A Daily Life

It had been a bad day. It was meant to be, from the beginning, what with the early morning appointment with the agent, and the afternoon class, and the headmaster's insistence on our talking that particular day about my performance these last few months in his precious little, backwoods country, primary school. And all this just the day after I had decided to tell my mother I was moving out and setting up my own place and the arguments and the long weeping harangue that followed. That I had just broken up with my longtime girlfriend and was in no state of mind to think, let alone act, intelligently seemed completely lost on one and all, as they insisted in their most impressively scholarly tones, Carpe Diem. Carpe Diem indeed! I had duly woken up late in the mess that was my friend's apartment, having moved in with my toothbrush and briefcase late the previous night, the alarm clock a long-discarded luxury in his blissfully unworkmanlike existence which needed not the least bit of the hurried step or the simplest creasing of the wrinkled forehead with worry and anxiety. Breakfast has always been a weakness and when I had to skip it to reach the agent's office only an hour late, the rumble in my stomach was merely aggravated by the incompetence of a man of professed good taste, indeed of such a disposition as to claim to be the arbiter to the mass that is the people in matters literary, and yet of such dullness as to make grey seem the most vivid of colours on a winter afternoon when the sun has mixed the slush with the snow and has hidden himself behind the passing cloud that does not pass; and he decided to irritate me with the most obtuse questions that have through all recorded history been left best unanswered by all who claim to any intelligence whatsoever. I ventured, given the befuddled state that my mind was in, to remonstrate and retorted in as educated a manner as was possible at that instant and the result was that I was thrown out most decorously after an hour's worth of nothing done. The time, having already inched towards that period, when I am in the habit of having a second and much more elaborate meal than breakfast, I decided to put the troubles of the last hour behind me and attacked the cafeteria attached to the school(the school being but ten minutes' walk from the agent's, I made that trip all too easily). As fortune would have it, the cafeteria was closed for the day and, the only person I could have hoped to avoid in the cafeteria, given the private lunches he was accustomed to having in the comfort of his own office, the headmaster, most heartily beamed at me in the middle of his serious conversation with the cook, and with all the subtlety of an ox working a sledgehammer, informed me of the pleasure with which he would evaluate(negatively - that was given) my performance in the last few months at the meeting he had scheduled that evening. Heaven forbid any child should have to sit in class when a hungry, angry, hurt, confused, bitter, desperate man, recently wounded when still smarting under old wounds, is designated the teacher. Heaven forbid doubly that such a man should have a conscience and have to teach a class of the most unruly and rambunctious bumpkins who have been selected from the wealthiest set of family fools in the county to torture to death penniless schoolmasters dreaming of discharging social obligations in all manner of saccharine asininity. And then the meeting and still the hunger. I couldn't take it much longer. This was stuff that breaks the backs of giants. So I resigned at the first comical outburst that the headmaster had practised all week long in front of the mirror, calculating on impressing and intimidating me. Little did he know I was broken already. And I limped out to the lake by the woods and grabbed my handful of grass and sat by the shore. Waiting. Of course nothing happened. Except for a little girl who came around the big brown tree, crying in that most cheering way children cry when they are merely confused at the big bad world they haven't yet understood completely, innocent with doe-eyes wide and red, dragging her little doll in the tall grass. Her nose she had lost to her friend who had run away home with it and she had to be home soon and she could not go home without her nose - her mother had always warned her not to lose anything or she would not let her play any more. Children, I thought, and placed a piece of my nose on her face, taking her to the lake to prove she had a nose now too, for she wouldn't be satisfied with touching it - it had always felt so, even when the boy had taken her nose away. Children and fools and fool headmasters; agents who did not know and people who did not care or understand; friends who did not have to go through what I had to everyday and yet ventured to advise; hunger and necessity and the trials of a nature never kind to one who was beaten and knew it; pain and the lack of release; indecision; insufficiency; doubt; a hundred other things that made a man bitter and desperate and angry and contemptible and sad. And then the girl smiled and said, "You are the awesomest" and kissed me and ran away smiling gaily. And I felt happy.

Random Thoughts

Existence is presence in Space and Time(apart from other possible dimensions); existence out of Space and Time has to be explained in the abstract or the as yet absent - which is sometimes called non-existence.

Sole causes and effects are not possible(are not observed).

Everything cannot be known; everything cannot be understood; everything cannot be expressed. Everything cannot be experienced.

Everything does not matter.

The present is; the rest we dont know about.

There are children and adults; men and women; humans and beasts; animals and plants; life and things.

Children dont know; they dont understand; they dont feel; they dont care. Children stop being children and become adults to do these things.

Adults dont learn; they become children to learn. They know, understand, express, feel and take responsibility.

Men stand up, hit one another, and take hits; women dont see the point in fighting.

Beasts survive and become human when they create a world for themselves in their piece of the earth; humans create (private and social)worlds and live in them and become beasts when they have to survive.

Animals move; plants are transplanted.

Life leads; things are led.

---Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must remain silent/There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy

Ummmm..

Sevvai kizhamai. Saayangalam 7 mani. Sadharanama mega serial paakara neram aana innikku mattum Pavanandhiar theru Sivan koil'la peria paattimaarkootam. Avangavanga marumagalgaliyum kootindu nalla peran porakkanumnu vendudhal. Navagrahatha suthi oru pathu-irubadhu ponnunga oorvalam. Vaaravaaram nadakkaradhu dhaan. Aana ovvoru ezhettu maasamum oru gumbal varum, andha gedu mudivula oru rendu peria archana nadakkum, gumbal kalanjidum. Appuram vera oru maamiyar-marumagal gumbal adutha ezhettu maasathukku. Aana 8 mani pola, ellarum kilambi ponadhukkappuram, pakkathu therulerndhu Pankajam maamiyum ava marumagal Padmavum varuvanga. Archanai panna maami pova, Padma navagrahatha suthuva. 81 thadava suthinadhukkappuram moonji sulichunde Pankajam maami edhavadhu nachunu sollitu Padmava kootindu pova. Idhu ippo 4 varushama nadandhudu varudhu. Padmavum mudinjadhellam paani paathachu, onnum sari padala. Pankajam maamikkum porumai koranjunde irukku. Innikku paiyan kitta mudiva onnu sollidanumnu vechindirukka. Rendu perum edho avan officela partykku porangalam. Vandha udane oru kai paathudalam evvalavu mani aanalum sari.

Enna appadi oru chance kadaikkala Pankajam maamikku. Annikku 9 manikku kilambi Padmavum ava purushanum avan office New Year's Eve partykku ponavanga veetukku nera varave illa. Sumaar 2 manikku phone adichudhu. General Hospital. Edho sambavam nadandhu avanga rendu perum admit ayirukkangalam. Ore padhattam maamikku. Enna aacho enna nadakkumo theriyala. Pakkathu veetu paiyana kootindu ore ottama auto eri kalambitta. Nalla vela romba peria vibareetham onnum nadakkala. Edho murattu pasanga vazhimarichu miratti irukkanga paiyan mayangi vizhunduttan. Adha paathu Padmavum bayandu mayangi irukka. Summa vidama pasanga rendu perukkum naalanju adi pottirukkanga anga inga. Dress ellam ore ratham aana uyirukku, udambukku oru prachanaiyum illanu doctor sollitaru. Verum kattu pottu, rendu vaaram crutches'la nadandha sari ayidum. Panam, nagai ponadhukkum, scooter ponadhukkum avvalavu kashtappada mudiyuma andha nerathula - uyir thappi irukke? Edho aanadhu nalladhukkunu maamiyum avanga rendu perum thirumbi veetukku vandhuttanga. Andha sambavam Pankajam maamiyoda plan'a konjam thalli pottudhu - ippadi oru accident nadandhu konjam naal'laye raakshasiyaatum marumagala veratta mudiyadhe. Adhanala thirumbi ovvoru sevvaikizhamaiyum adhe programme thaan 8 mani saayangalam aana.

Aana poruthadhum nalladha pochu. 2 maasam kazhichu Padma nalla news kondu vandhu kudutha. Pankajam maami vendudhal niraiverinadhukkaga oru peria archanai nadathi oru peria donationum kudutha kovilukku. Appothulerndhu 8 mani aana Pankajam maami nimmadhiya serial paaka okkandhuduva. 10 maasam aanadhukkappuram dhaan therinjadhu kuzhandhai maaniramnu, Pankajam maami, Padma, rendu per veetulaiyum ellarum nalla sevappu. Kuzhandhai azhudhudha, Pankajam maami azhudhala, Padma azhudalanu theriyala, aana annikku maternity ward Room 23ukkullerndhu mattum mudhalla alaral sathamum, appuram vimmal sathamum muzhu raathiriyum kettunde irundhudhu.

An Elevator Story

One of the best stories I have been in :) -

I go to the library to get some books, step out at the wrong floor so have to take the elevator again. A couple of minutes' wait and the elevator door opens, only to show me it is packed with 5 other people(and it is supposed to hold something like 4 if they are real close and don't have problems with intruders in their private space). I am of half a mind to desist and take another ride up but the people inside gesture for me to come on in and share the little space there is(Oh I love thee Notre Dame already!). The girl next to me politely asks where I have to go and we find that someone else is getting off on the 9th floor. So we settle in for the all-so-short ride and the old man with the collar(to the uninitiated, this means he is one of the initiated - a priest) to my left, who seems eerily familiar, starts talking across me to the couple to my right about how someone in the Vatican stole his work and how, to this day, one can compare the thesis this Vatican guy wrote with what our man had published earlier, obviously the latter half of a conversation that I had interrupted with my rude, discomfiting entrance. The couple are like "Oh really.. So the world goes" and all those cliched clucks of the tongue that express both sympathy and disapproval. Then, as the 9th floor comes up(or should it be down) and I start walking out, I hear the last 2 classic exchanges - "So are you a professor or something here? Do you have any position here?" ask the couple, and the cleric answers "Oh I was President of this University once. I am Theodore Hesburgh. This library is named after me."

No wonder he looked familiar!!!