Face your fears while traveling. Literally

"Oh my god oh my god oh my gooood Geeee" I clutched G's hand in utter panic as I saw my nemesis just a few feet ahead of me. I was in Plitvice, dammit, supposedly one of the most beautiful places in the world.  I was not prepared for this. I had not traveled halfway across the world to unexpectedly stumble upon the one for whom I had harboured a deep mix of fear, hatred and revulsion for as long as I can remember.

The snail, for its part stared insipidly, presumably unmindful of the stuttering panicking creature a few feet away.

Yes, all that drama was for a snail.Amongst my earliest memories is one of me running inside my house in abject fear of a snail that had found its way to our house. Wherefrom I developed this fear is not entirely clear- though some investigations point to my very elder-sisterly elder sister who, possibly used fear to establish her authority over me. And to this day I remain extremely disgusted and repulsed, and scared even though the rational part of my brain knows that its irrational. And this fear is so deeprooted that I involuntarily wince and flinch when I am unexpectedly shown a picture of a snail.

I explained all this to G while carefully walking on the road, my hypersensitive brain detecting more snails in the foliage on the side of the road. G was understanding but baffled at my apparent preference to get killed by walking on the road rather than step on the sidewalk. We managed to reach the guesthouse where we were planning to stay the night, to wake up early next morning to go to the National park.

There was nothing to do except sit in the room as it was raining outside ( which was what brought the wretched creatures out in the first place) so I spent the evening contemplating if I had let these nondescript molluscs ruin what was possibly the prettiest place I would see the whole of the trip. ( For those who do not have an irrational fear of things (curd, cheese, cows, whatever) you would never understand this post. Also, you are incredibly lucky. What the rest of us experience when we see the objects of our fear cannot be really explained in words- Imagine a cyst or a tumor in your body filled with hair and teeth. Imagine touching that with your bare hands. You are able to fathom some disgust level? Good. Multiply that by 1000). I could imagine my mom mocking me and imagine my friends laughing about this misadventure. Thats when I decided that I wouldnt let it happen. I would try and ignore them. Lets see what happens.

Next morning, I wore two pairs of socks- I dont know how that extra layer was supposed to protect me- Rationality in the presence of snails has never been my forte . As soon as we entered, it was clear that the park was mercifully free of snails.  Soon after, we had to cross a brilliantly underhyped "flooded trail". The water was ankle-deep so the rational thing to do was to remove shoes and walk. But I wasnt having any of the rational nonsense that day. Sure, the park was 8km away from the snail colony we had seen, but hell, animals have crossed seas and colonised islands. Given infinite time, 8km  was nothing for a particularly determined snail. No, I would walk the flooded trail with my shoes and two pairs of socks. We finished it without incident and I forgot about it.

The next day, we were exploring some small towns and G spotted a bush which she thought was lavender, pulled a small leaf and invited me to smell it. I calmly stepped back and told G " I am not coming any closer, there is a snail there" ( of course, g hadnt seen it.) I was overjoyed. I hadnt flinched, jumped or panicked. Maybe I had overcome my snail fear!

Yes! Yes! YES!!

A week after  the trip I was at home watching cartoons with my one year old niece and a new cartoon called "Dreams of speed" started. As soon as the protagonist came on screen, I screeched, winced and closed my eyes.  I realised that my fear was still intact. So much for my rejoicing.

As they say.. Whatever happens in Croatia, stays in Croatia, unfortunately! 

May you live in interesting times. So interesting that you become speechless.

The worst case of a writers block is when it afflicts one who wasnt a writer in the first place.

Just a while back I was able to construct meaningful sentences, string enough of them together into a paragraph and patch a couple of those together on to a blog post. It didnt invoke great tears of joy from those reading it, but thankfully it didnt inspire disgusting bouts of vomitting either.

Into this uneventful world, entered the villian- diguised in the form of a trip.

It was all fun and games- the trip high, the not thinking of the life ( or the very apparent lack of one) back home, new people, new places and all sorts of things I had not experienced before. And I came back thinking that the trip has been fodder for a great number of  posts.

How wrong I turned out to be.

Instead of churning out post after post , I got into a state of restlessness and thoughtlessness.  As if my brain had built a wall which didnt allow thoughts to cross over into that place where they get converted to sentences. Even if I struggled and gathered a bunch of haphazard thoughts, they immediately dispersed as if a gale had blown over them and I was left empty headed.

I stayed in this half-awake state for quite a while- coming up with titles or topics to write about without being able grasp the contents which,  I was certain, were lurking in some corner of my brain. This was spilling over into my reading as well. I was inclining toward short  hollow articles over difficult books, my attention span shrunk to the levels of today's 7 year olds on a special diet of ipad and cartoons. And that is why blog post is what it is.

But this is not the way its supposed to go.

Especially because in my fantasy which at some point I hope to real-ise, I make money by writing. I dont belong to any place, I dont own any possessions, I travel to wherever I feel like and write for a living. Of course I use the words money and writing loosely- to mean anything from 20$, and anything from an essay for aspiring undergrads to the content for the website of a company selling spare-parts.

If this one trip has numbed my brain, I can only assume that lifelong travel is going to cripple my writing hand.

The best laid plans of men, I tell you..

Things I have changed my mind about

I have written about this before, theluxury to change your mind is one of the greatest favours you can do to yourself.  Here is a list of things I have changed my mind about.

1. Peeing on the roads: I used to get very angry with people who would simply stop anywhere and pee all over the place. I was amongst the outraged " How dare he" "Does he not have any civic sense" etc etc. But the more I visit places and think about it I ahve realised that for most people there are no other options- There arent enough public toilets, some people have to be on the road all day ( drivers, postmen etc) and at some point you have to let it out.

2.Chetan Bhagat : Like almost everyone else I know, I was a vociferous CB hater. But then I realised that he has made the best out of the absolute lack of talent and a great marketing bent of mind. And he isnt ashamed of it. Nor should he be. So my feelings for CB have gone from outright hatred to grudging acceptance sprinkled with small amounts of jealousy ( What? I would love to have been the one who made millions writing a book despite being consistently mediocre)

3. Atheism and theism: Have always been an atheist and I used to look at terribly religious people and wonder whats wrong with them. Now I am still an atheist, but I see great value in religion- the fear of God and a general sense of morality which religion confers and the presence of hope without which we would be doomed as a society. (I do sometimes wish I was a believer, because its just so much easier to lay the blame on someone and ask them to handle it for you, than taking it all upon yourself)

4. Saibaba: Even before I became an atheist I had long renounced vocally, all the godmen who promised all kinds of heaven on earth for the unsuspecting masses. Saibaba was then for me, an easy one to hate- his supposedly magical powers to cure the sick, his ability to materialsie vibuthi with a swipe of his hand and what not. But he has done a lot of good for the society- He did bring the Krishna water to Chennai ( presumably with a swipe of his hand ;) ) and he has built a hospital and educational institutions, all of which I truly respect. I am beginning to think he knew what he was doing and the only way to make groups of people donate money, follow him and to generally support him is by invoking the divinity in him. Either way- respect.

5. Travel: I am quite ashamed to admit that I was a fan of luxury travel. I cant be farther from that stand now so much so that my daydreams involve shoestring trips. I will leave it at that to hit myself for not going on exchange in my second year

6.FB status updates: I used to think that its an attention seeking activity performed by people who are so insecure that they need validation from the world that their life is exciting and everyone is envious of them. These days... gah who am I kidding, I still think the same and cant wait to trash them. I dont miss an opportunity to make fun of that habit and  console myslef that my life isnt as pathetic as it does seem when compared to their FB lives. Anyhow, so i am not going to change my stance on that one.
Atleast not right now.

What have you changed your mind about? 

Why we believe in the supernatural, godmen, the paranormal etc

The Infinite monkey cage is an extremely witty irreverent discussion hosted by the hilarious Robin Ince and the delectable Brian Cox. And in one of their discussions they touched upon a very beautiful point of uncertainty and control.

Humans hate uncertainty. Very few of us can thrive in an uncertain setting for long and we love to believe that we have control on whats happening around us. And when we lose someone important to us we hate to believe that we dont know whats happening with them and if some conman convinces you into accepting tio talk to your loved one, you will gladly fall for it despite being  scientific minded otherwise.
And same is the case with the multiple homams that godmen make people perform. To say that "Its because your ancestors are unhappy taht your son is falling sick" attributes a reason and thus something we can do something about and control, as compared to " sometimes shit happens". Instead of sitting simply we believe that we are actively doing something about the problem and that accords us a grip on the whole situation. This is always preferred over the whole " we are just pawns in the game of fate".

The same thing is true for multiple things- You were involved in a car accident because you had committed some sins in your past birth and now you are absolved of it sounds more soothing than " its was just a random occurrence, could have been anyone. Accepting that the universe is random and that you have to make the best of what it throws is not as easy as typing it. We always look for other solid reasons to know why this happened to us, what we can do so that it doesn't happen again etc.

And ghosts emerge from the lack of knowledge of what happens after death. To say that we just stop existing seems unacceptable to most of us so we fabricate stories about people continuing to exist after death and whats more, routinely visiting their past lives.

Thats what it ultimately comes down to. Your ability to handle uncertainty is inversely proportional to your belief in astrology, psychics, and other similar phenomenon.  Think about it- Is it easier to believe that someone voodoo conspried to make you hit the car, or to rationally wonder whether it was just a matter of probability?

Just when exactly, does one give up ?

This post is inspired by and entirely dedicated to the Brazil national football team and to their disastrous performance in the semi-finals last night. Everyone knew that Germany was the better team and that Brazil is most likely going to exit the finals, specially given the fact that Silva was not there to defend and Neymar was occupied with the broken back thing, but no one could have predicted the level of humiliation Brazil had to go through. Poor markings, haphazard formations and an abysmal morale led to what is probably the worst defeat Brazil has ever faced. Before half time it was clear who was moving to the next round.

But this post is not about my analysis of the match. There are enough articles on that. 

What touched me  and somehow what no one is talking about is the lone goal scored by Oscar in the 90th minute. Well, of course no one celebrated it. Fans didnt know whether to laugh or to cry. His teammates didnt come rushing to his side, hugging him and pushing him down in a wave of affection and happiness. In fact he himself didnt look relieved and didnt look at anyone for acknowledgement. He simply continued playing as if it were a goal scored during a practice session.

Thats the difference between him and most people. Knowing that that one action isnt going to change the outcomes, yet doing it unselfishly, not to add to his own meagre goal  count ( one more goal would have made no difference) , not to bring glory to his team and country, but merely doing it because it has to be done. Never has a goal been more futile and more unwanted and disrespected, but that didnt stop or deter him.

There is something to be said about that spirit which lets one keep playing for the sake of playing when the game is over, when your exit from the World cup is inevitable and ignominy is anyway a few minutes away- all the other players showed signs of physical and mental fatigue- Luiz was visibly disturbed, Marcelo was incredibly sad but somehow found the strength to run, but Oscar merely continued playing with the same puppy face with which he started in the Croatia match. 

Well, the media might not be talking about it- they are too busy showing us photos of saddened fans , glowing articles might not be written about him, but hey somewhere in the corner of the world there was one blog post about it. 

Far far away from what Oscar or anyone would have wanted from a world cup goal but it is what it is. 

God is in ultraviolet

No, I am not saying that because most of our  Hindu gods are depicted as bluish. The reason is also not because he is right there, you know he is there  but you cant see him.

Until we discovered ultraviolet rays some of the things were unexplainable. The only way we could explain our way out of it was to attribute it to a mysterious higher force which has the ability to do things us lowly humans cant. This is not true just for ultraviolet. Till electricity was discovered fish which identified its prey based on electrical signals sent by the prey would seem to have been guided by divine instinct. 

In a lot of cases we invoke the divine when our quiver of scientific ideas is inadequate to explain something fully. 

I  mention ultraviolet because it is one of our more recent discoveries which has managed to explain hitherto mysterious things. The conventional belief is that what is mysterious must definitely be magical. But the more practical belief should be that what is mysterious is .. just mysterious. At every point we make this arrogant mistake of thinking that whatever can be invented has been invented, we are at the forefront of technology and our understanding of nature and sciences is so great that it cant really progress beyond this.  

We will be proved wrong. By the next generation. 

They will definitely discover newer things and look at the world with a much better vision. They will dispel some of the ignorance of our generation and wonder how primitive  a life we must have led to not have known <some funky thing> the same way we look at the older generation with pity for not having known the usefulness of Google. They will push back the boundary of the divine just a little bit. 

Because, God can only exist beyond the realms of  understandable science.

(I am of course not taking the poetic argument of those who see God in the beauty of science. They see God in the greatness of evolution and natural selection. They equate beauty and truth with God. And of course some who believe that science can explain everything, but God oversees that. I could get on board with such a god but if that were so, there is no clear reason why God should be so human-centric. There are more bugs than humans, we are definitely outnumbered in terms of the volumes.  )

update: Some article I was reading seemed to hint that astrology is such a science. That we dont know its workings, therefore cant trivialise it. I am on board with it theoretically and do accept taht there is a chance that it works in ways we cant understand at this point, but my heart still finds it silly to think that Jupiter which is a million miles away is influencing how short-tempered I am. 

In defence of the fake.

Original. The word has great value. It means you were the first one to come up with something or it could mean that the world saw yours first. Either way, the value is about hundred times that of the non-original. Fake, on the other hand is its much unloved cousin.  Its cheap and dirty, lives on the by-lanes, sneaks up unsuspected and runs off with the money intended for the original.

It is all so grossly unfair.

Picasso is considered a genius because of his ability to paint. Someone else paints just as well and has painted the same things as him, and his works are indistinguishable from Picasso. But one is considered a master and the other a forger and a scamster purely because they were separated by a few centuries. ( yes, I understand that he was trying to cheat and imitate, but am talking about the basics) Why isnt some random guy's water lilies valued in billions if it looks like the water lilies that Monet was looking at when he painted his? Are we not paying for the beauty of water lilies looking like water lilies? Are we instead paying for the idea? Art collectors and investors would like to tell you that there can be value only when no one else has it. But we started collecting art in order to make ourselves happy. If the only thing that can make you happy is the fact that no one else has it, your problems go deeper than can be solved by a piece of art hanging on your wall.

A similar reasoning can be applied in the case of fashion brands as well. If it looks like Gucci, smells like Gucci, is as durable as Gucci, it is as good as a Gucci even if you pay one tenth of the price.  When brand name implies quality I can understand paying a premium but in most cases we pay just for the brand name. In which case what gives you happiness is not the bag itself but merely the fact that you are possessing one. You are paying for a mental value than a physical utility.

Let me tell you again, this is a scam. A scam run by companies who want you paying more, who do not want you to see whats real, who do not want you to just be happy with the basics. They create random needs you do not have and then make you feel inadequate when you do not fulfil them. What else can be a reason for the existence of so many ridiculuously priced luxury brand of watches? How much value can you extract from a watch for you to pay lakhs and lakhs?

I know I sound like some conspiracy theorist who claims that aliens are running our planet and deluding us into living in this hamster wheel while they amass all our resources but I am not that stupid. All I am claiming is that some earthlings are running our planet and deluding us into living in this hamster wheel while they amass all our resources.