A piece of Pi

We all love happy endings.

Every novel, every movie and every story comes to an end and most of the times the end defines how we feel about the story in retrospect. Many a times we hypothesize-"If this had happened the story would have ended that way..." to concoct an alternative ending especially if the story leaves us with a glum feeling...

And sometimes there comes a story which captivates and amazes all throughout but in the end leaves us with a lingering puzzlement that simply refuses to go away! With the end hinting that the story could be a schizophrenic account of the protagonist, you cant help but feel "Was all that I read a lie? Or was it not?What is the story really about!" And then when I resort to the web to give me answers, each answer throws back a new question and prolongs the puzzlement...

Life of Pi is that extraordinary story.

The startling yet simple story of a boy marooned in the ocean on a small boat with a ferocious Bengal tiger is, apparently allegorical with layers of hidden meanings and musings on religion and humanity. Stories with hidden meanings and references have always amazed and thrilled me but Life of Pi is just puzzlingly heartbreaking. As the end credits rolled, how I wished to be one of those kids in the cinema hall enjoying the spectacle of a tiger and a boy on the boat and not having to understand or make sense all the supposed gory realities... How I wished for a Jungle-bookish scene of bonding between the tiger and the boy- a comforting end to all the travails they faced at sea together...

 But that was not to be. Maybe that's why the story puzzles and enchants... that's why the story lingers...

My search for answers to the many questions life of pi evoked in me made me read a lot about the author Yann Martel. And I found this fascinating piece of wisdom in one particular interview that kind of eased my restlessness to look for meaning to the story, although in an inexplicable way, and made me write this post in the first place:

"Lets say you are chocolate icecream. If you are choclateness through and through, if all you have ever known your whole life is choclateness, then on one level you have no idea what choclateness is, though it permeats your whole soul. You will only understand choclateness once you meet strawberryness and vanillaness and butterscotchness. Its in meeting the other that you start to understand first that you are different and then how you are different."

time machine

It does not have knobs, no wheels no lever
an' yet all the time we travel

we choose, we select the place to go
back to past, into the future...
losing our moments in the present, we travel

we live seconds, minutes, years
in a flash, and then back

impractical? impossible? but we use it already!
each day, lest i say, each hour

we spend our life travelling back or forth..always
its true, its real...
past an future are totally accessible

memory stored in bits and bytes an' algorithms that can predict things right
all here, all real, cant you see, it's the now that's such a rarity..


Uninvented, yet since forever...Intangible, yet substantial
i wonder why no-one saw these signs..

this time machine running in our minds...

Infinite Summation

If there is a mathematical operation that defines our lives, it has to be addition.

From early childhood we are taught how to add stuff to our lives.. we are told to add more marks to that report card, more hours of study to the impending board exams, and even more to the deadlier entrance exams...

We are told to make sure that we add more skills to our kitty and more lines to our resume. The omnipresent social network is all about "adding" more friends to ones' account and "adding" more likes to ones' post...

And then there is the need to add more and more digits to the balance sheet of our bank accounts... So we are asked to add a safe, secure job to our lives and likewise sooner or later would be asked to add a person altogether to the overwhelming list of additions.Not to forget the mandatory additions of stress, tension and worry that keep building with each additional day...

This makes me wonder how it would be to go to sleep every night with a sense of subtraction rather than this infinite summation that rules our lives... how would it be if we could subtract the beliefs we have built around us that we unconsciously repeat to ourselves everday? If we could subtract those images and feelings we've added over the time about every person, thing, idea we have encountered before...

Reminds me of kindergarten when our tools were a chalk, a slate and a wipe-cloth...the alphabets learnt, the sums that went wrong, and even the sums that were right- we wiped it all by the end of the day...

And everyday we had the same old slate... and yet it was a fresh new one...

maelstrom

a large powerful whirlpool
uncontrollable
when outside... when within...

such an intense weather condition
devastating
when outside... when within...

if one gets caught... there's no way out...
relentless
when outside... when within...

with time it subsides... but never really dies...
a life of its' own

leaves us in a helpless strife
in a flash it arrives... in a flash its gone...

almighty nature decides...
seeing red with green eyes...
when outside...
when within...

The Wordier transform

There are thoughts and there are emotions.And we've had them ever since we can remember. But there always comes a time when we simply cannot keep them from getting into an infinite loop and wreaking havoc.

These are the thoughts and these are the emotions that we attempt to deal with in the domain that is most natural to them- our minds.

And that's where comes into picture what i call the Wordier transform.

I am not that great a fan of the Fourier transform but i cannot ignore how a problem utterly tedious in the time domain simplifies itself when expressed in the frequency domain. And similarly those exasperating thoughts and emotions are transformed into words, a simplicity surfaces - almost always accompanied by clarity. Sometimes by speaking out or writing it down, we make new discoveries where none existed in out silent monologues.

But then every tool is as good as its master. . . the wordier transform is powerful. . . and therein lies its strength as well its flaw. . . a dangerous flaw. . .One misplaced remark, one angry string of abuses, one instance of careless framing of what one feels or even just one thoughtless word can sever the deepest bonds between two people, two groups, two nations.

That choice between straightforwardness and discreetness. . .

That choice between patient observation and impulsive outburst. . .

That choice between keeping it to ourselves and expressing it in words. . .

Such are the dyanamics of this Wordier transform. . . Knowing how to use it is not enough. . .
Knowing when to use it makes all the difference. . .