The flutter of a butterfly…

The butterfly effect is a common trope in popular science and fiction that attempts to convey a hard-to-grasp scientific fact: a very small change in the initial conditions can create a significantly different outcome. The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly's wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of tornado a large distance away. 

A small twist of fate can alter a lot for one person but I have always suspected the impact of  one event on the course of the entire world. Can one person, one event, one random turn, truly alter the course of history? Aren't we all just pieces in one gigantic puzzle linked together in a million tiny ways but unable to influence the picture as a whole. But then, once in a while, I encounter examples where one person does manage to alter the entire course of history - unintentionally perhaps, but irreversibly altered nevertheless. 

In many ways, the story below - laced with irony, rebellion, intrigue and love - symbolizes the Economist's law of unintended consequences. Ever since I first heard the story, I have been trying to reconcile the monumental impact of this one man, Gavrillo Princip and this one chance event on the world as it exists today. The thing that caught my attention in this story was not the action of men because they failed in their own ways. But it was the role of chance, randomness or luck that truly stood out for me. 

Gavrillo Princip (1894-1918), was a Bosnian Serb who was responsible for the assassination of Prince Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenburg. Princip was born in a family of serfs at a time when Serbia was in a tumultuous state of transition. 

In 1878, under the Treaty of Berlin, Austria-Hungary received the mandate to occupy and administer the Bosnia while the Ottoman empire retained official sovereignty. As part of the same treaty, Serbia was accorded the status of a sovereign state which soon transformed into a kingdom under Prince Obrenovic who ruled within the borders set by the treaty. However, this peaceful state of existence changed when as part of a military coup, the king and the queen of Serbia were violently murdered and Peter I was installed as the new king. This new dynasty was friendlier to Russia than to Austria-Hungary and over the next decade, disputes erupted as Serbia moved to reclaim its former fourteenth century empire. Serbia's military successes in these campaigns further emboldened the nationalistic elements in Serbia and the serbs in Austria-Hungary who were irked by the Austro-Hungarian rule. 

As a christian serb (serf) family living in northwestern Bosnia, the Princips (and other serbs) were often oppressed by their muslim landlords and forced to live off the little land they owned. This led to large scale discontent against the Austro-Hungrian empire. At the age of 13, Princip's brother moved him to Sarajevo and this gave him more opportunities for protest. In 1911, Princip joined the Young Bosnia, a society that wanted to separate Bosnia from Austria-Hungary and to unite it with the rising kingdom of Serbia. The following year, Princip was expelled from school for being involved in demonstrations against the Austro-Hungarian authorities. Coincidentally, after the Balkan wars in 1912-1913 the Austro-Hungarian administration in Bosnia and Herzegovina became extremely serbophobic and declared a state of emergency as the governor closed many schools and Serb societies and inflamed the historic anti-serb rhetoric. All this further fueled the young Princip and he left Sarajevo to arrive in Belgrade. He then volunteered to join Serbian Guerrilla bands fighting under the leadership of Major Vojin Tankosic, who was a member of the Black Hand - the leading terrorist organization in Serbia at the time. Three young men, including Gavrillo Princip at the age of 19, were thus trained, armed and tasked with the assassination of Prince archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary by Major Tankosic. These young men were a product of their times as they sought freedom from the Austro-Hungarain empire to unite with the serbs, in hope of a better future. 

Gavrillo Princip, PC: Wikipedia 

Franz Ferdinand's life too is a charming story in itself. He was born in Austria to the younger brother of the emperor Franz Joseph, Archduke Karl Ludwig and was thus not the direct heir to the throne. However, in 1889, his cousin, Crown Prince Rudolf committed suicide and this left emperor Franz Joseph's younger brother (and Franz Ferdinand's father) next in line to the throne. When his father, Archduke Karl Ludwig, died of typhoid fever in 1896, Franz Ferdinand became the prince and heir to the throne. 

            

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, PC: Wikipedia    Duchess Sophie, PC: Wikipedia 

As a young man, Franz Ferdinand had met Countess Sophie Chotek at a ball in Prague but was forbidden to marry her as she was not a member of one of the reigning dynasties of Europe. Sophie and Prince Franz stayed in touch through letters and their relationship blossomed, away from the eyes of the court. Deeply in love, Franz Ferdinand refused to marry anyone else and after numerous appeals from him and his royal friends (Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, German emperor Wilhelm II and Pope Leo XIII all appealed his case), emperor Franz Joseph finally permitted the prince to marry Sophie. He however imposed a condition that the marriage would be morganatic and that their children would have no succession rights to the throne. Sophie was further forbidden from sharing her husband's rank, title, precedence or privileges and could normally not appear in public with him. Despite these brutal restrictions, the two married in 1900 and stayed together for the rest of the lives (and even deaths).  

In 1913, in the midst of the crisis in Serbia, Emperor Franz Joseph commanded the archduke to observe military maneuvers that were scheduled for June 1914 in Bosnia.  June was also a time of great unrest in Serbia as it commemorates the 1389 Battle of Kosovo against the Ottomans when the Sultan was assassinated by a Serb. This was a time for serbian patriotism and military observances. Although, Duchess Sophie could never share the archduke's rank and splendors as the prince; she would not let him travel alone as she feared for his safety amidst all this turmoil. In fact, if you were to believe historian AJP Taylor, love was the reason they met their deaths on this fateful day in June - "[Sophie] could never share Franz Ferdinand's] rank… could never share his splendors, could never even sit by his side on any public occasion. There was one loophole… his wife could enjoy the recognition of his rank when he was acting in a military capacity. Hence, he decided in 1914, to inspect the army in Bosnia. There at its capital Sarajevo, the Archduke and his wife could ride in an open carriage side by side…Thus, for love, did the Archduke go to his death".

On the fateful morning of June 28, 1914, The Archduke and his wife arrived in Sarajevo by train and the entire motorcade including the governor of Sarajevo began its journey as per a pre-announced program. Six armed assassins including Princip were positioned along the motorcade route with a single target in mind - Austria's heir apparent, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. 

The first two assassins along the route failed to act but the third assassin, Nedeljko Cabrinovic, who was armed with a bomb decided to take action. He threw his bomb on the motorcade but unfortunately the bomb bounced off the convertible and exploded under the next car in the motorcade. This blast caused a major furore as 16-20 people were wounded. The assassin Cabrinovic swallowed his cyanide pill and jumped into the nearby river to evade the police. Unfortunately for him though, the river was running dry and only 6 inches deep and the cyanide pill did not quite work.  He was thus taken into custody and severely beaten. A disaster seemed to have been averted as the assassination attempt appeared to have been foiled. The motorcade sped away to arrive at the town hall for the scheduled reception where the Archduke (understandably) complained about the reception accorded to him - "Mr. Mayor, I come here on a visit and I get bombs thrown at me. It is outrageous." After a few soothing words from Sophie, he finally thanked the people of Sarajevo for their ovations "as I see in them an expression of their joy at the failure of the attempt at assassination." 

After the commotion of the explosion and the rally, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie gave up their planned program and decided to visit the wounded from the bombing at the nearby hospital. The remaining assassins had all dispersed to avoid capture and it seemed that the  plot was indeed foiled. 

Now, this is where fate makes an unlikely entry and alters the course of events. 

Once the Archduke and Duchess board the motorcade, the accompanying general orders that the royal car be  taken to the Hospital through a route that avoids the city center. However, the driver of this motorcade, Leopold Lojka did not get the order and took a wrong turn into the Franz Josef street which had a cafe. Fortuitously enough, after the failed assassination attempt, Gavrillo Princip had wandered to a nearby food shop - Schiller's Delicatessen on the same street. As the universe conspired, it was at this point that the Archduke's motorcade made the wrong turn. The driver, upon being told about the changed route was trying to reverse the car when the engine stalled and the gears locked giving Princip an unexpected opportunity. Taking the chance, Princip stepped forward and fired two shots from a distance of about 5 feet. The first bullet wounded the Archduke in the jugular and the second inflicted an abdominal wound on the Duchess (who some reports say was pregnant at this time). Both victims remained seated upright but died while being driven to the Governor's residence for medical treatment. As reported by Count Harrach who was with the motorcade, Franz Ferdinand's last words were "Sophie, Sophie! Don't die! Live for our children!" followed by six or seven utterances of "It's nothing" in response to questions about his pain. 



Princip and the other assassins were meanwhile caught and imprisoned for high treason. At his sentencing, Princip stated that his second shot was aimed at Governor Potiorek than the Duchess. Princip was 19 years old at the time of the assassinations and was thus too young to receive the death penalty. In fact, he was 27 days short of his twentieth birthday which would have made him eligible for death penalty under the Habsburg law. Instead, he received the maximum sentence of twenty years in prison where he contracted tuberculosis and died on 28 April 1918. Princip had stated under cross-examination: "I am a yugoslav nationalist and I believe in unification of all South Slavs in whatever form of state and that it be free of Austria." Princip, was a young terrorist who wished for nothing but the betterment of his people. 

Assassination illustrated in the Italian newspaper Domenica del Corriere, 12 July 1914 by Achille Beltrame.

As fate conspired, this single event - the assassination of the Archduke, triggered a chain of events that resulted in the first world war within a month. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia and dragged Germany into the war. Russia responded and France got involved leading finally to the entry of Great Britain. The war began one month after this assassination and continued for 4 years leading to one of the bloodiest wars in world history that spanned almost the entire world in one way or another. The first world war, of course, was directly responsible for the Second world war which ultimately shaped the world as it exists today. And so, one can extrapolate that the gun shot that was intended to start a local protest by killing the Archduke actually triggered a whole lot more than that. 

Ironically, Princip was saved from the death sentence by his young age but he only lived long enough to witness the horrors of the first world war and the millions of deaths that directly resulted from his actions. I cannot be certain but I am fairly sure that given the benefit of hindsight and knowing the consequences of his actions, Princip might have chosen to not fire his gun on that fateful day. Because if you extend the chains of causation - the current middle east crisis, the Israel-Palentinian conflict, the cold war, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Pearl Harbor, The third Reich, the treaty of Versailles, the first world war - they all occur at the other end of that one gunshot! 

I have long suspected the impact of individual agency on the course of world history because it often seems that our actions are often drowned by those of the multitudes around us, especially when it comes to changing the world. And yet, when I come across examples like this, I am forced to believe in the agency of one - for better or for worse. The agency of one, aided by the randomness and chaos that drives us is sometimes just as powerful as the flap of that butterfly's wings. 

Post-Script: 
My journey into understanding the first world war began through a podcast (Hardcore History by Dan Carlin) but it soon led me to dig deeper in books by John Keegan (The First World War) and Barbara Tuchman (The guns of August). This story has particularly captured my fascination even as I have dug-deeper and read more about it in wikipedia and other media outlets. 

Reference Sources: 
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria
2) G. J. Meyer (2007). A world undone: The story of the great war, Bantam Dell.
3) John Keegan (2000). The First World War.

4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria
5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavrilo_Princip
6) http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/princip.htm
7) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/27/gavrilo-princip-sarajevo-divided-archduke-franz-ferdinand-assassination
8) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/27/guardian-1914-analysis-archduke-franz-ferdinand-shooting

The unsolvable problems…

These days my mind is preoccupied by one thought, or rather one question.
What do you do when you are the biggest obstacle in the happiness of your dearest people? What do you do when there is no right choice - when life is messy, twisted and confusing? Who gives up their happiness when everyone cannot be happy with the same choice? Philosophers have thought that "greatest good" is a good thing to strive for… but is chronic sorrow for one better than acute sorrow for many?
Can these questions of justice, happiness, fairness ever be really resolved?

I meander through these questions weighed by a sense of guilt and sadness unable to make the choices because I am hopeful that the future will change the circumstances. But who knows what the future brings? I try to train myself for a future where the people I care most for will not longer be there and I will be faced with a burden of guilt. A guilt for not doing everything I could to ensure their happiness. I weigh my responsibilities to me with my responsibilities to others. Who wins in the end and who loses?

We all seem to be losers in this zero sum game where only the future seems to have all the answers.

Compressing time...

Our lives are often like a river charting its course through ever changing terrain guided by a host of factors. We change the terrain, even as it is changing us. It is usually a process of constant assimilation as thoughts and ideas find their way to us, like the sediments that muddy a river - either passively like the specs of dust that float in or through active effort. 

As we drift through our lives, there accumulate in us layers of memories. Memories that modify, distort and bury each other - revealing a little more of some things and a little less of some others. 

I realize now that I am often passing through life, in its grips, unaware of all my thoughts and feelings at the very moment, I am living it. Things then come back to me as versions of a story. A construct of my own mind. With every passing day, my memories are being altered, my stories morphing from what was to what I think was. What I see as my life today is probably a mix of some fact and some fiction. A melange of how I see the world and how the world sees me - colored by feelings, events, words and randomness. The stories of my life are perhaps written, not for accuracy or factual truths but for rational sense from only one perspective - mine. 

Over the years, these stories and memories have congealed into newer, more resilient layers, that now form the foundation of my being. These are the stories that I base my life and its choices on. But they are just stories, stories I tell myself (and others upon intense prodding). 

What I am often searching for is a way to reverse this process briefly and calmly. To unsettle the deepest parts of my being, with a hope to make sense of the journey so far. With the hope of shifting my perspective from what is staring me in the face, right at that instance, to what I will see with the benefit of time - an extrapolation as some might say. 

I want to unsettle the clearing waters with a hope that it will help me make sense of my life. With a hope to see the end of the story - my story. To visualize the incidents and the coincidences that shaped my life and the choices I made. To follow the thread from there to now - to see what I have survived and what I have not. This usually is difficult  because with every telling and re-telling, the story I know, is probably a little bit different from the truth that was. 

It is perhaps this quest for resolution that drives my love for stories of others - in the form of books, plays and movies. They magically help me live many lives over, many personalities over - in a span of a few hours, days or months. In their words, I have found my own. Through them, I have uncovered questions, thoughts, ruminations and answers that I have dwelt on over the years. I have searched for characters that resonate with me, that think like me, that have similar strengths, whims and weaknesses. I skim on the surface of their stories as I  drift through my own. I see glimpses of my life through them and that shift in perspective makes a difference. 

Over the years, there have been quite a few instances where I have cried my eyes out with a book, a character, a story or a movie. But with age and time, I have become a little more impervious and a little more resilient (happy about one, not about the other) and It now takes a powerful idea or a story to unsettle those calm waters. 

This bout of introspection and realization comes due to a movie called Boyhood. A movie, that stirred in me a whole horde of questions - questions that had lingered for so long that I had forgotten about them. They had become that unseen part of my life's fabric like the dust that stealthily creeps in. It took the musings of the young man to jolt me back to myself and to see the dust for what it is. 

Filmed over twelve years with the same individuals, the movie has a magical influence. It shifts your perspective such that you learn to watch the entirety of your life in a million tiny little moments as they lead up to the present. Somehow that takes you away from the myopic view of life - and shows a bigger, brighter picture. Made me realize that at some point, one has to 'choose' to focus on the bigger questions of life itself. 

Like what kind of lives are we leading? Are our lives built around what we wanted or around what was expected of us? How much of our actions are influenced by what we want and what others tell us we want? How much of our actions are a result of our desires and not just someone else's? How much power can and should the society have over us? How does one sever the umbilical cord and move away from the friends, family and society that have nurtured us? Should one? Do our choices make any difference? What matters more - how people see us or how we see ourselves? Do we really change over time? Can we decide to change ourselves? Or is free will an illusion? Do we seize moments or do moments seize us?

What is the purpose of our lives? Does anyone have all the answers? Do we ever find them? Do you even need them? 
What is the point of it all?

“‘What’s the point? I sure as shit don’t know,’ ‘We’re all just winging it,’”
"You don't want the bumpers. Life doesn't give you bumpers".
"I just thought there'd be more!"

Anna Karenina

Some books have a way of parsing through your thoughts and framing them precisely and exquisitely in ways that you couldn't even dream of. 

Anna Karenina, by Tolstoy is one such book and deserves all the acclaim it has been bestowed with. It is by no means an easy book - not because of labored writing or a flawed plot, but because of the deep and dark themes that lace the story. It is a tale of fatalism, plagued with uncertainty and unknowability. 

I have been procrastinating on picking up the book for a very long time but reading the following excerpt from an article in the New Yorker and an upcoming break were the last nails that hooked me to the story. 

"In “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” Isaiah Berlin writes that, for Tolstoy, wisdom consists in the ability “to grasp what human will and human reason can do, and what they cannot.” The only way to find those limits is to struggle against them, but gently, with the goal of finding and accepting them. You can’t think your way to the limits. You have to feel your way, learning through experience and suffering. And there is a risk in experimenting with what will and will not work in life, which is that it might not work. You might move to New York to pursue your dreams, and end up with no career to speak of. You might think you can wait to find the perfect spouse, but wait too long, and end up alone. You might think you can have that affair and still have the love of your spouse and children—but you may be mistaken about what’s possible, and lose everything.

There’s a deep conservatism to this way of thinking. It’s fatalistic, in an off-putting way, since it suggests that the limits of what’s possible are just not knowable in advance, and that experience and tradition are probably our best guides."

And despite its many dark themes, the story is unforgettable as it explores life from the perspectives of so many characters with great finesse and perception. Here are some of the many wonderful phrases and instances where the sentiments echoed with me and in that resonance, I caught a faint glimmer of hope. 

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“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

“If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.” 

“I think... if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.”

“Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.”

“Is it really possible to tell someone else what one feels?”

“Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed. ”

“Be bad, but at least don't be a liar, a deceiver!”

“Love. The reason I dislike that word is that it means too much for me, far more than you can understand."

“I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be. -Dolly”

“I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be. -Dolly”

“They've got no idea what happiness is, they don't know that without this love there is no happiness or unhappiness for us--there is no life.”

“it's much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.”

“But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.”

“Something magical has happened to me: like a dream when one feels frightened and creepy, and suddenly wakes up to the knowledge that no such terrors exist. I have wakened up.”

“I'm like a starving man who has been given food. Maybe he's cold, and his clothes are torn, and he's ashamed, but he's not unhappy.”

“He soon felt that the fulfillment of his desires gave him only one grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. This fulfillment showed him the eternal error men make in imagining that their happiness depends on the realization of their desires.”

“And you know, there's less charm in life when you think about death--but it's more peaceful.”

“There are no conditions to which a person cannot grow accustomed, especially if he sees that everyone around him lives in the same way.”

“All that day she had had the feeling that she was playing in the theatre with actors better than herself and that her poor playing spoiled the whole thing.”

“He looked at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has gathered, with difficulty recognizing in it the beauty for which he picked and ruined it. And in spite of this he felt that then, when his love was stronger, he could, if he had greatly wished it, have torn that love out of his heart; but now when as at that moment it seemed to him he felt no love for her, he knew that what bound him to her could not be broken.”

“He liked fishing and seemed to take pride in being able to like such a stupid occupation.”

"Some mathematician has said that enjoyment lies in the search for truth, not in the finding it."

"No one is satisfied with his fortune, and everyone is satisfied with his wit.'"

"I think… of so many men, so many minds, certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love."

"I often think men have no understanding of what's not honorable though they're always talking of it,"

How splendid it is! This is how I should like to live!" "Why, who prevents you?" said Levin, smiling. "No, you're a lucky man! You've got everything you like. You like horses— and you have them; dogs— you have them; shooting— you have it; farming— you have it." "Perhaps because I rejoice in what I have, and don't fret for what I haven't," said Levin, thinking of Kitty.

Stepan Arkadyevitch had not chosen his political opinions or his views; these political opinions and views had come to him of themselves, just as he did not choose the shapes of his hat and coat, but simply took those that were being worn. And for him, living in a certain society —owing to the need, ordinarily developed at years of discretion, for some degree of mental activity— to have views was just as indispensable as to have a hat. If there was a reason for his preferring liberal to conservative views, which were held also by many of his circle, it arose not from his considering liberalism more rational, but from its being in closer accordance with his manner of life.

"With friends, one is well; but at home, one is better."

He was so far from conceiving of love for woman apart from marriage that he positively pictured to himself first the family, and only secondarily the woman who would give him a family. His ideas of marriage were, consequently, quite unlike those of the great majority of his acquaintances, for whom getting married was one of the numerous facts of social life. For Levin it was the chief affair of life, on which its whole happiness turned.

The study was slowly lit up as the candle was brought in. The familiar details came out: the stag's horns, the bookshelves, the looking-glass, the stove with its ventilator, which had long wanted mending, his father's sofa, a large table, on the table an open book, a broken ash tray, a manuscript book with his handwriting. As he saw all this, there came over him for an instant a doubt of the possibility of arranging the new life, of which he had been dreaming on the road. All these traces of his life seemed to clutch him, and to say to him: "No, you're not going to get away from us, and you're not going to be different, but you're going to be the same as you've always been; with doubts, everlasting dissatisfaction with yourself, vain efforts to amend, and falls, and everlasting expectation, of a happiness which you won't get, and which isn't possible for you." This the things said to him, but another voice in his heart was telling him that he must not fall under the sway of the past, and that one can do anything with oneself.

Anna Arkadyevna read and understood , but it was distasteful to her to read, that is, to follow the reflection of other people's lives. She had too great a desire to live herself. If she read that the heroine of the novel was nursing a sick man, she longed to move with noiseless steps about the room of a sick man; if she read of a member of Parliament making a speech, she longed to be delivering the speech; if she read of how Lady Mary had ridden after the hounds, and had provoked her sister-in-law, and had surprised everyone by her boldness, she too wished to be doing the same. But there was no chance of doing anything; and twisting the smooth paper knife in her little hands, she forced herself to read.

"The most utterly loathsome and coarse : I can't tell you. It's not unhappiness, or low spirits, but much worse. As though everything that was good in me was all hidden away, and nothing was left but the most loathsome. Come, how am I to tell you ?" she went on, seeing the puzzled look in her sister's eyes. "Father began saying something to me just now…. It seems to me he thinks all I want is to be married. Mother takes me to a ball: it seems to me she only takes me to get me married off as soon as may be, and be rid of me. I know it's not the truth, but I can't drive away such thoughts. Eligible suitors, as they call them— I can't bear to see them. It seems to me they're taking stock of me and summing me up. In old days to go anywhere in a ball dress was a simple joy to me, I admired myself; now I feel ashamed and awkward. 

"The one comfort is like that prayer, which I always liked: 'Forgive me not according to my unworthiness, but according to Thy lovingkindness.' That's the only way she can forgive me."

In his Petersburg world all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the lower class , vulgar, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband ought to live with the one wife whom he has lawfully married; that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest, and a man manly, self-controlled, and strong; that one ought to bring up one's children, earn one's bread, and pay one's debts; and various similar absurdities. This was the class of old-fashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another class of people, the real people. To this class they all belonged, and in it the great thing was to be elegant, generous, plucky, gay, to abandon oneself without a blush to every passion, and to laugh at everything else.

The old prince , like all fathers indeed, was exceedingly punctilious on the score of the honor and reputation of his daughters. He was irrationally jealous over his daughters, especially over Kitty, who was his favorite. At every turn he had scenes with the princess for compromising her daughter. The princess had grown accustomed to this already with her other daughters, but now she felt that there was more ground for the prince's touchiness. She saw that of late years much was changed in the manners of society, that a mother's duties had become still more difficult. She saw that girls of Kitty's age formed some sort of clubs, went to some sort of lectures, mixed freely in men's society; drove about the streets alone, many of them did not curtsey, and, what was the most important thing, all the girls were firmly convinced that to choose their husbands was their own affair , and not their parents'. "Marriages aren't made nowadays as they used to be," was thought and said by all these young girls, and even by their elders. But how marriages were made now, the princess could not learn from any one. The French fashion— of the parents arranging their children's future— was not accepted; it was condemned. The English fashion of the complete independence of girls was also not accepted, and not possible in Russian society. The Russian fashion of match-making by the offices of intermediate persons was for some reason considered unseemly; it was ridiculed by every one, and by the princess herself. But how girls were to be married, and how parents were to marry them, no one knew. Everyone with whom the princess had chanced to discuss the matter said the same thing: "Mercy on us, it's high time in our day to cast off all that old-fashioned business. It's the young people have to marry; and not their parents; and so we ought to leave the young people to arrange it as they choose." It was very easy for anyone to say that who had no daughters, but the princess realized that in the process of getting to know each other, her daughter might fall in love, and fall in love with someone who did not care to marry her or who was quite unfit to be her husband . And, however much it was instilled into the princess that in our times young people ought to arrange their lives for themselves, she was unable to believe it, just as she would have been unable to believe that, at any time whatever, the most suitable playthings for children five years old ought to be loaded pistols. And so the princess was more uneasy over Kitty than she had been over her elder sisters.

Alexey Alexandrovitch was not jealous. Jealousy according to his notions was an insult to one's wife, and one ought to have confidence in one's wife. Why one ought to have confidence— that is to say, complete conviction that his young wife would always love him— he did not ask himself. But he had no experience of lack of confidence, because he had confidence in her, and told himself that he ought to have it. Now, though his conviction that jealousy was a shameful feeling and that one ought to feel confidence, had not broken down, he felt that he was standing face to face with something illogical and irrational, and did not know what was to be done. Alexey Alexandrovitch was standing face to face with life, with the possibility of his wife's loving someone other than himself, and this seemed to him very irrational and incomprehensible because it was life itself. All his life Alexey Alexandrovitch had lived and worked in official spheres, having to do with the reflection of life. And every time he had stumbled against life itself he had shrunk away from it. Now he experienced a feeling akin to that of a man who, while calmly crossing a precipice by a bridge, should suddenly discover that the bridge is broken, and that there is a chasm below. That chasm was life itself, the bridge that artificial life in which Alexey Alexandrovitch had lived. For the first time the question presented itself to him of the possibility of his wife's loving someone else, and he was horrified at it.

At Petersburg, as soon as the train stopped and she got out, the first person that attracted her attention was her husband. "Oh, mercy! why do his ears look like that?" she thought, looking at his frigid and imposing figure, and especially the ears that struck her at the moment as propping up the brim of his round hat. Catching sight of her, he came to meet her, his lips falling into their habitual sarcastic smile, and his big, tired eyes looking straight at her. An unpleasant sensation gripped at her heart when she met his obstinate and weary glance, as though she had expected to see him different. She was especially struck by the feeling of dissatisfaction with herself that she experienced on meeting him. That feeling was an intimate, familiar feeling, like a consciousness of hypocrisy, which she experienced in her relations with her husband. But hitherto she had not taken note of the feeling, now she was clearly and painfully aware of it.

In the first place he resolved that from that day he would give up hoping for any extraordinary happiness, such as marriage must have given him, and consequently he would not so disdain what he really had. Secondly, he would never again let himself give way to low passion, the memory of which had so tortured him when he had been making up his mind to make an offer.

Anna. "I remember, and I know that blue haze like the mist on the mountains in Switzerland. That mist which covers everything in that blissful time when childhood is just ending, and out of that vast circle, happy and gay, there is a path growing narrower and narrower, and it is delightful and alarming to enter the ballroom, bright and splendid as it is…. Who has not been through it?"

There are people who, on meeting a successful rival, no matter in what , are at once disposed to turn their backs on everything good in him, and to see only what is bad. There are people, on the other hand, who desire above all to find in that lucky rival the qualities by which he has outstripped them, and seek with a throbbing ache at heart only what is good.

There was no solution, but that universal solution which life gives to all questions, even the most complex and insoluble. That answer is: one must live in the needs of the day— that is, forget oneself .

"It's this, don't you see," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, "you're very much all of a piece. That's your strong point and your failing. You have a character that's all of a piece, and you want the whole of life to be of a piece too— but that's not how it is. You despise public official work because you want the reality to be invariably corresponding all the while with the aim— and that's not how it is. You want a man's work, too, always to have a defined aim, and love and family life always to be undivided— and that's not how it is. All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow."

In life, we sometimes relinquish our freedom too easily, while, at other times, we struggle unwisely against laws that will not change. Give in too easily, and you drift through life; struggle too much, and you suffer for it.

The thing about Levin is that, through some accident of temperament and circumstances, he ends up figuring things out. He struggles and shapes his own destiny just enough to be happy, while never going out of bounds, and ending up like Anna, or like his brother Nikolai, a political radical, who dies impoverished and angry. Somehow, over the course of the book, Levin achieves everything he wants: he is married to Kitty, and they have a beautiful family. And yet, he senses, he has not really improved himself in his soul, and he has done nothing to deserve his happiness. He still feels powerless, pointless, useless. “Happy in his family life,” Tolstoy writes, “a healthy man, Levin was several times so close to suicide that he hid a rope lest he hang himself with it, and was afraid to go about with a rifle lest he shoot himself.” In the end, he is carried along by the flow of life, and keeps on living. He finds his way to a diffuse kind of faith. There will be no radical transformations, he realizes, either romantic or religious. What is, is. He will try his best to be a good person, within the constraints that his circumstances and nature have placed upon him, and that will be good enough:

I’ll get angry in the same way with the coachman Ivan, argue in the same way, speak my mind inappropriately, there will be the same wall between my soul’s holy of holies and other people, even my wife, I’ll accuse her in the same way of my own fear and then regret it, I’ll fail in the same way to understand with my reason why I pray, and yet I will pray—but my life now, my whole life, regardless of all that may happen to me, every minute of it, is not only not meaningless, as it was before, but has the unquestionable meaning of the good which it is in my power to put into it!

Roll of the dice...

There are hundreds of billions stars in our galaxy and then there are billions of galaxies in the known visible universe. The unknown that envelopes us stretches the very limits of our imagination.

Life, as it is today, evolved millions of years ago, from an oceanic soup, on one blue planet among an infinity of planets. The blue planet happened to be located at just the right distance and with just the right conditions for those early molecules to arise and interact. Life, that began with a roll of the dice, from the collisions and fusion of molecules over billions of years, has finally found its way to me - in a way that no one could have predicted or imagined.

And as a testament to those very unseemly probabilities, I stand here today, pondering on the nature of probabilities and life itself. Life evolved in a world that is driven by probabilities, in a universe that is being ripped apart by the forces of entropy.

I am nothing but another roll of that mysterious dice - a random product when one of the many millions of sperms found its way to this one particular egg, to set forth on a journey that culminated in me. I could not have been here today but for those sheer twists of fate and those random acts of probability that allowed two very different people separated by hundreds of miles to come together and build a life.

I could have been one of those twenty percent of pregnancies that result in a miscarriage. I could have also been among the three percent of children who are born with abnormal chromosomes - destined for a life different from the rest of us. I could have been one of the thousands of accident victims on the streets of Delhi. I could have been one among the millions of people who cannot read an alphabet. I could have been one of the thousands of girls who are forced to drop out of school. I could have been one of the seventy-four percent of people who give up education after a graduation; but instead, I am one of the one percent who complete a graduate program. I could have been a part of any of these statistics. I could have been one of the millions of women trafficked, burnt, assaulted - but instead, I am here, alive, aware and independent.

As part of my work, I try and answer the questions of why, how, when and what, but after a while, my very existence makes me believe in that elusive hope that is buried in probability. My very existence is mired in improbability and hope.

I am a statistic - just another number but its a good roll of dice that brought me here.

I have cribbed and complained, ranted and raged about every misfortune that I have encountered on the way - and it has not been easy, but once in a while, when I pause to look at what could have been - I feel like I was dealt a good hand.

But how much of our life is shaped by these random occurrences and how much is shaped by us - as people? Am I just a ripple in the fabric of time, just being carried forward passively by this billion-years old explosion or am I more than that - an agent of change?

People are a product of their times - from Hitler to Columbus to Einstein - we are all shaped by the times we live in and yet, we contribute to shaping it. It is a two-way street, it seems, but then why do I feel so powerless sometimes?

Why is it that my choice at home or in the grocery store or at work doesn't seem to have as much impact as it should?

Can my choices influence the world I am living in or am I just another number in the 7 billion?

Just another statistic, a blimp in that fabric of space and time... Are we mere puppets in the bigger scheme of things or can individuals really make a difference? And if we can't - should we just give up and wait passively?

What are the choices that I, as an individual am faced with and can any of them be responsible and right? Is buying electronics laced with conflict minerals responsible? Most would say, No. But does my giving up on technology have an impact? Does my not buying diamonds stop the trade in blood diamonds? Does my giving up on meat or avocados at the grocery store lead to better lives half-way across the planet or country? Does my buying quinoa starve the andean farmers or does my not buying quinoa starve them? 

Where does my responsibility to me, begin and end?

Where does my responsibility to the world, begin and end?

Should we as people not show moral outrage at Marius the giraffe or at the children in Syria because we can't do anything about it? Or should we just limit our actions to the occasional outrage in the media and nothing more?

Are our actions determined by morals or by the markets? Some think that the markets sanitize all these deals? Do you, because i don't?

But how much should we worry about these choices? About electricity. About water. About recycling. About food wastage. Is an individual equally powerless in all these arenas?

If yes, then are we merely prolonging our inevitable collapse and should we just give up sooner than later? Can we ever make the right choices considering we know so little of the global forces and the local problems? Does our burgeoning knowledge and awareness of these multi-faceted problems make our lives and decisions - simpler or more complex?

Can my choices influence the world I am living in or am I just yet another powerless, ever-shrinking number in the exploding 7 billion?

Am I just another statistic, a blimp in the fabric of space and time - another roll of the dice...?

The unexpected...

Life, it seems moves forward with one guiding principle - defying your expectations by presenting the unexpected.
Any time.
Every time.

Last few months have been such, where I have found things unexpectedly and lost them when least expected. One wouldn't complain if this brought on a sense of mirth, pleasure, happiness or even mild surprise. One does however, cringe, cower and explode with fury when this only pertains to bad news. One further teeters on collapse when the news affects your most favorite person in the world.

It is impossible to describe the heart break one feels when a twenty five year old is forced to bear the heavy burden of inheritance as he gets diagnosed with a chronic condition. A condition, that is merely an indication of a battle raging in him.

How does one fight their own blood? And how do you fight for your own blood?
What do you do when your own self turns against you - with a silent, seething fury? A fury that burns over years and decades as someone who looks perfectly healthy is actually being eaten from the inside.

What do you do when  your most favorite person in the world can do nothing to turn the tide of this battle?

So, you tell them the facts without letting go of the hope. You make them aware of the harshest realities of life and tell them how to cope. You pack them their care package, write a bunch of notes, explain all that you can without a trace a fear - even though, your heart is freezing numb with fear. You pat on their back when the chips are down and pray to a God, who doesn't exist to "Make this all a bad dream!".
You do this - every time you need it - hoping that you are helping, not hurting. You hope that your words are soothing the searing wound - not burning it in.

You go through each day - wondering what could have been different and if you could be next? You become more stringent about the fruits and vegetables, about that glass of milk which you might otherwise avoid. You teach them the same. You used to run for fun but now fear pushes you more than the fun.

You build a new life - a better life - detangled from the web of your habits, based on nothing but hope and your scariest visions of the future.
You live each day dreading the worst and hoping for the best. You thank the universe for its small mercies. You thank your stars for it could have been a lot worse.

You forget the whys' and focus on the hows' because what is at stake is your most favorite person ever....

You stay by their side even when you are eight thousand miles away and hope that maybe - life will surprise you again - with a better unexpected...

Seeking misery...

We do the strangest of things to get through bad days but hunting for more misery is the most twisted of them all.

I can understand trying to forget it, running away from it, drowning it - in pills or alcohol - but, no. This involves actively looking for misery. Who in their sane mind would do that?

I do it every now and then, in one of these carefully nuanced moments, when life seems to be getting to that point when every step forward is two steps backward. When every force seems to be a drag to overcome. Suddenly the rules of forward momentum, friction and inertia don't make so much sense, because no matter how much effort you put, there is no net movement. It feels like trying to pull a wagon-load of misery on an oil-spill. The harder you try, the harder you fall. The less you try, the less things change.

That is when I go trolling through other people's memoirs - books, movies, blogs, stories. Anything and everything. Anything that opens the lives of these perfect strangers' to me - in their own voice. And I look for these oil-spill moments in their life. Their miseries and struggles seem to numb my own pain. It helps me wallow in the depths of someone else's misery for a while only to come back and find my own pool a little less shallow.

It doesn't hurt a whole lot less but there is comfort in knowing there are others out there. It also makes me see the flicker of light at the end of the long, dark tunnel - through my cloudy, foggy eyes. If they managed to get out their oil-spill, maybe I will too. If I held on just a little longer. If I just tried something a little different. If the dice rolls a little differently this time.

Perhaps, all is not lost. And perhaps even if it is, there is a new beginning to be made.


Thank God, we can’t see the future because if we could “we’d never get out of bed.”

August: Osage County