Big City Loneliness

It is only someone living in a big city, who can understand how lonely could one be in such places! For someone at a distance, a big city and the life it offers look so colorful that it is often quite difficult to visualize how hard and lonely life could be for someone living alone in such a city. Witnessing the fun and frolic that people around one is having, does not improve the situation a bit!

I arrived at the following song while searching for something else: viz., "Mamma Don't Let Your Babies Grow To Be Cowboys" by Willie Nelson. But after listening to this song, I realized how true the lyrics are! Here you go:
_______________________

Lonesome L.A. Cowboy
Lyrics: Peter Rowan
Music: Peter Rowan

[chorus]

I'm just lonesome L.A. cowboy
Hanging out, and hanging on
To your window ledge, callin' your name
From midnight until dawn
I been smoking dope, snorting coke
Trying to write a song
Forgettin' everything I know
Till the next line comes along
Forgetting everything I know
Till the next line comes along

So many pretty people in this city, and I swear
Some of them are girls
I meet 'em down at Barney's Beanery
In their platform shoes and spit curls
I buy 'em drinks, we stoke our hopes
And try to make it one more night
When I'm left alone at last
I feel like I'll die from crying

[chorus]

I know Kris and Rita and Marty Mull (note 1)
Are meeting at the Troubadour
We'll get it on with the "Joy Of Cooking"
While the crowd calls out for more
Around six o'clock this morning
I'll be gettin' kind of slow
When all the shows are over, honey, tell me
Where do you think I go?

[chorus]

Till the next line comes along

Notes
(1) in rehearsals with Old And In The Way, Peter Rowan sang

I know all the stars in Hollywood
Are meeting at the Troubador
We'll get it on with the band that's playing there
While the crowd calls out for more
__________________________________________________________________
Source: http://www3.clearlight.com/~acsa/introjs.htm?/~acsa/songfile/LONESMLA.HTM

Of Memory and Phobias

The other day I attended a talk by a Professor in Neuroscience. It was part of a distinguished lecture series, and the topic he chose was Memory. It was an excellently lucid talk and he mentioned some very interesting points.

For example, most people are scared of spider, darkness, snake, fire or height, but not of car, telephone or such things. Accroding to him, we got our phobias from our forefathers, which are carried across generations since thousands of years ago.

He also mentioned that kids have no memories of theitr life before when they were about 3 years old; the reason is that they do not learnt to form and connect words with their thoughts until that time and, so they cannot retain memories of incidents that happened before that time.

Another point he mentioned was fascinating. For example, if we are shown a slide that contains words such as sugar, honey and dessert, and later asked if the word "sweet" was there or not, we will all reply in assertive. That is because we associate sweetness with words such as sugar, honey and dessert. He gave an actual demonstration of it.

He also mentioned induced memory, that i,s how by repeatedly telling someone what happened ( which is actually totally fabricated) during, say, one's childness, a person could be made to believe that such things really happend with him. He, for example, showed photographs of how actor Alan Alda reacted very repulsively towards boiled eggs, after he was told that he had allergic reactions to boiled eggs all throughout his childhood. They carried out this experiment at the University of California, Irvine (UCI).

But the most interesting fact was that babies start learning inside their mother's womb. Some pregnant mothers who used to read particular kids' stories ("Cat in the Hat") when they were pregnant, later found that when they read the same story to their babies, they were contended.

It seems that the story of Abhimanyu from Mahabharata was not a total fantasy after all! But then, who knows!

Death of a Statesman*

As someone completely and totally disillusioned with politics, I have scant regard or respect for most politicians and the so-called statemen. But in spite of that, there are some people in politics who deserve respect by virtue of their uniqueness.

Ramon Magsaysay is one such person for me. Magsasay, in spite of being the President of his country, totally ignoned all security concerns and had kept the doors to his residence open to the people at all times. Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino is another politician whom I respect (though some critics say that he could well have been the dictator that fidel Ramos was!) because of his courage; he decided to return to his country in 1982, in spite of knowing fully well that there was a significant chance that he would be assassinated, which he was within minutes of his landing!

Sarat chandra Sinha was onother politican I hold in high regard. It was not that his political life was without controversies. He ruled the state during one of the most turbulent periods in the history of independent India. He apparently claimed that he would run bulldozer over the agitating students during the medium of instruction movement back in 1972. He also was the chief minister during Emergency!

But then, he was also the man who, on the day his chief ministership was over, walked out of the State Assembly, walked up to the nearest busstop, caught a bus and went home. That was in 1978. And after that, people always saw him traveling by city bus. A scrupulously honest man, he never made any personal properties, and was epitome of simple living and high thinking. His commitment and selfless service made him a colossus in the political arena.

*In memorium: Sarat Chandra Sinha (1st January, 1914 - 25th December, 2005)
___________________________________________________________________
Sources:
http://assamchronicle.com/content/view/28/9/
http://www.nenanews.com/ANE%20Jan.%2016-31,06/oh1.htm