Story.

yendi, namba aathuku pakathaathula vaidehi irundhaalolyo? Enna panra? en ava aam ku vella edho idichi katindiruka? 

andha peran oruthan irukaane, avan idha vithutu america thirumba poitaan nu kelvi patten.

Evvalo periya veedu. ethana peru valandha anga. ella ezhu pasagalume anga dhaan porandha, enakku innum nanna nyabagam irukku. andha vaal onnu irukkume, chiru, avan peru kooda marandhu poiduthu. 

Andha payyanoda maama dhaane? Swaminathan.

avane dhaan, bayangara saettai...

21 May, 2011

My dearest vaida paati.

Its raining outside here. Thank god the winter is over, this was the most cruel year in all my time in boston.

It feels so good to write to you. I don't care about phones anymore. I don't care about anything anymore though. Janaki has started to rip my mind off to pieces on this piece of property in sholinghur. She had asked me to sell it for such stupid reasons... If I don't give in, she would probably make my life even more miserable. I hate doing this to you though I could see you ache completely over this. Its your entire life, vaida. I should not do this. I am ashamed, and I don't know why I was bequeathed this in the first place. I have had my most beautiful memories etched in my mind and all of them have this house. I cannot forget the kaaka pudi on the motta maadi, or the oorvalam of the thaayar and the garuda sevai or the paneer soda  kicha thaatha got from selvam's kadai. I have become one more of those who are keen on selling their past with utmost disregard. I remember the time I wrote to you about my contempt for these people.Maybe I could go back to the time when I did not know janaki, and you and amma were the only woman that I knew...

14 Dec, 2010

Ragu.

We spoke over the phone, so this mail is quite redundant. But as much of a mad family as we are, I am still writing this one. Sell the house. I have no problems. If it can solve your problems, please go ahead. I hope to see the house one last time and take all the photos and old vaanoli magazines and ananda vikatans from 1952! That is going to be one tough job. Vaida says you can go ahead, and she says she is not terribly disconcerted by the news, which is a bold and bare-faced lie. Selling the house is selling all our dreams. I am sorry, but the seven of us have grown up in that house, and its a little hard to take. You take care, and I will call you soon. 

Swami.

30 Sep, 2000.

Dear amma,

I am awesome here. This place is amazing! I wonder why I have never been here, and I really think it was plain stupid of you and appa to leave this place in the first place! After all that hard work, he is now almost a clerk in some stupid government organization, with its bureacratic pot-bellied paan-spitting clowns. I am astonished by the efficiency of the system and the people here! People here ask me why I have a funny middle name. I tell them that my father wanted my name to have my mother's name too, and so I am raguram valli narayanan! They do tend to have problems with the last name. 

The postal clerk just laughed when I asked him for stamps to write home. He told me, 'kids these days are smart, with all your mobile phones and stuff. You still write mails? Boy, that is nice to hear!'. I am mad, aren't I? I still am not sure about the support for my program, there is just way too much competition. 

Anyway, this weather is awesome. I am just completely bowled over by it. Did I tell you I met this nice girl, janaki? She calls me valli, which is quite irritating...

8 Feb, 1976

Valli.

I hope you are doing ok. I am off to boston next week for a conference, and I might not write to you. Its not like I wouldn't have time, its just that I am going out with a couple of people and I am not sure how polite I might have to be in front of them for me to get this tenure. I am still struggling, thanks to what is appearing to be a pointless phd, and god knows when I can even get back home. That's enough complaining, how is athimber? How is my dear nephew? I might not be able to make it to his upanayanam. I am also not surprised by kicha's decision to bequeath the house to his grandsons. Thaatha has always been weird, and I still remember people in the court halls mutter 'krishnaswamy varaar, shh' when he would walk in with that funny turban of his! Its a good thing as well, less problems for us! If you are going to go to tiruttani sometime, just tell murugan I said hi... 

12 May, 1942.

Sir,

I hope this letter finds you in good health. I would like to convey a very pleasant news and seek your blessings that we have been blessed with a lovely little girl child born under the vaisakha nakshatram. Vaidehi insists on calling her valli. I am not sure how soon this letter would reach you, the telegraph office remained closed for some reason that is not quite clear till now. I am flooded with the greetings All India Telegram from all my friends and well wishers. I hope all is well in tiruchi. I am quite sure you are having much success with all your civil cases. I remember kannappan regaling me with stories about your flawless arguments in the aalavandhan case. I hope I have stood up to your expectations and that your faith remains steadfast ever since your daughter's kanyadhaanam. I am taking up only civil cases because of the amount of work, and the remuneration not clearly being commensurate now that there are many children...

Hoping to see you soon.

Sincerely,

Krishnaswamy

ps:

anachronistic errors(or errors in general) are plainly due to ignorance. Apologies.

http://www.livemint.com/2009/07/24215256/The-new-edgier-Chennai-hasn.html
(Its very difficult to make people believe that I didn't rip the idea off this article. But I didn't. I wrote this about madras way back when I had just come back from somewhere after some time)


A tribute to a very ordinary city

Ah! Here we are, the city of normalcy. 

We walk on the beach for no apparent reason, and complain about the heat in the month of april, may, june, july, august...We dread walking on the streets of south usman road or soundarapandian angaadi, as much as we love to watch the sight of the davara tumbler and rava idli oblivious of the waiter's stained uniform and the stained racks and the stain ridden walls and the stained wash basin inside the hotels in these stretches. We like the trains like we like our city, and we like our city like we like our trains. We  are cramped in broadway and triplicane, widest in the Mount road and GN Chetty road. We stare wide-eyed at our thalaivar's cut out anywhere. Most of us are dark because of geography, but we will always be made fun of. But we really don't care. 

Most of us can tell facts about cricket that no one else in this country can. Not only about India, but about every other team. We idolize and defile 'The hindu', but we can never survive without seeing the mahavishnu in the early morning. We speak tamil like the way cho speaks in bommalaatam, kamal speaks in pammal k sambandam, and we don't know how tamil evolved this way. Our autokaarans are the rude and disrespectful, but some of them give us a hand when we most need it. The slum clearance boards and the vast stretches of slums right behind is our contribution to dichotomy. Our roads are pot holed during the rains in november. We love rains, so we don't care. 

We felt bad when they took down liberty theatre, the woodlands hotel and numerous other artifacts that were revered by our fathers and grandfathers. We live vicariously across generations, pleasantly travelling across time in the pattabiram military siding trains with the steam engines chugging and  spewing particulate on the neatly starched and ironed shirts of the workers; the bangalore passengers from arakkonam at 4:15 in the morning never missed the beat either. None of us ever understands the logic behind the perambur loco works station, only a hundred feet from perambur; but we really don't care.

We are mad about brilliant tutorial idli kadai, nandanam signal traffic, the age old anna flyover, vast stretches of  haunting memories in sands and shore on the marina, vaanathi pathippagam, somasundaram ground and the raving mad cricket loving crowd, the sambar mug and the sambar in rathna cafe,  unbelievably over crowded 21 G, the twisted narrow lanes of thiruvallikeni, the temple tanks of marundeeswarar and kothandaramar, the pondy bazaar flower shops on the footpath. We wear a muffler in the december even though its not that cold, but we really don't care.

We have never been bored of telling people about our marina beach and our railway station. Cheetah fight matchsticks are more of a reminder of the lovely industrially dense chennai-gummidipoondi corridor, with the wimcos and the ashok leylands. We are also the forgotten shunmugham snuff house in thandiyarpet. The dunlop factory in ambattur is a mystery to all of us. But we don't care.


 Besant nagar beach, in close proximity to the church and a lakshmi temple, togehter with an atheistic theosophical society is our belief.  There isn't much we can do without our saravana bavan, and only in heaven will we know the recipe of that saambar. The true glory our our city lies in the early morning smell of a rich aroma of coffee mixed with an equally endearing smell of the coovum.We have one of the biggest celebrity in this country who is lionized all over the place, but who stays away from endorsing brands or giving interviews, someone who does not shirk from being who he is in public with his balding pate and kurta pyjamas. 

We  believe in living life our own way, rather than walking around behaving like someone else, unabashedly becoming cheap imitations of some other culture, and we are told we are 'conservative'.

Like I said, we don't care. 

That's why we love Madras. 

God bless.

Ps:
#I might have generalized. In a gross way. I am being told by some stupid surveys in newspapers that people prefer fair skinned people. A very dangerous notion being carelessly pandered around for ratings. Sad.

#I might have missed so much about madras. I know. I know very little about my own city. Sad.

#This post does not take into account the current 'modernization' nonsense, also a euphemism for the rape of our countryside. No IT expressways, no skimpy clothes, no rational people, and no knk roads and express avenues and unabashed consumerists that we have become(yes, yes, me too).

#I might have come off as a crackpot in the process of trying to fit my city onto a simple blog post, which is very reductive and does not really do justice to the city. Sad again.

After all this, I must say, I really don't care.

cheers.

#I am being extremely critical. of everyone. very strongly. 


through the eyes of a chameleon


asch and milgram experiment. argumentum ad populum. three men make a tiger.

I wonder if he hates us chameleons. Everyone seem to do it. These creatures, these human beings, they just belive what they are told. When they have a sufficient number of nods, they somehow assign a factual veracity to it, even when the evidence points to none.  Look at him, staring at me in disgust. I wonder if he is aware of my disgust too, at his hypocrisy- with his frayed t-shirt and poorly washed jean staring at me with his four eyes, looking at things with callous disregard, yet seemingly appearing to be concerned. This conceit in his eyes, what is it for? Why is he dull and gloomy when he is this well? I have seen the little boy with the bucket of wheat paste(gondhu) and posters of politicians and little girls posing for appollo computer education, who is happier than this well fed, well clothed little twit.

nonconsequentialist reasoning. Morally acceptable. Trying to do the right thing.


What do they want? what is your search really about? Is it about doing the right thing? Is it about the ends justifying the means? Are these humans so stupid that they don't see what they are, and keep trying continuously to become something better, ultimately complicating their lives even more?  I used to travel a lot, and I must admit, this well dressed pompous lot never seems to be satisfied, and is always in a hurry to do something else. Idiots. Them and their obnoxious consumerism. Bah, I am repulsed.

information cascade.

You ass. See what you are doing here? if you don't like whatever it is that you are doing, leave. don't do it. Maybe you might not have money to dress yourself like a doll, or to eat expensive food, but you will be happy. Keep acting like this, and the society will look at you like you look at me. Do you think anybody ever cares? Don't waste your time thinking about what other snobs like you might think. You are a little more than that. 

That's the biggest problem you all have created for yourselves is not money. Its greed. You creatures don't know the first bloody thing about contentment. You always want more. I am tired of this lot. 

Take a look at the rain drops. Look how beautiful it is. Have you noticed the little flower on a plant that sprang from the crack of the dilapidated indian bank building? look at that ayodhya benefit fund shutter, its not closed properly on one side! And that maligai kadai annachi who opens shop at 6 30 am, with a packet of marie biscuits at the front counter that is as old as the paati who sells maavudu next to the bus stand. They are people too, they have lives too. But they are normal. Its these well educated ones that annoy me, look at him looking at me. Your education should have brought humility. No, its sheer arrogance and a of complete lack of perspective, that is what your education has done to you. 

'The patterns of communication hard-wired into our brains rely on there being another person's voice, facial expressions , emotions and an associated environment of trust, loyalty and cooperation... This is an important reason why we still have teachers-why we cannot tell our children to simply sit down and read books or rely on computer-aided instruction.'-Robert Shiller, Irrational Exuberance.

All the theories that you see above have been used for explaining people's behavior in influencing markets, from the book irrational exuberance. 


Cheers.


ps:
Yes, I am another one of those obnoxious consumerists. No, I am not trying to prove a point or anything.

Nungambakkam woes.


'பிராமணன் தன கடமையாகிய வேத அத்யயனத்தையும் கர்மானுஷ்டனத்தையும் விட்டான். ஊரை விட்டான், தனக்குரிய ஆசாரங்களை விட்டான். கிராப் வைத்து கொண்டான். சூட் போட்டு கொண்டான். வேத படிப்பை விட்டு வெள்ளைகாரனின் லௌகிகப் படிப்பில் போய் விழுந்தான்...'

Look at that girl manager at the vada pav stand in that petrol bunk. How old is she? I would say 14. She would say 20. Does she even know what a man's stare means? Will she naively trust everyone of them? She cannot even understand what trust is. She looks lost in this land of strange people and strange customs, which has been forced on her with callous disregard. 


இந்த்ரிய சௌகர்யத்திற்காக புதிய மேல்நாட்டு படிப்பு, சயின்ஸ், வாழ்கை முறை இவற்றில் போய் விழுந்தான்....


Let's focus our attention now to that khader nawaaz khan road. All swanky, upscale and glittering. Gloriously modern, with those beautiful neon lights and those lovely designer boutiques, with lights and air conditioners! Ah, where are we? Is this what utopia is? The west must be so impressive, that they have all these fancy clothes and jewels and watches and look! there are salons! They also have coffee shops! How beautiful they look from outside. We are truly progressing and we will continue to shun our age old beliefs until they have been completely forgotten, or have been replaced by the new age thoughts. From now on, do not frown upon pub culture. It is a glorious way of celebrating life. Bah, what will you know about it.


பிராமணன் மற்றவர்களோடு ஒட்டிபோகாமல் தான் ஏதோ உசத்தி என்று பெருமை கொண்டடி கொண்டான். ஆகாரம் வேறாக இருந்தால் பிரமனுக்கும் க்ஷத்ரியனுக்கும் த்வேஷம் என்று அர்த்தமாகுமா? 


Beggars. Menace, aren't they? Ah. How many more! How many people can we pay? Ask the government for facilities. Even if we pay you now, you will come back for more! We have our own problems. If that man doesn't get his new belt for the price of sum total of all your self-esteem, his boss will kick him out. Who will feed his family then? You, with your lost look and your no-place-to-live monologue?


Ah!


The little kids on the side walk. Why are they playing? Your mother and father are struggling. On the streets. And for no reason, they thought it would be a nice idea to bear two lovely little children to leave them on the sidewalk and let god take care of them. After all, what are traffic signals for? 
Karma. Sidhartha did the right thing. No wonder he found the human way of life disgusting.


Are you happy to be sitting in front of your computer, listening to your favorite song, eating your favorite paruppu usili and vendakka saambar? Do you count yourself lucky? No? You have been wronged? Your friend is richer? He has a fancy car? A beautiful bungalow? A lovely caring wife? You have what?
Nothing?
A roof over your head?
Daily meal? Thrice? Atleast twice?
Clothes? concerned parents? basic education? 


Ah. You have nothing, truly nothing. My sympathies.

ps:


I am ashamed of my obscene consumerism. One fine day, I went along to nungambakkam to buy my belt, and I was revolted by the thing this place has become, and the person that I have become. I am a heartless scoundrel.


The tamil portions are extracts from deivathin kural by chandrasekhara saraswati swamigal. I have lifted certain portions of the text, but not with the intent of obfuscating/misleading.


cheers, and god bless us. all.

Random off the topic.

I don't know if anybody has really given a palaapazha kottai about this, but why is there a nutritional information column for a water bottle? I think even the most consummate idiot on the world(some exceptions remain) knows that water has just a touch of contaminants and is nothing else at all. Fats? Carbohydrates? Really? As if all the fuss that is already around dieting is not enough, we, as a society have continuously succeeded in creating a glut of utterly useless and superficial data and have completely disregarded something called 'common sense'. 

movies.

I usually don't write reviews. That's not true. I don't write well-reasoned reviews. They eventually turn into  lopsided criticism with little/no grounds whatsoever. I do like to be an opinionated ass trying to act all high and mighty. This review may not reflect the actual status of the richness/daftness of the movie, but it definitely is what I think of this movie(don't navigate to the end of the post. its an order. ok, please?)

Unless there is something on the screen that is completely abnormal/astounding, I stick to my original notion that a movie will suck, my basic assumption. This is very much like the mathematical proofs that are demonstrated via reductio ad absurdum, except that, the assumption here is likely to remain intact. 

Take a statement, take up its contradiction, prove that the contradiction is silly and that the original made better sense, and q.e.d. Watch a movie, assume the movie sucks, go watch it, and if something really different is on screen, hey! the original assumption was wrong. So. change of mind. 

I am heavily biased towards nolan, maniratnam and all the other directors who make shots in which light cuts the blades of table fans for six minutes for no particular reason(I can even lie through my teeth that I liked the seven samurai even though I managed to complete the movie across a span of seven gruelling days). 

Rambling.

I am going to write a very small review of the movie ko(in addition to the million other reviews on a very open internet). Here goes.

#There is a scene in which the commandoes/special forces/extras in green uniforms blow up a loose frail wooden door with a c4. Maybe it was to incapacitate the people lurking behind the weakest part of the house-behind the door.

#Songs. There are thirty three thousand songs in the movie. Out of them, thirty four thousand are unnecessary, painfully annoying and sap all your energy.

#Pia bajpai's lips move like the dynamic of a double pendulum (the dubbing is absolutely out of sync). Its like watching a deaf and dumb newsreader dancing to the tune of katy perry's hot'n'cold  to report the news of a death of a leader.

#The harris' template to feature a song with bombay jayashree is very repetitive. One more movie, and there will probably be a mass suicide outside his house.

#stop showing us how much fun colleges are. This is probably why we have so many colleges these days, and the graduates are becoming duller that they seem to be having only fun and are probably doing nothing else.

#Four people, with guns and bags slung over the shoulder, at the corner of an intersection with a traffic police, and with millions of people, get into a bank and create so much chaos and nobody notices this other than a photographer. Yes, thank you for letting us know that we are hare-brained.

Voyeur. 

I am scared of medical examinations, especially when they hand me that tiny cylindrical cup that has to be used to collect my urine. 

#How do I assess how much of the 'sample' they would need to do tests? I am always doubtful, that in the 'process' of collection, I constantly recalibrate my need with a imaginary need of the lab people, and I come to a compromise that I have done justice, but as I see the other samples on the tray, I understand that I have fallen short. Even in this. The only saving grace is, nobody knows the exact measure. 

#When collecting the sample, its often important to er... stop in the middle. I had to be so careful not to spill on the sides of the cup, and also actually stop 'the process'. This is probably the most significant amount of self-control I have exerted in all my life, that I was quite content with the result, given the fact that I had to do it a number of times.

#As readers, you should all be grateful that I was not asked to do a stool test. 

ஒரு குடும்பம் அல்லது குலத்திற்காக ஒரு மனிதனை தியாகம் செய்து விடலாம்; ஒரு கிராமத்திற்காக ஒரு குலத்தை தியாகம் செய்யலாம்; நாட்டிற்காக ஒரு கிராமத்தை தியாகம் செய்யலாம்; தனக்காக உலகத்தையே தியாகம் செய்யலாம்.


-extract for vidura neethi, courtesy this week's thuglak.

Love.

He was lazily eyeing the highway, looking at the wisp of hair caressing her sleepy rounded eyes. He smiles to himself, the number of times she had pushed his hand away affectionately. He slowly turns around to see her mild discomfort, squirming on the seat, and extends his hand to prod her a bit. All hell breaks-

Madness.

The rag picker,eating on the by-lanes together with the armful of beggars and louts, with food that can pass off as garbage is suddenly interested in the incandescence of the only light on the street and the girl underneath. The rag picker, watches the little girl followed by four burly hirsute men, and the girl hastens her pace-

Sacrifice.

The child was never to be. He calls the doctor, eight times. He knows the lines are dead. He knows nobody is going to help. He is not going to stop. He watches the women wipe the sweat off his wife's forehead. She faints. She gains consciousness and screams. She faints again. She cannot go on like this. And then, he hears a shriek-

Betrayal.

Listen, if you are out there, run. Run and hide. They are coming for you. Go you fool. No? What are you? A rebel who wants to get shot? You fool. Your vanity doesn't let you free even when you want to die? Go. Never turn back, and promise me this-you will never, ever come back for anything. There is just nothing here, that can-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

love.

-loose. He wakes up and gasps. He breathes hard, and all of a sudden, a hand touches his shoulder. The same way, a few minutes back, when he almost lost control of everything. Now, the hand. She is here, isn't she? She is here. He is comforted. Morphine acts very quickly. The doctors examine his pulse. Steady. Too bad. His wife looked beautiful even after she had...

madness.

-and makes the mistake of turning back. Now, fear, the one thing that can kill any good plan stalks her together with the other preying creatures. She enters a lane. Its dark. Compound wall. She is scared and looks like the driver who misses the oncoming vehicle on the highway. The only sound from the neighborhood is the muffled scream of a fourteen year old praying to god to kill her every single moment rather than...

sacrifice.

-The bleeding ends. The baby is out. The baby, is numb. Its as if she is dead. She looks beautiful, with her blood soaked body and the big eyes. Yes, she is held upside down. A smack. A shriek. What a lovely sight. Slowly, the mother's legs start to shake violently. Her eyes bulge. She breathes hard, almost like a fourteen year old being raped by...

betrayal.

-save you. The bullet lands right across the temple, and a sputter of blood. This life, ends with no notice. Too bad. He is dead. Like the mother who had to give her life up for her baby. Nothing can stop him from being here now. He is not going to leave this place. This is his fort. Vanity, yes. Vanity...

ps:

#Cloud Atlas is a brilliant book written by David Mitchell that has a lovely interwoven narrative with six nested stories. This is a very cheap illustration of that technique, mainly to show off, but also to let you all know how reading a book could be this different. Do read.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_(novel)

#Just like every other idiot, I got carried away by gloom. I promise, I will write a happy one in my next one to make up for this depression. 

psychedelics-I.

(random sights and sounds from Madras)

tamizh nadu slum clearance board amidst a circle of slum tenements.
vetri meedhu vetri vandhu ennai serum on the radio at the tea kadai near ellai amman koil.
fliers for kanneer anjali for paramasivam.
the cracked thiru vi ka bridge.
butt road masjid, silently stuck in between saidapet and guindy.
power house bus stop, and the story of silappathigaaram on the walls, in front of the government hospital.
Nei dheepams on a blackened stand outside vada thirunallaaar in giri street.
'inner ring road southern section begins here' in green and white.
Blue and white saravana bavan board.

Neon lights. Neon lights.

Philosophy. Fair warning. 

'We would all like to make progress instantly, but there are no shortcuts. In auto racing, for example, designers struggle to make lighter cars. The best way to trim 100 pounds, is find 1000 places to trim a tenth of a pound. Similarly, for most off us, the best way to improve our lives is to find numerous small ways to change for better...'-Extract from Mean Genes

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As much as I epitomize kannadasan for his

வீடு வரை உறவு, வீதி வரை மனைவி,

காடு வரை பிள்ளை, கடைசி வரை யாரோ,

I found that this is not without precedent, as I found in the text of pattinathar. He is a poet who connects with the people who are trying to seek a fundamental understanding of spirituality by way of cynicism of our discontent and futile existence. He says,

என்பெற்ற தாயரு மென்னைப் பிணமென் ரிகழ்ந்துவிட்டார்
பொன்பற்ற மாதரும் போவென்று சொல்லிப் புலம்பிவிட்டார்
கொன்பற்ற மைந்தரும் பின்வலம் வந்து குடமுடைதார்
உண்பற் றொழிய ஒருபற்று மில்லை உடையவனே...

'After death, my own mother has shunned me as a corpse. My wife has grieved as much more than she could, my sons have   circumambulated my dead body and broken the pot(performed the funeral rites). From now, it is only you I have, and only you I shall seek.'

A very simple paraphrasing(but brilliant, nonetheless) of this philosophy has provided everyone of us(familiar with kannadasan's works) an insight into the impermanence of everything else other than infinite bliss.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It has become our habit to dilute the significance of religion, by reducing it to a mere palliative for everyday problems. This reductive approach has very little meaning, and it keeps perpetuating a dualistic tendency wherein  the important things that have to be taken away from the situations are not. A simple example of what we miss is recorded by kanchi maha periyavar in his deivathin kural, when he quotes thirumoolar's brilliant lines:

மரத்தை மறைத்தது மாமத யானை 
மரத்தில் மறைந்தது மாமத யானை

A little boy does not differentiate between a elephant made of wood and a real elephant-to him, a wooden toy is real. We are all the same, looking for meaning in a illusionary worldly elephant, missing it for the permanence of blissful elephant toy!

There are quite a few saint poets who add that no amount of worship is eventually going to stop anything from happening, or the converse. There is a casual dismissal of the events around us as mere trivialities in the search for the supreme. This has to be read in consonance with ramana maharishi's take on how we already have realized the self, and the goal is only to cast away the ignorance. 

All these concepts of a dvaita, advaita and how the jivatma and paramatma are different/same stems only after the agreement that we should rise above ego and understand the permanence of our original self. The first step is to realize that ahankaaram is the root cause of all misery. After we have risen above this, we can then decide on the relative merits and demerits of each of the philosophical theories, but until then, arguing over them seems futile, if not pointless.(from ramana maharishi's conversations, but not verbatim)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I saw an old lady argue, fight, swear and curse the gods for taking her son before her. She had prayed to the gods all her life, and now they have made her question her beliefs. Grief is a reaction that is biological and not a product of the ego. On a contrasting note, a spiritual passage is manifest only by way of suffering. There is no pain beyond that, but infinite bliss.
Grief, though, does not accept philosophy or spirituality(on the normal plane). My heart goes out to that lady wailing in grief, trying to hold on to her belief.
Your 'vairakkiyam' has simply made my philosophy repugnant, and my skepticism cowers in front of your rage.  To you, and to the million others who feel abandoned and let down, my prayers. Ironically.

God bless.

ps:
#I am not trying to reduce kannadasan's poem's stature. Simplicity, as da vinci(?) said, is the ultimate form of sophistication. His elegance is unparalleled. Respect.
#This might not qualify as philosophy. Unfortunately, I could not fit this into any other genre. Apologies for disappointing.
#I read the blog post once, and I could sense a strong sense of didacticism with a dose of insensitivity. apologies again.
#The initial italicized extract might strike a discordant note with the rest of the blog. It was interesting, just an fyi.

"i believe that newton could hold a problem in his mind for hours and days and weeks until it surrendered to him its secret"-jonh maynard keynes, on sir Isaac Newton.

Abstinence is actually quite easy. Just try what I do. Whenever you are prompted to indulge in an orgy of spending, or something equally foolish, even though it were an absolute requirement, just ask yourself this question-

'appadi enna pudungitennu ippo enakku idhu?'

an interesting variant of the same question is,

'idha vechi enna pudunga poren'.

The first one, makes me feel guilty, about being a good-for-nothing, when it is crystal clear that I am, but I still am not comfortable walking around with a tag like that. The second one is both a deterrent, and is less annoying in that there is less to come to terms with my actual shortcomings. But this technique is only for worthless people, whose net present value would make the books of bear sterns look neat and those whose levels of self-esteem is equal to the level of water in chembarambakkam eri in the month of may.

The burkit road-venkatnarayana road junction presents a remarkable sight-amidst the heat, haze and dust of the city, there is a beautiful tree with fully bloomed flowers, white ones, coloring the entire landscape, offsetting the garish and straight-edged glass building right behind it. A beautiful piece of geometry, right in front of the perfect edges that poirot would have approved of.

Dichotomy.

Life is like that, wouldn't you agree?

Spirituality? you laugh!

The way to realization is suffering.

Come now, do not mock. Madness you say?

The cost of making a wedge-Rs 1000

The cost of material purchase -Rs 8000

look on the prof's face after he notices your blunder and realizes that everything was a waste?-priceless.

Do tell me the story of your past. Would you? No? Why are you so uncomfortable with the past? Can you not come to terms? A lot of denial is only madness. Wink, and the year is gone, the flowers bloom and fade. The lovely green fields will soon be flooded. Oh yes, there will be floods. Will there be hope?

No? randomness is a good answer!

Yes, there is something to hope for. Even the law of large numbers says that everything tends towards the average over repetitions. Human behavior must be subject to this too.

No you say?

The masala dosai, has to have a basic requirement-masala. The dosai, as any idiot would agree is the primary ingredient. Without it, it is only masala. It is like a drilling machine that is not a machine. Mysore bonda that is not bonda. Someone has to remind the staff at the canteen to stuff some masala into a dosai before I start a saalai mariyal right outside the canteen. It is not technically a saalai, just a sandhu. so, a sandhu mariyal then. Don't even get me started on the ghee masala roast.

Come now, put your ear to your heart and listen to what it says. Of course you cannot, and that is why you say No! Listen to the river, or go ask those flowers. Ask them what hope is. Ask the little girl at the traffic signal, looking at the skies for redemption. Do you see her face? Poor thing you say? But things even out, yes? God is not heartless. just a clever illusionist who deceives us into deceiving ourselves.

You see those crushed flowers on the road. Do they scream in agony?

Go on then.

i repeat, suffering is the first step towards realizing.

realizing what, you ask? Ah, now, therein lies the answer to everything.

Cheers.

'mortals, congratulate yourselves that so great a man has lived for the honor of the human race'

-sir isaac newton's epitaph at the westminster abbey.

References

http://news.softpedia.com/news/What-is-ergodicity-15686.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers

A little kid wearing a sleeveless with an american university's logo on it in the middle of nowhere in a hamlet in kumbakonam. His face lights up when a plastic top unwinds and hits the dusty earth and spins perfectly, and finally topples to its inevitable fall. He picks up the top and tries to weave the cord around it and keeps trying again until he sees the top spin. satisfaction. happiness.

I am not sure if he would have noticed had the world stopped around him as he was wrapping the cord around. The only thing he knows is the top, and that when the top spins, he smiles.

He spots my friend's camera, comes up to him and asks him to take a picture. My friend obliges. The boy looks at his face on the slr's display, and runs back happily.

I don't see how life can get any simpler.

A bus, a mini bus, squeezes in as so many people, that all you are when you get out of it is your own pulp. The ever persistent honking is just another habit, a lifestyle statement.

A million little thaeneer viduthis and cool bars line the road at the end of the lower anaicut towards jeyamkondan and gangai konda cholapuram, with the occasional sight of the tender coconuts.

A dilapidated bus stand guards the fortress like structure of the temple. Adjoining the walls of the temple are walls of huts, thankfully not destroyed citing the words 'heritage', 'splendor', or 'glory'. Thankfully, sensibility and the interests of the people have survived. Also, a beautiful little puddle of sewer right behind the temple walls, and leaking into the temple itself, provides a disturbing vision of something poetic tarnished by reality.

have you observed, that at times, life is beautiful like the most beautiful song?

or, that happiness dawns all of a sudden for no apparent reason when everything else is going from bad to worse?I haven't. that's why.

-------------------------------------------------

I used to have glasses. I wanted to wear them again, for a host of reasons, some of them being-

#to look at life in a different way.

#to make cheap statements like above.

#my life sucks(that's quite normal).

I managed to get a poly carbonate lens which cost me one half of my stipend. The other half was for the frame, which was procured by a very smart gentleman currently in chicago. I wanted something very inexpensive, and very non-flashy, and I got the complement of it. The sum of my requirement and his procurement is 0. 1+-1.

-----------------------------------------

The sight of well organized editions of magazines in the house is a very welcome sight, as opposed to a haphazard maze of flotsam and jetsam everywhere.

----------------------------------

The sight of my sight in the mirror is a very strong cue from the gods to direct my attention away from vanity and narcissism, because I cannot look myself in my eyes with the glasses. They don't look bad, but they look flashy and positively gaudy. I look like a street hooker trying to pass off as an expensive escort and failing miserably in the process. I am two steps short of being asked for hourly rates. I look like the women who would appear in unimportant ads trying to pass off as young mothers and in the process fooling no one. I have become the cynosaur of all the other eyes, who ask me why I am out on the streets during the day. I used to feel very uncomfortable when someone asked me to look in their eyes, because I was definitely not fit to do that morally, but now, I don't want people to analyze my eyes with these glasses.

----------------------------------

A vavvaal in the house in madras in the evening. I am surprised, and very concerned. A poor bat, completely lost, in a strange and possibly vengeful world. It is not there on purpose is it? It has no direction, nor has it anyone to help it find a way. It must trust its own senses, and place its life on the hands of whatever it is that runs whatever that should be run. A struggle. Fly away. On your own. Go.

-----------------------------------------

I found excellent material for explaining concorde fallacy. After having spent my entire fortune on this 'do-it-yourself-prostitute' kit, I see that I am clearly not happy with the results. Yes, I have never been happy, that point aside, I think the sunk costs should have stopped me from buying the lens in addition to an already expensive frame. Thinking about what kind of a walking philosophical human blunder that I am, I think I quite got away with it. Time to do something even more stupid and raise the stakes of my mediocrity and valuelessness of my self esteem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs

-------------------------------------------------

Witnessing something pleasant is refreshing.

A thulasi plant which silently sprouts tiny leaves at the junctions of stems. coffee at bakya's with a friend from a long time back. Music.

I would want my life to end like this. Looking out of the window at the rain drops fall on the thulasi leaves, listening to bhaja govindam. with a coffee tumbler in the hand, davara in another, and staring at the residual sugar coated with the golden tint of the coffee, the color of the sun washed by a waterfall, staring at the glorious radha and krishna on the picture on the wall, and.

Cheers.

நானெனும் பொய்யை நடத்துவோன் நான்
ஞானச் சுடர்வானில் செல்லுவோன் நான்
ஆனபொருள்கள் அனைத்திலும் ஒன்றாய்
அறிவாய் விளங்குமுதற் சோதி நான் !

Slow motion suicide.

http://thecontentfarm.tumblr.com/post/2975433444/how-to-sob-uncontrollably

#if you want my opinion(I have no idea why you would want mine), since I have a normal inclination to preach for free and not give two hoots about not practising it, here it is-don't take 12 C. you know, the bus, from saligramam to mylapore. Its meant for a different purpose, for transporting broken axles, loose seats and dust and filth across arcot road, venkat narayana road and rk mutt road. take the train.

The best part about being a loser is, nobody really cares, and I know this for a fact.

#Every place is expensive. I always thought eating out would turn out to be an expensive affair, but these days you have to sell your organs if you want to have a sumptuous lunch in a decent restaurant. also, if you want to buy vegetables or the occasional fruit, rice, pulses, anything that you might require to survive. So, we are being forced on a path of sainthood, hence, inflation is for the greater good of the masses.

You can be smart and successful, or you can be either. But if you are neither, you are as good as the next stray animal on the streets.

#i have never been a fan of those big fancy eat outs and I settled for a krishna sweets snack of poli. It was Rs 15 a week back, and they changed it to Rs 20 right in front of my eyes, even as lord krishna on a photo was winking mischievously. not at me, but at the indian population in general. more leelai would follow I suppose. Thankfully the poli was the same size, as opposed to saravana bavan, where dosai is being served with magnifying glasses these days.

hopes, more often than not, are merely false promises for some.

Ragi malt is excellent with heritage rather than arokya, and I don't know how my dead tongue could even discern the change. Probably because I drank it with curdled milk, or maybe I diluted one part of milk with 15 parts of corporation water. The next best thing to condensed milk is condensed milk. no contest. The next best thing to pooshnika verkadalai kootu is only that.

Every second of indulging in negativity is glorious. That is the only thing some are capable of.

The mind wanders in search of peace and happiness, and finds it in the most loveliest of the places. I was exhausted from all the travelling throughout the day, that when I reached thanjavur in the evening with a friend, I was completely drained of all feelings in the limbs. It is not an ordinary feeling to be dazed by something just by looking at it. At the periya koil, it is different-the temple looks at you, and intimidates you into submitting to its ferocity. I have always meaninglessly traveled for far too long now, in search of hope. I apparently have taken a metaphor far too seriously, to journey far and wide to find hope. I haven't yet. Neither hope, nor meaning.

Only the grand vestiges of an architectural marvel, which is yet to be surpassed in terms of the scale of the feat.

HR responses rejecting my application. A hypothetical response I always intended to send.

Dear Kathy,

I was shocked by your apology yesterday. You had sent me an email about how you were sorry and had decided to pursue other candidates for the janitorial engineer position. I am horrifed not by the rejection, but by how sad you had felt on hearing such a disheartening news-that a stranger who lives in a remote corner of the world with possible sociopathic inclinations could be rejected. I stood up after reading this letter, and started to cry. I have never cried in my life before, not even when I could not find my nail cutter. I am yet to understand how you could come to terms with the harsh terms of rejection offered to me, you poor thing.

I hope you have the support of your loving family and that with time, you will eventually be able to move on. My sincere thanks, as sincere as yours, for the faith you place in my abilities to wish me luck in my future endeavors. I am truly blessed for such noble people amidst; you have shown me that there is reward for faith in these testing times. I am sure I would have plenty of luck in my next opportunity, because of the very fact that you have wished it.

ps: In the absence of tears now,I am sending a bit of my blood sample to show you how much I care. I took the liberty to look up your address from your office directory. god bless.

there was an email from mathworks for some seminar i had registered for. The next day, i received an email thanking me for that. A response.

Dear priya at mathworks,

I am so glad by your heartfelt gesture to sincerely send me an email about how you appreciate my appreciation of your appreciative services, and I really appreciate this. I have to say, I have been getting up every single day in the hope of seeing an email from mathworks and their pious irreverence in thanking people for using their products. In fact, I just took a snapshot of the mail, and I have framed it on my wall just so that i get up every morning to see this mail that has made my life worth living.

However, in the last few days, I had registered for a lot of seminars, but I had got but one email only. I was depressed to the point that I had to seek psychiatric counsel and a prescription of anti-depressants to get through this tough phase of my life. I am still seeing nightmares of not seeing your mails. I would even tell my girl friend that I was more interested in making love to this email than to her. I had abandoned my life's goal of doing something meaningful when I realized that I would not be getting any more mails. I am sitting here, kneeling before the mathworks website, and pleading for the site to have mercy upon this poor soul, and send the thank you emails that I truly deserve.

Once again, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, liver, pancreas, small intestine...

I have used an american name, because Indian Hr's don't bother sending emails, as I found out the hard way.

Cheers.

What happens in walajah...

If you have never been on a bharathi velu bus service, you have wasted your pursuit of scientific inquiry(if you had one of those, unlike me). You will be amazed by this bus-the journey, the prelude, the epilogue, the prologue, and whatever other logs you might know of. The magical art of transforming a finite space to hold infinite amount of human resources is breathtaking. I was waiting to board the bus, or at least get the thundu through one of the windows, but I was too slow. I was bested by someone who was definitely the flash gordon of walajah. He had dexterously slipped his hand underneath and got away with thundu placement.

Lesson #1

Don't wait for the bus to empty. It is a mathematical impossibility. You are being deceived by what appears to be an illusion of a constant stream of finite passengers, but your eyes will play tricks on you. You will wait there, you will wait till every ounce of your energy is expended and you are left to puff and pant and finally faint in the bus stand hoping for a free paneer soda. Don't wait. Get inside the instant someone else tries to do. You have to follow the rebel, and not be an idiot pacifist. Fight on the first step, shout on the second because on the other side of the step waits glory, and probably some space to stand. I waited. Rookie mistake. I waited for two villages to alight, and the bus was full again. I was left to ponder. Philosophy and science had abandoned me again.

Lesson #2

Try to maximize your circumference. If you fail to do this, by the commencement of the ride, you will have enough space only to catch the last breath of your life. If you want to get down in the middle and the end point is not the destination, abort your mission.

you. are. not. getting. down. Your resistance will be crushed.

Lesson #3

never ever wear a veshti on this bus. I was praying to the good lord not for a life of vim and vitality, but only that my veshti doesn't slip away in the human mass, because it is the mathematical equivalent of a black hole. It will never be found. Neither will my dignity. Don't ask what I was doing in a veshti in arakkonam.

As I said before, What happens in walajah stays in walajah.

I am smitten. There is a reason why I must live. I have found hope. Someone just hit a F5 on my life. All this because of my sundari. She is the most gorgeous thing in the known universe. She is everything that a man can ever want, and at 18 speeds, more than what a man can want(though why one would need 18 speeds in madras will remain a mystery). My new bicycle is going to be the object of gush in this post. I am really excited even as I type this, because I think this is what is like being on a high. Ah, sundari, my reason to live. to love. A source of happiness in an otherwise decadent life(that's the obligatory disturbed view of the mentally unstable unemployed person).

உள்ளத்திலே லேகரு வங்கொண்ட போதினில்

ஓங்கி யாடித் திடுவான்- நெஞ்சில்

கள்ளத்தைக் கொண்டொரு வார்த்தைசொன் நாலங்கு

காரி யுமிழ்ந்திடு வான்...

(kannan paatu, mahakavi)

மார்கழி

I wake up every single day and remind myself that there is not a restaurant in madras where they treat human beings like human beings. I am not sure if there is cosmic irony to this, and that god wishes a place where people could be randomly placed in chairs with random food being thrown about, and they just accidentally fall into a random dish, which they tend to appreciate.

There are two people on the table behind me, where one person is screaming at the top of his voice in flawless English about his tryst with the various places he visited. Had there been a lonely planet writer there, I am sure he need not have visited any of those places to gain a working knowledge of the culture and geography. Here was a real big mike and amplifier combo who happened to be explaining the various roads he walked on or the fancy restrooms he peed in, as me and a million other people in a 15 mile radius were forced to listen to a guided tour of Vienna.

The petrol bunk is a funny place. I try to unfasten the petrol tank cap right before I get in, because of the certainty of Murphy’s laws applied to my life. Even Murphy wouldn’t have envisaged the predictability of all these laws in anyone’s life, but if anyone gets a chance to meet him, do let him know that he has found the most glorious example of someone who has fallen to almost every one of the vicissitudes of the laws. I was trying to unscrew the cap for a good ten minutes, fully aware of someone else screwing with me all the time from up there.

The mobile phones, they are creatures of the dark arts. I got my credit mysteriously reduced by Rs 40 in one night (yes, jokes about rates, night and me are in order). I wasn’t talking to anyone, not consciously. I now sleep with nightmares of negative balance, with cell phones, as it is with bank accounts, my grades in school and my life’s progress in general.

The first day of the year was truly ground breaking. I had accidentally dropped the hammer on a loose tile on the balcony, and the tile shattered, like the hopes, the dreams(and other stuff you read in paulo coelho). So, yes, ground breaking for shattering what little is left of the old tile. I am worried about the tile, you know it cannot go on like this, I mean, it couldn't take any more damage, of what little is left of it.

Along with several important things like self esteem, belief and hope, I am also abandoning my frugal way of living. I think its foolish to let yourself be carried away by unnecessary thoughts like a simple and humble lifestyle, and be a rampant and gaudy spendthrift, buying even those things that you do not want and indulge in them like a pig wallowing in the sewer. kindly do not think that I am against people who spend money like this and that I am trying to equate them to pigs. Definitely not. Trust me.

Faith in god is very important during testing times. So, when I tried to taste the poricha kootu I had made with cabbage and cucumber, I was a little uncertain of what would happen had I...So many things were to be done, the will had to be drawn, but I took the bold step. I took the plunge. Holy smokes, it was good. This experiment confirms without any bias the consistency of the existence of god hypothesis. Pascal's wager can go smoke itself into oblivion, the big daddy of the god confirming theories is here to stay.

there's a lovely January breeze in madras. Its time to fall in love with arcot district again.

வண்ண மாடங்கள் சூழ்ந்திருக் கோட்டியூர்

கண்ணன் கேசவன் நம்பி பிறந்தனில்

எண்ணெய் சுண்ணம் எதிரெதிர் தூவிடக்

கண்ணன் முற்றம் கலந்துஅள ராயிற்றே

(naalayira divya prabandam, 1st verse after thiruppallandu)

புல்லாகிப் பூடாய்ப் புலர்ந்தனாள் போதாதோ?

கல்லாய் மரமாய்க் கழிந்தநாள் போதாதோ?

அன்னை வயிற்றி லழிந்தனாள் போதாதோ?

மன்னவனாய் வாழ்ந்து மரித்தனாள் போதாதோ?

Towards the end of the blog, I have strayed into the emotionally disturbed-pathetic-helpless-frustrated- young man’s path. You can stop reading after the points to skip the melodrama.

If you do read it,

A clichéd point-the fact that I am writing this, and the fact that you are reading this means we are lucky.

Good music is always good music, and unfortunately relative and subjective.

Italicized lines are just lessons learnt, I did not mean to be sanctimonious. No preaching, no advice, not even suggestions, only an analysis of decisions/actions.

Everything was wet, inside, outside, in between. You have never understood the meaning of the phrase torrential rain until you actually travel in a bike in one. At 30 km/hr, it felt like I was hit by jet from a poorly designed water pistol aimed at the face but missing and hitting the nether regions. I don’t like to sit on anything when I am wet. (Not the kind of wet you have in mind, the less kinky and original wet.) The interesting part of the story-the lab was locked. I didn’t have the keys.

I can either complain about luck, or can rationalize: taking pre-emptive action by buying a raincoat or an umbrella (bus travel). Sensibility never comes in the way of decision making. At least in my case.

#you do not understand the actual essence of the proverbial 'its raining cats and dogs' statement until you are in one. I was talking to my maama about ramanan, and how he had forecast rains for the weekend and that it would be safe to venture out; it is reported that Barack Obama called up IMD and asked them if things went terribly wrong, as what ramanan said had actually happened-it rained.

Wildly.

People in Madras watched in awe, worried at the possible implications this might have and were shocked at the manner in which the core of their belief manner. They feel distressed that their long standing cynicism is being put to test in a very weathered(to unnecessarily and incoherently also meaninglessly use a weather related word). way. The mayans were right. Right about 2012, when ramanan's every single forecast would be accurate, that the gods would wise up to the erratic and imponderable changes the planet had undergone and kaboom. The end of the world is not nuclear weapons or wars, it is at the hands of a mysterious meteorologist.

He is definitely the harbinger of sunshine. We need better models for better forecast.

A lot of my friends are curious as regards the nature of my research. First of all, I would like to declare like Mark twain that I have nothing to declare but my absolute naiveté about my research. In very reductive terms, I don’t know. In more expanded and elaborate terms, I don’t know. So, that should give you a clue as to where you might want to start asking questions. I have no idea, about anything.

Life is the sum total of good books, good music, good food and good set of friends. its a four letter expletive without these.

I love digressing unnecessarily, and abruptly. I adore oxford commas.

I use a lot of I’s. I understand that it’s not a good thing to do. I also like hypocrisy.

I understand that success and failure is not to be questioned. They are heavily dependent on influential people, who can influence these decisions.

This is why I think the past is beautiful because its over. But I can also say the same about coffee and some women (obligatory coffee loving reference in the post).

I love logical fallacies from the language. We are so full of it all the time that we fail to see rationality at all.

I don’t know why I am implying logical correctitude to rational thinking.

The ironies of life-Child labor in one of the most premier institutes of this country, the hallowed portals of IIT. The restaurant inside the campus offers a beautiful case study of the collective callousness of this country-the boy was hardly 15, and he was cleaning a table. I am writing a blog after seeing this, because venting ire on a social forum is what is going to feed, clothe and educate him. Hypocrisy.

Happiness is not a medium or a short term pursuit because our lives are not over yet, and we never know how far we will sink, or how high we might rise.

There is a kutcheri outside. This one is not big bucks. Not garish displays of cultural snobbery. Not the vocal strains hitting one particular note with beautiful precision and producing lilting melodies. Not flawless rendering of sankarabaranam. Not the patronage of the limited few trying/pretending to understand music. Not the haughty arrogance of the few performers who instigate my spite.

I am not trying to defile the sanctity of the notion of the classical carnatic institution; it’s a part of the beautiful history of my city. I cannot stand certain things. Apologies (Impetuous).

This one is in a van.

It’s not anything new. Let’s move on.

This one is more of a survival than a song. This is a question of dignity, and of not losing it. This is a faulty cacophonous cry for a decent living.

It is true then, Life is cheap.

‘There is always hope’- Hopes don’t differentiate between survival and success. Everything will even out eventually. Hopefully. (Hypocrisy, one last time)

Maalai pozhudhin mayakathile on the radio.

அன்னை எத்தனை எத்தனை அன்னையோ?

அப்பன் எத்தனை எத்தனை அப்பனோ ?

பின்னை எத்தனை எத்தனை பெண்டீரோ?

பிள்ளை எத்தனை எத்தனை பிள்ளையோ?

முன்னை எத்தனை எத்தனை சன்மமோ?

மூடனாயடி யேனும ரந்திலேன்,

இன்ன மெத்தனை எத்தனை சன்மமோ!

Cheers.

tamil poems by pattinathaar:

#1 திருவேகம்பாலை(bottom)

#2 அருட்புலம்பல்(top)