Have been reading one of my favorite authors: Philip K. Dick. The book is - The three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. I am still working my way through the book. I have read a few of his books but this is the first one I am reading, wherein he gets into religion and such. Like almost all other PKD’s works, this one also involves the use of drugs.

In classic PKD fashion, he questions reality - a reality that we all perceive around us. It reminded me of the arguments presented by Morpheus, Oracle, the Architect, and of course by the Merovingian. The simulacrum, the hyperreal as Jean Baudrillard tried to describe it once. My initial reading of the Upanishads gave me the feeling that those early philosophers were working on the same thing.

Back to PKD. In the book, he describes a psychotic/ hallucinogenic drug called Chew-Z which evidently lets a person to live his/her life again and again as he or she wishes. So far, the caveat has been that the guy who sells the drug, Palmer Eldritch, seems to be in control of everyone’s so-called reality.

Anybody who has listened to Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb or Echoes on repeat play when one is suitably drugged or drunk will understand this loss in perceiving the real and the gain in perceiving the real.

My first post. Not my first time writing, though. Written a few scientific papers but thats a story for another day. Lately have been reading a few blogs on the web. Not the politics-based ones but general ones which give a glimpse into someone else’s mind.

I will describe myself in a later post - what I do, why I do what I do etc. When I am in the mood to do so.

Alright. Now about the title of my post. I figured since the first step is always the most difficult, I will start with something that I am very comfortable with - Movies. (Science was also a possibility but since I just finished with my day here which was full of experiments, I don’t want to talk about it for now).

Thinking about movies and dialogs. I remember having conversations with my grandfather a few years back. He would always quote some famous author (Dickens, Shakespeare, Hardy and so on) when he wanted to make a point. Clearly this required a good memory about the book which would in turn, mean that he had read that book with great care. I don’t claim to be a voracious reader but I do have the habit of reaching for a book instead of the remote. However, I really cannot quote these books. When I feel like making a point in a conversation, the only things that come to my head are movie dialogs. It could be any movie, independent of language, culture, national or regional origin.

I don’t know the reason for this. Its not that I don’t read the books carefully. I remember the names of characters from books and what happened to them. Perhaps its the generation that I belong too. A generation that is sandwiched between the ‘Shakespeare’ folks and the ‘how r u? i m doing gr8′ kids. A generation that knew Vijay’s pain when he lay dying in the temple. A generation that said Yippee Kayay with John Mclane. A generation that wished Jai wouldn’t have to die near the bridge. A generation that couldn’t understand how Aida could be so attached to her piano ……

No answer to the question and …….. the juice just ran out, so I will stop here.

G

P.S. The book I am reading right now is - Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-up Bird Chronicle.