An Elderly Woman Outside The Video Store In A Small Town

When I was a much younger I came across a movie. I hadn't heard anything about it and didn't really know what to expect, really. Nor had I heard of anything else by the director. But none of that mattered as at that point I was in the mood to watch a movie and this one had an attractive cover and I was all young and excitable, you know?

It started off really well, believe me. It had a gripping plot, a script that made me pay attention, and a pretty good cast. There was a continuity to the story and I found myself believing in the characters and the way their personalities had been woven thus far. I've never become so involved in a film as I did with that one in its first hour. And I don't think I ever will be.

And I have to tell you, about half-way through the film I started wondering if there would be a sequel. It looked like this film was going to be at least three-and-a-half hours long, and there seemed too much left to do in the plot to wrap up in the two hours or so that remained.

What's that?

Oh yes, there was enough about the film to warrant a sequel, that's for sure. And as good as it bad been thus far, I was pretty sure that there should be one. I just got that feeling, d'you know what I mean?

I didn't know how this film would end, and whether there would be an opening for a sequel, or even whether at the end of the film I would still be keen to watch another, but you know what I mean, right? You've had the feeling while watching a movie or a serial that you wouldn't mind watching another episode or two, yes?

Yes, of course you have.

Anyway, I think I said some of this out loud. This is such a cool film. I wonder if there is a possibility of a sequel.

That's when you, watching the film with me, told me that you had read somewhere that there was to be no sequel. The director had said, explicitly, that this was the end of the story and there would be no continuation of it. He had encountered differences with the production crew, it seems, and the team was not to work together again. You said it, and I believed you.

I can't remember much now, but you see, at that point, something changed. Suddenly, yet at the same time gradually and imperceptibly, I began to stop paying attention to the rest of the film. Quite the opposite of even how it was fifteen minutes ago, say, I began to quite subconsciously make plans about what I was going to do after the movie ended, or generally think about other things and lose touch with the plot.

I know you were still watching, that you still wanted to know what happened at the end. That you hoped the ending would meet your expectations. But I couldn't care anymore.

And I was right. In this case, in one of those sadly ironic coincidences, the ending dropped away. You agree, don't you? There was nothing left to look forward to.

There was no longer a tightness to the plot, no longer a flow to the narrative, no longer the possibility of an exciting ending, and the actors too seemed to my mind to be a bit disillusioned with the resolution of the film, you see. Where the story looked like it was heading to a fascinating conclusion, one that would only be a conclusion up until a sequel came out, where all of this had been true, now it had become a tired, dispirited ending that somehow failed to excite you or me.

So much could have been different. I know, it was only a film, and there have been several others for both of us since. But that one, significant or otherwise, could have been different.

You see, the last ten minutes of the film could have matched up to the first three or more hours. We would have remembered it then. There could have been a sequel. And I could have watched the last bit with the same concentration as I did the first, and enjoyed the rest as much. You know, it was poised to become a favourite.

Oh yes, you're right, many years have passed now. It's been a long time since then, yes. But we still talk about it.

But you know, as it turns out, all these years later, I cannot remember the ending? I cannot even remember the name of the film. But I know that while I was there it was the best there was, and many times I catch myself wishing there could have been some other way for it to have ended.

What did you say?

Oh, that's sweet of you. I'm okay though, thanks. It used to be a big deal once, but once was not now.

***

Hearts and thoughts they fade. Fade away.

Continue reading...

Yo No Soy Marinero, Soy Capitán

I guess I should mention that this is a rough continuation of the last post.

So there I was, stuck in a different country, in a place where they spoke a different language, where I knew only two chaps - one of whom only vaguely, and registered in a number of (mostly) maths courses with not your ideal set of classmates.

The troubles of finding a place to live, or even managing to live in the place that we found, paled in comparison with the task of making friends. This is a recurring theme in my life. I have changed educational institutions a total of four times, and barring the first time it has been an uphill struggle on every occasion. And that is the theme of this post so turn away now.

Why's this, you ask? You're such a great fellow. So witty, so charming, so delightful. Why should someone like you have any trouble getting along with people?

Ah, yes, but you misunderstand. I get along with people quite all right. Once the initial hurdles are crossed, in the sense that pleasantries made or ice broken, then everything becomes okay. It is breaking that damn ice that has always caused all the problems to begin with.

(Sort of like that joke where this guy walks into a bar, walks up to a pretty woman sitting at a table, takes away her drink, dips his fingers into it, pulls out the ice-cubes, throws them on the floor, crushes them, returns the emptied glass to the woman, and says, "Now that the ice is broken...")

Most people were in the same situation, naturally. McGill has a large number of international students, and even the local students aren't necessarily from the same locality, as such. In other words, most people, like me, were meeting most other people for the first time as well.

I had already started off on the back foot though. The freshman week was the best time to make new friends and I had missed out on it. I mean, think about it. A number of people whose only aim is to get royally drunk and have as good a time as possible. The best single way to completely obliterate that ice, isn't it? Or drink it at least har har. By the time it was done most friend groups were already made. Breaking into one is much harder than having one form around you. No luck there.

Plus I didn't live in college accommodation. No better way of getting along than chatting up your neighbours, except that in my off-campus apartment my neighbours were a couple of ageing Canadians who viewed us as a temporary blot on an otherwise peaceful floor, playing loud music at unearthly hours and plagued by the smell of Spicy Food.

All right, you say, get on with it. Stop this tale of misery and woe forthwith and either get funny or get to the point.

Okay, but before I do, I want to ask you something. Is it just me, or do you feel as well when you walk into a new school or whatever, that most people seem to already know each other, and wonder how it is that they do? Everybody is sitting in pairs or groups and talking to each other although it cannot have been more than fifteen minutes ago that they must have met. Is there a trick to this that I am missing? Please enlighten.

To the point, then, we go. It isn't a funny day as I'm sure you've realised already.

I've been going on and on about McGill but that is because I am going to Montreal, and so I've been thinking about these things. But the problem is a general one, and like I said before it has happened several other times.

The first time that I changed school, I didn't have any difficulty making friends. This was class six, and most of the other fellows in my class were new as well. I just sat next to some guys, and we became friends. There was no fuss, no bother, and certainly none of this heartwrenching introspection. Of course, it helped that it was school, and I was forced to spend eight hours a day, five days a week, locked into a hellhole with other equally miserable specimens. Nothing like misery to catalyse a collective wallow.

And of course it also helped that this was class six, when there was no great selection process involved in friends. I mean, cast your mind back to class six. Can you remember half the chaps that at that point you thought you would spend the rest of your life in deep friendship with?

The second time I changed school, which incidentally was made by a move back to the original school, things really got strange. I was coming back to a school that I had studied in for five years, albeit more than three years ago, and in which I knew about 70 per cent of the kids in my year. They had all been around when I was last there, I had visited the school subsequently, I had kept (somewhat) in touch, and it should have been like Coming Home.

Except it wasn't, really. Firstly, I had changed substantially myself. The three years in the School Propagating Vices had left several lasting impressions on me, not the least of which was that I was continually, and habitually, terrified of girls. I couldn't meet their gaze, I couldn't construct a single coherent sentence, and I would get palpitations if I had to ask a girl something. Anything. Any girl.

On several occasions I have sat by a phone for long periods working up the courage to pick it up and dial, to the point of rehearsing many things that I wanted to say. I cannot, however, remember the resulting conversations, although I fear that even if I did they would paint quite a sorry tragic picture.

In the School Propagating Vices this was okay. After all, it was a result of several years of conditioning, so most other boys felt the same way too. There was a marked segregation between boys and girls that, since this was now class nine, was slowly beginning to thaw, but nonetheless existed for the most part.

But This Strange Regressive School was not an atmosphere like that, oh no. It was a place straight out of those ancient books that spoke of ancient times when women were as large as trucks and ruled the world. Even the little ones had an air of Bully wrapped loosely around them like a fluorescent pink shawl that you could see like a beacon from metres away, and you got in their way at your own peril. The girls were loud and aggressive and swaggered down the corridors mistresses of all they surveyed while most boys slunk around trying to avoid attention.

For all of you out there who keep preaching equality of the sexes, I would like to point out that in This Strange Regressive School there was no question of equality. The boys were treated by teachers and girls alike like the scum of the earth that they probably were. Unless, of course, you were Cool. Which at that point I certainly wasn't.

For those raised in that environment life was as natural and commonplace as negotiating the streets of Delhi. You might die any minute but if you have lived or grown up here you are firstly completely oblivious to the danger and secondly you imbibe the air of impending violence yourself and thirdly even if you're careful and look both sides before crossing somebody might be driving a truck the wrong way on the pavement when the light is red and so you stand no chance anyway.

Not just me, everyone else had changed too, naturally. The old group that I was a part of had split and everyone had gone their own separate ways. Obviously. No great surprise there. But for whatever reason (and this is not a cue for you to speculate, it is really not necessary) all of them were very hesitant about renewing the friendship. It really was like starting again, which nullified whatever familiarity advantage might have otherwise accrued to me.

Needless to say, it took a spectacularly long time before I befriended any of the girls in any significant measure. (I still suspect that I am not treated as equal. But now, wiser, I have resigned myself to it. I bow in supplication before my Humble Mistresses.)

The boys were a different story. Some were captive in my class and had no choice. Some others were won over with a turn of foot or fleet of bat. A niche opened and I snuggled right into it. As the title of this post suggests, and as a famous old Mexican song that you all have heard testifies somewhere in its lyrics, I am not a sailor, I am the captain!

The single greatest achievement of This Strange Regressive School has been beating the fear of girls out of me. It was done the hard way, and with great suffering for all concerned, but the operation was mostly successful, I think. No lasting scars for anybody.

I still occasionally tremble at the prospect of initiating a conversation with a girl, especially a new one, but by and large I have been cured. But the affliction of struggling to make friends has not left me entirely. And it probably never will.

The most recent time that making friends has been an ordeal is in my current institution. But I will save the navel-gazing for when I finally make it out of there. After all, who knows what lies in store in the year ahead?

You can go now.

Oh, and I'm off tomorrow. I hope to find the time to write, but the Amazon who lies in wait might have different ideas.

Continue reading...

Out Of The Frying Pan...

I'm going to Montreal. For two weeks. It is just over a year since I graduated from McGill, and I'm already going back to visit.

Well, I guess it is better to visit soon after you graduate rather than a few years later. After all, in a few years there will be nobody left there that I know, and what would be the point of going there then?

And that is the heart of it. Those three years were, to put it quite simply, life-changing - but it wasn't quite so much because of where it was or what I was doing there; instead the major part was played by the people I knew and met. Also being at the daft and highly impressionable age of 18, it was particularly influential. And I'd like to think I had a bit of an influence on them as well.

But this is not about them.

See, once you establish a social network or whatever, make some friends, form a loose group, find your own place in all of that and so on, things become okay. Unless you're stuck with a set of losers that make you want to kill yourself, but thankfully that didn't happen. I don't think anybody wanted to kill themselves because of me either, so hooray.

Same as in any society, life becomes much easier with the backups and safety nets in place. It is until they are formed that things get a bit tricky.

I've never been much of a friend-maker. I'm not any sort of girl, and especially not the sort of girl who can walk up to a nameless bunch of people and get along famously. I prefer instead to loiter about in the margins, not caring particularly at least on the face of it, nonchalance personified, realising that I'm better than most of them, but wishing desperately nevertheless that I had the balls to walk up to someone - anyone - and say... will you marry me?

Er. Not quite that? Will you be my friend then? Will you at least talk to me awhile?

Where is this going? I don't know. It is a stream-of-consciousness sort of thing. It gives, for those who know what I mean, the same sort of satisfaction as any kind of lightening of the load.

McGill was what they call an Experience. It forced me to Grow Up. I finally became an Adult, finally suitable as display material for parents who would otherwise embarrassedly tuck me away at a party into another room filled with half-wits, retards and old people. "Make friends here, son. They are very interesting people and you will find you share a lot of interests."

And all of it happened in the most obvious, perhaps stereotypical way possible. Essentially it just involved being thrown into the deep end and being told to manage. Part of the decision to let me go, I think, had to do with the fact that my mother went through much the same thing back in the 18th century when she was my age. She went off at the alarmingly young age of 19 or something to Korea for three and a half years to do her MA in the subject. Remember, this is back before the time of ISD even. The running joke in the family is naturally the relief on the part of her parents when she would go away.

Yes, it is not a very funny family. This is the best we can do. But then again you haven't met my mum or her parents. It could very well have been relief.

I guess, being male made it easier a decision for my parents to make, but in hindsight it was a pretty brave one for all concerned. I'm sure a thousand parents make the same decision every year, but for each family it is a brave decision I'm sure.

I didn't know anybody in the city. I didn't know anyone in Canada, in fact. My nearest relatives were somewhere in the heartland of the US, and virtually out of reach. What I had to do then, essentially, is travel all the way to the other side of the world, virtually by myself, and go about everything by myself. If this were to happen now I probably wouldn't bat an eyelid at the prospect, but back when I was 18 it was sheer ignorance that sustained me through the whole thing. I simply didn't know what was coming next, and that's what made it happen. Had I known before I left what the first three months were going to be like, I would have either been a good deal more worried or perhaps better prepared.

The problem boiled down to managing several different things simultaneously. First things first I had to go there and find an apartment to live in. Not being offered Residence posed a bit of a problem, because since I knew nobody in the city it was going to be difficult looking for an apartment. Where do you begin? Luckily McGill provided a service for people looking for apartments. It acted as a sort of broker, publishing long lists of available apartments as submitted to them by various landlords, with a breakdown for rent, amenities, special conditions, location and all that, and armed with this list, a prospective tenant was to pick an apartment, visit it, and if he or she liked it then rent it.

The list undoubtedly made things more complicated though. Okay, so it gave me a list of potential apartments to live in, but it raised more questions than it answered. Where are these places? What is a good rent? What happens if electricity is not included, is there an extra charge and if so how much would it be? If I live further away how much cheaper will things get?

The simple point was that there was no field of reference. There was nobody to ask what to do, and worse, there was nobody who could tell you if what you were doing was right or wrong. You just did. And hoped. So I hunted for several days - many apartments visited, many landlords conversed with in sign language, many places hurriedly left because they were bloody nasty, many prize apartments let go because it had already been taken, but all this to no avail. Either the rent was too high or the place was too far or it was too small. And this is not me being fussy, mind, at that point I was virtually ready to accept anything for the moment, but there was simply nothing. I had left it too long, but I didn't have a choice there either as there was no way I could have come to Montreal sooner, naturally.

The other major headache was a bank account. My dad had given me some money in cash, but most of it was in the form of a draft, and I needed the draft to be encashed so I would have money to pay rents, pay fees, and generally Have Money. Trouble: you couldn't open a bank account without having an address. You couldn't get an address without money for rent, for which you needed a bank account. These are things you learn and remember not to do next time, but at that time you are royally jiggered.

The week-long freshers' welcome, therefore, I don't remember. Except of course for one evening, when my group leaders and I went to buy alcohol for a boat cruise that we were all supposed to go for, and the three of us drank a lot of it even before we reached the dock. Not too long after that everything started lurching and heaving and the ground seemed to spin and I was completely off-balance and disoriented. And I'm not even sea-sick, mind. Bloody hell, this was dry land! We hadn't even got into the boat. Needless to say the cruise ended for me even before it began and I went off home stinkingly drunk. Fun, I suppose, but at that point it was not really.

Oh, and I also had a set of placement exams to write in my first week there. If I passed them, I got certain credits, and it would mean I would have less courses to do. That would help me finish early, and save money. It was all elaborately thought out. Nobody counted on the fact, however, that I would fail most of them.

The first month was a tough one. Even after we moved into an apartment, the troubles didn't go away. Next we had to figure out how to furnish the place, since the first day we moved in there was only a lightbulb and a wall-to-wall carpet. Austere Indian sadhus aside, we had other images to cultivate, and for that we needed furniture.

There were other hassles, but too minor to recount in any great detail. A lot of it revolved around not knowing anyone or anything. But we made it.

But actually the point wasn't that we wouldn't make it through. Nor even that the difficulties were unique, or even particularly difficult. But when you've led a relatively sheltered life, and you finally are forced to look after yourself in every which way, out of the blue and in from the cold etc., then when it passes you can't help but feel rather satisfied. At the very least, I realised that I can look after myself and not spectacularly die.

Anyway, it was now on to the Hurdle Not To Be Trifled With - making friends. It took a long, long, long time. And it needs a post all by itself.

P.S Funny, isn't it, how academics don't feature one bit in all of this? Like for everyone else, it was bottom priority. Don't tell my parents that though.

Continue reading...

Icepice!

Dhappa! I have just been tagged.

Okay, so I didn't know what tagging was, until now. I've seen this sort of post on various blogs, but I assumed it was just a way to fill up blogspace when there's nothing else to write about. You know, the usual Ten Things I'd Like To Do While On Holiday But Can't Because I'll Never Be, or the other popular one - 150 Things I Do To Myself At Work When Nobody's Looking.

Perhaps it is time-pass, at that. But me, a conscientious blogger, with a healthy weekly post average, why me?

And worse, the theme of this tag. You will find out, shortly, but suffice it to say that it is like taking a little boy into a sports shop (not sweatshop, alas) and telling him he can buy only six things. Sports? Great. Buy? Fantastic. Six? But how to choose just six things? Believe me, it has taken a while to narrow this down, so appreciate the method if not the madness.

So here we go. What I need to do is:

1. Post a blog with six weird things about me. (Here's the rub. Weird? Like Suzuki Samurai, NO PROBLEM! But tell me to narrow it down to six, and I stop understanding Japanese.)
2. Tag six poor unsuspecting people at the end of my post. (Easier said and more easily done.)
3. Share the misery by posting a comment in their blogs to let them know that they have been tagged and ask them to visit my blog for info. (Look out mwahahahahah!)

So, in the spirit of the thing, six weird things about me.

I am a virgin. This is my first time. Be gentle, honey.

Number One: The Ultimate. Certain girls will agree. And boys. And birds. And pigs, even. What is? I have a strong, nay irrepressible, desire to correct other people's English. It is what, in unsavoury circles, you will call an Obsession.

Don't make grammatical mistakes in front of me I stop listening to what you're saying. And spelling mistakes? Nononononono. (I'd love to edit half the comments on this blog for mistakes, but I can't and it drives me mad. The other half of the comments are my own. I read my own posts a couple of times before I post, and sometimes even after I post, to check for these things. It is a madness and it is wearing me down slowly.)

Hmm that reminds me. S, if you're reading this, Gems will make their appearance on this blog soon ha! For the uninitiated, Gems was a collection of the most bizarre things some of us have heard said at various debates that we've participated in while at school. I won't elaborate here, but when somebody in the middle of a passionate spiel about healthcare says something like "140,000 people died of AIDS and many died of Australia", or when talking about the bias in school syllabi says "People think that if you've taken science in school you must be a genie", or ranting about how the "government has been the cutting trees since Independence" then you can't help but write it down and make a huge big list.

I did science. I'm a genie. In a bottle, even. But no rubbing. Any which way.

Number Two: I can't decide which should go next. I think it shall be the sugar. Yes.

I am a sugarholic, or whatever word best describes that kind of thing. Although in recent years this has subsided a bit, when I was younger I think my parents used to worry about it. It had to do in part with being a hyperactive kid, constantly playing outside (I want to say 'with myself' but then that just ends up sounding wrong.) But partly because sugar tastes so damn good. I used to have sugar with rice, sugar with dahi, sugar with daal, jam with rice, jam with rotis, jam as just plain jam. Sometimes (no, I shouldn't lie. Often) in the afternoons when everybody in my house was asleep (yes, good South Indian family. Everybody would collapse after lunch every day as though they'd just returned from Tirupati) I would squeeze half a lemon into a little bowl and add liberal quantities of sugar, and eat the resulting mix with my fingers. A sort-of dehydrated nimbu-pani if you will. I've even made my mother make me cheeni-parathas. Not Chinese. Sugar. I have put sixteen sachets of sugar in a large hot chocolate, often enough that it was not a one-off case. Yes, number two on the list of crazinesses has got to be sugar. It isn't just sugar, mind. It is chocolate and stuff as well, but you know what I mean.

Number Three: Music. What's so weird about that, you might ask? Ah, but I know many people who'd leap to an answer here. He listens to such crap etc. Why is he so obsessive etc. Why must we be forced to listen to what he's listening to etc. But you have thanked me before, and you will will thank me for it again.

No, but what I mean in this particular instance is lyrics. Unlike my tagger, I don't memorise lyrics by the second time of hearing but I do soon enough, and once I do I don't forget. I remember the most obscure lyrics, and I find that I can pull them back out at will. I find myself inserting lyrics into things I say, finding songs for every context I'm in, and generally making an utter nuisance of myself. If I've commented on your blog ever, it will very likely have been using song lyrics. At least once. My various previous posts will testify, if nothing else. (Wait a minute. I don't have to prove anything here, particularly, do I? Accept it.)

Lyrics also play a huge part in determining where a song or artist ends up featuring on my favourite list. See, I don't care overmuch about poignancy or whether they're thought-provoking or anything like that. Lyrics have GOT to rhyme (this is bad enough to be a Weirdness all by itself, but I thought I'd just include it in here.) That's why Eminem is so bloody brilliant, for example. I mean, after a point who cares what his mum did to him or why white kids are crazy, but the way he says it is super. Rhyming lyrics, fitting into a tempo, irregular beats, the works.

That's why I cannot decide one way or another about Jethro Tull, for example. Have you heard Mother Goose? Forget rhyming, the lyrics JUST DON'T MAKE SENSE!

Okay I'm getting worked up, time to move on.

Number Four: Well, this doesn't apply quite so much anymore, but many years ago I used to talk exclusively in Ulta Language. It doesn't even sound exotic, does it? It was simply an extreme form of Spoonerism, and no, I don't suffer from any mental ailment, it was just one of those things. You don't follow? Try beaking spackwards with every wair of purds and you'll get it. It sort of loses its meaning as I type, but if you ever meet me, don't remind me to show you how fluent I am at it.

Number Five: A dangerous confession. Forget you ever read this, it is for your own good.

I absolutely HATE IT if somebody touches me in the crook of my elbows, and I have been known to threaten violence if provoked. Thankfully I've never seriously had to do anything about it, but I WILL NOT HESITATE. (I sound like such a pussycat.)

Don't do it guys, please. It gets all red and puffed up and burns like a bitch for days. Bitches don't burn, you'll say, I know, but you don't know the bitches I do. They burn. And my elbows hurt, too. Don't do it. Forget you ever read this. Why am I doing this tag thing? I know I'll come to regret it. My sentences are getting shorter. Making less sense. Getting agitated. Help.

My elbows are starting to burn. SEE WHAT YOU'VE MADE ME DO. Simple powers of suggestion. I know you didn't suggest it. I did. But it works anyway. Mommy!!

Okay, calm down. One more to go. And as things stand, this is the most dangerous of them all. It is something that I'm not even sure is true, but when somebody pointed it out to me, based on empirical evidence and all that sort of hi-falutin nonsense, I had to stop and wonder. I don't think it has any predictive power or anything, but it is something that... oh I'll just get on with it.

Number Six: I seem to have a thing for short chubby women. No, I don't fantasise about them or anything, but it just so happens that my hit-rate with that type is very high indeed, and somehow things don't work out with any other sort. Weekend flings, long-term relationships, even a bloody satisfying stare at a mall, all these things.

I don't understand it. I mean, I look at all sorts of girls, tall short thin fat gorgeous and er, well, not so gorgeous, but still, it is in my fate I think. I really don't get it. I mean, look at me. Tall, thin, sexy. A study in contrasts to most of my 'hits'. (Yes yes there weren't that many of them, but it is still plural okay?) Okay, that's not entirely true - they were quite hot. Some were very hot. But they were all short and rather, er, eye-catching.

If you're short and er, well built, or, um, diametrically challenged, you have climbed very far up the probability ladder already. Now all you have to do is be beautiful and sexy and smart and funny and charming and have a rich dad and we're set.

This is probably the weirdest of them all, isn't it? I think so too. And no, don't hit me because of it. I've been bullied by too many of you girls to have to give you yet another reason for it.

Wait, I just re-read that, and it came out wrong. I'm not into fat girls. I like them hot, okay? Be hot.

Wait. I'm digging myself deeper into this hole with every word aren't I. Better stop here, otherwise I'll never get ANY sort of girl again.

There is some sort of trade union amongst girls that I will never be able to fathom, let alone beat. Insult one and the next day 30 of them look at you as though you are something the cat shat. I think I've raised my score to about 12, or whatever the readership of this blog is. Hooray for semi-anonymity.

*

Okay so that's that, then. I learned nothing. Nor, I suspect, did you. But then this is my first time, you see, and you couldn't really have expected it to be good for you, could you? Methinks this post will go through some editing when I wake up, but for those of you who read it before, you have not seen this.

Oh, and now for the tagging bit. But I don't know too many bloggers, and the few I read are like the old uncles and aunties of cyberspace. They must have done these millions of times I'm sure. I think I'll just be boring and leave it to your free will. If you really want to do it, consider yourself tagged.

On second thoughts, I'll reserve the right to tag. Nobody told me I can't do that. Piss me off and you'll have to go through this shit.

ICESPICE!

Continue reading...

Zor Se 'Mario'

I apologise in advance for the silliness of this, but my brain has been addled early on a Sunday morning by a GameBoy and the Ghost of Nonsense Past (Blog Posts Division).

For any Dire Straits fans, it is much like the ExtenDancePlay EP released after the Love Over Gold album. Same sort of breaking of shackles resulting in pure, carefree crap.

Anyway.

*

There I am, tired but proud. It has been a long, epic journey, and I am glad to finally be at the end. I take a moment to reflect on the past, on how exactly I have got to where I am right now.

It hasn’t been easy getting here at all. First, there were those evil-looking slimy chaps. It seemed like it was going to be the end, but somehow I managed to slip by unharmed. A perilous course I charted, with giant boulders to crush me in the blink of an eye, razor-sharp missiles to tear me to shreds, strange creatures to creep up unnoticed and smother me. But I passed them all, no problem at all.

And now I’m here. There she stands, in front of me, my princess. The one I have come this far to meet, the one whom I wish to spend the rest of my life with in joy and peace. The one for whose undying love I have risked all on pain of death, and pain of pain. There she is, and there I stand. A couple of steps away.

Not long now, I think, I’m almost there. It takes me a few seconds to get moving, however, the satisfaction of having finally made it, of having conquered all odds, rises within me, rooting me to the spot for quite a while before I can move again. Not long now, not far to go, the joy and relief is palpable. "His palms are sweaty" and all that. Knees weak, arms are heavy etc.

Then I fall in a hole and die.

*

Ah, now I feel much better. Silliness Over. Press Start to continue.

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The Mathematics Of Religion

Numbers have fascinated us since we came down from the trees. Ever since we stumbled upon one, two, three, tripped ourselves on zero, fell flat on our backs over negative numbers, and got positively bruised by complex ones, we have been making our world more and more mathematically intricate.

They do have their uses. The science that uses these concepts works tirelessly to make engines run, escalators rise, purify the milk we drink, build the bridges we drive on. The list of benefits is infinite. Numbers, too, we say, are infinite.

But forget all that. What is this 'infinity'? Is there such a thing? Formally, is there a solitary largest number that is bigger than all others? Correspondingly, is there a unique smallest?

Mathematics precludes the possibility. That is, it is possible to take any number whatsoever, fool around with it, and get a bigger or smaller one. This process, we are told, never stops. Our entire system is based on this fundamental belief – we can count and count till we drop dead but we will never reach the end. There is no end.

But how far can we count until our brains get fried? It is difficult, surely, to visualise the limitless? The idea of something continuing forever is hard to come to terms with.

Douglas Adams, in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, describes a Total Perspective Vortex, a device that exposes the occupant thereof to the vastness of the universe. With the realisation that he or she is a meaningless pinpoint on the forehead of what is really just another speck, comes gibbering insanity. There is no defence.

But unlike those poor souls we have a counter-weapon. We invented infinity. Mind, 'invented' is a carefully chosen word; there is no such 'number' infinity. Infinity does not follow the rules that apply to other numbers. Try adding two thousand to infinity.

It is not a number, then. It is a creation, a term, a concept of convenience born out of, as implied earlier, the need to avoid the unlimited. Count as far as you can, and when you get tired, think ‘infinity’. You’ll be satisfied.

Quite obviously, there is constructed an opposite minus infinity.

We’ll come back to this.

***

Man created television. Television did not create man. The process is not reversible.

Man himself was created, it is said. Back through time we can now trace the path of evolution - mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, uni-cellular structures – cairns built and kicked aside along the long road of existence.

But where was life initially formed? How did the first uni-cell get its unique cell? Theories abound, the most 'scientific' of which says some pieces got together, and with a little electricity to spice things up, got jiggy with it.

But even if this is true, who created these components (or the electricity, for that matter)? Is there a beginning to creation? Let's play with a little dialogue, to illustrate the point.

Q: Who created the various components of the first cell?
A: They were formed out of the elements.
Q: Who created the elements?
A: Fusion of hydrogen, perhaps, in various different ways?
Q: And who created hydrogen?
A: Born out of the Big Bang, maybe?
Q: Ah, who created the Big Bang?
A: Oh, stop it. God?

Here lies the source of revenue for all philosophers. Who did create the Big Bang? Is that what we can call with certainty the beginning of the universe as we know it? If not, what came before, and who created that? Where do we begin?

When does this end?

***

And now to the heart of the matter. The question is not really as to who created the Big Bang, necessarily. The crux lies at the assumption of a first step, a beginning.

Many people believe that there exists an Ultimate Step, one without a precedent, a beginning (of time, space, whatever) from where everything eventually follows. The endless backward line of creation is supposed to stop somewhere, with something that was not created by anything before it, something that just 'is', and always has been, and always will be. It may have been the Big Bang, maybe something even earlier.

This belief (of a First Step, something that started it all), give or take a little, is what we call God.

How God went about it after that, of course, is a different matter. Some people might believe that the First Step is directly responsible for only the Second Step which in turn is solely responsible for the Third Step, and so on. Others might believe that the First Step directly controls and influences all Other Steps.

Still others might believe that the First Step somehow led to the Second, and things just continued from there, quite like pushing a boulder off a steep hill and watching it crash noisily to the bottom.

Yet others feel that the only thing that exists independently is the First Step; everything else either is illusion or repeats itself eventually, forming enormous, cosmic, cycles.

These beliefs are instantly recognisable as some of today’s religions. The common thread to all these beliefs, however, is this idea of a solitary, unique, 'beginning'. But why is there such a common thread?

I think that the problem here, as with mathematics, is that we can continually go backwards through time tracing the chain of evolution. We can go back and back until we drop dead, but we may not reach the beginning. There may be no beginning.

Is it that we need a way out, to prevent our brains from becoming custard or jelly? Is the idea of God that way out?

Does God exist? Was the idea created to avoid the infinity of backward-moving-ness?

Does infinity exist? Are the concepts related? Does this make any sense at all?

We don’t know, but certainly, the devil must be in the details.

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