Fueling Thoughts

I almost stepped on a rake again the other day, driven by the urge to jump into a field that is, in theory, indispensable, yet in practice sits squarely in the paradox of "high need with zero demand". The subject: Low-energy water pumping. I have spent years obsessing over designs that use a river’s kinetic energy to pump water into fields - pontoon-mounted Darrieus or Gorlov turbines driving pumps, to more esoteric ideas like the Hydrautomat water staircase. The wake-up jolt came when my own shadow asked : fine, you build a working prototype, then what? Who, exactly, will use it or buy it? A sobering question. Experience and data both show that most community-scale alternative energy or WASH projects collapse the moment they are no longer underwritten or subsidized by governments or NGOs. While riding through the upper reaches of Arunachal Pradesh, I was initially awed, and eventually irritated, by the number of water-driven prayer wheels lining the roadsides....

I got introduced to Billy Bob Thornton’s acting prowess through Landman. Next, I binged through Goliath, then Fargo, and now am back to season two of Landman. From what I’ve read, he lived a hard, working man’s life before his screen breakthrough. And it shows. His onscreen presence, is not something any acting school can teach. He is essentially always himself, a ronin, a rogue inside the system, playing by his own rules, alone, and never hesitant about speaking his mind. Plus, in real life, he is dyslexic and struggled in his education - things I can strongly relate to. It is in episode two of Landman season two where his character tells his son about his own frustrated, physically abusive father and says: “Just know this: however you raise your son is how he’s gonna raise his son.” That line resonated. Not that I was physically abused growing up, but a binary system of narcissistic parentage drilled it into us early on that we were a liability, a shame, that they were ...

    L ast   week ended with two rejections, both international and each at the final stage. If Indian gatekeepers demand revenues or at least projections of billions of dollars in profit, the Europeans probably needed someone younger with a PhD and a series of postdoctoral theses behind their name, maybe a female of colour,  with STEM qualifications  as a co-founder thrown in… But frankly, I have no idea why we weren't selected. Both were met with nonchalance, and I went back to laying tiles around the “Fountain of Youth,” the replacement of the cracked 50-year-old wash basin in my mother’s bathroom. “The Toilet of Doom” has been completed for a month now, with everything from sewage lines to plumbing, installing the potty and floor tiles, done by own hands, and is since in regular use - thank you! The only thing these two rejection love letters, as I call them, achieved, was that I am no longer planning to participate in the third European event to wh...

I can't speak for the kids today, but   children of my generation were exposed to a myriad of stupid, inconsiderate questions. When young – who do you love more, your father or your mother – usually asked right in front of your parents. Seriously, what’s your fucking business? You do not care beyond the cheap thrill of making a child squirm. A little older, it became the self-righteous – what rank do you hold in class? “First from the last,” I often replied without blinking, my shadow giving them the middle finger. Sometimes I would ask back – with the sweetest of smiles – what rank they held in school or college. They usually changed the subject or lied. Once, I witnessed how an ageing Oriya IAS officer was competing with a fellow Oriya ex–uncle-in-law (a retiring professor) about always being the topper. When the latter said he was first in everything except handwriting and drawing, the officer solemnly declared he was always first in those subjects too… Two old coo...

T aking a sabbatical hasn’t reduced my workload in the slightest. Sure, emails now get curt one-liners or no reply at all. Most work-related calls go unanswered. Then again, calling it work was already a stretch. If earlier all the “liftoffs,” “jump starts,” went straight to my spam folder, now their calls are also being ignored. The few I do pick up, they wish I hadn’t. And as always, someone remarks, “You’re so blunt!” A few times, I asked back, “Have you ever met a polite fireman?” The question is usually asked with a wry smile and the mental image of that #metoo era cartoon – a fireman climbing through a window to save a woman in a burning house, only for her to sniff, “I don’t consent to being touched.” He shrugs and leaves her to roast. People fall silent. Most have never met a fireman – especially one at work. The truth is, firemen don’t have time for courtesy, consensus, or consent. Their work is dangerous – saving lives and property, not debating pronouns or k...

I don't know how many enjoy watching those "oddly satisfying" category of clips where people wash carpets, where a grimy brown-black rectangle reemerges into its original bright colours with floral or geometric patterns. A practical example of resurgence and rebirth, though more likely it feeds the same voyeuristic mechanism that makes people watch Dr. Pimple Popper drain pus, extract giant blackheads, marvel at giant boogers, or savour the stench of a just coughed-out tonsil stone. Let me assure you, in reality, washing carpets is oddly dissatisfying. I found that out yesterday. I hauled out a mysterious, grey-tinged, cardboard-like carpet, long folded up, with no recollection of how it ever got into the house. My mother said it was natural wool and that my father had bought it while I was still in school. It took a boutique blend of cleaners and about four hours of pressure washing to restore it to its original white and cream. My back ached for the rest of the day, an...

At an age when most rockers had burned out, OD’d, or on permanent residency in rehab, the King of Heavy Metal came in screaming his first solo mega-hit "Holy Diver," well in his mid-40s. After decades of yelling along without a clue, I finally used the internet to figure out what Ronnie James Dio was actually singing about—apparently some transdimensional batman masked messianic figure taking a dive to save an ungrateful humanity. Sounds familiar - flood relief Bamboo Boats anyone ?? On a personal level, though, Holy Diver lately started meaning something else altogether. Call her a metaphor of my Jungian Anima, the female archetype lurking in a man’s psyche, or a temptress - a Sky Dakini in the flesh, luring me to take the plunge. For the Lord knows how pathetically susceptible we men are to female cajoling—far more than to nagging. And its certainly more effective a method of allure than by ghosting, in life or in chats. Well, this Holy Diver—or should I say Sky Diver—is n...