Category Archive: Uncategorized

Here is the deal. The art of making a good cup of hot chocolate is painfully dead. It is dead in the hands of Cafe Roma, it is sadly perished in the premises of Fairbanks and it is lying in a blood spattered carapace in the fresh battlefields of Cafe Vita. Believe me, I don't want to carry the mantle of the agonisingly precise clairvoyant that I am generally considered (*smug glow of self-satisfaction*), hence I shudder when I see my theory of increasing 'isotropicity of mediocrity' taking shape in the various walks of life.

This new theory is like the second law of thermodynamics and so far, I have failed to find even a single exception. Much like "Sadi Carnot" predicted that left on its own, the universe would move from a more organised state to a disorganised one, my theory says that in the absence of proper punitive measures and in the presence of an illusion of free will, humanity is apt to move from a creatively rich state to a relatively mentally dead one. And it happens because there isn't really a free will anywhere but only an illusion of one. If you look at the history of human civilization you would see something very peculiar. Creativity has seen surges of genius during small phases of time. While art flourished in leaps and bounds during Rennaisance in Europe, music for examplt saw a peak in the quality of content beginning the later part of Mughal era till the first part of the last century in the Indian subcontinent, and science had its heydays during Galileo/Newton and then finally culminated with a bang with the advent of Einstein and the brilliant assortment of minds who gave rise to elementary physics. There is something common to all these times. The greatest feats in human creativity were never carried because of social support or need but despite that. It was a result of the free will that failed to acknowledge the immediate needs of the masses and didn't bother itself with the petty details of incremental developments that is so necessary for the sustainence of the society. We start witnessing mental decay when free will is replaced with just its illusion. Its free will in the theoretical sense of term. Its just a word and frankly not of much use. While free to do whatever we want, its rare that we muster courage enough to disregard social norms and actually carry out our heart's desires. Anyways I have digressed quite a lot.

What I want to point out here is that the decay of the art of making good hot chocolate is a perfect example of increasing mediocrity and the fact that its equally prevalent in atleast 4 different cafes in San Diego just goes on to show that this mediocrity suffers from a debilitating isotropicity of space. Risking being termed a geek, the quality of hot chocolate in general seems to be a function of two variables. While it is symmetric in space and hence can be adequately represented by spherical coordinates, it seems to have an exponentially decaying dependence of time. Qualitatively speaking, a good hot chocolate is more than just a mixture of milk, chocolate and sugar. In-fact it would be a mistake calling it a mere mixture. Its like a compound wherein the whole becomes larger than the sum of its parts. While I am at it, let me just give this new compund a symbol (M6C2S : 6 parts of milk mixed with 2 parts of chocolate and 1 part of sugar) so that it could finally take its rightful place under the sun. It has a denser consistency than mere milk but falls well short of the disgusting solidity of a smoothie. Making it from 2% or fat free milk should officially be declared a crime liable to be dealt with capital punishment. In fact making anything with anything other than the full blown fat rich milk should atleast carry a penalty of 500$. While I am at it, lets just ban fat free milk and propose a resolution for burning up all the soy fields in the world so that people have better things to piss off their times with than making vegetarian chicken, low fat milk and meat-like vegetarian burger patties. I see that I have digressed again but then thats how chaos works. Thats how incoherence earns her bread and butter.

Its 2 in the night and I cannot sleep because I slept for the most part of the day today. So I thought, hmm, what shall I do ? Lets see how honest I can be with myself and try to jot down my own weaknesses. I am sure, with the amount of matter that would be available, I will get bored and go down to sleep before I am even half way through. So here it goes, a hopefully honest analysis of myself:

1. I think I am a bit of a cynic. Especially when it comes to new aquaintances. For me, every new person I meet basically is a pain to begin with unless he or she proves otherwise. People have pointed out my amazing ability at nitpicking small faults with everything under the sun. On the brighter side, it doesn't take a lot for me to change my first impressions and I believe, I get on pretty well with most of the people for a small duration of time and a small number of people for most of the time i.e. once I come to know them better. As far as other things are concerned, I have extremely strong likes and dislikes. My opinions on my dislikes are in many cases so concrete that I am generally not able to see their good points. Yes, opinionated would be the word. Extremely highly opinionated. Close mindedness can also be associated with me.

2. I am a loner. There is no way I can indulge in team activities or work with a group of people towards a common goal. I find it extremely suffocating. While I am at it, let me just say that I pretty much suck at every quality an average manager should possess. Team Building, leadership, and all that jargon those MBAs use. And its not even that I feel sad at it. There is a sense of wicked happiness at knowing that I suck at those.

3. Emotionally weak. I have this stupid habit of letting my heart do the thinking in important matters of life, something that has more than once landed me into trouble. I try to put up a facade of being emotionally secure but honestly speaking, if people think that way, only my acting needs to be commended. Which also makes me a bit of a hypocrite, I guess. But then I guess, everyone is a bit of a hypocrite in some way or another. I try not to be one in most matters and in this particular one, I can atleast take solace in the fact that my hypocrisy does not harm anyone else.

4. Possesiveness and Jealousy. I generally do not care about most of the things in the world. I certainly do not possess these feelings when it comes to anything material. And by anything, I mean absolutely anything material in the world. But there have been cases when I surprised myself at how jealous and possesive I could be and how detrimental I could be for myself.

5. I think I have bipolar disorder. Or thats what I would like to believe since it sounds so cool. Anyways, what I was really trying to say is that I have huge mood swings.

6. Most of whatever I say is junk. I somehow manage to maintain a consistent state of incoherence despite being absolutely teetotal. I have this vague feeling that we all take life too seriously so in my quest of correcting things out, I am contributing in my own small way towards a more meaningless future, mainly by maintaining a largely chaotic state of thought most of the time.

7. I am a narcissist. Hence this blog, hence the other blogs. Most importantly, hence this particular post. Even though I am just talking about my weaknesses, there is the guilty realization somewhere of the saying: Bad publicity is better than no publicity.

Feeling sleepy now. Will probably complete the list if I have enough enthu left.

If thought is food for the brain, I must say, the last few days have been quite sumptuous for my malnutritioned mind. Through intense deliberations and numerous arguments, through myriad paths of reasoning, and diverse ways of logic, I seem to have realized whats only very well known about life already. While Descarte set the stage on fire by his cogitation on the trustworthiness, or rather the lack of it in most matters pertaining to life except one's capacity to doubt, I have formally come to the conclusion, 'Why bother ?'. Put in other words, it simply means what each one of us is subconsciously aware of but are too chicken to admit, i.e. 'It does not matter'. Not only does everything not matter, the worse part is, driven by the higher intellect that we as humans have been gifted with, we just do not want to face this cruel fact.

And how did I realize this ? Simple. I just went through the history of human civilization and did not find even a single human being who was born before 1890 and had not died by now. Countless philanthropists, numerous criminals, innumerable literateurs and poets and leaders, thousands of philosophers and saints, all of them just withered away against the winds of time. Sure we remember a lot of them by what they did but at the risk of hurting our collective ego, might I just add here, 'So ?'. Human life has this cruel habit of wearing rose tints on its glasses. It smears the truth that is painfully out there and gives us a misplaced sense of self-importance, and creates for us a cruel illusion of a higher purpose for which a mortal being should aspire. Our narcissistic indulgence, often bodering on vulgar self-occupation, has created this elaborate stage where we are led to believe that since we have a higher capacity of intelligent cognition as compared to say a monkey, somehow our purpose here on earth should be higher and nobler than the lesser creatures who primarily live to feed and reproduce. We often tend to ignore the argument that had these animals possesed the intelligence to invent slightly better means of intellectual pastimes, they would probably have lived their lives for things more than just food and reproduction. Come to think of it, we all do the same. We have invented pastimes our intelligence allows and are happy to live through our lives on them without even thinking about why we should be living the way we are. Thats exactly what animals do. Nature, as the great leveller she is, makes us all equal in this subtle way wherein each of the species on this planet just keeps doing what it knows best, completely unconcerned about the weightier issues of 'What and Why'. And then she acts like the unreasonable hag that she is and punishes humanity for its intelligence with its painful realization of its emotional suffering.

All this intelligence that we are so smug of, only goes into making our lives more miserable. Of all the human faculties that our intelligence has engendered and that have led to his sorry state, I believe there is none more cruel than hope. It keeps driving us like a horse with a carrot tied in his front and we keep running after that carrot week after week, month after month, year after freaking year. True, the carrot keeps changing but the thing that never changes is its capacity to delude. Somewhere down below it makes us all believe that we are working towards a better life, never actually realizing what that ideal is. And it is only natural. In this constantly flowing world, it is only appropriate that our ideals are also fluid. Hope deludes us in the guise of love, it decieves us in the garb of wealth, misleads us under the viel of fame and tricks us in success. And it does it all so cruelly and laughs all the way at the fool man makes of himself.

So what should man do to circumvent this conundrum? How should life be led? Now that we have concluded that the worth of our lives is no pricier than that of an earthworm and no cheaper than the greatest leaders, how exactly should it be led ? On a scale as cosmic as our universe, it is only a folly as blinding as narcissism that can make us believe otherwise. I think that the least that we can do is to live in a way that makes us happy. Its sounds pretty simple in theory but alas, human mind has developed to such a complexity, it refuses to accept things so simple and untangled. There are so many issues cluttering the space between our ears, it is hard to fathom how such simplicity could be comprehended. Even if we do realize it, our social considerations have placed such tight restraints over our souls, it is often next to impossible to put our noble intentions in practice. Perhaps we can all live a better life if we just realize that its not going to matter in the end. It does sound awfully pessimistic but who said that the rules of life could not and should not have been written in the Shakesperean way of a shattering tragedy. Realization of truth can never be termed pessimistic. It is merely intelligent and like all things intelligent, it has an underlying sadness. Its like a dying flower. Its not the flower that is sad. Its the idea of its dying that is sad and that idea is nothing but a child of our own intelligence.

Well I finally came around to starting a new blog (have been planning it for quiet some time now) that is going to concern exclusively with Calvin and Hobbes. I cannot even begin to explain how much I have learned from Bill Watterson. I just hope this new effort would not succumb as another victim to my lethargy:

Comic Relief

Do you remember the time when barred from going out, you watched the rain pour down heavily on the closed window panes, spattering and sputtering on the sill, and covering the world on the other side of the glass in a white turbulent haze? Do you remember the cold seeping through the small crevices at the edges of a less than perfect window? Do you remember the ever so slight hiss that accompanied the damp wind as it tried to force open the only obstruction separating her from you? And the thin sheet of fog that further blurred the view of an increasingly wetting world outside. And the water droplets that formed on your palms when you tried to wipe it off. Do you remember the smell of the wet earth as it filled your senses on a monsoon day? With the trees swaying in a gay abandon, recently formed puddles of water getting irritated by the non ending rain, muddy, deserted streets playing host just to scared, dripping street dogs and rickety old tea shops brimming with people looking impatiently for the rain to subside. Do you remember the black umbrellas and the blue raincoats and the old translucent plastic sheets covering the top of 'rickshaws' and 'thelas'? And the rythmic sound of water beating down on the tin tops of indefinitely closed neighbourhood shops, finally finding its way through nondescript pipes and crevices and brinks into the rivulet that became of the already monsoon battered market road? Do the muffled sounds of a dazed town breathing slightly for a life punctuated by a merciless downpour still ring a bell? And yes, the smell again. The smell of wet earth. Do you remember that? The smell that permeated the gray, hazy, cold atmosphere painted with constantly dripping arabesque. And the blurry outlines of children wearing wet Baniyans and battered shorts creating ruckus in the muddy puddles. What about the pleasantly menacing sky with the nimbostratus clouds in a constant fight of supremacy against sunlight. And the tingling of cold, wet water as it poured down on your face while you tried to look up to the sky with half open eyes. What did you see then ? Was it just the rain ? Or was it the sight of independence. An infinite joy breathing within the confines of a few moments.

After considerable deliberation and thinking it has occured to me that the most serious issues in life are more efficiently dealt with by the most trivial of mediums and seemingly the most simplistic of perceptions. I have seen that knowledge and information beyond a point have a way of muddling up facts, smearing up connections and finally blurring up conclusions into an incoherent mass of half baked opinions. Experience, although a worthy teacher, more often than not, only serves to consolidate ideas already seething with subjective bias. In a world too messed up with complex opinions, I find that the most intelligent observations and the most heartfelt commentaries occur in mediums deemed too stupid for intellectual discussions.

That is why I feel that comics have such an important place in society. They are not expected to be the mouthpiece of rationality and social change. They are not expected to be intelligent commentaries on economic problems and moral regression. No one expects them to speak thoughtfully on matters pertaining to religion and humanity. That is precisely the reason why the field is infested with idiots like Jim Davis but the fact of the matter is that only because comics are not obligated to be any of the above, their creators have the freedom to make them all of it and more. And in the past, atleast some of them have taken it upon themselves to make their creations more than just slapstick humor.

One that obviously comes to mind and to which I have alluded a number of times previously is Calvin and Hobbes. With the deft social commentary on issues as varied as the hypocritical nature of modern artist to man's complete failure at preserving the purity of planet Earth, C&H manages to speak much more than those bloated politicians and conceited economists. With Calvin, Watterson on one hand manages to evoke the nostalgia of simplicity, purity and innocence and on the other paints a lighthearted yet grim pictutre of a world increasingly getting encroached with degrading morality. He speaks about the evanescent nature of life with the same wit and tone as when he recounts Calvin's simple flirtations with Susie Derkins. He derides a whole generation caught in the celebrity obsession, ruefully talks about the encroachment of privacy by reality shows and silently snubs the go-getter, high octane, win-or-die attitude that drives today's economy. All in all, Watterson speaks with the detachment of an outsider and the sadness of someone who has lost all hope, and he manages to bring some really dark issues to light. He makes you (atleast me) think about our misplaced priorities in life, and he does it all in a very matter of fact, straight in your face way.

The other comic that seems to be too intelligent to be recommended just for 6 year olds is Peanuts by Charles Schulz. With the extremely simple drawings lacking even the most basic ornateness, Schulz delineates the most tender of emotions. Watterson himself once said of Schulz: "We recognize ourselves in Schulz's vividly tragic characters: Charlie Brown's dogged determination in the face of constant defeat, Lucy's self-righteous crabbiness, Linus' need for a security blanket, Peppermint Patty's plain looks and poor grades, Rerun's baffled innocence, Spike's pathetic alienation and loneliness. For a "kid strip" with "gentle humor," it shows a pretty dark world, and I think this is what makes the strip so different from, and so much more significant than, other comics. Only with the inspired surrealism of Snoopy does the strip soar into silliness and fantasy. And even then, the Red Baron shoots the doghouse full of holes.". Schulz has managed to inspire a whole generation of cartoonists and made them realize the possibilities vested in the simplicity of the quill brush lines. He has managed to elevate a supposedly trivial medium to an art form just by his gifted insight and tremendous creative ability.

Finally comes Krazy Kat by George Herriman. Actually I am not familiar enough with the strip to speak intelligently about it but I have read quiet a lot about it and am intending to read it some time in the future. The strip was syndicated way back in 1913 and it ran in newspapers till 1944. Although widely regarded now as the most intelligent and poignant strip ever created, it did not see popularity till the later half of the century. The premise, although extremely drab and monotonous by present standards, nevertheless gave the artist enough room to create lush landscapes peppered with ornately poetic language and subdued yet deep emotions of unrequited love and absolute apathy.

I find that human ego is too much of a detriment today to find common grounds over social issues from which a clearer perspective could be gained. Spurred by the prejudices accumulated over a lifetime, people become far too inflexible to yield even a yard of ground to opposing views. In such a case, I'd rather just let the flights of fantasy of Calvin take me to a world thats much more simpler, much more truer, much more honest and frankly speaking much more in-tune with me.

Since I am moving to this new apartment, I have a few things that I need to do. Now you guys might not find these very important but believe me, some of these things have been driving me nuts.

1. There are these 2 trees just in front of our balcony (we have the ground floor). Actually they are not very tall. The taller of those is about 10 inches tall so I am not sure if you can call them trees. I have plans of buying an easy chair and putting it in the porch so that I could relax while looking at the scenery in front. I have a vague feeling that those wretched trees might block my view. Some people have dismissed this as paranoidal fear pointing out to me that my line of sight would probably lie significantly above 10 inches from the ground but I am not buying that. Even if I agree that they would not interfere with my leisure now, who knows what they might be upto say 5 months from now. Who is going to stop them from growing say 2 feet tall? What will I be supposed to do when they spread their deadly tentacles to occupy the best portions of the porch ? I think I have to act and I have to act fast and with purpose. I have to wait for an oppurtune moment in the dead of the night and wrench them out of the ground when no one is watching and then cover up my tracks. But then I also have to think about the repercussions when the neighbours suddenly one fine day find a garden with two less trees. Maybe I will need to pace myself. You know, take one leaf out every night so that no one will notice this extremely gradual withering. 2 months of hard work but lo and behold: a clean, unobstructed view. Me:1 Nature+Miramar Apartments: 0. Actually there are two more trees after these two but they are just too big for my expertise. My ego is big but just not big enough to confront them so I will satisfy it by pulling out the smaller ones.

2. I have recently noticed that my new cereal bowl is far too big. I mean, its garangutan. It almost holds the whole box of cereal. For the quantity of cereal I eat, I need to throw stones in the bowl so that the milk and cereal may come up (like the crow did). Its not just that. The bowl is so big, it takes 5 minutes for the cereal I throw in to reach the bottom and 3 minutes for the sound of 'thud' to come up. So I need to wait for 8 minutes after I throw the cereal in before I could make plans of eating it. Nothing serious but I find that a bit inconvenient.

Well, this is all that is bugging me now. I am sure you will all agree that these are really important problems and would drive any sane person nuts. Each one individually is challenging enough to require the undivided attention of a normal human being. Together, they are almost killing a sub-intelligent creature like me.

Well, I am in one of those blue moods again. Maybe its the conference I am attending. I somehow become much more aware of the futility of it all when I see a bunch of middle aged over enthusiasts vainly trying to impress upon the audience as to how their work is fundamentally different from that of all those who have walked on the same path before. I keep listening to all these presentations and after a certain amount of time, it just becomes all so monotonous and routine. Novelty gives way to boredom. Technology starts looking mundane. Every other plot becomes that much more incomprehensible and the technical jargon effectively blurs out whatever little meaning that the author was trying to communicate in the first place. I have formally come to the conclusion that Conferences suck. There are far too less people really interested in getting something out of the presentations, myself not being one of them. Most of them are there just to increase their contacts by that despicable act of 'Networking' and I am not in it even for this. Which makes me think, Why am I really here. I do have a presentation tomorrow but mostly its the advisor on my throat. If only I could get out of attending any future conferences.

The best part of the trip has been my visit to San Francisco which I think is the main reason for the blueness of my mood. I drove upto the Golden Gate bridge, spent some time in the shivering wind, staring down at the water below, met a friend in a lovely little cafe, had a little chat and then drove back to Palo Alto, which being part of Bay Area (Silicon Valley) sucks by the way. Anyways, the fact is, somethings are just so perfect, they leave an aftertaste of desire for more. They make you re-evaluate your priorities and make you wonder about the worthiness of your life. The trip to San Francisco was so perfect, I do not even want to go and present tomorrow.

It has sporadically occured to me, but I feel that most of us are not doing enough with our lives. We could certaily do with a dose of refined culture, a sprinkling of a bit of art, you know, the good things in life. Our lives lead paths which are too well defined to allow for the excitement that results from unpredictability. Our daily routines are far too rigid and I wonder how exactly am I able to spend every other day with the exact same schedule, without anything special to look forward to. Somehow, we have managed to become so subservient to the monotonicity permeating our routines, we have actually become immune to its cruel realization. We forget how much more we could pack in every single minute. We tend to overlook the fact that, well, its a continually passing oppurtunity, a priviledge that we get just once, and its slipping from our fingers with every passing minute. Its high time we (or atleast I) stop living just to eat, just to fulfill the next deadline, just to burn the day's quota of calories, just to see who gets thrown out of Indian Idol, just to complete another day because lets face it, if we ever try to look at the big picture, it will be plainly apparent as to how priceless each day could be and how mercilessly we are wasting them away.

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe its just because I am in one of those blue moods today :).

Well, I am sitting here in this Air-India flight bound to LA. It has just taken off from Frankfurt which means that 8 hours of the stipulated 18 hours of torture is over.

Delhi airport this time was unbearable. Huge lines, faulty baggage scanners leading to delays, inefficient flight staff which meant the average standing time in a queue consisting of 5 people was atleast an hour and airport roofs dripping under the effect of the recent torrential downpours. The flight started late by about 2 hours which is a harbinger of inconveniences to come as I would most probably miss my LA-SD connection and since that connection is the last one in the day, I would probably have to spend the night in the airport unless I decide to drive down to SD in a rental car.

Here in the aircraft, things don't seem to be much better with one of the Air-Hostesses almost slitting my throat open from ear to ear when I asked her for a clarification over some confusion regarding the immigration forms.

"Yes ?"
"Actually, I need the other form too.", I said with a sheepish almost guilty smile.
"But I just asked you. You just needed one form then. How come you changed your mind, huh ?"
"Actually, I did not hear you clearly and when I do not hear something clearly, I just say yes. I am really sorry. It won't happen again. Please don't slit my throat open from ear to ear."
"OK. Better beware next time.", and with this she gave me a glimpse of her hatchet, its sharp edges gleaming with an evil shine, its countenance barely hiding a grisly longing for human blood.

So I have decided to shut the hell up and read the newspaper I had bought at the Delhi Airport. OK, its Times of India so I should probably not call it a newspaper. The headlines are boring and to a high degree stupid. Their take on Sports sensationalistic at best and their coverage of local issues miniscule to say the least. Page 3 seems to have the highest amount of action. I have noticed something very peculiar about the Page-3 of TOI. Why does it always come on Page-2 ? Anyways, I look at the polls for today. 7% have replied 'Can't Say'. I cannot believe what kind of a stupid answer is that. Why does anyone have to go through the pains of booting up his computer, connecting the internet, launching IE, opening his mail, and then sending an email response to TOI poll with an opinion of 'Can't Say'. If you 'Can't Say', you might as well 'Not Say'. When you come to look at it, its just a 'Yes' and a 'No' question. How difficult can it be ? Roll the dice and take your chances. Unless your answer could jeopardize national security over socially irrelevant and intellectually insulting questions, JUST SAY IT. I cannot believe that all these serials and news shows on TV are running polls where their third option is 'Can't Say'. Way to piss off your six rupees. Just send them an SMS at premium rates with your choice as 'C'.

Actually I had a lot of things in mind but I seem to have forgotten all of them. So I will just stop here. While on the flight from Delhi to Frankfurt, there was this nice lady sitting beside me who teaches Yoga in Oregon and had gone to Pune to learn from a guru. It was nice talking to her and the 8 hours did not seem all that long. The remaining 10, I am afraid, are going to be excruciating.

I cannot believe that I had not read this ass-kickery of a book till now. I always had it with me but could never proceed beyond a few pages. A mistake, I would say, since this is one of the most original, shrewd, cunning, shamelessly direct, directly morbid, and morbidly hilarious pieces of text ever put together. Yes, its the pinnacle of dark humor. Its a novel like no other. Its rationale is so insanely sane, you would have re-evaluate the rose tint on your glasses thats smearing away the cruel and unjust world around you.

The book is set in an American bombing squadron stationed in Italy during the end of the second world war. It mainly follows the life and actions of its main protagonist named Yossarian who is paranoid because it seems to him that everyone is out to kill him. The Germans are trying to bomb his plane and those who are not trying to kill him directly are trying to do so indirectly by sending him on more bombing missions so that the Germans could bomb his plane. The problem with him is that as soon as he finishes the required number of bombing missions before he could be sent home, his commanding officer increases the required number. In this grim scenario, the only way by which Yossarian could avoid getting killed is by feigning physical or mental illness and spending his time in the army hospital and wait for the war to get over. In this pursuit he approaches the army doctor to see if he could be grounded if he could prove that he was crazy. Its here that the full import of Catch-22 is presented before the reader:

" There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he [Yossarian] observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.

"

The book is a masterpiece of circular logic and hilariously dumb scenarios. It moves effortlessly between numbing absurdity and grotesque reality. Through its characteristic frankness which often borders on revolting intimacy, it makes you see the futility of a world gone wrong. Heller has woven the throbbing and pulsating images of dying children, utter devastation, crass commercialism, and mindless patriotism with perseverance, honesty, morality and purity. And he has done all this over the backdrop of a language that is brutally funny and frighteningly incisive.

Yossarian, as it seems to me, is the second most insane person in his squadron. But he needs all his insanity to grasp the magnitude of the insanity of war itself. Just like the way you need to be stupid to appreciate Ekta Kapoor, you need to be crazy to realize the futility and absurdity of nations fighting against each other over arbitrary non-geographical boundaries. When you come to think of it, man hardly seems to be the most intelligent animal when he has screwed up the situations so completely.