Gregarious grammar, garrulous grammar

The following post deals with learning, knowledge and memory. It details the way humans learn language and assimilate grammatical technicalities to form phrases that depict their ideas. It also deals with the aspects of age and mental maturity, and how they affect learning processes.

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Linguists studying the aspects of recognition and cognition regarding languages will tell you that younger children tend to absorb the structure of their native language (or any other) at a rate faster than their elders. You will have noticed that a child of 2-3 years will absorb the nuances of its native tongue in a matter of months – while once adolescence is passed, structured classes and guidance become necessary to do the same. Although this theory is only empirical to me, it is quite established in scientific circles with adequate proof to back it up. I would like to extend this same argument to one more facet of learning: that of expanding one’s grammar to accommodate newer words.

Here, before I continue, I’d like to introduce something called the grammatical circle of words. This circle represents all the words recognised by an individual as being usable on an everyday basis for him or her. To rephrase, these words will constitute a lexicon. The area of this circle will increase rapidly at the younger phases of one’s life, as detailed in the first paragraph of this post. The newborn child will go from knowing no language to knowing one in the span of a year, and the circle will expand from zero volume to a finitely large one. Bracketing this transformation will be a learning period in which the child will learn about all types of words, sentence structures and idea constructions. The act of pointing to an apple and crying will now become replaceable by “I want that apple because I’m hungry.” In this period, there will be a momentum that will characterize how fast the child learns such things. I could define it like this.

A1 = Initial number of words; A2 = Final number of words.

M = [ { ( A2 – A1 ) x 100 } / ( 365 x A1 ) ]

(i.e. Momentum = Percentage increase in number of words averaged over 1 year)

If the momentum is high (over a suitably long period of time), the child will have learnt 500 words as compared to another child with lesser momentum that learnt 300 words (example). My idea is that greater the momentum during this period, slower will be the acquisition of newer words later in life. By this, I mean that if the grammatical circle of words expanded very quickly in the earlier stages of one’s life, it will be more rigid towards the final cognitive stages. Now, let me give my explanation for it.

Say I learnt 1,000 words before I was 5. As a child of between 5 and 10 years of age, my circle of 1,000 words will be sufficient to detail to myself and to others what I see, hear and feel. If I find that there is a new experience that seems incapable of being described through the words I already know, I will learn a new word – “ostentatiously gregarious” the 1,001st – to be able to use the language more effectively. At this point, suppose I have a friend whom I’ve known for a long time, and that he’s displayed a larger momentum of learning. At the age of 5, if he knows 2,000 words, then it should suffice for him to not acquire any new words till, say, he’s 15. Growing up together, I’ll find that I’m learning new words at the rate of 10 per year while he is grammatically dormant. Now, at the age of 20, if I find that I need to learn 5 new words for a job I’m applying to, I’ll find it easier than him. Why? Because the momentum which I said bracketed the learning period is still greater than zero for me, so the learning period involved is longer for me than for my friend. His circle will have been completed will mine will still be expanding. I can accommodate, he can’t.

All of this is based on an (empirical) assumption on my part that the learning process I keep referring to happens only once in one’s life. Once it dies out (at an age corresponding to the completion of one’s postgraduate education), newer experiences no longer seem like solutions to remember but problems to tackle. At these stages, what has already been learnt yearns to be put into use, i.e. the application-oriented years of life. If the learning process is spread out through these first 20-25 years, the amount of knowledge is greater than when the process spans about 10-15 years. This could be because what we learn is encoded away in our memories as a collection of sights and sounds. If I were to read in a book the word “gregarious” at the age of 12 and know its meaning through the context of its usage, I will remember it for the next few years only when I can remember the context itself. If I were to encounter the same word when a friend of mine describes someone else so when I am 18, I will remember it for a longer time. The difference in these two cases is that, although the learning period is in effect, the latter is remembered in more forms than the former. When I am 50, there is a better chance of me recollecting something that has a sight, sound and texture associated with it than that which is triggered by the name of the book or a character in it.

When reading a piece of text that seems too hard to remember, one tends to ascribe the whole picture it brings to mind to a memory that is readily accessible by “mugging” it. When this happens, nerves in the head keep firing signals in a particular channel. With repetitive firing, the cognitive system tends to identify that particular channel as one that will be regular use and therefore keep it active. You will be able to better understand this phenomenon when you associate it with some languages in your life whose words you are slowly forgetting because you don’t use them often. Similarly, when a person grows older, his responsibilities also multiply given that fact that he will now have the physical strength to execute them. To supplant this strength, he will begin to use his past experiences as lessons so he learns to optimize his own performance. At these stages, what he has taught himself will now come forth in the form of actions and decisions. The nerves will now begin to fire in those channels that seem most necessary for that supplementation (some lessons will seem more useful than others).

If I had stopped learning new words at the age of 12, then the application-oriented stages of life will set in prematurely, and the nerves will begin to decode rather than continuing to encode. Due to the said prematurity, the necessity to learn a new word because of a strange experience will now tend to be tackled by using older words. So, since I’m 12, I’ll use the phrase “moves freely with people” instead of the word “gregarious”; at the same time, my 18 year old friend will learn it. Analogously, when I am 18, I may not be able to  properly define the word gregarious. The Venn diagram should help you.

The probability of recollection

If an event ‘A’ is associated with both sight and sound, {x,y} depicting the occurrence of the sight-event and sound-event being fired (resp., through Boolean logic), then one of the following will happen when the memory will need to be recollected:

1. {0,0}
2. {0,1}
3. {1,0}
4. {1,1}

Therefore, there is a 75% chance that ‘A’ will be remembered by the person. If, however, an event ‘B’ is associated with only sight (like a word being encountered in a novel), then there is only a 50% chance of its recollection:

1. {1}
2. {0}

Phew! I learnt a lot there!

Ideate.

The power of symbols is often misunderstood, and more often than not, misrepresented in an essentially simplistic manner that speaks nothing of its immense capabilities. A symbol is more than a metaphor: a metaphor can only function as the subject wants to, the metaphor itself giving in to be a mere mirror the image borne in which is redundant but for the need to understand. A symbol is an image of the thought itself, a symbol is an idea. Ideas are the birth of revolutions, and ideas supplanted with ideal communication can give rise to a sociopolitical system wherein the society recognises, unmistakably, what it needs, and the politicial system, the means to provide for those needs. An idea is the recognition of the need for construction, the need to grow, the need to understand, the need to tolerate, the need to believe, and ultimately as well as inevitably the need to trust. When the idea is expressed, it conjures a mask as if delivering identity to the expressor, which it does, and the mask is a symbol of the expression’s beliefs. Ideas, however, are very large in number, and the effective communication of them so as to invoke a majority, a recognisable shout amidst the vox populi, is difficult. Ideas vary. What they vary about is anybody’s guess; they are born from morals, values, beliefs, faiths, nativity, social behaviour, the environment and the way in which the person concerned takes to the world in general. Ideas are miniscule, and are therefore quickly ignored. The one good idea flickering for a moment as hope peeking out of Pandora’s box has to be identified and seized as if it were a chance, for you know not when such an idea will be born again. It is your discretion that will serve as the utmost authority in nursing ideas that suit your needs – that, in other words, comply with the activities which concur with the fortification of your skills on whose employment you have what you need, but not necessarily that you have what you want.  

The ability to ideate indicates the ability to evolve. The normality with which we conform in order to establish a routine in our lives, so as to determine the nature of our existence itself, has to be subjected to change so we, the constituent living units that collectively define the normality, can identify that change and thereby, recognise and utilise the idea of progress. The momentum generated by this progression could be made widespread, as a revolution trigger-employed to bring in fresher ideas as well as to sustain the chain, the end goal of which is indicated clearly by the element whence the idea was inspired and the need of the individual. In order to do so, we use the symbolisation of ideas. Although an idea dwells in the mind of one person, at most a group of people who think alike, a symbol is universal. A symbol retains in its perception its very own history, its design and its purpose. A symbol is transcendental in that it reaches beyond the barriers that society has to offer – it bears an innate meaning that is understood as the same by even the different. For example, even though the concept of love assumes different forms in different peoples, the Taj Mahal is understood as being a symbol of love by all. It is in this transcending skill that an idea in one man’s head exposes itself as a tool of change. Blowing up the Taj Mahal, say, will, for a few, will be the loss of a wonderful piece of architecture, but for everyone else, the act itself will speak of an idea that is going against love. Just as we are identified by our ideas, the idea itself is given form and tangibility in actions when it speaks through symbols. 

This is the fundamental footing of semiotics. Through the novel he writes, the author symbolises his ideas in the form of characters, plots and the associated imagery, and the reader understands them by interpreting them for himself. Without having to write that the woman sitting in the corner of the room was sad, the author can place her in darkness, and develop a colouring and mood that contrasts with the rest of the room. Although it is hard to explain why the portrayal has so-so effects on us and not in any other way, it can be understood that the conveyance of ideas becomes easiest when they each are depicted as symbols. 

Simplistic Semiotics

Inspired by Umberto Eco and his styles of writing, I took to semiotics in a carefree manner. Only after getting into the subject did I realise how semiotics was much more than using picteresque symbols as metaphors to dictate the way the reader thinks when he is reading what you’ve written. Semiotics has more to do with the ‘why’ than with the ‘how’. The more and more they questioned, the more and more I was left clueless. Why does a gloomy and clouded evening mean sorrow? Why does the rising sun against an orange horizon signify beauty and serene? We all know what words to use and when, but I don’t think we really understand specifically why such descriptions mean some things. After this, I took up R. K. Narayan’s ‘Malgudi Days’. ‘Malgudi Days’, you should know, is the tale of a small boy named Swami and his experiences in the fictional village of Malgudi. The village itself is very much realistic with its own municipality council, government offices, bank, post office, even printing houses and the occasional animal poacher. However, it is Narayan’s writing that makes the difference. He is not like Eco, or even Pamuk or Tolkien. His language is simple and crisp, balanced finely between casual colloquiality and impeccable tones of formality. It’s as if he actually lived in the village once, and is now only recollecting from his memories. There are not many interpretations of the colours splashed around the town, and seldom any detailing when it comes to emotions. He freely lets the reaer to explore – marking the difference only when it is that every reader understand the same things and is never mislead. That is semiotic perfection.

Umberto Eco’s writing, on the other hand, is like Peter Jackson’s filming: very detailed and informative. There is no event or happening left out, irrespective of whether it has any relevance or not. In this case, Eco tells the reader too much and then, lets the reader come to a conclusion derived from what he or she understood to be relevant. In this case, the text becomes too long and often dragging along at some points. In ‘The Name of the Rose’, the contextual setting of the book was a splendid choice: an Italian monastery in 1327. During that period, Christianity was undergoing a tumultous renaissance of its own, and witch burnings were growing to be commonplace. The lengthy and loquacious dissertations on Christian theology seemed relevant because it all pertained to what was going on then. However, in ‘Foucault’s Pendulum’, Eco steps across the very-distinguishable line between necessity and redundancy. Pages upon pages of Brazilian mysticism and Italy during World War II makes the book seem like an encyclopaedia. The same can be said of ‘The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana’. Now, as far as arguing with me is concerned, my comparisons are based on my literary history. I don’t have any specific likes and dislikes as such, and nor am I specialised in any form of literature. Juxtaposing Narayan against Eco is just a way for me to bring to light the variance in semiotic densities and how, even a lesser number of words can paint a picture as good as extreme exposition. 

 

LOTR Quiz

While out for some sheesha with a couple of friends, I dared them to ask me any question from LOTR – the book as well as the movie – and challenged them that for every question that I got wrong, I would pay them Dhs. 10 (with, of course, the understanding that they knew the answers too). Except for one question which had to do with a bit of the movie’s trivia, I got all answers right, even to the extent of correcting the questions themselves. The other two gave up on it and decided to go online in order to stump me. To their dismay, the net showed up nothing close to tough questions – except of for one quiz which had to do with the years in which things happened. So here it is, my own LOTR, Hobbit and Silmarillion quiz – and I’m going to make it as tough as I can! 

Enjoy!

Questions I

1. While camping for the first time after Rivendell, Saruman sends a band of flying crows as spies to the Fellowship’s camp to find out their plans. What are these crows called and where are they from?
2. How does the Orc army at Pelennor Fields better know the Hammer of the Underworld?
3. What is the House of Aragorn called after he is declared King at Minas Tirith?
4. The Mouth of Sauron, who is seen in the last book (an the movie) is sent as an emissary of Sauron to meet the Last Alliance at Morgul Vale. In the book, what does Tolkien say is his ultimate intention?
5. Name the only three of the Istari mentioned in the book.
6. Name the City of Trees where Galadriel and Lord Celeborn reside.
7. When the Fellowship is touring Lothlorien, what do they see for the first time from atop Cerin Amroth?
8. Before it was calle ‘Lothlorien’, what was the city’s original name?
9. Before symbiotically pairing up with Sauron to guard the pass of Cirith Ungol, whom did Shelob serve?
10. Who captains the ship at the Grey Havens, which ferries elves from Middle Earth to Valinor?

Answers I

1. Crebain from Dunland
2. Grond (or, the Wolf’s Head)
3. Telcontar
4. To obtain the keys of Isengard
5. Saruman, Gandalf and Radagast
6. Caras Galadhon
7. Dol Guldur
8. Laurelindorenan
9. Morgoth Bauglir
10. Cirdan

Questions II

1. Name Arwen’s two elder brothers, who are not mentioned in the movie.
2. Who prophesized that the Witch King of Angmar wouldn’t die at the hands of a man?
3. Gwaihir is the Lord of the Eagles. Who is his lieutenant?
4. Feanor crafted the Silmarils, which trapped for eternity the light of which two trees?
5. In the Mines of Moria, Gimli finds the tomb of Balin son of Fundin in which room?
6. Gandalf falls down fighting against a Balrog of Morgoth over the bridge of ______. Fill in the blank.
7. Who slew the first dragon, Glaurung, that was born from the desires of Morgoth Bauglir?
8. Ancalagon the Black was slain by which forefather of Elrond?
9. While Elrond chose immortality, which brother of his became one of the Men of Middle Earth?
10. Name the island where Sauron was imprisoned before he returned to set up fort in Mordor.

Answers II

1. Elladan and Elrohir
2. Glorfindel
3. Landroval
4. Laurelin and Telperion
5. Chamber of Mazarbul (or, the Chamber of Records)
6. Khazad Dum
7. Turin
8. Earendil the Mariner
9. Elros
10. Numenor

Questions III

1. In the first instalment of the movie, when the four hobbits are camping at night with Strider keeping watch, Frodo asks Strider who the woman is whom he is singing of. Who is the woman and who is her lover?
2. Galadriel possesses the Ring of Adamant. What is it called in the Elvish tongue? 
3. Who possesses the Ring of Water?
4. Which is the first month of the Shire calendar?
5. At the Council of Elrond, Gandalf vetoes the idea that the Ring be given to ___ _____. When asked why, he says ___ _____ will never understand the importance of the Ring, and it will lie with him, unable to tempt him, and eventually, when the Nazgul come to his doorstep, he will perhaps hand the Ring over to them. Fill in the blank.
6. Name the only two Ents mentioned by name in the book.
7. Morgoth, in his hatred of the Elves of Valinor, bred which race of cannibalistic warriors as a mockery?
8. Who is described in ‘The Silmarillion’ as the Supreme Being who created the Universe?
9. To which breed of horses does Shadowfax, Gandalf’s prized steed, belong?
10. Amongst the plunder of the trolls, Thorin Oakenshield and Gandalf find two famed swords. Gandalf takes for himself the one named Glamdring; which one does Thorin claim?

Answers III

1. Luthien, Beren
2. Nenya
3. Galadriel
4. Afteryule
5. Tom Bombadil
6. Treebeard and Quickbeam
7. Orcs
8. Eru Iluvatar
9. Mearas
10. Orcrist

Questions IV

1. Who takes up the Stewardship of Gondor after Denethor?
2. Name Theoden’s father.
3. Aragorn is also known in the Westron tongue as ‘Dunedain’. What does it mean?
4. Connect the following: Amon Amarth and Sammath Naur.
5. Who is the Numenorean king who first set foot upon Valinor, causing Numenor to be drawn into the oceans?
6. Name the mountains where the Army of the Dead reside.
7. Whom do Elladan and Elrohir rescue from a band of Orcs – a feat mentioned specifically in Rivendell by Arwen when asked about her family?
8. What is the Elvish name of Rivendell?
9. Name Legolas’ father.
10. Name Aragorn’s grandfather.

Answers IV

1. Faramir
2. Thengel
3. Man of the West
4. ‘Amon Amarth’ means ‘mountain of fate’, which is a reference to Mount Doom. ‘Sammath Naur’ means ‘cracks of doom’, a chasm located deep beneath Mount Doom.
5. Ar Pharazon
6. Dunharrow
7. Their mother.
8. Imladris
9. Thranduil
10. Arador

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Well, that’s about it. I’ll put up more soon.

Cheers!

My General Wonderment On The Human Mind

Caution: What’s written below doesn’t follow any specific order; I’ve just put down whatever came into my head.

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On Minds

First things first. The human mind is the one single element that sets the sea of humanity apart from the rest of the living beings that inhabit this earth. The way it perceives the objects external to itself is a confined perception in itself, and cannot be wholly understood by other minds. It does not have a physical manifestation and is, instead, limited to a persistently functioning conception of the brain. There is no way to recreate it synthetically, and there is no way to destroy it. Even if one were to cause damage to it, either the self or another being, it would still continue to exist. The one factor that makes the mind to be so unquantifiable is its definition on the one hand, and its existence on the other. There does not exist a definition per se, but if you were to combine this with the conscious knowledge that a mind does exist, then I would arrive at this conclusion: the mind seems to exist in consciousness only when the mind itself is employed to think that it does. Without the mind, there is no mind to believe that a mind indeed exists; if there is a mind, then only the mind can foster the reliance in itself upon the self that contains it.

The mind is analogical to only itself, as all other conceptions stem from it. All our sciences and understandings are understood in their meaning and accomplishment through the way the mind understands them to be. The need to quantify things as they were, to count and to understand quantity as it varied through time (which, in its turn, is used to quantify progress and the rate of change of progress) can be interpreted as a fundamental constitution of the reasons that point to why we exist as we do. Without the mind, personal interpretation is lost and the differences between each one of us drowns in the fact that all of us now remain messengers between our thought and the stimuli that effect it. Therefore, in its limited quantifiability, the mind has the secrets hidden to reveal its source of unlimited perceptibility. Another mind, if it does exist (solipsism), cannot wholly understand mine, and vice versa, as I said earlier.

In this gap of understanding stands many a complexity. If I am not able to prove that another mind does exist, then my mind could perceive myself to be the one ‘complete being’, whence could stem the emotions of ego and pride. I would come to trust myself with me, imbuing a self-respect that also stands sowed in the need to triumph and, thereby, conclusively prove superiority. Further, this gap of understanding also makes invisible the bridge that could breach it: there is no way to go into the mind once you realise yourself as being out of it.

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On Cognition

What is cognition? It is the process of ‘thought’, or of thinking, or the processes involved in coming to a conclusion about something, or the perception and understanding of the world. Cognition can be represented in the physical realm by the science of mathematics, where numbers are used to identify, define and reconstruct progress or progressivism (magnitude); vectors are used to orient the self with respect to a frame of reference (direction). However, in the intangible realms of thought and cognition itself, cognition plays an important role in that apart from coming to define the pseudo-rules that the mind seems to follow in perceiving and understanding things, it also concerns itself with the interpretation of symbols and their apparent interchangeability. The study of these symbols, or semiotics, has to do with the construction of meaning and its understanding.

I have discussed about the importance of the mind and its biological standing, but one important point I missed was that the mind acts as a pseudo-interface between the abstracted knowledge of the brain and the understanding of the self, of the external stimuli/responses. Once an event has been stowed away forever as a memory, then the process of understanding is complete because the event has broken down into a cause-effect system, identified, defined, thereby making the self to be able to recollect it later as a response to identical stimuli. This is as a result of the prowess of the mind to interpret the messages being sent or received.

Coming back, the first thing I’d like to talk about is that the importance of languages in communication. Now, communication is a very important aspect of the living in two ways: 1. when messages defined by an external source are understood by the self, and 2. when messages defined by the mind and the self are understood by an external receiver.

A set depiction

For example, a common pattern of the actuation of events is the coming together of large groups of people. This can happen only when a common idea is endorsed by all of them at the same time and place. In order to create such a majority of difference in opinion between this group of people and the rest, who don’t conform to the ramifications of the idea, communication is required wherein the idea is conveyed with a specific interest in mind.

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On Communication

Communication, by definition, involves many aspects of the media, like audio, video, body language, and many more. The audio medium makes use of intonations in the spoken word to complement the feeling to be conveyed, and so also does the video medium, which also uses body language and gestures to add a little something more to what is being said. However, the written medium is quite powerful on its own because of the fact that those same feelings and associations are conveyed only through the text, leaving the mind to interpret everything. There is no use of intonations other than the adjectives themselves, and there is no use of body language whatsoever. Still, the print media plays a very important role in that the permanency of the text is undeniable, and therefore allows for recreating and recollecting it easily.

Let us take up the English language for example and analyse the way the sentences are constructed, and thereby understand the way the meanings in them are construed. The words here can be classified as nominals (nouns, noun phrases), verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions. Noun phrases and pronouns have the function of pointing to some object in the real, or a possible, world, and pronouns can behave as substitutions to noun phrases (but not nouns). Noun phrases also have the ability to act as both subjects and objects, and as complements within clauses.

Nouns are generally defined as words describing persons, places, things, or ideas. They are usually a word with a single root, also sometimes simultaneously a stem that can be inflected. For example, the word girl: its stem is also girl, and can be suffixed with -s to give the inflectional word-form girls. However, this only pertains to a simple noun. More complex noun forms can have derivative prefixes or suffixes like dis-, anti-, -ment, etc.

(To be continued…)

Maya, Brahman & Karma: The True Standing of Hinduism

(I’ve written this more like a rhapsody because I got terribly confused in between!)

Amongst the various doctrines of Hinduism, the Vedas and the associated Vedantas play an extremely important role. The Vedas are classified into four volumes: Rig, Sama, Atharva, Yajur, whereas Vedanta represents the ‘end of knowledge’, rather the ‘complete knowledge’ (‘anta‘, Sanskrit for end). Now, the Vedas have to do with man’s realisation of Brahman, or the universal truth, whereas the Vedanta focus on the illusions of Maya, or the indescribable. The concept of Maya was first introduced by the great philosopher Adi Sankara, and deals with the illusions of the Universe. According to Hinduism, Brahman is the sole universal truth, thereby depriving Maya of its truisms. On the other hand, Brahman is realised only through transcendental meditation to pierce the veil of Maya, there by restoring Maya‘s truth. This is the reason she is referred to as the indescribable, since her truth contradicts itself. The concept of Maya itself is extremely difficult to comprehend. Maya is said to have been born from the dream of the Supreme Lord, and she carries forth the characteristics of the universe that make it perceptible, tangible. There is a good metaphor for godliness in this vision: when the Brahman is reflected on Maya, God is the image.

Maya

Here is a good example by Sri Sankaracharya as to the definition of Maya.

“Though the emission of ejaculate onto sleeping garments or bedclothes is yielded by the natural experience of copulation in a wet dream, the stain of the garment is perceived as real upon waking whilst the copulation and lovemaking was not true or real. Both sexual partners in the dream are unreal as they are but dream bodies, and the sexual union and conjugation was illusory, but the emission of the generative fluid was real. This is a metaphor for the resolution of duality into lucid unity.”

The meaning of duality mentioned above is twofold. Duality, in many schools of thought, is the representation of the good powers in the Universe, and the malignant powers. Some religious beliefs recognise both as Supreme Powers (bitheism), whereas some deign the evil as the altercation of the good. Maya, in her being, is born from the dream of the Supreme Lord, which in the case of Hinduism, is representative of the good. The other duality in question is a reference to the two elements of body and mind.

If Brahman were to be constituted as the soul of the self, then the mind would come to represent the knot that firmly establishes the relationship between matter and consciousness. Matter, again, is but a section of Maya herself, and therefore, the perception of the self as being real and true is derived from Maya. Does this mean the self is also illusory? If so, then the body is only a garment. If not, then the body is real and assumes the form of the Truth. But Brahman being declared the sole truth, the concept of Karma comes into action. The mortal is, now, enchained to a cycle of births and deaths until he attains Moksha from Samsara. Karma is the causality of everything and not the cause itself. Man errs. In doing so, his payment for his sins results in him assuming multiple bodies (or garments). My grandfather used to say that if I trampled an ant, I would be reborn as an ant in my next life. However, if the act is committed unknowingly or at the behest of fulfilling a higher purpose, it is not constituted as a sin. For example, there was this tale of a rich merchant who proudly harboured the thought that he had never committed a sin in his life. However, one day, he stamped a cockroach to death. Paranoid and attempting to release himself from accusations of being a sinner, he comes out of his house and hands the cockroach to Ram the sweeper on the street, and asks him to partake of the sin completely. When judgment day arrives for both the men, the sweeper is not consigned to Hell. The merchant is curious and asks the Lord why. The Lord replies that in being a sweeper, Ram’s duty was to kill little insects that troubled other people, and therefore, he was not sinning in killing those insects. Anyway, the presence of Karma Yoga is what results in rebirths. However, at the end of these cycles of life, when a person attains Moksha, the elements of the Universe are finally understood as being the various fixtures of Maya, including Karma itself.

When I, as a child, was exposed to Hinduism and its various beliefs and scriptures, I was of the impression that they were all true (like how a child thinks the story of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ is true). But I never really thought Hinduism had such firm basis on the argumentative verges of philosophical thinking. I  may not know what the Brahman actually stands for other than being the Universal truth, but the reasoning behind it seems intact. The ideas of meditation (as a means to attain Brahman) have totally swept over my head other than for the sole reason of finding peace. But meditation itself has a deep inner meaning I learn. To discover the One true self within ourselves is no simple task. There are tales buried in the many thousand pages of the Hindu scriptures of great sages undertaking strict penances in order to realise Brahman. We, as humans, lay buried beneath the infinitely many layers of Maya and her imagery that, given the complexity of our supposedly illusory lives, we can’t truly recognise Brahman even if we were to stumble across it. In the metaphor I mentioned above, God is the image of Brahman on Maya. It is our belief that godliness is true, and that God as a being does exist. It is a general belief as well as a consensus amongst most believers that the concepts of Maya, Brahman and Karma are very complex and intricate. Many worship God just ask for a favour without really understanding that they are asking the True Self hidden within them for a favour! It is the understanding of these principles that delivers Hinduism its true standing.

The Writers' Crib

By the writers’ crib, I don’t mean their cribbing; I mean their tool-room, the place where they derive their ideas from, their sources of inspiration. A writer begins to write when he wishes to express his ideas, when he believes that there might be others who will want to learn of what he has learnt, understood or perceived. The language he chooses to use will be the language he finds most convenient to write in, one in which his grammar and the way he structures his sentences will reflect perfectly in the messages that the reader comes to understand. There must be no conflict, and there must be an inherent brevity that says the writer need not use an unnecessary number of words to express himself completely. The style of writing, the flavouring of the text, which he employs will deliver the mood of the text, and thereby let the reader know which side of the argument he is on, if indeed there is one. If not for an argument- well, I think there are always arguments: this conforms to my principles of a binary world! The language and the grammar decided, next is the perspective if the writer. Now, the perspective is, I think, independent of the subject at hand. Why do I think this? Because, herein the good earth I think there are a set of symbols, a set of signs, that tell us that there exist an interconnectivity between all things, objects as well as beings. Whether the writer writes of a pencil, or of the Vietnam war, he will always write in a such a manner as to reflect his perception of the world and those who inhabit it. This perception cannot be stolen from the mind’s eye, and cannot be changed easily. Perception as I would define it, is an understanding that is born from our innate personality. Moreover, this personality doesn’t come to account for our perception just by the name, but also by what it exhibits in turn: our up bringing, our religion, our nativity, our patriotism, our identity, our imbued humanity. The degree to which we adhere to these elements of our living defines our perception, and narrows it or broadens it depending on how we exercise them. And now, looking beyond the perception, there is nothing but objectification. Objectification is identification, not association. Perception is. When we perceive an object, we identify it, true, but then, we also move on to understand our relationship with it. When we believe that we have a possibly meaningful relationship in the offing, we give the object a name. By giving a name, we have established association.

When, at our most basic levels, we are confined to the mind and how it perceives the objects around us, our perception of the more complex ones follows a simple mathematical principle: we tend to break down those complex events into smaller and smaller ones, until we have in our hands a multitude of the simple events.

Now, the symbols in this earth. What are they? How do they look like? I don’t know. Are they there? Yes they are. How do you know? Let me tell you. Look at this picture.

Red 'X' in white?

What do you see in this picture? Do you see a red ‘X’ on a white page? Of course you do. Everyone does. But what everyone fails to notice is that, why do we always see only the red ‘X’? Why not the white background? Why don’t we see the white background as having a red-coloured ‘X’ shaped cavity? Or why don’t we see a white pattern on a red background?Why do we tend to prioritise the symbol over its background, and why do we not consider the background itself as a symbol to be existent? Well, in this particular case, it may have been because of the familiarity of the symbol as an alphabet, but what about a very many number of other symbols? Simply, why do we associate more with those symbols that are easier to perceive? The difficulty to perceive another symbol doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist!

Imagine this. There is a stainless, white wall. Perfectly white. There is a perfectly white table in front of it. On this table is a semi-hemispherical orange bowl. If you were to stand at a distance of around 3 metres, how would you know that that orange coloured object is a bowl? First and foremost, you will know that by its shape. The curvature, and a flat section towards the bottom will tell you that it is a bowl. What gives this bowl an image of being curved? This is obtained from its relation to its background. If man had been living in a world composed only of circles, and if the line hadn’t been discovered yet, he would not know of linearity. He will be able to perceive only curvature, and therefore, he will not identify the circle for what it is. Similarly, since man knows the line, he can recognise the circle for what it is. Deriving another analogy, the shape of the bowl is understood by how it cuts out the background. In this case, you know the object is a bowl only by how a section of the wall is hidden from your sight: the section that is hidden is instead covered by an orange, semi-circular patch.

Therefore, if you were to think of it, there is a red ‘X’ on white paper, or there is a red ‘X’ shaped cavity in the white symbol that is the paper. The difference between the two is prioritisation. Through this selective prioritisation, we allot a certain density to some parameters we find easier to work with, and therefore, write about. This is the reason more than one single perception exists in the world. Look at the number of symbols you have splattered have around you in your daily life. Have you ever wondered whether the symbol you perceive is the only symbol in sight? Those for whom there seems to be no harm in this selective prioritisation can move on. But for those who are seeking a solution to something, this is some food for thought.