Know thyself

Bibliotheca

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Matthew 7:21-22

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,'shall enter the the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'"
Matthew 7:21-22 (NKJ)

Movies List

The list of movies watched this winter-break

1. Veronica Guerkin
2. Bourne Supremacy
3. Cinema Paradiso
4. Adaptation
5. Luther
6. Pulp Fiction
7. Going South
8. Thin red line
9. Spring Summer Fall Winter
10. Cider House Rules
11. Polar Express
12. Nostalghia (Tarkovsky)
13. Driving Miss Daisy
14. Moby Dick
15. Way Home(Korean)
16. Stalker(Tarkovsky)
17. Les Triplettes de Belleville
18. Vera Drake
19. Finding Neverland

I know many of these are old movies, but then, I am clearing my backlog.

Still on the wish list
1. King Arthur
2. Terminal
3. Oceans 12
4. The motorcycle diaries
5. Maria Full of Grace

and I know both of these lists are gonna grow.

Exams going

Life sucks while exams are on... There is no reason why you feel you should show a bunch of finicky professors, that you "really" deserve to go to the next semester. There should be no exams, I say.

The education system in US is good, but you should be judged on basis of what you do throughout the year, what you do when you are posed a "real" problem and so on. The system is lot better than most all over the world, but it still needs imrovement.

Raghu says this system won't improve unless there is one professor to monitor every student. The kind of training a train-driver gives to the next potential train driver would be the best. In fact thats how any educational degree should be seen...probably!

My band hogging at hunan

Still hungry

What is Awakening

Somehow, things are suddenly looking pleasant and promising... and this staunch-uncompromosing pessimist myself is giving up to hope and optimism. This must be just a dream, well yeah, hope and optimism are but a dream. Who denies it...fine, let it be that I am dreaming ( again? )

Last year, I was in the stage, where progress seemed like perdition, my existence was a denial of the fact that nobody "actually" progresses. That still holds, but somehow, I feel I can't afford to impact my lifestyle by the fact.

Not long ago, improving oneself, seemed to have no philosophical significance, it still hasn't ..but who cares? philosophy doesn't give me food to eat, afterall. I have to rise in the morning, go to work, earn money to feed myself. That need not be very philosophical. Right...I don't need to deny philosophy if I stop philosophizing for a while. I would still be the same, its hard not to be philosophizing at all, but why denigrate one's own life for thinking over what others should do, for having expectations from people who really don't give a damn, who don't even have the basic conscience.

At some stage, long back, I was a person who never failed any expectations. I always did more than what I was expected to. I pressed myself hard for it. The next stage was that of betrayal of emotions... I didn't know what and for whom I was doing all that for. People who seemed to have expectations from me, turned into devils who only seemed to be manipulating me. I was expected to defeat people, to win over others, show off what I had, to my own people and I really didn't have any reasons for competing with my own people ( yeah right! the Gita jnana I received so early ;) ). Then was the birth of this new Anurag, thinking about systems a la "sarvebhavantusukhinah" observing and asserting intelligence to be a social property and not individual. I was one who hated people who took money as their first choice. Obviously, it wasn't too long when I started hating everyone, even myself, who can't avoid living with such 'useless' people.

Expectations, which didn't mean a thing to me now, saw me giving up to everything. I still don't believe in achieving something individually. It is unbelievable how i have changed. It was me who loved the taste of being victorious, being successful despite all blockades. It all got screwed up when i wanted to find what I am being happy for. I thought I got into a Buddhistic inrospection, and got fucked by everyone around. When I hated myself, everyone around me seemed happy, and I was not, because I chose to think and to understand. So was my misery that even a beggar looked fortunate to me...

Should I call this an awakening, nah...theres only one darn sense in which I take the word "awakening" now. It looks like a new idea, an optimism a la the New World economy, where everyone has hope, equal rights, equal standing sans boundaries to contribute to the world as a whole, and not some hate-campaign.

I know this has no meaning, once taking an analytical stance. It really doesn't make any 'real' sense. These are just feelings, agreed, but I can't be devoid of feelings even while I am analysing. So, why screw up, why live in darkness, why not have positive feelings, instead?

Lets assert myself, I am a liar, I am highly prejudiced, I have no judgement, I lack analysis, fine! You won't be a human if you stop being one of the above...afterall, the so-called humans are nothing but a blend of every flavor of what I don't want to be.

Lets see, if I can accept myself the way I am, and not regret about what I am not, or what I couldn't be, what I need not be... I wish to stop worrying and do whatever I can to bring change towards somewhere. I need not be so sure about where would it all head to.. lets choose a path and carry on.

Right!, there is no 'real' change in me nor is it going to be, it 'feels' different right now, and I wanna live that feeling for as long as I can.

Practising

We did practice too...

Me in the cyan shirt, playing over the rhythms. Don't remember which song it was... did that for diwali...I played around with the image a bit, the quality wasn't so good, so I tried to be a bit artsy ;)

An indian organization

For once I thought this show is gonna get cancelled. The way I saw people clashing for absent reasons, I thought it was the end of this show, an abrupt end of all the effort we had put to let the show rock.

In retrospect, this was not something different from what I have observed in Indian organizations. Since, there is actually no reason to "organize" and "congregrate" in Indian culture, all the organizations start showing signs of favorism (what we call bhai-bhatija-vaad in Hindi) the marks which the factions based on caste, region or ethnicity leave, make the whole organization a total fiasco. This is how most of the British establishments in India, which people tried to continue without British supervision have failed badly. They have succeeded only at places, where people genuinely tried to copy West, either by getting converted to Christianity or getting educated in missionaries, and having no mercy in being deleterious to so-called Indian values and culture.

I seriously believe in all what Naipaul says in "a million mutinies now"... We "unite" only because we are afraid of falling, its just ...it never gets down to our "own" philosophy of things, the "way" we look at things. The personal contribution is never demanded in such organizations. You are only supposed to go with the crowd in the organization, and get involved in all the favorism, corruption and groupism which looks eternal to a pessimist like me. The organization never questions what should be the religion of everyone who says he belongs to the organization.

We in India, have been dodging the questions all the way. When we talk of philosophy and the religion (just in a social psychological sense as lets say, in the work ethics), we are branded fundamentalists. Nobody is supposed to say anything about the required oneness of culture and institution. Institution is something that Brits brought, where everyone is supposed to obey the orders, listen to the peers, butter the seniors for approval... stick to the class structure in organization which Brits introduced.

Brits found it easy. Indian people don't change the 'environment'. They, having given Buddhism to the world, try to get comfy with the nature. They consider themselves to be the part of nature (a bit like pantheism) rather than considering themselves, as agents of God meant to do something 'right' and remove all 'evil' from the world. Thats how they have been. British introduced excellent systems to change the 'environment' of these people and these people, due to their age old tradition of not-trying-to-change things, tended to accept everything.

So, you found the most devout of Hindus and Muslims writing exams to do some clerical job in the British system, and thinking that it was their "God" that helped them succeed in life (which was actually determined by the British in those times, and by western organizations in modern times) Now, after the Raj was gone, these people tried to take control of everything. But wait a minute, they cannot change a thing. So its in a confusing state. Indian culture, due to a hands-off policy of Brits, can't accept change anymore. It doesn't even change - it has nothing to do with philosophy. Its there only because "my mom wants me to do it"... Definitely, such culture cannot support an organization.

So, you have the current bastardization of Indian people. All those who control things, who matter in the society, are wannabe whites. They act like they are Westerners, they choose West over East in everything, act snobbish to everything that is native to India. Indian culture is the legacy of unpriveleged, backward, inflexible (many a times pious) people living in small cities of India. Metros are all half-westernized, existing as a bastion of bastardization to sustain a progressive-everWesternizing India and the rotten sphagetti that India is, a whole chaos of ideas that don't connect to any philosophy, that would be incompatible with each other on grounds of ethnicity, caste or religion. Metros are where an elephant is accebtably assumed to be the symbol of one's ethnicity. The history of that fucking elephant, its importance in theology ...err. mythology (Indian theology is about mythology, afterall) doesn't matter to anyone. Nor should it matter in a secular state. Its just a symbol, you could have replaced it with anything. Some others southwards, replace it with a dick...Its fun...tradition, worshipping itself, is just fun...no more serious.

No organization should be run for Indians in the Western world. There is nothing that unites Indians. It were the British who wanted us to do that, it is for the sustainance of their systems, and the benefites we seek from that system that we unite. We got nothing in our culture, which can make us think of anything above our own small community determined by the genes that our parents gave us, be it caste, ethnicity ... The western ideas of freedom, equality, fraternity of human beings, or the very idea of being a human that transcends all boundaries of religion caste and political borders looks so foreign being an Indian.

On increased roles of indentity - an attempt to answer

Most of the people in the East (who are not living and imported life from the West ) find it hard to continue with their standards, their limits, in the modern world. They see a compromise in completely adopting West. West intrudes our life, and we keep on denying it. Come to India, to see your Palestinian/Arabs mates studying here..watch them indulged into all sorts of debauchery. They don't certainly exemplify the ideal Muslim life, documented in Quran ( Iranian students are a lot better; and so they seldom go to india ;) ) Reportedly, they are purer muslims than the most in subcontinent...right?

This phenomenon is something which has pervaded every tradition, and every norm. Marriage is one of them; Not only is it appropriate to mention this phenomena here, but it is also pertinent with respect to the orignial question that was raised. Possible conversion before marriage, is not just a change of faith, not just about starting to follow certain "correct" traditions, but in an increasingly Westernized environment, its about identity of a Hindu or that of a Muslim. It would not be feasible for any hindu to marry a muslim, if he/she wants to preserve his/her relations with the family/community concerned. Same applies to the muslims too. Being a Muslim or Hindu, is not just about holding certain idea or following certain ideals. It is much more than that in a society whose way to "progress" is about relying on West for new ideas, rather than questioning its own standards, understanding its own norms, churning its own ideas.

The unexpected rate with which AIDS spread in India, the number of hits desibaba receives in an year, are only an example of how devoid of integrity we are. We have dismantled the system which handles our own desires. Our desires find expression in systems, which are not "permitted" in our society. This is only because of our inability to go and make changes in our social systems. If our society can handle our desires (which the case should be in an ideal Muslim world or an ideal Hindu world, and which was the case before British overtook us) we would be less fundamentalist, more welcoming to "aliens". Its just that we don't express our desires in our own systems; we end up abusing our own religion(s) and ethics. At least I am sure about my side of the border (or may be just "my" state or "my" community)

I respect those more who would abandon rules completely, rather than compromising to a hazy bastardized set of standards ... I respect the urban elitist Hindu's candid acceptance of the fact that it "is" real hard to follow Hinduism, to feel "pure" in a really "impure" world, to compromise with "reality". This would make things a lot healthier.

It goes this way...

What Freud said and neuroscience proved, only implies that human beings are prejudiced, in theory. They don't "understand" facts, instead they just try to correlate newer things, with what they already knew. Mathematically, this implies dependence of cultural biases / observations on history.

People don't work with facts, but they think they do. The acceptance of a "fact" or development of an opinion/vote is case of a dynamic equilibrium. People adjust the known facts, in effect of the environment. In general, a fact which I observed and which I think is the reason of not so successful democracies, is that people just don't have a strong opinion on anything. They are allowed to think rationally, but they seldom do; there is little role of a "fact-finding" in making of an opinion. If you present a point of view to them, they would get back with a counter-argument which in most cases, doesn't challenge the factual truth of the presented view, but just tries to attack it by evoking emotions emanating from the opposite view. The influence of this opposing argument is similarly, emotional most of the times.

Here is the average case:

A : This is observed to be this.
B: Do you mean "blah blah means blah blah blah" What about "blah blah blah"..

Most of the people who win arguments use the strategy of B. I myself have won many arguments with this strategy, but such arguments never ended with more understanding of the issue. What B does is to try to shift the opinion of A by disturbing his equilibrium of understanding (the one I talked in the very fist paragraph) Basic human tendencies of 'eye for an eye' are easy to invoke. People would shift their opinion so as to feel that they have fought back by giving counter-arguments. In this whole course of arguments and counter-arguments the truth value is buried deeper and deeper.

I don't really feel very satisfied with most of the debates I see, especially those in India, where the so-called educated élite are consequence of a colonial education system, which only teaches people to look down upon everything native.

A fight I picked up

This was in response to what my friends were talking about Tejomahalaya. The object here, is Taj Mahal which according to a historian ( allegedly an "RSS-guy") , was a temple, rebuilt or probably just refurnished to be labelled as a memorial.

I started having problems when people started making unnecessary comments on RSS (taking this as an average object of "RSS" interest) To those people, this was just another silly (or idiotic) issue RSS or VHP (or the Hindutva Brigade, as it is called by the leftists in India) like to bring up.

Here is what I said:

This is nothing new which I or most of us didn't know about. I remember something in this regard having forwarded once.

1. Ram mandir, or any other temple is not for elite people like us. No true temple (true to me!) is needed for metrosexuals. As far as I am concerned, I don't share my religion with such folks. I would rather consider myself sans religion than someone with this modern Indian flavor of Hinduism or Jainism or Buddhism or even the secular Islam.

2. There "was" something before everything. So is the case with the Ram Mandir. Rama became superhit only after Ramacharitamanas, the poem by Tulsidas (who came at the time of Akbar, grandson of Babar). Before that, he was just a glorious king, an avatar of Vishnu, just like the Nepalese king of relatively "modern" times. Kali, Durga, Siva, all have had tribal connections. Hindus (the term which was coined by the same "muslim" invaders, the term which is not found in any scripture, and doesn't have sanskrit roots) would have done some kind of nihilism too, replacing something with something else.

Buddhists did that too, made religion something by and for the king (this is debatable, the likes of Ambedkar consider Budhhist as "socialistic"); Brahmins established in the villages, getting fucked, fired back, and even massacred a bunch of Buddhists, managed to remain on the top for some more time. What followed after that is what the article(s) might be emphasizing in a fundie tone which itself is part of the Hindu misery.

http://www.salagram.net/VWH-temples-defiled.html

The misery of worshipping cultural symbols and only symbols, associating one's identity with that, is how Hinduism is celebrated and preserved. Its gone worse since Siva of South India is different from Shiva of North, ganapati of Maharashtra is different from ganesha of marwaris in western UP and Rajasthan. But the "sacred" tradition goes on ....redefining itself with debauchery and whoremongering,
dubbed as "economic" and "socio-political" needs in the 21st century!

I don't see anything wrong in some monist trying to impregnate such people with a religion - a true religion rather than one rotten to its core (in words of a missionary). Muslims ravished temples all over Arab, why spare India? Christianity spread all over Europe, why should India be bereft? What is the 'raison d'etre' of this great land with the greatest religion? A fantasy described in imperceptible Sanskrit poems which nobody bothers to grasp?

Where the heck is need of the temples, if you don't want to answer these questions, if you don't "have" a raison d'etre at all? India simply doesn't have a religion anymore; its people don't want any contribution of theirs to ethics of what the world calls "humanity"! Buddhists held Hindu philosophy better, so to say. Of course, we would never need any temples in India...Even if some assholes try to make some, brand them as the blockade to the development.

Thats all so good. India, on an ever-developing, and ever Westernizing path now, looks better as a loose union of states built upon race, language, ethnicity. Is there anything else I missed? ... Not religion of course - the muslim states don't consider themselves even in the Indian subcontinent anymore. How would they if they got a religion to live with?

3. Why blame just Muslims and Christians? After getting English education, the so-called Hindu reformers have been no less deleterious than how Christians or Muslims would have been. These were attempts to have a Hindu "missionary zeal" as futile counter-attacks to what "foreigners" from the West did. It has really nothing to do with the philosophy/spirit of the natives.

I am not gonna respond to any replies / arguements that shall arise from this silly mail of mine. I know some educated responses very well:
* India needs development => forget religion for a while. Yeah sure!

* Talk secularism... all religions are equal (its a different issue, if I know nothing about any one of them) ...Carry on!

* Iranians must have been lunatics when they went for an Islamic revolution discarding all the "development", and now they are having thoughts on democracy...silly! Aint it? Of course, all Muslims are backward anti-democratic oppressors of sexy chicks and potential beauty queens. So true! They are not "developing" ; stuck in a religion, dammit!

* What has politics to do with religion? They are separate… - An educated Indian thought, thanks to British!

I got nothing to say. We are all following the West anyways, and we trust 'em more than anyone else. So why worry, why even argue? Just follow the light…

The road I take to go to Math Emporium

Torgersen Bridge

Walking down to Christiansburg

Rose early in the morning, called up a taxi... took some time; I lay on my couch watch the rain outside. Never knew that those fine droplets were to be the harbinger of a great morning.

I had to go to Montgomery county health department, rode on the taxi, talked to the taxi-wallah; was a great person to talk to. Next few minutes, were dedicated to the nasty weather of Virginia, and the probable floods.

In the health dept, the nurse called my name just the way it is pronounced in Hindi. That was a pleasant surprise. When I came out of the building, the weather seemed so good (although it was raining) that I chose to walk back till the NRV mall. It was my first time in Christiansburg. So, like it always happens, I lost my way...took another street reached Christiansburg middle school instead of the high school. It was only when I bumped to the highway that I realised I had taken the wrong way. Anyways, the area I walked through was residential. This is a traditional, old town, so people live in the old-fashioned houses. They look great. Have never been to England, but I think the countryside of England would be as beautiful as what I saw today. Wooden houses, backyards, shrubs in the gardens, garage and the mail-box. The surrounding greenery getting shone by the everlasting rain, which Ivan had brought.

Not surprisingly enough, there were many churches : Baptist, Methodist, catholic, Lutheran. I wasn't expecting these many on the same street. But anyways, it was a pleasant walk. The downtown is far better than that of Blacksburg. Shops are great. I might compare that with at least Jayanagar in India, if nothing better.

Remembering Calcutta

Some years ago, we all moaned for a woman who dedicated her life for the extremely poor people in the most populous city of India. Those poor people when considered as the oppressed class and just the deprived class, pulled back the rise of city which had the potential to become as capable as Hong-Kong or Singapore. We stood for the woman who had the will to change things, and who did what would inspire every Indian for a long time to come.

The woman was Mother Teresa, and that city is Calcutta. It is said, that she didn't allow her patients to have pain-killers because that pain is through what soul gets closer to God, getting purified. Not a very religious person, but I would respect Mother Teresa, for she could hold her beliefs to this extent, probably also because my visit to Calcutta was similar in a vague sense.

It was a painful stay; the heat was intimidating. I got my mobile stolen there by the "oppressed" class in the communist state. The place was so crowded, that I got psyched out. But when I came back, I sat and relaxed, I realised that the myriad of people is what makes Calcutta, and that is what it is. I love it now for the way it occurred to me. People coming from everywhere, every kind of 'em, variegated dresses, traditional-modern, elites-paupers, bengalis-biharis, laborers-richmen, in all that heat and humidity.

The people in Calcutta, the Bengalis in general are very simple people. They are not of the kind who would hate people with certain ethnicity. The British influence is clear in Bengali lifestyle and that is what makes them different from the surrounding ethnicities. The old British buildings have been preserved, with all the beaureaucracy intact inside them that the Raj impregnated.

Concentration?

In the last few years, I have only seen a decline in what I had, although not in terms of health or money (who cares?) I don't seem to have gained anything in these years, the years which are supposed to be the most fruitful in life of an average human being.

My interface with the real world, is not the same as it used to be. Somewhere, what "I" am started matter very much to me. Supporting this "I", advocating "my" things and ideas, I became someone who would never be accepted by average people. I don't know when did it start to happen, but now, there seems nothing that can absorb me back to the society. Not just because of my inability to become one "average" person, but also because of the sense of depravity I would be feeling for things which I ignored being a "different" person.

It is said that humans become more prejudiced as they learn. That can be explained with neuroscience too. At a higher level, thats what seems to be happening to me. I disregard establishment, education, religion...Everything that wants me to change myself. Somewhere, I feel that itself has left me in a deadlock rendering me unusable for anything at all. I am at war with myself, because neither can I be a totally detached "individual" nor do I have the courage to overcome the fear of "rejection" if deciding to go back to society.

An act of "Concentration" would want me to compromise over what I am doing already. I would have to force myself to drive me or my mind somewhere. This is precisely what I have been avoiding. My basic tendency is that of withdrawal now. No competition, no cooperation...Surviving on a vanity, which of course, doesn't have a meaning. (Afterall, meaning itself is only an observed phenomena. We mean what we think things to be)

I am in need of help - lacking the concentration needed to understand concentration.

Trying to carry on...

Just done with completing all that home work thing. One major difference of the nature of study in the US is that things are considered at a holistic level. My professor of parallel computation would go on emphasizing the sociology of parallel software.

If you know a bit of history and the historical background of the country music, you are cool and not abnormal (the way I was always seen back in India) Anything is evaluated by the society as whole; everybody is doing something which he knows would have to be out there for everyone to see. There is transparency, integrity everywhere, at every level.

Ethics and law are about the same thing. They are not ripped apart the way it is in India. There seems to be a lot to learn for me, even though I spend a lot of time lecturing, orkutting, psyching out people with my weird tastes and idiosyncrasies.

I am feeling a bit sleepy because I loitered so much last night. I don't feel like typing out the final submittable version of my assignment, and I am not feeling like reading those lengthy research papers... May be I'll go out breath some fresh air of Virginia and come back...

sick of 'em

I have now come at a stage where I can't stand people saying religion and politics should be kept separate. All my life in my country, I saw people suffering because their "ethics" is not held in their government. So those people go on abusing their ethics, without getting penalised for what they do. The government on the other hand, standing as a Britsh establishment, hasn't got anything to do with ethics. It doesn't consider looking into local ethics as one of its responsibilities.

The responsibility of that government therefore is limited to comfort of sundry people who live in the big cities ( or any place where ethics of the native people doesn't play any role) Such people don't have any resistance in accepting Western religion and culture at all. They hire all the benefits offered from the West therefore. The big divide is because not far away from these big cities - those untouched civilizations, which are considered nothing more than a pool of cheap labor by the well-off. What they do, what they consider important has no representation at any institution. Why read books to understand imperialism? It is right here!

I don't know which culture can we talk about that isn't governed by a religion. And is it not handling the desires, emotions and needs of people what politics is about?

But people in my country would deny that. They would accept Western religion to its core, and then argue that their own "religion" being separate from politics and more importantly, being "tolerant" to other religions is the smartest and greatest on earth. I don't see how; at least I don't seem to follow such a religion because I don't see how democracy-freedom-equality don't have anything to do with Western culture.