I had the privilege of spending this year in absolute freedom. I haven't however taken the time to be thankful for this utterly selfish existence, and acknowledge the new friends I have made, the friends who have remained and the friends I have lost. I am glad I opened up to loved ones and found favor. I am glad also to have learnt to trust those I love. This year has been a saccharine year.   

Until recently, my life felt like a cauldron simmering with anticipation, not of good times, but of the next act in a suspenseful avant-garde play. Regardless of what was going to happen, that very moment felt like it was threatening to boil over. The moments that had gone by had produced many potions, some that had horrific consequences and some inspiring feelings of wonder and delight. 

With every horrific consequence, I had to relearn the act of gathering myself and going back to the cauldron to pour in more hope, more heart, and more soul to discard some venom, some blood, and some brain. It was not the potion that I looked forward to, but the smoke that rose like a spirit and filled my senses and fogged my thoughts. And when it faded, I hoped that it will have consumed all the horror and left behind a wonderful dream.

My life has been enviable for some years now and I have only consumed wondrous potions. It has shaped in ways that I couldn't have imagined. It has masked the unspeakable, even though I see it peeking sometimes when I get anxious, and can feel its spirit around me. The past is always lurking and reaching for my present. It is in the now as much as it will be in the the future, and that is the only thing I know will remain for certain, while it is the only thing I know for certain must not remain. But until then every present day is like a rehearsal for every future day which brings with it unknown joys and fears. I have learnt to rein in my fears, and take comfort in what is known even though I can never be certain that the worst is over.  

Now when I hide, I have kindred spirits hiding with me and that is good enough. If only I could throw the beasts in the cauldron, and watch the smoke rise and fade, and take away the potions that have horrific consequences. But since that is not to be, I hope not to get consumed in that thought, and my kindred spirits help me with that.   

This year, there have been instances when I was caught up in uncertainty and feeling like I was losing perspective. I spent a lot of time learning and unlearning things, and assimilating changes somewhat gainfully.On a professional front, I am learning to go with my gut, but quietly. On a personal front, I am learning to make sustainable choices, but openly. These have been hard lessons, but none as hard as the lessons I have had to learn in the previous years.

I hope the coming year is one that I will spend thinking ideationally, favoring abstraction and emotion over logic and rationality. I hope yours in spent thinking whichever way you like, and doing whatever you want. I hope more than ever that we are each not the fear that the other is hiding from. Happy New Year!

(I am drawing the Angel Cards tomorrow. Let me know if you want one)

agnir jyotir ahah suklah
san-masa uttarayanam
tatra prayata gacchanti
brahma brahma-vido janah

During fire, light, daytime, the bright lunar fortnight of the waxing moon, and the six months of the northern solstice of the sun; the gods create a path, departing by which, yogis who know Brahman attain nirvana.

dhumo ratris tatha krishnah
san-masa daksinayanam
tatra candramasam jyotir
yogi prapya nivartate

During smoke, night, the dark lunar fortnight of the waning moon, and the six months of the southern solstice of the sun; the gods create a path, returning by which, the righteous person attains lunar light and reincarnates.

Bhagavat Gita, Chapter: Aksara Parabrahman, 24, 25 (The Yoga of The Imperishable Brahman)

On the shortest day of the year, I sat out in the open, watching the earth eclipse the moon. As the shadow of our planet enveloped its surface, the light from the sun made it glow like a red ball of fire. I wondered if this was a sign that some righteous man on our planet had attained lunar light and had reincarnated.

I remember reading a long time ago, that the Pueblo Indians had no words to differentiate the past from the present and the present from the future. In hindi the word for yesterday and tomorrow is the same, as is the word for the day-before-yesterday and the day-after-tomorrow. Looking up at the sky, and the stellar scintillation, and knowing that galaxies are being created and destroyed, and the stars and planets within them are being born or are being reincarnated into other celestial bodies ... I can see how time has a meaning that I cannot fathom beyond my known universe on this earth.

But, I know that this was the sky that my grandfather saw, as did his grandfather... and it hasn't changed as far as that it is glittering and wondrous as it always has been and will be! We asked the same questions about the vastness of this universe and the beauty of its design. Even when we knew nothing of the earth beyond the limits of our travels, and knew nothing of latitudes and longitudes, the geographical poles, and the earth's axis tilt, we saw solstices and eclipses and wondered about the transience of human life and the permanence of the universe.

Even when we know nothing of the universe, we know that we know nothing of the universe, but can count on its permanence.

For God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth. (Gen 1:14-15).

May the stars look down on you and may you look up to the stars always with love and wonder! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

I think it is beautiful how a deepam (diya) brings all the five elements of nature together. The red earth that is made wet with water is molded into shape. The wick in it is immersed in ghee to fuel the fire. Smoke fills the air and perfumes the surrounding. The fire sways in the breeze, but the void that surrounds the fire keeps it burning.

The void in itself is thought to be pure and bright (parishudham pariyodhatam). It elicits the feelings of pain and pleasure, and neither-pain-nor-pleasure.

It is just like when we play with fire - if we put our finger in it and let it stay, we will feel pain. If we gently sway our finger through the fire, we will feel pleasure. If we do so long enough, our mind will empty itself of all thought and become one with everything and nothing.

But, I have come a long way from appreciating the coming together of the elements in a deepam, to using a candle lamp. Now when the fire burns and the wax melts in the holder, or when it dies and the wax hardens, I am reminded of air turning into water, or water into ice, and think of how the same element is now in a different state of existence. I wonder if it is like my mind during meditation, changing between conscious awareness and deep inner peace. I also wonder what state of being our existence is in when we are alive in this world and what state it will be in when we pass away and are reborn again or enter other worlds.

Happy Deepavali and Happy Diwali! :)

May we all fire up and reach for the sky. Should we ever fall, may we do so brilliantly, bursting noisily into a million colorful flames and vanishing into nothingness!

Yesterday I was surrounded by over two hundred thousand people in funny costumes and signs at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.

It was an occasion marked with a spirit of optimism and cheerfulness. Like Jon Stewart said "We live now in hard times, not the end of times. We can have animus, and not be enemies."

The rally imbibed the idea of democratic liberalism like the world hasn't seen in recent times. It inspired a feeling of fraternity, where people were not addressing causes but celebrating togetherness. Most people there were roistering about for the sake of roistering about, and didn't take themselves too seriously. 

In fact, when I attended the ComicCon and Anime Fest in New York, there were 90,000 people who seemed more demonstrative of their opinions than in this rally. There too the people were free-spirited but in a more flamboyant way. Superheroes and villains walked around to provoke as much as to demonstrate creativity. 

But, as I walked around the rally, it was hard not to notice the undercurrent of liberal, progressivist sentiment. There was lot of lighthearted mockery of right-wing rhetoric, mostly in a tongue-in-cheek way (nothing that was downright irreverent), but everyone stayed somewhat true to the overall apolitical spirit. 

What I also noticed was that the crowd was mostly white and young. I may have been among the few Asians there. I also didn't see many Blacks and Latinos. I had to wonder therefore how this differed from Glenn Beck's rally which too was overwhelmingly white. 

As I compared the two rallies, I thought about what liberal democracy and secular theocracy mean in the more "free" countries of the world. They seem like ideas that don't always literally point to many races, religions or cultures, although they imbibe the spirit of them in some way. 

Glenn Beck's rally was a group of many whites who make me feel less welcome (I can safely assume that many of yesterday's white rally-goers wouldn't have felt welcome there either), while Jon Stewart's was not only convivial, but was also my rally as much as it was everyone else's. 

I have been to quite a few protest marches and cause-related events in DC over the last eight years, mostly to get a sense of this country's wonderfully democratic spirit. Several of them were cultural events raising awareness on social and environmental issues. But, there were several others where people came together to voice their grievances of social injustices. All of them were attended by tens of thousands of enterprising people showing initiative and resourcefulness that was seeped in altruistic sentiment.

For instance, the March for Women's Lives - a pro-choice march was attended by over a million people; the National Equality March addressing the protection of gay/transgendered people attracted 200,000 supporters, and there were several anti-war marches, each attended by tens of thousands of people. All of them had been incredibly peaceful and spirited in hope. People came out dressed in colorful costumes, holding signs with powerful and oftentimes witty slogans... and made an impression not noisily but by showing strength in number. 

I am yet to attend a conservative rally and realize also that DC is not a representation of all of America. Perhaps when I mean democratic spirit, I mean liberal-democratic spirit. :)

Back in India, rallies are always about people being in an uproar. They are often demonstrations that voice grievances or injustices with forceful passion. Sometimes, there may be a lingering fear at the back of one's mind that a peaceful march may turn violent (although I haven't been in one that has). I remember even social forums, having their tense moments with some kind of threat or assault being reported. 

India may be a nation of one color, but much like in the US, the heterogeneity comes not only from our many languages, cultures, and religions but also from our many voices... but lately I have been thinking about our warped sense of secularism. I fear that we are losing our liberalism and freedom of speech. 

Perhaps this fear has been heightened by the intolerance we have been showing recently towards our writers and artists. We have blackballed MF Hussain and chased him out of the country, burned Rohinton Mistry's book, accused Arundati Roy of sedition, issued death threats to Salman Rushdie, disrupted the screening of Shah Rukh Khan's movie and expelled Taslima Nasreen from India...

While our liberal democracy seems to be suffering, our sense of secularism too is becoming more and more warped. We neither practice "indifference to religion" nor "religious appeasement" nor do we celebrate our pluralism. Polity enters religion, and religion enters polity but in a grim and lopsided way (not to mention caste-based votebank politics). Even when we flaunt our cultural diversity (like during the Common Wealth Games), we are more Hindu than we are Indian. 

Some of our greatest museums, including my favorite - The National Museum of India under-represents Indian religions. Take Christianity for instance: it is the third largest religion in the country, and had been introduced to India in 52 CE, and yet there is little in the Museum that honors it! 

Perhaps my own sense of secularism is transfigured to mean a (racially) colorful country where many religions, cultures and free-thought commingle peacefully!

As India becomes more economically assertive, I have to wonder what will become of its secularism. Will it embrace global secularism or will it continue to be homogenous and intra-secular!

I have often wondered about homogenous countries like several of the Asian and European countries that have managed to keep their cultural identity without much dilution. I can see why it may be important that they are not entirely multicultural.

And still a part of me wants for India, not only the cultural advantages of being homogenous (or nationalistic or sectarian), but also of fostering social cohesion.

Then again, if all of the world was multicultural, then our world may in fact become homogenous in its multiculturalism, which would be self-defeating.

The liberals of the world (like in yesterday's America, and some of us in India) seem to have arrived at a place of social cohesion (at least somewhat, although we are not entirely tolerant people). For now, I am happy to be a part of it.

I was looking at my apartment today and it suddenly dawned on me that it is as large as the dasara kolu we used to have at home in India. I am probably sitting in the area that would have been set aside for Rama's Pattabhishekam. This is the part of the room that has the most amount of light coming in through the glass doorway, and is visible from every part of the house no matter where one is seated. The gold of the thrones, the jewels of the royal family, the beautifully embroidered fabric would have made a magnificent scene right here. 

There was a lot of effort that went into setting up the kolu, with at least 20 people working on it every day for a whole week before the guests arrived to view them for all the 10 days. There were drivers and cooks decorating the ceilings and walls with silk drapes and color lights, maidservants polishing the dolls and setting up the multi-leveled stages, the older generation choreographing the visual 'narrative', younger adults dictating the design and aesthetic, kids helping with the execution (mainly with the forest, water and snow scenes, and the making of garlands). It was a lot of hard-work, but well worth the effort.

The kolu made possible the symbiosis of the young and the old in every possible way. There were several dolls that had been passed on to us from at least three generations. Many of them were now to be handled delicately like holding a butterfly by its wings. They had to be polished and painted on neatly... in some cases they had to be glued together making sure that they looked unblemished. But most of them were intact and looked as new as ever. Then there were the new dolls that were imported from dollmakers in Tamil Nadu and Andhra who have been in this business for many generations. 

The oldest generation (grandparents, great aunts) always claimed that the dolls of their childhood were even more ornate and well-crafted than the new ones. I can only imagine how exquisite the dolls were a 100 years ago by making assumptions that perfection is never what I can see now (or can imagine !). There were also some of us who wanted to display our collection of barbie dolls, GI Joes, and hot wheel cars. These were relegated to the kids' corner, which was not to be mixed with the rest of the kolu.  In some relatives families, kids were encouraged to create their own dolls for the entire kolu. While, we lacked the enthusiasm for this, we boasted of a bigger, grander kolu, where the scene-setting took up a lot of creativity. Rivers for instance were made with long stretches of blue powder with the waves of many sizes neatly drawn over them with kolam (white rice powder). Forest scenes were made with carefully selected plants from the garden, fields were made with lawn grass, palace drapes were made with pattu padavais (silk sarees)... no material or detail was compromised. Kolus were a matter of pride!   

We all practiced the songs that we had to sing at our kolu and everyone else's for all the ten days. We saved the best for our own, and planned carefully so that we didn't repeat any song to the same audience, should they end up in the same houses we were visiting (which was highly possible as there were easily over 100 guests attending kolus in several houses every day). We wore new clothes all ten days and dressed like we would at weddings.

Even the gifts to guests were a place to show creativity. Chundals (seasoned chickpeas) and blouse pieces aside, people had other lovely return gifts that ranged from hand-painted boxes, to little dolls, and custom-made silver lamps. (In this department, ours were the least innovative. We went with the standard! These outwardly gestures with knickknack gifts during festivals were never our territory. We only lavished praise, provided entertainment and made good company)

When the kolu was over, our work didn't end there. We had to wrap up the show (quite literally). The dolls had to be mummified neatly again and put back in the huge steel trunks they came out of. The decorations had to be purged into "re-use and throw" bins, the plants had to be taken back to the garden, the sarees and drapes had to be dry-cleaned and the rooms had to be restored to their original layout. This was again a few days job. 

As I reminisce the kolu today, I can see that that era has passed. There are grand kolus still occupying whole rooms, but not the magnificent ones I remember from my childhood. I suppose no one has the time for it, even though we all look back at the past with much longing and fondness. As I think back to the older kolus I also realize that they were expensive affairs, which don't seem practical today.

That being said, the recent ones I have seen in the US and in India, while are smaller (occupying a whole room or half a room), are much more polished than the old kolus. They use expensive dolls collected from all over the world, and seem refined in the aesthetic... and somewhat contemporary even though they boast of traditional dolls that may be many years old.

I have an aunt who has the grandest dasara kolus every year with beautiful dolls collected from her travels, and several dolls that she has made herself. Her kolu makes me relive my nostalgia and in someways also surpass them because they not only transport me back to the past, but also to a whole different world that is new and unfamiliar :) There are few other aunts whose kolus makes me smile. My mom's kolu occupies a whole room and has a lovely collection of new dolls. It comes closest in style to the old kolu of my childhood days, with much of the same style-elements, but I do get on her case a lot to innovate :) (secretly I am also glad she doesn't)

At one point, I used to snobbishly deride the step-kolus (traditional kolus arranged in steps) for showing no creativity, but today as I look at pictures, I find them beautiful and elegant. I wonder why we never tried to fashion our kolus that way at least for change!

Read the rest of this post at your own discretion :) This is just a description of the kolu at home for my cousins to share nostalgia or remind them of what we used to have. 

The kolu was split into several parts dedicated to different mythological and historic stories. On the left were the scenes from the Ramayana, starting with the Putrakameshti Yagna.
 
Dasharatha and his three wives perform a fire sacrifice to appease the gods for progeny •  Rama and Lakshmana (two of Dasaratha's four sons) accompany Vishwamitra and help him fight the demons while he performs a yagna •  Rama breaks the bow at the swayamwara and wins Sita's hand •  Kaikeyi, after being provoked by her servant Manthara, wails to Dasaratha and claims two boons  - to make her son Bharata the successor of his throne, and to exile Rama to the forest for 14 years •  In the forest Lakshmana having accompanied Rama and Sita, cuts of Surpanaka's nose for seducing the brothers •  Sita is enamored by a golden deer and asks Rama to capture it for her •  Rama kills the golden deer to find that it is Maricha, who is Ravana's aid sent to separate Rama from Sita •  Ravana disguises himself as a brahmin and tricks her into crossing the Lakshmana Rekha and carries her away •  Jatayu with a broken wing from fighting Ravana informs Rama and Lakshmana of the abduction •  [There were no scenes from Sundara Kanda where Rama and Lakshma meet Hanuman and the entire monkey-entourage] •  Hanuman sets his tail to fire and destroys Lanka •  Hanuman has himself captured by the warriors and sits in Ravana's court over a throne made out of his tail and urges Ravana to return Sita to Rama •  [There were no scenes from the Yuddha Kanda where the battle between Rama and Ravana's forces take place] •  Rama and Sita's Pattabhishekam takes place after much rejoining over their victory over Ravana •  [There were no scenes from Uthara Kanda detailing the lives of Lava and Kusha] 

On the center floor were scenes of Vrindavana from Bhagavata Purana.

Vasudeva escapes Kamsa's prison with baby Krishna and crosses the River Yamuna to Gokula and hands the baby over to Yashoda and Nanda •  Krishna tames Kaliya, the poisonous naga serpent living in the Yamuna and dances on his head •  Krishna climbs on top of his friends and reaches for the pot of butter in the ceiling •  Krishna is reprimanded by Yashoda for eating butter and is amazed to see the whole world in his mouth when he opens it for her •  Krishna plays the flute as the gopikas dance around him •  [There were several scenes of Krishna and gopikas in the kolu]

On the right floor were a miscellany of scenes from other mythological stories •  There were scenes depicting stories of Vishnu's Dasavatara, scenes of Shiva's many manifestations in Mount Kailasa, representations of the several hindu gods and goddesses. 

On a separate aisle there was a scene of Vikramaditya's kingdom •  some contemporary scenes of villages with whole huts and people interacting with other. •  there were housewives going about their everyday chores such as drawing a kolam (or rangoli) in front of the house •  maamis gossiping with each other •  a family watching TV together •  farmers working in the fields •  cricketers in full white attire playing a match, etc.

Its been a few months since we began debating the Ground Zero mosque. Its been a few years since we began debating what our recent wars have been about.

Still today, on September 11th I feel sick in my stomach. All this pro-/anti- Islam stands we have been taking on various issues, and the mention of Islam in positive and negative light at every turn is making me feel disillusioned.

Enough already!

Lets give Islam a break from debate. Lets for once mourn the loss of people ... the loss of peace... the loss of conscience... the loss of genuine respect for religions and religious teachings... Lets mourn our ignorance and our lack of empathy for people.

No more burning korans to show our hate or reading a page of the koran to show our support. Lets stop trivializing Islam with our benighted thinking.

I am lucky to have not lost any friends or family to war. Im also fortunate to have not directly felt the repercussions of religious hate... but I still feel wounded and disturbed by this never-ending hostility we have towards each other, and cant bare to see us trivializing the hurt that victims have been feeling for so many years. I don't know what we can do to help them find peace, but we certainly can build a memorial for those who have suffered hate and violence as a result of fear and intolerance bred my ignorance! Can't we?

It doesn't have to be a mosque. It can just be a universal sanctuary of atonement and enlightenment! (assuming sanctuary, atonement and enlightenment are neutral words!)

I am spending my September 11th thinking about how I would memorialize this decade. The question I am more interested in asking is how would this decade want to be memorialized? What do you think?

I decided to take cognizance of my online presence in a slightly more meaningful way... What it entails is doing very simple things like using facebook as only a friends directory, bombarding tweets at only those who don't mind being bombarded with it, using email more purposefully, and blogging as personally as I always do :)

There is no profound reason behind this decision... it may be part of an overall resolution to do everything with a more acute sense of awareness... but heck, you may not even notice the difference...

The light from my living room window reflects on the wall creating this beautiful shadow play of the trees below. We live on the fourth floor and there is no sight of vegetation anywhere around us except maybe an occasional broccoli on the dining table of the apartment on the opposite side. (That's right. I am that creepy neighborhood prowler you want to complain about for peering into your apartments. But, oh dull this dreary neighborhood... so far I haven't found anything even slightly titillating)

So anyway... it is fun waking up in the morning and sitting on the couch and watching the silhouette of the tree swaying on the living room wall.

Today, something miraculous happened. As I was staring at the silhouette and wondering how it made its way up here when the tree is so many floors below, the whole frame moved!! Whole frame! (i.e. the sunlight on the wall that is shaped like a window frame with the silhouette of the tree)... and it moved so swiftly from one end to the another end of the wall that it had to be a paranormal phenomenon of some freaky kind. Or what was that? Was that the sun changing direction? Did it just decide to set in the east?

I wish I could explain this better. But believe me, it was so bizarre! If Tapi wasn't watching it as well, I would have though I was completely kooky... He of course, just went on with his life like it was totally normal! No reaction whatsoever. Dullsville!

(This post has to go in the Religion/Philosophy section of my blog of course!)

And that is one question you can answer fairly easily. At any given point, he is experimenting with some truth he picked up from a book. Lately, it has been Gandhi's Autobiography, prior to that it was Matthieu Ricard's Happiness, and even before that it was Herman Hesse's Siddhartha...

And while that may seem like he is on some metaphysical quest, I'll also add that he is equally influenced by his round-the-clock newsfeed (from NPR, the Economist...), several graphic and cyberpunk novels, science and technology magazines and every other kind of media he picks up.

He is the only guy I know who can pick up any book or movie and completely go into character. He will imbibe every word in it with utmost sincerity, like there is no greater truth in the world than what he just learnt... which is what I most adore about him, and what sets us apart.

I usually read the same books and casually reflect on them for a bit, but I can't say I have in it me to assimilate what I read into my life as much as I would like to "in theory". It just may be that I have chosen to bypass his quest for self-realization because I am inherently more self-centered and in no mood to realize anything.

But, while I go on contemplating about these books on some diaphanous level, he is living what he learnt in a more meaningful and life-altering way. The trouble is, we live together and influence each other's life choices, which means, I can't always choose to be purely contemplative, and he can't always fully acknowledge his changed attitude... even though we consciously try not to impinge on each others choices.

Here's where it is exciting for me. I find that his receptive and reflective attitude makes him the ideal companion for everything I want to share with him. He is open to any diversion you throw his way... so I totally feed his "open mind" with all kinds of baloney-garbage I find entertaining... and at the end of it, my baloney-garbage becomes his baloney-garbage and he is more excited about it than I was to begin with... which makes him so much fun to be with. :)

Also there is nothing I say or do that shocks him or he's complained about.

The one thing that he is less influenced by but completely immersed in is music. But maybe that's more a statement on the intangible quality of music, where it's influence on people is well... intangible :)

Anyway...

Gandhi's Autobiography that he is reading right now is making me slightly nervous. As Tapi is turning the pages next to me, my mind is shifting a million gears and flashing all the ideas from the book that will become actualized over the next few weeks... Checklist: truth (ok) vegetarianism (ok) nonviolence (ok) simplicity (ok) faith (umm.. ok with me! he might fail Gandhi in this one), celibacy (please, nooooo!) :)

My selfish side is looking to simultaneously supplement Tapi's Gandhi-quest with some mindless TV entertainment ... something that will neutralize all the idealism he is feeling and make it more workable (for me!). I am thinking food and travel shows, some nature and wildlife films, some romantic comedy movies, reality shows, anime, sci-fi and fantasy films... anything and everything that will encourage vicarious exploration or kindle empathetic behavior.

But then, I think he will gobble up all the aforementioned entertainment and delight in this abundance of diversion and then go back to reading Gandhi again...

So that's Tapi. :)

No. It's not his birthday. And I write this knowing fully that he will never read this.

Hyderabad, observe with me. (America, learn) :)

I counted 13 single (i.e. one in a pair) flip-flops on main roads all over the city over the last one week. Could they have just slipped off the feet of people sitting on scooters OR are slippers being flung at unsuspecting riders? If you have lost yours, or have had them flung at you, you are not alone! The Chappal Punch may be a bigger nuisance than we realize. :)


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Helvetica, which is one of the most popular fonts for commercial use all over the world hasn't yet taken over as the preferred typeface on lorries and autos :) I am happy to report that lorries and autos still have beautiful artwork painted on them in bright colors. I have been seeing the most exquisite paintings of mythical figures and auspicious symbols exemplifying several ideals and desires: spirituality, secularity, patriotism, good fortune... It is always amusing to see the permutation varieties of "Horn OK Please" painted in different typefaces. :) It's especially amusing that the phrase is still in use. The OK indicates On Kerosene and was used back in the day (around the 2nd World War) when lorries ran on kerosene, which is highly unstable. The traffic regulations don't require this warning to be attached, but it still continues to remain a cult tradition with lorry drivers. Some lorries even say "Horn Please, OK? Tata" :) There is also an Indian film called "Horn Ok Pleassss"

Why autorikshaws have "Please Sound Horn" or "Keep Safe Distance" is a mystery to me (unless we assume that they have a wicked sense of humor and want to tease us with the warning). They are the ones usually straining to squeeze between vehicles and hazardously sound their fancy tijuana-style horns to the rhythm of the music playing from their custom-mounted boom-boom stereos .

I remember my driver telling me many years ago that owners spend up to a lakh rupees per lorry getting just the bodywork done (autos spend between Rs. 5000-10,000). They take a lot of pride in the aesthetic of their conveyance, but beyond the aesthetic it is also a way to build their brand and look legit to patrons. For instance, the beautiful ornamental fittings above the lorries cab help owners hide excess goods from the traffic police. The sounding chains on the side dissuade small vehicles from driving recklessly.

It used to be that tongas and cycle rikshaws had the most beautiful flowers and birds (mostly lotuses, peacocks and tigers (or cows), which are our national flora and fauna) painted on them. They also had elegant floral or velvet hoods (if they could afford it). Some of them had these shiny pompoms hanging from both sides of the handle and ornate metallic baskets or plasticine cutouts jutting in the front. The seats had bright upholstery covers, the back rest had oil-painted portraits of film actors and actresses (sridevi), and the platform was either of a bright reflective metal kind or had rangoli painted on it. Some of them were made to look like Rathas or temple chariots. I don't see these rikshaws anymore (although DC and Manhattan are abundant in their contemporary equivalents with environmental messages pasted on them)! Here, both the cycle rikshaws and their pullers look quite haggard! I read some heartbreaking stories of their difficult lives over the last few days and it's hard to say what would make them happy - if rikshaws were banned altogether or promoted more widely. Whatever it is, I hope they at least make them safe and respectable! (Note to self: Watch Men of Burden: Pedaling Towards a Horizon)


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I find that each mode of transport is a harbinger of a different kind of message. For instance buses have become moving billboards with product ads, political posters and social messages. I am told they are highly effective and are being sought out more than ever, because they drive alongside their target audience and therefore leave a long-lasting impression. On the other hand, regular billboards catch your attention only fleetingly except at the traffic stops.
Unlike buses, autos are less propagandist and more reflective of the driver or owners' personalities. The loud music aside, their disco-style flamboyance is exhibited more inwardly (with their interiors and music).

You know how when you talk about one kind of street art, you feel the need to list out every other kind of art you see around you? (like graffiti, wall posters, billboards, retail store sign boards... also dressing up of cows, horses and camels) and then you become cognizant of your city's eye-appeal and creative use of space.... Advertisements are omnipresent! If there is a perceptible medium in view, such as a flyover, a building, a wall, a tree, a circle, a divider, a light pole, a vehicle... it becomes a canvas for some plug!


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There are plant thieves all around us. Everywhere I go, battle plans are being drawn on three broad fronts. There are the tropical summer fruits (mangoes, pomegranates, sapodillas (chikoos), jackfruits) growing on high and medium branches, vegetables growing closer to the ground, religious flowers blooming in abundance in every height, shape and form... the fear I think is also that their invasion is endangering home security. I have sat through some really hilarious conversations in at least three places where relatives were strategizing how to protect their vegetation from "hungry and religious" thieves. The good news is no one seems to be interested in wild flowers, ornamental plants, seedless vascular and nonvascular plants (that I like) and the gardens are full of them! Thieves aside, I am mostly thrilled to see beautiful gardens everywhere I go. Despite the growing jungle of buildings, I see spectacular gardens and patches, and even timberlands with tropical trees of irregular shapes that stand out beautifully amid the concrete.


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There are more bird species in Hyderabad than you can count. You only notice them when you are back on a visit after leaving the city for a few years (and have the "real" bird-flu) :) So the next time someone laments that they have all vanished wake them up at 5 in the morning and take them outside. Hyderabad is still a birds paradise with at least 20 species right in ones backyard, and hundreds in sanctuaries. There are many migratory birds traveling here all the way from eurasia every year. I have also been seeing a lot of bright-colored insects and vertebrates in the garden, especially when it rains.


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I am nurturing the tourist in me and reading up on hyderabad. I was excited to learn that the city (and the deccan plateau on the whole) is full of beautiful monolithic rocks that are among the oldest and hardest in the world. Many of them are over 2500 million years old. To put it in perspective, the himalayan mountains are 70 million years old. The city's grey and pink granite ridges are among the oldest in the world. There are trees over 500 years old (including a banyan tree in Pillalamarri near Mahbubnagar that is 700 years old). While I have spent my time both admiring and bemoaning our new and old manmade heritage (albeit ignorantly), I don't know why I never learnt about these natural wonders. I am also picking up a lot of other interesting facts and legends about the city and falling in love with it all over again. In the mean time, Hyderabad has also been keeping me entertained culturally. There's always something going on in the city - walks (like the ones organized by Greater Hyderabad Adventure Club), art exhibitions, music concerts, dance programs, plays.... There is so much variety to choose from and so little time to enjoy everything. (FYI: cluburb.com is a great place online to find events in Hyderabad)


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The cell phone music syndrome, where the caller is tormented with music, and the receiver hears a more conservative "ring ring" is shifting from bollywood and bhajans to Kabir and Tulsi Das' Dohe.

FYI from one brahmin to another: the gayatri mantram you still have as your ringtone is meant to be recited inwardly to Savitr (sun god: the impeller, rouser, vivifier) during sunrise and sunset by brahmin men only (especially that secret para you learnt during your upanayanam). Must you share your praise and appeal for wisdom and enlightenment so brazenly with us low-ranking women (also non-brahmin men) and have us commit the transgression of learning it?

Also shouldn't the "ring ring" be on the callers side and the mantram be on your side? or is the reasoning that Savitr might call you one day and listen to your appeal!


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I haven't still figured out if it is a good thing or a bad thing that there are 6 sales representatives to cater to one customer in retail stores! They all look bored, underworked and eager to help! But, perhaps, they are happy to be employed?


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In hyderabad (especially), the sine qua non is to popularize one "neutral" god or god man and celebrate him to the point of saturation. The last time I came, Shirdi Sai Baba was in vogue, this time it is Buddha. Don't get me wrong. I am not trivializing genuine devotion one feels towards spiritual powers. I am only harboring my reservation on the intention behind this craze. My suspicion is that there is some other unsavory explanation for why a sea of Buddhas has emerged everywhere all of a sudden. Could it be a sign of impudence? For instance, why was Buddha standing at the hotel entrance holding his crystal frock and flaunting it to welcome his guests? Isn't it as outrageous as drawing Mohammed? He is supposed to have renounced worldly desires in search of enlightenment!

I am alarmed at the celebration over Kasab's death sentence. It's the kind of perversion that I can't wrap my head around. Somehow the line between retribution and revenge has become nonexistent. How can one immoral act be the answer to another immoral act? How can two wrongs make a right?

How are we bringing balance of good over evil if we are proclaiming that a person should be hung to death? Where is our good that we take so much pride in when we make flippant statements like "Kasab should be stoned to death or chopped to pieces"?

Would the good in you personally do it? Would you hold the stone or a knife and do it yourself, or is murder a casual thought you entertain in your mind because it is done behind closed doors by someone else pretending to uphold justice?

I am upset beyond belief and objectivity. There is something to learn from Europe for abolishing capital punishment. Somehow they seem to have managed to cross over to the good side of humanity, while we are still stuck in this barbaric parallel world with no respect for life. Clearly ours is a lesser society! And it will remain so as long as we continue to do wrong under this cloak of upholding justice.

We'll only keep quoting Gandhi's teachings of nonviolence for effect and pretend to take pride in his ideals, when in fact we have little respect for them. His statements are all bogus words of idealism to us that have no real bearing in this rational world where violence is more realistic than peace.

So then, let's be honest and get rid of everything Gandhi said. Let us pick all his quotes on nonviolence and destroy them once and for all... here's a start! 

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."

“The most heinous and the most cruel crimes of which history has record have been committed under the cover of religion or equally noble motives”

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"

"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence."

"Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary."

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

“Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong”

"You must be the change you want to see in the world" 

(To the supporters of Kasab's death sentence: I hope you are not the change I want to see in this world!

I find myself eating a lot of ice cream every time I think about money. It makes my stomach bloat from the lactose and exacerbates my asthma. Given the little money I have, it actually makes sense to either spend it all without worrying about my future OR squirrel away my savings under a tree and forget about it until I have become really old. Why must I put myself through this futile, soul-destroying obsession with accumulating mass (both weight-wise and wealth-wise)?

Today I was looking at some ancient coins from around the world with beautiful images of kings and celestial beings, royal emblems and cyphers, nature and art... all chiseled intricately in every kind of metal and in every possible shape. There is so much to appreciate in old money. The coins alone were designed to give pleasure through beauty, a concept I hope is true for today as well, although it is only in nostalgia that we sometimes appreciate beauty.

For instance, I think of India's early decimal coins (post-independence) that I used to find lying around in some drawers at home - the flower-shaped 2 and 10 paise, the square shaped 5 paisa, the hexagon shaped 3 and 20 paise, the round 25 and 50 paise... there was a variety in metal (bronze, copper, aluminum and nickel) that I don't think exists today. It is probably all ferratic stainless steel now. But when the steel coins were introduced, I remember being so beguiled by their smooth, shiny surface that I eagerly got rid of the old coins whenever I could to exchange them for shiny steel ones. Even now, I find new coins beguiling... I save dollar coins every time I get them, because they are so rare (I don't understand why!)... but I miss the variety in the old coins. Now I realize that all those old coins I took no notice of had stories to tell that I am only learning about now, after their disappearance.

I don't mean to go off on a tangent... but what the heck! I can speak of currency notes, can't I? It's not entirely off topic. :)

I remember the animals on Indian currency notes: the tiger, the rhinoceros and the elephant, all three of which I can't help but notice have dwindled to a few thousand in population today. I wonder if we will look back at the notes with these animals in the future and speak of them in a mythical way... Will we speak of them in the same way we do the coins of the old times with kings and celestial beings, royal emblems and cyphers, nature and art?

Suddenly money is looking more meaningful to me.

I read some very interesting stories on how money have been used over the years and how it has changed over time. I quite enjoyed the legendary stories around currency. It was compelling to see how it changed the course of history from time to time and easily created and destroyed empires and nations. There were also some fascinating articles on money in fictional works like books and movies. It was interesting to see how fiction borrows from reality, but also to see how it manages to be very different from all modern, and historic currency as well. In a way, fiction is exploring money in ways we haven't considered with much seriousness in real life.

By the time I came to our nonfictional present, the money world got very complex. For one thing, it is oftentimes not in a tangible form. Some of it went over my head, especially where it spoke of how money is organized today (I clearly live in some storybook world seeing as I find the past and the fictional world more relatable). I figured however, that the sheer complexity of today's financial markets, of currency management, exchange rates, financial infrastructures, foreign investments are overwhelming, but also fascinating. It is a beautiful world we live in where money flows in simple and complex ways almost artfully. I can imagine a whole orchestrated dance with several contrasting movements and prominent themes, competing for space and attention, while playing almost harmoniously... there are parts you can only perceive but can't see, so it can be as abstract as art... There are of course the discordant bits, but I think they only make it more real. (Art can also be discordant, can't it?)

Now I am ending my day with thoughts on how I would like to see myself... A money hoarder (of the realistic world with an eye on the future) or a coin collector (absorbed in a more abstract world with an eye on the past). The latter seems to be more promising of acquiring mass in a less soul-destroying way. Moreover, numismatics (currency collection) sounds so much more cooler than saving or investing.

Did you know that the Anagram for Relationships is "Phoniest Liars"? And we wonder why relationships are so troubling! :)

First a disclaimer: Seeing as most astute people in the world give relationship advice only if they can rake in profit (self-help books?), you will have to credit me for being less opportunistic! I am not trading my relationship-wisdom for your "rainy day" money! I am giving it away for free. Also, there's a chance you might think I am being very boastful, but don't judge me too badly for it. Afterall, boastfulness may be a disreputable virtue, but it is not the antithesis of truthfulness. So I request you to focus on the truthfulness of this post, while I focus on the boastfulness (and being disreputable!). :)

I was telling a friend that had I not been married to Tapi, I would have been disqualified from all matrimonial websites by the uncles and aunties of the world! (also, as someone rightly pointed out, even being married to Tapi disqualifies me from matrimonial websites). They would have written me off as a disaster and ostracized me for maligning their morally pure online space!

Every marriageable man and woman listed on these matrimonial sites are an epitome of beauty, comeliness and perfect-morality! They seem to have no flaws!

I on the other hand am short-ish, dark (in matrimonial terms: "not entirely white-ish and somewhat wheatish" complexioned) (!), chubby-ish, not much to look at, casteless (with no tradition of arranged marriages in three generations on both sides of my family... except rarely and that too disastrously...), in an unconventional line of work (also currently without job!), easily attracted to men (the more the merrier), need constant entertainment (whether with spouse or otherwise), borderline alcoholic (to brahmin standards), not religious (except second-handedly... erm.. i mean, i maintain some high-level curiosity), don't cook (note: i didn't say can't cook), prone to hiding my favorite food, love to hate family, don't (yet) care about having kids, and in the rare occasion that I do have some unquestionable values they are unconventional and one doesn't know what to make of them... I am opinionated, judgmental and argumentative.

But, somehow, seeing as I have been in a long term relationship for over 10 years with one very admirable man, I can take credit for excelling at this committment-thing like nobody's business! (TAKE THAT you judgmental uncles and aunties! Slap!) :) I can challenge most people that my marital life is more honest, peaceful and exciting than theirs! Tapi and I quite enjoy our questionable lives together (although his life is much less questionable than mine) and are madly in love with each other! I can't remember the last time we had a fight. I get jittery if I don't hear from him for two hours when he's at work. I rarely take a vacation without him, and when I do, I drive people nuts with my sulking and whining until we are back in our intertwined hug like Richandamy in Zits. My family thinks this obsession we have for each other is borderline unhealthy... and we might come to regret it one day, since we make no time for social life. But so far, so good! (Social life doesn't seem to miss us either!)

Here is what I think about most 'rocky' marriages (please forgive my generalizations. Today I am celebrating Blanket Statements Day.... which happens to coincide with Prabha is the Greatest and the Best Day)

I think it is very petty why most people get married or divorced! And this I think is true not just for arranged marriages. It maybe true for every kind of relationship that ends up in a marriage. When you get into a relationship it is because of a long laundry-list of qualities you like about a person, and when you get out of a relationship it is with a long laundry-list of complaints about the person... Finding a spouse seems to be no different from finding a roommate or buying a hair product! Then there are these "surprises about" and "disappointments with" each other that keep us amused or frazzled. Everyday is like an episode out of a soap opera. You feel like you have to have a say is what this other person IS... you comment on their values and choices as if you have earned your right to do so. (I so despise the nagging-variety couples... especially when they nag the hell out of each other in public and think it is funny, or acceptable! It is disrespectful beyond words... not just to each other, but to everyone they put it through)

I constantly keep hearing words like compatibility, adjustment, compromises, sacrifices, expectations and rights when people define marriages. In fact, these words seem more synonymous with marriages nowadays than they were a generation ago! (Am I wrong?) Is this all people think marriages are about? (Come to think of it, my single friends impart this wisdom about "adjustments" more than my married friends do!... ok... some of my newly married friends do as well...This I think is ironic. How can people (want to) get into a relationship feeling THIS pessimistic about it? If it makes them feel better, I'll say, I don't find happily married people using these words to describe their relationships! Also the "not-married-but-madly-in-love"-varieties can't be bothered about defining their relationships... which is lovely and refreshing to see! They look so smitten and adorable.)

In fact, getting married is not "life changing" at all... sorry to disappoint. It is really nothing! While change has been the constant in my life, change because of marriage remains an elusive concept! (Likewise, Tapi may be losing hair, but I have little to do with it! I can only take credit for his good looks.... they say when two people live together for a long time, they start resembling each other ... If you don't agree with me, wait till I lose hair!)

If physical attributes or a person's interests or character are the only things that attract us to them... then seeing as these are not permanent attributes, and that we could also be wrong in our judgment of them, it makes more sense to get into such a relationship in a non-commited way than in a committed way! If you suddenly find yourself less attracted to a person... isn't it more convenient to get out of that relationship without having to make rounds to the court than otherwise? There has to me more to a marriage than physical and intellectual attraction! There has to be that whatchamacallit that will never cease to exist! There has to be that whatchamacallit that continues to exist even after the novelty of the physical and intellectual attraction wears off. And that whatchamacallit can't be something you can define in words!

I am also quite certain that it is near impossible to adjust, compromise and cater to the expectations of a person in the long-term... At some point it is bound to boomerang and all hell will break loose.

Committed relationships are more about being and letting be. It is about two people ungrudgingly letting each other make selfish choices and taking pleasure in seeing them feel blissful and contended. It is the most deferential and considerate thing you can do for your loved ones (also applicable to other family members and friends!) :) I think it helps to focus less on what we like about our loved ones and more on that we love them!

Moreover, divorce is the worst thing that can happen to good people (when I say good people, I mean those who otherwise don't deserve to go through that kind of hurt)! It is disrespectful, condescending and speaks very little about your own morality! ... how can you marry someone and then not find anything nice about them to like, to the extent that you don't want to see them for the rest of your life! If divorce makes you happier, you have to question your motive for marrying this person in the first place. Like I said, this is more understandable in a non-commited relationship than in a committed relationship (I'll even say, the break up in a non-committed relationship is less disrespectful even)... And why must we like or not like people that badly, especially if we don't find them morally reprehensible?

I don't know if I have this relationship thing figured out. So this is just a thought that I am going to consider... and I am going to consider this for my other relationships as well. The world is so full of attractive people. I think we ought to work on creating meaningful, committed and non-committed ties of many different kinds with everyone... :) (Ok. Stalkers. Keep out!)

(By the way my blanket statements don't apply to unequal relationships dictated by chauvinism, or the kind of arranged marriages where two people are forced to come together whether they want to or not. In these, the rabbit warren is more convoluted and confusing. I won't know how to find my way from one burrow to another. I am safe for having not entered it!)

Final disclaimer: This post is full of generalizations. As I read it I can see some erroneous statements. But, in my defense, I also scattered disclaimers all through the post, and also couldn't have explained myself anymore, seeing as it is already so long!

I was thinking of how sometimes we think of some books as changing our lives and still somehow after a few years we forget what it is in them that really influenced us!

Is it with books the same as it is with advice? Do we read books that are in line with our pre-existing beliefs while pretending to be influenced by them, just as we seek advice from those who we already know will validate our decision? Or do we really learn from what we read and become more enlightened?

For instance, I was trying to recall what I read in Albert Camus' Myth of Sisyphus eight years ago. It was the book I most talked about when I read it, and recommended it to everyone I met. I thought I had my whole life figured out as a result of it! Now, when I think back to what I liked about the book, I can barely outline Camus' philosophy on absurdity beyond the obvious themes that he touched upon. For the sake of this post, I'll be honest to my recollection of what he said. Be forewarned that this may not be what he said after all! (which is the point of this post) :)

He talks about the absurdity of human reasoning. We know that our life will eventually come to an end, and with each passing day, we are getting closer and closer to our inevitable death. But, we look forward to tomorrow (and our future) with a feeling of expectation and desire, and go on living our lives in denial, as if there is no death in the end. But, what will happen to us if we question the absurdity of human life? Why must we struggle to make a living, create societal norms, follow moral and ethical rules, go through pain and suffering, or even save for tomorrow, if it is all to end in our demise anyway? When a person attempts to find meaning in life and questions the merit of all these absurd pursuits, he either places his hope on a greater power (god) or concludes that there is no meaning to life.

To those who attempt to explain away this absurdity using the notion of God, Camus says it is a futile exercise that only encourages this denial of death even further and does not do anything to explain the absurdity. To those who accept the meaninglessness of life there is a chance that they may contemplate ending this absurdity by way of suicide. Camus explains that given that the absurdity we feel exists because of our own desire for a meaningful life and that it is inherently human to be absurd, it makes more sense to reject this desire for a meaningful life than commit suicide. (We can't all kill ourselves!)

Meaning, if we fight this feeling of false hope we have for a better tomorrow (even if it is an eternal fight), then we can unburden ourselves of wanting to live a meaningful life (because there is no such thing), free ourselves of moral and ethical norms of society (because there is no need for them) and take pleasure in the irrationality of our pursuits (because that is all there is to do)! The only things worth considering is living longest and happiest and indulging in rich and varied experiences.

In one greek myth, King Sisyphus was punished by the gods with the physically and mentally excruciating task of repeatedly rolling a huge boulder up the mountain only to watch it fall down again. Camus surmises that if Sisyphus were to have a shot at happiness, his best bet is to accept that there is nothing more to his life than this absurd pursuit... and that is the only way he can be free is to take pleasure in it!

Now, going back to my point about whether books really change the way we think, I can't help but wonder if this book really inspired me to pursue rich and varied experiences or accept the absurdity of my life. It certainly hasn't freed me of ethical and moral dilemmas. So what then has it bought me? Is it just another absurd pursuit that is best not analyzed? Should I just accept that there is nothing to gain from reading books? Is it futile to look to them to make my life meaningful? Or should I actually take Camus' advice and seek it only because it is one of those absurd pursuits that indulges me with (the possibility of) rich and varied experiences?

I suddenly see how Camus' book taught me something... and I think it may be the opposite of what he meant to teach me (because I find that I am influenced by his book)... or maybe not!... perhaps I best not analyze it. But, isn't that what Camus said? Am I agreeing with him?

What does Camus have to say about paradoxes?

It always started off as a scene reminiscent of the ones you see in hindi movies picturized with song and dance. There were a few excited young ones among us, holding water guns in one hand, and packets of color in the other. The dry colors were unobjectionable even when they came in the most unspeakable shades of green and black. But those suspicious looking small packets they brought that had shiny crystalline powder or gold-silver paste were insufferable. We squirted some colored water on each other and gently rubbed dry colors on our faces and clothes and made ourselves look as varicolored as possible! There were a few new ones in the group who were worried about dirtying their clothes too much or having their faces dominated with just one color. It always amused us how silly they were being. We knew they would grow out of it by the end of the day and laugh at themselves for being daft as well (either that, or it was the last time we were going to them!).  

Then the moms and dads brought in some more huge bags of color (the ones in our hands weren't going to cut it), turned the water pipes on, filled big drums with colored water, oiled the cars and scooters so that they wouldn't catch color, and set up the boom box and an assortment of fast music (mostly telugu and hindi street songs... and never songs related to holi). They blurted out some quick instructions like "wash yourselves well before entering the house", "don't walk barefoot on the roads"... You could tell they were not entirely committed to giving instructions, because it was a pointless exercise in futility. The one instruction that came with commitment was "DO NOT RESIST ANYONE" Some of us knew what that meant, some were about to find out. 

We played on and giggled and laughed and tried to pull a smart one on each other. This lasted the first one hour. 

Then the hoodlums (young adults) among the family and friends arrived like a pack of hungry wolves, ending all tranquility. Nothing can prepare you enough for being liquidated (literally). There was no running for cover or screaming for help. You were cornered on all sides and lifted like a bag of grain and flung in the air and into a tank full of frigid water. In you went and out you came to gasp for breath only to go back in again from the force of the second person being thrown into it. Then the third person was flung in, then the fourth, the fifth, the sixth... anyone who attempted to get out of the tank was pushed back in forcefully. Our heads bobbed up and down and up and down to the whim of the hands holding them. The few who escaped this treatment, were dragged by the leg, pulled up and smeared with a thick layer of the silver paste... their teeth were rubbed with dry red powder and their body attacked mercilessly with eggs! The air was filled with sinister laughter. 

I can't remember why I thought this was enjoyable. I suppose evil is only evil only when it comes from an unknown source like the bike rowdies. As soon as an innocuous balloon full of red water broke on one of us, the whole group ran towards the biker (now victim) and attacked him ferociously by giving him the most savage treatment of color you can imagine. Some bikers who managed to whiz past us after throwing water balloons got a loud cheer, mingled with swear words and glorious hoots! (Few bikers even threw glass bottles at people. These were the dangerous kind, we hoped wouldn't visit our streets. They rarely did). 

Some friends would stay indoors out of fear of all the aggression, only to have fifty people screaming in front of their houses. A few of them would climb over the walls and try to kick the doors open. Finally (and I never understood why), they succumbed to this threat, and became unwilling guinea pigs of a horror experiment.  

The violence usually came in cycles. As the hours went by it got less and less fierce. By now the uncles and aunties from neighboring houses arrived and brought a different kind of celebration with them. It was spirited in joyfulness of a more pleasurable kind. In a good year, the crowd added up to two hundred people (most years were good years... the bad years were when a majority of us had our final exams and were restricted to playing holi for a few hours with our immediate families at home. These were the terrible years. If you squirted more water from your gun than your mom thought acceptable, or rubbed too much color on a cousin's head, you had to listen to a long lecture on toxic chemicals and safety).  

There was a whole lot of music and dancing, and delicious food contaminated with color (despite all efforts)! Bhang flowed like a river and befuddled the minds of the young and old alike. Some people went ahead and threw the bhang in the water tank, which was by now entirely black and full of kids. 

After a few hours, when most of the neighbors dispersed, and the close family and friends remained, several other groups of friends and family who had celebrated elsewhere joined in. We drove to someone's farm house or someplace in the outskirts and spent the rest of evening and night there in wild celebration! This was my holi until six years ago! Now I think of it in past tense and wonder whether it was celebrated in India yesterday or today and if it was as dramatic as it had been before! (The answer is never yes)

HAPPY HOLI. (This year, I will spend mine learning the significance of holi... something that I never cared to learn before)

Lovely movie this My Name is Khan! Karan Johar took the filter out of his brain and made mixed vegetable kurma out of a million global calamities and served it alongside bheja fry (mine and few other minorities). Most people seem to have liked the full-on dishing out of anti-patrioterrorism rhetoric. I, for one, enjoyed it completely, but for reasons that would make Shiv Sena question my (dis)loyalty!

I have always maintained that verbal diarrhea is a result of repressing strong emotions for too long. What better example can I find to establish the validity of my claim than this epiglottis Khan film!

After years of bottling up his emotions about all that he had been reading in the op-ed pages of newspapers that his favorite juhu beach peanuts came wrapped in, Karan Johar could not restrain himself any longer and had to vomit out everything he felt about everything in one go.

There is a scene in the movie where Khan identifies all the animals in a crossword puzzle competition and wins his stepson a stuffed animal. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a metaphor for all the social issues the film touched upon that the audience needed to identify.

Moreover, it was a three-hour long exercise in suspending disbelief except for two occasions where he showed some restraint. One: Khan did not have the hurricane victims pump out flood water from their town by converting their bicycles into motors (perhaps because he already did something similar in Swades, and hey! Funny Hair Joel broke his bicycle after the accident!) and Two: Obama did not sing "Hum Honge Kaamyaab".

I was in tears as I did a mental rundown of when the stock market crashed in the US. Had it not been in the nonexistent timeline that the film was based in, Chacha "Khan" Chaudary, whose memory works faster than a computer would have solved a global economic crisis and restored normalcy to our dysfunctional markets as easily as Superman circled the globe and made time run backwards.

Is this what happens to opinionated filmmakers who restrict themselves to the romantic genre for too long and need an outlet to vent their political discontentment? What was the film propelled by and what propels Karan Johar! Seeing as the film celebrated a "direct symbolism" bonanza, should he have called it Montezuma's Revenge (a.k.a. Traveller's diarrhea) instead?

Among the many cheesy things I do (example), there is one that is becoming my favorite. Every birthday, I pull out a card from a deck of angel cards and try to follow the word on it for the rest of the year.

The original intent of the card may have been to suggest a spiritual pathway that gets you closer to your angel. I like to think of it more as an inspirational start to a year, much like with new years resolutions where we take on new projects or reform bad habits. Only, with angel cards there is no success or failure. There are just thoughts or qualities to be aware of and encourage for the rest of the year.

Some of the words in the cards seem quite direct, like "Adventure" or "Commitment" and then there are some that are more abstract like "Resilience" or "Expansiveness", but they are all as simple or as deep as you want them to be and can have meanings beyond the obvious.

This year Tapi and I decided to do the angel card tradition together, so we pushed it from birthday to new year. Tapi’s word is "Harmony" and mine is "Respect". We both made our grumpy faces at what seemed like the most unexciting words for the year! Tapi is already Harmony personified. Anyone who has met him will attest to that. "Respect" and I are like Mayonnaise and Sunshine. I suppose his challenge is in figuring out how to follow his word better than he already is, and my challenge is to follow mine, period. :) (For some reason, the really exciting cards that say "Exploration" or "Celebration" always elude me!)

If you like, I have an angel card for you. You can tell me at the end of the year how you did with it. :)

What does it say about me that my website received most hits when I was least active!

I am back from my vacation and feel a lot like Alice after her adventure in Wonderland, like Gulliver after his voyages through Liliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa and Houyhnhmns, like Dorothy after her return from the Land of Oz.

For one thing, my monopoly board game came to life and in such style! We arrived in London on Christmas day and drove the night through eerily empty streets, all brightly illuminated with Christmas lights of all varieties. It resembled an impressively geared-up set just before a flamboyant musical is about to begin. And just like that, over the next few days, the curtains opened and the streets began to fill up with traffic, the sidewalks came alive with the hustle and bustle of a teeming metropolis, much like in Time Square on a bad day with no place to drive, park or walk!

Most people I met were dressed in colorful costumes of fantastical creatures, and did things like playing the violin while walking a tightrope, juggling five balls with their mouth, singing and dancing in the most evocative ways.

We sat through a glorious performance by the Belmont Ensemble of London in a beautiful baroque setting at St.Martin-in-the-Fields. The violinists played familiar yuletide masterpieces by Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Corelli, and Torelli.

Then one frosty morning, we witnessed Christmas Crackers, a very festive blend of acrobatics, comedy, music and burlesque in a vibrant setting at Shakespeare’s Globe. It was a bit like a Pantomime with actors walking amongst the audience, telling stories through jokes, songs and dances, mostly satirizing Shakespearean plays and Christmas carols.

We also watched a traditional Pantomime of Snow White and Seven Dwarfs in Manchester, with kids in the audience booing the horrible witch and cheering the Prince as he saves Snow White.

There was a beautiful jazz concert by the Scott Hamilton Quartet at the Jazz Club Soho.

The highlight was a dazzling Cirque du Soleil in the Royal Albert Hall. Every time, a winged creature gracefully tumbled from heaven onto earth, rotating, whirling, spinning, spiraling in unhumanlike ways, I lost my capacity to react.

It was very unlike what happened at Mathew Bourne’s Swan Lake ballet at Sadler’s Wells the night before. The dance sequences with the male swans were so graceful and emotive, that I could see myself drawn to their sensual beauty and physical expression like a moth to a flame. The intense scenes of romance were titillating, those of loneliness causing physical pain.

The concerts and shows are one side of London. There was a divine side to the city, with cathedrals and churches of beauty seemingly unmatched anywhere else in the world. We walked into Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a small Anglican church, each time expecting to get out in a few minutes, only to be drawn to the extraordinary beauty of the sanctuary. The ambience stirred feelings of awe and wonder and we stayed on for a few hours. I have never thought myself religious, but how do I explain that transcendent joy I experienced when listening to the Evensong in this sacred setting. I saw myself crying my eyes out in what felt like an overwhelming feeling of religious guilt and love for God.

I have heard so much about the unthinkably old pubs in London, their architecture competing with their reputation, their beers with their character… we went to a few over-packed pubs that more than lived up to the buildup. I couldn’t also help admiring the contemporary ones, and some small street-corner locals. (To my beer-loving friends: I liked some of the well-hopped pale ales, but I still prefer to be “lager than life”). The coffee shops and bars were just as charming.

We did a few touristy things as well, including some guided tours through museums and such. When there was no guided tour, there was the distraction of very good company to keep us entertained. (It is never a good idea to go to museums with really good company… especially not in London where there are both buildings and artifacts in the buildings to admire!)

The (window) shopping experience was splendid… all those secondhand bookstores at Marylebone High Street and Charing Cross, toys at Hamleys, the vintage clothes at Seven dials, everything at Harrods, everything else at Westfields… the visits to American stores in London… the food... the south-asian food! It was a sensual feast, a tactile banquet... a very expensive sensual feast, an overpriced tactile banquet. :)

I am left feeling a yearning still. Like this was just a prelude to many more vacations. There seems to be so much to see and do in London and I haven’t even begun exploring. I feel like an actor in a musical who has been asked to wrap things up after the interval, without finishing my performance because I have already been singing and dancing too much! And when I am not feeling like the actor, I feel like the audience who is waiting for the actor to show up after the interval, only to find that the show has been declared over, because I have already been given my money's worth!

I think I most regret not watching Sherlock Holmes (the movie) in Baker’s Street. I also regret watching the New Years parade. It was a "profound" disappointment (profound because it brought to mind a lot of philosophical questions that I would much rather not think about!) ... But it was exciting to be in Covent Garden right where the My Fair Lady scene takes place, or Darcy’s home in Lyme Park, or the Poet's corner in Westminster Abbey … among other things.

Some of my most favorite people in the world, also the most talented people I know personally live in what is now one of my most favorite cities in the world. I have had extraordinary experiences with them… traveling with them; meeting their "famous" friends; pouring our hearts out; listening to them recite their poems, sing with the choir, play the piano and the guitar… It’s been one heck of an emotional (borderline melodramatic) and memorable trip.

We also went to Paris… which felt like the sequel to Alice in Wonderland. Through the Looking Glass?

It’s a long post in itself, but I just don’t have it in me to dash off some more … :)

But here's something that occurred to me. Why do people say the Brits and French are not friendly. I have had the most interesting conversations with complete strangers.... it's not quite my everyday experience in my talky adopted country even!

Forewarning: This may not be history, but it is some story alright!

Blessed Enrichetta 
O pray, o pray to the lord
Mother Enrichetta
O pray, o pray to the lord
Lover of Nature, Lover of Creatures
Lover of God, Lover of All

That's the best my school could come up with to honor Mother Enrichetta Dominici who was proclaimed "Blessed" by Pope Paul VI, in acknowledgment of her heroic virtues. She extended the apostolic commitment of the Congregation of Sisters of St. Ann's to the farthest regions of the world (Hyderabad!) that were not enlightened by the preaching of the Gospel.  

I found a romanticized version of the early beginnings of the school in The Hindu, which begins with

In the balmy spring of March 1871, six sisters from St Ann's Convent, Turin, Italy came to India, precisely Secunderabad. The mission on hand was to teach orphans of the war accommodated here. Sister Enrichetta, the Superior General of the Sisters of St. Ann was elementary in sending the sisters from Italy when Bishop Barbero knocked at the convent one Friday requesting for help. Legend says it that the sisters thought him to be a burglar to be ringing the bell at that time of the day.

Orphans of which war? Why couldn't the bishop wait until daylight to enter the convent? And why would a burglar ring the bell before entering a convent! The lack of logical reasoning in this legend should have dissuaded my family from putting me in this school, but as fate would have it, I, like my aunts and uncles, cousins and many victim friends, endured the teachings of the legend makers.  

My aunt seems to be celebrated as popular alumni in all the articles, including the "balmy spring" one. I don't think she realizes her fame, or that she shares it with Astronaut Rakesh Sharma and wait..  Sonia Gandhi (!)
  
I have always wondered how the catholic missionaries set themselves up without incident in Nizam's dominions. I know now that it wasn't easy. There's an interesting article called the "Diocese of Hyderabad", which speaks of the spread of christianity across the country between the early 1500s and late 1800s. The Diocese of Hyderabad seems to be the only one that had no regularly appointed missions in three centuries, although missionaries visited the dominions from time to time for short periods. However, there were Portuguese and Armenian Catholics in Golconda and Hyderabad during the 1600s and  missionary activity of some sort throughout these four centuries. 

The 1800s was an exciting time. Hyderabad was under the The Vicar Apostolic of Madras and then Calcutta for sometime, until Bishop Carew built a beautiful cathedral and church in Bolarum, (there is a brilliant business lesson in this - "marking territory by erecting huge symbols of supremacy"). This led to the envitable ---- missionary activity picked up dramatically, and the mission of Hyderabad-Deccan was made the Vicarate Apostolic with Bishop Murphy as its first vicar. Ironically, the bishop had to  live in Chuderghant on the borders of the Nizam's dominion owing to the intolerance, not of the Nizam, but Sir Henry Pottinger.

Pottinger has his own interesting story. He came to India in the early 1800s to serve in the army and travelled extensively between Indus and Persia disguised as a Muslim merchant and studying local languages under the orders of Sir John Malcolm.  He eventually joined the British East India Company, fought the Marata war, and became resident Administrator at Sindh and eventually Hyderabad. (Much later, he was also the first Governor of Hong Kong) 

Despite all obstacles, the Bishop Murphy applied to the Foreign Mission Seminary at Milan for more missionaries, and Fathers Pozzi and Barero were sent to him. There were british regiments quartered near Secunderabad, and the catholic population of the place thus went up to 4000. Between 1857 and 1864 six other missionaries came from Milan, and the Christian communities began to increase. But in 1864, owing to failing health, Bishop Murphy was forced to leave India and stayed on in Tasmania until he died.

The vicariate was then entrusted to the Milan Seminary of Foreign Missions. Father Giovanni Domenico Barbero (the burglar in the St. Ann's legend)  became vicar Apostolic, and was consecrated Bishop of Doliche, at Rome, 3 April, 1870. He procured some Sisters of St. Anne from Turin, and in 1871 established them at Secunderabad where they opened an orphanage and a girls' school. There ends the story! 

Today, the intimidating school building, whose forbearing grey walls ran from one end of the long street to another, and went all along, and all around the other side of the main road, with no beginning or end, plan or direction, has been brought down and with little protest! It feels like the end of an era!

Despite all the folklore surrounding it, St. Ann's was a simple school with simple people. We couldn't possibly feel strongly enough about anything. Our aspirations are only for that which is realizable without much effort! (This is the sort of generalization that gets me in trouble! I can feel it coming.)

I was rather confounded by this logo I saw on a truck today. It needs a tagline that says "Bosom Threesome, Raring to Go!" or "Gleefully Happy to be Eaten"

Metropolitan brings to mind a book I read many months ago called "The Pig that wants to be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher". The book is full of introspective questions and thought experiments that are perfect for bathroom reading. It provoked a lot of inane Gedanken-like all-night discussions with friends. Here's a bit from the book.

After forty years of vegetarianism, Max Berger was about to sit down to a feast of pork sausages, crispy bacon and pan-fried chicken breast. Max had always missed the taste of meat, but his principles were stronger than his culinary cravings. But now he was able to eat meat with a clear conscience.

The sausages and bacon had come from a pig called Priscilla he had met the week before. The pig had been genetically engineered to be able to speak and, more importantly, to want to be eaten. Ending up on a human table was Priscilla’s lifetime ambition and she woke up on the day of her slaughter with a keen sense of anticipation. She had told all of this to Max just before rushing off to the comfortable and humane slaughterhouse. Having heard her story, Max thought it would be disrespectful not to eat her.

The chicken had come from a genetically modified bird which had been ‘decerebrated’. In other words, it lived the life of a vegetable, with no awareness of self, environment, pain or pleasure. Killing it was therefore no more barbarous than uprooting a carrot.

Yet as the plate was placed before him, Max felt a twinge of nausea. Was this just a reflex reaction, caused by a lifetime of vegetarianism? Or was it the physical sign of justifiable distress? Collecting himself, he picked up his knife and fork…

The author then rants on for a paragraph before referring to my most favorite book in the world.

What if we could create animals that had no interest in their own survival, simply because they had as little awareness as a carrot? How could it be wrong to deprive them of an existence they never knew they had? Or what if the animal actually wanted to be eaten, such as the bovine imagined by Douglas Adams in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe?

The protagonist of that novel, Arthur Dent, reconciled in horror at the suggestion, describing it as 'the most revolting thing I've ever heard'. Many would share his revulsion. But as Zaphod Beeblebrox objected to Dent, surely it's
'better than eating an animal that doesn't want to be eaten'? Dent's response seems to be no more than a version of the 'yuck factor' - the kind of instinctive recoil that people feel when confronted by something that doesn't seem natural, even if there are no moral problems with it. Organ transplants and blood transfusions seemed freakish when first conceived, but as we got used to both, the idea that they are morally wrong died out, apart from among a few religious sects.

People may talk about the dignity of the animals or of a respect for the natural order, but can we seriously suggest that the dignity of the chicken species is undermined by the creation of a decerebated version? Isn't Priscilla's death entirely dignified? And aren't even organic arable farmers, who have selected and bred varieties to grow on a mass scale, tampering with the natural order anyway? In short, is there any good reason why the vegetarian today should not share a table with Max just as soon as his menu becomes a reality?"

I learnt today that I am a favored victim of Gedanken experiments. I sit in a room, there is an interesting story being narrated by someone; there is a powwow session going on among some people; there are one or two of those smart-alecky folks trying out their wisecracks on a very amused audience - I am usually that audience! In fact, I am the "willing" stooge in all these scenarios.

The advantage of being a stooge is that you are under no pressure to make sense. You, the seeker of knowledge from the giver, take the subservient stance. All you need to do is be obtuse and inquisitive, which I am in every respect!

Here is how it works. Your "theorist" friend has had a little too much to drink, and is feeling bladdered and excitable. He decides to make the most of this state of mind to pontificate about such things as "existence" and the "why"s of things! He takes a life scenario like falling in love, managing an intern, throwing ugly recycled shoes at a politician and relates it vaguely to some philosophy or scientific theory he may have encountered through his work or in some other way. All you have to do is sit through his fascinating hypotheses and speculate who the moron in the conversation is --- you for listening or your friend for thinking you are a moron who is willingly sitting through his tripe. But, in general, if the answer is "both you and him", it means that you have both had a swell few hours and look forward to having many more swell few hours. I can say I have and look forward to many more.

Over the next few days, I will list out some of my favorite Gedanken Theories and "catch words" that turn up in usual conversations with friends. I’ll begin tomorrow after spending the night pondering over these theories and putting my parents through some of them over dinner! They will be MY stooges for a change :)

A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Imposter Poodles to Purples Numbers

A Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales

Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind

The Island of the Colorblind

I can’t be the only person navigating towards these books in the bookstore. Someone else has to find these titles just as intriguing. Someone else has to find these books just as staggeringly fascinating. They are all books that tell you how to grasp the marvel that is the human brain.

At any given point in my life I am reading or making up theories about the brain. My favorite random theory is that it is the only organ that exists in the body. Everything else is a result of its imagination, including the universe, if there is a universe. If you must question this theory, you should first consider the endless list of questions that arise as a consequence of challenging this theory. For instance, what is to say that even the brain exists? and "so what!"

The "so what!" question leads to other queries such as - supposing the brain is the only part of the body, why do we perceive ourselves to be physically stronger or weaker than others, why can’t we hold a musical note in high pitch, why can’t we fly or defy the laws of gravity, or dispose off societal structures at a whim. Did it take us four years to unseat an idiot president and conjure up a rockstar as replacement?

I haven’t even begun to talk about consciousness and it is a whole other universe that I won’t get into now. :)
 
I learnt that there is no wrong question when it comes to the brain. You can make up the most absurd question, and it will still not be ridiculous enough to elicit a shocked reaction. If anything, it will educe an equally stupefying or absurd response, if not scientific, then philosophical. So then, the thinking involved in arriving at that fascinating question becomes the exciting challenge.
 
The net is full of interesting articles on how Art, Religion, Music, Addiction and so on relate to the brain. Then there’s another brain-related genre that recently made it to my to-read list, like how technology has made it possible to restore eyesight and hearing, or control stammering. How tiny blood-cell sized devices (nanobots) can be inserted into your brain to perform therepeutic functions and so on.
 
Now I am in the phase where I make up my own theories on why we do what we do. I think I have it all figured out. Ask me why a tune gets stuck in our head all day, how time is represented in the brain, why we zone out of boring conversations, or how dreaming is different from imagining and I can totally whip up a good response. If it is not true, it is certainly something to think about! But, just like asking absurd questions, coming up with seemingly logical responses is entertaining as well. It produces a whirlwind of thoughts and ideas that will leave you feeling awed and humbled by this thing that controls everything that we are, and everything that we are perceived by others to be.

While meditating now, I try three very different things, one to let my mind go completely blank, two to let it go haywire and see where all that erratic whirlwind of thoughts take me, and three to introspect, which is to think consciously and be aware! I have clearly not mastered my mind, or rather my mind hasn’t mastered me, because when I choose to do one I do the other.

Despite this constant fascination for brain books, it beats me why I can never remember the anatomy of the brain. I have the back of the brain figured out, the Cerebellum and Medulla Oblongata. There are the Frontal, Temporal, Parietal and Occipital Lobes, the Gyruses, and some random odd things here and there. But why I can’t remember what they do, and where my thoughts and my skills reside I don’t know. Can’t the brain just be what I want it to be?

Like when someone hits me I want to know where I was hit. When I sing, I want to know which cell in my brain is being tickled. When my stomach growls, I need to know where to put the food so that it travels down and appeases the growling, when my brain wants answers I want to know which neuron to connect to another and create the required synapses.
 
I have been reading This is Your Brain On Music by Daniel Levitin in bits and pieces. It may be the next book I read, but even before I have read it I have all these thoughts on music, which seem more profound that what the book may be able to offer.

Will someone give me my PhD please?

-----------

Where did the brain go on vacation? to a Hippocampus! ha!
and what did the Hippocampus say during his retirement speech? Thank you for the memories. :D

A few months ago, Tapi and I bought a book called "Always Maintain a Joyful Mind" by Pema Chodron. It has fifty nine tibetan teachings called Lojong to help develop wisdom amid challenges of daily living.

Most of the teachings are quite straight-out, like: "don't expect applause", "abandon poisonous food", "don't be jealous" and so on.

The idea is to pick a slogan at random from the book each day, read the short commentary offered by the author and try to live by the meaning of that slogan throughout the day.

It is interesting to see how the work you do, and your everyday interactions with people take on new meaning each day depending on the slogan you have called to mind. The message manifests itself in your life in more ways than you had imagined.

Some slogans seem quite unclear in meaning without the commentary, like "Practice the five strengths, the condensed heart instructions", "three objects, three poisons, and three seeds of virtue."

I find with these ones that the commentary speaks of more than one thing, which then makes me want to take more than a day to think about the message.

Take today's slogan for instance. It is impossible to know what it could mean without the commentary . It also happens to be the first slogan for this year. I hope to make a regular habit of this from now on and read a slogan a day, or in some cases read the same slogan everyday until I am ready to move on to the next.

Slogan:
First, train in the preliminaries

Commentary:
The preliminaries are also known as the four reminders.
In your daily life, try to:

1. Maintain an awareness of the preciousness of human life.
2. Be aware of the reality that life ends; death comes for everyone
3. Recall that whatever you do, whether virtuous or not, has a result; what goes around comes around
4. Contemplate that as long as you are too focused on self-importance and too caught up in thinking about how you are good or bad, you will suffer. Obsessing about getting what you want and avoiding what you don’t want does not result in happiness.

That is a lot to take in at once. Frankly, I am a little overwhelmed with these reminders and am not sure what to focus on and how. I suppose I could split them into four different slogans, one for each day, and think about them independently first and then together as a whole.

So more about this when I am done thinking and taking the attitude of the four reminders :)

You know there is a "joyful mind" section coming up on this website soon, don't you?

As you read the poems below, remember that they were written in 1700 BCE. It's hard to say what life was like back then. Still, I am puzzled with the text in these hymns from the rig veda. What could they mean? Read on, while I try to make my guesses with pictures. =)

O pioneers of road and air communication systems, Come to inspire us in our benevolent deeds. These gracious pioneers maintain the tradition Of doing useful work for securing prosperity Throughout all time. (Rig.4.37.1) O makers of road and air communication systems, Your threefold transport Meant for the welfare of the people Deserves appreciation. Therefore, affectionate honour is offered to you Along with other eminent people Assembled at this solemn ceremony. (Rig.4.37.3) O pioneers of air communication system, We invoke you, the designers of war vehicles, Which have great utility in war-time. They are fast-moving, strong, complex in structure And provided with sensitive components. (Rig.4.37.5)

My cousin sent me this link to the trailer of a film called "Sita Sings the Blues", by Nina Paley. The film is still a work in progress but the stills should give you a sense of the attractive visuals in this shadow-puppet style animation. Its 72-minutes long and narrates the Ramayana from Sita's point-of-view.


Considering how most creative interpretations of the great Indian epics go through a lot of scrutiny and ridicule and are rejected for making a "mockery" out of our religious sentiments, this film is a BOLD attempt! I am glad to see that there are still some people who are not threatened by standpatters and are willing to celebrate their interpretation with ease. Sita Sings the Blues is definitely funny and imaginative, and not one to adhere to the customary plot.

For one thing, Nina completely omits Lakshmana in this film. She felt that the length of the film was too short to accommodate Lakshmana and do justice to his character.

On her website, Nina talks about her vision for the film and says some things that I thought were particularly interesting. She says she can relate to Sita in Ramayana, and draws parallels between her life and Sita's, especially during the disintegration of her marriage.

Here are some excerpts:

[After the divorce], I desperately tried to move on emotionally, but I couldn't get over my husband. Why was my heart devoted to him, when he'd treated me so badly? My husband's peculiar behavior resembled Rama's: no violent explosions, just mysterious emotional implosions. Why had he frozen up? Why had he rejected me, when I loved him so much? Why, why, why?

The Ramayana doesn't answer these questions. It is as mysterious and ambiguous as life itself, which is why I came to love it so much. We never really know why Rama banishes Sita. Common interpretations resemble rationalizations and apologies: Rama "had to" abuse Sita to maintain the traditional order of his kingdom, in which the opinion of the lowliest man ranked higher than the life of any woman. As literature, Rama's behavior towards Sita makes no sense...except it's so realistic. It is the Ramayana's ambiguities that make it so compelling.

The Ramayana never answered why, but it assured me people have behaved this way since the dawn of time. Even the gods have these kind of relationship problems.

I came to love Sita for her courage and purity. How can I say this "doormat" is courageous? Because, unlike me, she never fears her own heart. Sita never apologizes for loving Rama, no matter what he does. Paradoxically, by loving Rama she defies him.

In my experience, when men reject lovers, they usually want "no hard feelings" - in fact they want no feelings at all. But Sita has feelings, in spades. When Rama in Lanka tells her to run off with someone else, Sita doesn't say "ok, no hard feelings, seeya." Instead, she is unapologetically devastated and angry - she literally goes up in flames. My interpretation of Sita's "trial by fire" is that her purity of feeling spares her death. The flames are her pain, and by feeling them fully, instead of repressing, fighting, or ignoring them, she emerges unscathed. To paraphrase Friedrich Nietzsche, that which doesn't kill Sita makes her stronger.

Sita also has serious chutzpah to end her life in front of Rama, her sons, and thousands of onlookers. When she takes off at the end, it's one of those moments when the divine and the worldly pull apart and regard one another with surprise and horror. Sita's final scene contains more delicious ambiguities: Is she hurting Rama by leaving him for good, or helping him by finally getting out of his hair? Is she delivering him from the shame of having a wife who - gasp - "slept in another man's house," or is she shaming him further by demonstrating her own purity, aided by the gods and Mother Earth herself? What a great story!

The Ramayana is world literature. Although regarded by Hindus as sacred scripture, the story is popular with South Asian Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, and others. In other words, it is secular literature as well as religious text. And the Ramayana extends far beyond India, to China to all over South East Asia - Indonesian performances are especially famous. I learned that most of the world is familiar with the Ramayana. Only in the West is it any way exotic, and that is changing.

Obviously I'm not Indian, but the themes of inexplicable betrayal and heartbreak in the Ramayana are universal. American blues songs tell the same story. Reinterpreting the epic with my own cultural and personal spin carries on a grand tradition of retellings spanning millennia.

There are some more short animated film's by Nina Paley on her blog that I really enjoyed watching. They all have a social message and make quite an impact. Check them out!

I don't know what it means to be religious or even if I believe in God. But I am awed by religion: the selflessness, the devotion, the wisdom, the knowledge and the culture that come out of being religious and believing in god.

I have been reading this beautiful book called the "The Holy Vedas": a Golden Treasury by Pandit Satyakam Vidyalankar.

In about 350 pages, he attempts to bring together representative hymns from all the four vedas. Picking carefully from 20,416 verses, he tries to encompass all the aspects enshrined in the four Vedic works. A daunting task! The result is this beautiful book of poetry, with simple, lucid verses, organized to give you an overview of all Vedic concepts. The book has original text as well as english translation and manages to retain the spirit of the original hymns and faithfully imparts the ambience of these sacred texts.

When I bought the book, I didn't expect to be drawn to it. This was to be my first introduction to Vedic philosophy, something that would quickly give me a gist of the scriptures that I grew up hearing about. That the Vedas is one of the fountainheads of philosophy and culture and that the depth of knowledge contained in these scriptures is influential is "common knowledge" to most people born in Hindu families. It is something that you learn to be in awe of from the times of your childhood, but never actually get to reading it. But, soon the guilt of pretending to know something that I hadn't the faintest clue about, and the curiosity of learning about the Vedas, caught on.

A few months ago, I went to a bookstore in India and picked up this book, as well as unabridged translations of the Ramayana and Mahabharata that I am yet to read. As I read about the creation of the world, about social consciousness, of kingship, of artisans, astronomy, science and medicine... I was humbled by the knowledge and the profound beliefs, elucidated in the most clear and simple terms. I am not just glad I am reading the book, I feel like my obtuse prejudices of anything religion-related kept me away from these great works .Hopefully, I will get around to reading more.

May we, with honest efforts
And no consciousness of guilt,
Ascend day by day
Higher and higher summits of
Eternal glory and bliss.

(Rig. 10.37.9)