Thoughtography : Mind's mindless walk

Three Idiots

2011-08-09T09:08:00.002+05:30

This post starts a work of Fiction that I intend (actually hope) to complete over many posts that will come over due course. All characters that appear or may appear here are purely fictional and imaginary.

Som Vihar is a quaint little park in the posh locality of RamkrishnaPuram in New Delhi. A prestigious school is also in the vicinity of the park. Students from the school sometimes stray inside the park in the afternoons specially. This afternoon for example, three boys in uniform were seen strolling around, none too happy or too sad, simply lazing, like airport cabs with no passengers or hurries to reach somewhere. From the looks, all three appear to be in the age-group of 14-15. They are Rahul, Satish and John and they are close friends, in fact very close friends. Though they live in different neighbourhood, they actually travel in the same school bus. They not only study in the same class, they always go around together when they are in school and needless to mention, go to same coaching classes. Their teachers and classmates call them '3-idiots' and they actually take it as compliment! Thanks to Mr. Amir Khan, being called an idiot is now respectable in Indian metros among teenagers and kids; in fact it is considered cool. And having fullhouse of 3 idiots? Loooot 'cooler'! In fact lot more cooler that being called '3-musketeers'!
So the 3-idiots were lolling around in the park in the afternoon because their class got over a little early today. The teachers had some important meeting to attend. These boys also decided to have a meeting, the meeting room incidentally is a bench in the park. They call it Open House session, not only the House is open, the meeting also is Open, not constrained by agenda or time limit.
"Man, what this Obama dude is doing, man? He is taking US into another recession! Did you see the news in WSJ, US for the first time in the history got downgraded!"
The other boy corrected, "First time in last 70 years."
"It is still first time in the history of our life-time", the first boy insisted.
"Actually it is not Mr. Obama's fault, US has been living with borrowed money for many years. It had to get out of hand some day", the second boy added his share of wisdom.
"How is US living with borrowed money, dude? They are the richest nation in the world!, Do you know that Mr. Kaushik Basu, the Economic Advisor to the Govt. of India said that, impact on US economy is an impact on world economy. Global economy is bound to be affected by this downgrade?", the 3rd boy who was eagerly looking for an opportunity to interject, was happy now. Some of his lost ground is recaptured, or so it appeared to him.
The 2nd boy was not offended at all. In fact he was happy that he was given an opportunity to demonstrate the power of resources that he has at his disposal. He took out his touch-phone from his pocket. He opened the google page and quickly searched through few pages and gave the phone to the 3rd boy, helpfully, "read those pages."
"Dude, you got an iPhone!", the 3rd Boy almost shouted.
"Dad's phone, man! He flew to Boston this morning. He told me that I could use it till he returns but I must not use his SIM card. So I inserted my SIM"
"He is travelling without mobile?"
"No, man! he is carrying his blackberry. This was his personal phone."
"Your dad is travelling to US now? What is he going to do?", 1st boy tried to show surprise.
"Make some stupid presentation and blabber about his company and his team, what else! That's what they have been doing all the time." His dad is a Vice President with an Indian software company, that they euphemistically call Indian MNC.
"Woh tera Dad hain, Dude!", some reminder of morality from the 1st boy.
"So what, man! Truth is Truth. And I myself heard him telling that to mom one evening".
"what did your mom say?"
"Mom just smiled. Dad tells that his job is to entertain his clients with his little songs and dances so that clients become happy and agree to add few more bodies in his company at the Clients' expense. Mom once asked him why he hadn't left the company when he is so unhappy with his job. Dad said whichever company he would join his job would remain same. Dad said it is not the company per se, it is the industry where the problem lies. He said that he in fact felt pity on his clients since it is them who are in more ridiculous situation. He said his client, unlike him, would have to listen to many other presentations, like his, from executives representing other companies and at the end have to decide who to give him business to when there is practically no difference between any of the presentations and the business discourses that the client went through. Dad said that he could on any day walk into his rival company and make the presentation on their behalf to their clients without looking at the slides and still be applauded for that!"
John said, "Your Dad is so brilliant, man!" John cannot help showing his innocence time to time, probably because he has not suffered affluence and its associated dialectics like the other two boys.
Satish said, "That he might as well be, given that he is a graduate from IIT, but in this case it is rather the lack of brilliance of the industry that he was ranting about."
John's face told that he was hanging between words.
Satish became the history book's noble man again, "Look at this iPhone, dude. It is an awesome product, slick, beautiful. It has so many cool apps, amazing games. You feel terribly happy when you hold it in your hand, don't you? Hold it, man and say it!"
John nervously took the phone in his hand but returned within a moment. He definitely felt that it was beyond his reach.
Satish continued his discourse, "An original product which is also created by a software company. Can you remember seeing a single original product that was from an Indian software company, okay forget original, do you remember any product at all?"
John tried to plug in, " an ad comes in the TV often , I remember. It projects a software engineer fixing an invetment banker's laptop, going to some village riding an elephant."
"Yes, and many more ludicrous stuff like showing a chartered plane waiting on the roadside to pick him up!", cued Satish. All three laughed, John was particularly amused with the way Satish presented. He also thought that the ad was stupidly funny.
"Now..what did you make out about the company he represented", Satish asked.
John lost his foothold. He tried to grope for some hold, "I think..I mean, I thought that ad was trying to tell that his company is helping many people and doing something very hightech".
"Your confusion tells that you aren't sure what they do which apparently is the actual case", Satish gestured as if to tell that he rested his case.
Rahul tried to balance himself between a defence lawyer and an ethical commentator, "High Tech Consulting, you meant, I think. Then again, the dilemma will be faced by any consulting business houses, the very business that they are in makes it difficult for them to define in a clear cut terms what they do. They can only describe in terms of the impact they make."
Rahul is from a very politically infleuntial business family. He hears such kind of arguments more often than most of the other boys in his age-group. With the advantage of being born in elite 0.01% faimily of India, he is far more secure about his future and very much aware of the role he is expected to play in the complex powergame of India's future plutocracy. He knows that he belongs to a very different India than what others think.
"In other words 'Keeping conveniently vague', so that one can use it in anywhich way as one pleases. Dad told once that Software consulting service firms are more about commodity human resources, definitely lot less about Consulting and he hoped that they were at least about software. He said that he hoped because from his position he could not see how much really it was about software. ", Satish was happy that he could remember and use the words of his Dad correctly.
"I also heard a friend, of my Dad, who incidentally is a very respected software entrepreneur in US saying that Indian software industry is still at its adolescence and it lacked the vision and appetite needed to create globally successful products." Rahul wanted to tell his friend that he was not contesting. Being from the family that juggled many hard-nosed politically sensitive issues everyday, he has learned quite early which fight not to pick. John nodded his head, completely missing the point about unspoken communication just happened between his two friends.
John's full name is John Kennedy. He is used to the effect of rising eyebrows that his name creates in the audience. As if to answer to those raised eyebrows he always adds, "John Kennedy without F." Satish, the noble man, does not forget to add his little illustration, John Kennedy without the F-word when he gets a chance. Actually John's family is from Kerala and unlike the way many understood, Kennedy is not his surname. In fact entire "John Kennedy" is his first name leaving the comparison completely out of context. His name is borne out of the deep regard that his grandfather had for the original Mr. Kennedy. John's father migrated to Delhi but not without a stop-over in Dubai. Fact is John's father, Mathew Rejoyce wanted to live in Dubai when he applied for an electrician in a Dubai based company. After landing there, he realised that he got duped. After living almost as a prisoner for six months, he, thanks to intervention from Indian consulate, managed to get a return ticket back to Delhi. He decided against returning to Kerala and adopted Delhi as his new hometown. He still works as electrician in a local company. Sometimes he wonders if his astrologer uncle actually meant Delhi when he said he would flourish in a foreign city.
To Flourish, the Oxford Dictionary defines it as to "grow or develop in a healthy or vigorous way, especially as the result of a particularly congenial environment". Mr. Mathew Rejoyce did Flourish in Delhi in the particular congenial environment of fast growing buildings and influential builders. Today he earns more than what he was promised for his Dubai job but he often gets confused on how much of that is white and how much is black. With passing years he has learned not to get confused between black and white since the world is not either black, nor it is white, it is grey. Remaining in grey is easy and benefitial and advisable too when you have particularly grey congenial environment.
So, grey is good! So did John Kennedy learn from his father. He is as comfortable in his Achan's small house as in the company of kids of some of the most influential and rich family in Delhi. Satish and Rahul find him a viable buffer that they use suitably to ensure that harsh edges of their rich, powerful ego do not hurt each other. Friendship, as it appears, only grows when there is clear and implicit understanding of every member's relative worth.

A new beginning!

2011-02-04T19:32:00.003+05:30

Last few days, I am glued to BBC World. I have forgotten what was the last time when I was so eager to watch and track news coverage. Arab world is again showing the promise, promise of new beginning, surge of the great human spirit that is called freedom. Nobody thought the wildfire would sweep across the whole area when the Tunisian government fell. It almost missed to catch attention of most of us when the people's protest brought down one of the long standing dictator regime in Tunisia. Very few thought that there could be any ripple effect till small groups of protesters started gathering in different corners of Egypt, Yemen,.. Jordan,Syria. Once the gathering reached the Tahrir Square in Cairo, people started realizing across the world that something new is happening for the first time in the History. A grand change of wave is sweeping the conscience of people across the Arab world; a change that is spontaneous, that is led by young people in their early twenties. Last time people have seen similar things were during the 60-70s when Ho Chi Min, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara created the history in different parts of the world. It seems that we are witnessing an epoch again. Otherwise how could you explain this: the dictator of three decades who have managed such a good relation with international powers, agreeing to come down without any major bloodshed? How could you explain the Yemeni president apologizing in public and pledging that he will not appear for reelection. How could you explain million unarmed protesters showing amazing grits and determination of sticking to nonviolence with unwavering commitment to stay at the Tahrir Square in severe cold till their demand is not met? The wildfire is sweeping across the Middle Asia. And as I was I watching, reading the accounts of ordinary citizen braving the cold and stones thrown at them while picking up the wounded fellow protester, a strange emotion was welling up inside, choking my throat. I have never been to any of these countries, do not speak any of their languages but watching ordinary Yemenis, Egyptians, Jordonians on the road raising slogan against their respective authority, I was feeling the rush of angst, pain and all different emotions that were playing on the faces of them as if I am one among those countless people suffering through the ordeal of living in a politically strangled, economically deprived country for decades. Unbelievable, isn't it!
I discovered again that we all are connected in a mysterious way, called humanity. We suffer with others, cheer with others. We all share common emotions that get roused in the same way across continents irrespective of our language, culture or religion! I discovered again what it means to be human. I felt happy, happy that I am alive to witness this uprising of humanity.
I just wish that this great wildfire does not stop at Egypt. Countless ordinary people in countries like India, Pakistan, Myanmar are waiting,.. waiting for something equally grand, equally bright to sweep them of gluttony of getting stuck at poverty, manipulation by the political class, manipulation by self-ordained sentries of religion, manipulation by the economically priviledged class, not to mention the pervasive corruption that has engulfed every machinery of their livelihood.
Come, the great wildfire, sweep us, burn us, so that we can taste our humanity again!

Welcoming 2011

2011-01-03T10:58:00.002+05:30

I was looking for words that would aptly articulate the feeling that the new year arouses and realized Dickens already have done that decades back when he crafted Tale of Two Cities. Who can match the expression of "It was the best of times, it was worst..."
Wishing and all are done umpteen times already, as have been done for years gone by. Let me rather read some texts and leave it as puzzle for inquisitive minds to figure out the source! Every mind by nature is a self-transforming entity unless it is stuck. Every time the mind is detached off the point it is stuck to, reality gets an opportunity to transform it. All we can ever wish, hope is keep our minds open to the extent of vulnerability, to be enriched by the experiences that keep knocking on our senses moments after moments, every day, every year and not use prejudiced intellect and judgments as sentries!
One must not judge good or bad. One must not label or have any kind of desire or goal in regard to what arises in consciousness. There must be no sense of avoidance, resistance, condemnation, justification, distortion or attachment in regard to what arises, but only a choice-less awareness, and a self-communion is established.
A choiceless awareness-- that is the ultimate key to open the innermost mystery of your being. Don't say it is good, don't say it is bad. When you say something is good, attachment arises, attraction arises. When you say something is bad, repulsion arises. Every emotion is pure by itself and an expression of yourself. Let it be without evaluation.
When you are there without condemnation and justification, then in that choiceless awareness, all psychological pain simply evaporates, as dewdrops in the early morning sun. And left behind is a pure space, left behind is a virgin space.
This is the One, the Tao, or you can call it godliness. This one that is left behind when all pain disappears, when you are not divided in any way, when the observer has become the observed, this is the experience of godliness, samadhi or whatever you will.
In this state there is no self as such because there is no observer, controller or judge. One is only that which arises and changes from moment to moment. Some moments it may be elation, other moments it may be sadness, tenderness, destructiveness, fear, loneliness...
......
The truth remains; it does not matter whether you reject it or accept it. It does not change the fact; it changes your psychological reality. And there are two possibilities: either pain or joy, either dis-ease or health. If you reject there will be pain, because you are cutting a chunk of your being away from you. It will leave wounds and scars on you. If you accept, there will be celebration, health and wholeness.

Wishes for the new Year

2010-12-27T13:03:00.006+05:30

Last few days of this year I was reading J. Krishnamurti's commentary. While many times it was a feeling of awe that overwhelmed me; at times, it was more of an exhilaration, a sense of déjà vu that would describe the feeling more appropriately. In a simple language, the way a master craftsman creates his art, almost effortlessly but without a single unnecessary move, he weaved his commentaries. No quotation from ancient text but pure knowledge from a knower for those who have not forgotten to listen. Let me quote few of them here.
"The 'me' exists only through identification with property, with a name, with the family, with failures and successes, with all things you have been and you want to be."
"The known is so small, so petty, so confining. The known is sorrow and yet you crave for its continuance? When all efforts to know ceases then there is something that the mind has not put together. The unknown is greater than the known; the known is but a burque on the ocean of unknown"
"Truth is a strange thing; the more you pursue it, the more it will elude you. You cannot capture it by any means, however subtle and cunning; you cannot hold it in the net of your thought. Do realize this and let everything go. On the journey of life and death, you must walk alone; on this journey there can be no taking comfort in knowledge, in experience, in memories. The mind must be purged of all the things it has gathered in its urge to be secure; its gods and virtues must be given back to the society that bred them. There must be complete, uncontaminated aloneness."
"Love is not mere pleasure, a thing of memory; it's a state of intense vulnerability and beauty, which is denied when the mind builds walls of self-centred activity. Love is life and so it is also death. To deny death and cling to life is to deny love."
"Austerity is the simplicity of inward aloneness, the simplicity of a mind that is purged of all conflicts, that is not caught in the fire of desire, even the desire for the highest. Without the austerity there can be no love and beauty is of love."

Osho on Creativity

2010-12-14T20:16:00.002+05:30

Action is not Creativity, inaction also is not. It is action through inaction. It is not a doing; it is an allowing. It is becoming a passage so the Whole can flow through you. It is becoming a hollow banboo, just a hollow bamboo.
The more you think, the more you are. The ego is nothing but all the thoughts accumulated in the past. When you are not, the Whole is. That is creativity.
In creativity is surpassing, otherwise, at the most we can go on perpetuating ourselves. You create a child; it is not creativity. You will die and the child will be there to perpetuate life. But to perpetuate is not enough unless you start surpassing. And surpassing happens only when something of the beyond comes in contact with you. That is the point of transcendence-- surpassing. and in surpassing, the miracle happens--you are not, and yet for the first time you are.
The essence of wisdom is to act in harmony with Nature. That is the message of all the great mystics--Lao Tzu, Buddha, Bahauddin, Sosan, Sanai-- to act in harmony with Nature. Man has to act consciously in harmony with Nature because man has consciousness. Man can choose not to act in harmony, hence the great responsibility.
Yielding to power not of your own, surrendering to a power that is beyond you, is creativity. Meditation is creativity. And when the ego disappears, the wound in you disappears; you sre healed, you are whole. The ego is your dis-ease; when the ego dies you are no longer dormant, you start flowing. You start flowing with the immense flow of existence.
Then you are not an ego but a process of events. Then you are a process, not a thing. Consciousness is not a thing, it is a process; we have made it a 'thing'. The moment you call it 'I', it becomes a thing--defined, bounded, dormant, stagnant. And you start dying. The ego is your death. And the death of the ego is your real life. And real life is Creativity.
When you are creative, you are so tremendously fulfilled, so content with whatever you are doing that there is no question of desire. In your creativity, desires disappear. When you are creative, ambitions disappear. When you are creative, you are already that which you always wanted to be.

from Unio Mystica I

A strange man

2010-06-23T10:23:00.003+05:30

It was peak of rush hours in a busy day. Cars, autos, buses jostling with each other to get ahead in the traffic congested road. Blaring horns, impatient voices, angry shouts, silent curses..there wasn't anything there that was remotely 'relaxing'. Everyone was focused on moving ahead; losing precious moments in traffic jam is the worst thing in everyone's mind. "What a waste of time! Everyday the same scene! You spend the most important 30 minutes of morning waiting in this traffic jam! When will this country learn!", came out from a dejected voice.

Not far from this hullabaloo, a man was seen, sitting on the boundary wall, trying to blow a bamboo flute. He was wearing an unpressed Kurta and a pair of jeans. He had an old-fashioned black plastic-rimmed frame on his eyes. Nothing in his appearance showed any bother about all the noises or rushes below. He was amused by the queer sound that his instrument was making. Evidently he did not have much awareness of the instrument, leave alone training. He was so engrossed with his instrument that he did not notice the boy standing below. The boy probably was going to his school and got distracted by the queer sound of the instrument.

"What are you doing there?", the boy asked, his eyes still trying to figure out the anomaly with the man in front of him.

The man got slightly startled with the question. Noticing the boy below, he took the flute off his lips. His eyes narrowed on the boy's face for a fraction of a second and then got back to normal.

- You seem to have penchant for rhetorics, young man?

"rhetorics?", the boy was puzzled.

"Well, you see me sitting here blowing this instrument, you hear the sound from the instrument and you still ask me what I am doing! Don't you trust your ears and eyes?"

"Yes, I see you playing with that piece of bamboo and making funny sound but I don't understand why you are doing that!"

"So that is your real question! You want to know the Reason.

Hmmm..but I do not have any reason, young man. I just feel like blowing this piece of bamboo."

"Are you alright? During this hour of the day when everyone is going to offices, schools, you are playing flute! Don't you go to office? Don't you work?"

The man did not appear to mind the boy's questions. He jumped off the wall and sat next to the boy on the footpath.

" You see, kid, I am retired, so I don't need to go anywhere", He tried to explain the boy.

-What is retirement?

- Retirement is when your office, your work say 'bye-bye' to you. You are not needed in the 'busy world'. So you are free; you are free to do what you like even if it is blowing this strange piece of bamboo. You follow?

- In school, my teacher says if I don' t study my future will be doomed. If you do not work, what happens to your future?

- Nothing because I am a future-less person. When you retire, your future also goes away. So you become completely free, free from future and free from past.

"Do you see that leaf flying in the air?", the man pointed to a yellow leaf floating in the air.

" You become like that leaf, untied, without any tensions. When the leaf was attached to the branch, it was tied. It would feel the tension when strong wind blows. As soon as it fell off the branch, all its tensions have gone. It is free! Now it will go where the wind will take it. It does not have anything to stick to, it does not have any particular place to go. any place is good for it."

"So what is future then?"

"Future exists when you want to reach somewhere, when you want to be something, when you want to have something. You get rid of them, you become free of your future!"

"wow, that's fantastic!", the boy's eyes gleamed. But then he started thinking, "So if you have nothing to achieve, what will you pray to God?"

"God? why would you pray to God? why would you need a God?"

"Mom said if I do not pray to God, God will be angry and then bad things will happen to me."

"But if you want nothing, what is bad? Bad and Good is what your mind decides. If you do not ask for anything, you do not care for anything, then everything is good for you, isn't it?"

" So you are saying that we pray to God because we want something from him?"

"God exists because you have your fear to lose something or you have your desire to gain something. You drop both, your need for God also disappears."

"Wow, this is great! So ..in fact.. God is in our mind!", the boy said excitedly.

"Absolutely! rather than the God creating you, it is actually you who created the God!"

"But is that true? does the God really not exist?"

"Well, even if 'it' does exist, the question is: does it matter to you? If you do not expect anything from God, God is irrelevant to you. For all practical matters God is irrelevant. However much you pray, if you have not studied well, or answered the question paper correctly, you will not get good score, will you?". The man paused to see the reaction of the boy and the boy nodded.

"Then what purpose does it serve to believe in God? If you want something, you must find means and effort to get it. And you have done something, you own its result too, good or bad. Do you agree?"

"Right! But I must rush to school now or I will miss the classes!", the boy looked at his watch and hurriedly started walking. "Bye bye", the boy waved to the man.

" So long, young man!"

The man went back to his flute. He cannot say whether it is music or noise but he realized that he is enjoying the sound of the instrument and that is all that mattered to him.

2010-05-07T09:27:00.001+05:30

“I am dying”, the words came out without any emotion. It sounded like a plain reflection of what is happening to him.
“How do you feel?”
“..Um..I feel.. light, ..very light..
I suddenly feel I have gotten rid of a heavy weight that was tied to me all these years..it feels so nice, I almost feel like weightless feather, floating on air purposelessly.”
“When you refer to yourself, what do you particularly refer to? I reckon that it is not your body, because your body still weighs 70 kg,as recorded by the scale this morning and it cannot feel as light as a feather, can it?”
“His eyes gazed back to the doctor’s face. First it had a puzzling look, then the hardness dissolved gradually with a gaze fixed at a point far off. His face had the peace of a sailor who has finally reached the shore. Just a hint of smile kept hanging on his lips as if he was telling a student, who just failed to solve a simple puzzle, not to worry!
Few minutes later, the doctor pronounced him dead.

Cunningness and Intelligence

2010-04-27T21:22:00.002+05:30

People think that to be cunning is to be clever. It is not so -- only mediocre people are cunning. A really intelligent person need not be cunning. He is intelligent and that's more than enough. Cunningness is a poor substitute, a plastic substitute for intelligence. The mediocre person tries to look intelligent; in that very effort he becomes cunning.
And the greatest cunningness is to be a hypocrite: to be one thing and to show something else. But then life will be easy. Buddha makes it clear: you will fit with other cunning people, they will understand your language.
What was the fault of Jesus? The only fault was that he was not cunning. What was the fault of Socrates? The only fault was that he was a really intelligent person, utterly innocent, full of intelligence but with no cunningness.
Cunningness is cowardice, intelligence is courage. And the greatest courage in the world is to be exactly what your consciousness says to you to be.

Why do people gossip? What must be the reason behind it? Why do they go on biting each other's backs? This is the way of cunningness. They are not sincere people, they are not authentic people. They don't say what they want to say to you, but they have to say it; otherwise they will remain burdened with it. Hence gossiping. They can't say the truth to your face, they have to say it behind your back. And they say it with a vengeance, naturally.
They have to repress themselves in front of you, they have to smile and show a false face; and they feel that they are being insincere, they feel they are being ugly, they feel that they are being cowardly. They will take revenge. And this is their way of taking revenge: they will gossip about you, they will say things about you, they will invent things about you. And they will invent things about themselves too; what they are not, they will pretend to be. They will magnify your faults and they will magnify their glories.
These people are vain, empty, utterly empty, hollow, full of straw and nothing else. But they go on bragging about themselves, they go on declaring themselves to be great -- they find ways and means. And the easiest way to declare yourself great is to declare that others are nothing, to reduce them as much as possible. That helps you feel that you are somebody special.
Watch what people are doing?
Ninety percent of their energies are being wasted in being cunning, hypocrites, gossips, vain, meddlesome, dissolute. And, of course, when you waste so much of your energy in such stupid activities you cannot have any decisiveness in your life, you cannot be committed, you cannot become involved in anything. And your old habits will always come in to destroy all your commitments, your involvements. You will be just driftwood, you will be dissolute. You must learn to decide and once you decide let the commitment be one hundred percent.
That's the only way to become integrated; otherwise you will remain fragmentary. You will remain a crowd, you will never become a single individual. In fact, that's exactly the meaning of the word 'individual': it means indivisible. If you are fragmentary you are not an individual. The whole process of individuation is the process of commitment, involvement.
- Osho on Dhammapada

Trust: is it your weakness?

2010-04-26T17:19:00.013+05:30

Yesterday Mr. Subroto Roy, the chairman of Sahara group announced that he loves Pune and people of Pune and that he earnestly believed that he lived his previous life in Pune. He was talking at the launch of his IPL team, the Sahara Pune Warriors. Trust is a human emotion that everyone battles to win over.
Actually it is not just an emotion, it is the key currency of power in our socio-economic structure. A political leader needs the trust of his/her voters or his party executives to survive and grow. A Government needs trust of the majority in the houses to run the administration. A CEO needs the trust of its board members and his executive team to function. A movie-star needs trust of her/his fans for commercial success. A man needs trust of his family to be the man of the house. A mother needs trust of her kids to be a good mother.
But how do you trust? You look around and realize every time you put your trust on someone, you are at risk of being manipulated.
You trust the Government with your personal data only to learn later that through the UID project, Government is developing system, which will make all your data accessible to Government Security and Police apparatus and most likely to big industry houses irrespective of your consent or knowledge. You stand to lose on one fundamental commitment of democracy, the right to your privacy.
You trust your political leader with your vote and learn that all the years that he has been in power, he has amassed a huge wealth in and outside the country while your food bill increased multifold. You trust on your party’s political ideology only to be hit hard later that ideology was simply a ruse; just to win over your loyalty, your sympathy. You trust the media to tell you the truth only to realize that media has been campaigning for the truth that they have manufactured.
You trust the intellectuals for their objective analysis and wise judgment only to be told later that they were selling their opinions to you. Your intellectuals tell you that Maoists are protecting the welfare of tribal people and then you learn that many tribal men lost their lives at the hand of both state police and the Maoists. You support propriety of natural resources to the tribal inhabitants of the place and think that Maoists are helping to uphold that right of tribals and learn later that mining mafias are mining the minerals under protection from the Maoist. Who do you trust? How do you trust?
You share your vulnerability with your colleague and you run the risk of your colleague using that against you. You put your unconditional trust on your lover and one fine day that trust comes back to you in a package that you hardly could expect: Your lover has been taking advantage of your trust and cheating on you. You trust your financial advisor with your money and one day you realize that you had a raw deal: your advisor has made money at the expense of you while you made consistent losses. Your son wanted to go overseas for higher education and you trusted him with your life’s saving. You trusted that your son would take care of you at your old age and at your old age, you wake up on a bitter reality that your son has deserted you in an old-age home at some God-forsaken place. Who do you trust? How do you trust?

Your experiences with people lead you to conclude that world is mean! If you do not want surprises, you must be careful on who you trust, how you trust. With every relation you start with suspicion and be always on guard lest you want to be taken for a ride.
....Or do you? How long can you continue that way? Every time you meet someone you become paranoid about the person’s motive, his/her intentions. You build your wall, your cover so that you remain protected. But how long? At the extreme point you run the risk of being schizophrenic or in other words losing your sanity.
There is another option; option to choose to be absolutely vulnerable, like a Samurai who puts his life on the edge of his sword. Since you cannot impose on others, neither you can predict what others will do, drop that illusion of being in control, accept absolute vulnerability and respond to the moment. Samurai are trained to face the moment with absolute acceptance of death. "What kind of a mind can penetrate an opponent's mind? It is a mind that has been trained and cultivated to the point of detachment with perfect freedom...His mind should reflect his opponent's mind like water reflecting the moon. Zen training conditions the Samurai's mind to move in perfect freedom, to be one with the sword, the opponent, and the movements of combat."
The King further specified,
* "The samurai could eliminate all thoughts of life, death, victory and defeat.
* Focus completely on the present
* Give full attention to the changing tide of combat”
It enabled the Samurai to kill and be killed without complaint and fear. The Samurai could strike without regret and die without fear.
We all have the option to live with a Samurai mind. Then Trust becomes one’s weapon.

This is That

2010-04-23T15:12:00.004+05:30

One of the great statements from Upanishad is 'tatwamasi' or in crude translation, THIS IS THAT. It is considered one of the the most precise and beautiful statements that ever expressed Truth. But the problem is Truth becomes Truth only when experienced. Otherwise it is just an intellectual rigmarole. How does one experience the truth? All the enlightened masters gave pointers but none was as direct as Gautama the Buddha. When he came out to give his first sermon, his message was very earthly, very unlike the sages from Upanishad. In plain Pali which was the language of masses, he said simply, "Friends, I found the truth and here I lay them in front of you. There is dukkha [suffering] and there is a way to go beyond dukkha. How simple and powerful that message is! He did not say, "I am the One", nor he said "I found the God". His statement had the simplicity and elegance that a great truth demands. He did not need to proclaim, he simply arrived.

Everybody could relate, everybody could understand his message. Because it was simple and it was not something extraordinary. It was in fact very ordinary! Who can argue to the objectivity of the statement that there is suffering?

Simply he said that the root of suffering is one's desire. Suddenly people felt enlightenment is not beyond one's reach, it does not need lives of cleansing and purification, it is instantaneous because it is simply there to be experienced!

Osho beautifully described Gautama's journey:

Enlightenment is not something that is going to come to you from somewhere else. Desire dropped, and you are a buddha. The only difference between you and a buddha is desire.

It happened to Gautam Siddhartha exactly in the same way. For six years he was continuously hankering for enlightenment and could not attain it. For six years he tried hard, harder than any man has ever done. He risked all. He was a warrior, a KSHATRIYA -- a man who knew only how to fight. He fought with God, with existence. He wanted to conquer truth, he wanted to become a conqueror. And after six years of arduous effort he was reaching nowhere, not even a single inch closer to truth than when he started.

One full-moon night sitting under the tree, he started looking backwards. Six years have passed since he renounced his family, his palace, his kingdom. All that is written in the scriptures he has done and all that the teachers he came across told him to do he has done -- and he has done it with totality. Now there is nothing more to do. This whole project has failed.

Then suddenly he became aware that "Although I was searching for truth, I was searching for God, I was still the same person -- the same ego, the same desire, the same ambition: the ambition to conquer, to be victorious. I was the same old man; these six years nothing has changed. Objects of desires have changed -- they are no longer worldly, they are otherworldly -- but what difference does it make? Desire is desire, worldly or other-worldly, it doesn't matter. Desire is desire; its nature is the same."

Seeing it and seeing the futility of it, that evening he dropped... or it will be better to say, desire dropped itself. That evening as the moon rose, a totally new being arose in him: a desireless consciousness, a nonambitious being, not asking for anything. His eyes were clear for the first time, unclouded, no smoke of desire. His flame was burning bright. That night he slept for the first time in his life without dreams, because once desires disappear, dreams disappear. Dreams are reflections of your desires.

And early morning just before the sun was to rise, he opened his eyes. There was nothing to do that day, all is finished. He is no longer interested in the world, he is no longer interested in the other world. He remained in the moment; there were no projects to do. He was utterly empty. He looked at the rising sun... and that was the moment when he became enlightened.

What is enlightenment? -- the insight that desire is futile, that ambition is illness. Then suddenly you are thrown back to the present moment. To be in the present is to be enlightened. To be now and to be here is to be enlightened.

You are all buddhas -- dreaming, desiring. Understand the desire and let it go.

Facing your fear

2010-03-12T14:56:00.006+05:30

Fear is the only element that stops your growth in both inner and outer world. It is the dark emotion that is remnant of the evolutionary learning process that we, as human, have gone through over last million years. It helped the survival of the species in preparing the animal for 'flight vs fight' when threat came forth. However the environment that most of us deal with today has changed drastically but our emotion engine did not change much. Our emotion engine is still very similar to that of our reptilian ancestors. One can visualize the final frontier of evolution for human species as overcoming fears, conscious and subconscious. In fact dealing with fear that you are conscious about is far easier compared to the fear that is subconscious. It becomes part of your personality, your psyche, the hidden axioms in your thinking process. Many times it is this element that limits your own creative potential. We can wait for our natural genetic evolution process to rectify it but we will not be there to see how it changed. Fact is it is possible to learn to deal with our fears in this lifetime.

I found a piece from Osho's discourse which I thought would be helpful. Let me quote him.

If there is fear and you start doing something about it, then a new fear has entered: fear of the fear. It has become more complex. So the one thing to be done is, if fear is there, accept it. Don't do anything about it because doing out of confusion will add more to confusion. Don't do anything. If fear is there note down that fear is there and accept it. What can you do? Nothing can be done; fear is there. See, if you can just note down the fact that fear is there, where is the fear then? You have accepted it; it has dissolved. Acceptance dissolves; only acceptance, nothing else. If you fight you create another disturbance and this can go on ad infinitum, then there is no end to it.

People come to me and they say, "We are very afraid, what should we do?" If I give them something to do they will do it with the being which is full of fear, so action will come out of their fear. And the action that comes out of fear cannot be anything other than fear.

If you have fear, you have fear- why make a problem out of it? Then you know that you have fear, just as you have two hands. Why create a problem out of it- as if you have only one nose, not two? Why create a problem out of it? Fear is there: accept it, note it. Accept it, don't bother about it. What will happen? Suddenly you will feel it has disappeared. And this is the inner alchemy -- a problem disappears if you accept it, and a problem grows more and more complex if you create any conflict with it. Yes, suffering is there, and suddenly fear comes; accept it. It is there and nothing can be done about it. And when I say nothing can be done about it, don't think that I am talking about pessimism to you. When I say nothing can be done about it I am giving you the key to solve it.
Suffering is there. It is part of life and part of growth; nothing is bad in it. Suffering becomes evil only when it is simply destructive and not creative at all; suffering becomes bad only when you suffer and nothing is gained out of it. But I am telling you the divine can be gained through suffering; then it becomes creative. Darkness is beautiful if the dawn is coming out of it soon; darkness is dangerous if it is endless, leads to no dawn, simply continues and continues and you go on moving in a rut, in a vicious circle. This is what is happening to you. Just to escape from one suffering you create another; then to escape from another, another. And this goes on and on and all those sufferings which you have not lived are waiting for you. You have escaped but you escape from one suffering to another, because a mind which was creating a suffering will create another. So you can escape from this suffering to that, but suffering will be there because your mind is the creative force.
Accept the suffering and pass through it; don't escape. This is a totally different dimension to work in. Suffering is there: encounter it, go through it. Fear will be there, accept it. You will tremble, so tremble. Why create a facade that you don't tremble, that you are not afraid? If you are a coward, accept it.
Everyone is a coward. People you call brave are just facades. Deep down they are as cowardly as anyone else, rather, more cowardly because just to hide that cowardliness they have created a bravery around them, and sometimes they act in such a way that everyone knows they are not cowards. Their bravery is just a screen. How can man be brave-because death is there. How can man be brave- because man is just a leaf in the winds. How can the leaf help not to tremble? When the wind blows the leaf will tremble. But you never say to the leaf,"You are a coward." You only say that the leaf is alive. So when you tremble and fear takes grip of you, you are a leaf in the wind. Beautiful- why create a problem out of it?
But society has created problems out of everything. If a child is afraid in the dark, we say, "Don't be afraid, be brave." Why? The child is innocent- naturally he feels fear in the dark. You force him: "Be brave." So he also forces, then he becomes tense. Then he endures the darkness but now tense; now, his whole being is ready to tremble and he suppresses it. This suppressed trembling will follow him now his whole life. It was good to tremble in the darkness, nothing was wrong. It was good to cry and run, nothing was wrong. The child would have come out of darkness more experienced, more knowing. And he would have realized, if he passed through darkness trembling and crying and weeping, that there was nothing to fear. Suppressed, you never experience the thing in its totality, you never gain anything out of it. Wisdom comes through suffering and wisdom comes through acceptance. Whatsoever the case, be at ease with it.
Don't look to society and its condemnation. Nobody is to judge you here and nobody can pretend to be a judge. Don't judge others and don't be perturbed and disturbed by others' judgment. You are alone and you are unique. You are beautiful. Accept it. And whatsoever happens, allow it to happen and pass through it. Soon, suffering will be a learning; then it has become creative. Fear will give you fearlessness. Out of anger will come compassion. Out of the understanding of hate, love will be born to you.

'Now' is the only time you have!

2010-03-10T15:03:00.001+05:30

If you have watched the movie, 'the peaceful warrior', you will remember that piece of dialogue. For others, I would suggest, if I may, to watch that movie. There are times when you yourself had a glimpse of what it means to be connected to 'Now'. For most, life was in past or it will be in future but as sages told in many languages, Life is not isolated, it always is in present as a connected whole. Someone summarized beautifully, "Life is Now and Now is Life' .

Almost sounds like sermon, doesnt it? Let me quote from 'A New Earth' by Ekhart Tolle: There are three ways in which you i.e. your ego will treat the present moment: as a means to an end, as an obstacle or as an enemy.

If your mind is preoccupied with future, i.e. your own concept of future that you like to reach, you are treating the present moment as a means to an end.

Since future is always in your head and cannot be found anywhere you are likely to be in this state continuously or worse treat it as obstacle to be overcome. You become impatient that something that You expected to happen is not happening and you look for some solution to 'make it happen'. What happens if you continue to remain in 'not happening' state? Your relation with Now become the worst type. You start treating it as your enemy. You start hating what you are doing, despise everything that surrounds you, everything sucks! Your dialogues are about should and 'shouldn't, you curse, blame, accuse..fight by all means!

At some point, you i.e. your mind will get tired of this constant fight and hopefully you will make truce, or better be friend with the reality. In other words, your mind accepts what is already there! That is your moment of happiness!

Quoting Ekhart again, "A vital question to ask yourself frequently is: What is my relationship with the present moment?" If your answer is none of the options above, you most likely have realized that your mind is your burden.

Life is inseparable from the Now and more intelligent thing is to accept the "such-ness" of Life.

If you are friendly with Now, all your relationships will blossom since at that point you are connected to Life. As Osho said, disconnect from your mind, you will discover Life.

Awfully unsarcastic!

2010-02-18T12:55:00.002+05:30

When I was young, people spoke of laughter of hyena and said that it is one of the most awful things. Though I was not quite at ease with the concept that laughter can be awful, but I accepted that as a kid under the pretext that many things under the sun are incomprehensible to kid’s intellect as the elders always tell. And soon I found a scenario that brings that concept little closer to reality. We had a maths teacher, in primary school, who with his long beard and long hair, wide shoulders and red marking on the forehead, used to appear quite fearful to us. One day, he stormed in the class with the answer-sheets from previous week’s class test. Keeping the stack on his table, he announced that he learned many things about Mathematics from last week’s class test and he would like to share some of them with the class here. We all understood that he was very unhappy with the answers and he is going to ensure that his unhappiness is spread across.

He took the first paper of the stack and announced, “Mr. Rashtrya Sen!”

“Ah! It’s not my name”, I was relieved and felt sympathy for the unfortunate soul. And then I saw the boy next to me standing slowly. He was one of the most disciplined, well-behaved and nice boys in the class.

“Mr. Sen has invented a new rule of addition! See for yourself. 23 + 56 = 2356!, Isn’t he a genius?”, the teacher thundered.

The boy’s face was pale with humiliation and the teacher continued, “Hundreds of years gone since the Aryans discovered decimal numbers and Mr. Sen thought that it is about time that the rule of addition be rewritten. Bravo, Mr. Sen!” The teacher’s cracking laughter reverberated inside my skull. I now got an idea how laughter can be awful.

Many years later I learned that hyenas do not laugh, it is the sound of war-cry that they make when they hunt. In fact it is now accepted that laughing at other’s weakness or mistake or misfortune is rather a unique expression, available only to priviledged hominids on earth.

Awfully marvelous, isn’t it?

But sarcasm may not be all that awful, really. It works wonder when used at the right place. Example? During our days, we used to appear for a test exam, three months before the final board exam of 10+2. As usual, none would take it seriously except for those who believed life is a very serious affair. In my biology practical test, I was given a frog and was told to dissect out the renal system. With whole lot of confidence I finished the task very cleanly and was waiting for the teacher to see that. One teacher came and asked very softly, “so you have done everything? Very good! What was that you were to demonstrate? “

I said, “Renal system, sir!, see.. I have made a clean dissection, haven’t I?”

The teacher looked at the dissected residue of the frog and smiled at me,”Yes! you did, you cleaned everything including the renal system nicely!”

I was called for viva test and the senior teacher asked me some questions, on botany, which went above my head. He looked at my blank face and them said loudly as if he is merely stating the fact, “What a deterioration of the system! Who allowed such elements in the class?”

There were at least ten girls around who heard it very clearly. As the blood was rushing to my face, he directed the final blow, “Hey, listen, you do want to pass the final exam, don’t you, if not for your sake, at least for your parents’ sake? My humble suggestion would be to focus on your primary subjects and to hope that you will be able to cram enough to secure at least the pass marks! Poor parents of you, my sympathy with them!” Without moving his face he raised his gaze over his specs on me and then went back to the sheets on his desk. That simply meant I am dismissed!

Insult would be understatement to describe the emotion that I experienced but it also gave me the resolve to prove him wrong. My final exam was a lot better thanks to that sarcasm! So, as you see, sarcasm is not awful, always.

History, in fact has been the subtlest at its sarcasm. Probably that is the reason we all miss it most of the times. Well, history has an advantage that it plays backward and we operate forward in time armed with the only knowledge that comes from our experience, which in fact is playing backward in time.

See, for example the case of ‘Threat of Taliban’. In the 1979-80, during the peak cold-war time, US gave arms and training to ‘indigenous’ rebels or glorified Mujahideens of Afghanistan. When the talibans took over the Afghanistan they hailed it as the defeat of communist Soviets, describing it as the win of people of Afghanistan. They showered praises to Pakistan’s military General since he provided the logistics and fund mobilization. Irony is that Pakistan still provides the same support to both sides but US’s equation with Taliban has changed. US used to dole out billions of dollars to Pakistan for its support that time; they still do, probably more, but if previously the reason was to arm and train the Talibans, now it is to eliminate them. Isn’t history sarcastic, after all?

Moving to Indian history, let me bring one of my favourite topic, the case of English language in India. I doubt if we would find a single Indian who does not recognize the value of learning English as a language. Undoubtedly one of the strength that India is perceived to have at present, is its large population of English-speaking middleclass, bunch of ‘talking English, dreaming English, eating English’ people. In the hindsight, we may all thank our colonial ruler for introducing English Education in India. But could it be possible that the reason for Brits to educate folks in English might not be all that honourable? Lord Macaulay, who is hailed as the father of English education in India, wrote in his argument for introducing English education in India, “ We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.” Since they did not have enough Brits to rule the vast population of India, they needed to create an Indian [read native] Administrator class who would rather behave and think like their ruler and be loyal to the British Rule! This thinking is evident in the argument that Mr. Hume made to get an approval for starting Indian National Congress. The Congress, formed with the elite, of India, educated in English, was supposed to function as a vent for the emotion of Indian vox populi, not really to lead their freedom struggle. It was designed to be a communication tool for the ruler in both ways. How ironic, isn’t it?

Now that we have sufficiently spoken about History’s particular fascination with sarcasm, let me come back to where I started. What happens when you apply sarcasm to yourself? What good does it or can it deliver? First of all, can you laugh at yourself? I mean we all try to be honest with ourselves but laughing at our own selves? Doesn’t it hurt? It sure does! However it becomes hugely transformational when one can see and laugh at one’s own weakness. Just think about Hitler making his own caricature! Would Hitler remain as Hitler if he could really laugh at himself?

No doubt that requires courage and awful openness to see the person in mirror with all his faults and be able to feel the humour on that. But if at some advanced stage of evolution one can do that, sarcasm becomes cathartic at that point.

I can tell you that each time, I see in mirror, I hit a new realization. I have seen a fool, a humbug, a hypocrite, a coward, occasionally timid, more often miserable and sometimes a egotist human face so far.

Some day I hope to see myself there.

A shit-story

2009-11-10T12:32:00.006+05:30

The train compartment was almost empty. Two young men, in their late twenties or early thirties were sitting opposite to each other beside the window. Another person was sitting a bit far. With flowing white beard and saffron cloth, he looked like a monk. He took out a 'chillum', which had some things stuffed inside. With a match he lit that stuff while inhaling. The stuff inside the chillum became red-hot. After taking two long puffs he looked at the young men. Both of them had been watching him curiously while he was absorbed in his smoking. He smiled at them, "Do you want to try, son?"

One of them took it with a bit of hesitation.

"Man, this tastes like shit!", He started coughing violently. The other man took it.

-But for me it tastes like Marijuana! The man held the 'chillum' like a pro and inhaled deeply.

The monk smiled, "Life manifests in the total acceptance of shit and the knowledge that shit happens unquestionably, invariably and inevitably to everyone."

-In other words, we all are creation of a grand cosmic shit?

-Did you mean to say that shit is a creation or did you mean that the Creation is shit? There can be no doubt that shit is a creation. But I am not in a position to comment if the Creation itself is shit, but you may have hit upon a grander truth there..

The monk closed his eyes and went back to his silence, probably lost in his quest of essence of Life.

After couple of puffs, the man transcended to new mood. Looking at the almost dark vista outside the window, he said,

" You know T. S Eliot was in India for quite long time and studied Gita and other Hindu sacred books. This poem is the closest to what you can call his translation of Gita:

Fare Forward, travellers! not escaping from the past
Into different lives, or into any future;
You are not the same people who left the station
Or who will arrive at any terminus,
...
You shall not think 'the past is finished'
Or 'the future is before us'.
...
Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbour
Receding, or those who will disembark.
Here between the hither and the father shore

While the time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal mind.
...

He looked at the other man.
The other person said, "You have not finished it and missed quite a few lines!"
The man did not seem to care. He simply waved his hand as if to drive a fly out and started again."Okay, Prashant, hear this!
There was a tree full of monkeys with more monkeys on the lower branches and fewer and fewer monkeys on the higher branches.

The monkey at the topmost branch spoke, "Look at the world around you, friends! Clear blue sky, cool breeze, ripe fruits, green leaves, nature is smiling at you. Be thankful to the God for all the abundance that has been bestowed upon you!"

The monkeys who were just below him, up and close, raised their hands in gratitude and said, "Thank you God for being so generous to us!"

One monkey at the lowest branch heard all. He was fighting with another monkey to get hold of one half-ripe fruit that was hanging close to them but finally gave up. He looked up and said, "The folks up there must be enlightened for I see only assholes all the way up!"

The other monkey smiled and said,"Son, congratulations! your journey to the enlightenment starts now!"

"Nice adaptation to an old joke, looks like Marijuana boosts creativity", Prashant was a hard customer.

"Actually, marijuana liberates you from your mind and then the divine creativity flows", the man laughed.

It probably disturbed The monk's quietude. The monk opened his eyes and looked at them. The man returned the 'chillum' to him. Taking a long puff, the monk started, "Thousands of years back, people believed that Earth is the centre of the Universe and everything is rotating around her. They thought Man has been created with divine plan and God's best creation is Man! Many were killed trying to educate otherwise. Then more evidence came and people finally accepted that earth is rotating around the Sun and we are just another creature on the path of biological evolution of species"

Prashanth was listening to The monk with rapt attention for he died not expect the monk to say those words. He has been more logical that the usual God-men.

The other man spoke, "But Guruji, I dont know if you know about anthropic quest of Science. One Englishman named Eddington made a laborious argument that the cosmic forces such as weak forces, strong forces are calibrated precisely to the present values that are observed by scientific measurement and if they had slightly different values, universe would not have been stable. He believed that some day science will prove beyond doubt that the nature has carefully chosen the values to make Life possible. In other words there is a grand scheme of things beyond all these!" he made a gesture by stretching his hands upward.

The monk smiled, "I used to teach Physics in one of the University. So yes I know. It does appear that even if the life happened by accident, the probability of that accident is microscopically minuscule. But that does not establish that your existence in this compartment at this time is part of any divine plan. Neither it establishes that human life is any divine than that of Cow or any other creature for that matter!

The man had a surprised look. He said,"If you believe that why did you take this path of austerity?"

The monk did not speak. He was carefully pushing some more stuff into his chillum. He inhaled deeply to get the fire back. Once he was satisfied with the chillum, he said," So you were asking why I am in this path. Actually there is no logical reason that I can think of. But see if you can understand this. Personally we all exist in our own world where you are at the center of that world. That is the world that is created by your mind. Your sense of right and wrong, your sense of values, your particular view of who you are with respect to others, define that world. However the world outside is very different and each encounter with that world brings you, both joy and sorrow, exhilaration and despair, gratification and pain, courage and fear, expectation and missing it. But you hardly ever become aware of the world that exists outside the periphery of the world of your mind. The essence of my journey is to move my existence from the centre of my world to the periphery of it.

If you can do that I believe you will experience the Life as a whole, where your own existence is simply a microscopic but essential part of the whole cosmic existence devoid of any past or future."

The train was running at constant speed providing a background of a continuous and almost a monotonous sound. Sleep was slowly engulfing his consciousness. In the twilight of his fading consciousness he started feeling that a face was very close to his face and smiling at him. He felt something piercing through his skin, his muscles, his ribs, farther down but he was not feeling any pain.

He remembered the beggar who used to stand at the corner where he had to take a turn to reach his office. Many times while handing few coins to him, he wondered what was the essential difference between the hand that was giving and the hand that was taking. To his amazement he suddenly felt that he was standing in that corner and the hand that was coming out of the window of the car was that of the beggar. But the hand had a long dagger, instead, that was closing towards his heart with great force. He had a momentary glimpse of the face behind the hand and to his surprise that was the smiling face of the monk who was sitting in front of him in the train.
He was lost..literally, in the divinity of sleep, never to wake up again.

A TDH theory of Cosmic Nature

2009-10-13T08:05:00.011+05:30

The captain said, "Sorry Sir, we have no table, free this evening", as I entered the TGIF joint. I was not in a mood to go back, so I asked him if he would mind letting me in and allow me to check for myself if anyone wants to accommodate me. He did not mind. On cursory glance I found a table of four occupied by three young blokes, all apparently, in their twenties. I walked to the table with a genuine-looking smile hanging on my face. All three faces looked up with curious eyes as if to say,"What's the matter, old man? Looking for some free beers?"
"Hey guys, would you mind if I take the free chair? No tables are free today, it appears.", I asked in a very casual tone.
The boys looked at each other. One boy, wearing glasses with a thin black frame, assumed the leadership role, "We may but will let you make an offer to us". Okay, they want to bargain!
"What kind of offer would excite you?", I made an open bid.
The boy's eyes gleamed. He looked at others and said,"One round of beer for all of us and a pair of patient and encouraging ears would be good to start with." That's not a high price, I thought.
"That's fine with me!", I said.
The boy waved me the chair and asked the waiter for another pitcher of beer.
"Let me introduce us then. This is Tom", he gestured to himself, "that bearded chap on your left is Dick and the person opposite to you is Harry", he completed the introduction.
- are you guys really Tom, Dick and Harry?!
"Of course! We all are, aren't we?", he gave a generous smile at my simple-minded question.
"and how do we call you?", he asked helpfully.
"Call me Nemo, if you like", I played along.
"Nemo as nobody or Dr. Nemo of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea?", he asked nonchalantly.
- Nemo as nobody!
- Perfect.
The pitcher was served, these guys are pretty quick today.
He poured beer in everyone's glass.
Tom: Nemo, to bring you up to the speed, today we are trying to develop a theory; for lack of better words, at this point, let's call it a theory of cosmic existence.
Me: that's formidable!
Tom: Not as much, in actual sense. Dick is formulating the mathematical model.
Tom looked at the boy introduced as Dick. Dick pulled a tissue paper and I saw that he has scribbled a long integral equation.
Tom: You do not need to justify your name, Dick, let's give the layman's version to Nemo to start with.
Dick looked embarrassed for a moment but quickly recovered. "See, our theory is that we all, that is all species, all inanimate objects on earth and outside i.e. all astronomical objects are connected and quantum theory shows why that is true.", he said enthusiastically.
"This is beyond the trivial explanation that all bodies came into being after earth's creation and therefore they are connected", Tom added.
Me: Interesting!
Dick: If you remember the quantum model, the premise is that all objects have a corresponding wave function, guided by Schroedinger's equation. The wave behaviour is more pronounced with higher momentum particularly with objects moving almost at light's speed. Anyway our point here is that all objects however big or small, inanimate or animate have corresponding wave functions. For a large body, the wave function of all constituent objects interact together and create a composite wave function which is different from individual element's wave function. For example Helium wave function is different from Hydrogen.
Tom: Nemo, Hydrogen wave function assumes a single proton inside nucleus and one electron outside and Helium function assumes 2 protons inside nucleus along with 1 or more neutrons and couple of electrons orbiting the nucleus.
Dick: If you are convinced that we can formulate a wave function for all objects, our next task is to figure out how these wave functions interact. In Bohr's model, the electrons in atom cannot be in any arbitrary orbit but in one of those orbits which are spaced by a quantum capsule of energy. Electrons absorb or radiate photons of differential energy when an electron jumps from one orbit to the next. At later points, though, this model got changed in large way by Schroedinger. He modeled these orbits as stationary waves of discreet energy levels. However the crux here is that the interactions between two wave functions follow quantum theory and a stable molecule corresponds to a composite wave function that has lower ground level energy state of all possible states.
Tom: this explains in a way why CO2 is more stable than CO.
Dick: Now apply this to something different. Every thought generates from certain quantum energy state with certain envelope of wave function. If that wave function happen to be favourable to certain states in your energy spectrum, it is likely to overlap with your wave function.
Tom: In other words that thought has resonated in your mind.
Harry spoke first time, "You can extend this theory to explain why certain individuals jive together and certain other individuals do not"
Tom: Yeah, that statement takes care of many other situations like why love works between two specific individuals or why two persons cannot get along from the very beginning.
Dick: Or why a person loves certain place and dislikes certain weather.
Me: Are you folks saying that you have developed complete mathematical model for all the above scenarios?
I definitely am talking to tomorrow's Schroedinger if they really have done that, I thought.
"We are working on that", Tom said with a short grin.
Harry: We are leaving the details for your benefit. The thing is that this model helps us to establish how we can be connected to each other or to certain objects. But imagine the wave function of earth or sun, evidently it will have interaction with your wave function and depending on the nature of that at certain point it can be at dissonance and some other times, it can be at resonance. When resonance happens, you find situations at your side. And of course dissonance causes pain.
Dick: The point is this: the wave functions are all good to explain the events happening now but we cannot use the model to explain how our past events can impact the present.
Harry: Well we can assume that past events have already played its role and the present wave function has its envelope due to those events.
Tom: what Dick says is that the model does not provide for the history to be recounted or replayed. But may be that is the reality. The wave functions provide for the active states and past is entirely passive and therefore inconsequential for the wave function.
Harry: Looks like the sages in Upanishad knew this and that is the reason they said that past is illusion and you must stay in present!
Tom: In other words the corollary is at any time all objects, inanimate or animate, are connected together and the interactions between their wave functions manifest in mysterious way in different places sometimes far from our known universe!
Harry: The very essence of cosmic oneness of the present!
I was done with my quota and told them that I would be needed to be excused. Tom said that they also would move. As the waiter brought the bills, these folks paid for one and left.
I saw Tom pulling a hundred bucks note from his wallet and handing over to the Captain. They exchanges few laughs before they left.
While waiting for my credit card to be returned, I noticed the tissue paper lying on the table. I picked it up and realized it was a random set of doodles that I mistook as a long integral equation.
The immediate question came to my mind, "was I set up to pay for their bill?"
I would never know..

Mobius Strip

2009-09-21T20:09:00.010+05:30

"Have you written anything new?", asked Poosan.

"Well, I was trying to sketch something but havent found the title yet", I said

"Really?", he had a quizzical look, "Can I see it?"

Poosan came to my house today after almost two years. "I have been in many places" was his one-line summary.

My phone and doorbell rang almost at the same time. I hurriedly opened the door to find Siran, standing at the door, smiling mischievously.

"After a so many months..what a pleasant surprise!", I blurted out and then realized that the surprise was arranged by my first guest. As we came back to the room, Poosan was putting the phone back to the cradle. He said, "Arka would be late by an hour".

It's been a while since they visited my house. And as it appears, everyone's coordinates changed but mine.

"Nothing changed in two years here, has it?" Siran was first to announce it.

"The bookshelf looks fuller..and probably he lost some hair?", Poosan completed, "that's not a lot of changes for two years."

"So.. where have you been?" Siran went straight to the point.

"You really can't wait, can you?

To start with, I went to Afghanistan. I got an assignment from NatGeo to cover the life post Taliban era. I stayed for one more months after that assignment got over. But that is the time I learned more about life in Afganistan." he said. He had a sad smile on his face.

"I saw villages after villages, filled with people, staring at us with blank look, who are stripped of their living. Poppy fields were burnt in front of their eyes and unfortunately that is the only living these people had. They did not know what future holds but I suspect they did not care for that very word any more."

"After I returned to India, I stayed in Delhi for couple of months and then started for Ladakh. Initially I stayed in hotels that charged Rs. 1500 a day. After a month I found places that cost Rs 100 a day. Eventually I moved to a monastery as a student of Tibetan Buddhism!", he ended with loud chuckle.

"All along you have been in Ladakh?", asks Siran.

"Ah, not exactly, I travelled few times, once to Nepal, and another time to Sikkim, another time to Dharamsala"

"So how long are you going to be in Bangalore this time?", I asked

"I don't know, Sir! May be a month or two."

"Hey Poosan!! After a long time, so good to see you, man!" Arka just ignored almost everyone and jumped to hug his man!

"So good to see you too, Arka", Poosan hugged him with a glowing smile.

"Okay, so now that we have the quorum let's head for the food, I have booked a table at Reveries!", Siran already assumed the role of the guardian lady of this little group of bratish oldies.

"Sure, let's go", Arka brought his new Camry today.

*****

As we settled down with our drinks, Siran started, "Have you read anything good lately, Arka?"

"No, I have been a bit busy of late", Arka said, "and in any case all stories are just permutation and combination of the same set of emotions, which I went through many times." He gave a quick grin.

- explain, please.

- Well, the stories are meant to take you through set of feeling; you feel good, you feel excited, you feel ecstatic, you feel afraid, you feel sad, you feel angry, you feel dejected, you feel hatred, you feel disgusted or you feel redeemed. At the end they are just your emotions!

"Touche!" smiled Poosan.

"While you may be correct in some sense, it also does not sound quite right since by that, most of the stories should sound similar since they are merely an exercise of evoking these feelings in you in certain order", contested Siran.

"Well, Unfortunately brain is too complex for that. While we know what the emotions feel like, we do not quite know how they are perceived, leave alone manipulating them! In other words, certain stimuli can bring a set of emotions to one person and bring another set of emotions to someone else and we cannot quite predict it."

"Well, I can tell that you love Horror movie and I feel horrified at the thought of it", Siran quipped. We all started laughing at her tone. She was particularly crafty in picking Arka's way of using the word, 'Well'. Arka let it pass.

"What I mean is that the exact process of emotional response to a stimuli is not understood by the scientists yet but so are true for most of our so called brain function. For example, if you are asked to sum 12 and 7, it will take hardly any time for you to give the answer but you cannot tell what exercise you did inside your brain to reach the answer. We have about 10-30 billion neurons but how they function together as a unit is something in the realm of science fiction! Because it is so complex and behavioural model was at best speculative, Neuroscientists started looking at the evolution of brain to get a better sense of how brain functions. The idea is simple. Brains of the different species who share our evolutionary path provide snapshots of brain development over span of millions of years. Since we know our predecessors in our journey of evolution, we can compare the brains of these species with ours and see what changed structurally from the simple nervous system to something as complex as human brain." Arka stopped to gauge how clued his audience is.

"Continue, this definitely sounds interesting", Siran encouraged. Arka gave an obliging smile.

"Before we go to the comparative study, you need some basic details on structure of brain. It is kind of established today that brain structurally consists of three layers. Largely they are: brain stem or the stem of the spinal chord, the limbic system and the cerebral cortex. The brain stem again is understood to control all your vital life functions i.e breathing, heart-beat, blood pressure etc. The limbic system is thought to be the seat of your emotional responses and memory. The cortex or cerebrum is all about your higher processing capabilities, like cognition, intellectual assessment. I will spare you the details on each layer unless necessary", Arka is on flow!

"When scientists looked at changes at different layers, they found most of the structure remained unchanged since reptiles. From the mammals, the cortex started growing but what is most interesting of all is that we seem to have some additional structure called neocortex. With hominids i.e. us, the neocortex develops to a six-layer complex neuronal circuitry that are densely packed together. If you consider the whole span of this evolution cycle of around 350 million years, the neocortex is not even 1 million year old! It is believed that neocortex is central to our rational thinking, language, our capacity to assimilate and develop abstract arts, music or any higher level of processing that goes beyond our visual or sensory world. During this decade some computer scientists also got hooked into neuroanatomy because they believe that if they understand how the cortex functions they will be miles closer to understand how human intelligence works."

"Okay, in short you are saying that neocortex is the only new thing added to human and that does not control our emotions?", Siran summarized.

"That's a good summary, Siran", Arka acknowledged.

He continued, "So the evolutionary analysis tells that limbic system did not change structurally from reptiles. However it is observed the hypothalamus became bigger in mammals. The connectivity between hypothalamus, amygdala and cortex is actually very dense in hominids. It is now accepted that hippocampus and hypothalamus play crucial role for our long term memory. If your hippocampus is removed, you will stop adding anything new to your long-term memory. Amygdala is central to all our emotions and it uses cortex to process the stimuli and form the history that we retain. In other words emotions also play a role to our memory. There is a hypothesis that all our memories essentially are emotional in nature but not everyone subscribes to that view."

"Now how does the above reconcile with your concept of mind?", Poosan threw an open question.

"That's a very difficult question, Poosan!", Arka smiled. "We do not have any physiological proof for existence of mind, neither we have very objective definition of what mind is. If you use common description, the mind is essentially our conscious thoughts, our rational emotional responses; very loosely, it gives our intellectual identity. So by the above description, it would take both the limbic system and cortex to provide for 'mind' function. You can imagine mind as software program and our brain as the hardware, something like your Windows Operating System for your PC. The difference, though, is mind is a self-learning program, in other words it can modify itself. Typically connection topologies between the neurons keep changing as we learn, forget and relearn."

"If mind is a program, we should be able to shut it down and I wonder what happens if someone can do it", Poosan trailed. "You know what spiritualist say of mind, dont you? Mind is an illusion! It integrates all your past and future into a fuzzy blob that you associate your identity with whereas your past is simply the emotional memory stored in your brain, far removed from what actually happened in past. Very interesting!"

- So Mind is Identity and Mind also is Illusion, applying transitive relation, Identity is an Illusion!

-"Well said, Googa", Poosan laughed.

Arka went back to his thread," You are right, Poosan. In fact the past as we remember is never the same as we experienced it first time. Each time you go down your memory lane, your brain is firing all those neurons and in the process writes a new version of the same event and it could be slightly different from the original version. In other words you keep rewriting your own memory each time you replay it! Psychotherapist uses this knowledge unconsciously when they make their subject remember and narrate the painful memory that is deep-sitted in the subject and has affected the subject adversely. By narrating and each time subtly nudging the subject to stress certain part and destressing other parts, they help the subject erase a bad memory with a version that is more liveable with."

Siran asked,"How does our emotion play in this mind function."

Arka said,"A lot, I suspect. Though the neuroscience is far from exact in understanding our consciousness, your emotional build-up influences your memory. For example if certain incidence in your past has created certain fearful memory that memory will always influence your responses in all your later interactions. Also your emotional disposition will shape how you will remember certain incidences. Religious indoctrination and strong communal behaviour are linked to our fears which are at the very base of our emotion.

Fears and emotions are, some conjectures, the baggage of our evolution. Fear has been extremely helpful in the survival of the species in our evolutionary path. It alerts in advance and has preprogrammed responses that shortens our reaction time and prepares the body for imminent action. Think for example increase of heart beat which helps pumping more blood to the muscles that need extra supply under stress."

"Huh! I know now why all mammals run when they get afraid!", Siran laughed.

"Actually the responses to fear is almost the same for the reptiles too", Arka added helpfully.

"The connectivity from Amygdala to cortex is far stronger than the other way and the scientists use that to explain why emotions overcome us and we many times do things that we when rationally think find to be wrong response given a situation. How many times you regretted later for saying something at the hit of moment?" Arka chuckled, "I have many instances!"

The food was served and that appeared to take everyone's attention from exploring mind!

Siran seemed to know this place and she was very enthusiastic to educate us about specific culinary details of the different items on the table. The conversation turned slowly to discussions of more personal nature.

"So what are you doing these days, Siran?"asked Arka.

Siran took a pause before starting. "I took a break from my job. In fact it is almost nine months since I quit the job. I was dabbling with many things till I chanced upon this organization, actually an NGO, that I am presently attached with. These guys run an orphanage and vocational school for destitute children."

"Ah! you are running an NGO now, that's great!" Arka said enthusiastically.

"Nah! I am not running the NGO", Siran smiled, "I am just associated as a teacher, like many others in that school. You wont believe the amount of fun you get there. There are kids ranging from four to eighteen years, mostly girls at the older age group. They have incredulous ideas, about the world, some of them are so hilarious and original. Some are quite sharp, it is our misfortune that they do not have family support to provide mainstream education. I try to teach them all I can. Sometimes I bring toys to younger ones, especially when I come to city."

"Are you a resident teacher? Where is this school?", asked Arka.

The school is actually in Kundapur. Yes I stay there. I live with my students", she laughed, "Some call me Aunty, some call Sister, some call Miss. but very affectionate lot. Each day I am sure to get a new surprises from one of them." She paused to pick a piece of potato from her late.

"It's a very different experience to see these kids grow, learn new things every day. Some of hem have no idea of who their parents are and others feel lucky that they got to stay in this school. They are from very poor family, you know! Unless you see yourselves, you cannot imagine the level of poverty that these families live with.

Life for most of these kids is a gift, ..almost unexpected", Siran smiled. Her eyes were sparkling.

"I simply love to be lost there..", Her voice sounded very distant. She attended to her food. Everybody as if to avoid any comment went back to their plate.

"So Arka, what is your story?", Siran tried to ease the sudden discomfort of others.

"Yeah, what are you doing these days, Arka. BTW your new car is great!", Poosan said jovially.

I bought it last month, got a good offer", Arka sounded a bit embarrassed.

"I joined a management consulting firm this January. So far things are good. It's also a new experience for me. Consulting is a very different ball game than what I have been doing all along", he grinned.

"and how is your personal life?", cued Poosan.

"Personal life..what is that?", Arka laughed.

"Actually for me this is all that I have and I don't look for anything else. Last year was very difficult for me but I have left it behind..

I learned that you cannot ask for everything in life. You get some, you lose some but be happy with what you have got."

"But are you happy?", Poosan persisted.

"Oh yeah! I am. I am very much contended", Arka asserted.

"How does your Mom feel about you?"

" We reached a common ground, I guess", Arka said confidently.

"Have you really sorted out or are you still running away from your past?", Poosan couldn't be more direct.

"C'mon Poosan! please.. don't start now", Arka is getting uncomfortable.

None spoke but situation hung there with an expectation.

"Okay.., if you must know, I have accepted that I do not have what is needed to build a successful relationship. I have a huge ego..yes I agree that I have a huge ego but that's what I am! I can't change myself, at least not at this age!"

"and You are sure that is what you are?" Poosan won't give up.

"How do you mean?" Arka rebelled.

"Relax, Arka. We are your friends. It's okay to drop your guard some time, at least in front of your friends. I know you since our college days. Do you think this 'You' is same as the 'You' of those days or even same as who you were five years ago? Face it, Arka, what you think you are is a fluid concept. Every incidence, every experience morphs you subtly, sometime drastically. Remember what you said about emotional memory? It is plastic, It is malleable. And if your memory, what actually defines you more or less, is changeable how can you hang on it?

Arka was going to say something but he paused half-way. As if he is facing his past, he said, "Okay, What do you suppose I should do", He maintained his eye contact with Poosan.

Poosan smiled, "You know what Buddha taught his students? He said that the secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or NOT TO ANTICIPATE troubles but to live in the present moment, completely and earnestly.

What you are is neither the You as you know, nor the You that you desire to be tomorrow but the you right now as you sit in front of us. Embrace that! Everything else is unreal, fiction! Feel naked for that will free you of You! And then you will realize that you have everything that you need to be you, like everybody else."

Arka sunk in his chair. He silently finished his plate without any more words.

We were done with food. The waiter already brought the bill. I pulled my wallet but Arka stopped me. His eyes pleaded as if to say, "May I?". I laughed, "Go ahead, man!".

Siran bade us good bye. She refused to take the ride and told Arka smilingly, "You have done enough. Drop your friends and enjoy the drive. I need to see my Aunt before I go back to Kundapur tomorrow. Her house is quite close, I will take a cab."

Poosan decided to stay with me for the night. After dropping us, Arka gave a big hug to Poosan and said "Thanks, It really felt good to see you again". His eyes said that he meant it with all his sincerity.

****

Poosan was already dressed up and was looking at the newspaper when I got tea for two of us in the morning.

"Ah! the Lipton black tea! It still tastes the same, especially at your house", he laughed.

"You know, many years back, when I was trekking around Kedarnath, one young monk, I mean Sadhu, stayed for a night with us. The deal was we will provide him the shelter and food and he will give us pots", he smiled naughtily.

"He was observing silence so he needed to use paper and pencil to communicate with us. He said he had been maintaining silence for three years already. I asked him if that was difficult. He said that it indeed was difficult. Inside your head you almost feel like bursting, he said.

So I asked him why he was doing all these hardship. He was quite educated by the way. You know what he did? He gave me a big smile, took the paper and drew a circle. He put a dot at the centre. He then explained with his pencil and hand movement that he is right now walking on the perimeter of the circle. His goal is to reach the centre. He does not know if he will be able to reach there in this life but even if he does not he would never regret. This journey is blissful. I was so moved by his simple and plain explanation..

But after so many years, I found a different meaning of that. I don't know if you noticed ever, when a baby grows up, he refers himself in 'third person'. It takes a while for him to understand and associate I with himself. But then that I starts getting associated with the body, with the look, with his fears, desires, expectation, his sense of guilt and what not. The journey actually is to shed these associations. First you lose your identification with your belonging, then with body, then with mind and then with your intellect. What remains after that is the real you, the pure formless Being, the essence of Cosmic Consciousness! This is what Upanishad teaches us. In Arka's language of neuroscience this, perhaps, would be a journey of losing control from limbic system! Pretty tough journey but exciting only if you are aware of it." he laughed.

"Fact is we all are in that journey; Arka, Siran, you and I, some are aware and some not, but exciting? sure it is!" He concluded.

Our tea was over. He stood up. As we were walking to the door, he asked me, "Hey, what is that geometric shape that is used for escalator and conveyor belt?" Geometric shape! I was trying to imagine how the conveyor belt runs..

"Is it Mobius Strip?"

"Yes! that is Mobius Strip and so is your this piece of writing!" He laughed enigmatically.

"See you, buddy!" He waved me bye.
********************************************************
Some reading for interested folks:

The emotional brain by Tim Dalgleish.
The Emotional Brain by Joseph LeDoux
A New Earth by Ekhart Tolle
A nice and easy read on Upanishad's exposition

Voices within

2009-02-08T00:17:00.004+05:30

"babul mora naihar chuuto hi jaaye.."
The room was reverberating with Wajed Ali Shah's timeless thumri.
Whose voice? Is that Girija Devi? Or Kishori Amankar..the music sounded heavenly in the potent silence of dawn, with the voice filling up every inch of the space around me..

"chaar kahaar mil, mori Doliiyaa uthaaye
more apanaa begana chhuTo hi jaaye
anganaa to parbat bhaye, dehlii bhayi bides
je baabul ghar aapano, mai chali piya ke des.."

The raga Bhairavi is at its best in this Thumri. The devotion of bhairavi is blended with pain and emotion of thumri with a skill that is unmatched. It is told that Nawab Wajed Ali Shah composed this thumri during his last few days in Lucknow before British Govt forced him to move to Calcutta.

I wondered who is playing this music so early on but whoever it was, I thanked
him. It is a bliss to wake up listening to such an immortal piece of music.
Okay, so it is morning already?
I woke up. And suddenly the music stopped. I looked at my watch to see what time it was.
Huh! it is 3:30 AM.. It is so blissfully silent everywhere..
I was puzzled.. who was playing the music? Why did he stop?
Or.. was I dreaming? Yes, I must have been dreaming..but the experience was so live!
I still could feel the sensation..
I need some water to drink ..I managed to find the bottle without needing to put on light. Now thinking about it ..I was quite amused. Never heard of experience of listening to a music in dream before. I read somewhere that during sleep brain also reorganizes information and due to that sometime it replays some old memory.
I did not feel like getting up in the dark and continued lying on my bed trying to remember the tune.

"Have you heard Furtwängler's recording of Ninth symphony?", a voice spoke up.
- Who is Furtwängler?
- Wilhelm Furtwängler was one of the finest conductor that Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra ever had. In Nazi Germany his music was used by Nazi army to motivate the army. His conscience was hurt since he never accepted Nazi philosophy, but neither he could avoid them. Two of his performance where he conducted Beethoven's 9th symphony during this time still stand stellar among all the recorded performance of this symphony. One of them is his performance in 1942 on celebration of Hitler's birthday and second one is his performance with the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra in 1951.
Of all his performance on 9th symphony, many people uphold the 1951 recording as the finest one. The re-opening of the 'Bayreuther Festspiele' in '51 was an occasion of great joy for music lovers in Germany. It is one of those life-affirming,transcendent event and Furtwängler was sublime in his own way. Some described it as most gripping performances of Beethoven's symphonies you'll ever hear. No, not necessarily the most enjoyable or even the most accurate, but gripping--to say the least.
In these wartime performances of Symphonies, Wilhelm Furtwängler was at
his most expressive, angry self. Furtwängler's inner turmoil seemed to shoot straight through his baton. He drove the Berlin Philharmonics to the edge of disaster, but miraculously they were able to keep up--rising to the occasion. The music reflects both the anguish from his heart and the sincerity of a tormented soul who glorified Beethoven as the collective conscience of his race.

"Hey dude, what are you talking about..what's 9th symphony?"
Now we have another voice..he sounds youngish, someone who has grown up but not gotten out of his adolescence, the 'dude' type!
"It is a kind of music that used to be played before dudes came in this world, dude!", the voice answered without any glint of annoyance.

Tir kit dana tir kit dana tir kit dana dance dance tir kit dana..

A little girl, God knows from where, came out all of a sudden. Giving little attention to who or what is in the room she went on dancing around in circle.

Dude-type: hey who is this girl? what the hell is she doing here?
The old voice or call it 'o-voice', if you will, said,"Dude, she is dancing, can't you see?"

...Tir kit dana tir kit dana tir kit dana dance dance tir kit dana..

What the hell is happening in my house? At 4 AM where did all these guys come from?
Or am I reaching clinical insanity now?

- Do you remember Shanti-Sir?, the o-voice asked in a calm voice.
me: Shanti-sir from my secondary school?
o-voice: yes
me: Yeah, what about Shanti sir?
o-voice: Remember how sincerely he tried to enhance your history-quotient?
Ah! down the memory lane..I remembered the day when Shanti sir came to the class first time. A dark, thin, very ordinary looking guy with a very 'un-teacher-like' appearance, an appearance that does not evoke any attention, leave aside respect. Except for his large wide eyes there
was nothing that can stand out. He was going to be our new English language teacher.
We taunted him with prudish arrogance of a teenager. He was hurt but did not scold anyone.
Rather he said, "Bear with me for two weeks, and after that if you still do not like my class,
feel free not to attend."
"In any case I am a provisional teacher here", he smiled.
A provisional teacher is someone who is given a chance to teach but the job is yet to be confirmed by the school administration. It used to be common practise for the school to induct new teachers
on provisional mode and many of them would not make it after a month or so. But Shanti-sir was
different, within one month he turned out to be one of the most popular teachers in the class.
His youthfulness, sincerity, sense of humour, encouragement and general interest in
students' well being, converted many of us to his ardent fans! We would generally chat for long
hours after school time on almost everything that we could relate to. Thanks to him, many of
my destructive attempts that could prove to be too costly for my future were averted.
After the final test was over, when we were talking about how to improve our score in English
language, he abruptly told me to stop being concerned about score.
"You do not need any English tuition now", he said.
It was a good ego-booster for a teenager though I was uncertain. "Why do you say that, Sir?"
"Whatever you have learned is good enough for the exam and in any case the final exam is
far ahead by three months".
"So what should I do now", I exclaimed.
"Read other books!"
He called me to his house in the weekend. It was in fact a one-room shanty or hut that hardly
can be classified as a house. He had one small kitchen where he used to cook himself. On the floor
he had a permanent bed where he used to teach kids from poor families nearby. Only thing that
could be considered on the expensive side are his books. The bookshelf was stacked with expensive hard covers. The collection had Gandhi's complete writing and classics from renowned historians, among other literature and political accounts. He told me to pick whatever I feel comfortable. It was as if he was giving away his life's treasure that he held so dearly.
I was not sure what would go well with me. He smiled at me and picked two of the hard-bounded volumes on ancient Indian history, and another on Indian constitution and gave them to me, "Go and read, One should know his country's past!"
..I do not remember how much I scored in English but I do remember that I enjoyed a
lot reading those books.
O-voice: I guess he taught you to respect yourself for what you are, didn't he?
I guess he is right but more than anything else, Shanti-sir tried to develop us to better human being.
O-voice: and how did you return his dues? ah! I reckon that is not a very pleasant experience?
Unfortunately I did not see Shanti-sir after we got out of school..Two years later, I got to know about his death and that also after almost a year..He was suffering from peptic ulcer for a long time.
Dude-type: What the hell are you guys mourning for? C'mon man, enjoy life!
o-voice laughed, "Life is like water, man! You need to get wet to enjoy it."
"I love water, it is so much fun playing in water. O-my-God! you guys are so afraid to get wet!", the girl exclaimed.

...Tir-kit dana tir-kit dana tir-kit dana dance dance tir-kit da na..
She continued dancing..

Aftermath of Mumbai Attack: No kneejerk reaction, please!

2008-11-30T15:31:00.004+05:30

"I am proud of being an Indian Muslim. Like any Indian, I am angry, frustrated and depressed. I am angry at the rabid dogs of war. I am frustrated by the tone-deaf impotence of government. I am depressed at the damage being done to my India" - M.J.Akbar, Nov, 30, 2008, Sunday Times of India.

Finally the siege was over and like every other terror attack, the blame game and search for a vent for an easy and fast reaction has started. The anger is palpable, more so with the atrocity and audacity of this attack on the symbol of rising Indian economy. Already the fall guy is found. The first political casualty is Mr. Shivraj Patil, the home minister of India and it is clear that it is not going to stop there. News bulletin says that MK Narayanan, the National Security Advisor to PM, has stepped down. Maharashtra Govt probably will have to share some of the brunt too. But what are we expecting, really, at this point? A magic wand that will give us full-proof security?
I am more worried that the administration and Govt. would be succumbing to media pressure and committing to some knee-jerk reaction that would prove far more costlier to India in the long run. I already see some reaction in hardening stand to Indo-Pak dialogue alongwith news of movement of troop to the border. I wonder if the Govt is taking the easy way out.
All the data that we have seen so far, are apparently leading to LeT for planning this ghastly act but they also point to complete failure in part of marine Police, Coast Guard and Navy to intercept these people. Let's keep the issue of intelligence failure aside, if I go by the confessions of people, there were enough number of Intelligence alerts to the Govt but none of them appeared to translate to specific actionable on the Administration's part.
Going back to "Pak hand," everyone accepts that Pakistan's situation is quite precarious with fundamentalist militant group almost having parallel run in that country. What is the point of accusing the Pakistan Govt when it conceded that it itself is insecure to those forces? Rather than making political rhetoric and hyperbole, a pragmatic approach would be to get them on board on the common agenda and get them sign up for few tangible actions:
1. Govt. must have control to ISI fund [first step]
2. Share all the details of LeT operatives with Indian Intelligence
3. Get control over Madrassas and training camps in PoK that convert teenagers to fidayeen
Given that new Pakistan Govt already faces international pressure to address terrorism and control the fundamentalist militancy in its Country, there is high chance that they will collaborate.
If Pakistan cannot afford another War, so are We. We do not want another stupid War imposed on this country. As a nation, our singlemost focus should be to build our economy and use our influencing engine to get our neighbours focus on their economy too. A healthy economy is what Pakistan needs to get its youth get out of this path of peril of fundamentalism. We need to help them to do that. The fundamentalist wing of ISI needs to be eliminated and that needs to be done as clinically as possible; chances are that the US govt will be India's ally in that process.
On the internal front, Govt must recognize the handling terrorism needs more centralized approach. All border security agencies [land and marine] need to be brought under single umbrella with single head for accountability. If country's defence is Central agenda then fighting terrorism must be the responsibility of the Central Govt too. This is the first step but needs much more than that. Need fund to equip and train the police. They need better ammunition, better protection against miscreants. They need to learn about using communication technologies and have a defined methodology of sharing the information and act on them. Finally they need to be recognized for their work which is protecting the Indian Citizen.
Intelligence needs to find a way to monitor the black economy and many times the act of terrorism is executed with direct involvement of drug mafias. As Mr. M.J. Akbar noted in the Sunday article, the sea route is being used for all these years to traffic drugs from Afganisthan to India through Pakistan in direct connivance of Govt. security agencies. We need to control this. That needs political will [money matters, more so during the elections!].
I do not know how things will change in next few months, I do not know when the next terror attack will happen and how but I know that this is not going to be the last. Like Israel, we are going to face this threat everyday, in a very real way. So let's not fool ourselves to look for elixir here.
Quoting Marianne in the movie, 'Mighty Hearts', "They do these things to terrorize us, but I wasn't terrorized. You are not terrorized" Let's take a pledge that this will not make us hate them more for if our anger turns to hatred, we will be fulfilling the sinister desire of those terrorists.

Great financial Gig

2008-09-21T00:50:00.002+05:30

Lehman brothers filed for bankruptcy last Sunday! All papers and news channel are filled with the news and speculation of its impact on the world economy. Wall street Journal reports 'The American financial system was shaken to its core on Sunday. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection, and Merrill Lynch & Co. agreed to be sold to Bank of America Corp.'
US govt. earlier had put together a $85 billion fund to bail out the AIG from its biggest financial melt-down of the century. Now the burden of Lehman Brothers and Merril Lynch will add to that. Bloomberg reporter observed,"The U.S. budget deficit will grow next year to $438 billion, the Congressional Budget Office said on Sept. 9, making it harder for President George W. Bush's successor to either cut taxes or increase spending". BBC reported on 20th September that, The US Treasury is proposing a fund worth up to $800bn (£440bn) to buy back a large proportion of the bad debt in the US mortgage market. How will it impact US Financial health? In simple terms this means US Fed would be spending this money from deficit rather than its earning.
This could increase the deficit further. Just for the record, in February, 2008, CBS reported, "The Bush administration sent its final budget request to Congress last week, projecting that the deficit for all of 2008 will total $410 billion, very close to the all-time high in dollar terms of $413 billion in 2004". How does the deficit impact? When the expenses of the U.S. Government exceed the revenue collected, it issues new debt to cover the deficit. This debt typically takes the form of new issues of government bonds which are sold on the open market. So, in effect it increases overall US debt and has the potential of reducing attractiveness of US Bond. To counter that effect, the govt would have to increase the interest rate on the bond which could lead to a situation that economist call, hyperinflation.
Wikipedia article on US debt quotes total US Federal debt on September 2008 to be around $9.7 trillion, about $31,700 per capita (that is, per U.S. resident). It adds that if other types of unfunded aids are added, the amount would be $59 trillion. In terms of percentage this is roughly 38% of total GDP, the article says that last time this percentage was higher than this was in 1990 and in 1960. The part that concerns or should concern most americans is that 25% of this debt is to foreign nations of which China and Japan hold the top position. Each of them appear to hold roughly $0.5 trillion in 2007 which would increase further in the present situation. In March of this year, Bill Clinton expressed his concern. "We are so dependent upon decisions made in other countries' capitals," Clinton said, singling out China's potential power over U.S. foreign policy decisions because of its financial leverage. There is another report that says that in this year China will topple US as the world's top manufacturing revenue generating nation. Pravda, the Russian news agency, made an interesting but most telling observation in 2007: China now exerts enormous influence over the economies of virtually every country in the world, and a slight change in its domestic economic policy has the potential to send shockwaves rippling throughout the world. Nowhere is this more apparent-and frightening-then in China’s economic relationship with the United States, which is very much at the mercy of China when it comes to prices, wages, interest rates, most importantly, the value of the Dollar.
Whether the recent US financial crisis will push the world economy to the tipping point with US losing its economic supremacy over other nations is something that next twelve months will tell us but one thing is sure that this financial crunch will mark a crucial point, if not a point of inflection, in American history.

Collection

2008-08-31T12:00:00.018+05:30

Very recently I read Collector, a thriller from David Baldacci. There is nothing much to talk about it beside being a readable thriller. However David made an interesting observation. He said essentially we all are some sort of collectors. There are some obvious set of collectors, like the people who collect stamps, antics, old gramophone records, books but beyond that others too are collectors. Like those who accumulate wealth, fame, there are those who collect grudges, vanities, hurts all through their life. For some, life is collection of personal successes and for some others, life is collection of lost opportunities. For those who believe life is a journey, the past is a deck of memorabilia, a tapestry of smiles, laughter and cry, threaded moments of jubilations and hopelessness in otherwise an endless series of moments of indifferences. Or some may view it as a series of still photos with frozen emotions. But at the end they are all collections.
I searched through the years long gone by to check what I have collected. I found stories, stories that I was told, stories that I became part of, stories that I dreamed, stories that happened in front of me.
One such story is Ladakh..I have been dreaming of Ladakh trip for three years and it did not happen. This time I almost lost hope and funny enough, it happened almost like magic. Apart from buying flight tickets, we did not plan anything ahead but we got everything worked out when needed. Well, that's how story happens to you.
When we boarded the bus from Delhi to Manali, hardly we imagined that everything will fall in place so nicely. My memory of last trek was still fresh; but that is another story for another day.
Had we not taken the bus route to Manali, we would not have known where people from Delhi go for honeymoon. Fact is we were the only non-couple passengers in that bus. I suspect that some of the people found it odd that we were in the bus. However we tried our best not to notice that.
Sardarji bus driver took over the steering at 11 PM. Singing loudly some punjabi hit number, he started driving as if it was his tractor in the sugarcane field. He must have been enjoying the drive a lot. At one point, he almost hit the road-divider. Had he not stopped the bus before it was too late, honeymoon would have ended for many couples. Thanks to the luck of those people, we reached Manali safely in the morning. To our surprise most of the hotels were empty and we got a hotel at hugely bargained price. We thought we should give opportunity to the hotel manager to be more hospitable to us. We asked for his help to get a cab from Manali to Leh and it appeared that we found the right guy! He got a local taxi agent, helped us in the bargain and we were off to Leh after lunch. We were happy that we did not need to spend one full day in that honeymoon spot.
As per the driver's account, Manali to Leh takes 24 hours, if he drives non-stop. But we had enough time at hand so we decided we will take two days instead and stay at a hotel in keylong during the night. The hotel owner was very nice. At 10 PM, he gave us two rooms one of which had a TV too and needless to mention we did not have any prior booking. He provided us Rum and hot food at 10:30 PM in the room. The rooms felt a bit swampy but thanks to tiredness, I fell fast asleep. In the morning, I thanked my star that I did not need to spend the day in that hotel, the room was stinking of damp carpets.
I will skip the road details since this is not novel and neither this is a travelogue. Let's just say that we reached Leh next evening after a lot of "hard work" from some of my friends to keep their alimentary system and nervous system functioning. Our good wisdom of keeping many types of medicines saved us. After all being able to drive a car at the height of 3500-5200 mts is luxury in any part of the world and travel/mountain sickness is a small price for that.
We landed at hotel Chospa at 10 PM again. True to the tradition of Ladakhi hospitality, we got food, hot water and clean room for four without any problem. The hotel manager next day helped us to get our trek planning started; he got his brother to arrange for the trek for us at a very competitive rate which we verified later. But one needs to stay put in Leh for at least two days to get acclimatized properly. We welcomed that for another reason, we needed time to get our trek arranged. It also gave us time to travel around the city of Leh including its palace and try out its culinary shops. But there was added bonus too. In the morning one of us noticed a fair and tall girl sitting in the garden and got glued to her. However the advances were revoked as soon as he learned that the girl was the daughter of the hotel owner who we met later in the evening. Ladakhis are known to be very protective. I assured that I will take a photo of him with the girl after we come back from the trek but fortunately he forgot about that assurance later.
I met this guy one day while I was walking back from Leh palace. He is a Kashmiri Muslim from Srinagar but being a Govt. employee he had to accept posting Leh. He has left his family in Srinagar but he is not worried about that even though fresh agitations erupted there. He made an interesting comment, "When did common people ever find time and resources beyond earning their means to do all sort of stuff? These political parties always use something or other to make mountain out of mole for their advantages. Both Bajrang dal and Jamaat-e-islami are same in this aspect". Jamaat-e-Islami? I thought this party was in Pakistan! Was he confusing? Or..Or probably for him the border between Indian politics and Pakistani politics are blurred without any real distinction and he sees himself stuck in between?
We started our trek on the 61st Independence day of India from a place called Spituk. Spituk was a small town on the bank of Indus and trekking route starts after crossing the river. I was looking for the guide. Lobsum came from behind a car and introduced himself. As we walked together, I kept asking him about the place, the route, the local culture and he without any annoyance gave the answers that he knew. He spoke about himself, his family without any hesitation. Such candour! I doubt if I would be able to share even with a person who I know for years. He said that he left study after completing 10th std because he has to support his sister's study. He screwed his chance to join Indian Army by losing his temper during the test. He said he has vowed never to go to army again! Irony is all his friends are in Indian army. In this emerging new economy of India, I hope that he will find his economic independence in better means than guiding people for trek.
Typically first day of the trek is easier and the people are hit hard on the second day, mostly due to cramps and oxygen depletion at high altitude. Good news is that we completed the trek of the second day without getting drenched. Rain almost repeated the story of my last trek on the day before. Roughly we walked for little more than a hour in the rain on the first day. Our cook made the Tibetan dumpling today. While we were having dinner, one French girl came asking for next day's trekking route to our horse-owner. I did not bother to ask how they communicated over the language barrier of hindi/french but I saw her and her boyfriend walking together earlier with all their belonging including the tent..
People took to the camps early; 3rd day is supposedly the steepest climb.
I wondered what makes people take this hardship knowingly in the name of pleasure, especially when it costs forty grands for just eight days? Is it the love for adventure or is it love for mountain? I couldn't be sure though that is the typical answer one gets. In the morning, I saw one french lady sitting outside my tent. She looks quite fashionable, though one could figure out that her age is carefully hidden behind the heavy layer of cosmetics. She was exhausted yesterday. Luckily she found a horse to carry her. I hoped that she will enjoy the horse-ride. It took us around one and half hour to reach the Ganda-La pass, the highest point so far, at a height of 4800 mts, almost the height of Mont Blanc in the Alps. Everyone was relieved, including the french lady; little they knew that they had the longest walk in front of them! The route follows a creek that meets the river Markha at Skiu, our next camping site. When we reached Skiu after a tedious journey along the canyon carved out by the creek, with numerous short climbs and stream-crossing, everyone was exhausted to the point of irritation. Morning's good feeling about 'summiting a pass' was lost in everyone's mind. Someone asked about tomorrow's route and the guide reminded that we would need to cross the river, first time in this route. River-crossing appeared to pose good enough challenge to rekindle enthusiasm to the people.
Next day, we met various people, people mostly from Europe at fifties and sixties, travelling to India with little English knowledge and crossing this altitude for the first time in their life with amazing vigour and energy and I looked at my friends, who at their thirties appear to be done with their life!
We finally crossed the river where water was knee-deep but negotiating the force of water proved to be a challenge not to mention about the near-freezing temperature of water. It took another two hours to reach our resting place for the day. The camping ground is at the bank of the river and quite beautiful with a nice cottage at the front. Flowing water tempted everyone to take a dip. We hurried after taking tea since the Sun was almost setting; none of us would dare to touch the water after sunset. When I reached the river, it did not appear that a full dip would be a good idea; accordingly I defined 'dip' as washing my head and shoulder. However it had a great effect, first I had goosebumps and then suddenly cold stopped bothering me entirely. It felt as if it was a Bangalore summer!
In the evening, we had some beer, after a long time, followed by dinner and then we slept off.
Next day was a long walk. We crossed the Markha school, on the way, that had a board, at the gate, which said that volunteers are welcome to teach. I asked Lobsum what kind of help these folks needed but he answered that the school hardly would have a dozen students. The Markha monastery was on top of a hill that we needed to cross. I went to see inside the monastery but could not find anyone to talk. We needed to cross the river again but soon stopped by a huge rockface that looked like the turret of the church. Tried few snaps but was at the wrong side of the light. We were walking on the wide river-bed that the flood water created by cutting across the terrain. There were many thorn-bushes and many of them had grown as tall as six feet. Some of them had flowers too. Who would have known that flowers of thorn-bushes could be so white, so beautiful, had I not seen them here?
Sun was strong today and we had to climb many small "passes" before we reached our destination of the day. We failed to notice where we got separated from the river. However we had a creek here as the water-source for the campers. Next day's walk is going to be three hours but the valley was at higher altitude.
In the morning I found a butterfly spreading its wings on the walkway between the tents. Typically due to low temperature in mountain, butterflies need long time to warm their wings in the sun before it could fly. I picked it up and left it on a bush; hopefully it will survive from birds' eyes till its wings start fluttering.
We reached Nymaling leaving the Kang Yaze peak at the right. Nymaling is a huge valley with one side covered with the mountain that has the famous "Kongmaru La" and the other side is protected by Kang Yaze. But only animals that we could spot were cows, sheeps,"Jo", a hybrid from Yak and Cow. No traces of blue-sheeps or Yaks, however. We were told earlier that Ibex is almost impossible to find on this route. The temperature for the first time dropped to -5/-7 degree Celsius in the night.
I had undisturbed sleep for a change. When I got up at 5.45 AM, the sun was yet to rise but Kang Yaze was looking heavenly. I came out to take snap. Some water-streams froze in the night. The valley in the soft after-glow of dawn looked serene and very peaceful.
After breakfast we started climbing our last hurdle, Kongmaru La. I was walking at my pace. Though none was expected to run at that altitude but a young couple saw me and asked if I planned to reach the pass in next ten minutes. It must have ballooned my ego a bit but that was short-lived for in next ten minutes I was overtaken by one European who appeared to be in his fifties. His face showed a strong resolve and though he was carrying his sack he did not stop for breath till he reached the summit. I, of course, was a bit unhappy. But I also felt that he deserved to be the first!
That young couple who asked for direction few days back also reached the top in next half-an-hour. I thought that they wanted a snap of themselves and I felt it would be cruel if I do not offer help. I took the snaps in both of their cameras and hoped that their relationship would last at least as long as those photos last.
I had a feeling that this will be our last day of trekking though Lobsum was trying to tell us that we may need to walk for two hours tomorrow. After lunch, Swami who was struggling all the days, started walking as if he mastered the art of walking for the first time in life. He looked very determined to finish the trek as early as possible. It was however a long walk in another ravine till we reached the final camping site of this trek. Soon Lobsum reached and he confirmed that it was indeed the last day of the trek. I was feeling a sense of loss, almost like the way I used to feel when summer vacation used to end abruptly.
We decided to celebrate the completion of the trek with beer at the roadside tent which the locals fondly called hotel. One, two, three, four..bottles got empty. Everyone was relieved and talking animatedly about his experience. It almost felt like a jubilation of one's spirit that was subdued for a very long time.
This trek, I felt, was a journey of personal redemption for each of us. It dawned to me that it was not love for mountain, neither it was love for adventure, the trek was personal pilgrimage for each of us, a desperate attempt to go to the root of individual's existence so that one can look at coming days with eagerness of a kid and not with the baggage of apprehension and indifference that grows with age, monotony of work and pressure of one's profession, one's existential struggle.
Ladakh was destined to happen to us!

Arka: A Case of dialectical existence

2008-05-01T11:23:00.009+05:30

Irony of life is that it is lived forward but understood backward. -Soren Kierkegaard

"Get us a pitcher and a plate of french-fries".
After a long time, Arka and I are sitting together in this old pub. This was the favourite water-hole for three of us. Almost every Friday we used to frequent this pub. In fact the manager used to keep one particular table reserved for us. But this time we are coming here after almost six months. Since Arka moved out of my place, this is the first time we are getting together. Life's centripetal force keeps taking each of us farther and farther away from others in its constant churning motion. With all our might we continuously try to stay afloat while losing ourselves bit by bit..

Apart from ordering the beer, he has not uttered a single word although he already finished his fourth cigarette. "Hey, did not know that smoking is such a serious business!", I tried to lighten the mood.
"It's been 10 years, man!" he looked at me, almost like waking up.
"1998 was the most dreaded year of my life. It has been full ten years since that year.. looks like I am completing a full circle.." he sunk in himself. This is the first time I heard him talking about his past. Past for men are like the anchor of a boat; it provides a coordinate for identification in the vast space-time continuum of one's existence.
"I am not quite sure that I understood the meaning of that sentence", I said with anticipation.
In next few hours, I became the witness to what can be called his existential journey. I tried to recount his story as closely as possible though I edited it to remove any personal reference. I also tried to make it chronological without losing the essence. But before we go further, I must stress that my purpose is not to lay open one's private life, which undoubtedly would be very unethical. This by all means is merely an effort to unwind the complexity of the existence of a man in the modern era or shall we say the era of dialectical contradictions.

The childhood
I was known to be a good boy. Teachers used to like me, so did my neighbours. My mom took personal care of my study so that I do not score less than 100 in any of my papers! Eventually study became my life. Now, I know I was actually a very studious boy!
I was very shy. Once my teacher told me to give a speech to the class and I choked. I sweated so much that my teacher finally gave up. I ran home from school.
I remember another incidence. I was invited to my friend's birthday party. Lot of other kids were invited there too. My friend was waiting for me for two hours but I had a very weird feeling inside and I refused to go. He was very upset. I was equally upset but could not gather courage to tell him the reason. It took a long time for both of us to forget that incidence.

In High-school
I had my share of adulations. Being the first-boy in the class has some advantages too. Neighbours' doors usually remain open for you even if they are over-protective of their girls. Some of those girls do show interest but I was not interested! I used to view it stupid and immature thinking. I used to take myself very seriously and my attitude was: I do not have any place of childishness in my life. I was getting myself ready for something much bigger, though I was not sure what that would be.

Met Pushan
We got admitted to the college in the same year. This is the first time I had classes without close attention from teacher, classes without compulsory school dress. This is the first time bunking classes was cool thing, this is the first time I learned that ones without a political view are considered dumb. This is the first time I tasted tobacco! It was a complete cultural shift and at the age of sixteen. I was getting attracted to socialist ideology and thought it is far more important to be able to work for masses than build one's career. Suddenly I had a very clear view of my future. I started getting involved in campaigning, student politics, and very seriously. I started reading Marxism, theory of class struggle...
And then I met Pushan. Pushan was the coolest guy in the class. Boys like to hang around with him. Girls crave for his company. I used to view him as the frivolous son of a rich father. Life is made for him, class for him was just having fun. I had that notion till the day he caught me in the college corridor, "Hey Arka, that article was well-written, crisp, focussed and with natural flow". He was commenting on my article on wall-magazine. I was surprised. I never expected him to read leftist student union's wall magazine!
- Want to have a fag?
-Sure [Temptation of a free cigarette was much higher than moderate anxiety to talk to a stranger]
He had a carefree bonhomie, a friendly but open and unpretentious attitude, but most noticeable aspect of him was his loud laughter and sharp commentary. He invited me to his home and there I found large racks full of the books that I dreamed to read!
We became friends. He had a good hand with guitar. I got familiarized with some famous songs thanks to him. He was also the sounding board for all my grandiose and stupid theories of social change of order. By the way, sometimes we did solve some physics problems too. It was not without reasons that he was considered the smartest boy of the class!

* * *

Final test was nearby. I was gradually finding the college politics tiring, unimaginative and mostly driven by petty party politics rather than any ideology. All my dreams were appearing more like illusions. Pushan started laughing, "Arka, science has much more hopes than your social reforms!"
We decided that next few months we will focus to prepare for the final exam and the JEE. We used to meet at least twice in a week in the local tea-shop to have cigarette and some good laugh together. Few times, I remembered to discuss on some problems that I got stuck and he typically had the solution ready on the cover of the cigarette pack by the time we got out of the shop.
I had a good final exam and the JEE too. But Pushan did not appear for the JEE. I was so surprised. Later when I met him after ten days I learned that he went for a rock climbing session in Shushunia hills during that time! He said, he found it extremely exciting.
"Also, I started liking Physics, I guess it will take at least three years for me to get bored with it", he laughed, "It's an amazing subject, man!"
What about his father? His father was a top executive in an MNC and I was not sure if he will take this decision of his son very lightly.
"Oh, Dad was angry, he asked me whose permission did I take before I went"
- And what was your answer?
- I did not answer. After all he did not take my permission before bringing me to earth!
That was Pushan. After that we got busy with our life and went in different directions. Once or twice we met during my vacation but for very long time we were not in touch.

Platonic Call
I was already in job for few years by now. Your first few years in job are kind of exciting in many ways. The prospect of being on your own and endless opportunities in the software Industry in front of you are intoxicating in more than a way. Almost everyday you expect to face a new challenge with its thrills and suspenses, not to mention the galloping salary increase that became the norm that time!
I saw this girl, cute and bubbly, one day in our office corridor. Gathered that she was one of the freshers [engineers joining from Campus directly] joining that year. Luckily found an excuse to chat with her in the IIRC. Some funny comments, light chats and we found that our reactions have lot in common. I used to find different excuse to tease her and soon she started reciprocating that too. I became aware that she comes in my thoughts many times in a day. I kind of hoped to see her in lift, in office everyday and also felt jittery if I didn't see her for few days. This is some new experience and I was puzzled with my emotion. That kept my thoughts spinning. What is happening? Am I falling in 'love'?? Where does it lead to? Marriage proposal? Hey, that's stupid! I in no way am ready for this. Didn't I say that relationship has no existence in my life? In that case what am I doing? Why am I pulling that girl into this? It's not fair to her!
... I decided I must stop this before it is too late. I started avoiding her from that point. She must have been puzzled initially but figured out the new rules of the game quite quickly. Few months went by and we kind of got used to ignore each other. One day I got to learn that she is leaving the job and going elsewhere. I thought it is good for both of us. But when the day came, it suddenly hit me that I won't see her again and all my suppressed emotions started rushing to me.
But she has gone by that time. That is the time I realized how much she meant to me. I also realized that I lost my chance. I wished so much to see her once. I hoped wildly that she would come back soon and tell me, "look, I forgive you this time but don't ever try to act smart again!"
But hope almost always is irrational and therefore does not result to anything. I slowly accepted that she will not come back. But it was impossible for me to continue with the job, her memory kept haunting me all the time. I decided to quit the job one day although I did not have any other job at hand.. This was 1998!
Arka stopped.
I asked, "But didn't you try to reach out to her?"
Arka told that he did not think that it was appropriate for him to do that. If one cannot avoid mistake, at least one should have sense of dignity to own that and not allow to spill that to other's life.
- How long have you lived in this state?
- Well it was long, given that I am not good at socializing, it also made it difficult to connect to any prospective candidate [he laughed] but I think I opted to accept that as my reality and live with the sense of loss and guilt. I tried to fill all my time with work and it started showing results too. My career progression moved to fast path and that ensured that I do not have any personal life!
-Did you not meet anyone after that?
Arka blew a long puff and then started with a half-smile
- Couple of years' back I met one girl in one management conference, a regular event in the valley and I got a free pass! There is nothing to talk about the conference and I guess this girl was equally bored. During one break, we had some inconsequential chat, exchanged cards and went in our ways. But we met soon; this time in some restaurant; she was dining alone and she was more than happy to share the table with me. This time we got to know each other more and found we have some common emotional traits. After this we started meeting more frequently. She was a management graduate from a true-blue school and was working in a consultancy firm. This is her second year in the job and as usual it was not without high pressure that often creates more stress. I told her things will smooth out in next couple of years. In any consulting firm, first two years are the most difficult years. She was reasonably attractive, with a pleasant voice and natural sense of elegance. But the part that sticks out about her is her wit and economy of words. I have not seen many ladies who are very fond of economy in words [he laughed].

My return to India
I definitely was enjoying this phase of life.. But we are never content with our happiness. We want some security that this will last long and grow. So I proposed to her one day and suggested that we should consider about marriage soon. I realized that she was not very comfortable to talk about it. She told me that she needs some time to focus in her career and will consider it at more opportune time. So we continued, with both of us spending 12 hours or more in our work. Soon her work was seeping into her weekends too with less and less time for us to catch up.
I was feeling stagnated more so because my personal life was not getting any better and in my profession, I was hitting the glass ceiling so it was not very comfortable either.
In the meantime all my other acquaintances got married and had kids eventually. Their pattern of discussions and worries changed gradually. Soon it was apparent that I do not fit into their world too well. With her getting more and more distant, I did not have anything to cling to and I started thinking seriously about going back to India. One day I told her about this. I also told her that I would like to spend some time with my parents before it is too late. She kept quiet; I wasn't sure if she thought that I was trying to put pressure on her. But later she told me that she supported my idea of going back to India. She told me that she needs some more time here and she also would consider heading back to India sometime soon. So, one day I packed my staff and headed back and I was so glad to meet Pushan and you here! I felt like reliving my pre-engineering days, thanks to both of you.

Back to the Beer
We finished one and half pitcher of beer, two plates of frenchfries, one plate of chicken kebabs already, not to mention the uncounted cigarettes.
I asked, "what happened to her?"
He fell silent. After a pause he smiled, "We have been talking less and less since I came back, a lot due to diametrically opposite time-zone than anything else. But that also reduced the overlapping in our personal space lately.
This morning, I got an email from her. It was quite business-like. She said that she has decided to settle with someone there and thanked me for all the good time we had together. She also thought that I was a great person.."
It did feel like that he is completing a full circle.

Epilogue
He said, "My first reaction was like, why the hell I always go through such experiences? Is it because I try to take responsibility unlike Pushan who escapes through all commitments? In fact after so many years, I am back to the basic question if anything really matters, to anyone. Would it make any difference if you take any of us out from this apparently causal system? I have basic doubt if 'making difference' has any significance. Hindu philosophy taught everyone that there is a purpose behind everything and we feel good to believe that there is God's intricate plan for every change, every action in this world but if you really like to think, nature's selection rule does not work like that. Nature works to create abundance in possibility, I am talking about genetic variations here. It obviously means that some variations will be more suitable to exist and thereby participate in progression of evolution and there would be other variations which will not find nature favourable to them. Natural law of selection tells us that the latter variations will be weeded out in the process.
Now applying that logic here, evidently I am not selected by nature and in both the events it does kind of indicate that I am not fit to pass nature's selection rule. So should I be cognizant of that and help the process of weeding? Or should I still keep waiting that someday I will find some favours from nature? Viruses are programmed to remain dormant for indefinite period till they find some favourable host when they start multiplying as if the world is going to end. Is nature pushing all its species to follow the same strategy? Is the world after all a great battlefield where each element, each species are trying to fight for its existence every moment? Is this the grand design of our Lord, that our scriptures and preachers in every religion are so eloquent about???"

Arka ended abruptly, not sure if it is due to tiredness or due to his his stark dejection. I did not know what hope I can weave for him and hoped that someday nature will guide him to answer.

* * *
असतो मा सद्गमय
तमसो मा ज्योतिर्गमय
मृत्योर् मा अमृतं गमय
ॐ शांति शांति शांति

Milestone to Milestone

2008-01-27T23:43:00.000+05:30

I am living in this rented house for last eight years, or is it nine years? can't remember clearly. But I do remember how this area was when I came to this house. It was a good residential area with lots of trees around; I could hear the birds chirping in the morning! These days, I wake up with car's horn on the road or my neighbours' voices..
Change..We are used to change; so much so that we get uncomfortable if we do not see some expected change in someone! I never tried to socialize with my neighbours, so I don't face questions from them. But I think of those who are not as lucky as me!
"Hey how old are you?" "How come you still are unmarried?"
Indirect pointers: "I have an uncle, he is fifty and unmarried, his elder brother still asks him to get married"
"Hey, how do I care about your hell-knows-who uncle?", you could say, but does it matter? Questions as well as advices come free, in the billion minds that are trained to expect changes in only one way.
Life for them, is moving from one post to another; posts that are coming in regular intervals: school, certificate, degree, job, marriage, child, child's school, kid's degree..kid's marriage..retirement, death. What if certain post does not appear as expected? We get worried, worried that rest of the posts will be delayed. People even get worried that they are not dying. I don't remember how many times I have heard this refrain from old folks, "So many people die everyday, why it does not happen to me!"
If any of you travelled in buses in Kerala or Bengal, you could find some similarity. You must have seen passengers yelling at the conductor and driver for stopping the bus unduly, that the bus is not keeping the time. I used to wonder what these folks would lose if they reach few minutes later. I remember one of those office-going passenger who after doing all these exercise invariably would walk to the tea-stall after reaching his destination. He would leisurely lit a cigarette, ask for tea and start talking about something that he probably read in that day's newspaper. Was he getting late for this?? What I realized later was that most of these passengers do not yell because they are getting late, they yell because they do not have anything better to do; they simply do not know how they will keep themselves busy. Yelling, for them, gives a purpose for that duration..
Ironically this holds good for almost all of us. We constantly need a purpose, every minute, every second of our existence. Running from one post to the other gives us that purpose.. We simply can't handle purposelessness and therefore cannot stomach the delay in reaching a post, neither we can digest when we see anyone falling behind in reaching a post! Someone programmed us to behave in this fashion, I guess..
I was thinking all these while looking at my landlord's grandson (or granddaughter?) who was walking with his grandfather gleefully on the road below. The child is about two years' old. I was invited to his father's marriage, and I remember that I debated for a long time about the excuses I would give to him for not attending..The child has reached his first milestone in life, he is able to walk, soon he will start talking and sometimes later he will start going to school..Another ant started its life!

A viable system

2008-01-05T23:42:00.000+05:30

Today Sunil and I were having a quiet beer in a noisy pub. For some reason our discussion
always takes a turn towards the political system. He started with a glint of smile, " I hope you have not forgotten the bet!"
- What bet?
- Ha! you've forgotten?
-Give me the context; what was the bet?
- Well the bet was that in next ten years, Indian political system will face an acute crisis and you will win if it does not.
- Ah! yes I remember, but one year is already past!
And, we spent next few glasses building the case on the both sides! I guess this kind of debate gives both of us added 'High' that beer has stopped giving us. But he made an interesting observation. He said in last fifty years there has not been a single invention or technology shift that has impacted the common life. He said, last major medical inventions [drugs for epidemics, like smallpox, malaria, yellow fever] were made before 50's and after that period no drug or cure is invented that had the expanse of that nature [AIDS, cancer still remain the threat to human race]. There is no major technology change that brought good to basic technologies of food production [a need for common life] and then he paused with a question on his face.
That made me thinking..He sounds right, doesn't he? There was a huge technology shift in the communication and computing space but how did it impact the basic needs of life? We still have a billion people go hungry every day, millions of people die without proper medications..Was it just a coincidence that technology progress moved away from basic enhancement of life on earth?
As if he was waiting for the question, he said, all the innovations were focused on lifestyle improvement and he reasoned that it was fallout of the pattern that in last fifty years inventions were driven by the corporates in western world. He is not entirely correct, though. Erstwhile Soviet republic brought enormous innovations in space technologies and US Defense industry drove a mass-scale sophistications in weapons technologies but none of them directly contributed anything to improvement of condition of vox populi. Lots of big corporate giants got directly benefited and became part of these inventions. In fact last 50 years is the history of how corporates became part of international politics and national policies. Subsidy, foreign goods taxation, patent rights, sensitive technology transfer policies and regulations, are all effect of that; a consistent, tireless, overreaching effort of the corporates to create a viable system across the world. Economic growth is the other term for that. Those who can help that system became part of that [ we all understand now what economic growth means to us] but a larger mass that could not help this system were quietly but decidedly left out of this system. It was simply not viable to include them in the system!
Oversimplification or a simple and elegant theory? I hope it is the former! Fact is, the process of social education wired our brain in such a way that we almost unconsciously measure viability of every small option that comes in front of us. Want an example?
In my college days, it was a normal scenario for boys to fall for girls [I hear that the situation has improved of late; some boys do fall for the boys these days and so are the girls] and in one instance one boy who was couple of years senior to a particular girl had developed a weak heart for her. When he failed to convince the girl to accept him, he tried to take help from some of her batch-mates. One such batch-mate told me the story later during one of our tea and smoke sessions. It seems that when he countered the girl on what was missing in that boy, she seemed to have said that the boy was not sexually viable to her. I was amused. I never heard this phrase of sexual viability before, neither did her batch-mate have any idea of but I am sure the girl did. Though this was shared as a hilarious anecdote from campus life, I doubt if that boy could appreciate the humour. What happened afterwards to that boy and girl is entirely irrelevant but I guess you do see how the concept of viability is ingrained in seemingly innocent minds.

Let's change our focus to recent political development. Mr Modi won Gujarat election hands down proving all the media-experts stupidly wrong. Media swallowed this humiliation while some of them tried to put cleverly that it happened due to extreme polarization in Gujarat polity. There were other considerations too. Some hypothesized that majority chose Modi because they felt Modi will give them the financial growth. Obviously, Modi has skillfully juxtaposed economics with Gujarat's identity or 'swabhiman' in common people's minds. But simply the question is why an average Gujarati [I am sure he got substantial Muslim votes too] vote for a person who seemed to have sponsored brutal killing, of some innocent people, which supposedly has blemished the state's image and therefore their image? I guess the clear verdict tells that majority did not consider that the state-assisted violence was really unjustified [or more importantly relevant in the Gujarat's election]! Actually Sunil had an interesting view on this. He thought that the violence provided for the vent to the emotion and rage that had been boiling for some time and if that vent was not created, the system would have gone towards further instability in the future. He drew the attention to the domestic war and final break down of Yugoslavia. So in his view the riot is a viable breakdown in the system of democracy; it takes away the excess negative energy in the system and saves the system from becoming unstable. Outrageous? Could be but it opens up the same crude truth. A system of viability does not follow the linear model of ethics and morality. When you look from this angle you get a different perspective and reason why corruption is so all-pervading in third world countries, why the problem of population only manifests in third-world countries, why the dream of hunger-less world never materializes, why break-neck speed of technology innovation did not impact the basic livelihood of common people at large in last fifty years. Principle of viability dictated that corporates focus on maximizing their profits and therefore their 'market' and the market did not have any place for those who did not have anything to participate in the market and that constitutes almost 50% of world population today. Economic viability of states dictate that they help the wealth creation and therefore help corporates to grow in their business. It dictates that the states protect the big corporates' interest in international trade equations at the expense of equitable distribution of wealth. It simply is not viable for the system to focus its energy to eradicate problem of food availability to the hungry lots, to arrange for health-care for those who do not have the money to spend. And for the same reason, it is not a viable option for the middle-class of Gujarat to not go with Modi; it insures their interests. And when it comes to courtship, the rule of viability dictates who a girl chooses as her partner. Poor boy and his love-story!
....

The beer was over and so were our lofty discussions. We have nine long years to wait and see which direction the world and India go following the rule of viability. In the meantime let me wish [as I did last year] a very prosperous and happy new year to all of you. Let the hope prevail!

India : A nation of dysfunctional Identity

2007-10-28T18:45:00.000+05:30

There has been news in many channels about the Tehelka expose on Gujarat mass killing. And today another news came. In Karnataka JD(S) announced to give unconditional support to BJP to form the Government. When the reporter quizzed the bete noir of Deve Gowda on the expose on the saffron brigade's role in Gujarat'a carnage, he said it is conspiracy of Congress party! Realizing that it is not even funny, he gave the matter-of-fact answer that he is trying to protect his party, indirectly saying that he can't keep people in his party if he does not support BJP; not because of Ideology, mind you, it is just that he cannot match the money that his MLAs are being offered by the other parties.
Amusing? I guess it is, after all, we are talking about Indian politics. 'We', under the intellectual insulation of the banner of educated class of India, have learned to separate ourselves from the all the bad vibes that Indian politics emanate.

There was a bengali rhyme that I heard when I was a kid, that apparently mothers used to scare their kids. It said that the Marathas would come raiding if they didn't go to bed soon. During 18th Century Maratha cavalries used to raid in villages of Bengal and stories of their cruel killing and vandalism became the subject of folklore. The raiders would loot, arson and kill, at will, the women, men and kids in vicarious celebration of their win against the farmers. I doubt if the then Bengali farmers or the Maratha raiders shared the common vision of national Identity at that time.

In 1946, when Jinnah and his cronies realized that Jinnah's dream of becoming the prime minister of India will not be fulfilled and Congress will not give in to his demand of Pakistan, he called for 'direct action'. Thousands of people slaughtered each other in one of the bloodiest riot that ever have happened in India. It is said that thousands of mutilated bodies were lying on the roads of Calcutta, for days, waiting for the British army to clear. This was recorded as the great Calcutta killing in the history. Government was said to restrain the Police so that rioters could fulfill their mission without any problem. [check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Action_Day]

In 1984, when the then prime minister of India was assassinated by two sikh guards, Delhi experienced another of its darkest days when thousands of Sikhs were hounded and slaughtered by frenzied mobs. As usual the Police disappeared from the roads during this time also. Of all the political statements that came out afterwards, I remembered one statment made allegedly by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, saying,"When a big tree falls, the earth is bound to shake".

2002 repeated the history when Ahmedabad, Vadodara and almost entire Gujarat started what the leaders called 'the retribution of the Godhra carnage'. Tehelka's expose on the design and people who planned that are accounted with graphic details in their news portal under the the headline that says, "the Truth in the words of the men who did it". Disturbing. No 'disturbing' is a very mild word for that. It is shocking how much hatred one could have to be able to talk with pride on those animal behaviour and not feeling even a glint of remorse.

I was puzzled. History tells us that India has always been invaded by others and we have been overpowered almost in all cases. Be it the first Muslim invasion of sultan of Ghazni, or 500 years later, the invasion of Mughals, a small number of outsiders always won over large army of India.
Indians as we know are known to have submissive psyche. Individually, we avoid direct confrontation and have always proved ourselves to be a great subject under different dynasties, clans, empires. East India Co. ruled the whole country till 1857 with just 10,000 people of their own! In most of the cases the Kings prefered to sell their loyalty to British empire than fighting for freedom. Then where does this almost bestial aggression come from, aggression so cruel that it does not spare kids, pregnant women, old man? And why this aggression manifests only when there is a group of people together? How many times have you heard of mobs torching buses, shops or killing people as opposed to a single person's aggression causing the harm to the society?

Mob behaviour or herd behaviour, the experts say are shown by weak predators. A group of animals fleeing a predator shows the nature of herd behavior. Typically the herd aggression is an act of defense; a trait developed by weak predators for their individual survival against stronger opponents. Hyenas show this behaviour pretty often and they are known to be more fierce when they are in herd.

In the last hundred years, we have seen us to be deadliest, ruthless and cruel when we are in groups. The dreadest riots in history can only be found in the history of this subcontinent.
It almost feels like we are bunch of canines, afraid to face the world alone and wait for an opportunity to bite in the anonymity of a group. Our strength is in our numbers, like the Hyenas. We are equally ferocious like those animals especially when we are part of a mob.

Long time back, I saw a group of kids attacking a dog on the road. The dog was running for its life and the kids were pelting stones at that fateful creature. Each time the dog barked as it was hit by the stones, the kids would jump with vicarious joy. Sadist? May be but the same kid would run away if the dog charged back.

I think it is the psychology of victims and cowards. Riots, arsons, mob-killing are our opportunity to get out of this overwhelming truth, our repressed Identity. A bunch of non-achievers, losers that we are, our only way to taste the win is by being part of anonymous, almost histrionic, celebration of aggression. It helps us to lose our Identity and feel like winners. We should enshrine this deliberate act of humanity, the best bakery, the charred houses, shops so that as Tarun Tejpal wrote in his editorial, we as a nation do not forget our coward bestiality and hopefully not repeat.

Celebrating the festival

2007-10-20T17:32:00.000+05:30

Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life,
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth
The glory of action
The splendor of beauty,
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow only a vision,
But today well lived makes every yesterday
a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day!
Such is the salutation of the dawn.
-Kalidasa

Nature does not live in past, nor does it live in future; it has one state of being and that is present. It is us who keep the past and future in our mind so much so that most of times present is removed from our existence. Some of us tend to live in past and some in future. When we are young, it is the future which fills our existence and as we grow old, it is the past which defines our existence. Stronger the sense of one's identity, stronger is his association to his past. In fact
it is the past that defines us, almost always. In other words, 'you' are actually the product of your past! But what if you had a way of freeing 'you' from your past? Just the way nature maintains its history in fossil and rocks but not allow the history to influence the present, what if you had a way to dissociate past from your existence, a way not to let your present feelings be conditioned by your past, what would that 'you' become?

Siran came here today, a bit unexpectedly after that weekend.
"where is Arka", she asks me and without waiting for the answer she shouts, "Hey Arka, where are you?"
Arka gets out of his room in hurry and also in a bit of surprise, "What happened?"
As if Siran knows him for years, "Ah, you are here? So nice to see you. Can't you give me a call?
I had to come here to find you!"
Arka is more puzzled. Was he expected to call her? He did not forget last dinner experience.
Enigma of Siran continues, "Hey listen, dress up fast, you need to take me to Dandiya ceremony."
"What?", Arka blurted out, "Where do I have to take you to?"
"Okay , I will explain later, can you dress up first? Please wear something ethnic. And do it fast,
I am getting late!"
Arka gave in. He shrugged as if to say, "whatever!" and disappeared into the room.
"Tea/Coffee?", I tried to be a modest host.
As if she became aware of me, she said, "Coffee is a good idea!, Is it okay if I make it?"
It is not to often that someone shows that kindness to me; I welcomed her to the kitchen. While helping her in getting the oven on and arrange rest of the stuff, we contined the conversation.

Me:I did not know that you are from Gujarat.
Siran: Neither did I.
Me: Oh! then how come you are so enthusiastic about Dandiya?
Siran(smile): I am equally enthusiastic about Bihu dance too!
Me: Ah! I see. But do you know how to dance Dandiya?
Siran: No, but I am confident that it is not difficult to learn.
Me: And not difficult to make Arka learn, I guess!
Siran: Of course! By the way, don't you think it is amazing that different parts of India so different from each other in languages and culture, celebrate the festivals differently but at the same time and more importantly all of them somehow linked together?
Me: Beg further elaborations, please!
Siran: Well, See during this time, Bengalees, Assamese, Oriyas celebrate Durga Puja. And in some coastal areas in Kerala and Maharashta people do that too. While Gujarat, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh celebrate Navratri.
Me: Yes, all of them are in some sense linked to Ramayana. Lord Rama worshipped Goddess Durga during the autumn to get blessings for his battle with Ravana. This was untimely invocation of Durga. Typically Durgapuja used to be clebrated during the spring.
Siran: Yes and that is the reason, Durgapuja has this concept of 'Akaal Bodhan' which actually
means 'Untimed invocation'. Karnataka celebrates 'Ayudh puja' on the ninth day of celebration which actually is worship for Arms. Rama had the greatest battle on the 9th day i.e during 'Mahanavami' and he asked for blessings to the Goddess, for strength and arms before the battle.
Me: So you are saying that Ramayana is the unifying agent of all these cultures.
Siran: Absolutely! Look, Diwali is celebrated in North India and Goddess Lakshmi is worshiped during this time. I think, Diwali marks the celebration of Rama's return to his kingdom and celebration of the win. There is something called 'dhanteras' which I think is offshoot from that celebration. The King after return to his kingdom distributed gold and other valuable stuff to his people. People celebrated this joyous moment by bursting crackers.
Me: Interesting, but I am not sure if Diwali is celebrated in the same manner in south India.
Siran: Yes I think there is a reason for that..
Me: and what would be the reason?
Siran: Well, you see, Rama was the Aryan king and the Ravana was the non-Aryan king and the most powerful non-Aryan king at that time. Bali, Hanuman, Sugreeb belonged to less poweful non-Aryan tribes or community. So they had reason to help Rama in his battle with Ravana.
Me: Interesting..go on!
Siran: Now Rama needed to some way to unify all the non-Aryan folks and get them under his command. Aryan civilization was a male-dominated one and I suspect that all the female force that were being worshiped by non-Aryans traditionally in this subcontinent were not as much accepted in the Aryan dominated areas.
Me: And Rama played a tactical quid-pro-quo?
Siran: Exactly! As the Aryan king, he worshiped the Goddess of non-Aryans and that brought the
non-Aryan culture in the main-stream Aryan culture and in turn he won the loyalty of those people in his crusade against Ravana.
Me: Wow! what a theory! So Rama in fact played the same role that Akbar played in unifying Muslims and Hindus during his time.
Siran: Yes, I believe so and that probably made Rama almost a legend in his lifetime, The
great king who unified Aryans and non-Aryans. Since India did not have a culture of
recording history at that time, folklores amplified this achievement manifold and made him the God.
Me: Sounds very plausible! Why don't you write this and may be, do some research to make it more authentic?

I did not notice when Arka came out of his room. Coffee was also over.
"Wow! you look like a prince!", Siran said looking at Arka's ethnic-wear.
"Yes, I know that, now where do I have to go?", Arka took the comment in his stride.
"Come, my charming prince, let's go and do Dandiya!", Siran took Arka away out without
any care to his questioning eye-brows. I guess Arka did not mind either!

[Before finishing, let me wish you all happy celebration of Dassera and Navratri. The picture below is taken from http://www.anandabazar.com/archive/1071016/16edit4.htm and the photo is shot by Shailen Sarkar. I have not seen another photo that captured the mood of the festival of Durgapuja so well.]

Three Faces: Starry night

2007-10-14T14:49:00.000+05:30

"As a nation (as distinct from Individuals) of Chronic underachievers we have been programmed by our politicians, our educational systems (or lack of it), our figures of official authority to taste victory only as a vicarious fruit, forbidden to us by our karma of defeatism and victimhood. Success like life, we have been taught, is elsewhere."
I stopped reading, "Do you agree to Mr. Jug Suraiya, Siran"?
Siran: who is this Jug Suraiya, some new-age management Guru?
Me: Hey Arka, Siran does not know who Mr Jug suraiya is! C'mon Siran, don't you read Times of India?
Siran: I don't read newspaper, it bores me.
Me: Why on earth? In fact I find Times of India quite entertaining!
Siran: Well, newspaper has stopped publishing news long time back, they write stories, camouflage opinion in the name of reports and worst of all, they don't even report the stuff they ought to. Hiding under the name of 'professional journalism', they actually are advertising agencies. Only difference is the advertising agencies advertise a product and the newspapers advertise themselves!
Arka: wow! Impressive analysis.
Me: Come on, Arka, this is at best her opinion. Don't look for excuses to be impressed!

Siran frowned but the frown was short-lived, it soon converted into a burst of laughter as soon as she saw Arka's embarrassed face.

Agreed that an introduction is needed. Siran is a new entry to this tapestry, in fact a replacement for Pushan! In some sense there is a connection between Siran's entry and Pushan's disappearance.
The way it happened, was, I got a call one month back from a female voice asking about whereabouts of Pushan. Typically Pushan never exposed me or Arka to his women friends. He always used to keep his other life separate. Though we did hear him talking over the phone sometime, he carefully used to avoid mentioning any names. So, I was quite surprised when I got that call. I learned that she heard from Pushan about us but Pushan never shared my phone number with her.
In fact she got my phone number in Pushan's flat when she visited the place after finding
his number unreachable for a week. I did not think it was appropriate for me to ask where she found the key for Pushan's flat and she did not think that she needed to explain anything. Anyways, I told her what I knew about Pushan which she found difficult to accept. I was not sure how much she knew of Pushan and felt she probably needed some help.
I offered her to come over to our place sometime and she readily took the offer.
And one weekend as Arka and I were lazing around in our house, the doorbell rang. Arka opened the door and was visibly startled. It does not happen too often that a woman knocks our door. But she helped the situation by introducing herself which reminded me that I invited her to come. I introduced myself and Arka and also provided the context to Arka. Arka was still trying get back to his normal self. Arka had reason to get a bit unsettled; the lady in front of us was quite attractive! Although she appeared to use a bit of make-up, it was obvious that she was pretty. Her confident demeanour made her more attractive. She completely ignored Arka's discomfort and started talking as if she knew both of us for quite some time. Arka got back his composure soon and started participating in the chit-chat. She was surprised that though Pushan met her one week before he left the city, he never gave any indication to her about his upcoming vanishing act. Mysterious as Pushan was, I was not surprised with that incidence. I made coffee for three of us. She took leave that day after coffee but since that day, she has been a regular visitor to our place.
I was not sure if it was she who needed us or was it us who needed her, probably it was both. It could as well be the need to fill in the void left by Pushan. We learned few bits and pieces about her in the process afterwards. She works in a reputed advertising agency as creative art director. Due to the nature of her work, she meets different types of people and interaction with them has given her ability to handle situations with unusual confidence. Also she seemed to have acquired an evolved sense of humour. She can start academic discussion on almost any touchy subject; nothing appeared to be a taboo in her world. She says, sense of humour helps her to maintain her sanity amidst heightened sense of urgency and intense work environment. Pushan worked in few assignments from her agency and presumably that is how she met Pushan.
She also appeared to be well-read and well-conversed on world state of affairs. Arka was surprised with her knowledge about US media houses though she never stayed in US. She also appeared to be a great fan of Noam Chomsky and one day gave a nice lecture on Chomsky's theory of 'war economy'. For Arka, she appeared to be a new experience, a welcome break from usual set of poeple that he is used to in software industry.

This weekend we are visiting to a new restaurant for dinner. Their speciality is mexican cuisine. Siran is wearing a sari, today. This is the first time, I saw her in Sari and she looks really stunning. Though Arka did not say it, His face tells all. Siran evidently is enjoying the attention. Arka has ordered his favourite margarita and Siran has ordered vodka. She says her name should have been Swetlana considering her affinity towards Russian liquour.
Arka asked her the meaning of her name. Her name sounded curiously off the standard set of Indian names. Siran explained that the word 'Siran' is an armenian word and it means 'lovely' but did not offer any insight on why her parents chose armenian name for her. Arka commended her parents' foresight in choosing her name. She gave a nice smile which I took as her way of saying thanks for the compliments.
Is she trying to seduce Arka? I asked her casually when Arka went to find the rest room. She laughed, "Well, I wasn't consciously but now that you said, I think it's a marvellous idea!"

"So how is it like working in Indian software industry compared to working in the US software Industry?", Siran asked.
Arka's eyes glowed, this is his arena, he can talk for hours if he gets an attentive listener.
Siran definitely knows how to use male ego to her advantage. Arka gave an insightful account on the difference between working culture in east coast of US, and the culture in west coast, especially California. He gave her the history of silicon valley and praised the liberal political view in the state of California compared to other states in US. Lamented how California's demography changed drastically in last 7-8 years and it almost gave him the feeling of staying in India. He commented how predominantly services-based model in Indian software Industry makes it hugely difficult to build a culture of Innovation as one finds in the US. And finally he prophesied that Indian Industry is soon going to be hitting the inflection point where they have to embrace the culture of Innovation to stay competitive in the market. Stronger rupee and aggressive growth of Chinese software industry has made it almost imperative, he added.
"So, Arka, what brought you back to India leaving the cozy life in the US", she asked. She is changing the track.
"I kind of got bored there. I thought of changing the job there itself but it slowly was getting obvious that it was not my professional life which was giving me the sense of monotony. It was more of my personal life..", he did not end.
"Personal life getting dry?", Siran asked.
"No, actually it was non-existent..office used to take all the weekdays but weekends used to be horrible. Usual set of activities that used to fill my weekend was 1.clean up house, 2. buy groceries and then either watch TV or read books."
Siran: didn't have friends?
Arka gave a tired smile, "You know, at my age, all my friends are busy in taking their kids out for weekend activities; they hardly had any time for friends."
Unmindful of the direction the discussion was leading to, Arka continued, "I tried to participate in some of those kid-stuff but soon realized I was out of place among parents and their kids there. The situation was more aggravated thanks to our inability to get along with American lifestyle. Our social circle did not have any non-Indians..We all were in fact mentally living in India!"
"What about girl-friend? Didn't consider the option of marriage?" Siran asked a personal question with nonchalant ease.
Arka did not seem to mind, "Well, my parents did try to find a girl following the convention. In fact for some years my only activity during vacation was to visit prospective brides. It used to be so awkward! Invariably the girl draped in Sari [sometimes you could make out that she never wore such stuff in her life] would be called by her parents and at least 5 pair of eyes would be looking at you eagerly for some tell-tale sign, not to mention, bizzarre attempts to help the conversation between the prospective bride and me! There would be pressure from my parents to say yes and every time this would end with disappointed faces of my parents and me taking the return flight with a heavy guilt-conscience, as if I killed someone inadvertently.
I could not bear this more than three years and eventually stopped my annual visits to home. I used to come only when my parents needed me. But I never could understand how on earth one decides based on couple of meetings to live with a person who otherwise is a complete stranger. It is so inhumane!"
I have never seen Arka talking about his personal life so openly. I was not sure what made Arka drop his guard: the effect of alcohol or the need to oblige to a pretty lady, may be both.
"It will not look inhumane if you consider the intent and social reason behind these. Social reason for marriage is to bring offspring to the family. The essence is to have a controlled process to continue with the generations further. Marriage is just a means in that framework and not the final goal and therefore psychological compatibility comes after the biological compatibility!", she ended with a well-punctuated smile.
Arka nodded which seem to say, 'yeah, I see the point' while relishing his enchilada. As if to change the topic, Arka asked, "So, how long do you know Pushan?", but in a tone that actually wanted to say,"How long have you been seeing Pushan?"

Siran laughed, "Ah, it is a bit long story."
She took some time to get to her next sentence, as if trying to prepare herself, "Mine was an early marriage..and a so-called love marriage!", she broke with a loud laughter as if to stress on the irony of the statement.
"My husband and I used to work in the same firm, I was a rookie marketing manager and he was in the Sales. We casually met couple of times in office parties but neither of us took notice of the other person. In one assignment, I was responsible for a marketing campaign in his territory and we sometimes needed to visit field together [One needs to go to villages at times].
And that was the start. Within just three months we decided to get married. I got attracted by his intensity, ambition and extremely high self-confidence. After marriage, I saw the other side of him. He was a control-freak and proved to be almost equally suspicious. I left the job thinking that would ease his suspicion but it did not. To cut the long story short, after three years' I could not take it any more and decided to walk out from his house. I did not want to go back to my parents but without a job, it was tough to continue." she paused.
"I still remember the evening. I called one of my old colleague/friend who knew what I was going through. I requested if she can find me a place for the night. I did not want to stay with her family, neither she was keen. Her husband knew my husband. She remembered about Pushan and told me that Pushan has a big flat which typically remains empty and she keeps pestering him to rent it out. I said I could not afford rent for flat at this point but she told me not to worry. So, she spoke to Pushan and I don't know what she told him. But she said that everything is arranged and she will take me to the flat directly. It was 10.30 PM when we reached there. It had all the necessary furniture contrary to what she described. I learned that Pushan stays there alone but he offered to open the second bedroom for me. In addition, I could use the kitchen, dining room, living room as much as I needed! What about money? She hastily told me that we could discuss that later and he had to catch a train tomorrow morning and therefore needed to go to bed early."

She stopped to finish her tortilla.

"That flat remained my address for next six months and I am yet to discuss about the money with Pushan", she chuckled.

"Well, we knew that Pushan was quite a romantic guy", Arka laughed.

Siran frowned, "What do you mean by that? Wait a minute..Did you think that we are hooked up? Did you think that we were living together?"

Arka was a bit lost, "well...".

"Oh God! you guys are so stereo-typed! You can think of only one relation between a man and woman and no other relation can exist in your mind. Is that it?

Just so that you know, we never touched each other. We spoke for hours together but he never ever asked me a question about my husband or my family! When I told him, I am looking for a job, he simply introduced me to my boss and told me to send my resume directly to him. My boss trusted him well enough to consider my candidature for this post!"

"Even the caretaker of the flat was courteous enough never to ask me any questions. The other day when I went to the flat after a long time, he recognized me readily and gave the key to me without any questions. And they say education expands mind! What a crock of shit!", she snapped.
Arka was quite upset. He did not imagine that conversation would turn this way.
He tried to defend, "Look, I did not mean to hurt you."
Siran did not say anything. I paid the bill and we walked out of the restaurant.
It was quiet outside; clear sky of a new-moon night was all lit-up with glittering stars. It reminded me of Van Gogh's one painting, I think it is 'starry night'.

I wondered if we are also moving faster and farther away from each other like the galaxies in our expanding universe..

Three Faces : La Guernica

2007-08-27T20:41:00.000+05:30

It's been a while since I wrote last time. Partly due to lethargy, partly due to other stuff that
keep coming on my way without invitations, I let my blogging aspiration sleep for some time. Also it has been raining quite a lot in this part of the world and I always found that watching rain is a nice way to kill time.
This weekend, Arka and I decided not to go out in the rain. The decision though may appear to be a work of laziness, actually was more driven by utilitarian thinking. We both knew that there were quite a few beer cans stashed in the freezer for couple of weeks and we haven't quite found an excuse to make use of them. A rain-drenched weekend almost provided for a perfect excuse.
I picked couple of cans. As I tried to pull the lever, something funny happened. The lever came
out of the lid without opening the can. Bit perplexed, since it never happened with me, I decided
to use brute force: forcing the opening with a knife. Finally it gave way and the reason became
quite apparent; beer solidified inside.
Every situation in life gives one the opportunity to experience something new, so was told
by great masters. An opportunity to drink scooped-out 'frosted' beer? I bet that not many would have had that experience. I initially thought of using the tea-spoon to scoop out the beer but felt a less tedious process would be to heat it up. Accordingly, I took the frosted can and put it on the burner directly. After 3-4 minutes, the ice started melting and I decided that the process of drinking can be started. Boy! it's different: drinking icicles with a tinge of beer taste and smell. You must try sometime but ensure that you do not land up drinking the hot beer. Trust me it is not taste-worthy.
Anyways, coming back to the context, today we have one less member in the room. Pushan, today's character in absentia, has gone on his nth exile; it is exile because we do not even know where he is headed to, leave alone his itinerary. Though he has more politically correct term for this, he calls it a 'voyage to explore his self'.

My last post was in some sense incomplete. [Actually I thought it was more complete in many
other ways! Did anyone ever get to ask that big question? I guess that is the reason, learned men often told that finding the right question is the most difficult part of a solution. What if at the end of the journey called life, We all finally end up with the wrong question?] I left it there because I was not sure that I could handle the intensity of what ensued after.
Time always has a nice smoothing effect, almost like the fairy-mother, in your tale, going round
and round covering the raw ugly world with fine shades of gray. Layers of gray shades make the most disturbing and bloodiest reality look distant and almost artistic.
It started with Arka asking Pushan 'the serious question' namely the rationale behind his
escapism, running away from commitment, indifference to his own personal state and the emotional needs of his mother and the women who wanted him so badly and who he broke away without any sense of guilt. Pushan tried to use some of his ready-made humour but they sounded quite lame and ineffective in the face of Arka's determined and brutal questioning.
"..You know what, Pushan? You are essentially an opportunist, practically a selfish and coward
person! You want the good things in life but neither you are willing to pay the price for that, nor you have the courage to accept that. All your intellectual rigmarole and always-ready witticism are nothing but a mask of a hypocrite!"
Pushan was visibly shocked. He had a blank stare at his coffee mug, his inner poise completely shattered by Arka's brutal attack. Was it fair to him? If he is indifferent to others' emotional
needs, he has been equally indifferent to his own emotional needs. And what about those numerous instances where he helped people with all he could sometimes even without knowing them? Were they all disposition of an opportunist's meanness?
I don't remember how long we all sat in the same position without uttering single word. We were numbed by the sudden intensity of the situation. It was hardly anything close to a lazy intellectual reflection of a weekend.

"Yesterday I had a strange dream.", I heard Pushan saying. Not sure of the connection of that to
the present context, I decided to keep quite. Arka probably did not expect his words to have such an effect on Pushan and was a bit circumspect. But was he remorseful? In any case he chose to let Pushan go uninterrupted.
"It was dark and probably well past midnight. I was in some place which felt like my house, though it does not have any resemblance to any places I lived. There were small kids who I gathered were my sisters and brothers who were sleeping in different rooms. There was some distant sound that woke me up. I was curious to find out the source when one of the girls came to me and cautioned me not to go out, Not only her, all the kids already have woken up with the sound. And then there were dull sputtering sound of firing, this time quite close by. My sister hissed out, "switch off all the lights, now!" Then there was whispering sound on the road. It sounded like 10-12 people are on the hunt for something. Whispering is very close now, almost outside the boundary wall.
It stopped suddenly. No sound of feet movement any more. What are they doing? We could not hear any sound from outside. What does the silence mean? Are they watching us? Are they coming in? Everyone stood still at her/his place. It was almost like a rabbit trapped inside a hole waiting to be eaten by the snake. I could feel the fixed gaze of the girls on me. Will I be able to save them from imminent assault? Who would they target first? Which door will burst open?

And then there was sudden eruption of noise on the far-end of the road, followed by whistles from probably Police. Lot of thumping sound outside the boundary wall. People are running away. Probably they saw Policy coming.
I ran past the girls to the other side of the building. I don't know why I had that urge. There was another room to the side with two windows on the wal; both are closed. I opened one of them slowly. It took a second or two to get used to the ambient light. There was a canal around 100 feet wide running below. Light from a few distant low-wattage light bulbs on the other side was reflecting on the black filthy water in the canal.
In the beginning, I could not see anything. Then a red turban in a distance caught my eyes.
And then I saw the face of the man. It was a body of an army officer in uniform. As the body floated and passed the line below my window I could see the bloodied face clearly.
I was shaken to the core, chocked completely with an inescapable fear, I never experienced such an intense fear. And then I saw another body of young rookie officer, facing sideways, looking at me, floating past by. And next there was another body, this time probably it was a woman; a lady officer in uniform again, face is deformed, the deep gouge in her face staring at me.
Oh, my God! I started shivering like malaria-stricken patient...
I woke up, still shivering. I put the light on, went to the basin and threw some water on my face and neck and slowly went to sleep again..
Even now, as I recounted the dream, I still could see the faces, vivid with color of blood
so red, that I have never seen. Dream is supposedly monochromatic, but I cannot forget the red-blood face in black water.."
Visibly he was disturbed, breathing fast. I caught him on his shoulder, "Pushan! get steady,
that was just a dream". He slowly came back to normal.
"You know what? The strange part is I had never been to such place, never saw those faces,
never knew those kids. I still cannot forget the expression of that girl, the eyes filled with
admonish, care and an incomprehensible fear, fear as certain as death.
Why such dreams come to me? Earlier when I was lot younger, I used to get different but kind of a recurring dream. I used to dream that I am stuck in a maze and few people running after
me in dark of night. They had faces covered in black cloth and had swords in their hands. I still
could remember glistening blades sparkling in dim light!
It always used to be hide-n-seek game till I wake up. Like the first case, I never experienced
anything closer to the above in my reality" He looked at Arka, "I never could understand those dreams but when I started getting out in the wild, those dreams started becoming infrequent. I did not see them for quite some time till last night.
I do not know, Arka, but it tells me there is something, very obscure about myself, that I do not
have access to. Those dreams are just a glimpse to what is hidden beneath. Unknown is always
the cause of fear and my fear stems from my very existence! Can you imagine? I am afraid of myself, Arka, that unknown part of me!! Even after so many years that part of me still haunts me."
I have not seen this Pushan. His eyes are of a hunted and tired animal. How long is he going through this mess?
Pushan got up slowly, looked straight into eyes of Arka. With a glint of smile, he said, "take care". He looked at me, "take care of Arka, Googa". He picked his bag and walked out of the room slowly.
"Such a violent dream! his narration got me goosebumps", Arka straightened himself, "All the time, he is running away from himself!"
I said, "No, I don't think he is running away, he is trying to protect others from that part of
his self that is unknown to him. And that only can explain the combination of his detached existence and so strong a desire to help others."

I got a call from Pushan couple of weeks after this incidence. He was back to his jovial and
funny self. He told me that he is going to try north-west Himalaya this time and see if he can enter PoK-side of Himalaya!"

[Note: the first picture used in this post is a cubist painting by Picasso. The title of the painting
is "Still Life with a Bottle of Rum". This is one great example of analytic cubism.
The second picture is La Guernica, the famous mural created by Picasso in memory of ruthless
bombing on Guernica in Spain. This is early example of cubism. You cannot miss the portrayal of
pain, anger and misery in this.]

PS. I really would love to see what you think of this post. If any of you like to contribute,
do send me a mail and I will add you here as an author]

Three Faces - III

2007-07-15T12:48:00.000+05:30

Before I start with my next episode, I realized that I have to make a confession. Understandably last couple of posts have confused some of you. I agree that this is blog and not a place to write stories. Some extensions of facts are allowed but not a complete set of characterizations. Fact is I have no friends with the names of 'Pushan' or 'Arka'. As you guessed those are my imagination but it is also true that I did not create them to make up the story, they simply came into being. I believe that each of them shares certain realities of mine but I can't clearly tell who particularly represents which part of me.
Surrealism is described as reality within reality. Reality is defined by our senses and thoughts. In other words a reality is the four-dimensional projection created by our cognitive faculty by
logically correlating information provided by our sensory organs. Certain information may not be possible to correlate and probably they would be left out from that reality. Same information may correlate with similar other information leading to creation of a different reality. It is therefore possible for multiple realities to exist simultaneously in one's mind. A particular reality is activated by certain impulses leaving other realities comfortably untouched. I would argue that most of the times these realities are orthogonal to each other, otherwise it would lead to existential conflicts more often than we experience. How often one has seen the cases of 'bi-polar disorder'? So, my theory is that the mind conjures up all these realities in an obscure way to create a sense of 'self' without breaking continuity. Does it mean that there is another reality deep inside all these realities? Who knows? May be that is the reality of surrealism, in which case surrealism becomes the process of discovery of self.

Like I said, I did not plan these characters; they came into being as the process needed them. Following Hegelian philosophy they are my thesis and this blog is expected to be the antithesis. Time will tell what the synthesis would be. But I am least bothered about that at this moment;
I am simply interested in the process of dialect and the possibilities it throws to us.
I therefore, request you to be part of this journey without questioning and if possible enjoy it. If you too can find your reflection somewhere, I guess that would be a bonus to me.

" What are you typing in a Sunday morning?", Pushan asked
"My confession", I replied
"confession to whom?"
"Confession to whoever is listening, whoever is reading"
"Hmm, Interesting..", he paused, "I also have a confession to make"
"But I do not like to be bored with that crap in the morning, so please be a gentleman and
keep all your confession in a vault now. If you really cannot bear it, go to toilet and flush
in the commode!", Arka said plainly.
"Arka is ravishing today, isn't he?" Pushan is trying to keep his humour intact.
"Hey Pushan, I have a serious question for you. but before that can you kindly make some tea for three of us?", Arka is relentless.
"Sure", Pushan answered jovially, "But I need help in finding tea and sugar!"
"Go to the kitchen and find them out yourself, this is trivial challenge for a seasoned adventurer like you"
Pushan gave in; realizing Arka is in no mood to give him escape-route, he went to kitchen.
Arka picked the paper and took to the sofa.
Striking contrast exists between Arka's and Pushan's personalities. Both of them were brilliant
students but where Arka has embraced the system, Pushan kind of deliberately stood away from it.
Arka has been modestly serious with his career, and by any definition can be considered
successful in his career. Pushan has been the run-away kid, steadfastly walking away from success.
Arka deals all events in life with complete seriousness whereas Pushan treats them with
a detached emotion; the highest involvement only brings out his sarcastic best.
Arka typically avoids crowd, his most comfortable place is this house. Even if he goes to Pub, he would be looking for a corner so that he can avoid other's attention. On the other hand, Pushan appears as a flamboyant, outgoing personality. He is always a welcome addition to any party with his unparalleled ability to entertain folks. Men like his sharp wit. For women, he has loads of self-deprecating humour, his stories and anecdotes from vast and varied experience and to top it all, a fine sense of flirting; he has uncanny ability to sense what women like. It's amazing how he keeps himself unswayed while getting so much of easy attention.

"Hmm, the tea smells good, thank you!", Arka said taking the cup from Pushan.
"So, what is your serious question?", Pushan asked.

Three Faces - II

2007-06-17T18:29:00.001+05:30

Smile was still hanging on Pushan's face when I came out of the kitchen with two coffee mugs. "Have you seen Bill Watterson's photo? Calvin's Dad in the cartoon looks strikingly similar to him."

He was looking at the cartoon section of the morning paper and talking about the creator of Calvin & Hobbes series.

"Yes, I also felt so, though Bill in his account stated that his inspiration came from his own Dad", I said, sipping my coffee.

"He probably was, but sometime down the line the dad in cartoon became the Dad in himself!"

I looked at today's C&H clip: Calvin asks his Dad how the babies are made! It's an amazing piece of Bill's sense of humour. It was added in the 'Essential Calvin and Hobbes' as well as the 'Tenth Anniversary Book' later.

"Isn't that Arka's voice?", Pushan became aware of background sound.

Arka has been doing some vocal exercise in bathroom today. His voice is not too bad and it appears that he received some basic training in Hindusthani classical music in his early days. But over the years most of them have washed away from his mind. From the rendition it is not evident if he is trying any particular Raga or just 'feeling' the music.
"Wah, Ustaad, kya pakaR hain! Which Raga is this by the way? I could not quite place it", Pushan started as he saw Arka getting out of his room.
"Paagal raga!" Arka gave a glaring look to him.
"Right! Now I remember, I heard it few times while driving along the NIMHANS campus", Pushan said with mocked candidness. NIMHANS is one of the premiere Institutes of mental health in India.

Arka decided that answering to Pushan would be childish and below his standard.

"Hello", Arka's cellphone rang.
...

"Yes"
...

"No”
...

"Stop, I don’t want to know"
...

" I will sue your bank if you call again!" the call ended.

Pushan gave me a quick glance.

- "Have some sympathy on those calling agents. While you are enjoying your weekend, those folks are working."

- "Their employer should better get rid of them if this is their work"

-"Would you say the same thing were your girlfriend a calling agent?”, Pushan said. I almost could feel him getting stiff, regretting asking the question.

-"My girlfriend was not a calling agent", Arka answered slowly in a clear tone.

Pushan realized that he is not getting a hold on the situation and decided to take a neutral subject.
"What's the plan for your lunch today, folks?"

- "nothing spectacular planned at this moment", I tried to help

- "I was thinking of something..", he trailed looking at Arka.

- "How about going to Ramanagaram? It's a nice drive now and I don't think either of you have been there."

- "Isn't it on Mysore expressway? There is a fabulous Dhaba on the way; I have not been there for a while. We can have lunch there. I loved their Tandoori chicken", I tried to add some enthusiasm.

Still there was no response from Arka. He did not take his eyes off the paper for even a second.

Message was loud and clear; indirect conversation will not work.

Pushan had to opt for direct approach.

"Hey Arka, Can you lend your car today, please?"

Arka looked at him, "The car key is on the table”. He went back to the paper.

"Need the car with the driver, you know I am not a patient driver"

This seems to have worked. Arka bought the car only three months back. Pushan's implicit hint at possibility of scratches, made him sit straight.

After a silence of about a second, he asked, “How far is this place?"

"It's not more than 80 kilometers, hardly a drive of 2 hours", Pushan said carefully. He did not want to screw it up again.

Ramanagaram is famously known as the place where the movie Sholay was shot. Ramanagaram actually is the name of the village at the foothill of the hillocks. From the Bangalore-Mysore expressway, one has to take a narrow road that leads to this place after almost a drive of 3 kilometers. We had to stop in the village for few minutes to give way to a marriage procession. Eventually we reached a point where we needed to park the car.

"There is a Shiva temple on the top of the hill. It takes around 200 stairs to reach the temple. There is a view-point behind the temple which gives a nice panoramic view of this area. We should reach there before the sunset", Pushan said while getting out of the car.

Arka is visibly excited, "Is this really the place where Sholay was shot? Rocks do look
similar!" The memories from past are slowly coming back. We merely were kids when Sholay was released. Each of us saw the movie so many times that legends of Sholay have become part of our childhood memories.

We started climbing up the stairs as fast as we could. The place looked almost unchanged for last twenty years. These rocks are probably older than entire Himalayan range since Deccan plateau is much older than Himalaya. As we went past the temple, suddenly the entire landscape with large rock faces and rugged terrain came alive in front of us.

I strolled off to the other side of the rock. Entire land is covered with big rocks and small hillocks as far as one can see. Mysore-Bangalore train line runs in distance and one could hear the whistle of the engine from here. It reminded of the opening train sequence in Sholay.

When I came back, I saw Pushan singing and making a vain attempt to mimic the famous dance-sequence of Hema Malini. He was looking really funny. Arka was laughing hysterically, I never heard him laughing so loudly.
"Pushan will never change. Looking at him who will think that he is a middle-aged man!", Arka has not stopped laughing yet.

In the next 30 minutes we all were reliving Sholay, shouting the lines of Gabbar, Viru and Jay.

It's past sunset now, we are driving back home. To be precise Arka is driving, Pushan is in passenger's seat and I am in the back-seat. Arka and Pushan are singing in duet, "yeh dosti hum nehi chorenge..", Arka also has forgotten that he is in his middle-age!

After a long time, he has touched the child inside him. It was lost in the blind lanes of his aspirations, self-imposed restrictions and pressure of living a mature and successful life. The child will take him back to the life that he forgot to live for so long. He will get over his failed relationship; he will soon be able to reconnect with his mother.
Pushan gave me a relaxed look. He is also happy. He has been able to help one person today. Only if everyone lost in the rat-race of life had a friend like Pushan to help one to rediscover the child inside oneself..

Three Faces

2007-06-09T12:19:00.000+05:30

Pushan walked into the room with a mug of coffee in his hand, laughing out of his belly.
Looking at my questioning face, he said, "Did you hear what Arka's mother told him yesterday?"
-"No!"
-"Well, then you must hear this."
Yesterday Arka probably had his weekly call with his mother and Pushan overheard that.
Arka: Mom, how is your health?
Arka's mom: fine, how is your health?
Arka: Why do you ask such question? What will you do if I tell you I am not well?
Arka's mom: Well, you asked me, so I asked you.
Arka seemed to have got irritated with his mom's plain-speaking and kept the phone down.
"I haven't heard so rational explanation before!", Pushan started laughing again. His sense of humour could appear a bit offending at times.

Pushan is my friend and Arka is Pushan's friend. Only common aspects among three of us are that we are all 35+ bachelors and in some sense out of home. Pushan is a freelance photographer by profession, in most unprofessional way. He used to be nature photographer, he even worked with National Geography for some time but of late he is more into 'portrait photography', though he describes it as 'fashion photography'! His father bought three large apartments in the poshest locality of the city twenty years ago. He has rented two of them and stays in one of them, actually he stays there only for half of the year, the other half of the year he keeps traveling. Money that he gets from the rental, is enough to take care of his expenses and therefore profession is never his compulsion. His mother stays with his brother in US, so practically he is free of any liabilities. He rarely calls his mother, his mother sometimes calls me to find out if he is alive! He broke up with his last girlfriend three months back because she did not want to continue the relationship without marriage. In his stated account this was his fourth girlfriend.
Pushan has a theory for this. He explained to me once, Love, or crave for love comes from his Id-personality [according to Freudian theory we all have three different personalities : Id, Ego and Superego] whereas marriage is a relationship between Ego-personalities but his Ego-personality is entirely different from his Id-personality. Therefore all his love-relationships are inherently unequipped to transition to marriage. On the other hand, his ego-personality does not require security of a relationship!

"Did you know what his mom prescribed to him?", Pushan continues.
"She told him to search for girls by himself and get married if he cannot live alone! Mind that she refused to take the risk of searching the girl for him!", he chuckled.
"Stop Pushan! don't make fun at someone's situation." I told him looking at Arka's helpless face. Sometimes Pushan goes overboard.

Arka entered the living room a minute back, he was checking his emails in the adjacent room. Arka came back six months back from US after working there for almost 12 years. Pushan introduced him to me and requested if I could give him a room in my apartment. He was expected to find his apartment some time back but either due to lethargy or unwillingness, he still continues to share my apartment. He has been a welcome company to us. He also occasionally provides for usual victim of Pushan's ruthless sense of humour.

Arka never told me but I heard that he was going steady with a divorced lady or so he thought in his past organization and one day she told him that she was getting married again. He decided to leave US that day.
Arka picked up the paper, glancing through the headlines.
"Do you know what is the most interesting news in today's paper?", Pushan paused to create some effect.
"A 7-year old boy was found to be a serial killer. He confessed that he killed his 6-month old baby sister one year back. He later on killed another baby of similar age by strangulation. He buried both the bodies in some dry well. None suspected him till he told the villagers of his act. And the report says he smiles when people ask him about those murders. He asks for chocolate before he tells the story, complete with all details and continuity. Psychoanalysts are stupefied, they are not able to explain such full-grown sadism at so early stage of human growth. One theory is that he does not have the ability to distinguish between right and wrong!" He broke off with a loud laughter.
"By that theory all corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen are sadists!", he summed up.

"May be the theory is correct, in some sense these corrupt people are killing this country", I offered. He looked at me for a moment and exclaimed, 'Ah, you have a point!'

I sometime get amazed with our ability to rationalize each and every thing that we come across and make a kind of intellectual discussion on the most horrid incidence. Or.. perhaps, that is our biggest survival skill. It helps us to protect our 'human feelings' in face of such incidences, helps us to continue to make love, bring up kids with complete indifference to grotesqueness of humanity so visible all around.

Shreds of Illusions

2007-05-25T11:03:00.000+05:30

I cried for death;
God gave me life,
In guise of myriad deaths,
of my fractured self!

I suddenly woke up from my lost-in-thought state by this guy's loud proclamation in broad day-light. Surprised by this poetry-in-making, I noticed that the it came from a medium-sized fellow on the footpath, wearing a worn-out jacket and jeans. He was holding a rolled news-paper which he was using as baton like a conductor of an orchestra. With beard unshaved for months, and salt-and-pepper hair not touched for days, he looked a bit odd in that place. As our eyes met, he gave me a wide grin, "Buddy, how do you find it today?"
I said, "not bad"
He said, "Great, why don't I make it better for you by giving you a chance of doing a self-less act?" with smile twinkling in his eyes.
-" Such as?"
-" How about you buying me a cigarette? It's been a long time since I had a taste of good tobacco." He pointed me to the cigarette shop at the corner of the footpath.

I thought it won't hurt me and this guy looks interesting. I bought two cigarettes, gave one to him and lit one for me. Inhaling a long puff, he exclaimed, "Ah! what a great day."

I nodded.
It was indeed a bright sunny day with a pleasant weather. But I dreaded for his next question. What if he asks, "What is your name?" or "what do you do for your living?". I am in no mood to introduce or talk about myself. I almost decided to start walking to avoid his question when he said, "Thank you so much. If you happen to have some free time, I can share some of my life with you!"
'Sharing some of his life?', I was puzzled but amused with his choice of words. But he is not asking me questions so if not anything it would be good entertainment; I decided to stay and hear whatever he wants to share.
"You know, I lost my girl-friend today!"
-"What happened?", I tried to look concerned. This guy, who almost looks like a begger, also had a girl-friend!
-"She found a new friend today", he looked sad and pointed me to the opposite footpath of the road. I saw a small girl in school uniform walking with another boy of similar age. The school bus dropped them few minutes back. Is this guy mad? He is talking about a 6-7 years' old kid!
-"Her house is on the 3rd lane from here. Every day I used to wait here for her school bus to drop her after her school. I used to tell her stories, share jokes to make her laugh, sometimes even sing for her. She used to walk with me holding my hands till she reached house.", He paused; His gaze is fixed at horizon, searching for some consolation.
He turned towards me, " I used to feel that my life was worth each time she used to glow with laughter or tell enthusiastically all that happened to her school that day. She wanted to tell everything at the same instant, as if her life was depending on that moment and she will lose that if she cannot tell those to me!..It was so beautiful", his eyes looked dreamy.
- " I am so sad", I tried to sympathize.

He remained silent for a minute or two and then he started as if he solved some puzzle nagging him for some time, " Don't be!"
He smiled at me, "I am happy for her. She has grown out of it. She does not need me any more but she will be happy. She is entering another phase of her life. "
-" You know, Upanishad said a man's life is a chain of sacrifices.", he continued.
Man, this guy read Upanishad also! I waited for him to complete the thread.
-" A man is expected to sacrifice his self in all the relationships that he goes through; he adds his self in each relationship, nurtures it for it to bloom and then it reaches a point when that relationship does not need him. He has fulfilled his purpose for that relationship and is expected to move on for his next sacrifice, leaving behind a part of his self with that relationship."
Very poetic, I thought!
"And that is the journey of life, my friend", he suddenly became very energized! "You must continue with the process. A male scorpion gets killed by the female scorpion after their mating and then the female scorpion continues to give birth to their offspring.
Look at the cosmos, inside the stars. In the plasma state, zillions of particles are colliding with each other in every tiniest fraction of moment, annihilating some while creating new particles in the process and again continuing with the same process. But what you get is pure energy, energy that makes this earth beautiful, energy that has made you and me.." his voice sounded magical. He chanted very softly, "Tatwamasi".

He looked at me, as if suddenly becoming aware of my existence, "It was an honour to meet you, my friend!", he stretched his hand.
"So long, dear, have fun!", he gave me a warm hand-shake.

Suddenly familiar sight of my house reminded me that I reached home, I was lost in my hallucination! That was a good drive, I thought. But who was this guy? Noticed that no name was uttered in entire conversation, and still we were so comfortable, as if I knew this guy intuitively!

Ah!, I realized he is my Hobbes. Everyone needs a Hobbes in life.

A guest to Life

2007-04-15T05:58:00.000+05:30

"Lying awake, calculating the future,
Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel
And piece together the past and the future,
Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception,
The future futureless, before the morning watch
When time stops and time is never ending;
And the ground swell, that is and was from the beginning,
Clangs
The bell."
from 'The Dry Salvages' by T.S. Eliot

After multiple unsuccesful attempts of catching some sleep, I decided to stop trying and turn back to my blogging. But could not find more befitting words than the lines from Eliot to start this post.

Life is easiest when it is not driven, in fact for me life starts bitching whenever I make an attempt to drive some purpose to it. So decided I will let life to be the driver and enjoy the ride instead. I must admit that ride has been reasonably pleasant so far with some welcome surprises added as freebies. Like the california poppies with brilliant colours peppering up at the onset of spring on your too-familiar drive-ways and the pleasant surprise it gives when you notice them first time.

Last Sunday was Easter sunday and typically it is off-day (so I learned) in most part of US. Tarun took me to the Gilroy premium shopping centre which appeared to be the exception to the rule. But frankly neither of us being exactly 'shopping-enthusiastic', we spent an hour and half at Starbuck coffee talking about all-nonsense part of the life that we rode together in our post-graduate College. Before it was all too dark, we headed towards Palo Alto. For some time, I was hoping to visit Stanford Campus so this unplanned trip was more than welcome to me.

He took me around to Stanford medical school and the main Quad complete with the Hoover tower and the Memorial Chappel with its mesmirizingly large and long Hallway. The facade of Chemistry Depertment reminded us of of our college building. But the California Poppy for this visit was the Rodin's sculptures in the Cantor Art Centre. Unfortunately the museum was closed since it was Sunday but the major sculpture at the garden was open for all to see. "The Gates of the Hell" was sublime. Since I did not see it earlier, it was overwhelming to stand in front of this huge and monumental work. Rodin apparently took two decades to complete this work which itself tells the enormity of canvus he worked on for this. Inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy, this masterpiece was the result from a commission given to Rodin by the Directorate of Fine Arts in Paris. At the top centre of the work is a replica of 'thinking man' which some people believe Rodin's projection of Dante. The other pieces in the work are 'three shades' which is another seminal creation of Rodin. Rodin wanted to be the Michelangelo of nineteenth century and this one piece of work stands tallest to that claim. He must have felt like God after he finished this work! [The photo of "The gates to Hell" is taken from wikipedia]

I was feeling numb with chilling wind so decided to go back to the car finally. But those minutes remain the Life's gift to me and this post is my acknowledgement to it.

Weekend fill-in

2007-03-10T17:42:00.000+05:30

Another weekend and quite predictably, nothing much to do. I was generally browsing the internet, and reached this blog authored apparently by a teen-ager. Found it fun and interesting, probably you should see it some time..
There I was led to a test: a test to find your inner hero. Amazing, thought, I definitely needed the test. For a long time, I was telling myself that I am not a commoner and now it appears so easy to prove it. So I took the test and here goes the result. I must admit that I did not know that I have so many hero-like qualities!

Hello, Rogue.

Character Stats:

Rogue (17)
Warrior (11)
Wizard (13)
Paladin (8)

Your Profile:

You're clever, funny, and full of surprises. If you're still in school, you're probably the class clown. If you work, you're probably on the verge of being fired - but who cares? Your job's boring anyway. When it comes to leisure, you'd rather watch cartoons, crash a wild party, or stage a practical joke than have an elegant tea with your grandma. You're not big on being "civilized" or following "rules" such as that pesky "speed limit."

Above all, you're a trendsetter and a force of chaos. You see tradition as something to be questioned, structure as something to be toppled. You're popular, charming, and entertaining to be around. You'd make a great actor, comedian, or a rock musician. Everyone loves having you at parties, because with you there, no one has a chance of getting bored.

Your Mission:

You were put on this earth to humble people. They will be easy victims, because they're attracted to your charm and wit, and they're too slow to see what you're doing behind their backs. You are the one who has to pull the rug out from under the big guy, because let's face it - you're the only one who can get away with it.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to Get Away With Something. Something small, or something big (but please, something legal). Make your boss laugh at himself. Get money for a homeless shelter by posing as a panhandler. Do coin tricks for kids. Get away with an awful pun. Run for governor of California. Get away with SOMETHING.

And don't think you can get away with not doing it. The Famous Adventurer of Silmaria has eyes everywhere.

A Warning:

IMPORTANT NOTICE: The Famous Adventurer of Silmaria ONLY condones Rogue-like activity when it harms none, and conforms to the laws of your local barony, state, duchy, kingdom, republic, city, township, etc. Any behavior violating these laws is NOT supported, suggested, or encouraged and will be punished by the miscreant losing all rights, privileges, and title of Hero. As the Famous Adventurer says, "Rogues break the rules - not the law!"

How about you? Click here to find your own inner hero

International Women's day and Indian Women

2007-03-05T11:02:00.000+05:30

National Family Health Survey-III, carried out in 29 states of

India

between 2005 and 2006, highlighted some startling if not shocking figures:

Approx. 45% of women in India were married before they turned 18. In seven states, this figure was around 50%. Jharkhand topped the list with 61% of women falling in this category. The other states next in the list are Bihar with 57%, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh with 55%, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal with 53% and Chattisgarh with 51% of women found to be married under legal age. I was surprised to see West Bengal in this list given that this state always boasts of their 'progressive' and pro-woman social framework. Best figures came from the states which are not known for social reforms: Goa and Himachal Pradesh, with a figure as low as 12%. Also neither of the states are so-called rich state.
I was curious to see how this figure divides between urban and rural India and numbers did not look out of place with 52.5% cases reported from rural India whereas the number from urban India stood at 28.1%.
Next number I was looking for is how many of these women were mother already. The survey reported this figure as 16% for total population with almost 9% for urban India and 19.1% for rural India [source: NFH India Survey Fact Sheet ] i.e. 19.1 % of mothers in villages are under age!

Now how does this impact on the health of newborn babies? The survey quoted '79.1 per cent of children between three to six years were anaemic in 2006, as against 74.2 per cent in 1999'. Add the declining gender-parity to this and I wonder how one could argue about India's progress at the backdrop of these dismal findings.

It is well known fact that a development of a country depends a lot on how the women of the country are involved in the progress. The gender ratio is one such metric which indicates how well the country is moving towards development but the other important metrics are related to women's health and education. NFHS finding shows how seriously the society takes its women and children for furthering family's growth!

I guess a lot of that is attributed to how women of India look at and after themselves. I wonder why there was no survey to find out how many women aspire to mother a son as opposed to a daughter. I guess it is not too difficult to predict the outcome! A woman's status in family goes up depending on if she is mother of a son or of a daughter. It is not very uncommon scenario that a girl-child is left underfed whereas a boy-child gets all the attention in the family. And let us not talk about the appreciation of the need of education for the girls in the family. Just a few days back, there was a report where a girl-baby in some village in Madhya-pradesh was kept unattended, unfed and left to die while all the attention was diverted to her brother and the mother defended her action.

Once I asked one friend of mine who was a gynecologist by profession and a practicing medico in some remote locality in Uttarpradesh about how she handles the 'illegal abortion' request of girl-child. She told me that she would rather comply with the request, if such request comes to her. I was startled; I asked her how she could defend such action. Her answer made me speechless. She said, for the rich people, it really does not matter if a particular doctor says 'no', they will find the compliant doctor in other part of the country if not world [just for reality check, there was a report last year that it was a rampant behaviour among the affluent class from Delhi to go abroad for an early gender-identification] and for others, she thought it is better not to bring a child in a world where she is decidedly not welcome! Looking at this report, now I know how well-appraised she was of the ground reality. Would the situation be so stark had the women of this country were more aware, sensitive and more self-respecting about themselves?

One may argue, this is a natural consequence of a society not treating the woman at par with man for a very long time and change does not happen so fast. I would agree that social engineering is not that easy to inflict on a such a big population with varied culture and ethos but we can devise certain incentive scheme to influence the change [I won't call them affirmative actions, that sounds too negative]

How about schemes like

State providing larger education loan for girl-child
Parents are provided additional tax relief if they have single girl-child [may help reducing rampant girl foetus-deaths in well-to-do families]
Constitutional rights for job for all women at the age group: 16-40 [will reduce child marriage since financial independence will help them to take care of themselves]
Easy Loan scheme for married women [with free health checkup and medical help] in rural areas and
to reduce atrocities on females, the state could provide enhanced income scheme for well-behaved husbands under name "mahan pati" or something like that in those areas.

On this International Women's day, all our women leaders [both business and political] can for a change start thinking seriously of investing some time on these poor women especially those who are out of reach of education or healthy life style and not merely spend time in rhetorics to catch media spotlight.
Note: the picture used in this post is a photo of a well-known oil-painting from Jamini Roy which I thought befitting to the subject of this post.

India Poised...

2007-02-13T05:44:00.000+05:30

Lately TOI is regularly bringing up a new campaign, 'India Poised', partly to position themselves as the newspaper of 'young India', but mostly to take the advantage of euphoria surrounding 'India' brand, especially among urban Indian youth. Nothing wrong, in fact few years ago, I used to lament on all-too-apparent subdued pride in proclaiming national identity of educated Indians. Now that there are some well-orchestrated campaigns in bolstering that identity, naturally I feel great! After so many years, finally people are seeing what I wanted to tell them, this feeling of 'I-told-you-so' is such a terrible ego-booster, I almost could 'feel' what Bapuji might have felt when he was called the 'father of nation'. And I saw that I almost rubbed that feeling to TOI reporter! If you do not believe read this comment on the 1st page of yesterday's paper on Mr Kumar Managalam Birla's near-winning [the bid is not closed yet] bid of $6 billion for buying Novellis Inc. In our January 1 editorial to launch TOI's India Poised Campaign, we wrote: "We are at an Inflection Point. Suddenly Indians are no longer scared to think big, act big. Our sense is that this is just beginning...."
Ah! how good it feels to be an Indian! So what if I don't make multi-billion dollar deal, so what if I don't even know how many rupees make a million dollar, so what if my contribution to 'Indian' riches is mathematically zero, I consider it my birth right to feel proud of Mr. Ambani's empire, Mr. Mittal, Mr. Tata's and Mr. Birla's expansion bids, the fact that number of Indian billionaires doubled up in last couple of years, not to mention of Sachin's batting prowess (whatever remaining) and associated sponsorships. We are truly a great nation, we take pride in sharing, sharing the warmth of every success that any Indian (however remotely he or she is connected to India) brings to himself/herself. It is altogether different matter that a success of a hundred few are shamelessly minuscule for a population of a billion and a half (well, almost).

A trip to nowhere

2007-01-23T19:36:00.000+05:30

Best part of writing blog is one does not need to worry about consistency between posts. Nor one needs to worry about where to start or end. Like hiking in a terrain without map and a known destination, one just needs to start and let destiny take care of the end.

Winter in Calcutta is generally a pleasant experience, especially if you enjoy being outside. So this time when I came to Calcutta, I remembered to carry my camera hoping to get few nice shots of Calcutta in winter. My friend, Raja, ever-enthusiastic to show how knowledgeable and rooted he is in the local history and topography, suggested that we should go to a place called Achipur instead of hanging around in places like Maidan or Victoria Memorial. Achipur is the place where Chinese community started their first colony in Bengal, he explained. A sailor named Tong Atchiu seem to have landed here in eighteenth century when he accidentally entered into Ganges after being hit by inclement weather in Bay of Bengal. Later on he established a Sugar mill here and helped to bring a sizable Chinese population who grew a large sugarcane plantation. Lord Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of British India, gave the community the right of ownership for that area which included the Sugar plantation as well. Later on the Chinese community moved to different areas in Calcutta but still they have a temple which is supposed to be oldest Chinese temple in Calcutta. Every year they come here in February to celebrate their new year.

Interesting story, I thought, and more importantly the place appears not too far from our place. So next morning, we took a train to a place called Budgebudge. It was amazing to see how the landscape changed within a distance of about thirty kms from skyline lost behind urban edifices to thatched-huts and unkempt greeneries of rural Bengal. After we reached Budgebudge, we learned we needed to hire an Auto (a three-wheeler cab running on 50cc engine) to reach Achipur. In this area, due to nature of economics, autos provide a shuttle service between two points and the driver won't start till he has his share of passengers.
We grabbed the front seat beside the driver thinking we would enjoy the journey with free air and so on. But soon realized it was a bad decision when the driver shoved in another passenger on the seat. Now, we have four dudes sharing an area of approximately 2.4' x 1' with each of us cleverly trying to maintain contact to the seat with a portion of our back without appearing too 'pushy' to others and balancing with the speeding auto's rythm of tilt, jump and bump (not in any particular order). After the journey of 35 minutes when we got down, I was relieved to find my gluteal muscles (I meant buttock) still responding to the stimulii from motor neurons. We had to take one rickshaw to reach the temple from there. But after reaching there, we sadly learned that caretaker of the temple went to his village and nobody knows when he will return. We learned that the grave /memorial of Tong Achiu or Atchiu is on the bank of the river. Since the river was just a few steps away, we rather decided to go there.

I was a bit doubtful if there was really a tomb there, given the way the entire area was kept. There was a brick kiln surrounding this place with entire area dug and covered with piles of bricks waiting to be furnaced. I found the place strangely different with a small area allocated for the grave without any fence or anything of sort. A Chinese engraving on the small structure is the only evidence that it could be the grave of Mr. Tong.
Wide river looked serene and poised under the winter sun. I sat there for sometime watching few boats leisurely sailing while Raja got busy to get a dog pose in front of the tomb to bring some contrast in his photos. There were not much work going on in the brick field and the labourers were taking their break for lunch (if I may use the word) or bath. Realizing that it would take a while for Raja to be satisfied that his composition has reached the professional perfection, I decided to take a tour around the brick-field. There were small huts made of bricks where labourers' families, complete with small kids, live. Their faces were well-defined as if those were chiseled down carefully by some sculptors. As I got down to the field couple of them started walking towards me. Not sure of their intention, I tried to start a conversation when I realized all of them have migrated from a particular district of Bihar. Raja explained me that these people are tribals and their ancestors were forcefully brought here to work in brick-fields few generations back. This generation is following their ancestors' footsteps. They appear to work here for a miserably small sum and without any sort of insurance against accident or health hazards. Same old stories of exploitation of labour and power.

I requested that I be permitted to take some snaps of their brick-field and they played host by posing for me. I wanted to take a side view of the person in picture but was a bit afraid if he would take it very kindly so I dropped that plan.

Raja spotted two small kids watching us with fearful curiosity and he thought they will make a good composition. His zealous enthusiasm to get them in the right pose, got the smaller one so disturbed that he started crying loudly and I thought we probably are heading towards the real 'photo-finish' [finished and to be photographed] with people attacking us all over thinking we are child-kidnappers. But as it appears now, situation was less dramatic.
The kids really made a great shot for us and that too without asking for any return from our side. Poverty still has not been successful to take away their guileless ability to enjoy themselves.
The contrasting expressions of the two kids made it one of my favourite shots.

Sei gadha sei jal khai, ektu ghulai ghulai khai

2007-01-07T00:48:00.000+05:30

This new year, I was at home trying to think hard the difference between last new year's day and this one. Except for the fact that I have less hair to lose, I did not find much difference. I did not expect to see a miracle last year but well, one expects some change to happen somewhere, after all it is a matter of 365 long days. But in all aspects, my condition is strikingly similar to the way it was last year, I am going to work in same place, going to come back to same home, even the bed-sheet on my bed did not change. But I have grown one year older in the meantime which can be considered a positive news if one assumes there is a fixed ration of years for each of us, which would mean I might have to spend one less year like this. But frankly I do not have such evidence yet. In other words, I have successfully completed one more year without making any changes to myself or the world at large [wishful thinking!]. This thought started depressing me. In the meantime, wishes for new year started flowing in through SMS, email, phones..but I wasn't feeling any better. All wishes after all did not make any difference last year, and even if I try to be desperately optimistic, I can't imagine my wishes making a lot of difference to others too. What a wastage! Well, if you consider all the effort so many people are putting in typing sms or mails, hogging network bandwidth sending those messages, mails, calling people or spending money in buying new year's cards, it is a horrible wastage of both effort and money. So I thought I will make some difference this year by not wishing anyone. As soon as I reached the decision, I felt good; finally I am making some difference to the world! Relaxed, I went ahead to join the barbecue party at my friend's place [hardly it can be called a party, since number of participants were a handful few, not because my friend was quite moved by my thought, it's just that infrastructure arrangement that he had, couldn't accommodate more than handful of participants]. Smell of food had something in it that I almost forgot all my grievances. And then it happened. My friend raised his glass and wished me 'Happy New year' and I responded to him enthusiastically wishing him all blah blah when it struck me that I already broke my new year's resolution! Boy, it was just a matter of few minutes between making resolution and breaking it! But instead of feeling sad, I felt liberated. Why should I impose on my free will! If I am wishing someone, it's because I want him/her to be happy and that by all definition of ethics is a good gesture. I resolved that I do not have any reason to feel sad or guilty, in fact I do not have any right to feel bad of my behaviour. It is perfectly logical and reasonable on my part to change my decision based on better understanding of situation. History tells us, leaders of nations have done so in past. I thought I will do disservice by not wishing all the folks out there and next few minutes I was extremely busy in typing messages, calling people. The cycle of thoughts and actions has completed.
And I remembered my grandmother's mischievously smiling face, "sei gadha, sei jal khai, ektu ghulai ghulai khai#". She used to tell this when I was a small boy, commenting on my apparent inability to stick to my point. I realized, over my growing baldness, across the loss of innocence, I essentially remained unchanged. How prophetic she was!

# For my non-bong friends, it is a bengali proverb, literally meaning, " The donkey drinks the same water but only after it makes the water muddy[by stirring the sludge]". Usually said about a person who first opposes what is offered to him and then takes the same stuff after a lot of rumbling and ranting.

Societal formations and inequality of distribution

2006-12-18T21:52:00.000+05:30

After my last post, I got few encouraging mails from some of you, but I had a feeling that there was something missing. After hours of critical reflection(!), I came to the conclusion that it was incomplete. Being unapologetically positive person, I decided to extend the last posting at the risk of reinforcing your is-this-guy stupid-or-crazy feeling.
As I was recovering from last weekend's momentary pang of socialism, I stumbled with this 'grand' question: Is poverty a symptom or is it a problem? It does not appear to be large problem otherwise governments would have had made serious efforts to solve it [think about Governments' expenditure to fight terrorism]. If it is a symptom then what does it symptomize?
People say it is curse of Industrialization. But poverty is not something seen only as post-industrialization phenomena. In medieval days, we also had famines, poverty-stricken nations, communities, people invading others' territories for better availability of food and other stuff. I mean, in the beginning, when a handful of our ancestors were fighting with elements of nature to continue the existence of the species, did they have this word in their dictionary [even if was not in English]?
I guess this word was invented not before they grew to a sizeable mass of population, large enough to bring about 'division of labour' in what we recognize as 'societal framework'. I fancy how that first form of society was. Since it was the need of the moment that drove the division, I would imagine the definition of roles and relations between them were merely functional compared to multi-hued, multi-layered formation that we have today. All roles were interconnected at the personal level and collectively personal aspirations moulded the growth of social asset and influence. This was the time of emergence of first collective identity [nation-identity is much later phenomenon]. Anthropologists may like to name it differently, but we won't lose much by calling it a 'commune'. Evidently these communes were not self-sufficient. So people needed to build similar types of relations with other communes. They would have felt that they needed some canonical definition of these relationships; definition that keeps it simple and functional but can be replicated with other communes easily [in our modern vocabulary we call it 'objective and scalable' model]. It is very likely that they adopted the barter-system in a large way this time. Currency would have to wait for few centuries till the population and granularity of asset exchange required further innovation.
Human aspiration works incessantly and very selfishly and pattern remains same all the time. As people started getting comfortable with the exchange process, some smarter set of folks figured that certain produces rank higher in the order of desirability and correspondingly their barter-value could be increased. For example, metal would be considered higher in exchange value compared to food-grain. This probably led to first unequal distribution of wealth in the society. Not difficult to imagine that individual asset-value would come up as another dominant parameter in the social power equation at this stage. People who reached powerfully advantageous positions, would like to continue his and his offspring's lead among others, so there was a need to bring in inheritance and hereditary rule. By the time, all these rules had stabilized, we had almost a small replica of modern caste-based society. Frankly caste was an innovation to bring an order of hierarchy in the society and that helped to avoid chaos in roles when society grew larger. Also this order implicitly established a power equation that got accepted across communes, leading to formation of order of kings, priests etc..
These societies had all the seeds of the curse of modern populations but there was a difference. Natural resources were abundant and unexplored. And that would have driven the more ambitious set of people to migrate to different places till they had almost all the rich fertile lands in a close-by range occupied. Now there was a need for consolidation in the order since the resources were identified and shared but for better accumulation of wealth, one needs consolidation of power. In next few centuries of progression of human civilization, this would be more acute and ugly till the early feudal systems would start cracking. But that is a different discussion and I would take another excuse to digress to that topic of transformation of system. The reason for this long and winding narration was to point out that the evolution of our societal system made sure that there was inequality in the distribution of wealth. It is easy to imagine that at times this inequality would have grown to a dangerous proportion where 90% of the assets would be controlled by 10% of the population pushing a large mass of people fighting for resources to meet their basic needs. In other words poverty is a by-product of progression of human civilization!
So why are we bothered about poverty now? May be we are bothered because it hurts our intellectual being? Probably we want to believe that we are superior to other species in 'humane-ness' of the race though none of us are stupid to believe that our intrinsic nature has changed. But I think there is more fundamental reason, a reason that is inherently related to our survival instinct. We all have fears [like other animals], fears to lose what we have. If sharing a little can help me avoid getting robbed, I probably would opt for that. Acute inequality of distribution has the potential to shake up the system and that no system would like. Modern states would like to have the same inequality of distribution [at the level of nations!] but sans the 'shakes ans stirs'. So they invented the concept of 'welfare economics', a system with better index of 'humaneness'.

In last few decades there has been numerous researches by some of the exponents in the field. Some of them are legends of modern world by their own right. World Institutions like World Bank and United Nation have published several voluminous reports, not to mention about the various Government reports that keep getting published in regular intervals. All these are attempts to keep this 'humaneness' index healthy without impacting the basic equations of power distribution. From the objective point of view this also ensures that we do not have power distribution dangerously skewed so that 'collective aspirations' of lesser-resourced set start threatening stability of existing power equilibrium.

So here we stand at the first decade of 21st century with the inhuman magnitude of problem of humanity: a staggering fifty percent of human population are deprived of basic means for leading healthy life. Nobel laureate, Dr. Amartya Sen spent a good percentage of his time in exploring and understanding the socio-economic model of "welfare economics" and is eminently known for providing a framework that various state-institutions adopted as a mechanism for addressing the problem at various levels. I am no expert in the field and neither will pretend to understand Dr. Sen's momentous work. The enthusiastic mind can take a pick at his Nobel lecture and various books that are published by him for general audience. But I think this account will remain incomplete if I do not mention of one particular aspect of his recommendations. Considering the importance of woman's role in a family, he observed that state needs to empower women, provide the means to them so that they can take the responsibility of bringing up the family. He believes self-reliant women will be more interested in their children's education and that alone can move these numerous families up the value chain. Even Mr. Mohammed Yunus applied this advise and he seemed to have reported better results through that initiative.
Before signing off this time, let me wish you all a merry X-mas and happy new year.

2006-12-17T17:30:00.000+05:30

Sunday morning probably is the best part of the weekend. With hot steaming tea, Sunday Times Of India makes a great combination. Today the theme of Special Report was Poverty, a theme that makes a great topic for a leisure, ostensibly intellectual coffee table discussion. It also probably makes a good discussion for TOI readers, because none of them are really affected by this word. It's a very distant concept for most of them [probably AIDS is much closer idea] and therefore makes it easy for a very involved but dispassionate, seemingly objective but vague discussion. Finally the Paper is for its reader and as long as it serves the need to boost the readers' moral ego, it makes a perfect business case.
I seem to be already in my journey of free-flowing blabbering. Let me try to make it little more objective. Mohammed Yunus from Bangladesh was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year for his ground-breaking work in reducing poverty in rural Bangladesh [he is the founder of Grameen Bank]. And he gave very optimistic speech in the award ceremony. He said, "We will create a poverty museum in 2030" TOI reports his achievements, " ..rewritten the conventional rules of banking where poor weren't regarded as creditworthy. Over the years, the Grameen bank has given loans totalling over $5 billion: small amounts of collateral free working capital to the poor for self-employmen. the repayment rate is a healthy 98%. an internal survey by the bank showed that 58% of its borrowers had moved above the poverty line..three years ago, the bank started a programme for beggers: they were given small items to sell when they went out on begging. Today 5000 of 85000 beggars under this project stopped begging completely". A definitely inspiring achievement. So is this the model of private-public partnership for eradicating the poverty? I mean Indian democracy had quite a few elections where the ruling party came to power with a promise of 'Garibi Hathao' and lot of funds were dedicated where the banks provided easy loans to people at village to make them self-reliant [or so did they claim]. And where do we stand as far as the 'Garibi' is concerned?

Some figures that were quoted in the paper:
800 million go hungry everyday
50,000 die everyday due to poverty-related disease
1.2 billion lack access to safe drinking water
1 billion cannot read or write
35% of world's poor live in India

Did anything improve in last 30 years? Though lot of tax-payers' money has flown through the drain. Why did it not improve? Was it a problem with intent or with the plan? Probably the problem is with execution. Our welfare-delivery machinery is broken with no feedback system from one end to other and to top it all it absolutely lacks transparency. In this sorry state, you get many political claimers but none accountable for the delivery of the benefit to the poor. Just few days back, I was reading the The Motor Cycle Diary by Che Guevara. He was merely 23-years old in 1951. What he wrote definitely is a picture of the poor state of Latin American countries that time but is it too different in our time? He writes after seeing an old woman who has been debilitated by asthma and lack of treatment and waiting helplessly for death, since she cannot work any more, "It is at times like this, when a doctor is conscious of complete powerlessness that he longs for change: a change to prevent the injustice of a system in which a poor woman was still earning her living as a waitress, wheezing and panting but facing life with dignity. In circumstances like this, the individuals in poor families who can't pay their way become surrounded by an atmosphere of barely disguised acrimony; they stop being father, mother, sister or brother and become purely negative factor in the struggle for life and consequently, a source of bitterness for the healthy members of the community who resent their illness as if it were personal insult to those who have to support them. It is there in final moments, for people whose farthest horizon has always been tomorrow, that one comprehends the profound tragedy circumscribing the life of the proletariat world over. In those dying eyes there is a submissive appeal for forgiveness and also, often a desperate plea for consolation which is lost to the void, just as their body will soon be lost in the magnitude of mystery surrounding us. How long this present order, based on an absurd idea of caste, will last is not within my means to answer, but it's time that those who govern spent less time publicizing their own virtues and more money, much more money, funding socially useful work."
How ironic that after more than half a century, we find ourselves in the same situation. Funny enough, though our welfare-state failed to do much good to this strata of people, we have definitely created lot of riches to some other stratum of people. So welfare-state did deliver the goods but only to wrong set of people..or was it to the right set of people, Right/Wrong is just a matter of perspective?

2006-07-27T12:58:00.000+05:30

My initial motivation for creating this site was to have some of my photos available for others to view. The photos are not necessary classified based on subject, theme etc., in fact they are more incoherent and disjoint than what can be minimally expected and hence the reason for this blog..

[Needless to mention, copyright for the photos will remain with me, and you can use it as long as you mention the source]

First few photos are on flowers..almost all of them are not garden variant. All your comments are welcome..
You can view the photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/naturescape