Life – Page 60 – Nourish-n-Cherish

Drunk Koala Dreams

The tale below yanks one through time, hangs out with koalas on Eucalyptus branches and yearns for hibernation like the grizzly bears do. Bear with me: I hope it is a tale worth your time.

Modern living can be fast. Cars zip down freeways, flights jet down runways, and people charge down escalators. We were set to do them all to get home from the quiet, beautiful Bryce and Zion national parks. We had had an enjoyable trip, and were going home again.

Nature does not hurry, yet achieves everything – Lao Tzu

Mankind hurries and achieves nothing – Drunk Koala

We looked at each other and glowed in spite of those pesky hunger pangs gnawing at the stomach. It had been a busy morning with nothing much to eat, and we now had time to tuck in before the flight. We had arrived at the Las Vegas airport earlier than expected.

The husband looked at me and said, “We have a whole hour before boarding time. Maybe we can go and relax in the lounge, eat something, and stretch ourselves a bit before heading back to board the flight. “

relax

My deer like senses tensed: I can sniff lounge trouble like the best sniffers on the priarie.

“But you heard the fellow – he said that lounge is 3 terminals away. Terminal A to Terminal D!” I said in case one had difficulty counting 1.2.3.

“Yes…but we can relax.” said the fellow who would ask Relax if he has ever had the pleasure of meeting him before. Relax indeed. Hummingbirds relax more while flying.

This is where I need to yank you folks through time a bit:

The day I heard the husband coo like a love struck dove on the phone to me from Bangalore airport, I knew that trouble lay ahead. A few years ago, the husband had been overseas on an official trip. One cold, bright day, I picked up the phone to hear his voice from the airport before he boarded the long flight back to the USA.

“I ate masala dosas! Hot, masala dosas!” he cooed. No brisk got-to-go-s, no frenzied recap of trip to the airport, nothing: just the musical sound of dosas. A surprisingly passionate tone of voice for food given that any trip to Incredible India involves grande servings of food.
“At 1 in the morning?” I asked incredulous that one felt like stuffing masala dosas at that time of the circadian rhythm.
Not one to be discouraged that easily, he said, “Why not? They also had a make-your-own omelet bar. “
“I’ll make sure I keep a salad and a crouton ready for you when you land.” I said.

drunk_koala1

The excesses at the Bangalore airport were due to the fact that he had access to a lounge area. Ever since, every time we set foot in an airport, I know that his mind is ticking with masala dosas and make-your-own-omelet bars: The dosa dream never fades.

This time we had hardly stepped foot in the Las Vegas airport on our flight back from Zion and Bryce, when the lounge itch got him. I diagnosed it in the eyes. Fervent enquiries told us we had to cross 3 terminals, hop onto a train, jump onto an elevator, skip on and off three walk-a-lators, before getting to the lounge.

The husband with the food gleam is like a koala high on eucalyptus sap. He has the same fuzzy look, and his companions have the same urge to give in to the sloshed fellow on the grounds of compassion for the dulled mind. It is the idea of food, nothing else. He’ll be fine soon, we tell ourselves and solicitously pat him on his back.

In the meanwhile, in his brain, the Sober Animal Trainer part tries reasoning with the Drunk Koala part:
Drunk Koala: Lounge! Drool. Food! Juice! Relax, enjoy! Masala dosas – hmm!
Sober A T: Yes yes, I know, but there are restaurants here
Drunk Koala: But Free food?
S.A T: Not at all, you pay for the lounge.
D.K: I know. But we already pay for the lounge.
Wise Sober .Animal .Trainer.: Stop harking back to Bangalore airport masala dosas! You know perfectly well, your wife is right. She always is, remember? Good. Never forget that. Anyway…point is: you are not going to get good food at the lounge here.

With this sound reasoning, the drunk koala in his mind won, and the rest of us jogged behind him as the man on a mission set off for the lounge in Terminal D. Every 5 minutes the sober animal trainer would cause him to pause, and say, “Do you think we should turn back?”, but D.K drummed his chest again, and off we went.

We arrived at the lounge looking like baby bears during spring time standing upstream for the salmon to come jumping up. Eager for the food in the other words.

The hospitality industry requires extensive human resources in order to thrive. A resource that the United States is not burgeoning on, in general. An irritated lady sat behind the counter and eyed us beadily, as if daring us to approach her. Her cold welcome did nothing to the hunger pangs.

The children and I left her presence to go peering around the refreshment nooks. Close inspection revealed 3 chips packets, 2 sad bananas, and 1 dehydrated apple peering out from a fruit holder. Next to that lay a tray with two flasks (coffee, hot water) and a plastic cane to stir the creamer and sugar. The feast was done. We peeked under the table to see if trays of burritos and sandwiches, heaps of salads and pastas were hidden there. Nothing. Hide and seek can be a depressing game sometimes.

I helped myself to a watery tea, the children swamped on chips, and the husband moodily bit into his apple. “We could leave early so we can eat somewhere?” he said.
The children stomped this down with the logical, “But we just got here!” argument.
15 minutes later, we started on our journey back to Terminal A.

drunk_koala2

As the flight made for liftoff, a low rumble was heard. It was our stomachs growling like grizzly bears. If ever you see little bears with their papa bear standing upstream with their tongues hanging out for the salmon, try breaking it to the bear cubs that the salmon this year had decided to swim downstream again instead of jumping upstream, and let me know what happens will you? In our case, Drunk Koalas may not know what to do, but grizzly bears fresh with the memory of hibernation do: even if they growl and kick their feet to do so. We promptly fell asleep.

The rest of the journey home is a blur best skipped for brevity. Two long hours later, when finally the glow of home-cooked food in our stomachs suffused us with a warm glow, the husband said, “That lounge idea wasn’t so great huh?”

I disagreed. I got a long walk, and a blog out of it. The lounge idea was marvelous.

Playing Aeronautic See-Saw with Lions

Have you thought about how an airplane crew feels with respect to their dress? I look at the air hostesses tottering up and down the aisles wearing heels, tight fitting skirts, berets and what-have-you, and give them commiserating smiles when they look forlorn at the way their wards on the plane are attired.

The poor blighters look like they are dressed for one of those high brow diplomatic commissions where they stop countries from throwing tomatoes at each other. Just a moment, hold on – I feel like Archimedes in the bath-tub. I am not bathing, I mean, I feel one of those Eureka moments coming on: Maybe they are dressed for the part. I have seen these stellar folks walk up to people and tell them to stop throwing tomatoes, or to refrain from kicking the passenger’s seat in front of them, though better judgement tells them, ‘To blazes with the tomatoes. D’ya think tomatoes can ruin that attire. Tchah!’

eureka

We had seated ourselves toward the back of the plane, and it proved to be an excellent vantage point to observe one’s fellow passengers scramble aboard. In sharp contradistinction to the crew, we seem to have rapidly climbed the comfort curve and equally rapidly slipped down the presentation curve. Some of the folks on that plane! I am not sure they would have been allowed to lounge in their own rooms in the days of Victorian clothing, let alone poke their heads out to observe traffic. Yet, here they were, looking rather pleased with their debonair sense of fashion taking their seats on an airplane headed to Las Vegas. Oh well.

“I should be used to the way Americans dress when traveling, yet it still manages to amaze me. It’s as if the person next to you had been washing shoe polish off a pig, then suddenly threw down his sponge saying, “Fuck this. I’m going to Los Angeles!”

― David Sedaris, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls

When everyone was strapped in, and the flight buzzed with the excitement of school children on a field trip, the flight attendant came up in front of the audience. I settled down to watch a stellar production of how-best-to-fasten-the-seat-belts when I was met with a bizarre announcement instead.

The flight attendant seemed to feel the same way, for she came up this time, braced herself for some of that iron resolve that lions summon up before roaring, and asked for a passenger to volunteer to move to the back of the aircraft. ‘We need the lift to be more evenly balanced’, she mumbled.

None of that confident button-your-seat-belt attitude. Here was no lion, here was a caterpillar that was quite willing to poke its entire self back into the folds of a flower.

The thing smacked of euphemisms. Lift to be balanced indeed.

One appetizer bite sized lady gallantly stood up, and said she’d go. She was one of those svelte beauties that could have dotted these beauty magazines when young, and probably filled up on half a lettuce leaf. Mouse-like about summed up her appearance.

I could see the flight attendant struggle. I mean, how do you break it gently to the appetizer that laudable as the effort was, the entree is what the doctors prescribe for tummy rumbles? Lions educated in modern thought resist the urge to laugh at mice who offer help. Summoning up her L.courage again, and praying none of this would get tweeted and bandied about the internet, she tried again. ‘Thank you very much Ma’am. But, maybe, some one who can help the frontal pressure be eased, so we have sufficient lift for take-off. You can come back after the flight takes off.’

lion_see_saw

We could have helped the poor things by calling out, “She is looking for someone stouter on the scale folks!”, but the same modern education seemed to restrain us all, and we watched as a brave spirit stood up looking sheepish. He towered impressively, looking like a football player who could mow three lions when stirred. The airplane clucked approvingly, and gave the fellow admiring looks. I don’t think his mother could have looked on the fellow more lovingly when he tucked into his sausages. He followed her looking like Mary’s little lamb to the back of the aircraft, while she squeaked, “Thank you thank you sir. You may come back after the flight takes off.”

I suppressed the uneasy image of an airborne see-saw bravely, and pretty soon, we were airborne.

I wonder often about the life of a flight crew. They must have their moments of getting-back as they march smartly down aisles dressed like Napoleon at battle, trying to herd a lazy bunch of bovine swatters lounging around in yoga pants, and flannel night-suits. I like to think they attend black-tie events in pajamas just to get even with the world.

I wasn’t mistaken.

Just as soon as one calmed those take-off butterflies somewhat, the smart officer came on saying something to the effect of, “Good evening all. We are cruising at 33,000 feet and a cool 23 F outside. Please relax and enjoy your flight.”

I saw the impressive gentleman (the one whose mother lovingly … never mind. 3 paragraphs above) make his way back to the front of the air-plane, and I wondered how cold it is to be playing on the see-saw.

see-saw

Cosmic Nature of Living

We have several friends who are whiz-kids behind the lens, and rise before larks to photograph that first ray of sunlight through the crevice of the rock and so on. We are grateful to their creative labors, for the pictures show the artist behind the lens, and one needs only look at them to get an instant nature spa. We, on the other hand, forget to take cameras, or if we do, leave them behind in the car before getting out. Plans for sunrises are often derailed by the low trick the sun plays on us by beaming on us and waking us up with his rays before we beat him to it.

So, it is no doubt that armed with nothing but our cellphones, we had no method of capturing the brilliance of the Milky Way galaxy.

star_trails — Star Trails of the Milky Way Galaxy

Every time we have the luxury of traveling out of our urban areas swathed in artificial light, we try to step out at night to indulge in star gazing. The winter skies over Zion national park did not disappoint. The wisps of cloud that had floated in during the sunset to show us a more resplendent sunset had flitted away obligingly so that we may take in the iridescent brilliance of the Milky Way galaxy unobstructed.

A friend most kindly took a picture of the husband gazing up at the skies that had me yearning to see the sky like that.

Photographers will tell you something about shutter speed, and exposures and frames per second: Lark that always has me looking like a glazed doughnut at t+2 of the discourse. Therefore, I produce slightly alarming results that has physicists going back over their calculations to see how the focal length with the curvature and the light ray divided by exposure rate gave rise to the image that I seem to have obtained. (Just a moment: f/1.4 should blur that background, how did it blur the subject?)

I meander as usual. The point is: I thought we required post processing and superior photographic techniques like make-up on a set to be able to see that night sky. However that night at Zion national park, we had no need to resort to these advanced techniques to see the nebulous cloud of the Milky Way. The skies split open, and the stars poured their celestial brilliance upon us. If this was the show our ancestors enjoyed every night, it is no wonder that we have such wonderful myths and shapes in the ‘ever changing panorama of the skies’ (James Woodforde Parson).

As we looked up, we could not help wondering how the desert beauty in the canyons was so different from the beauty of the seaside and yet so unlike the snowy mountain plains. If this many vagaries of nature could exist on one planet, the mind boggles on what exists in the vast cosmos out there. We rarely stop to think of the skies in any color than the ones we are blessed with. It takes children to imagine that. I remember the childrens’ essays in first grade where they were asked to imagine another world, and their skies looked nothing like ours. They opened our minds to the possibility of having rust colored night skies, with swirling colorful gusts of wind and rainbow colored days. When asked to imagine extra terrestrial life, we are so limited by our imaginations that we seldom look beyond the slightly changed human form.

Yet on this very planet, we know that octopuses have a level of consciousness radically different from our own.

For a long time, we thought that being conscious was something unique to human-beings, then Jane Goodall paved the way for several scientists to study animals and not fear being accused of anthropomorphizing their subjects. Finally, in the 1970’s, Jennifer Mather’s work was acknowledged. Quoted from The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery:

Once overlooked or dismissed outright, Jennifer’s work now is respected and cited by cognitive neuroscientists, neuroanatomists, and computational neuroscientists so that the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness asserts that “humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness”, and that “nonhuman animals, including all birds and mammals and many other creatures, including octopuses also possess these neurological substrates.”

Days filled with the daily business of living truly and fully demand our attentions so that we often forget the vibrant universe in which we float. The night view from our planet, ‘ a tiny mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam’ as Carl Sagan so elegantly put it, is the best cure for arrogance there exists. Instead of taking our place among the harmonious orchestra of the universe, if all our dictators are fighting over, is a small patch in this tiny speck on a remote planet, we must feel sorry indeed for ourselves.

Sunset In The Queen’s Garden

In what was an impressive track record for last minute booking, the husband booked a trip, that flew us into Las Vegas and from there onto the beautiful sights in Utah. In one week, we had been in 4 states: California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah.

Sitting in the car that bright morning as we drove past Zion national park into Bryce Canyon national park, I felt the familiar stirrings of wonder. Nature often has this effect on me. The magnificence, brilliance and grandeur of nature never fails to instill awe. Always partial to trees, rivers and mountains when it comes to scenery, I could not help thinking how nature had once again jostled me out of my familiar likes and dislikes and opened my mind to appreciate beauty so different and so breath taking.

As Johannes Kepler says in his book, Mysterium Cosmographicum

The diversity of the phenomena of Nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.

We had driven past Zion national park early enough in the morning to go on to Bryce Canyon National Park. We received the first glimpse of hoodoos in Dixie national forest. Set against the bright blue sky, they looked like statues from another world sent here to evoke an art that stuns and astonishes. We were listening to a Harry Potter audio book: a series that nudges even the most reluctant thinker into imagination, so it was no wonder that my mind buzzed with actors from another world setting the stage for the impressive hoodoo theatre.

“What should we do at Bryce?” asked the husband

“Well… the Queen’s Garden trail comes highly recommended, so that and a few other trails ought to do it.” I said vaguely, and continued musing.

Would the Queen’s Garden be as poetic as its name? Would there be any hoodoos? Little was I to know that Bryce Canyon hosted an entire amphitheater of them, and that we would be able to walk amidst them.

One of the things I like best about road trips through the National Parks in the USA are the poetic names every point is given. Take for instance the Queen’s Garden. Instead of saying Rock Point or Hoodoo Lookout, the trail was given a mystifying and satisfying name: Fairy Loop through the Queen’s Garden in the Amphitheater. Who wouldn’t want to do that? Apparently, one of the hoodoos resembled Queen Victoria in the setting sunlight’s shadow.

Could there really be a weird coincidence of having one’s silhouette set in stone that gives us a clue as to which human beings live on in name and fame? Or do we only assume likenesses to those already living on in name and fame? Hoodoo musings are quixotic.

The day at Bryce Canyon was beautiful and as other-worldly as it is possible to get in so short a span of time.

Meandering through the park, we found ourselves washing up near the Queen’s Garden trail towards day’s end. The trail itself looped from Sunrise Point dipped via the Queen’s Garden and came back up near Sunset Point. If the point had not been named Sunset Point, would we have stopped to take in the grandeur of the sunset over the Amphitheater like setting of the valley? I am not sure. I do not think the sunset is any more spectacular here than at any other point in the Canyon, but simply by naming a point Sunset Point, we were encouraged to wait for the hues of the setting sun to unleash its marvelous palette of colors across the skies, thus bathing the amphitheater before us in surreal colors.

The setting sun took its time. It first peeked behind a hoodoo and then cast its fading light slowly upon the horizon.

As we stood there bundled up bracing for the sudden dip in Winter temperature after the sun sets, I could not help thinking of Ray Bradbury’s thought on the Happiness Machine in the book, Dandelion Wine: A Sunset is only beautiful because it doesn’t last forever.

While it lasted though, it was magical.

“Doesn’t it make you feel poetic?”, I said gazing mesmerized at the hoodoos in the amphitheater before us. “This Queen’s Garden hike reminds me of Alice’s trip down the rabbit hole. This is a Wonderland. The gargantuan arches of orange and pink beauty beckon!”, I said theatrically, flourishing my hands wide and raising my face heaven-wards. It is imperative at moments of impetuousness such as this to ignore teenagers inserting the practical note into life.

“It is just erosion.”, said the daughter bringing me back to Earth in a thud, but I saw her smiling happily and taking in the horizon.

Without art, science would be as useless as a pair of high forceps in the hands of a plumber. Without science, art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery. The truth of art keeps science from becoming inhuman, and the truth of science keeps art from becoming ridiculous. -Raymond Thornton Chandler

http://www.zionnational-park.com/bryce-canyon-trails.htm Quote below:

The Queen’s Garden Trail leads hikers past wonderful rock formations, including Gulliver’s Castle, the Queen’s Castle and many that are unnamed. Man-made bridges are scattered throughout the trail. At the end is Queen Elizabeth’s garden and the Queen herself, standing on a backward facing camel, calling out orders to the ships in the garden. The queen can also be seen from Sunrise Point.

Standing there under the rays of the setting sun, waiting to unleash another cold night, before rising again, the daughter and I imagined the place as it would have been millions of years ago, with underwater life teeming in its depths, crafting the very hoodoos for us to delight in today.

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” — Lao Tzu

If only, we let Nature go on its course without hurrying to leave our indelible imprint on the canvas, I am sure something even more remarkable can be handed down to generations after us.

Can Mammoths Stop Thawing Arctic Permafrost?

“Let’s not watch this – it is depressing, and some of that stuff makes my blood curl.”, I said as the daughter suggested some gothic fiction. It was the week-end before Halloween, and we were picking our Friday evening entertainment. Never an easy task.

“Fine! What do you want to watch?”

“Cosmos” I said without flipping a heart beat. (Watch the you-tube video introducing Cosmos here)

To her eye-roll, I said “No really! You see, there are so many things in there that I wanted to understand as a student. I plodded along to the library and I got to admit, the Physics books in there. “ I gave a shudder here, and I fully meant it. “I suggest you curl up with one of those tomes in our library looking jaundiced, pale, and excellent cures to Insomnia. I thought some of them needed vitamins, sunshine and exercise to regain what Doctors call a healthy glow. “

geek_world

So, we sat together and watched a Cosmos episode by Neil deGrasse Tyson on global warming. In his slow, sure voice, he rumbled like the volcanoes on Venus that set the poor planet into an irreversible green house cycle.

The World Set Free (Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey)

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/cosmos-a-spacetime-odyssey/episodes/the-world-set-free/

We have twenty years at the current rate to stop us from going into an irreversible state like Venus.

The daughter gave me a significant look .I gave her a more sig. look, and we sat there looking like stuffed frogs with s. looks etched on our faces digesting the info. “How could you think this was okay to watch, but that movie was too scary. This is the scariest thing I have ever seen. How do you think it will all end?” said the daughter sounding worried, and deeply stirred.

A few days later, I read out a passage from the book I was reading. Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History’s Most Iconic Extinct Creatures. (Related post: Mankind trying to resurrect the woolly mammoth by impregnating Asian elephants with mammoth genes.)

Screen Shot 2017-10-27 at 4.37.00 PM

Pleistocene park – Using 160 square kilometers of Siberian Tundra given to him by the Russian government, Zimov’s goal was repopulating the area with modern equivalents of prehistoric animals that had adapted to Arctic conditions (moose, Yakutian horses, Finnish reindeer and even North American bison.) … To re-create the effects of the Woolly Mammoths on the land, he’d bought in a World War II tank …. Punching holes in the snow, … , using the tank treads to mimic the continual stomps of Mammoth feet, he’d worked the land, year after year. And along the way, he’d accumulated data that were staggering in their implications.

Within his 16- square kilometers refuge, he had lowered the permafrost temperature by an average of fifteen degrees.

We change the world just be being. I remember watching a video by National Geographic in which they chronicle how 41 wolves introduced in the Yellowstone park, changed the ecology and even the physical structure of the park.

Introducing Wolves in YellowStone National Park – National Geographic Video

If that was the case with 41 wolves, what would introducing Mammoths do? Would it save us from the brink of extinction or introduce problems of the kind we hardly envisioned?

We never know the ramifications of our creations. I mean we are a species who has unintended consequences from a ‘Like’ button on Social Media.

The Physics Of Myth

“Which is your favorite tree?” asked the children one day.

I am often asked questions like this, especially by the elementary school going son. Your favorite color, your favorite food, your favorite flower and on and on till I shriek in agony, at which point he flips to – when was the first time you ate with a spoon, when was the first time you touched a frog, when did you first climb a tree?

I thought about the favorite tree one though: which one was my favorite tree? Is it the oak tree that I plonked my satchel under every day in school, or the flowering jacaranda trees under which we had steaming hot cups of tea with friends, or the tall eucalyptus tree that edged our street towering majestically against the skies signaling home was nearby, or the fir & pine trees that contributed to many an amateur flower arrangement lending beauty and joy to the surroundings, or the willow that made one want to relax just by its shape and allure, or the gingko tree that makes me smile on a evening walk, or the oleander trees that sag with flowers in the summer, or the fruit trees in my backyard that are so hospitable to squirrels ,or the redwood trees that urge me to be like them: strong, resilient and upright, or the curious, curvy bristlecone trees that remind me they are older than our oldest myths, or the pine tree with an elephant head that reminds me of the time the son as a toddler tried to fit his understanding of Physics into Myth?

It was a tough question and I told them so. The son scenting a ‘wild’ story from his childhood asked for the story, and I mock-sighed before telling him:

“One day a couple of years ago, when you were very much a toddler, and had just started attending a preschool, you picked up a book from the library about Lord Ganesha. You were thrilled with the find because Indian mythology is hardly found in the libraries in America, right? Lord Ganesha Curses The Moon – was the title. Appa and you settled down to read together at night.

Anyway, so, remember the story? It went something like this:

The moon used to beam as a full moon every night. One day, the moon laughed at Lord Ganesha when he tripped and fell in the forest. Ganesha promptly got angry at the moon, and cursed it into oblivion.The whole world plunged into darkness (this was before electric lights remember?). At this, the book painted some gory pictures of the problems faced by the population because it was completely dark. People fell, people bumped into each other, people were robbed. Soon, everyone begged Ganesha to take back his curse. But he couldn’t. His word being law and all that.

So.

An impasse was reached, and soon the king of Gods, Indra, came to him and asked him to do something about it. Ganesha thought and thought, and finally reached a compromise. He said the moon could grow from no moon to the full moon, and then shrink back again to no moon. That ought to teach him not to laugh at people. The moon agreed, and that is how it remains to this day.

ganesha_moon

After the story, Appa asked you, “What do you think of the story? Do you really think that is what happened?”

You had that serious look on your face as you thought about it, and you said, “Yes, of course. That’s when the moon must have started going around the Earth, and the Earth started spinning, so the moon could grow bigger and smaller.”

“Appa told me what you said later, and ever since I think of that story and remember how you fit your understanding of Physics into that mythological story when I see that fir tree with an elephant head.”

“Did I really do that?” asked the son laughing heartily, and I smiled.

It was true of course. His response had us flabbergasted, for we hardly ever consciously think about how we continually shape our worldly views and understanding. We subtly and subconsciously incorporate the stories we hear, choosing to consider which ones to digest and which ones to leave.

“So, as you see, I cannot only name one favorite tree. I love them all. Just like…”

“We know…. we know! Just like you love us both!”, said the children, and I smiled my favorite smile.

Godly Superheroes or Super-Heroic Gods?

The clocks had been changed, and the evenings suddenly signaled the arrival of Winter. The stars shone, the moon beamed, and the crickets clicked much sooner than usual. I was pottering about the kitchen when I overheard an interesting conversation between brother and sister.

“What is the difference between a Super-Hero and a God? “

The question was obviously the son’s. The young fellow had a curious look on his face, and he wanted to learn the truth, and nothing but the truth from his older, wiser, newly minted teenage sister. His sister looked discomfited, and said, “Dude! Seriously?”

I tried my best to keep the stuffed frog look about me, and acted non-committal. A vitally important step if you want to see how the discussion proceeds.

The son is a great lover of mythological tales. Hanuman, the monkey god, who could jump across seas, carry mountains with one hand, and fly with the mountains is a positive hero. This is such a change in pace for us for the daughter was never one to ask for super-heroes or Indian mythological tales.

Her philosophy matches the Roman poet, Ovid’s, thoughts on God:

It is convenient that there be gods, and, as it is convenient, let us believe that there are.

“Hanuman is my favorite super-hero.” said the son. “Was Hanuman a super-hero?”

“Yes …. and … no. Well…Hanuman is a super hero, but he is also a God. Most Gods are also super-heroes, you know?”

This must’ve felt like a tantalizing puzzle to the fellow, for he continued with the quizzing.

“But not all super-heroes are Gods right? Superman is not a God. “

“Yes…he is not. Definitely not. Nor is Spider man, and Captain America and all the rest of the fellows you watch.”

The son gave a raucous peal of laughter at this. It amuses him that the super-heroes who mean so much to him, mean so little to his sister. He looked at her with that look artists paint on disciples waiting to hear some Saint giving life-advice.

“Well… Gods don’t die, but super heroes do.” She sounded tentative, quite unlike her usual self.

“But Rama died, and he is a God right?”

super-heroes

The daughter looked at me with pleading eyes, and I threw up my hands. This child asks the kind of questions that spiritual speaking the Dalai Lama could answer. Me? I sputter and stutter and look like a duck stuck with duct tape in her throat.

His world has super-heroes, and if in the olden days, they were Gods, they must have been the super-heroes of the day.

To ruminate consciously is a privilege: Who are our super-heroes today? Which ones will be the Gods and which ones the Demons?

P.S: I recently read a book titled The Delight of Being Ordinary by Roland Merullo. It is a book chronicling an unlikely trip taken by the Pope and the Dalai Lama together. It is an opportunity for them to escape the fanfare that is constantly around them, and delve into what their sub-conscious has been telling them. I don’t usually read forewords, but after reading this book, I felt happy enough to go back and read the foreword. The author said that the concept of having the two world’s most prominent religious leaders, who also have a wonderful sense of humor appealed to him, as so many leaders today are so devoid of this important ability to laugh and delight in little things.

Part 2: Incorporating Physics Into Myth

Teapot Spirituality

“Sheesh kababs! What is with Amma – is she tired and cleaning again?” said the daughter, when I acted like a teapot sliding off my tea spout.

I whistled my protest with as much dignity as a teapot sliding off the tea-sp. could when caught in the act. “There is nothing wrong with me. Merely that a lot of work needs to be done, and I cannot come and play a game of Life now. I have Life to deal with now.” The queenly dignity sounded overdone like these actresses who act for 10 dollars when paid 3. I waved my hands impressively at the surrounding environs.

It was true, at least in my mind. Pots and pans needed washing, the floors needed scrubbing, the ….

“You said you are tired at the end of the week, and it has been a tough week. You just said we escaped a fire, and we should just be thankful for Life huh? Get it. Get it? Come on now.”

teapot

I could not argue, and after a flimsy protest, waved down by the children who helped me get the kitchen to a state of relative cleanliness, we sat around playing the game of Life. There was a serendipitous beauty to it. The evening had made me nervous and jumpy, more conscious of the gift of Life, and as usual the children had led me to the calm instead of the frenzy, with their customary élan.

Northern California had been reeling from the effect of wild fires. After an unnaturally hot summer, calamity struck too close to home for comfort. This time, it was people we had lunches with, people we holler out to when we catch a glimpse of them in crowded places. People who will slowly extend that quizzical look into a slow, wide smile as they recognize you, these were the folks asked to evacuate.

Luckily the fires had been contained, and I felt like we could look forward to a quieting down. I had spoken too soon. That evening, flames leaped higher than trees behind our home, and smoke billowed from nearby. The bags were packed in the car: documents, some cash, a change of clothes, laptops, water bottles, snack bars, and a few pictures. When it comes to it, that is all there is, isn’t there? Nothing else matters.

That night, everything felt keener. The comfort of putting away the dishes, the joy of playing a board game, the delight of being ordinary, the familiarity of the mundane, the contentment of a bedtime story, the gratitude for the simple act of breathing.

“I just got twins Amma.” said the son after rolling his dice.

“There goes your quiet retirement!” said the daughter, and the children went into peels of laughter, and I joined in noticing how much better it felt to laugh with abandon. I felt the 17 facial muscles work as the laughter gripped me. I observed the act of laughing together as if I was perched atop the roof, looking at us having a good time. Is this what consciousness is?

I finished the piece on resurrecting the Woolly Mammoth using genetic samples obtained from the pristine Arctic Tundra, and impregnating an Asian elephant with the questions on consciousness, and whether or not there is a Soul. I love it when a work of fiction explores the questions posed by futuristic Science, and I finished the post by tying it up with Never Let Me Go, By Kazuo Ishiguro.

Everyone knows, teapots are far from spiritual, and my understanding could make a teapot sing. If you were to explain the concept of consciousness, conscience and soul, how would you do it?

The Concept of Conscious Conscience

“Appa got me the Cheetos”, said the daughter sounding gleeful over dinner.

Cheetos, I had explained to her that morning, was full of food coloring, and therefore not a good idea.

“You went and asked him for that after everything I explained to you this morning? Carcinogens. You know what? I think you should look up Mammoth DNA sequences and compare and contrast it with the genome of an Asian elephant.”

“That is the world’s worst punishment ever!” she said pulling an impressive teenage affront with ease. “I don’t think anyone has been given that.”

“Well..there are several reasons you are being given that, “, I said. “One: I am reading the book that is all about resurrecting the woolly mammoth by impregnating an Asian elephant with mammoth genes. Two: Did you know that the elephant, that large an animal as it is, does not suffer from cancer? Maybe there is something in it’s genetic makeup that prevents malfunctions during cell reproduction.” I said giving her my Idiot’s Guide to Genetics lecture.

It’s true. I had just finished reading the book called “Woolly – Bringing a woolly mammoth back to life” by Ben Mersich. For someone who does not know the first thing about genetics and genome sequencing and such, this is a good book to read. It is written like a fast paced novel, moving between the lives of reclusive scientists, Sergey and Nikita Zimov in the Russian Tundra and Jy Minh’s work in Hwang Woo-Suk’s Sooam Laboratories in South Korea to George Church’s lab work in Harvard. All these efforts are working towards resurrecting the woolly mammoth using DNA samples obtained from mammoths preserved in pristine conditions in the Arctic Tundra.

Screen Shot 2017-10-27 at 4.37.00 PM

If that feels like Jurassic Park, it is, though the book explains why it is not exactly like Jurassic park, but sort of. It is Pleistocene Park – a concept that beat Jurassic Park by 2 years in conception.

If you are looking for a scientific explanation of techniques, and theory, this isn’t the book. The book is to be made into a movie, and is written as such: I can imagine the scenes leaping off the pages. Following the Russian scientists on a quest to resurrect life in the Arctic life makes a thrilling tale. Combining that with the race by Korean scientists to engineer and reverse engineer life, and scenes from a research laboratory down in Harvard makes for brilliant movie scenes. Only as the book assures you, it is not fictional. It is true. You will pause and think of ramifications, of the evil that can be wrought when powers like this fall into wrong hands, of political leaders with no qualifications dictating the genome factory.

Life from life, Minh thought, as he moved past the implantation table. Still, he couldn’t shake the chills he felt as he thought of those 3 dogs, lying supine, tongues hanging to the side around the breathing tubes, as the surgeons did their work. He chided himself for his own backward thinking: of course, futuristic science always seemed unnatural – until it became routine.

The discussion that evening over supper bleated over to the world’s most famous sheep, Dolly, who had been cloned in 1995. Sheep, Mammoths and Dogs make good cloning subjects for they do not yet touch the uncomfortable topic of human cloning.

http://www.businessinsider.com/sooam-biotechs-is-bringing-back-the-mammoth-2015-9

Human cloning, however, is a topic you can rely on authors to explore.

The thought provoking work by Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go is worth a read in this context. The book talks of a future in which clones are generated from a master copy, and are raised separate from mainstream society, just so that they can function as ‘givers’ and ‘carers’ – a euphemism for organ donations. It is a heart rending read, as it centers around three young people, who have the same feelings of love, jealousy and friendship that ‘mainstream’ people do. Their art work is collected by a lady, who is trying to petition the state against this barbaric practice as Art shows the soul, and clearly the ‘spares’ have souls.

Human beings are tinkerers – we always have been. What have we in store this time?

Is there a concept of the Soul that is separate from the engineered parts of cells, muscle, tissue and genes?
Is Consciousness something that can be engineered?
What role does our conscience play while tinkering consciously?

Related read: Of Dinosaurs, Genes & Aliens

Squirrels, Berries & Fringe Myths

We had been on a trip to Crater Lake over the summer. Among other things, we hiked a little bit around the lake, taking in the marvelous view. The lake is a mesmerizing sight sparkling in its deep, pristine blue. We indulged ourselves in small hikes that afforded us beautiful views of the lake and the surrounding Cascade mountains merging into the Sierra Nevadas in the South. It was one of those places where nature cures, nature soothes and all that. The son is my ardent nature companion, and the pair of us went looking for pinecones and acorns. It was steep going.

squirrel_hike

We stopped at one place to take a few breaths at a spectacular rock placed there for the purpose and we saw a little squirrel. We may have been nervous during the hike, but it did little to wrack the squirrel. Up close the son noticed that unlike the squirrels near where we live, these fellas were smaller and had stripes across their back. He said in his excited voice that these were the ones that had helped Rama build his bridge and nearly gave the poor squirrel heart failure with his excitement.

I peered closely, and so it was. Here were little squirrels that looked like the squirrels mentioned in the ancient myth of Ramayana. According to the story, the little squirrels were helping Lord Rama’s army build a bridge from India to Lanka so that he could save his kidnapped wife, Sita, from the clutches of the evil demon-king Ravana, in their own small way, with little rocks and acorns. Lord Rama was so impressed with them, that he picked one of them up and stroked its back lovingly. The legend goes on to say that is why squirrels have stripes. The son had heard the story before, and was understandably excited when he saw the stripes the squirrel’s back. I suppose the story must have sounded silly to him when it said, “That is why squirrels have stripes on their backs.” Because the ones he sees do not have stripes on their backs, and that is the sort of discrepancy that will keep the fellow puzzled and curious for days.

Chipmunks or Squirrels — Pic obtained via google search

I was reminded of that little story when I read the news items that Remains of the Day had won the Nobel Prize. Remains of the Day examines the concept of work, and why it is an important factor in man’s life. Screen Shot 2017-10-26 at 10.08.53 AM How often have we been asked our names, followed by a what-do-you-do? How does one attach a sense of importance to one’s work, and feel purposeful about it? Sometimes, it is by means of attaching ourselves to the goal of the entity you work for like the squirrels did. But maybe, it is to the concept of work that we need to attach our purpose to like the bees do.

This year Deepavali – the festival of lights came like the coat-tails of a comet after a string of tragic events – fires, shootings, floods: catastrophes both man-made and natural shook the populace. But now is a good time to throw our mind back to these oft forgotten little mythological tales, the fringe stories that provide food for thought. I must remember to tell them the hilarious tale of the old lady, Sabari, tasting the berries before giving them to Lord Rama.

I looked forward to the chat with the children while drawing up a rangoli outside the house using colored chalk. It is a beautiful feeling of light. The triumph of good over evil, a call to nurture our inner light and so much more.

Mythology, fairy tales, and magic are all so beautifully interwoven in our magic of story-telling. Heroism and quests for the inner self are never jaded. Starting from the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Avatars of Vishnu, Ramayana & Mahabharatha, Odyssey & Iliad, the Bible and right down to Harry Potter, it is a story line that always enthralls, and is ever relevant.

I’ve come to the conclusion that mythology is really a form of archaeological psychology. Mythology gives you a sense of what a people believes, what they fear. George Lucas

In all these millennia, it seems little has changed, and so much has.

Please share some of your favorite fringe tales – I would love to hear them.

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