A Gold Standard

Recently I was discussing the need for a gold standard of human conduct, with a friend of mine. He subscribed to the safety of assuming that there will always be something unknown about why a person behaved in a particular way, and hence, its adherence (or not) to the gold standard cannot be determined. This is in line with Steven Covey's scenario to illustrate a paradigm shift. I found that scenario rather silly. Here is (mostly) how it goes:

A man enters the subway train in the compartment where SC is seated. The man is accompanied by a whole bunch of extremely noisy children (his). The man is calmly sitting down next to SC while the kids go about creating mayhem of sorts which disturbs many an American soul in the train. SC, after giving the due pause in the hope that things would settle down, turns to the man and requests him to rein in his children (in very soft and sweet words). The man "wakes up" to the situation around him and apologises to SC. He proceeds to explain to SC that his wife had just died and they are returning from the hospital. He hasn't been able to explain things to his children and hence, they are just being themselves and he didn't notice as he was collecting himself too. SC says: Suddenly you see things differently and that that is a paradigm shift.

I call that fairly irrelevant. If the kids are disturbing everyone, then that doesn't change because the man's wife died. Undoubtedly one sympathises with the man and realises why he wasn't acting on his children's conduct, but that the children need to be quietened down is still required as it is causing a lot of discomfort to others. Or the man should announce that he is in such a situation and hence all passengers should hold back their discomfort! There is nothing hard-hearted (a heart of gold?) or cruel about this outlook. If I were in SC's place, I would have sympathised with the man and enquired into the cause of the mishap and probably offered help in quietening the boys, but the latter task is required as the crowd was getting disturbed. Or the man offers to pass on the unfortunate piece of information to everyone and everyone helps in managing the kids. People start engaging the kids and make them less unruly and noisy. The man is left to his grief and confusion. Whatever, but a situation of inconvenience to creatures (human or otherwise) other than oneself, should be addressed and not left to the tolerance of others (and top it with an expectation that they better understand and tolerate it). Hence, if SC had not found out and met my friend then my friend would have fielded SC's complaint with a "You don't know what that man was going through or what was running in his mind. You don't know whether he was going through a divorce, death, loss of job, indigestion or whatever. Hence, you cannot say that he was being inconsiderate."

Technically, I can say anything!! :-) Point is, the man was being inconsiderate and that inconsideration stemmed from unconsciousness (which, as I said, is fairly irrelevant). That SC realised the cause of unconsciousness and managed (?) the situation that had arisen from the man's inconsideration doesn't make the act less inconsiderate. Being inconsiderate is not a crime or a punishable offense (at least not always), nevertheless it is a cause of concern for people around the inconsiderate person. How long does it take for a man to pull in his children and request them to stay put? How simple it would be to take them all in a cab so that his grief and confusion are contained? Isn't it far more complex to expect total strangers and several of them to immediately realise that this man is in a state of grief and hence, the acts of sons should be instantly pardoned?

This brings us to several different modifications to the above scenario. What if I have a major tiff with my manager and then shout at the vendor at the gas station? Should the vendor be expected to understand my mental state? Should he then swallow all need to explain the situation as it was instead of how I have perceived it in my state of anger!? And this goes on ad infinitum, ad nauseum!?

Which is what brings me to the need for a gold standard of human conduct. The conduct could well contain the need to never assume that the person who is being a nuisance is doing so intentionally or with malefic intent, and I am ok with it though I would also like, then, to include the need to not burden everyone with the difficulty that one is going through. I am ok with anything that everyone agrees with, accepts and follow. I am dead against something which people like other people to follow but have no inclination to adhere to, as it goes against their self-interest. That is being damn parasitical! Oh! I so love that word. In it is carried all the truth of human base intent and pettiness which people refuse to acknowledge. The sheer shock and revulsion that is observed on the face of the recipient of that title is apt.

My friend was convinced that having a gold standard would be ideal though he recognises that it is impossible to have one. He believes so because "people are different". I believe so because people in their need for self-preservation and self-propagation will do anything to ensure that they are not inconvenienced or harmed. That "anything" includes violating any commonly constructed gold standard. So, my friend and I agree (but for different reasons) and are happy!! :-)

Let me illustrate why having a gold standard is vital. Consider that you live in a small village of about 20 families and houses. If you believe that thieving is wrong and assume that others too believe in the same, you might be encouraged to leave your door unlocked and all your valuables lying around in the house. You return home after a day's labour to find them all gone. You realise that asking people if they have seen those items leads to hostility. So you go about earning enough money to replace those objects. Again, one day, you return home and find them all gone. This goes on. What do you do? I, personally, would meditate on the Taoist question of why hold anything valuable. But my meditation leads to another question: Even if my mattress is the only thing I have and I do not hold it valuable should I not be concerned when it goes missing? Should I learn to sleep on the hard earth? What if my clothes are stolen? Should I learn to walk around naked?

Does this mean that I too go about stealing!? Personally, I wouldn't. I would simply leave the village with whatever little I have, and if I find all villages to be the same, then I will go and settle on an uninhabited island. I realise that this constant escaping is not eternally sustainable. Maybe I can do a Galt-ian move and collect all like-minded folks and create an Atlantis for myself. Whatever!

I hope I have impressed upon the reader the need for a gold standard. 

Now let me explain why Nature created the seed. The seed is a precursor to all the wonderful architectural concepts of patterns (and Christopher Alexander is a man I bow to) or the notion of kernel and core systems that software industry recognises (and there are few to none in this industry whom I bow to). The seed is the essence of whatever must and can grow from therein. Am I making sense? The seed is the distillation of all that goes into an apple tree or a shrub or even weeds. As Master Ugway points out to Master Shifu: "Ah yes, but no matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange but you will get a peach." Oh! btw, that was from Kung-fu Panda. What all this means is that the gold standard is nothing more than a seed. A seed which will always grow to be a human being whose fruits will be noble and honest. Some will produce less fruit, some more, but all will take pretty much only what they need and do so in an honest and noble way. Those who produce no fruit will be firewood (and without regret). Those who produce lots of fruit will one day be left bare and will also be infested with all kinds of pests and insects. But they will all be noble and aware of the one Truth that Nature effortlessly instills in all its creations, except man, for man wanted a mind in lieu of Nature's guiding hand. Everyone else chose Nature soft hand that only nurtures.

The seed is also the basic minimum that spans across all cultures and geographies. It isn't an IBM mainframe which tries to capture all with the philosophy of one-size-fits-all. Let us create a quick little seed and observe how it is also a potential gold standard.

In all interactions, if a person is honest and lives in the midst of people who are honest, then there is nothing to fear. If I did not do my homework, and I tell my teacher that I did not, my teacher could punish me. If everyone does that I do not consider the option of lying just to escape punishment. I, instead, focus on completing my homework always (since that is the only way to avoid punishment, or I drop out). No matter what I do, I do it with honesty and hence, with a respect for another person's need to base their actions based on my word/actions. If I live in a village where everyone only lied (and not merely stating the opposite which is a lie but is also readily available to providing truth by inference) then life would be nearly impossible to lead. Hence, honesty can be an element of the gold standard.

I shall leave it to the reader to realise why not harming anyone intentionally, taking not more than what one has or can give and helping all creatures co-exist are elements that can enter the definition of a gold standard without causing cultural/regional/geographical/racial anomalies. A simple seed!!

1. Honesty

2. Not harming anyone

3. Taking commensurate with what one has to offer

4. Treating all elements of the Natural world with equal importance and value

That is it! 4 facets to the gold standard and this is something that human beings find so difficult to adhere to. There are folks who do adopt these and there are millions of people who do not. It requires putting the common good before the self. It does not imply loss of individuality, but simply the chopping away of elements of the individuality which are detrimental to a collective non-parasitical living. BTW, point 3 can also be (partly) interpreted as not doing what you wouldn't want others to do to you.

What this ensures is wherever a person may go, all the people he meets will have these values effortlessly inherent in them. The person you meet might eat with his hand or break wind in public, but he will still have all of these. He might expect that you eat a lot to show your gratitude and a lot of minutia which do not make living impossible. 

I read this article from Boston Review. Please realise that there is nothing inherently right or wrong in any stance you take for the scenarios mentioned in the article (or in the surveys mentioned). What the author addresses is a related issue. The point I raise in the previous paragraph is what Turiel's thesis summarises as "the distinction between conventional violations, which depend on local authorities, and moral violations, which do not." 

In the article you will also find an insight (which has been used to probably strengthen some other point) coming from natives in Zimbabwe. Understandably, tribesmen, animals and Taoist have this in common. There are no morals and no rules - only the proper way (Tao). Hence, I unconsciously (and now I am glad I didn't use any other word or phrase) used the phrase "effortlessly inherent" in a previous paragraph. The natives say that the closest word that they have for the English "morality" is "tsika" which means "good manners" and maybe more particularly "the proper way to greet people".

Why did I place point 2 in my gold standard? Because I feel that it is vital. I was surprised (and let me assure you this article was written over time and the external article was read just now. Hence, the motivation to publish this article) to find that scientists have observed this about human beings:

Another hypothesis is that children acquire the notion of “wrong” actions in their second year, once they are old enough to hurt others and experience firsthand the distress of the victim.

Do I believe all of scientific literature!? :-) Does it matter!? :-) E.g. after reading the article I am still wondering why "Licking the dirty toilet" is immoral!! It might be crazy, eccentric, unhealthy or disgusting, but why immoral?

So where does all of this leave us? We could adopt a gold standard and stick to it, or promise to adopt one once everyone on Earth does the same (resulting in deadlocks), or condemn the notion of gold standards as it makes machines out of men (as much as it makes machines out of peach trees or hummingbirds). One might rush to say that Ayn Rand was suggesting just the same (and some very interesting human beings think that all she was advocating was rudeness. Frankly, my dear, that was when I realised how scared a human being can be in the face of simple truth) though many (including myself) would disagree. Some might say that one can only control oneself and hence, we can be the only ones to adopt a gold standard and expect nothing from others. That, as many (including myself) believe, leaves one in the situation of the man finding his house burgled. Adopting a religion or a god-man (sic) takes us nowhere. Having met people who believe they are devotees of a god-man (sic) and spew out bromides, but behave like any of the "un-realised" ones leads me to believe that that path takes us nowhere. Running away from everything might seem to be a solution but having met people who tried that I personally believe that that doesn't help establish or disprove the need for a gold-standard.

So, really, where does all of this leave us? Nowhere right here.

Being Responsible

The Delhi blasts brought a lot to the forefront. It raised the typical debates surrounding why the government didn't bother to respond to the intelligence reports that they received, why are the Muslim extremist outfits so agitated, does violence help, is our infrastructure in place to handle such situations, are we making enough noise about such incidents (look at London, Australia, US of A and the noise they make for every misplaced whimper) and in all this, what should we do.

I tend to be rather laid back about these things ever since I figured out that violence doesn't help (which doesn't mean I manage to escape volubly violent outbursts). I do not believe in non-violence, but I tend to look at things with a rather fine-its-done-what-should-we-do-now kind of eyes. My sister is not me.

My sister and I have been discussing things since last evening and today morning she couldn't help shout her frustration over the Indian telecommunication miracle. I tend to lower the volume of my mobile whenever I have to speak to her, but today her volume was totally justified. She was rather annoyed at the way the hospital staff at AIIMS handled a man's enquiry into the whereabouts of his relative. Apparently, he was tossed around with no concrete information and finally gathered all the required news from the TV in one of the hospitals before reaching the right hospital where his relative had already succumbed to injuries.

"E, what the hell is happening to the world!?"

"Going to the dogs?"

"Shut up, and all of us will only be concerned when things happen to us and only when our near ones are the victims."

I couldn't help realising the truth in that, though my mind flashed back to the time when my father died in the Poonam Chambers collapse more than a decade ago. I was relatively calm then and didn't consider the option of suing the builders or anyone like that. Nevertheless, my sister's point was valid.

"I agree, because not everyone has the capacity to be concerned about everything that happens on earth. It is simply not sustainable. Everyone picks a few things and watches over them carefully."

"But everyone surely has also picked their kith and kin!"

"I suppose so."

"Life has become cheap and disposable in India, E!"

With over a billion people here, that was inevitable. In a place where I meet a human being once every 10 miles, I might value his/her presence. When I meet a new human being every 10 milliseconds I do not think I will consider them special or something like that. People treat trees the same way, and water and nearly everything else. No wonder folks in the West and cold countries strip down to the most permitted by prevalent statutes of decency and bask in the Sun which any Indian has had enough of. My sister continued:

"10 people die here and another 10 die there, and no one cares."

"Hmmm."

"And what do we people do? Sit on our arse and watch TV."

I wanted to inform her that I do not watch TV but thought it inappropriate a confession.

"Damn it, E! We were not educated to watch all this and talk to each other over the phone about it. We should be doing something. We have to."

Hence, I am here writing this post. My education has only given me the skill to think and write (and of course, read. Gosh! I sound like Siddhartha!!). I do not think the bombings are going to stop. I do not think Muslims are bad. I do not think the Muslim extremists are going to stop their maddening rush to eliminate all and sundry and probably have a few outfits surviving before they fight amongst themselves to figure out whose Allah is better and destroy themselves. I do not think that is a bad idea. Human beings are inherently destructive and hence, all that they do (and sometimes, with the best intentions) will go wrong! The human specie is the most inhuman one in that it is the only specie which builds up arsenal to destroy itself. No other living specie does that. I will reserve my comments about dinosaurs, though I believe they were far more wise than present day human beings. Human beings are worse than viruses (please correct yourself, Agent Smith) since viruses do not destroy themselves. I also believe viruses have ethics.

Nevertheless, I have been educated by such human beings so it makes sense to offer them the fruits of my thoughts.

We need the following facilities built into all the cities of a country (of course, prioritising them will help):

1. Risk alarm buttons. These large red buttons should be available at every traffic signal post. This automatically triggers necessary plans to divert traffic from the sensitive area and also alerts the police to reach the spot. Activating them is not a trivial brush of the elbow.
2. Ambulances equipped with photo equipment. Ambulances servicing such affected areas should have equipment to capture the victim's profile from various angles including any identifying objects possessed by the victim. These images will be transmitted to all police stations immediately allowing them to create charts with these images, the hospital deploying the ambulances and names of persons to contact. If any information about the victim's family can be obtained, then they should be brought to the hospital rather than wait for them to find out on their own.
3. Single identifying card. Every individual should possess a single identifying card (with a microchip in it). This card is tied in with the person's fingerprint and DNA sample. This card cannot be used for any monetary transaction although it can (and should be) used for identification when creating bank accounts, demat accounts, insurance policies, purchase of assets (mobile or immovable), passport issuance, etc. Hence, damages due to this card are negligible. This card will contain the entire history of the person's interaction with the government and monetary institutions including all his personal contact details and emergency information. If this card (even a photocopy) is found on the victim's body, then it can be used (only by the internal security service's authorised personnel) to contact his family/relatives/friends immediately and they can be brought to the location asap. I have always believed that this sort of a card is vital to all citizens of a country though it treads a very thin line between good use and a threat to privacy. I will not address those issues here.
4. Bomb containment units. These will be small dome like structures built with high tensile metal fibres and meshed with carbon fibres to provide the strength required to mitigate explosions. Every commercial enterprise and every public centre will be provided with several of these. On pulling a chord, these units will expand into domes (like the dome shaped lampshades that one finds nowadays) and can be used to cover suspicious objects. Of course, the mouth of these domes would be flexible to accommodate different sized/shaped objects. If sealed properly to the ground they can minimise the impact of explosion (well, there is always a limit to what can be achieved. I do not imagine them doing The Mask like thing with a million stick time-bomb!!). These units can also be designed to slowly contract over the object and essentially seal it off (effectively swallowing the objects, doing The Mask like thing which I just said is not to be imagined!). If there are chemicals that can be used to diffuse standard explosive devices then these units can be equipped to release them in a calculated manner over the object that they contain. No prior training is required to handle these units. People will simply have to treat the situation like trapping a mouse by covering it with a basket. The unit should take of the rest.
5. One set of emergency numbers irrespective of technology used (landline, mobile, WLL) or service provider.
6. Deploy an ambulance for every 1 km radius cell (a city will have to be divided into cells like how mobile companies do). These could be ambulances deployed by local hospitals in addition to ones put into service by the government. 

One thing we all need to realise is that, we cannot eliminate such incidents. Simply not possible. We can only take steps to make it extremely difficult to plan such things. Similarly, we can only take steps to make the aftermath less messy.

Steps to discourage such plans:

1. With the single identification card, people can track the history of tenants and be forewarned about people with a dubious and/or criminal history. Those affiliated to extremist outfits can also be identified. Every landlord must register the card ID of the tenants he keeps in his house irrespective of age, sex and caste. Hostels are also required to do the same. Hence, electricity/telephone/gas bills paid by anyone other than the landlord or the identified tenants will flag a situation of violation of rules. The landlord need not have to quote the rental value or anything like that while registering the tenants. Landlords should also regularly check the premises that they have rented out (standard rental agreements permit such acts) and notify the zonal rental body that things seemed normal. This makes the landlord responsible for the people he houses.
2. Chemicals required for such explosive devices as well as chemicals that can be used to prepare chemicals required for such explosive devices must be tracked by each state government. Selling them in small quantities and the like should not be permitted or be allowed after due authorisation.
3. People entering public utility spaces (bus stands, railway stations, airports) must be scanned thoroughly like during baggage check. I find a lot of the personnel just running a ladle like contraption all over me and not bothering about the various beeps that are sounded. I realise those beeps keep sounding even after I leave!! We need software to better recognise suspicious objects and maybe chemical sniffers to smell out any particularly eyebrow-raising substances.
4. We need better and more reliable red-alert notification systems. Undoubtedly, there will be pranksters making a mess of it, but we need to make it better and treat each of them equally seriously. We could actually build systems to call another nearby phone to ratify the statements of the complainant (oh! and yes, calling the person they are complaining about is a sure no-no!!).
5. We definitely need better and more humane teams to tackle such situations. We need them to appear quickly, too. They must be educated (no, not the kinds which let you talk over telephones about disaster management) about how to handle such situations and reduce panic attacks.
6. We need to eliminate spaces where explosives can be slipped in unnoticed. Large garbage dumps or open-air godowns in market areas and the like must be eliminated.
7. Understand and appreciate that panic is bloody contagious. Educate people about it. Run several drills in public areas so that people get familiarised with what needs to be done.
   

Things to make the aftermath less messy:

1. Have large bunkers (maybe underground) where people can go and stay till the situation is restored to normalcy. This is like what I read about the WW-II days when there were bomb-shelters. I am sure these bombs are not half as good as the ones the Nazis dropped, though I realise that no shelter is safe from the ones the godforsaken Americans dropped on Japan! People who are in the area where there is a confusion can swipe their card at the entrance of such bunkers and enter them. There will be limited seats in each bunker thereby avoiding situations of death by asphyxiation. People simply have to go to the next bunker. How? Read on.
2. When the red buttons on the signal lights are hit, indicator lights along the roofs of shops will be switched on to direct people to the nearest bunkers (like on the flights, though they are to the nearest exit). Once a bunker reaches capacity, the indicators to that bunker are switched off and people are informed to head to another bunker. I know I am assuming sensible and considerate people who will follow instructions given to them, but if I am to design for the current lot of human beings (or at least the ones I have met on the street) then I am out of ideas!!
3. People staying back to assist victims can dial a particular number from their mobile (and the number is the same irrespective of service provider! Gosh! I wish some day these dumbos will realise that their war for bandwidth should not make life difficult for the consumer. We need one set of emergency numbers to call from mobile, landline and WLLs irrespective of service provider) and they are on a hot connection with paramedics and internal security service. They will be constantly guided and encouraged to maintain the situation at near-normalcy. Handling victims will also be more informed.
4. Every body removed from the site will be identified using the single card (if carried by the victim) and/or photographs taken by the internal security personnel and/or paramedics. These will be uploaded immediately to a central location from which it can be beamed across television channels and hospitals and any other public location. 
5. Hitting the red button will also send out alerts throughout the city and citizens will be requested to keep off common areas and/or enter bunkers. Speaker systems will be activated to notify citizens of the location(s) of unrest.
6. Ambulances from 5 nearby cells should immediately rush to the spot and provide feedback to ambulances in the next circle of cells. If the damage is huge then it makes sense to move more ambulances to the affected cell without moving all of them there as a subsequent explosion elsewhere would result in chaos. I have an algorithm which these ambulances could use in order to move in a pattern which allows least confusion. Will put that out sometime soon.
7. Identified victims' family members must be contacted immediately and brought to the respective hospital where the victim is. Internal security service should clearly keep track of "unclaimed" victims so that they can send out more identification information just for them.
8. Every hospital must deploy sufficient personnel as the points of first interaction for outsiders. These personnel will be responsible for establishing calm, streamlining information, directing the victims family, providing the complete and honest information about the sequence of steps taken to ensure the safety of the victim, empathising with them, sharing their concerns and allying them without being rude or clinical.
9. Traffic should be redirected and slowly brought to a halt (if deemed appropriate) based on information made available over the internal security service network. There should be some "clean" areas earmarked in cities where no "object" can be placed (like an open ground or a large parking lot) and vehicles should be ushered into such areas, thereby taking the load off the main roads.
10. Parking vehicles along the pavements before entering nearby bunkers should be considered ok on broad roads. In narrow lanes, traffic should be moved quickly and into less packed areas. Slowly vehicles should be visible only on broad roads and in "clean" areas till the internal security service gives a "all-clear" signal.
11. Reporters and camera-crews should be kept outside the affected cell in order to reduce the confusion in the cell. They are not important and are of no help. Information is anyway being gathered and passed around by the paramedics and internal security service. Guys, please don't get adventurous and sneak under the ropes!! I hope someone issues a shoot at sight order on these guys!!!
12. People in the bunkers are good people because they are not adding to the confusion. They need to be constantly informed of what is happening outside. They can also swipe their cards in slots placed in the bunker and their family and friends will be informed of their location and safety. The bunkers will seal off all mobile signals and only allow calls to be made to the internal security service and other emergency numbers from the telephone units on the walls of the bunkers. Yes, the bunkers are well lit. You can meditate in there or read a book. Yes, even if it is One Night at a ...

I think I will now throw this post open to more ideas and comments from readers. If you think this makes sense and you can pass it around, then please do so (no, I never cared about increasing readership for this blog. If I did, I would write about Ms. Sherawat's assets or simply keep providing links to other webpages. BTW, zen koans and sonnets never make for wide reading). If you know someone in the political circle and you think that this might get them thinking (oxymoron?) then please do pass it on to them. I wish some more ideas could be rolled into this post.

Of course, there are tonnes of way in which one could still blow up a section of the city (or the whole city if your city is as small as Mysore or Madurai). Here are some of them:

1. Simply load your car with tonnes of explosives and get trapped in the traffic on M.G.Road in Bangalore. Step out (everyone seems to like doing that), and disappear. Blow your car to smithereens.
2. Keep filling traffic cones with explosives and then blow a whole road and some more.
3. Garbage disposal trucks are another sweet container of bombs
4. Use a whole series of parked cars as explosives (well, they contain enough petrol and tin for a similar effect)
5. Let flutter a whole bunch of pigeons with bombs stuck... sheesh! Sick. Please don't. Kill human beings if you want, but not animals and birds! Whoever-you-are, please!

Trust me, there are tens of thousands of ways of undoing all the precaution that one might observe. So please never assume that you are totally taken care of. If you are married, you will know what I mean!! :-D

At the end of the day, I still wonder what are people trying to achieve! If attention is what they want, I am sure Mamata B is doing something enough to get it without making a noise (and given that they are fasting or something like that, other noises are also eliminated). If they want a country to themselves, we should allow them a chance to come up with a clear cut 15 year plan on all fronts of administration. If they can convince a panel of experts and also convince them as to why things are different and unacceptable now, then they can have their piece of land. Why not? If they mean good, then let them do good. But why kill someone whom nobody knows!? Kill a bunch of politicians and/or filmstars and/or sportsmen and/or some bigger criminals, and it would still be pointless. So don't kill. Just give birth to less children!!

Here is my suggestion to terrorists. If you want to be heard, then try one of these things:

1. Adopt a whole thousand children. Inform the government about your adoption. Teach them about what you believe in and that they should also adopt another thousand each and take care of them. One day, when you cannot accept the way you are being treated, walk over to the parliament (now you are a big force) and tell them that you will fast unto death. Well, you were planning to blow yourselves, right? Die slowly and in a more decent manner. I am sure your words will be heard and you will not have your visa cancelled anywhere on earth. As a matter of fact, you are more likely to gain greater support from people who simply want to support some soft spoken person.
   
2. Monopolise a segment of the economy. Let's say you take up iron ore mining and processing. Let your entire outfit be engaged in just that activity. May your outfit be the only ones who will produce iron in this country (highly unlikely, but let's just ponder over that). Tomorrow, when you cannot accept the way you are being treated, then increase the prices ten-folds in order to compensate for the ill-treatment that you are receiving (come on, let's be honest. Are you really being ill-treated?). The government will simply have to discuss things with you.
3. Spend the money on advertisements and hoardings where you can clearly state and graphically depict the atrocities mete out to you. Buy airtime on radio channels. Have centre-page articles in the leading newspapers (no, you cannot convince ToI to sell you page3 space) to represent your case. Speaking of cases...
4. Educate your outfit to become lawyers so that they can create infinite petitions against the government and make their life hell till they behave decently and treat you properly.
5. Don't hijack planes or bomb them. Just wear stinking old clothes or carry rotten food. People on the flight (and on the next trip) will not want to travel in those planes. Airline companies will pressurise governments into talking to you. 
6. Basically, don't kill people or cause bloodshed. Just make life difficult for people till they listen to you. But before you do that, be sure you have a valid case, and remember that eliminating the "others" is not the best way to solve any problem that you might have. You might be the "others" for someone else. Actually, you are the "others" for everyone but you.

Dear Sis,

I think I am done doing what my education has skilled me for. And I still did it sitting on my arse! No, I do not watch TV.

Rash Driving

Bangalore is a city where private vehicles carry a benevolent sign on their rear (wherever there is space). This sign asks the reader to call a particular number if the vehicle bearing that sign is found to be driving rashly. A typical message is:

If found driving rashly, please call 9812345678.

I wonder whether anyone really does call. I suppose a typical conversation would be:

Me: Hello, 9812345678?

He: Yes

Me: I have a complaint against your driver

He: What's his name?

Me: Name? As in, I only saw the car driven rashly.

He: Did he kill someone?

Me: No, but...

He: Did he run over someone?

Me: No, but...

He: Did he make a bus swerve and run over the median to hit some lamp-post?

Me: No, but...

He: What was rash then?

Me: He kept overtaking everyone and zipping past all vehicles, honking away and flashing his headlight.

He: And what was he supposed to do? Wait for you to reach home before he turns on the ignition? Please sir, you shouldn't be dishonouring our drivers like this. They have small kids and a wife? Wife of any size but small kids... very very small kids. 

Me: But that doesn't mean he drives rashly. If every driver with a wife and small kids...

He: Very small kids

Me: Whatever! Very very very small kids! If every Indian drove like that then only those wives and kids will remain and none of the men!

He: Oh! So you want me to fire him?

Me: No! At least...

He: I should cut off his salary for this month so that you feel happy while his very very small kids starve?

Me: No, but...

He: Maybe I should rebuke him in front of everyone so that he gets depressed and commits suicide. His small small kids will then cry "Papa" all alone.

Me: Dammit!! Why don't you put his kids on the bonnet of the car so that he drives carefully!!?

He: Silence

Me: Silence and thinking whether this man has put the phone down

He: Hmmm. So you want me to suggest to him that he kill his very very small kids?

Me: Goddammit! I am asking you to tell him that he should drive carefully and not rashly!

He: Rashly? But did he kill someone!?

Me: Slam the phone really really hard and wishing that someone invent a way by which that impact can be transferred to the other end.

Nevertheless, I was wondering what happens if this benevolent sign was not restricted to private transport services alone! Some of the results follow:

Husband sticks this on his wife's car:

Banker has this stuck on his car:

A Virgin Mobile subscriber in India (and they will know why!):

Teaser:

The devout Kannadiga with least regard to being understood: (btw, I just pasted together stuff, so in case it doesn't mean anything or means something blasphemous, please excuse)

Car driven by a teenager:

Jealous wife's husband's car:

Literature student:

Zen Master:

Touchy person:

Devdas:

FCS (the parallel of an MCP):

Teenage girl's car:

Page 3 regular:

Y spel karectlee

U must reed this aartickle b-4 u proseed with this blaw post:  http://living.scotsman.com/features/Ruth-walker-39When-a-university.4396459.jp

Eye kant dishugree mor with Ms. Wocker. As in, y do we rite? We rite b-coz we wish two kumnicate are idias. Eye dont rite b-coz I wont les read lions undir mye weirds in MS Weird. I toetally hugree with Dr. Smith wen he ascs, what is "f" duing in "twelfth". I wood ask that abowt everee leter in the French langwage, butt it's ok two be French and weird (or that hapins automatcally?). In Inglish, ther r tonnes (well, sins ton is suposd two be the rite speling) of weirds wich hav leters b-coz sum dicshunry riter me-spelt them wen he was putting them all down, like "poignant" or "ennui" or eevin "annihilation" ("nihilism" seems two b the rite speling). In the north of India, Inglish is pronownsed in everee pausible way. Hens, Alaarum shud b aloud two (and loud two). Or jomentry (for wat I laytr lernd two b "geometry") in the sothearn states. One Bihari culd teese a UP bhaiyya for pronownsing is-cool as sakool (wile sum "pedantic" teechar insiss that it shud b pronownsed "school"). Inglish is not suposd two b a karectlee spelt langwage. It is suposd two b a langwage for men like cotn wul (olso riten as, "cotton wool") is two the shop flor: for aneething butt mayking beeutifulee simmetrik lions of threds ovar a loom, murj intwo a nise Kancheevaram sorry. It is probablee like paynt used two mayk owl kinds of images and sines and ok-sionalee, art. Inglish kannot b stuk up like "Sanskrit" or "Latin" or Tintin in there infinight rooles and stipyoolashuns. Inglish was ment two spred like a disees "amongst" the I-dill speekar hoo wanted two say sumthing and if asked two rite, wud do so with the sam rispekt with wich they spoke - nun (olso riten as "none")! 

Wich udder langwage has boroed so much frum niyarly everee udder langwage on arth? French, Italian, Sanskrit, Tamil, Hindi, German, Spanish, Latin, Greek, Arabic, Persian... neigh-m it. Everee udder langwage creeated an iden-titty of its on (mostlee). Most Indiun langwages had won pay-runt (Sanskrit) and slolee morfed intwo a langwage of there on. Inglish has been the promise-coo-ass product of sevral nites in sevral fawrin beds. Y then, asc 4 karect speling wen evereething in its or-gin has been unchased (olso spelt as, "unchaste")? It is like asking a ladee-of-un-men-shunnable-trades to where her lay-pels properlee! Reallee, and that is the most importunt thing nau!? Inglish has olwais focusd on b-ing "utile"; Y sudnly focus on serimonees? If speling is not a serimoney then what is it? Gramur is a serimoney two, butt I will wayt 4 sum-1 two rite abowt the need 4 karect gramur b-4 I go there (aneething two rite a post!). If Inglish reallee cares abowt "propriety", then they shud have stuk two at leest "Old English" and staid that way. Life wud have been so much more fun! Think of softwear yooser manwuls in OE!

The point is, we need chased langwages and at leest one langwage that is pyorlee 4 a qwik dispensing of thots and idias. Like we need "pilates" and "yoga" 4 maintining are bodees butt a burp two feel liter this veree minit. Everee-1 thot Inglish was that in the kittee of langwages, butt nau Ms. Wocker says "No". That's plaing a spoil-sport!! Cum on, Ms. Wocker, let us ol mis-spell. Plees!

Fine! No more misspellings!

I was pondering about the consequences of passing a law allowing misspellings:

1. Toilet and To-Let boards will no longer raise a snigger

2. "Meet The Fockers" loses its punch

3. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a happier man

4. Citibank will no longer ask a million questions about my mother's maiden name spelling or about my street name

5. Speaking of my mother, she will be happy too (which doesn't mean you link point 3 and 5 together and consider me to be the son of Arnold!)

6. When someone writes about Tanjore brassware, that article can be deemed pornographic by the VHP because Tanjore's culture never had bras in the the first place and it is un-Indian to talk about brassware.

7. Everyone wins the Spelling-Bee contest

9. Bangalore shops where they fix a puncher will be "But obvious"

10. SMS would be considered high-brow grandiose

11. GRE and GMAT exams would lose half their question bank

12. Proof-readers would lose their jobs or rather re-invent themselves to check for the correct misspelling!

13. Half the Gujaratis will hate their surname and will ask Modi to insist on the right spelling of Bhatt. Mahesh Butt will object and claim that a being at the butt end (or having a butt at the end) is not necessarily a bad thing.

14. Modern poets will claim a new style of poetry where one word is written in all possible spellings and clueless "kanna-seers" (also written as, connoisseurs) will hail it as the most imaginative piece of writing that has descended on mankind.

15. Nearly all mail would be spam. Especially Yatra.com's mail about the tour package which takes you to Delhi and then Mathura Viagra.

16. Google will be out of business or will have maximum employees with the least hair on their head.

17. And when you ask a tailor: "What do you do?" he wouldn't reply with "Sow" (bestiality is still punishable) but "Syoo" or the safer but boring "Stich".

Do you know that I started this mail typing out the way I intended it to be and then simply couldn't. So I wrote it the way I normally do (with near zero spelling mistakes) and then powdered this little baby with some pizzaz. Gosh! Misspelling is so tough!!

Sufferer

My hands tremble for I fear that they have lost their wizardry. A man's but single thread to the Unnamed joy is fraying and what can he do but watch. He summons bold strengths and bolder determination, and pauses. Why should they come merely because I have summoned? I look towards the door and back at the blank sheet of paper. I invoke past misfortunes and misdeeds to explain my pen's frigid ink. How I have enjoyed the black on white, like the arranged tresses of a maiden's tale! Now a curl here and a stroke taking flight to shrink into a spot above a swimmer emerging from the pool, thus a "j". 

I smile but the parchment is unscathed. Not a wrinkle appears on this choking whiteness under my nose. I pray, I plead, I threaten, I feign mock anger and turn away to look at some carved piece of wood from Brazil. The man's eyes are narrow and he sees less of the world (blessed soul). His lips are pursed though wide - he must have spoken a lot before he realised the futility of it all. He locks his arms across his puny chest, refusing to let his heart belong to this world and its myriad leeches - his heart shant bleed for them. His nose is chipped and green (actually, most of him is either green or green when I squint my eyes) but he doesn't care about it. He seems to be looking at my barren whiteness and then back at me. 

"Aren't you a writer?" he asks.

"I don't know."

"True."

I wait for him to continue, but he doesn't. He sings a song from his motherland and whips his head to the beat of his chant. His voice climbs the strength of human skill and his eyes fill with green dew. He hums his song to sleep and returns to his earlier composure.

"Did you understand what I sang?"

"No."

"True."

He turns towards me and smiles.

"No one understands that song, my friend, not even he who wrote it."

"Did you write it?"

"As it is today, yes."

"How could you then not understand it?"

"Because all I did was sing it."

He looks at the paper and raises his splinter eyebrows towards it.

"You are a writer?"

"I try."

"Then you aren't."

He pauses and hums a line from his song, or so I thought.

"How much of life have you understood, my friend?"

"Very little"

"But you have lived it all so far?"

"Yes?"

"How could you then not understand it?"

"Because all I did was try."

"True."

He takes out a flute from the woodwork of his thigh, and proceeds to play a tune. I believe I had heard it before and try to fix that familiarity in my mind when he suddenly stops.

"Sing with me."

"Now?"

"Yes."

"To your tune?"

"Yes."

"But I do not know a song of that tune."

"Sing."

And he starts to play. I watch the green of his body throb with the air of the forest he had once belonged to. The green moves and dances over his torso and I sing a song of the winds that blow through the rainforests. I sing in the tongue of the creepers and falling leaves. I let the rays peeking through the green sky form the beats of my song as the words sway to the melody of his flute. 

"What ails you, my friend?"

"Lifelessness in life."

"What am I to say of that? I am but a piece of wood."

"True, but how different is that from being a human being?"

"You can write and be a writer. I can't."

"Neither can I."

"True."

He replaced the flute before continuing.

"Where did life lose its wetness?"

"In ignorance."

"But isn't that what makes you alive?"

"It is that which makes you see that you are alive to all but yourself."

"Write me a verse; on my back."

And he turns around and looks in the same direction as I did.

"But I can't."

"Why?"

"Life has drained me of words and joy and beauty. What is a verse without these?"

"Honest?"

"Honest? There is nothing honest that has been spared the touch of man. Even man's need to be honest has metamorphosed into an ugly snake."

"Then write me a verse about that snake."

"I can't", I shout and fling my pen at him. It enters the soft wood and stays there.

"That is a good start. Go on. Please don't stop."

"I have written enough about the dirt of this world."

"Then write about the dunes and falls and bobbing hummingbirds."

"But I can't bleed a word out of me. I have been killed by all and left with a red acid coursing my veins, entering a vial of human residue, cleansed and fountained into the rest of me so that I may live one more minute without knowing why and without wanting to know why."

"But you are a writer."

"No"

"True. Hence, I ask you, write me a verse of the blackest poison that you have drunk from the hands of loved ones. Spell me words with the thorns that pierced every friendly clasp that was extended for you. Twirl phrases coated with the roughest sands that every confidant rubbed on your heart. Can you not?"

With trembling hands, I pluck the pen from his back and draw little flowers on his back. The flowers grow bigger and blossom in various shades of green. I draw golden chords between them and make garlands of them before pushing in stalks of fern between the flowers. A cherry blossom there, a little bird here, bees thrown in for the musical score. I shoo away some stray cows and pin up some of the festoons to form curves of the right height.

"Is that how much life has pained you, my friend?"

"Life doesn't hurt. Lifelessness does."

"True."

Trucker Tranquility

This weekend found me in the portion of ghats between Mangalore and Hassan. Had normalcy ordained, that stretch would have passed ignored while I uncomfortably curled up to live some dream punctuated by blaring horns from the real (?) world. As you might have guessed, nothing is quite so normal in my life! :-)

For reasons insufficient but nevertheless offered repeatedly, we were stranded for about 6 hours in the ghats. This meant two things: unwobbly sleep and changing plans (which could follow the unwobbly sleep). I tried to achieve the first of them (as the second didn't really need efforts from my side) and must have managed some unshaped fragments of sleep as I kept waking to a watch which had jumped haphazardly in leaps of 10-45 minutes. At length, I decided that staying awake was bound to be more rewarding than these misbehaving naps. There wasn't a single dream that could complete or make itself available for recollection.

It was amazingly dark outside and occasionally a passing bike or car (somehow the vehicles were moving fine in the opposite direction) slowly dissolved a portion of the black in the yellow of the headlights. I was told that we were in the ghats and the blackness suddenly had a meaning, though of least worth.

Being stranded in the ghats at this hour is an irony. The ghats are (to me) of aesthetic worth alone. The punches of green amidst tired browns of ancient trees, a whispering secret of water trickling over impassioned rocks, a garrulous stream gathering reluctant silt and wood debris in its wake, the sigh at a hill's jaw overlooking the quilt of farmlands over some seemingly unreachable valley below; it is this that comes to my mind when I think of the ghats. None of this pierced sharp enough to penetrate the nocturnal blanket outside. All of this was there, but I was simply not allowed to see it. I was teased with some sounds which were immediately tossed out by drowning it in the loud grunting of some truck trying to climb the roads. A whole world out there alive and happening but not available, a world whose existence can only be ascertained at daybreak. Like a child, promised a world full of excitement but only available to the adult, I waited for my youth to arrive. The tragedy of life laughed in my face at that very moment. We always look forward or backward (depending on our capacity) but rarely ever see with the fullness of our senses and inner being.

I decided to meditate (that everyone around me was busy sleeping encouraged me further) on the pure sounds of the ghats. It didn't take me long to note that the ghats (or maybe all of Nature) don't raise their "voice" and it is the work of man that is louder and in loudness derives security and a sense of (misplaced) rightness. The distant rub of wind against moistened branches and of branch against fellow branch was pure and had a quality of this Earth. The lowered chirps of winged creatures dotted the black air with a blip of yellow alertness which flicked my ear and inner being. Such suddenness brought me to perk up with an intention of missing nothing that this infinite blackness had to provide. The brittle rush of streams far away in the darkness filled the air like the hum of a mother's breast to a new born child. The breathing quietness ensconced me in a cocoon of worldlessness where my sole companion was life's inevitables without.
I must have spent quite some time like this, for when I opened my eyes, the sun roof revealed a lighter canvas for the dark swaying leaves above. Rain beat unheard (and hence, uniquely beautiful) tunes on the metal above creating fugues with the clear tones of the wet world around. My mother stirred beside me and I heard the noise of a horn far away. Does it mean we'll move? My mother was annoyed at having lost so much time.
I watched the driver keep an eye on the road for any movement. He must have gone through this several times, for he appeared calm and aware. Over sleeping heads I craned my neck to observe other drivers on the road. All the vehicles within my range of sight were heavy vehicles and all their drivers were calmly looking ahead (or so I thought), waiting for the road to clear. I could see very little in the dark but what I say is not romantic imagination. Nothing in their mannerism revealed the stereotype rashness that one associates with highway truck drivers. They were nearly smiling as if they were too familiar with this trick of the mountain and were waiting for time to pass. Isn't it an amazing quality in human beings when they have the humility to let Time take its course without resisting or demanding favourable minutes? Not everyone can manage that and restlessness creeps in. To just watch and not wish, to just breathe and not become tense at the nape of your neck, to just accept and not resist; qualities which make a finer man and makes him more of a beast. I have watched cats (the whole family), and they reveal this state of being several times of the day. They must have all been Zen masters in their previous birth!
But truckers being calm was new to me. I couldn't prove their calmness, but could feel it. Maybe it was just today, maybe it was just these drivers, maybe it was the weather - whatever, be the reasoning that a foolishly rational mind searches, they were calm and even scared me at times with their cheer. Merriment in times of difficulty was not a human quality. I thought that existed only with animals and sometimes with children (if they are not hungry). But truckers! While all the passengers grew restless, our driver behind the wheel calmly answered their questions and shrugged his shoulders often. I shut my eyes again and effortlessly I was able to imbibe their calm. I spent a lot of time in that state of stillness when our driver turned the ignition. The bus refused to start! My mother nearly panicked and exclaimed, "Don't tell me!" I couldn't help it and burst out laughing, for which my mother chided me: "How can you laugh in such grave moments?"
That was when I recalled this blog. I remember writing extremely happy posts when I was sad and conversely. Not every post would follow that pattern, but those who know me, know enough. I smiled and watched the landscape move about me as we ambled our way through the ghats. Thereafter I obtained evidence to quieten my rational mind. Several drivers I got to observe, and they all bore no trace of irritation or frustration. They let the faster vehicle overtake them without a frown or snort. They carefully handled the bends and slopes and treacherously rocking potholes. It seemed as if, their journey through the ghats had slowly and without stating so, changed them to be people who could accept. As they say of a good teacher: wisdom imparted without consciously doing so. I find such human beings fantastic. They simply go about their life and without intending to, they transform people around them. Such men are few and I might have met just one or two such individuals. Here, Nature as the guru and the truckers as the sishya had achieved what a hundred self-motivation speakers could not.
The mountains have always been regarded with a lot of romance amongst spiritual seekers. I for one never understood that and felt that spirituality can be attained just about anywhere. I had the Azhwars as proof for immeasurable devotion and several wise men as evidence too. But the ghats did have an element unique to them, and wordlessly the drivers seemed to be aware of it. There was nothing that could be done against the might of the ghats. Control as many machinery as we might want, the ghats ruled their space. No driver seemed to hold an attitude of overpowering the ghats. They were yielding and proceeding and breathing the same oneness where none was essentially superior but all were vital. Would that explain why Nature was so pleasantly sweet then? When the inner and outer meet, Purusha and Prakriti cease to exist.

Play On

After several months I was finally granted one night of peaceful sleep and an entry into a joyous world of dreams. Nothing that happened during the waking day earned me that nocturnal bliss. Nothing I ate nor spoke nor did deserved rewards of that nature, but it is human folly to weigh every phenomenon and seek a clear link from there to things past or worse, braid tenuous ropes to a future portent, half raised by the guilty mind into reality. My day was plain and the world's bit in which I live was covered by clouds which failed to play their role. Failure to be the true self was filling the world around me, anyway! The night becomes more beautiful when one wakes up happy and is immediately surprised at the sheer lack of incidents leading up to that treasured salve to the aching soul. To think it was spent sleeping!

Amongst other beautiful things that happened to me that night, was the composition of 2 very interesting and intriguing games. I tried very hard to recollect the rules of the grand game which I had created, but in spite of going over the rules just before my eyes opened, I forgot all of it. I only remembered some part of it, and will return to it after a while.

The other game was also invented during my sojourn and I remember it with fair detail. I recall this game being played in 2 different ways. There were games played with only 2 people sitting facing each other and there was another session where children sat in a saw-tooth row. It was not as if every alternate child formed a team or anything, but they nevertheless sat in that manner.

The rules of that game were rather simple. Someone starts with mentioning a word and the next person must compose another word using the last 2 or more letters from the word mentioned by his companion and predecessor. As an example:

Person1: Multiple

Person2: Please (3 points)

Person3(or 1): Asexual (3 points)

Person4(or 2): Allied (2 points)

And so on till one runs out of words, when s/he gets to challenge the predecessor. If the predecessor can compose a word, then half the points of the challenger are transferred to the predecessor, else the challenger gets to choose a new word and start a new chain. A person can challenge atmost twice in a game. Simply adding an "er", "ly", "es", "ed", "ness" or plural forms do not count. Substrings of the word are also not acceptable. E.g. in the words aforementioned, Person3(or 1) cannot say "Lease" or "Leased". 

The participant with the maximum score wins. In a tie, the person who covered maximum domains (words from finance, law, medicine belong to different domains) wins. Thereafter, maximum successful challenges taken, minimum times when only 2 letters were used and eventually, votes on who used the most beautiful words are employed to resolve further ties. 

I remember spending several years creating the grand game (which wakefulness has made me forget) and then mastering it. I recall a scene where someone (who I think plays the character of my wife in there) comes forth to distract me with some mundane queries and I in a rage banish her from my life in order to focus on this grand game. She then gives birth to my son who returns to challenge me at the same game and defeats me. No, I have not been watching any Hindi movie of late. As I said, there were no bones from my day's carcass that went into the frame of my night's angel. I spent the following day regretting having forgotten the grand game's rules. I recall that it was a delightful bijou providing immense pleasure in creation and in indulgence.

Nevertheless, I woke up feeling quite happy and pleased with my sleep! It is rare that a night like that takes one unaware and for me it was a welcome break from life's nightmares!! :-D

Sans keys

It is ironic that I, a software engineer, sitting at my computer am typing out this post which I shall confess at the outset, is about the ways the internet and computers are changing our 3 R's (I could write it as 3 Rs but a reader might skim over it as 3 rupees, which I have no intention discussing as the value of 3 rupees is all but nearly lost). 

Please find time to read this: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

Let me be honest, I read one paragraph and then sent it to a reader friend of mine and then read a lot more (measured by the scroll bar having crossed half the screen height) before deciding to write about this. Come on, I suffer from this problem too!!

I must agree with what Carr says in there. We really have changed a lot since the advent of "surfing". I remember surfing in Unix mode when I once had a student's account. I had to use the scroll keys and hops between links and hit enter for launching the webpage! Gosh! Imagine having to navigate through Blogger in such a mode. If I remember right, "D" was used to download (images, pages, whatever). I think the first thing I downloaded was a Mona Lisa painting. All surfing was done without any colour and shape. In spite of that, I had had a bookmark file of over a few hundred entries. Links which I had planned on re-visiting some time in the future. But the future had IE, Opera, Safari and Firefox on the crystal ball (which now resembled a TFT screen gone out of focus!). Thankfully they had a way of importing bookmarks. Now my bookmarks number nearly 4000+!!

I think the point I agree most with, in Carr's article, is about the staccato quality of reading. I read a paragraph, assume that I understand the rest of it (but my mind working like a self-learning spider (in web terminology), weaves logical and intelligent assumptions based on extrapolations and interpolations to create a semblance of having read and assimilated the entire article) and proceed to the next article with the intent of reading it "completely". I recognise my mind working like some summarising-engine: pick the keywords, string them together, pick some names that are mentioned, interpolate, check the nature of the understanding curve, extrapolate, summarise. I had done this about one such book from which I had quoted in an earlier post about the "Lost Art of Reading". Whether I come across as well-read or learned is such a pointless thing when I know that I just dropped the penny in the summarising-machine slot.

“You are right,” Nietzsche replied, “our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.”

Nothing is closer to the truth than that. I loved the Hero pens that I had back in school and held earnest conversations with my black Camlin fountain pen with a striped translucent belly. Today, it has been over a few years since I wrote with a fountain pen. I used to have a nib-maintenance kit with me which consisted of a Eau-de-Cologne bottle on whose smooth glass surface I polished my nibs. Nowadays, I confess to being magically taken over by the keyboard. Often (though not always, as my writing includes stressful and tortuous products too) I would start writing and it would just happen: a continuous movement of fingertips on a bunch of yielding black squares in a flow which I would give anything to make permanent. It seems Nietzsche's writing was also altered ever since he took to the typewriter!! I think I should return to pen and paper (purely a romantic coming home).

But I think this approach to information versus delight and knowledge also slides into our approach to many things in life. We no longer are willing to give time to things that need time. Expertise, is one example. People want to become a genius - NOW. They can't wait for 20 years nor go through the rigour of practicing their skill with fervid indulgence. People want to be a philosopher - NOW. They read a bit here, and a bit there, take on a slow and measured baritone and speak as if they have seen it all. People want to be respected - NOW. They have no time to build their reputation through careful and continuous practice of virtue. Gifted genius acknowledges a very short latency between want and realisation. But Time's tell cannot be totally undone, though time's tell should not be the single governing factor of our lives and the pleasure we should all derive from life. It is simply vital to provide for the intangibilities (not as a mere loophole in defining a holistic system, but because we are a product of things tangible and intangible) which cannot be quantified, measured, weighed and set on an assembly line. To quote the article (which I am scanning for apposite lines and points that I can use):

In Google’s world, the world we enter when we go online, there’s little place for the fuzziness of contemplation.

And this is where I am reminded of the Glass Bead Game, where the practitioners made contemplation a vital element of the game, because it was transforming into something that people ended up memorising (like chess moves). No, I haven't read the book but have read up to the point (and perhaps a little beyond) where this observation is made. Think about it. 1 week of pure contemplation: no computer, no network, no gadgetry and what will happen!? 

I could summarise, but there is no fun in that. Go figure! :-)

My Grandmother

I know this starts out rather like an essay one would write back in school! Well, I wish I were back in school with less to bother me about the adult life of mistaken importance! But I really want to write about my grandmother (paati as she is called by her grandchildren). There were two recent incidents which reminded me of her and I have no clue why.

My cousin (who is 11) insisted on watching Fiddler On The Roof (which she has seen several times before). I had already seen it but that confession bore no weight on the ears of the little girl who considered doing things together as a way of bonding. I was touched by her simple outlook which I was also raised in and hence we decided to watch the movie together (with a lot more people in the van). I honestly, find a repeat telecast boring unless the movie is one like the Godfather or Terminator. Nevertheless, there was one bit that caught my attention and made me think of my grandmother. There is this one song where Tevye asks his wife Golde whether she loves him. This is how it goes:

                Golde...

                Do you love me?

                Do I what? !

                Ssh!

                Do you love me?

                Do I love you?

                Well?

                With our daughters getting married

                And this trouble in the town

                You're upset, you're worn out

                Go inside, go lie down

                Maybe it's indigestion.

                Ah, no, Golde, I'm asking you a question.

                Do you love me?

                You're a fool.

                I know.

                But do you love me?

                Do I love you?

                Well?

                For  25  years, I've washed your clothes

                Cooked your meals, cleaned your house

                Given you children, milked your cow

                After 25 years, why talk about love right now?

                Golde.

                The first time I met you

                Was on our wedding day

                - I was scared - I was shy

                - I was nervous - So was I

                But my father and my mother

                Said we'd learn to love each other

                And now I'm asking, Golde

                Do you love me?

                I'm your wife

                I know.

                But do you love me?

                Do I love him?

                Well?

                For  25  years, I've lived with him

                Fought with him

                Starved with him

                 25  years, my bed is his

                If that's not love, what is?

                Then you love me?

                I suppose I do.

                And I suppose I love you, too

                It doesn't change a thing

                But even so

                After  25  years

                It's nice to know

I couldn't help but smile at this song-conversation and it reminded me of my grandmother. I am told she was married when she was 13 or so. I wonder what were her thoughts that ran through her mind when she was told that she will have a man as her companion for the years to come, a man much older than her. Did she think of her dolls, her mother, her running around the well to the rear of the house, her future, her present, her past? Did she blush? Did she know why she was blushing? Did she know what it was to get married? Did she know that she would grow old to have grandchildren write about her with a mottled photograph of hers!? Did she know what she was getting into? Did her husband ask her the same thing that Tevye asked Golde? What would she have said? I am sure she would have smacked her forehead and continued swirling the ladle over the pan painting a white disc of rice batter. I am sure she must have smiled in between and shook her head at the sweetness with which her husband of 25 years asks her something that really has not much meaning anymore and is just a passing note. But still he asked. She must have smiled again before realising that she forgot to turn the dosa. She would eat this slightly charred one.

Currently, I am re-reading the Lost Horizon. There is something about the promise of peace and tranquility that draws me to this book. It is perhaps the essence of the strife that many people go through and find no escape from. It is perhaps a dream-come-true for many people to find themselves suddenly in a Shangri-La. I had read this when I was a boy and for unnamed reasons, I found myself smiling at this book and Conway's thoughts. Today, I find myself nodding. It is amazing how a book - the same text, the same words, the same characters and expressions - carries a more telling if not entirely obvious and recognisable import over time. Time sure is a funny element in the grand scheme of things. It can take the same element and transform it into something (perceived) disgusting, wonderful, beautiful, all over a period of time. And Shangri-La plays exactly with this very same concept of the tell of time.

In this book there is a conversation between Conway and Chang (about another character called Lo-Tsen):

Conway: She was deeply attached, I suppose, to the man she was to have married?

Chang: Hardly that, my dear sir, since she had never seen him. It was the old custom, you know. The excitement of her affections was entirely impersonal.

Again, I couldn't help but think of my grandmother. She too must have had an excitement which was customary or demanded of the situation for a reason and an individual she had hardly seen. Her excitement, if any, would have also been entirely impersonal. What could she have imagined? She had no way of knowing what he would have liked. She had no way of knowing whether his hands would be rough or soft. She had no way of knowing whether he would sleep off when she recounted tales of how she loved playing pallaanguzhi and how many games she had won with her sisters. And if he did sleep, would he snore? 

It is indeed amazing how in spite of being handed over so much unknown details, the woman still managed to run the family well. She mothered six children and loved each one of them differently, always having to answer another child's question as to why she didn't love him/her as much as that other child! In all this, she also had to manage her husband and his ways. The amount of faith people placed on time's remedy has vanished over generations. People believed in tradition and were aware of a husband and wife's duty and conduct. Each one conducted themselves in the manner expected thereby letting family and life go on smoothly. Today we hear of how women were dominated and suppressed in those ages. I asked my grandmother whether that happened to her. She said that she had taken the responsibilities of a family and knew what was best for all and herself. 

I, of course, knew her only when women become a sort of a termagant with their now aged husbands. Something in most couples I have seen is that the wife may be sweet and docile in the initial few years or so, but once the kids are grown and man has mellowed due to age, she takes on his facade and runs the house and her husband with a bossiness that one normally associates with men. If the woman was already the bossy person from the start, then god save the poor man!! I heard how tough my grandfather was with everyone and would sympathise (although late) with my uncles and aunts. So, my grandfather was already that docile man which time makes of an average husband and my grandmother was already the boss of the house, when I recall my first conversation with them. But I was privy to her many thoughts. I enjoyed spending time with her and listening to her stories of years I had never seen. She would tell me how her world was and how her house was set in a particular village. She told me about her mother who was widowed early but still ran the household and managed the family land very well. She told me about her sisters and how they got married. She boasted about the compliments she used to receive for her looks. She never bossed over me and when she wanted to assure herself that she had the right to boss over me, I let her. Isn't all relationship an illusion of what one knows and what one wishes to grant? I used to tell her things that happened in school and then at work. She never rebuked my grandfather or ill-treated him, but she was his wife so she badgered him around like most wives of that age do. I think he liked it too - the attention that she gave him. 

Paati was terribly efficient and good at managing the house. She had several pins in the air while she managed the chores of the house and other details. I think that is why my grandfather respected her and loved her, because it always feels good to have someone share your responsibilities and do so without having to beg them to do it. My father was also very impressed with my paati and would always say that had her parents let her study more then she would be running some organisation right now. Paati would simply blush (she wouldn't smack her forehead at her son-in-law) and rush back to the kitchen under some pretext.

Even today, paati provides me with surplus advise about the way of life and how to lead it smoothly. She doesn't realise that the world has changed and people are mostly only interested in themselves, and traditional ways of the family or society or propriety are no longer recognised, let alone respected. She still thinks that everyone is as simple and sweet as the girls she knew in her days. Girls who must have rushed up to her and giggled with her for no reason upon knowing that their friend was getting married. They must have all giggled and poked her in the ribs and she would have blushed, albeit an impersonal blush.

She doesn't blush much now. She walks very slowly unable to hear her own footsteps well and afraid that the lack of noise portends instability and that she might fall. She stares vacantly into space often and wants to know what everyone is talking of now. She has no husband to boss over and all her grandchildren have grown too old to have their ears boxed in affection. It has been a long time since she could reach my ears anyway! She still pinches me once in a while when I tease her. She has lost all strength to her family and life, and regains it every time when one of her children or her grandchildren comes and sits next to her because they wished to talk to her and keep her company. She smiles and shakes her head in disbelief that a young man would still be interested in talking to an old (nearly) toothless lady. Then she looks just like she would have when her husband asked her what Tevye asked Golde. But for what is already lived and realised, do questions matter?