Monday, January 28, 2008

நீராய் உருக்கி என் ஆருயிராய் நின்றானே!

நீராய் உருக்கி என் ஆருயிராய் நின்றானே
ஓராதார் உள்ளத்து ஒளிக்கும் ஒளியானே

ஈர்த்து என்னை ஆட்கொண்ட எந்தை பெருமானே
கூர்த்த மெய் ஞானத்தால் கொண்டு உணர்வார் தம்கருத்தில்

நோக்கரிய நோக்கே நுணுக்கரிய நுண் உணர்வே
போக்கும் வரவும் புணர்வும் இலாப் புண்ணியனே

என் சிந்தனை உள்
ஊற்றான உண்ணார் அமுதே உடையானே

Friday, January 18, 2008

To “post-bigil” or not,

That’s the question. And, a question of Shakespearean dimensions at that. These are the kind of questions one has been asking oneself, unselfconsciously, for a long time now.

Is Bigilism self-contained? Does it leave any scope for a “post-bigilist” school of thought?1 Can any form of thought be “self-contained” for that matter? Is it not the case that that form of thought will give way to something “post-that?” Does the postman ever stop delivering the letters, so to put? Is that what Gödel said, umm, in a rather mathematician’s way of saying it?

By the by, does genius wear out with time? In which case, I've a Pascalian kind of wager to propose, for the sake of the “larger good”2 of, uh, what else but genius.

[1] – Say, it does. The next question of gargantuan proportions would be on how to spell it – elegantly as ‘postbigilist,’ or as ‘post-bigilist’ with an ugly but somewhat useful hyphen?

[2] – Note to self, for some food for thought over some Scotch: well, one has been thinking about this for quite a while now. Shouldn’t one just stop putting words or phrases in double quotes to say them but not mean them the way as some might take them? Frankly, it sucks. Just tell the readers that you aren’t sure. That takes less time, and is a lot more elegant. May be, it’s time to form a “post-double quote” school of thought – oh, wait, a post-double quote school of thought.