To all my friends:

It was a great pleasure to hear from you again. I think letters are more important than one is apt to realize. If one doesn't write, one's doings and one's general state of mind cease to be known, and when a time comes for explaining, there are so many preliminaries that the task seems impossible in writing. So I do hope you will not be deterred by the fear of many words - it really doesn't do to wait till you are in extremis.

*Borrowed from one of Russell's letters to Lucy.

Memorable night.

It was last Wednesday. At first i had decided not to record it for my own future recollection for fear that the girl with whom i spent the night would read it and be upset about it. But i think the better of her now, and i am sure she'll just dimiss it with gentle laughter. Hence i wish to record for posterity, almost one week down the line, what was certainly the most memorable evening i've spent since my arrival at ASU.

It was purely by chance that i happened to meet this girl, probably a few days prior to the day in concern, as she was lying on the couch, snug under a blanket, when i entered that apartment to see her room mate, a friend of mine. My initial response was one of slight disapproval. She was happily ensconced and staring at some program on television, and as i generally look with contempt at most of what is shown on TV, i took little notice of her, and went on with what i was doing on my laptop. She left for a movie with her friend, and a discussion had ensued between me and my friend, on various things, one of which was tackling the population problem in our country. At this time, the girl returned from the movie, and she sat down and listened to us. I paid no attention to her prescence having formed a bad impression of her intially. But when she was asked to comment by my friend, i found she spoke with remarkable insight, and complete objectivity. Taking some interest in her now, i probed further and found she shared much of the views i had, and this naturally delighted me. The conversation then flowed for the better part of two hours before we all retired for the day at around 3 a.m. A couple of days after that, i had another occassion to talk to her and we spent a few hours meandering through various subjects, happily chattering away like idle old persons without a worry in the world, and under the assumption that our thoughts were of utmost significance to the world! It was on this day that i noticed how expressive her eyes were, and how she had a way of capturing ones attention with the subtle nuances in facial expression.

My semester ended on wednesday, and she invited me over for dinner that day. By now i had begun to take some interest in her, because i was impressed by her intellectual capabilities(she likes to call herself a pseudo-intellectual, and going by her defintion, i fit into just that category too.), and i wished to observe her more. As she cooked dinner i watched her, working away with the ease and precision that comes from familiarity, where she could judge the quantity of raw material necessary and the quality of the finished products by the eye alone. I had some fun making jokes, both in general and at her expense, and was pleased to find she had a good sense of humour and took things in the right spirit. (It has always been a particular complaint of mine that there are too many serious people in this world!) During dinner, we idled away time watching some silly tv program, which, to be honest didn't impress me much. However, i endured because i wished to keep her company. As luck would have it, she wanted to go for a walk at about 10 in the night, and walking being one of my favourite hobbies, i asked her if i could accompany her, and she responded in the affirmative. She is really a rather straight-forward girl and speaks her mind almost always, so i never have to worry about what is actually meant by the words spoken(It is usually the case with women, i find, that they always intend something other than what they say, and somehow consider it the responsibility of the man to decipher what they have in mind!). The walk was filled mostly with ordinary conversation about some common friends we shared and their good and bad, but it was nice to see how, at every instance, she proved capable of objectively critical evaluation of things and people. It is also an admirable trait that she does not spare herself even. (I have no very great opinion of myself either, but i somehow don't like to declare it to other people. I would rather they earned that knowledge. ) It is when we returned at around 10:30pm that an almost surreal experience began. We spent hours talking about things like frustrated PhDs, the economic situation in India, the education system, divorce, hypocrisy, corporations, to name some of them, and by now about 2 and a half hours had raced by! Then we moved on to more taxing topics like religion, God, and Infinity(which was a topic which really drained my thinking capacities and made me feel quite small), and relationships(!). At all times, i quoted from news articles i remembered, or facts from books, and she drew illustrations from personal experience, more often than books. However, the fun part was that neither was determined to convince the other of anything, and we merely exchanged views, similar or different, and gained a better understanding of the things we discussed. At any rate, this certainly was the case with me. Also,it was nice to see how she gave thought to everything that i said and was in no hurry to defend her stance(and i should like to think the same was the case with me). Moreover, it was nice to have some serious and thoughtful discussion again, like during my years at IIT. There were times, particularly in the last semester, when i learnt a few things. And here again, after a long time, i found myself thinking hard, and taxing my brain to form structured arguments and building walls of defense. What's more, i found the walls being broken down each time, and it was great fun to play the game. The day ended perfectly. We were tired of serious discussion and of assuming an exaggerated importance of our ideas so i played her one or two of my favourite carnatic songs(she is a trained carnatic singer, and by my standards, a very good one!). Then she played me some of her favourites, and i found her taste much to my liking(though, honestly, at the moment, i find most carnatic songs pleasing to my ears). Then i played a few more songs, and she began to hum, and eventually to sing in her beautiful voice. This gave me no end of delight, because on one of the previous days, when i had learnt of her singing talent, i asked her to sing me something, and she said she mostly sings for herself and is uncomforable singing in the prescence of an audience! I realised her singing then meant that the whole evening had made her so comfortable in my presence that she was blissfully unaware that she'd overcome that inhibition! What's more, she ended up saying, "I hope you don't mind my singing?", and this nearly killed me on the inside! I let her sing to hearts content and it was delightful to hear her match skill with the great carnatic musicians. Then i saw her scribbling away on her laptop and asked her what it was. She told me it was her private blog, and natually, i asker her if she had a public one. I then started off on reading that one while she tapped away on her laptop. With all the objectivity that i'm capable off, i must say, she is a very good writer! Her imagination and attention to detail is splendid, and she has a way with words that holds one's attention. I sat there reading her posts until it was 4 a.m and then we both agreed that we had better part for the night. I thanked her for a wonderful evening and took leave. How those 5 and a half hours flitted by i still can't understand. It all seems like a pleasant dream now, and i'm indeed very grateful to this wonderful and charming woman for such a memorable evening!

And since she spent so much time with me, i only hope she enjoyed it too, though probably not in the same measure as i did.

I also hope i shall be fortunate enough to spend a few more evenings with her before she leaves ASU in a month's time.

Horribly romantic.

I'm feeling horribly romantic right now. I was just reading Bertrand Russell's letters to Alys, when they were yet unmarried, and it drove me mad. It's such a wonderful feeling to be in love(I do not at this point wish to go into the logical differences, if any, between love and limerance, and go by the stereotypical definition of the phenomenon of love). It is really wonderful to have someone who can understand you almost inside out, and who you can take completely for granted. Especially so when one is largely leading a life of isolation. At other times, when life is passing by in a frenzy of academic slavery, and superficial social interaction, I do not feel the need for love, just as i do not feel any pleasureable emotion at all. But when i have all the free time, and life is full is happy emotions, and pleasant pursuits, i become greedy and feel a longing for love! I'm sure this longing for love is not just a sublimation of lust. It is a pure yearning, and i only wish there would be this someone i could talk to and walk with in these surreal climatic conditions, oblivous to all the world! But i distract myself from this longing by immersing myself in some book or the other and am happy again! Like tennyson said,i believe it is better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all.

Anyways, for now, i live, solitary as the moon, aspiring for the love of the stars, but restrained by the gravity of this planet.

Russell's quip and some food for thought.

On one occassion, Bertrand Russell quiped to Sidney Webb that democracy had at least one merit, namely, that a Member of Parliament cannot be stupider than his constituents, for the more stupid he is, the more stupid they were to elect him.

Now, at first it seemed a brilliant quip and i was quite impressed by this observation. However, on some thought, it occurred to me that the truth might be quite the opposite. A person who votes would look for his leader to have the same desires he has for himself, but to a greater degree. Hence, a stupid man, would have stupid desires, and would look for his leader to have stupider desires, only making the leader himself a stupider person. To illustrate, if there were a zamindar demanding that the interest paid by farmers on loans should be doubled, then he would vote for a leader who might say that farmers, once they borrow money, are bonded labourers for life! Considering that the human beings, when averaged over any significant population, are stupid, their leader is only going to be stupider than his constituents in a democracy! And so far as my knowledge goes, this is indeed the case!

Would-be-famous quote.

"You can judge a guy by his books, and a cover by its looks." - Karthik Sivaramakrishnan

Fear and self-preservation.

Animals seem to have just one fear, and that is the fear of death. It is a justified fear. The danger is real and immediate when faced by a predator, and cannot be escaped unless there is such an instinctive fear. Man, if seen as an animal, is clearly far more powerful than any of these creatures. Hence even that one fear shouldn't exist, and, ideally, we should see him fearless. Yet, why is it that almost all human beings live most of their lives in morbid fear of one thing or another, and often of several things at a time? So much so that it seems to me he lives in fear of life!

And while i thought of the power of man, something occurred to me. Since he has been made to be the most powerful of all creatures, and has no other predators, it is only natural then that he must be his own predator. And hence, war is a necessity of nature. What's more, ecological balance is also a desperate necessity for mother nature. And that seems to have been greatly upset by us human beings. A victory for humans perhaps? Quite the opposite! A deiberate design of nature it seems. All that intelligence, and evolution, and civilisation of the human race seems to be but a clever scheme to bring the human race to this period, when his very intelligence has develped the instruments of his destruction, and he has thus worked as a puppet in the hands of nature to arm her with the tool she was waiting for. All that greatness of mankind seems to come to a knot as it were before a measured, foreseen, and pre-calculated move of nature, much like an experienced player would know how to wipe off the fledgling but would amuse himself a great deal, and give the fellow the impression he's actually doing something great in holding the old chap from victory, before he leads him gently into a checkmate! Fascinating! And so much for the greatness of human kind! Wonder when that day is, sad personally, when the balance is going to be restored once again? I think its quite near. During my lifetime?

Fire.

I know it's been a long time since you've seen a post from me. It is perhaps when i should have written most, for my own sake, that i avoided writing all together. There is turmoil inside of me. But then, i hardly wish to discuss that with the whole world. With the world i only wish to discuss more light-hearted matters.

It is alarming how often one hears the fire engine's siren in this place. Almost everytime i step out of my apartment, i am greeted with a siren, much as the kings of yesteryears used to be greeted with a trumpet-call. I sometimes wonder that the city hasn't burnt down by now. May be it is that the Fire Services do their training in the city and these are only practice runs. May be they are just trying to make sure the motorists on the road are all well-behaved and willing to make way in case there is an actual emergency. But sometimes i think, the Fire Services has determined they need reality training, and hence send some of their men to secretly set fire to buildings, and then rush their emergency services to the rescue act. Or may be its just that the Fire services feel neglected in comparison to the police services, which is often the highlight of many a hollywood movie, and feeling a desperate need for attention, have decided to earn it by setting fire to buildings and then rescuing the people. I don't know. But it does annoy me that the fire detectors in the apartments are so sensitive. Almost as soon as i begin to fry something the alarm shrieks. Fortunately, mine doesn't directly ring in the fire services. That has been left to our discretion.

I think this a very understanding decision on their part. It is often the case that one has to set one's own house, or at least some part of it, on fire. Sometimes its for making sure one gets back what one pays to insurance companies. At other times, it might be to get rid of an annoying friend. One of the easiest ways to get rid of mosquitoes in the bedroom is to set up a fire in the centre of the bedroom and have a bonfire celebration. By the time everyone is done with the food and drink, the mosquitoes are all gone and one can happily slump on to the bed. Anyways, i'm glad the fire department has comprehended the full importance of leaving it to the people's discretion at least in our apartment.The alarm shrieks however disturb peaceful neighbours, and so i've covered the fire detector with a plastic bag.

I sometimes think there might be yet another reason for so many engine siren's every day. The kids these days are a spoilt lot and have ever increasing demands. They are not content with their barbie dolls and hot wheels cars. The girls want multi-storey doll houses which resembles britney spears' home, and the guys want remote operated racing cars and real-time video gaming and what not! So i can only imagine that the helpless parents, out of sheer pressure to get their bored kids a satisfying source of amusement, have decided to teach kids to ring in the fire services. It is fairly easy to teach and the kids can amuse themselves with the fuss they would've created. The parents can get away by requesting the kids to play the prank only in their absence. The fire engine would shriek to a halt in front of the calling kid's building and an officer would rush to the apartment of this particular kid. Due to the noise of the siren, people would've crowded on their balconies and in the corridors in the hope of watching their cursed neighbours burn. On finding no smoke from the outside, the officer would try to barge in, only to fall flat on his nose, as the kid would politely open the door just in time for the officer to crash land happily on the carpet. A little annoyed, he'd ask the kid why the fire services were called and the kid can always get away with a simple, "I'm sorry sir. I had no idea what i was doing. But i do like your suit Mister." Thus, having gently conveyed the message that the officer ought to get out,the kid himself would step out in front of the officer just to show his face to the eager audience, and relish their disappointment, and would happily step back inside the house and shut the door. The next time he felt like doing it, he'd get his little sister, or his friend to do it. It is perhaps mean of the parents to do this to fire officers. After all, they are only trying to be our gaurdians. But then, i sometimes think, the poor fellows would be too idle otherwise, and that they are actually happy running around for no reason at all, bringing traffic to a halt and earning compliments on their suits from little kids!

Football and the bath.

There was a football match in college today. American football. I can't quite place the game of American football in the rubric of the American culture. People who, like walking north poles, swerve away from each other's path with profuse apologies, no sooner than they are within sight of each other, are now seen ramming each other like bulls making love, and this confuses my simple mind. I rather think the game is somehow an escaped vestige of a barbaric past. Observe how i stated the people take recourse to the drastic measure of swerving away when merely within sight. This is because, and i can only conceive that it should be thus, with suns glasses as thick as the ones they use, they cannot see very far. I have never dared to try one of those appendages myself for fear that my bright and cheerful world would turn dark and gloomy. Besides, i also think these sun glasses make people lose identity. When the eyes are missing, the face is half-featuresless. I might just as well be seeing clones! There is so much beauty in the eyes. Have you ever seen a painter paint a face without eyes? I'm sure you haven't, unless of course the painter doesn't know how to draw eyes, and hence happily chooses to categorise his art in that most benevolent of art genres - abstract. I sometimes wonder if this desire to hide the eyes is because of an inferiority complex of sorts. After all, it is a nation without a history and an hence, an identity of its own. But i quickly dismiss the idea, for fear that i might be extracting a kilo of platinum from a grain of sand.

I've noticed that my bathing time has increased a good deal after stepping into this country and its bathtubs. As the water is soft it takes me longer to wash away my sins and i seem to be massaging my horse skin as if i were an Indian queen looking after her white, supple, silken body. Actually, i'm not quite sure i've used the right words. An Indian queen, though at first glance might seem like one with ample time for self-ornamentation, is found, on application of elementary arithmetic, to be quite hard-pressed for time. Say an Indian Princess is one of 200 others of her type married to the king in reign. Also, let us assume that the bathtub is occupied 24*7. In spite of such generous allowance, a princess would get only 1440/200, or a horribly short 7.2 minutes for bathing. Supposing, even, that we helpfully reduce this congestion by making available a half-dozen bathtubs she would still get only about three quarters of an hour. That, i must declare would barely suffice for her to disrobe, and disornament herself. I'm sure no slithering snake even would have time to steel her jewelry and slip it away in some inconspicous tree top on a bird's nest. It is for these reasons i wish to rephrase my earlier sentence. An Egyptian queen might more aptly cradle the meaning of my words. How the queen i conceive of in my mind might ever fit in an Egyptian mileu i cannot quite explain at this juncture. I thus apologise to the Egyptians for placing a foreigner as a queen in their midst. But, more importantly, i apologise to the bathing queen for transporting her to Egypt. Though this might at first seem a laughable matter, the seriousness of the situation might occur to you if you were to imagine yourself slip out of your garments, slip into the shower for a relaxing bath to steel yourself for a hectic day of work, and find yourself stepping out into the sands of Egypt. Having, hopefully appeased everyone, i shall revert to the issue i had set out to address, which is, my extended bathing hours. I blame it on the easy access to warm water at all hours. The water being too cold for my comfort on most months, had there only been water, and a separate heater i'd have to wait 20 minutes for the water to heat. This time would, i'm sure, be sufficient for me to finish dilly-dallying on the crucial matter of my bathing and declare with conviction that the activity could be postponed to another day when the weather was more inclement and the inertia in me lesser. I would thus be saved many a precious minute on more than many a precious day of my precious life. But as things stand, i find myself greatly inconvenienced by luxury. Perhaps, i must be more resolute, and so, like the holy saints of the ganga, I shall fill up my tub with water, and take a few hasty dips, and be done with the ordeal of bathing. Or may be i'll just dispense with the burden of bathing entirely. After all, I find the people of this country quite content to perfume themselves till they leave all people in a certain radius of themselves gasping for breath. Considering i would only produce the same effect in my immediate neighbourhood, it shouldn't perhaps matter what the nature of the system is that produced this effect.

DENSE

There are 5 libraries at ASU for the different streams like science, literature, medicine, law etc.

The 'Science' library is called the 'Daniel E Noble Science & Engineering library', which ironically abbreviates as 'DENSE'! (Hint: Please refer secondary meanings for the word.)

Peculiar observations 2.

As you might have realised from 'Peculiar observations', i tend to look at shop names while walking. On one such walk along a certain street i saw a beauty salon called 'Grooming Humans II"

Three days into my stay at AZ i'd bought a biycle for $50. As i was parking it in a cycle stand, my eyes chanced upon the name of the cycle next to mine. It wisely preached 'MT fury'.

When i was sitting in my department graduate co-ordinator's room a chinese PhD student came along, looking rather anxious, and said, "I'm not on the wafer list!". I was bewildered and wondered which wafer he was talking about. My graduate co-ordinator, however understood him correctly and said, "Oh, your name is not on the waiver list? We can fix that."

Update.

This post is for my friends who've been enquiring curiously and concernedly about my travel. The last one week has been tiring to say the least. I was starved for most part of my flight because the quantity of food given was so small that it might've proved inadequate even for the delicately built airhostesses(there was one old air 'host'(?), who after 20 odd years of feminine politeness seemed to have morphed into a hermaphrodite) . Speaking of airhostesses, i was saddened to see that most of them would have fit into that hot-young-babe category about 20 or 30 years ago! It is then that i also realised that the whites show signs of aging faster, with people getting wrinkles around the eyes, and on the cheeks, much faster than those with more melanin in their body. I find it amusing that air hostesses should be given such a highfalutin name. They are really just waitresses in the air. Anyways, since both body and mind were thus starved of nourishment it was a rather boring journey but for Kavery's delightful novel.

Since i had no flight trip in memory when i flew this time, it was nice to see the clouds below one for a change. They looked like mountains of cotton candy at times, and at times like the ice-bergs of the antartic, and when the sun shone on them they looked like the freezers in our refridgerators. Speaking of refridgerators, i am reminded that the German airport smelt like a bakery! And speaking of the German airport i am reminded of a conversation i heard in the waiting lounge where a 38 year old divorced man was flirting with a 22 year old divorced(and extremely hot!!) woman. He'd been married for 10 years before the divorce and now has a kid. She was married for 2 weeks, and has slept with about a 100 men since then. Also, the air in the German airport was nauseatingly dense with the smell of smoke and perfumes. In the flight from Germany, a loquacious American heading to Alabama was sitting beside me, and though i don't remember the specifics of the chatter i do remember he complimented me on the excellent suit(it was bought my dad 30 yrs ago on his trip down here!). It then occured to me to advertise my shoes too. If he complimented me on those, i would tell him they cost $4 :D
It's been a little tough for me to get accustomed to the excessive use of 'hello's, 'hi's, 'excuse me's and 'sorry's. I also find it queer that two complete strangers should say 'hi' or 'how're you doing?' when they walk past each other. This superficial concern is quite unnecessary and it is annoying to have to use it all the time. Anyways, talking off superficiality, i realise that the US is full of it. Their sophistication is quite sophisticated. They are nice on the outside but they aren't genuine. To illustrate, i met a certain lady, during the registration process, three times during the day, and each time she smiled pleasantly, greeted me and asked the same set of questions she had asked me the first time. And all this, in a short span of a couple of hours. Instead, i would've felt nicer if she just remembered my face and what i'd said earlier.

Another superficial sophistication of theirs which causes much agony to many Indians is the way they unsoil themselves. In flights, one isn't supposed to put the tissue papers into the pot lest the drain get clogged because they use not water but air suction to flush. When i used them for the first time i ignorantly made this mistake , possibly much to the inconvenience of fellow passengers who would now have one less bathroom to access. I just hope they fixed the problem during flight itself. Yet another superficial sophistication i noticed is the use of carpets. We don't use soft, beautiful carpets but we keep our ordinary-looking floors clean. Here, the floors look pretty in furry ankle deep carpets that accumulate the dust of unclean footwear for months, because the americans never take off their shows, sometimes not even in bed!

I've felt a sense of loneliness for the past couple of days, because there's almost no one to talk to here, and i still don't have access to the library to get hold of books, or the computer centre for internet. The senior's with whom i am staying have however been kind enough to let me use their laptops when they don't need it. I've just had formal conversations with people at the university and haven't yet found friends since people are scattered in buildings in different streets, locked up in one senior's room or the other.

I notice that there is lots of obesity in the US. The women are either hourglass shaped bombshells, or just bombshell shaped. Also, most women use make-up, and they use it generously. Men and women have all sorts of fancy hair-dos, and fancy outfits.I regret that i didn't bring along my torn jeans from India. Little did i realise that that was the most fashionable dress i had in my array of clothing. The Americans also drink a lot of soft-drinks(soda as it is called here), and i'm sure coke and pepsi would care little about the slump in their demand in India.

Oh, almost forgot about my little adventure at Charlotte. Due to some bad weather near Charlotte the plane landed late by about 45 minutes. That gave just one and a half hours for my next flight. Since mine was one of the last seats in the flight i was nearly last in the immigration check line and i was done only after an hour and 15 minutes. There was just 15 mintues left for my flight to depart. I claimed my baggage and went to the customs check. Luckily, since many of us were late, they let us all go by without fuss. The guy at customs told me my flight was in Concourse E 20 . E is the farthest concourse and 20 is 19 vestibules(away) in that concourse. By the time i reached there it was 5:35 and i thought i'd missed my flight but luckily i saw them still taking tickets and quickly gave mine. The lady was going to tear off the counterfoil hastily when she double-checked and said, "I'm sorry your plane is not in E 20." Then i asked,"Where is it then?" She said, "Try E22' and so i went a little further and asked there. The lady there said, "I'm sorry your flight isn't in E22." Overcome with despair i pleaded her to help me find out where my flight was. She checked something on her computer and said B1." I ran, lugging my cabin baggage, past these 22 vestibules out of E concourse, past the C,D concourses towards B1, and by now it was 5:45. As i entered B1 i found the entry door closed and thought i'd missed my flight. But the man who checks the tickets in front of the door said,"Ah, there's our man at last!" , checked the ticket and sent me in without even tearing it. The flight door opened and i was let in. The airhostess took my bag and stuffed it somehere in the front. I hurried to my seat, and by the time i put my seat belt on, the plane had begun to move! Anyways, because of all this delay our flight was now number 15 in the take-off queue and had to wait one hour at the runway(i wonder how much of that delay was solely thanks to me :D). On the flight i found a chap from civil IITM who was heading to his relatives' place in phoenix. I made acquaitance with him. At phoenix, as i was waiting for baggage claim an Indian uncle walked up to me and asked if i was 'Siddarth'. I said, 'No.' Meanwhile, this civil chap and i were also waiting for our baggages to come. After nearly an hour of waiting we found our baggage never came. Some time then, i also realised this chap's name was Siddarth and introduced that uncle to him. Apparently, he was a friend of Siddarth's uncle and had come to pick him up. As nobody from the Indian Students Association had come to pick me up, in spite of their promise, i cashed in on this chance to request the uncle to drop me off at the senior's place on campus and he gladly agreed! My baggage came to me the following day. I'm sure what happened was that my baggage reached the flight late and hence came by the next flight in to Phoenix!

Peculiar observations.

My brother had noticed something interesting some time back. About a year or so ago the Osmania University, which has a thoroughfare splitting the campus into two, had put up warning signs all along the 3Km length of the road which read 'Car learning on campus strictly prohibited', because people would turn off the thoroughfare into the university roads and wiggle about the narrow lanes causing much anxiety to the already anxious students. Oppurtunistic low end shops and advertisers realised these boards were convenient and free-of-cost places to put up their advertisements posters and notices. Thus, over a period of time the boards became shabbily covered with papers and notices, sometimes covering the entire board, sometimes hiding the symbol of the car with an into mark over it. On one such board he noticed there was only one notice, and it hid nothing of the warning save the word 'Car'!

My brother and I went for a walk today evening. We noticed a tiny two storey complex with a host of shops on the ground floor. On the first floor were a lot of cloth banners advertising a school, carrying the name of the school in bold, jarring yellow letters - THE RAXFORD VALUE SCHOOL.

Before we moved to Mehdipatnam we'd come across a school in Vidyanagar which had a novel method of ensuring that there was no ambiguity about the nature of the institution. The school was named SLATE - THE SCHOOL.

As we continued our stroll my brother spotted the 'NO EXCUSES INSTITUTE FOR FASHION DESIGNING'.

Further on, we came across a board in LIC Colony which read 'No multi-storeyed buildings allowed in this colony', and right opposite that board was a newly constructed four-storeyed building! Of course, violations of this sort are a common sight i suppose. But coincidences like the one i'm about to tell you are not often seen. You might be aware that it is the trend these days to get sponsors even for the warning signs in front of houses which read 'beware of dogs', 'no parking' etc: Well, one such sign we saw read,

'Please do not park your vehicles in front of this gate.

Courtesy: Pest Control Corporation'

I hope our newspaper boy isn't a religious fundamentalist because there is a slight chance that he might have misinterpreted the three words my dad had written in big bold letters on a plain sheet of paper and pasted on the door. It read:

STOP 'THE HINDU'

and our newspaper boy sure as hell didn't stop supply of the newspaper.

Quotable quote.

"One of the things about conversing after a long time is that nothing is important enough to merit a mention in that conversation."

-- S SRIRAM

To put it indifferently.

Here is an article i had written in my second year at IITM which i had hoped to get published in the hostel magazine for the greater benefit of all. Sadly, the words were never adorned in carbon. I do not wish to carry all these papers to the US and so i upload it here to keep a sort of online database. You may proceed further if you choose.

To put it (in)differently!

The Vedas and Upanishads introduced the concept of 'Atman' or the 'Self' which, in essence, declares that 'only the self exists'. Whatever might have been their intention at that time we have, very conveniently, interpreted it to suit our present principles, so that the ideology now subsists as a pernicious indifference to everything and everyone around us.

Our hostels stand stark testimony to this negligence. Some of us keep the very rooms in which we stay(or not) dirty. This is only a small cluster and most of us, I'm glad, care to keep the rooms spic and span. But the room is cleaned by elegantly pushing the dust out onto the corridor(read dust bin). This inspite of there being a refuse bin every 4 rooms.

The bathrooms are used to dispose of tufts of public(the 'l' is only to avoid crude language and out of concern for the prude) hair. If those aren't enough to clog the drain holes then there are always the soap and shampoo sachets. On the one hand we use showers without any scruples, and on the other, we choose to conserve water by rendering the flush redundant! The stairs are, fortunately, cleaner with just the odd cigarette butt and a juice tartpak or two.

The groundfloor serves as a repository of SAC litter. There is a 'tide' of sachets all around the washing machine making for a bad 'aerial' view. Apparently, the huge dustbin in front of the SAC room is beyond reach or sight of the machine users.

In the mess, in blatant violation of the adage that 'one man's food may be another man's poison', we use the 'same hand' (or just 'hand' in the case of people who savagely use both hands!) to eat food and serve ourselves or pass the food around. The boon of having a freezer for soft drinks is a bane to the mess workers as people callously leave the bottles outside the mess on the floor or, more precariously, on the window ledges. The monkeys then come send them crashing to the floor by deftly pushing them off the ledge.

With the excuse of being localites(or some other equally pathetic excuse) people buy powered vehicles and indulge their laziness to the hilt by parking them as close to the exit as possible - that means on the basketball court! I'm glad the administration has at last implemented the ban on power vehicles not just in word but in deed.

So in every step one takes, starting from within one's room and moving in any direction all the way till the hostel exit and beyond, one witnesses this apalling apathy. If I travel further to cover the entire institute i'm afraid i'll never have enough space to write it all. That one is indifferent to dirt is no excuse to be indifferent to one's surroundings. This is a cry to one and all, not to take responsibility to keep one's surroundings clean, nor even to show concern for the surroundings, but only to overcome this horrifying indifference and do what elementary common sense would dictate. Please! Let's be different, or at least, less indifferent.

THE END

This is what i write today. My style of writing might be a little different today but my opinion is still the same. The facts are more or less the same, ie, the negligence still persists, though the specifics of where, how etc might be different. This article was written in passionate fury but today i see it with a certain degree of indifference! I have consoled myself to the fact that things will not change. I have understood that the people are not wholly to blame for this attitude. It has deeper roots like religion, upbringing etc. Not everyone can be expected to question everything they do so that they re-evaluate the prejudices imbibed by them at a young age. So a majority of the people are bound to remain this way for yet a really long time in this country and i have made my peace with this sad state of affairs. If at all you have any regard for what i've said, then, please, try and be more aware of the little things you do and re-evaluate your actions keeping in mind the society at large. Thank you.

Cheque the box.

I went to the bank yesterday with my father to make arrangements for foreign currency. As my dad was sweating away in some queue i happily sauntered around the bank gazing at everything as if seeing a bank for the first time. It was then that i noticed a cheque lying in the compaints box, which was placed right next to the cheque clearance box. The cheque stood as the lone complaint in the box and i was rather surprised that such an inefficient bank must receive so few complaints. In fact, it annoyed me more to think that someone might actually have thrown in the cheque as a form of praise to the bank. Anyways, considering the proximity of the cheque clearance box i decided to inform the security of the accident. He assured me we would put the cheque in the appropriate box right away but took no initiative for some time. It might have been only because he is just another of his kind but i thought there was a more interesting reason. Perhaps he was aware that it was the administration that had put the cheque in there. And why should they have done something like that? Because they might have received a deluge of complaints which read, "Check the complaints box!!"

Since an idea can change the world,

I have an idea for an ad which i wish to sell to some corporate which might find use for it. The ad might look something like this:

A typical middle class family is seated in the drawing room of their apartment having a chatter session at night when there is a black-out in the entire city. Then the attention of this house is drawn to a smart fellow(about my age) who stands up and hollers joyously, 'I have a bright idea', removes the nearest bulb from its socket and plugs it into his ear. The bulb glows brightly(because of the power of his idea)!

Probably some company which encourages thinking could use this.

I also have some advice.

I realised that the reverence for a person, and hence the importance and value attached to everything he does, grows with time, right from birth until old age. And again with every passing year after his death. So i would advice that the next time you read something and wish to remember it for long, assume the author of that piece of writing is long dead. Try it!

Just to avoid some smarty-pants wise-cracking in the comments - "Yes, you may assume that even in my case!"

Memorabilia.

There was one particular instance I won’t forget for a long time. There was this stout and really old grey-bearded loon like chappie selling groundnut. Now, I don’t know why but there is some obsession that people in unreserved compartments have to groundnut. So he was doing brisk business. The guy beside me bought 10g packet of salted nuts and paid the Rs. 2 he charged for it. He put some in his mouth and then complained, “The groundnut is bitter.” The old man, perhaps swelling with happiness at the success of his business, retorted, “ I’ve poisoned it. You are going to die now,” and smiled!

Lottery was banned in Kerala for a while but they’ve now resumed the sale of lottery tickets. This is one of the most horrible practices of the otherwise civilized Keralite. In cities like Cochin, there are many roofed shops which sell these tickets and you will always see a few umbrella wielding lower-middle income people lingering about unsure which of those coloured sheets is likely to change their fortune forever. But in towns like Palakkad, every now and again you’d spot a man, sick from heavy drinking the previous night, eyes bleeding red, lingering about a bus-stop or some such place waiting to sell tickets to passers-by. This is a degrading practice both for the seller and the buyer and I really think the practice ought to be banned again.

One of the nice things about Kerala women is that almost all of them apply mascara below the eyes and that enhances the beauty of the eyes. Another is that they let their hair lose displaying its serpentine majesty.

I also realized that education is very important to make people sensible and civilized. Though palakkad is a nice place it is only a town and the people are quite barbaric making the place unsafe, particularly for women.

I’ve got better at wearing my ‘veshti’/ ‘lungi’ and I think I’m going to carry a couple to the United States.

The train journey from Ernakulam to Trivandrum is the most scenic route I’ve ever come across. Apart from miles and miles of paddy fields, and rubber, coconut and banana plantations you can see little forested islands in the sea. It’s a little trip through heaven and its almost as if even the train is aware of this because it hurtles through at tremendous speed as if afraid of trespassing in Mother Nature’s territory and upsetting the harmony.

The years seem to be going by in a frenzy. One feels this way when one sees little kids one saw as toddlers now running about talking, playing and doing things just the way you do. Its almost hard to believe that they’ve grown so much so soon. I guess their growth is more conspicuous because of growth even in the physical aspects. For us, only the mind grows(if at all!).

I also reaffirmed that people of the villages are on an average nicer and more content than the people of the cities. May be we city folks need to rethink our approach to life if our aim too is contentment and happiness.

Pleaser Trip.

I knew my two week vacation was going to flit by in a hurry what with my having to meet and please so many people. My own pleasure would take a back seat. Considering that, I had a really good time.

My paternal grandmum, mum, bro and I left for Ernakulam/Cochin on the 26th. I don’t recollect anything specific from that trip except that the plate of ‘pazham puri’ that I had eagerly bought from the pantry a few minutes after the train started was the first and last I had during the whole trip. My mum and bro got off at Cochin. But I went all the way to Trivandrum to drop my grandmum at a relative’s place.

These relatives of mine are better known to my grandma but are rather unfamiliar people to me so I stayed there for the night and took leave of them early next morning. Since my prime motive in this trip was to observe people to keep myself amused, I dare say, the old couple made a very favourable impression on me. The aunty was a cheerful and friendly sort and the uncle, a former principal of a university and later Director of Secondary Education for the state of Cochin, was a very knowledgeable man, and hence, made a good impression on me. I chose to keep his company until I was to sleep for the night and he seemed a particularly nice self-respecting individual.

The evening in Cochin was spent taking rest from this hectic ordeal of travel for the previous couple of days. The following morning we made a trip to a nearby beach called the cheraai beach(actually, in a place like Kerala every place is ‘nearby’!). This beach is so little known that the whole beach was populated by probably 20 people. The day was windy and the waves were huge so it was fun to look at them. Also, the waves were frothing incredibly and that made for a strange sight. But the fun began when I realized the sand was full of shells and started on a collecting frenzy. Initially I collected off the sand. But I found it troublesome to have to wash them in the waves every time and I started collecting fresh ones as they kept getting washed ashore by the waves. After about an hour and a half of frenetic effort I managed to collect about 100 shells. Then me and bro moved about a bit along the shoreline taking snaps from the most picturesque locations. It began to rain now and we hurried back to the car. I made a quick stop on the way to collect my shells but found they were all gone! A huge wave must have come by and taken them away for I only kept them on one of the rocks not far away from the coastline. Amusing as it may sound, I really learnt what it is like to see the fruit of great effort be destroyed in seconds. A very valuable lesson indeed! Thankfully, my uncle, who had accompanied the two of us, spotted millions of shells piled up along the road that led away from the beach. These huge shell piles are apparently used to make ‘chunaamb’ or ‘choona’ and used to paint the walls. We made a quick stop in the pelting rain, and I jumped out and grabbed two hands-full and jumped back into the car. A compensation of sorts I suppose.

We returned from the beach and had a heavy lunch. After that, it was time to spend time with my 85 year old maternal grandmum. Her plight is pitiable now to say the least. Her list of problems might exhaust a medical dictionary. But the one that makes it sadly funny is that she has a memory problem now and can only remember a few things, and that only at times. One can easily imagine then how random and disconnected her sentences will be. As a consequence she ends up saying hilarious things without her being aware. It is good, however, that she doesn’t know what she is saying and happily laughs along with everyone else if she sees people laughing.

In the evening we went to my cousin’s because she had called us for dinner. She has two kids. One is a budding musician in the 10th standard and the other a wicked prankster in the 4th. Luckily, my cousin, her husband, and my mum went to a temple and left us kids alone. Bro, me and the elder kiddo played cricket inside the house while the little devil was at his pranks and tricks the whole time. I’m sure neither my brother nor I was so clever at that age.

The following day, a Friday, was mostly spent at home keeping my uncle and grandmother company. Early next morning we left for Palakkad.

Palakkad was the best part of our trip because the weather was heavenly. This little town is surrounded by mountains on all sides and is therefore kept very cool. That same evening we went to the Malampuzha dam along with my uncle in Palakkad and his daughter, my cute cousin, who is getting started on her first year of B.Sc. The view of the cloud-covered mountains was breath-taking. Some mountains seemed ready-to-eat, appearing as if having patches of that edible foil used in sweets. This was because of the reflection of light by the rain water on the barren and rocky parts of the mountains. It was also nice to have a bird’s eye view of the place from a cable car, even as we passed right over a crow that was sitting on an electric line! I can’t curse myself enough for forgetting the camera on that occasion. The next day, a Sunday was by far the best part of the trip as I spent time for myself on the terrace of their house. As you lie down on the roof, you get a view of some cloud covered mountains and rising above a dense cover of coconut trees close to the house. My cousin and I spent a better part of the evening talking about this and that, first on the roof and later during a walk through the quiet village neighbourhood. This was the only day when I could wallow in the relaxed feel of the vacation. Monday again we went visiting temples so I don’t have much to say about it. Tuesday was spent at my mum’s elder sister’s house. Nothing particularly memorable there either. Wednesday went by in roaming around Coimbatore. After the pleasant weather of Palakkad it dampened my spirits to be roaming about the streets in the hot weather of that place. That’s about it I guess. I’m not out of things to write but I’m out of patience for the present. There are however some disconnected things I wish to say and these will come in the next post.

Fame.

Next to wealth, the most desirable thing is fame for most people.

What is fame? The word-bible gives one of the definitions, and the more concise of them, as 'popular acclaim'. Now, how popular is popular? Even President Bush wouldn't be known to half of my country. So can I say Bush is popular? More importantly, can Bush say he is popular? I'm sure Bush wanted both fame and money when he started his political career. There's no doubt he's got the money. But has he got the fame? What would his honest reply to himself be? Perhaps he'd say yes because it really does not matter to him whether the village population of India knows him or not. But then, should it really matter to him whether the educated population of Lithuania knows him? Where and how does Bush draw the line? For fear of appearing to think too much on behalf of one of the more notorious persons on the planet i shall pose these same questions for the more common homosapien, the average man in the street, my next door neighbour, me. Where does man draw the line on how famous he wants to become? Since it is so difficult to draw a line, let me just address the issue of being known to people for now, irrespective of the numbers.

First of all, does man want to be famous or notorious? Or will either do? It seems to me he prefers fame but would just as well be content with notoriety over oblivion. Now, why does man want to be famous. One of the incentives of course is money. The more famous or notorious one is, the more the money one has in general. Another incentive perhaps is greed for what he enjoys. Once man sees that praise from other people gratifies his ego, he yearns for more. This greed for increase in numbers will continue until his ego wallows in what seems like a pool, but is really a quick sand, of praise What i mean is that beyond a certain point, that person is reduced to nothing but a trump card of some political, commercial or social gambler. The praise he gets is insincere and is really just a means to ulterior gains. But this greed for fame is anyways a desire of the lowlier of mankind and he is little expected to realise that he has entangled himself in such a mess. The greater man shall only value the respect of those whom he respects and will not go panting after every stranger's pat on the back. A third incentive, and this one perhaps is not just applicable to the lowlier of mankind but to all human beings in general, is immortality. Fame or notoriety is the only way for man to escape from the limitations of his bodily existence. That is the only way for him to transcend the barrier of time and linger around for an eternity. One may ask, why does a man choose to live for an eternity? Why does he seek to continue his existence? Particularly, why would a human being who believes there is no consciousness in any form after death, seek immortality? The only plausible answer i dare provide to such a thoroughly pertinent question is that the yearning for immortality may not be an act of volition but one of impulse. That right from the paramecium to the man, all living creatures have an instinct that makes them desire immortality is an argument that is indeed supported by the phenomenon of child birth, which serves no greater purpose than the propagation of the self through another body. If some one were to ask me now why a child should be considered a propagation of the self, i only ask in return, why is it that you, as you are today, should be considered the same you, as what you were yesterday? Isn’t it only a propagation of your former self with some traits missing and some other traits added?

These are the only incentives i have found to man's desire for fame. Why i have bothered to write all this is because i am still curious. I wish to know if there are any more reasons why man desires fame. Besides, i also wish that fallacies in my argument be corrected. For suddenly, i have become a student of Socrates, a proponent of truth!

Memento?

I think it is called Memento-the English movie in which a guy has a loss of memory or something and then goes on some adventure to find a murderer, or something like that. English is a strange language. As a kid i always thought the word was 'Momento'. Its fortunate that as a kid you don't have to give a speech after collecting your memento. Otherwise i wonder how many embarassments i would have suffered in my thanksgiving speeches for those many 'momento's. Anyways, all this is off the point.

I have a serious problem. Its not OCD and i'm not a hypochondriac. I think i'm losing my memory. Already. I know i always had a bad memory. It has often caused me a great deal of anxiety. School exams were hell because i knew i'd forget most of what i'd learnt. Even for JEE, i'd written down an awful lot of formulae on seperate sheets because i knew i'd forget. But of late, things seem to have taken a more serious turn. I can remember very few events from my past now. Everything is one nebulous blur. Many events are wiped out. Many more are dangling precariously on the seived netting of my memory. Some events seem to have undergone selective erosion. I can remember the event but i remember it with some people missing. It occurred to me that i might reach such a stage as the guy in Memento(i haven't seen the movie). I might have memory only for an infinitely small period of time so that at any point of time i only remember events upto a few seconds before. That would make my life very hard. I can't do most of the things i normally do now. I'd have to start using notepads to scribble things down all the time. And i'd have to keep getting back to them so often. Moreover, i'd have to remember to get back to them. The only solution i can think of is a revolution in technology. May be i can have some digital storage devices implanted in my brain. The more memory i need, the more storage devices i connect. But then, i wonder how things would be if everyone could, if they should be able afford it, have digital storage devices implanted in themselves. For one, there would be no need for exams. For another, there would be no need for duplicates of anything. For yet another, contrary to the saying, public memory would be good. Hopefully that would do the world a lot of good. In fact, i expect that development would take place at an astonishing pace on all frontiers. But then, you can see where i'm going right? AI. So you know the drawbacks too. Besides, i'm sure you've all seen the matrix(I saw it for the first time a couple of weeks back) to help you out.

Anyways, i figured i may not have the memory to remember you people later so that i can apologise for my loss of memory. In fact, i may not even remember that i have to apologise at all. So I shall apologise in advance. Friends, if i reach such a stage that my memory fails me almost completely and i do not remember your existence, please forgive me and understand that it is not a deliberate act of expungement but a consequence of my falling victim to this ailment. Ladies! If you are in love with me, please tell me so now. Gentlemen! If you have any gifts you kept in store for more important occassions, don't wait. This is the time.