Vistas

For days on end the sky wasn't exactly cloudy yet the horizon looked gray. The coastline was
distinguishable from the sky only because it was expected in that direction and thus was the sea's gray distinguishable from the sky's, more by the mind than by the eye. One wasn't sure though about what made a day gray and what allowed it to be blue and sunny. Perhaps it was do with the atmosphere, dense as it could have been with suspended particles - dust not let by gusty winds to settle down.

Then one day a vista, belonging to the other extreme, bewitched me: On the ground were sharply etched shadows while above a clear sky raced towards the horizon where defiantly stood the deep-blue sea - luminous, bristling, and unmerged. At that distance, the sea was no longer a fluent water body but seemed more like lapis lazuli gone liquid.

The Mind's Eye

‘The Tratchenberg Speed System of Basic Mathematics’ has one of the best foreword for any book: Its summary of the eventful life of Mr. Tratchenberg makes for an inspiring read. What soon turns to be difficult is the unwieldy nature of making mental calculations – be it through the Tratchenberg method or by the supposedly clunkier traditional methods. I had bought the book years ago with fond hopes of bettering my scores in the Quantitative and DI sections of my CAT. When I recently picked up the book I had forgotten what had put me off its techniques despite that brilliant foreword which had again seduced me headlong into the first chapter ‘Tables or No Tables’. As I waded through the topic ‘Multiplication by 11’ it was clear that it had been the difficulty of ‘holding’ in the mind's eye, the numbers involved in calculation.

Tratchenberg system or not, the ability to do this shall prove to be the clincher. For someone like me with such a poor memory for numbers it would require miracle or sheer practice to master Mr. Tratchenberg’s system of calculation.

Agog in the brilliance of the sun
I photograph it for keepsake.
What remained though was loneliness -
of a beauty caught in memory, not quite in words.

But what?

There upon the shimmering sand is the man. He has a gun that ain't loaded. He points it at me and I feel, correctly, no terror. What shall happen next I ask myself and find myself handing him the bullets. He pulls the trigger upon himself - with better judgment indeed - escaping where I can't follow, leaving me in living hell.