Taj Mahal

The secret whispered in the hush of night to the ear of your love
is wrought in the perpetual silence of stone.
Though empires crumble to dust, and centuries are lost in shadows,
the marble still sighs to the stars, ‘ I remember.’
‘I remember.’ – But life forgets, for she has her call to the Endless:
and she goes on her voyage unburdened, leaving her memories to the
forlorn forms of beauty.

-Rabindranath Tagore

Dis/connect

Sometimes I wonder does ICT connects us more or disconnects us to the reality. We live in a haze, surrounded by screens all day long. We are the internet generations, always connected, always on, always ready to scrap or twit the latest thought that popped in our head. I love internet, no doubt today, imagining life without it impossible. So much so the weather widget shows me the the days meteo before my window opens to the outside world. Internet addiction has become a psychological disease in South Korea.
I love the democratizing effect of the internet, how it lets us express ourself but to a certain extent, lately I have started feeling how the information overload has started homogenizing our thought process. Do you remember the last time you visit a library searching for a book to understand a problem in detail, I don't. I can just google it and surely someone would have provided a solution.
Try a simple exercise, just observe your online activity for an hour. You search for one subject and then you find something else interesting and you follow it. In the end you are looking at something totally different. To a certain extent we are turning into attention deficits, we need something to continuously tantalize and entertain us.
We have become adherent consumers of information and I am noticing a trend of people building on information already provided. No doubt it speeds up the development cycles, enables faster delivery but it also restricts deeper understanding and fundamentally different and innovative solutions. I feel we have mastered ctrl-c,v and we are merely replicating and transforming the given.

The french are tranquile (peace loving)

("The tram at the Victor Hugo")

The other night I and my friend were waiting at Alsace Lorraine for the tram back home. My friend was playing an unmentionable song (of the sutta genre) on his mobile, when we were interrupted by a guy holding beer in his hand who said he really like the song. Really? I secretly wished he would not ask me to translate the lyrics. And then the conversation followed as we entered the tram. They were part of a group from Valence visiting Grenoble for cultural exchange.
They were really curious about why Indians who don't speak French find it interesting to choose France for higher studies. I humored the guy and said my choice was made when France opposed USA on the Iraq vote.
Yeah they agreed, Jacques Chirac was a strong man not the p*t8in of guy Nicolas Sarkozy who is ruining their country. Now the french love three things, fromage, merde (shit) and talking about Nicolas Sarkozy.
To a certain extent the French are obsessed about their President. Personally I don't know any other celebrity, no cine stars who interest French more than Sarkozy. The rest of the world prefers the long legs of Carla Bruni but the French prefer loving and bashing Sarkozy. Sarkozy is reason for all their troubles and any course of action he takes is bound to be followed by protests.
Anyways we discussed a bit about the French politics and I mentioned the number of peaceful protests which keep going on here. Come September and everyone (students, teachers, lawyers, just anyone) goes on a protest. I remarked unlike India where the protests involve, effigy burning, shoe hurling, maybe a donkey, bus burning, etc. here they were so peaceful followed by rounds of espresso and croissant for all. Yes, he agreed, gulping beer, actually the french by nature are very tranquile (peace loving). Thats the reason they opposed war in Iraq.
When all a sudden hell broke loose. Fists started flying and beer cans hurled over each other. The group seemed to enter into a fight when someone in the further section of the tram car. My friend forgetting the tranquility joined them. And we had 20 some guys beating the hell out of each other. Boom boom, they crashed while we watched safely from a distance. The tram continued peacefully before stopping at the next stop. The local group exited leaving the beaten and sad looking group come in terms with their blackened eyes. The driver locked the doors and continued to the next stop. Here the Valence group woke up from their stupor and few guys ran to meet the local group at the last stop.
Meanwhile the driver tranquilly announced that the police has been informed will take care of them and continued driving.
Point taken, the French are very tranquile.