I am posting below my new venture, an e-Mail Newsletter, which I started on Dec.1, 2015:
SURIS JOURNAL
CARING AND SHARING
Suris Newsletter, Issue
No.1, December 1, 2015
Share your
knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality – Dalai Lama
With profound apologies I commence
this new weekly epistle of mine. Yes, I
already have a Tamil newsletter, ok-ok, a bilingual newsletter, PARIMAATRAM (EXCHANGE). The problem is as most of the content is in
Tamil, I think sending it to my non-Tamil and non-Tamil-knowing friends would
be pointless, if not insulting. Further,
how could I let a segment of friends escape so easily? Hence this idea of a new all-English
newsletter.
The little feedback I got for my
Tamil newsletter is only expected; yet it is a little disconcerting too. I will
have to guess that nobody reads it, almost. Probably finding time in this
hectic life of ours is not so easy, what with the torrents and cascades of
information explosion. Then what is the point of this second newsletter? Well,
you will have to ask my ego; I already did, but got no answer.
Ok, it could be a sort of exercise,
like the physical exercise I do now and then. Maybe at some distant future it
may find a kindred, kind and sympathetic reader. It is true that hope is the lost thing to
lose. I can vouch for it from personal experience, after having lost almost
everything else.
Further, the Lord’s assurance in the
Gita is comforting: NO EFFORT IS EVER WASTED. Also, He says: DON’T
WORRY ABOUT THE FRUITS OF YOUR LABOUR
I got the inspiration for this from Jane Hirschfield: “I have to discover, to experiment, to
expand the perimeters of who I am and what I might find out about this shared
world, its utterly implausible shapes and unknowable unfolding”(Thanks to The
Writers Almanac by Garrison Keillor, Newsletter for November 30,
2015) Why not discover what a consummate
ass I am and how stupider I can get and find out something more about the
confusing, confounding and complicated world of ours. Further, like Jane, I am
curious about the UNKNOWABLE UNFOLDINGS.
And now, may the Lord protect you
all, for I am going to bombard you with this missile of mine every week. The
only escape you have is to pray to the Lord, if you are a believer like me or
ask me directly not to send it. Sorry,
there is no easier UNSUBSCRIBE option.
You have time, seven days to be precise, to prepare yourself.
As for the title of the newsletter,
it is a proof that Tamil politicians have infected us all with this disease –
weakness for rhyme, rhythm, alliteration and that sort of word-play. I shall not be surprised if some fellow Tamil sends a
terse feedback like: CARING & SHARING,
BORING & SCARING!.
God bless you, bye!
SURI
Postscript
The Chennai Floods intervened and as all communication network got disrupted, I could not
send this epistle as planned on Dec.1.
Now, as for the floods, it was a harrowing and heartrending nightmare.
Though personally we escaped most of the suffering and difficulties, vicariously
we feel the agony and misery of other people who were actually affected, as we
could see all that on TV and read in newspapers. It is well known that
encroachment of waterbodies and poor planning were the major cause of this
tragedy. Inept handling of the situation
by the civic administration and their
callous and careless attitude added greatly to the misery. The role of voluntary organizations is
praise-worthy and is the only silver lining in the cloud. As for me, I can only pray for all the people
affected by the floods here in Chennai and Cuddalore and also elsewhere in
Tamil Nadu. I share their pain and agony.