It was a mystery to Sriram how and when the dogs in Vienna got their shit on the sidewalk.
He saw a lot of dogs and he saw a lot of their dinner ending up on the sidewalk, after having - from the looks of it - passed thoroughly through the whole circuit of canine gastric juices. But try as he might he had never in his time in Vienna caught a dog in the act. In Bombay all Sriram had to do to catch animal life in action was go to Flora Fountain to see armies of weak horses lugging mysteriously happy couples in loud and tall carriages. The people looked thrilled to be so close to each other as the wind went gently by while the horse's hooves rattled on the tar and the owners whipped and whistled and annoyed everyone out of the way.
Those horses shat where they stood; though they hardly ever stood still they managed to leave their traces on the streets where they pulled their weight. To Sriram, the horses appeared self-conscious as they participated unwillingly in someone else's idea of romance; they never made eye-contact with anyone and stared worriedly at a distant pasture beyond the reach of ordinary imagination. Unlike the dogs in Vienna, who only looked morose, the horses in Bombay always seemed anxious to Sriram; he supposed that being stuck at a job where you had an easy day only if no one was exhibiting enough love would keep you worried about the state of the world. But through it all, Sriram thought with some pride, the horses kept their dignity. Secure in the knowledge that they helped the world go round, no one objected to their leaving a little shit in their wake.
But not so the dogs in Vienna. Sriram desperately wished he could convince a few that they were important in the general scheme of things but Sriram didn't speak the necessary dialect and in any case the dogs didn't bark back. Any communication with the dogs was accomplished by looking and looking away. At times Sriram got so melancholy he could cough and smoke a pipe. It was in Vienna that he started having his dreams in inversion. While he was awake, Sriram dreamt his bad dreams, the kind that let psychoanalysts afford elegant offices. On his short walks to the subway station or the cafeteria he dreamt he was falling, but falling calmly. Some days he would be in the elevator and dream that he did not have his trousers on. The net effect was that Sriram walked as if he was on the edge of a tall building, fearful a strong wind would send him sprawling to the concrete below. In the elevator, he constantly looked down at his shoes and checked his belt in self-conscious anxiety. (So that is why the horses looked away or down to the earth at nothing in particular, Sriram thought, they are always uncertain if they are naked and if it is all right to be.)
Sriram was constantly surprised that people in Vienna greeted him in the elevator. By the time he looked up the moment had passed, the time was over and he found he had nothing more to say. On the days he knew who greeted him, he would be late with his response and a fit of despair would seize him. What does it take to respond automatically and naturally to a hello, he wondered.
What does it take to stay awake.
At nights, Sriram dreamt he was at his desk analysing business processes and finishing assigned tasks briskly. In these dreams Sriram got along splendidly with the rest of the elevator. He refused to greet in any other language but English as he was certain that learning to greet in a foreign language was more accommodating than we need to be. His English response was sure, correct and immediate. The rest of the elevator could often read the day in his voice: crisp if the day was full; full if the day promised to end early. In his dreams Sriram always walked with his shoulders square and with his eyes as friendly as a thick door. Traffic lights changed for him. Strangers passed forlornly by. In his dreams Sriram's actions had a finality which begged work off his desk and freed him to look at what his boss called The Big Picture. Sriram, his boss called him over, we need to get familiar with the Big Picture. Do you think you can have a look at it?
But of course Sriram could have a look at it; he was wearing his crisp voice and his impossible nothing-is-impossible smile. It was disquieting to see him peer at the future like he couldn't wait to meet it again. Even though in this version of him he was well equipped to win all his battles, this Sriram was never troubled by notions of victory and defeat. While his focus was admirable, his detachment deprived him of the ruthlessness needed to get ahead. The real Sriram was forever in doubt about ambitions and progress and in his uncertainty made the right decisions. Or at least the right mistakes, the kind that annihilated entire cities for the greater good.
Sriram woke from his dreams instantly. He did not linger in the grey areas between darkness and light. He left no time for his guardian angel to pass the baton to whoever was in charge of his day; he was on his own till the night sank around him again. In a deep forgotten way Sriram knew he had no safety net. What people thought was his unwillingness to let go was just him watching out for random accidents to leap out of unseen corners and disturb the natural rhythm he thought the universe kept. While he checked the doorways for bandits or bombs, people assumed he was being alert or naturally curious. He was not. How does one learn to walk carelessly these days, Sriram despaired. There were so many things waiting to go wrong that it was a wonder to him that he learnt to walk at all. The fact that he had gotten through his childhood without pox and acne was to him a sign that bigger disasters waited. That pickpockets hadn't stripped him clean on one of his careless days did not cause him relief. Instead, he anxiously waited for the Law of Averages to make its way down to his name on the list. His education brought to his purview newer dangers to watch for. Sriram hated inflation, stock market volatility and other booby-traps he was helpless against. He knew that his ability to understand the dangers did not guarantee him security; he felt like a shepherd who had spotted a dragon lazily flying above the farm. What could you do but stand still and hope it flew past you? Sriram suspected that dogs in Vienna sniffed at remote corners and strange legs out of the same nervous need to know that there are no hidden blackholes through which the planet could slip and lose its way. No wonder they looked morose; shiny healthy coats and black button noses were fine for cold weather and icy winds but offered no protection against merciless chance.
Sriram's uncertainties served him in many ways. Being doomed to be able to see all viewpoints, his flailing efforts at trying to get to a conclusion were often mistaken as an healthy attempt to bring perspective. When Sriram did take a stand, he was appalled to find he sounded like a Communist or a Critic; that is not me, he was certain. Trapped in motion, never sure where the land was, Sriram ended up steering everyone in a general direction through a force of logic he did not fully understand. Sriram wasn't sure where it all led; but was happy to go along since everyone seemed satisfied as long as they named the destination Paradise.
Sriram's version of paradise was a pretty simple affair: a pasture beyond the reach of ordinary imagination where horses looked wistful, dogs waited for you to bark back greetings in elevators and dragons flew by while you watched. Sriram was appalled the dogs in Vienna weren't there already. If being healthy but miserable wasn't enough to get you in, really, he wondered, what does it take to get to Paradise?
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Friday, September 22, 2006
Sriram
Long time since the last post. I had given up this blog for dead, my fingers not really talking too much to my brain these days; but Sriram mailed and he's subsequently allowed me to put up his profile on the page. He wrote this himself, intending to put it up on Wikipedia but I think that the thought that it might be a hit appalled him and put him off the whole project. I assured him that no one reads my blog (a lie - I do), and if he seeks anonymity, this is the right place to hang out and smoke cigarrettes or whichever disguise he adopts. Without a lengthier prologue, here's Sriram on what is probably not his favourite topic: Sriram. (I only modified the opening sentence on request, the rest of it is all him.)
After a long period of walking around the world and kicking about small stones out to the side of the road, Sriram has decided to come back to Bloomington. He just had to come back because he loved the town so much. Sriram likes Bloomington for its wealth of natural beauty and the diverse opportunities it affords. He partakes of very few of these but appreciates their being there nevertheless. In a perfect world, Sriram reasons, Bloomington would represent all that is good pure and beautiful about life. Some of Sriram's favorite places in Bloomington include Dunn Meadow and the sections of campus between Ballantine Hall and the Black cultural center crisscrossed by wooden bridges, tinkling streams and leafy banks. Sriram often experiences a deep sense of peace while looking into the sky high trees and only regrets that the moment is fleeting. He actively fantasises about playing frisbee with his dog on the lush green slopes of the meadow and then taking his dog for a drink to the River Jordan. But since he doesn't have a dog or a frisbee, this has yet to come to pass. Sriram is also acutely aware of the fact that the world in which he resides, and probably will continue to until he dies or is killed is one marked by severe and chronic imperfection. Sriram often despairs of life, looking on it as a thankless job that he really can't weasel out of. Some of his most plaintive complaints revolve around the choice of life. Sriram claims that having seen all (or most) of what life has to offer, he would rather not live at all. He whines incessantly about not having any choice in this matter and often loudly complains that death has no business being so elaborate and painful a procedure. He often shudders at the cost of coffins and is somewhat miffed to learn that his body won't just vaporise when he dies. Because of this 'unfairness', as he terms it, of life, Sriram often affects an attitude of non-co-operation with life.
This does alternate with periods of hope and longing especially for sex, friends, food, a good time and the over arching ideal of happiness. Since these longings never actually materialize, Sriram's brooding depression is often exacerbated by them.
With the passing of time Sriram has come to accept a few vital facts of life which form the basis for his fledgling moral code or covenant of values as he terms them:
1. Sriram is resigned to being a mildly fat, usually ugly, cheerless, diffident(where girls are concerned) individual who despite his visions of grandeur will not amount to much ever. Sriram immediately hurts his own cause by pointing out that there is no obligation on the part of human beings to amount to much simply because they are alive. As Sriram sees it, it is bad enough having to put up with the world without having to bend over backwards to please it.
2. Sriram in his spare moments of reverie envisions a money less society preferring to look upon money as the root of all evil, competition and selective happiness. This ties in pretty squarely with the trivial opinion he holds of life in general. If you don't really need to be alive, you really shouldn't have to work or be rich or disciplined to subsist. Sriram has decided that as long as his basic necessities are taken care of, he won't really run after money. Sriram is enough of a hypocrite to admit that in this period of not running after money, he will probably make some money in order to avoid running after it.
3. Most people who listen to Sriram talk about the preceding conclude that he is a lazy, listless whiner who has never had to go hungry a day in his life, has never seen his loved ones being killed or molested in fromt of him, has never known what it is to be poor and hence must be shot for his impudence. Sriram happily points out that he is all for it, if the shot is painless.
4. Sriram is frank enough to admit that the utopian society he envisions will probably never materialize. It is all very well to populate your world with green grass, blue skies, pretty girls, cool breezes, pineapples, dogs, volleyball, walks on the beach and so on but this state of affairs however transient, can never persist. Sriram understands that people are ultimately selfish, heinous creatures whose depths of iniquity should really surprise no one. Hence any such beautiful world would be instantly trampled upon by new yorkers, ass kissing corporate types, fundamentalist muslims or some combination of those factors. Sriram fervently believes that in view of the number of women being raped, children being maimed and animals being tortured, we really should let go of the civilizational pretense.
5. This is perhaps the crux of his ideology. Sriram reasons that we are probably not alone in being handed such a miserable excuse for a world. Lions kill deer even when the deer look cute. Snakes kill squirrels. Cows eat grass. Hence the notion of life attacking life is far more widespread than one would have initially presumed. Hence Life itself is intrinsically bad and irredeemable and a waste of time. There can be no version of the world which pleases or is fair to everybody as long as there is life. Accordingly, it is life itself that must be expunged if our consciences (non-existent after the expunging) are to be clean.
6. Sriram thinks that life should have the decency to supply a painless method of death for those wishing to opt out. Then, he agrees, he might not really want to inflict this sordid vision of his on the rest of the world. He has a somewhat unrealistic liberal streak in him. Hence working towards finding a means of painless death is a worthy pursuit for him.
Sriram has had to rethink his ideas about all life being intrinsically bad after evaluating the case of plants. As best as Sriram can tell, plants do not harm any other living form in their attempts to survive and reproduce. He does acknowledge the existence of parasitic plants but the vast majority subsist on inanimate nutrients. If you consider rotating electrons however, this theory might not hold up to closer scrutiny. But as Sriram says, logic and rationality be damned. He has of late been fascinated by existentialism for its eerie match with his way of thinking. It would be safe to say that Sriram is most excited about an impending painless death. It, in his opinion would be the best finger one could stick in life's face.
After a long period of walking around the world and kicking about small stones out to the side of the road, Sriram has decided to come back to Bloomington. He just had to come back because he loved the town so much. Sriram likes Bloomington for its wealth of natural beauty and the diverse opportunities it affords. He partakes of very few of these but appreciates their being there nevertheless. In a perfect world, Sriram reasons, Bloomington would represent all that is good pure and beautiful about life. Some of Sriram's favorite places in Bloomington include Dunn Meadow and the sections of campus between Ballantine Hall and the Black cultural center crisscrossed by wooden bridges, tinkling streams and leafy banks. Sriram often experiences a deep sense of peace while looking into the sky high trees and only regrets that the moment is fleeting. He actively fantasises about playing frisbee with his dog on the lush green slopes of the meadow and then taking his dog for a drink to the River Jordan. But since he doesn't have a dog or a frisbee, this has yet to come to pass. Sriram is also acutely aware of the fact that the world in which he resides, and probably will continue to until he dies or is killed is one marked by severe and chronic imperfection. Sriram often despairs of life, looking on it as a thankless job that he really can't weasel out of. Some of his most plaintive complaints revolve around the choice of life. Sriram claims that having seen all (or most) of what life has to offer, he would rather not live at all. He whines incessantly about not having any choice in this matter and often loudly complains that death has no business being so elaborate and painful a procedure. He often shudders at the cost of coffins and is somewhat miffed to learn that his body won't just vaporise when he dies. Because of this 'unfairness', as he terms it, of life, Sriram often affects an attitude of non-co-operation with life.
This does alternate with periods of hope and longing especially for sex, friends, food, a good time and the over arching ideal of happiness. Since these longings never actually materialize, Sriram's brooding depression is often exacerbated by them.
With the passing of time Sriram has come to accept a few vital facts of life which form the basis for his fledgling moral code or covenant of values as he terms them:
1. Sriram is resigned to being a mildly fat, usually ugly, cheerless, diffident(where girls are concerned) individual who despite his visions of grandeur will not amount to much ever. Sriram immediately hurts his own cause by pointing out that there is no obligation on the part of human beings to amount to much simply because they are alive. As Sriram sees it, it is bad enough having to put up with the world without having to bend over backwards to please it.
2. Sriram in his spare moments of reverie envisions a money less society preferring to look upon money as the root of all evil, competition and selective happiness. This ties in pretty squarely with the trivial opinion he holds of life in general. If you don't really need to be alive, you really shouldn't have to work or be rich or disciplined to subsist. Sriram has decided that as long as his basic necessities are taken care of, he won't really run after money. Sriram is enough of a hypocrite to admit that in this period of not running after money, he will probably make some money in order to avoid running after it.
3. Most people who listen to Sriram talk about the preceding conclude that he is a lazy, listless whiner who has never had to go hungry a day in his life, has never seen his loved ones being killed or molested in fromt of him, has never known what it is to be poor and hence must be shot for his impudence. Sriram happily points out that he is all for it, if the shot is painless.
4. Sriram is frank enough to admit that the utopian society he envisions will probably never materialize. It is all very well to populate your world with green grass, blue skies, pretty girls, cool breezes, pineapples, dogs, volleyball, walks on the beach and so on but this state of affairs however transient, can never persist. Sriram understands that people are ultimately selfish, heinous creatures whose depths of iniquity should really surprise no one. Hence any such beautiful world would be instantly trampled upon by new yorkers, ass kissing corporate types, fundamentalist muslims or some combination of those factors. Sriram fervently believes that in view of the number of women being raped, children being maimed and animals being tortured, we really should let go of the civilizational pretense.
5. This is perhaps the crux of his ideology. Sriram reasons that we are probably not alone in being handed such a miserable excuse for a world. Lions kill deer even when the deer look cute. Snakes kill squirrels. Cows eat grass. Hence the notion of life attacking life is far more widespread than one would have initially presumed. Hence Life itself is intrinsically bad and irredeemable and a waste of time. There can be no version of the world which pleases or is fair to everybody as long as there is life. Accordingly, it is life itself that must be expunged if our consciences (non-existent after the expunging) are to be clean.
6. Sriram thinks that life should have the decency to supply a painless method of death for those wishing to opt out. Then, he agrees, he might not really want to inflict this sordid vision of his on the rest of the world. He has a somewhat unrealistic liberal streak in him. Hence working towards finding a means of painless death is a worthy pursuit for him.
Sriram has had to rethink his ideas about all life being intrinsically bad after evaluating the case of plants. As best as Sriram can tell, plants do not harm any other living form in their attempts to survive and reproduce. He does acknowledge the existence of parasitic plants but the vast majority subsist on inanimate nutrients. If you consider rotating electrons however, this theory might not hold up to closer scrutiny. But as Sriram says, logic and rationality be damned. He has of late been fascinated by existentialism for its eerie match with his way of thinking. It would be safe to say that Sriram is most excited about an impending painless death. It, in his opinion would be the best finger one could stick in life's face.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Spark Works
Like Arun Sagar, Arun Sagar's moustache is witty, adventurous and sensitive to changes in atmospheric temperature and pressure. Back in Chennai, where every man who is not wearing a helmet is wearing a moustache, Arun Sagar's moustache was just another well-read accessory drowning in a cup of strong coffee; but its finer qualities have come to the fore in Indore and it is one of the better known and respected figures on our campus. The moustache is acknowledged to be culturally so superior to many of the graduates here that we were considering buying it a walking stick and top hat, but only deffered the plan on vague hopes of getting these items cheaper after this year's budget.
The largeness of the moustache's heart can be seen from the fact that it doesn't mind Arun Sagar sticking to it so closely, even though common courtesy suggests that Arun Sagar should follow it from at least a distance of 2 feet. Despite appearances, their seems to be a happy relationship, which is a source of envy for some. Not being as old as Arun Sagar, I presume that the moustache would have taken some time to get used to all of his idiosyncracies, but the fact that it still puts up with him amazes me no end. I know that Arun Sagar is well-read, writes a decent blog (http://spark.wordpress.com) and is quite brave on the basketball court when he chooses to be, but still, there are a couple of things going against him. One is his fictitious past: he claims to have 4 years of experience as a DB2 consultant, and everyone knows that DB2 is a mainframe thing and all you can do for 4 years with a mainframe is wait for it warm up and print the output of a simple "Hello, World!" program. The second is his refusal to lend his Splendor; Arun Sagar doesn't take into account the that anyone who wishes to borrow a Splendor is on his last legs and it is far more humane to give in.
Still, I guess the humane part is the moustache's department, and that leaves Arun a lot of time to do the things he is good at, like waiting for the mainframe to print the output of a simple "Hello, World!" program.
The largeness of the moustache's heart can be seen from the fact that it doesn't mind Arun Sagar sticking to it so closely, even though common courtesy suggests that Arun Sagar should follow it from at least a distance of 2 feet. Despite appearances, their seems to be a happy relationship, which is a source of envy for some. Not being as old as Arun Sagar, I presume that the moustache would have taken some time to get used to all of his idiosyncracies, but the fact that it still puts up with him amazes me no end. I know that Arun Sagar is well-read, writes a decent blog (http://spark.wordpress.com) and is quite brave on the basketball court when he chooses to be, but still, there are a couple of things going against him. One is his fictitious past: he claims to have 4 years of experience as a DB2 consultant, and everyone knows that DB2 is a mainframe thing and all you can do for 4 years with a mainframe is wait for it warm up and print the output of a simple "Hello, World!" program. The second is his refusal to lend his Splendor; Arun Sagar doesn't take into account the that anyone who wishes to borrow a Splendor is on his last legs and it is far more humane to give in.
Still, I guess the humane part is the moustache's department, and that leaves Arun a lot of time to do the things he is good at, like waiting for the mainframe to print the output of a simple "Hello, World!" program.
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