Parallel Spirals

Standing on the shores of space-time…

Blog

  • Motorcycles

    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.

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  • Holi

    Today, the whole nation celebrated the festival of Holi. I didn’t. It’s not like I was taken in by these initiatives that called for a water free holi this time keeping with the record drought situation prevailing in many parts of Maharashtra right now. It’s just that I have never played/participated in Holi. I find the idea of colouring others faces and throwing balloons at each other rather odd and crazy.

    I have never played Holi. As a kid, I used to remain holed up asking my parents to make up excuses for not having to go out and play. I have escaped Holi’s persecution with colours thus far. I hope to stay away from it as far as possible.

    In the meanwhile, conserve water on other days as well.

  • How do you do?

    There are three ways to do something. You either try things out youselves. Experiment or play around with it. It strangely comes to you. You are never sure that that is the correct method. However, you can keep doing it functionally. The second is to be taught by someone else. This is mostly how trade practices are passed on from one generation to the next. The last is that you refer to a guidebook on the subject.

    Like many people I have experienced the first two methods to learn to do things. I am just not the type of person to sit and read a guidebook about how to do things before I set about doing things. I am trying to inculcate this habit now. Might be useful.

  • Running and Cattle

    I have started running a small distance every alternate day in March. I set a very slow speed and run. It was embarrassing for me earlier to run this way. For one people looked at you in an odd way. It was not encouraged unless you were running for sports on sports day or running between wickets. Now, though, trends have changed. Everyone runs. People look at you in an odd way because you’re not running.

    People of all ages equipped with their mobiles, their fancy running shoes and gadgets hooked to themselves run and sweat it out in the early morning. I walk most of my rounds and finish with a nice jog.

    I start rather awkwardly. Once I begin catching a certain pace, I find it hard to maitain it. I feel a constant push to run faster. My lungs and heart begin to start pumping expecting this. I use my breath to control this urge and both seem disappointed. The run ends rather awkwardly too. The disappointment of the hearts and the lungs translates into me catching my breath and panting when I finish. I sweat profusely. For those brief minutes in the middle, though, I feel exhilaration.

    I am avoiding pushing myself to run a greater distance this month. In April, I will increase my distance a bit longer. And if I feel like writing about it here, I probably might.

    **

    In the evening the wild cows grazing on the side of Vihar Lake descend to the gates of the NITIE complex. These cows seem to enjoy harassing shopkeepers that have sprung up around the gate. This is the old gate though. The new one has been pushed back. The cows and bulls graze on gunny sacks of potatoes and onions outside provision stores. Probably for religious reasons, some even feed them.

    I can imagine the cattle being stunned when they see so many people in what was once their grazing grounds. Where did these guys come from, their eyes ask, if you ever look at them.

  • Hello World!

    The last revision of this blog was lost to an episode of hacking. Poor security and lack of backups mean that I pretty much lost all my blog posts in the interim period other than their existence on Google’s cache. So, this continues from my previous blog here.

    Just to bring you upto speed on my offline events. I quit my job in Bharuch and moved back to Mumbai. I work in a bank here.

    I spend most of my time working online and offline on Wikipedia related stuff. I am the GLAM SIG for the Wikimedia India Chapter.

  • I’ve Moved!

    I’ve moved to my own domain. You can find it here.

  • Book Review: The Demons of Chitrakut

    I tarried a little before I wrote this review because of several reasons. I roamed around a bit and was otherwise occupied reading the next version of this book.

    I found two things about this book very disconcerting. One was the time jumps that this book took. The second was that the story seems to be slowing down. The time jumps were rather disconcerting because it happened in single paragraphs. I would have tarried a little more and filled a few words in to let the reader take some time to sink in the passage of time. Given, that the author was not trying to fit the Ramayana in a single book, I think he could have done so.

    Also, the narrative seems to be slowing down in this edition of this book. Given the speed of the narrative in the previous few books, it almost seems as if the author suddenly realised that if he maintained the same narrative speed he would not have 6 books to write that he promised the publisher. Suddenly, the slowing down of the narrative means that I enjoyed the book a little less taking time to understand the change in the pace of the narrative.

    Overall, while I am still enjoying reading the series, I wish he would maintain the narrative speed. I am looking forward reading the next book in this series and hope that the narrative speed returns in the next book in the series.

    Review: 3/5

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  • Book Review: The Master As I Saw Him

    I wanted to finish this book early because it diverged from one of the ideas I have been recently considering with respect to books that I read. I want to read the books of authors who are still living. I am happy that I did so.

    The book is in the form of several jottings of Sister Nivedita on the various aspects and teachings of Swami Vivekananda. The number of personal insights are few and far between and then too is clouded by the admiration that the Sister holds her Master in. It’s a nice summary study of the teachings of Vivekananda and can be used as one, in my opinion.

    Rating: 3/5

  • Book Review: Who Let the Dork Out? (Dork Trilogy #3)

    November 19, 2012
    11:26 pm

    Dear diary,

    Today I finished that book that was written by that dude Sidin who thinks of himself as if he is representing all Malayalees. What gives him that right, I ask? He is no representative of Malayalee culture living all that distance away in bleddy London and all.

    I brought this book from the Kitab Khana bookstore in Mumbai when I had gone there on Diwali vacation. Srinivas uncle was waiting outside for some time so I had to leave quickly. I had told him I had spent two and half hours in that bookstore. Coming out with nothing in hand makes sense to bookworm like me but not to him who do not understand the economics of spending time at a bookstore instead of bleddy buying and reading the book. Being in Bharuch also means that I can download nothing but email over the Internet. So, I brought this book.

    Srinivas uncle eyed me suspiciously when he saw the book that I had purchased but I diverted his attention by asking him about idli sambhar at that udipi joint opposite Bombay House.

    Anyway, I am writing here to tell you about the book.

    It was good in some places. It was bad in other places. It was okay in all places. He was just showing off writing Malayalam words in English all over the place. Ente Devame.

    He is just publishing someone’s diary just like that. Now I am really afraid if he publishes my diary like this also. And I have password protected my computer and you also diary. But what if Sidin is hacker or something or Anonyomous. Who knows? And then making money.

    But I identify with his humour in some places and I like it. Sometime Malayalam words only are the best way to express ones truest feelings. First time I read acknowledgements section in the book also and liked it. He is totally funny.

    In some places he exaggerates a bit and that makes me slightly mad only. Too much it is. Would I recommend this book to others – yes. So, that they can also suffer and we can all laugh about it over a can of beer. I will, ofcourse, be having a can of Coca-Cola.

    Hmm. Must work on that book I was writing. How about if I publish you diary saying it was written by somebody else? No? Okay.

    Rating: 4/5

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  • Toilets

    Toilets, especially public toilets in India have been a subject of discussion recently. Bill Gates’ and his foundation want to work on sanitation in India. Office toilets in India have moved to western commodes with people having no idea whatsoever on how to use it – especially the men (I cannot speak for the women, as I have no anecdotal or direct evidence :) ). I prefer the Indian toilet although have very rare access to one. The New York Times’ carried an article today on a campaign called Right to Pee, urging government officials to let women pee for free. This led me to want to write this blog post.

    I cannot speak for the women, but the men’s room of most public toilets I take a look at in Mumbai are horrible. I wonder why we pay the INR 2/3 that we do for the use of the facility. It would be interesting to collect data on how much a public toilet facility earns on average. I have not searched for such data, if it were available. But, I understand from the above article that activists are first trying to figure out how many toilets do exist. Similar efforts are on in Mumbai too, it would seem. So, I am extrapolating that the above required data is absent.

    A public toilet provides the following facilities – water supply, lighting and exhaust fan (generally one – generally not working, but let’s assume it’s working) as well as a mug in an Indian toilet. There usually is no flush facility. The usual cleaning process involves cleaning the floors with a mop with phenol locally sourced. The toilets are then flushed several times with water aping the flushing process. This is usually done just twice a day. There seems or there is no such treatment for the men’s urinal. I’ve only seen the flushing process being done once in a men’s urinal. What goes untouched in the process are the paan stains on the wall, which give the men’s room its stench other than the urinal which adds to the stench there. Broken tiles and ceramic are usual. You usually don’t get good mugs and most people seem to not know how to use the toilets.

    So, before anything else. We just need better public education or awareness on how to use a toilet (not just a public toilet), better and cheaper disinfectants and enforce the no tobacco/smoking in the public toilets rule. On the Right to Pee campaign above, I think the men’s urinal must be recognized as a part of the toilet, charged for and kept clean through water flushing and use of disinfectants and unclogged drain pipes. Once this is done, Bill Gates and others are welcome to work on improving sanitation, etc.