Tradition and Vogue..

Unlike most instances of reminding myself a million times and finally not attending, I made it to the Indian classical music concert this time. And the experience was, I have to say, every bit, rewarding. Well, almost. The artists (Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi and Pravin Godkhinidi) were of great fame and performers par excellence. For those moments when I wandered off from the surroundings into my own thoughts or blank nothingness, I pondered, did I, or not, fit into this half empty hall of audience. Apart from the restless kids who were bribed with a camera or doodling apparatus to keep shut, I bet I was the youngest in the crowd (Believe me, I am not as young as I look). Was it the weather, publicity or the genuine disinterest among the young crowd, not sure. But enough people didn't turn up, and those who did were, on an average, twice my age.

I satisfied myself with the following explanations. Any others are welcome. Despite the versatility and depth of classical music, it lacks style. More appropriately, its not hip. I was eager about the concert because it was a Carnatic-Hindustani Jugalbandi. Jugalbandi in general, means performances involving two lead players on different instruments or genres albeit in sync. But the beauty often lies in the aggression in the fusion, to which the performers crescered, but not till the end. Modern and western, on the other hand, is high on tempo and caters to various moods other just soothing your soul.

Another aspect involves the getup. The act is mostly sedentary, and demands conduct. It might sound awkward if I suggest the artists to dress up more fashionably. Why not toss the kurta-pyjama and the ever irritating saree for a cool torn jeans and leather jacket for a change? I cannot imagine the sight of hippie like artists on the mridangam or tabla jumping around the stage, but I do the commend the likes of Bickram Ghosh and of course the gorgeous Corrs. For the unshaven and long hair looks they usually have, I guess they are a just step away from a makeover.

I am no big music critique or possess knowledge enough to judge the great ones and am posting this at the risk of inviting wrath from those who do. My intention is to express a common man's (not that I am that too) perception about this school of art.

Reversal of perceptions...

They say, you are innocent until proved guilty. I am surprised how a single incident or event can completely overturn your perception about an entity, living or otherwise. I shall quote a few examples off the top of my head. Readers are urged to leave more as comments.

To begin with, contrary to love, my experiences with first sight have been shattering. Do I need to proclaim, I am the king of goof-ups when it comes to the fairer(??) sex. It ends up being so disastrous that a millennium of makeup won't suffice.FML!! Women who are reading now, please try getting over it, even if it may not be just the first time.

On a more serious note, I am awestruck by how arranged (strategic sounds more appropriate for the ones involving dowry) marriages are acceptable to conservative Indians, especially the women. A girl who grows up preserving her virginity, staying away from men, agrees to lose it upon a short acquaintance with a stranger. Guys of course, have nothing much to lose.

I am frequently reminded of how parents start looking up to their children as mature and responsible on two specific occasions of their life. Once, when they start supporting themselves financially, and two, when they get married. I am sure nothing changed in me, physically or mentally, on the day I got my first job. Well...can't really comment on the marriage part.

This next example is classic and is inspired by an article I read somewhere. The female breast, normally considered a sexual object, ceases to be thought of thus, immediately after she becomes a mother. It is surprising how even when feeding in public, people look up to the woman as mother, a symbol of respect. Queer, but undeniably true.

Lastly, I am, and the people of Iran are happy the way things turned out with Ahmedinejad. The religious leaders lost their supremacy and respect they commanded. One single blunder by the Ayatollah brought them down. Man!! Only thing worse than mixing drinking and driving is probably mixing religion with politics.

All said and done, it is not my intention here to advocate (except possibly the first one) or oppose these reversal of perceptions. However, I do wish people could be more consistent with their thought process. Last thing I would hate to see, is the non-existence of Higgs boson (whatever reason they decided to call it "God" particle). Not that I really care about the particle physicists. For God's sake (;)) , at least, spare the grad students!!

The Demon Barber..

Either for lack of futuristic sci-fi ideas and/or clairvoyance, I like talking about incidences from my past. It does make me sound oldish and all, but who cares, it's my blog. As for the title of the post, the sole intention was to make it cool and catchy.

To all those who take pleasure viewing my once receding hairline, I, once, was the proud owner of long, curly lustrous hair (may not sound apt for a man, yet is true). Needless to say, I had the pleasure of making frequent visits to the barber shop. Well, it was not just the idea of getting a haircut but the whole process of waiting and aftermath that makes it attractive. Let me be shameless here, and state that, not only have I paid Rs.300 to experience in an upscale Mumbai 'unisex parlour', an unsatisfactory haircut, I have also stooped (by societal standards) to enjoy the brick seat, in front of tiny mirror hanging from the tree, on the roadside (often referred colloquially as 'Italian' saloon; Ita = brick in Hindi) for a meagre Rs.5 . Frankly, till this day, I might choose the latter over the former.

Apart from the extrema, an average saloon in my locality would generally be crowded only on weekends. All other days, it would be frequented only by the para (local) jobless youth, who could'nt do without admiring their beauty in the mirror and setting their hair for a picture perfect look, an umpteen times to lure the passing girls or the likes of fish vendors and bais (servants). For a person as busy as me, weekends were an inevitable choice (this was when I was still in school). Thankfully to counter the boredom while waiting in the queue, the saloon would be equipped with a 'mono'tonic radio or if lucky, I would get to watch Cable TV (signal stolen from a neighbour by hanging a hanger to the slit cable) on an obsolete b/w monitor. If that weren't enough one could always update themselves with the locality's 'week that wasn't' in a matter of minutes.

Finally, when it is my turn, I would sit on the princely throne capable of 3-d movement, draped by a never washed cloth, and wait for the chink-chink of the scissors to start (I am grateful to the person who compiled this audio). Close your eyes and experience the fingers and the scissor go past your ears and over your neck. Pure bliss!! To all those who grew up experiencing the electric trimmer, my heartfelt sympathies. Top it off with nice speshal smooth shave and a supreme massage for a small extra cost, end with a delicious breakfast of hing kachoris and jalebis (earned by selling a month's collection of newspaper) - watta lyf!!

To this day, I dread shaving on my own and going for a haircut to the barbers in the US ,thanks to the price I eventually pay, monetarily and figuratively, and wait till I grow my hair back to normal. Should I say, I miss India?

Sermon in the houz of gawd..

If you happen to know me well, and are wondering what on earth I was doing in a temple, I have my answers ready. I was doing whatever it takes to, fulfil a promise to myself - the one about spending every weekend of the summer fruitfully viz. accompanied by travel, good food and company. Though my intentions were earnest, see a new place, gobble some authentic food and get out early, I did not expect a bombshell in the form of a lengthy sermon dropped right on my head.

As for Mr.Priest, we made his day. Just as he was about dispense his wisdom to a mid to senior aged audience, he saw our bunch of innocent college going students walk right into trap. Perhaps, the best way to derive sadistic pleasure, is to broach a provocative topic to a physically and verbally bonded audience for whom the last thing desired on a nice Sunday afternoon is a lecture on an ideal marriage.

To cut a long story short, I will include a gist of his ideologies which itself exceeds the intended length of this post, when I started off.

1.He presumed the giant universal set of Indian marriages to be 'Arranged',which he fancily called 'Strategic'. In other words the set of 'Love' marriages was assumed to be null.

2.He totally rubbished the process of bride selection and rather justified groom selection. He advocated the girl's right to grill the guy during the process. Now this is something that I would hate to hear, given the real-life situation, where normally it is the girl who gets to choose (especially in the engineering streams), thanks to the ridiculoulsy disproportionate male-female ratios. As for the grilling part, do you think the post-wedding span so fleeting that you start off with the guys getting grilled?

3.He was against dowry system and wanted the groom's family to bear all the expenses of the wedding, contrary to the popular sensible (read: favorable to me) practice. Despite my progressive ideologies of 'equal opportunity', it is extremely difficult, even for me, to overcome such a lucrative system our society has established, especially at these times of recession. No doubt, I was annoyed.

4.To top it all, his theory suggested that for every virtue that a man did, half of it gets added to his wife's account. Further he gets to keep half the sins his wife commits. BS. Well, he was kind enough to enlighten us with how to get away with the sins. The best method was the process of 'Kanyadaan'- the process of giving away a daughter for marriage, which apparently resets one's sin counter to zero. If you do not have a daughter, adopt one to attain salvation not only for you, but for 21 generations to come. At this juncture, when I was yawning and thought I could take no more, our dear friend AS(S), had to ask a question- much like the nerdy Hermione Granger, who everyone hates.

He was'nt sure if he were a serial killer, would he be able to abluere his sins by Kanyadaan. The answer my dear friend is, if it was 21 generations back or forth benefiting from it, I am sure you are certainly covered. Thankfully enough, for going through the torture, we were aptly rewarded with yummy laddoo and not-so-bad free food.

To end with, however much I might have expressed disgruntlement above, he was doing his task of explaining scriptures, taught to him. He was a decent man and his intentions might have been simply to reform certain anomalies in the society, forced down the common man's throat mixed with honey in the form of religion. As for Mr.AS, no offense- my intention is just include some banter.

Pedagogy and Adda..

If someone asked me something about Bengal that he/she must know, I would suggest adda as one among its top ten. For those who are not aware of this 'way of life', It is remotely a reflection of dialectic thinking. Probably, thinking is, in a way, overstreching the meaning of the word. Well, the discussions of Socrates and Plato on the streets of Athens are definitely a far cry. Nevertheless, it has sufficient role in what I am and the way I think today.

No matter what you do (don't), in order to qualify as a Bengali, the least you have to be is a good eater and talker. Quite obviously, one is required to devote time, exclusively, to stand round the street corners and contribute to the discussions and arguements about news, views, politics, society etc. Usually, there is a 'dada' - the enlightened know-it-all to lead all topics and many a time the mediator and also the mitigator. For a socially shy individual as me, listening was more of my thing, and it is hard to deny that I enjoyed the conversations most of the time I spent in Kolkata, to an extent that I would reproduce the matter in a different circle, where I was the local know-it-all.

After I recieved my first degree, and having been in the company of people actually knowlegeable, the adda sessions, when I returned to Kolkata for vacations, seemed at the very best bizarre. Rather than staying away, I decided rather to indulge more into addas, with an intention to amuse myself, helping settle the meaningless bones of contentions.

Even though, it may directly or indirectly responsible for the economic backwardness of the state, I am inclined to advocate for the practice. If directed carefully, they do eventually contribute to the broadening of the mind, something, companies fancifully name 'brainstorming'. Not only are they, the cause of existence of numerous shops serving mouthwatering street food ( one of the few reasons I look forward to visit Calcutta), they do have at least 1% sense, which actually is significant, given the sheer volume of matter your head absorbs.

End it well..

The other day at lunch, I observed one of my friends, who had ordered a middle-eastern platter, eating in a pattern. He ate the salad first, and waited for the falafel till the end. One of the possible inferences might have been, his dislike for the item, one that would end up in the trash. Quite contrarily, I understood that the pattern reflected one of my practices since childhood. I used to bite the biscuit edge of the cream biscuit till only the creamy portion remained. To confirm my assumption, I asked him whether he always ate the tastiest items in the end. To my relief the answer was 'Yes'. The reason why I call this seemingly insignificant incident a behavioral pattern, is because, (as per my observation) people would generally fall into any one of these classes viz. ones who put good things off till the end and the others who would make the most of the present.

It is not really difficult to extend this observation to other facets of life. If I ever buy a new shirt, I wait for the perfect occasion to wear it. With a rather stupid approach, from my frame of reference, a roommate of mine would wear it the very day he brings it home. In a different walk of life, I try to solve the most difficult problem of a homework or a test first and enjoy the pleasure of finishing the easier ones near the deadline. Many do the opposite.

But what exactly is the nature undereath people of either category? I will begin with my approach first to make sure I remain consistent with my behavior. I assume that if good things are not yet over, I can look forward to something more exciting and pleasurable in future. That way, I can be eager about the upcoming future. Alas! I am constantly reminded of the exams where I screw up and regret not getting whatever points I could, by solving the easier problems, by making a foolish attempt to satisfy my ego. The other kind, with a  rather childish impatience, make the most out of the present, and in the process at least get to experience what is in hand. Despite my inherent nature, I fully support the other kind. As they say, " A bird in hand ......".

A few passing thoughts..

It has become obvious that my blogs have become similar to the current Family Guy and South Park episodes - delayed and without fresh ideas. But eventually this had to happen; people do run out of ideas and I request not to be blamed. But before I forgot, I thought it wise to pen a few passing thoughts. The gist of a must watch talk by another gentleman  Barry Schwartz. He talks about how people keep thinking over and regretting over the choices they made in the past - just because they had an option to choose . As a fleeting remark to your aid if you are one of them, " Every passing moment is an opportunity to turn things around" (Courtesy: Penelope Cruz @ Vanilla Sky).

In defense of the space programs (even though Chandrayaan might be reinventing the wheel, on diplomatic levels, people really do not wish to share technology or collaborate), just because we have problems on Earth it would be stupid for us stop looking elsewhere in space for a new residence. First thing, technology does not evolve overnight to work out if a problem surfaces (especially not people like Bruce Willis in Armageddon). Secondly, in analogy to the coexistence of the rich and poor, just because there are poor in the world, you dont expect the rich to give away their money to the poor, leaving noone rich (Come on! I am sure you were boasting when you saw three Indian billionaires on the Forbes cover).

On Slumdog's success, for all those who are, stop cribbing about showing India in poor light. You did not feel bad about Germans watching Schindler's List. Did you? And neither did you cry when the author wrote the book or (even The White Tiger). After all, give some credit to the awesome performance by those kids and other actors (You can leave Anil Kapoor aside if you wish ;) ). If you are the ones making noise that India(ns) won the Oscars, I am sorry none of you had much of a role in it. Overall, it was a good movie, have fun, and get over it. (FYI I really do not find any of the nominated movies really thought provoking. Alas! It is the usual Oscar story).

If you are an Indian reading this blog and have not seen Satyajit Roy movies, stop being a #$@& and start watching immediately. If you claim you have achieved a lot by watching Pather Panchali, unfortunatley for you, that was the least digestible of the whole lot. He was probably the most futurstic thinker and story teller of his time. Most of his ideas  may now sound normal, but were once radical. One that still strikes me, the one appreciating the tribals in Agantuk (The Stranger) aboutt what we actually got from them. Not just culture and history, but rather technology. Here we are, enjoying the luxury of experiencing super cool inventions of someone else, the tribals on the other hand are still living their stone ages and inventing stuff for themselves. A process that is lot cooler than saying, "I really would have invented something had all these stuff not been invented".

On a closing note, a friend of mine, asked me a question to which I could not give him a satisfactory explanation. (In fact, whoever else I asked gave me some arbitrary unconvincing reply). "How exactly did the British come to rule India?". Afterall, by our standards, they were just a handful. Something else that struck me recently, If it was the English the Americans fought against during War of Independence, (which makes them their enemies), how did they come to speak English (or whatever they claim it to be) all over the country? Kindly enlighten me.

On Education...

What inspired me to  after an extended hiatus was the TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson.  I am sure the idea cannot be put in better words than his, and hence I recommend the reader to watch it, rather than waste his/her useful time on the rest of this blog.

That, one is intelligent if he/she is academically sound was never acceptable to me. Nonetheless, despite regretting every move, I have tread on the path of regular education, a rather common one, with an objective of gathering wealth and hence be successful. Simply, because of the hope that once I could support myself completely, I would diverge. Not only would an education without one requiring to excel in mathematics or the languages would have been far more exciting, it would have provided the relatively idle mind, more time to venture into deciding what would be the best fit for him/her.

I am hoping his ideas will be implemented, and  promise I would not be ashamed to pursue what I wish to if it so happens, even if it means to sit in class with infants. As of now I am looking to get into archaeology and request readers to suggest ideas as to how I could venture into it from Mechanical Engineering.

Water and Ice...

It is one thing to relish the visual delight of seeing snow all around and another, to appreciate the scientific precision of nature. Who ever is doing the math in this case is really doing  a good job. This thought goes back to the early physics lessons during my high school. Unlike most other substances, the solid form of water is less denser than the liquid. Ya ya! I know you guys know this. But why? Had it been the other way, what could have gone wrong. Surely we might not have existed. At least not unless we had spared a billion more years for evolution to work. During the cold seasons, the top layer of water would freeze. But since it is lighter than water it would remain floating. Also, since it is non conducting, it would prevent any further heat transfer. Thus, allowing the water below to remain liquid.  The only reason why fish and other animals survive the sub zero. Had ice been denser, it would sink to the bottom and allowing more water on the top to be frozen and eventually the whole mass. Further, the ice at the ocean bed would never melt and kill all plants that maintain BOD levels. Consequently no living organism would have lived past the ice age. Certainly you wont be reading my blog today.

Lessons from India..

This blog is a compilation of a number of lessons India taught me on my first trip back home. Surprisingly, despite so many fruitful years of my life here, it is a realization that there are still infinite pages I am yet to turn over. On my quest to learn more about this country, I started watching, upon someone's suggestion, the BBC documentary by Michael Wood, "The story of India". Though it still projects India on a large scale, as a mystic land where there is a convergence, co-existence and preservation of primitive culture with the modern world, which I once strongly disagreed with, I am reminded of a conversation with a senior gentleman during one of my train journeys.

Perhaps the reason I love train journeys, apart from the fact that you get to kill time by staring out through the five bars of the window which separate one from the outside (which aeroplanes deprive you of), are meeting with interesting people. So, as this person in the adjacent coupe, started off with the usual 'gyan' about religion, current times and generation X, I could not stop my irritation from being conspicuous. Irrespective of what conversation we had, the gist to take home with was, that the ancient Indians have written numerous rules-each different for people with different professions (commonly misconstrued for a very long time as castes), that one should follow to lead a good life. On the outset, they sound no more than illogical and unscientific. Bingo!! That is exactly they wanted. For a common man, science, with so many inventions yet to be made, was no more than a taboo. So, they concocted a theory by mixing religion, which in one way, forced them to obey the rules-like it or not. The fortnightly fasting, on the new moons day, as he explained has actually to do with giving your stomach a day's rest from the junk one has been eating for the last two weeks. A better example is the one about the Bengali delicacy-Ilish or the Hilsa fish, one good interesting article I read in the otherwise worthless 'Outlook' magazine.

The Hilsa apparently is a fish so mouthwateringly tasty (which I cannot vouch for as I have never tasted one) because it lives in the delta region and travels from the sea to the river and back. It captures the unique flavor of both sea and river water fish. Religion did not allow the Bengalis from catching the Ilish during a particular period of the time of the year. The actual reason however is different. The peculiarity of the Ilish's behaviour is , that it travels from sea to the river during the forbidden fishing period to lay its eggs in the river. By the time they return, the ban is lifted so that one could catch the full grown fishes in plenty. Unfortuantely, the gen x does not believe in religion (:D) but neither is it totally equipped with the knowledge of science (:(). With disposable incomes stuffed in their wallets, they can afford the coveted Ilish throughout the year. So the fishermen catch them all the time irrespecive of whether they are travelling upstream or down. The result is the near extinction of Ilish. Before I people start judging me to be of one from the Gen (X-1) I would terminate this blog with the promise of updating my bloglist at the earliest with every new lesson learnt.