This blog's title comes from an old Indian movie song - "Yeh duinya gol hai, uper-se khol hai, andar-ko dekho pyaare, bilkul polam-pol hai" (Mohd. Rafi, Chaudhvi ka Chand, on screen by the comedian Johnny Walker). Means "This earth is round, it's open from the top and, if you look, loved ones, sheer hollow from inside."

The words "polam-pol" has two meanings just as "hollow" in English.

I happen to think that is a good image of much everything in the world - there are theories without basis; if you look inside anything or anybody, be prepared to find nothing. (Looking inside is a mutual activity and generates new things to see, which is another matter. But the same principle applies to impersonal theories as well; only when you see the hollowness can you begin to imagine how to fill them, and in so doing change the theories. Just as people.)

But the more immediate impetus to think of gol dooniya comes from my fascination with both dooniya and gol (also refers to zero). I was surprised to see that the ancient sages of India not only gave us the zero but also an image of the round earth. Wikipedia says, "One of the earliest descriptions of standard time in India appeared in the 4th century CE astronomical treatise Surya Siddhanta. Postulating a spherical earth, the book defined the prime meridian, or zero longitude, as passing through Avanti, the ancient name for the historic city of Ujjain, and Rohitaka, the ancient name for Rohtak, a city near the historic battle-field of Kurukshetra."

So, zero begins, zero ends, and anything in between and inside has to be zero; what else?

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One friend's observation - "We don't have service culture in Gujarat because we did not have a feudal culture." That was in response to my comment, "Us Gujaratis think of starting a trade and being our own boss rather than serve anybody else. Might serve a king or even a rich man because of a sense of obligation to the king or because the rich man is also a good man, but otherwise the attitude is one of slacking, resisting orders, asserting independence. Traders are different; they respect the customer, at least so long he has the money. But doing a job properly - in a bank, a hotel, government - is foreign to us; we might do it, but can't be counted on it."

Then I wondered how much of a Gujarati I AM!!

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I still haven't been at rest much. I would like to go some quieter place where I don't have to talk to anybody (with the exception of someone bringing me food and water).

If there is a nice prison for some victimless offense, I could honor my childhood fantasy of being like an Indian freedom fighter and staying in jail.

I should start a reality show for revolutionary wannabes, and create nice hotel prisons. People will pay to watch, so it's only a matter of getting a loan. "Alternative living" home mortgage is a whole new line of business.

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