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.