Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilivolcanoniosis. Huh? What?

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilivolcanoniosis – believe it or not is a word. No, I’m not making this up. The longest word recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary, it is a lung disease caused by inhaling volcanic silicon dust.

I came across this and some other interesting facts about language in the trivia section the Discover magazine throws in towards the end. I also learnt that due to the placement of our voice box we cannot breathe and swallow at the same time, but you already knew that. Babies however, can because the voice box doesn’t drop to wherever it needs to be until 9 months after we are born. Bet you don’t remember breathing and swallowing. Also because of where the voice box sits, we humans have a uniquely large resonating system.

Modern technology and no doubt our lack of time for everything has spilled into our language world too. We turned “bits of eight” into “bytes”, “modulate/demodulate” became “modem”. And guess what blog’s full name is? Web log. So correct English would be, I’m web logging not blogging. But I don’t have time to say web logging! Don’t you know about the oodles and oodles of work I have to do?

Anyway let’s not get sidetracked. Moving on, Mandarin has the most native speakers on the planet. This one, I was shocked.  Wouldn’t you think it would be English? There are 2.5 times more native Mandarin speakers than English. But 70% of the web is in English and the language most spoken online is also English. Spanish Silbo is a language, composed of whistling sounds! It has only 4 vowel and four consonant sounds! It’s audible for miles and resembles bird calls! No, really I’m not making this up.

Those of you who live in New York, have you seen the bird man? Maybe he speaks Spanish Silbo!

You remember those science words back in school? Algebra, Alkaline and the one I hated the most – algorithm. Those were all loaned to English by Arabic, in which the prefix al means “the”. So thegebra, thekaline and thegorithm? Senseless but none of that made sense anyway, especially thegorithm.

There are about 6,800 spoken languages in the world and more than 1/3^rd of them (i.e. 2,266.666667) are in danger of becoming silent. We humans are a piece of work; because of us even languages are endangered! UNESCO says about 200 tongues now have fewer than 10 surviving speakers.  (If you don't have anything to do and want to sound smarter to your friends, there is more trivia here.)

Pleas from a night past

Think of all that time being wasted when I could utilize it doing wonderful things like reading feasts of goats and years of solitude. Alas! I must endure another test the universe throws at me. In a usual cycle of a slight accumulation of frustration I took to venting to my mother-in-law who said something philosophically beautiful and profoundly simple. “Be patient. Perhaps you need to develop patience for the task you are to be given.” At some level I think I knew that but hearing it from someone else jolted me to reality.

But then I also started thinking, what if my purpose is what is going on right now? I know I’ve talked about this before but what if in this life time my purpose was simply this? This meaning, to learn patience. So should I simply resign myself to my fate and live life without any ambition or should I still try to get to where I would like to be?

Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu, part of the Holy Trinity of Indian culture said don’t worry about what should be. You can attain nirvana in what you are; no matter what life throws at you it is possible to reach salvation. Preaching to Arjun on the battlefield while reciting the Bhagavad Gita he said do your duty and don’t worry about the outcome. As a warrior it’s your duty to fight and kill. You will be held in the wrong if you don’t. If you do your duty promptly you will attain me. This, the practice of karma yoga, states to reach salvation by performing your duty in the highest regard. So if I were to apply Krishna’s teaching to my present situation, it would mean I keep doing what I am and regardless of whether I’m able to find something more fulfilling I have a shot at the glory of the soul.

Easier said than done, right? I wrote some verses correctly reflecting my state of mind. If I am to be stuck in this, yes, I need the universe to fill my reservoir with courage and of course patience.

Pleas from a night past

Oct 13, 2010

10.03 am

Last night I sat atop my bed

With my legs folded

And eyes closed

A mantram reverberating

Within my soul

Beginning a search for the

Path to the obscure land

Last night I sat atop my bed

With my hands in prayer position

And soul seeking redemption

Beseeching the might

That resides in us all

To show me the way

There are two possible paths

I argued with my self

Either grant me prosperity

And fulfillment of a better position

Or show me realization

Within my existing obligations

If my purpose is to serve

Why am I trapped within

Attitudes of profit

If my purpose is to learn

Endow me with strength

To climb that gargantuan mountain

Feeling resigned to emptiness

I opened my eyes

And hoped in the vastness of things

My pleas from a night past

Were loud enough

Feasts galore

To honor Mario Vargas Llosa I decided to read one of his books. The Feast of the Goat was highly recommended and so I started that off. When I first heard of the name, I thought of the movie men who stare at goats, which was a funny movie with the hottie Clooney. But nope, its not a comedy book. Then I thought perhaps its about a wedding where they right, feasted on a goat. But I was wrong again.

Defying all of my common sense, the book is actually a political novel set in the Dominican Republic. It's about assassination of Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, and its aftermath, from two distinct standpoints a generation apart: during and immediately after the assassination itself, in May 1961; and thirty years later, in 1996.

The first chapter, about a woman who comes back to the DR to see her ailing father, totally hooked me. I can tell with all certainty this is going to be a highly engrossing, keep me up at night sort of book. Will let you know how it goes.

Until then enjoy the gorgeous weather. I hear it starts raining tomorrow, yuck!

Prison peace

The continued assertion and propounded growth of the Chinese economy is nothing short of a marvel. But when China warns other countries if they do something the government doesn’t like there will be back lash you are forced to ask, who do the Chinese exactly think they are? Granted, they are making huge strides in economic development but when we talk about human rights, Beijing’s record is abysmal. Tibet is their catastrophic failure and their unwillingness to resolve it by peaceful means is a whole another matter.

This morning my heart gave a little woohoo on reading the news. As you know, its Nobel season and yesterday the Literature prize was announced to the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa. Today was the turn of the Peace prize, which last year went to President Obama. Before the prize was announced today there was a lot of speculation on who would win it, because the favorite was Liu Xiaobo. Of course, in the past few weeks the Chinese government had warned the Norwegian government they would oppose the move should the prize be awarded to Mr. Lui because he is a “criminal.” Yes, for the past 20+ years Mr. Lui has been rotting in a Chinese prison for his efforts to promote democracy in the communist nation.

So I went woohoo, because defying China’s status as a rising power and the second largest economy in the world and all those other great, big tags the Nobel committee today announced the Peace prize to Mr. Lui. In their words, "The Norwegian Nobel Committee has long believed that there is a close connection between human rights and peace. Such rights are a prerequisite for the fraternity between nations of which Alfred Nobel wrote in his will."

So guess what China’s government did? Besides opposing the move, they blocked the live telecast of the announcement with all international channels temporarily blacked out and called it a “blasphemy to the prize.”   

As I said earlier, China’s spectacular growth in the past few decades is a testament to her people’s hard work and the smarts of the government to implement policies that work. But when a nation no matter how powerful starts dictating terms, bullying other nations and interfering in all decisions they don’t agree with there can be a problem. I am proud that the Norwegian government stood up to the Chinese government and sent a message that no matter how powerful you are, peace cannot be sold.

Even if your own people do not recognize you, the world commends your efforts. Congratulations Mr. Lui!

Going back in time or ahead?

For a while, I didn’t know what to expect from this book. It started off talking about life outside our planet and about a brilliant scientist who claimed to his wife to have found life outside in the universe. Then in a sort of going back to the beginning, Lucy ends up in a garden in the middle of nowhere, which is conveniently self-sufficient. Add to that Adam who is already there, thinks Lucy (whom he calls Eve – yes he is partly delusional) ended up there because he asked God to send him a mate. I know, hard to stomach but let’s go with the flow for now.

So there is this going back to Genesis track but on the other hand Lucy also has some scrolls that would apparently challenge the traditional “God created Earth” theory too. So Lucy, according to Adam, is living Genesis but she knows she holds clues to defy Genesis.

And then she has that flash drive around her neck.

I’m really not sure what’s keeping me going with this book but I feel a certain pull for it. Will definitely say that if you’re not a science buff, don’t like your imagination running all over the place and don’t want to know anything about the Nag Hammadi scrolls, Genesis and anything ancient stay away from Adam & Eve.

Religious? No. Scientific? Umm, maybe.

This weekend was phenomenal. The weather decided to be cooperative (until Sunday night) and bestowed us with abundant sunshine and the perfect temperatures. Taking advantage of the sunlight that very soon will become scarce I went hiking with some friends to Bear Mountain. 40 miles away from the city, I did not know there could be so much peace and serenity to be found! What a marvelous day to enjoy the scenery and get the heart rate thumping. Seriously, at one point in the hike, I thought my heart was going to explode and blow me to smithereens. Knowing my accident prone behavior, on the way down, I was sure to fall on my face and break a bone or two. Fortunately, nothing like that happened and I finished the hike without a scratch.



On the way to the top



View from Bear Mountain

Coming back to reading, I started Adam & Eve by Sena Jeter Naslund. I’m about 60 pages in and have mixed feelings so far. Needless to say, she is trying to draw parallels to the Bible by setting Adam in the middle of nowhere (which he thinks is the Garden of Eden) and is craving for Eve. Her prose sometimes is lyrical but also a bit foolish as she describes Adam’s attempts to name things around him. (I think he is suffering from amnesia). Somehow he ends up naming a peach as a peach and an airplane an airplane. Viola!



Eve’s name is Lucy – and she is so called because of the oldest fossil that was discovered a year or so ago. So someone who entrusts her with a codex threatening to destroy the origins of the 3 major religions says, Lucy is the evolutionist’s Eve. OK, good attempt at reconciling recent discoveries in the book.

Now Lucy has set off from Egypt en route to Europe with this codex that obviously fundamentalists will kill her for. And to add to it, she has a flash driver from her brilliant late-husband that contains proof of extraterrestrial life. Being a huge science buff I’m willing to explore this book without any judgments a bit more. Stay tuned for the final verdict.

So many to choose from

Russian Winter is on its way out, and I know I talked about reading books via a theme but I don’t know how I feel about that. Having a reading list for the next year forces me to suppress my inhibitions and unable to pick a book I really like it or am in the mood for. For now, I’ll shelve the theme-ing idea but I may go back to it for a month or so to see how it flows.

Lots of good books out right now and I’m all over the map with what to pick up next! The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver is receiving some good reviews. It’s about a man who is pulled between two nations (Mexico during the times of Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo and America during Pearl Harbor) as well as a portrait of the artist and art. Another good one I came across is Adam & Eve – yes from the Bible but this ain’t a religious book. It’s about 2 people recovering from physical and emotional injuries and they find themselves in an oasis. But Eve is secretly carrying a different version of the beginning of life that was newly discovered under the sands of Egypt, and is being sought by those who would do anything to keep it from being released. Sounds really interesting!

The Gendarme (how do you pronounce that?), sounds like the perfect book right now, about a WWI veteran suffering from amnesia because of a head wound. Now he is old with a brain tumor that’s causing long-lost memories to return. It also makes him recall an earlier life as a Turkish gendarme leading a group of Armenian refugees to the border. In the mix of despair, brutality and desperation he falls in love with Araxie, one of the Armenian refugees and begins to perceive his actions and his attitude through her eyes.

But the book I’m most excited about is Ken Follet’s Fall of Giants, which came out on September 28. It’s a mammoth 850 page story, first in a trilogy. I just want make this clear upfront that this book cannot be finished in a week, no matter how interesting, especially with my change of fate. Perhaps this might be the next one (will be buying it from Costco tomorrow) or may be one of the earlier ones. We’ll find out soon!