A Tale of Two Cities

Goa, The Sin City

Late in the midnight, an open top gypsy was speeding with the six of us. The road was deserted in the arid lands of Goa and Prabu was proving himself to be the greatest driver on the planet! Of course he was the greatest, especially with that condition of the jeep and the guys.. No one can question that! And moreover he was the one who was so convinced that we need an open top jeep for this trip! (Dil Chahta Hai effect….) With the sunny weather we were fuming and giving him a glare. But finally we realized that it was the best choice we made and that opened up the whole world for us!

 One after the other was going crazy among us. Renil was the hardest to control. You got to watch him getting ‘Senti’ at times, which is usually leaps and bounds out of the world :) But it was always true from his heart, something you could never find from a friend you just happen to make for some purpose! Here everyone reacts in a unique way…  Mohan has his own!  He starts abusing every thing on earth, you, me, the traffic cop, his ex teammate, life, the road or even the jeep! You don’t even need an introduction. He could start abusing you right away without reasons and he really enjoys talking the MEN’s language. So guys better don’t mess with him :) Kishore, the godfather to us was uttering one thing over and over again  “மச்சான் கொழப்பிக்கிச்சு ”!! :)  So we treated it as the codeword and used as filler between conversations!! Karthi was still guilty about his uselessness. Even if he was about to forgive himself, we didn’t let him to. At last that’s what we friends are meant for, right? 

And these are those people, who I wish to stay the same way for the rest of my life. Quite possible because its already been 20 years and we are still counting…How could we stick together so well forgetting the rest of the world? The reason is simple. The expectations are minimal. And eventhat minimal is to just drop a call once in a while, inform each other when we are back in town. Simple and easy right…. Just stay in touch!! We just enjoy each other’s presence; we forget distances, career, beliefs or even personal likings! Every one of these buddies is part of my larger than life! Could sound a little exaggerated but its really worth it!!

The whole trip was not planned to perfection, we shouldn’t have taken the train for both ways, the accommodation and cab was screwed up as well, we didn’t really have a perfect itinerary. But nothing could stop the fun. Out of the three days, the fun was like an outburst on the last day night. Unforgettable for the rest of my life. Because there were simply “NO RULES”. That sensation releases anyone from a pressure cooker life! We did feel the real meaning of freedom and Goa would remain special to me for that reason! Don’t have to clock 9 hours of work, wear a tie in summer, prepare for appraisal, play politics, and work overtime. The city showed us life in two flavors… a beach life and a night life!

So here we are, roaming in the middle of the night to grab a bite. Actually something interesting happened just before we started off from the room. We had played “Truth or Dare”. Thanks to Kishore, we never really knew that such a game existed. The game follows turns where everyone had to speak about the plus and minuses about one guy at a time, a little different from the original. This was the first time after all those years, we spent time hearing about our self from the words of our best buddies! In our life, we wouldn’t give a s*** if someone criticizes us. But at the same time, there are a few people who can twist your arm to stop you do something. I have those people and I’m one of them… I would even break a bone like my birthright, if my guys smoke that extra cigarette! It was a great time for us to look into ourselves. But unfortunately we just heard about 3 and the rest would wait for the next trip :) Probably the wait is for the rest of our guys who weren’t able to make it this time. Lets do it again in Bangkok :)

Varanasi, The Holy City

Would anyone want to go to both these places on a same vacation? I know it’s like wearing a Hawaii shirt with a dhoti. But I did :) and believe me...  seeing both extremes of life was an awesome experience. The day I came home for a month’s vacation, my uncle already had his plans.  He asked me to check for travel tickets to Lucknow – Allahabad - Ayodhya – Varanasi! Almost half the family had already taken off for the trip couple of days back while uncle had second thoughts about my granny travelling so much with her health condition. But luckily we did make it together! I had already planned for Goa with friends but would never miss a chance to be with the family!

Travelling for the spiritual experience I understood that we really need a neutral perspective. As for the people in South India, its so hard at the beginning to get a focus or experience in the north.  Because for them the spiritual experience is everywhere around, its in the rivers, mountains, forests and even those lands that were mentioned in the holy texts. But for us, as part of a different custom we need a temple structure and a proper deity to really get that focus. The huge temple complexes were only built in our region! Srirangam, Madurai Meenakshi Amman, Thanjai Periya Kovil all of them shows us a grandeur after which we don’t have too much of a chance to keep our minds wandering elsewhere. I was happy that travel induces new understanding from the various cultures and lifestyle of people.

Chitrakuta a few hours drive from lucknow, has a cave where Ram-Sita are believed to have lived for years! The place has immense significance in Ramayana and depicts that those were their memorable days. The Triveni Sangam at Allahabad is the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati. The place is famous for the Kumbha Mela that happens once in every 12 years. Ayodhya, the Ram janmabhoomi was a guarded fortress with so many militants around. Imagined for a moment that  in those ages it would have been guarded the same way. The only difference is that, in those days they were to protect the life of the king and today it’s to protect the people! This place has seen enough bloodshed in the name of religion, thankfully not any more!

Finally the ancient city of Varanasi. A place that every hindu wants to visit in his lifetime. Guess I was a little early but I really wanted to visit the place for too many reasons. One of the most influential was the curiosity to see the end of life from their eyes! So many rituals and prayers were offered all along the riverbed of Ganges. Hopes and outcry of those thousands were lingering in my mind! The movie ‘Naan kadavul’ had left some impact as well. I wished that I bumped into some Aghori.  But all that I managed was just to see a different kind of man-eater. A stray dog was coming my way with a half burnt arm. Only for a moment it was so disgusting and horrific. But then I realized if this is its food for today, what’s wrong in it? Try to be a little rational on both sides, if some of our fellow beings have eaten dog’s meat, why shouldn’t the dog eat ours?? Atleast the dog didn't kill for its lunch today! Could sound absurd, but to me, when ever people say rational thinking….  this is the level I expect it to be.

I walked a little and saw the last rituals of the dead. I kept watching the scene, as more and more dead bodies were burned in the steps closer to the river. The buildings nearby were pitch dark, wonder how many lives it would have taken to get that color! My mind was picking up only the sounds of those mantras as I kept watching the end to a soulless body.  That was the time I heard a calling….. not from God but from my sister :)  It was getting late and I had to leave.  The river was flowing peacefully in its usual gentle rhythm as I walked away with a heavy heart.

"ஒரு வெருமையோடு... "

The Endless Puzzle

There are so many questions left unanswered in all our years of life. Out of which the most complicated and the most fundamental one, leaves a void in our minds even on a deathbed. What is the purpose of creation? Well…. to really understand the depth of this simple question you need to go back and forth a few billion light years. A tree of complicated questions follows through and this opens up an even bigger puzzle, for which we neither see the start nor the end.

An answer to a question leads to another. Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we heading? Why was the universe created?  What was it before the big bang? How did life begin on earth? Was it all just an accident? Why does life exists in the numerous forms around us? How long would this continue? Is there really a fate that drives us? What is good and bad? Why do we humans suffer so much in life?  What happens to us after death? Is there a GOD? And a lot more of such questions arise everyday. There wouldn’t be one sane mind that didn’t think about any of this. While half the world is too busy with their daily lives, the other half tries to understand it and luckily a handful gets to realize it.

Even those few people who knew things better than me gave one common answer once the discussion got intense and bizarre. “You have to experience it”. That was the most annoying answer for a long time. And I was wondering, if someone was able to understand it, why can’t I??!!  But here, the tough part from their perception is something like this. Trying to explain E=mc2 to a pet dog. Crazy right?? Of course, your dog can understand a few expressions and commands. But expecting it to understand your physics lesson is just like expecting someone to understand creation in a few words. So am I just like a dog trying to understand the entire Creation? Seeing the size and complexity of it, the answer is definitely a “YES”

So I’m one of your fellow dogs, wanting to go from knowing to realizing. And the intention is to give a hand along the way. This doesn’t mean that I know everything on earth but I know much enough to answer few of my questions. Something somewhere in this could help you probe into it. The few links in the page is one way to get deeper insights.

And…  where do we start??? We start from you. Go on to question everything, know the answers and finally attempt to realize. Questioning is easy and knowing is possible but realizing is quite uncommon. Since the first and last is out of my reach, the only thing we could talk about is the ‘knowing’. There have been pages and pages written about this and there is more to come. But now we need to draw a boundary of what needs to be known, because I’m not writing a book on this anyway. :)  So all that’s in the discussion comes under the following three… Science, Spirituality and finally the larger picture.

Science

We start with science, as we already have the basics of it and that’s going to be the ABC for our answers. We don’t understand greek and latin  to explore mythology, so we start with what we have. “Stephen Hawking” by far the greatest scientist of our times has reached the pinnacle of theoretical science and CERN has reached the frontier for practical scientific experiments. You would have come across the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) a few years back. 

But all of this goes just over our heads beyond a certain point. And for me it was out of proportions and definitely beyond the scope of our understanding. No matter how hard I try, I wasn’t able to grasp it after the first 10 pages of  Hawking's works! Anything out of high school physics is too much for us and that’s the way we are. So I was badly in need of some great storytelling that could introduce Newton and Einstein in a better way. Fortunately, I did happen to get a layman’s version called the elegant universe. To me it was the closest to complete answer from modern day science.  It gave a clear picture of how unification is seen as the holy grail of science but still not in reach.

There is literally No Answer. While string theory is the only possible solution for a “theory of everything”, experimental proof cannot be deduced. Every law of science breaks at Singularity. There is no clue of what happens to matter once it is sucked by a black hole. 17 years of LHC and the work is a failure! So finally science leaves us unanswered to the most fundamental but just has managed to give us everything else to ease our lives!

Spirituality

"The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you."
— Werner Heisenberg

Every one of you is already sticking to a belief system. It’s so hard for us shed our faiths and belief’s to start it all over. But one thing that we could be certain is about the existence of some unknown powers in the ancient times. The ideology is not flawed due to one reason; the ideas are not just based on the holy texts and scriptures. But with the mysteries lying all around us. The pyramids, the discovery of a solar system, the radiation levels at kurukshetra are things that give us a sense that human race once had a possession that's lost today.

Between science and spirituality, you could too often see a lot of parallels. "The Tao of physics" was useful in drawing those parallels. From the cosmic dance of shiva to the vibrant mantras of Buddhism, it explained it all. When they said the universe is made of tiny strands of vibrating strings, we already had a term called ‘Nadhabrahmam’. The word ‘Anu’ meaning atom was in use by us for ages! Spiritual practices in India need time and effort to be understood! Unfortunately there are superstitions too; hence leaving us the trouble of identifying the odd one out.

The Vedhas, Puranas and Upanishads have seen so much criticism in the past decades. And trying to resolve the conflict would take us nowhere. On the other hand, people are practicing yoga across the world.  So at last we have something that we can see in our experience. The word yoga means union. The soul could either unify with ‘brahmam’ or completely isolate from it. We have numerous practices among which ‘Kundalini’ is seen as the epitome. A serpent of desire resting at the tip of your spine can be brought alive all the way upto the 7^th chakra of your body. One possible end of this is the ‘Kaivalya’, the ultimate peace/isolation. It helps you avoid the cycle of birth and death. The practice is supposed to be outlawed in a different tradition as it is seen as a temporary state of peace.  Just like skipping a few games and you would anyway return back to this cycle.

‘Accept the pain’ - Buddha

So what is the permanent way? I realized that I have one at last. It may or may not be your cup of tea and even more than that you have to struggle to get it out of your own. We as humans never value something when there is no struggle... right? :) Every religion on earth has its version and you have the liberty to choose your own and explore your inner self.

The larger picture

It’s just an instinct to understand that an answer is hidden within the question.   We sense clarity because we are able to relate the answer to the ideas that we already carried. The answer  lies within us as bits and pieces. Someone helps us just co-relate all of them. Or probably give a missing piece, to give the complete the answer.

"I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice." - Einstein

The design of the system is something beyond the explanation of science. Do I really control my life or my destiny does? There has been enough debate on this but the answer is both. Imagine you teaching chess for the first time to your kid. As the game progresses, you let him make his moves but you still have the control on him. To me, god does just the same. It’s a puppet show but we gain a rational mind over time to act independently. But why was I picked for the show? That's another complex story of ‘Karma’ , possibly the only answer.

The strangeness of this captive independence is just like our universe, it’s both balanced and uncertain. But how could there be balance when there is uncertainty? Weird but that’s the design of the universe. There is a smooth and orderly fabric of space-time at the cosmic level but a total chaos and uncertainty at the quantum level.

Our Human brain is bound to limitations and anything that is boundless doesn’t really come into our understanding, so does GOD. The creator and creation are boundless and a complete understanding of creation is impossible with our present state. Only a burning desire of wanting to know would take us the distance.

My understanding of Love

Seeing the title, I was afraid if this would turn out to be a confession note. But that would be boring for people, especially Divya. Because for my last post she said “Life is already depressing and why do you add more to it?” Very true, so I decided to give a shot and take this test. I wanted to think of something nice and sweet and the first thing that came to my mind was Love.

My understanding of love has changed over the changing phases of time. Because unfortunately like the millions of kids in this generation, a lot of ideas revolve around movies and so does LOVE. Since movies tend to be an easy analogy, I pick three movies that closely portrayed my idea over the years. Here we go...

Mouna Raagam

I was a seven or eight year kid when I got the first impression. Now I could hear you saying ‘u little brat…’ :) Anyway I vaguely remember that it left a deep impact due to one reason. It was one of the few Video Cassettes that was lying in my granny’s place and on a summer vacation my aunts and cousins watched it over and over until it was worn out.

But I didn’t really understand a lot in the movie that time, in fact even now. Why should Revathy go out for a coffee if she doesn’t like Karthik? How could she fall for him even after he said ‘I love you’ from a principal’s mic? At any cost how could she marry someone when she really didn’t want to? After marriage why was she so arrogant to her husband? Finally why did she change her mind to live with him? If anyone can answer any of those I’m grateful to them! But this was my first understanding of women. They are complicated and hard to be understood.

On the other hand I was so impressed with Karthik. He was like a gutsy dynamite who lived his life and it made a lots of sense to me. Running after the girl he loved, cooking up a story to take her out of class, daring to call the girl’s dad for coffee, trying to change his whole lifestyle for this girl. Everything was simple and easy. Wish Mani sir didn’t let him die. But I forgive him for his need of twist and turns in the script. Likewise Mohan was not a tough one either, he loved his wife no matter what she did. So is this easy for an eight year old to understand? Well Dads love moms even after all those quarrels and days of silence at home, don’t they? 

Alaipayuthey

This was at the age of 15 and for me this is the best love story of my time. Days after the movie was released, I was hearing more about the hero rather than the movie. Girls were going gaga over him and I was too curious to watch it right away. The screenplay was confusing to my low IQ brain. Shuffling past and present didn’t seem like a great idea for me. Funny isn’t it?  How would the director react if I had passed this criticism by then? That’s how many of the movie reviewers write these days.

Coming back to love, by this time I understood better and like every teenager I believed that I was matured enough and that’s why everything seemed to be in my experience. Guys rounding up the streets on a bike next to the girls’ door, giving out blank calls, running all the way down to her medical camp, the secret wedding with friends all around, a half done apartment with just the two of us, every little thing was fascinating like a teenage dream.

But there was a missing piece of information even now. Why did they fight and quarrel so bad in just a few months after marriage? Weren’t they the same pair who broke with their families to live together? After all that they had gone through,  this would be the worst nightmare they could have “Days of prolonged silence”. This was so bitter and I decided not to take it seriously and for that the only convincing idea that I had was, not every couple face it. But you very well know the reality.

VTV

There were many expectations for this movie for two reasons. Gautam had given“Vaaranam Aaiyram” before this and that had already set a benchmark for him. We were even more curious for another reason. Why on earth did he pick Simbhu for this movie??  He completely held a different image and definitely was the last person you could think as Gautam menon’s hero! But the movie broke all those pre-conceived notions and was really unique in its own way. The story was ordinary; the screenplay was not pacey; the music was an experiment with asynchronous notes; the hero is not seen as the greatest of actors. All this when seen separately would sound terrible. But there was magic in the director’s hands to craft this with all his strange ingredients.

How could someone really break up in an SMS?? Really this is too weird and cinematic for those people beyond their thirty’s. But this is how my generation works. I even have a friend who said his love affair to his dad on a SMS. I was awe struck and took days to digest that! But if this is the information age, this is how we would be heading right? Gone are the days when lovers stood behind a pillar and scratched the paint all the way to open up their affair to their parents.

What kind of impact this movie can leave in you? It clearly brought the lives of the larger audience to the silver screen! There was a whole bunch of real life hero’s who said to me that the story was just like his own. Not so strange, because you could have seen someone say that to you too! I was getting crazy over time and asked them how many of you loved a Mallu Christian girl?  But actually this defined the success of the movie.

“Why Jessie when there are so many girls out in this world?” No one could find an answer to that question in their real lives. Why did I pick this girl/guy? How could someone walk out of my life instantly while they took months to walk in? Is there a difference between love and lust? And finally is it really worth it? (Like Ganesh asks). To me parents or society doesn’t really have their say when lovers have decided what they want. So you are the one who decides whether to leave heartbreaks or rose blossoms!

The Most Dangerous Animal

There are different kinds of people all around. We see it in our experience and so does the world, through all of its history! The human mind is so fond of classifying and segregating things. So I wanted to figure out how would I classify humans?  There are those hundreds of sects based on race, ethnicity, caste, creed and IQ already, so do I really want to add more to the crap? I thought there is more sense in my version than most others, so here it is…

The first is someone who enjoys brutality.  Not a great start, but these are the specimens we are more worried about! Ever wondered what would be running through the heads of a terrorist or a militant when he’s doing a war crime? Probably not, that’s because we don’t have an experience of seeing that person in our life. The mother or child getting killed, the wife or sister being sexually abused is the last thing on earth one could think of. The power and control of holding a gun and being on a winning side gives him all! And someone rightly termed the human as ‘the most dangerous animal’.

The second is someone who fights for life in Downtrodden Africa or Asia. Ever thought about life in Somalia or Uganda? He sees misfortunes in all shapes and sizes and that sucks out everything out of his life. Death happens everyday from malnutrition, disease, famine and war. Incapable of lifting up his spirit from birth to death, he fades away in the flow of time.

The third is someone who was born in the US or EU by some destiny and rarely gets to understand the worst of human sufferings. Ever seen a guy in your next cubicle whining all day about increased taxes, falling stock prices or a missed increment? At times we could envy them for living in that small space with no windows and for their ability to completely shut them off from the rest of the world.

So the fourth and final is someone who has seen both the worlds! But lucky for them and unfortunate for the world, they get to make a choice. There is one, who chooses to give it back to the society.  But the other more prevalent and the most infamous is “lost among the crowds”. People don’t want to look back for the fear of breaking down, the fear of falling back or the fear of seeing pain! I am no exception and I was afraid to watch those aftermaths of a war. Probably every one of us wants to keep away from those scenes as much as we can, just to avoid the emotional dilemma. But at last I did.

A little child screams in fear lying on a shallow trench along with a group of civilians as the Lankan Army keeps firing the bombshells.  An elderly woman with a bloodshed kid in her arm cries, ”What did the kid do to deserve this???”  A medical volunteer witnesses a bombing and pieces of flesh gets scattered all over the hospital walls. Naked bodies of men and women, blood spilled over the fields, refugee camps and hospitals shattered! Though I realize that it’s so hard for one to shed away the pride of culture and race for the sake of being human! Now wait a minute, did I say being human?? So that's more complicated. What is human?

Try to forget for a while that you are a Tamilian or a Sinhalese or whichever race you are. At the end of the day this is a failure of humanity, the governments, the UN, each and every individual! The value of human life depends on where you are. And how fair is life to you? If you were born in Manhattan and landed up with a job in the Twin Towers, your death would be revenged in 10 years. And if you are a common man in Iraq who happen to die in the war, then probably never! 2800 lives ended in the 9/11 attacks and that was showcased like the end of the world. So what about the 100,000 in Iraq and 40,000 in Sri Lanka? Indeed the 9/11 was horrific but a whole nation looked up for the event and erupted with joy as Obama announced the death of Bin Laden. But do we really care for those thousands of innocent lives lost everywhere else in the world?

  

Getting rid of UN officials before the war, promising a no fire zone and shattering the hospitals, neglecting food, water and medicine for refugees. All of this may or may not be speculated. But all that stands in our hearts are the tears and bloodshed's. Neither the LTTE nor the Lankan government could defend their stand by making heaps of dead bodies to fly their flags high. There have been more deaths in wars than in natural disasters! Hence leaving us with more fundamental things to worry about, more than global warming or natural calamities.

Forget those ifs and buts’ said before and think for one last moment ‘What if…  I was born in any of these countries?’ A lot depends on where you are born and where you dwell so if you believe in rebirths, start your prayers today.  For all those atheists who blame it on GOD… u know what? “F*** you” and for all those theists who try to give an explanation for these deaths… u know what? “F*** you too”. I had a second thought here but for a lack of better word to all my frustration, disappointment and incapability, this sounds better!

Happen to remember these lines

“பரதேசம் வாழுகின்ற அப்பாவி மனிதரை 
பலகாரம் செய்துண்டதும் 
பிள்ளையின் கறியுண்டு 
நம்பினார்க்கு அருளிடும் பரிவான பரபிரம்மனே”