Musings on solar power

I think I was reading Ramachandra Guha or someone when it struck me that of the many possible ways of doing things, two were the Gandhian way or the Nehruvian way. Gandhian way was bottom-up approach. The focus is on villages and communities. Small changes, small projects but several of them. Nehru on the other hand had a very top-down approach. Big vision... dams, hydroelectric power plants, public sector industry that built huge things. He genuinely believed that massive investment in grand infrastructure projects were the way to govern India and bring her into modernity. The problem of course was that while cities and urban centres enjoyed the fruits of these mega-projects, it didn't reach a substantial proportion of the population. One Bhakra Nangal

project could have funded a million smaller projects which collectively could have been more effective. Or so was the argument. It is a complex system and I don't know enough to tilt one way or the other. I suppose both had their pros and cons.

But what I do see, in the modern context is the repetition of similar dilemma. Take power for instance, India has a massive supply-demand gap. An increasing number of her citizens are able to afford electrical gadgets like airconditioners and refrigerators. Even in a state like Tamilnadu which used to be energy surplus, the demand has grown exponentially that there are now compulsory power cuts. The semi-urban and rural areas have scheduled load shedding between  6 and 8 hours and unscheduled power cuts of another 2 or 3 hours a day. Even in Chennai, there are 2 hours of compulsory power cuts everyday.

This is the problem.

Now, we could either go all Nehru and invest in a multimillion dollar coal plant or billion dollar nuclear plant. (I am confused if Nuclear power is good... so we won't go into it). There are several problems. One, it'd take a long time for these projects to start producing power. And two, demand may grow even further that the gap will still exist when the new plant comes into use. There is a separate problem of pollution and availability of fuels (for coal and diesel plants) and waste disposal (for nuclear plants). There is also an investment issue... we just can't afford it. Or if we did spend most of our money in power plants, there is less to go around for other equally important issues (like water, food and education).

So, what would Gandhi do?

I suppose that he would recommend that small communities become self-sufficient. which means not relying on the national grid for power. We know that while centralised electrical generation has its advantages of scale, electrical distribution causes major losses. What if communities can generate their own power or at least a major part of their power requirements locally? They'd become independent. Technology exists in renewable energy like solar and wind which can provide substantial power for small communities. Instead of thinking of massive power plants that will supply an entire state, we look to hundreds of smaller scale projects that will work for each town and village. Imagine, solar plants in each village supplying electricity to its residents. I understand that solar power cannot fully replace existing power plants, but they can narrow the gap between
supply and demand and use clean renewable technology doing it.
For me it is not about the technology. I think research is ongoing and remarkable advances are imminent. it is about reducing the time gap between invention of technology and adoption of it. We have seen with mobile phones that adoption of technology can be rapid. In less than 10 years, mobile phones have become ubiquitous. It has penetrated markets unimaginable a decade ago. So technology can, when it reaches a tipping point, be adopted rapidly over large populations. And this accelerated adoption also accelerates innovation and growth in the field. A future in which instead of each town and village, each house generates most of its own electricity needs may not be too far away. 


There you have it... incomplete thought. 

Spin that

Watched a hatchet job on Assange on the Tele. They had ex-associates talk about how Assange was egoistic and how he had yelled at them. Replace the name Assange with the name of any political figure, media editor, school teacher, father, mother, brother, sister, pet dog, random people on the street and it would still sound about right. I mean who hasn't yelled at people. I was called a curry muncher not one hour ago by a drunken bogan with a southern cross tattoo. I don't think the bogan was devil-incarnate. If Assange raped someone in Sweden that is wrong and he is a rapist. If Assange yelled at someone for no fault of theirs, then he is a dick-head. That doesn't change the fact that the US government turned blind eye to civilian brutalities in Iraq. It doesn't change the fact that the government of Yemen has been actively hiding the American covert operations in their country .

The US government and by extension all its allies, including the Australian government and most media outlets are waging a propaganda war. Wikileaks discloses some misdeed of the government that it wished to keep a secret and the Government (it's an Orwellian concoction of all nation states that look up to their true master-state). And the government retaliates by calling Assange names. I haven't seen one instance where they have offered a valid rebuttal of anything that was leaked. So, the only card they can play is 'Demonize' and how they play it!!! Charles Prentiss would approve.

How to have your cake and eat it too? Saying "Wikileaks endangered lives by their indiscriminate dumping of classified information" and "The information they leaked is not important because they are not even new" in the same breath. Cognitive Dissonance... what is that?

It ain't easy being brown

I was listening to Mozart. Symphony No. 40 in G-Minor. An old lady walks in to the shop and goes I didn't expect you to be listening to this. I have to admit that I was a little surprised at this remark. I mean, what did it mean when she said that?

a) Is it because I am young (compared to her) and youngsters don't listen to classical music anymore?
b) Is it because that a service station is an unlikely place to hear Mozart?
Or
c) Is it because I am brown and darkies should be listening to more appropriate ethnic music?

I thought I was capable of picking up nuances in speech but this one plain threw me. I sure didn't take offense and I am not all that thin-skinned (even if I am dark-skinned) . One way or the other I don't care but I did want to ask.

Adventures of the Cancer-denier

Joe W. sat in the hospital lobby in a plastic molded chair watching Whoopi Goldberg's animated mute face along with other women of the View. Two year old copies of House and Garden and some celebrity gossip rag that broke the Brangelina news lay uncared in a corner.The doctor called him in eventually. Joe had been to his GP with a recurring bout of abdominal pain and his GP had prescribed this and that and then when the pain hadn't subsided referred him to the hospital and the 'specialists' had gone to work on him and done a battery of tests including blood, urine and something else that was like X-ray but not X-ray and a biopsy with a needle the size of a baby's arm. Today was the day for the results of all those needless needles.

The doctor, an Asian-kind of guy, though with a flawless Bostonian accent, ushered him to his office and with a sombre expression that must have taken years of practice in front of mirrors informed him that the diagnosis wasn't good and he was sorry but the results indicate pancreatic cancer but there was hope and the three-year survival rate wasn't too bad and new treatments are being developed all the time. He looked at the doctor with an expression that was rather unfamiliar in that room. It wasn't denial, puzzlement, disbelief, shock, sorrow, anger, courage, hope, desire, despair or any of the emotions that one would normally associate with a death sentence. It was contempt, and a strange kind of contempt it was. He said, 'Why should I believe you?' and the doctor mistaking it for shock said in an empathising voice of one who has seen too much pain and suffering to not be moved by it, that he was afraid that it was so and the results were very conclusive. That is when he raged, 'How do you know that it is cancer? If you don't know what is causing the stomach pain, do you just call it cancer?'.

'Sir! I am an experienced oncologist and I studied Medicine at John Hopkins and specialised in pancreatic cancer at Harvard. Your liver function tests revealed possible cancer but it was inconclusive. This is your pancreas as seen by our CT-scanners and as you can see this is a textbook case. It shows a clear tumor of 10mm and we have results from the biopsy, that was the procedure with the big needle, that has confirmed that it is not a benign mass and that it is in fact cancerous pancreatic tissue. I am terribly sorry but you are young and otherwise healthy and there are a number of options to fight cancer'.

'I don't want to fight cancer because I don't think this is cancer. Why should I believe that this is cancer or that it is deadly? Just because you are a specialist and you went to Harvard and you say so? I don't think so. And I am not coming back to you quacks'

'Sir! I understand that this comes as a shock to you and that you are in denial but here, you can see this book, this is an authoritative text by Howard Reber and if you see the CT-scan image on the book and your CT-scan image, they are very similar, almost identical. And please you have to keep coming to the hospital for treatment and we should decide on the future course of action that is best for you'

'Who are you to tell me what is best for my future? You are just a scientist. Just because you went to medical school and studied for eight or ten years, doesn't make you king of the world. And so is this Howard guy, a scientist. I trust no one'

'Pancreatic cancer is well researched and well documented. If you'd rather have a second opinion, I urge you to go to another hospital and I am sure that they would confirm for you what I have just said'

'You are all a cabal; the other hospital guys and you. You all want to fleece us by scaring us with tall tales about "cancer", saying You will die if you don't listen to us. Let me tell you what I think - You just want to control people. That is all there is to it. It is about control and money '

'I can assure you that is not the case'

'Then riddle me that - the more people you diagnose with "cancer" the more money you get from government. How is it not in your interest to spread the "cancer lie". Tell me'

'We get more grants from the government because with enough money and support we can cure cancer or at least make it manageable. For the common good'

'Common good, my ass. I have seen scientists. I know all about the politics of science. Do you think I don't know about pharma companies and insurance giants that make billions and billions. And I know about all the doctors who get sued for malpractice. You want money and power. You want people to stop smoking and drinking and having a good time because you nerds couldn't get laid'

'Sir! I beg with you. We can argue from now to eternity if science and scientists are perfect and recount all the mistakes we have done but you have pancreatic cancer and if we don't treat you, you'll die within a year'

'Cancer is just an elaborate conspiracy by scientists to steal money from the taxpayer. That is all there is to it. Kind of like Global warming. The whole climate change myth is a liberal plot by tree-huggers and lesbians to take away our Hummers. I'll have no more of it. Goodbye to you and may you burn in hell'

'Ah! well! He got away, this smart man. So, which other gullible, totally unskeptic tool can I diagnose with cancer. I am down on this month's quota'

Addiction

What could have happened
to the world in 20 minutes.
A lot.
News junkie is still a junkie

Void Love

There are unspeakably many voids that I have not meditated upon. What does this mean? What would we do? How does it change everything? Are we ready? Will we ever be? The emptiness is of no consequence. Several things have not been thought about, several things are not known. For what can knowledge achieve but label, define, theorize and describe. Immersed in this regression, apparently not that uncommon among Homo sapiens, I unbuild everything that I painstakingly built. I imagine and I fear. I imagine and I fear. Can all my life amount to nothing? Had it come from nothing? Many nothings that can stand atop the head of a pin. I wonder. I wonder because I see nothing but the here and the now. No past nor future exists. Just me, you and that which I feel. This pain where my heart once was.

It did not seem wrong or even insidious. But how would I know. It was never thought of. It just is.

Love.

p.s. Many words in this aren't mine. I found them here and there and strung them together. But the emotion is mine. Only the emotion is.

Evasion

Thinking is man's only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one's consciousness, the refusal to think - not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment-on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict "It is." Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper. By refusing to say "It is," you are refusing to say "I am." By suspending your judgment, you are negating your person. When a man declares: "Who am I to know?" he is declaring: "Who am I to live?"

(I think Ayn Rand wrote that. Found it on the net and am thinking about it. I am a certified Evader and this is like a slap on my face. Hoping to find a valid counter argument. This is going to be a slap-fest)

If there was a God?

An important question has resurfaced since the passing of my neighbour (refer previous post). Put simply, the question is, ‘If there was a God, how do you explain such a death?’ The question begs some elaboration.

Death in itself is inevitable. It is just as natural as birth and essential for the balance of things. So, a similar question with regard to, say my 85-year-old grandfather who died of old age may not be pertinent. To a certain extent, even heart attacks and cancers are explained off as an outcome of our lifestyle: the food we eat, the kind of work we do, pollution, stress, etc. But how does one explain a death at a New Years party?

Shockingly, one of my friends held the view that it was a punishment (by God?) for abandoning our cultural values. But we’ll not digress.

Let us examine the facts: Anand was in hospital for a week and discounting all conspiracy theories, was under the best medical care possible. His family spared no prayers for his recovery. A few well-wishers in the apartments organized special prayers each day: chanting Vishnu sahasranamam and arranging for special offerings in the temple.

My point here, I rush to clarify, is not to belittle the goodwill shown by everyone. It is in fact, my very point that all these prayers were sincere and the goodwill genuine.

Our assumption (or if you are uneasy with that word, faith) is that there is a benevolent Almighty God who listens to our prayers and if our prayers are sincere (reasonable and not selfish) he grants them.

So why did he not recover? Their prayers, I am sure were (unambiguously) for a speedy recovery. The normal explanations of ‘Your prayers weren’t fervent enough’ or ‘Your faith wasn’t strong enough’ are hollow and inadequate.

There is a trump card up His sleeve and I have received them a few times in my time. For instance, the girl I was fervently hoping to marry got married to someone else. Or the college transfer I was counting on was denied. I was told that it was all for the good. God had a special plan for us that we do not know and cannot know (but it is all good baby). Our disappointment is based on an ignorance of what is in store for us.

Tell that to Anand’s parents. Try that ‘It was for the good’ argument on his sister. Whose good are we talking about here? What could possibly be a good outcome for his bereaved family? Oh no! there is a different card for young deaths. That is called, ‘Those He holds dear, He calls them back soon’. Who signed up for that, not Anand?

There is another card that infuriates me more. That is the Karma card. Maybe he was a nice bloke in this life but what about his previous lives. (More on Karma soon)

Brings the oft repeated doubt… if God is benevolent, then he is not omnipotent or he would have intervened (I wish I could and if I could I would but…) or he is omnipotent but not truly benevolent, choosing his intervention based on a rigid set of conditions (oops! Sorry but you were 5 short of the critical number of prayers required to qualify) or simply His whims (Nothing too weighty before coffee please. Not a morning person).

So, my question is very simple. Is there an explanation? A reason or higher purpose for this wasteful death. I cannot find one justification that passes muster. If the right answer exists, I do not know it. However, if my question was to be framed as ‘Is there a God?’ (a God who willfully participates in the daily running of the universe and fiddles with the fates of humans), my answer seems evident.

Like at first sight

I nose dove in like. Yup! This one is for real. Haaahaaa

I did not know anything about her, all I had was a smile and eyes that were full of joy. It could have simply been that she had come well prepared to this exam. Yes, it happened in the examination hall. She was a final year Computer Science student and was sitting for, oh! it doesn't matter, does it? Anyway, I was the invigilator in her hall. Oh! Come on! Don't look so scandalous. I know what you are thinking. I am a teacher and she was a student and you think it is wrong. Hey! We haven't even come to the stage of the story where it is appropriate to be shocked.

In my defence, though I am a teacher and she a student, she wasn't MY student. Hell! She wasn't even in the same college. Yes, this was in a college where I had been appointed as an external invigilator. So, as you can clearly see, she wasn't my student and I had no scruples holding me back.

Holding me back from what, you ask me. I had fallen in like at first sight. Don't roll your eyes. I didn't say, LOVE at first sight. I simply liked the way she held herself and thought that this was a person I could be comfortable around. You know, it is quite natural to like or dislike a person based purely on first impressions. Of course, first impressions can be misleading but how can you know that unless you had a chance to make second and third impressions.

That, therefore was the plan. I wanted to ask her out for coffee. Don't laugh at me. I know it is an alien concept here but a coffee date is safe and simple. I mean, it takes up less energy, time and money. And there is ample time for conversation and an hour with a person should give you enough data to decide if you wanted to invest on another date. I should admit, though, I didn't know how she would react.

The bigger problem was how was I going to ask her? And perhaps more importantly, when? Surely, even if I gathered enough guts to ask her and knew the words to do that, I couldn't ask her in the middle of an examination if she would come out with me.

I thought of a cunning plan. Yes! you are right. I had too much time to kill. Three hours of doing nothing but walk around a 25x20 feet room.

Logistically, I would have very little time after the exam to make my move, if I had any. A minute at the most. And there would be people around; other students. And logically, there was always the off-chance that she would slap me or start crying or get her classmates to kick my butt. Make that most probably.

Don't get impatient. I am coming to my cunning plan. I decided that asking her out is an elaborate process and since I did not have time for that now, I should create time for it later. Obviously, I couldn't meet her again (remember it is not my college) without being obvious that I am interested in her. So my cunning plan was... wait for it... to give her... are you ready for it: a note.

Stop laughing. It is not funny.

Maybe it is. A little.

But that is not all. The note wouldn't be something lame like, 'I like you', or 'You are so beautiful' or even 'Will you have coffee with me?'. The note will have my blog address. That's right! This very blog.

Laugh all you want but hear me out, will ya?

The idea was to not get slapped. I mean not put her or myself in an embarrassing situation. Nobody could blame me for asking her to check a website. They might think I was desperate for some readership but that wouldn't be so bad. I could do with more readers.

OK! She got the note. She thinks it is a weird request. She wonders if I am crazy. What next, you ask me.

The plan was to get her curious enough to check out my blog. There I could put up a post asking her out for coffee. If she was interested, anonymous commenting is enabled, she could leave me a message. Or mail me at the email id in my profile. And yes, it would also help her form an opinion of the kind of person I am.

What! You think she wouldn't want to go out with me after reading what I put up on my blogs. You don't know that. Lots of people think I am adorable. Anyway, I think it is only fair that she knows what to expect of me. She needs to be prepared if she was going to accept.

What if she wasn't interested? Simple. She wouldn't leave a message. Or worst case... leave a crappy one, calling me all sort of names. Well! I am the moderator of my blog, right? I could just delete it and nobody needs to know.

Either way, I couldn't lose. The plan was perfect.

Is the suspense killing you? Are you dying to know if I did ask her? I am not going to tell you.

What do you think? Did I or didn't I?

Coming into light

I woke up disoriented, not knowing where I was or what I had been doing before. I wasn't even sure if I had been sleeping. All I remember was being aware of the darkness that surrounded me. There must be a switch, I thought and I will turn on the light. Then there will be some illumination and I will know what place this is. I can find out everything. If only I could find the light switch.

I felt my way through the walls, bumping into pieces of furniture; a chair here, a bed there. I felt a mirror (that could have been a picture frame) and a picture frame (which could well have been a mirror). The room was large and I was getting impatient. Where is the damn switch? Why can't I find it? My knee was badly bruised and I was a little afraid too. What if I don't find the switch? And then I heard a voice.

It was a woman's voice. I knew the voice just as well as I knew that I was alone in the room. I knew because when I hear voices, they are always of this woman. And she said to me, "Open your fucking eyes, asshole. The room is lit"

Kitsch

There are many surprises in this world. Every time I turn around a corner, surprise stares me in the face. Sometimes, it is sneering. NO, make that often. I don't mind. Not so much, that I have gotten used to it. Surprises no longer surprise me.

Like the other day, I was browsing through comments on Rediff (which is the next best thing after FRIENDS to cure mild depression), and someone had written that Satyajit Ray was a traitor.

Oh why! I wondered, he is the only Indian to be awarded an Oscar, surely in a country where international success or any remote connection to it is lauded and worshipped, he ought to receive more respect than that. What treason could he have committed? I read on. Do you know why Satyajit Ray is a traitor? Because he depicted poverty in India. That abject thing that does not exist anywhere in India. He is a unpatriotic because he marketed India's poverty to the west. Won awards and recognition because that is what the west wants to see of us.

Now,take a director of the Johar ilk. Well! You know he is patriotic because he depicts true Indian values and traditions. Doesn't he make us all proud? My chest is so swollen with pride, it is going to burst any second now.

All along, I described the movies of the Johar kind (lets be kind to him as these movies predate him and call it the Bollywood masala) as shit, bullshit, horseshit, manure and crap. It has just dawned on me that they are not shit. If anything they are the exact opposite of it; the negation of shit. Kitsch, if you please.

I am reminded of Milan Kundera's definition of Kitsch in the The Unbearable Lightness of Being as “the absolute denial of shit”. Kitsch, he wrote, excludes from view everything that humans find difficult to come to terms with, offering instead a sanitised view of the world.

What the writer of that article was trying to say was that Ray's vision was against their ideal of India and therefore unacceptable. Ray, despite gaining eminence overseas is not worthy of being our hero. It has nothing to do with ciematic sensibilites or style.

Why does it surprise me or ought to? We, in India (maybe it is an universal phenemenon) are so thirsty for heroes to put up on pedestals that I expected Ray to be on one. A national hero. A role-model for filmmakers of the new generation.

Perhaps it is only fitting that he is not on one. (And perhaps... he is not on this pedestal, only to be put up on a different one)

Purpose

I have been blue for a while now and that I have some time to ponder doesn’t seem to help. It actually has exacerbated it.

I asked a dear friend of mine, what he thought was the purpose of life. He looked at me like you would look at a particularly disgusting spider. Why do you wonder, he asked and I told him that since we are alive, I figured the primary question would be about its purpose. Then he told me that that was philosophy and that as engineers we need not bother about it. There are others who sit and think and write about such inane things. It was not up to us to do so.

I persisted. Being a devoutly religious person, he said that according to the scriptures, the purpose of our life is to do good, acquire ‘punya’, pray to God and hope to be liberated from the repeated cycles of birth and death.

That must be it, I thought. But then… The purpose of existence is to cease existing. We live so as to not live. Is that not a paradox?

Be that as it may, if my purpose in life is liberation, any action that takes me towards this goal is ‘good’ action and any action that isn’t, is ‘bad’. It may not necessarily take me away from the goal, but it is not taking me towards it. And these actions are to be avoided. Discouraged. Right? So how is studying engineering, or building a house or getting married helping me achieve the ‘goal’?

Obviously, I am such an idiot that simple truths skip my mind.

Duh! One needs to be at a stage of spiritual maturation where one has realized that all world is maya and then and only then would he or she renounce all worldly things and start working towards moksha. Not before that.

Oh! Spiritual maturation. That did skip my mind.

So, ok! What is our purpose now?

That’s the best part, he said. Since you and I are not in “the” spiritual zone, we don’t have to worry about purpose at all. We can do whatever we want. We’ll simply have to be good people and that’s it.

And what is being good people?

It is simple. You have to be gentle, courteous, generous, honest and just (Duh! Duh!). You should not harm others. And society has evolved some dos and don’ts and if one follows it and does whatever is acceptable to everyone, you will find yourself in the good people list.

Wokie! That was awesome man! You really opened my eyes. One last thing: What was the purpose for this birth? Don’t I have to think about it at all?

Haven’t you learnt anything? (sigh) You don’t have to think about purpose. That is the job for a later you. For now, there is no purpose. But if you insist on having one, we could say that we live this life, so we may leave a better world for the next generation.

For the next generation, uh?

Yes! One must work hard with diligence, get over 90% in the board exams, get into a good college, study well, get good grades, get placed (preferably by campus interview) and earn decent money. If you do all this well and get settled, you will get married to a good person. Then you will be happy and will have kids. And then you put those kids in reputed schools, take them to tennis and swimming, make sure they get over 90% in their boards and then get admission for them in a good university and pray for them to get placed on campus and once they are settled, find them a good husband or wife and wait for them to have children. Once you hold your grandchild in your arm once, you are so blissful that, it is as if your purpose is fulfilled. Then, you live out your life in peace and die. That is it.

That was so eloquent, I can’t help but be impressed. Of course I don’t think we are leaving a better world to our next generation. Look at the environment. We have screwed it up beyond repair and have a lifestyle that is clearly unsustainable. So I am not sure if we are leaving a better world.

Surely, that is not us. It was our forefathers. We are not responsible for what has happened to the environment. Anyway, I am sure our future generations will develop new technologies to make everything alright. It is not our problem. Why do you fret over it unnecessarily? You wanna catch a movie?

Wisdom

They found my wisdom
prone

My father wondered
if it was because
I read in my bed

A friend asked
if it was because
of what I read
(and as it follows
what I followed)

The dentist said
it is horizontal
And it shouldn't be
Called it impaction
It must be extracted
he said with a smile
or was the smile my imagination

Operated upon
Uhoh! I thought.
But then,
who needs wisdom anyway?

The road not taken

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I stood there in the middle
Unable to take either.

Wah! Taj!

I know this post has been a little late in the coming... but who cares!

It's been a week since Taj Mahal found its place in the New Seven Wonders of the World and the euphoria has just about worn out. I think it is about time that we took a moment and saw the madness of it.

The mainstream media in India went gung ho with the news of the "voting" for the new seven wonders. CNN-IBN, NDTV, why even SS Music went gaga over the Taj and urged its viewers to vote in favour of Taj. They even opened dedicated lines to sms your vote. A.R. Rahman came up with a song for the Taj and the day the results were declared, saw celebrations in every nook and corner of India.

Perhaps we forgot to ask some important questions. For instance, who is making up this list? Not many know that this was a private initiative by a Swiss concern, who as far as I can see, have no ruddy business or authority to mess up with an established list. UNESCO, which has the official mandate for preserving world heritage, has distanced itself from the campaign. So why do we even bother?

Next, how could a decision on the greatest wonders of the world involve voting from the general public? What are the parameters of selection? Do we have to accept "Might makes right"? With a billion odd population, can anyone even compete with us?

NDTV says, every patriotic Indian is proudly voting for the Taj with a very clear subtext that any one found not voting for the Taj is unpatriotic. And India voted.

One could even ask, why seven? Why not eight or nine or a hundred? Let's accept the "It's a tradition" answer for the moment.

Now that we have the Taj on the list, what next? I suppose it would become a tourist destination and find a place in the 'India Tourism' brochures. Wait a sec; it already is a tourist destination and is the most iconic building in India. So....

I am not an architect and I haven't the faintest clue as to what makes a building a wonder. Mind you, that ShahJahan constructed it for his beloved wife as a symbol of his undying love is no reason for it to be a wonder.

I remember watching a documentary on the 'Thanjavur Periya Kovil' and the filmmaker believed that the reason that the British historians/archaeologists liked the TajMahal better was that it was more closer to their concept of a spectacular building. He pointed out that the prudish Brit could not stand the extravagantly carved Hindu temples with their bare bodied Gods and Godesses. I am not sure how much of that it true. But the least that the Indian media could have done is showcase other architectural wonders of India. My apologies if I had missed such a programme but all I could hear on the tely was what a great wonder Taj is.

I am not against the Taj and please do not colour my views here. All I wanted to point was that we are being brainwashed by the media into believing whatever they dish out. Wake up!

Identity - Part 2

Have you heard someone point at an Indian-American and say, "Oh! He is an ABCD"?

ABCD, American Born Confused Desi is the title given to Indian kids born abroad, especially the States. It is believed that the cultural shock of growing up in an 'alien' environment and being far from our "traditions", "cultural heritage" and "mitti ki khusboo", these children suffer from an identity crisis. For instance, unable to decide if they are American-Indian or Indian-American. Whether to speak Hindi with an English accent or English with an Hindi accent.

I don't have any trouble with that classification. There are desis and there are confused desis. These desis can be born in any country and if born in America are ABCDs. What irks me is when people think that being confused is the prerogative of only the Indian diaspora.

If it wasn't clear from my previous post, which raised many questions and answered none, I am a confused desi. Very.

Yup! I am an IBCD. Indian Born Confused Desi.

We IBCDs aren't much different from ABCDs. You see, I wondered if my identity was of an Indian, Tamilian or Brahmin. As an ABCD, I might have wondered if I was American or Indian and perhaps Tamil or Brahmin too. I may not seriously consider my identity as a Brahmin but may use a substitute - 'Hindu'.

Likewise, our regional status fades into insignificance when we go out of the country. Not really!!? Let me put a qualifier. Most times, our regional identity fades into insignificance when we go out of the country. Tamil, Kannadiga, Bihari, Punjabi; we get along well. We are the Indian fraternity.

Even if it didn't, it is only an order of magnitude higher than an IBCD. Surely, we IBCDs deserve some recognition.

Maybe I just want company, but I think that being confused is good and that we need more messed-up people like me. Because, the opposite of being confused is blind acceptance. It is not that you know the answers to all questions; you simply don't ask any.

Identity

A while back, one of my housemates asked me this question - How would you describe yourself? Are you first and foremost an Indian, a Tamilian or a Brahmin?

My inquisitor was one-fourth Kiwi, quarter-Hungarian, half- Islander and has been in Australia for well over three decades. She was born a Jew, grew up an atheist, dabbled with Christianity and then found Buddhism. Things weren't made any easier by the fact that she was a lesbian. Somewhere down the line she must have wondered who she really was and I am guessing she found the answer. The point is, her identity was not a 'given'. She had to find it herself. And perhaps, by the process of finding it, she has become a better person.

Fed an intensive diet of 'patriotic' films I was tempted to respond with "I am an Indian first. Everything else comes after that". But does it really. Who am I?

Yes, I am an Indian, because I was born here, because my passport says so. But what is it to be 'Indian'? How would someone define Indianness? What other than Geography makes one Indian? When my grandfather was born, the concept of India as it exists now did not prevail. India, as a land that stretches from Kashmir to Kanyakumari (minus Pakistan and Bangladesh) was an invention, that is only 60 years old. India, the land of Indus has a much longer history but was not exactly a whole unit. There were many nations in it, and my nationality (and thereby my identity) would have been Pallava or Pandya or Chola or Maratha or Mughal at various times. According to which army was conquering . I was even British for a while.

Yes, I am a Tamil, because I speak the language, because I was born and raised in a Tamil speaking society. But does that make me a Tamilian before an Indian. Again, we don't know how many generations ago, my ancestors moved to Tamil land. As recent as 20 years ago, my grandfather couldn't read and write Tamil well. He was taught Sanskrit and was more comfortable with it than Tamil. Clearly the regional fervour and linguistic jingoism were also inventions of the last 5-6 decades. And the Dravidian movement did not consider us, Brahmins, as Tamils. Or did they?

Which brings us to being a Brahmin. Yes, I am a Brahmin and I have a thin rope across my shoulders to prove it. Every year I change that rope and recite the Gayathri Mantra 1008 times. Being a Brahmin has clearly defined rules and there are rites and practices unique to us.

So, does that make me a Brahmin before anything else? What am I, if I remove the tag of Brahmin?

Which begs the question: 'What exactly is an identity?'. According to one of the dictionaries, identity is the condition of being oneself or itself, and not another.

Then this raises a new question: can one be all three; an Indian, a Tamil and a Brahmin? Even if that was possible, if I were to make one, my primary identity, what would it be? Any guesses.

Somehow I feel that what defines me the best (OK! the least controversial one) is, Aeronautical Engineer.