Disregard

200 lives, gone. 200 families destroyed. In a city like Mumbai, that's not really a horrific statistic. Here people die every day. On the streets, in their homes, in hospital rooms. 200 more. Why is it significant?

Is it because it happened so fast, in a matter of minutes? Is it because it was so terrifyingly random, (it couldve been you or me you know) ? Or is it because there seems no purpose, or seen in another way, the purpose is so unconnected with the people who died.

I still do not know who is accused of this, who did it and for what. I still cannot fathom many things about this incident. It has gotten me thinking more than anything about the disregard for human life. Both by the terrorists, and by us.

I wonder who exactly has benefitted by this ( i know very well who is scarred). What did they get out of it? Was it to scare us? Was it to bully us? Was it to test out their new timers?

I was not even in town when it happened. And yet the incident has upset me deeply. In 93 I lauded the Mumbai spirit of getting back on their feet and off to work. Now I hope it takes some time to reflect, to mourn and then to fortify.

The spreading of terror is course a tactic that has borne results in many areas around the globe. But in Mumbai, I have not yet understood what ends the 93 bombings met and have not understood what the purpose is now. I thought terrorists wanted their cause to be known. Then again, maybe I'm just ill-informed.

The bombings last tuesday have made an impression on me. Snapped something within me. I think it had to do with faith in good. I never thought things like these could happen without provocation. Please help me understand how those 200 people provoked the terrorists.

I know a lot of people back home are targetting particular communities over this. I personally believe that is a childish thing to do. Unless the person you accuse has had anything to do personally with the bombings, accusing them based on their religion is selfish since you just wish to satisfy your desire of placing blame.

I admire us Mumbaikars when we say we are not scared. But I hope we start learning to fortify ourseleves, our lives. I hope to god, the people who govern us take sensible action not just inflammatory talks. Because we can excuse our citizens for being scared of terrorists, but how will we live if they start getting scared of their politicians.

Bombay

I was mid air on my way to the US when it happened in bombay...

I don't know what to say...

Angry... Worried... Helpless... that's all

Together

Waking up today I had the curious sensation of not just being me anymore. I felt part of a collective being, part of a collection of humanity that was avidly awaiting of all things, a football match. Football in its essence is one of the only sports that is such a global binder. It is togetherness like we never knew.

Even if your country did not qualify for the World Cup finals, and aprobably never will in your lifetime, you still see kids all around you wearing Ronaldo tee shirts and Zinedine Zidane smiles. It is infectious enthusiasm at its best, it is collective emotion at its peak.

The World Cup, be it cricket or football, the Olympics, be them winter or summer and Wimbledon, are all examples of a cornucopia of human drama without its usual dull banal qualities. They are the arenas where the stardust of dreams and the biting dust of anguish can be revelled in by everyone.

Our everyday lives are private and nameless. Though we all have our own private dramatic situations these are hardly shared across the globe. Over these tournaments we connect. Without realizing and without thinking about it, we know that its not merely a game. It's a reflection of our lives.

I love football. I love it not only for the brilliant skills on display and the great qualities of the game. I also love it for the handsome men who get dripping wet in the rain and play on. The awesome men, who pour their lives into creating a sort of magic I cannot even start understanding. The awesome men who open themseleves up to millions, who show every single emotion to me and who make me adore them.

I cannot wait to watch tonite. Germany v/s Argentina, stuff worthy of the finals. I am waiting to soak it all in. And in the process, lose myself within the millions of people, who alongwith me will experience delight, anguish and witness victory tonite.

Go Argentina!!... erm.... Go Germany!!... erm... I just dont know!!

P.P (post post... hehehe... i'm clever) - I received an email from someone who likes to be called 'cool dude' saying, that he loves my words and wants to live in them forever..... hehehehe... i am touched... but with a guy who calls himself 'cool dude' I dont think I can put too much faith in his compliments.... I can just imagine my friends saying his line to me and then adding... "hah hah!.. nooot!"

An Ode to The Sahyadris

Green heart. Whispering winds. Bird song.
Calming waters. Cooling earth.
Caressed by light. Golden sun.
Peace.

Weird

I have been tagged... and that in the blogging world is as good as receiving a royal dictate... so not wiling to run the risk of offense.. i shall now write a list of 6 weird things about me.

1. When I walk on a tiled surface (floor, pavement) I always walk in the squares... I will do my utmost humanly possible not to step on the lines... I cant ever remember not having this freakish habit... dun ask

2. I will only shell pea pods from the reverse side (I apologize that I did not warn you my dear reader that this list might just be midnumbingly boring :D). Anyhow, peas should only be removed from their shells from the other side than all human beings I have witnessed shelling peas have been doing. Its a habit, and its weird. Makes the list.

3. I smell books. And I love the old book smell. The first thing I do when I get any book is smell it. Endearing or gross?? You decide.

4. I get very badly distracted if there is more than one person talking to me. I cannot, (and at this point I believe I will die of this disease), understand you when you are talking, if there is a train running behind you, another dude shouting or even if you're cellfone rings.

5. (we're getting close to the end!) I read the paper back to front. ALWAYS! any paper! I will only start it from the sports page.

6. I have a fetish for old , decaying things. Yellowed paper postcards, stamps, money, anything. I love it. All antiques are adored by me.

That be it... are my weirdnesses within normal human parameters, or am I weird enough to be a green, bug eyed alien?... lemme know.

My hate list

Even though I havent been tagged by anyone, I thought doing this hate list thing might make me feel a bit better. I've never been a person to use the word 'hate' for anything, but I think its about time I started feling strongly about things. So without any further ado lets delve into my "hate" list.

I hate that children nowadays know what oral sex is.

I hate and would like to murder any person who has violated a child.

I hate that I'm never decisive enough to make people, especially my parents, trust me.

I hate running out of books to read.

I hate that I can never voice my true opinion of people to their faces.

I hate that I'm never in control of my own life.

I hate people who cut my sentences off and dont ever bother to listen.

I hate being alone in the afternoon.

I hate being in a crowded place at night.

I hate being told that I dont know anything, believe me I know I dont know anything.

I hate people who refuse to learn.

I hate people who refuse to help themseleves.

I hate loud music, I hate fast cars and I hate any combination of the two.

I hate that I'm not close to my parents.

I hate that I cant write anything remotely funny.

I hate that I think that people dont respect me.

I hate that I'm needy at times.

I hate that I'm away from Bombay, and I hate that in this sentence I cant replace the word Bombay with 'my family'.

I hate that there are many times I hate myself.

I hate that there's never a time when I'm a priority to myself.

Oh yeh, and I hate Kareena Kapoor.

I think that's it for now. Thanks for lasting through it if you have, I know comments for this cant talk about my writing skills :) .... but hey, lemme know if any of you guys hate anything on my list, then we can be 'hate buddies'

To the eternity of laughter

“Jeeves,” I said at the breakfast table, “I’ve got spots on my chest.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“I don’t like them.”
“A very understandable prejudice, sir. Might I inquire if they itch?”
“Sort of.”
“I would not advocate scratching them.”
“I disagree with you. You have to take a firm line with spots…”
-The Catnappers

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse never did take a firm line with anything he wrote. In fact his writing had the smooth, languid flow of honey. The lines rolling luxuriously from his characters’ tongues and the laughter rising spontaneously to our lips.

Discovering Wodehouse for me was the beginning of many a lazy afternoon and many an endless train journey spent delightfully in his company. I fell in love with many of his characters, Bertie, the well meaning idiot, Jeeves, the soul of sagacity, Lord Emsworth, the darling amongst all fictional earls and of course Uncle Fred the sprightliest and jolliest of old men.

Though I have a soft spot for the Blanding Castle series and the Jeeves and Wooster series, I have never failed to enjoy the other Drones, Mulliner and golf stories. P.G Wodehouse has never been less than prolific. With more than 80 novels over a long period of time, it is amazing that the author has preserved such quality and such a fan base.

The remarkable thing about Wodehouse is the apparent eternity of his novel. I mean, I find it amazing that a book written in 1906 is being enjoyed so much and by so many in 2006. You may say however, that that is true of many authors, what about Shakespeare, Dickens, Conan Doyle, Christie. Well that is true, good writing leaves legacies and just to be mentioned in that league is enough evidence of his greatness. But in the case of Wodehouse, his longevity is more remarkable because of the otherwise ephemeral nature of humor. Humor is very topical at best and its nature generally shifts in time from raucous to polite to vulgar to witty. Wodehouse’s style of farcical humor has stood the test of time. And that in itself is a huge testimonial to this man.

To label Wodehousian literature as just funny, however will be a misnomer again. There is much subtlety and great complexity in a Wodehouse plot. There is a way to test this. Read any Wodehouse novel and then try and explain its plot to someone in your own words succinctly. It can’t be done! That will make you realize the layers and complex weaving of his stories.

Wodehouse is also one of the best sources for quotes. Random sentences taken from his work are just as funny as the whole.

It was a confusion of ideas between him and one of the lions he was hunting in Kenya that had caused A. B. Spottsworth to make the obituary column. He thought the lion was dead, and the lion thought it wasn't. Ring for Jeeves (1953)

I personally adore this man for just making me smile. To be lost in his work is to find peace. To be transported to an idyllic world where it all comes right in the end. Where insurmountable difficulties are surpassed, where laughter cures all and a good nature and a jolly disposition will guarantee you happiness.

I owe much of my fascination for the written word to him. I owe much of my admiration for the English language to the impeccability of his prose. I owe him a lot of happiness and I owe him many a belly laugh. I know that I am not the only one who is grateful that P.G Wodehouse lived and wrote.

So here’s to great literature and great writing. And here’s to the eternity of laughter

Of Science and Art

I had one of my first brain storming sessions at a class yesterday... my new classes are in the management stream and a lot different from my usual mineralogy or paleontology classes.... we were discussing yesterday the ways of scientific thought and the utilization of such protocol in dispute resolution in a corporate situation...

Basically everyone talked about how rigid scientific thought is and how there is a lot of protocol involved when someone talks of techniques in science... so in those terms the body of scientific knowledge is something you can depend completely upon, since its been subject to so much rigor and review....

One of our flock was talking abt how scientific knowledge is pristine and reliable... I guess I wouldn't go so far with defending it... in my opinion there are many limitations on scientific knowledge and the only good thing abt it is that it has gone through a lot of testing and critiques and is probably our best way of looking at things..

But to say science is the ultimate truth is folly... first of all there is no such thing as an impartial observer... every thing observed is always changed in some way or the other by the observer... any phenomenon observed is always filtered into consciousness through the filter of a theory... for e.g. you cannot observe the effects of gravity if you do not filter the observation through your existing knowledge about gravity....

All these things are inherent problems in science and one can never objectively assess the universe because one is part of the universe and is limited by one's sensory perceptions...

The fact however remains that though scientific knowledge can never reveal the ultimate truth, it is still our best and most objective way of structuring and utilizing data...

The conversation went on to how a scientist is therefore limited in his/her perception of the arts.... and I would like to contest that view too....

It is true that a scientist learns how to perceive data in a very rigid form and learns to automatically structure it and analyze patterns... but it is also true that a scientist is at the basis a human being....

Being human endows upon us the gifts of intuition and an appreciation for beauty... it then doesn't matter if you are a scientist...

Art is a way of equaling the ground for us... any person can appreciate the intricacies of a painting or be enraptured by the beauty of a piece of literature... art pulls at heart strings that remind us that our humanity is much more than just being highly evolved intelligent mammals... it tugs at strings that are more universal and more enmeshed within our beings than we realize...

I love sitting in museums and feel surrounded by talent and beauty and inspiration... it gives me an opportunity to get in touch with a different part of my being

I mean, sitting by the riverside need not remind me just of the ongoing fluvial processes that are giving rise to the geomorphology of the land, but I am also able to just appreciate the beauty, the soul of nature, which though compelling when filtered through the rigors of scientific knowledge, is also equally compelling when just viewed as a holistic, aesthetic experience.

my city!!... my mumbai!!!

The past few days have been immeresed in coincidences where I either read about mumbai, meet someone from mumbai, come across a particularly great blog on mumbai or am acutely reminded of my friends who are in mumbai.... as you can see i got mumbai on my mind!!!

When I left mumbai (and yes, I do call it mumbai and not bombay... just that way cos as a maharashtrian have been used to calling it mumbai since i was a kid)... anyway... when I left mumbai I did realise that it would be the one thing I miss. I was just about to get my own freedom so I knew my family would not be missed as much as everyone expects it to be. However, I found out a few new painful things two months into my stay here.

One, I did miss my family. Not really just one person, but just the feeling of family, the feeling of being surrounded by people who have seen you grow and understand how you are who you are... not necessarily approve, but at least understand.

Two, I missed mumbai. Like hell.

OMG! the pain is visceral! I miss its vibrant days, I miss its colours, its smells. I miss its dirty muck filled puddles. I miss bandra east, it was so peaceful, it was like a piece of heaven grafted onto mumbai's body. The heavy, still afternoons, the green rain tree just outside my window, the crows that would come to visit and sit on the balcony talking to me.

I miss the smell of the sea. The mist in the air when you approached juhu beach from the side gullies. I miss golas, consumed with avarice sitting at the katta of our favorite golawaala. I miss being addressed as baby by my dhobi. I miss my panipuriwala. I miss panipuri!!!! I miss swastik sandwichwala in santa cruz!!! I could do a blog dedicated to u dude!!

I miss catching my local every morning. I miss hating the crowds. I miss flying train!!! I miss the walk from marine lines station to xavier's. I miss the 5 rupee book shop. I miss khau galli! I miss stray puppies!!!!!! sooo much!!!!

I miss the woods. I miss philosophizing sitting on the stone benches. I miss coming to college in the morning and going straight up to the mess for breakfast, taking so much time that we eventually never made it to class. I miss burmese toast!!!!

I miss the booksellers at fountain, but then everyone in mumbai misses you now, (note: we need public outrage against their removal!) I miss crossword and oxford..

I miss jug suraiya and swaminathan on sundays. I miss leos and mondies on weekdays! I miss getting wet walking down marine drive. I miss doing lukkhagiri at gateway. I miss sneaking off and seeing every new movie. I miss sterling, regal, eros, new empire, and all those new multiplex thingies in the suburbs! I miss G7!!!!

I miss elaichi chai in that chaiwala's glass! I hate not being able to say "cutting" to the white boy at the counter here who takes my order for darjeeling tea.

I miss bandstand. I miss kayani's, bastani's. I miss asiatic library. I miss the ranicha baug!! I miss the smell of warm earth moistened by the first rain. I miss raincoats.

I miss rover.

I miss rickshaws! oh god I miss rickshaws!

I miss friends. All of them. Each and every one. It sucks that I am here and not down there shotuing my head off with glee and celebrating with beer, cos my good friend adriel just got engaged!!.. god.. I miss you so much

I have made my decision and here I am for better or worse. I may not go back for good. I will visit, but I dont know whether it will be forever. Wherever I go, I will always sense a distance from my real home. I will come to enjoy another city am sure, understand her and live in peace there, but my heart will remain with my mumbai.

The New Year's blog

Well... was a year I don ever want to go through again. Never. It began by me getting punished for nothing by strangers, consisted of me being held hostage by my own mind and ended by showing me an end to the most precious thing I've ever had.

It showed me an end or it lead me to a beginning. I realize now that that is a choice I must make for myself. We create our own defeats and failures. But in making that statement, I realize that I also imply that we create our own hope and our own victories. By showing me darkness, its brought my attention towards light. By making me realize my weaknesses, its shown me where to improve. By driving me to depression its shown me the necessity of a smile.

All it hasn't given me is the strength. I need to find that myself. I need to seek that out from where its hiding. I hope I can do that. I hope I am strong. I wish I could do more than hope.

However well or badly your year has gone, I hope for you all that the new one is something we will not regret.

The tequila is downed, the friends are gone, now I have just hope.

purpose

I dont know at what point in life i decided that being mediocre was ok, but I do know that I lead a very mediocre, pointless existence. Most of the times this thought does not even cross my mind and am comfortable in my ignorance. But sometimes it shines through with searing clarity and I just wonder. Is there anything I would ever give my life for? A cause I would be happy fighting for? When I say cause I dont mean some shallow 'save the dolphins' march, but an ideal, a principle. I rarely look inwards, at least rarely do I look deeply. It is too scary, too empty. Darkness is a thing I sometimes encounter. It envelopes me and lulls me wth its heavines. There is nothing comforting about the darkness. It is suffocating and painful. I wonder whether all I need is a purpose. Something to live for. To see with my own two eyes the physical evidence of making a difference (again this is no mushy thing like peace to humanity or saving the world, just the physical evidence that another human being acknowledges my existence and is not entirely unhappy that they met me). Something to define me to describe me.

maturity

My life isnt one big party, neither is it a geek fest full of reasearch proposals and hypothesis critiques. To define my life in one word would be to say it's routine, mundane or rather more bluntly put, boring. So how do I bring colour to it? why by borrowing tons of free dvds home from the friendly neighborhood public library of course. Every weekend is a mini film festival in my room. So, do I take advantage of my newly found freedom and legal age and get movies of mature content with relvant and worthy themes or at least racy themes or at least political themes? Well, lately my movie list has read a bit like this, Fantasia (disney), chitti chitti bang bang, Lord of the Rings, Southpark (the movie), Murder on the Orient Express and Harry Potter.... mature?... hmmmm

My roomie brings home Wutheing Heights and The Notebook and cribs about my cartoonish taste in movies (disclaimer: am putting this is in so when roomie reads blog she doesnt kil me: She is a nice gal and we get along real well... its just tht we have natures tht are at counterpoints... its just fascinating for me to see things from her perspective and examine mine)..
anyway... so we were at the point where i was being critcized for being kiddish and immature... so I got to thinking whether that is what i am or whether i actually am finding qualities in simplicity that no one looks for...

I'd like to think that is true.. i have major respect for the animation feature... first of all it is enormously difficult to do and no tom dick and harry can decide to go to animation school unless they have at least the semblance of talent.... i have huge respect for people who can convey feelings in a graphic or visual format... and i think the animated movie when well made brings out a beauty that is seldom seen in real life.... i like fantasy... in movies and books... i have been accused of being an escapist... a charge i wouldnt dream of denying... i want to go into movies to get out of my life... esp since my life is in the abovementioned state....

does it make me immature if i still cry when ET almost dies?... i dunno... i'd like to think tht the movie hit a chord with me tht has remained.... tht when i see it i feel the emotions as i did when i was a wondrous 4 yr old.... that i recognise pure emotion and that i can still enjoy it..

in terms of books like LOTR and Christie mysteries... the truth is that that is great writing.... the prose is so fluid and passionate... the narrative so compelling... i do like to think that i love these books for their value to literature... it is difficult for me to accept movies and books where there is no effort evident... no passion in the storytelling and no coherence in the subject... i am open to all genres... romance not so much..... i've been crticized, by my dad mostly, tht i look down on hindi movies while watching english ones tht are as farfetched... well just wanna say tht being farfetched is not the fault... if a farfetched movie is made with the zeal and passion and the talent of a good filmmaker then we can get classics... sholay being case in point...

so what is maturity? can we call someone attached to his schultz cartoon strips and whooping at the mention of x men immature?... i think the people who are willing to condemn oughta take a little time off and examine these things for themselves... thinking urself above these or rather beyond these little childish traits may make you lose out on one of the most magical things in life... being able to summon the childish feeling of wonder and delight even when your mind and body have grown jaded..

whatever happened to ecology?

I have been thinkin about this for a while now. Have had discussions with two people. One, my closest friend, and one my newbie roommate. The convesations totally bear out the fact that you can choose your friends not your roommates.

I am a geologist training now to be an ecologist. There's not much I wanted to do for a living than work with nature. In all its resplendent, glorious and oftentimes disgusting form. One vey important thing has bee driven into my head over these past 6 years of learning, and that is that we just dont know enough!... we really dont....

we dont know how all the intricate threads of nature work... we dont know just how miniscule or just how massive a change will caus catastrophe.... granted that we have done a lot of work... and over the years we have made a few strides... but we have also understood that the earth is so vast that we have probably not even covered 1/10th of the knowledge it has to give us....

we have made strides but we have also made gigantic mistakes.... and many a times we have made these mistakes behind the vener of knowledge.... (anybody doubting this should look up the hisory of the Yellowstone National Park)...

not only the lay people.. but even our scientists have fallen prey to this thought process... they get scred if their studies start to show anything contradicting older more accpted theories....

my roomie was under this illusion... when we had a iscussion on species coservation... she said why worry???... so we lose species?..... so we lose animals???... we'll just use our knowledge and adjust the equbrilium of the earth....those were her exact words...and dont start thinking tht this is some young girl with britany speas on her mind.... she's PhD student doing her degree in biomed....a scientist like her is full of such arrogance.... i can just imagine the many others.... and then i can just imagine the lay people who come under their influence and start believing in our position as the "ultimate rulers" (another one oher phrases)...

why hve we lost our humility?... why have we lost our sense of wonder?... why do we think we are indepndent of any other influence.. tht we dont belong to any ecosystem... rather that we own it....why dont we thing its horrible tht our children may never see a wild buck?...

i dunno... and i think lots of people dont care.... when i put tht argument to her.. she said to me tht we have ecologists like u working on it... we dont have to care... tht's when i decided i must write a blog abt this.... cos really... we ecologists are just a miniscule part of the society... it is people like my roomies an you who must care...otherwise we have no legs to stand on....

I was talking to my closest friend about this... and she made me find hope.... there are people who care and people who will use their voice... but use their voice they must....

i think i have finally found a purpose to my blog after all this floundering.... hopefully i can keep writing about issues i care about.... not just abstract thoughts... hopefully i can write about things you need to hear and not ramblings... dunno if i can do it...
sure will try.

I

I realised something over the past few weeks. I have never used the word 'I' in my blogs. Is that because I did not want to reveal myself to the 2 people who might actually read this blog?? Or is it cause I didnt think aything about myself was remotely interesting to the duo. Well I think its a combination of both things. Am not comfortable letting myself hang out in public and I really dont think anyone wants to hear about me. Then I realised that whats the use of only doing things I am comfortable with? So hey presto! you now have to hear about me. thankfully you have that back button on your browser so you can leave anytime.

I have a few simple and sometimes rather strong beliefs. One is that things will happen. Though I can control how I deal with the things, that does not change the fact that 'things will happen.' So you gotta live with it. I also believe that if you want it strong enough you gotta go get it, just wanting it does nothing. The biggie belief in my life is that the written word matters. However crude or however polished and elegant, any written word matters. The one last thing is I love dogs. I just do. Cant be changed.

Otherwise I'm pretty flexible about my beliefs on anythig else. So that's it, that's me. I dont know whether I'll write more about me in the future or continue withmy thoughts objectively put. I dont know. But hey, uncertainty is fun.

strangers

The ability to recognise someone, to acknowledge that person and in turn be thought of by him is familiarity. We all pass by countless people however without ever acknowleding their presence, without a smile, without a nod. How many soulmates have we lost? How many inspirations have we let fall away? The boy who sits across from you in the bus. He seems worried, such furrows in his brow, such tension in his shoulders. You want to tell him that it will be alright, to ask him to let go and move on, but how can you?? he is a stranger. The old lady with her head tilted and resting on the frosted window, she smiles with some secret happiness, you want to be able to share the mirth that lies so close to the surface, you want to rejoice with her, but you will not, she is a stranger. When do strangers become our own people? What is that exact moment when the tension breaks, smiles erupt and hands are pushed forward? It is indescribable, and it is so different in different conditions. But one thing we can say... it is magical.

outsider

All of us know what its like to be on the outside. To sit about and look in. To see others the way they will never really see themselves. To see them laugh, to hear them talk together. Feel the difference between you and them. Feel an invisible distance. Feel the inability to relate. You feel the momentary impulse where you want to belong. Especially since you feel so alone at that moment. You feel like you would like to feel a part of things, to feel welcome. You are the outsider. The one who probably understands and sees things better and yet will never feel satisfied with knowing that. You are the outsider and you will pass your own silent judgement and it will hurt when it doesnt matter. You are the outsider, or at least you are until you meet the one person who's every nuance you know, you both smile, and with that person's touch, an understanding is passed on and you feel what you've wanted to all this while, you feel you finally belong.

Isolated reading

Have u ever sat in a huge public area, sitting all by yourself reading a book? Its one of the most blissful experiences I know. I mean, maybe it would be great just to find the perfect nook and read in peace and quiet, but there is something much more immersing about a public readin experience. U suddenly exist to noone else but to you and your reality which is now the book. U have friends all around you, those created by your favorite author, and suddenly you belong in a new and forbidding environment. There is something about being able to find isolation in public. Something worth trying.