Quiznos is this sandwich place .... no it's a sub place. If I'm right they're called subs because the bread's shaped like submarines. No one calls 'em sandwiches anymore. In fact no one makes them out of those pretty square pieces of bread anymore. It's always subs.
Anyway... so quiznos is this sub place that is located very strategically in my life. It's on the way from my lab to the bus stop. It's also right across the indian grocery store that one has to frequent several times a month to buy all kinds of frozen rotis and parathas and shredded coconut and masalas and atta noodles. At my place, we're always stocking up everything as though a storm were brewing. And still, if a storm comes, we wouldn't last an hour. I'm pretty sure of that.
In any case, after a tired day, when you're on your way home, it's nice to stop by quiznos to buy a quick sammy (it's a 2 dollar mini something. It's not a sub. It's a clumsy sandwich that I haven't gotten around to eating gracefully yet). When one is hungry, it is exactly the right size for you to quickly gulp it before walking across the road to the indian store (this manoevre probably explains the complete lack of sub-eating-grace), where trust me, carrying dozens of frozen rotis and all sorts of things that you think you're going to need, or reminds you of home, or reminds you that you never used to like it much back in india, but things have changed a lot since coming to a country that sells subs instead of paneer cheese sandwiches... basically, the load gets pretty heavy and you've to ingest some carbs before embarking on such an endeavour.
That's how quiznos is making a lot of money off me. Whenever I forget to get lunch or get up too late or cannot be bothered or am not in the mood to have roti and something from 4 days ago yet another time, it's quiznos to the rescue again.
Why quiznos needed to give away a gazillion free subs, I don't know. But they did. And my friend called me and sent me a coupon and told me to print it and claim what is rightfully mine ( all free things are rightfully mine. All things that cost are also rightfully mine, and they're all going to hell some day to avenge for their sins!!!). And of course, any self-respecting and starved grad student is in the mood for all things free and bountiful. I print my coupon and head to quiznos proudly knowing that I am very much going to like this freebie. Hold on... I printed my coupon.... but I did not take it with me. And I've worked up this appetitie and am standing in the line with a million others nursing their hunger and waiting for their small sub when I realize that I dont' have the coupon. I figured... eh... what the heck... I might as well buy the small sub anyway and come claim the freebie tomorrow. And there's lovely toasted bread smell wafting in the air. And melted cheese aroma. And the greenery of fresh lettuce. And the gorgeous looking black olives and mushrooms. And I stand in that hazy place for 15 minutes before I get to place my order.
And this is where I prove to the world that Quiznos is not only a great sub place but is also good at marketing its subs. Because I ordered a 9 dollar large veggie sub. A large veggie sub is humongous. It's large enough for US to come at you, insist that you are a country by yourself, then prove to the UN (which is synonymous for US) that you're building a nuclear arsenal, and then come at you and insist that you sign the non proliferation treaty. That really is how large, the large sub is. And that's how big my appetitite had gotten in 15 minutes of wait time.
And if tomorrow they publish a report in the pittsburgh-post0gazette about the healthy local economy and the encouraging increase in the consumer spending and the small ray of hope that the worst is behind us, we'll all know exactly what's behind this strange trend won't we ?
Go Gastric Juices!!!
PS :
What happened to the missing coupon ? I don't know. I can't seem to find it.
PPS:
I wanted to glitter up my post with my newly acquired knowledge of nucleii in the human brain. There's this one nucleus to which input from both the gut and the tongue go to. Which is important... coz salivation and intestinal juice activity is intricately connected. But this newly acquired knowledge has long since abandoned me and I don't know the name of that nucleus. And there can be nothing geekier on a "thank god it's friday" than to peruse through the brain atlas to spot this nucleus. Which I cannot be bothered to do.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
To cut a long story short.....
Once upon a time, in a land not too far away, so close that we are all sitting on it right now, there was a strange girl called Nature and her bff, a scatterbrain called Evolution. They never quite knew what to do with their lives and lived rather smugly in the knowledge that they had all the time in the world to figure it out. One day they woke up and decided to take a walk. And while they were taking this walk they stumbled into a little imp called meiosis. Meiosis, it turned out had a very strange hobby. He liked to tear things apart into tiny pieces and then put them back together again. But he had a very bad memory. He never knew which went into what. But he was so crazy about his hobby and he loved all the new shapes and colours and forms that came about and it seemed like he would never run out of ideas. There was always something new that he was creating. Evolution and nature loved meiosis. He was such a jolly chap- this meiosis. He never regretted anything he made. But what does it do meio ?, nature would ask. Meio almost never had an answer. I don't know, he'd say cheerfully. But look, it was never there before, isn't that wonderful ? It's new. It's unique. And nature looked around. And with her, so did evolution. And they found that they were living in a land of forever new and forever rad and forever cool. So meiosis and nature and evolution went about haplessly and happily without a care in the world.
Pretty soon they were making things that were swimming, and walking and creeping and crawling and flying. And there were new colours everywhere.
And then were born people who were odd mixtures of their parents and found it hard to find any sense of self because sometimes these parental mixtures don't exactly complement each other. One such example is me. And of course "I" am the point of this long story. So I find in myself, half of my mom and half of my dad and am often confused with what I'm supposed to do with my mind, body and spirit. The mind pretty much does what it wants, the body has never really listened to me, but oh my spirit!
Oh my cunning, conniving spirit that won't ever let go of me!
My dad- he's the practical sensible guy. He thinks and believes and for the most part practices sitting down, thinking things through and choosing the best alternatives.It's smart, it works and he claims to be at peace with himself. My mom- she's the emotional gal. She feels. Period. All her actions are extensions of what she feels. And there's no predicting what she feels. That works too and according to her, she too is quite at peace at herself.
And there is me. I see two contradicting ways of living lives. And I see that they both work. And with all my scientific knowledge, I know too, that I am not the exact replica of them. I must figure out my own way of finding peace. Except... perhaps my genetic composition is tearing me poles apart. Alright. Chuck nature for a bit.
Let's look at this other gal called "nurture". Who this nurture is, no one really knows. She seems to crop up every now and then. If ever there is a mess lying around and one cannot blame it on the infamous trio - "nature, meiosis and evolution", we blame it on this poor girl called "nurture". And sometimes, she will say- look, blame nature. I'm sort of a distant cousin. I may be responsible for this, but let me also tell you this. If nature didn't do her bit, then I wouldn't be able to do my bit. You know the story of the last straw on the camel's back. This poor guy kept piling on straw after straw on the camel. And at one point the camel couldn't bear the burden anymore. And he was almost about to fall. Then came the final straw. And this did it. The camel fell and could never get up again. Who does one blame ? The final straw or all the straws that came before that. I am nurture. I am the final straw. You seriously cannot blame me", she yelled. And to this date the argument continues, who created the mess- is it nature or is it nurture. Of course, the irony is, we can never really stop either of them. But perhaps knowing who did what will make us feel somewhat better. But for now... on to nurture.
And in their special styles my parents take their turns doing their parental duties. They advise me, guide me, and thankfully let me make all the mistakes I want in the world before I have to consult them on how to sort it out. And of course, my mom will tell me to choose one of them and never sulk about it and never regret it. That's it. If you're going to regret it, don't do it. My dad will tell me to do the thing that makes the most sense. But whatever you do,be comfortable with it he says.In life there are only two kinds of decisions- ones that you're comfortable with, and ones that you're not comfortable with. But then he will lay out neatly, all the pros and cons and let me know all the factors I should be thinking about. And my mom will let me know all the things I might end up feeling.
And I have ended up becoming a strange, strange person. I am a mix of the rarest emotions and the most practical of thoughts. I try making sense of everything I feel, and try feeling everything I think. And that concoction makes for this entity they chose to christen Janani. Read that sentence again and mull over it. It is a strange strange sentence. It's like asking someone to count the texture or touch a colour. It is synaesthesia. Those three friends nature, evolution and meiosis, and that fourth idiot called nurture have made me who I am. For that matter, all of this world.
On the flipside, I have come to realize that life simply happens to me. And so far, its been mostly good things- if you discount my clumsiness and my klutziness. And in this world view, I can never blame myself for anything going wrong, and that's a huge load off my shoulders. My great aunt would always bless everyone "may you have peace of mind". She wouldn;t say "may you become a doctor" or "may you have 16 wonderful kids" or "may you get married to someone with a steady income and with a certain pension". She'd say "may you have peace of mind". By realizing that there is a very very small bit of my life that I can control. Much of it has been decided by my past, and much of it is being decided by an indecipherable present. Together, they're willing me into an unpredictable future. And that makes for an adventure. Boring adventure perhaps. But adventure nonetheless.
If wishes are ever heard, and upon being heard, if they are ever granted, my only wish is for a peaceful adventure.
****
I know i know. Let's not go into how i've strayed far, far, far away from the definitions of nature, nurture, evolution and meiosis. If it makes it believable to think that I was under the influence of LSD whilst writing this, I will not be offended.
Pretty soon they were making things that were swimming, and walking and creeping and crawling and flying. And there were new colours everywhere.
And then were born people who were odd mixtures of their parents and found it hard to find any sense of self because sometimes these parental mixtures don't exactly complement each other. One such example is me. And of course "I" am the point of this long story. So I find in myself, half of my mom and half of my dad and am often confused with what I'm supposed to do with my mind, body and spirit. The mind pretty much does what it wants, the body has never really listened to me, but oh my spirit!
Oh my cunning, conniving spirit that won't ever let go of me!
My dad- he's the practical sensible guy. He thinks and believes and for the most part practices sitting down, thinking things through and choosing the best alternatives.It's smart, it works and he claims to be at peace with himself. My mom- she's the emotional gal. She feels. Period. All her actions are extensions of what she feels. And there's no predicting what she feels. That works too and according to her, she too is quite at peace at herself.
And there is me. I see two contradicting ways of living lives. And I see that they both work. And with all my scientific knowledge, I know too, that I am not the exact replica of them. I must figure out my own way of finding peace. Except... perhaps my genetic composition is tearing me poles apart. Alright. Chuck nature for a bit.
Let's look at this other gal called "nurture". Who this nurture is, no one really knows. She seems to crop up every now and then. If ever there is a mess lying around and one cannot blame it on the infamous trio - "nature, meiosis and evolution", we blame it on this poor girl called "nurture". And sometimes, she will say- look, blame nature. I'm sort of a distant cousin. I may be responsible for this, but let me also tell you this. If nature didn't do her bit, then I wouldn't be able to do my bit. You know the story of the last straw on the camel's back. This poor guy kept piling on straw after straw on the camel. And at one point the camel couldn't bear the burden anymore. And he was almost about to fall. Then came the final straw. And this did it. The camel fell and could never get up again. Who does one blame ? The final straw or all the straws that came before that. I am nurture. I am the final straw. You seriously cannot blame me", she yelled. And to this date the argument continues, who created the mess- is it nature or is it nurture. Of course, the irony is, we can never really stop either of them. But perhaps knowing who did what will make us feel somewhat better. But for now... on to nurture.
And in their special styles my parents take their turns doing their parental duties. They advise me, guide me, and thankfully let me make all the mistakes I want in the world before I have to consult them on how to sort it out. And of course, my mom will tell me to choose one of them and never sulk about it and never regret it. That's it. If you're going to regret it, don't do it. My dad will tell me to do the thing that makes the most sense. But whatever you do,be comfortable with it he says.In life there are only two kinds of decisions- ones that you're comfortable with, and ones that you're not comfortable with. But then he will lay out neatly, all the pros and cons and let me know all the factors I should be thinking about. And my mom will let me know all the things I might end up feeling.
And I have ended up becoming a strange, strange person. I am a mix of the rarest emotions and the most practical of thoughts. I try making sense of everything I feel, and try feeling everything I think. And that concoction makes for this entity they chose to christen Janani. Read that sentence again and mull over it. It is a strange strange sentence. It's like asking someone to count the texture or touch a colour. It is synaesthesia. Those three friends nature, evolution and meiosis, and that fourth idiot called nurture have made me who I am. For that matter, all of this world.
On the flipside, I have come to realize that life simply happens to me. And so far, its been mostly good things- if you discount my clumsiness and my klutziness. And in this world view, I can never blame myself for anything going wrong, and that's a huge load off my shoulders. My great aunt would always bless everyone "may you have peace of mind". She wouldn;t say "may you become a doctor" or "may you have 16 wonderful kids" or "may you get married to someone with a steady income and with a certain pension". She'd say "may you have peace of mind". By realizing that there is a very very small bit of my life that I can control. Much of it has been decided by my past, and much of it is being decided by an indecipherable present. Together, they're willing me into an unpredictable future. And that makes for an adventure. Boring adventure perhaps. But adventure nonetheless.
If wishes are ever heard, and upon being heard, if they are ever granted, my only wish is for a peaceful adventure.
****
I know i know. Let's not go into how i've strayed far, far, far away from the definitions of nature, nurture, evolution and meiosis. If it makes it believable to think that I was under the influence of LSD whilst writing this, I will not be offended.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
The tower of Babel
About the time I arrived here, all ready to do some monkey brain fiddling, fannie mae and freddie mac had just been bailed out. There were murmurs of recession, a crisis, worse than last time and the time before that, financial and economic jargon that I had never bothered to include as part of my vocabulary. I just knew that they were ominous terms. After all, I had a job, the university was paying me some money (not much but I was feeling glorious about being able to play around in snow when it eventually did come and I quickly realized that I wouldn't have to be on the streets if I had starbucks coffee.) When I first saw those two terms fannie mae and freddie mac I thought : oooh, like ben and jerry's and baskin robbins. Maybe the feds (oh ya, I was also saying government back then... I'm getting cooler now... I say feds) were bailing them out with tax payer's money because the cows had died ? That's what I thought at least. It turns out of course that fannie mae and freddie mac were selling lots of cows to lots of people in the flawed assumption that people are always going to want to eat more and more ice cream. The cows were very valuable you see, because the ice cream was getting sold a lot. So I was metaphorically right after all. But fannie mae and freddie mac were something to do with mortgages. Mortgage! - another word that I knew about simply because I happen to play a lot of monopoly (and lose a lot). I am sorry guys, but this really was how much I knew. At least I'm being honest about not understanding such stuff unlike some people ( ahem! ahem! ahem!). Tax payer's money ? Ha Ha Ha. I wasn't even gonna pay tax- I was going to get a rebate. So much for lots of starbucks caffeine and ridiculous excitement.
Then people asked me to get a credit card. "You need a credit card for everything. You need it if you want to buy a car, if you want a loan, if you want this, if you want that" and I ask "it isn't enough if I have the bank balance to buy these things ?" and they go "oh honey, if you have a good credit rating, you can pay all these loans little by little. If you show them you're responsible with your money by paying off your bills like a good girl, then they know you're going to be responsible with your money, and then they'll give you a loan, so you can buy things that you don't have money to buy right now but you know you're going to get later. Welcome to capitalism. There are always ways to make money". Oh nice. Nice. That sounds, fair and simple, say I, and off I went to get my credit card. Essentially I was going to try and get a good credit rating by buying lots of starbucks coffee. There wasn't much I wanted you see ? But as luck would have it, my credit card application co-incided with mr lehman falling down like a brick of blocks (oh not my term. Some paper said that. I figured out by this time that mr lehman kinda didn't wanna fall, but the higher ups decided not to help him. Sort it out yourselves you lil children, said they), and AIG (that name stuck because of those TATA AIG ads from back home) was getting bailed out (because the children were truly in a terrible mess) and merill lynch was getting taken over. Essentially, lots of stuff was falling apart. And the country was trying to elect its first black president, end a coupla wars, maybe start a few other wars, spread peace, stop lending money to bad bad people, and figure out a way to decide who good people were, who bad people were, try and reiterate that they really were the global leader ( we will be with you in sickness or in wealth)... and amidst all this my credit card application got rejected. So I call the credit card company to be politely informed that I have no credit card history. "Yes ma'am. That's exactly what I'm trying to do. Have a little faith in me. I am a good girl". But well, no one trusts anyone these days. So that's that.
By this time of course sub prime crisis was a very powerful world. On the way to dinner at udupi cafe, a friend's uncle explained how people got loans even when they didn't actually prove they could repay it, but of course things were going to get better and everyone believed it. All I could think was "and they let these people buy houses but they didn't give me my credit card ? C'mon brother".
What a weird weird world this was getting to be. People were living in gingerbread houses. When it rains, we'll stay inside the house and we'll keep ourselves dry. In the summer, we shall eat our gingerbread. By next monsoon, gingerbread is going to get cheaper and we'll repair the house with this cheaper gingerbread. And when it rains we'll go back into this house and keep dry. We're eating and living at no cost. Wow. What cunning ways to do stuff. What, ultimate belief in the happenings of gingerbread. Did we learn nothing from hansel and gretel ? Nothing at all ?
How people make money out of lending circularly is something I will never understand. I know it falls from interesting math equations. That's very nice. Please feel free to bandy unintelligible equations at me. But I think using common sense is more appealing. Especially if you want me to start being responsible for my actions, then I need to make sense of my actions. If I lend you a banana, and you lend the next person a banana and that person lends me a banana, we still have only one banana. How silly is it to think we have three bananas. Ask my monkeys ( those organisms that are way below the evolutionary ladder, with a less developed brain). They know it. That's why they never share their bananas. They chatter away and do silly things and do not engage in speculation and would rather eat one banana today instead of waiting on the three quarter chance that they'll get three bananas tomorrow. And we say that it is because monkeys have limited ability to be able to factor time into their decisions- well thank god for that. Because we humans do such a neat job of it don't we ? I may not know a lot of economics ( oh heck. I know none), but I could've toldja that its a waste building a lot of houses, that people who spend more than they have are always gonna spend more than they have, but honey, there's got to be money somewhere, and you cant keep circulating it, because well... you're all going have to pay up someday.
A so called investment advisor advised my friend "don't pay off your balance every month. Keep some of it and pay it off next month. Pay the interest and your credit rating will improve because it shows you can carry credit wisely" Of course you're going to improve my credit rating. You're interested in the interest aren't you ? But watch out. You're tempting me to never pay back. That's what the sub-primes did didn't they ? The joke's on you bozo. No wait, the joke's on them. No wait... umm... oh shit... its not a joke anymore is it ?
And then today, I try finally to apply for a credit card again. And I get a huge spiel about my interest, how it was between 3 and 9 percent plus prime rate as defined as the highest number in the wall st journal in the last 90 days and that right now it was at 4.5 % bringing the apr to between 8 and 13 %. And I wondered... who really understood all this ? Everyone just saw that as a rule interests were getting lower, and it happened like that for a while now, and maybe the engine's stopped whirring crankily and was finally coming to a standstill. Oh ... the engine was just about gathering steam.
The story goes....
"The people decided their city should have a tower so immense that it would have "its top in the heavens."(וְרֹאשׁוֹ בַשָּׁמַיִם) However, the Tower of Babel was not built for the worship and praise of God, but was dedicated to the glory of man, with a motive of making a 'name' for the builders: "Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.'" (Genesis 11:4). God, seeing what the people were doing, confounded their languages and scattered the people throughout the earth."
(Source :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel)
Did we want to reach for the heavens ?
Guilty as charged.
Did we want a glorious name.
Guilty as charged.
Were we greedy ?
Guilty as charged.
Were we disrespectful to the age old supply-demand spiel ?
*ahem.... there's always going to be supply, we're always going to demand no *
oh... we dont understand, is it ok? will you let me off the hook ?
Umm... no.
Ignorantia juris non excusat. You aren't excused from not knowing the law.
But no one explained to us.
And that's our collective problem innit.
As the story of Babel goes... we now have our languages and our equations and our crazy models reduced to a bunch of terminologies that no one understands.
We believed that someone understood. That if it should all collapse, that someone would have the key to putting it all together. And in all possibility it would never collapse, so really we were only just panicking. And so we decided to go high up into the heavens, when we really ought to have simply sat around and built houses with roofs just high enough to keep us warm and dry for a reasonable period of time... until we find ourselves in a better position to live in a slightly better house. There's that age old story about the hare and the fox. There are lessons to be learnt in such stories. It never does anyone any good to try act too smart for one's own ignorance.
Now, the tower stands unbuilt.
And we dont understand.
No one speaks the same language anymore.
No one understands anything anymore.
And while we can blame those silly tower builders forever, we encouraged them too.
And now we don't know how to fix it.
And that's the story of the housing babel.
- In idiotically simple terms
Janani
Then people asked me to get a credit card. "You need a credit card for everything. You need it if you want to buy a car, if you want a loan, if you want this, if you want that" and I ask "it isn't enough if I have the bank balance to buy these things ?" and they go "oh honey, if you have a good credit rating, you can pay all these loans little by little. If you show them you're responsible with your money by paying off your bills like a good girl, then they know you're going to be responsible with your money, and then they'll give you a loan, so you can buy things that you don't have money to buy right now but you know you're going to get later. Welcome to capitalism. There are always ways to make money". Oh nice. Nice. That sounds, fair and simple, say I, and off I went to get my credit card. Essentially I was going to try and get a good credit rating by buying lots of starbucks coffee. There wasn't much I wanted you see ? But as luck would have it, my credit card application co-incided with mr lehman falling down like a brick of blocks (oh not my term. Some paper said that. I figured out by this time that mr lehman kinda didn't wanna fall, but the higher ups decided not to help him. Sort it out yourselves you lil children, said they), and AIG (that name stuck because of those TATA AIG ads from back home) was getting bailed out (because the children were truly in a terrible mess) and merill lynch was getting taken over. Essentially, lots of stuff was falling apart. And the country was trying to elect its first black president, end a coupla wars, maybe start a few other wars, spread peace, stop lending money to bad bad people, and figure out a way to decide who good people were, who bad people were, try and reiterate that they really were the global leader ( we will be with you in sickness or in wealth)... and amidst all this my credit card application got rejected. So I call the credit card company to be politely informed that I have no credit card history. "Yes ma'am. That's exactly what I'm trying to do. Have a little faith in me. I am a good girl". But well, no one trusts anyone these days. So that's that.
By this time of course sub prime crisis was a very powerful world. On the way to dinner at udupi cafe, a friend's uncle explained how people got loans even when they didn't actually prove they could repay it, but of course things were going to get better and everyone believed it. All I could think was "and they let these people buy houses but they didn't give me my credit card ? C'mon brother".
What a weird weird world this was getting to be. People were living in gingerbread houses. When it rains, we'll stay inside the house and we'll keep ourselves dry. In the summer, we shall eat our gingerbread. By next monsoon, gingerbread is going to get cheaper and we'll repair the house with this cheaper gingerbread. And when it rains we'll go back into this house and keep dry. We're eating and living at no cost. Wow. What cunning ways to do stuff. What, ultimate belief in the happenings of gingerbread. Did we learn nothing from hansel and gretel ? Nothing at all ?
How people make money out of lending circularly is something I will never understand. I know it falls from interesting math equations. That's very nice. Please feel free to bandy unintelligible equations at me. But I think using common sense is more appealing. Especially if you want me to start being responsible for my actions, then I need to make sense of my actions. If I lend you a banana, and you lend the next person a banana and that person lends me a banana, we still have only one banana. How silly is it to think we have three bananas. Ask my monkeys ( those organisms that are way below the evolutionary ladder, with a less developed brain). They know it. That's why they never share their bananas. They chatter away and do silly things and do not engage in speculation and would rather eat one banana today instead of waiting on the three quarter chance that they'll get three bananas tomorrow. And we say that it is because monkeys have limited ability to be able to factor time into their decisions- well thank god for that. Because we humans do such a neat job of it don't we ? I may not know a lot of economics ( oh heck. I know none), but I could've toldja that its a waste building a lot of houses, that people who spend more than they have are always gonna spend more than they have, but honey, there's got to be money somewhere, and you cant keep circulating it, because well... you're all going have to pay up someday.
A so called investment advisor advised my friend "don't pay off your balance every month. Keep some of it and pay it off next month. Pay the interest and your credit rating will improve because it shows you can carry credit wisely" Of course you're going to improve my credit rating. You're interested in the interest aren't you ? But watch out. You're tempting me to never pay back. That's what the sub-primes did didn't they ? The joke's on you bozo. No wait, the joke's on them. No wait... umm... oh shit... its not a joke anymore is it ?
And then today, I try finally to apply for a credit card again. And I get a huge spiel about my interest, how it was between 3 and 9 percent plus prime rate as defined as the highest number in the wall st journal in the last 90 days and that right now it was at 4.5 % bringing the apr to between 8 and 13 %. And I wondered... who really understood all this ? Everyone just saw that as a rule interests were getting lower, and it happened like that for a while now, and maybe the engine's stopped whirring crankily and was finally coming to a standstill. Oh ... the engine was just about gathering steam.
The story goes....
"The people decided their city should have a tower so immense that it would have "its top in the heavens."(וְרֹאשׁוֹ בַשָּׁמַיִם) However, the Tower of Babel was not built for the worship and praise of God, but was dedicated to the glory of man, with a motive of making a 'name' for the builders: "Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.'" (Genesis 11:4). God, seeing what the people were doing, confounded their languages and scattered the people throughout the earth."
(Source :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel)
Did we want to reach for the heavens ?
Guilty as charged.
Did we want a glorious name.
Guilty as charged.
Were we greedy ?
Guilty as charged.
Were we disrespectful to the age old supply-demand spiel ?
*ahem.... there's always going to be supply, we're always going to demand no *
oh... we dont understand, is it ok? will you let me off the hook ?
Umm... no.
Ignorantia juris non excusat. You aren't excused from not knowing the law.
But no one explained to us.
And that's our collective problem innit.
As the story of Babel goes... we now have our languages and our equations and our crazy models reduced to a bunch of terminologies that no one understands.
We believed that someone understood. That if it should all collapse, that someone would have the key to putting it all together. And in all possibility it would never collapse, so really we were only just panicking. And so we decided to go high up into the heavens, when we really ought to have simply sat around and built houses with roofs just high enough to keep us warm and dry for a reasonable period of time... until we find ourselves in a better position to live in a slightly better house. There's that age old story about the hare and the fox. There are lessons to be learnt in such stories. It never does anyone any good to try act too smart for one's own ignorance.
Now, the tower stands unbuilt.
And we dont understand.
No one speaks the same language anymore.
No one understands anything anymore.
And while we can blame those silly tower builders forever, we encouraged them too.
And now we don't know how to fix it.
And that's the story of the housing babel.
- In idiotically simple terms
Janani
Saturday, January 24, 2009
slumdog millionaire
When I chose to see slumdog millionaire, I felt certain it would disappoint. I feared that a screenplay scripted in english would handicap the film. Hearing sentences in english that ought really to be spoken in the native language often gives a movie an eerie quality. Since I've lived in India I've never been able to identify with many english-movie-made-in-english precisely because characters are speaking in english and I am expected to be intelligent enough to understand that they are only doing so because the movie is made for the global english speaking audience. Intelligent enough I may be, but nonetheless such movies have always failed to move. I've always felt subtitles will more than do the trick. I thought that was the defining difference between a movie like bend it like english where it is expected that characters living in London would speak english and bride and prejudice where it was downright ridiculous to find girls and mothers in amritsar speaking in english and traipsying in white satin nightgowns. In mr and mrs iyer too, the characters spoke in english, primarily because that was the common language that they could communicate in. The violence in the background didn't have the rowdies screaming at each other in english. A well made movie is always sensitive to the choice of language and cannot treat all languages as equivalent to each other. Years of conditioning has allowed me to watch bollywood movies and enjoy the magic in the music and discount their stupidity. But even with bollywood movies, I would shirk if the chiffon clad heroine is romancing her hero in english. There is a cultural oddity that I can completely define.
Thankfully, slumdog understood it. The movie used english- true. But it used it smartly. The characters evolved to be english speaking characters, either by eking out a living by posing to be tourist guides at the Taj Mahal that abounds with foreign tourists, by working in call centre agencies that teach you to speak good up being able to speak pretty decent english. It was gratifying to me that it wasn't an indian movie simply translated into english- but a movie in which the chosen language of choice continued to matter and thoroughly a product of circumstance.
When I realized it was a movie made by non-indians I became wary of characters saying extremely poignant things. It is true that as a culture we grow up with tolerance to a lot of bullshit. It is both the boon and bane of the society. It is a boon because we manage not to crumble and fall, but a bane in that we never find sufficient drive to build something sturdy out of ourselves. But I can vouch that most indians aren't philosophical. We say our prayers and pray to our gods in blind faith. We do not have time to analyze our lot in life and to develop philosophical views that make our lives easier. When a beggar says he feels full in his heart and cannot care about his stomach, he is saying it because of lack of choice, not because he truly believes it. He would still devour any decent meal and perhaps even sell his heart. Enough poor Indians sell their organs at measly prices. I couldn't digest Shantaram precisely because the characters were too articulate, too profound. Everyone was breaking into unnecessarily poignant speeches. Indians tolerate. But they do not necessarily adore their tolerance. We tolerate simply by compulsion.
Again,slumdog did not make this galling blunder.Slumdog has a very bollywoody script. The fact that the movie ends with the hero and heroine dancing to a filmi number is attestation to it. The less said about a.r rahman's music, the better. It is ill-fit.Slumdog tells the story of a man trying to unite himself with his childhood lover from the slums. In their years they've met, parted and met again, always believing that it is their destiny to be together.They have some sense of right and wrong. There are no black and white. Not all stealing is bad. Not all honesty is good. Destiny, a powerful theme in indian movies, is easy to identify with here. What is interesting of course is the way this simply theme is portrayed. By showing the entire story as flashbacks of how the man accidentally happens to know the answers to the questions of the show "who wants to be a millionaire", it makes for watching an entirely different kind of movie. Money and women, the policeman intelligently notes, are the reasons we make most of the mistakes in our lives. As the inspector tries to find out how the man knows all the questions for the answers and how disgraceful it is to want so much money, we realize how much the man has been risking his life to be united with his true love. In true bollywood style, we expect that he will. But slumdog could have well been a story based on a true life incident. It needn't be bollywoody at all, for none of the characters or events were exaggerated. And that I thought makes slumdog a cut above the rest.
Finally, I loved Salim's character with all his dilemmas. Who does he truly love ? Himself ? Money ? Latika ? Jamal ? Power ? His vacillating tendencies set the movie forward at every step. Jamal and Latika's destiny are actually written by Salim, who at every juncture chose to take the situation in his own hands while Latika and Jamal were mere puppets to what Salim decided he wanted most on a particular day. As a kid he chooses his brother but lets go of Latika. Later, almost jealous of his brother's longing for her, he claims Latika as his. Later still, he lets go of her in hunger for power. And finally he tragically lets go of himself. Were it not for his erratic decisions,slumdog would never have become a millionaire. And we see that Jamal and Latika are confused between self-preservation and their love for the other. They want each other, but not at the cost of their lives. It is this that brings the movie from filmi pedestals to reality. And they aren't sure how they can be together, alive, whole and happy. And each time they aren't brave enough to re-write destiny. And simply because its a bollywoody movie, or perhaps there is enough luck to go around in the real world, they do unite at long last. Salim, though had the courage to write his own story, yet not enough luck to live long enough. As the movie will repeatedly remind you, some things are written and some aren't.
In the end Slumdog isn't necessarily a meditation on Indian diaspora. But it definitely is a beautiful painting, that allows you to get a sense of what it is to be in india; to have faith and dreams and to gamble with them. And as with any beautiful painting, necessary artistic licenses must be taken, or otherwise it would just be a boring photograph in a auto-point-and-shoot-full-flash-mood that is simply all detail and no story.
Thankfully, slumdog understood it. The movie used english- true. But it used it smartly. The characters evolved to be english speaking characters, either by eking out a living by posing to be tourist guides at the Taj Mahal that abounds with foreign tourists, by working in call centre agencies that teach you to speak good up being able to speak pretty decent english. It was gratifying to me that it wasn't an indian movie simply translated into english- but a movie in which the chosen language of choice continued to matter and thoroughly a product of circumstance.
When I realized it was a movie made by non-indians I became wary of characters saying extremely poignant things. It is true that as a culture we grow up with tolerance to a lot of bullshit. It is both the boon and bane of the society. It is a boon because we manage not to crumble and fall, but a bane in that we never find sufficient drive to build something sturdy out of ourselves. But I can vouch that most indians aren't philosophical. We say our prayers and pray to our gods in blind faith. We do not have time to analyze our lot in life and to develop philosophical views that make our lives easier. When a beggar says he feels full in his heart and cannot care about his stomach, he is saying it because of lack of choice, not because he truly believes it. He would still devour any decent meal and perhaps even sell his heart. Enough poor Indians sell their organs at measly prices. I couldn't digest Shantaram precisely because the characters were too articulate, too profound. Everyone was breaking into unnecessarily poignant speeches. Indians tolerate. But they do not necessarily adore their tolerance. We tolerate simply by compulsion.
Again,slumdog did not make this galling blunder.Slumdog has a very bollywoody script. The fact that the movie ends with the hero and heroine dancing to a filmi number is attestation to it. The less said about a.r rahman's music, the better. It is ill-fit.Slumdog tells the story of a man trying to unite himself with his childhood lover from the slums. In their years they've met, parted and met again, always believing that it is their destiny to be together.They have some sense of right and wrong. There are no black and white. Not all stealing is bad. Not all honesty is good. Destiny, a powerful theme in indian movies, is easy to identify with here. What is interesting of course is the way this simply theme is portrayed. By showing the entire story as flashbacks of how the man accidentally happens to know the answers to the questions of the show "who wants to be a millionaire", it makes for watching an entirely different kind of movie. Money and women, the policeman intelligently notes, are the reasons we make most of the mistakes in our lives. As the inspector tries to find out how the man knows all the questions for the answers and how disgraceful it is to want so much money, we realize how much the man has been risking his life to be united with his true love. In true bollywood style, we expect that he will. But slumdog could have well been a story based on a true life incident. It needn't be bollywoody at all, for none of the characters or events were exaggerated. And that I thought makes slumdog a cut above the rest.
Finally, I loved Salim's character with all his dilemmas. Who does he truly love ? Himself ? Money ? Latika ? Jamal ? Power ? His vacillating tendencies set the movie forward at every step. Jamal and Latika's destiny are actually written by Salim, who at every juncture chose to take the situation in his own hands while Latika and Jamal were mere puppets to what Salim decided he wanted most on a particular day. As a kid he chooses his brother but lets go of Latika. Later, almost jealous of his brother's longing for her, he claims Latika as his. Later still, he lets go of her in hunger for power. And finally he tragically lets go of himself. Were it not for his erratic decisions,slumdog would never have become a millionaire. And we see that Jamal and Latika are confused between self-preservation and their love for the other. They want each other, but not at the cost of their lives. It is this that brings the movie from filmi pedestals to reality. And they aren't sure how they can be together, alive, whole and happy. And each time they aren't brave enough to re-write destiny. And simply because its a bollywoody movie, or perhaps there is enough luck to go around in the real world, they do unite at long last. Salim, though had the courage to write his own story, yet not enough luck to live long enough. As the movie will repeatedly remind you, some things are written and some aren't.
In the end Slumdog isn't necessarily a meditation on Indian diaspora. But it definitely is a beautiful painting, that allows you to get a sense of what it is to be in india; to have faith and dreams and to gamble with them. And as with any beautiful painting, necessary artistic licenses must be taken, or otherwise it would just be a boring photograph in a auto-point-and-shoot-full-flash-mood that is simply all detail and no story.
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