Safaris make strange jeep-fellows

Last week was a very relaxing one for me after many, in a year where far too many changes have taken place. It was also Shilpa's and my first vacation for the year - certainly due for a long time.

It was a week-long vacation to three places in Karnataka. The last place we went to was the Kabini River Lodge, on the banks of the river Kabini and adjoining the Nagarhole Forest Reserve, about 80 km from Mysore. The piece de resistance was of course a jeep safari into the jungles at Nagarhole, in search of leopards and tigers, as well as an assortment of other flora and fauna. Kabini serves all comers regardless of their interests - bird enthusiasts, tiger-hunters (in a benign way, of course - no animals were killed in the writing of this post), leopard butterflies, butterfly chasers, etc., all place Kabini high on their list of places to visit again.

We were at Kabini for 2 days, during which we went on four jeep safaris through the Nagarhole jungle. All of the safaris were great experiences in themselves (I'll definitely visit again), but they also afforded me the opportunity to see first-hand the different kinds of people that go on safaris. Like many things in life, there were 7 distinct character traits on display (of course, some all-rounder types such as yours truly may have attained high skill in multiple traits among the below):

1. Happy Campers (HC)

These guys are here for the experience. They aren't the materialistic and petty visitors for whom success is a number of animals they saw; they are there, literally, for the ride. Whether they see any interesting species of flora or fauna is immaterial to them (although it must be said that there is a surprisingly high correlation between such equanimous behavior and not having seen any animals). This is, for instance, how a HC who was with me in the jeep would have described our jungle sortie:

"The time being November, only a couple of months after very heavy rains, the jungle was very green and fragrant, and a strong envelope of freshness pervaded the scene. The ride itself was exhilarating and refreshing, as we bounded through a jungle abounding with the musical harmony of crows cawing, mynas chirping, woodpeckers pecking, babblers babbling, djangos trilling, and eagles… well the eagles didn't do much. The jungle and its inhabitants were so content and joyful in themselves, it even felt a little voyeuristic to witness them in their natural habitat. Thank God we didn't see a tiger or leopard - I can't explain it, but it would have diminished the experience somewhat."

What do you do when someone tells you this - congratulate or commiserate? Or maybe you should gently tell them that django is not a bird, but a cowboy in a recent movie they've seen (or if they were me, a cowboy in a recent movie his wife made him walk out of). Anyway, these guys take several pains to show they're not in it for the animals, including trying to take pictures with an ancient handycam from a bouncing vehicle. You know the pictures will at best pretend to be surrealist paintings with a mish-mash of colors, and at worst be, well, horrid. But it doesn't matter one centime, for they're in it only for the experience. Always fun to be around, this band of merry men is all you need after a luckless day in the forest. They'll make you cheer up and drive a spike into your forehead.

2. Snappy Campers (SC)

These guys are here for the shots. If they catch a glimpse of a tiger disappearing into the undergrowth, their first (and second and third) reaction is of disappointment - "I wish he'd stayed long enough for me to put together my camera, its humongously heavy telescopic lens, and sandbags for me to keep me from toppling forwards as I try to take a photo…". A conversation in the jeep during the safari would go thus:

Guide: Hey look, a leopard!

SC: Wow, wait let me take a picture!

[some tinkering sounds ensue for 65 seconds, followed by a click].

SC: Hey guys, take a look at this picture I took of the leopard's eyes! Doesn't it look good?

Non-SC: Uhh… (probably because he / she was too intent in looking at the leopard)

SC: [Click] How does this one look? Doesn't the tiger's demeanor come out so perfectly?

Non-SC: Uhh… you mean leopard… uhh…

SC: Damn, I wish I had a bigger lens. I could have taken a great photo of its nostrils then.

Guide: Shhh!

SC: Guideji, which camera is the best for wildlife photography?

Guideji: If you don't keep quiet, I'll throw you to the wolves.

SC: Wow, that would make for a cool photo!

Animal Planet (see trait no. 5): Wow! There are wolves here?

Guideji: Sigh…

One Snappy Camper in a jeep is more than enough, usually. But two Snappy Campers, especially in a jungle that is unusually quiet, can make for really interesting conversations. Fun to hear them exchanging notes about the different animals they saw through their lenses in different parts of the country - "Deal! You send me your leopard photos from Kabini and I'll send you my tiger photos from Bandhavgarh." But it's even more fun when they start comparing their lenses, and invariably begin to exchange phallic rebukes, including the classic - "Mine is bigger than yours." [hat tip to Sigmund Freud]

3. Want-a-Tiger (WaT)

These very interesting chaps have made it their life's mission (at least when they're traveling. To forest reserves. That have tigers) to see a tiger. It doesn't matter what else they see - a tiger is the shits. Proprietors of jungle lodges really hate these guys - hard as it is to market new ways of spending money to the alert Indian traveler, it becomes doubly hard to make these guys open their pocket-folds to you.

Proprietor: Sir, you should definitely try the boat safari, now that you're going to be with us for 4 days.

WaT: Hmm. Sounds interesting. Can you see a tiger during the boat safari?

Proprietor: A tiger? No sir, tigers in these parts don't swim much in the river. They're landlubbers mostly.

WaT: In that case, I'm not interested in the boat safari.

Proprietor: Never mind, sir. But you should definitely go for an Ayurvedic massage here. Try the Pandava-massage if you have time - here, five of our best masseurs will massage you together.

WaT: Pandava-massage? Sounds very interesting. Do you think I can see a tiger during the massage?

Proprieter: Wat are you saying, WaT? Of course you can't.

WaT: In that case, I'm not interested in the Pandava-massage.

[Proprietor suffers a sudden stroke, and some of his staff scurry over to carry him away, with a stretcher lying handy for just the purpose]

After a while, they can also begin to grate on their companions on the safari (as I began to grate on my wife):

Wife: Look, a leopard!

WaT: Damn it! Now we'll spend half an hour here, and blow our chances of seeing a tiger!

Wife: Honey, this is a leopard sanctuary.

WaT: Wat the @#$%@#$! Why didn't you tell me this before??

Still, I hope that the WaT in my family sees a tiger soon, at least so that the rest of us can enjoy the safaris more.

4. Seen-a-Tiger (SaT)

Now, this is another type of jeep-fellow that I've had the opportunity of observing at length, happening that my wife belongs to this much-envied and much-hated group. These individuals, if you haven't been able to run away from them in time, lose no chance to remind you that they belong to the hallowed and eclectic clique of people who have achieved the near-impossible - they've seen a tiger in the wild. Sample this:

Wife: [at start of safari] Well, for what it's worth, I do hope you see a tiger this time. You've been waiting too long for this. As for me, I saw 3 tigers on my first safari in Corbett.

Wife: [at end of safari] Well, too bad this time. Maybe tomorrow you'll have better luck. I think you should go to Corbett - you'll definitely see a tiger there. Oh wait, you've already been there…

As you can imagine, it's a little difficult to run away from this SaT when you're sitting next to her in a jeep. Not so hard to strangle her though…

Another unique trait of this group of people is their generosity in showing an interest towards non-tiger animals.

SaT: Man, I really hope we get to see some wild dogs today!

HC: Wild dogs… interesting. How do they look?

SaT: Oh, just like regular stray dogs in the city.

HC: Sure, why not? I'm here for the ride.

Me: Grr…

5. Animal Planet (AP)

Closely related to the SaTs, this genus of safari-goers are treasure troves of information about all things living. The only way in which they, in fact, differ from treasure troves is that unlike the regular treasure trove, you don't want this one to divulge its riches to you (at least not in the middle of a safari). An alternate name for this trivia-trove is Main Banoonga Crorepati (I want to be a Millionaire).

Guideji: Look, can you see the sambar deer over there? Now look about 100m farther - a tiger is stalking it.

AP: Can you guys see the red spot on the sambar's throat? It's called a sore throat - it happens when the sambar's young bite it while playing.

Non-AP: ahan….

Guideji: Shhh!

AP: You know, when a tiger is on the prowl, the langur is the first one to notice, and begins to call out to the other forest-dwellers. Try shushing that!

One also has to be wary of this creature when the game is afoot and the tension heightens. Picture this - A leopard is on the prowl, and someone has witnessed it walking into the bushes. Soon, three enterprising safari jeeps make their way to the other side of the bushes, and wait in rapt rapture for the leopard to appear. A envelope of silence pervades the scene, so taut that you could stick the proverbial pin in it. At this critical juncture, the AP (also known as the Wife in this case) is liable to cry out, "Look! A V-tailed mongoose!" Guideji interjects, "Shh! One more peep out of you and I'll throw you to the wolv… Dammit! Here we go again." "What, wolves! Are there wolves here??"

6. Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part III

You'll be really lucky is someone from this elite clan is in your safari jeep. This awesome and attractive fraternity is so awesome and attractive that its awesomeness and attractiveness cannot be bounded by a petty acronym. Members of this group get along very well with APs and SaTs - they always have an interesting fact or two about the place beyond the sea and the restaurant at the end of the universe.

WaT: Man, it's so hard to see any animals here. Such disappointment.

HC: Chill dude, I'm here for the ride.

Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part III: You know, things would have been different at Masai Mara in Kenya. I'd gone there for a weekend once. There, you can see all the big game so peacefully. I did only two safaris (it was a quick trip), but I saw 5 lions, 12 leopards, 25 giraffes, 35 zebra, etc.

AP: Wow….

Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part III: Yup. And you should definitely go there during the wildebeest migration, and do a balloon safari. Picture this - the wildebeest crossing the river with massive crocodiles snapping at their heels, and a pack of lions waiting on the other side. Somebody's gonna get hurt real bad! And you'd have an aerial view. Anyway, I'm planning to go next weekend - aati kya?

AP: Marry me!

WaT: Wat the #@$#$@#$! Tu Vijay Mallya ka bhanja hai kya?

But this group doesn't restrict its pontification to animals alone. Members, given an opportunity (or if they grab one), do hold forth on some other aspects of the good life.

Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part III: Guideji, tell me, how long do teak trees take to grow so tall?

Guideji: About 40 years in the wild. Why you ask?

Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part III: Just wanted to check, since I'd planted 50 teak trees in my backyard recently.

Guideji: Well, in domestic settings, they grow much quicker. 10 years tops.

Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part III: Jeez man! I hope they don't prevent my DIY micro-jets from taking off from my airstrip.

7. Babies (B)

Notwithstanding the fear that some of the above traits instill in the hearts of even-tempered safari-goers, Babies form the single-most feared group at forest reserves. Close relatives, Cry-Babies, are also a painful clan, always whining about how early in the morning they would have to get up to come on the safari. A redeeming factor with the latter, of course, is that they often do not get up to come on safaris. The former, however, can very quickly obliterate a successful safari.

Imagine this - the guide spots a leopard 100m away at 12 o'clock and immediately stops the jeep. To top that, there's a herd of deer at 2 o' clock, right in the leopard's eye-line. Barely able to contain his excitement, the guide shushes the company - this promises to be one of his glory days. The leopard, for his part, decides to put on a show for his guests. Stalking like a ninja (and like a BOSS) towards the unsuspecting deer, he smirks contemptuously about the fate of his soon-to-be prey, stopping for a moment to indulge the frenzied Snappy Camper. Photos taken, he continues on the home stretch, when suddenly, the Baby's sudden squeal pierces the air, leaving the rest of us (save one) in a somewhat ambiguous position.

Leopard: Wtf just happened! [whimpers]

Deer: [noticing the leopard] Ai phatli teri!

Leopard: [walks back into the bushes with his tail between his legs]

SC: [looking up from his camera] Wait! What happened! [and promptly falls forward under the weight of his lens]

WaT: Good, now that the leopard is gone, maybe we can go find a tiger instead. Wat say, folks? Shall we? Please?

HC: Chill man, I'm here for the ride. I guess.

AP / SaT: Guideji, why did the leopard just walk away? And why are the deer jeering?

Guideji: [unambiguously shoots himself]

Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part III: I think this is gonna be one hell of a story. Maybe I should put it in my blog...

In the long term…

It’s been three years and a bit since I read and loved Catch-22. It was quite a rewarding experience, and I spent the next few months searching for Joseph Heller’s other books at the Landmark and Oxford bookstores in Mumbai (this was before the flipkart and eBook era). I found 2-3 other books, but the enthusiasm flagged – unsurprisingly, Heller found it impossible to top his first and seminal achievement. In fact, legend has it that when a reporter approached Heller in his twilight years and mentioned that he hadn’t been able to recreate the magic of Catch-22, Heller retorted, “Who has?” Nevertheless, both were right – the later books tried hard to capture the same banter and spirit that made the first book famous, without meeting anywhere near the same level of success. I never finished any of these books.

However, I decided to try again, and I picked up Closing Time, which is the sequel to Catch-22, never mind that it was written 33 years later. Presumably, never seeing the same success again, Heller decided to bring back his tried-and-tested characters. A wise decision – this book is a neat follow through to Catch-22. While the one explores the futility of war, the other exposes the futility of the glorious reality that victory in the war helped shape. It expertly deconstructs the so-called ‘American dream’, painting a stark landscape of human life. Yes, there’s a little bit of old-fashioned “Look at what the people have done with the world we fought for”, but Heller sensibly desists from ranting too much.

As the book seems to say, there are three ways to die (with some overlap): (1) War; (2) Old age; (3) Some human’s stupidity. It is as if the author tells Yossarian (the protagonist of the first book), “Congratulations! You didn’t die during the war! Never mind, you’ll die anyway. Do you want to guess how?” There is no element of the ‘If it’s not happy, it’s not the end’, or the ‘it’s always darkest before dawn’ that one hears at low points in fluff romantic movies. Rather, it’s the more dismal (and realistic) ‘Life will try to knock you down. If you are strong, you will stand up. But no matter how many times you do, the knocks will keep coming. And coming.’ While I was contemplating this message, and yes I do this a lot, I realized why I find it so attractive. Consider the following fable:

"Alas," said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. At the beginning it was so big that I was afraid, I kept running and running, and I was glad when I saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that I am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that I must run into." "You only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up.

A (very) short story by Kafka, this sums up why I find his work so funny and captivating. And the essence is the same – “it’s the trap or the cat for you, my friend. Choose well.” So much for this choice – in lazier moods, I would call this a catch-22 and applaud my own intelligence.

The cycle of life continues, with scarce respect to the trials and tribulations of the human existence. Every now and then, you win a lottery, forge a path-breaking deal or write a bestseller – you think you’ve arrived. No matter – the wheels of existence chug remorselessly on, and before you know it, you wake up tied to the tracks, with a few slow and painful seconds to contemplate your life before death arrives. Dog eat dog, cat eat mouse – life goes on, and will go on regardless of your participation in it.

The timeless Tom and Jerry shows try to tell us something similar. But alas, we don’t get it at all. Children (young and old alike) see how resourceful Jerry is, and imagine themselves being similarly heroic. A few bored adults comment sadly that such cartoons introduce violence very early in children’s lives. But not a soul sees that no matter what Jerry does, Tom keeps coming after him. He has been coming after Jerry since 1940, and when I last switched on my television, there he was, still after Jerry. And he will keep coming.  No matter how many shrewd engineering contraptions of ever-rising complexity Jerry fashions to keep Tom at bay, Tom will reply with more and more diabolical schemes to trick or force Jerry into his wide-open mouth. And he will eventually succeed and Jerry will be no more, just like our favorite superheroes. And us.

Heroes – Chapter 1

So, in the throes of typhoid, I finally decided to write a blog post - a story. I call this 'Chapter 1', although I don't know whether there will ever be a Chapter 2. Anyway, please comment on the outcome of my delirium...

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Hey there. I am Superman. Really, I am. All right, but I do have a couple of superhuman powers – actually, maybe just one. Still don't understand? Well then, let me explain it to you like a six-year old. I have an interesting skill acquired through years of dedication, right from childhood. I measure stuff. Better than anyone you've seen.

It all started when I first learnt about numbers. My mother still remembers fondly, "We taught you the first ten numbers when you were three. And you know what you said – 5 and a half (the average of the first 10 numbers). At that moment, we knew we were onto a blessed child." And boy, did they show me off! We had visitors every weekend – and they always had the same questions for me. "What's the mode of 1-20? Good. Now tell me the temperature of that apple. Well, you must be right. What's your dad's weight? Haha, all right, we won't go there." My parents inculcated another habit in me during my formative years. Every night, I used to drink milk and sleep at 9. Soon, these habits became ingrained. In fact, during the milk rationing, I had a lot of trouble sleeping initially. But wonder of wonders, I soon adapted, and my body soon began to secrete lactose automatically. Maybe I can also alter genes. Note to self – should add that to my roster of superpowers.

Anyway, my life was quite eventful because of my superpower. Please don't nitpick – skill-superpower, potato-potaato, etc. In my tweens, we used to go to our farm in Rayalseema a lot. My father always asked me to tell him the speed of the wind. Then he asked me when rain would come, and the expected rainfall. Initially it was an interesting pastime. But when we saw that my accuracy was remarkable, my dad started taking me to the farm EVERY summer vacation. "You want to go to the travelling circus next month? Let's make a plan! Actually wait, that's in May, during your vacation. We'll be at the farm, creating food for people to eat! Don't feel bad now, I know it's hard. You have a gift, but it's also a curse. Such is your destiny." God, I hated those sentences.

My mother is a hardy Tamilian woman. And nowhere was this more evident than when she went shopping for vegetables and fruits. Sometime in my early teens, she hit upon an idea. She started taking me with her. First she'd bargain the price down. Then, once the vendor gave her a kilogram of apples, she'd have me weigh it with my hands. Of course, to make a margin on the by-now ridiculously low price, the vendor had used faulty weights. During the first few times, bitter battles ensued. So she borrowed authentic weights from a neighbor, till all the vendors in the area were aware and apprehensive of my reputation. She was also fun-loving – so she started telling me to hide behind a tree. And after reducing the price, she'd say, "I'll have to believe you this time. My son is playing cricket. And once he'd smile and give her the fruits – out I'd come from behind the tree!" Many a night was full of mirth about her latest escapade. Of course, cricket I never played – my mom always shopped in the early evenings when the streets came to life. Another blight on my very interesting life.

There was one time I said, "Hang it all. Let me do something really ordinary for a change." I knew that people used to sing and play musical instruments at railway stations for money. Some were really good at singing "Chahoonga main tujhe, saanj savere". But most were hardly up to acceptable standards, to put it mildly. Estimating an opportunity (see what I did there), I started standing around at stations. I'd tell passers-by, "Give me a few coins. Without looking at them, I'll guess their denominations." Unsurprisingly, in retrospect, customers weren't exactly open to seeing the trick after they'd unhanded their money. Then, I started standing at food stalls telling people, "Let me hold your samosa. I'll tell you its weight and temperature." That didn't work either – wonder why. I used to wash my hands everyday – their dubious looks at my hands weren't warranted at all. Soon I accepted defeat and came back to the real world, as it were.

People started coming to me to save a trip to the dentist for a biannual checkup. I'd run a finger over their teeth and say – "Hmm. You have cavities on your pre-molars and your first molar on the left side of your lower jaw. You should get them filled. But the cavities in your upper jaw have all healed – good work! You may need to fill cavities on the right side of your lower jaw, but you still have time for that. Brush well – there's some food stuck between your canines and pre-molars. That's it. Oh, and you have a wisdom tooth coming – maybe you'll be smarter when we meet next. Haha, just kidding!" Soon, I started diagnosing my own teeth as well – my dentist bills were always lower than the mean of my demographic.

There's only one problem. I can't measure my own temperature. I could tell other people's temperatures fine by holding their hands, to the tenth of a degree. But when it came to mine, I just couldn't. When I touched my temple with my index finger, my brain calculated a temperature. Unfortunately, I did not know what my hand's temperature was. I knew scientifically that fingers are usually colder than necks or temples. But therein lies the rub. Regardless of whether I feel hale and hearty or sick as a small boy suffering a relapse of chicken pox (people say you get it only once, but I got it twice!), my hands would always be slightly colder. My friend at Infosys calls it 'recursion', and says it's a very complex structure to create. He clearly doesn't know jack – its well nigh impossible. I tried many tactics. First, I bought an apple and checked its temperature (with my hand). Then I put it to my forehead for two minutes, and then kept it aside for two minutes. Then I lifted it again and estimated the temperature. But that didn't really work either – my hands were measuring the temperature, and I didn't know their temperature! Told the wife "I want to hold your hand", and then held her hand. Then kept it on my forehead for two minutes. After two minutes (you guessed it) held it again. That didn't work either. Bloody recursion!

But wait! I think I've got it. I'll go buy a thermometer and use it to absorb my temperature. Then I'll touch the thermometer with my hand to check its temperature. Yeah I know I don't know the temperature of my hand yet. You're nitpicking again – I'll just check the thermometer's reading to correct for measurement errors. And it's done. Eureka! Harmony restored, at long last, on Planet Krypton. Then I slept.

Fat-Tailed Reality

I’ve just read Ramzy Baroud’s My Father was a Freedom Fighter – a riveting, heart-rending story of a family’s journey through the years of Palestine’s siege. As I turned the pages towards the unalterable end, almost willing the pages and the story to metamorphose, I realized that this is yet another validation, and the starkest one yet, of the fact that there is no justice in the real world, and there’s no meaning to anything. For if there is meaning, what the hell is it? Actually, I’m being unnecessarily abject; of course there is meaning. It’s that life, like all things with more than 30 units (or, as in this case, people), is approximately a normal distribution (click only if unsure what this is). To be precise, reality is akin to a normal distribution, albeit with slightly fat tails (the origin of this post’s title, also a poor excuse of a takeoff on the name of one of rock band Queen’s greatest hits). Any other meanings are but our enterprisingly creative minds trying to ascribe causality (just like CNBC TV-18 tries to reason out every 0.01% change in the Sensex). I often think that this ability to identify reasons, to rationalize, is mankind’s single most valuable trait; for it pushes us to work and back every day, it pushes us to get married, have kids, anything to mask the boredom of spending on Earth 60-80 periods of its revolution around the Sun.

Please let me expound (like I’m really asking for permission) on the normal distribution issue a little more. What do I mean exactly? I mean that, of the total population in the world, some will have unbelievable luck. Some will have similarly unbelievable bad luck. Others (like you and me. Or just me – I’m not pushy) wallow in our mediocrity, staring at the sky, and wondering why that cloud is shaped like a horse, and why that other one is shaped like a giant hand flicking someone.

Now, who the hell has unbelievable luck? You know a few of them (not too many mind you, this is after all a close-to-normal distribution). You may not realize the extent of their luck, given your penchant for, and expertise at, attributing reasons and skill. But they’re there. I won’t name any very famous people, coz that can get ugly. Instead, think about the guy who won INR 1 cr. on Kaun Banega Karorpati. Or the woman who cleaned up on the slot machines at the Grand Lisboa casino the other day. Or, in fact, all the ladies and gentlemen they describe in self-help books like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Unlimited Power, Awaken the Giant Within, The Power of Positive Thinking, etc. (How are there so many such books?? It’s like a giant ship loaded with self-help books pushed itself towards the shores of humankind and autonomously unloaded them, and we, a free-thinking populace, helped ourselves to the multitudes of brilliant tomes! Anyway, another rant, another day).

Bad luck? For starters, the 1.5M Palestinians that Mr. Baroud alludes to in his book. In all my cynicism, I cannot but feel my eyes well up as I approach the final pages. As they say in Hindi, hum apne dushmanon ke liye bhi aisi dashaa na maange (‘We wouldn’t wish this fate even for our enemies’). Or, to a much, much smaller extent, the guy who spends the greater part of a year imbibing the habits of Great Person A and Great Person B, but doesn’t ‘make a million in 5 days’. Instead, he loses the price of the book, the space the book takes up in his home / office, and the time he spent in front of the mirror ensuring that the transformation to Great Person A or Great Person B is complete. Or even the dinosaurs, who, no doubt, searched for a higher meaning and purpose during their existence – little did they know that their fate, seemingly, was ‘not without a sense of irony’ (definitely check the link – its hilarious, but in a very sad way. Thanks, Abstruse Goose and Rukesh).

So where does that leave all of us – in the middle? We were blissfully unaware of reality, and were cheerfully achieving our mundane goals and breaking our New Year resolutions. And we were happy. But now I’ve gone and spoilt it (sorry, should have put up a ‘Spoilers be here’ warning at the beginning of the post). Or have I? For I think that this realization brings peace of mind, lack of attachment; in fact, it brings Zen – of some sort anyway. We can go through life in the knowledge that whatever will happen, will happen. We are but pawns at the mercy of a being running an infinitely huge, infinitely fast, coin-tossing machine (if you believe in God), or of an infinitely huge, infinitely fast, coin-tossing perpetual motion machine (if you don’t). You’ll do your best anyway (what if I’m miserably wrong), and can yet be serene irrespective of the outcome. You can say, like the Tralfamadorians do, ‘So it goes’.

And to cap it all, the heavens turn grey and it starts to rain

After a long sabbatical enforced purely by extreme laziness disguised as equally extreme over-workedness, I have finally been motivated to post – about one of the greatest authors of the 20^th century. While there are many others who may lay stake to the claim, I feel quite justified in saying that very few of these others had as much mastery of human emotion. As connoisseurs of Indian music say, no song is as melodious, or indeed, pulls at one's heart-strings as fervently, as does a Rafi song that's full of sadness; so too it may be said that Kafka alone, among his peers, has the ability to describe every emotion, in whole and in detail, in such a manner as to leave one spellbound.

Let's be clear – Kafka pulls no punches. He plows the depths of pathos. In some sense, he completes what Thomas Hardy begins – if the lives of Hardy's Jude and Henchard slowly descend unwaveringly into misery and obscurity, their Kafka-created counterparts are already there, leapfrogging more memorable and pleasant times. This isn't more clearly evident than in The Metamorphosis – Kafka's seminal work starts with the following line:

'When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself changed into a monstrous cockroach in his bed'

Neither does Samsa change back into a human at any point in the story, nor does he live happily ever after as do the ever-resilient vermin. That defines Kafka, this use of pain or relative misery as the starting point to his tale – and the end. Of course, his stories do often carry the promise of better times – but as often, they revert to hopelessness. Thou art from despair, and to despair thou wilt return.

At this point, one would just about be ready to dismiss him as an everyday fatalist, or, if one were particularly cruel, as a run-of-the-mill, throw-a-dart-and-you'll-hit-one, pessimist. But, as one would no doubt guess from my tone, one could not be more wrong. Kafka's stories do carry the hope of a change of luck, of a turn of fate, of the imminence of 'a final improvement in one's condition'. Whether they do (they don't) is a trivial matter, what leaves the reader struck is the manner in which Kafka follows and describes the protagonist's thoughts. He seems to have what it takes to find his way through the deepest and darkest labyrinthine passages of the human mind, and he isn't afraid of what he finds in them. Zen masters say that events are not happy or unhappy – both feelings are in the mind. This platitude, in a sense, symbolizes most of Kafka's stories (not all of them have the hero wake up to numerous tiny, vibrating legs). Events happen at the beginning of the story – they slowly and gradually affect the subjects, as the latter succumb to their thoughts.

And they slowly affect us too. Most readers, I'm sure, would come away with the opinion that Kafka's stories, with their minimalistic plots, are intensely allegorical. And in the vein of the Emperor and his new clothes, they would each pretend that they understood his work. But the truth, as Michael Hoffman puts it, is usually that 'We obscurely feel, we bet, we know that there is something more going on in a story, something probably to do with sex or violence or families or metaphysics, but we're damned if we know what it is.' The meta-story is sometimes relatively easy to decipher, as in The Judgment or An Old Journal; often, it is too abstruse for ordinary mortals.

While he doesn't shirk any morbidities in his writings (The Metamorphosis,
In the Penal Colony), he does, from time to time, allow himself to indulge in a little humor (For the Consideration of Amateur Jockeys), which makes him somewhat easier to stomach (but not too much). Most times, one enjoys, nay, is awe-struck by the manner in which he describes the dissolution of hope, and cruel disbandment of aspirations. As he says, 'There is infinite hope … but not for us'.

And this part of my life is called … reading books

Since childhood, I've always been driven, like those characters in pulp paperbacks by Jeffrey Archer, et al. The only difference is that in contrast to those glorious heroes who have been driven singly by a sense of adventure or a sense of patriotism since 'as far back as they can remember'; I'm driven by different things on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes the urge to get out and do something is a little stronger, and lasts about a week. A week of smoldering tensions and plans and initiatives that never leave the drafting table.

I've also been fascinated by the act of collecting stuff, from 'as far back as I can remember'. When I was a kid, I was a stamp collector, like so many others. Ever the intellectual, I quickly reasoned that philately would be the easiest occupation for me, given that both my parents used to collect stamps when they were young, and had preserved their collections for posterity (and me). So, one day I decided that I would collect stamps, and the next day I had ~3000 of them. Some collection that! I think the seeds of the decline of this wonderful hobby of mine were laid when I visited a stamp exhibition at Nehru Center (which is what connoisseurs did, someone I prided myself on being). Much to my dismay, the exhibition also had an area where budding collectors could buy a packet of 1000 stamps for a very reasonable price. Not reasonable enough for me though (I had a very Spartan childhood, without any pocket money). I'd gone to this exhibition with a pal and his grand-dad. I enjoyed hanging out with this friend, as he had also just begun, and had a princely collection of 10 stamps. Our favorite occupation during our summer holidays was to pore over our collections. I would run through each one of my stamps and say, "Have you seen this one?" or "Guess which country this is from". After a couple of hours, he would say, "Let's look at my collection now." And 2 minutes later, he would go home. Much fun! People might wonder as to the relevance of this aside here, given that we were at the exciting juncture of my discovery that I didn't have money to buy stamps. Well, unlike yours truly, the friend used to receive pocket money. And approximately 10 minutes after my discovery, he had more stamps than me. His grand-dad offered to buy me a pack too, which I reluctantly refused because much though I adored stamps, I didn't care much for the beatings I would receive at home sweet home for accepting money from people. However, one shouldn't look at my parents in an unkind light. After all, they could have easily offered me pocket money to see if I accept it, and then proceeded to beat me; but they were clearly never that malicious.

Afternoons were not that much fun anymore, as he also had a (positively) boring collection now. Soon, I gave it up, and rummaging through my parents' old stuff, I became a veteran numismatist. Then, moving from coins to MP3s to E-books to movies over the years, I am now firmly a book collector. And over the past few months, I have taken up reading with a renewed vigor. The past week was exceptionally exceptional (what's this figure of speech called? Have I invented a new one?), as I am now 'driven' to read. Since last Sunday, I've read The Great Gatsby, William Golding's Lord of the Flies, The Little Prince (shouldn't really count, as this excellent book has probably fewer words than this post will end up containing), Umberto Eco's Faith in Fakes (another grueling chapter in my seemingly ill-fated and arduous struggle to become a stoic European erudite) and Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. While I thought that The Great Gatsby was overrated, the others were definitely worth the read. And I would assume that my less-than-ebullient response to the former is quite possibly a function of the different time and place for which it was penned, given that the book does count among the best ones written in the last century.

Both Slaughterhouse 5 and Lord of the Flies (similarity to Lord of the Rings begins and ends with the title) are excellent reads, and are both about war. They are also similar in that they both enjoy pride of place in TIME's list of best English novels since 1923, a pride they share, incidentally, with The Great Gatsby. In an event of pure chance, I was lucky to read these two not necessarily divergent but slightly dissimilar takes on war and human nature, within a short span of time. While Lord of the Flies was written in a dark, allegorical fashion, Vonnegut's book was a satire, intermingled with good-old 'aliens!' science fiction – two genres not often blended, I dare say. Vonnegut's protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, is sent to the war as a chaplain's assistant (a chaplain played a stellar role in Joseph Heller's Catch 22 as well, I seem to recall). There, stumbling from one misfortune to another, he ultimately reaches Dresden, a scene of one of the most equally horrific and ridiculous massacres at the hands of the US during World War II. The story is not linear, as Billy has 'come unstuck in time', i.e., without any control, he keeps meandering from one stage of his life to another. At some point in the interim, he believes he was abducted by aliens as well, from the planet Tralfamadore. While the author never says outright whether the alien abduction is a figment of Billy's imagination or not (he broadly hints that Billy is imagining it), the overall point he makes is about the lack of free will. While describing how absolutely unneeded the aerial attack on Dresden was (it killed almost double the number of people annihilated at Hiroshima), he also says that history would not have had it any other way. As one of his aliens puts it, Tralfamadorians have visited many planets across the breadth of the universe, but it is only on Earth that anyone believes in 'free will'. As the author and these incredibly gifted aliens would condescendingly say, "So it goes."

William Golding, in Lord of the Flies, talks about a group of kids (oldest being 12 years old) stranded on a remote island, with no escape. He describes starkly their descent into savagery, as lack of any societal encumbrances stimulates the surfacing of the baser instincts in children who were otherwise 'propah' English schoolboys. As the struggle for authority and survival continues, violent clashes of steadily increasing ferocity begin to take place among the children. How the book concludes is something that readers should find out for themselves. This storyline is an incredibly far cry from pre-war style; in James Barrie's Peter Pan stories of 1904, the Lost Boys engage in vivid adventures of many kinds, in a land where they never really lose their innocence – a startling example of the effects of the bloody unfolding of the 20^th century on the psyches of those who had the misfortune of partaking in the harrowing experience.

When I started writing a little while ago, both books seemed to be similar only insofar as both of them spoke of human nature, etc. But as I went on, I realized (and this is something I should have known all along) that they are not that different after all, the style of writing, the characters and even the complete stories notwithstanding. While one spoke of the absolute lack of free will, the other lends to an extrapolation that awarding anyone free will (which now seems like the Holy Grail, given my incessant harping on it) will inevitably result in complete loss and anarchy, an outcome not dissimilar to a Pyrrhic war.

There, I think I'm done. What was meant to be a decent comment on two more-than-decent books has turned out to be a narcissistic monotone, with the aforesaid objective relegated to an epilogue. Anyway, hope the future makes me less self-indulgent, for my stories of childhood and friends et al are bound to run out sometime. And a friend, who has begun blogging in recent times, is fast proving to be a far more able chronicler of funny goings-on in my circle of friends. The next book I'll read is a collection of Anthony Burgess' (author of A Clockwork Orange) writings. I'll be sure to write how that goes.

For people who haven't been distracted by my random rambling from the strong sense of déjà vu that the title inspired but have still not quite figured out why, let me help out a bit (another instance of the magnanimity which is clearly visible in how I let my philatelist friend enjoy my riches). For the next few weeks, I'll be arranging to pay my taxes for the first time. While the utter lack of connection with the previous statement may move some to dismiss this as work of a deranged maniac, rest assured that the previous statement holds within it the solution to the sleepless nights you will doubtless endure in attempting to uncover the reason for the strange familiarity of the title (if you think it is familiar, of course). May you succeed!

Elementary, my dear Watson

Yesterday I had a flashback. To the time I was 10 or 11, and had just finished an abridged version of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. You know, that pocket-sized 'Classics' series, aimed at getting children interested in books? I was already interested in books (I think I had read all the Hardy Boys stories when I was in 3^rd or 4^th), but the one in question certainly caught my eye. So, consequent to some beseeching and imploring with my parents, I got my hands on the Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes or some such, which contained all 56 short stories and 4 long ones. Unabridged, of course. It was a blissful read. My next major problem was that 10 days after I got the book, I'd already devoured it (it was during my summer holidays, and I was in Madras with nothing to do). I still remember jumping around then, saying I wanted to become a detective. This continued, if my memory serves me right, for a reasonably long time. My next major career decision was when I was 14, after reading Chromosome 6 by Robin Cook. At that point, it was obvious to me, for I had seen the light. I was destined to become a genetic engineer… Of course, today I'm neither. But nevertheless, those were glory days. I used to feel I was Superman (He-man is also a very applicable metaphor – I used to love that series and the sword used therein when I was 4-5 years old). After reading the Bible Code, I wondered where I could get my hands on the software the book mentioned, to check what it would unearth about me from the Torah. Funny days, too. Paradise lost and all that.

Sherlock Holmes was a brilliant invention of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's mind. He gripped the imagination of avid readers like no fictional character before. Of course, there were only two notable detectives in fiction before Holmes came along (Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin and Gaboriau's Monsieur Lecoq; Agatha Christie's Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot came much later). I've read of neither of Holmes' esteemed predecessors, but he does disparage their techniques and intelligence ever-so-slightly. So much for them. His popularity was unprecedented. The story of how he was literally brought back to life (dare I say poorly constructed pun intended? The most redundant two words in English ever, closely competing with "Don't laugh") is a very well-known one. And Sir Doyle wasn't the only one who resurrected him. His story has been adapted into numerous plays, television series, etc since. In fact, an intriguing tidbit about Holmes concerns the title of this blog post – 'Elementary, my dear Watson'. Although this phrase immediately conjures up an image of a man with a sharp countenance and a deerskin cap, smoking a pipe (Holmes, in case these 'clues' didn't give it away), it never really appeared in any of the stories as penned by Sir Doyle. In that sense, it is a misattribution (one cannot call it apocryphal though, since Holmes himself is, arguably, fictional). It did appear, however, in a later adaptation, and pretty much stuck.

The reason for this (extremely) labored journey back in time was a book I just finished reading yesterday (and started the day before – it was an incredibly easy read) – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon. For those you haven't been extremely devoted Holmes-ians, this is a line from the mystery Silver Blaze, a story about a missing race-horse. This is how the exchange goes. I've taken the liberty of embellishing the statements slightly for effect, given the near-total lack of context, and given the fact that I don't remember them phonographically.

A little while after our discussion, Holmes said, "Well, Watson, there was also the curious incident of the dog in the night-time". I replied, "But Holmes, the dog didn't do anything!" "That, my dear Watson", said Holmes, "was the curious incident."

And just like the story referenced in the title, this one too is a mystery – revolving around the murder of Wellington, a dog that was killed in the night-time. It is a great read, but not because the intricacies of the murder and its consequent solution are brought out exceedingly well. The story is as penned by Christopher Boone, a 15-year old autistic child. It made a reasonably deep impression on me, and also reminded me of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, a children's book of which they say, extremely accurately, 'a book that every adult should read'. I agree. If anyone hasn't read this book yet, it must go to the top of one's reading list (and if one doesn't have a reading list, this book merits the creation of one). I think what works for The Curious Incident… is the fact that it underlines everything we take for granted but shouldn't. The author very effectively forces the reader to see the world through the eyes (and pen) of a child who hates being touched, and thinks that seeing 5 yellow cars on the road is a premonition of an exceedingly bad day. He doesn't talk to strangers (good advice for anyone), and doesn't eat his food if two or more items are touching each other on his plate (not so good advice).

The boy's heroics as the book proceeds are indeed noteworthy, as are his skills in mathematics, which overcompensate for his deficiencies elsewhere. I think the book's success cannot be summarized better than by saying that when you're done, you don't pity the boy, you admire him for what he is, what he achieves and what he plans to become. When, at the end of the book, Chris realizes that he can 'do anything', you realize it with him. And with the benefit of an external frame of reference, maybe even more so. Few books have left me with as much of a proverbial lump in my throat as this one did.

Unfortunately, however, I don't think I'm going to read any other book by Mark Haddon. He's written some others, mainly for kids. A Spot of Bother, published in 2006, is more targeted at adults. But I'm not going to read it. I'm convinced that he wouldn't have been able to create the same magic as the first one. Just like Harper Lee, incidentally, who's not published much since To Kill … Maybe that's how it should be. Maybe, just like Sherlock Holmes, the magic was never really the author's prerogative.