tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15129849107681597342024-03-18T07:03:48.403+05:30Where the Mind is Without Fear . . .Upamanyu Moitra's personal blog . . . And then, not too personal . . .Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.comBlogger70125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-33742733013938361922024-03-10T17:47:00.005+05:302024-03-13T16:34:46.427+05:30The Cosmic Relationship Conjecture: A Reappraisal of Christopher Nolan’s Films<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKb8sadeENn5N5-oatsS8T1aK63ir-fUnoiUjd-qbBOVQI3pHpJMEDPQIgeQ89hpLo1eTFSuYHQ3aMG9QuJTXhjnrJHXGFPV0S2VDOEbBvQcx76pZA9aommbqaMtTEp2BNdXbYTkuufj3aAEXmXozsedxwrCJX26jn1tuFndZfmQKzdicCNr1l-I_a1w/s799/7566470786_c1312a66d2_c.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="532" data-original-width="799" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKb8sadeENn5N5-oatsS8T1aK63ir-fUnoiUjd-qbBOVQI3pHpJMEDPQIgeQ89hpLo1eTFSuYHQ3aMG9QuJTXhjnrJHXGFPV0S2VDOEbBvQcx76pZA9aommbqaMtTEp2BNdXbYTkuufj3aAEXmXozsedxwrCJX26jn1tuFndZfmQKzdicCNr1l-I_a1w/w400-h266/7566470786_c1312a66d2_c.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/14721802@N06/">charlieanders2</a> on Flickr</span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Bits and pieces of the thoughts below were put in written form starting from 2014 or so. I had shared my views in several conversations with fellow film enthusiasts over the years. With the release of each new film from Christopher Nolan, I found that I had something to say and loosely put down my thoughts in my notes. Until now, I have not felt the motivation to put together my (sometimes mental) jottings over the years in a coherent form. Now, I feel, is as good a time as any other to do so, not only because it timely – with Nolan almost certainly being awarded the highest laurel by his Hollywood colleagues later today, surely accompanied with salmon and potato salad – but also because it a good juncture in time to look at the quite remarkable – and also, in my view, quite unexpected – trajectory of his filmography in the last decade or so. Needless to say, this article is riddled with spoilers, so continue reading at your own risk.</p><p>(<i>But how about Inception</i>? Yes, I still stand by every word I had written in that <a href="https://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2011/04/thoughts-on-inception.html" target="_blank">review</a> 13 years back, though I would certainly phrase some of my criticisms differently – I was just a schoolboy!)</p><p>Nolan started going in this new direction as early as <i>The Dark Knight Rises</i>, though it was not quite obvious to me upon the first watch. The film seemed strangely anomalous and haphazard, with some of its apparent deficiencies calling attention to themselves, which seemed to be quite inconsistent with my idea of Nolan as a filmmaker trying to show off his intellect to the audience with very precise – if convoluted – logical framework and clockwork precision of the narratives. Nearly all his previous films were emblematic of these tendencies, although the exquisitely built house-of-cards narrative often fell apart on closer inspection (take for instance, the contrivances in the Joker’s elaborately designed plan in <i>The Dark Knight</i>). In <i>Rises</i>, however, some of the plot holes were so prominently on exhibit that the film looked, uh, quite risible. It took me a while to appreciate that such glaring inconsistencies might have been left there somewhat “on purpose” because the maker’s attention was elsewhere. (I put the quotes in the previous sentence because I think it is often difficult to be certain about someone’s artistic intentions, even for the artist herself/himself). <span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqcruyNL5_kvhFOq8rdU4DGOWXIBWGq0y3RUuSAAVRs58jC-kaAMGp07dYAQZuE1YqzxlToZX5tsFzwt_hnrBTvDVj4j_oj3FQumR5Hg-iV062lJ29-X5sH1BmaXjztqQ-tpqjznUB1UnDUjgCeUdbvUno_2BJKnbU0n0BofRFQm0fLCQIiyQH6pQARQ/s1920/dark-knight-prison.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqcruyNL5_kvhFOq8rdU4DGOWXIBWGq0y3RUuSAAVRs58jC-kaAMGp07dYAQZuE1YqzxlToZX5tsFzwt_hnrBTvDVj4j_oj3FQumR5Hg-iV062lJ29-X5sH1BmaXjztqQ-tpqjznUB1UnDUjgCeUdbvUno_2BJKnbU0n0BofRFQm0fLCQIiyQH6pQARQ/w400-h225/dark-knight-prison.webp" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>For a director so enamoured of literalism, as is evident in his previous works, it was quite a pleasant surprise to find him exploring symbolic trajectories at the expense of strict logical coherence. Take Bruce Wayne/Batman’s escape from the pit for instance – why would a person be locked away in a prison of such a ludicrous kind? How would the Batman return to his city when it is completely isolated from the rest of the world? Why would the entire police force of a city be sent to underground tunnels at the same time? The only conceivable answer to all the previous questions, at least to me, is that <i>these do not matter</i> and the sole purpose of these contrivances is for their maker to concentrate on the bigger picture – i.e., the ascent of a middle-aged has-been from the abyss he has created for himself. The film actually makes full sense even when it makes no sense. </p><p>It is also worth making a comment on the politics of this film, in particular in relation to those Nolan made previously. Up until this point at least, Nolan seemed to be more interested invoking the zeitgeist as opposed to adhering to some coherent set of principles. Consider for example, the flip-flop between positions (whether you agree with them or not) espoused in the endings of <i>Insomnia</i> and <i>The Dark Knight</i>, and how this position is overturned again in <i>The Dark Knight Rises</i> (one of the reasons of my frustrations with Nolan’s early work). In this film, the Nolan brothers (Jonathan Nolan co-wrote the script) appeared to be inspired more by classical literature (<i>A Tale of Two Cities</i> is cited both implicitly and explicitly) than by contemporary political events – which lends the film a sense of timelessness. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the film is somewhat prescient in anticipating the shifting landscape of public discourse.</p><p>All this is not to say that my admiration for the film was unqualified. Nolan still favoured belaboured exposition instead of trusting his images to convey his meaning – the gravity of the Batman’s sacrifice had to be diminished with a ludicrous “<i>And that’s the detonation!</i>” (or something like that) as though the audiences could not “get” that. All said and done, for all its flaws, I would be hard pressed to recall another mainstream film among its contemporaries which is as emblematic of its era – the same holds true for <i>The Dark Knight</i> as well.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4GuqC2tf4GiVTouwp42UnhNN6BvDW8Tw6CZMG7L6nB5BGQa__Wdt3c42qV2aMjiCBM6hyphenhyphen_zHmAm9RuKZc0wd_Nt7Uuz2CSTfTbDA8Zu_T_l0sbe-vO-6TRAlVuTcv_0sOGFfSRppGrxGi6T_IPx62z95Rtld-un5SjRsZ906LEGnPWhy3LDWgSzE8jA/s2867/interstellar.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1579" data-original-width="2867" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4GuqC2tf4GiVTouwp42UnhNN6BvDW8Tw6CZMG7L6nB5BGQa__Wdt3c42qV2aMjiCBM6hyphenhyphen_zHmAm9RuKZc0wd_Nt7Uuz2CSTfTbDA8Zu_T_l0sbe-vO-6TRAlVuTcv_0sOGFfSRppGrxGi6T_IPx62z95Rtld-un5SjRsZ906LEGnPWhy3LDWgSzE8jA/w400-h220/interstellar.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>The Dark Knight Rises</i> gave me some food for scepticism about my previously held thoughts about Nolan – <i>Interstellar</i>, on the other hand, converted me into a complete believer. Not only did the overall aesthetics in Nolan’s films show a noticeable shift from this point onwards – not coincidentally, with Hoyte Van Hoytema replacing the long-time Nolan collaborator Wally Pfister as the cinematographer – the overall focus of his narratives shifted dramatically. Under the (very glossy) cover of high-concept science fiction, this film was consciously putting forward in full public view the anxieties and insecurities of its maker, as all great works of art do. The film was Spielbergian in its unabashed embrace of sentimentalism – and actually happened to do it better than Spielberg in his heyday. (A related aside: the film was initially supposed be directed by Spielberg before Nolan took over.)</div><p>The essence of the film lies not in its admirable semi-realistic treatment of actual physics (apart from its ending, more about which later), but in the filial bond at the centre of the movie. For a filmmaker so infatuated with detailed expositions, the complete omission of the backstory of what made earth uninhabitable was a step in the right direction. All the contrivances in the film are at the service of the central pillar of the narrative. Take the explorers’ journey to the first planet outside the black hole for instance, where they meet with an unpleasant surprise waiting for them. If the science, namely gravitational time dilation, was actually taken seriously by the characters in the film, they would have done all the calculations that would have prevented them from going to the planet in the first place. However, the characters’ lack of experience with general relativity not only results in a thrilling action sequence in the middle of the film but also leads to perhaps the single most emotionally resonant sequence in all of Nolan’s filmography, suitably aided by Hans Zimmer’s haunting score. I am referring of course to the extraordinary sequence of Matthew McConaughey receiving more than two decades worth of messages from his family with the camera fixated on his sobs for a good minute or so – I would be hard pressed to think of a better metaphor of the personal costs of an individual in pursuit of a career (even if the "career" in this case has to do with saving humankind).</p><p>Many films have been cited as inspiration for <i>Interstellar</i>, but I believe the appropriate companion piece for this film is M. Night Shyamalan’s masterpiece <i>Signs</i>. In very different scenarios, both the films are about the struggles of a widower (let's not venture into the topic of dead wives in Nolan’s filmography) with faith in the face of the threat of extinction of his family – the only thing in his world with any meaning. In the end, both the films say, Everything Happens for a Reason and there is no such thing as pure chance. However, I must say that even with my lack of religiosity, I find Shyamalan’s invocation of god in Signs more palatable than the strictly atheistic-materialistic outcome here. The wristwatch with the randomly moving hands is actually Morse code sent by your father who has plunged into a rotating black hole in a different galaxy with direct view of your bedroom (!) and this code simultaneously solves quantum gravity and saves humanity? How nice. In any case, there is a chuckle to be had when the secret formula for saving humanity turns out be 10D supergravity action in the string frame. If you are not a string theorist, it’s OK if you are unmoved by this. (Another aside: the title of this article was conceived nearly a decade back in relation to <i>Interstellar</i> – it refers to the (strong) cosmic censorship conjecture, since the lead character jumps into a rotating black hole. Sorry, enough physics for this paragraph.)</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigPvMt6SRKN2m5Lu2cRLOypophStujUZ8G4YbDdBTIQ5tfJIhSBiELC2qzM2PEvhza6JwU_lJVEKC0cbSdnsquxlA9ikkLODNTeNS-wE6Tg8xYjsWl12rTdMpcNEcUSFeuU4x36YDiXu3nwQSVzPGpaSxjL5SQDwgyvhdJfrYGNsVUAU7EHcAKjjh1oA/s1024/Dunkirk.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="618" data-original-width="1024" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigPvMt6SRKN2m5Lu2cRLOypophStujUZ8G4YbDdBTIQ5tfJIhSBiELC2qzM2PEvhza6JwU_lJVEKC0cbSdnsquxlA9ikkLODNTeNS-wE6Tg8xYjsWl12rTdMpcNEcUSFeuU4x36YDiXu3nwQSVzPGpaSxjL5SQDwgyvhdJfrYGNsVUAU7EHcAKjjh1oA/w400-h241/Dunkirk.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>It was clear from <i>Interstellar</i> than Nolan was slowly gravitating towards pure cinema, but I was really unprepared for the act of extreme audacity that was <i>Dunkirk</i>. Here was a director who could proceed with his patented formulas of success (sci-fi, intense psychological dramas and what-not) and he chose to make a $150 million experimental film that would not have been out-of-place in the arthouse circuit, save its scope and ambition. He eliminated all his usual flaws in narrative construction in a single stroke – he got rid of the narrative itself. This was a war movie to end all war movies. This film did not even have a heroic protagonist for audience identification, let alone an adversary to root against. Yet again, Nolan forgoes any backstory to land his audience directly in the middle of the action. In an age of inanities that have debased the meaning of cinematic experience, this film was particularly striking for its singular focus on making its audience experience the present moment. It is not such a surprise that the film does not elicit any particularly strong emotional reaction, because there was nothing to anchor our emotions to apart from the sensory treat offered by the immediacy of the images and the rich soundscape, with all war-movie tropes neatly upturned along the way for good measure. This film might already be film-school material for all I know, with its innovative cross-cutting (which served a somewhat lesser purpose in <i>Inception</i>) and formal experiments with cinematic time. Each viewing has been as rewarding for me as any other. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj29jglDoZ_ulX68TgBNpvVZcgtKllht6FQn6zrgN2PgEnhf2yOO3dsvJVwsNETS10GcWdo_9xDn_JRWgJgSYoPVcc374-Q6qK8DL-yEJNk-XWflC9PuUpa3JPYXYW7HyjjZBG3SenHC6C5ow3MPUVbU-OZ3yRYQw5mdQNJqEiCxevMfojAWVzwQpRImw/s1600/Tenet.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj29jglDoZ_ulX68TgBNpvVZcgtKllht6FQn6zrgN2PgEnhf2yOO3dsvJVwsNETS10GcWdo_9xDn_JRWgJgSYoPVcc374-Q6qK8DL-yEJNk-XWflC9PuUpa3JPYXYW7HyjjZBG3SenHC6C5ow3MPUVbU-OZ3yRYQw5mdQNJqEiCxevMfojAWVzwQpRImw/w400-h225/Tenet.webp" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Nolan’s next film, <i>Tenet</i>, was as much of a bold experiment as <i>Dunkirk</i> was, if not more. However, in combining this experiment with a bare-bones narrative and his not-so-secret fondness for pulpy thrillers, he ended up winking at his audience in more ways than one and violating many sacred tenets of filmmaking with a fascinating outcome. Unfortunately for him, this experiment ended up alienating most of his loyal audiences (at least anyone with whom I have had any conversation on this movie) expecting the clever plot mechanics that characterised his early work. The key to this film, in my view, lies in Nolan’s very commendable off-screen efforts to preserve celluloid as a medium – which to him is synonymous with the art of cinema itself. In the same vein as <i>Dunkirk</i>, <i>Tenet</i> is an exercise in pure cinematics, with a restoration of the primal meaning of the cinema – descending from the Greek word for motion, “kinesis”. And what a dazzling exercise it is! </p><p>In spite of my aforementioned inhibitions with analysing authorial intent, let me imagine how Nolan might have conceived <i>Tenet</i>: the idea must have taken root at some point in an editing suite, where films play out as much in the forward direction as backwards. With his fascination for all things related to time, he must have wondered if temporal inversion has as much power to engage the audience in a darkened movie theatre. At some point during the making of <i>Interstellar</i>, Kip Thorne must have told Nolan about a crazy idea (one of the many) from his doctoral supervisor, the great physicist John Archibald Wheeler. This idea, which goes by the name of “one-electron universe” posits that all the different particles in the universe are the one and same particle – only half of them are travelling back in time! Nolan must have realised the immense cinematic potential of this idea and worked his way (forwards and backwards) from there on.</p><p>Viewers need not have despaired over the fact that they did not understand the film – the film was, pardon the repetition, about the experience itself and not meant to be understood. The key set-piece in the film involving a flight between the same person, going forward and backward in time, is as meticulously conceived as it is exhilarating. (Talk about fighting the demons within you!) John David Washington as the Protagonist is one of the most interesting, well, protagonists in the Nolan universe – who takes it all easy despite having to shoulder the responsibility of the arrow of time of the Universe. Nolan, too, I daresay, takes it easy and has fun with the material for a change. The opening set-piece establishes the James Bond-like ethos of the film (<i>The Dark Knight Rises</i>, too, had begun with a nod to James Bond). The on-screen chemistry of Washington and Pattinson gave the film its many light moments. In a wink to his critics, Nolan also subtly inverts his dead-wife trope, with the dying husband responsible for all the ills this time around. It is a pity that a film of such visceral intensity found so little love.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiJ_qbUknf1Ow7xxp856n3IH_2hG3I7VMAbmhbIBIkUNSwuP1gA_UMveUXFwHdTqYaFhnERohanJ8aBYAZwyVSHf1bLxIFURd4mgxmFKHBXAB_AaWwBUEnKoVOrKXmTLiyj6JSPIZ12g0q0uKjmZIdBMtppN2-sEN3TgWPQ8hzAMNbmpgsscT3OwRR9A/s1000/oppenheimer.webp" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="1000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiJ_qbUknf1Ow7xxp856n3IH_2hG3I7VMAbmhbIBIkUNSwuP1gA_UMveUXFwHdTqYaFhnERohanJ8aBYAZwyVSHf1bLxIFURd4mgxmFKHBXAB_AaWwBUEnKoVOrKXmTLiyj6JSPIZ12g0q0uKjmZIdBMtppN2-sEN3TgWPQ8hzAMNbmpgsscT3OwRR9A/w400-h225/oppenheimer.webp" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image Credit: Universal Pictures</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>When I learned that Nolan’s next film was going to be an Oppenheimer biopic, I was slightly apprehensive. Since I have read quite a bit about Oppenheimer and other scientists of his era, this sounded like a regression – a return to the familiar terrain for Nolan. There being so much in common between Oppenheimer and some of Nolan’s previous protagonists, I wondered what new he could say. And was I wrong! In spite of these commonalities, Nolan upended all biopic tropes and gave his most impressive contribution to cinema so far – I agree with Paul Schrader’s assessment of <i>Oppenheimer</i> being the most important film of our times. I might have to write more about this magnificent film more elaborately at a later point.</p><div><div>As if anticipating the question I posed in the previous paragraph, Nolan puts his audience in the shoes of his protagonist as a new device. It is a WWII film like no other – if <i>Dunkirk</i> had no point of audience identification, it is present in <i>Oppenheimer</i> with such ferocious intensity that it becomes seriously discomfiting, thanks in no small measure to Hoyte Van Hoytema’s extraordinary photography. (It was not surprise to me when I later learned that Nolan wrote the “Fission” part in the screenplay in the first person.) Given the subject matter, I was concerned that one of the most dreadful events of the twentieth century might be offered as a spectacle with little room for reflection or introspection. The first-person nature of the narrative (thankfully, without any voiceover), however, obviated this worry and even the inevitable spectacle of the test that Oppenheimer witnesses is reduced in potency by its careful positioning in the middle of the film. The victory speech that follows is staged as a frightening horror film with thunderous silence from the fellow filmgoers in the two continents that I saw the film in. Here was a man who had to spend the remainder of his living days knowing that this time, he could not take the poisoned apple back no matter how much he wished.</div><div><br /></div><div>The real preoccupation of the film, quite unexpectedly, lay in the minutiae of personal interactions and in the inherent politics of such interactions. (Nolan’s perception of academic politics is surprisingly authentic.) Nolan’s illustration of various contrasts could be considered humorous if it weren’t so horrific – particularly shaking was the masterful staging of sequence in which the decision to terminate the lives of hundreds of thousands of people is predicated on the whim of someone who had his honeymoon somewhere. Nolan’s brutal, unsparing approach makes this a deeply relevant film for our times, with catastrophic threats against humanity being bandied about. While Nolan does repeat some of his old tropes (the dead wife is transposed to a dead girlfriend), his approach feels quite fresh – this is essentially the first time I have seen Nolan entertain the idea that sex life can be a window to a person’s soul. The ending of <i>Oppenheimer</i> could have been many things – I am quite amused that the central mystery involves Oppenheimer’s conversation with an old, long-past-his-prime physicist. Einstein’s final explanation to Oppenheimer is a gem of writing. </div><div><br /></div><div>I eagerly look forward to seeing what Nolan does next, for he is become an Artist, a creator of (cinematic) worlds.</div></div>Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com0Trieste, Province of Trieste, Italy45.6495264 13.776818217.339292563821154 -21.3794318 73.959760236178852 48.9330682tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-47815456324230960712018-03-17T21:44:00.000+05:302018-03-17T21:44:25.559+05:30A Different Delta<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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(<i>I had written this piece a little over a year ago, for an online magazine. However, the editorial team suggested some truly bizarre edits -- some of which were ideological in nature -- which would have disfigured my original article beyond recognition. Since I was not able to bring myself to subscribe to such exacting standards, the article was not published. Here is the article I had submitted, with almost no modifications; I have included and highlighted a silly error I had made.</i>)</div>
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No, dear reader, I am not referring to the dreaded deltas you may have thought about. The delta I am talking about belongs neither to Dirac, nor to Kronecker – but to the people who are fighting an interminable battle for survival – day in and day out. I am talking, of course, about the Sundarbans, the largest delta in the world, on the Bay of Bengal. I had the wonderful opportunity of visiting remote villages in the Sundarbans and extensively interacting with their inhabitants, as I accompanied my mother on her trips to the Sundarbans for her many research projects.<br />
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My visits to the Sundarbans from my childhood have been an eye-opening experience for me – an experience that, more than any other, underlined the stark differences in privileges enjoyed between the people in that world and those in mine. Given the sad state of affairs the world is in – has always been in – we have become inured to the fact that some people live a harder life than others do. However, when it comes to the Sundarbans, “struggle for survival” is not just a throwaway phrase – it acquires a very tangible meaning. It is not only the socioeconomic situation that makes the lives of the inhabitants miserable; the most ruthless adversary they have to battle is Nature herself. Tigers, crocodiles, deadly serpents are part of their lives on a day-to-day basis. The region is ravaged by storms, cyclones, floods very frequently. Deadly diseases are rampant. In recent times, the region has been hit most severely by climate change, as rising sea levels have made several islands uninhabitable – displacing countless people.<br />
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It is a near-impossible task for me to describe the myriad complexities of the Sundarbans – and I have witnessed only a small fraction of it. In this article, I want to discuss an aspect of the Sundarbans that has fascinated me the most – its culture. To me, it is nothing short of incredible that people living such a precarious existence would protect and nurture their cultural heritage so lovingly. Mind you, their cultural activity is not merely a form of escapism – it is firmly rooted in the realities of their existence. It is nothing other than their assertion of survival.<br />
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Three goddesses reign supreme in the cultural milieu of the Sundarbans – Banbibi, Manasa and Shitala. According to the people of the Sundarbans, Banbibi saves them from the menace of tigers, Manasa from snakebites and Shitala from deadly diseases. All these deities have performance forms (known as <i>pala</i>s) dedicated to them. The forms, growing out of propitiatory rituals, have now metamorphosed into independent performative forms, rigorously nurtured and practised as manifestations of religious faith and devotion.<br />
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Of the three goddesses, Banbibi – the Lady of the Forests – is unique to the Sundarbans for obvious reasons. Incredible as it may seem, Banbibi is worshipped by Hindu and Muslim communities alike. The people of the Sundarbans, therefore, illustrate the perfect example of a closely-knit community, which has essentially dissolved any extraneous factors of division -- an example, if emulated widely, would make the world a much happier place. God, to these people, is not an abstract entity ruling them from up above the skies – divine beings are as real as you and me. I was able to understand how important the goddess was to the people in a conversation with a villager who had once managed to escape from a tiger. He was caught by a tiger in the river when he went to the forest for collecting honey. According to him, the tiger released him the moment he shouted the name of the goddess. The villager did not appear to suffer from any delusion – the wound left by the tiger was still visible. “Banbibi keeps saving us this way,” echoed other members of his community. Who were we to say otherwise?<br />
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The performance forms dedicated to Shitala were very interesting as well. Shitala is worshipped to keep all deadly diseases, most importantly pox, at bay. One can find temples devoted to Shitala even in Kolkata – including one near my home. The most curious aspect of the Shitala <i>pala</i> was the similarities -- and the dissimilarities – between the tunes that emerge from the small Shitala temples in the city and those heard in the <i>pala</i>.<br />
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The worship of Manasa, to me, is the most notable one to me in several respects – primarily because it offers a valuable case study in differences of perception. The legend of Manasa goes something like this: Manasa, the abandoned daughter of Lord Shiva, (this varies from legend to legend: according to some legends, she is the daughter of sage Kashyap) tries hard to be accepted as a goddess. In order to gain acceptance as a goddess, she must first be worshipped by Chand Sadagar, the rich merchant and devotee of Shiva. Strong-willed as he is, Chand Sadagar is steadfast in his refusal to worship the vile and vicious Manasa. He is ultimately coerced into worshipping her after Manasa kills all <strike>her</strike> his children.<br />
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Chand Sadagar is celebrated as a symbol of triumph of humanity against the divine by the urban atheists (a category to which I consider myself to belong). In fact, Sombhu Mitra, one of the most illustrious playwrights of Bengal, celebrates the virtues of Chand Sadagar in his most acclaimed play, <i>Chand Baniker Pala</i>. The perception of the people in the Sundarbans, however, is completely different. From their perspective, it is Manasa who is the victim. Manasa, the mother who protects them from serpents, is the one wronged by everyone else, they think. She is the symbol of resistance against oppression by the upper castes – a cruel reality that is as true today as it was five hundred years ago. “What wrong did Manasa do?” they ask.<br />
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Watching a performance dedicated to Manasa is simply enthralling. Without expensive visual effects or nameless body doubles at their disposal, they take a live snake in the mouth for the performance (as shown in the image; small trivia: the actor was rehearsing the performance for us in front of car headlights, as there was no electricity) – this is how important the ceremony is to them. As I have said before, the performative forms are not merely a source of entertainment for these people – well it does entertain them, but it is so much more! In a certain sense, this is how they are able to make their lives meaningful. The labourer who incessantly toils in the field through the day gets to enact the role of a rich merchant in the evening and in doing so, pays tribute to the entity that he thinks keeps him safe. How many of us can claim to lead such a meaningful life?<br />
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The people in the villages are an epitome of kindness and warmth. The way they received and greeted us was wonderful -- they were like long-lost family members. Meeting them was as much emotionally fulfilling as witnessing their adverse situation was heart-breaking. Their indomitable spirit is something every human being should be inspired by.<br />
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I have not been to the Sundarbans in quite a while. I am now closer to the Arabian Sea than to the Bay of Bengal. But as I take the customary evening walk by the shore, a distant boat sometimes evokes even more distant memories. The people would then be heading back home after yet another hazardous day and prepare for their next performance, I guess. I wonder when I would be seeing them next. What if they could come and meet me <i>here</i>? Can’t the rest of the country know and get encouraged by how lovingly they preserve their cultural heritage? The Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal become indistinguishable for a moment, before I remember that I have to get all the Dirac and Kronecker deltas right for the next assignment.</div>
Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-54097089782968721282015-05-17T17:27:00.000+05:302015-05-19T18:14:07.243+05:30Published Elsewhere: One Hundred Years of Exactitude<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
[<i>I had written this article in article earlier this year, for the souvenir of the 42nd Reunion of the Physics Department of my university.</i>]<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Most Distant Gravitational Lens J1000+0221<br />
[Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. van der Wel (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy)]</td></tr>
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">One Hundred Years of Exactitude</span></h2>
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<i>A look at the scientific method in the centenary year of Einstein’s general relativity</i></div>
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What does a genius look like? With pictures of Einstein at our disposal, this question has been rather easy to answer for the past hundred years or so. We think we know what makes a genius: an apparently unorthodox “brilliance” coupled with myriad eccentricities – or in other words, a madman who got lucky. We often mistake complicated for complex and the notion that Einstein’s achievements are profound because of their seeming indecipherability is so widespread that it has become absolutely essential to rescue Einstein from the tag of “genius”. Otherwise, how do we distinguish between Einstein and the kind of “genius” who philosophises about space, time, existence, human condition and whatnot in a state of intoxication? (It is not uncommon, even in the second decade of the 21st century, to find Einstein equated to that other sort of “genius”, even in many “reputed” quarters.) Why then does Einstein’s work deserve our respect? The answer is not very difficult to understand at all.<br />
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In 1905, arguably the most sacred year in the history of physics, Einstein published four papers (known as the <i>Annus mirabilis</i> papers) which would change the way we look at physics. It is often emphasised that Einstein shook the very foundation of all that went before him. What almost invariably goes unmentioned is the fact that his new foundation was based on the old one. It is often claimed that Einstein introduced the principle of relativity in physics with his special theory of relativity. This is laughably wrong. The principle of relativity was a cornerstone even in Newtonian mechanics, which went by the name of Galilean relativity. In fact, special relativity had to be formulated <i>because</i> the principle of relativity was threatened. In the words of Steven Weinberg, “the principle of relativity was not originated by the special theory of relativity, but rather restored by it”. Many think that Einstein’s theory tells us that everything is relative and tend to apply this ill-defined (also completely false) notion to different fields, usually with disastrous consequences. If special relativity tells us anything, it is the absoluteness of physical laws which retain the same form for all observers moving with uniform velocity with respect to one another.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Even if Einstein had published any one of his <i>Annus mirabilis</i> papers (actually, two of the four papers were closely linked), it can be said with certainty that we would still be paying tributes to him today. What he did next was even more astounding. Einstein’s formulation of general relativity, a generalisation of the principle of relativity to include gravitation, is justly celebrated as the peak of human intellectual achievement. General relativity perfectly illustrates how simple physical ideas, rigorous theoretical framework and extremely sophisticated experiments can come together to form a grand unified totality (pun unintended).<br />
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Einstein developed his theory of general relativity on one simple idea, based on one experimental fact. It appeared from several accurate experiments that inertial and gravitational masses (these are two different definitions of mass) of a body are always equal, although there is absolutely no reason for them to be so. This fact led Einstein to formulate what is known as the principle of equivalence in 1907, which asserts that it is impossible to distinguish between a gravitational field and an accelerated reference frame locally. It is remarkable that Einstein was not able to achieve what he wanted with this principle. It shows that even the most powerful physical idea is of little use to us unless we have the right tools to express this idea. And what is a better medium of expression for a theoretical physicist than mathematics?<br />
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History of science shows that collaboration between people of different branches often leads to path-breaking results. We should be thankful to the Swiss mathematician Marcel Grossman, Einstein’s friend, for giving Einstein just the tool he needed. Bernhard Riemann, a nineteenth-century German mathematician developed the so-called Riemannian geometry, describing spaces which are Euclidian (flat) locally, but not globally. Einstein realised the deep connection between the properties of this geometry and his principle of equivalence. Armed with the formalism of tensor calculus developed by the Italian mathematician Tulio Levi-Civita, Einstein was able to formulate his elegant theory of gravity in a coordinate-independent way. In November 1915, Einstein presented his findings to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.<br />
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At this point, one may rightly ask what good is any theory, however elegant, if it cannot describe nature as she appears before us? In this respect, too, general relativity has been a grand success. So far, it has passed every experimental test with full marks. Ironically enough, the experiment that first claimed to verify the validity of general relativity (the bending of light by the Sun) later turned out to be highly imprecise. But all other subsequent experiments, which were very accurate, indicated that Einstein was certainly a true genius.<br />
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So, a hundred years later, where do we stand? Research in general relativity is still a very active field, both in terms of theory and experiment. The Einstein equations predict gravitational waves, just as the Maxwell equations predict electromagnetic ones. Enormous experimental efforts to find such waves are currently underway, in which our country is a proud participant. Quantising gravity is a major challenge in theoretical physics.<br />
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It is quite possible that general relativity would eventually be proven “wrong” by some other better theory. But that does not mean we should abandon it altogether. Again, history of science shows that we need to push a “wrong” theory to its extreme in order to discover the “correct” ones: Newtonian mechanics, for example. Richard Feynman said that American Civil War would eventually pale into “provincial insignificance” in comparison to the discovery of the Maxwell equations in the same era. The same can perhaps be said for the First World War and general relativity. It is worth remembering the achievements of Einstein as a guide for our unending exploration.</div>
Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-42841323385773280272015-05-14T19:09:00.000+05:302015-05-19T17:28:07.171+05:30Published Elsewhere: The Trouble with Hitch<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
[<i>I had written this article in 2013, when I was in the second year of my undergraduate course, for the souvenir of the 40th Reunion of the Physics Department of my university. This was written in haste </i>–<i> at my seniors' insistence </i>– <i>and I think it shows. I hope I will be able write much longer articles on Hitch.</i>]<br />
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">The Trouble with Hitch</span></h2>
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August 2012 was a very important month for film enthusiasts all over the world – the prestigious British film magazine, <i>Sight & Sound</i>, published the results of its worldwide poll (nearly 1400 critics and director were polled) for the “Greatest Films of All Time”. The list sprung a surprise for many: Orson Welles’ <i>Citizen Kane</i> (1941), considered for decades the best among the best, was dethroned by Alfred Hitchcock’s <i>Vertigo</i> (1958). But Hitchcock’s ascent to the top spot was quickly digested. Everyone accepted that the artistry of Hitchcock is beyond the shadow of a doubt.<br />
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But should we accept that so easily? If I have learned something from my study of physics so far, it’s the important of asking questions. Physics has taught me to reject numinous vagueness, strangely appealing as it may be, in favour of clarity and precision. Before we get into the question of whether or not Hitchcock is a great artist, it’s essential to ask who a great artist is or what great art is. Let alone “art”, we are not even sure what “great” is. It’s a very subjective idea which is susceptible to wild misinterpretations. For example, the <i>S&S</i> poll is a survey of the personal favourites of the people polled. But to call the results the “List of Greatest Films of All Time” does an enormous disservice to great films, and to lists. We’ll not debate the problematic nature of such lists here. The curious thing is most of us take it for granted that such lists truly represent the greatest films. We like them or not, we are forced to acknowledge that, <i>yes, the films are truly great</i>.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>The problem stems from our concept of art as a sacred entity the value of which must never be questioned. That is why today we find an ever-increasing distinction between mainstream films and art films. (The sooner we shed this distinction the better.) The real artistic films, it is widely believed today, are the ones that have long unbroken shots, meditations on metaphysics, no background music and certainly no humour. I’m not demeaning films with such attributes – indeed, many of my favourite films are filled with these – all I’m saying is: these cannot be qualifiers of great art and can only add to the confusion. At this point, I must assert that I don’t claim to know what great art is. I doubt whether this question can ever be validly answered. But I think it is possible to identify some aspects of art without entirely stripping it of its essence. For one, I think life and art are not mutually independent. As a logical consequence, art must <i>say</i> something about our lives, even if it cannot be expected to <i>do</i> anything. But as in science, any solution of the problem (i.e. doing) must begin with identifying it (i.e. saying). In this respect, the genre of horror/suspense films, usually considered lowbrow, reveals to me deeper truths of life than do “Great Films”.<br />
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This brings us to Hitchcock. He was a popular genre filmmaker and was unashamed of it. The contemporary reception of his films was mostly dismissive. His films were popular but he never bowed to popular conventions, which sets him apart from today’s popular filmmakers who insist on reinforcing everything we already know and accept without doubt. They offer nothing more than mindless, time-killing “entertainment”. Hitch (as the Master preferred to be called), on the other hand, shows great concern with the world he inhabits and, most important of all, tries to make his audience aware of these concerns in a simultaneously subtle and entertaining way. And this is what, in my opinion, elevates him to the level of a great artist.<br />
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Let’s consider his thriller <i>Rear Window</i> (1954), for example. It is a simple and engrossing murder mystery which perfectly satisfies the hunger of a thrill-seeking audience. But then, it’s something more. Hitch never pleases the audience without winking at them. (Do you expect to see the Hero confined to a wheelchair through the length of a mainstream film even today?) Hitchcock took great pride in playing his audience “like an organ”. The film raises important questions on how far art and life are connected. The apartments in <i>Rear Window</i> are a brilliant microcosm of the modern world. Like the audience in a movie theatre, we savour the happenings in the world as exciting scenes, but never really care about it. That’s what he seems to be saying in this film. I won’t spoil the film for those who haven’t seen it, but like all of Hitchcock’s films, it’s immensely rewarding.<br />
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Let’s now come to his most popular work, <i>Psycho</i> (1960). Described as a lowbrow horror film upon release, it gained unparalleled acclaim from its audience. It’s a powerful statement on sin, punishment and loneliness but all in the guise of a murder mystery! It retains its nail-biting suspense even after you’ve seen it a hundred times.<br />
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Hitchcock once compared himself to Shakespeare, in terms of communicating to the audience. He was right. It should not be forgotten that Shakespeare’s plays were very popular in his day. But his talent was not considered special then. Today we celebrate him as an important artist but no longer remember the purpose his plays were intended for. (Shakespeare is not exactly “popular” today, in the usual sense, no?) Hitchcock is one of greatest innovators of all time; let’s not reduce him to just another Important Artist!<br />
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Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-37249979737407602902015-05-12T19:11:00.000+05:302015-05-18T19:31:20.054+05:30Published Elsewhere: Physics is Always Right and Always Wrong<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
[<i>As promised, this is the second article of mine I have dug up. I had written this piece sometime in 2013, when I was in the second year of my undergraduate course, for the alumni magazine of my high school</i>]<br />
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Physics is Always Right and Always Wrong</span></h2>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
On what scientific attitude really is</h4>
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George Bernard Shaw once said, "Science is always wrong. It never solves a problem without creating ten more." He was absolutely right. Science <i>is</i> always wrong. I have to say that science <i>has to be always wrong</i>. Indeed, in its very capability of being always wrong does lie the essential rightness of science. That is also precisely what distinguishes it from any religion or dogma which must be true because, well, it has to be true. So it naturally follows that in science there is neither any sacred text, nor any god sitting atop Mount Olympus. But there do exist some very fundamental principles and some giants on whose shoulders we must support ourselves, and rise higher.<br />
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A very recent example will make it clearer. In September 2011, the physicists conducting the OPERA experiment (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) in Italy sent shockwaves through the scientific world by announcing the stunning results of their experiments with neutrino, an electrically neutral, almost massless fundamental particle. The result of their experiments suggested that the neutrinos were travelling faster than light! It was violating one of the most well known rules in all of physics, one of the two fundamental postulates formulated by Albert Einstein in his path-breaking special theory of relativity in 1905. <br />
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Naturally, the results got widespread public attention. How could it be possible? How could Einstein, the very epitome of genius, be proven wrong? I remember not-very-helpful comments on social networking sites to the effect of: "Physicists pretend that they know everything and physics is ultimate. If Einstein is wrong, physics loses all its credibility and authority. We should therefore not believe in physics and turn our attention to [something else]." The physics community received the news with immense scepticism, voiced its serious doubts on the result and repeatedly emphasised the need for further experiments before making arriving at any conclusion. These two views perfectly illustrate the difference between physics and "something else". <br />
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<a name='more'></a>The physicists were not concerned with the results violating physical laws formulated by Einstein simply because they came from Einstein. They were sceptical because Einstein’s theory has been verified by hundreds of experiments and thus has become a central pillar of modern physics. Experimenting is what lies at the root of a natural science like physics. (Do look up what Richard Feynman, arguably the most famous theoretical physicist on the twentieth century, had to say about the definition of natural science in the <i>Feynman Lectures</i>.) It is the experimental results which guide the physicists and the physicists, in turn, decide which way the experiments should proceed. Even the most abstract parts of theoretical physics have to be consistent with and sometimes constrained by experimental results. Physics is all about knowing how nature behaves and nature reveals herself to us through experiments. It is a mistake to assume that physicists dictate what nature is. It is nature which comes first in the study of physics, not our idealisation about her. One can further say that physics is not only about what we know, it is also about what we do not know. Indeed, testing the boundaries of human knowledge is what gives physics its strength. In fact, no physical law is ever exactly true, so to speak <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">–</span> it is only our approximation of the truth. But the fact that physics is not exactly true does not mean that it cannot take us closer and closer to the truth. All idea of scientific progress actually rests on that fact.<br />
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If we now look at how Einstein himself and other great physicists of his time (including Max Planck) who expanded the horizons of our knowledge, it will be apparent that their theories did not negate the classical theory so much as add to it and show the limits of its applicability. For more than two centuries, classical physics (as formulated by Newton) remained the pillar of natural science, again because it had survived so much of experimental scrutiny. Around the turn of the new century, certain experimental results suggested that the classical laws were insufficient in describing nature, necessitating the need for newer, more generalised theories, namely the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. The counterintuitive results were as shocking to the physicists of that time as the neutrino results were to the physicists of our time. In fact, Max Planck, the man who put forward the quantum theory, was stunned by some implications of his own theory. But again, all these theories have survived the test of time and experiment. More advanced theories have been developed, further deepening our knowledge. But all physicists still recognise the genius of Newton and his scientific method, while building on it. Einstein himself referred to Newton as a "man of highest thought and creative power" of his age. Indeed, Newtonian laws describe nature in certain limited ways (large bodies with speeds much less than that of light) to a remarkably high degree of accuracy. <br />
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This brings us back to the neutrino experiment. It later turned out, surely to the dismay of such social network users as described above, that the experimental results were incorrect and it was attributed to an incorrectly fitted wire. But for argument’s sake, let’s say the results were confirmed to be correct. What would we have done then? Should we have thrown everything that went before it to the dustbin? Absolutely not! Instead, we would stand on the shoulder of the giants and broaden our understanding of nature. Yes, physics is always wrong, but it is always right too!</div>
Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-15714298766266168142015-05-04T10:19:00.000+05:302015-05-18T19:29:01.019+05:30Published Elsewhere: The Glow of the Rising Sun<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
[<i>It's been quite a while since I wrote anything on the blog, but that doesn't mean I have stopped writing. I have written many pieces in the intervening years. I did wish to write a few long-form articles exclusively for this blog but I was unable to invest the time needed for such an article because of my involvement with my studies. However, I thought I should put up all my writings on my blog. This is the first in a series of articles that have appeared somewhere else.</i>]<br />
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(Former readers of my blog will probably remember my Japan posts. I had written this seven years back after returning from Japan. This was published on July 27 2008 in <i>Voices, </i>a supplement to <i><b>The Statesman</b>, </i>a reputed Indian newspaper. To my utter surprise and delight, the 2000-word article was published untrimmed and was featured on the back page!)<br />
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Glow of the Rising Sun</span></b></h2>
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Tall skyscrapers… manufacturer of the hi-tech cameras we use… cutting-edge robotic technology… four earthquakes a day… These are the first images to invade our minds whenever we hear the word, Japan. But what I saw in Japan, what I experienced in Japan was very different and much broader than the stereotypical concepts we have about the Land of the Rising Sun.<br />
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But my journey from the Incredible India to the Beautiful Japan as a part of the Japan - East Asia Network of Exchange for Students and Youths (JENESYS) programme (a joint collaboration between the Government of India and the Government of Japan) did not start off the way I dreamt. For a variety of reasons, I was completely engulfed by anxiety and tension. I didn’t have an international phone card to talk to my family just the day before we left and neither was my baggage within the weight limit set by the airline. Thus, the pre-departure session wasn’t exactly I’d call pleasant. Just when some the difficulties were overcome a couple of hours before the departure, a greater misery awaited me. I was still not realising the absence of my family there since my mother accompanied me to New Delhi. But on May 12, 2008, at afternoon, as I entered Indira Gandhi International Airport and boarded the Japan Airlines flight no. JL 472, a very powerful sensation struck me. I was leaving my motherland for the first time and that too, without my family! I had a feeling, which was completely incomparable to anything else. I was feeling away from home and a new kind of despair enveloped me. Even the flight wasn’t a very cheerful one. But as time progressed I was so anxious and depressed that my mind went fully blank and no other bitter thought could assault me.<br />
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But all my grief vanished at once when the aircraft landed at Narita International Airport, Tokyo. I was filled with the excitement of visiting the country Rabindranath had visited decades ago. We landed in the Land of the Rising Sun just after the sunrise. But the sun remained covered by grey clouds and a new snag came up as I came out of the airport. A typhoon had hit Tokyo the day we arrived there. So, it was impossible to defend against the cold that came seeping in through the two sweaters and non-stop rainfall was even more painful.<br />
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Just as our bus advanced towards the main city all the visuals I had imagined about Japan came into full view. Tall skyscrapers, smooth roads, speeding vehicles, innumerable flyovers – Tokyo has it all. Just as I entered the main city and got excited once again, I also became immune to the terribly hostile climate. The Imperial Palace was the first place we visited in Tokyo. It was an immensely beautiful place one can never have enough of.<br />
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One of my main concerns about visiting Japan was the food. As a person not accustomed to Japanese food habits, I thought it would not be easy for me adjust with their cuisines. But, to my very pleasant surprise, this wonderful programme booked some Indian restaurants for us to have our meal.<br />
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From the very beginning I felt something was missing there in Tokyo. I did not realise what it was for a while. But then, it suddenly struck me. Despite watching thousands or maybe, millions of cars in Japan I could never hear the honk of a car. Nor did I see black smoke coming out from car. I even felt the absence of traffic police at every road crossing. No one spoke in a loud voice. There were provisions for blind people to walk safely on the streets. In Tokyo, I did what I could never dream of doing in Kolkata (or anywhere in India). I felt perfectly safe to take frequent strolls on the Tokyo streets even at night without the fear of getting lost.<br />
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But when I say that it feels very secure in Japan, I’m speaking too little about them. People there are very courteous, polite, friendly, helpful and really sensitive to others’ needs. One situation will explain better that how much Japanese can do to help others. On the first day of our trip, a group of ten students went to roam about the streets of Tokyo at midnight and they got lost in the labyrinthine roads. When they tried to communicate with a Japanese gentleman (who knew no English) about their problem, he guided them to the hotel we were staying in.<br />
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Rabindranath kept coming back to me throughout this ten-day trip. In <i>Japan Yatri</i>, he wrote that he didn’t watch a child in Japan who cried. It was a fascinating thing to experience what he did. In the same travelogue, he described the sense of beauty of Japanese people and also translated some equally mesmerising Japanese rhymes which tell how wondrously Japanese appreciate beauty. Like him, I also felt that Japanese’s sense of beauty resides not so much on gorgeous and extravagant things as on the inner beauty of apparently ordinary objects. It was quite thrilling to attend the Japanese Tea Ceremony a number of times because it’s the same that Tagore himself described. As the only Bengali-speaking person in the group, it also gave me enormous contentment that most of the people I met in Japan recognise India by the name of Tagore.<br />
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The first two-and-a-half days in Tokyo were spent visiting various museums and a Waste Incineration Plant in the city of Shinagawa in Tokyo. While looking at the extraordinary efforts by the people there to reduce the amount of pollution and waste, I suddenly visualised my Kolkata as a city having one flyover over another, smooth roads, pollution free air, no horns installed in cars and yet, at the same time, retaining the traditional values just as Japan does. Is it a dream too far-fetched? I don’t know. I just want my city to be as developed as their city.<br />
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But for all these achievements in the biggest Metropolis of the world, I felt something was missing there. While watching millions of people walking fanatically (a large number of people in Tokyo ride on bicycles) on a busy day, I felt that they’ve inherited some of the qualities from the finest robots they’ve made. Courteous and polite as they are, I didn’t feel that they have the time to look at the setting sun or the droplets of rain, for this urban life has taught them microsecond-accurate punctuality and therefore, supremely mechanical lifestyle. I had this particular notion about Japan as a whole until I arrived in Saga Prefecture (we flew from Tokyo to Fukuoka), located in Kyūshū, the southernmost island of Japan.<br />
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Saga is not a city like Tokyo. This is best described as countryside. Most of the parts of Saga are basically village. After going there, the vacuum in my mind created by the speeding vehicles of Tokyo was filled by the warm and friendly atmosphere of Saga. It was like home. Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, I started missing my family and my country more than ever.<br />
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My mind started dancing about the lush greenery, forest and paddy and wheat fields, just like the ones we have in India. People there are so welcoming and warm that even top UNESCO officials made tea for us. The personnel of the educational office there greeted us in such a great way. I couldn’t believe my eyes when the Japanese school students welcomed us with an orchestra during the educational exchange programme.<br />
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I got the real taste of Japanese culture there in Saga. People there are proud of their rich heritage and are not ashamed (or afraid, like we are) in showing so. That, in my opinion, is the biggest virtue of Japan. From language to cuisine, they have retained their every single culture and yet, they have developed so much. In their schools, traditional Japanese martial art forms like Judo, Kendo are taught religiously. I was really fortunate to have played such games with Japanese students (But I refused to play with a Sumo when he invited me because, as I told him as well, I didn’t like flying). People there are not humiliated to admit that they know very little or no English. But it’s not hard to communicate with them at all because we could interpret each other’s body language. From the pottery work of Saga to Sakura Sakura (The Cherry Blossom song) to the Coal-Miners’ dance – the stamp of Japanese culture is present everywhere. And they are receptive of others’ cultures as well. My Tagore song (<i>Kothao Amar Hariye</i>...) was met with applause. Writing various Japanese expressions and also my name in Japanese during the calligraphy session was something I won’t forget. I even wrote my fellow Japanese student’s name in Bengali. And we perfectly cemented the friendly relation Satyajit Ray and Akira Kurosawa formed years ago.<br />
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But the best part of the five-and-a-half day programme in Saga (and the whole tour as well) was, undeniably, the one-day home stay program with a host family. I got to experience the real Japanese culture. They made me feel as if I were a king and presented me gifts I couldn’t even count. The family I was staying with was a very interesting one. It was a Japanese-American family (the Kawaharadas). It gave me great joy to see people forgetting age-long animosity and uniting to form a new generation, which doesn’t believe in the enmity and wants to move along the path of friendship and peace. They really made me feel like I was home. Like Tagore said, I found another home in Japan. It was very sad to bid good-bye to their three sons, especially the six-year old Tao who grew very fond of me.<br />
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The most impressive part of this journey was the visit to Nagasaki. A shiver went down my spine as I sat on the Atomic Bomb Hypocenter of Nagasaki, the exact place where the atomic bomb was dropped on August 9, 1945. The visit to Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Peace Park and Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum was even more heartbreaking. The bomb that was dropped there wasn’t supposed to be dropped at first. The cloudy sky of the selected spot and the momentary clearing of the clouds in Nagasaki resulted in the death of thousands of people. Even today, deformed children are born as a result of radiation. I saw a wall clock that was shattered by the blast and its hands stopped at 11:02 – the moment of the explosion. I saw testimonies of people who couldn’t find their children muddled up with the bricks when they came home or who didn’t get a trace his mother. Similar artefacts and the testimonies of the people who suffered presented a horrible sight to me. I didn’t realise when a tear rolled down my cheek. It shattered my heart into pieces and I saluted the resilient people of Nagasaki in my mind for their efforts to spread the message of peace. Just like a Phoenix does, Nagasaki has, literally, risen from the ashes. The visit had a profound effect on me.<br />
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The only thing that cheered me in Nagasaki was its tramcars, just like the ones we have in our very own Kolkata.<br />
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Finally we went back to Tokyo for two more days. We toured several places. When we arrived at Narita airport to take the flight back to New Delhi something unexpected happened. Our Japanese co-ordinators (Yamaguchi-san and Hirooka-san) started sobbing. They told that they were sad to send us back home for, as they said, the warmth they got from us was like nothing else. I was also feeling uneasy to leave behind the ten unforgettable days. While being ecstatic for going back home I was also filled with sadness to leave my home – my new home in Japan.<br />
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Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-56093633717855938752011-05-09T23:25:00.051+05:302011-06-28T09:55:34.274+05:30Rabindranath Tagore: On Science, God and Truth<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmSKxC7IKEchDTBX4qkNUkVqeorxWd9bJgH6oyY15FCiWfCkXuKxkzSXQT1Bdn_rgHKFToDlpSDMTcSeCx9XTWBNQTOtGemgd62GvnmlcMNjJ5rtfoNda-Uvty1fIkziwxa4aaBOib8E0/s1600/Rabindranath_Tagore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmSKxC7IKEchDTBX4qkNUkVqeorxWd9bJgH6oyY15FCiWfCkXuKxkzSXQT1Bdn_rgHKFToDlpSDMTcSeCx9XTWBNQTOtGemgd62GvnmlcMNjJ5rtfoNda-Uvty1fIkziwxa4aaBOib8E0/s320/Rabindranath_Tagore.jpg" width="237" /></a>It’s really a great day for florists here. It’s 25 Boiśākh, 1418 today! Rabindranath Tagore turns 150 today according to the Bengali calendar. So it’s a moment for all of us to feel proud about the man who won Asia its first Nobel, who composed songs which we cannot stop listening to, wrote poetry we never forget and the man who gave the country our national anthem. But should we? Last year, on this day, I <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/05/celebration-begins.html">expressed my feelings</a> about the celebration of his 150th birth anniversary. (Why do we have such fondness for multiples of twenty-five?) We have decorated the statue of Tagore with endless garlands to feel good and have only added to the halo that surrounds the “image” of Tagore. Making Tagore a divinity to worship and not a human being to discover (and re-discover and re-re-discover) is, I believe, something Tagore himself might have considered an insult.<br />
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Today, in this post, I’ll explore an aspect of Rabindranath which is rarely discussed about him, except, perhaps, in academic circles. (I had another topic on mind which is almost never in limelight, but let’s keep that for another day.) I wish to ignore all the titles, prefixes and suffixes that surround Rabindranath’s name and cut right to the heart of his ideas. It goes without saying that I am writing this also because it’s a very personal topic to me – a topic that always stirs up my thoughts. I am absolutely unqualified and incompetent to offer any conclusive viewpoint. At best, my aim is to explain why the topic matters so much to me and I don’t think I can do that very well because some of these ideas are way beyond my comprehension.<br />
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Rabindranath is often regarded as some sort of a spiritual leader, a prophet. Some noted Westerners were openly contemptuous of Tagore’s apparent mysticism, while, needless to say, many others embraced it. Tagore’s almost-saintly appearance and the poems which, on the surface, express some mysticism, perhaps discouraged – and encouraged – those who believe a book should be judged only by its cover and they refused to delve deeper into the images Rabindanath painted with words. After his death, Rabindranath became our official Thakur (the Bengali surname for the Tagores, which also means “god”, of all things) apart from the seasonal ones. It shouldn’t really have surprised me, then, when I saw some bloke on TV claiming that Tagore endorsed astrology. Whenever I run into a discussion about the existence of a god (as described in the <i>religious texts</i>), the argument goes: Tagore believed in god, Tagore is god and so, such a<i> religious </i>god is a <i>fact</i>. In fact, of late, I have grown weary of seeing many people claiming Tagore as one of their own to suit their own agenda and nonsense rhetoric.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfrpXwFO4zqgBl1rqWtZQVVf561P6r8DujN2P90gLxzGMQhKVoJLQ3os_C47aJAKMYVNsiA2-qGb_8ln8pNOwUYJDu1ExBGjJbh9f01dLbf33wuzZlkRK1klve_8MFYW9BgptSTE1lXc/s1600/rabindranath-tagore-real-photograph.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfrpXwFO4zqgBl1rqWtZQVVf561P6r8DujN2P90gLxzGMQhKVoJLQ3os_C47aJAKMYVNsiA2-qGb_8ln8pNOwUYJDu1ExBGjJbh9f01dLbf33wuzZlkRK1klve_8MFYW9BgptSTE1lXc/s320/rabindranath-tagore-real-photograph.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>In discussion about god and religion, one name that inevitably pops up to support the existence of a religious god is Einstein, who, I am often told, worshipped His Great Powers. Just as Einstein is used an icon of dogmatic religious views, Rabindranath can't escape that as well. Let me put this clearly: there have been very few people in India who were more rationalistic than Tagore. There are not many I can think of who were harsher critics of organised religion and pointless social rites which plague our minds and make us clockwork oranges than Tagore. The poem this blog owes its title to is itself a paean to rationalism and reason. But I refuse to believe that the “Father” addressed at the end of the poem is some sort of a Great Puppeteer described in religious texts rather than an abstract manifestation of the collective soul of humanity. It’s a pity that it’s Tagore’s abstract spiritualism (for the lack of a better word) the misconception about which drives the thoughts about Tagore and not his scientific bent of mind, at home and abroad.<br />
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One of the least talked-about books by Rabindrantah is <i>Vishwa-Parichay</i> (1937), in which he explores the wonders of the universe. The book is dedicated to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyendra_Nath_Bose">Satyendranath Bose</a>, who needs no introduction to anyone who has heard the word “boson”. In the introduction, Tagore describes how scientific discoveries amaze him. It’s baffling for even a Tagore admirer (I wouldn’t use the term “fan” here) such as myself to learn how interested Tagore was in science and how he never missed a chance to devour any book on astronomy and physics. The science he discusses in this book is very modern. Let’s have a look at things Tagore discusses: atoms, atomic bonds, modern spectroscopy, stellar spectroscopy, nuclear physics, quantum mechanics, radioactivity, U-238, cosmic rays, X-rays, alpha-particles, bombardment of nuclei by neutrons, nebulae, Theory of Relativity, spacetime curvature, the finiteness of space, variable stars, double stars, dwarf stars, the gases in the atmosphere of Pluto, infrared imaging, sidereal day, cells among other things.<br />
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Forget the topics Tagore has discussed, the writing style itself never gives any indication that the book isn’t written by a seasoned scientist. The ease with which he explains the scientific concepts show how deeply he understands these concepts. It was written by a person who was known as poet, playwright, educationist, painter and a philosopher! It’s a common misconception that science and arts are two mutually exclusive spheres and one cannot excel in both. Rabindranth proved it wrong, as did Einstein with his penchant for music and literature. Which brings us to the conversations between the two men.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdxAsNFNwvwVU0toCjbG66z1KJEDQnVn_bkt1XGDuFWJh0kAscpO-d3Ckuk14zjHkFnJ0oEr1V8kPMRcJhGJ0i9v77pB7vf1sjwPvS2UXT1uTKM6k3_2iqNQQ75LXAxx7KRjp5ZHxjznE/s1600/Einstein-Tagore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdxAsNFNwvwVU0toCjbG66z1KJEDQnVn_bkt1XGDuFWJh0kAscpO-d3Ckuk14zjHkFnJ0oEr1V8kPMRcJhGJ0i9v77pB7vf1sjwPvS2UXT1uTKM6k3_2iqNQQ75LXAxx7KRjp5ZHxjznE/s320/Einstein-Tagore.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>It’s a well-known fact that Tagore and Einstein were admirers of each other. Einstein was one of the very few who could actually understand Tagore and their conversation makes for a fascinating read. Their viewpoints about the universe and truth are different, but the most fascinating aspect about such a conversation is that one opinion does not have to completely negate the other. Here are some excerpts from the conversation between the two. (Excerpts are from the 1930 NYT article <i>Einstein and Tagore Plumb the Truth</i> and the book <i>Three conversations: Tagore Talks with Einstein, with Rolland, and Wells</i>.)<br />
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<blockquote>EINSTEIN: There are two different conceptions about the nature of the universe - the world as a unity dependent on humanity, and the world as reality independent of the human factor.<br />
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TAGORE: When our universe is in harmony with man, the eternal, we know it as truth, we feel it as beauty.<br />
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EINSTEIN: This is a purely human conception of the universe.<br />
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TAGORE: The world is a human world - the scientific view of it is also that of the scientific man. Therefore, the world apart from us does not exist; it is a relative world, depending for its reality upon our consciousness. There is some standard of reason and enjoyment which gives it truth, the standard of the eternal man whose experiences are made possible through our experiences.<br />
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EINSTEIN: This is a realisation of the human entity.<br />
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TAGORE: Yes, one eternal entity. We have to realise it through our emotions and activities. We realise the supreme man, who has no individual limitations, through our limitations. Science is concerned with that which is not confined to individuals; it is the impersonal human world of truths. Religion realises these truths and links them up with our deeper needs. Our individual consciousness of truth gains universal significance. Religion applies values to truth, and we know truth as good through own harmony with it. <br />
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EINSTEIN: Truth, then, or beauty, is not independent of man?<br />
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TAGORE: No, I do not say so.<br />
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EINSTEIN: If there were no human beings any more, the Apollo Belvedere no longer would be beautiful?<br />
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TAGORE: No!<br />
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EINSTEIN: I agree with this conception of beauty, but not with regard to truth. <br />
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TAGORE Why not? Truth is realised through men. <br />
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EINSTEIN I cannot prove my conception is right, but that is my religion. <br />
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TAGORE Beauty is in the ideal of perfect harmony, which is in the universal being; truth is the perfect comprehension of the universal mind. We individuals approach it through our own mistakes and blunders, through our accumulated experience, through our illumined consciousness. How otherwise can we know truth?<br />
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EINSTEIN: I cannot prove, but I believe in the Pythagorean argument, that the truth is independent of human beings. It is the problem of the logic of continuity.<br />
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TAGORE : Truth, which is one with the universal being, must be essentially human; otherwise, whatever we individuals realise as true, never can be called truth. At least, the truth which is described as scientific and which only can be reached through the process of logic — in other words, by an organ of thought which is human. According to the Indian philosophy there is Brahman, the absolute truth, which cannot be conceived by the isolation of the individual mind or described by words, but can be realised only by merging the individual in its infinity. But such a truth cannot belong to science. The nature of truth which we are discussing is an appearance; that is to say, what appears to be true to the human mind, and therefore is human, and may be called Maya, or illusion. </blockquote><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=whetheminiswi-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0415481341" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />You sure realise that the religion Tagore is talking about here has nothing to do with the religion the texts of which describe an omnipotent figure creating the universe out of nowhere according to His will and being vengeful on not being worshipped. He talks about the religion that Einstein talked about all his life. (The religion Richard Dawkins distinguishes from the other Religion in his books.) Religion to Tagore, as he clarifies, is the values attached to truth.<br />
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Rabindranath, in his poems, inclined to a subjective interpretation of the world. “Subjective”, you must understand, refers to the human consciousness Tagore describes above and not merely personal opinions. In a poem titled <i>Ami</i> (which means “I”, no less), he says it’s because of our consciousness the emerald is green, the ruby is red, the world is full of light and the rose is beautiful and truth is poetry. (Forgive me, but I cannot hope to even vaguely translate that poem.) <br />
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In one of the essays by my grandfather Prof. Dhiranando Roy, he distinguishes between the self-centered “me” and Rabindrik “me” beautifully: the former “me” looks for material comforts of life which are determined solely by profit and loss. Rabindranath’s “me” regards loss as profit and death as an extension life. (My grandpa’s articles would make for separate blog posts.) Tagore’s viewpoint is simultaneously simple and infinitely complex to understand: Any truth completely unrelated to humanity is utterly non-existent.<br />
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<iframe align="right" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=whetheminiswi-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B000SKIIHY&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>“The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth,” said Niels Bohr. Nothing more appropriate can be said about the versions of truth as interpreted by Tagore and Einstein. It’s worth noting that Einstein and Bohr endlessly debated about the nature of, well, nature and scientific truth and scientific determinism. Many eminent scientists, including Bohr, were of the view that quantum mechanics encouraged a subjective view of the scientific truth (as Tagore did), while many others, such as Einstein, thought otherwise. The debate has, perhaps, no end because this debate deals with truth and perception rather than mere facts such as “earth goes round the sun”. As a student of science, I can merely try to understand what the great scientists are trying to say. Can you decide whose argument you agree or disagree with? This is the highest form of intellectual debate, in which no argument could be completely refuted.<br />
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Here’s another excerpt from Tagore-Einstein conversation about scientific determinism and randomness:<br />
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TAGORE: I was discussing with Dr. Mendel today the new mathematical discoveries which tell us that in the realm of infinitesimal atoms chance has its play; the drama of existence is not absolutely predestined in character.<br />
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EINSTEIN: The facts that make science tend toward this view do not say good-bye to causality.<br />
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TAGORE: Maybe not, yet it appears that the idea of causality is not in the elements, but that some other force builds up with them an organised universe.<br />
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EINSTEIN: One tries to understand in the higher plane how the order is. The order is there, where the big elements combine and guide existence, but in the minute elements this order is not perceptible.<br />
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TAGORE: Thus duality is in the depths of existence, the contradiction of free impulse and the directive will which works upon it and evolves an orderly scheme of things.<br />
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EINSTEIN: Modern physics would not say they are contradictory. Clouds look as one from a distance, but if you see them nearby, they show themselves as disorderly drops of water.<br />
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TAGORE: I find a parallel in human psychology. Our passions and desires are unruly, but our character subdues these elements into a harmonious whole. Does something similar to this happen in the physical world? Are the elements rebellious, dynamic with individual impulse? And is there a principle in the physical world which dominates them and puts them into an orderly organisation?<br />
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EINSTEIN: Even the elements are not without statistical order; elements of radium will always maintain their specific order, now and ever onward, just as they have done all along. There is, then, a statistical order in the elements.<br />
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TAGORE: Otherwise, the drama of existence would be too desultory. It is the constant harmony of chance and determination which makes it eternally new and living.</blockquote><br />
I cannot hope to add any footnote to it without sounding foolish. It’s notable that both Tagore and Einstein are almost in agreement in this passage. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYPJQOyrM_5-6suq3pYckuC4kA0lWpQ4Et0ieWnmPXup_l5F9xLm_vlG3FhCajC4kbpPBgiXpuCsYB-u6QnojonRw6HClLGst65Q7W_jKG5FNjUI4KTdcL2x66Zdm-q5Ya_aRkMJvGIyU/s1600/RabindranathTagoreandAlbertEinstein.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYPJQOyrM_5-6suq3pYckuC4kA0lWpQ4Et0ieWnmPXup_l5F9xLm_vlG3FhCajC4kbpPBgiXpuCsYB-u6QnojonRw6HClLGst65Q7W_jKG5FNjUI4KTdcL2x66Zdm-q5Ya_aRkMJvGIyU/s320/RabindranathTagoreandAlbertEinstein.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>What’s most interesting to me is how Tagore sought to combine science and arts. He believed that the approach to arts should be scientific (that does not mean mechanical). Our emotions, reactions to art are not independent of science, he believed. His thoughts on this matter is evident, again, in his conversations with Einstein:<br />
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TAGORE: Melody and harmony are like lines and colors in pictures. A simple linear picture may be completely beautiful; the introduction of colour may make it vague and insignificant. Yet colour may, by combination with lines, create great pictures, so long as it does not smother and destroy their value. <br />
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EINSTEIN: It is a beautiful comparison; line is also much older than color. It seems that your [Indian] melody is much richer in structure than ours. Japanese music also seems to be so.<br />
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TAGORE: It is difficult to analyse the effect of eastern and western music on our minds. I am deeply moved by the western music; I feel that it is great, that it is vast in its structure and grand in its composition. Our own music touches me more deeply by its fundamental lyrical appeal. European music is epic in character; it has a broad background and is Gothic in its structure. <br />
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EINSTEIN: This is a question we Europeans cannot properly answer, we are so used to our own music. We want to know whether our own music is a conventional or a fundamental human feeling, whether to feel consonance and dissonance is natural, or a convention which we accept.<br />
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TAGORE: Somehow the piano confounds me. The violin pleases me much more. <br />
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EINSTEIN: It would be interesting to study the effects of European music on an Indian who had never heard it when he was young.<br />
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TAGORE: Once I asked an English musician to analyse for me some classical music, and explain to me what elements make for the beauty of the piece.<br />
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EINSTEIN: The difficulty is that the really good music, whether of the East or of the West, cannot be analysed.<br />
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TAGORE: Yes, and what deeply affects the hearer is beyond himself.<br />
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EINSTEIN: The same uncertainty will always be there about everything fundamental in our experience, in our reaction to art, whether in Europe or in Asia. Even the red flower I see before me on your table may not be the same to you and me.<br />
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TAGORE: And yet there is always going on the process of reconciliation between them, the individual taste conforming to the universal standard. </blockquote><br />
As I come to the end of this post I inevitably come back to the beginning, because it’s really a circle. It’s an endlessly rewarding experience to think about the thoughts of Tagore and how he expressed his thoughts. This deserves more posts because I have a lot more to say, but I'll stop now. Although I am incapable of properly understanding Tagore’s philosophy, I can always keep discovering him. But there is something I can say. As an atheist, I worship the god Tagore (and all great scientists) worships, the god, Tagore says, is worshipped by the Moon and the Sun, the god . . . well don’t you know which god I am talking about?</div>Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-69819262786983563562011-04-22T12:59:00.030+05:302017-07-23T23:12:53.487+05:30Thoughts on Inception<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I start my film-reviewing session of 2011 with two sci-fi movies which couldn’t be more different from each other. Released in two consecutive summers, both movies were admired by the critics and audiences alike. Enthusiasts on the Internet (to be polite) greeted the films words like “awesome”, “masterpiece”. However, what I feel about these movies has nothing to do with the general reaction to the movies or the backlashes and counter-backlashes or the publicity machinery behind these movies. (I dislike the word “overrated”.) I wish to describe my thoughts and emotions based only on the images and sounds that appeared before me. Here's the review of one of the movies. Needless to say, this review most likely contains important plot points i.e. SPOILERS, if such things matter to you. So read on only if you wish to.<br />
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<b>Inception (2010)<br />Written and directed by: Christopher Nolan</b><br />
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Most detractors of <i>Inception</i> pin down the film on an essentially wrong note. They want Inception to be a dream movie in the surrealistic traditions of European films like <i>8½</i>, <i>Last Year at Marienbad</i>, <i>Wild Strawberries</i>, <i>The Andalusian Dog</i>. It’s unfair on my part to expect a film which must submit to my preconceived notions of a dream-movie and not allow it to become what it wants to be. So <i>Inception</i> unfolded before me exactly the way the film wanted to.<br />
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But as the film ended, it left me curiously empty. I was utterly confused. Well, the reviews of this film are replete with that word which is meant as a compliment. (The more a film is confusing and complicated, the more “awesome” it is, the current trend goes.) But believe you me; my confusion had little to do with the comprehension of the oh-so-complex plot. It was the film’s intentions (which don’t necessarily translate to the maker’s intentions, something I am least concerned about) which put me in a state of confusion. It was never clear to me what the film wanted to become.<br />
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Did it want to become a heist movie? Well, the basic template is obviously modelled on heist movies. But the film never really exploits the possibilities of the genre. The film with its frequent stabs at profundity and an avowed resistance to humour never lets itself become anything less than a Seriously Serious Work of Art. Well, is it a dream movie, then -- the movie that explores the dark lanes of the mind and the abyss of the subconscious? Yeah, the kind of subconscious depth that can be reached through . . . <i>an elevator</i>! No kidding! As the detractors have duly noted, <i>Inception</i>’s dream world is too literal-minded, too rule-bound, and too clockwork-ish to be called a dream world. Is this film, then, a sort of genre-sampler, which combines and maybe satirises the two aforementioned genres? I’ll now turn to my favourite contemporary filmmaker who has taken on genre films like no other filmmaker in modern film history has. Quentin Tarantino is able to see the genre films for what they are because he has wholeheartedly embraced and absorbed all sorts of genre. That’s how he can simultaneously write a love letter to and a scathing criticism of the movies. He can satirise genre conventions precisely because he understands them so well. But <i>Inception</i> is too timid to embrace genre conventions (well, it’s Serious, you know!) and consequently is stuck in a limbo (pun intended). <br />
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Is <i>Inception</i>, then, an allegory about cinema itself (the last weapon in a critic's arsenal)? But do we really need a film to tell us that films are dreams? As far as I am concerned, films <i>are</i> dreams. Don’t we all live in the films? Don’t we consider films as the only reality while watching them, just as we do in dreams? Cinema, since its inception (pun unintended), is a part of our collective (sub-)consciousness, isn’t it? There was a John McTiernan film called <i>Last Action Hero</i>, in which a boy is so obsessed with movies that he literally breaks through the fourth wall to be within a movie with his favourite action hero (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and influence the way the film shapes up. Roger Ebert, in his <a href="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19930618/REVIEWS/306180301/1023">review</a> of the movie, questioned the validity of being-within-the-movie device because, he argued, we always are within the movies. So if <i>Inception</i> is equating cinema with dreams, it’s merely stating the obvious.<br />
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Let me now tell you how I perceived the film finally: a bloated, confused mess. It’s a self-conscious, self-congratulatory film which is manufactured in such a way that the audience never really forgets how “awesome” the film is. It throws up some lofty ideas in the air (such as the difference between dream and reality, the perils of being stuck in the past, detached from the world) for us to appreciate its profundity but never quite explores these interesting ideas. On the contrary, action sequences that resemble those James Bond movies and banal plot mechanics are what the film seems to be mostly interested in.<br />
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It never allows the audience to ask questions. <i>Inception</i> is just one set-piece crammed hurriedly after another (in other words, a 140-min trailer with one climax piled upon another). The film just wants it audience to gasp at its superficial cleverness. The film is reliant on its plot points, twists, jolts and shocks to such an extent the film is hardly allowed to breathe. The film has got very little visual style to speak of. Aided by Hans Zimmer’s thumping score, it practically instructs every audience member what to feel (namely the film’s superiority to the audience’s in intelligence). Whenever there is a faint scope for the audience to ask questions, the film introduces another level of dreaming and endlessly cross-cuts between the levels to make sure we never forget we are watching the work of a genius.<br />
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I’m not really averse to exposition in films. Exposition is an essential tool of filmmaking which is employed by the greatest of filmmakers. However, there are different kinds of exposition. Some do it through a camera angle, some through editing and some through dialogue. Even exposition can be made charming at expert hands. But the exposition in <i>Inception</i> appears laboured and pedestrian. But the exposition has no point and doesn’t even establish the mythology of the fictional universe. The mythology is strictly limited to the required plot points and the rules set early on the movie appear to be completely arbitrary. As a result, the film is not as well-thought-out as it wants us to think it is. Take, for instance, the zero-g sequence in the films. It’s established in the film that the physical experience in the state of sleeping is transmitted to the immediate next dream level. That’s the basis of the admittedly spectacular hotel corridor action sequence involving Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in the second level dreaming. We see that the level three dreamers are floating weightless in the second level because of the movements of the car in the first level. By extension of this logic in the film, the dreamers in the third level should be weightless too since the sleepers are weightless in the second level. But if we apply this logic, we wouldn’t get a James Bond action sequence, no? Again, it’s established that one can change the physics of the dream (even when being in someone else’s dream) at will in the dream session with Ariadne (Ellen Page, retaining the smugness minus the hipness from her endearing performance in <i>Juno</i>). But curiously, nobody seems to remember altering the physics of the dream world to make their job easier in a difficult situation. Why would, then, Arthur strain himself to handle the floating dreamers when they are in just another zero-g hotel room? Why would Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio, appearing more bored than ever) and his team have to pain themselves so much to reach the ice-fortress in an hour (in dreamtime, of course!) instead of bringing the fortress closer to them? We aren’t really supposed to ask such banal questions as long as we get the bangs for bucks. I had spotted some other lapses in the movie’s internal logic but the movie is too uninteresting to go back to.<br />
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The ending aptly sums up for me all that is wrong about <i>Inception</i>. Thousands of words have been written about what it possibly means and there’s been all sorts of interpretations of the spinning top, the totem which is supposedly the test to distinguish between dreams and reality. There was a perfect ending set up before this. A father is reunited with his children he has long wanted to shower with his affection (whether in his dreams or in reality) and it’s this emotion which matters to him most. He has found his heaven and who are we to argue otherwise? But no, Mr Nolan couldn’t make it quite straightforward and offer a simple resolution. He has to make it something meaningful and ambiguous. So he goes for the all-too-convenient open ending to suggest that the entire movie could have been a dream. Raising such a question itself makes the dream-world collapse because, regardless of the answer, the question invalidates the movie that preceded it and takes entirely away from the essence of the final sequence. We needn’t know whether it’s a dream or not because Cobb has reached his destination. <br />
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The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inception#Ending">Wikipedia page</a> of <i>Inception</i> tells me that Mr Nolan wanted to convey that the point of that scene was that Cobb didn’t care and he didn’t look at the top. As I said, I don’t care about the authorial intention; I have to make my deductions from what’s before my eyes. (You know, “Trust the tale, not the teller” and all that). But even considering that was the intention, the director fails to convey that. Let us now analyse the sequence and the camera movement. Cobb runs to his children without taking a look at the totem. As it happens, Cobb and his children become out of focus and the camera moves away from them. Perfect so far. Cobb is now in his own abode. The problem of the scene begins now. The camera slowly pans to the spinning top on the table and then places it at the centre of the frame and the rest of the table is out of focus. And then as the top slightly wobbles, the end credits begin. So what should we take away from this scene? Doesn’t this establish that the spinning top was the most important thing in the entire sequence? Doesn’t the end want us to take away the image of the spinning top and make Cobb’s happiness less significant? Why should we care whether it’s a dream or not when Cobb doesn’t? But unfortunately, the ending wants us to care. The ending, like the preceding movie, wants us to dig into layers and layers of meaning with thousands of interpretations while denying us the opportunity to take away an image or feeling from the film which resonates within us. Imagine how much better it'd have been if the camera panned away from the spinning top towards Cobb and his children, finally going out of focus. It was one of the rare occasions when I felt the classical, cheesy (or corny, whatever you like) and sunny ending of Hollywood would have helped the film.<br />
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And it’s interesting that a movie with so much talk has almost nothing to say. The moral universe of Inception is painfully shallow and I never got any indication that the movie was interested in morality at all. The characters blindly accept a feeble explanation to go all the way through four levels of dreams to plant an idea in someone’s mind. This is why the sudden surge of morality in the third level dream and the consequent explanation only undermine the film. “Are you destroying parts of his mind?” asks Ariadne when Cobb is gleefully killing the “projections of subconscious” when their mission involves planting an idea in someone’s mind so that he may break his father’s business empire! I mean, destroying parts of someone's mind in not morally sound, but changing someone's mind (in other words, brainwashing) is? Even when the movie (in another passage of dry, witless dialogue-driven sequence) asks the morality of the act of inception, the heist movie premise itself negates the possible answer of the question. I mean, everyone in the audience is expected to root for Cobb and Co. as they accomplish their mission while coolly killing dozens of subconscious projections, no? So raising such a question is pointless and pretentious. And the movie never hints that it's criticising itself.<br />
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Well, this is all I had to say about this movie. Now a bit about the frequent comparison of Mr Nolan with Stanley Kubrick. Firstly, there’s no way Mr Nolan should be compared with Kubrick because it’s completely unfair to Mr Nolan. But more importantly, this comparison reveals more about the current film culture than about anything else. It’s worth another blog post, but surely, Kubrick was more than rotating sets! Save <i>Insomnia</i> and <i>Following</i>, I have seen all films by Mr Nolan and he seems to me the cinematic equivalent of Mr Dan Brown, whose prose style is quite close to Mr Nolan’s cinematic vision. Now interpret <i>this</i> ending! <br />
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<strong>UPDATE I</strong>: For interseted readers, here are some reviews of/articles on <em>Inception</em> which are worth reading. <a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/movies/16inception.html">A. O. Scott</a>, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2010/07/26/100726crci_cinema_denby">David Denby</a> and <a href="http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/inception/index.html?story=/ent/movies/andrew_ohehir/2010/07/14/inception">Andrew O' Hehir</a> explain why the movie didn't work for them. (O'Hehir's Michael Bay comparison is priceless.) <a href="http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2010/08/06/inception-or-dream-a-little-dream-within-a-dream-with-me/">Here</a> and <a href="http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2010/08/12/revisiting-inception/">here</a> are film theorists Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell on the film. While they like the film a lot, they also seem to share some of the concerns I have with this film (the mythology, for example) .</div>
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<strong>UPDATE II</strong>: From the blog of Bordwell, I found a link to A. D. Jameson's <a href="http://bigother.com/2010/08/08/seventeen-ways-of-criticizing-inception/">piece</a>, "Seventeen Ways of Criticizing Inception". Jameson makes some fine points there. He and I seem to share some similar concerns about the film. It's worth a read, even if you don't agree with all the points. His comparisons with Bryan Singer, George Lucas and Peter Jackson are spot-on. Also see his<a href="http://bigother.com/2010/10/04/more-on-inception-shot-economy-and-1-1-1/"> post</a> on the shot construction of <em>Inception</em>.<br />
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<strong>UPDATE III</strong>: Here's the best bit: <a href="http://inception.davepedu.com/">the <em>Inception</em> button</a>, which needs no explanation. A must-see!</div>
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Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-17771313992351391812011-04-21T10:04:00.002+05:302011-04-21T10:11:30.995+05:30The Last IYA2009 Event<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">(<i>Last year, I promised to myself not to write any more blogposts after the </i><a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/06/avatar-review-john-et-jim.html">Avatar</a><i><a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/06/avatar-review-john-et-jim.html"> review</a>, although I had a lot to write about, including this one. As I resume regular blogging once again, this is first post I could think of. It's sixteen months too late , but as they say, it's never too late.</i>)<br />
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As you all know, we had taken part in the <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/search/label/100HA">100 Hours of Astronomy</a> and <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/05/galilean-nights-event-overview.html">Galilean Nights</a> as part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009. We also did other events to observe the IYA2009. The efforts of our organisation, Prof. Dhirananda Roy Study & Research Centre, were extensively covered in the press. So we were invited to various parts of West Bengal to hold events to popularise astronomy.<br />
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The last event we did in 2009 was particularly noteworthy because of its extent and the number of people it reached. It was one of the most popular events we held as a part of the IYA2009. It was held at a book fair on a public holiday. More than a thousand people were part of our event that evening <br />
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<a name='more'></a>The day on which the event was held deserves special mention too: December 25. Was there a more perfect day to discuss science? Our goal was to reach out to as many people as possible. And that we did. The event was held in Barrackpore at the annual book fair. We started our event with lectures and subsequent Q&A session. We showed slide-shows on various topics related to astronomy. This continued for about an hour. Then began the main business of the day: sky observation.<br />
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And what an experience that was! People were extremely excited to have a look at the sky through the telescopes. Their reaction was very enthusiastic – no wait, I have no words to describe their zeal – it was something else altogether. I had promised that I'd show the sky to everyone present at the fair. At one point, it became quite hard to control the crowd! But the situation was always under control. I must mention that some local students lent their assistance to us and their helpfulness definitely contributed to the huge success of the event. <br />
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At the end of the event, people were thanking us for giving them a rare opportunity to observe the sky. But the fact is, we were the ones who were really privileged, because IYA2009 provided us the opportunity to spread the wonder of the universe among people and interact with them. I shall say no more but leave you with some pictures of the event:<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/space-lover/5637773311/in/photostream/"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5106/5637773311_8bcb65425e.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></div>Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-64830170272131432682010-06-09T21:39:00.009+05:302010-06-25T22:25:20.514+05:30Avatar Review: John et Jim<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>JOHN ET JIM</b></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Eye</td></tr>
</tbody></table><i><b>As the latest James Cameron film stops being the flavour of the season (well, almost), it assumes a whole new avatar for me.</b></i><br />
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A warning must be issued here. This isn’t a “review” of the film (I mean, two paragraphs about the plot, one about the technique, one about the acting, one about this and another about that and an easy and oversimplified good-mediocre-ugly categorisation issued at the end very conveniently dismissing all other opinions) so much as a journey into the corners of my thoughts. This review discusses topics I’d hardly imagined it’d when I saw the film. This is, as you’ll discover, two (maybe more) reviews for the price of one. There was something I wanted to review on this blog since 2009, but never could. <i>Avatar</i> gave me ample scope to do it this time. Issuing a spoiler warning for this film (and the subjects I’m going to discuss) is not only completely pointless at this stage (given the film has grossed a meagre $2.7 billion), but defeats the entire purpose of my review itself. You’re advised to avoid reading this piece if you are not familiar with any of these (which I believe is unlikely).<br />
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In anticipation of <i>Avatar</i>, I wrote a post describing my fond memories of Cameron’s <i>Titanic</i>. To this day, watching <i>Titanic</i> remains my most wonderful experience inside a cinema hall. I was expecting Cameron to reawaken the five-year-old in me, inspire awe and induce heartfelt emotions with another powerful drama. <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/12/remembering-titanic.html">I was ready to bow before the King</a>. A few weeks later, I was off to the theatre, bursting with excitement. After the screening was over, I found myself sorely disappointed. I could hardly understand what the fuss was all about. Was I being over-analytical in watching a film that was simply supposed to be enjoyed and experienced? (I didn’t even take my notepad along!) Did I grow too cynical and fail to enjoy the simple pleasures of life <i>Avatar</i> was supposed to provide? Where was the plot? Where was the excitement? Where were characters I could deeply care about? Where was the drama? The visual effects were brilliant; 3D was also great, but I got used to it so quickly that it, in my view, could no longer be used as an excuse to camouflage the hackneyed and predictable plot. I tried every bit to be swept by it. I just couldn’t go with the ride, perhaps because I’m not particularly fond of amusement park rides. Even taken as an experience, this one didn’t quite measure up to <i>Titanic</i>. “Oh, Jim, did you really have to do something this unimaginative?” I said loudly as I exited the theatre, much to the bewilderment of people around me. It was a perfectly forgettable movie, I thought. Then began the problem (and, needless to say, <b>now begins the review</b>).<br />
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The problem was I couldn’t forget the film. No, it wasn’t the two distinct sets of opinions on the Internet (and elsewhere) which either raised it to stratospheric levels or doomed it as the worst thing to have happened to cinema since Ed Wood’s departure. Nor was it the widespread coverage of James Cameron’s Huge Ego or his award-season battle with Kathryn Bigelow. It was something I couldn’t pinpoint. It was the exact opposite of <i>there-is-something-missing</i> feeling. At times, there was a faint spark telling me that I had experienced something similar earlier, probably after reading something. I couldn’t remember what it was until I looked at my bookshelves.<br />
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It was a fat, red book. I’d enjoyed the book that preceded this one. I remember how I excited I was before I grabbed that book from my bookshelf and started reading it. It was an even greater classic, after all and so I had to read it, just to add it to the list of great books I’ve read. I expected it to entertain me in the way all novels of this kind are supposed to do. A little more than 100 pages into the book, I started to realise that the author was deceiving me. But I didn’t put the book back on the shelf. I needed to complete it. But I grew more and more disgruntled as it went on. It wasn’t what I’d expected. ‘What kind of book is this,’ I wrote in my notebook, ‘that pays more attention to the description of trees, hedges, bushes and mountains than to the deep emotions and dimensions of its characters?’ More such gems came from me: ‘What do the poems and legends (many of which are composed in a different language) have to do with the plot? Where’s the plot? Why is the main plotline described almost in its entirety in the blurb? Where’s the emotional high that this book must offer me? Why didn’t it evoke profound sadness in me at the death of one major character? Where’s the drama? And pray, why doesn’t the eponymous character appear even once for a thrilling showdown?’<br />
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In short, the book disappointed me. About a week later, I was quite engrossed in another book when <i>that</i> feeling invaded my mind. The book kept coming back to me in ways I least expected it to. The little descriptions that I’d found so boring earlier suddenly ceased being a distraction. The very things that I disliked earlier seemed lovely then. I couldn’t explain why. Even a month hadn’t passed before I wanted to bang my head against the wall and eat up all my words (thoughts?).<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Prof. John Tolkien</td></tr>
</tbody></table>For, I was hopelessly and madly in love with the John Ronald Reuel Tolkien’s novel <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> and its world. I guess part of my earlier disappointment has to do with the fact that I was approaching this book based on my pre-conceived judgment on what a fantasy novel must do to satisfy me. Initially, I refused to look at the book on its own merit. It was the book’s reputation which took over my senses. I automatically assumed that a book which didn’t live up to my expectation had little worth. I made a grave mistake and was punished. A month later, I was rewarded beyond my wildest imagination. For, the imagination of Tolkien inspired me to use my power of imagination.<br />
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Tolkien wasn’t trying to bore us with the vivid descriptions of Middle-earth. He was merely asking us to appreciate the character called Middle-earth. I realised that <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>, unlike its predecessor <i>The Hobbit</i>, wasn’t about the flesh-and-blood characters (Men, Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, Maiar) so much as about . . . Middle-earth. Nothing but Middle-earth was the protagonist probably because everyone was inseparably linked to Middle-earth. The tales, poems and legends no longer seemed off-putting because I realised that it was those things that were more important than the plot. Having known the overall plot, it was easier to get lost in the history and mythology of Middle-earth. If anything would have worked against this novel and Tolkien’s intentions, that would be obscurity in the plot and dramatic events. I guess that’s why the death (and eventual resurrection) of someone as important as Gandalf is (admirably) treated with so few words and so little drama. It was all about the mythology. For me, <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> broke every myth about fantasy literature by creating a new mythology (which is rooted in the oldest myths of Europe, to which Tolkien was most affectionate) and became one of my most favourite works in English literature. I didn’t come to associate understatement (which I am very fond of, partly because of the kind of literature and cinema I grew up devouring) with fantasy. Tolkien’s work began to co-exist with everything I’d ever loved.<br />
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<iframe align="right" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=whetheminiswi-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0618391118&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Just imagine my delight after having read <i>The Silmarillion</i>! It did away with that constriction called a plotline. He concentrated entirely on the rich and detailed mythology which we got to see only in fragments in <i>Rings</i>. He was wise enough to realise that mythological tales are all about stories that people in the past adored and embraced, and the drama needn’t be underlined. It needs to be felt and realised. Why, Tolkien was the first person to assert that <i>Beowulf</i> was something which must be considered as a serious, worthy work of literature, and not simply as a historical document and pointed out that monsters in <i>Beowulf</i> were no less important than humans. In <i>The Silmarillion</i> especially, Tolkien wrote what he wanted to write, not what his readers would have liked to read after the great success of <i>Rings</i>. Perhaps that’s why the early reaction to <i>The Silmarillion</i> was: ‘Tolkien can’t actually write.’<br />
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I was not surprised to see Tolkien’s view of dramatic representation of fantasy. He said:<br />
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<blockquote>In human art Fantasy is a thing best left to words, to true literature.<br />
[...] <br />
Drama is naturally hostile to Fantasy. Fantasy, even of the simplest kind, hardly ever succeeds in Drama, when that is presented as it should be, visibly and audibly acted.</blockquote><br />
His son, Christopher Tolkien, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1697884.stm">hit the nail on the head</a> when he said that his father’s work was particularly unsuitable for a visual dramatic treatment. Which is why I’m still confused by the adulation Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of <i>Rings</i> receives. Make no mistake, the films are extremely well-crafted, entertaining and the passion and hard work that went into the production is visible in every frame. In fact, I am quite fond of the first film. Yet, for all the admirable efforts, I find the films rather oversimplified and dumbed down. The emotions and drama before my eyes hardly resonated with me the way Tolkien’s prose and poetry did. I find it more dramatic to recite Bilbo’s poem about Aragorn than to see Elrond hand over Andúril to Aragorn in an over-dramatised sequence.<br />
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Once I remembered my response to Tolkien’s work, it became easier for me to regard <i>Avatar</i> as something other than big-bangs-for-bucks entertainment. Didn’t it have anything beneath its admittedly spectacular surface? It perhaps had, I told myself, but I was not very sure. So I was willing to give it another chance. A second viewing was in order. More than three months later, I was off to IMAX, this time equipped with a notepad and a pen. A film which <a class="" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVdO-cx-McA&feature=related">revealed its entire plot in the trailer itself</a> perhaps had some other intentions, I thought. I almost feared that I’d be proven wrong by my instincts. <br />
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In the beginning itself, I was assured that <i>Avatar</i> was indeed aspiring to be something mythic. The very first line of <i>The Hobbit</i> reads: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” We, the readers, begin the journey in a place as confined (literally and otherwise) as a hobbit-hole but the journeys that follow take us to places we (and the hobbits) can scarcely imagine. Cameron gives us a visual cue to suggest the mythical style that the rest of the film will follow. We see Our Hero, Jake opening his eyes (mirrored in the last frame of the film) after waking up from cryogenic sleep only to find himself in the enclosed chamber of the spacecraft that takes him to Pandora. In the following scene, he comes out of the chamber and the passage he enters extends to infinity. (This scene is a particularly great use of 3D, which I’ll discuss later.) In this tiny bit of a visual trickery, we were shown the trajectory of his journey.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/missruthy/4458357956/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2778/4458357956_ba9752b807.jpg" style="border-width: 0px;" width="320" /></a></div>As the film went on, I started suspecting whether I’d seen the same film earlier. For, what had appeared to be banal earlier looked like a clever trick this time. It no longer seemed that plot and characters were carelessly handled. The simplicity and predictability seemed deliberately employed. It’s simple enough or a four-year-old to comprehend. And that’s the whole point. I think the reason for removing any complexity in plot and characterisation was to establish a bigger character: Pandora. The meticulously detailed flora and fauna of Pandora, which at first appeared to be a pointless exercise in showing off the money Cameron got from the studio, served the same purpose Tolkien’s descriptions did. What John did to Middle-earth, Jim does to Pandora. I was no longer irritated that the camera (or whatever brought the image to the screen) was lingering on the plants and insects more often than on the humans and Na’vi. Jake is as useful to Cameron as the hobbits were to Tolkien. They are our eyes into the world we know nothing about. The characters of Jake and the hobbits are indistinguishable from the audience/reader who begins the journey to see the vastness of a new world. I think it’ll be quite fair to say that it’s this film’s audience who Jake resembles.<br />
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Take, for instance, the scene in which Jake spots a bunch of touch-me-nots. This is the precise moment he gets drawn into the world of Pandora. And there’s no going back. This is the first time the audience, too, thinks that this world is not as fearsome as promised earlier in the film. Delighted like a kid, he runs about touching them until all the flowers have retracted. Then, suddenly, we get to see a fearsome creature. But Cameron introduces this beast quite casually and matter-of-factly. <i>It was simply there.</i> Contrary to the audience’s expectation, Cameron refuses to give this creature any special treatment and so practically humanises this animal. You see, monsters are as important as the humans, er, the animals are as important as the Na’vi. A quick revisit to the fifth chapter of the Book Two of <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> confirms that Tolkien, too, introduced the Balrog of Morgoth (the most terrifying creature in the entire book) in a very minimalist and un-dramatic way. It also reminded me of how the ghosts were shown in <i>The Shining</i>. After we’re promised that the experience in the Overlook Hotel will be quite fascinating for a “confirmed ghost story and horror film addict”, the film doesn’t exactly satisfy those addicts and refuses to give us those scary moments which make us scream. Kubrick refused to satisfy his audience’s expectations with his genre-defying horror film and consequently earned a Razzie nomination for Worst Director.<br />
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A clueless gentleman seated in the row before me asked his companions whether the scientists time-travelled to a pre-historic age. His innocent question induced much laughter around. But I think he was spot-on. We all know that this film is about people of an ancient time. What we’ve failed to notice is the fact that the storytelling in the film itself is similar to how those people told stories. <i>The Lord of the Rings</i> and <i>Avatar</i> would initially appear pedestrian because they don’t follow the traditional norms. But a closer look would reveal that the method these works adopt was used when the norms were not set. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ibisal/4270753673/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="187" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4038/4270753673_1fb4e94bb4.jpg" style="border-width: 0px;" width="320" /></a></div>Cameron is quite competent in drama or melodrama (I hate how offensively this term is used nowadays), as he’d shown us in <i>Titanic</i>. But here, drama is something he’s clearly not very interested in. Forget the animal, see how the female lead is introduced here. While the camera movement and score in <i>Titanic</i> clearly told us that it was The Girl coming out of the car, the introduction of Neytiri was as muted as anything. <br />
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Cameron appeared to be deliberately underplaying the character moments in the subsequent scenes. He never lets the characters and drama to grow bigger than Pandora, because they are part of Pandora itself. Scene after scene, I could see him building the mythology of Pandora. In <i>Titanic</i>, the ship was the backdrop of a tragic love story. But here, the characters are the backdrop of Pandora. But the way he introduces the mythology is far from being a videogame experience or amusement park ride. The Na’vi are people who live <i>in</i> the myth and old tales and legends (like the ones in <i>Rings</i>) are as important as their present. It’s not just the visual effects; the mythology, too, is vividly detailed. In most films of this kind, the main characters are the ones who create new mythology and the mythology surrounds them. But seldom do we see films in which the protagonists are often overshadowed by a larger pre-existing myth and act as catalysts to create a new chapter in a myth. (Besides <i>The Lord of the Rings</i>, Pullman’s <i>His Dark Materials</i> and, to an extent, Rowling’s <i>Harry Potter</i> are fine literary examples to have used this method. Harry Potter is much lesser than the mythology around him and he’s an accidental hero, as has been emphasised throughout the series, in case you are wondering why I chose <i>Potter</i>.) <br />
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Everything that unfolds in the first act – the Pa’li! The Ikran! The animals! The trees! The language! This! That! – points toward a bigger myth. The pleasure, however, lies in appreciating how it unfolds. It’s executed in a style as casual as the introduction of Neytiri. It’s refreshing to see a filmmaker doing this when this material automatically ensures a heavy-headed treatment which never lets us forget how profound it is. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2792/4457592393_579225f324.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2792/4457592393_579225f324.jpg" style="border-width: 0px;" width="320" /></a></div>The language is as meticulously constructed as Tolkien’s Sindarin or Quenya. (It’s worth noting that the subtitles are absent in some scenes.) Even the character dynamics are used to further the myth. Consider the scene in which Jake and Neytiri fly on their Ikrans after he’s tamed his personal Ikran. This is a wonderful moment which, by any other filmmaker, would be used <i>solely</i> to show their blossoming romance and to give a bang-for-bucks moment to the audience. (Everyone has told us how unoriginal this film is, conveniently dismissing the older, mythic roots. <i>Avatar</i> might very well be a copy of many movies from the 90’s. I think the concept of two lovers flying, too, was stolen from a 1997 film which had two lovers stretching their wings atop the deck of a ship. Why can’t I remember the name?) But the very next scene confirmed that Cameron’s intentions were much broader than that. While flying, they spot a huge Ikran-like creature, Toruk, which appears to be untameable. Neytiri shows Jake the skull of a Toruk and informs him that her grandfather had once tamed a Toruk and there have been only five people in history to have tamed Toruks. At this point, it’s a pointless bit of information the audience could very well do without. This bit of information is inessential because you already know it’s untameable. Why, then, would Cameron care to go into details of the past? In <i>Rings</i>, after the timid hobbits were rescued from the Barrow-wight by Tom Bombadil, they find some old weapons and in a very Tolkienian way, Tom Bombadil recounts an old legend concerning the weapons. There’s this passage:<br />
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<blockquote>The hobbits did not understand [Bombadil’s] words, but as he spoke they had a vision as it were of a great expanse of years behind them, like a vast shadowy plain over which there strode shapes of Men, tall and grim with bright swords, and last came one with a star on his brow. Then the vision faded, and they were back in the sunlit world. It was time to start again.</blockquote><br />
The hobbits took the weapons, not knowing if the weapon would be of any use. Little did they – and we – know that one of these daggers will change the history of Middle-earth by causing the end of the Witch-king of Angmar. It’s not just the war with which <i>Avatar</i> shows the conflict between the past and the present. It’s the beautiful scenes like these with which it explores the gap between “the vision” and the sunlit world”, not to mention Jake’s back-and-forth avatar journeys. It’s the conflict <i>within</i> the Na’vi as well. Not surprisingly, the Na’vi society largely mirrors the Shire. (In fact, the entire premise appears to be an extension of “The Scouring of the Shire”.) The gathering of various Na’vi clans reminded me of many alliances in Middle-earth’s history.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/47501377@N04/4609165701/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3238/4609165701_45a1d123d5_o.jpg" style="border-width: 0px;" width="320" /></a></div>Even when Jake declares his love to Neytiri underneath the Tree of Voices, the sequence is not without its share of mythological background. Now, this scene is supposed to have a dramatic effect, no matter how inept a director is. Not only does Cameron keep it muted, but he goes on to show how the Na’vi link with the past. They talk to their ancestors, they feel them. While there was not a single soul within a mile of Jack and Rose when they were flying atop the deck, this scene is full of, well, souls. Cameron sees Jake and Neytiri as just another couple. At heart, their love story is as ordinary as any other, as this scene <strike>tells</strike> shows us, but it’s special because it’s a catalyst of change of mythology. They are a small part of a large picture.<br />
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After all this, I needed no more proof of Cameron’s intentions. As if to confirm what’s already proven, there was the felling of the Home Tree. It’s a sad scene, a very dramatic scene. I guess everyone will agree with me when I say it’s the most dramatic, most emotional scene in the entire film. Wait! Did I just say “dramatic”? Didn’t I say this film wasn’t supposed to be dramatic? Isn’t that contradictory? But isn’t that the whole point? Cameron distances us from the characters and makes Pandora closer to us. You grow to care more about Pandora. The death scenes of Neytiri’s father and the scientist Dr Grace Augustine (both of which are understated, once again) aren’t really as tear-gland-friendly as the sight of the falling tree and the leaves floating in the air. What Cameron does, mostly invisibly, is personification of Nature. <br />
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This reminded me of a film which had similarly embraced Nature and somewhat distanced individual humans, a film which is very close to my heart: <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i>. The <a class??="" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWnmCu3U09w">opening sequence</a> was one of the most dramatic ones in the history of cinema. And what was that? A cosmic alignment set to Strauss’ <i>Also Sprach Zarathustra</i>. That scene made me realise that every part of my mind and body was made of strings. I perfectly understood the scientific phenomenon called “resonance” years before my physics textbook explained it at length. But the film that began on such a dramatic, pulsating note (about Nature) was so low-key in its treatment of humans that even the killing of humans (by a machine, no less) was shown coldly. Like <i>Avatar</i>, it wasn’t dramatic enough. Even the immdiate reactions to these two films are somewhat similar. One of my all-time favourite critics, Pauline Kael described it as “monumentally unimaginative” and “third-rate”. She went on to add: “If big film directors are to get credit for doing badly what others have been doing brilliantly for years with no money, just because they've put it on the big screen, then businessmen are greater than poets and theft is art.” That sums up <i>Avatar</i>’s reception, no? In many circles, <i>2001</i> is still called <i>A Snoozefest Odyssey</i> because of its waltzing spacecrafts, lack of storyline and great human characters. Like <i>Avatar</i>, <i>2001, </i>however, did manage to grab a special-effects Oscar. (It’s another thing that the SFX guy who won the only Oscar in his entire career went by the name Stanley Kubrick.) Apart from the spacecraft design, both these films have a lot in common. In both, Nature deserved the top billing. Both films are about Man <i>and</i> Nature (as opposed to Man <i>versus</i> Nature).<br />
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That was just a cinematic example. Tolkien, in <i>Rings</i>, had personified Nature as well. The Ents (trees), most ancient race in Middle-earth, walked, talked and, as in <i>Avatar</i>, waged war against the forces that poisoned Middle-earth. In my favourite chapter in <i>Rings</i>, the old sagely ent Treebeard recounts to the hobbits the old tales of the paradise that Middle-earth was and of the Entwives, the feminine part of Nature, who disappeared from Middle-earth as the evil forces began to devour Middle-earth. Bits like this made <i>Rings</i> one of my favourite works of literature. (Can you imagine my outrage when I saw how terribly butchered Treebeard was to suit the dramatic purpose in Jackson’s “vision”?)<br />
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Rabindranath Tagore did something similar in his short story <i>Balāi</i>. Like Tagore’s most works, this was an intimately personal tale as well. It’s the story of a little child who had lost his mother before he could call her Mother. His companions were trees. He talked to trees; he listened to the voices within the trees. He could feel the life within plants. In a very moving passage (which I’m incapable of translating), the trees are referred to as our old ancestors, eager to make their voice heard. Deprived of his mother’s lap, the child finds comfort in the other mother, Nature and his aunt who couldn’t be a mother. In <i>Avatar</i>, Jake is a child whose mother (the earth) has died long before his birth. He never sees his mother and neither do we. (In a stroke of genius, the backstory describing the condition of the earth has been removed.) Jake finds his mother resurrected in another form. When Jake urges a tree to look into the memories of Grace, it’s a motherless child desperately trying to save the mother he found. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4043/4174148884_461a83437f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4043/4174148884_461a83437f.jpg" style="border-width: 0px;" width="320" /></a></div>This film is full of references to mythological tales the world. It’d be futile to list all the nods to the myths and legends. The sights of the Jupiter-like gas-giant in Pandora’s sky are there to remind us of Zeus. The floating Hallelujah Mountains have probably replaced Olympus. I could see many, <i>many</i> allusions to folktales and legends of the world. The pre-release writings initially suggested that this <i>Avatar</i> was an extension of the videogame world. I expected it to be another entry in <i>Matrix</i>-like superficial profundity-cum-cyberpunk genre. But the entire concept of the Avatar Programme is taken from the very source of the word “avatar” itself: Indian mythology. It’s refreshing to see a film so wholeheartedly embrace one of the richest mythologies in the world, which, sadly, is reduced to religious mumbo-jumbo today. Most of the images directly pay tribute to Indian tales. I wouldn’t go into specific details; you always have – Eru Ilúvatar and Eywa bless us! – Wikipedia and Google for that. The clan-defying thing is <i>Dances with Wolves</i>, you say? How many Indian mythological examples should I cite? The best thing about <i>Avatar</i> is that it integrates a whole lot of ancient tales but never feels derivative. Its mythology is as refreshing as any other.<br />
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Now, I have to talk a bit about its science. Let’s just say, this film puts the “science” back into sci-fi. That’d be one of the biggest compliments for the film. I have no fondness for films which are called sci-fi simply because science is used as an excuse for idiotic (not to mention unscientific) ideas and stunts. <i>Avatar</i>, in the true spirit of great science-fiction writers, strives to be as scientifically accurate as possible, yet does not sacrifice its narrative flow. Best science-fictions are ones which have scientific ideas and facts <i>within</i> the narrative for the reader/viewer to discover. I was sold to this film’s science right from the moment it shows twins separated by light-years. I’m not sure how many films have played with the twin paradox. Even the extraordinary visuals have a detailed scientific basis. Bioluminescence is observed in Pandora not only because they are meant to stun us, but longer nights in Pandora would be a factor for such evolution. Even the floating mountains have been explained with a visual cue: the piece of the superconductor unobtanium floating in a magnetic field in Selfridge’s office. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wintan29/4033341033/in/set-72157622512740961/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2712/4033341033_8f865995bb.jpg" style="border-width: 0px;" width="320" /></a></div><i>Avatar</i> is simply revolutionary as far as portrayal of science and scientists goes in movies. It breaks every stereotype in sci-fi films. Take, for example, <i>Jurassic Park</i>. That movie was not content with giving us some scary-looking dinosaurs and cheap thrills from a director who’s gifted with the art of thrilling. It also managed to put forward a 3-year-old’s understanding of the chaos theory as a broad concept and a completely pernicious anti-science propaganda. As such films always do, it put a boundary to humans’ thirst for knowledge. Anyone who strives to reach for the Fruit of Knowledge (in short, a greedy, emotionless, megalomaniac scientist committed to destroy the world) is severely punished by God. This is found in almost every film (except, of course,<i> 2001</i>, which celebrated wisdom and exploration). But <i>Avatar</i> is never anti-science or even anti-technology. It never criticises the means through which Jake could become an avatar. Science is shown to be full of wonder and intrigue. Look how surprised and amazed Grace is during her fieldwork. She is killed not because she wants to explore things, but because she wants to save the things she’s exploring. Even her last wish, in the true spirit of a scientist, is to collect samples. She is ultimately rewarded by Nature as she unites with the sample.<br />
<br />
<iframe align="right" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=whetheminiswi-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B002VPE1B6&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>In terms of scientific accuracy, this is the first film since <i>2001</i> to get so many things so much right. It uses carefully detailed astronomy, physics and biology to build the myth. (Again, Googling will help you find how accurate the specific details are.) The inaccuracies are very minor, and unnoticeable if one isn’t very interested in science. It’s also the first film since <i>2001</i> to marry art, science and mythology so well. Its use of 3D is a scientific feat by itself. Of course, a film is good only if it transcends all avatars, IMAX to iPod. But then I ask myself: What about <i>2001</i>? Doesn’t it lose its much of its sensory appeal on my laptop screen? I’m one of those unlucky folks who simply<i> imagine</i> how different the opening black screen would be in a theatre. The third dimension isn’t about breaking the fourth wall. It’s there because, in Cameron’s vision, it has to. <i>2001</i> is a big-screen film and this is a 3D film. I don’t care whether this has reinvented cinema or not. (When Martin Scorsese declares that his next will be in 3D, it certainly has changed cinema forever.) I doubt if the careful use of 3D (never once does an arrow hit us) and visual effects will soon find an equal. The visuals, unlike those of other movies, aren’t great shots in isolation. They, like the Pandoran biosphere, are part of a bigger picture. The awesome images aren’t there for the sake of it. They are, well, interconnected. I have no passion for war sequences in films, but I admired this one enormously. I finally realised how well-edited this entire film is. The editing is good because it doesn’t call attention to itself. Even during the bang-bang war scenes, Cameron (himself an editor) and his co-editors keep the film focused and manage to create some compelling images like a horse running ablaze. <br />
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On first viewing, I, too, found the film shallow in its intent. It was indeed the glorification of the white male’s supremacy over inferior races. During the second viewing I realised how flat my earlier perception was. It’s as much about the victory of the white male as Tolkien was misogynistic or as Tarantino glamorises violence. The Na’vi accept Jake back in their clan after he’s tamed the Toruk. You see, only five people in history have been able to tame a Toruk. So the Na’vi don’t show him respect because he comes from a “higher, more advanced race”, they accept him because the myth-loving people submit to the mythology of their race. He isn’t a hero because he has heroic abilities. His worth has been determined by Nature. Except to deliver a rabble-rousing speech (I must mention that this was a bit of the film I actually hated), he doesn’t really do anything to be called a hero. As I said, he’s just a catalyst. Even during war, his co-warriors display more bravery than he does. <br />
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This can’t be about the triumph of a man while the entire film debunks the victory of man. It’s an all-out ode to the female form. It isn’t one of those pseudo-feministic films in which weak women are empowered in special situations with a man’s aid. It’s sends out a true feminist message which is more pronounced than the other messages in the film. (Here, I must tell you that I’m not fond of message-movies at all and I firmly believe in Louis B. Mayer’s words. But I feel the messages here are not afterthoughts, as with so many films. They are – forgive my bankruptcy of phrase – part of the bigger picture and internally realised.) Not surprisingly, this message has been thoroughly overlooked in the reviews that have vehemently trashed the environmentalist message, perhaps because environmentalists are favourite punching bags of today.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wintan29/4173394567/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2700/4173394567_12377a3856.jpg" style="border-width: 0px;" width="320" /></a></div>Here, the women are already strong, bold and empowered. They require no help from any man. On the contrary, they actually help the men who are weak. From Grace to Trudy, Neytiri to her mother, every woman is complete in herself, extremely stern and yet full of sympathy. While, in other films, women are no more than damsels in distress in the men’s game called war, <i>Avatar</i> shows women warriors changing the shape of a war. <i>Avatar</i>, like the Na’vi, worships womankind. It defies all gender stereotypes typically found in Hollywood films. It’s ultimately the Mother Nature, and not Our Hero, who comes to take revenge on those who poisoned her. The Entwives have deserted Middle-earth, but they can be found in Pandora. (Interestingly, in Tarantino’s <i>Inglourious Basterds</i>, one of the finest films in recent times, Art takes her revenge on those who insult her. There, too, Art is personified in a female form.) Even the final blow to the villain comes from Neytiri, saving the neck of Our Hero. (As the arrows pierced Quaritch’s chest I almost screamed: “Saruman!”)<br />
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The scene in which Neytiri meets the human Jake is pure magic. She holds him like a mother does her baby. She is simultaneously his lover and mother. She’s the positive force of Nature. Moreover, is she Nature herself? During Jake’s soul-transfer, it’s her hand that covers his face. She gives birth to the new, reformed Jake, doesn’t she? This image, I suspect, is another nod to <i>2001</i>. Humans transforming into far superior beings with an interstellar consciousness to catalyse the progress of civilisation captures the ending of <i>2001</i> well. In purely scientific terms, it’s the next stage in human evolution. <br />
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Even the most enthusiastic reviews praised this film only for its visual grandeur and found the film lacking in other departments. (I agree that the acting isn’t exceptional but in no way does it harm the film. The dialogue, though jarring in parts, is pleasantly archaic.) Sure, it’s a treat for the eyes, but one needs much more than optic nerves to fully appreciate this film. At first Neytiri regarding Jake as a child appeared to be a condescending statement to the audience. On second viewing, it became apparent to me that the statement had more to it than met ,well, the eye. It reminded me of W. H. Auden’s (not coincidentally, a Tolkien admirer) lines from his translation of the Norse mythological poem <i>Hávamál</i>:<br />
<blockquote><div style="text-align: center;">Hail to the speaker, </div><div style="text-align: center;">Hail to the knower,</div><div style="text-align: center;">Joy to him who has understood, </div><div style="text-align: center;">Delight to those who have listened.</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: right;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4015/4485894181_b21f4e4584.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4015/4485894181_b21f4e4584.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jim Cameron </td></tr>
</tbody></table>It’s about opening the eye (something endlessly shown in the film) and discovering the unseen wonders of Pandora. There are a few things which are told explicitly. But what isn’t told or seen in the film is just as interesting as what we see. Like all great imaginative works, it requires thinking and imagination on the audience’s part. I could truly appreciate this film when I started giving it serious thoughts. “Don’t analyse, just enjoy” is a common reaction from fanboys. (I think, blind worshipping of this “visual treat” is far more damaging to <i>Avatar</i> than the scathing criticism.) In fact, an in-depth analysis of <i>Avatar</i> will reveal things the audience and make it even <i>more</i> enjoyable. If one knows the difference between plot and screenplay, one will see how meticulously detailed and vividly imaginative the screenplay is. Cameron has crafted his screenplay with much thought and nuance. I must admit that I haven’t yet fully “got” the film. It’ll take a third or even more viewings to sink it in. <br />
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Cameron is a clever trickster. Look beyond the gorgeous visuals (that’s what <i>Avatar</i> asks of its audience), you’ll see he’s made an intensely personal film. Apparently, it’s quite an audience-friendly film. But his handling of this material clearly shows that he doesn’t do what his audience wanted him to do. Instead, he does what he wants to do. (Admittedly, during the first viewing, I was that kind of audience who wants a film to submit to his/her expectations.) See how he disguises minimalism with a maximalist cover. He makes the film in a largely literary/novelistic way which is hardly seen in films. Moreover, isn’t it simply fascinating that it’s a director who’s dictating the Hollywood studio system and not the other way round? I believe Jake could also be called Jim. Here’s a character who’s emancipated of his disability in another form of existence and ultimately does things the way he wants to and defies his employers. (Oh, I forgot to mention how magical the first avatar transformation is. Look at the way the camera looks at the legs!) Does it really require an over-imaginative mind to think that it’s a director finding feet to stand up against the studio bosses? I can think of only one director who used studio finances to make epic-scale independent films: Stanley Kubrick. Made with relatively unknown actors, this is very much an auteur’s film. (To cap it off, the poster outside the theatre read “Un film de James Cameron”, for reasons best known to Eywa.) I suppose, <i>Avatar</i> is the first example of a $300 (or 400 or 500) million Art Film.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/missruthy/4458349146/in/set-72157623555722553/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4019/4458349146_60b356c82b.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Eye Opens . . . Again </td></tr>
</tbody></table>I’ve said before that Jake is a reflection of the audience as well. The first time, I was an audience who refused to open the eyes. To me, the final image of the transformed Jake opening his eyes actually signifies my own transformation as an audience.<br />
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As the film ended, I exited the theatre silently. I didn’t express my reaction loudly for everyone around to hear. But I did say something, to myself, emphatically and unapologetically:<br />
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Yes, I love <i>Avatar</i>!Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-89806414241763923372010-05-09T23:03:00.003+05:302010-05-10T00:13:25.201+05:30The Celebration Begins!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3403/3519653780_29ed46a726_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3403/3519653780_29ed46a726_o.jpg" width="261" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rabindranath Tagore</td></tr>
</tbody></table>The world-wide celebration to observe the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore begins today. Rabindranath turned 149 today. I don't think I will be able to express in words what this day means to me. It offers me a passage to look back at the days of my childhood. Today, it will be a completely futile attempt on my part to give an account of my feelings of those days and my thoughts on Rabindranath and his vast body of work, because it will be endless. So I will keep this post short.<br />
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Bishnu De asks in a famous poem whether Rabindranath is all about the celebration that surrounds his birth and death anniversaries. All these years, after all these celebrations, it seems the same to me. On the morning of 25 Boiśākh, we turn on the television to watch the celebration taking place. We recite his poems and sing his songs with heartfelt passion.Some of us listen to Rabindrasangeet every day. Rabindranath is the reason of our cultural pride and rightfully so.<br />
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But for all our passion for Rabindrantah's works, we have strangely ignored Rabindranath himself. We love reading his poems and singing his songs, but not often do we pay attention to the thoughts and ideas expressed in the poems and songs. We have little time to look a Rabindranath's revolutionary ideas which were way ahead of his time. We have perhaps forgotten Rabindranath the thinker. It's the halo around him and his work that probably attracts us too much. We do not like to waste time to rediscover and interpret his works, because we have a notion that we know everything about Rabindranath. As I learnt from people very close to me, Rabindranath needs to be discovered everyday. He was not a man with stagnant ideas. It is fascinating to study the way he constantly changed. His works need to be looked at. His ideas are as valid today as they were a century ago. <br />
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Rock-n-roll remix of Rabindrasangeets and some abysmal music videos are not really what I call "reinterpretation". frighteningly, Rabindranath is being abused today. Only today, I caught some astrologer on a TV channel proclaiming that – are you ready for this? – Rabindranath promoted astrology! There are soaps which integrate out-of-context and horribly-sung Rabindrasangeets to add layers of meaning to them. Filmmakers alter our national anthem to use make their awful films something "deep" and then tell us that Rabindranath's intentions for writing it weren't very noble. Even the dates of his birth and death are tweaked conveniently. There are many more awesome gems, but in discussing them any further I will be giving them undue importance.<br />
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It is exciting for me that his works will be translated in many languages and be spread all over the world. People from other cultures will perhaps be able to do what we don't: perceive Rabindranath in a new way. Mixing of all forms of culture to form an enriched, superior form of culture was all Rabindranath wanted.<br />
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This year-long celebration, I hope, will bring us a new Rabindranath and help us get rid of the stagnancy of ideas.<br />
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So let's make this celebration a successful one! Let's rediscover Rabindranath!Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-2826481431043103742010-05-03T23:10:00.008+05:302023-08-18T15:54:17.373+05:30Galilean Nights: Event Overview<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/eliasjordan/3723541579/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2637/3723541579_991c92d55b_o.jpg" style="border-width: 0px;" /></a></div><br />
I am so late in writing this post because of the fact that I didn't know how I should have begun writing this. And to be honest, I still don't. This post has been under development for more than six months. So I decided to do away with any sort of beginning and get straight to the point. So here's everything (well, almost) about my <i>Galilean Nights</i> event . . .<br />
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This programme, like the <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/search/label/100HA"><i>100 Hours of Astronomy</i></a> earlier in 2009, was organised by <i>Prof. Dhiranando Roy Study & Research Centre</i>. In case you don't know, <i>Galilean Nights</i> was one of the Cornerstone Projects of the <i>International Year of Astronomy 2009</i>. Organised between October 22-24 2009, this programme aimed at reaching out to the people to show them the wonders of the night sky. This programme also intended to spread awareness about the great man we are remembering in IYA2009: Galileo Galilei. The main focus of Galilean Nights was on the objects Galileo observed 400 years ago and revolutionised modern science: The Sun, the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn.<br />
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I had originally planned to hold the event on all the three nights. But the pressure of my studies did not allow me to do what I'd intended to. But I <i>had to</i> organise it because I knew I'd die if I didn't. So I decided to hold the event for one night only. Saturday, October 24, seemed to me the best date to organise the event as more people would be able to come to the event during the weekend.<br />
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<b>Publicity</b><br />
I told you earlier that I was not satisfied with the promotion of the 100HA event. But this time, we were more focused and more determined. We started the publicity campaign one month before the event. I delivered a speech on Galileo on September 25 (Saptam<i>ĩ</i>) during Durga Puja, a Bengali festival. During the Puja, we could reach out to a large number of people, so we made the most of this opportunity. I announced that we would organise an astronomy event on October 24 and invited everyone present there to attend it and observe the beautiful night sky with telescopes. This way, we could tell the audience about Galileo and his achievements and make them feel strongly about Galileo. Curiously, it was during a religious event when we were talking about a man who proved religious ideas wrong! This speech created a buzz in the neighbourhood about <i>Galilean Nights</i>. Everyone in the locality kept asking us about it.<br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/space-lover/4109864146/sizes/m/in/photostream/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="310" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2449/4109864146_d79c7ffab5.jpg" width="194" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bengali version of the leaflet</td></tr>
</tbody></table>A couple of days prior to the event, we started distributing leaflets (in both English and Bengali) among the local people. In this leaflet, we told people about Galileo and his greatness as a man who changed the entire history of mankind. We made sure that everyone in the locality saw the wonderful <i>Galilean Nights</i> poster. We used the Internet, especially Twitter, to promote the event. We phoned a lot of people, inviting them to be a part of this event.<br />
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The Internet campaign worked extremely well. I had received phone calls and emails from a number of students who wanted to participate in the event. I was very glad to know that <i>Twilight</i> and <i>Transformers</i> weren't all this generation was interested in.<br />
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We (Mum, Dad, Grandmother and my sister) were now eagerly waiting for October 24 to arrive. And it did.<br />
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<b>Event Night</b> <br />
One did not need to buy any kind of entry ticket for this event. Everyone could participate in this event for free. We also provided the participants with snacks and refreshments.The event officially started from 1730. At first the attendance was nothing to boast of. But people started pouring in as time went on. <br />
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We set up two telescopes on the terrace of <i>Prof. Dhiranando Roy Study & Research Centre</i>. At first I delivered a brief speech on Galileo and then gave everyone a brief introduction to telescopes. Then came the time for the observation sessions. We showed Jupiter and the Moon through telescopes.<br />
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I received a<a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/09/over-moon.html"> Celestron SkyScout </a>for my 100HA event. We used this instrument to make this event more interesting. The unique instrument caught people's attention. They were perplexed by the fact that it could identify the objects in the sky so easily. Audio presentations on Jupiter and the Moon were made with SkyScout. The atmosphere of the event was very informal and that undoubtedly fascinated the attendees. We wanted to make the attendees feel more comfortable. So I let the attendees operate the SkyScout themselves.<br />
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Attendees were shown slideshows and short video clips on astronomy and space missions. I answered people’s queries. I also talked about various superstitions and their impact.<br />
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In short, the six-hour event was very successful. I credit the success of the event to Mum, Dad, Sister and Granny without whose help it would have been impossible for me to do this.<br />
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<b>Reaction</b><br />
I love writing this part. You know why? Because it makes me very glad to say how overwhelming the reaction was.<br />
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Mr Sengupta, a very special guest, wrote: 'It was really splendid to catch a glimpse of Jupiter and his three moons in thus vast cosmos. Life itself is a riddle and astronomers throughout the history of civilisation have tried to unravel its darkest secrets. Looking at Jupiter is like looking beyond the horizon. It's really a glory to be alive and wonder at the magnificence of Nature. I'm simply left with "awe" in a word.'<br />
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Awe. Yes, that is the word we kept hearing throughout the event. Mr Panda, another esteemed guest, could successfully connect his daily life with the sight through the eyepiece. This was the first time he looked at the sky through a telescope. He imagined that Jupiter and his sons and daughters were a family like any other. 'A little child is feeling very sleepy and is just about to disappear. Another child will come out from the shelter after a long sleep. They are as happy a family as can be,' he wrote. In his imagination, the Moon, too, was something related to his household activities. This further proves how interconnected the daily life and astronomy (in fact, science in general) actually is.<br />
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Avijit, a school student like myself, was one of the attendees who contacted me after the event information was put up on the Internet. To him it was an "unforgettable" and "life-changing" experience. Shashwat described the event as an "ode to mystery". Many said that this event made them realise that astronomy could be as fun and as entertaining as anything. Mr Chaudhuri and his daughter commended our efforts for making astronomy accessible and interesting to the general public.<br />
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Most common words/phrases in the reaction sheet were “great”, “wonderful”, “awesome”, “excellent”, “splendid”, “entertaining”, “well done”, “thanks” and “keep it up”. Everyone said that this event inspired them to learn more about astronomy and made them feel very privileged. They requested more such events in future.<br />
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We are thankful to each and every person who attended this event and in any way contributed to the success of this event. The kind words of encouragement of the attendees indeed mean a lot to us. This confirms the fact that International Year of Astronomy 2009 has been such a huge, huge (any repetition would be an understatement) success. Everyone related to IYA2009 has made it such a phenomenon. We are proud to have played our part (however little that may be) in this magnificent endeavour.<i> Beyond IYA2009</i> will be just as phenomenal.<br />
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In conclusion, let me leave you with some pictures of the event night.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4032/4575181988_ab2397e8da.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="420" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4032/4575181988_ab2397e8da.jpg" style="border-width: 0px;" width="420" /></a></div>Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-78456950974054301912010-04-15T23:25:00.001+05:302010-04-16T08:22:12.875+05:30This and That . . .It's been ages since I logged on to Blogger. Much to my delight, the homepage informed me that four comments were waiting to be published. I could hardly hold myself. Who could leave comments on a blog that's as good as dead? Who could possibly care about my random opinions? No one, I thought. And I was right. But the comments I saw pleased me in a different way. It's always a good sign when spambots leave ads on your blog. That means your blog's getting popular (among spambots, of course).<br />
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Blogging will not as sporadic this year as it was the last year, because I won't be blogging at all. You might see a couple of posts in the next few weeks. This is my final year and the NEWTs are very important. Since laying out my thoughts on the blog isn't as important as saving the world from the Dark Lord, I'm afraid you won't be seeing much of me in the year ahead. There are a great many things I wanted to write about. At first, I wanted to go back to the <i>Leaves from My Japan Diary</i> series. But I don't think I'll be able to do that because it will consume much of my time and energy. But I <i>will</i> write a few posts in the coming weeks. An incomplete overview of my <i>Galilean Nights </i>event has been gathering dust (the Pullmaninan one) in the drafts folder for about six months. I will also write about a major astronomy event I did in December. I will try to write about some films I saw recently. I hope I can write about <i>Avatar</i>, which has provoked my thoughts in a way I did not expect it to do. I had some film and book-related posts in mind, but . . .<br />
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Gosh! I almost forgot why I started writing this post in the first place.<br />
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Happy Bengali New Year! It's 1417, folks! Last year, I wrote a <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/04/subha-nava-varsa-or-subho-nobo-borso.html">post</a> on the Bengali New Year. Looking back, it surprises me how much effort I put forth for that little post, with diacritical marks and all. This year, I have decided to do away with the diacritical marks. Instead, I will use the Bengali script.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">শুভ নব বর্ষ </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">This is exactly what the title of that <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/04/subha-nava-varsa-or-subho-nobo-borso.html">post</a> is. The arrival of Boiśākh means a lot to me, as I have discussed in that post. 24 days from now, the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Rabindranath Tagore will begin. I was delighted to find his mention in the <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/115321.htm">New Year wish</a> from Mrs Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State. It that is any indicaion, I am sure the worldwide celebration of his birthday will be hugely successful. I hope the entire world rediscovers Tagore's works and looks at the Bengali culture with a fresh perspective. This effort will be immensely important for the growth of the Bengali language and culture and how the world perceives the Bengali culture.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Hope this year brings happiness to one and all. But the beginning of this year shows little promise of happiness for us in this part of the world. It's freezing in Kolkata. As I write this, I can see flakes of snow outside the window. A thick sheet of snow has covered the entire country. It will only get colder in May. I don't know what I'll do then. Fascinating, no?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div>Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-89784267579400388432009-12-18T00:37:00.010+05:302010-05-02T22:44:09.783+05:30Remembering Titanic<i><b>As the whole world gets ready to embrace the new James Cameron film, I decide to revisit a film which fascinated a child 11 years ago.</b></i><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/evasion/3712235359/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2621/3712235359_9155ce7380.jpg" style="border-width: 0px;" width="212" /></a><br />
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I was hardly five then. But to this day, the sunny April day of 1998 is as clear in my mind as anything else. A new English film had become the talk of the town. It had won 11 Oscars (I didn't know what an Oscar was) and became a global hit. (As though they were the only criteria for a good film) It had come to Kolkata and as expected, became an instant smash hit. People all over were rah-rah-ing about the film on the sinking ship.<br />
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My relationship with cinema till then was not very developed. I don't remember seeing many films before that. (You certainly wouldn't expect a five-year-old to appreciate Orson Welles or Satyajit Ray, would you?) I was taken to movie theatres a couple of times before but the experience at the cinema hall was nothing memorable to speak of.<br />
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We didn't know anything about this new movie except the fact that the protagonist was a sinking ship. I remember that Aunt managed to get five tickets for Mum, Dad, Sister, herself and well, that little child. I was very excited. I was going to watch a movie!<br />
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The day finally arrived and we were all ready to go to the movie theatre. Multiplexes were strangers to Kolkata until 2003. Single-screen halls were all we had then. We went to the Globe Cinema to see the movie called <i>Titanic</i> which was "edited to suit the family audiences in India". It was as clean and family-friendly as a five-year-old can possibly see.<br />
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And oh my Flying Spaghetti Monster! The crowd! What a crowd it was! Thank the FSM that I didn't get lost in the crowd that evening.<br />
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We were able to find our seats amidst the clamour. In a while, the lights were turned off and some trailers were shown (I don't remember which trailers they were). Then the movie started suddenly. The theatre became silent at once. As the treasure hunters went deep into the Atlantic, I (and possibly, every member of the audience) was immersed too.<br />
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Cut to: The scene at the Globe Cinema three-and-a-half hours later.<br />
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I was crying my hearts out. I was choked with emotion. I couldn't hold myself together. The movie gave me a feeling I wasn't yet familiar with: grief. The man called James Cameron had just given me one of the best experiences of my five-year-old life. <i>Titanic</i> was the power of cinema unleashed before me. In these three hours, I knew what the celluloid screen could do to a person. I knew how wonderful, how magnificent, how spectacular the medium of cinema could be. At that point, I knew I had fallen in love with movies.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlosjtj/3289285752/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3192/3289285752_4166b45fd5.jpg" style="border-width: 0px;" width="320" /></a>I had difficulty in understanding the words mouthed by the characters but what they said wasn't hard to understand at all. To use a very clichéd expression, the language was very much universal. On that special evening, I was entranced by the vastness of the scale of the movie. I was captivated by the quiet charm of Kate Winslet, who's still my favourite actress. There were sequences which left me thrilled, amused, shocked and excited. I remember being horrified by the scene when Rose tries to commit suicide. I remember being amused by the scene when Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio, who would go on to introduce me to Martin Scorsese) almost misses the ship. I remember being awed by the scene of Jack and Rose "flying". I remember being shattered by the sight of Jack sinking to the depth of ocean. I remember the effect the James Horner score created on my mind.<br />
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I remember the experience which I don't think I will ever be able to forget.<br />
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Next few months, <i>Titanic</i> was all I knew. I made terrible drawings of the ship all over my drawing books. I pestered everyone in the family to bring me anything which was related to <i>Titanic</i>. The rooms in my house were adorned with posters of <i>Titanic</i>. In a couple of months' time, we had our first PC. Just imagine how excited I was when someone gave me wallpapers of <i>Titanic</i> on my computer! I had the opportunity to see another spectacular achievement of Cameron – <i>Terminator 2: Judgment Day</i>.<br />
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Let me recount a heartbreaking experience here. One fine day, my parents gifted me an audiotape of the James Horner soundtrack of <i>Titanic</i>. On receiving that cassette, I was, needless to say, very enthused. I kept playing the tape in a portable cassette player in an infinite loop, especially the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmbw8OycJrE&NR=1">Celine Dion song</a>. But my joy was short-lived because the tape was somehow damaged one day. But at that moment the tape was out of stock and my parents couldn't get it replaced immediately. I had just lost something very precious to me.<br />
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Time went on and my <i>Titanic</i> mania eventually subsided. Gradually, I was introduced to cinema. I started realising what good cinema really was. I discovered the classic films and started to appreciate cinema as a medium of abstract art. I no longer had a soft spot for <i>Titanic</i>. It was just another crowd-pleaser, nothing more. It was very manipulative and unnecessarily sentimental. It's perhaps the worst Best Picture Oscar winner ever or even the worst film ever. It may even be the "most dreadful piece of work" ever, as declared by Robert Altman. I don't think it's a great film, or even a very good one. It definitely didn't deserve all those 11 Oscars. According to popular opinion, it should have deserved 11 Razzies or something even worse. Isn't it funny that we accuse <i>Titanic</i> of being popular (or populist for that matter) and declare it the worst thing mankind has ever experienced based on a <i>popular</i> opinion?<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/34932628@N07/4193333180/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2687/4193333180_2875602118.jpg" style="border-width: 0px;" width="213" /></a>I have to repeat that I don't think <i>Titanic</i> is a very good film. But it's perhaps not as abysmal as it's made out to be. But I can't deny how it affected me when I was a child because it opened up a new door for me and it remains an important film of my life. This film was my first tryst with the thing called cinema.<br />
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As James Cameron comes out of his 12-year-long hibernation with the sureshot-blockbuster <i>Avatar </i>today (it was "tomorrow" when I started writing it), I become just as excited as the child who was floored by his earlier film 11 years ago. I think Mr Cameron will be able to bring out the long-forgotten child within me with his film and will inspire him to love a film from the bottom of his heart. It's not always the greatest of things you have a place in your heart for. Sometimes, just something mediocre can move you or inspire you. That is just good enough, <i>sometimes</i>. I mean, who can imagine that it was schlock and grindhouse which gave us a filmmaker like Quentin Tarantino? It's his love of films (I mean all films, not just greats or classics) which makes him the finest auteur of today.<br />
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I am more than willing to believe Ebert when he <a href="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091211/REVIEWS/912119998">says</a>: 'It takes a hell of a lot of nerve for a man to stand up at the Oscarcast and proclaim himself King of the World. James Cameron just got re-elected.' And I am all ready to bow before the King.Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-36108014988983807992009-11-24T23:15:00.157+05:302023-08-18T15:53:54.239+05:30150 Years of Realisation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgedthompson/4132462440/sizes/m/in/pool-40269815@N00/" imageanchor="1" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2727/4132462440_b63e31097e.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px;" width="203" yr="true" /></a><em>400 Years Later</em> ...<br />
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That was the name of the <em>Galilean Nights</em> event I had organised last month. The event was very successful, to put it simply. I couldn't post the pictures and event reports on this blog because my studies left me with little time to blog or even Tweet. (I'll post the pics and reports soon.)<br />
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2009, as you must know, has been declared as the International Year of Astronomy to commemorate the 400<sup>th</sup> anniversary of that little invention called telescope. In 2009, we are remembering the Father of Modern Science – Galileo Galilei. So far, it's been an awesome and very fruitful year for all astronomers and astronomy enthusiasts. IYA2009 perfectly accomplished what it intended to do and what it did was much bigger and better than many could have hoped for. More on that next month.<br />
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But if you thought that only that was the importance of 2009, think again.<br />
<a name='more'></a>2009 also marks the 150<sup>th</sup> anniversary of publication of one of the most important books in the history of human civilisation: <em>On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life </em>by, well, Charles Robert Darwin.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/cpurrin1/4131458455/in/pool-40269815@N00" imageanchor="1" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2579/4131458455_d833768bc7.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px;" width="197" yr="true" /></a><br />
</div>This book was published on this very day, 150 years ago. It was perhaps the single most influential book ever published. This book tried to tell us that we were not perhaps Created by the Big Puppeteer Above. This book revealed the crueler, meaner side of Nature. This book told us that life (in the most literal sense) was a continuous struggle – a struggle for existence. This book made us aware of the fact that the Big Puppeteer wasn't the reason we continued to exist. We existed because we <em>deserved to</em>. We survived because we were the fittest. We survived because Nature (not He or She) <em>selected us</em>.<br />
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This book told us that we have <em>evolved</em>.<br />
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The theory of evolution can't exactly be credited to Darwin. Lamarck had already told us about the progression of life forms. But no other theory was as r<em>evolutionary </em>(pun intended) as Darwin's. His theory was as sharp and as potent as Hattori Hanzō's katana, which could slice Him.<br />
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Darwin's book single-handedly changed our perception of life. We were able to look at ourselves through a new prism. Could we have imagined that our ancestors were actually apes? Could we have imagined that we might have some sort of connection with the monkeys at the zoo? <br />
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A frighteningly large number of people <em>still</em> refuse to acknowledge the fact that we have evolved and in doing so, they insult the human race and human intelligence. The fact that we have tried to realise who we are and where we came from shows how far we have evolved. Isn't this realisation the pinnacle of human intelligence? Isn't this realisation very beautiful, perplexing and ultimately, uplifting?<br />
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150 years after the publication of the Sacred Scripture (for worshippers of science) people continue to debate this theory. Biologists continue to add to this theory. We continue to evolve in our thoughts and scientific pursuits. We continue to realise. And Darwin continues to live.Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-89511569891131987622009-09-28T20:51:00.009+05:302023-08-18T15:59:55.122+05:30Over the Moon!The festive season is finally here! Bengalis all over the world have started celebrating. I find it very interesting to see the happy faces of people going crazy to receive blessings of goddess Durga whom they very affectionately refer to as <i>Maa</i> (Mother). You'll find another kind of people who find a lot of reasons to be happy, apart from, of course, the divine blessings. But that's another story altogether. Some people become happy to meet distant relatives and childhood friends. To them the Puja is a trip down memory lane, an opportunity to meet the older, younger self they have long forgotten. Then there's another kind of people whose lives are trapped in a bubble of perpetual sadness and gloom. Yet they try to force a smile on the face, hoping against hope to be happy.<br />
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My relationship with the goddess-mother (or mother-goddess, whatever you prefer) has always been very poor. As a matter of fact, there has never been any relationship between us at all. It was early in my childhood when I abandoned the idea of a Higher Power from Above controlling every aspect of the Universe from the eyelids of a child to a drop of rain. Yet I enjoyed myself during the Puja, but not by <i>celebrating</i> it. I have been worshipping pasta over the past few years, but still I try to be happy this season. I fail to derive joy from visiting the Puja pandals which are, apparently, the pinnacle of artistic brilliance. I don't find "hanging out" a great option either. But everyone around me is very happy, so why should I not give myself a chance to be happy? But my source of joy is a bit (OK, a lot!) different. I decided to watch a movie this time. It should have been a very entertaining, action-packed, emotionally affecting movie with a great story to tell, but it wasn't.<br />
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It was a movie I saw a long time ago and on the <i>Şaşţhĩ</i> (September 24, the day the Puja officially began) morning, I decided to revisit that very boring film, one of my all-time favourites: Stanley Kubrick's <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i>.<br />
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</div>This film gets better with each viewing and this time was no exception. Some scenes were even more effective this time. Some images had such a lasting impact on me in my childhood that they can't be any better. It'll be a pointless attempt to list them all, but if I have to pick a few, here they are (SPOILER ALERT):<br />
<ul><li>1) The apes discovering the monolith and learning to use weapons </li>
<li>2) HAL killing the hibernating astronauts</li>
<li>3) Every shot of the red eye of HAL</li>
<li>4) The final image</li>
</ul>The phrase "emotional vacuum" is often used to describe this film but very few films have moved me in a way this one did. It also works on a subconscious level (I'm saying this because the Star Gate sequence keeps coming back to me). I assume no one could have put it better than Roger Ebert <a href="http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19970327/REVIEWS08/401010362/1023">does</a>: <br />
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<blockquote>[<i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i>] is the work of an artist so sublimely confident that he doesn't include a single shot simply to keep our attention. He reduces each scene to its essence, and leaves it on screen long enough for us to contemplate it, to inhabit it in our imaginations. Alone among science-fiction movies, “2001" is not concerned with thrilling us, but with inspiring our awe.<br />
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[...]<br />
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Only a few films are transcendent, and work upon our minds and imaginations like music or prayer or a vast belittling landscape.<br />
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I have a lot more to say about this film, but not now. Just when the descendants of the ape find another monolith on the Moon, the news reporter on the television says something about the Moon. My attention was immediately diverted (which doesn't happen usually). I clicked "pause" and saw that the Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan I had conclusively <a href="http://www.hindu.com/2009/09/25/stories/2009092550150100.htm">confirmed</a> the presence of water on the Moon (I hadn't read any newspaper yet). We are taught from our childhood that the Moon is one of the driest places in the solar system. Thanks to ISRO and NASA, the textbooks will be corrected all over again. (Update: But considering the amount of water found in the soil of the Moon, it still is one of the driest places in the solar system.) Congratulations to both ISRO and NASA! Now I am all excited for the LCROSS impact on the Moon on October 9.<br />
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And this announcement comes weeks after the news of the death of Chandrayaan I. One of my friends was quite sad about this and almost lost all hope he had in India's space programme. I told him that there was nothing to be sad about and not all spacecrafts are wholly successful. I pointed out that there was a time when most missions to Mars were "jinxed". Still I could not make him feel any better. This discovery will undoubtedly relieve him and it's also an answer to the detractors of the Chandrayaan mission.<br />
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After the viewing that classic for the n<sup>th</sup> time and receiving that news, I thought I was the happiest person this season. But the day's surprises were not yet over. Suddenly the doorbell rang. I had received a parcel. Knowing what it was, I signed on some dotted lines and called all the members of my family to attend the "opening ceremony". I opened it. Here's what I received after quite a complicated process which I won't discuss here. I dedicated it to my grandfather:<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/space-lover/3950441107/" title="My Tribute"><img alt="My Tribute" height="381" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2578/3950441107_e5cbc69419.jpg" width="284" style="border-width: 0px;" /></a><br />
</div>It was my <i>100 Hours of Astronomy</i> prize, a <i>Celestron SkyScout</i>! It's the finest gift one could receive for the Puja.<br />
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I am over the Moon. I really am. Am I a lunatic? Dunno. You tell me!<br />
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<i>[I started writing this post on Şaşţhĩ but didn't manage to finish it until today when the Puja is over, thanks to my ISP.]</i>Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-79770625574166126942009-09-17T19:06:00.004+05:302009-10-05T11:54:22.654+05:30Video: 100 Hours of Astronomy: Award Acceptance / Award CeremonyI am sorry that I am uploading the videos this late. It's been more than one month since the <i>100 Hours of Astronomy</i> award ceremony took place at the XXVIIth General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I've told you almost everything about the award before. So let's not be <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/08/moment-of-ecstasy.html">repetitive</a>.<br />
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The following video is the one I had originally made to be shown at the ceremony.<br />
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<object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xU9XLvxCC70&hl=en&fs=0&rel=0&showsearch=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xU9XLvxCC70&hl=en&fs=0&rel=0&showsearch=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />
(You can watch it in a better quality by clicking on "HQ", if you have a fast connection.)<br />
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The video below shows the part of the award ceremony when my video was presented.<br />
<object height="265" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VZoSpNvenwU&hl=en&fs=0&rel=0&showsearch=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VZoSpNvenwU&hl=en&fs=0&rel=0&showsearch=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object><br />
(Award Seven is not a rank. It's just a category of the award.)<br />
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The second video is a part of the 1-hour-long video of the entire ceremony. You can watch the full video with presentations from winners in other categories <a href="http://www.video.rnp.br/overmedia/Id.do?instance=0&id=rnpJi9ldP_k-5Rl0gdMV_7G9YYpaho6TA1SO4CYChdSBjU.&type=video">here</a>. I have lost count of the number of times I watched the entire video and never has this video failed to send a shiver down my spine. Every time I watch the video, I realise how little I have done. Everything the winners in other categories have done is spectacular to say the least. My work, however passionate, is almost negligible compared to theirs. I am very glad that I got the opportunity to showcase my work alongside theirs. And I've told you <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/08/moment-of-ecstasy.html">before</a> how it feels to have your video shown at the IAU General Assembly.<br />
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This award has motivated me strongly. I advance toward my aim with greater enthusiasm. I want to perform the task my grandfather has left me, though I can hardly dream doing half of what he did.<br />
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In my video I said, 'Considering that my resources were limited, I think my event was successful.' I had little resources to make the video as well. But I don't think the video is excellent, and I don't want to blame the lack of resources this time. It was simply my fault. I made the video on Windows Movie Maker which can give loads of much if you are working on a slow computer. Yet, I can't forgive the choppiness in some parts, most notably in the "About Me" part. Considering the time I took to make this video, it could have been much better.<br />
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I was anxious about how my presentation would be received. I was very relieved when Ms Jennie McCormick of the 100HA Global Task Group told me that it was "great".<br />
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I have watched that part of the ceremony over a hundred times. Ms Donna Smith, coordinator of Sidewalk Astronomy, presented my award in a very sweet and affectionate manner.<br />
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I was also worried about what people would think about my appearance as I am often told that I am very "funny and comical". My joy knew no bounds when Mr Mike Simmons (Co-chair, 100HA) said, 'Well, this is a 15-year-old young man in Calcutta, India, one of the largest cities in the world. How many lives do you think he will affect over the next 60 years or so? It's also interesting to be upstaged by a better screen presence of a 15-year-old, but I can live with that.'<br />
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So please use the comment space below to express your opinion on the videos. I am eagerly waiting.<br />
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(I haven't organised any astronomy event since June largely because of my studies. I intend to organise a couple of events in the coming weeks. If you are interested, email me from the Blogger profile page.)Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-3439765657101579212009-09-05T20:03:00.025+05:302009-09-15T12:12:21.467+05:30Happy Teachers' Day!<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/34892119@N03/3238048047/sizes/o/" title="Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3516/3238048047_fdd3bc598b_o.jpg" style="border-width: 0px; float: right; height: 287px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 203px;" /></a>For me Teachers' Day is one of the most anticipated days of the year. I don't look forward to this day because this day offers us a chance to express our gratitude to our teachers and tell them how great they are. That should be done everyday. We need to thank our teachers 365 days a year from the bottom of our heart. We deliver some very emotional speeches on this day but once the day is over do we really believe in what we said?<br />
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Everyday, there's a news headline indicating the steadily deteriorating teacher-pupil relationship. What is the significance of September 5 if students don't respect their teachers as much as they should? We need to observe Teachers' Day everyday by being obedient to them and showing them proper respect, not by giving them flower bouquets. I'm not saying that giving them flower bouquets is not a good thing to do, it'd just be better if the bouquets were accompanied by true respect and love. Otherwise, the observance of Teachers' Day becomes an exercise in pointlessness and falsehood.<br />
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However, I await September 5 with intense anticipation because of the mad celebration that takes place in our school. "Dazzling" would be another word to describe it aptly. We have, to use a much-abused phrase, loads of fun on this day and today was no exception.<br />
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The most awesome part of the Teachers' Day celebration is Teacher-for-a-Day programme. Till 2007, the senior students took up the job of teaching us for a period or two. When a senior taught us, a teacher of the same subject sat with us and judged his performance as a teacher. Sometimes, some of my classmates would pull the legs of the senior by asking them particularly difficult questions in front of the teacher. But I had never done anything to embarrass the seniors as I knew how difficult it was for them to teach us in front of the teacher.<br />
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Since 2008, I have officially been a "senior". So I got the chance to teach the younger folks for two years. Last year my mathematics class won me the prize for best teacher. Today I was given the responsibility to teach class VIII students mathematics. Maths is one of my favourite subjects, so I wasn't anxious at all and it didn't take me a second to decide what I was going to teach.<br />
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So I entered the classroom with my maths teacher. The teacher sat behind them and my students said to me, 'Good morning, Sir!' Just imagine this scene! It was a great session. Thankfully, the students I got were not mischievous. They asked me questions, but never to pull my legs. It was very fun teaching them. At moments I wanted to look in the eyes of my teacher and ask him (with eyes, of course), 'Sir, am I doing alright? Have I successfully learnt everything you taught us?' But I controlled myself. Even after the teacher went out from the classroom with my marks safely clutched in his hands, I taught them on for a couple of minutes before the next teacher-for-a-day entered the classroom, because I felt that I should be sincere to the profession of teaching, even though it was for a day.<br />
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Some of my friends stood outside the classroom watching me teaching. One of them even recorded a video of me giving lecture and writing on the board. But never did they become a source of annoyance or distraction.<br />
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I was very happy after my session as a teacher. I heard funny anecdotes from the friends who took up this job. Some of the non-teaching seniors taught the juniors some tricky questions which they asked to the senior teaching them and embarrassed him no end. One of my friends had a hilarious experience:<br />
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He was teaching class X students history. The students decided to play a prank on him. He asked his students, 'What did K. C. Das do?' One of the students replied, 'He invented <span style="font-style: italic;">rosogolla </span> (a famous Bengali sweet, which is often portrayed elsewhere as the only thing in the Universe Bengalis know and care about).' This one had everyone of us (including him) in splits.<br />
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This is the degree of fun and enjoyment we have every year. There was a short and pleasant programme after this. The programme became all the more enjoyable for me as I won another prize this year for teaching. There's a friendly football match between teachers and senior students every year, which I love watching.<br />
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But I haven't yet told you the most special aspect of Teachers' Day, have I? The Teachers' Day reminds me of my pre-school Teachers' Day celebration with the best teacher I've ever had: my grandfather.Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-49193584341449046352009-08-11T21:30:00.006+05:302009-09-17T17:18:15.288+05:30A Moment of EcstasyHow else can I define it? I fall short of words to describe the moment that's coming in a few hours. It will be erroneous to describe my feelings as ecstasy. What I am feeling now is something I've rarely, or maybe never experienced. It's not elation, it's something beyond that. It's <span style="font-style: italic;">that something</span> plus anxiety, fear, anticipation, awe. Now that would be a more apt description. I think I have written ample words trying in vain to do what is beyond my ability.<br />
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Let's get it straight. How would you feel if you were an astronomy enthusiast and got to express yourself in front of the top astronomers of the world? How would you feel if you were being featured at the convention where world's best astronomers meet and where every major decision about astronomy was made? How would you feel if you got the chance to represent your nation, acknowledge the part of the most important people in your life and say what you want to at such a convention?<br />
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See? Don't all these <span style="font-style: italic;">feelings</span> obstruct your <span style="font-style: italic;">thoughts</span>? Oh, I forgot to add: how would you feel if the highest governing body in astronomy gave you an award for your work when you are still in school?<br />
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So it'd be an exercise in futility writing about feelings, wouldn't it? Here's the thing. I've told you about my award <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/07/award.html">before</a>. Please allow me to repeat it here: I'm the winner of the <span style="font-style: italic;">100 Hours of Astronomy Youth Participation Award</span>. And in a few hours, (three, to be exact) the award will be presented in Rio de Janeiro at the XXVII<sup>th</sup> General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). (The UN, IAU and every space organisation of the world are part of the celebration that is International Year of Astronomy.)<br />
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Contrary to what the above passages may have indicated, I'll <span style="font-style: italic;">not </span>actually be present in Rio de Janeiro in person to receive this award. A short video that I made will be shown there. And not many people are – beware of the extremely foul and offensive word – that <span style="font-style: italic;">lucky</span> (I really, really dislike this word) to showcase themselves (even with a video) in front of some of the best astronomers in the world.<br />
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It sends shivers down my spine to think that a historic decision like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_definition_of_planet">this</a> was made in the previous General Assembly of the IAU. I mean, <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span>? In the 26th G.A., we got ourselves a new kind of objects called "dwarf planets" and after which all books in the world had to change the number of planets in the solar system. And in the next, I am featured? It can't be real! It must be a dream! But thankfully it isn't.<br />
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The award ceremony will start from 16:00 local time (that's 19:00 GMT or 0:30 IST). But the video of the ceremony will not be shown live. It will be archived after 2 hours. So you can access the video from <a href="http://www.video.rnp.br/overmedia/videos.jsp?_contexto=grupo&_idContexto=57">this site</a> 21:00 GMT (2:30 IST) onwards. So I invite you to come and share my moment of <span style="font-style: italic;">that something</span>.<br />
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People use the phrase "dream come true" to describe something like this. But what will you say if you didn't even dream of that dream?Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-66880907741968800012009-07-21T21:02:00.000+05:302009-07-21T21:02:00.214+05:30An AwardI'll keep this post short. Promise.<br /><br />No more unnecessary dramatic <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/07/return-of-mudblood-king.html">effect</a>. Here's the thing. Yes, an award! That's what forced me to come out of my long hibernation. It's not some routine award I am talking about. The award I've got is pretty big.<br /><br />Now anyone who's interested in science will know that this year has been declared as the <span style="font-style: italic;">International Year of Astronomy</span> (IYA2009) by the UN (the International Astronomical Union and the UNESCO initiated this "global effort"). I've <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/03/2009-universe-yours-and-mine-to.html">discussed</a> at length what this year means to me.<br /><br />A programme called <span style="font-style: italic;">100 Hours of Astronomy</span> was a cornerstone project of IYA2009. During 2-5 April 2009, professional and amateur astronomers and all sky-fanatics worldwide were united by the cause to celebrate astronomy and make it accessible for the general public. So that was the 100HA. And I was one of the passionate people who joined the celebration. It was a remarkable experience for me. (I've talked about the 100HA <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/04/100-hours-of-astronomy-day-i-part-2.html">here</a>, <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/04/100-hours-of-astronomy-day-ii.html">here</a>, <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/04/100-hours-of-astronomy-day-iii.html">here</a>, <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/04/100-hours-of-astronomy-day-iv.html">here</a>, <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/04/server-not-found-or-how-my-isp-almost.html">here</a> and <a href="http://upamanyuspeaks.blogspot.com/2009/04/100-hours-of-astronomy-final-word.html">this</a> is the final round-up.) It was announced later that they'd give away awards to 100HA organisers in 8 categories. I sent everything in. It was beyond my wildest imagination that I <span style="font-style: italic;">could </span>win a prize for what I did.<br /><br />But as you very much know, my imagination deceived me. Yes I was wrong.<br /><br />Yes! I won the <span style="font-weight: bold;">100 HOURS OF ASTRONOMY YOUTH PARTICIPATION AWARD</span> on behalf of <span style="font-style: italic;">Prof. Dhiranando Roy Study & Research Centre</span>. But I won't write my acceptance here. I have to write that elaborately to do justice to my feelings upon receiving such a prestigious award.<br /><br />But one thing I can surely say. For me, the <span>International Year of Astronomy has just begun.<br /></span>Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-16156123071825706952009-07-21T08:28:00.001+05:302009-07-21T15:08:35.127+05:30The Return of the Mudblood KingShould I apologise to you? And to myself? Or should I not? That's not really the question. The questions should be: Why did I stop writing when my <span style="font-style: italic;">Leaves from My Japan Diary</span> series was being liked? And why have I decided to return?<br /><br />It's true that I've received many appreciative and encouraging responses from readers. The reaction from my fellow team member wasn't really unexpected, considering that they were all part of the experience. But the response from others was unexpected, surprising and moving. I was very moved when some readers emailed me to express their thoughts on my writing as the comment form was not working. You may ask why I decided to discontinue the series after recounting the experience of only two days in Japan.<br /><br />The fact is: I wasn't really happy with <span style="font-style: italic;">how</span> I wrote the later posts. A couple of hours after I posted the account of Day Two, I decided to read the entire series from the beginning. (Just to let you know, it was already 25 pages, 15,000 words and 70,000 characters long and I'd already written half of Day Three.) This decision to reread was right and that was what led to another decision. You probably know what that is. I discovered that when I started writing the series, my passion was reflected in the introduction, prologue and the next post or two. But as the series progressed, the writing style started showing cracks. By the time it arrived in Japan, the style had completely fallen apart. There was no passion with which I'd begun to write. I thought the style of the latter posts was slowly becoming repetitive, dull and – forgive me for using this word –<span style="font-style: italic;"> boring</span>. (But if you still appreciated my writing, all I can say is: Thank you!) However, I knew that this style wouldn't work anymore and decided not to tamper with what I'd posted. I felt that I should write well rather than just posting exactly on the same date to do justice to the beautiful moments. So I stopped writing anymore and waited for the moment when I'd be able to (cliché alert) pour my heart and soul into the writing.<br /><br />Meanwhile, a lot of events happened in my personal life, my school started and there was no time to devote to writing. Occasionally I did post a tweet/status update or two, but that was it. I had a lot of things in mind to blog about. But I told myself that Japan should be completed first. But I didn't know how I could start it afresh (it certainly wasn't blogger's block). July turned out even worse. There were a lot of problems on the personal front. My poor health kept me from posting any tweets. (2009 is the worst year so far for me in terms of health) I couldn't be online for more than 10 minutes. I couldn't even go out, as my doctor had advised. I lost all interest to come online.<br /><br />Circumstances snatched away my chance to watch tomorrow's total solar eclipse (it'll be a partial eclipse for me). Isn't that very cruel? Chances are that I mayn't be able to watch even that, if the friendly clouds greet me tomorrow. There was no sign of happiness or hope around until …<br /><br />Until something happened I'm not going to tell you in this post. So the second question will remain unanswered. For now. The next post itself will be the answer. Watch out.<br /><br />And if the title of the post makes you want to know what I thought of <span style="font-style: italic;">Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince</span>, well, I haven't seen that either.<br /><br />(I will resume regular blogging soon. And the Japan posts? I'll let you know when it's over.)Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-24446070138797442712009-05-14T23:49:00.007+05:302011-05-22T17:33:15.946+05:30Leaves from My Japan Diary: Sunshine<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I awoke on this day with renewed enthusiasm. I knew at once that I’d not be feeling drowsy anymore. But when I looked out of the window the sight didn’t match my anticipation at all. I expected a genial, bright, warm day. Much to my disappointment, the sky was still overcast. It seemed the cloak of clouds was not to lift itself anytime soon. On the positive side, it was much less cold than it had been the day before. What I knew for sure was that I was going to enjoy this day better. I woke up very early in the morning and got ready. I felt refreshed; I saw clearly what a good sleep could do to me. Soon, the Wise Brother and the Silent Guy were ready and we were off to breakfast.<br />
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Breakfast at the Atagoyama Tokyu Inn was very interesting. I got to taste some delicious Japanese cuisine at breakfast. I always preferred chopsticks to forks and spoons while in Japan. It made me feel more Japanese. After a nice and filling breakfast, we gathered once again. I kept chatting with my friends (also from other groups). I kept saying “Ohayō gozaimasu” to everyone I met, Indian and Japanese alike. I had a feeling that I wasn’t in a foreign country at all. It felt like … <i>my own</i>.<br />
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I was introduced to another member of JICE, Hiromi-san, a wonderful lady. She and I had quite a lengthy conversation about our culture. (I had a similar exchange with Rie-san the day before.) I’ve just thought about two more names for the girls in our team: one will be called Pinkie Kaka (she too was a football fanatic, but two names like “Football Fanatic Guy” and “Football Fanatic Girl” may be misleading for non-Saga readers; therefore, this name, but I don’t have any particular reason for this, it’s just random) and the other, Ms Juiceless. Now everybody knows who Ms Juiceless is. And no, this isn’t a name I’ve invented. In fact, she was the one to coin the term. I’ll discuss the reason for this christening in a few days.<br />
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However, let’s get back to the day. When we went outside it was raining a bit, but it was nothing uncomfortable. In fact, I started enjoying the rain. There was a lecture on Japan at 9 o'clock. We were all going to Toranomon Pastoral (Mint), just five minutes’ walk from our inn. We were to learn a great deal more about the past and present of Japan. We arrived at the conference room in no time. Rie-san introduced us to our lecturer, Mr Takeshi Mura from J. F. Oberlin University. The lecture began at 9:05 a.m. sharp, not a minute before or after the scheduled time. Mr Mura started his lecture and slideshow. He spoke in Japanese and his words were translated by Hirooka-san. The lecture was for one hour and a half. But when the lecture finished, I didn’t realise how long it was. The lecture, as well as the slideshow, was so engaging, so interesting that I sat there captivated; I wish it were longer. The lecture was another eye-opener on Japan for me. I was getting more and more amazed and this lecture changed my perception considerably. We students were guests to Japan for cultural and educational exchange. So naturally, it was expected that we’ll be shown only about the positive side of Japan. We were indeed shown the advancement of Japan over decades and the uncountable technological achievements of Japan. I was stunned when the lecturer also chose to highlight the not-so-good aspects in the history of Japan, the mistakes Japan had committed in the past. I loved this tremendous honesty as very few dare to be self-criticising – a good sign for the progress of any nation. This highlighting of the mistakes didn’t make me any less respectful to the Japanese. On the contrary, my admiration and respect towards them increased even more after this wonderful gesture. Learning from mistakes: that’s what everybody needs to do, most don’t and Japan certainly did.<br />
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We had about half an hour to ask him questions. He was completely flooded by enquiries from the students. He answered them impeccably. I had thought of a question. But we ran out of time long before my turn came. But I did manage to take a photograph with him. He was very kind to let me (and others as well) take pictures with him.<br />
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After I came out of the hall, I saw the sky was still cloudy. But it had become a sunny day for me. Nothing could hold back my enthusiasm that day, nothing could … and nothing did. I was completely overpowered by endless – what do I call it? – joy, elation, ecstasy and what-not? I lost my self-consciousness and forgot to care about how I appeared. I didn’t notice how ludicrous I’d looked in that black jumper and scarf or how badly I’d worn the scarf until I looked at the pictures after my return home. I looked at my reflection many times that day but nothing seemed to be wrong. That was probably why many of my friends seemed to regard me as some sort of prankster. (The Vampire Addict was among them; oh, christened another girl!) But guess what, I didn’t care about that either (nor does it make me uncomfortable now). I was lost in my thoughts. I never thought about the quality of food I got because it was too insubstantial a subject to me and … I <i>was</i> getting something to eat. It didn’t matter to me what I looked like or what I ate or how I was perceived. All that mattered to me was what I felt. I won’t probably exaggerate when I say I was the most jubilant person there.<br />
<a name='more'></a>However, after the lecture, we went out again. There was a new bus waiting for us (we had a new bus everyday). Hiromi-san, as well as Yamaguchi-san, was accompanying us to lunch. I hardly switched my camera off this day. I took photos of anything and everything. Careful not to waste power, I even turned off the LCD screen and used the viewfinder instead. That indeed helped me take as much photos as I wanted. All I remember about our lunch is that I had a conversation with Yamaguchi-san, Hiromi-san and Mamta Ma’am about cinema of Japan and India. We talked mainly about cinema of Satyajit Ray and Akira Kurosawa and the admiration both filmmakers had for each other’s work. It was a very interesting discussion. We couldn’t continue it for long as we had to go.<br />
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After lunch, we were going to Shinagawa Waste Incineration Plant. You’ll probably refuse to believe me, but it’s true that it was exactly the kind of place I wanted to go to (funny how I didn’t even express my wish to our group supervisors and was taken there). Let’s make it simple. I’m related to environmental activities in my country. So it’s only too natural for me to find out more about waste management and pollution control in the country where the Kyoto Protocol, one of the best initiatives taken to save our environment, was signed.<br />
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We were welcomed warmly at the plant. At first, we were taken to a room (it looked something like a classroom) where we were given an introduction to the plant and the works it did. After the distribution of a document explaining the methods of the plant, we were taken around the plant. We were split into three groups. We were shown how the waste was collected and recycled. It was my thing. The process was energy-efficient and emitted no GHG. There were many other informative things.<br />
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The skyline of Tokyo looked magnificent from inside the plant and my camera was clicking again. A number of us did something unimaginable there. We saw a bullet train and lost all our sense to get a photo of it. To me, bullet train always signified Japan and so not having taken a picture of a bullet train meant no picture of Japan at all. We ran along the corridors of the plant, trying desperately to take at least one picture. And we were successful. I got to take a couple of pictures of my fantasy train. It was regrettable that none of us in the Saga Group got a chance to ride in the train.<br />
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After the quite enjoyable (at least for me) tour at Shinagawa Waste Incineration Plant, we were going to the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, Miraikan. During the half-hour-long bus journey, I managed to take more photos. I still remember trying to take as many photos of an underwater tunnel as I could. We arrived at Miraikan in a little while.<br />
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We were given passes to enter any section we wanted. But we had to come back within two hours so. I went on my own after collecting my pass. When I entered the main section of Miraikan, it seemed as though my head had spun around. There were so many things to look at! But the time to explore the museum was so little that I thought I’d not be able to see everything in the museum. I went from one section to another, trying to have a look at everything. I can’t describe and list out the thing I saw there since it’ll be an exercise in futility. Suffice it to say, it’s the <i>perfect</i> science and technology museum. Scientific facts and cutting-edge technological achievements are presented in a very enjoyable and entertaining way. I must thank my friends who gladly took my photos on request. I was behaving like a crazy photographer there. It was a thoroughly amusing experience for everyone. I returned to the reporting place just in time. We had a brilliant photo session outside Miraikan. Just like the other programmes I had attended, it attracted me so much that I didn’t really want to leave Miraikan.<br />
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It was about time to have dinner. After coming out of Miraikan, we were off to Ginza. (I remember taking photos of Rainbow Bridge frantically.) When we arrived in Ginza it was about 6’O clock. All of us decided to walk and explore Ginza again. Now that I wasn’t drowsy as I had been the previous day, it was a much more pleasurable exploration there. I appreciated how it looked in the evening once again. I had a good dinner. After dinner, we were roaming about again. I walked with Rajendra Sir. We had conversation about mathematics, his subject. We also shared our thoughts on our experience. I was slowly realising that I was lucky (although I don’t like the word “luck” at all) to have Mamta Ma’am and Rajendra Sir as our supervisors. They were very nice and affectionate to me.<br />
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I remember a funny incident at Ginza. Rajendra Sir, the Football Fanatic Guy, a couple of others and I were roaming about when we spotted a phone shop. We could not hold ourselves and went inside to have a look at latest models of mobile phones. When we asked the lady in the shop if we could buy a particular mobile (the price wasn’t ridiculous), she told us that we had to reside in Japan for at least so-and-so years and needed to provide so-and-so documents. It may read like a perfectly normal situation. But we came out of the shop laughing loudly enough to make some of the passers-by look at us.<br />
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We came back to our inn. But unlike the previous evening, we had work to do that evening. We’d be flying to Saga the next day. So there was an official meeting of the group supervisors and the students. We’d be having our first cultural performance in Saga. We had to decide what we’d be doing. We decided the duration of our programme and how we’d stand together. We discussed stuff like that.<br />
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There was a difficult task for me. I had to pack my bags once again. Actually, we were instructed to leave our check-in luggage in Tokyo before going to Saga. We’d only be carrying our carry-on bags. So I had to pack my bags freshly. I decided what I should take to Saga and what I shouldn’t. I transferred all my necessary stuff to my red bag and the black one provided by JICE. Some of my friends went out in the streets of Tokyo again. But I had to pack my bags first. The packing didn’t take long and was actually easier than it seemed to be.<br />
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Now that I had everything ready and nothing to worry about, I was relieved and free to go outside the inn. I was out again on my own, roaming in Tokyo. I could feel the new kind of freedom (I discussed it in the last post) even more prominently (without the sleepiness that had almost managed to kill me the day before). I wandered aimlessly. I went strolling in the streets nearby. Again, it was wonderful being alone (not that I don’t enjoy a good company). I returned to the inn in time.<br />
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I suddenly had an idea. I did write a number of speeches before coming to Japan. But what if I penned another speech <i>after</i> I’d seen Japan? It was an exciting thought. I went to my room and started thinking. I listed out all the points I had in my mind and started giving shape to what I had to say. I also phoned home and noted down another couple of points. It was shaping up well.<br />
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Meanwhile, what I heard from my friends who went to have a walk made me proud of my decision not to go too far from my hotel. They went … well … a bit <i>too</i> far. They were actually lost. They were not accompanied by any supervisor and couldn’t find the way back to the inn. They were, however, very lucky (I can't believe I used the L-word two times in the same post) to have found a helpful Japanese person who understood they were lost and guided them safely back to the hotel when they mentioned its name.<br />
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After a bit of chitchat with friends, I was ready to write my speech. I wished goodnight to all. My roomies went to bed. We turned off all the lights. I had only a dim bedside lamp to help me. It was 11:30. I started writing. Much like this piece, the writing was a satisfying experience. Little did I know that I wouldn’t read the speech in Japan. But I don’t regret that much. Maybe I’ll post the speech on this blog sometime.<br />
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So far, the Japan I had seen in Tokyo mostly exceeded my expectations. But were tall skyscrapers, smooth roads, speeding vehicles, innumerable flyovers and cutting-edge technology the only aspects of Japan? Many people I’ve talked to have such (wrongly) stereotypical views of Japan. I could sense a different side of Japan. I waited with bated breath to go to Saga to see the <i>other side of Japan</i>.<br />
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I turned the light off.</div>Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-56897334545865847872009-05-13T13:31:00.004+05:302009-09-15T11:59:19.482+05:30Leaves from My Japan Diary: The Land of the Rising Sun<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dz1e-yrKa31ulSb0d1CCmkjRr-_lZrEkFXqfjSYSnCy462HYTwtOle4pvVVLZFKd1V_PR1VuYS3FeknIROg4Q' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br />
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Finally I was in the Land of the Rising Sun shortly after sunrise. As the plane came to a halt, everyone stood up. I took out my bag and followed the crowd to the gate. All members of the Saga Group stayed together. We could see Yamaguchi-san and other Japanese supervisors waiting for us. The pink flag of the Saga Group was in the hand of Yamaguchi-san. We followed her outside. Just as I exited the plane I got a big shock. I could see the rain from inside the plane but never did I realise that it’d be skin-piercingly, mind-numbingly cold. I was shivering. (I later knew that it was a typhoon which caused such cold on a summer day.) I was caught unawares by the extreme cold. My teeth were clattering. Thankfully, I had two sweaters in my hand-baggage. I put them on immediately. I had a scarf. I put that on as well. (You have to see it to believe how hilarious I was looking.) However, I followed the pink flag and went ahead. Here, I must note that Japanese supervisors of other groups were very helpful. My bag was heavy. I carried it on and arrived at the immigration counter. It was a smooth process. I arrived near the baggage belt before most of my friends did. I saw a Japanese gentleman coming towards me, smiling. He was, expectedly, from JICE. He helped me retrieve my luggage. I kept saying “Ohayō gozaimasu” to everyone. Maybe because I was coming to Japan as part of JENESYS, there was no hassle with the customs at all. Soon all Saga Group members formed a queue and followed the pink flag.<br />
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We were now joined by another Japanese supervisor, Hirooka-san, an extremely good-hearted lady. We exited the terminal and saw a bus waiting for the Saga Group. We loaded our luggage onto it and went inside. The first thing I did on the bus: I took out my camera, borrowed someone else’s batteries and took a photo from inside the bus. It’s the first photo in the slideshow. It’s not a photo at all. But still, it’s the First Photo I Had Taken in Japan (you understand its importance, don’t you?).<br />
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The bus started moving and my excitement was pumped up. When the bus came on the highway I was shivering not because of the cold. In wonder. For, I could see my imagination taking shape in front of me. I saw the tall skyscrapers, numerous flyovers, wide roads which I always thought existed only in films and pictures. I don’t think I can feel <i>that</i> thrill ever in my life. It was the first time (in my memory) I was visiting a foreign country. Everything looked so enchanting. I saw buildings of various famous international companies. Narita Airport was far from the main city. I tried to take photos of the landscape but I could no longer borrow any battery. Then I resorted to my last option: using my mobile camera. The photos were very, very unclear. That made me feel quite bad. I couldn’t even open the window as it was extremely cold. After a while, I forgot everything about my camera and actually started enjoying the scenery. What I saw took my breath away. It was wonder beyond description. I was the king of the world (though I didn’t shout it from the roof of the bus). Soon the bus entered the city area and it was dazzling.<br />
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I soon came to know that there was a Great Grandmother in our team. The team-mate was two or three years older than me, but she was the Great Grandmother of everybody in our team. She was particularly bossy towards me but quite good at heart. I even started calling her “Great Grandmother” from that day. I haven’t yet attributed names to other girls in the group. I have to choose them very carefully. I talked about the Great Grandmother as this name already existed. The Great Granny had a weird sense of humour (I remember a funny conversation about time zones), but without her helping hand, it wouldn’t have been possible for me to take photos of Beautiful Japan. Great Granny, if you’re reading this, thank you again (I can’t really thank you enough as you had a major contribution in my collection of 1266 photos I took in Japan) but please never delete precious photos from someone else’s (a friend though s/he may be) camera without permission from her/him. I’ll remind you of that again soon.<br />
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However, we soon reached the Imperial Palace of Japan. As I got down from the bus, the cold wind struck me again. I was shivering again. I went on, following the pink flag. It was beautiful. I also made friends with a Japanese gentleman (who was not related with JENESYS) who was walking with me and he seemed to know a great deal about India. It was that moment when my idea about the hospitality and warmth of the people of Japan was reaffirmed. I was a nobody who arrived there merely an hour or two ago and I had already made friends. Too bad that I couldn’t exchange contact details with him.<br />
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I arrived at the Imperial Palace and it was splendidly beautiful. I cursed myself for the umpteenth time for my camera. But I couldn’t give up the chance to photograph myself at any cost. In desperation, I borrowed batteries from the Silent Guy and took a photo or two and told him to take a photo of mine. My countenance was comical as ever. I roamed around the Imperial Palace for a while and was called for a group photograph (I am not including it here for some reason). The cold was almost unbearable then. Drops of rain were stabbing my skin. I wish I could linger there for more time but we had to go for lunch.<br />
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I got on the bus and was a bit comforted to escape the wrath of the weather temporarily. But soon, I was immune to the cold and it was no longer agonising. On the contrary, it was comforting. Meanwhile, I called home and assured everyone that I arrived in Nippon safe and sound, and was in safe hands and they needn’t worry. I was really enjoying myself. I was thirsty for more. I needed to see more of Japan to satiate my optical and cerebral hunger (a ghastly phrase, I know, I know).<br />
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The bus sped up. We passed by several Government offices of Japan, Tokyo Tower (photos in the slideshow) and finally, the Atagoyama Tokyu Inn, the place where we were staying in Tokyo. I was feeling quite sleepy as I was sleep-deprived for more than 24 hours. But we didn’t stop near or hotel. We were off to lunch at noon. For lunch we went to Ginza district, without any question the most dazzling part of Tokyo. I heard about it before. But I had to see it to believe it. All my drowsiness evaporated at once and I was drinking in the beauty of the street. I felt that it’d look much more attractive in the evening than in daytime (and the day was cloudy). I<i> had</i> to come here somehow in the evening, I had to. And we were taken there in the evening (more on that later).<br />
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I was getting familiar with the roads of Japan then. I was looking at the traffic signals with much concentration. I saw lots of lots of speeding (what a speed it was!) cars and mo’bikes (the bikes made a fascinating sound) on the streets of Tokyo. But there was no traffic jam at all. I saw every citizen following her/his duty and never putting a toe out of line when the signal was red. They would wait for the signal to turn green to cross a lane even if there’s no car or bike around. I saw provisions for the blind to walk on the footpaths and cross the street safely. Almost everyone was dressed in formal suits and probably hurrying to go to the workplace. The picture (though I didn’t shoot it) matched perfectly with the image of a busy foreign street I had in my mind. The dream was materialising in front of me. I noticed what is something unusual in India. A lot of people were riding bicycles to get to office. At first, I was a bit surprised, but later realised that it was a viable and environment-friendly option. I wish the Indians could do the same. The next moment, I imagined my father and mother going to their workplaces on bicycles and laughed out loud at the idea. Everybody in India would laugh if someone dressed in formal suits rode a bicycle to office.<br />
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I was feeling uncomfortable due to the lack of something … something very familiar … something that had to be there on a busy street. It had been bothering me from the moment I arrived in Japan but I couldn’t realise what it was till I was in Ginza. But<i> how could it be so</i>? I didn’t hear a single motor-horn in Japan. If you live in India you have heard the ear-penetrating sounds. But it was conspicuous there by its absence. Nor could I see any wisp of smoke cloaking the city sky.<br />
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[<b>Update</b>: I forgot to add that there was no policeman (at all) stationed at every crossing, of course, because, there was no need for a policeman. I was getting more and more surprised at what I saw (or more precisely, what I didn’t).]<br />
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We were roaming about Ginza in a group. It was still raining. (I had my umbrella but JICE provided me with another brolly.) We went from shops to shops, seeing new things. A group of us did a crazy thing. We took photos in front of a car showroom. I learned that the car was left open at night since no one stole in Japan. After a bit of roaming, we went to an Indian restaurant to have our lunch. Before coming to Japan I feared about the kind of cuisine we might be offered. But JENESYS had taken care of that of that too! Throughout the trip we had meals only in Indian restaurants for our comfort. (I did get the chance to taste Japanese food a number of times. But that’s beside the point here.) I had a great lunch there.<br />
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After that, we went roaming in Ginza again. Yamaguchi-san and Hirroka-san were introducing many things to us. After a bit of strolling around, it was time to go back to our hotel. And we were there in no time. We couldn’t go to our rooms just then. There was another programme orientation for an hour starting from 2 p.m. It was interesting. At the end of it, we got t-shirts and kitbags (for keeping the things we’d buy) from them.<br />
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Our official check-in time was scheduled at 3:30 p.m. At that point all I wanted to do was to go and have a deep sleep. But I knew that I couldn’t sleep then for we were to go for dinner at 6 o'clock in the evening. (I was very surprised to hear that people had dinner in Japan before 8 p.m. as it was too early for us.) The Wise Brother took care of the keys of our room (number 1026). We collected our baggage (it was found at the lobby) and went straight to the room. Meanwhile, I noticed that the flooring number in Japan was similar to what we used in India. That is, ground floor = first floor.<br />
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At the sight of a comfortable bed waiting for me I felt even sleepier. But I didn’t give in … I had to keep myself awake … <i>anyhow</i>! I hadn’t taken a bath since the morning of the 12th in India. The first thing I wanted to do was to take a long, hot shower. I unpacked my bags and went to the bathroom and took a very hot shower. I thought it’d keep drowsiness at bay and offer some relief from the cold. It managed to do the latter but please don’t ask me anything about the former. Suffice it to say, the hot shower made it worse. I felt drowsier. To avoid the attraction of my bed, I went out of the room and went to the lobby of the inn. Dinner was more than an hour away. I found some of my friends (from my group and otherwise) were already in the lobby. I chatted up with some of them. Many, I saw, didn’t rent a phone and were calling home from booths. I felt cheerful a bit. I had a phone!<br />
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I finally started using my rechargeable batteries to take photos. I went outside, took some photos and chatted again. At present, I don’t remember what I really did from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Mayn’t have done anything special at all. The time came when we were called to get on the bus. We were now joined by another Japanese supervisor (she was with another group), Rie-san, a wonderful lady. I wished just a couple of hours ago to see Ginza in all its splendour and there I was again.<br />
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When I got down from the bus sleepiness struck me with a greater blow. I couldn’t realise if I was awake or not. The world started whirling around me. I could see everything … I could hear everything … I could sense everything … I could understand everything that was happening around me. I was in a very real dream or was I? I didn’t speak a single word I didn’t need to. I talked sense. But <i>something</i> was wrong. Was that what happen to people who were deprived of sleep for about two days? (Let me tell you here that I’m not a sleepaholic anyway. I don’t sleep more than 6 hours a day.) It felt as though I were trippy. At that point, I couldn’t enjoy anything properly … well, almost.<br />
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However, the restaurant we went to have dinner was not the one where we had our lunch. It was of course an Indian one. We were served a great amount of great food there. I talked with Rie-san a lot. She told me that she had gone to India before. She wanted to know a great deal about my city and the culture and heritage of my city. I told her all I could. She listened to me with much interest.<br />
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After interacting with so many Japanese (especially the JICE members), I was aware of another great quality of Japanese. They preserve their culture well but they are equally welcoming to people who had different cultural values. You don’t see that very often. Our languages were different. But there was no difficulty at all in communicating our ideas.<br />
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After dinner we walked briefly on the footpaths of Ginza. I took a couple of photos. We were back to the hotel again. Now I was free to sleep. I went to my room to do so. But I was informed that some of my friends were going to roam in the streets of Tokyo. I tried to do away with my sleepiness at once. I couldn’t remain indoors sleeping while I was in Japan. After all, I went there <i>to see</i> it! Almost everybody went out before I did and I didn’t know where the group went. So I didn’t try and join them. They, I believed, were going far from the hotel. I had decided what I’d do. I was a complete stranger in Tokyo and it was my first day there. I couldn’t afford to get lost in the labyrinthine roads of Tokyo on my arrival. We were told to take beds before a certain time and I had to obey that. I decided what I’d do. I’d just wander around aimlessly. And who’s there to say that wandering doesn’t give pleasure. I noted the exact position of the inn and I was out on the streets of Tokyo without knowing where to go. I met my roommate, the Silent Guy on the footpath. We decided to walk together. We walked along the footpath, took a turn and saw Tokyo Tower (in reality, it’s a television tower) not very far away. We photographed ourselves against the tower. After a while, he went on his own and I was on my own again.<br />
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It was probably good that I didn’t go with the group. Being alone in the streets of the largest city of the world was a different, very personal experience. The taste of a different kind of freedom in a faraway country was entirely unique for me and could possibly be enjoyed only if there was nobody to accompany. I went to almost every street nearby, conscious not to lose the way to our inn. I enjoyed myself beyond imagination. I couldn’t dream of doing that in India. I returned to get a view of Tokyo Tower at frequent intervals. At times, I wished to get near it to get a better view, but finally told myself that I might get lost if I became more adventurous than I already was. But it felt very comfortable and safe to wander in Tokyo.<br />
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And that really paid off. Some of the students were really lost the following day (more about it in the following post). While roaming aimlessly, I suddenly saw a group of people crossing the street when the signal was red. They were in fits of giggle. My impression about the law-abidingness of the people of Japan was about to shatter away when I found that they weren’t Japanese, but some fellow Indian students (not from my group). I smiled sadly.<br />
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On my way, I met Mamta Ma’am, our Indian supervisor. She was also taking a stroll and I accompanied her for a while. I looked at my watch and realised that it was about time to return to hotel.<br />
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I went to my room which was empty then. I shouldn’t really say it but I had observed one more thing about the bathrooms in Japan. Every toilet tool was manufactured by a company called Toto. The Football Fanatic Guy went on to make a great joke about it.<br />
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I scribbled down my first thoughts about Japan and its people. I see that I’d noted their punctuality, honesty and sensitivity. I wanted to see more of the country. I finally went to sleep (you must know the depth of the sleep), anticipating a bright and sunny day.Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-78930814279245038332009-05-12T23:59:00.004+05:302009-09-16T12:49:32.885+05:30Leaves from My Japan Diary: On BoardI entered the aircraft. In a few minutes’ time, I was going to fly to the Land of the Rising Sun by Japan Airlines flight number JL472 (I also saw JO472 on my baggage). I’ve already said that I didn’t have any feeling (any feeling at all) when I was entering the plane. My mind was completely blank, overpowered by an unknown something. But thankfully I didn’t lose my sense. I was able enough to walk and talk and laugh and of course find my seats. I found it. I took out my passport and locked it safely inside my carry-on bag. After everything was over, I sat down. I was one sit away from the window. I’d have preferred sitting beside the window. But I didn’t care to choose a seat for myself. (I was misinformed by a probably misinformed friend.) To my relief, however, my roommate, the Wise Brother, was there. At least, I could chat up with someone during this 8½ -hour-long journey.<br />
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We sat there. I turned on the TV in front of me. There was no way I could be on such a long flight without chatting or “in-flight entertainment”. There were the usual precautions and warnings before the flight and I couldn’t watch the TV before takeoff. Meanwhile, our group supervisor collected the boarding-passes from us. After twenty minutes or so, the plane started rolling. The TV was available again and I switched to the takeoff channel. I watched the bird’s eye view of takeoff every time I took a flight. It was never boring to me. It didn’t fail to amuse me this time either. The plane took off and at that precise moment I became surer than ever that I was going to Nippon. I remembered all the obstacles on my way to this flight. I smiled and said to myself, “Finally!”<br />
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After about an hour of takeoff (or maybe before), I heard clicks and saw flashlights all around me. Many were taking photos. I cursed myself once again for bringing such useless batteries. It seemed that my excellent camera was no use in this trip. Many students were roaming about the cabin, going to another friend’s seat. Even the Wise Brother was going elsewhere at regular intervals. Grawp, Superstar (a new nickname for another great friend of mine in my group), Diamond, the Soft-spoken Director and the Calm Guy (all from the Saga Group) were sitting near me. Now I knew everybody and chatted up with them. I didn’t wander around as I was too tired and needed rest. I could hear cuss words uttered loudly in the plane. I was initially flummoxed to hear them on board. And when I looked I saw some Indian students from other group talking among themselves. It was slightly relaxing to see that none of my group members took part in it. I am immensely grateful to whoever decided to include me in the Saga Group (which was something like Gryffindor for me). Mind you, I am <i>not</i> saying that the members of other group were bad in any way. In fact, I had many great friends in the other groups as well. <i>Most</i> of them were very polite and well-mannered. It was just five or maybe six of the Indian students who were trying to glorify our nation (remember, we were going to <i>represent</i> our country?) in a plane full of passengers (not to mention the Japanese supervisors who were taking great pains to bring us to their country and consolidate the beautiful relation between Japan and India) by being foulmouthed. It was indeed disappointing to see such behaviour from a tiny number of Indian students.<br />
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However, the food served in the flight was great. Thanks to JENESYS, I was served Indian food in dinner. It was filling and I wanted to sleep at once as we were supposed to land in Narita Airport at 6:30 a.m. local time (we took off from India at about 7:45 p.m. IST). But sleep was nothing more than a distant dream. I couldn’t close my eyes. I tried to play games instead. After a while, even the game got boring. Then I tried to watch movies. Many were sleeping then.<br />
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I saw the list of movies. At first, I played <i>The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring</i>. I enjoyed it for 10 minutes or so. Then I turned it off. I hadn’t yet read Tolkien’s novel. I wanted to read the novel first. Watching the film before reading the novel always curbs the imagination of a reader. Then I tried to watch another Hollywood flick called <i>Jumper</i>. I was somewhat interested to see the movie as it starred Samuel L. Jackson. It was about teleportation or something. Believe me, it was the worst decision I made on board. It was such a ridiculously (forgive that) awful movie that it still pains to remember the experience. <br />
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Then without having anything to do, I switched to the channel which showed the flight-map. (I was watching it at regular intervals.) It was far more entertaining to know which country or city I was flying over (we flew over my state) or what the remaining time was or what the local times were in Japan and India.<br />
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I penned the following:<br />
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<blockquote>Date – ? ˜ Distance to Tokyo 3396 km<br />
Date & Time in India – 12/5 ˜ 1124<br />
Date & Time in Japan – 13/5 ˜ 0254</blockquote><br />
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This means: it was less than four hours to Tokyo. (Sometime during the flight I changed the time of my wristwatch and set it 3½ hours ahead to keep up with the Japanese time.) A drunken co-passenger on board proved an annoyance to many. I still couldn’t sleep though I tried my best. It was no use at all. When the Wise Brother left his seat for a while, I tried to look outside. The moon looked beautiful. When I was trying to have a quiet sleep, I became merely drowsy. I soon realised that it’d be a sleep-deprived flight for me and I couldn’t see myself sleeping in Japan anytime soon as we were reaching there early in the morning.<br />
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Sooner than I imagined, a ray of sunlight entered the cabin. I realised (and the TV screen in front of me confirmed this) that in next to no time we’ll be in Japan. Everyone started waking up. I was ready.<br />
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I could see nothing from the windows. The sky was clouded. Droplets of water formed outside the window. The aircraft was descending. At long last, I could see a glimpse of Japan. As time went on, I could see many other planes at Narita airport.<br />
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Then, finally, I could hear the wheels of the plane hitting the ground with a <i>thud</i>.Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1512984910768159734.post-23314683242670482672009-05-12T18:59:00.010+05:302009-09-16T12:51:12.649+05:30Leaves from My Japan Diary: In India 2I awoke on the 12th at exactly 4:30 in the morning. As soon as the wake-up call was heard, I sat upright. The dread of the past two days kept coming back to me. I said earlier that I discovered myself during this trip. On the very first day of the journey I noticed something interesting about me. While I was home, sleeping in my comfortable bed, even the sound of a canon couldn’t wake me up. It took a great of effort on everyone’s part to wake me up. But as soon as I was away from the homely comfort I was conscious and careful. It happened automatically. In the following days, every wake-up call or alarm I set awoke me without failure. (There was only one event when I woke up late, but that was during the homestay. Will discuss it later.) I also got two calls from Mother and Sister early in the morning.<br />
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I took a comforting bath and got ready in my school uniform as I was told. We had to check out from the hotel within 6:30-7:00 a.m. I attached the name tags (once again, pink and the tags were given by Yamaguchi-san the day before) to all my bags. I arrived at the hotel lounge of ABC hotel at 6:20, ten minutes before the reporting time. Presently everyone else started coming to the lounge, dressed in their school uniforms. My mother arrived there shortly and she gave me some important things. She told me that my mobile was still uncertain but hope was not lost. Rohit Uncle was going to try his best. I had no hopes then. I had a photo-session with my supervisors and team-mates. When I look at the photos now, I feel ashamed as I looked so nervous, so idiotic then. I was so nervous about everything then that I didn’t even realise that I was nervous. As instructed, we kept the hand-carry luggage with ourselves and brought the check-in luggage separately to the bus.<br />
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Meanwhile, I saw the gentleman who tried to frighten me the day before once again trying his best to scare others.<br />
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I had a quiet breakfast from 7:15 to 7:45. I remember drinking orange juice and bread for breakfast. Mother went away for this mobile stuff. I had my pen, writing pad and folder (the one I got the day before) ready and went to DEF Hotel (where the orientation session was to begin from 8:30) beside ABC Hotel. It began at the correct time, following the Japanese tradition of punctuality. At the orientation session members of JICE gave us an outline of the culture and education of the country we were about to visit. They also let us know some important things about visiting Japan. I had already memorised some Japanese phrases like “Ohayō gozaimasu” (“Good morning”), “Arigatō gozaimasu” (“Thank you very much”), “Dō itashimashite” (“You are welcome”) and Konnichiwa (“Hello/ Good afternoon”). It was a great session. Meanwhile, we were given Embarkation/ Disembarkation cards and I duly filled them out.<br />
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There was an hour’s break at 11:30. All the 18 team-mates and the Indian supervisors sat together. We discussed about our cultural programmes in Japan. I told them the song I was going to sing: <i>Kothaao Aamaar Haariye Jaawaar</i>. (At first, I though I’d sing <i>Ei Aakashe Aamaar Mukti</i> but decided do sing the other one.)<br />
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During this break Mr Shukla (who was our travel coordinator in India) came to me and asked if I was Upamanyu Moitra. He told me that someone came to meet me outside the conference hall. I was pretty sure that it was Mother but it wasn’t. It was someone else I didn’t know. He, um, came from a company which gave international mobiles on rental. He was there with a fat envelope clutched in his hands. He showed me the handset and demonstrated how to turn it on and make a call to India and charge it. I was getting a mobile, at last! It was immensely relieving. I started becoming happy once again.<br />
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There was another session coming up. Some government officials came there to send us off. The send-off party was great. I had a brilliant lunch and started making new friends. After the send-off party I got a new envelope from JICE. It had some fantastic documents about Japan. There was a paper-weight as well. My bag was on the verge of being overweight. Then I started worrying once again. Another thing made me worry even more. I found that my camera was not working with the batteries I had bought before. I had a dozen of such batteries. And the camera was showing “Change the Batteries” the moment I turned it on. It was the biggest put-off at the beginning of the journey. It was the best reason to make me unhappy. The fact that I could not take pictures of Japan during the trip was more unsettling than that I didn’t have a phone. At that point, I thought I couldn’t have a perfect journey anyway. (Can you believe that I really <i>borrowed</i> some of my friends’ batteries to take photos? But that was before I used my only pair of rechargeables and thankfully there was a friend who had a charger. My trip would’ve been a monumental disaster had I not taken the rechargeable ones.)<br />
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My mother arrived at the end of the send-off party. I was in a bad mood because of the batteries. She had little time to go and buy another set of batteries as we were soon going to the airport. You’ll laugh at what I did next. As soon as I saw her I gave her the paperweight from the envelope (I kept the other things with me) and asked her to take it away with her to Kolkata. Even she grinned. I freshened up a bit. We were going to take a bus (which had Saga group) to the airport. I called home for the last time before leaving India.<br />
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The students of the Saga Group formed a queue at the lounge of DEF Hotel. I stood there and soon realised what was going to happen. I had lived elsewhere for competitions without my family around to support me several times in the past for some competitions. But I was leaving my country for the first time in my life (I discount a trip to a neighbouring country in my childhood as I was only 1 year old) and that too, without my family. I was going with complete strangers. (Of course, the people we ere going with took extreme care of us.) What would happen, I thought.<br />
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I went inside the bus with excitement (of going abroad without anyone I knew), apprehension (for the very same reason) and an unknown feeling which was slowly enveloping me. I bade adieu to my mother from the bus (she, I believe, was having almost the same feeling) and that was the last time I saw her before my first foreign trip. She said she’d try and see me off at the airport (more on that later).<br />
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But all unpleasant feelings vanished as soon as I was on the bus. It was only excitement and excitement. We were given our passports and e-tickets. I was sitting on the bus with anticipation building in my heart.<br />
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Soon the bus entered the International Terminal of Indira Gandhi International Airport. I held my red carry-on bad tightly. The bus slowed down and finally stopped to offer me a view of the terminal. I got down from the bus and got myself a trolley. I loaded my luggage onto it. I could sense my excitement reaching a fever pitch. We entered. My baggage was X-rayed. (All this detailing may seem meaningless to you. But it means a lot to me. I am reliving every moment for the first time by writing. It’s more of a personal pleasure.) I approached the counter of Japan Airlines (that was the airline we were travelling). The lady at the counter confirmed my meal preference. To my happiness I saw that my luggage was underweight by four kilos. I was told by a probably misinformed friend (or probably not) that we couldn’t choose our seats in the aircraft. So I didn’t care to check the seat plan and was given a seat. (All about it in the in-flight experience.)<br />
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I went ahead and did the security check and submitted my passport and embarkation card at the counter. The gentleman sitting at the counter was very polite to me. After everything was over, it was all about waiting for two hours and a half. I kept my bag on a seat and went roaming about the airport. I was incredibly thirsty then. I could find no water filter or anything around. (The airport was undergoing a facelift then.) After a very long search, I found water which was very, very cold. It was a very long and boring wait. I took out my camera once again and tried in vain to make it work. The batteries! It added to my frustration. I was also disappointed that I couldn’t bid a proper goodbye to my mother as I was in a hurry to get on the bus. Suddenly a lady (who, I suppose, was a member of the ground staff) came searching for me and gave me a number to dial. I was amazed and dialled the number from a nearby phone booth. I found my mother on the other end. Her mobile was out of charge. She arrived in the airport too late because of bad traffic and couldn’t meet me as I was within the security belt. But the security personnel at IGI Airport understood her problem and they tried their best to let her talk to me over the phone. The telephonic goodbye was short, simple and a proper one.<br />
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Only after I hung up (and talked to her for the last time) did I feel once again that I was going to leave my country. I can’t describe what I felt then. It was a feeling altogether new to me. No, I wasn’t feeling homesick. But it was something like exasperation which might have arisen out of the anxiety and difficulty I faced during the past 48 hours. I guess I may have felt what everyone feels about leaving the comfort zone of one’s own country. (It’s another thing that the country I was going to was an excellent place to be in.)<br />
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As 7:30 p.m. slowly approached every kind of unpleasant feelings (different from the ones described above) invaded my mind for no reason at all. The boarding call was finally announced. At that point, my mind was completely blank. We formed a queue once again. One by one, everyone started entering the aircraft. I had my passport and boarding pass ready.<br />
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At long last, I entered the plane.Space Loverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08285726115965092855noreply@blogger.com3