Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

" How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd; "

The above lines are taken from Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope, the story of a tragic love affair where the heroine's forgetfulness became her only comfort. There was a film made using the the line "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". In this post I'll talk about the real life incident that forms the subject of the poem. 

Eloisa and Abelard were student and teacher, respectively in the 11th or 12th century in France. Eloisa was known as a very intelligent scholar of languages (latin, greek, hebrew) and was living with her Uncle. She was going to be sent off as a Nun. Abelard, was from a noble family who rejected knighthood to be a philosopher. He was tutoring Eloisa and they both fell in love. They had a child, a son and they married each other secretly in France. Soon after, news spread in society of their secret marriage and child and Abelard asked Eloisa to live away. Eloisa's uncle, enraged by the whole situation, along with a few friends broke into abelard's house and castrated him. Abelard was then sent to a monastery and Eloisa went on to become a nun and took a vow of silence.

They both never met each other. There son was brought up by Eloisa's family, although she was away being a nun. They both turned to religion, and this was a time when religion was reigning it's power in Europe. Condemned by society and now a eunuch, Abelard turned to religion. He internalized the idea that he felt lust and not love for Eloisa and because he committed a sin he needed to redeem himself. I think he internalized these ideas because although he still felt strongly for her, after his castration he was incapable of loving her anymore (physically and psychologically). Eloisa, on the other hand continued to love him. 

Eloisa's perspective was very different from abelard. She felt both love and passion for him and was convinced that it was never lust for any of them but it was always love. Moreover, their different views show male and female perspectives and eventually clashes between the male and female mind. Historically, they corresponded with 4 letters between them while they were at the monasteries. 

These 4 letters were highly personal and show us the stark differences between Eloisa and Abelard's thinking. While abelard in his letter tells Eloisa that she cannot ever love him again, because he had seduced her before and had committed a sin, Eloisa feels that it was a beautiful time in her life. Finally, Abelard tells Eloisa he will only correspond with her in religious/scholarly matters. From then on most letters have questions about languages, religion etc. They bot continued to live separately as a monk and a nun.

It becomes to difficult to imagine such a situation from our current modernist perspective. But many many years ago, the church and religion had a lot of power- to keep lovers away. Alexander Pope's poem (which was written in the 17th or 18th CE as a fictionalized account) - shows us the ill-fate of two lovers. One of them still proud of her love, the other not so much. I think we can't really blame Abelard- after castration and living with holy scriptures anyone would be brainwashed into thinking it was an act of sin. What is truly admirable is Eloisa and her insistence (even after becoming a nun and taking a vow of silence) that she chose Abelard over God. She chose to love a person and she wasn't ashamed of it.

These are my favorite line's from alexander pope's poem (I have randomly picked up my favorite lines, they are not in correct order) :

In these deep solitudes and awful cells,

Where heav'nly-pensive contemplation dwells,

And ever-musing melancholy reigns;

What means this tumult in a vestal's veins?

Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat?

Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?

Yet, yet I love!—From Abelard it came,

And Eloisa yet must kiss the name.

 Come, Abelard! for what hast thou to dread?

The torch of Venus burns not for the dead.

Nature stands check'd; Religion disapproves;

Ev'n thou art cold—yet Eloisa loves.

Ah hopeless, lasting flames! like those that burn

To light the dead, and warm th' unfruitful urn.

Yet here for ever, ever must I stay;

Sad proof how well a lover can obey!

Death, only death, can break the lasting chain;

And here, ev'n then, shall my cold dust remain,

Here all its frailties, all its flames resign,

And wait till 'tis no sin to mix with thine.

Model UN Peak

I have quit my most favorite activity : Model United Nations (Model UN/ MUN)

Let's start at the beginning.

When you see something, learn from it, it has a use-value. When I started MUN-ing (for lack of a better word) I began to appreciate the world system, international relations, power politics, regionalism, military and economic issues that confront the world today.

I learnt knowledge and I got rewarded for it! It was great! But then it reached a stage (after about 17 MUN's) - where it's 'use-value' began to decrease. So in economics, there is a concept called Marginal Utility. It states that as more and more units of a 'product' is consumed its MU (marginal utility) falls down/decreases. So basically, in simple language, if you eat your first ice cream your MU will be the highest, but by the time you eat your 10th ice-cream your MU will be falling or negative.

The marginal utility curve is a upside-down 'U' curve. It increases, reaches a 'peak' and then rapidly falls down reaching zero and then becomes negative. And for me, my MUN curve is negative now...

I became so good at MUN-ing that I would walk in a committee and win an award on the third day. It was addictive, the reasons were intelligent and the applause later was a morale booster. But then I started asking, how much is too much? When is enough really enough?

And it hit me.

I did MUN-ing because-

(1) It was a source of knowledge.

(2) I got rewarded for it. (bonus)

(3) Not everyone was good at it, not everyone could understand the concept (double bonus)

I now have a wonderful bunch of friends and memories I have made in my last 4 years of MUN-ing life.

But the reasons I am stopping is because-

(1) I do not gain any knowledge from it... (I think once you spend more than 700+ hours, you become an expert in that specific area and the ability of the brain to 'receive' information drops)

(2) It is unfair to keep continuing in an activity where you'll keep accumulating rewards, MOVE ON and LET NEW KIDS COME IN 

(3)Dear friends, after all, it is model un. 

Au Revoir MUN! You were sweet and some memories were made.

I feel a sense of satisfaction as I type in this pseudo-resignation letter... 

Dear Model UN,

I resign.

Have some places to travel, some languages to learn.

Yours lovingly,

Sameera

London

I have been called (on many ocassions) - rude, impolite, selfish, irresponsible, tactless... the list goes on.

I think the best way to improve myself (and yourself, if you think this is a self-help entry) is to travel.

When you live in a safe, secure, stable environment and somebody takes care of you (your mother or father or older siblings) - you become a spoilt brat... think of Veronica from the Archie comics.

So spending almost a month in London was a good lesson for me. I had to wake up (yes, I actually put an alarm and woke up when it rang, haha) at 6 am in the morning. Get ready, prepare my breakfast and go to college walking. Yes, back home walking to college would mean that if I leave on monday at 8 am I'd reach by tuesday 4 am. But there is nothing I miss and love more than walking down pocock street to blackfriars road and then strand and then waterloo! Walk, walk, walk, walk. Alone. Sometimes Matt or Prajwal or Tuany would join me. Some times with friends some times alone. Some times with music some times without.

It would take roughly 20-25 minutes to reach Waterloo. And then if it would rain you'd curse the world that day (haha).

Walking on those grey cobbled streets. at 8:00 am or 5:00 am or 12:30 am or 2:00 am. Back from Piccadilly circus or Leicester Square. Back from some salsa dancing at club Rumba! Back from Oxford Street or abbey road or Jubilee park. Then the curious cases of cooking rice in an electric cooker borrowed from a friend... haha or trying to cook pasta in a hot water boiler (do not try this at home).

Our spanish professor was a delight to study with. His knowledge of investments, derivatives, trade and 'washington consensus' was beyond detail-specific. The best thing was that after telling us various approaches like "Marxist, Liberal, capitalist, economic-nationalist...etc" he (when asked by a student of the most suitable approached he preffered), he would say "At all times, I will give you the facts so that you can form your opinion. at no time do you get to ask what I "think" because what I think is not important.." - isn't that wonderful? Studying in Delhi university you get used to teachers proclaiming marxism or feminism as the way to be [No offence intended].

London as a city is busy, safe, grey (weather-wise), beautiful, cosmopolitan, multicultural and the domino that controls other dominos....like New York and Tokyo. It is filled with history and when you walk in London you walk in Virginia Woolf's city, when you pass the Big Ben, you pass through Dicken's London. When you take the tube it's always to Hogwarts through King's cross station.

The museums are definitely the icing on the cake. Here are a few pictures from the Victoria-Albert museum (which is so big that 2 hours weren't enough. Always take 24 hours with you and even after that some chambers will be left unexplored..) The museum is divided into sections like Postmodern, victorian england, roman/gothic, the 1970/60/50/40/30s... Certain quarters are divided by region like South-east asia, middle east etc..

(Victoria and Albert Museum, August 2013)

Some other pictures I clicked in London -

(Abbey Road, 2013)- Apparently the tourists love to leave some love for the other roads besides abbey road... (made famous by the Beatles)

 The tube - London Underground - this station was special because it was older, darker and more 18th century like..

I saw this elderly lady at the baker street station and for some reason really wanted to click her while she waited... I guess I liked her stoic-ness? (is that even a word?!)

This is my sad attempt at capturing King's strand Campus

My favorite place in KCL - the Maughan Library... I could only capture like 3/4 of what this round room is. Its like 70+ feet, circular, old-gothic building, with a round glass ceiling...It is HUGE! Rumour has it, it was shot as Dumbledore's office (lie) and Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code talked about the Maughan library- apparently the protagonist lands in london goes to Maughan searching for a particular book (true) ... The maughan was built in the early 1800's as  a public records office which was later turned into a library

Oxford Street- a view from Primark after a heavy rain shower..

Near River thames, a beach artist making his "tribute to love"

The lane that leads to New College, Oxford

Some scenes of HP that were shot at NC

Oxfordshire Market, August 2013

This is the place that is right below waterloo bridge. every day this man would come and blow bubbles for kids to play with! Another thing I loved was how struggling artists (dancers, musicians, singers, magicians) would come here and sing, dance, play tricks and a crowd would gather. 

Here are a few pictures from the Surreal art section of TATE modern act gallery ..

Work by Dali -

Quintessential London :)

The Himalayas

If you are an Indian and you haven’t experienced the view from the top, well really… try it at least once in your life. In high school I was a big geography geek, I was obsessed with mountain formation and movement of tectonic plates that lead to the formation of the Himalayas.

Perpetually snow-covered peaks (even in May-the hottest month for northern India), the peaks are higher than the clouds. You can’t drive after 3:30 pm there’s too much fog. There are plenty of natural lakes and waterfalls up the way. There’s a lake that looks like India (geographically), and there’s one that looks like an elephant. There are plenty of Yaks along the way too. These Yaks are colourfully dressed and don’t go by their appearance, they’re pretty timid and shy animals, though they resemble bulls.

We went to Nathu-la, (Indo-China border) 14,000 feet above mean sea level.  We reached there and amidst one of the mountains where the words “Mera Bharat Mahaan” – I loved it. Upon reaching the border outposts of the Indian side, the Chinese flags were visible. Even the Chinese soldier was talking to the Indian soldier – there was a fence between them, nothing very solid.

The border for India was higher (like upwards/north), but apparently a few years back they shifted south cause of the following incident. So the story goes that a Madrassi soldier was on duty. He left his spot to go south to go drinking. He spent 24 hours away without informing. By the time the Indian soldiers found out and came back, the outpost was occupied by the Chinese, they had already built there stations there. And that is how we lost a piece of the Himalayas to Lhasa province of china.

So I interacted with an Indian soldier and he spoke some Chinese and told the Chinese soldier to click pictures with me, haha and he did!

The snow, the mountains, the cold air, the streams- India.The most beautiful, diverse country ever.


the Yaks

The lake that looks like the 'map of india' - I couldn't capture from a higher altitude, though I should have cause this picture cuts the lake in half!

The mountain that has 'Mera Bharat Mahan" written on it : )

Ode to the Horse named James Bond

Mirik is a little place in Darjeeling, opposite to the Nepal border. There’s a lake near the place where we stayed, and that lake has a huge open green ground next to it, with horses. The horse I saw was a beautiful black horse, from a place in Bihar. It was 1.5 years old. It ate corn, chana and was the fastest amongst the lot. Within a few minutes the horse became friendly with me,I sat on it and rode alone. It was like we had known each other for years. I rode horses in school, but most school ones were rough or blind (yeah, some of them only had one eye). And the space in school wasn’t as big as this one. In Mirik, we rode on a narrow (but many kilometres long) pathway around a lake! Picture something like this- a lake, a pathway around it, a bridge over it, hills in the background, and tall tress enveloping the entire thing in a circumference. James Bond was incredibly friendly, he let me patt him, pull his leash and he took me around the entire place (never falling into the lake… thankfully… )

I am totally going to own a horse, some day. I just like them so much. I’ve never been a fan of dogs, or cats (although lots of close friends, family, my college teachers) own cats and dogs. Birds have never fascinated me beyond the occasional encyclopaedia run-through. Well, to be fair, I was fascinated with bugs and beetles when I was young. It was a phase of the “bug-box” that I got with my 6^th grade school science-kit. And I had an aquarium for a few years while growing up. But the big fish ate the little fish and I would also forget to feed them. But I’m not counting butterflies/bugs/fish in animals. Yeah, they’re technically not animals. Horses, oh I want horses!


(All pictures are clicked by me)

Sikkim

Gangtok, Sikkim

25^th May 2013

There is so much of beauty around me that nothing I write could explain it. And it’s fair that way, you have to see it to believe it. The journey started with the colonel telling us why he prefers this part of India more than Delhi [His nostalgia is for a pristine past that is not obstructed with human materialism]. He’s got a conviction that I can comprehend and owns a very unique pet- a turtle called “chunmun”.

I’d like to talk about this little state that joined the Indian Union in 1975. It was a protectorate of British, Sikkim had a monarchy from 1947-75, which got abolished by a referendum. It’s a protectorate/state of India, with the army guarding the Indo-china border. China didn’t officially recognize Sikkim as a state of India as late as 2006- they signed a treaty with India that granted recognition in response to New Delhi’s recognition of Tibetous Autonomous Region/Tibet as an inherent part of China. Well, keeping patriotism aside, Sikkim is infact VERY UNLIKE any other indian state- most people speak nepali, Tibetan, sikkimese language (is that a word?)- but that’s not all- they occasionally stop you and smile and shout “Namaste! Welcome to Sikkim!”- despite their ethnic differences, they very much like being a part of India. That’s where India has succeeded I think, in giving them space to be different, by recognizing difference they promote diversity, democracy and harmony. Any country that tries to eliminate differences or “be blind” to differences is digging its grave. India is far (far) away from being the Balkans of the 1990s.

Things I like about Sikkim-

(1)    It’s got cute little colourful houses that stand on stilts. They’re brave to make houses on slopes- landslides are a common occurrence. The colors range from purple, pink, green, yellow to anything you’ve never seen before. Why I LOVE them architecturally is because they are kind of like the lego houses I made when I was young- ofcourse now that’s not a very sophisticated reason but it’s the truth… O well.

(2)    Secondly they are imperfect. They aren’t straight, sleek, modern, mirroring sunshine buildings. They are colored, with little pots of flowers, cows/goats/sheeps in the front yards, soccer fields on elevated slopes. Really? You need to have a heart of stone to not like this. I don’t  think that a modern/non-modern dichotomy exists in terms of architecture in here, but all these cottages are lovely.

(3)    The people here are content (this is not a fact, it is an opinion widely acknowledged by the cantonments stationed here as well)- they work for a few hours and then depart. They are living in the here and now, in the present. They don’t quite go home thinking “this is what I have to do for tomorrow and the day after that”… Some civilizations mistake that as being lazy, but I’d say it’s a sign of contentment. There’s a quote I read on a hill here that said: “Remember your family is waiting for you” – which state in India would have that? Answer: Sikkim.

(4)    The monks make the best WaiWai/Noodles and Thukpa. It’s always in some kind of a  stock, nice and hot. On the way up to Rumtak monastery we stopped by a little monk-run eating place inside the monastery. They also chant Buddhist ancient religious literature in a very mystical manner-if you listen to it, it’s trance-like. Of course you can’t understand a thing, but the united precision with which 50-100 monks sit together and chant is a truly breathtaking experience. The vibrations are very powerful. I don’t quite know what it is, but you have to experience it to understand it. I also clicked a photo of this really, really, really, old monk. His face was almost expressionless, wrinkled, unperturbed perpetually, he was really the most beautiful old man I’ve ever seen. I also think he had taken an oath of silence. I thought he was amazing… (my family made fun of me, they find it highly intriguing that I’m fascinated by things that make no coherent sense).

(5)    This state has a story. It’s as old as the Himalayas. On the west we have the kingdom of Bhutan, and on the north we have Tibet (china), in the east we have Darjeeling. Its home to the most simplest of religions- Buddhism. All of western philosophy (from the 15^th CE onwards) begins with the realization of “there is no ego” – or simply “there is no self within me that is concrete that is separate from my brain/thought process”. ‘Cause the ancient Greeks (particularly Aristotle) believed in the distinction between the human body and the soul. From Rennaissance this thought was challenged with the onset of science, rationality. There was only an objective reality and the perception of that reality (in the brain). So a person was not his ego/concrete individual self but rather all the experiences perceptions that person had throughout his life- this “new” discovery was already discovered some 3,000 years ago by Buddha in the east!

(6)    Personal favorites:

- Rumtak Monastery

- Tea Estates, steppe farms (especially the ones located 6,000 feet above mean sea level)

- Thukpa soup in the little café outside Tibetan Institute of Higher Learning

- The Buddha Park

-The river that runs alongside the military cantonment area of Bardhan (my spellings of sikkamese places is highly distorted)

- Indo-china border/Nathu-La

Here are a few aesthetically non-appealing photos I tried to click (*no photo could do justice to sikkim) - 

These ancient buddhist manuscripts written in ancient Sikkemese.

A bunch of cute kids posing for the camera

This was a buddhist monk .. he had taken a vow of silence... he totally disapproved of me acting all tourist-ey and taking his photo without asking him. I can kind of felt sad for him, because he couldn't show his disapproval. (Rumtek Monastery)

This is a religious instrument (forgotten it's name)- but apparently if you turn it as you walk (as the boys are doing in the picture) you will have your wishes fulfilled!

I just found this reallly cute :)

So i clicked!

Pictures That Speak To Me

Have you ever look at something and thought to yourself " I must take a picture of that. "
It's not a person, not a monument, nothing famous. Something very ordinary.
Those times when you look at an image and say "this picture speaks to me"
Well here are a few ordinary pictures that are extraordinary to me.

 Haus Khas fort, Delhi

 Diggi Palace, Jaipur, Rajasthan

 Chauki  Dhaani, a village recreation, Jaipur, Rajasthan

 Norah Jones at sirifort live :) Something so magical about the picture

 Ingravings in the arabic script at the qutub minar area, Delhi

 These are 12-13th century graves of mughal emperors

 That's a 10 year old girl with enrique iglesias. It's an adorable picture :) - Gurgaon, India

 That's the depiction of India in Ibn Battuta Mall, Dubai, UAE

 

 That's my kid cousin sis playing the violin ! The low-quality camera doesn't do justice to it though

 This reminds me of Paheli (the SRK movie, lol) - Desert safari Dubai

 Bangles, Delhi Haat

 LSR College lawns, the picture cannot define the amount of love these lawns radiate. Always brimming with students, books, political scientists, economists ha :)

 Lamps

 In ode to LSR Nescafe :)

 That's a fort in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. It's reinnovated into a hotel now :(

These little pots are the toughest to make, so tiny so perfect!