The Epiphany of Panini

In a story that I have been unable to locate in the Net, Panini, the Sanksrit grammarian, starts as a worthless student. Lazy, laid back and lounging around, the frustrated criticisms of his Guru have no effect. One day he resolves to leave the Ashrama, and declares his intention to his Guru. His master is aggrieved, but Panini has decided on idiocy. He sets out, packing his nominal belongings into a saffron bundle.
As he walks further away from the home of his abortive learning, memories of the place resonate in his mind. Soon he is loathing himself, and regrets the finality of his mental sloth. He pauses at a well, to rest and refresh his dried throat and cringing mind. Suddenly, he experiences an epiphany, and if the legend is to be believed, a fateful one. The scene at the well assails him. He sees the iron axle of the well-rope scored by the hemp, he sees the damp disks that wooden buckets have left on the stone. This is all he needs to turn back. If iron and stone are scarred by hemp and wood, then why not.....
Panini is now Appolline in his devotion to texts. Without relent or ruth, he eventually hews Sankrit to order and logic in his epochal Ashtadhyayi. Let us also observe, partisans that we are.... that he graced the Achaemenid Empire, which would help 300 Spartans achieve immortality by repulsing their 'barbarian' advance into Greece. And wrote his treatise almost contemporaneously with the Gates of Fire.
I insert an anecdote that cannot belong here. I have been playing the violin with a certain manic passion for a year or so, now. My style allowing few of the fingers but the left index, I had secreted thick, dead skin at its sensitive tip. I also play, with ritual fervence, Endharo Mahanubhavulu, St. Thyagaraja's richest and most complex Pancharatna Kriti. The Kriti repeats and reinforces a signature Sree Ragam phrase (involving Kaishiki Nishadam, or minor ti in the Western Solfa). I have unravelled the steel twine of the third string thanks to my repeated rendition of the phrase. I can no longer use the violin without replacing it.
The irony is that I am an amateur and a very ordinary player even among amateurs. Which only serves, perhaps, to reinforce that metaphors and idioms are as Platonic as the ideal they set us off to try and achieve.

Prisoner's Dilemma

Take it from me, they were uncomfortable, but they felt none of it. The bright lamps, stools, lathis and the rest which I do not care to name, had been taken away; they were left the floor, which looked bare from the hole, but was grimed by many insects and rodents. Sikander leaned against the cot, unable to sleep for the seventh night. The police had arranged his acuity for the other six. Now there was not much to think about, really. He had made his choice: it kept him company in his insomnia, and he smiled at it sometimes. There was Srinivas again. He felt the hole in the door slide open, raw, resonant and felt the policemen’s eyes on him. A prisoner’s instinct told him Srinivas would enter. Some yellow light at the ceiling poured some putrid light at the floor.

There isn’t much left to say. Sikander glanced at the man. ‘Except for me, of course’. You do realize he betrayed you?

‘I realize.’ There was a small pause; the rats resumed their squabbles.

Is there a reason why you kidnapped the industrialist? Not quite. Money, yes, but no reason. Sikander looked away, and Srinivas thought he understood.

‘Now I see…. He had to die….’ Sikander said. Srinivas pelted him with a glance. You were involved in the sting. Weren’t you? A smile, almost kind, mostly sardonic, eased the captive’s degraded face. Of course. He didn’t mind telling him that now. He had been stewing in this cell for nearly a week, he could not know about the salting the minister was getting from the media.

Sikander had not confessed to anything even now. The hour of humanity after a week of torture…but no, didn’t work this time; his gymnosophist indifference to the nail clippers was a thing to scowl wide-eyed about. Srinivas learned about the Ghati thief-tribe later, artisans of a yoga immunizing you to torture. They would have to go through with the prisoner’s dilemma. He walked out silently, though the door rasped.

Sharan was, of all things, asleep. It was not courage, of course, like in Dumas’ Monte Cristo, it was exhaustion. Srinivas looked with resigned pity at the eyes being rubbed clumsily – and then at the walls. Caves had been painted in this fashion, once, for perhaps similar reasons. Before his eyes swiveled back to the unlikely artist, he etched several in his mind – a perfect likeness of Sikander, a bowing Sharan, a hangman, aesthetically crude, above.

‘His idea- draw your worries out. Think he meant it this way?’ the sonorant English was naively insulting; damn, kid didn’t belong here. Ah well. He went through the routine again. Sikander betrayed you. Testify that Sikander was murderer and kidnapper. You go free, he hangs. He had just altered the names with Sikander. The symmetry! The captive refused to believe in the betrayal. Srinivas clinched it: the safe house’s address, Sharan’s safe house, given to the police by Sikander. How could Sharan dare doubt it? To doubt Srinivas was to trust Sikander, to trust Srinivas was to doubt (and betray Sikander). You have the night to decide. He didn’t think further: and a life time to contemplate it.

I better explain the prisoner’s dilemma. Two captives, a crime, and little evidence. Tell one to testify against the other. Tell B to testify against A. A meagerly alert mind can foresee the decision of the other’s – why not testify when the other is sure to? Srinivas was wielding this at the duo, whetting it on the betrayal jibe. Sikander must believe that Sharan was the informer about the hideout, Sharan that Sikander was. The subterfuge would melt if they managed to communicate.

‘Mine is aware of good cop, bad cop. But good gangshter, bad gangshter, no. In this fuck up there is some mirror –stuff going on.’ Srinivas listened to the tapori, (the lingo of tapris, thelas, and most of Bombay, also known as Hindi’s Bane, ask any Delhiite fresh from a trip to the city) maybe this outlaw really did think in Bombay’s patois, but he doubted it. Sikander had a good ground life, he appeared in TV and such. What do you mean? ‘Tell me one thing. Hoga nahi tere se, but phir bhi. Why, in this place should I rot for a week, after junior had his little talk? Brings me here, then keeps me here, why? Why not finish the job? Make the deal first itself?’ The assured languor was not defied, Srinivas had no answer , he still banked on his fork: either him, or Sharan, whom to trust, Sikander?

But something else interested him. If you were in the sting, then it was you who got the journos to the minister, you got them to pop the kidnapping proposal, you helped in embarrassing the minister, and hopefully, his resignation. Then how did you commit the damn thing later? He had not done it, but if he had, it would have been his charge. Brave fellow, this Sikander. When younger, Srinivas had toughened himself to death- throes and- threats by looking at films and the like. One day his mentor made the car tires squeal and they had patronised a mess comprising a child, a dog and a lungied fiend with a razor. After the blood and other fluids had been spilt and wiped up, he had laughed till his forehead hurt. He laughed like that now. A horror movie parody, funny and revolting. ‘Tell me, was Kothari bhai strangled or skewered? Was there blood on the fingers or the balls?’ – ‘methods’ of infamous shooters a layman would be unable to catalogue. Srinivas was almost sure of Sikander’s innocence , but this could be ambiguous. He could have overseen the job, making him the ‘mastermind’, as the Times kept saying. You chose balls and pokers. Sikander coughed out his amusement. Oh,and if this is your argument, then there is no doubt about the kidnapping, it’s you all the way, I mean, your signatures are all there, Sikander. Srinivas was satisfied, Sikander declined to react. Srinivas got up and stumbled on his weaker foot. A long arm helped him up without unsettling the rest of the body it belonged to. The kidnapping. Who? The way Sikander looked up, he said: ‘Oh seriously, too much drama!’ He withdraw his arm, but his toothy, twinkling smile made up for that.

Sharan had swallowed up the drawings. He had been hangman, he had been Srinivas, he had been Sikander facing betrayal, laconic, unsurprised, and he did not quite know how to prevent the situation, being, in the end, only himself. Srinivas entered and found the good drawings smudged, and Sharan’s hand chalky and red. Pity, what did you do that for? At least some distraction. All right, all right, no need to get worked up now,and please, bhai, wipe that chalk off your eyes. Anyway, its time for the testimonial. What have you said? Mind telling me?

Sharan wiped his eyes and his nose. Srinivas squeezed his lips shut, that lunatic chuckle was tickling his mouth again. But Sharan looked like such a kid, with his chalky nose and white! Oh God! Why him? Why did he have to torture their minds? The others had it so easy, just whacking them till they bled and groaned! He had to think it. I know, its very formulaic, the plump conscientious manipulative middle aged policeman, I know Mohan Lal in Company, but seriously, this story really happened, you know, and humans are like films (not the other way round.), being humans and getting creeped out by that.

‘I committed the kidnapping of Mr. Kothari, and Sikander was not involved in anyway. I imitated his style and methods without his knowledge to implicate him. I have not murdered the industrialist. If by any chance, Sikander Khan is incarcerated, he should be released at once.’

Oh…………fuck it. All righty, then. This was the limit and he finally decided to let that damn chuckle out. He went up to the adolescent and wiped the nose and the hands. I’ll be back. We’ll worry about you later. Now for Sikander.
‘No! just free him! You know you have no right! What reason can you submit? I am taking the blame, and he must go free. Listen. You do realize I am not damaging myself here. All I am doing is NOT implicating him. I am not hanging. You can see that. You can see that he’ll walk away, and so he doesn’t have to implicate me. You know that the only thing keeping him is your threat that I will testify against him. Now I am not. Why should he testify against me now? What evidence do you have to keep him here? NOTHING!’

‘My dear boy, what made you think I was going to take any of your confessions seriously? So you did figure it out. You’re right. We have no evidence to keep him here, haan haan haan. We needed your testimony to implicate him in the kidnapping and the murder, and we needed his to implicate you for the crimes. So now, you are being hero no.1. you say, aha! I will just admit to the kidnapping, and make it so like only I did it. Then I’ll risk the courtroom trial for the murder as prime defendant. As, of course, we didn’t commit the murder, no witnesses would turn up. So it boils down to the confession here, not to any sweaty boring session in Court Naka.’

‘Yes. Work in Bollywood, they also love stating the obvious. Now please, Sikander’s release is promised?’

‘Nope. Forgive me for being a bastard, but I have to go and read his testimony. Yes, yes, yes, its illegal, a man falsely locked up should not even be asked a confession, yes. Now don’t just crumble like that! He might have said something that won’t make your song a lie, you know.Good chance that he is keeping his mouth as shut as he has been till now. Keep up the hope, boy, keep up the hope.’

But that didn’t happen, here is a copy of Sikander’s confession, also published in newspapers.

‘I committed the kidnapping of Mr. Kothari, as the methods clearly show. However, Sharan Kumar was not involved in any way. If he is in jail, anywhere, he should be set free unless there are other crimes (and other warrants) on him. I will stand trial for the murder if I am so charged, and I demand a public defendant as my right.’ The symmetry! The well worn symmetry! Also, a quote from the man: ‘good cop bad cop, have heard of, good gangshter bad ganghster, no. both are good only.’

So now, Srinivas tells me that Sikander faces trial, and Sharan is arranging for his defence, from hiding. He chuckles stupidly when I ask him for Sharan’s confession, and Anything could have happened back in that dirty safe house. (Of course you expected an Mp3 player in my pants pockets, but not this time.) Srinivas fondles a fragile papier mache doll in his fingers; his daugher has flounced in and places herself on him and the doll in his hands. Some of the writing is still legible, but I don’t want to spoil a little girl’s budding genius at handicrafts.

Koan

See-
more of
nothing,
than anything, though matter is
upon us!
0.all ~ 0.0......0... ~ 0
mug, or understand, but don't forget!
grey, lazy sky deludes us for the moon's sake
0 does not seduce by contrast.
blessing: may you fall soon into it.

A fragment from Bale v.3.57

A history of Bale has been sufficiently evaded until now, when I, a lone man sitting in front of the comp, should attempt a hasty generalisation. Several hasty looks at the Archive and a good deal of wandering, confused and fearful, has allowed me to write this precis, equally a part of Bale. Again, I reiterate, that Bale is everything, and hence nothing in particular. As an early Scientist said, Bale was a photon, which contains nothing but itself, but then is everything, including itself. Not a single man spends a day without it, it is the matter of several lives. How does a game started by bloggers become so pervasive?

It started predictably enough, a clever variation on the Chinese whisper and the Story game. A blogger, frustrated with fiction and non fiction, and haunted by words in his mind, proposed to write some nonsense and let others continue it. A few decades ago, a writer remarked: Google Random + blog and you will get almost as many results as the number of blogs. The blogger's proposition was nothing new, it held no promise. A few others continued it, until one man used it to sublimate his sexuality. There are blogs with nothing but the names of actors and the names of orgasm. The others were disgusted, and hence enlightened: they still believed the word and the seed to be contrary. A sudden sense of fellow feeling must have then been engendered, still unexpressed in Bale, but by it. The entry was quietly deleted, none complained but masturbator. There were several edits, and incoherencies were patched up. But then again, nothing could possibly smooth the varied rudeness of a few amateurs. Nothing could anticipate the ending, or the beginning of an idea born of chance. This was irrelevant to the Pioneers, and everything to Bale's future. The idea grew, and Grew.

A man posted a limerick, another, a love song. An Indian posted a home video of a birth, and again, the Pioneers were jangled. Bale was not to be the province of the senses, but this was unfair, the Indian countered that it was hardly a mish mash of senses. If Bale was about the inability to control thought, then so was it the inability to control life. The Indian, dimpled and humourous, contributed a review of his video. The video was preferred. Bale would boom soon, thanks to the crying baby amidst the remains of other's thoughts and the shadow of an orgasm.
The beginning has gone too long, but true to myself and true to Bale, I will not edit. I will indecently expose Bale’s influences. Borges, first and foremost, as the lightest and latest symbol of infinitude in the infinitesimal. Then it reminds me of Genji's tale. There was after all, a theory that Bale is a portmanteu of Borges and Genji's tale. There is another, that it started as Blogger's tales, then to Blale, and the world, yearning spacious sounds, turned it to Bale. Like all magnitudes, Bale would be named much later than it existed, and good, because a name is a limitation, as several Balists have declaimed. So beautiful, that none remember why it is really called Bale!

The baby's progress was posted, there were several who wished to tell his story and watch if the first Son would live up( or down) to it. The Pioneers, no longer much heard, objected mildly, they did not want a collected fiction to impinge on an individual's reality. However, there were cries of censorship suddenly, the Pioneers, bewildered and frustrated, let them do the hell they wanted with it. The fateful day, when the blog's password was released (hackers were curiously both protecting and attacking the password, hence facilitating the ceremony), would throw Bale along a thousand (and one) trajectories. A hacker 'confessed' his crime. A defender laughed his claim down. Characteristically ignoring flame wars, the Dreamers continued to nurse Bale. Other technophobes posted mini-Waldens, cyberpunks posted Cyberpunk. A pastiche of Dostoevsky followed, by Dosto (most commanding of all the early presences) and Wilde parodied the parody. The swirling double helix grew and grew and Grew, until Grobes summarised the summaries. The helix threatened to collapse at this point and no posts followed for a long time. A few rules ensued. There were to be no false summaries (the GOTO statement that Dijkstra argued against.). Grobes politely pleaded guilty, and set about implying the summary. Again the rules were thwarted without puncturing Bale's Health.

Grobes led, inevitably, to the first Math: RMnjm suggesting equations and series (but cannily, no sets). RMnjm was bested by Cantor culling out equations to the equations. There were absolutely no complaints this time, a sudden swell in postings, varied and sweaty. They had their greatest critics. The appearance of mathematical rigour to imagination and flesh! The masturbator reappeared, hale and whole, writing of his wife. Forgive this hazy symbolism.
Bale's most beautiful feature, of course, was its polyglot profanation of reality. But even a mess has to cohere, if it is to be appreciated (as in Modern Art). Unsunggenius performed the selfless task. It is remarked that he succumbed to heavy metal poisoning soon after. Bale became a public craze. Not even Unsunggenius could have imagined the reverence he would be dealt with soon after. Critics interpreted him, Newspapers reviewed him. Pioneers rejected him, Dreamers thanked him - in their minds. Some believe that UG did nothing but claim that he had carved Bale, it was enough.

But how was Bale to continue without the Maestro? The coherence, the wealth of circumstantial detail, the brave, soaring expectations of the past, who to provide, who to dream? Bale was discontinued, the several bloggers going on sprees and, scandalously, book tours. All entries were blocked, at least on the official website, and for once, the public was impolite to pastiches like Gale (all girl Bale.). Even the most amnesiac reader ignores a thrice removed creation.
Ingenue , or Sunggenius as he is sometimes satirised, solved the problem. Version 1.2 would follow; him at the helm. Ingenue , as progenitor, followed the mathematical rigour for a year's worth of posts. He would give up soon, anguished by an equally Promethean labour, of trying to weave the imagination of all and none at the same time, before and after it would be imagined and forgotten. Ingenue's brilliant failure was duly spat on and celebrated, Bale's simpler contraries a boring tremor to most by now.

Predictably enough, a few years after all and none had read and reread Bale, genius kissed it the second time: a legion Haikus followed, ostensibly written in the interim (or should I say interregnum?) Night had fallen in Bale, now there were stars. For several years haikus, and short poetry followed (poetry was hardly non existent in Bale, though none understood the nature of Bale and its particular demands on the Flight of Fancy). All could enter in it, patterns would follow, read at your will, constellations would appear, some would fade out. A few schizophrenics honoured Bale naively. They lived it, and Called it Religion. The writer of Haikus is anonymous, and his trail led to an ironic grave.

It has been years now, and my lesser talent forces this minimal summary halfway through Bale's third version, as has happened before. Nothing can rob your innocence like this Phoenix. I have not foresworn the edicts of Bale; there is a wealth of invented detail in this digest. As all imaginations soar, let none intersect: the world has once been invented, let us not invent it again, as the writers of India do, again and again. Perhaps it comes from the proximity to divinity they suffer.