My buttons got pushed

==================================================================
Your Mom

Things don't have to be new to hurt.
Things don't have to be old to matter.
Beauty and history are different things --
Shooting stars last
Barely for a minute.

My glimmer of hope;
My gales of unexpected comfort;
My struggle to keep my feet on the ground
Just how he would have liked
Because intelligent intellectual modern men
Like stable women sure of their worth,
Because intelligent intellectual modern men
Should like the woman I want to be...!
My discomfort
With who I sometimes am not
Fits nowhere.
Men of yore will stifle and ask for surrender,
Men of now will drown you in rightful care,
Men in the middle will laugh --

And I haven't hugged a woman in ages.
I haven't felt solidarity
Because we all hide vulnerability
Because vulnerability is feminine and feminine is hate.
Weak women are subhuman toys for the boys.
Strong women are superhuman machines
Whose existence is evidence that we don't need feminism.

Your mother raised you to speak your mind to men and women alike
And so the whole world must be fine now for women like me
Because equality is warped to mean we all must hide our souls.
Respected women are women who act like the men of yore
And other women,
Like the one disgusted you sometimes suspects I am,
Are your guilty muses,
To be moulded into art or sculpture or fantasy or bedclothes
Or queens or goddesses or porn
Or your mother --

And I say it should be simpler.
No rules to laugh, rules to speak,
Rules around
Who to be around,
About the right amount of fear,
Whom to let yourself be near,
Rules to hug, to shed a tear,
Rules to love.
Love
Should be allowed:
On both sides, and as it is;
On both sides, crazy or sane;
On both sides, brave and sweet --

And a man should be allowed
To be swept off his feet.
==================================================================

I wrote this a long time ago after binging on slam poetry videos. I didn't think it was any good but I kept it. Today, I wanted to post because it's been a while, and had nothing else to post, so I finally folded and posted the longest complete piece from my Google Keep.

Bijoya

Maa, it has been a while since the lights went off. The people have packed, and last night will be over soon. Not much happens -- yet, every time it does, it leaves a gaping hole inside me. You are supposed to inspire strength -- and yet you leave me so weak. I, they say, was given life by you -- yet all I feel is my life leaving slowly.

Did I waste our precious fortnight on being happy, Maa? Should I have been angry instead? Should I have been pure, unwavering, unafraid; and would it have got me all I want?

Maa, this year too, I have failed to be the slightest shadow of you. I have feared. I have loved. I have cried. I have lost, to your cosmos and your plans. Who am I fighting against, Maa, and for who? Where are my demons, and do my Gods even know that I exist?

Your way might, after all, not be mine, Maa. The collected patience, the inspired courage, the flawless adherence to the essence of yourself -- it all could be too much for me. And yet, a change of path is not an option -- because you, because me, and because who else will?

I will try again next year -- there will be another swing at inspired strength and other such malarkey from your collection. You can sit on my head and inspire me, and I will try not to cry.

Shorts 4

After a spell of being extremely partial to verse, I have, with the necessary discomfort of familiar change, returned to prose for a while, via another edition of the primarily crowdsourced cue-word based Shorts series. I went through the topics suggested by readers, and have written on two of them  -- these make the first and the third pieces in this post. The second piece in this post is, again, a cue-word I picked myself (Valor and Mystic may or may not follow).

Now, as per tradition, I introduce the contributors of, respectively, the first and third cue-words:

• Aditya, an undergraduate student in CMI, a year my junior. A nondescript man from the nondescript town of Akola, Maharashtra, not much is known of this newcomer except for his unhealthy obsessions with certain (at least three) seniors. In the sphere of mundane details, one can confirm that he enjoys sports (like Volleyball!), likes certain foods (Domino's, Choco Pie, Milano, Amul Kool), and indulges in the mental and pseudo-physical challenges of, respectively, AoPS and Counterstrike.
• Shriyank, of For Shark and Nushki fame, an important friend (and unpaid basketball coach) from my Hem Sheela days. An intelligent man who fought convention to study Humanities, Shriyank was my partner and/or opponent in many a debate, elocution, and schoolyard skirmish -- a tradition we now continue in keyboard wars. Shriyank has a keen taste in culture, literature, rhetoric and humour. He now enjoys growing success in MUNs, and in other Humanities things that the puny Mathematical mind struggles to comprehend.

The third piece is not short in the strictest sense, but I hope that the extra shortness of the first two will compensate.

---------------------

Almost

Your wins are no match for Providence. You would think that a step in the right direction would be worth something, but no. You would think that pretending to be strong, over and over and over again, would finally make you invincible, but no!

There were some who were supposed to live, over and over and over again, and inspire the disciples of metal and grease -- and yet, there they were, left laughing at how ironic the circumstances were. To think that death would come in the form of known loves, to think that the end would be in metal and grease, to think that that is how Paul would go...!

[To Paul Walker, 12/9/1973 - 30/11/2013]

---------------------

Instinct

In the stillness of night, O Master, the world is your picnic ground. The shade is your safe space; the wind is your blanket; and the beating of insects' wings, your music. The path of time that moves is hidden from you in the dark, and the marshland misted from your vision by the silver waters of kings. Far beyond present company, O Master, sacred ground is trodden in your name, and you know it -- and knowing it, you smile, all of ten years, you little angel, you...!

---------------------

Tampon

The time was evening, and the market streets of the small industrial town bustled under lamplight and feet. One pair of these belonged to our hero, who now shuffled along the alleyways purposefully. The streetlights occasionally illuminated his face and costume -- those of an office-goer in his late twenties, raised mundane (conservative?) and middle-class but hurled, gingerly but willingly, into liberalism and its oddities, which included his present task.

Thirty years ago, and perhaps even today to lesser (he felt) men, this task would be daunting and repulsive. He remembered his first time -- how he felt embarrassed and (this one the neo-liberal hated to admit) emasculated. But our hero had learnt that love conquers all, and fighting any residual inhibitions he had was now a labour of love.

This time, however, the task had altered just enough to be intriguing. Unlike the more old-fashioned subject (calling people objects is medieval, J.B.!) of his daily affection, this other devotee of the purple all-nighters was in the middle of attempting what she called The T-Switch -- a paradigm shift worthy of the strong independent woman that this little shit claimed to be. This infernal youngster, more than ten years junior to the girlfriend and him, had decided that she would throw off her apprehension, protest against superstition about virginity, avail herself of comfort in sport and uninhibited swimming... and all in all make both a personal journey and a political statement in her pants, once a month. Only this afternoon, this destroyer of his peace had arrived, and promptly informed the older sister of her monthly troubles (don't call them that, J.B., there's no shame in saying period!). Accordingly, the well-memorized thirty-character string was put on the way-back-home shopping list, only to be promptly removed and replaced by a whole new kind of product -- available, the older female somehow knew, at just one store in the vicinity, (conveniently?) closer to his return route than hers.

Hence our hero now strode, some ninety steps out of his usual way, past numerous shops lined with rainbows of pads, to that one store that stocked the needs of the slightly up-and-coming, in an attempt to woo the growing mall crowd back to the markets -- Hershey's syrup, Oreo cookies, mayonnaise and, in a shelf placed half-hidden in a corner (unlike the pads displayed in full view) five lonely, nondescript packs of tampons, all the same J&J-owned brand.

Now, as a man who bought pads, our hero was used to it all -- the usual vulgar provocations that his female friends knew all too well, plus off-handed comments due to his gender -- all about his perversion, the character of the woman who sent him out, and his speculated relationship with her. Yet, he thought as he walked home with 20 Regulars and 10 Supers, it had never been so much like a drug deal before. Moments after the shopkeeper had handed a pad pack in a brown bag to a woman beside him, our protagonist had walked up with practised ease and detachment, and discreetly pointed to the tampon shelf. To his surprise, the shopkeeper, all while speaking to other customers, had pushed a bag over to him and signalled him to help himself, and then to place the money on the counter and leave -- they had never exchanged a word!

For some reason, J.B., tampons are more scandalous than pads in a country that is slowly coming to terms with the naturalness of menstruation. Yes, somehow, he felt more judgement in buying them, a bigger accusation of perversion, a greater sense of dirt and wrong -- and the more he thought of it, the more he agreed with the young blot that her Switch was, if she wanted it to be, a very viable political statement. After all, you see J.B., they go inside -- and the worst thing a woman can do is put something inside. Inside, thought our hero as he walked home -- the inside we all came from, the inside to be constantly claimed by men and yet deemed tainted by the same men; the inside that allegedly changed so much under penetration that it was imperative to compare tampons and penises... he believed the brat now, actually. It was totally possible, in this country, for an 'educated' boy to have left her over tampons; believing, via an almost criminal amount of ignorance (our hero felt), that it diminished his masculinity and her 'purity' when 'his woman' puts something else up there. It was also possible, actually, for a mother to have slapped a daughter over wanting to try tampons, fearing she was 'knowing certain things' -- though this second one, he was relieved, was a story of her friend, and had not happened to the precious little sister... of his girlfriend, technically.

In his head, though, the young feminist's J.B. (gangsta for Jamaibabu... how did she come up with this stuff?), had dropped the '-in-law' a long time ago. Next time, he thought to himself, he'd ask for the tampons, in words. That'd be fun to watch, and he'd have a story for the blighted little bleeder...

---------------------

Adulthood 8 : Safety

Some selfishness is mandatory.

=========================
Safety

Some water is blue,
Some water is green,
Some water is golden;
Who knows if it's clean?
Some water is black, for
That's all it's ever seen.
Some water is grey, because
That's how it's always been.

Yet water is just water
It has no colour true.
Water will be anything
You want, just for you.
=========================

Adulthood 4 : Routine

=============================
Routine

Snow white, star bright,
Looking in the mirror:
Girl, find your lights;
Keep them nearer

Nights of colours --
There's no prevention.
If it cures you,
Girl, pay attention.

Girl, your daybreak
Needs no sunrise.
Find your own peace --
Your winds will rise;

Drop by drop, girl,
Rise from your ocean;
Dance your bloodlust --
Be superhuman.
=============================

So I am noob. So what? Not gonna give up.

Adulthood 3 : Actuality

More adulthood.

==============================
Actuality

Frankly speaking, human soul,
You will never be machine --
Never precise, forever flawed,
Blurred, scarred, never pristine.

Turn you must, soft soldier mine,
Flat and squat between the cogs;
And never will you be fighting truth
Behind Barbies and Golliwogs

And yet, my sweetest, sleepless self,
Forever and ever will you be strong
For the dead are at your feet
And the dead are never wrong.
==============================

Adulthood 1 : Dearth

New series. If you are failing at adult-ing, and overall being a through-and-through stinky poo, might as well get something deep out of it. Meh.

===============================================
Dearth

Unwashed woman:
Did you ever check how foul
You smell
Or how tired you look?
Women are wary of you
And tired, sweaty men,
(Perfectly good men, attracted to you!)
Are disgusted when they come close.
Woman, you are unclean;
You come back every night
Smelling of a different man
And the occasional nightly drink.
You look stale, spent, used -- and you are.
Stale, spent, used, that is.
Need you have given yourself
To every man (and woman!)
Who had asked for you,
Who had asked of you,
Who had just, just asked?

Need you have told the boy
That he could come again,
Need you have told the man
That he could call again,
Need you have told the two women
That your doors were always open?
Need you, woman, come to your bed
Smelling of tears that you do not own,
Reeking of sweat from others' troubles
Slathered in laughter you extracted
Out of the mouths of adolescents?
Need you, sister, mother, lover, wife?

Be, above all,
Woman, woman.
Take a bath, brush your teeth, comb your hair;
Or next time, he won't look.
Next time, she won't come.
Next time, he won't call, she won't hug,
He will find another lap and shoulder,
You will not save any more men,
You will not help any more men,
You will not make any more women feel loved
Or any more children feel
Like a man or a woman;
Next time
They will find someone who loves themselves
Better.
(Yes, again,
Again they come to you, but
Surely not next time?)

Woman, how can you do it?
Unwashed, unclean, and uncaring
Your hair in knots (they might as well be short!),
Your feet un-groomed (they could be so pretty!),
Your body reeking (fetishized, but still!),
Your brain sleep-deprived (you know what they think?) --
How can you bear
The burden of pains
Entirely not your own
Night
After night after night (like some common woman)
And still be woman (even human maybe)!

Suppose then, stubborn woman, 
That you can and you do;
That your body odour somehow has something to do
With saved lives, healed hearts, and such --
But still, woman
Must you reek of those whose pains
Are not the ones I tell you of?
Must I feel them run through you?
Should you not hide them away?
And while we are at it, woman,
Must you always, each and every night,
Smell of that stale caffeine?
===============================================

Unrealistic expectations of emotional labour from female and feminine-presenting people; notions of symbolic purity; marginalisation of the 'unclean' woman. Go.

Shorts 2

As I requested in the previous post, my LoudSpeak Listeners have come up with more cue-words for me to write about. Admittedly, not all of these are very short, but compared to the 1500+ words of rants I come up with when left to myself, I'd say they were microscopic.

The pioneering cue-word contributors of this series are:

• Sonakshi, a Physics research scholar from my college (CMI) who also happily turned out to have been associated with an activity from my far past -- The Statesman Voices. When not Physics-ing, Sonakshi paints and takes wonderful photographs, mostly natural compositions within the CMI campus. Since my first semester at CMI, she has been one of the regular supporters of my literary adventures.
• Nihal, a recurring character in this blog, who I believe needs no introduction to regular readers. To newcomers: Nihal volunteered with the Students' Council of HSMS when I was already a member, in Class 11. In Class 12, Nihal and I earned the top posts in the Council, those of Head Boy and Head Girl respectively. Let's just say he wasn't as bad as I thought he was. Across time and space, though no longer colleagues, we remain great friends.
• Ashmita-di, who I am yet to meet in real life. I know her through her mother who, as a teacher in HSMS, was instrumental to my short student life there. Ma'am introduced me to her daughter because she thought the interaction might be fruitful -- and so it was (only to me, I'm afraid) since Ashmita-di patiently reads everything I post and leaves me advice.

The following are my attempts at expanding their cue-words, in the order in which they are named.

------------------------------

Pencil Box

Sometime in high school, I realised that if I wanted, my mother would buy me that fancy quadruple-decker that came with sharpener and eraser-case, and also magnet, compass, pinball, vacuum cleaner, AK-47. When changing schools in Class 11, she asked me to get a good pencil box for the new school, and I knew that financially, it was no big deal to ask for a properly swanky version of the utility (as long as I didn't ask too often). Yet the swanky pencil box never happened, for there was a snag -- I was way too attached to my (t)rusted free gift from Horlicks. For ages, I carried it through school years and board exams. I leaked ink into it until the stains wouldn't go, I hoarded pencil shavings and spent refills in it during my phase of making art with them; its lid was always the makeshift water holder when we 'legally bunked' class to paint charts for school events. My teachers and fellow students made fun of me for carrying it around and not getting a new one, leaving no holds barred including jabs at my socio-economic status -- and I wondered how I would have felt if I really couldn't afford a new pencil box, and how their behaviour contradicted everything we were taught in school about judging people by how fancy their things were.

Eventually, though carried to college and kept as a box for sketch pens and post-its, the old Horlicks box, now discoloured beyond recognition from the old blue-orange-silver and sports pictures, was finally too beaten up to hold its own against the most basic of travel bumps -- and, guilty of spilling all my stationery into my bag about twenty times (and being too small to hold new grown-up things like a stapler and binder clips which I'd never owned separately from my mother's stash before), the Horlicks box was replaced by a double-decker procured by Maa from Navalur -- a neutral-coloured one with an easily removable (as I promptly did) silly sticker. The new one now accompanies me on every academic trip, and is proudly set beside my pillow in ISI Kolkata, basking in glory that I know to be superficial. The old one sits somewhere in my cupboard in CMI, waiting for me to return to it, as we both know I always will.

------------------------------

Debt

debt. noun.

noun: debt; plural noun: debts.

• a sum of money that is owed or due. "Nihal paid off his debts to me for last week's Diet Chewda and juice". synonyms: bill, account, money owed, amount due.
• (in -- debt) the state of owing money. "Nihal bought me ice-cream, so now I am in his debt for ten rupees." synonyms: owing money, in arrears, overdrawn. antonyms: in credit.
• a feeling of gratitude for a service or favour. "I would like to acknowledge my debt to my friend and former colleague Nihal Singh, for being a steadfast sounding board in tumultuous times, for pushing himself to learn a new job, and succeeding spectacularly in cutting in half the phenomenal workload I had come to expect would be mine as Head Girl of HSMS. While a Head Boy did exist, sorry, buddy, but I underestimated you grossly. I underestimated you as a colleague and as a friend, despite having seen the lengths you go to when you put your mind to something (the poor Samsung Champ still weeps at times) -- jokes apart, while life in CMI and its ups and downs may put you out of my mind at times, you are remembered every time I rally a group of people to get something done, because the best times spent doing that job were as a team, with you. Lives do grow larger, with new knowledge and adventure, new achievements and pitfalls -- for that is in the nature of lives; and try as we may, friendships sometimes spread themselves a bit thin over life's ever-expanding canvas. Yet, a daub here and there via the occasional reunion is enough to prevent it from ripping altogether, given that we hold dear the insurmountable debt that comes with being comrades-in-arms and partners-in-crime, a debt that transcends all repayment, all definition, all clarification. As J.K. Rowling aptly writes (of the lead trio in Harry Potter): 'There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.' While I'd not go so far as to compare our adversaries in Council work with mountain trolls, I dare say that the daily grind and frustration of the rather thankless work we had was another of those friendship-cementing things Rowling mentions." synonyms: obligation, liability, gratitude, appreciation, thanks. "I learned much by working with you, and grew much in having you as my friend -- and so you have my lasting gratitude. As I do every year from time to sentimental time, I now wish you good luck for your life in the years to come -- and since there will be no better chance (I have probably exhausted my creative appreciation skills for the week), I wish you a happy birthday in advance. Thanks for everything, buddy! (Fist-bump)"

------------------------------

Apathy

There are those that are blinded by light, and those that are afraid of the dark, and then there are those whose eyes are forever closed to external stimuli -- not the physical eye, perhaps; no, there seems to be no difficulty in paying the rickshaw-puller, answering emails, fixing a meal, making the bed... and at some point paying the rickshaw-puller again -- but the eye that can find light in souls brighter than one's own, the eye that can selfishly pick out the dark souls to shun for the fear of losing one's own brightness, is glossed over in disuse.
These curiously afflicted ones are creatures of the twilight -- they have minds like empty fields, where unfounded machinations grow. They create emotion for sport and necessity (for they have forgotten how to feel them), to store and use in perfect wisdom. Warmth and touch and ice and flowers are all products of the machine that churns out existence, cog grinding on dreary cog, gliding on the vast knowledge of all that is to be felt in order to be human, in order to make others feel just enough to let you live. There is routine, rules, destinations, deadlines -- and so all can see -- but deep beneath the surface of the creature's mind, unseen to all the world, a perverse glory begins to fester. The creature that is stoic to the world swells inside, the glory of knowing all rising until the superficial joy of understanding the known no longer excites. The shoulders stay squared, the chin stays up, the eyes stay bright and the smile shines like there's no tomorrow -- for so the machine crafts the creature's skin, for so the machine knows the creature has to be -- and so the creature lives, quietly swelling with the glory of impervious nothingness.
At times, of course, there are breaches -- holes that break containment and let in frivolities like seeing, believing, liking, loving, dissecting, debating, understanding -- they are quickly filled in with wisdom, of course, for they are no match for the machine and all the things it knows.

------------------------------

Much thanks to the cue-word providers, and I hope I have done justice to your ideas. As always, more ideas are invited.

Identity 5 : Preservation

==================================
Preservation

Next time a thorn is in your side

Don't hesitate to pull it;

It'll hurt like hell, but soon you'll see
How you've dodged a bullet.

Roses come with thorns, they say,

And redden with lifeblood;

Hence the timid falter

To nip that blooming bud.

When, next time, the light beckons
But you need a place to hide,
Listen no more to trite advice --
Embrace the dark with pride.
Symbols etched in golden hue
Will put your toes to line
But it's worth a few stubbed toes
If the ground is fine.
==================================

Of The Toxic Algorithm of Relationships

What happened to star-crossed lovers? What happened to best friends across borders, brothers and sisters across oceans, kindred souls that meet but once? Definitions are important, and so are geography and the many practicalities of life; but so are our instinctive love and compassion, our ability to care deeply for others sans validation, sans benefit, sans labels and rituals and norms. To avoid hurting and being hurt, our species has succeeded in building a web of etiquette, law and jargon behind which to hide our souls. Respectability has taken undue priority: we seek lawful approval from the abstraction that is social norm for our littlest, most innocent loves and hurts and moments and cares. Over the centuries, we have reached a place where lovers are defined by set patterns of shared commercial over-consumption and a complex tangle of descriptive to define who they are to one another; brothers and sisters are limited to deoxyribonucleic acid and/or outdated sexist ritual; and friends are measured in frivolous similarities of aesthetic taste, homework assignments and entertainment preference.

I am a big fan of self-determination, mutual respect and the politically accurate collective determination that follows. However, I still believe that we all need some people in our lives -- be they friends, family, lovers, anything -- with whom the frequency of contact does not affect care and concern, labels don't affect love, etiquette does not bar us from being as bawdy and/or silly and/or unreasonable as we like! Consequently, I believe that when we find such people in our lives, the validation machine should just let us be. If any definitions and norms we choose to place on ourselves do make it outside, we should simply be believed; and unless we explicitly seek approval, it should neither be offered nor refused!

People I find attractive are not, to me, a string of romantic and sexual encounters coupled with expensive food and dim lighting; and that should be okay. Brothers I conjure out of thin air because I genetically have none don't, to me or to them, mean people to tie ritualistic threads and dab ritualistic paste on; and that should be okay. My friends, to me, don't mean a sequence of parties and gifts and food and notes, as long as we are with each other at bad times...

...and that should be okay.

Identity 4 : Marks

=============================================
Marks

You have seen so many lands
And trod on many stars --
Always bitten, forever shy;
The road has left its marks.

Your father's cuff-links, stained with ink;
Your mother's burning heart
Have made you, destiny's own child,
Your people's work of art.

Marbled glass in dreamlike hues
Hit the ground and squeal;
But, in the cloud of holy smoke,
The Chosen One is still.
=============================================

Net Neutrality vs. Free Basics (and why I use the 'vs.')

I originally posted this on my Facebook timeline. It is reproduced (with added formatting) here to hopefully reach a wider audience. I would also like to request someone to translate this for non-English speakers, who are the target market for Internet.org/Free Basics.

========================================================================

<fact>

Let's clear this up once and for all: Net Neutrality and Free Basics (new name of Internet.org for India!) are conflicting ideas! Anyone who signed petitions for both is under woeful ignorance, I'm afraid.

</fact>

<opinion>

As for which to support, here's my two cents. You can skip it and read the much better explanation in the link, too.

1. Free 'basics' does not include Google, LinkedIn, or any educational/financial/trade websites. It includes Facebook and its partner apps, which allows them to control the 'news', 'information' and 'education' that people supposedly will receive from it. Facebook's version of digital 'equality' is not equality at all since it will give this much to all for free...
2. ...which telecom providers (who will incur the loss, not Facebook, who gain via traffic and ads) will make up for by hiking data rates for everything else. So someone with more money has more access to digital resources in a worse way than ever.
3. Because of the monopoly of a company/companies on information (via agreements of Facebook and partners with telecom providers), the internet will not be neutral and there will be no opposing opinions. The Internet will essentially become China. Our government is right in banning free basics, since it will stifle our voices on the Internet, the only platform still relatively safe to voice our opinions on!
4. What Facebook could do if it had the right intentions: subsidize basic things like Google, LinkedIn and net banking for helping underprivileged/remotely located students, job seekers, traders, etc.; and do this via ads (or even donations, if they really have such kind hearts) instead of changing the way telecom providers charge us.
5. And no, Facebook is not the worst place to share this, but the best, because Free Basics stifles Freedom, something that Facebook originally took to new heights, but now is selling out for capturing the lucrative market of the non-Internet-using Third World population.

</opinion>

<request>

Whichever side you support, please do spread the idea that the two are in conflict!

</request>

Read Kshitij Salgunan's answer to "Should I support Facebook Free Basics in India" on Quora

========================================================================

Of CMI and VYOM

So! As my Facebook followers already know, I thought I didn't get into Chennai Mathematical Institute, but then I did... whew! I'll be leaving for Chennai soon to pursue my undergraduate studies there. Meanwhile I also flew for the first time. In the excitement of CMI and everything else, however, I forgot to write about VYOM 2015, so here goes.

For the uninitiated, VYOM is an annual felicitation programme organised by the Delhi-based coaching institute Aakash for its students who perform well in Engineering and Medical entrance exams. VYOM 2015 was held at Science City Auditorium, Kolkata, on 5th July 2015.

My fellow Aakashians Navonil, Souvik​ and others have already mentioned at length the scintillating Drumscape by Bikram Ghosh and team (too awesome), the medals and 'Proud to be an Aakashian' tees given to the awardees (also great), the massive photo op (not sure if I can be seen in it), and the excitement over the presence of boxing queen Mary Kom to give away cash awards to the top achievers (not-so-exciting for not-so-top achievers). The one important thing that I felt they missed, and on which I would like to elaborate, was the speech by the Managing Director of Aakash, Mr. J.C. Chaudhry.

When MD Sir took the stage, we were all expecting him to congratulate the awardees of 2015, encourage the 2016 batch, thank the faculty and management... all of which he did. But then came the unexpected. This man, who is at the very top of a premier educational institution that churns out so many brilliant students, stood there at the felicitation programme before those very students, and coolly told the achievers that all their achievements meant nothing if they did not become good people who held the hands of the unfortunate!

In today's world that is so driven by career, money, and showing off, I have often felt that academics has lost its true meaning, which is to enlighten people and make them better human beings who contribute towards society. In this line of thought, I have always felt unsupported and alone. But when the very MD of the institution which has goaded me for academic success for two years, speaks of the importance of humanity alongside academics... well, let it suffice to say that I salute this man; that I will remember his words forever; and that for once, I am not ashamed to admit that, despite the ensuing semi-religious rhetoric that would have ordinarily made me cringe, his words drove me to tears.

More importantly, however, I hope that his words humbled those people in the hall, if any, who had let their success go to their heads -- something that is far too undesirably common among humans, especially the young. I also hope that everyone present took his words seriously. I, for one, had always felt that something was different about Aakash's approach to education, and now I know what that is -- it is the pervading spirit of this man, who has his priorities in exactly the right place. Therefore, cheers to you, MD Sir. You da real MVP.

Exam Results, and The Friendship Rant

First, the news: AISSCE 2015 results are out, and I scored 96%. As far as we know as I write this, the highest score in the Science stream from my school is 97.4%, and from the Commerce section, the highest score is 96.2%, from my friend and former colleague Nihal Singh. The newspapers reported today that the highest scorer in the country is a Commerce student from Delhi, with 99.2%; the highest Science scorer is not known to me yet. My congratulations go out to all the toppers as well as everyone else who cleared this very important milestone. The Class of 2015 has come of age, and hopefully we will go far. Now we await the results of our attempts at getting into college. Bystanders and bygones, wish us luck!

Since the last of the competitive exams were done, I have been struck by a crushing sense of emptiness -- though in reality I have plenty to do, especially things that I did less (or none) of in the past few months. I have a pending storybook in my hands; I have a ton of French that I can learn and a ton of Runescape that I can play; and today after a long time I picked up my tanpura. Yet, I feel devoid of a purpose. At the end of Class X, I knew that I was going to spend Class XI in HSMS and Aakash Institute. Now, I have no such certainty. Even if I get a barely decent result in the competitive examinations, I will have a formidable list of colleges to choose from -- and once I get there, I have to take the wobbly first steps towards an adult, independent life. Don't get me wrong -- the prospect of that life does not intimidate me; instead, it excites me that I will have new friends, new knowledge and new experiences. What I do not have is immediate motivation. Sure, career prospects and even the possibility of being able to do some meaningful charity someday is great motivation; but as I leave school life for real, I have no meaningful connections to show for it -- no people whose faces, far away, will give me strength in my future endeavours; no tangible, living representatives of the spirit of youthful idealism that I hope to carry into my life of nascent maturity. To put it simply, leaving school life, I do not have a single friend that I can possibly allow myself to miss.

It is a well-known fact that anything worth doing is faced with stiff opposition, and that anyone worth their salt is never too well liked. A low friend count is a cross I can bear for the path I chose in my school life, because that path was important to me -- and the burden of that cross is much lightened by the few friends I made in passing -- but none to know and trust, none to call at 3 a.m., none that accept me for the exact person that I am and are yet not afraid to be close to me. I revel in solitude, and I've always hated so-called friends who are too clingy, but sometimes I wonder if one absolutely must suffer indignities to one's conscience, privacy and principles to maintain friendships. If it is that way, trust me, I'd rather not have friends -- but sometimes I wonder if that whole 'adjustment' story is bullshit. Adults (technically, I am one now, but bleh) have always told us bluntly that true friends are a near-impossible rarity, and we youngsters grow to believe it. The other day when I visited HSMS and spoke to my class teacher, she agreed with me when I mentioned the improbability of true friendship, and praised my maturity in realizing the truth!

And yes, it is a truth I realized long, long ago. Back in CCHS, I had realized as young as Class II that being betrayed by friends was routine procedure. Right up to Class VIII, each and every year, without fail, I made a new friend in the beginning of the year, who hurt me horribly by the end of it -- with such scathing regularity that I came to expect it in the beginning of every school year. In Class IX, I gave up hope of ever making new friends. In HSMS, I didn't expect a fresh start, at least in this regard, but I was given one nonetheless. I often tell people how, much of HSMS and Aakash was a concise and accelerated version of the CCHS experience for me -- and part of what I mean, is that numerous people flitted in and out of my life in these two years, and bonds were made and broken not in a year, not in a month, but in days, hours and minutes. I made and lost nearly as many friends in HSMS as I had in CCHS. Talk about history repeating itself, and that too six times faster!

No, I wasn't a quiet kid. I wasn't a wallflower, I wasn't timid, I wasn't invisible. I was well known, I was popular among juniors, I held the top posts in the student bodies and everybody knew my name and who I was -- but that was the end of it. Any friendships I had left at the end of my school life died in a series of sad encounters in the days leading up to our Farewell Day, and lastly, crushingly, excruciatingly, on the very day that I bade Farewell to HSMS, and thus my school life. Reconnecting with some of these friends worked out quite well, actually -- but it was never the same. When I look at these people now in photographs, when I hear them now as disembodied voices over telephone, when I run into them at the odd exam centre, I find they've changed, or perhaps revealed some truth about themselves that I had been oblivious to. I find them different -- just like, déjà vu, I found many of my Carmel girls metamorphosing into unrecognizable skeletons of their past selves in post-Carmel meetings. My maturity be praised, I understand all of this as a normal part of adult life -- people can't be forced to like each other, and true friendships don't exist -- and I am ready to accept it if someone can convince me that it is always true: if someone can refute me when I debate that it is still worth my while to try making new friends.

Yes, I know -- I'm an adult, and I'm supposed to have my life all figured out, including my bunch of age-appropriate, status-appropriate, gender-appropriate, culture-appropriate, brand-appropriate friends to show off to myself on some bloody list that I'm supposed to check off I don't know when. But I have no shame in admitting that I actually don't. I don't know how to make friends, and I don't know if trying is even worth my time. What I do know, however, is that I'll never, ever change myself, never ever remain silent against any injustice, never give up even a single bit of my personality to keep myself glued to some friend. I'll never, ever, do all the things I wrote about in that poem. Silence is not the price I will pay for friends, and silence is not what I will expect of any friend that decides to accept my voice.

I also promise, however, that while I will forever be careful, and never too trusting, and never too easy to make friends with, I will never, ever, stop trying to make friends. Because, you see, every friendship I've ever had was wonderful while it lasted. Even the people who weren't who I thought they were, were a joy to me as my imagined versions of them. So no, oh wise grown-ups, while I won't ever endanger my identity for the sake of a friend, I will always remain on the lookout for one -- even if it is ever reduced to a selfish tool of giving me joy. And while I'm at it, I will remember the principle that has always held together my most treasured friendships -- summarized by this C.S. Lewis quote:

"Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: 'What! You too? I thought that no one but myself...'" 

So, past friends, thank you for having been there. Present friends, if you exist, let me know who you are because I haven't the slightest idea; and, world full of potential future friends, here I come!

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I actually have one friend, just one, outside school, outside the country in fact, who has always been wonderful to me despite having never met me in person. This post being about school friends, I didn't talk about you in it, but thank you, +Paige Marie / +SuperPaigeT .  You're a dear.

Image courtesy: Unknown creator via Google Images

Of Heights, Quakes, and How Everything is Wrong

We clawed at walls. We smiled at the world till our cheeks hurt and our lips bled. We did everything right -- to what end? Rickety buses filled with sweat, drudgery and depraved machinations; the morbidly obese sweating at the gym after eating far too much; young people dying because someone, somewhere, does not know better -- and what have we accomplished?

Rumbles of suspicion arise somewhere deep in our brains at every kind word, every kind touch, every holy gesture, because somewhere between the Value Education classes and the deadbeat degree our evaluation of kindness quietly shifted -- from the scale of people served, to the adult and practical yardstick of social points accrued -- and by those measures we give and receive what was preached, to the gullible child by the hypocritical adult, as gainful only in the afterlife. And so we were kind and we are kind, because it helps to be kind. Even if the fear of God didn’t convince us as kids, we’re all so kind, now that we’re grown -- for convenience in this here mortal life. Everybody and their mother is kind in adulthood. Everyone. Not just the pious with season tickets to paradise but atheists like me too. Because it's useful. And so we're kind. So, so kind. Parents are so kind to children that kids don't have to take the trouble of dreaming their own dreams -- don't worry, baby! Mum and Dad lived in the 80s and have a lot of dreams left over from that hopeful era! Here, take them. Fulfil them. Parents will pay for whatever you need to get that done. You just do it. How convenient, right, baby? No need to waste your time being yourself! We're doing you a favour. Just like the government is doing us all a favour! No one has to lift a finger to build an identity. It's all encoded for you by our freely and fairly elected masters. Here are the basic rules that define your identity as an Indian:

1. Government decides what you eat. Don't eat a cow, it's your Mom.

2. Government decides who you have sex with. 'Honey, not now' is something that only men can say in a marriage and expect to be respected. A woman's sexuality is an object promised to her husband by her father who similarly ‘received’ her mother once, so married women beware, you can't be raped by your husband. Because in India, marriage is a sacrament which makes marital rape a non-issue.

3. Government decides who you don't have sex with. Because gender is so binary that all hell will break loose if someone explores outside the extremes. On second thought, we don't understand such sophisticated stuff. You want a reason? Well, because, tradition or some vague thing like that.

4. Women, don't be a woman or you will be raped. Men, if you denounce rape, you are not man enough. Children, there is no such thing as rape. You see, ignoring the very dictionary definition of rape, we believe that she was asking for it.

5. If all of that is difficult, just do as you’re told. SURRENDER NOW OR PREPARE FOR A FIGHT! (Meowth, that's right). Because hey, be grateful you don't live in Syria. At least we don't behead you.

Alright, alright. I'm sorry about the ranting and the discombobulated writing and the fact that the lettering above probably gave you a seizure. But hey, I'm right about the routine, muscle-memory survival summarized succinctly by the movements and conversations of commuters on public transport. I’m right about the hypocrisy in pretending that the luxury of affording good food is not a luxury at all since it makes you fat, as well as the homogenous beauty standards associated with ‘fat’. I'm also right about the pointlessness of parents dictating to children and in turn being dictated to by the powers that be. I'm right about the micro-aggressions we face every day for not fitting into the boxes built around us. You know I’m right.

Before you say it: no, I don't know what to do about it. This is a rambling, whining, selfish, elitist, pseudo-activist piece by a tired young adult who has no idea how to fix the dog-eaten world she inhabits. This is an immature outburst in response to frustrations accumulated over many months of walking on the streets feeling unsafe, navigating online and offline interactions with narrow-minded judgmental dimwits, being irrationally mistrustful of new people because of being hurt and disrespected too many times, and reading the newspaper only to be left thanking my dumb luck that I'm still in one piece.

And yes, this is a rant about everything that's wrong around me, and it’s triggered by survivor's guilt – because Anik Mukherjee, my senior by a year from Hem Sheela Model School, a troubled guy, a flawed guy, and an extraordinary aesthetic, comedic and literary talent who I had the privilege to know and watch performing live, recently succumbed to the crisis of dreams versus conventional careers, and committed suicide -- late last week.  Pragmatically speaking, I am saddened, grieved even, and my thoughts are with his family who must be going through hell right now. On a less pragmatic note, however, the only thought running through my mind is what this all is worth. Anik was a rebel; he didn't walk the straight and narrow. But even those of us who did everything right, as I wrote in the beginning -- what do we get? On good days, we get financial security and false bliss, with a faint hint of regret for having never rebelled. On bad days, the pathetic nature of our robotic existence hits us like a block of ice to the face and we fall into a damaging periodicity of low self-worth and bully-like egotism -- essentially either pulling ourselves down, or rising up by pushing down on others – and so on and on it goes. Our consolation is that some unknown heights are reached in the process. Some unreachable correctness is apparently achieved when we let our lives be copies of a set template. Some comfortable predictability, some spinelessness mistaken for likeability, some ingratiation of the world at large -- that's what we get. That, and the fact that young people die.

Because someone, somewhere, prefers that one or two youngsters die if only to reinforce in the minds of the others that they are being so very strong by doing exactly what is told instead of giving in to weaknesses such as dreams and individuality -- and thus a generation is born who make fun of two friends for discussing the loss of someone they knew (yes, that happened) because it's so funny and so stupid and EHMAHGERD TOO LOL that the idiot killed himself, ROTFL such a wuss. "Oh, look at me, I've never dreamt, never built anything beautiful. Look at me, because it took me such strength to conform and never say enough. I'm gonna be an engineer and my Momma will love me more and cook me bigger pieces of chicken..!" Well guess what, strong-man dear -- Anik lost a battle. You never fought. I wish he were alive, because he was nice to me while you are horrid to me. I’d have him alive and you dead any day.

Sounds harsh, I know, but those are my words for those who ridicule suicide victims. It's a lapse of judgement -- a fatal lapse of judgement -- but it means that the person did something, be it good or bad, to land themselves in deep enough trouble, so there. The strongest are the ones who came back from the brink. The weakest are those who don't know what it's like to be criticized and made to feel worthless. Those who, unfortunately, tip over the edge are somewhere in between. Because:

“It's not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren't doing it.” -- Terry Pratchett

So yes, with many apologies to my readers, I will be irrational today. I will be a pseudo-activist today and you can judge me all you want from the great heights you've reached in your quest towards homogeneity. Speaking of those heights, Congratu-fricking-lations to you.

Don't get me wrong. I am probably on the way to a deadbeat degree -- fortunately, for the better part, not because of external pressure but because my academic tastes happen to be conventional. But at least I know that it's much, much harder, and not weak or lesser at all, to be doing something different. As for the non-academic stuff, I know exactly what it's like not to fit in -- and as I said, it's my dumb luck that I'm in one piece. No pedestal here for me to stand on!

Today there was an earthquake here, again – thankfully yet again non-fatal. Now, as anyone with half a brain would, I'm not partial to earthquakes. However, I wouldn't mind a non-fatal earthquake once in a while, especially of the metaphorical kind -- because we as a society, we as a country, we as a species, need a mad shaking up from time to time. Our fake heights need to crumble, our veneers need to be rudely torn, our sense of mortality needs to be reinforced, if we are ever going to get real about how pathetic all of this is getting.

Ergo, we need a quake. A significant one.

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For the sake of preservation, here is a link to my original Google+ post reacting to Anik's death. Feel free to talk about these posts, or not. Thank you for putting up with me.

The Spirit of New Year's

Image Courtesy: globzer.com via Google

When the sun rises this morning, the birds won't know the difference. Neither will the trees, insects, cats and dogs, or for that matter the rivers, streams and rocks. Even the sun and the earth won't know the difference, which is ironic because all the hullabaloo is because of the earth completing a full revolution around the sun -- they won't know the significance of the specific point on the earth's orbit which we pick as a cut-off for our calendar years. In fact, if we look at it, that point varies across cultures, and many New Year celebrations exist outside the dominant Gregorian calendar system. Even within it, time zone differences mean that the same moment is not shared as the defining one between revellers across the globe. Sad, isn't it? It can almost make one feel that this entire New Year ruckus means nothing. Yet, New Year's festivities constitute one of the earliest kinds of celebrations in the history of human civilization. This tells us that, aside from noticing the repetitive nature of season cycles and using it as a measure of time, humans have felt the need to document and commemorate their entire lives in terms of this cycle: appraising their lives in terms of tasks accomplished in one such cycle, and treating each one as a new chance at the same seasons and the same conditions, providing ample scope for alteration and improvement based on lessons learnt from the bygones. The reason we love New Year's Day so much is that it represents fresh chances -- which, while invigorating, is not entirely true, because in our complex lives, not everything comes back every year.

No one knows who first decided to celebrate the periodic repetition of weather conditions. I like to think that someone sitting in a prehistoric cave felt cold, or hot, and started counting days until the same feeling returned after an intervening period of different weather of all kinds, and then noticed that it is regular. I like to think that this realization of regularity was quickly followed by a realization of the finality of hope -- a realization that no matter what, favourable times and weather conditions will return, and that long winters and long summers are actually never longer than stipulated, and that the worst will always pass -- and thus New Year's Day was born. The flip side, though, is that the same person probably also realized that just like the worst, the best will also not stay for long.

Amidst this New Year revelry, I would like to be the voice of reason, and point out that while motivating oneself using New Year's hope, and pledging to make changes, and of course having fun, are all very well, one must recognize that changes are never made abruptly at the stroke of midnight, opportunities do not replicate themselves year after year, and that New Year's actually signifies time passed -- time lost, not time gained. So, while it is wonderful that we are the only species on this planet hopeful (and intelligent) enough to celebrate New Year's Day, it is perhaps prudent to understand that the exact day does not matter as much as the idea of it does. We could pick any random day in the year for this. In multicultural India, we already have a bunch of different New Year celebrations. What they all have in common is the human intention of appraisal and improvement -- an idea that, while reinforced on this festival day, should permeate our lives every day.

To put it differently, we don't know at which point the earth started revolving around the sun. We don't know at which point our planet was when the first life form or the first human was born. We have no decisive zero from which to start measuring our years. Which means that, if we want it to, every day marks the beginning of a new year in some sense: maybe not as 'Happy' a new year, but a new year nonetheless! So I say, let New Years' Day be less about the day itself, and more about the spirit of human hope and our constant efforts not just to survive, but to live and live well, as individuals and as a species. Let 1st January be a day to honour Time, the only resource beyond our control -- let it be about making fruitful negotiations with Time to make the best of its fleeting nature.

In short, we can't party every night, but let tonight's party be an expression of a yearlong drive to make Time give us all it can, preferably make it suffer for all the limitations it places on us -- because we humans are boss like that! So do keep smiling, keep working for the better, and be grateful for the opportunity to understand New Year's -- unlike the birds, the animals and the trees, who will never know why none of us are sleeping tonight. Happy 2015!

I Felt This Was Necessary

It takes immense maturity, and is a desirable characteristic of civilization, to hate the sin and not the sinner. However, there are numerous instances in which, that intellectually charged sense of heart-wrenching fairness becomes a vehicle for excuse-mongering in favour of convenient injustices. What then? In the face of a rampant social evil, is the sympathy-based correctional approach at all fair, or for that matter, effective?

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Blame

It's not his fault, they told her--
Blame his parents, his childhood, his home,
But not the poor boy.
His mother probably didn't teach him well.

So she forgave him, and prayed for his soul.
Not being its fault either,
She let his godforsaken child live:
Hated the kid all her life, but raised him, fed him.
Even took him to see his blameless father;
Sent him to school, where one day he knew.

He turned sixteen:
Decided it was his time to emulate Father.
Many saw him, and kept quiet.
Mother saw him, but kept quiet,
And she prayed for his soul
Because perhaps she hadn't taught him well.

And that's what they said to the girl.
Who, history repeating, let it live.
The guilty mother saw the signs one day.
Decided to make right her sin,
Took a blade to the girl's throat,
Went to jail for misplaced mercy.
The sixteen-year-old blameless son
Watched her shackled departure in disgust.
His child, his blameless child, he thought.
His innocent creation in the belly of his prey.
A boy, he had hoped.
Just like him inside his mother.

What a shame!
So he went out to make things right.
Few nights later, one of them screamed.
This time everyone saw.
Elections approaching, this time,
The many-coloured flags rose in protest.
Also some candles, black arm bands,
Journalists, columnists, analysts.

But one wise old man said,
It's not his fault.
His mother didn't teach him well.
What a tainted mother anyway, to let him live --
And gladly the old man repeated events
To those not in the know.
The old man's wife reminded him, helpfully:
Not just that, husband --
Remember how she killed that girl?
Of course the poor boy's not to blame;
To have a mother like that, poor thing.

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This poem is a product of many people, on many occasions, encouraging me to understand the greyer shades between black and white, and appreciate the reasons behind crimes committed. In response, I have chosen to write, and I've picked the foremost criminal issue in India which was also the last issue I discussed with someone along those lines -- the continuum of sexual aggression against women, from harassment, to domestic violence, molestation and rape. While a lot has been said about fixing the grassroots and changing mindsets, which I respect and even agree with, I will never support the utterance of these ideas in the immediate context of a crime. With all due respect to campaigns like #startwiththeboys , and the women and men who want to change the attitudes at the origin of crime, we cannot expect a victim, or even her immediate family, to appreciate the reasons behind the crime. Doing so trivializes the victim's ordeal and shifts focus from her trauma. Once the crime has been committed, once the basest human dignities of a person have been trampled upon, there are no shades of grey -- it is black and white. 

All crimes, sex crimes included, are a product of troubled pasts and wrong teachings in some form -- but let that not become an excuse. Once committed, the primary action must be punishment -- harsh punishment. Campaigns are for potential criminals, not hardened ones who are already desensitized -- and even if convicts are to be reformed, it can hardly be done in a day, and is best attempted inside secure facilities. Let us not be so concerned about being fair to the perpetrators and protecting their rights that we forget the justice we owe to the victim.
(Speaking of victims -- let us not subscribe to the voyeuristic idealization of the 'shamed victim' picture. Let us offer the kind of support that encourages a victim to be strong and move on, instead of defining her by her ordeal for the rest of her life.)
The secondary theme in the poem, and the reason I chose to write about the mother, is a simple and direct reaction to this:

"Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. Always." -- Nana, in Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns.

That book, along with its predecessor The Kite Runner, are some of the rawest stories of systematic social injustice that I've read. More on that later, hopefully clubbed with the discussion on And The Mountains Echoed, which is next on my reading list.
Meanwhile, #startwiththeboys , but lets not make a victim live with the humiliating knowledge that the perpetrator has received lenient treatment or, as is often the case, has gone scot-free. Men who consider women less than human, should receive a taste of that same humiliation. Domestic violence is non-negotiable. Harassment is non-negotiable. Molestation is non-negotiable. Rape is non-negotiable. It is black. Very black.

Whoa. Burn.

That's not a post title I'm proud of, and when I found out partway into Dan Brown's Inferno that his primary historical inspiration this time was Dante's Inferno, I immediately judged that the book was rather unimaginatively titled. Without risking a spoiler, I can say that the element of the plot which is called 'Inferno' appears to be named rather poorly as well, in context of the allegorical relations to Dante's work -- unless we consider the deep symbolism in that old masterpiece, which the common reader, unfamiliar with Dante except in name, will find difficult to grasp through its treatment in this book alone. Then again, of course, Langdon is a symbologist, so maybe the symbolism should be important.

For the first time, my
own copy of Inferno, not
a picture off the internet;
with my hand for proof!

Brown's fourth Langdon story had been on my reading list since it was published, and I finally got to it last week. A novel of its length and pace would take me a maximum of three days earlier, but given my altered schedule I had less hours per day to read -- which means it took me four; and for three of those four days, I was disappointed and nearly bored. Almost everything was predictable, with a little concentration I could see through nearly everything, and as usual Langdon was running around with a younger woman of academic background who had begun to feel warm and fuzzy towards him -- till then I wasn't impressed with the plot, and the small reference mistakes that one can condone in researched thrillers of this kind began to grow big in my head and irritate me to no end.

The consolation, however, lay in the fact that this time, Brown had brought forth richer imagery, better language, more variation of style, better gelling subplots -- and so, lacking thrill, I delved into the technicalities of the thriller. I noticed how, this time, the balance between science and history typical to Langdon stories was tipped heavier towards science than ever, and that gave me some warmth, being a student of Science myself.

Perhaps it is unknown or even unthinkable internationally, but it is a fact that Indian litterateur snobs had criticized Brown's work as cheap, old-wine-in-new-bottle thrill, and drawn comparisons with 'mature' writers like Rushdie and Jeffrey Archer -- comments and comparisons that I always considered baseless and foolish but was hitherto unable to counter adequately. As such, I began gearing myself up to point out all the technical improvements in Brown's work in this post and in my conversations with fellow readers. Suddenly, however, on day four, Brown smashed so many twists in my face that it felt like he was holding it all in for the rest of the novel to dump it into the last third of it. I forgot all about the technicalities, started feeling utterly stupid, went red, broke a sweat, did a dance, tweeted about it, and then sat down to read again -- burn, critics; burn, smart-asses -- Brown just upped his game. You know how they say good writing is about being unafraid of vulnerability? Well, if not really himself, Brown made his protagonist Langdon more vulnerable than ever in this novel, sometimes to the point of appearing clueless and puppet-like, and that gave his story new places to go : the fact that Langdon's vulnerability opened up Brown's writing makes me wonder more than ever about how much of Langdon is Brown's alter ego. I, for one, have always felt that the greying hair and well-tailored clothing are, um, inspired, which is why I've never reconciled with the screen version of Langdon.

Reading Inferno, my first lasting reaction was to rethink my choice of picking French as a fourth language instead of Italian, though both are available, among others, on DuoLingo, because this book has more unexplained Italian than The Da Vinci Code had of unexplained French. The second lasting impression was from a gender equality standpoint -- mostly of a female lead who is, for a change, partially outside of stereotype, but not quite enough. The lead woman this time essentially works independently and does not conform to the expected appearance, but I would like to see a character who is a person first and a woman second. The other strong females in the story are also too far defined by their femininity in some way or the other -- this is something common to Brown's Langdon novels, and absent or inconspicuous in the others. Whether Brown feels the need to design them this way to protect Langdon's masculinity or something stupid like that, I do not know. Also, in this book and previous ones, I dislike how Brown always prefixes the gender of unnamed female professionals. He writes 'female technician', and simply 'technician' for males. It seems to further the idea that the nature of the profession is affected by gender, or like being female is a part of the job description, thus making it different from the 'normal', male version of the job -- it sounds like a clarification or even an apology. I'm all for a healthy mix of equally strong and important male and female characters -- otherwise all this I'm saying wouldn't have a point -- but I think the pronouns should do the defining. It shouldn't be so, that unless specified, the person is male; unless specified, gender should be just that -- unspecified, and if it's a character who comes in for one line as a part of their job in the story, why does the gender matter anyway?

Third, I found the the characters better fleshed out this time, as if Brown paid more attention to them. We are given deeper insight into a larger number of characters besides Langdon, complete with better back-stories and more page space given to their individual thoughts and feelings. They are also more indispensable to the story this time. This, combined with the science-leaning narrative and the relative departure from a Langdon-centric approach makes this story more similar to Deception Point and Digital Fortress than the other Langdon stories -- I always felt that except for being a secondary character, Tolland in Deception Point could be, with a bit of reworking, be replaced by Langdon.

The most lasting impression, however, is of the impact of this book's ending. All of Brown's novels, especially the Langdon ones, have left me with new insight and new moral dilemmas, but the endings have not threatened to change the nature of life as I, or as we, know it. Even issues relevant to modern life have been conclusively put to rest, at least within the scope of the story. But this time, the issue and the ending are especially chilling because the issue is the realest yet, and the ending would have had serious repercussions on everyone's life had it been true. It is a new kind of ending, with a new kind of exit sequence for Langdon, which Dan Brown veterans will find a pleasant surprise.

And yes, the last word. If not for anything else, do read the novel for its last word.