Traipsing to "High D"

One of my cousins is getting married this weekend, so am in the Pearl City.

One is apprehensive while traveling alone, as your fellow passenger could make or break the trip, but mine was a very pleasant person from Wipro. Mahesh is a chap from Bellary and could speak several South Indian languages like his own. Weirdly enough, we were both wearing the same watch (Timex Expedition, different dial color though) and carrying the same mobile, the Nokia 6610. Heck, our wallpaper on the mobile was the same, the golfing one.

It was tough getting out of the Kempe Gowda Bus Station itself and one was left wondering about the sheer synchronous aspect of Indians. The guy in the middle of the road does not get out of the way until you're about to run him down. Most of the time, he's standing there as a challenge! However, Indians thrive under chaos [OS used by God is called K, generally referred to as K-OS ;-)] and must explain their general success in fluid situations overseas. Anyway, all this is quite spooky sync stuff for a guy who believes in using Steinbeck's Knife to the extent possible.

The video for the road was Munnabhai MBBS, but the VCDs were pretty bad and one missed seeing a movie while traveling for probably the first time. The KSRTC guys made up for that with a morning show (7-9 AM) of The Angrez, a risqué, silly, laugh riot, after a one-hour jam, which saw our Volvo bus driver finding himself in the wrong lane, courtesy the sync funda above.

Paul Theroux said:

Travel is glamorous only in retrospect

I have to disagree with him on this one. It was just great fun.

Thoughts on SSS—Chapter 02: Need for a Guru

Chapter 2 of Shri Sai Satcharitra talks of the need for a guru:

Next day after Hemadpant’s meeting with Sai Baba, Kakasaheb went to Baba and asked whether he should leave Shirdi. Baba Said, "Yes". Then someone asked - "Baba, where to go?" Baba said, "High up." Then the man said, "How is the way?" Baba said, "There are many ways leading there; there is one way also from here (Shirdi). The way is difficult. There are tigers and wolves in the jungles on the way." I (Kakasaheb) asked - "But Baba, what if we take a guide with us?" Baba answered, - "Then there is no difficulty. The guide will take you straight to your destination, avoiding wolves, tigers and ditches etc. on the way. If there be no guide, there is the danger of your being lost in the jungles or falling into ditches."

Thus Baba illustrates the need for a Guru.

Ramakrishna was of the firm opinion that the Satchitananda within was the best guru, but we have to clean up ourselves within to uncover It. In the absence of such a state, it's a good thing to look outside at folks such as Ramakrishna and both the Sai Babas as one can then know the potential of a Guru. Personally, I believe that Incarnations such as Jesus Christ, Ramakrishna, Shirdi Sai Baba, and Satya Sai Baba have only the Great Infinite Spirit within them; there's no jiva, only the Paramatma. That's why their actions always come out correct. Some more thoughts at What Defines an Incarnation.

As Ramana said so beautifully:

The Guru provides the guri (గురి)

Incidentally, Steinbeck, my favorite American author, has a different viewpoint. In his immensely-readable Travels with Charley, he says:

I have always been that way; if I have to go west, I first go east

and travels up the upraised thumb of Maine before turning west. I guess he's referring to the phrase that he uses so amusingly later on in the book:

One has to see for one's own self!

This is just fine, as long as you also apply Steinbeck's other important funda:

A hangover is a consequence, not a punishment.

Remembering Stanley Kubrick

Qk.ly: http://bit.ly/bsxRemStaKub

It's the 78th birth anniversary of Stanley Kubrick* today, a fellow D8C8.

What a dude! Was fortunate to see the DVD on his life (A Life in Pictures), which came along with that cool Stanley Kubrick DVD collection. Some of the things that I really liked in that DVD:

• His philosophy: "Either you care or you don't"
• John Calley: "And he was one of the people that sort of knew what was wrong with the world in a weird way and was able to turn that into art. He just didn't grouse about it or bitch or write lousy editorials. He converted it into something that was amazing and important for us as a species."
  
• Sydney Pollack: "There are a lot of people in our business who are, well, they label themselves as perfectionists. That's a kind of euphemism for a pain in the ass, really. Stanley was the first real perfectionist that I met."
• Nicole Kidman: "Part of Stanley's legacy on my life is that if you believe in something, you passionately believe in something, devote yourself to it completely, utterly and don't apologize for doing it. "

* Weirdly enough, Stanley Kubrick adds up to 40 numerologically and the link for him in the IMDB database is http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000040/

Will the Zune hit the zone?

The iPod killer from Microsoft finally got a name: Zune.

Like that. It adds up to 23, the so-called Royal Star in numerology and one of the fortunate numbers.

The Zune's also got a bigger display window than the iPod. Its length-breath ratio (~1.33) is slightly closer to the Golden Ratio (1.618...) than that of the iPod (~1.27).

Gnoting 2012

With Israel going hammer and tongs against the Hezbollah, I recall some unnerving predictions about World War III:

• Many know-it-all pompous people will claim that there is no danger of a WWIII, but they do not know that this war will not start suddenly. It will start gradually with nations going to war with other nations. One small war added to another small war until the sum is a world war.
  

Let's see what the skirmish in the Middle East pans out to.

Anyway, I feel it's time one handled the countdown to 2012 more rigorously and, accordingly, have started gnoting all events related, even remotely through predictions, in my 2012 public Google notebook.

Pegging Dogs

That's ShekarG, one of our baddy buddies, pegging his dogs, Bruno and Shadow, a Weimaraner.

Shadow is such an ebullient fellow, he puts Bruno in its shadow!

An evanescent mantis

An evanescent mantis
Originally uploaded by shastrix.

My n^th trip to the Temple Tree in our backyard over m weekends resulted in this excellently camouflaged dude. Almost didn't see it.

The turn of the abdomen like that of a scorpion was quite interesting.

It became very skittish with me around and kept moving away from my line of sight!



Mantis on the move
Originally uploaded by shastrix.

The Woebegone Traveler

Buying stuff in India is always a bit weird. One can't help wondering who's the customer. I dropped in at this KSRTC booking office and there was a sharp-looking dude behind the desk. KSRTC has now moved to the Net, though the booking office is still on IE ;-)

The sharp gave me a few fundas on the Internet, though he took about 5 min. to get my last name right ("Shastri as in Ravi Shastri, the cricketer", and he plugs in my name as Ravi Shastri).

Anyway, he got that going, after a while. Thankfully, there were no issues at the point of collision between cyberspace and the real world, the printer.

Living in the moment, the sharp moved on to his next transaction in one fluid movement.

I said, "OK", took the ticket, and carried on.

I didn't thank him or anything, which always reminds me of the incident at the end of chapter 13 from The Catcher in the Rye (page 53).

"The Pacific has no memory"

A couple of earlier posts about Vizag spawned a flurry of messages from Gopa and Som recalling funny and poignant memories of living our childhood just off RK Beach, Vizag.

That made me wonder about the other side of the coin; a seashore without memories. Is that a possibility? As Andy tells Red in Shawshank:

ANDY: Think you'll ever get out of here?
RED: Sure. When I got a long white beard and about three marbles left rolling around upstairs.
ANDY: Tell you where I'd go. Zihuatanejo.
RED: Zihuatanejo?
ANDY: Mexico. Little place right on the Pacific. You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? They say it has no memory. That's where I'd like to finish out my life, Red. A warm place with no memory. Open a little hotel right on the beach. Buy some worthless old boat and fix it up like new. Take my guests out charter fishing.

Living on the seashore, esp. in childhood, and leaving it later makes you ache for the same your whole life. Left Vizag at 20 in 1985, we now stay at one of the best-possible places in Bangalore, but the itch to go back to a place by the sea remains. My reading is that the Sea, and more so the Ocean, is a metaphor for Wakan Tanka, the Great Infinite Spirit.

Sri Ramakrishna used to advise his disciples to meditate on the edge of large water bodies. He also observed that Wakan Tanka's like water, with a dimension between 1 and 2 (like a fractal). Being the container as well as the contained, Wakan Tanka is outside Time and the same goes for the Pacific Ocean. That'd be an amazing place to be; one with no memory.

This presents another interesting aspect of living Life. As Christopher Isherwood points out in Ramakrishna and His Disciples: (page 279, middle)

If I had to use one single word to describe the atmosphere of the Gospel narrative, it would be the word Now. The majority of us spend the greater part of our lives in the future or the past—fearing or desiring what is to come, regretting what is over. M. shows us a being who lives in continuous contact with that which is eternally present. God's existence has no relation to past or future; it is always as of now. To be with Ramakrishna was to be in the presence of that Now*. Not everybody who visited Dakshineswar was aware of this. M. was aware, from the first; and he never ceased to be thankful for the privilege he was enjoying. He describes every scene of his narrative with a thankful wonder that he—the ordinary unworthy schoolmaster—should have been permitted to take part in it.

* Be Here Now, says Ram Dass, merging Space and Time in an engagingly delightful way

Going Postal

Was quite amused by the title of this Yahoo News item:

Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman go postal

while the Wonder Woman in the title reminded me of that funny stuff from Hollow Man*:

Sebastian: Ever tell you the one about Superman and Wonder Woman?
Matt: I don't think so.
Sebastian: So Superman's flying around the city, and he's horny as hell. Lo and behold he looks down and sees Wonder Woman, completely nude, sunning herself up on the roof of the Justice League. I mean she is lying there naked and spread eagle. So Superman starts thinking, "Man... this is too easy. I could go down there, do a little fast pumping and be gone before she even sees me." After all he is faster than a speeding bullet, right? Anyway, he swoops down, takes care of business so quick, you can't even see him. Well... I tell ya. Wonder Woman looks up, surprised as hell and says "What the hell was that." And the Invisible Man replies "I dunno know, but it sure hurt like hell."
Matt: You know, that could be the last joke I ever hear.
Sebastian: C'mon, man. That's funny shit.

* Adds up to 41, Anand.

Bad 'Air Day

Surprised to find that the Discovery folks are returning to Earth today.

Today's numerological combo (a D8C5) is one of the dangerous ones. No wonder that we saw a tsunami hitting Indonesia again.

There's a good chance of Discovery blowing up in mid air.

See NASA couldn't have chosen a worse day! as well, when they just missed the same combo last year (on 08.AUG.2005).

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be

WikiMapia Mania prompted an interesting message from G…, one of my childhood pals in Sea Sands Quarters at Vizag:

Thanks for the great aerial w/labels! I enjoyed the nostalgia. I think we are really fortunate for the kind of childhood we were blessed with - no material influence, a big same age group in a kind of secluded eco system of our own, w/ no predators - I mean, we didn't have to face the peer pressure of dealing w/neighbors with tons of gizmos (and the resulting attitude) who made us feel inadequate (R…'s Reebok wasn't that bad, as it was kind of fuel for fun!).

We see kids now who are made to feel like pariahs for not having an iPod or an XBox. This occurred to me while watching H2 Hummer commercial, where all school kids make way to the kid who gets off his H2. I am very glad that we did not grow up in this age (sign of old age?). I am sure Apple and Nike are not complaining about this trend :-) How else can they make us pay ~USD 18 for a cap, and be their walking billboard?!

I used to think that we (humans) express animal traits (such as marking territory, mating calls, and other rituals) in a subtle way. Now, I am convinced that we just do it differently; I fail to see subtleties. Anyway, the point is, I am happy that we didn't have as many influences as the kids of this age have (I am sure our fathers thought the same way), and that your aerial has stirred these pleasant memories.

Thanks, Gopa, you took the words out of my mouth. Thanks to socialism in our time, I feel I had the best of Life by reading all those great books; I think it was Peter Ustinov who said that, if you read well, you'll have a well-furnished living room for your mind.

Weirdly enough, the Sunday Times of India Bookmark page had this from Harper "Scout" Lee in a rare piece (a letter) that she wrote for Oprah Winfrey's magazine, O, on how she fell in love with books:

Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books.

Call that iPlod :-)

JugS put the icing on the cake with the start of his article Murder Ink to Homecoming, right next to Harper Lee's quote:

My friend Dubby Bhagat once travelled from Kathmandu to New York City because of the name of a book shop: Moby Dickens. Dubby saw the name on a stray receipt he came across in Kathmandu. It conjured up images of a leviathan of a bookshop, its cavernous innards crammed with rare literary tidbits. Though Dubby loathes travel, he caught a flight to New York, in quest of Moby Dickens.

As it turned out, Moby Dickens was not in New York at all, but in Sante Fe, New Mexico, another 1,000-odd kilometres farther. Unlike Ahab, Dubby abandoned the chase and lowered anchor in New York. It turned out to be a lucky port of call. For, though Dubby didn’t find Moby Dickens, he did chance upon a lot else, which he describes in the email message he sent me for inclusion in this article: "In Manhattan I discovered The Mysterious Bookshop which has two floors devoted to thrillers and its own publishing company. It took a telephone call to Directory Enquiries to find Murder Ink, which specialises in whodunnits. The telephone company lady said ‘Oh really!’ when I asked for the number. I assured her that Murder Ink was a bookshop, not a Mafia subsidiary, but I’m not sure she believed me. I came back from New York with 80 books in two suitcases that carried very little else."

…

Thank God you can't cuddle up with a good computer, yet.

Business as usual in Bihar

Saw this on page 7 of today's ToI. The caption went:

IT HAPPENS ONLY IN BIHAR: A family in Patna maintains sang-froid despite the mess their house is in following heavy rain for three days.

Man, I was as zapped as the family is happy.

Guess it's no surprise that the suggested spelling for Bihar in Microsoft Word is bizarre!

Gatorade, Retrograde

Keep getting emails (even now) highlighting how Brazil lost to France.

It's amusing that Roberto Carlos, the culprit, advertises for Gatorade.

WikiMapia Mania

WikiMapia is going to change the way we view Mother Earth. The best part is you can create links so easily to your parts of the world:

• Andhra University in Vizag, where I grew up
  
• Bangalore
• Maars India in Koramangala
• Palm Meadows.

Mobile goes jig-a-jig

Due to some reason, the Nokia 6610 is extremely stable on a glass surface. Their ad line "Balance is a Beautiful Thing" is not far off the mark :-)

Noticed a funny thing yesterday when the mobile was upright and I received an SMS. The darned thing did a jig!

Tried to capture the same today by sending myself an SMS by email, which is one of the really cool things about the AirTel service in Bangalore.

Tethered to the Network

Tethered to the Network
Originally uploaded by shastrix.

Saran got the USB extension cord and, with the lanyard on mine, the twain were able to meet half-way!

What's with the 11s?

First we had 9/11, then 3/11, and now 7/11.

Someone observed that 3/11 happened 911 (actually 912) days after 9/11, so I checked whether there was any such pattern vis-à-vis 7/11. But no luck.

Guess the 7-Eleven folks must be feeling happy with the way they write their company name.

Way to go, Zizou

Most of the memorable moments of the big IF final last Sunday revolved around Zinedine Zidane:

• The Geoff Hurst-type penalty in the 7th minute
• The stinging header from near the penalty spot in the 104th minute from a Willy Sagnol cross, which would have beaten most other goalies
• The head-butt in the 111th (animated GIF, video, best angle video, frontal video).

The head-butt was the most amazing; one moment they seemed to be on OK terms, and the next, Materazzi gets one in the chest before you could say: "Marco". The sheer speed with which it was executed would have made the bulls in Pamplona proud.

Here's Materazzi's version:

I held his shirt for a few seconds only, he turned to me, looked at me from top to bottom with utmost arrogance (and said): "If you really want my shirt, I'll give it to you afterwards". I answered him with an insult.

Heh. Lipreaders are also getting into the act.

With all that adrenalin pumping away for well nigh two hours, one can excuse Zizou for losing his head.

Teddy Roosevelt said it best at the Sorbonne in 1910: (observed at the start of that delightful biography by Mark Waugh)

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

French President Jacques Chirac showed he was cast in a mold similar to Teddy when he received Zizou at the presidential palace in Paris with words of great praise:

I would like to express all the respect that I have for a man who represents all the most beautiful values of sport, the greatest human qualities one can imagine, and who has honoured French sport and, simply, France…. You are a virtuoso, a genius of world football, you are also a man of heart, of commitment and of conviction. That is why France admires you and loves you.

Update on 14.JUL.2006:

Here's Zidane's version:

"I am sorry for my action but I don't regret it," Zidane said. "Materazzi insulted my mother and my sister, his words were harder than a head-butt. I apologize to the youngster that saw it. My action is not forgivable. I want to make that very clear because it was seen by 2 or 3 billion television viewers, millions and millions of youngsters watched it. I ask forgiveness from them and also from their teachers who teach youngsters what they should and should not do.

"I can't regret it because that would say that what he said was right. I can't, I can't, I can't say this. He does not have the right to say what he said."

After seeing this video of Materazzi, I am inclined to go with Zizou.

Cloud watching

Ganesha over Greenwood High
Uploaded by shastrix.

There was an astonishing article in the Sunday ToI yesterday:

When Mumbai blubbered, floundered and went down last year after the July 26 cloudburst, the one thing that boggled the mind was: what on earth could produce so much rain? Although no proper photos seem to exist of the monster that mauled Mumbai, it was estimated to be so tall that it soared 15 km high—almost twice the height of Mt Everest.

Unfortunately The Cloudspotter's Guide, Gavin Pretor-Pinney's entertaining and informative guide to all things nebular, doesn't talk about the Mumbai Monster, but does inform us that the energy contained in such cumulonimbus clouds "has been estimated to be the equivalent of ten Hiroshima-sized bombs". He goes on to effectively convey the horrific power of cumulonimbus clouds through the story of Lt-Col.William Rankin, a pilot in the US Air Force, whose plane failed as he was trying to pass over such a cloud— flying through them can be too dangerous — ejecting him over 14 km above the earth.

Rankin's parachute expanded safely, but he did not descend. Instead, the huge updrafts that create the towering piles of a cumulonimbus shot him up— "It hit me with a tidal wave of air, a massive blast, fired at me with the savagery of a cannon..." As he rose, he was pelted with the hailstones that were rising with him. "This was nature's bedlam, an ugly cage of screaming, violent, fanatical lunatics...beating me with big flat sticks, roaring at me, screeching, trying to rip me with their hands." For 40 minutes Rankin was tossed through the cloud, "a pilot-shaped hailstone", before he felt rain on his face and realised he was finally descending below the cloud, completely bruised, yet incredibly still alive.

Seems there's even a Cloud Appreciation Society, where you can see some cool photos.

Personally, I keep seeing Ganeshas in the sky:

• Ganesha over Greenwood High
• Swananda in the Sky
• Ganesha over Palm Meadows

Mob Currency

Mob Currency
Originally uploaded by shastrix.

Was planning a haircut in the evening.

One travels with as less stuff as possible for that, as it's supposed to be "defiled" in the process of the haircut. Ah, the scars of tradition!

Thankfully, the folks in the Palm Meadows Club House accept a credit card (one can't say the same for the other saloons in Whitefield), but still that's two things to carry.

Wonder when the folks in India do a WinZip and add credit card features in a mobile as quite some interesting stuff is happening elsewhere:

• In Japan, Mobile Phones Replacing Wallets, Keys, Credit Cards
• The mobile phone revolution
  
• Mobile Credit Card Launched in Japan

Enter the dragonfly

Had a brief break during the awesome shuttle games in the morning when a dragonfly ended up on the court.

Picked it up and left it on the side of the court. That was a weird feeling; hadn't been to snaffle a 'fly since I was a kid at Sarada Bala Vihar, Vizag when I would catch them with impunity, but this one was too easy-peasy.

Kaushal, the takloo and easily the best of our shuttle group, noticed what was wrong. The 'fly was enmeshed in a hardened cobweb. He got in onto his racquet, peeled off the constricting condensed cobweb and the 'fly took off, like any self-respecting member of the Odonata.

Be cool and collect the great energy of the Universe

The Speaking Tree had a great article today:

Have you seen how peacefully a child sleeps in the lap of his parent, even in a noisy, crowded local train? The hustle-bustle disturbs everyone, but not the child, due to his implicit faith in the protection of his parent.

...

That reminded me of the start of Larry Darrell's exploration in India: (to be updated with the actual text from The Razor's Edge)

He's travelling to Calcutta along with the Swami of the Ramakrishna Order, who meets him earlier on the ship from Aden to Bombay. The train is totally chaotic, but when the Swami wakes up in the morning, he's as fresh as a daisy. When Larry asks him how he managed that, the Swami responds: By meditating on the Formless!

Swami says that, when the mind becomes pure, the great energy of the Universe will descend.

Thoughts on Sri Sai Satcharitra—Chapter 01

Last Thursday, had a nice XP with Shirdi Baba at Palm Meadows. During the pooja back at home, I was thinking of reading that awesome book by Antonio Rigopoulos. But the book that came into my hand was the Sri Sai-Satcharitra.

Chapter 1 has an interesting ending:

This reminds us of a similar story of Kabir who seeing a woman grinding corn said to his Guru, Nipathiranjana, "I am weeping because I feel the agony of being crushed in this wheel of wordly existence like the corn in the hand-mill." Nipathiranjana replied, "Do not be afraid; hold fast to the handle of knowledge of this mill, as I do, and do not wander far away from the same but turn inward to the Centre, and you are sure to be saved."

That's what Sri Ramakrishna once said as well, depicted in the image alongside (large version).

Baba makes an intriguing allusion: The lower (fixed) wheel is the prarabdha karma, that part of the sanchita karma that has come to fruition in this life, while the top (free) wheel of the grinding wheel is the karma that we generate in this current life. It's sort of under our control. Using the handle of jnana, one has to take correct action and grind away the ills of life, using the virtues of faith and patience.

To me, this means the following:

• Take decisions more with the heart than with the head
• Be lenient with the faults of others and strict with one's own.

Top-notch ideas

The other day, noticed something quite interesting in the cheque book that I received. A notch had been cut in the transaction sheet so that you could see the cheque number and write down the same without having to flip the sheet.

That reminded me of flower beetles that use a similar technique to reduce the drag as they fly. David Attenborough writes in Life on Earth: (page 79, middle)

Beetles use their fore-wings for a different purpose altogether. These creatures are the the heavy armored tanks of the insect world and they spend a great deal of their time on the ground, barging their way through the vegetable litter, scrabbling in the soil, or gnawing into wood. Such activities could easily damage delicate wings. The beetles protect theirs by turning the front pair into stiff thick covers, which fit neatly over the top of the abdomen. The wings are stowed neatly beneath, carefully and ingeniously folded. The wing veins have sprung joints in them. When the wing covers are lifted, the joints unlock and the wings spring open. As the beetle lumbers into the air, the stiff wing covers are usually held out to the side, a posture that inevitably hampers efficient flight. Flower beetles, however, have managed to deal with this problem. They have notches at the sides of the wing-covers near the hinges so that the covers can be replaced over the abdomen leaving the wings extended and beating.

Heh.

Wasp on the Window Sill

Wasp on the Window Sill
Originally uploaded by shastrix.

Opened the pooja room window in the morning, to find this wasp on the sill.

What a beautiful, delicate specimen it was.

Unfortunately, it was dead.

Middle age is when...

Shucks, Mr. Nash is too close to the bone out there.

Predilexions: It will be France on 9th July

More...

Will the Gates of Heaven be open for Fiery Fred?

A bit sad to read that Freddie Trueman has gone back to the Big Stadium in the Sky. Guess they needed someone like that up there.

Who can forget his grabbing the ball from his captain's hand and getting his 300th wicket?

But the bit that always gets me into a paroxysm of laughter goes as follows:

Fred Trueman bowling. The batsman edges and the ball goes to first slip, and right between the legs of Raman Subba Row. Fred doesn’t say a word. At the end of the over, Row ambles past Trueman and apologizes sheepishly. “I should’ve kept my legs together, Fred”. The reply is classic Trueman, “Not you, son. Your mother should’ve!”

"The wind cold, he blows on us"

The last few days, the wind really picked up the tempo. Today morning, it was esp., well, windy.

But it served to remind me of this funny bit from the hilarious The French Correction* (pp. 104—108 of the RD collection on Laughter, The Best Medicine, NOV.1981 edition):

Eventually (my son) Nicholas learned that chances of a fruitful dialogue were enhanced if he addressed me in English, but the insidious convolutions of French grammar had already left an indelible mark on us. Strolling in town one spring day, he said to me, "Take off the sweater of me."

"You just keep on the sweater of you", I insisted. "It makes cold."

"I have warm."

"Look, Papa has on the sweater of him. All the people have on the sweaters of them. The wind cold, he blows on us." I noticed that some passers-by had stopped to stare, so I took off the sweater of him and we moved on.

* By Lawrence Elliott, who also wrote that extremely inspiring Beyond Fame and Fortune, featured in the Book Section of RD's 50 Golden years (covering 1922-1972) and also, as I found out today, On the Edge of Nowhere.

Infinity is not a number...

Last night, Anurag was mentioning some spacecraft, no doubt from the many cartoons he keeps watching, when I idly mentioned that the Universe is BIG.

He corrected me: "Daddy, it's endless" and added, for good measure, "It's Siva—without beginning and end", referring to the story of Arunachala, when Brahma and Vishnu set out to find the beginning and the end of the fire from which Siva later emerges.

That knocked the socks off me. The child is indeed the father of man.

It also reminded me of an amusing incident when, Sivaraman returning home from a late-night party quoted his IIT-M professor:

Infinity is not a number, it's an animal

HPR and I were having a late-night chat as he passed us by with this comment and were totally dumbfounded at that.

But, once in a while, I wonder whether the Big Bang Theory is just that: a theory. As JV Narlikar pointed out so well in his article titled Eyes Wide Shut*—Big Bang Theorists out of Orbit, from which a snippet runs along this post.

* This article was published just 40 days after the release of the last movie of Stanley Kubrick.