you just end up praying that you don't encounter this form of it.

I want to bear witness . . .

It happened ten years ago, and it happens to me again every day.

We lived in the town of Pripyat. In that town.

I'm not a writer. I won't be able to describe it. My mind is not capable of understanding it. And neither is my university degree. There you are: a normal person. A little person. You're just like everyone else—you go to work, you return from work. You get an average salary. Once a year you go on vacation. You're a normal person! And then one day you're suddenly turned into a Chernobyl person. Into an animal, something that everyone's interested in, and that no one knows anything about. You want to be like everyone else, and now you can't. People look at you differently. They ask you: was it scary? How did the station burn? What did you see? And, you know, can you have chil-dren? Did your wife leave you? At first we were all turned into animals. The very word "Chernobyl" is like a signal. Everyone turns their head to look at you. He's from there!

That's how it was in the beginning. We didn't just lose a town, we lost our whole lives. We left on the third day. The reactor was on fire. I remember one of my friends saying, "It smells of reactor." It was an indescribable smell. But the papers were already writing about that. They turned Chernobyl into a house of horrors, although actually they just turned it into a cartoon. I'm only going to tell about what's really mine. My own truth.

It was like this: They announced over the radio that you couldn't take your cats. So we put her in the suitcase. But she didn't want to go, she climbed out. Scratched everyone. You can't take your belongings! All right, I won't take all my belong-ings, I'll take just one belonging. Just one! I need to take my door off the apartment and take it with me. I can't leave the door. I'll cover the entrance with some boards. Our door—it's our talisman, it's a family relic. My father lay on this door. I don't know whose tradition this is, it's not like that everywhere, but my mother told me that the deceased must be placed to lie on the door of his home. He lies there until they bring the coffin. I sat by my father all night, he lay on this door. The house was open. All night. And this door has little etch-marks on it. That's me growing up. It's marked there: first grade, second grade. Seventh. Before the army. And next to that: how my son grew. And my daughter. My whole life is written down on this door. How am I supposed to leave it?

I asked my neighbor, he had a car: "Help me." He gestured toward his head, like, You're not quite right, are you? But I took it with me, that door. At night. On a motorcycle. Through the woods. It was two years later, when our apartment had already been looted and emptied. The police were chasing me. "We'll shoot! We'll shoot!" They thought I was a thief. That's how I stole the door from my own home.

I took my daughter and my wife to the hospital. They had black spots all over their bodies. These spots would appear, then disappear. About the size of a five-kopek coin. But nothing hurt. They did some tests on them. I asked for the results. "It's not for you," they said. I said, "Then for who?"

Back then everyone was saying: "We're going to die, we're going to die. By the year 2000, there won't be any Belarussians left." My daughter was six years old. I'm putting her to bed, and she whispers in my ear: "Daddy, I want to live, I'm still little." And I had thought she didn't understand anything.

Can you picture seven little girls shaved bald in one room? There were seven of them in the hospital room . . . But enough! That's it! When I talk about it, I have this feeling, my heart tells me—you're betraying them. Because I need to describe it like I'm a stranger. My wife came home from the hospital. She couldn't take it. "It'd be better for her to die than to suffer like this. Or for me to die, so that I don't have to watch anymore." No, enough! That's it! I'm not in any condition. No.

We put her on the door ... on the door that my father lay on. Until they brought a little coffin. It was small, like the box for a large doll. I want to bear witness: my daughter died from Chernobyl. And they want us to forget about it.

Nikolai Fomich Kalugin, father

The Willow Tree (2005)

2009-10-10T06:16:00.000-07:00

Change is such an eternal complexity that questions your sense of being. No matter how much you try to force yourself to remain constant, the flux inevitably takes you away into a journey towards a deeper self… something closer to your sense of your presence in the world. Something eclectic; it’s something so utterly unknown that you have to conquer your senses again. Your perceptions, your emotions, your life!

The fascination with the hope of exploring something new always affects your equilibrium, a delicate balance of relationships, connections and friendships that make you the person that you are. It changes your soul. Youssef encounters this change as he is diagnosed with a tumor in his right eye. As he struggles with this news that could possibly mean his death, he writes a note to God and tucks it between the pages of a volume of the Mathnawi, the mystical masterpiece by the Persian Sufi poet Rumi. The note says:

"I'm the one you deprived of the beauties of the world and who never complained. Instead of light and brightness, I lived in darkness and gloom and I didn't protest. I found happiness and peace in this small paradise. Are all these years of suffering not enough that you now want to cause me even more suffering? Will I come back from this trip to my loving family? Will this illness bring me to my knees? To whom should I complain about what you are doing to me? I beg of you to show me more compassion. Don't take my life away."

There is a certain power in events that define your life. As he gets to know later that the tumor is benign and he might actually be able to see after 38 years with a successful cornea transplant… he writes another note.

“I know I was wrong. My biggest mistake was not knowing you well enough. Now I know you didn't cross me off your book of compassion. You didn't forget about me. You're with me and protecting me. If only your goodness could be complete. Now that you've taken my hand, I beg you to lead me all the way. More than anyone else I long for the light. If I come out of this darkness, I'd be with you forever.”

As he struggles, through the night, at the end of which, his bandages would be removed, the inevitable question of change somehow drives his emotions to the point that he takes off his bandages in the night itself. To be able to see! What would it mean to a person who has been blind for 38 years? And suddenly there you are, trapped in the blackhole of his life, as you want to know, how does this notion of a new experience of life, changes him as a person?

Happiness revels in relativity. There is a certain difference between need and want. You might want something desperately, but then you might end up realizing that you don’t really need it. You might need something as a part of your life and you may never realize that you have always wanted it as well. Between the need and the want, happiness is trapped in the vicious circle of wanting things that you don’t need and needing things that you don’t want.

How does your notion of love change with the addition of another sense? How did he perceive his wife before he could see her? He might have imagined her to have the most beautiful face that he could ever see. Because it was her face. There is in no inherent logic to it, he doesn’t even have anything to compare it with as well. But when you can compare, do you stop loving her because there are prettier faces in the world? How does your worldview change when you know that you don’t need anybody to guide you when you are walking down the street? When you have lived under the burden of sympathy all your life, how does it feel to be independent? How does it feel to be free from the entire notion of a support system?

People, who love you, somehow always expect you to remain the same, so that they can love you forever. What happens when you change? Suddenly you encounter a new burden after you have been liberated, the burden of the past; of a dependent life. The freedom that you get is accompanied with the guilt of being free. And suddenly you realize that change is not always beautiful. Within the chaos in which we lead our lives, change has a butterfly effect and you are left to grapple with the consequences.

When his mother finally asks him, “What have you done with your life?”

Youssef suddenly realizes this burden of the past as he shouts, “Does anyone understand how much I've suffered all these miserable years without saying a word? Everyone felt sorry for me. You, my wife, everyone around me. I don't need anyone anymore. I want the life I'm entitled to. I've lost the best years of my life. Look around and see what I've got. Do you call this a life? A handful of nothing? Four trees and a house… I thought was a little paradise? I'm sick of this paradise. I want to live my own life. Yes, I want to live my way!”

And then as if suddenly realizing that he is about to lose the one person he shares the strongest of connections, he asks, “Can you understand that? Can you?”

But, by that time, his mother has already left and he is alone. Loneliness is the one thing that makes you realize that there is no difference between need and want. You need and want the same things. It’s just about perspective. As Youssef struggles to find meaning for his life, he faces another change. His body seems to be rejecting the cornea transplant and he is going blind again.

Everything in the end means nothing and all that you can hope for is another chance. As he struggles through the day when he gets this news, he finally finds the volume of Mathnawi and the first note that he had written.

He places his finger on the first line of the note and it says…

“My God, I am asking you... for another chance... to start a new life!”

Synaesthesia

2009-10-02T13:36:00.000-07:00

Splinters of magnificent color… Colors that broke the logic of brightness and contrast, hue and saturation… All that they seemed to obey was the rationale of beauty. Music in that sense was a perfect harmony of colors, of the blues and the yellows that merged together to create the perfect symmetry. Sound was paraphrased into vision. It was surreal and she was lost in the middle of it all. Being deaf had a different meaning for her.

She wondered if it was all because of her love for music. Her acoustic guitar bought at the age of eight was still her most prized possession. She loved playing it while she could still do it before she lost her hearing entirely. Over the years, she had learnt to live without sound, the perfect interaction of chords and strums that made her swing to the music. She loved every bit of the blue notes, the improvisations, the syncopation, the polyrhythm… everything that made life so much more livable.

She had dreaded every moment of the realization that she was going deaf. Life in that sense can be cruel sometimes and living every second with the eternal fear of losing something that is the closest to your heart is utterly painful. Sometimes ignorance is such a bliss. She held onto her guitar for hours, playing till her fingers bled, as she tried to listen to every bit of music that she could before it will all get over.

He wondered if could ever help. If he could ever feel her pain, let her know that he understood how she felt. He knew that she was losing a part of herself and he knew what that meant. He knew that she would never be the same again and he was losing her, the way he had her. In a way, both of them were losing something closest to their hearts. They were both in pain, they were both inconsolable and they both knew that they were the only ones in the whole wide world who could understand each other.

But, things that you love never change. He realized it after he tried everything to make her happy. At the end of it all, he took her to an Opera and she smiled… for the first time after a really long, long time. She enjoyed the reactions that she could see on faces. She enjoyed the composition as it swirled between the high notes and descended into the low notes. She could sense it, she could feel it; she could read music that filled the air. She kissed him as they got back home and he knew that he finally got it right.

He picked up her guitar and gave it to her. She looked at him wondering what it all meant as he asked her to play. She knew everything there was to know to hit the right chords, she remembered her favorite tunes and she started playing… every single one of them. They were awake the whole night as she kept playing and he kept listening… hoping that the night would never end and she would remain as ecstatic as she looked then.

Their days meandered through music which she so desperately wanted to hear. He could sense her pain as she continued playing her guitar and wondered if could ever make her listen to herself. She was creating elegance every time she touched her guitar and he felt helpless listening to all of it, knowing that he could do nothing to make her feel the peace of the music she created.

And then it all happened. Crossing a street in a busy market place, she saw a man playing his guitar, trying to make a living. She went towards him and as she saw him strum, she could suddenly see colors emerging from the chords. Resplendent, beautiful, eternally gorgeous colors. Surprised, she dropped a note in his hat. The man had been hungry for a long time. He took the note and left his guitar for while to get some food. She kept standing there waiting for him to come back. She wanted to see those colors again. She waited some more.

Suddenly, she felt this urge to pick up his guitar and play. She didn’t stop and picked up the guitar. As she played her notes, she could see colors floating around her, everywhere. People started gathering; mesmerized as she kept playing lost in the colors that she created around her. When she stopped, she saw that the entire street had stopped to listen to her. She kept the guitar back and left as the crowd clapped around her.

Her musical journey started all over again. She could see sound; the world was suddenly a lot more beautiful than it ever was. He enjoyed every moment of the realization that he finally had her the same way as she had been ages ago.

Sitting in the middle of a performance by her favorite orchestra that she had grew up listening to; she could see the whole stage covered by colors. He turned his head towards her and saw her smile. He took her hand and as she turned towards him, he saw a glimmer of sadness in her eyes. He squeezed her hand and asked her, "Does it feel the same…?"

She looked at him for a while and nodded her head in 'No.'

He looked at her and then turned his head to the orchestra. He didn’t let go of her hand.

Birthdays and et al!

2009-09-14T01:59:00.003-07:00

Dear Amir,

Its strange and weird. I have never understood why do people celebrate the one thing that makes them realize that they are ever-so closer to death. Probably its because the idea is to celebrate what you have done with your lives in all these years and somehow everybody believes that they have done good with their lives. That it matters and somehow the way you lead your life and the choices that you made were the best possible among the options you had.

But, then for people like us, we have always known that we weren't always right. Our life is not the best possible among the set of options that we had in the span of choices that we made over the years. Small little screw-ups here and there, and here we are, an year older, hoping to live our lives a little better than the way we have over these years. Knowing the somehow everything will be alright, if we just let it be.

We look into the eyes of others, people who think that we matter and we see joy in their eyes. They wish to celebrate this damn event of our lives in their small little ways that they think are the best possible ways of celebrating it. We wonder if we can ever feel that joy. We can always sense it, we appreciate it, but I guess we are never able to feel it. Everything is just so reactive at times. We know that as this day comes every year, people all around, people who choose to be with us would celebrate this day and we would be a part of it. Very much there, but still not there. Hoping that we were wished by the one person that we really want to be wished by and that my friend, never really happens and it sucks big time.

All I know is that for people like us, happiness is relatively centered around our uneasiness with the whole setup. We are miserable in our small little worlds and that's what makes us freaking good at what we do. Just knowing that this uneasiness will never fade and hence, we will always keep growing and experimenting... doing new things just to feel a little bit more at ease. After a certain point of time, we will get tired and stop. Hopefully it would be just before we die. But till the time that happens, a birthday is the occasion when we celebrate this uneasiness that resides within us. This damned state of miserable existence that always makes us realize that we could have been so much more than what we are.

I guess, I just wanted you to know that I know exactly how you feel on birthdays, because I feel the same way. But then, shit happens... sometimes through the nose. And I am not saying that its all bad. Its just that its different from the normal idea of celebration that everybody is used to. So, I guess this is the song for your day.

Day to day

Where do you want to be?

coz now you're trying to pick a fight

With everyone you need

You seem like a soldier

Who's lost his composure

You're wounded and playing a waiting game

In no-man's land no-one's to blame

See the world

Find an old fashioned girl

And when all's been said and done

It's the things that are given, not won

Are the things that you want

Empty handed, surrounded by a senseless scene

With nothing of significance

Besides a shadow of a dream

You sound like an old joke

You're worn-out, a bit broke

An' askin me time and time again

When the answer's still the same

See the world

Find an old fashioned girl

And when all's been said and done

It's the things that are given, not won

Are the things that you want

You've got a chance to put things right

So how's it going to be?

Lay down your arms now

And put us beyond doubt

So reach out it's not too far away

Don't mess around now, don't delay

See the world

Find an old fashioned girl

And when all's been said and done

It's the things that are given, not won

Are the things that you want

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKJJRnuCwF4

Happy Birthday, my friend. I hope we see the world together.

- Shashank

The Box of Chocolates

2009-05-31T22:55:00.000-07:00

Life is a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.

But then good part is that at the end of the day,

You do end up with chocolates anyway.

So, what about you?

2009-05-29T02:27:00.000-07:00

He never expected to land up there, you know! Jamshedpur… of all places; the only one where he could find a decent internship. There was something about Tata Steel, one of the oldest industrial ventures of an Indian, that made him a tad little mesmerized about the legacy that the place brought with itself. Jamshedpur in that sense is a true 20th century city. There was just a simple village called Sakchi lost in the wilderness of the Chota Nagpur plateau before Jamshetji Tata decided to invade and conquer. Strangely the place captures his imagination in the blueprint of its construction. The idea was never restricted to a mere row of worker’s huts, but of a city around a steel enterprise.

100 years down the line, the city is green with efficient recycling plants, intriguing steel sculptures, verdant acres of gardens, and magnificent lighting. To be honest, the place was a pleasant surprise considering the image that he had in his head. The weather was on the hotter side but he had seen worse and he was quite okay with the entire setup. Staying at a friend’s place, all he had to do was to report to work at 9 in the morning and leave at 5 in the evening. At the least, it was a good break from the academics.

15 days into the regularity of his engagement with the city, the company and his stay, he was sitting in the courtyard on a lazy weekend evening when somebody came at the gate. His friend answered and was pleasantly surprised that the stranger wanted to speak to him. He wondered what it was all about, but he wasn’t doing anything that evening and he thought a little conversation wouldn’t hurt.

The stranger was invited into the courtyard and as soon as he sat on the seat he offered, he said…
“Would you like to work in a film?”
A man in his mid-thirties, athletic, looked kinda smart, wearing a three piece suit with leather shoes, it sure did look like he meant business.

“WHAT!?” both exclaimed. This was quite an unexpected start!
“Ok! Let me start again. My name is Ravi Sinha. I am a film producer and I live very close by. I have seen you coming and going for quite a few days now. I think you have the look that would fit in perfectly in the new film that I am making.”

He looked at his friend. Multi-colored hair, three piercings, there was no way a punk like him could be offered a role in a film. That’s not the India that he lives in, unless it was some stupid side-actor who would be beaten up by the hero at the end of the day.

“What kind of role are we talking about here?” asked the extremely excited friend.
“The lead role. I want to make him the hero of my film. He has got the looks, he has got a perfect body, I don’t know if he has six packs or not, but I don’t care. The physique works perfectly for the character that I want him to play.”
“Wait a minute… I have never heard your name. What kind of films do you make?” he asked, before he could jump on the bandwagon of how he perfectly fits into the scheme of things that he had in his mind for his film.
“I am a local film producer. I make B grade films… they are also sometimes classified at C grade as well, but its good work. I will pay you 50,000 for doing this film. Upfront! You don’t have to worry about anything.”
“Any names of the films that you have made that might ring a bell somewhere?” he asked again. Curious to know whether it was an elaborate practical joke played on him by his friend…
“Well, I am quite sure that you might have not heard the names… Phir ek Baar, that was about a love triangle, Chandni Raatein, which was about a struggle of woman to get out of a brothel. There are many others, but names won’t really help. I make films on contemporary topics. What do you think?”

“Do you have a script…?” he said. The names didn’t really ring any bell. They sounded like any B-grade film names that he had come across in the local theatres. Partly excited, partly confused, he wanted to read what he was getting into.
“Well we will make the script as it comes along. You know how it is? Scripts are never an issue. The dialogues… yeah, we do need to work on them, but they are more or less the same. I am just looking for a fresh face for the new film.”
“Okay… even if I say that I might be interested. I want to know what is this film all about?”
“Well a few songs and a lot of scenes… that’s it!”
“What scenes?”
“Oh! You know how it is these days? Movies don’t work with a few intimate scenes.”
“You said… a lot of scenes…! What does that mean?”
“Okay! You will get to know eventually anyway… I make films for adults.”
“PORN FILMS!” they both exclaimed.

“If you want to call it that, but don’t worry, I won’t be selling the CDs here or anywhere in north India. We outsource stuff to the South. There is a bigger market there. You will be fine. No need to worry at all.”
He looked at his friend who had the broadest smile that he had ever seen; it seemed as if he was just waiting to burst into laughter. He on the other hand, was a little shocked.

“Mr. Sinha. Thanks but no thanks. Would you please leave now?”

As he saw this man moving out of the house, his friend was about to start rolling on the floor laughing till his eyes were filled with tears; tears of blatant ridicule that he had for him. This was going to be such an amazing story for the rest of his college life. Laughter does beget laughter. He smiled and then laughed. They both laughed till their stomachs ached and they still didn’t stop.

In the night, after everyone went to sleep, he picked up his laptop and googled the names of the films because he was quite sure Ravi Sinha would not appear anywhere. After scrolling across hundreds of pages which had some odd references to them, he found the page with a list of films by Ravi Sinha.

He got the creepiest of feeling that he had ever had. It was no practical joke. Ravi Sinha was for real and then he thought of the smartest of retorts for situations when he would be ridiculed in college. “At least, I am worth 50 grand. What about you?”

War cry for Cricket!

2009-05-27T04:25:00.000-07:00

(Image Courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stillthinking/3259104325/in/set-72157613500368690/)

I woke up today to a familiar sound which I now call the ‘war cry of cricket.’ Its familiar because I have been waking up to it since the past few months that I have been in the new apartment that I have rented and its called the ‘war cry to cricket’ because if you get around to watching a bunch of kids playing cricket… its never a peaceful game. There are flaws in umpiring, fielding mishaps, balls that hit all that wrong places and the occasional appreciation for a perfect cricketing shot. Its amazing how kids let things go and never hold on to them. You can see them fight at one moment and laughing together in another as if nothing happened. Between the hullabaloos of the cricket crowd that occupies the ground in the backyard of my apartment from morning till the very evening, I wake up everyday to enthusiasm, conflict and celebration!

Cricket, I tell you, is a really crazy part of our lives. If you just think about an average Indian boy, he would probably make the best of friends on a cricket field. As one of my friends aptly puts it, there is no greater joy than winning a team game. That happiness is shared and you don’t have to make an extra effort to practice those silly age-old proverbs that say, “Khushi baatne se badhti hain!” Teams are a delicate balance of personalities and priorities and I guess the best part about being in a team is to learn the ability of letting go.

But, this is not a discourse on the game of cricket itself. It is about the fervor with which we play the game. Space is never really a concern when you want to play cricket. In fact, space is never a concern when you want to play any sport. Even the roads are space enough. All you need is a bat and a ball and a few players. On second thoughts, do you really need a bat and a few players? Well… you need atleast two players, so that’s quite a necessity but bat… hmm, really? I guess you can do without it. You can always hit the ball with your legs or as you might have observed somewhere on the streets around you, head is also quite an option. It’s amazing to observe the twists and turns that the legs and the necks go through while the supposed batsman tries to maneuver the ball away from the fielder to get some runs.

So, now that I have happily beaten around the bush for a very long time, I will tell you a story. I did try it once you know. Leg Cricket! Kids and the games that they play… building castles, shooting down invisible enemies from the Underground with a toy gun, hiding really random stuff in really random places, creating horror stories around normal household objects… is it just me or you all think that I have had a weird childhood?

Coming back to leg cricket, I guess nobody was kicked by the idea when I first proposed it. We didn’t have a bat, so that was probably the best way out. A few friends really gave me that weird look that you usually get when the person in front of you thinks that you have lost your mind. The rest didn’t care. They wanted to play and that’s the best part about being a kid. Things don’t need to be necessarily in the right order to have fun. Fun can be created within any situation of scarcity. So there were a few ground rules, there was no leg-before-wicket (obviously!), there was one-tip-one-hand and the bowler was supposed to ball underarm. There were two teams and there we were playing leg cricket. Oh yes, there was this wall on one side. We made another rule, you hit it straight you score six runs and if you hit it on the bounce, you score a four.

So there were two fielders in front of the wall on the leg-side and one in the off-side. If you hit straight, the bowler does the dirty job of fielding and there were no runs on the back and one of the teammates on the batting side stood in the back to collect and return the ball. Finally, one of people on the batting side was also the umpire. Now that I look at it in the hindsight, we never ever questioned the fact that a team member from the opposing side was always made the Umpire. Somehow trust was never a concern… it might also be because of the fact that we always knew that we will have our payback time as well. There is certain honesty that emanates from equality of power; and I guess it’s so brilliant that you can take classes on morality out of a cricket match played on the streets of India.

Among all the games that we played that day, I distinctly remember the one where we needed six runs out of an over and we had an idiot who could never connect his leg with the ball when it spun. Since we had all figured it out very early, we usually never asked him to bat… or whatever else you might want to call it… anyway, we lost quite a few wickets in that game and that dude was our last hope because he was the last wicket. Oh yes, the deal was that there was only one batsman on the crease at a time, he gets out, the next one comes in. If he runs and takes a single, he would have to return to the batting crease again after completing the run.

So now, the beauty of leg cricket is that as a bowler you always aim that the ball goes away from the legs. So in anticipation as a batsman you would move depending upon whether the ball is going to spin towards the leg-side or the off-side. This dude got it wrong every single time. I don’t know how he managed it with such great precision but he did. So the first ball was a traditional off-spin, the dude move toward the off-stump… missed the ball completely and of course, everybody started laughing. You could actually see the sweat and anxiety of his face. What followed were traditional cheers from the batting side and the jeers from the bowling one.

The second was again an off-spin and the dude must have thought that the bowler won’t ball the same damn thing all over again. He moved towards the off-stump again and he missed. This time we were pissed. How can anybody be that big an idiot? Well sometimes I agree that God is in details but we shall proceed towards the last ball where we still had to make six runs. The good news was that he had started connecting the leg with the ball from the fourth ball of the over but he always managed to hit it straight to the fielder on the off-side. We had given up hope and we were just waiting for the match to get over so that we could start with another one.

So the sixth ball… as the ball bounces, we all realize that it’s an off-spinner. The dude surprisingly had moved towards the leg side being in an accurate position to hit the ball. Tada, he makes the perfect clean hit, you could actually hear the sound of his leg making contact from where I was sitting and off it went towards the wall. It came to us without any surprise that he had managed to hit it again straight towards the fielder and he catches it. While, this might appear to be exceedingly boring end to the hyped up situation, let’s add another detail. The fielder was actually not expecting that the ball would come to the leg side. The dude had not hit a single shot in that direction. He was standing with his leg against the wall and as he caught the ball in a split second of a reaction, he realized that his leg was still against the wall.

Almost immediately he removed his leg but that amount of time was enough for our umpire to notice his idiocy. Of course, what followed was a heated argument regarding the fact that we hadn’t laid down a rule for such situations but the umpire always has the last word. Doesn’t he?

We won that match on the last ball and I guess as I see these kids playing cricket with their heads and their legs celebrating the spirit of the game more than the game itself, I realize that one of the major reasons why I enjoy waking up everyday to the war cry of cricket is a lonely memory of an almost lost cricket match. There are things that remain embedded into the lone confines of memories when you decide move on. They are small little embellishments that you honor as the last strings that you have, to be present to your past. Life in that sense never gives you a second chance, but it leaves memories of all the first chances you had. Something to hold onto and something to celebrate!

Rules of the Game

2009-05-21T04:07:00.000-07:00

The streets often have stories to tell. The streets are mean, the streets are generous; the streets have space for everyone and sometimes the streets just don’t have enough for you. The streets bind life into split seconds of time on a lone thoroughfare. That thoroughfare is witness to the stories and lives of hundreds of people who walk upon it every single day. People who see each other but never acknowledge one another, sometimes they smile, sometimes they frown, sometimes they are just a tad little pre-occupied, sometimes they are confused, sometimes they are lost and in the middle of it all, there she was. Sitting idle!

The paraphernalia was eclectic. She had toys, she had colourful deflated footballs, she had a few inflated footballs as well and she had an air pump. But, she wasn’t trying to sell any of it. She was just sitting there, a little lost, a little dazed, a little confused and a little pre-occupied. She desperately wanted to go home, but she hadn’t sold anything since morning. Home, sweet home, the place where you always end up at the end of the day. The place which has people you love, moments you cherish and something so innately personal that only you can feel it. She knew she had her boy waiting for her, but she also knew that he would ask for something to eat and she had nothing for the day. Sometimes you don’t really have the option of better-luck-next-time. In that sense, survival is quite a tricky business and your problems simply increase if you are a single mother. You can learn the rules of the game, but then rules only apply when game remains the same. Life is not a single game that you play everyday, game changes, rules change and unfortunately, you remain the same. A little lost, a little dazed, a little confused and a little pre-occupied.

“Suno… yeh lal waali ball kitne ki hai?,” asked a traditional Indian house-wife, with her larger-than-life Mangalsutra and Sindoor on her forehead, trying to make her way to home through all the distractions that her child was engaged in. Bringing that boy back from school was a herculean task in itself. There was always one thing or the other or the third that she never had dreamed in her life. She often thought that he was becoming more stubborn over the years, but then his cute little smile upon winning yet another battle with his mother made up for all the love lost. Mothers are a confusing lot, between the right and wrong, they will always choose their child’s side.

She looked at the red football, which had a lot of black patchwork on it and she realized that she had only one of those left. It was the last one; the one that she had thought of giving to her boy. He had been asking for it since the day she had got those to sell. She always ended up beating around the bush. Her boy told her that she didn’t love him enough and she ended up hoping for the day when she would be able to have enough money for a few days so that she could give away one among the red ones to her child.

In the most mechanical of manners, she said, “Do Sau” and before the lady could even start with the long drawn battle of bargain, she added, “Lal waali ke alaawa koi bhi le lo!”

“Arey, lal waali kyun nahi dogi?”
“Lal waali nahi milegi…,” suddenly she felt that the conviction in her voice was loosing its touch. But, she regained composure almost immediately and said, "Itni saari hai... koi bhi lelo. Lal waali nahi de sakti, Memsab."
“Mummy, mujhe lal waali chahiye. Bass lal waali.”

It is a perfect age-old drama in the making. There is a backdrop of characters, then there is a conflict, the conflict will probably find a way to resolution and TADA! You have reached the end of our narrative. She stood her ground, she refused to give the red football, negotiation on price was probably out of question. The house-wife was utterly confused. Between the nagging of her boy and the stubbornness of a street retailer she found herself utterly helpless and she burst into a flurry of arguments. She knew that her boy is now just being stubborn about the red football. She knew that she would ultimately have to take control of the situation by dealing with her child because there was nothing that she could do about the football seller. Power distance has strange manifestations. Had she known somebody in the Police Department, she might have gone to the extent of harassing her but she didn't. So the only one she could exercise control over was her boy.

Our street retailer still stood her ground. Her utter lifelessness, a few minutes ago, transformed into a vibrant, argumentative stint filled with vitality. She knew she had to make a sale, but there was something special about the red football. She was sure that her boy wouldn't mind having a yellow one, instead of the red one, but he had asked for the red one. He always asked for the red one. She knew that she needed to make a sale, but she knew that after she had declared that the red one was not for sale... the only sale she could make was of the red one.

You can actually predict the sequence of events from here. The boy stood his ground. He wanted that ball and suddenly, as the house-wife started giving up on the argument realizing that it’s going nowhere, his tantrums became a tad little over the board. Something had to give in, the woman was refusing to give her the football, and the boy was refusing to move until he had the football, so the lady made a snap decision.

The boy was slapped. Just once, for the record. But that was enough. She glared at her and left. Our lady with footballs looked at the red one. She deflated it and hid it in one of her bags and she reverted back to her lifelessness. She stared into the void, seeing everything and yet, seeing nothing.

Sometimes you do make a few of your own rules of the game and the funny part is… life lets you!

Starry Night

2009-04-24T04:38:00.000-07:00

(Image Courtesy: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Starry_Night_Over_the_Rhone.jpg)

“Nobody knows anybody else, ever!”

She wondered as she spoke to herself quietly. Nobody could hear what she had just said. Something that subtle and pithy is usually quite a rarity in the world. Sometimes you do whisper words of wisdom and then you let it be.

Words never die. They might lose context, they might vanish from the deep confines of memory, they might seem ephemeral, but they don’t die. They spiral around like a pack of pelicans migrating towards India, usually together as a sentence, each having its place in the pack and then they converge together and stop at another source. With a little more conversation, they spiral out again in a different sentence with a different context and meaning.

She retraced her memories deep into the abyss of times when she was a teenager. She was sitting on beach in the middle of a starry night. Life was complicated in small little ways. Something very trivial for the older version of her, but she was happier in her own teen ways. The sea was a little on the rough-side. She really enjoyed watching the sea come out and trying to reach her with every single tide. But she was strategically a little far away and the sea was not trying hard enough. There is an innate delight to look at the sea in the night. It tries to talk to you and for the one who listens; it offers the sweetest of lullabies.

He walked towards her. Her shining knight with a deep smile making dimples on his face.

“Hi!”
“Do I know you…?” she asked, wondering whether it would be enough to get the message across.
“Nobody knows anybody else, ever!” he responded with a deeper smile and then, as if trying to recover from the philosophical blackhole he had created for himself, he added, “But you should always try.”

She smiled. Sitting alone after seeing her parents fight on the so-called “holiday”, she figured that some company might really do good. He kept standing knowing that he wasn’t welcome until she said that he was, but the smile made him a little more comfortable. They talked about places and origins and how in the silliest of manners, his maternal uncle’s wife’s brother used to live in the same city as she did.

Conversations are usually meaningless, but within the interplay of emotions, they are the most potent form of the strongest of connections. Something very abstract… usually called a “spark” between people… or a feeling that you have known a stranger for ages! Conversations indulge the mind into feelings that create relationships. Strangely, the conversation is always lost; all that remains are snippets and relationships.

The conversation went on. As he sat next to her while she was lying on the beach looking at the stars, she noticed that slowly the shimmer of the stars was disappearing into darkness. She wondered if the clouds would take over completely as she noticed the moon disappearing ever-so-slowly into the deep cover of the clouds. She looked at him and said, “I think its going to rain.”

“I think it might.”

There was a certain familiarity to the silence that ensued. Both wondered if the other would leave, but none left.

“So I am still confused. What is a girl doing alone on this beach at this time in the night? Isn’t she scared?”
“Sometimes you are more scared of the interiors of a room filled with people you know than the unknown in the vastness of a beach.”

He looked at her and looked deep into her eyes.

“Okay. I don’t know the context to that, but all I will tell you is that you can never ever know. You can never be sure about anybody. Everything that you think you are certain about is just an assumption you made somewhere down the line in knowing that somebody. Always give people the benefit of the doubt. It becomes a lot easier to live through disappointments.”

She looked at him. “Now that’s bullshit!” she murmured. He was just about to ask her what she said when it started to drizzle. She loved being in the rain. Singing was quite out of the picture because she was simply not in the mood that night. But being was very much possible.

He reacted, “It’s raining. Where have you put up?”

“I will be off in a while; you can leave if you want to.”

He sat next to her as she kept lying on the beach. The sea grew stronger and rougher. The drizzle transformed into pelting droplets of water and finally, she said, “I need to get back. Will I see you tomorrow?”

He smiled.

“It’s too rainy to make a call on that.”

She wondered what it meant and as she ran towards the hotel nearby, she thought about the experience and how it transformed into the most surreal of encounters. She thought that she should look back; but then while she was just about to turn, she stopped. Something are better left surreal.

She smiled and said, “Nobody knows anybody else, ever!”

The One-Night Something!

2009-04-05T05:25:00.000-07:00

She called out to the man dancing right next to her on the dance floor… though you couldn’t make any sense out of what she was trying to say. She just happened to see him and he just wondered if he knew her. In a moment of complete suspension of thought, he pretends that he can’t hear her, but somethings are sometimes more than obvious.

He could hear her and NO!, he didn’t know her, but then the dance floor makes everybody know everybody. Identity is irrelevant, what matters is the music, the beats and of course, the synchrony of your body moving with the flow of the music and the scratches of the DJ. He wondered if it all was just meant to be a part of being on the dance floor… once the time is gone and the song is over, would she stay and talk some more.

He walked out of the dance floor, stood right next to the bartender and asked for a Carlsberg and to his utter surprise, she followed him and said, “Buy me a drink!” The bartender looked at our Hero. (Okay, this does not happen everyday; no woman had ever asked him to buy her a drink.) It felt like the ground beneath his feet had turned yellow and he couldn’t understand whether he had become colorblind or the ground itself had changed color.

“Let the lady have her drink…” he says and then, he turned to look at this girl. She was pretty at least that’s what came through by the first impression that he had of hers. She ordered a Martini, while he had his fingers crossed on Long Island Iced Tea. Anyway, she was drinking and that was good!

“So, I don’t think that it makes sense that I don’t even know the name of the girl that I am buying a drink for…”

“Caramel” she said. He smiled, he wondered if her last name was Cappuccino, but then such things are not meant to be blurted out loud. Then, there it was... the talking had begun. He remembered the pearls of wisdom that a friend had showered on him… “Dude, whenever you meet a girl for the first time… remember HDA. Talk to a girl about her Hopes, Dreams and Aspirations and the first meeting would be as perfect as you could imagine.” He wondered if his friend used this great secret every time.

As the conversation meandered through who she was, what she did and how in the silliest of manners they shared a common obsession with Notting Hill, the evening became as pleasant as he could have hoped it to be. Though, it must be added here that the conversation was happening in bits and pieces as they screamed over the music and tried hard to listen to each other.

Finally, it struck him…

“Let’s get out of here!”

“Thank God, you said that!”

“What about your friends?”

“They have already left… Do you have a car?”

No he didn’t. Well he was nowhere close to owning one anytime soon as well. But then, men will be men. If you don’t have one, you arrange for one.

“If you can wait for half-an-hour, we will have a car to go for a drive.”

She smiled. They went out of the Pub and started a stroll down the road. There is always something personal about a walk, the conversation is much more comfortable and when you hold hands, it become a tad little romantic as well. Combine it with a tinge of drizzle and a faint caressing cold breeze… oh! You have a perfect making for a romantic evening. Unfortunately, here there was no drizzle, there was no holding of hands and there was no breeze. All that there was to it was a Bangalorean night with a hint of the cold and relatively empty roads without traffic jams.

Half-an-hour is not a very long time and to her utter surprise, there it was… Easy Cabs, 24x7 Taxi Service.

“So, where do you want to go?” he asked her.

“I don’t know.”

The driver looked at our Hero and he said… “Where to?”

He thought of all the places that he could imagine and said, “Outer Ring Road”

The next three hours were spent exploring every nook and corner of the city, from one road to another in between conversations and silences that made up the moments that they shared… it was surreal. He couldn’t believe that it was happening. But suddenly he realized that it was the end of the month and he didn’t have the money to go about doing this through the night. He looked at the meter, got a shock of life and said to the girl who was now just getting a tad little sober after the high of the Martinis, “Would you like to go to my place?”

“Yes!” she said.

There was a sudden surge of happiness that travelled through his blood vessels everywhere. He wanted to scream out, "YES!", but he finally overcame that urge using every ounce of self-restraint that he had. The driver took them to his place and he paid through the nose for the taxi. But then at that point of time, it didn’t really matter. She was there… with him… and that was all that mattered. She got out of the car and started walking towards him. She missed a step and that’s when he realized that she was still a little tipsy. He held her hand and supported her with his shoulder and they went in.

“Coffee”… he said.

“I would love to have some.”

He went inside and started making coffee and she sat right in front of the television flipping channels. The Coffee took five minutes and as he returned with the cups, he saw her smiling mildly, staring at a wall. There was silence and he didn’t wish to break it. He placed the coffee on the table and she picked up a cup. The silence remained and strangely, it took her less than a minute to finish her coffee.

“Thanks a lot! I think I should sleep now.”

Alright Houston! We really have a situation here.

He smiled sheepishly trying desperately to hide his disappointment and showed her the way to the bedroom. She went off to sleep as soon as she found the peaceful, well-made bed to sleep on. He closed the door; went outside and as he was preparing the couch to sleep, he wondered…

“Who goes to sleep right after having a cup of coffee?”

It's a very very Mad World

2009-02-19T20:31:00.000-08:00

(Image courtesy: http://miheer.deviantart.com/art/Women-72111508)

The fantastic invisible sweep of time rushes and roars past us every dull and intense second that ticks relentlessly away every day, and all around us things constantly morph. Twin towers crumble, good people die, the good earth turns brown and bare, and old love fades.

And what precisely is your role in the incredible kaleidoscope of change?

A slack-jaw by-stander who barely registers the impact and implications? A commentator spectator who freely critiques but somehow rises above being affected by it all? A fatalist loser who bemoans everything and blames it all on circumstances and other people?

Look around you, you who reside in the so-called mind and knowledge capital of the shining new India. This is Bangalore.

Many of the quiet avenues that used to snake through the wooded shades and fragrant flower-scatters of a thousand gulmohars, flames of the forest, bougenvillias and silver oaks are now shorn of even a single blade of grass, their tar guts upturned by mammoth earth moving equipment, tortured sites full of grime, steel and concrete through which an endless procession of loud vehicles crawl back and forth, utterly indisciplined, frothing with impotent anger and frustration, from the early dusty dawns to the midnight hours, every single day.

We are the victims, you say? The civic governance of Bangalore is sub standard, you claim? Well, you may be right, but does that mean that even as an individual citizen whose real powers to influence matters is way less than what it theoretically should be, we have absolutely nothing to do?

I am re-thinking this premise, my friend. Unfortunately not a self realization case, but prompted by a black incident last Friday, 6th February, 2009. And this time it was not about aspects that affect your life and mine indirectly. It wasn't the death of yet another 100+ year old tree. It wasn't another instance of criminal neglect of any civic infrastructure. It wasn't road rage. It was a kick in the groin. Literally. And it woke me up all right.

So, in brief, this is how the drama unfolded:

A few of my friends and I were just paying our bills and coming out of our regular Friday night watering hole and dinner place in Rest House Road, just off Brigade Road, and most of the women in the company were already standing outside. Some of us outside were smoking, people were happy, there was laughter and jokes, as there were many other people in the street, all coming out, satiated, in the closing hour of the various pubs and restaurants around.

Suddenly from up the street a massive SUV comes revving and speeding, hurtling down, and stops in a scream of brakes and swirling dust, millimeters away from this group of 4 women, barely missing one of their legs. A white Audi, imported, still under transfer, with the registration plate of KA-51 TR-2767. Some millionaire's toy thing, that in the wrong hands can kill.

Naturally the women are in shock. And quickly following the shock comes indignation. These are self made women running their own businesses, managing state responsibilities for global NGO firms, successful doctors. They are not used to being bullied. So they turn around, instead of shrinking back in fear. They protest.

And as soon as they turn around in protest, the car doors are flung open, and a stream of 4-5 rabid men run out towards these women, screaming obscenities in Hindi and Kannada against women in general, fists flailing. Some of us who came in running at the sound of the screaming brakes now stand in the middle in defense of our women, and then blows start raining down. One of the goons make a couple of calls over the cellphone, and in seconds a stream of other equally rabid goondas land up. They gun straight for the women, and everyone – a few well-meaning bystanders, acquaintances who know us from the restaurant, basically everyone who tries to help the women – starts getting thoroughly beaten up.

Women are kicked in the groin, punched in the stomach, slapped across the face, grabbed everywhere, abused constantly. Men are smashed up professionally, blows aimed at livers, groins, kidneys and nose. A friend is hit repeatedly on the head by a stone until he passes out in a flood of blood.

A plain-clothes policeman (Vittal Kumar) who saunters in late stands by watching and urging people to stop, but doing absolutely nothing else. A 'cheetah' biker cop comes in, with our women pleading him to stop this madness, but he refuses action, saying a police van will come in soon and he cannot do anything. Everyone keeps getting hammered. Relentlessly.

The carnage continues for over 20 minutes.

Finally when the police van does come in it is this vandals who are raging and ranting, claiming to be true "sons of the Kannadiga soil", and we are positioned to be the villainous outsiders, bleeding, outraged. How do the cops believe them, especially seeing the bloody faces of our men and the violated rage of our women, while they carry nary a scratch on their bodies? Don't ask me! Yet, it is us who these goondas urge the newly arrived law-keepers to arrest, and the police promptly comply, and we are bundled into the van, some still being beaten as we are pushed in. Some blessed relief from pain inside the police van at least, even if we are inside and the real goons outside, driving alongside in their spanking white Audi. The guy who was hit by the stone is taken separately by the women to Mallya hospital.

Inside the police station at Cubbon Park it becomes clear that these goons and the police know each other by their first names. The policeman in charge (Thimmappa) initially refuses to even register any complaint from me, on the purported grounds that I am not fluent in Kannada and I have taken a few drinks (3 Kingfisher pints, to be precise) over the evening. No, it doesn't matter that I didn't have my car and was not driving, and no, it doesn't mater that the complaint will be written in English. We watch them and the goons exchange smiles and nods with our our bloodied and swelling eyes and realize in our pain-clouded still-in-shock brains the extent of truth in the claim of one of the main goons when he claimed earlier in the evening in virulent aggression: we own this town, this car belongs to an MLA, we will see how you return to this street!!

This was the turning point of the saga, I guess. For we refused to lie down quietly and be victims.

One of our girls, a vintage and proud Bangalorean who is running one of the town's most successful organic farming initiatives, took upon herself to write the complaint, when I was not allowed to write the same. Another Bangalore girl, a state director of a global NGO firm, wrote the other molestation complaint separately on behalf of all the girls. Some of us called our friends in the media and corporate world. Everyone stepped up. And even when the odds were down and we were out, we did not give up, and as a singular body of violated citizens we spoke in one voice of courage and indomitable spirit. That voice had no limitation of language, not Kannada, nor English, or Hindi. It was the voice of human spirit that cannot be broken.

And in the face of that spirit, for the first time, we saw the ugly visage of vandalism, hiding behind the thin and inadequate veil of political corrupt power, narrow-vision regionalism and self-serving morality, start to wilt.

We spent 6 hours next day in the police station. The sub-inspector of police who filed our FIR, Ajay R M, seemed a breath of fresh air inasmuch that he did not appear a-priori biased like others, even though the hand of corruption and politico-criminal power backing these goons was still manifest in many ways: a starched, white-linen power-broker walked in handing over his card to the sub-inspector in support of the goons; the goons got an audience with the Inspector because of this intervention, while we had to interact one level lower down in the hierarchy; the plains cloth policeman of last night, even though he had arrived far too late in the crime scene, gave a warped statement, passing it off as a "neutral" point of view, repeatedly stressing that we came out of a pub and hence were drinking, positioning this as a 'drunken brawl', while completely forgetting to mention the unprovoked attack against the women and the one-sided vandalism and violence that ensued. I guess one cannot blame the low ranked police officer – the criminal connections of these goons must be pervasive enough for him to be careful.

Thanks however to the impartial handling of the situation by Ajay, soon the goons were all identified. The lead actor was one Ravi Mallaya (38), a real estate honcho and owner of a small property off Brigade Road which he has converted into a "gaming" (you know what that means, don't you?) adda. The others identified are Mohan Basava (22) of Chamarajapet 12th Cross, R. Vijay Kumar Ramalingaraju (25) and Shivu Rajashekar (20). All are residents of 12th & 13th Cross in Vyalikaval. Their bravado and machismo were by that time evaporated. It was good to see their faces then.

Of course nothing much happened to them, nor did we expect it. They were supposed to be in lock up for at least the weekend till they were produced in court, but we understand that they were quickly released on (anticipatory?) bail. The car, purportedly belonging to an MLA, also does not figure in the FIR, apparently for reasons of "irrelevance to the case".The media also have given us fantastic coverage and support so far, strengthening the cause.

The goons meanwhile, as an after thought, also filed the customary reverse complaint on the morning after we filed our own complaint: the women have apparently scratched the car! (Why did they not file the complaint the same night, considering they came to the Police Station in the same car? Why was the car allowed to be taken off police custody? Why is the car still irrelevant to the case and not in the FIR? Questions.. questions..).

Is this the end of this saga? Probably not. Are these women, more precious to us as friends and wives than most things in our lives, safe to walk or drive down Brigade Road from now on or are the goonda elements, slighted by this arrest and disgrace, are lying in ambush, waiting, biding their time to cause some of us more grievous harm? We don't know. Is there reason for us to remain apprehensive of future attacks and victimization? Perhaps.

But here is the point.

We stood up.

We believed in the power of individual citizens even in the face of hooliganism, intolerance, corruption and power mongering. Even though many of us have the option of leveraging political or government connections, we deliberately chose to fight this battle as individuals. Sure, these connections have been activated and they have been kept informed, should the worst case scenario unfold tomorrow. But we have chosen to not leverage them. And in every small win we register as a group of individual outraged citizens of Bangalore and India, however insignificant these milestones may be in the larger scheme of things, there is one small notch adding up in favor of what is right, one small notch against what is wrong. And we believe that every such small notch counts, each such mark is absolutely invaluable.

It is the people who make this city, this country, this world. It is you and I, as much as the terrorists inside and outside. And in our small insignificant little ways, it is my responsibility and yours to not shirk from investing effort – not just lip service or any token attempt, but real effort – in backing up what we ourselves believe in. It is so easy to logically argue that everything is corrupt, nothing is worth it, there are so many risks involved. We must not fall trap to this escapist trend. We must not fail to try.

Next time you feel outraged, violated, abused, don't let it go by and add up to your list of litanies and complaints. Stand up and take it to the limit - at least your own limit. Not in the same way as they wrong you, but in the way that every citizen, at least in theory, is entitled to complain and protest. Do not let the hooligans power rant scare you or prompt you into submission. Do not allow the corrupt cop make you give up trying. Carry the flame forward. Try harder.

If are up to it, start right now.

Forward this note to everyone you want to be made aware of this. Post it in your own blogs. Talk about it amongst your circles. And if anyone of you should like to step forward with a word of empathy or advise, talk to me. Comment.

It is not Bangalore that is going to the dogs. It is us. We have far too long become accustomed to let everything go. And the more we let things go without any protest or fight, the dormant criminal and dark elements of the society get that much more encouraged. Every time we turn the other way, the hooligan next street gets incentivized to push the boundary a little further, provoke a little more, try something a little more atrocious. It is time for us to refuse to let this go on. We are responsible for making ourselves proud. Lets believe in ourselves. We can do this.

My name is Saugata Chatterjee. And I am standing up.I refuse to let Bangalore go to the hooligan slumdogs, even if some of them are pets of corrupt power millionaires.

Typewriter Tip Tip Tip Karta Hai!

2008-12-13T05:54:00.000-08:00

He looked at the book. He had just completed reading it. It’s strange how you start identifying with a piece of text. It becomes your anthem, your way of life, your definition of being, everything existential about you. He smiled. He knew he wanted a copy of it. He knew there was no way in hell his Dad will ever get that book for him. Sometimes being stubborn about things doesn’t really help when you know that your wishes will never be acknowledged.

Books were a way of life in his home. There were books all around. His father was a double MA in literature, English and Hindi. The obsession with books had kinda rubbed off onto him. Though he rarely read books, but he loved the act of hoarding anything and everything that came his way. But then there also were some strange rules around. He was not allowed to read fiction. Science, non-fiction, general knowledge books, encyclopedias were all allowed. But fiction, there was no way in hell he could be seen with it.

“I couldn’t study science because I couldn’t understand it. You are smart. You have to be in science.”

He just couldn’t understand the logic of the explanation that his father gave him. But nevertheless, he always kept collecting scraps of papers with printed text, wherever he could find them. He would tear away pages from the books with Shakespearean plays. He would cut out short stories from Hindi newspapers which usually talked about adultery and love stories gone terribly wrong. He would read and reread the pieces of text that he had finished reading once… as if trying to ascertain his victory over them. He would place them in shoe boxes and keep them safe in the store.

Strangely, his father did notice that there were pages missing from his books and he wondered where they went, but then the books were 20 years old and he knew that they tend to lose their structure as they get old. He never quite bothered about the books that were his life for a greater part of his youth. They were just stacked neatly in his library, locked away inaccessible to the boy.

Alright! I can see you saying, “Enough of background already!”

So the boy had recently made a new discovery. He had been exposed to the school library. What a discovery!? He could see books, lines of books… neatly stacked, just like in his father’s library but with one difference. He could take each and every one of them and actually read them without anybody trying to stop him. He could issue them… take them home! Home… hmm… that would be a problem. Where would he read them? His father was usually around and he didn’t have a room of his own to be able to lock it up and read them.

Well that’s a problem that he could sort out later. His current problem was of choice. His eyes started sorting out the stack that he really wanted to read. He scanned through the sections and finally discovered Fiction. TADA!

He walked towards that stack and looked around to what would be the first book that he would ever read in fiction. Among the choices between Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and the Famous Five, he looked at a book which didn’t have the usual title. It was called "The Secret Island". Among the numeracy of books that the library had collected by Enid Blyton, this one seemed to be without the added baggage of knowing the characters beforehand.

He picked it up, went home and spent a greater part of the next Sunday in the bathroom. He started reading the story of three siblings Mike, Nora, and Peggy and their friend Jack from a nearby farm. How they run away to a secret island in the middle of a large lake, make a willow house, think of sinking their boat while they're not using it and hide all traces of themselves on the island just in case people come looking for them.

It was cathartic, he imagined himself being on the island with a lot of books and there would be nobody to stop him. He wouldn’t have to read the book in the dinginess of a zero-watt blub and he could enjoy the bright sunlight coming his way. Basking in the sunshine of a beautiful morning, he would simply pick up a book and read it. Suddenly there was a knock on the bathroom door.

“What are you doing in there from the past two hours?”
“I will be out in a minute.” He said.

Thinking of the variety of ways in which he could hide the book.

“Alright! I am going out to the market. Come out soon and lock the door.”

Sometimes a word or a sentence can bring such relief. He placed the book on top of the flush and came out immediately to lock the door.

His father was out and there was nobody else in the house at that time. Mother was on one of her trips to his native village, she had asked him quite a few times to come along but then he had school and he felt like a social misfit in his village. He couldn’t understand the language and he always had to say “Ram Ram” to whoever passed by his house. It’s fun for a day but then it gets boring from the second.

So… he loved the beginning three chapters of the book. And since he had nothing else to do, he simply kept reading it. His father was absent for a longer time than he expected and he reached half the book that day. In between the classroom sessions on geography and biology, he managed to sneak in the book between his textbook. He probably was the worst backbencher ever. Who would sit at the backbench and read books for God sakes?!

---

He looked at the book. He had just completed reading it. He knew he wanted a copy and since his father won’t help and convincing his mother for a book after she has had to deal with full stacks of it throughout her life would have been utterly useless. Suddenly it occurred to him… his father had a typewriter. It was a modern age miracle. Two strips of color. One red and one black. He could actually type out the book and make a copy for himself. Alright!

Before you start thinking how stupid a 10 year old can be… in his defense… he didn’t know that a concept of photocopy exists.

His father rarely used the typewriter, which was good because he never missed it after the boy managed to steal it and keep it with him. In between the long bathroom sessions and brief absences of his father from the house, he started typing the book out. The Chapter headings in Red and the content in Black.

His mother used to wonder what’s wrong with the kid and why doesn’t he go off to play like the rest of the kids, but she usually let him be. She figured his father had caused enough trouble already in making him read encyclopedias and general knowledge books. Probably he would never be a normal child.

The boy labored on… He continued this quest for a book for 3 months. Chapter by chapter, he read it, he typed it and he read what he had typed again. He used to marvel at his achievement everyday. He used to be happy and then one fine day, while he was just about to go on a typing spree again. His friends from the neighborhood called out. They hadn’t seen him for months.

“Namaste Aunty. We haven’t seen Shashank for months now. Is he alright?”
“Oh! Yes… I will just call him.”

She went inside and looked at her boy beginning his typing spree again. She told him about his friends and he thought about it for a while. He got up, dressed up for the game and went. His mother smiled.

She picked up the pages, placed them in the shoebox, put the typewriter back into his father’s almirah and placed the shoebox in the store.

That shoebox was never opened again. The typewriter was never stolen again. Those chapters were never read by anyone again. He had completed 10 chapters out of 17 chapters that the book had. Sometimes the boy just wonders if he could have completed typing the book, but by then he had realized that he will always have the memory of that book. Enclosed within the confines of his subconscious. The first piece of fiction that he ever read!

The day time stood still...

2008-12-03T10:53:00.000-08:00

“Stay right there!?” The father said to his son. The boy was confused… he didn’t know what to do!

“Don’t you dare move from this place till I come back! I will be back very soon. You see all these people panicking. Papa has to do his job. He has to take care of these people. I will back very soon. Wait here! Don’t move.”

Until then, it had been a pleasant day. Papa had promised his son to a film. They were just out of the theatre when the insanity unfolded. There was gun-fire at the local railway station 500 meters away; the situation was unfolding into the most violent of stampedes. Some terrorists had nothing better to do on a weekday evening. It’s amazing how people panic when things don’t go according to plan. There has to be a certain order to things, chaos scares the shit out of everybody. A few gunshots and people go out of control.

A simple principle applies. If you don’t think that your life is more important than the next person walking beside you… your life is worth nothing at all. Everybody for themselves, there is nothing that constitutes civic duty, no sense of responsibility, everything is up for grabs and there is nothing to die for. In between this eccentricity, we have a guardian of sanity who wants to do his job. The police had still not reached the railway station and our hero went straight to his job on his off-day.

The boy was still shocked. He could see panic in the air and the only person who could have helped his state of mind was leaving him in the middle of nowhere, telling him to stay put. Do nothing. Don’t even move. The boy wanted to cry, but he knew that it would be stupid. He would probably be slapped for it. So he said nothing… did nothing… no response… just stood there looking at his father.

The father ran towards the crowd and as the number of people around him increased phenomenally, the boy couldn’t locate him in that crowd. He wondered what one man could do when there is a crowd out there. But then fathers are such great heroes for sons that he knew that soon his father would bring order to this chaos and people would start walking instead of running.

---

A policeman without his uniform is always out of place. It is the uniform that does the trick; you see it and you don’t care how the person looks or what shape or size he is. He commands authority because the uniform commands respect. The father tried to initiate order. He shouted and screamed, but no one paid attention. He was just another passer-by who seemed to have civic sense. But, then nobody was actually looking for civic sense around. People were still running and our hero was literally having no impact.

The gun-fire started again. The situation was terribly out of control. Our hero was sure that the police would be in anytime. But he could see three masked men, walking with AK 47s in their hands. Silent, pragmatic, lethal killing machines. They were not shooting everybody in sight. In fact, they were hardly shooting… they were just directing the stampede, shooting at precisely calculated moments to ensure that the chaos does not die down. He had nothing on him to stop them. But he could see them.

The very sight called for a decision. He knew what he had to do. He had to stop them! And that was when the decision was made. The stampede was providing enough cover to get closer but being close without any weapon means you are still handicapped and when the odds are 3 to 1, it really didn’t make any sense.

The terrorists clearly didn’t have an escape plan. They were out there to join the coveted clan of fidayeens. Our hero understood this part of the story, what he didn’t understand was… what would they achieve by emptying out a railway station? The police finally arrived and rushed in with their helmets and light Kevlars. The crowd was still rushing out of the railway station and our hero now had company.

---

The boy was standing right where his Papa had asked him to stand. The crowd was increasing around him and people were simply running in all directions that one could possibly imagine and there was this little boy standing in the middle of all this. Unmoving! Epitome of stillness in the Brownian movement.

And suddenly there it was. He saw a man standing very close to him, pick out a hand-grenade and throw it on the crowd coming towards him. What followed was a series of blasts in all the eight directions. The confused crowd started breaking the half-done barricades that the police was trying to make as they ran towards the railway station.

The boy saw this man… he looked like a normal run-of-the-mill characters that you see everyday. There was no difference. He panicked but he didn’t move. He didn’t dare disobey his father! The order of his world was governed by his father and he knew that he was still out there trying to control the situation.

The number of exits from the place were many but the when you can’t think straight you try to follow the wisdom of the crowd. The terrorists knew that they had the crowd trapped, though there was actually not much to build a trap within the surroundings. After the barricades were broken, the police lost the breather of a space that it required to focus attention on the terrorists inside the railway station.

---

The father suddenly realized that this group did have an escape plan. The terrorists could simply merge with the crowd that was coming back into the railway station and then disappear without leaving a trace. He rushed into the railway station with a helmet and a Kevlar as a scout. He had just gotten into the station when he saw the first of them. They saw each other… eye to eye! One could hear the firing of an AK 47 and the single shot of a police revolver was lost in the continuous fire of a gun that has revolutionized combat for more that 50 years now.

---

Hours passed. The boy had no idea what was happening. He was standing right at the place where his father had told him to. He knew that his father would come back, but the wait was frustrating. The crowd was finally dispersed. Within the chaos, three terrorists were killed and the rest had managed to escape and there were bodies coming out of the railway station. Media had arrived and the reporters were all around interviewing people.

One of the reporters looking for a great media gig saw potential in the kid. Standing at a safe distance from the area where the episode happened, he seemed to be all alone.

“What are you doing here? Is there anybody with you?”

The boy wasn’t paying attention. He was continuously looking towards the station for his father to come out. He saw a dead body without the police uniform in a helmet and Kevlar. For no apparent reason, he didn’t take his eyes off that body when suddenly the helmet dropped.

“Beta! Is there somebody with you?”

He pointed to the body coming out of the station and said meekly… “That’s my Papa.” And that is all that he had to say about it. He didn’t move an inch. He just kept standing where his father had left him.

Coffee and Cigarettes

2008-11-12T21:17:00.001-08:00

The alarm just simply went off. Sometimes you just hate how mechanical a few machines can be. She had just slept for some three hours when the dreaded machine woke her up for the first time. She opened her eyes and looked at her mobile. Without any concern about mood or the situation, the phone played the same old silly ringtone that was meant to be the first thing you hear in the mornings.

She snoozed her alarm and decided to go back to sleep for another five minutes. Last night had been a mix of excitement and shitloads of work. She had thought of a new idea to work with but before she could actually manage to get going on it, she had to figure out the logistics, feasibility, approvals and a variety of other human resource issues. Sometimes a ‘Eureka’ moment comes with such an overload of logistical questions.

Five minute sleeps were always a necessity for her. In a half-awake and half-asleep trance state, she sometimes had the weirdest of dreams. She would be cycling her way into an open meadow, looking at the bright sky with the sun shining and the faint breeze blowing across her face. It’s always a beautiful beginning but, then all of sudden she realizes that she has lost control over her cycle.

She can’t stop! The bicycle runs like a perpetual motion machine, taking her on a never-ending journey. She wants to stop, she wants to look the blue skies and the green pastures… she wants to breathe in the sweetness of the breeze. She wants to take a photograph of this place in the Polaroid camera that she always carries, but she couldn’t stop. She is angry… She is frightened.

She is just plain confused for the time being. Her sense of control over the world that she lives in starts flickering and she realizes the cycle is no longer in the middle of a meadow. It’s taking her to the top of a hill. Suddenly she feels an innate sense of thrill… she goes up, up and away on the steep slopes of the hill side. She reaches the top and still the cycle does not stop and then begins her fall. How she wished that the cycle could fly... but she kept falling and falling and falling!

The alarm went off again. The same ringtone. Sometimes a few sounds really get on your nerves, but this time she was glad that she woke up. She suddenly realized that her five minute sleeps were the breeding grounds for weird dreams, but she desperately wanted to get back to sleep. She snoozed her phone again and went off to her journey for another five minutes.

Before she could disappear into the trance again, she looked around at her room. On a cold winter morning, she enjoyed being covered up by two blankets. She looked at the ceiling fan. It looked dirty. She realized it had been days since she had had the time to clean her room with the thoroughness of the way she usually does. With her half-closed eyes, she saw that there were still spots of green color on the floor where she had spilled her oil paints a week before. She closed her eyes and spoke to herself… something said so quietly that even she couldn’t hear it.

The phone beeped this time. No alarm ringtone! Pleasant awaited surprise. It had just been three minutes. She had another two to go. It was a message. There couldn’t be a worse timing to it. She missed her two minutes of bliss. She looked at the message.

“Mornings are completely pointless if you don’t wish a happy Good Morning to the one person who adds sense and sensibility to your world.
Good Morning, Sunshine!”

She smiled. It was the right time to wake up. She still missed her two minutes of sleep, but then she made her peace with it. That’s when her sister came in.

“Hey, Good Morning… You up already!? What can I get you?”

She gathered her thoughts; and then thought of a response.

“Coffee and I think I will have a cigarette.”

Another Day in Paradise

2008-11-07T05:37:00.001-08:00

Showing their backs
Then their fronts
The autumn leaves scatter in the wind.

What is that supposed to even mean? He thought. Haikus never made any sense to him, but he never let them be! He would keep trying to find the three lines that would change his life forever. This strange obsession was probably the only thing that made him interesting. A normal teenager hoping to have a normal life when one fine day, the results of his board examinations came out and he figured that suicide was the only way out of his misery.

It’s strange how a stupid exam could mean so much to the Indian psyche about education. You can’t do badly in a board exams… if you do… you will be screwed for life. You won’t get the coveted “science” stream and you won’t be an engineer or a doctor. God, what kind of a life would it be beyond these two careers… he thought! So our boy looks up Wikipedia for the easiest ways of committing suicide and encounters Seppuku. Now, Seppuku is a Japanese ritual in which you’re supposed to write a death poem, usually a three-line Haiku before you die and hence, began his obsession. He started reading up on Haiku, understanding nothing out of them but he was particularly confused by the one with which we started, written by Ryokan, a Zen Buddhist monk who wrote it on his death bed.

The four seasons
Days of our lives
Seasons change, so does the day

His first attempts at Haiku were primarily borrowed clichés from the world around. Would you really like to die after writing a cliché? The boy wasn’t really sure that he had the answer to that question. But, later on he figured that he would die to the words that would at least confuse the world or his parents at best. The second option seemed more viable to him. The world was just a little too big for him to handle.

With lives that falter
And life that make
The world spins for another day

Now this was not really making sense to him. It made him happy. He thought that he had finally figured it out. Eureka! He wondered if this was it or there might be something more to add. Three lines! Is that it? Really! But, he figured that for the short span of life that he had, there weren't many events to qualify for more than that. Imagine writing about how he thrashed Shashank's bowling for a hatrick for sixes all the time. The world wouldn't care! Of course, if Shashank grew up to become Bret Lee than probably it might... but then if Shashank would be Bret Lee, he would definitely be Sachin Tendulkar! He smiled at this one... looking endlessly into the void... he just kept smiling!

“What are you doing, beta!? Shashank has been waiting outside for so long! Don’t you want to go and play?”

He looked at his mother with that innate sense of happiness. The Board result hadn’t changed her. She was still the same. The same smile! The same hand on his head! The same reminders! Nothing had changed. Shashank was still outside waiting for his bowling to be thrashed and Maa was still there watching her soap operas preparing tea for his Papa who would be coming back home very soon!

He was happy. He closed his diary and went out to play.

The sensible and the senseless
The wanderer and the purpose
His life is just another day in Paradise

Mute Decibels

2008-11-03T03:26:00.001-08:00

The boy was happy. He had crackers to prove it! With Deepavali around the corner, he knew that he had the legitimate reason to destroy his neighbor’s peace. Oh! The number of times that old man had harassed him.

“Don’t play on the streets!”
“Why should I return the ball, it’s in my compound… now it’s mine.”
“Mrs. Sharma can’t you just look at your son sometimes. He is a total goonda!”

“What a prick!”... the boy thought. Revenge is all he had on his mind and he was happy. He had requested for the kind of things that would make maximum noise possible and his dad had obliged with the kind of absent-minded care that you usually expect from Dads. They are there… but not really there. They will get you the stuff that you need, but never bother with the intricate details of the why and how of it.

Anyway, it was about to be night time. The Mother was trying to figure out a way to keep the family together for Laxmi Pooja. Husband was busy with television. Daughter was on the phone and the son was outside waiting for the Old Man to show up.

“Come for the Pooja… all of you!” She shouted and as a delayed feedback response everybody slowly started moving towards the small little temple space within the house. The Goddess was right there, looking at these four people who had simply no inkling of her presence in their minds. The mother was going on with her Bhajans, hoping that the future of her family would be financially secured because of this. The father desperately wanted to get back to the television. The sister was looking at the phone in every five seconds and the boy was simply looking outside.

Finally, it all came to an end and boy rushed outside again. He kept looking towards the Old Man’s house. He was nowhere to be seen. He desperately wanted him to come out and so he blasted the best stuff that he had. The sound was compellingly loud. The father immediately regretted the purchase. The sister was terribly pissed about interruptions in her conversation but the boy was absolutely focused.

He waited for the peculiar shout that he really wanted to hear that day, but it didn’t come. There was no sign of the Old Man. The boy was confused. He threw one of the bombs inside the Old Man’s compound… another high-decibel chaos… but no reaction. The boy was terribly frustrated. He had absolutely no clue why he wasn’t getting a reaction. He desperately needed a response for his actions.

“Com’mon! Old Man… Do something!” he whispered to himself. But there was no reaction that night. He tried blasting two or three out of the set together, but it simply didn’t work. He got so fed up that he kept the rest of them aside and went to his bed.

The boy couldn't sleep. He was just too irritated by the entire evening. "He must have died!" He thought. That made sense to him.

"He must have been lying on his bed and then just passed way and that is why he couldn't hear the crackers. This needs to be checked out... He lives alone... what if nobody comes to his place and he keeps lying there on his bed for days before anybody else comes to know." The boy had finally figured out the answer. He suddenly got up from his bed and opened the window. He slide out of the window, jumped over his wall into his neighbour's compound hoping that the watchman will not notice.

He stared into the windows hoping to get a glimpse of the Old Man somewhere. He couldn't see anything through the front windows, so he decided to go to the backyard and try again. The boy went to the other side and looked through the window again and there he was. He was lying on his bed... calm, serene...!

"Jagte Raho!" a distant cry broke the boy's concentration. He had to get back before the watchman caught him. That would be real embarrassment. He looked on for some more time, hoping to see some movement that would prove that the Old Man was not dead. Something... a snore... a hand movement... anything! But there was none... "Jagte Raho!"... There it was again. It was closer. It scared the boy. The boy ran towards the wall. To jump back into his home.

The Old Man was still lying on his bed and in the clear moon-lit night, one could see his hearing aid right next to his bed!

Separate Dimensions

2008-10-06T01:53:00.000-07:00

(Image courtesy: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/light.jpg)

He turned his head and saw the light.

Light that tries to fill the enormous darkness of the universe with its subtle presence. Light that tries to delve into the deepest crevasses of human mind to implicate reason. Light that tries to create a sense of being in the immense wilderness of darkness of the night.

Subtlety, Reason and Being – The three states of existence that add sense to the notion of being civil. Though here, we are just talking about the good old sunlight. He had trekked his way upto the peak of this hill... relatively easier trek than most of the others that he had had. So, yes he was looking at his shadow and then he turned his head to see the light.

Waiting can demand such an enormous amount of patience. When you are finally reaching the end... When you can finally sigh in relief that its all over, you tend to have this sense of urgency. The faster, the better! But, then nothing comes for free and nothing that doesn't make you wait is valuable. Atleast this is what our man thought!

He turns again and looks at the pathway that he had taken to reach this place. He hopes that this eternal quest for end will soon be over. He hopes to a see the face that would assure his tryst with destiny. It has been three long hours and our man is a little bored and a little frustrated by now.

"You have waited enough... I guess. Is it your choice to be here?" Suddenly as he heard these words, he saw four people standing right behind him.

"How did you? Where did you come from?"

"I assume that is not the response to the question that I asked. Is it your choice to be here?"

"Yes... it is. It is my choice!"

"Would you like to go first?"

"No! I would like to be the last."

"Okay. As you wish…" The man took out a double action revolver and asked the other three to stand in a line.

"Who would like to go first?"

The man standing on the left sheepishly raised his hand and there it was... the decision was made. The man on the left was shot in the head and effectively he was dead. Our man looked at his fate. It was just a matter of two more shots and then it would be his turn.

Was he afraid, you ask? I think not. He had such an insane desire for his death that he would have gone any extent to make it happen. Just that he didn't have the balls to do it himself. Death, the inevitability of it, intrigues you. You know you will eventually die, but still you are afraid of it. Probably it is the fear of the unknown. You know this, this is present, you are alive... you don't know that... that will happen after you are dead!

He had heard of this man. The one who facilitates suicides. This man who will do the dirty work for you. He will shoot you in the head and then you are done. No hassles... within a second... it’s all over! You're dead and the man moves on to another compulsive obstinate man who won't listen to reason and wants to die.

Within a matter a minutes, the remaining two were dead. Shot in the head. The man with the revolver turns to our man.

"I had time with those three, to listen to their story. The reason… Everything. For you... I guess, you have waited enough… Just one last question once again. Is it your choice to be here?"

He thought hard. Was it his choice? Is it choice? What's this insane desire all about? Did he really want to be shot in the head by a man he had never seen in his life before? CHOICE. Is it the right word to use for suicide?

"Hey. You haven't answered my question. You can simply repeat you previous answer and it will all be over in a matter of seconds." The man lifted his gun and he was waiting for the answer.

"Yes! It is my choice to be here."

The man shot the bullet. It was aimed at the forehead. Within a split second, our man was in the deep abyss of darkness. It was all over. He had exercised his right to have a choice.

--- x ---

"Hey! Ahoi! Wake up. Com'mon... WAKE UP."

"What... where am I?"

"Oh!... Ho! Man, you are not dead. I probably gave you a higher dose of tranquilizer than what your body can take. I have sitting here for the past 3 hours waiting for you to show any movement."

"Not dead... what?"

"Hey... I don't kill people. That's not my job. But, take this!"

"What is this and where are the rest of the people that you shot?"

"Hmm... (Sigh)... Nobody is dead, my friend. They were a part of that act... to make all this real for you and now its time for you to go."

"Where…? Why am I not dead? I told you it’s my choice. I wish to die."

"No! If you really wish to die, you would have the balls to do it yourself. Most people who come here chicken out when I ask them if it’s their choice. You, for a change... didn't. I am surprised. I must confess, but I still don't kill people. There are not many people like you who wish to die and want somebody else to do the dirty job."

"What...? FUCK you! Is this an experiment? Was I just a part of an elaborately planned practical joke that you guys pulled off?"

"NO! You're not. Trust me. It's a simple problem of absolution. Many people wish to die because of a lot of reasons. Personal, professional, academic... you name it... People wish to die when their cats refuses to purr on them! The point is people either do it or they don't... Those who don't have this feeling of tremendous helplessness that they can't make this choice. I just help them make it. One way or the other."

"Which way?"

"You're dumb... Real dumb... man. It’s quite simple. People either chicken out and run away and they know that they love their life too much to give it away or they make the second choice. They take the plunge with me, which effectively means that they really wish to die. I don't kill these people. I just repaint their image. No... this is no science fiction... magic pill story... where you forget everything that happened to you. You will remember and that's the point of it all."

"Repaint...?"

"I know... you didn't understand that one. Open this envelope. It has your new identity and a voucher that lets you take one flight to wherever you wish to go. Trust me. Wherever you go, you will find a member of my cult. They will effectively help you settle down and start a new job... new life and help you make some friends and that's it. You will never hear from us again and we will not be watching you. Basically we will let you explore a life which has nothing to do with your current life and help you make that choice again."

"What do I have to do in return?"

"Eventually become the member of our cult and sponsor one person whom we save just as somebody is sponsoring your rehabilitation."

"But I really want to die."

"We are giving you the opportunity to restart. You're effectively dead to the world as you know it. They will find a body here tomorrow... with your clothes on and your current identity. Just like that... I don't care what your story is but I would advice that you don't return to your previous life. It gets really messed up when you try to prove to people that you didn't die. And of course, nobody is going to believe this bullshit story that you met a man who gave you tones of money and helped you have a separate identity."

"I don't get it!"

"Again it’s simple. You should probably never talk about this episode of your life and your past life to anybody because nobody will believe you. Our cult is like air. We are everywhere... but we are invisible. You remember the life that you left and the life that you reconstructed. So in effect, we have removed your reason for suicide. Now take this envelope. I need to go... my wife is waiting with dinner on the table and she has already called me twice."

"Where should I go?"

"I would go to the Airport... if I were you!"

Death is just an alternate path of leaving the present. A separate dimension. Or is it?

Why so Serious?

2008-08-29T00:03:00.001-07:00

"You look nervous. Is it the scars? You want to know how I got them? Come here. Hey, look at me. So I had a wife, beautiful; like you. Who tells me, I worry too much. Who tells me, I ought to smile more. Who gambles, and gets in deep with sharks. One day they carve her face. We have no money for surgeries. She can't take it! I just want to see her smile again. I just want her to know that I don't care about the scars. So I stick a razor in my mouth and do this... to myself. And you know what? She can't stand the sight of me! She leaves. Now I see the funny side. Now I'm always smiling!"

It’s one of those things, when you know that there is something wrong. But, you don't really have an inkling of an idea as to what it is? Deep down inside, you enjoy watching the Joker. He stands for world where chaos is banal… where rules are obsolete. Does it strike the right cord somewhere in your heart? One can only hope to be as reckless as he is, discard the idea of empathy, and be funny in an idiosyncratic hope of being psychotic about it. You enjoy his madness, you want to be there… do it yourself… it might be just for a few minutes, but that feeling is there… right there inside your heart.

The Joker isn’t just a figment of a skewed imagination, where the villain is supposed to be evil and hence he is. He is logical about evil. He is an open invitation to experiments with morality. We push people all the time to make them disciplined, so why not push them enough so that they break all the rules that exist. Why is one side of this pendulum heroic and the other villainous? Throughout history we have observed chaos creating new order.

As Paul Levitz, president and publisher of DC Comics puts it, "There's a level in humor, where humor can verge on being offensive or invasive of your space or your life — where you don't quite know what's going on. Is this guy putting me on? Is he actually going to do those things to me?" And when the joke transcends into reality and you experience it happening for real… it is not funny anymore. Or is it?

It sounds wonderful as an idea, a world without rules where the food chain determines whether you are the victim or the perpetrator. It’s the notion of power that every human wishes for, and yet if at all it happens, if it transcends from a joke to reality, you sure as hell wouldn’t enjoy it. Experiments with morality sound excellent in imagination; they should probably never be explored.

But one must add dutifully that Heath Ledger captured Joker’s complex persona, wild mood swings, and energetic passionate crime sprees in a manner that possibly can’t be repeated. There might be other interpretations of the Joker, but there is none that is as enthralling as the Heath Ledger legacy.

Batman is an intriguing Superhero, mostly because of the complexity of the characters around him. The Hero is only as strong as his archnemesis and with Joker going one level up with his current portrayal; the Batman seems to have a lot of ground to cover.

Being in the Rain

2008-07-30T23:31:00.000-07:00

It rained yesterday. It rained as if it was the only chance that the raindrops would ever have to disappear into the brown vastness of earth. It rained as if the black clouds had nowhere to go and they were bored of carrying the weight of these small pearls. It rained as if the sky would never be blue again and the sun will never shine.

Amidst the magnificence of pelting rains, one could see people running around from one place to another trying to find a square foot of dry land to stand upon. Somehow nobody enjoys rains these days. Everybody runs away before it even has a chance to drench them. People are so damn uptight that having dry clothes has a higher priority than the sheer divine experience of being in the rain!

I remember my escapades in school when my mother used to give me a raincoat and hope that I would make judicious use of this very handy equipment against the rain. And well the rains would come and by the time I could manage to get the damned thing out of its cover, I was already too drenched for the raincoat to make any difference. My mother’s reprimands were never less than an explosion of an atomic bomb, but time has a certain way of soothing things down and all that remains is nostalgia of a reprimand that was always there at the end of a rainy day!

I wonder if people are afraid of the rains because of the criticism that entails at the end of the endeavor when literally everybody asks you, “Couldn’t you have waited and stood at some dry place instead of stupidly getting wet in the rains?” Well I guess you always could. But the question is whether you should?

Of course, if you were in Cherrapunji it would make no sense whatsoever to get drenched in the rain everyday. People will probably end up thinking that you are retarded if you do that despite the fact that you more-or-less know the timings of the rain. But places where everydayness of life constitutes days with scorching sun and cold dry nights, rains should be intermittent moments of happiness.

I wonder if people could ever loosen up, learn to let go, decide that sometimes the future is a little too far away and the present has smaller doses of happiness that are also good for the soul. I wonder if the world could celebrate a rainy day, just the way schools celebrate them sometimes. I wonder if life was more about the future than the present.

Sometimes… its best to just get wet!

The Black Sheep

2008-07-23T06:03:00.001-07:00

He turned around and looked at the mirror.

“Lights!” he said.
“Camera”
Oh! We all do wish that he could have said, “Action!” But all that happened after that was the sheer disappointment of his father’s arrival.

“What were you doing?” asks the father in a conventional bully style that we are all familiar with.
“Nothing” is the sheepish reply.
“How many times have I told you to go to your IIT coaching classes? How much money have spent on your education and you have never given me a glint of satisfaction. Every once in a while all I hope is to see you study. But all that I see is the hope of a camera that never going to be in your hands. Oh my God! Who will feed this stupid boy after I am gone?”

Our dear small sheepish film-maker is confused about the reply. He always wanted an outburst of his pent up hopes and dreams. Oh! The number of times he has wanted to run away from home trying to make a life in Mumbai. To do something about the small little stories that keep popping in his head. He wants to frame every second of the flight of a butterfly. He wants to capture the ever-changing forms of clouds on a 35 mm motion picture reel. To see the world through Carl Zeiss lenses and hope that it makes a little more sense. To shoot the tranquility of a tree, the speed of a jet plane, the innocence of a sleeping child, the radiance of a Diwali cracker, the twinkling lights of settlements seen from distant speeding train, the power of a waterfall and yes, if you haven’t got bored as yet… the list can go on… but we have a situation here.

“HELLO! Are you even listening to what I am saying? Talking to you is like hitting my head against the wall. I will just end up hurting myself. Look at your brother. He always comes first in his class. Learn something from him. You used to do so well earlier. God knows who told you about this movie business.”

Our film maker does not respond. The beauty of his alternate world was slowly being destroyed by the constant rants of his father. The banality of a household argument took over the scenic wonders he wanted to shoot. If films could capture beauty, they could even rephrase the triteness of family life into a wonderful narrative. People have been doing this for ages and the reason why it works is because it’s common.

“What’s the point of all this? I can’t sit with you all day trying to look at what you do. You are a big boy now. Learn some responsibility. Your mother can’t help you with your studies now. That’s why I pay for your tuition classes and you don’t even bother to go there!”

Shooting something out of ordinary would probably always remain extra-ordinary, the challenge is to capture the ordinary and make it look extra-ordinary. An ordinary existence transcending its limits to become larger than life, capturing hope in the wrecks of a disaster, documenting an extra-ordinary conversation by the side of a Coffee Maker, a day of real work in the life of a beggar, having a tantalizing date in the middle of a traffic jam, falling in love with the voice of a Call Center Operator, finding a rare book in a second hand book stall…

“What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you SAY SOMETHING?”
Suddenly the boy became a man. “I have an idea for a script!” he said as he left the room.

The Sleeping Man Chronicles

2008-07-22T05:31:00.000-07:00

He was sleeping in the middle of the road. No! I am not kidding. He was really sleeping in the middle of the road with traffic whizzing past him on both sides. Nobody cared to stop. Nobody had time. For the lack of a better response, some people just shouted a few blasphemous innuendos while the others simply turned their vehicles to one of his sides and moved on.

"Madness… sheer madness is what the world has come to!" I heard a passer-by commenting as I walked past him. Was he really sleeping or had he fainted? I don't know! Even I didn't bother to care. I looked at him for quite some time hoping that he would suddenly wake up and realize that he was actually in the middle of the road. But he didn't.

It was blissful! With people increasingly suffering from insomnia, fighting their way to sleep with sleeping pills, here we have a man sleeping blissfully ignorant of the world around him with an arm covering his eyes and the other below his head.

I guess he must be tired, probably wouldn't have slept in a few days wandering around trying to find some food and finally when he did and he ate to his satisfaction, he just went to sleep in the first place that he found. He didn't look like a beggar, though. Shirt seemed to be ironed and the get up seemed to be clean.

He would probably have come from outer town and didn't have a place to sleep. But then why would it be in the middle of the road? Probably he likes the sound of traffic. He was probably more comfortable sleeping in the cacophony of a variety of dissembled sounds. He must have worked in a noisy factory for the decades. Or probably he was just deaf!

He could also be mentally unstable, but then it would prove that passer-by right. I desperately wanted his cynicism to be wrong because that would have meant that the world was a better place to be in! It still hadn't been corrupted by the winds of pessimism. There had to be a logical explanation to what I was seeing except the assumption that this man was a little insane.

"Gandhinagar!," said the driver of a Sumo hoping to put five people in a seat for three and suddenly I snapped out of the judgment call. I had no time. Despite the blissfulness of this man, the world had to go on and I had to reach Gandhinagar before quarter to eight in the morning. I sat in the Sumo and it whizzed away past our sleeping beauty.

I smiled to myself and I could hear these words coming to my head, "Sleep tight!"

The City of Illusions

2008-07-18T08:19:00.000-07:00

Being tagged is fun only when you get something interesting to get tagged into! (What a cliché? hehe!) But honestly it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever to be tagged and then realize that you detest the idea of writing on the topic you have been tagged on. But this one is especially close to my heart and I have to thank Piper for it.

I have always wondered about the relationship between space and time. There are places that you like just because of the fact that you have spent a memorable part of your life there. There were people that were exciting and you tend to associate good times with a place when at careful consideration one would realize that it has nothing to do with the place at all. It is the experience of being a part of interesting incidents, conversations and ultimately if the place is actually beautiful… the scenic wonder of the place!

One of the primary memories that I have of Lucknow is of the time when I first landed up on the Railway Station and was getting out of Platform No. 1. In the usual hullabaloo of Rikshaw drivers trying to coerce you into sitting in their Rickshaw, there was a huge sign board right in front of my eyes which said… “Aap Lucknow mein hain, Muskuraiye. (You happen to be in Lucknow. Smile!)”

Lucknow has a traditionally amiable character. Old legacies exist intermittently between the high rise infrastructure and upcoming Super-Malls, but what impresses you at the end of the day is the sweetness of conversation. The colloquial Lucknowi andaaz of “Pehle aap” is not a myth. People sometimes even fight with each other shouting expletives in a manner that sounds something like this… “Aap !@$!#^*& hai!”

Places find meaning with the people that exist in them. I had the pleasure of cycling with my closest buddies on the roads of Lucknow, I found my first crush and my first love in that city (though both of them had quite a painful end… but if you look back at it after years that have gone by… I guess all that remains is a sweet recollection of engagement that one had with the place and the people!). I remember going on drives with a friend who was learning how to drive. (It was exciting to live with the fear that he might end up hitting the divider at any moment of time! Though I must confess he never did.) I remember eating a tremendous amount of junk food in all the weird places you could imagine and I remember refusing to touch non-vegetarian food during the entire span of our food-hunting ordeals.

Somehow I guess Lucknow was also beyond people… it was about the unclean Gomti. It was about the Vikrams that manifested their presence over local Buses. It was about the coaching classes that everybody had to be a part of, whether it was engineering or otherwise. It was about the incomplete flyways blocking normal traffic flow on the roads for ages. It was about the markets that sold second-hand books. It was about the serenity of Aminabad that provides the cheapest goods in the city. It was about the tension between the Shias and the Sunnis during the period of Muharram. It was about Tunde Kebabs and Prakash ki Kulfi. It was about the never-ending tussle between Ambedkar Park and Ram Manohar Lohiya Park.

But above all these small little spices that add to taste of Lucknow, it was always about the experience of a place that combined the small-town imagination with the progress of the Metropolitan cities. The place is still small enough that one can reach from one end of the town to the other within 30 minutes and the place is big enough to boast of Multiplexes and High-Rise Apartments.

Life in Lucknow is a balance of speed, progress and attitude. It is this balance that creates timeless memories of an unforgettable city.

Patience

2008-07-18T00:32:00.000-07:00

It was sitting by the side of road. Looking with an eye of tremendous inquisitiveness, it wondered at the speeding automobiles. The sounds that they made as they tried to rush past each other hoping that they would eventually get a little ahead in the race of going straight on a road that seemed riddled with the enormity of machines with different colours but same purpose.

It looked at this human in a white shirt in the middle of the road trying to control this machinist flow. For starters it felt as if the human was somehow a distant relative trying to use a familiar sign language but then it recognized that the hand-actions were synchronized to the flow of incoming and outgoing traffic and for a short duration of time, it all seemed to made sense.

Suddenly as a bunch of kids saw our dear little creature, it had to jump around and change its location. Without a moment of thought, it jumped endlessly and in a flash of a second, it found itself in the middle of the flow! The human with the white shirt didn’t seem surprised. But the instantaneous reaction to its arrival seemed to be that the flow on that side of the road stopped and out came a shrilling continuity of horrible sounds that could even make Gods run out of the way of these terrible machines.

Our dear creature is flummoxed. The sounds make him understand that he is not quite welcome in the new position and his old position has already been acquired by a bunch of hooligans. It was a moment of snap judgment, but all it could do was to stand there wondering how destiny will play itself out there. The machines were relentless. They didn’t care if it needed a moment to think. They continued with their blasphemy of horrible sounds.

With the progression of events the white-shirt human had to intervene. With a sudden lapse of synchrony in his actions, he didn’t seem to be too pleased with the arrival of our dear little creature. He ran towards it with a stone that he picked up from his vicinity. As he threw the stone at our dear little creature, it finally made up its mind and jumped towards the other side.

The white-shirt human, happy with his success, resumed the synchrony and the flow was restored. While it stood on the other side, looking at the flow once again, our creature wondered if the world ever had time to look at itself the way it was looking at it right now. In all the eventually of the time-space continuum, all the changes in space eventually ends up with zero-work because humans always end the day from where they started and time keeps passing by!

If these machines could just stop being so self-obsessed and look out for other entities in the flow, there would be lesser accidents and better synchrony! Time would probably slow down and people could enjoy the changes in space for sometime before resuming their flow of activities. Running past each other, they never even have the time to look at each other. If they did, I guess they will definitely find some lice in each other's hair.

Ultimately, came a realization... "What the hell?! I am just a monkey."

Sometimes all you need is just a little patience.

Courtyard of Hope

2008-05-16T06:05:00.000-07:00

We sit around this courtyard of hope,
Choosing paths before the lope.
And then we get up to make the walk,
Looking at times, places and people talk.
We pace our way through a medley of days,
Living life in a million ways.
Wishing that one is different from the other,
We push for a little step further.
Into the unknown we go,
Hoping that the other is friendlier than the ego.
But then the days of our lives fade away,
The amble gets slower hoping for the courtyard soiree.
The journey ends with tired feet,
And the courtyard of hope offers a new seat.

Close Encounters of the Bonfire Kind

2008-05-08T07:36:00.000-07:00

I remember a story from ancient times, when I used to read Prem Chand. There was this farmer and he gave away his only shawl to the henchmen of a Zamindaar as a substitute for Lagaan. This was during the times of the icy cold January nights. The farmer thought that with the forthcoming harvest everything would be just fine and till then he would manage living in the cold.

Then the night came. He was out in the open, trying to protect his crops from the Neel Gaye and it was getting colder. His dog cooed in the chill of the wind and the farmer decided to make a bonfire. The fire lit up with surrounding and the cold made way to the gentle warmth of fire on a cold icy night. The warmth was so soothing that the farmer slept off without any concern for the crop and then the Neel Gaye landed on his field, ravaging it, destroying his only hope for survival for the next year. But he slept like child that night. The dog barked, the fire flickered but the farmer was down the warmth of the rabbit hole and only returned in the morning. The crop was destroyed, the dog had died and the farmer was just too stunned to say anything.

Why this story you ask? Well I wanted to write about bonfires and it seemed appropriate. Of course, one has to understand that the magic of a bonfire can only be experienced on a cold winter night. While the story is depressing enough to make you wonder about the condition of the Indian farmer, we will dispense that line of thought for the likes of Swaminathan and move to livelier things in life... the Bonfire.

I must say we tried it once. A group of friends, led by the Lunatic who thought that we haven’t experienced life in its rawest form, went towards a river bed that separates the city from a jungle. Now you have to understand the configuration of the group so that you can understand the complex dynamics of the conversations and events that follow. You see one of the members of the group has the status of God, while the rest are followers. Among the followers one is an Alien conducting ethnographic study of the Human Species and the rest three are normal Humans. Among the normal humans, one is the Lunatic who is currently leading the pack, the other thinks that he is a Bonfire Expert and the third has absolutely no opinion on anything, so he is the Sheep of the group. So we have God, the Alien, the Lunatic, the Bonfire Expert and the Sheep.

For obvious reasons, we had to collect wood to make a bonfire. That job was enthusiastically taken by the Lunatic and you might have guessed by now, the Sheep followed. They went into the jungle nearby and started collecting wood randomly with no idea how the wood they have collected would fit into the normal scheme of making a bonfire. You see you need bigger logs, followed by smaller logs and then come the smallest of logs and the fire goes reverse in the process of burning them. Most of the wood collected had thorns in it and of course, it was incredibly difficult to carry these things back to the river bed. But the two of us managed... somehow.

Of course, before we start with the discourse on the attempts at making the bonfire actually happen, we should first look at how the Lunatic broke his leg. To reach the Jungle one had to climb a partition with steep slope. After throwing all the wood down this partition, the Sheep was holding the hand of the Lunatic while he was trying to find an appropriate place to take his first step to go down. Finally the Lunatic said that he had found it and the Sheep should let go of his hand. What he had conveniently forgotten was to find the place for the second step. The man eventually couldn’t find a place to place his foot and the result was a run towards the river bed which ended in a stunning somersault. The leg was broken... don’t worry no fractures there and then God came to the rescue and the natural order of things was restored.

Alien Notes: Humans usually take care of each other unless they are enemies or extremely good friends. Somehow people who are actually good friends, first find humour in the catastrophe that falls upon a fellow-friend and then they choose to help. Of course, later on they remind them of the favour every now and then.

The most exhilarating part of the bonfire is to make it happen. The biggest task at hand was to break the wood into smaller pieces because it was full of thorns. Our dear Bonfire Expert tried for some time and then left it to the Alien. The Alien seemed to be interested in the activity. Probably his species had never seen fire in its rawest form before. He made smaller pieces... don’t ask me how. Some alien technology we don’t know about! In any case, there was enough pieces of wood lying around and our Bonfire Expert started arranging them in an order that best fitted his scheme of fire-making. In between God is feeding the Lunatic and the Sheep is bored.

Then, came in the magic formula... petrol that we had bought for the purpose of initiation. Oops! memory blues. There was no petrol. We wanted to carry some, but we forgot. Anyway, we had newspapers. We remembered carrying newspapers and forgot the petrol. Yes! we are that good! Our Bonfire Expert tried to somehow make it work with the newspapers. And yes! There was fire and celebration.

Alien Notes: Humans have a strange way of expressing excitement. While they sound refined and meditative in usual manner of conversations, suddenly the animal instinct takes over when they express excitement. Strange sounds, disoriented hand and body movements and behaviouristic alterations in personality can be frequently observed. Somehow it re-asserts the Darwinian Theory that the Humans evolved from the apes.

The celebration didn’t really last long enough because the fire died down within five minutes. Newspapers burned away leaving the wood sparingly touched. While everybody took turns to blame the Bonfire Expert for his lack of expertise, one has to admire the persistence of the man. He lasted for a complete hour fighting it out to keep the fire burning. Pieces of wood, small, big, rectangular, circular, long, short... any permutation of the size and shape that could have been experimented with... were used. Of course, the Alien was always ready to help. The rest were busy playing the blame game.

Alien Notes: Somehow if something doesn’t happen the way it was expected to be, Humans enjoy blaming the idiot who tries his best to make it happen. The rest who don’t contribute at all, are usually free from ridicule.

The fire persisted making vague attempts at burning bright. It was exhilarating to sit on the river bed playing with cold sand with a faint occasional breeze bringing the iciness of the winter night combined with the warmth of our fire desperately trying to burn away with inputs from the Bonfire Expert. With a little less conversation and a little more action around the fire, the place and time would have been marked as a delight by the supernatural power that keeps a record of emotions in the continuum of space and time fabric.

Finally, the fire died down, but the people remained. They happily chatted away into the depth of the night, singing hoarsely to the demands of an antakshri (something that the group never did before and will never do after!) and making senseless horror stories! The warmth of the fire had transpired into conversations and the chill of night was ignored to accommodate space for a timeless memory.

Alien Notes: Humans might not have the greatest of technologies or the greatest of civilizations, but at the end of the day, they have a distinct sense of memory and history. They don’t even realise it when they make it. Conversations fade away, incidents get blurred... but the memories remain. Sweet, delicate, endearing... memories.

Hexad Narratives

2008-05-01T00:03:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is strange even by my standards. But then, with friends who are stranger than truth itself, you can’t really blame me for the idea. The concept is quite simple. You have six words to make a narrative. It should make sense in some sense! hehe! So I received this pack of ten narratives:

Time ends, fruitlessly. We wonder: restart?
Boss? Who's the new guy? Boss?
Pesky rats destroy Delhi, two injured.
Nancy? Who removed the front door?
Humans play God: massive schizophrenia ensues.
Director makes sickest film: Microwave Cat.
Transvestite wins Nobel: she's da MAN!
Hi, clone. Wash clothes. Bring beer.
Reality destroys itself. Hollywood screams 'sequel'.
This is postmodernism. It isn't, dumbass.
IMDB Oscar Ceremony causes movie-maniac riot.

Ok! That makes it eleven...aha!

Anyway, I tried my own set of experimental hexad narratives and they sounded something like this…

Waking life always ends in paranoia.
Knock! Knock! FUCK OFF you bastard!
My life is a black hole.
I have a dream. Stop exaggerating!
Login. Password. Enter. Play. Logout. Rewind.
Dog carcass. Tire tread. City Sleeps.
Lucky! You get filtered junk mail.
Bacteria. Arthropods. Reptiles. Mammals. Man. Repeat!
Smells like Cigar. Costs like Beedi.
This books ends with a prologue.
I vote for Hitler. Hail Democracy!

And then… I got a few more in responses… these are vague but let’s count them in anyway.

ha ha ha ha ha ha
Does this story of mine count?
Poetic liberty, my foolishly idle friend!

So if this gets you excited, leave a few hexad narratives as comments. Till then,
History becomes science fiction in yellow pages. (DAMN! the seventh word.)

Annihilation of Time

2008-04-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

I would have told you a story of whiskey and mystics and men! But then people like Piper don’t seem to have anything better to do than asking a perfect set of amazingly boring questions to a guy who would rather be mutilating his time than doing this! But then things do go beyond mutilation and that my friend is called annihilation of time.

Last Movie Seen in Theatre: Well I tell you what… just like sometimes you have a ‘bad hair day’… I have ‘bad films day’! Yes, its not one but two bad films in a row. I started with Krazzy 4 and ended up with U, Me aur Hum.

Now if I actually try to tell you in just how many ways the films were bad, it would be very similar to the blind men and the elephant problem. The one in which a group of blind men (or men in the dark) touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one touches a different part, but only one part, and hence the confusion.

Book Being Read: It’s a book called Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. It starts with a newspaper ad: "Teacher seeks pupil, must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person." And explains “how things came to be this way" for mankind.

If you have an inkling of doubt regarding the book being a heavy read… trust me, its far more exciting than most of the things that you have read!

Favourite Board Game: The oldest memories of board game that I have are certainly not of chess! My parents had a perfect idea about my intellectual capabilities. The best that I could get out of them was a Carom Board.

So, I get this Carom Board which was passed onto me after it had been rendered thoroughly useless by my sisters. The fondest memories I have are of figuring out the right combination of powders that could be used to make the damn thing slippery enough!

Favourite Magazine: I would rate Champak is the best magazine that I have ever read. I mean think about it, nothing can be as utterly repetitive as a Champak where you can actually have the same storyline repeat twice in the same edition, one time with a rabbit and the other with a bird. Of course, the rabbit’s name would be Cheeku and the bird’s name would be Meeku!

And who can forget the ridiculousness of Champak jokes. For example:

Teacher: Sachin, say a sentence starting with ‘I’
Sachin: ‘I’ is…
Teacher: No, you must say, I am….
Sachin: Okay sir, I am the ninth letter of the alphabet

Favourite Smells: Smell of freshly made filter coffee. It fights really hard with the smell of the wet earth for the first position.

Favourite Sounds: The ringing of the temple bells. Sounds that have a fondness of memory associated with them. Songs that I have shared with close friends sitting in the same room. There were no conversations, just a smooth background of a great song. The first song I learnt by heart. The distant cry of a hawker trying to sell something utterly useless like Kashmiri Carpets and of course, the voice of my latest crush.

What is the first thing you think of when you wake up? The first person I would like to meet or see or hear the voice of. I hope that it varies with days… but usually it ends up being the same person every day!

Worst feeling in the world: Being alone! Utterly alone and knowing that you are alone. You meet people everyday; you laugh, have tantalizing conversations and then go back into a world of tremendous loneliness with memories of better days. Knowing that you know people and a lot of people, but they are not friends.

Favourite Fast Food Place: The fondest memories of fast food places that I have are of the School Canteen. The guy used to sell crappy burgers for five rupees with really tacky ketchup and I always used to have two of those damned things every day.

Another place with memories ingrained into my head is the Grand Bhagwati with an amazing set of night outs that we have had at that silly Café Piano.

Future Child’s Name: Tacky as it may sound… I have thought about it and refrain from discussing it with the universe.

Ditto, Piper!

Finish this statement, “If I had a lot of money I’d…” My present answer to this question would be to go to America for higher education. But now that I have written it… it sounds like one of the stupidest things that I could possibly do with money.

Trying again, if I had a lot of money, I’d probably end up spend it all on making motion pictures.

Do you drive fast? Usually, yes! But it’s a relative understanding of the question. I ain’t Narayan Karthikeyan or MS Dhoni and I wouldn’t really like to be in their driving shoes anyway, but then I am not as slow as a dodo as well.

Do you sleep with a stuffed animal? NO! I like sleeping with a book by my side. It makes me wake up feeling well-read!

Storms - Cool or Scary? You ask me what storm is like. That's like asking me what is a carrot. A carrot is a carrot is a carrot and there's nothing more to know.

Do you eat the stems on broccoli? If it’s edible and it’s not disgusting, then why not!?

If you could dye your hair any colour, what would be your choice? I don’t understand the obsession with dyes. If you like dyeing stuff so much, then there are clothes to experiment on. Why your own body, my friend? Why!?

All towns/cities you have lived in Ahmedabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Lucknow, Mumbai, Gandhinagar, Noida, Moradabad, Bareilly (yes, jhumka giraane waala Bareilly!)… come to think of it… I am embarrassed by the shortness of this list. I hereby pledge to do something about it.

Favourite sports to watch: Ask any guy who is in his right senses, his answer would be Women’s Beach Volleyball! In fact, I like watching kabaddi as well… considering that the opponents entire purpose of life is to touch the opposing team members before his breath runs out, it feels like it is an extended version of pakadam-pakadaai! (And don’t tell me you haven’t heard this phrase before!)

Another game that I really enjoy watching is people playing Luka Chuppi. It gives you an immense sense of excitement when you know where the guy who is hiding is… and you don’t tell the person who is trying to find him.

One nice thing about the person who sent this to you: Piper has the ability of sounding intelligent even when he doesn’t have the slightest clue of what he is talking about. It is a rare gift and I am glad that he has it.

What’s under your bed? My mother always used to tell me that there was a ghost under my bed which will probably eat me up if I didn’t go to sleep. You see my Mom had surpassed the generation of mothers who used to scare their kids with Gabbar Singh.

I still choose to believe within the mess of classic amounts of dust, newspapers and books that are under my bed; the ghost is still out there. I guess traumatized childhood never leaves your trail.

Would you like to be born as yourself again? If I am born again being myself and I am given this questionnaire again… I think I would rather opt to be a bull fighter!

Morning person or night owl? Night Owl… I would love to be a morning person if somebody says Good Morning in the most pleasant of manners. But alas, my stupid stupid fate, I am usually woken up by people trying to burst open the door of the room trying to wake up my roommate.

Over easy or sunny side up? Sunny side up… I have fond memories of long conversations over Brajwasi half-fry!

Favourite Place to Relax: Home or the top of a hill. One among the two of these.

Favourite Pie: Apple Pie.

Favourite Ice Cream: Cookies and Creams dripped in Chocolate sauce.

I hereby do a favour to the world and would refrain from Tagging anybody else with this crappy exercise. Piper hadn't you been a good friend... I would have never followed you into this madness. But things that people do for other people. It never ceases to amaze me!

The Swan Song

2008-04-25T06:03:00.000-07:00

For the limited number of readers that I have on this blog… this is not what the title suggests. It is not my last post or anything close to that idea, it’s just that I was recently told about the Black Swan Theory and the best way to describe a post on Swans is to use the greatest clichés of all… The Swan Song.

As humans we believe in a few assumptions. We believe that gravity exists and we believe that energy and mass can be converted into each other because Einstein said so. Of course, we also assume that Einstein was a genius and therefore he was right! But then there was also a time when we believed that the world was flat and the Earth was the center of the universe. I am quite sure that some real genius would have come up with that idea.

Reverting back to the original Black Swan Theory, people throughout the world used to believe that Swans were white. The assumption was so prevalent that we associated a sense of whiteness with Swans and a sense of Swanness with white. And then, people discovered Australia and to their utmost surprise, they also discovered Swans that were black.

Now the point that I am trying to make is probably so banal that you would want to kill me by the end of this post, but then somethings have to be done despite the banality of their occurrence. A black swan stands for everything that we haven’t anticipated, for things that we believe don’t exist and of course, for discoveries that we haven’t made. The great question is what if there is an Australia where the laws of gravity don’t apply? What if de Broglie hypothesis on the duality of matter falls flat if we account for more dimensions than the four that we know of?

The composition of our entire environment, religion, culture and technology is based on the inherent belief that we know. It assumes that earth was created to be ruled by homo sapiens. The assumption doesn’t stop here, we also believe that evolutionary cycle has stopped working after it created this species and there will be just minor modification where we will be taller and we will lose the appendix. We believe that that since humans differ so much from other species, that human future development may not be governed by the same principles as other animals. This belief is deeply embedded into our culture, with our own set of Creation Myths and Literature. In fact, we are so self-obsessed that we believe that one day we would either rule the universe and we would be able to terraform planets for our survival.

What if human intelligence is too over-rated and there is a subtle wisdom in the evolutionary cycle which has supported immense diversity of species for millions of years before we decided to be intelligent enough to take over. One of the primary advantage of diversity is an essential understanding the diversity promotes survival in extremities of atmospheric conditions. It is far easier to destroy a thousand species with an atmospheric change than to destroy a million species. We an intensive expansion of our species we are moving towards a world with an eventual set of thousand species!

Someday we will discover the black swan and we would end up realizing that our initial beliefs were wrong. The immensity of faith that we have on our intelligence, wherein we believe that we will eventually solve any problem that comes our way might be rendered ineffective against the larger wisdom of what we face! This is not an apocalypse that I am talking about… it’s just a discovery. A small event in the evolutionary lifecycle could have a large impact on our survival.

So the next time you see a langoor happily sitting on the branch of a tree, chewing away one of its branches, just don’t smile to yourself wondering about the purposelessness of his existence. Atleast, he knows that there is no black swan waiting for him at the end of the day.

Linger

2008-04-04T12:49:00.000-07:00

But I'm in so deep. You know I'm such a fool for you.
You got me wrapped around your finger,
Do you have to let it linger? Do you have to, do you have to,
Do you have to let it linger?

The beauty of the song is not in the sadness of lyrics but the music in the beginning! The first note on the guitar, it simply takes your breath away!

Now imagine the skies laden with a greyness of the monsoon clouds in the middle of a summer afternoon, the wind purposefully blowing fast and furious... taking away the scorch of the sun and leaving behind a sudden wave of an immanent iciness, leaves enjoying the free ride of the winds blowing away from the trees as a lone hiker in the middle of nowhere and the biggest rain drops that you have ever seen! In between all this, there is a small silent spot, a ledge where the rain drops fail to reach despite the wind taking them in all directions.

You are sitting on this ledge, listening to Cranberries, enjoying a whiff of the fragrance of the first rainfall, people standing in closed enclosures enviously looking at you with an immense sense of longing to be where you are! The wind blows a steady wave of fresh cold moist air, the trees swing in the characteristic haphazardness of changing wind directions, the rain keeps falling and there are you are in the middle of all of this, wondering if there could be a better way to spend your life than to be comfortably numb sitting on this ledge!

Cranberries have never been such a delight!

Gandhinagar might not be a perfect home, but its still a pleasant home for nomads like me!

Life worth Living!

2008-03-27T23:18:00.000-07:00

In Manhattan (1979), Woody Allen says:

"Why is life worth living? It's a very good question. Um... Well, There are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. uh... Like what... okay... um... For me, uh... ooh... I would say... what, Groucho Marx, to name one thing... uh... um... and Wilie Mays... and um... the 2nd movement of the Jupiter Symphony... and um... Louis Armstrong, recording of Potato Head Blues... um... Swedish movies, naturally... Sentimental Education by Flaubert... uh... Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra... um... those incredible Apples and Pears by Cezanne... uh... the crabs at Sam Wo's... uh... Tracy's face... "

So a friend of mine, mails me up asking me how would I respond to the question... I think I'd say:

"Why is life worth living? You should always start with wondering about the futility of the question... If Friedrich Nietzsche is to be believed there is no purpose, indeed nothing, at the core of existence... but then Philosophy is just supposed to be consumed like a piece of cake... so... Um... Well, There are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. uh... Like what... okay... um... For me, uh... ooh... I would say... the Sunrise at Kanyakumari and the sunset at the "Sunset Point" (what a cliche!) in Binsar... um... a happy conversation with an old friend... uh... the first touch for your latest crush.... a fresh chocolate pancake dipped in chocolate sauce... um... sometimes even the mildness of the morning sunshine coupled with a simple Good Morning from literally anybody... definitely Hrishikesh Mukherjee... and um... The Division Bell... first puff of cigarette... I guess I would even include The Beatles... naturally... a roadtrip, a trek, a miserably failed relationship and finally... words! because without words... the question and the answer both are meaningless!... and to top the ending, a smiling face of a loved one!"

Oh...! I should stop being a sentimental freak and believe in Nietzsche, but considering that you can't really believe in re-birth and all the metaphysics of life in itself... I think I choose to be believe that the one lifetime that I have... already has a purpose. I shouldn't be running around finding one...! It might be as small as the flap of a butterfly's wings but it can sure as hell bring a hurricane in somebody's life! So you see Somebody is gonna get a hurt real bad... anyway!

So instead of wondering about "How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it and why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn't it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager—I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint?"

Just enjoy the fact that you have a life and you have people to live it with! Life is worth living anyway.

Flowers and Sunshine

2008-02-13T09:25:00.000-08:00

Awake.
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
The day's divinity
First thing you see.

American Prayer... and the sign of the day is flowers and sunshine and I will tell you why. You see, in the immense expanse of the universe in which we exist, there is a planet called earth and well there are six billion creatures of the same species inhabiting it. Within those six billion and mind you, six billion is quite a large number, there are only a few people who fall into the genre of "flowers and sunshine"!

Flowers and Sunshine are a race of self-redeeming people who believe that the world is flat and that everyone around them are as happy as they are! You should see the smile on their faces, its the most innocent thing that you can see in the whole wide world. Once you have met any one of them and are totally flummoxed as to how these people can exist? You would realize that they just touched your soul in ways that you could never imagine and leave a small hint of their parallel universe into your imagination imprinted like a Gandhi watermark on a five hundred rupee note.

I have seen her around and lest you might think otherwise, she is just a sweet child, nothing more and nothing less! She shakes dreams from her hair! She smiles like the angels from heaven have put a smile on her face and she laughs like she is perennially watching a crazy act of Charlie Chaplin right in front of her eyes. She thinks that life is a cup which you can fill with water or iced tea or the most weird tasting soup that you have ever had! Whatever you fill it with, just ensure that its full before you die... at least that means that you have lived your life to the fullest.

She looked at me with those big black eyes and she laughed like she saw a Chaplin in me and said that I looked funny. With hair that look like noodles, I guess I can't blame her but then she asked me to sit, because she was ready. Yes, she was ready with the stupidest jokes that you could ever listen in your life and there I was condemned to listen!

She began with:

A women goes to a police station, frantic and desperate, looking for help...desperate help, with a worried look on her face and she barges right into the Inspector's office.

"Inspector! My husband went out of the house, five days ago to get some cabbage... he hasn't returned since then!" she says with round pleading eyes.

The Inspector doesn't even look up and says, "Go and cook some other vegetable... you moron!"

Oh yes! Its not as funny now... and I will tell you why? You missed her tantalizing smile as she said, "Go and cook some other vegetable!" and yes... there is a whole line of them after this! And I guess the best among them is the following...

(Now imagine her smiling and then read on...)

Ram and Shyam are two twin brothers. When I protested to the names... she happily concedes and says... Jay and Vijay are two twin brothers.

One fine morning, they both decide to cross the river. Jay stands up and takes the bridge on the River. Vijay, on the other hand, chooses the sewage lines that went beneath the river. Despite this, people all around think that Vijay is a genius. Now, she grins and asks me... "Why do you think that people around think that Vijay is a genius?"

Honestly, I thought to myself, probably because underground sewage lines are eco-friendly or because crossing a bridge smelling shit on the way makes sense in the weird world of jokes! After I gave up and asked her to reveal the secret of Vijay's genius. She came up with a killer statement.

"Its because Vijay cleared IIT!"

She went on and after she had had her lunch and decided to go to the library for a change to read a novel. Things people do in a library... they actually read instead of sleeping! Always amazes me... anyway, that's when I knew that I have finally met two of her kind in a single lifetime and I smiled to myself and yes, this one was as innocent as it could possibly be when it comes to me.

Wait a minute... did I say "two of her kind"? Who's the first you ask... oh please! Its a long story...

Some other time, my pretty child, my sweet one!

A Bibliophilic Identity

2008-02-10T10:00:00.000-08:00

This is for a dear friend, who has been looking for something to read since ages. He goes around asking people to get him something new to read, fresh, candid... he is bored of Joseph Conrad's epic into the Heart of Darkness. He believe that reading Gandhi leads to a complicated comprehension problems in philosophy and yes, he would kill for simple english sentences that are easy to understand and digest. Let me clarify, this post should not be what he must be reading anyway, but I believe that life should always make a full circle and your search should always end where it starts!

There was once a man... alone in the multitude of people, thinking about his existence all the time, wondering if there was a purpose to life, always trying to reach out to the endlessness of his thoughts for a reason, cause, function, something... and then there was me... my existence happens to have a purpose, I am the gatekeeper to the book with all the answers. I can tell you that this book that I protect defines the circle of life, which is probably why its a circular book in itself... symmetry, order, calm... I help create all of it... you think Gabriel is closest to God, well that's a misnomer we all created to hide my true identity! My true identity... hehe... sounds like I am as important as God. Well if you hadn't guessed as yet... that circular book is God! So now you can all rest in peace and forget the idols that you worship and no, I am not as important as God. Its just that security is quite an issue!

Now, getting back to the point, why should I be worried about this man? There are many things that you observe within the span of hundreds of centuries... wars, civilizations, cultures... they might be important for the history variety of our kinds (oh yes... in between if you hadn't guessed it by now, I am a book as well! I am composed of the riddles of life... you see you solve me... you reach God!) I am interested in people because they keep trying to answer my questions and I have to keep their scores! Trust me, the scoresheets I maintain... its bigger than your wikipedia!

You would like to know how many have aced me. I tell you something, bother with your score and don't look around, you can't cheat and get through with me. You can't emulate a religion and solve my riddles. You need more than religion and faith. You need something that's called common sense. Anyway, I am not the only one who does this job, there are many like me... you see there are infinite directions and if you thought there were only four... you must really get your IQ checked. Every direction has a gatekeeper.

This particular man happened to be looking at a sunset on a beach, having a smoke while he was at it, looking at all the people around him... happy, cheerful, playful (adjectives... I hate them, find a thesaurus and read related words!)... He realized that very soon that the riddles had no meaning. Because riddles are supposed to confuse. When you have a question... its straightforward. Question and Answer. When you have a riddle, you beat around the bush for the question to find your answer. And in that setting sun, he created an interpretation that made me really loose my job...

Then I got replaced by hardcore fact-based questions. You know the answers, you are in... if you don't know them, you are out! With riddles, it was common sense... with fact-based questions, you can cheat. This is how the era that Hindus usually call Kalyug started. And before God could make sense out of the senselessness of interpretation, the man was already in. It happened to be the first time that God and Satan actually met, after he committed suicide and gave all the right answers to all the questions. (Just an information packet.. Suicides are not advisable means of reaching God... it violates our mathematical balance!)

Yes, Satan is one of you guys... He always was!

But, now after the senselessness is over and I am back to asking riddles. The order has been restored...

In the meanwhile, humans have a new force of compulsive jehadis who think that salvation lies in suicide bombing. My riddles have lost their meaning, but at least the order is restored!

The Grunge Song

2007-10-26T09:35:00.000-07:00

The shrill sound pierced his ear drums, and his eyelids parted in unison, revealing a terrorized pair of brown eyes. He immediately scanned the room to identify the source of the cacophony. With the speakers playing “Smells like Teen Spirit” and the alarm clock performing the desired function at its peak best, combination of the two was not quite pleasant.

Such terrible inventions these alarms are! The terminators of man's universe of solitude! The dreaded enemies of the paradise of slumber!

Still half-asleep he saw a familiar face around the corner of the room; the same old bright face with a perpetual smile and the two wings on the back. There he stood two feet above the ground with a halo around him. Our half asleep hero smiled. The visit was unexpected. He hadn’t seen his angel since the time he banged his head against the wall after the graduation party.

“It is time.” The angel said.
“So soon…?”
“Well, you haven’t left us with any choice have you?”
“Okay then.”
“Look at yourself. Go get a shower before we start the journey.”

The journeys weren’t unusual. One keeps getting little side-instructions on behavior and righteousness. God takes care of you periodically. But this was unexpected.

He swung himself out of the bed and entered the bath. The semi-diaphanous bathroom door stood static. He went to the wash basin, and turning on the tap, he cupped his hands. A jet of cold water fell into them, and he splashed it on his face. He looked into the mirror. What he saw didn’t quite please him - a square jawed, brown eyed tanned face with stubble that was at least ten days old and thick, long, wavy brown hair that desperately needed some shampoo.

Almost involuntarily he turned on the shower. The bloody heater wasn’t working well, so he left the water running. It would take some time to get warm, and he stared unseeingly at the pellets of water appearing from the holes in the shower head taking a trajectory through the air, down to the floor, the shortest of lives… and then disappearing through the bath-tub’s outlet.

He brushed and shaved, so meticulously and so slowly, it looked almost professional. The razor smoothly went over his skin, and shaved those long needles of hair on his face. He went over each spot twice, with military precision, and saw to it that every bit of that deceptively innocent and youthful face was shaved clean. Done, he walked into the shower… the warm water landed caressingly on his back. He let the water trickle down his back, then he turned, his face upturned towards the shower, the water massaging his neck, and flowing down over his chest, hips, legs, feet... away. He stood there, enjoying immensely the shower, aware yet unaware of his nakedness.
He turned off the shower, grabbed his towel, and wiped his chest, then draped it around his lean hips. He walked to the steamed up mirror, wiping it clean with his hand. His hair were wet, his face glistening with those droplets of water. He opened the closet, and carefully picked out the simplest pair of T-Shirt and jeans. With a collection of T-Shirts that had Kurt Cobain all over it, the best that he could manage was a Black T-Shirt with blue jeans.

He emerged out of the bathroom and looked around for his winged friend. He came out of his room into the drawing room and saw somebody lying on the floor. He came closer and looked at it. The body was still with thick, long, wavy brown hair covering the face. He removed the hair to find a square jawed, tanned face with stubble that was at least ten days old. The body was surrounded with a set of syringes and right on the side was a small piece of white cloth that he used to tie around his shoulder. It hit him immediately. It was his dead body.

“Your refrigerator is empty.”
“You have come to take me for the final journey?”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t know that you had it coming. We explained to you last time, didn’t we? Don’t go down that road. You don’t listen… do you?”
“Well, there are no two options about it… are there?”
“I am afraid. There are no two options about this one; my friend.”
He looked at his body with a deep desire of longing. He wanted to get back into it. It seemed to be more pleasant than the company of the angel. He knew God would be unhappy. What a waste of a life? We treat it so preciously and yet insult it over and over again.
“It is time.”
“I know.”

His angel extended his hand towards him. He looked at the bright white light that surrounded his hand; the hands of servants to God himself bestowed with calmness of immense satisfaction. He turned and raised his hand to touch those divine fingers. The light transcended into him. He was now in unison with God. He radiated the perpetual smile that he always saw on the face of his angel. He figured that God would probably know what is best?

*---*

Two hours later. The entrance to his apartment was broken down. Two policemen came into the drawing room to find a body on the floor.

“Call paramedics. See if he is alive.”
The speakers still played “Smells like Teen Spirit.” One of the policemen moved towards the body and checked for the pulse. The heart had stopped beating hours ago. The other one picked up a syringe.
“He is dead sir.”

The policeman who checked the pulse turned around to see his In-charge holding a syringe.

“Simple case of drug overdose sir.”
“You really can’t be sure. We will wait for the post-mortem report. Look around. Tell me if you find something else. Look for any signs of struggle; any illegal substance that you can find. Given the boy was into drugs, it could also be homicide.”

The policeman went on his way trying to find a clue. The In-charge, irritated by the loop of the song that the speakers were playing, moved towards the source of sound. It was a computer with a blank screen. He turned on the monitor only to find an open word file. He started reading it.

To Boddah
Speaking from the tongue of an experienced simpleton who obviously would rather be an emasculated, infantile complain-ee. This note should be pretty easy to understand.

All the warnings from the punk rock 101 courses over the years, since my first introduction to the, shall we say, ethics involved with independence and the embracement of your community has proven to be very true. I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music along with reading and writing for too many years now. I feel guity beyond words about these things.

For example when we're back stage and the lights go out and the manic roar of the crowds begins., it doesn't affect me the way in which it did for Freddie Mercury, who seemed to love, relish in the the love and adoration from the crowd which is something I totally admire and envy. The fact is, I can't fool you, any one of you. It simply isn't fair to you or me. The worst crime I can think of would be to rip people off by faking it and pretending as if I'm having 100% fun. Sometimes I feel as if I should have a punch-in time clock before I walk out on stage.

I've tried everything within my power to appreciate it (and I do,God, believe me I do, but it's not enough). I appreciate the fact that I and we have affected and entertained a lot of people. It must be one of those narcissists who only appreciate things when they're gone. I'm too sensitive. I need to be slightly numb in order to regain the enthusiasms I once had as a child.

On our last 3 tours, I've had a much better appreciation for all the people I've known personally, and as fans of our music, but I still can't get over the frustration, the guilt and empathy I have for everyone. There's good in all of us and I think I simply love people too much, so much that it makes me feel too fucking sad. The sad little, sensitive, unappreciative, Pisces, Jesus man. Why don't you just enjoy it? I don't know!

I have a goddess of a wife who sweats ambition and empathy and a daughter who reminds me too much of what i used to be, full of love and joy, kissing every person she meets because everyone is good and will do her no harm. And that terrifies me to the point to where I can barely function. I can't stand the thought of Frances becoming the miserable, self-destructive, death rocker that I've become.

I have it good, very good, and I'm grateful, but since the age of seven, I've become hateful towards all humans in general. Only because it seems so easy for people to get along that have empathy. Only because I love and feel sorry for people too much I guess.

Thank you all from the pit of my burning, nauseous stomach for your letters and concern during the past years. I'm too much of an erratic, moody baby! I don't have the passion anymore, and so remember, it's better to burn out than to fade away.

Peace, love, empathy.
Kurt Cobain
Frances and Courtney, I'll be at your alter.
Please keep going Courtney, for Frances.
For her life, which will be so much happier without me.
I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU!

The speakers were still playing “Smells like Teen Spirit.” He turned towards the other policeman.

“Did you find any ID on him?”
“No sir.”
“Make the report.”
“What should I write as the probable cause of death?”
“The paramedics are here.”
With a straightforward question, he looked at his In-charge expecting an answer. The In-charge moved out and went into the drawing room. Puzzled the man still had to make a report.

The police file on the dead body found in Apartment A- 201, West End Park reported the following content.

Name: John Doe.
Cause of Death: Drug Overdose.

Second Life Syndrome

2007-10-12T23:12:00.000-07:00

Pick up the phone. Dial a random number and talk to anyone who picks up the phone. Seems like an unfamiliar possibility! Now, connect to the internet, go to any of the chatrooms and start a chat with any stranger. That is natural for any avid internet user.

The fact that the voice makes the conversation more personal than the act of typing in smileys, makes life on internet a different realm of possibility. So one gets around joining social networks like Facebook and Orkut, creating and updating profiles, and even playing massively multiplayer role playing games such as the World of Warcraft. Add the spice of a possibility of virtual reality, the imagination of a second life becomes reality.

One has heard of Avatars as the possible transformations of God, but to possess the power to exist in different moods, personalities and idiosyncrasies is exciting even for the technologically challenged. Avatar is precisely what you can have with Internet-based virtual worlds such as Second Life, There and Active Worlds.

To get around with the basic jargon, a virtual world is a computer-based simulated environment which the users inhabit and interact via avatars/incarnations. The habitation is generally represented with landscapes, buildings and scenarios and the Avatars are usually 2D or 3D humanoids. The rules of the real world do apply, so there will be gravity, topography, movement, real-time simulation of your actions and communication. Though your movement is again restricted with the boundaries of your virtual environment, the scope of interactions, relationships and play remain endless.

The virtual world generally spans around:

massively multiplayer online role-playing games or MMORPGs where the user playing a specific character is a main feature of the game
massively multiplayer online real-life/rogue-like games or MMORLGs, the user can change and update their incarnations at will, allowing for a more personal touch.

Inspired by the cult of the Cyberpunk novels, featuring William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, these worlds provide an imagination for a desired existence where one can decide the rules of their game in a world that allows for radical changes in gameplay.

The interactions don’t just end here. Millions of people are active members of Second Life developed by Linden Research Inc., who create digital personalities and live online – meeting other Avatars, going to events and even buying sims in Second Life with real money. (A sim is a unit of land on Second Life.) If you got confused with the idea of “going to events” – very recently a British comedian Jimmy Carr performed a virtual show on Second Life. In a virtual replication of the Art Deco hall, the Avatars watched an orchestra perform live in a video streamed over the Internet.

Linden Research Inc. provides the basic platform for the environment in which these incarnations exist. The development of the surroundings, landscapes, tools, buildings and personae of the incarnations is left to personal creativity. One has the ability of coding their own set of objects that the others can see, use, walk through and even buy. That means that on top of this platform one can create a hill, build a house over it and then make a lock to secure it. David E. Stone, a MIT Research fellow, who creates simulations for this virtual world reports a surreal experience he had with another software programmer's Avatar. On a dark night in the virtual world, he says, "we walked off the edge of his land to a spot deep beneath the ocean and into an underwater cave. He then showed me some achievements in software engineering that were well beyond what I then thought were possible in any environment, real or virtual." (CNN.com)

The world has its own set of economics to it, you can barter a peculiar characteristic of your incarnation with others, you can even buy or sell them in either the virtual currency of Linden Dollars or if you can code a really good feature for your Avatar or his/her environment the opportunities for obtaining real money for virtual quirks are endless. The economy transcends the boundaries of the game to the real world where you can buy Linden Dollars on eBay. Linden vice-president, Joe Miller, feels that “many Second Life residents have created vibrant marketplaces. The amount of economic activity that occurs in Second Life has grown dramatically.” (Computing SA)

Second Life has created dialectic for new possibilities with the virtual environment. Dr. Terry Beaubois, lecturer at Montana State University, has created a virtual classroom in Second Life and expanded it into a program called Creative Research Lab which is a part of the school’s College of Art and Architecture. Beaubois has created an environment complete with his lab and four "islands" where he and his students can create structures and interiors for teaching and practicing architectural design. AvaStar is a tabloid publication for Second Life virtual community focusing on celebrity Avatars and the user-generated stories around their incarnations.

The Second Life citizens who are often criticized for “getting a first life first”, would now be looking forward to the incorporation of 3D-Voice capabilities to the Second Life Grid. This is in continuation of the ongoing drive toward creating a richer, more immersive virtual environment. Recently, Linden Lab has also unveiled a new Identity Verification (IDV) system for its Residents. This system will provide an additional layer of trust for Residents and businesses, giving them new tools to determine how they interact with the Second Life community and how the content they create is accessed.

With the release of the source code of the Viewer Application of Second Life to the open source community, this virtual world hopes to garner the emerging notions of mass creativity and prosumers into a business model. The distinction between the real and the imaginary is subject to interpretation. Second Life is as real to its 10 million members and First/Real Life is for its 6 billion.

Being Ordinary! (Part II)

2007-09-26T10:53:00.000-07:00

I woke up one day just to find a Times of India on my doorstep. Thanks to my roommate, its a novelty that I can enjoy free of cost. India had just managed to clinch the T20 World Cup from our very next door neighbors and the newspaper seemed very excited about it.

So the point that I was trying to make actually reveals itself in one of the short corners of a big interview of MS Dhoni.

"At what stage did you realise cricket is your life?

I never really thought I would become a cricketer. It all happened very gradually. In fact, as you know I've grown up in Ranchi, a small town. I had a simple life as a kid, a kind of routine that I followed everyday. Getting up in the morning, studying for half an hour, going to school, back by 1.30, lunch, rest for some time, play from 4 to 6, study, eat and sleep. Every day it was the same. So I never really thought about it. I just used to play cricket and I used to enjoy it. Just like when I studied I used to enjoy that too. Basically, I moved from one step to the next, one level to the other one. "

Though he might not have realized it when he said it, but he expressed the banality of a middle class existence with quite a precision.

Our lives are not a situation comedy, we don't have a bunch of friends with nothing better to do but drop by and instigate wacky adventures and of course, our conversations are never peppered with spontaneous witticisms!

But, we have bursts of laughters when someone slips on the floor, we do have friends who might be a little boring at times but have interesting enough lives for us to observe and comment on and finally, we do manage having conversations peppered unevenly with films, sports and politics.

We enjoy routines and gradually we move to extra-ordinariness once we get to break these routines and move to a higher position in the food-chain. Being ordinary is not about being banal, its about enjoying banality. Though I feel there is nothing wrong in it, I also think everyone can do better. The food-chain is always accommodating.

Opera of the Bathroom

2007-09-22T01:45:00.000-07:00

A human being is an intensely private organism. Oh! you might say we live in a society, we need people for self-validation and of course, one needs friends, family and other support systems. I agree.

But, being honest with yourself, I think everybody loves a quiet time where you can just be alone, talk to yourself, collect your thoughts and probably just enjoy the solitude of your very own existence. Now, with the advent of the amazing technology called a phone which clings into your private space everywhere, I have realized that your own body is not an object with fixed boundaries. It has grown extensions into the space of other people where an intrusion is just a phone call away.

Your body is the practical unification of co-ordinated activity of the various objects, technologies and the appliances that you use to get by your daily life. In fact, if you just think of it there is no space where you are just alone with yourself except for the Bathroom!

A bathroom is a place where you still are the organism hand-crafted by God himself. You are naked for all practical purposes, away from any possibilities of intrusion (except if you have a phone installed in a your bathroom, which is really taking it too far... for God sakes!) and you are just left with yourself.

So, you dance, you talk to yourself, you think of yourself as the biggest rockstar on the planet and you sing away in glory in the presence of an imaginary audience admiring your skillful vocal abilities. In fact, a bathroom is the place which takes you back into the Garden of Eden where everything was perfect. That's where you have enormous freedom except for one limitation... you don't have the freedom to get out of the garden with the same kind of freedom.

Its quite amazing that the most unreserved that you can be about your body, your thoughts and your feelings is only when you are alone with yourself. The freedom in solitude makes you feel the way nobody can ever make you feel. Hence, I conclude with what I began... a human being is an intensely private organism and a Bathroom can prove it all!

Time Enough for Duty

2007-09-19T23:16:00.000-07:00

Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.

But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please — this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time — and squawk for more!

So learn to say No — and to be rude about it when necessary.

Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.

(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.)

- Extract from "Time Enough for Love" - Robert A. Heinlein

Baraka

2007-09-19T04:26:00.000-07:00

a lonely, isolated man standing in the immense expanse of a city. the road nearby is full of cars and the platform on which he stands is full of people; all of them evenly dressed, nothing out of the ordinary except for an occasional flashy bag or a cute face. the man stands in the middle of this multitude of people and space; wearing a hat that covers half his face and a traditional Chinese or Japanese tunic.

the music fades away into silence. there are no cacophonous conversations to be heard, no sounds of the traditional traffic to be paid attention to. you plummet into the depth of silence.

time stops.
people move slowly.

our loner is... slower!

and then, there it is. a single "ting" of a small bell. you wonder where did that come from? but the ringing of the bell has a rhythm to it. it keeps coming back and mesmerizes you... it takes you away from the visuals towards it source. our loner is ringing a bell as he slowly takes his steps forward.

the steps that he takes aren't a simple act of putting his legs forward. he takes his left leg, puts it forward keeping his foot inclined towards the left. and then almost ceremoniously he takes another step, brings forward his right foot inclined towards the right.

his gait is majestic and somehow self-indulging as he utters something under his breath and rings his bell. its almost oblivious to the surroundings of a fast-paced world. his world works at his pace, slower than most people and richer in sounds and time!

you wonder if time will ever stop for you. but the genius of the film is that it makes you realize that time doesn't stop for you... though you can create your own pace of time.

{
Baraka (1992) is a Todd-AO (70 mm) purely cinematic visual film directed by Ron Fricke, cinematographer for Koyaanisqatsi

Often compared to Koyaanisqatsi, Baraka's subject matter has some similarities—including footage of various landscapes, churches, ruins, religious ceremonies, and cities thrumming with life, filmed using time-lapse photography in order to capture the great pulse of humanity as it flocks and swarms in daily activity.
}

Waking Life!

2007-09-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

I woke up today with a peacock on my window. Oh yes! It’s not a dream. With all its magnificence, I saw a peacock sitting right on my window looking at me! The sun was happily waking up from its slumber hoping to shine through the day with no clouds around. I woke up with a happy thought and a happy mind.

Sometimes you just feel that life is bright as a 100 Watt bulb. You always wish that it would have been better to have white light instead of yellow. You see we started with white light and had it not been for blessed Eve and her stupid apple… life would have been bright as a Tubelight, puritan and magnanimous.

So you have to make do with a 100 Watt bulb, but even that is not bad. You can still see through the dark times, hoping for the light to get brighter. I look at people around and I figure that for once I would like to believe that despite we ate the apple, people are inherently always good. They always manage to do a few nice things for the people they care about. They may be bad things when you look at the “greater good” of the people.

But our bulb lights up only parts of other people’s lives and it’s not strong enough to light everybody’s life. Then why bother about everybody when we can just chase the light of our own bulb and see what it shows us?

The peacock flew away into the wilderness of my college. The sun has already woken up and was shining bright and beautiful. I realized that it was time to chase the ends that my life was showing me for the day. I am getting more optimistic by the day. It is probably a sign of impending disaster. But then how would you test the durability of a bulb without a voltage fluctuation?

Robert Heinlein

2007-09-12T10:53:00.000-07:00

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently and die gallantly."

What more can you possibly ask for?

Being Ordinary! (Part I)

2007-08-30T22:43:00.000-07:00

I wake up everyday and I brush my teeth.. Such a cliche. Then why do we do it? Because mind needs a certain ritual to wake up. Imagine if somebody woke up everyday and did the hoolaa laa laa dance for five minutes. Not because he wanted to. Its a routine that has to be followed. You brush your teeth, he does the hoolaa laa laa dance.

I walk on the platform adjacent to the road... Again such a cliche. Everybody does it... why do we have to follow the mob? Because the mind needs acceptance. Imagine if somebody was doing the hoolaa laa laa dance in the middle of the road. Not because he wanted to. Its also for acceptance. A girl told him that she would fall in love with him if he did that. You do it for the collective, he does it for her.

I work everyday nine to five and then I go home, watch television and sleep on my couch. Do you know anyone's dad who didn't do this? Of course, you would like to be a freelance photographer with super-hot girls flocking around you for the photo that would make the cover of Vogue! You always think that your Dad's work is a cliche. Everybody does it. What's so great about it?

The mind needs a sense of lack of achievement. Otherwise it stops thumping with the heart. Slows down and dies out! We have all seen a set of bozos moving around the streets of the city thinking that they have a bike, so they rule the world. Though you would like to do that for sometime, but you would never choose to be one of them.

Being ordinary gives you routines, acceptance and a prolonged sense of lack of achievement. I wonder why people look for gratification when its right in front of your eyes. Just be ordinary.

The Paradox of the Family Tree

2007-08-07T10:34:00.000-07:00

Its been a hard day's night and the post is more of an observation than anything more philosophically profound. The project that I have been recently working has an additional requirement of finding visually appealing ways of representing Family Trees. Before we start let me just say that here we are not talking about the album by Bjork but instead we are talking about:

"A family tree is generally the totality of one's ancestors, or specifically, a chart used in genealogy to show the family connections between individuals, consisting of the individuals' names (usually accompanied by dates, and often also places and occupations) connected by various types of line representing marriages, extra-marital unions, and progeniture. Some use the term only for charts showing strict patrilineal descent, although in common usage the term is used much more generally."

Now when you intend to create a family tree out of a database, you need information on all people individually and you need to establish who are the parents of each person recorded in the dataset. Thus people with the same parents are siblings and parents of a person who in turn is a parent of a child would be the grandparents of the child. A simple dynamics which establishes relationships easily and effortlessly.

The problem arises with the notion of family that the client has. They record information in terms of families, that is, first you record who is the head of the family and then how are all the other members in the house related to him/her. Though in totality, they are looking at families instead of each individual... this collective information about a family is useless when it comes to representing genealogy. Because a member of the family may be a grand-son/grand-daughter with respect to the head of the family, but till the time we don't know which of the sons or daughters of the head had this child... you can't really make a family tree.

The great paradox lies within the realization that in order to make a family tree, you need to collect information for individuals and not the family. If you look at a family the client's way, you might fail in creating a family tree.

Stories of the Old!

2007-07-02T02:07:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, I was sitting with my grand father. (Alright, it wasn't long long time ago! It was just around a month ago.) But he told me one of the most interesting stories that I have heard in my life. And yes, lest you might think of something else, its not an Alfred Hicthcock thriller nor the well-known bed time stories of your grandmother about fairies and dragons. Still, it was a story that makes you think. ("About what?" is a relative question with no specific answers!)

So, once upon a time there was a a great famine in North India and it lasted for years. Earth cracked up for the want of water, animals died, there was no food, crops perished, rivers dried down, birds migrated and even people started moving aimlessly in search of water. And then, when the great disaster was over and it finally rained, people danced out of joy and it was time to start again. Another crop and a good produce... and everything would have been like the old days when there was prosperity and happiness.

There was this farmer in one of these villages who lost an ox in the famine. There was no money to buy another one and there was no other way of ploughing the fields. The situation had no solution but the farmer knew that without ploughing the fields, life would be the same as it was during the famine.

In the middle of all this, his wife came up with a solution. She said, "I will replace the ox. Lets plough the fields with me one side and the ox on the other." Husband despite all his reservations to the idea had no other choice. And the couple started ploughing the fields.

In between there is a bright young prince who was happily riding around with his horse enjoying the monsoons and the supposedly romantic weather. He passes by this field and looks at this couple and lashes out at the husband.
"WHO IN HIS RIGHT MIND WOULD MAKE HIS WIFE BE USED AS AN OX?"

The farmer looked at the prince passively and said, "If only I had the money to replace her with another ox!" The prince immediately sends off one of his bodyguards to get an ox for the farmer and says that, "This should fix your problem!" The farmer knowing the ways of the world knew that if the prince left, there would be no ox that would be coming his way. So he says, "Well, what happens till the time I don't get my other ox? I can't sit around idle with the season for ploughing the field goes by."

The prince showing all the signs of a great future king smiles and says, "Let me replace your wife till the time the ox doesn't arrive." The farmer happily started ploughing the fields again with the prince on one side and the ox on the other. Soon, the bodyguard arrived with another ox and the prince went on his way.

Then came the season of the harvest and it was a beautiful crop. The produce was more than enough for the farmer to sustain his family, but there was still a small little problem. The part of the field that was ploughed with the prince on one side gave out no produce. The land was as barren as it could possibly be! The farmer was worried about the situation and then, (as you would have guessed by now), the brilliant wife comes up with another great idea.

"Lets look at what happened to the seeds!" "Valid thought!" was all that the husband could think off. He goes to his field and digs down to look at the seeds. And lo! all the seeds were now converted to 24 carat pure gold.

The farmer was confused. (so was I at this point of the story. Then I thought lets not argue scientifically lest one may get a kick in the balls! Enjoy the story. Why bother with details?) The brilliant wife again managed to come up with another great idea. "Go to the Prince. Give him these gold seeds. They don't belong to us. We already have enough by the grace of GOD." (okay... just pause for a moment if you have reached this part of the story. First I must congratulate you and secondly, after reading what the wife said... didn't you just say... "KEEP IT BITCH!")

So the farmer having no brains of his own, decides to goto the prince who is now the king. He reaches the city and tells the guards about the incident... probably gives a few seeds to the guards to ensure that his word reaches the king. The King with the brilliant memory of his remembers the farmer who made him an ox for a day and calls him in. The farmer tells him about the seeds and says, "It is the result of your grace, my Lord! Please accept these seeds and it will be a burden off my chest."

The king smiles and says, "It is the grace of God who sends you golden seeds after testing you with the famines, but since you mention that you have enough crop to last you till the next harvest, we will distribute this wealth into the poor and the needy."

Moral of the Story (Grandfather version): Selfless hardwork is probably the best way of ensuring that you reach heaven! It has the greatest reward that you can possibly imagine.

Moral of the Story (My version): Never give money to a person who has more wealth than you. He will not value the favor and in turn use it to gain favors from people who have less money than you do!

But I guess beyond the jokes and the fun, I guess probably everybody who has story-telling grand parents cherish that experience of being with them even when after you grow out of the stories! Its not the stories that capture your imagination, its the affection with which they recite the same stories again and again... and you fall in love with them everytime!

Such a Cliche

2007-01-21T06:45:00.000-08:00

Well I started out and looked at Gandhinagar. Quiet place. Creates solid doubts as to whether it is really the capital of Gujarat with no McDonalds and Subways. Sound built of houses along a straight long road. Raw and unfinished copy of Chandigarh. But, there is beauty in the quiet of Gandhinagar.

I moved to Ahmedabad. It's quite a city. Boasting of the largest number of two-wheelers at least in the country, the place is an interesting blend of ethnic gujju culture and the modern world of nike and adidas. Huge buildings, malls, flyovers... its like any of the metropolitans.

I travelled overnight to Mumbai. It boasts of being one of the busiest cities in the world. Nobody has time. Local trains are so full that probably add a few more people and people will be pushed out of the otherside! (But, it never happens... I always wonder why?) Bigger Malls, better multiplexes, higher value of property! One can always be optimistic about the prospects of being a Super-Power in the Third World.

We have the right mix of talent and laziness that the world needs. But then, I came back from Mumbai, travelled across Ahmedabad to reach Gandhinagar and went to Sarghasan... walking distance from my college. Houses are still dilapidated, lifestyle is still no way close to what the IT engineers will have as they pass out.

It reminds me of a note that I read in one of these "Wake Up Call for India: Look at Rural India" type books.

Thousands of Denotified Tribes assemble every year at Kaleshwari on the border of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat for a mela. During the last mela, a hijra (eunuch) said to me, "Sir, I have heard it said that India is now a free country with her own laws. It is true?"

Well how do you answer that one? When he goes back to his place and looks at the world around him. Nothing has changed in more than fifty years. Can you really tell him that, "YES! We are free."?

Is he/she really free?

Strange Encounters

2007-01-21T06:15:00.000-08:00

She is like the sunshine on a rainy day... You know, it brightens up everything. Everything seems as if God had come down and painted the world again, with his own hands. Everybody needs sunshine... don't they?

The question is when do you manage to have it in your courtyard! Its like awaiting the dawn just when you know that the sun is going to be up within a few minutes. Its like opening your hands to embrace the gentle breeze coming right at you. Its strange, the things that you take for granted are all beautiful. And it takes the entry of somebody else in your life to make you realize that!

And the things that you manage to do... things that you thought you could never live without. You get rid of them the instant she says she doesn't like it! You change your lifestyle to fit in. You are there for her. 24/7. Anytime... Phone Calls... Meetings.. Chats... With the mobile technology underway, you somehow manage to drag her home as well.

You give up friends... family... life! For that once in a lifetime opportunity of being with her. She is a mirage... gives you hope, aspirations, expectations, speed, the illusion of well-being!

I wish I also had a 'naukri' to call my own!

The ShodhYatra Episode

2007-01-21T01:56:00.000-08:00

Okay! Somehow winter in Noida (though it is my favorite of the so-called seasons that we have in Northern India) isn't that much fun when it brings about some chilling nights without proper blankets and sleeping bags. But, somehow that's not really the point of the Yatra at all.

A 'Yatra' somehow signifies journey or a walk (rather long one I would say!) and 'Shodh' means Research or Search for literally anything that might come to one's mind. So it basically refers to a journey taken for an exploration. Our journey wasn't necessarily taken up for anything. In fact, to be absolutely honest, I didn't have a clue as to why I had to be there, apart from the fact that it was an invitation from a Professor at IIM Ahmedabad. And I just wanted to look at how the idea works and if it is any good?

I went to Noida specifically to make it to this walk extravaganza and I guess I would have been more than happy to walk a little more than I did. For the record, 50 kms in two days... from a Village called Kote in Gautambudhnagar to a village called Raispur in Gaziabad. We came back on the 31st to celebrate the New Year's with friends and trust me, even the New Year was as eventful as the preceding two days. But we will get to that later.

It all began on the night of December 28th. We reached Kote and finally after a set of desparate phone calls to figure out the exact location we reached the house of Pradhan who was hosting the 'baraat' of people walking along with the Professor himself. So we joined in to be the next set of baraatis. Again, though we happened to be two days late, people joined in after us as well... So I guess the Yatra was free for all except for the registration cost. 125/- for each day you stay.

Professor was conducting a meeting and the hosts were all drunk. One of them even asked my friend if the Professor would just keep talking or would give them something. "Its all the same. They come. They talk. They go away. Nothing changes." I was kinda confused. Even the people around were. They had come to the most amazing conclusion that the both of us were reporters from BBC. I couldn't stop smiling when I heard that theory for the first time.

The meeting then proceeded towards the revitalization of the Arhari River in Rajasthan. The fact that a whole river came to life just because a few water-bodies were maintained strategically by people somehow made every act of development look as if they were not only feasible but they could someday change the world. Somehow all that you need to do is to pick up a shovel and start digging. Ahem!

The night was cold. We didn't know that yet. We slept with a single blanket on the both of us... borrowed! We woke up with four blankets and trust me, even with those four. I felt cold in the night.

The days were filled with Walking. Walking. and yes, more Walking! We travelled along the highway on the first day. Wasn't that much fun if you ask me. But the second day had some green fields and perfect photographic situations. We camped at places where Professor would talk about the Yatra. Why was it being done? Why is traditional knowledge so important? And blah... blah... and more blah!

But before we proceed onto the real nice encounters... let me just be sure that you know. The Yatra is more of a reach out exercise. Since people might know stuff and they won't come to you with it. You should go to them! As simple as that!

"Shodh Yatra is a journey for the search of knowledge, creativity and innovations at grassroots. Shodh Yatra is an attempt on the part of SRISTI to reach out to the remotest part of the country with a firm belief that hardship and challenges of natural surroundings are the prime motivators of creativity and innovations. Shodh Yatra aims at unearthing such traditional knowledge and grassroots innovations that have not only simplified the lives of men, women and farm labourers but have also significantly contributed towards the conservation of bio-diversity. Shodh Yatra is a journey of mutual exchange and sharing of knowledge. Whatever knowledge and practices that we have pooled in, over the years are shared with the villagers during the Shodh Yatra. We also share the Honey Bee database with the villagers. Shodh Yatra is also a journey to spread green consciousness and we do it by involving women and children to display their ecological knowledge through various competitions." (http://www.sristi.org/cms/shodh_yatra1)

The really interesting part are the people that were walking with me. Talked to most of them. In fact, I thought I was the wierd one before I met these set of lunatics. But I felt as if I could just fit in with those people. Made some really good friends in the course of those two days. "There is something about these Yatras. You might live in the same place, study in the same college for years and would manage to never talk to each other. And here, we all are from different places, different lifestyles, different outlooks and we all just blend in. The Yatra somehow manages to free your mind." Somebody said that to me. I guess I would agree with every word of that sentence.

I translated for the BBC guys when they finally arrived the next day. Gave them an interview as well. Talked to people from different domains of work. Journalists, budding enterpreneaurs, travel freaks, one media lab asia research pro! The pool fascinated me. They were all different and yet, so consistent with their lifestyles.

The most important thing that happened out there was te discovery of this guy who developed a thresher with a braking mechanism. Strangely enough I had my small role to play in the process as well. People usually ask you a lot of questions if you are walking aimlessly with a banner in front of you. Sometimes you answer, sometimes you just ignore. Somehow I didn't ignore the guy and I told him about the Yatra and why we were doing it. He just happened to know a guy who had made this invention.

I spoke to inventor myself later. And to be honest, the words that he said still manage to get me intrigued. "It's all because of God. He inspires me to work with whatever I have. I don't understand the whole of it, but I do know the parts of it. And I can work well with those parts."

Somehow when I came back from Raispur after facing those chilly nights and bad shoe-bites. I guess the most that I make of that experience is the fact that innovation is just a play around with the parts that are known. Walking around trying to document what people know because it might be useful at the end of the day is probably the most utopic ideas that I have come across. That walk was about a few people belonging to the Urban class learning the ways of the Rural. It was in itself a small part of a large whole that still needs to be discovered and developed. It's a great effort! Commedable! But we need an understanding of the whole before we can take these bits of traditional knowledge.

We are collecting parts without knowing the whole. I guess we would end up just like our dear local innovater and his machine. A good invention/innovation with a bad implementation model. The question is.. Is it worth the trouble? And the answer to that one is... OF COURSE. IT IS!

Placing a Light behind the Cyborg Manifesto

2006-12-04T00:51:00.000-08:00

Prelude:

Will there come a time, when a robot looking for a prosthetic organ, will fix itself up with a biologically natural human organ which turns him into a "crippled" cyborg?

The question isn’t just a mere rhetoric. It extends itself to the very definition of many of the words used in it. It considers the robot as well as the prosthetic as something which are beyond the natural domain of human life. The robot extends itself into something that has a more biologically natural human form to blur the distinction even further. It turns itself into a cyborg. So at the utmost basic level the question is an inversion of the question we always ask ourselves. Is enhancement good for us? The question is about whether these enhancements would lead to such changes in the food chain that it is the machines that are consumers rather than humans themselves.

The question in itself is an extended cliché. Hollywood has made a lot of money on it. Experts have predicted impending disasters as a result of Artificial Intelligence, Pollution, and lack of respect for life on earth in general. But as 21st century consumers somehow the questions of ethics and morality do get lost in the very act of consumption. We have developed an extended network for consumption. We subsist on the planet and its resources, then we develop our own enhancements to further consume the resources in a better fashion and in the end, it’s not a very far-fetched possibility that the enhancements we create will eventually beat us in efficiency.

Efficiency here is a mark of intelligence and nothing beyond that. Though this actually digresses from the actual dictionary definition of the word but efficiency in any other term would be meaningless in today’s world. Machines have already beaten us in physical as well as rote jobs. The implication is not about considering machines as an active adversary to humans. Considering we follow Asimov’s Laws of Robotics, probably they will never be an adversary. But by the end of all the theorizing of the future that Asimov managed to write about, even he admitted that his laws weren’t full proof.

Apply some exceptionally twisted logic and machines will ultimately have a reason to eliminate the human race or captivate it or replace it in the food chain of consumption. When efficiency is the mark of existence, humans are tactically nothing without the brains. It’s like a rerun of the Alfred Nobel inventing the Dynamite story. Alan Turing invented the Turing Machine and then it all began. The Dynamite story ends up in Nuclear Bomb which is still a big threat to the existence of this world. Turing on the other hand still has a lot to cover. Again such parallelism is uncalled for because one might learn from experiences. But then, to counteract that notion we have always had another well-known cliché which states that “History is always supposed to repeat itself.”

The Cyborg Manifesto: The Past

The argument that I propose to present in this paper is fallout of my readings on Donna Haraway. It might not be extended reading of all that she has tried to talk about. In general the paper would focus on the ideas of the Cyborg Manifesto and would document my reactions to a few of her theories that use the notion of Cyborg to validate reconstruction of the human society.

Cyborg in itself is just a fusion of the animal and the machine. The term is used to designate a creature which is a mixture of organic and mechanical parts. Generally, the aim is to add to or enhance the abilities of an organism by using technology. In a certain sense, all theories that talk about organizations being living entities, should rephrase their claims to organizations being cyborgs, an effective fusion of the Human and the Non-human. Given the definition that we have at hand, any individual with a small chip floating in his blood stream which provides information about Blood Pressure and Hemoglobin levels is a Cyborg. Or even the man jogging next to you with an IPod in his ears is one of them.

"Imagine you're a rice plant. What do you want? You want to grow up and make babies before the insects that are your predators grow up and make babies to eat your tender shoots. So you divide your energy between growing as quickly as you can and producing toxins in your leaves to repel pests. Now let's say you're a researcher trying to wean the Californian farmer off pesticides. You're breeding rice plants that produce more alkaloid toxins in their leaves. If the pesticides are applied externally, they count as chemicals - and large amounts of them find their way into the bodies of illegal immigrants from Mexico who are hired to pick the crop. If they're inside the plant, they count as natural, but they may find their way into the bodies of the consumers who eat the rice."

International border controls, the question of natural versus artificial, the ethics of agribusiness, and even the politics of labor regulation are networked together with the biology of rice plants and pests. Effectively the new genetically enhanced version of the rice plant is a combination of the original plant and the pesticides. In all technicality of the present terminology, we all would agree to the proposition that the GM crop in the example is also a cyborg.

In the entire act of creating a distinction between the natural, the artificial and intermittent between the two, we ultimately trash the big oppositions between nature and culture, self and world. So if humans aren't natural but are constructed, like a cyborg, then, given the right tools, we can all be reconstructed. Everything is up for grabs, from who does the dishes to who frames the constitution. Basic assumptions suddenly come into question, such as whether it's natural to have a society based on violence and the domination of one group by another. Maybe humans are biologically destined to fight wars and trash the environment. Maybe they’re not.

Being a cyborg isn't just about the freedom to construct oneself. It's about networks. From the individual consumer to the misunderstood loner, modern citizens are taught to think of themselves as beings that exist inside their heads and only secondarily come into contact with everything else. Draw a circle. Inside: me. Outside: the world. Jung extends it further by making concentric circles with different levels of impact. But the question that haunts every individual is the idea of whether reality exists beyond the circle where one has to interact with the outside world. In a world of doubt, getting across that boundary, let alone to other people, becomes a real problem.

Unless, that is, one is himself a collection of networks, constantly feeding information back and forth across the line to the millions of networks that make up one’s "world." Human beings are always already immersed in the world, in producing what it means to be human in relationships with each other and with objects. If you start talking to people about how they cook their dinner or what kind of language they use to describe trouble in a marriage, you're very likely to get notions of tape loops, communication breakdown, noise and signal. Even while we mistake ourselves for humans, the way we talk shows that we know we're really cyborgs.

The Cyborg Manifesto Reconstructed: The Present

In general all that we manage to do in our life is to live in our past. The day we start living in the present, we would see the future. (Read: Marshall McLuhan) Donna Haraway presents the notion of cyborg as an extension of an existing definition of the term. Networks and technology extensions to human life have been experienced throughout human life right since the beginning of human civilization. The quality and the relevance of these extensions have changed but they have always existed. The way to look at the future is to redefine or reinvent the word and the implications that follow.

Given that everything is up for grabs, reconstruction becomes a question of ethics. The freedom to question in itself becomes a part of the problem as one might end up in the loop of questioning the questions being asked. Thus the answers get lost in the redundancy of the questions being sought. The act of extending into the outside world by questioning possibilities isn’t just a progress into the cyborg mentality; it’s an exploration of what is inherently human or self in the notion of the other.

Cyborg is not just a representation of an entity that can provide a statistical evaluation of how many parts of a human body could be prosthetically enhanced. Or how could machines be made more and more humanoid. The question in both the cases is of percentage which belongs to the past. The present question is about how well these enhancements could map to human psyche. The present question is of control rather than replacement. We are already cyborg in the definition of extensions that can be enhanced and replaced. But we still hold steady in the domain of control. As a collective it is the humans that control the network that they belong to, they choose and control the extensions that they make into the external world. In this sense, a cyborg is an organism that is a fusion of the animal and the machine, where the enhancement is relating to the amount of control that the individual components have on each other. The more the control shifts towards the machines, the more humanoid the cyborgs will become.

In this definition, the notion of the exploration of the self in the other becomes redundant and so does the notion of being in a network. These extensions do not involve any transgression into the machine world. The control always remains in the hands of the individual exploring the self and in the case of networks, it maps to the individuals that control these networks. So these specific mappings are ruled out as conditions that make humans turn into cyborgs. We are not cyborgs as yet. We are still very far away from a situation where any weight can be put into the machine side of the balance when it comes to control.

The question of control can vary and among all its variations, one has to understand that somehow even if the technology is developed to create rifts in the domain of control, the scenario resulting out of it would be unpredictable. One would never know what may result out of this jump in technological progress. Maybe time of the humans will eventually come to an end, and the baton will be passed on to creatures with much more tenacity, intelligence, and resistance. Creatures who are much more evolved because they have bee-hive mentality and not like some ancient prehistoric species like humans who prided themselves on individuality and originality.

“Imagine an era of cybernetic revolution, when the first perfect soldier that always took orders from humans was created. Here again at the ultimate level the control still remains in the hands of humans but the technology would provide free thought for maneuvering and decision making in different war scenarios which in turn puts something on the machine side of the balance for control. While testing, in a complete war zone, this cyborg stopped, sat down, and started to sulk.

The problem lies in the basic programming of the machine part. If one programs with the three laws of robotics as the base over which an artificial intelligence is coded, then interaction would look at the scenario as a conflict of interests. The entire war scenario would seem to be a little pointless which in turn creates lack of motivation to fight and depression.

To circumvent around depression, the solution sought was to program a sense of the ridiculous into the cyborg, a sense of treating a hopeless situation with blatant disregard, and program it to laugh at the whole futility of things which in turn would make the cyborg stop sulking.

The cyborg is put to test again in a war scenario.

This time it doesn’t stop laughing."

The cybernetic mind is still in its preliminary stages of development. We can discover patterns and create automations but decision making is still an infant technology. Mapping behavior makes it even more difficult. Our intelligence validates war with honor, possession and pride. But these entire notions originate from the idea of control. To make the cyborgs obey every order, the notion of control has to be removed from their basic core engine. Without this element, honor, possession and pride are meaningless. Hence the result is the simple possible scenario elaborated above.

These controlled transformations cannot be looked upon as reconstruction. Everything somehow isn’t up for grabs. It cannot be because if such a situation is possible then our notion of individuality would destroy the sense of community. We require approval to achieve what we want. Without the order and rules that a community creates, we would revert back to our own prehistoric past. Enhancements that break rules should create possibilities for an order of another kind. The resulting chaos out of an enhancement or change should have its space for settling down because without that space, the enhancement would either be rejected or would lead to continuous search for a possible alternative that fits better.

The Future:

In spite of all the opposing ethical arguments, we basically approve of enhancement. It is the decent thing to do. There is no line dividing harm from benefit. So, just as there are moral reasons to avoid harms, there are equally good reasons to seek benefits. The future would probably be a time where engineering greater intelligence would be no different from buying a superior education. Hence the view that humans are natural and we should avoid artificial interventions, or ‘playing God’ would probably be reduced to background noise. Because if we do not do so, we could be embracing the Hobbesian state of nature, in which existence was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” not by failing to build a state, but by renouncing technology.

At the ultimate end of the road to cybernetic evolution, we would probably simulate brain and personalities. Marvin, the Paranoid Android from the HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy would possibly be the first robot to turn into a cyborg by simulating paranoia. The distinction would not be on the basis of the body organs or the machine parts. It would be on the basis of thought process and evolution of ideas and creativity of the mind. Considering the fact that we only utilize ten percent of our own brain capacity, simulating a brain would require an enhanced brain capacity, first on the side of the Humans and then the mechanical development of its equivalent.

The questions to be asked here is whether a robot which simulates a fully functional brain expressing emotions and thoughts could be considered a cyborg or at the ultimate level a Human himself. Asimov in his short story The Bicentennial Man chooses to believe that even a robot could be called human if it could ultimately simulate every human emotion, have a personality and die. Death was the ultimate factor that made him human. In the middle of the transition from a robot to a human, the robot is a cyborg living a life that is contrary to popular belief that it is humans that become cyborgs not the vice versa. The balance between the human and machine part of the cyborg involves percentages that could go either way and each way would make a viable cyborg.

Conclusion:

The paper attempts to look at Cyborg as a term that would require constant redefinition and reconstruction with each phase of its realization. The following two examples are here to illustrate the work being done in the field.

Instead of constraining implant technology for therapy, one can use it to upgrade limited human capabilities, and open human senses to the environment in completely new ways. Kevin Warwick gave himself ultrasonic sensory ability in his cyborg experiment in 2002, but that should just be the beginning. One can have an infra-red sense and “be equal with one’s TV set for a change!” Warwick likes to make provocative statements, “those who want to stay humans, you’re going to remain a sub-species.”

Toshino Kukuda, on the other hand, provides non-invasive solutions to assist through longevity. His technological vision of robot friends will complement humans in a symbiotic relationship. Robots can provide support, ranging from mechanical walking aids to help with emotional expression. Following the trend of miniaturization, nano-robots may be able to help humans at a cellular level in the future.

Both these cases studies are classic examples of the “past” definition of cyborg. They could be explained using the theories of Donna Haraway, but as we move towards the future, the first example is the preliminary start of the “present” definition of a Cyborg. While the second example moves into the robot paradigm from the cyborg paradigm. As we move towards species improvisation by technology and bring about changes in societal hierarchies equivalent to the current Digital Divide between people, we will make the present happen in its entirety. The Future is still a bleak possibility.

The question at hand is whether cyborg, in the present understanding of the term, would be able to handle such a vast paradigm of human excellence and given the possible future scenario with which we started, is it worth the trouble? The mystery of replicating life and everything that it encompasses feeds on the human desire for control. We are so engrossed in controlling our environment that somehow we ignore possibilities where our activities might back-fire. Somehow I think we need a superior intelligence than that of ours to create balance.

And a cyborg of the Future might be the answer!

End of an Era

2006-12-02T13:01:00.000-08:00

I will tell you a story of whiskey and mystics and men.
Tada DA!

They had parallel lives, which is really kinda strange. Same school, same average scores in class, more or less same group of school friends, same coaching, similar blunders in the first year after their High School got over, same college, same group of college friends, similar Heartaches (over different periods of time, one had it in school (and he is supposedly scarred for life) while the other had it in college), same room, but different personalities, different lifestyles and different sensibilities.

Its strange how two people could be friends without any complications for seven long years. And after those seven long years now when the time comes near to move out and pursue different goals in life, one of them seemed pretty confident that they could start again from where they left... conversation, friendship or life in general... The other stands confused and bedazzled.

He sees the time ahead of him and finds that he has some six months in a place where he had probably the greatest days of his life with a few very good friends. And more or less, out of the three or four good friends that he made, mostly all of them were leaving or had already left. Time stops! There's nothing beyond those six months, probably there never was because those six months is the end of an era. The college and all its perks of a great student life come to an abrupt end.

The whiskey has finished, the mystics are over and the men have moved on.