Grammar 101

Okay I cannot claim to be a "know-it-all" as far as grammar is concerned. But given minimal awareness I may not make such mistakes. This is live from a B-School (event frenzy in B-Schools going on these days)

"---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Events Coordinator <events@%$$%%.org>

Date: Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 3:15 AM
Subject: $%$%$ presents Paragana 2008 :Launch of Chrysalis and Engrave ,Business Plan Competitions
To: events@%$$%%.org

Hi All,
due to a server error the attachments could be delivered.
Kindly RESEND this mail to all your college students.
Apologize for any inconvenience caused.
"
Okay so due to a server error normally the attachments cannot be sent, but curiously it was sent in this case. D'accord
But it get curious-er (pardon me), they want the receipient college to apologize for the server error. LOL, LMAO, ROFLOL and suchlike.

(so much for event organization pressure)

A complaint

I just have one complaint against the "book" - It does not capture the transformation of its own author as a character without, while doing the same within. Or perhaps this could be an idea that could be explored in the same book.

Linguistic overture

It's very puzzling, for me atleast, to see two words describing the same action, having different connotations but the same letters just rearranged.
I need not explain, but see the difference between - Veto and Vote

Linguistic overture

Touch taken to hurting proportions loses a "t" and become ouch.

Technology as an enabler - chuck that

This happened to me just now -

So when I am commenting on an article I am reading on LiveMint, which had some problems in linking. Apparently the third page of the article has been wrongly linked to another article by Vir Sanghvi on Rolling Stones while I was reading an article on data mining. I try to point out that, and I get this error (INVALID written next to my first name).

So today's discovery- I have an invalid first name. Thank you Amma, Appa for giving me an invalid name. Ayyo!!!

Linguistic overture

Matter - Meter = Eat

The bus and the child

I am sitting in my dreary bus ride back to home from my place of work which is so far that I could come from Bombay to Bangalore in that time. Fortunately the bus is unusually empty, meaning the average visible range is greater than 2 metres; which for me is a blessing. Don't confuse the bus being empty to having empty seats, all I am saying is that the seats are full, and there are very few people standing.
So I do what I like to do, just see what is happening around me and we reach a bus stop en route. Not so suddenly, but I see a pair of eyes that board the bus. A pair of young eyes, if you might. A pair eyes that are so wide as if they want to take everything around them in a single swoop. A pair of eyes that have the glitter of a young child who wants to know what is happening around, saying silently "I want to be there, I want to be here, I want to be everywhere". I presume that they still are not familiar to the idea of selective perception (blaming it on evolution) or become so apathetic to what happens around us (blaming it on age).
What I do notice in them is the thirst and vivaciousness which have long dried away from my eyes, the zeal to absorb every little detail around me with equal zest and without no bias.
Has age caught up with me or have I become too much selectively perceptive? It just goes on the reinforce what I have long believed to be true and now it is approaching the proportions of being declared as an axiom that "whatever be my age, the day the child inside me dies; that day I will believe that my age has finally caught up with me".

So back to the bus, the child (with these eyes) initially scans her environment, seeming so excited about everything enveloping her, the bus, the metal pillar in between her and the empty seat, the TV hoisted above her head, the sounds around her, the whistling of the conductor, the horns of desperate people in motorised vehicles, the blur of lights in the front, the incessant braking by the driver and the people. She feels wobbly being in a place which looks beyond her control and feels puzzled and excited by the gush of all these intrusions. Finally a hand comes from behind and they are safely anchored to an empty seat ending the intrusions and she settles comfortably into the world she knows best and is comfortable with, the world created by her mother who is travelling with her.

!! I/He/She just want to be 34 !!

They ALL WANT TO be

34

I tried playing badminton resolutely for 4 hours a day and for a month and finally on one fine day someone said "you have lost infinitesimally". I felt "how mean can people be?"
She tried being in a GM, although "genetically modified" would have been a better preference. But it left her high and dry. Zapped, tongues unleashed looking for something that had a zing.She cried "what a waste of time?"
He tried catching the "11 number ki bus, the faster version". However his perfection got in the way because he could not do it just like that.

Then I and he tried smoking which they said helps. I and he realised "in addition to want to being 34 now I and he have to want things not black".
Oh! Then I and she just said "those 32s will always live in perpetual fear of reaching 34s". Someone said "that's escapism". I and She realised "damn you will power".

But then we realised we are just the way we are, unlike a Sisyphus, we have stopped climbing and have stopped wanting. Whatever comes our way is something unasked for. So when someone repeats that infinitesimal argument, we just feel happy for being rewarded for a perception that is a result of not being with us for some period of time. We know because we have not done anything, yet for someone I/he/she felt marginally less than 36.
Oh! Did I tell you, I am 36, he is 38 and she is 35.
PS - Numbers greater than 30 denote waist sizes and number 11 denotes a figure of speech for walking.

Authors I don't know

Periodically I read something and find out that there are so many authors that I just -

1. Don't know about
2. Have heard the name and the works but never sampled them.

This is a list which I think would be aggregating from now on to index my ignorance. Today's list

1. David Foster Wallace - Suicide death on Sep 12, 2008, apparently very famous for Infinite Jest. A remembrance posted on Slate can be found here. Target #1
2. James Joyce - I know about Ulysses, never read it, but now in Marshall McLuhan's book "Understanding media" I keep coming back to Finnegan's Wake. Target #2

May God grant me the humility to understand that I cannot read all such great people in my finite life. Let me know if you people know about them.

AMEN.

Update 1 - David Wallace's short story "Incarnations of burned children" can be found here

Disease in a pseudo mathematical notation ...

Pseudo rant follows.
I've been reading Marshall McLuhan with avid curiosity for the past week. I cannot claim to understand every word that he writes, so much so in certain places he seems far beyond my intellectual capacity. Anyways there are truck loads of gems in the seminal book "Understanding Media" like -
"Medium is the message"
"Global Village"
"Media as an extension of the human body"
"Electric age as the mirroring of our own central nervous system"
"Mankind's history is the result of 'taking up the chin'"
I've been altered by his message forever. Coming to what I was thinking, let us denote disease as a pseudo mathematical function - D(O) where
D- Function representing the verb "to induce disease or any other kind of discomfort"
O - Object of the function namely an organism
The current approach in healthcare is simply this function "D" calling itself. In other words, the modern day approach towards healthcare is just D(D(O)) where -
The inner paranthesis denotes the attack of the disease on the organism
Outer paranthesis denotes the attack of disease on the disease itself or in order to cure a disease, the disease must be subjected to discomfiture. Phew, lots of disease in that statement.

Technology as an enabler - Rethink

My energies and time and everything else had been devoted to our nouvelle marketing blog - admark.wordpress.com and I feel like a real traitor writing about wordpress in blogger, anyways who cares.

Coming to what I wanted to rant about - is technology is really an enabler? In India? At a big software company?
The Scene - Induction program for new joinees at a big S/W company where I am interning.
HR Speak - Dear what is your second name?
Secondname Speak - Ma'm I dont have a second name. (That does happen, don't raise your eyebrows yet!)
HR Speak - OUR DATABASE cannot accept a name without a second name.
****
Me Speak - WHAT (for the database comment)? What technology is this? How can this happen at this company?
Me Speak - What kind of technology is this? I know they might use a combination of the first name and the last name as the primary key for their database, but the instant reaction was - WTF?
****
Secondname Speak (in his/her head) - Phew! Now I have to invent a second name?
Ya! Its okay to raise your eyebrows now.
Amen

Let's talk Harry!!

I am back and with me I bring along Harry and his cohorts.

Believe me Harry Potter is either a piece of Blytonian kitsch or a great adventure similar to the likes of the Hobbit in the Lord of the Rings. It is either this or that. Can I say either you love or hate him? Probably yes but I count those who say the series is okay among the supporters. Reports abound the fourth estate that Harry and his ensemble have instilled the fun of reading into kids. Again!! Do I think so, I am a vehement affirmative. Let me relate my story. I started reading when I was past 15, and started off with popular Sheldons and Ludlums and Archers. Slowly I graduated to literature and the likes of Michel Foucault and Jean Baudrillard. But then Harry happened. The initial wave of exhilaration that started with “Philosopher’s stone” was enough to sustain the energy to wait, to be anxious and to be satisfied for the “Hallows” which came this year (2007) on July 21st in India, so to say.

For seasoned readers like me, what comes with the package of Harry Potter is very unique. It lets me, and people like me, to fulfil the voids left by “not” reading the Enid Blytons, The Erle Stanley Gardners, The Nancy Drews and The Famous Fives. It always feels like going back and regaling me to the wonder that is the creation J.K.Rowling. I often wonder what would be the reaction of an adult who is given an opportunity to read Enid Blyton for a fortnight. I know that “I am 23 years old and I am too old to read that now” would be the reaction. This is the challenge that Harry Potter poses to the “kid” among all of us.

But to say that Harry Potter is “child-lit” is to do a grave injustice to the evolution of the series. The silhouette of the characters has progressively become darker and darker. Atypical of “Child-Lit” Harry potter resembles many of the “special-power” men like Batman, Superman so on and so forth. All of them are orphans or have become situational orphans. The special power inside them is different and in fact differentiates them from the other lot. In this case Harry has the magic but the “power of love” is what differentiates him from the “others”. All our superheroes have troubled childhood and often find a paternal figure somewhere during the course of their growing up. The similarities don’t stop here. Somehow the superheroes and in our case, “Harry” are all socially aloof. Harry Potter and his cohorts are agents of therapy of older souls like me and countless others.

However Harry Potter is a linguist’s delight. For those of you who love the gift of language may take note at the first instance that the word “Harry” means to loot or to plunder. Isn’t that an anathema of name the protagonist like this? Phew!! It does not stop here. The entire story from book one to book 7 is littered with linguistic revelations like this. Let us take “Avada Kedavra” or the killing curse. Does the second word look familiar? Kedavra is derived from the word “Cadaver” which means a corpse. What about “Wingardium Leviosa”? Well this is the charm that causes objects to “Levitate”; I guess the connection is clear. Probably the best one is “Levicorpus”. It is an intelligent combination of levitation and corpus which means body. The list goes on with the ilk of “Oppugno”, “Expecto Patronum”, “Fiendfyre” and several such likes. The antagonist “Voldemort” is derived from the word “mort” meaning death. Harry ultimately steals his death from Voldemort by dying himself first. The book is a treasure trove of innocently named characters which when seen in a perspective turn out to be a real surprise. Perhaps in the rush of reading one might not note that “Kreacher” sounds same as “Creature”, a derogatory remark on the lowliness of the house elf. The endearing character “Molly Weasley” is an overprotective one, now does “mollycoddle” sound related. I guess I could go on and on.

Perhaps then Harry Potter is all about magic and it depends on the way you see it. The naming of characters, places and the spells draws from such varied sources that I cannot stop and wonder where I should stop. The esteemed reader of this eulogy will know that I am an aficionado of “Harry the-boy-who-lived Potter”.

"Small wonder that spell means both a story told, and a formula of power over living men." - J.R.R. Tolkien

Life like it was not

Some random observations on my existence follows in a list style.

1. Nowadays it is harder to decide whether to read a book or attend to my blog feeds. Well don't give me the structure, form and the plot based logic. It is failing and I am witnessing it destroying my reading capacity (books only).
2. Now I let the world know what I am doing, feeling now and real time. Thanks to twitter and the great minds that I am following on it.
   
3. It is both amazing and appalling to see the kinds of minds that exist on the web. The majority is still towards the amazing side.
4. Agencyfaqs throws up some interesting thoughts - SMS is more powerful than SPAM. What the fuck? So now I will get promotions to enlarge my "weeny" on my mobile phone.
   
5. Indian homes still have one TV set though the members of this family keep on changing their apparel, mobile phones and what not. Agencyfaqs informs that another TV could kill the family by letting everyone see his/her own channel when they want it. Perhaps its the time to further nuclearise the Indian nuclear family. So the TV manufacturers should say "We offer you a TV that you can own and see it without the hassles of "agreeing" to see what your family wants".
6. Cleaning the blog feeds, for those on the web constantly, has now qualified to be tagged as "doing a chore" like cleaning those windows after 6 months. Just that it happens once in a few days or weeks. Talk about everyone being an information voyeur.

Amen.
-Egghead

Rants due to the distresses of a vacation

Catching up with friends of the yonder has become a tedious job now. Suddenly I have to put up with monosyllabic replies from those who used to talk loquaciously (at least not the extreme of being monosyllabic).
What is it that has changed?

1. Is it me?
   
2. Is it my attitude?
3. Is it the whole deal?

This is the conversation that typically happens -
Me/Them - How are you?
Them/Me
(If the reply is "hmmm ... fine", there it goes for a toss and forget catching up)
This is a typical defensive reply implying "I am okay and do not wish to divulge/share the details of my own life".
This reply can be delayed by deliberate additions of "Who are you", "What are you doing here", "Long time yaar" etc etc.
Me/Them - How is work?
(Again if the reply is "hmmm .. fine", it means that yet another thread for opening a conversation is lost. I don't try and neither do they)

Lessons learnt -

1. Catching up means like a cultivation. Without the regular watering and tilling, the soil won't produce cauliflowers (a flower, still)
2. If you have not caught up, try as soon as possible. But in my case, my conversations have dried up and I have not picked up the skills of how to keep a conversation fertile.
   
3. I have lost and have stopped catching up. I always see the same question in my mind - "On what pretext should I talk? What do I speak with them?"
4. Friendship is an effort and distance not only separates them but also their lives, from me. There is always an implicit need to keep that connection with their lives. Once the connection is lost, all such conversations become superficial and baseless without the "masala" that I used to share.
   
5. Friendship can become a chore more often than not it can become a useless chore.

All throughout I just remember one song that has pestered me long enough. Verbatim copy of lyrics, now make much more sense now.

Champagne Supernova / Oasis

How many special people change
How many lives are living strange
Where were you when we were getting high?
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball
Where were you while we were getting high?

Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova in the sky

Wake up the dawn and ask her why
A dreamer dreams she never dies
Wipe that tear away now from your eye
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball
Where were you when we were getting high?

Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova in the sky

Cos people believe that they're
Gonna get away for the summer
But you and I, we live and die
The world's still spinning round
We don't know why
Why, why, why, why

How many special people change
How many lives are living strange
Where were you when we were getting high?
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball
Where were you while we were getting high?

Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova in the sky

Cos people believe that they're
Gonna get away for the summer
But you and I, we live and die
The world's still spinning round
We don't know why
Why, why, why, why

How many special people change
How many lives are living strange
Where were you when we were getting high?
We were getting high
We were getting high
We were getting high
We were getting high

Rants of the misguided nature

Days before the election day in Bangalore a billboard on the road exclaims -
"YOU are the reason why we are ashamed of ourselves. Change that and don't forget to vote this time"

Excuse me, I am the reason why some crapbag is ashamed of himself. Much fun came along. Perhaps they meant that we should be ashamed of ourselves for constituting such a lackadaisical political setup. That is why we should go ahead and vote and constitute an incrementally better setup this time.

But am I offended, yes. Everytime I see this billboard. Gosh my english sucks.

Fights of logic in a vacation

Scene - 1
Vacationing in Sringeri (a Jyotirmath) and on a dip in the nearby river of Tunga.
Scene - 2
Perfectly undressed (with the undergarments on, I mean) man jumps for the water with shampoo on his hands, waiting to be applied on his head.
Scene - 3
Lets call the man, TM (troublemaker). TM's wife (TMW) calls out loud in an endearing tone (for her husband) which more than reveals a fear inside (of the guard sitting beside) and says

TMW - TMji don't use shampoo or soap, otherwise the guard will do some galatta (create a scene)
TM - No it does not matter (and rinses his hair and his action is perfectly coordinated with the movement of the guard's neck away from the river)

Me - Sir, please don't do that. Like you there are zillions, like me, who like to and love to take a holy dip in these waters (and do their pujas etc).
TM - How much difference (damage he should have said) can the amount of shampoo, on my head, can make?
Me - (Boom, baah, bust) I mumble. Can I say that the 8 grams of shampoo on your head causes a damage of Rs. 1000 worth of aquatic life.

Lessons learnt -

1. Economics - Had it worked?
   
2. People - Only driven by fear, ruckus and not logic.
   
3. Education - My education is not helping me and most importantly his education is not making him aware as well.
   

What the heck?

Linguistic overtures ...

Quirky, related? Yes the words in English !!!
Gateway = Getaway

On a completely unrelated note, a quote that I coined yesterday which had been on my mind for long. I can't prove but an empirical study on me reveals so -
"Success of any education is a direct measure of confusion that it creates."
So long as I did not know why did I pay so much for a popcorn in a multiplex, I paid. But now I know it is due to couple of factors -
1. Simple economics - demand and supply - Inelastic demand. (Is it right? I doubt)
2. Marketing - Discriminatory pricing, fleecing the customer.

A good education just widens the ways and angles in which your mind can roam. It gives structure but it also gives you so many roads and alleyways which you can now roam. Earlier there would have been the way, only one way or you thought there existed only one way which was the right one.

Sometimes...

Sometimes its just the music in your head that you don't need anything to sway.
Sometimes you can just float in the crescendo inside that takes your breath away.

Sometimes its not the lights and the water that tell.
Sometimes its just the reflection beneath that come alive and your eyes are swell.

Sometimes its not the outside that tears you apart.
Its just the inside which holds you apart.

Sometimes its just ....
you are good, you are bad.

Sometimes its just ....
you are ugly, you are beautiful.

But still its just ....
you want to be with a feeling of someone
who feels that the sunshine still comes up your arse :-)

Sometimes
Its just
plain
and
its just
you.

And before this moment of light dies,
I want to be my own sunshine, not someone else's.

The inspiration -

Talking about "IT", getting miffed and finally pissed!!!!

Apparently "Crossword" does not have a tab for searching books and I was miffed. When I tried to Landmark this is what I got -


I am pissed. The website was devoid of any eye-sore but this is not even an eye-sore. IT miffed and pissed. This is what I was searching for -Nytimes recommends it here.
Amitava Kumar recommends it here.
Marginal Revolution's post here.
Finally TED's post here.

All this while my bated breath dies out looking at the alien oriental font tracked from Landmark to Sify. Phew !!! I wait to pounce on it.

Movie today !!

There are some feelings that rush up inside you when specific things happen. Today, while opening the first pages of "On Beauty" by Zadie Smith, some thing happened. I guess it is the bliss of first few pages of a book, when you are off reading for eons. Worded descriptions became beautiful visual treats and at once I felt I was back, in my elements, enjoying the word-play of the author and revelling in it, yes that's the right word "revel".

The movie ended, and "the bluest eyes in Texas" is still roaming somewhere in my damn head playing on and on. The effect is the total incapability of emotions that strike you after a "breaking" experience, that sometimes, movies can be. Emoting is taken for granted, well I felt today, no you can lose that, ineffable, that's the right word. The lump in your throat lingers on and on and on, and refuses to let go.

Now showing - Never see, but once seen you will never forget!!!!
With "Bluest eyes in Texas - By Nina Person/ Nathan Larson

Movie today !!

Not a movie by any stretch. A ride in damned hell for sure. See it for yourself and see if you can pass the night sleeping. I don't care to say no more.

Now showing -

Linguistic Overtures

English language quirks, mathematically speaking.
Intim"id"ate - Intimate = " ID ", coincidence or Freud coined these words.

Movie today !!

Self referential dialogues, add to that a father who defends cigarettes and tries to be the "role-model" for his son, phew!!! I would say tough job and definitely principled negotiation turned on its head!!! Let me make my point on self-referential dialogues - clear (like GNU!!!).

Nick Naylor (NN): What about lobbyists? (in a lecture to 3rd graders)
Kids: What do you talk about?
NN:I speak on behalf of cigarettes.
Kid:My mom used to smoke, she says cigarettes kill!!!
NN goes on to refute the kid's argument by saying that her mom is not an expert, then he says -
NN:There will always be people trying to tell you "what to do" and "what to think". I am here to say that when someone tries to act like some sort of an expert, you can respond "who says".

Now this response undermines the authority and hence the dialogue. But imagine if these kids respond "who says" and that's where GNU comes in, for information GNU is self referential - GNU Not Unix. Anyway I am high on gas, enjoy this piece of great film making.

Now showing

Movie today !!

Style, independent film, perfect cast and direction they say. I say stylish, dunno much about direction, positional bargaining (eeks!!!) and "Either its my way or the highway". Now do I need to say more?

Now showing -

Movie today !!

Well, strange homecoming, with all those "i-had-left-them" friends who keep waiting for you and ever be the faithful one. Add to that lingering tracks - sample them
1. In the waiting line - Zero7
2. Don't Panic - Coldplay
3.Love will come through - Travis

Well, nostalgia for out-boarders, reminiscent and reminded me of home, friends and forgetting and remembering that I have forgotten.

Now showing -

Movie today !!

One day down from ++2007 and a tepid movie with some real mind-bending soundtracks like Alanis Morissette, Sarah McLachlan. Glittering eyes, Ernest Hemingway, some real nice dialogues, but forget the movie listen to the following -
1. Angel - Sarah McLachlan
2. Iris - Goo Goo Dolls
3. If god will send his angels - U2
4. Uninvited - Alanis Morissette

Now showing -

Movie today !!

Exams screwing around and new year that just meant, in programming terminology, ++year. To add to that all and sundry sending mail and for-what-I do-not-know wishing everyone. Anyways movies and romantic it is.
A Good Year - bond yields, overworked MBA life's post-cursor and a cute french femme to top it all. See once - forget later.
Now showing -

Movie today !!

He wants to die and you wonder, why does suicide need more than a person, other than the self-perpetrator. The movie is a story of a Sisyphus, the mythical man who does his job only to lose it all at the top and start all over again. By the end it is the viewer has the responsibility to decide whether Mr. Badii is a sisyphus or not.
Mr. Badii sits in a mountain-esque setting, all alone, with sounds of excavators and dumpings all around. Just him and these sounds, a very profound scene, if you can figure it.

Now showing - My first Iranian movie - Thanks Saurabh.

Movie today !!

The man, the voice, the void and the end!!! His profligacy and his popularity were of the extremes. The problem with not liking this movie is many fold. After all the more uncertain the character is the more certain is his demise. All great things come in small quanta. In retrospect I wonder whether had he been alive, would it have made the difference. Try to prove it, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt have one thing in common. The number 27, go figure.

Expressions like demi-god seem like compromise. He talks of limitlessness and freedom yet the next moment he seeks a hand. He talks of Oedipus, 1984 seems to be written for this song. I am losing myself in “the end” and so whatever may everyone say, The Doors is good, sad, limitless yet constrained by the rule of 27.

“I am the poet and you are my muse” lying in Pere-Lachaise.

Now showing

Movie today !!

A meditative study on individual / group behaviour, negotiation schemes, personality types, and the definition of reasonable doubt.
Now showing

Movie today !!

Bang!! Bang!! Bang!! ... "Ha Ha Ha Ha" - Li'l Dice after his first kill and a fatal grin!! Reminded me of that "ultra violence" and "clockwork orange". After seeing so many "bloody" movies even I have been normalised by violence. Showing violence does not seem to offer that "tense" moments that reveal the vulnerability of the character, to me. So I search for the subplots and the context, and damn the same old zero-sum game, the same vicious circle is what I see.

Damn the normalcy of violence. Some days before I met an ACP here, she also seems "normalised" by violence. "Abhi ek threat aaya", she said with a grin on her face, and her eyebrows in constricted "tension".

Now showing - real story of the favelas, Li'l Dice nee Li'l Z and Buscape, por favore !!!

Movie today !!

"I think dad is having me in my dreams" - A daughter
Disturbing, yet evoking no comments as revealed in a "Festen". Thanks Saurabh !!!

Now Showing Dogme95 style

Movie today !!

Who watches those who are watching and those are who are watching know that they are being watched? Surveillance is a zero sum game by above and our innate scepticism.
-- "The Departed".

Now showing -

Paati, me and murukkus !!

Paati means grandmother in tamizh (and not tamil, I hate that spelling). She was making what we relish as murukkus, which are a snack made of rice flour and a complex web at that. This is what a murukku looks like -

And I wondered isn't this magic. I was looking at the sharp twists and turns and was wondering at their preciseness and I remembered science. Wasn't science all about preciseness and a kind of beauty that lends itself to mathematics. It was the same case here, but this was made by my paati. Well I wondered this is not science but what I learnt long ago called as tacit knowledge, which is reinforced by years of practice. It is very interesting that small events and anecdotes build one's knowledge which in retrospect seems very obvious. A typical example would be to see how her fingers roll around the rice flour to make this perfect shape, which she says she finally achieved in 1982, quoting "25 years of service". Do I say "ROFLOL", no. I said you are wonderful darling.
My paati says she has been making them since she was 10 and her mother used to make one on each hand i.e. two per person and my paati was using one hand. And I wondered how ?
Then I asked, has she ever wondered who can make them like she does and she was blank. Then it stuck me like a loss staring at me, that will catch up unawares sometime in the near future. Interestingly, she said her daughter can match up with her, sometime. Interestingly, none of her maatu-ponnu ( daughter-in-laws) can ever achieve this level that she has managed to achieve. I wonder this is six-sigma or not. So I thought then on, what happens to such tacit knowledge which gets filtered across generation. Why does this get filtered? Well is it a question of interests or relevance or priorities or sometimes just the vicariousness of the experience or just that because it is available outside? Tomorrow the next generation would forget that someone in their own family used to make it by their own hands labouring for 4 hours for 2.5 kilograms of rice flour.

Will someone preserve this tacit knowledge? I sure wanted to and made a start today and this is what I managed. I have made a start but wonder whether would I be able to capture all that my paati has in her head before she becomes inaccessible? Do I know is a wrong question because no one else knows? After all does this change the end result - everything is crushed in our mouths and it does not matter from where it comes. Just that if my paati makes it, the relish is much more exponential.

Will someone preserve this tacit knowledge? It matters to me and I realise I have at least taken a step forward and hope someday I will be making them the way my dearest paati made it.

Amen !!!!

Slokas, sastrigal and me!!!

Certain events that happened recently have caught me in a difficult position. Dying traditions across generations within a single family, perhaps. The death is chosen changing priorities and also the environment in which the generation is brought up.
We had a house warming ceremony and as usual I and my dad were chanting the Sanskrit slokas which I had learnt. This induction to slokas is a normal part of a tam-bram upbringing and so I learnt it along with rudram, chamakam and Vishnu sahasranamam (a thousand names of Lord Vishnu) as well. For the uninitiated they are slokas and pretty long ones at that.
So everyone, by implication my relatives and our generation, watches us dumbfounded along with the sastrigal, who conduct the ceremony, wondering -
1. How come they know all this ? ( how come we missed it ? )
2. How come they know all this ? ( this time the sastrigal, wondering about a professional threat or a sense of relief that there are people who know these slokas )

So I wonder who chose not to learn? I have learnt some Sanskrit and it feels wonderful reciting them with the intonations and all. To quote a specific example - imagine about 50 people reciting slokas together in a crescendo and wonder the kind of environment it creates, quite akin to a concert of Oasis or Pt. Birju Maharaj. Within my family tree, generations have side-stepped these things. Well is it a question of interests or relevance or priorities or sometimes just the vicariousness of the experience? I am gloomy at what I see.

Linguistic Overtures

I am writing again after a long long time. This time my focus has somehow turned into language and its peculiarities. Here are some gems (according to me obviously).

1. "Begum" - "Be"+"Gum" meaning without any sadness, what a farcical word this one.
2. Incidentally if you have not wondered ever "Bedroom" has an interesting jumbled up word which is "Boredom".
3. Two unseemingly related words which are again jumbles of each other - "Teacher" and "Cheater".
4. Propitiously "women ...... men" and the question to you is what fills that dots (a mathematical symbol). The answer is ">" because men on both side cancel out. Now this has some deep insights.

Languages created by humans are so beautiful and they are so quirky that no one notices these small yet very profound links.

A realisation albeit late

It's lying in front of you and me. It's just that we do not realise that. Living its life in an afterglow, a shakti. I hate to submit that it is the social mores that seek to "disgregate" them into conventional roles, which are then appendaged with prejudice, discrimination and countless violations, so much so that they (the latter) become common place (consequentially).

Linguistically speaking, I want to take a bow, be apostate, to the person who coined them, such genious.

In case you are wondering what this is all about, ever heard the words "he" and "she". I realise now that -

He is a part of She,
Man is included in Woman,

Without He there is no She,
But no Woman means no man.

I will just say that. Rest is upto whoever reads them, such beauty in a language and in reality. I just hate the social mores and my upbringing.

As an afterthought consider this -

Expense for operating my two vehicles - Rs. 30,000
Expense for the drivers that I employ - Rs. 12,000

Expense for educating my son - Rs. 3,000
Expense for educating my daughter - Rs. 300

PERIOD!!!!

(All figures indicate monthly expenses of my Cab Driver who drives us (carpool) from our workplace to our residences. Font sizing is for emphasis.)
tag:Prejudice

Who am I - A Bad bad post

This is a bad bad post. Stuck in my mind for more that two days, hence I guessed it will be a real sucker.
Please send all your hate mails (if you happen to read this)here.

Title - Am I me ?

------------------The words---------------

I long for that horizon,
that is not mine, that cannot be mine.

I long for that sense of me
which finds me everyday, in the dark alleys of my mind,
yet,
which betrays me everyday;
for I exist, I conclude,
in a farce; in a Truman's show;

He asks "Who are you?"
I say
" I am that hope which will not emerge"
" I am that purpose which is never fulfilled"
" I am that dream, which is meant to be broken"
" I am that war where needs massacre wants"
" I am that void, that canvas, in my soul
that wants to be freed, from
that wants to be coloured, not in
the monotony that is me"
" I am that yesterday, where winds of change lead to"
" I AM the sisyphus"

He is disgusted for I ask him
"What have you made of me"
He says
" You are the victory of grotesque choices over nascent volition"
He says
" I should not seek that horizon,
I should not see that image which is me, for
they are lost, squandered, in the silhouette of my past"

I console myself, for
what I do, what I will do, become
the horizon, the dazzle of new found hope, the dream, the compromise of realising
me,
a true me,
and a new me.

ASE

Why books, why why?

So after a long slumber, I am back to my elements and feel like scribbling.

And meanwhile I have been reading, in the office, at home, on the bus, in the night, well during the entire day so I asked why why books?

LA VIE ET LE LIVRE (LIFE AND THE BOOK)

Books are quirky creatures, so do they make of the people who get in contact with them. Books exist on this earth in various facades - small, large, paper-back, local, on-the-footpath, pirated or whatever. Sometimes they are ostentatiously challenging you in a book fair or sometimes, well, I feel sorry for this, lying like a hapless orphan in your attic or even in your “almirah” (cupboard). For me reading a book is like the essential chemistry experiment. You look out for that pungent smell, that crimson-red coloured vapours or the yellow viscous residue. But sometimes the experiments fail but the objective is never left unfulfilled.

On reading
Reading books is like having an emotional as well an intellectual orgy, it is a symbol of an indulgence or rather over-indulgence in which time and space lose their meaning. Eyes are perched in the middle of the book and I miss the last “Virar-fast” in order have a feeling of satiation, that glow, that lump in my throat that tells me that the journey in the pages is over and it is now time to go home. My two or rather four eyes, for I am bespectacled, are jumping hither thither, abruptly stopping and abruptly moving, sometimes fast and sometimes slow. Then I realise that my daily travel to my office is a bumpy ride and hence by reading I am putting my eyes to great peril. Reading on the bench staring down, reading on your bed (in the morning I have a craning neck), in the light-less moments using that darned mobile to some productive use (Oh I realised it emits bright enough light), never giving that candle a short shrift. Of course I realise that flipping the pages is like de-flowering the book. It gets creased; the pages marked for future reference and yes the distinctive epithet appears on the first page. I wonder of what good is a book that is still a bachelor, wait a spinster suits better.

On buying, owning, discovering and suchlike
I have always had a penchant for genuine books so I would rather empty my pocket than rather owning that spurious copy which is not loyal to its author even in the way it smells. Hey it is a question of loyalty and I do not want to be an infidel. It often appears to me like a twist in the tale but I have never believed in libraries. For me they are just beacons, vanguards, like an indirect reference which/who lead me towards an unearthed treasure, a treasure which I initially see over and then win over. Enchanted or rather helpless is what I become when I am under an attack in a book shop. I stumble, I totter, I glow, I discover, I feel sorry, for what I intone? Well you know that right. Oh the moments of guilt and remorse never ever trouble me when I am under such a siege. Months later I retroactively take an oath that I shall not buy to what ends I wonder? Apparently it is human to realise that the gap, between what I have read and what I have to read, is burgeoning. After all even if you lose war you still have won the battle and that ecstasy is self-sustaining.

On types
Unlike humans, books are creatures having a singular quality. Like humans, they evoke a marquee of emotions on contact. First impressions might not be last impression. Sometimes they are just so awful you just want to behead them. Sometimes they are the silent warriors with a motto – they come, they see and they conquer. Contrariwise they become my lovers, the affair starts from the first page, and to my grief it ends suddenly. Then I realised why not fall in love over and over again. And there are the “other” types, which are essentially like wine or that “20 year” aged scotch. I do not wish to continue for the inebriation, which appears like consequence, is in plain words, ineffable.


On life and death
I fervently believe that books never die for they are the “epitome” of immortality. They are just carried over from generation to generation, god willing. They are nomads and the journey insulates them from the monotony of immortality. They pass from one hand to the other, from one attic to other, from one library to the other library or just plainly from one “kabadi” to the other. Given the bounty of books, I hope no one kills them, nor does anyone find them being shredded page by page. Ah! What cruelty? If anyone has such an experience, do inform me I am ready to set up a book-adoption society.

So much so for “Le livre” that I am convinced beyond reasoning, beyond the rational that
“Je suis, parceque je lis” (I am, because I read), period.

Ode to an electron

An ode to the electron

A press of hand and

a fleck of light

I see the fans twist by your sight,

I see the faces relax by your sight,

As you reach the positive shore,

You may end there,

But I want more

So I wait for you,

Because,

I can’t do without you.

(Inspired by U2)

An Electron - Confused, Oppressed and more

Confusion isn’t it familiar. Or does it reverberate with aplomb. No one can escape confusion that is its fortitude. Consider this - 50 somewhats suffering from the tyranny of "what to do after retirement", of twenty somethings from the delusions of “their identity, quarter-life-crisis”. Why not lovers of marriage, broken hearted people of relationships. Intrinsically it is the decision of association that complicates the situation, than the certainty of it.

It was the same that day with those electrons. They were lying in their own “shells”, confused of their destination. Hey but you say “why, after all these are just electrons”, if it is so then come to Noida, a Delhi suburb that is threatening to surpass its urban counterpart. Sprawling Malls (hyper-markets should I say), picturesque houses, bill boards, elevators, escalators everything had these electrons. Even they were in the air (hey it was the winter season in Noida then). You know it all relates to power.

Power, doesn’t it sound appetizing. Adults love their power over youngsters, of parents over their children, of rulers over the citizens, of the oppressors over the oppressed, of the civilized (who think they are or seem to have an illusion of) over the barbaric. Of nature over humans (now it is the illusion of mankind it is the other way). It is the electrifying experience of this power that keeps them intoxicated. Oh did I say that power is furthered by ignorance and on reflection knowledge also. The dominated is unaware of the domination by the dominator. But the vice versa holds, that is why knowledge when coupled with ignorance fuels the sustenance of power. If the former realises this fact then you have what the Wachowski brothers created – The Matrix.

It was a helpless day for these electrons. You know they cannot survive without this “electrifying experience”. You say “but, these are just electrons, innocuous, may be naïve and of course they are sub-sub-sub-creatures from where I stand, with a touch of nonchalance”. Then it seems you do not know about Noida. It’s a place where your air conditioner will run only for 5 hours a day. It is a place where you will remain drenched in sweat for the major part of the day and in the night also. Oh such oppression, that too by humans. So if you are like this then picture the position of the electrons. On that day they were left bereft of sensation. No one was there to drive them. Oh yes without potential they say even we can’t do justice to what we do, forget these. Neither the positive attracted them nor did the negative repulse them. Such desperation, such hopelessness, which accentuated the absence of purpose. Their sole purpose of existence was to be driven. But here they were lying dead in their own shells. Yet their fate had decided that day to go for a team outing. Of course you say with whom, take a guess, the bijli wallahs, and they say let’s dump Noida into helplessness, not darkness. At this scale it affected everyone, and please they say these people are not sadists. They are doing their duty, they say. Everything stopped moving, movies broke, escalators stopped, bill boards become just boards and yes the faces started contorting expressing their discomfort and their agony.

Anyways back to electrons. Redemption, relief, moksha they all were seeking it (but so were the others). Pity them they could not even pray (as was suggested by someone named Effusive Electra), because even for that some potential was needed. So we are talking about impotent electrons.

Zzzzz, an hour passes, someone inside says “it is damn hot”, tries to get some air, fails, mutters something, stays away annoyed (poor bloke could not do anything). Then a miracle happens, a finger emerges out of nowhere and approaches the switchboard and presses the second button. And voila, there it was.

And then some one did it “Let there be light”. There was a huge influx of potential, actually these electrons did not know where to go, they were confused in excitement (oh there it goes, I guess it never leaves us alone in certainty), like the way Moses parted the sea. Then they were all walking in line towards the positive (oh now you say “they are optimistic”), what a flow, you should have seen it. When they moved there was light, there was air, there was movement, and there was an eerie, pregnant glow in the instruments, in the faces, oh such profundity. Not only their movement brought glow, they brought relief, to them, and the others. The escalators started moving, the movies started running, the fans started turning and I must say lives started living. And you say “electrons do not matter”. Yes they do only when not oppressed.

Clouds in Bangalore - Update

Well the last photo post was good I felt. Here is an update, more aptly titled, clouds in Bangalore - that bring rain - sometimes yes - sometimes not.
















Singing in the rain eh !!

Three buddies - Bring on the winds. We are ready to dance.

See the storm set in your eyes, See the clouds twist by your side,
I WAIT FOR YOU (Inspired by U2)

All photos, R.Shriram, that's me boss.

Rain in Bangalore - Through my eyes

Yipppeee this is my first photo post. Hope it turns out to be good.

"Ghanan Ghanan"

Dark ominous clouds,clouds that took away the promise of rain -
(Yup it did not rain - pooh pooh)

All Fotos,
R.Shriram (that is me)




That is where I work - MindTree Consulting, Bangalore

Re-vengeance

Well it has been revenge of sorts.After months of vegetating in this awful city of Bangalore I had an opportunity to strike back. 12 Hours of pure bliss and of course a huge hole in my packet. But nevertheless I am not the one who will shy away looking at the costs, though (as an afterthought). Ecstasy maybe one that you experience after taking in 4 grammes of mescalin.

I am talking about movies. An interesting correlation you do not like a movie if it is not sticky (as Malcolm Gladwell would say) or it is too pedestrian. On the other hand if is obscure you will convince yourself that it is good so that you beguile other's into the same trap. It seems the obscure is interesting.

1. Gangster - Pedestrian, definitely not a sticky content nor a contagious music. Although "Bheegi Bheegi" track has had me drooling ever since that awful three hour passage into sleepless boredom.

2. Pink Panther - Some say it does not measure up to the Peter Seller's original. But worth a laugh and a movie that one can enjoy being alone or with a group of parasites.

3. Munich - 7 Hours after Pink Panther, after a dose of good chic meal (with some Bacardi clone called as Alexander's battle cry, which plainly put was good old Bacardi with some coriander leaves and some hung-upon slice of lemon) I must confess this was not a movie to be seen. I dozed off sporadically but was awake enough to appreciate the movie. Not much of an analyst though, but definitely the movie deems a second watch. I probably did not understand it, so I wonder a splurge of 170 bucks (awful costly I say, but what the heck I earn, I can sneak in that under some one's surveillance). True to all what is written here. I bow to thou oh "spielberg".

4. Ice Age 2 - A perfect end to a perfect 2 day long rendezvous with the movies. The movie is absolutely hilarious and whether you are a toddler or a junkie, regardez !!! It is a battle of triumphs, the nut seeking creature-that-I-know-not, or the supposedly last Mammoth who thinks the other way. Another mammoth posing as a possum or under an illusion of the same. It points to me the several ways that people react to a crisis. Stay-on-target types, who say even hell cannot deter me from getting that nut. Those who make dough (a j.d.salinger phrase that I learnt) by propagating doomsday stuffs. Of course not forgetting the Janta who flow along with the water.

I feel some human in me is resurfacing after aeons of dehumanising influences. I shall survive regardless of the dough that I must sacrifice in the process.

Leaving thoughts -
The wrongs is all the right gone awry. However I wonder are all the rights, the wrong gone awry (Negate the negation you get the right)? Perhaps the wrongs have no place in this world as they are just aberrations, which are temporal inconsistencies. Or the vice versa ?

Je ne connais pas.

Perhaps they are just like bullet shots to the body of truth that simply reveal the other side for a short time before the wound heals. The wounds that do not heal become facts or memories, like "Final Solution" or the "Black September". Depending on the side you are in, the victim or the objective world, they lose their character and assume new shapes. Nevertheless to add, conveniently brought into prominence when required for a wider consumption.

Yes I consume truth and lies, rights and wrongs, and of course facts and memories.

juste comme ça - part huit

juste comme ça presents (or rather where i want to save for myself) some thoughts and links that I find a real mention to anyone who reads.

I found these absolute gems from Atanu Dey's weblogs

1. I cry reading this

2. Epitome of solitude and perseverence

These are absolute gems and if you stumble to this obscurity of blogosphere do read them.

Both of these sources are from - Here

FINAL WORD - DO READ THEM

juste comme ça - part sept

Wonderful and relevant of the getting all by money !!!!

For the sake of argument


Do read. Enticing tale from the mundane

MBA and Car Drivers


Must read. A moving letter from a mother to her children

DO READ


ALL FROM - here (I just love it )

"Since our deeply held convictions are rarely deliberately scrutinized, we run the risk of behaving like monkeys." Atanu Dey

FROM -

From Here

Innovation conundrum

A look at the various notable innovations from early 1800 to present day throws up an interesting observation. From the light bulb to the microprocessors to the current era of fullerenes and what not. The scale of complexity has risen to monstrous proportions. Hence as a result a common man (by implication me) cannot make sense out of a new innovation coming out. Today's innovations are built up (to a certain extent) on yesterday's achievements. However the social reach of a electric bulb was larger than the microprocessor and the least being the current baskets of innovations of fullerenes etc.

Here the social reach implies the demography that the innovation seeks out and affects in whatever sense one can contrive up. Today innovations are something that closely follow the alienation path lead by technology. All that pervasive technology creates is its own network of geeks who are comfortable in the tenterhooks of it.

If I had to become a successful innovator (or just try doing it) the magnitude of knowledge that I have to climb is huge. This is so because once reaching the summit I might find my eureka. Therefore a single innovator is deprecated. Group innovations are in. Why so ?
Team innovation offers the baskets of knowledge (that dissect the mountain of knowledge in to small marketable pieces) that can integrated to build up a larger "eureka". Organizations will spearhead the innovation path in the next century to come. (If you notice nobels are no longer single man efforts, atleast in major cases) Human capacity to learn will need to narrowed to be suitable for an innovator.

Other implication one cannot be a know it all. The process of knowing something will itself lend itself to the entire lifetime of an individual. Poly-math, Jack of all trades once searched will yield deprecation only. Furthermore as an aid to innovation, technology will further islands of specialisation. Islands that will have to harnessed in the form of a network, in a decentralised form will be the mantra. As I believe the islands will burgeon and only organizations will have the disposition or ability to architect such networks.

Picture this
YEAR 2055
Kid 1 (5th grader) -- Did you understand that quantum influence in the way the world rotates ?
Kid 2 (a bemused friend) -- Had that S-chro-din-jer (not being able articulate clearly) bloke not said something about unpredictability I would be better off today.

Atleast my kid would not go to schoool. If S/He has to then probably they must know alphabets before they are born or possess a 5% extra stuff in their top floor.

Memes, Google and more

Memes are interesting things. Memes (etymology - to remember), came into popular use with the book, The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins. Simply put memes are the counterpart of genes. They replicate, evolve and spread like genes. However, unlike genes, which replicate by the reproductive processes, memes spread by social diffusion. Memes and contagion are closely related. Memes (as commonly misunderstood are not abstruse thingamajigs) are anything that find acceptance in social networks and spread in a virulent fashion akin to a "virus". Memes may be thoughts, ideas or even technology. Although it is possible that the original thought might be contorted in a way that might not suit the originator. Enough of memes though.

Search engines have existed for long in the web-o-sphere, the oldest being Aliweb launched long time back in 1993. Back in the recesses of early 1990's I-am-doing-a-search was uncommon. Common repositories, books and libraries were the source of information. The scene was ripe to undergo a change with the launch of Google in 1998. So it is not surprising for me (a not so tech-aware user of the web-o-sphere), in 2006 that I-am-doing-a-search is common. Google has now become a synonym for searching.

"A - Do you know what memes are?”
"B - Just a sec. I'll do a Google and tell
you."

Coming back to memes, Doing a Google or just plainly googling, has become worthy of being called as a meme. With the rising popularity of Google and its numerous offerings, the meme called Google is not only common but also the preferred means to search. I could not graduate if there was not a Google by the year 2001. Googling spreads from generation to generation by tradition, cultural practices and of course on-site training, true to the spirit of a meme. Google is just not a story of how a meme unintentionally came out of two Stanford University brains, but how something rudimentary as a search can prioritise and prune the way by which people seek information. Today, I will definitely go to a Google to find what I want rather than peruse among 1000's of books that one can find in a library. Google and the internet are a success story that link information and search, intimately affecting the way you, they and I seek and process information.

Coming to the more part of the title. I find it intriguing that several sites (including this one) do not have an option for the users to specify their g-mail ID's as their primary contact detail. (All they allow is a Yahoo, an IM, or an MSN) Probably that g-mail is still not that popular enough, given the burgeoning number of g-mail users (me being one and g-talk is easy).

Is someone listening?

See further

Memes (an introduction)

Search engines (historical reference)

PS - If I do not have to do it quick and dirty, I use wiki.

juste comme ça - design questions

One of the things that always leave me bemused is the aspects of design and its fundamental principles. Definitely looks like a rather over-creative job that well exceeds my boundaries of creativity.

Read this - A designer's take on Google homepage, intriguing enough

Check out the design psychology page here. Worth reading once.

I do believe that the study of usability (and henceforth design), HCI (human computer interactions) will take the centrestage (aka disciplines in vogue) when site counts exceeds normal cardinalities and people will not take for granted the contents strewn around a web site.

CUT ACROSS – INFORMATION

Information and its barriers

This relates to a profound incident that occurred to me. Somewhere on the demography of the blogosphere, I had literally stumbled on to some interesting yet “restricted” blogs that appealed to my sense of “society”. These blogs had some never-been-seen-or-heard-before views of society, which neither I nor my peer group could conjure up. In other words a culture shock.
However at this juncture, one of my friends (a female one at that) prodded me to forward these names to her e-mail. Not even pondering for an instant, I hit the forward button and sent it. The consequences later dawned on me. Obviously, these blogs are explicit in content and on-your-face, calling sex as “sex”. Nevertheless, obviously, I have learnt to go beyond these stereotypes and that is why these blogs appealed to my intellect.
Not knowing how the “passed-on-information” would be adjudged as, I am in a repentive mood. My bringing up has proffered me (as a male), a right to see and learn about all such media. However, the same upbringing did not temper me to the fact that the same is applicable to the other sex also. Even if I learnt about it, it feels like committing a crime. Here comes the information that virtually leapt at me.
Today internetworked world offers a cosmos without boundaries, without age, without sex, without race to anyone seeking information. Cut across several decades back. Information was in people’s heads and the transfer of information was based on the same criteria that have become redundant in today’s world.
The criteria of sex, race, culture, breed, boundaries whether economic or political pose no threat to the flow of information. Just the prerequisites have changed from notions to capabilities. Rephrased the incumbent must internetworked. Since such a paradigm shift also cuts across the cultural and religious implications of nation-society, now I know why I felt like a "sex-offender".
By the way, I have been referring these two sites all along.

Blogs of a human (I would definitely say that)
http://fifthnail.blogspot.com

Blogs of an industry (It is the voice of that industry)
http://belledejour-uk.blogspot.com

Rakhi and Cupids

HINDUISM, RAKHI AND POTENCY

The determination of potency (rephrased as the power of cupidity) among the various age groups of INDIA poses a nice case. Consider the tradition (or ritual) of Rakhi, in which sisters tie a proverbial thread on the hands of their brothers (prospective), in order to ensure their protection. With the coming of westerly influences, such a ritual is becoming subject to sarcasm.

You are aged 5 boy, studying in some school, someone ties you a rakhi (a proclaimed female), you say ah wonderful.
Fast forward – 10 years
You are aged 15 adolescent (still), perhaps on the threshold of going somewhere with more freedom (that is what we used to feel), there is a rakhi on your hand, perhaps in some recess of your heart you feel why a rakhi ???

Fast forward – 3 years
In college, a beautiful dame comes forward and ties the “knot”. Your heart beats almost cringing “not me, not now, not here”.

Well some say it is a tactic, an artifice to avoid potential “propositions”. Ah there comes February 14, now your heart says “puhleese let it be me, please now, please here”.

Contrary and then interesting. Well the clue in the formative years. A child just into the world, introduced to Hindu ways of life, reveres RAKHI.
The child grows up, is exposed to other culturisms. These Hindu traditions little by little fade into the background. Human tendency, anything new is interesting.
The child / adolescent is now getting conversant with the huge ballyhoo about Feb 14, which is like an antithesis to rakhi. In the ensuing fight between a cupid like avarice and the pristine “brotherhood”, cupidity wins over.

The adolescent, now a proud college goer, fears RAKHI. Why? Who will tie the “knot”, how will she be like? If she is quite a stunner, then I have probably lost a potential candidate as my Valentine. If someone does tie the “knot”, the peers would say hey bachchaa; you know perhaps she wanted to avoid you, so she tied the “knot”.
This character is stuck between the pangs of “being single and not having a GF” and that of the potential brotherhood that entails. Eventually sarcasm and a profound fear downs the latter and a new sense of optimism gets into “him”. He feels till the next RAKHI, let me get a female companion and walk the MALL STREET.
In fact the thread of rakhi is now cast in different light. From a desire to have some one to protect “me”, to let me protect “myself” from some one(s).
Interesting !!!!!

Arrogate, can I ???

Wondered ever why ………

I wonder why Almighty did not give me the powers to stop the inevitable.

I wonder why I cannot stop myself from reaching the climax in an intimate lovemaking experience or preventing myself the afterglow that comes as a consequence of making love with the self.

Have you ever wondered why?

Every one of us gets accustomed and move on when we are staring in the face of a souring relationship. But one sight of our loved ones or the ones who are still the darlings of our heart makes us gloomy, reeling in the aftermath of such a contact, making us feel why?

Though I may say, yes I have moved beyond and ahead of my past relationship. However, I stutter, shortchanged of words, rather feelings, when I see her. I ask myself; why I did not stop myself, stay there in that moment of existence. Can I now move back?

Have you ever wondered why?

That stolen glance, that momentary telepathy between her, and me that can make me or break me into zillions of pieces. Pieces that never meld back into original self. Proving sometimes the whole can be less the sum of the individuals. Even

Wondered ever why ?

After all the human body is just not a “tarred” collection seemingly disparate objects. Something that is called as the icing comes as a special offer only that when it comes it is inevitable and can make or break you.

Evidently
By a reeling lover……

juste comme ça - part six

“Wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it”.
Shakespeare, in Henry IV
“A vulture flies high in the skies, but its eyes are perched on the piece of garbage littered on the ground”.
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

Products of a panopticon

Here is an excellent article that reflects on our (Indian) education system, which mirrors the TRIPOS system in Britain. We all groomed in our schools to be a foucaultian panopticon. But the truth is that we lose the perspective to be single minded in the pursuit of our interests. While it should be valid that we know something about everything, in that process we end up knowing only something about a particular thing.


The Hindu : Opinion / Leader Page Articles : School reform: learning from Iqbal

juste comme ça - part cinq

“You believe in the light because of the darkness, You believe in the joy because of the sorrows, You believe in the God because of the Devil…” ENIGMA (From http://wearmyhat.blogspot.com)

I believe that the above statement captures the essence of existentialism. The belief in self is dictated by the existence of the other. One can avoid any debates by saying that "ah everything in this world is relative". That does not end the matter. Saying that you believe in "other" is because of the "self" (Gramsci) . There is one lacuna in this statement. It assumes the implicit existence of the other. Had the other not existed then your cause of belief is lost. It is like a dangling pointer.

The two sides of the coin are connected by the relationship of Oppression.The oppression of the self, creates the need for the other. Simplifying this, it means that due to the oppression of light, the space of darkness is created. This reminds me of a good line from the film BLACK.

"What is the use of eyes if there is no light" ......
In the absence of light, both the blind and the non-blinds are equal. This is what I mean by oppression. If I may say, if there is no light, then all blinds,non blinds are equivalent to darkness.

-----------The violence of self creates the other-------------

If we see at the flip-side of the same argument. Had there been no light, there is no need of darkness. Is darkness the absence of light ? I do not know. If I say that if there is no light, then there is no need of darkness. Is saying that "there is no light" equivalent to saying "there is darkness".

"I DO NOT KNOW". When I write this write this I get this clarion call from the great philosopher of the yesteryears without whom Sartre, Foucault would be like darkness... Nietzche.

HOW DO I KNOW THAT I DO NOT KNOW ..........

Add to this the Neumann principle......

"I KNOW THAT I DO NOT KNOW THAT I KNOW THAT I DO NOT KNOW....."

Going down or turning Page

Reading over the ages has changed a lot. From the days when there was no papyrus to the days when there will be no papyrus. Reading as a concept was popularised with the coming of the printing press. It was the printing press that could make the reading a ubiquitous activity. With the transformation of the papyrus to the stream flow of electrons carrying our fonts and the texts, the way we read has undergone a fundamental change.

The pre-requisite for reading is pleasure. And that pleasure can only be derived from the turning of pages. However in the dog-eat-dog world of today, pleasure has become inversely proportional to the time you have. Therefore we all have to supplement our thirst and quest to read by resorting to the electronic forms. The essential anatomy of reading is co-ordinated from the left to the right. That is why we often feel uneasy to go to captions or footnotes as it breaks this natural movement of eyes from the left to that of the right (Just a note that this does not apply to urdu). Even when we turn the pages of the books it is from the right to
left. Imagine for each page if we had to turn from left to right, we would not be reading anything for the pleasure of it.

However with transport of reading from the left to right to the top to bottom something very fundamental changes. First of all the natural rhythm of reading patterns is broken. That is why we often find it difficult to read in this top-down manner. Moreover books do not have any problems related to that of eye stress originating due to colour or structure of the book. In the electronic forms our eyes are already loaded and irritated due to the intrusion of the top-down mannerism plus one has to adjust the layout of the screen to suit the intensity that can be bared easily.

What used to be referred to as "I have to read 3 pages from Chapter 1" shall now be termed as "I have to read three scrolls from top to bottom". Never were mice so important to reading. Structurally one could the reading is like flow of water. In a book water flows in a continuous manner from the left to right. However in a screen it is like water reaches at the end, then it is re-routed to the next level and so on to the end. Papyrus made using memory as a media of information transfer obsolete. It made information laying and transfer easier.

With the coming of the electronic media the papyrus has/will become obsolete. We all will end up making different meaning by seeing the same set of electrons in our CRT. It is just that these electrons desctruct some natural rhythms and create rhythms of their own. What the electronic media achieves is to break the structure of the book. Rather than make the book look fatter in breadth dimension, it obliterates the entire dimension itself. In these electronic books there is no breadth, there is only length. This is an example of going back. Remember the days when we used to have those lengthy scrolls. It is the same. The e-book is a long book that goes into pages just that organised in a linear fashion.

Suffice to say that - reading earlier used to belong to the three dimensions, now it is just a linear exercise. The tangible feeling that we all experience while reading is now lost. We all are left asking for more, but something at the end we could say yes I read through the entire of this. In other words reading is now de-objectified.

Go down
Down
Down
and down

and if you want
come up

There is no turning back or seeing left or right.

Vacillation !!!!!

Vacillations, indecision and not being able to agree and stand by a single thing. These are few things that all we normal human beings suffer from. Forgive those leaders and managers are already honed to escape from such indecisiveness. Not for us alas.

Ipso facto, technology is also made to reflect this confusion wholly. Just that it just takes the problem to the visual level from inside the human body and the internal thoughts. Just as an example the common Recycle Bin is the perfect example. Often touted or misquoted as a utility to recover all the deleted items. However it is just a application that aids to the same. It is as if you realised that you in a moment of decisiveness had proscribed some artifact and now repenting for that illusory moment of decisiveness. Ultimately you realise that you have to fall back on your in-born trait of being indecisiveness. Here's where the utility comes in and gives you a satisfaction of not being guilty.

De facto technology is not something that humans have to adjust to and internalise them. However they are just the outcomes of the human characters and feelings.Otherwise what would have happened if you did not have the Recycle Bin, i.e. the levels of proscription would have become absolute. The human factor of being indecisive would have been overlooked. Rephrased now the art of being indecisive can be applied to inanimate objects like some worthless MP3 or a .doc file, just that you have 2 levels of abstraction with complete data abstraction from the user.

Few call it usability - I would prefer "indecisive".
Technology is not a vessel that everyone has to figure out how to use, but a mirror in which everyone can see how they are in that light. UGH

juste comme ça - part quatre

"By the end, he didn't trust anyone any more - not even the cyanide capsule he swallowed."...
ERNA FLEGEL - Adolf Hitler's nurse before he died..

Long after hiberrrrnation....
"You can take an .Indian out of India. but not .India out of an Indian.."
Dr R.A.Mashelkar @ IIIT convocation

Good one
"Career planning is an oxymoron, in case you did not realise....."

The anthropic principle
Says that all the cosmic constants were created in just the right proportions and ratios. However this sparks off a debate that creationists often find suiting themselves.
" It was God who tweaked all the knobs that created the cosmic constituents."
One relevant question arises -
"Who tweaked the knobs of the G"....
Interesting. Scientists like Hawking adopt a perception that there are multitudes of universes with different values of the cosmic constituents. Ah but then are there multiple G's that tweaked the knobs in that proportions.

I think Neumann knows the answer to this ....
"I think that he thinks that I think ........ ad infinitum"