Prismic Horcruxes

Spend a few years working with math and you invariably like how simple straight lines are to work with. The artsy sort would probably deride linearity. Or perhaps, it’s now in. I don’t know what artsy sorts think. And when. Economists love them straight. Which is not to say that we’re all homophobes. We sure like to digress.

After all, what’s not to like about straight lines? They’re straight, they’re uncomplicated and light rays like to travel along them.

Think of prisms suspended in a vacuum. Small prisms, large ones; symmetrical and not; some touched by colour and some out of that textbook you once read. And then there was consciousness, like a solitary ray of light in a box. Speeding down those straights. Cutting straight through the maze.

In fact, she never gets to the other end. Because they are ever shifting, ever moving. And in a split second, or a lifetime, consciousness could be in here, there or somewhere entirely different. Or it could be everywhere all at once, a fragmented consciousness, prismic Horcruxes, each wishing to be somewhere else, someone else. If only they were aligned differently. Until all you want to be is not.

P.S. I’d blame the shoddy science on the EM Bypass.

On the One Newsworthy Farmer Suicide Today

Gajendra Singh committed suicide today. Unlike scores of fellow farmers who commit suicide every day in some part of India or the other, Gajendra did not become a statistic to be debated upon. He could not be wished away as a suicide for non-farming reasons nor could his existence itself be questioned by bureaucrats cleaning up the stat book. He killed himself today in the power centre of the nation, in the midst of an AAP rally against the land acquisition bill.

Tears have started to flow all over the Internet. They will flow in copious quantities in Kolkata’s College Square and in Delhi’s Jantar Mantar in days to come, shrouded in tired slogans and even-more-tired demands for justice and freedom and the usual. Even the mighty PM was ‘deeply shattered’. There will be more hollow noises in days to come, maybe a sudden spurt in the number of talks P Sainath is asked to give. Candles will be lit, quite an achievement in itself if it is for a farmer. Gajendra Singh will become a symbol. This is if the weeping continues and is not diverted to some tragedy in Europe tomorrow.

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The Economics of Food in Hindu Hostel

There are two states in which one can expect to meet a Hindu Hostelite: hungry and not-so-hungry. If Hindu Hostel were an economy, food would be its dominant industry. Of course, Hindu Hostel, like every other place, does not have one economics, but a large variety and dimensions of economics; and a lot of minor stories contribute towards building the larger picture. This piece is an attempt to capture the essence of the stories that determine the economics of food here.

In Hindu Hostel, food ceases being just food, and defines the political economy of the place. Where one generally eats – the mess, the different canteens or restaurants outside – defines the class structure of the hostel more than any other single parameter, brand of cigarettes coming a close second. It is easy to understand why. Hostelites live within a fixed budget and much of that is devoted to the pursuit of non-hunger. After the initial days as a fresher of going to eat together in the mess as a group, the dynamics of class dominate our eating preferences. In my time as a hostelite, I have lived with friends who frequented Food Station, others who ate lunch and dinner at the mess with snacks at the canteens, and yet others who ate only two meals, both at the mess. This choice is determined more by the ‘budget constraint’ than the ‘tastes and preferences’ that your friend from Economics talks about.

However, if we enter the hostel as homo economicus, eating only at the mess or only at Shankarda’s canteen or only at Podu’s, one imbibes a camaraderie in the Hostel that is inherently egalitarian. So no matter which budget you follow, there is not a soul in the hostel who is not excited by the prospect of the monthly Grand Feast. And cha at CMC in the dead of night is staple, even if fancier options are available to one. These acts may defy economic logic; after all, why will someone with the money to go to CCD, choose not to? But Hindu Hostel is that kind of a place. The sense of tradition and camaraderie eventually overpowers the class distinctions, helped along by the fact that they create the long-lasting memories that dry economics cannot.