Sunday, August 22, 2010

A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

Noel Stachan the trustee starts this story of the modification of a will, inserting clauses.

When I was reading about the Three Pagoda’s pass as Dr. Ferris recollected after mentioning Donald Paget’s death, I wanted to go there as well. Again I was wondering, these were the British who ruled over India and Malaysia.
“she liked to have something to look at while her ears were assailed.” Amused me.

If I had all the worlds money what would I do? I would sit and read the novels, I want to. I would go traveling all over the world. I will cook and take care of mom. I will learn astrology properly. I will sit and meditate and join some ashram. I will teach in a village school and live in a simple village eating fresh farm produce. Rearing gardens with beautiful flowers. Now Jean Paget wants to go to Malay and dig a well. Am curious why?

Should know about the history of lifebuoy soap. Am surprised it was there from war times.

Good lord, the Nips crucified Joe Harman for stealing 5 black cockerels.

Kuala Telang and the place filled with casuarinas trees reminded me of the Schneider party we had at the Casaurina place in ECR. It was the first time I had a sip of Champagne the Schneider guy had got for the whole team. Someone took a snap of me drinking Champagne and threatened to send it to my parents then.
Kota Bahru reminded me of Pudukottai which means the same in Tamil.

Dulce ridentem lalagen amabo, Dulce loquentem. What does this mean? Okie found it
will love (my) sweetly laughing, sweetly chatting Lalage...

Joe Harman traveling half across the world to see Miss Paget reminded me of the tamil movie where Surya goes to US for the Reddy girl, believe it was Athavan.

Jean inspired in me to start something of my own. Reminded me of Nayana. Page turner it was. The title made sense after all. Everything that goes comes around, be it the gold of Hall’s creek or words or deeds. As they said in Vipasanna, everything comes back to you in thousand folds, because of the seed you sow.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Rainy Saturday Morning

I don’t like my mom wasting her time waking me up with her entreaties, so I always ask her to pour a tumbler of water on my face, if she wants me to wake up and she did it this morning around 7 and I found it was raining slightly and steadily. From my window I can see three neem trees and the sky beyond which was whitish grey. I just lay on the bed gazing at the verdant green neem leaves now shivering, now shaking, now bending with occasional big drops. I saw the various hues of green neem leaves, some dark, some budding and tender brown, all afresh like a newly bathed child.

Through the other side of the bedroom window, I could see 2 big coconut trees, 3 banana saplings, which has started growing its leaves. To look at the green banana leaves bathed in the rain was so delightful. There is a small white tree, with dark green leaves with such delicate sweetly smelling white flowers. Some of them have fallen on the ground, with no one to pluck them and the white strewn carpet of flowers on the dark wet earth is so refreshing.

There are mango trees as well which are so fresh in this rain. The tender mango ochre green leaves, light green leaves and dark green leaves are all standing like a fresh maiden waiting her for heavenly blessings of rain drops, cleansing her and nourishing her.

The squirrels are no longer screaming as they usually do at this time. Some crows are cawing, there is the sound of some other birds, chirping by. It is now drizzling the whole night, now reduced to a drizzle. Occasionally there is sound of the bird that calls us all to wake up around 4:30 am. My alarm for starting to cook lunch for mom has sounded, but am too lazy to move my limbs, wish I could just stare at the neem leaves from the front and the mango leaves and other trees behind me, lying on the bed.

Isha Yoga in Coimbatore

PVS is my class mate and we go for practicing yoga together from KL block to MDC yoga center. He is a Piscean and Kanya Hastham and so he is my favourite confidant and we talk something or the other as we walk towards MDC and while returning.

He had been telling about his engagement and now he announced his wedding in Gobi and he said that I could book tickets either till Coimbatore or Erode and the distance was almost the same to Gobi. So I decided, I will go to Isha Yoga Center which my dad had mentioned years earlier. My another PGPPM friend also mentioned how there was a mercury linga submerged in water, and mercury could solidify only at extremely low temperatures and how refreshing a dip in that holy water was. So I was all enthusiastic about going to Isha yoga and reconnoitering the place.

Kovai

So around 19th of March, I had my tickets booked for the night journey from Bangalore. It was pleasant to be able to speak in Tamil to enquire about where to board the bus for Isha Yoga center after stuttering and mixing all tamil, broken kannada and hindi in Bangalore while asking for directions. The railway guards said, cross the road and there is a busstop from where the buses go directly to Isha and lo it was. I had to drag my trolley for quite some time till I reached the busstop, I had just missed one bus to isha and sat waiting for the next one while observing the mallu couple next to me on my right and a mother and son on my left. At last the bus came and I boarded the bus. After 1 hour or so, and going through dry katcha roads, I reached Isha Yoga.

Isha Yoga Center

There was a huge Nandi statue in front and the whole style of the center had a playfulness about it. It was clean, there was a volunteer to guide me through the temple. There were beautiful flowers strewn here and there along the path. I did not want to visit the Devi shrine without bathing, so I first had bath and retraced my path to the Devi shrine where even how to prostrate was carved on the ground. After that was the sacred holy dip that this PGPPM student had mentioned. I felt as if was nearing a waterfalls. Water was steadily pouring from a copper wall at a height. There were separate lady timings and gents timings to take a holy dip for 30 minutes. After descending down through the steps and reaching the water, I slowly dipped my leg in and found is so cold. Gradually I got used to it and went up to the linga and saw how others were praying. There was a middle aged athletic foreigner who placed both her palms on the linga and was praying. I too did the same and after couple of pradakshinas, waded through the water, I reached till the copper wall and came back. There was sunlight there and the effect it made on the water made it glow like emerald sparkling away its way to glory.

After the holy dip, I escorted other ladies to the linga who were afraid of the chest water, one lady surprised me by doing a namaskaram after I escorted her back to the steps. All this in silence, since there were clapping volunteers.

Meditation Cave

After changing to into fresh dry clothes, I went to the meditation temple where there was a huge linga as I had seen in internet and other mailers. We were all led in groups inside the dome. The flowers were arranged beautifully and lamps were lit delightfully. The flames danced to some tune known amongst themselves and it was a gleeful sight to watch. I sat on a chair in silence trying to meditate. I also sat for the next round which was the last before lunch break. There was nubile Caucasian dressed in white who sang languorously without words, a soulful tune with occasional shiva namas uttered in between. On four sides of the linga, sat 4 young musical players who rolled an instrument that made a heavenly sound, and thus we sat enraptured while they played that music. After 15 minutes were over, a volunteer lady rang a bell and we all got up to move out.

Finally once outside the temple, I had my curd rice, and within 10 minutes, a bus to Gandhinagar busstand came and I boarded it and reached Gobi for PVS’s reception in the evening.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Inner Path and Ramana Ashram

I was just back from a girivalam and was waiting for a darshan, that I met my prof on the way. He made me walk with him when I was already so tired, but I was glad when he told me about mailing Ramana Ashram and staying there. He told me about Virupaksha cave and Skandaashram and I could not wait to mail Ramana Ashram. The next day I got a reply stating that I could stay for 2-3 days in the ashram around Mar 24th.

After a friend’s wedding in Gobichettipalayam, I booked tickets to Thiruvannamalai from Gobi and reached there at 3:30 am. I rested outside the temple in the corridor till 5 am till the doctor came and I got my keys and slept off for quite some time.

Ramana Ashram

There were beautiful peacocks screeching at times. My room was neat and tidy with Gandhian furnishings - a wooden table, chair, a cot with mattress. There were lots of foreigners around, some of whom spoke tamil like a native. It was peaceful there.

The ashram offered healthy food. There were 2 meditation halls. I tried meditating, but I could not. Boys were reciting Vedas in the morning and evening. It was fun to watch them. It was abuzz with a timetabled activity going on all the time. I decided I will go to Skandashram and Virupaksha cave that evening when it was less scorching.

Skandashram

It was written in the room that girls should not venture alone either for inner path or Skandashram. But I was determined to go alone and make friends with someone on the way. I started after 4 pm after having milk and once I reached the gate, I found a couple kind of intimate. So I decided not to approach them and I started walking alone up to Skandashram. It was rocky and it was very hot even after 4 pm that I was perspiring. Just when I needed a hand, a soul appeared who agreed to be my escort. We walked silently and I just followed him. After asking for few directions and 1.5 hours later, we arrived at Skandashram which was nothing I like imagined. It was like a normal house, from where I could see the thiruvannamalai temple. We went inside prayed, sat for a while, clicked snaps of each other and tried to Virupaksha cave which the gurukal said would be closed by 5 pm. We decided to try our luck nevertheless.

Virupaksha Cave

As the gurukal said, the cave was closed by the time we reached there. So I returned disappointed. We took the steps down from virupaksha cave. I figured out that this gentle soul was working in Malaysia and he escorted me till Ashram where we exchanged email ids so that he would send me my snaps. The next day, I left early without having the 4 pm snacks and climbed up the steps walking through the city road instead of ascending upto Skandashram and again descending to Virupaksha cave.

I reached there and it was cool up there amidst the trees and flowers blossoming here and there. I went inside and found a lone foreigner sitting there like a white ghost. I sat on the other side inside the cave and closed my eyes. I could hear the horns of buses from that height. It was peaceful. I was the last come out and the gurukal was closing the gates. I found 3 beggar ladies, but I had only 10 rs with me which I wanted to put in Thiruvannamalai hundi. I remember a thirukural which says to beg is bad, but to refuse a beggar is worser. My climbing the day before had hurt my legs badly that my plated right knee was buckling and I needed support and sat at the entrance thinking how to take another step. The beggar lady somehow intuitively understood this and gave me her hand and from then on, gurukal came and he gave his hand till the place where it was relatively plain where I could walk without support.

I thanked him and we parted ways. I reached the temple, had a peaceful darshan and went out and reached ashram and had a blissful sleep.

Inner Path

I wanted to take the inner path and do my girivalam as well. It was not pournami, so I could have had any companions. Luckily my anna and his father came from Bangalore and took the inner path. Twice we strayed from the actual path and Ramana rishi guided us by sending some saffron robed guy who quickly walked in front of us and disappeared showing us the right path.

We saw a turquoise green rectangular lake on the way where a foreigner was taking bath. For me to step in the water seemed so full of hidden creatures. We reached a place where I saw a adi pump. There again we strayed, we retraced and came back had some water from the pump, and a banana each and walked further.

We reached another well, walked around talking about things in general. The twilight was so refreshing and gradually it was getting dark. I was telling my anna, the story the lame gurukal had told me in the temple the day before about ThiruNeelakanda Shastrigal burning his eyes with camphor and regaining his eyesight by reciting a shlokha.

I was jokingly telling anna, that this hill was full of Siddhars who would be sitting and meditating in caves. We decided after it was completely dark to take the road and we just reached the road, when we found a saffron robed guy meditating in front of us in a small enclosure with his back to the road, that gave me fright because of the unexpected suddenness.

Finally, we walked reached the ashram, took bath, packed bags and reached Bangalore comfortably by the night bus. The day after was convocation.

Heidi by Johanna Spyri

I had a charming massively chubby svelte Mallu senior who called herself Heidi. A scorpio I believe. She has escaped miraculously without a scratch a bus accident where the bus she was sitting in overturned into a valley. I started reading this BBC collection ebook thanks to her nickname. After Les Miserables and War and Peace this seems lighter. Let me see.

Oh, this is the very same novel, I have seen as a hindi movie. Cute story indeed. Alluring by its simplicity and innocence and pristine purity. Reminds me of the only German exchange student who used to study with me for quizzes, who laughed for everything in term IV.

Why this book just flew by in matter of hours. Nice charming story. All is well that ends well. Simply divine, simple and divine. For simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

War and Peace

My childhood days saw Mishkas, and my prize books were Russian folk tales, tales of prince and princess and czars, thanks to the friendship between Nehru and Soviet Union and mom being a central government employee and me studying in Kendriya Vidyalaya. My sister and I tried so many times to get this czar/tsar pronunciation clumsily back then. I distinctly remember the collection of short stories on the friendship between wolf and man, Siberia tiger and a child, a tiger that ate sausages every time. I remember reading Anna Karenina, but that was a looooooong time ago. So with nothing else left to do, am just reading BBC’s top 100 novels, some of which, I have already read. I started with the bottom and War and Peace came up. It was absolutely unintentional that I picked this up just after reading Les Misérables.

Princess Mary Bolkonski’s character was the first to impress me, for it distinctly reminded me a girl in college. She had the same attitude of attributing everything to god. German, French and English peppered throughout this book initially made me wonder about polyglots in India who know minimum 4 languages.

As the war progressed between Russia and France, 150 thousand French men and 40 K Russian (Kutuzov’s) men, I was thinking, why that is the size of a software company. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. One man at the top playing with the lives of so many people made me painfully aware of the cruelties of a war. Cheiro mentions that the palm lines of 2 soldiers were not there just 2 days before they died in the war. I have been trying in vain to see the palm lines of corpses to confirm this.
With the war in the background, Mary sees Prince Vasili’s son’s blatant behavior with her friend Bourienne and still deals with her in her own pristine way.
“Said Prince Andrew; ‘ on the contrary one must try to make one’s life as pleasant as possible. I am alive, that is not my fault, so I must live out my life as best as I can without hurting others”


Then again came the scene where Natasha begs Nicholas to take her for hunting. This immediately brought in images of a young girl whom I had interviewed. She had cat eyes. She had this way of looking outside while talking anything. She described driving big racing cars was her passion and I was wondering how, until my partner asked if it was because of her elder brother.

“Natasha had too much of something and because of this she would not be happy… “ and the story’s twist to make her so made me sad as well. Tolstoy’s ploy of not giving everything to everyone. The generous Rostovs were lacking in riches. The Bezukovs in morality. The Bolonski’s in happiness and moderation of temper. Julia let Boris marry her because of flattery and Boris married her for her fortune. How very true as always.

“…because only Germans are self-confident on the basis of an abstract notion-science, that is, the supposed knowledge of the absolute truth. A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing does not want to know anything since he does not believe that anything can be known. “


I still remember my 7th standard history half early examination. It was scheduled in the afternoon session and I was leafing through the history text book pages in the last minute and out of exasperation of not being able to remember the dates and events, I threw the book towards the door around noon, a fact I sincerely regret now. During childhood history bored me because of the teachers, now history rather the lives of people in history interests me the most. In vain, am trying to find that of Indira Gandhi after reading Dom Moraes’, hope someone lends me Aandhi some day.

Slaughter of 80k men at Borodino…as I read this, I was shocked, rather I should not be any longer. I wonder, how people managed to bomb Japan even after this, persecute jews even after this. None of Napolean’s orders were executed Tolstoy says, common will… well…hmmm.

Hugo had a nice way of describing to the minutest detail possible, setting things up to a climax and resolving thereafter, (that was not precisely history, but fiction). And Tolstoy like me, put the end results first and there after went on explaining about Napolean’s cold and all trivia, at times rather mostly sarcastically.
Why on earth do they call Peter Kirilovich as Pierre? These Russian names and different forms of their names and pet names and their being addressed by different persons in different ways never ceased to amuse me. Pierre being accepted amongst the soldiers and everyone around him in earlier chapters, reminded me of my brother who is 120 kgs, always smiling, intending no harm to anyone, being the object of somebody’s soft raillery.

When everywhere, there were reports of gruesome death and horrors, I was wondering, how come Tolstoy spared the princes and then came Andrew and Anatole Kuragin’s saga. It is quite sad, that we need such misery and intense pain and torture to experience happiness and boundless love even for the worst of enemies.
The mathematical tinge in Tolstoy’s explanation reminded me of my professor. Tortoise and Achilles problem. Infinite collective force vs. one strong individual will. The laws of History! Is it the actions of the kings and the important men or the path. Latter on it reminded me of the course we had Corporate Strategy and Environment, where our professor would describe Bhopal Gas Tragedy or Nile Perch, and other such issues, point out all issues and say no solution is possible finally satisfying all criteria and constraints.

Guess, Tolstoy likes lilac, Natasha wore a lilac and black dress while going to the church and Count Rostov came out in lilac dressing gown the day of departure from Moscow. Rostovs generosity of letting all their carts for the wounded though seemed chivalrous on one side, seemed so sacrificing too on the other hand. I have all my clothes and things strewn in 3 places, Trichy, Bangalore and Chennai and am at times aching that they are not within reach, when I need them. For Rostovs to leave the packed things for outright looting seemed too magnanimous.

“A town captured by the enemy is like the maid who has lost her honour,” I always wonder, why such honour is never attributed to a guy. Girls like flattery, dolls and flimsy material possessions and guys indulge in girls, taking it all, supplementing with larger material possessions.
“Moscow being empty as a dying queenless hive is empty. …..”
Rostopchin ordering Vereshchagin’s death and later repenting it, mentally preparing to address Kutozov….
Monkey getting trapped with hands grabbing nuts inside a narrow necked jug…thus the French soldiers became marauders and disappeared with their loot.

“love of clodhoppers” for Helene and” love of simpletons” for Natasha vs. L’amour which the Frenchmen worshipped consisted principally in the unnaturalness of the relation to the woman and in a combination of incongruities giving chief charm to the feeling.” Well so much for the French love.

When I read about Moscow burning, I wondered, what victory were the Russians celebrating, when they let Moscow burn, losing their capital for looting that too without fight. Strange victory indeed.

Andrew’s death reminded me of the deaths I had to witness. I could never cry in any of them, later I cried in solitude thinking they were no more, occasionally when thoughts about them came.

“The mining of the Kremlin only helped toward fulfilling Napolean’s wish that is should be blown up when he left Moscow- as a child wants the floor on which he has hurt himself to be beaten.” I started liking Tolstoy’s way of story-telling. Wish he was my grandfather to tell me bed time stories.

I am here resting on a comfortable bed, with proper shelter and eating food which I like and I have inner peace. I go out and see a beggar or some invalid, I feel bad that she has to suffer so at such an old age. Now Pierre finds “peace and inner harmony only through horror of death, through privation, and through what he recognized in Karataev. “ Does man have to experience peace only through privation? Well different things for different people. There is no panacea for inner peace. What might seem the antidote at one time may turn out to be the poison few years down the line. Pierre’s ability to sit still and think without doing anything reminded me of my Vipasanna days. It was tranquil back then.

Pierre being rescued by Dolokov and Denisov, was bound to happen, especially since Tolstoy made Pierre shoot Dolokov in a duel. Irony of fate. Especially since Tolstoy made Andrew and his brother-in-law see each other after being wounded.
“While imprisoned in the shed Pierre had learned not with his intellect but with his whole being, by life itself, that man is created for happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from superfluity.”
“Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves and that movement is God. And while there is life there is joy in consciousness of the divine. To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than all else is to love this life in one’s sufferings, in innocent sufferings.”

“The activity of Alexander or of Napolean cannot be called useful or harmful, for it is impossible to say for what it was useful or harmful. If that activity displeases somebody, this is only because it does not agree with his limited understanding of what is good.”

“It is true that we do not feel the movement of the earth, but by admitting its immobility we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting its motion (which we do not feel) we arrives at laws, ‘ so also in history the new view says: It is true that we are not conscious of our dependence, but by admitting our free will we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting our dependence on the external world, on time, and on cause, we arrive at laws.”
Interdependence others would say now.

War and Peace, between nations, between people, between entities eternally happens like waves forever beating against the shores, now resolving, now again arising, and then finally dissolving into the mighty ocean. Hiranyagarbha should I say?

Monday, August 9, 2010

Les Misérables

We had a course called CARTS (creativity in arts and science). The prof circulated 2 handouts from this book which I read and felt I had read the complete book some time earlier. Now as I read this book afresh, everything seems so profound. For instance,

"Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his temptation. He drags it with him and yields to it. He must watch it, cheek it, repress it, and obey it only at the last extremity. There may be some fault even in this obedience; but the fault thus committed is venial; it is a fall, but a fall on the knees which may terminate in prayer."

How commensurate is each word for we indeed carry this body based on our own wants and desires. Now I understand why child is the father of the man. All we need to do is watch our thoughts, for they translate into words and deeds, or even simpler, watch our breath and merely observe it.

Now I realize why my sister who is a dentist can do the things (deal with blood and teeth) that i merely say, while she does it. I see the world with rose tinted glasses, seeing only the positive and the beautiful, while she sees it as it is. I left biology because of dissections, to go beyond this flesh and blood for healing the sufferers is something that doctors do and now I respect her even more and all doctors. To be completely aware, without being involved is the greatest mastery of this birth. And so Hugo’s lines as compared to Wilde’s lines (All art is quite useless) in “The Picture of Dorian Gray” makes a distinct impression on me:
The beautiful is as useful as the useful." He added after a pause, "More so, perhaps."

Senator’s lines on it is better to be a tooth than the grass, loud proclamations over existence have such inner meaning as well.

When Jean Valjean aka M. sur M says the following:
“The kindness which consists in upholding a woman of the town against a citizen, the police agent against the mayor, the man who is down against the man who is up in the world, is what I call false kindness. That is the sort of kindness which disorganizes society. Good God! it is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just.” It again raises the eternal struggle underneath, how different is this external perception for every individual.

“One can no more prevent thought from recurring to an idea than one can the sea from returning to the shore: the sailor calls it the tide; the guilty man calls it remorse; God upheaves the soul as he does the ocean.” I am wondering what beckons people to beaches, why does it sound musical to some and disharmonious to others – these waves.

“That light called history is pitiless; it possesses this peculiar and divine quality, that, pure light as it is, and precisely because it is wholly light, it often casts a shadow in places where people had hitherto beheld rays; from the same man it constructs two different phantoms, and the one attacks the other and executes justice on it, and the shadows of the despot contend with the brilliancy of the leader.”

Why do very few people see the coin as a whole, while others confine only to the brilliance and yet others focus on the darkness? What is that one needs?

And again, the war history is overwhelming and the connection to explain where the post man Joseph drives the post wagon “What is Waterloo? A victory? No. The winning number in the lottery.”

“The peculiar property of truth is never to commit excesses. What need has it of exaggeration? There is that which it is necessary to destroy, and there is that which it is simply necessary to elucidate and examine. What a force is kindly and serious examination! Let us not apply a flame where only a light is required.”
How can Librans and Sagittarians learn to apply this to their daily lives?

“To roam thoughtfully about, that is to say, to lounge, is a fine employment of time in the eyes of the philosopher;…. end of the divine murmur, beginning of the human uproar; hence an extraordinary interest.”

Almost every chapter had paragraphs of wisdom and the fact that he was a (Feb 26, 1802) moon scorpio, sun-piscean further intrigued me. When I did a wiki and found his 19 year old daughter dead, another daughter in an insane asylum and sons dead, somehow made me wonder about the fate of the children he had in spite of achieving such greatness in literature. Ok, let me not mix astrology with literature.

His book made me laugh, made me cry, made me go through all emotions. His way of building up a huge background for the players to enact was at times painful to read. At times, it made me wonder about his methodical nature. How assiduous he was in describing each and every detail, right from the wars to the sewers.

Jean Valjean’s life of untold miseries and hardships and divine interventions and finally to die with just a moment’s relief before death made me feel what life is this to die thus. Fantine’s death was depressing enough. Only Cosette’s AndTheyHappilyLivedEverAfter gave some relief. It took me 2-3 months to read this book. Why Vikram Seth’s Suitable Boy hardly took little more than a week. That was like reading an mega tv serial. India why the half the world lives below the poverty line. The story of African orphaned children, widowed women with AIDs in the documentary on Nile Perch, makes one acutely aware of the conditions of the miserables everywhere in this world. But what is being done about them? It pains me and something will be done soon with god’s grace.