Dialogues

DNA

2007-11-19T02:55:00.000-05:00

"Its not my fault! I was born this way" -now it seems that one might be able to verify this! Read more here

Hymn of Creation - Rgveda

2007-11-17T05:13:00.000-05:00

Then even nothingness was not, nor existence.
There was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it.
What covered it? Where was it? In whose keeping?
Was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed?

Then there were neither death nor immortality,
nor was there then the torch of night and day.
The One Wind breathed windlessly and self-sustaining.
There was that One then, and there was no other.

At first there was only darkness wrapped in darkness.
All this was only unilluminated water.
That One which came to be, enclosed in nothing,
arose at last, born of the power of heat.

In the beginning desire descended on it—
that was the primal seed, born of the mind.
The sages who have searched their hearts with wisdom
know that which is its kin to that which is not.

And they stretched their cord across the void,
and know what was above, and what below.
Seminal powers made fertile mighty forces.
Below was strength, and over it was impulse.

But, after all, who knows, and who can say
whence it all came, and how creation happened?
The gods themselves are later than creation,
so who knows truly whence it had arisen?

Whence all creation had its origin,
he, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not,
he, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
he knows—or maybe even he does not know.

Rice or otherwise!

2007-11-14T06:14:00.000-05:00

Test your word power here...its fun and it helps.

Book-A-Minute Classics

2007-11-14T05:16:00.000-05:00

Romeo and Juliet

By William Shakespeare

Ultra-Condensed by Taran Horter

Romeo

Oh, Juliet!

Juliet

Oh, Romeo!

Romeo

Oh, Juliet!

Juliet

Oh, Romeo!

Romeo

Oh, Juliet! (dies)

Juliet

Oh, Romeo!......Romeo?......Dammit.

THE END

More here.

Et tu, Brute?

2007-11-14T04:43:00.000-05:00

I've begun to feel that intelligence in humans is a little over-rated. I recently read this article on 'swarm intelligence' and it turns out that ants and birds behave better in groups than we do!

And then its reported here that monkeys tend to rationalize just like humans! So when accusing Brutus of taking a decision and then trying to rationalize it, we need to remember that any monkey in his place would have done just the same.

Ratatouille

2007-07-28T11:31:00.000-04:00

"They’re surprisingly self-aware. They laugh when tickled, especially when they’re young, and they have ticklish spots; tickle the nape of a rat pup’s neck and it will squeal ultrasonically in a soundgram pattern like that of a human giggle. Rats dream as we dream, in epic narratives of navigation and thwarted efforts at escape:..."

Brecht: Galileo's universe

2007-03-02T21:57:00.000-05:00

Read this in the the Hindu's literary review:

In the first version, (written in the 1930s against the background of the rise of fascism) Galileo was a hero and a martyr (even if a fallible one): under pressure, he renounces what he knows to be the truth....What is brilliant is that the unbearable tension is overcome, as it must be in life, by a specific distortion: a compromised life extended until it is a false but effective consciousness. Galileo had asked: "Could we deny ourselves to the crowd and still remain scientists?"
...
The second version of the play, written in the 1940s, resonates from the dropping of the atom bomb and the revelations of the excesses of Stalinism...Science for its own sake was meaningless — its point was not "to open the door to infinite knowledge but to put an end to infinite error". One day, Galileo predicts the gap between science and mankind will yawn so wide that "your cry of triumph at some new discovery will be echoed by a universal cry of horror".
...
"Disbelief can move mountains", Brecht says elsewhere, and the pleasure and pain of doubt occur everywhere in the subtext in the play. "Galileo" is "an optimistic tragedy", if you can learn how to doubt the "big shots". "Unhappy is the land that has no heroes," says a follower when Galileo recants. "No," says Galileo, "Unhappy the land that needs heroes."

Great Thoughts

2007-02-02T21:43:00.000-05:00

" “He thought it was a job where he could just think great thoughts, but it didn’t turn out that way.”
.
.
Ah, I thought, that is wisdom for the ages. Who among us wouldn’t want a job where we could just sit and think great thoughts? "

Read this interesting article Spectrum recently .

Listen Ahoy...

2006-05-21T11:33:00.000-04:00

I've just heard a wonderful discussion between Salman Rushdie and Amartya Sen about the ideas in Sen's book the "Argumentative Indians" ... It was a really entertaining and fascinating talk, do listen on here...

Two poems

2006-02-12T09:59:00.000-05:00

I found two poems by Emerson, Brahma and Hamatreya both have their sources in the Hindu scriptures.

The Earth's Song in Hamatreya is nice, especially

'They called me theirs,
Who so controlled me;
Yet every one
Wished to stay, and is gone,
How am I theirs,
If they cannot hold me,
But I hold them?'

and this from Brahma

'If the red slayer think he slays,
Or if the slain think he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.'

The notes to these poems, in the attached links, are also interesting.

*p.s: I was running the spell check on this post and the program kept wanting to replace 'Brahma' with 'brainy' and 'Hamatreya' with 'amateur'!

Harold Pinter, Nobel laureate for literature

2005-12-09T20:52:00.000-05:00

Watched the video of his speech and was very shaken. He got me thinking about what the truth is in any conflict? Are the views portrayed in the media the right ones? I guess there might be a slice of distorted truth in everyone's opinion, but again which slice?

The speech prompted me to watch "Alsino and the Condor"- a Nicaraguan film depicting the conflict that Pinter talks about. The film was a little confusing but bloody and dramatic.

Cannery Row

2005-11-30T08:53:00.000-05:00

The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.

-Steinbeck, 1965

Anger

2005-11-06T10:28:00.000-05:00

When a long road rocks one to sleep,
ain't it the bump that jolts us awake.
Ain't the rose more so for the thorn
and the lily little too forlorn!
Anger is our Sun making
Joy the moon brighter with its presence.

Do we not recognize in anger
the fury of the smiths fire that forged us?
It is the weak that get consumed by their wrath,
but is the liquor to blame for the drunk?
Anger is but the minds fire, clearing
the undergrowth for a brighter thought.

*inspired by Chandu's "Anger"

Jesus of Montreal

2005-10-22T21:10:00.000-04:00

How does one recommend a good movie? Do I just say watch it and hope that the other person takes my word? Or do I say its the best movie I've ever seen with an amazing story and that it won an Oscar? But again if I create such a ruckus about the film isn't there the danger of over expectations and in the end be put off by the slow paced recreation of the "Passion" story that it is!

Or maybe I'll tell them a little of the script: Its about a church in Montreal that hosts a play based on the events leading upto the crucification of Christ. But the "passion" being a well known story attracts smaller crowds every year. So the theater loving catholic pastor hires an upcoming actor to modernize play, and that's when the drama begins.

Now now before you place the movie in the proselytizing slot, I should probably tell you that one of actors in the play is a voice for porn stars, the actress an "ass" model and that the pastor sleeps around!

So that's what the movie is about, do try watching it.

*Click on the title of the post for better reviews

I'm better than you are

2005-10-04T07:49:00.000-04:00

Then...

My pencil is sharper than yours.

I can throw a stone farthest.

I've got highest in Math.

I can hit a sixer in your bowling.

.
.
.
I'm studying at the best coaching center.

I know all about cricket.

I have a moped.

I talk to girls in my class.

Now. . .

I have a bike, cell phone and a girlfriend.

I attended fewer classes than anyone.

I don't study . . . at all.

I know more people than anyone.
.
.
.

I've got funding, car and a girlfriend.

I've forgotten how to study.

I get paid more for doing less.

I've got an accent.

Later . . .

I've got a green card.

I get paid even more.

I've got a better deal on my car and house.

My kids are smarter.

Another day, another year

2005-08-16T21:56:00.000-04:00

Its another independence day gone by, and the idea of independence or rather the lack of it never seemed further away. As the years go by our fad for the present and the future keeps us occupied and the past is bundled away to be argued over on a drunk weekend. Hasn't the idea of freedom has become boring the moment the majority of the world has begun to enjoy it?, but again isn't that democracy?

( What about economic freedom? Aaah ...but how about putting it away until the requisite number from the developed world have perished defending it! Its the future's past and too early to whimper.)

[p.s: This was on the draft board when I read vidya's blog and thought it was time to publish.]

2005-06-07T08:18:00.000-04:00

From a review of "Letters of Thomas Mann" in The Hindu:

There is a great deal of correspondence with critics, editors, columnists and professors who kept up his reputation yet were ready to pounce on him if he failed to live up to their literary, political or moral expectations. Mann's responses show that he had a great deal more integrity than other "greats" who succumbed to the powerful and the influential. How much easier, he reflects, it was for unrecognised geniuses like Stendhal or Italo Svevo to say exactly what they thought and felt! Because it did not matter: no one gave a damn what they wrote, except for a few close friends. Failure in one's lifetime can be a kind of luck, as long it does get you down permanently!

The right answer

2005-06-06T17:53:00.000-04:00

I was thinking about extending a blog to a diary where I can write about how much I love and hate everyone, and I wanted it to be accessible to the world. But the catch is that since its very personal, I don't want anyone I know to read it. One way around it was to be anonymous, but another possible solution that occurred was to have a password which all the people I know will be forced to answer right and the rest will get it wrong and can thus access my dairy (i.e. the wrong answer is actually the "right" one).

So the problem statement became "Do people who know the right answer always know the wrong answer?". Intuition immediately let out an emphatic "Yes", but I began to wonder ...

(An alternate problem statement would be "Does there exist a question with the property that knowing its correct answer does not necessarily mean one knows the wrong answer?")

An extract from a review

2005-05-02T09:07:00.000-04:00

I was reading a review of Saul Bellow's Dangling Man in the Hindu and this caught my eye

"In Dangling Man it seems as if Bellow was testing the saying of Socrates that the unexamined life was not worth living. Apparently, he finds the examined life funny too. Some like Joseph cannot find the life they are going to examine. The power of public life had become so vast and threatening that private life cannot have a space or identity of its own. There was no way Joseph could join mainstream American life except by falling in line with the rest of the boys.

A question nevertheless remains. Joseph is something. What is he? And this question, Bellow implies, modern writers have answered poorly. They assume that they know, as they conceive that physics knows or that history knows. The soul is not knowable; it is a mystery that increases, not grows less, as you read more and more to know less and less."

Holey land

2005-04-26T09:51:00.000-04:00

Kids playing around open holes, jumping over them, walking around them or pushing others towards them. As they play, once in a while, someone falls in. That's part of the game too, and makes things a lot more fun.
As time goes by, there are a lot fewer guys playing around. As the 'remain'ers stop to count , they remember all the friends that are gone and this immediately makes the hole bigger, and the land around it slope towards it. And it gets a lot more difficult to stay away from it. So what was until now only a game gets a lot more serious.
Meanwhile, a few , probably realizing the futility of the effort, let go and tumble into it and some even dive in, head first. All of this adds to the weight and the land slopes further and it gets all the more difficult to hang on.
But there are always a few who hold on, and notice with time that the pull varies, and that once beyond a time threshold, it slowly begins to wane. As the force gets weaker, they keep taking longer breaks from the game and at some point they realize that the game has lost its charm . Soon the hole disappears, only a few trees to show where it once ruled.

All about my mother

2005-04-17T14:27:00.000-04:00

A good movie by Almadovar. Streches the limit on the things we tend to accept in society, but the sensitive observation of life is beautiful.

"When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended solely for self-flagellation."
-A quote in the film from "Music for Chameleons" by Truman Capote

A impromptu stand up performance from the character who plays a prostitute is great.

A story's end

2005-04-05T18:11:00.000-04:00

"...I have a little story to tell that I end neither with death or marriage. Death ends all things so is the comprehensive conclusion of a story, but marriage finishes it very properly too and the sophisticated are ill advised to sneer at what is by convention termed a happy ending. It is a sound instinct of the common people which persuades that with this all that needs to be said is said. When male and female, after whatever vicissitudes you like, are at last brought together they have fulfilled their biologicalfunction and interest passes to the generation that is to come. ..."

-The Razor's Edge ,

W.S.Maugham.

Winds of change

2005-03-08T15:43:00.000-05:00

The destination is in sight and the path clear, and now all thats left to do is get there. I take a step and then another, but I get nowhere. Newton, being his troublesome self, is right- a change of state has to have a force.
This realisation doesn't help , it frustrates , so I run and shout and swear only to end up in a spiral, which in this place without perspective is no different from being stationary!

Electricity!

2005-02-28T09:30:00.000-05:00

I get up early this morning, and in the dark begin looking for my towel in the tub of clothes fresh from the laundry. I find the towel right next to a pair of polyester pants and both of these were highly charged with static current. The moment i touch them, I had a mini lightning show going on, all in my hand! Was really amazing!

Movies Ahoy!

2005-02-26T23:06:00.000-05:00

Heres the list of movies i keep talking about...in no apparent order.....they are not your everyday movie for sure, so take them in slowly one every two weeks or so!

Kolya-Czech....abt a cute li'l kid

Amelie-French...abt a lonley gal settin her life right

Burnt By the sun-russian.........Stalinist Russia ...set in a small village with a funny old familiy

Moscow Does not believe in Tears-russian.......travails of a single succesful lady in communist moscow.

Raise the red lanthern-chinese........young gal gets to be the 4th wife of rich chap!...

wow, these one line reviews tell so much of the story but so little abt the movie itslef!

Life is beautiful-italian

Belle Epoque-spanish-can't recall too well, but think its a funny abt four sisters seducing a young deserter!

Antonia's line-think it might be italian -abt a strong single lady who does what she wants to do, and raises daughters who do the same!
My sweet little village-russian-abt the village idiot!

Cinema Paradiso-italian...story of a boy who grows up to be a movie director

children of heaven-Iranian-brother looses his sis's shoes so tries to win a pair in a race

Run lola run-german- as opposed to others this ones fast.......sit with it...u just might like it a lot

Three colours-French-its actually 3 different movies-i've seen red and blue........both are great....blues got better music though

Il postino-italian-on pablo neruda's love poems!

Mediterraneo -italian-abt finding paradise or maybe a greek island!

Fiddler on the roof-russian -made in english too-'the last one may just be the best'!

Think i've got all the good ones that i've seen so far! Now its up to you to watch them

Heres where i get to know abt these films!
Academy award nominations databose for foreign films
(Feb,2005)

Forces and motion!

2005-02-21T16:54:00.000-05:00

If the beginning was difficult, its even more so to begin again! The names been changed to to spell out the intentended meaning! (Chandu tried various perversions with the "analsoran", and when none fit thought there was a typo!)
Vidya's got a blog too at yadbhavishya.blogspot.com. We've begun rolling and let's see what we gather!

The beginning

2004-12-14T01:25:00.000-05:00

A li'l addition to the noise on the net.