Sonnet - 6

What love be that which held gently within,
Beats not a rhythm of the gold band's bourn,
Ignites the throat and the wetness therein,
Carves the rounds on a smile that life doth mourn?

What be buried 'neath mounds of memories,
In shades of sepia and tear-tint-sighs
Rent by fading tones of breathless scurries
Of our names festooned betwixt joyous cries?

Is it that love you sacredly cherish
Shall earn all black repute that man may churn -
Known-unknown hearts pilloried to anguish,
While cosset that love's flame that doesn't burn?

'Tis but the scorch he craves and villain be
For sweeter becomes love that none shall see.

Apology

Dear Readers,
Please allow me to offer an explanation for not responding to your comments in time. I have been caught up in the tell of the world and then my electronic equipment behaved in matters unpredictable. I will shortly entertain all your comments (and definitely yours, Loveena!). In the meantime, Agni has returned to blogging and you might find him more generous in the spontaneity with which your comments will be responded to.

Deep Down

TO: LEONARD WOOLF
Rodmell,Sussex
Tuesday [18th March 1941]

Dearest,
I feel certain that I am going mad again: I feel we cant go through another
of those terrible times. And I shant recover this time. I begin to hear voices,
and cant concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have
given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that
anyone could be. I dont think two people could have been happier till this
terrible disease came. I can't fight it any longer, I know that I am spoiling
your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I cant
even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is that I owe all the
happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and
incredibly good. I want to say that -- everybody knows it. If anybody could have
saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty
of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer.

I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been.

V.

There, I am certain Leo will understand. Where should I place this? Beneath his spectacles? Well, he wouldn't find it till the evening, would he? Hmm. Perhaps a less obvious - what would he say? "Ginnie, that makes it rather obvious, doesn't it? Subtle touches and dabs, my dear" - or was it something else, hmm. Not sure. Leo. What did you say then? Now I must recall that. If I do, then perhaps I am less likely to grow mad. No. Not sure. Wait "Ginnie, the obvious is not meant for literature of stature" -that's it, that is what Leo had said and -where are his spectacles, oh! obvious, coat pocket, perhaps? The ash tray! Let me empty it first and line the inside with this. A few strands of ash on any letter and between any letter can make it another - an M of V, and a dirty can of can't. Oh Leo! Maybe I should light one before heading to the Ouse.

How wet the Ouse is, not knowing that it is wet and unable to taste its own wetness or faculty to kill? Is it the wetness that kills, or the unwillingness to share what one doesn't know one has with someone alien, someone intruding but someone who knows that the killing is possible, someone perversely privy to possibilities and potential and pays nothing for extracting that knowledge and uses it like trees use the colour of Spring on their flowers and steal the passing breeze's coolness to trap in their apples and unabashedly blush in the redness that makes poets gush in plush turquoise ink over parchments dried through that very Spring and a few ones that passed? What is it that kills? The unwillingness to live or the incompatibility - my! what smooth these stones are and better that way than have them scrap sore against my thighs or bounce loudly against my pelvic - of elements which were never made to blend in any other manner other than the one ordained purpose of creating life and isn't it strange that the same blend of water and sinews creates a strapping young man in tweed and the same attempted in the Ouse can create a death by reluctant wetness? Leo! Is he watching from the window? God save me, these man servants should not be allowed in the house of a maddening woman in love or at least a maddening woman who is grateful. I am certain he didn't spot me unless the state of the drapes are more pressing on his time than the impending death of the mistress who let those drapes change position from lying on the shop floor to here, erect and distracting.

It is funny how the Ouse fills my shoes and lifts me or pushes me away from the river. River mud soft like a child's fingers lacing through my toes and not letting me go too far without taking them along over Arun or through the Wealds to roll over the meadows with the ambition of rolling down the valley and a little way up and back and forth till they tire out or halt at the bottom of the valley, which usually happens more often than the former.

Lecherous waters lift my frock. I am naked - within, without. My coat and the stones therein hold things together. Wouldn't it be sad if stones could float, what hope would have coats to cling on to the bearer? Little streams tickle me as I let the surface touch the underside of my breasts. Oh Leo! They are so much like you when we first made love. I bob a bit to feel your fingers more often before the clinging wetness razes all discrimination and distinguishing. Oh Leo! Oh Ouse!

I won't drink in this water of many deaths and mine. No. I can't dare to shout my No, for the Ouse wants just that. How it teases the dykes of my nostrils. I won't breathe it in. So death will not be by drowning but by the lifelessness of the breath within, all life extracted by the entire being of Virginia, life flowing through each vein and bouncing off heart and liver, escaping not into the greedy Ouse but contained within - then is death the inability of Life to come out of the being? - conscious, aware, watching Death ride towards me (would it be a stallion or some other dreadful creature, why not something beautiful like a raven or a lark, singing sweet songs made of words from this life and others to a tune of the last beats of the heart - or does the heart simply change beat?). I must stay awake - but the waters sting my eyes now - and know exactly how Death does its job till the last cut, till the last thread that holds life within this body is cut or trampled upon. My hair feels so light, floating in the Ouse casting shadows of - Oh! Mother? Is that you on the silt down there? Mother? But,... wasn't it... Drowning? But they told me... And who is that? No! It can't be! James! But the war... Oh my god! The bed is moving - or is it the burning of water in my nose, between my eyes? - Father! Hold me, Father. I don't want to die now that you are back. No! Get me out of here, damn these rocks, why are they laughing at me? Father, you too? Why is everyone... Damn! Are these... yes... God! these rocks are holding to my thigh and pulling me down. No, save me. Leo! Leo! Leo - aah, the Ouse tastes like stale grape juice - Thank you for coming Leo, and who is that behind you? Vanessa? I didn't know - aah! this water burns behind my eyes and has dried my throat. Can you hear me Vanessa? Leo? Pull these rock creatures off me. What are you doing? Why are you...? Father! help! Mother, this is not the time to braid my hair! Damn! What happened to my hair!? Water snakes! God! James, help me. Please! Dear pens! I have always held you dearly. Please help. Why are they writing on my body? Why are they writing Catherine on my body? Who is that child crying? Why can't I shake them off? God! I am thirsty... some water... no... isn't it a beautiful mauve... flowers flying and kissing pigeons, silver pouring into my veins... a lightness that is unwetted and white ribbons combed by children laughing... Leo... Love... Literature... Life... leave.

Sex

I couldn't help write this post. I realise that this is a controversial topic but it seems that the basic issue is ridden with hypocrisy. Let me start with the age old debate about whether we are animals or are we more special on this earth.

While in Hyderabad, I recall seeing a dead dog on the road and most vehicles whizzing past the carcass without bothering to stop. I did and realised that I didn't have the necessary protection to handle a carcass and hence called the Municipal Corporation and the Blue Cross. When I spoke to some people around the general tone was "It's just a dog!". I wonder if the cars would have whizzed past if it was some lady dead in the middle of the road (I would have still been concerned about my lack of protective gear). Often when there have been accidents I have observed people more interested in raking a fight and a controversy rather than in tending to the victims. Bangalore has served me with a couple of situations where I got to take the victims to the hospital while other passers-by were busy fighting.

This brings me to an oft recurring question: How animal are we (I am sure a cow also ignored the dead dog. So are we any different from a cow or a grasshopper?)? How much unlike the average animal are we?

People who love to think themselves greater call upon the wonderful mind and the advances in science, technology, medicine and other stuff that no other animal has done. I can't help but recall this wonderful quote:

For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more
intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York,
wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the
water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that
they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons.

I personally believe that we are no different from animals and it has been society, organisations, civilisations and peer pressure that has kept us from being what we truly are. I do not question the ability of our brains (though one could after reading this) or our powers to associate knowledge and develop it into something which is capable of forming the substrate for more associations. What I do question is our innate want to be considered non-animal.

Let us take sex (before it takes us!). According to several surveys, 95% of the Americans have had pre-marital sex. It is not a matter of whether it is good or not but surely a matter of whether it is animal or not. Sex is a purely animal want, like food and rest. To think that Americans (though not necessarily representing the whole of humanity) who take a virginity-pledge (and I wonder when Americans will get over their repulsive want for fame and making things public) are able to abstain for as much as 18 months before they become "sexually active". Most Americans don't even consider that abstinence is a part of their value system (which is being rather honest) but they seem to be rather flustered when compared to an animal (try telling someone "You are such an animal"). Most of the advt. that I get to see on TV seem utterly pointless in that I always try to figure out (based on the scenes) as to what the advt. is all about and often fail. Most of the time there would be some interesting looking babe who is absolutely irrelevant to the product being advertised. Sex sells, because it feeds directly into the animal nature that is still the strongest side of us.

Man would kill for food and land and women. He has waged wars for gold and silk. He has looted nations for something as trivial as indigo and tobacco. He has destroyed countries to satiate his ego and to gain a measure of his prowess as well as to demonstrate it. He has ruined vast lands in order to rape the Earth of her resources and build things of convenience for himself. Man can never be satiated because he thinks that being satiated is stagnation, is being trivial, is being an animal. And in order to establish that he is not a mere animal, he will go to any extent and do things that even he never would have wanted - all for an idea. It is an idea that kills man by making him think that he has achieved what others haven't, what animals can't.

I am not being a prude here and denouncing sex (why would I?). I am also not saying that we should look down at our toes and only think of math and economics (why would I after having seen and relished this absolutely perfectly proportioned lady in a green salwar kameez, and the most flattering accessories, in the bus yesterday?). What I wish to understand is why are we so anti-animals and why is it that we don't rise above our animal states after having recognised that in us. There are a couple of aspects to this pondering.

One, I would like to see people realising that they really aren't as human as they like to believe. We are still driven by the basic instincts that are common to both man and non-man. A lot of what we consider unacceptable would cease to be so once we recognise our motivation behind them. That doesn't mean we accept them, but just understand them better and see it as it is. Once we know the root of discordant behaviour or practices, we can sort them out better and that is what (if at all anything) makes us "human". Simply forming a set of rules gets us nowhere and more than rules, creating a bunch of myths and preconceived notions about the human race, is detrimental to our inner growth.

Two, I would like people to realise that growing out of our animal selves is vital to a richer development of society. This cannot be achieved by denouncing our lower self (which we call the animal self) but by transforming it into a nature that is aware of the origins of the animal instincts and has surmounted it (which is the symbolism that is adopted in the Vedic tradition of a god or goddess mounted on an animal vehicle or vahana) by eliminating all possibility of its resurrection. Why do we need that? Because man is the most viral, most wide spread destroyer of things on this Earth. Whatever man touches he touches with the scale and power of plenty which only creates far reaching and often irreversible consequences. Man is the pinnacle of all that is animal and it is vital for him to eradicate it. Other animals have just the required animal instinct in them to see them through their lives without disturbing another's. Nature in all her power can seamlessly manage all other animals since none of them try to manipulate her. They accept her. Man doesn't accept anything and feels that it is wrong and demeaning to do so. Hence, he manipulates Nature and the world around him in order to suit his needs (which are transitionary unlike an animal's need). His greed and his want to be more than other animals including his kind push him to be more destructive (sometimes by being seemingly constructive from another perspective).

The trouble here (in kaliyuga) is that man has become deviant enough to classify things as acceptable and some others as unacceptable. To be greedy is animal like but to want to establish a global conglomerate is ambitious and powerful. To want to bed as many fellow human beings is considered cool, but to do so after marriage is condemnable. To wage wars is manly and ordained, but to discriminate on grounds of race or sex is paltry. What was once a virtue is now a weakness. The trouble is, man has become too heavily dependant on his intellect and considers anything out of its scope as silly and only for lotus-eaters (lotophagi). Ayn Rand added to this.

Man's intellect is not the problem - depending on it entirely, is. Man's mind is not a problem - being driven entirely by it, is. Man has not put in the extra effort required to transform the power of the mind into self-sustained rightness. What the mind can achieve, it should and then move further to achieve what it is capable of. By stopping at the easily achievable, there is a lot of stagnation and hence, conflict. With more men wanting more gold, people worked out ways to get it, and the race is still on. Those who can transcend that into a state where the true worth and purpose of gold is realised, are a lot more peaceful and animal-like. So be it with anything else.

I realise that there is too much talk about transformation and transcending and very little about the hard realities of this world. Actually, there has been very little talk about sex (given the post's title).

I feel education (which is stuff that happens in school and beyond and forever) should contribute to a personal understanding of things in this world, without and within. To spend time with a child and educate them about how bodily changes create urges which are just that, to let them know that there are consequences to be hasty, to help them realise that there is a time and place for everything and sex is not really something that you get over and done with in a few minutes but is something that should form the toppings on a foundation of deep emotional and psychological clarity, to help them realise that it is the emptiness in one's life that creates a want for entertainment and getting absorbed in them only creates a craving for more thereby disallowing a sense of completeness from developing as one only seeks instant gratification at the cost of more involved and deep endeavours - to let a child realise that (after having realised that ourselves) is vital. To help a child realise that the animal instincts are not wrong or dirty but are essential in a sense, and that we need to work with them in order to not make them overwhelm our capabilities, is the purpose of an integral education. To justify sex or wars or hoarding or drugs or murder or greed or jealousy or ambition will not help beyond ensuring an eventual and rapid destruction of this world and the human fabric.

We are eager to wage debates about whether pre-marital sex is fine or not, but never the question as to whether sex is just an act and are we prepared for it. Marriage was an old ploy in channelising it into creating families and manageable societies. Why do we see more confusion today versus 100 years ago? Why is teen pregnancy an issue now when it was hardly ever heard of few decades ago? Why are there child psychologists in plenty now when they were hardly ever required a few decades ago? Why are rape cases increasing every year? Why is the respect that was given to the institution of a family decreasing every year? Why is all the Independence and freedom of choice that we are granted today not making us a 100 times more happy than what was a few decades ago?

It is very easy to take the effortless path and justify everything as being "natural" and answer all our calls for titillation. It is vital to realise what this drives us to be and look at the world and Nature as a whole. It is vital to give up our myopic outlook of this world (a dead dog on the road also deserves the respect that a dead man receives) and not concern ourselves selfishly only for the next 60-80 years which is of immediate relevance to us. It is important to recognise the animal self in us and then grow from that into something devoid of it. While clinging to it might give us satisfaction now, it doesn't do so in the long run as maintaining an animal self is very tedious and it needs to be fed regularly because the animal self as such is not an issue, but coupling the animal self with the human mind is a recipe for disaster. The mind will automatically find ways in justifying actions and will strengthen the animal self into becoming something quite human and destructive. One without the other is peaceful and in accordance with Nature's breath.

An Elegy's want

I was forbidden to enter the room unless summoned. The door that separated us was furbelowed with the trembling brightness of the candle within. There was none but he in there, he and his necessity to capture all of his life. Often I imagined the veneer thin to reveal a frail man holding back death with his monomania to fabricate the finest elegy in praise of himself. There he sat, spine pressed against his soaked shirt, like the subdued dorsal climb of a dragon. His eyes shone like the beast's too. His hands furtively crossed a blank sheet while his head bobbed in the waves of the choicest memories he wanted spelt out at his funeral. No. Another paper rolling on the floor. Before I could see what he had written, the door became opaque.
"When I die, si? will you read this at my funeral? Like I show you. You might want to stand proud - because you are the chosen one, si? - but not happy that I am dead. I am not, till the elegy is made properly."
And he smiled in a manner that made my nape tremble to the frozen touch of evil. He would not hear of my leaving and bade - nay, ordered me with unspoken threats of worlds which he seemed to have visited and where he was to soon go. His wife and young daughter, sat mutely in the corner, perhaps wondering whether I was one of his kind, else why was I so obedient?
I kept looking at the door that would let me escape along roads which were familiar, leaving a yawning cavity from where a man-devil could still yoke me in, and then I looked at the flounced door which could burst open any minute or could be locked only to have it thundered apart by a creature whose impish frame and mismatched eyes slackened a man's guard long enough to lose his soul to the grinning question that often bounced forth: "Si?" My eyes drew many a thread as on a loom between the knobs only to find me hemmed in with lesser resolve to break from the iron grip of the stool I was seated on. His wife shook her head and pulled her daughter's now sleeping head closer to her bosom.
The door burst open and for reasons unknown, I looked at the wrong door before turning back to the one that was opened.
"You not going anywhere, senor. Haan! Si?"
I wasn't sure whether his was a question or a statement to break any plans I might have had. But I didn't. No plans, only hopes. I shook my head for a while covering the span of his eyes. He bowed his head a bit and returned to his room.
I waited, pressing my palms together squeezing the anxiety out of every minute that paused longer to mock at me.
And then he screamed, and threw something fragile against the door. I saw the door stretch towards me on impact.
"Got it! I got it all. This will be the best. The best. The..."

Everything quietened within, following a soft thump on the wooden floor. The candle still flickered loudly. The girl was still asleep but her mother's face had frozen into a happiness which was forced to wear the scarf of propriety. I bit my lip as I leaned towards the door.
"Mr. Carlos?"
I waited for the "Si?" and on finding none, cleared my throat.
"Everything ok in there, Mr. Carlos?"
I slowly rose and inched my way towards the door, my heart betraying me by thumping loudly and pushing me door-ward.
I held on to the knob but just kept looking at it. The yellow fingered brilliance danced on my shoe's nose. I stepped back where nothing from within the room could touch me.
Mrs. Carlos. I think your husband wouldn't have wanted me to open the door until he called for me. I think I must leave now, Mrs. Carlos. I am sure you understand. As he hasn't told me how to read his elegy, I wouldn't be able to do so at his funeral. I am sure you understand. Mrs. Carlos?"

I turned around to look at the frail (I never noticed how like her husband she was) lady. There she crouched near a threshold gazing at me with large eyes lifted by a chillingly familiar smile.
"You not going anywhere, senor. Si?"

What is Love?

It is easy to get lost in the fine details of the applicability of this perspective to daily incidents and sundry and, hence, I request the reader to award me not more than 3 hours of his/her valuable time - not a mere 3 hour span but one in which there is no intrusion from pre-conceived opinions, no rapid pushing against yardsticks placed against the wall of experience, no immediate urge to agree or disagree, but an empty 3 hour span where you allow the words, the thoughts, the soul of this post to seep in and occupy whichever alcove of your mind it finds pleasurable and fragrance the rest of you before you awaken to reflect on this and present your arguments and/or assent. Please.



Love is, in its truest sense, a life-affirming transformation of an individual. This transformation can happen to the prod of a God, the nudge of a fellow human being, the tempo of music, the iridescence of Nature's beauty or that on a more limited canvas or the tango on the palate; whatever be the vernacular, the effect is the same. It is like the flow of warm sunshine through the invisible labyrinths of an iceberg; an effect which cannot be undone. Love is not a belief. It is not a need to be fulfilled. It is an inevitability.



I shall proceed now to explain the characteristics of the Love I speak of but, before I do so, let me also lay to rest the confusion that people often have about Love and physical intimacy. They are not related (else the world's oldest profession wouldn't have even existed) and one can exist in the absence of the other. Whether it is best to have them together is pointless because the nature of Love is such that it is self-sufficient. Like any cake that might look/taste better with more icing, one might find Love and physical intimacy combined to better one without, but icing alone never filled a man's stomach. Hence, the cake has to be right before worrying about the icing.



Love is a cessation of thought and machination. It is a transformed individual's mark and it reveals in various ways. The transformation being individual doesn't depend on the other entity's corresponding reciprocation. Hence, the Love for Nature is often the commonest theme which has welled in many a Lover's heart giving rise to wonderful poetry, art, gardens and the like. Again, it can be wonderful if Providence smiles and events are opportune to bring two individuals together and bring about a transformation simultaneously in the other's being, but that is not necessary for Love. If one listens to the words of Bhadrachala Ramadasa one is also made aware of Love that didn't find reciprocation in the expected manner.

Hence, the cessation of thought is vital. It is an unstoppable evocation of all of oneself towards the Loved. In such a state, thought and design have no role to play as they are inherently levees. This doesn't mean that one becomes blind or one becomes a criminal fanatic once in Love. What it means is that the transformation leads to a state of being where the individual is earnest and genuine in every action that s/he performs. It is a well known story as to how Hanuman in his Love for Lord Rama (then, they were two living entities) smeared his entire body with sindhoor. His actions were not borne by a need to prove to anyone but merely out of the joy that he was told that Lord Rama derived from seeing a little bit of sindhoor. It does not mean that everyone in order to convince themselves of their love being Love, drop all their chores and mollycoddle their object of love. If one has to go to the office, one has to, which doesn't lessen the Love (as I said, it isn't a feeling or belief or hope, it is a transformation).

Love doesn't recognise or permit shame or fear. In the sheer might of its purity, Love faces nothing which can raise a finger against it. There can be nothing wrong in the wake of Love nor anything inappropriate. Love, in its transformation, also rights all the incongruent facets of the individual self thereby leading the individual to instinctively act in an apposite manner. Where there was once fear, insecurity and doubt, Love brings in peace and clarity. Love doesn't use promises and commitments as its crutches to cross the land of Life. Love is not crippled and hence, needs no human constructions to aid in its survival. Love is deathless, diseaseless and hence has nothing to fear.

Love is the only constructive transformation. In none of its manifestations is Love hazardous to the individual. It might place him/her as inept to co-exist with other people in a society but it is never detrimental to his/her vitality and soul. In Love, there is an unbeckoned nurturing and accommodation that is not a sacrifice or a compromise. There is no place for destructive emotions like hatred, jealousy or ill-will. The mundaneness of life will definitely give occasion to squabbles over chores and opinions, but Lovers always utilise these to continue the process of transformation. In Love's field flowers blossom of their own volition, withering to make way for more, in cycles of unknown and most beautiful patterns. Love cannot drain one's spirit. It invigorates entirely, from every single corner wherever the individual may be. Hence, such a Love doesn't employ destroying other entities as a means to survival. Love doesn't mandate rebellion or disrespect. It doesn't demand of the Lover to shun the rest of the world. It doesn't grant imprimatur to the individual for being self-centered. Again the Love between Lord Rama and Sita is an example which bore the test of time under societal pressures but never waned. In being constructive it is also inclusive.

Love is a source of creative energy. It is not the only source, mind you, but in Love there is an exaltation of one's sensitivities and receptiveness. It is common fare that those in love are more eager an audience to ballads and ghazals as well as early morning walks or Spring-time escapades into the meadows. Beauty seems to suffuse everything that surrounds such a lover who has but been moved into loving someone/~thing. What then is there to say of someone who has transformed entirely in the blaze of Love? The world of Love is filled with rivers of poems, boughs of soft rich fabric, beds of fine gems, landscapes of the most colourful paintings breathing in the air that is truly the most pure, most fragrant. This heightening of ones senses is another inevitable result of the transformation. Love is delightful and joyous.

But Love is not of the mind. It is not a decision. One cannot wish it into existence. Love doesn't call upon the sensory faculties for its struts. One cannot plot Love into being or hope to build it in place. No amount of hanging out at the right places or chalking down the must-haves and nice-to-haves will help. Since it doesn't hinge upon the sensory faculties, it doesn't require the person to be right next to them or constantly talk to them or pamper them. It doesn't live off demonstration although demonstration is inevitable. It cannot be brought to court-martial and evidence is not something that can establish Love. Love is something that can only be realised and hence it requires a quiet mind and a receptive soul to recognise its occupancy in the being. A million clever questions cannot prove Love's breath.

In Love there is no narrowness of the human mind. The pettiness that is rife in our every day world vanishes in Love. In Love, I do not want to compare my capabilities with that of my Lover. I do not wish to contest. I don't find a need to. I simply create or rejoice or sing or dance with the least worry about whether I am Loving more than my Lover. I do not make demands of my Lover for everything I get from my Lover seems so surprisingly beautiful that I am not sure what more to ask for. Love is not a barter and the Lovers are too caught up in being in Love to be able to keep tabs. Love feels no need to show off or gain sanction. Love is inherently decent and respects human beings for what they are.

Given that Love doesn't allow fear, insecurity and other destructive elements, it is also devoid of pain. There is no pain of separation, of betrayal, of loss or of miseries borne together as Love is a transformation. It changes the very fabric of the individual being into one that sees not another option. It is not a rational, clinical process of re-fabrication but an irreversible transformation. In such a transformation, a Lover cannot feel pain as the process is complete (though minor enhancements are not inconceivable) and hence, there is nothing to revoke that which has come into existence. The transformation is permanent and so is castigation of pain in this context. The mortal cessation of the Loved doesn't undo the transformation. Although there might be an ephemeral sorrow for things left undone, there is no pain.

The notion of the Loved entity turning out to be spurious doesn't make sense here as Love is not a belief or a hope. If that spurious entity had the Power to bring about a transformation, then so be it. What is spurious as a disconnected and objective audience, is not the same as a Lover. It doesn't mean that the Lover denies the truth or wishes to live in an illusion. The Lover is very cognizant of the true nature of the Loved (and probably knew what you now recognise to be spurious much earlier) but is also transformed. Love is not a helpless state of entrapment. Often it surprises many a man as to how something which was once a shapeless granite rock, after some chiseling has become a wish-granting deity. That this same rock which could have become a mile marker evokes so much devotion and at times Love is amazing.

Finally, Love in its very transforming power often creates channels for the individual to spiritually evolve. These conduits are the very ones which lead a Lover to realise the Love s/he automatically feels for the entire world (not for their actions, so the silly question of "Should I love a rapist?", is nonsensical. Love, as said, is not a choice or decision. A Lover would love to be with the rapist and help him/her break the destructive barriers of his/her self and be free but when the rapist is sent to the electric chair, the Lover is still his/her own transformed self). The Lover doesn't seek out people like a missionary nor establish Love homes. S/He is simply unable to stop Loving a person they come in contact with. They still go about their usual life (though even their work seems to be filled with Love) but their every single action and thought is now supremely transformed into a spiritual oneness that is akin to being one with the Divine. Not in every Lover is this observed and I am still meditating on whether this is the essential and final sign for the completion of the transformation of Love.

Love is not entirely of the spirit as some are quick to conclude. Since Life itself is not entirely of the spirit, Love cannot be so. The beauty that physical intimacy adds to Love is irreplaceable and cannot be shunned in spiritual snobbery. The role that proximity plays must be relished to be realised. Sharing moments together, dinners, the bed, the newspaper, bicycles, seats on the bus, going to a movie, shopping sprees, beaches and a lot more add to the flavour of Love. But it would be silly to mandate that these are required for Love to happen. To simply brush aside the spiritual foundation of Love is as ridiculous as mocking the sensory minarets of Love's monument. But the spiritual foundation is indispensable and the sensory constructs are to be forgone only when unrealisable. In its ideal state, Love is the perfect blend of spirit and matter.





Love is what completes that which God left incomplete.






gimakgtgjwlzvjpbxmylpzzqiyzveb

Lover? Not I...

I never will be one. I don't quite understand the sinews of a lover. As a matter of fact, I understand nothing of a lover. Why a person loves is beyond me. Why a person stays in love, is something I raise my eyebrow to, while others raise a toast. Why a person falls out of love baffles me more so. Let me look at love as I get to see it in this world (other-worldly love is a moot point). Does it cause even a ripple if I tell you that I was stupidly involved in the composition of an essay going with the title "What is love?" at a ridiculous age of 17? I hope I have grown out of my silliness.

Love, a decision:
Psychiatrists, psychologists, biologists and other-ists believe that love is this little state of confusion which precedes another little state where a man and woman wish to mate. Technically, one wouldn't require love for that. A million men might want to "mate" with Carmen Electra without loving her (and the same might be for her). If mating = "mate"+procreate then we have a possible case ... which just fell off. Sorry! No case.
Love, to me, is a decision. One has a (sub)conscious checklist of what one seeks in a partner (of any sex). It is unlikely that a woman who has "a decent man" on her list would fall in love with a foul mouthing, belching brute (unless if she had not put in enough thought into the need for that want). Would a man be attracted towards a confident and perhaps domineering woman if he would like a nice obedient young girl for his mate?

For centuries, Asians have been married off in the "arranged" marriage and have "loved" their spouse till one of them died (post-death, love seems irrelevant). It was purely a decision to "love" their spouse upon realising that they were getting married. Life in Asia has thrived and well for long to warrant a "correctness" of lifestyle or at least several facets of the same. I wonder how else can the correctness of a lifestyle be ascertained. A destructive or decaying lifestyle would eventually lead to the annihilation of the lifestyle and/or of the adopters. So given that such a lifestyle has worked and kept the Asian community thriving and well, love seems to have nearly always been a decision, whether post-marriage or whether as a checklist.
Love, in most cases, has succeeded a phase of being attracted to the other person. The reasons for being attracted are peculiar and quite characteristic of the individual mind. There are physical reasons, psychological reasons, financial reasons and others which influence a person's "falling in love" act. Though people hate going into it, every person I have met (and tormented) have eventually been able to go down to the nuts and bolts of why they fell in love with a person. One friend of mine said that she would definitely not love a womaniser (which was one of her no-no's) but if the the guy she fell in love with turned out to be a womaniser, she would accept it!! Isn't all accepting a decision too? QED :-)
Now there is that love which people say happens at first sight. That usually tends to be physical. Let us assume that it is not so. What attracted you to this person? Brains? But it is first sight! Depth? First sight! Ok ok ok. Define first sight. The first 10 hours of time spent with a person? First 10 minutes? Think about it. It might sound silly to waste time being so pedantic, but I believe it is vital to understand the working of our mind and whatever we wish to call our heart. Isn't it always something tangible? If it is not so, and this love is spiritual or "just there" then I would wonder about why that love, soon transforms into the typical 2nd stage of this "Love" rigmarole?

2nd Stage of Love:
So you decide (oh! come on! humour me!) to love someone. Good for you. Congrats! Mazel Tov!
So you decide to stay in love too. Rats! I mean! Congrats (is congrats a condensation of congregation of rats?)!!
Every day you encounter... wait, I am speaking about the days after the initial euphoria... so, every day you encounter this person acting like, well, any other human being. This person has his own idiosyncrasies, littleness, humour, pain, whims, lows, anger and allergies. If you never tolerated hypocrisy, you wouldn't take it from him either. But you decide to stay in love. This person forgets your birthday and you are cross. He thinks you are making too big an issue of it, and you, in all your ladyness are quick to remind him that he wasn't like this when he was courting you (when will people learn!). He is quicker in enlisting all the reasons for the natural decay of memory (your nagging appears to be there as every odd numbered point and the end of his list has 5 "nags" in succession!). You want him to buy you jewellery and take you out to movies mostly because you think that is what lovers do for the other (I tend to think that ladies get to benefit more, materially).Things slowly transform into a "supposed to do" pattern and a lot of life is spent in the fear of being caught being not-lover-enough.
So every day you revisit this state of affairs and wonder why you believe that you are in love. Even if the problems don't surface (highly unlikely, because you are living in this world and reality requires facing problems and tackling them), you slowly notice that the excitement is waning. The level of cheer is cheerlessly familiar and more a habit now. Things have become more about two people running a life together and doing the necessary chores. No, I am not being cynical. It seems to be the most popular story on the road and exceptions don't maketh a story.
Then there are people who try to get the zing back into the relationship (which only re-enforces the point about love being a decision). I think that is a wise thing to do, given that you have already decided to love and then live that love. They try new things - define new phrases (quality time! ewwww!), get memberships in new clubs, go out more often, learn new languages together ("Oh! What is Mandarin for "I love you"? and Catalan?". Personally, I think they should ban that phrase and demand of couples to invent new ways of communicating it!), do shopping, cook meals, go out on picnics etc. etc. etc.
All this for mating? Naah! The -ists got it all wrong.
I think man inherently is not comfortable being alone. Some fella (or was it Jeanette Winterson) said that a person will go to any extent to keep himself from having to live in loneliness. I tend to agree with him (her). People enjoy a good life and would like to bring that in with the least overhead (not all of us can be sheiks with a harem!). What is a good life is a personal measure and hence, one's love also tends to be a subjective choice, and a choice it is; hence a decision.
Rarely does a "spiritual" or "just there" love escape the rigours of the 2nd stage. Its origin might have been mystical but its life on earth is surely made of houses, bank balances and food on the table. People still want exclusivity (god save me from that one) and complete allegiance whether right or wrong. Life becomes a dichotomy of "our love" and "the world". Life really isn't that. It functions as a mix of everything but I shall withold my opinion of the same.
So, whatever the start, love does roll into the mundane after a point (the toppling point). This is true about nearly everything on earth, but I shall cover that in another post. So love seems to be this lure into a stabilising monotony of living and managing life in its secure state (I have known people breaking up because the guy decided to go join a startup and brought in enormous amounts of instability or the woman taking on a high pressure job which paid but rarely left any time for the emotional security of the family. Replace man for woman and I think you might still have such problems).

So love is not something that is eternal - not the commonly found strains of this microbe! Hence, I am not interested in something that is ephemeral and quite a pain to manage.

Falling out of love:
And then people tire and break-up. Not all, but there seems to be a steady rise in the per capita breakup rate. People are either treating love casually or are more narrowly focused on a single entity (self, money, career, etc.). Either way, one can only break out of love with a decision, if they got into it as a decision. If you are going to give me an analogy of a disease occuring on its own but being eliminated by the decision of taking medicines, then I would ask you to choose between considering love a disease or a decision. People talk so much about unconditional love, but it seems to be a conditioned decision to be unconditional in love. It really seems to be some rose-tinged dream cloud when people talk about unconditional love while have ziltch clue about the conditioning they have gone through. People who unconditionally love cannot choose and cannot surely fall out of it. If you choose to unconditionally love one person, there is a set of reasons why you chose this person (and not another) and they are perhaps a superset of what this person satisified as your desirable conditions to be met. So where is the unconditionality!? And why is it that you want unconditional love? Because you are ready to give it? Firstly, I don't believe that is as simple as you think it is and secondly, why hold that as a condition for giving your unconditional love?

So what's the big deal?

If we are comfortable accepting love as a decision, we will be less in pain when wondering over any or all of the following questions:

• Why did I fall in love?
• How did I fall in love?
• Why am I in this relationship?
• Why am I not happy in here?
• Why does my state of being depend so much on this one person?
• Would I behave the same way if it were someone else doing what this person just did to me?
• Why should I work on this relationship?
• Why do I want to run away?
• etc.
• etc.

If you believe that your "love" is not a decision then what do you think it is? Why don't you love your neighbour? Or your colleague too? If this person you love, was a pauper on the streets who looked like Shrek, would you still love him? But would you have spoken to him in the first place? Is love for you being compassionate towards someone? Feeling sorry for them?

Then comes the major confusion between love and what to do with it. The most common strategy is to get married. What if the person is already married? What if the person cannot marry you? What if the person doesn't believe in marriage? What if the person doesn't want to marry you? Does your love fade? Does your love lose meaning? Is it still not a decision?

Think about it.

Or else, just enjoy the state of being in love! I for one cannot love as it is simply not in me to dedicate myself to one person completely. Firstly, the person has to be worth it all (and other than the Goddess, I know of perhaps just one other person who is worth it) and secondly, I haven't enjoyed the entire world yet to lock myself up with this person (so I am left only with the Goddess!). I always feel love is a state of inner transformation which doesn't require anything to be revealed or established (as it would anyway do so of its own sheer power). Such a powerful state of being is not for the common person to handle. Once in that state, the banal practices of the world do not hold glitter to me and expecting me to resort to such means ("Please say you love me", "You should pamper me", "I don't want you talking to any woman") is destroying that state (not a decision but an event whenafter I start looking for what was once there and often live in the memory of love, which is not love, please). In love there is a oneness that transcends all pettiness, but doesn't destroy the individuality of a person.

Every man, whether he has ever been in love or not, has an opinion about love. That is the major difference between love and differential calculus. Given this profound catchment of opinions, it is but natural to demand to know what is it that I think is love. I might (and that might never happen) write a post about what I think of love and what is it that I have come to realise as a true state of loving.



So love either doesn't exist for me, or exists in a form which you refuse to recognise! :-)

Please don't

Alas! Such moments bite my heel and gnaw

The last of what painted my life alive.

Oh! Please don't nude me for inept love's flaw,

Or flay me blue for spineless passions' strive.

I love you, dearest, but sullied am I

To win and husband your kohl-eye's favour.

For in its clear depths I'd this world defy,

Though no knight to clasp your heart forever.

Know me now, as once in true smile you did

That I shall love you, only you, till death.

And I beg you don't, or of life me rid -

Of absence eclipsed-life or one sans breath.

In you is all, pardon my cowardice;

I grovel at your feet, please don't do this.

Sonnet - 5

When the singular music of the morn
Tinkles with the grey rub of ironness,
When unheeded moments fly past forlorn
Empty and unlived in their vast briefness,

When in hushed stealth, straggle exiled snowflakes -
No vacant eye to trace that dizzy path,
When saucy din's clang, in a mute ear, quakes
Clenching my silent innards in loud wrath,

When feather's breath breeze on opisthenar
Rolls numb and desiccated o'er vein streams,
My life blood speaks your name in a manner
That wakens me to your bequest of dreams.

In shackles, searched I my heart's warm epoch
Till you known, erring love for a keyless lock.

Bee Movie

Its been nearly three decades since I saw a movie first-day first-show. And its even better when it is the first time ever!! I chose Bee Movie(watch the trailers, they are quite different from the movie) for that. I agree, that it is not necessarily the best choice for such an event, but then hey! I'd pick this any day over OSO.
PVR is quite a disorganised place requiring people to go to an entirely different floor in order to place their helmets. Put me off totally!
The movie is good. It is perfect for a light evening, noon or night. The storyline is not very impressive with several factual errors, but then are you there to simply find faults, you ol' fella? Lots of nice jokes and a lot more fun scenes. Spoilers ahead...

The story starts off with a quick summary of what happens in the beehive by presenting the life of bees once they graduate. When I heard that the bees (in the movie, hence, Bee Movie!) get to choose one career in Honex and would need to stick to it for the rest of their life, I shot a secret prayer to God requesting him to never make me a bee (for that movie, hence, Bee Movie!). Barry (Seinfeld voiceover) feels the same but decides to join the Pollen Jocks on a trip out of the hive to collect nectar (then why not Nectar Jocks!?). On his first trip they land in the midst of tennis balls and then by some turn of interesting fate Barry lands in Vanessa's (Zellwegger house and is saved by her. He startles her by talking to her in English (if they claim a 27 million year... oh! forget it!) and she accepts that with great difficulty. They become friends and he dreams of her in a pool of honey!!
One day he joins her to a supermarket and discovers that human beings buy and sell honey (what about bees wax!? Well... forget it, E). He is outraged and takes pictures of the activity in a honey farm. He decides to sue the human race for using something that belongs to them. Court scenes follow and eventually he wins. Then what happens is so typical of American lawsuits. Barry demands that all honey be returned to the hive (though no honey was taken from that hive. Shhhh, E) and there is suddenly a surplus leaving all bees jobless. The Pollen Jocks do nothing and soon no pollination happens in the world which leads to a rather grey Earth (or at least that city). Another disconnected bit about flowers not being pollinated and how Vanessa and Barry get together and steal a lot of flowers, bring it back and then go about collecting pollen and, well, pollinating (but you can't pollinate dead plants or flowers! Shut up, E, shut up!).
In short, it was fun though the family 2 rows behind kept repeating dialogues and laughing all over again (I heard it the first time, you blokes!). Some people really know how to kill the moment! Have your ear open for the dialogues and catchy scenes (eyes for these, not ears!). I loved the scene with Larry King and the other one with all the insects on the windscreen. Honey just got funny.

The conscious mind

Those who see worldly life as an obstacle to Dharma
see no Dharma in everyday actions.
They have not yet discovered that
there are no everyday actions outside of Dharma.
--Dogen

This has been the question that has plagued millenia of men and a myriad in each. The question when stated, as it arises in a naive mind, would be:
Why is there a need to move from the current state of living to a more supposedly enlightened state?

This, in its womb, holds several questions which the reader might nod their head to:

• Why is the current state of living not right?
• Why did we get into it, in the first place?
• How do we know that there is a better state of living?
• Why are we born in that state?
• Why must there be a move?
• How should we bridge the eternally parallel states?
• Are they parallel?

If we notice, the last question summarises our prejudice towards recognising and maintaining the parallel tracks of right and not-yet-right and all the earlier questions were based on that surmise.
Often one notices that the path towards spiritual completeness or enlightenment implicitly excludes our quotidian life. It is as if to say that enlightenment cannot happen in the daily setting. So many teachers and gurus have said that it is not possible to be in the world and attain to the Divine. So many teachers and gurus have said that it is vital to merge the Divine path into daily life. Undoubtedly, nearly all of the latter category have themselves renounced common life (Dogen included)!! So what is true? Does a path towards the Divine require less of the common world? Does it require an initial abstinence followed by a bringing home of the wisdom?
These in turn lead to more questions like:

• How is one to know when one can return to the world?
• Why did one have to "leave" in the first place?
• How is the mind and self going to be any different from what it was before the excursion?
• Why can't that difference be brought about with running away?

That is when we come to the point of the conscious mind. When the mind is growingly conscious of itself and the world around it, can the self simply drop its role and act according to the Divine will (which it is still clueless about)? Wouldn't that be the case of jumping across a wide well and deciding half-way that you want to turn back? The path to the Divine requires a conscious mind which need not mean an erudite mind. But can the conscious mind suddenly say "So what if the vegetable vendor is giving me stale tomatoes. All the world is Maya and I am sure the stale tomato will become firm and edible as soon as I offer my cooking to the Lord"? While the mind is not yet there, wouldn't the mind require to be able to discern between the worldly and the inner development? Then the question is, when can the mind ever stop doing that? And the one that follows the latter is, does the mind ever need to stop doing that?

The thought that I am playing with is the state of the mind and self where every vacillation of the world is accorded its due reaction. If your mother dies, you will cry though you are aware that all beings come to pass. If you win a lottery, you will rejoice because you can now go on a trip to Hawaii and not stay impassive about the ephemeral nature of all joy. Point is, why should the self be prescribed a state of no-emotion or no-response when the same Divine to which we wish to attain has created all of what this world has to provide? This is not a case for living in ignorance but to realise the duality of the world and how in spite of the variety the Divine is one and the immeasurable joy at the Divine's feet and in the Divine's arms is blissful. And although we know one from the other, there is no point denying one or the other. In awareness, there is built a foundation for consciousness, which in turn prepares the ground for the Divine to enter into us.
So to answer the questions:

• Why is the current state of living not right?

It is as right as you feel.

• Why did we get into it, in the first place?

Ignorance.

• How do we know that there is a better state of living?

Because you recognise that this is not the right way to be, and in that recognition you are also aware of what is possibly right.

• Why are we born in that state?

Because of the Divine will and the state of the 3 gunas. There is no scientific answer to this question but it is something to be realised. Every single state that a human being is in, is fine in the Divine scheme of things. In other words, to the self which is one with Divine, every state is equally ok and inconsequential (as a starting point) in the grand scheme of things. So the conception of the state we are in (born or current) is a function of what our self feels about life and our own measure of rightness.

• Why must there be a move?

There needn't be any, if the current state is fine and comfortable. The Divine is not separate for a person who is happy and contented in the current state of affairs.

• How should we bridge the eternally parallel states?

By emptying yourself and letting the parallel states merge in the void.

• Are they parallel?

Yes and No

• How is one to know when one can return to the world?

The minute the unison with the Divine is complete. How? There is no way to know that.

• Why did one have to "leave" in the first place?

Because It can be there only when there is nothing.

• How is the mind and self going to be any different from what it was before the excursion?

In the same way one's body is while in front of a fire on a cold Winter evening.

• Why can't that difference be brought about with running away?

Because the warmth of the fire on a cold Winter evening is available only near the fire and not in the market place.

So in seeking the Divine, giving up on discriminatory consciousness is possible only when the duality of the world is not presented every minute. This can be attained by either going on a long break in order to focus on the path to the Divine or by continuously rejecting the world's appetisers. Once the Divine has entered the individual being, then the individual can be anywhere and it wouldn't matter. How is one to be involved in everything of the world, responding to each stimulus appropriately and still empty the self for the Divine, without recognising and maintaining the duality of it all?

A theatre of simultaneous possibilities

I have chanced upon a few delightful articles which I intend to share with you. But the pleasure lessens if I merely handed over to you a string of letters and dots and slashes starting with a www. Let me prance about in the unconscious - and to the writers of these articles, I do not exist - forming of a coterie of "literary writing" haters. Suffer my unbridled exuberance and hold not a single phrase against me at the dawn of a more sober morning. I don't hate literature but am holding myself back from actually detesting what passes off as "literary writing" nowadays. As readers of this blog might recall, I had written a trilogy on what I thought literature was (they are available here, here and here) and I would summarise great writing as something:

• Which weaves a splendid tale for me


• Which wrings the finest honey out of the language employed


• Which leaves me unlike myself when I started reading the piece, and


• Which makes me want to rush to write myself

I would be arrogant enough to say that this is the sole definition of great literature that I recognise, not because I composed it (does that even matter?).
When I was young (that was a couple of decades ago), I read Shakespeare and wondered why everyone spoke so highly of a man who wrote phrases like "saucy fellow" (Julius Ceaser). Only recently (and may I brag of owning the complete works of Shakespeare in wonderful print?) did I gain the required faculties to appreciate the works of the Bard. So much so that I was quick to proclaim him as one of the only 2 writers whom I consider truly great (the other being Nabokov; Gogol seems to be pulling this club to gain inclusion, but it wouldn't be a wrong if he succeeded). Shakespeare's sonnets drove me to a tizzy and made me drop everything I was doing at that moment and pick up a pen to give vent to what he had stoked in me. I thought that he heightened my sense and I was thoroughly glad when I read this article about an experiment conducted to correlate Shakespearen writing with brain activity. I totally agree with what the author says:

In that case Shakespeare's art would be no more and no less than the supreme
example of a mobile, creative and adaptive human capacity, in deep relation
between brain and language. It makes new combinations, creates new networks,
with changed circuitry and added levels, layers and overlaps. And all the time
it works like the cry of "action" on a film-set, by sudden peaks of activity and
excitement dramatically breaking through into consciousness.

And as abrupt as this turn might seem, I must hurry into discussing the other articles I read. All of them are from http://www.theatlantic.com/. The first I read was a review by B.R.Myers of a book called Tree of Smoke and about how "It’s the most critically acclaimed novel of the fall. And it’s astonishingly bad." I couldn't stop nodding my head when I read this:

It’s just that once we Americans have ushered a writer into the contemporary pantheon, we will lie to ourselves to keep him there.

I would definitely agree with him when I think about Updike, Oates and Lahiri. The article talks a lot about pretentious writers and how the entire literary community feeds on and into this farce. Here is another excerpt from that article:

An amputee with a phantom limb, fancy that. Lewis’s aside that Tree of Smoke
“doesn’t feel like a Denis Johnson novel” lends weight to the assumption that a
writer cannot become famous by writing like this, at least not yet. But with no
way to prove insincerity on the reviewers’ part, I have to pretend to believe
that they really do consider Tree of Smoke to be “something like a masterpiece”
(Lewis) and “bound to become one of the classic works of literature” (Kakutani)
about the Vietnam War. (The novel, a New York Times best seller, has been
nominated for a National Book Award.)

I surely wouldn't be reading this book going by the samples that Myers quotes. This novel appears to be below mediocre to me and if it ever became a "work of literature" let alone a classic, I shall write another post!!

This is what the The Washington Post has to say about this book: "To write a fat novel about the Vietnam War nearly 35 years after it ended is an act of literary bravado. To do so as brilliantly as Denis Johnson has in Tree of Smoke is positively a miracle". Literary bravado? What on earth is that? Why does literature need bravery? So would painting a war scene (albeit cubist) be called brave painting? If this is a miracle, then I am a non-believer. And if "This novel makes large demands on the reader" I wonder to what demand did the writer cater. Please read the Washington Post's article about the book and you won't find anything in it that actually talks about the prose and its style. Just a lot of adjectives and bull-crap. What are we reviewing? The article-writer's proclivity to smitten-talk?
So here I am wondering who this Myers guy is and simultaneously feeling glad that there are others out there who are ready to grab the "literary writers" by their collars (post-modern collars) and give then a good shake. I stumbled upon his "A Reader's Manifesto" and liked him even more. From there I hopped my way to A Reader's Revenge where I loved this at the end:

But if they were to say the prose is good or bad, and explain why on the basis
of lengthy excerpts, then we could judge for ourselves

I remember getting into a virtual brawl with a member of a popular "writer's" online group. She was reviewing Ms. Lahiri's Namesake and used words/phrases like "soul-satisfying, introspective, multi-layered and intellectual read" and when I asked her to justify her conclusion there wasn't any offered. People (readers/reviewers) fancy using large words and cliches to avoid the conscious task of understanding a book and enjoying it for what it is rather than what it is touted to be. I am glad that Myers raises concerns of similar sorts. Although I haven't read a word of DeLillo, I agree with Myers when he says this (and yes, he praises Nabokov :-)

When Don DeLillo describes a man's walk as "a sort of explanatory shuffle, a
comment on the literature of shuffles," I feel nothing; the wordplay is just too
insincere, too patently meaningless. But when Nabokov talks of midges
"continuously darning the air in one spot," or the "square echo" of a car door
slamming, I feel what Philip Larkin hoped readers of his poetry would feel:
"Yes, I've never thought of it that way, but that's how it is."

So why would people still want to call such writing as great? Myers has to say something in tune with what Toohey said in Atlas Shrugged:

"Don't set out to raze all shrines — you'll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity —
and the shrines are razed . . . Kill by laughter. Laughter is an instrument of
human joy. Learn to use it as a weapon of destruction. Turn it into a sneer.
It's simple. Tell them to laugh at virtue. Don't let anything remain sacred in a
man's soul — and his soul won't be sacred to him. Kill reverence and you've
killed the hero in man"

Mediocrity and laziness is what rules the world today. People would rather have a solution than an understanding of the problem. But I digress. Myers clearly states:

Well, imagine what would happen if the Big Three were allowed to review each
other's cars in Consumer Reports. You might think they'd just try to run each
other down. But they wouldn't; they'd realize that it's in the industry's
interests to screw the consumers, to lower their expectations. They'd say, "The
brakes don't work, but that's what real driving is all about," and so on. They'd
save the bad reviews for outsiders like the Japanese. The same principle is
behind the insincerity with which novelist-critics review each other's books.
And even the full-time reviewers like Michiko Kakutani don't seem to represent
the consumer's interests to the extent that a movie critic like Roger Ebert
does. The best way to reform things is to force reviewers to concentrate on
prose. As it is now, they say things about the plot and the characters that we
have to take on trust.

Pick any review that you might have read of a book and see whether the critic bothers to detail the prose and style without starting with a conclusion. I am glad that Alvibest, as an instinctive policy, disallows reviewers to state anything without evidence.

Given that we have had great writers like Shakespeare and Nabokov, why would I bother to read any of these new novels? I needn't, but when the literary community builds hype around them, it gets me concerned about the state of literature about which I care a lot. Why doesn't anyone aspire to write like the greats and when they can't, just pause writing?

And this is where I see the truth in what I had written in one of the posts I mention here: Attempting to create literature is an adamant belief in permanence. Shakespeare and Nabokov believed in that. I doubt whether any of the modern contemporary writers even recognise that. The mind is, as William James said, a theatre of simultaneous possibilities, and we should try to keep that vibrant and enriching rather than numb it with the opiates of mediocrity and laziness.

Foods Galore

It should be no shocking revelation that I simply love food and anything to do with culinary delights. I am also proud of being deliciously promiscuous (within the limits of being vegetarian). Yesterday was a fun day when the entire team went out to eat and I had the good fortune of an audience prepared to watch me grill their food for them while explaining the technicalities of each and every sauce used and the details of mixing food items and cuisines. My manager, though, was only interested in getting the food on his plate, but seemed to relish what I prepared for him.

Over the past few weeks I have been finding myself in blogs/webpages which focus entirely on food. Some of them are rather good and I thought it might be a good idea to share those sites out here.

The Yum Blog (the lady is quite sweet and specialises in Iyengar recipes and hence... :-)

Tarla Dalal's Blog (Her recipe books are one of the first I allowed in my house)

I Love Pasta (More educational)

Mahanandi (Nice collection and very well organised)

What's for lunch Honey? (I like this because it combines food and photography (check out her calendar, whether you buy it or not)! Damn, why don't I get to meet such fine women!? ;-)

Cheese Lovers (Again educational)

Epicurious (I love this sites l-n-f)

Daily Tiffin

Akshayapaatram

Food for thought (the gobi-kheema won me over. I have developed this fetish for cauliflower and seem to be buying it no matter wherever I spot it. I also loved the fact that she tastefully featured bottled of olive oil on her page)

101Cookbooks (this is ok as a site but special because I found my friend whom I had lost over 18 years thanks to her namesake putting some comment on this page)

Aayi's Recipes (beware! Lots of non-veg stuff, but I generally skip them or replace the offending ingredients with ideas of my own (well cooked and browned cauliflower with stems does resemble chicken!!))

The Cook's Cottage (liked the bhakri recipe here)

Cooking Bread (for bread lovers. I am Atkin's nightmare)

And many many more (I have over a 100 links to sites I have collected over time and hunger). Hope you enjoy this collection. Let me know in case you have found some really interesting sites which I could add to my kitty.

Butterfly

These pictures are of a butterfly found dead outside my office gym. At first glance I thought it was perhaps some fine lady's brooch, but on closer examination recognised the deceased. Brought her home and thought it best to give her a suitable "immortalisation".

Off the news(paper) and sundry

Yes.


The Aaja Nachle Controversy:
Here are the lyrics that have been keeping jobless politicians busy:
Bazaar mein machi hai maramar, bole mochi bhi khud ko sunar.
And as Hindi lyrics of the present day go, this one doesn't differ much on the PQ (pathetic-quotient). But the politicians aren't complaining about the quality of lyrics. They care too hoots about that and wouldn't know the meaning of words like "taqmeel", "raza" and other beautiful words that once upon a time filled Hindi songs. So here goes a disinterested attempt at getting you the meaning (and N, I am sure you won't complain this time!).
There is a lot of uproar in the bazaar (did you know that is legal English, now?), even the cobbler consider himself a goldsmith.

So let's see what could possibly bother the Indian-jobless-politician.
Uproar: India is being portrayed as a place of noise and confusion and this is tainting the India Shining image into a India Whining image.... Naaah!
Bazaar: This is India's contribution to English and it should not be used in chaste Hindi lyrics. This only goes to show that we are still slaves of the Empire (Arundhati Roy-ish?).... Naah!
A lot: This again is an innuendo about India's population problem and songs like this are what influence the World Bank from not giving us any money because our programs are ineffective.... Naah! Next line please...
Cobbler: We still recognise this occupation and it only strengthens the massacre of animals for the sake of their hide (anti-Hide-Sign and Maneka Gandhi-ish?)... Naah! but you are getting warmer!
Consider: This is the problem of the urban metro-sexual who keeps considering himself to be somewhat in between a male and a female and this is leading to a lot of suicide and hysterectomy!... Naah!
Goldsmith: Errr... no apparent problem here! Oh! yeah! that is the problem. We haven't included goldsmiths in our problem allocation committee and hence they feel discriminated against and want a reservation in problems! ... Naaah!

I give up. I can never become a politician in India! :-(
Answer: (Tell me you didn't skip to this section directly! Gosh! you really are the same since 4th "std", right?) The blokes in khadi think that a cobbler considering himself a goldsmith is a casteist remark at cobblers being low-class and the goldsmiths being high-class. So they probably want it replaced with "Bole software-engineer khud ko Ambani" which isn't casteist to them. But the Indian Software Union of Engineers on the Bench or Working or Employed (ISUEB-WE) is objecting to that and demanding an increase in allocation of Reliance group's investments in their IT department. This has sent Reliance groups share value down the drain (and this drain flows through all high-class and low-class areas, so no discrimination of funneling Reliance shares into a caste based drain) which has troubled our finance minister, PC, who is requesting SG to look into the matter so that she can make statements about no by-elections and the like.

Alright, enough of seriousness. Let's get a little jovial. UP, Punjab and Haryana have banned the movie. Some have lifted the ban too. Producers have apologised for using such words and are providing movie halls with a chemical to erase the lines from the recording. JNU sociologist Vivek Kumar calls it "downright derogatory" and an attempt to mock "those who are aspiring to reach a higher social station". But doesn't that aspiration, Mr. Kumar, automatically acknowledge that those in the so-called lower-station (no, not the kinds between Madras and Ooty) prefer the so-called higher station without attempting to remove the wrong done to their profession and station? I am not saying that Dalits have been treated fairly. Quite a disappointing state of human affairs, but why are we making a ruckus of a meaningless song which would hardly live more than 10-20 days? Aren't we creating a fear and paranoia in the minds of everyone about what they might say or what they might do which might bring onto them someone's ire? Isn't there a very thin line between sensitivity and rampant fear? If the intent was to put the cobblers down, then the cobblers have a reason to object. To make it a Dalit-wide issue is basically being stupid. I am sure that the lyricists aren't intelligent people to have put so much thought into their lyrics. Just look at the lyrics! It is only constructed to fill space and be sung wrongly on the tongue of someone who heard it while passing a tea-stall. Stupid lyrics and so much made out of them. It would be like going back to the fun (and possibly then silly) lyrics of "Sar jo tera chakraye" and saying that the "Kaahe ghabraye" was a hint at oil-massagers being dangerous people and hence calling all people of that caste (no clue what that is) as people with a criminal past and inclination. I think politicians should focus on more important matters and giving facilitating an environment where everyone has a good quality of life.

Joker in the pack:
Another lets-do-something-to-get-noticed-and-rich attempt. Why oh! why can't people write a novel/piece with some interesting content? I am tired of seeing more and more chick-lit (and I am told the male version of this is called dick-lit! Urgggh! Too many of these, and do we call them chock-lit?). Why can't people just not jump into writing? It doesn't have to be done, ladies and gentlemen! I remember reading an article on a similar vein (I just searched and it has been taken off the main site. Here is a place where you can read it). Writing is for people who enjoy the language and cannot help but write. For those who want to give vent to their personal feelings, there is a journal. For those who want to get rich, there is investment banking. For those who want to get noticed, please refer to Britney Spears. Please don't write any more of those you-know-what-really-happens-in-the-place-you-so-admire kinda stories. Chetan Bhagat got lucky. Let's applaud and stop it.

A virtual bookstore:
Pradeep Sebastian is kind enough to share information about the virtual bookstore called "Between the Covers" (there is a show on CBC.ca with the same name). I doubt whether I will ever buy something from there (not as long as I have my Bookworm and Blossoms and other little gems) but it is interesting.

And here are some magazines I would like to mention for their good content. Please find time to read "Bangalore Food Lovers" and "Design Today". Very good stuff in there. There is a Design Conference on the 12th and 13th in Bangalore.

Oh! btw, the "Yes" at the start was for those who always wondered whether I read newspapers and magazines... I don't read the politics and current affairs sections (the only affairs I am interested in are best left unrelated on paper!!) but the Aaja Nachle thing caught my eye. The rest are from the Literary Review and from magazines which I do read!

Through the hole

I think it was the summer of 1989, for it is nearly always summer in Madras. I was in 7th grade then and, according to a lot of friends, haven't changed much. We followed this rather arcane curriculum of numbering our subjects as 1 and 2 (Math 1, Math2, English 1, English 2...) and I fail to recall which one of those numbers applied to the class where we were asked to prepare a pinhole camera. The mechanics of this was simple: Get a hollow cylinder (which should be called a pipe, but our teachers thought that they were being quite scientific as against sounding like someone from the hardware store). Seal one end with butter paper (and we actually applied butter on standard paper when any oleaginous substance would have suited the purpose) and the other which a thick material. Poke a pin-hole through the thick material and pray that you get an image of some distant object upside down on the butter-paper.

We had decided that we should employ talcum powder cases (like that of the nearly erstwhile Cuticura, or of Gokul Santol)as one end would be shut anyway. We did a lot of hunting and excitedly constructed the contraption for, to a child's mind, any activity with expensive names like camera, engine brought a lot of importance. I think I chose a Gokul Santol dubba (I think I did so because I didn't want to have anything to do with a Kutti-Cura... kutti in Tamil means small).

When the d-day arrived, everyone proudly held their cameras in hand (one girl had even painted hers! I am glad there wasn't a pink bow to it). Some of the fractious boys (and every class had its share) had bullied the students of the other classes to lend theirs. Some of the lazy ones borrowed from their friends in the other "divisions". There was a lot of whispering and speculation as to who possessed "honest" cameras and who were the ones who had "stolen" (for anything non-honest was considered stolen to our inarticulate minds) cameras.

The teacher walked in. She was a rather puny lady with a voice that broke with least warning, resembling a little puppy on ice - running fine a bit and then skidding. She demanded to be informed if anyone had borrowed cameras from students in other divisions. No one spoke a word. Some students got up to say that they didn't finish their project and these were the ones who had secretly vowed to turn informers.

Things went as expected. Some student would be called, he would present his piece. If it was an honest camera, he got some marks depending on the clarity of the tree with its root heavenward on the butter-paper. If it was stolen, some student would blow the whistle. Then there was a lot of ruckus and Yes-No and eventually a zero on the marklist. One girl who had stolen started crying even before she was exposed, which was exposure enough.

One boy was about to go and do his presentation. He was my friend (and that meant a lot back then!!) and I gestured to a whistle blower not to expose him. Surprisingly the presentation went rather smoothly for him. I was amazed at the powers of my gestures and considered the prospects of a career as a mafia Don with the imperceptible nod to signal that someone must be made to "sleep with the fish". I was stirred out of my reverie by a call to my name skidding badly on my teacher's tongue.

I walked over and did my presentation. The tree looked rather nice and helplessly strung upside down on the butter-paper. I was tempted to rotate the camera in order to rectify that, but knowing that it wouldn't earn me any extra marks, I didn't bother.

"Ma'am he stole it."

Which poor soul was caught now? I turned around to see all the boys and girls (minus the weeper) looking at me. Me? ME?

"No, ma'am. I made this. I can assure you I made this?"

"How?"

Damn! That was my first lesson in never assuring assurances without preparing for one.

"Ma'am he told me not to tell you that he had stolen this camera."

Damn! So that is where the intent of my gesture had gone. Like signalling my own henchmen to fill me with lead and thinking all the while that I am such a good Don.

"No, ma'am."

"Yes, ma'am."

And the topic hardly changed for the next 2 min. She was about to give me a zero when I offered to take everyone to the shop where I bought the talcum powder case and getting my father to vouch for me. The teacher asked me and the whistle blower to resolve this by the next class.

Well, I was able to prove my case and got 7.5 out of 10, but I look back at this incident every time I see a similar one happening in my present day (which became a yesterday). People still love to blow the whistle on others without a basis. I am undecided about whether whistle blowing makes sense (except in really criminal cases and the like), but doing so without basis is quite silly according to me. There is nothing to gain for the whistle blower except for the possible sadistic pleasure of watching another person suffer his fate (and I am only talking about whistle blowers who had themselves defaulted and are trying to redeem themselves by turning into that). Even in corporate circles at the non-executive level, people seem to be resorting to this childish behaviour and feeling quite pleased with themselves. Wonder whether we ever grow up. I definitely haven't and am busy collecting assurances and proofs for the world, lest someone decides to shout out "Ma'am he stole it."