My Weekly Update

The past weeks has been pretty eventful... Each day had its own highlights... even if it was just the relief of getting an assignment over with.

Take Sunday for instance- we made a visit to the Tample in Malibu and it was a beautiful place... It may not have had that sense of gretness... of history that pervades the temples in India- but it is a wonderfully calm and peaceful place. Perfect to sit and meditate without bein jostled around by a dozen other bodies.













Then we made a trip to the beach... not the famous Malibu beach itself , but a rather quieter place that was nearby. It was a nice sandy beach but with little rocky regions where the waves made swirling lagoons, and in shallow ponds grew brightly coloured seaweed. The weed I could not take home, but the many coloured pebbles I did. They were in green and blue and pink and red and sunny yellow, and they had been worn down and looked like the koozhankallu that you find on the river banks; and as there were no shells here, as there are in India, I collected these. And undoubtedly, just as my shells lost their beauty after months of languishing in cupboards, these stones will also crumble to dust, while I forget about them.














Monday was the beginning of my new job... as a peer advisor... It is to basically help Undergrads out in choosing their subjects... Not a lot of hard work and the pay is decent and the other people in the office are nice... So I'm looking forward to it!

But the most exciting event of the week... at least as far as I a concerned ... was on Wednesday... no its not that I have no more assignments due for another week... although there's that too...)... It was the free astronomy lecture... a sort of planetarium thing... followed by a Slide Show presentation... followed by .... viewing the sky through a real... honest to goodness telescope... and it was great. We found Vega,the Ring Nebula(a little hazy.... but adjust karle) and Mars and viewed them through the telescope.... and yes it was great!


The Ring Nebula















The Red Planet

The Answer

Technically- this being post number 42 should be "The Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything"- unfortunately I'm no closer to the answer than I was 4 months ago when I started blogging- in fact I don't think I'm closer than I was 20 years ago.. I figure that this is one of those questions that will never be answered.

Chances are when we do find the answer we won't know that "This is IT" ...obscured as our eyes are by all the other answers floating around... or as Douglas Adams says "Maybe once we find the meaning to life the Universe and everything , the Universe will be replaced by something more complicated...Chances are.. .Its already happened"Yes I know its not the exact quote... Its not like I have the book open in front of me... Its the gist of it though.

Or like CS Lewis says "If life had no meaning we would not know that it has no meaning , just like a creature with no eyes living in darkness does not know that there is no light."

We just assume that life has a meaning- a purpose- that each of our lives has a purpose- perhaps that's more egoistical than anything else... we can't bear the idea that we are simply creatures that came into existance by some freak accident- that in the long term and scale of the universe we "mean" as much as any grain of sand. We need to feel that we exist for a reason higher than ourselves - for God or for our Country or for someone who would depend on us.... we need to be needed... Or maybe as Adams says(again- misquoting him) - Maybe we're not asking the right questions

A little Sightseeing - finally!

Well people, its been a hectic week, but what a great end we made to it- with a trip to the beach! The beach that is near here - Venice Beach- it was actually built where there used to be marshes- much like the original Venice that it is named after- is an incredible palce.

There's a boardwalk all the way down that is crowded with shopkeepers, artists, singers, simply an icredible variety of people.

There are a huge number of costume jewllery shops there selling all kinds of funky jewellery, bead necklaces, crystals, earrings made of feathers, all brightly coloured, unlike the sophisticatd and rather drab stuff you find inside the city. Then there are clothes shops seeling stuff at throwaway rates, there are "Henna tatoo" places, and proper tatoo places and we actually saw a person with tatoos all over his arms and legs... which was seriously startling.

And there are artists all the way down, painting the sea, the people, portraits, abstract art, stuff sraight out of the imagination- like an artists view of another planet... whatever. And there are artistes of other kinds too- there was a huge group of people with percussion insruments of all kigs- drum and what not -all playing together, while an even huger crowd gathered around them, simply to enjoy the ambience of the place.

And there was an old guitarist sitting on the stairs to some building playing and singing to himself- and there were several DJ's there- all doing weird stuff with their music- there wore bikers and skaters and rollerbladers- it wa sa wonderful eclectic crowd- all bright and lively, there was a sense of enthusiasm, and spontaniety in the air- it was the perfect place to spend a Sunday evening after a long week's work.

And at the end of the day there was a glorious sunset as the cream on the cake, a golden sun setting in a crimson and purple sky over multi-hued sea. The tide rising, and waves galloping to the surface, a pleasantly chill breeze, and a splinter of the moon in the sky, stars just peeping out, and as the lights dimmed in the sky, the ones on earth lit up, in bright red, and blue and green, the sounds of laughter drifting in the air as we made our way home

The Taste of Heaven

I've had a bit of heaven today. Cold and sweet and with bits of rich chocolate, sandwiched on either side by a melty, nutty adictive chocolate chip cookie. And for just a little while, the world was a perfect place, while I swirled it round my tongue, let it slide down my throat, revelled in it , in its smell, its texture, its taste. Heaven isn't free... but at one dollar it comes pretty cheap, and the Gates to Heaven ar at "Didi Riese" ... there is the solution to every problem in life.... this alone is worth coming to LA for... the equivalent of Rava Dosai at Saravana Bhavan, or Idli at Murugan Idli's back at home.

The walk to and fro was lovely too. The evening brings a gentle mist to settle down upon us, and the roads are lighted by dim lamps that illuminate small circles and deepen the shadows behind the trees where things lurk in our imaginations. There is a graveyard on the way. It's hardly spooky though, the even green lawns, and the neat rows of tombstones, leave an impression of peace, and restfulness, a place abiding of calm in this eternally restless city.

A sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living airAnd the blue sky, and in the mind of man,—
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.

- The poem's Wordsworth's ,not mine- but its pretty much cevers what I'm feeling now- I seem to have gotten a bit off topic...Ah well....