From: tstpcc@gwunix1.gwu.edu (Paul C. Chemmanoor)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: The House Of Mirrors [I-V] -- Icarus.  [Repost]
Date: 17 Dec 1992 19:01:39 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu


1] A quick recap of the saga up to this point:

				A Small Town In Ohio
				--------------------

		"Dont you believe in anything ?"

George Blimey was brought back from his reverie of the italian cafes,
the french riveira, the Groucho Marx brothers and the lady from Chicago.
He looked at the tall, sparsely built, southpaw who had spoken.

Surphul Mohan was known in the company as a backroom hand. On of the 
boys who ran the show in near anonymity, from the deserted rooms of
the Computer Center. Known for his acerbic wit and wilting sarcasm, he 
was revered by the men in the field. Men who were running the risk of losing
their honour and prestige while posting. Men who nevertheless did the 
needful and laid their lives down for the written word.

		"No", said george.

He remembered the time when his mother had given into his fervent pleas
for a bigger allowance, and he had run to the "Nirula's" around the corner,
his mind filled with joyful thoughts and faith in the goodness of life.
He had paid a small fortune,  which the grubby shophand threw into the small 
wooden box which served as the safe, for the pista-on-the-rocks.
	
		"Eat slow jorj, you will have stomach pains".
Delivered while wiping his paan-stained mouth on his dirt-stained achkan.

		"Never mind, you useless bugger", george thought to himself. 
		A precocious child even at nine.

		He had started on the ice-cream even before he left the shop.
He wolfed it down as if it were manna from heaven, which it was. 
Half-way into the cone, it happened -- his eyes filled with tears even now
when he thought of it-- The cone was half empty ! Only the top had anything
in it ! the rest was just so much styrofoam -- or whatever it was 
cones were made of. 

		"Bloody communist without a source-code license " he fumed.
		
		And that was when george lost his faith in the scheme of things.
        If you cant trust a pista-on-the-rocks who can you trust ?

                            Blimey's People
                           -----------------
		"No one !", george said aloud to surphul.
	
	Surphul was startled, but not for nothing was he known as 
    "Our man in columbus.", he recovered and yanked that raised eyebrow
    back into place. No doubt george had demons in his head. But in these
    times it was the rare man who didnt have a private yeti to exorcise.
    Besides it made a man more productive, more creative. It hadnt been
    too long ago that he himself had visions of the poor net novice who
    had posted a few harmless kadi jokes. Surphul had killed him.

		Used a Ascii-Bovine automatic to terminate the poor sod. Appeared
    in his dreams at night and kept saying "I was just a keed surphul !
	Just a keed" with this tear-streaked face, somehow managing to imply
    that a glorious future on the network had been snuffed out.
    
    
	"But e-mail is private, george. Its like a letter you write to your 
    friends, you know. You drop your pretences and write your heart out.
    And its a kind of betrayal when you see your guts spilt all over the 
    internet."

		"Thats what its all about, surphul. Cant you see ?
    Why do people have to pretend on the internet ?
    Why is there a difference between the professed positions on the net
    and the privately admitted to apologies ?
    Why do these net.sods pretend to be god's only doves on the net,
    while sending private mail stuffed with chopped genitalia ?
	I hate these double standards. Pompous Bastards."

		Surphul sighed. 

		"Never mind. About this Ackermann conspiracy. I have it from the 
   highest authorities, that boris knows. George I will be frank with you.
   Control thinks your slowing down. Broken down networks in south dakota.
   Blown agents in indo-texas. The colorado-utah ring penetrated."

		"Net war is not cheap, surphul. Anarchy is an unstable state.
	    The network if left to its own devices would fall into a kind of
        order and there would be no more wars. No more flames. No nothing.
		Just plain old discussions, recipes, find me, looking for,
        panchatantra and religion mixed with bad urdu poetry.
        Kaput !",  george snapped his fingers. 

		"And we wouldnt want that, would we ?", this with a resigned expression
   from surphul.
		
	A moment of heavy silence.

		"And who will you use on the echo/delta plan II, george ?"

		"Well, theres Cahn N. from the subway infiltration, 
    this P. Nicks whos set up base in oregon, I. Carla in the rockies.
    Could use N. Janowski, but that will take time. Will have to use
    a honey trap on the first editions. I think he'll take the bait.
    R. Ajivol the old warhorse , And He-who-walks-like-an-egyptian at cmu.
    Lots of others. Its a biggish list. A biggish war."

		"Dont tell me about it. Standard procedures. From now on you are
    on your own. I have nothing more to do with it. When you come up with
    a name for the persona send me a note.

		"Good luck. And remember too much firewater is bad for braves.",
	with that surphul dissapeared into the gloomy confines of the computer
    center.
		"No one !", said george aloud to surphul.
                The Honourable Schoolboy.
                -------------------------

	"What did Cabow say ?"
	"He told me to go ahead",  wiping the water from a water-pistol that
	had caught him by mistake. One of the Mafia-wars carried out with 
	painful monotonicity from 1 a.m. to 4:30 in the monstrous concrete
	hulk that made up the engineering center, by freshmen too young to
	know what GPAs meant.

	"I thought he would, he likes you, you know."
    
        I. Carla was standing by the vending machine. He was looking for
     the spare change that the cold l.e.ds demanded for a bar of snickers: 55c.

    "Quarter ?"
    "Sure, here. Had a look at the I.J. Ding postings from the tone company ?"
    "A-ha."
    "crasy ? eh ? totelly crasy. I hate these russians."

        N. Janowski was from a family of polish mathematicians. As a child he
    had been sent to the S.S. academy for the gifted at Triwondramovo.
    He learnt his early debating skills at this elite instituition. 
    He had never accepted the new borders that WWII had forced on poland.
    He hated Lech Walesa because he pandered to the west and to the Pope.

     A favourite theme was the moving of the capital from Warsaw back to 
    Krakow. The dismantling of the warsaw pact, true independance for the 
    nation, a re-awakening of the old solidarity, revival of the traditional
    katajkawli dances, all these he would argue for. 

        As a fresh graduate he had worked at the Russian-dominated
     WP Aeronauticals Limited, one of the key installations in the WP 
    that made wings and other assorted parts for the alliance. The first few
    months had been filled with hard working days and parties that went late
    into the nights. Janowski had never learnt Russian. And the russians never
    seemed to mind that too much, calling him our dear "gadha janoo", and
    other endearments. Janowski was on the verge of being forced to change 
    his mind, the russians were not too bad after all. A visit from a classmate
    at the S.S. changed all that. He never forgave the russians.

        A brilliant mind, jan, as he preferred to be called now, was much 
    respected for his work in the field of
	"Grand Unification of Informal Logic" which drew heavily on Godels theorem.

	In fact jan held that most of the troubles on the internet would be solved 
	if people understood how nothing can be proved. 

	One of the last ambipyrous agents. He could eat and throw 
	flames with equal ease.

		"Could this ding guy be for real ?", asked Carla.

		"Cant really say. I mean how could he have a fake account at the
	tone company ? They wouldnt allow it."

		"But how could anyone like that get hired ?"

		"That Carla, is what I asked myself. How could such a person be working
	for the tone company ? But maybe, I said to myself, he has a system account
	and he uses it to put out stuff that no one would dare reply to."

		"Maybe its part of a plan by the tone company. Something like 
	MCIs friends and family. I mean he abuses ten people, they go out and
	abuse ten others and soon you have a net storm."

		"So ? How does that help the tone company, anyways ?"

		"How does the internet work ? Over phone lines right ?
		 Which company has the most long distance phone lines ?"

		"Hmm, But I still think hes a fake-for-fun. Kicks. Flames.
		 Or hes a real russian. Bloody russians, Ill flame the hell
		out of him, Ill .."

		"Did you try to check this guy out ? Ask anybody, jan ?", Carla 
		interjected.

		"No"

		"I did. Asked some friends out there to check logs."

		"What happened ?"

		"Ken Thompson, Director of Unix Operations Asia-Pacific."

		"Why would Ken Thompson try to post to sci and in such russian ?"

		"I dont know. Blimey says Kens quite upset about the AIX port.
		 Done by russians, you know.
		 Learnt russian meeting natives after they had a few drinks at
		 parties at the company. Explains the language.
		 Far-fetched I agree, but what do we have
		 by way of alternative ?"

		"If you ask me, Kens in league with Blimey, and that woman from
		chicago. Pulling a fast one.", said jan finishing his coffee.
                The Secret Pilgrim.
               --------------------

    "Distribution: FYEO.
     Level: T.S.
     Encryption: rot 13, double crypt, MIM-DES.
    "

        "God ! they never know where to stop do they ?", Blimey asked himself,
    as he reached for the Medusa Internet Modified DES standard code book.

        "We spoke. You concurred. Negative c.f. Ackermann. No, repeat No.
         Echo stroke Delta two. Strike, repeat strike."

        "Perfectly ghastly, bloody crime, his language is, I'm sure."

        George rather liked Control, the few times they had met.
    Doon School, St. Stephens & IIM had polished his manners into something
    bordering the obscene. But his memos were an outrage.

        "Anyway, Ackermann was dead three months ago. In a small node by
    the Great Arizona gateways. Tracked down by a nosy sysadmin. Shot to
    pieces. Maybe surphul was right, I am slowing down"


    "The usual please.", george told the chap behind the table at 
    the Umbrella , High street, as he waited in line.

        He wondered where Ann was. Obsession. Duchesse De Guermantes,
    Proust, Turgenov, Rebecca. The Lady from Chicago. His mind floated in 
    the calm that beer always created.

        "My dear fellow, George ! Of all the pleasant surprises !
         And what are we doing here ?
         Waiting for Ann are we ?"

        George had an urge to crush the beetle faced Ex-agent who
    had commandeered the seat opposite him. If there was anything he hated
    with his complete being, it was the sight of a blown agent. 

        MacBull Butt had been one of the brightest boys ever to haunt
    the cold channels of the inter-ether. Had been tipped to be Control
    when the Old Man gave up or faded away. And then he had begun to read
    Zen and the art of Motorcycle maintenance, The Thomistic Legacies,
    Carl Sagan and thence to Kant`s Critique of pure Reason. His sense of
    humour had shrivelled, curled up in foetal positions, crumpled,
    powdered and blown away. And now he could see no evil, hear no evil 
    or speak any evil without promptly dissecting and holding up the
    besotted fungus mold to the light of all-conquering wisdom.

        "Nothing Mac, just warming the old grey cells, you know"

        "White, george, white cells. The grey cells are analytical.
         The white are for imagination, which is what you need to warm up.
         Heh, heh", chuckled Butt, slapping george on the shoulder.

        "God save me from pedantic men", mused george to himself.

        "Any way, so what does Controls Blue-eyed boy have up his sleeve, eh?"

        "Nothing really, you know the usual, stoke the old fires,
        prod a few bull dogs, you know how it is in the silly season."

        "Not what I hear, old chap, Not what I hear. The rest of us arent stupid
        you know !
        Little accounts with funny names like "Scareus" and "Phonykicks" 
        springing up by the dozen. Big wigs being led on, with taunts of
        being square. No, not exactly the silly season, george. 
        I would say a storm is in the making. The Big One, george. I can
        read the signs, thank you very much."

        "`The only way to go back now, is to go forward', who said that ?
         was it Camus in 'The Stranger' or was it Sartre in 'Age of Reason'."
        george asked himself.


        "The only way to go back now, is to go forward", said george aloud.

        "Who said that ? Was it Camus in 'The Stranger' or was it Sartre in
        'Age of Reason' ?" queried Butt.

        "Do you read minds for a hobby, Butt ?", george replied testily.

        "Only lips, george. MI recon training. You lip-sync when you 
        talk to yourself, george."

        "And I posted, saying "But apparently sheep can post test 
        messages."

        George swiveled around to look at the lady who had spoken to the 
        crowd of now elated russians. Suma Penumbrum. Tough operator.

        "The beer must be getting to my head. ", george admonished himself.

            He looked around the smoky room, and saw the woman in the red
        dress next to Male Factor. That must be Sonia. They were in 
        intimate conversation, and Sonia was gesturing at the garden outside.
        Male factor followed her out. As she passed the table george couldnt
        help eyeing Sonia as she swished. A whiff of oriental parfum assailed
        his nostrils. Jasmine ! 

            "So, Male Factor was right", he picked up his hat and rushed out.

            "Pay for me old buddy, will ya, I wouldnt miss this for anything."
        george screamed over his shoulder in his rush to see what was
        to followc
                        A Perfect Spy.
                    --------------------

    "Dirty minded buggers".

     A man in a small dingy room at 12th street and
 Wolfram, was sitting at his table overflowing with notes and newspaper
 articles culled from the international edition of "The Hindu". 

    He had a set of wax-crayons nearby, and in his hand he held the red
 pencil. He drew another bindi on the model who so shamelessly gave freely
 all standing by, or to be precise to those who paid. And no clothes !
 These western type women will do anything for money. He drew a long skirt
 quite covering her legs, letting only the smallest glimpse of her toes 
 peek up from below. He knew better than to attempt any of the other russian
 clothes. 
    
    "For that one, I will need oil-colours.", he explained to himself.
    A smile played around his lips as he recollected the mess he had got into
when he had tried to draw a saree.

    "Enough for today", he told himself as he returned the Penthouse May
edition to the stack of magazines he had bought over the past few years.

    "Amazing scenes were witnessed today when 8 americans at the Univ of
     California, Berkeley, sued Yogi Jagroonanda for fraud ,mental
     and physical agony caused. Jagroonanda had advertised a course in 
    Transcendental Meditiation(T.M.)  based yogic flying. The course 
    was supposed to teach the participating students to fly by means of
    inner force tele-psycho-kinematics, the secrets of which had only 
    recently revealed to Jagroonanda.
    `He started us off by making us meditate for hours in a dark room.
     After two weeks of this he asked us to sit cross-legged on the floor,
    and practice nijityana, or being motionless. He told us that the 
    inner energies had to be focussed and suppressed so that  when the
    time came it would burst out, you know kind of like a volcano.'

    The students claimed that after two months, and after each of them
    had paid Jagroonanda $ 2400, they were able only to 'hop crosslegged
    for very short stretches of two to three feet'

    Jagroonanda had no comments when contacted. "

    The man in the dingy room wiped the tears from his eyes.
    His belly ached from laughing.

        "Saala Jagroo, bachcha log ko ulloo banatha hai !" 

        He lit a beedi and sat at the desk, returning to his work.
    Kautilya's Arthashastra was open to page 567 and he had made a number
    of footnotes in the blue Parker pen his uncle had given him.

        Alas, he sighed, things had changed so much in so short a time.
    Kautilyas analysis of political crisis and the making thereof was
    not really accurate.        

        He tired easily these days. All those dreams that haunted him.

        He dressed in his favourite white pants, oiled his hair with
   peacock brand hair strengthener,  lit another beedi and stepped out into
   the wild pagan streets of columbus, ohio.



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.    ~ ~                                                                  .
.    o o         signito ergo sum.                                        .
.     |       i sign therefore i am.               paul chemmanoor        .
.     =                                            washington d.c.        .
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