The Prodigal CV

Then I said to myself, "What happens to the fool will happen to me also; why then have I been so very wise?" And I said to myself that this also is vanity. For there is no enduring remembrance of the wise or of fools, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten.

-Anonymous

Sometimes you have a chance encounter with a picture of yours from a different era, and it is like being introduced to your Neanderthal twin from a different world. An emaciated look, sallow eyes, with the only thing worse than your hair-do is your sense of dressing, when wearing oversized tee shirts or tooooo-low waist jeans were in vogue. You look at yourself from the past and wonder, who is this obnoxious creature? I guess it is okay to make fun of oneself publicly. I had one such chance encounter, but not with a picture of mine from the past. Well, it was a picture sort of, but more of my academic achievements, or the lack of it. It happened one day that the TnP in-charge of my branch, Gaurav Choudhary, sent a text asking to prepare a CV and then e-mail it to him within two days. As ordered, I sat down to write, or type, my first ever written Curriculum Vitae (CV), and it was like having a glimpse of the outdated, backdated, anything but the glamorous past.

So......it was the first time I was making CV for myself. Maybe, it’s an indication that I will be out of college soon and will need to fend for myself. The dreams for a lucrative and money-spinning job have just started to take shape, and an impressive resume seems like a good idea to make initial contact with the aliens. Yeah, the feeling is something akin to that. The only trouble was, there was nothing much impressive for me to show off. Not a very rewarding summer internship, no fellowship, no real research experience. However, something had to be written, and that was what I did. Over the next few hours, I took a ride into my past and dug out everything, every single pettiest thing that I ever did and blotched it all over my resume. After continuous hard work, I was finally able to write a quasi-decent and quasi-presentable resume. All the facts about my life, which I had brought to my mind from the hinterlands of don’t-ask-me-where, were all there. For the next few hours of my life, I sat there wide eyed; looking at the wreckage from a disaster movie, my blotchy and mottled, a catawampus CV.

It started with a very confused and baffled-looking picture of mine (who gives their pictures in CVs?) with that desperate look on my face, as if begging the HR to recruit me. What was I thinking, they would take one look at my “handsome” face and let me in? Then came the information no one cared about... Address, Telephone number, Father’s name, Ancestral property’s location, Name of the first pet. (Some of these are exaggerated of course, but I will leave it to you to figure it out.) What, were they going to write me letters? The next “ahem” part was, well, “Sex: Male”. I am impressed I did not mention caste, mother tongue native language, and the name of ancestral village.

Then came the “Biographical Information”, which was fine I guess, but for the parenthesis that said, “In reverse chronological order”. Yeah, as if the order mattered, and more importantly, as if it was rocket science to figure out what order things were in. Of course, every institution I attended had to be listed with the “marks obtained”, because how can one trust the transcripts of my great university, assuming the transcripts reached them on time? Then started the actual meat of the CV thankfully, institutions attended, random projects undertaken, with the mention of everything, from holding a shovel in the lab to ramming a core-cutter into the soil last week. Even things like “had 95% attendance in class”, “recited nursery rhymes 18 years ago”, “sung a song on Teachers’ Day”, or “could eat during class without getting caught” found an apt place in the CV. Then there were awards and accolades. “Stood 7^th out of 120 innumerable students in my school”, “won awards in debates and collages” (who cares?), or “sat through boring seminars” would find a place as well. If this was not insult enough to my academic achievements (or the lack of it), there would be a separate section dedicated to extracurricular activities, because being a house captain, an indispensible member of the Cancer Aid Society, playing Santa Claus for play-groupies on Christmas, standing behind on stage holding the Tricolour on Bapu’s birth day, anchoring soporific events should also count, or giving numerous super boring paper presentations continuously. Not to mention learning gazillion words from Barron’s, or the ability to gobble 50 gol-gappas in a minute.

Whether I like it or not, this will be an indelible part of what I was. It might take years of grooming, feedback, and doing some fruitful experience to build my credentials in the field, and to evolve as a professional. To put it differently, the present me is because that was the past me (though the college in between has metamorphosised me a lot positively, but still........12 years of schooling and 3 years so far for college; do the math!!). I looked at my CV with a mixture of both love and hatred. Is this who I used to be? Desperate to get recognition even for a seminar I attended and slept through? Or being exceptionally good at “plagiary” when it came to writing a test? Was I hoping my experience with being a part of a cancer club, or being a good counter-strike player was about to get me recruited in my dream company?

Yeah, I know we all have to start somewhere, and build from there. Just that early men did not have that polish doesn’t mean they were any less successful in their environment. However, call me smug, arrogant, thankless, whatever, but it doesn’t hurt to make fun of thy own once in a while. Except that 10 years down the line, I would be reading my CV and laughing again. “Went to XYZ dam for an inspection and got the Project Engineer suspended”. (my batch-mates will understand this ;P) Who cares?

Inventorying the INVISIBLE

"We don't know one percent of one millionth about anything." - Thomas Edison

Forgive my philosophy here, but after a long time the philosopher in me is awake and wants to write something. Don,t frown if you don't get the gist or have no idea on what am I talking on, after all the thoughts are intangible or I would have given you the option to mould it as you like. But you can't, as you can't see it in the first place........it's all invisible, isn't it!!! but still I hope you'll read it full, I say you'll enjoy it....

So the question is, what is invisible? There is more of it than you think, actually. Everything, I would say, everything that matters except every thing, and except matter. We can see matter. But we can't see what's the matter. As in this cryptic sentence I found in the Guardian recently. "The marriage suffered a setback in 1965 when the husband was killed by the wife."


So we can see the stars and the planets. But we can't see what holds them apart, or what draws them together. With matter, as with people, we see only the skin of things. We can't see into the engine room. We can't see what makes people tick, at least not without difficulty. And the closer we look at anything, the more it disappears. In fact, if you look really closely at stuff, if you look at the basic substructure of matter, there isn't anything there. Electrons disappear in a kind of fuzz, and there is only energy. And you can't see energy.

So everything that matters, that's important, is invisible. One slightly silly thing that's invisible is this story, which is invisible to you. And I'm now going to make it visible to you. I heard it in one of John Lloyd's talk. It's about an M.P. called Geoffrey Dickens.

The late Geoffrey Dickens, M.P. was attending a fete in his constituency. Wherever he went, at every stall he stopped he was closely followed by a devoted smiling woman of indescribable ugliness. Try as he might, he couldn't get away from her. A few days later he received a letter from a constituent saying how much she admired him, had met him at a fete and asking for a signed photograph. After her name, written in brackets was the apt description.....horse face. "I've misjudged this women." thought Mr. Dickens. "Not only is she aware of her physical repulsiveness, she turns it to her advantage. A photo is not enough." So he went out and bought a plastic frame to put the photograph in. And on the photograph, he wrote with a flourish, "To Horse Face, with love from Geoffrey Dickens, M.P." After it had been sent off his secretary said to him, "Did you get that letter from the woman at the fete? I wrote Horse Face on her, so you'd remember who she was."

I bet he thought he wished he was invisible, don't you?

So, one of the interesting things about invisibility is that things that we can't see we also can't understand. Gravity is one thing that we can't see, and which we don't understand. It's the least understood of all the four fundamental forces, and the weakest. And nobody really knows what it is or why it's there. For what it's worth, Sir Issac Newton, the greatest scientist who ever lived, he thought Jesus came to earth specifically to operate the levers of gravity. That's what he thought he was there for. So, bright guy, could be wrong on that one, I don't know.

Consciousness. I see all your faces. I have no idea what any of you are thinking. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that incredible that we can't read each other's minds. But we can touch each other, taste each other perhaps, if we get close enough. But we can't read each other's minds. I find that quite astonishing.

The laws of physics: invisible, eternal, omnipresent, all powerful. Remind you of anyone? Interesting. I'm, as you can guess, not a materialist, I'm an immaterialist. And I've found a very useful new word, ignostic. Okay? I'm an ignostic. I refuse to be drawn on the question of whether God exists, until somebody properly defines the terms!!!

The stars by day. I always think that's fascinating. The universe disappears. The more light there is, the less you can see.

Time, nobody can see time. I don't know if you know this. Modern physics, there is a big movement in modern physics to decide that time doesn't really exist. Because it's to inconvenient for the figures. It's much easier if it's not really there. You can't see the future, obviously. And you can't see the past, except in your memory.

One of the interesting things about the past is you particularly can't see, my younger sister asked me this the other day, he said, "Brother, can you remember what I was like when I was two?" And I said "Yes." And she said, "Why can't I?".  Isn't that extraordinary? You can not remember what happened to you earlier than the age of two or three. Which is great news for psychoanalysts. Because otherwise they'd be out of a job. Because that's where all the stuff happens........ that makes you who you are.

Another thing you can't see is the grid, on which we hang. This is fascinating. You probably know, some of you, that cells are continually renewed. You can see it in skin and this kind of stuff. Skin flakes off, hairs grow, nails, that kind of stuff. But every cell in your body is replaced at some point. Tastebuds, every 10 days or so. Livers and internal organs sort of take a bit longer. A spine takes several years. But at the end of seven years, not one cell in your body remains from what was there seven years ago. The question is, who, then, are we? What are we? What is this thing that we hang on, that is actually us?

There is so many things that -- Light. You can't see light. When it's dark, in a vacuum, if a person shines a beam of light straight across your eyes, you won't see it. Slightly technical, some physicists will disagree with this. But it's odd that you can't see the beam of light, you can only see what it hits. I find that extraordinary, not to be able to see light, not to be able to see darkness.

Electricity, you can't see that. Don't let anyone tell you they understand electricity. They don't. Nobody knows what it is. You probably think the electrons in an electric wire move instantaneously down a wire, don't you, at the speed of light when you turn the light on. They don't. Electrons bumble down the wire, about the speed of spreading honey, they say. Galaxies, 100 billion of them, estimated in the universe. 100 billion. How many can we see? Five. Five, out of the 100 billion galaxies, with the naked eye. And one of them is quite difficult to see unless you've got very good eyesight.

And I've come to the conclusion because you've asked this other question, "What's another thing you can't see?" The point, most of us. What's the point? You can't see a point. It's, by definition, dimensionless, like an electron, oddly enough.

But, the point, what I've got it down to is there are only two questions really worth asking. "Why are we here?" and "What should we do about it while we are? And to help you, I've got two things to leave you with, from two great philosophers, perhaps two of the greatest philosopher thinkers of the 20th Century. One a mathematician and an engineer, and the other a poet.

The first is Ludvig Vitgenštajn who said, "I don't know why we are here. But I'm pretty sure it's not in order to enjoy ourselves."

And secondly and lastly, W.H. Auden, who said, "We are here on earth to help others. What the others are here for, I've no idea."

CKD

“I proud to be a CKD” – XYZ (Name classified with the author)

“A CKD alone, who hast a heart of verity and a chaste soul, shalt have the valour for superfluous chivalry” – ABC (Name, again, classified with the author)

Since the commencement of the rat race of men, we have called each other by various names reflecting their character class as a whole like nerds, geeks, psychopath etc etc. These names are myriad and differ from region to region, environment to environment and specific characters found now and again. If you would ever come to my college Harcourt Butler Technological Institute, Kanpur, you would meet a special class of people.....CKDs (I would not expand this word since it could be disturbing). Now you would ask me what, who, how, why are they?? If you are a part of my institute you would be well intimate with the whole paraphernalia and lineament of a CKD. But it’s not like only my institute had had the honour to house these people, for countless years, the CKDs were spread around the globe as an unnamed class, (it’s just that the word ‘CKD’ was first minted in my institute).

So the question arises as to where did the CKD originate, both as a word an individual and, possibly, a species? What were the original societal perceptions of the CKD? How have these changed over the years? Avoiding the other clichés let’s enter the world of the CKD and discover this fascinating and light hearted guide of the origin, behaviour and evolution of the species. (Darwin, eat your heart out!!!)

BIOLOGICAL NAME: Homo Clitofanaticus

CHARCHTERISTICS:

A CKD is exclusively a Boy.

No Girl can ever be a CKD(legally...at least)

Typical to a CKD is his obliviousness to other boys when he is with a girl (CLASS A). 

Some hardcore CKDs surpass even this critical level of oblivion and they may be physically with a boy but never mentally (CLASS B). {{ Extensive evolution has conceived a CLASS C type CKD who might never talk to a boy in his lifetime }}

A CKD, though, is often seen striving for a feminine companion but no such result has ever been achieved. Yes, there have been 5-6 exceptions (but if 50% elements of the periodic table can be exceptions then presumably this a safe level for a theory).

Girls have often been seen as using them as a safe, convenient and long-lasting talking machine, photocopy machine, means of transport, carry bag, Personal Assistant and superficially a brother (nothing more, nothing *maybe* less).

In general, they are normally weak in ‘interaction’ skill, except with the girls.

The world has seen many CKDs through time and history. Some notable examples are:

1.)    Giacomo Casanova (pt 9 on the CKD INTENSITY SCALE, the first widely accepted CKD)

2.)    Charlie Chaplin (pt 4)

3.)    Isaac Newton (pt 3)

4.)    Albert Einstein (pt 7)

Some living legends include

1.)    Salman Rushdie (pt 6)

2.)    Shahrukh Khan (pt 5.3) [credited as the father of CKDtivity in India]

3.)    Hugh Hefner (pt 8) [father of CKDtivity in the world]

Owing to their ‘Brobdingnagian’ number and their subtly different genome from the humans, WHO, in the year 2008, decided to name them taxonomically as Homo Clitofanaticus.

Social History:

They were officially identified around 2000 A.D. circa when the DUDE culture was in the BETA version and was being christened. The DUDEs, large in number took the CKDs in disdain and made comprehensive efforts to socially exclude them. Afraid, some CKDs succumbed to DUDE-ism but with the emerging culture of Boyfriend-Girlfriend-ism, came a back effect on DUDE-ism (though it could not damage it much owing to the robust leadership of DUDE-ism). Since then the CKDs have increasingly become aware of their importance. CKD pride was born. (But the girls seem to be using them as a shield from the irresistible DUDEs so CKD-pride can been dubbed as CKD-PSEUDO-PRIDE).

It would be remiss not to mention Miane pyar kiya, Mohabbatein, Darr etc. pivotal as they are to CKDism. A majority of filmography of the 90s need be seen as it actually gave a majority of CKDs the “balls” to reveal their identity and pruned their behaviour as we see them today. I suggest you see them ‘cuz without the proper knowledge a CKD can never be understood and appreciated.

Of course, all this means that there are now huge amounts of people who pretend to be a CKD. This can be seen in the rise of CKDism as a whole. However, a word of warning for the pseudo-CKD, the real CKD can sniff you out as an imposter immediately!!  ‘coz it’s not easy to hang and swarm around girls all the time!!!  If you borrow the image, concept and culture of the CKD so you can stand out as an individual, remember that this is a contradiction in terms to the ‘CKD de Verity’. As such you will be shunned on discovery!

So, the CKD has come a long way in the thousands of years since the trait made its first appearance. What the next upcoming years holds is anyone’s guess??? But it promises to be more than interesting. Where the CKD herd goes next may well determine the future progress of humanity. Only time – and the type of evolution – will tell.

P.S.- Due to the unwillingness of the CKDs to interact with the other people of the surrounding world not much is known and the CKD community are the ‘Dark Continent’ for all evolutionists, biologists and behaviourists.

        I