Lost Random Chatter

An excerpt from my animal behaviour essay due in on Friday -

"In a biparental system, offspring fitness is a result of care from both parents, while the cost is incurred by each parent as per its individual investment. Individuals that leave most of the parental workload on their partner would do well in minimising the costs of the current reproductive attempt and at the same time insure their success through their partner’s effort. The ‘classical’ picture of the two parents slaving over care of their offspring, each putting in its individual maximum into the ‘family’ can be replaced with the idea of two ‘work-shirking’ individuals, each trying to get away with the minimum possible investment."

And in a similar manner, all examples of co-operation unravel upon closer scrutiny....

Big Empty...

[inspired by the introduction to Gati's blog]

Fractals - pretty symbols for infinity?



Bare tree branches in autumn.

All you say comes back at you taking weird fanciful shapes , distorted faces, twisted hearts, echoing cries.... looming at you - sending the mind into dizzying spirals that lose themselves in each other...fearful sparks singeing any vestiges of reason that remain...

It is a battlefield out there- shields of butter-paper, swords of black stained steel......

And no matter whose blood it is that flows, it pools around your feet, rendering you immobile.

The petty victories haunted by a notion, perhaps a recollection, that it is you against you..

You seek respite, but no clear streams to wash off the grime.. nowhere to go...

Just crouch in the red, only its increasing viscosity serving as an index of time..

I have an essay to write- so what better thing to do than find out what kind of thinker I am.

Ans.

You are an Existential Thinker
		Existential thinkers: Like to spend time thinking about philosophical issues such as "What is the meaning of life?" Try to see beyond the 'here and now', and understand deeper meanings consider moral and ethical implications of problems as well as practical solutions
Like existential thinkers, Leonardo questioned man's role in the universe. Many of his paintings explored the relationship between man and God.		Other Existential Thinkers include The Buddha, Gandhi, Plato, Socrates, Martin Luther King Careers which suit Existential Thinkers include Philosopher, Religious leader, Head of state, Artist, Writer

Yes, I do feel a bit Buddha-esque every now and then...
And to think that I am training to be a scientist- with a strong predeliction for mathematical modelling!

Decent quiz this one- some basis in science- and worth all the clicks!

sometimes an entire day goes by without reason to laugh........

A friend wants to walk to Jerusalem with her horse Enu...

"Why Jerusalem?", I ask.
"It is a special place. And it seems to me that if there is one place humanity can seek answers, Jerusalem must be it."

And we begin talking about the strife raging about the city. About Kenize Mourad's book, telling stories of lives caught between borders...Voices from the Arab-Israeli conflict echo on a train miles away, headed from Oxford to St Andrews.

Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon - names with a familiar ring to them- and yet I have managed to stay blind to the unrest in the Middle East all these years.....

the 108 years have finally descended upon me...
I wonder that the world hasn't caved under their weight, and till when it is going to hold up...

not one inch of carpet space....a random stew of clothes, calling cards, sticky notes and Animal Behaviour papers...
common plastic lucozade bottles, a green soda bottle, one long necked bottle of Lambrusco insolently lolling by the door..
a sandal- thin white straps trailing out of sight..

CHAOS
I LIVE IN CHAOS.........

insidiously creeping into my mind...filtering through the key-holes of well ordered shining steel drawers... caressing an old oak coloured cabinet filled with matte snapshots.... digging its claws into the smooth winding bannisters of countless staircases...
beating against the carefully polished window panes-sending resounding shatters through every fibre of my being.

WAGE A WAR- I must!
Yet I can't in a sweeping frenzy defeat my foe...
so it is to be an excruciating endeavour....pungent fumes of order breathed down every alleyway, disarray yanked out strand by strand........
a painful cleansing.....

wish me luck....

A brief hiatus- as I was away..

Added to my travels on this little island- more in photos when I have them organised!

A fish on the sand,
Flaps ineffectually,
Silver, gold,
Now crimson-
An oddly textured wine?

The father of Abstract Art.

He was a synaesthete- could see music in colour!

Red Oval 1920

To put names, places and dates in context...or if you are simply hungering for history, visit Hyper History Online - a great place to begin and pretty addictive too!

in a blog tag blog world, it is quite understandable that my blog mentor, The Letterhead, chose to tack a tag on me...

Thank You ! (the tag, the lighter and everything else)

How many books do I own?

Will take the liberty of assuming part ownership of the family collection. We are complete crazies when it comes to books. I have happy memories of going to the Sunday secondhand book bazaar in Daryaganj- feeling extremely priveleged to be given five odd books to carry to the van while my brothers picked them up by the cartons.

The family - 2 big bros, me, mom and dad scattered over time- and so did the books.

More recently, we made a huge effort to get the collection together- a mandatory carton of paperbacks to carry for anyone making a trip from dehradun to pune. In pune, the operation HQ- measurements were taken- book shelves ordered- the books sorted broadly by genre and then by author- stacked and restacked and shelved and simulataneously entered on an excel spreadsheet, doubles discovered- lists mailed out to friends who might want the second copies...
and PHEW- at the end of it- ( the beginning, really!) 1640 books plus the two cartons still to be opened!

I'm told that the collection is still expanding- more shelves are being ordered- and books are spilling over to the bedrooms (originally vetoed as places of repose for our tomes cos that would limit access to the waking hours) by the rack!

Last book I bought-

A birthday present for a friend- Conversations with God- Book I by Neale Donald Walsch.
Answered a lot of my questions- passes contradictions as paradoxes- funny in places, steeped in irony- introduced me to the art of full-time introspection!

Last book I read-

Lets make that books.. I have gotten into the habit of simultaneously reading a few.

From the Dust Returned- Ray Bradbury

A Passage to India - E M Forster
An Equal Music - Vikram Seth
(Both have been on my list for quite some time)

The monk who sold his ferrari- Robin Sharma
A friend lent it to me as reading material for a 4 hour coach ride to cambridge. Don't like the way the author steals Oscar Wilde's Story, "The Selfish Giant" and passes it off as a story from ancient India.

Am still reading The Adventure of English by Melvyn Bragg- on how it came to be the language it is today. It has stirred my long dormant interest in history.

5 books that mean a lot to me-

- I will make that authors/ books/series....in no particular order!
(A mock awards ceremony??)

GERALD DURRELL for all his books

The island of Corfu in My Family and Other Animals set the stage for wild and weird encounters- trapdoor spiders, Quasimodo the pigeon who thought she was human , the rose-beetle man, Theodore, the naturalist..
The fight between a wall gecko and a praying mantis- perhaps contributing in part to my gecko-ophobia ?
"Rosy is my relative" is great for laughs - a young man inherits an elephant with an inordinate fondness for ale! and all the rest- packed with weird denizens of the wild with nice sounding names- Aye ayes and tapirs, capybaras and wallabys, nine banded armadillos.........


ROBERT HEINLEIN

He writes science fiction with a twist, very matter of factly introducing alien social structures into human society, challenging today's beliefs and faith systems in futuristic settings.

He made me think by showing an alternative reality- made me aware that there was a choice where I had percieved none.

Stranger in a Strange Land- which evolved into a major cult novel- the concept of non-exclusive love, the word 'grok' and a protagonist like no other- Valentine Smith- a human raised on Mars returned to earth

C.S LEWIS for The Chronicles of Narnia

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe happened to me at 8! Got my hands on the last battle when I was 9 - and it was a first real glimpse into religion (it helped that the mighty Aslan happened to be a lion) .....

OLIVER STRANGE and FREDERICK H. CHRISTIAN

For Sudden- The best western series ever- about James (Jim) Green- so quick on the draw that he is called 'Sudden'

RICHARD BACH for Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Read it when I was twelve- came at the right time- when I was beginning to recognise the absurdity of cliques in my class and people's resistance to change.
Every fibre in my being cried out "injustice" when Jonathan Livingston seagull was called by his elders to stand in the centre for shame - he, who could have show them the skies; he, who had dared to be different.

[ Strikes me, that all these books that stand out in my head now, are ones that I read when I was young(er)...]

Now the fun bit- my turn to tag -
Gati and Satya

posted by Runglee  # 12:37 PM 3 comments