Tale of a genuis

Last week I was disdained by the amount of words and needless descriptions the author used in the tale. This week, the story remarkably picked up and became a non-stop read. The descriptions and the lucidty of the story, along with the seemingly endless sentences in typical British style were endearing.

What was also interesting was the story; which does not differ much from the real version of events. So Ramanujan was a poor man living in South India with an uncanny penchant for mathematics. He was awarded numerous scholarships but they were usually taken away because he couldn't be bothered with any other subject. While in India, he wrote countless theorems, without any formal training in the subject, an achievement he attributed to a local Goddess.

He then decides to write to 3 Professors in Britain (this was during pre-independence), one of whom identifies his sheer talent and brings Ramanujan to the UK. This Professor is Hardy, one of the greatest mathematicians of that era, perhaps in the same league as Isaac Newton.

Ramanujan comes to England, makes many more break throughs, as a result of which countless awards are bestowed on him. He becomes the youngest fellow of the FRS (at 29), a feat that no one until today has topped. FRS is Fellow of the Royal Society.

This mathematician however is extremely religious and from the sounds of it a picky eater. With time he is severally malnutritioned and as a result of World War I cannot gain access to the vegetables, etc. he needs to sustain himself. So he becomes ill, very ill and is constantly in and out of hospitals. Finally he decides, after the war, to return to India where at the age of 32 he passes away. This is what the book tells us.

I wiki Ramanujan and find the exact same version, but my guess is the author chose to call it fiction because he inserts certain dialogues and instances that cannot be independently verified.

Here comes the mind boggling part -- this harmless young man with absolutely no formal training in mathematics growing up, conjured the greatest discoveries in the field. People who are not trained in mathematics may not understand the importance of these feats but consider this -- mathematicians themselves are only just beginning to fathom the breadth of his work! A man way ahead of his times, it is said his formulae might explain String theory; considered to be the unified theory of everything, as well as multiple dimensions, wormholes, levitation and so much more!

Indeed a sad end to great talent!

Dreams

What are they? Are they as some people say a manifestation of the sub conscious or are they messages from a space we haven’t yet deciphered? Last week I mentioned I’ve been having some crazy dreams. I mentioned this to a friend who said she was happy for me because they constituted some sort of a release. Are they a release? Or are they giving me an opportunity to view something that I wouldn’t experience otherwise? It’s hard to tell and that primarily stems from our very limited knowledge of our brain. We could call dreams whatever and define them to mean an assortment of things but the truth is we really don’t know.

The same friend I was talking to about dream as a release jokingly told me she has lost her creativity in her dreams, i.e. she isn’t dreaming. No sooner did she say that she was blown away this past weekend when she and her mother had the same dream. How does something like that happen? Two people having the same dream? Those of us who have read The Stand might say it’s a precursor of things to come. Or skeptics might call it a coincidence. Believe it or not, I don’t think there are coincidences in this world. Everything we see, experience and derive meaning from was meant to be.

Are dreams traveling from a plane we don’t yet understand? Are they a sign of our evolvement or how much more we have to go? And what about those dreams that come true? No I don’t mean I dreamt of being a senior executive at a big company and with hard work I got there. No, not that. I mean a real dream that few days later was confirmed as real. How does that happen?

For the past few weeks I am trying to understand what power, if any, is giving us charge to manifest our fears in our dreams. Or perhaps the power that is giving us little control over what is going to happen by letting us view in our dreams the reality about to unfold. Are becoming psychic? Perhaps in this world where all is going to hell, the higher power is giving us control to awaken our consciousness by giving us glimpses of things to come.

I am not questioning that which is and I know sometimes there is no need to even understand it. It is enough knowledge that something is occurring and as always exists to solve a higher, deeper purpose. My dreams are showing me the world in a way that I didn’t know I could see. They are opening my eyes to realms that exist deep within me, albeit quiet all along. Something inside has tuned in with the universe, how much ever it astonishes me, I am humming along.

Disdain

Why do English writers go on & on & on & on? I get that its their language and their general comfort level with the script and its usage is high than the rest of us; to whom they introduced their beloved tongue, but does that mean they should get lost in their own words? I often come across this, where I believe, usually an English writer gives out waaaaay too many details about things that do not matter. There are exceptions, of course but a lot of them talk about trivialties in such a way; you forget the point they were really making and the story you are actually reading.

This trend was alright back in the day when writers like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky rambled on for centuries because they were being paid per word. Now-a-days, its archaic. Get to the point! And get to it fast. Resorting to such feeble attempts to fill in pages isn't lending credibility to your writing skills. Crisp writing is.

Nothing & Everything

Do you know the feeling when you feel overwhelmed but under challenged? When all things have become a part of you yet you feel distant? When your thoughts are consuming you yet you are managing to keep away from them? When you can’t find solace in your waking life but your dreams are able to provide answers?

If you do then you know how I feel. It’s a mixture of feelings where I am daring myself to go beyond and being drawn to the mystical at the same times I couldn’t be less bothered with stimulating the intellect. One of the reasons I was away for a while. The other, I was working.

I’ve been having some pretty crazy dreams and I wait to every night to see what I’d dream next. It seems that my sleeping life holds more excitement than my waking one. It is almost as if I turn to my bed in hopes of finding answers or some clues to mysteries my brain on coffee can’t seem to crack.

Tumultuous emotional days add to the overall chagrin (I use it for complete lack of a better word. I don’t curse the dictionary for lack of words simply my waking mind for my inability to express the emotion)! Past few days an intense feeling held me in its gaze, an awakening sort of aura resided around me. Today, I can’t seem to find it. Maybe it’s on a hiatus.

In this sort of world, I cannot turn to any reading that would make me feel relaxed and at ease. I don’t know if my feeling is of unease so it wouldn’t be appropriate to classify it one way or another. I guess the best way to look at it would be to say – right now I just am. I am watching, feeling and moving with this ebb and flow of a rainbow of sentiments, all bringing with them their disdain, indifference or excitement. I reel with them.

Anyway, back to reading so I started The Indian Clerk, don’t know how far I will get with it but that’s me being for now. The fiction tale is loosely centered on a real life character Ramanujan, an illiterate from India but a math genius. It’s the story of how his mentor discovers him and gives him flight. The real Ramanujan died very young but let’s see where this tale takes us.

For now, I am headed back to sit within myself and take a whim or fancy towards something undefined, something challenging, boring or simply something that just is.