If I should labor through daylight and dark,
Consecrate, valorous, serious, true,
Then on the world I may blazon my mark;
And what if I don’t, and what if I do?

Dorothy Parker

This level reach of blue is not my sea;
Here are sweet waters, pretty in the sun,
Whose quiet ripples meet obediently
A marked and measured line, one after one.
This is no sea of mine. that humbly laves
Untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm.
I have a need of wilder, crueler waves;
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.

So let a love beat over me again,
Loosing its million desperate breakers wide;
Sudden and terrible to rise and wane;
Roaring the heavens apart; a reckless tide
That casts upon the heart, as it recedes,
Splinters and spars and dripping, salty weeds.

Dorothy Parker

(These were the thoughts I had penned down a long time back after watching this outstanding movie Solaris by Andrei Tarkovsky)
What is knowledge?
Today, I watched Solaris. It raises questions about the nature and limits of knowledge, something that I had thought about for a long time now.

In the movie Snaut says, “Man wants to see man when he goes to outer-space. He is unwilling to see or learn anything that does not fall under the realm of human knowledge”. It is true, isn’t it? We see and understand everything on the basis of the knowledge we already possess.

For example, we see everything in terms of numbers – two eyes, many people, a blanket. No matter what we think it is not possible to get rid of the number. I had long back written a blogpost in which i posted a picture of a bunch of men and I asked what would you think of this picture if you did not have the number system. Well, what would we think? No matter what we think – it always seem to come back to the concept of numbers.

What if there is a different basis of knowledge that does not belong to the realm of numbers? What if it was an accident that human knowledge chanced upon the number-realm rather than the other? Sure, it was an act of pure genius, the invention of numbers. But all the subsequent knowledge that we built was based upon this one basic premise, which in the end was probably an accident.

So, if we have to talk about truth, the existence of which is unknown as far as i am concerned, the knowledge that we possess today is true only as long as the premise is true. But the premise is an assumption at best. So is all knowledge an assumption?

Is our “understanding” of nature our own fabrication and nothing more?

Drink and dance and laugh and lie,
  Love, the reeling midnight through,
For tomorrow we shall die!
  (But, alas, we never do.)

- Dorothy Parker

I love reading books and its great if I can find a place where I can document/share my experiences. I was trying out weread.com. Their portable BookShelf (once you create your bookshelf you can carry it with you to orkut, facebook etc.) idea has generated a lot of traffic to the website, so it has a lot of users and content. But I am not entirely happy with the design of the website.

- When I sign in, I want to see a personalized home page. I want to see the books I have added, the reviews I have written, activities of my friends etc. The information on what general population is doing is secondary to me. Instead when I sign in, I see a page where a huge chunk of page is occupied by iReaders’ activities and there is no space for activities of my friends.

- I have already created a bookshelf. Why does the homepage still ask me to create a bookshelf after I sign in? Top quarter of the screen space is occupied by that, which is meaningless.

- There is no link to “Home”. But that is also because there is no homepage. I think that is bad design.

- Screen space seems to be poorly used in most webpages. There is a lot of content but the webpages are sparse which requires you to scroll a lot. Not cool. (A “An iReader has reviewed Blah Blah” takes 2 inches of screen space. I think that is unreasonable.)

I really want to use this website, but I get irritated when things are not intuitive or are cumbersome. I hope the weread.com people will read this blogpost. That is the only purpose to this post

Mujhse pehli si muhabbat meri mehboob na maang

Maine samjha tha ki tu hai to darakhshaan hai hayaat
tera gham hai to gham-e-dahar ka jhagda kya hai
teri surat se hai aalam mein baharon ko sabaat
teri aakhon ke siva duniya mein rakha kya hai
tu jo mil jaaye to taqdir niguun ho jaaye
yun na tha maine faqat chaha tha yun ho jaaye
aur bhi dukh hai duniya mein muhabbat ke sivaa
raahatein aur bhi hai vasl ki raahat ke sivaa

Mujhse pehli si muhabbat meri mehboob na maang

Anginat sadiyonn ke taariik bahimaanaa talism
resham-o-atalas-o-kam khwaab mein bunvaaye hue
jaa-ba-jaa bikte hue kuuchaa-o-baazaar mein jism
khaak mein lithade hue khuun mein nahalaaye hue
jism nikle hue amraaz ke tannuron se
piip behti hui galate hue naasuuron se
laut jaati hai udhar ko bhi nazar kya kiije
ab bhi dil-kash hai tera husn magar kya kiije
aur bhi dukh hai duniya mein muhabbat ke sivaa
raahatein aur bhi hai vasl ki raahat ke sivaa

Mujhse pehli si muhabbat meri mehboob na maang

- Faiz Ahmed Faiz

[darakhshaan = shining; hayaat = life]
[gham-e-dahar = sorrows of the world; aalam = world]
[sabaat = permanence]
[niguun = bow]
[vasl = meeting]
[taariik = dark; bahiimaanaa = dreadful; talism = magic]
[resham = silk; atalas = satin; kam_Khvaab = brocade]
[jaa-ba-jaa = hither-thither]
[litha.De = covered/soaked in]
[amaraaz = diseases; tannuuro.n = ovens]
[piip = puss; naasuur = a wound that won't heal]
[dilkash = heartwarming]

For over a week, I did not step out of the apartment. My phone was dead too. Hadn’t spoken to a soul in all those days.

After so many days when I stepped into company of people I was lost. I didn’t know what to say or how to act. I wanted to run back into my cave. I was comfortable there. Alone in my room, I didn’t need to play the game for which I no longer seem to know the rules. Or maybe I know them too well.

I know the rules. I know the game and my part in it. I played it before, and I played it well. Said and did all the right things. I was successful, I was adored by everyone. At the time I did not know that I was just following the rules. The innocence created a sense of romance. I am not innocent anymore. The romance is lost. I know that if I play by those rules again, I will be successful/liked again.

It was never about me. It was always just a matter of playing by the rules of the game. The ones who play it well win. I know that now. Once that romance is lost, it doesn’t feel great when someone says “Srivani is kind”. Because I know now that it has nothing to do with me. I just played the game right. If it doesn’t make me feel special, why should I go out of my way to be kind to someone? Why should I ask how they are doing or say they look great in that outfit?

I am losing interest in this game. But what else do I have?

Hum deewanon ki kya hasti
Hain aaj yahan kal wahan chale,
Masti ka aalam saath chala
Hum dhool udaate jahaan chale ||

Aaye bankar ullhaas abhi,
Aansoon bankar beh chale abhi,
Sab kehte hi reh gaye, arey!
Tum kaise aaye, kahaan chale ||

Kis or chale? Mat yeh pooncho,
Chalna hai bas isliye chale,
Jag se uska kuch liye chale,
Jag ko apna kuch diye chale ||

Do baat kahii, do baat sunii,
Kuch hanse aur phir kuch roye,
Chhak kar sukh dukh ke ghoonton ko,
Hum ek bhav se piye chale ||

Hum bhikmangon ki duniya mein,
Swacchand lutaakar pyaar chale,
Hum ek nishaani ur pe,
Le asaphalta ka bhaar chale ||

Hum maan rahit, apmaan rahit,
Ji bharkar khulkar khel chuke,
Hum hanste hanste aaj yahan,
Praanon ki baazi haar chale ||

Ab apna aur paraaya kya,
Abaad rahe rukne waale,
Hum swayam bandhe the, aur swayam
Hum apne bandhan tod chale ||

Do not know who the poet is. Enlighten, if you do.

I am moving to US in the first week of January for pursuing Master’s at the State University of New York, Stony Brook.

Now, I know exactly what it means to feel like you have a hanger in your mouth! I can’t stop laughing …

Keep guessing why