SleepingTablets

Poles Apart

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 10:12:00 +0000

I am not someone you would describe as an intellectual. I mean, I have read a few books, but they don’t seem to have made me any wiser. I have never seen snow. Neither have I ever lived near the sea. I have never been to a party or a get-together or a meet-up. Neither have I had people come over. I guess you have to have a home for that. I have never had a crush on anyone (I went straight for the home run) or had a strange girl (or a boy) tell me they liked the way I looked. I have not seen the Taj Mahal. I don’t think I have been to Agra either. Or Barcelona. Or Amsterdam. Or Luxembourg. Or Rome. Or Venice or Oslo. Or Stockholm or Singapore. Or London or New York. Or, most unforgivably, Prague. I have witnessed a lot of graduation ceremonies in the last few years, without graduating myself. I have seen a handful of plays, but have never been to a musical, or an opera, or a ballet. I have never had to pay taxes because I have never made enough money. I have been seen, but not noticed. I have been heard, but not paid attention to. I have been loved, but been unable to love back in equal measure. I have been told that I am bright, but never that I am responsible. I have been commended on my intelligence, but never on my goodness. I have never been appreciated for my worth ethic because I seem to have none. I have never felt proud, not in the last decade at least. I have eked through, but not really lived. I have been okay, but not really happy.

But I have had conversations with myself, both neurotic and ordinary. I have been intimate with my weaknesses and doubted my strengths. I have languished in the confines of my loneliness and enjoyed the company of my solitude. I have tried drowning my sorrows and puffing away my worries, only to realise that the compulsion to face reality is more powerful than the desire to escape from it. I have obsessed endlessly over the cleanliness of my hands and the importance of right angles. I have asked myself weird questions because I could not go to sleep. I have known the bitter taste of that special kind of insecurity that is inspired by fears. I have dreamt of a better world without doing anything about it. I have immersed myself in the shallow sea of self-doubt and apprehensions, and come out of it alive. I have battled with myself (and others), only to come face-to-face with the insignificance of our pretty squabbles. I have shaken myself out of fatalistic stupors after resigning myself to failure and dejection. I have swum across the strait of self-deprecation and self-pity, even if only to be washed back across by the next high tide. I have been there and back, and back again.

And I have managed to keep walking. Even if just. Does that count?

So yes, you could say I have lived a life. Now, do I get the job? They told me to be honest.

Keep walking.

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Sun, 15 May 2016 07:48:00 +0000

The important thing is to keep walking. Maybe you won’t get where you intended. Never mind, keep walking. Maybe life will seem pointless and you will lose your sense of purpose. Keep walking. Perhaps your friends will grow distant, disillusioned by your perpetual rudderlessness, your family will become indifferent, and the woman you love will eventually give up on you as a lost cause. Don’t lose heart for you will have yourself. So keep walking. You might end up becoming the man you had once looked down upon in disdain. Keep walking – the act of living is an experience in itself and it is in no way less instructive than the experiences you consider richer or more wholesome. You will fail, you will falter, you might even find all your peers getting ahead of you in the ‘race’ called Life. However, if you dig your heels in, and still manage to convince yourself to keep walking, then I can assure you that you will come to earn yourself some respect towards the fag end of your life.

Your trials are your own. Your failures are your demons to contend with. In the confines of your psyche, they are absolute and final. No one will ever understand your struggles as well as you do. While you march, no applause is going to acknowledge your effort. There will be no medals for the hurdles you cross everyday, even if your shortcomings and your debacles are unforgivingly hurled into the limelight. But this is the price you must pay for strength of character.

It is a choice you make. It is not inherently good; no God is going to come and make these decisions easier. If you choose to walk, then you must choose to keep walking, and find a reason to do so that does not lie outside the purview of the activity itself. If you do, then you have to keep walking because that is all the reason you need. That is all the reason you will ever have.

I wish I could tell you that it gets easier. However, I am in no position to make promises. If you can do it now, when you have begun to run away from ‘living’ because of the way it makes you feel, you will get better at this. If you just close your eyes and keep walking, things might not get any worse because even when they do, you will know that that which is difficult and absolute has already happened. You will know that in that moment of reckoning, you had made up your mind to keep walking. So when your unruly mind threatens to engulf you and you can’t make sense of your journey through reason, keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep walking. That is life itself.

Up

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Wed, 09 Mar 2016 18:28:00 +0000

Take your heart and twist it in places you did not know existed.

Guru Purnima

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 09:18:00 +0000

Dear Guruji,

A lesson from my school days that has stayed with me through all these years is one I associate with my high school Physics teacher. He used to keep reiterating that the purpose of education is not to make one learned, but to make one humble. The more educated one is, the more one comes to recognise humility as a virtue. In the capacity I know you, I realise that you illustrate this message remarkably well and, through your example, I have come to understand its significance in the context of my own life.

However, the most important lesson I have learnt from you is that one must be kind, both in spirit and in actions, towards others, especially towards people who have no reason to expect such goodwill. It doesn’t matter what one’s designation is or how much money one makes, it is immaterial what accomplishments one has or what one’s status in society is – benevolence knows no arrogance and therein lies its beauty. The prince and the pauper can both practice it equally well.

Even in such dark and depressing times like these, though your help I have discovered that gentleness of the soul has the capacity to make decent human beings out of us. You have been instrumental in helping me realise that when we are gone, compassion grants us far greater longevity than our accomplishments. Moreover, kindness is as much about others as it is about oneself. One needs to be kind to be able to forgive oneself and overcome the trauma of past mistakes and failures.

For a long time now, I have kept telling myself that it is essential to do well in life, but it is more important to do good. Your actions and character drive home the point that I was correct in assuming so. For that, thank you. My only hope is that I am able to practice these lessons in life just as well as you for the best teacher is not the one who leads by instruction, but the one who does so by example.

I hope to continue learning from you for many more years to come.

Yours truly,
Siddhartha.

Come, pierce my shell.

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 08:51:00 +0000

To people who take pride in being alone: This story/poem from David Rakoff’s book Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish: A Novel (2013) first appeared on This American Life’s “Frenemies” episode (#389, originally aired on September 11, 2009). It is one of the better ‘we all need the eggs’ kind of take on relationships that I have come across. Like with everything else ‘radio’, it’s even better if you listen to David recite it. It is a bit lengthy, I must confess, but in the age of the internet, when most of us have the attention spans of a tsetse fly, allow yourself this luxury, lest you forgot how to stand still and stay strong.

Nathan, at one of the outlying tables,
His feet tangled up in the disc jockey’s cables,
Surveyed the room, as unseen as a ghost,
While he mulled over what he might say for his toast.
Though the couple had asked him for this benediction,
It seemed at odds with them parking him here by the kitchen.
That he’d shown up at all was still a surprise.
And not just to him; it was there in the eyes
Of the guests who’d seen a mirage and drew near
And then covered their shock with a “Nathan! You’re here!”

And then silence. They’d nothing to say beyond that.
A few of the braver souls lingered to chat.
They all knew. It was neither a secret nor mystery
That he and the couple had quite an odd history.
Their bonds were a tangle of friendship and sex.
Josh, his best pal once. And Patty, his ex.

For a while he could barely go out in the city
Without a being a punchline or object of pity.
‘Poor Nathan’ had virtually become his new name,
And so he showed up just to show he was game
Though his invite was late, a forgotten addendum.
For Nathan there could be no more clear referendum
That he need but endure through this evening and then
He would likely not see Josh and Patty again.

Josh’s sister was speaking. A princess in peach.
Nathan dug in his pocket to study his speech.
He’d poured over Bartlett’s for couplets to filch.
He’d stayed up until three, still came up with zilch.
Except for instructions he’d underscored twice.
Just two words in length, and those words were ‘be nice’.

Too often, he thought, our emotions betray us
And reason departs once we’re up on the dais.
He’d witnessed uncomfortable moments where others had lost their way quickly,
Where sisters and brothers had gotten too prickly
And peppered their babbling with stories of benders,
Or lesbian dabbling or spot-on impressions of mothers-in-law.
Which true, Nathan thought, always garnered guffaws
But the price seemed too high with the laugh seldom cloaking
Hostility masquerading as joking.

No, he’d swallow his rage and he’d bank all his fire.
He knew that in his case the bar was set higher.
Folks were just waiting for him to erupt.
They’d be hungry for blood even though they had supped.
They’d want tears or some other unsightly reaction.
And Nathan would not give them that satisfaction.
Though Patty a harlot and Josh was a lout,
At least Nathan knew what he’d not talk about.

I won’t wish them divorce, that they wither and sicken
Or tonight that they choke on their salmon or chicken.
I won’t mention that time when the cottage lost power
In that storm on the Cape and they left for an hour
And they thought it was just the cleverest ruse
To pretend it took that long to switch out the fuse.

Or that time Josh advised me with so much insistence
That I should grant Patty a little more distance,
That the worst I could do was hamper and crowd her,
That if Patty felt stifled she’d just take a powder,
That a plant needs its space just as much as its water,
And I shouldn’t give Patty that ring that I’d bought her,
Which in retrospect only elicits a “Gosh,
I hardly deserved a friend like you, Josh.”

No, I won’t spill those beans or make myself foolish
To satisfy appetites venal and ghoulish.
I will not be the blot on this hellish affair.
And with that, Nathan pushed out and rose from his chair.
And just by the tapping of knife against crystal,
All eyes turned his way, like he’d fired off a pistol.

“Ahem, Joshua, Patricia, dear family and friends,
A few words, if you will, before everything ends.
You’ve promised to honor, to love and obey,
We’ve quaffed our champagne and been cleansed by sorbet,
All in endorsement of your hers-and-his-dom.
So now let me add my two cents’ worth of wisdom.

I was wracking my brain sitting here at this table
Until I remembered this suitable fable
That gets at a truth, though it may well distort us
So here with the tale of the scorpion and tortoise.

The scorpion was hamstrung, his tail all aquiver.
Just how would he manage to get ‘cross the river?
‘The water’s so deep,’ he observed with a sigh,
Which pricked at the ears of the tortoise nearby.
‘Well, why don’t you swim?’ asked the slow-moving fellow.
‘Unless you’re afraid. I mean, what are you, yellow?’
‘It isn’t a matter of fear or of whim,’
Said the scorpion. ‘But that I don’t know how to swim.’

‘Ah, forgive me. I didn’t mean to be glib
When I said that I figured you were an amphib-
ian.’ ‘No offense taken,’ the scorpion replied.
‘But how ‘bout you help me to reach the far side?
You swim like a dream and you have what I lack.
What say you take me across on your back?’

‘I’m really not sure that’s the best thing to do,’
Said the tortoise. ‘Now that I see that it’s you.
You’ve a less than ideal reputation preceding.
There’s talk of your victims all poisoned and bleeding.
You’re the scorpion. And, how can I say this but, well,
I just don’t feel safe with you riding my shell.’

The scorpion replied, ‘What would killing you prove?
We’d both drown. So tell me how would that behoove
Me to basically die at my very own hand,
When all I desire is to be on dry land?’
The tortoise considered the scorpion’s defense.
When he gave it some thought it made perfect sense.
The niggling voice in his mind he ignored
And he swam to the bank and called out, ‘Climb aboard.’

But just a few moments from when they set sail,
The scorpion lashed out with his venomous tail.
The tortoise too late understood that he’d blundered
When he felt his flesh stabbed and his carapace sundered.
As he fought for his life he said, ‘Tell me why
You have done this? For we now will surely both die.’

‘I don’t know!’ cried the scorpion. ‘You never should trust
A creature like me because poison I must.
I’d claim some remorse or at least some compunction,
But I just can’t help it. My form is my function.
You thought I’d behave like my cousin the crab,
But unlike him, it is but my nature to stab.’
The tortoise expired with one final quiver,
And then both of them sank, swallowed up by the river.
The tortoise was wrong to ignore all his doubts
Because in the end, friends, our natures will out.”

Nathan paused, cleared his throat, took a sip of his drink.
He needed these extra few seconds to think.
The room had gone frosty; the tension was growing.
Folks wondered precisely where Nathan was going.
The prospects of skirting fiasco seemed dim,
But what he said next surprised even him.

“So, what can we learn from their watery ends?
Is there some lesson on how to be friends?
I think what it means is that central to living
A life that is good, is a life that’s forgiving.
We’re creatures of contact, regardless of whether
We kiss or we wound, still, we must come together.

Though it may spell destruction, we still ask for more
Since it beats staying dry but so lonely on shore.
So, we make ourselves open while knowing full well
It’s essentially saying, ‘Please, come pierce my shell.’”

Silence doesn’t paint the depth of quiet in that room.
There was no clinking stemware toasting to the bride or groom.
You could’ve heard a petal as it landed on the floor.
And in that stillness Nathan turned and walked right out the door.

— DAVID RAKOFF, Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish: A Novel

Black Magic, woman.

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Wed, 03 Sep 2014 16:18:00 +0000

The terrible thing about building a wall around oneself is that it is heartbreakingly easy. The bricks slide into place so conveniently that you wonder what had been stopping you from donning the hat of a mason all this while. The terrifying thing about doing it is that it comes down all too quickly. All you need is a lone voice that gains in strength as it revolves in ever tightening orbits around the cold sphere of your solitude. The past and the present merge to form a meaningless blur of regret and disappointment until this voice is all that you know and all that you feel. It overwhelms every last ounce of your will and consumes your mind and your body, your heart and your soul. And while you are lying on the floor, groping around in the darkness and assuming that the clouds will never clear, the darkness lifts just as quickly as it had descended. In that moment of temporary respite, you make the rookie mistake of quickly assuming Nietzsche was right. What doesn’t kill you must make you stronger. Yes, but not always. You don’t have to take my word for it. Try letting down your guard and letting in that lone voice once again. If your heart doesn’t explode thinking about all the things you thought your life would be, you can have your money back. As I said before, the terrible thing about building a wall around oneself is that it is heartbreakingly easy.

To the Poem

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 19:17:00 +0000

To the umpteen lives lived in quiet desperation.
To the days seized at the behest of unknown poets.
To the Captains in our lives.
To the emphatic poems they inspire.

O Captain! my Captain!
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
                         But O heart! heart! heart!
                            O the bleeding drops of red,
                               Where on the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
                         Here Captain! dear father!
                            This arm beneath your head;
                               It is some dream that on the deck,
                                 You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
                         Exult, O shores! and ring, O bells!
                            But I, with mournful tread,
                               Walk the deck my Captain lies,
                                  Fallen cold and dead.

___

On a related note.

Comic originally published on medium.com

Pale Blue Dot

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 21:53:00 +0000

That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

— CARL SAGAN, Pale Blue Dot

Telling It All

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 11:06:00 +0000

Drivers on the London Underground usually stick to simple announcements, but sometimes they go off track — as documented at sheloveslondon.com.

Ladies and Gentlemen, do you want the good news first or the bad news? The good news is that last Friday was my birthday and I hit the town and had a great time. The bad news is that there’s a points failure somewhere between Stratford and East Ham, which means we probably won’t reach our destination.

I do apologize for the delay to your service. I know you’re all dying to get home, unless, of course, you happen to be married to my ex-wife, in which case you’ll want to cross over to the Westbound and go in the opposite direction.

We are now travelling through Baker Street, and as you can see Baker Street is closed. It would have been nice if they had actually told me, so I could tell you earlier, but no, they don’t think about things like that.

May I remind all passengers that there is strictly no smoking allowed on any part of the Underground. However, if you are smoking a joint, it’s only fair that you pass it round the rest of the carriage.

Beggars are operating on this train, please do NOT encourage these professional beggars, if you have any spare change, please give it to a registered charity. Failing that, give it to me.

Please allow the doors to close. Try not to confuse this with ‘Please hold the doors open’. The two are distinct and separate instructions.

Please move all baggage away from the doors. (Pause.) Please move ALL belongings away from the doors. (Pause.) This is a personal message to the man in the brown suit wearing glasses at the rear of the train — put the pie down, four—eyes, and move your bloody golf clubs away from the door before I come down there and shove them up your arse sideways.

Diary vs. Journal

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 14:31:00 +0000

Image from Incidental Comics

Lone Rangers

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 06:52:00 +0000

We all chase the ghost anyway.

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 15:53:00 +0000

कभी किसी को मुकम्मल जहाँ नहीं मिलता
कहीं ज़मीन तो कहीं आसमान नहीं मिलता

जिसे भी देखिये वो अपने आप में ग़ुम है
ज़ुबाँ मिली है मगर हमज़ुबाँ नहीं मिलता

बुझा सका है भला कौन वक़्त के शोले
ये ऐसी आग है जिस में धुआँ नहीं मिलता

तेरे जहाँ में ऐसा नहीं कि प्यार न हो
जहाँ उम्मीद हो इसकी, वहाँ नहीं मिलता

— निदा फाज़ली

Vaishnav Jan

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 14:28:00 +0000

There is something fiercely reassuring about devotion. Even if you do not believe in God and such things, there is a strange sense of peace that seems to prevail when you give yourself up to a higher being. I have always liked devotional songs. At least since the time I remember listening to them quite unwittingly. It is a bit sad, though, that more often than not I have understood the implication of the words only in parts. Perhaps that is because my faith in God is not as fervent and passionate as the singer. But often, even if only for a moment, we indulge in role play. I sit down beside the qawwal and let him be my guide. That is the experience I enjoy. During the course of it, I am his apprentice. I let his words and devotion wash over me for a few precious minutes. I am ready, then, to be cynical again.

I remember Papa playing Anup Jalota and other Gandhi bhajans every morning before other people in the house woke up. He would get up early, a couple of hours before sunrise, and meditate in the drawing room. Sitting under a blanket in the winters, he would devote himself to the uphill task of trying to communicate with a higher consciousness. It was comforting to see him that way; even my adolescent mind must have understood the importance of someone taking the pains to comprehend that which I could not even begin to grasp. He still does that every morning and over the last couple of years I have gotten the chance to learn from all the wisdom he gained over the course of those cold winter mornings. His ideas and opinions, so many of which have found reflection in my own person, have made me realise how helpless we can be when it comes to trying to fight our conditioning.

Mummy and I would wake up for school later and he would greet every one, tea ready for Mummy. The bhajans would keep playing till we sat down for breakfast, when the grown-ups would start discussing family matters. I would be busy making sure that the shoes were not too dirty and the shirt was ironed alright. That the nails had been clipped last night and Mother had not packed something despicable for tiffin. The rhythmic chanting of Omkara or Gayatri Mantra would be replaced by other conversations. But the bhajans — they were always a good start to the day. Little did I know that a seed had already begin to germinate without my even knowing about it. Recently, I found my sister asking me for some bhajans to play for her children, thereby bringing the cosmic cycle to its conclusion. (I am bound to sympathise with her reluctance to have her boys grow up listening to Yo Yo Honey Singh.) Of late, I have come to associate such headfake with sanskar.

Vaishnav Jan is just one of the legacies left behind by Gandhi and one of my favourite short cuts to a deeper, meditative state of mind. I don’t seem to remember where I first came across it, but I do know that it made an impression sometime during the last three years. For those who would like to give it a try, here is a version of it sung by the ageless Lata Mangeshkar, while if you happen to have a thing for beats and a multitude of other musical instruments, a trendier version should serve the purpose just as well. The bhajan itself is in Gujarati. So, for all the non-existent, non Hindi speakers who do not happen to be reading this post, a rather inept and prescriptive translation in English should help out with the words.

Vaishnav Jan by Narsinh Mehta

वैष्णव जन तो तेने कहिये जे पीड़ परायी जाणे रे ।
पर दुःखे उपकार करे तो ये मन अभिमान न आणे रे ॥

सकळ लोकमां सहुने, वंदे निंदा न करे केनी रे ।
वाच काछ मन निश्चळ राखे, धन धन जननी तेनी रे ॥

समदृष्टि ने तृष्णा त्यागी, परस्त्री जेने मात रे ।
जिह्वा थकी असत्य न बोले, परधन नव झाले हाथ रे ॥

मोह माया व्यापे नहि जेने, दृढ़ वैराग्य जेना मनमां रे ।
रामनाम शुं ताळी रे लागी, सकळ तीरथ तेना तनमां रे ॥

वणलोभी ने कपटरहित छे, काम क्रोध निवार्या रे ।
भणे नरसैयॊ तेनुं दरसन करतां, कुळ एकोतेर तार्या रे ॥

One who is a Vaishnav knows the pain of others,
Does good to others, especially to those in misery, without letting pride enter his mind.

A Vaishnav tolerates and praises the entire world, does not denounce anyone.
He keeps his words, actions, and thoughts pure. O Vaishnav, your mother is blessed!

A Vaishnav sees everything equally, rejects greed and avarice. He reveres every woman and
Though his tongue may tire, he will utter no untruth. He does not covet another person’s wealth.

Material attachments do not occupy a Vaishnav’s mind, it being deeply rooted in renunciation.
He is addicted to the elixir that lies in the name of Ram; for him, all the religious sites exist in the mind.

A Vaishnav has no greed and deceit; he has renounced lust and anger.
Says Narasinh, the sight of such a Vaishnav saves a family through seventy-one generations.

Why do an MBA.

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 07:44:00 +0000

Image from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

In My Mind

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Mon, 06 Jan 2014 17:08:00 +0000

“I’ve got this little thing I have learnt to do lately. When it gets so bad, and I think I can’t go on, I try to make it worse. I make myself think about our camp on the river, and Berkeley, and the first time that you took me flying. How good it all was. And when I’m certain that I can’t stand it, I go one moment more. And then I know I can bear anything.”

— KAREN VON BLIXEN-FINECKE, Out of Africa

Milk and Cigarettes

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 13:39:00 +0000

Then.
Cigarettes. Only last evening I had promised myself to buy milk,
instead of this despicable poison.
“Enough, no more,” they had heard me say.

Today.
But when the shadows started looming around the margin of the twilight,
I found myself making my way back to that trusted vendor of viles.
His betel-red teeth broke into a smile as he quietly slipped a pack of Gold Flake into my hands.
Money exchanged hands, a tired ritual weighed down by another kind of shame.
Shamefacedly, I looked around the corner to check if someone was looking;
only fellow culprits met my guilty stare and I shuffled my feet left and right
before sending their way one of those fake greetings I had once known, but forgotten.

Now.
In the silence of my own company,
the faces on my wall have started jeering once again.
“We told you so.”
I rubbish them with a peremptory wave of my hand, rudely affirming my own existence.
“I am stronger than you”, and saying so,
I light one up and inhale.
Deeply.
As my scarred lungs soak up the filth and the black tar spreads its tentacles into my veins,
the shadows begin to blur along the edges, while the voices are turned down.
As a smirk peeks around the corner of my lips,
an uneasy peace is brokered between my uninvited guests and I.

“Tomorrow, I will buy milk.”
So renews my dance with myself.

Beauty in the Beast

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 08:42:00 +0000

In this selfish world of vested interests,
I find in you a better person to be.
You make me need you more,
Even though I burn green in envy.

Two parts ripped asunder,
In the feud of myself with me.
I can tell my better self to listen;
What of the honest one? He refuses to be.

Every night I struggle against myself
Letting you know nothing so you don’t hate me.
My tormented soul weakens and sides with The Devil:
A part still relieved you’re too far away to see.

When in morning my reason dawns,
I write down these words; but do they listen to me?
I clamour to be better to deserve your love
But we wonder if the voices shall stay to be

In this conflict of overlapping identities,
There’s still that truth that claims its special place.
My love for you is strong and fierce
Though it is tainted by the sin of jealousy

I languish each day in a desperate hope
That my beauty can see beyond the beast in me.
So tonight, yes, I love you.
But only if you can find in yourself to let this be.

There Will Be Blood

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 16:32:00 +0000

“Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all.”

Gasoline will be free.

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 15:23:00 +0000

It was around three years ago that I watched a documentary — Fuel — on our, and more specifically the Americans’, addiction to oil. An email that I circulated among a few friends at that time has prompted me to share those thoughts with a wider audience. What had started off as an innocuous review, and therefore still reads like one, grew into something that tried to make sense of the debate in its wider, more wholesome, context. That was the disclaimer. Now comes the boring part.

Produced and directed by the environmental activist Josh Tickell, and released in 2008, Fuel traces the history of a single man’s crusade against the oil problem. Although focused on the American economy and the role it has played in aggravating the fallout of the oil crisis, I found the debate to be quite pertinent for any person who has made an effort to take stock of the situation.

Oil is a problem. It taxes ordinary citizens to subsidize multi-billion dollar oil companies, entangles people in costly wars and complex foreign policy, and, of course, threatens the long term stability of the planet itself. But the question that bothers most of us is – Can one make a difference?

Josh comes off as an emotionally motivated romantic who jumps headfirst into this holy war just to make sure that his new home in Louisiana looks the same as the place where he grew up — the scenic Australian Outback. Not surprisingly, the initial half of the movie comes across as an advertisement for the most popular (and feasible) alternative — Bio-diesel. But there is more to it than just that. It explains the environmental fallout of crude oil processing (Fractional Distillation – the process used to obtain petroleum products from crude oil – generates a lot of hazardous carcinogenic waste products, the disposal of which might seem as problematic as radioactive waste) and the long term effects it can have on native flora and fauna — genetic mutations, reduced fertility rates, unpotable drinking water, the whole shebang.

For those who don’t know, bio-diesel refers to a vegetable oil— or animal fat-based diesel fuel that is typically made by reacting vegetable oil or animal fat with alcohol. Most diesel engines can run on bio-diesel without any major modifications. Moreover, current performance and emission standards of most diesel vehicles are at par with those running on petrol. Bio-diesel’s available, it’s clean, and it can be grown in your kitchen garden. If these reasons are not enough, how about bio-diesel being much cheaper than petrol? So why is it still the ‘alternative’, the outcast? Political will is one thing, social will another, but economics is what really drives the system, isn’t it?

[An important titbit that came to attention was that Rudolf Diesel had initially designed his diesel engine to run on vegetable oil! Mostly used to run heavy machinery that cannot be powered by electricity or petrol, the success of the diesel technology made a multi millionaire out of Diesel, but its use of vegetable oil also threatened the monopoly of Standard Oil — a company founded and owned by one of the most stereotypical of all capitalists, John D. Rockefeller.]

Henry Ford designed his Model T to run on ethanol — a bio alternative to petrol that is made from corn. Launched in 1908, Model T was the first automobile affordable by the burgeoning American middle class. The success of Model T (it was considered so revolutionary that Aldous Huxley partitioned human history into Before Ford and After Ford in his dystopian novel, Brave New World) meant that Ford’s ethanol captured nearly 25% of the oil market, ringing alarm bells at Standard Oil. It was around this time that Rockefeller started lobbying for an amendment to the US constitution that would become the Volstead Act of 1920 or the National Prohibition Act. By making the production and distribution of alcohol (including ethanol) illegal in the USA, a death blow was delivered to Ford’s ethanol dreams. Yet, he continued to manufacture ethanol alcohol-compatible cars for the next 12 years, before eventually giving up in 1932. A year later, in 1933, the Volstead Act was repealed. Plagued by claims of monopolizing the energy market and interfering in government affairs, the US Justice Department broke up Standard Oil into 34 independent companies. Around 88 years later, two of the largest factions of Standard Oil — Exxon and Mobil — merged to form one of the largest corporate conglomerates in the world, Exxon–Mobil.

Way back in the year of 2017
The sun was growing hotter
And oil was way beyond its peak
When crazy Hector Johnson broke into the refinery
And the black gold started flowing
Just like Boston tea

Though its production might have already begun to level off and some hope that “people will run out of demand before they run out of oil”, Americans seem to believe that they can keep consuming oil without ever running out of it just because they need it so much. They consume 25% of the world’s output even though they constitute just 4.5% of its population and have a measly 2% of its oil reserves. There is no way they can drill their way out of this, even if they set up rigs that go 15,000 feet below the sea level — a feat that is technologically more superior than putting a man on the Moon.

Of course, the current oil crisis is not the first one. In 1973, the Arab member nations of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries or OPEC imposed an embargo on the United States in response to its support to Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The embargo was withdrawn in March 1974 only after Israeli troops withdrew from parts of the Sinai Peninsula. But not before oil prices all over the world had sky rocketed — another proof of the kind of influence oil wields in determining the geo-politics in the Middle East.

Fast forwarding to the present, US policy over the last few decades has sought to replenish its oil coffers by looking at options beyond its boundaries. The debt incurred due to these endeavours runs to nearly 3.5 trillion dollars. The only way to deal with it is to either declare bankruptcy or find oil elsewhere. The US seems to have opted for the second option. Since Iraq has second largest oil reserves in the world, it doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out the real motivation behind the Iraqi invasion. Till date, no weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which ‘threatened’ the security and integrity of the coalition states, have been found in Iraq. However, huge multi-million dollar conglomerates have already set up shop there. It would appear here that by making huge donations to the government and handpicking the people with power, the big oil companies (Exxon–Mobil, Chevron Texaco, BP etc) are dictating the American energy policy. If the situation is that bleak and if the leaders of the world play poker, what alternatives are left to choose from?

When the Mounties stormed the palace of the Saudi family
They held them up for ransom
Without disturbing their high tea
But their getaway was shaky
They stalled in the Riyadh streets
Cause you can’t make it very far
When your tank is on empty

The second half of the documentary discusses alternative fuels and their pros and cons. It begins with a tour of the European nations (like Germany and Sweden) who have taken into account a long term view of the energy crisis and have subsidized biofuels (thereby making them much cheaper than conventional fuels) in order to prepare themselves for the future. But the alternative does not exist in an economic or political vacuum; it is argued that the large scale corporate farming of soybean (the chief ingredient of bio-diesel) is leading to deforestation of huge tracts of lands in the Amazon, robbing indigenous population not only of forests but also of land to grow food grains.

Brazil ranks as the top exporter of soybean in the world and is faced with a dilemma — allow widespread (and profitable) destruction of the rain forest to continue, or intensify conservation efforts. Conservative estimates claim that in the last 40 years, close to 20% of the Amazon rain forest has been cut down — more than in all the previous 450 years since European colonization began. Blairo Maggi, the governor of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso and owner of Andre Maggi Group (the largest exporter of soybean in the world), has made environmentalists squirm in their chairs by saying — “To me, a 40 per cent increase in deforestation doesn’t mean anything at all, and I don’t feel the slightest guilt over what we are doing here. We’re talking about an area larger than Europe that has barely been touched, so there is nothing at all to get worried about”.

The Fuel Vs Food debate ignores the fact that conventional fuels like petrol and diesel are worse off than biofuels like ethanol and bio-diesel. The entire process of making petroleum products from crude oil is highly inefficient. So much so that for every unit of energy that is put into production, only 0.8 units of energy are eventually obtained in the form of end products. In other words, the amount of energy required for producing petrol is actually less than the energy contained in petrol. On the other hand, biofuels score highly in this test — ethanol contains about the same amount of energy as is required in its production while bio-diesel contains 3 times the number. And yet, as I had come to expect, that is not the complete picture as corn and soybean are grown in huge mono-crop farms where large amounts of fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemicals are used in order to enhance productivity. Often, these chemicals seep into the water table and pollute the entire catchment area. Not to mention that some countries, like Brazil, allow deforestation to make space for such farms. So is our production of bio-fuels just as environmentally catastrophic as fossil fuels?

Perhaps, the answer partially lies in the next generation of biofuels which can be produced largely from waste products or run offs from other kinds of industries, such as fisheries or poultry. In a sustainable society, waste must equal fuel. Recently, algae have been used to convert waste biomass into biofuels by using the carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. This process of conversion is quite similar to how oil was first produced on Earth. The production of biofuels from algae does not reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide, because any CO2 taken out of the atmosphere by the algae is returned when the biofuels are burned. They do, however, potentially reduce the introduction of new CO2 by displacing fossil fuels. Various other fuel alternatives like biomass, trees which have exceptionally high growth rates and can be planted on marginal land, wind turbines, and solar panels might also become economically sustainable in the near future, provided they get the required institutional and governmental support.

We do not live in an age of revolutions anymore. They are far too disruptive. At the same time, individual will can lead to collective consciousness and ultimately result in sustainable change. Energy efficiency and conservation start right at our doorstep and are the cheapest and quickest ways to deal with the energy crisis. Oil is going to become such a scarce (sacred?) commodity in the future that we don’t even know what the next war is going to look like. Is it too late? If not, what can one do? Despite some answers lying in the future and several lessons biding their time in the ignored past, what is important is that we consume with care. Reusing those plastic bags might be a small gesture. But when several such gestures get together, they might have the desired impact. Was it Gandhi who said, “When the people will lead, leaders will follow”?

Fracking

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 14:41:00 +0000

Hydraulic fracturing or fracking involves accessing oil and natural gas deposits deep below the earth’s surface by injecting pressurised fluids into a horizontal bore. The fracking fluids create fractures or fissures in the crust and free the trapped oil or natural gas which can thereafter be extracted. The horizontal bore, which can extend laterally for 3,000 to 5,000 feet, provides a larger surface area for the escaping gas, and is one of the key innovations that have made this process economically feasible. The jury is still out on whether fracking has adverse environmental consequences. Proponents argue that if done carefully the technology can be used to access hitherto inaccessible deposits, thereby prolonging our addiction to oil. Critics point out that the fluids used in the mining process can contaminate groundwater resources and lay agricultural land barren. (This is an informative animation that I came across that explains the process in greater detail.) Although the technology was developed in the late 1940s, its use became commercially viable only recently. As of 2010, it is estimated that 60% of all new oil and natural gas wells were being hydraulically fractured. The New Oil Landscape places fracking in a broader socio-economic context, and proved to be quite insightful. It is the sum total of my knowledge on the subject. Needless to say, I am not aware of the academic debate surrounding the technology.

I also came across a movie — Promised Land — that portrays fracking in a negative light. It stars Matt Damon and Frances McDormand, both gifted actors. Initially quite excited by the questions raised (I always enjoy watching the evil plans of big corporate conglomerates being thwarted by ordinary people), my enthusiasm was somewhat subdued when I came to know about the controversy surrounding the financing of the movie. Apparently, it has been backed by some subsidiary of the Saudi Arabian oil cartel, which has vested interests in delaying the development of fracking (Most of the oil deposits in the Middle East are conventional ones which stand to gain if fracking proves to be environmentally disastrous). Although, the financier claims that the backing was provided regardless of subject matter or genre, one is forced to wonder. The movie itself is not spectacular and I watched it only because of aforementioned reasons.

Swabhimaan gone wrong.

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 18:15:00 +0000

Language and, as a corollary, ideas are notoriously susceptible to miscued interpretation. They wear the garb of the times in which they thrive. If that were not the case, so many of our overtly idealistic revolutions wouldn’t have come to a painful and disappointing conclusion soon after their genesis and Che Guevara might still have been alive to share a cigar with Castro. Wishful thinking, I guess.

On the eve of Gandhi’s 144th birth anniversary, a rather similar, illustrative construction comes to my mind – Swadeshi. In the context of an increasingly globalised world, where identity is the price one pays at the altar of development and modernity and where slogans like “Bada hai toh behtar hai” have become commonplace, even acceptable, what does Swadeshi mean? What are the philosophical, cultural, and economic constructs defining the essentially political ideas of ‘deshi’ and ‘videshi’? Without Bapu to conveniently clear the air for us, this simple word has been repeatedly hijacked in the name of personal and vested interests, with interpretations ranging from political and economic isolation (à la mode North Korea) to a source of nationalistic pride and self sufficiency.

Although wide ranging, our understanding of Swadeshi is deeply entrenched in our somewhat circumscribed comprehension of nationalism, for a Swadeshi spirit that bans the use of everything foreign, big or small, however beneficial it might be, and irrespective of the fact that it impoverishes nobody, is a narrow reading of the idea. It leads to ‘tunnel vision’ that severely restricts the scope of what can be accomplished through a more open interpretation. But just how tricky the situation is can be gauged from the fact that the expression was first used in 1905 by social activists to unite the various protests surrounding the Partition of Bengal. Given that Bangladesh is now deemed to be a separate nation (and, often, a nuisance due to the constant influx of immigrants), do Bangladeshi goods come under the ambit of Swadeshi or do we consider them to be foreign?

At its core, Swadeshi implies restricting ourselves to using goods produced by our immediate neighbours, with an eye on protecting the home industry. In a nation fractured along several lines like religion, caste, and class, it was meant to inculcate a spirit of brotherhood amongst all its citizens. This philosophy, having influenced the ideas and opinions of a majority of Indian leaders primarily through Gandhi, also guided the direction of trade and foreign policy for several decades after independence. However, the single-minded devotion to protection of domestic industries discouraged competitiveness and bred complacency. Assured of a market for their inferior goods, the public sector had no incentive to innovate or develop competency. All investment in research and development was centralized and private enterprise was severely inhibited because of the restrictions imposed by ‘License Raj’. As a result, instead of kickstarting the Indian industrial engine, an over emphasis on self sufficiency had exactly the opposite effect, that is, an increasing reliance on imported goods resulting in products that grew more and more inferior with each passing manufacturing cycle. The success of Japan, through alliances between the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) and the informal industrial agglomerations called keiretsu, and Korea, through conglomerates known as chaebol, in revitalizing their economies while managing to protect the domestic sector show just how contingent implementation can be on interpretation and context.

One might loathe accepting this reality, but India, or any other nation state for that matter, no longer exists in a social, economic, or political vacuum. We influence our neighbours just as much as they influence us. Their culture and traditions mould and shape our practices and customs. Their crises spill over our borders and become the origin of a proxy war that can last for decades. The traditional image of villages as self-contained units that are capable of meeting all their needs might not hold water any more; after all, there is no way to definitively determine what constitutes as need what constitutes as want. Villages, cities, and nations alike have become part of a vast network that is consumptive and productive in equal measure. Thoreau might have pulled it off, but most of us have become utterly mired in a cesspool of excess consumption and wasted resources.

The world is constantly engaged in a struggle to renew itself and hold onto the past. When one cares to look at it that way, regret and nostalgia are equally futile. Therefore, there is a need to reclaim notions like Swadeshi and Swabhimaan from jingoists and rid them of rhetoric, selfish interests, and their unnecessary historical baggage. We must cast old ideas in a new shell and rejuvenate the debate surrounding them so that in light of fresh ideas, like sustainable development and networked economies, our understanding of them is not merely a reflection into the past, but a peek into the future as well. I guess that is what Bapu would have wanted.

[If the tone of this article has come across as preachy, then I have failed to convey my thoughts. In an effort to save them from just the kind of misinterpretation that have been going hoarse about, I will reiterate that I did not intend to sound opinionated.]

An edited version of the article appeared here.

O Captain! My Captain!

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 09:12:00 +0000

“If you cannot be a poet, be the poem.”

A Strange Dilemma

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 15:54:00 +0000

Image from Abstruse Goose.

Division Bell

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 00:26:00 +0000

I stumbled upon my stash of Floyd last night.
“Hello, Old Friend”, I blurted out to him,
“We never got a chance to finish our conversation.”
“Strange indeed, dear boy”, he says to me, “that our paths should cross again.
For I had almost decided to give up on you
And the rest of your lot.”

The silence was a little awkward for, you must agree,
I had been caught in a tight spot.
It was a tad unnerving to hear his familiar voice
On the most desolate of nights and
When one has grown used to the silence of one’s days,
Every word seems hard fought.

Having waged a long and protracted war against them
I was quite afraid of uncomfortable questions.
About what’s and where’s and how’s and who’s
Of past and present and future and what not!
Every answer I could muster seemed laced with danger
And thus with a dejected sigh I resigned myself to the onslaught.

He saw me twitch; he must have seen me squirm,
For he lights up his pipe in that irresistibly cool fashion
(Which, by the way, always reminds me of my younger days
When love was new and battles zealously fought)
And as the toxic rings work their lethal magic, I hear his voice:
“Relax, old boy, you still need to learn to loosen the knot.”

I shuffled my feet left and right
Knowing not what the hell I had landed myself into
But, as you would know, old friends have a way
Of settling discreetly into each other’s silences
And presently I found a sense of calm descending over me
When only a moment earlier I had been so distraught!

As the night slowly ambled past us both,
In each other’s company we grew, ah, comfortably numb.
He spoke of life, while I droned on about love;
Memories from rusted, old trunks we must have dug out.
When the morning saw us become strangers once more,
We shrugged our shoulders, indifferently, like men must,
For out there, we have appearances to keep
Even when untold terrors pervade our thoughts.
And when I lost his friendly face to the hour of the dawn,
When I learnt the price I would pay for my fears,
I realised to my surprise:
He had asked no questions; not a single answer had been sought.

Rise

noreply@blogger.com (Marvin) — Fri, 31 May 2013 14:36:00 +0000

Such is the way of the world
You can never know
Just where to put all your faith
And how will it grow

Gonna rise up
Burning back holes in dark memories
Gonna rise up
Turning mistakes into gold

Such is the passage of time
Too fast to fold
And suddenly swallowed by signs
Low and behold

Gonna rise up
Find my direction magnetically
Gonna rise up
Throw down my ace in the hole