The Existentialist Manifesto

In this essay, I will whip around various little bits of my worldview which is still evolving, subject to change and might just be downright stupid. Let’s start.

Nihil Superum

A nice phrase I came across in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, a Harry Potter fan-fic by Eliezer Yudkowsky (lesswrong.com). Translated in the book as “nothing above”. Fits quite well into my way of life.

In the context of the book, it is talking about a hero’s way of life, and how he has nothing above. There could be two interpretations, one being “nothing superior”, in the sense there is none better than the hero, or in the sense there is “none above the hero, whom he must answer to”. I like the second one more. The first one seems a little rat-racy. Also, given the emphasis on science and rationality in the book, I suppose it fits too. “There is none above (in the heavens) that one must answer to”.

May be bleak, but hey, it’s probably true. There probably is nothing above. It is what I choose to believe in. I believe there is nothing above, there is nothing beyond, this short life is all you have and this short time on earth is all you get. This is “the IT”.

What does that mean for the universe and all this *gestures vaguely at the entirety of existence*? I really have no idea. Is there a God? Maybe, I really don’t know. If there is, does God follow me around, keep track of everything I do (or have some equivalent bureaucratic structure in place that does so) and then reward or punish me for what I manage to make of my life? Highly unlikely. Given how much said God would have to deal with, it seems incredibly unlikely that that would be even the meanest subtask on the omniscient todo list.

Summarizing, if a higher power existed, would I be answerable to said power? Unlikely, since the scope of this power would be so immense that this power won’t really bother with questioning me. To assume that the creator of all creation has somehow attached enough significance to you to allocate personal attention to everything you have ever done seems like a gross overstatement of your significance in the context of all creation.

There’s a good line in House, the TV series starring Hugh Laurie, where his character Gregory House says “Personally, I choose to believe that the white-light people sometimes see, visions this patient saw… I find it more comforting to believe that all this isn’t simply a test.” That was the primary trigger that started churning all this in my head by the way. That’s what pushed me to put pen to paper, or rather put finger to keyboard. Getting back on topic, I hate tests. That’s why, while I like The Good Place, I do dislike that points system based on which you go to heaven or hell.

Encapsulating in a nutshell (how does the exact same meaning sound so different and weird?), I believe that this life is it, and it’s all you get. If you’re good in this one, you’re good. Else you aren’t and you may go down as a bad person, but you won’t be rewarded (or penalised) for whatever you manage to do in this lifetime. There is, in my opinion, no consequence of being a good (or not) person beyond this life.

That has several resounding impacts, if you come to terms with it. One is, there is no ‘sow now and reap the rewards later’ scheme in life. You can be ‘virtuous’ and forgo all the fun parts, hoping for a heaven where you live out all your wildest fantasies, but that’s most probably not happening. If you wanna be virtuous, be so for the sake of it, not because you’ll get cake later. You probably won’t. At the same time, don’t stop doing bad stuff just because you’re afraid you’re gonna be tossed into a pot of oil by a red dude with a stick. You shouldn’t do bad stuff because it’s bad. ‘The cake is a lie.’ That’s what I think.

Another bit that follows is that given this is “the IT”, the cake doesn’t come later, you owe yourself all the cake. You don’t get another shot at cake. Or cookies, or whatever it is that pushes your buttons. There won’t be any buttons to push, in a very short while. Within the confines of this very short, limited, sometimes downright kneecapped existence, you have to find everything you can. You have to get all the cake you can get your hands on (the cake is a metaphor, just in case. I’m not advocating binging on cake, but you do you, should you wish to.)

Few days ago, I was telling a friend to go forth and have fun, and managed to put the thought across with surprising clarity. “The worst that could happen is you might die, and that’s inevitable. Might as well go forth and carpe that diem.” I’m not advocating trying frequent near death experiences. I’m saying that your clock will run out, maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after. Don’t wait. Not for any sensible reason like the thing needs to be done. Do it cause this short collection of days is all you get. It’s not a lot, in the grand scheme of things. It’s not a lot even as a standalone concept, without any scheme to set it in.

“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” And that’s all there is to it. In a fairly short while, dust is all that will be left. Use the non-dustiness while you can, because that’s all you’ll be after, a little puff of dust being blown along by the wind.

Just in case, the name for this piece was originally the Nihilist Manifesto. But I am not a nihilist, I don’t believe this life and indeed everything is meaningless. It matters very strongly, at least to me, that I am living this little life. This little life is all you have, to find, to create and to understand whatever meaning you can.

In fact, my worldview doesn’t align with pure existentialism. Googling existentialism yields “a philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.” I do agree that individualism is important and one’s existence and experiences are very important, but that’s not the emphasis for me. I want to focus on the existence in existentialism.

There’s that terrifying monologue by Morty in season one, episode eight. “Nobody exists on purpose. Nobody belongs anywhere. Everybody’s gonna die.” All of that is true. Nobody asked to be born. Nobody signed up for this life. And guess what’s the only given, the only constant in this experience? It’s gonna end. We’re all gonna die, for sure. Does that make the experience worse? Does it make it any better? I really don’t know. But it does not diminish the importance of life, that’s for sure. Incidentally the next line of the monologue is “Come watch TV?”

You do matter, tremendously so. So do I, and so does everyone else. If nothing else, you’re you, you’re the one living this life and touching so many others. You’re the universe experiencing itself, and you deserve an amazing ride.

Cheers, may it be the ride of a lifetime.

“I read of a man who stood to speak at the funeral of a friend. He referred to the dates on the tombstone from the beginning… to the end.
He noted that first came the date of birth and spoke of the following date with tears, but he said what mattered most of all was the dash between those years.”

The Dash, Linda Ellis

Reincarnation

This has been long overdue.

It was a culmination of Suchit prodding me to write (and eventually giving up), self-realisation that it has been a while since this page was alive, and I suppose the tipping point was this picture I stumbled upon.

This is from a few months ago when we were toasting our last couple of days in college. It took a year of practice, but we finally figured out which side is my “saree side” (turns out, it’s the left).

I feel the need to reintroduce myself. Kind of like how people renew their marriage vows (not sure if that’s a good analogy, really)… Incidentally, it has been just over 3 years since we started this blog and what better way to celebrate than to roll up my sleeves and rummage for a pen and paper. To be honest, I really would have to do a fair bit of rummaging to find a pen. I can’t remember the last time I even used one. So I shall have to make do with rolling up my sleeves and typing away at my keyboard.

Between the last time I wrote and now, I turned 21, put on some weight, travelled a fair bit (read exploited the Schengen visa and visited 5 European countries), unearthed hidden musical treasures and lost about half the hair on my head. But other than that, I’m still that lost kid who doesn’t know where she’s headed.

Coding is probably not my thing at all. And what beats me most of all is how and when I’m supposed to break that to the rest of the world.

-me, circa 2017

Guess what? I’m about to apply to Computer Science master’s degree programs!

No, I did not have an epiphany and realise that coding is totally my thing. I just… don’t know what else to do. I’m not ready to commit to a 9-to-5 job and this feels like the next obvious thing to do after getting my bachelor’s degree. So here I am, at the University of Michigan, doing a 6-month undergrad thesis and supposedly “trying to figure out if this is where I want to be”.

I met an acquaintance a few weeks ago and I was mildly surprised when I found out where he worked, considering his age and experience. It seemed like he should have been higher up on the corporate ladder. Instead, he’d chosen his own way of life, decided that he didn’t want to be a part of the rat race, and was content with where he was at, professionally. I have so much respect for this man because I feel like it would take immense courage to stand up and say “hey, I’m going to do this even though I could technically do more, and I’m satisfied with how things are”.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m just applying for my master’s simply because that’s expected of me. In India, we refer to this as “log kya kahenge” (translated to “what will people think/say”). Luckily for me, I actually do enjoy student life, I want to study more, I want to have a first-hand experience of studying with peers from across the world. A master’s program in the US would definitely check all those boxes. But do I want to do a master’s in Computer Science? Do I want to do it now? Most importantly, would I choose to do this if all the people who know me would suddenly lose their memories of me and effectively leave me with no one “saying” anything about what I do? I suppose these are things I’ll never truly know. I comfort myself by the thought that maybe I’m overthinking.

Another thing that I feel a lot is intellectual intimidation. Perhaps the easiest way to describe it would be Imposter Syndrome. Particularly here, because I’m surrounded by Ph.D. students who obviously have more knowledge and experience than me. If I’m talking to someone about work, and they mention something that I don’t know, chances are that I’ll end up nodding my head and looking it up later. It’s not just work, though. I dined with my dad’s friend recently, and she brought up “world politics” and I could feel my stomach lurch. Give me a textbook and quiz me on it a week later and I’ll get straight A’s. But other than that, I feel like my technical and general know-how is pretty mediocre. Just another thing you never realise until you’re out of college, I suppose.

Of course, doing my thesis in the US has its own perks. I live an independent life, I cook my own food (some of which does turn out to be edible) and pretty much get to do whatever I want, whenever I want. My flatmate has the most adorable dog and I am the latest addition to the list of people he jumps on. AND I’M GOING TO BE ATTENDING A SNARKY PUPPY CONCERT NEXT MONTH! All in all, I wouldn’t say that I have it too rough, barring a few scrapes here and there. Which I believe is part of the game.

Until next time, here’s a song by Snarky Puppy that is particularly close to my heart.

 

 

A Charging Port

Do you have one? A charging port for the soul? Something that lifts your spirit and mood and everything else and makes you feel better in general? It could be some place, something, it could be someone.

I have multiple. People, places, objects and some activities.

Among these, I’d probably rank my ancestral town-village among the top three. It is, hands down, the best place ever to exist. It’s Santiniketan, some 200-odd kilometers to the north of Kolkata. I like it because of what it is, I think. There’s greenery there, but then so is my campus. I could wax poetic about avenues shaded by massive trees arching across them, but Kolkata is full of them. I could say it’s because I have a home there, but I have a room of my own in college, and a home in Kolkata. I wish I could nail it down to a particular factor, to one thing that I could point at and say, “This thing. This is what makes this place special.” On second thoughts, I don’t. Maybe if I distill it down to exactly what is the allure of the place, I wouldn’t find it as captivating anymore.

There, I made sketches of trees, and took pictures of a river. I went to an ethnic village market that I really disliked,because that was an exposition of stuff you could get from any roadside hawkers in Kolkata, being sold at ridiculous prices to rip off unsuspecting visitors. I took long walks, read a bit and played with my younger cousin brother. I relaxed, and had fun. It was a good experience.

Indeed, this entire vacation was good.

You see, I am supposedly an electrical engineer, by vocation, or so the college would have you believe. And I, not to put too fine a point on it, suck at it. My grades aren’t too good, in fact they are on the verge of bad, and my interest in the discipline leaves a lot to be desired. Let’s just say I don’t really like it. Needless to say, academics-wise, my semesters are pretty glum, though the people and activities more than make up for it. This summer, we had PS (a sort of internship program that counts towards my grades) which let me work in my fields of interest, and helped me cheer up considerably, at least as far as work and academia goes.

Anyhow, we were talking of places. So I went for a walk in Santiniketan, one night after dinner. It was silent, in the way nighttime is silent, chirping crickets and rustling trees, and a very delicate whoosh, as the wind blew by me. It had rained, not long ago. The unpaved roads were still muddy, fresh bicycle tracks imprinted in them. There was an unsteady drip-drip-drip accompanying me all the way around, as the trees shook off their leaves in the slow breeze. I didn’t see a single person out there other than a couple of security guards, engrossed in some chitchat of their own.

Non-urban air has a kind of clarity to it that’s difficult to describe. But it is dusty, especially in the evening and night. Just after rains, it acquires a kind of… well, it’s hard to describe. You just don’t notice it anymore, except when the breeze rises. The trees were just dark shadows, the branches spreading silhouettes against a clear sky. It was a moonless night. I was alone, on the road, with my thoughts, and it felt so glorious. And it nagged me a little too, the fact that I had to be alone with my thoughts. But it felt good, which is what matters, I guess.

Santiniketan, literally translated, means abode of peace. It lives up to its name. And I haven’t yet found out what makes it so peaceful. Maybe that’s the frame of mind I’ve conditioned myself to be in, that I’ll be zen-like once I’m there. I guess the point here is that for inner peace, outer peace is necessary too.

Fairly obvious, I’ll agree.

In other news, go watch Dunkirk. It is a really good movie. It’s unmistakably Nolan, though it’s different from everything he’s done so far. I won’t talk any more about it, other that it’s probably one of the best expositions I’ve seen, till date, of the filmmaker’s craft.

And in the end…

This probably deserves to be more than a footnote, but Chester Bennington killed himself. That man meant a lot, I think, to my entire generation. He was my gateway to a lot of music, and it’s sad to see him go like this. It might have been the way out he needed, but not what he deserved. I have followed Linkin Park’s music for seven years now. I heard them shift to electronica, and the try to make a pretty unsuccessful transition to their original sound. I liked their last album, though it was no Hybrid Theory. Few bands had so definitively carved their place in the pantheon of music, laying claim to an entire genre.

Anyway, In The End was the first song that I had memorised. I loved it. I still do. I’m running though the words in my head. My favourite song was The Catalyst. It’s sad, the way he passed. I won’t quote any lyrics, I will not present you with that kind of a cliché. I hope he is in peace now.

Not ALL is fair in love

We’re all familiar with bullying. Be it through personal experience, reading about it in a book, or watching 13 Reasons Why (let’s not even go there), we know what emotional abuse means. And while there is a lot to be said on that topic, what I want to discuss is not bullying, it’s something more specific. Emotional abuse, yes, but at the hands of a loved one.

 

The number of people, girls in particular, that I’m personally acquainted with, who silently suffer while they are being emotionally abused, is rather shocking. It ranges from extremely mild to simply unacceptable, and even illegal.

 

One of the most important things people need to know is when you have to stop – stop emotionally blackmailing, stop harassing, stop making someone feel guilty, and so on. It really isn’t a person’s fault if they don’t reciprocate your feelings and making them feel otherwise makes no sense. Not all romantic feelings are two-way, sometimes people just don’t feel the same way as the other person, and newsflash: that’s completely okay.

 

Taking this one step further, it is also fair to want to stop being in a relationship, especially if you sit down and talk it out, explain to the other person why it isn’t working out for you. “It’s not you, it’s me” is not just something people say to avoid awkward situations where they have to explain their actions. Sometimes it actually is “not you, but me”. I know people who have sincerely believed in a relationship up to a point of time, after which they realised that they weren’t exactly where they wanted to be. Getting out can be tricky, but it’s not a crime. What is, however (not literally, of course), is calling someone two dozen times in a span of an hour. I’m not even exaggerating. Stop spamming people with texts and calls. Demand explanations, but after the final conversation has been had (and you’ll know it, don’t worry), give people their personal space. Calling up someone’s family or friends in an attempt to get in touch with them, is really not the right way of going about things. It causes a whole lot of stress to people who are probably not even involved.

 

And then there’s downright abuse. Threatening someone, physical violence, that’s just inhuman. A friend of mine, who has been married for the past 5 years, gets beaten up by her husband almost everyday. She’s now carrying a child, but that hasn’t changed anything. True, she could walk out of it and save herself the trauma, but I suppose that is easier said than done. And also besides the point. Why should she even have to walk out of her own house, in the first place?

 

It saddens me immensely, especially because I know some of these people personally. It’s one thing to read about something in the papers and something entirely different to know people who are the people in the papers. I shudder as I think about how they must feel.

 

There isn’t much that we can do, or maybe that’s just my bleak outlook. Either way, I knew I couldn’t keep this in, and here’s to hoping that someone reading this will find some help here. If you’re being treated unfairly, please walk out. Do something. Help yourself. Talk to people you trust. I don’t know, I’m a kid myself, but just get out of it, one way or another.

 

Things that I think

It is hot. Even worse, it is humid.

It’s humid, and here I am, trying to pour out what’s on my mind. I’m thinking about old cars, old music, new cars, good books, happy people and new covers of old music and machine guns.

Machine guns because of the drums on this (https://youtu.be/fkP3urtYCkc) cover of Immigrant Song by Karen O and Trent Reznor. I think it’s because of the overall grungy feel of the song. The drums feel relentless, pounding on without flourishes, and then get lost in the murky grungy sounds as the song progresses, but you can hear them in the background, forming the backbone of the song. They feel so powerful, but inhuman. The sound is more of a sampled beat than a drummer. Probably is so.

This is a cover of a song by Led Zeppelin, and both versions are great. The cover does retain the spirit of the original, but some of the hugeness that the original has is lost. And if you pay attention to the drums, you’ll find that the beat is similar, but there is a man rocking his heart out behind that immensely powerful sound, and it shows. There are very few sounds more definitionally rocky, more celebratable, than Led Zeppelin at their archetypal best. https://youtu.be/hC-T0rC6m7I. Check for yourself. And I’m going on about the drums, but there’s Jimmy Page on the guitar. He is, if you don’t know, a God. And the lyrics, too. Very deep, and accurate too, historically. Well mostly.

And I enjoy cars a lot. Personal favourite is a ‘69 Ford Mustang. Very beautiful car, and the well maintained ones are a treat to look at. And the engines sound great too. I am guessing that isn’t everyone’s cup of tea anyway.

The fan is on at full blast, but it blows down hot air onto me. The worst part of humidity is the sweatiness. As much as I love Kolkata, one thing I’d like to change is this sweaty, sticky climate. I’m playing Crazy by Aerosmith on my earphones. I pause the music for a bit, and pull out the earphones. I can hear the occasional whoosh of a car go by, a beep or two from faraway horns. The TV next door is blaring some serialised inanity, with dramatic music all over the place, and their dog is barking. Someone barks a command at the dog and it quiets down, only to start in a couple of minutes. It is a crime to keep a dog in an apartment. Poor creature gets no exercise, and barks its lungs out all day.

I look back up at the fan and down at my keyboard again. Apparently I haven’t stopped the music, I can still hear Steven Tyler howling his heart out in the chorus. I pause it. It’s a good song, I’ll replay it.

Incidentally, y’all should listen to https://youtu.be/QCVGpvzcHko?t=39. This guy is a modern-ish stand up comic, and his brand of comedy is this self aware, self deprecating, ironic jabs at the state of modern society. A sort of “What have we become?”, regretful, but fully aware that he’s a product of the same society, and he’s been contributing to the same. It’s like one of those evolution memes, where the penultimate character turns around, saying “We messed up”.

Anyway, I will stop now. The thoughts have stopped flowing. This is a weird kind of writer’s block, where I want to write, but I can’t write stuff. Not stuff that I’m satisfied with. This is okay, I guess. Feels natural and coherent. I think the necessity is a creative recharge, and also effort. I guess.

Necessary. Not Evil.

I am angry.

Rather, I was angry. I’ve sort of calmed down since then, and decided to be less angry and more calm and composed, and do something about what was making me angry. And so, I decided to take up what was bothering me on the massive platform that is this blog, with all of its twenty three followers. And twenty visitors on a good day.

Here’s my problem:

People have an issue with women menstruating in India. At least, it’s very visible and open in India. It happens outside India too, this stigma, but especially here, among Hindus, it’s a kind of bordering on stupidity. It makes me angry. Very angry. I had heard and read about this. That women are not allowed entry into temples when they are on their period. That they are not allowed to enter the kitchen on their period, and they have to eat separately and not directly touch any other people because that may defile them.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

According to this stupid rule, a woman, whose domain, according to the scriptures, is the kitchen and household in general, is not allowed to go into the kitchen, or into the thakur-ghor (a room for the gods, a mini temple room. Most Hindu households have at least a cabinet or shelf of images and idols, if not a room). She is to be ostracised and treated like a pariah for the simple reason that she is a woman and can bear children.

Fun fact:

Recently, a Goods and Services Tax was introduced by the Hindu leaning BJP led government across all of India. What this tax aims to do is replace all the various taxes and cesses levied by the central and state level governments by one single tax, making the general functioning of markets easier and so on. This tax levies a 12% tax on all menstrual sanitary products and makes sindoor and bangles tax exempt. Sindoor is a red pigment that married women wear on their forehead. Both sindoor and bangles are considered symbols of a happy and auspicious marriage. The irony isn’t lost, I hope.

Feminism, circa the stone age.

And before you shake your head, remember that this is the same government that, to further the Hindu devotion for cows, illegalised the purchase of cows for slaughter a few days ago. That’s another thing I am angry about, I do love a good steak. And they just made it harder to get one.

https://goo.gl/mOE1xc This is what triggered me, and made me angry enough to write about this. A couple of these stories are heartbreaking.

And a lot of you all can immediately go, “Well, this doesn’t happen in my family” (I hope to god you can). Neither does it in mine, as far as I know. At least, I was never told to not touch someone, not for these reasons anyway. But there are people I know, who have to face this. And it is really sad, that in educated households, women are treated like this. Even in the educated and urban parts. Chew on that for a moment.

And to the guys reading, it may not seem like a big deal, but it is. Think about it this way, you’re being punished for something perfectly normal and natural. Let’s say people treat you like you’ve got some deadly disease cause you breathe. Makes no sense? I know. You need to breathe to stay alive. It’s a bodily function. Right? Everyone does it. Right? Yeah, right. Same here. Every woman has periods. YOU EXIST BECAUSE YOUR MUM HAD PERIODS. And yet, we treat women like this.

There is no way this kind of behaviour is acceptable, but it’s a special kind of wrongdoing when children are brought into this. Poor girl, she is hurting, she is confused and scared, she isn’t used to this.The pain and discomfort isn’t enough, humiliation needs to be added to the mix. And so, on top of that, she’s isolated from everyone else, because she might pollute the others. She might induce menstruation in the girls who haven’t yet started. Science at its finest. She is not at all comfortable with the fact that she is bleeding, and the teacher announces it to the entire classroom, that the girl is to be avoided. That she is impure. Imagine, if you can, what that girl is thinking. And if she is unlucky, she has to go home to the same treatment. Her siblings cannot play with her. She’s made to sleep separately, and her food is put out on separate plates, in one corner of the room. Anyone who touches her must wash themselves. From childhood up, girls are indoctrinated with the idea that they are impure and foul when they have their period. If that isn’t pathetic, I don’t know what is.

For someone who hasn’t faced this, imagine someone made to feel they are unclean, being left out of everything because of something they biological. Now imagine how they would feel about this if they were made to feel so by their own family. They didn’t ask to have periods. No woman likes to put up with this, but they have to. This is probably the time when a woman feels most vulnerable and has all sorts of aches and cramps going on, and instead of offering care and compassion, the custom is make her feel like she’s committed some filthy sin.

I don’t know, what I want out of this. There’s not going to be any sweeping social change among India’s masses thanks to one post in an obscure blog by a college student. Heck, I’m not even angry anymore, just sad. It feels bad to know that I won’t be able to exorcise this devil. The best I can do is rant. And that’s it.

 

Too late to apologise?

We had Dr. Shashi Tharoor visiting our campus a few weeks ago, during our cultural festival Pearl. The turnout for his session was huge, with even the laziest of students abandoning their rooms and trudging all the way to the auditorium an hour in advance and hunting for decent seats. Among the various topics that he spoke about, the one that struck me most was his demand for an apology from Britain for the atrocities committed against Indians during their colonial rule.

 

There are multiple reasons for why this is a good idea; how an apology from, say, the Queen, on the anniversary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, could possibly change a lot of things. It could bring a sense of justice, closure, some sort of retribution maybe. But then again, would it really affect anything? And even if it were to, are we even eligible to demand an apology?

 

There is a story in the Bible, which throws light upon this question. A woman is about to be stoned for immoral activities, when Jesus calls for the one without sin to cast the first stone, following which everyone leaves. If we stand up and raise our voices to condemn, we must first examine ourselves. None of us are truly innocent, no nation has a clean record, and thus, it would seem hypocritical to ask for an apology. If one was to argue further that the extent of the Britisher’s atrocities were extreme, another question to be answered would be, who decides which act is atrocious enough to be condemned or apologised for?

 

Moreover, to whom do the Britishers owe an apology? To the Indian government? To the people of India? Or should their apology be addressed to the departed souls of those who suffered at their hands?

 

The concept of asking for an apology is, surprisingly, not as simple as it seems. This is a conclusion I have come to after almost a decade of observing how actions or words affect people to different extents and their subsequent expectations from the person who has supposedly wronged them.

 

My earliest memory pertaining to this topic is when I was barely 10, and in the midst of an argument with my mother. I probably said something along the lines of “what yaar, you never understand what I’m trying to say” to her. After the discussion had reached its natural end, my father lectured me on my usage of “disrespectful” language with my mother and demanded that I apologise to her. Something little 10-year-old me refused to do. The logic that I offered then was that if my mother had no objection to the way I had spoken to her, why must I have to apologise? Had I spoken to my father in a similar fashion and had he been hurt by my words, yes, I would apologise. But who is a third person to dictate how I must behave with someone, especially if that particular person has no objections? One can argue, of course, that in this case, the fault did lie with me and that my father had every right to say that, but that isn’t really the point I’m trying to make here.

 

The contrasting line of thought is that no matter your intentions, if you realise that you’ve hurt someone, you apologise to them. Period. Now, whether you meant something as a joke, or it’s the other person being extremely sensitive, the moment it comes to your notice that your actions or words have caused pain, you ask for forgiveness.

 

And then there’s the whole “say sorry only if you genuinely mean it” angle to this as well. The movie ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ has a scene where Hrithik Roshan tells Farhan Akhtar, “maafi sirf tab maangna jab dil se aaye” (ask for an apology only when it comes from within). A half-hearted apology is probably worse than no apology, if you really think about it, because you’re just apologising for the sake of it.

 

Personally, I think that it’s never acceptable to hurt someone and not atone for our actions or words. Sometimes we don’t want to hurt someone but we end up doing precisely that. And the knowledge that we have caused unnecessary pain to someone should be enough to make us want to mean the apology. Hence, not only do you apologise even though it’s not entirely your fault, but you also mean it.

 

An apology doesn’t make you the smaller person. It doesn’t make you the “submissive” person in any relationship. It doesn’t make you someone who always adjusts for others, or someone who can be pushed around. It’s never too late. Of course, it makes more sense to apologise as soon as you realise your mistake, but honestly, a late apology is better than none. So go on and say that magic word, after all, what goes around, comes around.

An appreciation of Hitchhiker’s

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. Perhaps the most remarkable…

-The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

Things you might want to keep in mind-

• I LOVE THIS BOOK
• I will gush my heart out. Honestly, I am a voracious reader and I’ve never found a book that I connected to or enjoyed more

So, the Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy. The book is about a hapless and very British human, Arthur Dent, as he pinballs across the galaxy after his home and planet are destroyed by construction crews (different ones, of different scales and scopes). It mostly involves him being blown up, shot at or having something unpleasant happen to him every few paragraphs.

I will digress now.

I had been staring at my wall for the past half an hour and now I will tell you what I am thinking about. On my wall, I had written, in an attempt to personalise my room, “Cogito Ergo Sum”. It’s my favourite quote. “I think therefore I am”, by Rene Descartes. A very neat little piece of reasoning. He wanted to arrive at some fundamental intrinsic of the universe and his method to arrive at that was to question everything, and not believe in anything that he thought wasn’t true for sure. He ruled out sensory input, you may hear or see wrong and so on. He ruled out his own thoughts, as he may make errors. And so on, and he ended up with pretty much nothing. There was apparently no thought or idea, that he could think of, which was perfectly, intrinsically correct. And then he realised he was thinking. That was impossible to deny, that he was thinking. Thus, his mind, hence his brain, head and body existed, else it would be very stupid to have a thought without a mind, a mind without a body and so on. Thus, Descartes, for sure existed, since he thought. He thought, therefore he was.

“Cogito ergo sum.”

That had absolutely nothing to do with Hitchhiker’s. I just felt like writing it, so I did. I will now return to what I was doing. Trying to review that godly piece of perfection. Now the thing is, this book is very different from almost any other book, so it makes it pretty difficult to dissect and analyse. Quoting Stephen Fry on Wodehouse, “You don’t analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its warmth and splendour”. Pretty much sums it up.

There is so so little plot that it won’t satisfy a three year old’s demands from a bedtime story. On second thoughts, it would, but that’s about it. As far as just the storyline goes, it’s the bare minimum necessary. Just a set of highly improbable things happening one after the other. But that plot is supplemented by the most brilliant language, and extremely British humour.

And it is full of very weird sciency things, absurdly plausible, but absolutely impossible. An example-
How do you fly?
You fall, aiming for the ground and miss. The missing part is difficult, it involves distracting yourself so completely that you forget that you were supposed to hit the ground, and before you know it, you’re flying.

Another such example would be the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, a most dangerous creature who is also mind bogglingly stupid, so much so that if you cannot see it, it assumes it cannot see you. So if you are cornered by the Ravenous Bugblatter, all you need to do is put a towel over your eyes and it will leave you alone. There is also a bit about how, given the Universe is infinite, everything, no matter how improbable, must occur naturally. So out there somewhere is a planet of mattresses (all named Zem, for some reason), which are harvested, cut up and dried out and sent off to the markets. Fresh mattresses from Squornshellous Zeta. There is also a tree which grows screwdrivers as fruit. And a planet of ballpoint pens, introduced in an entirely different context. There is also an infinite improbability drive, which allows for practically instantaneous transport. One of my favourites is the Babel fish, which feeds on brain waves, and acts a universal translator. So it absorbs all your brainwaves, feeds on the unconscious ones and excretes the conscious ones telepathically. The practical implication of this is that if you put one in your ear, all your conscious thoughts, that is whatever you’re saying, are relayed as pure brainwaves to everyone else in real time. Pretty neat.

Yes, this isn’t proper science. It is nonsense, and the author had absolutely no intention to appeal to common sense. But at first glance, it does seem plausible. And no matter how nonsensical, it’s funny. It’s sort of like one of the crazier XKCD comics, humorous and doesn’t take itself seriously, while it makes sense on some level. SMBC too, for that matter. Actually, it’s closer to SMBC than XKCD.

Incidentally, there isn’t much character development either. After 5 books of being an occasionally heroic wimp searching for tea, at the end of it all, he’s… well, he’s still that, with a daughter, obtained via surrogacy. Ford Prefect is still in search of the fountain of alcohol at the end of the Universe. And so on.

The very broad storyline of the thing is this. At least, this is the part that might sound familiar to some of you who haven’t read the books. So millions of years ago, there lived a race of hyperintelligent pandimensional beings. Lets call them mice. You’ll understand why. So the mice made a computer, the greatest of all time, that would answer the ultimate question of Life, the Universe and Everything. So this computer of theirs, Deep Thought, ran for 7.5 million years and came up with the answer 42. This didn’t really satisfy the mice. They wanted something a bit more deep and meaningful. Then, Deep Thought gently reminded them that they didn’t know the ultimate question, and that he’d build an even greater computer, a device so complex that organic matter would form its physical structure. And so the Earth was made, to find the ultimate question, and its program ran for 10 million years. And 5 minutes before the read out it was destroyed by a Vogon constructor fleet. Here onward, it’s Arthur and Ford and other people who don’t always stick with them stumbling across the Universe, getting into some kind of trouble or the other.

The actual Hitchhiker’s Guide of the Galaxy features in here as a literal Guide to the Galaxy, a sort of encyclopaedia of worlds and attractions and interesting people. It has, apparently replaced encyclopaedias as the standard repository of all knowledge since it is cheaper and has DON’T PANIC written in large letters on the cover.

There are pretty weird side characters. My favourite three, in ascending order, are:
Fenchurch, Arthur’s love interest with whom he gets to spend a month after which she goes missing. She was sort of the mouthpiece for the grand readout of the ultimate answer, it is implied. Nice character, overall.
Wowbagger, the Infinitely Prolonged. An alien who had immortality thrust upon him as a result of an accident with a time machine and some rubber bands. Getting completely bored of his immortality after outliving everyone for a few hundred years, he decides to insult every creature in the Universe (in alphabetical order).
Agrajag, a being who keeps getting reincarnated in various forms, only to be killed by Arthur every single time. He is born as a rabbit, whom Arthur kills to make a bag, and then as a fly, whom Arthur kills with the same bag. And so on. He’s later (or earlier, depends on how you look at it. “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so”), transfigured into existence in the place of a missile as a bowl of petunias and thus, falls to the surface of the planet and dies.

So, in a sort of TL;DR, I’ll say this. The plot ain’t much to speak of. The characters are well, they are ragdolls being tossed around as and when the author decides to blow up stuff around them. The language is beautiful, purely humorously English in every sense of the word. And the humour, at least for me, is spot on all the time.

I think you’ve sort of formed an idea of the book by now. Again, you can’t really analyse this thing. You either like it or you don’t. There is no partial, no sort of. It’s no cup of tea, it’s a swig of some heady drink. And you can take it or leave it.

Into morally dark areas (again)

When do you end your friendship with someone? I mean, at what point would you draw the line between friendship and morality? If your friend harasses a girl, would you stop talking to him? Would you end your friendship right there? Or would you try and explain to your friend that what he did was wrong and try to change his perspective or him as a person?

On the one hand, it is immensely difficult for a person to intrinsically change who he is. If someone truly believes that what he has done is not wrong at all, it isn’t very easy to make him see otherwise. But, on the flipside, what if your abandoning that friend is exactly what could set him off and lead him into doing worse?

There’s the added point about how if you keep a fresh apple among rotten apples, it rots a lot sooner. You tend to be the average of the company you keep. That is not to say that if your friend has indeed harassed a girl and you continue your friendship with him, you’ll end up harassing people too. But surely, the company of such a person is bound to have repercussions on how you perceive things or draw the line between right and wrong.

But then again, if you are the person who has strayed away from the so-called path of righteousness, wouldn’t you want someone to be there, to tell you that even though they’re disgusted by your actions, they still value your friendship? Parents don’t abandon their kids, come what may. When I was very young, I stole chocolates from home and lied about it later. I did get a thorough earful for that, but that in no way changed my parents’ affection towards me. But then again, friends aren’t family. Only the ones who stay, through all of life’s vicissitudes, those are the true gems.

 

Another paradox of sorts that’s been boggling my mind is this. If you look at your neighbour’s answer sheet in an examination hall, it’s cheating. It’s wrong, and you must be punished for it. But what if you’re the scribe for a blind student giving his board examinations. You correct a spelling mistake here, edit a grammatical error there. And what if your gentle nudge in the right direction is what makes this kid’s career, or some such thing? Will your conscience still bother you?

This thought came to me because one of my friends told me that he had been cheating on his weekly tests, following which we had a mild debate over the same.On the other hand, when I found out about someone helping a blind student pass his board examinations, I praised them for being thoughtful and considerate. Does the morality of cheating depend on the abilities of the person you’re helping? If you help someone disabled, it doesn’t seem so bad, but if you help out a friend who hasn’t studied, it’s looked down upon.

 

I suppose the answer to all of this and more is that the world isn’t black and white. There is no perfectly right way to go about living, and sometimes, you simply make your choices based on your perceptions of what is acceptable and what isn’t.

 

SK: Well, it’s fine to say that the blind kid can have his career made by the grammar corrections and all, but at the same time you forget that he starts with an intrinsic handicap. You have heard and seen those words, many many times. He has only heard them. He cannot visualise and lacks a very very important memory cue. On the other hand, cheating is the use of an unfair means to gain an advantage. It is not as if the person who is cheating begins with a handicap. On a level playing field, with everyone being given the same opportunity, he chooses to do something explicitly wrong. There is no unintentional bump here, but actual malpractice. That’s my two cents.

 

Nice People and Introverts

 

Couple of days ago, Kenneth “Kenny” Sebastian, a stand up comedian came to our college. He is pretty good, and brilliant at what he does, which is make people laugh. He had one set about so called ‘nice people’, the ones who are meek, quiet and good to others, usually too much so for their own good. Basically introverts, ones who are very good to their fellow men.

 

These nice people, I tell you are the gems of humanity. These are the people who the rest of us should love protect and cherish, because while we’ll never admit it, they are the ideal we should strive toward. They are the gems, the hidden treasures, so to speak.

 

The other half is characterised by, in a nutshell, brashness. They will go up and talk to people. Initiate conversations, ask random questions and in general reach out and try to make friends with you. On the flip side, they will speak over you. They will interrupt you and try to finish your points, even when they don’t know for sure what you are talking about. They are trouble seekers and makers, people who will cause problems about things someone can tolerate and/or ignore. At the same time, they might solve your problems too, which is good.

 

So, these nice people, the introverts, they are fundamentally the quiet ones. Not the party types. They would like to socialise, but they are unsure, usually of themselves. Whom should one approach when one is at a party where he knows nobody, and all the people are new to him? Is it okay to express his [even if slightly controversial] opinion just like that? Or should one wait and hold off? What if you disagree with someone? Is saying “I disagree” offensive? These nice people, may they live long and prosper, are too nice for their own good. I know someone who will not take a decision about anything and will leave the choice of everything, from where to eat, to which route to take to college, to others. Though of late she’s gotten slightly better. She at least chooses the time, even if only occasionally, when we meet. Which is better than nothing.

 

The other half has a sort of knack for saying what they want. They will be loud and clear, even if saying something wrong. They will make sure they are heard, which is pretty nice. Only, every time an extrovert speaks, they speak over and interrupt at least two introverts, who enviously wish that they could also just sling words about so effectively. They are, naturally, stealers of the shows.

 

Speaking as an ambivert, I sometimes understand the effort that a nice introvert needs to open up and speak to people, to make decisions and to socialise in general. It is much easier to stay at home and read a book. But I also understand where the people persons come from, what they enjoy about the whole “interacting with people” process. Making friends, it’s way less painful a process than an introvert would think. It is actually fun to go up and talk to people, to know what makes them tick, that they like knitting and Celtic heavy metal, that their dog’s name is Bobo and their phone is shit. But yes, I do need to take time off and recharge, get some alone time and not be social all the time.

 

However, it remains that the extroverts are going to stay as the public faces for all of us. The introverts simply aren’t, well, extroverted enough. So, it is our sacred duty to take care of these nice little introverts the best we can, while they do their thing. They produce so many nice things that give us so much joy, books and paintings and if nothing else, blogs that you check in on for happy little updates on what is going on all around.

 

PS: Sorry for the long delay. We had a literary fest going on in our college, and both of us, Aditi and I were involved in organising. I will write about that presently. Also, we will try and adhere to a more rigid posting schedule. Let’s see what the future holds. Keep reading 🙂