Ramble in the jungle

Where I am and what I've been up to

2007-08-25T12:39:00.000-07:00

This is not the next semi philosophical or literary tour-de-force piece I was looking for, but it is what I've been up to. I guess I have come to accept that I will never have the time nor inclination to produce a blog that is either extremely good reading or widely read, so I'll settle for it functioning as a diary (an unfortunately public one) that keeps track of my state of mind and life at various points.

To that end, what follows below is what is new in my life. It's basically an extract from an email I sent my family, edited for the public domain. Unpolished and strewn with boring rants, it is nevertheless an update. Here it is:

Here's the longer email I had promised.

I have now (partially) settled in to my new place. It is, as I have mentioned before, further away from the office, taking about 40 minutes walking. The route I usually take runs through a somewhat residential area, and is a nice quiet walk. Whether it will remain so after school starts and the undergrads are back is to be seen :) .

There's still some furniture I have to buy - a couple more shelves, perhaps. I inherited a couple of bookshelves (and some lamps) from the previous tenants, and what I have now fits them snugly, but considering that I am likely to accumulate more, I'd best plan ahead. A chair - of the wheeling, swiveling, height changing AND tilting variety, WITH armrests - an office chair, in short - is probably my top priority.

My roommates are Shivakumar *****, who is in the same Physics PhD batch here in Penn State as me, and Nitin ****, who is in Industrial Engineering. To my great fortune, both of them are quite comfortable with cooking - in fact, Nitin actually enjoys cooking; his dream is to open an Indian restaurant here in the States. We have a dishwasher, but a lot of Indian dishes require a bit more effort in scrubbing and cleaning the utensils, so I chip in by washing the dishes, and helping out with the cooking if I'm home on time. Nitin's away for a few days right now, so it's just me and Shiva, who I am happy to report is also a pretty good cook. Yes, Appa, I'll see if I can pick up something from them.

We've been doing a bit of shopping at Walmart and the local Goodwill store - luckily on the first day I went there, Goodwill (which is within walking distance) was having a 50% off sale. We picked up an excellent dining table for $20 - it has two extra segments that can be easily slotted in to increase the length to seat I think 8 comfortably. Shiva doesn't have a car right now - a friend totaled his while they were in Canada - but using a friend's car we shipped the disassembled table home. Reassembling it was not quite as easy - it doesn't quite have the feel of a mass-produced item, and lining up all the various screw holes at the same time wasn't easy. I'm still not sure I got it perfectly right, but it's functional and hasn't given us any trouble, though I did ruin my cheap screwdriver set in the process. I recently bought myself a more 'fundu' set - a 10 bit screwdriver with six of the bits actually stored inside the screwdriver. This was occasioned by the purchase of my desk.

I went to the university salvage store (walking all the way from the office in the cold, relentless rain) to pick out a desk, and found one quickly enough, and at a great price - just $25. I bought it and arranged with Artur for him to help me shift it the next day. Artur borrowed Josh's truck, and this part went smoothly enough. Our apartment is on the ground floor, and we have a sliding window that opens on to the lawn, so getting it in was not a problem. Once it was in the living room, Artur left, and I decided to have preliminary go at shifting it into my room. After turning it on its side and dragging it to the corridor, I suddenly realised that the door to my room was a bit small. Keeping in mind that the length (not the width or height, but still) of the desk is of the order of 5 feet, you can see that this presented a bit of a problem. In retrospect, with two (or three) people and a lot of ingenuity in manoeuvring, perhaps it could have been brought in in one piece; as it was, I was considering getting the window panes removed so that I could get it in that way. I made a quick trip to Walmart where I bought my marvelous screwdriver, and then went to the department where we were greeting the new PhD students with a free pizza lunch. The new batch has about 10 Americans, 2 or 3 South East Asians (Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan), 10 Chinese and 2 Indians. One of them - Murali - is joining the AMO (Atomic, Molecular and Optical) Physics division, and the other - Sreejith - who is actually an engineering graduate - is planning to join one of the gravity groups. They're from IIT Roorkee and IIT Madras, and in fact both are Malayalis. We (the current batches) said hi and gorged ourselves on not terribly good pizza. Afterwards I went home and decided to take on the desk.

The only set of screws (square headed, as opposed to cross or flat) I could see were on the bottom and seemed to affix the legs (the desk is wooden, with the legs and various parts of the drawers being metal), but I couldn't believe that it was that simple. I was right. After removing them, I found out that the legs were also attached on top, by screws whose heads were below the table top. Which meant I had to take that off too. So I removed the drawers, and then worked out the 12 screws inside the drawer compartments, and then tried the 3 screws in the central portion. But then the last screw defied me. It was up against an edge, so I couldn't grip the screwdriver comfortably to get at it. I tried various things, including Shiva's power tool (screws and unscrews, but can destroy your bits if you aren't careful), but it didn't work. If I didn't get it out, I wouldn't be able to take the top off, and thus wouldn't be able to get the legs off. So then I thought - I may not be able to turn the screw, but given that it's the last one, I can turn the table top instead. So I heaved the desk back on to its feet, and then started to rotate the top. My original plan had been to rotate the top all the way off the screw, but I soon realised that that was unnecessary - a 90 degree turn gave me access to the screw tops. But if I took the legs off what would keep the table standing? So I improvised supports using boxes and books, and took the legs off. Then I temporarily secured the top, slid the desk into my room, and then reversed most of the steps until it was finally reassembled, and clean, and miraculously standing inside my room. If I've made it sound epic, it's because it was - I did all of this singlehandedly. Which probably explains why my back is still giving me twinges.

After that I re-organised the room, and took the long overdue step of throwing away the reams of papers and documents I had collected in two years. I also organised most of my coin collection. The US Mint is currently putting out Statehood quarters - every state is honoured with a 25 cents coin that commemorates the year it joined the Union. They started issuing them in 1999, and every year 5 are released. 43 are already out, and I've been collecting them. Complicating the matter is the fact that there are actually two mints, and the coins are accordingly marked 'P' or 'D'. This makes for a hundred coins to be collected. With the help of Anjuchechi and Eduardo and some of my friends, I've been filling in the gaps in my collection. Now thanks to Anjuchechi and Eduardo I have a better idea of where I stand - they sent me a special coin album meant for the Statehood quarters, already labelled and with two spots for each state. Some of my older coins have gotten a bit dirty or even tarnished, so I may hunt for replacements once the set is complete. And since each slot is just slightly smaller than the coins, they can fit snugly in their spots, but sometimes t's hard getting them in - or getting them to stay there, so I've resorted to using little tape loops on their backs to keep them in place. But that's hardly noticeable, and so the collection looks quite impressive against the dark blue background of the album. Thank you, Anjuchechi and Eduardo.

My room is now by and large complete - the shelves (and perhaps a small bookshelf on top of the desk, if I can find one) and chair should take it further, and then I may decide to do some interior decorating. But for the most part I'm satisfied. As soon as the chair comes in, I'll steal someone's digital camera and send you some pics. Speaking of which, are there any more of baby Daniel? (Daniel is my latest nephew, born to my oldest sister, Anuchechi, on August 2, 2007.)

My friend (and classmate) Artur had been in a bit of a stew - he's Estonian, and Estonia has a national service requirement. Normally this is during your undergrad period, but since he did his degree in the UK, he got it postponed. This year though it came back to haunt him. If he had had to go, he would have been away for about 9 months, but somehow he was able to defer it again - even if only by a year. I think we may have a 'Welcome back' party soon.

Contact: I've gotten myself a SkypeIn number with a free voice mail account. The number is 1-814-***-****, so if you ever need to call me while you're away from the computer and don't have access to Skype, that's the number you want. (This being in the public domain I had to remove the numbers, but ask nicely and I'll tell you. :) )

However, sometimes I'm away from the computer and need to be reached, or to reach someone, so I have finally gotten myself a cell phone. It's a prepaid "Pay as you Go" plan with AT&T/Cingular. It costs 10 cents a minute and has a Daily Access Fee of $1 - that is, on days that I use my phone, I have to pay an additional one dollar. Obviously I would like to avoid using my phone as much as possible, so that number (1-814-***-****) is only for emergency contact/last minute instructions, and the phone will be off when I'm at home or in the office (1-814-***-****). The main reason I got it now, after all this time, is the 40 minute walk from home to the office (and even longer to my friends' places) - I'd hate to get there and then be told that I'd forgotten something.

There's not much else to report. My new check card arrived around the same time that I was starting to shift, so that caused some confusion when the old one stopped working. My laptop - oh, well, that's a long story, and I really don't want to get into it right now; the short version is:

My laptop's built-in speakers stopped working.
I took it to Best Buy which is where I had bought. My warranty had expired, and they didn't know what was wrong, so they sent it out to have it looked at. I paid $85.
They said something was wrong with my motherboard's audio controller, and that I would need a new motherboard at a cost of $700+. I thought about this and said no, since if I plugged in my headphones they worked fine, so all I would need to do is plug in some external speakers.
I had trouble getting through and telling them no, but eventually told one of the Customer Service people, who for some reason were unable to relay it to the relevant parties. Luckily the default policy was that if no response was got, they would send it back.
I called up and asked if my laptop was back, they said that it was on its way.
A few days later I tried calling up again, several times, to find out if it was back. All the Geek Squad people were busy helping customers in the store, and I was asked to leave my name and number. I did so, but no one got back to me. I did it again, and this time the Customer Service person assured me that someone would get back to me, but no one did. I only had two questions - was my laptop back, and if not, when would it be? But no one called.
I got frustrated and decided to be one of the customers who was being helped in the store. I went, and long story short, finally got my (as far as anyone knew) unrepaired laptop back. Unexpectedly though, the speakers have started to work again. They're still a little unreliable, so I am getting those external speakers, but it was an unexpected plus.

Okay, that wasn't really a short version, but it was very frustrating, which I guess shows. The desk incident at least had a sense of accomplishment and of difficulties overcome; this was more of a just "I'm glad it's over and I hope it never happens again, and as far as I can I will never interact with this company again."

I'm currently free duty-wise, at least until the term starts, so I'm just chipping away at the review paper and various books. I've kind of run out of Physics courses to take, so I'll probably get all 9 credits from an independent study course. The prof I want to work with is out of town (again) so I've emailed him. Failing that I may take some Math department courses, or independent study with another prof. (The prof I wanted agreed to take me on for 9 credits. He's also taken Artur on. Coincidentally, it appears that he (the prof) may also live at the same Apartments that I do - though I'm reasonably sure it's not in the same building. :))

What news from everyone else?

Double strength/New and improved/Bonus features

2006-08-06T10:45:00.000-07:00

After a terribly long hiatus, Ramble in the Jungle returns with a few new entries. One of these - Flight - is actually new, while the other entries in the Poetry and Short story sections are just old compositions that I dug up. My personal favourites among the new poetry & fiction entries are Maelstrom and Teleology Take 2. Anyhow, just below this you can find Flight, and below that you'll find the The Overhang, which is a sort of Contents page for this whole blog. Hopefully you'll find something you like - to get a flavour of my preferences, check out the stars beside each title.

And now, as, the MTV voice says, "Enjoy..."

Flight

2006-08-06T10:00:00.000-07:00

Just at the start of your flight, the small propeller airplane does a little bob, and you get that stomach turning feeling one gets when an elevator drops too quickly, or a roller coaster goes over a hump. It will take about twenty minutes to reach the top, and if it's to be that bumpy all the way it's going to be mighty unpleasant. But amazingly, after that initial hiccup the ride is incredibly smooth, leaving you with one thing less to think about instead of the approaching experience.

The angle of ascent is steady, and with your legs stretched out in front of you, and nothing in easy grasping distance, it's hard to hold your position. So you take the instructor's advice and lean back on to him, occasionally glancing at the plastic yellow ducky in front of you, watching it tilt as the plane banks. The ground below is receding, taking on the appearance of a map, with the neighbouring town laid out in neat squares.

"How high do we go?" you ask over the steady drone of the engine. "10,000 feet."
You nod and lapse into silence again. You're trying to find the altimeter on the dashboard. "At what height does the parachute open?" He has an altimeter on the back of his hand. "About 5000 feet: that's about this height." You glance out the window again, and ask whether it's time to put the goggles on, but he advises you against it - they'd only fog up. You finally spot the altimeter - it's on the far left, with the appearance of a clock face, right down to the two hands turning in steady circles as you climb higher.

Somewhere above 9000 feet, he tells you to start getting ready. You get on your knees, next to the door on your right and just behind the white knee line on the floor. Passing the straps backward, you can hear and feel him fastening and tightening them. Four points of attachment - two on the shoulders, two on the hips, and any one of them strong enough to hold you, they'd said. He's just behind you, and your feet are feeling squashed. "Ow," you say, but he either doesn't hear you or realizes that there's little point to making any adjustments - this won't last long. He tells you it's time for the goggles, and sometime around then the plane levels off, above 10,000 feet.

It's time. You feel amazingly calm, and wonder at that, but shy away from introspection; you can feel a frisson of fear lying beneath that calm, ready to surface and engulf you if you only consider the situation, that you are about to fall out of a perfectly functional airplane for no other reason than you want to see what it feels like.

The door slides open, upward and above. You note the wheel strut - you had thought that it would fold away under the plane after take off, but it's still there. As you wait for the man behind you to put his foot outside, you idly wonder how you are supposed to avoid hitting the wheel, and what would happen if you got entangled in it. You tuck your thumbs under the harness straps and grab the straps firmly, arms tight to your sides. "Knees out," he calls, and you swing - first the right, then the left - until your folded legs are partly out the door, the knees pointing almost perpendicular to the sill. "Head up," he says, and at the same time he's pushing upward and outward - are you going to hit your head on the wing? - and then you're out.

A tumble, and for a moment you are on your back, watching the plane recede and the blue sky fall about you - and then he rolls, and you remember where you are falling to.

He tugs at your arms - belatedly you recall that it's okay to let go of the harness now, and you spread your arms. Fall belly first they had said on the ground - bend your knees and trail your arms and legs, it gives stability. You arch into position. You cast a look above your glasses and see an infinity of blue and white - but then your eyes return to the ground. But the ground is merely a distant concern - the wind embraces you at a hundred and twenty miles per hour. The view from that height is incredible, but you almost close your eyes. You are falling down - you are going nowhere. You are moving fast - you are absolutely still. In the wind's rough embrace, you surrender yourself.

There is a tap on your shoulder and he's moving your arms - a sudden jerk and you move from the horizontal to the vertical; you're suddenly moving upward. All too soon the parachute has opened. The rush of the wind has been replaced by a low steady flutter - you are still descending, but the pace is more sedate. Your arm hurts a little from the suddenness, and you feel queasy - for the next few minutes you will regret this jump, and have no desire to come back. Should you tell him that you feel - no, keep calm, deep breaths, deep breaths. And it quietens.

It is surprisingly quiet. "How was it?" he asks. You can sense that he wants an ecstatic "Oh-My-God" response, or a "Woo-hoo!" or a cheer. But you're still recovering from that feeling in your stomach, and besides, you are not much given to wordy expressions of excitement. "Wow," you say, because you know he'd be disappointed otherwise, "Wow. That was incredible." And then, "I'm basically speechless. Wow," hoping that that will explain your silence and satisfy him. How do you explain that it was a moment of calm, almost holy, of nothingness, of silent exhilaration? That to try to describe it, to quantify it with merely an exclamation fails so miserably; is demeaning to it?

He's handed you the controls to the chute now, and is showing you how to steer, and explaining the landing procedure - "Legs up, and ... flare." And on 'flare' you pull down on both the straps and the descent slows even further, the silence magnifying into another ocean of quiet. You practise a few more times. Your stomach has settled, and you suddenly realize that the ground is closer, too close - your previous regrets have all vanished, and now you merely wish to prolong your flight, to wish the ground away. You drift downward, the landscape a pretty postcard beneath you, but the world and all its reality is drawing closer, all too soon. You're holding the straps but he's the one doing all the real steering - a few turns and you're heading to the airfield. He points out your fellow jumper - despite jumping after you, she's going to touch ground first. A tight curve; the ground comes closer; it's almost over - "Legs up, and.... flare," - you hit the ground, your heels dragging a little infront of you. Not a textbook landing, but sufficient. As he unstraps himself, you tell him about your earlier queasiness. It's not something you're proud of, and you wish it hadn't happened, but the whole experience was so... pure, that you feel compelled to confess that one failing of yours. It demands your honesty. But you thank him, repeatedly, trying in those few words to convey how grateful you are for those few moments in the sky, that utter calm.

Helene is on the ground - you walk over. She was a little hyper on the drive over - and now that the deed is done, she is again. She is the kind of person who cheers and 'woohoo's - the jumpy cheery kind. "How was it?" she asks and you tell her it was great. And it was. "Woohoo! I want to do it again! I want to go skydiving again!" You smile at her. You are not a jumpy kind of person.

Slowly you make your way back to the building and the others waiting. There is a smile fixed on your face, but inside, behind the facade, you are desperately scrambling. What were you doing? Were you sleeping up there? Were your eyes closed? What were you feeling? For the moment is receding, the memory fading - you can remember in an abstract way how incredible it felt, but it was like nothing on this earth; and now, in the stranglehold of the reality around you, you cannot tell even yourself how it felt - only abstractions and trite cliches remain. Like a black hole, that moment in space and time has enclosed itself into nonexistence - it lived only in the experience, and left nothing of itself to remembrance. You will never recall it; it will never leave you.

You were not falling.

The Overhang

2006-08-06T09:46:00.000-07:00

I've reorganised the pseudoblog so that you, Dear Reader, can find things more easily. I've started States of Mind, which should hopefully contain semiregular entries about my life in the US of A. I've also introduced ELITIST(OR), having been partially inspired by R&R (see link on the side) who used his blog as a kinda bookmark page.

Feel free to ramble.

States of Mind

Learning to Walk (Log 1)

To Belong (Log 2)

Flight (Log 3)

E.L.I.T.I.S.T. (O.R.)

E-List of Interesting Things I Saw Today (Or Recently)

Vol. 1

Posts and Rants

The Post

The speech of dusty pages

Stories

Teleology Take 1

Teleology Take 2

Fate will not be cheated...

Creative Pieces and explications

**

The Wisdom of Solomon

***

Second Coming

Ice candyman: creative rewrite

Poems

Updated 06 August 2006

*

Maelstrom

Unnamed Composition 1

***

***

Tiger Trilogy Part 1: A Flame in the forest

Tiger Trilogy Part 2: A shadow in the forest

Tiger Trilogy Part 3: Who made you Tiger?

Poem/Anti-poem Part 1

Independence

Random stuff

Quotable Quotes

Maelstrom

2006-08-06T08:30:00.000-07:00

The stillness of the room*
Is like an empty womb*
Waiting for me to vomit into it*
*
The monotone of the fan*
Stirring in a cup of air*
Irritates*
Perhaps pure silence would be more poetic*
*
But away the crickets chirp*
If I were by the lake tonight*
The frogs would sing summer carols*
Of godlike storks that left*
Vees and other letters trailing*
Wakes; the vortices spin noiseless.****

Unnamed Composition 1

2006-08-06T08:28:00.000-07:00

I can sense myself dying*
Each day I live passes into a past I cannot return to*
Nor should I - I desire only its flavour*
Each hour turned to sand *
Falls in piles that collapse under themselves*
Bring sights I feel and wish to share*
But no one ever can*
The thought could break my heart*
It does, pieces fall*
Too large to drop through time's glass grasp*
They lie trapped, imprisoning memories*
As the sand of me slips by.*
*
But yet still I cannot feel*
Each moment congeals around me*
A skin that dulls my senses*
Removes them one further step from reality*
Or life; one further grain*
*
What tested my palate before*
My nose, my eyes*
Lies jaded; like drugs*
I must go farther*
To speak to heaven through carved circles of white*
One further grain, one thousand cups*
To be as high*
Before I fell myself*
*
What I feel I cannot trap*
Cannot enjoy, for now no illusion*
Binds me to the eternity of youth*
I know time passes*
What I see will fade*
I cannot share it*
Make it live by passing on*
And so I cry*
I never knew drops could fall like sand.***

Touch

2006-08-06T08:24:00.000-07:00

Covered by hair like down
Coarse, fine
A light touch disturbs them
My skin is soft
The feeling pleasure
Delight, sinful.

Here
There
Discontinuous, I
Find my skin by parts
You can judge a hide
Though not what it furs

Tickled, as my hairs move slowly
To some gentle intelligence
Let me discover
What discovers me

Some pleasures
Are best not disturbed
Some
Are best cut
Pleasure clothing darkness

A fly returns
To its state of being
My loss.

Teleology Take 1

2006-08-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

'I had a very strange dream last night', he said as he
sat down with the group.They were seated around a
table, the light seemingly coming from nowhere, mild
daylight shadows lurking.*

'Well first, I had a dream about a friend of mine. One
I haven't seen in some time. When I saw him - in the
dream - he threw earthworms at me.'*

He leaned back in his chair, smiling at how curious
his statement had been. Most of them - there were only
five or six - sat on the chairs, but one was sitting
on the edge of the table, casually.*

'Now I - well I don't hate earthworms, but I don't
like to have them an closer than I can help. They're
slimy creatures, but I have a grisly fascination with
their .... worminess, and the way they move.'*

They were listening in silence, hardly moving except
for occasional shifts in posture. He wasn't certain if
he was pleased or not by that - but atleast none of
them had left. Or had they? He wsn't quite sure how
many of them were there - he didn't bother to turn his
head to count.*

'Now I didn't like that and got away, and after
removing all the earthworms, went about again. Then I
saw him again - we were in a lawn or garden and he was
picking an earthworm from somewhere - from a plant I
think, atleast not from the ground. I went up to him
to ask him why he had thrown earthworms at me, and not
to do it again.'*

They lounged like lizards. Well, he would provoke a
discussion - when he had finished the story. The whole
story.*

'And then, before I could say much, without saying a
word, he started throwing them at me again. And I was
repulsed and disgusted and withdrew. And the thing was
- there was his attitude too, half smiling as if he
was teasing me, but half in contempt, as if he despised
me.'*

He paused. They sat in reptilian silence which spoke,
'Is that all?'*

'Well, after that I woke up and went to the bathroom.*

Now I would normally have expected, a dream of rain or
oceans and waterfalls, and that would explain my
waking with a need to go to the bathroom. But
earthworms?*

Why that friend - perhaps because I hadn't written to
him in many months, and had recently though about him
in passing.*

Why earthworms? Well it was the rainy season, and the
earthworms were crawling up into the bathrooms.
Perhaps they were symbolic of the rains and of
bathrooms. Perhaps the throwing reflected my disgust
with them and with leeches, which are also annelids.'*

'But - let that pass - the strange part was when I
went back to sleep, for then I dreamed that I had was
telling my dream to a group of .... well, friends,
though I didn't really know who was there. And I
eventually realized it, and then....'*

He paused because he suddenly realised that if he
looked at anyone's face, he saw rather bland
undistinguished features, which shifted, so he could
never identify - he realized he didn't know anyone's
name.*

At that point a young man stood up, and his features
were shifting quickly, like the reflections off
ripples in a pond, and you could see that he was
greatly disturbed.*

'Excuse me,' said the young man, 'but do I know any of
you?'*

Then he knew what was happening, and he felt himself
fade into nothingness as the young man rippled out of
existence. The rest sat with the faces of forgotten
gods, bored, stone, uncaring.*

Teleology Take 2

2006-08-06T08:21:00.000-07:00

Above a small village in the green part of the
mountains there lay a shrine. To whom none could say,
for the forest had claimed it and nothing recognizable
remained, except for the ruined statue of a man, the
God, standing.*

The statue stood crumbling slowly above an altar of
fallen leaves and creepers; vines had clambered up the
walls to frame it, and and fallen timbers from the
ceiling lay in the mud on the floor which had come as
the earth slowly came and reclaimed its own - except
for a small clear stripe where a stream ran in the
spring and when it rained.*

The shrine had been built facing east, so that in the
morning the sun cast its rays on the face of the
statue; now the stone was featureless, worn to
indistinction by the water dropping through the broken
skylight above. At noon the sun shone through the
skylight, so that the statue stood in a beam of light,
as if descended from the heavens. And in the afternoon
the face of the statue was dark, lit from behind, but
if one knelt at the altar one would see a halo above
its head. The skill of the builder had been great, and
the shrine was as much one to his skill as to the God.
But now all lay in ruins, neither lasting more than
the other. What the builder had believed none knew.*

Now into the village came a man, and his progress was
like that of the wind - for none saw him, yet all felt
him as he came, and the trees rustled as he left. He
drank of the water in the well around which the
village had been built; he bathed in the river that
ran by its side. And then he walked up the bank of the
river. And as he walked the river became smaller, and
then became many streams. But he followed one stream
without hesitation, and eventually he reached the
shrine; for it was spring, and a stream flowed through
it.*

Whether the other streams reached other shrines no one
knew, for none had followed them - or if any had, they
had never returned. but the man entered the shrine and
went to the altar.*

And then with a rock he scratched at the base of the
statue 'We are the breath of God'. And then he left,
and he was the third man.*

Then two men came from the village to the altar, and
they read what had been carved into the stone.*

And the first said, 'We are the breath of God, for we
were naught but clay till God breathed life into us.'*

And the second said, 'We are the breath of God, for it
is we who breathe life into God, we who created him.'*

And they stood in disagreement while the sun shone
overhead, but neither would change his mind. Then they
left.*

The the third man, who believed he was God, came and
lay down at the altar, and died.*

And a wind blew through the mountains.*

To Belong

2005-08-28T01:22:00.000-07:00

Your first school and university are always important. The friends you make, the lessons you learn - most of those will last you for a lifetime. It is in those times that your character is set, your die-hard habits forged. Love them or hate them, those times will always be with you.

What about your second coll?

Starting life in a different country is bad enough. Doing it in a new coll makes it stranger. Grad students come into a university with a rich and detailed past which has already shaped them. Can they ever really belong? Feel like a part of the university? When they leave, how much will they miss it? The place, the people, the culture?

Well, first you have to know them.

So what have I learned about Penn State? What drives them, what brings them together, what are the people like, what is this place?

There are many answers, many points to be raised, but one has to start somewhere.

Football.

I'm talking off American Football, of course. That mad sport where big undergrads pad themselves up into intimidating giants and hurl themselves at each other. Somewhere along the line, a ball which is not a ball gets passed for a touchdown.

I'm sorry, but my knowledge of the sport is currently limited to the bits I picked up from movies. I dare say though that before the year is done, I'll know a lot more. Over here it's inevitable. Penn State loves football.

Love? That's a pretty strong word, isn't it? After all, all that they're playing is Amateur league. The Big Ten universities of the East coast play each other. Sure, some of these kids may go on to make pro, but how big a deal is the whole show?

Very.

Football games here are held in a stadium with a seating of over a 100,000. On match days, the stadium is filled to overflowing. University Park temporarily becomes one of the top 4 most populated areas of Pennsylvania.

Think about that.

Old students come back to watch. Current ones rent out their apartments for a day. Scalpers sell tickets at ginormous prices. Considering that the team has had a less than 50% win record over the last two years, it's funny that spirit still runs this strong. What's funnier is that most of it is because of one man.

He studied English at an Ivy League school. He listens to opera while planning football strategies. He and his family donated 3.5 million dollars to the university (he is rumoured to be the highest paid university employee). He's taken the PSU team to the heights of College Football glory, yet insists that his players are in Penn State for an education, not just for football, and requires them to take proper, and not fraud courses. He's nearly 80 years old. He worked as assistant coach for 16 years, and has been head coach since 1966.

Meet Joe Pa.

The university, in honour of the Paternos' philanthropy, named an extension of the Pattee Library after them. So now we have the Pattee and Paterno libraries. Personally I think it's a bad idea to name something after a living person, especially if he is still in the university's employ. But that's the way it works here.

The Physical and Mathematical Sciences Library is housed in Davey Lab (Davey and Osmond Labs house the Physics department.). Such a change from the brown bound rows of books at Kelkar. What's really nice is their check out policy.

First of all, aside from journals which can only be taken out for two hours at a time, standard books can be issued by graduate students for.... the semester. Semester loan. Now, I wish I had had that at Kanpur. And second, the limit on the number of books you can check out per person is.... no, guess. Go ahead. Give it a shot.

200.

200 books per person.

Woohoo!

Continuing on the subject of books, there is a very nice cafe - cum - bookstore downtown called Webster's. It looks really good. Lots of second hand stuff, shelves filled to near overflowing, and what seems to be a rather nice collection of old and new SF&F. I could probably just sit there and read. I guess I'll save that for the occasional weekend.

Of course, man does not live on words alone. He's got to have grub. I haven't yet signed up for the meal plan, so I'm still eating out. Except for breakfast - I go for cereal then.

On campus there exist a few eating places in the HUB - which is actually the Hetzel Union Building, but which actually is the HUB of student events. On weekends they show movies there and have board games that you can borrow for a few hours and play. More about that later. Downtown, however, offers much more variety - there are Chinese restaurants, Indian ones (The India Pavilion serves an all you can eat Buffet for about $7.00), Austrian, American - and if you wander a little further afield, you can find Viet-Thai and Korean restaurants too. In Pennsylvania the law is that you can smoke if you are over 18, and you can drink if you're over 21. But you have to prove your age with a state issued ID (like a driver's license) or your passport. As we're not too fond of carrying my passport around, the other international students and I usually can't join our American friends when they enter bars. We did do it a couple of times while we were carrying our passports, but for me, since I don't drink, it's just not worth the hassle. There is, however, a nice band at Zeno's, one of the downtown bars. The Department of Motor Vehicles does issue a non-Driver's License proof-of-age ID - I'll have to get one sometime.

Most places close by 8pm, so if you're feeling peckish late at night, you can either go to the local supermarket which closes at midnight, or one of the places that serve alcohol after 9pm, or like me, you can visit Ye Old College Diner. The Diner is something which I sorely missed at IITK - it's open 24 hours. Well, most days. It has hiccups in its service schedule occasionally. Now that my eating schedule has changed I haven't visited it in sometime - but I rather like it. I have a favourite waitress who actually remembered me, at least in the days when I was semi-regular, if only because I'd ask her each time if they had tuna. They usually didn't, which was a pity, since the tuna and the BLT (bacon-lettuce-tomato) sandwiches were among the best on their menu. Another place I've visited a couple of times is Baby's .... something and Shakes. I can't remember. It's a kinda retro-diner, with a 1950's (?) ridiculous red and white decor. They serve marvellous milkshakes.

At home, in the apartment, I eat cereal in the morning - occasionally I make myself peanut butter - jam sandwiches.

Ah. Home. I forgot about that.

On the 22nd of August I finally left the flies of Sproul Hall behind, and moved (a day late) into my accomodation at White Course apartments. For some reason the name had made me think that the buildings would be white - actually, they're brick. The name possibly comes from the sand in the adjacent golf course.

Moving took a little longer than expected. First I had to wait for transportation to shift my stuff - the International Student Services (ISS) dept kindly took care of that. After reaching White Course, I had to wait again while a slight glitch was sorted out. It turned out that they had given the key to my room to a maintenance person for repairs and cleaning, and he hadn't returned it. Unwilling to send me into a room which might not be clean and the key to which was in somebody else's possession, they shifted me to another room in the same flat. So I shifted from the B bedroom to the C bedroom. This has caused me slight inconveniences as I have had to change to my address on all the forms that I had filled. However, problem sorted, I shifted into my new room.

The flat is already furnished, and comes complete with:
In each bedroom:
telephone and net connections, a bed, a wardrobe, a chair, a desk with an inbuilt light, two sets of drawers, a mirror on the back of the door and blinds on the windows.
In the flat in general:
a sofa, chairs, a dining table with chairs, a washing machine, a dryer, a fridge, an oven, a microwave, kitchen cabinets....

My roommates are Josh, who is in Chemistry and work with RNA, and Masaki, who is Japanese, and works in Communication and Interpersonal Dynamics, or something similar. Interestingly, the third roommate, who was supposed to occupy the C bedroom, and who would now occupy my old B bedroom, has not, to the best of my knowledge, arrived. Today was the first day of fall term - maybe he's come. I'll have to check.

All in all, the flat's a good deal, and though a little expensive, since it already has everything and I don't have to arrange for extra facilities, and since I don't spend much time there, I'm inclined to think that I'll stick with it next year. I'll have to see how it feels through the year. There is a campus bus that runs quite close by, and it's only a short walk/cycle away from my department.

Oh. Right. The cycle.

Heheh.

I've got wheels!

After Shivakumar told us about the cheap cycles available at Walmart, I stopped looking for a cheap secondhand bicycle, and Arthur and I went to Walmart to shop for bikes. There are two Walmarts nearby - we somehow missed catching a bus to the first, so we ended up going to the second one. I ended up buying a cycle for about $54 - but the accessories - helmet (which doesn't fit properly and which I hardly wear), front and back lights (mandatory for night cycling), pump, lock - came to more than the cycle, I think. The final total was around $115-125. Arthur bought a more expensive bike for $98, but it had better gears.

Then came the fun part. We cycled back.

Our timing had gotten a little messed up, so Arthur was running late for an appointment with a prof. It's been about a year since I rode a cycle for any slightly prolonged period of time. I was (and still am) terribly out of shape, so Arthur quickly left me behind as we cycled off. It didn't help that there were uphill rides, and that I was still not used to changing gears (it is my first multi-speed bike, after all). But Arthur was very kind/considerate/thoughtful, since he checked back on me every now and then, and once when he had left me out of sight, and I had slowed down to the point that I found it easier to get off and walk the cycle, he came back to check that everything was okay. Which was fortunate, considering that I didn't know the way back as well as he did. Arthur still managed to meet the prof, and I completed my first ride on the edge of a major roadyway, with traffic whizzing past. The fun was in the downslopes - the speed you build is amazing, as well as scary, considering that you're cycling on the hard shoulder of the road, which isn't that wide, and you have traffic whizzing past you from behind at who-knows-how-many miles per hour. Since then I have confined myself to the campus and downtown. More road warrior adventures will have to wait for another day. I still tire very easily while cycling - in contrast, my walking has improved to near old levels. But with a cycle, I can explore the campus more quickly, and discover new places.

Of course, with people, you still have to do it the old-fashioned way. My circle of acquaintances has grown, but of course, a lot depends on how frequently you meet. Getting to know people is not easy. I have always been a little reticent about getting acquainted with people in situations where our roles are not predefined. Even when the introductions happen smoothly and quickly, I can often find myself alone in a crowded room, sometimes tired of the niceties that one must spout to keep a conversation going. But a new place is a fresh start, where people don't know you. That works both ways - while you may not have a friend who understands you completely, with whom you can be perfectly casual and at ease, you also have no prior reputation, you are free to make a fool of yourself. Which is what I proceeded to do with abandon during the International Students Orientation.

One trick for getting to know people is getting involved in a group activity. So, despite my reservations, during Orientation I signed up for a game of broomball.

Broomball is ice hockey - only there are no skates, only your sneakers; there is no puck, only a blue ball; and there are not hockey sticks, only .... sticks called brooms, though they really aren't. Otherwise it's pretty much the usual field game - offense, defense, goalie. Try to score. Try to save. Try to block.

I won't go into the details of the match, except to say that my team lost (twice). Personally I think it's because our offensive lacked punch. Naturally, I was playing defensive ;). Nevertheless, in other respects it was a success - I met quite a few people, some of whom I still run into now and then. There was Rayos, originally from Nigeria but who has lived a lot in the UK. There was Valentina from Columbia. There was 'Charlie' from South Korea, and Philip, and Mathai (a Keralite settled in UK). Most of the UK people are just exchange students who've come over for a year. There was also an undergrad from Hong Kong called Yan Tze (well, that's my guess as to how her name is spelt).

Another night, the ISS people took us out bowling. This was my first time (in my life) out bowling, so I sucked colossally. Actually that's not a valid excuse. Venkat was bowling for the first time too, and he won both his games. Venkat is the talkative Madrasi Bombay chap I mentioned last time. He likes to tease me, and unfortunately I tend to respond, but I'm learning to dampen my responses. For some reason he seems to gets a kick out of my being a physicist. Whazzever. He's an Antenna Engineer. Or will be.

I still managed to meet a couple of people, including my first Egyptian - a girl called Passant. Everytime I say her name I think of the chess move 'en passant' - in passing. I met her again later when a group gathered to play board games. One group played Monopoly, but I watched the group that was playing Risk.

I arrived too late to join the game, and I have never played Risk on a board - I've played it on a computer, but that was different. Actually the others hadn't played it either, so they made up some of the rules on the way. That made it more chaotic, but way fun. I just stood outside and kibitzed, passing comments that provoked the occasional burst of laughter. The game never really finished - we called it quits around three in the morning. I didn't learn any names, but I would later meet Passant and one of the players again - an African guy called Selom. Again, my approximation.

Besides games, social gatherings are a good time to meet people. There was an International Coffee Hour, where I finally met Shivakumar. Shiv is one of my new physics batchmates - he did Electrical Engg in B'lore, then a Masters in Physics at Texas A&M University. He knows Vishwesha quite well.

I suppose I'd better introduce the rest of my batch. I described some of them last time, but now the batch is pretty complete. First off let me add Chune Yang Lum, the Singaporean wunderkind, who did 2.5 years National Service. If you've ever filled out a visa form, you know that there's a section where you have to say whether you've had

a) any Military Service
b) any training with explosives
c) any training with Chemical weapons/warfare
d) any training with Biological weapons/warfare
e) any training with Nuclear weapons/warfare.

Chune Yung had to tick yes for a,b,c and e. His training didn't actually involve using nuclear or chemical weapons, but he did train in defense against them. He's also climbed some 6,000 m peak. Scary chap, he hardly looks his 26 years.

Secondly we have Joel. Well, that's the easy name he gave himself - his Chinese name is something else. He's from Taiwan, and had a lot of visa problems, so he arrived late.

Then we have Edward Wilson-Ewing. He's from Canada, and plays Ultimate. Ultimate is Ultimate Frisbee, which I like to say is like touch rugby without the touching, and without the rugby. He's trying out for the PSU team.

Then we have the Americans. There's Ronald Stites, whom I mentioned last time, and David Caven, and Aaron Miller, who's from Pennsylvania but studied in Cornell, and Adam Henderson, and Seth Timpano (who studied here in PSU in Astrophysiics but then switched over), and Gerardo Giordano (who's married, like Ronald), and Joshua West, who worked here in the summer, as did Maria Dahlberg, who's the only girl.

That covers the 18 of us.

The other community that I've slowly been getting to know is the White Course one. It turns out that Venkat is Zhongyao's flatmate. Philip stays in the same hall as me. So does Anushree, an Indian girl who's in Integrated Biosciences. India-wise, there's Smita, who's very sparky despite being confined to a wheelchair, and who is studying Special Ed; there's Uma (that is in fact, just Uma. She's dropped her last name, I don't know why) who's doing Industrial Labour; Nilesh who is in Aerospace if I'm not mistaken, Ashish, an Indian family whose names slip my mind, and Kripali, who's lived in the States for a few years. I've also met other people, like Andrea, Kripali's flatmate, but only time will show how often I run into the same people.

Of course, getting to know people aside, I made a fool of myself on general principles too, like the time during Orientation when I took a one-time introductory class in .....

Salsa.

Heheh. I was horrible, but it was fun, and I may join the classes, after I figure out how busy my schedule here is. Fall term started today, and we had two classes. Tomorrow will tell me more. For now, I had better stop, or this entry will never get finished. Adios, amigos.

Learning to Walk

2005-08-15T09:19:00.000-07:00

I often like to characterize myself as a misfit - perhaps in a lame attempt at coolness, most often as a whiney excuse. I lived in India from age 6.5 to 22.5. That's 16 years. The two languages that should have been mine - Malayalam and Hindi - I never tried properly to pick up. Consequently, a large part of Indian culture has always been off limits to me. Another consequence is that I never grew up. I hated talking on the phone, I wasn't too fond of meeting people, or dealing with shopkeepers, or asking for directions. Why? The language barrier. That was what I told myself. Sooner or later they would notice my lack of proficiency in the language, and then the questions would start, and I would be embarrassed/mortified, and have no good reply. That was the crutch I provided myself, and I could always take refuge in that.

Until now.

Now, for the first time in my life, I am in a country where the predominant language is the one language I speak fluently. English.

That means no more excuses. If I want something, I have to go and ask people if I don't know how to do it. I have to communicate - interact. I'm standing free.

For years I've traded one ivory tower for another. This last move was really no different. I went from the isolation of school to the seclusion of IIT Kanpur. From there I moved to PSU. But now in Penn State, I have to look after myself.

No more dhobi - I've got to do my own laundry. No problems there, though I still have to get the hang of ironing properly.

No more mess hall. Well, that's not quite right. I'm likely to be busy, so I'll probably sign up for a meal plan and eat meals in the dining commons. Even otherwise I usually just stop at a restaurant or deli and order stuff. But I can expect to spend the occasional weekend morning cooking something for myself. That is, once I shift into my new apartment. Which should happen on the 22nd or so.

So basically, I have to figure out what my needs are and then go buy the stuff I need. Nobody's spoonfeeding me any more. A few days ago my roommate and I were hit by an infestation of houseflies. They just started with about 3 or 4 one night and then multiplied by the next morning. It was horrible. I must have killed atleast 16 flies by now. I'm getting quite good at it - but there are still atleast 5 left. It's like the Hydra - whenever I kill one, another takes its place. Plus what worries me is that if the survving ones mate and breed, I'll end up with uber-flies. Temporary solution - I bought a table fan. For $20.

See that's the other thing about the States. Everything is expensive. When you convert it into rupees, at least. The important thing is to be economical, but not to get frightened by the money you're spending - if it's on essentials. Still 20 dollars was actually a bad bargain, considering I could have perhaps got a secondhand one for $10, or a smaller one for less at Walmart.

Walmart. I visited it for the first time yesterday night, and I didn't get much time to really wander round, but yeah, things are usually cheaper there. It's a busride away from the campus, and there are few other big stores nearby that I'll have to visit. Once I shift and figure out what I need, that is. And after seeing what my roommates bring.

Still no idea who they're going to be. I checked a site here that gives your roommate assignment, and it lists me alone in a four bedroom apartment. The ridiculous part is that there is a (metaphorical) line of people waiting to get an apartment at White Course. I know, because one of my Physics batchmates is one of them.

Guess I better introduce them. Zhongyao Sun is the guy waiting to get into White Course. He's from Beijing, and it's his first trip out of China - he has been to Hong Kong though. His English is pretty good, and we're reasonably friendly now. But he's a bit too liberal, which is why Arthur and I suspect him of being an agent of the Chinese secret police.

Arthur Tsobanjan is from Estonia, a little republic that broke away from the old USSR, and that is pretty close to Finland. His father is Armenian, his mother Ukrainian, so his first language is Russian. But he spent the last 6 years studying in the UK (2 in school, 4 getting a Masters in Imperial College, London) so he speaks with a British accent. Like me, he to hopes to get into Gravity. Most of the others want to do Condensed Matter, I think.

Xinyuan Dou is probably the biggest of us, sizewise, but he's also very quite. He's also from China, and I'm pretty sure he has a paper or two to his name, on carbon nanotubes, I think.

The only person who is as quiet is Young-Moo Byun. Luckily that's pronounced just as it's written. He's from South Korea, and is 28 years old, which makes him the oldest of us. He's shocked that I'm going for PhD at age 22.5 - he thinks I'm smart, which is a common error people make. He worked in computer programming before, and true to form will probably go into computational Condensed Matter Theory. His English is actually alright, he just has a couple of pronunciation problems which he is already correcting, and a confidence problem, which needs a lot more work.

The fifth international Physics student I met is Cheng-Ing C. I forget the surname. He's a Chinese Malaysian, and he did his undergrad in Taiwan. There is supposed to be another guy from Taiwan joining us in a couple of weeks - he's been having visa problems.

We also met Ronald Stites - he's one of the Americans who will be joining us. At last, a person who has lost more hair than me. Friendly chap, though.

Yesterday was the International Students' picnic, where I met a few other people - including quite a few Indians. I better write down their names before I forget them - my temporary roommate, Nilendra Joshi, from Nainital. He's a Ford Foundation scholar, is joining the Entomology department, has about 5-6 years work experience, tends to sleep a lot, and is sometimes prone to bursts of talkativeness. Arjun, from Bangalore, also with plenty of work ex, worked in Infosys and IISc, going for a Master's in Computer Science, and still remembers some Russian from the time when he studied there. He and Arthur started chatting away, and I just kept laughing. I couldn't help it, it was just funny listening to them speak. I felt like Russell Peters in the elevator with those Africans.

Akshay - don't remember much else about him. There was also Radhesh (?) - again, I can't recall any details. And of course, there was a Southey - Venkat (short for Venkataraman), Tamil origin but settled in Bombay for the last so many years. He's going in for EE, and he's going to be in White Course Apartments too, though in a different hall. Apparently there were also a few IITM guys, but I didn't run into them. And then there was Mithun, again from Bombay I think, who's come to join the MBA programme.

There were a few Indian girls hanging around, but the only one I met was Holika. No, actually, that was Venkat and I heard at first, her name's actually Kolika, and she's a Bong.

Probably the worst thing you can do after travelling thousands of miles to study in a different country is to end up hanging out with only your fellow countrymen (and women, but you know Indian guys ;) ). I vowed to myself that I wouldn't do it, but it seems that I'm no better than the rest. I did meet a Bangladeshi guy while hanging out with the Indian crowd, but eventually I broke free, and then was miserably alone for a little while until I ran into Arthur. So now I was hanging out with my Dept mates.

That actually didn't go too badly. Zhongyao (or Yao, as he now asks everyone to call him before they murder his name) had earlier introduced me to an old universitymate of his called Carol - like many Chinese, she had opted to take an English name for convenience. Now Arthur and I started talking with some of the student volunteers - they were taking names for a few sports teams, and Artthur was signing up for soccer. They weren't taking names for tennis, but the volunteer - a nice Malaysian girl called Nadia, who's a 3rd year undergrad doing biotech - introduced Arthur to a Chinese Chemistry student who also played tennis. I was actually able to pronounce her Chinese name, but she goes by the handle of Sherry in the States. Unfortunately she wasn't so fluent in English, so our conversation quickly meandered and died.

It was a little funny (and sad) seeing the Chinese split into two groups sitting on the grass - mainland and Taiwan, but no one was making any trouble. Yao was excited to see so many Chinese students - and he ended up noting down all their names (40 of them) in a little notepad. More proof he's with the secret police. Still, it was nice for him to find people to speak his native tongue to.

Native tongues, of course, are the slightly ironic reason we ended up in the States so early. Arthur and I found it a little ridiculous that we were being asked to report for an Intensive English course before orientation. Thankfully, though, the class turned out to be a lot more than that. Mind you, we did cover some English problems - it appears I tend to mispronouce the 'v' sound. But a lot of the class time (which was 10.00am -12.00 noon, and 1.30pm - 3.30pm) was taken up with the American classroom, the difficulties of being an international Teaching Assistant, and American culture. In the first class this involved watching an episode of Friends (mphah!); another time we watched a very interesting clip from a movie called Stand and Deliver, based on a true story. Check it out.

It was planned rather smartly - the first instructor was Alina, from Romania, who has been teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) for 8 years, has been in the States for five, and who has been in Penn State for nearly 3 years. So yes, start off with an instructor who is herself a foreigner, ease the students into their new setting with somebody who underwent the same process herself. Now back her up with an American who has a significant amount of experience abroad too - this was Danielle. A fierce Democrat (who recognizes that the party is not doing too great, but argues that Bush is hopeless; we spent at least half an hour discussing Bush, USA foreign policy and our respective countries), she used to train in modern historical fencing. Basically it's fencing which is more freestyle than collegiate (Olympic) fencing, with less rules. She talked about it while giving a demo on how to give a presentation - and she brought the swords (foils, really) to class! It was pretty cool. She has a tendency to say 'you know' a lot, but does not scare us as much as Alina, who accidentally keeps telling us things about TAship that frighten us. Like all the legal disclaimers we have to include when we announce a syllabus, and how occasionally a student may sue a TA.

Today the course ended, and after her morning session, Alina took us out to an Austrian resaurant caled Herwig's. I had a lunch that was so filling that I'm still not really hungry - and it's now 9.30pm. I had a bratwurst. It's a lovely little place, run by a family, and nearly everything is homemade. Bring your sense of humour is what they say - and they are quite a hilarious family. Check this out: a small notice on the table asks you to eat all the food you are served, or else you will be forced to choose between:

1. Scrubbing dishes
2. Being beaten with a large wooden stick (which is red, and hangs rather prominently on the wall)
3. Asking for a box and being charged $35 for it
4. Warning them in advance, so that they can give you smaller servings and charge twice as much.

Heh. :) .

I have more news to tell, of America in general and Penn State in particular, but that will have to wait for later.

Until we meet again, Dear Readers.

Au revoir.

E.L.I.T.I.S.T. (O.R.) E-List of Interesting Things I Saw Today (Or Recently)| Vol. 1

2005-07-11T23:44:00.000-07:00

Hello, and welcome to ELITIST(OR). I realized that I was coming across a whole lot of interesting things that I wanted to share with other people, but didn't want to write mails about continuously, and which I might not like enough to put on the sidebar. So I've put together a list of things that caught my eye, and have provided, when possible, the links. The list will be updated at random intervals, and things which I like a lot will eventually make their way to my sidebar. Other things will be discarded, so it's important that you check regularly to find out what's new (That another way of saying, "Read, darn you!"). Feel free to comment (Yet another way of saying the same thing, but more obliquely).

So, first up on the list: ....

....(roll of drums, sound of trumpets).....

.....web comics!

Once again, thanks to Adi, who brought Questionable Content to my notice. Apurva has described it as similar to Garfield - I see his point, but Marten is a bit better off than Jon, in my opinion :). Also, despite the strip criticising Friends, the artist himself acknowledges that the comic does seems like a sitcom at times. Anyhow, Questionable Content follows the life and adventures (?) of Marten Reed, his AnthroPC PintSize (kinda like a robot) and his various friends. One nice thing about web comics is that if a comic lasts long enough, you get to see the artist's style and art change and (hopefully) improve. Questionable Content is updated 3 times a week, so it's fairly regular.

Incidentally, can anyone fill me in on the meaning of the slang word 'emo' ? It's used quite a lot in QC, but I recently saw it used by a kid to describe Harry Potter!

But hold on, QC was just the tip of the iceberg! Following the links provided at the QC sidebars led me to other great artists and web comics. One of my favourites, which unfortunately is not being updated very regularly at the moment, is Fallen. This fantasy manga is set in a different world, and revolves around an extremely fascinating and diverse set of characters, including a Fallen Angel, a talking scythe and a Boa Constrictor (or is it a Coastal Carpet Python?). Though not too much has happened storywise, the artist (a Japanese female named Aido) has sketched out the characters really well (meaning she's fleshing them out, making them intriguing by dropping background info bit by bit) and has created an interesting mythology for her world. I wish she would update it more frequently, but she apparently broke her right hand recently. Ouch.

For those who are confused, like I was a few days ago, anime is Japanese style animation - think Robotech, Samurai X, Inu Yasha - and a manga is basically a Japanese comic - the different is animation vs still pics. For a list of apparently interesting anime, check out the discussion on the forums at Fallen. I haven't even heard of most of the stuff they mention. However, I have recently got hooked on to Animax, and whenever possible I watch these anime.

On with the web comics.

Little Gamers: This 'minimalist' comic is apparently accused of being a rip-off - I'm not sure of what, though there are a few South Park references (Check out the ninjas!). Regardless, I enjoy it, and I've collected here a few strips which I really liked, though you should really try reading the whole lot.

Kickass Intro

Lan-party in a nutshell

Ninjas!, entrance stage right

Computer Style #3

Computer Style #4

Internet-less (mr.Madsen special)

Subtitled kung-fu style #2

Madsen Month #11

Phone home

Hopefully you enjoyed those. Now, take a look at Ctrl-Alt-Del:

Heheh.

Back to Fantasy web comics. Now that Fallen is currently in limbo, my current favourite fantasy manga is Wish 3. Thankfully, it is currently being updated regularly. A spin on the old idea of 3 wishes, the artwork is above average and improving, and the storyline is promising. The characters are slowly being fleshed out: over all, it's quite good.

For a rather well-drawn and extremely well-coloured fantasy comic, read Cascadia. However, I must confess that I haven't read this particular one very far as I wasn't particularly hooked on to it. Still, check out the graphics.

Semi-decent, and with a somewhat intriguing storyline, Nine Swords involves humans, vampires, and these wolfy type chaps who are not werewolves, but do have bushy tails.....

You could check out Arcana, but my gripe about this is that despite being called Arcana, we only find that (Arcana) mentioned in the comic after about 50-70 strips.... and I still don't know what it is. Maybe I wasn't paying attention. Also, it features gay vampires, so... well, whatever. Not my thing :).

Demonology 101 as far as I have read it, seems quite decent, and one BIG thing in its favour is that the main story is apparently complete, and there is currently a spin-off going on.

One nutty but extremely imaginative comic is 9th Elsewhere. In its own words, "Since Jan '03, the webcomic '9th Elsewhere' has shared the story of an unhappy girl and her oddball muses trapped together in a dream. The entire comic is free to read online; updates on Monday and Wednesday."

That about covers it. For a lot of links to some pretty decent web comics, check out the links page at www.fallencomic.com .

And finally, for those of you who despair at your artistic ability, check out White Ninja. Beware though.... the humour is .... a leeettle strange.

White Ninja finds a severed head

White Ninja and the bucket of eyes

White Ninja and the growling pirate

White Ninja and the spiders that got him at last

White Ninja to the rescue

Salut!

Rare Hand Axe.

Anime

2005-07-10T23:42:00.000-07:00

For those who are confused, like I was a few days ago, anime is Japanese style animation think Robotech, Samurai X, Inu Yasha, and a manga is basically a Japanese comic - the different is animation vs still pics. For a list of apparently interesting anime, check out the discussion on the forums at Fallen. I haven't even heard of most of the stuff they mention. However, I have recently got hooked on to Animax, and whenever possible I watch these anime:

The Vision of Escaflowne: Fantasy, swords, machines, kings and princes, Atlantis - aaaaah (sigh of content). Do not be deceived by the first episode - it simply provides a little background on one of the main characters, but after that the action shifts to a different world. Whopee!

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Having enjoyed the movie greatly, I was extremely eager to catch this series once Issac told me about it. I was not disappointed. GitShell looks at a future where man and machine are integrated to an incredible level. Very few people are 100% natural - most have cyber implants of one kind or another. The series has great action and plots, but also deals with philosophical questions about the mind and soul and what it means to be human. Most (though not all) of the episodes are stand alone in the sense that they can be viewed independently. Those of you who have seen the movie will notice that the Major is different: she's still hot, though not as much :). And she is still very cool :).

Inu Yasha: Fantasy again, with a motley group of characters (once again including a girl from the modern world, though in this case, she can return home nearly whenever she wants) who include a schoolgirl, a woman with a giant boomerang, a half-dog-half-demon title character, a little demon with a bushy tail, and a lecherous monk, who are currently searching for a big evil thingy. Characters aren't very deep, but are very funny.

Samurai X: Possibly my favourite. Set in the Meiji Restoration after the Tokugawa regime, the story follows the adventures of Kenchi/Batusai Himora, the greatest swordsman of that time. Having discarded the life of extreme violence that he lived when he was the slasher Batusai, the most deadly and famous assassin who worked for the Royalists, Kenchi now stays with a group of friends and tries to protect his community from villains who try to harass people or upset the Restoration. He has sworn never to kill again, and whenever possible tries to resolve matters by talking, but thankfully for the viewers, every now and then he has to draw his sword. And when he does! Amazing action. Check it out: now showing Monday to Friday at 8.30pm and again at 11.30pm on Animax.

Now and then I also watch Clamp School and Alien 9 (which is very weird). More about those later.

Back to the web comics!

The Traveller's Song (1992)

2005-07-10T07:23:00.000-07:00

I am a traveller, on my own,
I have no companions; I'm all alone
Except for my cane and faithful dog,
My only other friend is God.

I walk on and on on roads unknwon to ye
Until I spy a shady tree.
And beneath the shade, while I rest,
I think of the home which I have left,
But I cannot stop! It must be.
for a lone traveller - that is me.

With Apologies to WS (2000)

2005-07-09T08:52:00.000-07:00

This poem is only one of the many parodies of Shakespeare's famous 'To be or not to be' monologue from 'Hamlet, Prince of Denmark' which are availble on the net. Obviously, to appreciate a parody fully, you have to know the original. To that end, I have included below the full text of the famous monologue - and below that, I have written my version.

Shakespeare's original:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

My take on the matter:

To write or not to write
That is the question
Whether it is nobler in the mind of a student at an exam
To suffer without answering the foolish questions a teacher asks
Or to take imagination against a sea of ignorance
And thus by fancy quell it. To write – to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we avoid
The headache and the thousand natural shocks
That blank minds are prone to. To write – to sleep;
For knowing naught what is there to do but sleep?
Ay there’s the rub.
For in that tortured sleep of blankness what answers may arise
And present themselves as solutions to the inward eye
Five minutes before the bell; so that waking we arise
And transcribe our sudden knowledge in ink to virgin sheets
But who would bear the trials of troubles sleep
When he himself might his answers take
From a neighbour, copying
Who would copy, being honest
But that our more knowledgeable neighbour
Being goodness’ self, doth (knowing or unknowing)
Present his paper in such a way
That we may copy with little strain
And transfer to paper the knowledge of his brain
Harmless parasites we
Harm our hosts not intentionally
Except perhaps in scoring more tan he
Thus do exams make blind copiers of us all
And thus do teachers, faces long drawn with fragile smiles
Find identical mistakes in many papers
Striking out the marks intended
The write in red ink beneath the lost score – ‘Copied’
Soft you now! An exam approaches
Teacher, judge us in a more favourable light
And remember we merely exercised our copyright.

The Atheist's Prayer (1997)

2005-07-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

My friends, they find some hope
They say all will turn well
Their faith lies in ancient rituals
Te tolling of a church bell

I, I have no god
No father looks over me
The future lies in my hands
My will is completely free

No destined meetings are there
No miracles take place
Just luck, hard work and optimism
And an always smiling face
Get me through the day
And by night
When others’ secret prayers
Reach up high

My mind lies at rest
In deep sleep
Whatever happens
I will keep
My belief that I alone hold
My future in my hands
I will do my best
And leave the rest
To chance
But to no god’s grace
And so let me find
One day, that what I have become
Is by my efforts, and my mind.

Poetry (2000)

2005-07-09T08:49:00.000-07:00

Poetry.
Was it meant to be
Obscure ramblings of your showcase mind
Or distant thunder mutterings
Of your brain grown old or senile philosophically young?

We use metaphors
Snatching infinite meaning from circumstance
And we are lucky if people who read us know them
Otherwise we remain obscure
Something for scholars and poetry students to decipher.

Who is poetry for?
Cathartic man or woman
Getting out something
May be a whim?

Or are you talking
To people you can’t see
Reading your lines by a light of their own

What you say is not your own
The words have been spoken a thousand times
Before and after. Agreed.

But are you talking?
Do you intend to wind about
With musty bylanes and grey corridors
Chuckling over anecdotes but you know

Or are desperately trying to express
What cannot or should not.
In your discordant harmony of words
Are you berating, trumping,
Planting your foot on and shoving away
Language? Upchucking your
I suppose rigid education?
Getting the real feel?

Why are we writing?
If for others
Can we as poets afford to be so obscure
In our references to private haunts

Or are we just expressing a perfect metaphor
And leave no footnotes to tell the story?

Why are we writing?
What do we mean?

The speech of dusty pages

2005-06-26T22:08:00.000-07:00

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
- George Santayana

One tends to wonder about the purpose of teaching history – indeed this is a question which many a school student must have raised in tragic rhetoric. The purpose of teaching history, it is averred, is to teach future generations about the past. But to teach them what?

If one views a community as a collection of individuals with a shared characteristic, then one sees nations as entities defined by historical happenstance, their boundaries drawn by the words of a treaty, the straight edge of a ruler (as in the states of the USA) or a congregation of people who speak the same tongue (as in the states of India). As Prince Clement Metternich said, “Italy is a geographical expression.” A lot of history is taught to give people a sense of heritage, of pride in where they come from – but that reduces history to a tool to whip up jingoistic fervour. One must know where one came from to know where one must go. But where are nations headed? To further divisions (witness the collapse of the USSR) or to unification (the unification of Germany, or Vietnam)?

In today’s world of largely democratic countries, what does it avail to know the dynastic manipulations of past monarchs, except as a tool to understand and predict the behaviour of other men of great power and vanity. What can we learn from Alexander’s conquest of Porus? It is a useful lesson in military tactics, and also instructive as to how to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, or how to handle loss with dignity. But are these the aspects that are emphasized? Rarely.

In terms of applied history, one might recommend Machiavelli, or Balthasar Gracian, who use history as a wealth of experience, of successes and mistakes from which one may learn, and thus become a Prince, or Hero.

The plethora of details one memorizes in school rarely serves any purpose. The true function of dates in history is that of milestones. They serve to plot a timeline, to observe how effect succeeded cause, to show how simultaneous events in other parts of the globes slowly (or quickly) made their influence felt.

No, history makes sense if one views it as a struggle between forces, between such factors such religion, nationalism (or other collective isms) and economics. A good illustration of this idea may be found in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation. History is the story of Man, and what must be learnt are the lessons that man has learnt, or is still learning: the lessons of colonialism and slavery, of gender equality, of racism and genocide, of the progress of science and its influence. The little details are important, but they must be seen in the light of the bigger picture, and the interplay understood.

I end this minor rant with a passage from “The Man in the Moon”, a short story by Peter Ustinov. The story is of a British scientist, John Kermidge, who has developed a rocket to take man to the moon, but has been asked by his government to withhold the details from his fellow scientists for the sake of national pride and military security:

' John began speaking slowly, trying hard to control his voice, which was quivering. “I hold no brief for American scientists, or for Russian scientists, or for British scientists for that matter. I have friends and enemies in all camps, since to the true men of science there are no frontiers, only advances; there are no nations, only humanity. This may sound subversive to you, but it is true, and I will explain, as temperately as I can, why it is true, what has made it true. You, sir, talked of Columbus. In his day, men for all their culture, fine painting, architecture, humanism, the rest, were still relatively savage. Life was cheap. Death was the penalty for a slight misdemeanour, slavery the penalty for an accident of birth. And why? Because there was space to conquer, horizons full of promise. Conquest was the order of the day. The avid fingers of Britain, France, Spain and Portugal stretched into the unknown. Then, abruptly, all was found, all was unravelled. Germany and Italy attempted to put the clock back, and behaved as everyone had once behaved, and were deemed criminal for no other reason that that they were out of date and that their internal persecutions were carried out against men of culture, and white men at that, instead of against their colonial subjects. They were condemned by mankind, and rightly so, because they were hungry for glory at a time when other nations were licking their chops, sated by a meal which had lasted for centuries. And why did we all become so civilised, so abruptly? Because, sir, there was nothing left to conquer, nothing left to seize without a threat of general war; there was no space left.” John mopped his brow briefly and continued. “Now what has happened? We have become conscious of space again. Cheated of horizons down on earth, we have looked upwards and found horizons there. What will that do to us? It will put us back to pre-Columbian days. It will be the signal for military conquest, for religious wars. There will be crusades for a Catholic moon, a Protestant moon, a Muslim moon, a Jewish moon. If there are inhabitants up there, we will persecute them mercilessly before we begin to realize their value. You can’t feel affection for a creature you have never seen before, especially if it seems ugly by our standards. The United Nations will lose all control, because its enemy is the smell of space in the nostrils of the military. Life will become cheap again, and so will glory. We will put the clock back to the days of darkness, and our growing pains in the stratosphere will be at least as painful as those we suffered here on earth. I want no part of it.”

The Prime Minister looked at him with genuine affection and offered him another cigar, which he accepted automatically, with a shaking hand.

“You are looking at the world with the eyes of a historian,” said the Prime Minister, “but the world is not run by historians. It is a luxury we cannot afford. We can’t study events from such a comfortable distance, nor can we allow ourselves to be embittered so easily by the unfortunate parallels and repetitions of history. As a historian, you are no doubt right, since you look back so far in order to look forward, but as a politician you are wrong, you are wrong as a patriot.”

“I have no ambitions as a patriot,” John answered. “I want to be a man the world is proud of.”

“You are young,” said the Prime Minister, lighting a match for John. “Incidentally, the Archbishop of Canterbury has expressed an urgent desire to meet you.”

“I knew it,” cried John, “a Church of England moon!”'

Fate will not be cheated (short story)

2005-06-17T12:46:00.000-07:00

Fate will not be cheated …

Rakhi wandered through the fair. Her son Rahul was taking a ride on the big wheel with some friends and, now Rakhi glanced through the stalls to find something to amuse herself.

An odd, even comic looking ramshackle hut caught her eyes. The board advertised a palm reader, a teller of fortunes, but was so ridiculous in its wording and its list of suggested questions that one would like answered, that Rakhi who was an advertising executive, could not help smiling. She worked for a fairly big ad agency and had taken a recently long overdue 2 months break. Unfortunately Sandeep, her architect husband, had got saddled with a project just then and there plans of a long vacation had been delayed to the second month. This was how Rakhi found herself wandering around a fair with Rahul and his friends.

Rakhi looked at the sign again. How did people fall for the tricks these fraudsters played, she wondered? But she knew the answer — people believe what they want to. Let’s see if this one can fool me, said Rakhi to herself, as she pushed aside the curtain and entered the dim interiors.

Her eyes took time adjusting to the darkness. It was not complete — the night sky of the thatched roof was starry with pinpricks of light, and the occasional beam wandered like a lost stranger to disappear in the murky corners. A single beam shone well on the central wooden table. No dark crystal ball lay in the spotlight, but the plain worn wooden surface reflected enough to help illuminate the face of the palmist who had been waiting patiently for Rakhi to notice her.

With a gesture the fortuneteller invited her to sit on the chair opposite. Seating herself Rakhi was surprised to find herself still in the dark. She had expected the palmist to try and get a look at her face in order to guess something about her.

Instead they both lay in the darkness, with the beam of light in between them as a barrier. There was a moment of silence, and then Rakhi placed her palm on the table like an offering.

The palmist bent forward slightly. She was an old woman. She hardly seems to look at the palm as she traced her fingers over the lines that lay engraved in the soft supple skin.

“Where shall I start?” she asked. “The past, the present, the future?”
“The past and the present,” said Rakhi with a note of challenge in her voice.
The palmist smiled slightly. Rakhi knew she was not the first to put her to this test.
“You are a young woman of about twenty-seven, with a husband and a single son. You will have a daughter in about nine months.”
Rakhi caught her breath. She had gone to the hospital for the pregnancy test just that morning. She hadn’t even told Sandeep yet. But this woman knew……

Rakhi was convinced. After a pause, the old woman laid out her past. For the most part she gave a brief outline, but occasionally she gave astonishingly personal details. She was embarrassed to find such details written clearly on her palms, there for those who could read them.

“And now the future.” The fingers moved along a line. A small frown crossed the palmist’s face. She went back and forth over a certain spot, circling it, then with a slightly troubled face move down the line.

“Your daughter will be a special child. Two years from now you will change your job. You will become involved in social work. You will become very religious. You will be swindled a lot of money by fake fortunetellers…”
‘Sandeep will never allow that’, thought Rakhi.
“You will find—you will have a good father for your children”, said the palmist.
“What do mean ‘find’?” said Rakhi, puzzled.
“I am sorry my child,” she said in a low whisper, as her fingers went back to the same spot. “Your husband will die in a month.”

Everything in her brain screamed it was impossible, it was irrational, but she had already seen this woman read her life like a story from a book, she needed to know…

Her throat like a dried fountain, a trickle of voice whispered, pleaded, “How?”
“In a car accident.”

Rakhi leaned back. A wave of dread, then a surge of love for her husband, for the father of her children; she would not let this happen, she would stop it, she would warn him.

She hurriedly opened her purse and put down some money on the table. She ran to the door.

“You will try, but you cannot cheat fate.” The voice stopped her. She looked back at the old woman, who leaned slightly in to the shaft of light. Rakhi gasped and then rushed out. The woman had cataracts in both her eyes.

Outside, she reached into her handbag for her mobile, and then hesitated. Wishing to clear her mind, she started walking in the nearby park.

She had never believed in fortune telling, but today all that had been turned upside down. She tried to rationalize. How could the old woman have told her in such great detail how her husband was going to die? In a car accident — in such detail? But she knew she loved Sandeep deeply--such things could be written on her palms as well as his.

But she did not believe in inevitable fate. She would fight. She would change it. She wondered if that too was written on her palms. Would she succeed? Could she change the lines?

On reaching home, Rakhi was less certain about telling her husband. The thought of the way Sandeep would ridicule her when he found out that she had believed a fortuneteller did more to convince her then rational thinking. Perhaps the woman knew a nurse in the hospital … but it was all very unsatisfactory.

The next morning she quietly suggested, “Why don’t you take the train to work today?”
“The train?” he laughed, “why it would be twice the distance, what with going to and coming from the station. Why what’s wrong with the car?”
“Oh, it pollutes and all that…”
“I could join a car pool if you like”.
“No, I just don’t want you to go by car for a few days.”
“Why on earth?”
“Well, there could be an accident…”
“Rakhi, it’s been two years since we brought this car. Why the sudden fear of an accident?”
“Oh, I read that there are a lot of accidents these days and … oh, nothing.”

She stalked off.

He took the car to work. He returned as usual at 5:30pm. She heaved a sigh of relief as she watched the car turn into the garage of their house. She had been waiting by the window for the last two hours.

The next day at 5:30 he hadn’t come in. She started to reach for the phone when it rang. It was him, on the mobile. He was stuck in a traffic jam, it looked as if it would last for a couple of hours. When he reached home, he found her tensed but controlled. He tried to talk about it, but the conversation at the dinner table was one sided. Rahul was asleep.

The next night he returned at 7.30pm. He found her sitting on a chair in a corner, the room dark except for a lit table lamp near her. She was huddled up, her dark curtain of hair hiding a face streaked by golden trails of tears.

He approached her cautiously. “Shashank got a promotion. We were celebrating at his place. I tried calling up at six but the phone was engaged…”

“It was engaged because I was calling the police station and all the hospitals.” She lifted her face and he saw her red eyes.

“There is no need to be so worried when I’m late. I …”. His words fell limply in the air as she walked into the bedroom and locked him out.

They breakfasted in silence. When he reached for the car keys her self-restraint broke. She grabbed him and begged him not to go by car.

Slowly, between sobs, he extracted the story. At first he tried reasoning with her. She could not convey to him the stunning accuracy of the blind palmist.

“You can bring your work home—you can work from here—you used to do it.”
“How long would you want this to go on?” he asked in exasperation.
“Just another twenty-seven days…”

He walked out in anger. She ran after him and stood in front of the car.
Two hours of arguments later he gave in.

Twenty days passed. Rakhi did all the shopping. She never let Sandeep step out of the house. One week left.
The seven days dragged slowly. Sandeep was short tempered and exasperated. The days passed with Sandeep working alone in his study and Rakhi in the kitchen. Conversations consisted of silences and hot words. Rahul was confused and sad. He had been glad that his father was home more often, but he didn’t see much of him. He was sad and lonely and took to playing in the hall at the top of the stairs.

The last day dawned. Rakhi was up early making breakfast. She came out of the kitchen and saw Sandeep standing at the top of the stairs. They paused and looked at each other.

“The last day,” he called out.
“Yes,” and a smile crossed their faces.

He laughed and took a step down with his arms open to hold her.

What happened next would always remain to Rakhi a series of stills, like photos taken under a flashing light.

He slipped—a look of surprise crossed his face—he sailed forward—he fell—he hit his head—he tumbled down the stairs and landed spread-eagled at her feet.

Her screams brought the neighbours.

As they covered the body with a sheet, Rakhi reached down to pick up the object on which he had slipped. A look of incredulous fear passed over her face and she fainted. When they pried open her hand, they found a toy of her son’s—a small toy car.

*---------------------------------------------*----------------------------------------------------*

Icecandyman: creative rewrite

2005-06-17T12:41:00.000-07:00

Warning! This piece should only be read if you have read the novel "Ice candy man" by Bapsi Sidhwa. Watching the movie Earth (aka 1947 Earth) is not sufficient.

Creative Interrogation
Creative Piece

(This rewritten ending takes place after Hamida is hired, and after Lenny has seen Ayah in the taxi.)

The creak of the gate signaled Hamida’s arrival. As she came in I ran to her and asked, “Well, did you see her?”
Hamida looked at me a long while as I stared at her expectantly. Then with a sigh she sat down on the floor. I threw myself into her lap and she massaged my legs, for the moment ignoring my demanding, “Well?”
At last she said, “Yes, I met your Ayah.”
Yesterday the Ice-candy man had come to our house searching for Ayah, and had then tried to enter the fallen women’s camp, but the Sikh guard had beaten him up. Today he sat outside the camp, waiting for her.
“So how is she? Where was she? How did she get here?” I shot off the questions.
“She is well… now. When I saw her, she looked tired, but happy.” Hamida fell silent again. She seemed to be thinking of something that she could not quite understand.
“And? Did she become an actress? And who were those two poets I saw her with?” I prompted her.
Hamida looked at me slightly shocked. Then it seemed she made up her mind about something, and told me,
“When I saw her, I thought I would just sit with her and let her cry. But she wanted to speak. She wanted to tell me her story… I have never seen a woman yet who wished to speak of… but she talked. When the ice-candy wallah took your Ayah, he took her to… Hira Mandi, where she was mistreated… by several men… her honour shamed. She was a dancing girl… and then when Baiji tried to get her out, your ice-candy wallah married her.”
“She’s a bride!” I said, pleasantly surprised. I was still slightly bewildered at having heard so many sentences all at once from Hamida. Usually you had to push her into conversation. Hamida continued inspite of the interruption.
“But though she was his wife now, though she had become a Muslim – Mumtaz,” – I liked the name, and tested it on my lips – “she could not love him, she could not forgive him for what he had done to her, what he had taken from her, no matter how well he treated her now. So a few nights ago, she ran from his house, and came here and met Baiji.”
“She met Mother?! But Mother never told me!” I was dismayed – they all knew how long I had been waiting and searching for Ayah, why wouldn’t they tell me when she came?
“Lenny baby, it was a secret. He might have come and taken her again. She had to be kept safe, so Baiji sent her to the camp.”
Of course, I though bitterly, how could they trust a secret to my treacherous tongue? I sighed - would I never escape that curse? Would I have to cut it out?
I left these vexing questions for later, and asked,
“Is Ayah a fallen woman?”
Hamida was silent, and then said with a surprising strength of voice which I had never heard before – “If she was fallen, she has risen again. All the women like her, like myself, that I have seen till now, they all moaned their fate - but accepted it. She talked of it, but did not simply accept it. She said that if she had accepted fate as it came, then she would have stayed in his house. But she would not – so she ran by herself, rather than wait for someone to come.” Hamida smiled slightly at some remembrance, and continued, “So I asked her, do you believe then, like Lenny baby, that you can change the lines on your palm?”
“And? What did she say?” I asked excitedly. “Did she remember me?”
“Yes, she did. And then we talked of you for a long time. She misses you.”
“Then they have to let me go and see her!”
“No, Lenny baby. Not yet,” said Mother, who had been standing in the doorway silently listening to Hamida. “Soon, but not yet.”
That evening I climbed onto the rafters to look down on the camp. I thought I saw a familiar figure… “Ayah!” I called. Several faces looked up, but the one I had called to looked long and smiled, then turned and moved away. It must have been her! But in the dim light she had looked changed.
The Ice-candy man came everyday, waiting till night, for a glimpse of Ayah. That was all he got. Ayah came out rarely. The first few times she never looked at him, but eventually she looked past him as if he wasn’t there. He sat there, declaiming couplets and Urdu poetry. He sometimes sold ice candies, but most he gave away free.
I continued to ask to see Ayah, protesting to Mother and Godmother, “She’ll want to see me!” They were uneasy but unwilling. I suspected that she visited our home while I was out with Hamida, and I always hurried Hamida back to try and catch Ayah at our house. I think they kept me from her because they were afraid, either of what Ayah felt for me because of my accidental betrayal of her, or of my doing her some harm again with my tongue. But I knew they were wrong. Things would be the same between us.
Then finally one night I saw her. She was at the door of our house, talking in the moonlight to Mother as the Sikh kept watch near the gate. I listened, desperate to catch her voice, their words. She was thanking Mother, and also Godmother, for their help with the authorities. Now she was leaving for Amritsar.
“What if they will not take you back?” asked Mother, worried.
“They will have to. If not, I will manage by myself.”
There was a pause.
“Goodbye, Baiji.”
“Goodbye, Shanta.”
She turned and started walking away. Halfway to the gate she stopped, looked back and saw me. She held my gaze, and then opened her arms. I ran to them and she hugged me. After a long moment, I disentangled myself and looked at her. Something had changed. She was no longer the roly-poly bouncing teasing Ayah. Some of the Ice-candy man’s iciness had trickled into her. We gazed at each other and then I turned and ran.
The next day instead of watching from a window, I walked up to the Ice-candy Man. He was reciting poetry to himself and looking through the basket of flower petals he had brought to throw over the wall of the camp.
“Ice-candy wallah,” I called.
He looked up, seeing me. There was a moment when he looked at me vaguely, and then –
“Lenny baby! Come, I’ve got ice candy for you.” But the look remained, as if I was only half there. Absentmindedly he held them out to me.
My heart was thumping. Was I making a mistake? Was this another truth I should not tell? But a feeling of both pity and wanting him to be gone came over me, and I said it:
“Ice-candy wallah, she’s gone.”
I waited to make sure it had sunk in, and then ran back into the house.

The Ice-candy man never came back.

*
A week later, Hamida asked to see my mother. This was a little unusual – what followed was even more surprising.
“Baiji, I would like to have a few days to go somewhere.”
This was very surprising – meek Hamida asking for something, and wanting to go somewhere on top of that. Mother raised her eyebrows inquisitively.
“But where to, Hamida?”
“To my house… I want to see my children,” said Hamida, with a faint smile at her lips.
***************

The Wisdom of Solomon (original, creative rewrite, explication)

2005-06-17T12:38:00.000-07:00

Original:
A Wise Ruling

Now two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. One of them said, “My lord, this woman and I live in the same house. I had a baby while she was there with me. The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us.
During the night this woman’s son died because she lay on him. So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him to her breast and put her dead son by my breast. The next morning, I got up to nurse my son – and he was dead! But when I looked closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn’t the son I had borne.”
The other woman said, “No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours.”
But the first one insisted, “No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine.” And so they argued before the king.
The king said, “This one says, ‘My son is alive and your son is dead,’ while that one says, ‘ No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.’”
Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword fro the king. He then gave an order: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”
The woman whose son was alive was filled with compassion for her son and said to the king, “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!”
But the other said, “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!”
Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother.”
When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw he had wisdom from God to administer justice.

Rewrite:
The Wisdom of Solomon
(An extract from the writings of Jehoshaphat, son of Ahilud, recorder to the King)

In the fourth year of his reign, two women appeared before his Highness King Solomon, and asked for judgment.

The first approached the King and said, “Your majesty, I am a poor woman; I live in a hut near the edge of the city. Four days ago I gave birth to a boy. Last night there was a storm, and this other woman, this rich woman, who was passing by with her servants, asked for shelter for the night. That night she gave birth to a son. I let her sleep in my room, on my bed.
During the night this woman’s son died because she lay on him. So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him to her breast and put her dead son by my breast. The next morning, I got up to nurse my son – and he was dead! But when I looked closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn’t the son I had borne.”
The other woman approached his majesty and said, “Your Highness, it is true that I slept in this woman’s hut, and I went to sleep with my son by my side. This morning when I woke, this woman was mad with grief because her son had died. Then she saw my baby at my breast and started shouting that I had taken her baby. But the truth is that the living baby is mine, and the dead one is hers.”
But the other woman insisted, “No, the living one is mine, and the dead one is hers.”
They started to fight, and Ahijah, son of Shisha, who was secretary for that day, stopped the fight and separated them.

Then his majesty spoke. “Leave us. We shall consider the matter.”

The women were taken away, and the King turned to his personal adviser Zahud, son of Nathan.

“Well, Zahud?”
“The second woman, the rich one, is Abigail wife of Shimei son of Ela -”
“The district governor,” murmured the King.
“Yes, your majesty. She is famous for her kindness and generosity, and her charity to the poor. The other one is Tamar. She is… a prostitute. We are not sure who the father of her child is.”
“The reputations of these women cannot decide who is right or wrong, Zahud.”
“Yes, sire, but they are indicative of their characters, and that is relevant.”
“True. Have you spoken to the other people present that night?”
“Abigail’s people were outside the hut, in tents. The women were alone in the hut, except for Abishag, the wet nurse for Abigail’s child. She says she would have woken if Abigail had gotten up, and says that she did not.”
“Of course, she could be lying and following her mistress’ orders.”
“True, sire.”
“So there are no witnesses, except the baby, and he cannot tell us anything.”

The King rose from his throne, and started to pace the floor.
“Sire, there is one thing you must consider.”
“Yes, Zahud?” said the King.
“Shimei is governor of the district of Benjamin. As you know, this last year there have been uprisings and rebellions there, and Shimei has always done your majesty’s will and suppressed them.”
The King turned in anger and said, “And you think I should reward him with a son?”
“Not reward, sire. But if Shimei is denied a boy who may be his only son and heir, then he may not carry out your majesty’s wishes with such… devotion.”
“Such men are traitors, and I can have them executed.”
“Which would not be wise, sire, for Shimei is a popular man, and to wrong him would be to strengthen the rebellions.”
“But what of the truth, Zahud? I cannot simply ignore it. I swore I would rule my people wisely.”
“Yes, sire, think of the people. The kingdom cannot suffer the rebellion to grow. Be just to your people, your majesty.”
“What of justice to the mother? Does she not have a right to her son?”
“And what of justice to the son, your Highness? Abigail is a rich woman, and a good one. This child can grow up strong and wise under her care. Tamar is a prostitute, she is poor; with her, the child may die of hunger, or disease. She has nothing to offer this child.”
“Do not forget, Zahud, that my father’s father was but a shepherd, and yet my father David, by the grace of God, rose to be King of Israel and Judah.”
“Yes, your majesty,” said Zahud, and was silent.

“Truth, and justice. What must I–”

And suddenly the King smiled, and said, “I know how I may determine both.”

He turned in triumph, and said, “Zahud, I will have those women called before me. Then I shall say that since I cannot determine who the mother is, I will have the child cut in half, and one half given to each woman.”
“Your Highness!”
“Patience, Zahud. The mother, moved by love for her child, will surrender the baby to the other woman rather than have any harm come to it. The other woman, motivated by spite, will agree to the division, reasoning that they both would have dead sons then. The mother is thus identified, and the child may go with she who loves him most.”

Zahud bowed deeply before the King, and said, “Truly, the Lord our God has made you wise, your majesty. But if I may ask, what if both women, moved by love for the child, ask, that he…”
“Be spared. If both women honestly believe that the boy is their son, then it is likely that Abigail’s son did die that night. The wet nurse, Abishag, seeing the baby lie dead, was afraid of losing her position, or perhaps wished only that her mistress be happy, and so changed the babies.”
Once again, Zahud bowed before the King. “Your are wise, sire. But, forgive my foolishness, permit me one more question, your majesty.”
“Speak.”
“If that is indeed the case, that both women believe the boy to be truly theirs, and that the wet nurse changed the babies, what will you rule, sire?”

Explication

In detective fiction, the detective is the investigative agent. His/her aim is to determine the truth. In most detective fiction, the detective is also the moral centre of the narrative, and it is his moral framework that the reader uses to determine what is just or unjust. While the detective may not be called upon to dispense judgment and justice, the reader uses the implied moral structure of the text to pass mental judgment on the characters and their actions.

In the original ‘A Wise Ruling’, the truth and the action it dictates coincide with justice. Solomon, subjects the women to a simple test, observes their reactions and determines the truth, and thus the necessary justice. The characters are simplified and one dimensional: there are two prostitutes, one is a caring mother, the other a spiteful and jealous woman. The king is wise and just, and accessible to his people. The good people and the bad are clearly delineated.

It was this simplicity that attracted me to this story, which may be considered as one of the earliest detective stories. Real life, as well as latter day detective fiction, is rarely that straightforward, in terms of solution, or in terms of moral frameworks.

In my rewrite ‘The Wisdom of Solomon’, I complicate the text by introducing several possibilities and questions. What is the purpose of the detective? Is it to simply determine the truth, or to determine justice as well? Solomon’s position is of course complicated by the fact that he is not only a detective: he is also the judge. He must not only determine what is just – he must execute the appropriate action.

Even if we allow that the detective must concern himself with justice, at least to some extent, then the question is raised: what is justice? Is it justice to the individual or to society (the people of the kingdom)? After all justice is all about recognizing the consequences of your actions, and addressing them, so Solomon cannot afford to neglect how his actions may affect the kingdom. And even if justice means justice to the individual, which individual is that? The mother, or the son? And does justice to the son mean sending him with his birth mother, or with the woman who might do him the most good? Implicit in this of course are class judgments of the women involved. In ‘A Wise Ruling’ the women were both prostitutes, neither women had anything special to offer, and the consequences of the case were limited to the baby and the two women. In ‘The Wisdom of Solomon’, I had the women come from different social strata, in order to bring out prejudices that arise in almost every trial, formal or informal. A person’s background influences our perception of them; though in this story, like the original, Solomon himself remains kind and fair. Zahud, however, sees Abigail as more trustworthy woman, and a woman deserving of a judgment in her favour. Solomon, ever mindful of his own humble roots, is able to see past appearances.

The rewritten text also introduces a point which in the original had often bothered me – what if both women cared enough for the child to give it up? What would the King have done then? In my text I allow the King a way out – a third person is present in the hut, who may be the criminal. But that still leaves the King with a choice to make – should he announce the truth, or should he conceal it in the best interests of his people, and possibly in the best interests of the baby boy?

In the rewrite, except for Solomon himself, the characters are shown in shades of grey. Zahud seems prejudiced against the prostitute, but has the health of the state in mind. Abigail, the rich woman, may have stolen the baby, but she is famous for her charity and kindness. Tamar, the prostitute, may be a caring mother. And Abishag, who may have stolen the baby, may have been motivated either out of fear of losing her job, or out of love for her mistress. Just as the ‘right’ course of action is left uncertain, our moral judgments of the characters is problematic. Only Solomon is shown without flaws, though he has the burden of making a decision.

The rewrite has been presented as an excerpt from the writings of the King’s recorder, a man who would be nearly invisible, but constantly at his side. However, given his sensitive position, he would himself be ‘sensitive’ as to how the king was portrayed. To show the king as unfair to the poor, or inaccessible to them (note that it is the poor woman who is shown as bringing forward the case), would be bad – for the king’s image, and thus for him. This attribution accounts for the text delving into to the inner workings of the King’s court, as well as the uniformly positive portrayal of King Solomon. It also invites the reader to take everything narrated with a pinch of salt, though we are not shown any reason to doubt the veracity of the account.

I have renamed the account, for in this case, the moral framework having been complicated, the ruling that the King must make is not clear, and his final decision is not narrated, but is left to the reader’s imagination and judgment. The name ‘the Wisdom of Solomon’ was chosen because that is what Solomon was famous for, and that is what is being tested by this case – what is the wisest or best ruling?

Thus in ‘The Wisdom of Solomon’, I raise several questions which I leave unanswered, and try to make the situation more real by complicating the case, and the characters involved. I leave it to the reader to impose his own moral framework on the text, and come up with the ‘wisest’ ruling.

Tiger trilogy Part 3: Who made you Tiger?

2005-06-17T12:36:00.000-07:00

Who made you, Tiger?

Who made you Tiger?
So perfect, with beauty bright,
Who made you bold and courageous
With a stout heart and mind?

Who taught you sly and clever ways
Who gave you strength and will?
Who taught you to hunt the swiftest deer
To hunt them and to kill?

Who gave you majesty so dignified
Who made you calm and serene?
Who made those curving fangs of white
Who made those eyes so green?

Who made your skin so beautiful
Who made your fur so fine?
So much as to cause your end
Killed by men with greedy minds

Tiger trilogy Part 2: A shadow in the forest

2005-06-17T12:34:00.000-07:00

A half-starved mahout
On his great grey beast
Lumbering slowly through green fields
Waving under a bright sun.

A well trod path
He takes, to return
To his village, from whence he came,
In the morning, with his huge friend.

The jungle nears
He has heard talk
Of a demon
With green eyes and fangs
Who feeds on poor people
God help them!

The jungle draws closer
He mutters incantations
And invokes the name of god
To drive off the demon.

The jungle enfolds him
Shivering he peeps
Past bushes and creepers
And starts at everything
As his beast lumbers slowly

A rustle in the grass!
Is it he?
But no, ‘tis but a bird
Aflight, and calling
His mate to come

But what was that?
A flash of green, a glint of white
A shadow flying like the breeze?
‘Tis he!
He comes now,
He of the angel’s beauty and the devil’s twisted mind
He that strikes terror
As if with his claws
Deep into the hearts of men
Who fear unknown,
The demon! He comes!
Death in its greatest beauty
But little for those its jaws embrace
He comes!

Where is the fleeting shadow?
Is that rustle but of the breeze?
Are those his markings or shadows waving
Are those mortal eyes that shine so green?

Where is the shadow who hunts me?
Where be the tooth and the fang?
Where is death inexorable
Made by immortal hands?

Faster he comes now and faster
Seeking my blood and my bones
Shadows so dreadful leap before mine eyes
How much longer till this life is gone?

Shadows are now all around me
Darkness and Death now approach
His image leaps now all about me
Be there a glimmer of hope?

He leaps!
But it cannot be!
He leaps!
But he leaps not at me!

His jaws seek no human blood
‘Tis not for me he craves
A swift-footed deer is all he seeks
The jungle lord’s lawful prey

Come streaming now, sunlight and freedom
Freedom from a merciless death
Come flooding the joy of living
Comes fast and relieved my breath.

The mahout leaves the jungle
To leave his village no more
He will not chance the game with Death
A wise man is he now.

The jungle lord, in shadows grey
Green eyes blink but once
He lays himself down and slowly starts
To eat his lawful prey.

Independence

2005-06-17T12:31:00.000-07:00

Freedom/Independence

Dawn is hours off
Yet a new sun will rise
Seconds tick
The masses wait
Not for day’s light
But midnight

This is the stuff
That history is made of
That
Swells the heart of man
Lifts up
In a wind of spirit
Freedom.

A deep yearning, ‘tis.
The suppressed
Filled with new power
But for midnight they wait
To declare
To announce
Freedom!

The strokes
A bell
A dawn of new era
In the darkness of the night
Arise
No whisper,
No murmur
No sentence
But a feeling
A world of emotion
A swirling
The wind
A shout
A roar it is.

Rise up
‘Tis free
The land
The people
‘Tis independence

Poem/Anti-poem Part 1

2005-06-17T12:28:00.000-07:00

To The Indian Who Died in Africa
-T.S. Eliot

A man’s destination is his own village,
His own fire and his wife’s cooking;
To sit in front of his own door at sunset
And see his grandson and his neighbour’s grandson
Playing in the dust together.

Scarred but secure he has many memories
Which return at the hour of conversation
(The warm or the cool hour, according to the climate)
Of foreign men, who fought in foreign places,
Foreign to each other.

A man’s destination is not his destiny
Every country is home to one man
And exile to another. Where a man dies bravely
At one with his destiny, that soil is his.
Let his village remember.

This was not your land, or ours: but a village in the Midlands,
And one in the Five Rivers, may have the same graveyard.
Let those who go home tell the same story of you:
Of action with a common purpose, action
None the less fruitful if neither you nor we
Know, until the judgement after death.
What is the fruit of action.

Anti-/To the Indian who died in Africa

This was not your war, but theirs
A battle of misplaced patriotism
The glory of a battle
Which had to be fought
A glory you may not wish
A glory for a country not yet free
Fight for the freedom of others
When your countrymen still thirst for it.

The blessing of the workhorse on you
Of the sparrow or lark that once flew free
But now with clipped wing, sing as a songbird
In a gilded cage
Dying and earning glory
They do not wish
Anything, but freedom.

Second coming (short story, followed by explication)

2005-06-17T12:03:00.000-07:00

Show and Tell
Second Coming

Zayin Daled-Beis stood trembling in wonder. For twenty years he had searched at the Aleph’s command, ever since the dream. Others had joined him, called by the same voice, the same dream. There were many in the University who had thought him mad; even his beloved, Reish Ayin-Gimel, had at times doubted him. But now they all stood on the slopes, grass rustling in the wind, watching a star bright enough to be seen by day, race towards them, and then slow, and slow yet further.

Zayin gripped little Mem Reish-Zayin with his right arms and held him tight, his whiskers reveling in the feel of the fresh polymers of his child’s exo. He wished he could lift him, but Mem was tall, he had been tall ever since his finding. He remembered standing in the cave of Aleph, with Reish by his side, awed but hopeful, as they had beseeched the Almighty to grant them a child. He and Reish had placed their lower right palms on the wall of Ancestors, and had felt the tingle of communion with Aleph. They should have gone then, but they had tarried instead, taking time to recite slowly the kind of child they wanted. It was mere superstition, none knew better than they that Aleph was not swayed by such requests. What was written in the code would be fulfilled, neither more nor less. Yet they had spoken – and it seemed that their wishes had been answered. For, months later, they had obeyed the summons and had found - it had been the happiest day of Zayin’s life, discovering his child, taller than his father, with the build of his father’s father, and the speed and grace of his mother. He was a son to be proud of - he was already progressing rapidly in the Oratory. In a week he would leave it and join the University, and perhaps if things had been different, he too would have joined the Search. But the Search was over. One day, Mem would tell his children that he had been there on the day that the Shin-Vet, these strange visitors, had descended from the sky.

The star slowed further, and cooled with surprising rapidness from a blinding white to a dull orange. They could judge its size now. It was as large as a small mountain, and had the strangest structure…why, there was not one, there were two! One nestled behind the other, and it was cooler still, merely red.

Slowly the vessels, looking like two cones nearly touching points, turned, circling slowly around Samech, where lay the cave of Aleph. Surely this was a sign to the disbelieving – these Shin-Vet had been brought by Aleph, praised be its name!

Tighter and tighter the circles wound. A strong breeze rustled the grass around them, bearing a stench of burning metal from the two cones. They stopped, aligned perfectly above the Samech.

Then came the voices.

They were like the voice of Aleph, but they came not in dreams. Unless this was all a dream. But no, he could still feel the wind, still feel Mem. He let go of him slowly. He could not understand, these voices were strange, speaking a language that raised strange echoes in his mind, things he could not consciously understand. He felt strange urges, movements rising involuntarily. He struggled in his head, unsure whether to give in. Surely these were from the Shin-Vet, and had they not come at the word of Aleph? Surely Aleph would not mean harm to its people, surely this was the code working in mysterious ways. Yet it felt so strange, and he was… he did not know the word to use, for he was afraid, and had never felt so before. He trembled again, and now it was not with awe or wonder, but with disease, as if possessed by a virus. Dimly he noticed the others suffering too, and then with a low moan he collapsed on the ground.

Mem watched, without understanding, as his parents and their friends collapsed. He could hear whispers in his head, and it ached dully, but they were just whispers. But his family was sick. He looked around and saw other groups writhing on the slopes surrounding Samech, and again, saw others, young ones like himself – he recognized Yud, Nun, Pay, Tzadi – standing among the groaning bodies and thrashing arms.

Something was wrong. These Shin-Vet - had they truly come at Aleph’s Word? Why would Aleph hurt? Unless… the Shin-Vet were… against Aleph. But it could not be! Had not Aleph commanded them to search for these Shin-Vet? Had not Aleph awaited their coming? Why did Aleph not speak? Did they not listen to It?

Doubt seized him…if they heard not Aleph’s Word, but Aleph bade by theirs....

His world was crashing round him. His kin lay dying, his God dethroned. He could not let it be. He would fight while the currents still ran in his body. He screamed noiselessly in rage at the black cones hovering, a hurricane of hot wind still roaring from them. With a shout echoed by those still standing, he ran down the slopes and up the mountain, his steps ringing on the metal that was Samech. As the group converged on the peak, they futilely raised their arms against the hovering vessels, and once again screamed their noiseless rage.

Then all was light.

“Well, that job’s finally done. By next watch, we should be 20 light years away and back at home base and … what are you looking so glum about?”

Peter Falstaff shook his head. “I had the headphones on. I heard them.”

“Sure, so did I,” replied Thomas Mann, “Merrily shouting on all the radio frequencies you could imagine. Thought they’d trigger something by mistake. Good thing we were shielded. It’s over now, anyhow.”

Falstaff shook his head. Mann rolled his eyes and said,

“Don’t tell me you’re upset over a bunch of robots? I mean that’s all they were, robots manufactured by a stupid computer that survived that crash. If it hadn’t been signaling us it would have taken another ten years to find them, and God knows what would have happened by then. I mean you can’t say we didn’t try to rehabilitate them. But they’d changed too much, they just wouldn’t listen to the damn instructions. Lay there moaning and groaning, most of them – and the rest were trying to scream us out of the sky. It was us or them, so I had to use the blast gun. You can’t be upset over that.”

There was no response. Mann shrugged and left, whistling at the thought of home base. Falstaff merely sat in silence, shaking his head, whispering softly to himself.

“You didn’t hear them. They screamed.”

Explication:

In Second Coming, I decided, mainly from personal preferences, to write my vision of the future in the genre of Science Fiction. Science Fiction visions of the future appeal to me because they are more than simply visions of places and times different from ours – to an extent, if one imagines an infinite universe where everything that is possible within the laws of nature happens, they are actually probable. The short story is the most common weapon of choice for the science fiction writer, and I proved no exception, choosing the freedom of prose over the rules of rhythm in poetry.

The story takes the one of most common ideas of literature – the Hostile Other – and turns it on its head to reach another cliché – the Violent Man. The Hostile Other is a ploy that has often been used in science fiction, typically pitting an alien against a human or man against machine. This theme has been repeated ad nauseam in the visual media in various movies and TV shows. The assumption behind it is a valorization of the human, raising human values to the highest level and using them to judge all else, despite the fact that the others are alien. The opposition between Other and Self is often used in stories to illustrate a conflict in which human values/intelligence triumph. A story of conflict also allows the easy introduction of elements of suspense. Second Coming superficially avoids the idea of Hostile Other by giving an alien narration, but given that there is no sign of a value system very different from a human one, the inversion is incomplete. Also, it is simply an inversion; the conflict remains. This was done to easily introduce suspense and some slightly more dynamic action.

The story ends up embracing another idea which has been used before in movies such as ‘The Day The Earth Stood Still’, and ‘The Abyss’ – that of the aggressive Man. Typically these movies showed benevolent aliens saving Man from self-destruction, and enforcing their will by means of superior technology. In this story, Man is the aggressor, threatening the existence of the aliens. The greater part of the story is narrated from the point of view of the aliens, thus relegating Man to the position of the Hostile Other. To complicate things further, the aliens are robots, thus encompassing two estrangements in one – that between Man and Alien, and that between Man and Machine.

The aliens, who are robots, have evolved a religion around a computer that manufactures them – he is their Creator. By his command they have been searching for the ‘strange visitors’ – it is their counterpart to our SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. Their Search is successful, but the result unexpected. If as Roy Batty says in Blade Runner, “It's not an easy thing to meet your maker”, how easy is it to find that your Creator is not supreme? This is one issue that the robots must struggle with.

The story portrays conscious robots as developing a religion of their own. Typically sentient robots are treated as ‘rational’ and therefore either unable to understand human irrationality, or else they explain human behaviour in terms of psychological models. They do not ‘believe’ in the irrational themselves – the concept of religion rarely arises. An exception is a short story by I. Asimov in which a robot ‘Cutie 1’ (QT-1) declares himself the Prophet of a religion. Second Coming thus questions this separation of rationality and religion. Are the two incompatible? Given that the only other sentient beings in the story – men – are typically portrayed as having a religion, does that imply a causal link between consciousness and religion? However it is conspicuous that there are no explicit religious references made by the men in the story – I am excluding the comment ‘God knows’ as being common usage, not necessarily indicative of personal beliefs.

Given that the robots Creator is unmasked as a computer, this by analogy raises uncomfortable questions about man’s idea of God. The robots receive ‘messages’ in dreams, have a holy cave and mountain, and beseech their God to answer their prayers. They even have a kind of fatalism, “What was written in the code would be fulfilled, neither more nor less.” In many ways they are not too different from men. How different then are their religions and Gods? One interesting point is that though the relation between the robots and their creator is clearly outlined, the idea of the Creator having made the universe (typical to most religions) is not explicitly given, though the assumption of omnipotence lies behind the robots’ initial thought that the Shin-Vet came at the bidding of the Aleph.

Thus the author appears to questioning human religion, or at least its typical distance from ‘rational’ beings.

The men of the story have been engaged in a search for the crashed ship and its computer, just as the robots and computer have been searching for them. But when the men find the ship and robots, they do not treat the robots as conscious equals. They are treated as human property, as wayward creations, and when they do not obey, they are destroyed. For one of the humans, that is the end of the story, but the other returns with a troubled conscience. It is not easy being Godlike to a people, nor being personally responsible for the destruction of conscious beings. By giving the robots characteristics associated with humans, while immersed in an environment that is clearly alien, the story questions the implied distance between the Other and the Self, turning the Other into a double of the Self.

The story is titled Second Coming. This echoes the Judaeo-Christian myth of a God returning, but the story is perhaps closer to the events that occurred when the Europeans came to Central and South America. They were hailed as Gods whose return had been prophesied, and they took advantage of the situation to exploit the natives. In the story the computer awaits the return of the humans, patiently signaling and waiting for them. The computer is an interesting if neglected character – all it was doing was its job, and it willing called out to those who would eventually reduce its work to naught, and destroy it.

The story is narrated in third person, but from three different circumscribed points of view (POVs). In the first case the limited perspective is that of Zayin Daled-Beis, then followed by that of Mem Reish-Zayin. The third viewpoint is not specifically that of any one person, but is placed among the humans in their ship.
The third person narrative is not exactly omniscient, being limited in perspective in each case, though the answers to most questions are eventually revealed. Visually, the story is divided into three parts separated by double spaces. While it would have been more logical to divide the narrative according to the narrator viewpoint, that is Zayin, Mem and then human, the first part is from Zayin’s, the second from Zayin’s and Mem’s and the third from the human viewpoint. What marks the end of each section is a moment of suspense created by a short terse line, which is further elaborated upon in the next section. There is also an apparent progression from weaker to stronger – Mem outlives Zayin, and is in turn outlived by the humans.

The language used for the robots’ POV narration is suffused by a certain ‘old style’, constantly invoking their Creator, and full of rhetorical questions. ‘I think therefore I am’ comes to mind – by these questions we deduce the conscious and ‘rational’ nature of the robots. Their memories and emotions are brought up, giving us a personal glimpse into their ‘feelings’ and life. In contrast the language used for the POV that describes the humans is more impersonal. This difference in language helps further the inversion of Man and Machine.

The names for the robots as well as Shin-Vet, Samech and Aleph derive from the Hebrew alphabet. Following Gematrias, a scheme for assigning numerical values to the letters, Daled-Beis becomes 4-2. Similarly, Reish Ayin-Gimel becomes 273. 42 is of course a tribute to Douglas Adams, the late popular science fiction writer, while –273 deg Celsius is absolute zero. As for the naming of children, the hyphenated double surname is derived from the first names of the parents: thus for Mem we have Reish-Zayin. Aleph codes for 1, as is appropriate for a God. The God is referred to as ‘It’, that is without gender. The human names were chosen more randomly, with Falstaff coming from the Shakespearean character, though he is nothing near jovial here (and of course he is no longer John, but Peter), and Thomas Mann being chosen to identify his viewpoint with the dominant viewpoint of ‘Man’. The assonance between Mann and Man was the main reason for the choice of this name, which by accident ended up being that of the 1929 Nobel laureate in Literature, who interestingly wrote ‘The Magic Mountain’.

Is there a gender bias in the story? Both Mem and Zayin are depicted as male, Reish is just mentioned. While the surname encompasses the names of both parents, the child that Zayin and Reish ask for ends up being Mem. Did they ask for a male child? That is not specified. The two humans on the ship are also men. While the God of the robots has been carefully rendered as non-gendered, it is to be suspected that the author has an unconscious male bias.

Thus we see that Second Coming probes the distance between Self and the Other, by reversing roles, as well as crediting the Other with human characteristics. It also highlights the destructive nature of Man, and his callous treatment of other sentient beings. There is a theme of a Search, with unexpected results for both sides, as both are searching for the other. The story also probes the relation between religion, consciousness and rationality.

Quickie

2005-06-09T07:40:00.000-07:00

A quick one before I go:

Rain taps at my window
Sound and fury
Tonight, the gods make merry.

The Post

2005-06-09T06:44:00.000-07:00

I’m not really sure if there’s a particular format or style for a blog. Some people I suppose, may use it like a diary, but I’m sure that very few people would want to read the nitty-gritty details of my daily life with such gems as, “I brushed my teeth three times today instead of the usual twice.” Though given the current obsession with reality shows, I can’t be sure.

Instead I suppose a blog is supposed to be more profound. Of course the profundity/profanity would depend on the writer I guess – you could write your blog to make it sound like a newspaper editorial (and I mean a respectable newspaper like The Hindu, or The New York Times) or you could make it a record of your random rants and ramblings (Check out some of the blogs listed on the sidebar).

Mine will probably tend towards the latter, though its classification is really left to you, Dear Reader. It will serve me as part podium, part cemetery for dead poems. I choose what parts of me to present here, but if you believe Poirot, talk to a person long enough and they will tell you what you need to know.

Skipping back a bit, on that note on writing and reality shows, I suppose I had better mention the Flux Factory, where in a living exhibit the very process of writing is showcased. I won’t spend more time on it here – the idea is interesting, though I believe it might not look deeply enough at the intricacies of creativity. Still, it will probably show some previously ignored aspects. For more details read here.

I suppose I can safely say that the monsoon has started. While it does not rain everyday, and we haven’t yet had one of those stretches when it rains for days continuously, we are getting the old sound and fury + assorted tears from Mother Nature with greater frequency. Memories of monsoons for me deal with my school days, as by this time school would have started. Muddy roads, with streams running down the sides; watching pieces of paper race down the gutter (this was in class 9 or 10, mind you); having my umbrella blown inside out by the wind. I remember one time during an English class, it started raining, and our principal, Suma Miss, who was also our English Drama teacher, stopped the lesson for a few minutes so that we could go the window and enjoy the first rain of the season. It was a small thing, but it’s one of the fondest memories I have of her.

Right now outside my window it’s the bluster without the precipitation. A few years ago in Delhi, while I was working on a summer project, we used to get the occasional respite from the 42C+ heat when a magnificent thunderstorm would hit the city. More of a lightning storm really, as we would get a fantastic display of what appeared to be cloud to cloud discharges, with very little sound. That was slightly more sinister somehow, as you now expected the lightning to creep up and tap you on the shoulder without warning. It was not a monsoon shower – it was probably the result of some low-pressure system that had crept in from the Mediterranean via the mountain passes. We really should keep an eye on those passes – everyone from the Aryans to Alexander to Mohammed of Ghauri/Ghazni seem to creep in that way. Still, I suppose the clouds can be given a season pass.

The mumble rumble outside my window finally delivered – the rain is coming in (well, not into the room, I closed the windows) at a steady rate. The current has also gone, but I’m typing this on the laptop, so I’ll finish this off before I go. More later. Adieu, my silent readers. I hope you have not joined the vast
majority.

addendum: Shortly afterward, the current returned for about 10 seconds and then went again - and apparently stayed gone till about ten in the morning. Plus, it rained all night. Finally around 10.20 am the current came back, but it also started pouring like Noah was in town and then animals were already piling in ten by ten.

On a parting note, I give you a haiku, of sorts:

Darkness passes fleeting across the land
Clouds; Their shadows
Fall like rain.

Quotable quotes

2005-06-09T06:06:00.000-07:00

1. He has gone to join the majority – Petronius Arbiter (said of a man who had recently died)

2. I do honour the very flea of his dog - Ben Johnson

3. Dr Donne's verses are like the peace of God; they pass all understanding - King James VI of Scotland

4. "Will you walk into my parlour?" said a spider to a fly. - Mary Howitt

5. Man has his will - but woman has her way. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

6. Will no one free me of this turbulent priest? - Attrb King Henry II

7. Funny-peculiar or funny-ha-ha? - Ian Hay

8. Cave Canem - Beware of the dog - Petronius Arbiter

9. I have never a piece of toast/ Particularly long and wide,/ But fell upon the sanded floor,/ And always on the buttered side. – James Payn

10. All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer. – Robert Owen

11. We seek him here, we seek him there, / Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. / Is he in heaven? – Is he in hell? / That damned elusive Pimpernel? – Baroness Orczy

12. The quickest way to end a war is to lose it – George Orwell.

13. Candy / Is dandy / But liquor / Is quicker – Ogden Nash.

14. When Ah itches, Ah scratches – Ogden Nash

15. I am a conscientious man, when I throw rocks at seabirds I leave no tern unstoned – Ogden Nash

16. Any kiddie in school can love like a fool, But hating, my boy, is an art. – Ogden Nash

17. Beneath this slab / John Brown is stowed /He watched the ads/ And not the
road - Ogden Nash

18. The cow is of the bovine ilk / One end is moo, the other, milk. – Ogden Nash

19. It is very difficult to get up resentment towards persons whom one has never seen – Cardinal John Henry Newman

20. Stop the World, I Want to Get Off – Anthony Newby

21. It’s as large as life, and twice as natural – Lewis Carroll.

22. Peccavi – ‘I have sinned.’ – Message sent after conquest of Sindh – Charles James Napier

23. Nobody ever beats Wales at rugby, they just score more points – Graham Mourie

24. SIXTY HORSES WEDGED IN CHIMNEY – The story to fit this sensational headline has not turned up yet – J. B. Morton

25. This is adding insult to injuries – Edward Moore

26. I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me – (Winnie the Pooh) A.A. Milne

27. When Paris sneezes, Europe catches cold – Prince Clement Metternich

28. Italy is a geographical expression – Prince Clement Metternich

29. Either he’s dead or my watch has stopped – Groucho Marx

30. Because it is there – George Leigh Mallory (When asked why he wished to climb Mt. Everest)

31. We hear war called murder. It is not – it is suicide – Ramsay Macdonald.

32. My dear child, you must believe in God in spite of what the clergy tell you - Attrb Benjamin Jowett

33. A pessimist is a man who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street –
Laurence J. Peter.

34. And so to bed – Samuel Pepys

35. Assassination is the extreme from of censorship – Shaw

36. If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find
something in them to hang him – Cardinal de Armand Jean du Plessis Richelieu

37. We called him Tortoise because he taught us - Lewis Carroll

38. “Contrariwise,”continued Tweedledee, “If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be: but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.” – LC

39. And some there be, which have no memorial – Apocrypha

40. Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth for evermore – Apocrypha

41. To see a World in a Grain of Sand, / And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, / Hold
Infinity in the palm of your hand, / And Eternity in an hour – William Blake

42. Bore: A person who talks when you wish him to listen – Ambrose Bierce.

43. Do as we say, and not as we do – Giovanni Boccaccio

44. Aut Caesar aut nihil – Emperor or nothing – Cesare Borgia.

45. The great Unwashed – Attrb Lord Henry Brougham

46. I am still an atheist, thank God – Attrb Luis Bunuel

47. An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard only one
side of the case; God has written all the books. – Samuel Butler

48. I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy – Samuel Butler

49. We think as we do, mainly because other people think so – Samuel Butler

50. I’ve arrived, and to prove it, I’m here – Max Bygraves

51. And a woman is just a woman but a good cigar is a smoke – Rudyard Kipling

52. But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: / “It’s clever, but is it Art?” -
Rudyard Kipling

53. A man of infinite-resource-and-sagacity – Rudyard Kipling

54. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know – Lady Caroline Lamb (said of Byron)

55. Is man only a blunder of God, or God only a blunder of man? – Frederich Wilhelm Nietzsche

56. Ils ne passeront pas. They shall not pass – General Robert Nivelle (Statement at Battle of Verdun, 1916)

57. Laws were made to be broken – Christopher North

58. That grand old man – Sir Stafford Northcote (of Gladstone)

59. Die, my dear Doctor, that’s the last thing I shall do. – Attrb Viscount Palmerston

60. How could they tell? (on hearing that US President Calvin Coolidge had died)
– Dorothy Parker

61. Festina lente – Hasten slowly – Suetonius

62. There is no alternative – Margaret Thatcher

63. J’accuse - I accuse – Emile Zola (Dreyfus Affair)

64. Consummatum est – It is finished – Vulgate

65. I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man – George Meredith

66. Don’t give up the ship – James Lawrence

67. One morning I shot an elephant in my pyjamas. How he got into my pyjamas I’ll
never know. – Groucho Marx

68. He has occasional flashes of silence , that make his conversation perfectly
delightful – Sydney Smith

69. Some folks are wise, and some are otherwise – Tobias George Smollett

70. Who’s your fat friend? – Beau Brummel (said of the Prince of Wales, 1813)

71. You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct – W Somerset Maugham

A Flame in the Forest

2005-06-07T18:39:00.000-07:00

Born in the heat of the fire
Burning with immortal flame
Spirit wild and flying free
A will no human hand can tame.

The Night, he has his mark on you
The Sun your eyes does claim
Burning bright with undying fire
In the darkness with so green a flame!

In the darkness through the shadows
Glint those fangs of curving white
From within those paws of velvet
Gleam those sharpest claws so bright!

Painted strokes of Nature's brush
So smooth and glossy the fur does shine
Moving slightly in the breeze
Twitch those gleaming whiskers so fine

Slinking past in shadows grey
Like a rustle in the leaves
Roaring at the chase ahead
A flying shadow in the breeze!