The Religion of Science

This piece of news had me hooked.

Makes one wonder how different Science and Religion are, or if Science is turning into yet another religion, not in terms of faith, but blind faith.

This statement in particular was very revealing: "I brought my baby to touch the wall, so that the power of Darwin can purify her genetic makeup of undesirable inherited traits," said Darlene Freiberg, one among a growing crowd assembled here to see the mysterious stain.

I wonder. I thought Science was the answer to the 'miracles' that took place in the mystical world.

The First Ever PJ Post!

The uninitiated, please read the previous post first.

PJ1

Q: What does an author, distressed at the fact that his books aren't selling and he's running short on money, say to his books?
A: Damn! Sell(, I'm) in distress.

PJ2

Q: What's the female counterpart of the infamous "male gaze"?
A: A female gazelle!

So, there you go. That's my two cents. Start with your own PJs in the comments section, or email them to me. I'll put them up in future posts with appropriate acknowledgments.

A New Feature!

Yes, yes, I know I'm supposed to be on a sabbatical and leave my workaholic ways behind. I just had an idea and I thought I'll write about it as the last thing before I leave.

I''ve been told over and over that I'm a PJ person and that I have horrible PJs. Must really thank Manisha for bringing it to my notice. But, that's the point, no? They are supposed to be poor.

Anyway, so I've decided to start a daily PJ feature on this blog. It's a big demand on such a creative pursuit and I'll try to follow it as rigorously as possible.

We'll also make it contributive with people leaving their PJs in the comments section and I'll pick out the best and put them up in the next PJ post. They can also be emailed to me at swetankgupta@gmail.com.

I start with it in the next post, with, not one but two, yes two PJs as the opening offer. And we'll tkae it steady from thereon once I'm back from my trip.

Fabricated Societal Needs

In yet another short story, titled 'My Mother Lived on a Farm in Africa' by Abdulrazak Gurnah, there appears the following two sentences:

In the day, she was expected to stay close to Aunt Amina, and wait for chores to be given to her. She understood it was really to keep an eye on her because she was fourteen and a girl.

It got me thinking, as usual. I've always been vaguely disturbed by the idea of keeping girls 'safe', forbidding them from going out late at night because they might end up being raped or molested, and generally being asked time and again to 'be careful'. Yes, the continued threat of something happening is disturbing, so is the mankind at large for propagating such fears, but what has disturbed me the most all through, with respect to this and any other similar situations, is that the girls are being asked to sit at home (or need to be watched, or carry device some sort of a defense mechanism or various other acts of safety that ones sees or hears about) because someone else might harm them. My issue has always been that why should they suffer for the actions of someone else.

I've always been told that yes, it sucks, but there isn't a way out. It's a necessary evil and precautions must be taken since there's no other way out. That argument would shut me up for the time being because it seemed to make sense, but it still rankled and left me unsatisfied. Reading that line got me started on the issue again, and suddenly I saw a solution, simple, obvious and crystal clear. I don't understand why such an obvious answer had eluded me (or the population in general) till now. It's infeasible but it's just.

If we realize that girls aren't safe in the vicinity of boys in certain places or at certain times, and their presence must be compartmentalized, so be it. But, if the concern is the girls' safety after all because of the untamed carnal instincts of the male population, why restrain girls from going out at night or to places that are unsafe. It should be guys who should be asked to stay at home because if they go out late at night, the world would become unsafe. In this world, the girls would roam free and live without care, stay at home or go out, as they wish and as their needs demand. Since it is the guys who propagate this dystopian outlook, they should be the ones suffering, not the ones they target.

Yes, it needs a radical change in societal needs and outlook for this to happen but isn't it fairer to all? Does it not serve the purpose as well?

History to Astronomy/Astrology?

When one drives from Dhaula Kuan towards the IGI Airport, on the right hand side, there's used to be a Maharana Pratap Dwar, one of the entrances to Delhi Cantt. It was a mildly imposing gate and looked good.

Of late, its name has been changed to Taurus, Gate 3, in big, golden, stencilled letters. I'm not sure, but I think even the structure has changed a bit from the top. It looks bad.

I'm no part of the brigade fighting to save Hindi (though I support the sentiment), but this just doesn't make any sense. If nothing else, aesthetically, it looks and sounds much worse. Wouldn't their (whoever's doing it all) time be better utilized thinking over and changing something that would actually make a difference?

It's Called Civil Humiliation

The new Star Voice of India 2 started airing on Star Plus this Friday (18th July) onwards. For the past month or so, the promos had been boasting of featuring participants from all 24 Indian states. It was unnerving for me to realize that the number of states in India had shrunk to 24 without so much as giving me a perfunctory warning. I had been trying to work it out mentally which states had been deemed unimportant enough to be left out of the competition - would it be based on economic considerations, geographical placement, political considerations, size, population or some other factors - none of which seemed to be valid enough for me.

The clouds of mystery cleared when the first episode was aired and the bright sun burned the very vestiges of respect I might have had left for TV producers. The 7 northeastern states were being referred to under one name - the seven sister states. While the other participants were from Bihar, Maharashtra, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, those participants were from the 'seven sister states'.

Why the alienation, why the blanket nomenclature, why deny them their individual identity and a spot each for themselves? Why must they be clubbed together under one banner of location, culture and heritage while every other state gets full leverage? Isn't it this cavalier attitude and insensitive treatment of the north-east that has led us to this day when they demand their basic rights, and are treated as foreigners in their own land.

My sister's just started going to college in the Delhi University. For years, I have read reports of female students from these states being treated as 'easy meat' and being molested on buses, on the roads and being a general target of ridicule. During the ragging days, most attempts are directed towards them and my sister has confirmed these facts first-hand. They are forced to speak in Hindi, made fun of and generally not accepted as one of our own.

It hurts. The low level of understanding and innate prejudices in young students still in their teens, the blatant publicity and corporate undermining of sections of the population for... for what? I would still understand, not agree but still understand if they were to make financial gains from such a gesture - but how would acknowledging seven states with their real names have affected their capitalistic aims is utterly beyond me.

Sense and Sensibility

The guy who teaches us Creative Writing wears checkered tweed pants in shades of brown, all the time. They go with his long blond tresses, I'll give you that much. Creative license, eh?

A Mate Date

A hilarious, stomach-achingly funny thing happened today. If the person who this is about reads it, I'm sorry, I shouldn't put this up here since you will be embarrassed but I'm leaving no names, and it's just too good to not put up.

Four of us (two guys and two girls) were sitting in the Subway in CP, talking about sex, what else. So this guy I'm talking about, he tells us how girls who smoke and consequently have bad teeth, are a turn-off for him. To elucidate the intensity of his point, he said:
"When I was in Europe, I was trying to mate with this girl who had really bad teeth... and I couldn't."
Three times we asked him, "You were trying to do what???!!!" and three times he answered it the exact same way, completely oblivious of anything being amiss. Oh, how we laughed (well, one more than the others but we are not taking any names here, remember?). And laughed. And laughed. And died.

Afterthoughts from afterlife:
"Dude! You could nail a girl, have sex with her, bed her and forget her (as the saying goes, not as an ideology, mind you! Well, maybe.), make love to her, violate her or do a million other things, but please leave the mating to dogs and monkeys. Seriously. Please."


Disjointed thought: Guys who wax their arms (and probably shave/wax their legs) freak me out. I like to believe I'm a very open-minded person, yet, this is something hard to digest for me. I can live with manicures and pedicures, but waxing is going too far. Too far. It's just freaky. Call me a sexist, if you will, but I stand by it.

Mistaken Identity / Star Power

If you are having a phone conversation and the person at the other end of the line says, "I was talking to Salman a few days ago and he has no plans of coming to India anytime this year," would you ever think that the person being referred to is Salman Rushdie, even if the conversation was in the context of a literary festival? Since when did Rushdie become Salman?

Of Alternate, Unintended Meanings

WARNING: Adult content

My short story Kaleidoscope begins like this:

Expanse of green. Sheer silk…white…flowing. A pearl necklace. Pearl earrings.

I gave it to Mat, our instructor at the British Council for some feedback. Apart from some pretty useless comments (e.g. it's a horror poem!?), he marked on the phrase "pearl necklace" (adult content - think before you click) and asked me to look it up on Urban Dictionary, if I dared. Of course, I had to check it out once he'd said as much, though I wished I hadn't. "Pearl earrings" carried a similar meaning. Even though I found it pretty disgusting that instead of telling me something useful, that was what Mat was doing with my piece, but it is also strangely fascinating with respect to the people's imagination!

Hunky Dory!

I've been seeing advertisements for the relatively new Hero Honda bike 'Hunk' for sometime now, and have also, on some occasions, seen the bike, mostly in red.

While it seems pretty good, look-wise, to me, I really wonder why a guy would buy a bike names Hunk. What guy would want to claim with pride that he rides a hunk?!

Chidiya Choon Choon Karti Hai

Awesome, this! As Amit Varma mentions, some of the best scenes include Jeetendra's sweaty armpits when he sings 'Happy Birthday To Me', and his drunken walk under the 'Gateway Of Necking-Camels'.

It's amazing how many times the 'Chidiya' line is used in the song.

Cricketing Woes

In an ongoing Asia Cup match, Arun Lal in the commentary box, and a wicket is taken. Imagine!

"Bangladesh really needed to pick up a wicket at this point, and (batsman) has been picked up by (bowler). What a breakthrough."

They could have taken part in the LGBT Pride Parade!


From Cricinfo:

Once on a square turner, as Viv Richards faced the last over before tea, Saleem Yousuf kept appealing every ball without a reason. "I was fielding at short-leg," Ramiz Raja recalls, "and when we were walking off for tea, an irritated Viv asked me the Urdu word for chicken, and I told him.

"So Viv rushed off towards Saleem, and when in his earshot, started shouting, 'Murgi, murgi, murgi'."

Man of the Match awards have, for the past so many years, been mindlessly given to the batsman even if he scores a 50 or a 60 over a bowler who takes 3 wickets at a good economy rate. Witnessed this in most of the IPL as well, and the most recent case was in the recent England-New Zealand Natwest series. In one of the matches, Styris scored 80-odd runs as Gillespie and Vettori took three wickets each to take NZ to victory. Vettori, also captaining the side, deserved the award but Styris got it instead. I wish the concerned people would be more open and fair in their approach.

A Promise Unfulfilled

I had promised myself to start this blog with a pensive post, the one I’m posting now. I didn’t really get about to writing it properly till today. Thanks to Pritha who kept nagging me and reminding me of my promise to myself. I have not gone into the details but share briefly the anguish and despair at the apathy that prevails. I do not know if I could have done anything to improve the situation. If I could have, and didn’t, I am as much a culprit as the ones I insinuate in this post.

A synopsis of various viewpoints

“She was a morphine addict.”

“No she wasn’t. She was under immense pain.”

“She never let anyone in on her secrets. She never shared. There were no prescriptions found.”

“She shared with me. I knew she had ovarian cists, possibly leading to cancer. She told me, and a few others, about her desires, ambitions, issues at home and everything else.”

“She had no prescription. She was faking it. Why weren’t her parents involved?”

“Her parents were involved. The doctors were the ones who didn’t want to operate on her at this (st)age. Issues of pregnancy later.”

“She didn’t take our help when we offered it. She was too arrogant.”

“She wasn’t. She liked to stay independent. It wasn’t pity that she sought. You offered her help, not friendship.”

“She never attended classes, lied at home, and didn’t even interact much with her batch mates.”

“She couldn’t attend classes because of her health. Whether she lied at home or not is not your concern, and something that cannot be determined anyway. Her interaction was limited to the girls’ hostel as she couldn’t go out a lot due to her physical weakness.”

Official intimation by the Director to the campus community – numerous emails and announcement at the beginning of the convocation (paraphrased)

We sadly announce and deeply mourn the tragic demise of one of the bright students, Toya Chatterjee, Roll Number *****, B.Tech. student of the department of Biosciences and Bioengineering on the night of 30^th May, 2008 in her hostel room. Ms. Toya Chatterjee, Roll Number ***** was a bright and promising student, and is as great a loss to the academic community as it is to her near and dear ones. May her soul rest in peace.

Press release/interviews, talking about the worth of a student of IIT Kanpur, B.Tech. with a GRE score of 1560, an admission offer from Cornell (I think Cornell – the name is irrelevant), and calls from ALL the IIMs. (paraphrased)

Ms. Toya Chatterjee, Roll Number ***** was a weak student and her performance in her courses was not up to the mark. She had failed two courses and was not due to receive the degree at this convocation. Her performance has been a matter of concern for her teachers and friends alike, and repeated attempts to improve the situation had failed.

Talking of ends, some bring respite, some melancholy, some longing, and some simply suck out every feeling, every desire, everything, leaving nothing but a hollowed feeling of emptiness, of helplessness and despair. That was how Toya’s end was. Most of us would have read about it in the newspapers. Toya Chatterjee was a final year student of my batch at IIT Kanpur who committed suicide on the eve of our convocation. I will not go into the reasons behind it. I have given a sneak preview into the various versions that were given to us by friends, professors, administrative officials, and co-students. There is too much speculation and hardly any consensus. We may never know the truth. The certainty with which people enumerate the reasons of her suicide irritates me. Hers was the 7^th suicide in IITK in the past 3 years, and the first suicide by a girl in the history of IITK. It’s the frequency that bothers me as much as the fact that the administration is doing nothing about it as far as I know. Yes, they do take some apparently visible reformatory steps, but they’re all useless, tangential to the real problems that exist. I am not suggesting that those were the problems behind any of these suicides, but if we are trying to weed out problems, we might as well get rid of some real problems along the way.

What hurt me most is the attitude with which the administration at IITK received and projected the death of Toya. I knew she existed in the vicinity but didn’t ever get a chance to talk to her during my 4 years at IIT, yet I think of her as a real person. That’s not how they think of her. In all email notifications regarding her and in the official announcement at the beginning of the convocation, it was always ‘Toya Chatterjee, Roll No. *****, department **** was...’ She is a mere statistic for the institute, one more to the list. Every time in the two days I was there and thereafter, her name was suffixed by her roll number and department, which I found extremely annoying. With such gruesome suicides – she hung herself from the fan in her room while sitting on a chair, another one had lain on the railway tracks at the IIT gate and was beheaded by a train – I would think that they would take some personal interest in the students’ lives, not as administrators saving face of the institute but as humans, teachers, friends. Isn’t the extent of infliction of such pain upon themselves a statement of the fact that we need to change, doesn’t it feel like they are trying to convey a message by taking such drastic steps? Yes, it is a difficult task to bring about change in as big an institute as this, with ways as set as it has, with so many things that could be changed. But we need to make a start somewhere, sometime, and isn’t the effort worth it? It is an institute for the students and if they are not happy, and not just the ones committing suicide, then the entire purpose of the existence of the institute is lost. I couldn’t think of one reason why we shouldn’t start right now.

I sincerely hope that they will treat students like humans and not institute records to be filed away and milked for money as alumni. I don’t know how they will manage it with 4 more IITs being opened when even the land for those has not yet been finalized. IIT Rajasthan is being mentored by IIT Kanpur which means that its students will stay and study at IITK, stretching its already thin resources, and that, when it hasn’t yet been decided which city will be home to IIT Rajasthan. If political pressures, or aspirations, are going to take precedence over human lives, God save the premier institute of education in India.

Poetic justice? Or pros(e)aic justice?

From Samit Basu's blog:

"...not even the worst excesses of Bollywood SFF filmmaking could match Lollywood's International Gorillay, the climax of which features arch-fiend Salman Rushdie being laser-skewered by four lightning-emitting flying Korans..."