Ariza | Internet | 17 October 2011, 7:45pm
I feel lost without my iPhone. Then when I have satiated myself with the incredible touch-screen, I feel lost without my laptop, this writing device I am currently using. When spent here I will feel lost without the television, the internet, the music player, the DVD player, the wireless transmitter in my car, my tablet. Each one calls to me, each undressing itself in the dark and drawing me with the promise of unspoken elementary delights.
I am not alone. Sitting around on a Saturday night, a group of friends are having a good time. There is liquor, munchies and a pleasant conversation relayed around. Tune in closer and you’ll notice a pattern. All our cell phones – touch phones - are drawn. One of them reads aloud his observation:
“A Sierpinski Gasket is a fractal endless triangle. You can write an algorithm to create a Sierpinski Gasket. It was used by the writer David Foster Wallace as the pattern for his famous book Infinite Jest”
Isn’t it clever? A purely intellectual undertaking! But look closer… and try getting into the mind of the person who is reading this detail. An accountant by profession – what is he doing talking about a Sierpinski Gasket? Just then he sheaths back the touch phone and forgets all about this Sierpinski Gasket. Yet for a brief while there he was the master of fractals.
Whats wrong with that?
In the natural world some creatures live for briefest of times. Perhaps a butterfly only lives (as a butterfly ofcourse, not pupae or a caterpillar) for a couple of days. And who cares how long love-birds live? An inventory of such animals might just reveal that 90% of the world lives for less than a day. Yet Humans value eternity – the idea that things should last forever. This includes knowledge. We demand that knowledge should be permanent. Why?
Here is a random list of things from anyone’s day.
1. News
2. Gossip
3. Facebook posts
4. Twitter posts
5. Work-Deadlines
6. Orgasms
And this is the percentage of time I spend chasing these?
1. News – 10%
2. Gossip - 15%
3. Facebook posts – 10% and increasing
4. Twitter posts – I do read about Amitabh Bachchan’s Twitter post – 5%
5. Work-Deadlines – 70%
6. Orgasms – J
Yes most of this stuff dies on touch. But isn’t it pleasurable to reach out and feel them there? That they exist? That is why I need my iPhone, iPad, my lap-top or even my TV! That is why they draw me everywhere – at work, at home, while driving, in the lift and heck – even in the toilet. Not plugged in means I am loosing knowledge – about something that just happened in the world, something that happened with Priyanka Chopra, with my friends, with my colleagues as they chip away at yet another daily deadline and with the world of erotica that is being augmented everyday in geometric proportion.
And then suddenly they all stopped working. Together! For no particular reason I was cut off from the rest of the world. Condemned to exile! How could I ever catch up on 24 hrs??? How can I get back the chance to be most commented on face book posts again – catch up on all the new stuff that Reuters, New York Times, The Hindu published. I was lost, lost….
But I live…. Time’s ticking. Steve Jobs died that day, and the world – without me reading or commenting on it - moved on.
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Ariza | Hyderabad | 09 October 2011, 1:40am
There is a dull candor around town now-a-days. It is the color of cement. And its been painted on the sky, hiding the bright blue skies of any other October.
Last Sunday an Aunt (who settled) in Guntur called. I asked her why she wasnt here?
"Werent you supposed to be here a week ago?"
Brief silence and then "You Telangana folks dont want us!"
What?
She had started and had been stalled somewhere en-route and the scared bus driver decided to turn back. I told her that we in Hyderabad are absoutely fine - working normal days. It was a class lie used by someone who doesnt need need the RTC-Bus.
"Thats because you are a local!" she said. We are bad people there.
I felt the line, not as the boundary between Telangana and Andhra but between you and us. But this is a sign of times, a will of the majority, a change inevitable - my aunt must accept it and so should I. That doesnt mean we shouldnt feel sad about it. When did movements become this unkind - that they should rob us even the feeling of genuine loss?
But that was last Sunday. Today we were with a real estate agent. I needed a flat I asked him in the local language. We laughed and spoke, he warming up to a business idea and me wanting to bargain. Thus far any normal business transaction. Until amidst some jokes he asked me:
"Where are you from?"
"Born and brought up in Hyderabad."
Did I not understand the question "I mean" he insisted "where are your parents from - Andhra or Telangana?"
How did it matter? I thought and said so. Later, outside, I wondered if I really was that naive! Ofcourse it mattered to the agent and thats why he asked me. I blew my chances by not committing. But then again wouldnt my answer depend on which side he is on? Shouldnt I be Andhra origin for Andhra folks and Telangana for people from here. But then again - why did he want to know? Does he maintain a list and will he mark my home with a cross - to be burned by the 40 thieves. How can I blend in?
These are tough days to be a Hyderabadi - striked against, boycotted, hounded in and bullied. Perhaps it is a time of a revolution - but if it helps remember that the sky hasnt been cemented in. It is still blue, still any old October.
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Ariza | Hyderabad | 01 October 2011, 11:32pm
Is it just my wish
a memory of my naive heart
Sepia tinted heroes who walk out
of ancient forgotten words
Where was ever such a time
When one stepped ahead of many
Herded the flock and
Corrected the awry
Where has he gone?
Oh! Where has he gone!
Now the hyenas roam the naked night
Bare, baying and tearing my flock
The lions are gone –they are dead
It is the time of the scavengers now.
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