The Secret’s up in Smoke

I know something.

It’s a secret. So, obviously, I cannot tell you what I know. But it does bring me to the thought about how we deal about secrets, and, perhaps (and therefore) what makes us vulnerable.

I know folks who will take secrets to their grave; I know a few others who will blurt out what they know at first possible context that they can think of. One (of the many) classifications, in which we think about people, is how they manage secrets. I use the word ‘manage’ with some purpose. I could have easily said, ‘keep’ secrets.

I am not the person you want to confide, if you do not want anyone to know what you are up to. Especially, if what you confide in me is happy news. I am, perhaps, melancholic in a way. If I know something about you that is not worth sharing, I’ll take it to my grave. But we do have to deal with the aspect of “what is worth sharing” – is it how you see it or is it how I see it. There is a difference you know.

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Flashback, circ. 1989.

A young healthy body is shivering. Guts are in short supply. I gather them as much as I can. I proceed. I gingerly walk up and inform my father that I smoke. The response is factually receptive (if that phrase means anything). He accepts my confession (my perspective) as a statement (his perspective).

“Good, you told me.”

“Well, I didn’t want you to hear it from someone else.”

“Anything else?”

I hover around and he has sensed that my bigger problem was not the confession (my perspective) but, something else.

“Please don’t tell Mom.”

“I won’t, for the sake of it, but if it come down to a conversation, I will tell her.”

I don’t know if you have ever experienced a feeling that the world is made of paper and it starts crumpling around you, but it was a similar experience. He didn’t say, “I have to tell her,” he said, ” I will tell her.”

I left the room; he did not look up from the paper that he was reading.

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Of the things that people confide in us – there are things that are good, and there are things that are not so good. I am given to hold, protect and preserve secrets that don’t show folks in good light. I will, also hold, protect and preserve secrets that have not yet become the well-known truth. However, I have to find someone to share good news. If you want to suppress good news about you – I am not the person you should be speaking with. Never trust me with “good” secrets. I am, usually, unable to hold tight, the secrets that show the wonder of great people. Overall, that makes me a person who cannot keep secrets half the time.

There’s one more thing about how I deal with secrets. If it looks like someone is about to confide, I ask them to wait a moment. I tell them that by the fact that you (may) confide in me, my wife will know it. By choice or chance, but she will know it. Unless you agree to that, do not confide; I am better off not knowing. It’s my rule; it’s not my wife’s rule, so, perhaps you are better off confiding to her.

But it does all come back to the nature of secrets and their purpose. To tell someone something that they aren’t supposed to know in the first place, is the first violation of a “secret.” However, to tell something to someone, means that you want to be heard. Which, to my mind, violates the essence of a “secret.” Yet, secrets are exclusive bonds between people. Some secrets bind people for life. Even if none of them ever want to or need to “out” a secret. Whatever the relationship, secret-management defines a relationship. Venn diagrams, Sub-sets and Super-sets, is the one concept that I am very glad to have learned in school.  Are we vulnerable because we know something or because we do not know something? Do we seek secrets? Do we avoid them?

And, therefore, if more than one person knows that one thing, it is already not a secret, no?

PS: Here’s a secret for you; my Mom knew I smoked, long before I knew that she knew, that I smoked. That other secret, I am trying to hold back and ‘manage’ it for as long as I can. It’s a good secret. If I do hold back till the right time, perhaps I will be better at secret management.

Message of the Image

A good photograph is not necessarily the result of a sophisticated camera.

There, we have said it.

But, while it is relatively easy to define a sophisticated camera, it’s quite another thing to define a good photograph. We look at a photograph and we know intuitively that is good, and often it is enough. That definition, that understanding is pure and usually permanent. But are good photographs accidents or the product of a sophisticated camera, or is it something beyond? Not necessarily the product of a sophisticated camera, according to us; as you may have already guessed.

And is it possible to understand why we like some photographs? We think, yes.

A couple of months ago, we started a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on understanding photographs sans the understanding of a camera. The camera is not irrelevant, but it is not the path to understand (or take) good photographs. We think there’s more to it. This MOOC, called “Message of the Image” is ideally, a four-month long engagement to discover together, the photograph. We think there are many reasons why you’ll like this course:

• It’s free. The fact that it costs nothing would naturally be the first good thing about it. But we think there’s more to it. Because it is free, you do not have to worry about whether it is worth “it.”
• It’s on Facebook. This means, that for the most of us there is no learning new platforms and interfaces. (It was earlier on a proprietary platform, but while the platform is undergoing a few changes, we have shifted this course to Facebook – and we have a friend to thank for that.)
• It doesn’t have a start date. Well, technically it started a couple of months ago. But the course is designed in a way that you can start at any time, and there will always be other folks who have started with you or around the same time as you. In any case, other ‘seniors’ are always around to help.
• It doesn’t have an end date. No, it is not a never ending course. It’s ideally four months, as we said earlier. But you can finish the course whenever you want. Feel like taking three weeks for a one-week assignment – sure – go ahead. Want to just hang around the “campus”, no worries.
• It doesn’t include certification. What you will learn is the certification itself and your engagement on some thought-provoking work will be the reward. This is a learning course, not a certification course, in any case. You will, of course, get lots of comments and yaaays on your portfolio.
• It doesn’t require sophisticated material or equipment. You can start this course, even if you have a basic mobile camera. All reading material will be supplied by us (usually links from around the web)

One of the key areas that we are exploring, apart from the content of the course, is connectivism - a theory of learning based on the premise that knowledge exists in the world rather than in the head of an individual. […] it regards knowledge as existing within systems which are accessed through people participating in activities. (via Wikipedia). We are exploring connectivism and related concepts for teacher education on our own platform and are now extending this initiative to photography on the Facebook platform.

 

We look forward to your participation and feedback.

 

The MOOC is at MOOC: Message of the Image (Facebook Group)

PS: as most of you know, I do not usually use the word “we” when I am talking about myself. The “we” in this post refers to my company, eVeltio (where the post was originally posted and reblogged, here) which is sponsoring this course, as a part of its initiatives in developing creativity in education, learning and the workspace. Helping my company reach a wider audience.

Thank you!

Statistically Speaking, Ms. T.

 

I remember her name clearly. I am not going to post it.

She was our statistics lecturer. She had a pronounced rural accent when she spoke English – the medium of our instruction. Some of us – who had studied in English medium and believed that we understood pronunciation and sentence construction better – used to make fun of her, after her lecture, at the college canteen.

It has been a while. Twenty-odd years; when I was twenty-something. She taught us the basics of statistics and some complex methods of using data – in the context of computer programming. I remember one influence distinctly. Our journals used to be checked sheets. To this day, I work better when I work with checked sheets. Now you know, why I like Rubberband Products. (No, I am not being paid to say this) Of all the things a teacher can influence us, she had an impact on the kind of paper I like to work with.

I seek those kind of writing pads, but they are rare.

Statistics was a holy subject for me, when, I was trying sincerely to understand what makes a computer work. If it was in our syllabus, it had to make sense – because according to our syllabus and objectives, we were destined to write the software that would change our lives. Like all of us, I held lofty objectives and visions of changing the world to make it a better place. We were at some point in the year, dealing with Near Sets, I recall – and I was wondering if I could use Near Sets and the Five-colour Theorem in developing a colourful  rubber-band algorithm. (It really does not matter if it makes sense)

The rubber-band algorithm requires you to write a code that enables you to ‘draw’ a line at any angle and of any length. The mouse was not an input device, then – we had to make do with the arrow keys. If you are still confused, think of a line that you drag-draw in PowerPoint. We were required to write code for that to happen. 

She said, “That’s out of syllabus – and in any case, you do not have colour monitors.”

“I could test it on Prof. Datar Sir’s Computer?” (Only our CS teacher had a colour monitor and 20MB HDD. It was a super computer for us.)

“No. It’s out of syllabus,” she insisted.

My statistics teacher was a gold medalist from Pune University. The fact that she was an OBC, highlighted her achievement. I never wanted or want to take away the achievements from her, but I wish she was more receptive to my questions.

I am, recently, dealing with a situation that is looking to optimise human resources based on the density of users to define an optimal investment to help run a specific process. (Yeah, jargon and all – that’s not important) Not much from her lectures and learning is lost. But, if she had taken a bit of time to satisfy my curiosity – even if it was ‘out of syllabus’ I think, it would have helped me in what I am doing today – to solve a real problem.

And yet, when I am working and solving this problem, I cannot but help thinking of her. Most of us had written her off, because we believed she had got the job because of reservations that were rampant, then (and still are). Yet none of us considered spending time with her and seeking the knowledge she had.

It is unfortunate, that we had categorised a teacher by the manner in which she got her job, rather than what knowledge she had to offer us. Nothing, I am almost sure, has changed her life significantly. My classmates and I, however, have lost much. At the very minimum, we have lost contact with her. Today, our work and client requirements need us to extract the fundamentals of our education – unfortunately we wasted an opportunity because we were influenced by petty politics (Mandal Commission happened when I was in college and I say it with much regret; that I was carried away by the rhetoric.)

A young student may have the facts to develop an opinion; but often, doesn’t have the context.

I miss you, Prof. T, and I wish I had then, the inclination to learn more from you. I wish I had maintained my identity with you as a student, rather than the imposed hierarchy that our ex-prime minister Mr. VP Singh defined. It is unfortunate that I have to Google almost everything that you taught us, and remind me of what I already know.

It’s too late, after all the ridicule we bestowed on you; for what it is worth, I am sorry.

In that late morning lecture when you introduced us to Null Hypothesis, I was perhaps, far away, imagining of a date with the girl who sat on the third bench in the second row. The girl is long lost and married to someone I don’t know, but I am now having a torrid affair with Null Hypothesis.

Maybe I did pay some attention to that lecture.

I am proud of some work that I have done recently, and for what it is worth, let it be known, I owe it to you.

Sign/Post

It’s 23rd July. I update my Facebook status: A beautiful post finds a place in my head. Now to find the time.

Three people like the status; the post itself does not form, for a long and indeterminate while.

I am thinking of friends. Actually, I am thinking of their absence. The fact that I am thinking of their absence illuminates their presence. They are here, in my head or heart or whatever component, physical or spiritual – that makes them present before me. The make-believe is exhausting. I give up.

This post is not that beautiful post that found a place in my head that I mentioned on Facebook.

This is a different post. It is, I think, still a beautiful post.

-*-

Of the many men who have contributed in creating the most definitive art are the ones who never signed their work. There must have been one, of many like him, that contributed to the construction of the wondrous fort of Sindhudurg. Of the men and the women who worked tirelessly at this engineering feat not a single one is mentioned anywhere. Not one of them felt the need to carve his or her name for posterity.

The brave Marathas built this fort.

Every identity was engulfed in the single identity, in that one single statement. We know of the architect, for that is documented somewhere. We know of the administrator, for that is documented somewhere.

Not a single person who contributed to the erection of this fort is known; documented  - to be precise. Not one of them ever felt the need to document his contribution. Where art has now succumbed to the identity and the pathos of an artist, this is a glaring example of art for art’s sake. A fort? As art? You would be right to question the construction of a fort as art. I will not argue on that.

*

If forts don’t convince you enough, consider Madhubani paintings or Warli art (Not the one that your cousin sells commercially; the ones that were the original)

*

A few hundred years later, young men in gaudy shirts hopeful of participating in popular love or similar such, exhibiting a deep identity crisis, have a compulsion to use chalk or whatever means to carve or inscribe their identity on the stones that an unidentified artist slaved to compose a masterpiece.

While the ones who built the masterpiece never felt a need for recognition, those that visit have a craving to inscribe their identity on a heritage that they are wretched derivatives of. Fie on those wretched souls!

Graffiti psychology has been studied enough, so I shall not even begin to make an attempt to discuss that further. Feel free to Google.

-*-

My best friend and I have a talk about this. She says  that I have made a wonderful statement in saying, “Those that built it did not feel the need to express a personal identity; those that visit someone else’s creation feel the need to display their inadequate identities.”

We – and no surprises here – move to a discussion on contemporary art. I do not know for a fact, where the concept of a signature on a piece of art came from. The need to sign art is a need to express a human equivalent of the God-complex. “I created this”. In contemporary times, to my mind, it is like proprietary software vs. opens-source software. Signed and unsigned. Belongs and doesn’t belong. Those that want to posses art are not much different and the symbiotic relationship between the artist and the audience is perpetuated through the signature. You possess a traditional unsigned Warli and I possess a Souza. Of a few square feet of canvas, my pride is often reduced to the few square inches on the bottom right of the canvas.

Not so long ago, my father used own a seal. A red sealing wax bar, burnt – their crimson simmering droplets on the lip of the envelope and ‘sealed’ with a calligraphic press of his initials. Nothing is more personal than that. Nothing more one-to-one. Only the recipient can see what’s inside the envelope. History is witness of seals. The question therefore is; if signed art is as personal? Unlike the geometric casts of tribal women of Warli, whose representation is available to all of us? Is signed contemporary art available to the privileged few? Not really – we know that. They openly exhibit their expression with gay wanton yet sign it for an unknown exclusivity.

This post has no conclusion.

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That post about friends; I don’t think it will ever get published.

Wax Has to Melt

We all have dreams.

Well, most of us do. I am not talking of those abstract blobs of irrationality that we usually cannot control when we are asleep. I am talking of those that we live when we are wide awake. The kind, when they are the most lucid when we are in a classroom where the lecturer wishes to be elsewhere as much as we do; or in a meeting where everyone except the person who has convened the meeting, knows that it’s a waste of time. What goes in our head during such events is a mash-up of dreams, thoughts, ideas, plans – and they seem to effortlessly slide on a plane which defines what we really want. And as tangible that plane is when we dream – soon after – it becomes an abstraction of nothingness as we are sucked into our deigned zombie-like activities.

Today is a special day – and my love-hate relationship with milestones notwithstanding, I am happy.

A year has passed after a certain event – and I am able to discriminate where I stand vis-à-vis where I thought I stood, once upon a time. This GPS-kind of activity has not been easy. Enough shock, hurt, pain has been encountered and endured before finding the absolute location of where I am. There has been much difficulty in letting go and even more difficulty in denying the questioning brightness of the truth that has harshly scalded my eyes. The asking heat, without malicious intent, asked me if I would confess that I was living in the wax-world a-la Indraprastha; I said I was not. I fought it for a year.

It’s slow, but I see the wax melting.

And those grandiose images of false comfort burned down to their bare element. The bright light smiled, I think, as if saying – I was always on your side, but I had to sit on the other side of the table – because you were gone for far too long, and lost to me. I would have preferred to sit with you and look together – but we were looking in different directions. Therefore, I had to confront you, said the wise light.

“I am glad, we can now look in the same direction.”

As I stand where I am bereft of the wax palace, I wonder. It must have been the light that, with its heat – melted the opaque walls so that I could see beyond.

It’s late now, and what I see is an even darkness. I stand where an impressive palace once stood. I see nothing of the grandeur that once made me believe I was king. I find myself on the top of a hill here, though. Alone. But I feel the breeze that the faraway sea brings and finds its way through the valleys to where I stand. It has a gentle sting. It does not matter that the wax structure is no more, because, soon, it will be morning. I know one thing: I will see more than I ever did.

And, I will see clearly.

Of Two Storytellers

Harish Krishnan, recently posted The Story of ‘He’ and ‘She’. It’s a story composed of tweets on a Saturday evening. It is new-art, this form of story-telling; I enjoyed it! However, while he says that the story was written, “when the world around me was sleeping,” it’s not entirely true. I was reading this story while it was being told: live.

When you read his post, you will know what the story-teller was saying. Do you wonder, what was going on in the head of the listener? Here it is, the restless mind of one of the listener who thought of himself as a storyteller too:

It is eerily quiet now. He sees no one around. The promises have meant less than they intended. He takes stock and ticks empty boxes. #fable

—
Atul Sabnis (@atulsabnis) April 07, 2012

His lone companion was a storyteller. Who'd listen, but, when two storytellers came together. His ears and his mouth, at loggerheads. #fable

—
Atul Sabnis (@atulsabnis) April 07, 2012

Tired of the deaf ears, he settled down; perhaps this time, I am to listen. Maybe, I will learn, how I can lace my stories with gold. #fable

—
Atul Sabnis (@atulsabnis) April 07, 2012

It is fortuitous, that just after I read this most wondrous book about storytelling, this saga of storytelling happens to me.

On Anger

It is not people, circumstances, or situations that anger us – as much as we believe. It is our own thoughts.

Try this – the next time you feel angry – or even afraid for that matter. Forget all that counting from one to ten. What really made you angry? What were your thoughts about that situation that made you angry? You may notice that it eventually comes back to yourself – in a way. It is always a thought in our mind – based on something that we have known and not liked. We do not like those bad things to recur – so it makes us angry. Our thoughts are only derivatives of what we have experienced and our ability to build concepts from the knowledge that we have. It is a useful thing that our mind does; we don’t put it to very good use, however.

And the anger is only, in a way, an expression of helplessness. When we encounter a problem – we tend to solve it – when we can’t – we get angry and afraid. We imagine bad things will befall us – which obviously is not a pleasant thought.

It was Sinhagad Express from Mumbai to Pune in the early days of my career. I met a bohemian gentleman on the train. We talked of Hindi Film Songs, soon after Karjat, a few hours from Mumbai, because he heard me humming to an old favourite Mukesh song. He asked if I knew that Mukesh was one troubled singer because he was often asked to do a retake on his songs more than once. I said I didn’t know that. He told me, that it was not because he sang wrong. It was because people in the studio loved to listen to what more he could bring to the song.

It was a beautiful conversation.

That person with the long hair and funny clothes is a distant memory. We talked of life after that – about what we do. I don’t recall now, what he did for a living.

As we approached Pune, the man said to me, “Do not celebrate your success too much; do not shed too many tears on failure.” It probably should have meant a lot for a young person who had just taken the train on the entrepreneurship track. I felt good about that learning. I somehow forgot about it on the longer journey that I have embarked upon.

I randomly look for answers where they may be. Here is what I find.

From the Bhagvad Geeta, Chapter 6, Verse 7

जितात्मनः प्रशांतस्य परमात्मा समाहितः।
शीतोष्णसुखदुःखेषु तथा मानापमानयोः ॥७॥

The Supreme Soul of him, who is self-controlled and peaceful, is balanced in cold and heat, pleasure and pain, as also in honour and dishonour.

Tool Tips

One of the problem of being acknowledged as a decent photographer, is when you potentially get mistaken for an expert. Somewhere the quality of the photograph provides them the means to decide that I am an expert on cameras. While I do not claim it — if at all, I have some knowledge of photographs. It is different. It doesn’t automatically imply I know cameras very well. They of course, choose not to read about my bio on my Facebook Page:

Always face a problem, when I say I am a photographer. People talk about lenses and cameras and filters. I think photographers should discuss photographs. Haven’t yet found a photographer who talks photographs.

My close friends ask me this question with a context; I am usually happy to help when I can. And I usually can, because I have a context, but when an acquaintance catches you at a coffee shops, introduces you as a photographer to the stranger sitting with him, and then the stranger asks you a question about lenses with too many numbers. I am lost. Completely. I really do not understand cameras as much as I think I should or as much as people believe I do. I know, it is easy to presume, as such. Very recently when I thought I should get myself a new camera, I was on the phone with a friend asking for advice. And I am more often than not – at a complete loss when people ask me about which camera they should buy.

I think my problem relates, somewhat, to the Map–territory relation, which, for my purpose, I’d like to rename it as the Tool-craft Relation.

I once attended a workshop where the facilitator had used a modified, disposable camera to take pictures. He used images captured by this camera for a very prestigious commission he had secured. The modification, may I add, was to break open the camera, and use a string to control the exposure. (True Story)

For a very long time, I have maintained that the tool and the craft are two separate things, and while they have a relationship, it is not necessarily directly proportionate. A better camera doesn’t automatically mean better pictures, and a bad camera doesn’t automatically mean bad pictures. Good things come, not with a better tool, but with better understanding of your craft. Tools can help crafting; make it easier and convenient, but if you do not know the craft, the most sophisticated tool will be quite useless in your hand. In 2007, when I bought the camera I still use, as excited as I was, I said:

Yet, it is still a tool, as magnificent as it is. The tool can do only as much as the skill allows. The skill can be honed, only as much as the mind can train. The mind can train only as much as the heart believes.

So, what’s your tool tip?

Vocational Hazards

“The good news is, there is nothing positive.”

You may be able to dismiss this as a generally bad sentence construction, but when it comes from a doctor — you wonder what he really means to convey. I asked him straight on – what he really meant – and found out that the ‘good news’ part of the sentence held more weight than the ‘nothing positive.’ Doctors, probably expect to find something wrong – when we go to them and complain about something. That is the nature of their training, I suppose. So, when they don’t find something – they are relieved to tell us that our fears are unfounded.

I was amused.

The one thing I am glad about is that most people I know belong to different industries and vocations. My conversations with them allow for interesting (and often funny) experiences. Where we work, and what we do, almost defines us. In a way it is sad, that you can almost identify the industry a person belongs to – by the way that person speaks. Depending on how you think – it can be amusing (or entertaining, even).

It is a code – a sense and satisfaction of belonging – that makes use certain words, phrases and tones. More often than not, we betray our industry or vocation by the words with which we may, for example, describe – something as innocent – as wine. It is tolerable while we are speaking of the linguistic angle – it is another thing when “vocational attitudes” clash.

So, the next time you meet someone, who uses a lot of industry-specific jargon, think about yourself.

You might find yourself more amusing than the bloke opposite you, who you aren’t listening to, anyway.

Few Flavours of Fear

I am afraid. I like it.

I wonder if like and enjoy can be mutually exclusive. Meaning – can I like something I do not enjoy and vice versa. I am not sure. I am usually alone in the red corner, who advocates fear as something that motivates. In the blue corner, the cacophony of the crowd shouts me down. They never listen to me.

Fear, like ice-cream, has flavours.

There is fear in the form of terror. Not the terrorist-variety which airport security gives in to. Terror, that threatens more than life. A sense of powerlessness that threatens our very sense of being. I am not talking of that.

Then, there is numbing fear. It sucks out all possible responses we can offer as humans. It attacks and paralyses our ability to respond – renders us zombie-like – makes us tolerate all without acceptance. I am not talking of that.

There is, then, an everyday variety of fear. Where we build a multi-storey of what-if floors reinforced with home-grown-anxiety. It just takes us to places where we will possibly never be, but we travel nonetheless. I am not talking of that.

There is a variety of fear which is very positive. It pushes us out of our comfort zone. You may argue that it is not fear – but it surges from the same place where every other fear originates. Only, this time, the threat takes birth within yourself. It is not instinctive, this flavour; it is intuitive. It does not appeal to the base, it appeals at a higher order. It is not physical – it is philosophical. That’s the reason we often ignore it during its first appearances. We are better qualified to attack and win over instinctive fears – those that challenge our existence. The fears that challenge our being are often supplanted by those that challenge our base instincts.

It takes a while to understand this fear. Someday, we hear its charge. On the horizon we see, its annihilating force and prepare ourself for a life that is beyond our primary instincts. When we fight any flavour of fear, we hardly ever enjoy it.

But there are times when we like that experience.

People in 1732kms

A follow-up post to Tea in 1732kms.

The one thing that you cannot escape on a long drive, is people. No matter what secluded place you drive to, you will encounter them. Sometimes a few, sometimes many. But you will always see them.

They come in various shapes, sizes, colour, accents and moods.

They sit at toll booths and pass out the exact same ticket for the exact same fare for the duration of their shift. They are walking by to a village close by, and you duck your head out of the window to confirm the right turn – usually after you have taken that turn. They might offer directions with a nod of their head, sometimes they will want to give you more details than you care for – sometimes they ask you to drop them on the way for offering you directions. They might make tea for you, serve food, or help you get to your designated room for the night. They smile at you: sometimes a fake trained smile like the one we see in airlines or hotels; sometimes the smile is genuine, for no other reason than just to have met you. Sometimes they stare at you – because city folk in a village usually stand out like, well, city folk in a village; sometimes they ignore you. Usually, folks I have met on my way are helpful; a few times, they didn’t bother. As we go into the interiors we see them wear very colourful clothes, which often hurts our overly sensitised sense of bland attire. They become gaudy sometimes, and we are quick to be sarcastically humorous. We see labourers on the highway, levelling it out for us in the heat and dust, while we are quick to roll-up our windows and switch on the AC.

We forget almost all of these people when the drive is done. We usually never take these portraits to remind us of these people when we upload photographs or blog about them. One wayfarer’s face in over seventeen hundred kilometres, however,  has stayed with me like a photographic impression.

We had just left Dhar, off Indore, on our way to Surat. The road up to Dahod is in a very bad condition, with very small smooth patches in between. Where I could, I was speeding, to make up for lost time. As one smooth patch was coming to an end, I slowed down. Green fields on my right, with tall hills somewhere far watched me with patience. In the foreground, close to my car, I saw him. He wore a light blue soiled kurta that still saturated itself well against the blue sky. His back was turned to me. As I came to an almost halt to go through a deep pothole, he turned – he wore a tightly wrapped white turban and a white dhoti, wrapped in a way I have never seen before. As I surveyed him from his bare feet to his face, I think, that’s when the mental shutter released. It was a face, lush with character and marked by deep, confident wrinkles for the years. The thick regal moustache ended somewhere, but was hidden by where the sideburns waved towards his ears; the facial hair a sharp contrast to his sun-worn dark skin. I’d like to think and even say, that our eyes met, but I was too mesmerised by what stood there, to remember. Yet, I remember those big, dark, sunken eyes, which were the source of the hypnosis of that brief moment. As if to complete this vision that I was beholden to, he moved his right hand slightly for me to see the most beautiful axe in his big hands.

The car moved on having climbed out of the pothole and found a semblance of a road. Both of us were speechless for a few minutes.

Most of your memories can be captured with a camera. Some memories, however, you are meant to capture and preserve in your heart.

Forever.

Traffic in 1732kms

A follow-up post to Life in 1732kms

Some of my friends, who have left the country for a while, often tell me that “India is happening” and I am lucky to be in the right place, almost saying that it was a good idea that I chose not to leave the country, when it wasn’t as happening. I usually agree with them, don’t quite argue on the situation that really exists, feel good about it and let them feel good about it.

I often wonder, how the guys during the Renaissance felt. That is, the folks who lived and were young when it occurred, not for those who read about it later. While I will never know it, I think I feel the same way. I live in a country that is at the crossroads of being the best place to be live in (in the future), but isn’t there yet. And since it is a crossroad, for various reasons, if it takes the sharp left (or right), we’ll have a very interesting could-have-been story.

Most of the 1732kms that I travelled in the last week of the December of 2010, were on roads that wanted to be more than they have always been. Not just to bear more vehicles, but to be smarter, faster and smoother. Some of the roads have already achieved that, some are in the process and some are only yearning for it. I had a good share of the best and worst roads that week.

One of the worst patches, was from Indore, MP to Dahod, GJ. Work is on along this patch to make this into the short-sighted dual carriageway that is a hallmark of NHAI, but it is bone-crushing in it’s own way.

The highlight of these 1732kms (and why we took an off route) is a different story altogether. No suspense; it was approximately a 20+km traffic jam, just as we left the border of Maharashtra into Madhya Pradesh. Starting at Hadakhed and ending just before Sendhwa, all through Borghat. Analysing traffic jams is fun, if you aren’t the kind that gets frustrated easily – it is an academic exercise, but when you have nothing else to do, it serves useful purposes.

In the five and a half hours that I spent in Borghat, I learnt that there are three levels of complexity that cause such traffic jams.

For one, trucks in India are overloaded to no end. The limit of loading a truck is very well-defined, actually. If it will stay on the truck, load it. What would usually take three trucks to transport, we manage in two (sometimes, horrifically so, we manage in one.) So the traffic jam problem, really starts with cost cutting – at the cost of safety. Don’t get me started on cost-cutting; it is a synonym of short-sightedness: let that suffice for now. Overloaded trucks have a tendency to topple, and two of them did, on this patch. I saw one overloaded truck trying to get out of the way for us, doing a wheelie — and I am not exaggerating. It, no doubt, was a factor of the overloading.

Secondly, we have a very inefficient and untrained traffic policing system that is grossly underpaid to even think twice about refusing bribes. I am sure (but I don’t know this for a fact) that there is a law that disallows a truck to be overloaded. Weigh-bridges at every possible junction stand witness to the potential existence of such a law. Further, (in most places) we have no limits or scheduled times regarding when certain types of vehicles are allowed to ply on certain roads. I remember, way back, in the ’70s, I believe, the Khambatki Ghat, used to be closed at night to avoid accidents. It was a single carriageway then.

Finally, you and I are the one who screw up the most in a situation that is such trucks make worse. We cut lanes, disrupt traffic coming from the opposite side — because we have overwhelming faith in our small and manoeuvrable vehicles. When all the trucks are lined up like an army, we break ranks with gay abandon and rush to meet the oncoming traffic. This, unfortunately is not a highway phenomenon: I have seen this happen even in Mumbai – which I believe has one of the most disciplined traffic etiquette. I am not against overtaking, but the manner in which we do it – defies logic and reason.

Just after Hadakhed, NH3, Mumbai-Agra Highway (Photo taken between Sangvi and Palasner)

But, being there – for those five-odd hours was cathartic for me. Late in the night, with a few headlights directing rays in an almost laser show, a part of me felt peaceful. The other part was utterly frustrated – but I ignored that part. I was able to imagine this under-construction-road, how it would be when it was all done, when we would not give another thought to the travails of those that tread this path when it was being built. I allowed it to become a forced instance for me to stop and think of all the things that have bothered me for long. My friend, tired from navigating for almost 14 hours took a nap. I shut down the car and got out to watch the stars. To be on the incline of a tall hill at night is a revelation. The stars don’t really talk to you; they don’t send messages; nor do they have answers. To get out of your car (because you have no choice) and sit on a ledge that overlooks a far away city, identified only by the lights that it chooses to leave on at night, and wonder at a life — is a privilege. It is a rare experience. To be with a group, but distanced by vehicles that came between us, and therefore be alone — is a privilege. As I sat on the ledge — I remembered what my driving license said on the back cover: Driving is a privilege, not a right. I felt thankful.

A truck driver had got out his kerosene stove and was cooking food. I asked him how long he had been in this jam. He said, “12 hours.” I smiled. I asked him what he would do if the traffic started moving suddenly, with a dart of my eyes to his stove. He shrugged, said nothing. In the moth-eaten blanket of a sky, my life reflected an image, mocked me.

I was sure we would not be able to reach our destination in good time. By the time we would reach Indore, we would really have to wake up hoteliers to give us rooms. It didn’t matter much to me – I was not so sure of my friend and his family in their vehicle, a few trucks behind. (Later, I was to learn, to a happy surprise, that we shared an interesting DNA for adventure — the matter for another post)

We of course, as you may have seen in the map in the earlier post, chose not to return by NH3, and chose to come through NH8 via Vadodra and Surat. The Indore-Bhopal highway, however, was a pleasure – a driver’s dream come true. Somehow, all through the trip though, a line of truck made our hearts sink, bringing memories of that Christmas night that we spent stuck for no reason. Luckily we didn’t encounter any jams as severe as the one on NH3. But it left a lasting impression.

Part frustration – part experiential. And while I am not sure how my other five co-travellers experienced it, I choose to remember the experiential part of it.

What’s an adventure, if you have already decided what to expect out of it.

Related Articles

• Life in 1732kms (gaizabonts.wordpress.com)
• Chinese Drivers Stuck in Traffic for Nine Days (athingforcars.com)

A Non-Post

This one post is difficult to write: The only way I can write it is — to deny content, in the post.

This peasant of a post has only context to offer.

The emotions that wrap around you at a time when you are most vulnerable are the very emotions that cannot be expressed. If you bring your rational head above the water, you could find a few words, scourge the thesaurus, and express in words what that emotion really makes you feel.

This one, isn’t one of that.

Perhaps because it is the confluence of a million smiles and tears. And every intersection of a smile and a tear has a unique meaning, a unique context. It is almost a complete life.

Therefore I confine this one to the only higher abstraction that it is capable of.

With numerical markers like dates, numbers, counts, measurements, and time that unfortunately marks such moments. Unfortunate, because these moments within them hold a cauldron of boiling emotions that cannot be numerically expressed. Our education, comprehension and understanding however has been reduced to a numbskull slave of demanding science and unforgiving mathematics, rather than an a forgiving and an encompassing art.

I agree with you; this is yet another incomplete post!

The Burden of Faith

Paul Simon to the rescue again.

I had a conversation very recently (perhaps my previous post was heard by someone up there). It was not the casual conversation that one has over a beer or a coffee. It wasn’t even meant to be a conversation. It was meant to be a discussion.

I don’t remember who said it, but there’s someone in this world who doesn’t like the word discussion. He said, the word discussion has an element of friction to it. It rhymes, even, with concussion. I don’t like the word – discussion – either. But when you aren’t having a conversation, you have a discussion. I digress.

The discussion did turn out to be a conversation.

About faith.

I saw faith in a very different light. I saw it negatively.

It’s one thing to have faith in someone. That is a good sign of your being human; a good human. And I speak not of the blind faith that fogs our society and our vision, but simple faith. Faith for the sake of faith – non-transactional.

But isn’t there a flavour of faith that’s necessarily transactional? Why else, would we lose faith? We often hear ourselves telling ourselves how we do not have faith in things and people anymore.

We are careless and quick to make Gods and Demons of humans. We are quicker to make Demons of Gods, and Gods of Demons, when we discover that our faith has been betrayed — whether intentionally or not. Carrying such delicate faith is a burden. It becomes an imposition when it sprouts weeds of expectations. They are dense. They make it heavier. All movement now is bridled to protect this delicate burden. When someone has faith in you, it is useful to find out if you are carrying the weight of it or the value of it. Value is worth it. If it is weight, I’d drop it.

Proof
Some people gonna call you up
Tell you something that you already know
Proof
Sane people go crazy on you
Say ”No man, that was not
The deal we made
I got to go, I got to go”
Faith
Faith is an island in the setting sun
But proof, yes
Proof is the bottom line for everyone

Very few people in this world would ride a horse without reins. To have faith requires from us a lot more than having faith. It means riding a horse without reins, with faith.

Faith can move mountains, if bridled, however, it can also become a mountain.

PS: Blockquoted text in italics, from Proof, by Paul Simon

My Line about Myelin

Exercise.

Whatever you do, wherever you go, that is one word that chases you to the far reaches where you choose to hide. On my blogs, that’s one thing that I am not doing. If my blogs could sing, right now they’d be singing “Sparrow in the Storm”, by Labi Siffre.

In the beginning lives the end
Can the foe become your friend?
Easy answers there are none, though
Frightened grown-ups search for one
In these broken bloody times
We need more than TV smiles
Behind the eyes the door is tight shut
Behind the makeup, just more makeup

It seems, often, what might be important to me may not be of much importance to those who read. Or, I make such a mess of a simple idea, that I complicate it beyond comprehension. Or, it is so important that it cannot be trivialised by putting it up on the blog.

It could be about travel – and that is what this blog was really supposed to be about – physical travel, but it has turned out, I am a really bad travel writer. I think it’s about writing about How to get there and what to do there, but there is enough of pedia-kind-of-sites out there for those sort of things. In some ways, however, this blog is about travel: a different kind.

I wrote about issues. Things that affect us at large, but then, it was vitriolic and spewing rancour at best. It didn’t quite help since I usually felt even more helpless after those posts. It’s not that I am not concerned, but I seem to be less bothered writing about them.

I have written a lot about friends and conversations. Those are the things that I enjoy the most. And it is funny that I haven’t written about meeting two new people in recent times. Each of them deserves a post (at least), so I shall refrain from writing more about that here. But it is quite impossible to write about friends and conversations, because in these days, friends are far and conversations are few.

Perhaps I could write about that.

This time the words aren’t as treacherous as the thoughts that refuse to slide down my hand and make the creative dance with my fingers on the keyboard.

As the birthdays come and go
The more I understand, the less I know
As the birthdays come and go
Only one thing I know

That, write I must, I realise now. Especially after I read this note from Robert Genn.

I should be writing my lines, if I want to build myelin.

There’s Hope!

There are times when things seem so futile.

It is one thing for us to find inspiration, motivation and their other cunning absconding cousins. It is yet another to identify where we stand and what we are getting away from.

For the life of me, I do not remember when I checked my position. My standing was always amniotic-ally swimming between now and later. Where I could go vs. Where I am. What I could do vs. What I am doing. Somewhere between these time-lapse-questions, lie our standards.

Come, visit the imaginative visual gymnasium with me.

At the nadir, you have all that you are, all that you have achieved. All that is a static quality, as Robert Prisig determined. At the zenith is all that you strive for. All you ever wanted.

In the middle, is where you are.

Recently, an allocated and unsupervised work landed on my desk. I once said, “Discrete entities in my environment that practice and promote (and often celebrate) mediocrity are examples that cause disillusionment; de-motivation, and a sense of being stranded.”

No more.

There is reason to believe that there are speckles of genius out there. They may come in small packages or in the most unassuming sort of ways. Yet, one submission from them makes you think that all that you fought for is worth it. I would visualise it this way:

The lonely warrior, standing tall in an expansive field of low yellow grass, with his striving sword drawn dripping the blood of all the mediocrity, losing the battle against the vast purposeless armies of pedestrians. Bleeding at his arms and tired at his limbs that hold him erect only because he has purpose and they do not.

Then, as this warrior is about to fall, far from the fading horizon she gallops in to the frame of reference. She has a sword that strives for much more. The sword is capable and sharp. Sharper, longer and with more metal, she wields the sword. The armies watch in horror of the massacre that is to follow, more so because he escapes the weariness.

His sword finds further purpose and conviction.

As much as I dislike the word, there is hope.

I once made a block-quote that not many noticed.

Happy Teachers’ Day

Yesterday night was a run through all my formative years of the persons who stood in front of 30 – 60 students at a time. So, it was a series of flashing faces in flashback. I was grateful and went blissfully to sleep.

Late morning, today, I receive a text message from my friend. He sent best wishes to me for Teachers’ Day. I am overwhelmed; I send back an SMS, I thank him. Somewhere I do not feel I deserve it, but it is not for me to decide what he feels, and that I respect.

So you have the teachers who are teachers and then you have the teachers who are your friends, parents, and colleagues. They never follow a syllabus or a curriculum, but they teach you. It may be a trivial task of changing the toner cartridge of a printer or a critical philosophy of work discipline. But they teach, and you learn. You may go through your entire life without formal education and will learn all that you ever need to live your life. But the impact that teachers have on your life can never be underestimated.

I am fortunate to have had the best and the worst teachers that our education system provides. I say fortunate, because even bad teachers teach you a lot — not much of the subject perhaps, and not in a way that you would understand, but of what it means to be a teacher. I am also fortunate that I am in still in touch with one of my two favourite teachers. I am glad that I am in some way related to this profession. It is an immensely satisfying experience, though I wonder if I would have the patience with a chalk and a board. For that, I think teachers are an altogether different breed. They do the same thing over and over again, year after year; you would think it is an absolutely boring job. I think it’s the students who make a difference in their life.

The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.

~Edward Bulwer-Lytton

The return a teacher seeks is not the abysmal pay that she gets; she seeks the experience of heart-swelling pride, when she sees her student become successful, on the foundation of all that she taught.

Beyond the scorecard.

Six Schizophrenic Speculations

Secrets, like anything else, must have a philosophy. So must, their lesser cousins – gossip. What makes them go around (or not). One conversation about secrets and their governing psychology isn’t enough to understand them.

~

For every heart that found happiness because someone followed it, there are thirty-two who followed their heart and wished they had not. The environment we live in was built for the agile mind, not for the pure heart.

~

I have come to enjoy threats — uttered or otherwise. They are amusing. if you do the Neo thing and fly into the threat and shatter them from inside into badly formed green-grey graphic plates flying in space, you see the insecurity that envelopes the threat-maker.

~

Our rebellious nature is a slave of the unproved conspiracy theory that the world is out to get you. We need the cocktail of Rand and Nietzsche to arm us to put down Freud.

~

There is only one way to know your best friends. They will come home or call you at the right time. Your one post may go without anyone understanding it: but one call, at the instant you click “publish” is worth the post.

~

You never have a sixth speculation available when you have already decided that the title of the post will be Six Schizophrenic Speculations, for alliteration sake. You just have to fill it up — to make sense. In any case, the last one is the one that you can never express, only experience.

~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A French View

My blog-addiction was under control for a while. Gladly, I lost control.

Defying concern that the folks at WordPress might actually limit the number of blogs I can have, I have started yet another blog.

This one is interesting. I have started learning French and have chosen not to attend classes. Yes, there are other sites out there (and I’ll link to these resources as I find them — and as my need to learn more French grows), but they are mostly structured — usually in the same way. Greetings, family, check-in to a hotel, ask for a taxi.

What if I am not travelling to France or a French speaking country? What if I want to learn to write poetry in French or watch French films without sub-titles? What if, I want to write a blog in French?

This one is a double experiment: Learning the French language and Exploring how you can learn a language through Web 2.0 — through people who are learners or teachers or just plain old you and me (who know or are interested in French). I plan to leverage all possible Web 2.0 means to learn French. Twitter. Facebook. Goodreads. Blogs. Google (I have been warned against translate.google, though).

I believe in the Web as it is today. I think I’ll learn well. I may not learn it quickly, but it will be a fun experience and more-so — a very fulfilling experience. In any case, I do not have a deadline. I am not going to France soon (but hey, I already have learnt useful French phrases).

So if it sounds interesting (whether the experiment, the language or the experience), I’ll be Learning French

The Double 5

This year has been a bit difficult. Not-nice things have been sprinkled all through with amazing inconsistency, which did not allow any plan to take leave the runway according to convention.

Yet, it has been a good year, like any other. Nice things have also peeped between the curtains of not-nice things, once in a while. This year was also about some radical changes. Some obviously good and some waiting for the big picture that would shine the light of good on them.

Five years is a long time for pretty much anything. And it definitely has been a long time blogging. (I do realise the previous sentence has an element of fatigue showing up, yet, I’ll let the sentence pass, even though I don’t mean it as such) Five years ago, with my first post, I had no idea what I was getting into and the enormous effect it will have on my life. Blogging has come to mean a lot for me, not the least because all my expression has found a way to be. I seem to have gone through all the phases that one might experience in five years: addiction, blocks, disgust, anger, creativity, boredom, excitement, and such. There will, perhaps, be more that I will encounter in the years that will follow.

And beyond the posts and comments, it becomes much larger in scope of how it touches your life. I have made friends I wouldn’t have otherwise made. My domain of thought and response has become much larger than it would have been otherwise.

The blog becomes your ePortfolio of life, of sorts.

And while it doesn’t say much, the five-hundredth post has to count for something.