Pebbles, people and personality

I am much older now, I can feel it.

Think of a pebble at the bottom of a stream. I used to be a pebble who is completely at the stream’s mercy. A certain strong current, a sudden undulation in the stream bed, and I would be uprooted, swept along till I tumble and fall. Then the painful process of taking root again in some place. Sometimes not so painful. Oh who am I kidding, it’s painful all right.

But now again, think of a pebble nestled in a place with a lot of stream bed vegetation! I can choose to move or stay. I can talk to the fellow pebbles in my area. I in fact talk a lot to the fellow pebbles, and we create quite a ruckus. It’s a lot of fun though… the ruckus adds meaning to my life, or should I say, moss to my crevices.

I seem to have discovered the tact and delicacy involved in letting life pass me by when I am a carefree observer, a mere pebble lying alongside a bunch of grass. I have also experienced the delight of letting some currents wash over me, and just, well, being. There is a comfort level, but nothing mundane or boring about it. It’s a comfort awash with all the excitement of moving around! A comfort born out of having cushions around that prevent large chunks of me from being ripped off; out of a certain niche I have dug for myself which allows me to grow and move freely, but which I control of my own volition, without external aid!

Somewhere inside is also the courage that if I allow myself to be swept again, I will be fine. That I am a nice enough pebble, with enough edge to dig myself a niche wherever I go; to make new associations and find my moorings in the strangest of stream beds.
I am 24. High time this happened!

Thunder, lightning and lamp posts

The Gymkhana was bathed in golden twilight; a red gold sunset in the distance, robed in stark contrast with black cloud, visible through an intricate maze of tree canopy from the bridge. Everything about the ground seemed beautiful today; the beauty lent such a mantle to the gymkhana that even the outside traffic noise was effectively soaked up.
Jogging had never been so much fun. Silhouettes of trees, lamp posts, even that horrendous large building that looms above everything else on the horizon, the water tank… all beautiful, passing by in a rhythm punctuated by beating heart and racing pulse, each step falling in tune with the surroundings, to such an extent that my legs seemed to move on their own, with no effort of mine.

The change in colors cannot be described. Trying to put words will be an injustice, but I will still try. Myriad tints of every imaginable shade, from one end of the color palette to another, until all colors ran into each other and caused an explosion of happiness in the blood. As the colors faded slowly, an inky blackness crept in, dissolving each shape into nothingness as the night dropped, gently as a veil on the head of a beautiful bride. The change was so gradual, it almost seemed like the earth was rejoicing, in a bride-like manner, at the night.

Just as the darkness was almost complete, the floodlights on the ground came on! A fine drizzle – drops of black dye on the one hand, and molten silver on the other, swimming around as I cut through the spray. It seemed like an expostulation of a person’s life – a central well lit area around which we run, even though we may be in the dark!

Then came the power cut; simultaneously, the thunderstorm that was building soared in intensity! Running in pitch dark is something else. Shards of lightning almost split the sky into two, taking snapshots of the earth and almost frying it in the process! You could just discern mercurial puddles embedded in coral earth, shimmering and rippling as the light kissed them for a fleeting fraction of time.

Nice conversation with N...
Ploppp! Huge drop of water on nose - back to a rainfall of reality! Mad dash across football field! Splashing on squelchy mud until it seemed like no contact between feet and ground!

Nothing like a storm to leave you totally exhilarated!

Two Gentlemen of Verona

by William Shakespeare
Act III Scene I
Also quoted in the movie Shakespeare in Love.
Context: Valentine is threatened with death if he continues his affair with Sylvia.

"...And why not death rather than living torment?
To die is to be banish'd from myself;
And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her
Is self from self: a deadly banishment!
What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she is by
And feed upon the shadow of perfection.
Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale;
Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
There is no day for me to look upon;
She is my essence, and I leave to be,
If I be not by her fair influence
Foster'd, illumined, cherish'd, kept alive."

A little excessive maybe, but one cannot deny the intensity of feeling and the sheer beauty of Shakespearean English! Sigh!
This is a little paragraph in the above mentioned play, and I thank the movie for bringing it to my attention.

A room..

Very familiar.
But with certain nuances getting registered and enhanced,
Every which way I turn.

A streak of light
And I spot a half-open window.
Golden light streaming in,
Accentuating muted hues into an autumn meadow of color

I cant help but smile
With my heart upon my sleeve.
Every step toward the window,
Is treasured, measured, and more exciting.

A sudden breeze, bringing with it the smell of wet earth
A drizzle of water splashing my face;
I close my eyes and laugh in anticipation
Waiting to look out and see the view beyond,
but treasuring the suspense all the same.

Random and sub-conscious

Sometimes a random chance conversation can play around in your head till you are sub-consciously wondering about the crux of it, until some clarity emerges from a muddle of thoughts.
I had such a conversation recently, on asking a question. It freaked me out a little, because in a way I have chosen to do this asking questions business for a living. Here goes.

Research in most fields is fuelled by existing paradigms, to a large extent. There are large bodies of work that support the ‘famous’ theory. But once such theories are dethroned (for want of a better word), there is an equally impressive body of work against it. Stuff happens in a cyclical fashion. Just as the wheel of time goes around, so does the wheel of theories, it seems.
What freaked me was: as a young novice wanting to start somewhere, in what context do I place existing theories? Using them to frame the question you want to answer has an obvious bias. Take sexual selection for instance. Asking questions assuming that there is sexual selection in the system studied may color perception; you may end up reading too much into the behavior of that animal.

So how about throwing the theory out of the window and looking at data for its own sake? But I am not ok with that as well. I like a well thought out question, which not only has an expected outcome but also explicit alternate scenarios thought out a priori. A central unifying theme with little radiating questions.
I guess the way out is to base questions on existing knowledge and literature on the field of your choice, and then trying to make predictions for your study system. To go out and make these bold hypotheses based on literature reviews and reasoning that sounds logical to a few minds at least! Does not matter if you don’t end up seeing what you expected. Actually, it is even more interesting when expected patterns don’t pop up!

I watched the movie Perfume.

I guess one can call it well made, brilliantly crafted, edited in the slickest way possible; but cut all that crap out, there is but one word for it. Disturbing.
A true story of a murderer. The tag line said as much. But what puzzled me was two things.
One, the dispassionate narrative. The voice was disembodied, faceless, as narratives usually are (!) but why I am emphasizing this point, is because this voice was also devoid of all emotion. Almost robotic, with a hypnotic effect on the mind. Narrating ghastly events in grizzly detail – without emotion. Like the voices in train platforms and airports.
Second… The more disturbing fact - was my own absorption with the details. I always appreciate detail, but I never thought I would find such detail interesting. All the animal wax and the distilling was chilling, but it held me stuck to the screen in a kind of horrid fascination about what was going to happen.

Physical and mental 'nomadity'

I just got back from a nomadic field trip.

Woke up every single day in a new place. Looking forward to a new adventure. And not just cities. Forests. Everyday a new forest type, even. I saw everything from dry forest to lowland evergreen to wet evergreen to mid elevation to cloud forests to high elevation shola-grassland mosaics. I have never felt better, never felt so much love for what I am lucky enough to be doing, never been so interested in every beautiful thing around me. I even handled frogs and toads, for God's sake. It was fun. All the myriad emotions and experiences still sinking in.

Now in blore. I have to do standardise conditions for a particular PCR. I have already done about 80 PCRs trying to make it work. It is working till the purification and sending out stage, and then it has never worked. I dont know what is wrong. I have a list of 3 more things that I can do, and then Ill be even more stumped.
I ordered all the necessary chemicals for a new procedure. AFLP. I have no idea how much trouble I will face with that! I am going to NCBS to get a primer on it tomorrow. I will need to raise money for it.
I have some meta-analyses to do for YETI, the students conference from 23-26 Sep. Of which, did I mention, I am part of the organizing committee. Lots more to be done. A lot of interpretation to be thought about. I am planning to write it up after that.
I am going for a butterfly india group meet at Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary, Goa, from 26th to 30th Sep. I am planning to learn as much as I can from experts there.
From Oct to Dec, I have to cover as much area and collect as much samples as possible for my pilot run study. Then do all the (hopefully standardised by Jan) lab work on them.
So much to learn, what I feel is absolutely no time. And a boss who thinks I am generally wasting my time around here; who does not realize the value of field experience.
I still want to hang out with friends (especially those leaving soon) and meet my parents and relatives when I can.

My PhD has just begun! Bring it on.

Wonder why clouds wander so much across the skies?
Is it because they have lost track of where they belong?
Maybe they cry because they are so lost...
Maybe that is what rain is!

This is just a short excerpt from a movie song called "Ilaya Nila" (Young moon) by Kaviarasu Kannadasan, which I have traslated to the best of my ability. It sounds much better in Tamil, of course, and to complete the beauty of the song, it is sung by a lilting, young SPB, who kinda plays with the words. The way in which Kannadasan has taken off from something as simple as clouds scurrying across the sky caught my imagination.

Kannadasan has been heralded as one of the greatest and most influential writers in the Tamil language. He is best known for his song lyrics in Tamil films and contributed around 5000 lyrics besides 6000 poems and 232 books, including novels, epics, plays, essays, his most popular being the 10-part religious essay on Hinduism.

This is from his official site, but it captures his essence very well:
"He is supposed to have 'dipped into' everything that Tamil Nadu could offer - wine, women, drugs, politics, polemics, atheism and religious sanctuary. After enjoying everything, what he did was remarkable - he composed verses about all his experiences, with reflective self-deprecating humour, irony, and biting sarcasm".

He had 3 wives and 13 kids.. Phew!! No wonder he could write so much about women!!

:)

A Bubble called Faith

Belief in God, in supernatural forces, in astrology (and other numerous -ologies I won't bother listing), all bewilder me at some level.

I had gone to Sringeri and there is this belief that doing a Puja at a temple near Sringeri, called Kigga, will bring rain to the place which was invoked in the puja. Balderdash, says my mind on one side. On the other side, I am absolutely baffled by educated people who have such a strong belief in this whole phenomenon that they regularly do the puja, every year. Including my parents!! There is so much faith, that the poor isolated process of the annual South West Monsoon is not given its due credit.

When I was younger, I had accepted all this without saying anything, without allowing my mind to have the slightest doubt. I am different now, after 2 years trying to be critical about things around me. Maybe this trait of mine is an occupational hazard that my parents did not quite bargain for! But I love the level of understanding they have; mom quite simply said, "faith is something that cannot be forced, it will happen naturally if it has to".

Completely 'antonym' to all this is the feeling I had on the bus back.
It was a Volvo with its characteristic high windows, through which you can look up at the sky. A silvery orb of a moon suspended dreamily in a cloudless sky, just above the tree line of the Agumbe ghat. As the bus wound around hairpin bends, the moon swam in and out of my field of vision with a periodicity that was mesmerising to say the least.
The world is so different at night; silvery streaks of moonlight fill the earth with a mysterious enchantment, "felt in the blood and felt along the heart" as Wordsworth would say. Everything looks surreal; everything on grayscale; nothing is clearly defined; beautiful silhouettes that leave the true form to limitless imagination; there is a pleasant sense of anticipation that wells up deep inside about what is going to unfold next - a mercurial lake, a shimmering stream, a rustic wooden bridge, an owl, the simple, clean lines of a tall tree; every thought is laced with wonderment, with awe, about the inexplicable beauty of things.

I was listening to some good music and my mind was filled with a kind of peace that made me involuntarily inhale deeply; I could feel a wave of relaxation start at the core of my body and radiate outward to the very pores of my skin, ending in a contended laugh that convinced the lady next to me that I was, absolutely crazy.

A different kind of faith; a deep faith in the enduring beauty of Nature, in the ability of the odd human mind to allow her to enchant and hold sway.

Chance encounters of a travel kind!

In this book called Celestine Prophecy, the author floats the idea that if two people have a chance encounter, it may not just be by chance, it could mean that they have “unfinished business”. If they keep meeting, it means they have not finished off that unfinished business! I find that idea very intriguing.

Have you not had these strong feelings, these déjà vus about people you meet while travelling? In Bombay on local trains I have had the most interesting conversations with random people I met, and connected with, during the span of 45 mins.
A hijra who happened to be Tamilian – we had a deep conversation about society and she shared with me all the hardships she has to face. We were the center of attraction for the whole compartment. Nobody else would even let the hijra sit next to them, that’s why she landed up sitting with me! Many middle aged working women about whom I ended up knowing more than about some of my aunts. Many fellow college goers (well I was younger at one point in time) with whom I have spoken about everything from fashion (!!) to how our respective colleges were. It was fun.

Of late I have not done it that much, simply because I am hardly alone! I am always with someone. Which is also nice, but I sometimes miss travelling alone. It is so great just watching small details about people - and letting your mind take its course and wonder about what gave rise to a particular change in expression, or who was behind a smile soft as a white cloud.

Tick tock, tick tock...

This is the clock I got for my parents for their 25th wedding anniversary. A really rare antique piece, which I thought deserved a write up. I love the finish - the bronzed gear mechanism, roman numerals, the pendulum, the polished wooden base - the whole piece is just so very classy!

Look at the side view – you can see the ‘gong'. The sound it makes is really nice and pleasing to the ear – kind of a chime, not loud at all. Which is really good, because my home is so quiet that the slightest sound can shake my parents awake. Or worse still the dogs, who could create a mayhem!

The way the clock works is interesting. No key (and obviously no battery). You see the chain with a weight dangling at the end, just in front of the pendulum? It’s a one kg weight that starts off with being suspended close to the gears on the face of the clock. The weight takes about a week to descend slowly to near the floor. You ‘rewind’ the clock by pulling the chain up and resuspending the weight in zero position!
Isnt it lovely?

One's home...

... is like a delicious piece of pie you order in a restaurant on a country road one cozy evening - the best piece of pie you have ever eaten in your life - and can never find again.

Lemony Snicket

Hinduism

I continued reading the book, because (surprisingly) I found it very interesting. Many of us find it convenient to rubbish Hinduism as a whole without knowing enough about it. I think we should equip ourselves with enough knowledge before coming to a conclusion.

Firstly, it was more a way of life than a religion. Secondly, this 'religion' has no name! In early days, it was the only religion here in India. Everyone followed it right? So there was no need for a name. When the first ‘invaders’ came in, they came over the Sind river; so the country became Ind-ia, and the religion Indians followed, ‘Indi-ism’ which became ‘Hinduism’. This was the fact that bowled me over and made me continue reading.

Society at that point consisted of people who could be grouped into (the now famous) four groups – Brahmins who studied the Vedas and Upanishads and conducted pujas; Kshatriyas who went to war, Vaishyas who were traders; and Shudras, who did all kinds of community services. The kind of group a person belonged to was NOT determined by birth - it was determined by their interest. At no point do the Vedas, Upanishads or anything else mention which group was greater; there is no hierarchy mentioned anywhere. In early gurukulas, children learned things according to their liking – the Vedas and Upanishads, or archery, or trading principles – and NOT according to their birth.

But what has happened today? Over the years, the true meaning of Hinduism has been modified to such an extent that what remains is a strife ridden admixture of belief in the wrong ideals and false hierarchies. A sad state indeed.
Because when the concept of this no-name religion took birth, an intrinsic character of the religion was its openness and its malleability. The various principles of Hinduism are always open to debate. In fact, the Upanishads are presented in the form of debates. The idea is that people read extensively, then debate about what they have read, and then are free to believe what they want to believe! So, you can be an agnostic and still be a Hindu! I think this is a great idea. The very same traits have allowed it to be wrongly interpreted. It seems that in Sanskrit, many words have multiple meanings. This has been an important reason for wrong interpretations. But, I still find the idea of Shiva and Parvati canoodling in Mount Kailash a little ridiculous. But why rubbish the religion and its underlying, very flexible principles?

I feel the reason why some people are ‘religious’ is threefold – one, if they blindly follow their elders; second, if they don’t have enough belief in themselves or if their circumstances are so bad that they need some straw to clutch. Third, if they have reached a stage in their life when there is nothing more that is new, they want to occupy their minds with something that allows them to set goals and work towards them.
My parents belong to the third category. Rather than judging them for being religious, I appreciate the fact that they are engaged in an attempt to improve their minds with the challenge of understanding the fundamentals of their religion after digging deep, instead of taking things at face value. And, I must mention, I appreciate them for not forcing me into any of this, and letting me be. All this I read up of my own accord, not because they asked me to! I asked a question and was given suitable books to read. I really, really appreciate that.

Upanayanam

I went for an upanayanam (sacred thread ceremony) of one of my young second cousins. The boy was about nine years old, and was clueless about what was happening to him! They did a lot of seemingly weird rites there, so I decided to read up about them, just for curiosity’s sake. I unearthed quite a few interesting details, in this book called Engey Brahmananan? (where is a Brahmin?) by Cho.

So during the upanayanam, the boy is adorned with a white thread. Three white threads intertwined, actually. They are supposed to denote strength, ignorance and knowledge. To give the strength to drive away ignorance using knowledge! He stands on a stone after accepting the thread, praying that his heart will be like an immovable rock if any obstacles come up while he is seeking knowledge. The shlokas chanted during the ceremony are prayers for the well being of all life. Yes, not just the boy, but all life, from plants to animals to other people. Not once does a specific god’s name pop up. It’s all about nature! The most important mantra, the Gayathri mantra, is about the sun, who is supposed to purge all evil. The father ‘passing on’ this knowledge to the sun is the most important part of the upanayanam, the Brahmopadesam.

These days, the function has become a formality. A lot of purohits are called in for conducting the function. They sit there with the money they are making in mind. The father does not know anything about Sanskrit, and approximately repeats what the purohit says, all the time wondering what his guests are doing and what they are thinking about him. The son, knows even lesser Sanskrit, is superbly irritated by the smoke and all that he is made to do (no food in between mind you) and finally, he could not care less about the thread! It will probably come off in about a week.
It is given a miss in some families, which I think is better than a farcical rendering of the same. If the family is bent on it, they should explain the whole thing to the kid and ask him for what he wishes to do, rather than stuff it down his throat this way! This function started at five in the morning and went on till nine, and I can tell you, the poor boy was not happy.

Troubled..

I do live in a small little world, and things outside it (frankly) don’t bother me too much. But there are times when certain events strike deep, even when I am not directly involved.
There was a murder recently, in the nearest town. Sadly, that is not the most disheartening thing I am going to talk about. But firstly, the facts so that you get the whole picture. The man who was murdered was a doctor with a very profitable tobacco business on the side. His wife does a lot of socially relevant activities. Basically, a very prominent, well known family. This man was on his way to the club for his routine tennis game when he was kidnapped. The kidnappers demanded a huge ransom to the family. Three days later, his body, weighted down, was found in a dam 200 km away. The dam had luckily run dry, and the partly decomposed body was recovered and identified.
The post mortem revealed that the murder was done the same day as the kidnapping. The family meanwhile was living in the anticipation that he would return, because the ransom threats implied he was still alive. I met a friend of the murdered man today. Apparently someone in his office was a gambler and to pay back some huge debt swindled a lot of money from the office. The murdered man is supposed to have caught him and asked him to return the money. The swindler, unable to do so, plotted this murder, and carried out; the ransom was to increase his profit.
These are the facts. And sigh… have not even gotten to the worst part.

Rumors.
A prominent political leader was jealous of him because he wanted to establish a tobacco factory in the same area, and hence knocked him off. This is the least harmful rumor.
This man has an only son, who is 34 and as yet unmarried. So the next rumor is, he had an affair with some girl, who got pregnant, and she arranged for the murder. It does not stop with that. The girl is supposedly an erstwhile cine star’s daughter.
The wife of the murdered man, a very refined lady, did not shed one tear in public. So she was branded as ‘unfeeling’. Not just that. She is supposedly having an affair with a younger man; so she wanted her (72 year old) husband out of the way.

All these rumors to a family not even a week into their mourning? The worst is, EVERYONE talks. Servants, office staff, the local vegetable vendor to the club members. Everyone. On their face, with complete disregard to their feelings. Appalling, to say the least. This man’s wife has done a lot for female upliftment in the area – education, employment, everything. The doctor has practiced for a long time, with free medical camps, lesser fee to poor patients, the works. He started the first poly clinic in the town and was instrumental in training the current generation of doctors. And society as a whole is waiting. For an opportunity to bring the family down.

Anyone slightly in the public eye gets the brunt of tongues wagging. Someone we know had a staff member who got pregnant out of wedlock, and he went to see her and help her out financially. So people put all this together, and here is the rumor – this person had an affair with his own staff and had a girl baby! And you know who the rumor reached? His wife, the very next day. I don’t even want to imagine that lady’s reaction.
I don’t understand this at all. Why? Jealousy? Or just plain joblessness? Man, give me some of your free time! Why does it hurt everyone if a person is doing well? If a person is happy with their lot?

These days, finding people mindful of society and wanting to do good is rare. Even if people have the capacity (financially), they don’t have the heart to part with their money or their time. In such a milieu, the way society as a whole treats families in public view is plain deplorable. Doing some good has become, in my opinion, damn difficult. People, who go out of their way to help others, end up in the receiving end of wagging, forked tongues. We can say, why should we care about society? We should do good to others for our satisfaction. But hey, we live in this society, and we are all human. At least I don’t have the strength to put up with such a flood of public opinion. I can’t be completely immune. However hard I try, I am affected, somewhere in a corner of my mind.

I’ll tell you a secret...

I cuddle a pillow when I sleep.. It’s appropriately called Kurl-on!
It’s the best part of the day.
Under a blanket, around my pillow;
Completely comfortable, with only good old me for company;
No burden can be on my shoulders,
No Dementor can near me, my pillow is my Patronus! (Rowling, J. K., 1999)
A soft smile automatically creeps into my face, and I snigger throatily.

These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration: -- feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened: -- that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on, --
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
[Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour. July 13, 1798].

Sinusoidal waves, tenatative selection and work output

The last two weeks or so has been like a typical, or should I say atypical, sinusoidal wave. There was no correlation between the wavelength of crest and subsequent trough. In short, I was being a Girl to the core. However hard I tried to keep afloat of things (feelings), they kept winning! Its like my mind logically knows something… my heart, in spite of that knowledge, was unwilling to accept that and went berserk in phases.

Well, compre is around the corner. It seems very big to me. It is like a validation of what I have been working on for almost a year now. If I mention the time frame and think of what I have achieved, I feel sometimes inadequate, and sometimes full of beans, depending on how I view it.

I came up with an idea. It was first a mental landscape populated with various ideas, then a process of tentative selection (I like to think that it was not just tinkering or the ‘blind watchmaker’ kinds, but that it went in some kind of positive direction), landing up with a pretty little picture that I love. If I think of how weedy this landscape was to my eye and how it is now, it feels great. But if I look at it in terms of ‘work output’, it amounts to ONE document. I don’t know whether you are understanding the full meaning of this statement, but it sits on my mind sometimes and I don’t know what to do with it.

I like the ‘document’, you understand. Its not that I don’t like it. It is just that I wonder if it is ‘enough!’ For a while now I have been wondering whether my boss thinks it is enough. On Friday I realized he does. The most important ‘validation’ of all. It meant so much to me! I wish I had recorded that moment! In a way I have – it has been put away in the ‘happy place’ in my mind, the kind I return to often. Sigh.

Sunday…Sigh!

As days melt into weeks into months (especially in this place called IISc), the mind is a continuum of time marked by days of work, mixed-bag days of sub-optimal work and fun, and days of pure play.

Sunday comes and the mind ticks itself into a realm of self indulgence and laziness! It is in fact a great idea to work real hard during the week; a lazy Sunday when you feel you have ‘earned’ your rest is awesome by a whole different league. Relaxing this way on any other day comes a very distant second. On a Sunday, Relaxing rises in stature; it becomes a process, a phenomenon, a salubrious entity enriching the human entangled in its pleasurable mire.

It is so good to vegetate – to sit on your own, with a movie. What makes us all enjoy movies so much? It is a parallel universe. You walk through the world of someone else’s imagination. You find something to relate with in what you are watching – a person, even a landscape. It is a great feeling to break away from your own reality that you face every day. However charming your world maybe, however much filled with beautiful people, it feels good to take a break from it all and virtually tread unfamiliar grounds.
It is fascinating to follow a character’s life, be a part of the multitude of feelings; it is like watching a whole lifetime in fast forward, cutting out the mundane and going through the interesting parts rapidly. I tend to appreciate fine camera work and a lot of attention to detail. Small things can make so much of a difference. I have wondered how it would be if we could do the same with life. You know, tweak around and increase the light here, the color there, add songs here and a little romance there.
Freaky! Actually, I like it the way it is now.

Coming back to Sundays – I think movies go so well with Sundays because they are both removed from reality in a similar manner. They are both parallel tracks to a ‘normal’ existence. And a big hurrah to them both!

Bob Dylan

... is a phenomenon that I am sorry I did not get in touch with a lot, lot earlier. Through his songs you can get in touch with the phases the man went through. His earlier songs that became slogans on behalf of "protest" of various forms in American society at that time - black equality ("Blowin' in the wind"), his veiled references to a possible nuclear holocaust ("A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall), just to quote two famous examples.
The song that has enamoured me and that I have been listening to in an infinite loop is "Mr. Tambourine Man". The beauty is in its simplicity. It's straight from the heart. It can be about anybody - you, me or even the Queen of England! Anyone who has a shadow of bitterness lacing their thoughts at that moment, and want to go away to another part of the mind leaving the sadness behind. Look at the last paragraph; I am putting in the Chorus para first, just for the flow.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Beautiful. Poetry. "Twisted reach of crazy sorrow". And the picture he paints. The last line. Genius.

Magic and Ockham’s razor

Two people meet. A beautiful setting, a gathering of likeminded people. Or it can be a random chance event – just two people meeting. Them being together can lend so much to a particular setting and raise it above the normal realm. A glint of an eye, a hint of a smile dancing around the corners of the mouth, an energy that flows and charges all the particles between them. What is spoken about is immaterial; squiggles of electricity form and pulsate from both, intertwining in the middle and wrapping them together in the same energy field. A certain ‘chemistry’. Cannot put it too well in words, but I am sure you have experienced it. Magic.

If you feel all that magic, what do you do?
You apply the principle of parsimony, pick up Ockham’s razor and shave the meeting of everything except the bare essential. Two people met. Ha.

I was looking through a friend’s pictures, and there was a picture of two of our faculty playing a game that the students set for them. They had to shave the surface of a balloon. Apply shaving cream on it, and use a razor blade to 'shave' it clean. The image is sort of stuck in my head.

Imagine various situations in life to be a balloon; the razor to be Ockham’s razor, and the shaving cream, our minds.

Firstly, the how we perceive the incident will determine the color of the balloon – if you are angry, black with lightning on it and so on. Then, how much we blow up the balloon. Whether we are looking at the incident in its true magnitude or blowing it out of proportion!

Too much cream. Different fragrances, different consistencies of cream, leading to different types of layers on the actual event. Until we start believing in our perception of the truth so much, that the truth itself ceases to exist.

Too much pressure with the razor – it can burst the balloon.
Too little pressure can allow a lot of residual cream to remain; we are not looking at the balloon ‘correctly’, there is still some color to the perception.

We need to be very careful with all these components. People might say each thing is important in its own way. But according to me, the most important is the razor. Let’s not shave everything away! Life won’t be that much fun anymore! Let the Magic remain! :-)

First Rain!

It rained today. It was beautiful; a miracle of a day in itself.
It caused a friend to say, ‘today was so good that tomorrow cannot be better’.
If you take the time and watch a drop of water form at the tip of a leaf and then slowly drop to the ground. Plop.
If you inhale the smell of wet earth and fill your lungs till they feel like bursting into a thousand drops of rain water. Snifff…. Haaaa..
If you let your ears fill with the rain falling on trees (not buildings, and with the SERC generator off, if you please) till a drop of rain forms on your nose because of some unsaid connection between your ears and nose. Patter patter pit pit pit…..
If you let yourself stand in the rain - water falling on your head, seeping into your hair; water falling on parts of exposed skin and percolating into your very body; water falling on clothes and weighing them down with happiness! Streaaammm..
If you let your bare feet sink into wet mud on a paddy field ankle deep in water. Squeellcchh..
You will just laugh out loud. Your laugh will start from the top of your head and spread through the rest of your body! The sound will come from your larynx but in effect, your whole being, from tip to toe, will be a-laugh!

How many of us enjoy all this? Even if I am noticing these things and writing about them today, how many such days have I allowed to go past without just stopping and wondering about them? And hey, why do I need the rain to get me so poetic? Why should I call a day “just another day” in any case? I am not looking hard enough for the Magic. The very fact that the Magic is not apparent to me and I am having to look for it smells fishy – have I grown too old, too used to my surroundings? Or am I just “comfortably numb” to them?

Shucks!

Somebody, Nobody, Anybody = Everybody

Working as a group has its advantages (if you get along with your group mates that is). It’s fun, there is an illusion of shared burdens, and most importantly, if something goes wrong, everyone is in it together!

But there is a flipside.

Say there is something to be done.

Scenario 1: Everybody thinks Somebody will do it but ultimately Nobody does it. But Nobody can question Anybody because it is Everybody’s responsibility!

Scenario 2: There is something that I call a ‘guilt index’ (briefly defined as the hyper state of thinking oh-my-god-I was supposed to do it-but I did not). So the person with the highest ‘guilt index’ (the GI) ends up doing what is to be done. But of course, Everybody takes credit.

Scenario 2.a: The GI again does the job. Delivers the goods. There is a fault in the delivery. Nobody takes the blame.

Auxiliary rules:

1. The more unpleasant the task, the more ambiguous is the division of labour among Everybody. ‘Somebody’ and ‘Nobody’ are very much part of popular parlance.

2. Sub-groups form (say A and B). A and B only talk bad things about each other behind their backs, and only nice things upfront. Somebody said Something about Everybody. But Nobody is ready to accept that they said the Something.
Note: sub-groups are allowed to have a maximum of one person.

3. If there is no hierarchy – undercurrents give the group a structure.
There is parallel, group wise hierarchy. Each ‘lineage’ spends most of its time talking about the other lineages(s). Each lineage refers to its own ‘leader’ as the leader of the whole group.
If there is a pre-ordained hierarchy – the leader is someone Everybody loves (to hate).

4. There is no such thing as optimal group size. With the ‘right’ people, any group can be too large.

Sigh.

Writing on the wall

Cleo!

That’s my baby girl Cleopatra. Its my mom she is looking at, through the grill gate that is the entrance to my home. Mom was going somewhere and cleo got to know after looking at a packed bag.

It’s her eyes that I want you to notice. There is everything in them. I love you so much. Are you really going to leave me? When will you come back? I really want you to come back soon.

I wonder how my mom ever gets herself to go out with such a face at her doorstep!

Slice

Ya its hot now, but this is not about the drink Slice!
A slice of life. A slice of time, which seems to be from a parallel universe. It’s the same places that I go to usually. The very same, yet different.

The round was pretty ‘usual’ – isolated IISc, mayhem Malleswaram at its mayhem best, bustling brightly lit BEL road; the constant crowd that makes one feel, all denizens of this city are out on the roads, and not one is inside his li’l domicile!

We started with IISc – appropriately, from the gymkhana! Then to the messes, the back way from behind Rohini to my hostel. Mom came to my room. It took up a different atmosphere, I cant explain it. More stately somehow! It went to a stage higher than just my little room. Everything in IISc became something slightly different. A shade different; but the difference still very perceptible, with a whole lot of meaning weighed into that slight shade. We met Praveen and that opened a whole new aspect of Praveen to my eyes – he was so pleasant, so open and we actually had a nice conversation about education and health and fitness and what not! P.S. he left because he had to go pick Luba, his wife ;)

My own lab, department – all the same yet different. Halle mane for lunch, the room 107 Basil. A cozy cuddle time! We watched a talk on Kambaramayanam (a Tamil version of the Ramayan by a poet called Kamban, which is really good), and had our usual high level (!) Tamil based discussion to complete the picture. It was perfect.
Corner house. Mom is mad about ice-creams but never has them because she dreads hours on the treadmill (by the way she has lost weight and looks like a million bucks!). And Polar Bear and Woodlands to get mom’s shoes.

Going back to my point. Everything was so different. Even going in an auto, which is something so normal, had a little extra meaning. It was like looking at the same sights through my parents’ eyes. It was beautiful, nostalgic, and left me with a feeling that my little world was complete. Now when I tell them lab, gel, PCR, anything, a picture will come up in their mental screen and they will put me in the centre of it. The feeling that they can do that makes me feel awesome! For me, a new memory lane was laid, and these places will throw up a sweet, fleeting instant that makes the place itself go up in my estimate.

A well, a spring of nice memories to dip into whenever the normal tide of time is not sweet enough.

Hindsight

Somehow, I don’t have very strong memories of childhood. I don’t know why. The period till my class 10 seems like a blur, with certain conversations standing out, a certain games period, a march past on a particularly hot day, some class where I was giggling my head off, the guy I had my first crush on. It’s a mess – there is no clear pattern to all the memory. Post 10th memories are much clearer, maybe because I moved around so much. Memories are clustered as place-specific! I think I can safely say most of the memories are happy, with life getting better at each stage; but there was no dissatisfaction at any stage because I never realized things could be better, until they got better! So that was the happy state of mind I was in when I was young. Quite unlike now, when I am much older, more critical, but hey, still happy!

Looking back.
Not over time spanning over your life, but over a relationship.
It is so affected by the state of mind! If you are happy with that person and don’t have any problems, the relationship seems to be like a spot of sunlight on the horizon of life. A happy place where there are smiles all around. But when you start having problems, things you don’t like about that person combined with all the ‘unpleasant’ interactions pile up in something like a dominoes effect! The whole period becomes like a series of sore issues perfectly timed and calculated with the sole purpose of bothering you. Never mind the fact that these events could be random and unconnected; in your mind they form a pattern that very often leads to “join the dots to see why you are angry” kind of an effect. ‘Nice’ things refuse to penetrate this chain, and things get topsy turvy very soon if not dealt with properly.

So, what determines whether these dominoes are dealt with? Many things I guess – but mainly how much you like the person in question. How important he/she is to you. It is very easy to crib about a problem and leave it. It requires slightly more effort to ensconce the problem in sugar and put it away in the deep recesses of the mind. But in this case, watch out for the time when a bunch of these sugar-coated issues get bitten into – the bitterness can put an end to any warm feeling between the two people. It’s dangerous! The toughest but best way to deal with the dominoes is to address the root cause and build up the board again. Patterns will form, stronger and more beautiful than before! And a sense of well being and security for the concerned folks, who will appreciate and cherish that quality of ‘good friendship’ that is so rare and precious. Until the next fight, when the dominoes are flung off the board in one sweep.

Why are relationships always in cycles? But I guess that’s what keeps them exciting!

Contentment, complacency and constantly wanting more

The human mind is one strange entity. There is a constant state of wanting things to be ‘better’. This usually translates into wanting things different from what one has, and the grass pretty much looks greener on the other side! After getting what it wants, what does the mind do? It is not content – oh no! It wants more! More - as in, a different set of things.

I catch myself doing this all the time. Also with relationships. With people I am very secure of, I am a certain way. Enter even a little uncertainty in my mind and I try very hard to make the relationship “better”, and sometimes ruin things in the process. It’s like I don’t want myself to get complacent and end up losing something beautiful. That person is so important to me, I am so scared that my relationship will deteriorate, that I sub-consciously get extra attentive. I wish I could get rid of this tendency, I don’t like it. But I don’t know what to do about it! I can’t ‘get secure’ overnight! Even though I have identified the problem and I ‘technically’ know what to do, something akin to instinct over rides logic and I am a nervous wreck again.

I think its because I had very few friends when I was small. No siblings either! So I never fought (verbally I mean) with too many people. I never had people ‘sticking up for me’. Yes, parents, but I am secure of them anyway! The confidence that I have it me to make friends and sustain them came very late. It took a lot of time for me to be open and frank to people, with the confidence that I am nice enough to be liked anyway. Now I have that confidence with most people – I am sure of how they perceive me, and how important I am to them. But with others, I am wary. If I really like someone and I want to be a friend, well, I overdo it.

I am so happy that things are different now and I have a lot of friends. But I also hope this tendency to overdo does not ruin too many friendships for me!

PCR woes

This is from a very useful site, with troubleshooting tips for PCR. They have discussed each 'trouble' you can have with possible solutions, stepwise and in detail.

This is like the last option, the last 'resort' kind of thing, and its really funny!

The Bad Karma Hypothesis:

Background:
This is basically the "God is punishing you" hypothesis. It sometimes gains a great deal of favor.

Symptoms:
i) All rational explanations have been exhausted and yet PCR still is not working for you.
ii) Persistent feelings of guilt (if you are a Catholic, this symptom could be misleading).

Tests and solutions:
i) Try bungee jumping. If you survive, God must not be too hacked-off at you.
ii) Atone for your sins and start over at the top of the flow chart.
iii) If you end up here next time, have someone watch you next time you set up your PCR reactions.

I so identify with this!

Black

I think it’s obvious to any of you reading this blog that I love black.

Black has a certain dark energy; an energy that speaks of a power within that is waiting to be unleashed. It is interesting in itself, but even more so when contrasted with white. Black can give rise to awe or fear depending on the mental state of the person perceiving the color. One the one hand there is a possibility that anything can happen, because you are shrouded with nothing; on the other hand, there is a “fear of the dark” even in the clearest minds, rising from the fact that all cannot be seen.

There is a tendency to picture things when a color is mentioned. Blue in my mind is the twilight sky; yellow, a sunflower field; white, foam on the sea; and green, moss on a slate-gray rock by a stream in Kalakkad.

What image does black throw up?

In my mind the image has kept changing constantly. My first memories associated with ‘black’ is a dark room with a swirling, even darker center, towards which I am moving with a certain terrible fascination – with pumping heart, pulsing veins et al. I think it was in a recurrent dream!

Then for a while it was the black of a thunderstorm night. The excitement of a lightning streak tearing the skies apart and revealing the world for an instant, leaving it manifold times darker in comparison after that split second. Have you enjoyed a thunderstorm in a wild, open space? I have had it one step more thrilling. My mom and I were flying from Chennai to Madurai once, after my BSc. And our plane flew into a storm. Mom was panicked but I quite enjoyed it, with all the innocence and the awe of a teenager. So it’s about 50 people in a small jet, all quiet and pulsing with pumping adrenaline, watching the skies just outside of the window, not daring to imagine the mayhem on the other side of a few mm of plexiglass!

Lightning beginning at one spot and streaking through the skies at an unbelievable pace, throwing out branches from one high-energy spot after another. It was breathtakingly lovely. The sun was setting, so the horizon was outlined like a ring of fire; with a band of gold-orange hue around it that showed up the black of the thunderclouds in stark contrast. Turbulence was making all of us lurch in our seats. I was holding my arm rest so hard that my hand was slowly losing its feeling. My mind was filled with awe and a respect for the elements and their power!
I could well imagine a Neanderthal looking up at the skies and wondering about the wondrous beauty of his world. Thinking about that moment sometimes makes me feel small and inconsequential; but equally sometimes, full of power and an ethereal joy that I am part of this world, that I am a point in the continuum of time and space that was swirled around me on that one magical night.

Getting back to Black:
A small pond on a starry night, like a black mirror. I throw a stone into it. Plop. Ripples of silver star reflections fan out, splattering the mirror into a thousand drops of glass, each like a distant memory. An owl hoots in the distance, bringing me back to the reality of the warm rock beneath me, the gentle breeze cradling me in its arms, the leaves of a peepal tree nearby making sweet conversation with the babbling stream on the other side.

There are other images, more transient than the ones I have spoken about till now.

A certain black top that was my favorite for a long time. Black can make people feel good, feel attractive; at least I feel very sexy whenever I wear black :) like I can be truly myself and yet do anything!

A freshly tarred highway in the bright noon sun, the white reflectors on it making the air above the road shimmer in a mirage of reality.

Black paint in a balloon, suspended overhead – someone slashes the balloon and out spills ripples of jet black paint, even filling my nostrils with black.

A completely black Harley Davidson T2.

My most recent one is a very handsome Hugh Jackman in a black tux compeering the Oscars.

Snort!

No time!

W. H. Davies was an interesting man. As far as I am concerned, he is the reason I started appreciating poetry.

He was born to an iron-moulder; his dad died when he was very young, and his grandparents brought him up. His life was from “delinquent to super-tramp”, as the Wikipedia page on him says. I am not going to summarise that page anymore!

He wrote a lot about nature – which is why I like him so much, I guess. The nicest thing is that his style is so clean, so simple, the meaning is direct and on the face. He has something to say, and he says it, and that’s it. This is the first poem of his that I read. In fact, it’s the first poem I ever read and enjoyed.

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows;

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass;

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night;

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance;

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

What are we so afraid of?

Are we ever completely open, completely spontaneous with anyone?

Even a close friend – there is something that stops you from being brutally honest – point blank is the last option on our lists, all the time… the reasons can be lots. The topmost reason, for me, is that I don’t want to hurt the other person. Does that mean I think the relationship is so fragile that it will crumble at any instant? Not that. Then what?

Think about it… quietly exchange places. How would you like a close friend censuring you? Personally, I don’t like it. My little brain does not register the fact that the person is taking the trouble of telling me something uncomfortable because he/she cares about me and wants the best for me; the immediate reaction is denial - “how can he/she say such a thing, it’s not true”. Then, after minutes/days/weeks (I won’t include longer time spans) of contemplation, you catch yourself doing the something pal was talking about, and you say… hey… the idiot was right.

I guess reacting this way is completely natural, but the thing is, when one is in the denial phase, a lot of words can get loose; words that you never meant to say, but anger just shrouds out reason so impeccably that the ability to think derails. Then you regret it for a long, long time. I hate it when that happens.

So, getting back to where I started (!!)… Spontaneity is a good thing I feel. In fact, it’s the best thing – especially when feelings are concerned. If you feel someone is special, tell them (what if tomorrow never comes, as Ronan Keating would say). If you are going to censure, use measured tones, and take the reaction after putting yourself in that person’s shoes!

And a thing to remember is – “the best way to know if a person is truly yours is to let them go. If they come back to you, they are; if they don’t, they never were”. This ‘truly yours’ thing, I like to interpret it as your , and not in the sense of ‘belonging’ – I don’t think anyone ‘belongs’ to anyone else!

And well… we live but once. During which time we meet thousands of nameless people, a few who you get to know, but even fewer that you cherish. I think it’s a waste if the people special to you don’t know how much they mean to you!
So, I will be spontaneous! Ha!

Chithra Pournami

‘Pournami’ in Tamil is poornima, the full moon day. The full moon is supposed to be the largest on this day, and the most beautiful.

My parents, my brother Santhosh and I had gone on a trip to Kerala in April-May 2000. As part of the package, we were to spend a whole day on a houseboat that is ‘driven’ using long bamboo poles – the boat is literally pushed along the riverbed!

Kerala passed along on the banks of the backwaters, slowly and peacefully. Farmland almost up to the water – rolling fields forming a green carpet with coconut trees dotting the place occasionally. It was serene, peaceful. Not a sound but the water lapping against the boat, the rhythmic sounds of the oars hitting the water, an occasional shout from the people on the banks.

The afternoon was hot and still, with not a leaf moving. Evening started, and a cool breeze started, bringing with it the scent of salt and fish mingled with rice being cooked for the evening meal in the houses along the backwaters.

Sunset!!
It rained golden radiance.

The sun seemed to be bidding a fond adieu to the world he loved – he enveloped her in the most special of his rays and she smiled and simpered and looked her absolute best in return. Twilight always makes me romantic! The most beautiful part of the day indeed. We were totally taken by the sun, and we never noticed that out boat had swung into the estuary where the backwaters joined the sea. We watched with bated breath as the sun went down in a fiery ball into a line of coconut trees in the distance.

Then we turned.

We had not noticed that till now; so the moon shone with a vengeance. It took us some time to realize that the silver orb suspended (almost unrealistically) in the distance behind a coconut tree was actually the moon, in all its glory. We had coincidentally chosen the Chitra pournami day to be on the houseboat! We had totally lost count of days and dates once our tour started, and then we land up in a houseboat anchored in such a place.

WHAT a place.

From where we stood, 180 degrees was water – a vast expanse of water, grand, indescribable, almost intimidating. A line of greenery on the other half of the vision. And of course, the hero of the night (!!), the moon.

Everything was hued in silver and black. What a deadly combination! Stars aplenty, but nothing looked bright because they were completely overshadowed by the moon. A few clouds in the sky all outlined in a silvery sheen. The sea around us, wreathed in shimmering strands of silvery moonlight, mystic, wonderful; the backwater – leading away from the sea, with trees meeting overhead, looking tantalizing and needling and dark, spots of silver dotting the channel where there were gaps in the canopy.

It was unbelievable!!

Virtual Reality

“Shop for more than Rs. 2000/- and get two tickets for Pink Panther 2 absolutely free” screamed the guy in the centre of Bangalore Central mall. What the hell is he so excited about? It’s all a theoretical abstraction! Everything here is eminently un-buyable, bordering on ridiculous, not to mention priced for the product, its manufacturer and his whole family too! But I am one of the very few who think this way I guess – the whole of Bangalore seems have descended here in hordes, lined up in the escalators of the mall. Have you ever stood in a queue for an escalator? Ha! Unique honour, right? I have!

The morning breeze shook me awake as I poked my nose out of our tent. In front of me was the vast expanse of the Narmada river, curving gracefully around a bend to my left and disappearing in a rush to my right. I wondered if it was water or liquid gold flowing in front of me – each ripple was outlined in golden sunshine. Behind me, people were gathering for an NBA meeting. Children were beginning to sing, their voices soaring to the skies and raining down on me from above – “Ma Rewa, taro pani nirmal” (the energy when children sing is just unique). Then it hit me. What it means to call a river, a seemingly inanimate thing, “mother”. Because, indeed, she (no more it) was. Mother to all the thousands on her wide banks, embracing them, feeding them, feeding their crops, enriching their lives. She was not different from them, she was part of them, or rather, she was them (remember Aldo Leopold). It took two days for the reality to sink in for me. Two days of walking along her banks, talking to her children. Maybe more people should try it, then they will turn off lights and taps more often. (But a no TV while on the banks rule should be made. Please no TV).

I was at a rehabilitation camp for dam refugees when this happened. Landlords (with their families) who owned 400 acres of land put into a small tin shed hardly enough for two people. Still they had the grace to give us all sweet tea – they apologized saying they could not afford milk. If I had been in their place, I don’t know if I would have been so courteous to a group of school kids! All the tall claims (and cheating) by the government – two or three families given the same land, not given alternate jobs, taken away from their river. One man took us to the center of a water expanse, stopped the boat, and told us, “my house used to be here. Under the water. My children used to play near that ‘tree’”. The stump I could see then was once a tree, with people under it? It almost broke my heart. Then a chilling realization struck me. This was one dam. One village of people affected by one dam. Which was fortunate to have Medha-di and the NBA to help them have a voice. What about all the other dams? ‘X’ number of acres under water – do those architects who made the dam(ned) plans know, even remotely realize what that means? Other ‘urban development project’ refugees? What about their children?

Children… Slumdog millionaire. Ya, Oscar winning, blah blah… But the image I am left with is of the slums, not the Oscars or Jamal Mallik and Anil Kapoor in that gaudily lit stage. The slums. How many displaced millions? The squalor, the indignity of living a life that you did not determine, and looking every day at the ‘haves’ – the slums next to Chatrapati Shivaji terminal is classic. You take off from Bombay you see high rise buildings lined with slums on all sides. Just an aside – during that movie, I wonder if even one person in the (rich) cast and crew even had the thought to do something for those kids? They picked kids off the slums and paid them like Rs. 50 a day, right? Then what? Won’t something humane inside you get up, slap you in the face, and say, “Wake up and do something for them”? I wonder… or is it just the Oscars, the fame, the money, the publicity… I guess that’s why they took those kids and gave them their 10 minutes of fame on Oscar stage. I wonder if those rich Britishers (and Indians) even think about those kids today. Or were they and their apathy ‘instruments’ for an Oscar?

How many of these slum people’s ancestors had land that got submerged to supply power and irrigation water to ‘taxpayers’? Taxpayers, ha. I just heard from mom yesterday that doctors (mind you, doctors) from my place usually lie about the number of beds they have and the number of patients they have to pay lesser tax. Hold on, that’s not it. When the municipality (finally) brought in biomedical waste treatment as a rule, doctors haggled about paying Rs. 1. 50 per kg waste for the municipal workers to come collect waste from their hospital. They wanted to pay Re. 1 only. My mom went and signed the agreement 4 years ago and said she is ready to pay Rs. 1. 50. But till date, no one has come to collect waste from my hospital because it is 17 km from the main town. Sigh. I don’t have anything to say.

And looking at the typical Indian – what does he feel when someone says ‘India’? Cricket? Bollywood (or whichever tinsel town is most popular in that area)? The kind of adulation people in these fields excite is something scary. I am wondering if I should add IT in that list, but stopped, what with the recession and people losing their jobs. I will try to look sad. But what about the absolute crying poverty in our backyard? Does anyone give it a thought? Does anyone say “I want to do something for my country”? even if they do, does it translate into action? Or is it just more convenient to put away that thought in a corner of the mind that one does not look at too frequently?

So what among all this is reality? All these images are from 23 years of one person’s life, a person who does not even actively follow news. I guess if P. Sainath starts off with some images he can write about a 100 pages and still keep going. I live in my small little world (as my blog subtitle says) and I am happy here. Wait a minute. Am I? Where does this little world of mine end? Who defines the boundary? If everyone thinks that slums and ‘development’ refugees (for eg) are outside their world, who will do anything for them?

I have had these thoughts many times before.

I have always stopped at this point, because I am too scared to go on. Because the next question will be, what have I done? And I don’t have the guts to answer it. Because, let me face it, much as I care about all this my reality as of now is my PhD. Comprehensive exam, proposal… butterfly metapopulation dynamics. Interesting to my ears. But at the end of such a series of images, hollow. But it is my current reality! And I convince myself I am doing ok and get back into my small little world, my comfort zone, my virtual reality.

Heck…

Memory

Memory is this strange thing indeed.. There are things about it that are mystifying.
I am not talking about by-rote memory, I am talking about memories of our experiences.. Those shadows of thought that linger on.. And surface at the most unexpected times, in such a way as to shock you!

The way you look a particular day, the way you have spread what you are going to wear on your bed, a certain smell - all these are small day to day things that spark off a hyperlink somewhere in your head.. Until that point you would not even be aware of such an association! There are more 'normal' things that spark off memory - places (restaurants, coffee shops, an item on the menu), dates, things..

So what forms such hyperlinks? Strong feeling? Attraction to someone? Is there any logic to it at all? Or is it just a sea of unformed thoughts, of things that have not been consciously put into perspective but still exist, wallowing in the deep recesses of the mind?

Sigh.. Strange indeed is memory.. I dont understand it.. I dont even know if I want to understand it.. Beats me!

CRAAASHHH...

I know that my nose is big, but this dew drop was overestimating it! It of course had to fall! I smiled, taking in the fresh air and not able to take in the entire panaroma around me. Mountains always inspire awe in me – row after row of sheer majesty, tinged in colours from dull brown to quiescent blue to wild green – all wearing gauzy veils of fluffy clouds and engulfing mist… mysterious, elusive, tanalising – like ladders that dare you to climb up them, all the way to the sky and back!

I closed my eyes involuntarily and laughed with sheer joy. My mom turned and smiled at me, and as I was looking at her, I heard the driver curse – and immediately got a lungful of musty seat cover as I fell on the front seat.

The jeep seemed to have a mind of its own – branches reached out to it from all sides, trying to hold it back, but only managed to give it a few scratches; my eyes refused to shut, their gaze refused to budge from the sight of green and brown vegetation roughly pushed aside by the jeep; the wind wuthered in my ears, blowing faster and faster; the tyres screeched over every twig and pebble on the forest floor, and each individual part of the jeep cracked and squeaked and cackled with joy as it broke loose of all shackles; and the birds flew shrieking out of the bushes as the jeep ran past.

Over all this, I could hear my heart beat painfully loudly; blood seemed to be wanting to ooze from every pore in my body; like a prelude, my eyes watered painfully because I could not shut them in spite of the rushing wind, my nose forgot to breathe, my hands clenching the door handle ceased to have any feeling, my throat dried up completely and my tongue fastened on the roof of my mouth.

My mind was flung into a swirling confusion of images – picture postcards of various stages of my life came and lined themselves up. My grandpa’s death, my first talk after I stopped stammering, my dog Lizzy’s death, the day I left Bombay, my field site in Kodaikanal… and then came an emptiness of thought that left me watching the progress of the jeep with a kind of horrid fascination, leaning forward on my seat.

I turned to look at mom.

Creak, creaakkk, whoooshshh..

Damn I really need to get this fan fixed.

HURRY UP!

(I had to write an essay in English class once and I have hung on to it ever since because I loved it so much. I sound so young, so much innocence, very Enid Blyton-ish!)

Beep beep, beeppp beeeepppp… I hate alarms :(

Irritated, I turned it off and I was about to snuggle deeper into the covers. Who ever gets up at 5 AM anyway? Half asleep, I saw a face in my dreams – PING – I leapt out of bed, almost falling, and rushed through the tortuous process of getting ready. Why do things take longer when you have to finish them fast?
Mom was awake (she is not someone who snoozes) and looked at me with a smile like a soft white cloud, her eyes twinkling. She laughed as I did a jig and gulped breakfast down as fast as I could.

The train is not going to come any earlier if I hurry through all this; it will probably be late, knowing our very own Indian Railways! Our driver will not deign to arrive a minute before 6 AM, even if I tried a spot of telepathy. But still I hurried! Only one person understood exactly how I felt and mirrored all my excitement. Boris, my dog, had this uncanny knack of knowing exactly when dad would come home. He jumped around, barking at nothing in particular, and almost digging up the whole garden. He finally came and sat next to me and both of us waited for our ‘punctual’ driver, looking at my watch about two times every second, and getting more and more agitated.

His lordship (my driver!) finally turned up – not in a dirty lungi and even dirtier shirt, but clean pants and a new shirt! Seems dad had got that for him for Diwali. He had even combed his hair, and lit an incense stick in the taxi. I guess appa must be honoured with such immense preparations.
We miraculously set off in two minutes, both mom and me looking fabulous (but of course!). I started my whining asking mom whether we could take Boris – the usual NO came as the answer, but it was worth a try! My driver looked at me angrily – imaging a dog planting his dirty paws on his plush seat covers! Sheesh!

As we turned a corner I could see the tip of Boris’ nose stuck over the gate, and an air of anxiety which clearly said, “Oh, are you going away too, leaving me?” “We will soon be back with Appa” I yelled to him, as we went by, much to the amazement of the medical shop guy sleepily opening his shop. There was no human in sight!

As we drove through our village, I saw everyone surfacing sleepily – but to my eyes every face I saw seemed to smile in welcome and anticipation, every tree seemed to dance in merriment, every blade of grass seemed to move in time to the wind’s music. Everything was bursting with happiness, a merriment beyond description – all for Appa’s sake I was convinced!
And oh, the sun! We were driving east, and the sun rose in a golden splendor; the earth blossomed in the warmth of his rays, shaking the darkness away nonchalantly. The sky took on a beautiful orange hue, and birds began to chirp ‘welcome’ as I laughed aloud in glee. I looked around, feeling like a master surveying the preparations she had made to welcome back a dear one.

I wished the car would grow wings and land at the station at once, or better still, get teleported there immediately. But all journeys come to an end, and so did this one – an especially joyous end, as it was so long awaited. The train trundled in as we reached the platform. Wow, it was on time! I ran alongside my dad’s coach. I stood peering into one doorway, and suddenly felt a tap on my shoulder, and simultaneously a familiar, well-loved voice saying “Princess” – well, dad was home!

Finally!

I scrawl a lot.. I mean, a looooottt...

I have always wanted to blog, but never got around to doing it. A lot more time in my hands these days; plus a lot of thoughts running amok in my head. And so i decided, its time to start putting it all down; atleast for me and a chosen few. I am actually imagining a much older me reading this and wondering where all these myriad thoughts came from!

Also, there is something about the written word na - it is so much more polished; well thought out, yet totally unique and individualistic.  

So here goes, and welcome to my world :)