Tag: Harry Potter

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

harrypotter

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.

kungfupanda

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? 

🐺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

1024px-The_Marauder's_Map_(opened)

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.

The Young Wizard

The son finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in a marathon reading of 5 school days. I found him reading in dim corners, under the quilt after lights-out, by the moonlight streaming into his window at night, and with the class streaming on over zoom – it seemed I bumped into the fellow looking happy and reading wherever I went for a few days. Then, just like that, he was done with the book, and the series itself. 

The house has been abuzz with magic ever since. The wand from Ollivander’s gift shop has been found, batteries replaced, and the lumos spell is very helpful while looking for one’s shoes in the closet with no lights. 

As anyone who has gone through the arc with the young wizards will attest, there isn’t enough magic to go around after an event like that. The epilogue is described variously described as ‘a let-down’, ‘sappy’, ‘unnecessary’ and all of that. But in my mind, it was required closure for the author who spent every waking moment with these characters.

We had an unwritten rule in the house, viz: we’d watch the movies after the books have been read wherever possible. So, we waited patiently. As he finished one book after the other, there was a mini celebration and the week-end movie nights would invariably be Harry Potter & The Completed Book.

As we were getting ready for the movie watching session, the children came clamoring for an instant 2 minute Maggi noodles dinner. They love the tangy soupy instant nature of it. I gave them a stern look and a familiar lecture on healthy eating. Seeing the drooping faces, I said, “Look on the bright side, we can have 2 minute popcorn for movie night tonight!” 

Image from Amazon.com site

Comparisons between the movie script and a fresh reading of Harry Potter is always a thrilling exercise. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is an even more wonderful experience since it rewards you with 2 movies. And so it was, last week-end that we got to dissociate from the myriad problems of the world and immerse ourselves in those of the wizarding world. 

The last 2 movies are especially great watching, since there are so many scenes of note: Dear Dobby, Voldy screaming Aaavvvaaddaa Kedaavvrraaa, McGonagall calling on the locomotor to defend the school. 

The next evening, the son lumos-ed his way into the kitchen as I stood helplessly wondering what to make for dinner that night. Have I mentioned that it is one of my least favorite things to do: Standing and wondering what to make. I must’ve. It is a pet peeve. So, there I stood looking as mutinous as Voldemort’s clouds of doom, when the youngest wizard pranced in, and said, “Do you know there are at least 7 ways in which you can kill somebody without screaming Avada Kedavra like Voldemort does in the last scene?”

“Really?” I asked and he proceeded to rattle them all off. 

I stood there, and asked if he knew a spell for making dinner. 

“Yes! It only takes 2 minutes!” He said and grinned. I gave in to the little tyke’s demands and slurped Maggi 2 Minute Noodles discussing all the possible spells with disastrous effects.

Antheia’s Gifts

April has the whiff of spring about it. Fresh green leaves, and flowers bursting forth everywhere. 

I could not help thinking of William Blake’s ‘heaven in a wild flower’ as we made our way through the trails. Really! I am in awe of poets – how do they think up these things? 

“Who was the Greek god of flowers? Persephone?”

“Nope! Persephone was agriculture, you know when she comes out of the underworld, she brings Spring with her and the world blooms again. She was the one who was abducted by Hades.”

“Ah yes. There should be one for flowers though. Or is it just nymphs?”

She shrugged – “There is a minor goddess. I forget.”

I looked it up as I sat down this morning after sniffing a couple of roses in the garden. Antheia is the greek goddess of flowers.

I was out walking with the daughter on a trail. She was telling me about a fascinating piece of fan fiction she read about the lives of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black in the Harry Potter series. Told from the perspective of Remus Lupin, it was truly amazing. A deer grazed in the river bed now overgrown with shrubbery, while the stream-like river played host to herons and geese. It was fitting setting for the story of The Marauders who first made their appearance in The Prisoner of Azkaban.

I stooped to sneeze. “You know? I think you deserve this!” she said, looking severe. That child has the heart of Minerva McGonagall. Her lips looked thin and her eyes had just a hint of a smile that could not be displayed for wanting to look stern.

“Do you really have to sniff every flower when you know you have allergies?”

“But I do! Just see this my dear. A spider has patiently woven its web within the petals of a narcissi bloom. What is that story of the Ariadne challenging that Greek goddess?”

“You mean Arachne challenging Athena.”

“Yes…really how perfect these spider webs are! As an engineer, I admire the tensile strength, as a artist, I love the clean nature of their work, as a minor creepy crawlie phobe, I want to squeal, and as a clean freak,  I know I clean out cobwebs, but it makes me wonder every time about the nature of work. The constant doing and undoing of it all. It all seems so haphazard, but nature is so intensely productive in its being, no.” I said and then told her about the book I was reading just then.

Titled The Tree, it is part meditation on nature, part autobiographical detailing the relationship with the author and his father, and their differing views of nature. His father was quite the productive fruit producer in his narrow strip of land in the city, while the author’s love for trees bloomed away from the structured fruit producing expectations – in the wilder countryside.

On the walk, in the meanwhile, I pointed out the resourcefulness of the vine that can jump fences and leap between trees, the flowers that think nothing of scenting the world as they go about blooming, the humming bees, and the humming birds darting about all of this with a purpose of their own. “I suppose one could spend all day thinking about these things without any sort of cogency huh?”

“Yep! Like you are doing now? You know this is where some folks really surprise me. I mean, they regularly write and put out a chapter of fan fiction every week, to this brilliant story of Lupin and Sirius I was telling you about. ”

“Yes and look at humankind’s imagination through the ages. All those myths and stories of nymphs turning into rivers, and running through worlds and sprouting off into geysers. ” We walked back in admiration of writers and poets. Oscar Wilde, the daughter’s favorite poet and his life, William Blake, Greek myths, her re-reading of The Song of Achilles, Harry Potter characters all contributed to a magical spring-time saunter.

Imagination and Creativity are always enthralling themes to engage in. How do you cultivate it – are we born with a natural gift that we then need to prune and cultivate like the trees the author’s father looked after or does it thrive and bloom like Antheia’s flowers in the wild?

No fruit for those who do not prune; no fruit for those who question knowledge; no fruit for those who hide in trees untouched by man; no fruit for traitors to the human cause. – John Fowles, The Tree

Love, Acceptance & Gumption

Rarely do the skies reflect our inner turmoils so accurately. The past few days have been a strange time in that respect. The wildfires in California have been giving us days of poor air & light quality.

The first day dawned with the daughter waking us up looking excited. “Oh look how beautiful the light is outside. Everything is so pretty!” I peered outside and indeed it was. The world was bathed in a mellow yellow light, radiating a divine light. “It looks like a day when you feel you must count your blessings!” I said and rolled out of bed looking for the colors of the sunrise.

It turned out be a day to be doing exactly that – counting your blessings. A day to be celebrating a truly marvelous life, and thankful for the opportunity of having his presence in our lives. 

When I checked my phone, I saw that our dear Maama (Mother’s brother) – the younger one, had passed away. My mother confirmed that he passed away while on a video call with his daughter in the USA. Till the end, he was not in pain, and in these times of Covid troubles, he passed away peacefully at home. In death he had been blessed. Though if you had asked him, he would have said he had been blessed in birth as well.

For the past few months, he had been re-living his early years with his siblings at times. His conversations flitted to the village of his youth often, and he spoke of his life as a little boy, and he asked after his little siblings. In moments of clarity, he gave his caregivers careful instructions on how to reach the village where his dear siblings were: “Turn right from the road, and go straight for 6 miles, and you will see a small temple on the side of the road. “

His caregivers, like everyone who had the privilege of loving and being loved by him, indulged him. He truly was a man of many gifts – loving pragmatism was just one of them. 

Dear maama’s life was full of verve, energy, fun, love, and was tragic at the same time.

Yet, he never dwelled on the tragic. He was always a man of action. His nimble mind moved quickly with any tragic event to acceptance, and then looked for the actionable. He never considered any other course that a lesser human being might have resorted to. He was going to be helpful however he could, and he would do whatever was in his power to do. That was his responsibility. 

Talking to some of the lives he had touched after the dear man passed away, I found myself crying at times, laughing at some loving and funny thing that was so characteristic of him at others. The skies went from a count-your-blessings light to a gloomy ash-spewing state as the fires continued to spread through acres of land. 

Gloomy skies spewing ash

I have often wondered how the young children moved past self-pity. After all, the universe had played a low trick on them. He must have been a 11 or 12 year old boy when his father died, and his mother went into a decline from which she never recovered. The youngest sibling of his was my mother, all of 2 and a half years old, and he took her under his protective wing from when she could remember. 

Every time I think of the mammoth responsibilities the brothers shouldered, I shuddered. In an unforgiving world, the 7 siblings formed a bond like none others. 

No story about my mother is ever complete without Jayaram Maama and Pattumani Maama. Corporate environments would have made one write the vision statement and the other the mission statement. The younger of the two brothers, Ambi, as he was affectionately known, was the visionary one. He was also the effervescent one. The brothers made it their mission to educate their sisters at a time when most girls were married off at a tender age with an elementary school education – #HeForShe before it became a thing. They were curious combinations of the ritualistic and progressive. (My mother and her sister were the first women graduates from their village and went on to teach High School Maths, Physics and Chemistry)

Always forward looking, always willing to take action for what needs to happen next; his life is a lesson in acceptance, gumption, and constant self improvement. 

Today the skies have cleared up sufficiently for the sun to shine through again. It doesn’t feel apocalyptic anymore. 

Maybe the grand man is ready for the next great adventure. After all, he joined Pattumani on his second death anniversary.

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter 

Turmeric Magic

I felt a surge of amusement when I made cauliflower last time. The grocery lists needed love, and the results were showing.

“Yay Cauliflower!” yipped the young son, beaming like the early rising golden moon at this wonderful treat. Moments later, the moon face drifted under the clouds and his face looked disappointed as he looked at the pale muck of a curry that had been ladled onto this plate. “This isn’t Cauliflower curry! Isn’t it usually golden?” he said.

“Yeah ma – this one looks so pale. Like it needs some Vit D or something – should I take it for a walk in the sun?” said the daughter.  

I laughed at their reaction. Running a home can be tricky business in the best of times. My grocery lists are not things one writes home about even then (newspaper articles maybe but not to one’s mothers). In Covid times, I beam when we get by with everyone fed at reasonable times. Of course, this means I had to throw 2 tantrums since nicely asking did not seem to work. (I know!)

  1. Tantrum#1: 
    1. Venue:  work
    2. Subject: No meetings between 12:30 & 1:15! 
    3. Result: Sheesh kebabs reactions but people finding ways to accommodate this unreasonable ask
  2. Tantrum #2:
    1. Venue: home
    2. Subject: All people requiring daily sustenance will come to eat between 12:30 & 1:15!
    3. Result: Jeez-whats-with-her flavored eye rolls, followed by expressions as if indulging the local idiot 

Anyway, what happened was that we had run out of turmeric powder. As any decent south-indian cook will tell you, this simplest of spices is a must in almost everything that makes its way to a stove-top. It was only when one does not have the little sprinkling does one realize the joy and gaiety in the dishes thanks to it. It is like a drop of sunshine in the blobs of goo, and the children picked up on that. 

For the next few days, I quietly turned up more discolored dishes. The jokes became more raucous. Even the taste seemed altered. It is curious how tuned our sensory systems worked: taste seemed better if we liked how they looked, they even smelled more appetizing when they looked that scintillating yellow. Seeing that the world seemed a less vibrant place sans turmeric, the husband quietly made a special grocery run after the third day of discolored dishes. 

That day, I felt like a particularly gifted potion maker working her magic with the spices:

“…The beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses…” – Professor Severus Snape – Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone.

I am glad to say that the folks seated around the table glowed from the rays of the yellow mellow sun at this meal.

“Wow! Everything is golden and sunny again!”

“Yep! Appa got turmeric at the grocery store!” I said, and the children cackled.

“Who’d have thought we would miss turmeric?” said the daughter. 

“Well Marco Polo certainly did!” I said. “The world was altered thanks to turmeric, pepper and ginger! So, I suppose it is okay to miss it.” I could see the little titbit had their interests piqued, and they listened in spite of themselves. 

The Travels of Marco Polo

“Many explorers started out in the medieval ages trying to find newer and better routes to the Indian subcontinent for spices. Marco Polo attempted an exploration that lasted almost 24 years . He made his way from Venice in Italy through the Mediterranean seas, past the harsh climates of the deserts in the middle east and the Himalayas in the north and north-east, as he went on past modern-day Tibet all the way to the Gobi Desert in China. His travels along the silk road were published in 1298 and are still sought after – The Travels of Marco Polo! “

“I did not write half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed”
― Marco Polo, on his deathbed

“So, you see – It is probable that this brave explorer in search of turmeric, pepper and other spices, altered world history and our grocery lists forever!” I said. 

The discussion then turned to European explorers setting out to find new routes to the Indian subcontinent, silk roads and trade routes. The history of the world, and how we have always been more interconnected on this planet than we realize, is fascinating.

The golden dishes took on an extra flavor with the story of the spices, and I sat back contented and grateful for a good meal in these times of the pandemic.

Qi to the Yin & Yang

Fact and Fiction were swirling and creating waves and patterns inside the old eggshell. Harry Potter – A History of Magic was entertaining in ways I did not quite expect. Regular readers and friends know how much I love the Harry Potter series. The sheer brilliance and richness of the world, and the marvelous ways in which J K Rowling examines our world has been written about in far greater depth and width and by far greater minds than my own. (Leaky Cauldron site for instance)

I know I enjoyed reading  this in The Prisoner of Azkaban

“Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless — discuss” – Holiday homework set to Harry Potter and his classmates in the Prisoner of Azkaban.

“Non-magic people (more commonly known as Muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not very good at recognizing it. On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty-seven times in various disguises.”
—Bathilda Bagshot, A History of Magic

Harry Potter – A History of Magic book was amazing – Firstly, it contained little tidbits of deleted sections, some planning sketches etc. Secondly, it was organized by subject area: Herbology, Charms, Astronomy, Divination, Care of Magical Creatures, & Transfiguration. In each section were glimpses into humankind’s long fascination with magic. It is astounding to see the vast repertoire of knowledge that the author herself had to be able to synthesize all this and to create another world based on anthropological details, myths from various cultures and her own dose of fantastic imagination.

history_magic

The mind was reveling in the fact and admiring the fiction therein. Our cosmic dance of fact and fiction as a species is almost necessary to examine and understand the world around us. We are story tellers, and we are curious to understand and infer. The Qi to the Yin and Yang of understanding the world around us.

The Astronomy section of the book contained a drawing of the Rudolphine Tables, which helped the reader locate the planets amidst the stars. Containing the locations of 1000+ stars, this was probably the most comprehensive study at the time.

Beside the picture of the Rudophine Tables was a note by Alexander Lock, the Curator
“In 1617, Kepler’s mother was suspected of witchcraft, a crime punishable by death. The accused spent over a year in prison but was eventually released when her son intervened. Kepler was an official astronomer to the Holy Roman Emperor – this family intrigue must have been very difficult for him.”

489px-Johannes-kepler-tabulae-rudolphinae-google-arts-culture

I could not help linking this with some of the things I read in Carl Sagan’s Science as a Candle in the Dark, especially a chapter titled the Demon Haunted World, in which he talks about the grotesque practice of witch hunts and how it became an increasingly profit driven model as well.

Pope Innocent VIII (if ever there was a name that was totally out of sorts with the meaning, this must be it). Pope Innocent was singularly responsible for starting and popularizing the witch hunts in the 15th and 16th centuries leading to millions of people losing their lives and millions more living in a state of constant fear.

There are demon-haunted worlds, regions of utter darkness. – The Isa Upanishad (India ca 600 BC).

With a single proclamation in 1484, Pope Innocent VIII “initiated the systematic accusation, torture and execution of countless “witches” all over Europe.”

While we know of the barbaric practices, little did I realize how pervasive the evil was – The Demon Haunted World -By  Carl Sagan:
“It quickly became an expense account scam. All costs of investigation, trial, and execution were borne by the accused or her relatives down to per diems for the private detectives hired to spy on her, wine for her guards, banquets for her judges the travel expenses of a messenger set to fetch a more experienced torturer from another city, and faggots, tar and hangman’s rope. Then there was a bonus to the members of the tribunal for each witch burned. The convicted witch ‘s remaining property, if any, was divided between Church and State.”

While I am enormously glad to see that we have evolved past this especially cruel phase of mankind’s history it does make me feel terrible about the state of things in the world today. Conspiracy theories, choosing which version of the truth to believe in etc have been problems for a long time, but now it seems these problems have occupied center stage because the leader of the free world seems to spend enormous amounts of time ingesting and spewing conspiracy theories himself.

Maybe it is time for all of us to equip ourselves with Carl Sagan’s famous Baloney Detection Kits.

But there is hope, we have moved past the atrocities of witch-burning to the point that we are now not only able to have witches and wizards in our stories, but also have a clear distinction between fact and fiction.

The yin and yang are sturdily holding their own, and I hope our qi (understanding) will remain unclouded and clear.

 

United in Social Distancing

This post was published in The India Currents magazine: Unity in the face of the Virus-that-must-not-be-named

“This is the Ministry of Magic all over again!” I said.

The Ministry of Magic, as Harry Potter fans know completely botched up the rise of Voldemort – they were in denial, then went on a campaign of outright lying with false facts, bravado, and then a rude reckoning of the truth. The Order of the Phoenix, is one of those books that really opens our eyes to incompetent leaders.

order_of_phoenix

We were discussing the United States’ handling of the Corona virus, COVID-19 health threat.

Everywhere on social media there was information – some true, some untrue, some alarmist, some pacifist, many telling us not to worry, but worrisome all the same. Our President, it seems, has not yet arrived at the true reckoning of the situation, and continued his bravado. The President blundered on about his building walls to stop the spread, his biggest problem seemed to be the Stock market index.

Meanwhile, the CDC did not have enough testing kits ready, so we do not know how pervasive the situation really is.

Vox article: here

We all pass through these phases of denial, a state of holy-moly, and a surreal settling in to things. (I had been vacillating between astonished denial & mild panic, up until the 1st week of March in California). We do the best we can. We see the terms quarantine & social distancing, and try to come to terms with this new mode of functioning. We are social animals now united by the need for social distancing.

Our company announced an ‘Encouraged to WFH policy’ like many other tech companies. That has now been upped to a ‘Mandatory work from home’. I know many of us used the public transit systems to get to the office, so we were obviously grateful to be told thus, and to have the kind of jobs that can be done remotely for a short period of time. It was not lost on me that a great many people did not have the same luxury.

Covid-19 is unprecedented for many of us. People who had lived through the SARS outbreak 18 years earlier are probably the ones who have seen something similar in their lifetimes. For the vast majority of us though, this is new territory. How do we determine the best sources of information?

How do we learn lessons from the countries who are already dealing with the situation? Taiwan, China, Singapore. How did Italy quarantine their entire populace?

Humanity always comes together in the best & worst of times. When our leaders do not provide timely guidance, our collective reasoning can, and much like the Wizarding World united in the face of Voldemort, I am sure we shall do the same this time around: by collectively, voluntarily, distancing ourselves socially, being responsible, and putting the greater good ahead of us.

Read also:

Blame the Toxos

Good Food Mood

Click to access 2019-ncov-factsheet.pdf

The tiniest virus it seems brings us closer to the human condition than any other thing can. We are human and are therefore at risk.

 Books: 

  • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – J K Rowling
  • We Contain Multitudes – Ed Yong

 

Fox 🦊  & Pan 🐐 ⛰

“You know? Most of my morality comes from Percy Jackson and Harry Potter?” said the teenage daughter one day. 

“Gee! Thanks for that speech on wonderful parenting my dear, No clasping mother and father to heart and tears of joys on helping you navigate a messy world and all that?!”

She had the grace to laugh. 

She had been holed up in her room all morning, and I had hollered to her to come and help me with the chores. She stumped downstairs, unable as a teenager, to let on that she was probably enjoying the interlude of putting away the dishes with music in the background. 

As the dishes clattered, the kitchen was enveloped yet again in a mythological whirl. The daughter was always fond of Rick Riordan’s Greek and Roman mythological tales. The son, who has now started to read the series with gusto is thrilled at being included in the club of discussing these important works of literature with his sister. The warring factions of the Gods Vs the Titans has been analyzed from teenage, pre-teenage and elementary child angles. Myths have an alluring charm and when you find the similarity between Cerberus and Fluffy the three-headed dogs in Percy Jackson and Harry Potter series, it is always worth doing a little dance jig, and discussing with the teenaged sister. 

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The husband and I have been made to read the books too, and I must say they make for entertaining reading. I still prefer the Harry Potter series, but I see the lure of Rick Riordan’s work. He has perfected the rhythm of adventure with the right mix of modernity set against Greek gods in our world. 

“Which God would you be if you had an option?” the daughter asked, and the answers flowed forth. When it came to me, I paused for a moment and said, “Probably a nature god. Who was she? Hera?”

“Nah…You are thinking of Persephone. She is the Goddess of spring – you’ll like her too”, looking like a doctor arriving at a tricky diagnosis, “but I think Pan is more suited to you,” said she.

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“Fine then. I will be Pan. Pan is the strongest God if he is the Nature God right?” I said knowing fully well that my answer would be met with an uproar: 

Zeus is the most powerful. 

The top three are Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. 

“Well you know what happened to Pan?”, and then the pair stopped mid-sentence and exchanged meaningful glances. 

“We must not spoil the suspense for you, Amma, but it is very sad what happened to Pan.” said she.

“What happened?”

“NO! Don’t – let Amma read it!” said the most recent reader of the books.

“Just tell me!”, I said, deftly catching a cup from cracking as I caught it from the dishwasher.

A dramatic sigh followed, and the sad prognosis was delivered.  “Pan is fading Amma. He is no longer a force that he was on Gaia now. It is up to us now to save Earth!”

I looked at their faces and felt a surge of pride, alongside a wave of gratitude to writers like Rick Riordan who so beautifully captured the essence of conservation in a manner that so many young children can relate to. Where would we be without the gifts of imagination and creativity?

I read another short story, Fox 8 , by George Saunders, who captured my attention, in a similar manner. Written from the viewpoint of a fox, Fox 8, it outlines the sad outcome of a mall being developed in Fox View Commons ( an area that was home to many animals, forests and trees). Fox 8 learns how to “speek yuman”, at the window of children being read to by their parents at bedtime. Fox 8 loves the stories, their morals and their imagination. Even though, the stories get things wrong about animals all the time, he is fascinated. Fox 8 is a huge fan of yumans and their ingenuity even when the mall development essentially drives their pack to hunger and death. The story ends on a sad note, with Fox 8 wondering how yumans can be cruel and unfeeling towards fellow beings with life, when their stories promise to teach differently.

I have said this once and I say it again – if only we could learn to live like the stories we weave for our children – with wonder, empathy, bravery and curiosity, wouldn’t our lives be more whole-hearted and content? Maybe our greed could be in check and Pan would not have to fade away so much.

Homo Incredulitatis

For the past few years, we have not watched any of the Harry Potter movies in the home because we did not want to ruin the Harry Potter stories for the little sponge in the household. So, we waited patiently till he read Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone. He read some of it, had some of it read to him, and he discussed the whole of it with his Harry Potter wise sister. (Please check out the latest edition with illustrations by Jim Kay. His illustrations are beautiful as if he lived and breathed in the story himself.)

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He only had the last chapter left, and savored the thought like the last piece of cake. The pair of us snuggled up one day with the rain pattering the windows and read. I read in the low rumbling voice of Albus Dumbledore:
‘As for the Stone, it has been destroyed.’
‘Destroyed?’ said Harry blankly. ‘But your friend – Nicolas Flamel – ‘
…

Dumbledore smiled at the look of amazement on Harry’s face.
‘To one as young as you, I’m sure it seems incredible, but to Nicolas and Perenelle, it really is like going to bed after a very, very long day. After all, to the well organized mind, death is but the next adventure. You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all – the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things which are worst for them.”

I could not agree more. Fresh from my readings of Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, I was already uneasy with our hideous choices for progress:
An economy built on everlasting growth needs endless projects – just like the quests for immortality, bliss and divinity.

The husband had spent the afternoon watching a movie with some very interesting sound effects. A sci-fi crime thriller of one who had moved his consciousness into the ether and could possess bodies at will. “Something like Voldemort, only he could find one horcrux at a time and keep going.” said the husband.

Living for ever, resurrecting species back from the dead?

Why? A few years ago, we played a game in the car with the children where we asked the children which animal they would bring back from extinction, to great hilarity (Dodo, Dragon, Dinosaur Dis-apparitions) . This had such an impossible Sci-Fi feel to it, and that contributed to the thrill of the game. I mean you cannot bring back Dodos can you?

In less than two years, I read a book titled ‘Woolly: Bringing the Mammoth Back to Life’ by Ben Mezrich. I only read the book now, but work on that front has been going ever since we learnt to sequence a genome, and cloned a sheep. If pressed on the benefit of this move, I suppose mankind would say, “This will help reduce global warming by ensuring the Tundra permafrost is packed in with the stomping of large beasts.”

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I am not so sure. If anything, we use our considerable creativity to find grand purposes.

I was intrigued by the husband’s movie discussion on immortality in the form of storing one’s thoughts elsewhere. I have been looking at my thoughts ever since this discussion, and I got to tell you: There isn’t much going on up there. No future generation in the 25th century will benefit from my great wisdom. In fact, the number of times I resist eating chocolate, and then meekly give in, might be the greatest wisdom there is.

Projecting the future is a crummy business. An excerpt from the book, Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari:
While some experts are familiar with developments in one field, such as AI, nanotechnology, big data or genetics, no one is an expert on everything. No one is capable of connecting all the dots and seeing the full picture. Different fields influence one another in such intricate ways that even the best minds cannot fathom how breakthroughs in artificial intelligence might impact nanotechnology or vice versa. Nobody can absorb all the latest scientific discoveries, nobody can predict how the global economy will look in 10 years, and nobody has a clue where we are heading in such a rush.

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Why does the unknown scare us? If that is the case, isn’t tinkering with immortality even more of an unknown than death?

Our tales and myths are full of warnings against this very wish. From Bhasmasura, Ravana and Hiranyakashipu to Grindelwald, and Voldemort, we have read and ingested that immortality is not such a sweet bunch of grapes as it is made out to be.

Homo Sapiens seem to have forgotten that Happiness is only important when we have unhappiness to compare it against. Life is only good because we know it is finite, and we strive to make it a full, worthwhile one. Would I cherish every moment and live in the present and all that lark, if the present is all there ever is? It was a sobering thought.

Really Homo Sapiens are Homo Incredulitatis!

Books: 
   Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone: J K Rowling 
   Homo Deus: Yuval Noah Harari
   Woolly: Ben Mezrich
Movie: Mayavan
Myths: Bhasmasura, Ravana, Hiranyakisapu
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