Why you shouldn’t be doing the I-Pee-L!

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Raghav/Raghu

Yes, it was another of my wordplay’s about the IPL – Indian Premier League, or the marketised version of a sport that has now turned into the biggest scam at many levels.

Watching cricket has for long been nostalgic, but not anymore.

The charisma of the cricketing strokes without the intervention of ads was such a bliss, then. When was this then? Not long ago, before five – six years maybe. The experience started declining, steadily and I ended up watching less of cricket but to some extent had been playing. The final nails on the coffin of the cricket enthusiast in me was successfully done in by the “commodification” of this sport that for decades has been the unproclaimed national sport of India.

A market they saw in tapping the pulse of a cricket loving country, to make them choose the brands they own. And guess what – the prey fell! The nation now forgets inflation, or drought, or their own personal discontents hoping to get a glimpse of not a sport, but an ad machine.

What started as a genuine attempt to make leagues popular to act as stepping stone for upcoming cricketers in Indian Cricket League, soon found itself being stared by the richest of the richest, intending to make this “business venture”. The rich in a plutocracy by definition are powerful and ICL was trampled and arose the omnipotent IPL. Dizzying amounts of money and perfect commodification of the sport happened with IPL. A great business idea, yes, granted. But not for the sport enthusiast in me.

Even on a 32 inch screen, I don’t see players but only ads. The run up of bowlers also get less screen size, and rest is used to show ads. Now, that’s ingenious while some of you might add, I see it as simply disgusting.

Players are auctioned, actresses brought in to cheer, and bands of cheer girls? Really?

Yes, maybe the cheer-girls concept too worked wonders; in a country where sex or pleasure in general is tabooed, cheer girls trick also serves like the item number in our movies. Shame. The psychology of our people have been understood to the deepest extent by these game planners, who know which string to be plucked!

The post match parties? Won’t even speak about the enormous value addition it has brough into the quality of the sport, as such.

If all this was not adequate, the media (of course, who else) cut down all issues and instigate the cricket crazy country to catch IPL, and not even the impending elections (like in Karnataka, it’s due in 20 days if some of you did not even know).

The team owners!

While one owner has had to shut down his airline, without paying thousands of his employees their salaries still is the big baron of IPL, it is the same about most of the owners. Fraudsters, scamsters and corrupt, most of them, but are the powerful puppeteers who decide the fate and fortune of the games, while also altering what the youngistan wants for Hindustan! Huff.

And where is cricket at all?

All one wants is jhumpak-jhapang, or a hypocrisy dipped hysteria about the regional teams (I still haven’t understood the team frenzy!).

And, the cricket fan in me dies a new death every time, when I see the flashing, colourful circus where the theme supposedly is cricket.

A cricket loving country, no longer understands cricket, or love for it.
IPL: Rest in pee!

Posted in India, Rants | Tagged | 1 Comment

Why our education system has already failed

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Raghav/Raghu

With the youngest population in the world, and in newsreels when our leaders do acknowledge that our young population is the natural resource India should be banking upon, the degradation of the quality of education in India, at all strata, in all dimensions, is something that must have already alarmed us, and because it hasn’t sent that shiver of scare, the situation is more hopeless.

The afore made claims, might already have got some of you thinking that I am being a pessimist, or I am simply exaggerating.

When the media has been consistently portraying that the young India is shining, and glowing, and transforming the world with its softwares and startups, how can it be that our education system is failing?

In this post, I will not even delve into the hoax that our public education system for schooling is turning into, except for in a handful of states across India. I shall reserve this for a detailed treatment in a subsequent post, and will focus on the nuances of the higher education system which has deteriorated gravely.

I teach in an undergraduate engineering college. This has given me exposure to the in’s and out’s of the education system, which otherwise would have been only a single dimesnsional opinion as a student. Not specific about the place where I teach (this place is in some ways better than the average of the whole system).

Although the problems I am going to mention are fundamentally structural, I would hold the students equally responsible for not having the vision or conviction to work towards changing the process, of which they are the engines and fuel.

Pseudo evaluation
The reality of most of the students, teachers, because the framework of the education system is also ‘marks driven’, seems highly contorted. Marks based evaluation, and marks for regurtitation and not for recognising ingenuity in thinking is the fundamental context of recognising the grades of students.

Formal classroom learning, without even a bit of thinking about the pros and cons of the ideas being professed, both at the teacher and the student’s level is acting the primary deterrent in this pseudo learning-pseudo evaluation system.

The marks, while firstly do not correctly reflect the comprehension of the students, and never attempt to test the ability of them to improvise these ideas are treated almost with a holy status by the students, and the whole trade of marks is an unfortunate draining of human resource.

Questions and answers, not real life problems and solutions are being projected as the reality of learning a course. With such a fundamental flaw, how can one expect students to learn anything at all, in the true sense?

Incentive is not learning
And when, some students or teachers do realise the flaws and lacunae due to the psuedo learning, and try to stretch themselves to some extent all they find themselves to be is a small minority who have to put enormous amount of effort, because the majority is sedating dormantly on the opposite side.

Out of the box thinking, activity based learning, unstructured solutions are all tabooed and booed. There is no impetus to encourage these trends of improving the stagnation, but only discouraged harshly. The true incentive is not learning, but scoring marks, which almost in a mythical manner is necessary so that it would help the students get to a decent overall average, so that they can apply for an IT job!

I have heard students and equally teachers say, “What is the use of studying an electronics or a mechanical concept, if all they want to and will end up doing is code in C, Java or update spreadsheets!”. While this might be true, they are failing to see that many highly qualififed engineers are not firstly highly qualified in their domains and are engaged in mediocre jobs is because the education they were supposed to have, and that which was to enable them to think independently, and to encourage entrpreneurs in them, or a conviction to do what they really should have done are drowned under the chaos of “placements, jobs, IT”!

Rote learning
I totally blame students here. And based on my own experiments in evaluating students, they are exceptionally good at rote learning, and because they are so good at regurgitating, the necessity of original ideas in many cases seem to get redundant and even with effortful thinking there isn’t any scope for ingenious answers at all.
This develops into a servile attitude, where the system has efficiently created employees who are willing to do what is asked them of, and are never bothering themselves with the more important questions of solving problems themselves.

Lack of collaboration and hands on
The streamlining of different branches of engineering for example, while is for convenience, the prospects of collaboration are also buried with this for-convenience structure. There is very little scope for collaboration, as facilitated by the system and because it is not prescribed by the University or in the syllabus, even the thought of collaboration is perceived as unholy and decried against.

And we have failed.
Not just these aspects, each of you would have experienced multiple layers of these problems, or even more. The unfortunate calamity of a structured framework that is taking toll on its resources is the gravest hinderance to the dreams of development and self sustenance of young minds, and a country full of youg minds.

Posted in India, People, Rants | Tagged | Leave a comment

Strikes don’t strike because of you

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Raghav/Raghu

What do you do when you have people who don’t stand up for others’ rights?
One could brand them as individualists, hurl a few abuses and leave them be at peace.
What do you do when you have people who don’t stand up for their own rights?

Whenever I hear people say that a strike is bad, without understanding the reason and motive behind, I feel depressed first, and follow it by sympathy to the softheads who have their heads stuffed with numbers, lots of numbers, but no comprehension of the problems.

Let me give you couple of examples of why we are in a situation of crisis.

Just talk to your neighbour in the public transport vehicle (not the air-conditioned one, mind you), it might mostly be a daily wage worker who will, in high probability be commuting to his/her work for about twenty kms. Let me quote it out of my experience of one such discussion.

A man who is commuting from Vidyaranyapura to the Electronic city in a BMTC bus. He is commuting to a construction site, where he is a mason. He carries his yellow namesake safety helmet. He says, he earns 200 per day in this project, and when he gets to work for few other big projects it might reach upto 300 rupees a day (as expected a rare opportunity). Now, we might want to think it is ten times higher than what our Government thinks one needs to survive in urban centres like Bangalore. Let us verify.
Cost of his bus pass is 50 rupees, and he ends up going in crammed up buses because there are fewer normal BMTC buses plying this IT Hub route. He can’t dream of shelling his day’s wage to the Vajra (diamond) services of air conditioned buses which throng this route. He carries a small lunch pack, because it costs no less than 30 rupees to eat a filling meal  in a hotel. So, carrying food from home which is in no way a balanced diet, but a diet to balance the budget still costs a hundred rupees for a day, for him and his wife and three year old kid.

How? If you still haven’t gone out buying provision for your household – rice per kilo has shot upto 50 Rs, and the not so easily palatable rice (to the ones like us) still is at 40. This man has of course no LPG connection and uses kerosene stove. If I am right kerosene too is expensive at about 50 rs a litre. And because one cannot just eat rice, dal or a handful of vegetables with a bit of milk adds up to another 50 rupees. Milk just had a net hike of 3 rupees per litre. Because he works for twelve hours under stressful conditions,  I don’t blame his habits of chewing tobacco, if that alleviates even some of his burden. I am sure no philosphy would help him, like that tobacco might at that point in time. So granted.

Now, this does not require the PhD’s of our prodigal economists in the cabinet starting from  the Prime Minister to Finance minister and home minister, and the ever ready opposition , or even our President.

Now, if you talk about how the subsidies are hampering the state of affairs of our country, and how depreciation of currency has affected the stocks and trading – I say – Cut the crap! Feed the people.

Every time there is a price rice in essential commodities, and we stop at one status on Facebook and get used to the revised prices, we are burdening more than half of the country under the weight of our ignorance and arrogance, we are becoming part of the evil that haunts rest of the country. I don’t understand why people blame it on democracy and stop at it. If you think it doesn’t work, get out and change it.

Urban India likes Anna Hazare because Lokpal seemed reachable, then, all you had to do was give a missed call.
After first time people don’t want to get onto the protests. Strikes, as taught by MK  Gandhi are not mere stalls of your routine so that you can enjoy a holiday stuck at home, or stuffed in a mall – it is the powerful tool of non-cooperation. The government when does not cooperate and is focused to making the lives of its people worse by the day, with every policy, all we can show in return is some non-cooperation and not servility!

Strikes, are not effective because you did not make it effective. You need to feel the pinch and send out your anguish loud and clear – cribbing about one day’s strike, or looking forward to more of it so that you can miss your work simply makes you a traitor, not against the government, but against the state – an embodiment of people, and not of pages of laws!

Posted in India, People, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

The idea of dirt

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Raghav/Raghu

“Dirt is a thing people make too much fuss about”, writes George Orwell in his book Homage to Catalonia. He says this in the context of war, and moves on, while I immediately am thinking of the profoundity of that statement when analysed in the general context too.

The idea of dirt, or in other terms of sanctity is a highly hierarchical and deeply ingrained superstition in many of us. Superstition, not in the sense that we go about performing rituals, or other extravagant futilities, but a state of mind wherein an obvious discretion is deep rooted in our thinking, and being.

A personal anecdote clarified this myth with more clarity to me – an instance that instigated an awakening in me.

In a recent Free Software workshop, about 150 participants were stuffed into a huge lab and as a requirement they were asked to leave their footwear outside. Understandable, because cleaning will get arduous, after running in the fields etc, and is followed in most institutions. A couple of footwear stands were placed outside, but weren’t adequate to hold all 150 odd pairs of footwear. So, a large number of the footwear were scattered all along the pathway. More footwear stands were brought in, but the participants were all busy coding in the lab. I did not want them to get out and sort it out, so volunteered to move the scattered footwear into the stands, and subconsciously I was walking into those pairs, one pair after another and was stuffing into the newly brought stands. It was ineffective, but if undisturbed I would have continued to do it all the way, using my feet. ‘Hand’ling footwear of others, as a subtle habit in me was perceived to be ‘dirty’, but walking into them and doing it did not seem so.

A double discretion becomes evident: Firstly the hesitation to grab footwear by hand, while at the same time a sanction to use my feet to do the same.

It would not have come to my cognisance, if my teacher by example in this case, hadn’t proposed to grab it in hands and place them in the stands, and later to wash our hands. And at that instant, almost instantaneously I realised the hypocrisy in me.

I hopped onto doing it by hand, more effectively with his help and was pondering on this inconsistency in the ‘self proclaimed rational being’ that I am supposed to be.

Generally perceived gradient of sanctity that decreases from top to bottom in our body, with head being hailed the most ‘holy’, while the feet as ‘dirty’ in a subtle sense did exist in me, until that instant.

Dirt in the sense of germs or soiling is not what I am talking about – a mental barrier that holds different parts of our own body at different levels of dirtiness/holiness. The hierarchy of dirt/holiness in society -castes, position, order, stature and other nuances of life which do not seem all that obvious, but are in many ways metrics of the shallowness of one’s preachings.

Equality does not begin at home, but from within oneself!

Posted in Personal, Philosophy, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Reading Carl Sagan’s Contact

Posted on February 2, 2013 by Raghav/Raghu

Reading Carl Sagan’s science fiction work Contact, put me back into the mode of insatiable awe for the Universe, that seemed to have gotten sedentary under the burden of conventional observations and the so called daily wisdom, for a while now.

More than once, while reading Contact in a bus, or on my bed, my mind just drifted away, outside the window, wanting to have a bird’s eye view of the world outside, and immediately flying higher into outer spcae and then it would pause in awe of all that unexplored, unending, unrelenting awesomeness and obscurity of the Universe.

Again the wonder of how limited we are as a species, and yet how much progress we have made in observing the Universe and to predict its nature is unbelievable. If not for the awe and wonder, what else could drive our species to want to explore more of the obscure Universe, expending our time as a the conscious part of the Universe.

The cognisance about the insignificance of we humans at the scale of the Universe, and a simultaneous pride of the fact that we are able to attempt comprehension of the Universe is as religious as I can get.

When it comes to the talk of extra terrestrial intelligence, I am one of those skeptics who thinks it highly improbable that we can come in contact with another intelligent species, while the possibility of another intelligent species itself is more probable, given the number of galaxies and our limitations in observations.

In Contact, Carl Sagan through his protagonist encapsulates almost entirely many curious minds of Science, and takes us one step closer to coming in touch with an alternate intelligent species, in an almost convincing manner.

This being my first full reading of Sagan, of course has opened up the possibility of reading more of him, soon.

A jargonised book about communication and antennas, would also serve as a brilliant read for students interested in communications 😉

Posted in Books, Philosophy | Tagged | Leave a comment

FSMK Winter Camp, and woah!

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Raghav/Raghu

Five days, two hundred people, tens of technologies, hundreds of ideas, hours of interaction and abundance of fun, with unimaginable amount of work – all of these coalesced into one of the most memorable experiences ever. This is what FSMK’s Winter Workshop-2013 has come to be.

FSMK, an organisation that I am a proud member of, has in an unprecedented attempt pulled off this scintillating experience for the participants and the organisers. A five days, residential training workshop on Free Software technologies, as a necessary attempt to bridge the gap between academic learning and industry requirements, with the quintessential ideas of Free Software were discussed, debated and comprehended through these five days.

This mega event happened at Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, in the outskirts of Bangalore at Rajankunte. Keeping the January climate of Bangalore in mind, we had christened the event “Winter Workshop”, and to prove us doubly right the first day of the event, on the 26th of January we were all greeted by dense fog, bringing down visibility to almost zero. While we were apprehending if this would continue for the other days too (for, really cold mornings are of course not optimum for sessions that begin at 8 in the morning), the weather mellowed down and the chill was only caused during the experiences of the sessions.

Speakers from industry, academic institutions, Free Software communities, students and a refined set of resource people had discourses on various ideas, ideologies and intentions of Free Software.

In one of my talks I had said “Technology is the catalyst in the reaction between science and society”. Ascertaining this claim was the rapport that got built and strengthened through the five days, between participants, and also with organisers. This level of admiration, trust and camaraderie would not be possible without the technology that got us bound together – Free Software.

A team of just about twenty organisers were multitasking numerous responsibilities to run the show, almost flawlessly. From serving tea, to assigning rooms, to technical support to each and every other responsibility were impeccably executed by the single entity that the organisers team had coagulated into. The hundred and fifty close participants, were all , at least most of the time hooked on to the sessions and were busy learning. Kudos to their commitment.

Working in a team like the one at FSMK, the drive one gets is immeasurable. These five days have passed so swiftly that it seems unbelievable to imagine everything that has transpired during the workshop.

The satisfaction you get after busy working through the day, when you crash in your bed, only to wake up after those few fulfilling hours of sleep, only to do more is divine!

Cheers to everyone who was part of the workshop, and made it not merely a success, but a lifelong memorable experience.

Posted in People, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

Life is, but the chronicle of struggles

Posted on January 1, 2013 by Raghav/Raghu

One of those rare evenings, when I have the evening to myself and I decide to use it to complete an impending task. Dust off my cycle, hop on and alternately glide and peddle for the next five kilometers,meet a person, and head back with steeper path back.

A long, beautiful stretch with joggers and evening walkers (a rare sight such spots these days), and I am thinking the round trip would be ten kms, and I had saved about 20 rupees by not taking out my motor scooter. I am contemplating of refueling myself with a tender coconut, and realise it has been quite a while that I had one.

Stop at one roadside tender coconut stall, and address “auntie – ondu kodi” to a lady there, who is shocked that I asked her for it, because she was just standing by. A hasty apology and the stall owner lady comes down with a bright giggle, that was radiant even in the street without streetlight. I ask her if she can chop off one for me even without the light – she remarks, “I can do it even with my eyes closed”. I did not want to test her skill and asked her to give one with lot of coconut water.

She is chopping off the flakes of the green, bulky tender coconut while I am imagining how sharp the blade was to let those flakes off the sturdy tender coconut – maybe at level two a scene from Kill Bill was running in my head, and I was not very comfortable thinking about its impact when tried on me.

Within few seconds, the all green is now like pie with whipped cream topping, and I start savouring the sweet-salty ‘mineral water’. She, without invitation starts narrating to me the delay that was happening, for she still hadn’t cooked the meals for today, and her daughters wouldn’t cook without gas, and now there was no cooking gas supply at her home. I was relating to the recent traumatic period at home when my mother was struggling without cooking gas for a few days. I thought, this lady wouldn’t have an electric stove at her disposal….

Before I even start a conversation with her, she has moved on to the next chapter in her story and is telling me how she never likes to cook on gas stoves, and she would only prefer firewood for cooking. I am at the verge of nostalgia from my times in my grandmothers place, where we would all sit out in the yard around the firewood cooking spot, with tears in our eyes because of the smoke, and being served simple, yet sublime food. She adds that the food cooked in gas or electric stoves lack the taste! (I am thinking the same thought). The swift cooking that happens comes at an expense; when the food has remained in its own juices for less time, and hence tastes just about okay. Whereas, when done on these firewood installations – it takes a long while, by then the food has soaked itself in its juices, brilliantly. Now, this is the reason why barbecues (again done using charcoal grills) tastes a lot better than fried food.

I do not remember the link, how – but she is telling me that she is from Mandya, and got “sent” to Chennai. I am thinking “sent” is what, and it strikes “Yes, married and sent”. She did not like the work there – growing groundnuts, working in garments, and she said she came back to Karnataka, but was aspiring for better life and hence settled in Bangalore. She said she has done her schooling till tenth in a Government school in Mandya, and would have wanted to study further, but for her parents and their conditions.

Nonetheless, she wanted her children to study better and has a daughter who has completed first PUC, and before she could be sent to second PUC her son, who was in class 6 or 7, was diagnosed with problems in heart and had to undergo three open heart surgeries. Government hospitals, she said in Tamil Nadu were better in this regard and got him operated there. But the medicine cost since then for this son of hers, was 10,000 rupees per month and this cut off the study options of her daughter.

She works in this tender coconut stall of hers, selling tender coconuts brought from Mandya, from morning 6 to 12 in the noon, after which her husband takes care of the shop. She then does household work in one of the apartments, and says – no matter how much you earn it never suffices to live here, and for his medicines.

By now, I am howling into the empty shell of the coconut and hand it over to her for the tender pulpy coconut. Two hits, and she scoops the pulp out of both hemispheres and I have an adhoc dish with yummy coconut pulp.

I inquire in general about her routine, and how long she stays, engrossed already about the stories people have behind them.

Life, I already know is what we make out if it with our struggles,and there is no other way to live it. Reminiscing some of my own small struggles,and the impact it has had on me, and also abusing people (in my mind, of course) who give up without any attempts I get out from there, wishing her a good day ahead.

Posted in Personal, Rants | Tagged | Leave a comment

Drowning in AR’s Kadal

Posted on December 16, 2012 by Raghav/Raghu

And, after couple of years and few albums A R Rahman is back doing what he does best – create some of the best music, that is going to stick with you for life. Kadal is a masterpiece by the master. Tell what may others, I am drowned deep in the warmth these songs are creating. Relishing the authentic Tamil, experimentation and everything about this soundtrack.

This is not review, a desperate attempt to articulate my emotions about these brilliant songs.

1. Chithirai Nela
Singer: Vijay Yesudas
Lyrics: Vairamuthu
Now, this is a track that might not go down well with the general population – a slow, soberly philosophical track. It has some of the best lines for a song written by the genius – Vairamuthu. Now, the undisturbing music elevates Vijay Yesudas’ vocals to the next level – he almost sounds like the Magical Yesudas, and in different way better too. Reserve this song for the hard times – it will make you feel better. A slow start to the album, but fits the package best. Looking forward to the visualisation.

2. Adiye
Singer: Sid Sriram
Lyrics: Karky
When I heard Aaromale from Vinnaithandi varuvaya,the song being in Malayalam I would imagine what impact it would render upon me if I had understood the words too with those brilliant strummings and a powerful vocal. Adiye is all that plus more, with some of the most funky and imaginative lyrics which goes so really well with the tune. Karky (son of Vairamuthu) has penned down a brilliant song, at least for the mediocre Tamilian that I am. Adiye has its starry moments, where you are smiling within yourself- sometimes for the ride of the vocals and other times for the words.

3. Moongil Thottam
Singers: Abhay Jodhpurkar, Harini
Lyrics: Vairamuthu
Moongil Thottam is my favorite track from the album. It will stay on as an epoch.
The tune is scintillating, the words bring life to all the scenic beauty it describes – it transports me to the world built in its words, riding on the tides of music composed by the genius. It puts me at awe, to know that all the Vairamuthu tracks were poems, and AR has elegantly adorned them in such masterpiece compositions.
The best part of this song is Harini!
It has been long hearing her refreshing voice, and when she enters this song you feel a high! Magic!
This will stay on for ages!

4. Elay Keechan
Singer: A.R. Rahman
Lyrics: Karky
LOL – was my reaction! First released as a teaser, I was laughing all along listening to this song. AR singing in Tamil after long, and what a comeback song! Funky, sticks inside the head, and truly teasing! The way this number begins is hilarious – Oye, calls out AR, then builds up layers of music rendering a reggae kind of a feel to it, to only break it with slang coastal Tamil. AR in full form so to speak.

5. Nenjukkule
Singer: Shakthisree Gopalan
Lyrics: Vairamuthu
Some songs are so simple that that simplicity overpowers the audience. Nenjukkule is powerful vocal riding a tricky tune, saying out Vairamuthu’s diamonds and pearls. Performed first in MTV Unplugged, AR had made the magic already there. I have been clinging onto this track for last month longing for other tracks, and I still am not used to it. Nenjukkule means within one’s heart, and this one’s gonna stay there forever.

6. Anbin Vasale
Singer: Haricharan
Lyrics: Karky
Complex composition, not much to say except that it is a Christian carol kind of track.

7. Magudi Magudi
Singers: Aaryan Dinesh, Kanagaratnam, Chinmayi, Tanvi Shah
Lyrics: Aaryan Dinesh, Kana
No better way than a fusion, trance song! Srilankan rapper Dinesh PERFORMS in this new kind of a track from AR. It is weird, but awesome!

Overall, Kadal (means Sea in Tamil) drowns you in its layers of sublime music.
Hail AR!

Posted in Rants | Tagged | 2 Comments

My beautiful irony!

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Raghav/Raghu

A mind that unravels mysteries of life and Physics,
but in detail misses my verbal  gimmicks and tricks.

A structure that in general might be termed small,
but has for sure gotten me eclipsed although I’m considerably tall;

Compassion that swells out of the way for others,
but holds me ruthlessly clutched in your feathers.

Made me think you were not and never going to be reachable,
now mad I am drenched in you whenever to me are accessible.

Said you were made of few words in all your time,
but rarely these days have you let me have my rhyme.

I so hoped you were homely domesticated,
You were, but now with my influence are dangerously activated.

Was scared we would be monotonously compliant,
now I apprehend we shouldn’t get close to being permanently defiant.

Your personality, I guessed initially to be brief,
now I see my life in detail in you – my coral reef.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

The paradox of creation

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Raghav/Raghu

Sometimes, when I feel dumb about not having created anything substantial, as yet, that the world would stand up and recognise, the witty mind of mine gives excuses that seem to convince me, at least prevents me from going into a depression 😛

I say to myself, if I were born in the medieval ages, or when Science hadn’t made the progress it has made today, the chance of me stumbling upon a problem and solution to that problem would have been more. Now, after the evolution of human science and technology to these great heights, I say to myself there are fewer problems and I will have to wait longer, in pursuit of understanding all that has been already unravelled, before even reaching the realms of the un-understood.

The problems I would want to solve are the natural mysteries and wonders. I know there are numerous other technical challenges which I can embark upon to quench my urge to create, and maybe even shoot to fame. But, as you will read next, I am already framing up another excuse to not delve into these pursuits as well, citing the reason that I want to solve nature’s puzzles and not man made ones.

Human mind is a marvellous thing, and working in its own awe it can create a world that fits into us accommodating for all our flaws and shortcomings.

For a photographer, everything is an object to be shot, for a film maker everything is a scene to be included in his next, for a writer life is an inspiration, and likewise all creative minds look up to their surroundings and create a world within their heads, in which the protagonist is the mind itself. In the context of this post, a lazy, procrastinating mind is also creative in giving excuses to create.

Thus, by not wanting to create, there is something already being created.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment