Birth of Enlightenment

Happy Darwin Day to all!

(Charles Darwin, born February 12, 1809)



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Height of eccentricity???...
















... or just a silly reason to have another cake? ;) !!!!!

Think you are too happy offlate and need some normalcy back in your life???

Watch 'Pokkiri' and 'Azhwar' back to back!!!

Anything and Everything Works!

The Cauvery Tribunal's final award after 17 years of trial has reaffirmed my conviction that no matter how inefficient a system, the ultimate purpose seeps through the crevices and does find realisation at some point of time...

Nothingness or Uncertainity?

The first known self proclaimed atheist, Baron d'Holbach(1723-1789), predates Charles Darwin's publication of his theory of natural selection(1856) by almost 70 years. There exist atheists even today, who do not really know or understand evolution.

The theory of Evolution by natural selection was the first ever scientific approach in search of a possible naturalistic explanation for the world around us and it's workings. And still stands as one of the most dominant such approach.

Then how did atheists come to be without knowing it? What was their basis for rejecting God, if not science?

In other words, how do atheists ignorant of Evolution tackle the question of 'Why we are here'?

Or are majority of the people who claim to be atheists(which includes many Marxists) actually agnostics?

Darwinian Politics!

KG fired me this strange info last week. Its veracity and applicability doesn't seem to have been universally agreed upon yet. Nevertheless, I was overwhelmed when I deliberated upon the implications of the hypothesis that political orientations could actually be inherited.

For one, Darwinian Natural Selection should be applicable. Let us assume that all the people in the world are subjected to a completely neutral and passive environment to grow up and given a completely factual form of education. The purpose is to annul any external influences. In which case, the political orientations would be governed entirely by the genes (this is kind of self contradictory because the very existence of right and left wingers would mean 'neutral' education does not exist, but we shall make this assumption anyway for the sake of argument). And let us also assume that half the people of the world are conservatives and half the people are liberals to begin with. If things are left as it is, one of the ideologies is bound to perish in the long run, of say a few thousand years. The ideology which would help mankind survive longer would be naturally selected. And finally we are left with a race which is entirely liberal or entirely conservative! The question then is, which one of the two ideologies would survive nature's ultimate Election?

After a brief contemplation I ended up ruling in favour of the liberals (now that's a surprise!). Well, I could very well be biased. So if you feel otherwise (or come to the same conclusion but using a different argument), please comment your views.

Before I present my solution, I'll define the terms involved for the benefit of the readers.

Natural Selection: It is the phenomenon which gives direction to evolution. To put it in simple terms, only those members of a population who are able to survive longer would end up spreading their genes. Hence, the population becomes stronger and stronger with each generation. The species then is said to have 'evolved'.

Conservatives: They are a class of politicians, who believe in upholding what they think are 'traditional' values (depending on the scenario, it could be religion, culture, ethnicity, race etc.). They are usually intolerant toward other traditions, always try to control the personal lives of individuals and are in constant conflict with foreign cultures.

Liberals: They believe in cultural and ethnic accommodation and usually uphold individual freedom.

Clearly, Conservatives lead a life of constant struggle, not only against Liberals, but also against other conservatives. This turns odds of survival against them. Of course, a lot depends on what kind of government is in power. If I was a native German living in Hitler's reign, I would choose to endorse his fanatical ways, and go about killing Jews and waging wars, if I wanted to live. Being a liberal would mean suicide in this case. But we need to look at long term implications here. A Nazi would have made more enemies in his life time than his victims. This would be true even if the Germans had won the war and were controlling the world now. There would be Anti Nazi terrorist groups all over the world (a situation similar to the one Americans find themselves today among Muslims all over the world). Sooner or later, the Nazis were bound to be annihilated. Now it could be unfair to label conservatives as Nazis. But their ideology does seem to be a distorted and milder version of that very fanatical movement. Be it the Sangh Parivar in India, the church-backed Republicans in the US etc.

I agree that the above argument is quite incomplete. The conditions assumed are quite idealistic. The contribution of Sexual Selection has not been taken into account. A lot also depends on the economic policies of the two groups which I haven't considered. Further, bringing in the now-small-but-fast-growing third class of Centrists could drastically change the equations. Comments are welcome.

War and Rationality

Thaikkanavudan Saavinaiththazhuviya, Santhanappezhaigale... Ingu
Koovidum Yengalin Kural Mozhi Ketkutha?

the opening line of the Maaveerar Paadal, sung by Nathan of 4th year undergrad on the occasion of Maaveerar Thinam or 'Hero's Day' last month here in Carleton. Nathan is the best singer in CUTSA and he does give the songs he sings an emotional twist. As he was singing, the hundred odd people gathered in the Azreili Theatre in Carleton University from various parts of Ottawa climbed up to the stage one by one and paid their respects to the potraits of some famous LTTE men killed in battle.

He was followed by some other singers, few of whom did an ode to V. Prabhakaran. And then was a skit, performed by 4 students, where they played the roles of various deceased LTTE soldiers justifying their actions to Chitragupta in Hell. All along, I could see passions and nationalism running high. After the performances, the Chief Guest of the day (yes! there was one!) came on to give a speech. His name was Ganesh- a middle aged guy, educated in appearance. Ganesh is among the growing number of active Tamil politicians in Canada whose role is increasing in policy-making here. He started off by thanking the students to have called him and soon plunged into a tirade against the incumbent Conservative government. His outrage is understandable- only in 2006 did the Canadian government ban LTTE as a terrorist organization.

He described how the Tamil diaspora in Australia and Europe was actively working- and succeeding- in changing the popular opinions toward LTTE in these countries and urged the students to use their skills to do the same in Canada. The Canadian government is to be acquainted with the idea of how 'virtuous' the Tigers are and how 'cruel' the Sri Lankan state is, he said. He and his co workers are campaigning for the Liberal party in the coming provincial and eventually the parliamentary elections 3 years from now. He also spoke about how, the Tamil students can enter in Canada's industrial work force and work toward 'destroying' Sri Lankan economy, resulting in a lesser defense expenditure by the government there and in turn, giving LTTE an upper hand in the ethnic conflict.

All this while, I was taking some pictures around, and trying to make some sense of his heavy Ceylonese accent. Even the little of what I understood of his speech raised the hair on the back of my neck. And from the reactions of my friends, here, I was baffled that they actually believe each and every word of his. I look back to see many middle aged and even old folk sitting there with sober expressions. Most of those definitely have seen the horrors of '83 riots. No wonder they want some revenge. But what about these students sitting with me? They have grown up knowing very well that LTTE has done equally great damage to the people of Sri Lanka. Then why do they choose to take sides(notwithstanding the fact that LTTE seems to be the only real voice of the Tamils) and give themselves to nationalist irrationality? Why can't they see something which is so obvious to me? Anybody in my shoes would have got the same thought initially. But it starts getting clearer as I go deeper into their childhood and my own.

Development of rationality depends a lot, not only on the kind of teachers and schools we go to, but also on the kind of environment we are subjected to outside classrooms. We learn the most from our friends. Imagine studying in a school not knowing when the building across the road is blasted into pieces. And the violent reactions to those incidents needs no mention. For children of different ethnic groups, in constant conflict, studying in the same school must truly be an uncomfortable experience. Then the only place where they can learn their past and present without any guilty conscious would be their homes, where their parents would feed them with narrowminded nationalism. Lack of peer to peer interaction all but kills individual and competitive thinking. The same can be said about Muslim kids in communally volatile regions in India like Gujarat.

We, on the other hand, had the good fortune of being born in a politically stable nation yearning for economic development. More so is the good fortune of being raised in an intellectually well evolved environment(if not due to the teachers, at least due to peers) of the south- especially Chennai. This 350 year old city- far from the conflicts of the borders- has the legacy of being the forerunner of scientific rationale since the introduction of modern education. Of course, Bengal started the awakening, but it was Madras which has been carrying the torch of enlightenment since then. Chennai is probably the only city in the nation where one can find a bulk of middle class intelligentsia who seek more than mere material pleasures from life and strive for intellectual development. Not Hyderabad, not Bangalore, but Chennai. And all that is quite apparent looking at the unrivalled contribution from her children to science, cinema, music, journalism, economy, politics and what not. By growing up here, well, developing a broadminded world view is but the most likely outcome.

'Oh my Devil!'

We use the phrase 'God knows' to imply, NO ONE knows.

'God forbid' is used to refer to an unpleasant event which is very UNLIKELY to be prevented.

'God speed' clearly means some kind of speed or swiftness NO ONE can achieve.

The exclamatory remarks, 'Oh my God!', 'Shit!' and 'F***!' can be used interchangeably.

So are we all intrinsically atheists? ;)

Return to the Dark Ages

It sounds scary. But definitely a sad truth of our day supported by overwhelming evidence.

End of 21st century- May be a return to the times when it was the norm to either wait for the disease to subside or wait for death?


Creationists: What more proof do you want?

My Brain- AWGN!

Earlier this week, I made a funny observation. I get really pissed off if my pen runs out of ink when I'm writing something important. That's one of the reasons why I lived on other people's stationery for major part of my under grad life (some self consoling justification for my frugal existence !!). In an attempt to turn a new leaf, I decided to do this- I put 3 pens in my bag and every morning, I would pick one at random and use them. I thought all the three pens cannot obviously run out of ink the very same day. On Tuesday during my Linear Systems class, the pen I was using went dry. Then I took another one from my bag to find the same response. Holding my breath, I took the last one out and to my shock, even that ran out of ink!!!

After the class (of course, I borrowed one from my neighbour for the rest of the class as usual!) as I was going back to my office, I was trying to figure out if this was sheer bad luck or if there is an explanation for this. And I found that ideally, according to the way I was using the pens, the probability of all the three pens running out of ink the same day is one !!! To put it in simple terms, lets assume each pen has enough ink to last for 30 days. So no matter how I use them, I cannot use all of them put together for more than 90 days. So, if my selection of pens everyday is completely random (that is every pen has equal chance of being chosen each day), then on the 90th day(assuming 90 is a fairly huge number for statistical purpose), I would have already used each pen for about 30 days. And hence they would ditch me together.
Moral of the story-
1. I'm capable of creating ideal noise in my decisions!
2. Miserliness is a virtue that never fails!

20 Years too late...

Last week, the Canadian Government set off the public enquiry commission into the Kanishka bombing trial of 1985. There was a half an hour documentary on the national CBC news network. It started off my showing last years 20th anniversary gathering at the coast of Ireland when grieving family and friends came to pay their homage to the 329 lives lost in that ill fated air craft over the Atlantic(this report was interrupted occasionally by the ghastly 1985 videos of Irish seamen picking up frozen bodies of children smeared in aviation fuel from the sea). It was the first time, when the families got the high profile political attention they wanted for so long. The then liberal prime minister Paul Martin said this on the occasion, "Make no mistake. The plane might have been Air India's. It might have crashed off the Irish coast. But in so many ways, this is a Canadian tragedy". He and the then opposition leader (now prime minister) Stefan Harper promised the families that a public commission will soon be set up to enquire into the most notorious and ill-handled criminal prosecution that lasted for 20 long years without any real conviction.

This realization is pretty late. When this disaster(the most devastating terrorist attack involving an air plane, prior to September 11) happened, the Canadian government didn't even consider that this was their problem. This height of ignorance is shown by the fact that the then Canadian prime minister called up Rajiv Gandhi to express his condolences while almost ALL the passengers who were killed were Canadian citizens. May be they just thought that a few brown people in India and a few brown people in Canada were fighting with each other. A businessman from Mumbai named Sanjay Lazar, who lost his entire family in the tragedy told the reporter, "Try telling this to those 329 people out there buried in the seas. They are waiting for answers. So are we". May be they won't get the justice any more. At least they deserve an explanation about what went wrong in the costliest trial in Canadian judicial history.

Only one person named Inderjit Reyat, an electronics engineer, has been found guilty for two counts of man slaughter- the 2 baggage handlers killed in Narita airport in Japan the same day- on the plea that he did in fact help the perpetrators make the time bomb. The prime suspects and also the leader of the Sikh militant group Babar Khalsa, Talwinder Singh Parmar based in Vancouver, were not found guilty on all counts. The reason being the controversial destruction of evidence and killing of witnesses in the name of "policy" by the CSIS. The families, one by one, were allowed to speak in public on the inception of the enquiry commission. They all recounted the horror they faced 21 years back, which is still fresh in their minds. The head of the commission, a former judge was silent for most of the time except when one of the ladies who lost her two daughters in the plane finished talking and thanked the judge as she left when he remarked, "You don't have to thank me for that. You are here by right. You deserve this opportunity to speak."

When I type "Kanishka" in the search engine in the Internet, the website takes me to the great Kushan emperor of the same name who ruled India during the early part of the last millenia. There is a parallel between these two Kanishkas- both have a tormented and bloody history behind them. Now that I try to figure out where it all started, the level of human stupidity involved perplexes me- Sikh nationalists make a place of worship their base and conduct terrorist activities targeting innocent civilians, Indira Gandhi storms the temple and crushes them, a pro-Khalistaan Sikh assassinates her, Congress goons massacre thousands of Sikh families in northern India and finally the Sikh militants in Canada kill 329 people by blowing up an aircraft. So who won? Apparently no one. Most of the time, people who did not have any thing to do with these conflicts got killed. Sons grew up without knowing their mothers, fathers spent the rest of their old age in the memory of their daughters- all because they booked their tickets in the wrong time.

Growing up... growing old!

Tuesday, I was chatting with priya and suddenly I typed something involuntarily (monkey at work)... which, I found made sense, later when i scrolled back to see it.

mars: i think thats wat is growing up all about... giving up on the world :))

For example, all of us in India were, at some point or the other, taught about Gandhi and his principles in our schools. And depending on how well the teacher teaches them, they inspire everyone of us to various levels. But when we entered college and started dealing with real world problems, we realised how difficult they are in practice. And we give up (or rather, give in, to the world). Of course, me and priya were dicussing something entirely different but I guess this applies to everything in personal and professional life. To most of what we held dearly as a child, we become indifferent ( to put it euphemistically, "stoic") as we grow. We start our lives with zeal and enthusiasm and think we can handle anything and that success is simple. Over time, we learn that it's ok to loose and we let go.

So can we define maturity as, "Learning to give up and still not feel bad about it"... ?

Fall Back!

Last night I had an extra hour of sleep when the whole North American continent changed its clocks back by an hour at 2 AM. And I really needed that sleep. The previous night out at lab was good but tiring. Watched a couple of movies, did some report and slept for about 2 hours. And the next morning at 6 AM I was off to house only to return back after 4 hours to finish the report. The bread I had in the break fast was spoilt I guess which made me a little sick by the end of the day. So much for grad life.

From today I move from Eastern Daylight-savings Time (EDT) to Eastern Standard Time (EST) or winter time. This system of day light savings was introduced to save electricity. In summers, higher latitudes like Canada and US have sun sets as late at 9 PM. So to make use of this sunlight and reduce dependance on electricity, they switch forward by one hour in Spring. This gives more evening hours and lesser dark working hours. Of course this system doesn't make sense for equitable tropics like India where the difference in Day time between summer and winter is very much. Still India used daylight savings during Indo-Pak and Indo-China wars in '62, '64 and '71. Not to save electricity, but to make people switch of their lights and go to bed early so that hostile war planes do not spot cities.

Today I embraced grad life in its crudest form- went to Gurudwara and packed a whole basket of chapatis(my staple diet now- free food). Made a whole big vessel of sambar to last for the entire week. As the climate gets colder, going home itself is a big pain, leave alone cooking after that. And today I could see the signs of what Canadian winters are capable of. When we went for the usual grocery shopping in the morning, storm like winds almost blew me off my feet as I struggled to carry all the stuff. It feels like -8 degrees though its quite close to zero. For the whole week, Ottawa has storm warnings.

More on environment, the incumbent conservative federal government, released the Clean Air (Air Pure, in french) act last week to reduce green house emissions to 2000 levels by 2050. Canada along with US contribute to almost 70% of all CO2. And green house problem is the biggest prick in Canadian politics. Of course, though each successive government promises to meet the requirements of Kyoto protocol, practically they admit its very very tough to do without any drastic implications on economy (Kyoto requires emissions to reduce to 1993 levels). There is a new method developed by scientists in Univ of Calgary where they pump in CO2 deep into the ground. Petroleum companies are quite interested in this because they can use this injection of pressurized gas into the ground to raise the level of crude oil reserves (oru kallile rendu maanga). But this is still in its testing phase as there are many risks involved, even a tiny leak can cause massive earthquakes.

Now to last weeks frosh party organized by Tamizh Student Association. It was conducted in a rented Hall outside the university. I was invited to sing which I did. They also organized all the usual fun games associated with these parties like musical chairs and eating contests. Technically being a fresher, I was forced into these competitions. When I was standing there on the stage playing those games, for the first time I realised the magnitude of my own age. I was just too old for all this. I have spent 4 years in college having fun and I have been through all these stages. Being forced back into the same old situation was kind of awkward. The creepy feeling of being a mature adult got into me! And yes, adult life is boring. My only solace was that most of the people there in that party, though under grads, were much older than me.

Then came the thing I was there for- food! They served puttu and kaththurikka poriyal ordered all the way from Toronto. After dinner we were sitting there chatting when commotion started. Guys, obviously drunk, stormed into the hall and picked up fight with the board members of the organization. Filthy verbal duels (incidental, all in Tamizh... while most of the compering during the party was in English... mother tongue is sure has a specific place in our conversations!) soon gave way to physical fights. The president of the association- a guy named Satish- showed some maturity and put an end to the mess and dispersed the gathering. To be honest, I was terrified to my guts seeing all the this. Prakash obviously sensed it. Holding my hand he asked, "Yenna Aravinth... bayandhuttingla? Indha maari Chennaila nadakkadha?". I just stared back at him not able to believe he even asked me that question after all this.

"Ithu ellam inga romba sagajam", he continued. "Naanga pudhusa vanthappo innum mosama irundhadhu, ippo konjam paravayillai". He dropped me in his car back home and on the way he was recounting the episodes during the previous frosh parties when some times police had to be called to intervene. All these fights had roots in the association politics. He ended by saying, "Tamizhan yenge irundhaalum anga pirachchanai varum! Yena namakkullaye, ottruma illai".

The next day when I narrated this incident to Gurpreet, he was stupefied, "I thought only we Punjabis drink and fight" !!!

Ghost of Christmas '84

Gurpreet and Harjot took me to the Gurudwara of Ottawa for Langar (it is the traditional feast organized by the authorities of Gurudwaras everywhere. Volunteers, day and night, cook chappathis and dhal for visitors, travellers and devotees. In India, it is organized everyday. For obvious reasons, it is conducted only on sundays in Ottawa). After the usual 5 min prayer, we went into the dining hall (the reason we were there!). I was eating on the floor right under a huge banner which was screaming in large bold font- "LONG LIVE KHALISTAN OUR HOMELAND".

I look around and see really old folk limping around helping with the serving and cleaning of food. Most of them have been here since the darkest days of their life. After I was done, I went around to see the photos and paintings on the walls there. I could see a couple of life size portraits of Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale- the military and the spiritual leader of the Khalistan Liberation Army way back in the 70's. There were the photos of the other prominent members of the Liberation Army with the same quote inscribed under each one of them - "XXX attained martyrdom at the hands of the Tyrant Indian Army in 1984". At the end of the long row photos was one of a woman shown to be visibly assaulted and a newspaper clipping dating to some time in November 1984. Something was written in Punjabi which I asked Harjot to translate for me- "This woman, XXX was raped and murdered by the Hindu Government Police and her whole family was wiped out. These are but a few of the atrocities committed by the Government of India".

Most of the people who were present in the Hall with me at that time were directly or indirectly the victims of the anti-Sikh pogroms administered by the Nehru-Gandhi family loyalists in Delhi. They had been there, seen it. It sends a chill into my spine to even consider being a a victim of government organized violence- I mean, how on earth could anyone escape the carnage if both the police and the goons are on the same side? And may, for a moment, even make the hatred for "Hindus" among these folk seem justified. But is it?

Canada has done its part well in this world of eternal conflict. Sticking to its policy of multicultural coexistence, it has served home for many a flock of refugees- Sri Lankan Tamils, Palestines and Lebanese, Sikhs and the list goes on. But it has gone too far on its commitment toward tolerance to allow extremist propaganda rule its soil. I'm not saying this because I'm a practising Hindu. I would say the same about most of the Hindu temples in Toronto which serve pamphlets of Prabhakaran's speeches to the visitors. Providing refuge to troubled folk is one thing, harbouring extremism is another. No wonder many banned terrorist groups around the world have built a strong financial base in here. The silver lining is that the incumbent conservative government in the Parliament led by Prime Minister Stefen Harper has cracked down on many active operating terrorist cells and confiscated their resources (okay... for once I agree conservatives are right even if they have more notorious reasons like racism inspiring them to to this!). And not surprisingly, most of my Tamil friends hate this government.

This kind of propaganda, which I'm more or less used to seeing now a days, made me ponder into an even more fundamental question- about relevance of religion itself. Canadians (in general, the westerners) are known to be the most intolerant people. In spite of all the nice greetings and pleasant talk like "Hi"s, "Bye"s, "Good Afternoon"s and "Thank you"s, these people love their cats and dogs more than they love their siblings. Parents even after 80 are on their own. Silly things like one person's stuff getting into another person's desk in an office creates the most ugly arguments. The average time a graduate student spends working on his PhD thesis is TWICE the average life of a marriage (no wonder advisor-compatibility is more crucial than spouse-compatibility here!). How on earth, then, are they able to exist peacefully with so much diversity (in terms of religion, culture, ethnicity, language etc) around them? May be because their intolerance is "well directed". Meaning whenever they get angry, they get angry at individuals and not at the religion that those individuals represent (of course, all that has changed since 9/11).

The situation is quite the opposite in India. People go great distances to save marriages, I wouldn't mind my friends borrowing my stuff even without asking me and we respect people more than animals. Yet, we are being hypocrites when we claim that we have "unity in diversity". No community in India can boast of being clean of blood stain.

Religion was the reason behind 1984. Religion was the reason behind the Gujarat riots. Religion instigated the perpetrators of 9/11. Religion is guilty of 1993 Mumbai blasts and what followed it. Religion is stopping the schools in America from teaching Evolution. Religion is standing in way of life saving stem cell research. Religion tore a nation apart and a Religious fanatic assassinated a great soul in 1948. All this for what? A super human sitting above in the skies whom no one has ever seen or heard? Or are we completely out of our minds? When some one, say a Muslim, assaults my family and, if I'm an average Indian Hindu, I would go looking for ANY other muslim family (preferably women and children as they are the easier targets) to assault them back. In a more saner and rational world, I would have looked for the PERPETRATOR and try to bring him to justice, or in case where law fails, I would probably administer the punishment myself on HIM depending on the level of my maturity. It is amazing to see how easily we associate a whole religion with the actions of an individual. How easily the Gurudwara here associates "Hindu" with all the crimes committed against them.

May be religion made some sense say 10000 years back when it brought the cave man out of the forests and made him profess civil life, in fear some supreme authority above him. But today, religion is driving us toward the same madness it once shunned. It is driving us back into the caves. It is high time when we stopped acting as spoilt children claiming to act according to the directions of a "Holy Father" and started behaving as responsible adults. Its time we kept religion in its place- inside our houses.

Probably instead of teaching our kids how Jesus died for the Jews or how Lord Rama killed Ravana, if we teach them how great men like Issac Newton and Charles Darwin sacrificed their lives to give some meaning to our own existence, this world would have been a much safer and better place to live.

A Refugee's Diary

Last weekend was quite hectic. Saturday we went to a movie named "Aani Vaer" running in a near by theatre. Almost the whole of Tamil diaspora in Ottawa had come to see this one day show. I had some prior idea that this movie dealt with the ethnic conflict in Srilanka. Nevertheless I was in for a shock- this 2 hours venture was one of the biggest and the most intense propaganda I have ever viewed on large screen.

This is the story of a journalist from Chennai who goes to Jaffna to document the human rights violations. And she happens to meet a doctor named Nanda in an LTTE medical camp. Recorded true incidents of the army atrocities on the Tamil community have been recreated with the protagonists' story in the background. But that's what it is. The other side of the issue hasn't even been discussed. Infact, in the whole movie only once the word "LTTE" is heard. The director, who is an Indian, claims that this movie was conceived to arouse the Indian Tamils to the burning issues in the island nation. But he has gone too far depicting the government as fascist regime and LTTE as an angel. Nevertheless, like most other Srilankan Tamils here, my friends here go by the word of the propaganda.

After we finished the movie, was the Saraswati pooja in a big classroom in the university organised by the Tamil Student Association here. figures of Amman, Saraswati, Lakshmi and Pillayar were placed in front of the black board and we kept our books infront of it on a table. The function started with Saraswati invocation and then pooja rites were performed. Then was dinner time and we had Chakkara Pongal, Vadai and Sundal (all after a very long time!), after which it was cultural programmes.

It was almost 8 PM by the time it all ended and I needed a lift back home. My friends from materials class offered. But they had to finish some assignment before that so I waited in their lab as they were doing their work. Boopalan, one of them, (name changed) and I started talking about the movie we watched the afternoon. He told me that all those gory incidents had in fact taken place while he was in Ceylon, albeit were chronologically inconsistent with reality. He narrated his family's history(all conversation in Tamil), which I'm penning down here in his own words...

"My parents moved to Colombo with my elder sister soon after I was born. But I stayed back in Jaffna with my grand mom. In 1982, my dad got offers to work in Dubai and he left leaving my sister and my mom alone in Colombo. Me and my grand ma used to visit them every year. But after the war broke out in 1983, I stayed back in Jaffna for while and then moved to Colombo to live with my mom in 1986.

My mom used to tell me the stories of what they went through during the riots of 83. There was one day when this Sinhali mob was scanning our area. My mom and my sister lived in an apartment. They took refuge in the opposite flat where a Sinhala family lived. When the mob knocked the door, my mom was hiding under the bed, and the man of the house brushed them off saying there are no Tamils in this locality. I was too young then to understand anything she said.

After I moved to Colombo, I joined this Christian Missionary school there. Within Colombo there is no problem between us and the Sinhaleese. In fact in our school Sinhala:Tamil ratio was about 6 to 2. We coexisted without any problem. But yes, sporadically there would be some suicide bombings in Colombo and the situation would get tense. I remember once, when we were playing cricket in our school ground, the tigers hit the national bank across the road. That was my first bomb blast. Soon after these blasts, there would be frantic phone calls all over the city with everyone enquiring the safety of their friends and family. But after 5 hours or so, every one would be back to business. It has become more or less the norm of the city. We have learnt to live with them.

But we had our share of fun. I remember how we used to mass bunk classes for the annual cricket tournament. Our teacher was a Tamil and the principal a Sinhala priest. We were sort of in good terms with the principal. So whenever our teacher punished us for bunking classes, the principal used to let us go that would start a fight between them and we used to have fun watching it!

We also had a gang of friends at home. We used to play hell lot of cricket in a huge ground near my house during our O-level (12th Std) year. On the other side of the house was the house of a Sinhala girl who was also in my class. Whenever our match got loud and ugly, her father used to come out and complain that his daughter is not able to study. One of my friends was really fluent in Sinhala and he used to throw back, telling him that even we were in O-level and still we come out to play and don't study all day like your book worm daughter. If she wants peace, let her go some where else to study.

There were times when the ball used to land in their house and the old man wouldn't return it.The next day, we used to buy a huge box of balls, place it on his compound wall, take out one ball at a time and stand in front of his house so that he can see them! That guy was always pissed at us. My mom however used to beg me not to fight with neighbours. Probably because she was living without my dad, she wanted to be in peace with everyone around there and not attract problems. The week before the final exams, that old man cursed us, "None of you brats are going to pass this year!". We wrote our exams, and the results came. Most of my friends passed wit ha an 'A' average. Some friends got 'B' grade. We all went to the old man's house with our grade sheets and shoved it to him,
We (in Sinhala): "We got 'A' average, what did your daughter get?"
The Old man: "'C' average".
We: "You know something... if you had let your daughter play cricket, she would have fared better than that"
And we left. He later remarked to my mom, "these are nice chaps you know..."

To be frank my grade wasn't that good. But then I still could have secured admission in Colombo. But I didn't want that. Neither did my dad. There was just too much of harassment in there. Everyone in Srilanka is given a Photo Identity card and a police address proof. We have to carry it where ever we go and still, the police used to stop us and accuse us of being terrorists. They would give lame reasons like 'your photo doesn't resemble your face' etc. When my sister got married, they had to face lot of issues. It was that some of the college mates of my maama had joined the LTTE. And so the police used to knock their doors in odd hours and ask them questions. My maama couldn't take it anymore and he found a job in Toronto and left with my sister. After that, the police started coming to our place and started questioning my dad. I remember vividly, during my O levels, the police came home at 3 in the morning and started shouting at us. This constable came into my room where I was studying and asked me where my sister was. I told him they have moved to Toronto. Then he shook me threatening of dire consequences if I lied.

My father called me one day and told me, "You leave this country. Go to Canada to your sister. I'll join you later". And that was that. I packed my bags and left Colombo for good. Now, it is my duty to join some firm soon after I finish my final year, earn enough money and sponsor my parents to immigrate. That's the least I can do for them."

There is nothing to question the authenticity of the above story. There IS a huge problem there. And yes, Tamils are at the receiving end. But giving that as an excuse for counter-violence is by no means justifiable. Boopalan and all his compatriots here regularly read TamilNet news and consider the LTTE's propaganda as God's own truth. Boopalan told me how one of Prabhakaran's editorial in TamilNet justifies Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, "Rajiv Gandhi wanted to exploit the LTTE's causes so that he can extend India's influence beyond its borders. In fact, the atrocities that we saw today in the movie was also committed by the IPKF's soldiers. LTTE wanted some revenge".

To say that LTTE is the true representative of their grievances is a gross misjudgement. May be they were justified back in 70's when all the peaceful Gandhian agitations organized by the Tamil leaders were met by hostile reaction from the government. May be force was the only thing that brought the government to table and made it even consider that this is an issue. But the tigers lost their relevance there. What can explain suicide bombings in Colombo? What can explain the hypocritical stand of the LTTE in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, where they don't officially accept involvement, but justify it in TamilNet? And god forbid what can explain massacre of the other Tamil groups in 1987 by the LTTE under the banner 'uniting all the Tamils under one roof'?

What ever the answers for the above questions, I learnt one important lesson from Saturday- When people immigrate out of India they give reasons that India is inefficient, poor, illiterate and corrupted... but we still have a choice to go back home. These unfortunate souls don't.

My first Class... as a Teacher!

Just few minutes back, I finished watching "Jillunu Oru Kaadhal" on Arumika's computer. It was not bad. A. R. Rehman's music as usual is very good. I came to college at about 2 o clock after getting up pretty late. Actually I got some time to sleep peacefully last night after one very tiring week.

Yesterday I conducted the very first quiz for the under grads. Friday is my day to conduct quizzes and unfortunately the very first quiz was on Friday and I was completely inexperienced to begin with. We PA TAs had a meeting on thursday on how to conduct quizzes and that helped a bit. Our supervising TA, a PhD named Mohd. Arsalan from Karachi, Pak, guided me through this uncertain time and was very helpful. Friday morning I had to come a bit early (7:30) to get the photocopies of the question paper done at the Department Office.

At 8:30 I stepped into my first class to find a fairly low turn out (3 as against a roll of 15). But people started walking in as the session proceeded. Welcome to Canadian classroom- everything is pretty informal! Student come in go out, eat, drink and sleep in the classroom as they wish. Students come in all sizes and shapes. Guys come to class in Bermudas, Vests, hair dyed in the craziest colors humanly imaginable, boys wearing earings at every possible place on their bodies except their ears... and the list goes on. We were told at the TA orientation at the begining of the term that all this behaviour "must not be taken as a mark of disrespect". Well, the thought on how the faculty would react if WE had done such things back in Anna University was amusing.

Since this was the first session, no student bothered to do the assignment they were supposed to do (PA sessions are about clearing doubts in asignments and conducting quiz). So I had to work out each problem in tha ssignment for them. But I was surprised at their enthusiasm when I started working on problems. I guess that was partly because of their lack of aptitude. For a college level, I found these students had serioulsy low mathematical skills as compared to those in India. They need help even for elementary Integration and simplification of expressions. But I was happy atleast they had an urge to learn these things. I was not complaining... these students regard us like Professors! First impression is the best impression they say. So I made sure I didn't make any mistake on board. Also, I tried to set the test very simple (Arsalan had asked me to expect all this), yet giving some work for their brain. And I guess I did a good job at it. Over all, my first formal teaching experience was good.

I came back home early because a furnace company guy was coming home to inspect our heater and I had to be at home for that. After he left, I sat down to mark the answer sheets. I was happy to find some 5 of my students getting 10/10. But a couple of guys got only 5/10 and I was pretty much unhappy about that, more so after I had worked so hard that morning to teach them. But I think this is a part of every teachers life.

Today morning, the Weather Network (the 24 X 7 news channel which gives only and ONLY weather news at local, national and internatiional level. We depend on it for all the forecasts and watch it every morning before leaving for college. Their forecasts tell us what kind of clothing we need to take that day. Some times I'm surprised how these news readers maintain their mental stability while narrating the same old things about climate the whole day!) announced that today is the end of Summer and Fall begins. Well, I don't remember experiencing any real summer all these days either. But then we expect the coming weeks to get very very cold. I hope Miss Mary (Mr. Nihal's friend) brings me the blankets soon enough. The thin grey blanket I brought from India is increasingly proving to be insufficient. Every night I get into the bed, I find the whole mattress and the sheet very cold.

The classes are going good. Especially my Materials class. We had been working on Schrodinger's Electron wave equation for the last two weeks and I have started understanding a lot of concepts about Quantum theory I never understood in India. Though we don't do a lot of mathematics in that class (actually no physicist ever does!), we are being taught everything intutively.

I got to meet a guy named Parthiban from Rajapaalayam early this week. He had done his UG here and is continuing with his masters in Systems Engineering. I think Arumika and Parthiban are the only two known Indian Tamils here.

Since last week I have been drinking Black Tea every morning. The reason is more economic than anything else- milk is just too costly here. On cold mornings such as these, hot tea soon after getting up from bed is really refreshing

I came today to finish off what remains of my assignment and also to watch this movie. During weekends no one usually comes ot the lab and we can come here and watch movies, listen to music and do voice chat (Though today Gurpreet is in the lab... listening to Kishore Kumar!). Tomorrow I'll be going to the temple (free food!).

Getting Cold... Getting Used To

Sun shone today after a week of rain and its really good. Finally. the temperature touched the 20 degree mark.

This week was very very busy.

First I got my TA duties assigned. The instructor for this second year under grad course (Basic Circuits and Signals) is a Prof named Tom Ray. He is a pretty nice guy and I doubt he will exploit me. We are an army of about 10 TAs for some 200+ students. So each will be incharge for some 25 students. We had a meeting earlier this week about sharing of responsibilities. I had a choice of either becoming in charge for lab or taking care of Problem Analysis sessions and organizing weekly quizzes. I took Problem Analysis (PA) because Lab means I have to run around to each student clearing bugs in circuits and stuff. I have to come every Monday and Friday at 8:30 in the morning for this session starting from next Friday. My duties include grading the weekly quiz and making sure all students do their assignments. Yet, I had to supervise the first intoductory lab session yesterday morning which was about teaching the students soldering (because the lab TAs haven't been assigned yet). I had a pretty good first class and I believe I communicated the process to my students well. I had some problem with my Chineese students though. I'm not being racist, but I have observed that Chineese students' english is extremely pathetic in general. They ask me some doubt and I have to ask them again and again the same thing to understand what they mean. And each time, they re-phrase it , making the comprehension worse and worse! But I think I'll soon start to get used to their tongue.

I attended my first Materials audit course on Thursday. The class was terrific. The prof (named Tom Smy) is teaching directly from Feynmans lectures on Quantum Physics and its very very interesting. And there in the class, I met some 4th year undergrads from SriLanka. Finally, some one here spoke to me in Tamil! Of course their dialect is completely different. They introduce me to their friends like this :
"Yivar Peyar Aerevinth... Yivar Yindhiya Lirunthu Vanthirikkiraar" !!
They are really friendly people. One of the guy's name is Prakash, there is one Dileeban and one Satya ( I haven't met any Prabhakaran or Nalini yet !!) . They told me that there are over 200 Srilankan students in Carleton! Few of them came here with their families after the expulsion of 1995, but most of them are here only since 2001. Their plan is to come here to do under grad, get a job, and then sponsor their parents back in Colombo and bring them here as permanent residents. Most of them are native of Jaffna.

Even fall (autumn) hasn't arrived yet and already the temperatures have dropped to 8 and 7 degrees in the night! And whenever it does get above the 15 degree threshold by God's grace and I start breathing easy, people here switch on the AC, because its just too hot for them! The colours of the leaves have started changing and soon next month, the whole city will turn Bright red from green and there will be a riot of colours all over.

Some maintenance company guys came home today to inspect the heaters at home. There is a huge boiler and a furnace in every home in Ottawa which heats the house all through the winter. People usually switch it on at the end of October and turn it off only at the end of April when the winter gets over. It needs cleaning every September before the onset of winter. The guy told Mr. Shahadat that he needs to replace the furnace because there are some cracks. And Shahadat is working on it. Winters get pretty nasty here during February when there is freezing rain - rains drops frozen during their descent. That makes roads and pavements very slippery. And also, since days become extremely short then (4 PM sunset against 8 Pm sunset currently), many people go into depression because of lack of light! The cure for this psychiatric syndrome it seems is exposure to a table lamp!

One of Mr. Nihal's friend today dropped by my place and gave me a huge study table and a lamp. Its really great and has helped clear all the mess in my room (i just used to keep books and bag on floor).

I'm reading The Hindu e paper regularly. Mainly because the local and even the national dailies here are very much like the stupid Tamil magazines in chennai- mostly Page 3 stuff. A

First Week in Grad School

The week was sort of hectic. I ventured out into to the downtown a couple of times. The canadian war museum is worth mentioning.

We submitted the first assignment to ram achar and he suggested some changes and has asked us to meet him again tomorrow (tuesday). On thursday I had my first class.

The TA orientations were really good esp the general one where we had case studies on how to deal with under grad issues when grading and clearing their doubts. Its a challenge 100 times more than India to deal with UG people. Because in this part of the globe, college education is just a luxury and leisure affair. Most of the people don't even come here for jobs... all they want is to experience University life and socialize. Compare this with the govt colleges of India where only the cream of a state or the country is selected for the UG programs and every one is serious about t heir studies. Most people here don't even go to Grad school.

Most probably I will not teach- TAs here mostly do grading work and clear doubts and take tutorials. Nevertheles, it would be a great experience for a career in academics.

From the Warmest Place on Earth

This is the true account of my travel to the North-Western Hemisphere and my first impressions of Canada and Ottawa.

23rd August, 9:30 PM

I arrived at the Anna International Terminal only to find I'm the earliest among the 3. MK arrived shortly and after some wait, KG came at 945 (he had, as you might have guessed, promised 915). Reddy anna had come to seeoff KG. My family, my extended family AND my dad's colleagues came for my send off (you know some times popularity is difficult to handle).
The ban on visitors' entry, which came into effect after Mumbai TRAIN blasts, was lifted soon after the London AIR-scare. I wasn't complaining though. My parents, bro, patti and uncle came inside to talk to me till I went inside for immigration. The check-in guy told me the hand item which is usually allowed in addition to the hand luggage is prohibited after the Heathrow episode. I had to put my Intel bag into my travel back pack to convince him and though it weighed 10 kilos after that, he din't mind. MK had to check in one hand bag (which was done for free) becaue he couldn't squeeze one in the other.

After bidding my parents adieu, we went in for immigration and security check. There were 2 loooooooooong queues. We were confused as to which one is ours. A lady in sleeveless looking at our blank faces offered to help and told u any queue is fine. We stood behind her. I needed to take out my passport so showed my sweater at KG and said, "konjam pudichchikonga..."

KG: (with a dirty smile on his face) yedha?

I looked at him, and then the girl ... Hmmm... this is going to be a looooooong journey!

Since KG entered the airport a bit late, we couldn't get consecutive seats. Only me and MK were together. And as luck would have it, it was the very last seat of the plane. Hmmm... this is going to be one looooong bumpy ride! On a brighter side, I got the window seat. I fell asleep immediately and missed the dinner which was served. KG, of course, hogged.

When I got up, the sun was at the horizon and man how bright the rays were from that altitude! MK and KG came around shortly. KG and MK swapped places. I chatted with KG over the breakfast which was good hot pongal. KG was now and then gaping at the german air hostess who, he said, looked like Monica Belouky. The descent at Frankfurt was cool with splendid views down... cities and towns are planned with human settlements separated by vast tracts of green pastures and woods - lands which would otherwise be converted into engineering colleges in India. We landed at Frankfurt at 1000 hrs local time. The climate was pleasant with gushes of cold wind every now and then.

The airport is huge and beautiful. We went to the gate where our Air Canada flight was waiting. After the security check, we boarded te plane. This time, KG and MK got seats next to each other while I was next to a window seat.

I picked up Canada's national daily "Globe and Mail" and was shocked to see the lead story "Four Tamil Students arrested in Ontario while smuggling weapons to LTTE"... Oh... thats a good start in a new country...

They showed Ice Age 2 and X Men on the flight. My neighbour was a middle aged stocky man in shorts. I learnt that Allen was a psychiatrist in Calgary (Oh yeah... soon MK or Suren or La Chappel will see this guy). He graduated from Cambridge and was born and brought up in Johanesburg. He told me about the conditions which arise out of lack of sunlight in winters in Canada. This syndrome, which results in depression, is cured by exposing the patients to a table lamp 20 mins a day! Allen asked me where am I headed for and said , "Ottawa"

Allen: Pardon?

Me: Ottawa.

He was silent for a while and then exclaimed "Oh! You mean 'Auto-wa' !" (the spelling has been altered to accomodate the pronounciation)

Oh... I must remember that one!

KG, meanwhile, was having his own share of fun. Now, our Ma Kanna was having problem cutting his cheese pizza, and guess who did it for him? A 81 year old patti sitting next to him!
We entered the Terminal 1 at Toronto and after a very long wait at the Immigration at Port of Entry, went out to identify our baggaes and re check them. We bought some calling cards and called back home. I My flight to Ottawa wa leaving in an hour and so I left immediately bidding KG and Mk good bye. Of course I remembered to collect the gift KG had for me- a book on science and philosophy... you know, the things we psychos usually discuss.

It was a window seat again for me and a chineese girl was siting next to it. I stood next to her and she looked at me and asked, "Do you want to go inside?"

Me : Yes.

And in a flash, she just crounched and jumped over and stood on her seat and said, "Hop in!"
Stupefied, I went into my seat. A punjabi guy came and sat next to her. He was about my age and was wearing a college t shirt. I had a feeling that he might also headed for Carleton but I didn't mind asking him. I burried my head into my book occasionally looking out of the window. The journey was short- Toronto and Ottawa are like Bangalore and Chennai.

At the Ottawa Terminal, I was welcomed by Mr Nihal- an associate of my uncle back in Chennai. He is a Sinhalee who is now settled in Ottawa. It seems he had served as secretary to Sri Lankan Finance Ministry long time back (good to have a diplomatic welcome into a country!). He drove me to the accomodation I had booked. The land lord of the town house, Mr Shahadat welcomed us in and inspected my room to be. Shahadat told me he is expecting another student to arrive shortly. Nevertheless the bell rang and I was surprised to find the same punjabi guy at my door step!!!

He was Harjot Singh, the guy I had met in orkut TWO MONTHS back and to whom I had passed on Shahadat's contact details on request. But I had no idea he had actually booked the same town house as mine. And I certainly had no idea that we would travel in the same flight, forget about being in the very next seat! We see each other in the flight, he gets a feeling that I'm Arvind but doesn't ask me because I'm busy reading a book, he is then received at the air port by his acquaintance and I, by mine and then we converge at the town house surprised to find each other... Look at the odds to that!

After we came over our funny little episode, Harjot left to return the next day with his stuff. I moved into the room immediately though. Mr. Nihal soon left after he was convinced I was in the right hands. Mr. Shahadat, is from Dhaka and a staff at the business school in Carleton. The town house is really good, neat, furnished and with a well equipped kitchen. There are 3 rooms on the first floor. Me and Harjot took one each. The last one will be taken by Gurpreet Singh who arrives on Sep 8th from Bangalore for PhD under Ram Achar. My room is relatively small but adequate. I was too tired and just slept off.

The jet lag persisted the next day. I got up pretty early and had sandwich breakfast. Harjot arrived in the afternoon and Shahadat took us to the University in his car and showed us around. I had an appointment with Ram Achar at 3 and he took us to the Graduate Office and got some formalities done prior to my registration. He took us to the CAD lab and showed us our offices and introduced us to the students there. After a briefing about our course work, we headed back home. Later in the evening we went to a couple of grocery stores nearby and Shahadat took us on a tour of the beautiful neighbourhood. People in Canada are very friendly, polite and accomodative. People stick to traffic rules, give way, and show a hell lot of courtesy to the pedestrians. All cultures have been accepted here with a very open heart and there is absolutely no racism or crime here- the Stranger in Black inside me finally smiled after 20 years!!! ;)

Shahadat is a really nice and help ful guy and has made us feel home in here right away. He lets u use his stuff and gave me a sweater to use.

Shahadat and Harjot cooked delicious Rajma and Rice for the dinner. Saturday went eventless and we spent the day mostly at home.

It rained today morning which made it really chill down here. Some 16 degrees. At 11, Ram Achar came over to our place and picked me and Harjot up for the Vinayaka Chathurthi function at his place. There was a small Indian community attending the function and we had great South Indian lunch. We were chatting with Ram Achar's freinds over it. They are from diferent domains, from banking to Ottawa Electricity Board, and were really nice to us and gave us some winter tips. Professor's wife packed us some Idlis and Bisi Bella Bath for home!
On my request, Shahadat drove us to the Temple near by. Its a very huge one like the Birla Temple in Hyderabad. Shahadat keeps recounting his experience as a new student in Ottawa and is always praise for the city, "This city is not so fast but is fast enough... no crime, no hassles. People are very welcoming. It is ideal to raise a family"

Half way around the globe, I can feel my mom's stomach turning!

Conservatives Vs Conservatives

The scourge of Tamil Nadu

One lasting effect of the Second World War on politics of the countries all over the world was to divide political parties into 2 broad classes- conservatives and liberals. The fanatical nationalist movement in European countries especially in Germany created an set of ideals which advocated narrow minded patriotism. These ideals could be put to practice anywhere and could be translated to any culture and hence such groups emerged everywhere forming similar (and hence opposing ) factions. Through the war and the period of cold war that followed, this class was usually opposed to the socialist parties of the respective countries and hence were given the name "Right Wing", as opposed to "Left Wing" (The term "Left" itself does not have any communist basis, it just means "radical". Since the communist movement was some thing of a sea change compared to the existing capitalist hegemony).

Ever since, political groups have almost always identified themselves either as Right or Left at least by principle- Republicans and Democrats in US, Conservative and Labour (or now, Liberal Party) in UK, Christian Democrats and Social Democrats in Germany, Christian and Democrats of Italy, Republicans and Socialists of France and so on- and these groups confront each other in elections based on principles which can be more or less be categorized as "conservative" or "liberal".

India has had a strange history as far as this kind of grouping is concerned. The freedom struggle was led by the Congress Party which heavily borrowed from Marxist ideals especially under the leadership of Nehru and it worked with CPI in the national movement. Soon after Independence, however, as the Communist parties competed with Congress in elections, the nation moved a bit toward the 'right' and the economy was termed to be 'mixed'. And hence, Congress became the largest 'centre' party of the world. In the 70s, the Janata Party movement gained momentum and Hindutva Ideology as we know it today was born which advocated a Hindu nation. This emergence of extreme conservatives led Congress to move back toward 'left' and hence today it can better categorized as 'centre-left'. These neo conservatives in the form of the Sangh Parivar, with their involvement in scores of communal disturbances in the nation since independence and with their 'commercial' advertising of political agendas, have indeed have formed a sort of strong Right Wing in the country. We have redefined Right and Left in our own indegenious way- In India, consevatives are those who preach religion on the political arena and liberals are those who are secular. Regional parties in all states also have come to classify themselves on this basis and ally themselves with parties at centre with similar ideology.

All states but one. Try as much, I have not been able to find any basis of such classification in Tamil Nadu. There just doesn't seem to be any principle or characteristic, based on which one can distinguish between DMK and ADMK. Both parties carry out the same kind of political campaigning and propaganda which depends on arousing the feeling of regional and linguistic fanatism among people, both parties have a common history in the Dravidian movement and both parties, when in power, perform the duties of moral policing. Based on the Indian definition, hence, can we term both the factions as conservatives?

This puts us in a funny situation doesn't it? That these two parties actually have no real ground on which they can contest elections. The high rate of incumbency in the state ascertains this fact. Since there is no real ideology, people in the end have no real inclination toward any party and hence keep electing the opposition everytime hoping for some change. We have a perfect statistical paradise with mathematical precision in this state- every election is like throwing an unbiased coin. And perfect randomness in ensemble means each toss should give alternate results each time for a fairly long period. And it DOES happen here!!! One can easily postulate that if things remain the same for next thousand years, and that the elections results for those thousand years are plotted, they would very closely resemble the output of a pseudo random bit sequence generator they use in CDMA receivers!

It all started in 1912. Indologists discovered that the grammatical and phonetical structures of the languages north and south of the Vindhyas are strikingly different. This led to speculation that people of the south are a different race, Dravidian ("Dravida" = South in Sanskrit), which probably existed before Aryans arrived. The discovery of ruins of a magnificient urban civilization at Mohen-jo-daro gave rise to an even more controversial idea- that it was the Dravidians who started this civilization and that the invading Aryans burnt their houses down and drove them south. Early indologists, Max Muller being the prominent, termed this phenomenon as Aryan Invasion Theory. These ideas inspired the contemporary intelligensia of Tamil Nadu and filled them with pride about their own legacy. The flip side- it divided people.

Periyar started the Dravidian movement with legitimate interests of putting the superstitions and caste based attrocities prevailing in the society to an end. His struggle was indispensable in removing the Brahmin tyranny and creating equal oppurtunities for all in the state. But the very rationalism he advocated was infested with the highly irrational idea that 2 different races existed in the country, that the Brahmins in the state were unwelcome Aryan immigrants and hence should be expelled and that the North Indians were 'barbaric' Aryans who displaced 'civilized' Dravidians. What was supposed to be a completely academic debate was fought on the political arena. While his strive to reform the Tamil alphabet, and get it declared as classical language is commendable, his opposition to teaching of Hindi in schools was unwarranted. In a country like India divided by languages and cultures, the concept of national language is the only thing which can bind it as a nation. The other southern states were relatively untouched by these movements and have assimilated Hindi very well over the time. Periyar's claim for a separate 'Dravida Nadu' and his boycott of Hindi, which was carried on by his followers, has created a vast cultural gap between the state and the rest of the country which exists even today.

Mitochondrial-DNA analysis has today proven beyond doubt that the darkest south indian is no more closely related to his nearest African ancestor than his fairest counterpart. There is no separete race in this country. The dark complexion issue which is usually quoted is but a mere adaptation to life closer to the equator. This should have been obvious even during Periyar's time, even without DNA studies- 5000 years of coexistence cannot leave a trace of separate races in any country. Intermixing is a very rational process. Infact, South Indians have historically been the best preservers of Vedic Traditions while the North had been under the influence of Buddhism and Islam. His conservative campaign created a vast number of people ignorant of the national language and intolerant of other cultures and languages. It created regional fanatics.

DMK which formed on the ruins of Periyars movement took the Dravidian cause further and eventually became popular on the basis of a lie- probably a democratic version of Hitlers Aryan propaganda. After ADMK split from DMK, they ended up as the only dominant parties of the state. Having nothing to say against each other in principle, they swapped alliances and used nothing but populist measures to oust each other. What else can explain the Left and Right wingers at the centre switching loyalties between the two parties almost EVERY single election for about a decade? There seems to be only politics of convenience in TN, no politics of ideology.

When a northie hears the word 'chennai' he hears it as 'culture'. But it also brings to his mind the intolerance of people here. Winston Churchill said, "Even conservatives have to change with times if they want to remain relevant". This mess, though created by fanatic politics, can only be cleaned by a new generation of liberal rationals. Its time to open up.

Stranger In Black

This post was intended to be my very first when I started blogging, but I guess ideas don't come to us by will. One must learn to identify and grab them as and when they sporadically get ignited in our minds... probably that's the difference between great writers and us.

I had been to Shanka's place for lunch few weeks back. I had to get some passport sized photos done urgently and so gave the negative for print in a digital photoshop near his place and collected the photos while leaving for home.

Me and Shanka went on Seeku's scooter, me driving. While returning home, I stopped at a T-Section leading to his street looking at the signal going red.

Shanka: Dei... yenda niruththune?
Me: signal da...
Shanka: Dei!!!! enna da... ithukkellaam poi niruththure... naa intha signallai eppovome mathichchadhilliye da...
Me: machaan... athukku naanum niruththaama ponuma da?
Shanka: Dei!!! (getting restless over the wait) enna da nee...


...


I remember watching this movie 'Anniyan' about this time last year with some friends at Egmore ( I don't recall who exactly, but I remember Priya and Marun coming with me ). I've always admired Shankar ( don't get any wrong ideas people... I mean the director here... not shanka ) for packaging movies dealing with sensitive social issues, with glitz and glamour making it reachable to a wide Indian audience. This technique of his, which he has mastered over the years of his stay in the Film Industry, makes his movies more acceptable than those of Mani Ratnam's in the B and C centers. Of course, he alternates his masterpieces with boring, often-nauseating ventures, which has only glitz sans any worthwhile storyline or concept ('Kaadhalan', 'Jeans'... yuck!).

So... why am I writing this piece on Anniyan one whole year after its releasing?... No, this is not a movie review as such. This post deals more with what the movie actually represented and how stark the contrast is the ground reality in India, which is kind of a summing up of my observations of people around me over the past one year set against this movie's underlying theory.

Like all other Shankar movies showcasing problems of the country, this one targets a particular group of our society. Only that this time the group is very very large... 'Indian' showed us how administrators ought to be, 'Muthalvan' showed us how legislature ought to be. 'Anniyan' showed us how common people ought be. Like most of the previous ventures ('Gentleman', 'Indian'...), the solution he offers in this movie too is impractical, unethical and illegal.

The protagonist, Ambi, is a good man amidst filth. He represents that one honest person for every thousand 'normal' people of India. Unhappy incidents during childhood, an outcome of a chain reaction of negligence on the part of a wide range of people belonging to all the strata of the society, bring about his sister's premature death and that instills in him zeal to pursue his responsibilities as a citizen with utmost devotion. This obsession-like adherence to rules shapes him into a honest barrister.

Nevertheless, the complacency and selfishness prevalent in our society injures his mindset and the wounds slowly shape into another personality living inside the same body. This new face is not as merciful as Ambi who believes that even legal action must not contain corporeal punishment. Rather, 'Anniyan' proclaims himself to be the Judgment Maker of the souls and invokes the castigations of Hell, as recorded by Garuda Purana of the Vaishnavite school of thought. Hints of inspiration from the Morgan Freeman starrer 'Seven' are visible here. That thriller was a gory narration of an catholic fanatic who executes people for committing the seven deadly sins proscribed by the Bible. Anniyan is more of a national consciousness affair than any religious propaganda, where the significance of adherence to rules for national development is highlighted. The movie has scenes adopted from many other Hollywood movies and books, as it is usually the case with Shankar. But the Indianization of the episodes is impeccable and that's where Shankar shines. And at the end of the day you need to give it to him- accusing people AND IN THE PROCESS getting their acclaim is no small deal. The movie was a blockbuster.

But are the very people who made it a success actually moved by it, leave alone inspired? The movie cries out the fundamental truth of our society, which we have long taken for granted- we have become experts in accusing the system for all our woes and have forgotten to look into our mistakes. We have been committing mistakes and breaking laws for so many generations that today, we do it involuntarily without any sense of guilt. It is in our genes now.

Last monday, when we were waiting the long wait for IDP at the RTO in mount, Moksham asked me, "What do you think da, The government of Independent India could have done better these 50 years?"
Me: I guess theres something wrong on both sides. We have lost our right to blame them. We expect a lot of things from them but never respect the laws they make.
Sham: But our laws don't make sense
Me: Like?... take for example traffic regulations... how many times do you think you ve stopped before the Stop Line? and how many times have you waited for the waiting countdown to actually go to zero and the appearing of the green signal before starting your vehicle? Don't tell me Traffic rules don't make sense, its almost the same followed in every country
Sham: Well, I see no one watching over us there. Yes, if the maama (policeman) is present I mind the line...
Me: So there it is... you have no regard for the rules as such, you think you have a license to break rules wherever the enforcement is weak.

And isn't it so? Our sense of duty, wherever it is seen, is a mere offspring of the fear of stringent enforcement rather than any actual moral responsibility toward the system of things. The same people would follow the traffic rules with obedience if they were in the US. We follow rules not because our conscience tells us to, but because there are grave consequences of not doing the same. And since most of the petty rule breaking in India goes scot-free, our sense of right and wrong goes for a trip to the moon.

Forerunners of civilization predicted this complacency and thus forged Garuda Puraana like philosophies in every culture and religion known to man to instill in people, fear of breaking rules, which can easily go unnoticed. It is this notion- that there is a place called Hell where every instance of crossing the line is being accounted for and that justice will prevail eventually immaterial of how small or big the crime is- which maintains order and sanity and keeps the fabric of the society from disintegrating.

The Tambaram Sanatorium railway gate is notorious for opening for only short intervals with long waiting times in between. And pedestrians and two-wheeler riders alike have been using this as a reason for walking under the gate whenever it is closed for ages. Since it was built about a year ago, I have been probably the only regular user of the Sanatorium Subway(barring the fruit vendors who use it as godown). Most people prefer jumping over the tractions than taking the pain of walking down the subway. About six months back, after some accidents being reported along the railway crossing, red coloured chains were hung beneath the gate to prevent people from crossing over underneath it. With in a few weeks, the chains were broken down by the people beyond recognition and the authorities gave up. What difference does those few extra seconds of walking down the subway or few extra minutes of waiting for the gate to open make when compared to risking life? Somewhere, sometime, somebody gets killed while crossing and that will cause people to become 'extra' careful for a few days and then everything comes back to 'normal' till some one else gets killed again. Sometimes it pains me to ask myself how many deaths are needed to teach the people the simple procedure of using a manned railway crossing?

The above account of a railway crossing was but just one of the zillions of instances of complacency on our part. It still amazes me how trivial it seems for most to cross the gate or for that matter disregard a traffic signal while these things can make or break life. Immaterial of how well the nation scales in IT enabled services and semiconductors, without the basic etiquettes of existence 2020 is just a utopian dream.

Anniyan is not Tamil Cinema's all time greatest movie. It may not even be Shankar's best. Yet, it was a brave statement. It mirrored our society and cried out our inefficacies. It told us that there is an Ambi in every one of us whom we have forgotten. It also told us that there is an Anniyan out there who hasn't forgotten our mistakes.