The Abyss

Continuing from my previous blog, here's a small poem dedicated to my friend Krishna:

The Abyss

Leaving time behind me -
The ravenous predators’ cries

Delving deeper into the tunnel
With no light in sight
Darker grows the space
Around me, Obfuscation:

Alert, confused and nervous
I become; Are these
The boundaries of anarchy?
The webs of encumbrance?

The changes I sought, chasing
The enigma of utopia
The parochial desires that –
I wished to extinguish

Gravitating through the vortex
Metamorphosis of the psyche
Bestowed with the child;
The creation pristine

Encompassing is the vigor,
As if from the vials
Of Ambrosia; sublime is
The bliss of the enlightened

Rudely awoken to degeneracy,
Brimming desire to preach,
To rebel, to lead conscience –
My fellowmen to utopia

Yet the pangs of human touch
Blots in the serene innocence
That unknown trace of impurity -
The nucleus of anomaly; so

Yet another soul has to
Fall into the abyss.

Acknowledgements: Prof PS, MSB 121 (?) for giving me complete freedom to do what ever I want (like writin' poems) in his class, and still giving me attendance. And all u guys who have taken the pains to read such crappy stuff frm me. Apologies are due from my side.

Promethian Aspirations

Reflecting on our humanities lecture on Readings in German Literature, I realize one thing. All the ‘pseud’ writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth century share a lot of common attributes: A tryst with ‘suicide’ which they however manage to circumvent by penning down their feelings (‘Purging your feelings through the pen is the motif of literature’ as the professor put it), early ‘romanticist’ leanings, an insatiable desire to rebel (fueled by the circumstances of youth that seem to be too common between these people which makes it almost hard to believe that this was not a coincidence’) ,a phase of illness at some point of life that is almost inevitably a transitionary phase and of course numerous affairs with the most beautiful creatures on earth.

Digressing from here, there’s one thing I would like to mention: There was an interesting question raised in class that I was pondering during the course of the day: What is the fundamental source of this phenomenon of the creation of the ‘rebel’ in the human psyche? My argument is there’s this seed of conflict of morals or values in the rebel that is probably the purest embodiment of the principles of his rebellion. But as his ideas take a more concrete shape, the imposition of the ego or the self corrupts the ideals that form the basis of his metamorphosis. In other words, what spurs this whole concept of rebellion is the trace of impurity in the crystallization of ideas in previous such endeavors that have led to the establishment of a certain ‘state’. Every rebel passes through a phase of ‘anarchy’ where he is first left confused and distraught and then slowly begins to see light at the end of the tunnel, where his ideas for change nucleate. At this stage of consciousness, his ideas are pristine and untouched by ‘human’ influence. By passing through the grey phase, he can now make a distinction between the black and the white. But as every such rebel has to come down to the degenerate level of human existence to advocate and exemplify the effectiveness of his principles to the society, the ‘human’ contact often unknowingly imposes itself on these ideals to pollute them. If this could be avoided, then the utopia envisaged by the Marxist philosophers would not be far from achievement. So it’s a vicious circle as Ogden Nash would call it: Rebels motivate rebellion. Is this hard to understand? No, it isn’t.

Chennai's delights: Autorickshaws, Weather

Yesterday night (rather morning: 2:00 AM), I was having a chat with Jens Eichler, my post-doc advisor in the tea board. He was telling me about his trip to Chennai a few days back. He was one of the kinder souls who had less bad things to say about Chennai. I was expecting an opinion of complete disparagement from him, however he had other ideas.

A couple of surprises:
Chennai’s rickshaw drivers are not bad after all, it seems. I argue that they are probably the worst of their kind in the country, since they consider the meter to be as extinct as a dino fossil and second, you have to obey the AchukuInaaAchukuThaan Law*: X (u pay) = X (on a meter whose electronics are intact and not subject to thermal expansion!) * S (a number > 2, randomly generated) + P (“Meterkku mela konjam pottu thaanga saar”). Jens disagrees vehemently, and points out that the auto drivers did not try to swindle him at all. I ask him the rates he paid for his trips and they seem quite ok. A pleasant surprise? No, a rude shock rather. Kudos to the Samaritans who gave Jens a ride that day.

My ego having taken a sound thrashing (since I have strong opinions about Chennai’s customer service), I take up another issue: the weather. “Oppressive, wasn’t it?” The repartee: “No, not really it was quite ok”. The reaction: A spasm through my spine, tongue burnt by my tea. Here was a man from Bangalore saying that the Chennai weather was ‘cool’.

Wow! After all these years, someone had done it. Someone had praised my city. It gave me a lot of pleasure.

*For dummies: a famous line from Thalaivar's "Baasha".

We got the movies!

We got the movies!!: thats a famous line from Dire Straits' "money for nothing". First things first, I abandoned my previous blogspace, since I had a feelin' that it was puerile stuff. Not that this seems any better. Its an honest attempt nevertheless.

Shankar : 'Hey ppl, Im back to blogging with a vengeance'...Naa, not quite. Just feeling bored and jobless here in IISc, Bangalore. Yeah I am back here for a few days, the place never ceases to enthrall me with its beauty. And boy, the climate, is nothing short of awesome. So what do I write on?Well, last week was a movie marathon week for us in the hostel (yeah, the quizzes were there, the profs were paining us and all the usual crap was goin on...but our enthusiasm for the movies remained at its best): Some of the nice ones we saw:

Dr.Strangelove: An awesome spoof-of-sorts on the hypocrisy and the fear psychosis of the US and Russia during the cold war 'crisis'. An absolute laugh riot.So much so that sriram and I named our comps Dmitri and DrStrangelove on the LAN (Yeah IIT Madras finally did it, we got net connections in our rooms.) Peter Sellers: this man's one protean fella. He plays Col.Mandrake, Dr.Strangelove and the US Prez; he's simply scintillatin', especially the dialogues when on the phone with the Russian Prez Dmitri {watever}ov where his tonal modulations are a sheer class apart. Kubrick, the god.

The Hours: A movie, I guess just made for the awards. Nicole kidman: this female's GOOD. The acting in the movie (by all the characters) is near flawless. Great direction too, the crossovers from Woolf's life to contemporary scenes are nice. A very interesting genre. Yet,the lesbian scenes (sexually confused women, you could say) and some of the dialogues: Obfuscation. Nevertheless, a must see, but I guess you must read Woolf's Mrs.Dalloway before the movie.

Monty Python and the life of Brian: Nothing short of hilarious as is always the case with MP movies. The roman governor's diction is perhaps the highlight of the movie. But I still feel MP and The Holy Grail is the best one in the series.

Will be back with some better stuff to talk about.