Darkness liberating me ....

There and back again

Hi all. Well the breach has been surmounted. I am finally about to use my web log as it was originally intended to be used - as a medium for socially dysfunctional people to articulate their sentiments. The following may thus be construed as technically speaking being my first 'blog' post, the preceding matter entirely comprising of literary compositions of dubious merit.

But hold it.... The muse of literature strikes again, “This can be no personal narrative”, she thunders, “It is the curvature of the huge sand-glass of Time that directs the flow of your thoughts.”

Yes, ma’am.

This post is set temporally, in the direct, sleep-deprived, stunningly sober aftermath of the annual Godavari Hostel Night - the one pure frat night in all of IIT culture.
Spatially, for adherents of genius loci, this post is set a furlong away from the motherland, as the author lay peaceably on the waters of the Bay of Bengal off Besant Nagar Beach, below a profusely star-studded sky, at one in the morning.

It all started with a requirement for cigarettes to fuel the festivities at the aforementioned orgy. When Haddi, my companion in this adventure, was appointed the fag-Saki and presented with a bike key and injunctions to get the required commodity as soon as possible, he naturally sought me out as a companion on his perilous quest - to drive 3 kms to the main gate and get a couple of packs of cigarettes.

Of course, with us thrown together, the poor nicotine addicts were not getting their cigarettes anytime soon, were they? No sir, our first task was to get the mechanical beast some chemical nourishment. Next, fortuitously, we found Shiva and Chaitanya returning to the hostel and passed the cigarette buck to them gratefully.

Free of our chore, and any guilt at having commandeered a hapless comrade's bike, we hied for the great open spaces, with as much alacrity as a poor 100 cc engine had to offer. Where does acceleration derive its amazing fascination from? Since time immemorial, we have always commemorated speed, an essential component of natural selection in the days of tooth and claw; not that irrelevant in the world of broadband internet either. But it is a recognized physiological fact that the human sensory perception is incapable of gauging speed. The individual excitement to motion, as opposed to objective archetypal responses to measures of speed, depends entirely on the magnitude of acceleration.

Why does the body instinctively perceive and appreciate acceleration while remaining oblivious to its better known offspring - speed? The answer, one presumes, lies in an extrapolation of the Freudian Pleasure Principle, which may be credited to the good doctor himself. Away from his analysis of the conscious and its urges, Freud, in his study of dreams, unequivocally assigned connotations of sexual desire and gratification to the act of flying.

In 1996, designers at a Singapore amusement park researched roller-coaster rides around the world and concluded that the enjoyment that visitors derived therefrom was, in a very large part, due to the autonomous physiological response. This was found to correspond with the physiological response to sex. 80 years after his time, another Freudian hypothesis had found independent validation.

Which, of course, sheds a lot of light on why exactly Schumacher makes $50 million a year, why NBA basketball players are the highest paid professionals in the world, why the Hindu deity of virility, Hanuman possesses the power of flight and why one rather drunk and one rather long-bearded post-adolescent find a zip through empty Chennai streets at midnight so much fun.

So, basically, we fooled around for a bit, getting our money's worth out of the contraption and enlivening the night with, if memory serves me right, a chorused rendition of 'Break on through', a cover of 'Roadhouse Blues' by Haddi and a guitar solos included rendition of Hendrix's 'All Along the Watchtower' by yours truly. Heaven praise the sluggard constabulary of this great metropolis.

Finally, having run out of wild ideas, we made for the beach, Haddi a reluctant companion, for I explained to him that I had suddenly had this urge to bathe in the sea in my birthday suit. I think he saw jail bars and parole papers dancing before his eyes. Be that as it may, we arrived at Besant Nagar Beach at one and slunk to the shoreline undetected. Haddi then firmly declined my invitation to join in the aquatics and sat down beside my bag and slippers as I made for the primal element.

It was scary to begin with, post-midnight is high tide time at Besant Nagar and high tide is never a good time to go swimming, even if you've gone to the Delhi State Juniors. My modus operandi normally is to dive in head first as soon as I am reasonably sure I there is enough water for me to not get it stuck in the sand. Whoever heard of a sea ostrich? Ridiculous!

Partly because of the somber might of the rising tide, partly because of my anticipation of a new experience (Ah! How scarce they keep getting!), this time I chose to walk in gradually, letting the waves cover my feet, then walking in farther so the next time they lap the edge of my shorts; walk in farther ad libidum. Walking in to waist depth, in order not to aggravate the homophobic Haddi’s feelings, I stripped, tied my T-shirt and shorts together and bunched them into one hand. Onward!

It was when I first took one on the chest that the experience may actually be considered to have started. The farther in I went, the stronger the waves came, knocking me back, and fiercer still would I yell in delight and plough back farther into the sea. Thus was the status quo, until the seventh wave finally put in an appearance.

You can see it from far off, a seventh wave. In the daytime, it looks magnificent, its crests glittering green and white tongues of froth licking its crystal liquid lips. Many have given me piggy-back rides and many have engulfed me instantaneously in a murky world of aquamarine green.

But at night-time, it’s different.

Before your eyes, the horizon rises, a very murky blackness on a very murky blackness, the world tilts before your eyes as your head bobs on the water’s surface. Higher it rises, still higher, the angle rises very slowly; you feel you’re falling forward into an irrational eternity. Then it bursts over you, and it takes you deep into its womb, and it accords you the visceral warmth and softness, the primal force - throbbing with immense power, yet broodingly nurturing. Then it coughs you back out as it expends itself on the beach.

Engrossed in playing with the waves, I suddenly realized I had forgotten which way the beach lay. Of course, it was child’s play to find out, it was currently out of sight in the dark, but all waves naturally seek the shore. But I refrained from bringing my reason into play, preferring to allow my soul to absorb the immensity of this contrived beautiful situation as sincerely as possible – lost on the ocean.

So I did what sailors did when they were lost on the ocean, in the days before Marconi took the fun out of the business. I lay supine on the ocean’s swell, hands behind my head, and gazed up at the stars, which, to my extreme delight, were out in large numbers. I could not, of course, emulate the seamen in actually sleeping on the water for, it may be remembered, they do that far away from shorelines that cause waves that would wake even Rip van Winkle in a hurry.

Imagine the scene, gentle reader, a vast bowl of darkness studded with jewels of light above, cold, ethereal, immutable. Below, the warm rocking swells of the ocean, the cradle of all life, if Darwin is to be believed. And darkness withal, darkness everywhere - reason lies somnolent in the silent watches of the night.

It is a strange loneliness this, that descends on one under such unworldly conditions. I, for one, in all seriousness, seldom trust myself to venture into the ocean unattended. My friends here will tell you that that I pester them incessantly to go to the beach with me. And yet, when I go alone, I do not venture into the water.

It is not drowning that I fear; I fear that I do not fear drowning. The sea calls me on, farther, deeper – it calls irresistibly in a voice so ancient I can discern no vestige of it, and yet it tugs at every fiber of my being. I would love to follow, as long as I could, I would love to rock in my giant little cradle when I lay my head down on it for the last time. I swear it, I would love to. Hence, my little voice of reason decrees that I not go swimming in the ocean unattended.

Be it climbing up a Grade IV rock face without rappel, clips and rope, be it racing an 8 year old Maruti with a suspect suspension at 150 kmph, be it swimming across the Ganges at Rishikesh to the entertainment of the local populace, be it lying on a pebbled river bed, with just my nose sticking out, and basking drowsily in a hot summer sun, the call of life, its urgent, impatient, hot-blooded urge, is much louder in my ears than the wise, plaintive cry for its sustenance.

But faint though it is, it still impinges on my ears half an hour later, when my inchoate sea sense tells me to get out of the water which is getting rather inclement. I swim back therefore, to where I am in my depth and stand facing the waves, let them batter me and drive me back to the shore, I do not depart ungraciously, it is they who usher me out for having out-stayed my welcome. Eventually, I arrive to within knee depth and remember that I had better pull my clothes back on lest Haddi go into conniptions. On with the rags and I stumble out with the waves administering some parting shots in ill-humor.

Haddi knows better than to go into the “Look at you, you’re crazy” mode. He’s known me long enough. He merely states firmly that he will drive hereon lest some diligent police officer get some untimely business. Seeing that his breath still reeks of whisky a mile away, it is the quintessential case of the pot calling the kettle black.

But my maritime experience had rendered me introspective and so I did not contest the point and acceded to my hazardous role as pillion rider. One if the most glaring examples of lack of empathy in our world is the sad case of pillion riders. The driver, oblivious of the hair-raising travails of his passenger, guns his engine to ever-greater speeds. A case may be made out for the superior diplomatic skills of women as being a mental manifestation of having to adjust to the various demands of being pillion riders to uncouth speed-junkie oafs. Unless, of course, one happens to enjoy the thrill, the uncertainty and the looming threat of physical harm.

And this is where the adventure story per se ends. Accounts of how we returned to the hostel to find Bacchanalia reigning supreme would then eventually brush upon how I spent two hours listening to our hostel rock band play and drunken seniors telling me how to run the hostel next year on, how I spent the hours between 4 to 6 playing the blues in a dark room with the only light being the seven segment display on the guitar processor and the only sounds being my amateurish compositions, interspersed with pieces by Jimi. SRV and Clapton, and the rhythmic snoring of the room’s worthy occupant, Condom.

All of those are worthy subjects for commentary just as well, of course. Right now, however, the author has shot his bolt. It was his intention to intensively chronicle a situation-induced thought process, something he had rather stopped doing recently, insofar as the written word is concerned. It remains to you, gentle reader, to judge how satisfactory and aesthetically pleasing the endeavor has been. With this, I take your leave, for the nonce.

Damped Cogitations

Hi all, a rainy day, a bunked D slot class, a lot of late night introspection.......voila! a new post. It makes me feel very happy, a lot of things are conspiring to get me to shrug off my long depressedness and come up and feel the sun. Now, if only the NYT thing works out, I could really be sunny. Beware, damped cogitations dead ahead.

Damped Cogitations

It started raining today as I was walking back from classes in the morning. And I stopped and went up to my usual secluded haunt and welcomed the storm-clouds as they gathered from the South, arms akimbo, eyes half-shut and reverently gazing upwards and clothes, hair and beard rippling in a wind so stiff I had to fix my stance so as to not be blown off and fall 36 meters to the ground. I waited till the first cloud burst, then I climbed down and walked back to the hostel, getting absolutely soaked by the time I got here. There is a particularly beautiful passage in Jack London’s book “Call of the Wild” that goes

He was older than the days he had seen and the breaths he had drawn. He linked the past with the present, and the eternity behind him throbbed through him in a mighty rhythm to which he swayed as the tides and seasons swayed. He sat by John Thornton's fire, a broad-breasted dog, white-fanged and long-furred; but behind him were the shades of all manner of dogs, half-wolves and wild wolves, urgent and prompting, tasting the savor of the meat he ate, thirsting for the water he drank, scenting the wind with him, listening with him and telling him the sounds made by the wild life in the forest, dictating his moods, directing his actions, lying down to sleep with him when he lay down, and dreaming with him and beyond him and becoming themselves the stuff of his dreams.

And then again, in an earlier passage

Every night, regularly, at nine, at twelve, at three, they lifted a nocturnal song, a weird and eerie chant, in which it was Buck's delight to join. With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars leaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence. It was an old song, old as the breed itself--one of the first songs of the younger world in a day when songs were sad. It was invested with the woe of unnumbered generations, this plaint by which Buck was so strangely stirred. When he moaned and sobbed, it was with the pain of living that was of old the pain of his wild fathers, and the fear and mystery of the cold and dark that was to them fear and mystery. And that he should be stirred by it marked the completeness with which he harked back through the ages of fire and roof to the raw beginnings of life in the howling ages.

As I walked in the pouring rain, face upturned and tongue lolling out, lapping up drops of rain water with an instinctive legerdemain, it wasn’t I alone that walked. I walked with my ancestors and theirs, and theirs dating back to the timeless past when bands of nomads found a river valley in the heart of a sub-continent and eked out a living at the mercy of the vagaries of the river and the rain.

I am but a link in a chain that stretches both to the past and the future. The past controls me, guides me inexorably, as the mighty current of a river guides a paper boat. And so, when I rejoice at the rain, I do so even though the days when my own family actually depended on rain water for its sustenance are beyond living memory. Today, as I walked with ghosts from the past, I was a medium of expression for their joys, their hopes, and their elation at the continuity of life.

Every day is a cornucopia of new experiences; they flow out of the glacier that is Time in an unending melody of transitions. And yet, the ones that register, the ones that remain etched in memory are so very preciously few.

My paternal grandfather is 86. He stays with us most of the time now. A couple of years ago, he was really sinking and since I happened to be at home, I was de facto nurse. Now that does not merely involve feeding, medicating, injecting, bathing, cleaning up after etc. it also involves listening to him ramble on. Tunnel vision, they call it. As the brain cells begin to die, short-term memory is lost and child-hood details become extremely vivid. Erstwhile forgotten memories of childhood are an old man’s inseparable companions.

Can it be that childhood experiences, being much more instinctive and hence not as individualistic as experiences arising of adult volition, are much more memorable because they are closer to the collective racial memory?

To take an example, I cannot remember exactly when I last lay in a pit full of squelchy mud in a pouring rain; in fact, I don’t think I’ve actually done it ever, but I can remember the sensations of softness, coldness, warmth, goose-bumps on the backs of my arms. That is a racial memory, almost as old as the mud and the rain itself.

Who does not remember experiencing a localized diffused brightness at one point or the other in one’s life, concomitant with feelings of security, happiness and contentment? Of an instant, we hark back to when we were young infants ensconced far inside the depths of a community cave, gazing through sleepy eyes at the fire that stands guard at the entrance, keeping a mysterious dark otherness at bay, ages ago when the world was young.

As children, we are all as afraid of the dark as the pitiful Neanderthal who slept in trees clutching a wooden stump, fearfully pricking his ears at the savage sounds prowling the jungle below. As children, we are all fascinated by fire, by the act of burning. Has anyone ever set a pile of paper alight and not gazed intently at the flames consuming the frail whiteness with its hypnotizing slow certitude?

What causes the universal positive emotion at the break of day, the plaudits to the beauty of the sunrise? Is it too hard to imagine the relaxing of the vigil at the break of day, as the predators of the night slink away, foiled, to their lairs, as the embers of the camp-fire are allowed to go out, having stood guard alongside their Master.

We have moved on to civilized living and our intellectual currents are increasingly directed towards the abstract and designed to assimilate nothing but an increasingly mechanized and psychotic present. We choose to ignore the fact that the psychic power of experiences, the undercurrents that hold the highest psychological value for humanity, are rooted firmly in the past, even in the pre-historic past.

The sea, does it not invoke emotions of security, angst and serenity? Looking at that vast bluish-green carpet of stormy tranquility, ‘the same to Noah as to me’, looking at the unending marches of the stars of a cold, clear December night, we see what the first fathers of men saw, a vision of immortal immutability.

“…….and because all tales must end, all music must end, all life must end, at the very end we say Khattam Shud.”
- Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Death is an intrinsic and innocuous part of natural evolution; it is merely in its crude anthropomorphic manifestation that it frightens us. Death stares at us from the last page of every book we read, the final triumphant note of every piece of music one hears, the final scene of every film that one views. Have we all not been there?

Death is a demagogue that unerringly incites the most poignant of human emotions – those of irretrievable loss and change, of the fragility of existence, the tenuousness of consciousness and its impotence in the face of Time.

It is in contrast to this, that the experiences we speak of today are different. They offer a view of an alternative, an eternal, changeless alternative. They offer us the chance to believe that ‘some things will never change’. Note the comforting ring of the phrase, though used in a cerebral context. They thus address humanity’s basic insecurity, the need to believe that life will survive, collectively, if not individually.

All these experiences are psychologically speaking, ‘womb archetypes’. The quest for the comfort and security of the womb is indelibly etched in the mammalian psyche as an unremembered, timeless, dreamlike existence before the advent of reality and confusion and pain - the tumult and trauma of birth.

It is instructive to note here, that an anthropomorphic allegory to suit this description would uncannily resemble the Semitic legend of the Garden of Eden and the Adamite Fall. It may be remembered, en passant, that the serpent has been recognized as a phallic symbol by cultures both traditional and contemporary, as a quick perusal of journals purveying feminine pulchritude would easily reveal.

The sea, the night sky, the mother’s breast, the sounds of the night, lying in the first hours of the dawn on a bed of grass bedewed, the smell of damp earth, the coziness that ensues from pulling a blanket up over the top of one’s head and constricting one’s world to a small, warm, dark little place – all these experiences contain elements of wish fulfillment, of ‘returning to the womb’, partially or completely, literally or metaphorically, of self-reassurance of the permanence of certain memories - memories almost tangible.

The presence of ‘womb archetypes’ then, is what sets certain experiences apart from others as being more memorable, timeless, precious etc. It is the author’s contention that the psychological health of a community may be measured by the profusion of womb archetypes in its mainstream culture.

This presents a far more logical explanation, than vague individual lifestyle-based formulations, for the relative paucity of psychotic disorders in agrarian cultures and a plethora of the same in all classes (but particularly the nouveau riche) in rapidly developing industrial economies, viz. Puritan Britain and modern day India. The similarities between these two societies have been remarked upon, arrived at, and explained by other parallel sociological approaches just as well.

This essay is meant to be nothing but a monologue on the void in modern psychological theory on the significance of the uncanny commonality in the relative acuity of perception and memory of events for the vast concourse of humanity. There is much that remains to be said of the validity of the theory of womb archetypes. The observations that lead to its formulation are well nigh indisputable; the actual theory is merely an intuitive juxtaposition of Freudian psychoanalysis and the Jungian ‘collective unconscious’.

Time, and the Harvard Socio-Anthropology Department, will judge the validity of this hypothesis. As for me, I am almost beatifically happy at the thought that the memory of this moment is not just my moldy T-shirt that sticks sopping wet to my torso, it is also the residuum of centuries of experience that sticks to my unconscious, guiding my volition and shaping my apperception.

My subconscious directs my conscious to glow with satisfaction and contentment as I end; with the feeling that some things won’t, that some things will last forever, in this pouring April rain.

August 18, 1969.......flying high, in the Bethel sky......

Hi all, hearing the uproar outside my room door today in the morning put me in mind of my legendary exploits two years ago, come Holi day, outside Sarayu and Sharavati. That of course, put me in a good mood for the day. Reading up on how woodstock happened and how Michael Lang got all the credit and Roberts and Rosenman had to do all the dirty work.....and how Jimi acted like a pompous cheapskate.......well this one was a bit of a no-brainer, what! I hope the Hindu believes its incredibly profound though (boo hoo ... just 800 words again!). Here you go,

The annual Indian Woodstock

Every year, to the eye of the untrained observer, a large portion of the normally staid Indian population goes crazy for a day. To Caucasian eyes, one of the reasons why India stands apart as a distinct culture, as opposed to the colorless stereotypes that engulf other Asian countries, is its under-current of passion and joie de vivre, unparalleled save in the Hispanic nations. The Indian festival of Holi, set in the back-drop of prudish rural North India, is a perfect showcase for our study.

Recently, a law passed in Delhi has made it ‘illegal’ for couples to hold hands while in Connaught Place, the shopping heartland of the Capital. In the nearby satellite towns of Western UP, police raid restaurants, hotels and cybercafés regularly, serving up details to a drooling, salacious local press. In staid university campuses, wearing shorts in public is considered unseemly. Public opinion places drug usage at almost the same level of debauchery as paedophilia.

Contrast this, if we may, with the sights and sounds that are almost synonymous with Holi in the North Indian hinterland. Gangs of semi-naked youths roaming the streets, overwhelmingly physical displays of affection, pitched mock battles, ubiquitous eve-teasing and coquetry, and of course, the openly public confection and consumption of bhang.

Quid?

The sheer scale of Holi makes it difficult to assign it any psycho-social parallels from world history. How does one explain a humongous explosion of spontaneity and liberality that occurs at a fixed date every year? The paradox would be trivial were we to explain it to be merely a question of cult theology and religious beliefs. Only the very naïve, however, would refer to Holi as a ‘Hindu’ festival. The vast multitude that celebrates Holi does so owing to a continuous reflux of cultural conditioning.

By most estimates, more than half a million people gathered in a field at Bethel, New York for three days beginning August 16 1969 – to watch the largest rock concert in the history of mankind. Woodstock – as the event has forever been immortalized as, was the apotheosis of that psychedelic tapestry of youthful angst that was the 60s USA. The mental archetypes of the hippie culture finally passed into the mythology of American culture with this epochal, cathartic pogrom – 3 days of the flower people and their quaint anti-war, pantheistic philosophy.

Gangs of disheveled, semi-clad youths, sexual tension in the air, hallucinogenic drugs sold over the counter and partaken of with impunity, color running riot – ’69 USA or present day India? The similarities are extremely striking. Professor Joshi, I am sure, could unearth an erstwhile unknown Sanskrit text that conclusively proves that it was a venerable Indian ‘rishi’ or deity who invented rock ‘n roll millennia before Elvis walked the earth.

Should such a helpful text not exist, we are forced to look for less simplistic explanations. What do the hippies of the American cultural Golden Age have in common with the Indian common man?

The first step, of course, is to realize that most of the hippie pioneers looked to India and its pantheistic, Ego-effacing culture for spiritual nourishment and took back their own conceptions of it to their subsequent followers. Secondly, hippie culture following music as its religion, the impact of Indian collaborators in the 60s served to reaffirm the exotic Indian stereotype, adding to its mystique.

The remarkable difference lies in the fact that whereas the hippie movement was but a monument to iconoclasm, to be replaced by consumerist fads in American consciousness by the early 80s , our indigenous chaotic festival occupies pride of place in an extremely prudish mainstream consciousness.

It is here that the power of tradition and culture is evinced in its entirety. American culture, itself a subset of the largely Protestant European culture, has been built largely in cycles of growth and destruction. Conspicuous by its absence is a continuity of tradition, each succeeding cult repudiating and rebutting its predecessor. The adjective ‘brittle’ comes to mind, particularly when juxtaposed with the Indian mentality.

Through countless millennia, cockroaches and Indian culture have survived by absorbing the fundamental tenet of beating natural selection – ‘anything goes’. ‘Anything goes’ - ‘chalta hai’ in the vernacular – is the life-blood of Indian society. It is evident in our chronically corrupt public offices, in our chaotic public transport systems, and in our inefficient public infrastructure. It is also evident in the vitality of our festivals, the controlled spontaneity of our celebrations, the universal spirit of bonhomie that engulfs us all, around this time of the year.

‘Amorphous’ is the best possible description. The stubborn continuum that is Indian culture and society; smoothened and ground down by the passing of time has learned to accept, to incorporate, if one may quote Orwell, “to change out of all recognition and yet ever remain the same.”

Greetings on Holi to everyone, appreciate the uniqueness of our heritage.

The Gospel of Krishna Yogi....

Hi all, I think I will introduce you today to this friend of mine who is an extremely intriguing personality. I think of him as the most interesting reclusive iconoclast on campus. He comes from a family with a history of spiritualism, witness his middle name. The first thing that struck me about him, even before I knew him, was his physique - unadulteratedly Aryan. The similarities of our experiences in the spiritual path are a big confidence-booster for me in my experiments with Sufism and Zen. And our conversations about the meaning of God and the relevance of tokens and symbols in spiritualism have afforded me more food for thought than most other people I know on campus. He wrote this at my behest as an insight into the mind of a born spiritualist and a practitioner of Kriya Yoga. I then took the thing up and filled it out and fleshed it up and rewrote it and added chunks to it, the usual bag of tricks. So, this is my second co-authorship post in a row. I present to you, "An introduction to Kriya" and my good friend Krishna Yogi Kolluru.

ROADS TO PERCEPTION

GOD

God is the most beautiful concept in all of philosophy. God is the ultimate paradigm of creativity. Witness the seeming incongruity of universes within universes. And yet the structure of the universe evinces considerable similarities at the microscopic and macroscopic levels. If this universe is created, then how infinitely creative is the mind of the Creator!

There was never a beginning, witness the insurmountability of Planck time: nor, by symmetry, shall there ever be an end. This essay takes for an axiom the active involvement of a ‘Divine Intelligence’ in the creation of chaos and its time-evolution into symmetry and order.

In Indian spiritualism, this is called ‘Leela’, a Sanskrit term. ‘Leela’ is the nature of God, vast beyond the farthest stretches of our imaginations, yet intricate beyond all hope of deterministic inspection. It is He who gave us life, He who plays with us, and He who eventually stows us away – for future use, if re-incarnation were to be admitted as valid. And yet, for all our seeming insignificance, every sentient entity, says Hindu pantheism, is equally important to the show. Going even further, it would not be too much to say that a single electron spinning in the wrong direction might lead to a collapse of the universe, as we know it. Such is ‘Leela’.

It would be a consummation devoutly to be wished for if we would all take our noses off our self-inflicted grindstones and ponder upon the wonder of it all, savor the magnificence of this moment, all the parameters that happen to be just right for it to exist!

SELFLESSNESS

Personal reflections: rising early in the morning, I see the sun, feel the cool breeze, hear the sleepy piping of birds as they arise, like me, to face what we collectively perceive as a new day. But who is it that sees? Who is it that feels? Is it I? Who am I? What am I? Try as I might I cannot answer this. What am I? What am I?

Have you ever felt the same way? Are you too all too familiar with the mental block that results? Forget about meditation, religion and Divinity. What if I do not exist? More accurately, what if whatever I think I am does not exist? Hint: think ‘The Matrix’. Now, the Matrix theory, if we may call it that, makes some kind of sense. It is not a phenomenal stretch of logic to theorize perceived reality to be illusory and the actual ego to be dormant.

Vedanta however, categorically negates the existence of the individual Self. ‘I’ – ness, ‘You’ism is the highest or the beginning of ‘maya’ – illusion. One may view the world as imparting the primary illusion of ‘being’. The illusion of identity is the most deeply-seated of all such. And once established, it leads very easily to the others.

It is when one abrogates the delusion of identity that one is faced with the real nature of Consciousness. That is when one realizes the true significance of pantheistic philosophy, the appropriateness of the fundamental credo of Vedantic thought, ‘Tat Tvam Asi’ – ‘ ‘thou art that’.

Whither the distinctions between good and evil, sin and sacrifice, black and white? Nothing exists save the Cosmic Consciousness. All discriminatory power vanishes with the individual identity. You are the ‘One’. (This, however, has nothing to do with Keanu Reeves!)

THE PATH TO PERFECTION

Vivekananda held that to walk the path to perfection was harder than walking on a sword’s edge. However, with swords being in rather short supply these days, used solely for the purpose of political gimmickry as they are, it behooves us to be more pragmatic in discussing methods of attaining perfection.

Basically, eradicating the thought of imperfection from our minds is the road to perfection. We say the earth is not a perfect sphere. But, my friends, the earth IS perfect in having its own shape. Who is to say which shape is better? Likewise, the realization that everything is perfect is concomitant with the realization that ‘This is it’. This is possible only by getting rid of illusion.

It is my contention that, after identity, the besetting illusion that plagues humanity is the concept of relative worth, things being better or worse. Why call anything good or bad when all things are truly manifestations of the One, the Divine – You.

You are the one who created this world, its transient images, its ephemeral sensations. And then you are the one who mesmerized yourself into believing that your creation is disjoint from your own Self. Therefore, you and you alone can transcend the entrapments of ‘maya’, melt all illusions in the fire of spiritual knowledge and realize your true identity. As Vivekananda said, ‘ Not a sheep thou art but a lion. Arise, awake, and roar.’

MEDITATION

Now, the only way, vouchsafed to us by five continuous millennia of spiritual quests, is by awakening the ‘Kundalini’, and causing it to ascend to the ‘thousand – petal lotus’. This can be achieved most effectively by meditation. The guiding precepts are simple. Concentrate your will on perceiving the universe as containing just two elements – you and God. Soon you will transcend this duality and attain the realization of Unity, which is the highest state of meditation, known as ‘Nirvikalpa Samadhi’. Even after setting aside the dubious claims of charlatans, we are still left with examples such as great sages like Ramana Maharishi of Tiruvannamalai, Sai Baba of Shirdi and Ramakrishna Paramhamsa of Dakshineshwar, who had attained those towering spiritual heights, proving thereby, to twentieth century cynics, the truth of the Vedantic doctrine.

SHAADCHAKRAS

The following is a brief exposition of the theory of Kriya Yoga, a powerful shortcut in the arduous spiritual trek. The ‘Shaadchakras’ and the ‘Sahastrakamalam’ together constitute the life-force. Under waking consciousness, they remain dormant. They are activated in increasing order of magnitude by:

• Sleep (Sufficient, one may note, to induce loss of spatio-temporal orientation)
• Deep concentration
• Overwhelming positive emotion
• Sex
• Hallucinogenic drugs, notably heroin
• Volitional activation via meditation/yoga

Osho’s advocacy of free sex as a spiritual practice shocked moral sensibilities around the world . It is true however, that outside of Yogic practice and drug abuse, the most perceptible rise in Kundalini is observed during the sexual act. This, however, is marginal as compared to the extreme rise experienced during meditation. In proportion, the bliss of orgasm is dwarfed by the ecstasy of meditation. Osho described the bliss of ‘Samadhi’ as a state of continuous orgasm. Not even Hugh Hefner can match that!

To continue with the theory of Kriya however, the ‘Kundalini’ present in the ‘Muladhara’ travels through the spine and reaches the ‘Sahastrakamalam’. There it ‘melts’ the ‘lotus’ causing the subject to experience an extreme state of ecstasy, followed in most cases by a blissful realization of the true nature of reality.

This process may happen, as in some historic cases, spontaneously. In most cases however, the subject is required to rigorously follow a particular Yogic practice (Raja yoga, Hatha yoga etc.) until the mind is subdued sufficiently to allow Realization.

The Indian system of Yoga is thus a far more systematized method of spiritual practice than other systems with concurrent aims. In all other cases, be it Gnosticism, Sufism or Zen, though the intellectual theory is the same, the practice is highly individualized, causing Realization to be a hit-or-miss proposition.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, I would appeal to you to give yourself a fair chance at understanding the fundamental unity of the universe and the essential purpose of existence. Of course, mindsets ossified in a colonial distaste of all things indigenous would find it unpalatable to accept the relevance of Vedanta and Yoga. My only request is that meditation and Indian spiritualism should not be dismissed as hysteria driven hoaxes. While the ultimate bliss of Realization is almost inaccessible to us common mortals, even the intermediate stages of meditative absorption are far more satisfying and fulfilling than corporeal pleasures. I leave you with one last nugget of information, which explaining the title of the essay allows me to conclude aesthetically satisfactorily: who do you think has written the introduction to ‘The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna’?

Aldous Huxley. Huxley who? Ask any druggie worth his brown sugar.

Gee! (wish people) had (more sense)

This one happened in a very familiar manner. Noemaun brought his article on 'The Prophet who fought wars" to me for a proofread, then it turned into an editorial session, following which it metamorphosed into a rewrite, following which...... well, this is what ensued. Certain sentences and passages are his and so I think I may claim but co-authorship of this essay. The subject, as may be seen, is extremely close to my heart (ref. buying a stairway to heaven). Here you are

Militarism in Islam

In today’s new-found neo-Conservative morality, it is so very fashionable to berate Islam and its practices as being primitive, brutal and anachronistic. While it is impossible to irrevocably refute all such allegations in such a short essay, it is endeavored here to take issue with supporters of the Huntingtonian school of thought on one alleged aspect of Islamic culture – militarism and Islam’s concept of Jihad.

Right up to the late 90’s, the Russian stereotype of the “godless Communist aggressor” was so firmly entrenched in American mindsets that successive Conservative administrations and pulp fiction authors like Ludlum and Forsyth managed to keep making money out of flogging the Commie horse.

Interestingly, as a quick perusal of any best-seller list and current affairs paper will show, the interests of both have shifted to a new target, the older one having been rendered obsolete by the internal collapse and democratization of the Soviet Republic in 1991. The Conservative laser-sights sought a new target and found one. Thanks to the hypotheses of academician Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” theory, circa 1995, their gun-turrets are now trained on Islam.

To this effect, the story of the spread of Islam is embellished with improbable stories of cruelty and debauchery, the current separatist movements in Chechnya, Palestine, Serbia-Montenegro etc. are highlighted as being manifestations of Islamic militarism. Also, socio-political observers of the woolly-headed Right make incredibly presumptuous proclamations of stirrings of malcontent in the Middle East. A state of paranoia, with reference to the past, present and future of the role of Islam in geo-politics, is being consciously and unambiguously generated.

Our case in defense rests on the unanimously held Orthodox Sunni premise that the path of Islam lies in the emulation of the intentions and deeds of the Seal of the Prophets, Mohammed (pbuh), the founder of Islam as we know it. To know Islam one must know of the life of the Prophet – a figure incomparable in the history of the world save to that other Semitic miracle, Jesus.

Irrespective of your political, religious or societal persuasion, any attempt to understand the Islamic ideology with a modernistic perspective will fail. Your quest for knowledge of the modalities of Islamic geo-politics and social stratifications can not even begin without a comprehensive biographical review of the personality of this man. To place the purported militarism of the Islamic creed, let us view the Prophet’s (pbuh) views regarding warfare.

“The most senile thing ever thought about man is contained in the celebrated saying 'the ego is always hateful'; the most childish is the even more celebrated 'love thy neighbor as thyself'. -- In the former, knowledge of human nature has ceased, in the latter it has not yet even begun.”

- Friedrich Nietzsche, Assorted Opinions and Maxims

To any reasonably pragmatic reasoning individual, it is evident that war is a necessary evil, which must be carried through, in order to solve social and political problems which cannot be resolved peacefully. Human communities have plunged into fights not only for the mere accomplishment of material aims but also for achieving social justice. Case in point, one wonders if Luther King could have accomplished so much had he not stood on the broad shoulders of Lincoln and Ulysses Grant.

Prophet Muhammad ibn Abdullah (pbuh), the founder of Islam, led his community to battle on innumerable occasions. And yet, one can unearth no records of his having benefited materially from any of these military conquests. His bearing ever remained the same, for all the prosperity and dominance of the Muslims by the time of his passing. It was thus neither lust for gold nor glory that led the Prophet to take to the sword but a burning sense of responsibility towards his fellow Arabs wallowing in ignorance and misery. It is a fact that does not really require mentioning that it was the unifying power of Islam that allowed the Arabs to establish the strongest, most magnificent empire that the world has ever seen this side of the Dark Ages.

Also, 1300 years before the West thought of the Geneva Convention, and 1360 years before the Imperialist West breaks its regulations with impunity, the Prophet of Islam imbued martial codes in Arabia with a sense of humanity and compassion. The total number of casualties in all the wars that took place during his lifetime, when the whole Arabian Peninsula came under his banner, did not exceed a few hundreds.

Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors .

[Quran 2.190]

To the aggressive Arabs, who were used to fighting forty years on the slightest provocation, say of a camel belonging to the guest of one tribe having strayed into the grazing land belonging to other tribe, which ended up with both the sides fighting resulting in the loss of thousands of lives, the Prophet of Islam taught submissiveness and discipline; Discipline so rigorous that congregational prayer during wars was common. Even during the heat and fever of battle, whenever the time for prayer came, and it comes five times every day, the congregation prayer was never postponed.

In an age of barbarism, the battlefield itself was humanized and strict instructions were issued not to cheat, not to break trust, not to mutilate, not to kill a child or woman or an old man, not to hew down date palm nor burn it, not to cut a fruit tree, not to molest any person engaged in worship and those who sought quarter were escorted to a place of safety. One can but wonder at the emotions of the confinees at Guantanamo Bay who are informed through the American popular media that it is THEY who are barbaric!

On the conquest of Mecca, the Prophet (pbuh) stood at the zenith of his power. The city which had refused to listen to his mission, which had tortured him and his followers, which had driven him and his people into exile and which had unrelentingly persecuted him even when he had taken refuge in Medina, more than 200 miles away, now lay at his feet. By the universal law of retribution (“we’re gonna smoke them out!”), he could have ‘justly’ avenged all the cruelties inflicted on him and his people. But what treatment did he accord them? His heart flowed with affection and he declared, "This day, there is no reproof against you and you are all free." "This day" he proclaimed, "I trample under my feet all distinctions between man and man, all hatred between man and man."

¨Jihad¨ is a generic term for concerted effort or struggle against major obstacles, such as injustice, disease, or poverty. It’s meaning is much broader than ¨holy war¨, and can only be understood within the context of Islamic teachings. Jihad is a very powerful pillar of Islamic faith. Unfortunately, it is misused by terrorists to rationalize their actions, much as the Nazis hijacked the teachings of Nietzsche, Fichte and Hegel to propagandize their Aryan supremacist theories. Blaming the Prophet (pbuh), Islam and Muslim culture for terrorist activity around the globe is much the same as blaming the Lutheran Church for the Holocaust, or J D Salinger for John Lennon’s assassination.

In view of the aforegoing, it is to be hoped that the next time you hear the Prophet (pbuh) being referred to in acrimonious terms, you will accord it the same amount of gullible acceptance that we cunning Indians have cultivated for official government pronouncements – nil.

Tales of horror and misery....

Hi all, I think one has to be an Electrical Engineering Undergraduate taking the Transmission Lines course to really feel this poem to the core. Yes, this is the story of how I waged my war against the terror of the parasitic capacitance and the impediments of impedance matching in E Slot last semester. Read and shudder...

A night of tribulation

Wandering in tortuous labyrinths
Of mathematical logic
Palpitating in dread of the morrow
Hiding in its folds, a paper dagger

Drooping lids, mind overdriven
Greedily, the waters of Lethe
Drain the dregs of my fading brain
The ticking clock contrives my doom

And yet stay, here lies a taste
Of Paradise, yet unsullied
As cheek and ear touch
The gentle, cool wood

Away, evil thoughts of vile grades
Avast, perfidious lunges of Ego
A prosaic Hamlet resolves his dilemma
Sweet nasal music permeates the air

We got mail no more ...

The Mailman won't deliver any more. He just retired at the age of 41. And with his passing has finally come to a close the age of the 80s that saw the meteoric rise of the NBA into public consciousness in the US.

He leaves behind a legacy of consistency and endurance of a magnitude almost beyond credulity. In 18 seasons of 82 games each (not counting the Playoffs that the Jazz went to every one of those seasons) he missed a grand total of 10 games! In his final season, with the Los Angeles Lakers, he demonstrated a level of physical fitness and stamina that put even LA's superstar center, 32-year old Shaquille O'Neal to shame, relentlessly competing against players half his age.

Malone leaves the game 1,539 points adrift of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's all-time scoring record of 38,387 points in second place, above both MJ and Wilt Chamberlain. He is also 6th all-time in total rebounds collected and 2nd in total minutes spent on the court. Over 19 years of banging down in the low-post and setting picks on top of the key, the Mailman's scoring average was a solid 25.0 ppg, good enough for 10th place all time.

People may drool over the shooting skills and big-game temperament of Larry Bird, or the dominant scoring of Elgin Baylor, or the sheer physicality of Sir Charles, or the Celtics' John Havliceck and Kevin McHale.

But if there is one player who defined the power forward position, it has to be Karl Malone. What with the plethora of talent at the 4 spot these days, Duncan, Garnett, Nowitzki, O'Neal and Stoudamire all possible HOFers, it is easy to forget the impact that Malone had on the game in his 19 playing years.

While his supremacy as a power forward may be questioned, none may surpass the place in history, as a forward-guard duo, that Malone and Stockton occupy. Over 50000 points and 20000 assists and 18 back-breakingly consistent years of on-court heroics later, the two veterans have both now moved on, Stockton back in May 2003, Malone now in 2005.

We will all miss Malone, the Utah Jazz not least. His legendary work ethic, his freakish fitness regimen, his great heart, and lastly the tragedy of his fruitless quest for a championship ring over 19 long years of toil shall form a part of basketball lore forever.

Farewell, Karl Malone. Michael Jordan denied you the ring twice, and Kobe Bryant once. But all the Jordans and Kobes of the world can never deny your place in the hearts of millions of basketball fans the world over.

All luck to you, wherever you go and whatever you do, Mailman.

Palestine: an allegory

hi all, this is one of my favorite pieces of poetry - short, unpretentious and hopefully profound. i wrote this a little after 9/11 and also at a time of deep personal turmoil. i never could figure out if this is more of a socio-political statement or the catharsis of existentialist crises. anyway, here it is , for all its worth,

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty was about to fall
Quoth the King, 'Thou errant egg!
Desist at once, lest thee break thy leg'

"How long do I my woes do hide?
My future is scrambled or fried
No hope remains, weary am I
My destiny is omlette or pie."

"Foolish egg! Cease thy perfidious chatter
Thou dost appear mad as the Hatter
An egg to the end eggness must uphold
So come on down, O round one bold!"

"No King, seek thy repast elsewhere
My shell shall break to fragments here
I leave my word to the rest of my race,
Crack, do not stew in this horrible place"

Humpty Dumpty slid from his wall
Humpty Dumpty had his great fall
All the King's horses and all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again

Birthday wishes for two mascots

hi all, it has been my long-lasting ambition to work in basketball into my blog. This is the first draft of an article i am writing. i am putting it up because i don't have MS office on my comp anymore so the formatting wouldn't come out well. A big thank you to Shashi for comp time. Here it is folks,

It is the time of the year again where we take our collective hats off to two of the most influential marketing coups in the youth product market, to have ensued in the past fifty years. If the loose purse-strings of the Generation Next are to be placed in a cultural perspective, the most seminal contributions in this regard stem from two personages whose birth-dates enjoy a fortuitous propinquity - St. Valentine and Michael Jordan.

Opinions differ as to the actual personage of St. Valentine, the Catholic Church recognizing at least three martyrs of the same name. It is undisputed though that the celebration of Valentine's Day is a custom that incorporates vestiges of pre-Christian and early Catholic beliefs. The Valentine culture has ingrained itself, with almost archetypal psychic strength, in European culture. The patron saint of love is honored more unreservedly than the Savior himself in places.

Nevertheless, public attitude towards Valentine's Day remained conservative up to the post-War boom of the late 1940's. It was then that, endeavoring to capitalize on the burgeoning 'teen' consumer market, the mass marketing of Cupid's bower began. By the late 1980's, Valentine's Day was a more integral part of the American culture than Yuletide.

Around the same time, Valentine relaxed its Caucasian base and invaded other cultures, India not being the least of its conquests. The Valentine Day fever, unlike most Indian cultural imports, was contagious at the grass-roots level rather than forced from above by the glitterati of Bollywood. In fact, foreigners often remark at the scale of celebration of the event in India. The immense popularity of the Valentine concept is a beautiful vindication of Vivekananda's, and to an extent Gandhi's, conception of the Indian as an ingenuous purveyor of affection.

Born on 18th February 1963, Michael Jordan stands alongside Pele and Muhammad Ali as a global ambassador of the unifying power of sport. As an emblem for marketing savvy however, Jordan stands in a class of his own. By far the highest earning athlete in the history of team sports, Jordan's meteoric rise in the context of product endorsements was totally unprecedented in magnitude and heralded the beginning of a new era in brand marketing. The global entertainment sports market is a vast agglomeration of parochial interests. And yet, they all owe their success, in some part at least, to the man everybody thought could fly

The 'Be like Mike' campaign was so very effective in the playgrounds and gravel courts of suburban USA that it spawned innumerable replicas all over the world. Be it David Beckham or the Williams sisters, or even Tiger Woods, the primary reason these athletes can demand and are offered obscenely high endorsement fees is the shadow of Jordan and the legendary success of Nike's Air Jordan campaign. In his first year under the Nike logo, the Air Jordan line topped $153 million in sales. His presence elevated Nike to a position of global dominance in the field of sport apparel manufacture.

In India, a land where the utterance of the name of a sport other than cricket is considered snobbish effrontery at its worse, Michael Jordan's impact is still pervasive. If nothing else, the ganjis hung in village markets with number 23 and "Street Bulbs" blazoned across the front would bear testament to the fact. The pampered Indian cricketers have but MJ to thank for their fat endorsement pay-checks.

What is it that unites a 2000-year old legend and a 42-year old icon? In a word - Capitalism.

It is nobody's case that love is found on a specific date of the Gregorian calendar within the folds of a greeting card or the petals of a rose. It is, likewise, nobody's case that wearing a particular brand of shoes named after a phenomenon will cause one's physical prowess to improve beyond bounds. And yet, the plethora of advertisements streaming past the public consciousness through all avenues of mass media insistently reiterates the same theme.

The media's projectivity and the audiences' gullibility both combine to create a market-space that is all but dictated to by the rise and fall of individual personalities in popular perception. Which is why brand ambassadors are picked and dropped as the law of averages works in its remorseless grind. And sportspersons jump out at us at the drop of the hat proclaiming their undying affection for particular brands of colas, candies, hair oils, laxatives, the works.

This is naked, ruthless capitalism at its finest. And this is proof of why the Soviet Republic is now late and no longer lamented. St. Valentine, Michael Jordan and their promoters are out to make as quick a buck as possible. And yet, in doing so, they ennoble humanity in very different ways. For one day, it is now societally acceptable for youth to shake off their shackles and express the tale of their hormones. Thousands of youngsters, instead of releasing their energy in destructive ways, spend hours at their neighborhood courts trying to 'Be like Mike'.

There is beauty in the spirit of bonhomie that the energetic efforts of Valentine Day sponsors have inadvertently created. There is grace in the spirit of competitiveness and raw physical exultation that the Jordan myth has unleashed upon contemporary youth. Both these cultural icons are two major triumphs of the Free Market economy, erstwhile so badly maligned in socialistic paradigms.

If personal expenditure and expressiveness were to be subjugated, the good saint Valentine would stand a strong chance of being excommunicated. If all men were to be equal, Michael Jordan would be pumping gas in Brooklyn. Capitalism can be soullessly ugly and demeaning. But it has its coruscations of nobility. Let us grant to the 'Ugly American' his due.

Fine and Dandi

Some parochial flavor at last! I had been thinking of putting up something India-centric for a while now and yesterday's Hindu article was a godsend for my cynical pen to start moving again. I wonder if the Open Page guys are going to indulge me , because this is a bit stronger than the usual platitudes. Here it is then, "Dandi is redundant"

Dandi is redundant

It is no great feat of the imagination to conjure up an image of the Mahatma sitting at his rickety charkha, spinning slowly, determinedly, a vision of India as a macrocosm of a self-sustained village community. It would be equally facile though, judging by current political events, for one to imagine him spinning in his grave at the continual defilement of his legacy by his very own political progeny – the Congress.

The AICC headquarters informs us that the Congress, to commemorate the 75^th anniversary of the historic Dandi March, seeks to ‘re-enact’ it for a period of 26 days, beginning March 12. The ostensible purpose is to apprise the younger generation of the “great legacy the country has inherited from the Father of the Nation”.

The Salt March, as it is usually called, is one of the finest examples ever, of the power of symbols. Gandhi’s determined rebellion against the perceived injustice of the British administration galvanized millions of heretofore apathetic Indians to join the ranks of the ‘Civil Disobedience Movement’. The march to Dandi was a call to arms for a people long inured to suffering iniquities uncomplainingly. Concomitantly, it acted as a rite of passage for M K Gandhi, allowing him the psychological leverage to become the undisputed arbiter of the direction of the freedom struggle for more than a decade.

The Salt March was a deliberate attempt to subvert the power of the administration, an orchestrated act of anarchistic demagoguery. While unqualifiedly a stroke of political genius in its own context, one ponders over the possible significance of a ‘re-enactment’ of the same 75 years hence, by none but the ruling party. Why should a democratic, civilized, and developing nation want to relive anti-establishment activities?

The Dandi incident was one of the barely half-dozen occasions in Gandhi’s political career where he welcomed the Press. His intention, en route to the Gujarat coast, was quite simply, publicity for the statement of his resolve to persist with the freedom struggle. And yet, even though his scheme was incredibly successful in vitalizing the masses, he did not resort to publicity stunts like this one save as a last resort. And, more importantly, he would carry through each and every one of his public resolves irrespective of physical, mental or political cost.

It is perfectly acceptable for cultural heroes to be glorified. Gandhi, in this respect, probably deserves an exceedingly higher pedestal than the usual assortment of skilled murderers and raconteurs that populate the Hall of Fame of popular perception. It is therefore, understandable, in the typical Indian hagiographical context, for the nation to pay homage to the great man on the anniversary of his achievement.

But then, how much of the soul of the march to Dandi does the Congress hope to encapsulate for the benefit of the younger generation? Can they, or anyone else for that matter, even dream of empathizing with the fervor of dedication that those earnest followers of Gandhi felt as they walked alongside his frail form? What is it that they hope to ‘re-enact’? The physical aspect of the march – the 241 miles from Sabarmati to Dandi? Paula Radcliffe would probably do it better.

How do you celebrate the occasion of one frail, loincloth-garbed ascetic’s gesture of revolt against the might of the British Empire? Well, if you are the Congress, you start by forming an organizing committee with patrons-in-chief and patrons-of-programme and chairmen and vice-chairmen running around primping for the cameras. For a month’s duration, you spend money on pomp and splendor that might have come in very handy indeed for the starving poor in AP or the tsunami-hit destitutes in TN.

One may choose, alternatively, to be incensed or baffled by the cavalier use that the Congress makes of its rich legacy of upright statesmanship and homogeneously nationalistic ideation. It has, thanks to the internal collapse of the Indian far Right, been able to rid itself of its minority-appeasement policy but is now in danger of drifting back to the old days of toadyism to the ‘dynasty’. The megalomanic charisma of Indira is yet to wear off the senior cadres and insofar as the rejuvenation of the party is concerned, the sooner it is past, the better.

Which is why it is painful to find the leading lights of the Congress indulging in anachronistic jingoism at a time when India, both as a society and an economy, is preparing to take wing as a power to contend with. It would be a far grander gesture of political maturity should the Congress from this embarrassing prospect.

It is almost excruciatingly clichéd to point out that Indian politics, for uniquely indigenous reasons, is extremely corrupt and decadent. It is also palpable that political stunts like Advani’s Rath Yatra affect large, extremely gullible segments of the voting population. To ask our worthy representatives to refrain from manipulating the populace for electoral gains is akin to praying for snowflakes in Hell.

How, then, do we convince our leaders that, with all due respect to the Father of the Nation, we, his descendants, need to move on?

Portrait of a non-artist as an old man

Hi all. don't have time for the cheery introductions. This is a short story I wrote for a contest by the British Council. In an hour's time I'll be in Anna Salai, listening to a reading of the same, and I hope I win, although it isn't very spectacular, so far as literary merit goes. Anyway, here it is

Into each life…

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day, U__ S______ decided, as he ponderously rearranged the window curtains. He closed his eyes, turned around, then opened them again. “You are a foolish old man”, he muttered to himself reprovingly.

He looked at the cushions in disarray on the sofa. He looked at the children’s trinkets obscuring his Air Force awards on the walnut mantelpiece. He looked at the life-sized stuffed toy orangutan, who returned his stare with enamel-polished eyes.

He was an old man, older for being surrounded by youth. “You are old,” Ishaan’s Spiderman remarked from the settee. “You are old,” Medha’s colorful little sandals caroled from under the sofa.

“What nonsense”, he shook his head, “ Grandchildren are a gift from God. I am not unhappy. I am perfectly alright.” He made his way to the bedroom. His son’s Pink Floyd CDs nodded gravely from their racks, “We understand and sympathize.”

“Would that the fates were to be kind enough to allow me a cup of tea”, he said as he entered the room. The old woman looked up from her book. Her voice was always gentle, reproachful.

“Darling, must you be so sarcastic all the time?”

“Oh! Very well, you need not bother.”

“No, no. It is just that the way you say it, it…”

Oh! Of course, it is always my fault.”

The old woman was already out of the room, moving in her assured, helpless manner. The conversation hindered the movements of neither. “It is a ritual almost”, thought the old man as he carefully placed various portions of his anatomy on the bed in order.

“Why does Grandfather act so grumpy with Grandmother?” the grandchildren would often wonder. “He is so cheerful with everybody else.” The old man looked at Ishaan’s dinosaur book lying, dog-eared on the play-bucket. “Are two Loch Ness monsters better than one?” he thought.

“I smile at my son’s guests till my jaws ache. And I laugh at the children’s antics when nobody else bothers. And every smile is a thread for my shroud; every laugh is a spar in my pyre. I am happy because nobody cares if I am unhappy.” He turned his face into the pillow.

“Let me be angry a little, Lata,” he whispered, “Because it proves I am still alive.”

“You are talking to yourself again” broke in the old woman, “ Here is your tea.”

“And about time.” said the old man gruffly.

A weak thing, he thought as he sipped, for a throat inured to cantonment whisky for so long. “But then, everything about me is weak, now.”

“I am getting worried about Guddu and Smita. They will be on the way home now. And it is raining like anything”, she said.

“Who asked them to go to Fatehpur anyway?”

What asininity, what irresponsibility, he thought. To go off on a vacation just like that. With all the bills to be paid… And the children, poor dears, missing a week of school. And heaven knows how healthy the food is in that little slum. And to go and leave us here, alone, on the Diwali weekend… “No, not that of course. The bills, the bills…”

N____ could never understand what the ‘bills’ were. As an adolescent, he could only perceive them to possess all the undesirable characteristics of Hanuman’s tail. You could never be rid of them. At least, Grandfather never could. He would either be fretting about a bill, or worrying about an installment due; or calculating income tax deductions on his pension.

“Callow youngster”, the old man would say. “Where would youth be were it not to depend on age to sustain the inglorious process of Life? Ah! How frivolous is youth.”

And so he thought still, the indomitable old man, sitting in his bedroom, in a three-bedroom flat in an E___ D____ settlement, sitting in the murky light cast by the copper-colored sky of a chilly, rainy, November morning.

“Suniye, I think we should call Baby today. The poor dear! With all that work in their nursing home, she probably can’t get time to call.”

The old man thought of turning his face to answer, then decided against it. His right shoulder ached. Rheumatism is but a euphemism, he grimaced.

“If she is too busy to call, won’t she be too busy to talk? Do you want to waste her time?”

The old woman sighed and returned to her reading.

At least, she still has her reading and her religion, he thought. Slowly, he had begun picking up her habits. “What a stupid suggestion…” he reprimanded himself, “…the silly old woman.”

There had been a time when he would call her by name, defining the limits of their relationship and her influence on his identity. Now, “I am getting soft in the head”, he was content to emulate her, hearing himself address her, “Sunti hain…” with but a slight jar of the ego.

Suniye – literally ‘listen’; representative of the ancient tradition of Indian womanhood of not referring to husbands by name, symbolic of the acceptance of a man’s supremacy over her own identity.

“Why do I say that?” thought the old man, lying beside the old woman under her reading light. He thought of the little flutter of the stomach that preceded addressing his children and grandchildren – the fear of the understanding, sympathetic smile, the terror of the supercilious, condescending glance.

And he turned over in bed to face her, whom he would not name, she who would not name him, and listened to the incessant patter of the rain. There they lay, two Rumpelstiltskins, and in the uncertain light, it would not be a feat of imagination to regard their gray, amorphous silhouettes to be one.

He was half-asleep when she had another one of her coughing fits. The old man moved nothing but his eyelids to watch her scrabble, wheezing, in her little blue bag for the inhaler. She found it and the old man rolled over in bed to face the door.

“I am not angry. Why should I be angry?” he thought. “ I am not angry at my entirely loveable son-in-law, whom I greatly admire and respect as an individual and who gives us all these medicines for free with that insolent, virtuous smirk on his face.”

“I am a feeble old man with an oversized ego,” he thought. He rose impatiently and stepped out of the bedroom, rubbing his shoulder gingerly.

“The air feels cold on my bones,” he muttered as he trudged across the dining room. He stopped and scratched his side. Then he went across to the mantelpiece to pick up his reading glasses.

He looked at the denture bowl and the two translucent mandibles suspended in liquid. “If all of me was as easy to replace, who would replace whom? I am no longer here. I don’t know…” he blinked, “I am rambling.”

He made his way across the drawing room to the door of the balcony. “This shall be my cave,” he had announced to all and sundry when the masons and window-workers had finished insulating it from the elements. The old man had moved in, replete with religious books and icons and mementoes from the past.

Now, he entered his cave again. “I am a restless sanyasi, though” he grumbled. The love of life ran strong in him still, carrying him through a career in the Air Force and three heart attacks to the age of 76. He still loved life, though there was nothing left in life that he loved.

Sitting cross-legged, even on an upraised divan was an imposition on his arthritic knees. But the feat was silently accomplished. He picked up a book at random, flipped through the pages, then abandoned this pursuit and looked out of the window.

This rain was a prisoner of war, pouring down resignedly on the concrete walkways of the apartment’s compound, marching to the obscurity of the sewers under guard of the ruthlessly efficient drainage system.

He sat there, the old man, as anachronistic and incongruous in the second floor flat’s window, as the cold November rain that beat down upon it on the other side.

“What is this piece of paper doing in my hand?” the old man mused. He looked at the children’s little play-field beside the car-park that was trying hard not to look like a pond. “I am a silly old sentimental fool,” the old man told himself as he started folding the paper.

“If arthritis is not the herald of rigor mortis, the world does not make sense,” he thought as his fingers protested against the unaccustomed exercise. But then he stopped thinking as he concentrated on the intricate task at hand.

“They go to origami classes enough. Where are all the little children with their paper boats?” he wondered. No matter, his would be the first.

He bent over as he contrived to pull the paper out into a recognizable hull, then subsided into repose as some of the paper came apart in his right hand. The old man sat there, watching the puddle in the play-field rise in tiny plops to meet the rain. He labored up and walked back into the house.

He walked back to the bedroom and painstakingly worked his stiff body into a jersey and shoes. The old woman, stirring from her light doze asked, “What is it, darling? Has the rain stopped?” Then she drew herself up against the bedstead.

The old man walked out of the room and the old woman followed him. He went out of the front door. She locked it behind him and went to the kitchen to set some water on boil. Then she went to the bathroom and switched the geyser on. She laid out the old man’s woolen dressing gown and socks.

The old man stood beside the puddle, rain dripping off his still abundant, snow-white hair. The little paper boat, bobbing slightly askew in the water, struggled to survive the spear thrusts of the rain. There he stood, a sinking old man watching his little boat sink, as the rain beat down on both, steady as the ticking of a clock.

The old woman went to the balcony and looked out of the window. She saw the valiant little paper boat in the throes of its watery demise. She saw the old man stumping stolidly out of sight. The old woman watched both, one after the other, afraid to lose sight of either. Then she fixed her eyes on his form as he trudged slowly out of sight. The old woman waited patiently, eyes fixed in the distance.

(1780 words)

…Some rain must fall