Irrational

Does the irrational exist in the world? Can the machines learn to be irrational? All the available evidence points to a choice that is rejected without any logic and mind chooses to do completely something else. Sometimes the only thing mind does is to confuse the universe. It wants to break the laws of logical universe by choosing the irrational. It makes itself unpredictable to others by choosing the irrational. Mind knows what is against its interest and chooses it at the peak of irrationality. Survival of the fittest is the law of the universe. Being unpredictable probably gives an edge to survive. If human mind only follows logic, it will always lead to predictable results, hence the disadvantage with survival.

Absurdity is very much part of rules of universe. Universe gives an edge to absurdity in its quest to keep the best alive and growing.

Lord Venkatesha

I finally got to visit Tirumala temple after years of failed plans. Lord Venkatesha is the principal deity in the minds of most people around where I grew up. I last visited when I was 3 years old. I have faint memories of some journey and places along the way, but I have no memory of the place or temple itself.

When walking up the steps on the seven hills, there are notice boards instructing that, only devotees are allowed to visit the temple, and no one should visit the temple for recreation. I climbed up wondering which category I fall in.

The place, temple town, Tirumala and the temple in it are very well organized. I found it very similar to urban spaces in developed countries like USA. All the roads are paved, cleaned. There is green/blue color direction markers everywhere to facilitate easy movement of vehicles and people. There is car parking at each major place. There is a well organized accommodation reservation system. The entry is well planned, entry tickets are issued with specific time to enter the temple to facilitate smooth and predictable flow of people in and out of the temple. We see thousands of people everywhere, but everything moves smoothly. There is no place that gets jammed unexpectedly. The people, administration, all behave very organized, as if they know their exact job in the system. There are no touts trying to cheat you. 

Of all the places in India, if there is one place where we can see the blueprint of a possible developed future for the country, it is Tirumala. Lord Venkatesha means business. You don't get to mess with the Lord or his place with your petty shortcuts in life, your disorganised mess, and your general chaos.

The temple, probably the richest in the world, has seen remarkable continuity since more than a thousand years. It is probably the oldest temple I visited that is still visited by devotees. Most old temples tend to be mostly of archaeological importance, with devotees having stopped visiting them at some point and now only visited by tourists and history enthusiasts. Lord Venkatesha has seen Cholas, Pallavas, Krishnadevaraya, Marathas, Mughals, Sultans, British, French and the modern local brown men. The uninterrupted and growing worship is not an accident. Communists and atheists may argue faith is farce, but the Lord doesn't care, he has endured heretics, non-believers, atheists, muslim invaders, christian missionaries and a horde of people for more than a thousand years. The faith he inspires in the people is real and enduring. He will most likely endure all of us, all the things we see, going by the historical evidence. Anyone visiting the Lord and denying the faith he inspires in people is fooling themselves and just shows they don't understand the world around us, as it unfolds, as much. Lord means business, and whether we like it or not, it is the place we should seek and observe to find a model for organization, for establishing order in chaos, to build an inspiring future.

Hero

"...why should we stand reverent before waterfalls and mountaintops, or a summer moon on a quiet sea, and not before the highest miracle of all: a man who is both great and good?"
-- Will Durant

"Our age has produced nothing great. I want to set an example"
-- Napoleon

Most of our mythologies are chronicles of Heros' exploits. From Gilgamesh to Achilles to Arjuna, men of action fill our stories of the past. There was a time when action was the primary thing to be aspired. It may be because of our evolutionary path, our struggle for existence in a world filled with dangers in every corner. It was the time when we were still fighting for supremacy on this planet.

We now reached a stage where our heros, our men of action, no longer have that primacy in our minds. In our quest for accommodating diversity, we have reduced ourselves to worshipping mediocrity. There is no special place in our minds to people who conquered themselves and the minds of people around them. Mobs run amok trampling everything that comes in its way. There are no more heros to give us a sense of purpose and take our species to its destiny. We are now masters of this planet, but there are no longer leaders among us, to lead us further.

In the midst of this caustic existence I miss the presence of heros around us. Even our movies no longer have heros.

Nostalgia

Fluttering thoughts collide against the inertia of the sea wall

Eons of time passing through my mind
I cannot close my eyes, lest I may sleep over the impasse in time
Where shall I stop to discover the thought of your presence

A spirit getting up, moving away, from all that ever have been and will be
What would have happened without you?
What would I think about lying down here, without you?
Will the time slow down like this, without you?
Would I hear the sound of nocturnals and the tiny mosquitoes, without you?
Would I feel this nostalgia, without you?

I cannot ponder over the drifting away
We met long ago, we shall meet again after a long time
Wherever you are, the speck of a thought of you comes
Every once in a while
And reminds me that life remains

Pages of the book turned over
A new chapter opens up every once in a while
When can I forget the boggling past

I will befriend your spirit in your absence
I will engulf myself with your words without you speaking
I will tease you, smile at you, laugh at you without you moving
You are present in my mind, as an unwavering thought
There is no where else I can find you, but in my mind
For the time doesn't stop neither for you nor for me

Prisoner

Endless steel surround me

When I wake up I see no sun
The walls are so thick
Even death cannot penetrate it

There are no stars in the sky
I hear no bird chirps
The air is so still I can hear the sound of silence
No sight of a living soul
Not even tiny mosquitoes come to this deserted place

All my dreams are inside a prison
I am a prisoner in all my dreams
And in dreams inside dreams
I dream about a world inside a prison
There is no one else in my dreams

My legs are tied, I cannot walk
My hands are cuffed, I cannot hold
My eyes are blinded, I cannot see
My mind is constricted. I cannot think
I am not allowed to walk, hold, see
I am not allowed to think

The world doesn't move around me
I stay idle for an endless time
Eternal seasons march without a change around me
Alive or dead, there is no difference

My mind can never ask questions
It can never doubt anything
It can never explain anything
The mind is stilled and frozen
The mind is in a prison.

Grandma

Grandma died today. She died in her sleep. Or that's how others found it. She lived alone in her own room, has been living like that for 24 years since her husband died. She was normal yesterday evening. She went around living her life, bought some apples from a street vendor. She didn't open her door late into the morning, people were suspicious, broke the door and found her gone.
Grand ma is the last one left of her generation. She is also the sister of father of my maternal grandfather. She belonged to the 1950s/60s generation. She was probably 75-80 years old. Her parents and all her siblings died long ago in the 1980s and 90s. She was the youngest of her siblings. I used to ask her about her siblings, and she would always say they all loved her and are gone.

Born in an agricultural family, she got married when she was 7 years old. She got a cow as part of dowry whose descendents continued into my childhood. She and her husband inherited around 3 acres of land from my grand father's father. They worked hard and bought another 7 acres in their lifetime. My grandfather died in 1996 due to complications from old age. After that grandma decided not to stay with any of the sons and the three sons agreed to give her 5 bags of rice each every year.

She is a strong and controversial figure in the family. She ruled the roost in her time. I remember my mother and she having regular fights for a few years.

When I walked to her lifeless body, I saw a few people crying. Her eyes were partly open and it seemed like she is still looking at me. She was laid infront of our newly built house.

The funera rituals are elaborate. They lifted her lifeless body and bathed it with shampoo and soap. I had to put my own mug of water on her. It was a surrealistic to see all those people bathing her after she died, the same people who never cared much when she was alive. Life came a full circle for grandma, the last time someone bathed her was probably her own mother when she was a child. Then she was adorned with a new saree. I was part of the entourage carrying her to the pyre. We roamed around the pyre 3 times and she was laid face down on the pyre. Then we went to take bath, while coming back I was asked not to look at be pyre, but I did take a peak and found her almost starting to burn with the clothes coiling in heat. She is gone forever.

She probably did not know yesterday that she is not going to see tomorrow. She probably thought she will eat the apples tomorrow morning. Death in sleep may be the most peaceful death, but it's also the most cruel one where you get no time to prepare for it.

In her last years she ran out of money and used to ask me for it. I used to give her some secretly. She used to be gossiping, fiery and strong woman. But, last few years, I have seen her becoming weaker and weaker. I also saw her becoming like a child recently. Earlier she used to try to use some smart tricks to get me to give her money. Recently, she started begging for it and I knew she felt a bit ashamed to ask me money. After she died, they searched her house in the evening and found 5000 rupees wrapped secretely inside multiple layers of plastic, the same notes, part of what I gave her a few weeks ago.

My grandparents were the earliest people who told me stories in the childhood while making me sleep with them under the moonlight. Now they are both gone.

By evening, everyone were laughing and jovial. No one probably cried for her. She probably deserved it with all her fights with others. But it's doesn't matter anymore. She lived her life the way she wants, on her own terms. She probably never regretted living alone despite all the problems associated with it. She was mostly healthy till the last day. I don't think she ever went to bed with a major worry in her mind. She belonged to a generation of simple souls who would toil and fight all the day, but would forget all that and go to sleep at peace. She left when her time is over, a day here or there. We all will leave some day.

Defining Moment

Dr. Mann while making a point that he is doing the right thing, says '...This is not about my life, or Cooper's life, it's about all mankind. There is a moment...' and then gets blown away by the explosion.

All of us atleast a few times must have felt we are facing a defining moment. A moment that will choose a specific path for us. We feel like we would look back at this moment with a historical importance not attached to regular times. We feel this is the moment we have to push harder and rise above the constraints of human possibilities.

For some, there is a desparate search for these moments to define ourselves.

The reason to search for defining moments is based on our common reading of history. We define history in terms of a sequence of defining moments. Battle of Stalingrad defined the course of world war 2. French revolution defined the course of modern human organisation. Newton's theory of gravity defined the course of scientific revolution.

While it's true that we cannot ignore the importance of specific events in history, we should see them as a the culmination of processes and ideas long before them. Battle of Stalingrad is the culmination of Hitler's decade old fight to alter status quo and the world's resistance to it. Newton said he is standing on the shoulders of giants while proposing his theory of gravity. French revolution is the culmination of the inherent conflict of the old ideas of political organisation with the spread of literature and freedom of expression to the masses.

With our own life too, it is the daily routine over a long time that defines the path ahead. There are no defining moments. Every moment defines us. We are what we think and do all the time. We are not how we act in some moments. That way, waiting for defining moments is an exercise of futility expressing our own inability to correct our daily routine.