Old Monk

Some years ago a friend and I were talking along the lines above and he was waxing eloquent on the idea of the world as maya, that everything is an illusion and fit only to be treated as a game. On the center table was a glass paperweight and I began to push it towards him. First he watched it with interest, and then as the heavy object edged closer to the brink, he said, alarmed, 'hey! Watch it. It is going to hurt.'

Evari Jatakam varide, evari grahalu varive

The Indian mind is immured in the idea of fate.

Even the choices we make are governed by our karma. 

Dane dane pe likha hai khane wale ka nam.

After fifty, thoughts automatically turn to the teachings of God, owing no doubt to the programmed mind that follows the pattern of The Four Stages of Life set by Manu.

From atheism to unabashed worship, from skepticism to blind faith, from the power of knowledge to the surrender to belief, from debunking mysticism to glorifying bizzare cults, we swing from one branch of philosophy to the other, like the great apes, our ancestors. We are a nation of self-contradicting endlessly debating people.

The greatest achievement of the Indian psyche is the integration of numerous little cults and subcultures into a unifying religion, all subsumed under the banner of holy trinity - Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva - the creator, the preserver and the destroyer. 

So powerful is the idea of fate that we can without the least sense of shock declare an appalling crime as the fruit of the victim's past life and the perpetrator's growing karma.

It appears to me:

Philosophy is the comfort of the uncomprehending mind. Spirituality is the comfort of an aching heart. God is the comfort of a frightened being. 

Growing old

The older we grow, the louder are our chants, the greater is our fear of the unknown and the inevitable end.

A lady who turned sixty a few days back travelled across a continent to catch a glimpse of a seer in an ashram. She failed to get a darshan of the holy man even though she was prepared to buy a ticket for Rs. 1000/-, for the place was already packed. A wizened old man past seventy apparently wanted to know from a young priest, barely twenty five, to point out the passages from a holy book that he must read and chant, in order to receive the divine blessing.

An octogenarian who spent his youth as an avowed atheist became a believer in the hope that he would get a safe passage through eternity when he would be called upon to make the last journey through life.

UX Write Review

1 Introduction

According to the tagline, UX Write is "The first desktop-class word processor for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch". The blurb says it is designed for large, complex documents such as reports, research papers, thesis, technical documentation and books.

Figure 1

It is intended for students, research scholars, technical writers and those who wish to present content (text, tabulated data and pictures) as a structured document.

This review is written in UX Write not only to reveal its features, but also to operate it as a general user. The author has been associated with it since the beta testing of this product; however, he is by no means connected with either the product development or its owner in any way.

2 Features

The app has the following features:

• Structure a document into multi-level headers. This allows the content to be presented in sections with headings. All the common header styles are available. It is also possible to customize the styles using the free-formatting feature.

• The document's page layout can be set using margins, borders, line indent and spacing and colors for text and background. Fonts can selected from an array of styles.

• Extended keyboard provides the most essential keys for structured writing.

Figure 2

The extension to the regular IOS keyboard is unique in some ways:

1. The first key allows moving through letters one by one, forward or backward.

2. The second key allows swipe selection, a feature that is still on the drawing board of many app builders. It is easy to use; simply position the cursor with a tap, press the key and just swipe on the panel below. Two-finger swipe is noticeably faster.

3. The third key is very important for text formatting. Rather than pull down the menu and hunt for the style you want to apply, just press the format key and choose the style you want. Use the same feature to undo a style that you applied before (bold, italic, underline, indent, bullet)

Figure 3

I am experiencing a little difficulty here to continue the bulleted list I started above. The inclusion of a figure has apparently terminated the list. So i begin again. (Notice the letter i did not convert to upper case automatically)

To continue with the features:

The next six keys are the most useful to any writing of considerable length. The last one deserves special mention, one that is not found in any app so far as I know. It is the key, literally, to build your own lexicon. It supersedes the built-in dictionary and provides a powerful system to build a repository of words for later use. It is to all intent and purpose the auto-correct mechanism done right. Here is how it looks:

Figure 4

Clicking on the last key pops open a list of word variations to choose from and if required to add to the dictionary.  

• The icon A available on the top of the app provides all the essential text formatting features one can expect from a word processor. The figure 1 shown in the beginning of this review presents a snapshot of these features. Buried inside this pull down menu is a set of buttons to customize the styles and preview them before applying to the document.

• The + icon next to it allows insertion of pictures, tables, references from within the document, links to external web pages, generate table of contents, list of figures and tables.

• The bars icon pops open the Outline view of the document. One can jump to any section of the document from the outline menu.

• The gear icon allows document-wide layout and styles.

• The export icon allows the document to save as a PDF, email it as its native format HTML. It is also possible to open this document in any other app that supports HTML or send it to a printer.

• Undo and Redo button allow mistakes and corrections on the fly, though according to my experience this feature is yet to mature.

• The close button faithfully closes the document and takes the user back to the main menu.

• In the landscape view, the sidebar can be opened from the bars icon to view the document in the outline view. Here ins an interesting feature here. The sections in the document can be reordered using the Edit button at the top of the sidebar.

• Another interesting feature that is lacking in the regular keyboard is the '-' key in the extended keyboard. Based on the context, the key intelligently provides the right character: an em dash, an en dash or a hyphen.

• There is a basic file management system. Create folders and files unlimited in any of the three root folders: on the device, in the cloud such as Dropbox or any WebDAV server.  

This completes the tour of the features.

3 Conclusion

• UX Write is dependable

• UX Write is elegantly designed

• Serves the purpose for which it is designed

• Implemented in the latest HTML5 technology

• Provides a rich set of features like any word processor worth its name

• The enhancements to the keyboard, intuitive user interface, personalized lexicon and export options — all these features set it apart from a number of apps in the Apple store.

• Barring minor issues that may go away as the app matures, it is a strong contender in the area of word processors for the iOS devices and is sure to give the existing apps a run for their money.

A man's life

A family just got down from the car at a railway stn. A young man was driving the car, his sister helped him take the luggage out. The mother and the children moved off with a piece of luggage and the father barely able to walk dragged himself

Sent from my Nokia phone

Mumbaistan

A book review

In a compelling thematic trilogy Piyush Jha pulled off an
unputdownable potboiler in his debut Mumbaistan. While each part
stands complete in itself, Bomb Day, Injectionwala and Coma Man taken
together portray the murky underbelly of Mumbai - the mean streets,
the shanty towns, the loves and betrayals of its desperadoes.

One can feel the pulse of the low life, expressed as it were in the
language appropriate to the macabre stories of lives on the edge of
sanity and desperation. Lies masquerade as truth, hiding behind gentle
faces and hardened hearts, in the dark recesses of the cavernous
minds.

Unsung heroes tread gingerly in the narrow filth-ridden by-lanes,
unmindful of imminent danger to their lives, forging ahead to uncover
truth at any cost. Vicious, curvaceous and self-centered charmers hide
beneath lustful and lusterless cosmetics.

Lives entwined in love and death dance, in trust and the lack of it,
in protecting the unseen majority from a handful of misguided rogues -
such are the yarns that Mr Jha spins. Cleverly designed plots
intricate and full of surprises at once captivate and mesmerize,
sadden and uplift, from one tension-filled moment to another of
relief.

There is also some humor, stark and paradoxical, lurking in the racy
pitch of narration, at once satirical and providing timely relief from
the macabre scenes. Besides a deep sense of Mumbai's slums, Mr. Jha
also has a fine sense of humour - pungent and sparingly used relieves
the tension built up on suspense and thrill. For example, a sleazy
character invites the Coma Man into a hole in the ground beside a
pipeline that he calls his Pipe Star Hotel.

Bomb Day is the story of Mumbai quivering on the brink of mayhem as a
dogged policeman struggles to nab the terrorists. Whether he succeeds
in foiling the deadly plot depends on the desperate protagonist who
braves the wrath of the ungodly for the love of a passionate harlot.
Mr. Jha does not paint all the characters by the same brush, for
neither good nor evil is the monopoly of any caste, community or
locality. The bomb knows no such things and the policeman's job is to
prevent it from exploding.

A rogue medic goes on a killing spree at the behest of his oversexed
paramour until he morphs from a humble doctor into the dreaded
Injectionwala. As the plot unfolds the reader is left aghast at the
ingenuity of the tortuous plot and the deadly machinations of its
femme fatale. Fueled by the media, egged on by the faceless humanity,
the serial murders continue until climax unravels truth when the
reader least suspects it.

In the third part of this series, the Coma Man awakens one day after
20 years and falls prey to a series of bloodcurdling events until he
discovers the truth behind his long hiatus. As the labyrinthine plot
unfolds, the reader hurtles with the man and sympathizes with his
mission. A mission to accomplish which involved the lives of several
men, drawn willy-nilly into the vortex of the man with a mission.

Readers & Writers

For readers and writers, this age is history in the making.

Historically, there have been writers and readers in two watertight
compartments, like the producers and the consumers. Writers may read
stuff written by other writers, but readers have always been readers -
they never wrote. Among the readers were critiques who wrote about
what they read, but they were the only exceptions. As a rule, a writer
built up a readership base. He or she enjoyed the fruits of their
labour in solitude while the readers remained a faceless mass of
humanity. With the advent of the Internet, however, the situation is
beginning to change.

Today there are many avenues to write. There are blogs, wikis, Twitter
and Facebook, to mention only a few. The opportunities to write
increased manifold, thus enabling any one with the least inclination
to write to do so. There are no barriers to write: no critics to
satisfy, no publishers to lure, no marketing experts to sell your
stuff. The wall dividing the readers and writers began to crumble,

Readers become writers and vice versa. No group of elite talented men
and women hold the monopoly over the written word, except of course
the copyright on their work. Even criticism too is not the niche of a
few, but open to a large number of readers who are free to offer their
opinion, their reactions and experiences, after reading a book. The
lines separating the writers and the readers is blurring and we are
witness to the advent of a bold new wave of creativity that has once
been the lofty citadel of a few, while the rest ridiculed or admired
from the ground below.

But change often comes not without a whimper.

Whenever a new situation arises in the world there is always some
concern, some trepidation and some form of protest accompanying it.
The naysayers lament the degeneracy of a sublime pursuit to the
portals of mediocrity. The newbies revel in the opportunity afforded
by the medium and apply themselves unabashedly to make a mark. The
teetering humanity in between watch from the sidelines and take
tentative steps before making the plunge one way or the other.

Oppose the opposites, dear ME

Take not the insult nor praise For both are aspects of the same thing
Marry not nor keep a woman to look after or be looked after For both rasie expectations of the same kind
Neither do good nor expect good in return For both tie you to another
Let not habit or duty enslave you For both put you to sleep
Neither passion nor emotion rule your relationship For both are destructive of the same
Neither judge nor be judged For judgement clouds wisdom
Neither worry nor exult For neither can affect the outcome
You neither succeed nor fail For a very long time
Success lifts you into the sky and failure drags you underground Remain on the earth both times
Neither bind nor bond with another For both put you on a leash
Neither bow to pressure nor rise on flattery For both disturb your inner balance
Riches cannot enhance your dignity nor poverty demean you For both deviate from the golden mean
Your loss is someone's gain and vice versa For both are relative, never absolute

A Dialog on Senesthesia

geeklore #

August 22, 2012

Dear Zach,

Thanks for liking my post on my blog Geeklore. I first heard of synesthesia only from your blog. I feel something of the sort myself, though I am not sure it can be called that. A color pops into my head when I remember a voice. A strange association, you might say, but is it synesthesia? But I don't see any utility value in it. It is just one of those things which are just there and defy explanation. I find your blog interesting, not only for things of this kind but also because I have turned to writing fiction now and have written about a dozen short stories and a couple of unfinished novels- all yet to be published. Some short ones are available on fiction magazines online.

Anand

Reply

Zack Hunter #

August 22, 2012

Synesthesia is a double edged sword that when dull resembles a kayak paddle used by a phantom limb passing through the water of our possibilities long-ways sliding through unnoticed by the flow just waiting to be twisted.

Reply

geeklore #

August 23, 2012

Is it possible to sharpen it? Or is it best left alone? A double edged sword implies the possibility of an unintended effect. Sometimes I hear things in my head clearly spoken. I see things in a half wakeful state. Is this the beginning of synesthesia? Or it is not connected at all? Thanks.

Zack Hunter #

August 23, 2012

Yes- metaphorically speaking sharpening of the proverbial phantom paddle sword would imply it being an exercise, which it most certainly can be, but that isn't always the case.

What you are describing sounds like "normal" byproducts of consciousness. Consciousness itself knows no senses until it passes through them to create all the things we think we know. I don't think it's technically synesthesia until the links start growing and you start experiencing sensations through the lens of other sensors.

When you start visualizing the fence you see walking down the street looks and sounds like a vibrato or slicer effect synthesizer that's linked to everything that ever was, is and will be numerological, geometrically, and acoustically- or symbols start taking on vivid personalities, or you see auras of colors emanating off of people and certain things, or you start tasting and feeling the rise and fall of civilizations on your solar plexus, fingers, and tongue- you know you have synesthesia.

geeklore #

August 23, 2012

Sounds like Don Juan of Carlos Castaneda. Or Fritjof Capra's web of life. Some tantriks in Asia feel it too, I believe. Is it born of silence or is the brain fertile enough to breed associations of phantasmagoric nature? It's awesome! And senesthetes (for want of a better word) must see the world in unique ways. The world of man – bereft of nature – is too drab and insensitive. Is it a gift, what you have, or can it be nurtured? Thanks.

Reply

Zack Hunter #

August 23, 2012

For the sake of accuracy I will say Castaneda's claims that his stories were true have been proven to be fiction, but I still know what you mean. As far as I know people are both born with it, and it can be cultivated and exercised. To what extent, I do not know. Those who are born with it definitely have a heads up so-to-speak on those who aren't if they wished to experience it for themselves. There is a reason synesthesia is a phenomena, as much of it (and everything) is still quite mysterious at this time.

Could someone who does not have it drink san pedro tea every week while singing songs, playing music and meditating and eventually wind up having it permanently? Do my readers experience synesthesia when reading my novel? Are we just labeling things with obscure terms that are otherwise perfectly natural instances of depersonalization and conscious integration? For example, what about aboriginal or native tribes, how would they respond to a study on synesthesia versus "westerners?" What about Tibetan monks? It would be interesting to know.

I don't know the exact causes that lead to people having this. I am sure there are many factors. I do know my own version of the story, though. I have some theories but nothing concrete. Like I said, consciousness knows no senses. There is only it in it's ever expanding forms. Once you realize this, the walls that were put up by human nature dissolve.

Reply

geeklore #

August 23, 2012

Consciousness, says J Krishnamurti, is neither yours nor mine; it is impersonal. I imagine it like the light from a thousand candles. By looking at the light, you couldn't tell which candle it came from, unless you impose an obstruction which casts a shadow – the obstruction in our case being our personal identity. Eckhart Tolle says you are not your mind or the body. Through the senses, the consciousness assumes an identity which they would have us believe is patently false. ESP certainly points to perceptions beyond the so-called normal. Your own experiences seem to confirm the necessity to go beyond the sensory perception.

Zack Hunter #

August 23, 2012

Well said, geeklore! On that note, sensory deprivation is a really critical tool on the path to exploring consciousness. There are many, and we all find the ones that work best for us in phases.

geeklore #

August 23, 2012

I would never want to be deprived of my senses; rather, I'd try to go beyond them. I want to perceive more than the senses are capable of. Why close the doors of perception when I want to paddle out and beyond? To go to Mars I have to leave the Earth. But to leave the Earth I must know what is holding me to Earth. When I understand that I will find out how to overcome it. Doesn't it work the same way? Sorry to be importunate, but you need not continue if you don't feel like it. Or you may answer some other time.

----------------------------------

Hello, reader, 

Do you have any experience with senesthesia? Use the comments section to write about it.

Visit Geeklore on Wordpress, if you feel bored.

Sent from my iPad

Racist Language :)

The English language may acquire the dubious distinction of being racist. Why? When you use the words White or Black, the words raise the hackles of specialists and purists who would rather not use those words, especially not in an academic setting. 

In the days before the advent of the electronic gizmos, even before the West figured out how to use the Africans as slaves, learners were imbibing nuggets of wisdom from a blackboard. And then came the whiteboards, first those that needed marker pens to write on, and then their electronic counterparts which took the place of giant white screens that served to project the same wisdom of yore in bits and bytes. 

Now the academics are all equivocal in their condemnation of the use of colors such as WHITE and BLACK in the context of a board. They argue that these colors incited the majority, victimized the minority, and segregated the groups into believing that humanity's worst moments are not only not over, but right round the corner. They have therefore banned the association of these colors to the board whose primary objective, they opine, is to dissolve these differences and elevate humanity from the pit of segregation. 

With the colors removed from their vocabulary, the academics still needed to call their boards by some means and they came up with the innovative expression: dry erase board. While this serves the purpose, it still does not bring to mind the color of the board which learners the world over have come to identify with. Even the online guru Salman Khan of the Khan Academy uses a black, ouch! Sorry. He uses a dark screen to write on, if that expression is allowed. A tutor who uses a board commented rather piquantly that whiteboards are racist and blackboards aren't black! It is not the board, obviously, that is at issue here; it is the color of the board. Nah, it is not the color either; what is at stake here is the name of the color. 

It is no good changing the color of the board to say yellow. That color too has been in some murky use. Even the word color could be regarded as racist and the academics would do well to remove the color spectrum from the subjects. They may not ban the rainbow from the sky, but at least they can ban the use of a prism in the laboratory. Color, that faculty of the eye that few animals in the world share with humans, has now become a dangerous thing to handle. Perhaps we should all use the word pigment. And think up new words for the pigments in the rainbow. After all, the world of humans still need the pigments even if we manage to ban the colors of Nature.

A Reader's Memoir 2

From the comics I stepped up to reading stories in the long form. At the teenage level I picked up Enid Blyton books. the Famous Five was my all time favorite. Stories of mystery and suspense never failed to trigger the adrenalin. I read book after book with absorbing interest. Chandamama in Telugu published interesting stories and my reading time divided between the two languages. They were entirely of a very different kind, but the stories written in simple language without literary acrobatics and sometimes illustrated served two purposes: no special vocabulary was needed to follow the story and no great feat of imagination was required to recreate the scenes in the mind. The comic strips made the transition from episodic format to a variety of stories in long and short forms.

The itch to read grew at a frenetic pace. To enter into an adult world became an urgent necessity. There were several factors at work here. The story must have an element of mystery, some adventure with suspense, and it must be something that adults read. The language also became a compelling attraction. English is the medium of instruction and in a Christian school a good knowledge of the language is very well appreciated. The native tongue having been relegated to just passing exams and speaking only at home, English assumed a predominant position. The vocabulary grew in response to the need to read. Words became easy to follow from the context and a dictionary at hand — dad kept an Oxford dictionary always on his reporter's desk. Reading and learning new words fueled each other.

Soon I started reading Perry Mason, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alistair McLean, Arthur Haley, Frederic Forsyth and others who wrote stories of this genre. Books from these authors became the daily feed to whet my appetite. What is common to these authors? Their stories were of men who belonged to our time, set in locales far from my own, about things that I never heard in a household, like war, court trial, murder mystery, assassination, corporate world, detective whodunit and so on. My romance with these books is 'seeing' things not there in my daily living. MI5, KGB, Holmes, Hitler, mercenary, lawyers and detectives — these words and more like them thrilled me no end.

Allied to my thirst for mystery and adventure (not of the historic kind, though) was another interest growing and found fulfillment in the books that took romance to the next level. It probably began with Irving Wallace — The Seven Minutes — and later sustained and even stoked further by Harold Robbins — The Carpetbaggers. The road quickly led south to books that provided more explicit content and imagery.






Sent from my iPad

Web implements

Every age provides a set of implements to deal with life in that age. The stone age produced stone implements of various sizes and shapes to deal with nuts, hunting and so on. The age of agriculture developed farm implements to produce better and more crop. The industrial age produced goods and provided services to handle mass production, distribution and consumption. We are now living in the information age and we have a myriad online avenues to explore the vast information repositories around the world. In most countries the right to information is a fundamental right and accordingly we have a spate of tools to harness information of all kinds. This age is still evolving and is impacting every sphere of human activity. Its primacy lies in its ability to generate, preserve and disseminate information and, most importantly, in the facility to garner information through a myriad tools which we may call the web implements. 

Some of the web implements include:

Google for searching 

Pocket to bookmark and read it later

Evernote to keep notes and web page snapshots

Zotero to do research on the web

Diidgo to store web clipping

Sent from my iPad

Homocentric

You understand life better when you have broken through your cultural constraints, the moral injunctions, and the so-called good behavior. 

How will you know what it means to do all the things that people do without doing them yourself at least once?

Go to the pawn shop, the wine shop, the red light area and so on.  You need not be doing that which the people there do, but if you don't go there you will never know how life is lived there, what kinds of thoughts and behaviors are possible by people living there. 

Life is the high and the low and everything in between. A life unexplored is an unfinished business, an incomplete understanding, a myopic outlook, a blinkered existence. It is the totality of life that gives understanding. 

What excites our interest is the out of the ordinary in the context of life that we lead. Though we may condemn it or condone it for whatever reasons, it never fails to Venice interest in us. We are forever curious about the lives led by other people. Gossip is symptomatic of our curiosity. We talk about others in awe, in wonder, in disgust, in reproach, in praise and in contempt. In so many ways that we feel the expression is an indication that we are alive and not just buried under labor and struggling through pain and relieving through pleasure.  

In all our communication the subject most inserting and arresting even is that of ourselves. We are ever in wonder of ourselves. As a species. Much more than we are thrilled by auroras and the marvel of technology. We are a narcissistic species. Our curiosity begins with us and ends in us. 

We have worshipped ourselves as gods and daemons. We love and hate each other. We respect and insult each other. In short, all our emotions - thoughts and feelings - that we experience are directed towards ourselves, more than at anything else. We are self-centered, that is, we are at the center of the universe of our life. We are homocentric. Not necessarily due to arrogance, but mostly due to fascination. A fixation that is shared by all of us and in some degree. 

Sent from my iPad

Web clipping

Most of us today either for fun or for profit live out of the web. For a small price, we have access to online resources like articles, podcasts and videos. If you come across a useful resource by chance, or you have come upon it through hours of searching the Internet, you would definitely want to save it for future reference. This is where web clipping, a feature that does just that, comes in. 

For years we have been familiar with the Favorites or Bookmarking as it is sometimes called, a feature of the web browser that allows us to save the web address. We could return to this saved address any time that you are connected to the Internet and view the resource once again. However, it has a limitation. You need to be connected to go back to the resource. It is useless when you need it for offline work, like when there is no possibility of connecting to the Internet.  

Bookmarking has matured in recent years and we have seen a slew of tools and applications that provide offline access to Interney resources. Primarily  we need bookmarking for the following reasons:  research, share and learn. 

Research

You are doing research on a subject and spend a lot of the time on the Internet looking for the necessary material. You ask: what are the ways in which I could clip the web page including the web address?

There are tools to help you with that but you need to figure out at the outset what kind of research you are doing. There are domains of research and the tools mostly are tailored to them. He we will discuss some of the generic tools that fall somewhere between the needs of a hobbyist and the research scholar. 

There's one more thing to consider when you are looking for a tool for bookmarking. some are free and some as you may have guessed cost a bomb. We will stick to the free tools that have stood the test of time in delivering what they have promised. 

There are tools called browser extensions available for the desktop computer. These tools are also called add-ons or plugins. The tool allows the web page to be copied in a storage provided by the tool. The web page copy also stores the web address of the resource so that it can be used in citations. 

The tools are specific to a browser. That is, if you have more than one browser, then you will need a different plugin for each. Sometimes the same tool may not be available for different browsers and you end up having your notes scattered in different browsers. 

Sent from my iPad

We love you

We love you We love you - meaning, Though you are not lovable, we are magnanimous enough to love you. You are cheap, blinded by ignorance, narrow minded, stupid enough to be led on, an idiot who understood nothing of life, uncultured, uncouth, yet we love you. You destroyed everything we cherished, fleeced dear mother of her health, time and money, ran over the house like primates grabbing whatever they touch, you are despicable, but we all love you. We wanted you to live in that house that belongs to all three of us, it is mother's and you are living with her, but you occupied it violently, brutally pushed us aside, clung to the property like a leech, sucked the life out of mama, romped through the house like a maniac, you lorded over it and we never objected except to save mama from your butchery, your ruthlessness, your callous indifference, your moronic attitude, your infantile habits and insensitive heart, but we love you as much as we love mama. We are capable of much greater love and will care for you but you must change, stop your antics, cut the bonds with the family, step out of the house that became a dungeon, be off with your monkey troops, with your ungrateful, fowl and incorrigibly mean partner, and let mama live a life of peace and harmony in the house which is hers by right, by law, and you are there by cunning, by brute invasion, harboring seedy thoughts, scheming to push mama into a corner, to take over the house and break it, sell it, plunder it and get away with the loot, the spoils of destruction. You have reached the pinnacle of degeneracy, for you have no morals, no class, no bank balance. Nothing to prove that you are worth anything in the world, yet we are willing to let go, forget the past, the heinous acts against mama, and work with you to come out of the mess that is your life, the dark miasmic pit that you have made of it, we will help you because we love you, we all do. You lived a cheap life, not knowing the finer side of life, the real value of things, can't discriminate between original and duplicate, you are blind metaphorically speaking, you know you are color blind, you said so many times. You lead a shallow life, there is no depth in it, a deep and rich life of principles, knowledge, understanding of life, a life of culture and erudition is utterly lacking, you live on the surface, scraping through life like a floatsam in the a current of filth, of mess, of disorderliness, of ineffectual effort, of inconsistence and indifference, a life of emptyness, of barrenness, in which nothing grows or flowers, which has not seen or felt or understood the best in life. You have been abroad but little did you know about the places or the people, or their language and culture, you floated through life like a will o' the wisp, something stirred up by passing winds and dropped in the most barren wastelands of existence. You cannot and can never comprehend the complexity of life. If you are given some crumbs to eat at regular intervals and medicine to see that you can prolong your jejune existence, you are satisfied, even have the gall to think that everything is fine, all is hunky dory, that there is nothing to disturb the illusiory peace you seem to feel. You cannot grapple with life's struggles so you ignore them, you hide behind petty theories and feeble philosophies, behind others who do all the dirty work for you, to keep you going in your shoddy life, in continuing your life that matters little, of no consequence to anything or anybody. You expect everything to be given to you on a platter, to be spoonfed, to be brought to you and to wait on you, you are too lazy or incapable of doing things for yourself, you are an imbecile, a physically mature, but otherwise an invalid, lethargic and insufferably selfish thing. You think of nothing except the peace you seek in the midst of turmoil, and you get it at any cost, whatever may be the circumstances, but we love you and have put up with your idiosyncracies, your nurotic habits, your mundane activities, your idotic outlook and your impossibly obtuse thoughts. - from the dairy of a vagabond Sent from my iPad

Writer on the web

I must write a story using this web app. It seems a great idea. Wow! Just to write in a browser feels good. No app to start up. No waiting time. Just start the browser, which is open most of the time, and open the bookmark to this writer, and you are good to go. It is minimal. No distractions. Nothing to other you orntakenyour mind away from what you are writing. There is a full screen mode for the browser on a laptop or a PC. But for the iPad there is no such thing and I have to look at the browser head when I am not writing. 

I won't have you guessing the name of the app: it is called simply Writer and it is available at http://writer.bighugelabs.com/

Now I am going to send it to my blog right now from here. Oops! It didn't work. I will find out other ways to do it. You bet!  

Because the app failed to post to Blogger, I went through a lot of acrobatics to get this posted to my blog. I wouldn't go into the details, but I simply hope the chaps at Big Huge Labs get their act together for folks to keep using this app.

Silence & Noise

Silence is what we say when we are actually at the end of noise. After all the fracas that noise produces we seek silence in an effort to regain composure, a semblance of peace. But that silence usually ends up as a truce, an interregnum in the unending fallout of noise. Silence at the end of noise is really like a calm after the storm that has left a wreck in its wake.

Silence is an escape from the noisy outburst which leaves us tired and spent. It is a period in which we want to recuperate from the devastating outcome of noise that preceded it. It is a time when we let the noise subside and allow the abrasions to heal. It is actually a shield to protect us from the debilitating effects of noise. It is a lull that comes inevitably after intense activity. A resting period when the nerves cry out loud to let lie dormant. A time of inactivity, of a temporary incapacity. A time to go back into the cocoon, to hibernate, a winter night of rest and recuperation, of conserving available energy.

Silence is the name we give to the absence of noise. It is the silence we experience after the music reaches a crescendo. To produce an enduring effect of the sounds that preceded it. It is the quiet of a night that follows a noisy day.

Silence is considered the opposite of noise. But noise can be made, not silence. Not making noise is not making silence. Being silent is thought to be the same thing as being in silence. Silence is considered the end of noise. Noise is like a wave. The crest and trough are the manifestations of the same thing. Like light, the opposite ends of the spectrum are mere variations of the same thing. Opposites are different aspects of the same thing. Noise and its absence can be created, but not silence. Unlike noise, silence cannot be created, or destroyed. The trough of a wave peaks as a crest which again plummets into a trough. Opposites can only be of the same thing. Noise and silence are as different as the earth and the sky. Incomparable. Opposites can be compared, measured. Noise is measured in decibels or the impact on another thing. Silence is neither measurable nor its impact assessed.

Silence is not something that we can control. It is beyond our reach. You cannot grasp it by any means. You cannot touch it or experience it. It is not a thing nor it is an expression of a thing. It is indescribable, for it has no form, color, weight, depth or any measure that we use to quantify something. Silence and noise are not related. One is not the outcome of the other. They have nothing in common. No thing in common. Noise is born of a thing. Silence is not material. Matter cannot possess it. It is not a quality that can be expressed. It is not an experience that we can share, talk about or debate. It is not pleasant or unpleasant like sound, which can be noise or music. It cannot be enhanced or subdued.

We can only talk about noise, its effect and its rise and demise. It exists in silence, but is not of it. A quiet mind is aware of its romp through noise. It is easy for it to delude itself into thinking that it is in touch with silence. A quiet mind is just a mind at rest, in a limbo, in a state of suspended animation. It is simply not making noise. There is no path from quietness to silence. It has a path only to noise, where it came from. Silence cannot be the goal of a quiet mind. Quietness is the opposite of noise and therefore it is the same thing in reverse. Like the obverse side of a coin. Both sides belong to the same coin. One side is not superior to the other, nor is it unrelated. They are just two aspects of the same thing. So is quiet and noise. Two aspects of the same mind. A silent mind is a contradiction in terms. Mind is conscious of itself only through its noise or the absence of noise. It cannot be not aware of silence, for it is not an experience that can be remembered. It can recall quiet moments, since quietness leaves a trace in the mind, as a period of tranquility after unrest. Silence cannot leave a trace for it is not born of a thing. Only a mind that is completely free of noise can be said to be in silence. All other states of the mind are a delusion or a presence.

Life's Undo button. Where is it?

There is no undo button in life. You cannot rollback something that happened. Life is like the clock that never turns back. It is ever flowing like time. There is no way you can erase a portion of your life. No delete button. It is like lines and curves drawn on a canvas that is moving away from you by every tick of the clock. Every action of yours is a mark on the canvas - a dot, a slash, a line crooked or curved, a splotch, a drip, a dash or a period. Nothing can be changed; nothing can be undone, redone or removed. With the movement of the canvas, it is ever presnt and forever gone. What is visible on the canvas is your dance through the life - a cultured one or a neurotic one, a mad frenzy or a stupid sashay - it is all over and it is all there. No words of explanation can alter the display. No justification from philosophy or comfort from genetic science can make it look different from what it is. No interpreter is needed to explain it, nor any judge to condone or condemn. Nothing you do - pray, sacrifice, renounce or flagellate, can give a different shape, texture, color or breadth to what you have drawn. On the canvas of life you splurged, evaded, sneaked, rushed, slept over, panicked, felt cheated, betrayed, thrilled, hated, pushed, and you floundered, hurled against rocks, melted like wind in the willows, you did not see that you were drawing on the canvas of life. No new lines can undo the effect of the previously drawn lines. In life, there is no undo button.


Sent from my iPad

Discover Yourself

"Happy is the man who has found his vocation." So goes the saying. Life is dreadfully boring when you do the same thing over and over again. But when you do something new, bring into the world something that never existed before, when you are creative, you feel a satisfaction that can never turn sour, never fade or go stale. That something is YOU expressed in a way that only you can do, something original and refreshingly new. No method, no formula, no design that you can follow or imitate. Just do that something that best describes you. YOU express YOUR-SELF. That is what this is all about - discovering yourself.

Discover what you can do (and do it in a way that only you can do):

Things to try ---
1. Draw
2. Write
3. Photograph
4. Speech, singing, story-telling, a raconteur.
5. Teach with text, drawing and voice over
6. A short video as a documentary
7. Music

Apps you can use ---
1. Draw apps - choose any one that best suits you, create a character, profile a real person, landscape, an object of interest
Bamboo Paper, SketchBookX, Sketch Pad, Draw Pad, Draw Free

2. Writer app - choose any one, you may write an article, an essay or composition, a story, a play, a skit, or a research paper (test your research skills)
Simplenote, PlainText, iAWriter, Knowtes

3. A photo app - either built in app or any other, you may also consider editing, framing, making a collage etc.
Camera!, PS Express, Instagram, Pic Collage, Photo Booth, Photo Editor, CuteShot

4. Dictation app - One of the voice recording apps
Dictamus, SmartRecord, Evernote

5. One of the teach and learn apps - you may draw, talk and text and record the whole thing for a replay, you may do the whole thing in private at a place and time of your choice.
ShowMe, ScreenChomp, Educreations, Brainscape

6. You may use the video recorder to shoot a short documentary. The topic and the duration you may choose. You may also add a commentary while you shoot, create a video skit.
Vimeo, built-in video recorder

7. You may use a digital musical instrument to try
Virtuoso, DJP, Cool Electric Guitar,

Note:
In addition to the above, you may also suggest something that you can do with a touch screen tablet and the available apps. All the apps shown above are written for the iPad. You may find similar apps for the device that you love to use.


Sent from my iPad

Touch Screen For Self-Discovery Of Talent

It just occurred to me that given the variety of apps for a touch screen device it may be possible to discover for oneself one's talent in the arts. Some art work like sculpting or clay molding will never be possible to try out on a touch screen, though it may be possible to provide a virtual environment suitable to elicit an interest at the least.

I have in mind those arts that can be quickly and easily tried out with the plethora of apps available, many of them free on the app store. Although I would certainly be interested in an app that helps discover your talent with access to different tools suitable for the purpose, for now it is worthwhile to look at those apps which provide this opportunity for self-explorers.

First let us consider the word talent in the context of arts. It is a special ability that the artist possesses which finds expression in drawing, writing and photography, for instance. Now I believe everyone has at least a rudimentary ability in some forms of arts. The objective of discovery is to find out which form suits one's temperament and how much we can express in that medium. Talent varies in degree - the expert is already a professional on the one hand and the aspirant on the other is pushing through to find the right and unique expression for oneself. Beyond these extremes is the person who believes has no talent to speak of, but is ready to explore, to launch on the journey of self discovery, to find out what he or she is good at. At the end the person may find out that such and such medium is the best in which he or she can find expression for their thoughts and feelings. This is the talent discovery that I want to talk about through the use of apps on a touch screen tablet.

The arts that are most accessible on a touch screen device by way of apps are readily apparent: drawing, writing, pictures, moving images, animations and so on. There are apps that are entirely devoted to one or more of these arts, but I have not come across one that allows you to try out all of the above or more. the dedicated apps are more likely to provide a great number of tools to explore a particular art, while the apps that provide multiple functions may provide only the basic tools to work with. I prefer a multi-functionality app when I am starting out on a self-discovery path, because that is where I have ample opportunity to try out possibilities or a combination of them one after another without leaving the app. It also makes me become more acquainted with the app's working which makes it easy for me to be more comfortable to try out things.

In the subsequent posts I will write about a few apps that provide this opportunity for self-discovery with regard to one's talent.


Sent from Knowtes App on 2012-06-01 07:50:51 +0000


Sent from my iPad

A Reader's Memoir 1

My earliest recollections of reading for pleasure are about the comic books - the illustrated versions of Mahabharata, Ramayana and the Life of the Buddha. The Phantom and the Mandrake came a little later. The picture of the character and the speech cloud over it provided ample opportunity to imagine what is not there - the person behind the speech, the feeling behind the expression, the ambience from the background and the illusion of movement from the static frames, each succeeding the other through rapid eye movement. Some cartoon images recur long after finishing reading the comic and snatches of conversation echo in the mind. I return to the illustrations time and time again, whenever an image floats into the mind or a conversation is remembered. 

The stories create a world utterly different from my own. The scenes imbued with vibrant colors and decorated with artifacts from the distant past possess a magnetic quality that is hard to resist. The anger, the hate, the fear, and the tender feelings - all emotions resonate in the heart. The story came alive within me, lived and moved within me, any number of times. I became one with the stories whenever I read them. It was not just the words and the pictures, but the emotional interactions between them and the reader that brought them to life. The world of imagination to me was more real than the actual world around me.

Halftone

Check out this photo from my Halftone app.

Sent from my iPad

Story published

New Asian Writing published my story The Curse on their website. It is available at http://www.new-asian-writing.com/?p=1202

It is a story based on some real life fallouts of a leather tanning industry that is poisoning the lives of those who stay close to the factory. Heavy metal contamination is the result of tanning works that ironically seasons the leather used in our wallets, shoes and other leather-based goods and luxury items.

Our lifestyle comes at a great cost, not just a hole in our purse, but also in the form of holes in lives which survive on or near such industries. I hope this little piece brings home this point.

I would appreciate if I receive comments on it (available at the bottom of the story) or share your "lifestyle-related stories" that touched a chord.

Happy reading!


Sent from my iPad

Geeklore

Geeklore

I started to blog about techy stuff to explain things in a non-technical way. It is intended for those who are keen to know what the geeks are talking about. The layout of the blog is simple. The structure is deliberately uncomplicated. There are just six elements in the structure:

1. What is xxx?
2. Scenario
3. Illustration
4. Example
5. What I need
6. Note

The first is the question that we ask when hear something like - what is a hotspot?

The second one is a bulleted points of a typical scenario in which we encounter this term.

The third element adds to the explanation by way of a simple drawing.

The fourth provides an example.

The fifth element lists what you need to use the term.

The last is a note to provide extra information.

The URL is http://geeklore.wordpress.com

BTW, it has an entry for a URL.

I would like readers to suggest terms for the blog. I provided a contact form to give a feedback, express an interest to write for the blog, or just to suggest terms.

I hope to keep adding terms without fail and somehow bring it to notice of people who might ...er...spread the word.

This notepad shows the word techy with a green underline and provides an alternative 'techie'. I prefer to use techie to mean a technical person and techy to mean just technical.

Adios.



Sent from my iPad

mobile office 1.txt

A school principal is armed with a mobile phone or a desktop/laptop computer or even a tablet PC; better yet, she has a combination of the aforementioned devices. During working hours or while at home she uses one or the other device with equal ease. The only requirement is that she needs all her content to be available on all her devices, no matter when, where or even how. What tools are available out there that make it possible?

Let us take a look at her daily activities:
call someone
check and/or send or forward email
send short instructions
take photos, record videos
set tasks, to-dos and reminders
download a document, or correct and re-send
prepare a report
organize an event
a calendar of events
prepare for a meeting
take notes during a meeting
browse the web
bookmark interesting stuff
write a speech
keep notes about staff
Share stuff
keep a diary maybe

Some of these activities are also done at home as part of her personal needs. In addition, she is most likely to socialize online through social media like Facebook.

Let's group the tasks according to their nature, like so:

The first five tasks can be easily accomplished by most mobile phones today.
call someone
check email
messaging
take photos, record videos
set tasks, to-dos and reminders

The remaining items on the task list are better performed on a desktop computer or a tablet PC.

First, we will look at the tools she uses to perform her tasks.

Next, we will look at the ways in which the content on one device can be made available in the other - let's call it "content portability".

There is one other thing - what is the use of the content, your data, when it is not available when you need it? Though everyone likes to stay always connected online, this may not happen for various reasons. The cost may be prohibitive, the location may be out of the coverage area or the network is down. But we need to have access to our content whether we are online or offline - let's call it "content availability".

We will now provide a 'recipe' of tools that help her to be productive with the least effort possible.

1. Calling someone is the easiest part. But what if you want to call someone for an online chat? you may want to text, talk or walk the person through a PowerPoint presentation. Or, closer home, you might want to show your latest purchases and how to use them? if for some reason you cannot get the other person to chat, you might want to call their landline number from your messenger. This is a cheaper alternative to international calls.

Use Skype. To install the program, go to the web address http://www.skype.com. You will need a Skype account to use it. Register for an account; it is free. Skype is available for most mobile phones, the desktops or laptops and tablet PCs.

Some benefits
* Skype allows you to record messages for offline use.
* Call landline numbers
* Conference with multiple Skype users for chat, audio or video or in any combination.

2. Email is the next best thing to happen after the phone. Every device worth its name has this facility built right into it. You can go to your email account from a browser, but for offline access it is best if you use an email client.

You need to configure your email client program in your device to the email account you have registered with.

3. Messaging
Skype does the job well.

4. Taking photos and record videos on a mobile device needs no explanation. The devices are made just for that.

5. Getting things done is perhaps the most important activity of our life. Keeping oneself organized needs no emphasis. Scheduling and keeping track of our tasks definitely increases our productivity. So, for the tools now.

* Every device has a calendaring and scheduling tool. It helps you to perform the following things:

set to-do
set a reminder for a task or a meeting
set a wake-up call
mark events like birthdays and anniversaries

Now, the calendaring apps differ from device to device. There is currently no easy way to transfer your schedules from one device to another. Nor is there a clean and simple way to store it on the cloud. (To know what cloud means, read on).

The simple way to set your appointments and schedule your events is to use the feature in your mobile phone. Set alarms to remind you. Use the help feature that comes with your phone on how to use it. Keeping your schedules is entirely up to you. No reminder call can wake a person who is pretending to be sleeping.

6. Working with documents is not so easy on a mobile device. Though there are a number of freebies to help you out, it is very difficult to type out a decent document entirely from your handheld, be it a touch type or a touch and type variety. A tablet is more suited for this purpose and a plethora of apps are available for a price to cover a broad range of features.

On a mobile device, install QuickOffice which opens almost all MS Office files and PDF. For picture and video files, all devices will have the required tools. There are more tools out there for pics and videos than for other productive work. A plain text file that even a browser can open is no problem at all.

An email attachment usually one of the following document types.
* Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint
* Open Office Document
* Adobe's PDF
* A picture file such as a JPEG, GIF or a PNG
* A video file
* A plain text file TXT

QuickOffice supports Microsoft Office documents and allows you to create, edit and store documents on your device. MS Word is usually an overkill for the kind of tasks most people do. The office applications available out there for a small price fit the bill perfectly. And their ability to open and work with MS Office documents is definitely an advantage. You begin working on your document on a desktop or a laptop and end up editing and emailing it from your mobile device. It is that simple. But the trick is in getting access to the same document in both the devices. To see how read on.

7. Prepare a report on your desktop at home. You know you need to modify it as it is still a draft now. You got the facts, figures and pictures in place and you need to arrange them as you go. There are several ways to do it. But which is the best way?

Carry it on a thumb drive (a.k.a. Flash drive or a USB stick) and transfer it to your office computer. But, a mobile device cannot access it; it is only good for another laptop or a desktop. So, tether a Bluetooth device to your laptop and transfer it. Or, use a WiFi connection to transfer it. Or, directly hook your mobile device to the laptop through a connector chord and transfer it.

Alternatively, send yourself an email with this document as an attachment. Then when you go to the office, you download the document and work on it. Or, access it through your mobile from your email client.

All this is passé.

Use a CLOUD service.

Someone with prescience very aptly put it: network is your computer. Cloud based services are everywhere. Access to cloud services is free. Almost everyone today has something up in the cloud. A cloud is your personalized storage space, the size of which depends on whether you are a freeloader or a premium user.

Dropbox is the most widely used cloud service today. It works on almost all devices. All you will ever need is a Dropbox client program (available from http://www.dropbox.com) and install it on your device.

So the lady types out her document on her laptop and drops it in a folder that she has set up to be used by the Dropbox client. When you are connected to the Internet, the client faithfully and immediately transfers her document to the cloud and voila! It is now ready for download on her device anytime and anywhere she has access to the Internet.

Pssst. I am now going to take a break. So, I am going to sync this composition on my iPad to my Dropbox account. Just so that I don't lose it even if this device (god forbid!) crashes or worse is broken.

Done. Took me about a couple of seconds, no more. Now it is available on my mobile phone, my laptop, my desktop or any fancy gadget I may purchase in the future.

To be continued...

Sent from FileApp Pro

An app for a profession

An app for a profession

How nice it would be if there were an app tailored to the needs of a person in a particular profession! There are hundreds of apps out there for the mobile devices. It is very difficult to find the app that suits our needs, that helps us do most of our daily activities. This is compounded by the fact that there are a myriad devices out there and the possibility of syncing content among them is becoming increasingly difficult, if not impossible.

After going through the blurbs of hundreds of apps and trying out scores of them, I came to the conclusion that an app that is designed to support as many of our activities related to our profession as possible would be really helpful. I have tried some of the apps on a smartphone and some on the iPad and believe me there is a felt need for an app for each profession.

In the absence of such an app - I am sure the days are not far off when we will see them coming - I will try to put together the apps that meet the needs of a professional such as a student, a school head, a writer or a salesman. I will consider the iPad first. Later I will include the mobile phones as well.

Sent from my iPad

Krish

I first heard the name J Krishnamurti from a colleague, whose name was Krishnan, a variant of the same name. On Sundays and holidays Krishnan used to read out passages from krishnamurti's book while we gathered round him. Bright bead-shaped eyes gleamed on a small dark face as Krishnan read out from The Impossible Question. That was thirty years ago in a rented house in Madras, as it was known then. 

Krishnan wanted to discuss the book with me and another colleague, but we were not prepared for it. He read out loud a passage and asked me if I understood. My immediate response was a knee-jerk reaction: did he think I was incapable of understanding English? Did he think I was a nitwit, that I couldn't follow serious stuff? Krishnan was taken aback and tried to reason with me. I was beyond reason, for emotion had overtaken me. The reading ended on a bitter note. 

There were some more readings after that, but they were more guarded in nature. Krishnan used to say that that there were no pat answers to our questions, like whether there is God or why there is so much suffering in the world. They were the "impossible questions" he, like most of us, had sought answers for. 

I was not so much interested in such questions, not yet anyway. I was at that time interested in knowing about the man Krishnamurti - whether he was a Tamilian like Krishnan; or, in spite of his ambiguous name, he was a Telugu like me, or like  S Radhakrishnan, the ex-President of India, respected for his erudition. I went to Higginbothams on Mount Road to check out some more books of Krishnamurti. I hoped to find from their blurbs that a man whose books are so well received by many people around the world belonged to the Telugu speaking tribe of South India. I suspected that he might turn out to be a Tamilian after all, for why should Krishnan be so much interested in him? I purchased The Second Penguin Krishnamurti Reader for the following reasons:
1) Krishnamurti appeared to be somebody great, considering the raving praise for his writings
2) I was beginning to get interested in the things he was writing about
3) my parochial instincts were losing their power over me. 

Today I feel I owe it to Krishnan for introducing Krishnamurti to me. 

Krishnan and I separated shortly after that and we went our separate ways, but the books of J Krishnamurti have never left me since. My interest in his writings was growing and I often found myself talking about them with my friends. About four years later, after the news of J Krishnamurti's death, another friend gifted me Pupul Jayakar's biography of Krishnamurti. From the book I came to know that Krishnamurti had asked Ms Jayakar to his biography. This fact had somewhat diminished the man's stature in my eyes.  By that time I had come to know that Krishnamurti was already very well known around the world. Why did he need another biography? Was he not already famous? I had remarked to my friend, who merely seconded what I said. Later, as I continued to read the book I understood that his earlier biographies were tainted with Victorian slant and that there was a need to produce an authentic version with Krishnamurti's concurrence on every piece of written text. Another instinctual reaction out of the way, I sailed along merrily with the book, diving as deep as I could into his talks, given my self-imposed limitations, and surfacing now and then to realize how much his life and thoughts were affecting me. 

During that time I was overseeing the work of a man about whom I heard that he was rather disturbed and couldn't think coherently as a result of his obsessive study of Krishnamurti's writings. He was also allegedly unsettled and changed jobs often. Although my interactions with the man were few and far between, I did not find him as described by his colleagues. I never brought up the matter of Krishnamurti with him. Nor did I feel inclined to do so, partly because I barely knew him and partly because I was totally confused myself about what Krishnamurti was actually saying. I found Krishnamurti quite unsettling myself and the rumours about a fellow Krishnamurti reader were anything but encouraging. 

I found Jayakar's description of Krishnamurti's early life intriguing. The fluidity of the narrative absorbed my interest like a whodunit. While I found no answers to my "my impossible questions", the book managed to evoke more questions in my mind equally difficult to deal with. I remember reading the story of the Buddha when I was small from an illustrated book. I read it over and over again with fascination of how a boy was so gentle and sympathetic to birds and how sad he felt when his cousin shot one down with an arrow. I felt the same kind of recurring interest reading the life of Krishnamurti. 

Until I came upon Krishnamurti I was an avid reader of books, both fiction and non-fiction. However, my encounter with Krishnamurti's books changed all that. I could no longer take sufficient interest to read through a book. I feel there is nothing I could gather by way of knowledge or understanding from reading any other book except Krishnamurti's. Even though I was unable to follow his mental peregrinations, I felt compelled to return to his talks again and again. 

There were times when I couldn't 'talk over together' as he often invites in his talks, but I found it also difficult to put down the book. Sometimes I felt exasperated with the line of talk or the repetition of ideas and refuse to go further with it. But I could not pick up other books to read as I used to do. One day as I sat on the veranda of my home wondering what on earth this man was talking about in one of his books/talks. It was evening: the heat was bearable and not a leaf stirred. I was vexed with Krishnamurti and felt he was splitting hairs over trivial issues with his analytical skill, but not really showing anything by way of practice. I felt I was wasting time over such useless stuff, when without warning a sudden gust of wind blew across the place. It rose with a whooshing sound and threw sand in my direction. Before I could blink the sand had entered my eyes and hurt badly. An old saying rushed into my mind: woe betide a man who speaks ill of a good man. 

I sometimes talked over matters concerning culture and spirituality with some close acquaintances. On one occasion someone said that it was all maya, an illusion. Everything there is, is but a fancy of the mind. The real is not perceivable by the senses and the world is a figment of our imagination. We were sitting round a low center table. Whenever someone spoke of these matters I would remember what Krishnamurti said. This time I remembered clearly that he said the objects in the universe and in our world were as real as the 'telephone over there'. Maya, if I understood him right, is not about the things of this world but about the things of the mind. The world as we experience physically is different from the world as we experience it mentally. It is the psychological world that we all have created together that is illusory. The physical world of the objects and the senses that interact with them are as real as the paper weight on the center table before us. So I began pushing the glass weight slowly towards my friend. He became a bit alarmed as it kept coming towards him and asked me to desist. He pulled his leg closer by the instinct of self protection. I asked if everything was maya, why, even this action and its consequence should also be ignored as illusion. 

Until about twenty I was a firm believer not only in the omnipotent omniscient God, but also of the particular kind projected by the Hindus. Especially the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, representing the beginning, the sustaining and the ending of all that there is in the universe. When I was but a boy I once had a dream of Vishnu, whose manifestation on earth was Lord Krishna, in all the splendor in which that god is invested with. However, as I became older, read more, and thought more, I became less inclined to believe in the gods. The ending of the belief was the beginning of confusion, sustained by Krishnamurti.

Rock hound II

They call him Baboon. Much to their disappointment, he liked this epithet. The word made him feel closer to his mission in life. People suspected he was a reincarnation of the man from the paleolithic period, the old stone age.

He is hairy, has eyes deep set, palms like paws and not at all attractive. On the other hand his appearance repelled aquaintance and contact. If he were dress like a Neanderthal man, with a loin cloth and stone implements in his hand, one would be shocked at the anachronism, like he is brought out from a museum, a film studio or a relict of ten thouand years. 

One day his father could not tolerate his fetish for the stones and asked him to leave the house.

He takes up quarters in a cave a hundred kilometres outside the city. He lives a spartan life. He furnishes it with the bare necessities. He washes his clothes and bathes at a stream nearby, a perennial source of water flowing down the surrounding cliffs. He uses twigs and discarded branches and wood for heat and light. He sets up tree stumps as seating bench, stool and writing table. what does he do to write? He collects discarded notebooks, notepads, plain papers onesided empty, makes paper from discarded paper bags, half used pencils, pens, refills - he has a huge collection of writing materials gathered from the waste dumps in the city.

He needs to travel often to far off places to hunt for specimens. How does he do it?

He has to work. How does he earn his livelihood? He teaches to write. He is a member of rock clubs, the free ventures that don't ask for a fee. He exchanges information in open cultural centres like Lamakan. He writes to geographic magazines. He is also a ghost writer for student assignments.

And the search continues, his collection grows enormously, his cave is now full of odd boxes of various sizes and shapes to house his specimens, carrying labels according to their identification and location. He hunts in the day, organizes his work in the evenings and rests in the night. 

If he were to appear in saffron clothes he could also be mistaken for a yogi. The long flowing beard, the thick shock of hair rolling down to the shoulders, the bushy eyebrows above the bright penetrating eyes, the body upright, hairly limbs and flat and firm feet - all giving the impression of a full life forever enthused about the wonders of nature.

His is voice is clear and audible, neither loud nor low, his stance firm and straight, his looks inquisitive and full of wonder, his limbs long and supple. 

When he speaks, he chooses his words carefully, does not repeat, and does not argue. He holds no opinions, speaks only what he observes and sticks to facts. He lacks ambition, but an enormous drive to do what he he does.

Libraries are his haunts. He learns about his specimens from the open libraries in the city and from discarded geography magazines. He also learns about stones from distant lands and years for them, fantasizing about going places before going to sleep at night. He also makes frequent visits to the museums that display rocks, rock shows. He also had his 'private digs' and like all his ilk kept it a secret until he exhausted it.

He once went to the Ravindra Bharati/Kala Bhavan where a sample from the moon rock collection by NASA was on display. He remembers going to see it with fellow students as part of a school trip. He was fascinated by the small pieces of rock encased in glass. He felt drawn towards it the moment he stepped into the room, the feeling remaining with him all the while he inched slowly towards it in a long queue of classmates and when he finally stood before it, he felt a strange kinship with it, as part of himself enclosed in glass for everyone to see, but was soon saddenned as he was hustled by the teacher to move on. He then spent a long time reading the notices and press clippings on the boards and his heart filled with joy.

From Evernote:

Clear and Simple

To write simply and clearly is perhaps the most difficult thing. First and foremost reason to write is to convey an idea. Before beginning to write it, the idea must be clear in the mind. Then one chooses the words to express that idea as simply as possible. Clarity therefore precedes simplicity. 

The first requirement is to organize one's thought around the idea. Thoughts often pop up unexpectedly and without direct bearing on the idea one wants to convey. One thought leads to another and before long one is led far away from the idea. It is necessary therefore to rein in the thoughts and stick to those that directly concern the idea on hand. It is as much important to discard thoughts that move away from the idea as it is to pursue those that help develop it. 

In the beginning the idea is vague. It is like the butterfly struggling to come out of the caterpillar. The very struggle is the beginning of the idea. Allow the idea the space and the time it needs to form. Remain with the idea for as long as it takes to develop. The idea must produce the thoughts. Any thought that is not born of this idea is a distraction, a movement away from the idea. 

Working on the thoughts produced by the idea is a means of developing it. The idea grows in content. As more material is gathered around the idea, it begins to take a form. As the form improves one begins to see the structure. The thoughts then organize themselves according to the structure. The thoughts are the content of the idea, while its structure is their organization. 

The construction of an idea is different from its expression. They are two separate and independent activities. Construction precedes expression. Construction has content and form, in that order. Construction is necessarily limited in time and space. The idea therefore must have a boundary, without which its expression becomes impossible. 

Who is the idea intended for? This question begs a boundary for the idea. By boundary is implied both the breadth and depth in its scope. A broad sweep must necessarily be shallow and a narrow one runs quite deep. The content gathered around the idea will dictate the decision. The intended readers will dictate the mass of the content. If the idea must reach a large base of readers then it must cover several aspects of the idea. Each idea is treated in brief, revealing only its essentials. However, when the idea is intended for a special class of readers, then the aspects will be definitely limited in number. And each aspect is laboured over in depth. The example of breadth is the idea of God because it touches everyone, even an atheist. And the example of depth is the idea of a blackhole, which only an astrophysicist or a sci-fi writer may be interested in. 

While gathering the data for the idea it is important to keep notes. Thoughts that bubble around the idea are in the beginning weak and unsure of themselves. They tend to lose themselves or easily pushed over by more powerful thoughts. A notebook serves to store them for later use. A properly tagged and indexed notes are the best companions while expressing the idea. A notebook also helps develop the structure for the idea. The notes are now the content and their grouping forms the structure of the idea. It is also easy to tag the notes according to breadth and depth of the idea. 

Gathering of data means researching into the idea. Research may involve thinking about it based on one's experiences or knowledge about it. It may also mean looking up books or articles that others have written on the subject of the idea. But the most important activity during research is to take a break. A time of no work. To move away from the work is very important. Gathering data is a laborious work. One is exposed to a mass of detail that one must group according to its usefulness. Especially in terms of one's decision about the content discussed in the previous paragraphs. One tires after some time and it is therefore necessary to take a break. Whether physically sifting through the mass of available data or mentally working on the idea, the research works best after an interruption. 

Research helps the idea to develop. The construction of the idea stands on the foundation of research. The material for research comes from everyday experiences of oneself or the others. It is important to keep the idea anchored on actual experiences. All research must must serve this purpose. Merely lifting thoughts and conclusions of others is not only unethical, but also speaks of laziness. It guarantees shallow work, inspires none. The idea develops through honesty and hard work. 

One is never sure when the idea is completely developed. The struggle of the butterfly ends in its release from the body of the caterpillar. However, in the case of ideas, it is difficult to arrive at such a stage. The boundary one has drawn around the idea begins to stretch, making it difficult to stop. When the boundary starts moving, it is time to stop and consolidate. This is also the time to begin to express the idea. There is no clear line between construction and expression. One see-saws between the two states until construction stops and expression flows unhindered. 

Now the idea is clear in the mind. It needs to be expressed. To a writer words are the only means of expression. Words therefore are terribly important. Ideas to be expressed in depth need special words. Words used to describe a blackhole belong to a science dictionary. However, in a broad subject like God, one must necessarily use everyday words of the language. Even here, it is possible to use words of a particular culture, but then one runs the risk of a limited audience. Unless, of course, it is intended that way from the beginning. For the idea to be conveyed simply, it is therefore necesssary to use words that don't require a dictionary. No special vocabulary is expected from the reader. 

To be simple it is essential to be very clear about the idea one wants to convey. Simplicity therefore follows clarity. In being simple in expression, it also has the effect of being direct. If the idea is conveyed without the aid of other ideas, then it stands on its own. It stands alone, like when there is only one painting in a room. Therefore, its impact is direct and profound. Simplicity is not to be confused with over-simplification, or avoiding complexity. Simple, in the sense of showing one thing at a time, in familiar words, with examples from the daily life. Simple, as the very essence of clarity. 

The format of the expression may vary depending on the idea or the skill of one who is expressing. It may be an article, a short story, a play or a novel. The skill in expressing it is the format one chooses. There is also a style associated with the expression. Each writer has a style that comes out of much writing. It shows no matter which format the writer chooses to express the idea. 

It is the formulation of the idea that is most important. It is the hardest part. It lays the foundation. It is the 90% perspiration that Thomas Edison said when he defined Genius. The rest must find itself in expression, in the format and the style one presents it in.