Pablo Neruda

I love the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda’s poetry. Had he been alive, he would have turned a 106 on the 12th of July this year. If only I knew Spanish I would have enjoyed the flavor of his poems even more. If reading his translations can be so exhilarating, imagine the impact of reading those poems in in the language in which the poet thought of those words. Writing love poems is difficult. It is hard to become mushy or melodramatic. The ability to express this complex human emotion on paper is not easy. Neruda was a respected diplomat who always used green colored ink to write his poems. He felt green was the color of hope. Neruda created songs for children as a hobby. He was 19 when he wrote Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1971. He shared his insight on poets and poetry in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. He said …

“From all this, my friends, there arises an insight which the poet must learn through other people. There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song – but in this dance or in this song there are fulfilled the most ancient rites of our conscience in the awareness of being human and of believing in a common destiny.”

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Funny People

Our culture is full of stories the witty person – think Tenalirama, Gopal Bhand, or Birbal. The theater forms have all had the comic as an integral part of the story. Indian cinema – Hindi as well as other Regional language cinema have seen many shades of humor.  As Indians have become more confident, we have learnt to laugh at ourselves. Only someone who is secure within can laugh at himself or herself. Self deprecating humor is reflective of a self assured person. That confidence for some comes because of prosperity. For some even strife leads to its own variety of dark humor. I believe economic prosperity and exposure to a global environment have expanded the variety of jokes we Indians laugh at today. You see more comedy shows on TV than we did a few years back. Youtube and the Net has given us access to more brands and flavors of humor. So as a country we are discovering the joys of a global fare. Read more

In Praise of Irrationality

We have all grown up in a world that clearly values rationality and rational behavior. Being emotional was frowned upon. Whenever someone displays emotions in public view it makes news (Think of Maradona’s expressions as the team played and lost) and the world turns its cameras to look at the person who just “lost it”. When I studied Science in school, I was told by my teacher that if there was something that cannot be explained by Science it was not worth knowing and that it was obviously irrational. Such was the vehemence with which I was nudged towards being rational. As I grew to develop my own view of the world, I got fascinated by the limitations of rationality. Rational stuff had a logical sequence and clearly activated that part of my brain that I had difficulty accessing. You try this one and you got to do this real quick: A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
Write down your answer. If you said that the ball costs 10c, then you are part of the majority. That is the good news. The bad news is that the correct answer is 5c. Shane Frederick, Prof at MIT Sloan posed this question to more than 3,000 students at eight different universities. Fewer than half gave the correct answer. The trick is to not go by your instinct which gives the wrong answer, but to take a second more and reflect on it. Shane has developed a 3 question test – that question is one of the three – that can be almost as accurate in predicting characteristics that other tests like the SAT, ACT, or the Wonderlic Personnel Test. He also found that those who do well on the cognitive reflection test tend to be more patient in decisions between smaller sooner rewards and larger later rewards.  Before you pat yourself on the back (your own or anybody else’s for that matter) remember, they are also more willing to gamble in financial domains. Read more

Kindle New Possibilities

The weight of the school bag has been the subject of much debate and speculation. Last January the Central Board of Secondary Education in India issued a circular to all heads of institutions, to lighten the weight of school bags, especially at the primary level. (see the video here). Sometimes schools have come up with ideas to alleviate this weighty issue. Apart from limiting the number of books that children need to study, schools have also been asked to make arrangements so that students up to Class II can deposit their books in the school itself. Diverse studies on school bag weights conducted by different NGOs across the country have found the average weight carried by a student to a school to range between 6kg and 10kg. Internationally, most countries observe norms that limit the weight of school bags to less than one-seventh of the weight of the student. The BBC quotes a study that shows that more than a third of Italian pupils carry bags which weigh more than 30% of their body weight at least once a week. Read more

Creases

Long after you are gone
I can still taste your kiss
The room still has those traces
Of the moments that we caught
Your hair still snakes on my pillow
The creases on the sheet
Tell me that it was for real

I smell our togetherness
I hear your words in my ear
The moments when I read
Untold stories in your silence
When you looked in my eyes
The creases on the sheet
Tell me that it was for real

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