Anonymous Stranger

Last month I has a strange experience with a anonymous stranger.
I call the person anonymous is because the identity of that person is not known to me. I received a SMS which has some riddle like lines..
This led to an exchange of SMS which I am reporting here.
This is a monologue, which some people in the past have accused me of doing, for the reason that `Save sent msgs' function is disabled on my phone. So feel free to fill in the in between SMS on my side, where you want to

It all started with these two messages from this number 902856xxxx
[The numbers at the beginning are YEAR:MONTH:DAY:HOURS:MINUTES]


2010:04:14:00:46: Yews over unwilling. Restless elated yet. Elated sumer amply relumes each..
2010:04:14:16:36: Each Not Chancing His Arrival Not To Ingenuity Not Green

I tried to call, then  all other SMS came from this number, when 909612xxxx

2010:04:14:20:31: Dont dont dont call.. Look what happens when you do.. Now i have to text you from this number..
2010:04:15:20:35: so i assume you could not decipher the first two text s code
2010:04:16:21:15: Ok lets take it this way.. If you dont want me to text give me a missed and if you want dont react.. I highly suspect we have the prevalence of the former here.. So please go ahead..
2010:04:16:22:05: You know you are like pepin but of course in only your stubborn and nonchalant ways..
2010:04:17:09:41: Finally.. Not that i know what s m means but still its porgress.. Did you decode?
2010:04:17:09:47: Attitude.. It like it.. Infact i think you should patent it.. For obvious  reasons you know..
2010:04:17:10:01: Ok now amit s again become pepin.. Tell me are my text so loathable or its just you..
2010:04:17:11:27: Ok so my texts are not good and you are intended upon talking in monosyllables.. At least we agree on one thing.. Its progress again..
2010:04:17:14:07: didnt intend upon disturbin bt i texted n it ws nt deleverin so i thought i hav troubled u 2 d extend of switchin off ur phone..wanted 2 ask if u really dont like.. I wont text.?
2010:04:17:14:11: Yea i know you want to say 'your wish'.. cos i started.. But seriously you can say bluntly..
2010:04:17:14:16: Oh regarding choice between texting or not texting or something more difficult..
2010:04:17:14:22: Ah.. Thats  what i meant by difficult.. No nothing.. Nothin at all infact.. Lets save us both some messages.. You : then why are you texting me. Me : nothing particular but i ll stop the moment you tell me to.. you: ..... Me : oks... Now you can complete..
2010:04:17:14:25: Flattered..
2010:04:17:14:25: At least pepin thinks i m worth hmmm s..
2010:04:17:14:28: Ok then.. Do think.. Do what you rmind says.. What is it saying now..
2010:04:17:14:36: Ok forget if you dont want to answer.. Or still wordless.?
2010:04:17:14:43: Come on pepin.. Ok dont try to know your mind. Its complex.. Ask me who has been trying to extract replys from you all week..
2010:04:17:14:45: Oh god.. Will you ever reply without me asking you a question..
2010:04:17:14:53: He was french dictator.. Reminds of you..
2010:04:17:14:59: Angry?
2010:04:17:15:02: Hmmm.. So you know him..
2010:04:17:15:13: Cute.. but dont know try to know him personaly.. not a nice guy..
2010:04:17:15:17: Why not.. I know all dictators personally..
2010:04:17:15:19: Ok.. Who s your ideal person.. O mean you admire the ideas of whom,, Somebody i would know..
2010:04:17:15:26: Lets see if i am a physicist if would like chandrashekhar or einstein or stephen hawking.. Read breif hostory of time? Its beautiful..
2010:04:17:15:30: Come on pepin... Say na..
2010:04:17:15:34: Khan
2010:04:17:15:38: ?
2010:04:17:15:44: Yeah y him.. He was worse than pepin.. Are you kidding..
2010:04:17:15:58: Please talk in more than one word.. Its difficult you know..
2010:04:17:16:30: Kay zhala..
2010:04:17:16:33: :-).. Am i very boring.. Yes you are interesting..
2010:04:17:16:55: That means yes?
2010:04:17:17:02: That is because you.. No first answer.. Am i really boring..
2010:04:17:17:03: Or moderately so..
2010:04:17:17:19: At least yes or no..
2010:04:17:17:24: Can you know if you ll talk to me..
2010:04:17:17:25: Did you realise this was your longest sentence
2010:04:17:17:26: No.. I m otherwise very boring.. Its better on text..
2010:04:17:17:27: Yup.. Your highness is gettin better..
2010:04:17:17:31: No.. I m otherwise very boring.. Its better on text..        
2010:04:17:17:32: Yup.. Your highness is gettin better..
2010:04:17:17:35: You feelin it.? Because for me its like.. Come on girl.. Come up with something cool..
2010:04:17:17:48: The signal is bad here.. Airtel sucks.. And what else s going on..
2010:04:17:17:50: Ok mr pepin but please say more that two words..
2010:04:17:17:51: Okay chose one.. Sea or moutain.. Orange or red.. Cat or dog..
2010:04:17:17:54: Afraid? Of what :) I have given up on studies.. How s your ph d going..
2010:04:17:17:59: No silly.. Given up means going okay okay..
2010:04:17:18:00: Y u got married..
2010:04:17:18:00: Sounding so sad like hmmm..
2010:04:17:18:02: Okay chose one.. Sea or mountain.. orange or red.. Cat or dog..
2010:04:17:18:04: Sea or moutain..
2010:04:17:18:05: Cat or dog..
2010:04:17:18:05: Yaar amit i dont know.. Y would otherwise i ask you..
2010:04:17:18:10: Ok.. You are somebosy who gets angry unexpectedly, likes travelling, loyal to very very limited people and.. Okay select one.. Eyes or nose..
2010:04:17:18:12: And think what people are from inside is more mp that what people look..
2010:04:17:18:13: .Am i correct or wrong. What percent
2010:04:17:18:24: You know this is what is unexpected.. The moment i think you are ok you become cold again.. Ok you only say since my talks are vague apparently
2010:04:17:18:27: Your game.?
2010:04:17:18:30: Cute but.. Anyways..
2010:04:17:18:32: Its just too early... And by the way mr pepin my knowing your identity is default.. And playing games.. Not my cup of tea
2010:04:17:18:33: Well you r naive.. Lets assume for the moment what you said was cute..
2010:04:17:18:35: Ok then it is.. Do you realise.. One sms includes more than sixty char nad you use just two of them.. National wastage..
2010:04:17:18:35: Ok fav author..?
2010:04:17:18:36: Coffee.?
2010:04:17:18:38: Amit say na..
2010:04:17:18:40: Say one.. You are such a spoilsport..
2010:04:17:18:45: Yeah since i am an expert on abbreviations that one beats me..
2010:04:17:18:47: Ok..
2010:04:17:18:51: Kay zhala again?
2010:04:17:19:10: So what does sm really mean
2010:04:17:19:11: No say na..
2010:04:17:19:12: Come on say na
2010:04:17:19:14: I understood that pepin.. But justified enough.. I m keeping my share of identity so you can keep your sm to yourself..
2010:04:17:19:16: No my initials are not that.. But whats that.. Where did you get it from..
2010:04:17:19:17: No ad they are not my initials..
2010:04:17:19:19: No.. Come on.. I m hidin.. Will not lie..
2010:04:17:19:21: Yeah.. I really dont know where you are getting that from but do tell me..
2010:04:17:19:21: Say na whats sm
2010:04:17:19:24: And you have appeal for..?
2010:04:17:19:25: Seriously..
2010:04:17:19:27: No not why not at all.. Cool..
2010:04:17:19:33: Kay zhaka again?
2010:04:17:19:38: Ok.. Will text you once i am in a position to disclose my identity.. Take care..


I really don't know what sense to make out of all this...

The Sons - Franz Kafka

The first time I heard about Kafka was in a interview of Kabir Bedi in a Times of India Sunday supplement called Times Life. Kabir told the scribe that one of his former wife quoted Kafka a lot. So, then as you know Google is your friend, I googled Kafka. And I was introduced to one of the authors who is enigmatic and mysterious, with shades of surrealism in in. But it was not until very recently that I bought the works of Kafka, in hard copy. I had them in soft version, tried to read them on screen, but without success. It was not until Strand Book Fair 2009 that I had mint copies of Kafka's work with me. Apart from The Trial, now I have almost all of his major works. I started with The Sons, which is a collection of three stories, namely, The Judgement, The Stoker and finally The Metamorphosis.



Kafka wanted to publish these three stories in one volume, he said in a letter to his editor there is a secret strand which runs through these three. The novels I think are a window to Kafka's mindset. The stories reveal a complex personality of Kafka, which was tried to carve an existence of its own in the shadow of the overpowering personality of his father. The feelings of Kafka are made clear in the part of the compilation, A Letter To His Father, where he tries to convey his father, tries to convey him, how strong and suffocating his
personality was for Franz as a child and also as an adult. It relates small incidents, which made a dent on Franz's egg shelled mind, whose repercussions he felt even as an adult.

Some of the incidents in one's childhood can have a lasting influence on one's future. This I guess, most of us can relate to. How many childhood memories, especially non-pleasant ones, are still fresh in your mind, as if, they happened just yesterday? On the other hand the joyful ones, many times, are harder to remember. This where I guess Kafka is just great, he remembers little episodes from his childhood, and relates them to the person he is now. As far as qualities were concerned Franz was a direct opposite of his father. And he makes a point how his forced silence in the childhood made him the person he was. I think this is where Kafka gets his inspiration from. The things which he was not allowed to say, came out in form of the literature that he has produced. This is why I say, that his literature is a window into his complex and sometimes surrealistic persona.

My reading of Kafka is also confirmed by others. In the Fontana dictionary of Modern Thinkers [1], it says,

Himself slim, sensitive, an intellectual, Kafka was dominated by his well built, bullet headed, businesslike father, about whom, he said, all his works were written.

The picture above appears on the front cover of the same book [1].

And in Franz's own words

My writing was all about you; all I did there, after all, was to bemoan what I could not bemoan upon your breast.

Now to the three stories themselves:

The Judgement

In this story an obedient son commits suicide

The Stoker

In The Stoker Kafka

You can think whatever you like. But morals change every time you go to a new port.

Oh, that's just the way things are; it doesn't always depends on whether a man likes it or not.

I am complaining just for the sake of complaining.

You don't listen to what I say, and then you give me advice.

Activity without end, restlessness transmitted from restless element to helpless human beings and their works!

All his strength was concentrated in his fists, including the very strength that held him upright.

And all other people here are of no consequence.




The Metamorphosis

This getting up early, he thought, can make an idiot out of anyone.

... since he was well aware his mediations, would come to no sensible conclusion if he remained in bed.

But what's the use of lying idle in bed?

... if that were possible, and saw no way of bringing any calm and order into this senseless confusion, he told himself again that it was impossible to stay in bed and most sensible course was to risk everything for the smallest hope of getting away from it.

.. he did not forget to remind himself occasionally that cool reflection, the coolest possible, was much better than desperate resolves.

Inspite of his predicament he could not suppress a smile at the very idea of it.

I'm in great difficulties, but I'll get out of them again.

Don't make things any worse for me than they already are.


Letter to His Father

Nothin alive can be calculated.

The effect you had on me was the effect you could not help having.

I couldn't pick and choose, I had to take everything.

You mistake the person for the thing.

But that joke is, in a sense no joke at all.

Between us there was no real struggle; I was so finished off; what remained was flight, embitterment, melancholy and inner struggle.

All this, however, is today only a dream.

Even in other circumstances I should probably have become a shy and nervous person, but it is a long dark road from there to where I have come.

It is not easy to find a middle way.

My writing was all about you; all I did there, after all, was to bemoan what I could not bemoan upon your breast.

Probably I am constitutionally not lazy at all, but there was nothing for me to do.

To live with such fantasies is not easy for a child.

In reality, however, the marriage plans turned out to be most grandiose and hopeful attempts at escape, and, consequently their failure was correspondingly grandiose.

That so many seem to succeed in this is no evidence to the contrary; first of all, there are not many who succeed, and second these not usually don't ``do" it, it merely happens to them; although this is not that utmost, it is still very great and very honorable.


There were certainly obstacles, as there always are, but then, life consists of confronting such obstacles.

... but they are not decisive; they do, like worms, complete the works on corpse but the decisive blow has come from elsewhere.

It is too much; so much cannot be achieved.

But if he escapes, he cannot rebuild and if he rebuilds he cannot escape.

In my hand I have nothing, in the bush everything.

But I did not ask this question but live it from it from childhood on.

Everything is entered but never balanced.

But you sit at your window when the evening falls and dream it to yourself.

A way of life so natural that is borders on existence.

Just think of how many thoughts a blanket smothers, and how many unhappy dreams it keeps warm.

Do you think I have no memories?


rooted in ordinary life, he experienced or imagined ordinary fear,
distress, frustration, to an extent that we can all empathize with
because it corresponds, if not to our actual experience, then to our
apprehensions, even our nightmares.



Metamorphosis

[0] Franz Kafka, The Sons. Schocken Books, 2000, 0805208860

[1] The Fontana Biographical Companion to Modern Thought: Alan Bullock, R B Woodings (Eds.), Fontana, 1983, 0006369650

[2]

The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I---
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

This is wonderful poem by Frost which reflects lot of my feelings about the things that I have done in my own life. I think I have taken the road not taken, but will have to wait a little longer to see where it leads me...

Dev D

Dev D
Deranged-Explosive-Violent

Saw Dev D. Had heard it and about it. Had seen it in parts, now completely. Liked the movie and the posters [they are really good too]. The story is based on one of the most [ab]used characters in the Indian cinema. Just think about the dying scene in Bhansali's DevDas. I can't stand it, but I know many who adore the performance of the King Khan in that film. Sorry. I can't. Period. It's [rather he's] not my type. Have seen the older Devs too. But, nonetheless, found them boring too. What is that fascinates directors, actors and the moviegoers to the character of DevDas. What is in the character for everybody, that again and again the character resurfaces with the cream of actors each time.

Abhay Deol has done really good work so far, I mean he is definitely much better than his two cousins. The choice of the movies that he has made over the years, and his portrayal of the characters tells his story. No need for me to certify. But the character of Dev played by Abhay is the most brilliant one he has played so far. From a boy who has everything in life in his grasp, including Paro, love of his life, to a DEVastated Dev, who is lying waste on the streets of Delhi, the journey itself is the main theme of the film and also the essence of Dev's character.

Why is that what we desire is just within our reach, but we can never reach it?

The teasing is always there...

Life is like a juicy, ripe fruit just out of our reach.

Dev has Paro [Mahie Gill], but is unable to take her. Mahie Gill plays the role of Paro well enough. The rustic charm of a गवांर jaat babe, is present in her character and in her. The thought that she has shared herself with someone is unbearable for him. This is where the first explosion is shown. The breaking of bottle on the head, is where Dev unleashes himself, from the bonds of Paro. But the bonds are too strong, to be broken. The farther she goes from him, more intense the attraction is [F = -kx ?]. Why does the thought of sharing the one you love with someone [or even something for that matter] else is just unbearable? If this was not true lot of world's problems would have not arisen. But this is the tendency of the human mind and the human kind. True as Mr. Smith says, we are like a virus [ Do viruses have a mind?].

I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
- William Shakespeare: A Mid Summer Night's Dream

Dev tells Paro, what he does not want to, its just a few moments of hate and rage, during which the silent bitterness comes out. This is one of other problems of life, you cannot tell a person how you excactly feel, the feeling is always within you, but somehow it does not find an exit. The feeling remains within you, becomes a part of you, does not depart, for there is nowhere for the feeling to exist outside you. And when you make a decision to talk about it, something else comes out, something that is not planned at all, something which has no meaning, but can be quite devastating and this is what Dev does. For me this is the "emosional atyachaar इमोसनल अत्याचार" of life. This is where Anurag Kashyap is brilliant. If it was any others formula film-maker, the scene would have had required gallons of glycerine. Dev is oblivious to the fact, even when told explicitly that he also did [ the same to] Rasika, that its the same thing Paro did. But obviously as for any self loving, self indulging person the standards for the self and the others are not the same. So is with Dev, a promiscuous Paro is not acceptable for him ...

Would a promiscuous lover be acceptable to you?

Paro more stronger than before [and definitely more than Dev] and "moves on" with life. Even when promiscuous, she has an absolute love and is mad about Dev. Dev is her first and true love. But after the Dev-debacle she first reluctantly and then whole heartedly takes the new life that comes to her post-Dev. But post-Paro Dev has no where left, so he goes to Delhi. When he is unleashed he is all around but no-where in particular, like the mists of Delhi. Life for Dev, becomes a psychedelic experience for us. The life revolves in circles in bottles of vodka, fumes of smoke from cigarretes, and the ATM. The hotel room which he lives in is a sort of mirror of Dev's own life, chaotic, orderless, yet we are somehow strangely attracted to it.

And the one encounter with Paro in Delhi, Dev again loathes her. Paro still down to Earth and still caring about Dev. [Is caring for somebody same as loving them too?] Paro does not stop his advances, but neither does she give any encouragement. [This can be really frustrating, believe me.] On the other hand, the imagery of Paro doing it with her [superman] husband is too much for Dec. This is surely इमोसनल अत्याचार.

Can you bear to see your loved one in someone else's arms?

So he again bursts, Chunni is there to handle him. And guides him to Chanda.

Enter Chanda [Kalki]. As a daughter she has "disgraced" her family and her father kills himself in shame. But Chanda emerges stronger, from all this. Post-MMS, she lives a double life, one of a prositute [A commerical sex worker if you prefer] and one of a college student, thanks to Chunni. Chanda makes a point when she says that, what right do they have to call her a slut, when they all watched "it". The character of Chunni identifies Dev as an appropriate candidate for the business he runs. In Dev, Chunni finds the ideal customer. And in Chanda, Dev finds the traces of lost love that he is looking for.

Though initially Dev loathes Chanda, she persists, in his life and his outbursts. A bond develops between them, which gives, if only vague, aim to Dev's life. So there is some relief from the Vodka bottles, but this is short lived too. Dev again unable to bear Chanda doing it to another man, walks out, literally. Again the psychedelic trance life begins. The relfections on the aviator that he wears is now his life. The neon lights of the nights are what Dev sees all around him, life is like a roller coaster ride, which only goes down, always speeding up, never slowing down, but which gives Dev a high, a high to rise above all the troubles life has presented him with.

And here we [all] wander in illusions.
- William Shakespeare: Comedy of Errors

Now that Dev has a BMW, the life speeds up. The life and the BMW gets a hit, literally. The accident scence is another brilliant stroke by the director. You would otherwise see tankloads of blood and dozens of dummies being crushed by the car... But here you see the accident from Dev's perspective, after all this film is about Dev. The scene is as it would look when you are in non-drivers seat and Dev is in drivers'. The deaths are just like bumps you would feel on a bad road. [Maybe they _are_ bumps for Dev on a bad road of life.] Overwhelmed by the experience he [rather his system] just crashes. Dev is in hospital. And in all this turmoil Sattu is dead. So Dev gets bail to attend the funeral. While coming back, Dev just runs away from the harsh realities in waiting for him back in Delhi. Dev escapes to the Himalayas, maybe seeking a nirvana, maybe just running away like a coward. Finally, his health forces him to come back to the coarse realities in Delhi.

... my pride fell with my fortunes.
- William Shakespeare As You Like It

Once the cash reserves are all gone, Dev takes to the streets literally. Paro is nowhere, neither is Chanda. Dev is and has lost. He desparately looks for Chanda, not Paro mind you, but she is nowhere to be found. Roaming aimlessly on the streets of Delhi, finally Dev finds Chanda, or is it the other way round? Anyway the end is a welcome relief from the other who followed the original DevDas blindly, without any brains good enough for their own interpretation of the story.


The story _is_ loosely based on Devdas, the novel.

Final rating 4.8 out of 5. Must see.

The Sick Rose

O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

--
William Blake


This poem is a part of William Blake's Songs of Experience published in 1794. The above image is the hand illustration of the poem as it appeared in the 1794 edition. Though a little one, this poem like Blake's other works this poem is loaded with meaning. Just give them as the key words and you will find a lot of entries explaining the meaning of the poem. Wikipedia article also gives multiple meanings to the metaphors used in the poem. Some other commentaries are here and here. As is with other things people see things in their own perspective, with the Experience that they have. No wonder that Blake put this poem of his in the Songs of Experience.

[I first read about Blake in the Rama Series by Arthur C Clarke. Blake's Tyger is recited there, after seeing the vastness of the alien space ship which is named Rama.]

We as humans try to understand the things that we see and experience as a part of the mental structures that already exist in our minds. Cognitively this is the only way in which can survive in this world. Try to imagine a world in which no new things that you see or experience are not a part of what you have in your mind.

With the comments from others apart, Blake produces two strong metaphorical views about the poem in me. These two views share lines of thoughts and they don't share some. The interpretation that we can do of these lines depends on the view of the world that we have. Everyone tries to look with the experience that they have at back of their mind. No wonder many people don't agree to what they perceive in literature.

So what are the interpretations that one can make from these lines?
[One thing is for sure, now it does not matter what Blake had in mind when he wrote this poem. The readers now can make their own interpretations, about what Blake had to say, whether he meant the same thing or not is an entirely different matter.]

O Rose, thou art sick!

In this line the word Rose is a metaphor for woman. If we take a closer look at the Rose in the illustration by Blake, we see a feminine figure metamorphosing from the Rose. So the rest of the line would imply that the woman is sick. But what kind of sickness is this?

The invisible worm That flies in the night,
In the howling storm, Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.

What can be an invisible worm? The invisible worm is the cause of the sickness of the rose. The description that Blake adds is that it flies in the night. One of the interpretations is that the worm is an metaphor for the phallus and the sickness of the Rose that is being referred to is a STD. Another of the interpretation is that the it is the act of losing of the virginity and becoming impregnated. The worm seen in this sense is the phallus. As this happens in the night the worm is seen to be flying in the night. One more interpretation for the invisible worm would be the semen, which "flies" in the night.

The howling storm in the night can very well represent the screams of pleasure or pain. In which the woman is ruined [the life destroyed], as she is now impregnated.

The word crimson is also used metaphorically. It can represent both love and blood. For the color of love is red, and that too a dark one. So is the color of blood. The bed of crimson joy can mean the actual bed where the blood of the virgin has been spilled. The other is the red womb of the woman, which has been impregnated [found] by the invisible worm [sperm].

Another interpretation is that the rose symbolizes love, and the worm but a troubled soul. The worm flying around in the night is a lover long lost but never out of one's mind. The lines

And his dark secret love,
Does thy life destroy.

May represent lovers who may not have been of actually been together, but a unified by a secret bond. These lines can also be taken to represent a secret lover who has married another. But the love still persists and is taking its toll on the woman, who is now in confusion [howling storm], as the secret lover has now [found] a place deep in her heart [the crimson bed]. Hence the life of the woman due to it [secret lover ] stands to ruin.

These are some of the few interpretations of Blake's Sick Rose, whether you agree or not it depends on you. Many of the interpretations may seem far fetched, but then Blake is such an author that you need to stretch mentally a bit in order to grasp the depth of his thoughts.

Whatever the interpretations, this is one of the most imagination provoking and concise writing I have come across. Blake makes your imagination run wild and the various scenarios unfold which makes these 8 lines come to life.

I'm not there

I'm not there...
or
I am everywhere?

Recently Samir had strongly recommended me to watch a movie called "I am Not There" and I did not get much time to watch it during the last month [He is so influenced that since he saw the movie, his away status message is "I'm Not There!"]. So finally I saw the movie. Well I did not know anything about the movie what it was about, or rather who it was about. The movie begins with short, seemingly totally disconnected shots, involving different actors and characters in different time scales and settings. This style is continued throughout the entire film. Seemingly the things are unrelated, and you get a feeling that you would probably get if you are watching six different TV channels one after the other. There seems to be no coherence, nothing which links these different stories, as not only the time frames but also the character are different. If this was made in bollywood, I guess all the roles would be played by Kamal Hassan, who has a fetish towards playing many roles in a single film. This I think saves him from trouble of showing his talents in different films as different characters, as he can show them off in just one production.

Anyway let me continue with I'm Not There. But then slowly a pattern emerges, even more subtly. What we are seeing here is just one person, who has different "phases" in life. All of us do, don't we? We are never the same person, that we were yesterday, our experience does change us. This is the meaning of being a human according to me, if you are unable to change with experience then, what is the use of your cognitive apparatus, whether innate or otherwise? Just acting wise, I loved the kid played by Marcus Carl Franklin as "Woody Guthrie", a version of the young Dylan. And Cate Blanchett was amazing, if fact I did not recognise her, till the titles came ;). She won the Golden Globe Award for her performance, in addition to several critics awards and was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award and an Academy Award. Photography was good and the music, music is the soul of the movie as it was of Bob Dylan's life...


But the movie meant more to me than that...


Yes we do have phases in our life, at a certain age we would be very strongly influenced by some philosophy or persona, but this most of the times does not last forever. How many people now say "Michael Jackson is the King of Pop!" In our childhood we have heroes and fantasy characters which we have a liking for, but they fade away with our childhood and its memories. How many things from your childhood you can remember, which you consider now as stupid? This I think applies to the our so called adult phase also, in fact I think we are all just grown up children, don't we grow up from children? We have different fads in our life and these fads represent our different phases of life. So this movie is really a longitudinal cross section of Bob Dylan's life, as seen in different perspectives. One person can have different lives, as disconnected as shown in here. This is a longitudinal view of life, in which we can demarcate the different phases, as we can see them.


But I have another question to raise here. The question is similar to the poster above. In fact this poster iconifies the question. How many different lives you can live at the same moment? Don't get it? I will put it in another way. How many different phases you are currently living in? I am not talking about the past phases or the future phases, but the current phases. The movies shows the phase changes over one's life time, but what kind of phase chagnes we do in a matter of a week or day or hours? Another important distinction that I want to add is that the phases shown in the movies were linear, by which I mean you cannot go back to earlier phase from a later one. But in our own life we do, do that.



Let me explain, what I mean here. The question is what are you, now? I can distinctly identify many different "me's" in a days work. I can be a physicist, an astronomer, a biker, a photographer, a naturalist, a cook, an artist, a designer, a bibliophile, an educationist, a teacher, a film critic, a shopper, a philosopher, an idiot, an art critic and fan, a gardener, a mathematician, a lover, a historian, a collector [of various sorts], a writer, a foodie, a rationalist....

ये जो वल्ड है ना वल्ड, ईसमें दो टाईप के लोग होते है. एक जो सारे जिंदगी एकही काम करते है, अौर दुसरे जो एक ही जिंदगी में सारे काम करते है.
ACP दशरथ सिंह, बंटी अौर बबली

All of these are part of my persona, when I look at them from without, I see them as different as they can be, they are many times totally disconnected, yet they form me, they are the part of my own persona. All these different personalities are somehow integrated to form the whole of me. Though each one of them is most of the times distinct, yet the are related. The relation is through me. Many times I feel as if all these different people are living their lives through me, I am only the medium, and have no life of my own. Or is it that I have multiple lives, and living all of them at the same time? How come these different persona's came to my life? Why I have only these not others? Does this happen with everybody?

How does one interpret all this, in the larger context of life?

Now that I have raised these questions let me tell you my answer to this. You will interpret all of this differently than I have, and I don't expect you to agree with my PoV here. I guess the next step is to integrate all of these, and have a broader picture of life. That is what you see as a physicist should be intelligible to the other you, who is not a physicist. This is one way of looking at it, but why should we mix them. It is not at all necessary to mix things, people can and do have disconnected lives, don't they? What commonality do two people working in entirely different conditions have? Is it imperative that they get each others world views?

What do you say?

How many different "you" you can identify in yourself?

What is education?

What do we mean by education?

The word 'education' can be derived from one of two latin words or from both. These words are educere, which means 'to lead out' or 'to train' and educare which means to 'to train' or 'to nourish'. But this etymology does not give us a understanding behind the term itself.

Colloquially it can mean the sort of training that goes in schools, colleges and universities.

We see some meanings by different people who were related to education and philosophy of it.

Mahatma Gandhi

Education is "an all round drawing out of the best in child and man - body, mind, and spirit."

John Dewey

Education is regarded as the development of "all those capacities in the individual, which will enable him to control his environment and fullfill his possibilities."

We see that the term education refers to two things: they point to education as the process of development of the individual form infancy to maturity a lifelong process.

J. S. Mill explains it thus:

"Not only does it include whatever we do for ourselves, and whatever is done for us by others for the express purpose of bringing us somewhat nearer to the perfection of our nature; it does more; in its last connotation it comprehends even the indirect effects of things of which the direct purposes are quite different, by laws, by forms of government, by the industrial arts, by modes of social life; nay, even by physical fact, not dependent on human will, by climate, soil and local position. Whatever helps to shape human being, to make the individual what he is, or hinder him form what he is not... is a part of his education."

This is the wider meaning of the term 'education', for the narrower meaning Mill says

"the culture which each generation purposely gives to those who are to be its successors, in order to qualify them for at least keeping up, and if possible for raising the level of improvement which has been attained."

Now we look at what are the Indian views on education. The Rig Veda [ऋग वेद] regards education as a force which makes the individual self-reliant as well as selfless. The Upanishads [ऊपनिषद] regard the result of education as being more important than its nature, the end-product of education is salvation [निर्वाण].

Panini [पाणिनी] identified as the training one obtains from nature.

Kanada [कानद] considers to be a mean of self-contentment.

Yajanvalaka [याजनवालक] regarded education as a means to the development of character and usefulness in the individual.

While Vivekanand perceived education as the manifestation of divine perfection already existing in man.

"Education should aim at man-making"

By man making it is meant formation of character, increase in power of mind, and expansion of the intellectual capacities.

While Tagore says that education should help the individual child realize in and through education, the essential unit of man and his relationship with the universe - an education for fullness.

The Indian Education Commission of 1966 says:

"Education, according to Indian tradition is not merely a means to earn a living; nor is it only a nursery of thought or a school for citizenship. It is initiation into the life of spirit, a training of human souls in pursuit of truth and practice of virtue. It is a second birth द्वियाम ज्ञानम - education for liberation."

Past this we now have a look at some Western views on the same.

Plato thought that education should enable one to attain the highest good or God, through pursuit of inherent spiritual values of truth, beauty and goodness.

Aristotle held that education exists exclusively to develop man's intellect in a world of reality which men can know and understand.

St. Thomas Aquinas considered education to be process of discerning the truth about things as they really are, and to extend and integrate such truth as it is known.

More recently behaviorists consider education as a process of conditioning, of providing stimuli, repetition, rewards and reinforcements. '

The social scientists define education as the transmission of cultural heritage - which consists of learned behavior, and includes tangible objects such as tools, clothing, etc. as well as intangible objects such as language, beliefs etc.

"Education is the transmission of knowledge, value and skills of a culture."

The meaning of the term 'education' can be summarily expressed as:

• A set of techniques for imparting knowledge, skills and attitudes.
• A set of theories which purport to explain or justify the use of these techniques.
• A set of values or ideals embodied and expressed in the purposes for which knowledge, skills and attitudes are imparted and so directing the amounts and types of training that is given.

The educational system of any society is a more or less elaborate social mechanism designed to bring about in the persons submitted to it certain skills and attitudes that are judged to be useful and desirable in the society. The gist of all the educational system can be reduced in two questions:

1. What is held valuable as an end?
2. What means will effectively realize these ends?

For ordinary day to day working of the society itself makes it necessary for its members to have certain minimum skills and attitudes in common, and imparting these skills is one of the ends of education. This minimum will be different for different societies.

So we see that in the meaning of what education is, is determined by what are the aims of education. Every educational system must have an aim, for having an aim will provide it with a direction, and make the process more meaningful. One of the objectives of education from what we have seen in the definitions above has a connection to the meaning of life, which in turn is connected to philosophy of the person at that time. Thus the aims of education are dependent on the philosophy which is prevalent in society at that time. The aims of any educational system tell us what it is for. The aims determine the entire character of the educational process: curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. Just because the aims are not explicitly stated it does not mean that they are absent. They can be both implicit and explicit, and can be embodied in the everyday practices of teachers and students, as well as in the government documents. The printing of aims of education in a document is neither necessary nor sufficient for education to have aims, since documents can be ignored.

Education can have more than one aim, so long as the aims are not mutually incompatible. It is not possible for example to aim to produce citizens who will obey the state unquestioningly and at the same time produce people who will question any proposal that they encounter. Many aims are broadly compatible but there exists certain tension. Partly, it is because some aims can be fully achieved at the expense of others. A society has to agree on the priority of the aims, which it wants its future citizens to have.

A listing of general educational aims is as follows:

1. To provide people with a minimum of the skills necessary for them [a] to take their place in the society and [b] to seek further knowledge.
2. To provide them with a vocational training that will enable them to be self-supporting.
3. To awaken an interest in and a taste for knowledge.
4. To make them critical.
5. To put them in touch with and train them to appreciate cultural and moral achievements of mankind.

But are these the normative aims of education or the descriptive ones?

Following Peters [Ethics and Education 1966], the differences between education and other human pursuits are given in three different criterion.

1. 'Education' in its fullest sense, has necessary implication that something valuable or worthwhile is going on. Education is not valuable as a means to a valuable end such as a good job, but rather because it involves those being educated being initiated into activities which are worthwhile themselves, that is, are intrinsically valuable. This is contrasted with training, which carries with it the ideas of limited application and an external goal, that is, one is trained for something for some external purpose, with 'education' which implies neither of these things
2. 'Education' involves the acquisition of a body of knowledge and understanding which surpasses mere skill, know-how or the collection of information. Such knowledge and understanding must involve the principles which underlie skills, procedural knowledge and information, and must transform life of the person being educated both in terms of the general outlook and in becoming committed to the standards inherent in the areas of education. To this body of knowledge and understanding must be added 'cognitive perspective' whereby the development of any specialism, for example in science, is seen in the context of the place of this specialism in a coherent life pattern.
3. The process of education must involve at least some understanding of what is being learnt and what is required in learning, so we could not be 'brain washed' or 'conditioned' in to education.

Well this is really an incoherent attempt to list out things that I have read about education? So far all the philosophers that I have read appear to give a normative meaning of education i.e. to say they tell us "What education ought to be..." Thus they give us what according to their philosophical outlook is the 'normal' version of education. But what I am interested in is the descriptive version; "How actually things are..." The more I look and think about the current educational system the more I think it has deviated from the aims of these great thinkers. Thus the descriptive version will tell us how much this deviation is, and also whether it is for good?