AN AUTHOR ATTEMPTS TO SELL HIS BOOKS USING HIS ORIGINAL MUSIC!!! Hi ! my attempt at a book trailer showcasing the books that I have written using my own amateurish but original music . Thanks for watching HEAL ME -- (Original Acoustic Rock Song by an Author, a Poet, n a Musician) HEAL ME -- (Original Acoustic Rock Song by an Author, a Poet, n a Musician)

Top Cat's Alley: Book review - The Molecular Slaves, by Biju Vasude...

Top Cat's Alley: Book review - The Molecular Slaves, by Biju Vasude...:   With all the independent books that I review, a book of philosophy is indeed a rare ple...

With all the independent books that I review, a book of philosophy is indeed a rare pleasure.

Eschewing the dry, Germanic approach of today's metaphysicians, The Molecular Slaves, with its playfully lyrical style, harks joyfully back to the approach of philosophers of yore. Although taken as a work of metaphysics, the work lacks the rigour we expect, taken as an introduction to metaphysical thought it is a pure delight.

Starting with a startlingly idiosyncratic presentation of the world of phenomena, we are led, skipping and dancing, along a star-sprinkled path into mysticism. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed ever step along the way.

Vasudevan has a pleasant, light, engaging style that captivates the reader from the first page. There are some small infelicities of language that a rigorous edit could have smoothed out, but this does not interfere with the reader's enjoyment.

A delightful read!

The Molecular Slaves is available from AMAZON in both Kindle and paperback editions.

CHAPTER 2  (AGRICULTURAL OR GODLY)


Once upon a time, very long long ago, man suddenly stumbled and realized that just hunting and foraging is just not going to do. They got together, stormed their rudimentary brains and then talked about a revolution. After talking about the revolution, they rolled it out. It was felt that, just like the sweet bite of the toothless infant stimulates the mothers breast to produce more milk, Mother Earth too needed a few stimulatory, arousing, oxytocin secreting bites sans teeth. The milk that she was proffering was getting inadequate for her growing progeny.

So advented, agriculture  . Jaws minus canines were fashioned out of the bounties of Mother Nature in form of of the plough and the hoe. Their toothless bites and prods into the munificent bosoms of mother earth were to be subtle and sensory at the same time. They were not to hurt her, but at the same time they had to coax her to give more. They had to arouse her sufficiently to shower her milk of kindness abundantly on her earthly mundane subjects.

The experiment was vindicated. For a change, a Revolution was sustainably successful.   Man gnawed away at the bosoms of nature with his toothless jaws and she responded in bountiful, gay abandon, happily nourishing and replenishing her favorite children, so that they could grow and multiply.

A surfeit of food and the accompanying goodness gave man a chance to exercise the muscles in his head. No longer was he on a perpetual vigil for a fallen berry or a dead goat. He began to invent, innovate and create. He created machines, mechanisms, trap and tools. He created civilizations and religions. He created class, creed, race, boundaries, prejudice, bias and hate. He created nations. He created wars. Most important of all, he created weapons.

As the creative race intensified, there was conflict and confusion as to who was more creative. They once again got together, stormed their advanced brains, and talked about a revolution. But the advanced proceedings of the now august house of mankind were not as cordial or cohesive as the rudimentary one. There was no consensus. Each race, class and tribe claimed the title of the greatest creator but it was plain to see to everyone present, that no one came even close.

Then there was a vapid, dithering partial agreement that the greatest creator crown could not be adjudged with the present data and resources. So it was left as an inconclusive conjecture named Code God. It was also agreed that he resided in the sky overhead in a place called heaven and also that because of this geographical reason, they could not see him.  It was agreed that God was the Supreme Creator but still there was bickering and a disconsolate, inconclusive debate as to which tribe or race owned the sky and therefore God.

 Ownership of the empty sky was now at stake. Man, in his new found creativity, unleashed weapons on each other, with a view upon decimating one another. After a prolonged calamitous fratricidal battle and a few genocidal wars and pogroms, a few tired, old wise men called for a halt to hostility. Man stopped the dance of death partially because Mother Nature, bereft of the stimulating, loving  caresses of her children, started drying up.

The wizened old men suggested carving up of the skies among the tribes proportional to their numbers. This was finally agreed upon and man apportioned the sky and heaven among the tribes. In order to maintain the individuality and ownership of the sky allotted to each tribe, each tribe came up with a different name for the sky as well as the Supreme Creator who resided there.

Although consensus had arrived upon which sky was whose, each tribe and race is on an eternal quest to lay claim on more sky than what was originally allotted to it.

In this rat-race to own the empty sky in totality, man devised and implemented many more revolutions like the industrial and information ones, all with an eye to the empty sky. They shed blood like water and pillaged and plundered. But the endless, empty sky would never respond in kind saying " I am yours, and yours to take and for keeps" . So the battle rages on.

Once I was sent to the Eighth Wonder of World " The Taj Mahal" of India. I was supposed to marvel and wax eloquent about the achievement of man in marble, his heroic creativity etched in the marble-stones of time. But I became enamored with the Ravines of Chambal , which lay on the way, and was wonder-struck at the brushwork of it's creator.

Then I came to the United States of America, the very epitome of man's creativity and enterprise. My friends showed me innumerable edifices and monuments for me to pay obeisance to. But the high for me came, when I stood an the banks of the mighty Pacific, engrossed in its vastness and might and comparing my minuteness and frailty. I wondered aloud and saluted its creator and acknowledged His Might, Resourcefulness, Creativity and Competence. A couple of tears welled in my limpid moist eyes. I have forgotten, as to what they were for. I shall let you know when I recollect.

But one small question . Am I being agricultural or Godly or both . Only my molecules, to whom, I am eternally enslaved to and also eternally indebted to, know the answer.

CHAPTER 1 - ARE WE JUST MOLECULAR SLAVES ?

It was  taught at our nascent stages by our psychopathic teachers that we are made of molecules. I always wondered as to where they were as I could not put my finger on it.

As I grew  older and got wiser, I realized that not only are we made of molecules, we are governed and ruled by them. We are just molecular slaves in this vast limitless creation.

A few molecules from hell called testosterone and I became violent and horny. A few more of those critters and I was sporting unwelcome hair on my chin which was eventually going to cost me a mini fortune in my lifetime, in a vain attempt to annihilate and eradicate them. Every attempt I made to slay these hirsute offenders with all kinds of razors and creams were to be met with gleeful retribution from the dire molecules who sent more stouter bristles, with a ghoulish mirth.

I wanted to have a wanton mane of flowing hair but these diabolical molecules heard my wish before I could spell it . They sent hell-fire and brimstone molecules to my scalp and very soon the rapacious intruders were slaughtering and devouring my precious follicles just for the fun of it. Yes, they wanted to see me suffer, cringe, squirm , grovel and then shrivel up and die.

Their attenders from netherworld called neurotransmitters neuromolecules etc. then invaded my brain to add insult to injury and to rub in salt into my wounds. They ensured my downfall and they ensured my misery. They exulted in diabolical glee as I slid away from every social occasions and went into a shell. They poured more toxins down my throat as I tried to swallow this bitter pill, that was called life.

These molecules would not relent. Their infinite appetite for destruction was yet to be satiated. Just when I thought I had seen off the worst , a few other insidious molecules gave me the charge and soon I was hypertensive. Condemned to a life of consuming palliative molecules of anti-hypertensives. Maybe these molecules have an unholy pact, a taciturn understanding. These spooky molecules could not be trusted for even their parents worth. They conspired my slavery to them and plotted my subjugation which was apparent.

Soon all the other molecules were running riot and joining in the fun as they outdid each other in castigating and undermining me. Some molecules in my pancreas closed shop with a meaningful sneer cum smile and I was in dire need for more molecules. Some molecules made me diabetic while others made me sick. Some made me obese while others made me obtuse. Still others are biding their time in a relentless quest to snuff out the remaining vestiges of human joy and dignity in me . They made me carnal, gluttonous, fat, quirky, verbose, dimwitted, ugly and what not. All I could do, was to sing paeans to their overwhelming power as they ravished and vanquished me.


The history of mankind has been one long story of the tyranny, hegemony and the unilateral and temperamental dictatorship of the molecules. They fueled the fires of the intruders and the marauders whilst assuaging and pacifying the breath and the breath of the saint and the mendicant at the same time. They raised the arm of the murderer and also nourished the breast of the mother. They made brothers hate one another and made enemies make accord and surrender. Mankind has been in a fix as to how to deal with these innocuous looking tiny overwhelming, all conquering conquerors. These dictators sculpted and conjured our body, mind, id and soul, as per their wanton fancies and whims, leaving the hapless humans grappling in a feud with the incomprehensible and the inevitable.

Men tried medication, and when it failed, they tried meditation. They called upon God and then invoked the soul. They introspected, retrospected and then dissipated. How many a thinker and philosopher asked themselves as to " Why am I me and why is he he or she?" , but the answer eluded them like the proverbial needle in the haystack. Hideous, sinful, debauched, infidel, rapacious and so on. There was always a convenient alibi, but it was never the molecule.

Perhaps the deceitful, Machiavellian molecule, conspired to confound the conundrum. They cajoled and coerced mankind into fallaciously thinking that everything and everyone except they are to blame. Their deceptive influence  inspired concepts of character, integrity , faithfulness, chivalry , treachery, infidelity and a host of other epithets and sobriquets, the weight of which, mankind is carrying till date.  Man looks at effect while the cause gyrates in its callous and capricious dance, unhindered and un-ferreted.

But maybe, just maybe, of late the molecules have become impudent and cocksure. They were asleep in their stoned lethargy cloaked in a perception of invincibility and invulnerability when some resilient brave humans crept up from their  behind. Some brave noble soul yelled " The Molecules" and a few nodded in assent. This marks the start of a revolution, a revolution to free and exculpate mankind from the ignominious tyranny of "The Molecules" . Why is a Murderer a Murderer and why is a Philanderer a Philanderer? we are getting closer to the answer. As we get the answers, we shall also get the antidotes. and as we get the antidotes, mankind shall cease to be a zombie and slave to " The Molecules" and live free with dignity and unity. The Utopian objectives of an ideal world may well be within the reach of mankind, once the despotic, totalitarian autocracy of "The Molecules" end .

And the desperate mankind waits, with bated breath, for that day of deliverance from the prisons of guilt, disgrace, stigma and self-doubt wrought upon by the merciless unfeeling molecules.

The other day, I boarded the local train from Hillsboro town to Orenco. A group of school girls got up along with me. I nodded at them as they smiled sweetly at me while they settled next to me.
Then started an unending discussion , an endless confabulation about boys, boys and more boys. There was  not a single mention of studies, lessons, teachers , games, sports, nothing . Just boys and more cute boys.

I tried to look at them quizzically in an as avuncular pose I could adopt, but it was in vain. I was thinking " Are these girls not too young to be singularly obsessed with boys who also appeared to be equally infatuated, as I could glean from the proceedings and from their conversation?"

Then suddenly, in a reflecting window,  I spied upon the man in the mirror. My bald pate out-stared and out-blinked me and proceeded to reprimand me. It then,sternly and unequivocally told me "Aren't You old and experienced to know more about the scourge of molecules? Were you not equally fallible and susceptible if not infinitely more? Were you not similarly afflicted and damaged so many many times? Do you still blame the hapless human species? How can you do this, after all that I have taught you and told you? It is their molecules speaking and not them. Period. "

There was light . I realized that my sparse, desolate, wasted, blighted bald pate was  right. Yes. It were them, the molecules.

 And humanity, even collectively, does not stand a chance before the molecules.

Just like yours truly never did.