"I know."

What were to happen if we did have the ability to know everything about something? What if the possibility of knowing everything existed?

Say for instance, I know I need to get to Kanjur station quickly because a usual, I'm running late. It's 6:30 pm, and

the traffic is a mad, ravaging beast of screeching horns and savage wheels, a growling, yelling, vicious, anxious metallic beast, with its guts spilling out in all directions on the road, and

I know I'm going to get frustrated by the fact that the BMC/BEST has shifted the bus stop farther away from Main Gate, and built a road divider in between the lane going towards Kanjur/Eastern Express Highway, in an effort to create a separate lane for buses, but because bikers and company buses choke this lane, BEST buses usually take the other lane meant for everybody else, while I do an angry, dangerous dance from one lane to the other, and

I know that as a result of the frustration and lack of time, I'm going to hitch a bike-ride to Kanjur. 

It is so defeating to know everything. Surprises are lost. The kick you get out of doing something differently is lost. The exquisite angst of an existential crisis is lost, the overwhelming brightness and warmth of an epiphany is lost. The wonder at your abilities to do something you never imagined you could, is lost.

While reading the paper yesterday, I chanced upon an article by Jaron Lanier. He wrote a paper called One-Half of a Manifesto (2000), on opposing "cybernetic totalism". I quote Wiki -

At the end he warns that the biggest problem of any theory (esp. iedology) is not that it is false, "but when it claims to be the sole and utterly complete path to understanding life and reality." The impression of objective necessity paralyzes the ability of humans to walk out of or to fight the paradigm, and causes the self-fulfilling destiny, which spoils people.

Isn't it amazing that we don't know everything, yet here we are, living life, making mistakes, celebrating, waking up everyday?

   Maula - Free Jam by aroojaftab

मन कुन्तो मौला written by Amir Khusrau, sung here by Arooj Aftab.

"A good holiday is one that is spent among people whose notions of time are vaguer than yours."

                                                                                                                   ~ John B. Priestley

                                                                                                         

An (re)acquaintance

"I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding of a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

~ Isaac Newton

Source

'Sita Sings the Blues'

This film is one of my favourite animation films.

I've had tremendous problems with रामायण. It's possible that वाल्मीकि  wrote a रामायण very different from the one we read today. But its influence on our country and the psyche of our people has been tremendously powerful so I'm always grateful when people question, critically examine or even have a bit of fun with the story. Like Nina Paley does in Sita Sings the Blues. It's a delight to anybody who likes a twist, or jazz music, or films with interesting narratives. It's one of those films which you enjoy with your eyes, ears and mind as well.

PS: Youtube Movies, FTW!

सवाल

तुझसे नाराज़ नहीं, ज़िन्दगी 

हैरान हूँ मैं

तेरे मासूम सवालों से 

परेशान हूँ मैं 

 ~ गुलज़ार, तुझसे नाराज़ नहीं  (मासूम)

"It's like I have a beautiful, perfect doll in front of me. And I want to break it."