I-Sheep v/s Fandroid

Image via CrunchBase

Screeching my car into a Vassar Street parking slot, I looked around for the McNair Building where I was supposed to have been in around half an hour ago. There was not a pedestrian in sight, a rare scenario on the afternoon streets of Cambridge, in and around the MIT area. There was always someone. Finally there he was, that one person, strolling down the street, who seemed like the type to ask directions from. I hailed him with an "Excuse me!", enough to be greeted with a look of mild irritation of having to look away from the magic of the 3.5 inch I-phone screen in his hands.

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"Yes?" he asked.

"Would you know where the McNair building might be?" I ventured forth.

"Don't you have a phone?" said Mr. Mildly Irritated

"I do." I answered, more than a little puzzled, struggling to bring out my phone from my pocket.

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Seeing an Android phone pop out in my hand was the tipping point for my reluctant guide. "Oh! It's not an I-Phone!" he rationalized aloud, justifying to himself the obvious lack of intelligence and sophistication that he seemed to have pre-sensed in me. I would have told him that my smart phone loyalties were not iron-clad, that I wasn't allied to the 'enemy'. It was only because I was getting the Samsung Galaxy S for free with my plan that I had one. Didn't seem like he would believe me, so I didn't bother either.

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Swift as the wind, he pulled up an app on his piece of technological perfection and punched in 'McNair Building'. What the phone told him, I do not know. All I got was a broad sweep of his arms which I think covered for 50% of the MIT campus in view, as he announced with surety "My phone says this building is somewhere over there."

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"Thanks!" I said, with force-of-habit politeness. Then almost eclipsed by his triumphant face, I saw the stencilled name McNair on the wall of the building about 1o feet behind him. I would have pointed that out to him too, but then who was I to endlessly, hopelessly deny the future. Using them things called eyes would be too much work and accessing that messy gadget called a brain would mean total under-utilization of that monthly 3G data limit.

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[http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2012/11/i-sheep-vs-fandroid.html]

Bounce back?

It was quite like being poked in the eye, over and over again. Even the sombre settings of the 9/11 Memorial in lower Manhattan and the quiet introspection that came along with it were not sacred enough for some, it would seem. 

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On an August Sunday morning, hundreds of visitors walked through the area where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center stood before September 11, 2001, now cleared of debris and open to the public, developed as a memorial to that horrifying day of violence and to bring peace & reconciliation to the limited extent possible. The footprints of the North and South Towers were now fountains pouring into pools on the ground and rising again. The names of the 2983 victims killed in an earlier 1993 bombing of the buildings, the subsequent 2001 plane hijackings, the Pentagon crash and the buildings themselves were engraved on the black marble surrounding them. 

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It was quiet as would befit the location, with people gazing in silence at the pools or sitting on the benches surrounding them, submerged in deep thought. I couldn't have been the only one noticing the odd behaviour of the couple clicking pictures by the North Tower pool. They were busy trying to get an appropriately grey image given the location but it was the fact that they were setting it up to look real that gave me a sick feeling. The female half of the partnership was being directed by the male half to turn this way and that way, to hold 'that thoughtful gaze'. In between the shots, there was laughing and smiling by the gallons, indicating a disgusting mission to look it, rather than to feel it.

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I guess it will stay that way, the simplest of narratives for millions of people. Here they were, the good guys with not a care in the world living in the greatest nation on the planet. Then came these bad guys (from a different religion and region of the world, it'll be whispered) and killed so many innocent folk in their country. The good guys got our own back though, went into their countries and bombed their evil souls to hell and beyond. End of story. The complications and realities of geo-politics and history will permanently be side-stepped by these folk. 

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Who were these people and who got them going on their path to murderous madness? [Hint: Which secret agency first funded Osama bin Laden's radical Islam agenda, back when he was fighting the Russians in Afghanistan?] Were all the innocent lives lost and the irreparable destruction caused in retaliation based solely on the aim of defeating terrorism or were there other factors at play? What, if anything, can be done to prevent future games of international chess using the governments and people of weak countries as pawns?

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It is criminal to justify the murder of nearly 3000 people and the numbing sadness that it caused to a people happily leading their daily lives completely uninvolved in the schemes and ploys of realpolitik by saying that they had it coming. The perpetrators of such an heinous act have, will and should meet the fate that they deserve, a less than pleasant one, I might add. 

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But what is also criminal is to reduce this to a comic book level of simplicity where the bad guys are the bad guys tarred with a paint brush on basis of their ethnicity, the god they worship and their geographic location while the good guys are all sunshine and roses. The need is to keep is keep our eyes and ears open, to understand that in this imperfect world, everything is linked to everything else and that it takes two hands to clap.

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9/11 was a terrible day in the history of humanity, an awful culmination of blind hatred towards a religion/nation/people. It'll be impossible to put behind and in many ways, it should not be. Lives will be re-built, losses will be absorbed in the folds of time but what should stay is a conscious effort to smile a little less (the self-absorbed vacuous variety) and think a little more. What may seem too irrelevant and far away to be of concern should matter to all. Wilful ignorance is too dangerous a disease to let infect our species. We are capable of engaging our thoughts and actions towards issues beyond our immediate environment and we should. 

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9/11 and the dark depths of its tragedy should never be reduced to a mere photo op.

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[http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2012/09/bounce-back.html]

Canis lupus

Like most other cliches, the one about the zoo and the wild is grounded in truth. At the zoo, the wildlife are caged visitors in the world of humans and in the wild, the humans are in theirs, caged or otherwise. My first visit to a wildlife sanctuary after decades of devoted wildlife documentary viewing bore hard proof of that [http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2010/11/real-deal.html]. To expect animals to behave like animals was the whole point of entering their natural domains. Unfortunately it does mean reduced chances of seeing them, especially the sly ones.

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But this was Alaska, proving an exception to that rule. I was on a shuttle bus which made its way to the Eielson Visitor Centre at the heart of the Denali National Park and back out again. On my first day, the 7th of June 2012, I had already seen 7 grizzly bears, two moms (sows) with pairs of cubs and a lone male bear (boar), numerous Dall sheep lounging lazily at the edge of sheer cliffs hundreds of feet high, moose and caribou in the 6 odd hours I had spent on the bus. I was already in sixth heaven of my animal besotted life. But only sixth. As I was telling the couple right behind me, "If only..."

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My co-passengers were in a similar state of euphoria. We were all on the 'lucky bus', we insisted. More than a few of us were enthusiastic eagle-eyed lookouts for every minute of the ride and quite often managed to pick out something in the brush that didn't quite look like a rock. That would turn out to be another animal. In the seat just ahead of me were a couple of French speaking teenagers who looked like they had just stepped out of an anime movie with electric blue dyed hair and more piercings than I could care to count. They yapped incessantly, as would be expected of two girl pals irrespective of nationality. I wondered, without making much headway, what might have brought them here. This corner of Alaskan backcountry, decidedly not gritty urban chic, didn't seem like where their scene was at.

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We were already winding our way back to the borders of the park to the Wilderness Access Centre from where we had started. Alaska had already made my day, year and life for everything it had shown me on this trip, the breathtaking beauty of its landscapes and the lives of its residents, animal and human. I was simply being greedy when I wished for that one last thing. Everyone knew that 'they' were the ultimate team, smart, tenacious and fearsome - all attributes that would make them really unlikely to come posing in front of a busload of humans.

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In the powerful final chapter of "The Call of the Wild", after the human master he loved with heart and soul is murdered by the Yeehat Indians, Buck the massive sled dog, hero of the story breaks his final bonds with civilization, running out into the forests of Alaska, never to return to the warmth of human protection, turning into a creature of legend, stalking and terrorizing the Indians. He answers the 'call of the wild', becoming the leader of a pack of his wild brothers. It was his brothers that I was on an as-yet-futile lookout for.

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The Alaskan tundra in summer is a feast for the eyes by itself. The many hues of natural colours and the short stubby bushes that stretch out on undulating land before rising into snow clad gigantic mountains in the distance could easily put a paint company's shade card to shame. To know that it also hold such an abundance of wildlife made it twice as scan worthy for my hungry touristy vision. But it was some other excited voice in our bus which shouted "STOP! 3'o'clock! 3'o'clock". The bus stopped abruptly and its passengers looked sharply to the right out of its windows.

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"There they are. Five of them!" said someone else as I scrambled to my knees, scrabbling around in excitement on my seat for my binoculars. I was sure of what I would see because it had indeed been that kind of a glorious day for me so far, yet I wanted to look closer. The anime sisters in front of me went super ballistic with their French chatter in excitement as they planted their faces on the bus window. All I could distinctly hear was "Loup! Loup! Loup!" 

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A smile of intense happiness broke across their faces and one of them went as far to clarify for those who didn't understand French or hadn't spotted the five powerful grey shapes playfully gambolling across the grass yet. One of the brochures for Denali referred to it quite accurately as the 'signature sound of the wild'. Against the backdrop of a large full moon, it would bring a chill down the spine or a smile on your face depending on the kind of person you were or how adventurous you might be feeling right then. Pursing her lips, she howled to no one in particular "Aaaoooo...aaoo...aaoooo" Wolf. Wolf. Wolf.

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[ https://bit.ly/spirit-of-the-wild ]

24 spokes

There was an idiot up on stage at the Hatchshell on the banks of the Charles. "People claim that we have abandoned the country. I say we are more patriotic than any of them." He continued "I asked my friends back home if they knew how many spokes the Ashok Chakra on the Indian tricolour had. None of them had the right answer. 24 spokes!" I couldn't decide whether to laugh at his less-than-bright theorem or cry tears of embarassment at being his fellow countryman.

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Thus he rested his shaky case of being more patriotic than the rest of India combined. By his urgent attempts to prove his allegiance to his home nation, he gave away his recent date of arrival to the USA. All this being part of the annual celebration of the Indian Independence Day in faraway Boston, Massachusetts, quite understandably shifted to the nearest Sunday, the 14th of August 2011 (co-incidentally the I-Day of a country whose name starts with a P).

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Maybe I was being a little too harsh in my judgement of him. At least he was here, on a day when rain was predicted and I had myself almost skipped the event but for some guilt inducing statements from a cousin born and brought up in North America. The last time I remembered celebrating Independence Day was when I was in school, a celebration in terms of the joy of having a day off. The Indian Association of Greater Boston had been putting together this event for decades now and getting hundreds to come to it for that many years was no mean feat.

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Down by the sides of the rectangle that comprised Boston's Hatchshell arena, there were NGO stalls by the dozens seeking donations and attention. The causes were plentiful and each of them equally worthy. Manned by second generation Americans, Indian in appearance, American in speech, the so-called ABCDs seemed sincerely worried about what was evidently lacking in the country of their parents' birth. The not-so-pretty truth of hunger, ignorance and lack of opportunity seemed to have affected them more severely than many 'Indian' Indians like me. What they were trying to do, in my opinion, was significantly better than making self-promoting speeches off the dais.

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A little guy, around 10 years old, was darting about amongst the milling crowds of families who had made it out to the grounds on the day. He was ferrying information for a NGO called Akshaya Patra which had partnered with the state governments in quite a few Indian states to run a very efficient school meals programme. He handed me a brochure and was gone in the blink of an eye. Another young 'un, I thought, working in his own way for a land two oceans away which he might visit once in a while but would probably never want to stay in for too long.

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All assumptions of mine, it must be said. Culpable of being too absorbed in the progress of my life than my nation's struggles, I may view any attempt to think beyond oneself with rose-tinted glasses. Yes, I read the news about India like a hound on a scent. Yes, I worry, truly worry about who would and how would the myriad issues be fixed. Do I do anything about it? A feeble no. I want to, like the nameless thousands who were involved in the laborious process of building up or clearing out, long before Hazare sat down in a fog of Facebook 'Likes' and will continue to do so long after the last of his dwindling Twitterati supporters fade away. On the ground, because I belong there. Because I cannot claim, with a clear conscience, to be impossibly addicted to a first world lifestyle in the minute fraction of my life that I have lived it.

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But it is clear that being on the ground is not the only way to contribute. That's confusing because it is also hard to ignore the fact that unless you are living the dusty and grimy reality of a country making chaotic progress, day in and day out, you cannot really be the 'real deal', the much needed agent of change. Is swearing loyalty to the country as important as actually doing something for it? Does accent and place of birth mean more than intent and genuine concern? The questions swirl unanswered as the cultural programme continues on stage. The longest queues are to be found, as expected, outside the stalls selling Indian food.

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[ http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2012/07/24-spokes.html ]

Prayer

The Dark Knight Rises (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What does it mean if I want to watch a movie on the first day of its release, yet have very low expectations from it? I look forward to it enough to buy a midnight show on the first day of its release but the crass self-promotion of the trailers put me off all the same.

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"The epic conclusion to the Dark Knight trilogy"... any movie that refers to itself as epic long before its launch should normally be a dead ringer for its 'un-epicness'. The audience has the right to posthumously deem a film an epic, not some suited honcho in a big Hollywood studio.

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Chris Nolan's movies have been known for letting very few secrets of the plot out through their pre-launch publicity. "Inception", "The Dark Knight", "The Prestige" and "Batman begins" had little more than a collection of mysterious images and ominous sounds in their trailers. One can only hope that this tradition of "The trailer means nothing" continues for "The Dark Knight rises".

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The 'villain in a superhero movie' bar was raised and launched into outer space by the last movie and expecting Bane to outdo Heath Ledger's Joker from the last movie is a lost hope. But at least, there is the stunning Anne Hathaway to look forward to as a semi-heroine Catwoman in this movie, the first time Chris Nolan has managed to get a female lead worthy enough of the great Batman movies he has churned out so far. May she be the icing on the cake on this one.

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The grey world of Gotham City, its guardians and its ill-wishers inspires a steadfast fandom who have to go out and check out what's happening in the latest vision of that universe. Cribbing and complaining aside, it has its captive audience amongst whom yours truly is included. Consider this post to be some kind of a prayer. Prove me wrong about my negative expectations, o demi-god of creativity. Prove me wrong, Christopher Nolan.

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[ http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2012/07/prayer.html ]

Trust

"Let off the brakes!" says the instructor at certain points on the track sitting calmly in the passenger seat on my very first lap of the racetrack. The huge parking lot P10 North of the Gillette stadium had been set-up on this Saturday morning, the 16th of June 2012 into a twisting loop of 3 straights, 2 long and 1 short; a S section and 3 more turns. "Yeah right!" I think to myself "570 HP engine on a 1500 kg car with my foot on the accelerator all the way down till a second ago and you want me to stop braking? Thank you, sir but I rather like being alive." End of Lap 1.

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Lap 2 begins with a short straight and he shouts "Go! Go! Go!" I put the pedal to the metal and the God awesome roar of a 5.2 litre V-10 engine fills my universe. My head snaps back due to the sheer acceleration. I am in the driving seat of a Lamborghini Gallardo LP 570-4 Spyder Performante and it is already apparent to me why this car costs $2,50,000. For all its faults, only capitalism necessitates the building of such an excess of power or madness as some would call it and the world is a better place because of it (or so say car nuts like me). Slightly easier on the brakes this time and the car squeals just a little on the turn but holds its line, a bull on the charge.

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By the end of Lap 3, this monster under my tutelage seems to not have that much of a mind of its own. The wall of terror and worship that divided us when I first took charge of it is a lot less higher now. We pull off the track for a quick oil check as this Italian beauty in black has been put through the paces quite a few times since the day began and a little medical check-up is on the cards. All OK. "The next 3 laps will be even more fun" says my guru as he hops into the passenger seat again "I like how you use the brakes and make the turns nice and easy." A confidence boosting compliment is welcome, no matter how frequently he may have used them with his other students too. 

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Out onto the track again and gunning the engine through the straight, a slight tap on the brakes and a twist of the steering to the right. A swoop and the car is pointing right. No mishaps. Time to step on it again. Here comes the third straight, the last on this lap. 570 horses and their past generations lurch into motion and time slows down. Here comes the S curve. Should I or should I not? The speedo reads a high number, too high. I ought to slow down. This is impossible. Ever so slightly feel for the brake, tap it but then miraculously stay off it. A quick flick to the left, then to the right and then to the left again. Clean as a whistle, smooth as they come and on to the end of Lap 4.

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"How did that feel?" asks my co-passenger with a smile. There's too much to say. This is what they try to describe on all those Top Gear reviews I grew up watching. The car flows, through the curves, through the turns, at a velocity and with control almost supernatural. She is capable of far more than what my limited personal abilities will be able to put her through. The details of the next and final two laps are vague and dream like. Fast as they are, every second is a golden experience in going with the flow, following an invisible trail of driving ecstasy. The instructor's voice is not registering any more or maybe he isn't even saying anything anymore. He knows that words lose their meaning from here on in. Like in all matters of trust, the beauty lies in what remains unspoken.

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[ http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2012/06/trust.html ]

At land's end

Cover via Amazon

In Aleut, one of the languages of the natives, the land's incredibly resourceful and ingenious original human inhabitants for nearly 10,000 years, its name means "The Great Land". A little larger in area than the combined size of California, Montana and Texas, the next 3 biggest states in the USA, that is hardly a misnomer. To the Western/European world, it was and still frequently referred to as the Last Frontier, an unmapped vastness that carried the age of explorers well into the 20th century calling out to the brave and the greedy, the curious and the desperate.

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Roads cover only about 15-20% of the available land and need substantial repair work after every brutal Arctic- sub Arctic winter, which in places to its north lasts 8 months. The rest is accessible only by extreme foot torture, waterways or air-taxi. Yes, air-taxi. Did I mention that these air taxis change their footgear to be able to land with skis or pontoon floats or wheels depending on the season and their 'bush pilots' are held in reverence for their everyday daredevilry in flying and landing in the most challenging circumstances? A New York City cab ride is most definitely the proverbial walk in the park in comparison. 

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The so-called 'modern' world stumbled upon it in the 18th century via fur seeking Russians who went on to claim it as a Russian colony. A number of towns, rivers and spots retain their Russian names and ways till date. Sold to the US in 1867 for $7.2 million, it seemed like a steep asking price, back in the day, for unforgiving unfriendly land but later it must be the Russians who were wringing their hands in disappointment when unprecedentedly massive deposits of crude oil were discovered in the mid 1950s near its Arctic Ocean coast. The oil boom was termed the second Gold Rush. 

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The first one was back in the late 1800s and early 1900s for real gold as men poured in by the thousands from easier climes to try and snap up the gold which tabloids proclaimed was lying on the ground waiting to be scooped up. But of course, the only thing lying were the tabloids themselves. Though a handful of men did find enough gold to make it big, it was mostly a tragi-comic human story of foolish hopes as they were dashed or modified by the inhospitable terrain. Two things it did do though. Provide material for one of my favourite novels, Jack London's "The call of the wild" and put the mysterious allure of this region of the world on the minds of men and boys of the type whose eyes go wide when they heard of wild and wonderful places. 

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The terrain? It is not just polar bears and frozen arctic ice fields as seems to be the commonly held pre-conceived notion. Polar bears and arctic ice fields there are in plenty further up north, but also lush green taiga forests, miles of multi coloured tundra flatlands, snow covered craggy mountain ranges, a million lakes, vast rivers, rushing glacial streams and icy white glacier filled crystal blue oceans. Wolves, massive grizzly and brown bears roam the land; giant silvery salmon and other fish swim through the streams; pods of whales swim fearlessly in the bays, moose and elf tramp about unrestricted - all in an environment that the influence of man has had very little effect on. It goes without saying that people who live and thrive in such a world are a different breed by themselves.

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Come wintertime, the real hardiness of these people is put to test as the awestruck tourists quickly make a run back to the safety of their favourable weather systems. Bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean and in the north-west by the icy Bering Sea, the 20-22 hours of daylight in the summer are replaced by a corresponding time period of darkness and frostbite friendly cold. Roads are cut off by snow and ice. Larders need to be stocked with food to last 7-8 months before it is safe and comfortable to travel again. Man's best friend, the ever reliable dog, now also serves as a beast of burden as the wolf-like but loyal packs of huskies drag loads and supplies to places when called upon. I am sure machines these days do a better job than a dozen eager-to-please canines but there's something irreplacable about the engine of a car if it wags its tail and leaps up in joy when it sees you. Sometimes efficiency can take a back seat.

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There is much more to be said in favour of a place where survival was once the height of sophistication but romanticism needs a cuff on the head once in a while. Modern technology and comforts have filtered in as the people there strive to be in sync with the rest of the world, rightly so, causing the olden days to be looked upon with a loony nostalgia. It wasn't pretty, the life of those early pioneers but what was definitely inspiring was the willingness to push the boundaries. To step out of their comfort zones, abandoning the company of the structured and organized teeming millions who were at least guaranteed survival and a shot at justice in court if not. Give it all up and come to a land where Nature undoubtedly had the upper hand. So many questions would be asked of them, some of them expected, the majority of them unexpected. To back themselves to be able to answer them with the innate intelligence that drives our success as a species.

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Adventure's home ground. Alaska.

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[ http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2012/05/at-lands-end.html ]