I fall into a coma.

Money times money is money squared
Money times data too is money squared
I am terrified of the square in squared
It is a prison for passion
When it should be imprisoning poverty
The walls are windowless
Not different from our cars that honk away beggars
Shoo! Shoo! Shoo! Faces in plight are like houseflies
Poor housefly! It has 360 degree vision
Amazing humans! Our vision is focused
Money times money is money squared.

Math and meth keep some men happy, according to the statistics
And the trend line goes on a rapid rise
The target just got taller
What beverage does the corporate brain drink?
Smarter and smarter it gets
Without satisfaction
'Enough' and 'equality' are endangered species
Can somebody tell me the population of white tigers?
I just boarded the statistics bandwagon
Does the white tiger treat the white peacock as its equal?
Which is more beautiful? Which puts a smile on others faces?
Oh you dangerous Darwin! Look at what you have done
Dystopia's day is around though survival of the fittest keeps surviving its end
The pie chart has just two categories
Oh you sad storyteller! They are not good and bad
The small chunk is bad and the larger chunk is worse
Am I talking about the earth?
But isn't the earth flat? 
Just wait for a 100 memes and 1000 re-tweets - the earth will become flat
Science stands no chance before social media
Please! Do 'Like' this poem!

"May I help you?"
Who's that quoting Shakespeare?
"Dude! You don't know even this?! (Sara)Haha"
Now, that's my boy
Let me introduce him, or rather his opinions
Introversion - Inability
Compassion and care - Cut the crap
Humility - Head back to your hometown
Love - LOL
My boy is a proud programmer!
Who pines for poets anymore?
For (i=1; i++; i > Poets)
My boy loves his machine
It is very obedient
Unlike some people who have to be understood
Try {relationships} - Catch {reasoning}
Isn't man-machine interaction easier?
Can somebody tell me the rise in percentage 
Of man-machine interactions over the last 5 years?
The statistical evidence is arriving in a blood-red Mercedes Benz
I love the logo, and even the car
I decide to buy it for my boy, and I begin my computer code
If ( desire = Mercedes Benz )
My fingers continue birthing variables
And invariably, I fall into a coma. 

A writer's voice

More often than not, I find talks by writers to be interesting. Be it the can-potentially-change-an-artist's-approach-towards-creativity TED talk 1 and TED talk 2 by Elizabeth Gilbert, or the can-potentially-prepare-an-artist-for-an-unexpected-future talks by JK Rowling and Neil Gaiman. 
An important reason for this can be attributed to the choice of words by the writers. And also the choice of their thoughts. 
Unlike in many professions, a writer is required to think for a living. A single social issue or a single historical fact is subjected to multiple arguments and counter-arguments inside a writer's head. From this trove of diverse thoughts, a writer gets to comfortably choose a viewpoint to present to the audience. As a result of which, my beginning statement. 

I experienced this last weekend when I attended the 6th edition of the Bangalore Literature festival. One of the talks I was looking forward to - 'The writer's role in speaking out' by Paul Zacharia - offered me more than I had expected. 
Paul began his talk by pointing out the characteristics of a good writer. The most important characteristic, according to Paul, was that a writer remained a reformed man inside himself, free from the forces trying to control his thoughts. He then listed and elaborated on some of the thought-control devices prevalent in our society. Religion. Caste. Political parties. Media. 
"I fear the media more than a politician today. We can hold the politician accountable at least once in five years but not the media", he said. And he made a brief mention about a short story he had written earlier, about a robot that could identify the truth and lies in a newspaper. I imagined the state of some newspapers and news channels if they were to be scrutinized by a similarly designed supercomputer, and I could not help feeling sorry. 

As a parallel thought, I recall the TED talk by renowned journalist Christiane Amanpour. When asked the question - What would be the one idea she would want to plant in the minds of the audience gathered - she replied, "..really be careful where you get your information from; really take responsibility for what you read, listen to and watch..."
This seems to be of utmost importance now, especially after 'fake news' has been declared as the 'Word of the year' for 2017.

****

My visit to the Bangalore Literature festival, after Paul's talk, only turned happier owing to the wide range of books that were on display. One of the books I purchased from the extremely-harmful-to-your-wallet collection was Perumal Murugan's Songs of a Coward. The book is a collection of poems written by the writer, during the difficult period in his life, following the ban on his book Madhorubhagan/One Part Woman. 
As I traveled across the different poems in his book, it saddened me that a writer had to be silenced because the society had not matured enough to agree to disagree. 

It is as imperative to stand up for the right voice as much as it is to suppress the noise. Else, we might reach a future where many writers are forced to command their pens, as Perumal Murugan does in one of his poems. 

I have commanded my pen
that the ink-drip from its ball-tip
shall happen henceforth
only for signatures
accounts and 
journal entries.

As the Diwalis get quieter...

I have never been a huge fan of bursting firecrackers. I have always been governed by the notion that the soul of the Vodafone-advertisement-pug resided in every cracker that I set fire to, and so, every cracker would fly towards me and burst beside my body, showering affection and ash powder. 
I also felt very uncomfortable taking a walk on Diwali days because it made me pity the heroes of the games 'Temple Run' and 'Subway Surfers'. 
A lit firecracker there. Run left. A lit firecracker here. Run right. A small girl is about to light up a 100-wala. Run straight.  

But over the last few days, I have been setting out on uncomfortable walks of a different nature. 
The streets and the apartments around my house, in Bangalore, present a sight that would be any photographer's delight. The houses and their balconies have been lined up with lamps and little light bulbs. 
But it has been a very silent Diwali.
And, strangely, a part of me misses the non-stop noise of cracker after cracker after cracker. A part of me misses becoming a 'Subway Surfer' hero on the streets. A part of me misses the sight of colorful pieces of paper crowding the road.
I hear the adult in me saying that this might be the way to celebrate Diwali, going forward. For the sake of noise pollution. For the sake of the environment. For the sake of the street-sweepers.
But the part of me that wants a noisy Diwali recalls my mother's childhood stories, which she keeps narrating every Diwali with uncontrollable joy.
"From a week prior to the Diwali day, we would start bursting crackers. There would be intense competition between my house and the neighboring houses. Your uncle and I would be the representatives from my house. Every evening, we would ensure that we burst more crackers than the surrounding houses. The number of pieces of paper that lay outside our houses were the measure of our might. And we would never let my father or grandfather sweep the pieces away. Even if they did the cleaning when we were asleep, we would gather the paper pieces from the garbage and disperse them all around the house. Winning the Diwali-cracker-contest meant a lot."

I ask myself - Why the fondness for crackers when I am not exactly a fan?
My mind seems to be behaving like a college student on his farewell day, not wanting to leave the professor who had scolded him the most through his college years.

As I ponder upon the reasons for the reduction in the magnitude of bursting firecrackers, something which I had seen even in Chennai during my college years, I cannot resist the thought that my parents' generation had had a simpler taste in life. 
For them, going to the movie theater had been an event. For them, going to the restaurant had been an event. For them, bursting crackers had been an event. 
They seem to have led their lives listening more to their hearts than to their brains.
Which reminded me of the debate topic in the special talk show shown on Sun TV yesterday.
Which attains more importance in a home? Intelligence or love?
One of the speakers narrated a beautiful story to argue why she considered love to be the winner.
An old couple is seated on a park bench. The wife suffers from a memory disorder. She forgets her husband's identity every 20 minutes. But the husband remains seated beside her, holding her hand, and explaining every 20 minutes who he is. Why would the husband do this? Because he had had the smartest wife? Or because he had had the woman who had loved him the most?

I smiled after I heard this story. And I smiled now after I typed the story. 
I reread the entire piece above. I realize that most of it has come from the heart and very little from the brain. 
Maybe I belong more to my parents' generation. Or maybe I am just emotionally charged in the middle of a quiet Diwali.

A chore of compassion...

She entered the house after a long day at office. As she switched on the kitchen light, her eyes fell upon the kitchen sink. There lay a heap of unwashed utensils from morning. "Poor Rangamma! How exhausted would she be after all the work?" she pitied the maid about to arrive in 15 minutes, and she started washing the utensils. 

My every day Wonderland

After meetings that go better than expected
But worse than the manager's standard..
When a mail rests in my inbox awaiting a reply
That would result only in a midnight-damage-control session..
When the eyes start composing frame after frame of the coconut tree visible outside the window
Turning a blind eye to the overlapping charts in the dashboard report..
I walk to a corner and draw a magical pattern
A green hole in the shape of a word bubble opens up
"Did you respond to the client's doubt?", "Can you review this modified SQL query?", "Is the tracker tracking the daily tracker updated?"
I set up a barricade blocking these questions
And plunge into the hole, the hole of hope.

I wish everyone would get a chance to visit this world

This world where ghosts are lovable
This world where buffaloes are the most adored pets...
This is a place where ego evaporates in seconds but possessiveness persists for centuries to come
This is a place where conversations can be one-sided
Not because a partner is dominating
But because the understanding is so deep that an exchange is not necessary
Here, we blow up balloons to play with sleeping saints
And we ride behind baby bikers... Trrrrr....
Here, we worship Brain pickings and also a few nitpickings
We also fall in love with 'Aananda Yaazhai' and 'Ennaku piditha paadal...'
Rain is celebrated and so is Rumi
The Prophet is a Superstar as much as The Alchemist...
I wish everyone would get a chance to visit this world
This world where new words are birthed, and at times, poems
This world where a robot is transformed into a kid every day
Thanks to a guardian angel
A spirit who wipes away my pain and paints a widespread smile.

A proverb a day...

We tend to resurrect proverbs only when the days get difficult. Why don't we respect them even during the happy hours?

Freedom of Expression

Whenever I visit my maternal uncle's house, I make it a point to join my 13 year-old and 8 year-old cousins in finishing their homework, which they get to sadly, after cycling and cricket and carom board.
My 8 year old cousin starts making faces when she has to solve complex multiplication problems and at such times, I would want to tell her that life and society have a lot more in store than just multiplication. But I would stop myself, realizing I am not a news reporter releasing harsh realities of the world into every living room.
I would enjoy helping them out in all subjects but my happiest stretch would be when we got down to the English homework. I would go through the poems and short stories and envy all the English teachers. How fascinating would it be to recite a 'In the bazaars of Hyderabad' or narrate a 'The gift of the Magi' to a class filled with blossoming minds, and initiate a discussion about the thoughts birthed?!

In such a state of mind, I opened my 13 year-old cousin's English composition notebook. After 3 exercises of letter writing, I came upon an exercise of paragraph writing.
"In no less than 250 words, write a paragraph about your family. Use words such as which, whom, whose in your paragraph."
I could not control my excitement. I had never gotten to know what my cousin felt about my uncle and aunt. I had presumed that he was not yet mature enough to discuss about family. So, I blessed my cousin's school for gifting me with such an opportunity, and eagerly started reading his answer.
"My father is a doctor and he practices medicine at Bombay. My mother is a homemaker..."
I paused. I was confused. My uncle is an industrial worker and my aunt, a school teacher. I closed the note book to check the name on the label, wondering if my cousin had brought his classmate's notebook for reference. But the label showed my cousin's name. I returned to the 'paragraph writing' page and continued reading. The family described in the paragraph could not have been more different from my uncle's family.
"Why have you written this answer?" I asked my cousin. "My class teacher wrote it on the blackboard and we all copied it down in our notebooks", he replied. "But why?" I asked him. He threw me a confused look.
I apologized to my cousin for wrongly questioning him instead of the system.
I felt sad for my cousin's English teacher. Despite a golden chance to get an insight into a child's thoughts about his family, the teacher had opted to train the students to score well in the exams. Why spoil the delight of evaluating creative answers with the routine of just checking for known spelling mistakes and grammatical errors?

I wanted to be different from the teacher and so, I glanced through my cousin's English text book and stopped at a chapter titled "On being an Indian". I looked at the 'Questions' section after the chapter and one of the questions excited me.
"Do you feel happy or sad to be an Indian?"
I read it out loud to my cousin. Immediately, he replied, "I feel happy being an Indian because India is a country that expresses unity in diversity."
I could not help but smile. I told him that I did not want the answer given by his teacher but I wanted to know what he felt. He was silent. I encouraged him to just speak out his mind.
"I feel happy", he answered. "Why?" I asked. "Because my mother and father and sister live here" he replied.
"What if your mother and father and sister moved to Australia? Which country would you like then? India or Australia?" I asked him. Without a moment's hesitation, my cousin shouted, "Australia!"

I fell in love with his answer that shone bright in authenticity. But I also realized that my cousin's English teacher is great and selfless.
Maybe she is in the pursuit of safeguarding her class, by stopping her kids from doling out honest opinions and unpatriotic thoughts in this country at this time when they might cost a person his/her life.