With each surge of life, a little more of that which we talk, and oh so ever often know, becomes Knowledge. Knowledge with a capital K, to distinguish it from knowledge. Captain K is that exclusive K, one that stands apart from corporal k in quality, and perhaps in a deconstruction of quantity. K is acquired through experience, k, through medial sources of information.

And as these little surges, as little waves which froth and bubble the seashore, as she sold seashells there (now why would anyone sell seashells on the seashore?), K up my life, each moment brings forth a drastic discovery. A discovery that: “ohmigosh! I’ve been doing thaaaat until now? ohmigosh ohmigosh ohmigosh! What do I do! Life is so hard! I cannot live! Suicide is the option!”

Of course, it, until now, is yet to result in a suicide, but with these little surges which cause this piling up of K, I change my life a little.

One such little surge of K made me realise that I had four parrots locked up in a big cage. Like, I really-had-four-parrots-caged-up-inhibiting-their-freedom-and-therefore-making-them-slaves-to-me-their-master. This realisation shocked me. Of course the values of liberty and equality needs to be upheld. Thankfully, and sadly, an incident sparked in my home terrain, where a cat killed one of my parakeets. That godsend horrible cat ripped the poor curious ‘ung one into smithereens. It was all a blaze of green and red. This made my parents realise that in spite of their best, they could not protect these poor little caged flying things round the clock. And therefore, as I was planning to timidly broach the topic of their freedom, my parents timidly approached me with the same. Overjoyed I, fixed a date for their release, and armed with a camera, we all fondled them for a last time, fed them, and set them free.

That’s quite a story, with a couple breaking up, and the heartbroken male coming back to spend two weeks in silent hope and mourning, and so on and so on. But this setting free incident makes me think of these values of liberty, freedom, freeness, et al.

Do these mental concepts (or, as some hardcore linguists might argue, linguistic concepts), if I may dare, mean anything to them green cuddly winged flybies? Is it an instinct? What is an instinct? Are instincts also constructs?

We all know how all animals rage to oppose capture. And we presume that these displays of aggressiveness are shudders that uphold the value of freedom, of free choice. Is it a move to keep the right to make their own decisions, or is it a move to oppose capture and probably instant death (in kingdom animalia minus Homo sapien sapiens, individuals don’t exactly capture animals to keep them as pets and cuddle them do they)? And therefore, if their move is just to escape death, are we not justified in capturing them and ‘taking care’ of them? Indeed, countless battles in the H. s. sapien world have been fought for freedom. Almost every battle. Kings defending their kingdoms through their soldiers. Nations defending their borders through armies. All trying to uphold their right to free choice. Or is that right to free choice just a farce? Oft quote we from the “animal world” to substantiate our quarrels, pogroms, and nukes. But is this instinct of freedom present at all in the animal world, or is it barely an instinct to aid survival? Of course, any child who came of age, let by its parents ‘free’ into the world will know how free-will is not exactly the best chance of an individual’s survival. Its basic logic that if all individuals in a kingdom followed the king’s advice, and surrendered their free-will to the Throne, no one had to die. If all conformed to the nation, there would be no prisons. What happens when both the king/nation/head and the subjects/citizens/parts are given free will is what we have in our world today – deaths, deaths, more deaths, way too many births leading to even more deaths.

At the very same time though, and now I chart across facts to observations and experience, the K, an interesting page in the Life of Pi reads that change and animals are not two signifiers that go hand in hand. Animals hate change. They do anything to oppose change. They want to lead their way in the same beaten path, over and over again, day after day, season after season. Of course, time is inconsequential here, its the rhythm which has to be maintained (lets not conform individuals outside the H. s. sapiens realm to constructs of sapienity, like time). An elephant wants to remain where it is, take a bath in the same river, traverse the same path over the seasons. A peacock wants to stay within its territory. A monkey in its fashion. (However, this proposal would put into serious question the theory of origin of life in one point and its consequent spreading, or rather, this proposal is seriously questioned by that theory). And from observation, and little little curious interactions with individuals outside the H. s. s. spectrum, I have to agree that Yann Martel has a point there. I have no readings or research to back up my claim, it is merely a subjective proposal. Now, put into this dimension, the H. s. s. world seems strikingly similar. It is to oppose change that kings oppose other kings, that systems clamp down deviants. But, how can that be when the mantra of the day is “change”? We vote for different political parties for change, Obama says “Yes we can” signifying a change from a noness to a canness, leadership gurus talk of making change a lifestyle, Robert Frost recites The Road Not Taken. But, think again, these keywords of change hide a system of not-change. Leadership gurus who ask wannabe leaders to make change their lifestyle support the not changing of the capitalist system which is catering to selfish dreams. Political parties who claim change, and a difference from their predecessors, are not talking of a change, but are talking of a not-change: roads shall be good, as they were, as they aren’t now, i.e., there shall be no change in their condition; development indices will increase, i.e., there shall be no change in the rate of change (or, in this context, “change” can be the same as expectation, and therefore, “change” is not change, but is just a shift from a physical state to a preferred mental state – like wanting to urinate, having a full bladder, and having urinated). Robert Frost asks not people to find really radical lifepaths, but to not change the process (or rate) of liberalisation. Humans have always opposed change. Oh come on, that value which reads in the “Well Being Scale” used by psychologists  “Are you comfortable with sudden ruptures and changes in plans?” is just a farce; no one can be comfortable with changes, they can barely be more used to changes in plans, and the more used one gets to changes in plans, those very changes form the individual’s not change zone, and therefore, those changes cease to become changes, and they become variables in an itinerary of not change.

And for not change, we need free will. “Freedom is the freedom to say no”, says Shantaram in the book by Gregory David Roberts (it must be a thought which must have germinated some time much earlier, surely, but this is my source). And therefore, is this instinct of survival a tussle for not change, which is linguistically abstracted with terms like free will and freedom? And ergo just Let It Be and not change anything? Don’t cage the bird? Once you caged it, don’t let it free? Or if it continues to struggle in captivity, let it free?

i still remember the day i set my parrots free. and they flew flew flew over the river, grass, and trees. one stood by to watch and see, if its mate would come back and their love could still be. but alas. i still remember the day i set my parrots free… are they truly happy? h…a… …p….d.. … … y. .    ? . .

The generation where when I had to submit an assignment, I got the information I craved at the click of a few buttons, a few thousand rupees, and mass destruction of the planet. Of course, the generation where also the few thousand rupees were seen as a worthwhile investment, cajoled by marketeers, and where the mass destruction is blissfully hidden. Thomas Gray shot it right when said ignorance is bliss. If bliss is the goal of life, the Generation Me’s mantra is ignorance.

At the click of a few more buttons, I had my five hundred word essay ready (Alt+Shift+W showed me the number of words). And off the assignment went. That which should have originally consisted of library sojourns, book references, and visits to a far off place which I’d never heard of, all done soullessly in a matter of fifteen mere minutes. Of course, this is the knowledge generation. The information generation. But ironically, the ignorant generation.

Ignorance is not for lack of information or knowledge. It is for lack of intellectual good. We are a generation “who intellectual good/ Have lost” (Dante, Inferno Canto III). We know that every time we board that flight, thousands of kilograms of jet fuel is being burnt. We know that that jet fuel has been pumped at the cost of lives in Nigeria. Lifes, which we know from Amnesty International’s annual reports as lives. We know that that pumping out of jet fuel has caused an insane economic class difference in Venezuela. And yet, we board that flight. We know that as we reach out for that bottle of Coca Cola, thousands of lives around the world have been forfeit to bring you that litre of crap, marketed as an alternative for water, and more popularly as a digestive aid. And yet we reach out. We know that every time we smile at the diamond ring on that beautiful glittering shelf, hundreds of lives have been laid behind in the blood mountains of Congo. And yet, we smile. We know that every time we take that piece of paper to doodle or scribble, in the name of creativity, in the name of expression, in the name of communication, in the name of psychotherapy, a tree five times older than you, on which lives thousands of organisms, is cut in the rainforests of Brazil. And yet, we take.

This is Generation Me.

I was questioned the other day about the “time for myself”. Time for myself? I spend my time theorising time. I spend my time trying to define the concept of time. I create a nonsensical entity, and spend the rest of my life trying to define that entity. I have time for everything outside of me. How can I have time for myself. Oh, you object? My dear friend, the body-builder, the fashion-model, the doctor, and the meditator, all are concerned barely about externalities; the body-builder and fashion-model about some perfect shape, the doctor about her/his medical object, the meditator about her/his calmness to go about her/his life – which is in all terms external.

It is ironical that the Generation Me does not have time for meselfs.

Oh no. I’m more concerned about theorising the probable causes and consequences of being a pseudo-activist by clicking Facebook buttons, and about combining quantum physics and bioengineering. About windmills in the Sahara, and monkeys in outer space. About the twitches and turns of Dow Jones and the latest developments at California Berkeley.

This is the Generation Me. And this is my story. I wish I had been writing this…

Little yellow flowers border the introspecting brown iron fence.
Little pinks join them; to witness the crawling snakes, day a day, night a night.
I have no words to say, no speak to thought,
To capture this sleeping elephant rock,
This great spectacle
Seeming, in its bliss stupor to,
Cling on to another elephant peak;
Which in turn to an other,
And an other, settling to swim.

Suddenly, hidden by plumes of coconuts,
mangoes, and such other valley thriving crop…
Oy. paddy and sugar cane too?!

Its hot. A beary hay silo passes by.
Yup, eating his way through grass,
and probably children’s mothers in their desperate hopes to teach her children more words, to keep them from a brawling troll.

Words. words. words.
“Words are all I have, to take your heart away”
Really?
I cannot describe this land
In ease wit this Anglo Germanic tongue
As easily as once I did with the rivulets of Europa;
(with this same orange pencil, same white book)
I know I cannot hope to capture the lime fluorescent greenness of the juvenile paddy a pass;
There is something beyond in this stark bright illuminating suns rays playing hide ‘n seek with trainly windows
(that which has obfuscated logic thus far, and stings my curiosity.)
Yes, true.
But mean that, that I am structured of
phones, syns, and morphs?
["kvool draynks... vaateir..."
Ha! Describe that.]

The tog is almost empty.
And we soon pass the last terra firmatic elephant.
Hey! Suddenly it appears that the three (los tres)
are desperate in support of the drowning un.
Oi oi oi…
(Framed in aweificance by thick white plumes of cotton soft clods, and the oceany blue sky.
Where’s the jellyfish now?)

Hark! What is that which burns?

But wait, my orange friend,
Was that my tongue, or an other, I saw?
Am I already in embrace of my linguistic claw?
Namaskaram Kerala!
As I breathe into Kanjikode,
Where is my welcoming monsoon queen’s klem?
The sun just still shines…
(Tchaaayeee… Tchai tchayeee)

And so, I enter my region state,
A familiarity no doubt, they say,
Configured by the language mine.
Nay.
You jest.

For my land is mine for its greenness,
The countless chlorophylls that breathe air in my state,
And for its earth,
That gives rise to them green.
My land is mine for its water,
Flowing health from the mountains of blue dreams,
Illuminating, strengthening, and killing.
My land is mine for the butterfly’s smile,
For the coconut silhouettes in brown paddy aquadigms,
For the krrr krrrs of Cicadas singing at night,
For these mountains like elephants,
For elephants like loving mountains,
For the people, the thought,
For love,
In short, in a coconut shell,
For this lands energy.
["Tweet tweet, tweet tweet... Es em esss..." Palakkad Jn...]

How can you say it is for the langue?
You call that intellect?
Or is that insolence?
[and is this a discourse of knowing, or desperation? or of hate?]
A. K. Hamza sells chips, chips, more chips,
and of course, halwa, halwa, halwa…
(among other dirty imperialising bites…)

Kakas bite water drops off dripping manual taps,
And people smile on talking, ordering.
I might be hugged by the sweet melody of mine tongue,
Now enveloping like the first monsoon rains…
(“Kerala, Kerala, Kerala lottery tické, pooja tické, win-win lottery…”)
And political dialogues in seats a couple front
may enigmatically critique in powerful speaks…
But did the langue come first, or first the chicken?
I think the chicken;
(and that the langueists should get a life)

Black pipe on a yellow balustrade,
Carries the life of water,
As our snake slowly etches forward
Inscribing change in our universe.

And in my realm now, as slowly as this train moves,
I shall begin to settle to other affections of my selv
My addiction of the word, now satisfied.

Oh A and A for whom I this dedicate,
May love be with you,
And let this land’s energy too.

Drip drip drip drip
Coconut thatches that build this energy’s intellectocracy, fairocracy,
And small boys a playing cricket,
Whilst woman bent over love’s labour ploughing nature,
Red beats promising exercise,
Whilst the sun shine, this train and rivulets move,
the wind caressing my hair…
Peace out.

- neo garfield

Today, I saw a Gulmohar in full bloom. Standing tall on green grass, on the other side of the road. An army area; fenced out. Protected, and isolated. With no children like you and me to leap around and play. Simply, in full bloom. The seplets drift down, with no you, no me, to gather them, and make them love.

Today, you and me are worlds apart. We barely know each other. You talk so different, I hardly understand. I bet that I talk insanity, not given to understanding either. You have probably found others to hold your hand and play with you, and so probably have I (um, or maybe not.). Weird to see, be, change. Can things be the same?

Let us not ponder why they should be the same. We both cherish a longing memory of that sameness. The worth pondering is which asks, what is it really to ‘going back’? Truly think. We are here, now, perhaps worse off than that before, but can we make of the coming what it had been that before? Maybe we can, but you and I, we are not isolated lovers in a sterile universe. We are complex networks of people, places, memories, happenings…. And those networks, they will have to change with us. Or we end up in the pyre where all things returned do.

There is a Left and a Right. Must we chose one? Can we not have another, without having to negotiate? Perhaps there is a digital and a non-digital. But for all things practical, is there a viable non-digital? Perhaps there is trust, and then again, perhaps not. Can we see from here, and move? There are the good old days, and then, there are these hideous present. But for the way ahead, do we have to strive for those good old? Is that really a plausible? Can we not see the good from the old, and inherit a future taking off from this ghastly present?

Is there purpose in dwelling in the past, but to learn the happenings, so as to understand the present, and construct a what is to be? (and of course, for lovable memories?)

Not rules and code on top of rules and code to produce a new set of rules and code for another set of rules and code to build on. But reconciling with the what is yet to be for peace…

So perhaps we must just let the Gulmohar tree inside the wired off enclosure be. Let it be. And you and I, changed we are, and apart, once dancers of love, now partners in changing the world, perhaps we should see from here where we are, without hope or agenda of the past. So be it.

Today, as the rain rained, and wind blew, the little seplets drift gently to dance, and I remember you.

Must watch song by David Ippolito. Explains why he thinks Facebook is a Stupid Idiot.

Of course, I think that Facebook is a Stupid Idiot for all the different reasons…

I mean… Really… Do you want to be on Facebook?

After this song… And considering the fact that Facebook is one big bad multinational owned by a hormone [read 'economics'] driven twenty six year old? And also considering the fact that Facebook owns everything you put on it? Including last night’s party photos, where you were drunk like a fish? And the last “Love you too” private message you sent to your boyfriend? And your little poetry status message? And that depending on your privacy settings, that big bad multinational can use all your information for their publicity, or even sell it?

For me, friendship is about love. Its about remembering people’s birthdays if I care for them, not about receiving reminders. Its about talking to someone when I remember them, not finding them on my news feed. Its about having my closest friend tell me what has been happening and how (s)he feels, not about reading it from her ‘wall’. Its about reading whats in the news, not what my neighbour thinks about the news – I can ask her that if I wanted to. Its about having a physically-real farm, and a physically-real cow, and not about having a Farmville. (Come on folks, if you have two hours a day for Farmville, why not start a garden and see those physically-real tangible beautiful fragrant flowers and those eatable vegetables?)

Its about meeting a bygone friend in the middle of a forest (ok, lets be more realistic, in the middle of the grocery store?). Or giving a hug because I truly cherish the soul I hug, not to get points. Its about showing pictures – those fleeting events which we arrogantly try to capture – to people who know, not about tagging people and commenting on the X’s balding forehead. Its about letting people who care to ask where I am or what I’m doing, not about publishing that to the world. Please, its about going out there and actually doing something for that poor Panthera tigris and not about clicking a button!

Yes, this is a rant. But for me, its about the non-digital. Yes, the non-digital. Yes, I believe it exists.

Actually, no. Its not about the non-digital. Its about the person, the human, the energy, the force. Digits and non-digits do not play there.

And Ippolito and I have something in common. We both think Facebook is a Stupid Idiot.

That is how we had come to know each other, three long years back. Volunteers for a ‘social cause’. Embraced into the welcoming folds of righteous feeling, passion, and collective conscious of our associates, we had taken up the yoke to return in time and set right the un-rights. It has been a long journey, across stereotypes and beliefs, hopes and trust, across oceans and seas, love, hate, beauty, hospitals, slums, villages, people, words, emails, blueprints, plans, schools, songs, and literally half the way across the world. Yup, this currently octopus shaped cynic, and his guitar-possessing optimist.

Armed with the wand of change, we swept across human-inhabited (and otherwise) geographical spaces, waving our magic hither and tither. And every once in a while, we would come up with the same thought as we were manifesting now – how did we get here again?

It, volunteering, is hard. Why is it hard, you might ask… What is there so much to it? Isn’t it just a matter of educating the poor to break the vicious circle of poverty? Isn’t it just talking to people to make them aware of social issues? Isn’t is just about being socially minded so as to make a better world?

Oh no, that is the tragedy it has become. In fact, it isnt. It is, simply put, about thought, change, and delusion.

With great power comes great responsibility (Plato’s ‘Gorgias’). And a volunteer is armed with the greatest of powers – of change. Change is, in a way, the creation of something new. Thus a volunteer has the power of creation. The same power attributed to God, in all religious faiths. And this power has immense capacity. Thus making a volunteer intensely responsible for her/his world. What (s)he does with this power is what makes volunteering hard.

A question to begin with could be, what am I working for? Which will probably be shortly followed by what am I doing? Of course the question of who am I doing this for and is this what they really need or what are we doing to them would come up somewhere in the body of thought. These thoughts will probably take you to change. Change. Not of others, not of someone you work for, but of yourself. However, you probably wouldn’t have come to a satisfactory conclusion for your questions, which would probably continue through your change, questioning your change. Soon, you would have a Plato-Socratic battle raging in your head (and heart) – they are of the poor, I should help educate them to break the cycle of poverty; but is education the answer? Isn’t education just conditioning you to conform to society; and isn’t the heart of the problem within the system of the society itself? But what else can I do? Shouldn’t I be doing something? Should I be doing something? Who am I to decide what is best for someone else? What is good, what is bad? So what must I do?

And finally, you reconcile by doing something to smother the raging fire of your thoughts. Welcome to delusion.

Amidst all this, you would have travelled through the most passionate of beliefs, the best of friends, the heights of love, the top notches of efficiency, the worst of heartbreaks… And finally, you and me, we end up in this room, pondering about our dinner, and losing ourselves Across the Universe as we try to negotiate life. It is hard. It better be. If not, its time to start thinking.

[this article, titled 'Confessions of a volunteer', has been written by the author of this post as an entry to a social work organisation magazine. If published, the rights to this article will belong to that magazine and the publishing organisation. Until then, it falls under the general rights policy that this blog follows.]

[this article is dedicated, with love, to all the new volunteers at the above mentioned social work organisation, and the guitar-possessing optimist soul]

That frog there.. Is that really a frog? Or is that a toad? Is it here to eat us up? Is she here to lay eggs? Yup, tadpoles for us to eat! Its a she? Horrible taste in skin, she should appeal for a better one…

And thus the fishes kept theorising life, the frog, and other miscellaneous things.

Fishpond.

*

Ladies, gentlemen, please welcome Meter Jam. A honest attempt by honest folk to give a dose of ‘their own medicine’ to dishonest autorikshaw drivers in a few major cities in India.

Meter Jam

So whats it all about? Autorikshaw drivers are known for being notorious in cities like Bengaluru, Chennai, and Mumbai. Some won’t stop for you. Some will insult you. Some charge you extra. Some have tampered-with fare metres. Some adjust their rear-view mirrors to check out your breasts. These some hate you. They detest you. Just like you hate them. And Meter Jam is about giving them a ‘dose of their own medicine’ by refusing them, today, on the 12th of August, 2010.

But did you know that you are the result of these some being the way they are? Oh yes. You. You, me, all of us. I say you because this conversation is happening inside your head. There is no me, only you. Did you ever stop to think why they are the way they are?

Stung by poverty and hate, ignored and belittled in their own land, faced with stark economic opposition from the new big clan of people who live in an imaginary world earning ten or twenty times more than them, with nothing to aspire for, with the harsh antagonists of horrible traffic, irate drivers, and corrupt policemen per diem, they lead lifes filled with problems, real problems, those which cannot be solved by fancy, multi-node algorithms.

And you, dear sir, ma’am, made them the way they are today, by refusing to smile or acknowledge their humanness as they struggle to cope with life and death. You did it, by treating them as machines, as part of the autos they drive, as a system. They were not. You made them that way.

Each time you haughtily climb into an auto and flip out your mobile, each time you treat that driver with scorn, each time you battle with the driver for five units of currency, each time you scream at them, you make them more that way. Each time you oppose them, you create their new existence as a dumb system. Like a soft-drink vending machine.

Did you ever try talking to that driver? Ever asked him^* if he had a wife and children? What his children did? If he had lunch? If he wanted a toffee? If he liked A R Rahman? If he could read? Of his opinion on the nuclear liability bill? About life insurance?

You bust forty five rupees on a cappuccino in Barista, and a hundred and twenty two on a burger and french fries in McD.  And you quarrel for five bucks from the auto-driver. Five bucks which is one of two hundred and twenty five billionth of McD’s yearly revenue^#. Five bucks which could buy rice for the auto-driver’s family today.

Also remember that their being poor is a result of your being rich.

Agreed that its horrible to travel by autorikshaws today. But does our solution lie in hating them, and oppressing them, in denying them? Or does it lie in trying to understand them, empathising with them, and in love? Can we engage them in love? Can we give them a smile each time? Can we talk to them about family and news? Can we see them as humans? Can we see ‘them’ as ‘us’?

Of course, this will not give us an immediate change. Not all auto-drivers will smile back. Not all will be ready to accept you. But some will. Some whose human lies beneath layers of conditioned systemisation, waiting to be uncaged as though a butterfly from a spider’s net. And some will start talking to you about corruption, about God, about being Christian, about Rajnikanth, about the importance of life insurance, about life, classical music, love, Marxism, the rain… Can we remember those some, and keep smiling, so that we might have a change by the time we transcend?

Can we break that fishpond?

Autojam?

–

* – based on the assumption, and probable fact that there are no women auto drivers.

[edit: I was wrong about the women auto drivers... Apparently, there are women auto drivers in Chennai. Thanks wise donkey!]

# – from Yahoo! Finance <http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=MCD>

~

“Cabrón! Entrar en su jaula de mierda!” [“You bastard! Enter your f****** cage!”]

Whack.

“Lo que son demonios hacer con nosotros?” [“What are you demons doing to us?”]

Whack.

“What’s he saying?”

“He’s one of them stronger folks lootenant. He’s been at it throughout the f****** voyage!”

“I asked what is he saying sergeant!”

“ Usted debe ser un oficial. Vamos a salir de esta locura!” [“You must be an officer. Let us out of this madness!”]

“Bichos ¡Cállate! Él no entiende español. [Shut up vermin! He doesn't understand Spanish.] Sir, he’s been wanting to know where we’re taking him, and what we’re gonna do.”

“Thank you sergeant. Now translate this for me. We’re at Los Angeles. Heard of that place? You must know what it means… ‘The angels’ in your stupid language, isn’t it? We’re bringing you here to sell you to people, who will then eat you. Comprehendo amigo?”

“That would be comprendo sir!”

“Whatever crap sergeant. Now translate that.”

E’re en Los Ángeles. Ecos de ese lugar? Usted debe saber lo que significa … The sergeant started saying with a gleeful expression, whilst the captain stalked away chuckling. Somebody banged a baton onto my head and I lost consciousness again. Thus passed my pioneering admittance into the United States of America. Estados Unidos de América.

Somebody had pushed me into the cage. That intimidating crate. But its door was hanging open? The rock and lull of sailing had ceased. We were on land. Somebody was calling out names.

“Chael, Abantiades”

That sounded like an Americanised version of my name..

“Chael, Abantiades?!”

The voice seemed to be losing patience.

“Aqui. Mi nombre es Abantiades Chael.” [“Here. My name is Abantiades Chael.”]

I knew English. But a mask of ignorance might be wise. Or so I thought then.

“No entiendo espaniyol. Now get in that truck.”

A translator standing next to the army officer began muttering illegibly. Excellent. From the cage to a truck.

After a few more of us had been pushed into the dirty and smelly truck, bringing the total inhabitants of that dingy space to maybe around two hundred, the doors were closed, barring out the light. We heard the clicks of locks and the roar of an engine. Soon, we were vibrating in tune to the hum of the truck’s engine. Squished like octopus tentacles in pickle, some fainted, some began vomiting, and amongst this snarl, some began to chant verses from la Biblia…

Ten days back from then, I think, I remember la policia came and forced us into a truck, apparently for questioning, from the slums in Chihuahua. I remember they came in combat uniform, and rounded up all the inhabitants of that place… Between seven and ten thousand people. No one can say how many truly live in these barrios. The others must also have been bundled into ships with awaiting cages. The others were wondering why, constantly chattering and making conspiracy theories. But I knew.. I knew.. I knew that I knew, but I couldn’t bring myself to know..

A strange feeling pressed me more than that knowledge. A strange feeling for my lovely Paola… my wife.. And my children.. And my home.. My church.. My knowledge of my looming fate had made me thrust my face against the bars of the cage, in a futile attempt to push the ship homeward. The bars had left red press-marks on my cheeks, to add on to the angry pink blots which had popped up on all our bodies in the last few years. Existence was bitter. Like the stem of the jalapeño, the bigotry of the world made me even more bitter.

The truck stopped. I heard the doors open and slam shut. Somebody talking in accented English. And suddenly, light poured in, hurting my eyes.

“Salir a todos!” [“Get out you all!”]

And we were bundled out, and through a cordon of armed guards, into a dark room. The room smelled of something horrible. Like a mixture of decay, sweat, and blood. And all of a sudden, water was splashed on us. Powerful jets of cold, chemical-smelling water. After our ‘shower’, we were made to wait.

Most of them were ignorant of what we were waiting for. I knew. And it weighed me down. We didn’t have to wait long to find out. As many walked around the room, trying to find a weak spot where they could dig to escape, the door opened and a few Americans walked in.

“The next batch eh.” One of them said.

“Yup. The Mexican top boss ain’t that bad… Good stock this is, yes.”

“Oh of course their president can’t keep us waiting can they.” He chuckled.

“Not after we’ve got a few nukes poking right up their a**. Heh heh heh.”

“Well anyway.. Lets get a couple of them chickens out and let people see, shall we?”

They dragged away two unconscious prisoners. In a while, we heard a weird machine hum. Machines… Machines had changed our worlds hadn’t they. A couple of decades back, in 2078, they made that global network of machines. I remember protesting against that along with other students from my university. But who would then bother to listen to a few upstart intellect addicts.. It was disappointing how the governments ignored the movements around the world and gave way to the free market’s desires… The environment needed it, they said. We needed less machines, and for that, the machines had to be networked, they said. Instead, we ended up with even more machines. The concept of labour had changed since then. Two global wars had not made the pig-heads change…

From the other side of the wall, we heard a bell, quite like the bell in a store. So we were in a shop.

Muted voices.

“Hey. I heard you got more supply.”

“Good morning. Yes, that we have. How much would you want?”

“A couple of kilos?”

“I need your ration card, and your Amex.”

Shuffling of feet. Scraping of metal against metal. Cling of a weighing scale. An unfamiliar beep. A few button clicks. The sound of ruffling plastic.

“Thanks Bill. See ya later.”

Estamos en una tienda. Hubo algunas personas que entraron y compraron algo…Those English literate amongst us were rapidly explaining the exchange to the others…

¿Eso significa que estamos en una tienda?[“Does that mean we are in a shop?”]
¿Qué diablos significa eso? [“What the hell does that mean?”]
¿Por qué estamos aquí? [“Why are we here?”]
Quiero casa. [“I want to go home”]

The last was from a squeaky voice. A boy. Not older than fifteen. My heart bled for him. For I wanted very much the same thing.

I want to go home..

Home.. Where my wife and children also in some shop, truck or ship? Or were they safe, mourning the loss of their husband, father… Or were they running across the arid desert, to flee.. If they were fleeing, how would they survive.. How would they find food?

Food… We had been quite well-fed throughout the kidnap. Bread, hamburgers and other American bland stuff of course..

“I could do with a nice tortilla with some salsa..” Muttered an unknown in Spanish. He was unusually tall for a Mexican. Lean-figured and athletic, he had long hair, and sported a beard, very much like a Chinese-beard.

“I don’t care about food any more.” Said I.

“Ah I know what you mean.. But these Americans seem to differ, eh?”

“Apt of you to make a joke of times like this.”

A third voice interrupted. “What do you mean?”

The store bell rang again.

“Momma, momma, I don’t like this place. Why do we come here so often!” A little girl’s voice.

“We need to buy food honey.” Obviously the ‘momma’. It made my thoughts drift to the momma of my own children.. Sweet Paola..

“Good morning ma’am. May I have your ration card please?”

“Do you have more food?”

“Yes ma’am. We got a fresh supply of good healthy Mexicans just today.”

“Good. We’ll have five kilos then.”

“Momma, are we having Mexicans for dinner then? We had Chinese yesterday! How crude.”

¿qué están diciendo? What are they saying? Persisted my companions to those few who knew English. But those few were looking at one another with horror scribed on their faces. Tears, rage, and insane laughter broke about the room. Nos están comiendo. Estamos alimentos. They’re eating us. We are food. Chocked one, amidst hysterical laughter and tears. As other voices joined in and helped the translation of the ghastly news, more hysterical laughter and screams were to be heard. I knew.. I had known..

“Momma! What’s that sound!”

“Its just the Mexicans having fun to be more tasty for us, darling.”

“Yeah, that’s right kid. Whaddya know, they get tastier as they laugh!”

“Hey Jim, what say we show lil kiddo here how its done?”

“Oh yeah, that should be quite a treat, eh kid?”

“Um.. Are you sure its appropriate to show her all that blood?” The concerned mother’s voice.

“’Course ma’am. Kids love it. And they do have a right to know what they eat, yes they do. After all that genetically modified food crap giving people that red thingabobs on their faces and killing people, everyone has the right to know what they eat. Right Reg?”

“Yup. I’ll get one of them out now.”

“Oh oh oh… This is going to get terribly interesting now…” Said my Chinese-bearded friend.

The iron door opened. ‘Reg’ came in with a couple of guards.

“Right. Which of you creeps want to be a children’s media star? How ’bout this one ‘ere?”

The guards assaulted a rather plump little man standing at one of the corners of the room.

“No. No. No. Yo no. Por favor!” [“No. No. No. Not me. Please!”]

They whacked him on the head and dragged him out. The door slammed shut. We heard him moaning as they dragged him across the store.

“So as the Americans run out of food, because of the genetically modified grains and animals polluting all of nature, they start eating humans! How ingenuous!” Commented my friend.

“You knew this from before?” I asked.

“That I did.”

“So I was not the only one..”

“Ooh look momma.. He looks like Santa Claus! But.. but.. Momma, why do we eat Mexicans?”

“Because, honey, their president is a good friend of our president, and he said that we have to support each other in times of need, right. So he said he’d give us a few of them, so that we can have good food here.”

“Thats right kid. And y’know what, you know that this world has like 30 billion folks now right. Y’all learn that at school right? This is a great way to cut down that number. They’re doing this all over the place now. All eating each other.”

“Its Darwin in his true sense.. Survival of the fittest..” The Chinese-beard.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And we ate them. We ate them all. And we raped them. Now we rape and eat ourselves. After all, humans are also “that moveth upon the earth”.

“No. No. ¿Qué locura es ésta?” [“No. No. What madness is this!”] Shrieking Santa Claus.

“Look Momma, they’re putting him on that machine… Ewww! What is that red thing all over there?”

“Thats blood kiddo. This machine is what does the cutting trick. You put them in here-” (No! No! Parada! [stop!]) Weird machine hum. (No! N- aaaaaa!!!!) “-and you get them all fresh and cut over here, minus all hair and intestines! There goes Santa! Cool eh?”

One could scoop and make a soup out of the silence which hung in the adjoining room. No one dared to talk. All looked at each other, their eyes screaming their raw fear. I didn’t care any more. I knew. I had known.

‘Darling’ and ‘Momma’ left the store. Remember, the inner thigh tastes the best, especially when cooked rare, Bob had said, as they left. The silence still hung thick. Chinese-beard wrestled a razor from a man trying to kill himself. I coaxed it from him, and ran my finger over the blade checking its sharpness. It was sharp. I put it on one end of my arm, and dug it in. Blood. Pain. I slowly dragged it, pressing hard, digging deep, all the way till my wrist. Blood seeped out like melting ice finding its way down a mountain. Pain. It helped.

“Some try to kill, others abuse their own bodies. Why my friend?”

“We are all going to get butchered anyway. Right now, the pain helps. It helps me forget that I am away from everyone I love as I die. Its like.. Its like a drug. Let me use my body before they do.”

“I’m puzzled by what the world is going to be.. They now send nuclear bombs killing millions for want of water. They do not learn from the lessons of the decades before. In a way, I don’t mind dying now.”

“No. Neither I. Not because the world seems like at an end. Because I don’t find meaning in any of this. All I found meaning in was my family. Away from them, away from my land, I have no meaning. The world has no meaning.”

The door clanged open. In came Bob, Reg and the two guards.

“How many ‘ll we take?”

“Oh, lets say a couple?”

“K Bob. How ’bout that weird looking guy there and the one next to him?”

“That’s us Abantiades.”

“You know my name?”

“Yes. I know your name.”

“How?”

They started dragging pushing us forward.

“Hey! No protest from these ones Bob. Nice eh?”

“Chattering like crazy though. Idiots. Like everything’s normal. No wonder they deserve to be cooked. Like f****** chickens these lot are!”

“How do you know my name?”

“I know Abantiades. The world is, sadly, small.”

“Who are you?”

“Who are we..”

They walked us into a white room, coated with blood all around. It had a sinister looking machine poised on a pedestal in the centre. Adjacent was a door, probably leading to a much more neater display area.

“Adios cerdos Mehicos!” [“Bye Mexican pigs!”]

They shoved my unknown yet known friend into the machine.

“Adios Amantiades. Tranquilidad.” [“Bye Amantiades. Peace.”]

“Tranquilidad amigo.”

A roar of the machine. And voila, my Chinese-bearded friend was a neat pile of fresh cut human meat ready for consumption by inhuman pigs. The fact that I was next gave me a sense of eerie peace.

“Lo proximo.” [“You next.”]

Next change.

~

Thanks for perusing through that story! First, I would like to acknowledge and thank Google Translate, the experience given by two Guatemalan friends, and my Sri Lankan buddy for the Spanish. On the same note, I would like to apologise to all Spanish speakers, if its bad Spanish. For my part, no entiende espaniol! Lo sentimos.

Secondly, this story is completely fictional, not based on fact whatsoever. If you anyone finds any similarities to people, events etc., they are co-incidental, and definitely not intended. Apologies for the stereotyping of USA and Mexico, and apologies for the racism. Also apologies for the language used – I was trying to create a necessary verisimilitude.

Thirdly, despite my claim that the story is completely fictional, it has been inspired by real going-ons in the world. Phenomenon like climate change, greed, materialism, racism etc.; topics which I believe I need not delve deeply into for its obviousness.

Fourthly, this is the catharsis of some sort of existential angst. And thus the bitterness. I believe I’m usually a more positive hearted person.

And finally, I deem this work (however stupid and lame it might seem) devoid of copyright. Go ahead and do whatever you want to do with it, if you would want to. Though it might be nice if you could cite me.

I have to say that I was a little disappointed. It was my last week of internship at the children’s school as a teaching assistant, and after five weeks of pestering, I had finally given in to the music teacher to handle a class with some ‘Indian’ content. I was prepared with a nursery rhyme in my native language, which I had painstakingly translated to Norwegian the previous night. Though my connection to music, outside listening, go as far as George Bush(Junior)’s love for Osama Bin Laden, I was looking forward to the class I had prepared for. This unexpected ‘heavenly’ intervention would be robbing me of that class. But I consoled myself, because it would indeed be an interesting experience of an outside observance of an intra-communal religious brainwash attempt.

Priest… Human belonging to the male sex. Very ‘manly’. Tall. White or brown robes. Old, little hair. Wise. Peaceful. Thin, but active and energetic. Smiling. These were the expectations unconsciously and automatically produced. So, half an hour later, when a plump, frowning, rushed, tired-looking woman wearing a black t-shirt and a black casual pajama pants walked hurriedly into the staff room, I had reason to suspect her as yet another mother who was carrying her ward’s lunch-box, which she/he had forgotten to carry. The early intervention of another teacher saved me from a possibly embarrassing scene, which would have involved the ever-helpful me volunteering to track down her kid and pass on the lunch-box. The priest was here.

The class began, and there was first the initiation ritual: distributing of Bibles to the children. The kids happily cast their newly gotten gifts on to their tables, and started restlessly flipping through the pages or using it as a fan. Some emerging musicians were trying to experiment with sounds made when the more-than-thousand-page book hit the wooden table. Coming from a different culture where we believe in the presence of the Divine in every one and every thing, especially books, and very much in holy books like the Bible, it was quite an unsettling experience for me to see how the children were treating the Bibles they had just received. It has always been uncomfortable to be in the presence of people handling books in Norway…  So I decided to take it easy on myself, and settle to the back of the class. I took for support an English-Norwegian School Dictionary which lay on the bookshelf.

That dictionary, incidentally, was one of my survival secrets during boring classes. I would immerse myself into a concentrated reading of the book when the goings got tough. Teachers admired my perseverance at learning Norwegian, and craving to understand what was happening in class. The children loathed a person who was a perfect example of perseverance. But what made me chuckle at these interpretational behaviour was something which I knew, and they did not know. That little dictionary had, in random pages, strips of Calvin and Hobbes.

The class was beginning, and I was soon lost in an episode of transmorgification. But suddenly, something shook me out of the smiles and giggles which I was mentally experiencing after perusing through a strip where Calvin resembled a pygmy Hobbes. That something was something along the lines of ‘Harry Potter’.

Naaa. Can’t be. But wait. Yes! It is! It was! And there it is again! The priest was using Harry Potter to describe the Bible!

“Do you know how many books are there in the Harry Potter series? Now, the Bible has more than ten times all of them put together. Do you know how many chapters are there in the Bible? Its more than all the chapters in all the seven Harry Potter books put together.”

Um… What happened to Witch Hunts of the sixteen hundreds…

“If someone says a particular page where something happens, we can turn to the page in Harry Potter, right? But we cannot do that in the Bible, because there are two sections which are numbered from the beginning – the Old Testament, and the New Testament…”

If theorists opine that Christianity has liberalised itself, and turn to popular culture to reach out effectively, they definitely wouldn’t have thought of extents of liberalisation and turns to popular culture as I was witnessing right now. A priest evangelising ten-year olds, using Harry Potter as medium and example to explain how to read the Bible… Harry Potter – a rendition of most things detested by the Church, and a product of pure consumerist utilisation and branding exercises. Wow. What a combination! Next thing I know, Osama could be brought down all the way from the mountain caves in Paksitan for guest-lectures on Islam in schools!

The priest ploughed on relentlessly, unwavering even when facing the boredom, restlessness, and disinterest  so obviously apparent on her audience’s faces and behaviour. Harry Potter this, Bible that, Moses, Jesus Christ, magic wand, the seventh book… I am not too partial to Christianity. Nor am I, I believe and I hope, to any religion, save perhaps Buddhism. But this, I thought, was quite an insult. Comparing Harry Potter and the Bible is like… Ouch. I don’t think any religion would ever be bad enough to rate a comparison of its holy scripture to Harry Potter… (save perhaps Scientology, but then that’s a different debate…)

What were these children being unconsciously exposed to? That Harry Potter is more important than the Bible? That your every day whims and fantasies are to be placed above everything else? That to fit in to today’s society, you need to know a little bit about the Bible, but more importantly, must read Harry Potter, and be proficient enough with it to use it as an example? Calvin and Hobbes was long lost. This was way too disturbingly intriguing.

It was also intriguing to note stereotypical notions of what appeals to Norwegian children. It is interesting how Harry Potter, a work from Britain, in English, plays such an important role in that stereotype in a country with a different language, which is Western more in an American than British way.

I asked her later if she was ever uncomfortable with the way the children treated the Bibles. “As long as they know how to read it, that is what’s important…” She replied. But despite her drawing from Harry Potter, I don’t think those kids saved any of what was discussed in that class. It was just another one of those formalities for them… Another one of those exasperating, boring classes, which are not really required, but are part of school any way. Most classes in the children’s school start an active discussion, debate, or activity among the kids during break times. I never heard either the Bible, or Harry Potter, being mentioned.

Harry Potter Church anyone?

There existed a space for inclusion. Inclusion of millions of people into the information revelation boom powered by the internet. And all that was required to harvest this space was an empowering experience – the expanding of domain name ranges to other languages and scripts. In simpler language, the possibility to type in a web page URL in a non-Latin-script language.

And today, I read via TechCrunch that ICANN (an international non-profit society which regulates the Internet) has decided to move ahead with Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs), or domain names in different languages. *applause required here, and I contribute a standing ovation*

ICANN announced this on the last day of their conference in Seoul.

ICANN says that this is the most important decision by them, after eleven years of its inception. ICANN lauds this decision as biggest technical change to the Internet, in its forty years of existence.

This decision will now enable websites to have domain names in different languages. Thats an hundred thousand characters to chose from! As opposed to the existing 37 (A-Z, 0-9 and the hyphen). ICANN is introducing a fast track process to invite nations to apply for domain name extensions in their local language scripts. The first entries to the system would be introduced by mid-2010, said Rod Beckstrom, ICANN president, speaking to the media. How it will be played out, will be an interesting watch. Will domain names be bound to use one single language (Hindi, or Arabic, or English) or can it be a mix of two or more? We will have to wait and see…

The technology behind the different scripts being used will be a translation system, which converts the different languages into the right address. I’m not quite sure of what they mean by that, but I guess we’ll wait and see… But it is indeed, a lot of work. Reviewing each language application, researching into the language, building a translation system, and introducing the language, would be quite a task! I am now wondering how the applications will be processed, and if applications could get rejected…

But, this means a tremendous opening up of the internet… The web will now reach out to millions of people (estimated half the world’s population) who were earlier handicapped by the lack of local language domain names. With powerful translating tools, most of the information openly accessibly on the internet today can be accessed by any literate person now (literate in any language, that is).

What I did not know, then, and till today, is that ICANN has been working on it for the past nine years. Along with many others. And it was an idea from 1996… Long before I had even heard of computers… But I take a moment of silence to appreciate this huge move, and its possible tremendous impacts on our world.

I can imagine the impact this would have on my country. With over 3000 different languages, most of them not following the Latin script*, and most people not literate in English, the opportunity to use the local language to open a website is… quite something… And beautifully empowering.

Watch this video by ICANN, regarding the announcement… Its beautiful… Take my word for it!

Read more about IDNs on Wikipedia.

* – I did not know that there were certain Indian languages which used the Latin script! Thanks M for the info! He says that certain Indian languages, like Konkani, Mizo, and a few Naga dialects, do use the Latin script.