10.129

Was very excited this morning at all the coverage Higgs boson was getting. My faith in popular media is restored.

It inevitably reminded me of the Rig veda, particularly the Nasadiya sukta [10th mandalam]. This verse is the most appropriate salute to this moment, to the eternal quest that nameless whoever of the Rig Veda and the scientists of today share. 


'Who really knows? And who can really tell? When it was born and where this creation come from?
The Gods came after; Who then knows when the universe first came into being?
That out of which this universe came, perhaps it held it firm perhaps it did not,
He who looks down from the heavens only he knows or perhaps not'

Ah, the romanticism of Physics.

Slow track

I am much stuck by the fact that I have been blogging for ten years. I have moved, changed jobs, travelled, gone through so many ups and downs and through all that I have blogged. Yes, some years it was just a lousy single post, but still I am thrilled. 

I never imagined this point. It makes me wonder what is it that I am not imagining about the next ten years. Ten years seemed such a long time then. The next ten years does too, but the quick passage of the last ten and the blogs seem to solemnly remind me to choose well what I want to do.

The unconformity of the Cliffs of Moher that I visited last month reinforced this point. 

Slow down, relish that is the theme of the times for me.

Valentine

Last week, I stumbled before coming to halt in front of the grocery story I frequent. There was a large crowd in the front. I stared nonplussed and then it clicked. The crowd was in front of the small florist - it was valentine's day.

There are those cute cards, more news coverage on some fringe parties reactions, the usual columns on what is or isn't Indian culture keepers views, nostalgic articles by middle aged men on their valentines, a few two liners on the kind of partners a few young men and women were looking for. What was missing was hopeful writing.

I do realize there is possibly one in a thousand who believes in grand passion, the whole Romeo-Juliet sort of thing in this fasttrack generation. And I think its a good thing.   But still it all seemed so prosaic.

There is this one article that someone wrote many years ago for Valentine's day on the kind of man she wants. She wrote a column in possibly 'The Hindu' about her ideal man who would be a combination of Mr.Darcy and Rhett Butler. I still remember that! Why aren't there articles like that anymore? Isn't a single character in the whole Harry Potter series worthy?

I did like Mr.Darcy though  it was perhaps in college. [Still way before the Colin Firth mania started] I don't remember the right chronology, but there was a time I was completely enamored by James Herriot and Tristan Farnon . Then there was the Ganesh-Vasanth duo. I walked up and down Thambuchetty street my first trip to Chennai when I was in high school in the hopes of catching a glimpse of one of them. I liked Ganesh [Gannesh if one were to trust the early books] better than Vasanth. My mom promised many times that she'd marry me off to Ganesh. More so in frustration at my lack of responses as I read through book after book.

The interesting part is even after all these years, even in retrospect, I still like those characters. That - standing the test of time - is something quite amazing.

Digitally enhanced life

My friend just started a photography business. I looked at the albums with the cute closeups of food and pouting children that she had shot and it struck me how much digitally enhanced our lives are.  I hear music that sounds crystal clear, I watch Television in high definition, I go to movies that are digitally mastered with surround sound, I capture all significant moments in my digital camcorder, again in high definition.

I wonder the impact of all this in the core content of what I experience.

Just a plain picture of a sandy beach feels like I am experiencing something transcendental just because of  the cerulean blue of the sky and the definition of the sand grains. To me somehow the content is still the same as it was in a similar black and white photograph.

And that begs the question.

Am I somehow now less likely to appreciate something in its original un-embellished form? Has all this spoiled me for a normal colored normal sounding... life?

Finding ragam

After many many years I attended two Carnatic concerts this season. I have been to a few conecrts outside of chennai, but there is something about the december season. Much has been commented about the parallel food festival that goes on, so I am not going to go into the details of the aapams and dosas I ate. Beyond the fantastic performances the audience were interesting to study. The ultimate point of this experience is to be able to find the ragam after all and it was quite intriguing to see who from the audience have the ability to do that and who are pretending to know and who are just there for the emotional appeal. There was a visiting professor from some US university who thought I was a student. Made my day, despite that he was in his eighties with possibly failing eyesight. He shared some of his opinions on the singer as well as the rest of the spectators quite caustically. There was a young man who seemed like he had come in by mistake but wrote down ragas for almost all the pieces. The best was the father and daughter - the father must have been in his eighties and the daughter late fifties. The daughter had to sit in a different row and it was fascinating to see the interchange. She would mouth the name of the raga and he would nod or shake his head and if she had an explanation she would write it on her phone and pass it to him. During the RTP there was considerable speculation and a few others near them also joined in the mime. I couldnt know for sure if they got 'keeravani'. I certainly didn't. What an ultimate pattern matching problem!