I know I have this same quote somewhere else in my blog but I couldn't help thinking about it again.

"...Perhaps as you went along you did learn something. I did not care what it was about. All I wanted to know was how to live in it."

Hemingway wrote this about life. Might just have been about grad school. Perhaps, the two aren't so dissimilar. I just want to know how to get through it.

What will become of Arunachal Pradesh? Nobody seems to care about it. The youth there seem to be motivated to defend the state against Chinese border intrusions. They want military training during/after college or something like that. They are prepared to die for India and its sad that nobody really cares about them. Of course, the Times of India loves to hype up incidents claiming China is about to attack India. But seriously we should care at least a little bit more about these areas. All these tribal areas are so badly underdeveloped, it is so depressing. It must take nothing short of a miracle for someone to even have a decent standard of living, or come out of that place into the "real world" and do "well". Do they even have amenities? I don't know, its a genuine question I have? Do they know about what happens in the rest of India, let alone the world. Nagaland, my god, what the fuck happens there?

I am not at all suprised by the rise of Naxalism in such areas. I even sympathise with them. What else are they supposed to do? But then its a pity that they took up arms, they who belong to the country that Gandhi lived and liberated. I don't condone violence. Maybe violence is the only way they shall be heard. Everybody looks at Naxalism as a menace. A threat to national security, they say. Everybody conveniently ignores the underlying cause. Nobody seems to want to do anything about the inequities. The Indian class divide is becoming deeper and deeper. What good are we as a country if some people become rich and the rest of it are as underdeveloped as ever. I know I am veering on the socialist side. I should be and so should a lot more people.

I also think as a nation, since we are presumably a third world country, we are trying to put our best foot forward. We want the world to judge us by our accomplishments and to disregard for a moment the blatant horrors that go on in our country unnoticed. Yes there are human rights violations and yes Indians are still caught up in the inertia of conservatism, caste divide and all sorts of religious nonsense. Oh, yeah and we are racists and we mistreat our women. And its a miracle that we have a democracy. How did we not become Marxists/ Maoists? How did we not have power thirsty generals that stage military coups. Perhaps, we don't have strong leaders with totalitarian abilities. Nobody seems to have the balls to do it. Thank god. In this seemingly placid fascade of political stability, most of us are just poor, voiceless and what's infinitely worse, unimaginative.

In my previous post, I merely skimmed the surface of the reasons why I thought Ardh Satya was brilliant. I shall forever be grateful to this movie. It may not be the greatest movie ever but for me it was extremely important because it reaffirmed my faith in Indian cinema. Growing up in the 90's I watched the most atrocious Hindi movies of all times. Surely, you'll agree that the early nineties was the worst period for Hindi movies. I liked a lot more of the Tamil movies. Indeed, looking back they were much better and no wonder a lot of Hindi movies were remakes of extremely popular Tamil movies. I hadn't yet started liking movies the way I did in college. Watching Auteurs like Truffaut and Kieslowski changed the way I looked at movies. They were no longer merely entertainment devices. Movie watching became a religious experience. Apart from literature, it has been the closest I have come to understanding an art form.

After watching a series of dreadful Hindi movies in college I started fearing the worst. That Hindi movies were insipid and there was nobody bold enough to make movies the way they envisioned it, as opposed to pandering to public interests like introducing meaningless song-dance sequences, having ridiculously contrived endings. NF tried to introduce me to all kinds of artsy Hindi stuff but I like so many fell into the trap of fashionably masquerading public display of affection for B-grade Hindi movies. The most memorable of these was that atrocious movie which we watched in Shillong featuring Amrish Puri as Dong the ruler of Dong land. Seena had regular screenings of Gult movies and our room quickly became the UJK (Upendra Jaggesh Kashinath) fanclub. Also regularly featured in our room was Manoj Tiwari Mridul and cult mallu songs like Lajjavathiye and Bucket. Between my "love" for b-grade movies and watching spectacular foreign cinema, I had come to despise watching Hindi movies since even the better ones were in the epsilon delta neighbourhood of every other Bollywood movie ever made, which had, by then, attained a normal distribution as predicted by the Central Limit Theorem.

To be perfectly honest, there were some movies I really liked. The Apu Trilogy and in particular Aparajito was great. But then I wondered if I really liked it because of all the recognition it had got. Nagesh Kukkunoor, I really liked as well. He came a long way from showing promise in movies such as Hyderabad Blues to making good movies like Dor. Watching Ardh Satya, destroyed all the preconceived notions I had about Hindi movies. I finally see what NF alluded to when he listed a lot of Hindi movies( which I only thought routinely good) as some of his favorite movies. Of course, our process of discovery was different- he being the son of a then-budding Hindi poet and being brought up in the city of Nawabs and culture (a B-grade city as he refers to it) and I being a Tam Bram ridiculed in songs such as 'Chatur Naar'. (At this moment, I can picture him saying, "I told you so", as I have so often heard him say) It appears that to some extent I have been guilty of harbouring prejudices but I am glad they have been shattered. I have immersed myself into reading blogs about other Hindi movies that I think that I might like.

Don't be mistaken. I still loathe Hindi movies. Only now, I have finally discovered a few gems in this stinking haystack of garbage. I sincerely appreciate hearing about GOOD, no, great Hindi movies. It would be great if you could list them below in your comments. In my next post, I'll list the movies that I've watched recently that I thought were great. Perhaps, this could serve as a revelation for someone else.

This is my humble attempt at translating a poem from the movie Ardh Satya, which I now consider one of the finest movies I have seen. This poem succinctly summarizes the character's dilemma in this movie. As Welankar (Om Puri) reads it out with his stunning voice and as you watch the smile on his face disappear as he approaches its end, you immediately realize that this is one of the most poignant scenes in Indian cinema. I can only talk about this movie in the most extreme of superlatives, which I can imagine sound ridiculous if you don't share my opinion or haven't watched this movie. One of the darkest movies I have ever seen, with no attempts of emulating Hollywood or being constrained under the tyranny of the feel-good, inundated-with-pointless-songs, whoring-for-the-audience Bollywood movies it is a hard hitting drama of a person stuck in system he didn't want to enter in the first place, tries to do an honest job but the system won't let him and eventually he turns to violence himself. Its his attempt to rediscover his manhood which he feels he has lost after watching his mother ill-treated by his father and having to use borderline illegal methods to escape from a situation in which he was righteous and having to bow down to his arch rival, the local goon/politician Rama Shetty.



The poem in Hindi:
Chakravyuh mein ghusne se pehle,
kaun tha mein aur kaisa tha,
yeh mujhe yaad hi na rahega.

Chakravyuh mein ghusne ke baad,
mere aur chakravyuh ke beech,
sirf ek jaanleva nikat’ta thi,
iska mujhe pata hi na chalega.

Chakravyuh se nikalne ke baad,
main mukt ho jaoon bhale hi,
phir bhi chakravyuh ki rachna mein
farq hi na padega.

Marun ya maarun,
maara jaoon ya jaan se maardun.
iska faisla kabhi na ho paayega.

Soya hua aadmi jab
neend se uthkar chalna shuru karta hai,
tab sapnon ka sansar use,
dobara dikh hi na paayega.

Us roshni mein jo nirnay ki roshni hai
sab kuchh s’maan hoga kya?

Ek palde mein napunsakta,
ek palde mein paurush,
aur theek taraazu ke kaante par
ardh satya.

Before entering the Circular Labyrinth
Who or what I was,
Is something I don't remember.

After entering the Circular Labyrinth,
That between the Circle and me is only a life-threatening nearness,
Is something I didn't realize.

After leaving the Circular Labyrinth,
Even if I am liberated from it entirely,
It would make no difference
to the Circular Labyrinth itself.

Whether I die or kill,
Whether I get killed or murder someone,
This decision could never have been made.

When a sleeping man starts walking around after awakening
Then the world of dreams is invisible to him afterwards.

In that light, which is the light of decision,
Will everything be treated equally?

On one side of the balance, impotence,
On the other side, manhood.
Right in between them (tipping the scale ) is
a Half-Truth.

Here I have translated Chakravyuh as a Circular Labyrinth which is debatable. Chakravyuh is a circular (chakra) battle formation (vyuh) mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharatha. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padmavyuha . Whats strange about this formation is, in this formation you don't fight an individual but fight the formation itself which ironically ends up in your demise. I have tried my best and failed miserbly at translating the cynicism that is dripping and oozing from this poem. I struggled to find the appropriate translation but when I reread it, it appears limp and impotent.

I sat down and decided to have a dream. No, I don't have to go sleep to have one. I just "willed" it into existence. I am not quite sure why I decided to have this dream, reasons are probably irrelevant. They are most likely lost in the eternities of space time continuum. If I were coerced into guessing the reasons for this dream, I would probably have to guess some form of escapist tendencies. The weak willed amongst us drown their inadequacies in their dreams which rarely see the light of the day.

I dreamed of a big bang. A singularity that continues to expand. I am not quite sure what happens in the first few instants of time. People that I will create, will speculate about what happened in these few instants and realize nothing makes sense. I view the passage of time in an instant, its a dream after all. Indeed, the doors of perception are cleansed and everything appears to me infinite. Everything and nothing. Being and nothingness. Inchoate masses form beautiful patterns in length and time scales beyond the perception of the beings I shall create. I "decide" the "rules" that govern its evolution: the rules of the dream I just created. After things start cooling down, patterns emerge on a much smaller level. Quickly they became more complicated and then some more. And in this tiny speck of my dream at a much finer level something more amazing happens. the complexity reaches a higher portion than what I intended for. Clusters of such tiny things gather together and evolve. I am fascinated. Even limited by the simple rules I created they grow quite complicated. Some destroy the other and are then wiped out. Some others survive and evolve and become more intelligent. Then it starts walking in a weird way and believe it can think for it and become conscious. Actually this was simply brilliant on my part. I let it "believe" it knows whats happening or at least they can in principle figure out what was happening to it. It "felt" outraged when it was called "it". At least it protested by trying to grab my attention in the form of "sacrificing" other things. It quoted semantics, grammar and philosophy. I felt pity and started calling many "it" as them and one "it" as he.

They thought they were smart. I laugh and sneer. Even though they know nothing of my infinite wisdom, they think they know everything. The more they knew the more they realized that there was so much more to know. Trapped in the cruel dream, in which they know that they know they exist(at least they think that they know), they know what they know and do not know what they do not know and don't know if they can ever know what they don't know. At least they think so. They don't know. Whats worse, they' ll never know for sure. And so on.

One such being is frustrated for some reason, that seems silly in the grand scheme of things, decides that he would create an entire universe for himself. That way he would "know" how it works and can do all the things he wanted to do. He records his actions. They go as follows:

"I sat down and decided to have a dream...."

I have now come to understand the abject pain and humiliation of someone being "nice" to you for old times sake. What a fucked up feeling it is! What a horrible feeling it is to know that somebody has been avoiding you. That you make someone uncomfortable by your presence and by what you might say. Have you ever seen disgust in some one else's eyes?

I should have seen this coming. This is what happens to me when I try to come out of my isolation and in all my naivety reach out to someone that better judgment counseled against. In solitude, there is at least dignity. In failure and rejection...

Oh, despair!

"There is a tendency these days to absolve people of the crime that they have committed and instead blame it on the circumstances and the society they live in. " - Tom Robins, Still life with Woodpecker.

I felt pretty bad that the carnage that was going on in Sri Lanka went largely unnoticed. The war was certainly bloody; it was won at the cost of the Sri Lankan government earning the wrath of the Tamilian diaspora across the world. I certainly don't condone the LTTE's methods by any means. Maybe in some extreme cases violence is justified. After all, all they demanded was basic human rights and equal treatment. My sympathy lies towards those innocent civilians caught between a government that has historically been apathetic towards the need to the oppressed minority and those that believed in extremism as a lasting solution to the political crisis. President Rajpaske has mercilessly crushed the thirty odd year old rebellion, with blatant disregard for human lives. Furthermore, the fact that the media was not allowed to cover this bloodshed is probably a huge cover up for all sorts of war crimes that might have occurred. But then what can we expect from the media? Maybe some hue and cry about lack of basic lack of humanitarian aid, a portrayal of war torn third world countries that is commensurate with images from Slumdog Millionaire and a reaffirmation of the fact that with the exception of some miraculous countries like India, third world countries are fraught with bloody coups, lust for power and rabid use of military towards political gains.

Does it come as a surprise to us that China had a hand in this issue? Its foreign policy has continued to annoy me, while it quietly inserts its influence in the messy affairs of other persuadable countries. Which debt-ridden country can refuse the charms of a few billion dollars in loan and the delivery of sophisticated arms and weaponry and a quick temporary solution to all its problems at the cost of a few thousand lives and an implicit alignment with a newly emerging superpower that is potentially more scary that the Bolsheviks. And when this superpower shall emerge, India shall remain impotent because of its pacifist policies and its tendency to mind its own business.

How many times have we heard this story before and how many more times will we hear this again? Where do the Sri Lankan Tamilians go from here? Who will champion their cause?

I try to make it a point to watch as many movies as possible. Its one of the few things that I used to do that I continue doing. I have somehow gotten out of the habit of reading regularly, which my room-mate tells me is his influence. Having a good library for DVD's on campus means that I don't have to steal movies over the internet on a regular basis. The Green Library at Stanford has an amazing collection, really! They also have comfortable couches and big screen flat TV's (with headphones, of course). Its hard to imagine people like EssBee slogging their asses off in the same building that I comfortably watch avant-garde movies. All I need is a glass of wine to sip and a pretty lady to hold hands with but unfortunately both of them are not allowed in the library. Here are a few movies that you might not have heard of and are definitely worth watching.

Day for Night

The poster says that it is a movie for people who love movies. And thats exactly what this movie is about. Making movies. Back in Surathkal, we always used to talk about making movies. Unfortunately, like many things in life, that was just a passing fantasy. But watching this movie brought back some of the pleasant memories. It features Francois Truffaut, the director of this movie, as the director of a fictional movie and it follows the entire cast of this movie as the fictional movie is being made. As the movie progresses one learns how Truffaut has to make many compromises to ensure the movie is completed- keeping his egoistic cast happy, making sure that no scandals take place, constantly arguing with his producers about the budget and then having to deal with one of his actors passing away and having to cut some scenes and reshoot them. Often, he gets frustrated with impossible things preventing him from going on, yet what keeps him going on, as well as his cast, is their blatant love for cinema.



The movie is simply superb, as is the director. As entertaining as the movie is, it is in a way educational- you get to see behind the scenes how movies are made, how certain effects are done and how the mood is captured. Day for night itself is a cinematographic technique by which movies shot during the day appear to be night time using tinted lens. The movie features incredibly long scenes in which Truffaut explains to the cast what must be done in a particularly long scene. And he does the scene in the movie in one single take, not to mention the fact that the whole thing is being shown in the actual movie in a single long take. Simply brilliant! Indeed, its a movie lover's movie!

Paris, Texas

It starts off with most brilliant panoramic view of a desert and a strange looking guy walking through it and then crashes due to exhaustion at somebody's home. The strange guy called Travis, inspired the band by the same name ( which Julia Roberts claims is her favourite band). From then on, unfolds the unlikely story of his past, which once involved a "happy" married couple with a son, Hunter. It features some haunting soundtracks which are almost always slow amazing slide guitaring by the famous Ry Cooder.



To be continued and concluded

I found this while reading a text. How true!

We have not succeeded in answering all of our problems. The answers we have found only serve to raise a whole set of new questions. In some ways we feel we are as confused as ever, but we believe we are confused on a higher level and about more important things.

Posted outside a mathematics reading room,
Tromso University.

One must assume that the art evolved over many centuries. Each generation must have had its own contribution to the arts. Its not necessarily a cumulative one, there is a weak case for Modern art. One must further assume that that each passing generation condemned and berated its future generation of art. I can only imagine people staring with blind disbelief at Gauguin's art. Maybe even Rembrandt had his share of skeptics, maybe they thought he had no business painting things which are not in the Bible. Maybe, just maybe, modern art like surrealism and minimalism will come to be accepted as classics. Maybe one day the common man shall know about Henry Matisse and talk about Jackson Pollock in Cocktail parties or barbacues(yeah right! Beer, fast food and intellectual conversations are supposedly not good for health...that's why people tend to choose only 2/3).

My intention was not to talk about art but instead movies. If one watches movies by Woody Allen and if one were interested in avant garde European cinema, one would easily see the parallels between Allen and his idols Ingmar Bergman and Frederico Fellini. (If one doesn't recognize the parallels, one can simply read the relevant Wikipedia article that can tell you more than you can imagine. Highly recommended if you want to impress fellow Cocktail party goers...especially people in Humanities and the Arts. For maximum effect, also proceed to scorn mainstream movies like Mission Impossible 3. ) Its not that Fellini's and Bergman's movies are boring but they are not the easiest of movies to get through. One can sense greatness in them but often one requires some sort of entertainment. Make no mistake, I am big fan of both directors and I was immediately able to recognize the connections in Woody Allen's movies. I must admit that I absolutely adored watching Woody Allen's movies, I definitely didn't find it a drag to sit through the movies. I could almost say that through his movies I got the best of Bergman, Fellini and at the same time there was the Woody Allen aspect to the whole movies. In particular, Stardust Memories.

Which brings me to the question? Who is greater? Is it Bergman and Fellini or is it Woody Allen? One could argue convincingly that Woody Allen's movies would never be as great if he didn't have an entire body of art to rely upon. The same can be said of Quentin Tarantino. Maybe the same can be said about practically any director of repute. Almost every five minutes of Tarantino's movies have some reference to some sort of pop culture, in whatever form TV, movies, art etc. But is it also undeniable that all these movies are distinctive even though probably every scene in his movies is influenced. There is some Tarantinoesque in it. What's more important, these movies are just as interesting and entertaining even if one does not recognize any of the references to pop culture. There is some creative input even in dedications and referencing. Art has progressed further. It is also possible that Bermans and Fellinis movies are just massive references to the culture and art at that time. It may be that the references may themselves have faded into the background....just as Berman's and Fellini's movies may fade into the background in a while and future generations may only remember Allen and Tarantino. Scary thought. I could never have written if I had not read. I don't know if anybody can write well without being well read.

On Obama

I am sure by now you have all heard that Barack Obama is the new president-elect. Its pretty hard to have not heard about it...unless you were on the moon,or something. Being in liberal California, it was hard to get through a day without hearing people talking about him or Sarah Palin bashing before the elections. Even my French co-advisor seemed abreast with American politics, having watched every debate. Much has been said and written about him all over the world. I found it pretty funny that Kenya declared a national holiday and people in Japan celebrating his victory. I further found it amusing that several tv presenters, as usual, without provocation saw this as an opportunity to glorify America. One such presenter in question, was overwhelmed by the situation and commented on Mr. Obama's victory as- For a black man to be the President of the country, it can happen only in America! Well obviously he hasn't heard of Africa where almost every country has a black president. Considering my cynicism I found it amusing that the world(I mean America) is suddenly "hopeful" etc. Only time will tell if Obama's lofty words are practical. But I believe that he is one of the greatest orators of our time.

On Research

I was never particularly good at research. I wasn't the best, by far, in any sort of technical competitions. Not getting through JEE was one of the biggest shocks of my life. But now its entirely understandable. One of my friends chided a lot of people who did manage to get in, as people who could solve really hard integration problems but didn't understand the concept of a limit. I was one of those people(despite not making it through, obviously) because I never thought of them on a fundamental level. I cannot place the blame entirely on my result oriented education system because I didn't know better. Now, I wish I understand things like analysis on an intuitive level. Seeing people(like lab mates) who are better than you in every respect, every day of the week doesn't help much. Meeting your advisers makes you feel like crap. And its not their fault. And the work load isn't forgiving either. I flip from one idea to another without working out anything substantial. And I have nothing to show from months of work(months of procrastination really). All I hope is I am learning.

You wake up and find yourself in a strange country. There's some light from the window that irritates you. Must be that annoying street lamp. In the darkness, you look for familiar objects. That table on which you sat studying, or day dreaming about her, that stereo through which you played the greatest songs ever composed. And then a cold shiver passes through you, knowing that you are not at home any more. Soon it will be bright but you wish it were dark, so that you didn't have to wake up and face the world. Lying curled up in bed for the rest of your life seems a fine philosophy to you. Just as fine as all the other theories you have had.

But you have to get up. The world won't have it any other way. You have much more to lose if you just stay in denial. You question why you are doing what you are doing. You don't know the answer. What's worse, you think that you'll never know the answer. You are just getting by...that's what everybody else is doing. You ask yourself why you put yourself through this torture. You are 21, no longer a teenager. You can't cling to any form of idealism. Nothing seems worth idolizing any more. You long for the care free days when you could boast about doing big things at will. Only then you didn't have to go achieve it. Now with every waking moment you find the heavy breath of judgement upon you. You realize that you have done nothing of consequence at all. Everything is a sham. You have successfully manage to fool everybody with idle boasts. You ask yourself why you care so much.

Then you feel bad because you go through life making the same mistakes, over and over again. You feel that you haven't really understood anything at all in life. Then you regret the carefree times you spent doing nothing.Oh, for the carelessness of youth! And then you seek to blame someone else. How about the socio-political system? How about the encumbering tyranny of expectation that you inherit, as soon as you are born? You wish your life was more miserable so that you can always blame it on something else, fate, perhaps. You are impeccable...its just that you have to deal with situations beyond your reach. Your body aches and you feel despair. Your irritation reaches a crescendo and in anguish you think to yourself, 'To hell with it all!'

You finally manage the will to get up and see what time it is. Its 4:15 in the morning. You breath a sigh of relief and go back to sleep. The exam isn't in 5 hours and you don't have to get up just yet. You can worry about it when you wake up. This will be the best sleep you'll ever have. You lie face down on your pillow, lick your parched lips and happily wait for sleep.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7447811.stm

Apologizing is one thing..but does it set everything right? I was reading this book by Coetzee called Diary of a bad year...in which, in about a page he describes the recent Australian apology to the aborigines. Heartfelt, it may have been, both these apologies seem like a farce. Apologetic yes but denying liabilities. A carefully worded speech absolving blame. Does accepting the fact that a crime has been committed, make it pardonable? Or is it going to be a century of shame?

In moments such as these, I feel tremendous pain just to think about what they might have been through. It is overwhelming.

More importantly, I was curious to know if in the turn of two centuries, have our morals changed that much? What seemed right two or three years ago, conquering land and colonizing and driving natives out, has become immoral now. One has to respect international boundaries. It appears that our collective conscience has changed with every century. What will this century have in store for us?

As soon as I entered the subject tab for this blog, I was reminded of Schrodinger's seminal book, "What is life?". Unfortunately, unlike the book, I doubt if my blog will inspire future generations. But it seems to me that I subconsciously chose this title based on the books name, which somehow reiterates the fact that the wisdom of our forefathers is in our expressions.

Anyway, as usual, I digress. To most of you who read this, will wonder if I finally got "lucky". But I assure you that it is far from the truth. But that doesn't stop from speculating, does it? I was wondering about what makes the people do the crazy things they do when the claim that they are in "love". It is absolutely incomprehensible to me when people say that their significant others mean more to them than their own lives. And people who seem to be in love are so overbearingly annoying. And I don't think this is because I am jealous or anything. I am perfectly happy with my life. But its hard to believe that people are willing to commit their entire life in a relationship. I think any sentence that involves the phrase " rest of_____ lives" is scary.

But thats besides the point. The question, is what really is love? I find it so hard to understand. I mean, at what point is it different from sex. It seems to me that the only driving force in a relationship is the object of having sex or the promise of having sex. I mean, if you wanted to have a nice conversation or a good friend then there are many guys right? So, my theory is that the whole relationship with women, is just to have sex on a regular basis. I mean the idea that you can have good conversation with somebody who you can have sex with is extremely appealing but does that really happen with people? And what about people who don't share the same tastes, who don't have much in common. There are two parts to this question? 1. Do they work out? 2. If they do, why they do? There is enough premise to ask the first question. But I am more interested in the second one. Why do they work? Is it just because they think that their partner is just swell and nice. I mean is that a good enough reason to spend the rest of one's life with them. I guess that the answer to this question is love but then what exactly is it? I have no clue. I think that most of us don't. I think that people think that it is nice to have a concept of love. Its a very convenient concept. And then people tell me that it is something to be experienced. I am not so sure about that. Why exactly is it so hard to describe in words? I think the million poets and writers who at some point or the other have described it, I am sure, have never experienced it. But the stories seem very believable indeed. I think it is the idea of love that we love and not love itself. The possibility of it. The achievement of some perfection, something pristine that only we can enjoy. Some powerful surge of emotion that clouds our judgement, that is ours and ours alone. That flawed logic that makes sense to us, only. The adventure of finding it and losing it. The primal urge for communication. People tend to use some superlatives when describing love. Things like, Forever. Always. Eternity. I think its the notion of constancy in this turbulent world we live in. But what is it?

In my opinion, Love is just some massive scheme to brainwash people. Basic human survival needs sex and not love. Are the two any different?

I had a few posts in some third blog of mine...which I kind of maintained as a journal, which had er...only 2 posts. But here are some excerpts from that blog.

......Its the second day into my hasty decision of writing everyday and already I am regretting it. While in the frenzy of planning, I often forget to account for my inertia and which is why all my plans generally die a pre-destined death. This one time, I was so drunk (and I had lost my room key, ended up in Andy's room) that I said to myself, I will not drink henceforth. The immediate thought that occurred to me was I should not take hasty decision in the state of inebriation. Which was a very good decision because then I would have to break resolutions. (More importantly, I would have to answer to a lot of questions like, "What happened to that resolution of yours?")....

.....Today, I continued with my perusal of Lolita. Each day I finish about 50 pages, so I should be done with it within a week. While reading it, I kept wondering about many things, as usual I might add. One of them was that with every book that I have read and admired, I instantly develop this superficial desire to write in the style of the author of that wonderful book I would have been in the process of reading. Had I had my way, I would have written like Rushdie, Wodehouse, Greg Egan, the authors of Freakonomics, Vonnegut, Pasternak, etc all put together. But if you must ask me for my influences, I make a conscious attempt to write like Rushdie, in the sense that I use long winded sentences, often about nothing in particular making infinitely many cultural references. But I don't use as many high sounding words as he does. But I think in the end, a closest resemblance one might find(close by a far distance), is with Dostoevsky. Again, in the sense that, he writes a sentence and then wonders how the reader will interpret them and then go on to defend it. But he is a great writer, who had a century ago plotted very accurately the deep recesses of the dark human mind. (Every body knows, or fancy they know, the lovey-dovey side of human nature. At least such themes are beaten to death.)Every time I read him, I can't help appreciating his originality of thought. But he was never the most pretty writer around. It certainly didn't have the poetic feel. Or maybe I'm judging too harshly from a translation.......

.....Then I made one final attempt at finishing a book by Albert Camus called 'A Happy Death'. I wish I could finish it but the second part of the book 'Conscious Death' it gets a little too obscure, or should I say, absurd. I want to finish it a little later. This is not the first book I have done it with. Its just that I want to understand and appreciate the book better and I just feel that now is not the time. Or sometimes, by not reading it for 3-4 days, I lose the drift of the book. Its a pain to start over again. However, the book is not without a certain amount of appeal. I agree with what Camus writes in the first half. That instead of spending time earning money we should use money to buy time. That having money is a way of not needing money. (The last sentence doesn't make too much sentence, out of context. What I am trying to say is that instead of staying an idealist and denouncing money, you can have it and not be in want of it.) I had to return the book today. I also finished(the ones I wanted to read) a collection of short stories by Salman Rushdie called East, West. It wasn't that great. I returned them and in return, I got Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and Remains of the day by Kazou Ishiguro(I hope I have got the spelling right)......

.....Although, I agree that the purpose of a journal is to record one's private thoughts, I can rest assured, that not too many people will be reading this. And it is definitely much more convenient to use blogspot rather than maintaining a diary or storing it in the recesses of my computer. The irony lies in the fact that even though it is posted on the internet, accessible to potentially everybody in the world, there will be fewer people who will read it or even be interested in it than if I kept it locked in my cupboard and told everybody that my innermost thoughts were in it. Why I want to do this is while this will serve as a good form of introspection, it would remind me of all the nothing that I have been doing . Hopefully, this realization will spur me to do something about it. I am now in the third month of my vacations and soon entering the fourth. Somehow, I get the feeling that in the years down the line, I will look back and wonder the many things I could have done in this amazingly long stretch of free time. I want to do something concrete. But, as is always the case for a hot blooded 21 years old bum, the spirit is as unwilling as the flesh.....

These are things that I have come up with and things that I'd like to be remembered for. I wouldn't call them the most original or the most useful or clever but I'd like to think of them as my contributions. If you ask me, I am better than Andy Warhol; I could have invented my own subculture that was tacky, come up with monochrome versions of photographs of famous people or designed dull soup cans or ask my nephew/niece to water paint for me, some "modern art" or manage a classy band like 'The Velvet Underground' which needed a bigger audience than some urban sub-cult.

1. Subgenre-Rap Instrumental(to take the sting out of angry noise)
2. Subgenre-Rap acoustic/rap reprise/rap unplugged versions
3. Nested Parentheses(read one of my previous articles)
4. The term specieist (its a derogatory term like racist or sexist. For example, if you call a person black, he/she is a racist. If you call somebody a monkey or la chienne, then you are a specieist. Funny thing is, my roommate tells me that there is a word like that. But I don't believe him)
5. Gonzo Blog(read the article below)

I will keep updating my inventions as time progresses.

If you have been an avid reader of my blog, which I am pretty sure you are not, you would have noticed that I deleted one of the posts. Basically it was about these two guys who were sitting in my room and were having this extremely inane conversation about something that neither one had any clue about. And these two fellows were entirely oblivious to my existence continued to go on to what seemed to me the length of my high school. And I was there writing that post, real time, recording their painful conversation while they were actually in my room. Man, that was funny. I removed the post in the unlikely event that one of them should chance upon it. Not that, that is pretty likely(for one reason because I doubt these guys read thoughtful stuff like my blog).

But this conversation gave me a great idea. The Gonzo Blog! In this fast paced life, no one deserves to hear bullshit. I value the time I spend doing nothing than hearing about what idiots think about algorithmic trading or what people think of zombie movies and avant garde movies like 'Knocked up'. Therefore, I propose that somebody should actually record how dumb most conversations get, just like I did, recording every idiotic thing that people say. Then by making a mockery about such idiotic conversations, people will start getting scared to speak things they don't really understand or have an opinion about. The world will be less polluted with dumb ideas. Maybe I'll get a Nobel prize. Most likely, I will be the first to stay silent.

(At this point, I think I thought of something clever to add to this but I thought that the last sentence made a pretty good punchline and I spoilt it with this postscript. )

Today, we celebrated Diwali, the so-called festival of lights; in the sense, that people celebrated and I watched. It was definitely missing fireworks. But it was nice! I wish I had got more of that food though. Thats the thing about Grad students...we are eternally hungry.

The interesting thing is that an amazing number of non-Indians showed up for this event. Diwali, has more social connotations than religious. For one thing, the event promised free food...so that explains a significant number that turned up:) And the funny thing was that a lot of them wore traditional Indian clothing. The irony of the situation was that most Indians didn't have their kurtas. The girls were strutting their stuff as usual :P The food was a messy affair...people rushed at the food like there was no tomorrow. Reminded me of crowds back home...ah, home! I was thinking to myself that the situation definitely had an Indian feel to it.

There was Dandiya after the food. I didn't dance though. Again, it was really nice to see a lot of non-Indians and American born desis(I somehow don't like the use of this term) trying to learn Indian dancing and as far as I could see they were having an amazing time. So was I. Vicariously, though. The whole thing got me thinking about how it must feel to be an ABCD(American Born Confused Desi). The fact that they know almost nothing about Indian culture and they are curious about their roots. I mean most of them are extremely guilty about this fact. Some try to do something about it and try to learn something about mythology and culture, in general. But it sounds extremely funny when I hear it from them, especially with their accents. But I take it as my responsibility to give a neutral perspective of life in India to them and to Americans in general, as best as I can. But ABCD girls have noticeably huge attitudes. So screw them! And I started wondering how I would be, after say 5-6 years spent doing PhD. I mean like, will I appear equally confused? Would I have an irritating half-American accent that I loathe? These are answers only time can tell.

The other thing is finding 'true love' in a far-off land. I am convinced that it is just a fleeting illusion in a strange land. That is why I don't even attempt to jump head-on into amorous (mis)adventures.(Not that I ever did, previously. But come on. This is the so-called land of opportunity!)But I am willing to be proved wrong! If you have read 'The Sun Also Rises' by Hemingway or seen 'Lost In Translation' by Sofie Coppola you'll know what I am talking about. I am at this point, more than I have ever been, a stranger in a strange land. Thats the thing about America. Nobody, really, is a native here(with exceptions). Everybody is just some sort of an immigrant.

A quick recap of what happened last week

1. This place rocked. No seriously! There was an earthquake here, centered at San Jose that measured 5.6 . My roommate didn't feel it but I loved the look on his face when I told him the apartment shook. It was priceless! I was in the process of writing a take-home midsem that time and how I wished it was postponed!

2. I went wine tasting in the Napa Valley! Hell, yeah! It was awesome. The EV(short for Escondido Village, the place where I stay) Community Associates had organised a trip to the Napa Valley. Apparently, there was a limited number of seats and there was a wait-listing and all. Not knowing any of this I walked up straight to the pick-up point and asked the guy if I could come. There happened to be an extra seat and I managed to jug in. It turns out three more guys were trying to jug like I did. Guess what? They were Indians :) Even here Indians try to jug their way...lol. They couldn't make it to the bus but they came behind in their car, anyway. We had lunch at Boethe National Park. Thankfully they had some veggie stuff and it turns out that I wasn't the only vegetarian. The scenery was pretty nice...I happened to go through SFO as well and see the Golden Gate Bridge...We tasted wine at Peju and Andretti wineries. Andretti's had a classic Tuscan villa look to it and is owned by the racing legend Marco Andretti. If you want to try some Californian wines I would recommend Savignon Blanc(crisp white wine, apparently recommended with seafood), Cabarenet Savignon and Chardonnay(both red wines). Also, I tasted some dark chocolate in wine and they were amazing. Throughout the journey, I had interesting conversation with upal, who lives in my building.

3. I had the most random conversation ever. Most Random.
So, I had gone shopping(yeah, I have to do such crap!) for my week's supply to the San Antonio shopping Center. I finish my shopping and just miss the Marguerite Shuttle and now I have to wait for the next 30 minutes. It so happens some other female(who happens to 26-28ish types) also missed it. I was sitting around on the bench and she asked me if I could spare 50 cents. The irony of the situation was amusing(Here I am dying for money and people ask me for it). I looked in my purse and told her I didn't have change...I asked her if she could have a dollar. I said she could make a call from my cell, which she did and the number turned out to be busy. Then she told me that she was a broker in NY, some Wall Street firm that was apparently trying to branch out in California and some mumbo-jumbo big shit whol. Claimed she did her undergrad in Stanford but had a quarter left. I asked her, her major and she said Veterinarian Science. Totally random. Some vague-ass boast. This was the number she dialed, I later found out...*6719172543893 Its not even a valid number! She probably wanted a buck for some bus because she didn't have it or something. This is not the first time man...I have heard totally random people wholling big time. And what is worse I sat through all of their whol because I had nothing better to do!

Firstly, I apologize to all the faithful single digit number readers of this pathetic blog. Your repeated meaningless comments have given this author some enthusiam to write. Yeah whatever!

Till about a month ago, I had never even been outside of the great country, that is India. Suddenly I find myself in this inglorious continent, that is America. The transition has been pretty smooth. I am sure you have heard of infinitely many stories about an Indian living in California. Let me not bore you with another stereotypical description.

I am writing this piece after eating the brilliant food that I cooked. True, the potatoes and rice were a little underdone but you should look at the bigger picture...I am on my way to becoming a great cook. At the least, I am on the way to being to able to eat whatever I cook. I am becoming some sort of an expert in cooking fusion dinners...something like fusion music, I cook Indian stuff in American style and American stuff in Indian style.