I've just finished re-reading my favorite book, 'The Razor's Edge' by Somerset Maugham.
There are some books which leave an elusive, exotic fragrance behind ,after you regretfully turn over the last page. It is better not to discuss the enchanting secret that you were granted a glimpse of while reading that book with anyone.
It is much, much better to lie in a grassy meadow and dream instead trying to explain away the magic.
However, Somerset Maugham lies in a different class altogether. He tells you things that you've always known but never knew you knew. And the magic of his stories only increases as you think about and discuss them.
The gem of all his books is, 'The Razor's Edge'.
The book follows Larry Darrell's quest for Meaning.
Larry is a young American guy. There's nothing particularly extraordinary about him. He served in the war and it was then that he realized the futility of our lives as we jump from one goal to another, completely forgetting the larger scheme of things.
We study hard to get a job. We work to earn. We work to make our country progress and become prosperous. We work because it is the right thing to do.
But what is right? This life is so short. Eternity lies before us. Is it not better to try and understand, to try and think, instead of just doing because society deems something to be right and proper?
Is it not better to focus on ourselves and our relationship with that Eternity?
Maugham, without being pedantic at all, draws these questions to light.
The only problem is, he does not provide us with the answers.
We know that our lives would be peaceful and happy if we could actually pluck up the courage to give up our material position in the world and try to search for Meaning. But we also know that we'd be fools to do it.
Larry is the main character in the book, but there is another character who intrigues me. Her name is Sophie. Sophie is a young charming American friend of Larry's. She was happily married to a poor lawyer. They were very deeply in love. But Sophie's life falls apart when her husband and baby die in a car crash.
Sophie then wallows in drink and debauchery and drugs. She throws herself into sin to forget her grief. Her old friends cast her off.
I wonder. Suppose today, someone loses their family, we would all say how brave and stoic they are, as they shoulder their loss and gradually slip back into their old ways after the expected mourning period. They will start coming back for various luncheons and dinners and we will applaud their ability to bear hardship.
But Sophie's grief is so much more touching. Society condemns her, but perhaps she is closer to the Infinity than any of us. Her love scourges her of any true wickedness. No reader of the 'Razor's Edge', can ever call Sophie wicked. Weak, yes, but evil, no.
"The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard."
Monday, January 11, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Reflections
The History of Science is strewn with revolutions, revelations and violent brain storms. Today it seems so intuitive that the earth rotates on it's own axis and revolves around the sun. But for hundreds of years the view that the sun revolves around the earth was upheld.
Why is it that people thought so?
Well, you might say because it looks as if the sun is revolving around the earth!
Oh? Well what would it have looked like had the earth rotated about it's own axis instead!?!
So, then why was this thought was introduced so late?
We humans tread in our 'middle sized' world. Our intuitions and faculties are developed so that we can navigate this 'middle earth' :P. Our brains are designed to process what we perceive in a certain way. Does that mean that however superior a brain is, there are certain ideas that it will never be able to grasp?
I have read that rocks, especially crystals, have a lot of tiny open spaces inside them. But to us, when we hold a crystal in our hand, it seems massive and 'solid'. But neutrinos would perceive these rocks differently. They see these same rocks as full of massive spaces filled with air molecules.
Thus, the scope of our perceptions and ideas seem to have a limit. Will this affect our understanding of topics like quantum physics? (As this is on a totally different scale)
Will concepts like wave and particle duality be forever beyond our understanding? Will we ever get the 'feel' of such topics? Are we limited by our perceptions?
I really wonder. . .
The points that I have mentioned above are crucial to understanding the point I am now about to make.
Many theories most notably 'string theory' are accepted and are being furthered because even if we do not have conclusive experimental evidence to support these theories. They seem 'aesthetically beautiful' and have a harmonious structure. 'Symmetry', 'Gauge invariance' etc. are at the heart of these theories.
We perceive symmetry to be beautiful. We perceive the symmetries in our surroundings and note their significance. But then again, this is 'our perception'. What if this root is wrong?
What if we live in a world where another quantity lies at the heart of all our physical laws. Will we ever find it out? Will it ever be intuitively obvious to anyone?
And if we find this quantity. How will we know if it really is the right one?
Why is it that people thought so?
Well, you might say because it looks as if the sun is revolving around the earth!
Oh? Well what would it have looked like had the earth rotated about it's own axis instead!?!
So, then why was this thought was introduced so late?
We humans tread in our 'middle sized' world. Our intuitions and faculties are developed so that we can navigate this 'middle earth' :P. Our brains are designed to process what we perceive in a certain way. Does that mean that however superior a brain is, there are certain ideas that it will never be able to grasp?
I have read that rocks, especially crystals, have a lot of tiny open spaces inside them. But to us, when we hold a crystal in our hand, it seems massive and 'solid'. But neutrinos would perceive these rocks differently. They see these same rocks as full of massive spaces filled with air molecules.
Thus, the scope of our perceptions and ideas seem to have a limit. Will this affect our understanding of topics like quantum physics? (As this is on a totally different scale)
Will concepts like wave and particle duality be forever beyond our understanding? Will we ever get the 'feel' of such topics? Are we limited by our perceptions?
I really wonder. . .
The points that I have mentioned above are crucial to understanding the point I am now about to make.
Many theories most notably 'string theory' are accepted and are being furthered because even if we do not have conclusive experimental evidence to support these theories. They seem 'aesthetically beautiful' and have a harmonious structure. 'Symmetry', 'Gauge invariance' etc. are at the heart of these theories.
We perceive symmetry to be beautiful. We perceive the symmetries in our surroundings and note their significance. But then again, this is 'our perception'. What if this root is wrong?
What if we live in a world where another quantity lies at the heart of all our physical laws. Will we ever find it out? Will it ever be intuitively obvious to anyone?
And if we find this quantity. How will we know if it really is the right one?
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Random Musings
I was showing David the final copy of all my results on a project I had done on modeling an athlete's run profile.
"So you see David, this model basically shows that all top athletes running the 100 m dash have a similar run profile.
The reason Usain Bolt has created so many records is not only because of his body weight
(it is true that the bigger an animal is and the smaller its diameter, the faster it moves)
, though that is a primary factor, but also because of his perfect staging of the race by the adjustment of NOT only the dynamical factors but also the kinematic parameters!"
David, being my god father, allowed me to rave and rant in this strain for some more time. And then he told me some interesting things.
For people of the same age group and similar fitness, the person who has a long fourth finger (starting to count from the thumb)actually runs faster. There was even a paper published to this effect.
Now I'm not quite sure, how much of this is true or whether I have laid down the correct postulated conditions, but this assertion made perfect sense to me.
You see, I am currently reading 'The Origin of the species," and right at the beginning Darwin touches upon the subject of inheritance. He has remarked how certain traits go hand in hand. For example people who suffer from albinism have prickly hair and so on and so forth.
Could it not be possible that people who run faster have similar traits be they ever so imperceptible as the possession of a longer index finger?
I then realized what a complex study, a bio mechanical analysis really was. Not only did the kinematic and dynamic parameters come into play but also so many other genetic factors. Can a comprehensive, all encompassing theory ever be reached??
After talking about athletes for some more time, my conversation with the old flesh and blood took on another turn. We started talking about an alternative term to really measure a country's stature in the globe. All this time we've been using GDP. But hey! China's GDP >USA, but yet most of the population in China lives in poverty while I don't even have to talk about an average US citizen!
We then talked about GDP per capita and whether that was a good enough estimate. But David told me that the government of Bhutan had jumped one step further and had actually developed a happiness quotient for their citizens. I was really skeptical when I heard this and wondered how such a quotient could be measured.
David defended himself like this.
"Well Hinduism has actually defined the terms-Maya and Brahma. Maya is a term for everything that can be measured while Brahma is a term for everything spiritual. I can tell you how tall I am, but I can't measure my soul.
Humans, however, have always tried to come up with parameters to measure qualities. Initially IQ was a considered a good enough estimate as to how clever a person was. But now that has been replaced by EQ. Slowly and steadily we actually are coming steadily closer to characterizing our world.
Now, lets come to 'Beauty'. Is Beauty subjective? Yes? Well actually no. Even beauty has an element of objectivity to it. My students and i decided to test this. We had with us hundreds of photographs of people. These photographs spanned over 200 years (well since the time cameras came out). There was nothing special about these photographs. They were simply portraits of all these people with the same boring flat lighting.
Assume there were infinite of these photographs (you know the gaussian sample space and what not). We showed all these photos to many( again assume infinite) people and asked them to tell us which people they found beautiful. We saw that photographs of people like Denzil Washington were found universally beautiful!
Now many of the people we showed these photographs too probably had not heard of Denzil Washington. So you can't expect me to believe that they picked his profile because they knew of him. No!
Everyone picked profiles like Denzil Washington because they found his profile universally appealing. Do you know why? it's because his profile is SYMMETRIC! This is very rare. Most of our profiles are assymetric!"
David then dashed over to a beautiful huge old shell he had.
"Do you know why this is beautiful? This shell is acclaimed to be universally beautiful because it is a fractal! And what's the first thing that pops into your nut when you hear the word fractal?Yes!! It's the Fibonacci series! The golden ration. This shell's varying spirals follow this golden ration. And for some reason humanity en masse finds this enormously attractive."
I was amazed!! I had always assumed "qualities" like Beauty to be entirely subjective.
We went on to speak about other things. I wanted to know whether weed actually allowed you to visualise things better and so on and so forth.
"We-ell true, the Beatles composed some of their best work after Dylan introduced them to weed. But though this weed business has been hyped up, there were other factors that made them compose better. For one thing they went to their Maha Rishi. Meditation is another way of being able to transcend the materialistic world and think on a higher dimension.
Even a simple exercise like breathing enables us to perceive things more clearly. For instance, the air we breathe in is cooler than the air we breathe out. And we don;t even realise this! But if you sat all day and actually tried paying attention and focusing on our perceptions, we'd actually realise the difference in the temperature of the exhaled air and the inhaled air. We'd also realise that we breathe through one nostril at one point in time and later through the other nostril. This keeps oscillating. So basically this meditation or focusing allows us to perceive things more clearly and to be more aware of ourselves.
Every perception is impermanent, transitory, ephemeral. If a mosquito bit you and you just left your skin alone. For some time you'd experience pain and then after some time that sensation would depart.
Weed and meditation both make you transcend the physical world. They work in different ways though!! :D
"
David then asked me some questions on how I perceived the world. He wanted to know the difference between Illusions and Reality.
For instance, as I'm typing on this computer, the laptop screen appears some distance away from me. But actually that's false. The image of the laptop is on my retina!! And the image on my retina is in black and white! I've got the world on my retina!! And its only my brain which allows me to perceive things differently. Everybody perceives things differently because no body thinks in the same way.
After this conversation I was secretly wondering how anyone reached a consensus at all!! :D
David is a photographer. He's my uncle and also happens to be my god father. i love listening to him talk. he always has an interesting opinion on everything and a knack of telling you interesting things until you just don't want to leave!!
Well unfortunately that conversation had to end and here I am, with all these thoughts buzzing around in my head. I wanted to set them down so that you would buzz too. happy buzzing!! :)
"So you see David, this model basically shows that all top athletes running the 100 m dash have a similar run profile.
The reason Usain Bolt has created so many records is not only because of his body weight
(it is true that the bigger an animal is and the smaller its diameter, the faster it moves)
, though that is a primary factor, but also because of his perfect staging of the race by the adjustment of NOT only the dynamical factors but also the kinematic parameters!"
David, being my god father, allowed me to rave and rant in this strain for some more time. And then he told me some interesting things.
For people of the same age group and similar fitness, the person who has a long fourth finger (starting to count from the thumb)actually runs faster. There was even a paper published to this effect.
Now I'm not quite sure, how much of this is true or whether I have laid down the correct postulated conditions, but this assertion made perfect sense to me.
You see, I am currently reading 'The Origin of the species," and right at the beginning Darwin touches upon the subject of inheritance. He has remarked how certain traits go hand in hand. For example people who suffer from albinism have prickly hair and so on and so forth.
Could it not be possible that people who run faster have similar traits be they ever so imperceptible as the possession of a longer index finger?
I then realized what a complex study, a bio mechanical analysis really was. Not only did the kinematic and dynamic parameters come into play but also so many other genetic factors. Can a comprehensive, all encompassing theory ever be reached??
After talking about athletes for some more time, my conversation with the old flesh and blood took on another turn. We started talking about an alternative term to really measure a country's stature in the globe. All this time we've been using GDP. But hey! China's GDP >USA, but yet most of the population in China lives in poverty while I don't even have to talk about an average US citizen!
We then talked about GDP per capita and whether that was a good enough estimate. But David told me that the government of Bhutan had jumped one step further and had actually developed a happiness quotient for their citizens. I was really skeptical when I heard this and wondered how such a quotient could be measured.
David defended himself like this.
"Well Hinduism has actually defined the terms-Maya and Brahma. Maya is a term for everything that can be measured while Brahma is a term for everything spiritual. I can tell you how tall I am, but I can't measure my soul.
Humans, however, have always tried to come up with parameters to measure qualities. Initially IQ was a considered a good enough estimate as to how clever a person was. But now that has been replaced by EQ. Slowly and steadily we actually are coming steadily closer to characterizing our world.
Now, lets come to 'Beauty'. Is Beauty subjective? Yes? Well actually no. Even beauty has an element of objectivity to it. My students and i decided to test this. We had with us hundreds of photographs of people. These photographs spanned over 200 years (well since the time cameras came out). There was nothing special about these photographs. They were simply portraits of all these people with the same boring flat lighting.
Assume there were infinite of these photographs (you know the gaussian sample space and what not). We showed all these photos to many( again assume infinite) people and asked them to tell us which people they found beautiful. We saw that photographs of people like Denzil Washington were found universally beautiful!
Now many of the people we showed these photographs too probably had not heard of Denzil Washington. So you can't expect me to believe that they picked his profile because they knew of him. No!
Everyone picked profiles like Denzil Washington because they found his profile universally appealing. Do you know why? it's because his profile is SYMMETRIC! This is very rare. Most of our profiles are assymetric!"
David then dashed over to a beautiful huge old shell he had.
"Do you know why this is beautiful? This shell is acclaimed to be universally beautiful because it is a fractal! And what's the first thing that pops into your nut when you hear the word fractal?Yes!! It's the Fibonacci series! The golden ration. This shell's varying spirals follow this golden ration. And for some reason humanity en masse finds this enormously attractive."
I was amazed!! I had always assumed "qualities" like Beauty to be entirely subjective.
We went on to speak about other things. I wanted to know whether weed actually allowed you to visualise things better and so on and so forth.
"We-ell true, the Beatles composed some of their best work after Dylan introduced them to weed. But though this weed business has been hyped up, there were other factors that made them compose better. For one thing they went to their Maha Rishi. Meditation is another way of being able to transcend the materialistic world and think on a higher dimension.
Even a simple exercise like breathing enables us to perceive things more clearly. For instance, the air we breathe in is cooler than the air we breathe out. And we don;t even realise this! But if you sat all day and actually tried paying attention and focusing on our perceptions, we'd actually realise the difference in the temperature of the exhaled air and the inhaled air. We'd also realise that we breathe through one nostril at one point in time and later through the other nostril. This keeps oscillating. So basically this meditation or focusing allows us to perceive things more clearly and to be more aware of ourselves.
Every perception is impermanent, transitory, ephemeral. If a mosquito bit you and you just left your skin alone. For some time you'd experience pain and then after some time that sensation would depart.
Weed and meditation both make you transcend the physical world. They work in different ways though!! :D
"
David then asked me some questions on how I perceived the world. He wanted to know the difference between Illusions and Reality.
For instance, as I'm typing on this computer, the laptop screen appears some distance away from me. But actually that's false. The image of the laptop is on my retina!! And the image on my retina is in black and white! I've got the world on my retina!! And its only my brain which allows me to perceive things differently. Everybody perceives things differently because no body thinks in the same way.
After this conversation I was secretly wondering how anyone reached a consensus at all!! :D
David is a photographer. He's my uncle and also happens to be my god father. i love listening to him talk. he always has an interesting opinion on everything and a knack of telling you interesting things until you just don't want to leave!!
Well unfortunately that conversation had to end and here I am, with all these thoughts buzzing around in my head. I wanted to set them down so that you would buzz too. happy buzzing!! :)
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Chilies, Brian May and me
TAP, Shrax and I sat at China House. All three of us were in a strangely contemplative mood. After a Sahara of endsems we had finally stumbled across an ocean of holidays and the thought of so much freedom immediately burdened us with a host of responsibilities.
Shrax ,as usual, was planning things to plan to plan to do :).
TAP was thinking about her department (She's in Chemical you see :P). She didn't tell us that she was thinking about this but her deep frown and our long experience was a dead give away :).
My mind was on other things. I was dreaming about Brian May....
TAP saw my dreamy expression and asked, "Charlton Heston?"
"No.."
"Don Mclean?"
"No."
"Bobby Fischer, Ringo Starr, P.G. Wodehouse, Somerse.."
"No, no, no!! I was thinking about Brian May! Dude, he's the most awesome guitarist ever!! I'm so crazy about him! Did you hear, "Don't Stop Me Now"? His guitar was almost speaking! That guitar is his own personal design. It's called a Red Special and he plays it using a coin as a pick! And he's an astrophysicist and he's published two papers and has co authored a book and..."
"And is a total studdax. Yeah, yeah... I know what you're going to say. But first of all Jimi Hendrix is God. Secondly John Mayer, Derek Trucks, and John Frusciante are ranked above Brian May in the top 100 guitarists of all time. Brian May is 39th. Thirdly he isn't even hot!"
"Dude who cares about stupid ratings! You can't compare guitarists like that! May is superb! Have you heard the song, "Hammer to Fall"? I bet you haven't because that's the only reason you aren't down on your knees worshiping that guy! And as for the last absolutely frivolous point, well let me tell you, looks don't matter if you're an astrophysicist!!"
I tried to make myself ignore the fact that I usually used the last argument to support MY case :). I fully expected TAP to knock me down flat on this point and I was thinking furiously about what to say in response! But I had under estimated TAP yet again!
She had a far more diabolical plan in store. She grinned evilly and said sweetly, "Well, you think Brian May is God right?"
"Yes!"
"And basically in ancient times, the Christians would allow themselves to be thrown to the lions rather than renounce their faith in their God right?"
"Ye-es."
"Well suppose they were asked to eat chillies instead of being thrown to the lions. They would do that immediately right?"
"Sure dumbass! I'm sure any person would rather eat chillies than be thrown to lions!"
"Excellent! We think alike in this at least. Well, if you believe Brian May is God, then why don't you eat this nice spoonful of chillies and prove it!"
I had a strange feeling that I was reliving the 'witch' scene in Monty Python. But I stuck my chin up. TAP had taken base advantage of my feelings, but I wasn't going to give in so easily. I looked down at the spoon she was holding and gasped.
TAP was holding a huge table spoon laden with chillies drowned in vinegar! My heart stopped in my mouth.
"We-ell, if you don't really care about Brian..then I bet-"
'Of course Brian is God. Here, give me that spoon." I said as nonchalantly as possible.
Before TAP could say another word, I had shoved the spoon in my mouth.
Dear Reader, I shall draw a curtain over the next 20 minutes that followed. All I can remember was that I repeatedly shouted for a fire extinguisher as I felt my throat was on fire. Shrax for the first time acted impromptu (there being no time to draw up a plan) and rushed me to Baskin and Robbins next door.
As for TAP, she was distraught! She thought she had killed me and in between laughing, she started rambling about things like 'self defense.'
4 mentos and an ice cream later we were back on campus.
The sky was overflowing with stars. TAP as usual was also overflowing with glee at this and kept on gloating over Jupiter and various constellations.
Tired out, she then sat down and said, "You know what..Brian May is damn good man!.."
I sighed with satisfaction. My suffering was not in vain!! :D
Shrax ,as usual, was planning things to plan to plan to do :).
TAP was thinking about her department (She's in Chemical you see :P). She didn't tell us that she was thinking about this but her deep frown and our long experience was a dead give away :).
My mind was on other things. I was dreaming about Brian May....
TAP saw my dreamy expression and asked, "Charlton Heston?"
"No.."
"Don Mclean?"
"No."
"Bobby Fischer, Ringo Starr, P.G. Wodehouse, Somerse.."
"No, no, no!! I was thinking about Brian May! Dude, he's the most awesome guitarist ever!! I'm so crazy about him! Did you hear, "Don't Stop Me Now"? His guitar was almost speaking! That guitar is his own personal design. It's called a Red Special and he plays it using a coin as a pick! And he's an astrophysicist and he's published two papers and has co authored a book and..."
"And is a total studdax. Yeah, yeah... I know what you're going to say. But first of all Jimi Hendrix is God. Secondly John Mayer, Derek Trucks, and John Frusciante are ranked above Brian May in the top 100 guitarists of all time. Brian May is 39th. Thirdly he isn't even hot!"
"Dude who cares about stupid ratings! You can't compare guitarists like that! May is superb! Have you heard the song, "Hammer to Fall"? I bet you haven't because that's the only reason you aren't down on your knees worshiping that guy! And as for the last absolutely frivolous point, well let me tell you, looks don't matter if you're an astrophysicist!!"
I tried to make myself ignore the fact that I usually used the last argument to support MY case :). I fully expected TAP to knock me down flat on this point and I was thinking furiously about what to say in response! But I had under estimated TAP yet again!
She had a far more diabolical plan in store. She grinned evilly and said sweetly, "Well, you think Brian May is God right?"
"Yes!"
"And basically in ancient times, the Christians would allow themselves to be thrown to the lions rather than renounce their faith in their God right?"
"Ye-es."
"Well suppose they were asked to eat chillies instead of being thrown to the lions. They would do that immediately right?"
"Sure dumbass! I'm sure any person would rather eat chillies than be thrown to lions!"
"Excellent! We think alike in this at least. Well, if you believe Brian May is God, then why don't you eat this nice spoonful of chillies and prove it!"
I had a strange feeling that I was reliving the 'witch' scene in Monty Python. But I stuck my chin up. TAP had taken base advantage of my feelings, but I wasn't going to give in so easily. I looked down at the spoon she was holding and gasped.
TAP was holding a huge table spoon laden with chillies drowned in vinegar! My heart stopped in my mouth.
"We-ell, if you don't really care about Brian..then I bet-"
'Of course Brian is God. Here, give me that spoon." I said as nonchalantly as possible.
Before TAP could say another word, I had shoved the spoon in my mouth.
Dear Reader, I shall draw a curtain over the next 20 minutes that followed. All I can remember was that I repeatedly shouted for a fire extinguisher as I felt my throat was on fire. Shrax for the first time acted impromptu (there being no time to draw up a plan) and rushed me to Baskin and Robbins next door.
As for TAP, she was distraught! She thought she had killed me and in between laughing, she started rambling about things like 'self defense.'
4 mentos and an ice cream later we were back on campus.
The sky was overflowing with stars. TAP as usual was also overflowing with glee at this and kept on gloating over Jupiter and various constellations.
Tired out, she then sat down and said, "You know what..Brian May is damn good man!.."
I sighed with satisfaction. My suffering was not in vain!! :D
Poems
Love
A mystical emotion filled with meaning
An understanding between two people
But yet stopping here is saying too little
Because love is really much more than this
So how do we describe it ?
This devouring emotion
This feeling so strangely common place
it is too sacred to try to dissect it
So maybe we should just let it be
Let it be and be real careful
Try to be strong and resist the temptation
Because if we are caught....
We may never have peace....
A mystical emotion filled with meaning
An understanding between two people
But yet stopping here is saying too little
Because love is really much more than this
So how do we describe it ?
This devouring emotion
This feeling so strangely common place
it is too sacred to try to dissect it
So maybe we should just let it be
Let it be and be real careful
Try to be strong and resist the temptation
Because if we are caught....
We may never have peace....
Dam burst of dreams
Months of sorrow
Frustrated ambitions
Dull and weary
full of inhibitions
And finally freedom
so frighteningly new
it took some time to get used to
And then thoughts flow
with old vividity
Butterflies and birds
god speed monotony
And then a total collapse
A tearing of seams
I give myself entirely
To my dam burst of dreams...
Frustrated ambitions
Dull and weary
full of inhibitions
And finally freedom
so frighteningly new
it took some time to get used to
And then thoughts flow
with old vividity
Butterflies and birds
god speed monotony
And then a total collapse
A tearing of seams
I give myself entirely
To my dam burst of dreams...
For the Glory of a Potato
For the glory of a Potato :D
I went down to my mess for dinner one night. It had been a lovely day and I was humming blissfully when suddenly I heard the words "Potatoes ..again". I stopped dead in my tracks. One can always tell what people mean when they use certain tones. And this tone definitely meant that if you replaced "again" with "daya MAX" it would amount to the same thing.
I was deeply moved and went up to the unwary owner of the "tone" and gave her a piece of mind in no uncertain terms. Didn't she know that potatoes were one of the things that made life worth living? Once ones teeth sank into the golden brown skin what bliss it was to sit there and savour the moment. Roast potatoes , boiled potatoes, fried potatoes and potatoes with butter! One cannot view potatoes as just another vegetable. They are not the "also ran"s. No Potatoes lie in their golden glory as the king of their kind.
So caught up was I in my eloquence that I had failed to realise that I was by now alone and the only thing paying any heed to me was the old magpie. it was eyeing me with beady eyes, waiting for left over scraps as usual. Why it ever bothers to come to our mess when h3 is just ahead is still beyond me. But I guess that if it could understand what i was saying it would definitely sympathize with me. Like me it has several times shown an intelligent understanding of potatoes. Comforted with this reflection i heaped some potatoes on my plate.
But the story does not end here. A few minutes later another one of the unenlightened ones came up to me and eyed my plate distastefully. "If you eat any more of those you'll end up like a potato yourself", she said. For the second time in 5 minutes I was choked with emotion.
"Thankyou", i finally managed to splutter. "What?!" and with a huff she had left me to my thoughts and my potatoes.
A potato is a living thing. i respect it tremendously . Not only does it allow itself to be buried in the belly of earth for weeks, but it suffers itself to be sacrificed for the rest of its race. Other potatoes spring from the buds or eyes of the parent and grow into gorgeous strapping representatives of its class.
Like humans there are many different types of potatoes. Sweet potatoes being one of my favourites. One can cook them using a variety of methods too. A potato is as whimsical as a woman. It has so many different shades of personality. When it is roasted we see the crispness of its character. When its boiled we see its softness. A potato is inherently a very gentlemanly object.
With all these wonderful attributes, i wonder if it is humanly possible to take offence when one is likened to one!
Therefore, I sincerely hope that next time you chance across a potato you will view it with the respect it deserves!!
:D
I went down to my mess for dinner one night. It had been a lovely day and I was humming blissfully when suddenly I heard the words "Potatoes ..again". I stopped dead in my tracks. One can always tell what people mean when they use certain tones. And this tone definitely meant that if you replaced "again" with "daya MAX" it would amount to the same thing.
I was deeply moved and went up to the unwary owner of the "tone" and gave her a piece of mind in no uncertain terms. Didn't she know that potatoes were one of the things that made life worth living? Once ones teeth sank into the golden brown skin what bliss it was to sit there and savour the moment. Roast potatoes , boiled potatoes, fried potatoes and potatoes with butter! One cannot view potatoes as just another vegetable. They are not the "also ran"s. No Potatoes lie in their golden glory as the king of their kind.
So caught up was I in my eloquence that I had failed to realise that I was by now alone and the only thing paying any heed to me was the old magpie. it was eyeing me with beady eyes, waiting for left over scraps as usual. Why it ever bothers to come to our mess when h3 is just ahead is still beyond me. But I guess that if it could understand what i was saying it would definitely sympathize with me. Like me it has several times shown an intelligent understanding of potatoes. Comforted with this reflection i heaped some potatoes on my plate.
But the story does not end here. A few minutes later another one of the unenlightened ones came up to me and eyed my plate distastefully. "If you eat any more of those you'll end up like a potato yourself", she said. For the second time in 5 minutes I was choked with emotion.
"Thankyou", i finally managed to splutter. "What?!" and with a huff she had left me to my thoughts and my potatoes.
A potato is a living thing. i respect it tremendously . Not only does it allow itself to be buried in the belly of earth for weeks, but it suffers itself to be sacrificed for the rest of its race. Other potatoes spring from the buds or eyes of the parent and grow into gorgeous strapping representatives of its class.
Like humans there are many different types of potatoes. Sweet potatoes being one of my favourites. One can cook them using a variety of methods too. A potato is as whimsical as a woman. It has so many different shades of personality. When it is roasted we see the crispness of its character. When its boiled we see its softness. A potato is inherently a very gentlemanly object.
With all these wonderful attributes, i wonder if it is humanly possible to take offence when one is likened to one!
Therefore, I sincerely hope that next time you chance across a potato you will view it with the respect it deserves!!
:D
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