Collect… before it is too late!!!

Connect the Dots # 2

Today we will explore three dots which are based on the central idea - The need for a clean-up drive. The first story is from the WSJ (20-11-2018). The article opens with the question - 

Who is littering my playground?” The speaker is Lauren Deeley who is  as ‘a new type of eco-warrior who practices ‘plogging’ – picking up litter while jogging. Th term plogging was coined in 2016 by the Swede Erik Ahlström.  She started plogging 10 years ago while living in Costa Rica. She says that when people walk on a mountain trail they spend lot of time looking at the ground. She used to get annoyed at the litter strewn around on the ground. She would comb the area for ‘microtrash’ which is normally found under rocks and behind bushes. Deeley worked quietly tidying up the trails of the Green Mountains in Vermont. 

Laura Deeley maintains a blog at http://laurendeeley.wixsite.com/tp-is-gross. She says that the act of plogging has helped her to slow down “I’m in more in tune with nature and my body, “she says. “I notice the way the sun comes through the trees, the different types of mushrooms on the forest floor, how my body is feeling. It’s a very meditative workout. “Even when she travels, she hikes and runs with a trash bag and recycles her finds. “It physically pains me to see something and not pick it up, she says. “You can also learn a lot about a city or culture based on what you find on their trails". 

The second dot is from Science Illustrated (AU) where there is an article about a small satellite that is trying to catch the orbiting waste by means of nets and harpoons. Space junk has become a serious problem for the astronauts and especially to the ones manning the International Space Station. It was in July 2015 that the ISS was threatened by huge piece of space junk that was travelling at a speed of 50,000 km/h – 20 times faster than a bullet. The junk is not a threat just to the astronauts but also to the network of satellites which may get pulverized and block our access to space. To prevent untoward incidents the scientists from the University of Surrey, England launched a satellite which will remove the dead satellites. On June 20, 2018, the RemoveDEBRIS satellite was launched into orbit from the International Space Station. This satellite will release a small nanosatellite which it will try to catch the junk satellite in a net. If this old fishing method can work in space, the net could prove to be the most versatile method for cleaning up. As part of the next step, RemoveDEBRIS will also use harpooning to bring the junk satellites to the atmosphere where eventually they will burn. In 2023 the e.Deorbit mission will for the first time try to remove space junk from Earth’s orbit. 

The third dot is about the sperm whale which got washed up in eastern Indonesia which had a large lump of plastic waste weighing 6 kilos in it's stomach, including flip-flops and 115 plastic drinking cups. Two statements from the Indonesian officials are worth quoting here.

“Although we have not been to deduce the cause of death, the facts that we see are truly awful,” Dwi Suprapti – Marine Species conservation coordinator at WWF Indonesia. 

“It is possible that many other marine animals are also contaminated with plastic waste and this is very dangerous in our lives.” – Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan – Minister of Maritime Affairs.  

How do we connect these dots and what is the action plan that we have for the future? 

Books, pages and the Reading Space…

Connect the Dots # 1

In tonight’s Connect the Dots, we will be looking at three stories/dots. 

The first story appeared in the Wall Street Journal (19-11-18) and it is titled as Literary Dimensions. The news story is about the Sinan bookstore in Shanghai in China. The bookstore was open for 60 days initially and due to public demand has now established itself as a permanent place for reading. The bookshop is open every day from 4 -8 PM and it has become a hub for writers, editors and literary critics to share their ideas and thoughts. The existence of such a book club gathers importance in the context of the rise of the internet and e-commerce which have created a fragmented reading habit among people. 

This description about the bookstore is quite alluring: A short stretch of narrow spiral stairs leads up to the bookshop, where book lovers find the decor and lighting resemble those of a typical Shanghai mansion in the early 1900s. Visitors can spend an entire day there, sitting on leather sofas or chairs, drinking coffee and reading.  One of the founders of the bookstore, Kan Ninghui describes the bookstore as “the beating heart of books for book lovers.” 

The second story/dot is from the archives of CNN and it is about the bookstore in Southampton known as October Books. The owners were forced to relocate their shop to another location which was 500 meters away from the old location. They were worried about the act of shifting 20,000 books and furniture to the new location. The volunteers behind October Books appealed for help and there was a huge response. Thousands of people came forward to ‘lift and shift’ the books and all the books were delivered to the new location within a few hours. 

The third story/dot is the article from Business Insider which informs us that students learn more effectively from printed textbooks rather than from the screens. This is due to the disruptive effect that scrolling has on comprehension. The kind of engagement that we can have with the printed text (dog-eared pages, lines of text underlined and added with questions and reflections) is more than that of a digital text. The article exhorts that there should be a place for the printed text in spite of all the technology-based system of learning. 

What is your response to these three dots? What kind of big picture is emerging from this? Please do leave your comments and feedback at the bottom.

Yuval Trivia

https://www.ted.com/speakers/yuval_noah_harari

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Dear bloggy, 

Today I am continuing with the streak of writing blogs for the fifth consecutive day. I feel that I am back in business and with the beginning of Connect the Dots soon @ RR, I feel that I will have something to post every day. Today was a hectic day with the workshop on Mechanics of Thesis Writing but I was aware of the importance of this post and I was getting ready. I had this article which appeared in the International New York Times about Yuval and I was able to finish reading it as I sat there listening to the speakers of the day. Whenever I got time, I read this article and was able to finish it by the time seminar got over for the day.  So what I plan to do is to post a lightweight blog post from the article which I read today which is titled – Tech C.E.O’s are in love with the Principal Doomsayer. I am skipping the heavy weight thoughts for another day. Today I will share about the other side of the author whom I adore – Yuval Noah Harari. 

1. He has a PhD from Oxford.
2. He is 42 years old.
3. He is an Israeli philosopher and History professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
4. Mr Harari grew up in Kiryat Ata, near Haifa and his father worked in the arms industry.
5. His mother who was working in an office now helps her son in handling the mail.
6. Yuval gets about 1000 messages every week.
7. He is gay, and his husband is Itzik Yahav. Yahav’s mother is their accountant. 
8. Ridley Scott and documentarian Asif Kapadia are adapting Sapiens into a TV show. 
9. Mr Harari is working on a children’s books to reach a broader audience. 
10. The couple is vegan and Harari is sensitive to animals. 
11. The couple watches TV every day. 
12. In December Harari plans to enter an ashram outside Mumbai for 60 days of silence.
13. He believes in the word – Detached – He says, “If I was a superhuman, my superpower would be detachment.” 

The ideas presented above are from this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/business/yuval-noah-harari-silicon-valley.html

The Perks of being a Wallflower: Movie Review

It is a rare thing to watch a full-length movie on TV channels. Most of the time I just flip through the channels and most of the time I catch good movies when they are almost near their half-way mark. Tonight, was an exception, I was able to squeeze in some time to watch the movie – The Perks of Being a Wallflower and it was indeed a worthy treat. I felt connected to the movie in many ways and I guess, that’s the secret of any successful artistic creation. The movie traces the story of a wallpaper – ‘A wallflower is someone with an introverted personality type (or in more extreme cases, social anxiety) who will attend parties and social gatherings but will usually distance themselves from the crowd and actively avoid being in the limelight. The name itself derives from eponymous plant's unusual growth pattern; against a wall as a stake or in cracks and gaps in stone walls. "Wallflowers" might literally stand against a wall and simply observe others at a social gathering, rather than mingle. This could be due to anxiety, shyness, lack of social skills or self-esteem’. (Wikipedia)by the name of Charlie who befriends his seniors (Sam and Patrick) at school and how the trio discover the true value of friendship and most importantly growing up together. 

When Charlie says – “Dear Friend, I'm sorry I haven't written in a while, but I've been trying hard not to be a loser” I can see a part of myself reflected as I struggle sometimes to stick to a regular writing routine. Charlies crush and the girl who kissed him first (played by the energetic Emma Watson) gifts him a typewriter to encourage him to write more. In the long run, even I have plans to buy a typewriter to emblazon my thoughts and ideas. In fact, the movie opens with this journal entry from Charlie -[voice-over] “Dear Friend. I am writing to you because she said you listen and understand and didn't try to sleep with that person at that party even though you could have. Please don't try to figure out who I am. I don't want you to do that. I just need to know that people like you exist. Like if you met me you wouldn't think I was the weird kid who spent time in the hospital. And I wouldn't make you nervous. I hope it's okay for me to think that. You see, I haven't really talked to anyone outside of my family all summer. But tomorrow is my first day of high school ever, and I need to turn things around. So, I have a plan. As I enter the school for the first time, I will visualize what it would be like on the last day of my senior year. Unfortunately, I counted, and that's one thousand three hundred and eighty-five days”.

The second connection with the movie can be found in this dialogue:  Sam: “Oh my God! They're playing good music. Patrick: Holy shit. Holy shit. They are, they're playing good music!”. Like Almost Famous and Baby Driver, this movie too has a rich soundtrack and music is therapeutic for the characters and the audience. The tunnel song with the affirmation statement from Charlie (closing scene) is one of the best scenes in the movie. There are various mix-tapes made and music is always played in the high school parties and weekend get-togethers. The movie ends with the voice over of Charlie “I don't know if I will have the time to write any more letters because I might be too busy trying to participate. So, if this does end up being the last letter, I just want you to know that I was in a bad place before I started high school, and you helped me. Even if you didn't know what I was talking about or know someone who's gone through it, you made me not feel alone. Because I know there are people who say all these things don't happen. And there are people who forget what it's like to be 16 when they turn 17. I know these will all be stories someday. And our pictures will become old photographs. We'll all become somebody's mom or dad. But right now, these moments are not stories. This is happening. I am here, and I am looking at her. And she is so beautiful. I can see it. This one moment when you know you're not a sad story. You are alive, and you stand up and see the lights on the buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And you're listening to that song and that drive with the people you love most in this world. And at this moment, I swear, we are infinite.” 

The third connect is about bouncing back to life and finding yourself again and again. Charlie discovers (makes the audience discover) this through narrating about his life. Coming to terms with his childhood memories and in spite of the problems he had making new friends, Charlie ultimately triumphs and the movie is interspersed with these lovable quotes to supplement this triumph of the human spirit.  Charlie: My doctor said we can't choose where we come from, but we can choose where we go from there. I know it's not all the answers, but it was enough to start putting these pieces together. It also makes fun of the system of education and the expectation that everyone is supposed to get good grades. There is this scene where everyone is given their annual grades and how Patrick celebrates his below average status.  [Patrick holds his report card] Patrick: C minus, ladies and gentlemen! I am below average! Sam: Below average! Patrick: Below average! The ultimate homage paid to human triumph is the one-liner associated with the movie – We are Infinite. 

The fourth connect with the movie is about books and reading. There is a special bond between Charlie and his English teacher. In the first scene, you can see Charlie scribbling the answers to the questions asked in the class. Being a wallflower, he doesn’t have the courage to raise his hand to answer. The teacher as he monitors the class discovers that Charlie has all the answers in his notebook takes a special interest in him. The first book that is taught in the class is To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee and there is a scene where the book cover is torn by a bully and how Charlie applies scotch tape to put the cover back in one piece. The teacher and student start sharing and discussing books. They even discuss issues related to growing up. 

Charlie: Mr Anderson? Can I ask you something?

Bill: Yeah.

Charlie: Why do nice people choose the wrong people to date?

Bill: Are we talking about anyone specific?

[Charlie nods]

Bill: Well, we accept the love we think we deserve.

Charlie: Can we make them know that they deserve more?

Bill: We can try.

The best part of this bonding based on books between the teacher and his student is at the end when the teacher asks the class the question – How many of you will continue reading for the pleasure of it? Only Charlie raises his hand (first time he does it) and we can see the smirk on the faces of his classmates.  

The movie is based on the book by Stephen Chbosky and there is a link between this writer and my previous blog. He has tweeted about Stan Lee in a memorable manner "With great power comes great responsibility."  Rest in peace, Maestro.  Thank you for making our world super.  #stanlee. 

The following links were referred to get inputs for this blog: 

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Wallflower

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallflower_(people)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1659337/?ref_=ttqt_qt_tt

https://twitter.com/StephenChbosky?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Chbosky

Stan Lee - The Man who spun the web of comics

Tributes to Stan Lee on his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 12 November. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock 

He passed away a few days back as I was getting ready to sleep. First, I thought it was just another fake news that the social media spins every day. Then I checked the websites of BBC and other standardized news services and found that it was true. Stan Lee is dead. An event which will be marked in my personal history as a sign of ageing. This blog is an attempt to pay homage to this creative genius who influenced me and countless numbers of minds because he gave us a memorable and colourful childhood. To use the title of his second memoir which he co-authored with Peter David – Amazing Fantastic Incredible: A Marvelous Memoir. This is my way of paying homage to the man who lives through his creations. 

I did some research by reading some of the obituaries that appeared in some of the mainstream publications. Mainly, I have used the written memorial which appeared in The Guardian and the International New York Times. I also looked at Twitter for capturing some of the 140 lettered obituaries. As an extended activity, I collected some of the responses from the readers of NYT. 

Stan Lee always aspired to create comic heroes who are infused with some human qualities. He hated the existing style of heroes who according to him – ‘were all cardboard figures’ (NYT). He also felt the acute sense to bond with his readers and he talked about the need to create a space ‘for some private fun that the outside world wasn’t aware of’. Stan Lee himself was an avid reader and he started reading Shakespeare at the age of 10 along with reading of pulp magazines. He also enjoyed reading the novels of Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Mark Twain. (NYT) 

The NYT article describes Stan Lee in five adjectives – energetic, gregarious, optimistic, grandiose and self-effacing. He is also compared to the greatest showman –P.T  Barnum                      

Stan Lee enjoyed the act of writing and he describes his own writing style in an inspiring way – Almost everything that I’ve ever written I could finish in one sitting, I am a fast writer. Maybe not the best, but the fastest.” This line brings to my mind the above quoted adjectives – He is full of energy, optimist and is also self-effacing. His passion for writing and creating was so high that during his stint with the Army Signal Corps he was moonlighting as a comics writer. It was his wife who encouraged him ‘to write the comics he wanted to, not merely what was considered marketable. 

https://www.amazon.com/Excelsior-Amazing-Life-Stan-Lee/dp/0684873052

Stan Lee wrote a slim memoir with George Mair which was titled – Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee. The word Excelsior means excellent and it is true about the characters created by Stan Lee. His characters like the Kafkaesque character Gregor Samsa undergoes a transformation. Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider; Bruce Banner was bombarded with gamma rays. They apart from this external transformation also contain internal conflicts which was beautifully portrayed in Spider Man. The Incredible Hulk is constantly at war with his shadow. ‘These men have the power to turn the world on its head. But they also seem as much cursed as blessed’. (Guardian) 

Comics instilled in the reader a positive approach towards life ‘a pretty glorious message to the punky kids who blunder into its universe just before the hormones kick in, it tell them that they do possess super powers. They can impact the world, that adulthood is an adventure. But it also says that, guess what, your life will still be a mess. Your increased speed and strength will throw up a whole new set of problems and that gaining great power brings your responsibility’ (Guardian) 

Stan Lee redefined for us the word Hero. According to him, the hero is one who does good and is always kind. He/she will fight injustice. Raise up people when you see they are in need. That’s the legacy that Stan Lee has left us. Like the song by Mariah Carey, we need to unlock the hero within ourselves. Stan Lee gave us the key...

There's a hero

If you look inside your heart

You don't have to be afraid

Of what you are

There's an answer

If you reach into your soul

And the sorrow that you know

Will melt away

The following articles were used as a reference in preparing this blog: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/obituaries/stan-lee-dead.html

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/13/why-smilin-stan-lee-was-the-greatest-superhero-of-them-all

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/mariahcarey/hero.html

( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._T._Barnum)

Knowing Cy Twombly..

Stumbled upon this interesting biography of an artist in The International New York Times. (Page 15 - 13-11-18) The title of the biography itself was a major attraction - Chalk: The Art and Erasure of Cy Twombly. The artist in perspective is Cy Twombly who lived a life of a recluse. Even though he was born in Virginia, United States he spent most of his life in Italy in the city of Naples. In his career as an artist, he had given only two interviews. When quizzed about his personal life, he had the tendency to craft stories. ‘Twombly is famously difficult and famously elusive, and this has not made his work any easier to see’. (Vogue Interview) The review begins with a wonderful use of a word that is used in hunting -'Spoor is a hunter’s word, for the scent an animal leaves behind in a forest, the scent you track to bag your prey. It might be a biographer’s word, too — the essence of a person that drifts out of his or her diaries and letters, the idiosyncratic, unmistakable traces that a biographer pursues in the archives'. The review contains descriptions about how the world viewed the works of Twombly. There are both intellectual reactions from literary figures like Frank O'Hara and Roland Barthes. The former describes the artistic creations of Twombly as “A bird seems to have passed through the impasto with cream-coloured screams and bitter claw-marks,”. I was curious about the first part of his name and was able to uncover the strangeness of Cy in the article which appeared in the Vogue magazine – ‘His father, a coach and, later, athletic director at Washington and Lee University there, had acquired the nickname Cy (after the legendary pitcher Cy Young) when he pitched for the Chicago White Sox one summer. He passed it on to his only son, who showed no enthusiasm for organized athletics’. 

My journey into the life of this enigmatic soul started with the book review in the International New York Times but I was able to cull more details about this man from the Vogue interview which even talks about his reading patterns. ‘He reads for two or three hours every day in his eclectic fashion—history, poetry, travel books, Walter Pater’s essays, Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy’.

The interview also offers rare glimpses into the working style of this artist. In the words of his contemporary Rauschenberg- “He hates to make plans or schedules, moves from place to place on impulse, doesn’t always show up when he’s invited somewhere. “Cy says he’ll be there in half an hour,” Rauschenberg quips, “but he doesn’t say which month.” 

As mentioned earlier in the blog, the book review talks about the emotional reactions of the world towards the work of this artist. There were instances where woman danced naked and another one kissed the painting leaving the lipstick smudge on the painting. They invite not just admiration but ardour. A woman once took off her clothes and danced naked in front of them; another kissed an all-white panel, leaving a bright lipstick mark (“a rape,” the curator fumed).

The artist Twombly reminds me of Banksy who had kept a shredder hidden inside his painting and the kind of furore that it created in an auction at Sotheby's in London. 

The life and mind of an artist is as curious as of his creations.  You can continue the journey of discovering Twombly using the links given below. 

https://www.vogue.com/article/from-the-archives-cy-twombly-a-painted-word

https://www.dezeen.com/2018/10/16/banksy-authenticates-painting-self-destructed-auction-sothebys/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6910377.stm

Rendezvous with Paul Salopek

‘Walking is falling forward. Each step we take is an arrested plunge, a collapse averted, a disaster braked. In this way, to walk becomes an act of faith’

In an age where news travels in the speed of lightning, the voice of Paul is a game changer. He advocates a type of journalism which is known as slow journalism. He goes beyond this nomenclature by naming this journalism as grassroots journalism, boot journalism or immersive journalism. Paul Salopek, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist (2001 and 2010) expressed his strong desire to oscillate between working in a newsroom and in the open environment.  A biologist, he doesn’t believe in a rigid work environment nor does he believe in a strict academic structure. He describes Africa as a place of inexhaustible stories. He started his Out of Eden walks in Ethiopia tracing the route taken by the early humans. He describes his act of walking as ‘storytelling walk through time’. What he has tried is to map the human narrative by foot. He brings in the allusion of the Wandering bards and the Japanese Zen master Basho who travelled everywhere and composed haikus based on his experience of walking through the Japanese villages. The public was updated about the happenings around them through these wandering minstrels. It is so convenient for us to receive news from around the globe using our smartphones and the WhatsApp messenger service. According to Paul, when it comes to reporting it is not about who is the fastest and who arrives first. Every publishing house around the world should have uniqueness in the way the story is told. He advocates a kind of journalism that is based on the act of walking where every step is a learning experience. This is like an ongoing adult education class. 

The tools for slow journalism. 

• The gadgets used – He has used a solar sheet which is normally propped on a camel’s back and it charges the laptop in just under 4 hours. He intends to use solar shirts in the near future. 
• Animal Power – The animals that were used to traverse difficult terrains. Camels in the desert and donkeys in the mountains. 
• Walking partners – The locals who travelled with him and were always eager to show and talk about the local history and traditions. 

In the next phase, he discusses the major themes that are covered in slow journalism. 

1. Migration 
2. Conflict 
3. Culture 
4. Religion 
5. Climate change
6. Human rights
7. Technology 
8. Environment 
9. Men 
10. Women 
11. Children 

How does he stay connected with the world? 

How does he inform the world about his travels and how does it reach the office of National Geographic magazine and other publishing houses. 

1. Digital dispatches
2. Print
3. Maps of storytelling 
4. Milestones 
5. TV & Radio  
6. Civic Programs
7. Education Partnerships

You can read more about Paul Salopek by clicking the links given below: 

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/out-of-eden-walk/

https://www.npr.org/2013/01/10/168961210/what-do-you-pack-for-a-seven-year-trip

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/the-seven-year-sitch-telling-a-story-in-21000-miles

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-xpm-2012-12-05-ct-ent-1206-salopek-world-20121205-story.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/opinion/sunday/a-stroll-around-the-world.html

https://earth.google.com/web/@12.85377524,45.8125787,-720.72032a,3999750.7593137d,35y,-0h,0t,0r/data=CkkSRxIgNmFmYzVlOGYyYzE3MTFlN2E1MzkyZDhmYzllZjFmYTMiC25nc19lZGVuXzIwGhZBIFN0b3J5dGVsbGluZyBPZHlzc2V5

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Connect the Dots - A new series in RR

Image Source: Google

Connect the Dots: Analysis, Synthesis and Opinion 

A new series which will interact with the social, political, cultural and literary events happening around us. It examines the hidden connections and apparent similarities. The title is an instruction to the reader and it implies that the ultimate opinion should be formed in the mind of the reader and he/she is free to share their views on the same. The idea is to curate news stories, articles, images, videos, and other resources from different sources and dovetail them together as a single entity. The series would be featured every day at 10.30 PM based on the themes and ideas that are shaping our world and our understanding of the world. Would like to dedicate this series to my buddy and the founder of this group. The title is inspired by the speech given by Steve Jobs at Harvard in the year 2005 and the creative/critical process is shaped by the book 21 lessons for the 21st century by Yuval Noah Harari. In one sentence we can describe the series as a curated montage of facts, people, events and ideas. Connect the Dots will start on the 20th of this month as part of the First Anniversary Celebrations of Readers’ Rendezvous…If you would like to join the WhatsApp group please mail me @ jith77@gmail.com

Rudyard Kipling, Nat Geo, and Wheeler & Co.

Watched this programme on Nat Geo titled Great Indian Railway Journeys presented by Michael Portill. In today’s episode, he traced the railway route from Lucknow to Calcutta. En route he had two pit stops, one at Bodh Gaya and the other one at Chittaranjan. The former known as the epi center of Buddhism and other one famous for its Loco works. In one of the stations, Michael Portill visits the Wheeler and Co book store which is an integral part of any Indian Railway Station. Rudyard Kipling who was in dire need of some cash to visit England, approached the Wheeler book shop and requested to sell his books for 1 rupee so that he can afford a passage to England. His potential customers or readers were the railway passengers. Here is the reference from Wikipedia - Plain Tales from the Hills written by Rudyard Kipling were issued as the "Indian Railway Library Series" by Wheeler. These were the first publications of Kipling's collection of stories. These books were sold on railway stations. They cost One rupee, then fifteenth part of a pound. Richard Jaffa considers them "amongst the early paperbacks" 

The other fascinating thing about the presenter is that he had this hard-bound book with him from which he read about the places he intended to visit. The screenshot attached is the final short where he is getting ready to read Tagore and in the background, we can see the Victoria memorial in Kolkata. 

Tintin Connections

Sir Galahad in Arthurian legend is a knight of King Arthur's Round Table and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail. He is the illegitimate son of Sir Lancelot and Elaine of Corbenic and is renowned for his gallantry and purity as the most perfect of all knights. Emerging quite late in the medieval Arthurian tradition, Sir Galahad first appears in the Lancelot–Grail cycle, and his story is taken up in later works such as the Post-Vulgate Cycle and Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. (Wikipedia)

Faust and Marguerite is a romantic opera in three acts, dating from 1855, based on the Faust legend. The score was composed by Meyer Lutz. The libretto was written by Henri Drayton based on the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe play Faust. The 1900 film Faust and Marguerite is an adaptation of the play. It was directed by Edwin S. Porter, three years before he directed The Great Train Robbery. (Wikipedia)

Statue Tales

It was the unveiling of the Sardar Patel’s statue that made me think about the significance of human-made tall structures of our planet. The Statue of Unity thus becomes the Helen of Troy for me - The structure that launched the thousand shipful of ideas.

I found a wonderful connect to this craze for mega structures in the book 21 Lessons for the 21 Century which I am currently reading. Towards end of the book, the author Yuval Noah Harrai discusses another megalithic structure which is installed along the India Pakistan border at Attari. To quote Yuval ‘that particular Tiranga was 36 meters long and 24 meters wide, and was hoisted on a 110-meter-high flag post’ 

The Human desire to touch the sky:

The story of Icarus tells us about the human desire to scale great heights. Yesterday, while watching the documentary Above and Beyond: NASA’s journey to tomorrow in Discovery Channel, I felt that every minute human beings are redefining the heights that they can scale. We have come a long way from mythical Icarus to the scientific NASA. This fixation with height stems from the fact that human beings give too much importance to outwardly growth rather than the inwardly one. Shelley was one poet who wrote about the fallacy of constructing tall edifices. The nothingness of these phallic symbols( Freudian) is clearly stated in these lines:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

This bring us to the second part of the quote from Yuval and surprsingly the connecting link is again Freud. To quote Yuval again '(what would Freud have said about that?) The flag could be seen as far as the Pakistani metropolis of Lahore. Unfortunately, strong winds kept tearing the flag, and national pride required that it be stitched together again and again, at great cost to Indian taxpayers. Why does the Indian government invest scarce resources in weaving enormous flags, instead of building sewage systems in Delhi’s slums? Because the flag makes India real in a way that sewage systems do not.” He goes on discussing the way we can define what is real? and through that how we can shape our identity which will answer the basic question - Who am I? Let us come back to our primary concern here - The desire in the minds of some people to create an illusion of grandeur. The possessive forms in English grammar are quite significant here - My,mine,ours, and yours. The next section discusses the psychology behind these grand structures.

The Pyschological Move:

The tall figure in the form of statue or a buidling ( The WTC,The Burj Khalifa, The Aztec, The Mayan and the Egyptian pyramids) creates an awe in the mind of the beholders. The people identify themselves with the sheer size of the statue. This creates a sense of ego-fullfilment. It becomes an emotional response. Not all statues create this emotional appeal. Some of them prick our conscience like the famous Yakshi statue in Malampuzha gardens. Onlookers leave with a perplexed and thoughtful mindset. Some of them may not even look at the work of art which depicts a naked woman sprawled out on the garden lawns. Statues can be made in a easy to understand way or it can be a complex one which makes the audience uncomfortable. So there is a clear difference in the way statues appeal to the human mind. It is a ploy used by the political system to assert their identity or the identity that they want to implement in the near future. A clear case of Art for Ours Sake. While looking at the tall statue of Shiva at Dakshin Karnataka or the Murugan statue at Malaysia, the onlooker has a different emotional response. He is in the trance of Bhakthi. He may whisper - No 3G, No 4G only SivaG. The cinema culture in Tamilnadu and other Indian states makes it mandatory that tall cut-outs are placed to venerate the celluloid stars. The fans who are in a trance will do rituals to appease their Demi-gods. It is like a classroom scenario where the ability of the student to write lenghty paragraphs is regarded as a sign of academic excellence. Unless you make your students think critically there is no real learning achieved. Again, I would like to quote Yuval from his pathbreaking book 21 lessons for the 21 century where he discusses the ’the four Cs’ of (teaching/ learning) - critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity'

The Destruction and the Fall:

The statue of unity also brings to my mind how these tall edifices were systematically changed based on the law of the land. The classic examples are from the old USSR ,where the statues of Lenin and other communist stalwarts were removed after the fall of USSR. Even in Iraq and Libya, the statues of Saddam Hussein and Muammer Gaddafi were removed once their regime ended. Even in the Indian state of Tripura, the statues of Lenin and other communist figures were razed to the ground once there was a change in the regime.

What is permanent will remain permanent:

No great soul would demand a statue in his/her name. They never lived their life for these stupid human ego projections. Instead of highlighting the works of the past leaders, the present leaders should cultivate an openness to realize that stone or metal structures won’t last forever. It is the deeds that are important. We venerate impermanence. To quote from the November issue of ‘Infinitithoughts' a magazine from the house of mahatria Ra. To quote 'Mahatama Gandhi and Adolf Hitler were both great doers but the difference in the quality of their being made the Father of a Nation and the latter as one of the most feared psychopath in human history.’ He continues by saying that ‘ we have become more 'human doing' than 'human being'