Tuesday, August 31, 2021

The physics of life

Physics, as I have blogged here, was my first intellectual love.  Once, in a school exam in which we had a choice to omit a question, I answered all the questions because, well, I really, really liked the subject ;) 

Any teacher could have tossed me any number of questions on the content and I would have been the happiest trying to answer them all. 

When handing the exam papers back to us, the physics teacher, Vasudevan, commented about this in front of the entire class!

Physics explained a lot around me, above me, and underneath too.

Of course, I was far more interested in the human problems that were all around, and with every passing month I was rapidly losing my interest in the sciences.

While some may claim that the era of physics ruling the intellectual world is over, and biology is the twenty-first century leader, the big and urgent question of the day is all about physics.  Bill McKibben summarizes it well in the context of climate change and hurricanes: "You can’t beat physics."

If there’s more heat, the hurricane can get stronger. Physics. Warm air can hold more water than cold air can. So in warm, arid areas you get more evaporation, and hence more drought, and hence more fire. Physics. The water that’s been evaporated into the atmosphere comes down: more flooding rainfall. Physics. The earth runs on energy. We’re trapping more of it near the planet’s surface because of the carbon dioxide that comes from burning coal and gas and oil. That energy expresses itself in melting ice sheets, in rising seas, in the incomprehensible roar of the wind as a giant storm crashes into a city of steel and glass. It’s not, in the end, all that complicated.

It is not that complicated, and we have also known this for quite some time now.

McKibben ends that essay with the following lines:

Physics doesn’t compromise or negotiate or hold back. Physics just is. It’s entirely up to us to understand and live within the limits it sets.

Physics can also be life-giving in many ways.  Subodh Patil writes in Nautilus about how physics saved him during a troubling six-month period of his life.

What could have ended up as a crippling dysfunction in any other incarnation turned out to be my survival kit, not just in life, but in my chosen craft.

I wonder if my old friend still thinks about the physics road from which he has now traveled far away.

Monday, August 30, 2021

The world unmasked

"You gonna have to wait for me to logout and login" she said in a heavily accented voice to the elderly woman who had handed her two packages to mail.

"I'm sorry, can you repeat that?"

I think the accent came in the way.

"I have to logout of the computer first."

"Do you want me to step aside?"

"No, it is my computer problem. It is broke."

I am not good at placing accents. I wondered if she was from one of the eastern European countries.

She then walked to the back, lowered her mask, and called for help at the counter because there were now four of us in the line.

Yes, she lowered her mask.  Of course, it defeats the point of mandating masks.  But, I don't fault her.  I can barely go in and out of a store with my mask on and I can't wait to remove the damn thing off my face. 

A guy opened up another counter and called me over.

I handed him the envelope.  "Postage for this mail to India, please."

He placed it on the scale.  "Chennai.  That's southern India, right?"

Again, if only I were an accent expert!  Was his accent Central American?  And, his looks: Was he from Central America or from some Asian country?

"Yes.  Have you been to Chennai?"

"No.  I went to Bengaluru."

After a momentary pause, he added, "it was Bangalore, and now it is Bengaluru."  His eyes suggested something like "what's up with that!"

I nodded my head in agreement.

"You know, Bombay sounds much better than Mumbai."

"I agree. I way prefer Bombay."

Such quality small-talk while waiting for transactions I have enjoyed only in Eugene.  Like the airport taxi driver--a young white dude--who was excited to talk to me about three harmoniums that he and his wife owned and played. 

That was the first of many chats through which I came to understand how well-informed and educated worker bees can be in this town.  Like the master handyman carpenter who has an undergraduate degree in Greek and Latin classics.  A tiler we know is a college graduate.  The checkout clerk at the grocery store who was delighted that my daughter is a neurosurgeon, wanted to know whether I had read Do No Harm

For more than a year, I have missed small-talk, which has always helped me understand the world and life itself.  It will be far more enjoyable without masks covering half our faces. 

Friday, August 27, 2021

Want proof that no intelligent designer created us?

A few terms into her undergraduate years, the daughter was convinced that our biochemistry plays a huge role in our physical and mental health.

A year into medical school, she wondered why we just don't drop down dead like crazy.  The human body is a crazy patchwork, she said.

Of course she is correct on both grounds.  Not because she is my daughter ;)  It is a miracle that we humans are still around despite the manner in which our bodies are designed. 

The incremental adaptation over thousands of years means that evolution "constructed our bodies with the biological equivalent of duct tape and lumber scraps."  We are one hell of "a fixer-upper."

My favorite among the top ten design flaws there is about the scrotum.  Because, as a man, I see it and feel it every day ;) "A man’s life-giving organs hang vulnerably outside the body."

Evolution came up with this stupid adjustment to keep the sperm need to be maintained a tad cooler than the body's temperature.  In trying to take care of a problem, evolution does a cost/benefit analysis of a few options--mutations.  What works--the surviving mutation--is the low-cost/high-benefit solution.  The aesthetics of the design be damned.  It is all about the function.

But, the fix is easy for an intelligent designer, if there were one.  Undescended testicles.  Remember this post?  What's good for the mighty elephant ought to be good enough for us meek ones, right?

And then there is the bizarre shape and structure of the penis

Seriously, what more proof do you need that no intelligent designer created us humans?

I suppose it will be impossible to have such conversations with the faithful who believe that a god created us.  After all, god's will hath no why!

Thursday, August 26, 2021

We neglected Afghanistan. And Pakistan. Now, we cry uncle!

I have recently been tweeting a lot about Afghanistan.  Unlike the newly woke, who have only realized that there is a country called Afghanistan where the US has been involved since 2001, I have been blogging away forever about the country and the screwed up American involvement.

The following is a blog-post from August 2012. Verbatim.  The 26th of August.  Yes, exactly nine years ago to the very date!  You read it and explain to me why my fellow citizens were not demanding more from our rotten politicians!

*******************

We will soon mark the eleventh anniversary of the horrific events of 9/11. The infamous day could easily be the defining moment from the primary school years of the typical freshman students whom I will soon welcome when the fall term begins.

To those freshman students, it could also mean that the US has always been at war since their earliest memories—the war in Afghanistan began in October 2001. Since then, the US military fatalities in the Afghan campaign alone recently exceeded 2,100, with the rest of the coalition suffering another thousand. And then there are the thousands who have been injured, physically or mentally or both. We have to add to all these tragic statistics the combat fatalities on the “other” side and the destruction of civilian lives and property.

Unfortunately, the Afghan war is rarely ever discussed by the major party candidates for the Presidency of the United States. Even when any reference is made, it is almost as if it is a footnote in the policy discussions.

Along with the explicit war in Afghanistan, we have also been engaged in battles in Pakistan, even though officially we do not refer to this as "war." Perhaps because a significant aspect of the operations in Pakistan is conducted by the CIA and through unmanned drones, and not by the military and “boots on the ground?” We are barely past the midpoint of 2012 and the US has already conducted 33 drone missile strikes in Pakistan. The latest drone attack was during the celebratory festival of Eidul Fitr, which concluded the month‐long Ramadan fasting.

It seems that every year, even every day, is a critical one in shaping Pakistan’s destiny, and this year is no different. The highest court in Pakistan forced out the country’s prime minister, Yousuf Gilani, after he repeatedly refused to re‐open investigations on frauds committed by the president, Asif Ali Zardari. Even though he served only for a little over four years, Gilani holds the record as the person who served the longest continuous term in that office in the country’s 65‐year history. That record, by itself, is a huge measure of the fragile political conditions in Pakistan.

Gilani’s successor as the head of government, Raja Pervez Ashraf, has indicated that he will also refuse to comply with the judicial ruling. The confrontation between the parliamentary and judicial branches will further complicate governance in a country that is rife with problems, including the US drone attacks that the Pakistani people detest.

As more and more Pakistanis feel that the country’s government has lost even its feeble abilities to govern, yet again there will be worries, internally and externally, about the military exercising its influence through a coup before the scheduled general elections in February 2013.

With so much at stake, it is quite a shame that neither Obama and Biden, nor Romney and Ryan, have anything to say about Pakistan and how they will shape their policies towards Pakistan. I suppose that when Afghanistan and the war there receive such scant attention, it ought not to surprise us that there is practically nothing said about Pakistan!

I understand that an anemic economic growth and high unemployment will mean that the focus will be on domestic issues. But, it is not that the domestic economic issues are unconnected to the military conflicts. At some point in the very near future, the US will exit Afghanistan similar to the earlier “foreign” retreats, especially those of the Soviets and the British, and by when we will have spent a trillion dollars, in addition to the trillion‐plus in Iraq.  The Afghanistan war, along with the disastrous excursion in Iraq, has been significant factors behind the rapid growth in the US debt.

Further, the Afghanistan war and, therefore, our calculated interests in Pakistan, pre‐date the Great recession by six years and continue to haunt us even after the end of the recession. Don’t they deserve at least a little bit of air time? At least more than the time we spent discussing how the female body shuts down to prevent pregnancy during illegitimate rapes?

Wednesday, August 25, 2021

I have quality spit

As is typical of most people in India even now, I never went to a dentist through all those 23 years I lived there.  Even after coming to to the US, I didn't go to a dentist until my third year, when the damn wisdom teeth had to be extracted.

The first time I went to a dentist was after I got my first full-time job.  Dental insurance was a part of the benefits package, and this included a dental hygiene checkup/cleaning every six months.

The dental hygienist was shocked that I had never been to a dentist all my life until then.  And lived without cavities too.

I rarely ever kept up with the six-monthly dental cleaning.  I couldn't be bothered with flossing either.  Occasionally, I would pick up the floss, and give it up halfway ;)

In Eugene, I liked the dentist and the hygienist.  I have been faithfully going there for a check up every six months.  The hygienist added me to their zero-cavity club, as if I needed a motivation to brush my teeth every day ;)

Early on, she always asked me how I have no cavities.  I told her that my siblings too have no cavities, and that we never had dental checkup ever.

She decided that it was something in our genetic makeup.

Recently, she commented that perhaps my saliva has lots of minerals, which keep the teeth health but add to the plaque.

Turns out that her observation might be on the mark. It is all about the saliva in my mouth.  It is healthy saliva.  Made healthy by the bacteria.  Which means it is all about the oral microbiome.

We know that the microbiome in our guts are critical.  It turns out that even people who are meticulous about brushing and flossing can get cavities.  Because the microbiome in our mouths are also important.

Does the bacteria cause the cavities, or are the bacteria and the cavities together a response to some other factor? Nobody knows. On top of this, your oral microbiome isn’t static. It changes over the course of your life, over the course of the day and even from one part of your mouth to another, Knight said. What does that mean for the idea of changing the oral microbiome? Again, nobody knows.

The good bacteria are working to remineralize the teeth thanks to the healthy oral microbiome.  And that's what my dental hygienist observed.  The next time, I need to remember to tell her about the bacterial science.

So, the corollary ... can the oral microbiome be transplanted to another mouth that doesn't have the good bacteria?  Recall the fecal transplant to improve the gut microbiome?  How about a spit transplant?

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Making America Great Again!

More than three years ago, we watched a PBS documentary on The Chinese Exclusion Act.
What was it about? Well, when the gold rush in the mid-19th century attracted immigration from China, initially these different looking and behaving people were tolerated by whites. The whites also found the Chinese to be cheap labor to build railroads.

But then, doggone it, the immigrants wanted to become citizens and bring more people, when that was something reserved only for Europeans.  The Chinese are coming, the Chinese are coming!

So, the white supremacists did what white supremacists like to do--a ban on immigration of "others."

(Watch that documentary, and then watch a multi-part documentary on Asian Americans.)

So, for a period of time, from the late-19th century to the JFK era, Blacks were living hellish lives in the Jim Crow era; the lives of Chinese, and other Asians, in America became nightmarish; Mexicans were ... well, it was good times for white supremacists.

Then the civil rights protests began.  The South tried to rise again, but was put down by federal forces.  The Civil Rights Acts was passed in 1964.  In the following year, the immigration act was overhauled.

When the new immigration law was passed, white supremacists and liberals alike believed that brown people would not want to immigrate to the US from afar.  They were confident that the demographic composition of the US would not change.

But, hey, if Norwegians and Sicilians yearned to be free, why wouldn't the brown-skinned also yearn to be free?

The browns started coming.

At the rate at which the demographic composition is changing, whites won't even the majority group in just about two decades--roughly a generation.    The browning of America, the presence of people with strange names like Barack and Kamala, is freaking a good chunk of the Republican Party.



You see what happened because Blacks and Chinese fought for equality?  They made possible even for people like me to come to the US, and adopt this as my land.

I am in deep debt.

In fact, I am in even greater debt to Frederick Douglass. 

Douglass was absolutely ok with people like me coming to America.  He welcomed us.  During the peak of the anti-Chinese hysteria in 1869, he said:


"For his sake and ours."

In a recent opinion essay, Shikha Dalmia, who is also an Indian-American immigrant like me, writes: "To continue America’s upward trajectory in the 21st century, the country must reverse its current demographic decline."  The reversal, she argues, can happen only--and easily--with immigration.

We need to do that, for their sake and ours.

Monday, August 23, 2021

Millennial Millionaires. Not?

Of course one cannot generalize about any demographic cohort.  Yet, we do.  We in America talk about the boomer generation.  Forever!  There is an idealization of "the greatest generation."  Nobody ever talks about Gen X!

Given that society has granted the permission to talk about generational cohorts, well, the millennial generation seems to have been presented with the best of times and the worst of times.

Consider, for instance, that just as the generation was getting into the teens and growing up into adulthood, 9/11 happened.  Then the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  The Great Recession. College debt. Then tRump. And Covid.  The pandemic recession.

The millennial generation deserves an applause simply for holding it together.

For those who successfully navigated through these, opportunities were in plenty. The digital natives now rule (ruin?) our lives.  Money is being made, and a good chunk of it is spent at coffee shops and restaurants.

The ups and downs, and the recent pandemic life, have provided many millennials to also seriously consider what they want to do in life.

Some have simply quit their jobs.  "Work is a false idol," writes this millennial:

I am pretty confident that as a younger person I too would have taken that kind of a route.  There is something eerie about the working conditions of today, and I wouldn't want to be a part of it.

A few months before the pandemic era began, this article argued that the millennials have become the burnout generation.  That was the case even before Covid!  With that article as the lede, this review essay asks an important, critical, question: How many young people have agency over their working lives?

The author of the commentary "work is a false idol" writes:

While jobs are sustenance, careers are altars upon which all else is sacrificed.

In her poem “The Summer Day,” Mary Oliver asks, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do/ with your one wild and precious life?” 

My reply, for now, is simple: Sit on the porch.

As a Gen X-er myself, I find sitting on the porch to be the best answer, even though I came to it rather involuntarily.

Sunday, August 22, 2021

Life without profiting prophets

After a very long time, I ventured to the campus in order to bring home the personal items and valuables from my office.  The office that I have had since 2002, and which will cease being mine a few weeks from now.

There was a white padded, bubble package in my mailbox.  I knew it had to be a personal mail.  Formal, official, business mails do not arrive in that form.

It was a thank-you gift from two students.

They were in the last in-person class that abruptly ended in March 2020 when the plague descended upon us.

I forgot to check the postmark on the package.  In any case, months have passed since the gift arrived.

The gift was a slim book pf puns.  From the class, the student knew well enough my fondness for puns, and had thoughtfully picked out this gift for me.

Such meaningful interactions I will miss.  The thank-you cards are the valuables from my office that I brought home.


Click here for details

One of the puns in the book was this: Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

For this non-believer, that is a humorous way to frame the way I approach life.  Though, if I were to be strictly intellectual about it, I go about defining myself as an agnostic.  After all, I do not have evidence to convince me of atheism, and it requires a, ahem, leap of faith from agnosticism to atheism ;)

A question that practically everybody on this planet would like to know the answer to is this: where did we, and everything else, come from?

If you are talented and creative enough, and have enough charisma, you can then offer your own narrative and gain a few followers.  If the numbers keep growing, then you gain notoriety as a cult leader.  If your cult manages to survive for a hundred years, which will mean you are dead by then, that cult becomes a religion based on the narrative that you offered.

I grew up with interesting narratives that had survived over the centuries.  But, after a while, the puranas, which are stories about the gods, didn't deliver any meaning whatsoever.  They just seemed like phenomenal soap-operas, with complex subplots.  And, yes, most stories had some element of moral instruction too.

Then there was the fascination with prophets, who turned out to be as clueless as I was--but were master manipulators.

Source

The narratives that appealed to me during the final phase of the religiously agnostic life were whatever I could understand of the vedantic approach.  There were no stories here. No prophets. Only ideas.  Thus, there was no trivial discussion like whether Sita was chaste enough after her time away from Rama, or whether Krishna's rasa lila with the gopis were metaphors to illustrate the deeper points about the soul.

The vedantic ideas were abstractions, and most of it was about how the "i" relates to the cosmos.  It was like dealing with imaginary numbers in math, where, too, it was about "i"! 

In the vedantic stuff, I came across the mahavakyas.  One of the mahavakyas is "तत् त्वम् असि": That thou art.  You are that. 

The sentence, the philosophy, and science work well even without bringing in any creator into the discussions.  If we strip from ourselves all the identifications that we use to define who we are, the "i" is "that." 

We do not need a profiting prophet!

Thursday, August 19, 2021

Rid(d)ing the Tiger

Many years ago, when I was a graduate student, a much older man commented that the working life in America was like riding the tiger.  It is great as long as you are on the tiger; but, should you fall off, well, ...

He was contrasting life here with life in the old country.  India had yet to open up its economy, and the Nehru influence had yet to fade in the political economy of the country.  Life was slow and predictable. 

In the decades since, careerists in India too are riding their own tigers.

A fear of falling off the tiger keeps us going to work every day.  For many people, working every night too.  Through all that work, there is a nagging thought that maybe it is okay to get off and the tiger will merely move on without causing any harm.

Some of us develop plans on when exactly we want to get off the tiger's back.  I was one of those. 

And then I was rudely pushed off.

I am beginning to think that it is the best thing that could have happened to me!  The cosmos and I have a strange relationship in which I am regularly surprised by its mysterious actions.

Turns out that after the rude push from the tiger's back, I can just be, without doing anything.  I can now be the metaphorical guy who enjoys life by idling away his time by the river.

The pandemic triggered my layoff, yes.  The same pandemic has also led many to voluntarily quit working, or at least hit the pause button.

These people are generally well-educated workers who are leaving their jobs not because the pandemic created obstacles to their employment but, at least in part, because it nudged them to rethink the role of work in their lives altogether. Many are embracing career downsizing, voluntarily reducing their work hours to emphasize other aspects of life.

It is as if the pandemic "threw everyone into Walden Pond."

Of course, that is a reference to Thoreau's Walden

A long, long time ago, before I had even caught the scent of the tiger, back when I was a teenager in the sleepy township, I skimmed through that book.  I skimmed it because it was way over my abilities to comprehend the ideas.  I was far too young and immature to think about the profound issues that Thoreau was presenting to me. 

Thanks to the layoff, I am now off the tiger.  I find that I am by the gorgeous Walden Pond.

Thoreau’s goal was to calculate the specific cost of eliminating deprivation from his life. He wanted to establish a hard accounting of how much money was required, at a minimum, to achieve reasonable shelter, warmth, and food. This was the cost of survival. Work beyond this point was voluntary. Some of the sharpest insights of “Walden” are found in Thoreau’s probing of why we work so hard for things that are inessential. While surveying the farmers surrounding him in the Concord countryside, Thoreau saw peers “crushed and smothered” by the endless hours of work required to manage larger and larger land holdings. These farmers were motivated, he noted, by the emerging consumer economy that was being driven by the industrial revolution. More land meant more earning, and more earning meant more access to shiny copper pumps or Venetian blinds—to name two products that Thoreau called out specifically.

How many copper pumps do I really need?  If I don't need them, I don't have to ride the tiger either.

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Preventing the spread of an invasive species

In my early Oregon years, I ran into trouble (when have I not?!) for writing an opinion column in which I remarked that as long as humans move around the world, there will always be invasive species.  Further, because there is no way we would ever force people to stay put, well, we can only expect more and more of species appearing in habitats far, far away from their original homes.

Or, as I am often told, where there are humans, there are problems ;)

We left Africa and carried with us new stuff to alien territories.  To a large extent, we humans are invasive species--I bet that's how a woolly mammoth, for instance, would have recorded history if those animals could.

Now, we humans are thinking big.  We want to go to Mars.  Given our track record, we ought to think about a whole bunch of issues.  But then, do the cheerleaders of a Mars invasion--the likes of Elon Muck, er, Musk--ever worry about ethics and morals?

I hope the rest of us, at least, will think about it.  "We need to avoid the mistakes European countries made during the age of colonization."

The ethical issues extend beyond our impact on any little green men.

Then there is the question of “ownership”: does the first country that plants its flag on the surface of another world get to claim ownership? Such claims have been made many times before, and they do not bode any better for the future of space exploration than they have for human history on Earth.

We have had such experiences before.

How about the environmental resource management issues?

Biological life aside, it is possible that Mars has minerals that could have extraordinary properties ideal for future development. We have seen on Earth how mining has had devastating environmental impacts; to think there would be anything less of an impact on the Martian environment is disingenuous.

Maybe we need a variation of the "precautionary principle":

we should begin with the presumption that we need to counter our own invasive impact on another planet that may be completely defenseless—before we embark on a new era of galactic exploration and imperial conquest.

We are a species who can't even get quite a few others to get vaccinated and slow down the spread of a tiny virus.  I have no confidence that we will think through a Martian invasion!


Monday, August 16, 2021

Blood is thicker than water. But, water is hard to find?

I was barely into my teens when I went with my family to visit with my father's cousin and her husband--a relatively newly wed couple they were then.  Their home was in a part of Madras, as Chennai was known then, that seemed like a mosquito factory from where the terrible creatures were unleashed on to the world.  But, we were under strict orders not to mention anything about those damn bloodsuckers--no joking around until we first figured out the in-law!

Anyway, as one who has always had a nearly obsessive compulsive disorder to check out the title of any book that I come across--and to quickly scan through if possible and even pretend to know about the book--my eyes stopped roving when I came across two books there.

The first was Dale Carnegie's How to win friends and influence people.  The other book was the one that made my heart skip a beat or two.  The title blew the mind of the teenager: The joy of sex.

I spoke about neither book with my aunt and her husband.

Had I read one of those books, I would not be blogging about my greatest failure in life.

No, it is not about sex.  But, please, read on ;)

The introverted me had a tough time making friends right from a young age.


And, of course, as it happens with anyone, the older I got the more difficult it became to make new friends.  Meanwhile, plenty of old friendships withered away.

Dale Carnegie has long been dead.  Anybody else dispensing advice?

To embrace the importance of initiating, you must to let go of the myth that friendship happens organically. You have to take responsibility rather than waiting passively.

Oh, ok.  Tell me more.

if you want to make friends, you should commit to showing up somewhere for a few months. If you go to one event, feel uncomfortable and don’t return, you’re selling yourself short. If you persist, you’ll feel more comfortable, get to know people more and – thanks in part to the mere exposure effect – they’ll come to like you more as time goes on. You need to push past the initial awkwardness and keep trying, because it won’t be awkward for long.

For a few months before friendship happens?

Oh well ... let me tell you about my real expertise then--the joy of sex ;)

Saturday, August 14, 2021

August 15th: Take #3

August 15th is India's Independence Day.

In marking the transition from the British rule to freedom, India's first prime minister referred to the moment as "tryst with destiny."  Salman Rushdie provided a magical realism treatment of this midnight hour with a literary gem that won the "Booker of Bookers."

I, too, have my own stories to tell of the 15th of August.

In Sanskrit, the word
dvi|ja, twice born, could mean a Brahmin, for he is born, and then born again when he is initiated into the rites of his caste; it could mean ‘a bird’, for it is born once when it is conceived and then again from an egg; but it could also mean ‘a tooth’, for teeth, it was plain to see, had two lives too.
It has been more rebirths for me, on August 15th.  August 15th marks the anniversaries of my own "tryst with destiny."

Almost the very date this year--the 17th--will mark a third major milestone in my life.

In 1987, the Singapore Airlines flight that I was on took off from Madras (as Chennai was known then) a little before the midnight that made made the transition from the 14th to the 15th--similar to India's birth at midnight.

As the US immigration stamp from that old passport shows, I landed in Los Angeles on August 15th, 1987 and since then have only been a tourist in the old country where I had my wonderful formative years.

Though it took me a decade-plus to formally become an American, there was no doubt in my mind that when I left India on the night of that August 14th, I was leaving to make myself a new home. I looked forward to the new identity that would result.

Coming to the US took a whole lot of planning--from thinking about what I wanted to study to where I wanted to study.  Los Angeles was, thus, no simple accidental happening.

But, of course, as much as we plan, well, life unfolds in its own cosmic way.  The unpredictability of life that makes it exciting and depressing, depending on the events.

A few years into my citizenship, I made a trip to India. In the summer, which surprised people there, given my inability anymore to deal with the heat and humidity. I planned the trip, yes, but it was to announce yet another re-birth: to begin the transition to the divorced life.

It was a brutal summer.  Brutal heat.  And brutal to see my mother cry.

A few days prior to my departure from Chennai, I got an email from the airlines about my return flight.  Because of scheduling issues, I had been automatically re-booked with a new departure date of, yes, August 15th!

When we watch such coincidences unfold in the movies, we dismiss them as melodrama that could have been avoided.  But, I suppose there is no better fiction and melodrama than real life!

So, there I was, re-enacting the whole August 15th rebirth.  Once again leaving India for the United States. To lead a life that would be very different all over again.  It has been one hell of a tryst with destiny!

And now August 15th (well, actually it will be 17th) of 2021 will be another milestone.  In 1987, the date marked the beginning of the path to the world of higher education.  In 2021, August 15th is the other bookend in the post-layoff phase of life in which I will be far removed from higher education.

Friday, August 13, 2021

Gandhara Kingdom

President Biden finally did what should have been done more than a decade ago: He yanked the US military out of Afghanistan.  That's leadership that comes from experience in politics.
Even I knew well enough that the adventure that Bush/Cheney led would not end well.  We are merely the latest superpower/empire to be humbled there.

The politicos and the pundits will have plenty to pontificate on Biden's decision.  I won't join that unproductive conversation.

I want to mourn the loss of Afghanistan.  A land with a rich history, for which Bollywood provides a link through Feroz Khan.

Feroz Khan was born to a Pashtun (Pathan) from Ghazni--well, the father had immigrated to India with the British departing, and his mother was of Persian descent.  He was born in Bangalore.  A story of globalization!

Time and again, I am impressed with how the old country has always been a melting pot, way before that phrase was attached to the new country.  People came from all over.  Conquerors came. They brought along ideas. Art, music, food, science, you name it.  When they left, whether they were fully aware of it or not, a great deal of India went with them to wherever they went.

If I often comment about India as being in the international crossroads, well, so was Afghanistan, with with all the stories of invaders from Central Asia coming through there and the Khyber Pass.  Of course, Alexander, too from the other side of the world.

With that kind of a long history of globalization, we had Feroz Khan the Pathan (Pashtun) in India. In Hindi movies. A star in his heyday.

He even made a movie set in Afghanistan.  Yes, he did.  A movie that was filmed in Afghanistan.  Imagine that!

Of course, the movie was shot before the civil war--though not necessarily termed that way--that then brought the Soviets in a couple of years later.  The young me, a geopolitical junkie even then, read the news reports in the Hindu every single day, but could never understand why Afghanistan had to be such a battleground.  Nor do I understand it even as a middle-aged guy counting down his existence.

It does immensely sadden me when I hear talking heads make comments, and read the pundits' opinions, that do not recognize Afghanistan's glorious past.  And I am not even from that country!

Consider, for instance, the Ghazni where Feroz Khan's people came from.  In history classes, and even in casual conversations, back in my childhood days, often there were references to Mahmud of Ghazni.  Not merely because of his conquests, but more importantly as an inspiration to never, ever, give up.  He was the figure that parents and teachers pointed out as example of one who tried and tried until he won.  We knew about him before we read about that Scottish chap.

We humans are messed up.  Instead of singing and dancing and eating and laughing, we manage to find reasons to screw up the lives of many others.

At least we have the gorgeous songs, like this one, made possible by Feroz Khan's movies.

Thanks, Afghanistan.  I hope things settle down, soon. Maybe, some day, I will even go there.

Thursday, August 12, 2021

On noodles, pasta, and ... சேவை

A few years ago, when visiting with the parents, father said he felt like eating சேவை.  I offered to help mother in the kitchen, recalling the hours that it took mother to prepare that.

"Oh, you can get instant சேவை from the store" father said.

I looked at mother. 

"There is no way I will ever eat that" she declared.  "You can buy it yourself, and make it yourself" she added, as if she was disgusted with the very thought of having to handle that inferior product.

சேவை (Sevai,) as Wikipedia notes (is there anything at all that is not in Wikipedia?) "is a type of rice vermicelli popular in Southern India, particularly Tamil Nadu"  The Wiki entry goes on to describe the labor that goes into making it the traditional way, which is why I offered to help in the kitchen.  Especially the final step of squeezing the cooked rice dough--which can quickly become rock hard--through the special apparatus in order to produce the fine strands of சேவை.

Ah, those were the days, my friend!

As kids who wanted to be real men (haha) my brother and I did not sit down and turn the handle clockwise to squeeze the "sevai idli" through, but stood over it and muscled through as if it were a competition ;)

Wikipedia notes that sevai's sibling, the idiyappam, is an idea that is at least two thousand years old.
Did the idiyappam come first and then the sevai?  Or, the other way around?
Did the idea originate in the old Dravidian culture?  Did they get the idea from the Chinese?  Or, was it the Chinese who copied from the Dravidians?  How and when did it leap from Asia to Europe?

If சேவை were to be sold in the grocery store here in the US, in which aisle would be it stocked?

Of course it won't be sold in the regular grocery store, and will be found in the Indian grocery store.  Because it is "ethnic."

What does "ethnic" mean in a country in which only 58% of the population is white?  Whose tastes should grocery stores cater to?  Is the "ethnic" aisle model obsolete?

Damn, I want to have சேவை and மோர் குழம்பு now!

Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Be a man ... by being human

Remember that old Pepsi ad featuring MC Hammer?  I still remember that commercial not because of any fondness of Pepsi over Coke, but because of "feelings" that the macho rapper starts to croon.  The ad did young boys a huge disservice by suggesting it was not hip to sing about, to talk about, feelings.

I was raised with phrases like "don't cry like a girl"--like almost all kids were back in those days in the old country.  Anger I could display. Fight I could.  Because boys will be boys.  But, crying was unmanly. I see that attitude even now, even in the adopted country.

We seem to forget that feelings bring people together.  Women cultivate their sisterhood through talking about their feelings, whether it is about their husbands or mothers or colleagues or kids or ... it is a long list of people about whom we have feelings and women seem to unreservedly talk about them.  Men, on the other hand, talk about sports and politics and the weather and everything else that is not about one's own feelings. 

All these despite plenty of men singing about feelings.  Like even that "feelings" song that MC Hammer sings because he drank the "wrong" soda.
Feelings, nothing more than feelings,
Trying to forget my feelings of love.
Teardrops rolling down on my face,
Trying to forget my feelings of love.
It is also the case that men who sang about feelings were immensely popular with women, from Frank Sinatra to Marvin Gaye to ... recall Rebecca's weak spot in Cheers?

Yet, we continue to brainwash boys and men that it is feminine to get in touch with their emotions!

In the narratives they consume, as well as the broader cultural landscape in which they operate, girls get a huge head start on relational skills, in the day-to-day thorniness and complexity of emotional life. Story by story, girls are getting the message that other people’s feelings are their concern and their responsibility. Boys are learning that these things have nothing to do with them.
We have barely even registered this lack of an emotional and relational education as a worrying loss for boys. We tend to dismiss and trivialize teenage girls’ preoccupation with the intricacies of relationships as “girl-drama.” But as Niobe Way, a professor of psychology at New York University and the author of “Deep Secrets, Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection,” says, “When we devalue things associated with femininity — such as emotions and relationships — boys miss out.”

It is strange, bizarre, and tragic that this is talked about even in 2021!  Am not at all surprised that of the students who come to my office, only female students ever are honest with their emotions and seek my assistance.  With a couple of male students, I have even mildly attempted to convey to them to sort out their issues, ... but, hey, I don't have too much time remaining at the university.

Some day, we will get past these false gender norms and become healthy.


Thursday, August 05, 2021

It is all about the journey

The job and the career coming to an end is no different from life itself in which, well, life ends.  When the destination is fixed and non-negotiable, it is clear that life is all about the journey.  Will the journey be on the high road or in the gutter, whether it is sweet or sad, the cosmos has no concerns.  The cosmos is.  There is no grand story--it is up to us to individually make the choices and make meaning of it all.

I keep reading about the Nobelist Steven Weinberg, who died recently, and about his profound statement that “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.”  In this pointlessness, a rich life is about us creating our own meaningful narratives.  Weinberg said:

I believe that there is no point in the universe that can be discovered by the methods of science. I believe that what we have found so far, an impersonal universe in which it is not particularly directed toward human beings is what we are going to continue to find. And that when we find the ultimate laws of nature they will have a chilling, cold impersonal quality about them.
I don't think this means [however] there's no point to life. Usually the remark is quoted just as it stands. But if anyone read the next paragraph, they would see that I went on to say that if there is no point in the universe that we discover by the methods of science, there is a point that we can give the universe by the way we live, by loving each other, by discovering things about nature, by creating works of art. And that -- in a way, although we are not the stars in a cosmic drama, if the only drama we're starring in is one that we are making up as we go along, it is not entirely ignoble that faced with this unloving, impersonal universe we make a little island of warmth and love and science and art for ourselves. That's not an entirely despicable role for us to play.

I love how he makes it clear that it does not mean that our lives are pointless.  Not at all.  We are not being cynical or nihilistic.  On the contrary, we love being here and we put in all the effort that we can in making meaning out of this chance existence.  The cosmic drama is not about us though.  We humans are not even bit players!

Of course, such a view of the cosmos and about ourselves is contradictory to most religious narratives in which there is a creator and life has a purpose.  But, over the years, I have understood enough to stay away from maniacal atheists who seem to want to belittle religions and their believers.  While initially fascinated with that approach, I walked away from it because I appreciate the meaning that a religion provides for those who do not want to create one for themselves.  Of course, the challenge is when those believers want to impose their meaning on me, but that's not what this post is about.  Here's what Weinberg says about faith:

“I think a world governed by a creator who is concerned with human beings is in many ways much more attractive than the impersonal world governed by laws of nature that have to be stated mathematically; laws that have nothing in them that indicates any special connection with human life.  ... We’re going to die, and our loved ones are going to die, and it would be very nice to believe that that was not the end and that we would live beyond the grave and meet those we love again,” 

As Weinberg summed it up: “Living without God is not that easy. And I feel the appeal of religion in that sense.”

As my journey swings away from higher education, I know I will continue to read and think about the making meaning of it all.  What a fascinating existence out of stardust!


Wednesday, August 04, 2021

Fire and Ice

When I came to interview for the job that I have now been at for 19 years (and soon coming to an end), one of the questions that I asked around had nothing to do with the job itself.  I asked the interviewers and the people I ran into: Does it snow here, and how much?

Having grown up in a tropical landscape, and after having lived in Southern California, I knew well that I had no skills to live and work through snow and ice.  Rains I could manage.  Cold I could bundle against and turn the heater on.  But snow and ice I couldn't.

The responses were unanimous.  Rarely ever it snows, and even then it is just a dusting that quickly melts away.

I felt reassured.

Turns out that they were all wrong. 

Not that they lied.  The climate ain't what it was.

Now, every winter we have come to expect a snow dump. And then the snow freezing over. Life stalls. We can't do anything because the natural world and the infrastructure do not have a place for snow and ice.  Trees tumble. On homes. They drag down power lines. Roads become treacherous.

Climate change is the greatest threat ever.

Yes, the climate has changed before--naturally. This time it is different--we humans have caused it.  The heat comes early and is hotter than ever.  When it rains, it floods, and doesn't rain when it used to.  We are creating hell on earth.  As Francis Fukuyama notes, we're cooked

The human-environment relationship will dramatically change, leading to many acts of desperation.

The climate crisis has already sparked an exodus from around the world.  We are perhaps even downplaying the role of climate change in this global migration crisis.  We are possibly looking at a future with humanitarian crises of the likes that we have never seen before in peaceful times, which is why the International Refugee Assistance Project has developed a plan that the Biden administration could use--if it chooses to.

The last couple of days sunlight has been orange here because of particulate matter in the air from the fires to the south and the east of us.  A friend texts, "at least there is no ash."  Even Polyanna will be impressed with how we console ourselves!

I am powerless to stop the abnormal smoke and snow here in the valley.

Tuesday, August 03, 2021

In Gratitude

August 2nd was Aadi Perukku in the old Tamil country.  Also known as Padinettam Perukku, because it is observed on the 18th day of the Aadi month of the calendar.

One of the silly jokes we young chaps had was this: if "aadi perukku" is on one day of the year, is it "aadaama perukku" the rest of the year?  Hahaha ... those old days! (Note to non-Tamil readers: It is a godawful pun in Tamil, and you will be better off without understanding such groaners!)

This observance is like all others--to celebrate life and express gratitude.  Modern scientific research confirms what ancient traditions have always known, which is that gratitude brings happiness.  Every festival is for the most part about gratitude.  In the case of Aadi Perukku, it is about water, which is fundamental to life as we know it, which is why scientists are always scanning the universe for signs of water.

By the time it is Aadi Perukku, the southwest monsoon would have peaked, filling up the reservoirs and recharging the aquifers, which are the sources of water in the Tamil country that does not have rivers flowing from the snow melt in the Himalayas.  In the old days, before the modern age of dams, this is the time of the year that the canals would once again begin to flow in plenty, much to the delight of the rural folk whose lives depended on it.  I remember from the childhood days how the canal behind grandmother's home flowed with water gently lapping against the steps.

Aadi Perukku is a time to celebrate.  It is a time to express gratitude for the plentiful water that sustains life and prosperity.  Of course, with every river also being a god, this was also the time to offer thanks to the river gods.

It is now the 3rd of August in the adopted land--the day after Aadi Perukku.  Of course, we walked by the Willamette River yesterday too.  We spent a long time standing knee-deep in the river, with the cool water soothing our bodies and souls on the hot summer day that it was.  A young heron flew past us and perched on a log in the river.  Ducks floated past, and geese flew in a formation overhead.  A couple of young people were splashing around along the bank across.  The sun slowly descended.

Maybe you, too, can take a moment to offer thanks for the life-sustaining water.  The precious water, which makes our planet a special pale blue dot in the cosmos.