Conversations with Arjun

Me : Arjun, Did you hear what your teacher told me today ? She said that you are very talkative, that once you open your mouth you never close it.

Arjun:  (with a wide smile) Yes, I know... I just can't stop talking.

Latest read

"Don't sleep, There are snakes", by Daniell Everett is a very interesting book that portrays the life of a missionary linguist among the Piraha tribe of the Amazonian rainforests. Mr. Everett,  a missionary, sponsored by the evangelical churches in the United States to "change the pirahas' hearts", to persuade them to worship the Christian god, and to accept the morality and culture that goes along with that worship, ended up losing his faith in the process and realized the atheist in him. I arrived at this book after listening to a radio documentary on the same topic. 

 

According to Everett, Pirahas showed him that there is dignity and deep satisfaction in facing life without the comfort of heaven or the fear of hell. Pirahas seem to value direct experience and observation. Everett observes that "If you want to tell the Pirahas something, they are going to want to know how you came by your knowledge. And especially they will want to know if you have direct evidence for your assertion. He calls it the "Immediacy of Experience" principle. This means that if you haven't experienced something directly, your stories about it are largely irrelevant. This renders Pirahas relatively impermeable to missionaries, who are purveyors of incredible stories of the distant past that no one alive has witnessed. Creation myths are no match for the Pirahas' demand for evidence. According to Everett, there was no sense of sin among the Pirahas, no need to save mankind or themselves. There was acceptance for things the way they are, by and large. Their faith was in themselves and had no fear of death.  He concludes by saying that the Pirahas are an unusually happy and contended people, who are fitter and better adjusted to their environment than any religious person he has ever known.

 

The book also delves deep into his attempt to learn the Piraha language over several decades and gets into details of linguistic research and literature, which can be a little boring to someone not interested in the topic. But he ties it all together by finally focusing on the need to invest time, money and effort in studying languages by invoking the close relationship between language, grammar, culture, and cognition.  He quotes the "Rausing Endangered Language Project's" website  and states that "Today, there are about 6500 languages and half of those are under the threat of extinction within 50 to 100 years. This is a social, cultural, and scientific disaster because languages express the unique knowledge, history, and world view of their communities; and each language is a specially evolved variation of the human capacity for communication."

 

There may not be immediate practical benefits in studying and recording all the endangered languages. But treating languages as repositories of specialized cultural experiences will enable us to realize that they are vital in teaching us different ways of thinking about life and of approaching our day to day life.

Latest read

Excerpts from Ruskin's journal, spread over years and grouped by seasons of the year, "Landour days" compiles several random notes from the writer's diary. They capture Ruskin's musings, experiences, wishful thinking, and angst at certain contemporary events in Mussoorie such as the transformation of the scenic hill  station into a seedy town and the rapid rise of a concrete jungle. A pleasant week end reading, Landour days, is a must read for all Ruskin Bond fans.

Latest read

 

Ruskin Bond's memoir, Scenes from a writer's life focuses on the first twenty one years of his life. Ruskin writes about his family, friends, schools, books read during formative years, the loss of his father and the loneliness that followed, great bonds of friendships developed, life in England, and finally his return to Dehra. For fans of Ruskin Bond's writings, this autobiography lays out the experiences and thoughts that form the well spring of his creative abilities and his inimitable style.

Latest Read

I just went back to an old favorite, whose story had almost faded from my memory. But I found Ruskin Bond's magic irremovable from the words of "The room on the roof." The story starts with the usual Bond style of expressing a scene so beautifully that the reader can visualize every detail, hear every sound, and be pulled into the act with the protagonist. I always find the simplicity with which Bond writes extremely refreshing.

The "Room on the roof" begins thus :
"The light spring rain rode on the wind, into the trees, down the road; it brought an exhilarating freshness to the air, a smell of earth, a scent of flowers; it brought a smile to the eyes of the boy on the road.

The long road wound round the hills, rose and fell and twisted down to Dehra; the road came from the mountains and passed through the jungle and valley and after passing through Dehra, ended somewhere in the bazaar. But just where it ended no one knew, for the bazaar was a baffling place, where roads were easily lost."

Currently reading..

I am currently reading "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" by Jared Diamond. In this book, the Pulitzer-Prize winning author explores how climate change, population explosion, and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilizations.

The end of an era

I was able to watch Sachin Tendulkar's final innings yesterday. An era comes to an end.

 

To me, Sachin's retirement really feels like the snapping of a link - the departure of someone, who connected legendary cricketers of yesteryears (Imran Khan, Richard Hadlee, Malcom Marshall, Kapil Dev et al), with whom he played to the Kohlis and other young blood of today. My family didn't even have a TV to watch the matches when this guy started playing - I remember watching bits and pieces of the 1992 world cup standing with a crowd in front of Electronics shops in Trivandrum, watching his rampage during the 1996/1999 world cups on a "Weston" black and white TV at home. Still remember sitting motion less watching him destroy the Pakistani bowling attack during the 2003 world cup in front of a TV with a big, loud group of friends in Hyderabad, watching the miserable failure of 2007 and the triumph in 2011 on my computer while in the US. Starting from 1990, as a secondary school boy, to 2013, where I am today, whichever corner of the world I was and whatever I was doing, I some how always managed to follow Sachin's matches and took a lot of pleasure watching him play. I love cricket, its my most favorite sport and he represented the game to me. So when he departs, I feel like something has come to an end or if you will let me go over the top, more like some one familiar just passed away.

 

Thank you for all the great memories, Sachin. Along with your seemingly unsurpassable records, you will always be remembered for being one of the finest ambassadors of cricket.

Currently reading ..

 

 

I am currently reading "The Monk and the Philosopher"  that captures an interesting discussion between the renowned French philosopher, Jean Francois-Revel and his famous son, Matthieu Ricard. Revel was a staunch critic of Communism and Christianity while Matthieu Ricard is a Molecular biologist turned Buddhist monk. This father-son conversation is also an opportunity to witness the juxtaposition of Eastern and Western philosophies on life, culture, and beliefs.  

Return to Ruskin Bond

"It's the simple things in life that keep us from going crazy" - Ruskin Bond (Notes from a small room")

This is one of those life saving truisms. At times when mind is preoccupied with a thousand things, when the hours in a day aren't enough to keep up with all that one has to keep up with, and when life pulls a couple of those unpleasant surprises, simple acts that let one soak in the present moment offer a great respite. This could vary from a 30 minute jog, watching a rain or children play, listening to the birds or the wind in the trees, feeling the brush of the wind or the salty spray of the ocean on your face, discerning the subtle sounds and colors around us etc.

Anyway, that's what took me back to Ruskin Bond's works. It is a great stress buster for me and helps take mind off work, unwind and occupy the mind with simple acts and pleasures of life. Over the last few weeks I've read a lot more of Ruskin Bond:

1) The India I love
2) Book of Nature
3) Notes from a small room
4) A Handful of nuts

 
 

Social Investing

I've signed up with Rang De and made a social investment in India. The money will help a seamstress in the eastern state of Orissa improve her business. I believe that in addition to providing small scale entrepreneurs the funds to start or improve their businesses, well directed micro-credits can also break the stranglehold that usurers and traditional money lenders have on the lives of these people. By providing an option to borrow money at cheaper interest rates, micro credit organizations can contribute to tackling problems such as poverty, malnutrition, and farmer suicides. It will make a huge impact if people choose to invest just 1% of their salaries in such causes.