Varanasi Trip

In December 2005, my dad had this wonderful idea of spending his last LTA(leave travel allowance), before retiring, on a trip to the holiest of all places in India - Varanasi.
It was winter holidays at IIIT and I had just joined the robotics group. My professor, after I informed him about my piligrimage, told me what I could do during the travel and hotel stays - read a bunch of papers and form a basis for my thesis. Of course, those were the initial days and I was really enthusiastic and I did take a truck-load of research papers along with me. And I am shi***ng you not, I did read a couple of them on the fourth day of my trip. The reasons for which you would know later on. After the end of each of the first two days, I wrote a mail to my friends about what I felt about Varanasi. Here's what I wrote:

mail dated dec 22, 2005:

hi fellows,

now am in kaasi. visiting lot of temples daily. everything here is 'viswanath' mandir and the second language here is not urdu,not english, not bengali but our own telugu. you go near the temple side and everyone can understand and speak telugu. thats because andhrites are the largest number of visitors. guides can instantly recognize telugu ppl(even if u r not talking telugu) and come running to u offering this that and blah blah exploiting poor fellows. telugu ppl are easily fooled here, every hundi here has three languages written on it, hindi, eng and telugu. every poojari is an outright as***le, even the main pujari is no exception, everyone expects money, ppl call u into temples just like our 7 seater drivers, i was so ashamed to call myself a brahmin coz every brahmin here thinks he is the messenger of god. traffic is hell, u wouldn't want to drive a car here coz u'll never reach ur destination. u want to go by walk then the road is full of shit/dung and the famous banarasi pan. till yesterday i couldn't find any kind of bhakti here. today was a bit better, had bath in the ganga and visited a 200 BC dated buddhist site, saw the great ashoka pillar and the great 'lion capital' (the one after which india got its national symbol...4 lions ashoka chakra) that was really splendid. i went to the actual excavation site. visited japanese,chinese,thai buddhist temples, lot better than our temples. tomorrow we are going to vindhyachal and allahabad to see prayag..triveni sangamam. ppl say one has to be lucky to come to kasi and that not everyone gets a chance. for now i don't find it so, let me see if i'll be lucky in the coming 3 days.

okey dokey dudes, bye .

mail dated dec 24, 2005:

hi fellows,
today's trip was a worser experience, my dad emptied his pockets at every temple with the 'supposed' priests yelling and pleading asking us to come inside. nearly 2500 was spent on today's trip(including boat fare dakshina blah blah) for now i am thinking of converting to Christianity, baptize myself, change my name to karthikeya 'john' viswanath and celebrate christmas tomorrow. saw many 'historic' places again today where maa durga killed a rakshas, sitaji cooked meal for ramji, drank water from the well where ramji too drank..the pandit said water will be sweet but i only saw bacteria in it and drank it coz i was 'ordered' to do so, gave food to sea gulls and langurs but none of those brought any peace to my mind. i am missing my dear hyderabad so much, i dont even miss guntur this much, hyderabad is better in many ways i must confess, though it changes and corrupts people's mind, it still is the best.

perhaps i am the devil's son, u know, just like in the novel 'the omen' where the devil's son cries and becomes violent when he is taken inside a church, i too am getting revulsion for this supposedly holy city. this city is holy no doubt but the men sitting around the god have made this city more polluted than all the factories of india put together can ever hope of.

thats it from me fellows, bye c ya fellows soon on 31st,perhaps the soothing sight of hyderabad will settle me down. hope so.

I showed the above piece of writing to so many of my friends during the following years as it is very close to my heart. It was the first time I penned down an experience of mine and shared it with my friends, and it did succeed in bringing some peace of mind before I went to bed.
Those were the days when i was still a believer but, believe me, my belief was stretched to its limit after the trip. During the following many days, infact months, I used get cynical, gory, images before my eyes whenever I saw or imagined a shiv-ling. So after the first three days of the sensational shock, I preferred to stay indoors and let my mom and dad wallow in devotion. As for my professor, I read a couple of papers among the hundreds I had taken along.

"Indian Army will finish it off in 48hrs"

How many of you haven't heard this sentence being said by someone at some point of your life? Sitting in my train compartment I hear two well-educated(looking) stylish gentlemen discussing Pakistan-India, Bin Laden, 9/11 conspiracy theories and likewise. No complaints till now but suddenly the bald gentleman observes,"Give Indian Army 48 hours and they'll clear off Kashmir of all militants". Didn't know what to say.

As a kid, I used to hear my dad quip,"This Veerappan is a mess, give a green signal to Indian Army and they will finish him off in 48 hours". I used to believe him those days, needless to say, I no longer do. For those of you interested in knowing how complicated a task it was to nab him in the dense forests bordering Karnataka and TN, you could read this book.

A cousin of mine once said," you know, after the Kargil war Indian army had the opportunity to march till Islamabad and take over Pakistan! But our bloody bureaucrats and politicians didn't allow them to". He definitely overlooked the possibility of entire India getting nuked before the Indian army can even cross a hundred paces from LOC.

Sometimes I wonder whether I am ignorant.

Vegetarianism?

A few days back, in one of the orkut forums, i had a little debate with some vegetarians over the issue of why they believe people shouldn't eat meat. Here's how it went:
[Warning: long post. Jump to the final Q&A if you can't read the entire post]

ME: Hello all, i just checked my messages to see a particular message from the owner of this group whose profile says 'all you non-veggies c my new video' . So Mr.owner and all the others in this community, do you believe eating non-veg is bad? what exactly is your stance? eating non-veg is against god/ vegetarians are better than those who eat meat/non-veg tastes bad :P?
PS: I'm a strict vegetarian.

Veggie-boy1[Roughly translated to English]: As mentioned in the puranas, eating a dead animal is rakshasa culture and one who eats meat and commits sin is a rakshas. God doesn't care though if you eat meat or not. It's just that eating meat is a sin and thus one loses his way in his quest for god. More penance and devotion is required for non-veggies if they want to reach god. One can happily eat meat if one doesn't care he's committing a sin.

ME: If one follows evolutionary biology; out of the four great apes, namely, gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and humans, only humans are meat eaters. In fact there is a theory that says we could have separated from the ape lineage and become humans because we had to develop skills for hunting, paving the way for intelligence development. There is no doubt that agriculture started thousands of years after we started hunting and eating meat. We descended from meat eaters or, putting it in your way, we descended from rakshasas.
What i feel is we all have instincts to kill animals and eat them. No one can deny it, it's in our nature. Nurture made us, brahmins and other born vegetarians, loathe meat. At the age of 23, I've realised it's only a matter of food choice. I would eat it if i have to. Of course i would oppose any meat that comes from cruelty towards animals.

Veggie-boy2: what do you mean by saying, "Of course i would oppose any meat that comes from cruelty towards animals"? We can't obtain meat by not killing animals. In other words, non-veg itself is cruelty towards animals. That's why i put the PETA video in my profile which shows the cruelty towards animals from which meat is obtained.

[The PETA video shows pigs, chicken, cows and other animals being cruelly treated in farms, slaughter houses, transportation etc]

ME: There are ways to killing an animal. If you castrate a pig, clip its ears and tail when its young, boil and skin it alive, smash it to the ground and then eat its meat - that's cruelty. [That's what the video shows]
You don't go to a cheetah who kills a deer and say, 'hey, you are being cruel'. We are no different from a cheetah, just that we have alternative dietary options. I see no wrong in opting for meat.

Veggie-boy3: But we have a sense for justice, sin, virtue, compassion, kindness etc. That's why we are asking people to stop eating meat and not a cheetah! :P

ME: The question is whether to eat meat or avoid it and not whether to talk with a cheetah or not. :P My obvious reply to what you said would be, "so what if we have all those?"

Veggie-boy2: If tomorrow some scientist says that eating human flesh would cure AIDS, cancer or some other disease. Can one eat human flesh thinking it is also non-veg? Or if a dinosaur-like creature comes and starts eating men, would you encourage it saying,"once we also killed animals that are smaller than us and so the creature is justified killing us?". So, in my opinion, eating non-veg shouldn't be encouraged.

ME: The instinct for one's own survival is the greatest force that drives one's existence. The instinct to kill something else for your own survival is as human as the instinct of running away from something that's trying to kill you. The strongest reason why people don't hurt each other is because of the fear of consequences. There are other reasons like compassion etc etc but they are not the strongest.
Here's a little piece of fiction that might interest you. You and another man are inside a room. Your life is in danger as you have a deadly disease. The only way you can survive is by killing the other person and eating him or whatever. The circumstances are such that you can easily dispose of the body somewhere, nobody would ever know. The other fellow is no way related to you. So guilt won't follow you in the form of weeping mothers or sisters. Law wouldn't follow you either, you can escape unscathed. Faced with such a situation, how many of you would not opt to kill him? Of course people may say they would rather choose to die than kill, but if that is the case, think again.
Anyways i am digressing from the topic. What i was trying to say is that the only reason society became civilised is because men started to fear the consequences of their actions not because they developed compassion for their fellow beings. Compassion was an after-effect. Faced with the question of survival, nobody is kind.

Veggie-boy3: Mr. Thread starter, would you like it if somebody kills you? No, right? Similarly all animals hold on to their dear lives. Each animal has life, its own desires(sexual desires included). There are so many similarities between them and us. Just because we are more intelligent and stronger, how justified is it to kill them and eat? They have a desire to live. If you see the video, each single animal tried desperately to escape from its imminent death. Even after seeing it if you ask why eating meat is wrong then what should i think of you - that you don't have the capacity to think or arguing is your hobby? Wild animals can't live without eating meat. But we can. Can't we use our intelligence and strength to make them survive better instead of killing them?
One more thing - some people keep saying that even plants have life and isn't it a sin to kill them? I say it is not because to obtain what we want, we need not kill plants. As long as the root and stem are intact they can flower again. But animals can't grow their limbs again.

ME: How many of us have not killed ants, mosquitoes, worms, roaches etc without feeling any amount of remorse? Jains, they take this compassion to a different level, they tie a cloth around their nose so that they don't kill micro-organisms by inhaling them. Do you ever think of that? not killing microbes because they too have desires, some of them are sexual btw. Jains even don't eat roots, they don't eat potatoes or onions because to eat a root they have to kill the plant. Ever think of that buddy?
Coming to your plant theory, you say we don't kill a plant. How do you get your rice? You pluck of the plant and process it in gruesome machines to extract the grains in rice mills :P. Plants reproduce sexually as well. They endure pain as well if JC Bose is to be believed. Probably detaching a fruit from a plant is like detaching a limb from an animal, causing it more pain than killing it forever. Just because we don't see it wailing or begging for its life, you can't say you are not committing a sin. Of course you are; that is if you see killing other fellow living creatures as a sin.
There are fruitarians, vegans and groups with exotic names who only eat fruits that drop from a plant. They don't pluck cause they see it as giving pain to the plant. Do you have the guts to join them? Can you imagine your food without rice, potato fry or onion sambar? Think again. It's similar to those who eat chicken, they can't imagine their food without it either. They were born and brought up in it. They are compassionate as well, they strive for animal welfare as well. I have a bird watching friend who has done things to save flamingos and other migratory birds in India. She enjoys her chicken.
To sum it up, we all have our own levels of tolerance, levels of kindness and levels of compassion etc etc. Some can't think of killing microbes, while others can't kill plants while we can't kill animals. Be happy with what we are rather than be evangelists trying to change others into believing what we believe in. I rest my case here.

Shyamalan and 'The Happening'.

After much await i finally got my chance to watch the latest movie made by my favourite filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan - The Happening. Fully aware of the critical bashing the movie has received (20% from rotten tomatoes) I went to the movie unflinched. And disappointed I wasn't.

On my way to the theatre i kept thinking all about Shyamalan and his movies. My first tryst with his movies started when my sister narrated to me the story of a movie she had seen. It was sixth sense. My sister had always been good at narrating stories but this time the premise of the story caught my imagination. It was different - a child helping ghosts. I rented the cassette and saw the movie. It was great. The next movie of his, unbreakable, i saw it on cable - one day before my first year sem exams. Loved it as well. I was captivated by Shyamalan's treatment of the supernatural, Hitchcock style twists at the end of his movies, gripping build ups to the climax. At this point one of my all-time favourite movies and, in my view, his best film released. Signs. I watched the movie, along with my best friends from engineering, in the best theatre of Hyderabad in those days - Sangeeth. There are only a few books and movies which change the way you see this world. Signs was one such movie for me. I vividly remember getting mesmerised and hypnotised by the climax of the movie and how it was presented - Newton Howard's background score, Mel Gibson and Abigail Breslin's acting, the screenplay and everything. I came out of the theatre wondering what a genius Shyamalan is. I was so influenced by the movie that in the following days i started seeing everything as a sign sent to me by God. If the electricity went off while watching TV during exams, i thought it was a sign from above to get me reading books. If the computer crashed while playing games, i thought it was a sign to make me do some coding. If i missed the college bus, it was a sign to sit at home. I had regular arguments with people over the movie who found it stupid. I took it up as my evangelistic agenda to change people's view of the movie. I took great pains in explaining people that the movie is not about aliens but about faith - do you see a phenomenon as a coincidence or as a sign? Never stopped till they were convinced and agreed with me.

After a long gap 'The Village' was released. First day, first show and this time in prasads. Critics blasted the movie but I, along with other Shyamalan fanatics in the theatre attending the first show, clapped at the end of the movie. I whistled and whistled when i saw the credits on the screen mentioning shyamalan's name. I shouted with a boyish excitement when shayamalan made his unusual entry in the movie. Explained to my friend that it was shyamalan's voice - proud of my instant discovery. Seeing so much criticism directed at the movie 'Lady in the water' made me wonder whether i liked the movie because i adored him or i really liked the movie. I still don't know the answer. I liked the movie. The only disappointment was that there was no mega-twist at the end. It was a fairy-tale told the shyamalan way. No complaints.

So i reached the theatre and was ushered into Screen 5 in prasads - i never saw a movie in that but i heard it was initially built for private screenings. I hoped it would be big enough and deserving to screen a Shyamalan's movie. Alas, my hopes were shattered to see a puny theatre with a puny screen. "NO!!!!!", i declared when i saw the movie being screened in exactly 1/6th part of the already small 35mm screen. Had to control my destructive impulses (wanted to kill the manager who deemed the movie not worthy enough of a 70mm screening). The movie started and nothing else no longer mattered. I enjoyed the movie. I hope i can articulate why liked the movie(Spoiler Alert!):

For one, i never got bored and i am pretty sure nobody who watched the movie did. The movie is gripping. The general discontent with the movie might be because people feel the premise of the story is stupid and the lack of explanation for whatever that is Happening. To make a good movie both of them are not required. A movie maker need not have an agenda or a point to make in the movie. He also doesn't need to explain the reason for an event if he films and treats the screenplay of the event well. It's a human trait that we are dissatisfied if we can't know the proper reason for something. Shyamalan might have done a mistake there and i don't blame him for that because he would be damned if he gives the reason as it would be declared dumb! So instead he opted to leave it to our imagination. It is like reading a murder mystery novel with its last few pages, where the killer is revealed, torn off! It is for this reason all Indian movies follow the same mantra, a movie should end happily, a utopian climax no matter what - even if all the hero's family is dead but he manages to kill the villain and walks away happily with his lady love who, by the way, is never killed. Just because Shyamalan didn't follow a manual he is being persecuted. Not only the climax, even in the middle of the movie there are many scenes that do not have an explanation. In my view, none of them need one. The killing of the two boys, the crazy woman, an oscillating swing and few alike are all experiences faced by three people and the movie is told from their perspective. They themselves don't know the reason and we shouldn't expect to know either.

Coming to the finer details and why the tale gripped me; the movie was typical shyamalan. The movie is not fast paced but one never runs out of patience. He doesn't try to thrill with a sudden sound but by a carefully built up suspense terminated by a scary visual. He, like no one else can, managed to create few laughs in totally serious situations. I kept on guessing what would happen the next moment because the suspense never stopped. I am just re-repeating the word 'gripping' because of a reason. When the movie was stopped in the middle of a scene for intermission everybody went 'Aaaaaaargh..' in unison because each one of us were so captivated by that scene and were irritated by the interruption. It was a perfect testimony. To sum it up, i was entertained; that's what i expect from a movie and that's what i got.

Evolution.

Few days back, I had an argument with one of my batch mates. The argument was about evolution; it's hard to believe an educated fellow would rubbish evolution just like that, though i wish i could have argued better to convince him. My point was the need for GOD to explain our existence is meaningless. We don't need a magic hand to explain things we don't understand but we need patience and an open mind. His argument was that evolution is baseless it doesn't explain anything. My statements failed to have any effect on him nor did his have any on me. He thought i needed enlightenment in karmic truths whereas i thought he just needed to read more.

A month before, my professor was talking on the same subject. The discussion had ended when i asked him the question, "Sir, do you believe in a personal God?". He wanted the answer to be confidential and hence i am not writing it here. He gave some nice insights into the science of belief - why humans look up to an impersonal God because they are fed up with their personal affairs. At the end he asked me what my stance is. "I am an atheist sir, i would love it if i have only myself to blame for my failures and not believe that i didn't pray enough", i replied. Of course, agnostics don't believe in a personal God - A God who keeps track of your daily routine - either. But i personally see there is no reason why i should pray to someone whose existence i see no proof of.

Last night i had another long argument with G over evolution. Not on God but on the extent to which I stretch my evolutionary agenda. We were discussing how a woman is thrust into a different family after her marriage. "You guys have it easy, its we who have to adjust in a different family. Why is it not the other way round?", a rueful G said. For which i replied, "Actually there is evolution playing here- culture made us a patriarchal society and practicing the custom for thousands of years mutated our genes into following the same custom over the years". The reaction i got for what i said was a strong outburst one can expect from a staunch feminist facing a chauvinist. "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? wha..wha..whaaaaaaaat? there is no gene imprinting here, it is just a custom which nobody questioned or dare go against. You always shift the blame away from society, don't justify the bloody custom". Her little tirade against me, i felt, was unjustified because i always i felt i was not a chauvinist but a feminist - at least acted like one - and i justified saying,"i am not saying we should follow the custom blindly. I personally feel expecting a girl to move to her in-laws is unjust. I am against it. All I'm saying is, because we've followed that tradition for thousands of years, our genes have evolved to follow it. We all have the tendency to push our daughters out. The tendency, how feeble it may be, is in our blood. It's just a tendency and counteracting it is as easy as opposing any of the other thousand tendencies a human being could have." More justification followed -"There are species in which males move out of their families and there are other species like gorillas where females move out of families. In the same way, humans evolved such that females move out". By the way, this happens for genetic mixing. In lions, young males move out of their prides and join other prides. In gorillas, the females move out and mix with some other family. What followed was more debate on whether there is any science to understanding the human customs. I say it is science while she says it is sociology - not a science. The question of a hard evidence came up wherein she argues there is no evidence to what i said. Human tailbone disappeared over thousands of years because there was no use for it - that is genetic mutation. What i was arguing for had no hard evidence. Finally we stopped arguing after agreeing that we both would search it up and find evidence for genetic imprinting of customs.

Evolution is not fair. Evolution favours those who develop the knack of surviving at any cost. There are evolutionary justifications to greed, treachery, deceit and all the other flaws of human nature. We all developed these traits because these are the qualities which helped men defeat others in the race of wealth, health and reproduction. A Pleistocene era man could survive better if he could fool another man and sleeping with his wife or stealing his meat. There are many such examples taking which one could argue successfully that a cheating man would have lead a better life. Of course, in the modern society one may live peacefully without ever having to cheat but one can't deny the impulses that are within us, formed for hundreds of centuries. Modern society invented God, morals and ethics to suppress these very impulses - in the quest for establishing an ideal society where things exist in harmony and people don't hurt each other. I don't know how much we succeeded in establishing one but those who observe the Indian political system know one thing - power rests in the hands of those who are the most deceitful of all human beings; not with those who are the most deserving.

If ever i have a kid who comes up to me and asks, "Dad, is there God? Would he punish me if I'm dishonest?". I would reply, "Kiddo, make up your own mind. Observe the world yourself. Don't ever follow anybody else because nothing that anybody utters in this world is an unquestionable truth. Don't follow me either. I have a set of beliefs which themselves keep changing from time to time but i don't admit that i was ever wrong. I just stuck to what i believed at that particular time. I believe there is no God. I don't need the fear of a punishing hell to do good to others. If I help somebody it would just be because of the pleasure i would gain by helping that person. Ultimately choose a lifestyle for yourself based on your own perspective of life."

Dreams - 4.

This post is a part of my Dreams Series ....

My dad and myself are walking on a road that looked remarkably similar to marine drive in Bombay. I was walking in front of my dad, both us are carrying something in plastic bags. Waves were hitting the walls at full force but the sea was generally calm. I shouted to my dad to walk quickly as it was getting dark. We not step on a long, narrow bridge on the river ganga that has no side walls. We both start walking casually, not at all afraid of the water, that stretched till horizon. The bridge was at a good height and i look down once and look at my father who has picked up his pace and gaining on me. The moment he approaches me dolphins suddenly start jumping all around us moving towards the end of the bridge from which we started. The sudden frenzy caught both us unawares and i get scared out of my wits. I cling to one of the poles and my dad shouts at me, "what the heck have you done?", for which i answer, "I didn't do anything!". Now there is rain, torrential rain, and more dolphins. A tiny dolphin jumps on the bridge near me and i push it back into the water. Now something incredible happened, a weird dolphin, that had a pig-like snout, stops mid-air and looks at me. The frame is freezed and i see the scene of the dolphin observing me as a third person, above both of them. The dolphin jumps back into the river and again the dream is a first-person experience. My dad and myself decide to head back to the start of the bridge but as we approach it see water from the sea flooding the entire place and now coming towards us in full force. My dad who's ahead of me starts running towards me. The End.

Explanation: My dad never walks slower than me, he's always in front me shouting at me to walk fast. So in my dream my subconscious mind got back at him, made him slower.
In the current book that I'm reading, the red queen, the author writes about a certain kind of bottlenose dolphins, from the pacific, which have three times as big a brain as those of dolphins found in the river ganga. When i read that i wondered that ganga has dolphins in it. That's how in my dream i saw dolphins jumping in the river ganga and the one particular one which stares at me has a weird nose!
Can't explain the storm. Large water bodies always bring the images of thunder storms; may be. I've never been to marine drive by the way.