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.

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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]

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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...!

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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...

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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

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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.

You're Mean

Bookkeepers, bets and gambles, risky investments, desperate choices. I am a statistic. I am someone's project, I am someone's way to live their dream, someone's card out of the rut. I am someone's point to prove or disprove, someone's shortcut to fortune, and the receptacle for someone else's self-loathing.

When I was weak, when I was but a seed, they made me strong, yes? Cold water, stinking animal shit, painful cuts, etcetera? Pruned to help grow, they say-- oh, I see, so that's what it was -- and I must pay. My opinion of their pruning be whatever it may, I must pay -- for being sneered at, for being lied to, for being manipulated and dragged into none-of-my-business feuds, I must pay. I must pay with lifelong thanks, with folded hands. I must pay in infinite gratitude.

Bringing out my inner potential by convincing me that I had none at all? Cool story. I believe you. I am where I am because of you, eh? Well, though I don't know where exactly that is supposed to be, hey, I believe you. If this goes well, it's all you; if it doesn't, it's all me -- per public trend, and per tradition of this here glorious country.

If this goes well the sweets are on me, for you. If this goes well the applause is for me, but I'm supposed to deflect it towards you. Oh, and, the respect is for you, the feather-in-résumé is for you. If this goes well, some four to six years of tolerating more people like you is for me. Still, if this goes well, I stand to gain, you say. Well, by force of habit, I believe you.

I believe you, and I bless you. I bless your automobiles, your smartphones, your children's educations, their new clothes -- all paid for by my willingness to let you, essentially, be paid for being mean to me. No, it's not a sacrifice that you made! It's not a sacrifice if you, well, sacrificed nothing for it, and are working the best-paid job you could get. It's not a noble profession as per tradition if nobleness is no longer considered a requirement before allowing you to get into my head.

Yet, I believe you when you say I must pay, because that's just me -- and pay I will. Whichever way this goes, whether I buy you sweets or not, I bless you and your goddamn life -- and your ugly car, your stupid phone and your children who  you are, probably, already raising badly.

So consider that your payment, you, uh, you... well, ugh. This blog is supposed to be PG. So here:

Thomas Mann, You Sneak!

Image Courtesy: Google Images
ie. the picture is of a copy
identical to mine, and not of
my actual copy.

I recently finished an anthology of stories by Nobel Laureates, which I received as a token of felicitation from my school for qualifying for NTSE. It had been a while since the last anthology I read before this (another Nobel Laureate one, from Mom), and I found it strangely exhausting, having to read so many stories to finish just one book. I've realized that it is the storyline which grips me, not the desire to finish the book. In the course of finishing the anthology I had some wonderful moments of predicting the outcome of stories, which as always made me feel clever. I had some more moments when I was able to mentally compare the work of an author to something else by them that I'd read before -- it made me feel very well-read.

The most exhausting part, though, was reading Thomas Mann's novella Death In Venice, which takes up nearly half the book's volume. When I started the book, I expected short stories and stories, not novellas -- which took me by surprise when this piece refused to end. Then I remembered that the introduction mentioned it as a novella. So I had to persevere, and to put it frankly, in this case the desire to finish the book was what fuelled me to read through it. Being unexpectedly long, its intellectual challenge (and the requirement of constant Googling to get all the inter-textual references), which I usually consider part of the enjoyment of reading, began to feel like a chore. The central character was arguably the creepiest central character in the whole book. The introduction says that the object of the central character's near-criminal creepiness is inspired by a real person, who I feel sorry for. The novella was good, but by the ending I was too tired to be moved by finer things like subtlety and understatement, which is probably why I didn't enjoy the ending all that much. Once I finished that one novella, I had a surge of false gratification which was cruelly dashed by the sight of the remaining thickness of the book, but I got through it; and I must say, after many full-length novels, an anthology was refreshing.

The last story, like in almost any other anthology or compilation I've ever read, was the most psychologically disturbing and confusing. I've never ever comprehended the closing story of an anthology to my satisfaction, barring the ones prescribed as schoolwork, and this one was no exception: even Google could not help me. The story was Il Tratto di Appelle by Boris Pasternak. The scariest story was John Galsworthy's The Silence, and the most intriguing concept, for me, was in Anatole France's The Red Egg. I was pleasantly surprised by The Musician by Selma Lagerlof, because her The Rattrap is in my school text this year. As always, it felt good to find India's own Rabindranath Tagore on the list -- this book contains his Artist, which I faintly remember reading in the original Bengali a long time ago, somewhere. The most predictable story for me was The Hack Driver by Sinclair Lewis, but only because this kind of story, pioneered by the likes of him, has inspired too many later works and become overdone to the point of being cliched. I can only imagine the ingenuity it took to come up with that without inspiration. Then again, who am I to pick favourites in a long list of Nobel Laureates? Shaw, Tagore, Kipling, Hemingway, Yeats... all the greats, and that's the best thing about an anthology -- at the end of the book, we get to come away touched by the thoughts of not one great author, but many. They leave you stimulated, outraged, emotional, sympathetic, enthused, inspired -- not to mention more knowledgeable and mature. To more anthologies!

On second thoughts, The Hack Driver wasn't the most predictable for me, in the literal sense. The Sardinian Fox, by Grezia Deledda, was in common with the other Nobel Laureate anthology that my mother gifted me, and I clearly remember being very disturbed by it at the time. I still did reread it, and this time it outraged me much less than the last time -- back then when I was younger, the concept had seemed far more dreadful and the twist far more, well, twisted. Whether I should attribute that to maturity and age or prior familiarity with the story, I don't know. I could also attribute it to the desensitization by all the way more outrageous things contained in this book.

Now I'm thinking I should probably re-read that other book sometime. I might find more stories in common, or more stories to be outraged by, which I don't remember because I didn't understand them then. By the way, I'm too tired to give hyperlinks for all the works listed above. Google them if you're interested. Seriously people, do your own work sometimes -- I'll catch up with y'all later.

The change you want, All or Nothing... you game?

The regional newspapers have been cribbing on about taxicab drivers in Kolkata refusing passengers despite the no-refusal directive and charging rates exceeding the metered fare. From time to time, reporters go undercover as potential passengers, exposing these violations and photographing the offending drivers. The responses of the drivers appearing on these features range from the apologetic ("...I didn't know the rules, never again...") to the defiant ("...I have the number of many police constables, you want them?") but the middle order comprises drivers who, usually politely, justify their violations with stories of police and political forces demanding bribes for their regular parking and plying, the costs of which they must recover from the passengers. "Please understand, we're poor people...", say the younger drivers; the older, disillusioned ones replace the entreaty with a resigned accusation: "You rich people don't get the troubles of the poor".

Meanwhile, the situation remains unchanged, and most passengers comply with the drivers' wishes because, simply put, who has the time to argue? The worst hit are people like us who go into the state capital on limited time to avail facilities missing in our hometowns: everything from medical care to examination centres. We're on the clock, far from home, dragging luggage, hungry, and want whatever we're there doing to be over fast: so we shut up and pay, and end up contributing to the problem -- something that my family and I have done countless times. On a day trip to Kolkata today (yesterday, by my watch), we did it again. The driver, on enquiry, gave us the middle order's answer, even pointing out to us the guy who charged them for access to the exhausted passengers fresh off the long distance buses. "From where shall we recover those costs? From you, obviously, right?... You get it?" And of course, we got it.

No, people, I shall not lecture you on how change begins from one person, how each one of us should stand up against wrongdoing, that our righteousness will inspire others and create a movement... nuh-uh. It's bull, eh? Though that has happened in history, it usually takes a lot of bleeding to stir people up that much. For small things like taxicabs, the balance of probability is towards the harassment of the minority with courage and/or too much time on their hands, while the complacent majority feeds the moral decay. As idealistic as I am, I know that going against the flow is tough, real tough, and never ever will everyone, at once, have the courage or the resources to do it...

...and therein lies the problem. Having established that never ever will everyone rise up at once, we circle back to the situation where someone has to begin, but who will it be? (I'm assuming here that the people who are okay with the status quo, ie. the 'chalta hai' population have stopped reading this by now). Will the taxi driver endanger his livelihood to face the corrupt cop or will the out-of-town passengers with a patient in their midst wait for a metered taxi?

From Kolkata to India, if you please: will Hindus stop saffron activism and live in fear (be it rational or not) of being wiped off the land, or will Muslims give up their self-respect and relent to the incessant discrimination and branding as 'terrorists'?

From India to the world now : Will the developed nations give up their nuclear arms to set a good example, hence risking terrorist attack, or will the small fry stop testing theirs to keep outward peace, as unfair as that may be?

I presume you get the general idea.

No one will act first. Ever. On the other hand, everyone will never act at once, because everyone fears that if they act, they might be the first to do so. The only thing that will bring any change is the very unity that, if it ever existed, stands destroyed by fear and mistrust. We all know what we want : we want morality, reform, justice; and we take every opportunity to complain about the lack thereof. The mathematically impossible occurrence of everyone putting their foot down at once is the only thing that can get us all that we want, but its impossibility lies in the fact that there simply must be a small lag: someone has to, even if by an infinitesimal time interval, go first. And once that hurdle is overcome, someone has to go second, which is almost as difficult to do, because 7 billion something minus two is still 7 billion something, and the minority will remain a minority for 3.5 billion and something precious infinitesimal moments, integrating into quite some time. The reform gamble, if won, will be to the world's benefit; but if lost, it will crush the brave minority and set back all progress made. Now, which fool will risk personal crushing to save the world, especially if they have the option to spend a few extra bucks, tell a few grey lies, and scrape through life?

No one, you say, and I kind of agree, which is why, as promised, this is not a lecture. I'm just saying, y'know, that the big names -- Gandhi, King, Lincoln -- all braved the gamble and went first, and won. Countless others, of course, played at the same gamble and lost, which is why we don't know their names, but they did exist. And after the firsts, many gambled to be second, third, fourth. Some got lucky, some suffered death and worse. Most of us, though (me included, because this is not a lecture, remember?), do nothing and stay safe. So here we are: the changes I want, you want, everyone wants, will happen if someone goes first, just infinitesimally first, but other people may or may not gamble to be second, or if someone does, there might be no third. But, despite how much you are hating me right now, please do face this: deep inside we all measure people by where they come in that gambling order, by how many infinitesimal moments away they are from the one that went first. We will respect the 100th gambler a little more than the 101st; we will honour the nuns who refuse to bribe cops for charity permits a wee bit more than we honour the lawyer who represents them pro bono, because the former gambled first, without any assurance of anyone like the latter turning up.

And that is why I'm just casually pointing out that it's an open gamble for anyone who's game, the stakes being all the reform we yell for, and for respect from our fellows. So, y'know, if you're one of the rich people who does not like being accused of not understanding the problems of the poor, or one of those world peace lovers or something... no pressure, just think about the possibility of jumping in. You think, and I will think too, and maybe one of us will have the guts to place our bets. Just saying. Because as of now, it's bleak and we kind of are doomed, so just, y'know, hopin'...

Afterthought... should we all just take a break from everything, Pablo Neruda-style? Is it practical?

Btw, my heartiest congratulations to the new Government of India, the new ruling party, and the new PM Mr. Modi. You have the country's mandate, and five years to show us if you have the heart to gamble for reform. You also have no room for error -- if the Modi sarkar fails after all this hype, janta maaf nahi karegi. So good luck, and Jai Hind.

Infinite Awesomeness

Yann Martel's 'Life Of Pi' is an amazing novel I picked up at the school library. Much heard of, finally read. The detailed story deserves to be found out on its own, but I can tell you that it begins with the writer writing in first person, mixing fact with fiction to talk about an encounter with a man who directs him to the protagonist Pi, saying that his story would make the author believe in God. The writer follows the lead though with little conviction as to the story's quality: his compulsion being only his writer's block. Pi tells the author his story, and the extraordinary narrative that follows is mostly in the form of Pi's delightfully vivid reminiscence, again in first person, interrupted at times by the author's commentary on Pi, his home and his family that he sees before him in the relative present. Pi is 'now', an Indian-born Canadian citizen, married to a woman of Indian descent, and with two children. The symbols of faith in his home reflect no particular religion or belief system, but that of multiple religions: Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. This peculiarity of faith, as we come to know later, happened to him early in life, in the happy young phase, before his life-changing adventure crept in.

The cover in which I
read the book

In the first part, Pi talks of his life in Pondicherry in South India as son to a zookeeper and his wife, little brother to Ravi the cricketing hero, nephew and disciple of an ace swimmer; an ace swimmer himself, Piscine Molitor Patel is named after the Piscine Molitor swimming complex in Paris that his uncle was extremely fond of. Tired of being called 'Pissing' in secondary school, both mistakenly and intentionally, he enforces the nickname Pi for himself in high school right from the beginning. It did lead to 'Lemon Pie', but he even prefers the impersonal and shadowing 'Ravi's brother' to 'Pissing'. Also, he begins a trend of Greek letter nicknames. These and many more are the enjoyable stories he tells of his childhood, some of which are rather ordinary ones, like those about teachers and relatives. He also dispels some myths about animals, and voices his opinions about animals and religion, the two big things in his life. Then he talks of the bombshell that fell on Ravi and him, when in the 1970s tumult in India his father gives in to the alluring prospects of greener pastures abroad. He sells the zoo's animals, which combined with other preparations like paperwork takes well over a year, and then they get on a cargo ship to Canada with a few more of the animals that were to be sold there. And there ends the first part of the novel.

The second part is a shock, with the fifteen-year-old Pi on a lifeboat, trying to rescue Richard Parker, until he realizes they'd be together on that boat, and tries unsuccessfully to prevent him from boarding it. He really can't afford to be together with Richard Parker. Because Richard Parker is a young adult. A young adult weighing 450 pounds. A 450-pound young adult Royal Bengal Tiger. And this tiger is not Pi's only companion. There's a zebra with a broken leg, that the hyena eats, an orangutan named Orange Juice that also the hyena eats, and this hyena is eaten by Richard Parker. Pi spends the rest of his lifeboat days (227 days, a record time) in alternating phases of desperation and resolve. He uses his experiences from the zoo to try taming Richard Parker. He builds contraptions of survival and tries to overcome his navigational ignorance to understand the survival manual completely. He learns to overcome his inhibitions as a lifelong vegetarian to kill and eat marine animals, and makes use of the different devices among the rations that he had never seen before. He even has an extremely surreal adventure on an island of algae (spoilercarnivorousalgaespoiler) with an equally surreal ecosystem. He occasionally writes undated accounts in the notebook he finds among the rations, as he copes with the innumerable travails of being a castaway. His hope of reunion with his family dwindles but never disappears, as on the day he estimates to be his mother's birthday, he sings 'Happy Birthday' to her loudly.

In the third part he finds land, loses Richard Parker and after a harrowing and rather comical interview with the Japanese authority of the cargo ship he was on, he makes a choice to take his insurance money and go on to Canada instead of back to India : he says India has only sad memories for him. Pi since then has grown in foster care, studied at Toronto University with a double majors, and has become a family man.

Some other covers

Life Of Pi is a gripping adventure, that, as one of the reviews says, is 'deceptively simple'. Martel spins a web of fact and fiction, of everyday life and adventure that truly cannot be described as anything other than 'life', however extraordinary it is. It, however, is more than just and adventure. More than a third of the book consists of the first part, which has nothing to do with the adventure at sea. It is a simple account of Pi as he was in India, but it does not feel boring or unnecessary to the book in any way. Somehow, it gels perfectly with the rest of Pi's story, at times with veiled allusions to the adventure, and at other times referring to life in the future in Canada without speaking of the saga in between. It explains a lot about Pi's character, gives a firm base to the adventure and thus does away with plot detours of explanation when the adventure sets in. It shows the sharp contrast between the two, or rather three lives, all the time being enjoyable even as a standalone account of a grown man's boyhood days. It also shows another significance as the story unravels: the very reason Pi stresses on his early life so much is that he doesn't have much to show for it; all memorabilia they carried are at the bottom of the Pacific. He, at one point, says that he cannot remember clearly how his mother looked like. The first part is also the part that has more of the author's commentary on the present Pi, which lessens in the second part to keep the adventure brewing.

In the second part, the dangerous situation sets in with suddenness that one can almost feel mortally. It just drops from nowhere, instead of picking up where part one left off, that is, at the journey's advent. It starts with a time after the sinking and retraces only to give an account of the sinking and some very essential details: Martel wastes no time in giving any details that have no place in the twists and turns of Pi's life; there aren't many necessary details left out in the first part. Then Martel takes to the adventure with gusto, in his extremely realistic style. Pi's plans of survival are often written in the form of lists, even when no list is actually made by Pi in the story. This is a risky device that could very well take away the flow of the story and give a poor impression of the author's literary flair. But Martel tames them and deftly integrates the lists into his narrative, squeezing every possible benefit from them. When there are no written lists, they serve to show that Pi has put his broader thoughts on hold to focus on a very immediate problem. Where there are, they reflect Pi's mental state, like when he takes inventory of everything he has, and in the end includes the animals, himself (one boy...), the boat and the ocean as items in it. He ends this list with the item 'one God', two simple words that show the source of his will to live.

Yann Martel: the novel novelist

Martel takes many more risks: he uses extremely simple language and contradicting emotions, that serve but to make his story more realistic. He weaves extreme surrealism, bordering on science fiction, into a story of realistic adventure. He ventures into statistical improbabilities, like Pi meeting another survivor, temporarily blinded by prolonged sea living just like him, but they only elevate the gripping headiness of the narrative. He jumps genres shamelessly, from happy anecdotes to adventure, to unreal themes, to comedy and all the way back. But never, ever, does the narrative come loose; it only draws the reader more deeply into it, until one is made to laugh or cry, feel despair or exaltation, hope or anguish, as and when the author pleases.

The novel differs from other adventures in being not comprising solely the adventure. It differs in the hero being not at all heroic, lacking much of anything, be it experience, strength, knowledge, or even constant hope and courage. He has the last two in abundance, but they come and go like the storms on the sea. Pi is not hardy enough to be able to make moral exceptions right away: he has to struggle with his conscience to give up his vegetarian ways, to kill another being for his own survival. To boot, he is only fifteen. His only strength is in the simple, unconditional will to live, in prayer and in the hope of reunion with his family that eventually gives way to fond memory of them. Unlike other adventures, Pi hadn't taken even a small risk intentionally, other than the inherent risk of overseas travel. Differently from other adventures but very realistically, the exaltation of deliverance is not very great in Pi's mind. He does not react to finding land except for the disappointment at the inconclusive way in which his relationship with Richard Parker ends, with the beast disappearing into the jungle.

SPOILER In the third part, the shipping authorities interview him in the hospital as the sole survivor. Upon their disbelief of his story, Pi cooks up a more believable version of it and then gives them a choice between the two. He responds wryly to their doubts and their routine questions, and evidently doesn't care much about all of it. Martel's narrative changes tones drastically in this last part. The whole interview is in the form of an audiotape that the author obtained from one of the interviewers. It doesn't have any more of Pi's own words, and ends with the report that this interviewer had handed in: it diplomatically sidesteps details about Pi's lifeboat days, only mentioning in the end the record-breaking 227 days of survival, made more unique by the presence of a Royal Bengal Tiger. /SPOILER

That number pi just goes on and on. So does the awesomeness of this book. A must-read for anyone and everyone. Read it, and see how beautifully fresh and unique the novel is: not one bit of cliche in it. See how wonderfully the novelist has woven together completely diverse ideas into one tight package of excitement and food-for-thought. Truly novel, I must say.

Featured Rollblog 5

Yummy recipes from a wonderful cook. Who is also a cooking examiner in Los Angeles. You don't need to try those recipes to make your mouth water. Just look at the pictures. Any more questions as to why I follow this blog? For the still unconvinced sceptic, it became a Blog Of Note, too. But of course it became one, silly me. What are you staring at? Go there, foodies. Go there, chefs. And others too, because it could very well be the turning point in your gastronomic and/or culinary lives. Where, you ask? Where else, but to In Erika's Kitchen?

Interactive Session with Nobel Laureate

Today at my Mom's workplace, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 1988 Prof. Johann Deisenhofer delivered a lecture on 'Structural Biology -- Achievements and Challenges'. As school students and other people without much background in the speacialised subject were attending, he gave an introduction and outlining of the subject itself, along with examples and diagrammatic explanations of some processes involved. 

He had visited the institute once before, back in 2005. Both the times, he was originally visiting Durgapur as a guest of Hem Sheela Model School, the founders of which, being scientists living in the US, often bring in eminent scientific personalities for the benifit of their senior students.
He was the Chief Guest at the function, while his wife, Dr. Kirsten Fischer Lindahl, a professor of immuno-biology, was the Guest of Honour. The founders of Hem Sheela Model, Dr. R. N. Roy and his wife Dr. Protima Roy were also present at the function.
Being an 8th grader, a lot of it didn't get into my head, but whatever I understood was awesome. At the end of the lecture, senior students from different schools and also the guests voiced their queries during the interactive session.