Random Nonsense

I am a fireball. I consume *myself* and produce fire.
I am older than 'birth' itself. From time immemorial I existed and through the eternities to come, I will.
The fire that burns me and the play of fireworks, are eternal.

Do you buy the above story? If I were you, I wouldn't.
Why bother about eternity dude, Its raining outside and the earth's aroma is enigmatic.

So there! I am just another inconsequential being; just like that raindrop that kissed the earth and vanished!

I AM THAT!

Damned be him that says enlightenment is not easy! Damned be him that says 'you can't unlearn Maaya'. Take my word to it - It is ridiculously easy. One gets ample opportunities to 'realize' it, 'attain' it in one's life. You get a lot of opportunities too, the problem is that you don't pay attention. I did, and here is the truth -

I am that!

I am the screw-er, the screwed and the very act of screwing.

I am That!!


NOW, am I not enlightened?

Logic

If you read the first chapter in a book on ‘Introduction to Logic’ or attend the first class in the first year of a logic course, you learn about these notions. Almost one of the first things you learn is this: there is a fundamental asymmetry in the transmission of truth and falsity from premises to conclusions. Truth is transmitted from premises to conclusions but falsity is not; falsity is transmitted from the conclusion to premises but truth is not. (In both cases, we assume that valid rules of logical inferences are used.) That is to say, if your premises are true and you use valid rules of inference, then your conclusion is also true; if your conclusion is false and you use valid rules of inference then at least one of your premises is false. However, the other way does not hold: you could have false premises and yet draw true conclusions. The falsity of your premise does not make your conclusion false or the truth of your conclusion does not make all your premises (or even one of them) true. This is the nature of drawing conclusions in deductive logics. Because this is the first thing you learn in your logic course, I have also formulated in a simple language.

-- S.N. Balagangadhara

Some quotes - Jerome K Jerome

Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it. Also like the measles, we take it only once. One never need be afraid of catching it a second time. The man who has had it can go into the most dangerous places and play the most foolhardy tricks with perfect safety. He can picnic in shady woods, ramble through leafy aisles, and linger on mossy seats to watch the sunset. He fears a quiet country-house no more than he would his own club. He can join a family party to go down the Rhine. He can, to see the last of a friend, venture into the very jaws of the marriage ceremony itself. He can keep his head through the whirl of a ravishing waltz, and rest afterward in a dark conservatory, catching nothing more lasting than a cold. He can brave a moonlight walk adown sweet-scented lanes or a twilight pull among the somber rushes. He can get over a stile without danger, scramble through a tangled hedge without being caught, come down a slippery path without falling. He can look into sunny eyes and not be dazzled. He listens to the siren voices, yet sails on with unveered helm

-- On being in Love, Idle thoughts of an Idle Fellow


We are all inclined to adopt a similar standard of merit in our estimate of other people. A good man is a man who is good to us, and a bad man is a man who doesn’t do what we want him to. The truth is, we each of us have an inborn conviction that the whole world, with everybody and everything in it, was created as a sort of necessary appendage to ourselves. Our fellow men and women were made to admire us and to minister to our various requirements. You and I, dear reader, are each the center of the universe in our respective opinions. You, as I understand it, were brought into being by a considerate Providence in order that you might read and pay me for what I write; while I, in your opinion, am an article sent into the world to write something for you to read. The stars—­as we term the myriad other worlds that are rushing down beside us through the eternal silence—­were put into the heavens to make the sky look interesting for us at night; and the moon with its dark mysteries and ever-hidden face is an arrangement for us to flirt under.

-- On Vanity and Vanities, Idle Thoughts Of An Idle Fellow

We wish to become rich men, not in order to enjoy ease and comfort—­all that any one man can taste of those may be purchased anywhere for 200 pounds per annum—­but that our houses may be bigger and more gaudily furnished than our neighbors’; that our horses and servants may be more numerous; that we may dress our wives and daughters in absurd but expensive clothes; and that we may give costly dinners of which we ourselves individually do not eat a shilling’s worth. And to do this we aid the world’s work with clear and busy brain, spreading commerce among its peoples, carrying civilization to its remotest corners.

--On Vanity and Vanities, Idle Thoughts Of An Idle Fellow


Are we laboring at some Work too vast for us to perceive? Are our passions and desires mere whips and traces by the help of which we are driven? Any theory seems more hopeful than the thought that all our eager, fretful lives are but the turning of a useless prison crank. Looking back the little distance that our dim eyes can penetrate the past, what do we find? Civilizations, built up with infinite care, swept aside and lost. Beliefs for which men lived and died, proved to be mockeries. Greek Art crushed to the dust by Gothic bludgeons. Dreams of fraternity, drowned in blood by a Napoleon. What is left to us, but the hope that the work itself, not the result, is the real monument? Maybe, we are as children, asking, "Of what use are these lessons? What good will they ever be to us?" But there comes a day when the lad understands why he learnt grammar and geography, when even dates have a meaning for him. But this is not until he has left school, and gone out into the wider world. So, perhaps, when we are a little more grown up, we too may begin to understand the reason for our living

-- Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

"I will not take up your time, dear boy, with telling you what is the matter with me. Life is brief, and you might pass away before I had finished. But I will tell you what is NOT the matter with me. I have not got housemaid's knee. Why I have not got housemaid's knee, I cannot tell you; but the fact remains that I have not got it. Everything else, however, I HAVE got."

-- Three Men In a Boat

My name...

"What am I after all but a child, pleas'd with the sound of my own name? repeating it
over and over;
I stand apart to hear—it never tires me.
To you your name also;
Did you think there was nothing but two or three pronunciations in
the sound of your name?"

-- Walt Whitman

Good Will Hunting

"So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You're a tough kid. And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you... I don't see an intelligent, confident man... I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you're a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart. You're an orphan right?"

Kadapa

కడప అంటే దేవుని గడప. వేంకటేశ్వరస్వామి ఉన్న తిరుపతి కి గడప. ఇదీ ఆ జిల్లా పేరు వెనకనున్న కథ. కానీ ఇప్పుడు కడప, కడప కాదట, వైయెస్సార్ జిల్లా అని మంత్రిమండలి ఏకగ్రీవ తీర్మానం చేసిందట.

సరే తిరుపతి, వేంకటేశ్వరుడు అట్లా ఉండనీ. యోగి వేమన, వీరబ్రహ్మం, ఈరో పెద్దయ్య, అన్నమాచార్యులు, అవధూత స్వామి లాంటి వారు నడిచిన నేల. దాని పేరిప్పుడు వైయెస్సార్ జిల్లా అంట!!

Just like the Greeks and Romans, the Indian race is slowly headed towards extinction! These spineless retards and punks deserve no less treatment than complete annihilation!!

"...a race of dotards, you lose your caste if you come out! sitting down with an ever-increasing load of crystallized superstition...and what are you doing now? promenading the sea shores with books in your hands, repeating undigested stray bits of european brainwork, and the whole soul bent upon gettin a thrity rupee clerkship...is there water enough in the sea to drown you, books, gowns, diplomas and all?"

-- Swami Vivekananda

'De mortuis nil nisi bonum'

'De mortuis nil nisi bonum' - so goes an old adage, meaning 'Of the dead, speak no evil'. That is understandable, why would one want to talk ill of the dead? I mean, whats the point?

Death seems to take people by surprise every time it occurs. It is as if such a thing has never happened before, not in human history!! Well, not all the deaths are treated in the same way, though.  Not less than 1.2 million people die every year all over the world due to road accidents and India's contribution to that figure is a chilling  1.14 lakh per annum. This number is higher than the number of people that die in terrorists attacks in any year.  But unlike terrorist attacks, the road accidents are not so glamorous. 'People don't talk about them at parties' - As Jack Nicholson says! Well, why would people talk about such inconsequential topics? Where is the masala, I ask. There is no religion, there is no heroism, no Jihad, no a superior sense of morality. Why would people talk about it?

Media lionizes and glamorizes some deaths. Politicians, movie stars, cricketers, actresses. A mediocre actor suddenly becomes the greatest actor of the century. An anti-national, criminal politician suddenly becomes a hero. Media praises the rich for *being rich*. Glorifies politicians for *doing their duty*, praises an actor for *Acting*. Because thats what media is all about. It is business. They need a purple cow to sell. They want people to talk about their 'products'.

FUCK media! 

ప్రాగభావమా? ప్రధ్వంసాభావమా?

ఎన్నిసార్లు గుర్తుకుతెచ్చుకున్నానో ఈ పద్యాన్ని. తెలుగు బ్లాగులను అలా ఉబుసుపోక చదివిన ప్రతిరోజూ కనీసం ఒక్కసారి ఈ పద్యం గుర్తుకు వస్తుంది.

అసలే శ్రీనాథుడు. ఎర్రగారం తో సంకటి తిని ఒక పక్కన గొంతు మండిపోతున్నా, గంగకోసం పరమేశ్వరనితో పరాచికాలాడగల సమర్థుడు. అలాంటివాడు వ్రాసిన భీమేశ్వరపురాణం అన్న కావ్యాన్ని రాణ్మహేంద్రవరం పండితులు ఈర్ష కొద్దీ శుష్కవాదాలు చేసి తీవ్రంగా విమర్శించారట. మరి శ్రీనాథుడు ఊరుకుంటాడా? వారినుద్దేశించి క్రింది చాటు పద్యాన్ని చెప్పాడు. పద్యం అంటే అలాంటిలాంటి పద్యం కాదు. వెటకారాన్ని, వ్యంగ్యాన్ని ఇంత కసిగా వ్యక్తీకరించే పద్యం గానీ, వాక్యం గానీ నేను చూడలేదు. కొంచెం సున్నితమనస్కులకు, సంస్కారవంతులకూ పద్యం చదివేక జుగుప్సాకరం గా అనిపించొచ్చునేమో (ఏమో ఏమేమో అన్న ఊహాగానాలెందుకంటే - నేను సున్నితమనస్కుడినీ కాను, సంస్కారవంతుడిని అసలే కాను కాబట్టి). కానీ మనకేమనిపిస్తుందన్న విషయం పక్కన పెట్టి, ఒక్కసారి శ్రీనాథుని ప్రత్యర్థులకేమనిపించుంటుందని ఆలోచిస్తూ చదవాలి ఈ పద్యాన్ని నా సామిరంగా...నా పదకొండేళ్ళ కజిన్ భాషలో - "స్పైడర్-మాన్-కేక!" ( అంటే స్పైడర్ మాన్ అంత కేక అన్నమాట. మావోడు చాతుర్యాన్ని, వీరత్వాన్ని, బాగా నచ్చినవియాల్నీ ఇలా ’స్పైడర్ మాన్’ ల లో కొలిచి అప్పుడప్పుడూ కేకలు పెడుతుంటాడు). ఇంతకీ సదరు పద్యం ఇదిగో, ఇక్కడ:

హంసీయాన గామినికిన్నధమ రోమావళుల్ నభఃపుష్పముల్
సంసార ద్రుమ మూల పల్లవ గుళుచ్ఛంబైన యచ్చోట, వి
ద్వాంసుల్ రాజ మహేంద్ర పట్టణమునన్ ధర్మాసనంబుండి, ప్ర
ధ్వంసాభావము ప్రాగభావమనుచుం దర్కింత్రు రాత్రైకమున్

రాణ్మహేంద్రవరం లో పండితులు అలా ధర్మాసనం మీద కూర్చుని ఏ రీతిన చర్చిస్తుంటారయ్యా అంటే - "హంస నడకల కామిని దిగువ భగాన ఉండే రోమాలు(శష్పాలు) ఆకాశపుష్పాలు - అంటే అభావరూపాలు. రతికేళిలో వాటీ ప్రాముఖ్యం శూన్యం. సంసారవృక్షానికి మూలమైన చిగురు జొంపైన ఆ ప్రదేశం లో ఏర్పడిన అభావం ప్రధ్వంసాభావమా లేక ప్రాగభావమా? అంటే ముందుగా లేకుండుండుట అభావమా? లేక పుట్టి నశించడం అభావమా?"

అదీ సంగతి!!

అన్నట్టు "గామినికిన్నధమ" ఈ సంధి శ్రీనాథ ప్రయుక్తమేనట. సంధిపేరేమిటో తెలీదు. నేనైతే హంసీయాన సంధి అని గుర్తుపెట్టుకున్నా ;)

అతి సర్వత్ర వర్జయేత్!

అతిదానాద్ధతః కర్ణస్త్వతిలోభాత్సుయోధనః
అతికామాద్దశగ్రీవస్త్వతి సర్వత్ర వర్జయేత్

"Karna was ruined by excessive liberality, Suyodhana by excessive avarice, Dasagriva by excessive lust - Excess is to be avoided in all things."


Does this apply to Yudhishtira too? If one is excessively worried about living righteously, following Dharma all his life, unmindful of pain this might have caused to his near and dear, is that not 'excessive' ? No, I am not raising this question just for the heck of it. I firmly believe that I have a million more births to degrade myself to the point where I can do such an 'Indian-intellectual-esque' thing.

Jokes apart, If Yudhishtira's craving for Dharma is not excess or it is excess but conducive of greater good - we are left with a question. What makes something excessive and avoidable?

Btw, There is no excessive lust. It doesn't exist. The word excessive lust is like 'పేపర్ కాగితం'. Lust, by definition, is an excess of something. (what that something is, I have no idea.) :)

We shall not cease from...

Ah, yes
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of our exploring
Shall be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Exploration continues. The search continues, for 'eternal happiness'. Meanwhile life embraces yet an other tune and asks me to sing it hereafter...

జానామి ధర్మం నచమే ప్రవృత్తిః జానామ్యధర్మం నచమే నివృత్తిః
త్వయా హృషీకేశ హృదిః స్థితేన యథా నియుక్తః అస్మి తథా కరోమి

Duryodhana perfectly knew what was 'Just' but he couldn't practice it. He also knew what was unjust, but he couldn't restrain himself from committing it. Because there is compulsion from inside, as it were, of the worldly senses which makes all his intellect, the knowledge of what is to be Just and Unjust completely useless.

I am a Duryodhana sans crown and empire. 'From darkness to light' - say the wise. I get it. But as I said earlier, knowing id different, doing is different. Here I am. Traveling from from less baggage to more baggage.

.
.
.

I wish...

 ....I was one of those kids!

Wouldn't it  be nice if one can sit next to a man like that - talking, arguing, smiling and laughing? Wouldn't it be thrilling to receive the shocks that his words send down one's consciousness in person?

But then, that doesn't matter. Were he alive today, he would have replied - "Its not the things that give you pleasure. But the act of 'thinking about' them."


 అదీ సంగతి!!


 





"Outward manifestations of corruption are just symptoms. The cause if inside. Selfishness. When I say corrupt, it is the cause that I am referring to. Don't be corrupt. *It doesn't matter if you die for it*"

పునర్జన్మ

ఒక స్నేహితునితో  దీని గురించి జరిపిన వ్యక్తిగత email సంభాషణ నుంచి -

"people say, one is to die without having any desires, so that one doesn't take another birth; and so on."

ఇప్పుడు  చదువు, విజ్ఞానం అని పిలువబడుతున్నవేవీ తెలియని నిరక్షరాస్యులైన మన నాన్నమ్మల తరం వారు కూడా అతి సాధారణంగా, వాడుకభాషలో అనే మాటలు "ఇంకేముంది నాన్నా.. ఏకోరికలూ లేకుండా చనిపోతే, ఇంకో జన్మలేకుండా ఆ పరమాత్ముని సన్నిధి చేరుకుంటే అదేచాలు" - అని. వ్యావహారికం లోకి పదాలు అప్రయత్నంగా చేరిపోవు కదా.. ఈ వాక్యాలకు వెనుక ఒక సిద్ధాంతం ఉంది . అది - కోరికలు లేకుండా ఉండే స్థితి (మోక్షం, పరమాత్మ, బ్రహ్మం లాంటి పదాలు అనవసరపు గందరగోళాన్ని సృష్టిస్తాయి. అవికూడా నినాదాలైపోయాయ్ ఈ మధ్యన) మానవ సహజ స్థితి కన్నా ఉచ్ఛమైనది అనీ మరియు ప్రతి మనిషి తెలిసో తెలియకో వివిధ రకాలు గా ఈ గమ్యం వైపే పయనిస్తాడనీ . ఈ ఆలోచన/సిద్ధాంతం మన ప్రాచీనులలో జీర్ణించుకుపోయి ఇలాంటి వ్యావహారికాలు వచ్చి ఉంటాయి. (మన ప్రాంతీయ భాషలు బ్రతకాలి అనుకోవడానికి ఇంకో కారణం ఇది. మన ప్రాచీనుల అనుభవాల వాహకం అయిన భాష మరణిస్తే, వారి అనుభవాలు, ఆలోచనలు మనకు ఎప్పటికీ అందుబాటులో లేకుండా పోతాయేమో.. కానీ ఇది వేరే విషయం, ఇప్పుడు మనం చర్చిస్తున్న దానితో సంబంధం లేనిది).

"Here, these junk swami-s, half-baked Indians give scientific gloss to rebirth and karma as though they are dependent on causality, without telling that what causality is"

ప్రాచీన భారతీయులు తమవంటూ కొన్ని సిద్ధాంతాలను ప్రతిపాదించగలిగిన సమర్థత ఉందని ఇటీవలి కాలపు మన దేశపు మేధావులకే నమ్మకం లేదు. తమకు అర్థంకాని కొన్ని సిద్ధాంతాలను యూరోపియనులు తమకు తెలిసిన అన్ని ప్రశ్నాపద్ధతులనూ ఉపయోగించి విమర్శిస్తే రాజారామ్మోహనరాయ్, కేశబ్ చంద్రసేన్ మార్కు మేధావులు ప్రశ్నలను ఎదుర్కునే దిశలో యూరోపియనుల చరిత్రనూ/సిద్ధాంతాలనూ ఆకళింపుచేసుకుని తర్వాత సమాధానాలివ్వడం చేయకుండా, ఈ విమర్శలను స్వీకరించారు. సమాధానాలివ్వడం కోసమై ప్రతి ఒక్క సిద్ధాంతానికీ, సైన్సు యొక్క ఆమోదముద్ర  వేయాలని ప్రయత్నించారు. అది వారు నివసించిన కాలం, అప్పటి పరిస్థితుల యొక్క ప్రభావం వల్ల కావచ్చును. వారిని క్షమించినా, అవే వివరణలు ఇచ్చి పునర్జన్మనూ, కర్మసిద్ధాంతాన్నీ సైన్సుతో రీ్ప్యాక్ చేసి జనానికి అమ్మజూసే ఇప్పటి అత్తెసరు మేధావులను, దొంగ సాముల్నీ క్షమించలేం!  పునర్జన్మ గట్రా లను  Causality మీద ఆధారపడతాయన్నట్లు గా ఇవ్వబడే వివరణలు నిజానికి అసలు వివరణలు కావు. వాటిని ర్థం చేసుకోవడానికి ఉపయోగపడే మన ప్రాచీనుల సైకాలజీని పోగొట్టుకున్నాం, intentional psychology తో వీటిని వివరించాలని చూసి ఈ సిద్ధాంతాలను నినాద స్థాయికి తీసుకొచ్చాం.

పునర్జన్మ, కర్మ వంటివి ఒక ఉచ్ఛస్థితిని చేరుకోవడానికి/వివరించడానికి మనవాళ్ళు అవలంభించిన cognitive strategies. ఈ వివరణలు కొన్ని సమస్యలను పరిష్కరిస్తాయి. they are a heuristic.

On writing - Maugham

(But) To write was an instinct that seemed as natural to me as to breath, and I did not stop to consider if I wrote well or badly. It was not till some years later that it dawned upon me that it was a delicate art that must be painfully acquired. The discovery was forced upon me by the by the difficulty I found in getting my meaning down on paper.

-- The Summing Up

పాటకు అమ్మ - పట్టమ్మాళ్!!

 

Amidst the chaos

and conflicts
Amidst the tribulations
That life inflicts
came a Gift
From the Gods.
The "Women Trinity"*


Singing songs
They came.
Of solace
Of grace
Of eternity!
Oh! the joy!!
And singing
songs, they left!!


Now Gods too are
jealous. The last leaf
Of "The Trinity" was
carefully taken!
Back to where they
come from!!

Pattammal!
Mother of song,
We will NOT miss you
For your songs
are still here!
and they will
reverberate across
Centuries to come!!


* Women Trinity = MS. Subbulakshmi, ML Vasantha Kumari, DK Pattammal

 http://www.thehindu.com/2009/07/17/stories/2009071754630100.htm