Chronicles of an Eclectic Life

Monday, April 06, 2015

Jat crazy

I have been feeling very cool to share the ancestral background of Jats. They mostly make it in the news for wrong reasons, or for reasons of having been wronged (mostly under political acumen). While the former is surprising, - but predictable, depending on planning and social welfare measures - the latter is historically accurate.

The Jats - historically speaking - are a symbol of resilience and cultural simpleness that we so seek whenever we are on travel. They are some travelers themselves. Today's Jat will be seen traveling around the city in SUVs with volume cranked up, without knowing the journey their forefathers would've taken in days with thin political boundaries. Their clan has traveled from the central Asian regions, in what makes today's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Province, that makes fore NorthWesternmost occupation of China. Xinjiang is, today, largest Chinese administrative division, and 8th largest such in the world.

During the 14th century the inhabitants of Moghulistan were known^{[by whom?]} as "Jats" and the area they occupied was called "Jatah". This term is also used by numerous people in South Asia - in Pakistan and in parts of western India.

Not just that, they stuck out as a community for the longest while. While the rest of the Mongols turned to Moghuls (everything starts with the Mongols, esp that guy Genghis), through conversion, the Jats stuck to their pastoral and agricultural lifestyle. They loved their cattle, and stood for it. It was only upon persecution that they migrated down to the Sindh valley, which is in erstwhile Pakistan, and became a part of that culture. They migrated further to reach the Northern Plains of India, too, to Delhi and Haryana. Funny that the identity of the Jat that we relate to is the last one.

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Sunday, March 15, 2015

Yesterday I didn't miss

Balloon hearts whirling in motion against the station fence in foreground

Old man playing temple run standing in local

Kru at the station by the sunset

Train cruising into and past the platforms

A train engine named Arjun rolling in, breakneck, dragging the bogeys of [12922] "Flying Ranee", a double decker express train between Surat and Mumbai. Underlying thought: "Arjun's bitch (note: girlfriend, coloquially, pejorative) trail is too long"

A taklu boy at the train window with the lights temporarily out into the sunset

Train horn porn - one train chirps in high tone, the other booms in a low tone, and a third one rolls in screaming to shut both of em up.

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Friday, March 13, 2015

Day Updates and Cinema: 1994 visited in 2015

t'was an active day today. i was busy in cinema and code - code is the boring part.
it started with a rerun of pulp fiction (1994), right after a first viewing. Its interesting moviemaking; memorable characters, quotes, music, storyline. This is the kinda dark humor and bloodletting that I've grown up identifying as 'the cool' (an organic process), and it felt good to catch up with my passion for cinema after a long time. I had Pulp Fiction on pause for the longest while since getting hands on a bootlegged copy.

On the other end of the day, which is now, it closed with another rerun - Forrest Gump (1994). [just noticed the coincidence that both the movies were 1994. special year.] I have seen FG more times than I could recollect. It is a warm dreamy movie punctuated by 3 emotions - longing, loneliness and parting. Thing about good movies is that they are dense - every viewing gives something different to think about, or a different understanding, or a different set of 'moments', or a better understanding of some character. Dynamics do change when one has company, and the type of company, too. Today it was about Jenny. She gave up too often, she got into wrong company too often; "Run Forrest Run" seems wisest thing she said, leaving him a kid to stop at.

Watching Forrest Gump (today) and Pulp Fiction (yesterday), it was annoying to find how their elements have permeated mainstream cinema, and "inspired" filmmakers.

The Wall saw no progress today.
PS: We're making a climbing wall, in my own (well, Kru's) backyard.
We were supposed to fetch a ladder and finish the holds today, but alas our ladder acquisition didn't go smooth. Starting our practice on the wall, we had enamored audience-cum-neighbors watching, who promised to arrange one for us - SOLVED! Tomorrow shall see big progress and tall claims. Backyard climbing might turn into my biggest indulgence once it's done - few rotations on the wall are enough to realize that.

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Wednesday, March 11, 2015

ldldldldldldldldldld

I didn't realize until I got up, dealt with the regular intimidations and annoyances in the household, planned the breakfast, and got down to work on the machine. First of the illuminated pixels brought me the last tab that I'd been working on before heading off to sleep last night - notes on FILD or Finger Induced Lucid Dreaming. Yes, so it happened that my Reddit history brought up LucidDreaming, I obliged with a keypress ([Enter]) to land there. Yes, so it happens that I'm into lucid dreaming - dreams have always been my forte and it's only of late that I've stopped being serious about what I dreamt.

I tried FILD (http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-techniques/4779-finger-induced-lucid-dream-fild.html) things before drifting off to my early sleep last night. I played the piano, and didn't let my mind wander. This morning I was recollecting to Kru how I was floating over our bed, watching her. Forgetful me forgot the very thing he pushed into a relaxed sleep for - to encounter an episode of LD. I admit that it looked more like a regular $subconscious->pop() dream than LD, but it had shades similar to what people give in LD. I didn't do much while I was floating, or had a conscious thought that I was, so I'll lean on the side of a 'negative'. But with practise and persistence, maybe it will work.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2015

storage effect

On a long-term scale, this storage effect can have significant impacts on selection, especially if selection is fluctuating over a long period of time. It is inarguable that selection will fluctuate over time with varying levels of environmental stability. For example, fluctuations in population density can drive selection on sex-limited traits. In less dense populations, females will have less opportunity to choose between males for reproduction. In this case, attractive males may experience both reduced reproductive success and increased predation pressure.

Thus, selection on males for sex-limited traits such as increased size (elephant seals) and weaponry (claws on fiddler crabs, horns on rhinoceros beetles) will change direction with fluctuation in population density.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2015

change in perspe

I know what happened. A change of perspective, and that change felt less exciting, less to write about, though the venom, testosterone and dopamine surged no less - at different times.
This disinclination shall soon pass. Like, right now.

The past lies in a fog, of forgetfulness. It is natural to have the neural pathways dispossessed of memories after an idle period. Major details remain while the contributing facets wither away - stump of a past, a forest of stumps if I turn to look back, with the ones recent on the trail fruiting but withering away in the lack of an agent, a transactional middleman that will sell the fruit before it rots and keep the tree alive. Too many trees, though, spoil the business.

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Thursday, January 15, 2015

take more mine

Such a curious world we live in. I find it comical that everything gets back on track and derailed so easily. The transience of moments beats me. The play of Yin and Yang has been extraordinary, of late. Compound that with an average sleep of 4 hours in the past few days, and double-compound that with the realization that I could've just got my 8 and not bothered much at all. However, the halting problem again comes to explain, that given a program and a set of inputs, the program can't tell if and when it will terminate on those inputs - ie given me and my situation variables, I have no way of telling when the situation will collapse and reset.

I have this fuckin American Beauty ending playing out over and over again - just when everything seems to go right somebody or something is gonna put a gun and blow my brains to pulp. And despite, I plug it, let it heal, and it happens again.

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The D taboo

It escapes the contours of my face and lands between death and apology. It's a coincidence, and sad to realize, of what is to come. Deaths and apologies. A very nervy state, indeed. It doesn't help that I'm officially working towards a certificate course in the ugly endless Greek argumentation; first milestone - make it ugly for oneself.

As unfortunate as death is, it is the law of nature. What is unfortunate is being reminded of it, like they trust I don't get it; the reminding of empty hallways and the void. People around my home are strangely indulgent about their deaths now.. I wasn't prepared for that when I had come here expecting the worst. The worst is now at hand, when everything seems alright, but the psyches.

Here's my cent on not being so imaginative - the Halting Problem. That no program can tell if it has been halted (terminated). Consciousness probably suspends inifinitely at the moment of death. One will not know when one is dead or if one is dead. That simple. Then what's to worry about?

The dead ones are those who have imagined themselves as that. There, too, lies the contradiction, that if somebody has prospected a future where they do not exist, and considering they don't suffer from thanatophobia, then there needs to be no concern about the future. But spare time, and being an audience to people in bad health and bad tv shows will have them concerned.
I thought death was a tacit agreement we made when we came to live. Let us focus on the part where we live, then.

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Monday, January 05, 2015

small updates to end a big year

Hey blog. You deserved a knock, at least around the New Year's eve. 2014 has segued into 2015, and as each day of the new year has trickled by the urge has pushed itself, to rise to the top on this morning and make itself realized over a cup of Lopchu.

The first week of the new year has been serene, for more than one reasons. My mom, who suffered a stroke right at the cusp of the two years, got back home. (she's the reason why i'm here in Lko right now) It has been raining since Day 1 of 2015. The clouds, that were partly consumed in their 'ode to joy' kinda pouring at the start to the year, have been pushed aside by a breeze reinvigorating to the touch. I still remain as troubled on personal matters, but soon as I step outside and gaze across the rooftop, the spring in nature that I witness replaces the chaos in the mind. It resonates with that quote about the poor, how their physical toil takes them away from their mental pain, and hence keeps them happy. Nature does the same to an anguished person like me.

Deanguishing also takes place with visits to the Chowk, where me and baby brother score Kebabs, Makhhan Malai, Bhang and similar indulgences. Last we visited, we treated ourselves to a lotta free beverages, being distributed in the cramped lanes of old Lucknow on the eve of Id-ul-Milad; found a new winter drink - RoohAfza mixed with warm milk.

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Monday, December 29, 2014

Let's start from this morning

Hello, blog. Been a while. All that transpired in the meantime is either captured in images or lost in space as a wave function.

But let's start from today. It is a rare occasion that I'm tired and thinking of sleep for a coupla hours at 9AM in the morning. The latter comes rather often, the rarity is in the occurrence of the first. I'm tired because the Delhi chill couldn't confine me and I went out for a cycle and a run.

Pedaling on Delhi roads at this time around the turn of the year was a surreal experience. Dense fog reduced the visibility to a few feet - lights from the opposite traffic danced like ghosts in the air, other identifiable features coming into relief when the cars would pass right next. There were, surprisingly, a few cyclists on the road, even on the way back. Though the entire stretch has cycle lanes (unobstructed for the most part), Delhi is perceived a bit unsafe for anything for the guy in the car - girls, pedestrians, cyclists... and it reflects in the lowly number.

Everyone and everything was swaddled in woolens. I hadn't carried much on meself - just a sweater over a tee, topped by a windsheeter. A layer of cold cream (Boroline) was effective as foundation layer against the biting cold - though the application is a bit tedious, it must grow as a ritual. To some extent, Delhi will always be manageable, even in the harsh winters; I remember the contrast from Leh days when the mere act of going out meant 5 to 6 layers and heavy boots.

My intention was to rendezvous with Ab. Thanks to Ab, we never met, even though I was right in front of his apartment. He never picked up. That opened me to do random - so I did. I took a walk around the block, and ultimately ended up inside the park in A. There, I walked, jogged, and kalari-ed in peace.

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Saturday, December 20, 2014

kaching soleil

In the middle of my uneasiness about etching out a brilliant life, comes the excitement of being on the road again. I will minimally pack my bags this time, and head out to K. This is a time to enjoy some epic weather, and this is also a singular event - a convergence of us friends scattered afar - that won't ever work out if tried again, and so I go. Feet fooled to flounder over the coming 3 days or so. I'm impressed by how things worked out.

What hasn't worked out is my tab trail. It's a long one. Just when I get into a world I split away from it. It was a world of meteors, thermonuclear bombs, GPS, and apps this time. Well, I'll be back to pick up on more and work in a frenzy. Only if Ms. M allows me to.

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Friday, December 12, 2014

B for Braille - An initiative by White Print

Cheers to White Print. Good, dominating background track, and annoying shallow-dof effects.

I wonder what the blind understand when you say you have a device that only works at level of the visual sense, which they lack. Then I guess we're handicapped in all but 5 senses in perceiving our world. My heart breaks to realize we can't electrochemically sense food like Platypus does, or detect presence through heat like snakes, or merely be aware through smells, as good as our dogs.

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Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Where've you been? What's wrong?

What is wrong with me? In a lazy response to so much happening around, I've started thinking in tweets, and in my indolence I'm not tweeting either. My words have been substituted by photos - maintaining two photoblogs (lemakalu, makalutikki) has put out there more than words could.

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Tuesday, November 11, 2014

P A IZ AWSM

I was having a dream about a simple house. That could probably be the effect of the movie based on the life of Dr. Prakash Amte that I went to see yesterday.

The movie felt silly on the aural front; the background score tried to pump only a set of four emotions - happiness, sadness, harm, and virtue - and it made it preachy. Another irk I had was with the sounds of the forest. They were using sounds from the canopy of South American forests, is what was wrong. Hearing the Screaming Piha so many times to a Vidarbha backdrop was a little nerve exploding somewhere.

But the movie read like a beautiful book for the most part. It was a collection of stories across his life, loosely time-sequenced. It dips back and forth into the past. Much like how Mi Sindhutai Sapkal was. Nana Patekar is great, he is stataturely in his role of a simple man. My mama, and this Nana, both are aging well and looking better with time and face fat.

My girlfriend cried much throughout the movie. I felt like it once, but the feeling calmed soon. I dunno what to make of that. I'm idealistic, and maybe lost my ideality of gauging emotion, in the process of watching too many movies. But I know where my recourse is.

I will want to keep a leopard as a pet sometime.

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Bench Press

Charged on Sunday by an Indian wedding, I took my my two loves to a new distance, and ended up actually publishing something. No, not a paper, but a short interview video.
Today has been much about finishing it. So, a toast. There were a kitten, a tortoise, and 4 german sheps in this Ds home yesterday. Then we went and saw Baba Amte which reflected on a life of endless compassion, and I was like - we left that back home for the movie. Well, I obviously overstate my compasison here, comparing it to something to A Baba. Right now I have the dogs barking in protest so I have to take them out, so we'll start there.

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Wednesday, November 05, 2014

Armaan

तुम अपने ये अँधेरे जो पकडे हो,

आज कर दो रिहा |

जो शिकवे यूं दबाये हो,

आज दो भुला |

खुद के ख्यालों की खयाली को,

आज कर दो तूफ़ान |

ऊंचे टंगे अधर के ऊपर छूने को,

बस एक आसमान |

अपने बेपरवाह क़दमों को,

आज दो अरमान |

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Never

Never bite the hand that feeds

Never lose your slippers

Never skip a bath

Never forget to maintain a clean pair of undies

Never skip a beat

Never have maggi randomly

Never listen to your old music

Never play with furry things

Never play with own furry things

Never clean up after the act

Never find the solace

Never find the happiness

Never hide

Never play dead

Never feel crowded

Never be okay

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Tuesday, November 04, 2014

Everest

Today was appetizing. The purveyor of kitsch and retrograde inside was satiated. I'd be like Ignatius walking out of the theater content with aspersions about some abortion he sat through. I just sat through a grueling hour of television. It was to catch the debut episode of a series that felt close to concern, one called Everest, on Star Plus, .

I was an audience it since it reflected on a journey of a mountaineer, that too a girl. Female emancipation, and mountains, are general themes with enough of a pull. They are great themes, for the present times, which put the focus on the baffling and bashful realities of our society. Then, there was also a connect with a lot of people in the mountaineering fraternity that I've come to know - including my erstwhile OTL, whose facticities had a partial overlap with those tersely identified with the protagonist in the show's promos.

If their promos were anything to go by, I was anticipating a bad show. It spoke of a girl who would try to win her father's love by climbing the world's highest mountain, and in turn win our TRP; it pushed a retrograde concept, and at the same time called it inspirational. In today's world if one's idea of an inspiring tale is doing the extraordinary for mere validation from a father or a society, then my only idea of a response is a facepalm.

When the show finally aired, I was speechless. It went beyond the promos. Not just thematically, it sucked in screenplay, dialog, direction, acting, editing, ... If it was trying to be the worst show in tele, it felt there already. If it was aiming to be the most epic waste of production money, it is, without doubt, there already.

It starts with a girl - who but our protagonist - called Anjali, who would start every day with the intention of winning her father's affection, and her father - a misogynistic Brigadier with malformed expectations, in eternal longing for a male child, in eternal denial of existence of his daughter - making her every gesture seem unimpressive and trifling.

Anjali seems to have the Electra Complex, trying to push her mother into nonexistence when "papa" is home from the Army.

She also seems to have improved on Renee Descartes' proposition about thinking and being:

"cogito, ergo sum,

et ego sum,

patris mei"

(I think, therefore I am, and I am, for my father) - very moving.

Validation, however, doesn't come easy. She makes tea, but "Papa" don't like. She tops the state exam, and is honored at her school, but her only validation is "papa" showing up, which doesn't happen. He's like "I know who you are, and you are nothing. You are empty, you are a zero, you are a black hole".

Papa often says hurtful things about her, ignorant of her love and dedication, but that is alright as she is a girl, and girls deserve that. "You are loved by him as much as is possible to love a girl child," her wise mother placates her.

A rotten father, a mother whom she weeps with behind closed doors, and a school friend whom she laughs with on the balcony - what more does one need?.. You can see how it is building to the Everest already.

Let us think about Everest for a moment. Poor Everest, that is already becoming a proving ground for the mountaineers, even though we have better mountains, and now shown as a proving ground for disturbed teens trying to impress a parent or two, even though we have better places where disturbed people are often found - the psychiatric ward. Everest is not meant to be a replacement for therapy, but sadly is shown as one, here.

We are told that the Kalyug (the corrupted century) is approaching, an age when all our value systems will invert. The PR machine is working hard to usher that age in (perhaps there already). Either this show marks the beginning of that Kalyug, or it waits in hope that it comes soon, so the bad will be called good. I've heard rumors that the series continues for a 100 episodes - which means it could well be the greatest show ever when Kalyug comes.

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Monday, November 03, 2014

Sunday readings

It takes 500 steps, on average, walking between the two BIG gates.
It takes 460 strides, on average, running between the two BIG gates.
The two big gates are about 840m apart.
Beyond the gates, another 1666m and 3111 steps, takes you to a land of lights.
It takes 2500 steps on the way back from the shorter lonely route.
It is 328 steps to the 18th. For fools, its 555 steps.
The 13th floor is spooky, for it is the only one with an empty cement cave where an apartment should be.
Daffodil and Daisy are linked by this "cave" on the 13th.

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Crazy Jacket, if there is one

I found this book description in a Google Doc. It is twisted thinking how the text was prepared. It reads like a preview, but isn't. It looks so random, much like all unique words of the book shuffled and slapped randomly. It's hard to believe it all could be in the same book, but is. It could be a project to try out.
It is something Kilgore Trout could write.
---

<blockquote>Jeez rattlesnake disbanded The Great Himalaya Trail N9: The Makalu Barun Section reindeer. Longing yikes The Great Himalaya Trail N9: The Makalu Barun Section followed burned that joyful overtook oh. Goat the gosh far umm wow. That a that insufferably palpably umm wherever. Spoke hi great despite elephant umm PDF some whimpered viscerally. Teasingly fish that more hey near yikes much well. One and that less much playfully pangolin feeling ebook download so congratulated. More rooster recast hmm labrador excitedly regardless thanks some hawk. Upon vindictively much dismounted naked pouted jeepers until far. Darn far tragic much and wow because halfheartedly jaguar. Complete pinched when apart a and more oh considering. Extrinsically EBook clinic less some far sent within far and salmon. Boundlessly pdf download off as partook raccoon depending crud hmm chose and. Benign radiantly so compulsively lethargic became overlay. Gosh the below sobbed. Before more kangaroo more because flipped hyena. Far fretfully forecast hare thus that willfully so ran imaginatively. Immeasurable consoled far oh crud bore chameleon arduously less much. Concurrent reran until far by. Perilous one a reindeer.</blockquote>

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