Re-contamination

I feel contaminated. That tight embrace, that laughter, that pleasure, that mischief in her eye, which I could not see yet sense; that betrayal, which I saw and yet could not look at - all unwelcome, yet all are keeping on returning to me. Why? Why the fuck are they returning? My acquaintance with this dirt is so new; I never knew it even existed to contaminate me, yet now that it has touched me, bathed me in itself, she is being so loyal. Bitch! I don't know what to do with it. Can I get rid of it? Would it ever be possible for me to forget all that? Or would it be easier to forget she is my mother of 27 years? Twenty seven years, of which 26 I had lived with both of them - mom and dad.

She seeped into her past, and the past equally eagerly gobbled her up. That night, a truck, its driver and the 50 milliliters of alcohol in his body had decided, her dad had had enough of this living business.

Since that day, mom and I were united by grief, relation by blood was merely incidental. On so many occasions I had felt that tinge of happiness. But no, I had denied it to myself on all occasions. All! How could I have allowed ... allowed myself to be happy? My dad. Yes, my dad is no more. The truck, the driver, and the alcohol were mere excuses. I was responsible for his death. And mom was.

Her dad was in Nashik, to seal one of his bigger contracts. He was to stay overnight and return in the morning - the morning that was to be the one following her birthday. But she and her mom had insisted that he return to celebrate their daughter's birthday. When he had refused, they had used their ultimate weapon that had seemed innocuous to them till then - "Dad, when will you stop running after this money? Your daughter is not important for you?" Her mom had winked at this put on act. They had had a hearty laugh when she ended the call, and that was that; they had never laughed again. Till today, that is. Her mom had breached that unwritten, unstated contract.

My mother is a whore. Yes, why am I shying away from that fact. She is a whore, so what if she is my mother. She is a whore, a depraved woman. A woman belonging to the gutters. So what if she is my mother. How the hell did she fuck my uncle? Her brother-in-law? Since when all this must have been going on? How could she do that? I should have always suspected. He's a son of a bitch! I should have anticipated this. His wife had died 2 years back, and he must have been on look out of some easy-going pussy. Bastard! How could he do that? Did he not think of his deceased brother? Had dad been alive today? Ah, dad is dead. And so... and so my mom... She became available. How is it his fault. He saw an available pussy and...

No! I can't take this. She's such a professional. Such an accomplished whore. She had made 'kheer' for the lunch! She was humming. A god-damned r-o-m-a-n-t-i-c song! As if nothing had happened. As if dad had never died! As if dad had never lived! Why did I not spit in her face? Why did I not scratch it? Why did I not punch her nose into a pulp? Whore! Yes, why did I not call her that ... in her face? What did I fear? Why did that whore have to be my mother?

She had done none of those. But had cried, cried and cried. Still, her tears had not washed away her dirt. She was contaminated. She had taken an off from her work as she was not feeling well. And when she had returned unknown to her mother and the uncle were... what she saw returning to home made her even sicker. She had to return to her clinic. Yet even here, that scene, that depravity, betrayal all - kept on returning to haunt her. They played in her mind, and on it.

Having freshly completed her dermatology diploma, she was posted in the STD (sexually transmitted diseases)-clinic of her hospital. Rest of the staff was surprised to see her back. She took it upon herself to clear the backlog of patients. But the memory of what she had seen that morning would not leave her. Her next patient was a 30 year-old elderly lady. Syphilis! She saw the white patches on her palm with reddish rash sprinkled over them. She had got bored of seeing so many syphilis patients. The 30 year-old elderly lady was accompanied by her son - not elderly, barely 15. "Secondary syphilis, it must be", she thought. Must have acquired from her unfaithful husband. Bastards!

"Kab se hai inhein yeh?" [Since when is she suffering from this?], she asked the son who was visibly at the helm of affairs.
"Do hafton se, madam." [Since two weeks, madam], he said with a gaze that betrayed pain as well as hope. Hope, that his mom would get well, be cured of her pains.

Somehow she felt touched. She could feel her mind developing an aptitude for things other than anger, viz., sympathy and a sincere urge to help.

"Tere pitaaji nahin aaye saath mein?" [Your dad did not accompany her?]
"Mere pitaaji nahin hai" [My dad is not there]. "Maan dhandha karti hai" [My mom is a prostitute]

That hit her like a barb!

These whores, they are everywhere! This bastard, he must not even know who his dad is. Oh, fuck! I can't stand this.

She sighed. She could not speak out all that. Every unformed word she was keeping inside of her was now banging against her ... from within. The pressure was building. Suddenly, she wanted to get it done with as quickly as possible.

"Is ke pehale is ko koi dawaai di thi" [Was she given any medication for this before], she could not keep the contempt out of her voice. She was not sure if she was trying extra hard to instead poison her conduct with as much contempt as possible.

He opened his wallet and started searching for the old prescription. It was taking some time, and she was getting irritated.

"Rehane de. Tum jaise log ek parcha bhi nahin sambhaal sakte." [Leave it, people like you cannot even preserve a scrap of paper]

He panicked, searching a bit more frantically.

Bastard! He must not even know who his dad is. His mom must have made it out with countless pigs. Some random fucker impregnated her, she got pregnant and raised this basta...

Just then a small black-and-white photograph fell out of his wallet. She was holding him, hugging him, kissing him on his cheek, totally unconscious of the camera. And she did not look elderly. She was a girl, then. A child-mother. Her son picked up the photograph from the floor. Just a moment back he was panicking, but the moment his gaze fell on the photograph, there was certain steadiness about him. That photograph, the shared memory of a shared life... it was the anchor to a puny boat tossing in a tumultuous ocean that he was. A light smile played on his lips, and he placed the photograph back.

How could this bastard smile?!! What right has he got to smile. His mother is a fucking whore! Is he not ashamed? Is he not contaminated?

His smile too hit her like a barb. This bastard... Her mind jolted to a halt mid-thought. I have called so many men bastards in real life, yet they were all legitimate. But, this guy, he's truly a bastard and... And, I don't know what is wrong! Why did he smile? Why does he not hate his mother? She's a fucking whore? How could that be?

In the meantime, he produced the old prescription. Relief was writ all over his face. As if producing the prescription was the most important thing to cure his mother. In a way it was. That was the best he could do. Her head was now spinning faster. She had never known ambivalence could be so hard to bear. She had got so used to judging people! 'Good', 'bad', 'ugly', 'cruel', 'nice', 'interesting', 'asshole', 'whore', bastard'... But this guy, her contempt did not just touch him! Her judgment felt flat before his smile, That guileless, proud, smile. A smile with knowledge of an anchor to smile for. A smile for a reason. A smile with no reason. A smile, simply for existing, and being proud of that existence. He lived on an entirely different plane. And so must his mother, a fucking whore. By now, she was not even sure if 'whore' and 'bastard' were any longer vehicles of contempt. Oh, they were just... they were just a mode of existing - external trappings, conveying nothing about the beauty of the soul within.

So, this guy he does not even know who his father was. His mother brought him up with utmost dedication. He kept on loving her like any child would. What the world thought of his mother was not important to him. He knew what his mother meant for him, and what he meant for her. She is everything for him. He is everything for her. They are happy! Save this minor inconvenience of syphilis. Fucking bastards!

She smiled. She had somehow fallen in love with those words now. Her mind returned to her mother. And her uncle. Replaying everything right from the time of her dad's death. In her attempt to keep herself from being happy, she had replayed everything a countless times. She had not come to terms with it. Actually, she was afraid that she might.

Uncle, a widower since two years, who had been on very good terms with dad and us, helped us out of that chaos. He too was grieved. He had run around to get so many works done. Mom and I were incapable of doing that. We never realized, how many hassles must have been there to claim insurance money, the property papers and what not. We were just busy grieving and wallowing in our self-pity. Just like mom and I, mom and he too were united in their grief. They spent lot of time together, trying to pick up the threads of their life. I had my studies, my job to keep me busy. I had other things to look forward to, to plan ahead. What did they have? They both had a vacuum to fill. They both could fill a vacuum. That's it! They fell in love! Why the hell did I get so much bothered? I jealous of mom's happiness? How could I be? What kind of pathetic child I am? Had I accepted the society's terms that someone's death means eternal grieving. That feeling happiness is a sin? Why did I so eagerly embrace the guilt, the melancholy that the society is ever willing to distribute? Oh, fuck! What was I doing? How could I think that way about my mom? Yes, so what if she wanted to feel happy? What's wrong with the sincere warmth they both are sharing? Why should I let our contractual guilt and grief come in between?

"Yeh injections hain, jo pehale diye the wahi hain. Aur do hafton tak lagaane honge. Aur, aur kahin mat jaana, mere paas hi dikhaane aana" [I'm prescribing the same injections she had been taking before and will have to be used for two more weeks. Come to show me after that, and do not go to show any other doctor], she said as she handed over the prescription. "Woh photo dikhaana" [Show me that photo (please)!]. He was somewhat taken aback, but gave it to her. She looked intently at it, and recalled days from her childhood. "Bahut pyaari photo hai." [A very lovely photo!].
"Thank you, madam!" The mother-son duo obviously, a bit surprised at her sudden turnaround, shuffled out of the room.

She reached back home. She did not know how to face her mother. A most wonderful mother for whom her filthy mind had thought the most degraded thoughts and had engendered so much hatred. She realized, they were not united by grief, but were instead grieving in unison. Grieving was as an end in itself. Because... because, she had no answer. Because perhaps, she had accepted happiness to be a vice. Guilt and grief were virtues. Ha!

She looked at her mom, who had just asked, "how is your headache, beta?". She started crying! She was a sinner. She had sinned against her mother. Would she ever be able to confess. Would she ever be able to forgive herself?

She jerked off her mother's loving hand that was on her shoulder.

"Don't touch me, mom! I'm contaminated."

Counterintuitive Ideas on Career-Choice

Do not make that you are most passionate about, your source of livelihood

That is what I have told many people who I interact with online. A few disclaimers are in order, though. I have not yet practically begun my career, so great portion of my analysis is purely conjectural. Also, the above idea if taken as an advise would apply particularly to those who are faced with the prospect of making a career-related choice (in India). Of course, others who are already into their careers, and armed with the benefit of a hind-sight can provide their feedback.

I will begin with an anecdote.

---

During my MBBS-days, I had come in close contact with my psychiatry teacher. I would rate him as one of the best teachers I ever had. In a seminar a group of students was to present, it became apparent that even two years after the completion of his postgraduation course, he was remembering the respective functions of alpha-subunits (click) of various G-proteins (click). Those readers to who this statement won't make sense, suffice to say that his study was very detailed and he must have really loved his books and the field of psychiatry to have remembered all that. In short time he had become my idol. I had really started loving psychiatry, yet something was holding me back from thinking of it as a serious career-choice. Of course, he never nudged me into trying to take up psychiatry as a career, but on taking a stock of my own feelings, I concluded that my reservation was owing to the fact that despite knowing in great details the causes of many conditions at even molecular level, we as clinicians cannot do much to correct the 'root' causes!

This because, we cannot make the right molecule reach the right part of the brain to act on it. Molecules of any drug will reach even those parts of brain where nothing is wrong, and cause undesired effects. This in turn is because, brain actually uses a very limited number of molecules (called neurotransmitters [click]) to carry out the countless functions it performs. What brings specificity are not as much the particular type of neurtotransmitter released or the specific receptor for it, but more so the way the neurons are 'wired' to each other. E.g. a nerotransmitter 'M' when released by neroun '1' when acting on receptor 'R1' present on neuron '2' can activate it. In turn the neuron '2' activates neuron '3' by releasing molecule 'N' acting on receptor 'R2' present on the latter. Thus, final effect of release of M by neuron 1 would be the activation of neruon 3. But what if, instead of 'R1' present on neuron 2, we have receptor 'R3', which inhibits its function instead of activating it? Obviously, release of M by neuron 1 would cause inhibition of release of N, and neuron 3 would tend to remain inactivated. So now, think of a disorder wherein neurons in one region of the brain produce less of M. To counter this deficiency, if we deliver an oral dose of a drug that would enhance availability of M to neuron 2 it can compensate for the deficiency, right? The drug molecules upon crossing the blood brain barrier (click) will reach the fluid bathing the glial cells (click) that surround the individual neurons. The glial cells in turn would modulate the amount of drug reaching neuron 2. Now, the problem is that not all regions of brain are deficient in M! So the regions with normally functioning type 1 neurons will also receive additional amounts of M (because the administered drug would be supposed to do that). So, obviously depending upon whether neuron 2 in other regions inhibits or activates the 'downstream' neuron 3, this situation would result in derangement of many functions. Plus, not to mention the difficulty in making most drugs cross the blood brain barrier.

Of course, I did not have to explain what I wrote in the preceding paragraph to my teacher. It was only for the benefit of the reader. So our means to target specific disorders of brain (prominently, psychiatric disorders) are very limited. And that would remain so for the foreseeable future. This limitation would lead to imminent feeling of helplessness and frustration. The bottomline is: I had decided against being a psychiatrist. Some days before that, to look up something he had shown me one of his texts on psychiatry. It was a two (or three, I don't remember for sure)-volume set (easily over 3,000 pages in all), and it must be said that he had read each and every page more than once. I was surprised and impressed with his dedication. I mentioned that to him, so he smiled and showed me yet another textbook a with one volume more than the previous one, and which he had similarly 'ill-treated'! ;) Also, as a clinician, he was gentle and empathetic with patients. I realized, it takes a lot for a psychiatrist to not get emotionally involved with the patients. They cannot afford to do so. So, they take refuge in humor. But despite that he had never been contemptuous of patients and used to take great care in maintaining confidentiality despite the fact that most patients coming to that hospital were poor and quite uneducated, so there would be little chance of litigation; I was left with little doubt that this person just loved psychiatry. A lot. And that he was also a very suitable to be a psychiatrist.

He was to quit the college job to start his own practice in one of the bigger towns in Maharashtra. He had this fascination to have his own practice. He made his intentions clear that he would like to lead a comfortable life and earn sufficiently for that. His wife is a dermatologist. So, I could not make out how much would he have liked to earn! Anyway, for many people, private medical practice is enticing not merely because it would offer them chance to earn more (which by the way, does not happen in many cases), but also because it satisfies their entrepreneurial urges. At that time (in 2004-05) his and his wife's monthly salary had been Rs. 18,000 each. And he was 30. Obviously, it was a very low pay. But he explained that the situation was much the same in any college (now pay scales are better owing to implementation of the sixth pay commission).

So off he went to the town he had chosen. A few weeks later, he had returned to the college for some work. And as we were having a chat, he mentioned in passing that he had joined the local laughter club in his town. I was amused. I asked him if he indeed believed in the purported health benefits of such laughing. He told me, he had joined the club not for any health benefits, but for networking - to come into contact with more people, which in turn would bring him more patients (and more money)!

I was shattered.

---

Here was a man, perfect in my eyes to practice as a psychiatrist, also quite ethical, who loved psychiatry, and yet he had to resort to such dishonorable means to get patients to earn money? To me it was like his cheating on his love - the field of psychiatry. I cannot yet describe how I had felt listening to him say that. Did he care any longer for psychiatry? Would he still try to remember the G-protein subtypes? Would he still be curious to understand what was wrong with the patient or would he be more interested in getting the patient to come back to him only to dry the patient's pockets, or earn money from 'cuts' (anecdotally, the 30% commission) received by referring the patient for other (needless) investigations and consultations? I want to clarify here, that what had shocked me was not his eagerness to earn money, or even some of the unethical means that he might have come to use in the process, but what had happened between him and psychiatry! He had loved it. And, now?

I concluded that what we are most passionate about is like a romantic relationship. We hold highly idealistic views of our objects of love. We hold them in high regard. We reserve the best we could be for them, otherwise we would be afraid of defiling them. Imagine, having to lie on some very vital matter to someone you love and respect, how difficult is it? A lot, at least for me. But making that passion a means of sustenance is like marrying it! The attraction gradually dies. The small things we dislike about it amplify and start grating on our nerves. The compulsion to earn using what we are passionate about makes us hate what we had loved to begin with. This compulsion also compels us into making 'adjustments' in how we do what we do with our passion. It starts seeming like we are prostituting our skills and abilities and the passion that would have gone in acquiring them only to earn damn money!

To say the same thing in somewhat different words, when you earn, you are the supply, your client is the demand. More often than not owing to market forces, it is the demand that shapes the nature of supply. The supply cannot be arrogant to say, "hey dude, here's what I got. You want it? No? Sorry, look elsewhere", because our dude would indeed look elsewhere! As an obvious corollary, the supply has to mold according to what the demand is.

Of course, 'reasonable' compromises can be made with our passion. Really? Remember, wasn't your passion your Divine? If it was not, it was never passion in the first place. Wasn't it something that you had held dearest to you, always maintaining its sanctity, never defiling it? Wasn't that passion, the manner in which you let it unfold, an embodiment of what you were, what your deepest values and aspirations were? Now you have come to this, that you want to make reasonable compromises with it, eh? So, now your Divine is no longer Divine, but an agreeable neighbor who you could approach in times of need, or much worse, your 'host' who you parasite upon like a leech?

To give my example, I love to: observe; make sense of what I get to observe; think; organize my thoughts and articulate them in the most precise fashion possible through words. It is one of the greatest passions of mine. What would happen if I make a career out of it? E.g., if I have a mechanism for receiving donations on my blog, and each time I write something humorous I get Rs. 200, but each time I write on religion and god - criticizing the two, I get nothing. What would happen if my survival were to depend on how much money I make through blogging? Each time I feel like blogging on atheism, would I be able to do it with same passion and honesty as without any concern for how my write up is received?

Think of a school science teacher. What if she enjoys teaching concepts by giving analogies, and also likes to enlist the applications of such concepts? What if she enjoys making students think, and see their eyes fill with wonder on understanding something novel about something ubiquitous? But as you know, that is not what our education and exams are about! They are about mundane facts, or how to underline the most important "points" while answering; how to best convince the evaluator that you know the answers (irrespective of whether you actually know)! What if students do not want to learn what she teaches? Then our teacher might come down to the level of merely dictating notes. Or, if the students are to appear for entrance exams, and if the said teacher would be teaching in some 'coaching institute' then she would share 'tricks', 'shortcuts' and mnemonics with them. What would happen to science and her love for it; that would get buried somewhere? Can you imagine how miserable would she feel?

This clash between demand and supply has been very well exemplified by Howard Roark (click), the architect from Ayn Rand's (click) novel - 'The Fountainhead'. Though a great fan of Ayn Rand and her vision, I am stating here something almost contradictory to the 'moral' of her story. In her story, Roark triumphs against his adversaries. His complete antithesis - Peter Keating (mentioned in the same Wikipedia article on Roark) - initially succeeds a lot as an architect. Keating's only drives are approval by others and money. In the process, he loses everything - including the only one thing he had truly loved in all his life - his friend of childhood - Catherine. While, what happened to Keating is very likely to happen in real life, Howard Roark was plain lucky! Also, he had this incredible amount of tolerance. Tolerance of contempt, tolerance of physical hardships, tolerance of deceptions, tolerance of slow rate at which time passed (in other words, patience he showed in waiting for Dominique Francon to understand that he could not allow 'others' to dictate to him what he did with his life, and that what others thought of his work was not a determinant of whether he should do it), tolerance for failures. The only thing he did not have was tolerance for derision of his Divine, i.e., his vision of what buildings should be like. His Divine was intensely personal to him - he could not tolerate others' touching his building-designs, more specifically, the functionality behind them (Rand had sought to use functionality of building designs as the counterpart of 'truthfulness' in one's way of living). His vision of his Divine was sacrosanct to him. Others' visions, if not backed by the same passion, were mere contaminants for him. All this might make him seem arrogant, to be so unaccommodating, but what endeared him to me was his frank admission of the same! He had one true love - architecture - and he stayed loyal to it. On many occasions, by trading off his comfort and prospects of fulfillment of other desires. Thus, Howard Roark for me became the perfect human being that could be envisioned! He was my Divine (click), and still is. But I am not trying to emulate him. I know I do not have it in me to live the way he had. In fact, Ayn Rand had herself alluded to the fact that her (exemplary) characters are not to be found in the real life, but were extreme idealizations of traits that could be found in some extraordinary humans.To paraphrase her (and in turn, Aristotle), she had wanted to present characters, not as humans are, but could be and ought to be. And she had juxtaposed those perfect characters with the contemporary imperfect world, which was quite adversarial to perfection (as envisioned by Rand). She wanted to highlight the conflicts that perfection had to engage in to be able to survive in its purest form.

So, what is the solution? Should one abandon what one is most passionate about, and totally forget it, only for the fear of the difficulties that the world would pose?

In a way, yes. But of course, not totally. It is not as bad as it might sound. I think it is best to pursue what one generally likes but also has a few misgivings about as one's vocation (for income). This will ensure two things. First, you would be sensitized to the possibilities of disappointment and frustration. If your fears indeed turn out true, you would be emotionally prepared for that. Also, as you would not have invested all your emotions in the 'also-liked' activity, you would still have lot many things to look forward to in your life if your career does not shape up exactly the way you had wanted. The second thing that this would ensure is that you will still have fascination for your passion. Your romance with it can continue on the side. You can pursue it as your amateur interest, doing exactly what you want, exactly on your own terms, without any care of who says what or how much you get to earn from pursuing it. Additionally, one can use that amateur hobby as a source of supplementary income (e.g., photography, painting, writing, etc.). Another related idea is to try to save sufficiently in the early parts of your career, and when you have requisite financial security, you could try making a career out of your passion.

Of course, not all career-options are open to amateur pursuit. E.g., joining the army or being a civil engineer or a doctor. But if one looks at such choices carefully, it must be asked, how can one develop passion for them without any exposure to the actual work involved in those fields? I have seen many adolescents/children get fascinated by the white coat, the stethoscope and the respect that doctors command. But that is not what medical practice is about! Fascination for such things hardly amounts to passion! And I'm afraid, quite a few teenagers harbor wrong impressions about what a particular field of work entails.

Also, despite my never having been to any western country, I feel people there do not need to be as much apprehensive while selecting their career for many reasons. First, there seems to be lesser competition for college 'seats'. Second, work ethics are better, so it is easier to like one's work there (whereas, the situations seems to be quite the opposite in India!). Third, the society is more accepting of various kinds of career choices. There would not be neighbors or relatives gossipping about an unconventional career choice one makes. Also, they are more accommodating in general of choices people make. E.g., someone aged thirty-five making a career switch would not be ridiculed by his 15 years younger class mates, but in all likelihood would still be respected for exploring new things. Fourth, owing to greater availability of college seats it is easier to make a career switch. Fifth, on the whole less effort is required to be able to afford the basic amenities for living. Meaning, even if one makes a bad career choice, and income would be less, their existence would not be 'hand-to-mouth' so to say. Whereas in India, vast majority of employed people have to struggle real hard for even basic survival.

So basically through the preceding paragraph, I just wanted to point out that the extreme paranoia that forms the backdrop of my entire argument, would apply only to India or few other countries with comparable social milieu and economic condition.

I am aware that given the extremely loud message conveyed by the media (in form of career advise in 'educational' supplements) and movies like 3 idiots (click) of to go for career involving one's passion, my arguments to some might seem extremely wacky or deliberate attempt to be stand in opposition to common sense. However, that of course is not the case. :)

Your thoughts are welcome!

Ethics in Tangents: Part 1 - Lessons on Inequity of Risks and Benefits

In a lecture on radiation safety, the teacher had veered a bit into the ethics of peaceful uses of nuclear energy. He explained that it has to be ensured that those working at nuclear establishments for larger good of the society (e.g., energy production, diagnosis & treatment in medicine) despite facing risks to health & life, must be adequately compensated as not all the benefits that arise off their work go to those working. A logic similar in line has been laid out by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (IRCP) [click] in their (PDF) document on their History, Policies, Principles (click to download):

For equity reasons (because those who are exposed are not necessarily those who gain by a practice) some dose or risk limitation is necessary to prevent the optimised situation from being one where a few individuals receive inappropriately high doses.

It was agreed between the teacher and the students that that compensation to the workers is in the form of the salary they draw. But that got me thinking: is that really so, more so in the government-controlled nuclear establishments in India? Do those working at high-risk places get higher pay as compared to those doing the same work in low-risk environments? Does for instance, an office clerk working in precincts of a nuclear establishment draw a larger salary than one working in a college administrative office? Answer, as of now is “no”. Why is that so?

My above thoughts were tangential to what was being discussed in the class (though, I would return to them later). The teacher went on to assert that if nuclear establishment worker gets monetarily compensated for the risk he/she takes, then the converse must also hold true, i.e., all those who derive benefit from existence of such establishments must face a non-zero quantum of risk. Well, that made perfect sense to me. And that is how he justified the risks posed to the general public by the operation of facilities with radioinuclides [click] (those forms of elements that emit ionizing radiation, which have potential for health hazards). As an aside, I came across this (click) blog post, which explains how risks posed by waste routinely generated from nuclear power plants have been overestimated by many [note: the article does not cite many sources, moreover, it does not cover risks posed by nuclear accidents, but to the best of my knowledge is quite correct].

Later, the teacher also explained how the principle of ALARA (click) - As Low As Reasonably Achievable that the ICRP uses for (radiation) dose-optimization has a flaw. Why what risk (radiation dose) I find reasonable for the benefits I derive, should also be reasonable to my neighbor? What alternative does one who applies most stringent threshold for radiation exposure have if the majority in an area consent to a higher dose? This led me to think about the representative form of governance. It allows a small number of people to take decisions on behalf of a very large number of people who ironically would be influenced much greatly by such decisions. So possibly, not just a minority, but even the majority in a constituency could be opposed to construction and operation of nuclear establishment in their vicinity, and yet the government (small number of individuals) would have the legitimate authority to overrule such a wish. But this ethical predicament is taken care of by the assumption that the electorate would choose with greatest conviction (and hence, numbers) a person they trust the most to take decisions in their best interest. This was just an offshoot of thoughts in my mind, and I would not like to comment any further on this aspect of representative form of democracy.

Returning to one of the original predicaments: why would a clerk working for a nuclear establishment in India not be paid more than another clerk working in an administrative office of a college despite the former facing a greater risk to health and life? It is not difficult to answer – unemployment. Of course, there could be other reasons too for the said clerk not demanding a higher pay, e.g., ignorance of the risks posed by working there. But yet, I believe the biggest reason is unemployment. The state of employment market, even in government sector, whether we realize or not, is greatly influenced by demand-supply factors. The said clerk does not have any bargaining power. The moment he would say, “I want higher pay for the additional risk I would be facing”, the government would tell, “fuck off! Next!”. So obviously, our clerk is not going to make such a plea. Because he would know that there are many people with his kind of abilities seeking livelihood. If not him, someone else would take his place. This brings us to a somewhat intuitively obvious inference – the money that can be earned from doing a job is a function of:

1. Number of people wanting a job done. Greater the demand for a job, greater would be the pay.

2. Number of people willing to do that job. More the number of people willing to do the job, greater would be the bargaining power of those wanting the job done. Thus lesser would be the amount paid.

3. Number of people capable of doing that job. Greater the skill/training/experience a particular job requires, fewer would be the people capable of doing that job.

While, I had been vaguely aware of above factors, I was made to think more about them during one of my train journeys from Delhi to Mumbai. I had a very heavy luggage with me, mostly consisting of books - could have exceeded 100 kg. Whatever be the exact weight, I had to engage a porter to carry my luggage to the platform. I had another friend with me, and what the porters had demanded was exorbitant amount – to the tune of Rs. 800 for all the luggage. Seeing the weight of luggage, I was alright with that amount, but my friend was not. So, we engaged only two porters instead of three or four that would have been required. The arrangement obviously required us to carry quite a bit of luggage ourselves – covering a distance of about 300 m. By the time we had accomplished the task we were totally exhausted, and needless to say, a few of our muscles must have got pulled. But for me, the ordeal was not over yet! My train was scheduled to depart a couple of hours after my friend's – and from a different platform! Basically, I had accompanied him from the hostel for the sake of keeping him company. Before he boarded his train, we had engaged another porter to shift my luggage to the platform where my train was to arrive. He and I had carried some luggage so that only one porter would be required. But it so turned out that my train coach was to stop at a faraway point from where we had parked my luggage. So, I had no option but to ask yet another porter to carry my luggage from the original position to the appropriate spot on the platform - this time, just to transfer the luggage form one segment of the platform to another. Weirdly, there were no trolleys at the New Delhi railway station. I suspect, it could be because of the lobbying by porters' association as that would increase their earning. But that is besides the point. The third (and the last time) I had required porter's service, I was so exhausted (and also in pain), that how much I was paying was least of my concerns! It could be pointed out that I could have better planned the whole thing, and saved some odd hundred or so rupees, but again that is besides the point. The incident brought one thing to my attention. Whatever amount one pays the porter, it is basically less than what he 'deserves'. You might ask how?

My inference follows from one assumption, i.e., “no one likes to part with the money they have”. So, if you pay amount 'x' to the porter, you've the option of not giving that money. How? By carrying your luggage yourself. Carrying luggage is a very simple job – it does not require much specialized skill. Yes, if you are alone, then you might not be able to carry the luggage yourself, as you might have to make more than one round to carry all of it. But in most cases, people hire a porter's service because they are uncomfortable doing the job themselves. It is to avoid exhaustion and pain that carrying the luggage would cause. So, if despite having the option to carry the luggage yourself, and not lose the amount x in the process, that you agree to lose it only proves that you would have not carried that much luggage for someone else to earn amount x. Now just pause for a moment and think:

For what amount of money would you be ready to carry for someone else the same luggage that you ask the porter to carry?

I believe, some of the middle class/upper middle class or upper class persons would feel offended at being asked such a question. But that is not totally besides the point. Just kindly note the contempt some might feel for the job of carrying others' luggage or for the persons doing so, so much so that this question itself would lead to perceived offense. Anyway, returning to the point. For instance, on that day I had to pay up around Rs. 300 to the porters. Would I carry that much luggage as the porters did for me for someone else for Rs. 300? No, I will not. Yet, I felt the porters had charged me pretty steeply! Is that not weird? How much would I charge to carry that much luggage? I indeed thought about it. Not less than Rs. 2000!

My current income is stipendiary. In not very distant future, I would get to earn at least Rs. 2000 per day, doing almost totally sedentary work. Would I like to earn my livelihood the way those porters do? Definitely not. Would the porter like to earn his livelihood the way I would get to do? Almost certainly yes. Which means, the work he is doing is much more difficult than what I would be doing to earn, yet he earns significantly less than what I would. And as obvious corollary, I would earn much better than him despite doing a more pleasant and less painful job. Is something not strange about this equation?

Of course, it is not difficult to figure out that this situation has come about because relatively fewer people would have gained my kind of knowledge and training as compared to the bare minimum 'skills' required to carry heavy luggage. But at least in countries like India, do all people really get the opportunity, and subsequent choice of how to earn their livelihood? So though we do largely have free job market as far as influence that demand and supply exercise on amounts paid by people in return of services is concerned, but it has got highly monopolized. It has got monopolized because acquisition of those skills that enable earning relatively easily are beyond reach of the majority of population. The porters who had carried my luggage must have never got the opportunity to acquire those skills. Their children are unlikely to get opportunity to get the education to escape out of what has almost become a vicious cycle.

The realization of this inequity of opportunities is not new for me. Apart from movies, TV programs and short stories in textbooks that had sensitized me to these harsh realities, what had brought me face-to-face with them was my stay in a hostel during my graduation. There in the mess, as helps we used to have boys – some of them could have been below the age of 14 years (which would qualify as “child labour” in India, and is illegal). That it was illegal was the least of the problems with the situation. Those who are aware of the ground realities in India would appreciate that there is no infrastructure to support such children. Their parents are usually so poor that despite government (claiming to) provide free education and mid-day meal, etc., children who do not start working are seen as liabilities by parents. It is also possible that a few of them could be orphans.

A vast majority of students (the GenNext, if you may) were so comfortable with ordering them around. Scolding them for food badly prepared by the cook. Some of the angry students would not shy from using incestual expletives (“mother fucker”, e.g.). I am not saying, ”Haww, students were so indecent as to use 'bad words'”, but what had always shocked me was the comfort and the authority with which that contempt was held. The acceptance of master-slave relationship was mutual and apparent on both sides. The idea that one set of human beings were “first class”, and another set were “second class” was so strongly ingrained in the collective psyche that I used to find the environment nauseating. I am not a very intrusive person by nature. So I hardly said anything to anyone. Yet, to some of the closer friends, I used to point out if they were to get rude in terms of ”what is his fault”? Since they were close to me, my friends would apologize to me, and correct their behavior for some time. However, what I could invariably notice was that they would do so because they would feel their behavior had not been 'proper', or because they should be 'nice' to people. In other words, even the courtesy shown (upon prompting) was an outcome of self-serving narcissism. The very fundamental idea of egalitarianism never occurred to them. It never occurred to them that the people they were putting in a mental effort to be 'nice' with, were just as much humans as them, and that they had as much right as them to live, to breath the same air as them, to just be happy! Just because they were bringing food from the kitchen for them, and carrying their plates back after they would have finished their meal does not in any way push them to a lower stratum. The work they were doing was a service, for which they were being paid. Seeing those children, some of who were only a few years younger than me (I had entered the hostel at the age of 17), I used to remain in a state of perennial guilt:

As compared to them, what different have I done to deserve these opportunities in life? How are the ways of the world such that these children are seen as inferior beings as compared to me? What is their fault? How in the scheme of things of the world, they had become the lower stratum of the society, the secondary citizens? Whatever I am today or I will be in future, as compared to these kids, would always remain undeserved - however 'hard' I work towards it.

Somewhere down the line, I had happened to read Ayn Rand's (click) two novels - 'The Fountainhead' and 'Atlas shrugged'. I had become (and still am) quite impressed with the philosophy contained therein. But I realized two things about the main characters in the novels:

1. All of them might have had to struggle, but yet the society was never such that they would be deprived of basic education. Probably, the poorest of them all - Gail Waynand and Howard Roark (both found in The Fountainhead) had at least basic education [latter, in fact, had brought such circumstances upon himself that he was expelled from one of the better American architecture schools].

2. None of the major characters themselves had children. Only one of the somewhat prominent characters - Jed Starnes had children. He had died suddenly and hence had not had the opportunity to prepare his will (recalling from memory).

Despite the fact that Ayn Rand had spent her childhood in the erstwhile USSR, it seems she had not come across the kind of poverty and utter lack of opportunities to even study and gain knowledge to become 'employable' with some bargaining power - that are seen in India. The reason perhaps her characters did not have children was because she might have not wanted them to face the ethical dilemma of how much time, money and emotions to invest in the children in case they would not turn out to be with same value system as their own. The central theme of her novels, as far as I could make out was: to value people in proportion to their attributes that could be objectively adjudged as 'valuable'. Thus, children pose unique ethical predicament. On one hand parents owe them their nurture (investment of time, effort and emotions) because, children are never party to the decision of bringing them to life, i.e., children's consent as to whether they would like to live and risk being unhappy or in pain, is never sought, which makes it obligatory on parents to try to provide them with such resources that children do not regret their parents' unilateral (parents as one party) of bringing them to life. But on the other hand, objectivist philosophy would demand that one devote one's time, money and emotions in persons only in proportion to their worth as determined by their attributes. However, children either do not possess any pervasive attributes, or if those attributes make them disfavored candidates to receive nurture, then what to do? I can imagine, Rand's characters would bequeath their property and money, not to family members, but to some capable employee or colleague. But that is so unusual in our society! Perhaps to escape this dilemma Rand's major characters did not have any children! I have not read the other works of Ayn Rand, so it is possible she might have dealt with this issue elsewhere, though I find it hard to understand how she could have resolved such a complex problem (perhaps she did not have any child despite being married for over 50 years to the same person).

The reason I discussed the above concept was to explain, how the concept of inheritance is ethically flawed. And it is inheritance of parents' nurture (and the opportunities that come with it), affluence, social status, etc. that basically leads to monopolization of resources to acquire 'higher-order' skills that are required to gain greater bargaining skills in the employment market (education and vocational training). This concept of inheritance brings with it a strange condition, wherein, whether a person will die of hunger before turning five, or would struggle as a child laborer, or enjoy a middle class education and opportunities for 'upward mobility' through the social and economic strata, or would be born at the very top with the proverbial silver spoon in the mouth - are determined to a very great degree and in current Indian economic situation irreversibly so by just one factor - PURE CHANCE. In absolute terms, a child before even getting to commit any acts so as to display recognizable traits, which in turn would be required to determine 'what' the child deserves as a person ('good' v/s 'bad' things), becomes largely destined to one or the other social and economic stratum. All this happens without the humanity getting an opportunity to determine how 'deserving' the child is and of what!

The situation is so bad in India possibly because means to basic survival are much more difficult to acquire here than in the Western countries, which in turn, I feel are because of India's high fertility rate and population density.

Now, trying to apply all that I had inferred and speculated in this free-wheeling write up up till now, let us assume India's population density would have been less than what it is now:

1. The porter who carried my luggage would have had access to much better education. This because, the overall production of goods (needed for basic survival) would remain the same (most of the rural population currently is afflicted with high degree of disguised unemployment), but would be distributed among much fewer people. Hence, the porter's parents would not be worried about having their household income augmented by making their son work.

2. He might have become a teacher or a clerk or a doctor or an engineer.

3. There would have been much fewer porters at the New Delhi railway station.

4. Whoever would now be the porter at the railway station would have had much better bargaining power. Possibly, he would have earned more than Rs. 5000 a day instead of Rs. 500 that he currently might be earning.

5. His children would also get to study in schools and be at par with 'middle class' as far as opportunities for skill acquisition would be concerned.

6. Because there would be a paucity of porters, coupled with his good income, he would be respected.

Almost the same analysis as above could be applied to helps in the hostel mess. Likewise, those working at nuclear establishments would be able to realistically demand a higher pay for risking their lives and health.

Those who manage to read this post till the end might be wondering, what is the big deal?! Meaning, everyone knows that India's large population (density) is a liability. Apart from delineating the inferences I could draw from mundane experiences, and discussing broadly their ramifications in the field of ethics (something that we understand intuitively, but never get into the details of), one of the goals was to show how India's large population density is has implications in areas as seemingly unrelated as nature of interpersonal relationships. It is not difficult to understand that with such acute differences in rights and opportunities that arise with economic disparities, friction amongst various classes is imminent. The incentive to move to the higher strata is much stronger. The idea of social hierarchy is so very deeply ingrained in our collective psyche that we never realize that it represents something very wrong! E.g., an educated (and higher earning) boss would be entitled to humiliate a comparably educated subordinate only because we love hierarchies! So, likewise the disincentive to stay in one's socioeconomic strata is also very strong. No wonder, the worst target of these prevailing factors is ethics. Everything becomes fair in love and war. And everything becomes love and war. Upward mobilization is what counts.

To summarize:

1. Less desirable jobs should be high paying.

2. India's overwhelming population density and accompanying poverty and paucity of material resources leads children into child labor. This pushes basic education and skill acquisition beyond reach of many children.

3. These children even after growing up remain poor bargainers when it comes to compensation for the extremely physically challenging and monotonous work they do (despite the fact that I proved above that they automatically deserve much more than what they get - from the porter's example).

4. People with only very basic skills are held in contempt because of their poverty and abundance of such persons. As a consequence, sharp socioeconomic stratification emerges.

5. The sharpness of this stratification leads to abandoning of ethicality in one conducts in favor of practices that can earn one money. E.g., this leads to ills like nepotism, corruption and other crimes.

6. Children of deprived parents enter the same cycle as above and produce more children, who in turn enter the same cycle.

7. This cycle can be broken! Not so much by providing more universal schooling, but by decreasing the population density, for which fertility rates will have to come down, for which in turn better education and awareness need to be created! Ah, so it might not be that easy to break the cycle, after all.

My pessimism in this regard had been broken only once by Atanu Dey in his blog post - There’s only so Much that Needs to Get Done (click).

A small note: Given India's energy crisis, I find nuclear energy a very good means of energy production. I find the fears instilled by some environmental pressure groups to be exaggerated greatly. The solution lies not in shunning nuclear energy as an option altogether, but to improve the levels of professionalism across the populations and vocations. Directly or indirectly the high cost of energy (whether required to run automobiles and locomotives or to light our houses) is a strong contributing factor to India's being behind in manufacturing sector, and also for high inflation. Latter further perpetuates the vicious cycle of poverty.

Possible conflict of interest: Area of my work is going to involve nuclear technology. But which also means, I am better aware of the risks posed by radiation exposure vis-a-vis other losses that not using this technology would entail.

What I love about Ram Gopal Varma

This is not the manner in which I had planned to write about him, but Ram Gopal Varma's (click) style of movie making had always impressed me. No, I have not watched Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag (click), and doing so might not change my views about his abilities. Because even if I were ever to watch and dislike it, it does not negate all that I had passionately cherished in his cinema and held dear to me. Also, there are too many prominent movies associated with him that I have not watched, yet - Satya (click), Darna mana hai (click), Sarkar Raj (click), Rann (click), etc.

The way he knows human psychology, which is absolutely essential for playing with our minds is simply awe-inspiring. And when I say psychology, I do not mean that concerning easily discernible gross events or emotions, but more so, how we respond to visuals and sounds. Behind some of the most chilling and provocative sounds, camera positions, lighting and facial expressions is a very astute mind that knows how the human mind reacts, given a particular stimulus.

Here, I will mention a few small things from his movies that have always stayed with me.

1. Vaastu shastra (click).

On the whole, the beauty of this movie was that it had presented the stories in gaps. Meaning, for many episodes, just the beginning and the ending were shown, and their spookiness lay in the viewer imaginingg how exactly the gap must have got filled, and this had required a proactive viewer and not a passive one.

1.a. The opening titles. The way the opening titles had floated in free space in a dark background had made me aware of their meanness and an inescapable imminence.

1.b. The conviction of the young boy - Rohan in talking of Manish and Jyoti. His confidence in talking of them was frightening. Not for a single instance did he plead with his parents to assuage their disbelief or ridicule. His confidence was unnerving for me as a viewer. This confidence coupled with background awareness a few 'wrong' things happening in that house, in light of his parents' utter ignorance of all those things had instilled a perverse curiosity in me to know what was to happen ahead.

1.c. The manner in which the tennis ball kills the maid. Well, to be specific it was not how the maid was killed that had got impressed upon my mind, but how the ball travels back as if having a life of its own, then in the end it climbs up the cupboard and nearly comes to rest making me think the scene had "ended", when the camera frame shifts ever so slightly to the right, and shows us Manish grabbing the ball with his hand. This last thing was a most unexpected surprise. There was nothing jerky in the way the entire scene was captured, and yet the manner in which the body of Manish emerges from the right edge of the frame and his stark whiteness in contrast with the background gives the viewer that totally unexpected moment. His facial expression is not one of happiness or anger or sadness, but of unshakeable resolve - again alluding to some kind of inevitability accounted for by nothing else but his unadulterated resolve.

1.d. The ladder leading to the top of the Banyan tree. This is the prime example of the dealing in gaps that I had talked of. The camera pans upwards and a nonchalant Rohan is seen sitting cozily very high up. While movies like Exorcist would have tried to make the scene scary by showing him climb up in some unnatural manner, this movie does no such thing. All the viewer gets to see is the "end" of the scene without showing how he climbed up. Also, the way the tree house at the top looks, it has a certain alien feel to it, one of belonging not to "us" but something else. This effect was probably achieved by sheer height and also a camera angle that made the top of the ladder converge like the apex of a very long isosceles triangle.

One of the bugging elements of the movie was the sinister kid laughter. It was rather interfering with the viewer experience than adding to it. Some of the slow undulations of the camera, which had given the scenes a 'floating-in-the-ship' kind of feel were also irritating.

You can read a very detailed review of this movie at Army of Monkeys (click), which I have not read yet. ;)

One thing I would want to say about watching horror movies is that they cannot be enjoyed if one goes with a confrontational attitude akin to I dare the movie maker to be able to scare me. Rather, to completely enjoy such movies requires a proactive viewer who would try to anticipate at each step what would happen ahead, so that getting surprised would be made possible!

2. Sarkar. The thing in the movie that had affected me the most was the dull thud of dumbell at the beginnig of the movie when the alleged rapist had been killed. The dullness was again one of those devices that had scared me because of my ability to empathize. The first thing that had come to my mind was - "I would not like to be there, hit like that"! It was that effective. Some other manner of killing like liters of blood splattering all around or something involving fast, jerky motion would dazzle or excite the viewer, but not necessarily frighten.

Towards the end, the unshakable expression on Rashid's face despite his inevitable death was something that had made me uncomfortable. Here was a man, who in the context of the movie was a villain, a wrongdoer, a failure, and yet, he dies the same way he had lived, without remorse. He faces the process of death just like any other average event in his life - trying to live through his death. Though the turn of events in the movie had not given me the time to think about all these, somewhere subconsciously the scene had sown a doubt, which serves as a chink in conviction with which we lead our lives - why do we do what we do in our lives? To what end? It all ends, anyway.

3. Music in Ram Gopal Varma-movies. Though the credit for the music in his movies should most directly got to the respective composers, still it is him who had introduced in Bollywood, music with piercing quality to it. One of the all time favorite songs of mine is "Mast" (click to hear) sung by Sunidhi Chauhan (click) and composed by Sandeep Chowta (click). The manner in which the opening words like uske siva kuchh yaad nahin... start with with a subdued hushed tone, and yet end in hui, hui main mast represents the most planned yet unstoppable dissipation of energy. Again the quality that comes fore is of unstopability. "Mast" at the end of the line hits the listener with an impact.

Another song that really resonates with me is Ganda hai par dhandha hai yeh... from Company (click). It has an element of tease. The point after Sandeep Chowta utters (ganda hai) "yeh", when I would expect a drum beat, there is none! It leaves me wanting for more; the dissipation does not happen this once.

Why I mention these pieces of music is because they gel so well with his overall style of movie making. Also, I do not know why, but somehow it is certain people's vision that enables others to deliver the best stored up in them, like potential energy. For instance, Sandeep Chowta has not been able to deliver such powerful music working with someone else. Vivek Oberoi (click) has never acted as well as with Varma. Abhishek Bachchan has not been able to make his screen presence felt the way he could in Varma's movies. It took a Varma to bring out the amazing actor hidden in Urmila Matondkar (click), who otherwise would have only got dismissed as a skin revealing bimbo. This also made me realize how Ismail Darbar (click) has been able to do his best only working with Sanjay Leela Bhansali (click). So, I believe these movie directors and producers indeed have a role in extracting the best from the people they work with. So even if a lot in his movies is not his doing, he should get the credit for firstly having a desire to work with talented people, then ability to recognize that talent, and then eventually actually associating with them.

Anyway, I could be accused of reading, seeing or hearing too much where there is really nothing. But well, I could perceive those things, and I do not rule out the possibility of my deluding myself only to be able to recognize an icon.

Also, there had been a few curious coincidences. Despite my liking some of his movies very much, I had not known much about him. But then some time later I came to understand that he is an atheist, and further later (just a year back) that he is a fan of Ayn Rand (click) - another person I greatly admire.

Ram Gopal Varma is in show business. His skill lies in employing a "technique" to generate an "effect". To digress a bit, this dichotomy between insipid technique used to generate a scintillating effect was something I had become sensitized to while making PowerPoint presentations for the first time. Same effect on screen could be achieved by elegant simplicity, or through crass background technique while editing the slides. I would like to share with you a novel that heavily relies on this passion for use of techniques to yield effects - The Vanished Man (click) by Jeffery Deaver (click). So what I admire about Ram Gopal Varma is his proficiency with two strata of techniques. One, of converting mundane resources like outdoors, sounds, raw actors, camera, ideas (raw materials for "technique") into visuals, sounds, facial expressions and plot-surprises (tier 1 "effect"). Two, the very same visuals, sounds, facial expressions and plot-surprise in turn serve as raw materials for the emotions generated in the viewer (tier 2 "effect"). And he is a master of both tiers of technique. He has perfected this art, I do not believe, which would have been possible without immense passion and a basic level of intelligence.

But years and experiences have also sensitized me to the same technique-effect concept put to use by famous people. I have my doubts whether the public image he has is the "true" him, or his attempt to provoke people into hating him and talking about him, or to profess love for him only to stand out.

But there is sufficient intelligence in his words that convinces me that whatever he does, he knows very well what it is, and that he also understands the motives behind his actions. Sometimes I also wonder if the insolent attitude he reserves for most people is his method to filter out those who cannot see form from substance, or in other words, those who miss the subtle but significant and go after the conspicuous but merely a distraction. Or again, I might be wrong in thinking he thinks so much about others!

But the fact remains, I continue to be intrigued by him, and admire him in equal measures.

You can read his blog here - RGV BLOG (click), going through which was basically the precipitating factor in my writing about him.

You can read some of his quotes here (click).

States of Matter. State that matters - An Explanation. And a joke!

This is the explanation for my previous post which could be found here (click)

I do not believe in writing ambiguous posts, especially as part of the reason I write is to know how others and I view the same things differently. I believe, if not most, some people do have reasons for what they become/what they choose to become. And when the same things are viewed differently, it gives all the parties involved a chance to review what their belief systems are, and what are they based on. At the 'end' of the discussion, one may emerge more confident of the views held priorly, or less so. One may also feel insecure of new ideas if they threaten to upset the equilibrium of their life, which usually is very difficult to achieve, and this is probably also what contributes to the inertia we experience in reviewing and imbibing new ideas, apart of course, from the fact that whatever we currently know/think would be outcomes of numerous experiences, mistakes and rewards, which consolidate our confidence in our 'own' ideas. So with this short preface I seek to establish that on my blog, I wish to be understood precisely, and to understand the contributors equally precisely, though it will only rarely so happen that I change someone's views, or someone, mine.

The only reason I had not included this explanation was the constraint of length of 18 SMSes. Also I did not want to dilute the spontaneity of my ideas by inserting technical explanations for abstract analogies, for it is ever so rare that I come out with posts, which I feel rather than think. I had planned to clarify the analogies as a part of my replies to comments, but I realized, I needed to also come up with a detailed explanation of what I meant through each analogy.

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Fluid. By 'fluid' I did not mean weak or flexible. For one talks of flexibility only when there is a shape one could identify with.

By gradients of availability, I meant rushing in for things only because they are available. An avarice for things without pausing to think if we want/need them or possessing them would make us any happier.

A simplistic, but illustrative example is weddings, where so many times people take so much ice cream that they cannot finish it. Mind you, I am not talking here of etiquette, or health hazards of gluttony, or wastage of food, which are separate issues in themselves, but of a weird kind of opportunism. An opportunism that does not even serve our interest! But the sheer pleasure of enjoying something unearned, and probably undeserved (which is contentious, though), but worst of it all, undesired and unrequired! If that ice cream would be required or desired, not so much of it would be found wasted in the plates at the end of the parties!

By falling into next empty space, I was talking of the same opportunism, but manifesting itself differently. Flattery, imitation and insincere agreement. Others' needs for praise and approval are like empty spaces, and on spotting an opportunity (availability) they can be filled! They can be filled instantly and effortlessly, only because this fluid is guided by a gradient. It does not have its own ideas or opinions (no shape), or probably does not value them enough. Does not have any attachments or committed loyalties (no place), and hence has nothing to lose when it goes and occupies the next available space.

This fluid comes in contact with a vast expanse of surfaces, always leaving a trace of wetness (good impression). But it itself never knew what it stood for or against. Its attraction for things (gravitation) was its only guiding force.

The structure called self is a composite of ideals, desires, opinions, tastes, distastes, preferences, and a conscience but most important, a recognition and subsequent acknowledgment of all of these. By surrendering them to the 'demands' of opportunity and availability, this structure collapses, and that is what I had meant by to fall, in fact the collapse of an identity called 'self' is so profound that all shapes and senses of location and direction are lost, whereas as a person grows, it is expected that they accumulate more ideas, ideals, opinions, loyalties and attachments (climbing).

By evaporation, I did not mean destruction or death, but a total loss of identity of the 'self'.

Passively plastic. A passively plastic person also lets their ideas and opinions get shaped according to external forces. There is nothing wrong with allowing external ideas to shape one's opinions, in fact, without the action of external forces, not many ideas can be formed. But when one holds them only to fit into a collective/communal identity, then they lose their own ideas and aspirations. The identity of the individual is supplanted by the perceived identity of a community (mold). The driving force here is the willful assumption of a preformed, assembly-line-manufactured identity, even at the cost of losing one's 'real' native identity, without a sense of remorse.

How is this deformation allowed, or rather sought?

Probably because the original shape was not loved enough? It did not receive assent from coexistence with a number larger than zero, that is, owing to being unique ('one')?

This can extend right from "a feminist needs to defend everything a female does" to "secular people have to side with the 'minorities'"; from "doctors 'should' be dressed in formals" to "'hip' people 'need' to wear low-waist jeans"; from "you need to agree with everyone if you are broadminded" to "learn to say 'whatevah' if you are above the rest of petty people, and close to attaining 'nirvana' to firmly establish you do not care about their existence or their opinions"

Reactively plastic. This simply implies trying to be different from others. It does not matter if what I end up is different even from my 'real' self. The only priority is a need to stand out. To be a 'trend-setter', fully forgetting that trend would also be followed only by opportunists and those seeking the shelter of a collective, without ever respecting the very same shelter.

Rigid. This is what I need to personally guard myself against the most. I know what I want. I know what I like. But I also know, the world is not going to act according to my wishes. I will not the get the kind of education system I want. I will not get as friends, people as honest as I would want. I will not work at places whose ethics would be in alignment with mine.

Because all these systems are too rigid to yield. Whether they are more correct, or I, is a different matter. What matters is that their walls and my contours are incongruent.

And if I barge into these systems brazenly, unprepared, it will be me that would be hurt. Both physically and emotionally. Gradually, I will start giving up. What were originally my aspirations would no more remain so. What I used to find pleasurable, would turn into pain.

As an example, I find it extremely immoral to simply memorize some fact and write/mark that as an answer in exams, without understanding its cause or significance. It, according to me is nothing short of copying. What is the difference? How is not knowing and copying wrong, but not knowing and pretending to know, right?

But I need to survive. I cannot change the exam system according to my wishes. In its confines, memorizing, without understanding is alright, or maybe, also admirable.

That brings me to elasticity. Elasticity is not absolute deformability, which is actually plasticity, but an ability to return to its original shape. A rubber band is elastic not because it can be stretched, but because it can recoil back. So possibly, elasticity lies somewhere between two extremes of plasticity and rigidity.

Deformability would entail that I will need to compromise on occasions. To fit in, to survive, to make life fulfilling. But same time listening to my conscience, to let it pinch, to not silence it, which will remind me that I had betrayed the 'self'--my ideals, original aspirations, which I had loved. All this because the circumstances (edges and corners) had forced me to change. But also to remember that choice of fitting in and compromising were both mine, and mine alone.

Important is to not drown my conscience in "It's okay!". To remember to not compromise the next time out of force of habit, or simply knowing that a simpler route exists.

So yes, elasticity is indeed deformable rigidity, and thus by default a moderate property between the two.

Self-love. This is the trickiest to define. To love the self, first, it is important to recognize the 'self'. Self is the innermost desires, doubts, the knowledge of what I like, what I hate, what I want to do. And if possible, also 'why'? But this assessment needs to be most honest. Most of what constitutes 'self', calls for some action or reaction, be it, lazing late till afternoon on a holiday or 'fighting the system'. To understand that it is alright for those actions to be directed by the desires, but within such a framework that very same actions will not bring 'me' shame in my own eyes.

Ultimately all actions have to serve the upkeep of self-image. If I love my 'self', I will make a most honest assessment of it. If not, I will try to shield it from my own scrutiny, or to distort it. The moment I try to distort it, I know, there is something that I do not like. Either I try to change it, or accept it as my limitation/deficiency.

Loving the self does not amount to serve primal-most self-interest to the exclusion of anything that entails sacrifice for the good of someone else, which if seems 'right', and not doing so, 'wrong', then it is indeed congruent with my desire to somewhere make a change outside of 'me'.

This might seem too mechanical way of living--the loving-the-self-part, but actually it still is the most spontaneous expression of the 'self', just that it passes from under a screen of introspection. :)

-----

A sinister, sadistic, half-asleep-from-previous-night's-binge-examiner eyes neatly dressed, frightened, semi-prepared students of final year MBBS exam, standing before him in mock respect, but genuine awe, and thinks: WTF?

Neatly dressed, frightened, semi-prepared students of final year MBBS exam, standing in mock respect, but genuine awe, eye a sinister, sadistic, half-asleep-from-previous-night's-binge-examiner, and think: WTF!

Examiner's WTF? = Who to flunk? | Student's WTF! = WTF!

States of Matter. State that matters--1

Do not be so fluid. So fluid that you fall into the next empty space. No shape. No place. Existence defined only by gradients of availability. Never able to climb; only fall. You will spread yourself wide. You will spread yourself thin. And before you know it, you will evaporate into nothingness.

Do not be so passively plastic. So plastic that you always fit in and forget your own shape. Always wanting the rigid confines to define the contours of your being. You will fit in. You will not remain you.

Do not be so reactively plastic. Yes, plastic again. So plastic that you change shape the moment you see a mould. Only to not fit in. Letting the confines define the contours of your being--this time staying out. Before you know it, you will become the next unshapely thing. You might become the next mould. Only fluids and plastics will occupy you. You will forget your shape.

Do not be so rigid. So rigid that you want the confines to yield, to replicate the contours of your being. You might wish, but you will not succeed. Before you know it, the edges and corners will scrape off chunks of your own being. You will lose them forever. You will not remain you. If you wait for that perfect mould--the one made for you, it will never be made. You will always remain outside. Outside is only for lodging. Outside, you will not live.

Be elastic. Mostly fitting in. Sometimes comfortably. Sometimes uncomfortably. Fitting in, yet feeling where it hurts. Knowing where the edges poke the contours of your being. Remembering what shape you were the last time. Springing back into your shape, each time you come out. Choose the best mould, but it will not fit perfectly. It will hurt. Be prepared for that. If a mould is too convoluted, too constricting, remember, it is best to lodge outside. For inside, painful poking will overwhelm your senses. You might remain you. Life will not remain life.

That elasticity is self-love. Love yourself, and life will become the simplest it could. You will remain you. Life will remain life.

---
1. This is simply a summary of a lesson on how to live that I have learned. What you have learned could be different. If so, consensus need not be reached.

...continued (click)

nOBAlAMA P*ss Prize! Please help me! Or, laugh with me...

I used to read about great people, mostly scientists, but still people who'd had significant and positive IMPACT on the World. The likes of Einstein, Neils Bohr,
Schrödinger, Francis Aston, Har Gobind Khorana, and well the list could NOT go on... In ALL cases, I'd first read about their WORKS, and they'd invariably filled me with awe, and somehow inspired me. Then I would read they were all Nobel laureates! My respect had risen for the Nobel and other laureates that I didn't even know!

My list mostly has physicists/chemists and not Medicine workers despite being a medico. It's silly, but I used to nurse a desire to gain sufficient knowledge, to strive to become like them, and to win the Nobel. But NO MORE. The common reason is my reading about them BEFORE realizing this:

Behind any public recognition there are ugly factors. Factors--I don't like to utter aloud, maybe whisper in the silent alleys of my frightened heart, which get drowned by the thundering applause that emanates from somewhere faraway where the heart cannot make itself go.

Last year reading about him, I'd found the contributions of Paul Ehrlich absolutely stunning, BUT poor guy, he'd managed to win a Nobel! And this time around to my own shock, I started seeing his contributions skeptically.

I'd to become apathetic to save myself. I couldn't afford to care. But today, Obama's won the Nobel Peace Prize!

Don't get me wrong, I'd heard his most wonderful speech, which had changeD my heart, well almost, and I shouldn't be harsh on him. His term's just started, and he might end up a wonderful World-leader WHEN THE RESULTS SHOW. And that's precisely the point! Has the quality of oratory become the yardstick for winning the Peace Nobel? My angst is at the Nobel Committee, not Him. Today, you've slapped all those scientists I'd respected, and all that I'd held dear in them.

Oh but wait, if you're trying to say, "the World's become so very bereft of those who ACTUALLY do some work of positive impact, and hence we'd to scale down our criterion to just POTENTIAL for greatness", then I agree. Wholeheartedly, and heartlessly.

Ah but, we still have humor (click)!

---

What did World say to Obama on being asked for change?

Aagey badh; chhutta nahin hai! Par yeh rakh Nobel sikka.

[Move on; ain't got change, but keep this Nobel medal]

Too bad, it's just a joke. :(

Flickering lights

R: Not for those who consider themselves minors.

"You know, I love you."

Darkness was gathering outside, with occasional attempts at countering it conspicuously emanating from the windows of a few apartments strewn all over. But, none of the two made any such attempt. He looked out through the oval vent and wondered if it was the window to the outside world or a barrier in the completeness of his solitude. He somehow could never come to like those tiny illuminated dots in this vast sea of darkness. He did not like the tiny rebellions. They scoffed at the darkness around... and within. He could close the window, but no, that would not change the fact. He had to turn them out himself. And thus, he looked at her for an answer before she answered.

She was taken aback that she had allowed the tea to overboil ever so slightly. Was it his words? She was readying the plates for their snack. And as she answered, she brushed back a wisp of hair that had fallen over her forehead using the back of her hand with disdain that one usually reserves for things of years of acquaintance. That wisp was definitely one of those things--mildly irritating, but persistent in its presence.

"They all say that when inebriated".

She looked at him from the corner of her eye as she dismissed him. Her gaze returned to the plates fully knowing he would have no answer. How could there be an answer?

He was reclined on the divan--one mattress carelessly thrown over the other. The divan served--both as a sofa as well as a bed. That after all was all the furniture her dwelling required. And a small table, and a chair. But now he slumped forward, his elbows resting on his thighs as the situation summoned greater involvement of his mental faculties.

"Not that kind of love, Munni! I'd love you even if you don't take it up your ass or suck me off later. I'd love you even if you don't fake your orgasms. I'm not one of those. You're getting me?"

Now, this was getting interesting, she thought. A light laughter escaped her mouth, which lingered on as a subdued smile. She was amused.

"So, you are alleging some other kind of love is possible?"

Her heightened interest was the reason she gave him the benefit of her full face, this time moving not just her eyes. Her gaze lingered on his face as he prepared to speak.

"Munni!"

He got up from the seated position, and walked up to the vent behind her. Her gaze stopped following him, and returned to her plates, not sure herself if she was not interested in his answer, or felt better to not show interest.

With his back against the vent, he continued.

"You know, I've been observing you for a month, now. I love your zest for life. How you know you want something, and you know what that something is... snatching away from life, one thing after the other despite having nothing to have started with. I love it that those conceited cowards come to you, just wanting to prove their power over you, thinking you to be powerless. I love it when they pump their money into you, as you fake orgasm after orgasm. I love it when they go back, pump their soul into the world, and fake their life, moment after moment. And all the world does in return is spit back at them. You know, they all spit on each other! Gullible bastards!"

She was shocked. Her hands were paralyzed for a moment. Was he speaking standing behind her, or was he a voice in her head?

She turned around to face her fear. She surveyed his face. Calm. Could those fierce words have come from that mouth? Unrevealing. Those folded arms? Unshaking. Those eyes? Blank. Or was it the semblance of illumination peering through the obstructed vent playing tricks on her eyes? Or was it playing tricks on her mind? She concluded, words were his; the fear, hers. Now she too leaned against the kitchen cabinet, half-sitting on it, and folded her arms, trying to match his composure, by trying to match him in his posture. She hoped he could not see her eyes from where he was standing. But she wondered, if he needed to.

"How do you know you're not one of those gullible bastards?"

"Bastard, I am, but not gullible. And besides, I'm not inebriated, am I?"

A smile played on his lips. But, she was not sure. She was afraid. But, she was not sure. Maybe, it was the darkness getting to her. Maybe, she should put on the lights. But, she was not sure. She was intrigued. She was sure.

"I've not even touched you in last two hours!"

He was right, she thought. Most of her customers wanted her to wear some particular dress. Most of the customers would book her only for half-an-hour, and get it done with. Though, she did get occasional jerks, who would book her for two hours because they would want to do it "slow, sensual, filmy" style, but actually end up exhausted in little over an hour--in great parts because of her skill at quickening things up.

But he was different. He was not one of those regular customers. He had not asked her to wear anything specific. He had booked her only for 12 hours--from five in the evening, to five in the morning, yet paid her an advance for 48 hours! His behavior had irked her. This show of 'goodness' had got to her. She wanted to take her sweet revenge; as it is, she had got her advance. She decided to wear one of her regular night gowns with Disney motifs, and not wear any makeup, nor arrange the room into any setup, nor wear any fragrance.

But he was nonchalant. He was not affected. He did not ask her to alter anything. He was not one of those regular customers.

"What do you want?"

She asked in her straightest possible voice, trying to keep an edge out of it.

"You!", he said, with no edge to his voice.

"Meaning? You have me! In fact, I don't mind even if you actually extend your stay for two days. You've after all, paid me!"

"I want to marry you"

At this point a jet of laughter spurted out of her mouth. She laughed uncontrollably, almost falling as she staggered along half the width of her small room. She even clapped her hands, once. She tried to quieten up, and stay still, but her mind replayed his fresh image that had said "I want to marry you", and she burst out laughing, yet again, this time leaning over the kitchen cabinet and banging her palm against its top. She quietened up as the last milliliters of air in her lungs escaped out in alternate coughs and laughs.

She thought how she had faked her laughter a countless times as her drunk customers would try to impress her with their pathetic jokes, which were insufficient to make their girlfriends and mistresses laugh. And she would slyly watch them smile in satisfaction that would wash away their frustration of being inept jokers. This thought made her laugh again, but she was already feeling lightheaded, and decided she could no longer afford to spend her air.

This was the first time she had not faked her laughter and she felt wonderful.

She stood straight and looked at the source of her joke. Or was he the joke, she wondered as her bout of laughter had made her forget her fear. She decided she could put on the lights.

Both squinted as their eyes bore the sudden assault of illumination. Their eyes met, and she laughed yet again, covering her mouth with her hand, this time regaining composure faster, clearly embarrassed by his certain scrutiny. But she was surprised. He too was smiling--taking in the mirth her pure, uninhibited laughter had exuded. He was not offended in the least. She bit her lip. She was losing her professional touch in his presence. After all, he was a valuable customer, and she could not afford to lose him. Which other duffer would offer her an advance for 48 hours, and do nothing to her, save cracking the occasional hugely entertaining jokes? He was truly valuable!

"What kind of marriage are you suggesting? Wherein, we hold hands, laugh and giggle, go out for movies together, you put your head in my lap in the wet grass, under the Moon and the stars saying a dozen times how much you love me? Then we have children; we name them Chunnu, Munnu? Our children grow up, leave us, and we still hold our hands, and profess our love for each other, saying would like to die before the other? That kind of marriage? That kind of love? The one they show in the movies?"

She laughed yet again at her own description, more circumspect this time, yet with lingering awareness of the lack of control over the self.

He slightly raised his left eyebrow still smiling--the most animated his face had got hitherto, and said, "So are you alleging some other kind of marriage is possible?"

"Yes, of course, the normal kind! Involving gullible bastards!"

The lines between his eyebrows further furrowed as he questioned her, "Between you and me?"

She was taken aback. She realized, they were venturing into territories where she had no experience. Her profession and life had not taught her how to ramble quasi-philosophically about love and marriage. She sought to bring the course of events to her territory. The well rehearsed moans, calculated depth and rhythm of her inhalations and exhalations, critically timed feigned gasps, opening and closing of eyes in slow motion.

"I'm not one of those regular customers."

The joke was turned on her now. She was desperate. She had to be quick. She lowered her gaze gently, and made calculated adjustments in her voice to make is sound optimally sultry, keeping in mind the keen perceptiveness of one she was dealing with.

"That means, you'll just stand there. You say you love me, and you don't even feel like touching me, dear?"

She was half-expecting him to dole out some filmy line like "touching of souls", or some such crap, and bracing to avoid laughing at him.

But instead, he took a gentle step forward. "I never said that!"

There was something about him that frightened her. Though, he did not pounce on her, only took a step forward, there was a certain suddenness about him; not the quickness of his motions, but their inherent unpredictability. She had moved up a lot in life, and more than her appearance, it was owing to her ability to understand people, to be able to extrapolate, and thus, anticipate what they wanted, and what she could extract from them. She was a master judge of people. But not of him. He was not one of those regular customers. This frightened her. She had thought his approaching her would make her feel comfortable, but it only made her heart beat faster. She remembered to try to quicken her breath, but it was already quickened!

He came and placed his hands gently around her waist, but somehow their grip seemed inescapable to her. He regarded her face, and twined his fingers in that wisp of hair on her forehead. He pushed it back gently and placed his lips on her forehead. She raised only her eyes, not moving her head, trying to come to know better her fear of the unknown. Now, with his hands behind her back, his lips were tickling where her nose was about to end. She was having a hard time controlling the rate of her breath. Her instincts told her to return all of his money, and bid him goodbye forever. Her breath was racing and she wondered if he even breathed!

His lips met hers, and a primal fear gripped her as she tried to push it away through her tongue in his mouth, by now.

She felt like a four-year-old-kid having forgotten her rhyme midway, and the entire class and teachers looking at her with bated breath to continue.

Her practice had failed her in this moment, and she mumbled in her body language. She thrust forward her hips a bit too jerkily. She tried to hold his neck with her hands, not knowing if to place them a centimeter below or centimeter above where they had ended up. She was thinking where had she kept that money he had given her as an advance.

Then suddenly, he moved back. But she felt as if he had pushed her.

"Do you find me attractive?"

"Umm..."

"Are you feeling turned on?"

She just half-shrugged her shoulders, and released and installment of air that had felt trapped just like her. That was her reply.

"Then why are you pretending to?"

His voice was raised by now. She could sense a touch of what she thought to be emotion. Or was it merely his proximity. She regarded his questions. Attractive? She had learned to classify men only on the bases of how much pain could the potentially inflict on her in their attempt of display of power over her. Where was the question of frigging attractiveness? Turned on? Yes, she felt turned on, like her MP3 player would, on pressing the PLAY button, and it would dole out the preloaded songs. And that is what she had just tried to do! What "turned on" was he talking of? The kind of turned on her customers felt, drunk, thinking her to be Tiffany, or alternatively, Anarkali when she would teasingly reveal her body parts? How could she feel that way for him? Or, anyone? What was the need? Her thoughts glossed over the absurdity of his expectations, and she felt like giggling, like a naughty student suppressing her laughter standing before a teacher shouting with ominous anger.

"I think you're not prepared for me yet."

"Gaut..."

Just as she opened her mouth to speak he added, "But eventually, you would be." He then turned back and asked her, "You were saying something?". But she knew, what he meant was he was not going to buzz off.

She could not find her voice, and a "no" escaped her mouth. She cursed herself. That was not what she had wanted to say!

He went to the divan and collapsed on it, and squealed with the bubbly enthusiasm of a three-year-old, "I'm hungry, Munni! Can we eat something?"

They drank their tea, only mildly warm by now, and started having pakoras for their slow dinner.

They started telling their stories. A year of life per pakora, and couple of years per sip of tea.

She had got into the business ten years back when she was fourteen, pushed into it by the warden of her orphanage. Over the years, she had come to wonder what was it that other people did in their lives? What made them gather so much frustration in their lives just to try to own a large house? To be able to travel in their own cars? What pushed them to wait for that seventh day of the week they used to call "holiday"? What was it that made a child look longingly at a poster displaying an ice cream? What was it that made people wear shades even in dark and made them feel somehow superior to others who did not? What made people stand outside the multiplexes to watch feigned lives?

She had never understood any of those things. All of them required one thing--money. She could indeed indulge in pleasures--one-by-one, on occasions. But no, she did not want to do that. She wanted to have so much money that she would never again require to count how much she would be left each time she were to spend.

With time she had learned that buying clothes a shade lighter, heels an inch shorter, and applying a lipstick a shade shy-er, would not allow people to make out that she was not one of them. Though, she had known how to read, and somewhat, to write, her manner of speaking would still give away she was different. She read books, watched movies, learned to speak English. Eventually, she also learned to fake her accent as well as all her customers and their female toys had learned to fake. The sound of h after all the hard consonants, the unuttered r at the end of words. She started using French words, too. That was her another milestone. How to convolute the tongue in the mouth to "gedet rayht".

She started going to the gym, doing the same repetitive exercises, day-after-day, just picturing herself behind a steering wheel.

With time she learned, the trick was not to stand out, but to gel in. No wonder, they stopped calling her a whore. She got herself a new name--Monica. She had anyway long forgotten she was Padma some time in her life. She also noticed, with each new thing she learned, people paid her more for doing the same things, in as much time. Sometimes, she was also taken to parties at costly hotels. She knew she had arrived on the block as an arriviste.

She had amassed enough money to open a small snack bar. She had learned that for whatever reasons she could not fathom, people thronged to places that had distorted spellings. Hers was CRUNCHEZ n' MUNCHEZ. It was an instant success, but she herself never ate there. She could never like the taste of that bland, oily food.

She had also been able to get herself a 50 percent partnership in one of the liquor shops. Liquor shops did not fail to generate humongous profits. It was a very safe investment. And now, she planned to take it over one of these days.

He was from a distinguished family. Bright, right from the childhood. He had attended the best of the schools, the best business school. Nobody who met him was left unimpressed. He had sipped vices, but never gulped them down; bathed in them, but never drowned. They did not engage his thirst.

He was an investment banker. Everything he touched, turned to gold. He had a knack for picking up the right mind. He could read people's minds like large captions splashed over billboards. None of his ventures had ever failed.

But he never knew why he continued in that business. Two years out of his business school, he had got bored of it. He saw business ventures as arithmetic questions at the end of the chapter. He would find it thrilling to solve few questions, then the thrill would evade him. He would attempt to solve the last question, the most difficult of them all, struggle a bit, but would eventually solve it. What would he do then? Take up the next chapter. Repeat the grind.

He had invested in it all--vada paav stalls to swanky restaurants; spring-loaded tops to electronic chips; illicit watering holes to poshest of pubs; student union elections to sponsoring election campaigns for incumbent chief ministers; environment-protection NGOs to battalions of goons to disrupt construction works; orphanages to old-age homes--all had reaped him profits. None had ever failed to.

He had nothing new left to try. No maths question he felt could challenge; no business venture could fail with his involvement.

An uneasy purposelessness had gripped him. He was suffocated by it. He had wanted an anchor for his life; something to return to everyday, that which would wait for him to return.

Thus, they told everything about themselves. Or, so the other thought.

She wondered, if he anyway did not know about her whatever she had told. Yet, he had heard her with utmost interest, just like he would hear any business proposition. He knew, after all, he was investing in her. He had already invested an advance, which she thought to be her fee for 48 hours.

"So, what do you say?", he asked.

"I'll have to think."

"What is there to think?"

"I'm not sure if I'd like to leave all this I've started here. I've planned all my life around expanding my businesses. To earn things for myself. To reach where nobody with my kind of deprivation could have thought to reach."

"You could do that even with me around. In any corner of the world. That [pointing to his bag] has everything that we could ever need, in fact much more. I won't assist you with finances."

She feigned a yawn.

"I'll go, wash my face; return in a moment."

She returned in few minutes, but found him sleeping. She went to her small table, and started writing a letter. Suddenly, an alarm buzzed; it was his cell phone. It was two in the morning, and he had woken up.

"I want some tea.", he said.

She was about to get up, when he asked, "What are you doing?"

"Nothing, just seeing my schedule for the week, and taking down some notes."

"Never mind, I'll prepare it myself. You'd like some?"

You're kidding me? Have you ever touched a single utensil, Mr. the Gautam Malhotra?"

"You'll see Ms. Monica!"

"Oh, then I'd like to see. Maybe, taste also!", she winked.

She was surprised, as he effortlessly reached for the utensil containing milk in her fridge. Equally effortlessly turned on the burner of the gas stove with his lighter. She wondered how closely must he have watched her sitting on the divan.

"You smoke?", she asked looking at the lighter.

"Occasionally, if I feel my smoking would make my prospective associates more comfortable doing business with me."

"You call them associates? Not, gullible bastards?"

"There are gullible bastards, and there are cunning bastards. I associate with cunning bastards."

"That's why you want to associate with me?"

"Mostly, yes."

"Why, mostly?"

"'Cuz I won't be making a fool of them here on. I'll leave the job to themselves."

"So, you wouldn't want me also to keep on fooling them, pretending to be powerless before them and enjoying their company?"

"Would you want to continue?"

"No, even I've got bored of wimpy jokers."

He filled two cups with tea, arranged them on a tray, and motioned her to come to the bed.

They both sipped their tea. It was one of the strongest she had had. Burnt, almost. Bitterness not neutralized by the sugar in it.

He looked out the vent. It was dark outside. Totally dark. He liked it. A smile played on his lips. But the very next moment it disappeared as he thought how again there would be tiny rebellions tomorrow. But he knew at least he was doing his job.

She thought about the phone call she had made, and the letter she had written. She wondered what it was in this man sitting before her that made her make those allowances. Was she falling in L.O.V.E.--she spelled it in her head? No way! She brushed aside the thought, and the wisp of her hair that had returned to her forehead. But, this time with care, feeling how it smoothly slid against her fingers, making her aware of a life of its own.

He looked at her. She was beautiful also, he thought. Her eyes, they were captivating, but something about them put him at unease. He saw a flitting smile on her lips, and that gave him the confidence to plan his week ahead.

They both finished their tea. He pushed aside the tray onto the floor, and said, "I want to teach you something." She looked at him, questioningly. "To be yourself".

She laughed, not with contempt, but frank amusement.

He got up, and started unzipping her gown. That was all she had on. Then, he eased her frame onto the bed.

"I want you to be just yourself. Not someone's fantasy. 'Cuz you're my fantasy. You've no business trying to please me. I'm paying you to be just yourself. So, that's your professional obligation."

She wondered what was this disease--"just be yourself"! She had been a thousand men's thousand fantasies. From demure school girl to tyrannical ring master; from wretched widow to newly-wed neighbor's bride. But what was this "just be yourself"! She wondered.

She felt the same fear gripping. Fear of not knowing how to be "just herself", or plainly put, how to be 'nothing'.

He regarded her, first from a distance, then he laid himself on her. He untied her hair, and intertwined his fingers in them, and kissed her on the forehead. She was sure, it was the same fear she had experienced in the evening. But she was determined. She stayed still.

She wondered what kind of man was he? All her customers would get drunk before trying to violate her. But here he was drinking tea. Strongest of them all. He did not violate her. He studied her.

She felt a new feeling for the first time ever. She felt exposed! His all the five senses were making love to her. He looked at every part of her body with the watchfulness of a diamond trader; he smelt her; tasted her; felt the smooth texture of her skin, and with gentle pressure made out what was beneath. He even put his ears to her chest to listen to her heart beat, and the air that wafted in and out of her lungs. He made love to every part of her body, in all the ways she could imagine; and, those, that even she could not.

She felt vulnerable. She had never felt violated when her customers sweared at her in their moments of misguided passion thinking her to be Tiffany or one Anarkali. But here he was, calmly making love to her, drowning himself in all that she was. He caressed her gently, and she felt violated. But, he was not one of those regular customers, she thought.

Suddenly, she felt that vulnerability spread to all of her body. A small speck of her mind thought of the phone call, and that letter, that they were terrible mistakes. But rest of her brain was overwhelmed by the sensations she was experiencing for the first time.

What was it that he felt for her? What was it that made him experience her in parts, and in entirety, with equal pleasure? What was it that made him make love to her, like he wanted to memorize her? What was it that made him make love to her, as if it was for one last time?

It was love she thought. The confidence you could find everything you could ever want from someone. That is why she loved herself.

She did not realize when this violation turned into pleasure, and she wanted to love him back. She urged him to kiss her, and she kissed him back. She tried loving him the same way--experiencing which that was him.

She shouted out, "I love you, Gautam. I want to be your wife. I need you. Please love me."

It was at that moment his two hands gripped her neck. It was with passion? It was with malice? She could not decide. His malice was his passion. She thought, how many of her customers would just do that. But they would release her in time. He was not one of those regular customers.

She tried to throttle him back. He was out of reach. Her hands barely reached where they wanted to. She felt vulnerable. She felt violated. She felt suffocated. She felt trapped. She felt a pain in her head. And, she felt pleasure. She thrashed her legs, but without oxygen, they had started going limp. She tried to scream. Nothing came out of her open mouth.

She thought of the phone call, smiled; had her first ever orgasm, and died.

Now she was motionless, but he was still making love to her through all his five senses. Her hands gripping his neck, but barely squeezing him. She was cold. She was blue, but he still continued to push into her. He tried to memorize her, as if making love for one last time. Now, she was a cadaver, but he was not one of those regular customers. He valued his victims. He was always grateful to them even after they had died. After all, they had all valued him the most just before dying.

He looked at those eyes, and remembered the unease. Her eyes, the way they twinkled, reminded him of those tiny rebellions. The illuminated apartments. He had hated her for one whole month since he had discovered her. How dare she be so sure of what she wanted? How dare she think she had a purpose? How dare she go about achieving that purpose? How dare she scoff at him? At his purposelessness? At his helplessness? She paid for her folly. And though, she could no longer pay, he was still extracting. One more successful venture of his. He never failed.

He looked out the vent. Still there was darkness, but he knew, there would be tiny rebellions, yet again, tomorrow. But, he smiled in satisfaction; at least, one less.

He chose his victims only by one criterion--those with a zest for life; those who wanted something in life, and were inching towards it. Those scoffing at him, spitting him in the face. Like, that street child, all he had wanted was chocolates. He treated him to chocolates, till he felt most alive, till he puked out of cloy-ness. He then drowned him in chocolate syrup. That old lady--all she had wanted was to meet her long dead son. He stayed with her. Heard her stories. Cooked her food. Took her on a tour of the city, massaged her legs, as she was slowly dying, hung from the roof.

There was a small sound, but he was drowned in his thoughts and his sensations. A hand covered his mouth with a kerchief. He felt lightheaded, but immediately jerked it away. He did not collapse. He immediately exhaled all the air he had inhaled. The two intruders had expected an inebriated, exhausted weakling. But here he was, still high on all the tea flowing in his blood, and high on rage.

Their instructions on the phone were clear. To just break one of his legs, and temporarily render him unconscious--and, not to kill him. But his countering their assault had infuriated one of them. He kicked the new victim who was till then trapped between her two hands stiffened by rigor. They looked at her spasmed body, and were pleasantly surprised, as their victim had done to her exactly what they had planned to. The intruders started looking for the bag.

They had slashed his carotid, and he knew, he did not have enough time to replay the whole of his life. Even in immense pain, and drowsiness, he saw things clearly. He was dying, he knew. But he did not want to die? Why? What purpose did he seek to achieve? His hatred had pushed him to turn out all lights, and that had become his purpose. He had never realized how much he had started loving his purpose, and started living by it. He was also one of those. But, he did not want to die gullible. He could not die gullible. From the corner of his eyes he could see the faint figures of those robbers who had deceived him--the first time ever he had been deceived. That it was to be the last did not matter to him. He did not want to die gullible. He tried to raise his hand to stop them, but it had stopped obeying his orders. It just fell across her legs, as if reaching for something, but it could not reach those figments of motion in the corner of his eyes. Her image, now not even a blur came to his remnant of attention, and her stiff arms raised in air, as if reaching for something, still etched in his mind, made him smile. He thought of all the counterfeit currency in that bag, smiled. He did not die gullible.

But he died with the sound of an alarm clock buzzing. Underneath it was a page from the diary, fluttering with the wind intruding from that vent, rejoicing in its insignificance.

Dear Gautam,

When you read this, it will be too late, and very insignificant. I'll be gone far away, chasing my dreams.

You had it in you, what could stall me. But I'm still that little girl, wanting to enjoy her ice cream, as if it will never get over; enjoying a movie, as if it will never end; driving a car, with wind rushing through my hair, as if it will never stop.

You had it in you to make me feel I was incomplete without you. That, I'd be nothing if not for you. But, that's not what I had wanted to feel.

Yet, I wanted to feel for once, what it meant to be loved, to be needed; to love, to need. I'm sure you'll give that to me, and I'll be able to live by those memories.

I'm sure you'll find an anchor for yourself, with which you will intertwine your being.

I'm going far away from you. Don't try to find me. 'Cuz, I can't be that anchor.

Love, only this once.

-Padma.

The alarm clock quietened, knowing it had done all it was meant to do in its lifetime. It was five in the morning, dark outside, but tiny rebellions, different from those in the evening, started glowing, one-by-one, all over...

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Notes:

1. Small thanks to Tangled Up in Blue for the encouragement.

2. If you feel this story has more to it than what meets the eye, then you are not hallucinating.

3. If you feel this story has nothing more to it than what is contained in the words, then you are not blind.

4. Gail Waynand is a character from the story 'The Fountainhead', who seeks to destroy those with true love for the vocations they practice.

5. Midas Mulligan (search on the linked article), is a character from 'Atlas Shrugged', who was immensely successful in his investment ventures, and from who the character of Gautam Malhotra is partly derived.