And then a drop of rain
slid through the yellow scales
leaving on its wake a watery trail
A beetle approached, on the leaf it lodged
the leaf with a sigh bent -
and it shed the watery gem
on the grey folds of a tiny humorless pebble below
This scene they enacted before my eyes
yet I cannot concede
that the beetle was sent to make the leaf bend
so that I could see
all the places where the vagabond water perches -
as the clouds retreat
I keep running around the corridors of Thought
looking for something I no longer apprehend
And keep repeating to myself - why the beetle,
the beetle, to the leaf it went?
I dig a hole here and poke a finger there
But I never manage to get through the door
I have no clue what I'll find on the other side
a book, a gong or maybe a grail or another door?
Or perhaps a garden breathing fresh, after a light shower
And then the drop of rain
would slide through the yellow scales yet again
And a mad beetle would complete
the selfsame act that destiny ordained
Pray say truth is not what lies behind that door
its woven everywhere in all I see, do and hear
like a pattern
through the fabric
of time and space
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
amateurish aesthetics
Beauty seems to be that aspect which makes infinite meditation possible. So the beauty of the flower inspires the poet to compose a beautiful verse which sets off a series of composition by those inspired by the beautiful verse and so on.. The flower, the scene, the sky, the bird the river, the maiden are just forms which in a certain sense contain the possibility of this infinite meditation.. anything derived from them.. possess this character too..
But in what exactly does this quality lie? At times its the entire scene, at times its a particular shade of sky's pink or a particular bent of a plant's stem... perhaps it depends on who is looking for it... In that respect too what the form holds within itself is a web of possibilities and appeals..
So maybe there is a difference between possessing beauty, which is a characteristic of all forms and being beautiful which is an appeal to particular mind(s)...
But in what exactly does this quality lie? At times its the entire scene, at times its a particular shade of sky's pink or a particular bent of a plant's stem... perhaps it depends on who is looking for it... In that respect too what the form holds within itself is a web of possibilities and appeals..
So maybe there is a difference between possessing beauty, which is a characteristic of all forms and being beautiful which is an appeal to particular mind(s)...
Its getting difficult now to write poetry or to even think about fiction. Feels as if every single line will squeeze the life out of me. That I've to be mad, not just a little bit-which I'm already, but let madness take over me in a fit of delirium. Words and sentences, which at first are as garbled as the noise made by the radio when tuned in between two genuine stations, yet which in their absurdity begin to form a life of their own, have to be impregnated with some divine essence like the painter's madness taking birth in roman signs.
What happened to those imageries of a writer carefully planning his next moves, why suddenly he has to be in a maddening fit to sit between his reality and his fiction, has to be on the border on the verge of a reality he lives and the reality he creates. And there then standing on the cusp.. half tempted by the suicide so many writers commit by jumping into their own stories, yet not being able to somehow escape featuring altogether, he imagines and creates, the former in images the latter in words, another life and world.
Those who are all so sane are altogether dull. Of all the millions of imaginary conversations I've had with real people, and of the million of strange twists and turns I've rendered to bizarre endings of life's phases, if even one was real, I would have been sure that I was mad enough. Not yet..
What happened to those imageries of a writer carefully planning his next moves, why suddenly he has to be in a maddening fit to sit between his reality and his fiction, has to be on the border on the verge of a reality he lives and the reality he creates. And there then standing on the cusp.. half tempted by the suicide so many writers commit by jumping into their own stories, yet not being able to somehow escape featuring altogether, he imagines and creates, the former in images the latter in words, another life and world.
Those who are all so sane are altogether dull. Of all the millions of imaginary conversations I've had with real people, and of the million of strange twists and turns I've rendered to bizarre endings of life's phases, if even one was real, I would have been sure that I was mad enough. Not yet..
Monday, October 18, 2010
A Letter that Never Reached Russia
http://circuitous.org/bec/more/nabokov-letter.html
and interestingly
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/07/vladimir_nabokov_furious_darwi008971.html
and interestingly
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/07/vladimir_nabokov_furious_darwi008971.html
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Plato, Nabokov
To be honest I had a mixed reaction to Republic. On one hand, I was quite taken aback by the strict rules of censorship, weeding out of weaklings etc. etc. On the other I found myself nodding vehemently in agreement whenever Plato or Plato in the guise of Socrates, chastised moral corruption. Which I think, is something most of us have observed at some point or the other about our world. And you read Republic and you'd think there alas, a great man who understood the depravity of human soul and then in turn you would recall all those times when someone stepped on your foot in the buzzing janpath, or forcefully inserted himself in between you and the door of the metro train, or the time someone betrayed you in love, or when your child did not follow the family path, and feel vindicated, as if Plato has given the last word on the matter, and in his towering 2300 year old voice, he has established a code of proper conduct of the soul... to speak metaphorically, he has anchored the ship of our soul.
But soon the smug satisfaction gave way to a sort of anxiety... is it true then what Plato says. And all that is to say about the soul, has he already said it?
If I was sitting there with Socrates, I would have asked him, 'Tell me Socrates, will you allow another Socrates to come after you?' Maybe Plato has somewhere answered that. I think Plato's assertions were not entirely wrong, his assumptions were. If you think the mind of a child will be 'corrupted' by image of bloodshed, it would not be wrong to assert that these images should be censored. Plato was taking the easiest way out in arranging his state and his soul, he would not make the effort to put the image in context, no, he will wipe the slate clean and start history at the point of his ascension, Plato the philosopher king.
Now curiously, where does Nabokov stand in all this. (I take delight in asking this question every time I react positively to something I read). Nabokov, in an essay on Madame Bovary, says: "Three forces make and mold a human being: heredity, environment, and the unknown agent X. Of these the second, environment, is by far the least important, while the last agent X, is by far the most influential." Nabokov stands for all the unknown agents (Xs) in the world. This I think would be hypothetical socratic dialogue with him on the propensity of people to classify actions as strict blacks and whites:
A: "Yes, you are right Nabokov, there are so many shades of gray."
Nabokov:"And what about the rest of the colors in the spectrum?"
A:"What do you mean? Black is for bad, white for good and grey for all the things in between."
Nabokov: But does that cover the entire range? When Humbert humbert desires Lolita, he is to be sure fully corrupt but there is something still more to him."
B: "Yes, Nabokov, other colors yes."
Nabokov: "But then why do people take good and bad actions, we should ask ourselves that?"
B: "Yes Nabokov, and that too, if I can venture a guess falls in the black-white scale?"
Nabokov: "But can't their motives have other dimensions, apart from black and white, like their actions."
C: "Yes, Nabokov. They surely can."
Nabokov: " So then the next question we ask ourselves is why do people have these motives?"
.
.
.
And so on. Of course, he will never tell us directly what he means. He will never have such a conversation in the first place, my guess. What he tells us is the futility of this line of enquiry (or maybe I'm telling us that).
Which does not mean that Nabokov does not approve of morality and permits and tolerates everything in the name of modernity. He criticizes his characters for lack of imagination, lack of divine inspiration or even inability for simple thought. But while Plato will put to death a pedophile, Nabokov might scorn at him, or even get inside his head and in a way complete dissect him.. because Nabokov is all the time concerned with his own divine sense, his own search for beauty. In our flaws, as in our goodness, he finds the basic ingredients of a painter - all shades and hues. And so if you will, think of how Plato's world will look in a painting.. a a grayscale versus a Nabokovian world of variations of shades.
And so in a strike against Plato the king, he will not fight for our freedom, he will fight for his own. And you will ask him does he not care about the rest of us. "Do you not want your people to be also free?" And he would humbly tell them that he cannot want anything on their behalf. "But then are we just fodder for your high literature?" And he would say, the purpose of art is not to capture and eat, but beautify, and if anything, they should be thankful to him for that.
A nabokov would be as indifferent to regimes as a river is to its terrain. Which is not to say that he is not effected by it. Or to make the counterpoint, its not that he will not lash out against it, or like a river, will not suddenly change his course in a whimsical fashion. It is just to say that the nabokov within a nabokov is all those things which make a river river and even that would be an unfair analogy. It is but a correspondence. And so we may cut the the soul in three parts or four or ten, he would always look for the next one. In fact, he would talk in terms of characteristics (which are many) and not in terms of parts (which are seemingly finite and independent of each other).
And so Nabokov's kingdom will be one of anarchy, of no code of conduct? To which I would say Nabokov's kingdom exists parallel to all our owns, and we may breach his space and tame more and more parts of his untrammeled consciousness, but we will never fully annex his kingdom which is essentially infinite. Unless we make the impossible effort of reproducing his entire literature, like the character in a Borges story who takes up the task of spontaneously writing word to word Don Quixote like Cervantes would have (without referring to the original of course).
Finally, what would Nabokov say about society, about need for harmony. I imagine so many people asking "Why Nabokov, will you beautify our lives rather than writing about it, rather than writing about our cause?" To which he would, I guess say, "if I write about your cause it becomes my own cause, and I don't believe the purpose of art is to advance one's cause". (This is a rather Socratic argument, but then what the heck). "Don't you care about us, Nabokov, at all? Why do you take delight in standing apart from us? We brought you up in the world, you depend on us, you are not an island? Do you suppose that you are special?" To which he would say, "I don't stand apart from you sirs, you keep running away and about, and from you madam I may take my bread and from you sir my butter and I assure you I'm thankful that, but I'm as unconcerned about these things as you are about the state of the roof above your head - you want it alright, and as long as its there you do not think a lot about it, because you have your businesses to look after and your cows to tend to". "So you care not about our health, our peace, our harmony?" "To point a bitter truth madam, at this point you are not concerned about my peace and my harmony, hurling so many questions at once... and as for harmony sir, let me tell you what I think of it, if harmony is the forced silence of a bunch of toddlers before a teacher arrives I don't give two hoots to it."
(Some day I will polish this essay)
(Incidentally, I was talking about not putting your words in your characters' mouth.)
But soon the smug satisfaction gave way to a sort of anxiety... is it true then what Plato says. And all that is to say about the soul, has he already said it?
If I was sitting there with Socrates, I would have asked him, 'Tell me Socrates, will you allow another Socrates to come after you?' Maybe Plato has somewhere answered that. I think Plato's assertions were not entirely wrong, his assumptions were. If you think the mind of a child will be 'corrupted' by image of bloodshed, it would not be wrong to assert that these images should be censored. Plato was taking the easiest way out in arranging his state and his soul, he would not make the effort to put the image in context, no, he will wipe the slate clean and start history at the point of his ascension, Plato the philosopher king.
Now curiously, where does Nabokov stand in all this. (I take delight in asking this question every time I react positively to something I read). Nabokov, in an essay on Madame Bovary, says: "Three forces make and mold a human being: heredity, environment, and the unknown agent X. Of these the second, environment, is by far the least important, while the last agent X, is by far the most influential." Nabokov stands for all the unknown agents (Xs) in the world. This I think would be hypothetical socratic dialogue with him on the propensity of people to classify actions as strict blacks and whites:
A: "Yes, you are right Nabokov, there are so many shades of gray."
Nabokov:"And what about the rest of the colors in the spectrum?"
A:"What do you mean? Black is for bad, white for good and grey for all the things in between."
Nabokov: But does that cover the entire range? When Humbert humbert desires Lolita, he is to be sure fully corrupt but there is something still more to him."
B: "Yes, Nabokov, other colors yes."
Nabokov: "But then why do people take good and bad actions, we should ask ourselves that?"
B: "Yes Nabokov, and that too, if I can venture a guess falls in the black-white scale?"
Nabokov: "But can't their motives have other dimensions, apart from black and white, like their actions."
C: "Yes, Nabokov. They surely can."
Nabokov: " So then the next question we ask ourselves is why do people have these motives?"
.
.
.
And so on. Of course, he will never tell us directly what he means. He will never have such a conversation in the first place, my guess. What he tells us is the futility of this line of enquiry (or maybe I'm telling us that).
Which does not mean that Nabokov does not approve of morality and permits and tolerates everything in the name of modernity. He criticizes his characters for lack of imagination, lack of divine inspiration or even inability for simple thought. But while Plato will put to death a pedophile, Nabokov might scorn at him, or even get inside his head and in a way complete dissect him.. because Nabokov is all the time concerned with his own divine sense, his own search for beauty. In our flaws, as in our goodness, he finds the basic ingredients of a painter - all shades and hues. And so if you will, think of how Plato's world will look in a painting.. a a grayscale versus a Nabokovian world of variations of shades.
And so in a strike against Plato the king, he will not fight for our freedom, he will fight for his own. And you will ask him does he not care about the rest of us. "Do you not want your people to be also free?" And he would humbly tell them that he cannot want anything on their behalf. "But then are we just fodder for your high literature?" And he would say, the purpose of art is not to capture and eat, but beautify, and if anything, they should be thankful to him for that.
A nabokov would be as indifferent to regimes as a river is to its terrain. Which is not to say that he is not effected by it. Or to make the counterpoint, its not that he will not lash out against it, or like a river, will not suddenly change his course in a whimsical fashion. It is just to say that the nabokov within a nabokov is all those things which make a river river and even that would be an unfair analogy. It is but a correspondence. And so we may cut the the soul in three parts or four or ten, he would always look for the next one. In fact, he would talk in terms of characteristics (which are many) and not in terms of parts (which are seemingly finite and independent of each other).
And so Nabokov's kingdom will be one of anarchy, of no code of conduct? To which I would say Nabokov's kingdom exists parallel to all our owns, and we may breach his space and tame more and more parts of his untrammeled consciousness, but we will never fully annex his kingdom which is essentially infinite. Unless we make the impossible effort of reproducing his entire literature, like the character in a Borges story who takes up the task of spontaneously writing word to word Don Quixote like Cervantes would have (without referring to the original of course).
Finally, what would Nabokov say about society, about need for harmony. I imagine so many people asking "Why Nabokov, will you beautify our lives rather than writing about it, rather than writing about our cause?" To which he would, I guess say, "if I write about your cause it becomes my own cause, and I don't believe the purpose of art is to advance one's cause". (This is a rather Socratic argument, but then what the heck). "Don't you care about us, Nabokov, at all? Why do you take delight in standing apart from us? We brought you up in the world, you depend on us, you are not an island? Do you suppose that you are special?" To which he would say, "I don't stand apart from you sirs, you keep running away and about, and from you madam I may take my bread and from you sir my butter and I assure you I'm thankful that, but I'm as unconcerned about these things as you are about the state of the roof above your head - you want it alright, and as long as its there you do not think a lot about it, because you have your businesses to look after and your cows to tend to". "So you care not about our health, our peace, our harmony?" "To point a bitter truth madam, at this point you are not concerned about my peace and my harmony, hurling so many questions at once... and as for harmony sir, let me tell you what I think of it, if harmony is the forced silence of a bunch of toddlers before a teacher arrives I don't give two hoots to it."
(Some day I will polish this essay)
(Incidentally, I was talking about not putting your words in your characters' mouth.)
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Yellow Rose
There are I believe two very disturbing kind of 'mistakes' to make in fiction:
- to put in your characters' mouth your words, thoughts and emotions
- to put in your characters' mouth your readers' words, thoughts and emotions
How difficult it is to conceive of characters that are truly alive, that are neither shaped by some beliefs, experiences and thoughts of the author, nor realized by the emotions and response of the readers. They exist sort of on their own, even though only a few of the readers might discern the full extent of their lives.. which is but true for any living being.. only a few people around us will be really able to see what we are about.. others usually see what they want to or what they could.
But is it realistic to assume that authors and readers can keep these influences out. Also is it even a right demand to make? To the second I would say, depends what is a particular story about? If it is a historical fictionalized account then it might not be a right thing to do.
A visual example comes to mind.. the portraits made by 14th-15th century painters vis-a-vis paintings of impressionists and surrealists. The difference between being completely inspired by and loyal to certain objects in the apparent world versus a sort of stylized art. The content is from our world, the characters are from our world, but the artist renders them in his style.. capturing by whatever means possible the intricate workings of light and shade, shadow and colors, life and fate. The author is the creator of the world he writes about, and not by maudlin tragedies or force of ideas, but with a disinterested involvement even indulgence in this world can he truly mirror it and make it alive. In a good work he writes not for one person, one character, one family.. but for life itself. And on its mysterious ways. Sort of flirting with the ever elusive lady the fate. He is astonished by her mischievousness, yet at the same time flattered by her and eternally devoted to her.. and the content can vary from the civil wars in Americas, to a lonely trip to East England, to a butterfly man and a dying poet of whom Borges tells us:
".. and he thought that the rose was to be found in its own eternity and not in his words; and that we may mention or allude to a thing, but not express it; and that the tall proud volumes casting a golden shadow in a corner were not - as his vanity had dreamed - a mirror of the world, but rather one thing more added to the world.
Marino achieved this illumination on the eve of his death, and Homer and Dante may have achieved it as well."
(Yellow Rose, Dreamtigers, Borges)
Of course, its difficult to achieve, but worth a try?
- to put in your characters' mouth your words, thoughts and emotions
- to put in your characters' mouth your readers' words, thoughts and emotions
How difficult it is to conceive of characters that are truly alive, that are neither shaped by some beliefs, experiences and thoughts of the author, nor realized by the emotions and response of the readers. They exist sort of on their own, even though only a few of the readers might discern the full extent of their lives.. which is but true for any living being.. only a few people around us will be really able to see what we are about.. others usually see what they want to or what they could.
But is it realistic to assume that authors and readers can keep these influences out. Also is it even a right demand to make? To the second I would say, depends what is a particular story about? If it is a historical fictionalized account then it might not be a right thing to do.
A visual example comes to mind.. the portraits made by 14th-15th century painters vis-a-vis paintings of impressionists and surrealists. The difference between being completely inspired by and loyal to certain objects in the apparent world versus a sort of stylized art. The content is from our world, the characters are from our world, but the artist renders them in his style.. capturing by whatever means possible the intricate workings of light and shade, shadow and colors, life and fate. The author is the creator of the world he writes about, and not by maudlin tragedies or force of ideas, but with a disinterested involvement even indulgence in this world can he truly mirror it and make it alive. In a good work he writes not for one person, one character, one family.. but for life itself. And on its mysterious ways. Sort of flirting with the ever elusive lady the fate. He is astonished by her mischievousness, yet at the same time flattered by her and eternally devoted to her.. and the content can vary from the civil wars in Americas, to a lonely trip to East England, to a butterfly man and a dying poet of whom Borges tells us:
".. and he thought that the rose was to be found in its own eternity and not in his words; and that we may mention or allude to a thing, but not express it; and that the tall proud volumes casting a golden shadow in a corner were not - as his vanity had dreamed - a mirror of the world, but rather one thing more added to the world.
Marino achieved this illumination on the eve of his death, and Homer and Dante may have achieved it as well."
(Yellow Rose, Dreamtigers, Borges)
Of course, its difficult to achieve, but worth a try?
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Tagore
More quotes...
~ If you want me to take to butchering human beings, you must break up that wholeness of my humanity through some discipline which makes my will dead, my thoughts numb, my movements automatic and then from the dissolution of the complex personal man will come out that abstraction, that destructive force, which has no relation to human truth, and therefore can be easily brutal or mechanical
- Turn a tree into a log and it will burn for you, but it will never bear living flowers and fruits.
~ Wisdom of the Nation is not in its faith in humanity but its complete distrust.
~ What is a Nation? It is the aspect of a whole people as an organized power. This organization incessantly keeps up the insistence of the population on becoming strong and efficient. But this strenuous effort after strength and efficiency drains man's energy from his higher nature where he is self-sacrificing and creative.
~ Those of us in India who have come under the delusion that mere political freedom will make us free have accepted their lessons from the West as the gospel truth and lost their faith in humanity. We must remember whatever weakness we cherish in our society will become the source of danger in politics. The same inertia which leads us to our idolatry of dead forms in social institutions (referring to caste system) will create in our politics prison houses with immovable walls. The narrowness of sympathy which makes it possible for us to impose upon a considerable portion of humanity the galling yoke of inferiority will assert itself in our politics in creating tyranny of injustice.
~ I am willing to acknowledge that there is a law of demand and supply and an infatuation of man for more things than are good for him. And yet I will persist in believing that there is such a thing as the harmony of completeness in humanity, where poverty does not take away his riches, where defeat may lead him to victory, death to immortality, and in the compensation of Eternal Justice those who are the last may yet have their insult transmuted into a golden triumph.
~ If you want me to take to butchering human beings, you must break up that wholeness of my humanity through some discipline which makes my will dead, my thoughts numb, my movements automatic and then from the dissolution of the complex personal man will come out that abstraction, that destructive force, which has no relation to human truth, and therefore can be easily brutal or mechanical
- Turn a tree into a log and it will burn for you, but it will never bear living flowers and fruits.
~ Wisdom of the Nation is not in its faith in humanity but its complete distrust.
~ What is a Nation? It is the aspect of a whole people as an organized power. This organization incessantly keeps up the insistence of the population on becoming strong and efficient. But this strenuous effort after strength and efficiency drains man's energy from his higher nature where he is self-sacrificing and creative.
~ Those of us in India who have come under the delusion that mere political freedom will make us free have accepted their lessons from the West as the gospel truth and lost their faith in humanity. We must remember whatever weakness we cherish in our society will become the source of danger in politics. The same inertia which leads us to our idolatry of dead forms in social institutions (referring to caste system) will create in our politics prison houses with immovable walls. The narrowness of sympathy which makes it possible for us to impose upon a considerable portion of humanity the galling yoke of inferiority will assert itself in our politics in creating tyranny of injustice.
~ I am willing to acknowledge that there is a law of demand and supply and an infatuation of man for more things than are good for him. And yet I will persist in believing that there is such a thing as the harmony of completeness in humanity, where poverty does not take away his riches, where defeat may lead him to victory, death to immortality, and in the compensation of Eternal Justice those who are the last may yet have their insult transmuted into a golden triumph.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Tagore
I started reading essays on Nationalism by Tagore yesterday. In the first reading it might just read like any polemic against the western civilization. However, when we rewind ourselves back to his time, a time which was still not completely mechanized, when the pace of life was different, and sources of information relatively scarce, his essays come out partly as analytical but mostly brilliantly prophetic. It is usually said of poets that they can see what lies ahead. Time for them is not an unravelling phenomenon but rather like a flowing river, they can see where it begins and where it ends.
And here is one man fighting for the preeminence of spiritual over material, appealing to the 'inner' nature of man... terms which are now considered as being devoid of any real sense, but I guess the poet would say that we have lost our ability to comprehend, to experience and to see things that way...
There are things that cannot wait. You have to rush and run and march, if you must fight or take the best place in the market. You strain your nerves and are on the alert, when you chase opportunities that are always on their wings. But there are ideals which do not play hide and seek with our life; they slowly grow from seed to flower, from flower to fruit; they require infinite space and heaven ' s light to mature and the fruits that they produce can survive years of insult and neglect. The East with her ideals, in whose bosom are stored the ages of sunlight and silence of stars, can patiently wait till the West, hurrying after the expedient, loses breath and stops. Europe, while busily speeding to her engagements, disdainfully casts her glance from her carriage window to the reaper reaping his harvest in the field, and in her intoxication of speed cannot but think him as slow and ever receding backwards. But the speed comes to its end, the engagement loses its meaning and the hungry heart clamours for food, till at last she comes to the lowly reaper reaping his harvest in the sun. For if the office cannot wait, or the buying and selling, or the craving for excitement, love waits and beauty and the wisdom of suffering and the fruits of patient devotion and reverent meekness of simple faith. And thus shall wait the East till her time comes.
During his time may be the distinction between the East and West were pronounced. However, what we can take away from here is not the clear cut divide between the two civilizations but rather two very different aspirations of the same self, one which wants to lead the other that is lead by the harmonies of nature. One that delights in competition the other that thrives on co-operation.
" I know what a risk one runs from the vigorously athletic crowds to be styled an 'idealist' in these days, when thrones have lost their dignity and prophets have become an anachronism, when the sound that drowns all voices is the noise of the market-place. Yet when, one day, standing on the outskirts of Yokohama town, bristling with its display of modern miscellanies, I watched the sunset in your southern sea, and saw its peace and majesty among your pine-clad hills,-—with the great Fujiyama growing faint against the golden horizon, like a god overcome with his own radiance,—the music of eternity welled up through the evening silence, and I felt that the sky and the earth and the lyrics of the dawn and the dayfall are with the poets and idealists, and not with the marketmen robustly contemptuous of all sentiments,—that, after the forgetfulness of his own divinity, man will remember again that heaven is always in touch with his world, which can never be abandoned for good to the bounding wolves of the modern era, scenting human blood and howling to the skies."
I'm glad he immortalized idealism through his works... and of course the sheer delight of being a poet, a prophet, a seer and believer...
And here is one man fighting for the preeminence of spiritual over material, appealing to the 'inner' nature of man... terms which are now considered as being devoid of any real sense, but I guess the poet would say that we have lost our ability to comprehend, to experience and to see things that way...
There are things that cannot wait. You have to rush and run and march, if you must fight or take the best place in the market. You strain your nerves and are on the alert, when you chase opportunities that are always on their wings. But there are ideals which do not play hide and seek with our life; they slowly grow from seed to flower, from flower to fruit; they require infinite space and heaven ' s light to mature and the fruits that they produce can survive years of insult and neglect. The East with her ideals, in whose bosom are stored the ages of sunlight and silence of stars, can patiently wait till the West, hurrying after the expedient, loses breath and stops. Europe, while busily speeding to her engagements, disdainfully casts her glance from her carriage window to the reaper reaping his harvest in the field, and in her intoxication of speed cannot but think him as slow and ever receding backwards. But the speed comes to its end, the engagement loses its meaning and the hungry heart clamours for food, till at last she comes to the lowly reaper reaping his harvest in the sun. For if the office cannot wait, or the buying and selling, or the craving for excitement, love waits and beauty and the wisdom of suffering and the fruits of patient devotion and reverent meekness of simple faith. And thus shall wait the East till her time comes.
During his time may be the distinction between the East and West were pronounced. However, what we can take away from here is not the clear cut divide between the two civilizations but rather two very different aspirations of the same self, one which wants to lead the other that is lead by the harmonies of nature. One that delights in competition the other that thrives on co-operation.
" I know what a risk one runs from the vigorously athletic crowds to be styled an 'idealist' in these days, when thrones have lost their dignity and prophets have become an anachronism, when the sound that drowns all voices is the noise of the market-place. Yet when, one day, standing on the outskirts of Yokohama town, bristling with its display of modern miscellanies, I watched the sunset in your southern sea, and saw its peace and majesty among your pine-clad hills,-—with the great Fujiyama growing faint against the golden horizon, like a god overcome with his own radiance,—the music of eternity welled up through the evening silence, and I felt that the sky and the earth and the lyrics of the dawn and the dayfall are with the poets and idealists, and not with the marketmen robustly contemptuous of all sentiments,—that, after the forgetfulness of his own divinity, man will remember again that heaven is always in touch with his world, which can never be abandoned for good to the bounding wolves of the modern era, scenting human blood and howling to the skies."
I'm glad he immortalized idealism through his works... and of course the sheer delight of being a poet, a prophet, a seer and believer...
Friday, October 1, 2010
on childhood..
I sit on the roof overlooking a vast stretch of land underneath. Rows of streets with moving red yellow lights, dots entering exiting little grey brown matchboxes, yellow-green lawns speckled here and there like pattern of clouds in the sky, at some places dense at others almost fading to pale green and white, tapering at a corner bordering the narrow exit. There is nothing in the view which the eye can hold on to. No river with a sailboat rowing across, no flock of birds migrating at this time of the year. Weary, my gaze falls inward. Slowly a mist forms and a form appears out of it, lean and tall, but the face is unclear almost hidden in the smoke of dust. He comes and sits next to me. And I start talking. Talking about the time I enacted a poem on stage in a yellow satin dress with big silver polka dots, and then later the little red plastic scooter I got as a prize I never can recall what for. Or the time when I was on the terrace of a house I no longer remember ,attending my best friend's birthday party. I also see myself apprehensive unsure, standing in front of my father to whom I've just handed my first poem, and he looks at it and the sketches I've done for illustration and marvels at the fact that I've already mastered the use of comma and full stop. There are so many anecdotes I recall from my childhood, which is now almost obscure to me, like it wasn't me who lived it. These instances might as well belong to someone else, yet I strain my memory to find more recollections of me, to link that person or person to me. And he listens to me patiently, with a smile on his face which is still covered in the mist and is now glowing. It's as if he already knows what I'm about to say next. I want to talk to him about right now, yet I find myself drifting more and more into the past.
There are times when the space immediately around you becomes so thin, transparent that you don't even know it exists apart from you. When you look up at the sky and stare instead at your own past, like looking into the magic ball. This quality of space around me right now fills me with a strange kind of sorrow, my head becomes numb from all the memories yearning to come out, yet I'm unaware of their individual presence. The smoky misty form never appears, day and night I go to sleep like a phantom living out of time, in an sequence which no longer makes any impression on my mind. Pages after pages are read yet what strikes me are the images not the story, as if our true memories of people and places are just stamp marks - blue green red, unchanging and sporadic, while the day to day details are the black backgrounds, now lost forever. I can string together little stories and bigger stories out of little ones, weaving a narrative of my childhood, yet there would be no voice guiding it, no one whispering in my ear, telling me about the course my life would take.
There are times when the space immediately around you becomes so thin, transparent that you don't even know it exists apart from you. When you look up at the sky and stare instead at your own past, like looking into the magic ball. This quality of space around me right now fills me with a strange kind of sorrow, my head becomes numb from all the memories yearning to come out, yet I'm unaware of their individual presence. The smoky misty form never appears, day and night I go to sleep like a phantom living out of time, in an sequence which no longer makes any impression on my mind. Pages after pages are read yet what strikes me are the images not the story, as if our true memories of people and places are just stamp marks - blue green red, unchanging and sporadic, while the day to day details are the black backgrounds, now lost forever. I can string together little stories and bigger stories out of little ones, weaving a narrative of my childhood, yet there would be no voice guiding it, no one whispering in my ear, telling me about the course my life would take.
(after reading Rings of Saturn.)
(don't tell me you never had imaginary friends. Mine were not exactly imaginary.. its interesting that I usually had/have imaginary conversations with real people. Had the contrary been true, I would have been a conjurer of fantastic worlds!)
Monday, September 27, 2010
Set Theory
Whenever I peeked into the confounding universe of set theory, the infinite and the continuum, I would be utterly lost in looping thoughts and would only be rescued by sleep (which would inevitably be accompanied by strange dreams), or callings of daily schedule. Thus saved, I would brush off my hands and stay clear from any such potentially paradoxical digressions for as long as possible before plunging into it yet again and pushing my luck further..
lo and behold! this time I actually covered some new ground. Very simply: if we analyse the statement 'All A's are B's"- By this do we mean that all A's known to us and that can be seen, distinguished or counted and included in the class A - all such A's are in B? Or do we mean that any entity having the essence or property of belonging in class A will also be in B? For example.. "All triangles contain two right angles" is it true because it has been shown true for all possible triangles (by summing up the angles) or its it true because it is an essential property of being a triangle? The former is known as the extensional reading while the latter, as theorized by Aristotle in terms of 'essence' and 'kinds' of things is intentional reading. As it usually happens, applied mathematicians fudged over these details and went ahead with their algebra, while it was left to the camp of philosophers (and some queer mathematicians) to come up with consensus.
Alas, its not only me who is baffled by infinities. The first time I came across Zeno's paradoxes I could not stop thinking for many hours about how we actually manage to move (there are infinite no. of points in between any two steps). And I had some sort of respect for life you know.. transcending infinities in space.. and so on.. my poetic renderings of the phenomenon. But the initial hurdle has been obviated, thanks to philosophers again, what with whole being different from its composite parts, potential infinity versus actual infinity and so on...
And now I discovered another distinction.. between being finite and having boundaries. For some reason we tend to think that everything that is finite in scope must have a boundary. But what about circumference of a circle or surface of Earth? Where is the starting and ending point?
More on this later (hopefully)...
(Reading Philosophy of Set Theory by Mary Tiles)
lo and behold! this time I actually covered some new ground. Very simply: if we analyse the statement 'All A's are B's"- By this do we mean that all A's known to us and that can be seen, distinguished or counted and included in the class A - all such A's are in B? Or do we mean that any entity having the essence or property of belonging in class A will also be in B? For example.. "All triangles contain two right angles" is it true because it has been shown true for all possible triangles (by summing up the angles) or its it true because it is an essential property of being a triangle? The former is known as the extensional reading while the latter, as theorized by Aristotle in terms of 'essence' and 'kinds' of things is intentional reading. As it usually happens, applied mathematicians fudged over these details and went ahead with their algebra, while it was left to the camp of philosophers (and some queer mathematicians) to come up with consensus.
Alas, its not only me who is baffled by infinities. The first time I came across Zeno's paradoxes I could not stop thinking for many hours about how we actually manage to move (there are infinite no. of points in between any two steps). And I had some sort of respect for life you know.. transcending infinities in space.. and so on.. my poetic renderings of the phenomenon. But the initial hurdle has been obviated, thanks to philosophers again, what with whole being different from its composite parts, potential infinity versus actual infinity and so on...
And now I discovered another distinction.. between being finite and having boundaries. For some reason we tend to think that everything that is finite in scope must have a boundary. But what about circumference of a circle or surface of Earth? Where is the starting and ending point?
More on this later (hopefully)...
(Reading Philosophy of Set Theory by Mary Tiles)
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Why does the self want to annihilate itself?
There is in life a certain lack of fundamentals. The world of shifting images, impressions and ideas does not hold itself together in solid tangible manageable form, my impressions of it have been more ephemeral, like passing beneath the shade of different trees, the variegated leaves cast their shadows in different shapes and hues, but they only last for moments. Like we are compelled to stick to the surface of the planet even when we are irresistibly drawn towards the core we never get there. And why is it so, can we choose otherwise?
I would much rather be the shadow of a tree,
or a fallen autumn leaf, or the fine white feather
which after detaching from a bird's wings
finds its way across fields, to the window of a weeping kid.
I would rather die for a cause, than negotiate a deal,
better still will hold out against all causes
a cause in itself, and in my inability to comprehend
I will perceive lack of meaning in everything I see,
I will deny my reflection on the surface of water
and yet hold out a hand to get it out of sea
I will step on my own shadow
yet after every corner
I will turn around to check if it still lingers beside me.
There are so many ways I will never cease to be
(If only I can hold out right now, not give in to the urge
of dissipating myself over finite griefs.)
Monday, May 31, 2010
I am writing this because I'm in a very foul mood for some unknown reason.
And so in this mood I went to a bookshop to calm my nerves. Amidst those racks full of ancient wisdom, and contemporary knowledge, history, philosophy and what not, I usually feel at home, thinking all there is to know about the world in contained in some flimsy and some thick books here and there. Not quite unlike the character in the infinite library of Borges, deriving comfort from the fact that truth exists around him, howsoever unreachable.
Yet when I glanced through these familiar racks, I was almost offended by the appearance of these books.The shabby covers, the bad prints, several books comically balancing on the edge of the racks, fighting with all their might the force of gravity and I would have loved to throw the lot of them myself and stamp them underneath my shoes.
Why is it that people unburden themselves so gracelessly in public and embarrass themselves and the rest of us in the process? Why I asked myself, who was there in the supposed storehouse of knowledge, why really do people really write when the only novel aspect of their work is a certain combination of English words never seen before. Or to give them some credit, I think they sit with a jar full of star shaped red platics pieces for characters, blue triangles for settings and yellow circles for plots and they shake it vigorously and then draw 4-5 pieces out and surprised by the uniqueness of the combination, start out to set in a platitude prose the outcome of their monkey business.
One could still give them some credit if the events were experienced or witnessed in real life. At least there is some aspect of sentimentality linked to the work how so ever inferior it might be as a piece of art. And taking advantage of this concession we find people diligently transporting their entire not so distant past into our present in the form of fiction. Taking a peek into one of these 'novels' one feels sorry for the author who wrote these pages, for his life indeed, how dull, contained and all together lacking in imagination.
As if to answer an anticipated question, I will now try to specify the standards I've used here, so the criticism is justified. A good fiction in my opinion in first of all fiction. The only way a real life can match the vigour and excitement of fiction is when its compressed, when numerous years can make two lines, 4 lines or 10 pages; when the authors grasps the most important aspect of the life, the note and the base and then varies and fluctuates the rythm - not quite unlike the art of a music composer, changing the beats at different intervals yet never letting go of the 'unknown' element that is constant throughout the work, may be an emotion, or some vague childhood memory, or a dream. It is easier to accomplish this with imaginary characters, whose lives are completely in author's hand. Otherwise, either the 'real' work is not 'real' or it is too banal.
And good fiction appeals to imagination and memory. It speaks to you not about your heartbreaks and heartaches but about a certain shade of yet sunless dawn, a certain way of laughing, a certain tone of voice. It catches you unawares, like the coquettish ladies of our many classics, whispering into your ears, recreating a certain evening spent looking out of a train window, the foliage and the setting, the iron railings and the drops of water clinging on to them after a light shower. It slowly plants a seed in your head, takes you in its grip, sets the mood, and so when the commonplace life unfolds in front of reader's eyes, he/she relishes not the sequence or setting of events but the lucidity behind them, a certain life likeness about the character, because he partakes some of it from the creator - not the cv-like details, but what the creator liked, loved, hated, rejoiced, relished, remembered and lived.
And so in this mood I went to a bookshop to calm my nerves. Amidst those racks full of ancient wisdom, and contemporary knowledge, history, philosophy and what not, I usually feel at home, thinking all there is to know about the world in contained in some flimsy and some thick books here and there. Not quite unlike the character in the infinite library of Borges, deriving comfort from the fact that truth exists around him, howsoever unreachable.
Yet when I glanced through these familiar racks, I was almost offended by the appearance of these books.The shabby covers, the bad prints, several books comically balancing on the edge of the racks, fighting with all their might the force of gravity and I would have loved to throw the lot of them myself and stamp them underneath my shoes.
Why is it that people unburden themselves so gracelessly in public and embarrass themselves and the rest of us in the process? Why I asked myself, who was there in the supposed storehouse of knowledge, why really do people really write when the only novel aspect of their work is a certain combination of English words never seen before. Or to give them some credit, I think they sit with a jar full of star shaped red platics pieces for characters, blue triangles for settings and yellow circles for plots and they shake it vigorously and then draw 4-5 pieces out and surprised by the uniqueness of the combination, start out to set in a platitude prose the outcome of their monkey business.
One could still give them some credit if the events were experienced or witnessed in real life. At least there is some aspect of sentimentality linked to the work how so ever inferior it might be as a piece of art. And taking advantage of this concession we find people diligently transporting their entire not so distant past into our present in the form of fiction. Taking a peek into one of these 'novels' one feels sorry for the author who wrote these pages, for his life indeed, how dull, contained and all together lacking in imagination.
As if to answer an anticipated question, I will now try to specify the standards I've used here, so the criticism is justified. A good fiction in my opinion in first of all fiction. The only way a real life can match the vigour and excitement of fiction is when its compressed, when numerous years can make two lines, 4 lines or 10 pages; when the authors grasps the most important aspect of the life, the note and the base and then varies and fluctuates the rythm - not quite unlike the art of a music composer, changing the beats at different intervals yet never letting go of the 'unknown' element that is constant throughout the work, may be an emotion, or some vague childhood memory, or a dream. It is easier to accomplish this with imaginary characters, whose lives are completely in author's hand. Otherwise, either the 'real' work is not 'real' or it is too banal.
And good fiction appeals to imagination and memory. It speaks to you not about your heartbreaks and heartaches but about a certain shade of yet sunless dawn, a certain way of laughing, a certain tone of voice. It catches you unawares, like the coquettish ladies of our many classics, whispering into your ears, recreating a certain evening spent looking out of a train window, the foliage and the setting, the iron railings and the drops of water clinging on to them after a light shower. It slowly plants a seed in your head, takes you in its grip, sets the mood, and so when the commonplace life unfolds in front of reader's eyes, he/she relishes not the sequence or setting of events but the lucidity behind them, a certain life likeness about the character, because he partakes some of it from the creator - not the cv-like details, but what the creator liked, loved, hated, rejoiced, relished, remembered and lived.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Every stray twig of grass
was a jest, a playful tribute to life
- Variation of shade was a possibility
Blue skies dissolved -
metamorphosed into clouds
clouds to birds
and birds to nest, nests to trees -
to hunters too, and so the river contracted
to make place for land
and out bubbled on the surface
roughs stones, wild shrubs
springing to life
and then formed the figure of the man
half from the clouds half from the land
he plucks his bow out of empty blue air
and an arrow appears to come from nowhere
All this I create
with just variations of shades
was a jest, a playful tribute to life
- Variation of shade was a possibility
Blue skies dissolved -
metamorphosed into clouds
clouds to birds
and birds to nest, nests to trees -
to hunters too, and so the river contracted
to make place for land
and out bubbled on the surface
roughs stones, wild shrubs
springing to life
and then formed the figure of the man
half from the clouds half from the land
he plucks his bow out of empty blue air
and an arrow appears to come from nowhere
All this I create
with just variations of shades
Monday, March 1, 2010
bail me out
important events are unfolding at hand with greek administration peeling off successive layers of cabbage (for thats how long the crisis has been on) going like 'will bail me out' 'will bail me out not'
and before u know the whole EU will collapse in front of your eyes with spain portugal italy following the line greece takes.
it's an interesting situation really, like if u read abt it (i should too!), when they made the union they had some rules to keep a check on debt versus gdp, coz they were adopting a common currency and a common currency can be threatened by unsound monetary/fiscal management by any member state. they also made a rule saying that they'll not bail out anyone. so germany is all going like we wont (and greece goes like bloody nazis). but real problems are two-fold
1. european banks' exposure to greece debt, so if greece defaults europe is screwed
2. euro goes spiraling down, it is doing that right now. so for no fault of their own, germany and france will witness devaluation in currency which is welcome to an extent, coz it boosts exports, but altogether harmful for euro
so really there is no option to but to bail out which will increase political tensions in the union. also what if other economies are pushed to the same fate. how many can they bail out? then the whole thing passes on to tax-payers in germany, france etc., they wouldn't like it at all
unless of course US and imf help which is again altogether unclear, US is not exactly in a comfortable situation herself with Fed sitting on a mountain of (worthless?) assets and again US govt's deficit is rising
but they are doing something. lets see
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
I am the mouth through which thousand voices speak
- like diverging rays, red and gray,
these voices speak - of love, of hate, of poetry
And I am at their centre, the sun - of principal, of truth, of coquetry
Then another wrench! I transform myself,
sigh like a mother, mad like a lover
A twist again! I become young when old
but for a fleeting moment, I am
who can talk like a believer and doubt like a sinner -
Twist again! And I'm in the midst of green-blue sea,
My watery limbs extending through the mist to eternity,
I'm then an oracle, he wants a prophecy
and they pull the rope round and round my throat -
Numerous lines they force to speak
Wisdom comes at a price, force!
force to paint streaks of colors that twirl around,
then settle in various shapes and forms
on a canvas before our eyes, on a canvas
the canvas, my words, a bloody scar of their revenge,
a revenge of their mediocrity,
for mediocrity chokes, while the wisdom you so covet, resent,
lies outside your reach
And I choke myself, I who is the sea
sighs like a mother, moves like a lover
I choke myself with my soapy mediocrity
I fold inside me
I help them choke myself - till they leave,
their quest accomplished
then I leave too, go deep under,
under the sea -
like the sun,
like the proteus
like the sea.
- like diverging rays, red and gray,
these voices speak - of love, of hate, of poetry
And I am at their centre, the sun - of principal, of truth, of coquetry
Then another wrench! I transform myself,
sigh like a mother, mad like a lover
A twist again! I become young when old
but for a fleeting moment, I am
who can talk like a believer and doubt like a sinner -
Twist again! And I'm in the midst of green-blue sea,
My watery limbs extending through the mist to eternity,
I'm then an oracle, he wants a prophecy
and they pull the rope round and round my throat -
Numerous lines they force to speak
Wisdom comes at a price, force!
force to paint streaks of colors that twirl around,
then settle in various shapes and forms
on a canvas before our eyes, on a canvas
the canvas, my words, a bloody scar of their revenge,
a revenge of their mediocrity,
for mediocrity chokes, while the wisdom you so covet, resent,
lies outside your reach
And I choke myself, I who is the sea
sighs like a mother, moves like a lover
I choke myself with my soapy mediocrity
I fold inside me
I help them choke myself - till they leave,
their quest accomplished
then I leave too, go deep under,
under the sea -
like the sun,
like the proteus
like the sea.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Oh Eden
Earthlings have a curious habit of celebrating days - New Year's day, day when Christ was born, day he came back after being dead for few days and then died again, birth of so many other gods, anniversaries and so on. One of these days however is significant for the only surviving members of genus homo - the birthday. No no it is not just a day one decided to eject out of a uterus. Well think about it, the fetus all closeted inside comfortably, being carried to different places by the mother, getting free food and everything, yes of course its a bit shoddy in there with arteries crossing over veins and bad smelling utera-l fluid, but the fetus doesn't know better.Then it grows and grows and the brain grows and grows even more and it picks up sounds and touches and starts getting curious. 'What is it exactly 'out' there?' it would ask itself. 'Where am I?', 'Can I go 'outside'?', and so day by day the curiosity increases till it reaches the point where it can take no more. It wants to get out, feel, see what's outside? decide for itself once and for all its position with respect to the vast space unknown to it, such objective evaluation of its situation now becomes imperative and so the fetus pushes, wriggles, wants to get out, break free from the cage. (Though by all means it is much better off inside, getting a free pass, it doesn't realize what it is jumping into, tremendous leap of faith.)
And then the passage, nothing could be harder than that, many a smart fetus will not be willing to take it, they would request an easier way out, 'rather cut mommy's tummy please'. But no this fetus decided to bear it all, and with mixed hopes, with faint recollections of comforting touches and mellow sounds, it starts the quest. it sees the light at the end of the tunnel, fills it with hope and excitement, but now something is killing it, these sounds 'oh they are not dulcet anymore', 'no someone's shrieking', and 'why does it smell so different' and then something starts pulling it out, it hurts 'Ouch', and the it goes like 'was it good idea?', 'i think i was was better off there'. then it doesn't want to come out, but then its now in alien hands, it has no choice..
Suspended upside down, alien pair of hands tapping its back, others looking at its private parts, categorizing it and then the vigorous tap, it regrets, finally breaks into a cry,
'mistake, mistake. i wanna go back',
'too late now'
'but i just wanted to see what's outside'
'so you will'
'but i don't want to anymore, please let me go back to my uterus'
'na-a, not happening, thats not your uterus, thats your mom now, you will rush to her occasionally, though Freud thinks you'll eventually be in love with your father and envy your brother, wait you don't have one yet'
'who's freud, who's father, who's brother'
'you'll know'
'let me go back go back :(('
'too late kid', the hands say, handing it over to some other pair of hands, 'go suck'
So it happens that somewhere around this day, 24 years earlier, I accidently took a bite of the apple of knowledge, and left my eden. They tell me the exact day celebrating my fall happens to be 21st Feb. By some smart design they kept the first two labels of all days in a circular order, so they can remind me of the mistake I made after every earth's revolution about the sun.
Friday, January 29, 2010
All moments follow one another
A moment hangs by the weary noose of time
Like a soaked tea bag twirling, twisting around its thread,
Above the oval surface of a waste bin, ready to be despatched.
The tiny flowers that abound the grieving wreath
Stealing their last glimpse of light, what do they think?
Not long before they will but wilt,
yet what is the end -
The click of the coffin lid,
or the resounding thud of landing in a waste pile
Or were they all dead long before?
A clumsy fly caught in a spider's mesh,
How she savors the moments of coiling, pulling her prey,
And at last death stings
yet was it not dead long before?
Are the moments all the time leading up to it
- all the time inducing the dull death sleep?
When you see death staring at you through a secret door,
What thought escapes the conscious?
As the soul is wrenched, drained of the essence,
and yet, just moments before..
would you know that they were
all the time leading up to it, furtively?
Chance is the association of the unsuited and the irrelevant
in the panorama of an impassive eye.
Life is that moment, lingering betwixt eons of darkness -
the Poet's cradle, hovering above an infinite abyss.
I'm the word that escaped the dead quivering lips who stole -
a few twirling moments before being sucked into the black hole..
~Vanity
Like a soaked tea bag twirling, twisting around its thread,
Above the oval surface of a waste bin, ready to be despatched.
The tiny flowers that abound the grieving wreath
Stealing their last glimpse of light, what do they think?
Not long before they will but wilt,
yet what is the end -
The click of the coffin lid,
or the resounding thud of landing in a waste pile
Or were they all dead long before?
A clumsy fly caught in a spider's mesh,
How she savors the moments of coiling, pulling her prey,
And at last death stings
yet was it not dead long before?
Are the moments all the time leading up to it
- all the time inducing the dull death sleep?
When you see death staring at you through a secret door,
What thought escapes the conscious?
As the soul is wrenched, drained of the essence,
and yet, just moments before..
would you know that they were
all the time leading up to it, furtively?
Chance is the association of the unsuited and the irrelevant
in the panorama of an impassive eye.
Life is that moment, lingering betwixt eons of darkness -
the Poet's cradle, hovering above an infinite abyss.
I'm the word that escaped the dead quivering lips who stole -
a few twirling moments before being sucked into the black hole..
~Vanity
Thursday, January 28, 2010
An impression singular, stands out
Stare at it with vacuous eyes
A distant land, green blades of grass,
The opaque mist covering a mottled stone tower.
My feet digging, clinging the soil, that breathes in rain
A whiff of scent carried by the shivering leaves
And tawny pebbles strewn on coarse sun beam,
- big and small, of various shapes, a kaleidoscope -
there tracing the outline of some island in the northern bay,
there resembling a parakeet in sway,
All singular forms yet make a new whole, nature's playground
there She stroked a lilac brush and there,
carved a river of stones, and here in this crazy worm
multitude legs yet a pathetic crawl, I see her playful,
chuckle with delight.
A tiny dew reflects me, multiplies me
I've not seen that in many eyes - they look beyond me
at a mound of stone, something fixed, fated,
a biological clock running against its own course?
Yet look at me here, I'm thousand times over
in the umber mud that smeared that winter leaf
on which I stepped as I glided across the surface of this stream,
and in the bird that broke into a mellow tune as I deflected,
with one deep breath,
a moth patched with shades of chrome.
Soon as I gather the whole essence of this I,
I dissolves in the multiplicity of being,
I live million lives, some reflected in moist dew,
and some in the shadows that trail on the pavement behind,
my moments recaptured multiplied
I know not of better eternity.
Stare at it with vacuous eyes
A distant land, green blades of grass,
The opaque mist covering a mottled stone tower.
My feet digging, clinging the soil, that breathes in rain
A whiff of scent carried by the shivering leaves
And tawny pebbles strewn on coarse sun beam,
- big and small, of various shapes, a kaleidoscope -
there tracing the outline of some island in the northern bay,
there resembling a parakeet in sway,
All singular forms yet make a new whole, nature's playground
there She stroked a lilac brush and there,
carved a river of stones, and here in this crazy worm
multitude legs yet a pathetic crawl, I see her playful,
chuckle with delight.
A tiny dew reflects me, multiplies me
I've not seen that in many eyes - they look beyond me
at a mound of stone, something fixed, fated,
a biological clock running against its own course?
Yet look at me here, I'm thousand times over
in the umber mud that smeared that winter leaf
on which I stepped as I glided across the surface of this stream,
and in the bird that broke into a mellow tune as I deflected,
with one deep breath,
a moth patched with shades of chrome.
Soon as I gather the whole essence of this I,
I dissolves in the multiplicity of being,
I live million lives, some reflected in moist dew,
and some in the shadows that trail on the pavement behind,
my moments recaptured multiplied
I know not of better eternity.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
---
There lies upon the grave
a tawny rough stone etched and shrubbed
bearing my mark upon the land,
now smoke and dust, while I
lie covered shivering in cold, in sand
Hereafter they say, while all after times
are fused into one, for my eyes stare
at the darkness suspended through eternity -
was there a mistake? I see no light,
Yet my heart doesn't beat,
I know no count of seconds
Just a long dull sleep
They burned me too, I was ash sawdust
Washed away to a distant sea
There laid I or parts of me
All fused and burnt and one with that sea
Swaying with waves, lost in tides
A fish just passed through me
Yet I remained I
Or no more? I cease to be
They come to me now, still
haunt me in my sleep
I lie tortured, naked
My mind lets those spirits hunt me
All hell is raised here, every night
While I still breathe
And I'm born again, with the sun creeping up
up upon the tall gray concrete sea
For once I'm a skeleton under a stone
Or dust at the bottom of an alien sea
I'm I no more - but all that was, is and would be
a tawny rough stone etched and shrubbed
bearing my mark upon the land,
now smoke and dust, while I
lie covered shivering in cold, in sand
Hereafter they say, while all after times
are fused into one, for my eyes stare
at the darkness suspended through eternity -
was there a mistake? I see no light,
Yet my heart doesn't beat,
I know no count of seconds
Just a long dull sleep
They burned me too, I was ash sawdust
Washed away to a distant sea
There laid I or parts of me
All fused and burnt and one with that sea
Swaying with waves, lost in tides
A fish just passed through me
Yet I remained I
Or no more? I cease to be
They come to me now, still
haunt me in my sleep
I lie tortured, naked
My mind lets those spirits hunt me
All hell is raised here, every night
While I still breathe
And I'm born again, with the sun creeping up
up upon the tall gray concrete sea
For once I'm a skeleton under a stone
Or dust at the bottom of an alien sea
I'm I no more - but all that was, is and would be
Saturday, January 23, 2010
-
Eyes glumly traverse a parched burnt landscape
And mind wanders, in a two dimensional cage
Treading impishly on pebbles near the shore
Trampling on the stubborn green undergrowth
A glance at the rays, that
in the background gently fade
Without the sun, the source of luminescence
His hands, my eyes ignite the gaze
Behold the water stillborn frozen
Caught in the timeless spectacle,
The hazel waves thumping
against the white submerged clay face
Winds rise, a tumult unfurls -
A rendition of unfolding space, and of I,
Seething with words, ripe with thoughts
White and gray, a rocking shriek -
A gull deflected in the sky?
Dark and wan, clouds racing reflecting
the apocalypse underneath,
me, my sleepless mind, there I see a boat -
Perched on a mountain, aqueous,
will it come ashore?
Or perish under the weight of the storm?
For the mind refuses to believe
that the boat trapped on a watery precipice,
will wither away in the
timeless
frozen
two dimensional
captivity...
And mind wanders, in a two dimensional cage
Treading impishly on pebbles near the shore
Trampling on the stubborn green undergrowth
A glance at the rays, that
in the background gently fade
Without the sun, the source of luminescence
His hands, my eyes ignite the gaze
Behold the water stillborn frozen
Caught in the timeless spectacle,
The hazel waves thumping
against the white submerged clay face
Winds rise, a tumult unfurls -
A rendition of unfolding space, and of I,
Seething with words, ripe with thoughts
White and gray, a rocking shriek -
A gull deflected in the sky?
Dark and wan, clouds racing reflecting
the apocalypse underneath,
me, my sleepless mind, there I see a boat -
Perched on a mountain, aqueous,
will it come ashore?
Or perish under the weight of the storm?
For the mind refuses to believe
that the boat trapped on a watery precipice,
will wither away in the
timeless
frozen
two dimensional
captivity...
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Manachine
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/09/090901-electronic-tongue.html
http://www.magicvalley.com/news/article_692d889c-00d0-5e42-be7b-68d3948e0d03.html
i read this article in nat. geographic a few days back. Though many would know all this coz of House MD :). It's slightly creepy with artificial eyes, ears etc etc. Like that was my first reaction.
Machine and human beings interacting so closely.. almost integrating. Don't know why I should think of it in terms of good or bad. Just that we are no more mysterious and sacred. 10 years down the line I can accidently cut your finger and say 'oops, i'm sorry.. check out the transplants though.. the silicon ones are much better ;).. i got all my fingers replaced! It's really swell!'. 20 years later we will be directly sedating those regions of the brain which generate the feelings of dissatisfaction or 'angst'. And by the looks of it, few more years further down the line, we'll be the first specie to annihilate itself by mass-scale in-animation.
How I love to exaggerate!
Just was thinking whether machines will tend to man or otherwise. Women of course will be women as millions of years of collective experience and memory stand in testimony.
http://www.magicvalley.com/news/article_692d889c-00d0-5e42-be7b-68d3948e0d03.html
i read this article in nat. geographic a few days back. Though many would know all this coz of House MD :). It's slightly creepy with artificial eyes, ears etc etc. Like that was my first reaction.
Machine and human beings interacting so closely.. almost integrating. Don't know why I should think of it in terms of good or bad. Just that we are no more mysterious and sacred. 10 years down the line I can accidently cut your finger and say 'oops, i'm sorry.. check out the transplants though.. the silicon ones are much better ;).. i got all my fingers replaced! It's really swell!'. 20 years later we will be directly sedating those regions of the brain which generate the feelings of dissatisfaction or 'angst'. And by the looks of it, few more years further down the line, we'll be the first specie to annihilate itself by mass-scale in-animation.
How I love to exaggerate!
Just was thinking whether machines will tend to man or otherwise. Women of course will be women as millions of years of collective experience and memory stand in testimony.
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