Brain activity

It is a Sunday morning, lazy, quiet and totally unwilling to get up from the bed. Alone in the room and on the bed, I curled up and dozed off again. 

I felt the tap on my shoulder, quite a tap, I must say, which woke me up and I wondered what I wanted to do to have been woken up like so? And I remembered I had to do diabetes check on Moma. I did and it showed 98, this after she gave up taking dia pills, against doctor's orders. Need to check again post prandial. 

It occurred to me as I thought over the manner in which I woke up that perhaps there is some part of the brain that is always awake, no matter how fast asleep you are. Like the internal clock of a computer system, which keeps running even when the system is shut down. This clock, not just a time keeper, is also a fully functional reminder and alert system. Is there more to it? Or, is that all?

What about the time I heard the voice inside asking me to walk away from it all and learn from the world first hand about the world from the people of the world. Which part of the brain spoke? Question is, are there many such parts of the brain? If so, apparently they're are all disconnected, disjointed and latent, only surfacing when some conditions are met. The brain in that case is like a house divided. 

What about the other day when I heard a voice asking me to shut up as I was waxing eloquent in my harangue against gods, worship and such. Mother was watching a video of Lord Venkateswara and the hymns to the God were playing loud in the silent spaces of the house. Through the music and the Sanskrit slokas I voiced my distaste of this form of worship and I continued in this manner as I walked out of the room. There, at the threshold I distinctly heard, through the sound of my own voice, the word in Hindi 'chup' which translated means 'shut up', when my mother tongue was Telugu. I froze right there, forgot what I was saying, turned around and looked at my mother. She was lost in the devotional rapture she was experiencing before the video. She couldn't have said it, for it was a male voice. Curious, and thoroughly disturbed, I asked mother if she heard anyone speak. 'Only you talking like a nastik (disbeliever). Then I told her what I had heard in my head and she remarked: 'this particular hymn was my father's favorite; he was a devotee and even translated this piece into Telugu which is heard in the temples even today. Maybe he was scolding you.'

I did not know what to make of it all. 

Writer don't sell soap

Who is a writer? How is she or he related to the society? What are the responsibilities of a writer? What is the objective or objectives of a writer? Why do they write at all?

Writing is a profession, like carpentry or engineering, like a medical practitioner or a scientist. It is a role played by a person as much as a teacher or a labourer does. The writer produces something and there is a consumer base for it. The content of this production comes from the base and is offered back to the base. A writer observes the world and relates that observation in the mythical tradition of a story. 

The story is as much about the other as it is about oneself, for one is part of the whole and never removed from it. But to get a perspective from the observation, the writer steps aside, as it were, from the subject and recounts as faithfully as possible, as skilfully as possible, the many interesting facets of the subject under consideration. It is hard work. It has its due diligence. It originates from the primary motive to share, to partake, of one's observation and to look obliquely at oneself through the characters one creates. 

While a story is a work of fiction, a figment of the writer's imagination, the basic premises and tenets on which the story rests must necessarily reflect what is observed in the real world. This is the writer's primary responsibility. To hold up a mirror, as it were, to reflect that which is seen clearly by the writer, that which is glimpsed darkly by the reader. The implication is that the writer is a seeker of truth, paradoxically, even though the entire work is presented as fiction. Fiction is not falsehood. Fiction is a way of presenting the truth in a manner that is easily received. 

It is a singularly solitary effort. It is a struggle within oneself to bring out one's deepest thoughts and urges on matters that concern the world in general. Matters that one glosses over in the immediacy of everyday life. The writer essays to shed light on the dark corners of our lives, those feelings and emotions and thoughts that we so feel deeply but never fully come face to face to study in silent contemplation. The writer does all the hard work and presents the kernel of observations as a simple lucid story. The skill of the writer is of paramount importance in engaging the reader. In revealing the observations little by little without smiting the sensibility of the reader.

Fiction writing is not the product of a formula. It is not the outcome of a series of planned and tested sequence of operations. It is not imitation, nor a novelty. It is not an invention based on sound scientific or theoretical principles. It sprouts from a seed, a seed that is born of long observation and contemplation. From the seed grows the sapling and if nurtured right becomes the tree that it is meant to become. The tree blossoms and bears fruit. It is for the fruit that every fiction endeavour is aimed at, the fruit that is the work's culmination. It is this fruit that the reader is offered, bitter or sweet. All that the reader is expected to do is to go along the journey of this growth and receive the reward at the end. It is for this fruit that the reader comes to the writer. It is for this fruit that the writer works so hard to produce. It is this fruit that is advertised and sold in the market. It is this fruit that is overhyped or undersold, ignored or besmirched. It is this fruit that in the end, literally and metaphorically, fulfils the writer's endeavour. 

Where is the market for this fruit? Is it a wrong question? The writer must live of course. There are always the bills to pay. The fruit must sell. He is in the market with his basket of fruit. Are there any takers? The fruit is there on the shelf. The shelf is run by a professional seller. The seller knows which kind of fruit sells and which kind does not, of he or she is a good seller, that is. Eventually, the seller will find a way to sell all his fruit, for after all he or she is in the profession of selling. No stone is left unturned to figure out a way to sell his fruits. The writer's fruit doesn't age with time. It neither gets better nor gets worse, though sometimes it has come out in the wrong season, either too early or too late for the season. But it does not ever decay. It thrives on the shelf or simply removed from it and pushed into a corner. It's time may come or not at all - it depends on the fruit and on the skill of the fruit seller. The producer of the fruit has disappeared: there are other seeds to nurture, other fruits to give birth to. 

<p>Pollution - within or without?</p>

A policeman stopped me at a traffic signal just as it turned green. He stood right in front of the car and directed me to the far left by the footpath. I knew I was in trouble and pulled over apprehensively. He thrust his swarthy face through the window and demanded to see the pollution check certificate. Bummer! I knew I had not got it renewed and had been meaning to get it done for some time. I rummaged through the chaos in the glove box and came up with a certificate. 'This one is expired,' remarked the policeman drily and asked me to pay the fine. I pleaded with him to let me go, but he stubbornly refused. 'You know the rules,' he was saying. 'You have not got it checked in three months. That is a serious offense.' I lied about overwork and pleaded some more. The policeman was not convinced and kept shaking his head. Then he asked me to settle it fast, he had a traffic to control, or else pay the fine - it was six times more than the cost of a pollution check. I 'settled' for the cost of the certificate, but he wasn't interested. He wanted me to double it. I was horrified and showed it, but he couldn't care less. 'Pay the fine, Sir,' he said politely. I figured that after 'settlement' and the renewal of the certificate, it would still be half the fine. I agreed and shelled out hard cash. I bled in my heart, fumed at myself for postponing the inevitable and cursed the 'robber' of a cop who could have easily directed me to a checkup point that was right across the road!

I made a U-turn and headed toward the pollution check point, a stone's throw from where the unscrupulous and greedy cop robbed me. The chap at the roadside checkpoint asked for the year of manufacture and went about performing the computerized test. After a while, out came the details on the computer monitor. He keyed in some details and printed it out. He charged me about 30% more than what I had paid the last time. 'Prices have gone up since,' he enlightened me and stretched his had a little more towards me. I asked for a receipt. 'You got the certificate. There is no receipt.' I said something to the effect that this was not fair. 'Are you authorized to charge so much?' I asked, now thoroughly saddened and desperate. 'You can check elsewhere,' he pointed out. I asked him to show me the official price document. He said there was no such document. 'You can return the certificate if you don't want to pay,' he offered me a way out of the impasse. He looked at the road and shuffled his feet as if he had a line of customers to attend to. There was not a soul behind me, but his manner, unrelenting and impatient, unsettled me. I thrust an amount that was a little less than he asked for and vowed never to get my car certified from him again. He did not insist on being paid what he had demanded. He pocketed the money and said there were some in the city who charged more than he did. He was probably right, for there was apparently no stipulated fee. I knew of course that the price varied every six months or so, but what I did not expect was a price differential for the same service. 

Private operators run this service under the banner of RTA, the Road Transport Authority. Operators house their equipment in a van parked by the side of the road. It is their mobile office and service center rolled not one. Besides the driver, there is just one technician who actually does the job. There was no other operator for miles on either side of the road. There is always a cop not far from the mobile checkpoint. He would intercept you at a traffic junction to make his dirty deal. Reminds me of the nail on the road that pierces the unsuspecting tyre and flattens it. The harried motorist thoroughly dismayed finds a fix not far down the road. You pay what the roadside puncture man demands - they don't allow you the luxury of a haggle. One could argue, 'Why don't you pay what the pollution check technician asks for?' The RTA banner does not force him to abide by government rules - there are no rules. He is just a private operator, an authorized service provider. That's all. 

"The next time you see a mobile pollution testing van in your neighbourhood, chances are that it is running without the government's permission..." warns The Times Of India. It went on to add, "What's more, these centres are also charging exorbitant fees for pollution check." Now, isn't that cool! 

I reminded myself that despite our socialist leanings we are a nation of private enterprise. We pay by the price tag. If there is none, we pay by bargain. If that is not allowed, we have the option to move on and find another. In the process we run the risk of getting caught for non-compliance of government rules. Bribe your way out, but that is only a momentary relief. If you haggle with a cop, it might get worse. He may challenge you on other counts like license, registration papers, seatbelt, tinted glasses and so on. One never knows what is amiss until it is demanded by the authorities. And they do it adroitly - lying in wait for an ambush round a corner, when you least suspect it. Like the nail on the road, dropped deliberately by the puncture man to ensure that his business runs smoothly. 

New vehicles don't pollute as much as their older cousins, less so the diesel variety. According to a government-run website, four wheelers of the petrol variety cause 12% of total pollution from automobiles as against only 2% by the diesel vehicles. Why not make an exception for diesel motorists? And for new cars less than five years old. But it is easier to make overarching rules, a lot easier to enforce, a lot easier to collect more money by way of penalty for non-compliance, a lot easier to assess annual returns from the number of registered vehicles, a lot easier to comply with international norms for pollution check. It is, alas, a lot easier for the cop on the road to make quick money on the sly.

Work schedule

Why is it so difficult to stick to a writing schedule? Many accomplished writers have sworn by the schedule that brought them success. Some do writing as the first thing in the morning. Some write when everyone in the house has gone to sleep. There are some who retreat into a secluded spot to write. There are of course some who write whenever the inspiration strikes. The mood becomes important. The muse when it visits must find a congenial time to whisper in the ear. But if you put it to vote, most people swing in favor of a schedule, a regimen to follow. Stare at the blank page, if you must, say the die-hard schedulers, but keep at it until the words come out. Stick to a schedule, they urge you, no matter how many times you have to stare at a blank page, or for how long. For if you lisp for words, the words must come. 

It is not that I don't have anything to write. I am working on some writing projects that are in various stages of completion. From an idea for a story at one end of my writing spectrum to a finished manuscript at the other, I am sufficiently covered from boredom and consequently the distraction that it entails. And yet I often find myself doing anything except being immersed in my project work. Why? Some say it is the lack of a schedule that is keeping me from working while some others say that I am too lazy. I think the truth of the matter swings more towards my supreme indolence, which I cherish and share with many masters of the craft of writing, be it fiction or software. A schedule would be actually a hindrance for someone who likes to work when he pleases and laze around when he is not writing. I don't usually get bored, though. Lazy people seldom get bored; boredom is the hangover of workaholics. 

It is not that I haven't tried scheduling my work. I have always been a believer of organized work. I have drawn a work timetable so many times that I can churn it out in a matter of seconds. I have become adept at it. I have a few apps to help me come up with a beautiful schedule to keep me working from morning till night. I also set reminders to help me stick to the schedule. The reminders include audible alerts, screen notifications and email messages. I have always set multiple alerts to ensure that I don't miss my tasks. I spent hours looking for scheduler apps; many don't come even close to what I need, but I don't give up my hunt for the right one, one that matches my temperament, my mood swings and my innate inability to stick to a schedule. 

I think what I need is a prime mover, the motivator, that urges me to set to work. It could be money or a muse. When there is neither in sight I look around and lose focus. I feel disoriented. I kick the schedule and return to chaos, the sweet nothingness of a vacuous mind. A mind that spins the web of imagination of characters and events, of ideas and plots, of story lines and synopses. But nothing gets done until the muse returns, or there is a chance of making some money. 

Poster

Just posted a note about my debut novella at http://tactilize.com/ananddotb/cards/47448

In addition to the marketing efforts by the publisher Indireads, it is incumbent on every author for self promotion. Reach the audience as wide as possible. It is advertisement sans propaganda. 

Even though i am old school and still love to hold a book in my hand, especially if it is written by me, but still the fact remains that traditional bookstores are either closing down or are languishing. The digital publishing is gaining ground and penetrating even the niche areas of book publishing by established authors. Many traditional publishers are treading digital waters warily but definitively. 

Both the print and online versions of books needs to be advertised via the social media networks. Author portfolio, unknown and quite unfamiliar concept probably only a decade ago, is now prominent on blogs and is encouraged by publishers of both the traditional and modern kinds. 

Breaking into e-print

It has been a long and arduous journey from a nebulous idea to a tight narrative of my debut novella Magnificent Loss. The journey began at a frenetic pace and like all journeys that begin with much enthusiasm faltered towards the end. The end kept moving like a mirage and I doggedly persisted to reach it. Unknown to me it awaited the final nudge that would propel me towards the destination. The push came from Indireads, an e-publishing startup that aimed to bring out new voices from South Asia. Now that the required impetus came, I could see the end clearly, driven by the forces of circumstances in the life of the characters that I created and also their nature that inevitably drove them to a satisfactory conclusion. Satisfactory it was, from the point of the writer, my writerly self, and hopefully it would find an echo in the discerning reader. 

It is a story of a young man in search of a life that is untrammeled by his past, who struggles to come to terms with his loss, and despite numerous indications to the contrary strives to make peace with his past and charts a path to the future. It is a love story that delves into the undercurrents of doubt, fear and memory with a surreal background and a strong yearning to live and love. 

Indireads made it available for purchase and download to your favorite ereader with several purchase options and ebook formats to choose from. It is available here - 

http://www.indireads.com/books/magnificent-loss/

The book cover clearly echoes the spirit of the story between its cover pages. 

Nothing is more precious for the author than to receive feedback on his debut effort. It is much appreciated if the reader leaves a comment and rates the book according to its perceived merit. The comment may include not only about the story, but also about the publishers who worked hard with their paraphernalia of publishing services - reading the draft, editing the manuscript, converting to ebook format and finally launching on their website. 

Happy reading!

Rules of Engagement

There are rules laid out by the predecessors governing the manner in which two families interact with one another. The rules set the expectations. The rules are defined at every level, from the time the marriage takes place to the time of death of either one in the family. The rules lay down the conditions to which members of both families adhere. The rules may not be broken, for there is a social prestige associated with their compliance and a social stigma with the lack of it. The rules are an unwritten law and there is no authority to amend them and no forum to review them. There is no one to whom they can be appealed. There is no court to try the offenders, though in villages the village head and elders arbitrate. But in cities, there is no arbitration. The rules are flouted at the cost of dissension in the family, at the cost of unhappiness and resentment by the affected parties. 

Some rules have been superseded by the law of the land, the universal secular law that has overarching jurisdiction across regional and caste distinctions. Many rules have undergone change due to assimilation of new ways of living, new ideas from other cultures, new thinking on account of enlightened understanding. But there are many that simply remain to be followed, for they are neither too autocratic, nor too difficult to follow. But many families get away when they can without adhering to their side of the bargain. These rules are mostly of the nature of give and take. Ignorance of a rule is not condoned. Flouting of a rule is not taken lightly. Brazen opposition of a rule is rarely observed or entertained. There are the other families in the society to condemn the offenders. Even the most isolated of families, even the so-called enlightened ones, expect certain modicum of the rules of engagement. The cost of breaking rules by one family is nothing short of a travesty of trust, of humiliation, of loss of respect for the other family. 

Rules are sacrosanct. They are the protocols. They are manners. They make for a civilized society. They are the signs of a cultured society. They are designed to bring strangers to a commonly held pattern of living. Everybody is expected to know the rules. Everybody is expected to abide by them. Everybody knows on every occasion what rule applies and what needs to be done. There is indeed a rule for every occasion, from birth to death and beyond. Rules of engagement are the tradition of a society, the legacy of posterity, the inheritance of every man, woman and child. As long as a person is part of a family, he or she is expected to know and abide by the rules. A person who is ignorant of a rule is uncouth, coarse, gross, and not properly raised by the parents, not belonging to a good family and so on. There is no institution that teaches these rules. They are handed down from parent to child. They pass from generation to generation, sometimes lose their significance, sometimes their stigma, sometimes their purpose. But the progeny carry them forward in whatever manner they are remembered or told by their peers or elders available for them to know from. There are rules - they have always been and always will be, though not necessarily in their pristine form. 

Rules are a tacit contract between two families who agreed to build a relationship through marriage. They are a contractual agreement, no less important or significant than a business contract. Broken marriages are the result mainly of broken contracts. When a daughter breaks a rule, the mother is first and foremost afraid of a backlash. She is scared that her daughter may be subject to punishment, which is usually meted out as ill-treatment by her in-laws. When that happens, it is more than likely to snowball into a discord between the families where the child's parents and other elders will be treated with disrespect at the least and contempt at the worst. Sometimes the disagreement surfaces and leads to quarrels, but in most educated families in the towns and cities, it simmers and disrupts smooth interaction. A cold war ensues. Among the most hit will be the married couple, then their parents, and lastly by all and sundry who are associated with them. The war has a cascading effect and sometimes continues for generations in one form or the other. Peace and affection take on wings and fly away. A tremulous truce in an unending war remains as the only bond between the married couple. Sometimes there is an ever present danger of a break in the union. After all, things put together are always in danger of breaking apart. The rules are the glue to keep things together. When the glue dries up, the things return to their original state, albeit in a more bruised and wretched state. 

Some rules may be waived on mutual agreement, on compassionate grounds, for all families are not made equal. Rules mostly favor the family with the male child. Therefore, the family with the male child has the last word on the matter. Rules may be bent to favor one family, but then the other family expects a favor on some other count. Rules are not exactly the same for all families, even for the families that belong to the same caste and sub-caste and sub-order within the sub-caste. Rules are bound to differ, for families belong to different regions and are raised according to their perception of a rule. The same rule is applied differently by different families of the same order. Rules are notoriously unclear. Where there is ambiguity, the family with the male child dictates. But in most cases, barring minor infractions and variations, the rules are well known to all. Ignorance of a widely held rule is not tolerated, conformance to a minor rule is demanded, waiving of a rare and little known rule is ignored in the best interests of both the parties. But the male party has the last say in the matter, for it is the female child that leaves home and must adjust in its new and adopted family. 

It goes without saying that the wife must conform to the rules of the family that she steps into. It is the wife who leaves her family home to build a new family. She gives up her family name and adopts her husband's family name. Her children automatically receive the husband's family name, follow the husband's family rules, inherit the family fortune, if any. It is she who must now 'belong' in her adopted house. It is incumbent on her to remove the wrinkles - the family differences - between the two families, to bridge a relationship of trust and affection between the two families, to ensure that she balances her affection towards her parental family and the duties in her adopted family. And she begins this exercise by following the rules. A great burden indeed on a girl who is just out of teens and she couldn't do it without the support from her own family in the discharge of her duties towards her adopted family. The duties are rules, the rules that govern her married life. All this goes without saying because it is the way the rules have come into being. Living in a family is abiding by these rules at every turn in the girl's life. If there is a discord between her husband and his family members, she shall not interfere, for her sole objective is to follow the rules set for her. If the husband breaks from his family, the wife shall continue to maintain cordial relations as much as possible. For it is a delicate apple cart she is towing, any bump will upset it at any time in her life. Like a razor's edge. Like walking a tightrope. There is more to lose for her than for any member of the family, this side or the other side. 

This is what a good mother wishes to teach her daughter. This is what brings harmony in the house that the daughter has adopted. This is what a mother has gone through. This is what she has experienced. This is what she wants her daughter to learn, to be aware of the dangers, to keep clear of conflict, to try and not break rules so that she is accepted as part of the adopted family, so that she 'belongs' there, lives like one of them, even at the cost of losing touch with her own family. For nothing gives more comfort and happiness to a mother than seeing her daughter well adjusted in her adopted home. This is the pinnacle of her achievement. She can then proudly speak about her daughter in the family circles, in the society. She can walk with her head held high even among her daughter's in-laws. For she has passed on the rules to her daughter. She has raised her in a manner that is socially acceptable. The mother has taught her daughter the rules of engagement. 

The rules, however, are not always followed, especially by the male party. Though there are exceptions that only prove the rule. Differences among the male family members translate into ill-treatment of the daughter-in-law. Differences over the compliance of rules lead to misery for her. In rare cases, the adopted home becomes a nightmare. Sometimes, the daughter flouts rules with impunity and and manages to break the adopted family to suit her own agenda. Many variations occur, but these issues are outside the scope of this essay. 

What are these rules of engagement? 

The Last Rite

The last rite is performed with diligence. The departed must attain peace. Peace ensures a quick return to the mortal world. There is very little peace from birth to death. There is very little one can do to attain it while one is alive. The least we can do to expect peace is by the rite someone performs so that we may abide in peace after death. The least the living can do to the dead is to perform the last rite in order to help attain it. 

For peace is easier attained dead than living. Everyone expects last rites to be performed for them, for they have never had peace in their life. Peace is not a commodity that can be exchanged, nor a thing that can be shared. And therefore we are at a loss to receive or give it. By the last rite through divine invocation we are more likely to attain it than in our daily life. We place a great importance to this one rite for this very reason. In the end we all want peace. In the end. Not in the beginning. Not in the middle. In the end. When it is all over. When the struggle for living is over. When we are no more. When the mortal clash has ended, for there can be no quarrel with the dead. And because the quarrel has ended, the dead are more likely to be at peace than the living. Who, in turn, await their turn to receive 'the peace that passeth understanding'. 

A pact we have with each other. Pax, we say, let's bury our differences. And one of us gets buried by the other so that peace may exist between us. For peace must exist, if not in the living then certainly among the dead. In that region that man knows not, where quarrel cannot continue. It comes to a halt. Abruptly so. And peace has a chance to survive. Even if it is not among the living. It is there among the dead and that gives us hope. Hope that in the end we will find it. So that when we return to the living, we can merrily go on as before, knowing fully well that peace will reign in the end. At the final frontier. 

It is not possible for peace to survive among the living. It is too fragile, too shy, too vulnerable, too weak. It has no spine. It is not bold to assert itself. It is forever hiding behind cliches, behind suave talk, behind hypocrisies. Slinking, lurking, timid, furtive, fearful, tremulous. How can such a thing live in this world? Survival of the fittest and peace is anything but fit. Peace is for the weak minded. For the spineless. For peace-mongers are among the weakest people on earth. Peace is not for the humans. It is for the gods. The last rite is an oblation to peace because the gods love it. The divine grace is bestowed on those who perform this rite. Their largesse extends to the departed as well. And everyone is in peace at last. At long last. In the abode of God there is peace. And that is where we direct the departed to hasten. 

The chants rise in pitch and the urgency with which the entreaty for peace is made is captured in the rising voices of the priests. By their loud chants the gods awaken from their peaceful slumber and invite the dead to their abode. Once the guest is allotted his or her place in the heaven, they can go back to their rest in peace. May the dead rest in peace. May the gods leave them in peace. May peace be bestowed on their soul. May the gods be pleased to send them back as humans so that they can spread the message of peace among the living. The gods are aware that peace cannot survive among the humans, but gods are after all gods. They cannot wage war. They cannot force anyone. They cannot order people or lord it over them. For they are the peaceful lot. But because they have great faith in peace, and in humanity, they think that eventually peace will return to earth. For peace was there on earth before humans sent it packing. Our chants invite it back. The slokas are an ovation to peace. The chanting priests pay homage to it in unison, urging peace to return to the earth. Or, failing which, they must accept the departed in their abode of peace. 

Poor gods! They always fall for this particular human artifice. This trick by the priests never fails to succeed. Time and again, they feel propitiated and do man's bidding. Time and time again man shatters peace and implores the gods to send it back. And the cycle goes on. In the rounds of rebirth this sham takes place. For the god's hope in man is undying and man's hope in god's obduracy is equally undying. And the drama of life and death continues. 

Let peace be to the gods. For we have no use for it here on this planet earth. And those who seek it, let them fall in line with the rest or await their turn for the last rite. 

Muse

Handwriting & Font

    Good handwriting comes from good writing materials. Years ago when I used to write on pages and notebooks my handwriting varied with the kind of pen I was writing with and the kind of paper I was writing on. I observed this a number of times. The ink from the pen should flow easily, smoothly, without interruptions. The paper must be good, ruled or not, it must allow the pen to run over it smoothly. The ink must dry quickly. There cannot be any smudges, wrinkles or breaks in a line or curve. 

    The quality of writing depends on the quality of the materials I get to write. What do we call it? Is it a superstition? No. Is it a notion? No. Is it a belief? No. I think it has something to do with the flow, with the ability to let the words flow from the pen to the paper, the ease with which the writing is accomplished. It is a satisfying experience, a feelgood experience, when I have that perfect combination of pen and paper. 

    Now, I hardly write on paper. I do almost all my writing on a computing device, like a mobile phone or a tablet. The writing materials have changed. I don’t use a pen at all, nor is there a paper that is tangible. Nothing to hold. Nothing to spill or smudge. Nothing to tear or prevent from flying away. The entire phenomenon of writing has changed: it is a paradigm shift. I don't think in terms of writing materials at all. I think instead in terms of what app I am going to use. The app provides the page and the keyboard, physical or virtual, is the writing tool. 

     Here too the mood dominates, if one could call it that. The mood for writing changes with the app I am using to do my writing. There is of course no handwriting here, although there are apps that allow me to do that too. I don't like to use those handwriting apps. Handwriting is a lost art, something that served its purpose well in the centuries that we have used it. From a personal form called beautiful handwriting, to a professional form called calligraphy, it evolved through time and served our need. Now we are in the electronic era. We don't write anymore, except to sign documents and cheques. We type. In this age we crossed several milestones, the first being the rise and then the demise of the typewriter, even the electronic one. Another important milestone that we crossed is that of the keyboard of the PC (a dying species itself): it does not make noise at all, a good one really. Now, in this age of the tablets, we type on a virtual keyboard, the one I am using to write, or should I say type, now. These changes took decades to happen, and the quality of writing has morphed from the handwriting to the font of the text. And the mood now depends on the font and other accessories of writing, such as the background color of the page, the distraction-free environment and the additional punctuation keys provided by the app. 

    The quality of writing today has more to do with the app than with the hand. Even though the writing materials have changed, there is still something that dictates its quality. But of course, it is not just the quality of writing here that I am concerned with. For writing between two people is not identifiable as in handwriting, because the print like font has erased the personal identity in writing. There is now a uniformity that is dictated by the app and not by the hand. One can no longer decipher personality traits by analyzing one's handwriting. We now hide our nature behind a font. We can no longer talk in terms of the quality of writing in this sense. 

    The quality of writing in the true sense of that expression is not in the writing but in what is written. That I think is where we are headed. Calligraphy may hide atrocious or even execrable written content. But both good and bad writing appear the same no matter which font you use, which app you use, which background color for the paper you choose. I am however on a different track here. More than the quality of writing, I am here concerned with the quantity of writing. I am able to produce more writing if I use an app that supports my thinking, that encourages me to write, that provides a distraction free environment, that corrects my typos as I write (sometimes this autocorrection feature is a bane, it produces mistakes insidiously). 

    The muse in this sense helps me write more, express my thoughts and feelings more, makes me sit and write without distraction, without losing sight of what I am writing. So I am carrying over to the virtual world, what I was depending on the material world to write. Muse is muse at its best, when there is a writing app that helps most.

Anger

There is anger, a lot of it. Will become aware of it only after it surfaces. Anything can trigger it. A word, a gesture, a thought, a situation. As though It is just below the surface, not too deep, for it shoots out, almost instantaneously. Even the rising of it is not noticed. It is swift, it is loaded, it is automatic. It possesses the whole being. Every aspect of my being is engaged in it. The face, the tone, the words and gestures, thoughts and emotions - all these are symptoms of it. The cause of it is not known, not completely known, not clear. When it subsides, it goes back to wherever it came from; it leaves me spent, troubled, sometimes remorseful and agitated. 

It is energy that emerges with a force that overcomes, that overpowers, that overtakes. It seems to have a will of its own, a self of its own, an agenda of its own, an entity by itself, an identity that is the defining part of me, that is who I am, a part of me that characterizes me. Lies dormant, biding its time, springs suddenly, unbeknown to me, it becomes me. I don't even know that I am angry until it has come and gone. I remember my reaction and then I recognize it and recall the label attached to it. That is when I realize that I had been angry. Anger is the label that I associate with the feeling that I express. Much like a google search bar, there is lookup mechanism that returns the name, given the feeling. A reverse lookup. 

How much of it is buried down there and I do not know. I don't even know if it can be quantified, measured. No matter how much of it comes out, there is more of it down there. Down where? Is it in the body somewhere? Is it in the memory? Is it in the brain cells? Or every cell? Is it part of the mind? Is it in the consciousness? Maybe that part of my consciousness that is not known to me? Hidden from me? An area of darkness in the mind where a thing like anger resides, draws strength from godknowswhere, sustains somehow, feeds on what? Everyone seems to have it, though it expresses itself differently. 

It is there in my consciousness, yet I am not conscious of it. I become aware of it only after it has emerged from its cocoon, from its hiding place. Is it a place really? Where in consciousness is it? Is consciousness a place to hold things? What are the many things that it holds? With what other things does anger share the consciousness? Is consciousness other than me? Is it something that is inside me? Or, is consciousness the same as me? I, me and such terms refer only to the consciousness that is part of this being, this body, this brain, this mind? 

Consciousness is the content, says JK. Then anger is part of that content. But content implies a container, says his scientist friend. But he denies there is a container. Every cell holds memories, says the scientist of today. Then consciousness is part of every cell. Since the genes are what make up the cell, then the content is genetic material. Cell is the container of this matter. 

Nothing short of a genetic mutation can alter the content held by the cells. JK often spoke of mutation in the brain cells. He was probably referring to this revolutionary change in the very cellular structure of the body. And he says it is possible through awareness. There is no need for medical intervention, chemical inducement or psychedelic alteration. Since to be aware means to be conscious of, it comes back to the question of becoming aware of all areas of consciousness. Leave no part uncharted, unexplored, no dark areas, no grottos and caverns, no places hidden. This I think JK says is meditation. To unravel oneself in a way that leaves no stone in our consciousness unturned. 

Why does awareness change what it is aware of? JK says like the dual nature of electron as expounded by Heisenberg's principle, the observed undergoes change whenever there is an observation of it. The observation he maintains must be devoid of the observer, since the observer is observing himself - attention directed towards itself. There is observation only when there is neither the observer nor the observed. 

Culture clash

Culture is a strange thing. It is used in different ways by people. In the west according to their culture sons and daughters don't stay in their father's house. In India, they do. And for someone from the west, this part of the Indian culture, like most other parts, seems absurd. And the Indians who emigrated to the west, also find it absurd, because they now live in the west, among the forward-thinking, upwardly mobile, advanced civilization in the world. At least that is what we in the east secretly believe, when we have temporarily forgotten our great and glorious past, which we pit against that of the west when we feel at a disadvantage.

In the west we live among them, we live like them, we think like them, we talk like them, we keep their streets clean, follow their traffic rules to the hilt, build houses like theirs, adorn the walls with their art, celebrate their festivals, enjoy their sport, oh so many things and yet behind this facade we have an undying faith in our own greatness, in our own glorious past, in our scriptures and gods, in our family and social values. And at the same time we harbor deep within ourselves - it comes out only when we are back in India - a dislike of their tendency to waste, their lack of respect toward others, especially elders, their arrogance of the notion of a superior race, their ill-concealed contempt for the colored people, their laws, their extraordinary respect for the word of the law, their utter disregard for family values - we secretly believe they have none.

But when we come to India, alas, we see the filth on the streets, the dust in the house, the numerous slithering and crawling creatures on the walls, on the floor, on the tables - everywhere - in the corners, in the dark interiors, in claustrophobic places, and the utter disregard for rules, the chalta-hai attitude, the poverty - it is everywhere, not just in the shanties. Even the educated son is jobless, penniless, living in father's house, living off the largesse of his mother, living without rent, oh so many things, we see these things, like a daughter using her mother to look after the children, not caring for the health of the mother, using her as one would use a maid, and so on and so on. We see all this when we come to India and at once our mind rebels - there is a clash of cultures. The culture we have grown up with, but too hard to live down, too hard to live by, too hard to explain away, too hard to ignore, and the culture we are adopting now, living in now, living beautifully, organized, clean, salubrious, with dignity, with a fat bank balance, with opportunities to grow and bloom...something that is impossible in the homeland where children run amuck like monkeys, adults with their morals and principles long discarded by the west as foolish, silly and stupid, their respect for others and elders so much at odds with the canons of free spirit of the west. There is a clash. A clash that happens every time we visit India, every time, we walk or drive in the streets - the noise, the pollution, the filth, the chaotic traffic, the mind boggling numbers and variety of vehicles and pedestrians...a clash that is hard to reconcile, hard to live with, hard to bear, hard to ignore.

It is not the clash of two civilizations. It is not on a global scale. It is not news on BBC World Service. It is hardly noticed by the majority of the people in the world. They are not even aware of it. It is felt only by the emigrants, by those who are trying to fit into new clothes, into new streets, into new habitations. Those who are adjusting to their new surroundings, new faces, new society. It is a wholly different way of life. Mostly automated, works like a machine, with clockwork precision. This clash is felt by those who went over to the west. Leaving behind their fledgling homes in the backwoods, they went through the portals of opportunity into the high life, into the best places in the world, into the most sought after advanced human ecosystem.

It is felt in individuals, not in groups. It is felt by every man, woman and child. It is felt acutely when they return. It is felt every time we have to contend with the people we left behind...'left behind' is a phrase that is the motif of emigration. Those who emigrated to the west have progressed, went further in life, went ahead, metaphorically speaking. We have 'left behind' our unfortunate brothers and sisters, parents and relatives. And now when we return we feel the difference acutely, like we are entering into shanty town, into a hovel that was once our home, where we grew up, in ignorance, with silly aspirations and stupid notions. And now when we return we return not just to our homeland, not just to what was once our home, we return to our past, our shame, to live once again with misery, with uncleanness, with notions and superstitions, with brothers and sisters who have not 'grown' in the real sense, in the sense of growing, blooming, flowering. They are still in the dusty and ignorant past, the past we left behind, the past of murky and musty corridors, the past we left behind to the bright future of tomorrow. It is this we have to contend with. The clash of the past and the future, the clash that happens in the present, it happens now, it happens every time we meet them, we see them, we walk and talk with them. We become impatient with their old world notions, with their illogical explanations and irrational thoughts. We pity them, commiserate with their misfortune, live with their foolish notions and silly aspirations, put up with their inane talk, watch helplessly their useless struggles.

We suffer because we have experienced the clash, on account of them, because we bear the cross of their misfortune. We try to alleviate their misery with ideas and gifts so that they could organize their lives, improve their living conditions, live with more dignity, live in the modern world. But we see with exasperation that some of them are beyond rescue. Their ideas are too deeply entrenched in the past, their future is hopeless, meaningless, and entirely without significance. It is this clash that we have to bear, to suffer.

But the clash there needn't be. The clash is because they wouldn't change. The clash owes its genesis to a couple of individuals in the family who refuse to change, who are incapable of change, who are so utterly lacking in skills, so utterly old fashioned that they resist change and the clash happens. Not to them, they are blithely ignorant of it. They live their beastly little lives and expect us to live with them.

The clash is not just a conflict of the civilization. It is a clash at the very personal level. It centers around the home, the home we lived in, the home we left behind, the home we want to come back to. The home is no longer that home of our remembrances. It has changed so much that hardly is there anything to rekindle the fond memories. It is trodden over, trampled over like hooligans, desecrated, furniture destroyed, walls unpainted, fixtures broken, house distorted, backyard abandoned, litter all over the place. There is no welcome, no homecoming, just a guest staying at a sleazy motel with no amenities, no service, no telephone, no clean bed, the motel that is our home converted, corrupted. This is the clash that is hardest to bear, hardest to live down, hardest to talk about. This is a personal clash and I am sure every man and woman who left the shores of poverty to the opulence of paradise must have felt some time or other this mind deadening clash, this fist clenching clash, this clash that would never go away, never leave us alone, like a leech it hung on. Until we return sad and defeated, to our promised land of plenty, of order, of dignity.

Hyatt's Grace

For a middle class family to enter the portals of a five star hotel is akin to entering a paradise on earth. It is a dream fulfillment. It is an out of the world experience. A slice of life that is at once removed from their humdrum existence. It is where mortals live like kings. It is like the grace of God to be invited to such a place as the Hyatt hotel. To be among the rich and the famous, among the glitter and glamor of affluence, to be regarded as a dignity, as an eminent personage, to be given importance to one's self, to be treated with respect and allowed to be serviced and chaperoned by uniformed officers and workmen, it is the pinnacle of achievement in a lifetime.

"For the first time in my life," said a father, "I felt great to be able to feast at a table that is elaborately decorated and rich with delicious food items. It is enough for me in this life. My son has made my day, nay, my life." The man eulogized his experience with emotion, eminently satisfied. His son had been an apprentice at the hotel after he completed a hotel management course. His son studied and trained to be a chef. And he was allowed to bring his family for a lunch with the families of his colleagues.

Such is the reverence that a typical middle class family accords to opulence, for it has had to struggle lifelong to make ends meet, to send the son to college, to buy jewelry to the wife, to buy expensive drinks to meet the demands of the man's habits. The family was dressed in their best, and had to overcome their nervousness, their fear of not doing the right thing in an august occasion. It was a dream come true.

The dreams of the poor man center round the possessions of the middle class. The dreams of the middle class border on the fantasy of the high class. The high class dreams consist of joining the exclusive club of the business magnates, the corporate bigwigs, the puissant paradise of unchallenged power.

Mammon is the new God of the world. From the most powerful to the downtrodden in the society, cutting across all class lines, the God of wealth is worshipped in different ways - from paying humble tributes through the offering of delicacies, to the secret offering (gupt dan) in gold nuggets or currency notes counted in unimaginably large numbers. It is no longer considered evil, for it is encouraged in every walk of life. The world in fact keeps track and honors the richest men in it. Every prayer is directed to the acquisition of wealth. Every struggle, every endeavor, every plan and scheme is designed to achieve the sole objective of living in the affluent society. Wealth begets respect to its devotee; he is graced by its opulence, singled out to be special, elevated in status, bestowed by power.

The awe one experiences at the display of opulence was not born yesterday. It is as old as the hills, literally. When the Buddha asked a pious man to describe the heaven that he was always praying for, the man described it in terms of the opulence he had seen in the world - the glitter of gold, the regal finery, the commissioned art, the palatial surroundings, the exquisite gardens and so on. The Buddha merely said that man could not know anything other than what he had seen and experienced and therefore his description of heaven must necessarily consist of the things of this world. Heaven could not be described in the language of man. Its grace is not in any way akin to Hyatt's grace.

Without the grace of the mammon most people end up becoming bitter in life. The mammonizing influence of modern life is a recipe for bitterness.

Funereal bitterness

He was reminiscing about his boyhood days in his village. They were three brothers and they worked together in collecting the harvest from the fields. Their mother would wake them up early in the morning and hustled them out to collect the grain into silos and stack them on the attic. The grain (kundulu?) was soaked in a pit full of water and watch it bloat into a dome. Then they would collect it into bags and shift them to the roof f the house. There it was spread to dry under the sun. The brothers arranged themselves in a line much like the workers at a building construction unit. Each would pass the other a bag until the last deposited it on the roof. This way they shifted the entire grain from the floor to the roof, one on the floor, the other somewhere halfway up on a ledge above a window and the last one on the roof.

He spoke of how he and his brothers helped their mother, how thick were the family ties, how good were the values then. He grew bitter as he reminisced more and began to attack the modern times which were bereft of those values, that respect for elders was utterly lacking, how the people became more selfish, self-centered and neglected the parents. He was perhaps betraying his own situation, but none of us mentioned it. He looked at me as he spoke, for he was sitting right across me.

I said that tradition, which was our inheritance, was much like the Roman god Janus, with one side of his face good and the other bad. You keep the good and throw the bad out. This remark somehow angered the brother and he fumed some more about declining morals and concern only with the self. There is no thought of God at all, he complained, his voice rising and his tone was bitter and angry. He got up from the chair, as if my very presence infuriated him. He found a chair a little away from me, far to my right and continued his ravings about how the society is changing for the worse. I was a little puzzled at his reaction, not sure ifi was the cause of it.

He said that people are now trying to step on the sun - at this my uncle and I suppressed laughter - and what arrogance, he says, that man should even think of it. I wanted to ask if man is not already walking on the earth and what is wrong in trying to do the same on another planet. I was not sure if he thought sun also was like another planet, or did he confuse with the moon? No. Sun and moon were the celestial beings and stepping on one I suppose gave us the arrogance to think of stepping on the other, which according to him was a sacrilege.

I did not pursue the topic. I saw clearly that the man was beyond himself with rage (at what precisely I could not gather). Another old man kept nodding at him as if he concurred, but it seemed to me more to pacify the irate brother. I kept my thoughts to myself and presently some activity of the funeral started and the man fell silent.

I wondered later why at that age - he was about seventy two or three, I was told - why such a person would grow bitter after having seen so much of life. My uncle, much older, nudging eighty, never showed any bitterness, although he suffered from the usual old age ailments, although he had lost his two sons to some disease, although he retired as a clerk and a pensioner. Why, why was that brother so bitter? What makes a man so bitter at the end of it all?

Is not the present handed down by those who lived in the past? Is it not the world that the young now live in, the very same world left by the self-righteous old men? The world that they shaped by their traditions, by their intelligence, by their beliefs and dogmas, by their successes and mistakes? Why does every generation decry the degeneracy that is present in their succeeding one? Is not the seed of degeneracy sown by the very same people who blithely disown it and point a finger of accusation at the present generation?

I think that the old are afraid that the beliefs they had held so dearly for decades are now exposed as sham, as hollow, as ineffectual in the tumultuous growth of the present, in its racy lifestyle, in its audacious inventions and discoveries? What exactly is the grouse of the old? Why are they always harping on values that they had lived by? Does it never occur to them that something was definitely wrong with those values that they didn't stand the test of time?

Man has become more selfish, the old man had said. Nothing could be further from the truth. But if the values that they had lived by were so great, then how did this situation come to pass? Evil influence, of course, the rise of the western culture, its incursions into the highly civilized societies of the east, and then the values crumbled, science grew and with it the many benefits and more opportunities to become rich, to come out of the rustic life of high morals...look at the young, he cried, look at them, they only think of themselves, they have no respect for the elders, for their parents. And so on and so on...the arguments go on and nothing comes from it. At the end there is only bitterness. An indigestion in the mind.

UX Touch

Gestures on a touch device

The touch user experience (UX Touch) on a handheld device generates total satisfaction in the use of a software application, called app for short. UX Touch relies primarily on gestures. Gesture-based operations enhance the usability of an app. It is simple, elegant and intuitive. There is no special training required, no holding of a mouse or looking for a cursor to move and click, no drop down menus to select and no popup windows to distract the user. Gesture is the ultimate user experience in terms of satisfaction, minimal effort (read ergonomic) and ease of use. 

Gestures are generated by finger movement. One or more fingers may be used in combination to produce diverse actions. 

Using a single finger alone, the following can be accomplished:

• Tap


• Double tap


• Tap & hold


• Long tap


• Swipe left


• Swipe right


• Swipe from the leftmost end


• Swipe from rightmost end


• Pull up


• Pull down

Using two fingers, many more operations are possible. In addition to all the operations from a single finger, we can have pinch and spread. 

There are to be sure other gestures possible, depending of course on the capability of the device, such as -

• Shake the device


• A gentle tap between two devices


• Lifting the device up or down 


• Lift one end left or right


• The last two gestures rely on the accelerometer capabilities of the device, which is fast becoming quite common, thanks to the popularity of games like Temple Run. 

Some gestures like using three or four fingers may conflict with the gestures already built into the device by the manufacturer. However, this can be easily overcome by disabling the device gestures at the start of the app and restore them when we are done with it. The app in question may enable and disable device gestures for the user and provide the feature as an option. 

What operations can be performed on an app with the gestures mentioned above? 

The simple answer is: it depends on the app. The app developer may use one or more of these gestures for the features s/he intended to provide. It may not always be possible to provide ALL the features of an app through gestures alone. It is a trade-off the developer has to make to provide maximum flexibility and ease of use. 

In order to see how the gesture operation translates into a satisfying user experience, we need to look at a few apps that employ gestures to their full advantage. Unfortunately, not many apps are designed to use gestures, though the number is growing by the day. Probably, the app developer needs to ‘come out’ of the mouse-click mindset, if one could call it that. The PC has dominated our lives for decades now and it is not easy to think differently, for habits die hard. 

A touch device is entirely different from a PC. Even the apps are more focused, don’t do a lot of things, designed primarily for quick work, and aim to enhance productivity with least effort. App development for a touch device needs a different perspective of the user experience. It may not be easy from a development standpoint, but what good is an app if it fails user expectation?

On a PC, a software application like MS Word has a range of features so vast that a user coming to it for the first time is daunted by it. A user manual or a help from a professional user is necessary to get started with it. It can be used by a student for a class project and also by a scientist to produce an expert document which might include math, tables, figures, illustrations, citations and the lot. The PC application is not intended for a specific type of user: it is for everyone, whether you need only 10% of its features, or on the other hand feel its shortcomings for your work on hand. 

The tablet has changed the game in a new way, one might even call it a revolutionary way. You have a need to do something and most likely there is an app for it. The app evolves with the user needs. The apps are designed mostly by individuals and very very few are developed by corporate giants. The user is heard, the user needs fulfilled, suggestions incorporated, and the user and the developer go tango in coming up with the best user experience in an app that maximizes user productivity. The app development usually begins with a minimal feature set and upgrades are added periodically. The price of the app guarantees a very wide appeal to a broad range of users across the world. No CDs to ship, no complicated wizards to help install the software, no user manuals to read, no system compatibility issues, and no professional support is required to configure it to use. It is as simple as find the app in the App Store and touch to download and install immediately, in a single operation. Once installed, the app is owned forever. Neither theough expiry nor through deletion can the user disown the app. Neat and simple. 

Mental Movement

I am a writer...well, not yet anyway. But soon I will be there. I mean, it is not a place, you know. Not a physical place. But still one refers to it as 'there', 'over there', and so on. 'I have come, Malaysia,' exclaimed a man, who thought he had 'achieved his goal of doing business there'. We use physical things to refer to our psychological states. I say that I am a writer when some of my writings are published, not until then. So, it is really a matter of time and not a place at all. And yet, we use the metaphor of a place. When we travel, we await the destination. It takes time to reach. The goal is much like a physical destination. It takes time to achieve one's goal. Attainment of a goal is in this sense an arrival at a destination.

There are, to be sure, many such metaphors which are used in the psychological realm without so much as a thought. It is definitely very easy to express oneself and also be assured of being understood. But as it always happens when one uses metaphors there is a catch. If one takes the example literally of reaching one's destination, one is absolutely certain that it exists. In the thought world however the goal is ephemeral. It is not something one can see on a map. It has no routes to take one there. There is no GPS to guide one to the place. We don't even know that it exists. And yet, we say happily, unchallenged, 'I am going to be there one day.'

What exactly is the problem with using such a metaphor? First, it gives me the feeling that the goal is out there and I am here. That it takes time to reach. Never for a moment does it occur to me that the goal is a figment of my imagination. It is something that exists only in my mind. That, it has no reference to anything that is out there in the physical world. That, it is neither near, nor far from me. That, in fact it has nothing to do with time at all, since there is absolutely no movement involved! That, it is just a chimera. To borrow another metaphor from the physical world, it is like an oasis in a desert.

This is something that needs more investigation. Simply put, this urge to achieve, to attain, is a becoming. From a non-writer, I want to become a writer. The implication here is that from one state of being I want to move into another state. This change of state needs to be measured, to be quantified, to be monitored. Measuring movement is what we know very well. It is what we do everyday. It is what we use in going from home to place of work, from the earth to the moon and so on. This is a way that we have discovered to fulfill our desires, aspirations, ambitions. It is something we do automatically. We don't even think about it. This movement is not a physical movement and we know it. Whenever we desire something, we are on a journey in time. We just exchange space for time. The body after all lives in space and the mind lives in time.

This way of thinking begs the questions: why do we think this way? What is the implication of thinking this way?

Why do we think this way? That is how the brain is wired to function, I suppose. There could be a scientific explanation for it, perhaps even a psychological one. The answer could be simply this: it is the only way we know. There could be other ways, but as humans we all think this way and we have not found any other way. We don't even know if there is another way of thinking.

To answer the question 'what the implication is of thinking in the way we do', we have sufficient evidence. We may have to start exploring more into this movement in the mind in order to unravel the implication.

We have seen that a state of change involves a psychological movement from one state to another. We may seek a change of state because we are not happy with our present state. We are not happy because it is not satisfying, it is not profitable, it is not edifying, it is not lucrative, it is not considered important, it is lacking in power, it has a social stigma and so on and so on. The reason could be anything, even more than one. We have decided to stop being what we are and have resolved to become something else.

We are aware that it is not easy to change one's state. It involves much hardship and demands perseverance. It means struggle, frustration, fear and many other feelings we may experience once we have embarked on this journey of change of state. 'Embark' is a nautical word and journey is what changes our location. It is the movement that we are talking about. All the feelings that we encounter while on a physical journey we experience in our psychological endeavor too. By thinking in terms of a physical metaphor we have primed ourselves to experience similar thoughts and feelings. Thoughts and feelings that we must have experienced in the beginning of time when we evolved from animal into human form. It is a question of survival in the jungle all over again, but this time in a jungle of our own making. It is not surprising that the phrase survival of the fittest still applies in the environment that we have built over millennia.

In order to overcome the difficulties in the attainment of our desired state, we have devised means as diverse as the species on earth. We employ power derived from position, wealth, status and knowledge in the achievement of our goals. We have devised laws to curtail excesses in the use of the artifices afore-mentioned, but there are always some among us who are more clever and enterprising in defying those laws and creating new laws to justify our actions. The world we have built is the movement of desire in all of us.

Desire is a movement of the mind from one state to another. It is in this movement that we live all our waking moments and in sleep too as dreams. It is desire that is the motive power behind our world. Our world is desire in action. Our pleasure and our pain is the desire fulfillment or desire denial. All our feelings are encompassed in this single movement triggered by desire.

The implication of thinking in terms of physical metaphors is the birth of this world we live in, the world that is just as beautiful, as dangerous and as inscrutable as the physical world around us. We have built a parallel world and there is no escape from it. The force of desire is as strong as the force of gravity. We may occasionally fly out of its influence - like the artists do sometimes, or the enlightened ones - but return we must to its haunt willy-nilly.

Getting Things Done

I have a thousand things going through my mind and I need a nifty organizer to order them.

I toyed with the idea of retaining an assistant, preferably a female. It is not often that one comes across a successful man who has not been aided by his female secretary to parcel his time out in the most efficient manner. A personal assistant, meticulous to detail, efficient as a machine, one who can drive like a bulldozer and yet be generous and intimate - who but a biological complement can fill such a role? Alas, I let go of the idea even before it bred fantasies that dwelt more on personal rather than professional assistance. My mind still reeled of a thousand things and would do well to focus on getting things done.

I looked for alternatives and resolved to solve my problem in the only way that this digital age of ours dictated. I thought of an e-assistant, an entity of zeroes and ones that is unlikely to generate feelings of intimacy, real or virtual. I began to hunt for a digital assistant that would help me in sorting and organizing the myriad things floating in my mind, things that ranged from paying my bills to doing a project for the e-learning community.

I repose a great faith in the digital world. I especially like the 'e' that precedes its services, like email for example. The 'e' has a special meaning for me, much more than its naive expansion to electronic; to me it stands for 'enabling', something that enables me to do things that normally I wouldn't do. I like to think that it enables me to speed up, to be more productive, to be alert and efficient in getting things done. And so I surfed the web for an enabling assistant.

I found a program and immediately started using it. I entered into it all the things that romped unbridled through my mind: a motley of bills due, house repairs, tracking child's homework, reminders for anniversaries, tasks from work place, things to buy, catch up with reading, and a host of things too numerous to list here. The list got very long and soon I felt the need to categorize the items in it. This program lacked that feature.

The world wide web offers many programs for free and so I sat down before my desktop once again to hunt for the right assistant. I found one that allows me to organize my TODOs under headings. Now everything looked pretty neat. All I need to do was fire up my computer every morning and pick some task to do and at the end of the day to strike it out from the list. As simple as it is to type www in the address bar of my browser.

I began attending to my list items and disposed of them in a way that best suited my mood. Not long after that I received a reminder from the electricity department to pay up or face a power cut. I hastened to my computer program and realized that it had no feature to alert me. Nor is there any way for me to prioritize my tasks.

I fired up Google and hoped I would get lucky this time. I found an organizer that allowed me to prioritize my tasks and set reminders. Nevertheless, I missed my tasks as ever before and found myself thinking about the problem. If I can solve this one problem all my other problems would resolve easily. There must be a simple solution to a difficult problem; otherwise, what is the point of progress anyway? After some thinking - I had temporarily pushed aside other things that kept pressing me for attention - I realized that unless my computer was up and running I would not get an audible reminder. Even if I did get it, I may not be close by to hear it. Even if I was within earshot, it might drown in the surrounding noise, which is usually the case - a blaring TV or the children battling it out for supremacy or more likely the wife is screaming her head off to get things done or me in the middle of one of those interminable meetings with my team at work.

An idea zoomed into my head: I must be mobile. Chained to a desktop is like a donkey tied to a post. It can go only as far as the tether permits. I must soar like the eagle in the sky. So I decided to purchase a mobile phone to organize my life. I spent a good deal of time looking for the right phone whose capability must include, among other things that I dare not mention here, a handy organizer. I purchased a smartphone with a built-in organizer. What an idea, Sirji, I told myself.

I loaded all my tasks into my smartphone, which faithfully provided the alerts I set for them. Very soon I ran into a snag. It beeped at the most inappropriate times. How could I pay my bill when I was engaged in another task, say a report to my boss, one that needed my attention right away? Or maybe I was at the wrong place at the wrong time? The tasks piled up and begged for my attention, but they will have to wait for a more intelligent organizer.

I Googled for inspiration and found enlightenment in David Allen’s GTD. Allen I learned was a corporate busybee who discovered a way to bail out struggling humanity burdened with tasks too numerous to attend to sanely and still stay healthy. Getting things done had always been my priority in life and so I started to hunt for a GTD app to run in my smartphone. I was overjoyed to note that there were many implementations freely available; I am a diehard believer in free enterprise and any application that is available gratis is bound to end up in my repertoire of useful programs. With a heartburn, however, I realized that no GTD program was ever written for my handset, except one that cost a bomb.

I returned to Google. I found that the world has moved away to more advanced systems: in the digital age, I remember someone pointed out, three calendar months equal one Internet year.

Being upwardly mobile I quickly jumped on the gadget bandwagon and got myself a tablet, pioneered by Apple: the iPad. Since Allen’s GTD app seemed pricey I looked for freebies and found one after a long search. The GTD app, loyally mimicking Allen's philosophy, provided the feature-set that I had sorely missed during all these years.

I sat down with my handy brand new gadget and started to load my tasks into the app’s Inbox. Next I sorted them according to the features - Today, Next, Someday, Waiting and so on. But I realized - I am pretty good at realizing things pretty fast - that this was not going to work unless these tasks were also available in all other devices. After all, I am not using the tablet everywhere, not all the time anyway. I use the desktop and my laptop, too. My smartphone holds a lot of things to do, too. What I need, I told myself, is a way to synchronize all my tasks and ensure that they are available no matter which device I am working on at the moment.

I turned to Google for help. I learned that I am not the only person in the whole wide world to face this problem. A sizable chunk of humanity is struggling to meet this situation which has become a crisis. There is a way: trust human genius to come up with a simple solution to a difficult problem. The answer is in the cloud.

What I needed, what all the brothers and sisters (and wives and lovers) of the world needed, was a place in the cyber space that is accessible from any device. A place that you can call your own. The only requirement was that the device is Internet ready and the owner subscribed to a service provider. My joy knew no bounds for I had the right devices and the right connections. Now I must look for the right organizer that weaves my life through a myriad devices into a seamless whole. In an increasingly fragmented world, a cloud service is like a balm for the pain in the ... ur ... neck.

There were many cloud services to choose from and I selected one that was free. Never mind if your phone does not have an app for it, it is all there in the world wide web. You can reach for it any time and from anywhere, for the world is also becoming increasingly connected. I loaded all my tasks into a cloud organizer and at once felt at peace within myself and with the world. Now I am going to be more productive: after all, work is worship and I work hard to get things done. To get organized at any rate to get things done.

But the cloud organizer was not based on GTD, the task manager for the toiling humanity. Alas, no cloud service supported GTD out of the box. You had to invent ways to overcome the limitations of the service, get around its kinks, and setup a home-grown modus operandi that serves your needs.

I went back to Google and found a thousand ways to do it. I am still soaring in the cloud looking for the right approach for getting things done, the thousand things on my mind.

The Touch Experience

A mobile device is unlike anything that we have experienced on a personal computer. For decades we have been using PCs and its use therefore has become almost second nature to most of us. A desktop computer has a file system, a windows explorer, a bunch of icons on the desktop, a wizard of windows for the installation of applications, a changeable hard drive and so on. The use of an application like the notepad on a Windows PC has ingrained in us the habit of a menu, a sub-menu, menu items like save and save-as etc. The same person when confronted with a touch device like the iPad feels completely out of place. The reason is that apart from a couple of things like the virtual keyboard and a bunch of icons, there is nothing familiar about the user experience.

Take for example a simple notes application. Apart from music and pictures, taking notes is the most frequent use on an electronic device, be it a tablet or a PC. After booting up the PC, which takes a while depending on the type of system you have, we fire up the notes application from a short-cut if we have one, or select from a long list of applications from the Programs menu. Then you type some text using the large keyboard and watching the monitor at the same time. You need to save the document from time to time, for a power outage, a program or system crash may suddenly wipe out all your hard work in a trice.

The saving is a two-step process: when the save dialog box opens you type in a title for your note and then select a drive and a folder to save your note in. You must remember where you have saved your note if you must avoid the agony of a desperate search of the entire system. The save operation is performed by a series of mouse clicks. The click interface is the cornerstone of a windows-based computer.

Now, let us take a look at a notes application, called app for short, on a touch device. The important difference at the very outside between a PC and a tablet, for example, is a touch interface as opposed to a click interface. Even the keyboard is minimal, prompts for text completion, provides access to other less used keys in an intuitive way and can be hidden while scrolling the page. There is to begin with the text that one is typing and nothing else - everything else is out of the way. No toolbar icons, no need to keep saving during typing, windows and menu bars cluttering the screen - nothing, but you and your text. This is a major difference and one that every app on the handheld device must and some do exploit to the fullest possible degree to provide ease of use and aid in productivity.

A full charged battery on a handheld device lasts as long as eight to hours of working, which is more than any laptop is likely to provide. Saving can be done automatically as you type, so there is no threat of data loss. A good notes app will provide a feature that allows a user to start typing as soon as the app opens. Even the virtual keyboard is open and ready to receive input. This is a feature that most mobile note taking apps lack. Riding on the traditional PC bandwagon, some apps even go so far as to ask you to type in a title, select a folder to save it in and even expects the user to touch the save button! This is a legacy that is to be entirely eschewed in the design of a notes app on a mobile device.

A truly useful app starts up ready for typing, uses the first line as title, auto-saves the text as you type, saves the document in a folder such as Inbox (any name would do for that matter - general, root, default etc.) and allows to pour out your thoughts as though they were nuggets of divine utterances awaiting consecration. A touch device is meant to be fast and minimal in startup.

The question of saving to a desired folder may be addressed by the user using gestures. Again, it is important to remember that a touch is significantly different from a mouse click. Compared to a touch gesture, the closest a mouse gesture can come to is drag-and-drop. Gestures by touch on the other hand could be numerous and simple, very intuitive and eminently satisfying from a user experience point of view. When the user has finished typing s/he might want to place it in a certain folder. This can be accomplished using touch gestures in the following way.

After the text is drafted, slide the finger on the screen to right. A menu opens on the left with a list of folders previously created. It also shows the folder Inbox where the current document is saved. In order to create a new folder, simply pull the left menu down. A new folder is added to the list with its name box empty and a cursor positioned in it ready for typing. The name box could also have a default name such as New Folder selected and ready to be typed over or left as is. An 'x' button in the box is available to erase the name. This gesture is fluid, nutritive, minimal and simple to use. No plus button or extra windows with their own set of buttons. A long press on the newly created folder may open up a link to Dropbox. Now to move our note from the Inbox to the new folder, say, My Notes.

Place a finger on the note and slide left so that the finger slides over the divide and continues on to the folder My Notes. This action triggers a 'move' operation. The note remains open on the screen, but behind the scene a stealth operation changed its location. Neat and simple. No clutter. Now is a good time to see what other files, this new document is sharing the folder with.

After the move operation, pinch the note to close. It is replaced by a list of files in that folder. Select any one file from the list to open it. No hassle. Now, one might like to reorder the files in the folder. For each list item, there is a title and on the same line to the right, there is an icon with three horizontal bars. To re-position a file in the list, hold this icon and drag the file to the desired location. What you can see between the title and the reorder icon is a row of icons that make things more interesting. The list of files may also be seen as thumbnails in a grid view - something that can accomplished as a toggle between the two views.

The row of icons provide such functionality as Open-in other apps, email the file, rename the file, delete the file and so on. Can it get simpler and more intuitive? The icons are designed to be self-explanatory - there can be no tooltips, because one cannot hover over an icon or a link on a touch device. The demise of hovering, however, is not that great a loss compared to the numerous benefits reaped from simple gesturing. A good app is equipped with a graphical help file to quickly bring the user up to speed with the app usage; gone also are the massive help pages and manuals for learning the operation of an application.

More interesting things happen on an open note. Note here - pun intended - that the words note, document and file are used interchangeably in this article. Let us therefore not split our hairs over semantics.

A slide from the right to left beginning from the rightmost end of the note opens a new note. No plus button again. It feels like turning a page in a physical notebook. All new notes are created in the same folder where the current note exists. As soon as the note is created, one can start typing because the user is presented with a keyboard as soon as the note is created. Now slide left to right and the left menu opens with the current folder highlighted. A number on the right of the folder indicates the number of files in the folder till date (when a file is deleted the counter is decremented). A slide on a folder prompts for deletion. A slide started from the leftmost position on the screen allows app-wide settings such as sort order (up and down arrows), font selection (font icon), feedback on the app, set feedback policy (auto shoot email to developer when app crashes) and so on. A slide in either direction navigates between notes in the same folder.

Let us now return to the note again. In order to view the note stats like word and character count, reading level etc., simply pull down from the top of the app. The notes background maybe set with a faintly visible ruled lines as default and allow the user to set from here. More export options may be provided at the bottom to be made visible only when the note is pulled up. What is more important for a writer is the features that the app provides while writing.

While the keyboard may be augmented by an additional row of keys on the keyboard, it is also very intuitive to use context menu, similar to the features offered in a desktop application where right mouse-click pops open an additional feature set. A long tap on the note could provide features such as formatting text (style, bullets, etc.), mark begin and end selection by taps, share selected text with social media apps without sacrificing the usual operations such as cut, copy & paste operations, define word, suggest word, spell-check etc.

Cursor movement is something that can be designed in ways that are very simple, yet effective in use. Leaving left and right margins provide ample space for cursor operations and page movement; at the same time, margins provide an elegant look to the note. The right margin can be used to provide page scroller, as already mentioned earlier. Tapping on the margin, left or right, will move the cursor by one letter accordingly. Long tap jumps the cursor by word. This mechanism also does not conflict with the in-built touch gestures provided by the device.

Search and replace functions are by far the most sought after features in a note-taking app on a tablet device. App-wide search box may be provided on top of the left menu. The result is a list of files containing the text; the display cuts across folder boundaries. No replace function is provided here - not necessary. On the level of a note, however, both search and replace functions can be provided. Long press on a note opens the context menu to launch the search interface. When the search word is clicked in the context menu, a search box is revealed over the virtual keyboard: it replaces the extended keys. Enter the search term and get a display of number of occurrences, which can be reached by left and right arrows on the search interface. A replace link appears on the search bar, clicking which provides the interface to replace word by word or all occurrences. A Done button dismisses the search interface. Cool, right?

Text selection can be used for other purposes too. Selected text may also be marked as a task with its own interface to set a reminder and so on. A note is written for several purposes - to record meeting points, to set an agenda for a meeting, to put down thoughts, to list items to do, for review, assign tasks to people, write an article, a long story and so on. With a few extra bells and whistles, the notes app can encompass the most comprehensive feature set ever to be found on a handheld device.

It is important to remember to provide defaults where possible so that the user may start using the app with default settings that are best suited to the eye and the look of the words on the page and its background. Even with a plethora of features such as outlined above, the note is still amenable to instant use without distractions, since all the features are hidden, but easily accessible. This will go a long way in enhancing the user experience on a touch device.