Warding off those evil glances

It was great to find a sparkling blue amulet on my desk, with a note from my Turkish labmate (and friend) that screamed "A small gift from Turkey!". She told me that the Nazar Boncugu (thats the name) is a blue bead believed to ward off evil, and used as a protection from the 'negative' energy that emanates from the glances of certain people. It is believed that the bead, when worn visibly, draws the energy to itself, diffusing its power thus rendering the 'evil' energy ineffective.
What struck me was the similarity of beliefs across cultures. I remember my grandmother mentioning similar stuff: In Tamizh, its called "Kannu Vekkarthu" :). And when she'd suddenly feel vulnerable about our family's well being (because of the 'negative glances' that outsiders cast over us), she would ask us all to assemble in the living room, take some salt in her fist, warn all of us to be silent through the entire ritual (and for some strange reason, we kids, all my cousins and I, could never stop giggling!). She would then chant a mantra silently and rotate her arms clockwise first and the other way next, three times each. She would then press her fist against the ground, and inevitably the finger knuckles would crackle, and the she'd explain later that the loudness of the crackle was 'directly proportional' to the negative energy that the family had fallen victim to. And then we'd all disperse in different directions (continuing to stupidly giggle and share in the mischevious mirth). 'Suthi Podarthu' - as this ritual is called, is practised in most South Indian families I guess - the salt is supposed to absorb the negative energy that pervades in the house, and protect us from misfortune.

Quantum relief

"The impetus is much quicker than the water, for it happens that the wave flees the place of its creation, while the water does not; like the waves made in a field of grain by the wind, where we see them running across the field while the grain remains in place" - Da Vinci

Spotted this in my coursebook for "Waves and Diffraction" :)

Is it funny anymore?

I went to the opening night of Borat – the movie with friends, and it was great fun. Sacha Cohen ( aka Ali G) rips apart the conventions, ‘morals’ and prejudices that form the lint of the American fabric. The movie was hilarious for most part – but what struck me was a particular thing – there was a section of the movie, a ten minute sequence that fell under the category of the gross, squeamish and the likes. But, the whole hall (including us) was cracking up. I did find it funny in parts. Evidently, the makers intended to incorporate the ‘shock’ genre of humor – with a purpose to catch the audience totally off guard with scenes that would defy your normal sense of societal etiquette. Whether I am giving the makers too much credit or not is a matter of debate, of course. It reminds me of the ‘Aristocrats’ joke – supposedly the grossest joke of all time – one that comedians shared between themselves and never told on stage. It’s a joke that’s filled with all kinds of happenings (like incest) that would challenge the moral conceptions that today’s society is built upon(Of course, we can argue about the conception of society itself – that’s a different question altogether. I, for one, believe that each individual is a nation by himself – and I can argue that this stems out of the fact that all of us share a basic instinct of survival. Ok, this discussion for later! )
So, there’s this documentary (of the same name) that has 100 famous comedians adding their own ‘creative’ input to this joke and personalizing it and telling it to the audience. The documentary’s apparent intention is to explore the thin line between what is humor and what is disgusting. And if they are interchangeable, to what extent? Personally, I couldn’t take the Aristocrats joke at all – I didn’t find it funny. I found it repulsive, and couldn't watch the video for more than a couple of minutes. The film makers do shock you by having the 'joke' told to you through the likes of Bob Saget (the benign father of the kids in Full House, remember?), and you find it quite inconceivable that he could say disgusting things with such consummate ease. Clever ploy, though. But it does raise an issue – how 'flexible' are we and how far can the human mind stretch itself (involuntarily) before it realizes that things are no longer funny, and in fact that they are repulsive? Is it the same for different cultures around the world – or are there some that have a higher ‘tolerance’? Or is it just a completely individualistic thing - do our own sardonic thoughts inadvertently peek out in such times?

PS: Please watch the video at your own discretion.

“…… Our thoughts strayed constantly without boundary, the ring of the division bell had begun”

As I listen to the serene sound of Gilmour’s slide guitar in the solitary confines of my room, I’m flush with images, sounds and thoughts of the recent past. They zip past in a random fashion, making perfect sense – and I’m caught in a time warp.
Only a song like High Hopes could have done this to me – help me vent and purge with spontaneity. There’s some sublime music in this world which is a cut above the rest – and the secret to listening to such music is that you’ve got to do it very rarely. At those times when you just know you’ve got to do it. When you’ve been through a phase of paradox, of irony, of chaos, of happiness and sadness that seem to oscillate with consummate ease, and when the thin line between opposites becomes obscure, and when you choose to reflect. And smile. And cringe. And alternate between the two involuntarily. And think of what might have happened. Of the girl who you could have gone out with. And the time you spent thinking about her. And a freakish car crash. And the running around that followed it. Of the tons of traveling that you did. And the laughter and happiness that happened during these travels. The beaches, the casinos, the neon,the skyscrapers, Scuderia Ferrari, the concerts, the hikes, the long drives,new friends and all that. Of the times when you met your best friend after a year, and told him about all this. And how hurtling yourself down in gravity can fill you with pristine euphoria. Of the longing to go home.Of moving on. And SO MUCH !

And the decisions that you’ve made. And the ones that you are gonna make. Research. Job. Money. Women. Career. Passions. Life. Etc. Etcetera is such an elegant expression. All encompassing. And about where you are headed. And where the people around you are headed as well. And you wonder…

“…The grass was greener
The light was brighter
The taste was sweeter
The nights of wonder….”

Gorgeousness and Gorgeosity; ...

..... thy name is Audrey Tautou in The Da Vinci Code :)

My Sunset Boulevard

(Sunset over the Pantamint from Dante's point - spring break trip)
So here I am in Starbucks, alone, sipping mocha blissfully at 5:30 am on a Saturday morning. There’s the delicious chocolate cupcake too! If you are wondering how the indolent creature pulled himself up to wake up this early on a WEEKEND morning, I wouldn’t blame you That’s a perfectly legitimate question. To clarify – NO, I didn’t wake up that soon. As usual, I simply didn’t sleep. I was lamenting to Deepti a couple of hours ago about how I no longer have the drive to write. So I brought my laptop, with a dogged determination to let loose some random ramblings.:). So, as I was hurtling down the road to the coffee shop, I saw the sun rise. It was desperately trying to peek through the clouds. I like sunrises and sunsets. They are those moments of tranquil and serene beauty, when you find yourself in unison with nature and life. Come to think of it, we are bestowed with two such moments every single day!. In Chennai, Elliots beach was a great place to see the sun rise and illuminate the sea with a radiant golden hue. We used to follow it up with a game of cricket on the beach. The terrace tank of my apartment was another great place to lie down and see the sun set into the sea, while contemplating about life, universe and everything. I remember some particularly brilliant ones in my Ooty and Kodaikanal trips. These were the cool-misty-mountain-hop sunsets that were so awesome for introspection. The one that is permanently etched in memory is one that I saw in Shimla last year – it was setting down behind a distant silhouette of hills. The sky was a sparkling orange to begin with but mellowed down to a bluish black. It was a prolonged sunset and I completely lost track of time.

Back in August, when I went to meet Arun, I saw a spectacular sundown over the Arabian sea in Nariman point,Bombay. And there was this sharp, penetrating, bright yellow sunlight bathing the Yosemite Valley just before nightfall, when we were driving back from a hiking trip last year. I also vividly remember the purple haze (that Jimi Hendrix would have been proud of) in New York, when we watched the sun set over the Manhattan skyscape.

Perhaps one of the most iridescent sunsets I have ever seen were in Washington DC. The sky, embedded with patches of purple, orange and red, provided a breathtaking background for a view of the Lincoln memorial from the Capitol Hill walkway.

DC had this knack of producing amazing sunsets and multicolored skies everyday when I was there. The cloud patterns were particularly intriguing.

We went on a hiking trip to Death Valley in spring break this March. The sunset over the dunes was exhilarating. It was Dali-esque – surreal beams of light emanating at different angles from the blue sky. For a noisy bunch, we were overpowered and sobered down by this spellbinding sight.




Of course, I forgot to mention this - sunsets and sunrises often remind me of the incredibly cute Julie Delpy :). Rings a bell?

Black Mamba Blog

I have SO MUCH to write about, and its not that I dont have the time. Inertia and Indolence. The two evils have been responsible for digging this blog's grave. But my blog is Beatrix Kido reincarnate. With Pai Mei's tutelage, it will slowly but surely come out of the sepulchral silence of the coffin, with resolve and resilience. :))
Ok, I'm evidently out of my mind right now, and I'm a hardcore QT fan. Back to the point.
First things first, I'm tagging Arun aka Sperms, my best friend who's now working for "The Firm". Watch out for his blogspace, he's an extremely good writer. He has also posted a piece which he and I wrote together once, in our jobless last semester at IIT. You can find it here.
Secondly, I'm convincing myself that I should write about my travels et al in the US. Will try earnestly :)
Last but not the least, I met GOD today - the legend - A R Rahman :). My 15 seconds of fame: I mentioned that the playback singer Chinmayi was a good friend of mine and that I'm his 'parama visiri' (transalates to 'ardent fan'). And pat came the reply "Thats cool! ". Awesome, that from a reticent man. Will put up pics on my photoblog soon.

Duality

Thought I may reflect on duality – which I sometimes feel is an all-encompassing attribute that governs life, science, philosophy and what not. Flesh and spirit. Matter and form. Art and intellect. Emotion and contemplation. Apollo and Dionysius. Wave and Particle. Good and Evil. And so on. Even the unisex culture that people are so excited about these days, is in essence, an acceptance of the equivalence of the interdependent states – the masculine and the feminine. Every concept, every issue and every facet of our life, I feel, can be viewed as an entity made up of two states. They embrace each other to form a whole, and thus appear in the form they do (subject to perception). It is however not necessary to do a forced bifurcation to apply this principle, the result of which could be called an illusion.

Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund is a magnificent work of literature that weaves fiction into the fabric of this seemingly fundamental and atomistic characteristic of nature. As the publisher truly notes: It is a theme that transcends all time. It is a body and soul shaking debate (Note the duality of the phrase!). The two protagonists N and G are portrayed as personifications of opposites - one adheres to a hermetic religious life and another into the more ‘decadent’ artistic life. It is a story of the friendship between these two characters. The dualism seems to be on a collision course, and yet, it only beautifully serves to strengthen their friendship built on differences and ensures that despite years of separation, they continually think of each other and enrich each other's life through a different world view. A duality of reciprocity between images (that serve as the guiding light for Goldmund) and ideas (-do- for Narcissus) is conveyed elegantly.

The novel’s great triumph is the portrayal of the universality of dualism: Hesse not only brings about a union of art and intellect; but he also shows convincingly that art itself in its pristine form reflects a dual nature. True Art, as a practice, as a form of expression is in itself ephemeral. Goldmund senses how his intense love of art could also fleetingly turn to hatred. Through the philosophy of the sublimity of art Goldmund (and hence, Hesse) conveys a sense of union between the father and mother worlds, of ‘mind and blood’. 'Encompassing utter sensuality and pure abstraction, a true work of art merges instinct and spirituality and hence becomes an enigma, one that bears the double face of male and female.'

Nadir

Yes, I have hit rock bottom. Half Dead. It is pretty hazy at Ground Zero.

This is gonna be fun. I wrote this really morbid description of _____'s face for an assignment in the creative writing course. I was searching desperately for inspiration, rather a singular face that could be well described. Lo behold! I hit upon our very own Antichrist superstar. Guess who?

Read on...

There is a solitary chair in the middle of nowhere, where darkness envelopes you, consumes you, that is, except for the chair illuminated by a pale, deathly glow. I do not care to trace its source, for my eyes are fixated on the chair. I have been promised a tryst with the face of the enigma that is ______, and so I look on closely with fear, apprehension and expectation. The pain of hypnosis almost starts to overwhelm me, and precisely at that moment does his face choose to bestow upon me the great ‘honor’.

The ghostly countenance emerges suddenly from the darkness to reveal its contours; a surreal silhouette from the black halo. The pitch black hair encapsulates the face all over, except for a couple of places from where _______’s patented white skin, made up with the executioner’s paint, glistens through. This is the white, and surprisingly not the black, that beats the resonant rhythm of Satanism. It starts to pervade the atmosphere around me. Stillness surrounds the face. Time freezes in its tracks. A hand moves ever so slowly in a none-too-subtle antichrist reference to slide the hair away to give me that stunning first look. The skin, though smooth and blemish-less, oozes insanity and depravity out of every single pore. The eyes look at you with scorn and sardonic glee, in all their glorious asymmetry, peeking out of a cloud of grease ; one reflects blue and the other white, a white without the central black plum, a white that sends spasms up your spine. The pupil, maybe, has sunk into oblivion – the inky blackness where he has spent most of his wakeful adult life, or perhaps he has chosen to pluck it out in one of his fits of murderous rage. The large lips are painted in shades of black and blue, in violent contrast to the rest of the face. They break into a lop-sided, condescending smile, a smile that combines with the eyes to mock at my faith, to deride the conventions that I live by. The smile also reveals his sharp, yellow teeth; the canines resemble those of a bloodthirsty vampire. They shine in the horrific ambience with a yellowish light, with the dull shimmer of corroded copper. The forked tongue that seems to have been dripped in blood, is reminiscent of the painting ‘Army of Darkness’ where the tongue of Satan embraces indulgence and perversity. The forehead is emblazoned with a tattoo, a fractal image of the esoteric, pagan symbol of Satan, the inverse pentagram that contains within itself a symbol of a gun in red. The aquiline nose with flaring nostrils seems to dart poisoned arrows at you, those that could slice opinions with lazy arrogance. The hollow, sunken cheeks seem to have been scooped out of his face. The piece de resistance, his ear rings that act as the perfect reflection of his persona, dangle by his jaw line. The devilishness of their design and the stark lines in them seem to dance of their own volition, to an ethereal, other worldly rhythm. Yet as _____ walks towards me I feel the distance grow. The farther his hand stretches out to touch me with its wretchedness, the more space seems to expand. Suddenly the scene melts in a whirl of color in sharp contrast to the simplicity of hues on the face.

This is pulp fiction, as is ________.

Keep the guesses going!

Two minute poetry(?!)

This is an amalgamation of Maggi noodles inspired two minute formula to pen down crap + Billy Joel inspired not-as-arbitrary-as-(we didn't start the fire) list of words and the poetic license of the free verse. Hahaha. So the topic I decided on was a list of things that make a modern day run-o’-the mill movie.

What makes a movie?

The budding writer
Latent talent? Or the recycled cliché?
Scavenging production houses
Perspiration,
Slammed doors on the face;
Approving investors found,
Warner Bro’s? Miramax?
Taut Screenplay, Farce auditions
The Casting Couch
Of Beauty and the ephemeral lust;
Ravenous recruiting, Beverly Bills,
Art, Music, Lyrics and Crew,
A megaphone and steaming brew.
Hoarse voice and the trivial hirsute (!)
Swaying Camera –
In a mystic dance;
Emotions titillate, Love
And the Raging Sex.
All the action and stunts :
Scintillate!
Editing done and cans packed
The red carpet rolls –
Dazzling Décolleté
Critics take centre stage;
Caprice, Rave, Ratings, Contentions.
Multiplexes, Millions, Money$
Blustering outta the blocks.

Underdogs and Sentimentalism*

Back to the good ol’ days of watchin cricket. I have been brooding and thinking about things that promise a lot but only end up disappointing me. So it was a welcome change to watch a lot of sport and of course the dazzling penelope's et al on the red carpet over the weekend (My mum was surprised to find me awake at 6 00 am Monday morning and commended my determination to wake up early to catch the Oscars !)

As i said, I watched cricket over the weekend after maybe , hmm, eons I guess . It was Australia Vs New Zealand, and as always I rooted for NZ. The fervent hope that some kind of a miracle was in the waiting lingered on and on, even though the match was clearly heading the Aussies’ way. This has slways been the case. If it were India versus any other country, I’d obviously back India. Any country vs Sri Lanka, Any country it would be. These are the couple of axioms which I adhere to zealously. Else, I realized it was something innate in me to root for the underdog. I thought of the other possibilities. Zim V/s SA, Zim it’d be to the last ball, though there’s not even an infinitesimal possibility that they’d win in the present circumstances with Mugabe breathing fire down the asses of Streaks and the like. Pak Vs Aus, definitely Pak. And on and on, I can go ahead with umpteen examples. This not only applies to cricket. Now this is a thought that strikes me. I remember the times when I'd join a new school (I’ve changed schools four times in my life, though these have been really early in life) and feel that singular delight I could take from coming from behind, from an unknown guy to beating the established figures at the new school. NOT sadistic pleasure, please. I guess it is an inherent trait that used to show its head this way in my childhood. Now it probably peeks out silently, sometimes without my knowledge, through other actions of mine. Why even the suave Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca plays the eternal underdog Rick Blaine, where he fights wars on the side of the underdogs. So the question arises: the same one that Captain Renault poses to Rick, is the underdog always necessarily a sentimentalist? Is he a cynic with a gossamer veil underneath which there lies the quintessential sentimentalist? Hmm Am I such a person? I definitely know that are no deceptive facets to my character. There’s no question of me hiding behind a secret and unreal veil.. I’m convinced about this. But I still cannot answer the latter part about the sentimentalist. That may require a bit more introspection, that'd be when I attain higher levels of joblessness!. Of course, skipping topics randomly is my forte, as you would have realized by now. :d

*Now is that even a word in the English language?

Polish short fiction spruces up a weekend of ennui !

Let's see how long this latest resolution lasts: "I must blog more often."

The weekend was absolutely soporific. The only useful thing that I managed to do was to finish a RD collection of short stories. A pretty eclectic mix. But there was one called the "The LightHouse Keeper of Aspin Wall" , that stood out from the rest. It's by this ultra-patriotic Polish Nobel Laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz , who's reputed to have been awarded the Nobel for the sheer volume of his works, about 60 of them; a contribution when combined with fine technical finesse in writing, can hardly be ignored for Literature's top prize. The story, in many ways, elucidates similar, if not the same concepts as in Hesse's Siddhartha, where the unity of consciousness, nature, material and living entities is portrayed elegantly. It is the story of a man who has been a nomad all his life,a life that has been ravaged by many failures in his endeavors; of a man who has been relentlessly pursuing dreams, a man with a benign and noble heart, a man endowed with infinite patience, most importantly a man who has almost lost his Polish roots as a result of his traveling and finally embraces solitude as a lighthouse keeper. There are many philosophical undercurrents in this story, which is written in a lucid style. I found the online text version at http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/1447/ . This is peppered with a few mistakes, but that can be ignored, I guess. <'Embracing Solitude', by the way, was one of my earliest poems!>

Meanwhile, life continues to move on at a pretty sluggish pace. Last week, we went out to Tangerine at Alwarpet on a friend's app treat. The place is classy, the food's classier. Had a Mexican sizzler and a chocolate dessert. We also laughed our hearts out at Sathyam where 'National Treasure' is playing. An eminently laughable movie . 50 bucks down the gutters. Diane Kruger looks much better than she did in Troy, where she was hardly anywhere close to being as beautiful as the Helen of Troy.

Let me see how "The Lord of the Flies" is going to treat me. I hope it won't be a waste of time!

Snatch – Of the GREEDY PIGS and the NEMESIS

I watched this film for the nth time today. Why? Oh yeah, you need reasons, do you?. Immensely Hilarious. Super Slapstick stuff. Stunning camera work for a violent comedy. Hmmm a heady mix that is! A Racy plot. Fantastic background score. The Brit accent tops it all, dosent it? And above all lotsa FART!

The veteran Alan Ford as Brick Top is simply awesome. He steals the thunder from Brad Pitt and Jason Statham though he appears only in a few scenes. There’s one ‘classy’ BM - Brit Mafia dialogue at Winamp 46:11 (remaining time) on the DivX cut that is highly recommended from my side for all slapstick comedy lovers. It’s about How a cool Mafia Boss assails a pair of juvenile, part time thieves (who don’t know that he’s one) disposing a corpse and scares ‘em to death. For those who cannot see this fantastic movie in the near future here are some parts of the dialogue which I quote from memory!:

‘‘What you gonna do with your man there? You're always gonna have problems lifting a body in one piece. Apparently the best thing to do is cut it up into six pieces and pile it all together. After you got six pieces you gotta get rid of 'em, of course you can't just leave it in the deep freeze for your mum to discover, can ya? And then I hear the best thing to do is feed 'em to pigs. You gotta starve the pigs for a few days, then the sight of a chopped up body looks like curry to a drunk. ……………. They go through bone like it's butter. You gotta have a few pigs though you need about sixteen, they will go through a body that weighs two hundred pounds in about eight minutes that means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute,. . . Hence the expression as greedy as a pig.”

Really you got to see Ford sayin this in one sitting to the completely baffled thieves, I’m sure it’ll leave you in splits.

He goes on to scare them:

‘Do you know what Nemesis means?

A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent, personified in this case by a horrible ****. Me.’

Lock, Stock and two smokin' Barrels is another mov of the same genre. Awesome.

But the violence is excessive, yes. Coarse language. If you despise these, then you musn't see these movs.

Reflections on 'Felix Krull'

Yes, I know the last post was misleading. I thought that I must blog more often and it was with a momentary lapse of reason* that I penned it for self motivation, only to find myself drowned again in mounds of other activities that was characteristic of the last semester. I have not much to write, so I thought I might as well write what I thought about the book 'Confessions of Felix Krull' by Thomas Mann, as part of a reading assignment for my humanities course.

Read on...

Basically, the novel recounts the confessions from the enchanted career of the con man extraordinaire Felix Krull, a man unhampered by the moral precepts that govern the conduct of ordinary people. According to me, the central theme that Mann probably envisaged to convey through this novel is the idea of Interchangeability. 'With a change of clothes and make-up, the servitors might often just as well have been the masters, and many of those who lounged in the deep wicker chains, smoking their cigarettes, might have played the waiter. It was a pure accident that the reverse was the fact, an accident of wealth; for an aristocracy of money is an accidental and interchangeable aristocracy’. Mann reflects extensively on this concept throughout the novel, particularly the Marquis de Venosta episode seems to bring this out clearly. Felix is charmed by the ambiguity of his dual existence. Which was the real one? Which was the masquerade? He says ‘ Seldom do we realize that with just a change of appearance, consciously or not, we are able to lead parallel existences in society... ‘I masqueraded in both capacities, and the undisguised reality behind the two appearances, the real I, could not be identified because it actually did not exist.’

Another highlight is Professor Kuckuck’s lengthy monologue addressed to Krull. Though it seems out of place in the book, the ideas conveyed in it are singular. For example, ‘The Lust for the new’ is supposed to be the most important attribute of travel. The ephemeral nature of ‘Life’ in space-time and the three spontaneous generations – Being out of Nothingness, the awakening of Life from the Being, and the Birth of Man are other important motifs that Mann discusses gave me food for thought.

Mann’s fundamental definition of perception is overawing. The musing “Perception, that visual feasting on the human spectacle as it unfolds in the fashionable districts of a great city – whither I went by preference ……… passionately ambitious youth” makes interesting reading.

Mann’s interpretation of the principle of duality is revealed through his description of the dual entities/combinations like the brother-sister couple in Frankfurt and the mother-daughter duo of Madame Kuckuck and Zaza. Krull is enchanted by the nature of these relationships. It is probably reflective of Mann’s own eccentricities and his way of looking at human bonds and their significance

One of the pivotal episodes that has been etched in my mind is the Muller Rose incident. Felix is taken to the theater by his father to see a play in which one of the father's old school friends (Rose) is starring. Felix is captivated by the magnetic attraction between audience and star. This is made even greater by the back stage visit he and his father make after the show. The star turns out to be much shorter than he appeared to be, with reddish hair instead of black and rough skin instead of the smooth skin he appeared to have. His manner is coarse, not like the refined character he portrayed. Topping it off, he is in need of continuous reassurance that he did a good job, whereas the character he played was supremely confident and poised. This is the key to Felix's realization that for most of the world illusion is reality, and that the illusionist needs the audience just as the audience needs the illusionist. For most of us, the layman’s precept that ‘Illusion is reality’ is an integral part of our mental makeup, perhaps.

Wow that was a lot of typing indeed. I'll sign off with a very interesting quote I came across on the web about this novel ...

The famous Scot critic Edwin Muir: "Here is that unheard of, that supposedly impossible thing, a good German comic novel…". Are the Germans listening?!

* Floydian plagiarism.

The Mothball's remarks on the CloudBurst

"It's been raining Guns 'n Roses in November in Chennai. I must thank destiny for having bestowed on me this special privilege of being one among a chosen few to witness this once-in-a-blue-moon phenomenon in our city. Of course, there are no second thoughts on the issue of the water scarcity: In the parlance of the probabilistic sciences, the November rains and May’s parchedness will perennially be mutually exclusive events."

I welcome myself into the realms of blogging with this pertinent observation.

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.