About blogging delays…

I was offline for the last two weeks. I live in a part of town (in Pune, India) that is newly developing. All the residential phone lines in our area have been down for so many days. Broadband didn’t work. Roads are dug up by any tom, dick, and harry, for whatever reason, and no one knows why. Some cables were seemingly affected, and that brought all the phone lines down. The telephone repairmen working at the spot looked either like gangsters trying to hide some loot, or a group of men squatting to urinate at a wall. This is the developing India. Sigh!

The comments and responses on this blog during and after the prolonged delays have humbled me. When I started this blog, I never knew and never expected to make so many friends or develop such a readership. I am still taken aback by the entire experience. One of my blogger friends even traced me, got my cell phone number, and called me up to ask what’s the matter, and that (s)he didn’t want to lose a friend like me. Experiences and comments like these make one realize that one is not alone in this world. There are people who care about the same things you do, who think in a similar fashion, who value similar things like you, and that the world is not such a hopeless place after all. I cannot express how humbled I am at all the emails and comments I received.

I am trying my best to put my life in order, such that I will be able to devote some more time to blogging. I have been dragged into several things on the personal front, and dealing with all of them at the same time has been a challenge. But the wonderful experience of blogging - the interaction I’ve been having with you folks - educated, intelligent, sensitive, and insightful - is a rewarding experience that I don’t wish to sacrifice. So I am myself waiting to get active in the blogosphere again. The only request is to be patient with me.

At the same time, I am also missing out on reading your wonderful blog posts. I cannot tell you how many times I think of some of your posts while sleeping at night, and either have a good laugh or empathize with your feelings, or be enriched by your knowledgeable posts. I am looking forward to getting back to reading your blogs and learning from them. You folks make life worthwhile. I mean it.

This post is not composed, orchestrated, or edited. The backspace or arrow keys haven’t been used. It is coming straight from the heart, as they say, and there is no filter. Forgive me if it is not as structured as my usual posts. I know you will. Thank you.

Resuming Soon…

This blog has been inactive and dormant for quite some time due to personal reasons. I hope to resume in a week or two. Thanks for all the comments and patience. And a very happy new year to all my readers!

A Busy Week

Dear readers, this past week has been very hectic and I’ve mostly been offline. My gratitude to all the comments, and apologies for the delay in my response. I hope I will be able to spend more time posting, responding, and visiting your wonderful blogs in the coming week!

Thanks for bearing with me.

Lost in the Dark Side of the Moon

I made a new friend when I was about 14 years old. We liked the same music. We read the same books and shared our Phantom and Mandrake comics. I used to be fascinated by his collection of Life magazine, with the stunning photographs of Apollo moon landings. He used to be fascinated by my home-made telescope. At a time when we were struggling with our English, he was studying Russian on his own - not from books, but by listening to Radio Moscow over short-wave radio. We spent our academically important 10th grade of schooling by studying long hours together, late into the night. We were ‘different’ in a way, from the rest of the crowd in our area.

We then went our separate ways in college. Our meetings became less frequent as my world expanded in many dimensions. It was after a year or so, that I first began noticing changes in him during our infrequent meetings. He seemed diffident and unsure of himself. After a couple of months, a common friend said something was really the matter with my friend. I went to his home and met his mom. She was in tears. She said he almost never left his room, and sat by the window the whole day, his hands gripping the window bars. Even children had started making fun of him. I went in his room. He saw me out of the corner of his eye and looked away. He was clearly afraid. Afraid of something, I didn’t know what. I decided to act normal, and asked him if he would come with me for a walk. We walked for about 15 minutes, during which I made general conversation while he seemed terrified.

When I came home later that day, and thought about my friend, I realized he was sick. Mentally ill. He needed to see a psychiatrist. I did not know anyone who knew a psychiatrist, or even anyone who knew anyone who knew a psychiatrist. I myself was barely 16. I knew my family wouldn’t help; they’d rather take him to some miracle worker or recommend him to an astrologer. I then remembered that the clinic where my dentist practiced had a psychiatrist too. The next day, I again went to his home, met his parents, and tried to explain that their son needed to see a doctor.

My friend was Punjabi, a North Indian family. His mom was perennially in tears. His dad, who was almost double my size looked menacing, and couldn’t understand. He simply wanted to shake his son out of whatever he was going through and ‘be a man’. After much persuasion, they agreed to let me try and help, so the next day, we were off to see the doctor. The doctor spoke a few minutes with all of us and prescribed some medicines, after which I spoke with him alone. He said it was schizophrenia, and the medication would help only to a certain extent. He didn’t seem hopeful about my friend.

I was busy dealing with the vicissitudes in my own life for the next few months, after which I once happened to meet my friend. I took him to the terrace of my apartment building, where we used to spend time together. He would never look at me, and start to leave the moment I looked directly at him. I tried my best to make him comfortable, and he began talking slowly. He told me he spoke to Lee Falk every day. Lee Falk spoke to him for hours together, telling him what’s happening and what he should do. He had even shown him his own private luxurious bedroom in his rich mansion, something he never showed anyone - my friend gleefully revealed.

In our next meeting, he told me why he was afraid. He was being pursued and followed day and night by LTTE terrorists, who were out to assassinate him. He narrated detailed experiences of how Lee Falk gave him advance intimation of where they were going to kill him and how he had cleverly foiled five such attempts on his life.

In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig writes:

He was insane. And when you look directly at an insane man all you see is a reflection of your own knowledge that he’s insane, which is not to see him at all. To see him you must see what he saw and when you are trying to see the vision of an insane man, an oblique route is the only way to come at it. Otherwise your own opinions block the way.

The far side of the moon is never seen from earth. Humans first directly observed it only when Apollo 8 orbited the Moon. Is that why insane people are called lunatics? When there is Brain Damage, why does there have to be an Eclipse? Why is it Us and Them, and not We? Today, I feel a complex web of emotions. There is a feeling of guilt that I didn’t help as much as I could have. There is also the realization that even if I knew about mental illness at that young age, it was only from an academic perspective. I didn’t have the psychological or real-world wherewithal to effectively help. At the end of it all, there is a sense of loss.

I lost my friend to the Dark Side of the Moon, and he must be saying:

And if the cloud bursts thunder in your ear,
You shout and no one seems to hear,
And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes,
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon

(In remembrance of World Mental Health Day, 10th October 2007, and my friend.)

The Writing Meme

Nita has kindly tagged me for listing strengths of a writer that I aspire to have. I read a few excellent writers who’ve contributed to this before, like Suburban Life, The Individual Voice, Joe Felso, MariaCristina, and of course, Rambodoc. I liked MariaCristina’s way of listing each strength along with an example. All these writers excel at their craft, leaving me dumbfounded. So as Nita suggested, I will start by blanking out previous insights and starting afresh.

• English is my second-language. I couldn’t write basic, decent English till I was 17 years old. The Wren and Martin grammar they taught us in school was an insipid, laborious, meaningless exercise. It was several years later that I discovered The Elements of Style, and entered the world of English writing. If anyone asks me which is the one book to read about English writing, that is it. This “little book” can be read here for free.
• Be intimately knowledgeable of William Safire’s Rules for Writers.
• Read. After you’ve read, study it as a writer. Reading as a reader is different from reading as a writer. You cannot write unless you read. You cannot write well unless you study writing as a writer. Over time, you won’t need to read twice.
  I learnt the above by applying film appreciation skills to the art of writing. Watching movies doesn’t make anyone a better actor or director or script-writer. Only if you watch the movie from a script-writer’s perspective will you learn about the art of script-writing.
• Honesty, passion, sincerity, and practice. I need not say more.
• Voltaire said “If you wish to converse with me, define your terms”. We may not want to be as unreasonable as that in our daily lives, so let’s just say “If you wish me to read your writing, you better be able to back up your words with definitions”. There is a difference between ‘knowing’ the meaning of words to be able to make good conversation, and knowing the meaning of words you use to write.
• I meet two kinds of people. On one hand are passionate lovers of words and language. They are finicky about whether they prefer Oxford or Merriam Webster. On the other hand are those who respond “whatever”, when you painstakingly explain the precise meaning of your interpretation of a word. If you wish to improve vocabulary, subscribe to A.Word.A.Day - I joined in 1995.
  If you wish to write well, overcome inertia and proactively refer the dictionary and thesaurus. In the pre-Internet era, we used to have these huge reference books by our side to refer when we were writing. Now, it’s so simple!
• Writing is 99% thinking and 1% typing (or penning). What this means is that you can engage in the act of ‘writing’ when your commuting, or having a shower, or lying in bed. I often think of topics, structure, elements of the content, and the key message, while I’m away from the computer. When I do get a chance to type, it is just a matter of crystallizing what you’ve already thought through.
• If the 1% typing takes 99% of the time, you need to learn typing. I learnt typing on a physical typewriter in my 10th grade, when I decided on IT as my career. Then I improved my speed using typing tutor software. It has paid handsome rewards. I’ve met people who fumble at the keyboard and proudly talk about how their hands can’t keep pace with their fast-thinking minds. I wondered why their smart minds never gave priority to improving their typing skills.
  Improving your typing speed helps you write faster and better, since you are not distracted with typing and can let your mind flow freely, while your hands automatically type it for you.
• Be comfortable. Do not confuse external environmental factors with your ability to write. Have you slept well? Is the background noise or lack of sufficient light hampering you? Don’t get frustrated and give up. The negativity may be an external influence, not an innate inability.
• I initially used to have trouble imagining my reader while I was writing. Then I learnt to write ‘to myself’. I no longer visualize or imagine a reader, I write as if it is for me to read.
• Use the right tools to improve your efficiency. Choose the chair, keyboard, mouse, and screen according to your ergonomics. I use the Opera browser as its inbuilt shortcuts help me tremendously in referencing and researching while writing. Select your tools as per your convenience and use them efficiently.
• If you’re Indian, you might want to check this presentation I’d made about avoiding common English errors. People from the same culture where English is a second language tend to make similar mistakes. This essentially works like a meme. A typical Indian example is ‘updation’, which can be commonly found in Indian English, but is not an English word.

The above are factors that help me to write better. It is a never-ending road, so I too need to revisit each of the above regularly. As Nita correctly and graciously pointed out, I’ve a desire to learn about the craft of writing and am still learning.

To take this further, I’ll tag Asuph, hoping that his blog gets well soon!

(Image Credits: Details of a Waterman 42 Safety Pen, public domain.)

Religion vs. Atheism in Parenting

A few weeks back, I read Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion say:

I want us to flinch when we hear of a ‘Christian child’ or a ‘Muslim child’. Small children are too young to know their views on life, ethics and the cosmos. We should no more speak of a Christian child than of a Keynesian child, a monetarist child or a Marxist child. Automatic labeling of children with the religion of their parents is not just presumptuous. It is a form of mental child abuse.

I’ve been thinking about this ever since, when I was asked the following questions by Ashok in comments on his Temple Matters post:

1) What is your opinion on children being taken to temples but not encouraged to ask why?

2) At what point do you think parents/elders should leave the decision of finding personal meaning in religion to the individual? What would you do with your children?

For a novice parent, these are profound questions, and it is important for any parent to think about these.

To start with, there is no doubt in my mind in fully agreeing with Dawkins. I was indoctrinated as a Hindu child, and chose atheism only in my teens, after I discovered and studied other philosophies. I did not have to go through a tenacious struggle myself, but I can well imagine different experiences for others. I would disagree with indoctrination of any kind. One must encourage one’s children to think for themselves, and choose what they think is right.

Given that religion is based on blind faith and not reason, it is hardly surprising that most religious parents blindly indoctrinate their children in what they themselves believe is the best for their children’s good. But what about atheists? Do atheists equally provide an open environment for their children to let them choose between religion and atheism?

Even as an atheist, I believe that I should not indoctrinate my child with atheistic principles. Even if I was raised as a Hindu, I will let my child attend a Christian convent school if it offers quality education, even though it may expose her to Christian traditions. I will let her grandparents take her to Hindu temples and let her see and have that experience. I will teach her not to discriminate among her friends based on religion if I find hints of any such thing. Over time, I would encourage her to think critically for herself.

So my response to Ashok’s questions is: #1 is pure indoctrination. Not encouraging children to ask questions is bad parenting. Not allowing them to, is mental child abuse, as Dawkins points out. #2: From the birth of the child. You can provide facts, information, and knowledge. But the decision of finding personal meaning in religion or elsewhere is a birthright of the child.

Of course, it’s not as simple as it sounds (who said rational parenting was easy?). When she asks me for the first time (whenever that is), “Dad, what is God”?, what will be my response? Will it be “Dear, God is a fictitious entity that many people believe in?” No, I suspect I will point at an idol somewhere and say “That is what people call God”, and thus side-step the question of his existence. If after a couple of years she asks “Dad, where can I find God?”, I’ll say “I don’t know dear. I haven’t found him yet. If you do, please let me know.” As she grows up, I will continue to encourage independent thinking. When she is mature enough to understand how different people can have different values, I can then explain what my values are. Well, I hope so!

What are your thoughts?

Update: 11th Oct: I realize that comments section on this post can be too restricted a space for many people to espouse their ideas. I have also learnt that this is a universal topic for parents who think. Hence, as can be seen from the comments section below, this topic is now a meme, open to all.

It has already been taken up by The Rational Fool, La Vie Quotidienne, and AgelessBonding. Feel free to take up this meme on your own blog and write on this topic.

Cartoon Credits: David Horsey, via The Primate Diaries

Sharing My Bookshelf

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.
- Jerry Seinfeld

For the past several weeks, I have been mulling over adding a “Reading Room” widget to my sidebar where I can list the books I’ve just read and plan to read in the near future. I firmly believe you can tell a lot about a person by the kind of books the person reads.

Even in real life, I’ve found that talking about the books one has read helps me connect with people. If you’ve read the same kind of books, you can make excellent close friendships with people, which otherwise wouldn’t have happened.

While I was contemplating this for a while, I received an invite from a friend to join Shelfari, an online book-sharing site. Then, I came across Ergo’s post sharing his bookshelf. I too think it is a great concept and a great idea. Much better than adding a widget listing just a few books!

Think of Shelfari for books as what Bloglines is for Blogs, or Delicious is for bookmarks. Just as we like to share the blogs we read with each other through our Blogroll, we can share the books we read through Shelfari.

So, here is my Shelfari bookshelf. Feel free to add me as a friend, if you decide to sign up, so that we can share.

Note that all the books on my bookshelf are those that I’ve read and personally own. I’ve not yet gotten around to adding everything I’ve read! In some cases I chose hardcover editions as they had a title picture, whereas I actually own the paperback editions (which were without a title picture). Needless to say, the list is not exhaustive - I have several books without even an ISBN number that I did not find in Shelfari’s database. Also, a couple of tries to search for books using ISBN numbers didn’t succeed. Otherwise however, the site does a good job, as far as I’ve seen.

Happy reading!

Runaway Train

Prologue

I decided to add this prologue after the first few comments to this post. This post uses an incident in India, but is actually universal in nature and focuses on the moral, philosophical, and ethical decision-making involved in an emergency.

Main Post

Imagine you’re traveling from Mumbai to Pune by train, which is full to capacity, as usual in India. An additional engine is added to the train to climb the ascent of the Western Ghats from Karjat at sea-level to Lonavala at a height of 2000 ft. above sea level. Your train trudges laboriously upwards and reaches Lonavala after 1.5 - 2 hours. You enjoy the beautiful scenery of the Sahyadri ghats. It stops at Lonavala for a while and everyone gets back on board, ready to proceed.

Suddenly the train starts inching backwards. There are smiles, giggles, and wisecracks about what antics the drivers are up to. Some wonder if they’re simply changing tracks or if some engine replacement or something had to be done. The ‘inching’ turns into ‘crawling’, and soon enough, ominously, the train is now really ‘moving’ backwards. There is puzzlement all around and you are amused as to what’s happening.

There is no let up however, as the train starts getting momentum, accelerates further, and starts gaining speed. Amusement disappears as you and everyone else realize that something is seriously wrong. The train gains further acceleration and you’re already cruising at a reasonable speed. Everyone is peering out the compartment doors and windows only to find people from other compartments doing the same. “Has the driver lost his mind?” you wonder, as people start voicing obscenities at the train staff.

“But, was the staff (driver and guard at opposite ends), on the train when it started off at Lonavala?” someone asks and nobody really knows. The worst possibility comes to your mind - you’re on a runaway train, downhill, with no one at the controls.

By this time, the train is so fast that it would be dangerous to jump off. Panic and confusion all around you. You calm yourself and start thinking rapidly. You visualize the laborious twists and turns of the track as it winds down the mountains. You imagine a full-speed, no holds barred, runaway train hurtling across those tracks and overturning into the picturesque Sahyadri valleys. Is this how you were destined to die?

Point A: Question 1

At this point, if you jumped off, you assess your chances. Let’s say there’s a 70-80% probability that you’ll get seriously hurt, and a 20-30% possibility that you might die in the process. Will you jump off?

Point A: Question 2

Assume you don’t, and cling on to hope, that there will be some miraculous intervention and that you will be saved. After all, when one lives in a civilized and moderately developed society, it is a rational expectation that there will be systems and processes in place to deal with such emergencies.

Some people are seriously doubtful however. They’re contemplating jumping off. Will you discourage and/or prevent people from doing so?

Meanwhile, the train has reached a breakneck speed. The sparks from the wheels are now of alarming proportions and reaching the windows. People from another compartment come rushing into yours as their compartment catches fire. The ghat section, where the real twists and turns begin, is just around the corner. People are screaming, women are crying in hysteria.

Point B: Question 1

At this point, there’s an almost 100% probability of serious injury, including permanent handicap, and a 70% probability of death. Will you jump?

Point B: Question 2

Assume you don’t, and still have hope that you will be saved. However, there are people who are getting ready to jump. Will you discourage/prevent them, just because you have hope even if they haven’t?

Epilogue

The above situation is not hypothetical. This is what happened to the Indrayani Express in the 1990s, when my cousin brother was on the train. During a normal return journey from Pune to Mumbai (downhill), the train used to descend the height of the ghat section in approximately an hour. That day, it ran the same track downhill in 11 minutes. The train did not overturn. Few people who jumped off were seriously injured. There were no major casualties. My brother urged dozens of people not to jump and ended up saving them in the process.

(Photo Credits: the Indian Railways Fan Club)
(Title of Post: Runaway Train by Soul Asylum)

Getting back from a hiatus

Dear readers, I’ve been offline for the past few days, savoring India’s performance in the 20-20 World Cup, while attempting to escape the insane noise pollution, traffic congestion, and air pollution as a result of the Ganesha Festival in Pune.

Please bear with me, while I get my bearings in cyberspace again, after an eventful sequence of days.

At the moment, I’m just glad that both the Ganesh Festival, and the cricket team’s victory parade, passed off peacefully. There were no terrorist strikes, despite both being good targets, as might be seen by the six bombs found in Mumbai.

PS: I’ve decided to do away with Technorati tags now that WordPress natively supports them. And I’m also doing away with those social bookmarking icons, since I don’t think anyone really uses them.

Birthday and Feedback Time!

I share the exact same birthday as Lance Armstrong - today. And I would like to take this opportunity to invite feedback from my readers. I liked the way Paul did it recently.

To paraphrase him, I need to learn, and request both constructive criticism as well as feedback on things that I do well (if there are any!). Where do I need to improve? Of course, you can email me your feedback at mahendrap [at] gmail [dot] com.

I started blogging just when I was in the midst of a very hectic life, having a regular IT job, a baby daughter, and a fledgling restaurant. (Incidentally, did anyone notice my daughter’s photographs I posted recently?) At the time, it seemed too much to take on at one time. But, I persisted, and trudged along. It is 5 months now that I’ve been blogging.

If I observe differences between my earliest posts and recent ones, I observe that I am posting less frequently with each post packing more substance and content. Each post taking up more time and effort, in order to make it a “worthwhile” post. I liken this to the development of Western Classical music. The compulsion to improve upon earlier art works is age-old in history. Haydn composed over 100 symphonies, Mozart 41, Beethoven 9, and so on. Each subsequent symphony being more complex than the one earlier.

Is this trend undesirable? Are small posts worthwhile?

In the course of 5 months, I have shared my passions, my life, my interests, and my life. I’ve shared poetry, sketches, entrepreneurship, and travelogues, apart from my amateur opinions on current affairs, politics, science and technology.

Many of my beloved readers have offered me encouragement and feedback as an ongoing process. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I don’t think I wish to gain wide popularity (somewhere, I know that’s not going to happen), and am happy with a select, sustained readership. Like in my personal life, I prefer few close friends (readers)!

My blogging life in the past five months have taught me several things. I may once write about them separately. What I’m glad about is that it has brought me a circle of friends whom I could never have found otherwise. This is what I’m celebrating on this birthday!

Technorati Tags: blogging, personal, birthday

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