Algorithms and Bicycles

I never finished reading Arundhati Roy’s “God of small things”. Mostly because I never really liked spaghetti; much less the noodles in time. But I know that the story of the book is set in Kerala, a southern state of India, of which the locals refer to as “God’s own country”. It seems to me, however, that it is also a place where God, if that entity exists, plays 20/20 cricket — that abomination of a noble game. While creating the land, greenery, birds and other living beings, he seemed to have been very focused and purposeful. But when it came to the beings to be created in his own image, he seems to have chosen the most callous, indifferent, cynical and morally corrupt (in the sense of Ayn Rand) ones to be the inhabitants. The best explanation of this contradiction seems to have  been given by Al Pacino’s John Milton character in “Devil’s Advocate”: “God likes to watch. He’s a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do, I swear for His own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It’s the goof of all time.”

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