लिखित हिंदी से मेरा लगाव पाठशाला के दिनों ही समाप्त हो गयी थी । परंतु आज तक मुझे मेरे पाठ्य पुस्तक कि कहानियाँ याद हैं । काश कि मैं उन दिनों कि तरह आज भी काहानि पड़ पाता ।
कल मैंने एक नया iPhone 4 ख़रीदा । उसमें हिंदी लिखने और पड़ने कि प्रक्रिया इतनी सरल थी कि मैंने हिंदी पड़ने के साथ-साथ इन पन्नों पर लिखने का भी निर्णय लिया । शुरूआत मैं मेरे लेख ़अधुरे लगेंगे पर मेरा इसे सुधारने का सदा प्रयत्न रहेगा ।
लिखित हिंदी से मेरा लगाव पाठशाला के दिनों ही समाप्त हो गयी थी । परंतु आज तक मुझे मेरे पाठ्य पुस्तक कि कहानियाँ याद हैं । काश कि मैं उन दिनों कि तरह आज भी काहानि पड़ पाता ।
कल मैंने एक नया iPhone 4 ख़रीदा । उसमें हिंदी लिखने और पड़ने कि प्रक्रिया इतनी सरल थी कि मैंने हिंदी पड़ने के साथ-साथ इन पन्नों पर लिखने का भी निर्णय लिया । शुरूआत मैं मेरे लेख ़अधुरे लगेंगे पर मेरा इसे सुधारने का सदा प्रयत्न रहेगा ।
She looked all around the table. They were having dinner. However, the only two body parts involved was the right hand and the mouth. The left hand was holding a device. It was at such times she wondered how useful it would be if we still could eat with knife and fork. At the very least, these damned devices wouldn’t be on the dinner table.
Her husband of twenty five years was scrolling through his BlackBerry, probably catching up on office email. Her elder son was reading some book on his Kindle. Her younger daughter was busy texting someone furiously. In between, the daughter and son would look at each other and smile. The son or the daughter had probably exchanged a joke on Whatsapp. She too had a mobile phone but did not feel the compulsive need to be have her head stuck in front of her flat screen.
In the future, a doctor might probably diagnose her having a Screen Attention Deficit Disorder or something. She just could not stare at the screen for longer than a few minutes. She would then feel this urge to have a human to interact with.
As time passed on, she saw this spreading. More and more people on the bus she travelled on had their heads stuck in the screen. People in crowded buses had also begun the habit. Some even didn’t know who they were standing next to! Even at work, the friend she used to chat to wind down at work had also begun reading books on Google Play now!
It was everywhere. She had forbid the devices on her dinner table but when her husband had broken the rule, she could no longer enforce it on her children. She worried that her kids would grow up not noticing the birds and the bees, the flowers and the leaves. She felt she had the right to worry about this.
“Mom,” her son called out. He was looking at her and she realised that he had noticed the change in her expression as she went through her thoughts.
“You must write all what you thought about as a blog post.” Her son smirked knowing that he had followed her thought.
“If you put down your devices, I will tell you my thoughts.”
This may or may not be a true story.
I tied my shoes carefully, made sure that the knot was snug and then got up. I had forgotten the ear phones of my mobile phone. I switched on the tracking on my RunKeeper app and began walking from my building out to the outer ring road in my residential colony. I did this every morning.
I was irritated at having forgotten the ear phones. My right brain thought that this might be a good opportunity to look at the surroundings and take a fresh look at the environment around me. My left brain asked me to consider counting my steps. In the end, I just concentrated on walking as fast as I could.
A form emerged in front of me, which was at quite a distance. It was perhaps a girl, looking at the way she was dressed. My pace increased automatically. I was definitely not walking at my fastest pace. Now, I gained distance behind the girl. It was not as if once I catch up with her, I would ask for her number or ask her out for coffee or even breakfast. I just wanted to look at her. “Why?” wondered my left brain. “To appreciate beauty,” said my right.
I walked faster and faster, but as I gained on her, another form caught my eye. It emerged from the corner of my eye and was slowly but surely overtaking me. He was definitely older than me and when he looked straight at my face, I recognized him as my father. His look seemed to tell me, “I am twice as old as you are and yet I walk twice as fast as you do.” “You are just projecting your thoughts on him. I am sure this is not what he must be thinking,” said my right brain. I ducked to the side pretending to be tying my laces. By the time I was up, he had gone a good 200 meters ahead of me. At the turn he looked at me, glared and walked on.
I reset my target on the girl. By that time, though, a strange phenomenon happened. I felt some thing falling on my hand. Not crow shit, I hope. But it wasn’t. My eyes confirmed. It was water. My stride broke half way.
“This isn’t the monsoon. If I remember my eighth standard geography texts correctly, the monsoon is to hit Mumbai around June 10. This might be the pre-monsoon shower. Wish I had setup the rain gauge on the terrace..” the left brain was thinking when I cut it out.
Slowly the intensity increased. Other walkers were perplexed, not knowing what to do. This was a strange thing to happen and they had forgotten how they had walked during the monsoons last year. But, then again it didn’t rain all that much during the monsoons last year. Since I was walking under the canopy of trees, the full blast of the rain did not hit me. At least not yet.
“What a beautiful sight! The clouds had covered the Sun. It has darkened a little. People are so confused not remembering what they did. Wonder what photograph would appropriately capture this moment. The first rains!” the right brain was thinking when I cut it out.
I pulled out my phone and immediately tweeted out and sent a notification on Facebook. This came naturally to me. And then, one guy among the walkers remembered. He swerved to the side to the shelter provided by an overhanging asbestos sheet in front of a grocer’s. Then, as if everyone had an epiphany together, each one moved into the shelter. I noticed, with disappointment, the girl walking into the entrance of a nearby building as I ran a short distance under another asbestos sheet.
By the title, I did not mean the famous James Bond movie of the same name but something a colleague at work told me was his life philosophy. He described this philosophy to mean that he would never say “I will never…” in a sentence but would only respond in the negative to a given situation. What he means is that in another set of circumstances he might not have responded in the same way.
I, on the other hand have responded several times to situations by taking extreme stands. I either wholeheartedly agree or wholeheartedly oppose an idea or a course of action I am taking. This is true in situations where I am passionate about the subject. It doesn’t apply to my relationships with other people, though.
To give you an example, I quit Wikipedia late last year vowing never to return. I had issues with some members with the Indian English Wikipedia community members. I think I believed in the movement passionately enough to think that it would collapse if such individuals made up the movement. However, I soon re-joined Wikipedia realising that the movement was not defined by these few individuals besides how much I enjoyed actually editing it.
Late last week I announced that I would be quitting Twitter. I observed how my brother was caught up on his phone and how little attention he paid when my parents or I spoke to him. Sometimes, he did not even realise that we were talking to him. I envisioned myself as something even worse than that when I do this.
However, when I announce my intention of quitting, it is half hoping that announcing it will help me stick to the resolution of quitting a platform. The situation changes and makes it even more difficult for me to return because of the thought of my announcement of quitting a platform and how I would appear to people. It would seem to people that I am the sort of a person who makes decisions and does not stick to it. Not everybody might think like this but my perception of this being a thought process is so strong.
Which brings me back to why the philosophy of never say never again. I will try and not announce that I am quitting the platform. So, with that huge post, I am happy to report that I am back on Twitter!
By the title, I did not mean the famous James Bond movie of the same name but something a colleague at work told me was his life philosophy. He described this philosophy to mean that he would never say “I will never…” in a sentence but would only respond in the negative to a given situation. What he means is that in another set of circumstances he might not have responded in the same way.
I, on the other hand have responded several times to situations by taking extreme stands. I either wholeheartedly agree or wholeheartedly oppose an idea or a course of action I am taking. This is true in situations where I am passionate about the subject. It doesn’t apply to my relationships with other people, though.
To give you an example, I quit Wikipedia late last year vowing never to return. I had issues with some members with the Indian English Wikipedia community members. I think I believed in the movement passionately enough to think that it would collapse if such individuals made up the movement. However, I soon re-joined Wikipedia realising that the movement was not defined by these few individuals besides how much I enjoyed actually editing it.
Late last week I announced that I would be quitting Twitter. I observed how my brother was caught up on his phone and how little attention he paid when my parents or I spoke to him. Sometimes, he did not even realise that we were talking to him. I envisioned myself as something even worse than that when I do this.
However, when I announce my intention of quitting, it is half hoping that announcing it will help me stick to the resolution of quitting a platform. The situation changes and makes it even more difficult for me to return because of the thought of my announcement of quitting a platform and how I would appear to people. It would seem to people that I am the sort of a person who makes decisions and does not stick to it. Not everybody might think like this but my perception of this being a thought process is so strong.
Which brings me back to why the philosophy of never say never again. I will try and not announce that I am quitting the platform. So, with that huge post, I am happy to report that I am back on Twitter!
Reading scholarly papers is not a hot subject among youth in India. By this, I mean that nobody reads these papers “for fun”. The idea of reading scholarly works for fun seems like a strange pass-time to have. This is one of my pass-times that I let pass under the broad category of reading. This is not something that I can share on goodreads.
Rating and reviewing scholarly papers is difficult compared to works of fiction. For one, scholarly papers are works of non-fiction. They are written more for a specific audience than for the general populace. I had a habit of reading scholarly papers in astronomy through Current Science, a publication of the Indian Academy of Sciences besides the Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Once I started working in Bharuch, this was a habit I could not carry on. I replaced it instead by watching videos on YouTube on my mobile phone or listening to podcasts.
Once back in Mumbai, I have now started reading the Economic & Political Weekly, published out of Mumbai. The May 4 edition of the Weekly has an interesting paper titled Caste and Gender in a Mumbai Resettlement Site [the paper will go behind a firewall in about 4 weeks]. The paper is by Varsha Ayyar at the School for Labour Studies in the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. The paper is principally concerning the role that gender and caste play in the rehabilitation of slums to a particular location in Lallubhai Compound, Mankhurd, Mumbai. People were moved to the spot around 2005 onwards from different parts of the city under several projects meant to improve conditions for Mumbaikars.
The relocation is still an ongoing process. Yet, the people who have been relocated have not been given basic amenities. Despite being able to plan where these people were to be re-located, this was not done. This also does not get coverage in the local media, much less national newspapers.
People from various localities of Mumbai and different castes were all put together in a close space without amenities and with poor infrastructure and were expected to exist here. Throughout the paper, there were allusions to slums being better than these buildings – 72 5 stories buildings. The poor infrastructure was a story in itself. Added to this were the dynamics of caste and religion which get hightened in such close quarters.
What is interesting in this paper is that mention is made of particular NGO which goes unnamed that has been working with the Compound, forming housing societies and what I understood to be self help groups which played a role in the power politics in the Compound through supporting certain castes over others.
Do read the paper, which delves more into how caste and gender are shaped in the Compound caused by forced displacement. Also, found this interesting photographic work on the Lallubhai Compound on the web.
In a recent public lit fest, Sidin Vadukut announced his intention of writing a book on Indian history. In reply to an audience question, he described an Indians typical understanding of history as being one where India had this golden period, that was disrupted by the Mughals and then another smaller golden period disrupted by the British and now of being a country headed again towards a golden period. I confess that this had been my view of Indian history too.
This changed fundamentally first when I read an article by Sanjay Subrahmanyam in the Outlook. Following this, I watched a video on YouTube video of a talk that Subrahmanyam gave. In it he outlines various perceptions that different peoples had depending on the various routes that people took to get to India. My own perception is that this influenced greatly our history. Our history is not extraordinary. It is simple and straightforward.
With this new insight in the back of my head, I have begun re-reading Ramchandra Guha’s book India After Gandhi. The book I am looking forward to next is Ananya Vajpeyi’s The Righteous Republic. Whilst waiting for Sidin’s book, I am currently enjoying his podcast series, A New Republic, around the history of the Indian Constitution. All three play with timelines beginning with the Indian Constitution, before or after it. As we celebrate the birth anniversary of it’s architect, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, it is time, perhaps to take another look at Indian history through a new glass.
This post on this blog is a stock taking stop.
I was writing on my own personal blog, pradx.me until recently. That platform was hacked by Bangladeshi hackers (or rather crackers). This made me feel uncertain of doing a self hosted blog. I need to learn more about backing up my spread out blog posts over several platforms onto a single one. I chose blogger.
Over the past few days, I moved all of my posts from various platforms onto Blogger. I continue to make this move till date. I want to eventually move all of my posts onto pradx.me. But, not before making sure that I can do all the things needed to secure my blog posts from being lost to posterity. Till then, I will continue to post here.
Unlike many others in my generation I learnt to drive a car much before I could drive a motorbike. I perhaps a missed a vital stage of growth because of this. There is a culture and a group of friends that I couldn’t become part of because I did not ride or own a motorbike when many of them did. I drowned out any disappointment I felt of not belonging by taking up my astronomy and space activities up a notch.
I yearned for a motorbike again only when I read Robert M Pirsig in his book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, said thus:
You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you’re always in a compartment, and because you’re used to it you don’t realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You’re a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.
On a cycle the frame is gone. You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it any more, and the sense of presence is overwhelming. That concrete whizzing by five inches below your foot is the real thing, the same stuff you walk on, it’s right there, so blurred you can’t focus on it, yet you can put your foot down and touch it any time, and the whole thing, the whole experience, is never removed from immediate consciousness.
We recently got a motorcycle in my name – the Bajaj Discover 100 cc. It was purchased with the idea of intracity commute. It also partly fulfilled the purpose of certain reimbursements I would get from the bank.
I know how to switch gears and ride the motorcycle in a straight line. I can also take the straightforward turns that present themselves on the road. The trouble arises once I stop and have to start again. Knowing the traffic conditions in Mumbai, you would understand that this is not a good situation to be in, at peak hour traffic. No matter how much I try this impediment has not passed yet. I am still working on it.
One of the first places that I want to go to on a motor cycle is the Yusuf Meherally Center on the Mumbai-Goa highway. After that, I don’t really have any other place to go. But, this is a good thing to motivate myself to learn to drive a motorcycle.
Parallel Spirals 