Month: February 2023

The Infinite in Us

This week-end was extremely well suited for cozy pursuits. 

Rain slashed down, our surrounding hills sported snow caps and we proudly reveled in the rare beauty of green hills, snow capped peaks, gushing rivers, brimming lakes, rains that sometimes lashed down, other times, lulled and drizzled. In fact, one afternoon, we saw the sun light illuminate the clouds in so many different ways: there weren’t words to describe the crepuscular wonders anymore. The infinite ways in which watery sun and waxing moon can dazzle white, gray and thunderous clouds, is entertaining enough. 

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But as evening crept in, we found ourselves wondering whether a cozy family movie night might do the trick instead. 

So, we settled down on both week-end nights to watch two movies that we knew would fascinate the son:

∞ The man who knew infinity – a movie about Ramanujan Srinivasan, the mathematics prodigy. Thomas Hardy , a mathematician at Cambridge who helped Ramanujan publish his works. Ramanujan eventually was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. The movie, while it had its good moments also felt oddly fragmented in parts. 

The Man Who Knew Infinity (film).jpg

The life of Ramanujan for a person of Indian origin is fairly well known. The poor man who lost his health and vigor to tuberculosis and died at the age of 32 leaving a younger wife behind is tragic.

It is also unnerving to see how hard belonging is. Our immigrant experience is so vastly different from the one Ramanujan braved a century ago. Yet, some of the questions remain: Do we belong to a geography? A culture? Or with like-minded human-beings?

Human kind’s need for social connections is a fascinating aspect (introverts, extroverts, families, friends, colleagues, the importance of whimsy, the energy of youth, and the wisdom of those wiser – every aspect seems to play a part in the worlds we construct around us)

None of this seems easy, and in that struggle lies the beauty of messy human lives.

🚀 Hidden Figures – the movie depicting the lives of 3 African American women who worked at NASA and were stalwarts in their respective fields. 

The official poster for the film Hidden Figures, 2016.jpg

As we sat watching the movies, there were places where we stopped to thank the stars that things seem to have improved for the better. Progress is never easy and the ones who braved the struggles placed in their path with resilience, hard work and good humor, are truly inspirational. The movie was also a good reminder of the human spirit and its capacity for the impossible. With computers having far less than the computing powers in our cell-phones, humankind was able to leave Earth’s atmosphere, orbit the planet, land on the moon and launch space vehicles to explore the solar system. 

The movies were good reminders of a philosophy that is often not given as much importance as other aspects of philosophy: the pursuit of happiness via the pursuit of knowledge is tough, but endlessly rewarding. The truths we come to understand, the worlds we get to unravel are all gifts that keep on giving. 

⚡️💨⛈ Gusts & Gales⚡️💨⛈

“You should write about gusts and gales! Do you like the title?” The son asked as he tried comically to keep from being veered off the garden path by the winds. He had wanted to go for a short walk to experience the winds. I told him I’d heard tales of roof tiles sliding off, and the power lines being down nearby. He looked impressed. Winds such as this , he told me, were characterized at category 2. 

“Well – in that case hold on to my hands if the winds got any stronger!” I said and he nodded solemnly.

Once out, his solemnity gave way to a wild happiness, and he whooped with the winds. “Maybe I could fly, I could run faster!”

“Or open your mouth and fill yourself with the air and start floating!” I said and he guffawed at that.

It turned out to be a marvelous walk. The trees seem to be dancing and swaying. It was mesmerizing and terrifying at the same time. When a large tree trunk is swaying with every single pine needle on it doing the same, or every single leaf wildly doing the same, it is an image that never truly leaves you. Birds veering off their path, seeking shelter in the shaking boughs of cypress trees, deer huddled under the bare branches of the oaks and other evergreens, waters in the rivers and lakes rippling with every gust of wind. Every single natural entity caught up in its movements however subtle. 

This must be a dance of the cosmos. 

Many bare branches lay broken at our feet as we stepped gingerly around the wind debris. Luckily, mankind’s sturdy homes seem to be holding up, the electric poles stood. When finally we gained the sanctity of our home, we both released our breaths: we’d been holding it in without realizing, and made for the kitchen. If ever anything demanded tea and hot cocoa this was it. 

We sipped our hot beverages in companionable silence for a few moments before reveling in the joys and trials of the windy day.

“I really liked seeing that tree shiver though. Like this!”, said the son and shook himself in a massive wave from top to bottom. His hot cocoa lurched alarmingly in his hands and I caught the cup. “Good one!” He said, and set the cup down before going on to recount how it must be to strap something to yourself and fly in these winds. We sat down to thumb through the excellent images in the Flights of Fancy by Richard Dawkins, Illustrated by Jana Lenzova.

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I wanted to fly too, and said so sheepishly. I realized it had been sometime before I had indulged in this sort of whimsy and chided myself for it. One must not work to tap into whimsy – it should be there rippling under the surface ready to tap into and draw magic from at a moment’s notice. Like children. Like they teach us to.

At night, things got even more exciting for the weather explorers. The rains had started pelting down, there was lightning and thunder, and the temperatures plummeted even further. I peeked out at the bleak scenes outside, and for some reason thought that this would be our daily life if we lived on Jupiter, and shuddered a bit at that. A bit of blue and white skies should sort out that weird feeling. (Reference:Why is our sky not green? Book: Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan)

I thought of the beautiful image from the previous day before the thunderous clouds rolled in. Earth held to its orbit, the planets to theirs, and the faintly visible moon to its steadfast path around the Earth. In that small image lies our constancy.

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Uncharacteristic snow seem to have dusted the hills near where we live overnight and our version of winter wonderland was marvelous to behold.

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The Nature of Sleep and Time

The evening started off morosely. At least from my side. I felt the weight of time pressing in between the shoulder blades. The vague sense of limited time against the unlimited expanse of it: both aspects ebbing and flowing like tides in the narrow confines of one soul.

“Maybe I’ll cheer you up with a Tamil movie story.”, said the husband. Have I mentioned this aspect of the man before? I must’ve. The movies themselves do not interest me. The husband as narrator, however, takes it upon himself to remove this misconception of movies I have in my mind and with his usual charm and enthusiasm tries to work his magic. I am more entertained by the narrator’s enthusiasm than by the movies themselves. 

“No please! I have limited time, and do not want to waste it on some stupid movie you watched late into the night!” I said. He gave me a “summary” anyway. 👀

“This is a summary? Please! You’ve gone on and on for 10 minutes – and you’re still meandering about with laying the ground!” I said exasperated for the n-th time. “This is why I don’t listen to your stories – you take double the time the movie itself takes!”

“Okay…okay. Almost done. Getting to the climax soon.” He said and went on for another 10 minutes.

 I realized it was time for my meetings to start and made off.

“That’s twenty long minutes I’ll never get back!”, I swished mock-irritated, though his “summary” had me laughing.

Later that night, I crawled into bed ready to let my eyelids close and drift into the pleasant land of sleep when I saw the husband looking enthusiastic and energetic. 

“What now?” I moaned. “If you’re going to tell me one more Tamil movie story, I cannot be responsible for my actions. “ I said. 

He grinned, and I flopped back onto the pillow. “What the bloom? Tell me  – maybe it’ll help me sleep. Two minutes.”, I said. “120, 119…” 

“Okay – okay!” 

After a few minutes, I moaned “Why do these movies go on-and-on?” 

“Almost done. Almost done!” Said the husband and launched into a description of a fight between two knuckle heads who should’ve been home reading about the finer points of living instead.

15 minutes later, I flopped onto the pillow, and realized that the night-time story was far from relaxing. Adrenaline based fighting – humph! 

So, I settled in to read instead. I picked up Flights of Fancy by Richard Dawkins and read about our dreams of flying. 

I was reading about indigo buntings and their sense of direction. The little indigo buntings enthrall me. Tiny little creatures with a wing span of 7 inches flitting fast between their nest building and early morning swooping. Electric blue swift against their backgrounds. Their tiny wingspans made me think of the beautiful pelicans I had seen just a few days ago while out on a walk. Large birds with 7 ft wing spans – taking to the skies with a majestic power, and gliding through the waters with elegance and grace. Both states natural and both states equally alluring. 

Both the pelicans and the buntings had my admiration, and I am often refreshed after spotting them somewhere on my walks. 

pelicans

“Shall I tell you about this book?” I said.

I knew I had him trapped. If I listened to two movie summaries in as many hours, he could listen to what one book said. He gave me a look that conceded he was trapped, and I laughed. I started and within 3 seconds, I heard the man snoring. Snoring! 

How long must those 3 seconds have felt for him? I shelved the book and let the man drift into his dreams amused. Maybe I should learn to fall asleep like that: Right when he is telling me a movie summary.

Sitting with Uncertainty

As sheepishly mentioned before, I have been apparating between the muggle and magical world over the past few weeks. Therefore, when I saw a book on Philosophical essays in the Harry Potter World, I picked it up to read almost instinctively. The book was not a mind-blowing one, but the chapter on Prophecies and Destinies had me thinking.

Much of the Harry Potter series hinges on the prophecy made by Professor Sybil Trelawny. As Professor Dumbledore reminds us in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the prophecy only came true because Lord Voldemort decided to set store by it. If he hadn’t killed Harry’s parents and marked Harry in the process, it would’ve been another prophecy sitting in the room of prophecies and nothing more.

There is also the moment in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix where Harry finally accepts what he must do in order to defeat the most evil wizard of the times. Not a resigned acceptance of his destiny, but a blazing recognition of his role. That truly is the turning point.

When destiny comes to a man from within, from his innermost being, it makes him strong, it makes him into a god.

– E E Cummings

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That week-end, we were sitting and deciding on what movie would be a good one to watch. A humongous decision in our household. But that Friday night, it was easy. Kung Fu Panda -2. The Kung Fu Panda series is an all time favorite in the nourish-n-cherish household, and is one of the best written movies. We watched the movie hinge on the prophecy made by a goat, that the peacock decided to act on.

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My mind wandered to the essay regarding Prophecies and futures in the Harry Potter philosophies book. Many epics or stories spin off from prophecies in almost all mythologies. Lord Krishna’s story for instance – the evil king Kamsa was supposed to be killed by his sister Devaki’s eighth child. In the story, the eighth child is switched out in the middle of the night to a Sri Lakshmi incarnate born in the little village across the Yamuna river. Kamsa kills the child anyway not wanting to take any chances, and goes on in his path of brutal domination. But Devaki’s child was growing up to be a formidable opponent in the village across the river and ultimately killed Kamsa.

KRISHNA_KILLS_KANSA

By Martadas Pirbudial -Pic Courtesy Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22395572

As Professor McGonagall says to Harry: Divination, is a woolly discipline.

But it is an intriguing one – primarily because we are a forward looking species.

Forward looking: This is an admirable trait in many ways and has contributed to our growth. We moved from being hunter-gatherers to a settled agrarian way of living due to this very trait, didn’t we? But like everything else, this too has a negative aspect: does destiny clash with free will or do they help shape each other lucidly?

On the trip to Delphi in Greece, our tour guide was telling us many myths and stories along the way. The story of Oedipus for instance. Apparently it was foretold that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother. So, the king Thebes and his wife set the child to sail on a river as soon as he was born, and Oedipus was raised by a loving shepherd family. Years later, when Oedipus traveled to Delphi to learn about his future, he was told the same thing: he would kill his father and marry his mother. Not wanting to hurt the kindly parents who had raised him with love and care, Oedipus ran away from his home. If he could do anything to avoid marrying his mother and killing his father, he would do it.

But like Oogway says in the Kung Fu Panda movie,

One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it. – Oogway, Kung Fu Panda movie

Oedipus landed up killing the King of Thebes in the forests and married the Queen who was trying to hold the kingdom together after learning of her husband’s death. The kingdom itself was under the spell of a sphinx and Oedipus saved the kingdom from its terrible clutches. He then married the Queen. Of course, he had not realized that they were his birth parents at the time.

In so many instances in folklore, there is the underlying current of choosing what to act on makes us who we are. But as Dumbledore says so beautifully,

“The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.” – Albus Dumbledore

Yet, astrology continues to be a fascinating area for many.  From the days of Delphi, to today’s astrological predictions, humankind has been trying more than ever to get a handle on what they need to be prepared for.

Sitting with uncertainty is one of the hardest things. How do you turn the worries of a nebulous future into an adventure worth exploring? 

We, The People; On This, Our Earth

One evening, the son and I were milling around the kitchen making dinner. It was one of those rare evenings for no reason. Like a short pause between tides. The winter months fading and yawning before waking into energetic spring. The son was working on a school project on Egypt on the dining table while I pottered around with the onions and spices chattering of this and that. 

These are some of my favorite times. 

Finally, the curry simmering on the stove, I went and sat by him at the dining table peering into his notes for the project. 

He had done a sincere job, researching diligently and writing more notes than was required. That made me proud of him and I said so. He smiled and then it turned into a grin, and asked, “Shall we watch TV today then? Just today – you know as a gift?” The little rascal!

I threw my head back and laughed, almost ready to yield. What else was there to do? It was rainy and dark outside. School work done, just the two of us at home. But I caught myself in time. Somehow, it did not feel like a good time to zone out in front of the Television. This rare, quixotic feeling of solitude in each other’s company. So, I shook my head and said no. I saw the twinge of disappointment in his face anticipating indulgence just a moment ago, and said, “How about we read something interesting and funny out to each other?” I said pointing to The Thrifty Guide to Medieval Times – A Handbook for Time Travelers – By Jonathan W Stokes.

He agreed enthusiastically – and I loved him for it. A petulant fuss would’ve ruined the evening. This carefree acceptance of an alternate plan was amazing.

I started reading about Doctors in Medieval Europe and we both shuddered a bit. The book was written in a manner that was just enough gruesome and just enough brevity to stave off utter misery, and a good deal of humor where you least expect it. So, we had a good time rotating dismay, shock, horror and laughter in turns. 

On our recent trip to Europe, there was many a time when the mind wandered back a few centuries to Medieval Europe. While we stood there admiring the relics and artifacts saved from those truly Dark Ages, I remember thinking how we were able to passively look at the best of the Dark Ages through a museum visitor’s lens. Setting aside the utter misery of the times. Art truly did pull humankind through those times if only by a shred. 

I remember a passionate History teacher from our school days who told us about the Dark Ages, Crusades, the endless years of disease and religious warfare. As children these were disturbing. But they were also distant echoes from the past in a geography barely imaginable by school children in the South of India at the time. Many of us had never traveled past our own country or state. 

But as life went on, I understood more and more of the horrifying acts of evil that humankind is capable of: the Dark Ages become a euphemism for unspeakable things. We had heard of witch hunting but when one finds out that Pope Innocent was responsible for making it a bloody sport and sent 1000’s of innocent women to their shrieking deaths, what excuse is there really for religion or piety or righteousness?

A Handbook for Time Travelers – By Jonathan W Stokes

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Over the next few evenings, we followed a similar routine. We read about 

  • Jeanne de Clisson – the French pirate nicknamed the Lioness of Brittany, who you definitely want to steer clear of, if invited to dinner at her place.
  • The brutality of Genghis Khan – there truly are no words, though there are thousands of words written about him.
  • Marco Polo and his explorations that gave many people a breath of fresh adventure and unheard of places – a little bit of magic in their otherwise terrible lives. 
  • The ferocity of Attila the Hun
  • The deadly female fighters of the Middle Ages
    • Blance of Castile, Queen of France
    • Countess Pertonilla of Leicester
    • Nicola de la Haye
    • Empress Matilda
    • Melisende, Queen of Jerusalem
    • The Order of the Hatchet 

It sometimes takes books such as these to journey to another horrible time and space in order to appreciate what we have now. I was grateful for that. 

It also reminded me of the children’s book, Meanwhile Back on Earth . . .: Finding Our Place Through Time and Space

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  • 1000 years ago – when there was a conflict between x and y
  • 500 years ago – war between rats and zebras
  • 100 years ago – war between everyone

The history of our planet in conflict. It makes for sobering reading, but along with Oliver Jeffers’ artwork, a required reading too.

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“Nice to see what all we did in spite of all the fighting huh?” , said the son, pointing to his project on Egypt, and pulling me back from my thoughts. He had written about the culture, ways of life and the many achievements of the ancient Egyptian civilization, and I nodded. We truly are a species worth studying. The sheer potential for good. The very qualities of good fanning our bad:  ambition for instance. 

How do we constantly remind ourselves that we are remarkable in our creative quests, and not use it for anything destructive? But don’t they go hand-in-hand? I peered at the dancing Nataraja statue in the home symbolizing just that, and felt very humble indeed. Nothing new. We are all just discovering and learning. Just figuring out how to belong on our Earth.

The Heart As a Compass 🧭

My heart is a compass – By Deborah Marcero

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Here is a book that spoke to the very depths of the child in me. I am sure many of us have spent time with just this sort of activity, and may be not with such fantastic results to show for it. 

I distinctly remember :

 ❅ ❄️❆  Drawing snowflakes of every shape I could fathom ever since I learnt that every snowflake was different. Considering I had never seen snow, that seems like a pretty bold endeavor, but that right there is the charm of childhood and imagination. I am not sure if I would like to find those pages of doodles now – the memory of those warm afternoons is more beautiful than anything I could’ve conjured up. 

🍃🍀🍁The shapes of all the different leaves. The leaves themselves dried and carefully preserved within the pages of books. All that remains now is the memory of this precious activity and of course the inestimable happiness of afternoons spent drawing the beautiful shapes into notebooks, after the glorious wind swept mornings collecting them.

🌷🌺🪷The nosegay bouquet of wildflowers plopped into brass vases that spotted the house. How could one not look at that and remember the ladybugs clinging to the leaves, the spider webs wet with dew, the scents of eucalyptus that decades later can still send one back to the beautiful countrysides scented with the fresh rain against the eucalyptus trees?

It is always a marvel to me how our mental maps form around these seemingly innocuous objects. The raspberry bushes by the little cave, the eucalyptus trails by the deserted bridge. If only, we had the foresight to etch these into little maps like the lovely little girl in My Heart is a Compass does. What a treasure that would have been?

The book starts off with a young girl wanting to show her most precious innovative unique possession for show-and-tell. But what is it?

Could it be a trip to the stars?

Or a dive into the wonders of the ocean?

Or a marvelous hike through the enchanted forests?

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Pic from her preview on Amazon

By the end of the book, Rose wants to showcase the very best things in life for her friends to see. So she comes up with a marvelous map with the most wondrous her imagination can come up with. (Which can be the most beautiful or the most terrifying, and in this beautiful book is nothing but intriguing and promising)

I set the book down and wondered again why that beautiful feeling of childhood curiosity and the tendency to look at the world as a magical mystical place wanes with time. The imaginary overtaken by reality, knowledge overtaking intuition, logical vs emotional. Our heart is a compass, and in an ideal world should lead us towards happiness. 

In the long journey of life, if only there was a tonic to never lose that wonder, but constantly add to it, how marvelous the adventure of living would be!

🐺Moony 🌷, 🐀Wormtail ❄️, 🐕‍🦺Padfoot 🍁 & 🦌Prongs 🍀 

I have been reality shifting into the magical and mugglical realms in January. It all started one rainy day as I sat quietly with the daughter. The soft glow of her lampshade gave everything a mellow look, faint music was humming somewhere in the background, and the rains were pattering outside. Her room was looking neat and lived in: her bookshelves gleamed from use, her paintbrushes scattered ever so artistically on her desk, a half done painting drying by the wall.   I sat with her, my head on her shoulders as I leaned over at her bookshelf. She was in a quiet mood, but chatting with me politely (I made the most use of this rare window – before she found something else, anything else more interesting than her mother).

“Really! The book titles you have my dear. Summer I Turned Pretty!”

She chuckled.

“And what is this here? All The Young Dudes?” I said laughing and rolling my eyes in mock exasperation. 

“Ooh! Actually ma! You’ll like that series. You should read them all.” , she said pointing to the neatly stacked books. There were 3 of them. 

“I am a bit past all this summer romance stuff, my dear – Summer I Turned Pretty must be a really nice book no doubt.”

“No – no! This is more to your liking actually. I’ve told you about this before. It is a fan fiction.”

I made a clucking noise which she rose above with a raised eyebrow as reaction. 

“This is the story of the Marauders – told from Remus Lupin’s point of view. Starts from the time Remus is 5 and goes till Sirius’s death actually.”

I sat up intrigued. 

That did sound fascinating and I remembered the queer angle of the story she had mentioned that had me thoroughly intrigued. I had never thought of the story from that aspect before, but once I did, it made more and more sense. Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban is one of my absolute favorites. I cannot believe the tragic story of the best friends who were brave, loyal, funny, and kind ripped apart by one of them who betrayed them resulting in Harry Potter becoming an orphan and their world torn apart. Such a senseless thing to happen to good upstanding sensible people.

Marauders Map

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By Karen Roe from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK – The Making of Harry Potter 29-05-2012, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30618966

The daughter looked at me smiling – she knew she had me in her little palms now. She had caught that gleam of interest, and she caught on. “Only one condition though…” I moaned. 

“No – no conditions. I’ll read it … just…”

“Nope! You read it but not like you usually read books. No reading 10 of them at a time. Just read this and keep going for a 100 pages. Start tonight after a shower, tuck yourself into bed and keep going. That’s it. It is a slow book, but well worth it.”

So I did. 

I usually find Januarys depressing. The fun and camaraderie of the holiday season is over. The streets look bleak: the winter trees are all bare in their abscission (shedding all winter leaves is called abscission I was delighted to learn from TheMarginalian.Org), the holiday lights are taken down, and corporates are back to work in full swing setting goals and metrics and performance targets with an energy that is entirely divorced from the languid winter scene around us. So, if I had to get through this time, why not start with a trip to Hogwarts I thought to myself. 

🐺, 🐀 , 🐕‍🦺   🦌 I solemnly swear I am up to no good! 🐺, 🐀 , 🐕‍🦺   🦌

I chuckled and started reading.

I have been astounded. I love J K Rowling’s writing of the magical world, and started reading with some trepidation (JK Rowling is the Queen of Magic). But as I keep reading, I was enthralled. I was immersed and the week-end was spent in the most marvelous company of the smart, humorous, talented marauders in the magical world. The characterization of @MsKingBean89 was even better than J K Rowling’s, and I seem to agree with the Slate’s review of All the Young Dudes – The Harry Potter series seems like a spin off from this magnificent work of art. It enhances the world so beautifully. 

It is not available for purchase as it is fan fiction. But it is available to read online at:   All The Young Dudes – by @MsKingBean89 

If you are a Harry Potter fan, I strongly recommend this fan fiction. Some parts don’t entirely mesh with my mind’s version of Remus Lupin, but I found myself loving @MsKingBean89’s version all the more for it. It is beautifully written, characterization done slowly but surely. A charm of a book.  It is also 500,000 words long spread over 188 chapters, so it is quite a trip into Hogsmeade.

There was a research paper that suggested that ardent readers of the Harry Potter series were more open -minded and inclusive. This narrative ties into that seamlessly. I felt a warmth that comes from reading well rounded characters. Afterwards, I found another great treasure: the audiobook recording by Fleur Uploads of the entire series. 

@MsKingBean89, FleurUploads, and of course J K Rowling – thank you once again for this marvelous world. 

May the magic in us never fade.

🐺, 🐀 , 🐕‍🦺   🦌 Mischief Managed! 🐺, 🐀 , 🐕‍🦺   🦌

P.S: I really wish I knew who @MsKingBean89 was just so I could read their subsequent books.

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