Random Thoughts

BP has a new CEO. The leak is sealed. The "Oil Spill Update" section with the live view of the "spill" on newspaper websites have disappeared. The pictures of a record-setting 130-pound catfish caught in the Missouri river have replaced the pictures of the oil-soaked pelicans on the Gulf beaches. BP's stock price has climbed 20% in the last month. The same reporters who took boat rides around the Gulf and showed off their gloved hands dipped in oil, are now quietly saying that there is no oil on the coast now. Pundits are stating that the effect of the largest oil spill was not as bad as predicted.

Is the world back to normal? Can we all sigh now? Can I drive my Hummer again without fear of getting shot at?

What we are seeing in the Gulf of Mexico is the inevitable culmination of man’s ever-growing greed. So far, we have been doing a good job at placing all the blame on one entity, called BP, and coming out clean. But, don’t the fingers really point at us? Isn’t BP’s greed just a repercussion of our own greed? Our greed that makes us want to drive our Hummers to the grocery store that is 10 minutes away by foot! Our greed that makes us want a huge house and want us hibernate in the air conditioner’s comfort even when there is pleasant weather outside! Our greed that drove us to raping the earth by drilling 4 miles into her!

It is time we really gave some serious thoughts about what we want to do with this earth of ours!!

The "No Fluff Just Stuff (NFJS)" conference ended up being a massive fluff. In the midst of geeks and dummies acting as geeks, it was a weekend where I felt completely out of place.

The speakers sure deserve compliments for their dedication to the subject, but in the end, all that they are doing is promoting themselves and one another by introducing new technologies, preaching incessantly until a good majority of fall at their feet. It took me a day to realize that, that is what they were doing.

On Saturday, I came out after a session at around 3pm and stepped out into the beautiful sun outside. The sunlight made me wonder – "What I am doing in there?". And, I just left and spent the next 2 hours mowing the lawn and working up a good sweat. Fulfillment!!

On Sunday (the last day), I was determined to sit through the whole day to prove to myself that "I can do it". In the last session, I ended up in a session titled "Hacking your brain for fun and profit". I admit, the lack of clarity is what attracted me. It shouldn't have been that way.

It ended up being a lecture on the need of taking care of ourselves (our body) to optimize our output. The speaker started with the need for sleep. When the over-weight geek moved on to how exercise helps us perform better, I started shifting in my seat. When, he went on and on, authoritatively, about the advantages of daily work-outs and martial arts, I couldn't take it anymore. I just got up and left. Going to a Java religious conference on a weekend is one thing. But, that religious conference adding legitimacy by straying into fields foreign to them, it is another thing.

Religions!!

A broody hen is one that is ready to set. Broodiness is part of the molting process that is required for hatching eggs. During the molting process, the hen loses the feathers on her breast, so the bare breast can warm the eggs. Her body temperature drops to an ideal temperature for hatching. She will get off the rest only once a day or so. You wouldn't miss a broody hen – she is the one running around the yard with feathers all standing up, clucking to herself. She thinks the whole world is her enemy and she hates them for that, but she has no shame because she is confident that she is the noblest of all. When sitting on the eggs, she growls at anything that comes near her. She thinks everyone is out to harm her and snatch the eggs. She feels vulnerable and assumes that everyone wants to take advantage of her (as if others have nothing else to do). She is at the height of possessiveness. Because she stops laying eggs during that period, a hen setting is unwelcome in a farm where she is grown for the eggs. A hen entering the process means about a month of lost eggs. I remember my mother used to try different tricks such as tying the hen up on one leg, hanging her upside down etc. to force her out of the broodiness. I am not sure if these measures helped. It might have, or my mother wouldn't have done it over and over. If a hen is actually used for hatching eggs, the broodiness continues even after hatching. Now, she has to protect the chicken. That possessiveness comes naturally without any after-thoughts. She would chase anything that comes near her family. If the enemy manages to snatch one of her chickens, she immediately forgets about the lost child and calmly comes back to the remaining flock. Here, the behavior of the enemies is odd too, but our discussion is about the hen, so let's stick to her. Anyway, why did I talk about the broody hen? If you look around, you can see one or two of them right around you.

Every incident in our life is a nail slammed into our track with one end of an elastic band attached to it. The other end of the elastic band gets attached to us, constantly pulling us back to where the nail is. Our whole life is an effort to leave the nails behind and move on. At times, strong nails with strong bands constantly pulling us back, make it hard for us to move on. The constant battling against the bands builds up heaviness in our chests.

Scribbling down is a way to off load that certain heaviness and feel lighter, so we can continue the battle against the bands. It doesn’t really snap the band, nor does it make it more elastic. It just makes it a little easier to move on.

Matthew Kneale's English Passengers qualifies to be the last book I read without reading glasses. While reading the book, I kept feeling the urge to hold the book farther away than I used to, but I was in denial. The book was interesting enough for me to stick with the denial till the end. It was when I got to the epilogue that I finally realized "Man, I must need glasses" and I bought my first pair of glasses. Well, I think giving in finally was the right move! The epilogue was as interesting as the book itself. Here is an excerpt :-

In 1850 a disgraced surgeon named Robert Knox published The Races of Men, a fragment. This was in many ways a precursor of Hitler's Mein Kampf, insisting that all history was nothing more than a process of racial conflicts (rather as Karl Marx, in his Communist Manifesto of three years earlier, had declared all history was merely a struggle between economic classes). Knox was among the first writers to claim that the various races of mankind were actually different species. He proposed that the Saxon, of England, was among the most exalted. His book was an immediate best-seller. For the first time, it even became fashionable to see the world in these terms. Though such ideas were strongly opposed in some quarters, they continued to gain influence, forming a kind of ugly background background music to the latter part of the century. We are still living with the impact of those ideas.

Even if we recognize that various races are different species, how does one decide which is the most exalted? If I set out to make that grouping, I am certain that there will always be a tendency to try and prove that the species that I belong to is the most exalted. Racism may qualify as the worst curse from the past that we are forced to live with. Racism doesn't just limit itself to color of skin or geographic separation. It also extends itself into things like religious & political beliefs. We have this born inclination to group ourselves based on anything that we can think of. And, we inadvertently (or not) pass that on to our children.
-----

A 5.2 magnitude earthquake shook the St. Louis area at 4:37am today. It wasn’t strong enough to shake the bed, but it did rattle the roof and windows. When I woke up at the sound of the earthquake (and Deepa’s shouting), it sounded as if an overweight mouse was bolting across the attic.

My immediate thought was that it is an earthquake. Deepa was in denial and tried to convince herself that it was probably a huge truck passing by (on Deauville Ct at that hour?).

It was déjà vu for me. Memories of the 1993 Latur earthquake that shook Maharashtra and took about 10,000 lives filled my mind. It was around the same time in the morning and I was staying at the Lobo Mansion in Byculla (Bombay). It felt much more than a mere mouse in the attic. The beds shook for a good 45 seconds. We jumped out of bed and were on the verandah in no time. That was my first experience of an earthquake. The funny thing about earthquake is that it lasts too short to feel the fear during it. What you feel during those seconds is a certain kind of curiosity. The fear comes afterwards thinking about what could have happened, if no major damage happened. If it ends up being a tragedy, the dominating feeling can’t be fear any more.

Our earth is a very vulnerable place. A natural calamity is a very near possibility in almost any part of it any time. When you look at all those forces that are going on in the universe, it is not a remote possibility that the whole earth would get sucked into something or would get smashed against something. Sometimes I think natural calamities are nature’s way of cleaning up man’s ego. It reminds us of our helplessness to act against the bigger scheme of things.

The most interesting remark came from the seven year old while I was taking her to school - “I don’t want to be in this world. It is too scary here”.
-----

My friend, Suresh had lived in Bangalore until he moved into Perumbavoor and into my class (5A) more than 20 years ago. He spoke very little Malayalam and was learning to speak the language like us. One day he declared to us, “My most favorite word in Malayalam is kadalas. Listen to the sound of it - k.a.d.a.l.aa.s”.

That was indeed true. That word did sound beautiful. It has a certain rhythm that is almost musical. When you speak or hear a word all the time, you don’t always see its beauty (kind of like many things in life). But, when you stop a while and think about it, there are so many beautiful things right around you that you hardly ever notice.

My most favorite word in English – Serendipity :-)
-----

In the early 90’s, a new newspaper named “The Independent” hit the newsstands in Bombay. There were billboards all over the city announcing the arrival of the newspaper claiming non-partisan reporting. There was one particularly interesting billboard near VT that I saw only once through the corner of my eye while riding by. It showed the illustration of a loaf of bread with one slice removed and a knife applying butter to the slice. And, the caption read,

“There is safety in being in a cluster, but THE INDEPENDENT gets the butter”.

It is a caption that I have gone back to, again and again over the last 15 or so years - like going back to a page with a bookmark. This simple billboard sent a very intense beam into me – an intensity that I still feel. Even the flashing, bright billboards in Las Vegas seemed dark and dull in comparison.

It must have been very unsafe to be independent. The Independent didn’t survive for too long on the newsstands.

Foot Note: "It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinions; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
-----

With all this talk about a recession of US economy in the air, it seems like a good time to draw some parallels between economy and friendship. Even though the word “recession” is mostly used in connection with economy, Encarta states that it is “the process of going back or becoming more distant”. US economy is designed to expect a recession once every few years. A recession is meant to be a time when people get a reality check. It is the reminder that “there is a valley for every mountain”. When the economy is normally moving up, everyone is happy and start taking things for granted. We start losing our senses and finally one fine morning, we hit the peak and start the descent when we are not expecting it. Same holds true with friendships. When people get close to each other, there is always a clip-off of the senses and they like to believe that everything will remain colorful for ever. And then, one day, the reality check appears in the form of a bump around the corner. Just as in the case of the economy, a recession could actually be a healthy bump for a friendship. It jolts you awake. For some, the friendship might not have meant anything in the first place, and so it is an opportunity to get out of the meaningless friendship and start looking beyond it. For sensible people in meaningful friendships, it is an opportunity to do their self-audits and review their portfolios and make sensible planning for the future. It works a lot like a recession in economy – if the friendship survives the recession, it actually grows further and gets more meaningful. Most successful, beautiful friendships have gone through many recessions and seasoned well..... like good wine!