ATDTDA 760

[Ya Sam]

ATDTDA 760

Sharma

Sharma is one of the most common Brahmin surnames among Hindus in India, Nepal and other countries. The name Sharma शर्म in Sanskrit
[edit] Meaning of the Surname
Sharma is derived from the Sanskrit 'Sharman' which means teacher. According to Sanskrit scholar Dr. Charan Das Shastri, the word 'Sharman' refers to a universal well-wisher or sublime personality who has achieved the highest state of concentration. According to scholars Pt. Raghunath Prashad Shastri and Yaskacharya the word Sharma refers to 'Srinatehimsayam-dhatu' — the sacred person who eradicates his own sins and those of mankind with acquired powers of self-consciousness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharma

“an he had simply vanished” 

Where did Mushtaq disappear? 

“she stepped across his doorsill” 

Note the importance of crossing various borders and thresholds in ATD, P keeps drawing our attention to this.

“her hair compared … to those mystical waterfalls”

“Hair like a waterfall” is a hardcore cliché. Some examples:

“…eyes black as night, hair like a waterfall.” 
“Hair like a waterfall of India ink,”
“She has long red hair like a waterfall and green eyes”
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&q=%22hair+like+a+waterfall%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wp

“the wog’s contempt” 

Yashmeen’s identity is fluid and unstable. She is Russian, she is “a wog”, she is bisexual etc.

“Self-slaughter, as Hamlet always says” 

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, 
Seem to me all the uses of this world!

“the stochastic whimsy of the day” 

Stochastic is synonymous with "random." The word is of Greek origin and means "pertaining to chance" (Parzen 1962, p. 7). It is used to indicate that a particular subject is seen from point of view of randomness. Stochastic is often used as counterpart of the word "deterministic," which means that random phenomena are not involved. Therefore, stochastic models are based on random trials, while deterministic models always produce the same output for a given starting condition. 
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Stochastic.html

Anachronism, as the Webster dates it 1934.

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