An Anklet for a Verse

So I was taking this auto to the US embassy on Monday to meet my mom and sis (my sis wanting to get a visa for her kid and all that) and was on this nice wide road called Anna Salai in the past and Mount Road currently, when, what should I see, but, a statue of good ol' Kannagi (is this supposed to end with a question mark or a full stop?) ? I was just thinking about the story of Kannagi and Kovalan and found it very strange to observe my musings appear, as it were, in solid VRML 3D rendering. It isn't every day, after all, that one gets to manifest one's thought onto the physical plane. And as if to make the point doubly clear, that the Almighty wished me to write on this topic, she was brandishing her anklets above her head. A day later, Kannagi is in the news, this time because the someone wishes to restore her statue in some other place, today's news says the Marina. Well, if this doesn't clinch it then nothing will. So here goes...

The story of Kannagi is an old one in Tamil Literature and was written by some Prince sometime back. It goes like this, Kannagi is the daughter of a well off trader who dotes on his daughter very much and likes to give her expensive, lustrous, shiny objects. One such shiny object is her husband, Kovalan, who is also a rather prosperous trader. The couple hit it off rather well and the future looks nice and rosy. Dances around trees and long marathons towards each other on the beach await the love-struck couple. However, dark clouds gather on the horizon, for the mind of man, as ever, is fickle and filled with lust.

The virile Kovalan, decides that Kannagi just doesnt cut it and begins to, if you would excuse the IIT lingo, put its with a dancer Madhavi. After his brief affair, he loses all his money and comes back home, like the prodigal son, to Kannagi. She rallies behind him and all that, and gives him one of her anklets to assay, that they might sell it and start of anew (I like that word). So, Kovalan goes to this jeweller to ascertain the value of the anklet. The jeweller, who happens to be the king's jeweller as well, also happens to be a thief and stealing the queen's anklets, which look pretty much like Kannagi's accuses Kovalan of the larceny. Swift justice is dispensed by the oh-so-wise king and Kovalan's head is chopped off. Slash!!!

News reaches Kannagi how goes wild with grief. Now, here's the best part. She rushes to the king's court, anklet in hand and demands of the queen what the jewels inside were her anlets were. When the queen replies that they were pearls, Kannagi strikes the anklet in question, the one that the jeweller took from Kovalan, onto the ground. The anklets sunders into a thousand and one pieces and, lo and behold!! gems scatter like grains of sand onto the curious floor. The king clutches his chest in pain and dies of a heart attack. It's all rather dramatic, yes. Kannagi screams out a curse on the city, resulting in a fire destroying the whole place. The arson does not quench Kannagi's anger and, in anguish, she tears off her left breast, climbs a mountain outside the city and, well, dies.

Very nice. The story, incidentally, is called the Silapadhikaram, and as GS tells me, means verses on an anklet, or something of the sort. It's supposedly a very poetic work and all that. However, a couple of points really interested me in the story. The first, is that Madhavi, the waif that Kovalan hangs out with, is actually considered to be as chaste a woman as Kannagi. This seems to indicate that society was probably much more liberal then, than the middle class morality we're mired in.

Second is the point that some people now consider Kannagi to represent, not that chaste woman fighting for her rights and the good name (kinda like Indians ask "What's your good name?") of her husband, but a repressed woman of society who couldn't stand up to her husband when he went painting the town red with the other woman. However, Kannagi seems a liberated woman who could stand up pretty well, if you ask me. No one speaks about the fact that Draupadi had five husbands do they? And the fact that Arjuna had take a long trip when he witnessed Yudhishtra and Draupadi coddling in her room? These same persons would probably say that Draupadi was forced into it. Oh well.

However, the point that actually interests me, is this. Why the hell would people place precious gems and pearls inside an anklet. I mean, what's the damn point? If you want to wear stones, wear them on the outside where they can be seen, goddamit!!! Not hidden in some inner tube in some circlet you wear on your feet. And if it was for security reasons, then dig a pit in your house and hide it in there. I know women like to wear these gaudy symbols of wealth and prosperity, but i thought they were meant to be shown off, not hidden in an anklet of all places. I don't know, someone enlighten me if they can. The question has been bugging me ever since I read the story of Kannagi as a kid in the Amar Chitra Katha comics we all loved so much. Full stop.

Whinny when on Wine

Something written last night after having that Italian wine from the Taj with Brokes and Crap. Very enjoyable, learning the nuances of drinking wine while seriously gulping down the stuff...

There is only one way to drink wine... steal a complimentary bottle from the Taj, get all mawkish and sentimental about the fact that you're leaving college (a day after a huge post about it), open the bottle with a scissors and push the cork in. Now you invite a friend over, play music from Casablanca, any other Sinatran dirge-like ditty, a little bit of Hazelwood, Richards and Armstrong and there you have it.

Next you go about savouring the wine by checking all the websites you know about wine tasting. If you don't know any website, that's ok too. Message Sparams and he'll give you some well worn tips.

Look: Look at the gradient at the tip of the meniscus and the colour of the wine. Lighter the red, older the wine, greater the gradient maturer (whatever, can't think of another term) the vintage.

Swirl: for whatever reason, but, if you're asked, it's to let the wine expose its bouquet and to evolve into and X-men character.

Smell: wince and screw you nose. Then say "That smelt fruity. The top node is apple, I think." Don't commit. Extremely important. Fruity is always safe though.

Taste: Finally. This is an extremely complex step and the least important. After all, you're not drinking to get drunk are you, you philistine?
1. Sweetness: Tasted on the tip of the tongue. Say anything.
2. Acidity: Tasted on the sides of the tongue. Say highly acidic if you answered not sweet to 1. or not acidic if you answered sweet to 1.
3. Tannin: Bitterness, tasted on the back of the tongue. If it tastes like tea, its Tannin.
4. Alcohol: Accounted for by the burning sensation you feel on the back of your throat. If it burns, it has a high alcohol content, hence Fruity and hence, from a hotter climate. Can't go wrong here.
5. Length: The amount of time the taste lingers after you've swallowed. Don't know the units of measurement though.
6. Body: If it feels good, say its full bodied, if weak, say its not so full bodied. Apparently, if the "legs" of the wine on the glass drop slowly after, swirling, it is full bodied.

If none of this makes sense to you, gulp down a mouthful and say what I say, "Good Shit!!"

Cows With Guns

Just a quicky. There is this awesome song that I've been listening to over the last few months about the life of Cow Tse Tongue. It was created by a chap called Dana Lyons, who has, since then, collaborated with the likes of Jane Goodall on some book. Anyway, don's miss Cows with Guns. You might also want to check out the offical site of Dana Lyons. Here is the Cows with Guns story.

We will fight for Bovine Freedom
and Hold our large heads high;
We will run free with the Buffalo,
Or Dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Amen!!!

Shots in the Dark

It seems unfair, indeed confusing, to see the number of hits owing to one word in my post, Helmet. A blog that had a following of 3, including me and the afore mentioned person, suddenly gets atleast 8 hits in a day!!! I mean, what is this?? Why are you people stepping into my personal space all of a sudden? Go get a life!! This is between me and a man, a clown, a pastafarian even, Helmet.

To be entirely honest, I don't know Helmet all that well. However, we hit it off (asexually) when we were dumped in the same room in Oberoi Towers when attending the AB Scholarhip interviews in our first year. We both realised that we were a little, um to use a euphemism, disturbed, mentally that is. These fears were justified when we realised that we were both in love with the same game - Heroes of Might and Magic. One might ask, What in God's green earth is that?? Precisely. It's not every sane person in this world who goes about HOMM, as its called by its fan following. You need that little streak of masochism to actually sit in front of your computer (mine' s called Ol' Betsy btw) and play a turn-by-turn strategy game that takes ages to complete.

Next time we really meet is during the Mck interview. I was in one of my more ebullient moods, talking about the company which I've always proposed to start. It's called Fish And. Yes that's it, just Fish And. The more obtuse among you, my dear and suddenly thriving readers, must be racking your brains wondering what it all means. But Helmet see, he gets it, and shouts out, almost immediately, Chips. Oh well, if that doesn't make you running for your hanky to wipe away your tears, nothing will. Go ahead, my dear audience, cry your heart out at this tale of humanity that goes beyond our cynical and little selves, a tale of a genius, a country bumpkin, a person who only grows countrier the more you get to know him, the lovable, teasable-for-ever-more: Helmet!!!

As I was saying yesterday, we reached the banks of the Ganga without much incident. The only thing worth mentioning (since this is my blog after all) is that I had a sip of jaljeera and learnt about a game called Mafia. Apart from that I also realised that I knew a remarkable number of Hindi songs. How degrading!!! We arrived at Snow Leopard base camp, well into the night, around 10pm I think and were welcomed with garlands of marigold and a warm campfire. Without much ado, drinks were served. Wine bottles were opened, if I'm not mistaken, a Sula red - Cabernet Shiraz, followed by two Champagne bottles - popped open with froth and fizz by two birthday boys, one bday fictional at that. While I was on my second glass of alcohol, Mr. H as he so endearingly refers to himself, was on his 4th, or was it 5th. Ah well, who's counting.

A couple of minutes and a number of vodka and rum shots later, Helmet was trying, pretty verbosely and peremptorily, to prove that he wasn't drunk.
"Let me shpeeeak. Shut up. Lishen to me, I will prooof to you that I am not drunk!" he slobbered on with his finger wagging in our faces. "Let me state Fermat's last theorem:
x power n + y power n - z power n cannot be equal to 0 for n greater than or equal to 2!"
Well, I'm no math whizz but if you ask me, 8 squared and 6 squared make 10 squared and, thus, braving the winds and speaking up for the love of science and remarked as much.
"Shut up! Shut! I'm cleverer than you. What do you know" cried our boisterous and intrepid friend and went off looking for the next shot of vodka after repeating his own version of Fermat
again. After having scared off most of the people, Helmet sunk into his seat after a lot of coaxing from yours truly. There he was given some advice by a caring and friendly alum and sent to his tent.

Detour - my story: This is the first time I have had to take care of people when drunk. First Helmet and then another who goes by the name of ______ (ask me. I'll tell you. Or if you really want to know, I'll add it in the comments later). While the pandemonium surrounding Helmet finally died down, ____ decided to empty his innards onto the pristine shores of the Ganges. So doggy style, the two of us dug up some sand and ____ cleaned his gut, upwards of course. So, for all you people playing Ganga Panga the next day, who found something squishy on your feet, you know whom to blame (again, ask me. I'm just dying to tell).

Cut to 8am next morn. Everyone is awake or waking up to the Suprabatham of the instructor, who wishes to see all us landlubbers playing Ganga Panga like we cared for nothing else. Helmet's tent mates wake to find him nowhere in sight. While trying to get off their bed, the look down to find two feet stricking out from under one of their beds. They wake the possessor of these two left feet and throw him back onto his bed. Minutes later, another group of people find the same creature swaggering back and forth on his way, presumably, to the dry bogs. They soon find themselves mistaken. They find the amphora of alcohol lying on his stomach above some rocks in some bushes by the Ganga. The good samaritans carry him back to his tent on their shoulder. This is when they also discover something fishy in their own tent. There is human faeces lying just inside the tent. Whatever in God's name could that mean? Who in their right mind would actually strip down to their Bday clothes and defaecate in someone else's tent? And in the tent, by Toutatis???

Helmet finally wakes up around 12 to find his body aching all over. There are deep scratches on his arms, his back and some scars on his face, his glasses missing, his cell dead. He can't find a contact lens and thinks that its in the same eye as the one he knows he's wearing. Helmet begins to feel like an ostrich and wonders where he might find a hole big enough to bury his soaked head in. What if word gets round? he thinks. I can count on the discretion of my friends can't I? I mean, there was shit in some tent, for God's sake!!! Sure you can, Helmet, sure you can.

Moral of the story, folks. Taking a shot in the dark is all very good. But play too many guessing games and the gun's going to be pointed to your head - Russian Roulette style...

Everything must Go

I was writing my famed post on Helmet in the evening but failed to complete it. It's sitting somewhere in some server on the infinite internet waiting to be printed. At 7 today we went for Chin's treat. Chin is a great friend of mine and that's an understatement. We've discussed over long hours everything from Science Fiction and Fantasy, our favourite topic incidentally, to Structure from Motion. We went to Zara's by the way and had a jolly good time. There was little to say, then, about Helmet after such a night. We returned to insti via Taramani gate.

I had actually thought that I would complete the post on Helmet on returning. However, the sepia hues on the leaves on my way back, the crickets chirping their lonesome messages into the night and the rains in Africa thought otherwise. And so, here I am, alone and palely loitering, as it were, writing about the futility of it all. At times like this, the only music one can listen to is Floyd, the sheer melancholy that one feels resonates with the music in ones ears. I had dreamed you had left my side.

Four years is a long time to have to chronicle in one post. However, one only gets the chance on occassions like this. At other times, the spirit is too proud to make inroads into one's own heart and reveal one's deepest feelings. And thus, one understands why Coleridge needed help to write his most visually stimulating passages, how he managed to touch cords deep inside which woke to his hidden music, though long dormant.

Drink, for we know not where we go or why,
Drink for the world ends with a sigh.

Or something like that says the Rubaiyat, and how true. There is only sadness as witnessed by his Lord Sepulchrave in that book of books Gormenghast. All that remains at the end of any venture is regret. Regret for things undone, regret for mercy unshown, regret for people not met. If there is one thing apart from the final chess game with Death that is sure, it is regret. It claws onto the heart of things like a bloodsucking leech, pumping out the plasma from the body till all that remains is a broken shell of a man that stood brave and tall. Regret is a nagging disease that eats away at the soul of things. And why, may I ask do I write of regret? What, indeed DO I regret?

And, here I lie stumped. For I can ill answer this question. I can find nothing that I regret except the fact that we must go. The fact that it shall all go, and go it shall, in a week's time. Be still my heart, the sailor cried. for I can hardly bear the tossing of the waves, much less the rocking of your arrhythmic beats. While I promise to complete the story on poor old Helmet, I cannot stop the action of my fingers on the keyboard. There are more things lost in friendship, my gentle readers, than all the riches in the world can buy. While we so proudly decide on careers of choice and how much money we wish to garner, we little realise how little of the world we actually possess. How little have we actually learnt in these four years in this hallowed portals, to use a cliche. How little we have fought for the knowledge that was to be shared with us, how little we have realised that the moment has arrived. This is the end of our trials and tribualations here. No one to question us on our decisions anymore, no more gradingm no more cups ans double u's, no more S's or A's, no more 12 o'clock quizzes. No more lively discussions in our wing. No more wondering where we are headed. No more 1 o'clock crying sessions after getting stinking drunk. No Nothing. We, or rather, I, leave in a week...

And that, my friends, is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering.
Though the sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

The lights were brighter, the grass was greener... Everything... must Go.

Take off

The last month here at IIT has, quite definitely, been the toughest. It involved writing one of the toughest exams I have yet faced, it involved writing a 57 page BTP report in 13 days with a break of 5 days in the middle, it involved meeting some of the finest people I have seen in a while, it involved recovery of lost hope (I know this sounds rather cryptic, but more on it later) and, finally, it involved Helmet and what Kaka would call Souveneau (sic) Blanc. This week has also witnessed my return to my misbegotten blog, rather like the prodigal son. It is also the week when A.D.A.S. Knight was made a Cumunder. The last hour or so have been spent ruminating on the blog and whether to return to my rather prosaic attempts at sounding depths by self referential posts and by referring to myself, ahem, the Knight in third person. So, all said and done, let me welcome the out of work, jaded reader to this post on my trip to Eternal Bliss and the discovery of Helmet.

What with me never having flown before, never having sat, much less dreamed of sitting on a raft, never having talked to a girl (well, almost), never having had my cheeks pulled, etc etc, the trip was sure to be an eventful one. The whole trip was filled with only two emotions. One of wide eyed wonder and the other of abject terror. Let me start from the very beginning, the very best place to start, as the old song goes. We left Chennai at 1745 hours or something on some Airbus 300 or 320 or something. Our first thoughts, before the plane started, before we boarded, before we checked in, lamented the fact that we weren't travelling Kingfisher. These made up aunties can never match the well rounded calves, the stockinged knees, the rouged cheeks, the red skirts and the bunned up hair of the Kingfisher stewardesses (or are they air hostesses? I never get it right). So there we are on board a plane, which I just know obeys Murphy's law to the letter, see? The plane moves, those wings look awfully flimsy don't you think? I say to myself. Well, if the Wright brother could take off on papier mache and well, if my icon Howard Hughes can fly a sardine can, well then, SO CAN I. I shall boldly go and all that!

Wait, someone's talking on the intercom. Namaste, some captain is flying this plane, etc etc, please take moment now to locate the exits nearest your seat! What's that again? I mean, I'm not in a rush, I'm one of those people who always get on last and leave last. If the cabin should experience a drop in air pressure, oxygen masks will drop automatically, simply place the mask over your nose and mouth and breathe normally. Oh brother, if this is anything like Hamlet or George Carlin's pieces, this potential analyst is going to be controlling traffic at St. Peter's gates. Cut to the chase, the aircraft starts hurtling its passengerd down a grey runway and after coughing up a few fur balls decides to lift off like a goose. I feel 10G's of gravity acting on my 10Gs and promptly find myself wishing I had brought that bottle of homemade wine Kaka was telling me to take. However, the Icarian flight wasn't so bad afterall and, after hitting a pocket of air, which nearly left the passengers retching and clawing at their necks the flight crawled to a grinding halt at Indira Gandhi Intl. Airport.

Nothing much happened that night or the next day. We checked in at the taj, had a ball, met a lot of people and left by bus for the banks of the Ganga. And that was where Helmet decided to take over our lives. More on that, tomorrow.