Leo and The Priest: A True Story about Surviving God

"History", said the great Sir Thomas Carlyle, "was made possible by the shortage of Viagara." Indeed, we have evidence that when the choice princes of each age were unable to make love, they made war.

Recall that the only parts of his mistress that Hitler regularly assailed with violence were her ears. Recall that Bill Clinton rained bombs on Serbia only when he was cruelly cut off from Monica. Note that the present Bush, who clearly suffers from too much Bible and too little Laura, takes out his ire on Iraq. Recall that his father, who suffered from too much Bible and too much Barbara, did the same. And lest you should think colored people are somehow immune to this trend, recall that the only two times India popped a nuclear device instead of the regular 1000-wallah, it was led by Indira-ji and Atal-ji, both of whom were officially celibate at the time.

To find a possible exception to the above rule, you'll need to go back to 1st century BC. Augustus, the greatest of the Caesars, then ruled much of the planet. He loved but one woman in the whole world, and strangely enough it was his own wife. Unfortunately, when left alone with her, Augustus, like the average Bangladeshi batsman, displayed much vigour but little placement and even lesser staying power. This, one would have thought, spelt doom for the world. Not so. As historians point out, Rome was never more at peace than under Augustus. Remarkably, our hero, in spite of not seeing action at home, waged wars only in Egypt, Gaul, Germany and Spain. Just four wars in fifty odd years makes for an extraordinarily peaceful reign, as any sane man would agree.

Alas, even this exception only proves the rule. Augustus, it is now known, was no monk. In fact, his much-loved-yet-unloved missus, in order to spare the people of the world, actually arranged for L'Empereur to accidentally meet luscious young ladies on rainy nights. Like India in league matches, Augustus, it is said, performed spectacularly when the pressure was off.

That leaves us with a cardinal, unbroken Golden Rule: When Big Chief don't get no fun, he'll whip out the big gun. If people want to avoid the draft, they should choose a real man as leader, and keep him well-supplied.

Tragically, this lesson from history is forgotten. The man on the street but dimly recalls the glory days when the King numbered his children because they were far too many to name. Bill Clinton, that path-breaking hero, had the ability to bring back those good old days, but he was tragically thwarted by the times he lived in. Virtue on the throne, regrettably, is here to stay.

I survey this scene and I'm deeply saddened. Let it not, however, be assumed that I am a sentimental pacifist. Honestly, I don't think war is a big deal. After all, only about 2000 Americans have died in Iraq, and as Dubya will probably tell you, most of them are teenagers who would have killed themselves in road accidents anyway. There is the small matter of 30000 dead Iraqis, but considering how many brown people there are in the world, does anyone honestly think 30000 more or less makes a difference? No, indeed. If an under-sexed El Presidente kills himself a few thousands, I say Hail the Chief, Halelujah and could-we-switch-to-ESPN.

No, what really concerns me is not the effect of my Commander's abstinence, but its cause. After all, people always elect a leader who is just like themselves, only a lot richer. If Dubya behaves like the Grand Inquisitor, I ask, can Joe Republican be far behind?

Anybody who follows the ways of the Free World would know that things are in bad shape. God, who seemed for a few centuries to have popped off to better worlds, is back in a big way. As a child, I was afraid of ghosts, and my grandfather comforted me by quoting the Vedas which said God is everywhere. It sounded vaguely reassuring. Now, I am grown-up, I live in Texas, God is everywhere, and I am scared shitless. I've always thought God is a quiet sort of bloke, but He seems to be a Talker. Lots of people are hearing stuff from Him, and it ain't increasing their love for their fellow man. Ten years back, the only things people seriously looked for were marijuana and Madonna's perenially missing underwear. Now, they are looking for Communion with God, the Inner Voice and Spiritual Bliss.

More than anything else, however, God's born-again children are looking for Sin. Almost anything you do, from petting your dog to not petting your dog, is sin. Nothing is beyond the purview of the moral police, and nothing escapes its attention.

Most interestingly, while the virtuous disapprove of sin, they cannot really tolerate virtue. This is, of course, natural. Cops cannot be said to love thieves (unless the cops happen to be Bihari and the thieves happen to be women, but that is a different story). However, cops clearly do not want the end of all crime, for that will make them redundant. Likewise, the virutous need sin so that they have something to disapprove of.

John Kerry lost the elections not just because he looked like a mummy and made it worse by trying to smile. No, he lost because he was squeaky clean. Dubya at least had a police record and had confessed to sniffing a little bit of crack when the old man bothered him too much. At any rate, our Lord and Master is such an imbecile that it is almost a sin. Kerry, on the other hand, was fifty years old at birth and aged rapidly hence. The man was just too damn dead to sin. If he were to be the President, where, I ask, would the public have gotten their moral superiority? Is there any wonder, then, that he did lose?

The Land of the Free is now one big moral circus. The only pleasure people have allowed themselves is that of finding and loathing sin. They just cannot accept virtue, for it denies them this one remaining pleasure. If Jesus were born today in Alabama and if he miraculously survived the hurricanes that God regularly sends to punish the poor for being poor, he would be lynched to death anyway.

The question of the day, particularly for men of sound moral fibre like your humble correspondent, is this : Is there a way out? Can any moral man survive in this country? Is it possible for a sinless bloke to soothe the suspicions of the righteous?

The answer, strangely enough, is yes. And the man who found the way was none other than Lev Nikolaiyevich, the greatest author that ever lived, and my childhood hero. Leo, as he is fondly known, spent what one might call a real man's youth. Having had his fill, he then declared that sex is immoral. The local priest, of course, found this highly suspicious and promptly interrogated Leo. Here's how Leo quelled the priest's doubts.

Priest : Do you, sir, think that sex with women, even with one's own wife, is immoral?
Leo : I do.
Priest : You are into men, then?
Leo : No, indeed.
Priest : Children?
Leo : Of course not.
Priest : Hmm, you are truly a strange beast! Hmm, beast! You like animals?
Leo : How dare you?
Priest : Animals neither. A queer fish indeed! Ah, but of course! Fish?
Leo : Puh-lease.
Priest : Not fish either? I see it now. I must tell you, sir, that the Bible strictly forbids toys. What do you say to that?
Leo : I say screw the Bible.
Priest : Ah! A bibliophile! Why didn't you say so earlier? It is slightly unusual, my boy, but hardly unique. Confess and I'll absolve you.

There it is, clear as day to any that can see: In a society that is obsessed with sin, the only way for a moral man to survive is to pick one acceptable sin, and specialize in it. As Lord Bacon said, "Practise maketh sufficiently imperfect."

A Great Tragedy

Greatness contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction. The force of life is the same as the force of death, and it takes but one small error to convert the one into the other.

Note, for example, the curious case of Dubya and Christian values. Christian values were Dubya's unique, and only, selling point. It seemed that as long as he had Christian values, no war, no hurricane, no downturn could touch Dubya. Recently, alas, Dubya nominated as the next Supreme Court judge a ridiculously soft-hearted woman who only kills liberals but does not drink their blood. Incensed by Dubya's lack of faith, the keepers of the the self-same Chrisitan values are now calling for his head.

Note, for example, the curious case of the White Man and technology. The White Man used technology to subjugate the brown, black and yellow people of the world. Alas, instead of nerve gassing them en masse, he spared them and educated them to serve as his clerks. He counted on their lack of brains, which was fair enough. Alas, he did not account for his own lack of brains. As he made technology simple enough for himself to use it, he also made it simple enough for brown, yellow and black people to use it. And while both brown and White men can write software, only the former can breed prodigiously, as anybody in New Jersey would have noticed. Having failed to close the issue when he was on top, the White Man is now a marginalized foreigner, a hysterical second-hander, in his own country.

But the grandest tragedy of recent times occurred not in the prosaic West, but in that land of Legend, that cradle of Epic, the great nation of South India. Aye, in South India, there recently lived and died a man whose life illustrates the self-desctructiveness of greatness more poignantly than anything I have seen or read. It is his tale I recount here.

The late N. T. Rama Rao, or NTR as he was known, was a lot of things: he was film star, politician, friend of the common man, not-just-friend of the common woman, and in more ways than one, the Father of the state of Andhra Pradesh. His greatness cannot adequately be described in my humble prose, so we take up NTR's tale towards the end of his life.

NTR was slowly receding into the dusk. In his old age, he developed a fascination for vans, which he tried to convert into chariots; and middle-aged women, whom he tried to convert into Headwomen of Andhra Pradesh.

In the former, he succeeded spectacularly. Andhra Pradesh is full of people who will call anything a chariot if you promise them some cash. Some of the more inspiring Telugu poetry of recent times likens the headlights of NTR's van to the lustrous saphire eyes of an Arab thoroughbred.

The latter exercise, namely, that of making people accept NTR's mistress as their own, proved more challenging. In India, women get voted to power only if they had spiced up the public's private fantasies at some point of time in their lives. Unfortunately, NTR's middle-aged woman looked, well, middle-aged. Worse, she looked like she had looked middle-aged all her life. But NTR knew that even this could be overcome. In Andhra Pradesh, as I've said, a little bit of cash goes a long way towards ensuring suspension of disbelief.

Cash, and NTR's image, ensured that the public did indeed flock to see NTR's anointed successor. When NTR finally died, he did so thinking that he would rule through the person of his mistress for another forty years. However, fate had willed otherwise, for NTR had made an error that was to undermine his own greatness and annul his legacy. It is this fatal error that I shall now describe.

The Tragedy:
As mentioned earlier, NTR was quite active in the production business. He wanted sons to carry on his legacy, but even he could not control the gender of his offspring, and some of them turned out, unfortunately, to be girls. It was a problem, but one which Indians solve regularly and ingeniously with some rat poison in the baby's milk, or an extra affectionate hug. However, NTR's prolific rate of production made production control well-nigh impossible. Consequently, some girl children did get away, and flowered into doe-eyed beauties. NTR knew that daughters, if they were allowed to marry, would bring sons-in-law, who would compete with NTR's own sons for power. So, he fiercely guarded his daughters from lustful eyes. As poet Vemanna recounts,

Andamainadi NTR gari kooturu,
Dani choodadaniki abbaiyilu potaru,
Kopam ostundi NTR-ki valluni choosi,
Tintadu vallatho koorelu chesi.

which, in the infinitely less poetic English language translates to

The beauties that NTR did sire,
Were courted with much desire,
But suitors suffered the sire's ire,
Yea, their privates were set on fire.

It appeared that everything was under control and NTR's lineage would not be challenged by strange men that he had not fathered. But then Fate struck in the person of Nara Chandrababu Naidu, or simply Naidu. Naidu managed to marry one of NTR's daughters by the simple expedient of looking so ugly that NTR's henchmen considered him harmless. It must be said that their judgement was not far off the mark. However, they forgot that NTR's daughters saw NTR regularly, and that lowered their expectations from men as far as looks went. So it happened that NTR himself unwittingly drove one of his daughters into the waiting hands of Naidu.

The rest, as they say, is history. After NTR's death, NTR's mistress, now wife, and his son-in-law Naidu were involved in a power struggle. The wife told the people that NTR had loved her, and she was his rightful heir. All of Andhra Pradesh was awash with posters of her standing beside NTR to prove the point. It was, she believed, a surefire winner. After all, Naidu had never been in a picture with NTR.

And then Naidu pulled off a blinder. He simply had his men write "He loved this?" below the posters.

Needless to say, Naidu won the elections convincingly. He dedicated a grand tomb to NTR, cut off all neighbouring trees and released crows in the area. The tomb is now called the White House of Hyderabad.

NTR's wife has not been heard from in a while.

A 55-word story

Determined readers of this blog would have noted that "TheDQ" left a comment on my last post, which said, and I quote : "Dr., you have been tagged." This message greatly disturbed me.

TheDQ, as she calls herself these days, is a charming young girl. I have often had occasion to buy her biscuits on my way back from work, and she always says, "Thank you, chacha-ji", and runs quickly to stash them away in her secret hideout. (TheDQ is a Gujju, and she believes in saving up, since you never know when she and her 42 children will be struck in a remote Himalayan cave for 263 days before the CNN crew gets there, followed, in another 94 days, by the Government relief trucks.) TheDQ's chief charm is that she does not, like most other children, insist that I play hopskotch with her.

Now, when such a charming well-behaved little girl says "Dr, you've been tagged", you fear that this is the beginning of the end. The next thing you know, she'll insist that you take her to the fing-fing in the lot-lot, and play pickaboo with Winnie-Pooh, otherwise she'll su-su all over your fofa. Clearly, preemptive measures were called for, to avoid a rapid descent into depravity.

I wrote her a stern e-mail to go play with kids her own age, and not disturb chacha-ji. And then she patiently explains that this is not some children's game where the simple objective is to gouge everyone else's eyes out. No, sir! The idea is that a bloke, say person A, writes a 55-word story. In the process, he discovers that writing 55-word stories, and not Peanut Butter, is the key to salvation. Fuelled by the good samaritan spirit, person A then wants persons B, C, D, E and F, all bosom buddies and childhood mates, to also bite off the fruit of Knowledge. Then these people write stories and invite their bosom buddies to do so, and so on.

I have had a long career of hearing idiocy, since I talk to myself quite a bit. But I've never ever heard anything quite so idiotic. That is when it struck me that neither Evolution nor God can end up creating anything as ridiculous as Man. Then, sipping my hot tea, I came up, in a trice, with the brilliant theory of the Big Prank, which neatly explains how and why we are what we are, and puts forever to rest the Creation-Evolution debate. But that's for another post.

I was going to send a legal notice to TheDQ, but then I realized that she had a point. For all my God-like virtues, I'm after all, human, and writing 55-word stories is the way of all flesh. So here goes mine:

Allah said, "I created men. I am the one true God."
Krishna screamed, "Liar! Impostor! I created men."
The devil entered, and said, "Good job, whichever one did it! They tag each other to write 55 word stories."
Allah said, "You created them, you fool".
Krishna said, "Don't blame me! You did it! Pig!!"
Amen.

Note 1
TheDQ : I'm being a creep, to put it mildly. This is not the first time, it won't be the last. But it was just too tempting, and you know that I'd sooner offend a friend than lose the opportunity for a joke. But hey, I did at least write a 55-word story. In fact, here's one more:

Mr. Verma said, "Munnoo, caam heeeyar. Uncle ko namaste bolo!"
Munnoo rolled in, looking at me coldly.
"He ees jaast chaild, but he can kaawoont up to 10. Munnoo, uncle to numbers bolo!"
Munnoo squeaked, "One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten!"
Mr. Verma smiled apologetically, and said, "Baccha hai, Seekh jaayega"

Note 2
Since friend collection is not one of my hobbies, I don't know 5 blog-writing people whom I can tag. P~ and ~P, you are welcome to write ghastly 55-word stories if you want. Just don't blame them on me.

An Evening By A Lake

I walked alone once to a lake,
Remorseful and heavy of heart,
Ashamed, in a quarrel's wake,

Of playing in pettiness a part.

In truth, there was but little pain.
A tiny ripple in a sea of calm.
And what of pain did remain,
Was really a bittersweet balm.

(For remorse is but a game
Every kind man slyly enjoys.
Virtue often courts the blame,
In its own rigour to rejoice.)

The conflict seems simple now,
But that day it seemed profound.
And I paced, with furrowed brow,
Now thinking, now looking around.

I glanced awhile at the setting sun,
And asked why man with man strives.
I turned and saw the east darken,
And sought meaning in our petty lives.

A full hour I spent thus thinking,
Of questions grand and far too grave.
To the red sun, now slowly sinking,
'Twas but divided attention I gave.

Perchance I turned, and behold!
The west now wore heavenly hues.
'Twas blood, brick, brown and gold,
'Gainst grey and a million blues.

For a while, I stood in dumb awe,
But thought slowly, slyly returned.
And I sadly rose to leave, but I saw
Near me a robin, westward turned.

He was staring at what I'd just seen.
But briefly he turned to catch my eye,
And turned quickly back to the scene,
Like one asking me to look at the sky.

To leave would have been impolite,
And so I sat and looked westward.
Together, we mourned the dying light,
Two brothers, not just man and bird.

As night fell, he quietly flew away,
With not even a chirped goodbye.
There wasn't anything left to say:
We were one--he, the sky, and I.

As I bid farewell to the lakeshore,
The big answers I still didn't know.
But I asked big questions no more,
So I gently smiled, and rose to go.

Epilogue:
My wisdom alas soon did ebb,
For wisdom is but a living thing,
I'm caught again in the web,
Again have I fallen to striving.

But not all of me stoops to fight,
For even as I hear the battlecry,
I dimly see a bird in fading light.
And I smile, for I'm he, and he's I.


Note
This attempt at poetry was made on October 2nd. On the same day, it was discussed in a popular forum, frequented, my dear reader, by cultured art lovers like you. You can find the article here.

Meter Lost, Poet Suicidal

From our special correspondent
Dallas, TX

Serial poet B. is disconsolate: his magnum opus "An Evening By a Lake" (link) was so nearly a critically acclaimed classic. It had everything: a touching core idea (inspired, let us say by Frost's "A Tuft of Flowers"), a beautiful photograph of Lake Yellowstone, and even rhyming lines. Critics claim, however, that the complete absence of meter in it makes the poem something of a failure. Meter, as the reader might know, is commonly used to make poetry rhythmic.

A press-release from serial poet Badri says : "The absence of meter in the poem was forced on me by the sudden and unexpected loss of my own meter, and the unavailability of replacements in the market." The release continues, "I had it [the meter], I even used in the first line, but I took my eye off because I was getting the lines to rhyme, and before I knew it, it was gone."

When contacted, serial poet Badri was depressed and incoherent. "It [the poem] would have been a masterpiece. If I hadn't lost my meter, it would have sounded musical. But now, it sounds like I ate too much mirchi bhajji before writing it."

We asked serial poet Badri if he couldn't make do without meter. He replies with an emphatic no. He laments:

"Writing poetry without meter,
Is like wiping up without water.

The result doesn't appeal a bit,
The damn thing's just full of shit.

For verse, meter is a vital part,
Without it, you get fart not art."

Citizens with the good-samaritan spirit are requested to either seek out serial poet Badri's lost meter, or lend him one for the interim. This is an emergency situation. "There are just two things I really crave," says serial poet Badri, "..., and the second thing is to write poetry."

Tender Homage to a Beautiful Soul

A reader of this blog points out that there's nothing in it about the life of the writer. The reader, who is evidently a trained practitioner of the scientific method, infers that the writer does not have a life. The reader is wrong, and the point of this post is to prove it. Proving people wrong is, after all, the purpose and chief pleasure of the writer's life.

Quite simply, I'll prove I have a life by paying tender homage to one of my close friends (note the plural), a bosom buddy dearer to me than life itself. Out of my inherent respect for people's privacy, I'll not directly name this thick chum, but merely call him Regis Rex The Sphinx, or Regis for short.

If I may digress a little, I invite the reader to marvel at the audacious genius of this pseudonym. It is merely a translation of my friend's original Brownese name to English. To get the original requires only two things : brown skin and a non-zero IQ. Each of these ingredients is available in plenty, but ne'er the twain shall meet. Ay, there's the rub, and the tantalizing trickery of the pseudonym. Not subtle but simple is the stroke of genius, but how fresh is its force, how rare its rawness!

Enough said about sociology, codes and genius. Let us proceed now with the tribute.

Regis, I've always said, is truly a friend in need, meaning that he always needs one to do something for him. He's one of those beautiful people who grow on one, just like an extra finger, or a pus-filled boil. When people first meet Regis, they think it's a coincidence. After the second meeting, they begin to suspect it's a mistake. The third time around, they are trying to decide between disaster and international conspiracy. The fourth meeting brings with it the resigned realization that this is the Finger of Heaven. After the fifth meeting, they stop thinking, but feel a vague, dull pain. Some sturdy souls live to the sixth time, but nobody quite knows what they feel since they're beyond speech. Noone has yet survived the seventh meeting.

To the naive (and lucky) reader who has never met Regis, this description seems a touch extreme. To edify this gentle reader, I should perhaps give more details. Here are recordings of what Regis tells people at various stages of a relationship that grows more alarming with each passing moment.

Meeting 1 : Hey, so nice to meet you, man. Please can you just give me a ride to Walmart?

Meeting 2 : Hey, give me a ride to Walmart. I might take a little time there. Why don't you review this paper for me while you're waiting?

Meeting 3 : Wazzup? Let's go to Walmart first on the way to lunch. By the way, tell me how to solve this N-dimensional optimization problem. Your research is similar, right? I need to write up a paper by tomorrow.

Meeting 4 : [Stage directions : Regis enters scratching his head. This denotes the "comfortable old friend" phase of the relationship, meaning Regis is growing comfortable and you're growing old.] Dei, vetti badu! Give me your car. I need to go to Walmart. Yeah, by the way, here are my notes on my research. I think it's an N-dimesional optimization problem. Why don't you state it clearly and solve it? Do it before I come back. I need it for my meeting today.

Meeting 5 : [Regis enters scratching, well, let's say 2.75 feet below his head.] Mayiru! Loser! Your tank was nearly empty last time. I just about made it back. You thought I'll fill gas? Kanjoos! Why do you hoard all your money? Anyway, give me your car and some money. I need to take my friend out to lunch. I need to publish more papers, man. I need ideas. Why don't you come up with some nice problem in network topology and solve it?

As I've earlier noted, minutes of meeting 6 are regrettably unavailable.

Let it not, from the above, be concluded that Regis is anything but admirable, and less than pleasant. No man rushes to another's help faster than Regis, as long, of course, that no loss of cash is involved. No man knows the loopholes in the law more thoroughly. No man has ever converted the annual India trip to an equally profitable business venture. No man has pimped cheap cellphones for more grad students. No man makes better coffee, or hands it out with greater love. No man laughs at himself more, or has greater reason to. (This post, for instance, was written at Regis' insistence.)

I've said this many a time, and I say it again: there's no man I'd rather become than Regis. He remains the only man I'm truly jealous of, for he's closer to salvation than anyone else I know. To Moksha, there are but two paths : one is to refine thought till it transcends the narrow confines of time, space and personality; the other is to screw thought and concentrate on cash. The Buddha took the first road, and Regis has taken the other.

Regis is that transcendent one-with-the-One, the All-Pervading Self, the realized soul, the Brahman. That misguided old fool Emerson read some RSS propaganda and went on and on about the virtues of the Brahman (Google : Emerson Brahma). If he'd been alive, he'd have let Brahman be and sung instead of Regis

They reckon ill who think me a wimp,
When me they mock, I steal their cash,
I am the drug dealer, and I the pimp,
And I'll find treasures in what you trash.

Regis, verily I say unto you : I'm your fan, admirer and devotee. I'm your follower in this world, and servant in the next. I'm the merest dust on your feet. I am prepared, nay eager, to give you my fondest devotion, my most fawning obeisance, my most prayerful veneration, my most unjudging reverence, my most unquestioning obedience.

But why, oh why, do you insist that I give you cash instead?

The Dirt About Sigmund, and Why Kids are OK After All!

The propaganda of Sigmund Freud and his cohorts has been tragically effective: Everyone these days believes kids are obsessed with sex. A New York Times survey reveals that fewer people than ever hold and pet their children, wary perhaps of the storied lustfulness of the little ones' subconscious minds. The moral standing of children, I'm afraid, is at an all time low.

Take, for instance, the last post on this blog. It was intended to illustrate one of my pet theories about human relationships. The point of writing it with children was not only to make the reader suspend harsh judgement, but also to take sex out of the picture, as much as possible. However, all three readers of this popular blog thought the damn thing was a love story. (They also thought I should stick to fart jokes, the damn barbarians!) Kids, it is assumed, are just too lewd to be just friends.

This perversion of the public opinion greatly saddens me. I confess I'm very fond of children, as long as they are other people's children. After much personal interaction with them, I've come to the conclusion that they are not evil monsters or lustful devils. No! Au contraire, they are general dudes, only a little cuter and a lot smellier.

Like all honest writers, I wish to elevate the public morals and fight false propaganda. To that end, I'll now relate the true story of old Sigmund's hypocrisy, his son's perceived peccadillos, and how the combination of the two led to the establishment of two schools of psycho-analysis and, more tragically, the untimely death of Sigmund Junior.

Sigmund, as is well known, had a chela called Jung. It is less well known that Sigmund had a son, and Jung had a daughter, and they were friendly. In fact, the two never had fights to the death with home-made hand grenades, and this, naturally, led to some suspicion about their normalcy. Rumours, unproved to this day, were heard that their mamma-pappa game involved more than just mock-cooking by Freud junior and TV-watching by the young Jungess. For a surprisingly long time, the vile whispers didn't reach the ears of the doting fathers. Many a time, Sigmund and Jung used to discuss the suspected debaucheries of other people's kids, smiling indulgently at their angelic offspring at play.

The idyll was rudely ruptured. On a fine spring morning, Sigmund had the following conversation with the missus. (Let not the story-teller be blamed for the silly lines that follow. They merely reproduce the flowery language that is common in psychoanalytic households.)

S :
Oh! Flower of the Far East!
On you my eyes daily feast!
Oh! stunning sultry Frau mine,
For you every moment I pine!
Oh! Lady lovely and luscious,
The passion of my Unconscious,
Star that doth my sky adorn,
How are your bowels this morn?

Mrs. S :
Oh! Handsome daadi!
My sweet sugar daddy!
Master of the Hidden Mind,
Whose equal none can find!
Emperor of the id and th' ego,
Smoothly did my motions go.
Oh! Hero whom I love a lot,
How was your session at the pot?

S : [anguished]
Out it flowed like a stream.
But wait, I had a strange dream.
Our son, heavenly little lad,
In my dream, was sex-mad.
My unconscious grows senile,
Our angel so unfairly to revile.

Mrs. S:
Oh, precious husband mine,
You drink too much wine.
It isn't a dream, for Chrissake,
You saw it while wide awake.
How can you fail to notice,
What a vile beast the boy is?
And why, oh why, did he pick,
That Jung's horny little chick?
If he had to be such a little pig,
Why not our neighbour Hedwig?

S:
I see! My damn unconscious,
Finding the truth too odious.
Through its usual sly scheming
Made me think I was dreaming.

Mrs. S:
You of all people fooled, honey!
If it weren't sad, it'd be funny.
Weren't you, dear, first to find,
Every baby has a filthy mind?

S:
About other children, I was sure.
But our boy, I thought was pure.
"Boys are beasts," I boldly said,
Thinking our boy was well-bred.

But surely, he isn't the one to blame.
The fool can barely spell his name.
Even if he had desire in his veins,
He just doesn't have the brains.
It's that girl's doing, thatI know.
She asked, and he couldn't say 'no'.
The vixen! Gotterdamerung! [note: Gotterdamerung = God-damn in Deutsch]
I will take this up with Jung.

So saying, Sigmund stormed right out of his house, and right into the Jung's. Now Jung had had a similar revelation from his Frau and was all aboil. An argument ensued that cannot be reproduced in this PG-rated blog. Finally, Freud walked out in a huff. Poor Jung had to find other means to relieve the pressure.

The two great minds worked furiously to rationalize this new, painful piece of information into their Map of the Mind. So it is that Sigmund proposed the superego, which essentially says, "My son's subconscious is a pig, but deeper down, he is a saint." Jung came up with the theory of the Collective Unconscious, which says, "My daughter is a sex maniac, but so, my friend, are you!"

It would have been tragic enough if it had ended here. But both men were closet Republicans, and couldn't take this slur on the family lying down.

Jung sent his daughter to Alabama, thinking she'll acquire Christian values by association. It was a mistake. They noticed that she was European, and had even looser morals than Bill Clinton. Naturally, they concluded she was the Devil. Her death by stoning, it is reported, was slow and painful.

Freud, hearing this, smiled to himself, and sent his son instead to Gujarat, India. Lack of morals, he reasoned, wasn't likely to be a problem there. It was a grevious miscalculation. The Gujaratis noted that the boy was white, and more virtuous even than their home-grown divinity, Lord Krishna. Naturally, they concluded he was a missionary, and burned him. Old timers in Ahmedabad still say that there is nothing quite like fried Freud to go with a well-aged pot of bhang.

An Estrangement

The girl cried. The boy, her best friend in the whole world, had refused to play with her. He was going to play with other boys. They called him a girlie wuss, and he was ashamed. He didn't like them, but he had to go play with them anyway. He felt like crying too, but her tears cheered him up. He felt powerful, like his father. "Don't be such a girl," he said, and ran away.

He had fun playing with the other boys that day, and came back home happy. He thought of the girl, and smiled. She was such a baby, making a fuss about this. Of course, he couldn't keep playing with her all the time, though he liked her more than anyone else, even more than his own brother. How small she looked, crying but trying to not show it. He'll make it up to her the next day. He'll let her wear his boy scout's cap. That'll make her happy. She looked very sweet when she laughed, almost as sweet as when she cried.

The girl cried for a while. She went to the park, and tried the swing. She couldn't go very high on it without him pushing her. She got down after a while, and went home miserable. Her baby brother came running towards her. She pushed him away. He cried. She pinched him. He cried a little more. Her mother came in and slapped her. She wanted to cry, but didn't. She just stared at her mother. Her mother slapped her again, took the baby and went in to cook. She waited till her mother left, and cried. She cried till her father came in to call her for dinner. He saw her, smiled and took her in his lap. She cried into his shoulder for five minutes. They went in for dinner, her mother gave her an extra sweet. She suddenly felt very happy. She slept between her parents that night, and made them both keep their hands on her.

The next day, the boy almost ran to school. Even so, he was late. He couldn't talk to her before the school assembly. He waited impatiently for the recess. When the bell rang, he sprang up to go to the girls's row, but she was already walking out with her next-seat neighbour. She was laughing. Suddenly he hated her. How silly she looks while laughing, he thought. All day, she avoided him, and all day he was miserable. That evening, it wasn't much fun playing with the boys. He misfielded thrice, and his teammates shouted at him to go back and play with girls, since that's all he was good for. He couldn't leave.

The girl had been miserable all day. She had expected him to follow her and talk to her. "He doesn't care!" she thought, "Well, he can please himself. I have my friends too." She played with her brother all evening. She thought he was very cute, even when he clawed her.

They didn't talk to each other for two months. Both were miserable.

The girl got out of it first. A new girl had moved into the next house. She went to the same class. They met each other shyly first, huddling close to each other's mothers. The ice soon thawed. They were thick friends, exchanging feathers and blue and pink hair bands.

The boy was learning to bike. He would often pass by the girl's house for no reason, frowning and looking ahead. He hoped she'd notice and talk to him, so that he could snub her. The girl did notice. She'd almost forgotten the fight. One day, she stopped him and introduced her new friend. "We're going to our singing lessons now. If you want, you can come and play with us tomorrow", she said.

The boy went home. He beat his brother. When his mother stopped him, he hit out at her. She stopped him easily, then just glared at him and took his brother away. When his father came, he was morose. His mother told his father he'd been wild all evening. He wished his father would beat him. His parents just talked softly, and left the room. He cried. He cried for himself. He cried because he was sad and she was not. He cried because she didn't care anymore.

From the next day, he played with the other boys every evening.

The girl sometimes came and talked to the boy. First, he wept bitterly every time after she left. Slowly, he stopped crying, and she stopped approaching him.

The girl and the boy avoided each other, but were polite whenever they had to talk. His father was transferred next year, and he moved out of town.

They go to college now. They don't remember each other.

Harry Potter and the Hounding of Brown People

Brown men the world over are rising in revolt. They've read the latest J. K. Rowling book, Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince, and it contains much that deeply shocks and disturbs them. They do not particularly object to Ron's unexpected gory death on page 459. No, fatalism is at the very core of brown men's beings. They shrug and read on.

They even readily forgive HP & the HBP for being another tiresome tale about the Cosmic Conflict between the White Side & the Dark Side. Brown men know that no matter what giant strides they make in world politics or world population, no one will ever talk of of Yellow vs. Black or White vs. Brown. The image of brown and yellow men as peacable non-violent vegetarian bystanders is here to stay. True, the white man kills quickly, and the black man kills with flair, but the yellow man kills more quietly than these two, and while the brown man lacks swiftness, style or stealth, he has sheer numbers. However, the brown man will never get credit for all this world-class killing he does, and he knows it. In the world's grand epics, the brown man will never be hero or villain. He's stoically resigned to being forever a sidekick.

Nay, what has finally set brown men's blood boiling is the indiscriminate snogging, smooching, necking, pecking, coo-chi-cooing, jalabulajungs, whisper-it-softly-KISSING that abounds in HP & the HBP. The damn book has more physical intimacy than the average PTC bus in Madras, and more R-rated content than The Transcendental Metaphysical Reverberations of Disgusting Sexual Acts and other art movies that intellectual people seem to watch for purely intellectual reasons.

Every page of HP & the HBP has serious adult material. To suitably explain this, it is best to use algebraic notation, where X is somebody, Y is somebody who is not X, and Z is somebody who is neither X nor Y. In every page of HP & the HBP, either X is necking with Y, or X is imagining him or herself necking with Y, or X is imagining that Y is necking with Z, or X is imagining that Y thinks that he/she (i..e, X) is necking with Z (who you might recall, is neither X or Y), or X is imagining that Z will rudely interrupt when he/she (again X, big day for him/her) is necking with Y, ...

The terrible thing is that this sudden epidemic of incessant, universal necking features Harry Potter and his band of punk teenagers. Yes, teenagers. Not Bill Clinton, not the poor old people who came out of retirement to act in Swabhimaan, not even middle-aged Mallu matrons of giant proportions incongruously called Babykutti. No, sir. I repeat: these teenagers do with practised nonchalant ease, things that the average 25 year-old brown man only fantasizes about blushingly while boiling his daily glass of milk-with-no-sugar-both-my-parents-have-diabetes- and-i'm- watching-my-weight.

"So what?", you smikingly say, my white friend from Boston, Southern Canada. You think the brown man is a prude (yeah, like that'll stick. there are a coupla billion of us and counting, baby), or that the brown man is just a sex-starved middle aged mama. Worse, you call him a hypocrite, a raving conservative lunatic, a jihadi.

You're wrong. There's one thing no self-respecting brown man will tolerate, and that's being accused of moral values. It's not outraged virtue that's driving the brown backlash, but jealous rage.

Imagine that! Teenagers black and white are necking like there's no tomorrow, and the brown man, at the ripe old age of 33, has never so much as kissed the hem of a maiden's robe. Heck, even his fantasies about necking are based on pure guesswork. He hasn't seen the darn thing being done, even on film. When there's the remotest sniff of a smooch in the next five minutes, brown men's movies start showing flowers dangling, or birds feeding each other juicy worms, or most terrifyingly, a picture of a laughing baby. Brown men nearing retirement age naively believe that a smooch is a sure-fire child-producer, and avoid it like the very plague.

Thus it is that the brown man has, pardon the poor pun, impeckable chastity till his parents wake up and arrange a marriage for him, when he's nearly thirty five. Not for him the pleasures of youth: he has to slog his behind off and pass some entrance exam or the other. Not for him dates with pretty young things, for he's too busy learning English, Hindi and other foreign languages that are constantly forced down his throat. Not for him the tender joys of young love, for he is invariably locked up in a men-only engineering school where the sight of women's footwear is enough to send thrills down people's spines and spark off wild orgies.

Isn't the brown man, then, right to feel hounded? Is it fair to tell him that love, to him, is a spectator sport, and he can but cheer forever from the sidelines? Is it rational to expect him to just stand and watch when half-grown manlings and womanlings smooch away? Isn't it understandable that he wants to join the party or burn down the building? Can anyone help but sympathize with him?

Women of the world, particularly you lovely sisters of my white and black brothers who are yet not my sisters! Repent. Make amends. It's still not too late. Show the brown man all the affection you can.

He's nasty, but he needs it.

He's horrible, but he hungers for it.

He's disgusting, but he deserves it.

Please, please, please.


PS: To all Harry Potter fans, I'm one too. No offense meant. And Ron doesn't really die on page 459. He only starts his sentimental speech on that page. Actual death, which experts agree occurs only when the heroine wears white and snivels before a bloke's garlanded photo, occurs only on page 462.

A Brief History of Rakhi

When the wolves in the woods die of mass diarrhoea, do the doe and the deer sing dulcet tunes and dance in delight, or suffer dreadful dullness and dolefully dream wistful dreams of deadlier, more dangerous days? I do not know. All I do know is that it's that time of the year again, and a strange emptiness fills my heart. I've never known a rakhi day when I wasn't slinking away from the postman's knock or the beckoning beauties or the new grad students whom the sirens use as their messenger. (The last mentioned are the most psychologically challenging: you know you've got to hate the smirking face that hands you the rakhi cover, but deep down, your heart cries for him. Did you not, with similarly unseeing pride, deliver rakhis for Haritha Hazaarbhaiya last year, and will not this trusting lad suffer the same cruel blow next year?)

I should perhaps explain my lament to my non-Indian readers, if any be so loserly as to read a brown man's blog. The rakhiis an ancient North Indian custom, and like all ancient North Indian customs, it has a history of horrible bloodshed and suffering behind it. It's a long tale I'm going to relate, my friends, and I beg your indulgence.

It is well known that the sex ratio in India is slightly skewed, there being about 51.3 men to every woman. Long were the lovely dark tresses of the ancient Indian woman, and longer still the snaking queues of lustful lads longing for the merest glance from the lissome lass. Of course, a lady can't like every suitor, and so it is that some were put to labour and some to death. But there came a time when ladies tired of saying no, the Hindi phrase for "no" being Chullu bhar pani me doob maro, shaitan ke santan. Further, reports had reached the ladies that some men found being fried in oil a touch uncomfortable, and we all know that the Indian Woman won't tolerate discomfort, even to an excessively persistent suitor.

A gentler, more humane way to refuse proposals was needed. Many ideas were considered, some of which have led to various contemporay conveniences like cold fuel, sweetened rat poison, musical electric chairs, and so on. But the breakthrough idea came, as breakthrough ideas always come, from a burger-selling, hair-gel using Gujarati called Piyush "Bobby" Shah, who was looking at quite a different problem.

It is common knowledge that North India is a strife-torn land, where killing is common and bloodshed blase'. After all, the Hindi word for the commonplace "chop off his head, drink his blood, feed him to the dogs, save the remains for shahi korma" is katl, while the Hindi phrase for the abstract and unusual term "peace" is kya ghaati batein kar raha hai, be! Dimaag ghas char raha hai kya. In such a land, people from different villages of course had to kill each other, but tragic and too frequent was the accidental killing of brother by brother, comrade by comrade, neighbour by neighbour. Brown-skinned people, as you might notice in any high-tech firm, tend to look sinister and suspicious, even when they're just going to take their hourly leak. When you sight brown skin, it's always better to lop the head off first, and ask questions later.

It was this problem of incestuous killing that Piyush "Bobby" Shah solved by using the colored turban. Each village was to have a friendly color. All the residents of that village got to have that color dyed on their turban free of cost. If, for some reason, two villages, say Rampur and Srirampur were to become friendly, then Rampur's people could wear the sporty light saffron color of Srirampur on their turbans, and Srirampur's citizens could proudly bear the sportier lighter saffron color of Rampur on theirs. One look at a man's turban, one quick look at your own village's "do not kill" list, and you knew whether to throttle or embrace this dusky stranger. Also, to avoid cheating, it was your duty to kill anybody who wore the colour of an unfriendly village.

Like all great ideas, Piyush's brainchild pervaded popular culture. To this day, North Indians celebrate Holi, a one-day voluntary ceasefire when people daub each other with all known colors, indicating that all villages are to be on friendly terms that day. On Holi day, all men are brothers and one can go on unarmed into the lush green fields of the Great Gangetic Plains and relieve oneself without fear of gruesome death.

Seeing the stupendous success of the color coding scheme, the gentle ladies of ancient India wept for joy and decided to adopt this idea for their Humane Suitor Refusal campaign. Their requirement, was of course, much simpler. It was not necessary to indicate who had refused a given man, merely to indicate that he is being refused. Colors, with their costly need for dyeing, were not necessary. A mere token of refusal would do.

And thusly came into being the lovely custom of rakhi. When a woman wished to refuse a man, she simply gave him a piece of thread, marked red tilak on his head, and called him bhaiya. Like all other Indian customs, this one is deeply symbolic on multiple levels.

1. Bhaiya in Hindi means "sucker! loser! The next batch of grad students is in. They can wash my clothes and do my dishes. And Sameer next door has bought a car, so I don't need you to give me rides. I have no more use for you. Become scare. Drrrr.!"

2. The red tilak is applied to all animals before they are slaughtered. The color red, of course, indicates blood, but also refers to Ek Handi dal chaval which tastes very good with fried fingernails.

3. The piece of thread says, "I should actually kill you right here and right now, but the smell of rotting flesh interferes with my digestion, and cremation is both costly and environmentally unfriendly. Kindly have the good sense to go far away and hang yourself. This rope isn't long enough, but this is all I can spare at the moment."

It is understood that the rakhi, once given, is final. The recipient of the rakhi, even if he be so ungentlemanly as to not move out of the district, should maintain consistently a cold attitude towards the giver of the rakhi, going any length to avoid even being seen by her. In other words, he should treat the giver of the rakhi like he would treat his own sister. Thus it is that the word bhaiya, explained above, has also come to mean brother in contemporary Hindi.

This beautiful ancient custom, started first in the sixteenth century B.C., has survived to this day. So it is that Indian lads, in a touching but vain effort at prolonging their license for lustfulness, try to go undercover on rakhi day. They go to Timbuktoo, practise deep undersea diving, take a cruise to Antartica, become astronauts and escape into deep space, hide in manholes and septic tanks, attend classes, go to work, visit their parents, and conceal themselves in other unlikely places. But long is the reach of a resolute lass, and many that have imagined themselves safe have had rakhis delivered at the very last moment. As Bill Shakespeare has wisely said, "Verizon hath no coverage like a woman determined to scorn".

All for a chick, or Charlie and the Prelate Factory!

The Church should wake up, smell the coffee, have a long shower to get over the hangover and make Charlie Darwin a saint. Noone else has ever composed a more beautiful hymn to God, fondly known as the Big Boy.

You see, the Church thinks God bought an assembly kit from K-mart, spent six days making up the Earth, the Heavens and All things bright and beautiful, had a nice nap on the seventh and has since been keeping score of men's sins till the Big Audit comes along. In other words, the Big Boy is some kind of mechanically talented accountant.

Along came Charlie, and proposed the theory of evolution, which essentially says nature, like any other large dynamic system, will constantly go towards its equilibrium, without Big Brother watching it. God didn't have to be a control freak. He just had to make conditions to form the big soup somewhere. From the big soup came bacteria, thence fish, thence birds, worms and Tamil Iyers, thence mammals, thence monkeys, thence man.

It is tempting to say that Charlie just proposed gibberish. After all, no one has really seen a monkey suddenly quote the Vedas, or at least no one officially admits to it. More to the point, Charlie's dynamic system, nature, is hopelessly huge, and it's impossible to write down the steady-state equations for it, leave alone the initial conditions and the transients. In other words, you can only cook up explanations based on Charlie's theories, not realistically predict the result of a Bihar bye-election, leave alone the future of life. Essentially, one might argue, Charlie just did a Fermat, wrote 2 + 2 = The Collected Works of Ayn Rand on his toilet paper, and conked off without giving the proof.

So have all Republicans, Southern Democrats, Evangelicals, Creationists, Baptists, Anabaptists, Unitarians, Protestants, Catholics and other sorts of Jihadi Christians argued. So, too, did your humble correspondent wax non-judgemental till last Saturday when his eyes were opened by The March of the Penguins, a must-see documentary if ever there was one.

The basic story is that Emperor penguins, like South Indian men, defy the elements, dare death, and conjure miracles of patience and persevarance just to get a chick. It goes as follows: Sometime before the beginning of winter, Emperor penguins collect in huge groups walk 50 miles inland in the Antarctic winter to the very spot where they were born. There, they pair up following decorous, well-defined courting rituals. Then they do it, and the she-penguin lays an egg. (Note: Penguins seem to have read too much Tolstoy. They go in for a 20-second quickie, considering sex only a means to procreation, one assumes.)

And here's where the fun begins. The penguin's egg in the sub-freezing Antarctic winter is like a 5-paise coin in Trivandrum. You drops it, you loses it before you can say Babykutti Kunjumon. So the egg has to be balanced on the penguin's feet and kept warm under their fur till the chick hatches, some two months later. Now, mama's already laid an egg and can't starve no more, so she hobbles back to the ocean to hunt for grub, after handing over (OK, legging over) the egg to papa. Here's the killer : the fathers just stand there, all huddled together to keep out the cold, for two months with the eggs under their feathers, on their feet. No grub, no evening visits to Ethiraj college to check out the babes, no booze, no cigarette, nothing. They actually take turns standing on the circumference of the huddle, where it's coldest. Winterstorms rage around them, but they don't make sentimental speeches about dad's unrequited love like King Lear. No, sir: they just huddle a little closer, and swear in genteel undertones.

The chicks hatch by and by, but after a brief dekko from papa, Junior goes right back under the apron. The mothers return after two months, and after a tearful reunion and a censored kiss, papa trudges to the ocean, while mama takes over the tending of munnoo. Finally, after the chicks are grown up enough to demand cable TV and sleepover rights, mama leaves them to their devices and trudges back to sea.

The chicks don't go the ocean. The ocean comes to the chicks. It's summer, you see, and all the ice has melted. The chicks then enjoy fishing, swimming and other junior league sports, and prepare for grown-up life, consisting as always of much ado over chicks, very little sex, wives that leave the hearth untended and hubby unfed, brats that need constant sheltering, and air-conditioning that doesn't work.

Here's where Charlie comes in. Noone who see TMotPcan fail to see the crushing, stunning elegance of Evolutionism and the loserliness of Creationism. To say that all the beauty, greatness, nobility, grace, courage, drama of this tale came because Big Boy chaired an Emperor Penguin Orientation meeting on Day Five is ridiculous. More than that, it's profane and completely blasphemous. Consider, then, the Evoultionary explanation of this is, i.e., that penguins evolved this elaborate rigmarole in response to gradual climactic change as the Antarctic broke away from the equatorial mainland. It's beautiful, spellbinding, uplifting, divine.

It may be that Evolution is the wrong theory. At least, it may be that it's unnecessary, since it doesn't reduce one's hair loss any more than Creation does. But it sure gives more elegant explanations for everything, and that, mes amis, is enough reason to believe.

Note:
This unduly long post was written as my personal birdie to S~, who thought I cannot be serious for more than 5 minutes at a stretch. S~, you blister on bin Laden's bottom, louse on Lalu Prasad's head, pimple on Pol Pot's face, coveter of other people's underwear, you BITS-ian! I've proved my worth again. I've torn your j~. I'm serious, dude. I'm the Crown Prince, Director-General, Program Manager of seriousness. I'm more serious than Terri Schiavo ever was. I'm so serious the liberals want to kill me to prove their kindness and the conservatives want to keep me alive to show their commitment to moral values. Paul Wolfowitz has more humour in him than me. I won't know a joke if it comes and bite me on my arse. Whenever anyone says joke, I think it's a mallu saying chalk. You'll die laughing, you vile comedian, and I'll survive forever with a face like a funeral. After all, the bible does say that the geek shall inherit the earth. Ha, ha, ha!

On this extremely grown-up note, I leave y'all to your petty crimes till the next one. Stay out of jail. Peace.

I slogged, I blogged, and I went to bed!

We are testing our design in the lab, and of course, nothing works. So the last weekend was spent at work. I mean, the last weekend was really spent at work:I landed up there at 9 am on Saturday and left at 3 am on Monday, with two breaks of 4 and 2 hours respectively. Of course, one might say I slogged because I'm an anti-social, despo seengle luzaar (that's single loser in Bengali), who needs to get a life. Well, that's clearly true, but it's so boring that one should come up with a different explanation.

One might think I slogged because I wanted to be thaa man,and shine in Heaven's glorious light, and be considered a superhero, and get a raise and climb up the ladder, and gain recognition among my peers, and be known to upper management as the Rock on which the company stands, and all that. But this is not only boring, it's also untrue. You see, from generations of hiding in the forests from the invading Bhaiyas, South Indians have evolved to be camouflaged by wood. Like my other South Indian brethren, I just blend into the office furniture. Maybe I'd be noticed if I went to work in pink shirt and purple pants, but I seriously doubt it. Heck, even if I went naked, I don't think it'll register a blip on anybody's radar. The good thing, of course, is that I won't be fired, because nobody even knows I exist.

Let it also be said that I've been very understated about my weekend's achievements. The only time I talked about it was this morning:

Colleague : Hey, it's hot today, man.
Badri : True. I think it's 95, which is slightly less than 36 degrees celsius, which is actually less than the number of hours I spent at work this weekend.

Strange, things have been quiet at work today. Very little conversation with anyone. I guess everyone must be awed by my sincerity.

Anyway, the really amazing thing, and I guess the point of this blog, is that I absolutely, thoroughly, completely enjoyed the weekend slog in the lab, and I've been wondering why.

Well, first of all, there's the existential pleasure of engineering. (Yes, I use the word existential in everyday conversation, and no, I don't know what it really means, and no-ho-ho, I don't intend to find out! RIP!). I'm not one of those practical make-it-yourself blokes. I don't know a spanner from a rat's arse, and I usually call for qualified help when light bulbs need changing. When I set about removing an airhole in the electric motor at home, I flooded the room, caused a district-wide power failure (that soured Tamil Nadu's relations with Karnataka and almost made us secede from the Union), and launched my cousin's literary career. But even I can feel the thrill of wrestling with something real.

When you solve a cool math problem or answer a quiz question, you feel kicks, of course. In fact, it requires intelligence, so you'd think it's better than engineering, which doesn't really tax a man's, or even a woman's, brain. But making practical stuff work is not really the same thing as solving a difficult problem. For one thing, if you've been working with any reasonably complex system, you don't understand the whole of it, and like all reasonable people, you know that the parts that you didn't design will not work. Worse, like all truly enlightened people, you secretly fear that the Devil exists, and He's punishing you for not believing in Him by messing up the system. Finally, like all good engineers, you distrust logical thinking and believe that the scientific method should be restricted to developing extra-reach toothbrushes and effective contraceptives.

Out of a million random things, you pick one after the other, and after much trial and even greater error, some thing finally works. You know that this was pure chance and it'll stop working soon. If you're a hopeless optimist, you think it'll work again sometime that night. In any case, you try again, and hmm, it works still. And then you try again, and you reset everything and try again, and you go take a leak and try again, and go to bed and come back in the morning, and try again. Finally, you're convinced it really works, and then you cook up some logical explanation and tell your colleagues that you finally figured out the real reason.

In fact, I think all this goes back to our origin as hunter-gatherers. You see, in the old times, they didn't have central heating, and life was really challenging. Nature was not just some place you took your kids to for fun. It was something that you didn't understand or control, but had to work with. Blokes who liked to fight the good fight with muscles straining, brows sweating and hearts singing had a selective advantage over intellectual types who thought about the Human Condition. Thus it is that Nature taught Man to love fighting her, and thus it is that bull-fighting is more popular than chess. We all instintively thrill in working with complex, irrational, intractable systems. Why else would men marry and have children?

In fact, when you dig a little deeper, it's clear that anybody who genuinely loves engineering also loves Nature and believes in God, because he knows a complex system when he sees one, and he knows that there obviously must have been a designer to optimize the amplifier gain in the forward path, the time constant of the feedback path and the probabilities of detection and false alarm in the controller.

Even in a completely corny movie scene, like the bulb lighting up in Swades, you feel a secret thrill when some contraption works. When you spend 5 hours and finally see zero BER (or whatever) on the screen, you can almost hear Beethoven in the background.

That, my friends, is real kicks. Sex, drugs, mud-wresting and mountain climbing are nothing compared to it. (Yeah, I would know. I've seen all these on TV, and everyone knows that things are better on TV than in real life.)

There is, I think, one more reason why this weekend was so much fun. It's the same reason why people were happier during the War than they're now, and why we'll all end up killing each other. But that's for another blog. So much for now.

And So It Begins... [LOTR, ROTK]

It must be the heat. It can't be anything else.

Here are some possible reasons for me to start a blog, and corresponding anti-reasons.

1. I've been told I'm some kind of cross between Dostoevsky and Dave Barry.
Anti-reason -- I am naive, but I'm not that naive. Everyone who said that asked for loans within 13 hours.

2. P~, whom I listen to more than's good for him or me, has been asking me to write one for at least a year now, maybe two.
Anti-reason -- If I did everything P~ asked me to, I'd be up in the Himalayas laughing at human folly. Instead, I'm writing a stupid blog.

3. Irrepressible Craving for Expression
Anti-reason -- This is kind of personal, but I generally tend to err on the side of constipation.

4. Extreme joblessness
Anti-reason -- This is not the first Sunday I had nothing to do. On all previous occasions, I just concentrated on doing the said nothing efficiently. I most definitely didn't go around creating blogs.

5. Inspiration by fellow bloggers
Anti-reason -- Well, I did recently see a couple of blogs I liked. But scores of women in Atlanta and Dallas will tell you that when I see something I like, I just see it a little more, call up S~ and exchange notes on how life sucks. Man of inaction, c'est moi!

As Sherlock Holmes used to tell his chum Watson, "When you've eliminated the impossible, what remains must be the Really True Truth, even if you see it in an ISKCON pamphlet". So, there! We get to the real reason I'm starting this blog:

It must be the heat. It can't be anything else.

Warning:
This blog was almost named "Random Thoughts" after a column by the same name on www.cricketnext.com, written by a bloke we'll call R. You see, like Mr. R, I want to write, but again like Mr. R, I really have nothing to say. Unlike Mr. R, however, I'm not getting paid to do this. So if you thought "Random Thoughts" sucks, this one will outsuck it. Amen.