A Thin Slice of Pie.

I

Flickering blobs of yellow and orange- that was all I could see with my eyes half-closed. When I shut my eyes, it was a pitch black interrupted occasionally by flame-coloured pinpricks. But I opened them up quickly; I had to if I didn’t wish to walk headlong into a tree-trunk.
I am walking through The Sakura University premises. The university was named after Sakura Yoko, the founder principal’s Japanese wife. Of course no cherry blossoming festivals take place here, that’s a legacy solely intended and carried out by the Japanese. Nevertheless, the campus of Sakura University is dotted with trees- Buckeyes, Birches, Elms, Dogwoods, Willows, Maples; and the flowers don’t make themselves scarce in the summers either. We are half-way through August now, which accounts for the sweep of yellowish-brown and crimson leaves obscuring the tentative greens underneath.
I walk alone, my jute bag bundled up in my left fist. I can’t say for sure if I have any friends at all. Sure I know several students, but that is probably out of pure necessity. I’m wistful yes, but not sad. It isn’t easy for me to carry out niceties and I don’t think that’d get me far. Not where I want. If I look carefully, I can spot a few green-leaved trees. If I look carefully.
He has his back to me but I know it’s him. There’s no mistaking the shock of jet black hair, or the loosely fitted pastels that he generally dons. He’s alone, sitting in a natural cup of earth, in the redundant shade of an Elm. My breath catches, I keep walking though. I look ahead, he’s right there – a few feet away on my right. But I don’t use my peripheral vision this time. I’m done with underhandedness, even if it is to the slightest degree. I’m done with longing for something that no one possesses. I’m done with filling up the gaps in people’s personalities with my own dreams.

II

I’ve always been fond of oranges. Especially the sour kind. They make your taste buds tingle; I suppose that’s partly why tennis players squeeze freshly cut lemons down their throats during half-time.
There’s a large orange tree in my garden, which is not much of a garden. Of course, it’s not laden with fruit this time of the year, but its leaves still hold that slightly heady tangy smell I utterly love.
I begin to walk towards the edge of my garden. My feet are pulling me along, and my mind’s a white blank sheet of paper. It’s twilight, I think, because the sky’s streaked with lavender and there’s no sign of a sun. The compound wall of my house is short, and rather grimy, but it has a country-side charm that several architects strive to achieve for their posh, pseudo-intellectual customers, but fail. My feet stop only inches away from collision; my nose is on the other side of the wall. An inexplicable, vague fear grips me, I can’t speak. There is nobody to speak to, of course, but this time I’m aware of incapacity to move volitionally. My heart’s thudding, I can feel a thin strand of hair sticking wetly to the nape of my neck. It isn’t humid enough to perspire. I don’t know what has gotten hold of me. But I know it is imperative to keep silent. Without moving a muscle, I look at the thick foliage of the adjacent garden. The leaves look a dreary purple and maroon, like rhodendron, in the dimness. I can see a portion of the silhouette of a house- my neighbors’ house. It isn’t illuminated from the inside….wait. No. There’s an orangish glow in one of the upper-storey rooms, a small light. Blink your eyes and it’s gone, blink again and it sparkles as clear as a star. My pupils dilate, then constrict, attempting to focus on the orange flicker. Now I can see a sort of rucksack, the shadow of a chair and a boy-not the boy himself, but a part of his torso. My neck refuses to crane, and that sense of dread lengthens still.
“Hello. You’re a girl by the looks of it.”
I recoil at the sudden voice; my eyes instantly zoom to the upper-storey room with the orange glow. There’s no boy in there.
“Well?”
My eyes struggle a little to focus on the speaker. I cannot see much of his features; he’s decidedly tall and lean. No, bony, I decide. He doesn’t look like he works out. And his eyes sparkle a little but I cannot discern their colour. He probably wears a slight stubble, judging from his silhouette. And his hair’s poking about – a dirty brown is my guess.
“Uh, who’re you?” I ask.
“I’m your neighbor. New neighbor. You know the Greens right?” A slight drawl, too smooth.
I shake my head. What’s he talking about?
“Your neighbors! They own this house…you didn’t know they were called Green?”
“I’ve never spoken to them. For that matter, I never noticed their house had two storeys.”
“That’s strange. What are you doing prowling about here then?”
The apprehensiveness has slowly faded away; I feel nothing, as usual. I turn abruptly and head home. I don’t care for inquisitive new neighbors.

Five.

............................

This alien land
Rushes off with the wind
Like pages flying away.

............................

Dusty, grubby hands
Flies on the food
The noise of highway trucks.

............................

We made love on the
Tallest building in the skyline
In the dark.

............................

The dirt grinds to dust
The flesh and metal spikes
Of man's collective mind.

............................

A white reality
Closed eyes
A breathing cerebrum.

............................

India and Copenhagen

First:

After reading this blog post below, I felt a strong sense of renewed hope for a workable conclusion to the climate change talks in Copenhagen, and in the power of today's issues to unite people of different, even conflicting interests. COP15 itself is proof that the idea that politics is inextricably intertwined with corruption and diplomacy is (extremely) slowly being eroded as people (and politicians) open their eyes to the world that they helped to burn. And by no means do I exclude myself from this category. Read this guys.

http://sscinternational.org/2009/11/29/in-the-lead-up-to-copenhagen-it’s-developed-vs-developing/

But at the same time, although India's demands may be practical and even reasonable, they are not fair. The demands don't appear to be in the spirit of climate change - they are essentially a more sophisticated way of saying: Why should WE, when YOU are doing all the polluting? This argument is sound - it is only to the offender that the offence must directly be attributed. But this argument is still embedded firmly in the rut of the idea that the interest of any one nation is separate from the interest of another. This directly violates the purpose of the Copenhagen talks - the point is that all the countries are getting together to discuss how to achieve a common goal. If there is no common goal, then there is no point. This puts a kind of damper on the hope that the previous article instilled in me. Here below is a somewhat neutral look at how things stand.

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90780/91345/6836912.html

Although it is good to spread hope about a good conclusion to COP15 (hopefully a concrete legally binding international treaty that will actually produce results), we must not ignore the colossal obstacles that loom over us; broadly defined, they are: diplomacy and dishonesty, politicians' service of self-interest and neglect of the public, and the inaction of the general public in the wake of drastic climate change.

Hopefully things will work out.

A citizen of Hopenhagen

As I write this, the COP15 Conference is taking place in Copenhagen. This conference will hopefully show some concrete results. Hopefully, the leaders of nations can come to a concrete agreement about such issues as cutting of greenhouse gas emissions and the redirection of resource valves to the places where they are actually needed, like the developing countries. What a person like me can do at this point is to follow the news concerning this event, and support anyone who is fighting for a sustainable future, by spreading awareness and trying to get our leaders to be accountable to US, the true power-holders. Take a few minutes if you can and be a part of the movement - sign the Hopenhagen petition. This petition will be shown at the conference, and the more support we can garner, the better. I know this is a bit late, the talks have already begun, but hopefully it will help in a small way.

Chompsky. =)

Hey, it's HARD to blog everyday! Especially for someone who's been at it for just as long as I have (four days). Withhold your censure if ye can, ye kind souls.

Well, you guys know what this post is going to be about. The title is quite revealing. So, instead of subtly leading to the point of this post, I'm going to jump right into it.

Chomsky. He started my day today. Without even bothering to brush, I acted on the sudden, inexplicable impulse to watch Chomsky interviews on YouTube. He is a terribly interesting personality. A Colossus in the field of Linguistics, and a vehement and outspoken critic of US foreign policy in particular and democracy and other political structures in general, he is the 8th most cited author in today's world. Almost insanely prolific, he, on the citation rankings, trails people who have single-handedly altered the course of history, like Marx, Lenin, Shakespeare, Aristotle and Freud, and even surpasses Hegel and Cicero; also, he is the only one out of the top ten on that list who is still alive. Go Chomsky!

I am as interested in what he's like as a person as I am in awe of his achievements. Sources who have been in direct contact with him say that he is a small man in a sweater (and no doubt adorable), and speaks in soft, hardly audible tones that do not in the least befit his image as some kind of a giant in all other respects. However, the ideas that he expresses in his speech are clear and clinically penetrating, while being expressed with a driving passion for fact. Liesbeth Koenen said something about him that really struck me as apt and beautifully put:

"...As soon as he opens his mouth you start to realize why he is so famous and notorious. Chomsky sounds rational, cerebral and detached, but at the same time probing and deeply committed to whatever his topic happens to be. He is utterly serious, but will break into a smile at the most unexpected moments."

Most pictures of him on Google Images show him surrounded by columns of books. He is a classic nerd. =) His own wife admitted to thinking of him as "nerdy", and said that he wasn't the type she would have dated (until she became a similar kind of nerd herself =). When he was younger, he apparently "[couldn't] tell a radio from a toaster" in his own words. He is so deeply involved in his chosen fields, linguistics and political activism, that he blissfully sees nothing else, and can tell even the most informed people a thing or two about their own areas of expertise. His "arrogance" is fascinating and entertaining to watch, purely because it is so well-handled - it doesn't get out of hand, he NEVER engages in people-bashing - and so justified. One (in other words, I) can easily derive pleasure from letting their imaginations take flight and imagine him as a grandparent, playing with his grandkids, or as a boyfriend, buying a bunch of flowers for his future wife to send to her room at UPenn, undergraduates both.

What is most interesting about him is his simplicity in the expression of certain ideas and his exhaustingly complicated and convoluted way of expressing others. I have had the frustrating and exciting experience of reading one of his papers - NOT any kind of cakewalk at ALL. At times I found myself thinking - Who is this guy? Is he so great that it's such a big problem for him to make his papers understandable to at least a small part of the general public? Now, my future self would like to give my past self a withering look and say, "He is, actually." My future self has also discovered that he is a very humane person. He is into political activism for a reason, and that reason is that he loves people and wants the best for them. He respects every man a great deal, enough to believe that they have the capacity to think for themselves and make a decision about something. He says this, too. His message to everyone is to: See, think, judge and decide for yourself. And his message to his fellow activists and human beings is: Keep at it. It will work out. It will come through in the end. This is really the centre of what he is.

I would like to end this post with a quote from my Linguistics professor, Mike Flynn. He had written up a document to serve as a set of general guidelines for all students writing a paper in Linguistics. In the "Things to Remember" section, the last but not the least important point was:

"There is no "p" in Chomsky."

=)

Quoting Arundhati Roy: "Chomsky zindabad!"

BLOG TIME !! After a LONG TIME !!

Hello Avid Readers!

I begin this post with a promise: I will post something everyday. And I will try as much as possible to refrain from posting negative things. =)

Well. We all know that there is a serious time lag already, but I like to make new starts so I'm not going to fill you guys in on what happened since my last post. Instead, I'll tell you about everything that happens this holiday. New start.

I got back yesterday. It was such a relief to be back in Bangalore !! The journey was the worst I've had yet: it was pure torture, I was extremely bored the whole time, and I'd left most of the much-needed stuff in my bag, which I checked in directly to Bangalore. Smooth move. I just engaged in rubbish timepass, which was really deplorably YUCK. Seeing Bangalore again was, therefore, all the more awesome. I had long chats with my parents and my sister and my grandmom too... and I'm off to my dear friend Rat's house in two hours to do the same. Life is good.

Life is good. But somehow, today I am annoyed. I don't feel great, about myself and in general. There are many reasons for this.

1. Today I was reminded of the lack of focus in my plans for the summer, etc. I will now have to change many of those plans.

2. I had a discussion with my Ajji about our particular sect of Hinduism, and it wasn't very much fun in the sense that I found myself just blabbing and making no sense. I realized how everything I had learned had been wiped off because I wasn't practicing my knowledge. I'm not in continuous touch with it, so it's getting erased away. That has to change.

3. I am settling into various undesirable procrastinative patterns. That's got to change too.

This holiday is not going to leave me feeling empty and useless. I am going to make this holiday a GOOD one. Every day is going to be consummated. Wish me luck, people.

Until tomorrow. =)