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.