Ukodus

It’s the big day. I’m ready to take up the cudgels, after weeks of solid procrastination. So solid that a neutrino would slow down and kill itself rather than make an attempt at penetration. Breakfast was unhealthy- pakora with a slice of pastry. It hasn’t exactly done my stomach any favours but it’ll have to do. Lesser people have completed it under more daunting circumstances.

I need to secure the area.

I have a customary chit-chat with my next door neighbour. We discuss how Mourinho might get Pepe killed before leaving Real, that is of course if they lose La Liga (which they seem to at this point). I nod through the discussion and think of the classes I’ll encounter in the week to come, an excessively fruitless endeavour seeing that 4-2 in Chemical is a vacation in sheep’s clothing. The sun is out and we move in. I don’t have to worry about anyone visiting my room anytime soon.

It’s my moment of glory.

With a deep breath (very deep since I wanted this gust of oxygen to symbolize the gravitas of the occasion) and a quick prayer to the one above, I begin.

Five minutes in, I can afford a smile. A five star Sudoku and I’m three boxes down. I should now draw energy from my immeasurably large reserve of intellect and razor sharp decision making prowess. I should unsheathe my sword of purpose and kill the beast.

I start singing.

A minute in – I’m singing an MJ track in a falsetto which sounds very close to the original. If only I could thrust my pelvis in the same way- I see that something is very wrong. I’ve slowed down. I had been sailing through the puzzle with the winds of inspiration blowing me on. Looks like I’ve hit the doldrums. I need to regroup. Stick to the basics. Approach the most conducive of empty spaces and count. Everything that you’ll ever need to solve this infernal logjam is there in front of you. Don’t worry that it’s a five star puzzle and you’ve only ever solved a three star before taking on the ….

I am panicking.

It’s at moments like these when you need the weight of experience behind you. I knew what must be done. I pull my lappy towards me and open Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, xkcd and a dozen other standard web pages. There, that should take my mind off the tension of morale sapping defeat. Apparently the Wrestlemania battle royale between Cena and the Rock was fixed. Puh-lease, as if anyone outside the States didn’t know that. Just to make sure, I watch the link on Dailymotion anyway. Concentration is difficult to attain especially when you’re supposed to climb Nanda Devi with a pair of sneakers and low waist jeans (they might get you chicks (I doubt that) but what about Sherpa babes). I can’t allow my time to be desecrated when I have about five comic strips to go through and someone might just have retweeted my views on Coal India’s land acquisition policy. At the same time I don’t want a sea of guilt to wash over me all day. High tide. Low tide. So I keep an eye on the puzzle and try to find out if there’s a way to seek inspiration from an episode of Family Guy.

I hate myself.

In the end, after an hour of pointless jabbing (as pointless as cutting through Cautley bhawan’s rotis with an instrument as classless as your teeth), I still go on. I’m not joking. I’m not a coward and I pack up my focus. Genius is 99% perspiration. Ekla chalo re. This is my chance at redemption, a chance to make my four years at IITR all worth the lost sleep.

Until I realize I can blog on it instead.

Gods and War

For one who prides himself on having read the best books in every genre, it’s quite humbling to set your own words in motion on a piece of paper. It's difficult, to say the least. I wouldn't have put in half the effort if the process itself hadn't been so exhilarating. 

Standing on the shoulders of giants is all fine but who's going to get you up that high?

Virgil might just have felt the same. He is best known for his epic The Aeneid, which is a stunning account of the life of the hero and legendary progenitor of Rome, Aeneas (ee-nee-uhs). Our hero is a son of Venus and one of the very few Trojans to have survived the battle of Troy. The epic is the story of his journey of exile from his beloved motherland to the alien shores of Latinum (Italy).

'I myself, a stranger, in want, and driven
From Europe and Asia, now wander these Libyan shores'

While writing his magnum opus Virgil was working under a number of peculiar constraints. For one, he would have known that he was living under the shadow of the undisputed master of the epic form - Homer. The other was the more dicey aspect of narrating the story out to Augustus Caesar. One wrong word and you could land up in a pit full of lions. As a result, you see several gratuitous overtures being made to the regent which somehow only enhance the appeal of the final work. 

Virgil’s masterly understanding of the human psyche is marvellous. Aeneas is all that a hero can be, or has ever been. Driven into exile and almost shipwrecked he lands up in Libya only to fall in love with the queen of Carthage, Dido. Virgil seems to take his cue from the Antony-Cleopatra affair and predictably, Dido commits suicide when Aeneas must leave to fulfill his destiny.

Ah, pitiless Love, to what shifts dost thou drive men's hearts!

The second part of the story deals principally with a war that Aeneas is fated to fight to win the right to marry princess Lavinia and attain true legitimacy over the kingdom of Latinum (It was always about the girl, wasn't it?).

The gods feature prominently in the story and therein lies the irony of life. The victor and the vanquished pray alike. No person is actually evil; they are all working for what they believe is right. Virgil invites us to smile at the tragedy of life, the fragility of divine inspiration and the "tension between the public voice of celebration and the tragic private voice." Greatness is achieved but at the cost of deep personal sorrow.

Go read the book for its simply awesome war scenes. Virgil effectively paints a combination of Troy, Ben Hur and the Ten Commandments through the power of his words. I knew the entire story before beginning the book and despite that, I was hooked. It’s powerful stuff. Especially the insults.

'Broidered all over, your hearts are set upon sloth,
You love to join in the dance; your tunics have sleeves,
And your caps are fastened with ribbons. You Phrygian women-
No Phrygian men are you- begone to the heights
Of Dindymus, up there where the twofold mouths of the pipe
Utter music to those who love those familiar strains.
The tambourines and Cybele's boxwood flute,
The notes of the Mother of Ida are calling to you;
Leave fighting to men; abandon to others the sword.'

Before I wind this, I'd like to point out something interesting. People talk about an invisible wall between what is known as the rigid western philosophy and the softer, more diffused sense of eastern consciousness.

The following lines seem to suggest otherwise.

Don't read it. It's not necessary. 

‘Firstly, a spirit within them nourishes the sky and earth,
the watery plains, the shining orb of the moon,
and Titan’s star, and Mind, flowing through matter,
vivifies the whole mass, and mingles with its vast frame.
From it come the species of man and beast, and winged lives,
and the monsters the sea contains beneath its marbled waves.
The power of those seeds is fiery, and their origin divine,
so long as harmful matter doesn’t impede them
and terrestrial bodies and mortal limbs don’t dull them.
Through those they fear and desire, and grieve and joy,
and enclosed in night and a dark dungeon, can’t see the light.
Why, when life leaves them at the final hour,
still all of the evil, all the plagues of the flesh, alas,
have not completely vanished, and many things, long hardened
deep within, must of necessity be ingrained, in strange ways.
So they are scourged by torments, and pay the price
for former sins: some are hung, stretched out,
to the hollow winds, the taint of wickedness is cleansed
for others in vast gulfs, or burned away with fire:
each spirit suffers its own: then we are sent
through wide Elysium, and we few stay in the joyous fields,
for a length of days, till the cycle of time,
complete, removes the hardened stain, and leaves
pure ethereal thought, and the brightness of natural air.
All these others the god calls in a great crowd to the river Lethe,
after they have turned the wheel for a thousand years,
so that, truly forgetting, they can revisit the vault above,
and begin with a desire to return to the flesh.’

P.S.- In the last post I forgot to add that the Tech Quiz at Gnosiomania, MNNIT was the first quiz I won after joining IITR. Our team consisted of Moh, Battula and yours truly. One fifth year with two facchas. Take that.

A time to make amends

In starting this blog, I am undertaking several risks. The first of these is what you'd term as self- dignity.

Flashback to January 2009. It was my first quizzing trip, to Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT). Somewhere along the journey, on the bus to New Delhi, I had the definitive opportunity to meet a real life blogger. Until then the concept of writing for no cause seemed to be as pointless as a half-fry without bun-butter.

I must emphasise the importance of what follows. To give you an idea, let us momentarily skip back a few centuries to the Renaissance. When Leonardo da Vinci was toiling over his brass horse, he made it using the standard practices of the day. Making any brass sculpture was preluded by an exact clay replica which contained all the little details the artist wanted to incorporate. In a literal sense, therefore, you need to know where you’re going. Sometimes you get an exact replica, quite often you have to make do.

Even the greatest artists needed a model to train themselves over.

And that applies for us mortals too- we like to have a model in front of us, only that it takes the shape of ideals and morals, role models and ambitions, and other remnants bestowed by our evolutionary predecessors. 

So here's a snippet of the ensuing conversation:

Battula: Hey, ra, so how's your blog doing?

Murtha: Pretty good. It's getting more popular by the day [sic].

In case you're wondering about the veracity of that statement, check exhibit A. 

That day, that singular moment convinced me at heart never to write a blog in my life. I have only managed to get over this stubborn resolve after 3 years of living on.

Then there's the whole issue of content. The question is, why would anyone read my blog? What can I add to the simply overwhelming body of literature, of science writing and of philosophers and pun-sters that can allow me to carve out my own niche? 

Some very close friends tell me that their blog is their own personal diary which they maintain for the sole purpose of keeping hold of their thoughts, something like Dumbledore's pensieve. Then why do they keep it public? Why don't they maintain it on Word or in an actual paper diary? Surely, you can't write all your thoughts in the public domain. No one does that. Your thoughts then are in grave jeopardy of being lost for eternity. 

Why does one maintain a blog?

I've spent several years mulling over this question. In this time, I have consciously avoided all further blog posts from my friends, a few occasional peeks notwithstanding. I've seen enough to know people who load their writing with heavy deadweight words, others with a queer style of old school English and, to be fair, a few good reads by people I hold in high esteem.

I think I have an answer now. It has something to do with the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. You need to tell your story. You need to unload your experiences to someone. Being a recluse offers scant comfort to the part of you that wants to grab the attention of the masses.

This then, shall be a brief account of my life's story. I intend it to be a blog which carries more information in it, something which I am sure Shannon would appreciate. I would also like it to function as a critique of the expansive amount of literature that I read daily and also to include other things that interest me. This is a space devoted to you, reader, whoever you are. It is time to set the record straight. It is time to make amends.

H