Keeping it simple

Big words are scary and hard to understand. When you explain the world, already big and scary enough, with big words, I get confused. So don't explain to me some wondrous thing you saw with magical technology, and then ask me to fit it into my comprehension.

The mind is a little thing, and can only stretch so far and wrap itself around so much. So tell me of the simple things, in words I can understand. Don't explain things I dont understand with terms I understand even less. Spare me the prokaryotic apoptosis communism sociobiology determinism in development cell fate dualism altruism.. Spare me all of that. The world is confusing enough without them.
Explain to me instead the simple things.

Don't speak of long-term potentiation and how it affects love in mice. Tell me why I can break my heart over someone I don't care about. Everything in the universe may be a fractal, but tell me how your equations explain why people smile over flowers.

Tell me why the right rhythm in my earphones is all that is needed for the perfect three-mile run. Tell me why some days I just need a hug.

Tell me how a virus killing some bacteria and not others can explain why we do things for the greater common good. At the end of the day, remember that science and philosophy share the same roots- A love of wisdom, a desire for knowledge. And if your science and philosophy cannot increase the wisdom or knowledge of the audience you hope to impress, how does it help?

Clueless!

I'm beginning to think the clueless undergrad doing research is an essential part of any grad student's learning process. Like the Sarah Palins of academia, they teach you to laugh at the things that should technically fill you with the most despair.
Most importantly, they are good reminders of exactly how stupid people can be, and why warnings like " May contain peanuts" are to be found on a pack of peanuts.

I've only encountered two specimens so far, and until now they have given me NO hope for the future of science. Or geography, for that matter. (All this enlightenment apart from completely messing up my work, of course.)

A few snippets -

"Sooo... Singapore... isnt that like a city in Thailand?" (This from a person whose greatest claim to fame is having seen the ACTUAL Mona Lisa. Don't ask her who the artist was.)

"The bottles of solutions in the autoclave? I put them in the drying oven... isn't that where you put things after sterilizing them?"
(Yes, exactly. I spent two hours making these solutions up and adjusting pH just so that you could dry them down to salt-encrusted films at the end of my ridiculously long Friday.)

Argh. I don't remember my generation ever being so collectively dumb, even in our teens. I'm as confused about these kids as they're clueless about common-sensical things- What happened to them?

Fly like paper, get high like planes

Like India, it is a heady mix of color and big dreams and the dusty, filthy heart-breaking things one must do to achieve them. A simple enough story, that could happen in any country- Of a young boy who wants to win a pot of money, and hopes that his love will watch him on live television and come back to him.

It could be any boy, in any country. But like India, the film is the color of dusty streets and dhobi ghat, of clothes of many colors that fly with the wind like street children playing cricket on a runway. He takes off from the slums, running from righteous fire and a dying mother, selling trinkets on trains and having the time of his life.

Every tourist spot has people trying to make a fast buck, and the boy is no different. But Jamal is Indian, and his story wraps an emperor from a few centuries ago into a luxury hotel with a swimming pool, ties it all up into an elaborate, child-like scam, and presents it to you with an endearing smile. You could smile and give him a hundred bucks for the act, or you could rage at the inefficiency of the system that forces street children to steal the tires of a car.

A rare perspective- the 'foreign' viewpoint is obvious in the juxtaposition that runs throughout the film- insecticide sprayed at the railway stations as a boy runs through the poisonous mist to find the girl he left behind, and the people too poor to afford a television who crowd on the pavement to watch one man win a million. India runs through the story, as much a character to reckon with as Javedbhai and Manan.

The film pulses with unrelenting power in a city that really never sleeps, in a country that can ride on the dreams of one man and put bullets into a dozen others on its journey to the top. Unapologetic for its inadequacies, unmindful of the heartbreak it takes to make a dream happen - Like India, the film goes deeper than I can put into words, and every frame made me ache for home even as it transported me there. And I'm still high from Slumdog Millionaire.

Lunch-time mystery

I am currently reading a book with no context. A strange thing- I picked it up in the basement of a friend's house, he himself was unaware of how it got there. A simple green leather-bound book, with a title in gold letters. I've never heard of the book or the author, no biographical flap, no picture on the cover. The pages are a little yellowed, and its a second-hand book, but whether it was written in the 1980s or the turning of the previous century, I would not be able to tell.

The insides are equally strange- A story that tells of two borders to a country, and a war, and an excessively beautiful woman and a wounded soldier. An anonymous country, and I can find no obvious parallels to any of the historical wars that the story might be an allegory for. It's just some country, with some war. Unfamiliar terms in an old french are the only thing that have given the story any placement in time, and even those are uncertain holds on history.

The lack of context, geographic and temporal, is both in the story itself and in the way it ended up in my hands.

I could probably google the author and the book, and have all the answers in a few minutes. When faced with unfamiliar facts, thats usually where I begin (and several people would agree that I'm good at fishing out the obscure ;) ). But somehow, this book feels a little different. I carry it with me to the lab and read it at lunchtime,and every time I pick it up it is a little contact with the unknown.

A reminder in the middle of research and writing and constant analysis and the finding out of things, that we all need breaks to venture into the unknown, and not all questions need firm answers.

Incoherence, elaborated

There are an awful lot of metaphors that liken life to water. To live happily one must flow contented, one must always move, etc. etc. Fluidity is critical. So what of the rocks along the way, the stones that shatter calm surfaces to create ripples? What do you do when life casts pebbles at you and seems to enjoy it?

From a mass of incoherent ripples, I attempt to find flow again. Some interruptions are mild, a few ripples and the surface reforms. Others are even simpler, and flat stones skim off the top effortlessly.
And some days are like God/life is a kid with nothing better to do, and stone after stone after stone is cast in, shattering stillness hard and creating a mess of silt and froth that gets in my eyes and ears and mouth, making me lose all perspective. Calm stemming from insight is impossible, and I spew grit out of my mouth, shake my head and clench my eyes shut, just trying to clear things out so I can flow again.

One part physiology, one part ego. A huge chunk of petty annoyances. People acting up, atmospheric pressure lows. A friend's illness that none of us can control. Cast them in one after the other, all together... and the ripples clash and surge and I am lost. Where do I find the strength to pull myself together again, to flow contented and find purpose?

For now I flounder, from ripple to drop to splash, I attack each problem with no strength. What I need is to go deep, to find my footing on bedrock. Instead of flailing to create more confusion, I must perhaps let myself sink. Through cool calmness, soft filtered sunlight and the weightlessness of water. Sink lower still, until my feet touch the ripples on the sand beneath, and feel them give way, re-forming around whatever touches them.

Immersion in stillness, emotional and metaphoric, is the only way to not let the splashing on the surface reach the core.

Butterflies in the brain

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain."

Words help, sometimes. Wise words by minds so great, sometimes they help with the understanding of the present. Of some questions. He tells me why there is pain, but I knew that already. I'm ready to understand- just not sure what the lesson I'm supposed to understand is. Isn't the master supposed to show up when the student is ready?

And now that I begin to write, the title of the chapter, atleast, is clear.

Living with uncertainty.
Drawing once more on better words - "And much of your pain is self-chosen"
"You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar."

So technically, the uncertainty should end when I've figured out how to deal with it.
When I can stop focusing so much of my energy on the problem, it will cease to exist. Just like vaporising a cloud. Or casting a Patronus charm.

* Random quotes and paraphrasing from multiple sources- I'm fairly sure anyone reading this will know what they are :)

Winter within

It's the holiday season, and everything is bright and cheery. Everywhere you look there are holiday lights and christmas spirit, and yesterday I was tempted to take pictures of all the neighbourhood houses that have been hit by christmas bombs, and put them up here. Today, however, is a different story. Today feels like a tree I saw this morning- just one bare scrawny thing with no leaves, but hung here and there with leftover christmas ornaments. In the dark, the lights twinkle and you cant see the bare bones of it. In morning light it's just sorry. Like a pathetic attempt to gloss over the bad bits, as if a few laughs could hide the fact that there is nothing beneath. The strange thing is that the tree itself would be quite lovely on its own- stark and bare against winter white. It is the cover-up that makes it sad.

Today, I am not even tempted to remind myself of favorite sayings, or inspire myself to be better. Sometimes, it must be okay to just be a caterpillar, curl up and sleep. Sometimes, when you spread your wings, you don't fly, you only open yourself to hurt. Sometimes, wounds are better left to air and dry, rather than fester under the fake brightness of a Mickey mouse bandage, or a smile.

So just for today, there is no cheer, no message of hope to myself. Only a reminder, that sometimes hurt is okay.

Argh

Snood and Tetris- totally addictive, the perfect grad student TP. You match up the pieces, and when you get the pattern right, it all falls apart. And for some reason that makes you a winner.And when you win all it means is that the pieces come at you faster, and you have to figure out the patterns quicker.

Talk about crappy metaphors for life. And I play these to get away from my so-called work. I don't even want to think about what that makes me.

Sunscreen for the cynic

"Never take anything in life too seriously, including me and yourself."

In a completely (oxy)moronic way, I find myself drawn to that line over and over. Beyond all logic, I try to reason that sentence out. Like a lost key, I fit it into every single lock, trying to figure out where it fits. I'm not sure what I'll do if I find out. But I carry it around and test it on almost every situation, just to see how far the little cogs and wheels inside the lock spin, twisting into kaleidoscopic new perspective. So I hang on to those words, as what remains- after love and friendship, walking barefoot through night rain in Pune and conversations from Bombay to New York to Bangalore and beyond.. what remains of it all is these words. Like a real-life game of rock,paper and scissors- what survived is the one thing that defeated the rest.

In real-life terms,however, that doesn't make sense. Evolution craves balance, and one thing that shatters (or feeds on/ overpowers) the rest cannot indefinitely survive. So there must be a lock, somewhere, that is strong enough to withstand that key. I know for sure the statement must unlock something, and the day I find it, hopefully I will drop the key, as I have the rest of the memories.

What holds together..

The last few weeks have been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster, making me question relationships I held dear for so many years.

Childhood friendships are sheer unquestioning acceptance- The neighbour's kid is my friend because we play together every day. The girl I sit next to in class soon becomes my best friend. My parents told me not to play with the rough kids, so they aren't my friends. Adult relationships tend to be similar- not unquestioning, but more accepting- I can play tennis with you even if you support the politicians I hate. You're a content mother, so I'll overlook the fact that you have no ambitions to a career like mine. The lines are clearer, yet fuzzier- I have learnt not to broach uncomfortable subjects, make small talk, and accept that someone who disagrees with me on some things may be the most passionate supporter of some of my other causes.

The big realizations come from adolescent friendships- the ones forged in fire, where passion and ideals and big dreams are the bedrock of the relationship, and they're held together by the mundane cement of life- We share the same dreams, so we drool over the same books at the book fair. Go to the same concerts, and like the same coffee shake at Barista. And then we grow up, grow apart, and real life happens.

Some relationships hold so strong over years of not talking, as if our minds grew in the same ways even without words or contact. Others fall apart- without the mundane to hold it together, the deepest dreams and highest passions crumble to extinction.

And I find myself aching for lost time. When love was unquestioning and absolute, when I took a silent stand to be there for a friend no matter what. My idea of "no matter what" accounted for bad decisions, tough times, and the other person waking up to the realization that they were wrong. I even accounted for the possibility that maybe I would reverse my opinion of what I thought was a bad decision, imagining myself gloriously open-minded and forgiving in my outlook. I considered geography and careers, time zones and lifestyles- the perfect plan for life. I could and would make this relationship work, no matter what.

Except the one thing I forgot. The other person. Perhaps we had already grown apart, or perhaps we were never together. The realization was mine- That sometimes a bad decision is merely the lack of decision, not a conscious choice at all.

I can account for everything in my "no matter what", but it takes two people to make a relationship work. And a conscious choice by both. Whether it is the child next door who chooses to come out and play with me, or the mother who overlooks my career choice as I do hers- it takes a conscious choice. A mindless, circumstantial drifting together of two people is not a friendship, it is a convenience.

And conveniences, like plastic grocery bags, are disposable, recyclable, and not worth a second thought.

(What do you know? Even at 27, I learn something new every day.. Maybe there's still some growing up to do, and life isn't as jaded as I thought it was! )

Come, tell me a story..

My earliest memory of a book would be from when I was about six or so. I'm not sure why, perhaps the lack of a babysitter, but I spent three hours after school everyday (atleast it felt like that much time) waiting for my mom to get done with her classes. I read before that, fairy tales and the brothers Grimm and the little match girl and little stories from the Panchatantra. But that book from the musty school corridor stands out.
It was the wizard of Oz, and sitting in a darkening corridor in an almost-empty school, it was so much more fun to be out in Kansas or Oz, both equally fantastic to a six year old in Bombay. Now that I think of it, I'm not really sure how I managed to read at that level- Did I understand everything I read? Who taught me the big words or told me that emeralds were green? I don't remember asking those questions, or any of the other details my mother does, but the book stayed with me like a little secret, three hours of childhood solitude expanding into an omnipresent cosmos of words swirling in the brain.

I don't remember a time, before or after that, when stories haven't been a constant presence, whether I'm looking for one or telling one or reading one. The only important part is sharing them- Few lasting stories live on memory alone, they need re-telling and re-thinking and constant life infused into them. Real stories grow with us and change as we do, as memory and experience meld together. Real stories hold us to our roots, reminding us of honor and doing the right thing when every brain cell screams with anger and a desire to hurt. Real stories warm and comfort, reminders that things can turn around overnight even when they are at their bleakest.

So come, tell me a story today.. Even a little one will do- just as long as it means something to you. It could be six words long to sum up your life, or an epic poem of your love. It could be a fairytale that you loved, or a tale about Cinderella slippers that you wore for a birthday long ago. Perhaps a memory, of schoolyard bullies. Or a wish unfulfilled. But tell me about something that touches your heart. An experience or a memory, fact or fiction... come, share a story today.

Writing, writing

When the mood is right, words flow so freely, half unconsidered, drifting in the rhythms of what I last read or who was on my mind.
Other times, I spend days mulling over the ideas of other minds, weaving them together to form a coherent enough mesh to hold my own leap of faith, a list of references to justify every thread of the net that holds up the hypothesis. Sometimes the threads congeal to the perfect shape almost effortlessly- Three days of mulling things over, and writing from 3 am to 10 am produces the near-perfect hypothesis (for my needs of the moment), and the perfect language, and it is done.
And on yet other occasions I spend months on end sifting through things- papers, ideas, plagiarism in hope of inspiration, endless drafts, help from mentors- NOTHING.

There is no formula to writing, even after all these years. Outlines, schematics, moods and inspiration- they chase after each other in a dance I cannot put my finger on. All I know is that I run with them, no matter how tiring it gets, until we come together fingers entwined in one last inspired whirl of a finish. The roots of inspired writing that soars above the rest are simple perspiration- the mental kind.

Is it presumptuous to call myself a writer, or write about writing before I have actually written? To speak of inspired writing that soars, when almost no one else would agree? Perhaps.. But when I write like that, it lifts me above the ordinary, and that high is all that matters :)

un-organising

Everywhere I look are signs to help me. Find time to exercise ! Unclutter your desk space! Thirty organising tips ! How to find time for everything you want to do NOW!

Yes, my days overflow into one another, last week's to-do lists often spilling over into next month. I look them over, re-evaluate and promise to attack the neglected tasks with more vigor. I tell myself I can do more if only I'm more organised, more focused, more efficient.. a little more of everything. One of my favorite magazines has a little footer at the bottom of each page, which goes "If you have ten minutes.. do this!" "If you have 20 minutes, do that!" "If you have an hour, you can take in the latest CD/ book/ movie/ inspiring cancer survivor story!"

The latest article I read along these lines was about meal planning- How, if I only plan out the meals for the week ahead beforehand, I can order the ingredients online, pick them up at my local supermarket, and save myself so much time every single day. Of late, my culinary interests have ebbed and waned, but overall I've cared more about what I eat than I ever did before. Conscious choices- Strawberries without the sugar, just pure fruit. Lets try steaming an artichoke today, shall we? Chocolate-orange noodles.. why not? Hands wander over strange vegetables at the store (Ghost pumpkins, anyone?), and new flavors fuse with the familiar to create comfort and excitement in my kitchen.

Why would I want to trade in a lazy Saturday morning of wandering around the stores for meal plans and ten minutes more every day? And by the same token, I could be more organised, so I'd have more time to relax and spend time with people and things I care about- but thats what I usually waste my time on anyway- Lounging around on the sofa watching old movies with A, or rummaging at garage sales for silly funny treasured finds, long after-dinner walks... If I have time enough for these, why be more organised?

Some claim lost time, others a lack of space,
I plead life's crippling embrace.
Laundry, food and other necessities
Fill voids where words might have been.

Work

To be praised simply for what you are is a strange feeling. Like praising water for liquidity, or fire for burning.

To touch fully that innate quality is the only thing we are taught to strive for- a point where there are no lines between the doer, the object and the observer.

Why would I want to do a thing like that?

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed- interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing sprit- crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing you last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that?

- John Hodge, Trainspotting

....
Some quotes slide through peripheral thought the first time they go by. And then they come back and stick in my head, nagging until I look them up, and read them ten times over on an idle Saturday morning.

Perhaps the hardest thing..

.. is to stand by and watch someone else learn what I already know.

In a world going wrong..

A sixteen-year old is pregnant, and is all over the news- How will you explain this to your children? Will her wacko elder sister be a good influence on the child (which presses the question- the 16 year old child, or the 16 year old's child?)

A fourteen year old girl kills her seven year old sister in a "game" mimicking Mortal Kombat moves. Her slightly older boyfriend claims to be uninvolved, since he was "drinking and watching a movie downstairs".

India's first school shooting- Whoopee.

The news about kids gone bad has been coming in in a steady stream over the past week- It makes me glad I am not a child, old enough to be untroubled by these influences. No matter how good an upbringing one has, the world creeps into a child's mind, and if that mind is innocent and inquisitive, the questions it asks are only more hard-hitting, and the answers more elusive.

So I'm spending this weekend with a five year-old. She chases her elder brother around, and hates being called a "girl" - someone who is less capable of things than he is. She's less concerned with femininity and body image, and more with being seen as an equal by her big brother. She's creative enough to make a snowman with an inch of rapidly melting snow, and not afraid to question her father's authority when he sides with her nanny.
She asks questions- Why is that man always inside his house? Why do I have to fit in with my first grade class and pretend to be unable to read? Why can't I stay home and study like you did?

She is wise and innocent, daring and funny and silly, and the kind of child I ache to meet once more. She does not question the absence of her mother, and trusts her elder brother when she follows him into a neighbour's yard in the middle of the night. Knows he will not hit her or rape her, knows that she can listen to him and things will be fine, mostly.

A rare find- Even the most well-brought up kids today lack that complete innocence and freedom of thought. Street-smart, confident, computer-savvy. But where did the innocence go? Who is telling these children that courage is not having a gun in your hand, but knowing when to use it? That teenage sex is not acceptable unless it is a conscious choice and not peer pressure?

That peer pressure is not a substitute for a brain and a conscience.

Not knowing the answers to those, I chose to spend time with a child who still has those traits. So what if she's a fictional eight-year old who lived in Alabama decades ago? Scout Finch is still far better company than most children (and adults) I've read about lately.

Nothing ventured..

More often than not, we "land up" in bad situations- not a choice, but a circumstance.
I didn't ask for this to happen to me.
I don't deserve this.
Life sucks- I hate grad school.
What did I ever do wrong that things had to come to this point?
How much longer must I put up with this before things go back to being normal again?
This is depressing.

After a not-so-great day, I stumbled across this guy- the Coconuter-

http://coconuter.blogspot.com/2004/12/introduction-about.html

To take your life in your hands and toss it to the winds, out of your own choice, your own free will- Immensely courageous, though some might (and probably did) say it's ridiculous. He probably gets more hits off Blogs of Note, but David the Coconuter definitely deserves more than a passing glance.

And another person, in some ways just as courageous-

http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2005-01-24-robbery-call_x.htm

Both of them left me tonight with the same questions-

What was he thinking?
What pushed him to walk away from his life/ make that phone call?
Did he not know he would need money for his wife and child?/ Did he not know he would get caught?
What did he think was going to happen when he got there/ when he asked her out?

What keeps you going, when life sucks, and you hate grad school? And whatever it is-is it strong enough as the urges of these two men- for a date, for a meaningful life?

Debate

If you push me too far into my irritation, I will usually land up too far from whatever insight you are hoping to provide me.

The two of us stand facing each other, and we have come from diametrically opposite directions to this crossroads. If you push me so far back along the road I walked all this while, how am I to see the road you want me to take ahead?

I can only look so far beyond my own feet, so don't drag me to your point of view. I am blind there. I cannot stand in your shoes and see what you see.

They are your shoes, they have walked different roads to come to this point where we stand together. The dust on them is from different memories, different impulses. My heart and mind cannot respond to them.

So speak to me from here, from now. From what we share, what we know together. And maybe we can both walk a few steps forward in the same direction- In our own shoes, you understand, but just for this one understanding, we can share the same path.

And for a few years, we could maybe share this- And someday years from now we will speak from the same place, and share a common point of view.