Cafeteria Blues!

Well, the day started off all normal and stuff till I entered the premises of my company cafeteria for my usual breakfast of a couple of idli’s (rice cakes?) and one vada (Indian version of a donut!). I was standing in line letting my eyes wander lazily over the floor, scoping out an empty table where I can have my breakfast in relative peace and quiet, when I spotted a flash of pink and white on the periphery of my vision.

“Next!” cried the man behind the service counter and my attention was drawn to the plate that he was holding “Oh… umm… one plate idli vada please!” I turned back to check out the pink and white thing, out of curiosity, but I didn’t find anything. It was while I was returning my gaze back to the counter that the overenthusiastic dude in the white apron thrust the plate at my face so fast like something from a kung-fu movie. Even Neo (Matrix fame), who spends most of his waking hours dodging bullets, would have had a hard time in dodging that plate. As it were, my reflexes kicked in and my head snapped back hitting the guy behind me square on the nose. “Owwwwww!” he screamed into my ears. That was when my reflexes went haywire and my right hand swung backwards and hit the guy behind me full on the crotch “Aiyeeeeeeee…..!”. I turned back to find him clutching at his crotch as if it was gonna fall off .... "This is no time for sarcasm" I thought to myself.

“Dude, I am so sorry man! It wasn’t me. It’s Jet Li behind the counter who…” and I stopped… the words frozen in my mouth. The guy, still not letting go off his crotch, had bent over his knees in pain and that was when I saw the pink and white vision again. Oh yes! A vision…. indeed! A chick (read that as hot babe), in her early twenties wearing a pink top and white trousers, stood behind the guy writhing in pain on the floor. I literally drooled… and the poor sod on the floor was at the receiving end of my drool. “What the…?!!” I heard a muffled cry from the floor. Quickly, regaining my infallible wit, I made a quick dash for the empty table I’d spotted earlier, away from any further embarrassment to self.

Once seated, I attacked the idli’s like a possessed man, tearing off a chunk here, tearing off one there with my spoon and drowning it in hot sambar. I stole a quick glance in the general direction of where the recent embarrassing episode took place. Nope! No sign of the crotch grabbing moron or the chick! I turned my attention to the tortured idli chunk ensconced in my spoon and gave it an evil grin. Bringing it closer and closer to my wide grinning mouth, I kept trying to picture the look of terror on its “face”. While in this trance-like state, my eyes happened to fall on the table opposite me. There she was … just sitting there, staring at me and shaking her head obviously disapproving my antics.

“Uh-oh! …. think, think, think … there’s gotta be a way outta this!” Next thing I knew, my hands flew to my trouser pockets and pulled out my cell phone and put on a serious face while speaking into the phone aloud, “Yes! ……Ohhh! That is despicable. Can’t you guys do anything right?!! I’m on my way!”. Pocketing the phone, I shrugged my shoulders at the chick who was still staring at me and mouthed the words “Gotta go!” at which her left eyebrow rose a notch higher than the other. I got the message and made a dash for the elevators. These days I wear a skull-cap and dark shades whenever I hit the cafeteria.

Hi! My name is...

... Legion, for I am many. I was at a point in time, one individual, one entity. But you changed all that. You look at me and judge me with your trying eyes. Hypocrite! I can read your expressions of love, hate, anger, lust and fear even as the motions of your mouth convey another language. I was naive once and it was then that I used to wonder at the mixed reactions registered on your face plain as daylight and how much appearances matter to you, non-contextual though they were.

I created all these masks for you coz you want me to appear "normal" and your definition of normal is as varied as the societies, institutes, laws and countries that you have contrived. Be that as it may, I dont know who I am anymore. I look in the mirror hoping to get a clue but all I see are my eyes, a distant flame burning somewhere in their depths. My name is Legion for I am many and if you are looking at me then you are looking at something that I want you to see. The real beast lurks within!

David Gale's lecture

From Lacan’s point of view, fantasies have to be unrealistic because the moment, the second that you get what you seek you don’t / can’t want it anymore. In order to continue to exist, desire must have its objects perpetually absent. Its not the “it” that you want it’s the fantasy of “it”. So desire supports crazy fantasies.

This is what Pascal means when he says that we are only truly happy when daydreaming about future happenings or why we say the hunt is sweeter than the kill or be careful of what you wish for, not because you will get it but because you are doomed not to want it once you do. So the lesson of Lacan is that living by your wants will never make you happy. What it means to be fully human is to strive to live by ideas and ideals and not to measure your life by what you have attained in terms of your desires, but by those small moments of integrity, compassion, rationality even self-sacrifice because in the end, the only way we can measure the significance of our own lives is by valuing the lives of others.

Rest-room theories

I do not know why but I always get inspirational thoughts when I use the rest room. Today I was taking a shower when my mind wandered to the concept of life from a purely scientific perspective. This is weird so let me start by putting together a couple of modern day theories and then I'll expound on my thoughts.

Big Bang Theory:
The whole universe came into being from a gigantic explosion (ala BIG BANG) that took place some gazillion years ago wherein a highly dense ball of fire just exploded and spewed matter of all sorts that ended up as galaxies, stars, planets and stuff: the galaxies drifting further and further away from each other due to the force of the explosion.

My theory:
That big ball of dense matter that exploded was a fertilized egg that just started multiplying into the billions of tiny cells that constitute a living being. In other words, what we call our galaxies constitute a gigantic living organism. The drifting away of galaxies could signify the actual physical growth of the organism. If this is true then the probability that there are other similar gigantic organisms existing on its scale is very high.

Many Worlds Interpretation (Parallel Universes):
The universal state is a quantum superposition of several, possibly infinitely many, states of identical non-communicating parallel universes. A parallel universe or alternate reality in science fiction and fantasy is a self-contained separate reality coexisting with our own. This separate reality can range in size from a small geographic region to an entire new universe, or several universes forming a Multiverse.

My theory:
If we look into our own bodies among the billions of red blood cells moving around or the tissue cells floating in it, it is highly likely that there will be at least one cell, which when stripped down to its constituent atoms, will contain at least one constituent atom which in turn when stripped down to its constituent subatomic particles, will contain at least one subatomic particle that hosts life (intelligent or otherwise). This is a universe parallel to ours on a lower scale. And the gigantic organism of which our galaxy is a part of belongs to a parallel universe adjacent to ours on a higher scale.

If we extrapolate this on both sides of the scale that I am talking about, you get infinite parallel universes. Well that's a mind-numbing thought if ever there was one and I am guessing that further enlightenment is just a poop away.

The Pianist

I was on a movie marathon yesterday. I saw four movies back to back, prior to the start of “The Pianist”. This was my way of dealing with depression… getting engrossed in the innate thoughts of the less-minded screenplay writers and moviemakers. But there are occasions when a beacon of light stands out in all the muck and mire of Hollywood movies. “The Pianist” was one such. Adrian Brody’s brilliance in his characterization of Wladyslaw Szpilman brought back hope inside me and lifted my hitherto sagging spirit.



Made by Roman Polanski, the movie is based on the true story of Szpilman, a pianist who lived in Warsaw and his struggle to survive against all odds. For the uninitiated, the Historical Background section on this site http://www.thepianist-themovie.com/pianist.htm will give you a good insight into the life and times of the holocaust victims in Warsaw.

A couple of hours later the movie got over and a brief glance at the clock told me that it was 3:30am. I turned off the lights in an attempt to get some shuteye. But as was the case when I saw a war movie, the images kept running through my head endlessly.

Bodies were scattered everywhere… women, children, helpless old men. All dead…all of them were dead, their faces frozen in a nameless fear. “O what has befallen man! Why has he turned against his own kind? Why?!” But the soldiers never stopped shooting. It was not their place to think. Some of them had hearts and in some remote way they felt sorry for the people they were shooting down. Wrong. So very wrong! But their fingers kept squeezing the trigger, pumping bullets into helpless men, women and children. Chests and heads were exploding, chunks of flesh and bone ripped up and torn out of their bodies... how can they stop? That was unthinkable. To go against the Fuhrer! Unthinkable! They were the superior race! They were not at the other end of the gun barrel!

I got up, went to the kitchen and had a glass of water. Walking back to the bed, I rubbed the back of my neck. The clock read 4:45am. The light switch going off sounded like gunfire.

A woman running down the street gets shot in the back by a Nazi soldier. She falls down on her knees… slowly, ever so slowly… an unuttered cry caught in her throat, dead in its cradle! She bends over until her forehead touches the cold cobblestones and there she stayed as if bowing down to the ruthlessness of the unseen forces that brought such persecution and pain to her and her people.

Szpilman who after surviving the guns of the Nazi soldiers gets caught in another war altogether, the private war that he wages while he hides from the Nazis! Hunger can break a man where guns cannot. The dull ache in the pit of the stomach eventually stops and then comes back again but this time around your head starts throbbing too. That can drive a perfectly sane man to the other side! But what was Szpilman’s secret? How could he survive his mental anguish for years... till the Russians marched into town and drove the Nazis out? And that’s when I see the answer in the form of Szpilman sitting in that dark gloomy room, guns sounding in the distance, a calm serene look on his face as his fingers dance in the air as if floating on piano keys, the notes playing in his head, the rhythm guiding his soul, soothing it. His life, his passion… his comfort!

I looked at the sunlight filtering in through my bedroom window, faintly at first but gaining in strength as the seconds ticked by. The holocaust was a tragedy of monumental proportions, a scar… a blemish on the face of the entire human race. One would think that such a scar would cause us to smarten up, pick up our act and learn from our mistakes. But … look around you… the world has almost but forgotten the screams, the pain… for here we are … at it again… spiraling into yet another tragedy. Its five minutes past six and I could hear the Pianist playing ... the notes swirling through my mind like a whirlwind as I fall into a deep sleep.