about cartoons and crying....

I still love coloured balloons, feel jealous when my mother pets my brother too much or makes pickles exclusively for my cousins, cry at the drop of a hat, petulantly argue with anyone who calls me a kid, love watching make way for noddy and Oswald, lick the last wisp of maggi off my plate and the sugar in the bottom of my coffee cup . I am scared of ghosts, snigger in the middle of a serious lecture and get pleased if someone gives dairy milk or just appreciates me or my work (which includes this blog too :)). So, does all of this amount to being kiddish .. yes. Is it wrong to be one when you are supposed to have grown up.. is the bone of contention.
I recently observed a cute thing. I made masala dosa one day at home and thought of giving my thatha some. My patti being very orthodox does not have anything made anywhere but in her kitchen. So she peered into it and intently watched thatha as he had it. He later said that he liked it, especially as the dosas were crispy.. my patti seeing he had liked it, started off about how easy it is to make it and explained the recipe the way she imagined it to be.. she declared that it was not a big deal on the whole and that if it had not been for her austerities she would always make it at home… what I found to be cute in this exchange was, she seemed to be slightly jealous that thatha liked something made by someone other than her.. She is 80 plus.. I did not get nettled, instead found it really cute!!
Just because one grows up need not mean that he or she should suddenly turn matured and never act stupidly. We all do funny things like a kid, so why is watching cartoons and crying for a melodramatic movie kiddish?? (so what if it is kiddish). Cartoons are the easiest way to get into a world where everything is a lot simpler. Toy land has a major problem if it is going to rain or a puppy goes missing. Noddy goes around searching for the pup or brings clouds in his helicopter. I feel like a kid when I watch and laugh for these little things. And why is crying a sign of weakness associated with children.. why can it not be just venting ones feelings.. btw, I recently found out that in shakespeare’s period it was a fashion for men to cry. And what is wrong with licking sugar off the cup (strictly at home) or being scared of spooky stuff.. well, if people can be scared of cockroaches why not something you have not seen at all..
No one can never really become fully matured.. it’s nice to have a childish demeanor,probably makes people young at heart like my mother (I loved it when she excitedly typed a smiley for the first time and clapped when she saw it animated on the screen) . It feels nice to just relapse into a world, where losing a pen or not getting to have cotton candy is the biggest problem.. cartoons and crying do not necessarily get rid of the existing tensions and worries.. but definitely help us face them with a lighter heart. So my conclusion, it is okay to be a kid (at times) :)

one of my favourite poems :)

Upon Westminster bridge- William wordsworth

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear

The beauty of the morning: silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

an evening in the campus....

Today happened to be the first java lab session I was attending for the semester. As the clock approached five I was already looking at the prospect of attending a programming lab with a good deal of irksomeness. My aversion to programming languages is because I don’t get it easily but well, I never admit it and argue that they are not one bit as good as biology(that’s actually true). So anyway, I ambled lazily to the computer science department and finally to the third floor, where I stood for a while relishing the picturesque view of the college and fields beyond. And finally two hours of whiling away the time, chatting, copying stuff.. and we were out.. My college as it is, never lets girls roam in the campus after six thirty and because of this readymade excuse, me and my friend decided to stall going in for a while.
We were both ravenous and decided to go to the canteen, where we greedily hogged crispy dosa with chutney and sambar. I then had this urge to go to the temple. I am not exactly a religious person and do not frequent to the temple or pray regularly. But somehow, there is this nice soothing solace that sets in whenever I go. So, we went to this little ganapathy temple that is in one corner of the campus and man, was it good! There sat mr. ganesha in a crisp white dhoti, adorned by red and white hibiscus. Beside him were a couple of other stone idols(I dunno who they are) who also likewise were in white dhoti . Some of the college boys totally unrecognizable in dhoti where chanting Vedas along with the pundit. After a very long time, I actually was able to summon the feelings of devotion today and prayed to God that everyone should get what they deserve (like they would’n otherwise). It was a bedlam of chirruping in the trees nearby. On a normal day I would not really enjoy it, but today it blended so well with the scene.. the blackish blue sky, the calm campus, chill evening breeze of the spring, dark trees, a small little temple, the chanting of Vedas and the birds chirping in their cosy nests !! I felt a strange, pleasant peace engulfing me as I walked back to my hostel.
And I realized, I don’t exactly have to go to Switzerland or Ooty or Kashmir to see the wonder that nature is. It is seen in all its splendour in every little thing around me.. the fluttering butterflies, the cuckoo singing on summer evenings, the setting sun in a shade of fiery red, the sun shining resplendently on the lustrous green fields, as its rays filter in through the tinted windows of my classroom, a lonely bus in the highway seen from my hostel window, the rainbows that stretch against the azure sky over the football ground after a brief raining spell, the smell of the moist earth freshly wet by that rain, the hazy blur that my campus becomes when it rains madly, the little lavender flowers and ochre buds in the bushes that stand on one side of the campus roads, the little flowers in a riot of colours, white, pink, shocking pink and yellow all over the campus, the rising silvery moon on wintry evenings, right over my favourite tree with dew drop like fragrant white flowers, in these does nature show her grandeur that leaves me mesmerized, speechless as it did today.. I almost feel like wordsworth as he stood admiring the London skyline at the Westminster bridge!! Ah,Life is so beautiful..

Srirangam

This is about the place I call my home town. Like about 85% of India s youth, I hail from a little town too.. a small place called srirangam, a suburb in the city of trichy….before starting off.. I wonder what it is going to be in this post that is different from all that has been written by so many people about their home towns.. should I write at all? I write this for two reasons, one- if there is anything on earth that I know best and if asked to talk about(apart from eating and myself), I can talk on and on for as long as I want to, it would be this.. second, like all other accounts on home towns there is this authentic flavor of rangam that is unique to it..something I both hate and love equally.. a place that is part of my identity.. and thus inseparable from me.. most people even if they know this place would be for the temple or probably because their grandparents or some distant relative staying here.. and tamil literature buffs would know it as the home town of the great writer sujatha… for me it’s none of these.. This is the place where I spent the first fourteen years of my life.. I still remember the day I left this place (we were actually shifting base to Chennai) in spite of knowing I would come at least four times a year as my grandparents are here.. I cried like one might have when moving to amritsar, leaving behind Lahore during partition.. Back then, this was the only place I knew and thought was the best on earth.. I loved everything about it.. friends, playing paandi(hopping), cards,the pigs and piglets bathing in the sun near the main sewers , cycling to kollidam( a distributary of kaveri) with friends on summer noons, paternal and maternal grandparents, the evening market, all the festivals, school, music classes , being asked to sing every time someone visited my house, the tall coconut trees I could see from my balcony as they swayed gently in the chill morning breeze, everything… for a long time I was convinced that there existed no better place than this and drank every word of praise as my father spoke about it. I remember the times when I tried being this obedient granddaughter of my austere weirdly orthodox grandmother, trying to show off in front of my other cousins that I had superior knowledge about rangam who visited this place only during holidays from the north talking mostly in hindi or English, who never seemed to hold it in all the awe I felt it should duly get. ( a pompous know-it-all show off yeah)
Srirangam is on an artificial island, the kaveri on one side and kollidam on the other . it has been famous for the ranganathar temple, which is one of the largest temples with the tallest gopuram(equivalent to the dome) in Asia. The sanctum sanctorum right at the center has ranganathar in anantha sayanam which means he has stretched out like one would on their bed when watching t v. It’s supposed to be really famous down south and is usually thronged by tourists and devotees (that’s what they call themselves) from all over the world (oh yeah, of late there are people coming from places like America and Europe). For me none of these mean anything. What I do love is the less known visage, something that is still pristine and untouched by the hazy blur, that is the 21 st century world outside, something that I found out much later as I commuted from here to college in the first two years of engineering and now whenever I come in holidays..the sleepy town as it wakes up to every new morning, a cool zephyr laden with the fragrance of mullai(jasmine) and pavazha malli(a kind of mogra), making the leaves of the coconuts and neem rustle and brush against my face as I amble on, in the lane immediately around the temple, parrots chirruping as the gopurams bathe in the golden glow of the setting moon, giving them a sheen mild, serene and enchanting, the jingling bells of the milk man in his cycle as women wash the front yard and make kolams..after a while as the town is up, there goes a small procession from the kaveri to the temple with two elephants with the silver kodam (pitcher) and men chanting Vedas taking the holy water for the deity..
The tamil month of margazhi is my favourite time of the year when srirangam is at its glorious best. Margazhi that coincides with phalgun, from mid December to mid January is known as the music season particularly for thiruppavai a collection of poems written in praise of Krishna by andal ( tamil version of meera), the sole female among the twelve alwars (preachers of vaishnavism). Thiruppavai echoes like the mellifluous sounds from a brook in the lonely moors in the mornings and evenings here.
I remember how as a kid I would wake up early, wrapped in scarves make colour kolams and then if possible take a quick shower and then go to the andal temple behind my house to get steaming hot pongal(khichdi) cooked in fresh ghee spiced with pepper and cumin seeds. In the evenings I would go with friends to sit and chat in the manal veli( court yard of the temple) munching roasted peanuts and cotton candies.
One evening, I decided to go on a long walk after buying vegetables in the market. Away from the colourful crowded main bazaar, at one corner of chitra veedi a bharatnatyam concert was on. The place was crowded with women clad in nine yards and men as they watched rapturously some girls dance for ‘theeradha vilayattu pillai’. I walked past my favourite house, small thatched, a patti (old woman) sitting on the pyol, the front yard decorated by a beautiful kolam and a huge tree with little white flowers hanging like dew drops, the sweet scent of which wafted through my nostrils reminding me of r.k. narayan’s books..the patti glared at a boy as he sped past in his two wheeler.. there was the jasmine entwined with the lilies in one front of one of the houses.. I gazed at the kolams which were probably made in 5-10 minutes..yet so intricate, symmetric and elaborate..it all looked like part of a perfectly painted scenery.
In the houses in this temple town there is internet and every other facility. The women gossip all day. People are extremely orthodox and conservative and look at anything other than salwar kurta or sari on a girl with a stare that can mean anything from mild amusement to ‘this is blasphemous’. Middle aged and the old starved souls seem more interested than the young men in trying to brush against women, who instead are timid and satisfied passing stupid unpleasant remarks. If a girl wears jean and has short cropped hair she is certainly of a bad sort and would show no interest in god. If someone rants off in rapid English (even if it’s a garbled version of the language) he/ she is trying to be too modern and it is simply atrocious to be seen hanging out with someone of the other gender (the word sex is tabooed). The main roads are usually crowded with tourists and impatient honking vehicles. With more of these the place is getting increasingly polluted and noisy.
But what sets it apart and makes it so beautiful is the less noticed or often unnoticed quaintness, something that gives you the feeling of having gone back in time to a period that you never knew existed. Every little town in India I feel has its unique authentic flavor, probably what Max Mueller saw when he wrote about India. It is this unscathed, pure inexplicable thing and my childhood memories that make me love it. There was a time when I had a problem identifying myself as a srirangamite. Before that, I thought this was the best place on earth. But now it’s neither!!

The magical 5 letter word

   I have always been conscious of my high levels of ego and found it very hard to control it..But occasionally I have noticed this great quality in me (oh yeah I am not modest :) ) to apologise when I feel I have to. For, an emotional person like me friends, relatives and parents matter a lot,as they give me the support without which I simply cannot be me!

So today, I felt I was acting in a petulant way, unable to pull myself together when two of my best mates got placed while I did not. There is also this friend, who has been rather good to me but has of  late acted in an irksome way. He is a little too touchy and I have been typically me, (absent minded). In the evening I met my ex- room mate and for some unfathomable reason we avoided each others eyes and walked away. I was aware that for quite some time, there had been a kind of  coldness, the reason for which I really had no idea of.. As I sat sipping my tea, I realised  I did not like it that I was not in good terms with four of my friends, especially because each of them have made my day some time or the other. So, I decided to sort it out with all of them. Thanks to technology, it makes a lot of awkward exchanges much less uncomfortable.

Believe me, saying sorry, I mean a ‘contrite apology’ is the simplest thing on earth, provided you tell your ego to f*** off for a moment. And the relief it gives you, when things are sorted out…!!

Infact, I find it okay to say sorry even if I am sure the fault is not mine. What we basically do is pamper the ego of the other person by bending a little and thus make things a little more conducive for peace talks :) . Then, by keeping our cool and discussing things out with an open mind, we can solve most of our so- called problems.

Most often, what we consider to be an issue at one instant will seem to be a ridiculous joke when seen at some other point of time.

So let us go to the gain and loss part of this. What we are not able to do is satiate our ego. It initially hurts our ego so much, to condescend and apologise to another person ( immaterial of whether the fault is ours or not..again deciding on whose fault it is, is itself contentious :) ). And anyway, what do we gain by letting our ego reign high! It only makes us more crazy, less humane. But what do we gain by apologising?? This is the best part.. the contentment we get is inexpressible. We feel so happy with ourself, especially if we have patched up .. and even if we have not, we simply like ourself for having done our best, for not having been myopic.

Today I felt, hatred, misunderstanding and dislike only negate our life. There is only more to loathe or feel bad about. But the moment we learn to be cordial, the world will seem to be a more beautiful place.. after all, we live but once, so if not for any gain, I told myself, let me just apologise to not lose!! (note: this is not an attempt to preach.. it has always worked for me so I decided to make it into a blog post:) )

an old man ponders...

Everything seemed to be at peace in that sun burnt streets of Srirangam. Somewhere, a stray dog squatted under the shade of a tree, trying to take a short nap, as an emaciated cow chewed off a piece of notice stuck on a wall. The roads were deserted except for an occasional two wheeler or a car. The majestic Raja gopuram, seemed to stand undaunted by the scorching heat, psychedelic against the azure sky. As almost all the old people of this Brahmin dominated quaint little town tried resting their aching bodies and drifting off into a siesta, at 45. Thiruvadi Street sat a short, dark nonagenarian, stoic and avid, listening to his favorite twenty year old granddaughter. What was she babbling about, he thought .The little girl, who once  went to school clutching his hand, who adamantly cried to go back home, as she hid from her teacher, behind him when he came to give her lunch, his pattu (silk), who tottered with him to the evening market, in a frock, her hair neatly plaited with a ribbon, bursting with queries and ideas about the world she was getting to know, waiting for her thatha (grandpa) to get her favorite strawberry lollypop, his dear one ,who he fed chapattis soggy in sambar, was now acquainting him with what she called “a most wondrous machine”.

She was telling him about computers and internet. The computer, she said was an electronic device that could satisfy most of the needs of the common man; with internet, one could see and chat with a person thousands of miles away, book tickets, get songs and movies, transact money…The old man looked on, unable to comprehend with this latest advancement that was a dream in his time. He asked,” so, if I  have to withdraw money from the bank how can I do it with a computer”, for which she asked, “ why would you want to withdraw” .”For buying groceries”, he said. ”That’s simple, you can just order all the groceries you need over phone and transact money online to the shop’s account”. He looked sullen. Something troubled him. All his questions got answers, but none satisfied him. If the launderer could come home to collect all the clothes to be washed, who did the washing, a machine? Then what about all the people who could have replaced it, desolate and penniless, looking for another job? And the government was talking about five year plans to alleviate poverty! What a paradox! He sighed glumly and thought of his own school days when he would walk for furlongs to his school, when food was unadulterated, when the air was clean, rains even though not perennial, satiating. Few were educated, but education was pragmatic. Individuality was praised and there was room for creativity. He then studied a science that he thought would ameliorate lives and serve mankind. But what he saw now was a suppression of the natural human instincts of spontaneity and creativity. If everything could be done by machines, then where was the scope for one to exercise the ability to think and reason that sets man apart from all other species? The technology that had evolved from science had over powered man and mechanized the world. Machines not emotions ruled man. Not being able to vent his natural instincts, man had taken up the radical path of war and weaponry. The world was torn by strife and disharmony. Men had no tolerance, for another country, another religion or another race. It was a picture of discord and pathos that flashed in his mind. A turmoil raked the frail man, as he sat blinking his cataract stricken eyes at the blur that was his granddaughter, who smiled at him, with an expression, he felt was pity. He patted her and murmured sadly, “at least I will not have to see more of this!!”

life fuzzified

                                                                                  
As a kid tottering with a bag  and a lunch box to my kindergarden, i remember being asked if  i am a good or bad girl.I was then told I am good if i finish my lunch  .Not wanting to be called bad, i would quickly gobble my lunch down.The other day, my friend asked me conversationally if she was good or bad.Queer, I thought and smiled to myself. What  exactly is 'good' and 'bad'?
    There are fundamentally two kinds of logic, that can be applied to define life, the people and happenings in it, with respect to a person-binary and fuzzy.Binary logic was proposed by one of the greatest thinkers of all times,Aristotle.It essentially is about solving a problem, by writing it as a series of simple questions which can be answered by a yes or no (logical 1 or 0) and  thus , we systematically  arrive at the solution.This is the most primitive form of logic, that has from then on been incorporated everywhere from one's personal life to technology, which is in a way all that materialistically satisfies human needs and sophisticates our lives.
   Some of the greatest advancements in engineering are all based on binary logic.Digital electronics, the foundation to all processors that make the hi- tech computers of today and control systems, an integral part of every unit in an industry, an appliance or electronic gadget (on-off controllers) are derivatives of this.
  In our life also, we like some people while we stay away from a few others.We are 'pro' or 'anti' a certain issu or cause.Even our religions preach us something along similar lines(God and satan, devas and rakshasas).But how often is it that we feel ,we definitely do not loathe a person but are not particulaly fond of either?This conception of a certain event or person as not completely positive or negative(1 or 0) is fuzzy logic.For classifying any event on the basis of a set of parameters, we rate it for each of these parameters in values ranging from 0 to 1.Today, this is one of the most sought-after areas of instrumentation, but lets look at it from a different perspective.
  The first time I consciously started thinking about this was when reading a fantasy fiction (Simoquin Prophecies, by Samit Basu).A line from the book goes this way,"There is nothing that is truly, completely evil or good".The father says this to his son( a skilled magician) who was actually in pursuit of the king of rakshas to defeat him,only to realise that, that is none other than his own father, who he had known as the great warrior his mother, crown princess of the noblest magical clan had fallen in love with in the woods.The line struck a chord with me.It made such an impact on me that i almost completely discarded binary logic from my life.
  The people i thought were vile i realised, were not'bad' after all.It was just that our outlook of life was not the same.They were not after all devoid of human company;likewise, the ones i am fond of need not be loved by all others, be it my favourite actor, literary work or  song.
Why, the ploy of the devas to distract sage Vishwamithra by sending  the apsara Menaka, to prevent him from proclaiming his status as Brahmarishi(the king of rishis and thus a king) can also be subjected to contention on moral grounds.While I might despise a terrorist and see him as  an embodiment of evil thoughts, hell bent on  disrupting a peaceful, harmonious society, there are still staunch supporters of him and his ideals
  While this logic does not really help me to obviate the world of such vicissitudes, at a personal level it  helps me stay aloof from a considerable amount of perturbance, angst and confusion.I now see the world with a fuzzy eye and no longer find black and white, but instead innumerable shades of gray, and believe me, it really helps.