Paradox in thought

What non-vegetarians think when they eat non-vegetarian food: "This contains a lot of proteins. This is good for my health".

What vegetarians think when they reject non-vegetarian food: "This contains a lot of proteins. Excess protein is bad for my health".

Did you see the paradox in thinking?

So, "eat if you like, or don't if you don't; and don't give me reasons".

Eternal Journey of Love: A story

Eternal Journey of Love

Sandeep Palakkal

The old man was reading in his study since morning. In fact, he had been reading for years, every day of his life. In the past he used to find time to read even during his busy work schedule. But now that he had been retired for years and he had nothing else to do, he was free to choose his favourite activity day and night. 

It was midday when his wife, an old woman herself, came and sat near him. She gazed at him with a face gleaming with joy from the thought how delightfully immersed was the old man in his reading. She always loved watching him this way. As though sensed her gaze and thoughts, the old man raised his eyelids around which there were thin white hairs, and looked at his wife, smiling. The wife read the title of the book – Love in the Time of Cholera. She exclaimed how many times she had seen him reading the same book again and again. He replied that he was always tormented by Marquez's this tale of love – a love that began quite innocently, unknowingly, and then waited for long years, from one century to the next, for its fulfilment. Like the love of Florentino Ariza for Fermina Daza, the entire novel had been disturbing him like a flame in his heart ever since he first read the book, he said. As Forentino and Fermina were on an eternal journey up and down the stream in the wild Magdalena river that passed through the Carribbean, the old man wanted to read the novel again and again, eternally. The woman saw the old man's eyes shining with joy as he spoke of the novel. There was another book, lying on the table, which she remembered buying a week ago, on an evening, when they went to the town. It was a recently published book, which the old man showed her as a masterpiece of a writer who won the Nobel prize last year. He wanted to start reading it immediately after finishing the present book. During the last one week, the woman had seen him many times taking that book, reading the reviews on the back, skimming through the pages, and smelling the leaves. And she knew how passionate he was about books and reading. She loved his passion, though she used to tease him that he was crazy.
 

“It is lunch time, and everything is ready,” she pointed out.

The old man put a marker on the page he was currently reading, kept the book on the table, and rose from his chair. The woman stood nearby. Placing his hand on her fragile shoulder, he told her that he  hoped he could finish the book by the evening, as there were only around forty pages left. She smiled and led him to the dining room.

The lunch was simple – a little brown rice, vegetable curry made of raw banana and fish curry with coconut; added to it was pappadam and mango pickle. Both the husband and wife enjoyed their meals; they served each other, and, telling a lot of jokes and stories from their old days, they laughed till the end. As he washed his hands, the wife asked if he was going back to his study to continue reading. But the old man wanted to catch some sleep. He knew the lady slept everyday through the afternoon. And he wanted to sleep with her.

As they were lying down on their backs on the soft cushion bed, he said he was going to dream waking up in the evening and resuming his reading, savouring a cup of black-tea made by her. Giggling, she turned her body to his side, put her hand on his chest, and sank into sound sleep. Feeling her warm breath on his neck, he also fell asleep when he could not tell. When she woke up, the sun had descended from his thrown, and the birds were welcoming a blissful evening with their songs. With a rested, serene mind, she went to the kitchen and prepared tea. She called him when she brought tea into the bedroom. He was still in the depth of his sleep. And the old woman tried to wake him up by shaking his arm which , suddenly, she felt frozen like ice. She sensed the coldness of his body entering hers through her fingers which held his arm for a long time, and flowing through her nerves to her heart. Suddenly she realized that the light of her life – the warmth of his love – was gone forever, and she was condemned to live in that cold loneliness the rest of her life.

She was not an avid reader like him. She used to read sometimes – that was all. But she continued reading Love in the Time of Cholera, again and again, until she died one day, again leaving a few pages unread. She wanted to be a part of that eternal journey of love, up and down the river through the jungle. In this way, she could feel his warm presence in her soul. She  read the other book, which the old man had left without reading on his table, with a sense of fulfilling her husband's unrealized dream. She kept that book always with her, and used to smell its leaves to inspire her memories of a lost, warm love....

Chennai,
May 24, 2010.

A Lesson on Discrimination and Education

Thanks to Swapna (visit her here: http://swapnaravindran.blogspot.com/) I went through the following website and gained some insights into a few things, especially, social discrimination and education.  The web-link is http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/.  The story is exciting: in 1968, after Martin Luther King was assassinated, Jane Elliott,a school teacher, finds it difficult to explain her third-grade students why a national hero was assassinated suddenly.  She does not know how to explain social discrimination to those small kids, but is inventive enough (very much!) to find a way out -- that is, to make them experience it.  She divides her class into two -- those with blue eyes and those with brown eyes.  Then she tells the class that the blue-eyed people are superior to the brown-eyed ones, and make rules to treat the students separately, where all the rules are advantageous to blue-eyed people.  She observes the students, their behaviour and reactions.  The next day she tells the class that in fact it was the brown-eyed people superior than the blue-eyed ones, and reverts all the rules.  The revelations of her study were startling.  Those who were treated as superior started to behave that way and performed well in the tasks assigned to them, while other group grew sad first, angry later, and performed poorly.  In this way, the teacher was trying to prove that (or learn that) social discrimination is evil and creates antagonism among people.  She also was successful to help the students experience the effects of discrimination themselves.  She was also successful in finishing this experiment peacefully, teaching the lesson to the students positively, and bringing back the harmony among the students that prevailed before the experiment started.

Her experiment is not only a lesson on social discrimination, but also in education: how to be a good teacher, how to focus on the lesson rather than emotion.  For example, she has repeated this experiment on several groups of students and adults, and once when applied on a group of inmates in a prison, the adults reacted very badly.  She maintained her composure, responded logically, without losing her focus on the subject -- that is, what she wanted to prove or teach.  These classes are recorded in video and are available in the website.  I suggest everyone watch these videos and take the lessons home.

A Personal Experience:
Regarding discrimination, after watching the videos I can recall how similar my feelings were when treated as inferior on a few situations earlier, especially as a boy.  I still remember an occasion when one of my family members compared me with some children who were around, during a party, citing they were more cheerful and smarter than me.  That person said it was because they were English medium students (I was doing my school in my mother tongue -- Malayalam).  Ever since, I thought I was inferior to every English medium student.  It was a really bad feeling, rather painful and shameful -- a feeling of inferiority.  Though I had long forgotten this incident, I remembered it two or three years ago when a person, after talking at length with me in English, asked which medium I finished my school in.  I said it was Malayalam.  And he was astonished and gave me a strange look, partly in doubt and partly in amazement.  I asked the reason.  He told me that I spoke good English, I finished my post-graduation in a top engineering college of India, and besides, I was planning for higher studies.  He continued that he could not believe that a person educated in vernacular language could do so.  These are his comments.  I'm not here to say that I am smart, but to point out a wrong belief prevailing among the people -- that people who are schooled in their local language are inferior to English medium students!  See how this belief becomes a source of social discrimination.  Just after writing this, I am reminded of our great former President: Dr. K. R. Narayanan, who struggled and made his way from the lowest strata of the society, finally to become the President of India; I used to admire him very much.

In this world there are more stupid reasons to discriminate people.  In India, they are religion, caste, colour, local language, and so on.  While religion, caste etc. are universal sources of discrimination, local language should be typically Indian, I feel.  Indians are not a single people; they are divided as Malayalis, Tamils, Kannadigas, Telugus, Marathis, Kashmiris, Panjabis, and so on. Or, even as North Indians and South Indians.  To handle the Indian situation, to impart knowledge to Indian students, to keep the harmony between our people, I think, we need thousands of teachers like Jane Elliott.

My Answer

It is needless to say that movies (I'm talking only about Malayalam movies) are becoming worse and worse in their artistic qualities these days.  "Art is the only justification to life," said Nietzsche.  Then, if art becomes just a money-making business, what does remain to be upheld as a justification to life?  My answer is this: Imagination.  The ability to imagine everything in my life, even impossible things!  When movies degrade I should acquire the ability to imagine my own life as a movie!  Or broadly, as a novel.  Of course, this is a reductionism -- reductionism of a complicated, non-interpretable life as a simple, integral story.  But, in this way, I can find some meaning... some justification.  What else is life but an interpretation?

After A Journey

April was a very dry month -- oh, I mean I had no post in my blog!  Otherwise, it was a very hot month.  And I was very much immersed in my work, I mean my research work.  My eyes were soaring by looking at the monitor; my fingers were almost broken by writing programs; and my brain almost ceased to work.  Then I took a journey to home -- a journey which was composed of a few short travels.  I had to attend two marriages and a family function, and had to travel to Mangalore.  All my travels were confined to the Indian west-coast, mainly within Kerala.  One thing is for sure -- Chennai is hotter than Kerala and Mangalore.  Indeed I was sweating in Kerala, but as soon as I got to Chennai, my body started taking bath in sweat.

Also, since I was making so many travels after a long time -- maybe, for the first time in this year, especially using the public transport system -- I felt very glad to see that the world is still out there: it exists naturally, normally, without my knowledge and involvement.  It is I who is away from the world, sitting in front of a computer, in an academic environment.  For me, this was a sweet reminder -- a reminder of life itself.

World, wait there for me,
I am coming to you....

Now, May is getting hotter and hotter.  And I am back at my desk, looking at the monitor, sitting muddle-headed, and writing functions after functions in MATLAB.

Sandeep Palakkal

"I am God"

A new T-shirt caption reads like this:

"I was an atheist

until I realized

that

I am God".

How's it? Great, right? I like it!

So, is there any hidden ideology behind it? Who cares, in a time when ideology itself lacks an ideology?

Dialectical Materialism and Bachchan

"Since Amitabh Bachchan is the brand ambassador for Modi's Gujarat government, he is not fit to become Kerala's brand ambassador" --CPI(M).

I don't understand the logic. If the aversion is against Modi, what Amitab has to do with him? If it is against the capitalist concepts of marketing and brand ambassador, then, again, what Amitab has to do with it? The logic against capitalism and industry did not work when West Bengal invited Tata to start the Nano manufacturing plant in their state. WB is also ruled by CPI(M)!

Boy, dialectical materialism is sometimes hard to understand! My limited intellect tells me: "may god save CPI(M)".

Any way, it is very bad to insult a great actor like Amitab in the name of "Dialectic Materialism". Amitab should've been excluded before inviting him. The image now is that CPI(M) lacks integrity.

Autumn of IITM

It's a hot, sultry afternoon, and I am taking rest in my room, after lunch. My room is hot but cosy, and it's very calm and quiet outside -- I can hear only songs of birds and the wind. I rise from my bed; get dressed slowly, like a person with no purposes; come out of my room, and, after locking it, start walking. I am walking very slowly, completely aware of everything around me. The corridor of the hostel is deserted, and every room is locked -- there is none in their rooms! The sky is blue and there are small, bright, white clouds scattered around. I start descending the stair case -- descending is always easier than ascending! I know that my bicycle should be somewhere in the porch, though the exact location I never care to remember. Without any difficulty, however, now I am able to locate it, as there are only a few of them there. I get on the bicycle with ease and start driving towards my lab.

The afternoon is hot and sultry. And the roads are almost empty, except occasionally for some people riding to the canteen for food or returning to work.There are trees on both sides of the road, giving me shadows, and thus saving me from the heat of the scorching sun. I see some young girls in white-and-green school uniform coming from the school for lunch break. They are talking to each other continuously while looking around and enjoying the afternoon. Their faces are gleaming with immense joy which make them even more beautiful. Until I pass them my eyes keep scanning them -- I see their happiness, liveliness, innocence, and joy. I look at every guy passing me as though I am trying to learn something from his face; they all pass me, with calm faces.

The afternoon, though hot and sultry, looks beautiful and serene. As I am heading towards my workplace, I look at the long road; I can see till the next turn, which comes a hundred meters away. I sense with wonder that my immediate future is waiting for me on the road and I am passing through my life as I ride the bicycle. Suddenly, there comes a soothing breeze, caressing my face and hair, as if it wants to tell me something; a shower of dead, yellow leaves from the trees falls on me... and around me. I wish if this moment would just freeze and stay forever... but, no: it passes me... and I go on.  It is autumn in Chennai. The trees are becoming dry and leafless. They remind me how they (and me) celebrated the winter and spring. That joy is gone. Those moments are gone. And we will also be gone. There is none on the road, and I can see until the next turn. Everything is green... and serene. Again, another moment, which I wish to freeze. I don't know if the world is a reality or a mere idea. But, at this very moment, I love the very idea... that I am alive. And... I know... I will be gone tomorrow....

Sandeep Palakkal
March 19, 2010.

Women's Bill: The First Step

Indian Rajya Sabha passes with 191 against 1 votes "the women's bill" for reservation up to 33% for women in the parliament seats. Now the Lok Sabha should pass the same for it to become effective; will it happen?

"Now the fight is no longer between the boys, but between us--girls": Sushma and Brinda celebrating the moment. (photo courtsey to The Hindu daily, March 10, 2010).

On Baudolino, Snow, and white lies

    "... I am a writer of histories... Where will I put the story that Baudolino told me?" [Niketas]
    "Nowhere. The story is all his. And anyway, are you sure it is true?" [Paphnutius]
    "No. Everything I know I have learned from him, as from him I learned that he was a liar." [Niketas]
    ...
    "It was a beautiful story. Too bad no one will find out about it." [Niketas]
    "You surely don't believe you're the only writer of stories in this world. Sooner or later, someone -- a great liar than Baudolino -- will tell it." [Paphnutius]

This is how Umberto Eco finishes his novel "Baudolino"--just by admitting that "I am that someone (of course, a great liar than Baudolino) who has now told you the great story of Baudolino, which, in turn, is a great lie". Thus he joyfully laughs at himself, and once again reinforces his concept of a novel. For, I remember him saying in "The Name of the Rose" that he (or the narrator in that story) was writing it, claiming to be based on a true historical event but without assuming the narration to be historically true, to enjoy the sheer pleasure of writing. But, at the same time, both his stories named above are very beautiful, investigating on the deep nature of human beings--their love, deception, hatred, jealousy, lust for mysteries etc. And in every aspect these novels are more than imaginative: they are brilliantly intellectual. And this is why I love his novels. I believe that this philosopher-cum-medievalist-cum-semiotician-cum-novelist has written five novels, and I, having finished "Baudolino" this week, am already feeling an internal urge to read all his other works.

"Baudolino" is the story of Baudolino, who lived in twelfth century as an adoptive son of the emperor Frederic, and his mysterious ventures. Specially, he ventures deep into Asia, probably into India, to find a lost Christian kingdom of "Prester John". Baudolino is an intelligent, learned, widely read man, who easily learn any language--a skill that helps him wander into the unknown places. His most celebrated talent is the ability to tell lies so convincingly. Maybe, Umberto Eco means that he was a great story teller. Anyway, the novel is written as is told by Baudolino to Niketas. While reading, like "The Name of the Rose", I was thrown into an unknown medieval world. In this novel also, again as in "The Name of the Rose", the main character (Baudolino) walks through a lost, ancient, underground cemetery, where dead bodies of monks are kept. That was a beautiful moment of the novel.


This weekend, I also finished another novel from another exceptional novelist, which I was reading in parallel with "Baudolino". It was "Snow" by Orhan Pamuk. Unlike "Baudolino", which takes place in twelfth century, in the medieval Christian world and Asia (or India?), "Snow" is set in Kars, a remote city in Turky, in the modern times (90's), in the modern Muslim world. The story is based on the headscarf issue in Turky, and, more than that, it talks about IDENTITY. Yes, a conflict of identity between the Western and Muslim worlds. The perspective of radical Islam is portrayed well. I, being from India, can see the point, and, after reading the novel, have started doubting my own identity as an Indian. To what extend am I really Indian, or Malayalee, for that matter, vis-a-vis am I influenced by Western thought? I don't know. As always, I find an excuse for my ignorance: I am not so intelligent to answer this (any) question.

In "Snow", the author starts narrating the story of his poet friend, Ka, who ventured to Kars to meet the woman of his dreams, Ipek, and to propose her. He is then caught in the political and social issues in Kars. Finally, the author, Orhan, himself becomes a part of the story and talks to us as a character in the story. This was very beautiful. Furthermore, to my surprise, and to provoke me to remember my own opinion on Eco's concept of a novel, a character, Fazil, in "Snow" tells the author, Orhan:

"If you write a book set in Kars and put me in it, I'd like to tell your readers not to believe anything you say about me, anything you say about any of us. No one could understand us from so far away."

To this, the author replies:

"But no one believes everything they read in a novel."

My question: does the author imply that the entire novel was a lie that he created out of his imagination to say something that he wanted to say (of love, deception, jealousy, identity, Western vs Islamic)?

Lately, I have started coveting to become a man, a BIG liar, who can imagine a lot, who has a repletion of words in his consciousness, and to write great stories.... My god (though I am an agnosticist in theory and atheist in practice, to tell a lie), if I were to become so!!!