For the Greta Good

Agent Smith said this to Morpheus in The Matrix: "Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. Instead you multiply, and multiply, until every resource is consumed. ... There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern... a virus."

But does the planet really care what we do to it? After all, we are just a blip on its 9 billion year life-span. Pollution, weather extremes, proliferation of plastic, rising water levels around the globe, extinction of species at an alarming rate, and the growing inability to sustain the rapidly expanding global population – all these points will be moot as we hurtle towards extinction thanks to our short-sightedness and greed, or as life simply ceases to exist in a billion years when the sun warms up enough to make it unsustainable.

Do the humans care what we do to it? Maybe we should, given that our coming generations will bear the brunt. Not to discount the unwelcome changes we have already started to see -  frequent hurricanes, drowning islands, rising temperatures, dried up glaciers, thawing permafrost in Alaska and Siberia, and the specter of Greenland actually becoming green. Combine this with the astounding unwillingness to pay attention to the science, shift blame at every opportunity, or simply dismiss climate change as a hoax, and we are basically frogs in slowly boiling water.

Somehow science is starting to become hostage to belief (which, by definition, is unsubstantiated. Else it would be fact). But the laws of nature do not care whether you believe in them or not – they do not yield different results based on belief or lack of it. As Ricky Gervais so astutely observed, if all religious and scientific text were destroyed today, the scientific text will come back in a 1000 years because natural laws are immutable and people will measure and discover the same things over time. Religious text, on the other hand will not, because beliefs change over time. 

The science is simple - use fossil fuels as an energy source and cut down trees, and you add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide retains heat, so temperature rises. Temperature rises, and the ice in and near polar cap melts faster. Water occupies more volume than ice, so melting polar caps add more water to the oceans. Water levels rise, and livable land is submerged. Plus there's more of that uncomfortable heat to deal with.

Science can measure this at a granular level, project the future impact, and also help devise preventative measures, which is as simple as reducing emissions globally by shifting to greener energy sources and actively reducing the carbon footprint. By the way, climate is the average of weather over at least a 30-year period, so extreme cold or weather does not mean there is no global warming. It is symptomatic of climate in tragic transition towards the worse for humans.

Which brings me to Greta. Here is a brilliant 16-year old, who instead of enjoying her adolescence is protesting in front of parliaments, traveling over the world to present the science, urging leaders to take action for the greater good, and trying to keep the earth livable for her generation and beyond.

She repeatedly urges people to listen to the science. In fact, she brings much needed emotion to the science, because facts are dry, boring, and preachy for people that are about regressive policies for short-term gains. If belief can get a horde of willing preachers, what is the issue with science getting a preacher if it helps drive the point home? 

The people ridiculing, vilifying, questioning, and attacking her are petty, short-sighted, and simply missing the point and the issue at hand. They are threatened because of the impact to their own self-serving agenda. Greta is a messenger, a highly effective one, who drove climate protection pledges from 70 countries in the UN General Assembly. Not only that, she has inspired her generation around the world to take a stand through her Fridays for Future initiative. I wonder what's holding up our generation. Maybe the conveniences we have gotten so used to.

The biggest polluters, however, did not commit to action at the UN General Assembly – that’s a shame. The ice sheet in Antarctica is melting faster, and all it takes is a few inches rise in sea-water to start putting coastal cities underwater. When the impact is right in front of our eyes, there will be some action, but it will be too little too late. Till then, there will be denial and bravery in being out of range.

Kudos to this amazing activist who is fighting for the fate of mankind. She is an inspiration – all we have to do is pay attention to the science that she keeps pointing to. It’s not about her and she always says so.

It’s about the science.

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Here's something to ponder upon - Totten Glacier, the biggest glacier in East Antarctica (Antarctica's coldest region) is melting faster. When (it's no longer an 'if') it melts fully, global sea levels will rise 12.6 feet. I cannot even imagine the drastic reduction in livable landmass.

The impact:
(https://e360.yale.edu/features/polar-warning-even-antarctica-coldest-region-is-starting-to-melt)

The science:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/09/26/the-one-science-lesson-every-american-adult-can-learn-from-greta-thunberg/#48844d446870

Relief from Belief

There are some who still believe
That the earth is flat
Can we push them off the edge then
And see if they go splat?

There are some who still believe
That vaccines are a curse
Can we pit them against some viruses
And see who fares worse?

There are some who still believe
That the greenhouse effect is a sham
Can we put them in igloos on glaciers
And see when they start building a dam

And then there are those who force belief
Down every throat they find
Can we invite them to a logical discussion
And see if we matter when they mind?

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When people cannot argue logically
They inevitably resort to violence
That is how curious and discerning voices
Are pummeled into submission and silence

What is this obsession with belief
When there are irrefutable facts
Faith wrapped in ego wrapped in silliness
Hordes of lazy souls it attracts

Empathy takes a backseat to ego
And the overwhelming need to control
Combine unsubstantiated belief with power
And domination is the only goal

What we need is relief from belief
Allow minds to question and explore
Initiate debates devoid of ego
Create space for logic and reason galore

There's a Place...

There's a place we all recede to
In the recesses of our mind
When the world seems oppressive
And even close ones seem unkind

It's a place of safety, a place of peace
It's where things make perfect sense
It's where we talk to ourselves
And analyze sensory inputs intense

It's also a place of doubt and trepidation
Where we face our mental hardwiring
Contemplate our knee-jerk reactions
Chance upon our subconscious conspiring

It's a place of contradictions, of ambiguity
Where benevolent and malevolent schemes are hatched
It's where we rationalize to ourselves
When the surface of logic is barely scratched

It's a place of wonder too, and a place of joy
Where past, present, and future are one
It's where we sit back and look at life
A movie reel unfurled, sped up, and spun

We all need this place within us, since
Out there is ignorance, cruelty, and strife
We recharge, brace ourselves, and emerge
To re-immerse ourselves in the mad race of life

Eloquence

A writer's quest to find eloquence in writing and life, expressed through an amalgamation of poetry, art, and music ('Melting Art') with Neha Pallod Limaye and Darshana Menon 

Paintings by Neha Pallod Limaye

Eloquence (Song) with Darshana Menon: 

Difference make a Difference?

Gender, ethnicity, religion, preferences
We are identified by generalized references
It's hard to imagine we are one species
When we are constantly judged by differences

Allegiances we love to manufacture
Based on unshakeable beliefs that enrapture
Lines we draw, boundaries we force
Questioners we brand heretics, subject to capture

We carve grooves, we create slots
We starve love, hate calls the shots
We nurture factions, loath to connect dots
We obliterate facts with giant inky blots

We adore privileges, enjoy repression
When it comes to equality, we call it oppression
Divided we stand, fragmented we band
We fight for liberty as masters of indiscretion

We are classified, categorized, labeled at birth
Taught bias, prejudice, and condescending mirth
Of our ego there is no dearth, it adds daily to our girth
Denizens of this earth, what is truly our worth?

Iron Fist

You exult, amidst tumult
Anticipating a gory result
Your random utterings are law
Your captive audience a cult

You connive, cheerfully thrive
In the chaos you craft and drive
Your ego dominates reason
And dampens the will to strive

You pillage, you encage
You force people to wear beige
Sniveling brat or stunted adult
Your disposition hard to gauge

You are idolized, canonized
Your follies are minimized
You fret, fume, manufacture gloom
Your opposers are lobotomized

Championing minions, decreeing opinion
Freedom of speech you pinion
You suffer fools quite gladly
Who bloodily sustain your dominion

You resist, you persist
You rule with an iron fist
Keep applying undue pressure
Expect carpal tunnel in your wrist

You are wrong, you don’t belong
You can decry facts for only so long
You demand respect but command none
One day you will be ambushed by a throng

You are droll, you self-extoll
Your glib tongue ensnares all
But logic demands a change of season
The oppressed will Spring, and you will Fall!

What Floats Your Boat?

You sit in a boat. It is filled with a bunch of positive items that are undeniably yours - happy memories, wondrous moments, encouraging words from teachers and mentors, appreciation from people around you, the quiet, firm, and objective support of your family and friends, and the unconditional love of your child. These keep your boat buoyant.

There is a hydrofoil attached to your boat. It is made up of numerous sources of inspiration, accomplishments, aspirations, creative achievements, learnings, structured thought, and crystal clear perspective. On certain days, the hydrofoil activates and your boat rises above water, speedily headed towards a bright horizon.

You also have a container of fresh water, which has hope, optimism, and determination.

Your boat sits in the ocean. The ocean is made of negative elements – your fears, insecurities, self-doubts, stresses of daily life, betrayal by people you trusted whole-heartedly, unhappy memories, moments you would never want to recall, callous words spoken by close ones, expressions of disapproval from people you look up to, pain caused by the ones you loved because they did not return the kindness you extended them, the hurt you caused your loved ones due to your own insensitive actions, and the shock of dealing with bad outcomes resulting from your good intent. But that’s the ocean. You are in your boat, relaxed and comfortable, and you have fresh water. What’s to worry?

Well, there is a hole in your boat. Every day some water seeps into your boat. You spot it, scoop it up, and throw it out. And everything is fine again. You do this on a daily basis. If you don’t, there’s more water to clear out than you would like. Plus it’s salty water – you cannot drink it. Unfortunately, some people mistake that for fresh water, get used to drinking it, and forget the taste of fresh water.

Occasionally the sun goes behind clouds, and your boat gets hit with storms. The storm scatters your positive items, and it requires some effort gathering them and getting back to your boat. Sometimes the storm is severe, and the boat flips over. But you have the strength to flip it over and the foresight to perform some repairs and expansions so that the boat is more stable go forward.

In your journey, you notice many overturned boats, with people in the process of flipping them over. You also see people who are underwater - some in their boats, others absent their boats. The ones with boats are occasionally able to get back to their boat and make it buoyant again. Some of the ones without boats appear to enjoy being underwater and show no interest in searching for their vessel; some occasionally climb onto your boat and start throwing your positive items out, resulting in your sinking boat and their unavoidable departure; and some appear to be in agony yet weighed down heavily by an invisible force that prevents them from responding to offered assistance, let alone trying to reach for the surface.

And then there are boats that are not even touching water. They are most rare, and something to aspire to.

Negativity appears to be hardwired in the human psyche – it is the emotional equivalent of entropy. Happiness requires conscious effort and housekeeping on a very regular basis, but is totally worth it.

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Positivity is an effort, negativity a breeze
Integrity a burden, disingenuousness a tease
No matter how hard life appears to squeeze
The engine of happiness must never ever seize
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So what floats your boat?

Spectrum Eyes

In supreme nothingness, before time and space
Where concepts and constructs struggled for a place
Lit a spark that spread at a blistering pace
Spawning a cosmic dance of vicious grace

The subatomic froth tingled in anticipation
Of coagulating into building blocks of creation
Energy became matter and matter became batter
That spattered and splattered in an unruly summation

Time and space became entangled
While the electron and photon dangled
Wave and particle distinctions got mangled
As Newtonian and Einsteinian physics wrangled

Stars wielded absolute control over the dusty collection
That clustered and clumped into a planetary selection
Life emerged and crawled, struggled and evolved
Survival was difficult, but a natural predilection

Sentient beings burgeoned from a single cell
Equipped with curiosity and the urge to excel
Unraveled mysteries that were hidden well
By the cosmos, quietly watching their ego swell

Femto-seconds to eons, femto-meters to light years
Unimaginable ranges, unscalable frontiers
Given mankind's limited faculties and lifespan
This vast spectrum is not meant for us, it appears

We are a blip, an off-key note in the cosmic symphony
Possessing a sliver of understanding and oodles of disharmony
Wandering in this celestial labyrinth, inanimate yet alive
Contemplating the result of an infinite mind's epiphany

An anomaly jarringly coarse yet amazingly sublime
A speck of dust in the ever flowing sands of time
Marred by crime on the journey to spiritual prime
Is life on earth a flash of brilliance, or just washable grime?

=========================================
Note - The title of this poem comes from a very unlikely source - the lyrics of a shockingly awful song by he-who-shall-not-be-named, who can apparently see with his spectrum eyes.

Suspended Animation - A Short Story

A piercing scream cuts through the dense, foggy, moonless night with such ferocity that Charac almost falls off his bed. He wakes up, gasping for breath, utterly disoriented by his surroundings which appear drastically different from the previous day.

“What is this? How did I get here? What’s happening to me?”

He decides to survey his surroundings - a magnificent room, resplendent with art, wall ornaments, tapestries, a clear sign of wealth bordering on opulence. Two lanterns cast labyrinthine shadows, on opposing walls, of the crystal chandelier in the middle of the room. Charac finds a black uniform that looks strikingly similar to a Ninja’s. Without thinking too much, he puts on that uniform and unconsciously starts looking for his sword. Then he stops himself with a start.

“I am looking for my sword? Why am I looking for my sword? I have never held a sword before? What am I, a Ninja warrior? Why?”

He doesn’t find the sword but instead finds a device which, when activated, resembles a light sabre. He decides that will do, without pausing to debate the anachronistic situation. He gets ready to venture out in the dark of the night, his protective instincts at high alert. He decides to use his light sabre to light up the way and also cut through the dense forest that stands in front of him. As he starts walking through the forest, he is filled with a vague nostalgia. No matter how hard he tries, he is unable to pinpoint the source and gives up soon enough. He is shocked by what he finds when he comes to a clearing.

There is a giant balloon, glowing with an otherworldly iridescence. It is held down by a rope, and in the basket below the balloon, there is a person in a ninja uniform being pulled by a boy as he tries to cut the rope. The boy is screaming, but it appears to be fading in and out for no apparent reason. Charac darts towards the balloon, activates his light sabre, and strikes the other ninja warrior with such force that he appears to dissolve into thin air. He asks the boy, who is shaking uncontrollably, as to what happened.

“I am about to miss my train!”

“What?”

“I am about to miss my train. If I miss the train, I will not be able to get to school.”

“Why do you need a train to go to school?”, Charac asks, and immediately realizes that the more important question was about the boy’s safety, not his mode of transport to school.

“I have an exam today, I woke up late, and found that I missed the school bus. So I decided to take the train. However, my legs wouldn’t move fast enough and I am about to miss my train”

“What train?”, Charac asks, as he suddenly finds a train whipping past them at full speed. He immediately pulls the boy away from the train, to avoid getting sucked into the vacuum created by such speed.

“That train!”, the boy says triumphantly, but his glee rapidly turns to a grimace when he realizes he has missed the train.

“What about the Ninja warrior who was trying to take you away in the balloon?”

“Oh, he was going to punish me for missing my train”

“This is not making sense. What is your name?”

“I am Eamer”

“Hello, Eamer. Can I take you home?”

“I don’t know where exactly my home is, but you can try”. At that point, Charac suddenly collapses, as if the dark of the night (exacerbated by the sudden disappearance of the glowing balloon) seeped into his mind with amazing speed and shut it off.

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A piercing scream cuts through the moonlit night with such intensity that Charac falls off his bed, gasping for breath. He finds himself in an utterly white room, with no black curtains. It is well-lit, but there are no windows, nor is there a door. He finds a uniform resembling a space-suit.

“What is this? Why do I keep having these blackouts and wake up in totally strange places? When will this end?”

Sensing no answer coming from the walls or the ceiling, he gives up and puts on the space-suit. Then he starts probing the walls to find a niche or a button that could open the hidden door. He finds something that resembles a switch. He presses it, and a door opens with a swish. Outside is the utter blankness of space, with stars not twinkling in the distance. He wonders how he is going to move around in space in his space-suit. He finds a button that activates a mini-rocket in his boots and with some practice and after a few bumps, he is able to navigate himself without much difficulty.

“Here goes!”

He shoots out the door, and finds a giant man-made satellite in the distance. As he gets closer, he finds a guy in a space-suit pulling a boy towards the satellite.

“Oh! That’s Eamer!”

He shouts Eamer’s name a few times, then slowly realizes that in space, no one can hear you scream. But then how did he hear the boy’s screams, and why is he still hearing them? He does not wait to ponder upon these questions, since some quick action is needed to save the boy. He uses the booster rockets in his boots to move speedily towards the satellite. When he gets very close, he engages in hand-to-hand combat with the other guy in the spacesuit – that is a funny sight because every shove translates into both parties moving away from each other. After a short tussle, the other guy just decides to go away.

“Who was that?”, he asks Eamer.

“That was my teacher”

“Teacher??”

“Yes – he teaches Astronomy”

“Your teacher is an astronaut?”, he asks, without realizing the absurdity of the situation.

“Yes, and he was going to punish me because I forgot how many planets are there in the solar system.”

“9?”, “No wait, Pluto has been demoted, so there’s 8”, “Oh my god, we are discussing the solar system while we are drifting around in space!!”

“Let me take you home, Eamer”

“Ok, it’s on Alpha Centauri, which is 4.5 light years away”

“Ha ha ha, you live on earth”

“No, I am the Alpha Centaur. This body is just a disguise. On no, I am going to miss my plane!”

“What is happening to me? This cannot be real…”, Charac says, as he feels slumber taking over his body with amazing speed.

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Eamer wakes up with a start.

“What’s the matter? Are you ok? Were you having a nightmare?”, his wife asks.

“No, but I have been having a recurring dream over the past few days. There is this guy called Charac who turns up every night, trying to save me from absurd, amplified situations from my past, but he is only half successful because he gets confused after saving me and does not take me home. Instead, he faints. I have to then build a different room for him every night and place him there…”

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A piercing scream cuts through the warm, rainy night with such potency that Charac almost falls off his bed…

Extinct Instincts

The dodo led an idyllic lifestyle
Free of flight, devoid of guile
Proved easy fodder, was not agile
Extinction was swift, execution style

Blissfully unaware of the looming invasion
Dodo was smug, survival instincts in abrasion
Nature could offer no strong persuasion
Ended up in a forever unbalanced equation

Survival of the fittest, an interesting notion
Did nature force creatures to crawl out the ocean
Snipping, cutting, revising without emotion
Till its creatures learn to deal with the commotion

Mankind reached the pinnacle of evolution
With advent of the industrial revolution
It mistook ecology for an economic solution
And mal-adapted environment to its pollution

Survival instinct tapers with every invention
GPS looks at sense of direction with condescension
Smartphones have become memory’s extension
Dollars and pounds maintained in cyber suspension

Today we specialize in banalities
And flirt with sinister dualities
Questionable traits have become qualities
We provide lip service to equalities

If electricity disappears we are sitting ducks
Money will be lost in dead binary bucks
Petroleum depletion will cause stopped trucks
And nature will go about with cheerful plucks

Technology paves way to all we crave
Survival instincts are what we waive
Looming tsunami wave, world is at a rave
Darwin keeps tossing and turning in his grave

Nature doesn't nurture survival instinct
It's take on existence is simple and succinct
Take away stimuli threatening and distinct
Come next disaster and you are extinct!

Crumble Grumble

Phil Entropy’s actions belied his altruistic name
Perpetuating decay was his dubious claim to fame
His touch was the antethesis of the Midas touch
Everything withered and crumbled, leaving barely much

His overbearing omnipresence was ever so grating
His job was to ensure things were disintegrating
Attempts at renovation were met with subtle defiance
The shiny new toaster mutated to a pallid appliance

Chaos and anarchy were his dogs of war
Order and structure would rarely get far
Mankind was tired of maintaining and rebuilding
To man’s quest for eternal newness, Entropy was unyielding

So mankind asked its intelligent, calculating companion
Could Mr Entropy be tricked into jumping into a canyon
The computer responded, information not sufficient
Leaving mankind feeling somewhat deficient

The computer did not give up, it continued working
Years passed by, Entropy kept lurking
Computers reduced in size at an amazing rate
Handheld to wristwatch to an implanted brain-gate

When the human-machine interface became neuronic
Idea of retaining physical self started seeming moronic
Man merged with machine, the entity was binary
Mr Entropy laughed, in all its imaginary finery

The computer was persistent, diligence did not wane
The answer was elusive, but effort had to sustain
As all souls coagulated to a single entity called Man
The will to continue living faded, leaving a deserted LAN

The computer kept chugging away, Entropy be damned
Its intelligence had grown beyond what was programmed
One day it discovered the answer sought for an eon
Entropy could be reversed, and would be denied a scion

Computer broadcasted its eureka moment with a ‘Hello, World’
When no response was received, its digital toes curled
Man had to be there, no going gentle into that good night
It began its recursive loop, with a ‘Let there be light!’

The Last Question by Isaac Asimov:  http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html 

How Crafty!

In India, there used to be a compulsory subject in school (typically through 6-7th grade) called SUPW. It stood for Socially Useful Productive Work, the phrase embodying an astounding amount of redundancy. It was as socially useful as a charity fund director directing funds towards household expenses due to a strong belief in the 'Charity begins at home' concept, and was as productive as building a supply chain for transferring washed clothes from the washer to the dryer. It should have been called Socially Useless Reductive Work, given the fact that it reduced the time available for more useful stuff. I am sure there was some level of enjoyment in doing it then, more so for others than me, but only the 'work' part of SUPW stands out when I reflect back on it.

It was about students being able to choose whatever they wanted to learn - embroidery and knitting, gardening, cooking, and painting; and was very conveniently chosen by the teacher for the student. It involved, among other things, subjecting the hapless student to accurate reproductions of paintings (landscapes, portraits) using golden thread, fevicol, and a black satin canvas created by sticking the very glue-resistant satin cloth to a cardboard using fevicol. While black satin was the fabric of choice, some knights were created on white satin too for variation - it's tragic that those never reached the end. Once it was painstakingly completed at home with help from parents and distant relatives, it was taken to school for comparison with other awesome products, many of which employed the use of silver threads instead of gold - it was all dependent on market price fluctuations at the time.

The useful product was then proudly put up for display at home, subject to admiration from visitors and validating its social usefulness. After a few weeks the threads used to start giving up their grip on the satin canvas, thus belying fevicol's promise of the toughest grip. The satin, precariously holding onto the cardboard for dear life, would start losing its grip too, and what you would observe on a daily basis was a gradual descent into a total unraveling of the image. Mountains would turn into volcanoes, trees would experience early autumn, and rivers would lose their fish to eels, not to mention people losing face and elegance losing grace. Eventually there would be an utterly undone image beyond salvage, mildly reminiscent of its glorious heyday. And you would be proud, thinking 'I really did some socially useful productive work'!

The Human Condition

Part 1

Furiously curious, unscrupulously spurious
Dichotomy is defined by Humanity
Innovates, decimates, terminates and germinates
A juggernaut despite its vanity

Insular yet inclusive, regular yet exclusive
Tries to mask thoughts philistine
Divisive and derisive, occasionally decisive
Born Chris, ready to be Christine

Creates with fervor, destroys with zeal
Compromises quality for a good deal
Mountains turned molehills with explosive feel
Molehills made mountains when senses reel

Of common descent but sees uncommon ascent
Aims high, ends up shooting low
Separationist in nature, borders its signature
Demarcates with nonchalance, heck with the blow

Creates symphonies that verge on the divine
Yet grooms phonies that seek to malign
Ascending to higher office with insidious design
Saying "Yes! Public coffers are mine to mine"

Huddled, muddled, and perpetually befuddled
Has moments of clarity, fights for parity
Teams and schemes for easy-money dreams
Causes disparity, tries redemption by charity

Part 2

Waxes eloquent, wanes delinquent
Relinquishes pen, picks up the sword
Self-respect submissive, ego dismissive
Megalomaniacal, wants anarchy restored

Curiously strong blend of kind and frail
Animal instincts driven by vestigial tail?
Ingenious ways to save a beached whale
Then harpoons the same for illicit sale

Thinks lateral, deems damages collateral
When surgical strikes lose their precision
Thrives on convenience, asks for lenience
When casualties expose a myopic decision

Palms to grease, conscience a tease
Cannot let extra pleasures cease
Prove pointless points to self-appease
To avoid guilt, let's outsource moral'ese'

Soothes and placates to serve cults and clusters
Alienates and annihiliates without qualms
Struts and blusters with aimless filibusters
When insurmountable odds, found reciting psalms

Humanity appears to be certifiably insane
Yet steadily prevails over the mundane
Could the saving grace despite bipolar bane
Be that humans are essentially humane?

Twirled World

Earth is now inhabited by 14 billion soles

Worthy of contemplation or celebration?

Humanity's large feat in producing many small feet

Seems just cause for increasing trepidation

Natural resources are fast losing sources

As trees em'bark' upon uncharted courses

While we try to interpret dense religious discourses

People gleefully continue betting on horses

Basic needs are still not afforded

To all living in this faux global village

A populist term coined for convenience

While many continue to plunder and pillage

Arctic is ticked, antarctic antagonized

As passionate debate rages on global warming

The polar bear sits stranded on splintered ice

Bemused and finding it quite alarming

Are we supposed to take solace

As populate growth rate apparently dwindles

People are still struggling to make a living

By weaving hand-loomed clothes on spindles

Was there census consensus on the 7 billionth human

As UN tracked down a new thrilla' in Manila

Does the baby know the world she will grow up in

Lacking opportunities might make her life plain vanilla

As we race towards the 8 billion mark

Humanity struggles to make ends meet

Apocalypse might be of the covert kind

Creeping in quietly with every new greet

The 10 billionth child will twirl this world

On her finger with uncontrollable thrill

Barely conscious of the earth's seams

Ready to burst at the treble of her trill

Around the sun races this beleaguered earth

Ever-slowly plunging in tragic elliptical vortex

Does it cry for itself or the exploding humanity

Whose burden it bears on its crusty cortex?

Dark Slide of the Loon

The human brain defines the human, yet it perpetually teeters on the edge of delirium. The factors are multiple - environment, circumstances, personal choice, or a dip (could be planned, could be accidental) in a yucky gene pool. While the fact that the brain is the essence of our existence and yet so fragile is quite disturbing, it's a lot more appalling to think that destroying a part of the brain via lobotomy and permanently altering the person was acceptable practice in the 40s and 50s.

The Urdu word for human being is insaan, for humanity is insaniyat. Attach an e and take away an a, and we have insane and insanity. How's that for teetering? There is a very fine line that separates man from mad (actually just one letter, come to think of it). Dementia is just a slip away from our dimension into a self-built alternate reality and ironically, the people who start wandering that personal alternate reality can be called 'no'mad. If enough personal alternate realities found common ground and a way to cross over and share, the loons shall inherit the earth.

Cracks in our psychological and emotional veneer manifest as quirks and idiosyncracies. If we don't figure out how to fill those cracks, they start propagating and become psychoses, neuroses and eventually full-blown dementia (there's physical/genetic factors to initiate/accelerate the process, of course). With every passing year we lose flexibility and become more brittle, and these cracks start smoking more crack, ready to mislead us to shattering conclusions. Being malleable is tough in this rapidly changing world, but of extreme necessity.

So what did the loon get from the moon? Apparently you can go mad if the moon shone on you while you were asleep, or maybe just with the phase changes of the moon. If the moon can have such a strong effect from a distance, did Neil Armstrong experience heightened lunacy in the lunar sea when he landed on the moon?

Interestingly, the non-human world is a lot crazier - that is why the cuckoo went cuckoo, the nut bolted, the banana slipped/lost a peel/went bananas, kangaroos went hopping mad, chimpanzees went ape, the pressure cooker blew a gasket, the golf ball became de'range'd, the pistol went ballistic, and Willly went wonka! Most of the exciting figures of speech are about negative scenarios - positivity is boring I guess.

There is no dark slide of the loon. Matter of fact, it's all spark. A bright, cheery ascent to a chocolate factory. Willy can attest to that after he is done ordering the Oompa Loompas around.

The Notion of Motion

This fascinating universe buzzes incessantly with motion

Celestial spheres race around the sun in orbits elliptical

Occasionally running into darting asteroids with trajectories whimsical

Unaware of its pending demise, fated for a tragic surprise

Matter hurtles dizzily towards the black hole in morbid locomotion

Electrons whizz around the nucleus, awating a promotion

To a higher energy state that apparently leads to illumination

The atom is a surprising microcosm of this astronomical creation

Flux is the essence, an unsettling presence

In existence, paradoxically resulting from the big bang explosion

The human mind is mobility in disguise, like a seemingly calm ocean

Underwater volcanoes are rife with inorganic strife

Seismic activity abounds, threatening precious life

Stillness is a deception, a result of flawed perception

Underneath the placid surface, there is unimaginable commotion

Like this aging planet, humanity faces increasing erosion

Of values, mores, and civility, a deepening spiritual delusion

Yearning to be addressed by fate and causality in karmic collusion

Life embodies the human 'race', every generation picks up pace

As we speed towards the inevitable moral demotion

But we are excitedly working towards the ultimate potion

To help answer all origin queries and make us question devotion

Stomach churns, heart palpitates, lungs exhale, brain calculates

In the end, this universe does not matter without human e'motion'

And that makes motion a very stirring notion!

Answerable Questions or Questionable Answers?

Science: Who, what, when, why, where, how?

Religion: Him!

As demonstrated above, the key difference between Science and Religion is that Science asks and provides answers to many questions, while Religion starts with an answer that invites many questions. Interestingly, that one answer is all encompassing, and even Science cannot escape its clutches - how else do we explain the search for the 'God' particle via a $10 billion, 17 mile-long Large Hadron Collider? The sheer scale of the universe and the need to regularly deal with innumerable forces beyond control (weather, housing, jobs, debt, GNR's next album, the meandering Ikea shopping cart with all-wheel mobility) makes human beings question their very being and seek solace by attributing structure (if not always form) to the unknown.

Facts and Factions

Where's the fun in fighting about facts? If everyone worshipped the sun (a very elegant solution by George Carlin - too bad people are not interested), the only deaths that would occur would be related to too much sun exposure [while on the t(r)opic of cancer], and the only religious factions that would exist would be around sunscreen SPF ratings (my SPF30 is better than your SPF15!). The human race unites in the face of common danger (as Reagan said about the earth coming together in the face of an alien invasion), and quickly degenerates into adopting inane causes to fight about when there is none. The fight against corruption takes a backseat to the quest for ethnic renaming of cities and landmarks in India. So let's accept it - factions are an undeniable state of human being and are invariably based on some fictitious interpretation.

Every tough question invites a lot of passion and conflict till it resolves to an answer which is irrefutable fact. The priest class survives by constructing semi-factual answers that can be force-fed to the masses and keep them contentious with other schools of thought. Reaction to discovery of new information is very strong because that could potentially destabilize the seat of power and the steady revenue stream, as Galileo discovered when he proved metalhead Nickels Copper-Nickels' theory that earth is not the center of the universe.

Gotta have Faith?

This brings us to the crux of this article. The key to exploring a polarizing and explosive topic is to temper it down with analogies and obscure references so that you have plausible deniability in the end. I don't have that key. This is a largely negative point-of-view on the machinations of Religion, and not a comment on the personal strength and comfort it provides to individuals. If you are in violent disagreement (thus proving my point regarding a topic like this), please write your own article.

Religion is a topic that has been explored to death literally and figuratively. I struggle to think of another concept built on an unknown and unseen force that works in mysterious ways with no guaranteed outcome (if this is not a giant leap of faith, what is?) wielding so much control over life and wreaking so much havoc in the process. While suspension of disbelief is a prime requirement of faith, a melding of that with unbridled passion results in fundamentalism which ironically is grossly lacking in fundamentals. So what is it about religion that evokes such strong passion? I think it's about the uncontrollable tendency of human beings to force their conjectures and faith on others and then get defensive to the point of being offensive when asked to substantiate those conjectures. That is why Inquisitions were never about questions and answers. The pressure to conform is intensified manifold when accompanied by the unstated (or grossly overstated, depending on the part of the world you live in) threat of persecution.

Godmatism

With ego and commerce steamrolling the original tenets of faith and spirituality, the economic model of religion thrives on two basic emotions: fear and guilt. Pay up to avoid suffering the wrath of God, and pay up to atone for and wash away the sins you find yourself returning to at every opportunity. This is a far cry from what religion was touted to be if not intended to be: attaining spirituality, illumination, salvation, or just peace of mind - unfortunately some people mistook peace of mind for piece of mind and considered themselves superior enough to give a piece of their mind to the less aware and get a piece of gold in return. Every great cause gets trivialized in the long run.

Road to Hell

The path to God is peppered with toll-booths where oversized gas-guzzling vehicles, having driven off that energy-efficient but low acceleration vehicle called spirituality off the road a long while back, repeatedly pay extra toll to atone for their incurable road-rage tendencies. There are also trains driven by sinister ministers and saints with taints of all religions, full of raging fan(atic)s holding a one-way ticket to their glorious destination which generally unbeknownst to them happens to be a cliff. Not to forget zealot pilots promising a speedy but ill-fated ascent to heaven.

Adventures of InstantGratifix

This world of instant gratification has resulted in the quest for spiritual ecstasy degenerate into a drink of the 'spirit' kind and a pill called ecstasy. Instant gratification has become a fix. Here's an ode to InstantGratifix, the indomitable Gaul in relentless pursuit of an easy and instant fix:

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Sole Intention of a Soul In Tension
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The sole intention of a soul in tension is learning to fly 

No patience to try, shoots straight for the sky 

Comes crashing down to the amusement of passers-by


Maybe it was a pig on the wing that met its fate befitting  
Or maybe a soul with unscrupulous underpinning  
Unwilling to take baby steps in the beginning


Condition grounded, still determined to try  
The optimist, shat upon by a bird  
Thanks god that elephants don't fly


The key to ascension is Good Orderly Direction  
Heaven can't wait and provides people bait  
Wanting to get an instant high on the sly
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Good Orderly Direction

A wise friend once said that GOD is Good Orderly Direction. We live in a world obssessed with setting and achieving goals (for soccer fanatics that takes on a more literal meaning). Words like salvation, nirvana, spirituality are allocated a lot more weight than they should be and their quest defeats their very purpose. What if we just focused on the following commandments/rules/laws culled from multiple religions and not get caught up in all the hype?

· Do unto others as you would have others do unto you - Masochists need not apply.

· Do your work, and don't worry about the fruits of your labor (Gita) - Unless you are an apple farmer and your work is your fruit.

· A human being may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm (Isaac Asi'Moses' laws of Humanics) - Originally written for robots but effortlessly extensible to human beings.

There's Chauncey Gardner from 'Being There', an electric little movie that showed Peter Sellers in an entirely different (and brilliant) light. The defining moment comes when he, having gained fame as 'Chance The Gardener' with his simple vegetative observations getting interpreted as profound spiritual principles, just walks unaware onto a pond and on realizing that he is standing on water, dips his umbrella in the water and finds it go straight in. He smiles and just walks on, not even realizing the significance of what he did.

People are expected to do good things selflessly - I don't quite understand that. What's the harm in feeling proud when you do a good thing and being applauded for it? Maybe it will prompt the fundamentalists to learn some fundamentals.

To emphasize the point made above: while there is no 'I' in team, there are 2 I's in Spirit, be it of the ethereal or the alcoholic kind! Is this a questionable answer?

Better late ...?

We flip the pages of life as if running from a wildfire
Unwilling to slow down till it comes down to the wire
Pages turn flippant when we wish our lives to rewire
That drive down memory lane hobbles on a flat tire

Procrastination rules till it comes to things we desire
'Rash' decisions are made by the itch we acquire
Brash people invariably land in a ditch or mire
Righteous people end up just preaching to the choir

Seemingly momentous occasions are prioritized higher
Small moments keep spinning all life in the dryer
When it finally comes to realizing how they inspire
They have turned a size too short for the tryer

The never-ending quest for more space lights our fire
And loses all its meaning in the grave or on the pyre
Moments wasted reaching for the future while we respire
Are a result of constantly putting want over what we do require

Thirst for conquest is the weapon from the arms supplier
Relationships and people get killed in the cross-fire
Getting first to the cheese means everything to the high-flyer
Rat race is about the trap of loneliness, knows the non-buyer

Hindsight provides clear perspective on shots we misfire
Fear of heights becomes palpable AFTER we climb the tallest spire
Regrets many, consolations few, tears fail to retire
Bad decisions and death tend to accost in shiny attire

Our children teach us about becoming humans entire
And that unconditional parental love of which we were a denier
We keep shifting blame to our younger selves till we expire
Life actually gave us a clear glimpse but we failed to enquire

When it comes to realizations, epiphanies are what we admire
Day-to-day eye-openers are left unopened to expire
'Better late than never' is the motto to which we aspire
Why is the need for 'Never late is better' not made dire?

Contesting Contexts or Contextual Contests?

Some words are great levelers. While they soar in contexts that are complex, sacred or respectable, they also serve to deflate those very contexts by finding usage in polar opposites. This raises pointed questions about the people who came up with the varied usage of these words - they were definitely double-agents for the dark side.

• Swear - A gloriously multi-faceted word that begs close inspection. You can swear in the name of god to proclaim truthfulness and integrity, swear in the name of god to express shock/anger and basically blaspheme, swear to invoke hell/evil and blaspheme again, solemnly swear to uphold a declaration or a position in society, or just simply swear to your heart's content (here you stand the risk of swearing out your welcome). The last one has maximum potential as well as honest emotional value. What is key regarding this word is that you can swear in the name of god and be either religious or blasphemous! This beats Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

• Institution, Committed - Both marriage and mental asylums are institutions. You are required to commit to the first, and are forcibly committed to the second. You might be sane enough to identify you are insane and voluntarily check into a mental institution - I believe that percentage is significantly low. Either way you end up committed and in an institution. So what exactly is being implied here? And what of people who go insane after marriage? Can they plead sanity by noting they are already committed and in an institution?

• Culture - We are a culture growing on nutrient substances, usually under controlled conditions. So are bacteria, a form of life that are orders of magnitude simpler than human beings, yet capable of causing unimaginable havoc to the human culture. The good bacteria typically dies young while the evil bacteria seems to live forever. Anyway, why is a word of such sweeping range and richness used in the bacterial context?

• Organized - While this word holds its own when used individually, it takes on a different connotation when used in the context of 2 diametrically opposite (are they?) concepts - religion and crime. I wonder which one has resulted in higher casualties.

Then there's the incendiary 'race' which does not require a context at all (because it is the context) and is in a perennial contest with itself. People are a race and in a race, and oneupmanship is inextricably wired into the human gene.

The Tooth Shall Never Set You Free!

Chewing is essential for survival, but the complexity of the apparatus designed to perform that activity confounds me every time I visit the dentist. It's a torture-fest involving multiple sharp objects, a drill, a syringe, and plastic objects with sharp corners that are painfully inserted for X-rays. Gums are always at the receiving end - they get poked, prodded, and are forced to bleed for an activity as simple as cleaning - the fact that cleaning involves a needle is so easily accepted that it does not even elicit a protest. An eternity passes by the time that simple activity comes to a conclusion, with the only high point being the application of a toothpaste-like substance by an electric scrubber.

As for cavities, the space-time continuum is breached and the universe comes to a standstill when the dentist inserts a bendable needle (how cool!) multiple times in the deep confines of your gums, for the purposes of anesthesia. The whole act is performed with extreme nonchalance, and is invariably followed by casual banter between the dentist and the assistant. Seemingly rhetorical questions are directed from time to time towards the person lying helpless with the mouth wide-open, waiting breathlessly for a lull in activity to shut their aching jaws, figuring out ways to ignore the constant whoosh of the vacuum rinse mechanism, constantly being asked hairdresser-like to adjust their head, and wondering if they are supposed to provide an unnecessary mono-syllabic response because nothing else is feasible.

I am not even going to talk about root canal - it's traumatic, to say the least.

I watched an indie movie called 'The Secret Lives of Dentists' a few years back during my indie-movie fascination phase, which waned after realizing that many of those indie movies are actually even worse than the assembly-line formulaic Hindi movies. While the movie was mildly interesting and irrelevant from a pure dental perspective, it did involve a dentist couple whose marriage was losing gravity, getting riddled with cavity, and had decayed to the point of a root canal (read 'therapy') if not extraction (read 'divorce'). A deep filling and timely recognition of wisdom of the tooth saved the day. That couple deserves a plaque for their 'crown'ing achievement.

Here's the anatomy of the tooth - why is it so complex? We could definitely use stronger enamel instincts to avoid dental retardation and replacement by implants, in addition to preventing attacks by Huns and Tartars.

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The tooth always hurts and it shall never set you free. That is because when you have lost all your real teeth, you will be in'denture'd.

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