Of the Symbolic and the Fake, Etc.

Life changes. Everyones'. The Lonely Wanderer's too!

I finished the degree and got out of the student life. And a new life started.

That is me receiving the Ph. D. from Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, the director of IIT Madras, during the 50th convocation of IIT Madras on July 19, 2013.

I joined a company in its R&D team. Becoming financially better, I started my efforts to manufacture an offspring. That was successful. A baby boy. He is now six months old and kicking. Yea, literally: if you sit near him, he will practise his front-kicks on you:) Being a father: pain and pleasure. Both at a time. Like everything else in life, but not the same. Thanks, my son -- for transforming me into a father. That changes everything. Or, many things, at least. What the heck! Why am I saying all these? If you are not yet a father, or a mother, for that matter, you will possibly not understand what I am saying. I would not understand what I was saying had I not been a father, for sure. On contrary, if you are a father or a mother, then you don't need me to tell you about it. Both ways, perhaps, this is a dead end. In case my yearning for writing takes me towards it, we will, maybe, talk about it later.

With Vijual Sandeep, on Nov 16, 2013.

We were talking about changes. Yes, sir. Changes. Working for someone is actually a pain. You spend your quality time in your office, doing your job, along with your colleagues, morning to evening. If you are lucky, you will be doing something you love. In my case, I believe I do what I love. Reading, understanding, learning, sharing, developing signal processing algorithms. I love that. I cannot say it is signal processing anymore. My beliefs during my college days have already been shattered. There is no signal processing independently in the industry. One cannot conform to that alone. One has to expand. Expand. Expand ones realm beyond ones horizon. I learn machine learning, computer vision, pattern classification and so on; a little bit of everything. Period. No more technical terms and discussions. This is my fucking personal blog. I have a separate blog to write technical things. [I always pledge that I will not use such obscene words anymore. But sometimes, I can't help it. It just comes out of my mind. Habit.]

So what we were talking is about the work life. That is no good, I claim. Because, since morning to evening, one has to do the job. Nothing else. That is what is disgusting about it. I get different kind of impulses at different times. Sometimes to do my work, some other time to read a novel, and another time to write. To write. That is to be myself. To give a release to my ever reverberating mind. Excuse me if I sound self-boasting or pompous. My mind is not great, but what I said was the truth. It is always reverberating, quite often disturbing my sleep. It is full of thoughts, sounds, visions and memories, and so on. Most of the time, it is all crap. Another most of the time, it is just pornography. How vulgar and wasteful! Rarely, it is beautiful. It is about this beautiful that I am going to talk about in a while now. 

But wait. Patience is the key to lead a normal life in this ridiculously absurd world.

Just going backward a little, again, we were talking about the work life. The lack of possibility to go with the impulse reduces my freedom and my happiness. And my [I did not want to claim this] creativity. Besides, you miss the sun and the day. You miss the life outside. I mean the nature, not boring humans. That is really a loss, I think. That is like the loss of the "real" in psychoanalytical sense. I am put in the "symbolic" inside the office and I loss the "real" of the world. Then my "imaginary" starts working. I develop fantasies in order to be happy in the "symbolic". I don't want to talk about it. I hate it. And I resist the fantasy. I try to understand the "symbolic" and the "real". I try to repress the "imaginary". Well, I don't really repress it. Thanks to my inner culture, I try to understand the "imaginary" and try to deal with it intellectually. As I wrote sometime back, a problem that is understood intellectually and came in terms with emotionally is no problem anymore.

Today, while I was coming back from the office, travelling with my friend on his bike, we were caught in the traffic jam. That's an everyday business in Chennai. We are over-crowded. My wait longed for about ten minutes. I looked above at some instant. And, I encountered the "real". As a reminder of the fake nature of the "symbolic", the "real" extended in front of my eyes, and then inside my mind. I saw the twilight of the evening slowly flourishing over the horizon. My mind felt incited by its beauty. Birds, most of which being eagles, were flying towards me from the horizon. They looked happy and delighted. They looked calm and charming. They looked free and independent. Colour is the fake nature of the world. It is through this fake characteristic, the world itself arises in front of me. The reddish-orange tinge of the twilight in the horizon, the blueness of the sky right above my head, the green shade of the top of the tree I was seeing afar and the blackness of the birds that appear as distant shadows above me. That was -- how would I fake it in words? -- beautiful.

At that moment, I became what I really was. Just a dust in this giant, vast universe. That's just how I experience the loss of identity.

My house -- read this the house that I have rented -- is clean and tidy. You can see a woman's touch in everything. That woman is me. I am man and woman. Why not? I am no fake. I am honest. I am a hermaphrodite. The ardha-nareeswara. My wife is studying in a place far away from me. My son is torturing his mother by staying with her. I live alone here, like a right-conservative (thanks to Clint Eastwood's character in Grand Torino) who fixes his own house. Self dependent. I cook my food. I enjoy cooking, though I hate what I am cooking. November is a cold month in Chennai. But this winter does not seem to be as cold as it was in 2009. Yet, it is nice to sleep in a cosy bed, under the blanket, thinking of all these things. I can sense life under my feet. My soles are cool. My toes are motionless. I feel them with my mind. The sensation moves upward. And I feel like a man and like a woman at the same time. And I don't fucking care what the sadist feminists and the masochist macho-maniacs will think about it!

--Sandeep Palakkal, Chennai, Nov 25, 2013.

Ode to My Fate! (Non-classic)

"My solitude doesn't depend on the presence or absence of people; on the contrary, I hate who steals my solitude without, in exchange, offering me true company."   --F. Nietzsche.

---------

I've a friend

Who's a cunt.

Words will blaze

Peace when you faze.

I'm in a rage

Not in your cage.

I'm no poet.

My heart, be quiet!

Silence of the night

Intense my plight.

Expect only hate

Affirm my fate!

Period....

Period....

Period....

Ceaseless this prod?

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

--
Sandeep Palakkal
Chennai
Aug 7, 2013.

Catch Me if You Dare!

The subtle difference between the symbolic and the semiotic leads to the  major difference between James Joyce and Umberto Eco. 

On the other hand, the greater difference between the abstract and the concrete doesn't explain the lesser difference between James Joyce and James Bond. 

Timothy Dalton is my favourite Bond, and I loved him in Living Daylights. 

That was a time when I wondered if Roger Moore and Roger Penrose weren't somehow connected. I felt very much at ease when I learnt about the Moore-Penrose inverse. 

You know? It is a smaller world than your senses perceive. Everything and everyone is connected here and the connections span beyond Facebook. They  began even before I revealed my name as "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh" to him who knelt before me, but, who, alas, mistook me for a burning tree!

That's for now. But mind you! It is not the end. You'll never see the end, you immortals!

Think beyond! Dream high! Live dangerously!

Ad hominum salutem!

A Moment of Anguish

It is getting more and more wonderful as I think about it! Today,  I passed a moment of anguish by telling myself that nobody can kill my enthusiasm for reading and my urge for writing. The fact is that today I finished reading Prague Cemetery of Umberto Eco. Have ever lived in forgetfulness? Well!  That's how I felt while reading that novel. To say in Eco's style, I must be an extreme masochist to have selected this novel to read. What more, I am an atheist, but God willing, I am going to read all the novels by Eco. Two more to go: Foucault's Pendulum and The Island of the Day Before. Looks good, no?

No Mothers

My dear ailing friend,
I know what you're seeking:
Unconditional love!
Alas! you'll not find it
In this world.
For, only mothers carry it
In their breasts.

There are no mothers here
Any more!
Fathers have killed'em all.
All the mothers.
Remaining are only
Wounded breasts...
And... torn up vaginas....

Palakkal Saga: The Very Beginning

I'm going to narrate you some story, or perhaps some stories. But I warn you that they are not mere stories but actual events, which humans in flesh and blood had created with their own lives. It is the real history. Before reading these stories, ask yourself if you can take it. Ask yourself how bold and courageous you are! For these stories are only for the strong and the privileged!

This is the saga of Palakkal. This is how it all begins. This is how the history begins.

Palakkal's saga consists of stories of life and the tyrannies of life. Many of those stories took place in a small piece of land in a corner of the earth, which faced all the remotest galaxies. Northern part of that land was full of saffron-coloured desert. If one travels southwards, one has to pass through the white-snowy mountains. Thus one pass from the desert with no water to the snowy mountains that produced all the water on earth. That may sound paradoxical to some. But to see through the paradox, one must travel even southwards only to see the lush green forest, which was inhabited by a lot of mysterious animals and humans. "Saffron-white-green." That was the colour of the land. Below the green forest, one can see the boundless, deep blue sea, which in turn was inhabited by those beautiful fishes and mermaids. That land was blessed by the gods, where people lived lazy lives in pleasure.

Thousands of years ago, Palakkal was born in a small village of the green land, which was adjacent to the forest, surrounded by the sea on one side and a series of small hills on the other side. At the time of Palakkal's birth, his father, a man of courage and will power, was fishing in the river. A sudden stream of flood came from the mountains and took him with it to the sea. He never came back. That was the first liberation in Palakkals life though he did not realised its significance: liberation from the tyranny of order and obedience. His mother raised him affectionately. She was a woman of strong character. At the age of ten, his mother died of malaria. Her horrible death shattered Palakkal deeply. Yet, he did not know that he was liberated again, this time from the tyranny of self-less love.

Orphaned and helpless, Palakkal was taken by a rich farmer, who lived nearby. He was put to work in the fields with the farmer's workers. He was only a small boy yet he was given a man's work. Before the sunrise he started his work and till late night he had to work, stopping only for his meagre lunch. Suffering badly for a while, Palakkal learnt how to withstand the hardship. During his work, he ate fruits from the forest and drank milk from the cow. Other than work and eating, he had nothing else to think of. No time for anything else either. He received no kindness and no love. Only tinge of kind words he received was from the farmer's ugly looking, dark-coloured, fat wife. She treated him with kindness and gave him good food whenever he was happened to be called for some household work in the farmer's house. Such occasions were but rare. Thus, rare were the occasions Palakkal ate something that humans would normally eat. From the farmer's wife, Palakkal learnt that external appearances meant nothing and black often conceals white, and ugliness, beauty!

Years went by very fast. Palakkal was gradually growing towards adulthood. One afternoon he was working at the mangroves when the farmer came that way. The farmer never used to tell Palakkal anything directly other than giving some orders. For him, Palakkal never existed as a human being. However, that afternoon, upon seeing Palakkal, the farmer stopped and looked at him carefully. He ordered Palakkal to bring water from the river to his rest house in the forest. Palakkal went with water and the doors closed behind him. In the darkness inside that hut, with hands and feet tied, Palakkal experienced the pain and pleasure of the sodom. The poor soul of Palakkal cried and cried, but receiving no help. That day, Palakkal learnt the tyranny of the phallus. Many such afternoons were repeated for Palakkal with his hands and feet tied and the sodom at work, and always he sobbed and sobbed. Nothing particular happened to the world around him. Everything flowed forward normally and peacefully. Only Palakkal's boyish mind was in utmost agony.

On a calm evening, Palakkal was given some household work in the farmer's house. He was involved in his own work with a weeping but attentive mind when he was called by the farmer's wife to the kitchen. As usual, she gave him food and hot coffee. Palakkal was eating his food, sitting on the floor, when the farmer rushed into the kitchen. Seeing Palakkal, eating food in his kitchen, the farmer got enraged. He kicked Palakkal out of the house and started beating his wife. Palakkal heard the farmer's wife crying aloud. The farmer was shouting loudly too. Palakkal knew this was normal. He had seen and experienced what the farmer would become when he is violent. He shuddered with fear at the thought of how the farmer would punish him later for his mistake. He thought of running away, though he knew that the farmer would chase after him and catch him finally. But the woman's heartbreaking cry could not be neglected. It wounded Palakkal's innermost self. A sudden fire in the nerves awakened Palakkal. He stopped thinking and ran into the house. The woman was lying on the floor and the man was kicking on her abdomen. Palakkal saw an axe leaning on the wall. The axe rose and lowered once. The headless farmer fell down on the floor like a tree. That was the end of the tyranny of the phallus! That is to say, Palakkal's liberation from the tyranny of the phallus.

The farmer was long gone. Palakkal replaced the farmer. He lived with the farmer's wife. They became man and woman. Fat and ugly may she be, yet she was a woman, and she made him a man! The tyranny of sodom was forgotten. The tyranny of the phallus was forgotten. Palakkal now learnt the pain and pleasure of the phallus... and that of the vagina. He loved her. He loved the farmer's children, a boy and girl, as his own. Life seemed settled and peaceful. But fate had it otherwise. A plague broke out in that place killing a lot of unworthy souls. The farmer's wife, and children, were not spared indeed. Putting fire on their bodies, Palakkal did not cry. This time he felt his liberation. Liberation from the tyranny of a woman's love. A woman's erotic love. And his own love and lust for her!

Liberated from the order of life, self-less love, and tyrannies of passion, that of phallus and vagina, Palakkal thus gained the ultimate mental and physical freedom. He was free to choose his own life now, free to go anywhere and free to die also if he so desired, without asking or thinking for someone or something. Sitting under a tree Palakkal asked himself what was next! Having known the pains and pleasures of life and lust, he decided to go away. He did not know where, but away... away from life, lust, pains, pleasures, and tyranny. He realised then that he had to go away from humans! He realised that he had to cease to be human. "I am not human, I am a monster" [1], he thought. He rose to his feet and entered the dark forest, alone, with no fear and with almost no aim.

Maybe continued....

[1] Slavoj Zizek

Now For Something Entirely Banal

Life is everything. But life is nothing. However, life can be anything. Such is the nature of life, baffling all the logic my mind has managed to build. Life is the very foundation of my self. Yet there is no certainty of life. My foundation is shaky. That is why I am shaky.

When I feel weak and confused, I wish I could get some clarity about myself. I wish I could see through my mind. My mind is opaque. Or maybe, it is like a muddy pond. I cannot see the depths. I wish if I could go to an alternate space, where I can look at myself without any bias. Where I am not I am but I can see what I am. "Give me a space to stand, I will move the earth", assures the Euler's rotation theorem. It is this space that I need. Just to stand. But I must still be where I used to be. Maybe, on the earth. Then, give me such a space to stand, I will move myself. How impossible! It is in such situations, that I feel helpless.

That is where Grothendiek looks strange to me. He gives no shit about the abstractions of life. Life is pathetically real to him. Bloody life. I mean it. Bloody life. Those who need true peace should sever all ties with the rest of the world. After all, what is the rest of the world? In abstraction, an imaginary axis with no foundation at all. Even if it has a foundation, the axis of peace is orthoganal to it. The axis of evil being fully isomorphic. Grothendiek went to Andorra. Perelman locked himself in his appartment. Nietzsche decided to become a lunatic. When does one know that there is nothing more to do, nothing more to gain, and nothing more to lose? Again a difficult riddle.

I am not living in seclusion. I am living in an extremely over-crowded Chennai. Does that mean I do not love true peace? Does the reverse hypothesis always happen to be true? It is rather a question of causality.

When I asked for a packet of buiscuits, the lady, who invoked all my carnal desires, told me if I buy two packets, I will get one free. So I bought two and got three. Post-postmodern times are like that. God has already revealed it in his notebook. You will get it free what you do not need. If you ask for what you need, hot iron will be impaled into your anus.

Once a man asked God who is a happy man. Here, like in all other stories, the man and God are males. Such stories do not include women, for they are the weeker sex. God replied that a happy man is he, who never finds the need to ask the question 'what is the meaning of life'. How can I ensure that I will never ask that question, the man asked. God said, cook your food yourself every time and every day in your life. The man followed God's words and lived happily for long time until the women found out. They became jealous and enslaved all the men on earth and made the decree: Henceforth, we will cook the food in every household and will never allow the men even to enter the kitchen. Thenceforth, men started asking the question: is there a meaning at all for my life? Thus, they became confused and the women became iron-willed.

The end:-)

The Self

What is the frame of reference of my life, with respect to which I find meaning to every action? Well, I don't want to philosophize here. My answer is this: "my inner feeling that I AM". The central feeling that I AM the one who experiences all this internal as well as external worlds. That is the only thing which I can take as a basis for anything. The feeling which thinks "this mind is mine", "this intellect is mine", "this body is mine", "this experience is mine", and "I exist in this world". Some say, this feeling is absolute and indestructible (ATMAN). Some says, it is a void, a nothingness, an emptiness, or, an illusion (ANATMAN). Modern psycho analysis often adopts the latter point of view. Zizek says, if you remove all the realities from the mind, what remains is nothing! Stephen Hawkins says, the feeling that time is flowing forward an illusion, but it actually is just another dimension like space. Time is not without beginning. There was a time when there was no time. Perhaps, the fact is that my feeling of I AM is a by product of time. It is time that generates my life. I feel time as my memory. If I remove all my memory? I would feel I had no past, I had no life, I had never eaten anything, I had never loved anyone. All those experiences fall into oblivion. I AM thrown into oblivion. In fact, Umberto Eco analyses this in his novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. The protagonist had an accident, and when he wakes up in a hospital, all his personal memory is lost. All he remembers is from his impersonal memory, which contains things he read somewhere! OK. I am digressing from the topic. The topic is the existence or non-existence of the self. Whatever these philosophers, psychoanalysts or physicists say, my experience is foremost for me. And, I can feel my self. I feel that very feeling of I AM. That is the core of my life, I guess.

On 22nd Friday, June 2012, I gave my second Ph. D. seminar to a small audience of around thirty people. To tell the truth, I had not prepared my talk. I had only prepared my slides, which explained my work. How I would introduce new concepts and explain my work was not planned at all. This was not purposefull. Perhaps, my wife is true. She says I am suffering from bipolar disorder. This is the curse of marrying a doctor. What the fuck! I asked her if she meant I was mad. Maybe, she was true. I was unable to prepare my talk. When I went to the seminar hall, I had an empty mind. I set up the laptop and the projector. Then waited for my audience. One by one, came they. Almost all had been known to me. And they gave me a friendly smile as they entered. I smiled back. This may be a social custom that we have developed through evolution. But it helps. I felt a bit relieved. That inescapable moment came at last. The moment of truth. My guide said "Let's begin the talk". I started: "Good afternoon, this is my second Ph. D. seminar". That's all. I don't remember what happened next. I only know that the talk went without any troubles. Because, during my talk, I felt no I AM. There was only the talk. The topic. The slides. The algorithms. The explanations. I went without stop, except for taking a gulp of water now and then. After that talk, my kindhearted friends said the talk was good. However kindhearted they may be, I felt proud. The I AM came back. Now, the I AM became my pride. My arrogance. Then where was that feeling when I was talking? Did it get transformed to the talk itself? Again, is that feeling real? Is it just an illusion? I don't know. But I can't live without that feeling. Without I AM, I may no longer be I am! I am... all that crap. My likes. My dislikes. My desires. The inexhaustible desire for making love. All the confusion. Does god exist or not? Shit. I AM is a burden, too. Maybe, the point is to forget the self... to forget the I AM.

P. Sandeep
June 26, 2012,
Chennai.

Palakkal Saga: Liberal 'n' Liberated

Not long ago, Palakkal went for a party, in a very remote galaxy called the Post Modern. The Post Modern was like a dream world. Full of lights and shining. Full of comforts. There the People were full of happiness and always wore a smile on their faces! They all wore glittering dresses, making Palakkal look strange and mean among them. Palakkal was the only one there from the poor, old Ancient Earth. Palakkal's ancient manners made people jerk with horror. Palakkal was aware of this but did not care at all.

As Palakkal was walking among that majestic crowd, he saw a young woman shining in a corner like diamond among others. All the bystanders were looking at her, admiring her beauty and listening eagerly what she was saying. Palakkal stopped, for beauty always attracts the beast. With all Palakkal's ancient wisdom and knowledge, he tried to understand what she was saying. At one point Palakkal wondered, "Are there things yet that I cannot understand in this universe?" For Palakkal could not decipher a single thing she said. In her loud and seductive voice she kept speaking and speaking, and the crowd stayed and stayed there, looking and looking at her. Perhaps they were only looking, not listening, not understanding. Palakkal's heart smiled. He took a deep breath and turned away from the lady. But exactly at that moment, with an air of utmost confidence she declared,

"You know, I'm liberal and liberated!"

"Liberal? Towards what?... Liberated?" Palakkal asked himself, "From what?"

"Liberal and liberated"... "Liberal and liberated"... "Liberal and liberated"... "Liberal and liberated"... "Liberal and liberated"... "Liberal and liberated"... "Liberal and liberated"... "Liberal and liberated"... "Liberal and liberated"... So Palakkal chanted.

Later, Palakkal left the Post Modern and rushed towards the Ancient Earth. On the way he slept at irregular interwells. In sleep he thought he was wakeful and in wakefulness he thought he was sleeping. Such grave delirium is common for Palakkal. It is almost a genitical fault. As most of the times, but not as most of the other times, his mind suddenly became still and empty. In such moments Palakkal can sense only his heart beating... nothing else, not even his breath. From the middle of his temple, a clear judgement suddenly arose, without his own will,

"Yes, that young lady is liberated. She can be so. She is born into wealth. She lives in wealth. She will die in wealth. She is liberated from the poor souls who still live in the Ancient Earth outside the borderes of the Post Modern, but who are never able to enter into her world, never even aware of it. She has successfully raised above that ugly, motley crowd, by keeping them away from her, from her sight, even from her unconscious self. Yes, she is liberated from the Ancient Earth to the Post Modern. And so can she be liberal to others who, like her, are liberated from the dwellers of the Ancient Earth. She is thus the Liberal and Liberated!"

Palakkal woke up from his delirium. He became the two-legged animal that he normally is. Once again that arrogant smile came into his face. Reaching the Earth he saw a giant elephant running amok, ruining the forest. With one hand he caught the neck of the elephant; raising it above the head, Palakkal killed the elephant by hitting it once on the ground. Eating the elephant for the dinner, Palakkal went to bed with a peaceful mind.

2012

बहुशाखा ह्यनंताश्च बुध्यॊ'व्यवसायिनाम्||
ബഹുശാഖാ ഹ്യനന്താശ്ച ബുദ്ധയോ'വ്യവസായിനാം.
Bahushaakhaa hyananthaascha buddhayoavyavasaayinaam.

 The thoughts of the irresolute (undetermined) are many-branched and endless.

--Stanza 41, Chapter 2, Bagavat Gita

These days I am seeing a lot of opinions on all the things in the world by the self proclaimed experts. Everyone seems to be an expert in everything. By hearing and listening to them, I am growing incessantly confused.

Creating confusion seems to be the virtue of the time. Making everyone irresolute and undetermined is the nature of the time. Only a confused mass can be distracted from serious problems humans are facing in the world. Only such a mass is politically inactive and economically submissive. Only such mass can be controlled by the powerful. Only such mass can be misguided for fulfilling the narrow and vested interests of the ruling class.

I would like to remember and remind myself:

Whoever knows he is deep, strives for clarity;
whoever would like to appear deep to the crowd, strives for obscurity.
For the crowd considers anything deep if only it cannot see to the bottom:
the crowd is so timid and afraid of going into the water.

--Friedrich Nietzsche

This fear of going into the water can be seen everywhere in the present day writings, even in Internet blogs -- more so in their replying comments ! My opinion may sound harsh and cynic. But that does not refute my opinion. My contempt for the online writings is becoming stronger and stronger. I don't want to say any more about it, against it. For,  I believe that opposing something strengthens the opposed, at least psychologically. Opposing violence procreates violence in the minds of those who are opposing. Therefore, I would like to focus on the opposite. (Did Nietzsche say there are no opposites?) The opposites:

truth, inquiry, peace, values, ...

I welcome the new year, though I know that it is stupid to believe in new years.