Life and Death

My seven year old daughter wanted to know: If life begins, it has to end too, no? So how and when will it end?

She had me zapped on two counts. One, that she could think such a thought. But secondly, because, I have had three different conversations with three sets of people of my age on parallel lives and death.

I hate to go deep in there because it makes me nervous and taut...it is like thin air - you understand it when you talk about it, but lose the meaning the moment you end your statement. Is this right, is this what you meant? Are what we think "other animals" parallel lives that we don't understand and so consider humans as the supreme creation, because of sixth sense etc? Or are their other planets where our lives are mirrored...or we are mirroring other worlds? Are we part of a reality show, or are we the audience? Are we in the dream, or are we dreaming?

Apparently the book Vasishta's Yoga deals with it...for those who are interested. I myself - I prefer the dream world of fiction. A parallel world clearly dreamt up for popular consumption.

Animal Farm

Somehow, I think this masterpiece will never be irrelevant. Have seen enough of it in a microcosm and at bigger levels. At the heart of every individual hides a desire for power - over something, anything.

I voted today and then wondered if I had selected the right candidate. After all, when in power, will he or she behave any differently? Maybe, initially, yes. But after a while...it will be like the old regime.

After all, wasn't one party kicked out and another voted in with sweeping majority in TN? Yet, history repeated itself and we had corruption on a grander scale, at national level...

If you vote for a new candidate, there is the risk of splitting vote and a weak head of government. If you vote for a powerful party, then you strengthen it further...giving it more gumption to openly cheat...

Hobson's choice?

***

On another note, saw a short piece on animal planet - a weak old lion resting when a herd of buffalos attacked it and killed it. In Tamil, there is a saying: யானைக்கு ஒரு காலம் வந்தால் பூனைக்கு ஒரு காலம் வரும்.

 There is a time for everyone - if the elephant has its day, so does the cat. This short film seemed so appropriate with regard to power dynamics. Even the powerful become weak one day, and the weak will have a field day. But it seemed more pathetic than when I see lions killing a deer. For there is a purpose to that death. This seemed mindless. But these are animals! Why does man behave the same way?

Yet another victim of automation

My gas agency was one place where I could call, give my customer ID, be told when to expect my gas cylinder and be done with it in exactly 3 minutes. But today, I was given a customer care number, put on to automated voice message which made me press 1 and 2 to choose my options, get confirmations that my agency name was x, my contact number was y, and then give me a booking number (which I didn't realise was coming so was not prepared to note) and then rung off. Now I am not sure when to expect my gas cylinder! :(

Maybe for the agency this is some form of simplification, but for the tech-duh me...it has me still shaking. What's happened to the human touch?

The odd woman out

"You must check out this great store on this road! What wonderful collection!" says one. I smile wanly.

"Hey! I picked this from this place... Just out of the world," another says. I nod, trying to note down the name for future use.

"I always go to this place" enthuses one (in addition to 10 other places, I note mentally) .

"They always have exclusive stuff" gushes yet another (which others also seem to be visiting with equal frequency and picking up similar stuff, I can't help thinking).

Where do I fit in? Shopping - I enjoy having new stuff, but would definitely prefer going back to the days when my mom did it for me. Is it the lack of oxygen, the need to go from shop to shop at a painful pace before picking up one or just wrong wiring. This is just about clothes...handbags, shoes, accessories fare worse as the criticality - and therefore the motivation - to buy is even less.

Some birth defect?

God give me patience...

...but please hurry. Summer vacations start today.

When I love my children the most:

1) They are asleep and it is not time yet for them to wake up.
2) They are in school and there is still time for them to return.
2) They are out playing and it is still too early for them to be home.
3) They are engrossed watching TV and not trying to kill each other...and it is not time for them to switch it off yet.
4) They are petting each other oblivious to mommy dear screaming her head off for their having fought just a second before.

The Super "Eye"

She had learnt to make do with what she had. It was lucky that this planet had water and supported life. But in the quiet corner she was stranded in, she and her 6 year old were the only ones. Sometimes it was lonely. At other times, very scary. But something made her stay on.

She looked over at her son, contentedly playing with the makeshift ball. Sometimes it rained food packets, sometimes, it was a heavier shower of clothes and other necessities. There were times when they were completely forgotten.

The soil let her grow some food that she had planted on landing here. The space shuttle was their living quarters. She was grateful for that. So grateful that she did not want to go back home. When she realised that the accidentally sown seed in her womb just before she travelled to this planet had borne fruition and she successfully delivered the baby, she saw no reason to go back.

She looked at her son again but didn't find him there. She ambled to the telescope and caught him staring at one of the planets billions of light years away. It looked like any other planet - shaped like a star but not twinkling. She always set the telescope such that he could zero in on it, see the green, the blue and the brown, and then zoom closer.

He was looking at his microbes. "Mom! Come, see them," he shouted out excitedly.

She went to him and ruffled his hair fondly. The first time he had detected them, she had tried to explain that those microbes were her size or bigger. That they were god's greatest creation on planet earth. That they had been responsible for sending her on this mission. But she had somehow not wanted to go back when her space shuttle conked. With air to breath, a roof on their head and food and water...it seemed blissful here.

"But why, mom!" he had exclaimed when he heard the story first.

Thoughtfully, she said, "I don't know... The "I am great" business was getting to me I suppose. People have a super I."

"Super Eye!" her son had exclaimed. She could see his mind ticking, trying to imagine those insignificant dots made up entirely of the eye. She laughed. "Not eye, like this," she had tried explaining, pointing to her eye, "but AI...me!"

He had frowned, not comprehending anything. He was more excited by the fact that in some places, the "microbes" were clustered together, and in some others, sparse and in smaller pockets.

She had looked up at the sky once again. God was there somewhere... probably. Is this how they looked to him? Small, miniscule, insignificant microbes, living out their common destiny, battling in the belief that only their I mattered?

She sighed, glad of the quiet. Wondering if in this solitude, she were not living out her I completely?

Crazy for Cronin

I heard about The Citadel when in college. I sort of became obsessed about getting a copy and reading it. When I did, it seemed perfectly justified. I found his view of the individual as compelling as Ayn Rand, and extremely practical. There is no utopian idealism here. Maybe, now as I write, I realise that Farooq Sheikh - Dipti Naval starrer Saath-Saath was on a similar theme. The idealist hero who loses his way and then returns when he loses his love.

Then I read Beyond This Place, another compelling book. I was amazed and thrilled to find Dev Anand and Madhubala in Kala Pani acting out the Indianised version of this book.

Both movies stand out for their memorable songs.

The Stars Look Down and Northern Lights were probably the last I read back then. And recently, The Lady in Red Carnations had me as hooked.

In a recent conversation with a friend, the desire to revisit Citadel made me go back to the book. Despite the passage of years, the book remains as endearing and gripping as ever. A reread of Stars Look Down and then Hatter's Castle made me want to read more of Cronin. The former is about miners and their struggles, while Hatter's Castle, set in Scotland, is timely in its insight into human nature, its trials and tribulations. Though it is set in the Englan of 1800s, I don't think we will wonder if such people existed. That is what makes them classics, I suppose.

My supplier of books, the local librarian, has one small row right on top with Cronin's books. I was appalled when he told me I could take the entire lot, read them one by one and return as I finish. "Doesn't anybody read him anymore?" I asked, saddened that such a gem of an author is so neglected. Their loss is my gain, and I am hoping that he doesn't let me down.