Heard today

A birthday wish -
"Let your tribe increase"

Roomie -
"Shifting with a hindu batchmate. I mean the college and not the religion"

Love the way people use words.

Inside a high quality veg restaurant

Eating in a around-the-corner, trying-to-keep-the-cash-store-ringing; Here is a place where you, assuming that this place cannot burn a hole in your pocket, can sit and eat, mumbling silently about the "okay okay" quality of food. However here is also a place that "your two downs", monetarily, also come to eat. They come, they eat, their eyes breathe aspiration and also a sense of impending dip of green. While I ordered a mini meal for myself, at measly Rs. 25, which is not much for a post graduate who came out into the world when the latter was going down. Literally!
Next to me, came and sat a group of four. Two mothers, one instinctively elder in a protective way, one probably her junior-in-command and their two school going daughters. As the waiter sold them the mini meal, obviously casting a corner-eye to my plate, they decided to order 4 suchlikes. They did not ask for the price and looked at the price list which boasted of the same dishes in Tamizh and in English with an extra "h". In nanoseconds, the elder one calculated, that's a big note for lunch and her eyes sank and took a look at her purse carefully placed inside her blouse.
Then the waiter arrived with the four meals neatly compartmentalised into - a biriyani, sambar rice, curd rice, single roti, kurma, beans and a sweet.

Mall Recall

Trudging down an escalator, heard the following from a 4 year child -
"Mom the ad on the escalator has changed to this new one."

Such recall, I wonder. Actually the ad is an interstitial, coming down an escalator, visitors can see this ad over their head. We live in exciting times.

Linguistic Overtures - In Tamizh

Hell I've been in Chennai for the past 7 odd months, and now this fine thought blitzed past, in my root language (funny expression, I tell you) -

நரகம் - Meaning, well, hell
நகரம் - City

A geographical possibility, it means to me.

Seen today - 1

09 Dec 2009
A 20 seater mini bus passes me by and I happened to notice the company's name painted over in dark blue font -

Enterprising Enterprises

Sure the founders are very "punny"

Heard somewhere - 1

"Abe gyaan mat de" roared one of the guys, seemingly referring to a plausible conversation building up in the air. And soon after this happened -
"Sir you will have wait for an hour as I am busy on another call" and continued to blow up whiffs of cigarette smoke with this group of office buddies.
Such are the ways ...

A sudden night in Zephyr's life

Dear diary,
There is no greater experience in this world, not even love, but the feeling of that good old catharsis. However ineffable it might be, there is a certain elation associated while being liberated in the catharsis zone that is unmatched. Somehow that is why I think, fighting vehemently, staying away and then making up is this world's most underrated yet most significant bunch of emotions. Being a witness to such an event at close quarters is the only thing that probably can take you ever so closer to experiencing catharsis. As a person equally involved with the fighting parties, as a person who both of them feel one of them like a close confidante, as a person being able to say things that otherwise might be rejected as being "none of your business". This is what is catharsis, and I experienced it today. The elation and the smile that fills you up and suddenly revs up certain dead parts inside your existence is what it is. The thing with feeling so is that it also wells up inside feelings of being privileged, that inner smile that so often seems so rare in this world. That is what I experienced today. Seeing people handle themselves in a manner befitting much older, wiser and being able to say things to the same people and who take it with the real gusto of a well deserving human being is what is privilege, is what is catharsis.
I am feeling unusually happy and it seems that my elated heart is up there showing its entire countenance in my teeth and my brain, is something I have never seen, done before. So they say distance makes us appreciate those close to us, so does going away and coming back also achieves the same effect but the emotion build up is all the more stronger and all the more inhuman to witness if handled by such people.
Privilege! Catharsis! Amen!

Which comes first - conflict or cooperation ?

Image by Delphien Experiences via Flickr

Today has marked a day of twin importance - me crossing 100 posts and the other one, the more important one, having a long discussion with semi-drunks on Richard Dawkins, Selfish Gene, History, Into the wild and much more.
Of course its more of a given that the selfish gene operates at every level of human activity known till now. Its cause is more complicated by the most fundamental arguments of biology (and evolution) that the human end result (not death, though) is attributable to nature or nurture. So our discussion went on when we actually stumbled upon the problem of conflict versus cooperation. I am extremely aware of the fact that such topics of discussion laden with the nature versus nurture conflict raises a lot of pertinent points but the question that really stuck was that of primality.

Which comes first conflict or cooperation?

As I often experience, history and culture are the victims of causality. All sorts of improper causal relations have been sought to explain human character. So I thought whether such a causal relation exists between conflict and cooperation.
At the level of basic thought process, cooperation is fundamentally a more involving mental thought than conflict which is more of a natural process. Therefore, as plotted against the chart of evolution, the idea (here I mean even the basic notion of these two ideas) of conflict and cooperation require different kind of mental acumen. Cooperation, by its nature, requires two or more parties in a state of agreement that requires a mental and verbal (often) interchange of the tenets of working together. Cooperation bases itself on the recognition of the power imbalance and an effort to ameliorate that imbalance while conflict is only an exposure to this imbalance. As a primeval organism, cooperation must have evolved much after the first experience of conflict.
Furthermore its only after experiencing a conflict that the idea of cooperation must occur to any living and mental (not the exclusionary one) organism. Its just goes on to prove (again the influence of causality) that cooperation as a thought is not natural and a post facto concept. A real question to be asked here is that the existence of conflict (or even the visualisation of conflict) is necessary for the formulation of cooperation among such thinking animals. Prima facie a causal link exists on the basis of -

1. Complexity of thought of the idea of cooperation as against conflict which is readily experience-able
   
2. Experiential (imaginary) coexistence of conflict
3. Requirement of a developed mental faculty

What do I think? Conflict comes first and then comes cooperation, a weak link exists. Am I right?

Linguistic overtures

Image by margolove via Flickr

D.H.Lawrence once said "trust the tale - not the teller". Well what can be more perfect because anyways all the great fiction writers in essence are magnanimous LIARS. Anyways coming back to the theme of this post of linguistic overtures, I ask you to look at the following very closely

WORDS

Now why these are so powerful so much so that people say "words once spoken can't be taken back" because in them they contain the proverbial

SWORD

On that note consider these words about writing which so mirror the feeling one gets while writing -
"Sitting alone in a room for hours while essentially talking in your head about people you made up earlier and then writing it down for no one you know does have many aspects which are not inherently fulfilling." - A.L.Kennedy
"Another reason is the professionalisation of the vocation so that the novelist is supposed to produce novels as naturally, automatically, and regularly as a cow gives milk." - Amit Chaudhuri
"Writing a novel is largely an exercise in psychological discipline – trying to balance your project on your chin while negotiating a minefield of depression and freak-out. Beginning is daunting; being in the middle makes you feel like Sisyphus; ending sometimes comes with the disappointment that this finite collection of words is all that remains of your infinitely rich idea." - Hari Kunzru
Finally
"Civilisation's greatest single invention is the sentence. In it, we can say anything." - John Banville

Do read this entirely for at least the writing pleasure
PS - 100th post calls for a celebration. I have evolved so would I like to claim, but no I still remain the same and raring to reach 200. This blog still remains largely a self-documentation project which I hope to continue. With that I wish "18 till I die" sine die.

Thoughts

A dominant sign of human achievement -
Only in today's world could memories could mean two things

Linguistic Overtures

Image by Μя.Ćăv㣣ǐ ™ via Flickr

The burden of

CREATION

is the fear and anxiety of

REACTION

Linguistic overtures

What characterises the oppressive regimes of the world?
Try to
DEMAND
but you will be

DAMNED

Even OUP makes mistakes

I just got to read a book long due - Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. I was browsing the table of contents and I saw a word - Foreward, a word that according to the best of my knowledge relates to a van.
I was immediately turned off, how could they do it. Foreward instead of Foreword. Such an insult, OUP. Coming from Oxford, not expected. Nevertheless I will read the book.

So I thought only us normal people make typos. Shame!!

Linguistic overtures

I think I will keep this simple - Freudian Mistake -

Diss ID dent "versus" Diss ent

Dissent just missed an "ID" to become a dissident.

A day in the life of Zephyr

Zephyr was the man of his own quirky theories and assumptions about the world around him which he carefully and patiently constructed like the way the parents want to see their image in their child or hell, even how God was once seen in the image of man himself. Zephyr proclaimed not to written the last few words after "hell". If Zep was ever to see this, he would have a smile on his face that extended from the outer vicinity of his mouth to the closest inches of his ears.
Does that resemble a creature, this writer, asks - and Zep would have said with a proud grin of his face "Dr. Seuss" you fool.
These were the entries from his diary dated January 13th (year unknown) -
6:30 A.M. (On the way to the day's first bout of tea intake) - Saw a fairly large man riding on a bicycle today. There was a close striking feature about him that almost gave him away. This man, lets call him Mousty, had a bushy moustache and an underbelly that only a married man of 40 years would not be proud of. But this wasn't it. It was rather the feisty cheeks and stretched chin with a jaw that coalesced with the shoulders that gave him away. He was a "Bhaiya" finally Zep deciphered. Mousty had a self confident smile plastered on his face while he was gently combing his moustache with one hand and the other ruddering the bicycle.

"Life almost felt like the morning cold, waiting to be set free by the first rays of sunlight."

12:30 A.M - (in a rather interesting lecture) - I should have two heads atleast. One to monitor what the professor was saying and other perpetually involved in an effort to turn right and catch Zikka unaware without being caught in a reciprocation. Alas I have only one and the other one even if it existed would be involved in a useless exercise. Suddenly Zikka got up and went out and there she goes. Aah she comes back again, phew and craftfully nudges a book in front of me towards my resting palm.
"Is there something called telepathy? Lord Krsna said "don't wait to see the results of your actions", did I do anything or was it an accident? Shup up you fool and believe that it was neither and feel lucky"

7:30 P.M. (On the way to the day's second last bout of tea intake) - Saw a harmless couple walking down the busy road which was trisected by railroad construction which left to fend for itself would take atleast a million years to complete. There was something really carefree about them. The hubby (with a soon coming belly just falling out of his khakis) had comfortably placed his hand around her supported by the envelope of her hand. All this while he was placing a grain of peanuts softly on her lips and criss crossing the enveloping traffic like an experienced gymnast.
"Live in my own shell, self sufficient and deftly avoiding the glare of the surrounding world"

1:30 A.M. (The last tea of the day but this was special) - Every city ought to be judged not by its roads, infrastructure but by its tea vendors. Sample the city at two times - 6 A.M. in the morning and 1 A.M. and count the number of tea vendors that populate the scanty roads at these times. This could give out the actual nature of city pretty well. Walking down the road after seeing a damp squib of movie I stopped for tea at this guy who sells authentic south Indian dishes at 1:30 A.M. in the morning. Of course, it felt like being back in the toddler years, the first nibble of the soft Idli smelling like sweet rice mixed with the sensibilities of a coconut only laden chutney attacking the previous memories of any wheat or any spice that remained after dinner. Anyways on the way back I could see atleast 2 tea vendors punctutating the space between two signals which is a standard distance of 1.5 Kms. All college students coming out for late night snack with the holy smoke. See this thing also applies in the morning as well. The 6:30 tea vendor actually starts out at 5:00 A.M. (must try out at this time as well).

So as per Zep's tea breaks his city or atleast his neighbourhood was devoid of tea only for a brief period of 2 hours. However that spoke volumes about the economy of the city and the entrepreneurship of his city. His city, Zep was really confused. He was undecided between the comfort of tea and comfort of home. He knew the difference but the experience of a late night tea and an early morning tea was something that could never be understood at home. It's different, he concluded concurring with an old ketchup advertisement. He thought all this time bewildered by the industry of the inhabitants of this city. They exploited every services available and offered services wherever there was any opportunity to serve a hidden demand. That is why he kept on reiterating that the true nature of a city is in the pulse of its tea vendors. Therefore a place where you cannot see a tea vendor open shop before 8 A.M. meant that it was a sleepy city, and Zep's experiences seemed to concur.
So after a long day Zep went to sleep silently rehearsing these words in his head "Don't walk away when the world is burning, don't walk away when the heart is yearning" for tomorrow's bathroom performance which had been a consistent spectacle on the 7th floor of his hostel faithfully attended and recorded by the inhabitants of the floor. "Poets of the fall" were the writers of these words, Zep remembered.
Earlier Zephyr posts - (1)

An idea to write about

A crazy thought if you will (I might try this with Zephyr's character soon) -

1. What am I talking about - a character in a movie or a book (I prefer the latter)
2. "Shoot" - Architect a character that ages in the usual way but matures in the opposite. In other words, imagine you born with the mental wit and wisdom of your grandpa - at age 0.
3. "The suspense" - As you grow only one of the thing increases - your age. Your mental wit and wisdom goes down just like the way in normal life our mental wit increases, supposedly, with age and experience.
4. "The consequence" - This has always been my favourite part - you will be aged 70 but will behave like a baby and that is what is needed in this mad mad world.
   
5. Disclaimer - This does not intend "anterograde amnesiatic" effects to be incorporated.

Amen!

A small exercise

Do this exercise today -

1. Blog yourself as a hypothetical character - keep close clues to the real you but weave a story around it
   
2. See and observe the comments from the visitors.

While responding to these comments you will be hit a strong sense of duality of the exercise. The feedback could well be for you and/or for the character. This is raw material to build on the idea of making you as a story - powerful, real-time. I love it!!

Zephyr and the intruder

He liked to stay in his room, where always he felt under control, his feudal kingdom. He felt under control because the elements of the room were under his own supervision. Zephyr could decide on who comes in, including sunlight, how should he react or even ponder whether the other presence deserved a reaction or not. But once Zephyr stepped outside the threshold of the door his control was gone. He was under pressure to respond to the sudden intrusion of external elements. Forced to react to the new sounds, new people, old people and even the Sun's play on him. Sometimes he chose not to and be like a transparent layer between what was on his right and what was on left. He could choose not to but damn those people who knew him well.

"Don't pretend to read", Zikka laughed derisively in a mocking tone. Zephyr knew he was caught while retreating to his shell. He immediately put on that "I am sorry" expression on his face with a fake smile that Zikka could immediately penetrate. Zikka smiled back, conscious of the fact that she had sensed that moment of vulnerability in Zephyr, caught spliced between reaching out and shrinking back. People like Zikka made it a point to blot Zephyr's social journeys, and these were the people who forced him to learn what he called the art. His art was exclusive and its only practitioners were the secret service agents. The art of being inconspicuous, the art of being fluid like a person minus his physical presence. Only because of his art he learnt to be cut off and be sane. Sometime he wondered why people are so fake with a wedge forcefully inserted between their external and internal appearances.

His life went on like this and one fine day came the intruder.

Zephyr had stayed all his life in hostels and knew an empty room without its occupants is a prized possession. Fortunately or not his roommate decided to go for a yatra to attend a marriage. That too for a week. There was he, lying alone in his room wondering what he could do. "Don't be naughty, Zep", someone hollered from the outside. Zep smiled and thought field nights for a week. So he set about decorating the night with a bushel of his favourite cigarette, a comfortable quart of "saste main masti - old monk" and settled comfortably in his universe ready to vanish. Once the rituals were done Zep set on to do his favourite activity of the day - which was to read a book with a glass of the monk and a cool breeze cutting across his thighs. For a bried period he was lost in this reverie and was close to becoming something which was not his character. He for once became a wall completely divorced from his room.

As the time passed by the bushel became a couple, page 6 became page 69, and the quart was reduced to an ounce, the apothecary's ounce. But he was sure saw a silhouette with tail that swished by and he was confused what to attribute it to. "Definitely not the monk" his innards whispered confidently. He chose to ignore it, the voice and the tail. When the quart was done, his day was done, or so he thought. As he retired into the bed and reached for the lights he saw the tail, escape the dustbin lid and not the dark room as he had imagined the room would be. At 4 A.M. end of the day shouldn't have been so bad, Zep thought. He could still see the tail sliding along the lower skirting of the wall into a corner along with 2 pairs of legs. The lights were still on and he tried to desperately search every corner, thanking himself that the room did not have many things on the floor to plunder. Of course the tail eluded him suddenly appearing and disappearing like magic act. Finally at 5 A.M. tired with the search, Zep chose to sleep and chose to forget that the tail could climb up the legs of his bed and put on a late night taandav on him.

The next morning was very happy for Zep thinking that the tail would be gone, but this elation lasted only for 30 seconds, for now in broad light he could confirm it was a rat. Sadly he surmised that from now on his control area, his terra firma, would have to be shared between him and the rat. Atleast the rat couldn't be Zikka, thanked Zephyr and went about doing his job - hiding from any external intrusions and calculating the area the rat would need in his room. He was firm and decided that the rat could not be allowed to prance in his whole territory till his roommate returned. Then it would not be his headache alone anymore.

Forget the quartiles !!

Don't target the 1st quartiles or the second or hell even the third. As per Pareto, and the tribes, its the quintiles that matter.

Can't think of a title

"
There was a young man who said: Run!
The end of the world has begun!
The one I fear most
Is that damn' Holy Ghost,
I can handle the Father and Son.
"
(Unknown limerist, early 21st Century) - From William Poundstone's Prisoner's dilemma

Meanwhile the fires must linger (from a friend)