The taste of India

I have been escaping into a parallel research topic, much against the intentions of the sane and organized part of my mind. I recently read a post on Pinterest that said, if you want to find out what you are really passionate about, look where your mind goes when it wanders. :)

Lately, my mind has been wandering away from the lab and away from academia, towards applications and concepts that are more people-centered. And that is why, perhaps, the obituary of  Dr. Verghese Kurien captured my mind. Abi blogged about it and I took off from there. Since I am post-docing at Michigan State now, I found a connection to the story. It is interesting to know that MSU did not have a dairy program back then.Now MSU's dairy and animal science course is regarded as one of the best in the US. By far, the best outcome of their research is the MSU dairy store that sells ice cream made entirely on campus. "Death by chocolate" is my favorite flavor. :)

In the course of my work on economic modeling for biorefineries, I have also realized how important a place India has in the near future when it comes to animal feed markets. And unlike the US, where most of this demand comes from cattle farming intended towards beef production, in India, almost all of the animal feed market is catering to the production of milk. India is the largest producer of milk in the world when you consider milk production by individual countries. I think the Amul story has a lot to do with this place we have today. 


This also led me to a beautiful film (Manthan) by Shyam Benegal. I had watched it before but this time, I had a new perspective. Any team of human beings, working in any area, be it arts or technology, always comes with a potential for negativity, exploitation, ego trips, discrimination, dissatisfaction, unethical conduct, corruption and misguided optimism. But when a team works so well, it is obvious that it is expressing the antonyms of all the above words in significantly larger quantities (in a hypothetical scenario where they could be quantified). And what the team expresses is a reflection of the person who leads it.

I will leave you with this and this. They always get me nostalgic. :)

Poetic detour

Raj's post about Vikram Seth's novel (A Suitable Boy) made me escape, to see my favorite Vikram Seth poems. Some of his poetry astonishes me every time I read it. Although it reads simple, it always unearths a complex, difficult-to-put-your-finger-on feeling.

Thanks to Poem Hunter, we can all read some of Seth's poems. 
But I cannot suppress the urge to copy-paste some of my all time favorites here.

1. Unclaimed

To make love with a stranger is the best.
There is no riddle and there is no test. --

To lie and love, not aching to make sense
Of this night in the mesh of reference.

To touch, unclaimed by fear of imminent day,
And understand, as only strangers may.

To feel the beat of foreign heart to heart
Preferring neither to prolong nor part.

To rest within the unknown arms and know
That this is all there is; that this is so.

Vikram Seth

2. Prandial Plaint

My love, I love your breasts, I love your nose.
I love your accent and I love your toes.
I am your slave. One word, and I obey.
But please don't slurp your morning brew that way.

Vikram Seth

3. Timezones

I willed my love to dream of me last night, that we might lie
at peace, if not beneath a single sheet, under one sky.
I dreamed of her but she could not alas humour my will;
it struck me suddenly that where she was was daylight still.

Vikram Seth

I am also amazed by the emotion that could have inspired  Round and Round.
It reads like Vikram Seth is trying to collect water droplets off a leaf. What touches me above all the simplicity in his poetry is the acceptance of  loneliness, with no long term solution or alternative. And he does not express it as a lament or a pain but simply as an everyday reality, sometimes even with a bit of humor.
Perhaps one of his better known (and widely read) verses is All You Who Sleep Tonight.

So a big hug to Raj for putting Seth back into my head. I just ordered  A Suitable Boy. :)

Homeward bound

I have decided to return to India for good post December 2012. Although there were some obviously compelling reasons that propelled me towards this decision, every day, I realize that there are a lot of smaller, very impractical and innocent things that have participated in that process. So I have decided to list them (apparently, strong Js like making lists and I am one of them).

1. The fresh fruit/veggie market (मंडई)
I wrote this post before I left India. The spirit of Phule Mandai cannot be translated into any language. Being there is the only way  to completely understand its beauty.

2. Music
To be able to buy and listen to as much classical Indian music as I want to. I want to be able to go to live concerts all the time and perhaps, also organize some travel, exclusively for the music, around places where I have found it in the past.

3. Yoga (and hopefully, vipassana)
My passion for Yoga was something I truly discovered away from home. When I was in India, Yoga always felt like an imposition! But now that it is a part of everyday life, I think I want to start all over again from the beginning.

4. Lazy weekends in my grandfather's home
I really hate feeling nostalgic about anything. And I think this loathing for nostalgia has been brought about almost exclusively by how nostalgic Kolhapur makes me. I have never been able to fully get over my childhood memories of summers spent in Kolhapur.
But I still look forward to lazy weekends in what used to be my Aaji's room, reading all day, and stepping out of the house only when I am ready to leave the city!

5. Rickshaws
Yes. They are that important to me. :)

6. Street food


And most important of all reasons is to eliminate digital communication with my best friends and to be a real three dimensional part of their everyday life. I think this last reason is too important to be on the list. :)

Music in my posts?

 We don't realize it but our generation grew up with so much digital technology at hand that it has made us more musical (?). When I  was in Australia, I used to stay in touch with my friends in the US through email. Our emails usually came with mp3 attachments. I did this for years. To the point that I took it for granted. But isn't it the most wonderful thing to receive a song with your letter? A song that you haven't heard, or you have heard so many times that it is somehow dearer!

There are very few times in my day when I am alone and headphone free at the same time. I am always listening to music. It is a big part of my life.  It has the power to bring all the hidden feelings to the surface. As a kid, sometimes I felt irrationally uneasy when my dad played certain songs in the house. It was difficult to pinpoint what exactly it was that made me uneasy. Some tracks make it extremely difficult to sit in one place and work. You are almost compelled to get up and dance. Some just take you back to a familiar place (or sometimes, too familiar a place?).

I listen to every kind of music there is. I am a fan of  Pt. Jasraj and Lady Gaga at the same time without any judgement. But I always go back to Indian classical music. I have tried asking people how they listen to music (with my ears?!). How (and why) do some of us evolve into door slamming Black Sabbath fans (even temporarily as teenagers), and some of us can take an unhealthy amount of Chopin or Beethoven? I think music activates my imagination. So when it is too structured (with a great score, great lyrics, great movie), there is little room to add anything of my own. I find that kind of structured music too processed. :)
But with Indian Classical/ folk music, there is room to set your mind free. There is also room for little experiments. When it is accompanied by the tabla or the mridangam, it throws your mental stage wide open for an imaginary dancer.

And even though it lets me wander, it also has the mathematical/metaphysical quality of coming back to the same point in circles. Each circle can be different in its own way. Some go by slowly, savoring every moment there is, while some just spin out of control until you are reminded that you are back to the same point. So when I discovered that I could now make my posts musical using Spotify, I had to write this pointless post to include three of my recent favorites.

1. Zakir Hussain takes us through rupak variations.



2. Anoushka Shankar playing Desh at Carnegie Hall

I totally absolutely love Raga Desh. This track is a really good example of  "coming back to the same point". It feels like a little girl is trying to run wild in the courtyard as her mom brings her back to the center so that she can finally tie her wild curly hair. :)



3. Ustad Shujaat Khan performing Sham Kalyan (Drut)

Breathe and Smile!

I took a Yoga class after a long time yesterday. I entered the studio later than everyone else so the only place left was the front corner, right in front of the mirror. Somehow, no one likes this spot. Maybe because it is too close to the instructor, or too close to the mirror. I like to be there only when I have been practicing for a while and when I really like looking at myself in the mirror. Yesterday was definitely not one of those days. After two weeks in France, I could literally feel all the pain au chocolates around my waist. But I had no choice so I took the spot and unrolled my mat.

Throughout the class, I could hear a really annoying voice in my head.
"Look at you! You used to be able to do this so easy a year ago!"
"That pose is just not flattering. Uff! What am I going to do with you!"
"That's it. No carbs at night. You cannot look like that. It is unacceptable."
"Okay. If one hot yoga class burns 800 calories, then how many should you eat during the day to lose weight?"

It was persistent, constant and unbelievably annoying. (un)Fortunately, I am so used to doing this to myself that it doesn't reach or activate any emotional centers in my brain. It is just the same effort I make when I reject data with high standard deviation in the lab, or when I repeat an experiment because I am not happy with the result.

At the end of the class, the instructor said the usual nice things that the Yoga teacher is supposed to say
"Thank yourself for taking these ninety minutes out of your day for your body"
"Thank your body and mind for sticking together through this practice"
"Look in the mirror and smile at yourself for doing this"
"Be compassionate towards yourself and your body"
"You deserve all the love and happiness in the world. You are beautiful"

A girl in the very last row broke down into tears. The instructor walked over towards her and kissed her on the head. And for the first time in those hot, sweaty ninety minutes, the voice in my head stopped.

Why is it that when someone else says something we really want to hear, it brings us to tears?
If we really want to hear these things, why can't we just say them to ourselves? Why are all these essential emotions, like being compassionate towards yourself, so difficult to practice? 

Even though we live in a world that constantly subjects us to comparisons and judgements, I am starting to believe that our acceptance of unfair judgement from others starts within. It starts with that mechanically annoying voice inside our heads. You first fall victim to your own judgment and then somehow, you see the world around you mirroring your own thoughts back at you.

If we become strong enough to shut that voice, we would become strong enough to cross that judgment barrier. And perhaps, we can all be happy! :)

In Transit

Between the paranoia over security

And the head rush of take off

Lies a fragrant corridor, of tax free scents

Where breathing suddenly becomes easy

Like clouds after precipitation,

We look fluffy and light

Old ladies, with wrinkled hands

(How do you fit three rings on one finger?)

Open paper backs with mascara eyes

Bored dads with empty strollers

People sitting around power points

Like baited fish, giving me odd looks

As I write with my ball point

In a totally organic, three dimensional notebook

Eyes everywhere, locking and unlocking

Sometimes, predictably, turning into a brilliant smile

It is easy to make friends in transit

Perhaps because we all share the feeling

Of a deliciously suspended and an utterly aimless moment!

On the road -- Jack Kerouac

Post Kindle, I had started wondering if a digital reader really helps or hurts my reading. I cannot handle more than one book at a time. It makes me jump from one book to the other without finishing or enjoying either. So I walked into a second hand book store in Chicago and bought On The Road by Jack Kerouac.
Now, I am not so sure if this was the right book to test my theory. It haunts me even when I am not reading it. All I think about is Jack Kerouac and what kind of a person he must have been to write a book like that.

On the road is a beautiful ramble. It is about several road trips across America, all of which really happened.  The publishers made Kerouac change the names of his characters to protect him against litigation. If I have to describe what this book is really about, it would sound very unimpressive.It is about an American guy who is always broke, and travels from the New York to San Fransisco and back several times, usually hitch hiking with random strangers. He meets his gang of friends -- each one unique and eccentric in their own way. They get tangled badly in problems that would seem quite ridiculous to a "normal" person. The writer tries to place his stories around the craziest one of all his friends -- Dean Moriarty.

What is more important is the revolution this book represents.
For the travelers, backpackers, road trippers and the adventurers around the world, On The Road would perhaps provide an explanation as to why the "road" is so enticing. We are growing up in a generation that believes in extending youth indefinitely. We could all very well go into our late thirties and not really have a "plan". But for some of us, the road is enough of a destination, making it very confusing to look at ourselves through others' eyes. The things you discover about the journey and about yourself on the road sometimes are more valuable than the things you would gather if you stop. It was perhaps the first paradigm shift where the road became the representative of male identity, the romance being in not conforming to the traditional roles associated with being a man. 

Salvatore (Sal) Paradise [Kerouac in real life] travels to Denver to meet this crazy guy called Dean Moriarty [Neal Cassady in real life]. In Sal's own words, "[Dean]He was simply a youth tremendously excited with life, and though he was a con-man, he was only conning because he wanted to so much to live and to get involved with people who would otherwise pay no attention to him...Somewhere along the line I knew there'd be girls, visions, everything; somewhere along the line, the pearl would be handed to me." 
Dean is trying to find something through his own journeys but he does not really know what he is looking for. Sometimes, his long monologues remind you of the teachings of Eastern mysticism. But most of the times his craziness, his absolute disorganization and his unwillingness to be responsible for anything drowns all his dismal sane thoughts. Sal, on the other hand, is the passive and reflective mirror that reflects Dean back to the readers. And I think more than the real Dean, I came to appreciate this reflection of Dean Moriarty towards the end of the book.

Kerouac has inspired not just other Beat poets and writers but also musicians such as Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and The Beatles. However, behind all the celebration of individual identity, seeking truth and meaning in life, not conforming to the expected cultural and social roles, you can sense the soul destroying confusion that absolute freedom is able to create. There is a point to which freedom helps nourish and cherish human spirit. After you cross that point, the feeling of being helpless is similar to what it could have been on the other end of the spectrum -- with limited freedom and lot of social and cultural obligations.

What is worth reading and re-reading is Kerouac's impatient and spontaneous style. The entire book talks to you like a passionate, high-on-life person you just met who is telling you his story on a hot summer evening. Some lines just emerge out of nowhere and make the all-over-the-place story seem suddenly profound. Like this one:
“I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” 

And beyond all the philosophy, you can clearly see how much Kerouac loved America. There is a lot of poetry in the pages as New York gently turns into the Midwest taking you through corn fields and clear, starry nights, the warmth and the jazzy smoothness of the South and the craziness of the West. Fifty years later, it is all still there. Interestingly, when I bought this book in Chicago, I was reading Kerouac's description of Chicago. Then, I went to Denver, Laramie, New Orleans, Las Vegas and Salt Lake city in a span of those two months with the book. And I always read about the city I was in! :)