Category: Flawsophy

  • Armchair travel plans

    If I discount Pico Iyer, the travelogues of Pankaj Mishra, and Mishi Saran’s Chasing the Monk’s Shadow, I hardly read travel books. But I picked up Rahul Jacob’s ‘Right of Passage’ on a whim (influenced by Pico Iyer’s comment on the jacket) and quite liked it, mostly because its really not just a travelogue. Shall publish a more detailed post on that later.

    I was hooked on early enough thanks to the last lines of the preface

    Still, there is this final paradox of travel: time and again, these memories come back unbidden with the clarity of something that happened yesterday, long after we have returned to the rhythm of our lives

    Later in the book, he compares flight travels with train journeys – that he can remember his first flight journey but the rest are a blur. In contrast, however, he remembers most of his train journeys. Though I’m not really the most frequent of fliers, I can relate to that.

    I wonder if its to do with memories of childhood, in which train journeys played a very important part (for me), and that affinity meant that later journeys would also be cataloged better by the brain. Or is it the entire set of experiences – from ‘uniform’ airports to passengers consciously avoiding each other even if it means staring resolutely at the seat in front compared to colorful railway stations that seem to be oozing character to seats facing each other and almost forcing conversations?

    I juxtaposed this with cities and their culture too. Recently, when I went to Cochin, and dropped in at its most ‘happening’ mall, I wondered how much of homogeneity was being created by malls. The same brands, almost the same store experiences, familiar multiplex chains that somehow give you an air of familiarity even in an unknown town (not Cochin for me, but otherwise). How much of a city’s original hangouts and culture will survive this  onslaught? In fact, I even told D that I could already see landmarks of my days in Cochin  (local shops famous for some particular item) disappearing and the new ones (like a Nilgiris store) being unfamiliar to me. Would most people prefer familiarity over serendipity? Or would a middle ground be found – carefully packaged serendipity?

    Going beyond the things to be seen in a place, every travel experience is also about the  discovery of the character of the place you visit. Will we end up creating a homogeneous world, in our constant quest for convenience, and change travel from the train journeys they should be (opinion) to controlled fancy flights?

    Fortunately for this generation, this is perhaps not a reality we’ll live to see, and even in the sunset years we will have our memories and photographs and be thankful that not all journeys need travel.

    until next time, planed travel

  • Whose line is it anyway?

    When I wrote about the ‘notional boundaries’ in the context of the Arundhati Roy speech, I was reluctant to push the issue further. But while reading ‘The Argumentative Indian’, I came across a section called ‘Critique of Patriotism’ under ‘Tagore and his India’, in which the author – Amartya Sen – mentions that Tagore had once written ‘Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity.‘

    Tagore also apparently used characters in his novel Ghare Baire (The Home and the World) to hint at how nationalistic sentiments could easily turn sectarian. Amartya Sen ends the section with the words of Bertolt Brecht “…of the corruptibility of nationalism. Hatred of one group can lead to hatred of others….” you can read the section in entirety here)

    And that started a thought on nation states. If we consider attributing more than a functional (say economic, political, administrative etc) importance to it (despite its ‘freedom’ being earned after much effort and sacrifice), how can we logically dispute a demand for separate states intended on the basis of say religion or language, especially since these might be older than the boundaries of the nation state and could prove a better cohesive force than the idea of a country?

    This is not to say that I’m in favour of this kind of a line or line of thought, but I would like your help in finding a logical conclusion.

    until next time, line of reasoning 🙂

  • A piece of happiness

    I always equated happiness with peace of mind. That having one automatically meant having the other. I somehow doubt that now.

    Does happiness come from going after what you’ve wanted, irrespective of the roadblocks that appear before you? And does peace of mind come from an acceptance of things happening around you and to you?

    Would you have peace of mind if you tried your best and still not got what you wanted? Would you still be happy then?

    Would you be happy to get what you wanted irrespective of the sacrifices you had to make, and the paths you had to take? Would you still have peace of mind then?

    Do you think they are the same? Or does the presence of one immediately dispel the other? If there had to be a trade off, what would you choose – happiness or peace of mind?

    until next time, mindful happiness

  • Destination Nowhere

    My reading habits are quite predictable, and as with most of my habits, they become more concrete over a period of time. I pessimistically call it building my own prison walls, and the statement works across contexts. 🙂

    But sometimes I rebel against this. In the case of reading, one of the things I do while shopping is to consciously choose a book that I wouldn’t normally read, or better still, I let D choose a few books. But a better disruption happens during Kerala trips. At D’s parents’ home, I pick up a random book which I normally wouldn’t go anywhere near, and finish it. This time it happened to be Randy Pausch‘s ‘The Last Lecture‘. To give you a quick perspective, the book is based on the last lecture given by Randy Pausch at Carnegie Mellon, and adding to the University’s aim of “what wisdom would you share with the world if it was your last chance?”, he also makes it a message to his young children, since he has been diagnosed with a terminal illness.

    In many ways, though personal, it’s the typical inspirational book, but several parts interested me. At one level, the author’s penchant for following childhood dreams struck a chord with me, for I have always entertained a notion that our childhood aspirations are instinctive and free of the baggage of later life. In that sense, it’s perhaps closest to what we’re really meant to do. Debatable, but it’s a belief nevertheless. 🙂 The professor also gives perspectives on following dreams, and the roadblocks one might encounter. He believes that ‘brick walls’ are there for a reason – to see if you really want something bad enough.

    Later in the trip, we visited Cochin’s contribution to the country’s ever growing mall list – Oberon Mall, to catch a movie at Cinemax – Mammootty’s ‘Best Actor’. The story of a man who while working as a Hindi teacher to fulfill his familial responsibilities, believes that he is destined to be an actor, despite his age and the mocking attitude of several around him. (slight spoiler) In a desperate last ditch attempt, he takes the unintentional advice of a film crew (how Vivek Oberoi landed a role in Company) and becomes part of a street gang to ‘learn’ his role the real way. As is his wont these days, Mammootty excels in a role and the script gives him enough ammunition. Ranjith, playing himself, advises Mammootty’s character, and tells him that if he has decided to become an actor, then actor he will be.

    I’m a sucker for cosmic message theories and two random works seemed to be giving me the same message. My problem though, is a step behind. I am yet to find what I really want from life – the one thing that will drive me, the thing I am born to do. Almost everything I do these days is an attempt to crack that question. I am also constantly seeking out Dutch uncles (another term learned from the book) to give me perspectives on brick walls and a kind of laziness I blame myself for.

    Funnily, I also received contradictory messages – a random link shared by someone – Osho’s talk on anger and not desiring (so) intensely and later (via Surekha, who now believes that irrespective of destiny, my destination is the Himalayas 😀 ) Chinmayananda’s talk on the journey being the goal.

    As always, this Kerala journey too gave me much food for thought. But Randy Pausch’s poignant line reminds me “Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think”

    until next time, time tableau

  • Taking the fall

    ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ is probably a book I might have related to a whole lot better if I’d read it a few years back. Ok, probably a decade 🙂 Be that as it may, it still has areas which still appealed to me.. a lot. One of them is this segment of the conversation between Holden, the protagonist and narrator and his (earlier) English teacher Mr.Antolini.

    This fall I think you’re riding for, its a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement is designed for men who, at some or other time in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn’t supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn’t supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they really even got it started.

    and later in the conversation

    …if you want to, and if you look for it and wait for it – to the kind of information that will be very very dear to your heart. Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behaviour. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them – if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.

    Sometimes, I can identify with the first, and thanks to the internet and the life streams that I come across, sometimes, luckily, the second too. 🙂

    until next time, there’s no catch 🙂