chaotic order

The Devil's advocate As long as there is need for an Omnipotent Human God, there has to be his antithesis - the need for a Devil. This is not merely a logical or epistemological necessity but a commonsense proposition as well. However, this has been a long standing problem with Monotheistic religions. In all three of them: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, The devil figures as symbol of “evil”, a representation of all that is malevolent and pernicious in Human life, responsible for acts that entices Man to stray from his path, motivating perpetual strife, violence and restlessness; creating discontent, encouraging avarice, promoting vanity and sexual depravity - in all, he is the sole reason why Man still remains in his fallen state keeping this struggle of-“God overcoming the Devil”- fantasy alive and vibrant. Fortunately for polytheistic religions, they never got themselves into this tight knot. Their world view not only allowed for multiple Gods and demons, but their origins

Playboy - a possible resurrection In early nineties, a friend of mine from high school days visited me at Chennai. He was in the US for higher studies, and was travelling to India on a short break. Apart from a brand new Panasonic Walkman, he also happened to bring along with him a few old copies of Playboy, hidden deep under layers of clothing in his suitcase, covered in brown paper (making it look almost like a packet of hardcore narcotics).He was very proud that he had made it passed Customs in both countries. We waited for everyone to go to bed before his slipped the packet into my hands. Guilt ridden, in mellowed lighting, cuddled on the floor, I opened that packet with trepidation and trembling hands. The excitement in my eyes, I am sure, would have been palpable for anyone to see. Holding the famed Playboy in my hands was almost a dream come true. At near about twenty years of age; testosterone rapidly coursing through one’s veins, this magazine represented the consummation

The mismeasuring of Man – Thoughts on NY Prison team’s great run in debating. By this time, it is common news that one of the finest debating teams in this country (Harvard Univ) lost to a bunch of inmates from the New York correctional facility, on a topic that is not merely controversial in present circumstances, but highly relevant and topical as well. Do we continue providing free education to illegal immigrants to the detriment of quality in public schools? The team from NY East side prison, students of highly esteemed Bard University, who have been running this Prison initiative for several years now with great success, argued in the affirmative. A position they were hardly be expected to take; but they did, and defended it with brilliant arguments presented with aplomb and conviction. This team is not a rookie any more. They have been tearing down opponents in last two years, notably their stunning defeat of teams from West point and University of Vernon in quick succession

Iris Murdoch - an enigma, brilliant writer and existential thinker. There are few authors in the twentieth century who could write with the precision of a Trollope, intensity of Dostoevsky, flair and peerless prose of Dickens, eye for detail as Proust, philosophic temper of a Camus and with an authoritative feminine voice of Austen - as Dame Jean Iris Murdoch (1919-1999), the grand lady of Literary fiction. She along with Virginia Woolf and Margaret Atwood have remained on the top of my list of great female writers. I have read and reread all their books many times over; and like scripture, each time I read they bring forth a fresh interpretation, a delectable new angle to writing and a deep ever renewing undercurrent of social, moral and individual issues that any story about human predicament and its paradoxes should sustain and project. This essay and review is about the Iris Murdoch and her extraordinary literary and personal life. Iris, an Irish by birth, grew up during a ti

Musings on a Saturday morning: Many months ago I read an essay, a pretty lengthy one at that, which described rather emotionally the last day of ten different individuals before 9/11. How they got up in the morning, carried their daily chores, whom they spoke to and in some cases what they spoke about, the reminiscences of friends, relatives and family members who were perhaps the last ones they interacted with - so on and so forth. The tenor of that article, it seemed to me was to find some kind of meaning or premonition or cause during that penultimate day that could justify their brutal and calamitous death that followed. While it was a very well written piece of essay, but as I was reading it, I remember being stuck by a sudden strange uneasiness over the thought process behind it. It stuck me with full force that the author was attempting to rationalize and find some meaning or cause that could possibly explain what happened on 9/11. It is always a mystery to me that the Human

"About Elly" - a sensitive and realistic exploration of Human psyche There are two ways of looking at Art. It could either be an aspiration that reaches out to an ideal, or it could represent itself as close to reality as possible. In both cases, an audience undergoes a catharsis, a non-verbal tingle that courses through one’s body causing suspension of opinion and merging into the piece of art itself. All of us have had such moments: When one sees the Taj from a distance, or stand in awe of Michalengo’s tapestry at Sistine chapel, or puzzled by Picasso’s stark realism, or dissolve into Mozart sublime harmonics, or soar along with pure tonal notes of Lata Mangaeskar, or stand mesmerized in the magnificence of Ten commandments; or meditate over Akira Kurosowa’s philosophic ruminations on screen, or mingle with the sublimity of Shakespearean prose and wordsworthian poetry, or humbled by the majesty of Gibbon’s history or Durant’s narration - all these are examples of moment

A day of remembrance.. I woke up today morning with a mucky feeling in my stomach. My head was heavy, and a sense of uneasiness pervaded my body. It wasn’t the best of nights. My sleep was pretty disturbed, with images of blood smeared bodies, stunned and scarred faces, limbs writhing besides its decapitated owners, buildings in flames – all kinds of grotesque images kept floating across my mind’s eye. I am normally a deep sleeper, but yesterday night, I kept tossing and turn ing for most part. Early in the morning around 4’ish, with a cup of coffee in hand, I stood in my Balcony absorbing the pitch darkness that normally precede a dawn. It is as if the night throws up its deepest black on to its canvas in these early hours, before the stirring brightness of the day repaints it to gold. It was at this moment it dawned on me that today is 9/11, and I understood the significance of my disturbed sleep. It has been fourteen years since that tragic day at the beginning of this beauti