{"id":13580,"date":"2022-02-15T18:26:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-15T18:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/?p=13580"},"modified":"2023-05-07T20:09:54","modified_gmt":"2023-05-07T20:09:54","slug":"branching-paths-jump-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/2022\/02\/15\/branching-paths-jump-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"branching paths (jump cuts)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>(abandoned substack draft)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s a lot I want to talk about, but I will need many tries to begin to get it right. So here\u2019s one of many attempts. I\u2019m going to be skipping from thing to thing with slightly stark \u201cjump cuts\u201d, forgive me in advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My name is Visakan. I was born and raised in a Hindu family in Singapore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Visakan<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I wouldn\u2019t say that my family is particularly devout or religious. But my parents did name me Visakan after the Visakha Nakshatra in Hindu astrology, based on the time of my birth. Vishakha literally means \u201cbranched\u201d, and it\u2019s an amusing bit of nominative determinism for me that I am so prolific, and that my Twitter threads for example are full of branching paths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Visakan is also one of the names of Muruga, who is a son of Shiva. Most people will be able to recognize lil&#8217; Ganesh\/Vinayagar on Parvati\u2019s lap \u2013 well, Murugan is his little brother!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto%2Cq_auto%3Agood%2Cfl_progressive%3Asteep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F17dda708-7fe2-4e14-b0a8-d6d84c110bb5_426x473.jpeg?ssl=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456%2Cc_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cq_auto%3Agood%2Cfl_progressive%3Asteep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F17dda708-7fe2-4e14-b0a8-d6d84c110bb5_426x473.jpeg?w=770&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">asdg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It seems probable to me that the words \u201cDeus\u201d and \u201cDeity\u201d are related to the words Indian-origin words \u201cDeva\u201d and \u201cTheivam\u201d. They seem to come from from *dyeu-, which is a Proto-Indo-European root meaning &#8220;to shine,&#8221; related to ideas like &#8220;sky, heaven, god.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Only just realized that the Moirai (the Fates, the Weird Sisters) correspond perfectly to Trimurti:<br><br>Clotho (Nona) the Spinner \u2013 Brahma The Creator <br>Lachesis (Decima) the Allotter \u2013 Vishnu the Preserver<br>Atropos (Morta)  the Cutter \u2013 Shiva the Destroyer <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Oc9P40JHYQ\">pic.twitter.com\/Oc9P40JHYQ<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Visakan Veerasamy (@visakanv) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/visakanv\/status\/1060433573814009857?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 8, 2018<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Hinduism<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>To write this segment of this post I went to rewatch some youtube videos about Hinduism \u2013 to verify my own understanding as well as to get a sense of how people typically talk about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hinduism is widely understood to be the world\u2019s oldest active religion, having been practiced for 4,000+ years. Hinduism can be hard to talk about with people who are primarily only familiar with the Abrahamic religions. It\u2019s a very diverse, syncretic, kaleidoscopic religion. To complicate matters, \u201cHinduism\u201d as a concept is barely a few hundred years old, just as \u201cIndia\u201d is. To Western audiences, I might gesture at how concepts like \u201cItaly\u201d and \u201cItalian\u201d are relatively recent concepts tidily wrapping up much, much more complex history. Leonardo da Vinci didn\u2019t think of himself as \u201cItalian\u201d \u2013 his name itself is a clue, \u201cLeonardo of Vinci\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The concept of \u201cavatar\u201d comes from Hinduism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>India is a very, very large country. At ~1.4 billion people, It has almost double the entire population of Europe. So it shouldn\u2019t be surprising that the differences between people in different parts of India, is even more pronounced than the differences between, say, Swedes and Spaniards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Singapore<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The consensus about the origin of Singapore\u2019s name is that it\u2019s of Sanskrit origin, Singa-pura, Lion City. It was allegedly named by a prince from Palembang, and there\u2019s some complication there about what is myth and what is reality. The myth is that a prince named Sang Nila Utama came to Singapore amidst rough seas \u2013 there\u2019s this bit where he tosses his crown into the sea and it calms down, and then he saw a lion, and so he named the island Singapura. But he can\u2019t possibly have seen an actual lion \u2013 all Singapore had at the time were tigers. I\u2019m quite convinced by the theory that the whole mythology was deliberately constructed for PR purposes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Mariamman temple<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Mariamman Temple is Singapore\u2019s oldest Hindu temple, built in the Dravidian (South Indian) style, originally founded in 1827 by Naraina Pillai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto%2Cq_auto%3Agood%2Cfl_progressive%3Asteep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd764b0c5-3257-4756-8e51-251ccc630f4d_593x598.jpeg?ssl=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456%2Cc_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cq_auto%3Agood%2Cfl_progressive%3Asteep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd764b0c5-3257-4756-8e51-251ccc630f4d_593x598.jpeg?w=770&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Image\" title=\"Image\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">I took this photo in 2015 and posted it to my Instagram with the caption \u201cthe old gods and the new\u201d.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>asdga<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto%2Cq_auto%3Agood%2Cfl_progressive%3Asteep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F39f8602f-2ecd-47f6-8ee8-6fb541db8ac4_2048x1536.jpeg?ssl=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456%2Cc_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cq_auto%3Agood%2Cfl_progressive%3Asteep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F39f8602f-2ecd-47f6-8ee8-6fb541db8ac4_2048x1536.jpeg?w=770&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Photo by Schnobby<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The tower in the back, literally titled Capital Tower (a bit on the nose, don\u2019t you think?) is a 52-storey skyscraper completed in 2000. It\u2019s the 4th tallest building in Singapore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf you want to understand what\u2019s most important to a society, don\u2019t examine its art or literature, simply look at its biggest buildings.\u201d \u2013 Joseph Campbell<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn medieval societies, the biggest buildings were its churches and palaces; using Campbell\u2019s method, we can assume these were feudal cultures that revered their leaders and worshipped God. In modern Western cities, the biggest buildings are the banks\u2014bloody great towers that dominate the docklands\u2014and the shopping centers, which architecturally ape the cathedrals they\u2019ve replaced: domes, spires, eerie celestial calm, fountains for fonts, food courts for pews.\u201d \u2013 Russell Brand<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Neil Gaiman\u2019s American Gods: \u201cThere are new gods growing in America, clinging to growing knots of belief: gods of credit card and freeway, of Internet and telephone, of radio and hospital and television, gods of plastic and of beeper and of neon. Proud gods, fat and foolish creatures, puffed up with their own newness and importance. &#8220;They are aware of us, they fear us, and they hate us,&#8221; said Odin. &#8220;You are fooling yourselves if you believe otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sanjay\u2019s Super Team [2015]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Somebody on Twitter once asked, \u201cwhat was the first time you saw yourself represented in media?\u201d And for me the answer to that question is in the Pixar short, Sanjay\u2019s Super Team, written and directed by Sanjay Patel, a Gujarati-American animator born in ~1974. (It\u2019s about 7 minutes long, you\u2019ll need Disney+ to watch it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto%2Cq_auto%3Agood%2Cfl_progressive%3Asteep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe8001a39-8a6c-47bc-a5f6-dcb525361c82_680x368.jpeg?ssl=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456%2Cc_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cq_auto%3Agood%2Cfl_progressive%3Asteep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe8001a39-8a6c-47bc-a5f6-dcb525361c82_680x368.jpeg?w=770&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Sanjay: \u201cI told John Lasseter, every morning my dad would pray to his gods at his shrine, and <strong>I would pray to mine at my shrine, which was ironically the TV, and the cartoon superheroes that I worshipped.<\/strong> [\u2026] For any kid of an immigrant\u2026 I\u2019ll just speak for myself\u2026 I just wanted to fit in, I wanted to get rid of my weird name\u2026 I was just embarrassed and felt ashamed of being different\u2026 it took a long time to discover myself as an artist, and finding some identity there, and it took even longer to find artwork and inspiration from my parents\u2019 culture, and once I did, that just felt like all the dots connected. What I discovered with my parents\u2019 culture helped me understand who exactly my parents were, and suddenly I was just immensely proud of their culture, and where they\u2019re from, and it suddenly sort of completed me. I found some sort of version of home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Breath of Fire II<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto%2Cq_auto%3Agood%2Cfl_progressive%3Asteep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F268aeac0-65ac-4459-96f2-fb4394f30b1c_908x684.png?ssl=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456%2Cc_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cq_auto%3Agood%2Cfl_progressive%3Asteep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F268aeac0-65ac-4459-96f2-fb4394f30b1c_908x684.png?w=770&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cHmm? You aren\u2019t looking at me by any chance, are you? Well now this is a welcome surprise\u2026 I thought everyone had forgotten me\u2026 All I hear out of people these days is \u2018Eva\u2019 this, \u2018Eva\u2019 that\u2026 Nobody thinks of the old Dragon God anymore. Sometimes I find myself longing for the good old days\u2026 Ah, pardon the ramblings of an old-timer. I may be getting up in my years, but my memory\u2019s still sharp as ever\u2026 Is there anything you would like me to remember for you? The tale of your journey thus far, perhaps?\u201d \u2013 Dragon God statue<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Pantheon of Wojaks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto%2Cq_auto%3Agood%2Cfl_progressive%3Asteep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F06df7771-45c3-43a5-95ba-8aff74643e25_4096x1795.jpeg?ssl=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456%2Cc_limit%2Cf_auto%2Cq_auto%3Agood%2Cfl_progressive%3Asteep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F06df7771-45c3-43a5-95ba-8aff74643e25_4096x1795.jpeg?w=770&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Image\" title=\"Image\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\/\/ abandoned<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(abandoned substack draft) There\u2019s a lot I want to talk about, but I will need many tries to begin to get it right. So here\u2019s one of many attempts. I\u2019m going to be skipping from thing to thing with slightly stark \u201cjump cuts\u201d, forgive me in advance. My name is&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[727],"tags":[730],"class_list":["post-13580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drafts","tag-substack"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5gxNz-3x2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13581,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13580\/revisions\/13581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}