Jan 31 - I am Happy. Its My Birthday Today !

What is India?

On Jan 26, India celebrates Republic day.
Early that morning, thanks to our Worldspace Radio there was an overwhelming backdrop of patriotism in the air as we all went about our morning routines. One of us was setting up a little tricolour flag in the living room; another was reading the newspaper while ‘A’ (I’ll call the person A to protect identity) asked a question.
A’s question: “What is India? Is it about you? Is it about me? Or is it a concept?”
I heard this question very feebly amidst the chaos of bathroom singers, the radio, and exasperated complaints of misplaced socks, while I was getting dressed for office. The question kinked my head. I ran up to the living room to confirm if I had actually heard the question right. ‘A’ confirmed.

The question stuck in my head and I kept mumbling it every now and then.It kept ringing in my head, always prompting me to think in those lines, although I wanted to keep myself occupied with other things, I couldn’t get myself to ignore it. The question kept on probing me like a new pimple that makes you want to touch it with your fingers although you know that touching it can only make things worse. Then I gave in to the urge to try and answer that persistent question, here is my answer:

India, on the 55th anniversary of Republic, still remains a mere concept.
The country is the biggest democracy in the world, and exercises freedom of thought and expression. Every Indian has a very private view of the country, a very unique understanding, and a very unique plan for its betterment and future. The India that Gandhi foresaw cannot be the same that Nehru did, the India that I am hoping to see is not the same that my parents would want to see.

Even with our different understandings and views, India has survived as a working democratic nation with the highest number of religions, languages, castes and races in the world. I attribute the country’s success to its existence as a concept, a possibility, an opportunity. Thank God we live in a country that can be built on thoughts and moulded by minds. Jai Hind. (Jai (jay): victory, Hind(hindh): India, short for Hindustan)

As I conclude, I find myself humming a song from the movie Exodus,
“This land is mine, God gave this land to me...”
- Blabbergob
(Sujay Sukumar)

A treasure that’s forever

Romancing the fringes of reason
like dewdrops on daisies,
these memories linger
eluding erasure.

Captive emotions stir
and escape in an effervescence,
and then dance in step with
violet butterflies.

THE ‘UN’COMMON MAN

Saturday 21 January 2005 - I personally met and interacted with the most popular humorist of India, R K Laxman.
Two art savvy friends of mine (I’ll call them C and G) and I had registered ourselves to an event “Face to Face with R K Laxman” held in our organization. The program was to start at 10 am, thanks to the nocturnal nature of C, we were all late by half an hour, the delay proved to be a boon in disguise, because we got to see the icon himself ,up close, in the parking lot as he dismounted the car that brought him to the location. I had goosebumps all over as I watched him. Although aged, his personality radiated sharpness. He was wearing a red shirt and black trousers. He was accompanied by his wife, and he needed assistance to walk. He saw the three of us, watching him with gaping mouths. I’m not aware for how many seconds his sharp eyes met mine, but it seemed too short a time for me to cover up my excitement.
The program began with a book reading session; excerpts from his books were being read by some fat ladies (boring!)…The three of us were broke as usual, so we ran to the ATM counter meanwhile to draw money for his books being sold at a special counter.
We made it before the Q’n’A round. Most questions were asked by all the kids who had gathered to meet “Laxman Uncle”. The following section is entirely based on the memory of a forgetful person- Myself, so omissions and mistakes are an integral part of it. The questions and his responses as I can recall were as follows.
Q) A little girl: “Sir, what was the first cartoon you ever drew”?
A) “ I don’t remember, it was long ago”, then he noticed the little girl’s face fade he quickly added, “I think it was of my nephew playing in the garden”
Q) A gentleman: “Sir, name one politician whose cartoons you enjoy drawing most”?
A) Laloo Prasad Yadav
Q) A young man: “Sir, will ‘The Common Man’ ever participate in the events around him or will he always be an observer”?
A) “He will always be a mere observer”
Q) Me (I had to move up real close to him to ask the question, I was asking him the question to his face.): “Sir, I have seen a lot of your works on crows, what medium do you prefer when drawing crows”?
A) Lamp Black.
Q) A gentleman to Mrs. Kamala Laxman. “Do you get to advice or suggest him on his art and works”?
A) “I don’t go anywhere near him when he is at work” .
....And many more questions and answers that I can’t remember… Finally, the moment arrived when we could take our books to him for his autographs…C was leading the way, followed by Me, and G wanted the moment captured forever so he was persuading one gentleman to click his photo as the artist autographed his book.
Dr. R K Laxman, winner of Asia’s top journalism award, Ramon Magsaysay Award, and India’s prestigious award Padma Vibhushan, smiled at me, signed his name for me on his book “The Distorted Mirror: Stories, Travelogues, Sketches” .
He also drew the common man in my book on my request.
The day was fantabulous!!!
-- Sujay Sukumar (Blabbergob)

COMPUTER CACOPHONY

After an Engineering degree in Electronics and Communication, and having worked as a Software Engineer for two years you’d expect a person to know “The Computer” like a friend. Not true in my case, the hideous thing just isn’t a friend; to me it’s a stubborn 6- year-old with unpredictable mood swings. Yesterday, my comp in my workplace gave me one of those “I-am-going-to-be-difficult-because-I-can” days.
As soon as I logged in I noticed that my system was real sluggish and the cursor made trails of its image (like a string of white arrows) wherever I moved the mouse, being used to such occurrences, I smiled, “the loading of a high resolution wallpaper usually causes this” I reasoned.
In a Support project, we need to check mails from the users of our software solution, so I tried to open my mailbox, “funny”, I thought, “I’d typed the password correctly, just like I’ve done a hundred times before”, but it prompted me to retype the password. Strange, but no explanation offered itself.
I proceeded to connect to the Application, It was slow in logging me on, and periodically the application would go back to the login screen. “Now what could this be”? From the multifarious tangles of my brain noodles an explanation took form, “Voila!! A session expiry”!!. “But what could have caused that”? I imagined some freaky network technician vigorously shaking the network cables.
Suddenly, almost in unison, all the softwares and tools that I use in my system began abusing me with errors and hexadecimal swear words. I imagined an irate kid throwing a bat at me. Vanity joined forces with Reason and launched a surgically guided thought into my dormant brain, “Cool it dude!”, the thought told me, “just restart your thingumabob”. I followed the divine cerebral intervention, and…. “Crap!!” the bloody thing blacked out on me!

Later a dirty goat from the Network and Security team came in, spent some time on my system, offered no explations, told me I could log-in and walked off. He was wearing an expression that seemed to tell me “You’re an awful parent”. “C’mon, give me break, I’m dealing with Calvin here”.

---Blabbergob (Sujay Sukumar)

Confess

I am tired of pretending,
I want to rush into those arms,
shut my eyes and forget the world,
alas, here I am acting clever,
and eventually looking stupid.
But, yet the twinkle in your eyes...
Are they mocking me?
-- Sujay Sukumar

Scars

Little hearts pounded in fear
of fat teachers with spectacles and canes;
for unfinished homework was looming tall
besides the holidays of innocence that lay slain.

The kite was torn and tangled,
forgotten; while it hung on the electric wires;
freedom was being taught in the history class.

The crayons and pastels unreachable,
safe in daddy’s cupboard, while
a geometry box encroached the artist’s desk.

Snatched and put away in the corner,
was an aspirant’s bat, the spelling test
had words like ‘effort’ and ‘determination’

Wounds inflicted by the bicycle,
heal, and are soon forgotten.
It’s the impositions and punishments,
that leave lasting scars of humiliation.

-- Sujay Sukumar

ASTRONOMY DOMINE

Ya know, I dig astrology, the thing kind of works for me. I read my daily horoscope evryday.
I know people who ditrust and discard the whole affair as rubbish; these agnostics argue that astrology doesnt have a scientific significance, these very same people emphatically uphold Astronomy. The truth is, man was always interested in the stars, the moon and the celestial activities much before the first scientific theories were recorded. Now although it is very convenient to assume that all that early man did was gaze at the night sky and utter barbaric growls, my intelligence tells me otherwise. Obviously these people noticed cycles in the patterns of the sky, noticed the moon cycles and noticed the connection bertween childbirths and moon cycles. They went on to study the sky and agreed on a few recognizable constellations and clusters. Further they systematically tried to understand the impact the stars had on their lives. They noticed similarities in the behaviours of people born when a particular star was directly overhead. They Observed, theorized, formulated and Inferred systematically and Astrology was born, a science in every respect.

Advocates of astronomy will agree with me that the moon causes tides, the practical implication of this beleif is that the person accepts that a celestial body situated 384,400 kilometers away(closest distance) from the earth, can actually cause the total sea line to recede by hundreds of kilometers. This is no joke, every cubic meter of sea weighs over a tonne, and if the moon's gravity can cause such an effect on the sea, and if newton was correct when he said that gravity is directly proportional to the density, then it is apparent that, Stars with higher density, greater radiational activity, bigger radii and greater presence in the sky obviously affect the human body not just with gravitational forces but also through radiations and magnetic activities.

Here my argument reaches a point where the non-beleiver of astrology will say, "So according to your argument since the same stars appear visible from anywhere on earth on a particular night, they must have the same effect on every man who sees them ", well these guys are partly right...each constellation does carry a characteristic effect. But logically, the effects of these bodies must be highest on the most succeptible entites. Children born under a constellation or a star are affected most, since their brains are in the early stages of formation. The alignment of electially sensitive receptors, the ratios in the hormone levels are all affected in accordance to the stars above them, causing similar patterns in brain development in children born within certain time slots. That should explain zodiac signs for all of us.

Astronomy is a science that was born out of Astrology and took a slightly different path, just like electronics was born from physics, only difference being that the proponents of Astronomy discarded it's origins as baseless. alternatively if the learnings of Astrology were preserved and researched we might have had a science that could be directly utilized in our daily lives, and found more meaning in our day to day life. I can easily imagine a world where we would have managers making better descisions following an advanced astrological software, doctors making better desicions based on astronomical data and astrological deductions. This I see as more practical than a few wise men arguing the presence of Black holes and the big bang theory.

And here is a good one for the advocates of Astronomy.(I sincerely beleive in astronomy as a pure science and do not rubbish astrology either)
"If the Universe is everything that exists around us, and science tells us that the universe is expanding, then what is it expanding into?"

good night,
No, make that a starry starry night,
Blabbergob

Finally, a place where I get to say all the things that I wish to say.
This is probably what the Beatles sang about, the Nowhere land where Mr.Nowhere Man is free to make his Nowhere plans for Nobody. This was what the poets called The Island of the Lotus Eaters, Utopia, Xanadu or Wonderland.

I'll be talking about a variety of things like Travelling, Poetry, Music, Books, Science, Philosophy, Adventure, Automobiles, Religion, Epics, Sociology, History and Spirituality.

The views or opinions that I express here are my very own, I do not intend to offend anyone with my views. In case you are offended by my writings or illustrations, go ahead and feel offended, I thrive on your offendedness.

"I shall be heard"
- Sujay Sukumar (Blabbergob)