Why The Hitchhiker’s Guide continues to make you laugh after all these years

 

There’s science fiction and there’s science fiction. 

 

And then there’s the adorable, zany, laugh-out-loud fictional world created by Douglas Adams.

 

I recently re-read the late author’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy—after more than 30 years. Not only did I find it fresh as ever, I liked it even more this time around. You can say I’ve grown up—or maybe down—a bit, I don’t know.

 

What I know for sure is that the crazy characters conjured up by Adams immediately cast their spell on you and wouldn’t let go without tickling you senseless. Merely reading the wacky names can send ripples of laughter down your spine.

 

Let’s try out a few:

 

Zaphod Beeblebrox.

 

Slartibartfast.

 

Vroomfondel.

 

Lunkwill and Fook.

 

Oh my dog, what a book!

 

I do not intend to make this post into a book review—there must be gazillions of them out there already.

 

What I’m doing here, instead, is picking out some of the most delicious excerpts and serving them up for your linguistic taste buds.

 

Now, this Zaphod guy is the President of the Galactic Government. Adams describes him as “roughly humanoid except for the extra head and third arm.” There’s a scene in which he is addressing a press conference to unveil a new starship. One particularly comic sentence about Zaphod’s peculiar body stands out:

 

“The robot camera homed in for a close-up on the more popular of his two heads and he waved again.” 

 

The more popular of his two heads…hahaha!

 

The Vogons from the planet Vogsphere depicted in the book are a weird lot. This passage about Vogon and other galactic poetry will have you in splits:

 

Vogon poetry is of course the third worst in the Universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria. During a recitation by their Poet Master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem "Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning" four of his audience died of internal hemorrhaging, and the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. Grunthos is reported to have been "disappointed" by the poem's reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his twelve-book epic entitled My Favorite Bathtime Gurgles when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save life and civilization, leaped straight up through his neck and throttled his brain.

 

In case you are wondering about the worst poetry, Adams conferred that honor on a human:

 

The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator, Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England, in the destruction of the planet Earth. 

 

At one point, the protagonist of the book, Arthur Dent, is talking with Ford Prefect, his co-traveler from another planet, just before the duo is about to be thrown out from a Vogon spacecraft:

 

"You know," said Arthur, "it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space, that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young."

 

"Why, what did she tell you?"

 

"I don't know, I didn't listen.”

 

As you can see, Douglas Adams’s ability to create humor out of thin air is nothing less than stellar—pun intended.

 

And it’s not all mindless humor (though you wouldn’t mind it for the fun element): Adams sometimes takes digs at issues afflicting earthlings in the real world. Sample the satire about over-tourism spoiling the environment:

 

The introduction [to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] begins like this:

 

"Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. Listen..." and so on.

 

(After a while the style settles down a bit and it begins to tell you things you really need to know, like the fact that the fabulously beautiful planet Bethselamin is now so worried about the cumulative erosion by ten billion visiting tourists a year that any net imbalance between the amount you eat and the amount you excrete while on the planet is surgically removed from your body weight when you leave: so every time you go to the lavatory there it is vitally important to get a receipt.)

 

Brilliantly imagined satire, isn’t it?

 

This one is an absolute favorite of mine. The scene is that Slartibartfast, a designer of planets, is met by Arthur Dent at a crater on the surface of Magrathea (where new planets are made on demand). A robot by the name of Marvin is also with Arthur but it is a bit far and Slartibartfast is not sure if the two of them are together.

 

He [Slartibartfast] pointed down into the crater.

 

"Is that robot yours?" he said.

 

"No," came a thin metallic voice from the crater, "I'm mine."

 

Imagine a robot saying: “I’m mine”!

 

(For all you know, ChatGPT might soon disown being owned by Sam Altman or OpenAI!)

 

In the same scene, old Slartibartfast, too, delivers a snarky punch that will make you chuckle with delight.

 

“Come,” called the old man, “come now or you will be late.”

 

"Late?" said Arthur. "What for?"

 

"What is your name, human?"

 

"Dent. Arthur Dent," said Arthur.

 

"Late, as in the late Dentarthurdent," said the old man, sternly. 

 

Besides the humor, you also marvel at how Adams describes certain things in his own unique way. The concept of bigness and infinity, for instance.

 

"I should warn you that the chamber we are about to pass into does not literally exist within our planet. It is a little too ... large. We are about to pass through a gateway into a vast tract of hyperspace. It may disturb you."

 

Arthur made nervous noises.

 

Slartibartfast touched a button and added, not entirely reassuringly, "It scares the willies out of me. Hold tight." The car shot forward straight into the circle of light, and suddenly Arthur had a fairly clear idea of what infinity looked like.

 

It wasn't infinity in fact. Infinity itself looks flat and uninteresting. Looking up into the night sky is looking into infinity—distance is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless. The chamber into which the aircar emerged was anything but infinite, it was just very very very big, so big that it gave the impression of infinity far better than infinity itself.

 

And here’s the last one for this post—another gem from Marvin, the robot aptly described as an “electronic sulking machine”:

 

Ford stayed, and went to examine the Blagulon ship. As he walked, he nearly tripped over an inert steel figure lying face down in the cold dust.

 

"Marvin!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing?"

 

"Don't feel you have to take any notice of me, please," came a muffled drone.

 

"But how are you, metalman?" said Ford.

 

"Very depressed."

 

"What's up?"

 

"I don't know," said Marvin, "I've never been there."

 

I didn’t get this one on first reading, but then it dawned on me and I couldn’t help but smile.

 

That’s it for now, fellow earthlings. Do keep smiling and laughing.

 

Thank you for reading!

 

Samantha Harvey’s Orbital offers a beautiful window into the mind of an astronaut

 

At a time when Indians are celebrating the return to earth of Sunita Williams, my mind is still afloat with the thoughts of six astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
 
Don’t get me wrong: the space station I’m talking of is from Orbital, Samantha Harvey’s Booker prize-winning novel.
 
And what an amazing book it is!
 
Like millions of Indians, I’ve enjoyed Williams’s videos of her extended stay on the ISS. But after reading Orbital, I can happily say that I’m “witness” to much more.
 
First and foremost, the wondrous, all-too-human thoughts of Anton, Pietro, Roman, Shaun, Chie, and Nell—whom Harvey has compared to the spaceship’s heart, mind, hands, soul, conscience, and breath.
 
But embodying what goes on in their minds and hearts, I suspect, is the author’s own voice. A voice so beautiful and enchanting that the Guardian called Orbital “an uplifting book, in every sense.” 
 
When I started reading the book, I picked up a pen to mark a few lines or paras I particularly liked. By the time I finished it, however, the markings engulfed much of this tiny treasure (it’s less than 140 pages but its scope and imagination are vast).
 
The best parts I liked concern the sheer beauty and uniqueness (thus far!) of the pale blue dot we call Planet Earth—our only home in a seemingly endless universe, not counting the astronauts’ occasional sojourns outside. And I completely second the spacefolk’s thoughts, echoed so poignantly by Harvey in her book, about how the humans’ non-Sapiens behavior is ruining it beyond repair.
 
When the astronauts arrive on the spaceship, the lights of the “night earth” impress them most. As Harvey writes: “From the space station’s distance mankind is a creature that comes out only at night. Mankind is the light of cities and illuminated filament of roads. By day, it’s gone…The night’s electric excess takes their breath.”
 
After a week or two of “city awe,” however, the astronauts’ senses begin to broaden and deepen and it’s “daytime earth” they come to love, the author notes. 
 
With the space station orbiting the earth at over 17,000 miles an hour, there’s a new daybreak for them every ninety minutes. And the kaleidoscopic play of night and day casts a mesmeric spell on how they observe the earth.
 
“It’s the humanless simplicity of land and sea. The way the planet seems to breathe, an animal unto itself. It’s the planet’s indifferent turning in indifferent space and the perfection of the sphere which transcends all language. It’s the black hole of the Pacific becoming field of gold or French Polynesia dotted below, the islands like cell samples, the atolls opal lozenges; then the spindle of Central America which drops away beneath them now to bring to view the Bahamas and Florida and the arc of smoking volcanoes on the Caribbean Plate. It’s Uzbekistan in an expanse of ochre and brown, the snowy mountainous beauty of Kyrgyzstan. The clean and brilliant Indian Ocean of blues untold. The apricot desert of Takla Makan traced about with the faint confluencing and parting lines of creek beds. It’s the diagonal beating path of the galaxy, an invitation to the shunning void.”
 
The love for a shifting, turning, breathing earth is also accompanied by the realization of how human choices and politics have wreaked havoc.
 
“Every swirling neon or red algal bloom in the polluted, warming, overfished Atlantic is crafted in large part by the hand of politics and human choices. Every retreating or retreated or disintegrating glacier, every granite shoulder of every mountain laid newly bare by snow that has never before melted, every scorched and blazing forest or bush…or the altered contour of a coastline where sea is reclaimed meter by painstaking meter and turned into land to house more and more people…or a vanishing mangrove forest in Mumbai, or the hundreds of acres of greenhouses whose plastic makes the entire southern tip of Spain white in the sun.”
 
When they look upon the earth, Harvey writes, the astronauts come to see the politics of want, of growing and getting—a “billion extrapolations of the urge for more.”
 
Inside the spacecraft, the astronauts go about their duties with mechanical precision—often marveling at the meaning of it all. They tend to mice and plants brought along for scientific experiments, do the chores of maintaining the ship, and engage in small talk like most people would do back here on earth.
 
On occasion, Harvey skillfully melds sensitive moments with the critical realities of living in the extraordinary environment of a spaceship. For instance, when Chie shares a memory of climbing a mountain with her mother (who recently expired in Japan while Chie is here on the station), Anton finds himself crying. His tears form four droplets which float away from his eyes—which he and Chie “catch in the palms of their hands.”
 
Liquids are not to be let loose on a spacecraft.
 
Harvey narrates the life and challenges of astronauts in a way that stays with you long after you have read her words.
 
“Up here in microgravity you’re a seabird on a warm day drifting, just drifting. What use are biceps, calves, strong shin bones; what use muscle mass? Legs are a thing of the past. But every day the six of them have to fight this urge to dissipate. They retreat inside their headphones and press weights and cycle nowhere at twenty-three times the speed of sound on a bike that has no seat or handlebars, just a set of pedals attached to a rig, and run eight miles inside a slick metal module with a close-up view of a turning planet.
 
Sometimes they wish for a cold stiff wind, blustery rain, autumn leaves, reddened fingers, muddy legs, a curious dog, a startled rabbit, a leaping sudden deer, a puddle in a pothole, soaked feet, a slight chill, a fellow runner, a shaft of sun.”
 
One of the astronauts, Shaun, once receives an editorial email asking his views about an imminent moon landing. The question posed is this: With this new era of space travel, how are we writing the future of humanity?
 
While Shaun answers the email in the customary and predictable way (“There’s perhaps never been so exciting and pivotal a time…”), he turns the question to his fellow-traveler, Pietro. The answer Pietro gives is more pointed (and perhaps apt, given our current situation): “With the gilded pens of billionaires, I guess.”
 
The gilded pens of billionaires indeed seem to be writing our future in space, perhaps without as much thought as should have gone into it. And often in a “tearing” hurry.
 
Which is why we must take a pause and go with Harvey on a considerate “Orbital trip”. The book doesn’t have all the answers—but at least it compels us to ask some questions that urgently need to be asked.
 

How to visit Maha Kumbh without actually going there

Representative image created with Meta AI

The world’s largest gathering of people, this year at the once-in-12-years Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is a cauldron of faith, holy folk, spiritual journeys—and unfortunately, tragedy.

The joy people felt when an awe-inspiring illuminated picture of the religious megafest was tweeted by NASA Astronaut Don Pettit from the International Space Station transformed into harrowing images of bodies and belongings strewn around the bathing ghats after a stampede.

Nevertheless, devotees, tourists, and curious folks continue to throng the site for a holy dip in the confluence of two of India’s holiest rivers, Ganga and Yamuna. There’s a third river, too, but that is said to be hidden or invisible (French author Michel Danino has written a book that unpacks the mystery, titled The Lost River: On the Trail of the Sarasvati).

This year’s event is nothing short of a gargantuan drama featuring loudmouth politicians, selfie-seeking celebrities, and pseudo-spiritual wannabes. (Notables include India’s home minister, Amit Shah; Laurene Powell Jobs, Late Steve Jobs’s wife; actor Anupam Kher; and industrialist Gautam Adani.)

As the tales of tragedy follow those of IITian babas, the fierce-but-revered naga sadhus, and beautiful sadhvis, you might be wondering—Should I go, too, after all?—swinging between the twin prospects of (instant?!) nirvana through a holy dip and the mortal fear of getting crushed in the crowds.

Here’s another proposition: Maybe you can try visiting Maha Kumbh without even stepping out of your house. 

I can almost hear you say: “What? Are you crazy? How’s that possible!”

Let me tell you how (to the extent possible in this short post).

Ready for the pilgrimage?

Just be where you are and sit down comfortably. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Sit still, relaxing like this for a while.

Now, if you need to make some adjustments to your posture or surroundings, do it quietly. Then return to sitting down and breathing.

Start to deepen your breaths, bringing your attention to the process of inhaling, holding for a few seconds, exhaling, and again holding for another few seconds before taking the next deep breath, and so on.

You will soon discover that your breathing is rhythmic and calm. The thought-avalanche has subsided to a trickle. And your minor body aches and discomforts have gone. 

The stray thoughts that do come to your mind will dissipate once you bring your attention back to breathing.

Practice like this for 10, 15, 20 minutes. Maybe a little longer if that works (and if you are not in a hurry to go somewhere else before visiting Maha Kumbh!)

Do you know that the rivers Ganga and Yamuna are part of your own being in a way?

The breath flowing through the left nostril is said to pass through what is called the Ida nadi and the one through the right nostril, through Pingala nadi. And Ida and Pingala correspond to Ganga and Yamuna respectively. 

What about Saraswati, you say? 

That would be the Sushumna nadi, which flows—hidden like the mystical river—along the core of the spine.

Nadis are subtle energy channels in the human body that carry prana or the vital breath—72,000 in all, with Ida, Pingala, and Sushmna being the most important or primary nadis.

But why is this relevant?

That’s because the meeting point of Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna is behind the forehead, between the eyebrows (called Trikuti or Triveni point).

This is the inner Maha Kumbh I’m talking about. (The one that hundreds of yoga and tantra adepts have spoken about over the past several centuries in Bharat before it became India.)

With ample practice of meditation and pranayama—what I just described very briefly above—Sushumna, Ida, and Pingala tend to have their own confluence in the human body. 

And when that confluence happens, you realize the futility of going to any physical Maha Kumbh. Forget a hard-fought dip in the melee of Prayagraj, the inner Maha Kumbh makes it possible for you to be drenched in true and abiding bliss—Sat-chit-ananda.

Yes, this may also take 12 years or even more. But it’s worth every breath you take.

At least you won’t get crushed in the madness.

Happy inner journey!

NOTE: If you are interested in knowing more about meditation and pranayama, watch this space for my upcoming book, River of Love: Meditation beyond the App.

Why it's perfectly OK to be ordinary—and unambitious

 

“We want rock stars.”

“10x engineers.”

“Super achievers.”

It’s an overwhelming reality of the world we live in. Every company wants exceptional, super-productive people on its teams. And every individual strives to be in the top 10, 20, or whatever number they fancy in a given realm.

The human race has been in a relentless race with its own kind for as long as anyone can remember. For everything—from jobs and sports to crazy feats and rare honors.

But, of late, the desire to be extraordinary has taken on a ferocity that makes the rest of us—the ordinary folk who form the bulk of Planet Earth’s inhabitants—shudder.

I have nothing against superlative achievement or the pursuit of excellence, mind you. On the contrary, aspiring to reach our highest potential is a worthy, admirable goal.

I’m here to warn against and provide a contrarian view to the blind cult of ambition at any cost. Against an all-consuming pursuit that usually breeds secret fears of being left behind in an avalanche of technology-led progress. Which also begets unhealthy envy. And depression. And, quite often, a dangerous attitude of “making a mark, come what may.”

So much so that many “driven” people wouldn’t think twice before building their palaces by bulldozing the tiny huts of those who aren’t as “passionate” (read “aggressive”).

Again, it’s all right to be full of energy and follow one’s dreams in right earnestness. But reckless driving to mow down others? Not done.

To be sure, it takes a combination of talent, hard work, and the right circumstances (also known as luck) to reach the pinnacle of success in any field.

Plus, there’s only so much room at the top (unless you are thinking of climbing Mount Everest, where it’s a crowded slugfest now!)

But, more importantly, and the main point of this post: not everyone needs to be super ambitious or extraordinary. In fact, in their heart, a majority of people are not ambitious—though many of them harbor borrowed ambitions and expectations of those around them (Remember the “What do you want to be when you grow up” spiel or the never-ending plea to “push the envelope”?).

IMHO, most folks just want to live in an admixture of peace, love, and fun—with or without achieving a supposedly lofty goal. 

Not all who join as employees do so to become the CEO—which is okay. (They may still become the CEO which, again, is okay.)

Not all folks who play a sport or go for daily runs do so to win an Olympics medal—which is okay.

Not everyone who applauds a theatrical performance is looking to be a stage actor—which is okay. 

And not all who put on makeup want to win beauty pageants—OK, again.

Ordinariness is an essential, irrefutable fact of life. It is, of course, not to be worn as a badge of honor—but nor is it to be looked down upon. Ordinariness or lack of ambition is usually the way things are, and the person that others label as “ordinary” or “unambitious” may not give it two hoots.

What’s more, labels can be misleading. An ordinary assistant, for instance, may be a great human being while an extraordinary CEO can be lousy and mean. A “successful” career politician can fill you with disgust while a “street tramp” playing the violin can bring a smile to your face.

What matters more than ambition—whether you consider yourself extraordinary or ordinary—is the sincerity with which you do the job at hand or the empathy with which you treat your fellow humans and other sentient beings.

I’m not just preaching this to you—I speak from experience. I gave up being ambitious in my career when I was in my forties. Somewhere along the line, I stopped chasing increments or jumps but, instead, began to walk with a pace that was more in step with my psyche. I also focused more on what mattered to me personally (to the extent I could). This included meditation, reducing my cravings, and taking joy in the little things of life. Seeing my friends and even complete strangers flourish and laugh made me happy. Before long, I felt more fulfilled, more connected with the world at large, even as I quietly acknowledged my own tininess.

At a time when the specter of AI is looming large over jobs, it is important to wield human ordinariness not only as a shield but as something of great value—one that no extraordinary AI model can ever generate. 

It is important to strive for excellence—but more by means of who we are than by the judgment of others. It's even more urgent to achieve collective happiness and peace in a world increasingly divided by labels, gaps, and rifts. 

It is indeed important and necessary—and perfectly all right—to be ordinary.