The Canaries are Dead

Rewind -- Jan 1990 -- Norwich, UK.

The catalogues always intrigued me. Attracted me like a moth to the flame. I knew Dad didnt have the money to buy me the video game. I had a small video game, one that was affordable -- 5 pounds. But I wanted the bigger one. Like the one Paul had. But Paul was rich, and I wasnt. Paul's mom taught at the high school, and his Dad worked in a big firm. Paul even had a computer. I didnt know what a computer was, but it sounded fascinating. Once I even sneaked up the stairs and stole a look at it .. a big screen, a little pad and lots of buttons. I wished for a moment that my parents could get me one. Ten year olds can dream better than anyone else.

The winter had been, in typical english tradition, cold and rainy. Mom wore tattered stockings and always had a cold. Dad had to bike in the cold rain to work, because we couldnt afford public transport. Back in India, he drove a fancy car, and Mum had four servants at her beck and call. Everything comes with a price. We had moved to England, and the pound of flesh in exchange had turned out to be more than what they had bargained for. I, however, was blissfully unaware. Norwich bewitched me, enchanted me, amazed me, thrilled me.

--- to be contd. ---

The Death of Creativity and How a Trip to India Can Make Your Life Miserable

Gee, let me think, two months off the face of the earth (buried inside someone's cleave or a book) and I feel like I've committed a crime. For which I should be punished (spank me yeah!!). And the saddest part is that creativity has ebbed in me. Writing is like using chopsticks, you see other people doing it with such dexterity that it looks easy, but when you get down to it, the dinner lands in someone else's inner wear. Quite a disgusting feeling, I must warn you.

Anyway, so I decided I absolutely MUST write something. If not for myself, for my millions of fans [a bow and flying kiss for all the folks ] and of course, for my very own ... my darling ego.

The SIA flight to India was at its shiny worst. The pretty airhostesses made me fidgety, and the hunky stewards made me feel like a blob of fat with five appendages, not counting my head, of course. To make things worse, the legspace was probably designed for a midget with amputed lower extremities. I scrunched up into a ball, thanking the lord for his foresight in endowing me with stubby legs. There was no sleep, however. The woman next to me had a bundle that she later explained was her baby. She had stowed it in the cabin compartment because the airlines charged full fare for babies. Personally I disagreed with her philosophy, she should have put it along with the checked in luggage, it would have had a much better flight. But I dared no argue. It was her baby, not mine. It didnt let me sleep, the raucus baby. Apparently, he didnt like the warm comfort of the overhead cabin.

... to be contd since I need to go get drunk on Friday night ... be back!!

The Importance of Anonymity

The way this place has progressed from a bunch of intellectually connected people to a circle of friends has been a bitter-sweet experience. While on an emotional level it has been very satisfying, from a more intellectual perspective, it has been somewhat a not-so-healthy decline. So much so, that after writing the previous sentence, I paused to re-read it, and considered adding a qualifier to ensure noone was offended. That, I feel, may not augur well for a group of people who got together to exchange ideas and thoughts.

When I was a little kid, I loved writing, I wrote tons and tons of short stories, which I never showed to anyone in my family or even my friends. My father is a writer and a public speaker, and he would critique everything, from the essays in class, to the way I spoke at the dinner table. My mother, on the other hand, would fawn over almost anything I wrote; Which was great initially, but I realised, as I grew older, that her maternal affection clouded her intellectual judgement. I stopped writing soon afterwards, it wasnt any fun if you got no feedback anyway. And so the creative monster lay dormant in me for years, and mathematics and the sciences took over. The beautiful thing about math (which many of you wouldnt agree with, I am sure)is that, unlike the sciences, there can be more than one answer.And I know that's not what you are taught in school. But I digress, let me get back to the point. I had all but killed the literary side of me.

And then, sulekha happened. The blessing of anonymity. I was under a mask, safe from personal and emotionally tainted evaluations of me and my writings. Some of my articles were appreciated, some werent. Some were commented upon favorably, others lambasted by intellectually independent individuals. Some comments were obnoxious, some sickeningly sweet. And all put together, they left just the right taste in the mouth. I loved my new-found creative freedom. "Uber Goober" was now a writer in his own little way, free from the unrelenting criticism of his father and the blind adulation of his mother.

But somewhere along the way, I lost my self again. Dud Sea Scrawls happened. I got drawn into a group of intelligent people, who perhaps made the biggest mistake of deciding to throw away the mask of anonymity. I say "perhaps", because I might be wrong, and that we have chosen to do the right thing. But there is no doubt that it is strange that I had written almost 20 blogs in Sulekha, and post sulekha, I have written only 3 in almost the same time. The reasons, I believe, are manifold. I spend most of my time talking to people directly on the blog board. That is, in some ways, a more effective means of communication. But it is not the same as blogging. Also, as a result of getting to know all the bloggers, I can no longer be an entity behind a mask. Moreover, they know me and sometimes it is hard for them to write out their mind, and the same holds for me too, when I read their blogs/comments. My judgement is now clouded, almost the way my mother's was.

Whether I can ever get out of this and start writing more blogs with gay abandon (pun ABSOLUTELY not intended! ;) ) I do not know, but I hope things change soon!

The Little Comedian

You'll grow up to be a fat ugly Comedian, my son .. she said :(

Masters and Apprentices ...

I met Jibbu when I was seventeen. I was a first year student at the IIT, fresh and arrogant as ever about my academic prowess. We were supposed to teach high and middle school students as part of our first year curriculum. Many of the children were from the nearby Tharamani village, a slum on the outskirts of Chennai, just behind the IIT. We had volunteered to conduct tuition classes for the children in a run-down building in the middle of Tharamani, surrounded by small houses that were almost falling apart. It was raining that day, and it was slushy as hell. There were five of us that day. We sat and waited, expecting noone to turn up anyway. Three people turned up, Rani, Tamizharasan (never knew what meant!), and a short happy-go-lucky kid -- Jibbu Thomas. He was in sixth grade in the nearby government run school.

Jibbu looked around and sat down on the chair next to mine. to this day, I dont know why. I smiled at him awkwardly and asked him (in my ridiculous Tamizh) his name. He laughed at me and corrected my Tamizh. I was slightly annoyed at him for it, but his smile was so disarming, I couldnt open my mouth. I told him that I couldnt speak in Tamizh. We decided on a common language somewhere between English and the vernacular. He was a smart kid, but he didnt really care about studies. His father was a candle maker, and he wanted Jibbu to carry on the family business after school.We sat and talked about all the other things he did in school, from chasing cats to stealing chalk and drawing patterns on the walls of the houses. He reminded me of my childhood, which seemed so far away from me. Suddenly it was 6 o clock and time to leave. I hadnt taught him anything. But in retrospect, there are some days when you just let go, and this was one of those.

The next class, a few days later, I was waiting for Jibbu. He came in late, and I was almost disappointed and annoyed when he sat down to someone else. I literally dagged him out of my friend's section and made him sit in mine. I offered to drop him home and we talked on the way back. He showed me where he had hidden all his 'valuables' : a broken water pistol, a marble set, and his prize possession, a toy helicopter in perfect working order. I was jealous of his child-like happiness.

As the months went by, we became good friends -- master and pupil. He was good at math, and extremely bad at almost everything else. Secretly, I empathised with him because all my life it had been a similar story, stellar performance in math punctured by abysmal performances in every other conceivable subject. I promised myself I would make a mathematician out of him. There were other people in the class too, but Jibbu would always get special attention. I knew I was being partial, but I couldnt help myself.

I taught at the village office for almost two years, and then it was time to leave. I had too much other work to do outside the volunteer work. My last day at the Centre was pretty much the same except that Jibbu hadnt turned up. I was angry at him for not making it on my last day. I was about to leave when he did turn up. He had a little packet in his hand : "Anna, for you Anna". I took the packet, wished him luck and walked home. I opened the packet at home, and there were three candles : all handmade by Jibbu.

One, I lighted the day I learnt he cleared his board examinations. The second, I'll ask m mother to light up today, because I heard he got into college. The third, I will always keep with me, a reminder to myself of someone who, in a small way, made his mark in my life.

Sociable and Amicable Numbers ....

Number theory is one of the most intriguing branches of mathematics. Three weeks ago, I ran into Ken Ribet, who was a contributor to Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's last theorem . I've sat in a few of Ken's classes, and his clarity of thought astounds me. Anyway, that kinda inspired me to think about some interesting 'early' number theory 'results'

1. Prime numbers: Nothing fancy about these little fellerz, except that for centuries, noone was able to determine an algorithmic way to obtain prime numbers. Even now, with the development of computers, although there are many algorithms to check primeness, there isnt any analytical method for obtaining prime numbers ad infinitum .

2. Perfect numbers: A perfect number is a cycle of length 1 of s, i.e., a number whose positive divisors (except for itself) sum to itself. The smallest such number is 6 : the divisors of six are 1,2,3, which add up to 6. The second number is 28 (1,2,4,7,14) whose divisors add up to 28. The third such number is 496. Interestingly, there is a hypothesis that claims that all perfect numbers are EVEN, and that there are an infinite number of them. A conjecture yet to be proved/disproved!

3. Amicable/Sociable numbers : An amicable "pair" of numbers is a cycle of length 2 of s., i.e., a pair of numbers each of which equals the sum of the other positive divisors; the members of amicable pairs are also called amicable. The smallest such pair is (220,284).

(sum of all the divisors of 220) 1+2+4+5+10+11+20+22+44+55+110 = 284
(sum of all the divisors of 284) (too tedious and boring to write down) = 220

Sociable numbers are sets if numbers with cycle > 2.

4. Fibonacci Numbers : This is perhaps the most commonly known of all number sequences. Fibonacci numbers are the numbers in the Fibonacci sequence 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, . . . , each of which, after the second is the sum of the two previous ones. They are found in a variety of problems, mathematical and nonmathematical. Leaves are arranged on a stem in fibonacci sequences, and often flowers have numbers of petals equal to fibonacci numbers. Much has been said and explored about these sequences, which is why we mathematicians dont find it interesting anymore :D

5. The number of the beast "666" , as any Iron Maiden fan will know, is known as the number of the beast. It has some very very strange properties indeed! To list a few:

666 = 6 + 6 + 6 + 6³ + 6³ + 6³
666 = (6 + 6 + 6) · (6² + 1²)
666 = 6! · (6² + 1²) / (6² + 2²)
The sum of the squares of the first 7 primes is 666:

666 = 2² + 3² + 5² + 7² + 11² + 13² + 17²
The sum of the first 144 (= (6+6)·(6+6)) digits of pi is 666.

There is a lot more .. if you are really nice to me, maybe I'll tell you some more ;)

The Quick and The Dead ...

Things I hate about myself ...

Am in a self-deprecating mood today.. so here goes ...

1. I hate the fact that I am a liar. I dont lie all the time, but I still think I can be more honest about some things, which I am not, unfortunately.
2. I'm selfish all too often. I think I'm trying to change that, and hopefully I think I'm going in the right direction, but I still believe I cant look beyond my own interests.
3. I hate my lack of sensitivity. Case in example, my sister's marriage is on the rocks, and yet I feel no genuine sympathy. I mean ,yes I love her and I am sad that she has had to go through all of it, but I cant still EMPATHISE.
4. I hate my shallowness. I dont look beyond the grey cells, which is also shallow,cuz there's more to a person than how smart he/she is.
5. I hate my inability to make friends who last. I have lots of friends, but they keep coming and going. My life's like a taxi, people keep getting on and off all the time.
6. I lack strength of character. I know all you people are going to say, well it needs character to admit to your flaws, but let me tell you it is easy to do it in writing. If you asked me the same question in person, I wouldnt be half as candid.
7. I hate my complexion, I really wish I had a smoother complexion.